US-India Friendship

The objective of this blog is to discuss issues relating to US India relations, cooperation and friendship with the overall purpose being to bring the two largest democracies closer together. Special emphasis will be on the people-to-people relationship. While constructive criticism is welcome, nothing that borders on hate or destructive criticism will be allowed.

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Location: New York, United States

Monday, May 26, 2008

US and India: Uses of NONLETHAL Weapons for National Security

Dr. D V Giri is a Harvard Ph. D and one of America's leading researchers in high-power electro-magnetics. He has written an insightful and path-breaking book, published by Harvard University Press, which focuses on "the science and technology of nonlethal weapon systems."

What are nonlethal weapon systems?

The effectiveness of weapons has advanced over the centuries -- their purpose being to outsmart and overpower one's enemy, accomplished primarily through the use of lethal force. From bows and arrows, to nuclear and biological weapons, the mission is to kill the opponent. Modern weaponry far exceeds the early forms of weaponry in terms of carnage and destruction yielded, including the ability to wipe out entire countries with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons. However, throughout the ages, each new level of weapon sophistication and lethality has presented new concerns: how to eradicate powerful armies without wiping out the surrounding civilian population. In other words, can we win a conflict without excessive collateral damage and without exposing our own forces to excessive risk?

The major modern themes in weapons innovation have been on accuracy , precision and controllability. Precision can ultimately reach a point where rather than just targeting specific buildings, specific pieces of equipment, or people, they can be targeted from a safe distance away. Controllability can also be achieved by weapons that disable instead of destroy. These weapons may be able to disable people or equipment without any permanent major damage.

Information is becoming the battlefield in the modern age. Communication and coordination are vital to the modern army. If the adversary's communication links can be effectively destroyed, this can present an important strategic advantage. The future battlefield can, thus, be thought of as an information battlefield which may be just as fierce, but may turn out to be much less lethal than traditional battlefields.

Dr Giri affirms that lethal weaponry as the only source of protection and defense is a concept that may soon be outdated. In the 21st century, new strategies and weapons are becoming available that are nonlethal in nature and designed to minimize casualties on all sides.

Nonlethal weapons generally are "life conserving and environmentally friendly".

Nonlethal weapons are of two kinds: a) Conventional -- tear gas, plastic bullets, tasers, sprays; b) Unconventional -- high-power microwaves, low energy lasers, acoustic weapons.

The new frontier and the area that offers the most potential for nonlethal weapons is within the unconventional category.

There are two types of life-conserving unconventional nonlethal technologies (NLT), that greatly minimize the killing of soldiers and civilian noncombatants:

1) Anti-material nonlethal technologies -- designed to destroy or impair hardware, munitions, electronics, or in other ways to stop the enemy's systems from functioning.

2) Anti-personnel nonlethal technologies -- impairs the functioning of people without causing lasting serious physiological damage.

Nonlethal technologies can be implemented at a minimal cost and will expand the options available to all levels on the defense continuum from domestic crime to strategic war.

The value of nonlethal defense lies first as a means for assessing the enemy's weaknesses. The other important function concerns its role for targeting the enemy's critical assets without harming the people associated with those networks.

Nonlethal weapons (NLW) hold the potential for playing an active role in six key areas: psychological operations, mobility denial, vision denial, communications denial, close combat, and paralysis of administrative/logistical infrastructures.

NLW systems could also be used to disable sensor systems, communications, computers, enemy weapons, and air, sea and ground vehicles. NLWs possess both defensive and offensive capabilities. Their introductions to current defense systems are expected to profoundly impact the direction and outcome of conflict.

As Clausewitz said (quoted by Giri): "The supreme object of war is to render the enemy incapable of resistance".

CYBER WARS AND TECHNO-WARRIORS:

Some NLWs are a result of the technological advances in information systems. By the year 2020, one computer would be as powerful as all the computers in Silicon Valley today. Research and development in "information warfare" hopes to transform the way wars are fought.

NLT currently being researched, will be used to confound, confuse, harass, and otherwise debilitate the perpetrator, in short to stop him in his path without killing him or blowing up the road. Examples of such devices include laser rifles that will temporarily blind the enemy or compromise his optical-sensing gear, low frequency infra-sound generators that can trigger nausea and bowel spasms, electronics-disrupting pulses of electromagnetic radiation that are emitted by RF (Radio Frequency) weapons, slick and sticky chemicals that can make roads and railways impassable (either through sticky glue or extreme slipperiness), and biological agents made to "chew up" assets.

A non-nuclear electromagnetic-pulse (NNEMP) "bomb", when used against a financial institution such as a bank, can scramble the electronics of the computer and communications systems , thus incapacitating the entire operations of that institution.

