Parliamentary Government

Defining Parliamentary Government

Parliamentary government is a democratic form of government in which the political party that wins the most seats in the legislature or parliament during the federal election forms the government. This majority party chooses a leader to be the Prime Minister or Chancellor, and other high-ranking members of the party make up the cabinet. The minority party forms the opposition, and its job is to challenge the majority party. If no party is able to win a majority in the election, a coalition government will be formed with a few political parties cooperating together.

It's called 'parliamentary government' because all of the power is vested in the parliament. In a presidential system like the United States, the executive branch is separate, and the president is popularly elected by the citizens of the nation. In a parliamentary system, the head of the government is chosen from the parliament, and is often one of the most senior members or ministers in parliament, which is where we get the term 'Prime Minister'. Often in a parliamentary system, the country will have a Head of State, who is a ceremonial figure like the Queen, but does not engage in legislating or politics.

Examples: Australia and Germany

Parliamentary government originated in Great Britain, and now countries all over the world use this form of democracy. For example, Australia and Germany both have a parliamentary government, but there are a few differences between them.

Australia, a member of the British Commonwealth, has a form of parliamentary government that is similar to Great Britain. Its Parliament has two houses; the Senate and the House of Representatives just like the United States Congress. The political party that wins the most seats in the House of Representatives forms the government and chooses the Prime Minister. In Australia, the floor of the Parliament is the site of vigorous debate. The majority and minority parties face off regularly to discuss legislation. There's often a lot of shouting and taunting! The Prime Minister takes part in the debates, and must be prepared to join the fray to propose and defend his or her decisions.

Germany also has a two house Parliament. The Bundesrat is the upper house like the senate, and the Bundestag is the lower house like the House of Representatives. The majority party in the Bundestag elects a Chancellor who leads the government. Unlike Australia, most debates happen in small committee meetings. Then the committees bring a bill to the plenary chamber where it goes to a vote. That means there's a lot less fighting in the plenary chamber.

Features

The features of Parliamentary form of Government has been discussed below:

1. Existence of a Titular or Constitutional Ruler: The first characteristic feature of the parliamentary system is the existence of a Titular of Constitutional Ruler. Legally the administration of all the affairs of the state is conducted by the head of the state. In reality, however, the administration is carried by the Council of Ministers. The Monarch or the President, as the case may be, is the head of the state, but not the head of the government.

2. Absence of Separation of Powers: In the parliamentary system the principle of separation of powers is not adopted. Here the three departments of government work in close, intimate contact, sharing some of the powers and functions of one another.

3. Main Role of the Lower House in Ministry-formation: In the parliamentary government the lower house of the legislature, i.e., the popular chamber plays a vital role in the formation of the ministry. The leader of the party or alliance which wins the majority in this house is appointed the Prime Minister or Chancellor. The constitutional ruler appoints the other members of the ministry on his advice.

4.  Responsibility to the Legislature: In such a system the Cabinet or Ministry has to remain responsible to the legislature for all its activities and policies. In countries having bi-cameral legislatures, the Cabinet remains responsible to the lower house composed of the people’s representatives.

5. Collective Responsibility: The ministerial responsibility to the legislature may again be of two kinds:

• Individual responsibility, and
• Collective responsibility.

Individual responsibility means that the minister in charge of a department must be answerable for the activities of his department. But when the ministers remain jointly or collectively responsible to the legislature for the policies and activities of the government, it is called ‘collective responsibility’. Since no individual minister can unilaterally perform any business of government without the consent of the Cabinet, the entire Ministry or Cabinet has to remain accountable for the errors of the minister concerned.

6. Intimate relationship between the Legislature and the Executive: In the parliamentary system an intimate relationship exists between the executive and the legislative departments. So they can easily control each other. The leaders of the majority party or alliance in the legislature become the members of the Cabinet or Ministry. Naturally, the ministers can easily extend their influence on the legislature. Consequently, the programs and policies of the Cabinet are backed by a majority inside the legislature.

7. Leadership of the Prime Minister: The leadership of the Prime Minister is another major feature of the parliamentary system. The leader of the majority party in the legislature becomes the Prime Minister. Though, in theory, he is ‘primus inter pares’, i.e. ‘first among equals’, in reality, he possesses much greater power and status than the other ministers. As the undisputed leader of the majority party or alliance in the legislature he plays the most vital role in the determination and execution of government policies. Indeed, the success of parliamentary democracy depends, to a great extent, on the personality, efficiency and charisma of the Prime Minister.

