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The Elephant and the Eagle at Sweet 16

05 Sun Jun 2016

Posted by in India, South Asia, United States

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It has been 16 years since George W Bush fundamentally altered the way the United States looked at India. As the old Cold War with the Soviet Union receded into memory and a new one with China appeared imminent, at least to the Bush White House, India emerged as an important potential ally in the new world order. India’s economy had recently started down the road to liberalisation too, making the South Asian country attractive to US industry as well as the government.

Despite frequent kerfuffles in the media – and there have been plenty – India-US relations have moved from strength to strength over the past 16 years. From the Strategic Quartet – high technology trade, space cooperation, nuclear energy, and missile defence – through the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership to the historic Indo-US nuclear deal and the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, Washington and Delhi appear poised on the brink of a century-defining partnership. If state visits are any indication of warmth, prime minister Narendra Modi is visiting the United States at this moment for the fourth time in just two years – something his predecessor required nine years to necessitate.

Defence ties are usually the most prominent measure of relations between nations for obvious reasons: not only do they declare how much skin each state has in the other’s security, but they are also a statement of how much states trust each other with their prized technology. No wonder, then, that India’s defence purchases from the United States have attracted so much attention. Between CH-47 Chinooks, AH-64 Apaches, C-17 Globemasters, and C-130J Super Hercules, India’s aggregate defence acquisitions from the United States has crossed $13 billion. The loss of India’s Multirole Medium Range Combat Aircraft contract disappointed Washington but under Modi’s Make in India programme, US defence firms are considering moving the production of the F-16 and F-18 to India.

The United States has moved beyond the role of being a mere supplier of weapons to India: officials have been engaged in talks that, if successful, would result in the co-production of systems. Under the DTTI, the next generation of Raven unmanned aerial vehicle will be jointly developed and produced. Other projects include intelligence gathering and reconnaissance pods for the C-130J, mobile electric hybrid power sources, helmet-mounted digital displays for aircraft and helicopter pilots, high energy lasers, and chemical and biological warfare protection gear for soldiers.

Washington has also been keen to assist India with core defence technologies such as the development of jet engines and the catapult launching system on board US aircraft carriers. India’s Kaveri programme has been a miserable failure and with Delhi’s increasing focus on maritime security, the US offer could provide a healthy boost to Indian capabilities.

India’s change of mind on what the Pentagon calls the foundational treaties – LSA, BECA, and CISMOA – has been a welcome surprise. These agreements formalise the sharing of logistical facilities and align communication protocols between the US military and their partners, greatly enhancing the range and capabilities of both forces in joint humanitarian or security missions. Although the agreements will remain unsigned during Modi’s visit this June, it is reported that they are close to conclusion.

The United States’ support for Indian admission to the permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and technology export control groups such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, and the Wassenaar Group gives some weight to Philip Zelikow’s statement in 2005 that the United States intends to help India become a major power.

Although both India and the United States have come a long way in defence cooperation, one cannot shake the feeling that both sides are still hedging from a complete commitment. India has lost no opportunity to stress that the signing of the foundational agreements with the United States will in no way erode its sovereignty, that it is happy to conduct numerous maritime joint exercises but will not be persuaded to conduct joint patrols, and that India sees itself as a friend and partner of the United States but not quite an ally. On the American side, senators questioned the wisdom of a bill that proposed elevating India to the status of a NATO ally in all but name given that the South Asian country did not see itself in that role. The US bill would have amended the Arms Export Control Act and made defence transfers to India quicker and smoother.

One hurdle in closer ties is Pakistan: India is displeased with the continued sale of US weapons to the Islamic republic despite ample evidence pointing to terrorist ties and an unhelpful disposition towards US goals in South and Central Asia. However, the dynamics of these ties have remained relatively unchanged since the 1950s: Pakistan provides services in the region that the United States cannot get elsewhere in return for White House forbearance on matters Islamabad sees as vital to its interests. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was basing privileges for US reconnaissance aircraft conducting missions over China and the Soviet Union; in the 1970s, Islamabad served as the channel to Beijing and a rapprochement with China; in the 1980s, it was the shipment of arms to the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. In the 2010s, Islamabad has become the conduit to the Taliban, with whom Washington hopes to negotiate a “decent interval.” Even now, though the United States has been urging India to play a greater role in Afghanistan, Delhi has declined, choosing to involve itself more in important but not critical facets of Afghanistan’s development.

