Curtain Call: Op Odyssey Dawn

Defining the scope of the military intervention in Libya, there’s an excellent treatise courtesy Dirk Vandevalle.

As Catherine Ashton, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, wrote in a March 18, 2011, New York Times editorial about the European Union’s options in Libya, “sometimes the toughest question in world politics is: ‘And then what?’” In light of the furious pace of the negotiations surrounding the previous day’s adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 -- which extended a no-fly zone over Libya and authorized the international community to take whatever additional measures necessary to protect the country's population short of sending ground troops -- it is not surprising that no one had really stopped to consider her question. Indeed, more time seems to have been spent getting the European Union, the Arab League, the G-8, and the Security Council to agree on the language than on the content. Still, if those hurried diplomatic negotiations seemed a Herculean task, they may pale in comparison to the challenge that comes next: keeping Libya intact and on the road to recovery.

For his part, U.S. President Barack Obama promised that intervention would be short -- a matter of "days, not weeks." And British Prime Minister David Cameron admonished that international involvement should be limited to stopping Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi’s violence. Both caveats will prove unrealistic.

At this point, the international community has two options: to either protect the opposition movement in Cyrenaica, the vast eastern province in which Benghazi is located, but not force Qaddafi out of power, or make Qaddafi’s ouster an explicit goal. The former seems to be what Cameron had in mind when he spoke of selective containment -- perhaps in an attempt to sanitize international involvement. It was also echoed in Obama's call for short-term intervention. Still, this kind of containment is neither possible nor feasible. Indeed, it would defeat the very logic of Resolution 1973.

Of course, ongoing military strikes will undoubtedly strengthen the rebels’ resolve. Seeing the destruction wreaked by the international coalition, Qaddafi loyalists are unlikely to put up much opposition. Even if the strikes stopped in the course of a cease-fire, rebels would likely take advantage of Qaddafi’s weakness to try to push the remnants of his assault forces westward, reigniting the fighting.

A Libya with Qaddafi in even partial control would be unacceptable to the international community.

If international action simply contained Qaddafi by halting his advance, he would be left in control of Tripolitania, the northwestern province in which Tripoli is located, leaving Cyrenaica effectively independent. The two provinces are divided by long-standing tensions. Qaddafi historically neglected the economy of Cyrenaica, because he judged the tribes in those areas to be potentially disloyal. And tensions between the two provinces were further exacerbated by Qaddafi’s attempts to play each off the other in order to stay in power. Protecting half of the country while leaving the other to Qaddafi would harden the provinces’ resolve to go their own ways. And economically speaking, that would be possible; both provinces have oil fields to rely on for revenue.

But politically speaking, such a division would be disastrous. In Tripolitania, Qaddafi would still have the resources and territory to continue to wage war against the opposition. If the brutal state terrorism Qaddafi instituted in the 1980s to secure Libya’ position in the region is any indication, he would not hesitate to do so. Even if he does observe a future cease-fire, selective containment would allow him to play a long-term cat-and-mouse game, stopping violence while surreptitiously extending his reach into the eastern part of the country by manipulating or buying such Cyrenaican tribes as the Warfalla, a powerful group that has so far adopted a cautious wait-and-see policy.

Meanwhile, the weapons that flowed through Libya’s porous borders and into the hands of Cyrenaican opposition forces during the anti-Qaddafi campaign will leave the regional tribes substantially more powerful than before. Having suffered through Qaddafi’s violence against them and then emboldened by Western intervention on their behalf, they would be ready to fight back at all cost. Thus the specter of all-out intertribal and interprovincial warfare would rise once more.

A Libya with Qaddafi in even partial control would be unacceptable to the international community; the country would be highly unstable and a real liability to North Africa and Europe. The world’s inability or unwillingness to displace an unreconstructed Qaddafi would give succor to a number of groups, including al-Qaeda, that could seize chaos in Libya and North Africa as an opportunity to extend their influence. Indeed, Qaddafi’s threat to turn the Mediterranean into a zone of instability is a reminder of precisely what a divided Libya could yield.

Internal instability aside, there is another reason why selective containment is unwise: it would severely constrain the international community’s future options. It seems inevitable that EU and U.S. efforts will successfully drive Qaddafi's forces from Benghazi. But selective containment would require them to stop there. Given Qaddafi’s rhetoric of the past few weeks, it seems unlikely that they would be able to pressure him into any kind of settlement from such a position. Further, it is improbable that, having achieved the limited objective of securing Cyrenaica relatively quickly, the United Kingdom and France, the leaders of the intervention forces, would be content to settle rather than march on to Tripoli to dislodge Qaddafi himself.

Of course, the alternative, forcing Qaddafi out of power, is fraught with its own problems and complications. Qaddafi’s departure would leave behind a political vacuum that would need filling as soon as possible. The choice of local interlocutors would be key. For all the sympathy the international community may currently feel for the opposition movement headed by the Libyan National Council, the provisional government, it would have to be cautious about unconditionally supporting it. Indeed, the threats that the LNC is already issuing should give the international community doubts about its readiness to lead in democratic government. Throughout the conflict, the LNC has threatened that there will be dire consequences for those countries in the West that had not sufficiently supported the rebel side if it won.

It is worth noting that although there is as yet no other opposition group, the LNC is national only in its aspirations. Much of Tripolitania still genuinely supports Qaddafi and would likely be resentful of whatever took his place and refuse to join an LNC-led government. To overcome antagonism between the provinces and to guide the country through the arduous process of state building and reconstruction that would follow Qaddafi’s departure, institutions would need to be truly national and representative. Since the settling of scores seems inevitable in Libya after decades of Qaddafi’s deliberate divide-and-rule policies, the international community would need to help establish a Libyan version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that brought political opponents in South Africa to some kind of understanding. Meanwhile, the international community would also have to steer the development of democracy and good governance in a country that has not known anything except tyranny for decades.

It is only such a process of democratization and reconstruction that would truly lessen the salience of Libya’s enduring divisions. The reintegration of Libya with its North African neighbors after decades of self-enforced isolation under Qaddafi would also help. After years of ostracism, reintegration in the region could bring some measure of pride and responsibility to Libyans.

For all of this to happen, Libya, in addition to removing Qaddafi from power, needs what Ashton called in her article a “Marshall plan for North Africa” that would help a post-Qaddafi Libya (and other countries in the region) start building their states, developing their economies, and improving democratic governance through a number of educational, economic, and political initiatives. Libya's survival as a unified country will not only depend on how its own citizens deal with its long-standing fissures but also on the careful planning of outside powers.

Unless the United States and the European Union reach a decision quickly, they may wind up in a self-imposed stalemate that Qaddafi could exploit. The international community needs a proactive agenda and a clear plan for the intervention, starting now.

A not so High Definition- Presenting India ‘s HDI

The latest Human Development Report, or HDR, (2010), marking its 20th anniversary, is both remarkable and useful. Remarkable because it brims with intellectual confidence, born out of a sense of vindication over the “conceptual brilliance and continued relevance” of Mahbub ul-Huq’s original human development paradigm set out in the first sentence of the 1990 report — “People are the real wealth of nations.” The idea of human development, which, through the human development index (HDI), measures health, education and income instead of just income, has not only not withered away but gained in strength and sophistication.

