“I am delighted,” Mukherjee, 41, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, who won the Pulizer in April, told IANS over the phone from New York where he practices.

Asked what he was writing now he said, “It’s still in the works” and “It’s too early to tell” what it’s about.

Mukherjee, who had his schooling at New Delhi’s St. Columba’s School, where he was five years junior to Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, said then he began writing the book to explain what’s cancer to a patient who told him she was willing to go on fighting but she needed to know what she was battling.

In choosing “the 100 best and most influential written in English since 1923, the beginning of TIME … magazine,” the influential weekly notes Mukherjee’s first book “is also one of the best-written, most accessible, most relevant science books ever penned.”

The science section is topped by “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking (72nd place).

The list is topped by “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” by Gertrude Stein with Obama’s first memoir “Dreams from My Father” placed third.

“Even if Obama hadn’t ended up in the White House, Dreams from My Father would still be a compelling and beautifully written American story about the son of a black man and a white woman, his search for his African father and how he found a “workable meaning for his life as a black American.”

Like e-mail. Walk into a cyber cafe, log into a G-mail or Yahoo account. Don’t use an account in your own name. And don’t send e-mail. Simply read instructions left for you in an unsent mail, saved as a draft in your account. Then, to reply, just edit the unsent e-mail, and save it back as a draft. If e-mail isn’t travelling, it can’t be intercepted.

Or, like SMS. Get a prepaid SIM card with fake identity, use it for a month, then dump it. Or make good-old phone calls using the SIM card, and dump it.

There are other options. And they have a common thread: Anonymity. You do not use your own identity, and you use a mode that is virtually untraceable.

Which is why a terrorist’s choice is not a BlackBerry — a device developed by Canada’s Research in Motion (RIM) that has now become a matter of concern for Indian security establishment — that is linked to his identity. Nor is a post-paid BlackBerry connection as disposable as a prepaid SIM card. Sure, you can get post-paid mobile connections too on fake identities, but because there is billing involved, valid addresses are required.

That’s not the only reason the terrorist would be wary of using a BlackBerry. First, he’s not really sure how secure the mail is, once an agency is onto him. The mail is routed through servers in North America, and the US National Security Agency reportedly has the technology to crack encrypted mail in a few hours – with or without help from RIM.

More worrying for the terrorist, not all of the mail is encrypted. The headers, including the “to” and “from” e-mail addresses, are plain text — else the internet would not be able to accept the e-mail for delivery.

And finally, the mail doesn’t stay encrypted all the way. When it gets delivered to an external e-mail system such as G-mail or corporate mail, it gets decrypted — else the recipient wouldn’t be able to read it.

The exception is when you’re not using a G-mail or a company mail ID, but are sending pure BlackBerry mail. That’s not merely one sent between two RIM devices, but where both “from” and “to” are BlackBerry IDs. That’s rare, but here’s how it works.

Your RIM device would usually be associated with your official address, say ram.rao@maruti.com. But you’d also have a BlackBerry e-mail address, like ramrao@airtel.blackberry.com, which you’d use to originate a BlackBerry-only mail. Even then, RIM would record to whom the mail was sent by and when.

So there are records with BlackBerry e-mail, and they’re like mobile-phone call records (which store who called whom, when, and for how long, for billing). RIM records who sent the mails, when, and to whom. The content, however, is strongly encrypted.

But our terrorist isn’t using a BlackBerry. He’s using G-mail, and he’s not even sending the mail: He’s just using draft mode to read and reply. So our agencies don’t stand a chance of “intercepting” that mail. Even if they’re on to him, they don’t know what ID he’s using. And then they don’t have the G-mail login ID. If they get that, then getting Google or Yahoo to give them access will take months, with all the protocol, Interpol, and the rest — by which time that account would have been closed, and the deed done.

Which is why India is wasting its time chasing BlackBerry.

It should first figure out what to do with the mail systems terrorist do use, with foreign mail servers. Should it demand that all such servers be based in India? Google and Yahoo won’t agree. So that would cut us off from the best of internet mail systems.

In fact, why not go further down that path, like China and cut off the internet? Route everything through a tightly-controlled gateway and firewall, and ensure that all servers are within China. And jail or shoot all dissidents, for good measure.

