Vladimir Bukovsky: Russia will disintegrate.

Vladimir Bukovsky paid a visit to Georgia in early December 2011 at the invitation of Ilia State University. The legendary Soviet dissident, writer, scientist and political activist spent twelve years in Soviet prisons and psychiatric hospitals before he was exchanged, in 1976, by the Soviet government for imprisoned Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalán. Since then, Vladimir Bukovsky has lived in Great Britain. He is the author of many books and other publications. In an interview with Tabula, the renowned dissident and human rights activist talked about post-election developments in Russia, crisis in Europe and popular ideologies in the West.

 How would you evaluate developments now underway in Russia – the result of parliamentary elections and society’s protest against them?

There is nothing new about all that. It is no secret for anyone that elections have always been rigged. The only difference is that, this time, a few more people took to the street. However, that number of protesters is insignificant for a country of such a scale. Of course, one has to take the first step and, therefore, I support this protest. But I do not expect rapid changes.

I can guarantee that this regime will not be able to stay for the next twelve years. I am sure, however, that Vladimir Putin will become the President – but for how long, that is a separate question. Russia will simply disintegrate; it is left with no resource to exist. I cannot predict now how long Russia will be able to survive in such a situation – two years or three years. Everything depends on global conjuncture. If oil prices plummet, crisis will occur sooner.

The U.S. Secretary of State harshly criticized Russia’s parliamentary elections. International observers also delivered strongly worded critical assessments. Will all of this affect the attitude of the West toward Putin’s regime?

Such things happened in the past as well. Previous elections were also tampered with and it was not difficult to notice them. Then, the Russian authorities actually barred international observers from that election. However, all this did no harm to the legitimacy of Putin’s regime in the international arena.

At the same time, in recent times, the Kremlin increased its anti-Western rhetoric. Will this lead, in any form, to a new Cold War?

A new Cold War is impossible because Russia has no longer that potential which it had in Soviet times. This country, today, actually has no armed forces. It conducted the war with Georgia with great difficulty. Russia is not able to oppose the entire world, especially given that no one knows whether Russian missiles fly in reality or not.

Fanning such sentiments only helps Russian authorities in domestic affairs; it even appeals to a segment of the population. However, application of one-and-the-same method, year after year, proves inefficient. The government cannot offer anything new to the society, has no recipe or proposal for the improvement of the situation in the country….

But Putin’s government offered stability to the society and a better life compared to previous years, and people were happy about that…

In reality, they were not able to ensure stability. It is crisis in the world now, but they do not have any response to that crisis. They pledged to ensure stability in the Northern Caucasus but nothing has changed there and instability has spread all over the entire region. The economy is decreasing constantly. Putin made a statement about setting up a Eurasian Union and he did so when some cracks appeared in the European Union. It is high time for him to realize that such things do not work any longer.

The Russian government feels that it has no future. But they will try to retain power by any means, especially given that the government is equivalent to wealth today. At the same time, however, they have no force to retain the regime. The army does not exist; there is discontent among internal forces. Only special services are left which are not large in number.

Therefore, Russia will start falling apart – federation subjects will declare autonomy. The weaker the center becomes the stronger the movement away from the center will grow. They have to do something about the Far East, Tatarstan. Russia is a huge country, and KGB special forces and [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov’s fighters will not be enough to send them out everywhere.

In your opinion, the disintegration of Russia is a more realistic thing than new forces coming to power?

I cannot see any alternative to the government today. Such forces do not exist. In such a situation, the disintegration of the country is more logical, especially considering that that is not a new tendency. Such things have happened repeatedly in Russia’s history. This is a stage that [Russia] must go through, and I do not see any big tragedy in that.

How would you evaluate Western policies toward Russia?

The West, today, does not have any sort of policy toward Russia. They do not perceive Russia either as a partner or an enemy. When U.S. officials were asked about the aim of reset policy, they answered that Russia would help the U.S.A. in dealing with Iran. Why should Russia do that? Its key interest lies in high oil prices. Therefore, any problem in the Middle East plays into the hands of Russia.

The United States has realized that the reset was a mistake. It was just wishful thinking. As far back as in the 1930s, Western analysts believed that Russia would become a civilized country. The same happens today.

You are very skeptical about the European Union as an institution and draw parallels between it and the Soviet Union. What do these two have in common?

Back in 1992, when the Maastricht Treaty was signed and the European Union was established, it was clear for me that that structure was the imitation of the Soviet Union – not with such evil face as the Soviet Union had, but structurally and ideologically it served the same idea. The Soviet Union was run by a Politburo which was not elected by anyone. The same is [true of] the European Commission. Management there is also performed by undemocratic methods.

In its current shape, the European Union is a stillborn intelligent concept of Western socialists which is detached from life – a sort of Menshevik Soviet Union. But we know that socialism does not work anywhere – not in Africa or Asia or in Europe. The Soviet Union fell apart because of the crisis of socialism.

Initially, European integration developed toward the common market. There is nothing bad in that – the lower the tariffs and restrictions, the better for the economy. European left-wing forces were against the common market, but at the end of the 1980s everything changed. They decided to, let’s say so, get hold of Euro-integration and turn everything around to their benefit.

What happens in Europe today was not started just now. The situation was ripening during several years. However, it was clear that everything would happen this way anyway. Socialism is a non-productive system. Its idea is distribution rather than production. When there is something to distribute, you seem to be OK. When resources are depleted, the crisis emerges. Therefore, any type of socialism has identical ending – no money available, as it is in Europe now.

The European Union has come up with a grandiose idea to ask Chinese for money but Chinese do not have that much money either. Socialism is a bottomless barrel, a black hole. If Russia drowned in that, everyone would drown too. Compared to Europe, Russia was a fabulously rich country in natural resources. However, it went bankrupt. Bankruptcy is one of the outcomes of socialism.

How much are current European leaders able to improve the situation?

There are no leaders there at all. The Western elite are comprised of nonentities. It is bureaucracy to the third power. People who had never done anything useful in their lives were always represented in bureaucratic systems and dealt with some abstract issues.

Which of the European leaders is able to look at developments soberly? The tendency of expansion in Europe will be replaced by the tendency of disintegration and fragmentation. Nor will Benelux survive, and no one can tell how long will Belgium itself exist. More than half of the Dutch demand that the national currency, florin, be reinstated. The faster and with fewer losses this process develops, the better.

You also often criticize the ideology of political correctness. Why?

What we witness now is Marxist revisionism, Marcusianism. There was such a philosopher, Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School of critical theory – he challenged Marx on the issue of who is a revolutionary class. Marx believed that such class was proletariat or the

industrial working class. Talking about industrial proletariat is ridiculous today. Moreover, it is difficult today to say exactly what, for example, a production tool is. What is a computer? Is it an object of consumption or a production tool? Or, say, software?

 

In the 1960s, it was already clear that Marx’s concept did not work. Therefore, revisionist philosophers emerged, with Marcuse among them, asserting that the revolutionary class is anyone who is marginal, anyone who cannot fit into life. According to Marcuse, we must declare norm as pathology and vice versa. And only then will we beat the bourgeois society once and for all. Everything started with that.

Who lobbies these ideas – governments, political parties?

Everything started from university campuses. In 1984-1985, I was at Stanford in California, with Berkley next to it – a well known hotbed of radicals. A new feminist movement emerged there. I remember, I was heading for a lab and let two girls pass through the door first. They looked at me with contempt and shouted at me “male chauvinist pig.” I was oppressing them by treating them as ladies. Then, I just laughed at that. But in five years time it spread all over Europe and the United States.

By the way, the American army has an approved uniform for pregnant soldiers. Have you ever heard of such a thing? One cannot deny army service to a lady in the U.S.A. because it would be considered as discrimination. Women file complaints in courts against such discrimination and are awarded millions [of dollars] in those cases. Once they get into the army, they complain that they are not treated properly there – soldiers whistle at them, joke about them, etcetera, and this may also bring them millions.

But, all this did not end with feminism. The United States had a problem with the black population which seemed to have been solved in the 1960s and equality established. Soon thereafter, however, it turned out that, despite established equality, no particular social progress was achieved among the black population. Therefore, they invented positive discrimination and quotas. Black people were promoted artificially to the detriment of the remaining population. The same holds true for disabled people and homosexuals. A topical issue today is the protection of animals’ rights.

The “protection” of ostensibly oppressed minorities has led to total absurdity today. All this is not accidental. This is a well-thought-out plan which is directed toward the demise of normal society. Lenin also protected powerless proletariat in such a way, but in reality tried to get a grip on power in that way.

Socialists could never put up with historically established institutions, including private property, family, national state, and fought against them. Utopians never stop. If they fail to do something, they never admit that their concept was wrong. They just say that they did not go sufficiently far.

You filed a complaint with the London Court against Mikhail Gorbachev. Is there any chance of holding the former or the current Head of State to account?

Unfortunately, the role of Gorbachev is incorrectly perceived in the West. In reality, he is an ordinary communist leader and, like any of his predecessors, his hands are stained with blood too. The most regretful thing is that we have not had any trial of the communist regime. Boris Yeltsin and his colleagues refrained from doing that. As a result, the entire world turned upside down. The case against Gorbachev will contribute to a trial over the Soviet system. We are less interested in the personality of Gorbachev himself.

We are suing Gorbachev in London Court for violation of the Geneva Convention. However, a private complaint of that type has not much chance of success. Our action is just a first signal. Now, Lithuania will ask for extradition of Gorbachev for the events in January 1991. Georgia can also lodge a complaint against him for events in April 1989, and I cannot understand why it is not doing so.

Many organizations operating in the West demand that Kremlin authorities be brought to account for cases of, for example, [the deaths of whistleblower Sergei] Magnitsky, [former security agent Alexander] Litvinenko, [journalist Anna] Politkovskaia and others. As soon as people in the Russian government lose their immunity, the issue of their responsibility will be raised.

You visit Georgia time and again. What do you think of those changes which have happened in Georgia in the past few years?

Georgia is a good example. Changes have really been implemented. One should not expect big changes in a short span; people are quite inert. The police reform in Georgia is striking and everyone sees that.

Establishment of non-corrupt police in the post Soviet space is a unique case. The British police are regarded slightly corrupt, although corruption exists there in the lower echelons. Police in France and Italy are far more corrupt. Corruption is rife in most parts of Eastern Europe, and they say they can do nothing with that.

However, Georgia’s economic situation is rather difficult. You are a small country and have lost a traditional market. This is a hard blow for any economy. To attract investments even by establishing a favorable business climate is a very difficult task, but headway is clear. Now, as I can see, investments have increased, more construction works are in progress than two years ago.

Gradually, Georgia is becoming accustomed to the opinion that one must rely on oneself. However, if you have perseverance to achieve aims, anything can be attained sooner or later. The same holds true on an individual level – individuals must take care of themselves and not pin hopes on others.

The state must not create jobs. This is a Soviet habit and, where a state tries to do so, it distorts the economy and totally useless jobs are created. Look at Greece – how many jobs were created and where that led the country.

If businessmen seek solutions, they will find them. The state can provide insignificant help. The best thing for the state to do is not to interfere with private initiative. If the state asks for more, it will do so at the expense of our rights. The state can help business by improving relations with other countries and opening up new markets.

For example, to negotiate free trade with the European Union?

No. You will never achieve agreement on that. They want you to become like they are. They will give you subsidies if you agree to their rules and restrictions. You have to treat them with caution; they are people of ideology.

Accession to NATO is desirable for Georgia, but this will not happen easily now. It is difficult to achieve consensus on that issue in Europe. Moreover, territorial problems of Georgia hinder that. Conflicts in Georgia must not be settled by force; this must be a political decision.

Russia will weaken and start disintegrating. It will have no time for the Caucasus – be it Chechnya, Dagestan, Abkhazia or South Ossetia. At that very moment, everything will improve.

Sooner or later, solutions will be found. I can hardly imagine that the current Soviet regime will be able to exist more than three to four years. That means that the disintegration will start there whereas normalization here.

The West must be afraid of such a scenario…

They have always been afraid – even of disintegration of the Soviet Union. But it is not up to them to decide. In 1991, in Washington, some – as if friendly – politicians argued with me, saying that they did not need an independent Ukraine. I told them then, “No one is interested in what you want. If a fifty-million strong population wants to create a state, they will create it and you will be unable to do anything about that.” There are stupid people not only here but there as well.

India is one of the worst places to do business: Jim Rogers

Commodities bull Jim Rogers thinks India is the best country in the world to visit as a tourist but one of the worst to do business.

In an interview with The Economic Times, he said that doing business in India was a “bureaucratic nightmare” and that it could become an exciting market only if the government got its act together.

Reuters

He said he himself would turn bullish on India if the government decided to open ‘everything’ — economy, currency, commodity and stock markets. In general, he was highly critical of the Indian government, saying that it “just keeps spending other people’s money”.

Well, that’s something a lot of other governments will be doing as well this year — if they aren’t already. Several governments around the world are facing elections this year and in their attempts to woo voters, they might be inclined to turn on the money taps.

“…you are going to see a lot of government spending as governments try to buy elections. A lot of people are going to have a very good 2012 because government is going to pour money into their pockets and their friends and they are going to have a good time,” he told the newspaper.

In terms of investment bets, he said he owned silver and gold, although he added that he wasn’t planning on adding to his portfolio. He also said he owned US dollars. He was also bullish on crude oil prices.

Asked about China’s economic prospects, Rogers thought that that some parts of the economy could face a hard landing (a sharp and sudden reversal in growth) in the near future. “But that is not the end of the Chinese economy,” he told the newspaper. “The economy is not like the one in America and the UK when essentially it was wrapped up in real estate and real estate speculation. The Chinese economy is much broader than that.

‘I’d be Very Interested in India If you Open up Everything’

Jim Rogers says India’s the best country in the world to visit as a tourist, but not for doing business

India needs to open up much more minus the bureaucratic nightmare, says Jim Rogers, chair
man, Rogers Holdings. In an interview to ET NOW, the well-known commodities bull says India is the single best country in the world to visit as a tourist, but one of the single worst bureaucracies in the world and one of the single worst places to do business. Excerpts:

The EU debt crisis, rating downgrades and higher volatility dominated 2011. What, according to you, will dominate the year 2012?
Well, we have several elections. There are 40 elections in 2012 — America, France, Korea, Taiwan — lots of places, countries in Africa. So you are going to see a lot of government spending as governments try to buy elections. A lot of people are going to have a very good 2012 because government is going to pour money into their pockets and their friends and they are going to have a good time. The overall situation, however, in the world is getting worst. This means higher debt. So when 2013 comes, we better be careful.
The start of 2011 was about eating rice with silver chopsticks. What is it that you are recommending for 2012?
The headlines said that India is now going to open it up, so that people can invest in the Indian stock market. People were waiting for this for a long time. I may have covered my shorts and might even buy in India — but I realised, it is the same world, bureaucratic nightmare in India.
So what will make Jim Rogers the India Bull?
One thing would be if you opened your economy, currency, stock market and commodity markets. If you opened everything, I would have to start getting very interested in India. I have talked to you before about the nightmare of bureaucracy and the regulations there. The government just keeps spending other people’s money. India is a single best country in the world to visit as a tourist, but one of the single worst bureaucracies in the world and one of the single worst places to do business. That can all change. It could be extremely exciting maybe not in 2012, but certainly after if the Indian government would ever get its act together.
You have been bullish on rice as well as silver. Does that trend continue for 2012 as well, and do you see more traction in both these commodities?
I own silver, I own gold, I am not buying silver and gold right now. I expect them to correct even more. Gold can go down to $1,200. I do not know how low it is going to go. But if it does, I hope I am smart enough to buy a lot more and the same would apply to silver. Silver would go down too.
So, going forward, will US treasuries and dollar remain the first choice of global investors and will we see more appreciation in both?
I own US dollars. I do not own US bonds. It is a bubble as far as I am concerned. I expect sometime I will be shorting US government bonds, but I do plan to own US dollars. Now, the reason I own US dollars is because there were so many pessimists on the US dollar that I bought some and if we continue to have currency turmoil which I expect, then many people are going to flock to the US dollar. US dollar is not a safe haven, but many people think it is or they do not know what else to do. So they have put their money in the dollars. Somewhere along the line, if the dollar goes up, then I may be the seller.I do not know if I will ever own US dollar after that because the US dollar is a terriblyflawed currency.
What about crude? That has posted third year of gains. Do you see it holding $100 to a barrel especially now with Iran building up its nuclear premium?
The surprise would be how high the price in crude stays and how high it eventually goes. We are running out of known reserves of crude oil around the world unfortunately and there is nothing to replace it yet. Maybe some day there will be things that could replace it. I own crude, I am not selling any commodities. Certainly not crude. Because we are running out of known reserves and if we have a war, because America is dying to go on a war with Iran, and something like that happens, who knows how high the price of crude may go?
What is the kind of probability that you would assign to an EU breakup this year or do you think that is not a probability at all?
I do not think the EU will break up at all. The euro will have some problems this year. I am actually long on euro. There are many people shorting the euro right now. But I am thinking about buying more. I do not think that the euro is going to break up in 2012. I certainly think it will within the decade, but it will survive this year, maybe some money will drop out of the euro, but it is not going to be the end of the euro. The world needs something like the euro. I hope it can pull together. I cannot invest on hope obviously.
What role will China play in global commodity demand in the next 12 to 24 months because this year China will have new chancellor, what we also understand that China currently is in the process of a soft landing?
I do not know if it is a soft-landing. Some parts of the Chinese economy are going to collapse. China has been doing its best to cool off the real estate bubble and they are starting to work. So I suspect some parts are going to have a very hard landing. Other parts of the Chinese economy are going to boom. But when people do slowdown there will be some hard landing in some sectors. Of course this will affect the demand for everything especially copper, cement, and things like that. So I would certainly see a slowdown in China’s demand for building material; things which go into building infrastructure. But that is not the end of the Chinese economy. The economy is not like the one in America and the UK when essentially it was wrapped up in real estate and real estate speculation. The Chinese economy is much broader than that.