Computer viruses can be fed into the enemy's switching networks and cause massive failure to the country's telephone system. Technology-warriors can jam the communications equipment of enemy armies. Using electronic technology the armed forces can send out incorrect information to enemy forces, rendering their systems virtually useless. These techno-warriors can also jam the signals for the enemy's government television stations and actually insert "morphed" television announcements. And finally, "logic-bombs" can shut down the mainframe computers that run the enemy country's air-traffic control system and route its railroads. In this way, enemy planes end up at the wrong airports and railcars carrying military supplies are misdirected.

Giri makes it clear that NLTs are not intended to replace lethal weaponry. Rather they are intended to supplement our current approach and to increase our options.

CIVILIAN AND MILITARY SCENARIOS WHERE NLW CAN BE BENEFICIALLY APPLIED

Civilian law enforcement scenarios: automobile chase in approaching criminals, illegal border crossing between nations, snipers shooting at civilians, certain hostage situations, suicide attack against public places, riverboats carrying contraband, and trucks carrying contraband.

Military scenarios: unarmed crowds blocking a convoy, armed civilians blocking a convoy, peace enforcement and support efforts, suicide attacks against military facilities, large numbers of unarmed civilians hiding armed individuals, area denial and perimeter security, enforcement of no-fly zones by attacking air defense facilities, violation of demilitarized zones (eg: tunnelling through the DMZ in Korea), deny successful mission to hostile aircraft and incoming missiles.

An example of NLW: Active Denial Technology. This uses millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy to stop, deter and turn back an advancing adversary from relatively long range. It will save countless lives by providing a way to stop individuals without causing injury , before a deadly confrontation develops.

NON-ELECTROMAGNETIC NLWS

These are optical, acoustic, and chemical NLW technologies.

Optical NLWs can be broken down into four basic categories: 1) Low-Energy Laser (LEL) Weapons, 2) Isotropic Radiators, 3) LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and 4) Visual Stimulation and Illusion (VSI).

LEL weapons -- man-portable nonlethal weapons resemble conventional rifles and can be powered by portable battery parks or other conventional electrical sources. They can flash-blind people and disable optical and infrared systems used in target acquisition, tracking, night vision and range finding. They provide law enforcement with an additional option that is nonlethal.

Isotropic Radiators are special munitions that illuminate with laser-bright intensity. These illuminations act the same way as LEL weapons They can be packaged for airdrops, fired aloft from mortars or artillery, or used by hand. They are effective against aircraft, in the dark, or when people look toward the light.

LIDAR, or light detection and ranging, can be used for plume identification as well as for sensor blinding. LIDAR systems could identify the plume of covert drug manufacturers or other illicit processes, pinpointing manufacturing sites. LIDAR may be used as either an offensive weapon or as a sophisticated type of sensor.

VSI (Visual Stimulus and Illusion) -- employs high intensity strobe lights that flash at a frequency that causes vertigo, disorientation and vomitting. This technology can be effective if the facility is installed in airports, security check points, banks and prisons. Law enforcement vehicles equipped with banks of high intensity strobe lights and power generators might be dispatched within minutes to riot or hostage-barricade situations. When VSI weapons are combined with infrasound technology they create a very effective nonlethal disabling package.

Acoustic NLW Technologies are of two categories -- Acoustic Weapons and Voice Recognition Technologies (VRT). These weapons are intended to disable individuals and communication systems.

Chemical NLW technologies include those technologies of polymers, acids, sedatives, and other agents designed to disable equipment and humans, but not to kill people. Current chemical NLW include Liquid Metal Embrittlement, Supercaustics, Calmative Agents, Anti-traction, Polymers, Combustion Alteration, Entanglements and Foams.

Thus, there are a variety of NLWs that can be used to defend and protect ourselves from threatening forces with or without the use of LWs.

Giri's less than 300 page book -- its full title is "High-Power Electromagnetic Radiators: NonlethalWeapons and Other Applications" -- has 7 chapters and 5 Appendices. Three of the chapters and all the appendices are highly technical: to understand them one needs to be strong in higher mathematics. However, there are 4 chapters which the layman can follow. I have summarized the contents of the four chapters in the foregoing paragraphs.

Giri has plans to write one more book on this subject tentatively titled
"Bloodless Wars" which he expects would appeal to a wider audience. He tells me that "Very complicated matters can sometimes be described in simple terms".


Meanwhile, some very important questions call for answers:

1) Are NLT weapons being currently used by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq? If so, how effective are they?

2) Is India employing NLT weapons to fight terrorists and insurgents in Kashmir and elsewhere in the country?

3) Is the US law enforcement system using NLT weapons to outwit hostage-takers?

4) Is India's law enforcement system employing NLT weapons to tackle civil riots? The latest incident involving the Gujjars in Rajasthan resulted in police firing and the death of a number of people. Could the deaths have been avoided and the riots better managed by using suitable NLT weapons?

