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What geography and economics could mean for India’s China problem

In his book The Revenge of Geography, American scholar Robert Kaplan says the fact that China is blessed by geography is so basic that it is often overlooked in conversations about China’s growing economic and geo-strategic assertiveness. Quoting the British geographer Halford Mackinder, Kaplan writes, “who controls Eurasia, controls the world.” Today, as the world sits up and takes notice of China’s over $1.2 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which seeks to link the Chinese economy with 64 economies in South and Central Asia, and eventually Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the geography that Kaplan says has been ignored is at the very heart of the challenge this ambitious project poses to India.

Given that it already dominates the world economy with access to and from its massive eastern seaboard, senior Indian diplomats – serving and former – are convinced Beijing’s intentions to open such a massive trade front to the West are ‘neither benign nor transformative,’ but is instead aimed at a geo-strategic encirclement of India, and cutting India’s regional influence significantly – a initiative purely for China’s national interest.

Ever since the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a key component of the BRI in 2013 at a cost of roughly $50 billion – through the disputed areas of Gilgit and Baltistan in Pakistan occupied Kashmir – Delhi has had cause for alarm. Geography necessitates that India play a role in an initiative to link the regions of South and Central Asia economically, but it can easily be argued that it is this very project – the CPEC – that’s responsible for keeping it away from the BRI.

If there was any doubt earlier over the validity of these concerns, recent commentary in the Chinese media have confirmed them. While ostensibly reiterating a principle of non-interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations, Hu Weija argues in the Global Times that “Beijing can’t turn a deaf ear to the demands of Chinese enterprises in protecting their overseas investments.”

Against a backdrop of a spiralling crisis in Kashmir and a complete freeze in dialogue between India and Pakistan, the article argues for China’s vested interest in helping resolve “regional conflicts” and become a “stabilising force”. Another article in the same paper by Long Xingchun says the CPEC won’t affect the status quo of the Kashmir dispute with India, but aims only to improve economic ties between China and Pakistan. In a weak attempt to bolster this argument, the author claims Beijing doesn’t object to economic links between other countries – including India’s – with Taiwan, and so Delhi should be ‘pragmatic and flexible’ and open to economic activity in the Kashmir region.

The articles claims that Beijing is a neutral observer to the India-Pakistan dispute with only the region’s overall economic interest in mind ring hollow, given how closely China has tied its strategic positions against India with Pakistan – its all-weather friend. Whether it was the stapled visas it issued to Kashmiris in 2009, or its repeated refusal to proscribe Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar as an international terrorist at the UN, or its holding out against India for membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, China has been clear about where it stands; clarity and support that Pakistan will leverage at every opportunity, especially as the Islamabad-Washington relationship comes apart at the seams. According to US central bank data, US investment in Pakistan since July 2013 is at $505 million, as compared to China’s $1.82 billion. US President Donald Trump’s new budget proposals will most likely significantly cut American assistance to Pakistan as well.

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Bilahari Kaursikan, ambassador-at-large in Singapore’s foreign ministry, argues that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s comments at Davos that China is prepared to lead the liberal world order if the US isn’t, is as much “a tacit admission of erosion of that world order as it is a declaration of confidence in China’s power” globally. And the BRI is the product of that confidence – China’s ambitious plans to redefine its frontiers under the guise of the regional economic development. For a country with a 10% growth rate for well over three decades, the BRI is China’s attempt to consolidate land boundaries, and look out, westward.

With weakened Russian influence in Central Asia and the rise of a ‘multipolar’ world, opportunity was ripe for China to move into massive infrastructure projects, develop road networks and invest in energy – hydrocarbons, minerals and oil and gas – across the entire region. While its backers insist Beijing’s motives to set up this ‘new silk road’ are purely economic, Delhi – that has already seen the first signs of this expansionism with the development of the Karakoram Highway through disputed territories in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and the Gwadar Port off the Pakistani coast on the Arabian Sea – can’t help but be suspicious. The question now, really, is what leverage Delhi has in order to keep Chinese expansionism at bay.

Making a veiled criticism, Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticised Beijing earlier this year, saying regional connectivity corridors only work when sovereignty of countries involved is respected. In the run up to its massive BRI conference in Beijing, China has been lobbying to address Indian concerns, pointing precisely to the existence of the Karakoram Highway as proof that it won’t affect Kashmir’s territorial status. However, as an indication of India’s opposition to the CPEC, Modi has decided not to attend the upcoming meeting in Beijing, but send what Delhi calls a ‘low-level delegation’ instead. Delhi has to assess what else it can leverage in order to ensure its regional prominence. The Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh was a poke in the eye to Beijing. And on Pakistan, Delhi has made it clear it is in no mood to negotiate, unless violence along the Line of Control and international border in Jammu and Kashmir comes to a complete stop. But these are, at best, short term responses.

It is unclear how the BRI will develop and play out in the long run and how India will ensure a regional, economic strategy that effectively counters China. On the one hand, Chinese projects in the region from Pakistan to Sri Lanka have not yielded the potential they promised at the beginning. Its critics suggest that at some point in the not so distant future, there will be no choice but to renegotiate projects “with long gestation periods and variable returns” for better returns. On the other, supporters argue that India’s suspicion of the initiative is not shared globally and that China isn’t spending all this money for projects to fail, purely with the intention of reining India in. The IMF and credit ratings agency Moody’s have recognised the CPEC’s potential to drive growth in the region. Several UN fora have also endorsed the BRI, arguing that connectivity between so many smaller economies is in the larger, global interest.

What is clear is that China’s ambitious project has made the rest nervous. While India tries steadily to engage countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia and many Central Asian republics on natural resources, Japan is looking to develop infrastructure and connectivity projects in East and South Asia, with India as a pivot. The intention is to work around the BRI and its proposed benefits, so to speak, and make Pakistan nervous in the bargain. India’s Pakistan problem has morphed into India’s China problem, two pronged in a sense – one a clear subset of the India-China equation in a larger, economic sense, and two a genuine security threat along the border. But, over a decade ago, soft borders and the free flow of trade were also components of the 2004 ‘four-point plan’ for peace in Kashmir that now lies in the dustbin of politics. The BRI will go on, irrespective of India’s opposition, and while it is diplomatically next to impossible for Delhi to be a part of the initiative, could these ‘development wars’ against China lead to unexpected outcomes as regional powerhouses work competitively to create their own webs of economic connectivity and interdependence that will ultimately militate against the very geography, the very boundaries that define us?

This commentary originally appeared in The Wire.

CHINA

NEIGHBOURHOOD

STRATEGIC STUDIES

COMMENTARIES

GOVERNANCE AND POLITICS

CHINA FOREIGN POLICY

GREAT POWER DYNAMICS

INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY

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Need coherent plan of action to address Indian Ocean challenges

INDIAN OCEAN

·      IOR

“The success of maritime governance in the Indian Ocean is dependent on how effectively regional States can develop a working consensus around key developmental objectives. The endeavor must be to evolve a coherent plan of action to address the Indian Ocean’s many non-traditional and human security challenges, as well as to develop a model of sustainable development”. This observation by Justice (Retd) P Sathasivam, the Governor of Kerala, made in the course of his inaugural address of the first Oceans’ Dialogue in Thiruvanandapuram, the State capital, set the stage for a stimulating two days of discussions involving maritime conservation, development and security.

The conference, organised on April 19, 20 and 21 by Observer Research Foundation, in partnership with the Government of Netherlands, discussed security and developmental challenges in the maritime domain with speakers from diverse stakeholders – from conservations experts and marine biologists to maritime trade analysts and security pundits. In ten plenary sessions spread over two and a half day, participants discussed issues of littoral conservation, marine and infrastructure development, and security in Asia’s regional littorals. The thrust of the deliberations on the first day was on human security issues and ‘Ocean Governance’, as speakers highlighted the importance and need for contributions from regional governments. The session on Blue Growth (BE) witnessed a discussion on the protection and sustainable exploitation of ocean resources.

Sustainability, indeed, is inherent in the conception of BE. Even as its contours expand, the idea of Blue Economy appears based on the sustainable development of oceanic resources for the benefit of humankind. As a participant brought out, environmental protection is the central and determining feature of BE, a radical concept aimed at Ocean-based development. For others though, the Blue Economy is but an alternate means of managing ocean resources. The key elements seem to be cost and conservation. The Oceans’ riches, some speakers pointed out, needed to be harnessed at lower costs, and in ways that reduces wastage and raises efficiency. In order to add value to manufacturing and services, it is important to reduce production, lower consumption and access near sources. The session also discussed ways to conserve corals in the Indian Ocean, aided by a presentation from a participant from Seychelles, who spoke about large-scale reef restoration projects.

Similarly, in marine ecosystems, participants brought out the need to conserve ocean biodiversity, as also to protect and nourish oceanic ecosystems. Indian Ocean Governance, as one speaker mentioned, was stuck between two extremes: lofty global commitments in the form of Sustainable Goal No. 14 and localized approaches on managing marine resources and livelihoods. Reconciling the contradictions would need enhanced regional governance to preserve local ecosystems and the oceans and climate as global common goods. Some participants highlighted the need to demarcate Marine Protected Areas, where ecosystem and fish stock conservation can be facilitated by establishing “no-take” or highly protected areas in the high seas of the Indian Ocean. This would also require a comprehensive treaty-system that would not only be geographically inclusive and wide-ranging in terms of the species covered, but also empowering for disadvantaged stakeholders, private actors and the scientific community.

In the next session on trade and connectivity, speakers underscored the importance of sea-borne trade for the global economy. The key highlight of the session was a presentation on trade intermediaries in the Indian Ocean Region, and a proposal to rethink trade policy, from a focus on primary manufacturers, to a focus on the firms that facilitate their trade with the region and world. It emerged there were strong technical barriers to trade in the IOR, and a lack of systems to monitor and share data on import rejections. Participants also brought out the need to link infrastructure that connects inland Asia and Africa with the Indian Ocean rim, to improve the viability of regional ports. As a delegate noted, infrastructure development in the IOR needs supporting interventions that can create logistics corridors and rationalize customs and duties imposed by national governments.

Yet, trade seemed like a complex puzzle to solve for many of the experts present. An interesting presentation on Indian Ocean trade brought out intra-ASEAN trade share has stagnated at 25%, aided in no small measure by the harmful use of Non Trade Barriers, following a drastic tariff reduction for goods on the Inclusion, Sensitive and Highly Sensitive Lists. There NTBs used by governments that take the form of prohibitions, conditions or specific market requirements, were toxic for Indian Ocean trade. These issues are key concern areas as China forges ahead on the path to developing its “21st Century Maritime Silk Route” – an issue covered in detail by a Chinese participant during the conference, who outlined Beijing’s initiatives in building multi-layer maritime interconnectivity networks to consolidate economic, trade and cultural connections among countries along the MSR.

The panel on climate change and disaster management in the Indian Ocean witnessed a lively debate on the factors causing large climactic changes in the regional littorals. For some, these seem to be natural variations, driven in part by large-scale low-latitude atmospheric circulation configuration, in turn caused by seasonal variations in solar radiation. Others saw these changes as triggered by the ‘Green-Gas House’ effects. While marine research programmes do show conclusive evidence of a critical interplay between both summer and winter monsoon strength and global climate conditions, it also seems true that rapid increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and associated rise in global temperatures is causing a variation in climatic patters over the Indian Ocean.