There are bigger dangers down the road that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesa and India are treading. One, government officials are major users of BlackBerry mail. Do they really want to push RIM into a corner where it starts offering decryption to any government that asks? What then stops it from offering to decrypt Indian e-mails for China or Pakistan, if enough pressure is brought to bear on it?

To no one’s surprise, countries most proficient at cracking down on dissents and censoring local media have been the most active in squeezing RIM. Like China, Saudi Arabia polices the internet, blocking access to sites with political and adult content.

India, unfortunately, seems to be trying to join this not-so-elite club.

(9.8.2010-Prasanto K. Roy is chief editor of CyberMedia’s ICT group. He can be found at www.pkr.in or on twitter.com/prasanto)

Inspired by one man’s example of planting trees, now educational institutions, cultural groups, resident welfare associations and other groups are participating in a major plantation drive in the city.

Harvijay Singh Bahia, a shoe exporter and formula car racer, decided to begin tree planting on his own in April. He hired a tractor with a mechanical driller and spent the entire May in the gruelling summer heat, drilling six-foot-deep holes on private land, on school and college campuses, factory premises and “wherever people invited me”, but his condition was that they would look after the saplings “like their own children”.

When the first showers came in early July, the stage was set for a massive sapling plantation drive across the city.

Bahia took up the barren stretch along Mantola nullah on the MG Road. “It took sustained efforts against an ocean of indifference and resources, but today that eyesore has turned green and the thousand-odd plants there are well entrenched and waiting to bloom,” Bahia told IANS.

In just one month, more than 20,000 saplings have been planted in colonies, along open drains, in the Central Hindi Institute campus and St Peter’s College. Dozens of voluntary agencies have joined Bahia in his effort.

The Central Hindi University’s registrar, Chandra Kant Tripathi, told IANS that they were experimenting with planting hundreds of neem saplings on a plot to be developed as a ‘gurukul’.

Principal of the 164-year-old St Peter’s College, Father John Farreira told IANS that they had “already earmarked a big field for a gurukul under the shade of neem, banyan and peepal trees”.

The Amar Ujala group has initiated its own green campaign, planting hundreds of saplings each day in various parts of the city. Till last week, the group had planted 11,964 saplings and its campaign is to continue till Independence Day (Aug 15).

Agra University has also directed its 437 affiliated colleges to plant 100 saplings each and look after them for three years. Registrar Shatrughan Singh said the guidelines had been sent to all the college authorities.

In the S.N. Medical College, Principal K.K. Gupta has been leading the green campaign. National Cadet Corps members have also been planting saplings in different colleges.

A dozen women’s groups and service clubs have pooled in their resources to plant saplings in different areas. The Citizens Council, Agra Vikas Manch, Wake Up Agra, Lions, Rotary, Bharat Vikas Parishad, the residents welfare societies and the cultural and religious bodies in the city are also involved in the drive.

Seeing the all-round enthusiasm, the government too has woken up and joined the efforts.

District Magistrate Amrit Abhijat has announced the ‘Mera Vriksh’ (My Tree) scheme, under which people can deposit Rs.1,100 with the forest department and plant a tree in the Taj Nature Park from Aug 12 in memory of their dear ones.

Divisional Forest Officer P.K. Janu said the department would look after the tree, protect it with a tree guard, give a proper certificate and put a stone plaque, giving details of the donor.

The key feature of the campaign this time is that the saplings are not being planted haphazardly as happened in the past leading to a low survival rate, said Narendra Malhotra, former president of the Federation of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians Societies of India and a keen volunteer.

“Proper planning and a huge database has been prepared, with names of people, locations and categories of saplings planted,” he said.

Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society president Surendra Sharma said: “If this trend continues, not only will Agra’s landscape look greener, but it will emerge as a role model for other cities in India to follow.”

Bahia said he did not intend to merely plant saplings and forget about them.

“I have a record of every sapling and location and will ensure not one dies a premature death for lack of care,” he said.

That’s the green way to go, for sure!

(Brij Khandelwal can be contacted at brij.k@ians.in)

Mallory’s body was found in 1999 during an Everest expedition, but Irvine’s body has remained untraced to this day.