Republic Day: India to showcase military might.

NEW DELHI: Showcasing India’s military might, the Army will display its T-72 Main Battle Tanks (MBT), Agni-4 missile and Advance Light Helicopter (ALH) at the Republic Day parade on Thursday.

“Marching contingents on the Rajpath would include mounted troops from 61st Cavalry, mechanized columns and 11 regiments of the Indian Army followed by a flypast of ALH from Army Aviation Corps,” said parade second-in-command Major General Rajbir Singh.

The parade would be commanded by the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Delhi Area, Lieutenant General V K Pillai.

Maj Gen Singh further informed that the one-and-a-half hour long parade would begin with national salute followed by presentation of one Ashok Chakra.

“The parade would begin with the Param Vir Chakra (PVC) and Ashok Chakra (AC) awardees marching on the Rajpath which would be followed by the mounted cavalry troops, mechanized column and three ALH,” he said.

Besides Smerch and Pinaka rocket launchers, army contingent would also feature NBC water purification system, jammers, and march past by ‘Canine Force’ of the Remount and Veterinary Corps (RVC).

The army contingent would be followed by the tableaux from Indian Navy and Indian Air Force (IAF).

While Navy is showcasing a Delhi-class destroyer, IL-38 reconnaissance aircraft and a UAV positioned atop a globe, IAF’s marching contingent would be followed by the tableau of C-130J Super Hercules aircraft and Mi-17 choppers.

For the first time, the IAF marching contingent would be commanded by a women officer Flight Lieutenant Sneha Shekhawat.

The Gigantic Bytes.

Name (Symbol)                     Value (Bytes)

Kilobyte (KB)                                  10³ 

Megabyte (MB)                              10⁶

Gigabyte (GB)                                 10⁹

Terabyte (TB)                                 10¹²

Petabyte (PB)                                 10¹⁵

Exabyte (EB)                                   10¹⁸

Zettabyte (ZB)                                10²¹

Yottabyte (YB)                               10²⁴

Kibibyte (KiB)                                  2¹⁰ = 1.024 × 10³

Mebibyte (MiB)                               2²⁰ ≈ 1.049 × 10⁶

Gibibyte (GiB)                                  2³⁰ ≈ 1.074 × 10⁹

Tebibyte (TiB)                                  2⁴⁰ ≈ 1.100 × 10¹²

Pebibyte (PiB)                                  2⁵⁰ ≈ 1.126 × 10¹⁵

Exbibyte (EiB)                                  2⁶⁰ ≈ 1.153 × 10¹⁸

Zebibyte (ZiB)                                   2⁷⁰ ≈ 1.181 × 10²¹

Yobibyte (YiB)                                  2⁸⁰ ≈ 1.209 × 10²⁴

Pressure Israel, Not Iran. Israel has an Arsenal of 200-300 Nuclear Weapons

Neocons in Israel and the United States are escalating their rhetoric to prepare us for war with Iran. Even the infamous John Yoo, architect of George W. Bush’s illegal torture and spying programs, is calling on the Republican presidential candidates to “begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”

Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the legal right to produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said on CBS that Iran is not currently trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Nevertheless, the United States and Israel are mounting a campaign of aggression against Iran. The United States has imposed punishing sanctions against Iran that are crippling Iran’s economy, and pressuring other countries and strong-arming financial institutions to stop buying oil from Iran, the world’s third largest exporter.  The Obama administration is also preparing new punitive measures that target the Central Bank of Iran. And the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 which would outlaw any contact between U.S. government employees and some Iranian officials.

There is also evidence that Israel, with the possible assistance of the United States, has orchestrated the assassinations of at least five Iranian nuclear scientists or engineers since 2007. The New York Times reported: “The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on [January 11] when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour.” These assassinations constitute acts of terrorism. There have also been cyber-attacks on Iranian centrifuges and an explosion at a missile facility last year that killed a senior general and 16 other people.

These acts of aggression are designed to provoke Iran to retaliate, including possibly closing the Strait of Hormuz, which will spark a war that could spread to the entire Middle East.

In addition, the United States has shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East, and supplied Israel with bunker-busting bombs. Moreover, President Barack Obama has deployed 9,000 U.S. troops to Israel to participate later this year with thousands of Israeli troops in “war games” to test the U.S./Israeli air defense system; this exercise will be the largest ever joint drill between the two countries. Panetta said the exercise is designed “to back up our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.”

Iran is not a threat to Israel’s security. Iran has not attacked any country in some 200 years. In 1953, the CIA engineered a coup that replaced a democratic government in Iran with the vicious Shah. He ruled Iran with an iron hand for 25 years, wreaking torture and terror on Iranians while keeping Iran open to Western investment. When I visited Iran in 1978 as a human rights observer, there were dozens of U.S. corporations in downtown Tehran. One year later, the chickens came home to roost. The Iranian revolution overthrew the Shah, replacing him with a tyrannical theocracy that continues to violate the rights of the Iranian people. But that does not mean that Iran, if it does obtain nuclear weapons, will attack Israel. The Iranian government knows that Israel and the United States would retaliate with unimaginable military force that would devastate Iran and much of the Middle East.

Article 2 of the United Nations Charter requires the peaceful settlement of international disputes between Iran and the United States. Both the U.S. and Iran are signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, which states, “The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.” Yet the United States has been illegally threatening war against Iran, dating back to the administration of President George W. Bush.

Security Council Resolution 687, that ended the first Gulf War, requires a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Israel, which reportedly has an arsenal of 200-300 nuclear weapons, stands in violation of that resolution. Israel refuses to sign the NPT, thus avoiding inspections by the IAEA. As Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull advocate in a recent op-ed in the Times, we should work toward a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, and that includes Israel. They cite a poll in which 65 percent of Israeli Jews think it would be best if neither Israel nor Iran had the bomb, even if that means Israel giving up its nukes.

AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the Israel lobby in the United States, has tremendous support in the U.S. Congress. Even Zionist Thomas Friedman wrote in the Times last month that the standing ovation Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got in Congress “was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” AIPAC also exerts considerable pressure on Obama to be tough on Iran. When the new Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff and the new head of CENTCOM told Obama late last year they were disappointed that he was not firmly opposing an Israeli strike on Iran, Obama replied that he “had no say over Israel” because “it is a sovereign country.”

Obama does indeed have a say – a strong say – over Israel. The United States has pledged $30 billion to Israel over the next 10 years. Obama should inform his counterparts in Israel that if it launches a military attack on Iran, the U.S. will withhold foreign aid from Israel. Although pressure from the neocons to support an Israeli attack on Iran will increase as the presidential elections draws near, Obama has a legal duty to refrain from actions that will lead to war with Iran.

Additionally, the U.N. Security Council, which has the duty to prevent threats to international peace and security, should order Israel and the United States to cease their aggressive provocation against Iran.

The same voices who brought us the illegal, tragic, and ill-advised war with Iraq will continue to try to dominate the national conversation with battle cries against Iran. It is up to us to prevail upon our elected officials to avoid a tragic conflagration in Iran by pressuring Israel to cease and desist.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her most recent book is The United  States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.

The 10 best mathematicians.

Pythagoras, from a 1920s textbook. Photograph: © Blue Lantern Studio/Corbis

Pythagoras (circa 570-495BC)

Vegetarian mystical leader and number-obsessive, he owes his standing as the most famous name in maths due to a theorem about right-angled triangles, although it now appears it probably predated him. He lived in a community where numbers were venerated as much for their spiritual qualities as for their mathematical ones. His elevation of numbers as the essence of the world made him the towering primogenitor of Greek mathematics, essentially the beginning of mathematics as we know it now. And, famously, he didn’t eat beans.

Hypatia (cAD360-415)

Hypatia (375-415AD), a Greek woman mathematician and philosopher. Photograph: © Bettmann/Corbis

Women are under-represented in mathematics, yet the history of the subject is not exclusively male. Hypatia was a scholar at the library in Alexandria in the 4th century CE. Her most valuable scientific legacy was her edited version of Euclid’s The Elements, the most important Greek mathematical text, and one of the standard versions for centuries after her particularly horrific death: she was murdered by a Christian mob who stripped her naked, peeled away her flesh with broken pottery and ripped apart her limbs.

Girolamo Cardano (1501 -1576)

Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), mathematician, astrologer and physician. Photograph: SSPL/Getty

Italian polymath for whom the term Renaissance man could have been invented. A doctor by profession, he was the author of 131 books. He was also a compulsive gambler. It was this last habit that led him to the first scientific analysis of probability. He realised he could win more on the dicing table if he expressed the likelihood of chance events using numbers. This was a revolutionary idea, and it led to probability theory, which in turn led to the birth of statistics, marketing, the insurance industry and the weather forecast.

Leonhard Euler (1707- 1783)

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783). Photograph: Science and Society Picture Library

The most prolific mathematician of all time, publishing close to 900 books. When he went blind in his late 50s his productivity in many areas increased. His famous formula eiπ + 1 = 0, where e is the mathematical constant sometimes known as Euler’s number and i is the square root of minus one, is widely considered the most beautiful in mathematics. He later took an interest in Latin squares – grids where each row and column contains each member of a set of numbers or objects once. Without this work, we might not have had sudoku.

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855). Photograph: Bettmann/CORBIS

Known as the prince of mathematicians, Gauss made significant contributions to most fields of 19th century mathematics. An obsessive perfectionist, he didn’t publish much of his work, preferring to rework and improve theorems first. His revolutionary discovery of non-Euclidean space (that it is mathematically consistent that parallel lines may diverge) was found in his notes after his death. During his analysis of astronomical data, he realised that measurement error produced a bell curve – and that shape is now known as a Gaussian distribution.

Georg Cantor (1845-1918)

Georg Ferdinand Cantor (1845-1918), German mathematician. Photograph: © Corbis

Of all the great mathematicians, Cantor most perfectly fulfils the (Hollywood) stereotype that a genius for maths and mental illness are somehow inextricable. Cantor’s most brilliant insight was to develop a way to talk about mathematical infinity. His set theory lead to the counter-intuitive discovery that some infinities were larger than others. The result was mind-blowing. Unfortunately he suffered mental breakdowns and was frequently hospitalised. He also became fixated on proving that the works of Shakespeare were in fact written by Francis Bacon.

Paul Erdös (1913-1996)

Paul Erdos (1913-96).

Erdös lived a nomadic, possession-less life, moving from university to university, from colleague’s spare room to conference hotel. He rarely published alone, preferring to collaborate – writing about 1,500 papers, with 511 collaborators, making him the second-most prolific mathematician after Euler. As a humorous tribute, an “Erdös number” is given to mathematicians according to their collaborative proximity to him: No 1 for those who have authored papers with him; No 2 for those who have authored with mathematicians with an Erdös No 1, and so on.

John Horton Conway (b1937)

John Horton Conway.

The Liverpudlian is best known for the serious maths that has come from his analyses of games and puzzles. In 1970, he came up with the rules for the Game of Life, a game in which you see how patterns of cells evolve in a grid. Early computer scientists adored playing Life, earning Conway star status. He has made important contributions to many branches of pure maths, such as group theory, number theory and geometry and, with collaborators, has also come up with wonderful-sounding concepts like surreal numbers, the grand antiprism and monstrous moonshine.

Grigori Perelman (b1966)

Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman. Photograph: © EPA/Corbis

Perelman was awarded $1m last month for proving one of the most famous open questions in maths, the Poincaré Conjecture. But the Russian recluse has refused to accept the cash. He had already turned down maths’ most prestigious honour, the Fields Medal in 2006. “If the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed,” he reportedly said. The Poincaré Conjecture was first stated in 1904 by Henri Poincaré and concerns the behaviour of shapes in three dimensions. Perelman is currently unemployed and lives a frugal life with his mother in St Petersburg.

Terry Tao (b1975)

Terry Tao. Photograph: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

An Australian of Chinese heritage who lives in the US, Tao also won (and accepted) the Fields Medal in 2006. Together with Ben Green, he proved an amazing result about prime numbers – that you can find sequences of primes of any length in which every number in the sequence is a fixed distance apart. For example, the sequence 3, 7, 11 has three primes spaced 4 apart. The sequence 11, 17, 23, 29 has four primes that are 6 apart. While sequences like this of any length exist, no one has found one of more than 25 primes, since the primes by then are more than 18 digits long.

Alex Bellos selects the maths geniuses whose revolutionary discoveries changed our world.

Dilemma for China’s one-child generation: where to spend New Year.

By Keith B. Richburg,

BEIJING – This week begins China’s annual mass pilgrimage, as hundreds of millions of people pack the trains and highways to return to their hometowns for the Chinese New Year holiday known as the Spring Festival.But for one particular group — young urban married couples who grew up as only children — the yearly ritual can also mean tough decisions, sometimes-painful arguments, and a modern-day test for one of China’s most enduring centuries-old family traditions.

These young couples are part of the generation of only children born during the 34 years of China’s “one child policy”. Following the typical pattern, they migrated to the larger cities from the outlying provinces to go to university. They stayed for work, then got married.And now they must decide which set of parents to go visit. It’s a decision fraught with emotion, especially for China’s growing elderly population, who often live alone and far from their children, who have historically been caregivers in a country with little social safety net.

“Both of us want to go back to our home to celebrate Chinese New Year,” said Lin Youlan, 30, a government worker who married her husband, Li Haibin, 33, four years ago. “We always fight about this problem.” She is from Chongqing in southwest China, and he is from Shangdong, on China’s east coast. They live in Beijing, and they are both only children.

Li said as the only son, he is under intense family pressure to visit his parents, who are not in good health. “In Shandong Province, men must celebrate the Spring Festival with their own families. And the wives should spend the Lunar New Year at their husbands’ homes,” he said. “I worry how others will look at my parents if I don’t go back home every year.”

In ancient times, the Lunar New Year’s Eve and the first day of the New Year were spent at the home of the husband’s parents, and the second day was spent with the parents of the wife. But that was in a time when couples largely married from the same village or town, or a relatively short distance away.

Now China’s 1.3 billion people are mobile and rapidly urbanizing. The government announced Tuesday that the country’s urban population had surpassed those living in rural areas, compared to just a quarter of the population living in cities in 1990.

That shift, coupled with the one-child policy and other societal changes, has left tens of millions of elderly people living alone, and often with little in the way of government aid. China also has few nursing homes, and no tradition of professional caretakers to look after the elderly when they become infirm.

China now has 178 million people over the age of 60, according to government census figures. Li Liguo, the minister of social affairs, said that number of over-60s will jump to 216 million, or 16.7 percent of the population, by 2015. At that time, Li said, there will be 51 million “empty nester” old people over 65 and living alone.