The report is useful for India because it really does leave behind the controversy that has surrounded the measurement of poverty and its supposed level of reduction under the new economic policies initiated in the 90s. When the government claimed success for its policies by citing a reduction in poverty from 36 per cent in 1993-94 to 26 per cent in 1999-00, many issues like discrepancies between surveys and national accounts, and the design of questionnaires, arose to question the figures. A majority agreed but not all were convinced that those numbers painted too rosy a picture, particularly for rural India. Today, matters like choice of poverty line seem irrelevant. The HDR tells so much more, establishing the primacy of the idea that what matters is whether people can lead long, useful lives, get the opportunity to become educated and are able to use their knowledge and talents to shape their own lives.
The latest report, as part of the continuing effort to adopt more sophisticated and comprehensive measures of well being and its obverse, deprivation, has added three new indexes — inequality adjusted HDI, gender inequality index and multidimensional poverty index. The first is in response to the idea that an aggregate measure of development fails to tell us how much of inequality is hidden in it. Inequality detracts from the level that an arithmetical average may indicate. The gender inequality index is self-evident and underlines the idea that gender inequality lies at the core of a group’s overall level of deprivation. The multidimensional poverty index acknowledges that different deprivations (be they over health, education, housing and the like) make up the total burden and counting them individually makes for better measurement.

Where do all these measures put India after almost 20 years of new economic policies and is there a case for policy adaptations to look at the ground reality behind the shine in the growth numbers? In the two decades, among four countries which matter to India, Bangladesh has posted the maximum improvement in its HDI score, followed by China and Pakistan. India brings up the rear, with only Sri Lanka faring poorer, presumably because it had already reached a high plateau when the period began. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh leave India, China and Pakistan behind in scoring better through HDI rank than per capita gross-national-income rank. Going by the income measure of poverty (purchasing power parity $1.25 per head per day), Sri Lanka and China are way ahead of India, which is followed by Bangladesh and Pakistan.
In terms of multidimensional poverty, it is only Bangladesh that is behind India, with even Pakistan scoring better, not to speak of China and Sri Lanka. And in intensity of deprivation, not just China and Sri Lanka but Bangladesh also is ahead of India, with only Pakistan behind.

According to the inequality adjusted HDI, which captures the effect that inequality has on development, Sri Lanka and China again lead the pack, India and Bangladesh come next with Pakistan following. When it comes to gender inequality, China and Sri Lanka are far ahead, with higher ranks in gender equality than their regular HDI ranks. Pakistan and Bangladesh score only slightly better in gender equality than HDI rank. Startlingly, India’s gender rank is lower than its HDI rank.
A third of the population of developing countries, totalling 1.75 billion, lives under the burden of multidimensional poverty and over half of this number is accounted for by South Asia, though poverty rates are higher in Sub-Saharan Africa. People in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer the most from income inequality followed by South Asia. India loses 41 per cent of its HDI score due to educational inequality and 31 per cent on account of health inequality. Eight Indian states, with over 400 million people who are as badly off as 26 of the poorest African countries, account for a larger number of the multidimensionally poor than the African countries.

The HDR finds that 40 years of learning and data indicate that “focusing exclusively on economic growth is problematic” and an unbalanced emphasis on growth is often associated with negative environmental and distributional consequences, as the cases of China and, to an extent, India indicate. If growth is a means to various ends, “success” in growth must be seen to serve the broader human development goals that growth aims to achieve. For development, people have to actively participate in the development process and not remain passive beneficiaries. Their health and educational levels are enormously important and progress on these fronts can happen even when growth is elusive. Near universal as these paradigms are becoming, they should not be applied thoughtlessly as formulae. Context matters. Technocratic solutions which assume a well-functioning state and regulatory system and developed institutions can come unstuck in the absence of those. It is thus vital to experiment and learn, as the Chinese have done. Thus, India’s battle for a better lot for its people is barely half done, or may be even less.

The Indian portrait of the 2000's

India was erupt­ing in dreams.

It was the dream to own a microwave or refrig­er­a­tor or motor­cy­cle. The dream of a roof of one’s own. The dream to break caste. The dream to bring a cell­phone to every Indian with some­one to call. The dream to buy out busi­nesses in the king­dom that once col­o­nized you. The dream to marry for love, all the com­pli­cated fam­ily con­sid­er­a­tions be damned. The dream to become rich. The dream to over­throw the rich in revolution.

These dreams were by turns far­sighted and far­fetched, prac­ti­cal and imprac­ti­cal, gen­er­ous and self­ish, prin­ci­pled and cyn­i­cal, focused and vague, pas­sion­ate and drift­ing. They were tem­pered by coun­ter­vail­ing dreams and, as ever in India, by the dogged pull of the past. Some were chang­ing India pal­pa­bly; oth­ers had no chance from the begin­ning. But that was never the point. It was the very exis­tence of such brazen, unapolo­getic dreams, and their dif­fuse flow­er­ing from one end of India to the other, that so deci­sively sep­a­rated the present from the past – and sep­a­rated the India of the license raj systems from the India to which we now belong.

The Indian rev­o­lu­tion was within. It was a rev­o­lu­tion in pri­vate life, in the tenor of emo­tions and the nature of human rela­tion­ships. The very fab­ric of Indi­an­ness – the mean­ing of being a hus­band or wife, a fac­tory owner or fac­tory worker, a mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, a stu­dent or teacher – was slowly, gen­tly unrav­el­ing by the force of these dreams, and allow­ing itself to be woven in new ways.

Vegetating, are we?

Management has literally come to the marketplace. As retail chains line up across neighbourhoods offering one stop shop solutions to all our domestic needs, shopping for rations essentially turns into a task that’s as goal oriented as its time bound. So much so, that we run to the same super mart for buying everything from shaving cream to vegetables. Now, while most of us rejoice in the 5% rate cuts that are to be gained from picking up a packet of french beans, along with the detergent and frozen peas, what we fail to realise is that this discount comes at a price.

Buying at a retail store is a mechanical exercise that accustoms us to head to the same racks to pile in the same stuff and hear the beep of the barcode. It is a choice that we make to turn ourselves into robots, literally sucking the joys that our parents had the chance of deriving from a visit to the market place. Since the advent of convenience stores, how many of us have gone back to the local vegetable market. Back in the days of the venerable mandi, visiting it for rations was a part of the experience of cooking.

As human beings, our impulse is to feel and the experience is as important as the end result. From the unattractive manner of simply dumping vegetables into plastic racks to the fact that most of what arrives at these air-conditioned units is a day old or simply rotting in the artificial environment, the so called convenience of picking up your veggies from where you buy your facewash, can never compensate for what you stand to lose. All it takes is but one visit to your long forgotten vegetable mart to spot the difference. Brimming with energy and bursting with colours, these brightly lit environs are as welcoming as they are enchanting. It’s like being inside a photograph.

Picture rows of tin roofed shops with their wallpapered backdrops and brilliant bulbs. While you walk by, beaming eyes peer at you from behind columns of attractively arranged farm fresh produce. Every face tells a story and every story gets a face. Sounds of frenetic haggling, of shopkeepers persuading and helpers announcing the next big price slash intermingle with murmurs of private conversations and the cacophony of chit chats. This visit is momentous not just because of the sudden explosion of colours, odours and flavours that greets us round every bend but also because of a more sombre realisation. This twenty minute trot is perhaps the only time in the week when we look beyond our comfortable existence and interact with the other India.

