EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Terror and error

Were it not for our security establishment's love of schadenfreude, the public embarrassment of including in a list of 50 ‘most wanted' terrorists supposedly hiding in Pakistan the name of a man who is very much in India could have been avoided. Despite living in Thane and making regular court appearances, Wazhul Kamar Khan, an accused in the 2003 Mulund train blast, figured as Number 41 in the fugitives list India handed over to Pakistani Interior Ministry officials in March. The Pakistanis took away the list and there the matter might well have ended. But it was the desire to add to Islamabad's discomfiture in the days after U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan that led Indian officials to rake up the list and plant a story about it in the media. Their aim, presumably, was to remind the world that Pakistan continues to harbour terrorists of all sorts, a completely unnecessary move given the prevailing international perceptions post-Abbottabad. If anything, the leaking of the list was a petty ‘bilateral' gambit that detracted from the ‘global' dimension of the Pakistani military's dalliance with terrorism. That it also contained a serious error which Pakistan is likely to use to question India's facts is unforgivable.

Truth to tell, the goof-up over Mr. Khan's whereabouts is part of a wider pathology afflicting the Indian system: the lack of professionalism in the conduct of security and foreign policy. When it comes to India's relations with Pakistan, or any country for that matter, the sole window for public pronouncements and even unofficial briefings ought to be the Ministry of External Affairs or the Prime Minister's Office. What we have instead is a free-for-all in which top generals, bureaucrats, and even defence scientists feel free to make statements — or plant stories — that have a crucial bearing on foreign policy. Army chief V.K. Singh and DRDO head V.K. Saraswat have both publicly boasted about India's ability to mount an Abbottabad-type operation. The Pakistani military, under fire at home for the OBL fiasco, latched on to General Singh's statement and used it to stoke nationalist fears about the threat posed by India. Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wisely noted he could not be expected to discuss military matters in front of the media. But it is not clear the message has gone down. As far as the ‘50 most wanted' list is concerned, the error should also serve as a reminder to our intelligence agencies and internal security bureaucracy that their time is best spent getting their house in order rather than hamming it on a diplomatic stage for which they have neither talent nor aptitude.

Need for a coherent policy

True to form, the Government of India has been caught on the back foot over the pricing of petroleum products. Earlier this year, it formally delinked petrol from the administered pricing mechanism while retaining the more sensitive diesel, kerosene, and LPG under its control. The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) was expected to meet last week to decide on an across-the-board revision of prices. But, for some reason, it let the Oil Marketing Companies to go ahead with the price revision for petrol, while putting off its decision on the rest by another week. The OMCs promptly announced a hike of Rs.5 per litre of petrol — the fourth since June 2010, and the steepest till date. With this increase, petrol price has jumped from around Rs.47 in early 2010 to well above the Rs.63 level in most cities now. Apparently the OMCs wanted to increase the price by Rs.10 per litre but, at the instance of government, decided to limit the rise to Rs.5. Consumers may well be in for another mark up before long.

What has become abundantly clear is that the government has no coherent fuel policy. The steep rise in price notwithstanding, there has been a 12 per cent increase in petrol consumption over the past year. The off-take of diesel also is bound to swell as a consequence of petrol becoming dearer and this, in turn, will push up the subsidy burden of the government. For its part, the automobile industry, which has been recording a consistently high growth in sales over the past 18 months, has changed gear, turning the focus on the production of diesel vehicles. Over a period, the sale of diesel as fuel could rise from the present 30 per cent to 50 per cent. The oil companies incur a revenue loss of Rs.18.19 on a litre of diesel, Rs.29.69 on kerosene, and Rs.329.73 on an LPG cylinder (14.2 kg). They reported a loss of Rs.78,000 crore for 2010-11, which could go up to Rs.180,208 crore this year. The government is supposed to make good the subsidy on these three products, while the oil companies are expected to adjust the price of petrol in keeping with the global crude market trends. In the long run, there has to be a clear policy to promote alternative fuel and electric cars, and also to popularise and promote the use of CNG and LPG in the automobile sector. The explosion in the vehicle population has ensured that, despite the rising prices, the consumption of petrol and diesel has not slowed down. More needs to be done by the Centre and the States to encourage the use of public transport by putting together a convenient and affordable multi-modal transport system in all major towns and cities.