But while the older population is growing, China’s current birthrate of about1.54 children per woman is considered far below the normal replacement rate, which is 2 children per woman. (The United States, by comparison, is 2.06).

“The elderly in the countryside is really worrying,” said Therese Hesketh, a professor of global health at the University College London who has studied the impact of China’s population policies.

The problem comes vividly into focus now, with the annual Chinese New Year trek home — a time of year when, psychologists say, many “empty nest” parents grow lonely and depressed.

“Even in the U.K. at Christmastime, this is an issue that comes up,” with smaller families and couples deciding whose parents to visit for the holidays, Hesketh said. “This is a universal issue magnified in China by the one-child policy.”

Some Chinese couples try to resolve the annual conflict by visiting both sets of parents.

Chen Juan, who is 29, and her husband Huang Feilong, 31, met in Beijing through an online dating site, when they saw they were both from Hunan province, from cities about three hours drive apart. They got married in 2008 and spent four Chinese New Years together — 3 at his parents home, and only one with her family. “We fight about this almost every year,” Chen said.

This year, for the first time, they are dividing the weeklong holiday in half, the first and most important days with his family, then the remainder with hers.But the country’s size, and the difficulty of finding bus and train tickets over the holiday period, makes traveling to two sets of parents impractical for many.

Chinese economists and academics have recently been engaged in a vigorous and surprisingly public debate over whether it is time to scrap the one-child policy and allow couples to decide themselves, with some pointing to the empty nester problem as a reason to relax the policy.

But so far, the central government has shown no signs of altering the policy. In a speech last year marking World Population Day, Li Bin, Director of National Population and Family Planning Commission, said China’s growing population remained a challenge, and the government would continue the policy to keep birthrates low.

The policy actually only covers about 35 percent of Chinese, mostly those living in urban areas, with a series of exemptions for many others. Farmers are allowed to have more children, for example, and members of ethnic minority groups are excluded.

The law was implemented in 1978, as a way to control overpopulation and the strain on scarce resources. Authorities estimate the policy prevented 400 million births, and it is credited with helping lift the country out of poverty by reducing the number of mouths to feed.

But the law, which is implemented on the provincial level, also has been harshly criticized. There were reports of some provinces forcing women who were pregnant in violation of the policy to undergo forced late-term abortions or sterilizations. There were also earlier stories of female infants being killed because of a preference for boys. China now has a gender imbalance due to the policy. And the one-child policy takes one of the most basic life decisions — what size family to have — away from individuals.

The law has also been said to have a harder impact on the poor. Some wealthy families now have as many children as they want, since the penalty is a fine they can usually easily pay.

Economists now see another reason to scrap the policy. After three decades of the one-child policy, China is now facing a future labor shortage.

Others here have argued that Chinese families’ increasingly urban lifestyle makes a one-child policy obsolete; most would likely choose to have just one child, this argument goes, since the expense of raising children is so high.

But some young couples who see their own struggles over questions like visiting relatives over the holidays say they are committed to having more than one child.

“I want two children in the future — one boy and one girl,” said Chen Juan.

 

 

 

Which Is America’s Best City?

Based on metrics like school performance, green space, and cultural amenities, Raleigh, N.C., ranks No. 1 in Businessweek.com’s first Best Cities ranking.
:By Venessa Wong.

Ask most people which city they would most want to live in and usually their answers would be shaped by such realities as proximity to their jobs and what they can afford. But suppose you could choose to live anywhere you wanted regardless of cost? What if you could live in a city that offered a wealth of culture, entertainment, good schools, low crime, and plenty of green space? Many people might opt for obvious choices such as New York or San Francisco, but great as they are, data reveal other cities are even better.

Businessweek.com spent months working with data that would help us to identify the best cities in the U.S. We looked at a range of positive metrics around quality of life, counted up restaurants, evaluated school scores, and considered the number of colleges and pro sports teams. All these factors and more add up to a city that would seem to offer it all. When we began the process we had no idea which cities would come out on top. The winner? Raleigh, N.C.
Raleigh No. 1

To most residents of Raleigh, it may not come as a surprise that their city earned the title of America’s Best City. Raleigh shows the cultural graces that go along with anchoring the so-called Research Triangle, home to North Carolina State University, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Among its many attributes the city sports 867 restaurants, 110 bars, and 51 museums, according to Onboard Informatics, as well as a thriving social scene, good schools, and 12,512 park acres, equal to several times the green space per capita in cities like New York and Los Angeles, according to the Trust for Public Land. It also offers a great deal on nights and weekends—from concerts and opera, to the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and college sports, to the 30,000-square-foot State Farmers Market.

Raleigh may have a population of only about 400,000 and span about 144 square miles, yet data show it still offers a lot, if only in a smaller package. True, Raleigh may not be the center of the tech universe like San Francisco, a hub of higher education on the same scale as Boston, or a vibrant 24-hour metropolis like New York, but all those cities also offered higher unemployment, a dearth of parks, worse public education, and other negative factors that weighed against them.

“We’ve always said, you can find about every amenity that you want, even in a city of our size,” says James Sauls, director of Raleigh Economic Development, a partnership between the City of Raleigh and the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.

The city has been home to an array of celebs including Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi, Dexter star Michael C. Hall, and singer Clay Aiken (whose dog was even named Raleigh).
Better, Not Bigger

With help from Bloomberg Rankings, Businessweek.com evaluated 100 of the country’s largest cities based on 16 criteria including: the number of restaurants, bars, and museums per capita; the number of colleges, libraries, and professional sports teams; the income, poverty, unemployment, crime, and foreclosure rates; percentage of population with bachelor’s degrees or higher; public school performance; park acres per 1,000 residents; and air quality. Greater weighting was placed on recreational amenities such as parks, bars, restaurants, and museums per capita, educational attainment, school performance, poverty, and air quality. As living in great cities can be expensive, affordability was not taken into account.

The data for this ranking came from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sperling’s BestPlaces, GreatSchools, Onboard Informatics, RealtyTrac, Bloomberg, and the Trust for Public Land.
After Raleigh, the next highest-ranked cities were Arlington, Va.; Honolulu; Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Irvine, Calif. Larger cities placed lower: New York was 14th, while Los Angeles ranked 53rd and Chicago 75th. The highest-ranked city with a population greater than 1 million was San Diego, at seventh. Washington, D.C., which has 588,433 people, came in sixth. Since some criteria were evaluated on a per population basis, places did not necessarily score higher for having a larger number of establishments or amenities.

At the bottom of this ranking of 100 cities were Detroit; Stockton, Calif.; Akron, Ohio; Laredo, Tex.; and Cleveland.
A Park With a City in It

Many urbanites appreciate cities’ bustling streets and constant activity. Raleigh, though active, is often described as “a park with a city in it,” according to the city tourism site, and the downtown area has wide sidewalks, public art, and outdoor cafes, according to the Downtown Raleigh Alliance. With several colleges in the area, it is also a young city and about one-fifth of the population are in their 20s, compared to a national rate of 13.8 percent, show 2010 Census data.

“The Raleigh area features a cluster of great universities, so education is part of the culture of the community,” says Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums. “Integral to this culture are the region’s museums, rooted as they are in education and lifelong learning.”

Most residents drive, though Raleigh also has a public bus system, including a free bus service downtown.

High quality of life combined with new and expanding business in the region have attracted more residents to Raleigh, one of the fastest-growing U.S. cities: The population in the metro area expanded by an estimated 12.2 percent from 2009 to 2010, according to economic and demographic data company Woods & Poole Economics.
Growing Economy

The city’s largest employers are the state and public school system, according to Raleigh Economic Development. Strong technology, defense technology, biotechnology, and life sciences sectors and emerging cleantech and smart grid industries have bolstered the local economy, says Sauls.

In the weak U.S. economy, Raleigh’s unemployment rate increased to 7.6 percent in July 2011 from an annual average of 4.4 percent in 2008, BLS data indicate, but joblessness in the city remains lower than the metro area, which reached 8.4 percent, and lower than the U.S. rate of 9.1 percent.

Even in today’s tough environment, a number of Raleigh companies are expanding, including software company Red Hat (RHT), which announced in January that it would add 540 jobs. The company had looked at other cities, but as Chief Executive Officer Jim Whitehurst told reporters, Raleigh offered the best overall package.

“It’s a combination of things: There’s a great university system here so it’s easy to find qualified talent and it’s a great place to hire people. The relative cost of living is low, the cost of real estate is dramatically lower [than other cities], and the state is pro-business,” says Whitehurst, who moved to the area in 2008 from Atlanta. And with most of the benefits of a major metropolitan area, he says, “it’s a wonderful lifestyle.”

Indian Republic Day 2012: Thailand PM to be chief guest at parade.

Thailand’s first woman Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade celebrations on January 26, Thai trade representative Nalinee Thaweesin said here on Tuesday. Yingluck, who became Thailand’s first woman prime minister last July, will arrive in India on January 24 on a three-day official visit.

Fake gunfight case haunts Bikram Singh, govt to probe.

New Delhi: The defence ministry has taken cognizance of media reports about allegations against Lt Gen Bikram Singh, who is the front-runner for the post of next army chief, and asked a senior official to look into them.

The official will go into the matter and also take note of the timing of the surfacing of these reports, sources said in New Delhi.

Lt Gen Bikram Singh, who heads the Eastern Command, is a front-runner for the post of next army chief after the incumbent General VK Singh retires on 31 May.

The government has also shortlisted Northern Army Commander Lt Gen KT Parnaik and Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Krishna Singh in the panel to succeed Gen VK Singh.

Lt Gen Bikram Singh has been accused of staging a fake encounter by the mother of an alleged militant killed in firing by Rashtriya Rifles personnel in South Kashmir’s Anantnag town in March 2001.

The petition by Zaituna, the mother of the alleged militant, has prompted the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to issue notice to the state government and the defence ministry seeking their response.

Lt Gen Bikram Singh, then a Brigadier, was heading the 5 Sector Rashtriya Rifles headquartered in Janglat Mandi in Anantnag.

The defence ministry official will also look into a media report which has suggested that a MP had written a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office questioning Bikram Singh’s suitability to lead the Army on the ground that his daughter in-law is allegedly from Pakistan.

IAI clinches $1 billion India arms deal

TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 10 (UPI) — Israel Aerospace Industries has signed a four-year, $1.1 billion deal with India for aircraft, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and intelligence systems, a major boost for the Jewish state’s high-tech defense sector in an increasingly export-driven global market.

Ironically, Chief Executive Officer Yitzhak Nissan, who negotiated the contract, has been sacked in an internal squabble with IAI Chairman Dov Baharav, appointed in June 2011 to head the state-owned flagship of the defense industry amid widespread speculation of plans to privatize it.

IAI announced to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Monday it had signed the $1.1 billion deal with “an Asian country.” Without explanation, it neither named the country nor specified what military systems were involved.

But the Globes business daily identified the customer as India and said the systems included missiles, UAVs and intelligence technologies. Other sources said aircraft were also involved but gave no details.

In early 2006, IAI and the Indian Defense Research Development Organization signed a $480 million contract on missile development.

Globes quoted business sources as saying the deal was a major boost to IAI’s orders backlog at a time when Israel’s defense industry, a key revenue earner, was having to grapple with a big dip in the global market because of big cutbacks in defense spending.

“A deal of this size should not be taken for granted at a time when many countries are cutting their defense spending because of uncertainty in global markets,” one source said.

“Nissan succeeded in reaching a mega-deal that will give IAI financial and job security for years.”

Other Israeli defense companies sought to nab the contract with India, which has in recent years become a major buyer of Israeli weapons systems and other defense equipment.

IAI won a $1.1 billion deal with the Indian navy in 2009 to provide advanced Barak-8 tactical air-defense missile systems for its warships.

The same year, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems secured a $1 billion contract with New Delhi for 18 Spyder surface-to-air missile systems by 2012.

IAI sold the Indian air force three Phalcon early warning aircraft worth $1.1 billion in 2004.

All told, Israeli companies have sold India weapons and other military systems worth more than $10 billion over the last decade or so.

In 2007, the Jewish state replaced France as India’s second-largest arms supplier after Russia.

In March 2011, the U.S. weekly Defense News reported India was preparing to sign a $1 billion order with Rafael for 8,356 Spike anti-tank missiles, along with 321 launchers and 15 training simulators.

There had been reports the Israeli Defense Ministry, which can veto defense sales to foreign customers, was uncomfortable with the technology transfer involved in the Spike contract.

That could explain why there has been no official confirmation that the deal ever went through.

All Israel’s defense exports are coordinated and regulated through the ministry’s Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization, or SIBAT.

India has also expressed interest in Israel’s Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile system jointly manufactured by IAI and the Boeing Co. But the technology transfer involved could impede any sale since U.S. approval would be required.

China was once a promising emerging market for Israeli weapons and electronic systems, but it currently remains largely off-limits, mainly because of Israel’s strategic ally, the United States.

Washington, which provides Israel with $3 billion a year in military aid, blocked the $1 billion sale of four Phalcon AWACS aircraft to China in 2000, citing U.S. components used in the planes’ systems. Beijing was furious.

With a significant slowdown in the growth of high-tech exports to the United States and Europe, Israeli defense exporters are shifting their marketing focus to Asia.

In 2010, Israeli defense sales reached $9.6 billion, with the three largest defense-oriented companies alone employing 30,600 people.

“However,” Oxford Analytica observed in a December analysis, “these industries are now facing a problem similar to the one they faced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they reacted quickly to the lessons learned during the 1973 war and the spate of airline hijackings.

“Systems invented at that time included UAVs and sophisticated airport security networks, but for a while it was hard to sell these products. Both systems have since been adopted by the security forces of many countries and form the core of Israeli defense exports.”

‘Agni 5 missile will be tested within 2-3 months’

The project director of the DRDO Advanced Systems Laboratory at Kanchangagh, Dr Tessy Thomas, said that India was ready to test launch the nuclear-capable Agni 5 missile within the next two-three months.
A dedicated team of 1,000 scientists are working round-the-clock to fully operationalise this missile which will bring targets as far away as northern China within reach.
“This has been a highly challenging experience for me because a highly accurate system has been developed,’’ she said while speaking at the 99th Indian Science Congress. Dr Thomas described Agni 5 as “a totally new system from top to bottom”, including nose tip to the base. Every subsystem was new, and the challenge was to prove the whole system.”
“Agni 1, 2 and 3 have been inducted into the Army while Agni 4 has been tested. But more tests are required for Agni 4,” she revealed.
The Indian military scientific community was extremely excited at the success of flight trial of the nuclear-capable Agni 4. “It was a textbook flight and it is difficult to describe the joy we experienced at the success of Agni 4,” said this gutsy woman scientist who admitted, “(the development of) Agni 4 was a challenging experience for me.”
Agni 5 is a ballistic missile with a range approaching ICBMs in the armory of China, Russia and the US. The three-state Agni 5 is undergoing integration at the moment but all Dr Thomas said on this subject was that “advances are coming within milli-seconds.”
When asked whether India was going to develop an ICBM, Dr Thomas replied, “Agni 5 is the kind of missile which will meet the security challenges that India faces.”
When asked about China providing a great deal of assistance to enhance Pakistan’s missile program, Thomas said she had no comments to make on this subject.
Both the Agni 4 and the Agni 5 stacked up admirably when compared to other nations’ missiles with similar ranges.
Compared to older Agni missile variants, the Agni 4 and 5 both have better strike precision and can be primed transported with greater ease. Earlier missiles were based on rail mobile launchers which needed an exhaustive infrastructure support but Agni 4 and Agni 5 are based on road mobile launchers.

Vizag: N-powered attack sub to arrive by Jan 31

VISAKHAPATNAM: India’s first nuclear-powered attack submarine is expected to reach Visakhapatnam by the end of this month after final test trials in Russian waters. A sophisticated vessel of the Akula class, the sub, bearing the name Nerpa in the Russian Navy, has been leased to the Indian Navy initially for a period of 10 years. It is likely to be renamed INS Chakra at its commissioning programme to be held shortly.