Food becomes a great equaliser summoning everyone from princes to paupers and bankers to peons, to the same court. If we’re social animals who interact for inclusion and acceptance, every visit to the local mart is an exercise in community building and in feeling a sense of oneness with the mass of humanity that surrounds us. Pitched against million dollar enterprises, local traders wage a losing battle. Their invisibility makes us immune to their plight.

Protecting the local against the global requires an engagement that goes beyond words and translates into action. Have we ever dared to exact five rupee discounts from branded outlets to allow ourselves to reclaim those from the needy? How many decades old, round the corner shops have we seen perish in our lifetime? Do we want our children to lead such mechanical lives devoid of life’s simple pleasures? Adventure lies in surprises .You don’t necessarily have to turn a robot and shop mechanically at the retail chain and wince about that weekend in Goa. Adventure can happen anywhere any day. Somedays it lies in seeking the best brinjals or in choosing to not squabble with a father of five and discovering the joy of giving.

Micro states and pan nationalism- strange times, strange worlds

A year ago, tiny Georgia tried to regain control over its breakaway enclave of South Ossetia. The Russians quickly expelled the Georgian army, to almost universal opprobrium from the West. South Ossetia, together with Abkhazia (combined population 300,000), promptly declared their ‘independence’, creating two new fictional sovereignties, and acquiring in the process all the official trappings of statehood: national heroes, colourful uniforms, anthems, flags, frontier posts, military forces, presidents, parliaments, and, most important, new opportunities for smuggling and corruption.

So far, only Russia and Nicaragua recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian recognition was widely seen as retaliation for Western recognition of Kosovo (population 2 million), the breakaway province of Serbia, earlier last year.

A thousand miles to the west of Georgia is Moldova (population 3.5 million), which lies between Romania and Ukraine. Annexed by Tsarist Russia in 1812, joined to Romania in 1918, and re-annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, it seized its independence from Moscow in 1991. It is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organisation, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and various other prestigious international bodies.

Moldova’s claim to fame is King Stephen the Great, who defeated the Ottomans in a great 15th century battle. It also produces rather good wine. An enduring memory from my own recent visit to its capital, Chisinau, is the election poster of a local politician called Lupu, who holds a pair of spectacles to his eyes, whether to suggest visions or wisdom isn’t clear.

To get to Moldova from Odessa (now in Ukraine), one must drive through the self-proclaimed ‘republic’ of Transdniestria (population 700,000), a sliver of land on the north shore of the Dniester river. A clump of peeling buildings, rusting wire, and a filthy lavatory mark the start of Transdniestrian sovereignty.

Progress through this squalid, but well manned, frontier post involved the stamping of lots of documents and a liberal scattering of bribes, a process repeated on leaving the ‘republic’. A shadowy mafia-style company, Sheriff, owns most of the economy. It is said to have close links to the president and his family. It has built a giant football stadium in the capital, Tiraspol, which seems to be some kind of symbol of Transdniestrian virility. Unrecognised by the rest of the world, Transdniestrian ‘independence’ is secured by a Russian garrison.

The world’s population is about 6 billion. Suppose it was divided into independent political units of 2 million people each. That would mean 3,000 micro-States, each refusing to accept any sovereignty superior to its own. Of course, this would be a recipe for global anarchy.

Yet the trend over the past century has been towards a continuous increase in the number of small States, mainly owing to nationalist revolts against multi-national empires: the latest bout of state-creation followed the disintegration of the USSR. Even long-established States like the United Kingdom now have strong separatist movements. In its political life, the world has been regressing to a form of tribalism, even as its economic life has become increasingly globalised.

The equation of State with nation is the arch-heresy of our time. A ‘nation’ is, at root, an ethno-linguistic — occasionally religious — entity, and because it is through language and liturgy that culture is transmitted, each nation will have its own distinctive cultural history, available for use and misuse, invention and discovery.

The State, however, is a political construction, designed to keep the peace in an economically viable territory. There are simply too many ‘nations’, actual or potential, to form the basis of a world system of States, not least because so many of them, having been jumbled up for centuries, cannot now be disentangled.

Micro-States can never be made small enough to satisfy their advocates’ exalted standards of cultural integrity. So the unravelling of multi-national States is a false path. The way forward lies in democratic forms of federalism, which can preserve sufficient central authority for the

purposes of statehood, while respecting local and regional cultures.

Today’s upsurge of micro-nationalism is not just a consequence of the revolt against empires: it is also a revolt against globalisation. There is widespread resistance to the idea that the chief function of modern states is to slot their peoples into a global market dominated by the imperatives of efficiency and cheapness, heedless of the damage to non-economic activities. This feeling is strengthened when the global economy turns out to be a global casino. National assertion is a way of combating impersonal forces and remote authorities.

Globalisation promises too much in terms of welfare gains, particularly to developing countries, to be abandoned. But the lesson from the current crisis is that we will have to develop styles of global economic governance to manage, regulate, and mitigate the creative, but often disruptive forces unleashed by the global market. In the absence of an actual world government, this can be done only through cooperation among States. The fewer ‘sovereigns’ there are, the easier it will be to secure the necessary cooperation.

The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, which laid the institutional foundation for the post-war World War II economy, was made possible because the United States and Britain called the shots. When objections were raised to Cuba being put on the drafting committee, Harry Dexter White, the American representative, remarked that Cuba’s function was to provide cigars.

Such a cavalier attitude to the demands of lesser powers to be heard is no longer possible. But all this means is that the facades will have to be more subtle and the fictions more elaborate. Provided we do not deceive ourselves about where real power lies, let presidents and parliaments be three a penny if that is what makes people feel good about themselves.

Breaking News

The line between fact and fiction and news and entertainment has merged as 24 hour news channels pitch to survive in a free market.

The era of sedate looking anchors and sombre sets that characterised much of DD news broadcasts is long over. What liberalisation

and FDI flows brought to the television industry, specifically news channels, was a sea change in settings. Private players emerged slowly but surely with Zee and Star TV being the pioneers. Today, they find themselves competing for attention with two dozen news channels in a scenario where proposals for setting up several others are awaiting final clearances. What this plethora of news channels brought with them was the 24×7 format, hitherto unknown to the Indian audience. Now, while it was easy to retain audience attention for a half hour news update, it became equally difficult to do so in this new world order where channels remained on air throughout the day and programming was round the clock. Operating costs tripled and so did the TRP anxieties. Tabloidization of news became the unavoidable answer to churning out content in a cost effective manner .Traditional competitors thus, no longer limit themselves to rival news channels but extend to the GECs. In such a climate, questions about the integrity of news per se are bound to be raised. What we are witnessing then is a blurring of lines between fact, fiction, news and entertainment.

The television news industry is shaping and being shaped in turn by a ‘sound byte society’. A sound byte society is one that is flooded with images and slogans, bits of information and abbreviated or symbolic messages- a culture of instant but shallow communication. I t is not just a culture of gratification and consumption, but one of immediacy and superficiality, in which the very notion of ‘news’ erodes in a tide of formulaic mass entertainment. It is a society anesthetised to violence, one that is cynical but uncritical and indifferent to,if not contemptuous of, the more complex human tasks of cooperation, conceptualisation and serious discourse.