8. Existence of a Strong Opposition: The existence of one or more strong and well-organized opposition party or parties is the hall-mark of the parliamentary system. By criticizing the errors of the government, the opposition can compel it to adopt welfare measures and prevent it from becoming despotic. Judged from this angle, the opposition can be called the life-force of parliamentary democracy.

9. Cabinet Dictatorship: In the parliamentary system of government the cabinet has to perform manifold functions. It is the Cabinet which:

• formulates well-considered policies of the Government after reviewing both the national and international issues,
• takes necessary, arrangements for passing laws to implement the policies formulated by it,
• determines the matters to be included in the agenda of the central legislature,
• controls and directs the administrative departments so that laws, Government orders, etc. are to be implemented properly,
• co-ordinates the activities of different departments of the Government,
• prepares the draft budget in consultation with the Prime Minister and takes necessary initiative to get it passed in the legislature,
• formulates economic policies and takes necessary steps for implementing the same,
• advice’s the constitutional head to take necessary action during emergency or unforeseen situation, etc.

In this way the Cabinet acts as ‘the keystone of the political arch’ or has become the ‘steering wheel of the ship of the state’. In fact, in the parliamentary system of government as the cabinet members are the leaders of the majority party or alliance in the legislature. Some critics think that the Parliament is controlled by the Cabinet under the leadership of the Prime Minister giving rise to some sort of “Cabinet dictatorship”.

BENEFITS OF PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM 

One of the commonly attributed advantages to parliamentary systems is that it’s faster and easier to pass legislation.

This is because the executive branch is dependent upon the direct or indirect support of the legislative branch and often includes members of the legislature. Thus, this would amount to the executive (as the majority party or coalition of parties in the legislature) possessing more votes in order to pass legislation.

In a presidential system, the executive is often chosen independently from the legislature. If the executive and legislature in such a system include members entirely or predominantly from different political parties, then stalemate can occur. Accordingly, the executive within a presidential system might not be able to properly implement his or her platform/manifesto.

Evidently, an executive in any system (be it parliamentary, presidential or semi-presidential) is chiefly voted into office on the basis of his or her party’s platform/manifesto. It could be said then that the will of the people is more easily instituted within a parliamentary system.

In addition to quicken legislative action, Parliamentarianism has attractive features for nations that are ethnically, racially, or ideologically divided. In a uni-personal presidential system, all executive power is concentrated in the president.

In a parliamentary system, with a collegial executive, power is more divided. It can also be argued that power is more evenly spread out in the power structure of parliamentarianism. The prime minister seldom tends to have as high importance as a ruling president, and there tends to be a higher focus on voting for a party and its political ideas than voting for an actual person.

Parliamentarianism has been praised for producing serious debates, for allowing the change in power without an election, and for allowing elections at any time

The four-year election rule of the United States to be by some to be unnatural.

There is also a body of scholarship, associated with Juan Linz, Fred Riggs, Bruce Ackerman, and Robert Dahl that claims that parliamentarianism is less prone to authoritarian collapse. These scholars point out that since World War II, two-thirds of Third World countries establishing parliamentary governments successfully made the transition to democracy. By contrast, no Third World presidential system successfully made the transition to democracy without experiencing coups and other constitutional breakdowns.

CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM 

One main criticism and benefits of many parliamentary systems is that the head of government is in almost all cases not directly elected.

In a presidential system, the president is usually chosen directly by the electorate, or by a set of electors directly chosen by the people, separate from the legislature. However, in a parliamentary system the prime minister is elected by the legislature, often under the strong influence of the party leadership. Thus, a party’s candidate for the head of government is usually known before the election, possibly making the election as much about the person as the party behind him or her.

Another major criticism of the parliamentary system lies precisely in its purported advantage: that there is no truly independent body to oppose and veto legislation passed by the parliament, and therefore no substantial check on legislative power (see tyranny of the majority). Conversely, because of the lack of inherent separation of powers, some believe that a parliamentary system can place too much power in the executive entity, leading to the feeling that the legislature or judiciary have little scope to administer checks or balances on the executive. However, parliamentary systems may be bicameral, with an upper house designed to check the power of the lower (from which the executive comes).