India’s reluctance to play a more significant role in its own interests may frustrate observers but this has, understandably, in large part to do with the country’s capabilities. Couched in the rhetoric of multipolarity and morality, India’s inaction misleads the casual observer. The ignored pachyderm in the room is that Delhi lacks the financial and industrial wherewithal to flex its military muscle in Central Asia or the South China Sea, and any attempt to persuade it to do so will fail. The remedy to this is economic growth, technological development, and strategic coalitions.

On the surface of it, economic relations seem to have grown substantially between India and the United States. Both countries are investing more in each other’s economies and trade between the two stands hovers around $70 billion. More and more US companies are setting up shop in India as Indian companies are expanding their business beyond the Atlantic. Washington is the lead partner for developing Allahabad, Ajmer, and Vishakapatnam as smart cities. There is still plenty of room to grow and Modi has ambitiously suggested aiming for $500 billion in trade in a few years. However, there are several issues that will plague relations. The first is subsidies: Washington recently won a case against India at the World Trade Organisation that prohibited the Indian government from giving preferential treatment to domestic solar panel manufacturers. US firms are also pushing Washington to act against subsidies the Indian Space Research Organisation gets from the government for its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle programme.

A second hurdle is intellectual property. In several sectors, India has brought its laws into alignment with US and international norms yet there remain significant differences in philosophy. Pharmaceuticals is one such field, where Indian courts have been hostile to the US practice of evergreening patents, instead seeing a social dimension to the industry. India has also had disagreements with the United States on its agricultural subsidies and food security programme.

A sector-specific yet politically potent point of friction is nuclear energy. Although the Indo-US nuclear deal was announced in 2005 and came into force in 2008, there has been little movement on that front since. India’s nuclear liability laws were found to be at odds with international norms and it was only in 2015 when US president Barack Obama visited India during the Republic Day celebrations that some headway was made in easing the logjam. The Indian side came up with a convoluted mechanism to bypass its own law without losing face and satisfied Washington but private companies are still uncomfortable with the provisions. As a result, a number of nuclear energy projects have stalled across the country; GE has flatly refused to participate in the Indian nuclear energy market as long as the present law stands and Westinghouse has delayed the submission of its project proposals. The sins committed by the BJP while in Opposition have been visited upon the BJP while in power.

A probable future cause for concern is the US creation of large trading spheres via the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. India is not party to either of these blocs and its efforts to forge free trade agreements with important partners such as the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has proceeded at a snail’s pace. There is a danger that the implementation of the TPP and TPIP will take trade away from Indian shores to within the bloc, dampening much-needed Indian economic growth.

Many of these frictions arise from the fact that the US and Indian economies are at different points: certain Indian policies may not optimize on economic efficiency but are geared towards lifting more of its population out of poverty or establishing its own industries firmly in the international arena. Delhi and Washington have much work to do to negotiate through the clashing policies that will certainly arise in the future and early recognition and amelioration will insulate relations from harsh market realities.

After 16 years, India-US relations are on a firm footing. Much has been accomplished though a lot more remains to be done. It was feared that the warmth between the two would dissipate after the exit of Bush and the election of Obama but despite the lull due to an international economic slowdown and a paralysed UPA government, ties have started to blossom again in the past two years since Modi took office. India enjoys bipartisan support in the US and Washington a hesitant embrace in Delhi. Can relations be derailed? There will always be swings and roundabouts but it seems to have dawned on both countries that the geopolitics of this century are best navigated as friends than estranged democracies.

This post appeared on FirstPost on June 06, 2016.