There is an economics behind the politics.TV advertising is the electronic linchpin of consumer capitalism: a relentless invitation to self indulgence and unlimited consumption. The 24×7 news cum fiction format supports these ends not just in its dependence on commercial advertising but also in its content which tends to celebrate affluence and acquisitiveness as normal, while ignoring activities such as voluntarism, community activism, political engagement or other pursuits that involve self sacrifice for larger causes. Stories on the India Auto Expo or panel discussions on which laptop is better are commonplace and often fuel complete shows like Overdrive and Newsnet2.0 while chances of spotting a piece on say recycling one’s mobile or the sarva shiksha abhiyan are hard to come by. Another factor to be blamed for this turn of events is the rising carriage costs that news channels have to pay which leaves very little for programming and content. This perennial fund crunch prevents channels from sending reporters to cover elections in the north east or engage in serious investigative journalism. The law of optimal allocation of scarce resources sadly works to favour the production of soppy page 3 news stories that are both low on effort and cost. Examples include the massive media coverage meted out to the Abhi-Ash wedding and the success of Star News’ ‘Saas,bahu aur saazish’.

With advancements in telecommunications and the internet, we have become an impatient society when it comes to information gathering and the 24×7 news format reflects that. Television is essentially a kinetic medium capable of changing images and subjects quickly. Unless it compresses time this way,it will lose out on viewership. However, this compression comes at a price. A fast forward effect is generated which demands quick and final solutions to complex and intransgient problems. Anchors like Arnab Goswami and Barkha Dutt make sweeping assertions and reduce issues to a numbers game always asking for a one word summation or a ten point tackle. Such a breezy and bulleted simplification of complex issues cannot be called news. It is entertainment.

Because 24×7 news traffics mainly in scenes and images that are highly localised in time and space and in words that must condense their messages to accommodate the medium’s visual dimensions and severe time constraints-it is also essentially a symbolic rather than discursive medium. The communicative function of symbols is to simplify. The Indian flag and Independance day news programmes evoke patriotism and not its moral ambiguities. Entertainment merges with news and facts with fiction. India TV recently used karate shots from Chinese films to illustrate the idea that the Chinese army is growing in strength and is therefore a cause of concern for India thus bollywoodising the news experience by adding some symbolic masala .

The 24×7 news format priviledges quantity over quality. With limited budgets and a vast amount of air time at its disposal,channels are pressured into taking up stories that are light and breezy; attracting eyeballs without the hike in price. So news channels will devote several time slots for airing stories on cookery,the fashion week and celebrity gossip. The addition of shock value to stories is a compulsory requirement for the medium because the murkier the details the better is the audience response. Also constraints over the time and finances allocated to each news story prevent a research into their historical past or analysis of the future. Most stories on the Naxals focus on the violence portraying them as terrorists without as much as backgrounding the backlash as a response to the decades of displacement and exploitation at the hands of the Indian state. TV news thus creates black and white caricatures of economic, political and social actors and institutions which can hardly be said to be corresponding to factual realities.

The blurring of lines between fact,fiction and news and entertainment is dumbing down audiences. 24×7 news television scales the world down to fit on the screen. It isolates us from the larger environment and our responsibility towards it such that ‘we see without being seen and hear without being heard’. Viewers are becoming increasingly passive and devoid of the zeal to bring about change, passing the dal and curry while viewing live images of the war in Iraq as if theres nothing unsettling about it. Of course there is the ‘sms your opinion in a yes,no and maybe format’ for tokenism but is this push button campaigning representative of an educated public and informed opinion or even responsible news programming, remains to be seen.

The Urumqui effect

This is a surprisingly expansive and relatively unbiased article on the current situation in Urumqui,coming from the stables of WSJ.

In some ways,its an eye opener into the fiscal failings and deeply entrenched fault lines within the Chinese society and a stark reminder of the fact that this could well be 'the summer of discontent' for our northern neighbour as it might just find itself embroiled in a crisis of legitimacy in frontier areas that would need more than just 'wishing away' or party high handedness.

The rioting by Uighurs in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in early July has put the spotlight back on China's handling of its ethnic minority regions. Coming just over a year after a similar outburst in Lhasa, the incident shows that hardline policies designed to suppress dissent have fostered bitter resentment. However, it would be a mistake to interpret this as a sign that China's control over Tibet and Xinjiang are unraveling. Rather the incidents should be put into a broader context of rising tensions within Chinese society.

Certainly Tibet and Xinjiang pose their own unique challenges. The seeds of the current unrest were planted in the mid-1990s, when government strategy toward the restive regions shifted to a more hardline approach. That has shut off avenues for the expression of discontent, bottling up tensions until they explode.

Despite the obvious costs of this policy, Beijing apparently regards them as worth paying to maintain a tight grip on its sensitive border areas, which are regarded as vital national interests. From its perspective, the policies may even be regarded as a success because the migration of Han Chinese into the sparsely populated regions enhances government control over the longer term, regardless of the friction it may create.

However, seen in the context of the wider Chinese society, the upsurge in unrest raises some worrying questions for Beijing. Despite the strictest possible control, the spread of information and rights consciousness has encouraged Uighurs and Tibetans to take to the streets in spontaneous demonstrations, and violent repression has stoked further unrest. This mirrors events taking place elsewhere in China, where potent fault lines within society are bursting into the open, despite the government's best efforts to foster a "harmonious society."

This suggests that China may be entering a period similar to that in the late 1980s, when demonstrations began to break out over a variety of issues. As during that period, the Chinese economy is under stress, with rising expectations running up against the reality of limited opportunities. Add in anger about corruption and abuse of power by local officials and the stage is set for what are euphemistically known as "mass incidents." While the government may be able to manage localized riots, there is a danger of a repeat of 1989, should an event provide the impetus for the formation of a wider national protest movement.

Widespread use of the Internet and mobile phones accelerates the spread of unrest beyond the capacity of the authorities to respond. The proximate cause of the rioting in Urumqi on July 5 happened thousands of miles away in Guangdong province. At a toy factory in Shaoguan, Han Chinese attacked young Uighur workers after rumors spread that they had raped several women. The state media reported that two Uighurs were killed, but graphic pictures and rumors of a higher death toll spread quickly over the Internet to Xinjiang. Complaining that the authorities were not doing enough to protect their compatriots, Uighurs took to the streets of Urumqi in an initially peaceful protest. Although the details are murky and the truth may never be known, the incident turned violent quickly after confrontations with the police.

This contagion effect must give Chinese leaders pause because it presages an era in which national stability is held hostage to the mistakes made by local leaders. When information flows were easier to control, violence in one area had little impact on the rest of the country. Today, by contrast, the Xinjiang violence dominates the consciousness of the whole Chinese population.

In part that's because propaganda authorities are under pressure to be proactive about reporting incidents in order to pre-empt the spread of rumors. Even then, as we saw recently, this coverage itself may not be accurate or effective in reassuring the population. And in any case, the net effect may be to undermine confidence in the government's ability to maintain law and order. It also tends to inflame Han nationalism, which, as with anti-U.S. and anti-Japanese protests in the past, can quickly spin out of control.