5) Will democracies like the US and India be able to stay ahead of authoritarian and militarily fast growing countries like China so that their continued superiority in NLT weapons (apart from LT weapons) will act as a severe deterrent to any possible future Chinese attempts to tamper with their computer and communication systems or grab Indian territory or be overassertive in the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean areas?

6) How do democracies like the US and India stay ahead in building effective defense mechanisms against ALL NLT weapons being developed by countries like China? An example would be against computer viruses that can be fed into our switching networks and cause massive failures in our telephone systems?. Also cyber attacks in recent months on government computers in India by Chinese hackers. "The challenge will be in harnessing our advanced technologies into powerful weapons that cannot be used against us." India needs to let the Chinese know that if India is affected, China would be more than harmed in equal terms, electronically.

7) Since China has shown a strong propensity to steal, through espionage or otherwise, advanced US technology in restricted areas, the US needs to make fool proof arrangements to protect its vital technologies. Increasingly, this caution will apply to India too.

8) How do nations such as the US and India ensure that terrorists and other non-state hostile elements within their boundaries or outside do NOT acquire or develop NLT weapons?

Finally, Isn't it time the US and India actively collaborate to develop cutting edge NLT weapons, to stay well ahead of China, and also join forces in training their armed forces, anti-terrorist forces and law enforcement systems in using the most effective NLT weapons?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Time for the US, India and the world to start drastically cutting consumption of petroleum and petroleum products‏

If, as the following article predicts, a “super spike” — a price surge will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel, it would mean, as Thomas Friedman says in another article in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/opinion/21friedman.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Thomas+Friedman&st=nyt&oref=slogin):

a "huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians" from countries like the US and India. ’According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft, with oil at $200 a barrel, OPEC could "potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days." ’

The time has come for the US, India and world to develop an alternative energy policy that would involve a drastic cut in the consumption of petroleum and petroleum products over the next decade or so.

The article below gives some pointers as to how this can be done.

Ram Narayanan
US-India Friendship
http://usindiafriendship.net/


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/21oil.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1211404736-fVXuPtJiB4gGw/r3H8BtPg

THE NEW YORK TIMES

An Oracle of Oil Predicts $200-a-Barrel Crude

By LOUISE STORY
Published: May 21, 2008

Arjun N. Murti remembers the pain of the oil shocks of the 1970s. But he is bracing for something far worse now: He foresees a “super spike” — a price surge that will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel.
Mr. Murti, who has a bit of a green streak, is not bothered much by the prospect of even higher oil prices, figuring it might finally prompt America to become more energy efficient.

An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted oil would breach $100 a barrel. Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record on Tuesday, touching $129.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas at $4 a gallon is arriving just in time for those long summer drives.

Mr. Murti, 39, argues that the world’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for oil means prices will keep rising from here and stay above $100 into 2011. Others disagree, arguing that prices could abruptly tumble if speculators in the market rush for the exits. But the grim calculus of Mr. Murti’s prediction, issued in March and reconfirmed two weeks ago, is enough to give anyone pause: in an America of $200 oil, gasoline could cost more than $6 a gallon.

That would be fine with Mr. Murti, who owns not one but two hybrid cars. “I’m actually fairly anti-oil,” says Mr. Murti, who grew up in New Jersey. “One of the biggest challenges our country faces is our addiction to oil.”

Mr. Murti is hardly alone in predicting higher oil prices. Boone Pickens, the oilman turned corporate raider, said Tuesday that crude would hit $150 this year. But many analysts are no longer so sure where oil is going, at least in the short term. Some say prices will fall as low as $70 a barrel by year-end, according to Thomson Financial.

Experts disagree over the supply of oil, the demand for it and whether recent speculation in the commodities markets has artificially raised prices. As an energy analyst at Citigroup, Tim Evans, reportedly put it, trading commodities these days is like “sticking your hand in a blender.”

Whatever the case, oil analysts like Mr. Murti have suddenly taken on the aura that enveloped technology analysts in the 1990s.

“It’s become a very fashionable area to write about,” said Kevin Norrish, a commodity analyst at Barclays Capital, which began predicting high oil prices around the same time as Goldman. “And to try to get attention from people, people are coming out with all sorts of numbers.”

This was not always the case. In the 1990s, oil research was a sleepy area at banks. Many analysts assumed oil prices would hover near $15 to $20 a barrel forever. If prices rose much above those levels, they figured, consumers would start conserving, suppliers would raise production, or both, causing prices to decline.

But around the turn of the century, oil company after oil company started missing predicted production. Mr. Murti, who covers oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy, decided to study the oil spikes of the 1970s.