There is belief in some mountaineering circles that the two men had actually reached Everest’s summit and were on their way back to their base camp when they perished in 1924.

They say if the camera Irvine was carrying is recovered, it could contain evidence to prove that they achieved the feat almost 30 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit in 1953.

But now, two Toronto university professors and an Indian researcher say that an extreme plunge in barometric pressure, a blinding blizzard and sudden oxygen deprivation were the key factors in the pair’s death, according to Postmedia News.

Atmospheric physicist Kent Moore of the University of Toronto, surgery chief John Semple of Women’s College Hospital at the university and Indian researcher Dev Raj Sikka came to this conclusion after studying long-overlooked meteorological records and other accounts of the weather on the day the British mountaineers vanished, according to the news agency.

“The disappearance of Mallory and Irvine is one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century, yet throughout the debates surrounding their disappearance, the issue of the weather has never really been addressed,” Moore has been quoted as saying in a summary of the study.

“Until we completed our study, the only information available was an observation by mountaineer Noel Odell, who was climbing behind Mallory and Irvine, who claimed that a blizzard occurred on the afternoon that they disappeared.”

By analysing 1924 meteorological data from the Himalayas held at the Royal Geographical Society archives in London, the three researchers determined that Mallory and Irvine may have been subjected to a sudden drop in barometric pressure of as much as 18 millibars – a major weather event that would have triggered a severe storm and a substantial drop in oxygen for the climbers as they neared Everest’s summit, according to the report.

“Mount Everest is so high that there is barely enough oxygen near its summit to sustain life, and a drop of pressure of four millibars at the summit is sufficient to drive individuals into a hypoxic state,” Semple, an experienced mountaineer as well as a medical expert, has been quoted as saying by Postmedia News.

Given the “cumulative effects of hypoxia, fatigue and extreme cold, Mallory and Irvine would have been at the limit of their endurance as they moved along the Northeast Ridge of Everest”, according to the researchers.

Their findings have been published in the latest issue of Weather, the journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Kottayam (Kerala) Aug 1 Media mogul K.M. Mathew, the 93-year-old chief editor of Malayala Manorama, passed away early Sunday at his residence here in Kerala.

Despite his advanced age, he kept working at office till the very last week, actively taking part in meetings and airing his opinions on news, especially business – his forte.

During his glittering journalistic career, Mathew was the chairman of Press Trust of India, president of the Indian Newspaper Society and the chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation besides holding numerous other positions.

Mathew became the managing editor of Malayala Manorma in 1954 and became the chief editor after his brother passed away in 1973.

The highly acclaimed English news magazine – The Week – was his brainchild. But, if there was one thing Mathew failed to achieve was an English daily from the Manorama group.

The first issue of Malayala Manorama appeared March 22, 1890. It started as a four-page weekly newspaper published every Saturday and since then it has not looked back. Today, it is a media group that has 48 publications with Manorama having a circulation of more than 1.8 million copies.

It was under Mathew’s stewardship that the Manorama group of companies adapted to the changing times in the media industry and did not have to think twice before entering into the arena of the electronic media. He also launched the online medium of Malayala Manorama.

Mathew’s position as a colossus in the media industry could be gauged from the fact that he always had the first audience with any political leader passing through Kottayam, which included even Pope John Paul II on his Kerala visit in 1986.

Mathew was also close to the Nehru family and that became apparent as one of the first condolences that came Sunday was from chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, Sonia Gandhi.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also offered his condolences to Mathew’s family Sunday morning.

Mathew, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third highest civilian honour in 1998, was one of the founding members of the Baselious College, Kottayam in 1964.

Belonging to the Syrian Orthodox Church, Mathew was the leading light of the church which has a strength of more than 2.5 million. His contribution to the church activities was always looked upon by all.

Mathew is survived by three sons and a daughter.

His body would be kept for the public to pay their last respects from Sunday evening at his residence in Kottayam.

The funeral would take place at 4 p.m. Monday near here and leading personalities from all sections of the society are expected to attend the ceremony.