As a corollary to the rapidly changing climate and the extreme events it engineers, humanitarian assistance has emerged a focal area of policy attention. A panelist in the session highlighted the Indian Navy’s exceptional rescue effort during the 2004 Tsunami and in subsequent humanitarian crises in Lebanon and Libya. The armed forces, he noted, have a natural advantage in carrying out rescue and relief operations owing to their superior infrastructure, hardware-in-stock, and training – factors that allow them to offer the fastest response to a situation. As one of the most disaster prone regions in the world, the IOR has been witnessing growing humanitarian crisis every year, with shrinking capabilities of many regional states in tackling the rescue effort efficaciously. Even in countries that have a relatively high average index of development, the capacity to invest in HADR mechanisms is constrained by resource-prioritization schemes.

On the second day, the conference began with a session on India’s growing partnership with ASEAN, with participants evaluating the deepening quality of New Delhi’s strategic and political ties with Southeast Asian states, as well as the advancing maritime partnership in the regional seas. This was followed by a discussion on managing security in the ‘littorals spaces’. With piracy making a comeback in the Western Indian Ocean, and maritime crime (drugs and human trafficking, gun-running and IUU fishing) still high, coastal security seems high on the agenda of most regional governments.

Most importantly, crime in the Indian Ocean littorals now involves an interplay of forces on land and at sea. There is a growing sense that the roots of seaborne crime lie on land. For maritime law-enforcement measures to be effective at sea, the challenges must first be tackled ashore. The problem, as speaker pointed out, is that the laws that govern the territorial seas are different from those that apply to the high seas. Unless regional states come up with a coherent and consistent legal framework to deal with coastal threats, it would be hard to address the sea-borne challenges.

As functional regimes are developed, regional states will need to cater for facilitate multiple activities in areas seemingly distinct but often overlapping. One such area is the issue of private maritime security companies. On-board security may have helped reduce the threat of maritime piracy, but it has disturbed the balance of rights in coastal waters. Since many states haven’t established coordinating authorities for maritime security within their governments (as called for in the 2005 Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation — SUA Convention) it has been hard to streamline coordination among nations to tackle issues arising from unlawful acts by private security onboard ships.

The final session of the conference discussed the strategic picture in the Asia Pacific, impacted significantly by China’s aggressive maritime expansion. The discussions dwelt on the role of several extra-regional players in Indian Ocean security, in particular China and the US. A participant from Sri Lanka brought out reasons why Colombo saw Beijing as an important and indispensable partner in the Indian Ocean. In response to probing questions by Indian participants, who wanted to know about the nature of access provided to Chinese companies and the PLA Navy, he highlighted Sri Lanka’s developmental needs that rendered a partnership with China an economic necessity. The narrative was balanced by another participant from the US, who outlined Washington’s own security outreach to the Indian Ocean – premised mainly on developing relations with India and Sri Lanka.

Capping off an excellent day’s discussion was an insightful and inspiring valedictory address by Dr Shashi Tharoor who comprehensively outlined India’s maritime concerns in it near and far seas. Commenting on Vizhinjam, India’s new transshipment port, he noted, the need to develop significant forward and backward linkages, as also address commercial, security, and other long term questions of ecological sustainability. This, he noted, “could best be pursued by developing an integrated maritime logistical confluence featuring a dry dock with the capacity to handle large vessels, an ancillary major port, a centre for ship design to manufacture commercial ships, and an academy to develop all the professional skills necessary to support such an integrated maritime hub”. According to Dr Tharoor, New Delhi’s maritime policy will need to keep in mind India’s long term strategic interests – particularly the need to counter China’s looming shadow in the IOR. India, he observed, will need to be conscious of the “danger of being outrun in its own neighborhood”.

Complementing other interesting keynote addresses by Mr Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala, Dr Harsha de Silva, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Ms Pooja Kapur, Joint Secretary (ASEAN) in the Ministry of External Affairs, and Ambassador K Bhagirath, General Secretary IORA, Dr Tharoor’s talk brought home the importance of Ocean development as an enabler of national and regional prosperity, bringing proceeding to apt closure.

·         Text of the Keynote Address by JS (ASEAN ML)

·         Text of the Valedictory Address by Dr. Shashi Tharoor

·         Text of the Speech by Hon. Harsha de Silva, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs

·      STRATEGIC STUDIES

·      MARITIME POLICY

·      EVENT REPORTS

·      INDIAN OCEAN

·      MARITIME INFRASTRUCTURE

·      MARITIME GOVERNANCE ARCHITECTURE

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An impasse in SAARC

RAISINA DEBATES

JAN 04 2017

An impasse in SAARC

JAYSHREE SENGUPTA

18th SAARC Summit

SAARC Secretariat

BBIN

BIMSTEC

CPEC

SAARC

South Asian Regional Cooperation (SAARC) seems to have reached its nadir. With Brexit having shaken up the European Union in June 2016, it is not surprising that the least economically integrated region of the world is breaking apart. In general, the rise of nationalism the world over seems to have relegated regional cooperation to a lower rank in the list of a country’s priorities.

The SAARC meeting which was supposed to be held in Islamabad on November 15 to 16th2016 has been postponed indefinitely because India withdrew from it, protesting against Pakistan’s hand in the Uri terrorist attack. All others except Nepal, the current head of SAARC withdrew. The chances are that the 19th SAARC meeting may not take place in 2017 in case all members are not present. This is a very disturbing development that would hinder the progress of regional cooperation in South Asia. But it signifies that regional cooperation in the midst of two acrimonious neighbours cannot flourish anymore. Only if there is sub-regional cooperation among countries of the region can there be some success in achieving the goals of development and poverty reduction.

Read | SAARC without Pakistan: Not now, not ever

Begun in 1987, SAARC is only 30 years old. Today it comprises of eight members—Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. It is a shame that whatever progress has been achieved so far will be wiped out by the recent and indefinite postponement of the 19th Summit.

Regional cooperation is important for reducing inequality among member countries and promoting people to people contact that can increase tourism and enhance cultural ties. South Asia happens to be the one of the most backward regions of the world containing 23.4 per cent of the world’s population but accounting only for 6.6 percent of the world’s GDP (in terms of Purchasing Power Parity). It contains 40 per cent of the world’s poor surviving on less than $1.25 a day.

The achievements of SAARC have not been spectacular though India has reduced custom duties on most product imports from the region. India has been especially generous to Bangladesh and Nepal with whom it has an open border. There have been cooperation deals signed in the fields of agriculture, energy, SMEs, investment, services and human development at the 18th SAARC meeting in Kathmandu. Compared to the monumental problems all the countries face in the region towards eradicating poverty the achievements have been rather meagre. There are still a lot of barriers to travelling freely between the countries of the region due to lack of connectivity and transportation. Geopolitics has taken over geo-economics in most cases and even when the countries concerned know the clear economic gains, they are reluctant to let down barriers to trade and investment for geopolitical reasons. Pakistan blocked three connectivity agreements proposed in the Kathmandu summit because Pakistan had not completed its “internal process” to endorse them.

Even though there is widespread smuggling going on between Pakistan and India the total quantum of trade between the two countries at $2.6 billion which is meagre as a proportion of India’s total trade with the world. Pakistan has a huge trade deficit with India.  Even so more trade and investment could have eased the political impasse as it would have increased the incomes and living standards of people in both countries. Yet there is a tremendous amount of mistrust between the two governments on economic issues. Pakistan is afraid of being swamped by Indian goods, if it allows freer access to Indian goods.

Read | BIMSTEC and India’s shifting diplomatic calculus

Even though India granted the MFN status in 1995, Pakistan has been reluctant to reciprocate. Though the Pakistan Cabinet approved of it in November 2011, it has continued to delay . Now it has come up with another type of trade facilitation—Non Discriminatory Market Access Agreement which is not the same as MFN which means that Pakistan’s tariffs will continue to be charged at differential rates for Indian products as compared to Pakistan’s other trade partners.

Political problems have stood in the way of cordial economic relations between the two countries. Pakistan however has good relations with Sri Lanka and has a Free Trade Agreement since 2006. China’s role is very important in the region. Out of the two huge countries dominating the region—China and India, China is gaining ground in terms of increasing trade and doling out monetary help for infrastructure building under its One Belt One Road Project. All the SAARC members have forged closer trade ties with China.

Nepal is specially becoming closer and China is investing large amount in it.  In March 2016, former Prime Minister of Nepal K.P. Oli, paid a visit to China and signed 10 MOUs to boost economic cooperation that include an agreement to facilitate trade and transit between the two neighbours, concessional loan for constructing Pokhara Regional Airport and an economic and technical cooperation agreement. With India, in 2016 two MOUs were signed worth $2 billion. The first was $1 bn line of credit and second was $1 bn assistance for rebuilding after the earthquake.

Read | Urgent need for new architecture for India’s neighbourhood policy

Bangladesh is also receiving a huge loan of $21 billion from China making India’s loan of $2 billion look puny. There are 27 agreements and MOUs including 12 loan and mutual agreements in building roads, bridges, capacity building and skill development, BCIM-EC initiative and industrial production. China is number one trade partner of Bangladesh and it imported $9.8 billion worth of goods in 2015-16.

In Pakistan, China is spending $46 billion in infrastructure that includes the building of economic corridor between Kashgar, Xinjiang province of China and Gwadar, a Pakistani port on the Arabian sea. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently inaugurated a 340 MW power plant built with Chinese aid and pledged that the menace of blackouts will last only till 2018. It is also giving soft loans of $1 billion for three road projects in the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Chinese President Xi Jinping toured South Asia promoting the Silk Road initiative and became the first Chinese Head of State to visit Maldives where China is upgrading Maldives’ international airport after the cancellation of a deal with an Indian firm in 2012.

In Sri Lanka, China was financing s $1.4 billion “Colombo Port City” project but due to some controversy, President Maithripala  Sirisena cancelled it in 2015. But overall since 2005, China has funded or constructed 70 per cent of new infrastructure projects.

Thus SAARC clearly needs to be reorganized because in its current form it is unlikely to work with the souring of relations between Pakistan and India after the Uri attack and Pakistan’s cosying up to China in building its infrastructure, some of it through POK.  China is taking a more active role in all the member SAARC countries and they seem to be having strong bilateral relations with China and not with India, the biggest country in the region.

Read | Inducting BIMSTEC into BRICS talks was a good idea

Admitting China in SAARC as a full member instead of being one of the Observers along with Australia, Iran, Republic of Korea, Mauritius, Myanmar EU, US and Japan, was discussed at the Kathmandu summit but it was not supported by India.  India’s role will remain important in SAARC in terms of geography and population (occupying 70 per cent of the area and population) and GDP. Since SAARC has faced many hitches in the past, several sub regional initiatives have turned out to be successful like the SASEC (South Asian Sub Regional Economic cooperation comprising of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka and BBIN (involving Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal). BBIN sub region signed a Motor Vehicles agreement to ensure free and unfettered movement of passenger, personal and cargo vehicles. Around $30 billion regional projects have been started under SASEC in areas of transport, energy, trade facilitation, and information, communication technology. Much will depend on how deeply interested Prime Minister Modi is in promoting regional cooperation and what relations India has with its neighbours in 2017. Pakistan’s cooperation is also vital for SAARC to succeed and revived.

COMMENTARIES

GOVERNANCE AND POLITICS

INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY

NEIGHBOURHOOD

NEIGHBOURHOOD

The views expressed above belong to the author(s).