The lease will cost the Indian government an estimated 920 million US dollars. Nerpa was commissioned into the Russian Navy in Dec. 2009. After refitting it to meet India’s needs, the Russian Navy trained a team of Indian naval officers on it in early 2010 and handed it over to its Indian counterpart on Dec. 30. As per an earlier schedule, the submarine was expected to join the Indian Navy in late 2011 but this was delayed by an accident on the submarine, Indian Navy sources told Express.Though a dispute arose between India and Russia consequent to the accident, they resolved that the agreement will hold good and the transfer will be implemented as per schedule. “Chakra will in all likelihood be commissioned into the Indian Navy in the first week of Feb. “This will make India the sixth nation in the world to have a nuclear-powered attack submarine,” sources said.The submarine has a dual hull and sails at a speed of 10 knots on surface waters with a maximum speed of 30 knots under water, sources said.

India, Russia to go ahead with Kudankulam nuclear project

Moscow:India and Russia have resolved their differences over the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, according to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and highly placed Russian government sources.

In fact Dr. Singh was confident about “going ahead’’ with Unit I of the Russia supplied Kudankulam plant in a “couple of weeks.’’ The second one should follow after six months, he said at a joint press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev here on December 16.

Separately, highly placed sources in the Russian nuclear energy sector said the two sides have sorted out their differences over the setting up of the next two units, and “may be more.’’ The sources claimed that the nuclear liability legislation, main bone of contention between the two sides, would not apply to these units as well.

“There can be no question about it: the original agreement on Units 1 and 2 at Kudankulam apply to Units 3 and 4, as well as to any additional reactors that may be put up on the site,” the sources said.

Dr. Singh seemed to endorse this observation. “The two sides have concluded negotiations and agreed on the terms and conditions for the Russian credit for Units 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam nuclear power project. We look forward to moving ahead with the road map for cooperation in the nuclear energy sector, which we signed in 2010,’’ he said.

The road map he was referring to was about the setting up at least a dozen reactors based on Russian technology. India has so far demurred, claiming that funds are released on the basis of projections made in the Five Year Plans and, therefore, it was difficult to make commitments far into the future.

The Russia sources made it clear that Moscow’s proposal to New Delhi to set up a joint production of nuclear fuel on the Russian soil would not lead to transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies to India.

India and Russia also concluded negotiations on obtaining military and strategic communications from the Glonass constellation of satellites being put into orbit by Moscow as an alternative to the West controlled GPS system.

India and Russia meanwhile inked five agreements, including two protocols, two memoranda of understanding and one pact related to exchange in education. The agreements were signed after bilateral summit level talks between the two sides. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh led the Indian delegation, while President Dmitry Medvedev led the Russian side at the discussion.

Russia signs preliminary deal to sell 42 jets to India

MOSCOW: Visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday oversaw the signing of an agreement to sell to India 42 Su-30 jets in kit form as the Kremlin scrambles to retain ties with its Soviet-era arms purchaser.

The agreement comes after India, the biggest importer of military hardware among emerging nations, had earlier this year rejected Moscow’s bid to supply its traditional ally with 126 multi-role combat aircraft in a deal worth about $12 billion (9.2 billion euros).

The two leaders sought to play up progress in bilateral ties, stressing they withstood the test of time.

“Our cooperation with India in the military technical sphere has reached an unprecedented level,” Medvedev said in comments released by the Kremlin.

After the talks the two leaders oversaw the signing of an agreement to “render technical assistance in the organisation of production of the SU-30 plane,” the Kremlin said in a statement without providing further details.

The Kremin said ahead of the signing the two sides had planned to ink an agreement to supply India with 42 Su-30 jets in kit form that would be assembled in India.

New Delhi and Moscow have enjoyed close ties that date back to the 1950s but relations have recently come under strain as India becomes more demanding over pricing and quality and looks to other countries like Israel and the United States as potential military suppliers.

Singh said the two countries discussed nuclear cooperation and supplies of liquefied gas adding they also agreed the terms of a Russian loan to build two additional generating units at a nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. (AFP)

Armed Forces Special Powers Act: A study in National Security tyranny

1. INTRODUCTION

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPA) is one of the more draconian legislations that the Indian Parliament has passed in its 45 years of Parliamentary history. Under this Act, all security forces are given unrestricted and unaccounted power to carry out their operations, once an area is declared disturbed. Even a non-commissioned officer is granted the right to shoot to kill based on mere suspicion that it is necessary to do so in order to “maintain the public order”.

The AFSPA gives the armed forces wide powers to shoot, arrest and search, all in the name of “aiding civil power.” It was first applied to the North Eastern states of Assam and Manipur and was amended in 1972 to extend to all the seven states in the north- eastern region of India. They are Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland, also known as the “seven sisters”. The enforcement of the AFSPA has resulted in innumerable incidents of arbitrary detention, torture, rape, and looting by security personnel. This legislation is sought to be justified by the Government of India, on the plea that it is required to stop the North East states from seceeding from the Indian Union. There is a strong movement for self-determination which precedes the formation of the Indian Union.

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2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

As the great Himalayan range dividing South and Central Asia runs down the east, it takes a southward curve and splits into lower hill ranges. The hills are punctuated by valleys and the valleys are washed by the rivers that drain into to the Bay of Bengal. Waves of people settled in these blue hills and green valleys at various times in history. They brought with them cultures and traditions. The new interacted with the old and evolved into the unique cultural mosaic that characterizes the region.

Through the centuries, these hills and valleys have bridged South, South East, and Central Asia. On today’s geo-political map, a large part of the original region constitutes the seven states of the Republic of India, but its political, economic and socio-cultural systems have always been linked with South East Asia. The great Hindu and Muslim empires that reigned over the Indian sub-continent never extended east of the Bhramaputra river.

India’s British colonizers were the first to break this barrier. In the early 19th century, they moved in to check the Burmese expansion into today’s Manipur and Assam. The British, with the help of the then Manipur King, Gambhir Singh, crushed the Burmese imperialist dream and the treaty of Yandabo was signed in 1828. Under this treaty, Assam became a part of British India and the British continued to influence the political affairs of the region.

This undue interference eventually led to the bloody Anglo- Manipuri conflict of 1891. The British reaffirmed their position but were cognizant of the ferocious spirit of independence of these people and did not administer directly but only through the King.

It was during the Second World War, when the Japanese tried to enter the Indian sub-continent through this narrow corridor, that the strategic significance of the region to the Indian armed forces was realised. With the bombing of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a disenchanted Japanese had to retreat from Imphal and Kohima fronts, however the importance of control over the region subsequently remained a priority for the Government of India.

With the end of the war, the global political map was changed over night. As the British were preparing to leave Asia, the Political Department of the British Government planned to carve out a buffer state consisting of the Naga Hills, Mikir Hills, Sadiya Area, Balipara Tract, Manipur, Lushai Hills, Khasi and Hills in Assam, as well as the Chin Hills and the hills of northern Burma. The impending departure of the British created confusion and turmoil over how to fill the political vacuum they would leave behind. Ultimately, the various territories were parceled out to Nehru’s India, Jinnah’s Pakistan, Aung Sang’s Burma and Mao’s China according to strategic requirements. As expected, there were some rumblings between the new Asiatic powers on who should get how much – India and Burma over Kabow valley, India and East Pakistan over Chittagong Hill Tracts, and India and China over the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), present day Arunachal Pradesh.

Compromises were made, and issues were finally settled in distant capitals, to the satifaction of the new rulers. The people who had been dwelling in these hills and valleys for thousands of years were systematically excluded from the consultation process. The Indian share of the British colonial cake in this region constitutes the present “Seven Sisters” states of the North-East.

Over the years, thanks to the British, the advent of western education and contact with new ideas brought about the realization that the old ways had to give way to the new. Indigenous movements evolved as the people aspired to a new social and political order. For example, in the ancient Kingdom of Manipur, under the charismatic leadership of Hijam Irabot, a strong popular democratic movement against feudalism and colonialism was raging. After the departure of the British, the Kingdom of Manipur was reconstituted as a constitutional monarchy on modern lines by passing the Manipur Constitution Act, 1947.

Elections were held under the new constitution. A legislative assembly was formed. In 1949, Mr V P Menon, a senior representative of the Government of India, invited the King to a meeting on the pretext of discussing the deteriorating law and order situation in the state at Shillong. Upon his arrival, the King was allegedly forced to sign under duress the merger agreement. The agreement was never ratified in the Manipur Legislative Assembly. Rather, the Assembly was dissolved and Manipur was kept under the charge of a Chief Commissioner. There were protests, but the carrot-and-stick policy launched by the Indian Government successfully suppressed any opposition.

The Naga Movement

At the beginning of the century, the inhabitants of the Naga Hills, which extend across the Indo-Burmese border, came together under the single banner of Naga National Council (NNC), aspiring for a common homeland and self-governance. As early as 1929, the NNC petitioned the Simon Commission, which was examining the feasibility of future of self-governance of India. The Naga leaders were adamantly against Indian rule over their people once the British pulled out of the region. Mahatma Gandhi publicly announced that the Nagas had every right to be independent. His assertion was based on his belief in non-violence, he did not believe in the use of force or an unwilling union.

Under the Hydari Agreement signed between NNC and British administration, Nagaland was granted protected status for ten years, after which the Nagas would decide whether they should stay in the Union or not. However, shortly after the British withdrew, independent India proclaimed the Naga Territory as part and parcel of the new Republic.

The NNC proclaimed Nagaland’s independence. In retaliation, Indian authorities arrested the Naga leaders. An armed struggle ensued and there were large casualties on either side. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act is the product of this tension.

In 1975, some Naga leaders held talks with the Government of India which resulted in what is known as the Shillong Accord. The Naga leaders who did not agree with the Shillong accord formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) and continue to fight for what they call,” Naga sovereignty”.

Problems of Integration

Much of this historical bloodshed could have been avoided if the new India had lived up to the democratic principles enshrined in its Constitution and respected the rights of the nationalities it had taken within its borders. But in the over-zealous efforts to integrate these people into the “national mainstream”, based on the dominant brahminical Aryan culture, much destruction has been done to the indigenous populations.

Culturally, the highly caste ridden, feudal society is totally incompatible with the ethics of North-East cultures which are by and large egalitarian. To make matters even worse, the Indian leaders found it useful to club these ethnic groups with the adivasis (indigenous peoples) of the sub-continent, dubbing them “scheduled tribes”. As a result, in the casteist Indian social milieu, indigenous peoples are stigmatized by higher castes.

The languages of the North-East are of the Tibeto- Chinese family rather than the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian. Until the recent Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, none of the Tibeto- Chinese languages were recognized as Indian languages. The predominantly mongoloid features of the people of the North-East is another barrier to cultural assimilation.

Politically dependent, the North East is being economically undermined; the traditional trade routes with South East Asia and Bangladesh have been closed. It was kept out of the Government of India’s massive infrastructural development in the first few five-year-plans. Gradually, the region has become the Indian capitalist’s hinterland, where local industries have been reduced to nothing and the people are now entirely dependent on goods and businesses owned predominantly by those from the Indo- Gangetic plains. The economic strings of this region are controlled by these, in many cases, unscrupulous traders.

All the states of the North-East are connected to India by the “chicken’s neck”, a narrow corridor between Bangladesh and Bhutan. At partition, the area was cut off from the nearest port of Chittagong, in what is now Bangladesh, reducing traffic to and from the region to a trickle. The states in the region are largely unconnected to India’ vast rail system.

India freely exploits the natural resources of the North-East. Assam produces one-fourth of all the petroleum for India, yet it is processed outside of Assam so the state does not receive the revenues. Manipur is 22% behind the national average for infrastructural development, and the entire North-Eastern region is 30% behind the rest of India.

Observers have pointed out that “…it is clear that in the North East, insurgency and underdevelopment have been closely linked; in such a situation strong-arm tactics will only help to further alienate the people.”

The shifting demographic balance due to large-scale immigration from within and outside the country is another source of tension. The indigenous people fear that they will be outnumbered by outsiders in their own land. Laborers from Bihar and Bengal who live under rigidly feudal, casteist socio-economic conditions in their states are ready to do all kinds of menial jobs at much lower wages. As they pour in, more and more local laborers are being edged out of their jobs. Illegal immigration from Bangladesh and Nepal is also percieved as a threat. In Tripura, the indigenous population has been reduced to a mere 28% of the total population of the state because of large scale immigration from then East Pakistan and now Bangladesh.

In Assam, a similar fear of ” immigrant invasion” was at the root of a student movement in the early eighties. The student leaders formed a political party called the Assam Gana Parisad (AGP) and contested state elections and won. In 1984, the Assam Accord was signed with the Central Government. However, the provisions of the Accord were never implemented. The failure of the AGP to bring about change in the state of Assam fostered the growth of the armed and overtly seccessionist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).

Mizoram

In the Lushai hills of Assam in the early sixties, a famine broke out. A relief team cried out for help from the Government of India. But there was little help. The relief team organized themselves into the Mizo National Front (MNF) and called for an armed struggle, ” to liberate Mizoram from Indian colonialiasm.” In February 1966, armed militant groups captured the town of Aizawl and took possession of all government offices. It took the Indian army one week to recapture the town. The army responded viciously with air raids. This is the only place in India where the Indian Security Forces actually aerially bombed its own civilian population. The armed forces compelled people to leave their homes and dumped them on the roadside to set up new villages, so that the armed forces would be able to better control them. This devastated the structure of Mizo society. In 1986, the Mizo Accord was signed between the MNF and the Government of India. This accord was identical to the Shilong Accord made with the Nagas earlier. The MNF agreed to work within the Indian Constitution and to renounce violence.

The Government of India’s primary interest in the North East was strategic, and so was its response to the problems. A series of repressive laws were passed by the Government of India in order to deal with this uprising. In 1953, the Assam Maintenance of Public Order (Autonomous District) Regulation Act was passed. It was applicable to the then Naga Hills and Tuensang districts. It empowered the Governor to impose collective fines, prohibit public meetings and and detain anybody without a warrant.

On 22 May 1958, a mere 12 days after the Budget Session of Parliament was over, the Armed Forces (Assam-Manipur) Special Powers Ordinance was passed. A bill was introduced in the Monsoon session of Parliament that year. Amongst those who cautioned against giving such blanket powers to the Army included the then Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, (Upper House of the Indian Parliament), Mr P N Sapru. In a brief discussion that lasted for three hours in the Lok Sabha and for four hours in the Rajya Sabha, Parliament approved the Armed Forces (Assam- Manipur) Special Powers Act with retrospective from 22 May 1958.

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3. THE ACT AND ITS PROVISIONS

Section 1: This section states the name of the Act and the areas to which it extends (Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram).

Section 2: This section sets out the definition of the Act, but leaves much un-defined. Under part (a) in the 1972 version, the armed forces were defined as “the military and Air Force of the Union so operating”. In the 1958 version of the Act the definition was of the “military forces and the air forces operating as land forces”. In the Lok Sabha Debates which led to the passing of the original Act, Mr Naushir Bharucha commented, “that probably means that the Government very mercifully has not permitted the air forces to shoot or strafe the area … or to bomb.” The Minister of Home Affairs did not confirm this interpretation, but certainly “acting as land forces” should rule out the power to resort to aerial bombardment. Nevertheless, in 1966, the Air Force in Mizoram did resort to aerial bombardment.

Section 2(b) defines a “disturbed area” as any area declared as such under Clause 3 (see discussion below). Section 2(c) states that all other words not defined in the AFSPA have the meanings assigned to them in the Army Act of 1950.

Section 3: This section defines “disturbed area” by stating how an area can be declared disturbed. It grants the power to declare an area disturbed to the Central Government and the Governor of the State, but does not describe the circumstances under which the authority would be justified in making such a declaration. Rather, the AFSPA only requires that such authority be “of the opinion that whole or parts of the area are in a dangerous or disturbed condition such that the use of the Armed Forces in aid of civil powers is necessary.” The vagueness of this definition was challenged in Indrajit Barua v. State of Assam case. The court decided that the lack of precision to the definition of a disturbed area was not an issue because the government and people of India understand its meaning. However, since the declaration depends on the satisfaction of the Government official, the declaration that an area is disturbed is not subject to judicial review. So in practice, it is only the government’s understanding which classifies an area as disturbed. There is no mechanism for the people to challenge this opinion. Strangely, there are acts which define the term more concretely. In the Disturbed Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1976, an area may be declared disturbed when “a State Government is satisfied that (i) there was, or (ii) there is, in any area within a State extensive disturbance of the public peace and tranquility, by reason of differences or disputes between members of different religions, racial, language, or regional groups or castes or communities, it may … declare such area to be a disturbed area.” The lack of precision in the definition of a disturbed area under the AFSPA demonstrates that the government is not interested in putting safeguards on its application of the AFSPA.