Although it is possible to have a powerful prime minister, as Britain has, or even a dominant party system, as Japan has, parliamentary systems are also sometimes unstable. Critics point to Israel, Italy, Canada, the French Fourth Republic, and Weimar Germany as examples of parliamentary systems where unstable coalitions, demanding minority parties, votes of no confidence, and threats of such votes, make or have made effective governance impossible. Defenders of parliamentarianism say that parliamentary instability is the result of proportional representation, political culture, and highly polarized electorates.

Although parliamentarianism has been praised for allowing an election to take place at any time, the lack of a definite election calendar can be abused.

In some systems, such as the British, a ruling party can schedule elections when it feels that it is likely to do well, and so avoid elections at times of unpopularity. Thus, by wise timing of elections, in a parliamentary system a party can extend its rule for longer than is feasible in a functioning presidential system. This problem can be alleviated somewhat by setting fixed dates for parliamentary elections, as is the case in several of Australia’s state parliaments. In other systems, such as the Dutch and the Belgian, the ruling party or coalition has some flexibility in determining the election date. Conversely, flexibility in the timing of parliamentary elections avoids having periods of legislative gridlock that can occur in a fixed period presidential system.

It has been argued that elections at set intervals are a means of insulating the government from the transient passions of the people, and thereby giving reason the advantage over passion in the accountability of the government to the people

Critics of parliamentary systems point out that people with significant popular support in the community are prevented from becoming prime minister if they cannot get elected to parliament since there is no option to “run for prime minister” like one can run for president under a presidential system.

Additionally, prime ministers may lose their positions solely because they lose their seats in parliament, even though they may still be popular nationally. Supporters of parliamentarianism can respond by saying that as members of parliament, prime ministers are elected firstly to represent their electoral constituents and if they lose their support then consequently they are no longer entitled to be prime minister. In parliamentary systems, the role of the statesman who represents the country as a whole goes to the separate position of head of state, which is generally non-executive and non-partisan. Promising politicians in parliamentary systems likewise are normally preselected for safe seats – ones that are unlikely to be lost at the next election – which allows them to focus instead on their political career.

Modi: India’s Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 Notes No Longer Valid

India’s prime minister made a surprise announcement that the notes would be pulled out of circulation immediately. 

In an unexpected move, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in a special address on Tuesday evening that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will be demonetized. His public address has galvanized panic across the country.

The move is meant to weed out rampant corruption, black money, false currency, and in turn help tackle broader issues fueled by these activities, such as poverty and terrorism. Modi pointed out in his address that fake notes from outside of India were being used to fuel terrorism activity within the country.

The Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will not be legal tender as of midnight on November 9. New Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denomination notes will be released and circulated soon. Other currency notes such as Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 20, and Rs 10 and coins will continue to be a part of the country’s financial system. Moreover, all cashless transactions will continue as usual.
ATMs across India are expected not to work on November 9 and in some areas on November 10.  All banks will be closed for public work on November 9, in order to tackle the influx of people wanting to deposit their notes.

Indians can deposit their currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in post offices and banks for the next 50 days, until December 30, 2016. After December 30, 2016, these notes will be demonetized with no monetary value.

During his address on Tuesday, Modi announced some protections put in place to ensure that no one loses their money due to the unexpected move.

“Your money is yours. You will not lose anything. The government will ensure that,” Modi said during his address on Tuesday.

“We should be able to make the sacrifice of adjusting to such a move in the national interest, as it aims to tackle the evils of corruption, black money, fake currency, and terrorism,” he added.

“Corruption and black money had come to be considered a truth of life. They have been eating away like termites at our national interest. This can no longer be permitted.”

Modi also announced a series of protections to ensure that emergency services such as medical payments do not get affected by the move. Some exceptions have been made; Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will be accepted until midnight on November 11 at places where an emergency may arise: hospitals, petrol pumps, railway reservation counters, crematoriums, and airports.

The surprise call came almost immediately after Modi hosted a meeting of the Union Cabinet. Modi had also met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and the chiefs of the armed forces earlier on Tuesday.

The move to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes is designed to bring billions of dollars worth of unaccounted money into the mainstream economy. India is largely a cash-dominated economy; hence it is difficult for the government to trace tax evaders.


