The largest security threat to India
Mamoona Ali Kazmi

A big portion of Central India that runs from Gadchhiroli in Maharashtra to Abujmarh in Chhattisgarh has become India’s Achilles Heel as the Naxals are getting more and more hold of the area. The Naxals or Naxalites are waging a violent struggle on behalf of landless labourers and tribal people against landlords. They are fighting oppression and exploitation to create a classless society. They are engaged in violent activities as retaliation to the violence perpetrated by the Security Forces. They make the laws, and implement them. The state and its mechanisms are simply off the radar in these parts of India. Naxals also intended to support all the freedom movements of India including Kashmir and Northeast. They are engaged in successful guerrilla warfare due to popular support as well as are getting sophisticated training and have access to modern weapons. For India the Naxal problem has become grave than the insurgencies in Kashmir and North East. The discriminatory policies of the Indian government are responsible for the whole situation. Instead of tackling the issue through peaceful means, the Indian government is heavily dependent upon security forces and paramilitary troops to counter Naxalite violence. As violence begets violence, same is happening in Central India. The more the State governments rely upon coercive measure the more the situation becomes worse.
Naxalites are becoming more and more efficient. This is a result of different factors. Firstly, the unification of the Maoist Communist Center and the People’s War Group, the two main factions involved in the armed insurgency, has changed the face of struggle from scattered localized cells to more unified force operating in the Central India, commonly known as red corridor. The Naxals are no more following the hit-and-run strategy. Now they identify specific targets and hit them precisely with impunity. The Naxals also intended to support struggles’ of nationalities that demand a separate state for their development. Kashmiris and various nationalities of the North East such as Assamese, Nagas, Manipuris and Tripuris, have been long waging an armed struggle against the Indian Government for their right to self-determination including the right to secede from the so called Union of India.
Secondly, the Naxalites are more organized and have sophisticated weapons. According to official figures the armed Maoist cadres estimate at about 10,000 and over ground workers to be around 45,000. According to a recent report prepared by Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) Naxals are acquiring new lethal weaponry besides upgrading their military bases and expertise by forming six regular armed companies. IB report highlighted that while earlier 162 districts were affected in 14 states, now 182 districts are affected in 16 states. The recovery of rockets and grenades launcher dyes in Bhopal is indicative of the fact that Naxals have gained expertise in making lethal weapons. The Naxals are also acquiring their land mine manufacturing techniques from LTTE. Their main source of weaponry is weapons snatched from the police, security forces, civilians and private companies. They also source their weapons from other militant organizations, smugglers, gun dealers, and illegal arms manufacturing units besides pilferage arms and explosives from ordinance factories. The CPI (Maoist) has a budget of no less than Rs 60 crore for carrying out its armed struggle during 2007-09. And of that, Rs 42 crore is earmarked for arms, ammunition and explosives, Rs 2 crore for intelligence gathering. The remaining amount is allocated for transportation, computer training, propaganda and transportation.
Naxals in India now model themselves on the Indian army, from training manuals to undercover training. The manuals translated into Hindi from Telugu by the security forces give a chilling insight into People’s Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA) planning military skills and motives. This is very similar to the training of a Jawan or even a JCO. The PLGA’s basic military courses begin with handling automatic weapons, compass and map reading, defensive and attack formations. The manual analyses Naxal operations since 1997 and suggests means to increase enemy casualty. It discusses how to collect intelligence, stalk the enemy, and lay an ambush and attack. It also instructs how to retreat when attacked, regroup later using coded communication and how to raid protection installations.
The fighting forces of Naxals are divided into three categories. The primary force is of extremely well trained personnel who spearhead any attack with superior weapons. The secondary force forms the bulk of a large group with less sophisticated weapons. And in the last, there is people’s militia comprising farmers, labourers and others. Naxals have over 80 training camps, each training between 200 to 300 people at any point of time. There are 84 training camps which are operating in several states such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand. Bastar region in Chhattisgarh has become an epicenter of Naxal activity. PLGA is running four training camps in the region where about 1,500 to 2,000 cadres are getting training in carrying out attacks and planting explosives.
Lastly, the Naxalites have peoples support. The use of generator sets to light up the target area before carrying out their attack highlights Naxals’ efforts to distinguish their targets i.e. security forces and SPOs from the local villagers. This effort of Naxals helps them to mobilize hundreds of fighters despite the large-scale presence and deployment of paramilitary and anti-Naxal Forces. Most of them might have even been taking shelter in urban areas with the help of unarmed sympathizers whose number could be anywhere between 50,000 and 70,000 across the country.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted that 160 districts across the country are slipping out of the government control. He reiterated that the Maoist problem has assumed proportions bigger than militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and insurgency in Northeast India due to its sheer spread and organized linkages. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while speaking at a meeting of Chief Ministers of 13 Naxal affected states said, “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the problem of Naxalism is the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by the country”.
The Naxalites’ threat is the real and ever increasing menace, which at the moment has no remedy with the Government of India. Naxal threat is no longer confined to the jungles. Naxalites have plans to take their war to urban centers. They have plans to strike in the industrial belts of Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad- Kolkata and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad and take their battle into the heart of India.
The Indian prime Minister has desired the Naxal affected states to raise more police force on war footings to tackle the ever-increasing Naxal peril, but in all reckonings, it will not yield any positive result, as a socio-political problem is being contemplated to be resolved with military means. Growing insurgency in the Naxal affected areas is just emerging as the greatest challenge posed to the stretched out Indian security apparatus. Ironically India, which is interfering into the internal matters of the other countries, is unable to handle its own internal situation. Since the turmoil affected areas form the Indian hinterland, it can not even deploy its Cross-Border-Terrorism thesis to explain the Indigenous revolt. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that Indian army is showing extreme reluctance to get involved in the situation; already having extended itself through counter-insurgency operations in the Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. Indian Paramilitary Forces and the State police are therefore bracing themselves for a long hot violent summer.



Cutting off funds to polluters
Lan Xinzhen

GUAN Guohua, Chairman of Shanxi Jinyun Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., never imagined that one day his company would end up on a credit blacklist. Recently banks stopped granting loans to his company not because of any problem with its credit, but because of what it produces. The company produces pig iron and coke, qualifying it for addition to a blacklist by the environmental watchdog because of pollution. The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) jointly issued the green credit policy last July. The green credit policy is aimed at curbing loans issued to projects that have the potential to damage the environment and imposing high interest rates to punish polluters.
Shangxi Jinyun was included in the first list of 30 companies that the SEPA reported to the central bank. Later the environmental watchdog reported more than 30,000 pollution violation cases to the central bank. A chemical company in Anhui Province has found itself in even more difficult circumstances. The banks not only stopped loaning to the polluter but also recalled the 5 million yuan ($0.7 million) in loans already on its account. According to Pan Yue, Vice Minister of the SEPA, 12 heavy polluting companies have had crucial bank loans recalled, suspended or rejected since the “green credit” policy became active. “The implementation in the past six months shows the policy is conducive to improving the efficiency of environmental supervision, and helps lower the cost of environmental administration and shun lending risks,” said Pan. Making it green “The severe state of China’s environment prompted us to introduce the policy,” said Pan Yue, an ambitious advocate of tougher environmental controls. He believes that it is imperative to take tougher measures to limit and check emissions by enterprises and construction projects.
“The emission-reduction measures of a few specialized agencies are limited, and we must unite with more macroeconomic departments,” Pan said. The green credit policy has won the support of the central bank and the CBRC. The SEPA, the central bank and the CBRC jointly issued a proposal on the implementation of policies and regulations related to environment protection and the prevention of credit risk, advocating stricter credit checks on companies that do not pass environmental assessments or fail to implement environment protection regulations. These policies are meant to limit the expansion of energy-consuming, heavy-polluting industries. The China Development Bank (CDB), the Export-Import Bank of China (EIBC) and the Agricultural Development Bank of China (ADBC), China’s three policy-oriented banks, play a leadership role for other commercial banks when carrying out national macroeconomic adjustment policies. CDB set up a special loan for energy conservation and emission reduction to implement the green credit policy last year. The loan is aimed at supporting industrial pollution controls, urban sewage treatment and recycling, urban solid waste management, and promoting overall water treatment at Taihu Lake and Caohu Lake. By December 2007, the bank still had 89 billion yuan ($12.5 billion) of unused environment protection loans, up 34 percent year on year. The bank pledged to adopt stricter environmental assessment standards and support and guide enterprises in the use of environmentally friendly and advanced technologies and equipment when granting the special loan this year. The EIBC will also continue to adjust and improve policies and regulations related to the green credit policy. The bank established a loan withdrawal mechanism to avoid environment protection risks last year.
And according to ADBC Governor Zheng Hui, ADBC will favor growing niche companies in agricultural industrialization this year, especially “green” pork, edible oil and diary product processing companies. Influenced by these policy-oriented banks, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will continue to support the green credit policy and put loan growth under strict control. ICBC labeled companies qualified for green credit while assessing their loan applications, compiled a database with information on the environment protection history of their clients, and classified clients based on their environmental risks in 2007. They vetoed credit applications of all projects that failed to implement environmentally friendly industrial policies or failed to meet energy consumption and waste emission standards that would possibly endanger the environment.
Currently, ICBC has initially completed the database chronicling its clients’ environmental risks. Of its nearly 60,000 corporate clients that still have unused loans, about 47,000 have labels to indicate their environment protection status. Problems ahead Despite some progress since the launch of the green credit policy in the middle of last year, there is still a long way to go. Altogether, the SEPA has submitted more than 30,000 names of companies with environment breaches to the central bank. Only 38 have been investigated and 12 banned from accessing further loans. “The successes were only ‘partial’ and far from the goal the agency had set for itself,” said Pan. “The reason is that some provinces are not following the green credit plan, and even if they are, it’s only superficial. “High polluting and energy-intensive companies are protected by local governments. Some of them make a lot of money very quickly, so it’s hard to cut their credit.”

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)






Nuclear safety in India
Mohammad Asad

ON February 18, Indian police arrested six persons at Virpur bus stand in Supal district along Indo-Nepal border. They were trying to smuggle four kilograms of low-grade uranium, worth Rs 50 million across the border. This is not an isolated incident. Since 1980, scores of theft of radioactive material from India’s mines, nuclear installations, and hospitals have taken place.
As India is a signatory to international conventions on safety of nuclear materials, it is bound to report thefts of nuclear materials to international bodies. As reporting such incidents bespeaks poor safety standards, so India tries to hush up such incidents. Take the case of material recovered from G. R. Arun, a post-graduate in structural engineering, S. Murthi, a medical practitioner, and C. Mohan, all residents of Erode (Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu). In their complaint to police, the Indra Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam reported that the afore-mentioned persons had stolen material which had the presence of U-235 and U-238 isotopes (1.40 to 2.20 per cent). The police, initially tried to close the case on grounds that the material seized was not uranium but limenite, a non-strategic substance having ordinary industrial applications. The Centre insisted that the case should be investigated by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). It was later confirmed by the CBI that the allegation in the complaint was correct. In another incident, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission confirmed that the football-size package recovered from some Indians in a border village contained 225 grams of uranium oxide. The attention of international media remains riveted on Pakistan. Had such incidents happened in Pakistan, it would have been speculated that the thieves were members of some ultra-religious outfit.
Aside from the hushed-up cases, India has reported 25 `confirmed’ cases of `stolen or missing’ uranium to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The reports boast about recovery of uranium in varying forms and quantities from `thieves’. The recoveries include fifty-seven pounds of uranium in rod form, eight kilograms in granular form, two hundred grams in semi-processed form, besides twenty-five kilograms in radio-active form, stolen from the Bibi Cancer Hospital. Following events speak volumes on state of nuclear safety in India. `Thieves’ stole three cobalt switches, worth Rs. 1.5 million, from Tata Steel Company laboratory at Jamshedpur (Jharkhand). A shipment of beryllium (worth US$ 24 million), was caught in Vilnius, on its way to North Korea. A ship, carrying dual-use aluminum oxide from India to North Korea was intercepted by Taiwanese authorities. India should tighten its control over its nuclear mines and installations. The stolen material could be used for making dirty bombs. Such bombs may not be so destructive. But, they could create widespread fear as Geiger meters would detect radiation leaks from them. Moreover, the handling of stolen radio-active material poses a hazard to ecology and human health.