The 1972 amendments to the AFSPA extended the power to declare an area disturbed to the Central Government. In the 1958 version of the AFSPA only the state governments had this power. In the 1972 Lok Sabha debates it was argued that extending this power to the Central Government would take away the State’s authority. In the 1958 debates the authority and power of the states in applying the AFSPA was a key issue. The Home Minister had argued that the AFSPA broadened states’ power because they could call in the military whenever they chose. The 1972 amendment shows that the Central Government is no longer concerned with the state’s power. Rather, the Central Government now has the ability to overrule the opinion of a state governor and declare an area disturbed. This happened in Tripura, when the Central Government declared Tripura a disturbed area, over the opposition of the State Government.

In the 1972 Lok Sabha debates, Mr S D Somasundaram pointed out that there was no need to extend this power to the Central Government, since the President had “the power to intervene in a disturbed State at any time” under the Constitution. This point went unheeded and the Central Government retains the power to apply the AFSPA to the areas it wishes in the Northeast.

Section 4: This section sets out the powers granted to the military stationed in a disturbed area. These powers are granted to the commissioned officer, warrant officer, or non-commissioned officer, only a jawan (private) does not have these powers. The Section allows the armed forces personnel to use force for a variety of reasons.

The army can shoot to kill, under the powers of section 4(a), for the commission or suspicion of the commission of the following offenses: acting in contravention of any law or order for the time being in force in the disturbed area prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons, carrying weapons, or carrying anything which is capable of being used as a fire-arm or ammunition. To justify the invocation of this provision, the officer need only be “of the opinion that it is necessary to do so for the maintenance of public order” and only give “such due warning as he may consider necessary”.

The army can destroy property under section 4(b) if it is an arms dump, a fortified position or shelter from where armed attacks are made or are suspected of being made, if the structure is used as a training camp, or as a hide-out by armed gangs or absconders.

The army can arrest anyone without a warrant under section 4(c) who has committed, is suspected of having committed or of being about to commit, a cognisable offense and use any amount of force “necessary to effect the arrest”.

Under section 4(d), the army can enter and search without a warrant to make an arrest or to recover any property, arms, ammunition or explosives which are believed to be unlawfully kept on the premises. This section also allows the use of force necessary for the search.

Section 5: This section states that after the military has arrested someone under the AFSPA, they must hand that person over to the nearest police station with the “least possible delay”. There is no definition in the act of what constitutes the least possible delay. Some case-law has established that 4 to 5 days is too long. But since this provision has been interpreted as depending on the specifics circumstances of each case, there is no precise amount of time after which the section is violated. The holding of the arrested person, without review by a magistrate, constitutes arbitrary detention.

Section 6: This section establishes that no legal proceeding can be brought against any member of the armed forces acting under the AFSPA, without the permission of the Central Government. This section leaves the victims of the armed forces abuses without a remedy.

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4. LEGAL ANALYSIS

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act contravenes both Indian and International law standards. This was exemplified when India presented its second periodic report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1991. Members of the UNHRC asked numerous questions about the validity of the AFSPA, questioning how the AFSPA could be deemed constitutional under Indian law and how it could be justified in light of Article 4 of the ICCPR. The Attorney General of India relied on the sole argument that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states. He said that a response to this agitation for secession in the North East had to be done on a “war footing.” He argued that the Indian Constitution, in Article 355, made it the duty of the Central Government to protect the states from internal disturbance, and that there is no duty under international law to allow secession.

This reasoning exemplifies the vicious cycle which has been instituted in the North East due to the AFSPA. The use of the AFSPA pushes the demand for more autonomy, giving the peoples of the North East more reason to want to secede from a state which enacts such powers and the agitation which ensues continues to justify the use of the AFSPA from the point of view of the Indian Government.

A) INDIAN LAW

There are several cases pending before the Indian Supreme Court which challenge the constitutionality of the AFSPA. Some of these cases have been pending for over nine years. Since the Delhi High Court found the AFSPA to be constitutional in the case of Indrajit Barua and the Gauhati High court found this decision to be binding in People’s Union for Democratic Rights, the only judicial way to repeal the act is for the Supreme Court to declare the AFSPA unconstitutional.

It is extremely surprising that the Delhi High Court found the AFSPA constitutional given the wording and application of the AFSPA. The AFSPA is unconstitutional and should be repealed by the judiciary or the legislature to end army rule in the North East.

• Violation of Article 21 – Right to life

  Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the right to life to all people. It reads, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” Judicial interpretation that “procedure established by law means a “fair, just and reasonable law” has been part of Indian jurisprudence since the 1978 case of Maneka Gandhi. This decision overrules the 1950 Gopalan case which had found that any law enacted by Parliament met the requirement of “procedure established by law”.

  Under section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants armed forces personnel the power to shoot to kill, the constitutional right to life is violated. This law is not fair, just or reasonable because it allows the armed forces to use an excessive amount of force.

  The offenses under section 4(a) are: “acting in contravention of any law or order for the time being in force in the disturbed area prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons or the carrying of weapons or of things capable of being used as weapons or fire-arms, ammunition or explosive substances”. None of these offences necessarily involve the use of force. The armed forces are thus allowed to retaliate with powers which are grossly out of proportion with the offence.

  Justice requires that the use of force be justified by a need for self-defense and a minimum level of proportionality. As pointed out by the UN Human Rights Commission, since “assembly” is not defined, it could well be a lawful assembly, such as a family gathering, and since “weapon” is not defined it could include a stone. This shows how wide the interpretation of the offences may be, illustrating that the use of force is disproportionate and irrational.

  Several incidents show how the Border Security Force (BSF) and army personnel abuse their powers in the North East. In April 1995, a villager in West Tripura was riding near a border outpost when a soldier asked him to stop. The villager did not stop and the soldier shot him dead. Even more grotesque were the killings in Kohima on 5 March 1995. The Rastriya Rifles (National Rifles) mistook the sound of a tyre burst from their own convoy as a bomb attack and began firing indiscriminately in the town. The Assam Rifles and the CRPF who were camped two kilometers away heard the gunshots and also began firing. The firing lasted for more than one hour, resulting in the death of seven innocent civilians, 22 were also seriously injured. Among those killed were two girls aged 3 1/2 and 8 years old. The injured also included 7 minors. Mortars were used even though using mortars in a civilian area is prohibited under army rules.

  This atrocity demonstrates the level of tension prevalent in the North East. For a tire burst to be mistaken for a bomb proves that the armed forces are perpetually under stress and live under a state of siege.

  In the Indrajit Barua case, the Delhi High Court found that the state has the duty to assure the protection of rights under Article 21 to the largest number of people. Couched in the rhetoric of the need to protect the “greater good”, it is clear that the Court did not feel that Article 21 is a fundamental right for the people of Assam. The Court stated, “If to save hundred lives one life is put in peril or if a law ensures and protects the greater social interest then such law will be a wholesome and beneficial law although it may infringe the liberty of some individuals.”

  This directly contradicts Article 14 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees equality before the law. This article guarantees that “the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” The AFSPA is in place in limited parts of India. Since the people residing in areas declared “disturbed” are denied the protection of the right to life, denied the protections of the Criminal Procedure Code and prohibited from seeking judicial redress, they are also denied equality before the law. Residents of non-disturbed areas enjoy the protections guaranteed under the Constitution, whereas the residents of the Northeast live under virtual army rule. Residents of the rest of the Union of India are not obliged to sacrifice their Constitutional rights in the name of the “greater good”.

• Protection against arrest and detention – Article 22

  Article 22 of the Indian Constitution states that “(1) No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest nor shall he be denied the right to consult, and to be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice. (2) Every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a magistrate.” The remaining sections of the Article deal with limits on these first two sections in the case of preventive detention laws. On its face, the AFSPA is not a preventive detention law therefore the safeguards of sections (1) and (2) must be guaranteed to people arrested under the AFSPA.

  Section (2) of Article 22 was the subject of much debate during the framing of the Indian Constitution. There was argument over whether the time limit should be specified or whether the words “with the least possible delay” should be used. Dr Amedkar, one of the principal framers of the Indian Constitution argued that “with the least possible delay” would actually result in the person being held for a shorter period of time, whereas “twenty- four hours” would result in the person being held for the maximum time of twenty-four hours. The application of these terms has since shown that a specified time period constitutes a greater safeguard. Under the AFSPA, the use of “least possible delay” language has allowed the security forces to hold people for days and months at a time. A few habeas corpus cases in which the court did find the delay to be excessive are indicative of the abuses which are occurring in practice. It should be noted that habeas corpus cases are only filed for those who have access to lawyers and the court. In all the seven states of the North East only the Guwhati High Court bench in Assam can hear habeas corpus cases. So although in the two following cases the time of delay in handing over the arrested person was found excessive, it can only be imagined what types of abuses occur in the states of Manipur and Nagaland where the people do not have access to the court. In Nungshitombi Devi v. Rishang Keishang, CM Manipur, (1982) 1 GLR 756, the petitioner’s husband was arrested by CRPF on 10 January 1981, and was still missing on 22 February 1981. He had been arrested under AFSPA Section 4(c). The court found this delay to have been too long and unjustified, even under Section 5 of the AFSPA. In Civil Liberties Organisation (CLAHRO) v. PL Kukrety, (1988) 2 GLR 137, people arrested in Oinam were held for five days before being handed over to magistrates. The court found this to be an unjustified delay.

  In its application, the AFSPA does lead to arbitrary detention. If the AFSPA were defended on the grounds that it is a preventive detention law, it would still violate Article 22 of the Constitution. Preventive detention laws can allow the detention of the arrested person for up to three months. Under 22(4) any detention longer than three months must be reviewed by an Advisory Board. Moreover, under 22(5) the person must be told the grounds of their arrest. Under section 4(c) of the AFSPA a person can be arrested by the armed forces without a warrant and on the mere suspicion that they are going to commit an offence. The armed forces are not obliged to communicate the grounds for the arrest. There is also no advisory board in place to review arrests made under the AFSPA. Since the arrest is without a warrant it violates the preventive detention sections of article 22.

  The case of Luithukla v. Rishang Keishing, (1988) 2 GLR 159, a habeas corpus case, exemplifies the total lack of restraint on the armed forces when carrying out arrests. The case was brought to ascertain the whereabouts of a man who had been arrested five years previously by the army. The court found that the man had been detained by the army and that the forces had mistaken their role of “aiding civil power”. The court said that the army may not act independently of the district administration. Repeatedly, the Guwahati High Court has told the army to comply with the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), but there are is no enforcement of these rulings.

  Army officers have accused High Court judges of weakening military powers in the North East, exemplifying that the armed forces are not interested in complying with civil law standards. Any attempt by the courts to oblige compliance with police procedure is ignored. (see further section on the lack of independence of the judiciary)

  In the habeas corpus case of Bacha Bora v. State of Assam, (1991) 2 GLR 119, the petition was denied because a later arrest by the civil police was found to be legal. However, in a discussion of the AFSPA, the court analyzed Section 5 (turn the arrested person over to the nearest magistrate “with least possible delay”). The court did not use Article 22 of the Constitution to find that this should be less than twenty-four hours, but rather said that “least possible delay” is defined by the particular circumstances of each case. In this case, the army had provided no justification for the two week delay, when a police station was nearby, so section 5 was violated. Nevertheless, this leaves open the interpretation that circumstances could justify a delay of 5 days or more.

• The Indian Criminal Procedure Code (“CrPC”)

  The CrPC establishes the procedure police officers are to follow for arrests, searches and seizures, a procedure which the army and other para- military are not trained to follow. Therefore when the armed forces personnel act in aid of civil power, it should be clarified that they may not act with broader power than the police and that these troops must receive specific training in criminal procedure.

  In explaining the AFSPA bill in the Lok Sabha in 1958, the Union Home Minister stated that the Act was subject to the provisions of the Constitution and the CrPC. He said “these persons [military personnel] have the authority to act only within the limits that have been prescribed generally in the CrPC or in the Constitution.” If this is the case, then why was the AFSPA not drafted to say “use of minimum force” as done in the CrPC? If the government truly means to have the armed forces comply with criminal procedure, than the AFSPA should have a specific clause enunciating this compliance. Further it should also train the armed forces in this procedure.

  The CrPC has a section on the maintenance of public order, Chapter X, which provides more safeguards than the AFSPA. Section 129 in that chapter allows for the dispersal of an assembly by use of civil force. The section empowers an Executive Magistrate, officer-in-charge of a police station or any police officer not below the rank of sub-inspector to disperse such an assembly. It is interesting to compare this section with the powers the army has to disperse assemblies under section 4(a) of the Act. The CrPC clearly delineates the ranks which can disperse such an assembly, whereas the Act grants the power to use maximum force to even to non commissioned officers. Moreover, the CrPC does not state that force to the extent of causing death can be used to disperse an assembly.

  Sections 130 and 131 of the same chapter sets out the conditions under which the armed forces may be called in to disperse an assembly. These two sections have several safeguards which are lacking in the Act. Under section 130, the armed forces officers are to follow the directives of the Magistrate and use as little force as necessary in doing so. Under 131, when no Executive Magistrate can be contacted, the armed forces may disperse the assembly but if it becomes possible to contact an Executive Magistrate at any point, the armed forces must do so. Section 131 only gives the armed forces the power to arrest and confine. Moreover, it is only commissioned or gazetted officers who may give the command to disperse such an assembly, whereas in the AFSPA even non-commissioned officers are given this power. The AFSPA grants wider powers than the CrPC for dispersal of an assembly.

  Moreover, dispersal of assemblies under Chapter X of the CrPC is slightly more justifiable than dispersal under Section 4(a) of the AFSPA. Sections 129-131 refer to the unlawful assemblies as ones which “manifestly endanger” public security. Under the AFSPA the assembly is only classified as “unlawful” leaving open the possibility that peaceful assemblies can be dispersed by use of force.

  Chapter V of the CrPC sets out the arrest procedure the police are to follow. Section 46 establishes the way in which arrests are to be made. It is only if the person attempts to evade arrest that the police officer may use “all means necessary to effect the arrest.” However, sub-section (3) limits this use of force by stipulating that this does not give the officer the right to cause the death of the person, unless they are accused of an offence punishable by death or life imprisonment. This power is already too broad. It allows the police to use more force than stipulated in the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (see section on International law below). Yet the AFSPA is even more excessive. Section 4(a) lets the armed forces kill a person who is not suspected of an offence punishable by death or life imprisonment.

  Under the Indian Penal Code, at Section 302, only murder is punishable with death. Murder is not one of the offenses listed in section 4(a) of the AFSPA. Moreover the 4(a) offences are assembly of five or more persons, the carrying of weapons, ammunition or explosive substances, none of which are punishable with life imprisonment under the Indian Penal Code. Under section 143 of the Penal Code, being a member of an unlawful assembly is punishable with imprisonment of up to six months and/or a fine. Even if the person has joined such unlawful assembly armed with a deadly weapon, the maximum penalty is imprisonment for two years and a fine. Moreover, persisting or joining in an unlawful assembly of five or more persons is also punishable with six months imprisonment, or a fine, or both. The same offence committed by someone in a disturbed area under the AFSPA is punishable with death. This again violates the Constitutional right to equality before the law. Different standards of punishment are in place for the same act in different parts of the country, violating the equality standards set out in the Constitution.

  Supposedly the military do have instructions on the procedures they are to follow when they act in aid of civil power. In People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India, (1991) 2 GLR 1, when the court reviewed the army’s powers it referred to two sets of instructions issued to the military when acting in aid of civil power. The first was a 1969 pamphlet issued by the Government of India as guidance for military but it was confidential and the court was not allowed to review it. A 1973 basic book instructions for army acting in aid of civil power was also referred to in the case. In a personal meeting with Justice Raghuvir, former Chief Justice of the Guwahati High Court, and the Justice who wrote the opinion in People’s Union for Democratic Rights, SAHRDC asked for details on the nature of these instructions. Justice Raghuvir told us that he was only able to see a few pages and that the whole booklet was not available to non-military personnel. He believes that the military keeps these instruction manuals confidential so that it can not be shown that the armed forces fail to comply with their own standards. This is another example of the lack of judicial review and allows the armed forces to remain above the law.