Since starting his career at Petrie Parkman & Company, a Denver-based investment firm acquired by Merrill Lynch in 2006, he had been conservative in his calls on oil. But by 2004, he concluded the world was headed for a long supply shock that would push prices through the roof. That summer, as oil traded for about $40 a barrel, Mr. Murti coined what has become his signature phrase: super spike.

The following March, he drew attention by predicting prices would soar to $105, sending shock waves through the market. Angry investors questioned whether Goldman’s own oil traders benefited from the prediction. At Goldman’s annual meeting, Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the bank’s chief executive and now Treasury secretary, found himself defending Mr. Murti.

“Our traders were as surprised as everyone else was,” Mr. Paulson reportedly said. “Our research department is totally independent. Our trading departments have no say about this.”

Over time, Mr. Murti was proved right again. Oil crossed $100 in February. Mr. Murti’s forecasts now feed into many of Goldman’s economic and corporate forecasts, affecting research of companies like Ford and Procter & Gamble. His research is distributed widely among investors.

“Even if you disagree with their views, the problem is that Goldman does carry so much credibility,” said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president for global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA. “There are a lot of traders who are going to buy based on their reports.”

His sudden fame unsettles Mr. Murti. He rarely grants interviews, citing concerns about privacy, and he declined to be photographed for this article. He is not the bank’s only gas prognosticator: Jeffrey R. Currie predicts oil prices out of London.

Mr. Murti, for his part, discounts suggestions that his reports affect market prices. “Whenever an analyst upgrades a stock or downgrades a stock, sometimes you get a reaction that day, but beyond a day, fundamentals win out,” he said.

Mr. Murti falls into the camp of oil analysts who believe that supply is likely to remain tight because of geopolitical factors. These analysts predict higher prices because production is declining in non-OPEC countries like Britain, Norway and Mexico.

The analysts who predict lower prices say there are supplies of oil that the bullish analysts are missing. “This year will be a year in which supply will be put into the market by stealth by OPEC and by countries we call black-hole countries,” said Edward L. Morse, chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers. China is one example, he said.

But while oil and gas prices have been rising for a while now, Americans have only just begun to reduce gasoline consumption, so their efforts to conserve have not dragged down oil prices.

“The fact that the U.S. gasoline demand can be down and that the U.S. gasoline consumer is no longer driving world oil prices is a monumental event,” Mr. Murti says. He spends most of his time talking to money managers and analysts, many of whom keep asking him if oil prices will stay high if speculators abandon the market, and says he applauds investors for driving up oil prices, since that will spur investment in alternative sources of energy.

High prices, he says, “send a message to consumers that you should try your best to buy fuel-efficient cars or otherwise conserve on energy.” Washington should create tax incentives to encourage people to buy hybrid cars and develop more nuclear energy, he said.

Of course, if lawmakers heed his advice, oil analysts like him might one day be a thing of the past. That’s fine with Mr. Murti.

“The greatest thing in the world would be if in 15 years we no longer needed oil analysts,” he says.

_____________________________________________

Friday, May 09, 2008

India's Rural Poverty and Maoist Insurgency

Here is a wake up call for all of us who are interested in India’s progress.

Naxalite insurgency is spreading. (Please see BUSINESSWEEK article below).

While the law enforcement machinery must be adequately strengthened, the real solution lies in addressing the issue of poverty of the tribals and of the other rural poor who inhabit some 200 districts of India that have been declared backward and where poverty levels are worse than elsewhere in the country.

India’s business corporations have grown rich since the opening up of the economy -- there are many whose revenues exceed a billion dollars per annum and are continuing to expand their operations.

If they will each care to adopt a few districts and focus singlemindedly on eliminating poverty, the naxalite movement can be marginalized in five years. The example of Byrraju Foundation set up be the Satyam group of companies to promote healthcare, education, and improve livelihood in remote villages, is one example of how Indian industry can go about transforming villages. The Foundation currently operates in 189 villages in 6 districts of Andhra Pradesh (http://www.byrrajufoundation.org/) .

The urgent need is for India’s top companies (including all the mining companies) to join hands and adopt all the 200 backward districts, among themselves, and follow the Satyam or any other proven model of rural development.

Will CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and ASSOCHAM (Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry) convene a joint action-oriented meeting to discuss and take action on this specific issue?

I am aware that CII recently convened its annual meeting, where the issue of poverty was discussed. However, going by one leading commentator’s review, it looks like it was only a talking session, with a few good ideas thrown in. No specific India-wide action plan emerged from that meeting (http://www.indianexpress.com/story/305005.html).

It’s tme the three powerful Indian business organizations take the initiative to convene a joint meeting specifically to take action on allotting the 200 backward districts to India’s corporates and hold them to a time-bound poverty-elimination action plan .