Paradoxically, the government's strict control over the official media combined with underground channels for information of dubious origins can prove to be a combustible mixture. Because Chinese netizens do not trust the media, they are more inclined to believe reports passed along the electronic grapevine. In this case, the spread of rumors quickly polarized both Uighur and Han communities.

Moreover, even though the state has extensive mechanisms to censor online communications, it has never been able to develop the "surge capacity" to stop the flow of information during a crisis. This also tends to make the system more unstable, as people discontented over other issues latch on to the issue of the moment.

Economic considerations are also coming into play -- it is significant that the initial rape rumors were spread by a Han Chinese angry that he lost his job in the factory where the Uighurs were working. While the macroeconomic statistics suggest China has been relatively insulated from the global financial crisis by massive government spending and new loans from the state-owned banks, on the ground the picture is more mixed. Privately owned export-oriented factories have closed, the fresh credit has tended to go into speculative investments, and infrastructure spending takes time to ramp up. The net effect may be to actually exacerbate tensions, as the poor struggle to find jobs while the rich and politically well-connected have access to government contracts and easy credit.

Several recent incidents suggest that society is becoming more volatile. Most dramatically, rioters fought a pitched battle with police in Shishou, Hubei, province, in late June after the suspicious death of the chef in a hotel with connections to the mayor. As is often the case in these incidents, the extent of the violence can be attributed largely to mishandling of the initial protest by local officials.

But it is not hard to conceive of circumstances that could lead to a wider protest movement. For instance, the scandal over melamine-contaminated milk powder last year was handled relatively well by the central government, with punishments handed down to those responsible and compensation paid to the victims. But were such an incident to implicate the family of top leaders, or the government fail to resolve it expeditiously, the same mechanism that spread protests from Guangdong to Xinjiang could come into play.

As the government increases its involvement in the economy through stimulus measures, there is an increased risk that corruption will again become a source of public anger. This would parallel to some extent the late 1980s, when a dual pricing system allowed Party officials in state enterprises to profit by buying commodities at state prices and then selling them on the open market. Today the mechanisms are different, such as the "land grabs" in which officials take plots from farmers and urban residents with minimal compensation and sell them on to real estate developers.

Another parallel to the 1980s is the increasing activism of intellectuals after decades of being silenced and coopted by the Party. Over the last five years, a loose grouping of legal professionals and academics haved tried to protect the rights of ordinary citizen against abuses of power by Party officials, a movement known as "Weiquan."

The pressure for political change today differs from the 1980s, however, in its emphasis on bottom-up activism, using a combination of the courts, media and other channels to put pressure on local officialdom. The late Party Secretary General Zhao Ziyang's recently published memoir highlights how the liberal wing of the Party that once pushed for political reform was eliminated after 1989. After that, he noted, the Party elite became increasingly enmeshed in the business world, creating vested interests that seek to preserve the Party's monopoly on power.

How this shift will affect social stability remains to be seen. On the one hand, the leadership split within the Party in 1989 was one of the key contributing factors to the protest movement gaining momentum and the ensuing crackdown. Today the Party elite is relatively united at least on policy issues, and the main intra-Party conflict is between the center and the regions, as local officials seek to cover up their misdeeds at the risk of spreading instability.

In other ways, the current situation could prove more volatile. As the Xinjiang experience shows, when dissatisfaction reaches the point where people no longer feel they have much to lose, even a massive security force cannot deter violence. Tensions may be highest in the minority areas, but the feeling of marginalization and victimization by Party officials is widespread.

Why we dont want a Nuclear free world

'Nuclear weapons are used every day." So says former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, speaking last month at his office in a wooded enclave of Maclean, Va. It's a serene setting for Doomsday talk, and Mr. Schlesinger's matter-of-fact tone belies the enormity of the concepts he's explaining -- concepts that were seemingly ignored in this week's Moscow summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev.

We use nuclear weapons every day, Mr. Schlesinger goes on to explain, "to deter our potential foes and provide reassurance to the allies to whom we offer protection."

Mr. Obama likes to talk about his vision of a nuclear-free world, and in Moscow he and Mr. Medvedev signed an agreement setting targets for sweeping reductions in the world's largest nuclear arsenals. Reflecting on the hour I spent with Mr. Schlesinger, I can't help but think: Do we really want to do this?

For nuclear strategists, Mr. Schlesinger is Yoda, the master of their universe. In addition to being a former defense secretary (Nixon and Ford), he is a former energy secretary (Carter) and former director of central intelligence (Nixon). He has been studying the U.S. nuclear posture since the early 1960s, when he was at the RAND Corporation, a California think tank that often does research for the U.S. government. He's the expert whom Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on last year to lead an investigation into the Air Force's mishandling of nuclear weapons after nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown across the country on a B-52 and nuclear fuses were accidently shipped to Taiwan. Most recently, he's vice chairman of a bipartisan congressional commission that in May issued an urgent warning about the need to maintain a strong U.S. deterrent.

But above all, Mr. Schlesinger is a nuclear realist. Are we heading toward a nuclear-free world anytime soon? He shoots back a one-word answer: "No." I keep silent, hoping he will go on. "We will need a strong deterrent," he finally says, "and that is measured at least in decades -- in my judgment, in fact, more or less in perpetuity. The notion that we can abolish nuclear weapons reflects on a combination of American utopianism and American parochialism. . . . It's like the [1929] Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy . . . . It's not based upon an understanding of reality."

In other words: Go ahead and wish for a nuclear-free world, but pray that you don't get what you wish for. A world without nukes would be even more dangerous than a world with them, Mr. Schlesinger argues.

"If, by some miracle, we were able to eliminate nuclear weapons," he says, "what we would have is a number of countries sitting around with breakout capabilities or rumors of breakout capabilities -- for intimidation purposes. . . . and finally, probably, a number of small clandestine stockpiles." This would make the U.S. more vulnerable.

Mr. Schlesinger makes the case for a strong U.S. deterrent. Yes, the Cold War has ended and, yes, while "we worry about Russia's nuclear posture to some degree, it is not just as prominent as it once was." The U.S. still needs to deter Russia, which has the largest nuclear capability of any potential adversary, and the Chinese, who have a modest (and growing) capability. The U.S. nuclear deterrent has no influence on North Korea or Iran, he says, or on nonstate actors. "They're not going to be deterred by the possibility of a nuclear response to actions that they might take," he says.

Mr. Schlesinger refers to the unanimous conclusion of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which he co-led with Chairman William Perry. The commission "strongly" recommended that further discussions with the Russians on arms control are "desirable," he says, and that "we should proceed with negotiations on an extension of the START Treaty." That's what Mr. Obama set in motion in Moscow this week. The pact -- whose full name is the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- expires in December. But what's the hurry? Mr. Schlesinger warns about rushing to agree on cuts. "The treaty . . . can be extended for five years. And, if need be, I would extend it for five years."