Linking India’s Rivers

03 Tue Jun 2014

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The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Water works are almost as old as human settlements. The Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, Cholas, and virtually every civilisation in between built canals and dams to irrigate their farmlands. In the modern era, the Colorado River Aqueduct (US), the National Water Carrier (Israel), the Cutzamala System (Mexico), and the as yet incomplete South-North Water Transfer Project (China) are examples of large national inter-basin transfer (IBT) projects aimed at improving agriculture, alleviating floods, and providing drinking water to parched areas.

NRLPIn comparison, India’s National River Linking Project (NRLP) is nothing short of modern-day pyramid-building: at its completion, the NRLP will have 30 river links, 3,000 storage structures, a canal network of almost 15,000 kms, generate 34 GW of hydroelectric power, create some 87 million acres of irrigated land, and would transfer a mind-boggling 174 trillion litres of water per annum. This would be four times larger than China’s ongoing multi-decade project. The project is also expected to displace 580,000 people. The total cost of the NRLP is estimated to be ₹5.6 lakh crores.

About 33% of India around its northern river basins have access to 62% of the country’s annual freshwater while the remaining 67% of the country in the south and west have to make do with the remaining 38% of the water.

It is difficult to boil down a project of this magnitude that has so many variables to deliver a simple for or against verdict unless one is an activist. There are some very good arguments in favour of the NRLP as well as equally legitimate concerns. The BJP government’s announcement of its plans to go ahead with a ₹25,000 crore plan to create a national waterway grid by linking the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Mahanadi, and Godavari rivers is a good excuse to revisit this issue.

Water

India’s water situation is precarious at best. With an increasing population, ecological pressure has been increasing steadily. Groundwater has sustained agriculture and urban populations for the past three decades but the strain is showing as bore wells dry up and water tables deplete. Interestingly, India has four per cent of the world’s total renewable water resources (TRWR), the seventh largest. Of this amount, only 58% is the potentially usable water resource (PUWR). By 2050, the PUWR is expected to be only 22% of what it was at independence due to population growth, poor development of water resources, and bad policies. Despite India’s generous water resources, its per capita storage is staggeringly low at a mere 200 m3 per person whereas it is 5,960 m3 per person in the United States and 2,486 m3 in China.

The NRLP, when complete, will boost per capita PUWR storage as well as provide surface irrigation for irrigation, thereby helping to recharge the impoverished groundwater supplies. Water policies other than IBT, such as rainwater harvesting (RWH) and artificial groundwater recharging (AGWR), have been suggested to meet these goals and tried with varying levels of success. Both these methods work at the local level and are less helpful in water-scarce regions. Moreover, aggressive RWH or AGWR upstream can impact users downstream. Additionally, given the reliance of these methods on short spells of precipitation, it is unclear how well they can augment PUWR. Furthermore, groundwater depletion in semi-arid regions cannot be reversed by relying on annual rainfall.

Agriculture

India’s agricultural boom since the mid-1980s has been sustained by groundwater. Decreasing public investment in irrigation, low oil prices, and subsidised electricity all contributed to the development of groundwater irrigation. However, due to excessive depletion of some basins and escalating energy prices, expansion of the net irrigated area has slowed down in recent years. Small farmers can ill-afford to periodically dig deeper wells to access the plummeting water table, nor can they afford the diesel to run their water pumps. Also, neither the power companies nor the the government can bear the subsidy bill for the agricultural sector and reforms are desperately needed. The NRLP hopes to reverse this trend by providing surface irrigation as well as replenishing water tables.

The major challenge facing the water sector in India is how to increase the groundwater stocks to arrest the declining groundwater tables. Several alternative proposals to the IBT have been considered to resolve the rising demand for agricultural water. One is to improve irrigation efficiency through micro-irrigation. Studies show that agricultural yield is significantly improved with drip or sprinkler irrigation yet despite the availability of subsidies, neither has spread much. The high initial investment requirement, combined with subsidised diesel and electricity, have discouraged farmers from pursuing micro irrigation en masse. The small size of the average farm holding in India discourages not just micro-irrigation but also other modernisation involving pesticides, fertiliser, mechanisation, and crop storage. After decades of the technology being available, drip and sprinkler irrigation remains limited to a minuscule 5% of the potential area suited for such techniques. This only reiterates the historical and global experience that surface irrigation is the single most determinant factor in agricultural growth.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that consumption of food grains in India is expected to fall in the coming years as a result of increasing urbanisation and increased variety in diet. By 2050, food grains will be less than 50% of the average Indian’s food basket, the remainder going to fruits, vegetables, dairy, and poultry. As a result, there will be a greater demand for feed grain to sustain the livestock required to provide the dairy and meat. The increase in demand for water will therefore come not from food grain but from feed grain livestock.