Chennai, Aug 1 The dirty tricks departments in life insurance firms are busy at work to beat the new regulations for unit-linked insurance policy (ULIP) issued by the regulator, capping the various charges that they can levy on policyholders.

“As per the latest guidelines issued by the IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority), the maximum first-year commission that can be paid to distributors will be around 12 percent,” a senior industry official said.

“Corporate agents who are getting around 70 percent now are naturally unhappy. They want insurers to find new ways of ensuring that their earnings remain intact,” the official, who is an expert in the industry, told IANS.

According to him, life insurers are exploring options like launching riders with savings element on term-assurance products and also increasing commission rates on traditional products such as endowment and money-back policies to keep their till boxes tingling.

“The new norms will put tremendous pressure on corporate distributors. But they have to understand life insurance is a volumes business,” R. Krishnamurthy, managing director for products, distribution and risk consulting with Towers Watson, told IANS.

Insurance policy riders are extension of a basic policy to provide additional covers for more charges. In contrast, term assurance is a pure life insurance policy under which a policyholder gets his/her life covered without any return on the premium paid.

Queried about the stipulation that rider charges should not be more than 30 percent of the premium for the basic policy, another official told IANS: “That cap is applicable only on risk covers and not on the savings element.”

He explained that it will not be surprising if insurance companies launch a Ulip scheme, camouflaged as term assurance, in the markets from this September, so that it will be business as usual for them as well as their distributors.

According to industry officials, some life insurers have already filed such products for approval with the insurance regulator, adding the onus was now on the IRDA to approve the revised products so that companies can sell them from Sep 1.

“IRDA should question these companies if they increase the premium/commission rates on traditional policies,” R. Ramakrishnan, who was a member of the R.N. Malhotra panel on insurance reforms, told IANS.

“If distributors have to be paid higher sums then shareholders of life insurance firms can pay out of their pockets and try to recover the cost when they make profits,” said Ramakrishnan.

In fact, Krishnamurthy said, some companies may be considering such an option, with a differentiated commission structure for the high value policies that are designed for high networth individuals.

“Foreign and private banks can focus their effort on them. But in the current guidelines there no room for such differentiated treatment,” Krishnamurthy, said, adding if public sector banks lead low cost life insurance distribution, others will fall in line.

Officials also said riders should be simple and cover specified risks, without a savings element riding on it to facilitate payment of higher commission.

Another industry veteran said the watchdog should should look into these aspects with a microscope so that prospective policy holders are not taken for a ride. “More so since the time left is short and each company can file up to four products for approval.”

Industry experts conceded that it will be difficult for the private life insurers to match Life Insurance Corp of India’s (LIC) bonus rates on traditional products. But since the profits will be known only eventually, distributors would have made their money by then.

Officials said it was because of the intervention of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, which had asked life insurers to get its approval before selling Ulips, the insurance watchdog had now come out with regulations that favour policyholders.

“It is for the IRDA which has a mandate to protect policyholders to act firm.”

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

“I am shocked and shattered. I want to prove that the wild charges by the Dantewada police against me are baseless. I hear they said that I am the mastermind behind the Maoist attack on a Congress leader’s house in our district recently,” Lingaram said in a sobing voice here Tuesday.

“I will prove my innocence. I will show all the documents and the proof for this. But as a tribal, I feel I should not surrender to the police. I fear for my life if they detain me. I feel like committing suicide with honour than surrendering to the police, who will torture me,” Lingaram, 24, told IANS over the telephone.

The Lingaram case surfaced on Sunday, with the senior superintendent of police of Dantewada, S.R.P. Kalluri, issuing a media release that the July 7 attack on Congress leader Avdesh Kumar Gautam’s residence was “masterminded by Lingaram Kodopi, a resident of Sameli village”. The release alleged that Lingaram had “received training in terrorist techniques in Delhi and Gujarat in the last few months”.

“I am not hiding anywhere. As I want to prove my innocence, I am not going to my college these days,” Lingaram said.

Lingaram said: “I am thankful to my vakil sabheb (civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan) and swamiji (social activist and peace negotiator Swami Agnivesh) for taking up my case. I want the help of all the people. This is a conspiracy not just against me but all the tribal people.”