There's another compelling reason for a strong U.S. deterrent: the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which protects more than 30 allies world-wide. "If we were only protecting the North American continent," he says, "we could do so with far fewer weapons than we have at present in the stockpile." But a principal aim of the U.S. nuclear deterrent is "to provide the necessary reassurance to our allies, both in Asia and in Europe." That includes "our new NATO allies such as Poland and the Baltic States," which, he notes dryly, continue to be concerned about their Russian neighbor. "Indeed, they inform us regularly that they understand the Russians far better than do we."

The congressional commission warned of a coming "tipping point" in proliferation, when more nations might decide to go nuclear if they were to lose confidence in the U.S. deterrent, or in Washington's will to use it. If U.S. allies lose confidence in Washington's ability to protect them, they'll kick off a new nuclear arms race.

That's a reason Mr. Schlesinger wants to bring Japan into the nuclear conversation. "One of the recommendations of the commission is that we start to have a dialogue with the Japanese about strategic capabilities in order both to help enlighten them and to provide reassurance that they will be protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. In the past, that has not been the case. Japan never was seriously threatened by Soviet capabilities and that the Soviets looked westward largely is a threat against Western Europe. But now that the Chinese forces have been growing into the many hundreds of weapons, we think that it's necessary to talk to the Japanese in the same way that we have talked to the Europeans over the years."

He reminds me of the comment of Japanese political leader Ichiro Ozawa, who said in 2002 that it would be "easy" for Japan to make nuclear warheads and that it had enough plutonium to make several thousand weapons. "When one contemplates a number like that," Mr. Schlesinger says, "one sees that a substantial role in nonproliferation has been the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Without that, some and perhaps a fair number of our allies would feel the necessity of having their own nuclear capabilities."

He worries about "contagion" in the Middle East, whereby countries will decide to go nuclear if Iran does. "We've long talked about Iran as a tipping point," he says, "in that it might induce Turkey, which has long been protected under NATO, Egypt [and] Saudi Arabia to respond in kind . . . There has been talk about extending the nuclear umbrella to the Middle East in the event that the Iranians are successful in developing that capacity."

Mr. Schlesinger expresses concerns, too, about the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons, all of which are more than 20 years old. "I am worried about the reliability of the weapons . . . as time passes. Not this year, not next year, but as time passes and the stockpile ages." There is a worry, too, about the "intellectual infrastructure," he says, as Americans who know how to make nuclear weapons either retire or die. And he notes that the "physical infrastructure" is now "well over 60 years" old. Some of it "comes out of the Manhattan Project."

The U.S. is the only major nuclear power that is not modernizing its weapons. "The Russians have a shelf life for their weapons of about 10 years so they are continually replacing" them. The British and the French "stay up to date." And the Chinese and the Indians "continue to add to their stockpiles." But in the U.S., Congress won't even so much as fund R&D for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. "The RRW has become a toxic term on Capitol Hill," Mr. Schlesinger says. Give it a new name, he seems to be suggesting, and try again to get Congress to fund it. "We need to be much more vigorous about life-extension programs" for the weapons.

Finally, we chat about Mr. Schlesinger's nearly half-century as a nuclear strategist. Are we living in a world where the use of nuclear weapons is more likely than it was back then? "The likelihood of a nuclear exchange has substantially gone away," he says. That's the good news. "However, the likelihood of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States" is greater.

During his RAND years, in the 1960s, Mr. Schlesinger recalls that "we were working on mitigating the possible effects [of a nuclear attack] through civil defense, which, may I say parenthetically, we should be working on now with respect, certainly, to the possibility of a terrorist weapon used against the United States. . . . We should have a much more rapid response capability. . . . We're not as well organized as we should be to respond."

Mr. Schlesinger sees another difference between now and when he started in this business: "Public interest in our strategic posture has faded over the decades," he says. "In the Cold War, it was a most prominent subject. Now, much of the public is barely interested in it. And that has been true of the Congress as well," creating what he delicately refers to as "something of a stalemate in expenditures."

He's raising the alarm. Congress, the administration and Americans ignore it at their peril.

Bemoan the BJP

Hindus want to celebrate their strength, not wallow in misplaced victimhood and majoritarianism.

For a party born in April 1980, mid-life crisis and the consequent existential questions have visited the BJP rather early.

You could blame the Acquired Ideological Deficiency Syndrome it inherited from its political avatar known as the Jan Sangh. Or you could blame the presence of too many leaders and the resultant absence of leadership.With 125 seats and half-a-dozen states the party is anything but sunk. But you can't deny that the metaphor is apt. It would have been hard to visualise this disarray when "abki bari or every bari Atal Bihari" had the nation mesmerised not too long back. But then Vajpayee had lived long enough in the opposition ranks to comprehend the essential road to power.

As the bard mused, many in the party wonder "whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles... " To be or not to be is not the question. What to be and what not to be is.

Here are five steps the party must take if it wants to avoid what Shakespeare described as 'devout consummation'.

Be the Change

I am writing this from Pune - the crucible of Tilak's nationalism and 'pure-bred communalism'. Last night three Maharashtrians, all successful, definitely from the BJP catchment, and Brahmins to boot said: "Neither our children or their friends can identify with this Hindutva line. The BJP must dump the communal agenda to be acceptable." Hindus don't identify with misplaced victimhood or majoritarianism. India is secular because Hindus want it to be secular. They want this strength to be celebrated.

Back to Basics

When was the last time the BJP stood up on the street to be counted on issues that impact the common man? Yes, TV debates are good but the perception is that leaders have lost mass connectivity and have mistaken the virtual arena for the real thing. The party must ask itself if it played the role of the opposition between 2004 and 2009.

Politics is a 24x7 show, not an election special. It is not surprising that the BJP trailed in 69 of the 70 Assembly segments in Delhi in the Lok Sabha polls. It's the party which rules the MCD-run 1,072 schools where the poorest send their kids to study in tents, and nobody found it objectionable. Unless you are willing to lead the next morcha for bijli, pani or sadak, you are irrelevant. BiPaSa has the power to make a star of you. Be the opposition.

Be an all-India party

Till such time they find the next Vajpayee with pan-India popularity, BJP leaders must do what mere mortals do: build to expand. With no presence in 10 states, the BJP is a little better than the Jan Sangh was in the 70s. For the next five years, it must focus on acquiring market share. Start with West Bengal and Tamil Nadu which are both ripe for a new alternative and ring-fence Kerala with a growth agenda.

Be the Party with a Difference

Long back the BJP was the party with a difference. Now even the quip 'a party with differences' has become a cliché. The first step would be to fix a retirement age, preferably 60. Senior citizens should become mentors and each should mentor at least two leaders. Fix a three or four-term limit for all posts - be it MP or MLA to give others an opportunity. Whether it is Varun or Judeo, the mantra should be sack instantly. Guilty till proved innocent.

Buy into Valmiki

Forsake communalism and the communal agenda. Despite losing their tallest leader to the agitation, the Congress has apologised for the Sikh riots, Operation Blue Star and the Emergency. What makes the BJP think it can get away with Babri and the Gujarat pogrom? It must follow Valmiki and apologise to seek redemption.

Last night Jaswant Singh, arguably one of the best finance ministers, urged ideological distillation in thinking. Rooted in Jan Sangh ideology the party for long has pretended to be the protector of Hindus. By inference it suggests they are weak. So for starters the party must cease to think of itself as protectors of anybody or anything: lives, religion or culture. New India is not interested in supari politics.