Other technologies that may mitigate the need for NRLP are desalination and the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops. However, neither seem to have a bright future in India. A cost-effective method of desalination is to complement nuclear power plants with desalination plants. Given India’s power and water shortage, this would seem a symbiotic match made in heaven; excess thermal energy from nuclear power operations can be used to desalinate water more cheaply than conventional reverse osmosis. However, there is strong opposition to nuclear power in India and the sector has so far under-performed on every benchmark.

The GM debate in India is largely restricted to cotton but is slowly reaching other crops. While environmentalists are not yet sold on the technology, there is even greater concern about the corporate practices of corporations like Monsanto. Lack of adequate regulations regarding food safety and poor enforcement is another reason there has been vocal opposition to GM crops in India.

The failure to adopt alternative means to resuscitate Indian water resources and agriculture does not necessarily mean that IBT is the only remaining option. A cursory study of the Polavaram reservoir, for example, tells a cautionary tale. First, it underscores the need to study monthly if not weekly water flow in the river and canals rather than take the annual average. Studies indicate that though the Polavaram reservoir and link canal will reduce seasonal water shortage in the target area of the reservoir, it will only shift the water shortage further down the Godavari Delta during the rabi harvest and summer months. Rather than an expensive IBT, changing cropping patterns – paddy during monsoon and low wtaer intensive crop such as pulses in the drier season – might provide a better option for the region’s farmers.

Similarly, at the Ken-Betwa link, plans to provide irrigation and augment farming during the kharif harvest are unlikely to be met with much success as few farmers need irrigation then. The cropping pattern of the region is such that the cultivated area during kharif is only a small portion of the region’s cultivable area. Some farmers prefer to keep the fields fallow in preparation for wheat cultivation during rabi; others prefer crops such as pulses and oilseeds which require less water, have a shorter gestation period, and have as high a value as paddy. The evolution of this cropping pattern does not appear to have much to do with rainfall and soil moisture, for farmers preferred shorter duration crops that need less water even in areas where groundwater was plentiful. As a result, the proposed irrigation transfers during kharif will do little to boost farm production.

Polavaram and Ken-Betwa are not typical of all segments of of the NRLP, nor do they override other benefits of the project. However, they do serve as a healthy reminder not to be swayed by the state-technocratic triumphalism of such a massive project.

Transportation

The NRLP is not merely an IBT project; it is also meant to create a waterway grid that connects the Brahmaputra to the Vaippar. The linking canals, planned to be between 50 and 100 metres wide and six metres deep, would provide another means of transporting goods within India and reduce the pressure on roads and railways. The riverway will reduce India’s oil consumption and hopefully offer a better and faster means of moving goods. In conjunction with improved storage, this should reduce cost of produce and increase exports.

This vision is, however, dependent on the availability of sufficient water in the canals perennially to maintain a waterway. This may not be a problem during the monsoons but the drier months may put pressure on the water grid – a minimum amount of water, known as an ecological reserve on environmental flow, must be maintained in each river basin to provide for the ecology of that river basin. As one scholar wrote, “Flows are needed for maintaining the river regime, making it possible for the river to purify itself, sustaining aquatic life and vegetation, recharging groundwater, supporting livelihoods, facilitating navigation, preserving estuarine conditions, preventing the incursion of salinity, and enabling the river to play its role in the cultural and spiritual lives of the people.” Given the poor environmental laws in India, there is some concern that this philosophy may not be adhered to.

Environmental flows are not merely about the amount of water in a basin but also about when the water should be flowing and at what rate. All components of the hydrological regime have certain ecological significance: high flows are important for channel maintenance, bird breeding, wetland flooding, and maintenance of riparian vegetation, while moderate flows are critical for cycling of organic matter from river banks and for fish migration. Similarly, low flows are necessary for algae control and water quality maintenance. This holistic approach to river ecology may not be possible with the water transfers the NRLP proposes.

Ecology

Perhaps the most obvious criticism of the NRLP is its ecological footprint. The transfer of such enormous amounts of water will inundate forests and land for reservoirs, and the weight of billions of litres of water may even have seismic implications in the Himalayan region. Proponents argue that waters from areas of abundance will only be transferred to regions of scarcity and the waters of the Brahmaputra will merely reimburse the areas water was diverted from. Thus, the IBT is a chain of substitutions in most places rather than the creation of seismic activity inducing reservoirs.

Nonetheless, there remains the problems associated with hypertrophication of water bodies, oxygen depletion, altering pH levels, increased salinity, disease vectors, evapotranspiration from the new reservoirs and canals, local ecological instability from the transfer of flora and fauna, and the spread of pollution. None of this is new or peculiar to the IBT but for an endeavour projected to be a boon to agriculture, little midnight oil seems to have been burned on water quality.

Solutions do exist – for example, Modi Sarkar has already started on cleaning the Ganga. Irrigated fields can be drained via pipes or channels into collector drains. Similar projects will need to be introduced throughout the national waterway. Some solutions will need to be rejigged – for example, covering canals with solar panels as has been done in Gujarat is not feasible as it will hinder the waterway! Yet the problem of pesticides and fertilizer leaching into the water remains, indicating that a comprehensive national waterway grid needs a comprehensive national environmental policy; the linking of rivers will make it of paramount importance that solutions are found and rigorously applied throughout the country.

Trans-Boundary Issues

The NRLP will have a tremendous impact beyond India’s borders. Countries that are part of the network of river basins such as Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh will be concerned about India’s plans to transfer river waters that might have come to them. As per international law, any upper riparian scheme would have to be discussed with lower riparian states. Bangladesh would be particularly concerned about the NRLP because the primary gravity link canal from Jogighopa to Farakka would be entirely within India and transfer some 15 trillion litres from the Brahmaputra to the Ganga. This could expose Bangladeshi farmers further down the Brahmaputra to rising salinity.

In addition, the NRLP allows India to completely control the livelihoods of some 20 million Bangladeshi farmers who rely on water from the Brahmaputra and the Ganga. If India releases too much water, the entire delta in Bangladesh could be flooded and if Delhi curbed the flow of water, crops could fail. However, given the annual flooding and loss of life in Bangladesh, Dhaka has reason to cooperate with India in creating a mechanism to release just the right amount of water at the right time. Ultimately, this remains a political rather than a technical question.

Further north, the shoe is on the other foot: India has viewed with some concern China’s SNWTP for some years. China’s project aims to transfer water from the Yangtse to Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui. However, a spin-off has been under consideration which would not only build massive hydoelectric power stations at the Great Bend in the Brahmaputra but may also divert the river waters to the arid regions of Xinjiang and Gansu. Such a step would leave India and Bangladesh at China’s mercy.

Indian officials have so far played down China’s water transfer project, pointing out that a mere 7% of the total water entering the Brahmaputra is from precipitation in China via the Subansiri, Siang, and Lohit tributaries. However, other experts have questioned this assertion and as any other policy issue in India, the India-China clash on the sharing of the Brahmaputra waters remains nebulous to the public. What is obvious is that India and China have no water sharing treaties between them and Beijing is unlikely to make any grand gesture of fairness towards Delhi.

There is reason to hasten India’s NRLP in the Himalayan sector – theoretically, under international law, a country’s right over natural resources it shares with other nations becomes stronger if it is already putting them to use. However, the obvious counterpoint is that China is not a country known to follow international law. The Brahmaputra alone is responsible for approximately 29% of all of India’s river runoffs. If Beijing does divert 30% of the Brahmaputra water, India’s modern-day pyramids will truly be just that – a very expensive and elaborate tombstone.