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Maldives: Will Yameen re-position himself in 2017

COMMENTARIES

JAN 10 2017

Maldives: Will Yameen re-position himself in 2017?

N. SATHIYA MOORTHY

Swearing-in ceremony of President Nasheed in 2013

Source: Alchetron

GAYOOM

MALDIVES

YAMEEN

There is only one way to describe the events and developments in Maldives during 2016 and it’s this: Maldives-2016 was the ‘Year of Yameen’. It was so the previous year, too, in a way, yet 2016 alone consolidated the ‘gains’ of 2015 for President Abdulla Yameen. The same, however, cannot be said of Maldives as a nation, per se.

The year for Maldives is marked by two major developments, one in domestic politics and the other in foreign policy. The former related to the split in Yameen’s ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), with his half-brother and former President, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, splitting away. The latter, and even more important, relates to Maldives quitting the Commonwealth. Both centred on Yameen’s moves and/or decisions.

True, before Gayoom and the PPM faction led by him, criticism and protests against Yameen had commenced with the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the official Opposition led by former President, Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed. Nasheed made more news in the previous year than this one. Where he was in the news, Nasheed left Maldives for the UK for ‘medical treatment’, and sought and obtained ‘political asylum’ there. He could not have helped Yameen more, as he ceased to make any more news even as the year wound to a close.

Where Nasheed and the MDP made news, it was in the context of their high-profile ‘last-ditch’ battle of the year, when he sought to identify the Gayoom faction with his own efforts to return home on his terms, and to become President. The ‘old fox’ of Maldivian politics would have none of it, and made his first major move only after the Nasheed efforts, based out of neighbouring Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, had bombed — and he himself had denied any link.

Read | Maldives: Should India prefer ‘surgical strikes’ of a positive kind?

It suited Yameen immensely, and for two reasons. One, it meant that there was no imminent threat to his leadership. Two, in turn, it meant that he had enough time to consolidate his power and position even more than already. Ultimately, the Gayoom split went nowhere. If anything, two of the PPM parliamentarians who had sided with Gayoom returned to the Yameen fold even before the dust had settled down on the split.

Yameen is thus as cosy as the day he commenced the presidency, after weeks of controversies over the 2013 poll process, and months of uncertainty over his possible election. If anything, he might be better placed than earlier, but then that’s all there is to it. He needs to win the presidential polls, due in November 2018, and the clock has started ticking towards the deadline, whether or not for his presidency in electoral terms.

Otherwise, Maldives’ quitting the Commonwealth was nothing like any foreign policy decision that the nation had taken ever. Even at the worst of times, Gayoom, who also got lampooned by the Commonwealth on the one hand, and the UK leader of the erstwhile British colonial grouping on the other, had not considered the move — leave alone deciding the way Yameen did a decade or less later. Even Nasheed, who felt cheated by the Commonwealth-overseen ‘National Inquiry’ into his exit in February 2012, did not promise or propose anything of the kind.

In the 21st century, the world started looking at the Indian Ocean archipelago owing first to the ‘democratisation’ process and the preceding protests in the first decade. Alongside, the first democratic President Nasheed made global headlines in his fight for the environment through his eye-catching initiative in holding a Cabinet meeting under water.

Read | Is India ‘indifferent’ to Indian Ocean neighbourhood?

Nasheed and his MDP thus became the centre-piece of whatever media-attention that Maldives got through the period — and in a way, since then. True, his predecessor President Gayoom was the first to raise his voice as far back as the late 1970s about the threat of the archipelago-nation ‘going under the sea’.

Yet, he was too old-fashioned to imagine the kind of propaganda-tactic that Nasheed very imaginatively adopted to publicise a ‘noble cause’. True, there was no media of the kind as Maldives itself came to enjoy around the time Nasheed began emerging as a strong leader, capable of replacing Gayoom after the latter had been President for 30 long years. Yet, hosting an ‘under-sea Cabinet meeting’ should have come naturally to Gayoom, under whose care the nation developed into a ‘tourism economy’ big-time, from being a poor, sleepy fishermen’s enclave.

Scuba-diving, for instance, was already known during Gayoom’s time, too. But capturing the imagination of the masses nearer home, and the world outside, required ‘moving with the times’, which Gayoom lacked with advancing age and he too got used to the power of power, and nothing else.

Read | Maldives: Govt pays up GMR

Nasheed was the right man at the right place at the right time. If a Nasheed had not been born at the time he emerged, one would have got made. Rather, Maldives would have made one – or, another. If one had not clicked, another would have still emerged, may be not as slow and distant from the first, as the Gayoom era had witnessed almost throughout.

It was so with Yameen, too. There was need to balance development with democracy, so to say – or, if one is charitable enough to describe his presidency thus far only in kind words. Gayoom put development before democracy, not that a mixture would not have helped. Nasheed put democracy before development in his short span in office.

Yet, both sounded insincere at best even in the course and direction of their own choosing, at least after a time. Gayoom did not notice that the world around him had changed and that the new-generation Maldivians especially had become ‘enlightened’ by the education that his leadership provided to the last islander in the most distant atoll — however small a beginning it still continues to be.

Read | Maldives: Now, it’s Gayoom’s turn to lose another round to Yameen?

Gayoom still got a long innings as individual Maldivians got to smell, touch and feel the benefits of the developmental agenda that he pursued with great vigour and commitment, especially in the early years and decades. But he did not notice, understand or accept the peripheral ‘fall-out’ of his development agenda. Democracy thus became a burden for him, and a mill-stone around his neck, rather than he using it, too, to consolidate his own political gains for a still longer innings.

Nasheed did not have time on his side the same way. Worse still, he did not see the telescoping of time from the Gayoom era. The political benefits that Nasheed and his MDP reaped owed also to the extension and expansion of the media-reach in the country, going as far up to the present-generation of ‘social media’. He forgot that two can play the game, and he too got the wrong end of the stick, maybe well before his time.

The analogy ‘Transition President’ becomes necessary because Yameen’s is a combination of both, and he himself has telescoped the time-factor even more for the self. In between Nasheed and Yameen, President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik provided the inevitable ‘transition’, to an admixture of development and democracy – but much too in a negative sense of both terms after a point.

Read | Investment lessons for India, from Sri Lanka & Maldives

Again, if a Waheed presidency was not possible under the democratic Constitution for the Vice-President to inherit the Presidency for the reminder of the term as and when a vacancy had arisen, one would have been made. It did not happen in the case of Gayoom, but had to prolong into street-protests and global diplomatic efforts by the Nasheed/MDP camp (even before he ‘took over’ the leadership) because Gayoom took care of his second-line even while forgetting his tail-end altogether.

To the present-day detractors of Yameen, he is no developmental messiah like Gayoom, though he too has been attempting a repeat of his half-brother’s achievements in a limited time available to him. Rather, he has made only a limited time available to him. The irony is that almost all three leaders, namely, Gayoom, Nasheed and Yameen, came to power almost around the same age, yet Gayoom alone from among them proved that he was not a man in a hurry.

In the process, Gayoom also suffered the consequences of institutional lethargy. It was also his creation. Nasheed was in too much of hurry to consolidate power before performance. He could have chosen the other way round – but it was alien to his nature. If anything, his detractors knew his weaknesses better during his presidency and exploited it. It was just like Nasheed exploiting the inherent and institutionalised weaknesses of Gayoom when the latter was in power.

Read | Realignment of forces in Maldives

Again, it’s so with Yameen, or so it seems. Only that he has been as slow as Nasheed in pushing his performance agenda, and too fast as Gayoom in pushing away the legitimate democratic aspirations of a population that he has become unfamiliar with. It’s not clear as yet if Nasheed could re-emerge from the MDP’s failures just now, or Gayoom at his advancing age could rekindle development goals and promises in a new generation, but a better combination of Yameen could emerge if he did not re-engineer his forms and methods.

Such a course, now or later, could or could not be in the Waheed footstep. At least Yameen seems to be apprehending such a course for himself, after playing matron for the birth of the Waheed presidency in his own way. But it could still be in the more popular precedents set by Nasheed when he climbed to power. In a way, Gayoom too had reached there the same way in his time but under radically different circumstances.

Under the circumstances, it’s inevitable that Yameen would not trust anyone likely to replace him through a ‘constitutional coup’, as Nasheed had described the Waheed succession. Independent of criminal conspiracy cases and a bomb-blast on the presidential boat, Yameen got two of his own vice-presidents impeached by Parliament, the first one with the blessings of sworn-rival MDP and President Nasheed.

It had begun almost from the day Yameen became President. He could not thank the billionaire-business man and Jumhooree Party (JP) founder, Gasim Ibrahim, for backing him in the second, run-off round polling for the presidency in 2013 against Nasheed – and transferring almost entirely the former’s 25 per cent vote-share. But he would not let Gasim, with his own political ambitions, poll-plank and ‘transferrable’ vote-base, to become the Speaker of Parliament.

Read | Court giving PPM to Yameen, Gayoom’s options narrow down

Under the 2008 Constitution, should the posts of President and Vice-President fall vacant, the Speaker would be the next in line to fill in the vacant. Unlike the Vice-President, who would get the reminder of the outgoing President’s five-year term, the Speaker could be in the President’s shoes only for 60 days, when his sole job was to fill in the vacuum for 60 days, for fresh polls to be held and a successor to assume office.

Yameen would not trust Gasim even with that remotest possibility, as things stood when he assumed office. Naturally so, Gasim would be his first target to be squared-up over huge credits that the former’s Villa Group owed State entities, before he would turn greater attention on the likes of Nasheed and Gayoom. It’s possibly in this process that he could not but target his own vice-presidential choices, two in a row.

In a way, Yameen’s threat to Gayoom – or, was it meant to be seen the other way round – also owed from the possibilities of the latter’s family turning against him ahead of Elections-2018. The ‘Maumoon rebellion’, if the Gayooms’ threat to Yameen could be termed so, owed mostly to purported understanding over the former President backing his half-brother whole-heartedly in 2013, with the promise/expectation that he would not run a second term, and would back a Gayoom son, instead, for the nation’s top-most position.

It was possibly the case with the Nasheed camp, but independent of any Yameen threat or initiative. Not long after the 2013 presidential polls, the Nasheed camp within the MDP had begun talking in low voices about his concern and consequent plans for the future. Accordingly, in any future election, Nasheed would campaign to amend the Constitution, to have a Westminster-type democracy, with Parliament and the Prime Minister at the Centre, and away from the existing presidential form on American lines.

The implication was that Nasheed would become the Head of State without Executive powers and would promote younger elements to prime ministerial and ministerial positions, for them to mature in office so as to shoulder greater national and political responsibilities in future. Noble thoughts, yes, but Nasheed’s approach did not measure up to the promises, as was expected of him.

It was thus that December 2014 witnessed Nasheed and the MDP making a sudden push for Yameen to hand over power to Gasim, who was neither the Vice-President, nor the Speaker, not even an ally of them. Instead, Gasim, despite licking his wounds from the Speaker’s polls that he had lost, was an ally of Yameen and the undivided ruling PPM.

Gayoom himself repeated the same folly when he called on Gasim (obviously with appointment) and appeared together before the local media after parting company with Yameen during the year. That was enough to embarrass and harass Gasim, who once again did a U-turn towards the Yameen side, just as he had done vis a vis the MDP following the State’s demand for $90 million in unpaid dues — a lot of money, especially in Maldivian economic context.