The police release went on to say that “Lingaram was in touch with writer Arundhati Roy, activist Medha Patkar and a professor of Delhi School of Economics, Nandini Sundar”. It also alleged that “Lingaram was tipped to succeed Communist Party of India (Maoist) spokesperson Azad” after the latter was killed by the Andhra Pradesh police on July 2.

In the early hours of July 7, the residence of local Congress leader Avdesh Singh Gautam in Nukainar in Dantewada was attacked by suspected Maoists. Sanjay Singh, the brother-in-law of Gautam, and Dharmendra Lehari, his clerk, were kiled in the attack.

Gautam’s 12-year-old son was injured. Police said the target was Gautam, who has been controversial for his close links with Mahendra Karma, another Congress leader and founder of Salwa Judum, the anti-Maoist militia.

As reports of Lingaram being named as the “mastermind” emerged, eminent civil rights activists and lawyers in Delhi extended him support. They also presented the tribal student before the media.

Patkar and Roy said in separate statements that the police attempt to “link them with the mastermind of the attack was a ill-conceived and baselss case”. Lingaram did not appear be involved, Patkar said.

Lingaram said that he had vaguely heard about Gautam.

“His reputation is not good among the tribals. I am not a Maoist. I do not believe in their ways of violence. But I am a tribal. And I know the pains and problems of tribals,” Lingaram told IANS.

Lingaram said this is not the first time he has been harassed and implicated in a false case by the Dantewada police. Last September, the police picked him from his village and kept him in detention for 40 days. It was only after a habeas corpus petition was filed in the Chhatisgarh High Court that he was released.

Lingaram said the police pressurised him to become a special police officer to fight the Maoists.

“The police harassed me very much. My motorcycle is still with me but they damaged our tractor and threatened my parents,” he recalled.

His parents, two bothers and a sister live in the village.

“Life is very turbulent there. The April 6 Maoist attack (in which 75 Central Reserve Police Force troopers and a state police constable were killed) happened just 30 km from our house,” he said.

Lingaram recalled it was Sudhanshu Chaudhary, a former Delhi-based broadcast journalist who is now in the US who inspired him to take up media studies.

“He told me if I become a journalist, I will be able to take up the case of the tribals and unerprivileged,” Lingaram said.

Meanwhile, Agnivesh told IANS over the telephone from Bhopal that he had taken up Lingaram’s case with union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai.

“It is a clear case of state terrorism. If you implicate innocent youth, the consequences may be serious,” Agnivesh said.

George Joseph

With the process of recruitment of teachers having already started and the state government announcing this month that new English teachers would also be recruited soon, Haryana’s focus on education is for real.

The government has also initiated several steps, including the setting up of an international level education city near Sonipat town, in the periphery of New Delhi’s national capital region (NCR).

Leading international and national universities and other educational institutes have expressed their willingness to invest in the education city, named after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The state has already set up an exclusive university for women, the Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya (Women University) near Sonipat.

“We want to accord top priority to education, be it at the primary level in schools or at the university level,” Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda told IANS.

“We want leading international names in the education field to set up base in the education city. In the competitive market, this will put youth from Haryana in a better position to meet industry demands.”

The focus on education comes at a time when controversial decisions of khap panchayats, or caste councils, annulling the marriages of young couples marrying in the same ‘gotra’ (lineage) or even in the same village, and the rising number of honour killings are earning adverse publicity for the state.

“The process of recruiting 35,000 teachers is going on to fill up the vacant posts of teachers in the state. In addition, 1,000 English teachers would also be appointed soon,” said Haryana’s Education, Health, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Geeta Bhukkal.

Haryana has directed deputy commissioners in all 21 districts to conduct a survey by July 31 to identify areas where elementary education schools are required.

Aiming to make schools more easily accessible to students, the government is planning to open more and upgrade existing ones.

At present, Haryana has 14,400 primary schools, 2,272 middle schools, 1,599 high schools and 1,519 senior secondary schools.

Hooda said at present, a primary school is located within a radius of 1.03 km of students, middle school in a radius of 1.07 km, high school in a radius of 1.52 km and senior secondary schools within a radius of 2.28 km.

The chief minister said the gross enrolment ratio at the primary level has improved from 97.8 percent in 2004-05 to 99.8 percent in 2009-10.