• Military’s Immunity / Lack of Remedies

  The members of the Armed Forces in the whole of the Indian territory are protected from arrest for anything done within the line of official duty by Section 45 of the CrPC. Section 6 of the AFSPA provides them with absolute immunity for all atrocities committed under the AFSPA. A person wishing to file suit against a member of the armed forces for abuses under the AFSPA must first seek the permission of the Central Government.

  In a report on the AFSPA to the UN Human Rights Committee in 1991, Nandita Haksar, a lawyer who has often petitioned the Guwahati High Court in cases related to the AFSPA, explains how in practice this leaves the military’s victims without a remedy. Firstly, there has not been a single case of any one seeking such permission to file a case in the North East. Given that the armed forces personnel conduct themselves as being above the law and the people are alienated from the state government, it is hardly surprising that no one would approach Delhi for such permission. Secondly, when the armed forces are tried in army courts, the public is not informed of the proceedings and the court martial judgments are not published. In a meeting with the government National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a representative of SAHRDC was able to discuss cases where BSF and armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir were punished for abuses. Yet, the results of these trials were not published and the NHRC representative stated that it would endanger the lives of the soldiers.

  This section of the AFSPA was also reviewed in Indrajit Barua. The High Court justified this provision on the grounds that it prevents the filing of “frivolous claims”. The court even said that this provision provides more safeguards, obviously confusing safeguards for the military with safeguards for the victims of the military’s abuses.

  Instances of human rights abuses by the army have shown that unless there is public accountability there is no incentive for the army to change its conduct. This was exemplified in Burundi when security forces killed 1,000 people in October 1991. Amnesty International reported, “The failure to identify those responsible for human rights violations and bring them to justice has meant that members of the security forces continue to believe that they are above the law and can violate human rights with impunity.” Without the transparency of the public accounting, it is impossible to be sure that perpetrators are actually punished.

  Habeas corpus cases have been the only remedy available for those arrested under the AFSPA. A habeas corpus case forces the military or police to hand the person over to the court. This gives the arrested person some protection and it is in these cases that legal counsel have been able to make arguments challenging the AFSPA. However, a habeas corpus case will not lead to the repeal of the act nor will it punish particular officers who committed the abuses. Also, only people who have access to lawyers will be able to file such a case.

  Section 6 of the AFSPA thus suspends the Constitutional right to file suit. Mr Mahanty raised this crucial argument in the first Lok Sabha debate on the AFSPA in 1958. He said that Section 6 of the AFSPA “immediately takes away, abrogates, pinches, frustrates the right to constitutional remedy which has been given in article 32(1) of the Constitution.” This further shows that the AFSPA is more than an emergency provision because it is only in states of emergency that these rights can be constitutionally suspended.

  Section 32(1) of the Constitution states that “the right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by this Part is guaranteed.” In the Constitutional Assembly debates, Dr B R Ambedkar said, “If I was asked to name any particular article of the Constitution as the most important – an article without which this Constitution would be a nullity. I would not refer to any other article except this one (Article 32). It is the very soul of the Constitution and the very heart of it.”

  During the emergency in 1975 the right to file for writs of habeas corpus was suspended as ruled by the Supreme Court in A.D.M. v. Shivakant Shukla, (1976) 2 SCC 521. The Emergency had been declared under Section 359 of the Constitution. This section has now been amended, stating that the fundamental rights of section 20 and 21 cannot be suspended, even in a state of emergency. Therefore, should an emergency be declared today, the right to file habeas corpus on the grounds that the fundamental right to life has been denied should be allowed. Nevertheless, the 1975 case exemplifies the court’s deference for the executive, even if it means a total suspension of individual liberty.

  In the 1958 Lok Sabha, debate also occured about whether the right to file suit was a guaranteed right under the Constitution. The Speaker said, “Now who is to decide whether a right is one which has been guaranteed under this article? (article 32) The Supreme Court will decide it.” Turning to this argument later, the Home Minister pointed out that under the Criminal Procedure Code and the Civil Procedure Code that the Government’s consent was already required before a member of the armed forces could be sued in connection with their duties. This remains the case under both Codes today. Since, as seen above, the Supreme Court so readily defers to the executive and legislative branches, if the legislature does not pause to ask if a provision is constitutional, should the court review it once the legislature has passed it, it will most likely be deemed constitutional.

• The Army Act

  The 1950 act was a revision of the 1911 Indian Army Act. One of the goals of this revision was “to bridge the gap between the Army and civil laws as far as possible in the matter of punishments of offenses.” The High Courts of the country have a limited right to interfere with the court-martial system. Court-martial proceedings do not have to satisfy Article 21 of the Constitution. In chapter five of the Army Act, the members of the services are granted privileges, including immunity from attachments and arrest for debt. The only civil acts committed by members of the army which are not triable by court-martial are murder or rape of a civilian, unless this was done while on active service. This means that soldiers operating under the AFSPA will, if tried at all, be tried by court-martial, leaving no civil law remedy for the victims. Section 6 of the AFSPA only further reinforces the army’s immunity.

• States of Emergency

  The declaration that an area is disturbed essentially amounts to declaring a state of emergency but by-passes the Constitutional safeguards. The point that this bill invokes a state of emergency was raised immediately by Mr Mahanty (Dhenkanal) in the 1958 Lok Sabha debates. He said the Assembly could not proceed if Section 352(1) of the Constitution was not fulfilled. In response, Mr K C Pant, then Home Minister, attempted to argue that the powers granted under the AFSPA do not resemble a state of emergency. He said that in an emergency fundamental rights can be abrogated and that the AFSPA does not abrogate those rights. But under Section 4(a) the right to life is clearly violated. An officer shooting to kill, because he is of the opinion that it is necessary, does not conform, even prima facie, with the Article 21 Constitutional requirement that the right to life cannot be abridged except according to procedure established by law. The Home Minister said the AFSPA powers stem rather from Article 355 of the Constitution, which gives the Central Government authority to protect the States against external aggression.

  Dr Krishnaswanmi (Chingleput) also made the argument that the AFSPA was outside the powers granted in the Constitution, since it was declaring a state of emergency without following the Constitutional provisions for such a declaration. He argued that this Bill would take away the State’s power by bringing in the military. The Speaker responded that this did not take away the State’s power, rather it granted the States more power because it allowed them to decide to “hand over thoroughly, entirely and completely to the Armed Forces”. This argument is circular – the Speaker was saying that the States are given more power because they are now able to freely hand over their power. And because this was explained as granting power to the States, no Presidential proclamation was necessary (the proclamation is only made when the State powers are restricted). So the emergency provisions in the Constitution were cleverly by-passed.

  In a state of emergency, fundamental rights may be suspended under Article 359, since the 1978 amendment to this article, rights under Articles 20 and 21 may not be suspended. As shown above, the AFSPA results in the suspension of Article 21 right to life, therefore AFSPA is more draconian than emergency rule. Emergency rule can only be declared for a specified period of time, and the President’s proclamation of emergency must be reviewed by Parliament. The AFSPA is in place for an indefinite period of time and there is no legislative review.

  The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention noted in its report of 17 December 1993, that states of emergency tend to be a “fruitful source of arbitrary arrests.” In its report of 21 December 1994, the Working Group concluded that preventive detention is “facilitated and aggravated by several factors such as … exercise of the powers specific to states of emergency without a formal declaration, non-observance of the principle of proportionality between the gravity of the measures taken and the situation concerned, too vague a definition of offenses against State security, and the existence of special or emergency jurisdictions.” This describes exactly the situation under the AFSPA. The AFSPA grants state of emergency powers without declaring an emergency as prescribed in the Constitution. The measures taken by the military outweigh the situation in the North East, notably the power to shoot to kill. The offences are not clearly defined, since all of the Section 4 offences are judged subjectively by the military personnel. And the AFSPA is a “special jurisdiction” provision.

B) INTERNATIONAL LAW

Under relevant international human rights and humanitarian law standards there is no justification for such an act as the AFSPA. The AFSPA, by its form and in its application, violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the “UDHR”), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the “ICCPR”), the Convention Against Torture, the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, the UN Body of Principles for Protection of All Persons Under any form of Detention, and the UN Principles on Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra- legal and summary executions.

A UDHR argument would just be repetitive with ICCPR so SAHRDC has not done it but the UDHR articles which the AFSPA violates are the following: 1 – Free and Equal Dignity and rights, 2 – Non- discrimination, 3 – Life, liberty, security of person, 5 – no torture, 7 – equality before the law, 8 – effective remedy, 9 – no arbitrary arrest, 17 – property.

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”)

  India signed the ICCPR in 1978, taking on the responsibility of securing the rights guaranteed by the Covenant to all its citizens. The rights enunciated by the ICCPR are those which must be guaranteed during times of peace by the member states. In times of public emergency, the ICCPR foresees that some rights may have to be suspended. However, the ICCPR remains operative even under such circumstances since certain rights are non- derogable. The AFSPA violates both derogable and non-derogable rights.

  This first article of the ICCPR states that all people have the right to self-determination. As discussed previously, the AFSPA is a tool in stifling the self-determination aspirations of the indigenous peoples of the North East.

  Article 2 imposes an obligation on the states to ensure that all individuals enjoy the rights guaranteed by the Covenant. This includes an obligation to provide a remedy for those whose rights are violated. When India gave its second periodic report to the UN Human Rights Committee in March 1991, members of the Committee pointed out that the AFSPA violates this right because article 2 foresees more than just a legal system which provides such remedies, but requires that such a system work on the practical level.

  Article 4 of the Covenant governs the suspension of some of the Covenant’s rights. Derogation of the ICCPR has three conditions. Firstly, it is only “in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed” that states may derogate from their obligations under the ICCPR. Also, such derogation must be “strictly required by the exigencies of the situation” and cannot be inconsistent with other international law obligations nor “involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin.” The AFSPA has been enacted without such an official proclamation of emergency and goes beyond the requirements of the situation. Moreover, the fact that the AFSPA targets the population of the North East shows that it does discriminate on the basis of social origin. Secondly, there can be no derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18. As discussed below, the AFSPA violates three of these, article 6 guaranteeing the right to life, article 7 prohibiting torture and article 8 prohibiting forced labour. Thirdly, any state which derogates from the ICCPR obligations must inform the other states party to the Covenant. India has not met this obligation as regards the AFSPA.

  The AFSPA comes within the purview of article 4 as understood by the Human Rights Committee. The members found that since it “enables the army to supplement … [the] civil authorities [in] powers of arrest, powers of search” the AFSPA is the equivalent of emergency legislation. Moreover, a committee member stated that the AFSPA had actually created a “continuous state of emergency” since it has been in application since 1958.

  The greatest outrage of the AFSPA under both Indian and international law is the violation of the right to life. This comes under Article 6 of the ICCPR, and it is a non-derogable right. This means no situation, or state of emergency, or internal disturbance, can justify the suspension of this right. Committee members insisted on this particular point in regards to the AFSPA. They found that the powers to kill under the Act are simply too broad. As pointed out by a member of the committee, the offences under Section 4(a) for which the soldier may shoot do not threaten the soldier. The Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials only foresees the use of deadly force when the officer is threatened with force. Under Section 4(a) of the AFSPA, the officer can shoot when there is an unlawful assembly, not defined as threatening, or when the person has or is suspected of having a weapon. Since “weapon” is defined as anything “capable of being used as a weapon”, a committee member pointed out that this could even include a stone, further bringing out the lack of proportionality between the offence and the use of force by the army.

  The armed forces in the North East have systematically tortured the people they arrested under the AFSPA. Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits torture and this also is a non-derogable right. Moreover, the prohibition against torture is a “norm of customary law”. Under the UDHR, torture is defined as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other person.”

  During Operation Bluebird, the Assam Rifles committed gross abuses of this right. The Operation was launched in the wake of an attack on an Assam Rifles outpost in Oinam, a village in Manipur. The attack is believed to have been carried out by the NSCN. The armed forces retaliated by perpetuating atrocities on the village people of Oinam. The Amnesty International report found that more than 300 villagers claimed they were beaten, “some torture victims were left for dead … others were reportedly subjected to other forms of torture including inserting chili powder into sensitive parts of the body, being given electric shocks by means of a hand operated dynamo … or being buried up to the neck in apparent mock executions.” The headman of the village was also tortured and reported, “I was called out and repeatedly interrogated throughout the day … I was beaten by the officers an jawans … they also indiscriminately attack[ed] the villagers – … chili powder dissolved in water [was] rubbed into the nostrils, eyes and soft parts of the body and [officers and jawans] took sadistic pleasure from the cries of pain by the victims.”

  Under similar circumstances in “Operation Rhino”, Rajputana Rifles surrounded the village of Bodhakors on October 4, 1991. An extensive house to house searched was conducted during which women were sexually harassed and men were taken to interrogation camps. They were beaten up and kept without food or water. During this combing operation not a single insurgent was found. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) noted, “It is very difficult to understand the logic such useless raids, mass torture and interrogations, unless the purpose is taken to be the creation of pure terror for some sinister and ulterior motives.”

  During Operation Bluebird, the military also forced the villagers of Oinam to work for them and provided them with no compensation. This violates article 8(3) of the ICCPR which prohibits forced labour. The Assam Rifles “rounded up villagers for forced labour for such tasks as porter service, building new army camps, washing clothes and carrying firewood.”

  Article 9 of the ICCPR guarantees liberty and security of person, and the AFSPA violates all five sub-parts of this right. Sub- part (1) guarantees that “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his Liberty except on such ground and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.” All the residents of a disturbed area are subject to arbitrary arrest. The military can arrest them on mere suspicion and detain them for unspecified amounts of time before handing them over to the nearest magistrate. Sub-part (2) states “Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.” The AFSPA does not require the arresting army officer to inform the person of the reason for their arrest. This is a requirement under Indian criminal procedure, but the military are not trained in this procedure. Sub-part (3) requires that “Anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other official authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time of release.” The AFSPA requires less than this since it states that the person should be brought to the nearest police station “with the least possible delay”. Moreover, requiring the person to be handed over to the police station does not assure that they will be brought promptly before a judge.

  Article 26 of the ICCPR, like article 14 of the Indian Constitution guarantees equal protection for all persons before the law. The AFSPA violates this right because the inhabitants of the North East do not have equal protection before the law. They live under a virtual but undeclared state of emergency and are given no remedy for the injustices they suffer at the hands of the military. Inhabitants of the rest of India, with the exception of Punjab and Kashmir are not subject to this law.

  In response the UN Human Rights Committee in 1991, the Attorney General from India did not address the specific points of these various ICCPR articles. He justified the AFSPA under Section 355 of the Indian Constitution which makes it the duty of the Union to protect each state from external aggression. He said the AFSPA was necessary given the context of the North East where there is “infiltration of aliens into the territories mingling with the local public, and encouraging them towards this [secession].” He stated that the ICCPR does not encourage secession and governments are not encouraged to promote it. He said the AFSPA is a “temporary measure”, not addressing the concern of committee members that the AFSPA has proven to be a longterm provision as it has been in force for over thirty years.

• International Customary Law

  The UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, the UN Body of Principles for Protection of All Persons Under any form of Detention, and the UN Principles on Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal and summary executions all form part of international customary law because they were passed by UN General Assembly resolutions. They lend further strength to the conclusion that the AFSPA violates basic human rights standards.

  1. The UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials was adopted by the UN General Assembly in resolution 34/169 of 17 December 1979. This code applies to all security forces stationed in the North East since “law enforcement officials” are defined as all those who exercise police powers, and it can include military officers. The first article requires that, “Law enforcement officials shall at all times fulfil the duty imposed upon them by law, by serving the community and by protecting all persons against illegal act, consistent with the high degree of responsibility required by their profession.” A high degree of responsibility is sadly lacking in the troops stationed in the North East. As exemplified by the atrocities noted above, the BSF, CRPF and Assam Rifles are not concerned with the requirements of the law enforcement profession, rather they are operating on a “war footing”.