Maldives-2016 once again reiterated even in its very own context the limitation of international diplomacy and big-power politics to control and conduct events and developments in smaller/tiny nations than had been possible in an earlier era. The Commonwealth, for instance, and the US albeit indirectly in context, could not do much through threats of sanctions and all, to make the Yameen leadership fall in line.

It would have been the same case had there been anyone else in his place in similar circumstances. It was thus left to neighbours like India and Sri Lanka – the latter at a more personal level – to negotiate Nasheed’s ‘prison leave’ for spinal treatment in the UK. The latter did not acquit himself well in the early weeks of his stay overseas, by making political statements and meeting with the political class.

In a way, Nasheed’s going against the court-granted ‘medical leave’ and also the later-day political asylum that he obtained from the British hosts would have suited Yameen well. By jumping the court orders to return after medical treatment, he has brought upon himself another criminal case, whose political consequences could be worse than the legal one. Whether they succeed in their mission, his detractors could well tell the Maldivian voters that such a man who defied court orders and the Constitution should not be trusted with the nation’s presidency.

On the one hand, Yameen also has had his biggest electoral challenger of 2018 out of the way, what with Nasheed having defied Maldivian court orders in over-staying his ‘medical leave’ and refusing to return, and serve much of the 13-year prison term in the ‘Judge Abdulla abduction case’. On the other, Nasheed’s anticipated refusal clearly put India and Sri Lanka on the defensive vis a vis the Yameen leadership.

The Commonwealth too got it wrong. If they thought that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group’s (CMAG) ‘threats’ to penalise Maldives for non-compliance of commitments made on the democracy front, with particular reference to ‘political prisoners’ and ‘judicial processes’ (read: viz Nasheed in particular), for the medium term, Yameen has thumbed his nose at them by quitting the organisation outright.

Now, Commonwealth has nothing on the CMAG Agenda for their meeting in the early weeks of the New Year, when they were either to verify compliance, or initiate penal measures, whatever it could have been. Instead, there is a stronger message that ‘lesser mortals’ in the global polity have a better way of expressing themselves and strongly than had been credited with in the past.

Yet, the question remains what the future holds for Yameen and Maldives, not necessarily in that order. Post-Brexit, the UK and post-polls, the upcoming Donald Trump presidency in the US would take time to settle down to usual business, especially on foreign policy front involving tiny nations caught in their domestic politics than with the ‘China’ bogey. They may not have as much time for Maldives as the Nasheed camp, among others, might have hoped for. At least, it may not happen in the immediate.

Yet, Maldivian people remain the final arbiter of politics and presidency in the country. There is nothing to indicate that Yameen would consider putting off the presidential polls of 2018 one way or the other – and the ‘constitutional’ way. The greater chances are that he would see greater legitimisation of his regime for a longer period than the other way round – but then the political processes available to Gayoom in the form of a ‘Parliament-nominated, one-candidate’ polls are all in the past.

It’s still advantage Yameen, as no viable opponent capable of winning over the masses against an incumbent President with additional salvos for the political opponent is yet visible. Nasheed is out of the country, and thus out of the reckoning. His inherent suspicions about his own ‘trusted’ second-line got a boost with the ‘Waheed episode’ even as he refuses to reconcile his own contributions to creating enemies of friends and allies.

Gayoom and Gasim cannot contest owing to an MDP-backed constitutional amendment, barring persons above 65 years from contesting the presidency and vice-presidency. Minus Gayoom, there is no other person in his camp just now who can throw up a bigger challenge to Yameen to make the average Maldivian trust the opposition to an incumbent more than in 2008, to campaign openly and vote overly against him.

Neither can the Yameen leadership forget the way Gayoom lost the 2008 polls to a combination of factors – and a combination of Opposition candidates, who were ‘divided when it suited’ Gayoom, and ‘united when it suited’ them. The two-stage presidential polls, with a minimum 50-per cent vote-share for the victor, has been tested in the country both in 2008 and 2013, when the seeming victor from the first round was not the winner in the second.

Gayoom and Nasheed, instead, lost at the end of the second, run-off round, with no candidate having crossed the 50-per cent mark in the first. By hoping to impress the new-generation voter through development of the China-funded kind, and distancing himself from the ‘democratic processes’ of the 2008 variety, Yameen may have re-positioned himself, the voters and Maldives as a whole, between now and Elections 2018. The results would show which way would the nation sail from there, choosing one over the other or an admixture of both, which is what it should be.

This commentary was published in South Asia Monitor.

COMMENTARIES

GOVERNANCE AND POLITICS

NEIGHBOURHOOD

NEIGHBOURHOOD

NEIGHBOURHOOD

The views expressed above belong to the author(s).

[12orfonline-blog]

Health policy workshop

2017Feb27-28

EVENTS

Health policy workshop

ORF HEALTH FORUM

Free and open source software and standards for public health information systems in India: “Making them work” by bridging the policy-practice gap

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, notified in 2015 that a policy to prefer the use of Open Source Software (OSS) in all central government departments and ministries will be in place, with use of Closed Source Software (CSS) only being considered as an exception with sufficient justification. This policy decision is termed as a watershed moment for open source in India. Through a number of related policies, the government wants to promote reuse of existing developed applications as well as Open Standards for software interoperability across various government departments and agencies.

The implementation of SDGs has made data requirements within the health sector more diverse, and a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) driven Health Management Information System (HMIS) can play a key role in improving data quality and availability. The broad aim of the two-day workshop is to identify policy-practice gaps with respect to using FOSS based health information system applications and standards, and approaches to address them.

The themes to be discussed include:

• The policy landscape in India with respect to free and open source software and standards in the public health sector.

• Experiences with using free and open source software and standards in the public health sector, and the learnings.

• Global experiences with the use of free and open source software and standards in the public health sector.

• Recommendations to help address the policy-practice gap around FOSS use for the Indian public health system.

Clickhere to read the agenda.

The workshop is being organised in association with the University of Oslo and HISP India.

[12orfonline-blog]

UP’s health variations: From worse than Haiti to better than India

COMMENTARIES

FEB 09 2017

UP’s health variations: From worse than Haiti to better than India

OOMMEN C. KURIAN

Enhancing nutrition with fortified rice for midday meal

Source:

WFP

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

DOWN TO THE DISTRICT

ICDS

UP

At a time when India’s sex ratio at birth is low and declining–from 909 (2011) to 887 (2014)–there are, in poor, populous Uttar Pradesh (UP), districts such as Aligarh, Moradabad, Mainpuri, Deoria and Balrampur, with sex ratios at birth exceeding 1000–in other words, better than any state in India.

So, too, with the infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Kanpur Nagar district in western UP had an IMR of 37 in 2012-13, which was better than the Indian average (42). UP’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is 258, but Meerut mandal in western UP (including urban NOIDA and Ghaziabad) had an MMR of 151, better than the Indian average, although Devi Patan mandal, 600 km to the south-east had an MMR of 366, worse than Ethiopia and Haiti.

While UP may appear to be a monolith of Hindi-speaking, overwhelmingly poor people with some of India’s worst health parameters, as the second part of this series told us, a district-level analysis by Observer Research Foundation, using data from the Annual Health Survey (AHS 2012-13)–the latest available–reveals that India’s most-populous state has almost continental style variations in its healthcare system and indicators. The latest data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2015-16) for UP will be released only after the elections, scheduled for February 11 onwards.

The Annual Health Survey (AHS) of 2012-13 covered 21 million people across nine large, low-performing Indian states and close to five million people in Uttar Pradesh alone. The AHS remains the world’s largest household sample survey, with its sample size greater than the population of Sri Lanka.

AHS gives major health indicators at the district level. The wealth of data collected by AHS remains an underutilised resource. The assembly elections may prove to be a good occasion to use it to promote policies that enhance well being in the state. As the Economic Survey 2015-16 observed, investing in health and nutrition are two sure-shot ways of enhancing the productive potential of a state.

Sex ratio at birth: Some districts have more women than men

Within UP, in 70 of 75 districts polled for AHS 2012-13, there are districts with a sex ratio of more than 1000, such as Aligarh, Moradabad, Mainpuri, Deoria and Balrampur, and districts with a sex ratio at birth of under 850, such as Varanasi, Firozabad, Agra, Bijnor and Budaun.

Sex Ratio Across Uttar Pradesh Districts (2012-13)

Immunisation coverage leaves children at risk of preventable disease and death

Immunisation remains low in UP, leaving many children at risk of preventable morbidity or death. In 2012-13, UP had fully immunised no more than 52.7% of its children, with 7.6% with no immunisation. The all-India average is 65.3% for full immunisation and 6.6% for no immunisation, for the year 2013-14.

Children In Uttar Pradesh Who Did Not Receive Any Vaccination

Some districts with low proportions of fully immunised children, such as Shrawasti (24.9%), Bahraich (27.5%), Balrampur (36.4%), Budaun (30.7%), Kheri (37.8%), Sitapur (35.4%) and Sonbhadra (32.4%), are potential epidemiological time bombs.

Children Who Received Polio Dose At Birth, By District

In Shrawasti, Balrampur and Sonbhadra districts, more than half the children do not receive a polio dose at birth. While India celebrates six years of being polio-free, outbreaks are still a risk.

District level infant mortality rates in UP is a picture of regional inequities

The IMR–or the probability of children below one year of age dying, expressed as deaths per 1,000 live births–provides indications about poverty and other socio-economic characteristics of a community, according to this 2012-13 AHS report.

With an IMR of 68 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2012-13, Uttar Pradesh continued to be the last among the states polled for the AHS.

Infant Mortality Rate In Uttar Pradesh, By District

A district-level analysis throws up wide disparities:  the IMR in the north-eastern Shrawasti district is 96, almost three times the IMR of Kanpur Nagar (37) in western UP.

UP also has the highest neonatal mortality rate (NMR) among the AHS states: 49 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births, whereas Jharkhand had the lowest at 23 per 1,000 live births. Within UP’s high NMR, again, are wide variations, indicating the precarious state of healthcare in large swathes of the state: Kanpur Nagar district has the lowest NMR of 24 per 1,000 live births, whereas Siddarthanagar to the east has the highest NMR of 70 per 1,000 live births.

As our maps show, a new government will need to address the inter-district disparities revealed in our analysis, particularly regions with high proportions of preventable infant deaths.

UP’s children more stunted than nine low-performing states

UP’s performance in terms of stunting (low height-for-age), wasting (low weight-for-height), underweight (low weight for- age) and undernourished (low Body Mass Index, or BMI) in children under five is among India’s worst.

Stunting among children under five years is highest in UP (62%), as is severe stunting (35.6%), according to the 2014 Clinical, Anthropometric and Biochemical (CAB) survey. None of 70 UP districts surveyed for the AHS figured among 10 best-performing amongst 284 districts across nine states.

However, of the 10 worst-performing districts with stunted children, five were from UP. The worst stunting among 284 AHS districts were found in Rae Bareli in southern UP and the worst underweight outcomes in the western district of Hamirpur.

Surveyors found 77.4% of children in Rae Bareli stunted, and 70.2% children in Hamirpur underweight. Rae Bareli is not an extreme case: 55 of 70 UP districts have a stunting rate of more than 55%, and 50% of children are underweight in 23 districts.