If it is serious about tomorrow, the BJP must forget about yesterday and invest in the concept of what is Right. For civil society functions on the construct of right. Not might.

Star Trek: Rubbish!

In a recent article posted on The Independant,Johann Hari has brought to light another impending disaster.No,this aint about global warming,poverty,world food crisis or even the threat to global security.
Governments around the world have woken up to the challenges that these pose to humanity at large and their native country's competitive advantage on the home front.However,the G-20 has largely overlooked a side effect of its space exploration endeavours that is poised for snowballing into a communications disaster that has more far reaching consequences than the current compendium. Take a look for yourself :

Johann Hari: We're covering our planet with a cloud of space junk

Governments won't even agree to stop adding to the rubbish.

In 1965, the American astronaut Edward White dropped a glove, and it has been orbiting the earth at 17,000 miles per hour ever since. This sounds like a quirky Trivial Pursuit answer – what is the deadliest garment in history? – but it could be about to give us all a galactic slap in the face.

That glove is now joined by so much space trash that scientists are warning it could be poised to take out the satellites we depend on every day – and trap us here on a heating earth.

In just 50 years of exploring space, humans have left 600,000 pieces of rubbish in space, all circling us at super-speed. When it is whirring so fast, a one millimetre fleck of paint hits you as hard as a .22 calibre bullet fired at point-blank range. A hard-boiled pea is as dangerous as a 400lb safe smacking into you at 60mph. And a chunk of metal the size of a tennis ball is as explosive as 25 sticks of dynamite.

We are adding to this junk faster than ever before. There is no international agreement not to leave trash in the skies – and all nations are being reckless. The International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety warns that, at the current rate, the volume of Star Drek will increase fivefold in the next decade. More flights leave more rubbish, and more countries test their fancy new weapons systems by blowing up old satellites – and creating new torrents of trash.

This creates a minor danger, and a major danger. There is a small risk that this rubbish will smack into human beings when minor amounts of it re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. For example, in March 2007, the wreckage of a Soviet spy satellite nearly crashed into a passenger plane over the Pacific. But only one woman has ever been hit by space junk: Lottie Williams from Oklahoma was smacked in the shoulder by a charred piece of space rocket. She was not injured.

But there is a greater danger that an unstoppable chain reaction will begin: the rubbish will crash into other pieces of rubbish, causing it to shatter into smaller chunks that will then crash into each other – and on, and on, until the earth is circled by a haze of impassable metal debris that remains there for millennia. There are (contested) fears that the process began in February this year, when an old Russian satellite crashed into a US satellite high above Siberia.

Dr Marshall Kaplan at John Hopkins University Applied Phyiscs Laboratory says that we face a "coming catastrophic disaster. If we don't clean up this mess in the next 20 years, we're going to lose our access to space". Vladimir Solovyov, Russia's space mission control chief, agrees. He warns: "The clouds of debris pose a serious danger... to earth-tracking and communications satellites."

What would it mean? The super-speed of our globalized world is dependent on satellites. If they are taken out by a barrage of 17,000mph rubbish, you can say goodbye to your mobile phones, GPS, and weather forecasts – and we'll be needing them in this century. We will be trapped here, unable to explore space. Hubble telescope bubble, toil and trouble.

What can we do now? There are some proposals for removing the rubbish, like creating a series of lasers that would sweep the trash back into our atmosphere, where it would mostly burn up. But they are regarded as of dubious scientific plausibility, and a long way off.

The most urgent task is to stop adding to the rubbish – but the 20 governments that have access to space are refusing to do it. They will not agree a deal; they don't want to tell each other where their spy satellites are, or to agree not to blow them up when they feel like it, to test their flashy new weaponry.

This wall of garbage orbiting us all seems like a symbol of the great dilemmas facing humanity in the 21st century. We have become capable of the most stunning technological breakthroughs – but we are sabotaging them by proving ourselves incapable of the most basic forms of self-restraint. At the moment of victory, we regress. The achievements of our frontal lobes are undermined by the backwardness of our adrenal glands.

This story is being played out, with mild variations, again and again, in this century. We have dramatically improved human health – yet now seem poised to cook it under a thick blanket of our own carbon emissions. We have made it possible to fish and farm more efficiently than ever – so we do it till we have taken all the fish and destroyed all the soil.

It doesn't have to be like this. We can restrain ourselves to save our satellites, and our ecosystem. Individuals restrain themselves all the time; why can't we do it collectively? The only alternative is to become a species who heroically reach for the stars – only to smack into a wall of our own trash.

Dial P for Propaganda

Here are the seven common propaganda devices:
1. Name-calling :

This involves the use of words to connect a person or idea to a
negative concept. The aim is to make a person reject something without examining the evidence because of the negative associations attached to it.
Examples of words include ‘Terrorist‘, ‘Nazi‘ and ‘Queer’.
Name Calling is used as a substitute for arguing the merits of an idea, belief, or proposal. It is often employed using sarcasm and ridicule in political cartoons and writing.

2. Glittering Generalities
The opposite of name-calling, this involves the use of highly valued concepts and beliefs which attract general approval and acclaim. These are vague, emotionally attractive words like ‘freedom‘, ‘honor‘ and ‘love‘.
This method works because these concepts/words mean different things to different people, while still having a positive implication.
When someone talks to us about democracy, we immediately think of our own definite ideas about democracy, the ideas we learned at home, at school, and in church.
Our first and natural reaction is to assume that the speaker is using the word in our sense, that he believes as we do on this important subject. This lowers our ’sales resistance’ and makes us far less suspicious..

This is the list of "positive, governing words" that GOP candidates were told to use when speaking about themselves or their policies.
Active(ly)
Activist
Building
Candid(ly)
Care(ing)
Challenge
Change
Children
Choice/choose
Citizen
Commitment
Common sense
Compete
Confident
Conflict
Control
Courage
Crusade
Debate
Dream
Duty
Eliminate good-time in prison
Empower(ment)
Fair
Family
Freedom
Hard work
Help
Humane
Incentive
Initiative
Lead
Learn
Legacy
Liberty
Light
Listen
Mobilize
Moral
Movement
Opportunity
Passionate
Peace
Pioneer
Precious
Premise
Preserve
Principle(d)
Pristine
Pro-(issue) flag, children, environment
Prosperity
Protect
Proud/pride
Provide
Reform
Rights
Share
Strength
Success
Tough
Truth
Unique
Vision
We/us/our
Workfare

3. Transfer
This is a technique used to carry over the authority and approval of something you respect and revere to something the propagandist would have you accept. One does this by projecting the qualities of an entity, person or symbol to another through visual or mental association.
This stimulates the recipient and makes him/her identify with recognized authorities.
In the Transfer device, symbols are constantly used. The cross represents the Christian Church. The flag represents the nation. Cartoons like Uncle Sam represent a consensus of public opinion. Those symbols stir emotions. At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation.