     The second article of the code requires that, “In the performance of their duty, law enforcement officials shall respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons.” As demonstrated above, multiple provisions of the basic human rights standards in the ICCPR are violated under the AFSPA. The AFSPA encourages the military officers to violate human rights because it allows the armed forces to base arrests, searches and seizures on their subjective suspicion. The armed forces know their actions will not be reviewed and that they will not be held accountable for their actions. They have neither the training nor the incentive to comply with this article of the Code.

     Under Article 3 of the Code, “Law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty.” The Attorney General of India tried to convince the UN Human Rights Committee that the use of force under the AFSPA is strictly necessary and is “squarely within the requirements of Article 3 [of the Code].” However, this argument ignores the sub-sections of Article 3 which stipulate that “(a) This provision emphasizes that the use of force by law enforcement officials should be exceptional; while it implies that law enforcement officials may be authorized to use force as is reasonably necessary under the circumstances for the prevention of crime or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders, no force going beyond that may be used.” This provision aims at establishing proportionality between the use of force by an officer and the use of force by an offender. Under 4(a) of the AFSPA, the military personnel can use force against people who are not presenting any force. Under 4(c) they can use any amount of force necessary to arrest someone who is suspected of having committed, or being about to commit, an offence. Under 4(d), this same excessive use of force can be justified in entering and searching premises without a warrant.

     Sub-section (c) of the code further clarifies that “in general, firearms should not be used except when a suspected offender offers armed resistance or otherwise jeopardizes the lives of others and less extreme measures are not sufficient to restrain or apprehend the suspected offender.” When armed forces fire upon an unlawful assembly under Section 4(a) they are violating this basic provision. Moreover, the fact that the armed forces have begun firing into crowds and lob mortar shells in the middle of a town in the North East proves they are not interested in “less extreme measures”.

     Under the Code, the armed forces have no grounds on which to justify their broad powers in the North East. Article 5 of the code reads, “No law enforcement official may inflict, instigate or tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, nor may any law enforcement official invoke superior orders or exceptional circumstances such as state of war or a threat of war, a threat to national security, internal political instability or any other public emergency as a justification of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” (emphasis added) This sweeps aside all the arguments made in the Lok Sabha to justify the original passage of the AFSPA, as well as the Attorney General’s arguments before the UN Committee. Even if the North East is a “disturbed area” there is no justification for the human rights abuses being carried out by the military in the region.

  2. The Body of Principles on Detention or Imprisonment was passed by UN General Assembly resolution no. 43/173, on 9 December 1988. This body of principles applies to all persons under any form of detention. It further strengthens several of the points raised under both Indian and international law.

     Principle 10 states that “Anyone who is arrested shall be informed at the time of his arrest of the reason for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of the charges against him.” The armed forces are not obliged to provide this information under the AFSPA. Moreover, under principle 14, “A person who does not adequately understand or speak the language used by the authorities responsible for his arrest, detention or imprisonment is entitled to receive [information] promptly in a language which he understands”. Since the armed forces stationed in the North East are foreign to the region they are unable to comply with this principle. Under principle 32 the right to habeas corpus must be absolutely guaranteed.

  3. The Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions adopted by Economic and Social Council also offer guidance for the use of force. Principle 3 says, “Governments shall prohibit orders from superior officers or public authorities authorizing or inciting other person to carry out any such extra-legal, arbitrary or summary executions. All persons shall have the right and the duty to defy such orders. Training of law enforcement officials shall emphasize the above provisions.” The armed forces operating in the North East should therefore not follow the excessive power to shoot to kill granted in the AFSPA.

• International Humanitarian Law

  The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 along with the two optional protocols, constitute the body of international humanitarian law. These provisions are suited to human rights protection in times of armed conflict. Under these conventions the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is given access to all international conflicts. In non-international armed conflicts, the ICRC can only offer its services.

  The ICRC’s mandate in the context of non-international armed struggle is based on Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions. However, India has not signed either protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, the ICRC can offer its services in such a conflict based on Article 3, paragraph 2, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (“an impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict”). When the ICRC offers its services in such a situation, a state does not have to accept them, or consider it an interference in its internal affairs. However, “in situations of internal disturbance, the rules of international humanitarian law can only be invoked by analogy.”

  C) COMPARATIVE LAW STANDARDS

  The British armed forces presence in Northern Ireland is an apt comparison to the Indian military presence in the North East. The British carry out arrests under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act or the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act. When detainees were held for seven days without charge the European Court of Human Rights found this to be in violation of the European Human Rights Covenant.

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5. CONCLUSIONS

The Supreme Court of India reached a low for its lack of enforcement of fundamental rights in the Jabalpur case of 1975. The country was in a state of emergency and the high courts had concluded that although the executive could restrict certain rights, people could still file habeas corpus claims. The Supreme Court rejected this conclusion and said the high court judges had substituted their suspicion of the executive for “frank and unreserved acception of the proclamation of emergency.” Noted Legal luminary, H M Seervai notes that this shows the lack of judicial detachment. Indeed, it exemplifies a deference to the executive which leaves the people with no enforcement of their constitutional rights. Jabalpur has since been deemed an incorrect decision, but it remains an apt example of the judiciary’s submission to the executive.

The Supreme Court has avoided a Constitutional review for over 9 years, the amount of time the principal case has been pending. The Court is not displaying any judicial activism on this Act. The Lok Sabha in the 1958 debate acknowledged that if the AFSPA were unconstitutional, it would be for the Supreme Court to determine. The deference of the Delhi High Court to the legislature in the Indrajit case also demonstrates a lack of judicial independence.

The Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary was adopted by the seventh UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders and was also adopted by the UN General Assembly. Principle 2 of this document says, “The judiciary shall decide matters before them impartially, on the basis of facts and in accordance with the law, without any restrictions, improper influences, inducements, pressure, threats or interferences, direct or indirect, from any quarter or for any reason.” The Indian judicial system is not subject to direct interference. It seems to function independently, but under the surface it is possible to discern indirect pressure. For example, the practice of appointing retired judges to commissions may well influence judges while they are on the bench. There may not be direct pressure to render decisions favorable to the executive, but certainly a judge who has “towed the government line” is more likely to be appointed by that same government to a position of prominence upon retirement.

Moreover, there is an absence of creative legal thinking. When the Guwahati High Court was presented with international law argument in People’s Union for Democratic Rights, the court ignored it. Justice Raghuvir said in a personal interview that the court could not use international law. If the government has signed an international convention like the ICCPR which requires the government to guarantee rights to its citizens, how can these be enforced if the judiciary does not turn to the text of the convention in its rendering of decisions? The courts are not turning to the spirit of the law which guarantees the fundamental right to life to all people and as a result violations of human rights go unchecked.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence and Impartiality of the Judiciary, Jurors and Assessors and the Independence of Lawyers, Mr Param Cumaraswamy, stated in the 51st Session of the Commission on Human Rights on 10 February 1995, at the United Nations in Geneva that,” The power of judicial review is vital for the protection of the rule of law.” He also quoted from Mr L M Singhvi’s 1985 report that “the strength of legal institutions is a form of insurance for the rule of law and for the observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms and for preventing the denial and miscarriage of justice.”

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6. RECOMMENDATIONS

The only way to guarantee that the human rights abuses perpetrated by the armed forces in the North East cease is to both repeal the AFSPA and remove the military from playing a civil role in the area. Indeed with 50% of the military forces in India acting in a domestic role, through internal security duties, there is a serious question as to whether the civil authority’s role is being usurped. As long as the local police are not relied on they will not be able to assume their proper role in law enforcement. The continued presence of the military forces prevents the police force from carrying out its functions. This also perpetuates the justification for the AFSPA.

Among the recommendations made by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, from 1994 was the statement that “Governments which have been maintaining states of emergency in force for many years should lift them, limit their effects or review the custodial measures that affect many persons, and in particular should apply the principle of proportionality rigorously.”

The National Human Rights Commission is now reviewing the AFSPA. Hopefully, the NHRC will find that the AFSPA is unconstitutional and will submit this finding to the Supreme Court to influence its review of the pending cases. However, the NHRC has a very limited role. In past cases, the Supreme Court has not welcomed such intervention by the NHRC. This was evident when the NHRC attempted to intervene in the hearing against the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).

If the AFSPA is not repealed, it must at a bare minimum comply with international law and Indian law standards. This means the powers to shoot to kill under section 4(a) must be unequivocally revoked. Arrests must be made with warrants and no force should be allowed in the search and seizure procedures. Section 5 should clearly state that persons arrested under the Act are to be handed over to the police within twenty-four hours. Section 6 should be completely repealed so that individuals who suffer abuses at the hands of the security forces may prosecute their abusers.

Moreover, the definition of key phrases, especially “disturbed area” must be clarified. The declaration that an area is disturbed should not be left to the subjective opinion of the Central or State Government. It should have an objective standard which is judicially reviewable. Moreover, the declaration that an area is disturbed should be for a specified amount of time, no longer than six months. Such a declaration should not persist without legislative review.

Armed forces should not be allowed to arrest or carry out any procedure on suspicion alone. All their actions should have an objective basis so that they are judicially reviewable. This will also assist those who file suit against the security forces.

All personnel acting in a law enforcement capacity should be trained according to the UN Code of Conduct for law enforcement personnel. The instructions and training given to the armed forces should be available to the public. Complete transparency should be established so that a public accountability is rendered possible.

Having the armed forces comply with the Indian CrPC would also be a bare minimum. The CrPC itself does not fully comply with international human rights standards, so making the AFSPA comply on its face with the CrPC provisions for the use of minimal force, arrest, search and seizure would only be a rudimentary step in reducing the abuses committed under the AFSPA.

If the Indian Government truly believes that the only way to handle the governance of the North Eastern states is through force, then it must allow the ICRC to intervene. This can only have a calming influence. Acceptance of ICRC services would demonstrate that the fighting parties want to bring an end to the violence. The ICRC’s involvement could help protect the residents of the North East who are currently trapped in the middle between insurgents and the military.

India Builds Defense against Dirty Nuclear Bombs

Indian defense scientists have built a defense against dirty nuclear bombs, in case an overt nuclear war breaks out, local media reported Tuesday. India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has built the defense against the dirty bombs — nuke defense equipment worth 12 billion rupees (24 million U.S. dollars) has been inducted into the armed forces, local daily The Times of India reported. These range from nerve agent detectors, dosimeters, portable gas chromatographs, autoject injectors and first-aid kits to integrated field shelters, respiratory masks and suits, roentgenometers, NBC reconnaissance vehicles and decontamination systems, the newspaper said.  The DRDO estimates that the military and civilian forces in India will need to induct defense equipment worth around 100 billion rupees (2 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years to guard against such asymmetric warfare, an official said.  “Today, 85 percent of NBC defense inventory held by armed forces has been developed by DRDO, and produced by defense public companies and around 60 private companies,” DRDO chief controller Dr. W. Selvamurthy was quoted as saying.

Siberia to separate from Russia to become a part of USA

 

The idea to separate Siberia and annex the territory to the United States of America has been engrossing the minds of Siberian separatists for a long time already. Surprisingly, or maybe not, they find the support from across the ocean.

Many, if not all Siberians, may think at times that the Siberian regions with their natural riches live poorly just because they have to give away a big part of their incomes to other territories of the Russian Federation. It is not a very popular idea in Siberia, of course, but it may visit people’s minds time and again. Some people even tried to put that idea into action: they decided to establish a political movement. The vain attempts did not lead to anything, but quantity may easily evolve into quality, especially if they find powerful forces of support.

A whole movement emerged during the recent population census in the Russian Federation. The movement promotes the idea to identify the nationality of those living in Siberia as the Siberians. A special group appeared on Facebook in the summer of the outgoing year. The members of the group believe that Siberia should become a part of the United States of America. The initiator of the strange movement, Vladimir Kiselyov, a 37-year-old resident of the city of Mezhdurechensk, believes that Siberia must get rid of the Moscow yoke. According to him, Siberia will not be able to become an independent state. The only way for the territory to prosper in the future is to become a part of the US.

“The referendum will be held with the help of the US administration. The US has successful experience in obtaining independence. After the referendum, Siberia will become a part of the territory of the United States, just like California and Alaska are, even though they were Russian colonies in the 19^th century,” Kiselyov said.

You may laugh at it, but the idea finds its followers in the US. US politician Zbigniew Brzezhinski, a well-known politician, put forward an idea during his speech at the Political Forum in Yaroslavl to create a new commonwealth from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The politician did not specify, from which end the movement was supposed to start, but judging upon Brzezhinski’s views, one shall assume that he was interested in the shortest way possible. It appears that America approaches the goal responsibly and begins to train managers to administer the new territories.

The Irkutsk State University has recently held a seminar with the participation of fifth-year students of the US-Siberian Department for Management and “Regionalistic Alternative to Siberia” Public Movement. The future graduates of the US-Siberian Department of the University analyzed the pluses and minuses of the future of the Siberian state, as well as the risks for its creation and existence. First priority was paid to the economic grounds of the state of Siberia,” the final report at the seminar said.

This is not a joke already. It goes about Russian specialists, the future elite of the Russian society, although this society is not actually Russian. It is also very alarming that such seminars are held at a higher educational institution, whose administration does not seem to care much about the propaganda of separatist ideas among its students.

Iran Warns U.S. Aircraft Carrier Not to Return to Gulf

Iran’s military sharpened its tone toward the United States on Tuesday with a blunt warning that an American aircraft carrier that left the Persian Gulf through the strategic Strait of Hormuz last week should not return.The warning, by Iran’s military chief, was the latest and most aggressive volley in a nearly daily exchange of barbed statements between Iran and the United States. Iran has just finished ambitious naval exercises near the strait, and it has repeatedly threatened to close the passage — through which roughly one-fifth of all the crude oil traded worldwide passes — if Western powers move forward with new sanctions on Iran’s petroleum exports. “We recommend to the American warship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz and went to Gulf of Oman not to return to the Persian Gulf,” said Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, the commander in chief of the army, as reported by Iran’s official news agency, IRNA. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will not repeat its warning.”General Salehi did not say what action Iran would take if the carrier were to re-enter the Persian Gulf. A spokesman for the Defense Department, Cmdr. Bill Speaks, declined to discuss future movements of the carrier, the John C. Stennis. He said that “the deployment of U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region will continue as it has for decades.” The United States dismissed Iran’s threats to close the strait. “The US Navy operates under international maritime conventions to maintain a constant state of high vigilance in order to ensure the continued safe flow of maritime traffic in waterways critical to global commerce,” Commander Speaks said.

Iran’s economy, already reeling from Western sanctionsover its nuclear program, has been hit hard by discussion of new sanctions aimed at its oil exports, the world’s third largest. President Obama signed new legislation on Saturday that could penalize buyers of Iranian oil, and the European Union has openly talked of a boycott of Iran’s oil. On Tuesday, France urged the European Union to adopt stricter sanctions, including an oil embargo, by the end of the month.

Iran’s currency, the rial, fell to record lows against the dollar on Tuesday, news agencies reported. Oil prices rose sharply in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, with the benchmark contract for crude up more than 4 percent to $102.91 a barrel.

The attempts by Iran’s leadership to flex the country’s muscles on the world stage coincide with efforts to stamp out dissent at home ahead of planned parliamentary elections in March, the first ballot to be held since a disputed presidential vote in 2009 prompted national protests and a severe crackdown.

On Tuesday, an Iranian court sentenced Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to six months in prison for spreading what it termed “propaganda against the Islamic system,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported. The court also barred her from engaging in any political, cultural or media activities for five years.

Last week, access to the Web site of Mr. Rafsanjani, who is widely perceived as having supported Mir Hussein Moussavi against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 election, was blocked in Iran.

Ms. Hashemi, a former Parliament member and an outspoken critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad, has been active in opposition politics; she was briefly detained last year after being accused of chanting antigovernment slogans during a banned rally in Tehran. She was also detained during a demonstration in 2009 over the disputed presidential election.

The government has prosecuted and convicted many opposition members since the 2009 street protests, but it has so far shied away from holding trials for Mr. Moussavi or Mehdi Karroubi, the principal opposition figures in Iran, who have been under house arrest for months.

While the Iranian leadership has offered assurances that reformist candidates will be permitted to run for office in the March elections, Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi have urged their supporters to stay home.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 4, 2012, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Iran Warns U.S. Aircraft Carrier Not to Return to Gulf and a Strategic Strait.