In a sea of undernutrition, overnutrition in some districts

There is a high proportion of overnutrition of children under five in some districts–mostly in western UP–such as Pilibhit (24.6%), Bulandshahr (21.8%), Budaun (21.7%), Auraiya (21.4%) and Aligarh (21.1%). In other words, UP has a dual burden of undernutrition and overnutrition, which will affect its morbidity rates and impact its economic growth.

A comprehensive policy overhaul may be necessary for UP to improve its performance in health and nutrition. The coming state elections provide political parties an opportunity to share with voters their vision for the future of UP’s human development.

There are efforts to improve the situation. UP is one of the six Indian states with a nutrition mission. It was created in 2013, with the objective of working closely with nodal departments, such as health and women and child development which runs the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the world’s largest child-nutrition scheme, and other contributing departments to reduce undernutrition among children below three years. Its impact on the nutritional status of UP’s children remains unevaluated.

Part 1: Down to the district: The health of 5 states going to polls

Part 2: #Elections2017 : UP spends least on health, reflects in its ill-health

Part 3: #Elections2017: More wasted children, anaemic men, women than before in Punjab

Part 4: #Elections2017: New worries creep into seemingly healthy Goa

Part 5: #Elections2017: Uttarakhand has rich people–and children with poor health

This commentary originally appeared in IndiaSpend.

COMMENTARIES

HEALTH

HEALTHCARE

INDIA

The views expressed above belong to the author(s).

[12orfonline-blog]

Converging interests of India and Japan in the Indo-Pacific region

Japan, which has emerged with a brand value of high quality, provides enormous opportunities for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Made in India’ initiative, felt Mr. Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Government of India while delivering the keynote address at the conference on ‘Indo-Pacific Region: Converging India-Japan Relations’ organised by Observer Research Foundation on February 13, 2017.

The Minister also felt that till date, India and Japan are yet to realise the full potential of their strategic partnership. He said in an affirmative stance, India has extended visa on arrival for Japanese citizens traveling to India, remarking ‘every Indian has found Japan very close to his/her heart’. In the 1950s, as Japan was recovering from the debris of the Second World War and India from the British colonial rule, historical opportunities were missed by both the countries.

According to him, a perceptible change in India’s approach has been through the ‘Act East’ policy – a transformed version of the ‘Look East’ policy. Additionally, Japan and India share common features like ancient culture and ideals of democracy and peace.

The one-day conference, organised in the backdrop of bolstering global attention on strengthening India-Japan partnership, had three sessions: ‘Geo-strategy in the Indo-Pacific’, ‘Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific’ and ‘Connectivity and Economic Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’.

Delivering the welcome remarks, Mr. H.K. Dua, Advisor, ORF, shed light on closer India-Japan relations. Highlighting multiple arenas where India and Japan have collaborated, or have plans to work together, including maritime security and trade negotiations, Mr. Dua set the context for the guest speakers to intervene.

US Ambassador to India, Mr. Kenji Hiramatsu, reflected upon the dynamic relationship between India and Japan. Undergoing rapid economic progress, India led by Prime Minister Modi and Japan led by Prime Minister Abe are extensively action-oriented nations, he noted. He exhorted the need for both India and Japan to cooperate on improving connectivity.   The Ambassador went on to emphasise Japan’s proactive Africa strategy. In the 6th Tokyo Conference on African Development, Prime Minister Abe stressed on improving intra-regional connectivity and providing strategic fillip to the stretch connecting Asia and Africa.

Delivering keynote address, Dr. Arvind Gupta, Deputy National Security Advisor to the Government of India, enumerated certain future initiatives for emboldening Indo-Japan ties. First, the need for both the countries to boost economic cooperation is evident since PM Modi’s ‘Act East’ is in tandem with the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ strategy of PM Abe. Secondly, connectivity is a key concern; there is a need to link up India’s North-east region with other parts of the Indo-Pacific. Alongside, India has developed effective space security programmes that can be taken advantage of by the Japanese counterparts. He noted that as an aid giver, Japan has given maximum funding to India’s development projects.

Geo-strategy in the Indo-Pacific

The opening session focused on the topic ‘Geo-strategy in the Indo-Pacific’. Several contemporary global changes impacting the dynamics of the Indo-Pacific region were highlighted in this discussion, which was chaired by Dr. Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.

Mr. Bilahari Kausikan, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, focused on two main developments in the world. First, the election of Donald Trump as the President of United States: an indication of a collapse in the liberal international order. He stated that Trump’s election, an event that should neither be exaggerated nor downplayed, is one from which China reaps the maximum benefit. It enables China to increase its expansionist and imperialistic outlook, the biggest victim of which is the peace within the Indo-Pacific region. In light of this situation in the world order, it is the prerogative of India and Japan to maintain a coherence in the region vis-à-vis the dynamics between USA and China. He then came on to the developments in China. The main issue of concern regarding China is that of internal security which is characterised by social unrest and mass protests in view of the anti-corruption policy and the Communist Party’s assertive form of nationalism. Mr. Kausikan also highlighted that China’s narrative of self-rejuvenation is a farce that has been created in order to re-instate its centrality within the Indo-Pacific region. Moreover, China’s rise as a geo-political power, its encroachment in the South China Sea and its construction of islands for military purposes is another hotspot that is causing unrest within this part of the world.

Following this, Prof. Yoichiro Sato, Dean of International Cooperation and Research at the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan, addressed the present relations of India and Japan with the US, and analysed the future course that these relations must take. Prof. Sato stated that the US requires a burden sharing in its offshore balancing for security interests, a vacuum that can be filled by India and Japan. Both the countries possess very strong relations with the US, which further strengthens the strategic cooperation between the two. Prof. Sato also highlighted Japan’s support of the US in the coalition mission in Iraq, and its work in the Indian Ocean that initiated the reconstruction mission in Iraq.

Prof. K.V. Kesavan, Distinguished Fellow, ORF, focused upon the shifting geopolitics in the Indo-pacific region, the developments between India and Japan based on the nature of the region, and the growing India-Japan partnership.  The Indo-Pacific region integrates two oceans, bringing together a region rich in resources- an aspect that is expected to make it the biggest contributor to global output by the year 2050. This area enjoys a system of interdependence between countries. However, strategic threats still do exist like North Korea, territorial issues like Taiwan, non-traditional security threats and the rivalry between the US and China.  Talking about China, he highlighted the various factors that are responsible for making it the biggest driver of strategic shift within this region. China’s military capacity, its economic status, its position as the biggest trade partner for most countries in the region, its strong maritime activities and its various partnerships throughout the world continue to make it the central focus of the region- a challenge that Japan and India need to overcome together. Prof. Kesavan proposed that this be achieved by promoting a free and open strategy in terms of maritime security, which can help settle disputes within this region and increase prospects for growth.

The session ended with Dr. Renato Cruz De Castro, Professor at the De La Salle University, providing further emphasis on US-China dynamics, and its impact on the Indo-pacific region. Alluding to World War II, Dr. Castro said that the biggest challenge for nations is to create peace during a systemic change i.e. during the sudden rise of a power which was expected to decline. This systemic change- the rise and rise of China, so to say, is the biggest challenge that is being faced by countries of the Indo-pacific region. This is the age that has witnessed the end of unipolarity and the emergence of two continental powers — Russia and China against USA. The role of Japan, a US ally and China’s rival, becomes very important as it is providing equipment and support to both the US and Philippines in an attempt to drive out China. Japan is playing an important role in peace balancing within the region by curbing China’s great game in the South China Sea. Similarly, the smaller powers of the region like Philippines are engaging with power balancing and bandwagoning, a reaction evident in their policies. With China and Russia on one hand, and the US, Philippines along with countries like India on the other, both sides are investing into sophisticated technology in order to counter each other’s growing capabilities. Dr. Castro ended his speech by asserting that unless countries like India and Japan do not join the cause of destroying China’s expansionist policy, Europe’s violent past may become Asia’s future.

Maritime security in Indo-Pacific

The second session addressed issues of maritime security in the Indo-Pacific. During the discussion, the panellists highlighted the need for a new security architecture in the region given the increasingly uncertain nature of the world order.

Dr. Eiichi Katahara, Professor and Director of International Exchange and Libraries at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Japan, began by focusing on the position of Japan. He stated that while the US-Japan alliance serves as a deterrent, it is not enough; Japan, a small country with an aging population, is surrounded by nuclear powers and its neighbours are expanding their military capabilities. According to him, a major area of contention is the South China Sea where China is increasing its influence and activities. He stressed on the lack of crisis resolution mechanism in the region and the need for a new security architecture which should be based on cooperation. In the context of probable arms race in the region and an unpredictable US administration, the Indo-Pacific region is set to be turbulent. However, conflict must be avoided at all costs.

Dr. David Brewster, Senior Research Fellow at the Australia National University, Australia, also emphasised on the need for a new regional security architecture. Considering the uncertain role that the US will play in the region, the current alliance system does not seem strong enough. Trilateral alliances, notably between US-Japan-India and Australia-Japan-India have been the norm. Dr. Brewster went a step further and made the case for quadrilateral alliances, as these alliances would be important in connecting India to the East Asian security architecture. Like Prof. Katahara, Dr. Brewster also advocated for more cooperation in the region; a cooperation that could include Indonesia and other nations.

Mr. Abhijit Singh, Senior Fellow, ORF, talked about the very inception of the concept of ‘Indo-Pacific’. The notion had come into being because of shared interests and a need for greater maritime cooperation in a region that is inherently open to the world. Has the concept been embraced by Indians? Mr. Singh argued that it was not the case initially. There was a widespread view that the Indian and Pacific Oceans are very different; the former is a field for non-conventional conflict while conventional conflict remains the norm in the latter. Since 2011 however, there has been a homogenisation of both oceans leading to an increase in the acceptance of the concept of Indo-Pacific. He also stressed that Prime Minister Modi’s policies have contributed to this acceptance. But the underlining geo-strategic importance of the Indian Ocean is not merely the objective of trade. Mr. Singh finished by noting that the current phenomenon of de-globalisation might affect the relevance of the Indo-Pacific in today’s world.

Connectivity and economic cooperation in Indo-Pacific

The final session addressed ‘Connectivity and Economic Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’. The first speaker was Prof. Takahashi Terada of Doshisha University, Japan. He observed that the Indo-Pacific region needs a new framework for integration and development. Acculturation can turn out to be a new concept for regional cooperation, and all nations must agree on this. Socialisation through diplomacy and academic exchanges is mandatory, which will help foster a common agenda. Japan has initiated many of the existing groupings in the Asia-Pacific. He noted that trade integration is a more practical framework for cooperation. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) cannot crystallise without the US and Japan cooperating. As of now, there is more pressure on the US to consummate the TPP, because China is pushing for the alternative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Professor Terada further observed that development is high on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s agenda as Japan has committed to spending 110 billion dollars on Asian infrastructure projects.

Mr. Asanga Abeyagoonasekara, Director General of the National Institute of Security Studies, Sri Lanka, pointed out that his country is very strategically located and cannot allow its territory to be used by others for military purposes. The Indo-Pacific is a herculean region and will be the most consequential in the next few decades. The One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is pivotal to China, thus making Sri Lanka important in this regard. Apart from its advantageous geostrategic location, Sri Lanka is also a major transhipment hub in container traffic. It is the richest nation in per capita in South Asia, and a tier two country which embraces a bipartisan political model. President Sirisena, according to the speaker, views China and India as rising powers. Therefore, Colombo has to maintain an equal distance from Beijing and New Delhi. Sri Lanka can develop peaceful relations with India and China without antagonising either one. Despite sharing a rich relationship, some speculative views undermine the ties between India and Sri Lanka. Resolving bottlenecks in regional integration should be a priority for India. Japan is also a major security partner and a contributor to Sri Lanka’s development. A Japan-Sri Lanka-India trilateral strategic dialogue needs to take place.