The International Food Market

With increasing trade liberalisation, agricultural subsidy reductions are in India’s interests. The Food Security Act, for example, has forced India to defend its agricultural policy at the World Trade Organisation at the expense of negotiating space in other sectors of its economy. India’s still growing population is a considerable destabiliser of international prices and if the harvest fails, international food prices due to heavy imports by India. The domestic as well as international ripple effects of India’s failure to attain self-sufficiency in agriculture can be significant.

Engineering Challenges

As with all things in India, the buck stops with the question, “Can the government deliver on its promises?” The Indian government’s track record on the economy, defence, foreign policy, internal security, poverty alleviation, infrastructure, and almost every other sector is woeful. The NRLP already costs approximately ₹5.6 lakh crores and cost overruns for a project of this magnitude can have severe repercussions.

Beyond engineering, the social cost of displacing almost 600,000 people must also be considered. The state has been excruciatingly slow in previous large projects to compensate those displaced, up to ten years in some cases. Consequently, land acquisition is resented by local communities.

Some have suggested that rather than launch into this Herculean task, it might make more sense to construct the NRLP in phases, leaving time between each phase to observe the economic, social, and environmental effects. This may be plausible, but proponents argue that the benefits of the NRLP can be achieved only when complete. While some links may not be particularly well served by water transfers, they are required transit points in the larger system. Constructing only a few links of the NRLP for observation may paint a very different picture of the project than its final state. To borrow from John Dalton, the whole may be greater than the sum of the parts.

On the positive side, the project will generate massive employment and an upsurge in the construction industry. Over a million people are expected to be employed over at least ten years. That is of little use, however, if the NRLP does not benefit the country.

Conclusion

These are only some of the complexities involved in the NRLP. There are, no doubt, some significant advantages such as groundwater resuscitation and the construction of an inland waterway. There are equally alarming concerns about China’s plans on the Brahmaputra and the spread of river pollution. Some aspects, such as environmental flows and cropping patterns, require more research. There are undoubtedly many local solutions that may or may not work, but these have not been adopted for decades despite government subsidies. Furthermore, surface irrigation has been proven world over to benefit agriculture and India’s reliance on groundwater is only because of the state’s failure to provide adequate surface irrigation and water storage infrastructure.

Given the present data on the NRLP, or lack thereof, it is difficult to presently be for or against river linking; citizens can only monitor new research and developments for now and impinge upon the government to consider their concerns.

This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on June 07, 2014.

2013, From Mali to Bali: The Year in Review

26 Thu Dec 2013

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So another year is ending – Nostradamus and the Mayans were clearly horrible at this foretelling business, and our exile on this rock continues. The Syrian civil war continues unabated though the government forces of Bashar al-Assad seem to have gained the advantage, the European Union expanded by one more member – Croatia – despite its Eurocrisis, and Fidel Castro still lives to poke the United States in the eye. However, what were the defining moments of 2013? In the long term, it is hard to tell yet – as Groucho Marx said, outside of a dog, a book is Man’s best friend; inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. In the here and now, though, a few events stand out:

January 11 – France intervenes in Mali: Africa has been largely ignored since the end of colonialism there in the 1960s. Cold War struggles in Angola, Rhodesia, the Congo, Mozambique, Ethiopia, or Somalia rarely captured the attention of the world as Korea, Vietnam, or even South Asia did. After decades of neglect, Western powers are now following Islamists into the interiors of the continent; France’s intervention in Mali, soon after action in Libya and in context of its more vocal stance on Syria and the Congo, marks the Fifth Republic’s renewed interest in a global security commons, interestingly under a Socialist president. In the previous decade, France had notoriously blocked United Nations action in Iraq.

February 12 – N Korea’s third nuclear test: Any nuclear test is significant because it furthers a state’s knowledge of one of the most destructive weapons known. This test by Pyongyang is thought to have contributed to understanding warhead miniaturisation and greater fission of the core. If N Korea achieves this, together with its missiles (No Dong, Taepo Dong, Musudan, Unha), it becomes another de facto Nuclear Weapons State.