In case of upper primary, it improved from 95.38 percent to 97.2 percent during the same period.

The transition rate from primary to middle also improved from 65.86 percent to 93.9 percent and retention rate at primary level improved from 66.29 percent to 95.7 percent during the same period.

“More girls are coming to study now in the schools. This is despite the adverse sex ratio (of 861 females per 1,000 males) in the state,” a senior education department official said.

The central government has approved a budget of Haryana elementary education scheme for 2010-11 at Rs.691 crore.

Jaideep Sarin

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)

Just ask the hundreds of workers who earn their living selling products made from the multi-hued feathers.

In this land of the Hindu god Krishna, always portrayed with a peacock feather on his head, the proposed move of the

Environment and forests ministry to ban domestic trade in the feathers has been met with alarm.

“Can you think of Sri Krishna-Radha without the moar pankh (peacock feather)? In the south, Lord Murugan is fond of

peacocks. Jain saints use them; cattle owners need them for decorating their animals. For religious purposes and even as decorative pieces, the peacock feathers are always in demand,” Hari Prasad, who sells peacock feather fans outside a Krishna temple in Vrindavan, told IANS.

In Goverdhan, Mathura, Vrindavan, where Krishna is believed to have been born and brought up, and in the nearby Taj Mahal city of Agra, hundreds of cottage industry workers and owners have been up in arms for the last one week organising protests and submitting memorandums against the ministry’s move.

They met the district magistrate and presented a memorandum addressed to President Pratibha Patil.

“We have requested her to reject the move,” Nandlal Bharti of the Akhil Bhartiya Moar Pankh Kutir Udhyog Samiti (All India Peacock Feather Cottage Industry Committee), told IANS.

“A ban on the trade would leave many people, mostly from underprivileged sections, out of work,” added Ramesh, who runs a shop selling decorative pieces and items needed for rituals near the famous Dwarkadheesh temple in Mathura.

“The charge that we kill the birds for feathers is bogus and wrong. How can we ever kill them? They provide us our livelihood,” argued Lakhan Singh, one of those who stands to lose his earnings.

Agra has India’s biggest wholesale market of peacock feathers.

“The entire Braj Mandal, parts of Morena district in Madhya Pradesh, adjoining the Dholpur and Bharatpur districts of Rajasthan, and the sprawling 10,000 sq km area of the Taj Trapezium Zone have a high concentration of these birds.

“After the rains, the peacocks start shedding their feathers that are collected and brought to traders in Agra. In fact feathers are brought here from all over the country for auction during September-October,” disclosed Bhanwar Singh, president of the Association.

The members say the population of the magnificent national bird, which can’t fly very high or very long but has a long train of colourful feathers that fan out in the rains, has been steadily rising.

But WWF and other environmental groups estimate that the population has gone down by almost 50 percent of what it used to be at the time of independence.

Activists allege that peacocks were being killed at regular intervals for the feathers and also for the meat.

“Use of pesticides in grains has also been found to be a factor in reducing the peacock population,” says eco-activist Ravi Singh.

The environment ministry is planning a total ban on the use of the national bird’s feathers. The practice has so far been to allow trading in “naturally shed feathers” but restrict exports of products made from them.

The Wildlife Protection Act 1972 prohibits the killing of peacocks as well as export of tail feathers or articles made from them, but allows domestic trade under the assumption that the feathers are naturally shed, states the ministry. But this could soon end with the ministry proposing to amend the act.

The Wild Life Crime Control Bureau has over the years raided several warehouses in the Agra region and found huge stocks of feathers, giving rise to the suspicion that the birds were being systematically killed.

“The right course would be to step up patrolling and monitor controls. A total ban is not the right answer,” said tourism industry leader Rakesh Chauhan in Agra.

“Hundreds of people make a living selling fans, sticks, all kinds of fancy items from the feathers. They would all stand to lose their livelihood,” agreed hotelier Sandip Arora.

Brij Khandelwal

(Brij Khandelwal can be contacted at brij.k@ians.in)

After the deaths of 148 passengers as a result of the derailment of the Jnaneswari Express in West Bengal and an attack on a public bus in Chhattisgarh, the insurgents seem to have realized that such acts of terrorism against ordinary people could harm their cause and embarrass their sympathizers in the human rights groups.