Dr. Prabir De, Professor, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), India,observed that the current period is an uncertain time in the global economy. Every country is pursuing a protective trade agenda. Sufficient trade is not taking place and quicker ratification of existing trade agreements is necessary. While the software side of connectivity has improved, customs and tariff duties are a constraint.

India faces a challenge in concluding regional FTAs, which has led to a decline in trade. Many FTAs are not being implemented properly. The speaker noted that merely removing tariffs is not sufficient. The Chinese had anticipated the current situation in global trade and are investing in infrastructure today. India is now following suit. Non-tariff barriers are also a major challenge and need to be removed.

With regards to connectivity, New Delhi’s initiative with Japan is a gain for joint infrastructure projects. India has liberalised, but trade has come down. Trade restrictions need to be removed as there are too many barriers, and trade procedures need to be simplified. The involvement of the private sector is quite essential. In the context of India-ASEAN relations, paperless trade, port networks, and skill development are important.

In conclusion, the major themes of the conference focussed on the following: the concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region, the Trump factor in the US, the need for connectivity — not just within the Indo-Pacific, but also between East Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and the growing Indo-Japan cooperation in multiple spheres.

(This report has been prepared with inputs from Baisali Mohanty, Saumia Bhatnagar, Chahrazade Douah, Kartik Bommakanti and Avantika Deb)

[12orfonline-blog]

Is it mere wishful thinking – or time to say Khuda Hafiz to Hafiz Saeed?

A number of Indian news sites carried a Press Trust of India report on February 21 stating that Pakistan had cancelled the licences of 44 weapons issued to the co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and the chief of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and other members of his organisations.

The PTI report cited a Punjab (Pakistan) home department notification as having cancelled the licenses for security reasons and mentioned action being taken against two of Saeed’s organisations, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation.

The strange thing was that none of the major Pakistani papers like the Dawn or the Express Tribune have reported the licence ban, neither can it be found on the Pakistan Punjab government website.

So the news can either be taken with a pinch of salt, or, it could be assumed that the Pakistani authorities have indeed acted as the PTI report indicates, but are being discreet about the decision which, if true, would have shaken Saeed.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba founder has long believed in ensuring his own security. But if the guns have been taken away, he must be feeling quite vulnerable, unless the authorities have stepped in with their own security which they would, in any case, have to provide, if indeed it is true that he is under house arrest.

The cancellation of licences report comes on the heels of the Pakistan Punjab government’s decision to put Saeed and four of his colleagues under house arrest in Lahore for a period of 90 days on January 30. In addition, the jihadi leader and many of his associates belonging to the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation have been put on the Exit Control List barring them from leaving Pakistan.

There had been a bit of a stir when Pakistan’s defence minister Khwaja Asif declared at the Munich Security Conference earlier this week that “Saeed could pose a serious threat to the society” and had hence been placed under house arrest in the country’s “larger interest”.

Saeed’s arrest provoked the predictable uproar from the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, a grouping of religious extremists of which he is a vice president. But the action under the fourth schedule of the country’s Anti Terrorist act very clearly signaled an acknowledgement of his being linked to terrorism in some way.

Beyond tokenism? There has been a great deal of speculation as to the Pakistani action. Some say that it is token action to assuage the Pakistani public opinion which has been shaken by a spate of eight terror attacks this month killing more than 100 people. The latest attack on one of the leading Sufi shrines at Sehwan has shaken the entire country.

Others speculate that anticipating a tough United States administration under new President Donald Trump, Pakistan is trimming its sails in advance. Asif, in his Munich speech, claimed that Pakistan was in the frontline of countries fighting terrorism and even criticised the West for its alleged isolationist policies.

The statement by Pakistan Army Spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor that the decision was taken in “national interest” indicates that the government’s goals are quite narrow. There is speculation that the Pakistan Army, which has a new chief, is concerned about the spread of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah activities to other countries. Perhaps equally important is the growing influence of the outfit in Pakistan itself. The Jama’at-ud-Da’wah and the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation run efficient social service networks, and Saeed has been trying to stoke Punjabi nationalism to expand his political footprint.

There is even a strand of opinion suggesting that the Chinese may be tiring of the opprobrium they have to face in supporting Pakistan’s favourite terrorists. However, the Chinese have more fish to fry in the region than pressure Pakistan on Saeed. Apart from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, they have to worry about stabilising northern Pakistan, which includes a portion of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, to prevent the jihadi virus escaping north to Xinjiang. Second, they have an interest in stabilising Afghanistan to part their larger central Asian policy and insulate Xinjiang from the jihadi virus, in particular the Islamic State, given that scores of Uighyur fighters are believed to be fighting alongside the IS in Syria and Iraq.

As far as India is considered, it is watching on with bemused interest. It, of course, has great interest in what Saeed does and what happens to him. Unfortunately, it has been unable to actually lay his hands on him and try him for the murder of 166 persons in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and other acts of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. So it is dependent on Pakistani actions. And those actions have not been particularly heartening.

Farcical arrests Saeed has been detained before. He was arrested in December 2001, following the uproar over the attack on the Indian Parliament House, but he was released in March 2002 when the Indian military pressure abated. He was arrested again in May and released in October, and then placed under house arrest for a short while. Again, after the Mumbai train blasts, he was arrested in August 2006 but released in October.

Saeed’s defence was that while Lashkar-e-Taiba was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in December 2001 by the United States and banned in Pakistan on January 12, 2002, there was no such ban on the JuD, which was formed after the ban on the Lashkar.

In December 2008, Saeed was again placed under house arrest after the United Nations put the Jama’at-ud-Da’wah in what is called its 1267 list – declaring it a terrorist organisation. The United States had also earlier designated it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in April 2008. This time he got his release through a Lahore High Court order deeming his detention unconstitutional in June 2009. Because of Indian pressure he was again detained in September, but the following month, the Lahore High Court quashed all cases against him and declared that the JuD was not a banned organisation in Pakistan and he could work freely in the country.

With this history, it is easy not to be sceptical. India has also seen how the parallel process of trying four top Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders including its operations chief, Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, is going nowhere.

Yet, if the cancellation of the arms licences report is indeed true, there does appear to be a new development. Because the one thing that Hafiz Saeed will worry about will be the possibility of getting picked up by Indian or American intelligence agencies and having to face the music for his malign past.

This commentary was published in scroll.in

[12orfonline-blog]

Breaking ranks with Asia: The case for encrypting India

There is no Asian approach to encryption. The Internet transcends conventional borders and so does the encryption that travels with it. But there is a growing Asian security dialogue and an emerging debate on encryption in Asia. That debate has been overshadowed by the disjointed responses of individual countries to specific aspects of encryption. Bahrain, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, amongst others, formally disallow different forms of client-side encryption. A larger list of countries have decryption-on-demand laws. They are not very different from Western liberal democracies where calls for encryption bans and backdoors are commonplace.

In India, the surveillance and encryption debate is marked by contradictions. We are losing out, the claim goes, because the technologies and infrastructure of digital communications are located abroad. We must sacrifice our freedoms, another claim goes, because only high levels of surveillance can protect us. Unfortunately, these reductive arguments, designed to appeal to nationalism and insecurity, have captured the national discourse. They have helped to shape a statist, blunt and control-oriented approach to encryption. Taking their cue from China, several Asian countries including India want to impose their sovereignty on the Internet, strictly license encryption products, have unfettered access to Internet communications and more. This ‘Internet sovereignty’ approach to encryption will fail.

This essay explains the basics of how encryption works; provides a high-level account of the American crypto-wars and how they manifest in India; looks at how mass surveillance fears have fuelled a new phase of the crypto-wars; and demonstrates the futility of the Indian government’s nationalism-laced approach to encryption, particularly in relation to data localisation, Internet sovereignty and the withdrawn National Encryption Policy of 2015. Looking ahead, this essay argues that encryption cannot be stopped; cybersecurity depends on strong encryption; and India’s security and prosperity depend on the widespread adoption of encryption.

If it stopped pursuing the Internet sovereignty approach and supported strong encryption without backdoors instead, India would break ranks with many Asian countries. But since there is no multilateral cybersecurity cooperation regime in Asia that India participates in, that would not be a loss. On the other hand, India should drive the Asian cybersecurity debate towards unbreakable encryption in the interests of its emerging digital economy, democratic values and national security.

The Basics of Encryption

Encryption is the conversion of intelligible data (plaintext), such as files or messages, into an unintelligible form (ciphertext) and decryption is the reversion of ciphertext to plaintext. Encryption occurs through the application of a cipher, a cryptographic algorithm that links the plaintext and ciphertext. The algorithm contains at least one variable parameter (key) that changes each time data is encrypted. The key is determined by a random number generating algorithm. For encryption to work, the key must be secret. Encryption does not encompass data conversion using a fixed key with no variable parameter (scrambling).[1]

Until the 1970s, both the encrypter and decrypter had to have a pair of identical keys (symmetric-key encryption). The system has two main weaknesses. First, the key has to be shared before the message (key exchange). Second, secrecy is inversely proportional to the number of people in the know—intuitively, not mathematically. Moreover, the sender is not sure that the key reached the intended receiver, and the receiver is not sure that her key was authentic (authentication problem). That is because of the danger of the key exchange being intercepted by a third party who may access the messages as they flow or impersonate either the sender or receiver (man-in-the-middle).

Most key exchange problems were solved by the invention of public key cryptography in the 1970s. Two non-identical but mathematically linked keys are created, one to encrypt a message and the other to decrypt it (asymmetric-key encryption). A receiver makes one of her keys publicly available (public key) but keeps the other one secret (private key). A sender encrypts her message using the receiver’s public key which the latter decrypts with her private key. To solve the authentication problem, the sender, who has also made her public key available, signs her message with her private key which can only be decrypted with her public key to verify her signature (digital signature).

When designed and implemented well, public key cryptography is unbreakable. It obviates backdoors because no man-in-the-middle has the receiver’s private key. It can assure message integrity by algorithmically assigning the data a fixed value (hashing) which can be verified for consistency. However, public key cryptography is computationally intensive and slow to operate so it is rarely used for real-time communications which continue to be symmetrically encrypted.

The Crypto-Wars

The encryption debate is United States-centric because, for better or for worse, American laws have shaped the Internet’s architecture and the availability of encryption products. Public key cryptography did not begin to find mass application until the 1990s. The primary cryptosystem in regular use, the Data Encryption Standard (DES), developed by IBM in the 1970s, and approved by the NSA, used a symmetric-key algorithm with a weak key. As Internet use grew, businesses improved the security of their products to encourage consumer confidence.

For individuals who did not want to depend on off-the-shelf encryption, the asymmetric-key Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptosystem, developed in 1991, offered client-side encryption for messages. PGP provides unbreakable encryption for messages even when passing through known backdoors. No one besides the sender and receiver can access the plaintext making strong PGP immune to man-in-the-middle attacks (end-to-end encryption).