Ram Narayanan
US-India Friendship
http://usindiafriendship.net/


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_20/b4084044908374.htm?link_position=link1

BUSINESSWEEK

MAY 7, 2008

In India, Death to Global Business
How a violent—and spreading—Maoist insurgency threatens the country’s runaway growth

by Manjeet Kripalani

On the night of Apr. 24, a group of 300 men and women, armed with bows and arrows and sickles and led by gun-wielding commanders, emerged swiftly and silently from the dense forest in India’s Chhattisgarh state. The guerrillas descended on an iron ore processing plant owned by Essar Steel, one of India’s biggest companies. There the attackers torched the heavy machinery on the site, plus 53 buses and trucks. Press reports say they also left a note: Stop shipping local resources out of the state—or else.

The assault on the Essar facility was the work of Naxalites—Maoist insurgents who seek the violent overthrow of the state and who despise India’s landowning and business classes. The Naxalites have been slowly but steadily spreading through the countryside for decades. Few outside India have heard of these rebels, named after the Bengal village of Naxalbari, where their movement started in 1967. Not many Indians have thought much about the Naxalites, either. The Naxalites mostly operate in the remote forests of eastern and central India, still a comfortable remove from the bustle of Mumbai and the thriving outsourcing centers of Gurgaon, New Delhi, and Bangalore.

Yet the Naxalites may be the sleeper threat to India’s economic power, potentially more damaging to Indian companies, foreign investors, and the state than pollution, crumbling infrastructure, or political gridlock. Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth—and just when foreign companies are joining the party—the Naxalites are clashing with the mining and steel companies essential to India’s long-term success. The threat doesn’t stop there. The Naxalites may move next on India’s cities, where outsourcing, finance, and retailing are thriving. Insurgents who embed themselves in the slums of Mumbai don’t have to overrun a call center to cast a pall over the India story. "People in the cities think India is strong and Naxalism will fizzle out," says Bhibhu Routray, the top Naxal expert at New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management. "Yet considering what has happened in Nepal"—where Maoists have just taken over the government—"it could happen here as well. States, capitals, districts could all be taken over."

Officials at the highest levels of government are starting to acknowledge the scale of the Naxal problem. In May a special report from the Planning Commission, a government think tank, detailed the extent of the danger and the "collective failure" in social and economic policy that caused it. The report comes five months after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shocked the country with a candid admission: "The Naxal groups…are targeting all aspects of economic activity…[including] vital infrastructure so as to cripple transport and logistical capabilities and slow down any development. [We] cannot rest in peace until we have eliminated this virus."

Why such rhetoric now about a movement that has coexisted with the rest of India for more than 40 years? One reason is the widening reach of the Naxalites. Today they operate in 30% of India, up from 9% in 2002. Almost 1,400 Indians were killed in Naxal violence in 2007, according to the Asian Center for Human Rights.

Collision Course

The other reason for sounding the alarm stems from the increasingly close proximity between the corporate world and the forest domain of the Naxalites. India’s emergence as a hot growth market depended at first on the tech outsourcing boom in Bangalore and elsewhere. Now the world is discovering the skill and productivity of India’s manufacturers as well. Meanwhile India’s affluent urban consumers have started buying autos, appliances, and homes, and they’re demanding improvements in the country’s roads, bridges, and railroads. To stoke Indian manufacturing and satisfy consumers, the country needs cement, steel, and electric power in record amounts. In steel alone, India almost has to double capacity from 60 million tons a year now to 110 million tons. "We need a suitable social and economic environment to meet this national challenge," says Essar Steel chief Jatinder Mehra.

Instead there’s a collision with the Naxalites. India has lots of unmined iron ore and coal—the essential ingredients of steel and electric power. Anxious to revive their moribund economies, the poor but resource-rich states of eastern India have given mining and land rights to Indian and multinational companies. Yet these deposits lie mostly in territory where the Naxals operate. Chhattisgarh, a state in eastern India across from Mumbai and a hotbed of Naxalite activity, has 23% of India’s iron ore deposits and abundant coal. It has signed memoranda of understanding and other agreements worth billions with Tata Steel and ArcelorMittal (MT), De Beers Consolidated Mines, BHP Billiton (BHP), and Rio Tinto (RTP). Other states have cut similar deals. And U.S. companies like Caterpillar (CAT) want to sell equipment to the mining companies now digging in eastern India.

The appearance of mining crews, construction workers, and truckers in the forest has seriously alarmed the tribals who have lived in these regions from time immemorial. The tribals are a minority—about 85 million strong—who descend from India’s original inhabitants and are largely nature worshippers. They are desperately poor, but unlike the poverty of the urban masses in Mumbai or Kolkata, their suffering has remained largely hidden to outsiders and most Indians, caught up as they are in the country’s incredible growth. The Naxalites, however, know the tribals well and have recruited from their ranks for decades.

Judging from their past experience with development, the tribals have a right to be afraid of the mining and building that threaten to change their lands. "Tribals in India, like all indigenous people, are already the most displaced people in the country, having made way for major dams and other projects," says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia chief researcher for Human Rights Watch, which is compiling a report on the Naxal movement. The tribals are supposed to be justly compensated for any land used by the companies, but the states’ record in this area is patchy at best.

The Biggest Threat

This creates an opening for the Naxalites. "If there is a land acquisition issue over a project, the Naxals come in and say, ’We will fight on your behalf,’" says Anami Roy, the director general of police for Maharashtra, the western state that has Mumbai as its capital. Upon his appointment to the post in March, Roy declared Naxalism to be the biggest threat to the state’s peace.

For those who see things differently from the Naxalites, the results can be terrifying. In January in Chhattisgarh, a village chieftain, suspected of being a police informer, was kidnapped, mutilated, and killed with a sickle—an example to any of the villagers who dared to oppose the Naxals. Company executives talk sotto voce about how dangerous it is for a villager to support business projects. "No villager has the courage to stand up to the Naxalites," says one manager who is often in the region. The possibility of violence has contributed to the slow progress of many mining projects. Nik Senapati, country head of Rio Tinto, which has outstanding permits for prospecting in eastern India, knows the threat. "It’s possible to work here," he says. "But we avoid parts where there are Naxals. We won’t risk our people."

The Naxalites often don’t hesitate to kill or intimidate their foes, no matter how powerful they are. Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who is credited with turning the state capital of Hyderabad into a tech center, narrowly avoided death at their hands.

Targeting Cities

But the Naxalites can offer their followers clear benefits. Lakshmi Jalma Khodape, 32, alias Renuka, a petite tribal from Iheri, Maharashtra, was just 15 when she joined up. "I had no education," she recalls. "My father was a guard in the forest department. The Naxals taught me how to read and write." Eventually disgusted by the Naxals’ violence, Lakshmi surrendered to the state police and now lives under their protection.

Undeniably, the Naxals are viewed as Robin Hoods for many of their efforts. "The tribals have benefited economically thanks to the Naxals," says human rights lawyer K. Balagopal, who has defended captured Naxalites in court cases. In Maharashtra, tribals pick tender tendu leaves, which are rolled to make a cigarette called a "bidi." Contractors used to pay them the equivalent of a penny for picking 1,000 leaves from the surrounding forest. The contractors would then take the leaves to the factory owners and sell them for a huge markup. But the Naxals intervened, threatening the contractors and demanding better wages. Since 2002 the contractors have increased the price to about $4 per 1,000 leaves.

According to the Institute for Conflict Management, the Naxalites are now planning to penetrate India’s major cities. Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute, says they are looking to encircle urban centers, find sympathy among students and the unemployed, and create armed, "secret, self-defense squads" that will execute orders. Their targets are the two main industrialized belts that run along the east and west coasts.

That’s an ambitious plan, but the Institute estimates there are already 12,000 armed Naxalites, plus 13,000 "sympathizers and workers." This is no ragtag army. It is an organized force, trained in guerrilla warfare. At the top, it is led by a central command staffed by members of the educated classes. The government also fears the Naxalites have many clandestine supporters among the urban left. The police have recently been rounding up suspected allies in the cities.

Ready Recruits

The Naxalites are already operating on the edge of industrialized Maharashtra state, about 600 miles from Mumbai. The litany of complaints from village women in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district is endless and is one reason the Naxalites find ready recruits here. The teachers don’t come to teach in the government school, and when they do, say local parents, they drink and gamble on the premises. In one village, the sixth-graders don’t know how to read and write despite the fact that the state pays teachers 20% extra for volunteering to work in Naxal-infested areas. In the civil hospital in Gadchiroli, poor villagers have to purchase all the equipment for treatment themselves, from scalpels to swabs. (The hospital says it’s well stocked.) "This is what happens in nontribal villages," says Dr. Rani Bang, a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine physician who runs a popular tribal hospital in the nearby forest. "You can imagine how bad it is for tribals."

Despite the need to ease the tribals’ poverty and blunt the appeal of the Naxalites, New Delhi still treats the insurgency largely as a law-and-order problem. States like Chhattisgarh, whose ill-trained police force is overwhelmed, have unleashed vigilantes on the Naxalites and the tribals and given the force arms and special protection under the law. The vigilantes, called Salwa Judum ("Peace Mission"), have made homeless an estimated 52,000 tribals, who have fled to poorly run, disease-infested government camps. Allegations of rape and unprovoked killings have dogged the Salwa Judum. Efforts to reach Salwa Judum were unsuccessful, but the state government has vigorously defended the group.

The problem is so severe that, in March, a public interest lawsuit was filed in India’s Supreme Court by noted historian Ramachandra Guha, who demanded an investigation into Salwa Judum’s activities. The court granted the request in April. Guha himself is not sanguine about the state’s ability to address the Naxal issue. "The problem is serious, it is growing, our police force is soft," he says. "Thousands of lives will be lost over the next 15 years."

Kripalani is BusinessWeek’s India bureau chief.

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

**U.S. is One of the 'Central Pillars' of Indian Foreign Policy‏

http://www.cfr.org/publication/16130/us_is_one_of_the_central_pillars_of_indian_foreign_policy.html?breadcrumb=/publication/publication_list?type%3Dinterview

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

U.S. is One of the ‘Central Pillars’ of Indian Foreign Policy

Interviewee: Bruce O. Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution

Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor


April 29, 2008

Bruce Riedel, a South Asia expert who has served in the Central Intelligence Agency and in the Clinton White House, sees the improvement in U.S.-India relations as a major accomplishment of the Bush administration, which carried forward progress made during President Bill Clinton’s tenure. Riedel says the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, which has been held up by opposition in India’s parliament, is likely to be approved next year, and that both major Indian political parties now see the United States as one of “the central pillars of India’s foreign policy.”

In looking at President Bush’s foreign policies, people have criticized him for not building on the past. On the question of dealing with India, President Bush’s administration seems to have built on [President Bill] Clinton’s work in getting a relationship going with the Indians. Would you agree with that?

Very much so. When it came in, the Bush team recognized that India was going to be one of the key powers of the twenty-first century, an emerging potential power, certainly a regional power, but perhaps a global power as well. I worked for President Clinton and for President Bush in his transition. His team very much understood that they wanted to build on what the Clinton people had done and to take it further. The Bush people have taken it further with the India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal, which offers the opportunity to remove one of the main stumbling blocks to U.S.-Indian rapprochement—the nuclear nonproliferation issue.

That agreement caused a certain amount of controversy in the United States when it was signed in 2007, but eventually it got general approval in Congress. Why is India delaying approving it?

The delay in India is entirely due to politics in the governing coalition. The Congress Party, a strong supporter, negotiated the deal and it wants to conclude it. But their junior partner in the coalition, the Communists, opposes the deal for a very simple reason. They recognize that the deal is the pathway by which U.S.-Indian relations are going to get much stronger. The Communists are basically opposed to a strong U.S.-Indian strategic partnership and they want to try to scuttle the deal. When I was in India a few weeks ago, the government made it very clear that they are determined to push this deal forward and to get the various bits and pieces of it put together to go to the International Atomic Energy Agency to finish the negotiations with them and then take it to the Nuclear Suppliers Group [multinational nuclear safeguards group]. Sooner or later they will force a showdown with the Communists but probably closer to the next scheduled Indian election in May 2009. This agreement is probably one that is going to slip over into the next administration.

Is there any chance that a new president in the United States would want to scuttle this?

I certainly hope that wouldn’t happen. This deal is the basis for strong U.S.-Indian relationship and I support it. There is certainly a possibility that a new administration may try to strengthen the nonproliferation parts of it, and might, particularly if the Democrats are elected, try to revive the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty . But the first step there of course would be for the United States to ratify the CTBT. I don’t think we could go to the Indians and ask them to do something that we haven’t done so far.

When was the CTBT last pushed in Washington?

It died when the Senate turned it down in 1999.

In the United States, India is discussed in a slightly negative way—companies farming out work to India and that sort of thing. Is the U.S.-India trade relationship very strong right now?

The U.S.-India trade relationship is growing. U.S. trade with India has been increasing and U.S. investment in India has been growing. The Indian economy is now growing at about 9 percent [GDP growth], which by Indian standards and by any standard is really remarkable. The change in India in the last decade is one of the most revolutionary developments in the world. We see India really, at long last, beginning to have the kind of economic growth rate that people have always hoped for. There is still a great deal of poverty but there is an enormous amount of change and wealth. India will soon have the world’s largest oil refinery in Jamnagar by Reliance Industries. It’s a symbol of the country’s growing emergence as a major economic power.

It will be able to process virtually every kind of oil from around the world from heavy to light, making it really one of the most attractive refineries for oil in the world. It will not be dependent upon a certain kind of oil to come to it. It’s one example of the economic change that is going there.

That is fascinating. And the two-way trade between the United States and India, what does that show?