February 28 – Benedict XVI resigns as Pope: This is the first time since Gregory XII in 1415 that a pope has stood down, and the first to do so voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294. Benedict XVI may not have radically altered the course of history but by showing the ability to give up power, he has probably done more to remind the Church of its founding tenets than most popes in between.

April 2 – Arms Trade Treaty is signed: This treaty is dead on arrival, but it will nevertheless serve as another legal scalpel for powers when convenient, much like the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The aim of the treaty is to control and regulate the sale of conventional weapons, from small arms to battle tanks, prevent their diversion to clandestine buyers, and to restrict their flow into conflict areas. Past records show that such goals are a mirage – when the United States cut off arms sales to Pakistan during the South Asian Crisis of 1971, it encouraged Turkey, Jordan, and Iran to supply Islamabad from their arsenal which would be replenished and upgraded later; when the US Congress forbade the supply of arms to the Nicaraguan Contras, the Reagan White House found a way to divert money to the cause from secret arms sales to Iran.

May 28 – Taksim Gezi Park protests in Istanbul: A minor sit-in grew into a protest which became a nationwide conflagration against Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s slow erosion of country’s Kemalist secularism. The protest, seen in isolation, means little but considering it alongside the corruption probes against several ministers in Erdoğan’s cabinet and the now open war between the AKP and the Gülen movement, the AKP will have a bust time up to the 2015 elections. Most experts give the win to Erdoğan again, but a large part of that is due to the failure of the opposition to come up with a viable candidate and platform yet. One thing is for sure – Turkey is on the simmer. and a place to watch in the new year

June 6 – Edward Snowden reveals covert surveillance by NSA: A Booz Allen Hamilton employee’s revelations about the US National Security Agency’s espionage set off a firestorm around the world. Despite being long past the era in which gentlemen did not read other gentlemen’s letters, the sheer scope of the operation is stunning. Not only did the NSA spy on other enemy governments as intelligence agencies usually do, but they also spied on friendly and allied governments, political leaders, businesses, activists, and actively worked to sabotage privacy and encryption algorithms on the internet. The public heard for the first time names of programmes like PRISM, XKeyscore, and Tempora which were designed to take metadata from phones and internet traffic in a massive attempt at mass surveillance. Whatever one’s views of Snowden are – hero, whistle-blower or traitor – the presence of US surveillance agencies in a country’s most secret networks is a great significance and this leak dwarfs Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers in potential consequences.

June 14 – Flash floods in Uttarakhand: A multi-day cloud burst over northern India caused India’s worst natural disaster since the Southeast Asian tsunami hit in 2004. Over 100,000 Hindu pilgrims were stranded in Uttarakhand, the site of the smaller Char Dham. The Indian military rescued tens of thousands of people in Operation Surya Hope but despite their valiant efforts, official records indicate that over 10,000 people perished in the tragedy. For a brief moment, there was some focus on questionable construction practices and dubious licenses issued for development in the region; the death toll made people pay attention to the environmental impact of ill-conceived development, but in keeping with India’s indefatigable inertia, everyone has adjusted swalpa and moved on.

July 3 – Mohamed Morsi removed from power in Egypt: After tempting fate one time too many, the Egyptian military removed the country’s fifth president from power. Morsi is the leader of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, and came to office via an election some claim was far from honest. The Arab Spring had come to Egypt and toppled Hosni Mubarak who had ruled the country since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. During the election campaign, Morsi had sounded like a moderate traditionalist. Once he assumed office, however, his manipulation of the judiciary and the Islamist accent of the new constitution worried many Egyptians. The Army thus enjoyed widespread support when they acted against Morsi, and while the West debated semantics – whether it was a coup or not – the bloodshed continued in Egypt, turning their Spring into a Winter of Discontent.

August 21 – Ghouta chemical attack in Syria: The use of chemical weapons in war is not as rare as one would like: most recently, they were by Saddam Hussein against Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War; some accuse the United States of waging chemical warfare with its use of Agent Orange in Vietnam though there are some technical quibbles. Chemical weapons have been used on civilians too, most notably in Halabja against the Kurds by, again, Saddam Hussein. So why was Ghouta different? Honestly, it is hard to say, except for that it provided an excuse for the West to intervene in Syria if it wanted to. However, the difficulty of a military adventure in Syria appears to have stayed the West’s hand, as did Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s offer to surrender his entire stockpile of chemical weapons and sign the Chemical Weapons Convention. This reduces the ranks of non-signatories to just four – Angola, Egypt, N Korea, and S Sudan.