Single hand symbols: 1.Dissenting person, 2.Beetle, 3.Ray, 4.Anger, 5.Excellent, 6.Bangle, 7.Neck, 8.Armlet, 9.Negative

Double hand symbols: 1.Tusk, 2.Seperation, 3.Forlimb, 4.Waist, 5.Vedam, 6.Brother, 7.Pillar, 8.Mortar, 9.Speedy, 10.Devil, 11.Growth

4. Testimonial
The aim of testimonial is to leverage the experience, authority and respect of a person and use it to endorse a product or cause. Testimonials appeal to emotions instead of logic because they generally provide weak justifications for the product or a cause of action.
‘The Times said,’ ‘John L. Lewis said…,’ ‘Herbert Hoover said…’, ‘The President said…’, ‘My doctor said…,’ ‘Our minister said…’ Some of these Testimonials may merely give greater emphasis to a legitimate and accurate idea, a fair use of the device; others, however, may represent the sugar-coating of a distortion, a falsehood, a misunderstood notion, an anti-social suggestion…”

5. Plain Folks
A technique whereby the propagandist positions him or herself as an average person just like the target audience, thereby demonstrating the ability to empathize and understand the concerns/feelings of the masses.
One may perform ordinary actions or use language and mannerisms to reach the audience and cohere with their point of view.
We are all familiar with candidates who campaign as political outsiders, promising to “clean out the barn” and set things straight in Washington. The political landscape is dotted with politicians who challenge a mythical “cultural elite,” presumably aligning themselves with “ordinary Americans.” As baby boomers approach their sixth decade, we are no longer shocked by the sight of politicians in denim who listen to rock n roll.

6. Card Stacking
A way of manipulating audience perceptions by emphasizing one side of an argument which reinforces your position, while repressing/minimizing dissenting opinions. An example of this articles/media events which compare and contrast the best possible scenarios with the worse examples.
Assume a newspaper editor were in favor of the non-enforcement of immigration laws. Should the issue of immigration law enforcement ever be debated among legislators, the editor might publish articles and editorials that ignore all mention of illegal alien criminals, gang members, and prisoners and report only on decent, hard-working foreigners instead. This sort of card stacking could go on for weeks and influence public opinion on the issue.

7. Bandwagon
The basic premise for the bandwagon technique is to suggest that ’since everyone is doing it, you should too’. It’s aim to persuade people to follow a general trend by reinforcing the human need to participate on the winning side. One can suggest to an audience that he or she will lose out by not moving with the rest of the crowd, thus preying on their insecurities and fears.
With the aid of all the other propaganda devices, all of the artifices of flattery are used to harness the fears and hatreds, prejudices and biases, convictions and ideals common to a group. Thus is emotion made to push and pull us as members of a group onto a Band Wagon.

Diversity of opinion-a right to inform,a right to protect

'm not too sure whether 'surprise' is the right word here but it sounds too tragically hillarious to be dispensed with, in the context that i plan to use it henceforth... you will be surprised to know that the reprinting of an article on standing up for the right to criticise religion in one of the leading dailies of India,irked a bunch of Islamic hardliners into staging a 4000 men strong protest which ultimately led to the arrest of the editor and publisher of the paper in question.

Now in the light of the oncoming elections in most states, this incident of the West Bengal state govt.'s buckling to electoral pressures could be viewed as an open and shut case of votebank appeasement.You have a) a power hungry political class at their wits' end to bolster public approval for a re-election, B) a natalist,largely uneducated,unaware mass of mullahs weilding their sticks against abomination of the shariah.One doesnt need to be a rocket scientist to combine the two into C)an oppurtunity to translate vociferous demands for censuring alleged disrespect to religious sentiments into votes.

but get this,in a similar attempt at obfuscating the freedom of speech and expression in another state of India,Karnataka to be precise, the state government summarily dealt with the perpetrators,at the risque of mutiny from within their own ranks and alienating their party's personal right-wing fundamentalist history.
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3696&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=19&valid=true

ive been following the follow up of the events in Calcutta and cant help but remark that civil society can only be granted the sanction of being labelled thus, if it chooses to play the part of being 'civil'.For what is most fundamental to the survival of a' public sphere' than the freedom of speech and expression that guarentees diversity of opinion. As a student of journalism, one of the papers i took last semester was called-'Law,Society & Media'.It reqiured us to examine the core concerns of our constitution makers, especially with regards to article 19 1(a) which guarentees the right to freedom of speech and expression.
Heres what we found out-
''in a democracy the deliberative forces shall prevail over the arbitrary so public discussion is a political duty and therefore the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.''
freedom of speech and expression and consequently freedom of the press thus rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.

To me,surprise is therefore THE word that underpins all that has transpired in the past few days.I'm surprised ,pleasantly, at that, to find that as a student of journalism,i need not be cynical about the inability to effect change in the critical political economy theory guided agenda setting media marketplace.Johann Hari's article is an absolute delight to stumble upon.
i'm surprised over the lack of support and the apathy that The Statesman has had to deal with in its struggle against religious bigotry.I'm surprised to the point of being appalled over the fate of Sayed Parvez Kambaksh and the rest of the tribe of unsung heroes.
The noted American journalist,Walter Lippmann, once said ,
"true democracy is a goal that cannot be reached in a complex world''. He argued that people are more likely to beleive the 'pictures in their heads' than come to judgement by critical thinking.In the light of industrialisation,events leading to WWII and the rise of totalitarian states,the man became disillusioned with the idea of an educated electorate taking informed decisions. Lippman argued that distortion of information was inherent in the human mind and hence coined the term "stereotypes" to define the greatly fragmented reality that people choose to live with.

here's the article that helps break a few.--kudos to johann hari for compiling it :--

The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors

The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we “respect” religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated sixty years ago that “a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people.” It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it “Western”, Robert Mugabe calls it “colonialist”, and Dick Cheney calls it “outdated.” The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now. Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants led by Saudi Arabia demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to “respect” the “unique sensitivities” of the religious, they said – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It said you can only speak within “the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community.” In other words: you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists. Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN’s Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he seeks out and condemns “abuses of free expression” including “defamation of religions and prophets”. The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who tried to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself. Anything which can be deemed “religious” is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah “will not happen” and “Islam will not be crucified in this council” – and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims. Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was “un-Islamic” and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country’s most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry ten year old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah. To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which Muslim culture? Those women’s, those children’s, this blogger’s – or their oppressors’? As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: “The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom.” Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most outraged by this. Underpinning these “reforms” is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of “prejudice” – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws. All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don’t respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead. I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a ‘Prophet’ who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him. I don’t respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don’t respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of “prejudice” or “ignorance”, but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal. When you demand “respect”, you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade. But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate become destabilised? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if they are right, I am soothed. But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them to consult. By definition, if you have faith, you are choosing to believe in the absence of evidence. Nobody has ‘faith’ that fire hurts, or Australia exists; they know it, based on proof. But it is psychologically painful to be confronted with the fact that your core beliefs are based on thin air, or on the empty shells of revelation or contorted parodies of reason. It’s easier to demand the source of the pesky doubt be silenced. But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence. Yet this idea – at the heart of the Universal Declaration – is being lost. To the right, it thwacks into apologists for religious censorship; to the left, it dissolves in multiculturalism. The hijacking of the UN Special Rapporteur by religious fanatics should jolt us into rescuing the simple, battered idea disintegrating in the middle: the equal, indivisible human right to speak freely.