In the early 1990s, American telecom carriers were upgrading from analogue to packet-switched digital transmissions. The US government pushed carriers to install the ‘Clipper chip,’ a chipset that used a symmetric-key algorithm to encrypt voice data with a key developed by the NSA. The Clipper chip was to be installed in phones and a key copy surrendered to government to be held in escrow.

There are two fundamental problems with government key escrow. First, escrow of any sort only works when the third-party escrow agent is trusted by the other parties to handle the object of their transaction―in this case, keys. When a government wiretaps a private communication, it is not a third-party; so in a surveillance situation the government cannot by definition perform escrow functions. Second, the key is vulnerable to attack while stored in escrow. When the Clipper algorithms were declassified by the US government, they were swiftly shown to be vulnerable to high-speed, high-volume key guesses (brute-force attack).

At the same time, the US legislature enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA). It compelled telecom carriers to technologically enable government wiretaps. There were three significant limitations. First, the government was prevented from banning commercial encryption. Second, the law was restricted to the public switched telecom network (PSTN); it did not cover Internet services such as voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) calls. Third, communications carriers were exempted from the duty to decrypt messages (decryption mandate) if they did not have the means to do so.

In 2005, CALEA was extended to cover VoIP and broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) even though they are not PSTN-based. But it still did not cover non-ISP-provided Internet email or over-the-top (OTT) instant messengers. Consequently, while Skype had to have CALEA-mandated backdoors, Gmail or WhatsApp were free from backdoors and the decryption mandate. That set the stage for the second phase of the crypto-wars.

In India, the Central Monitoring System (CMS) corresponds to CALEA in several ways.  Until recently, telecom carriers were restricted to 40-bit encryption which was even weaker than the 64-bit key found in the 1980s-vintage A5/1 cipher used in the 2G GSM standard.[2] Some carriers simply did not encrypt and voice calls could be lifted off-the-air. The CMS requires carriers to provide the government with a seamless interception interface irrespective of their network encryption. It covers VoIP and ISPs too. Unless an Indian user uses client-side public key encryption or commercial end-to-end encryption, their communications have permanent backdoors.

The CMS is more than an interception interface. It creates a centralised database which even Britain’s recent “snoopers’ charter” failed to do. Will Delhi misuse its technological capabilities? We do not know. But we do know that the government has a long history of illegal wiretaps. The issue has been consistently raised in Parliament and covered in the press.[3] Interceptions and decryptions are ordered by bureaucrats with little understanding of the law and no independent oversight mechanism. Private carriers have obeyed even procedurally-irregular interception orders instead of pushing back against irregular surveillance.[4] Nevertheless, the government asks us to trust it to use the CMS in accordance with law. It would not be an unfair assessment to say that businesses and individuals will be more interested in encrypting their communications from now on.

The Blackberry Episode

From 2008 the Indian government pressured Blackberry-maker Research in Motion (RIM) to decrypt messages on demand or hand over their key. RIM faced similar measures in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The campaign against RIM was more about enforcing Indian jurisdiction on a foreign company than it was about the national security risks of encryption. There are two kinds of Blackberry services. For companies, RIM installs a local Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and employees’ emails are routed through the BES with strong encryption. In most cases, RIM does not have the key and cannot decrypt BES messages. In any event, terrorists are not employees, they do not use BES services.

For individuals, RIM has an unencrypted Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) network. This is most likely how terrorists using Blackberrys communicate. BIS emails can be intercepted as plaintext provided the local carrier removes any transport layer encryption it added.[5] Instant messages via the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) app are transmitted on the basis of unique device-specific numbers (PIN). PIN to PIN messaging, another option for terrorists, are not encrypted, they are only scrambled using a single, global key.[6] They can be intercepted and routed to a third Blackberry quite easily, a textbook man-in-the-middle attack.[7]

Essentially, if the government wanted to intercept someone’s BIS communications, it was free to do so under Indian law. There would have to be an interception order under either section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) read with rule 3 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring, and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009 (Interception Rules), or section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 read with rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951. On the other hand, if, hypothetically, the BIS server was located in India, then access to data on it could be ordered under section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), a significantly lower threshold.

There is legal uncertainty regarding data access procedures because interception law is largely observed in the breach. Sections 69 and 69B of the IT Act, read with their respective rules, grant access to stored information and communications data, but in 2014 the Central Bureau of Investigation was using section 91 of the CrPC to access communications data. It is likely that other law enforcement agencies were doing the same and still are. There is no transparency and no accountability for legal abuse. In any event, the Interception Rules almost certainly suffer from excessive delegation and are ultra vires their parent statute.

So why did the government go after RIM? Perhaps it was anxious to demonstrate a tough line on security and singled out Blackberry because it was an iconic brand. That was how RIM’s chief executive officer viewed the incident in 2011.[8] It is most likely that the government wanted RIM to install mirror servers in India to fulfil its grievances regarding data localisation. But by singling out RIM, the government scored an own goal. As long as terrorists used the BIS service to communicate, intercepting their unencrypted communications was possible.[9]Now they have probably migrated to more secure services. Witless nationalism, which thoroughly pervades the government’s approach to encryption, damages India’s national security.

RIM has stressed that the “solution” it gave the Indian government does not involve its BES platform, only its unencrypted BIS network.[10] Is there a BIS proxy server in India? Probably not, the repercussions for RIM outweigh any Indian market gains. Does RIM reroute all Indian traffic from its foreign BIS server to India? Maybe, but that would be non-targeted mass surveillance, which is illegal. Did RIM simply guarantee that it would positively respond to every government request for targeted BIS data? This is most likely, but it is not a gain because the government had technological access to it anyway.[11]

The New Crypto-War

The race for stronger encryption in America is fuelled by fears of further CALEA extensions to cover Internet services and withdraw the guarantee against the decryption mandate. The push probably began with Edward Snowden’s disclosures of pervasive global Internet surveillance by Western intelligence agencies, which brought privacy to the forefront of public attention. Fears of NSA overreach are not misplaced. In 2013, a random number-generating algorithm that had been recommended for cryptographers had to be abandoned after claims that it contained an NSA-planted backdoor.

In that context, Internet companies began to adopt unbreakable encryption. For transmission, businesses are gradually implementing end-to-end encryption. KakaoTalk, South Korea’s most popular messaging app, introduced optional end-to-end encryption 2014. WhatsApp, the most popular messenger in India, rolled out its end-to-end encryption system in 2016. However, WhatsApp’s claim to not have the decryption keys has been challenged and, in any event, it does preserve metadata.[12] For storage, phones manufacturers are introducing strong device encryption paired with measures to thwart brute-force attacks including passcode authentication delays, challenge-response tests, and automatic data erasure (device locking).

In 2014, Apple introduced default device locking based on a key which it did not know, thereby voluntarily shutting itself out of the data access process. Soon after, FBI director James Comey delivered his famous ‘going dark’ speech: “[E]ncryption threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place.”[13] Apple refused to obey a court order to jailbreak the phone on the ground that the government could not compel it to write code. A central question in the Apple-FBI dispute is whether the government can enforce the decryption mandate against Internet companies. Apple is not in the telecommunications business, it is an information services company and is therefore exempt from CALEA.

In India, the decryption mandate is contained in section 69 of the IT Act read with rules 5 and 17 of the Interception Rules. However, the rules only apply in respect of a “decryption key holder” and in the case of end-to-end encryption, nobody but the sender and receiver holds the key. Will the Indian government enforce the decryption mandate against individuals and risk violating the fundamental right against self-incrimination under article 20(3) of the Constitution? This issue needs to be authoritatively decided by the constitutional courts. Several Asian countries have versions of the decryption mandate in their laws but, unlike India, many do not have independent judiciaries.

If the ‘going dark’ campaign reflects the American security establishment’s alarm at the modern encryption business, the Indian authorities are still primarily concerned about Internet sovereignty. Both views are misguided but, additionally, the Indian view is detached from reality. In 2014, national security advisor Ajit Doval said: “One of the problems we have is that technologically we have lost out in certain areas where the root servers are all under control of countries [in] the West, mainly the US. […] They are helpful to us in some areas, but not always helpful, particularly in the corporate world.”[14] For Doval, the issue is still about extending Delhi’s writ to Internet companies. If that happens, we are told, cybersecurity will bloom at the command of the Indian state.

The Internet sovereignty approach to encryption is stuck in a Cold War time warp. It continues to have currency in Asia because of China’s success at firewalling its Internet and strictly controlling encryption protocols. But even China was forced to drop a provision in its 2015 anti-terror law which required official vetting of commercial encryption. For India, such an approach is anathema to free markets and free speech. A state-controlled Internet with state-sanctioned encryption would be as counterproductive as a return to the centrally-planned command economy. Instead of trying to achieve an Internet license raj, India needs to promote cybersecurity by encouraging the creation of state-of-the-art encryption products and enabling domestic Internet companies to compete in the global marketplace.

For those anticipating forward-thinking cybersecurity and a vibrant high-technology sector, the draft National Encryption Policy of 2015 was a disappointment. The policy was based on the belief that the Internet ecosystem is a pyramid with the government at the top, businesses in the middle and citizens at the bottom. That is far from the truth. Nevertheless, the policy gave the government the exclusive power to sanction cryptographic algorithms and key sizes, demanded the registration of businesses and apps that used encryption, and banned citizens from encrypting or using commercial encryption without the government’s permission. Moreover, whenever anything was encrypted, the policy demanded that a copy of the plaintext was to be stored for three months and surrendered on demand. Such a move would have seriously jeopardised national security.

The policy revealed an abysmal lack of awareness amongst cybersecurity regulators which should concern us all. The government has promised to return with a redrafted encryption policy. It might be better worded but it will likely advocate a government monopoly over encryption, compulsory backdoors, mandatory data localisation and other measures to consolidate state control.

Looking Ahead

Governments have long attempted to control encryption and prevent it from crossing borders. Those attempts have failed because the Internet is global. The PGP cryptosystem was classified as a munition and banned from export but its creator published its source code as a book―because books are constitutionally protected―and bypassed the control regime. When the Snowden disclosures revealed governmental attempts to compromise encryption, the private sector responded with end-to-end encryption and device locking. Encryption protects free speech and, like speech, it cannot be perfectly controlled.

Strong cryptography has proliferated well beyond the control of governments. Yet, that has not stopped the Indian government from trying to impose import, use and export controls on encryption products. The withdrawn encryption policy stopped Indians from using cryptography without government approval based on key size. The policy also called for export controls. However, if Indian smartphone makers or Internet companies are bound by a low encryption standard, they will not be able to compete in the global marketplace. Governments cannot stop individuals from using encryption products and should not waste public resources trying to do so. India should do the opposite: encourage domestic cryptographic talent and champion ‘Made in India’ commercial encryption products.

The debate over backdoors is gathering pace. After the Clipper chip failed, there were proposals for commercial key escrow where the keys would be held by private third-parties. It was opposed because of the inherent risks of key escrow. Eleven leading cryptographers published a seminal paper in 1997 concluding that key escrow would result in “substantial sacrifices in security and greatly increased costs to the end-user.”[15] In 2015, the NSA proposed a new split-key escrow system. Create a ‘golden key,’ the NSA said, split it into several pieces, and distribute the pieces amongst multiple third-parties so that no one alone could use the key. That proposal too has been dismissed by cryptographers.