September 21 – Al-Shabaab attack Westgate Mall in Nairobi: Four or five gunmen from the terrorist group al-Shabaab killed 72 people and wounded over 200 over a span of three days in the upscale shopping mall of Westgate in the Westlands neighbourhood of Nairobi. The brutality of the attack – how many of the hostages were tortured – shocked the world. This is perhaps the worst terrorist attack on Kenyan soil and one of the larger attacks in the world since the attack on Bombay in November 2008. The terror group claimed that the attack was revenge for Kenya’s role in Operation Linda Nchi (2011) in which the Kenyan military coordinated with its Ethiopian and Somalian counterparts and deployed into southern Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabaab terrorists. After the tragedy, President Uhuru Kenyatta admitted that the rescue attempt had been bungled and promised to set up an inquiry.

November 5 – Indian launches Mars orbiter: One of the few bright events of the year, apart from Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from cricket (#trollbait!), was India’s launch of its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). Dubbed Mangalyaan by the media, the project is a first for India and the country becomes only the fifth country to send a mission to the Red Planet after the United States, Russia/Soviet Union, Japan, and the European Union. Of course, one can question if Russia deserves to be in this list given the curse its Mars programme seems to be under – 18 failures and three partial successes. India’s mission may not push on the boundaries of knowledge in any great way, but it represents the development of indigenous technology and skills needed for such a mission. The recent failure of India’s most powerful rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) meant that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had to settle for the smaller Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and hence a lighter payload. The probe is expected to reach Mars by late September next year, almost exactly when the United States’ Maven mission reaches the Red Planet. Despite these disappointments, Mangalyaan is a proud milestone in the history of India’s spacefaring.

November 24 – Interim Nuclear Agreement concluded with Iran: The deal represents nothing but a declaration of good faith to conduct negotiations, and establishes conditions for both the E3+3 (France, Germany, Britain + Russia, United States, China) and Iran that they may assuage the other side’s concerns. What is most important about this deal is that it has finally broken the jinx on Iran’s discussions with the West and achieved an agreement. Iran has been accused of being a year away from nuclear weapons capability since the early 1980s (!) and sanctions became tougher over the last eight years. In the last coupe of years, the threat of war loomed large as Iran inched closer to the West’s red line on Tehran’s nuclear development. Psychologically, this deal has readied many leaders to the idea that Iran is a country that can be negotiated with and has silenced the war drums for now. News of this potential breakthrough has already seen several businesses prepare to flood Iran’s market with their services the moment a final agreement is reached on the Middle Eastern state’s nuclear question.

December 7 – Bali Package signed at 9th WTO meet: The World Trade Organisation finally signed a trillion-dollar agreement in Bali at the Ninth Ministerial Conference. The deal has been widely hailed as an engine for growth, particularly for developing countries. It was agreed to simplify customs procedures so that goods could move quickly from state to state, and India finagled an exemption on the WTO’s limits on stockpiling, subsidies, and guaranteed pricing to farmers; in effect, the United Progressive Alliance’s new and ambitious food subsidy remains safe. The agreement is also expected to create some 20 million new jobs, most of which will be in developing countries. There are still wrinkles to be worked out, but those goals, such as duty-free trade, have been declared as eventual goals and put off for a later date. By stepping away from an all-or-nothing approach, the WTO was able to secure an arrangement beneficial to all at a pace acceptable to all.

Requiescat In Pace…

  • March 05 – Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (59)
  • March 14 – Ieng Sary, Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia (88)
  • April 08 – Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (88)
  • May 12 – Kenneth Waltz, Professor of Political Science (89)
  • December 05 – Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa (95)
  • December 14 – Peter O’Toole, Actor (81)
  • December 23 – Mikhail Kalashnikov, Arms designer (94)

This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on December 28, 2013.