The police, however, fall in a different category in their view as they represent the might of the “bourgeois” state. Killing them, therefore, is a lesser sin for the proletarian revolutionaries. It can be recalled that the two major targets selected by the Naxalite leader, Charu Mazumdar, in the 1970s for annihilation were the police and rural landowners.

Therefore, instead of blowing up transmission towers and school buildings in the countryside, the Maoists have recently been concentrating on ambushing and killing CPRF and other police personnel.

Unfortunately, these groups have also played into their hands by their strange ineptitude. After almost every incident of a massacre, the routine explanation is trotted out – that the standard operating procedure was not followed. For instance, instead of taking different routes to go to an area and while withdrawing from it, the forces tend to use the same path.

Hence, the contemptuous term – broiler chickens – used by the Maoists to describe them since these consignments of poultry are also transported in vehicles along prescribed routes. Lack of coordination between the CRPF and the local police, who have better knowledge of the terrain, is also mentioned in this context.

In addition, there have been incidents of the CRPF becoming “casual” and “callous” while coming near a police station, as has been said about the unit which was ambushed in Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh June 29. In Dantewada, where 75 jawans were killed, the CRPF had lost its wireless set, with the result that the Maoists could track its movements.

The casual attitude was also exposed by the Maoist attack on the camp of the Eastern Frontier Rifles in Silda in West Bengal where many of the 24 dead were found to be in undergarments. Similar scenes were witnessed after the Maoists carried out simultaneous attacks on the police lines and the jail in Jehanabad in Bihar a few years ago.

While these setbacks have persuaded the union home ministry and state governments to opt for special training courses in jungle warfare and the provision of better armament, what is evident is that the CRPF and other police personnel were asked to take on the Maoists with the authorities having no clear idea of the kind of enemy they were confronting.

After getting accustomed to dealing with stone-throwing mobs all these years, even in a hot spot like Kashmir today, the top brass in the police as well as ministers and bureaucrats apparently did not realize that they were facing a well-equipped and ideologically motivated adversary.

Of course, the first lapse of the authorities was to be oblivious of the surreptitious manner in which the Maoists were establishing their bases in the remote areas. Now, that failure has been compounded by the inability to assess the nature of the threat. The result is the heavy loss of life which the CRPF has been suffering.

However, the Maoist gamble of targeting the security forces is likely to misfire. No government can allow the indiscriminate gunning down of policemen, not to mention the mutilation of their bodies, as has been the case in Narayanpur. It is only a question of time, therefore, before there is a harsh response.

What is more, since the training and equipping of counter-insurgency units will take time, the authorities have to act within a short period to avoid demoralization in the ranks. But what is holding back the government is the difficulty of a largescale offensive in the forested areas. Up to now, most of the insurgencies, whether in Kashmir or the northeast and even in Punjab in the 80s, have usually been hit-and-run affairs by small militant groups, or selective assassinations, instead of the guerrilla tactics followed by the invisible Maoists.

The possibility of collateral damage is another inhibiting factor. Hence the reluctance to use helicopters on a wider scale lest the tribal habitations be affected. If the Maoists persist, however, in targeting the security forces, as they have threatened to do, they will only be stirring a hornet’s nest to their own peril.

India is often described as a soft state. But it is necessary to remember that some of the methods used to quell other uprisings have been extremely harsh. It is not only in Kashmir or the northeast that there have been complaints of police brutality; the earlier Naxalite movement was also crushed with the help of fake encounters. In fact, the cold-blooded killings of captives by the police began on such a scale at that time.

The same ruthlessness was also seen during the Khalistan agitation when scores of “unclaimed” bodies were burnt in funeral pyres and at least one human rights activist “disappeared”. The Maoists may be inviting the same fate by their provocative acts in the hope that the deaths of innocent tribals in the crossfire will help their recruitment drive and add grist to the mill of the civil libertarians. But the coming weeks and months are likely to unfold a grim story.

Amulya Ganguli

(03.07.2010-Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at aganguli@mail.com)