It’s growing. It’s certainly nothing like U.S.-Chinese trade, but after decades of being almost flatlined, it’s growing and improving. The traditional barriers to stronger U.S.-Indian economic relations, the bureaucratic jungle that India was for many years, are slowly changing in the right direction. Infrastructure in the country which has been very poor for a long time is improving. You see new big container ports in India, new airports coming into being, the beginning of a national highway system: the kinds of things to undergird real economic growth for a long time to come. All of those things are going in the right direction.

When I started in foreign affairs, India was always the leader of the nonaligned countries and was in a way in line with the Soviet bloc against the United States’ interest in most places. Now of course we’re getting closer and closer. Who is responsible for this change in India’s thinking?

The end of the Cold War freed India in some ways from thinking in those terms. There is still resistance to stronger U.S.-Indian relations. The Communists are very much opposed to it. But there is a very large consensus between the Congress Party and the main opposition—the BJP—that U.S.-Indian relations will be one of the central pillars of India’s foreign policy. When the Indians look around, they look at a troubled neighborhood. To go around the circle with them: Pakistan is in the midst of a difficult transition from military dictatorship to democracy and it’s clear that that transition is going to be a troubled one and that violence is increasing. In Afghanistan, to the north, the Karzai government is having a difficult time with the Taliban, demonstrated by the attempted assassination of President Karzai yesterday. Nepal just elected a Maoist government; Maoist rebels are a big problem in much of India today so this could be another source of trouble.

Then there are problems in Tibet which have come up this year. India probably has the most at stake with how those troubles work themselves out, being the home of the Tibetan exile community and the Dalai Lama. Then you have Bangladesh and Burma [Myamar] on the other side, which have been experiencing great deals of domestic trouble and both are now under military government. Burma, of course, has a horrendous human-rights record. So India looks around its neighborhood and it’s got many troubled neighbors and it’s trying to look for friends that will be standing by it. The United States has demonstrated in the last decade or so, first under President Clinton, then under President Bush, that it’s a solid partner for working with India.

What about the current flap about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is due in India on April 29 to talk about a natural gas pipeline that would go through Pakistan? This has been talked about for over a decade. Is this about to come into fruition? Is the United States really that opposed to this deal?

Ahmadinejad and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced that they worked the Iran-Pakistan part of this deal out. I’m a little skeptical. This is a very complex deal and it’s been in the works a long time. My own suspicion is that it’s still probably years away from being operational. American relations with India should not become a hostage to Indian-Iranian relations. India does have a working relationship with Iran. India is the world’s second largest Shiite Muslim country. There are almost as many Shittes in India as there are in Iran. But India also has a very strong relationship with Israel. India is today Israel’s number one customer for military exports and India and Israel have a very close relationship in terms of space activity. India has been a launching point for Israel’s most sophisticated spy satellite, which will launch later this year, and several that are coming up. So if you compare the India-Israel relationship with the India-Iran relationship on a strategic level, India and Israel are much closer and have much more intimate relations in terms of military technology transfers and space research than India has with Iran.

India has made clear that it supports the United States and other UN Security Council members on the resolutions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Right?

That’s right. In the critical vote in the IAEA on the Iran issue, India has been with us. Indian officials said to me when I was there a few weeks ago that the last thing they want to see is a second Muslim nuclear power on their western border. They have enough to worry about with a nuclear-armed Pakistan. They don’t want to see a nuclear-armed Iran.

When you talked about the troubled neighbors you didn’t talk about India’s relations with China.

One part of that is the Tibet issue but yes, there is a larger question in the relationship between Indian and China. The Indians do not want to become part of some kind of American strategy to encircle or contain China. They want to engage China. They obviously have some concerns about long-term Chinese policy. They are quick to point out the difference between India and China is that India is a democracy with a proven track record of democratic elections and democratic transitions whereas China remains a communist dictatorship. They are eager to have strong relations with China but they also know that the two of them are the emerging major powers in Asia and there will be areas of competition as well as cooperation. Indian strategic thinkers recognize that in the long term, getting their relationship with China right is probably the single-most important part of Indian foreign policy in the twenty-first century.

Has the United States taken advantage of this improved relationship with India to do much with military cooperation and in intelligence cooperation? Are we working together against terrorists for instance?

There has been progress in the right direction in the military and intelligence fields but more can be done. We’ve begun to strengthen the military to military relationship but we still have some ways to go. In the intelligence relationship, we’ve made some progress but there again more could be done. But India has been a frequent target of Islamic terrorist groups, many of them operating out of Pakistan. It is high on al-Qaeda’s list of targets , as is the United States. India should cooperate much more strongly on counterterrorism than they have in the past. I would say that this is one of the areas—military and intelligence cooperation—that the next administration should really try to take this relationship to an even higher level.

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Also see the following link for an insightful interview with Bill Emmott, former editor of ‘The Economist’ and author of a new book on ‘Rivals: How The Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade’ http://www.indianexpress.com/story/303757.html

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