Last year, a comprehensive group of companies, cryptographers, policy organisations and security experts sent the US president a letter warning him of the dangers of backdoors. The principle is simple―if you build a backdoor, everybody will use it, not just the police. It will also be used by hackers, data thieves, hostile governments, terrorists and criminals. Encryption is either breakable or unbreakable, backdoored or end-to-end―it is one or the other. When a backdoor is installed, it creates a security vulnerability which will eventually be maliciously exploited. The argument that the backdoor will be well-guarded is baseless. There are numerous reports of protected systems being broken in to through backdoors. For example, in 2010, China exploited a US government backdoor to hack Gmail.[16]

India does not have a data breach law so we simply do not know how often our government has been hacked. Be under no illusions: India’s public cybersecurity is in shambles. There are continuous reports of hacks, mostly attributed to China, including breaches of defence servers carrying military secrets.[17] Even the official digital certificates repository has been breached.[18] There have also been a string of unreported incidents including hostile interceptions of communications, numerous brute-force attacks on weak encryption and malware on government servers. The bottom line is that there is no realistic way that the Indian government can secure any backdoors it may be given. The state’s cybersecurity capabilities may increase in the future but backdoors will never stop being dangerous.

The quickest path to cybersecurity is for India’s private sector to take the lead. The future promises massive network-dependent and data-intensive projects piloted by the private sector. The nascent Aadhaar-based, digital payments system will revolutionise the financial technology sector. Increasing broadband penetration has made India the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market that is catalysing the telecommunications and Internet sector. The ‘Digital India’ programme for Internet delivery of government services will exponentially increase the volume of sensitive traffic. These projects and India’s economy as a whole can only be secured through the pervasive use of unbreakable encryption. That would have a cascading effect on the rest of the Indian Internet.

Setting encryption standards to secure India’s future should be a collaborative exercise. The open competition to choose the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) remains the gold standard in cryptographic adoption. NIST, the US government’s cryptographic standards agency, prescribed neutral minimum requirements and called for algorithmic proposals. Fifteen proposals were received, transparently tested, rigorously cryptanalysed, and their findings openly discussed in conferences. The process represented NIST’s acceptance that it did not possess the monopoly of cryptographic expertise as well as the view that everybody has a stake in encryption, not just the state.

In India, barring a few civil society organisations, unbreakable encryption has no champions. The argument for India is not that we should sacrifice national security for stronger encryption. The truth is that to protect our national security, we need unbreakable encryption. Since encryption is key to cybersecurity which, in turn, is the foundation of the emerging digital economy, strong encryption will promote prosperity. Ultimately, what is best for Indian citizens and businesses is also best for the Indian government: an Internet with unbreakable encryption. If there is ever an Asian approach to encryption, let it be the same.

This article was originally published in ‘Raisina Files: Debating the world in the Asian Century

[12orfonline-blog]

The People’s Republic is a flawed champion for globalisation

It was the first visit to Davos by a paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China, and it could not surely have gone better. Xi Jinping would not have had in any case to work too hard to distinguish himself from the two leaders who were making news at the same time – Donald Trump, whose inauguration was fast approaching, and Teresa May, who was announcing Brexit-related details. But, even so, his speech was exceptional – one calculated to upend thinking about the global trade-based liberal order.

Even rhetorically, it was unusual. PRC leaders’ speeches are not overfull of references drawn from other global cultures, and Mr Xi himself has a well-known penchant for Chinese history and mythology. And there was much of that in the Davos speech – but it drew also from Western writers such as Charles Dickens, underlining stylistically what he was trying to convey through its substance: that the People’s Republic is ready to step up and play at least part of the role that the West is abdicating in terms of providing strategic support for globalisation.

The World Economic Forum, home of Davos Man and the Mecca of globalisation, lapped it up. As inward-looking, nativist movements sweep through the Western world, Mr Xi appeared to be presenting himself and the PRC as a champion of freer trade and more open borders, warning against “locking oneself in a dark room”.

Read Also | Chinese regional hegemony is a bridge too far

On one level, this should not be surprising. The decade and a half since Mr Xi’s country was admitted to the World Trade Organisation has been a miracle as far as development goes. On the back of steadily expanding global trade in the early- to mid-2000s, China repeatedly doubled its per capita income and lifted millions out of poverty. The crisis of 2008 gave the Communist Party confidence that its own system of economic and political governance was more stable and thought-out than traditional liberal capitalism. The PRC, thanks to the processes associated with globalisation, became the world’s second most influential economy and slowly began to accumulate military-strategic power to match. Naturally, it is reasonable that its leaders view an open, globalising world as in their own interests, and would seek to support it.

For other countries, such as India, who seek to benefit similarly from global trade and investment, this commitment is naturally welcome on one level. To the extent that it serves to counterbalance a movement in the West towards a more closed world, it can be used to further Indian ends.

Yet it is important, too, to not get carried away. As it stands now, the PRC cannot be either the new liberal economic hegemon – nor would we want it to be. As a successor to the role the United States has traditionally played in this respect, the PRC is fatally flawed.

The reasons are quite clear, and spring from the domestic political economy of China itself.

First, globalisation has in recent decades been partly a financial phenomenon. The flows of capital across borders have helped stimulate economic growth in wide-ranging borders and provided a multitude of efficiency gains.

Yet while China has benefited greatly from such capital flows, it is important to note two things. One, it continues to be a relatively hostile place to foreign capital it cannot completely control. The leadership in Beijing is aware of this; it was no coincidence that, almost at the same time as Mr Xi spoke in Davos, news broke that Beijing would lift some restrictions on foreign capital operating in the PRC.

Two, as a source as well as a destination of capital, it leaves much to be desired. Unlike from the West, capital does not flow out of China looking for simply the best or safest return. Because of the statist nature of the domestic financial system, the accumulated savings of the PRC’s inhabitants tends to be directed as much, perhaps more, towards investments of political and strategic worth. A country that is not properly financialised domestically, where savings cannot translate smoothly into liquid capital that follows its own reasoning, cannot step in easily to replace US capital if it, for example, returns home in response to Donald Trump’s vast infrastructure spending plans.

Second, China itself is not in a position to support world trade in the manner the West has hitherto done. Again, the reason goes back to domestic political economy. Globalisation’s driving mechanism was internal domestic competition in the economies of the West. Private companies went out and discovered efficiencies in the rest of the world that would give them a head up over their rivals. The Chinese economy does not yet work like that. In spite of a much applauded series of statements a few years ago that promised market forces would be given greater play in the domestic economy, Beijing’s leadership has been stuck on the political obstacles to achieving that end. State-owned enterprises are difficult to displace politically, even though the private sector now provides 80 per cent of jobs in the PRC. Until a level playing field is achieved at home, it is perhaps expecting too much of private Chinese companies to go out and be standard-bearers of globalisation elsewhere.

Finally, standard-bearers for globalisation have to admit it runs both ways. There are costs to being a hegemon, and the US was in the past willing to pay them – in terms of market access and preferential tariffs for poorer countries, for example. But the Chinese economy itself remains relatively closed. Work visas are not that easy to obtain; foreign companies report an ever more difficult operating environment; and services imports of the sort India would wish to provide are in effect frowned upon.

There are solid reasons to welcome Mr Xi’s robust backing of the benefits of globalisation. But it is, at the very least, premature to hail China as the new underwriter of the global liberal order. Liberal economics abroad depends crucially on open and free markets at home – and there is much that Beijing still has to do to make those a reality.

[12orfonline-blog]

China and India should create shared goals: Chinese diplomat

Source: Photolabs@ORF

·      INDIA-CHINA

·      PRINT MEDIA

·      PUBLIC OPINION

China and India are both now rising powers and therefore as neighbours, there is a necessity to create shared goals, according to Mr. Ma Zhanwu, the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Kolkata.

Releasing the ORF report “Understanding China: Indian Media’s Perception of China —Analysis of Editorials” at ORF Kolkata on February 4, Mr Ma Zhanwu said both  governments need to work together to eradicate poverty and improve living conditions.

The role of think tanks and similar organisations assumes importance in strengthening each other’s perceptions, Mr Ma Zhanwu said, adding “The observations of the report give an idea of how the print media in India treats China.” He felt two aspects of the Report, qualitative and quantitative – make the publication a more scientific one.

To build better perception about each other, India and China should have more people-to-people initiatives, active think tanks, and exchanges among government officials. The report observes that on the whole, negative perceptions outweigh positive ones and, Mr Ma felt, there are many reasons for this. More often than not, people in China get to know about India from media reports which mostly originate from western media.

Mr Ashok Dhar, Director, ORF Kolkata, recalled how the Kolkata chapter has made China a constant focus in its research endeavours. Considering the fact that India-China perception has largely been viewed through the lenses of Western scholars, the report stands out in its content and approach.

The Report, an analysis of editorials written on India, is authored by Prof. Rakhahari Chatterji and Dr. Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury. The research and data management team included Ms. Swagata Saha and Ms. Ambalika Guha.

Prof. Rakhahari Chatterji introduced the report, stating the relevance of perception in India-China relations and the rationale of the method followed. Ms. Swagata Saha highlighted key quantitative tools used to analyse the data while Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury pointed out qualitative nuances in the editorials examined by the report.

Indian media’s perception of China: Analysis of editorials

Mr. Sunanda K Datta-Ray, journalist and author, while discussing and commenting on the report agreed that editorials do indeed represent a newspaper’s authoritative stand. He was of the view that editorials of newspaper are not as legalistic or realistic as people deem it from outside. He shared his experience of how, unlike the promptness shown by the other major dailies in UK, The Guardian in 1969 wrote editorials on the Congress party’s split in India two days later simply because the only journalist knowledgeable on the subject and responsible for writing editorials on India went to sell his horse and was on leave. He also said that according to a report of the South Asia Analyst group, The Hindu has an official position on China. He drew attention to the fact that there were about 12 Chinese correspondents in Delhi whereas only three Indian correspondents are there in Beijing, still  Indians publish a lot more on China. He said that in general there is ignorance about each other. Mr. Datta-Ray suggested there is a need for reading between the lines the actions of Chinese government.

Mr. Ashis Chakabarti, another journalist, agreed with Mr. Datta-Ray that editorials need not be taken that seriously. He said news have four chapters: truth, probabilities, possibilities and lies, the first one being the shortest. However, he admitted that living in the newspaper age, we cannot afford to ignore it altogether. He was also of the view that ignorance persist in both India and China about each other. As newspapers are not written from a vacuum, this ignorance permeates it as well. He suggested extending the present study to cover opinions as well as reports. He noted that it is possible that border issues shape negative perception but it is necessary to remember that information on such issues are ultimately sourced on the MEA or the army. In India, journalists often toe the foreign policy line when writing on any adversarial country like China.

The third discussant, Prof. Partha Pratim Basu of the Jadavpur University drew a parallel with his own work on media perception in the 1990s, and emphasised the refined research technique that has shaped the present report, making it a more sophisticated one. He also suggested that a study of news items should be included at some stage to make it a more holistic one. Talking about the fact that media perceptions cannot always be factually relied upon, he said that all text, media or otherwise, is at the end of the day a form of representation. Mr Basu opined that the present study could have extended its ambit beyond content analysis and undertaken discourse analysis as well. This would have facilitated a better understanding of the influence and role of media perceptions in relations between India and China. `He also stressed  the expanding role of social media in today’s world. As a powerful tool of communication, it has given ample opportunity for the official position to be circulated with great assertion and contributed to the emergence of what is being labelled as ‘post-truth politics’.

This report is prepared by Swagata Saha, Junior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata