NEW DELHI: When Tata Steel began building the country’s third-biggest steel mill in a plot of the 5,000-hectare Kalinganagar industrial area in the dust bowl of eastern India this year, executives thought they would be welcomed.

After all, they reasoned, the company, with revenues of more than £3bn, was bringing development and jobs to one of India’s poorest places. However, by the end of the day, the bulldozers had not moved an inch and 12 people lay dead after what appeared to be a pitched battle between locals, armed with axes and spades, and police who carried guns and tear gas.

Tata Steel, part of a leading Indian industrial conglomerate with a history of social projects, faced a troubling territorial issue: how to build a factory on land that its inhabitants, indigenous people, had refused to leave? The new plant would produce 6m tonnes of steel a year — an industrial surge that would create much-needed jobs in Orissa, which declares more than half its population as living in poverty.

B. Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel, said: “We are working with the local people. They do want schools, the water, [and] the development that the plant will bring. It is some other elements who caused the problems. The action has delayed [the plant at Kalinganagar] by months.”

These “other elements” are now at the centre of a corporate debate over how to exploit resources in the mineral-rich but poverty-stricken tribal belt in India. Tata Steel would not say who the instigators in Kalinganagar were, only that they were “extremists”.

What happened in Orissa, say many experts, could easily be replicated across India, where the same mix of tribal disaffection could bubble up into a series of peasant uprisings. A bigger danger is that holding sway over a vast area of India is an armed group of left-wing guerrillas, referred to as Naxalites, who see industrialisation as an unwanted intrusion and threaten a violent contest over rural lands.

When the Guardian visited Naxalite guerrillas deep in the forests of central India earlier this year, Gopanna Markam, a company commander of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, stressed that the “exploitation” needed to be stopped. “The government is bent upon taking out all the resources from this area and leaving the people nothing.”

This is not a threat to take lightly. Naxalite shutdowns in Jharkhand state, with rich deposits of iron ore and dolomite, have cost local steelmakers 60 days of lost work a year. Armed rebels have carried out several attacks in southern Chhattisgarh on the state-owned National Mineral Development Corporation iron-ore mine.

Coincidentally, it is post-Maoist China’s surging economy that is driving global demand for raw materials and in India it is Maoist-inspired revolutionaries who seek to dent their supply.

The Naxalites, who follow a radical Maoist ideology, have waged a low-intensity guerrilla war against India for decades. They control 92,000 square kilometres of the country, from Nepal to the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. This “red corridor” runs along some of India’s poorest parts and through areas inhabited mainly by tribal peoples. In many places Naxalites have in effect become the state — running schools, digging wells and administering justice through “people’s courts”.

Although the movement has splintered many times in the 40 years since it began, a unified leadership emerged last year under the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The new party, with a 10,000-strong armed wing, was promptly banned. By April India’s prime minister was calling the Naxalites the “single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country”.

With $85bn (£46bn) of investment slated for mineral-rich India — including proposals from South Korea’s Posco; the FTSE 100 mining firm Vedanta, which holds its annual meeting in London today, and the world’s biggest steel company, Mittal Steel — financial analysts have begun to fret over the implications of trying to build an industry in the absence of the state.

The brokers CLSA said in a note last month: “Lack of policy initiatives and the inability to win over the tribals, the largest stakeholder in the hinterlands where the Maoists hold sway, means the Naxalite movement is becoming stronger.” The report pointed out that Maoist violence in India had already claimed 374 lives in 500-odd attacks in the first six months of this year. Anirudha Dutta, a senior investment analyst with CLSA, said the problem was trying to square industrial growth with decades of government indifference.

“Kalinganagar was a manifestation of the same problem. Tribal people do not have the education to get jobs at these plants. They sell their land at government-determined prices and then end up working as contract labourers.

“This economic insecurity is a serious source of discontent and is being exploited by the Naxalites. Government has to take steps to solve this because industry cannot. You are talking of about $30bn of foreign investment here — it is a lot of money,” said Mr Dutta.

However, some in industry are undeterred by gloomy predictions. JSW Steel, the flagship steel and power company of the OP Jindal group, is pressing ahead with plans for a 3,500 hectare plant in Jharkhand producing 10m tonnes of steel, despite threats to some potential investors from Maoists.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service

COLOMBO: European monitors claim that truce between Sri Lanka government and Tamil insurgents is “technically on” despite knowing well that fierce fighting has been raging between the two sides for the past seven days. The recent fighting has killed at least 100 people.

Reports coming from Trincomalee said at least 60 rebels and 10 soldiers were killed in fierce fighting on Wednesday as government troops continued their push into LTTE-controlled territory in a bid to end blockade by Tiger rebels of a key water reservoir near the boundary that divides districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.

The rebels claimed on Wednesday that fighting formations of the Liberation Tigers had overrun four key locations in the Trincomalee district after fierce artillery shelling since 2:00 am but the government military refuted these claims.

The military headquarters in Colombo were tight-lipped about the casualty figures from the army while official statements said seven soldiers had been killed since Monday. Another 19 soldiers were killed when the LTTE exploded a mine on a bus carrying soldiers in Trincomalee on Monday night.

At least 20 people were killed in separate shootouts and other incidents blamed on the LTTE in several areas in the north and the east during the past seven days.

The renewed hostilities come as the military commander, Lt-General Sarath Fonseka, who miraculously escaped death when a suicide bomber attacked his vehicle three months ago at the military headquarters in Colombo, officially resumed duties last week.

“If the LTTE commits itself to peace process, we have no problem with them. We don’t want to keep past rivalries. But if the LTTE exploits the truce agreement and continues with terrorism we will be forced to react,” the Army Commander was quoted as saying by Sunday Observer newspaper. However, analysts say there seems little chance of the LTTE abandoning its present acts of terror after it being declared a terrorist organization by the European Union two months ago.

The rebels, accused of at least 700 killings from beginning of this year, now say they have carried out their latest act of provocation, the blockade of water to over 20,000 civilians in government-controlled areas, as “a mark of protest” against the EU ban.

The rebels also claimed that they had cut the water supply as the government had not incorporated LTTE-controlled areas into the water supply scheme sponsored by the Asian Development Bank. The allegation has been rejected by the government.

Peace lobbyists say they are dismayed over what they have coined as the “water-war” and sent urgent warnings to the government to stop “taking the country to a new and deeper phase of conflict.”

“For the first time since December 2001, ground troops of the government and LTTE are engaged in sustained fighting with each other,” Jehan Perera, Executive Director of the Colombo-based peace lobby, the National Peace Council (NPC), said. “We fear the situation could get out of control -– the present hostilities could spread further,” Perera told Dawn.

“The LTTE’s decision to block water supply and the government’s decision to proceed with air bombardment as international monitors negotiate with the LTTE, cannot be condoned. From a humanitarian perspective it would have been better if the government had negotiated with the LTTE over the issue,” Jehan Perera said.

The government, however, says that the present military operation is necessary to ensure basic rights of thousands civilians in government-held areas who are without water for many days.

“It has to be acknowledged that the LTTE has violated all forms of humanitarian ethics by imposing the water blockade. We had no other choice,” government spokesman Minister Keheliye Rambukwella said when contacted, as government officials made desperate attempts to deliver emergency water supplies to civilians.

“The roads have been bombed by LTTE. The wells in the villages we are trying to pump are dry. We have a crisis on our hands. Children, farmers and thousands of acres of agriculture land are the worst hit,” a government official said.

In a related development, President Mahinda Rajapakse has expressed concern over some reports that LTTE is preparing chemical weapons in an underground building in LTTE-controlled northern territory.

Local newspaper reports say the Tiger rebels are planning chemical warfare. They quoted a London-based LTTE theoretician, Anton Balasingham, as saying that the LTTE was developing a “special weapon,” a reference to chemical weapons, according to defence sources.

These sources say the National Security Council has also expressed concern at the LTTE’s construction of a second airstrip in the rebel-held Killinochchi region.

NEW DELHI: A major rift has opened up between the Indian government and domestic public opinion over Israel’s recent military actions in Gaza Strip and its invasion of Lebanon, which has led to deaths of hundreds of civilians.

The Manmohan Singh government is hesitant to join the international community in unambiguously and consistently condemning Israel. But domestic opinion is appalled and outraged at the brazenness of the Israeli actions, which continue to cause havoc in Lebanon. The Indian people were particularly shocked at the Israeli bombing of Qana on Sunday, which left 56 civilians, including 37 children, dead.

“The contrast between the mood expressed in the anti-Israel demonstrations held in different cities of India over the past week, and the ambivalent, hesitant and timid approach of the government, could not have been any more stark,” says Qamar Agha, an independent expert on West Asian affairs who currently works for the Indian National Social Action Forum (INSAF), a non-government organization (NGO).

Surprisingly, the Indian government took three weeks to comment on Israel’s military attacks on Gaza and its arrest of a large number of Palestinian lawmakers, including ministers.

“This does not speak well of the government. It is acting under pressure from the United States and Israel. It is also keen to further expand its military ties with Israel and promote the US-India nuclear deal with the help of pro-Israel groups,” said Agha.

In July 2005 India and the US signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement to legitimize nuclear weapons held by India and lift nuclear technology embargoes imposed after New Delhi first exploded a nuclear device in 1974.

India’s first response to the Lebanon crisis, on June 27, was to condemn the capture of the soldier. While commenting on the issue later, after ferocious Israeli attacks, India expressed mild “regret that Israel should have chosen to give a military response to the capture of an Israeli soldier rather than afford time and opportunity for a diplomatic action.”

In the past, New Delhi used to affirm its recognition of the right of a people under occupation to militarily target and arrest soldiers of the occupying army. India also made no mention of the Israeli decision to impose harsh forms of collective punishment on civilians in Gaza by cutting off their water and power supply. It only tepidly referred to Israeli actions which “have affected the lives of ordinary citizens.”

When several public and political figures, including Members of Parliament from the Left parties, protested against the government’s reluctance to call a spade a spade, New Delhi voted to reprimand Israel at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on July 6. The vote was 29 against 11.

Although India’s foreign ministry spokesman claimed the vote was “in keeping with (New Delhi’s) traditional position on Palestine,” the resolution in question did not affirm the cause of a Palestinian state and demand an immediate end to the Israeli occupation, the crux of the traditional Indian stand, to which the Singh government solemnly promised it would return.

India’s hesitation in deploring the Israeli offensive in Lebanon following a Hezbollah raid on July 12 became evident when it described the violence as a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. India condemned “the excessive and disproportionate military retaliation by Israel”, but stopped short of calling it an invasion or aggression targeting Lebanon’s civilian population.

“Israel’s actions had nothing to do with self-defence,” says Agha. “They were not directed mainly at Hezbollah, but also targeted civilians in South Lebanon. This is not a case of ‘collateral damage’ but of conscious, intended damage. The intention is related to what Israeli defence chief Dan Holutz described as Israel’s goal of ‘turning the clock back by 20 years in Lebanon.’”

After the Qana attack on Sunday, India had no choice but to “strongly” condemn “the continued irresponsible and indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon by the Israeli military, ignoring calls for restraint. Particularly outrageous is the bombing this morning of a building in Qana in south Lebanon.” But the tone of this statement was much milder than the unanimous resolution passed in the Lower House of the Indian Parliament on July 31, which called “for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire” and called for “providing humanitarian relief to the victims of this tragic conflict.”—Dawn/IPS News Service

GUWAHATI: Rugged traders finally allowed to cross a snowy Silk Road mountain pass between India and China that opened three weeks ago after a gap of 44 years now face a bigger hurdle — bureaucrats.

From quality permits for yak pelts to appropriate document stamps and special code permits and the amount of cash they can carry, strict rules have dimmed hopes for booming trade across the roof of the world.

Many Indian traders said securing the license that allows Chinese and Indians to cross a rusty barbed wire marker at the border without a passport was the easiest part.

“There was great hype at the start and we all thought there was big money,” Indian trader Rajiv Thapa said. “But there are so many rules to trading that after spending so much time and money to trade, we make little in return.”

India and China on July 6 re-opened trade across the 15,000-feet (4,545-metre) Nathu La Pass, east of Sikkim’s capital Gangtok, as part of a broader rapprochement. The move marked the first direct trade link between the nuclear-armed neighbours since a bitter border war in 1962.

The re-opening of the pass comes as trade has surged between the neighbours with their combined consumer market of 2.3 billion people. Bilateral trade grew by 37.5 per cent to hit 18.73 billion dollars last year, according to Chinese data.

Increased trade across the pass was expected to boost that figure, but the political will to mend fences has not been passed down to those who mind the rules, traders say.

“The hype over the border trade has already fizzled,” said trader R. Lepcha who complained that officials have thrown up a series of rules that make it almost impossible to make money.

Trade now takes places four days a week — Monday to Thursday — beginning June 1 each year and lasting until September 30 when snow makes the area impassable.

The two countries have controlled currency regimes with the Chinese fixing the exchange rate against floating currencies and the rupee only partially convertible. That has led customs officers on both sides to insist that trade be conducted only in dollars.

“The State Bank of India allows a maximum of 500 US dollars to an Indian trader to buy Chinese goods at the trade mart. I don’t think a trader can do business with just 500 US dollars,” Sikkim Chamber of Commerce President S.K. Sarda told AFP.

It is all a far cry from the barter system used for centuries between the Tibetan region now controlled by China and the former independent kingdom of Sikkim. But some things have remained the same.

“The Chinese know we’re stuck and haggle for a better bargain and at times we sell at a lesser price to complete the deal rather than go home with our goods,” said T. Sherpa, an Indian trader.

Many of the traders claim Indian customs were out to prevent them from the start, Sarda said.

Customs officers denied permission to sell bulk items like world famous Darjeeling tea at the Chinese bazaar of Renqinggang, 17 kilometres from Nathu La without a special Import-Export Code (IEC).

Most of the Indian traders come from the eastern state of Sikkim which borders India’s main tea growing state of Assam.

But customs retreated slightly after protests.

Now, individuals who want to sell small quantities of goods like tea are allowed to cross without an IEC, but they can only sell, not buy, on the other side of the border.

“Traders from Sikkim are now exempted from the Import-Export Code. Now each trader is allowed to take goods worth Rs25,000 across the border every day,” Saman Prasad Subba, Sikkim’s Director of Industries and Commerce, told AFP by telephone.

Still, two-way trade has been slow, with eight to 10 Chinese traders crossing four times a week to the bazaar of Sherathang, five kilometres below the pass on the Indian side and an equal number heading to Tibet on the Chinese side.

Another problem for both sides is the language barrier.

“The biggest problem is language as we have to use signs and gestures to communicate with the Chinese,” said R. Sonam, an Indian trader.

Chinese traders face a different problem, accounting for why so few have crossed the border, officials say.

They are not allowed to sell the goods they wish to because Indian officials have no way to certify their quality.

“We’re unable to allow Chinese traders to bring in items like yak pelts and raw silk because they require quality certificates. Efforts are on to set up facilities to grade the items so they can trade,” Subba said.

—AFP

KABUL: Lawlessness and lack of infrastructure have forced thousands of children out of schools in Afghanistan this year, according to a survey carried out by IPS.

A number of districts in southern Uruzgan district have no schools at all. If at all they exist in some areas, there are no students because of shortage of teaching material and lawlessness.

Haji Gul Ahmad, a resident of Khas Uruzgan district, told IPS that though there existed a school in the district, parents pulled their children out of the educational institution after Taliban activists warned both teachers and students to stay away from the school.

According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released in July, the Afghan Ministry of Education had estimated that school enrolment had dropped this year. School closures and the inability of the government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to open new schools due to violence have been cited as main reasons in the report. Some five million Afghan children were enrolled in 2005.

The report has documented some 200 attacks on teachers, students and schools during the last 18 months. At least 18 teachers and education officials had been killed, the report said.

This trend, according to the report, was continuing. On July 18, a high school was set ablaze in Wazakhwa district of the southeastern Paktika province. Two classrooms, stationary and furniture were gutted in the overnight attack. Warnings have been issued in what are called “night letters”, leaflets pasted on village walls, urging people not to send their children to government or private schools and instead send them to mosque schools for religious education.

“Impart religious education to your children instead of modern education; otherwise all of you will be killed,” Hakimullah, a villager, quoted from one of the letters distributed in the district on behalf of local Taliban leaders.

The threats have worked perfectly even in the provincial capital, Tirin Kot. Mohammadullah, a resident, said most schools had been shut because of the violence.

Uruzgan governor, Abdul Hakim Munib, while admitting the problem, said: “School closure is one of the biggest problems faced by the province.” Elsewhere, in central Daikundi province, 38 schools were likely to be closed as there were no teachers because of insecurity in the area. The situation has endangered future of some 8,000 children in the area.

The province, which was carved out of Uruzgan two years ago, has 18 high schools, including five, that are exclusively for girls. However, not even one has its own building.

In the western province of Herat, education department officials blame poor school enrolment on the failure of reconstruction plans. Mohammad Din Fahim, Director of the Education Department, said inadequate resource allocation had badly hit education in the area.

Syed Ali Ahmad Mansuri, Head of the Economy Department, said there was no shortage of resources. He claimed Herat was getting its share from central funds and passing it on to non-governmental organisations for implementation of their schemes.

There has been some improvement also. Munira, a student at a vocational institute, says there is an improvement in educational facilities in her area.

She said she was earlier studying in a tent-school but now her school had been shifted into a new building.

Some schools that receive financial support still have a few problems. In Sultan Ghiasudin Ghori High School in the provincial capital, funded by France and Germany, classes were still held in a makeshift classroom, according to Khwaja Mirwais, a schoolteacher.—Dawn/IPS News Service

COLOMBO: As the bloody ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka escalates, people in the island nation are turning to their top-flight cricket team to provide a balm for the misery.

When Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels were locked in the bloodiest ground battle since 2002 on Monday, the nation’s cricketers were cheering some 4,000 home fans in the capital with a resounding victory over South Africa.

The massive first Test win by an innings and 153 runs also featured a world-record stand of 624 between skipper Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, further boosting morale at the serene Sinhalese sports club.

“What else do we have except cricket?” asked Colombo resident Rohan Wijesekera. “Prices are going over the roof, the economy is in a shambles, the tourists have dried up.

“Thank God, we still have our cricket.”

Cricket and the war in the north-east have co-existed side by side for decades with the country’s favourite sport thriving despite the killings and bombings that have become a way of life here.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the three-decade-old Tamil separatist conflict, but that appears to have had little effect on the cricket.

The 1996 World Cup, which Sri Lanka won on the sub-continent, was almost scuppered when a powerful bomb in downtown Colombo, blamed on the Tigers, killed 91 and injured 1,400 a few days before the tournament.

Australia and the West Indies declined to play their matches in Colombo, prompting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to issue an extraordinary statement that the tournament should go ahead since it did not target sportspersons.

Sri Lanka hosted two other World Cup games and then travelled to India and Pakistan under captain Arjuna Ranatunga to secure their greatest cricket triumph — a win over Australia in the final.

Sri Lanka’s leading bowler Muttiah Muralitharan, a Tamil, is regarded as a legend by his countrymen.

Team-mate Russel Arnold is a Christian Tamil, as is the nation’s under-19 captain Angelo Matthews.

All play happily alongside their majority Sinhalese team-mates.

“Our cricketers are Sri Lanka’s flag-bearers around the world,” said veteran cricket writer Saadi Thawfeeq. “They ensure we are not remembered only for the violence.”

When South Africa travel to the Sara Oval in the Sri Lankan capital on Friday to play the second Test, they will enter one of the best-known landmarks of the ethnic conflict.—AFP

NEW DELHI:   A television sting claimed to expose a thriving “arms-for-alms” trade in India on Tuesday when journalists apparently caught doctors on screen agreeing to amputate the limbs of beggars for as little as Rs10,000. An investigation by the CNN-IBN news channel showed three doctors taking money from the reporters, who said they were looking for medics to amputate beggars’ limbs. There appears to be a thriving trade in Delhi where gangs kidnap beggars and force them to undergo surgery so that their deformities attract sympathy.

CNN-IBN news said the price to amputate limbs from healthy patients, an illegal act in India, ranged from Rs10,000 rupees Rs40,000. It reported that there were 12,000 “handicapped” beggars in India’s capital.

Police questioned one of the doctors, PK Bansal. He has denied the allegations. The two other doctors — Ajay Kumar Agarwal and Arvind Agarwal, the Secretary of the Orthopaedic Association of Bareilly in northern India — have disappeared.

Police later dispersed an angry mob outside the home of Arvind Agarwal. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) said, if the reports were true, the licences of accused doctors would be revoked.

“Our Ethics Committee will look into the matter. This is a heinous crime and we will wait for the legal action. If these doctors are members of the IMA, their licences will be cancelled,” said the IMA president, Sanjeev Malik.

The medical profession has been under increasing scrutiny from television channels which target corruption. Many doctors in India are accused of being more interested in money than ethics. Earlier this year in Punjab, journalists exposed doctors selling organs from poor patients.

Begging is widespread in large Indian cities. In Mumbai, which is home to some 300,000 beggars, there was uproar in the state assembly when politicians offered the city’s beggars a “better way” to live through the central government’s employment guarantee scheme. The programme assures 100 days of work every year in return for Rs60 a day.

Commentators wondered why beggars would leave their trade for such small amounts — it is estimated begging in Mumbai brings in Rs200 a day.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service