India likely to achieve three defence milestones in 2012

Indian defence saw many new things in 2011: the debut test of the 3,500 km range strategic Agni-IV missile, induction of new naval ships like INS Satpura and Deepak, initial operational clearance for the indigenous fighter Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas, and clearance for the setting up of an Officers Training Academy (OTA) at Gaya in Bihar. The Sunday Guardian examines some of the new milestones that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) hopes to achieve in 2012.

MMRCA

Medium multi-role combat aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF)
The deal for 126 fighters was shortlisted in April 2011, with just two contenders left out of six —French Rafale and European EADS’ Eurofighter Typhoon. The decision on the winner was expected anytime around mid-December, but has been postponed to early 2012. The original deal was for $12 billion, but when the commercial bids were opened on 4 November 2011, the price went up to $15 billion, and is expected to touch $18 billion when the contract is signed. The tenders were floated in 2007, during Air Chief F.H. Major’s tenure. The deal is likely to be inked in 2012 during Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne’s tenure. The aircraft will replace the ageing MiGs. The first 18 will be bought off-the-shelf and the remaining 108 will be made in India, under licence. The first fighter will fly four years after the deal is signed, which is in 2016, approximately 15 years after the statement of case was made by the IAF for the first time.

AGNI-V

Strategic 5,000 km range nuclear-tipped indigenous missile
Buoyed by the success of the two-stage 20-m long Agni-IV, weighing 17 tonnes, carrying 800-kg conventional explosives, the Defence Research and Defence Organisation (DRDO) is all set to test the 5,000-km plus range strategic Agni-V indigenous missile.

Agni -IV is test fired off the Orissa coast in November. PTI

The debut test-launch was slated for 2011, but has been delayed to February 2012. It will put India in an elite club of ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) owners.

The Agni-IV has more than a 3,000 km range and was earlier called Agni-II Prime. The first flight of Agni-II Prime in December 2010 was a failure.

Admiral Gorshkov

Aircraft carrier, rechristened INS Vikramaditya

Indian Navy crew began training in Russia aboard the 44,570 tonne Russian carrier Admiral Gorshkov in April 2011. To be rechristened INS Vikramaditya, the carrier will be inducted in the Indian fleet after she’s commissioned in Russia on 4 December 2012. The deal, when inked in January 2004, was valued at $974 million. A fresh deal was signed with a new price tag of $2.3 billion in early 2010.

The deal will also be remembered for Commodore Sukhjinder Singh, who was dismissed from service in early 2011, after his illegitimate liaison with a Russian woman came to light. He met her during his tenure in Russia to oversee the refit of Gorshkov. An inquiry was held to ascertain whether Singh had in any way influenced the final price. There has been speculation about whether he was honey-trapped.

After the ship is commissioned in Russia in December 2012, she will take a month to reach India. India will now get Gorshkov in 2013, instead of the earlier August 2008. Captain Suraj Berry, posted in Mumbai, is tipped to be the first commissioning Indian Commanding Officer of the carrier.

Russia Hands Over Nuke Sub Nerpa to India: Report

MOSCOW – Russia has handed over a nuclear-powered conflict submarine Nerpa to India following some-more than dual years of delays, a comparison naval central was quoted as observant Dec. 30.

“The signing rite happened yesterday during a Bolshoi Kamen boat building trickery in a (Far East) Primorye segment where a Nerpa is now based,” a central in a naval arch of staff told ITAR-TASS.

Russian reports pronounced an Indian organisation would journey a Akula II category qualification to a home bottom during a finish of Jan after receiving it on a 10-year franchise that has hurt India’s arch-rival Pakistan and resulted in plea threats.

The qualification is due to strech a Bay of Bengal bottom of Visakhapatnam underneath a Indian dwindle in Feb and be consecrated by a navy in March.

“All of a naval tests and opening checks have been completed,” a Russian central said. “The organisation will start creation themselves feel during home on house a qualification after New Year and start sailing it to India in a latter half of January.”

An unnamed Russian central during a Amur district trickery where a Nerpa was built combined that a “Indian side is entirely confident by a volume and peculiarity of a tests” finished on a Nerpa during sea.

The Nerpa will be a initial nuclear-powered submarine to be operated by India in scarcely dual decades after it decommissioned a final such Soviet-built vessel in 1991.

India is completing a growth of a possess Arihant-classnuclear-powered ballistic submarines and a Nerpa’s smoothness is approaching to assistance crews sight for a domestic boat’s introduction into use subsequent year.

The Russian Pacific pier rite was hold on a same day that a shipyard glow engulfed a Northern Fleet’s Yekaterinburg nuclear-powered vital submarine in a Murmansk segment on a conflicting side of a country.

The Nerpa had primarily been due to be handed over to India in 2009 though gifted several problems during testing. It suffered a fumble during trials in a Sea of Japan in Nov 2008 that killed 20 sailors when a glow extinguisher expelled a lethal chemical that was incidentally installed into a system.

Media reports pronounced that some of a ship’s apparatus malfunctioned during contrast and that a weapons navigation complement did not work to India’s specifications.

The 8,140-ton vessel can glow a operation of torpedoes as good as Granat journey missiles that can be nuclear-tipped. India has betrothed not to arm a submarine with nuclear-tipped journey missiles underneath a obligations to general treaties it adopted after conducting a array of atomic tests in a 1990s.

But a craft’s smoothness has still dissapoint Pakistan.

“Rest assured, there will be no concede in terms of progressing a credit of a deterrence,” Pakistan unfamiliar bureau orator Abdul Basit was quoted as observant by The Asian Age journal this week.

The submarine is due to be consecrated as a INS Chakra in India underneath a2004 agreement that has seen a South Asian hulk compensate $650 million in construction costs.

Newspaper reports in India pronounced New Delhi might finish adult profitable as most as $900 million underneath a terms of a deal. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agencies valued a agreement during $920 million.

Russia reserve 70 percent of India’s troops hardware though New Delhi has been unfortunate about delays to arms orders from Moscow and has looked to other suppliers including Israel and a United States in new years.

Army Chief opposes withdrawal of AFSPA

NEW DELHI: Indian Army chief Gen V.K. Singh has opposed the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from parts of Jammu and Kashmir anytime soon, saying this could result in the “emergence of terror sanctuaries and safe havens”.He said one summer of peace does not mean normalcy has returned to the troubled border state and warned that if the contentious special powers are withdrawn, the army would feel constrained in operating against terror groups if the situation deteriorates.”The partial revocation of AFSPA will result in the emergence of sanctuaries and safe havens for terrorists while the army will be constrained from operating against them,” Singh said in an interview in the coming issue of the defence ministry’s official organ Sainik Samachar.He also noted that there were issues regarding the “safety” of army personnel, company operating bases, units, installations, headquarters located in non-AFSPA areas and protection of convoys moving through them.”One should not view the security situation of reduced violence in one summer, but allow consolidation of the gains made, before taking a call on revocation of AFSPA,” he said to a question on why the army is opposing the partial withdrawal of the law from Jammu and Kashmir.”Just one summer of peace does not mean normalcy,” he added.Singh also pointed out that though the army did not operate in some parts of Kashmir now, it could be called upon to do so if required in those areas too since AFSPA is still applicable.”If AFSPA is revoked, the army will not have the legal protection to operate even if the situation goes bad. Diluting AFSPA in any form will be, therefore, detrimental to the national interest,” he said.Placing the blame for the violence in Jammu and Kashmir at the doorstep of Pakistan, the army chief said the state has been affected by the neighbouring country-sponsored proxy war over the last two decades.”Though quantum of violence has decreased, the terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir remains intact. The support of Pakistan establishment in aiding and abetting the terrorists continues unabated,” he said.”The security forces are combating heavily armed and trained terrorists. The operational flexibility of the troops will be severely restricted and efforts to further stabilise and consolidate the situation in Jammu and Kashmir will receive a setback,” he added.The issue of partial withdrawal of AFSPA was raised by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the middle of last year, citing the decreasing violence in some districts of the state. He also received support from Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram.However, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and the armed forces have opposed the move tooth and nail, resulting in the central and the state governments agreeing to discuss the issue further before a decision is taken on the revocation of the law that some human rights activists dub as “draconian”.

U.S. has ‘nuclear superiority’ over Russia

Data published by the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday indicates that the United States has some 300 more deployed nuclear weapons than Russia.

According to New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms facts sheet, posted on the State Department’s website, the United States has 822 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers, while Russia has 516.

Russia is also at a disadvantage in the number of warheads on deployed carriers – 1,566 warheads against 1,790 American warheads.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which entered into force on February 5, 2011, commits the United States and the Russian Federation to reduce and limit the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic offensive arms to the agreed aggregate numbers.

Beginning April 6, 2011, inspections under the New START Treaty are regularly conducted in the Russian Federation and the United States with consistent data exchange carried out every six months.

To date, the U.S. has conducted twelve inspections while Russia has conducted eleven inspections. These inspections have taken place at ICBM, SLBM, and heavy bomber bases, storage facilities, conversion or elimination facilities, and test ranges.

Third Sukhoi T -50 stealth fighter ‘to fly soon’

Russia’s third prototype Sukhoi T-50 fifth generation fighter will be ready to take to the skies in the near future, a military industry source said on Thursday.

The T-50 fifth-generation fighter

“It will fly when the designers are absolutely confident in their product,” the source said.

The assembly of the fourth fighter is “in the final stages of completion,” he added.

The T-50 made its maiden flight in January and two prototypes have since been undergoing flight tests.

The T-50, developed under the program PAK FA (Future Aviation System for Tactical Air Force) at the Sukhoi OKB, is Russia’s first new major warplane designed since the fall of the Soviet Union.

It is expected to enter service in 2016.

US to sell India six more Super Hercules airlifters for $1.2bn

New York: India is about to ink yet another $1.2-billion deal with the US to procure six more Lockheed Martin-manufactured C-130J Super Hercules airlifters, even as the Indian Air Force gears up for intensive training on the first six of these US military tactical cargo planes.

If there’s one issue that still enjoys bipartisan support in the US Congress these days, it’s that co-operating with India on military acquisitions would be a swell idea. The Pentagon notified the US Congress on Thursday about India’s planned purchase under a government-to-government foreign military sales (FMS) arrangement.

Analysts expect the proposed sale to be green lighted by December. Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne has indicated that he expects a formal agreement with the US by January 2012.

“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the US by helping to improve the security of an important partner and to strengthen the US-India strategic relationship,” the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in a notification to the Congress.

The proposed sale is expected to provide India with a “credible special operations airlift capability that will help deter aggression in the region” and provide enhanced humanitarian assistance and disaster relief support.

The C-130 has been in continuous production since 1954 and more than 2,300 Hercules have been built for 67 countries. The improvements built into the C-130J, which entered production in 1997, have enhanced the performance of the plane in terms of its range, cruise ceiling time to climb, speed and airfield requirements.

This deal is estimated at roughly $1.2 billion, covering six aircraft with six spare engines, eight AN/AAR-47 missile warning systems, eight AN/ALR-56M advanced radar warning receivers, eight AN/ALE-47 counter-measures dispensing systems (two of them spares), eight AAQ-22 Star SAFIRE III special operations suites, eight ARC-210 radios and 3,200 flare cartridges.

India’s first six Hercules airlifters were acquired for $1.1 billion with a big training and support package with abundant spares and special equipment.

New Delhi is aware that many of its purchases are big-ticket items. Under current Indian rules, foreign companies that win orders in excess of about $62 million, must draw at least 30 percent of that order from domestic suppliers or make a similarly sized investment within India, in what is known as an offset. Under that agreement, Lockheed Martin set up an advanced simulator at IAF’s Hindon airbase where the first batch of C-130J Super Hercules airlifters is located.

The second batch of planes would be based out of Charbatia in Orissa to serve the country’s northeastern region and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands which have been buzzing with military activity as India bolsters its maritime defences. The cluster of 572 islands lies just 175 miles south of mainland Myanmar, a close ally of China.

A recent Congressional Research Service report found that India was the biggest buyer of conventional arms among developing nations in 2010 and had global defence giants lining up to capture $5.8 billion in new deals. As China grows wealthier and builds up its military, other nations in the region like India really don’t have a choice but to amass weapons of their own.

India had long focussed its military planning on Pakistan, and Pakistan-based militants, but it is now growing more worried about feuding with China over the border they share in the Himalayas, where China continues to claim land in Arunachal Pradesh.

India’s defence budget, which is roughly $32 billion for the year ending 31 March, has increased 151 percent  in the past decade. Given the hostile neighborhood that India is wedged in, the government expects military spending to grow at about 8.33 percent annually in the coming years.

India, Japan discuss nuclear pact

Notwithstanding its own nuclear disaster, Japan on Saturday assured India of taking forward the civil nuclear cooperation during the fifth bilateral Strategic Dialogue, which covered discussions on key areas, including defence and trade.

New Delhi also conveyed its appreciation to Japan for its decision to remove seven Indian entities from a banned list, paving the way for bilateral high-technology trade.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and his Japanese counterpart Koichiro Gemba held comprehensive talks here after which Mr. Krishna said, “My aim…is to take our partnership to an even higher level.”

“I also discussed with Foreign Minister Gemba the status of civil nuclear cooperation between our countries…We have had three rounds of negotiations on this subject. After my discussions today, I am optimistic on this score,” he said.

Noting that Japan has removed seven Indian entities from its Foreign End User List this year, Mr. Krishna said this would boost high-technology trade between the two countries.

“One of the entities removed from this List is Indian Rare Earths Limited. We now look forward to greater cooperation between Indian and Japanese firms in the rare earth sector,” he said.

Thanking the Japanese government for its consistent support to India’s developmental effort by means of its ODA or Official Development Assistance, Mr. Krishna said: “This year, Japan has maintained the level of ODA for India despite its focus on reconstruction activity after the earthquake and tsunami.

“This is a strong vote of confidence in India’s growth story and exhibits the importance Japan attaches to our Strategic Partnership.”

After the successful joint cooperation in establishing the metro rail network, Japan has also proposed to help India in bringing high-speed bullet trains to the country.

Mr. Gemba said Japanese companies were “very keen” on offering support for bullet trains and open to joint ventures with the Indian government or companies in implementing the project.

He said they were ready with their study report regarding bullet train projects on the Delhi, Agra, Bangalore, Chennai route and the Bangalore-Hyderabad route.

He said the freight corridor project between Delhi and Mumbai and the high-speed bullet train network are on Japan’s immediate support list to India.

The Japanese Foreign Minister also emphasised the need to strengthen maritime security and combating piracy.

Mr. Krishna said 2012 will mark the 60th anniversary year of the establishment of India-Japan diplomatic relations and the two sides also discussed how to celebrate the “momentous occasion.”

He also suggested to the Japanese side the possibility of the navies of India and Japan conducting bilateral exercises besides multilateral ones.

“Our Defence Minister will be in Tokyo in a few days and will discuss this subject in greater detail with his counterpart,” Mr. Krishna said.

“We also discussed the India-Japan-United States trilateral dialogue. We agreed that it will be held very soon. It will cover regional and international issues of concern to all three countries,” he said.

Mr. Krishna also expressed confidence that trade and investment between the two countries would increase exponentially as a result of the implementation of the bilateral Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) since August 1 this year.
“India, a great friend”

Later, in an unusual gesture of warmth, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda received Mr. Krishna at his residence and termed India “a great friend” of Japan.

He said he was looking forward to his visit to Delhi in December and spoke in favour of further encouraging economic ties. “I am confident of further increase in trade and investment between the two countries,” the Prime Minister said.

Infantry Day celebrated at Mhow

INDORE: Infantry School at Mhow celebrated Infantry Day on Friday. The day is celebrated to commemorate the landing of the first regiment of the Indian Army in Srinagar 64years ago to defend Kashmir.

Speaking on the occasion Lt Gen KJS Oberoi, commandant of Infantry School stressed on the tradition of Infantry soldiers to get associated with humanitarian relief in natural calamities and shouldering additional responsibilities in peace keeping mission to bring global peace on behalf of the United Nations.

Infantry operates in all types of terrain be it air, land, water, mountains, glaciated super high altitude area, desert, riverine etc. It is this trait which has earned it the coveted of ‘Queen of the Battle’, he said.