This is not the first time India has demonetized currency notes. According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 banknotes were scrapped in 1946. Then in 1954, currency notes for Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000, and Rs 10,000 were reintroduced into the financial system. Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 notes were withdrawn from the financial system in 1978.

Where Is India’s Baloch Policy Heading?

Is India actually willing to lend support to Baloch separatists in Pakistan?

In response to the diplomatic, conventional, and unconventional hostilities faced from Pakistan over the Kashmir issue since independence, New Delhi recently adopted a new strategy: highlighting the Baloch cause for self-determination.

This “policy shift” marked its official beginning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech this year. Hinting of the ongoing separatist movements inside Pakistan, Modi stated: “Today from the ramparts of Red Fort, I want to greet and express my thanks to some people. In the last few days, people of Balochistan, Gilgit, [and] Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have thanked me, have expressed gratitude, and expressed good wishes for me.” Islamabad responded in no time, stating that this speech confirmed India’s involvement in the Baloch insurgency.

While the disputed regions of Pakistan’s Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan remain free from any major internal instability at the moment, recurring unrest in Balochistan has been a concern for Pakistan as the region is stated to become the lynchpin of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through the Gwadar port. Since March 27, 1948, when the state of Kalat was coerced into acceding to Pakistan, Balochistan has faced five waves of insurgency, with the fifth wave ongoing.
Until recently, India’s only official engagement with the Baloch issue was a short wave radio service run by the External Services Division of All India Radio since 1974. The service was also made available through a website and a mobile application as of this September, a move aimed at increasing outreach to the Baloch diaspora settled across the world. Simultaneously, Baloch leaders and activists exiled from Pakistan have begun visiting India specifically to take part in news debates and to address foreign policy think tanks, apprising Indian strategic circles of the bleak human rights situation in Pakistan’s largest province. Policy research institutions affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have been hosting Baloch activists who openly urge India to play an active role in liberating Balochistan.

Brahamdagh Bugti, the exiled leader of Baloch Republican Party and the grandson of Nawab Akbar Bugti (killed in 2006 in an army operation) even filed an application for asylum in India, which is being examined at the moment. Another Canada-based Baloch activist duo, Professor Naela Baloch and her son Mazdak Dilshad Baloch, regularly visit India to garner support for the movement.

However, New Delhi remain ambiguous as to whether or not there is a structural framework on which its Baloch policy would be based. As of now, there has been no official word regarding India’s future course of action; the present state of affairs, at best, points to mere rhetoric limiting itself to Baloch leaders trickling into India to participate in think tank-driven discussions. As expectations abound that New Delhi is considering setting up a Baloch government-in-exile, some key questions still remain unaddressed. Besides this, there is also a need to exercise great caution in operationalizing the Baloch policy.

A Cautious Approach Needed

In light of the ongoing insurgency in the region, it is imperative for New Delhi to clarify the extent to which it supports the Baloch cause. While Islamabad already accuses New Delhi of involvement in arming the Baloch rebels, India needs to tread a cautious path by outlining the contours of its engagement with the issue.

Besides the insurgency, Balochistan has also become a hotbed of sectarian violence, with targeted attacks by sectarian extremist groups registering a rise. A few days ago, more than 60 policemen were killed in a suicide attack carried out on Quetta Police Training College by members of the al-Alami faction of the Sunni extremist organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the roots of whose creation lie in sectarian policies enacted under General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime. Even the instances of such sectarian attacks in the region have never prompted Islamabad to rule out India’s role.

Accommodating with Beijing

While exhorting Balochistan’s separatist leadership to highlight the Baloch cause globally, New Delhi has continued to defy Chinese apprehensions, especially at a time when CPEC-driven investments are coming up in the region. The CPEC is envisioned as an infrastructural ecosystem spanning all the way from Gwadar port to Xinjiang’s Kashgar, granting China’s landlocked western region a southward path to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea.

The blame for any sabotage of the ongoing projects will fall on New Delhi, pitting it directly against Beijing. Already, China’s growing hostility toward India has taken an institutional dimension, manifesting in India’s failed bid to acquire membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Chinese veto of an Indian request for the UN to designate Masood Azhar as an international terrorist. By encouraging the Chinese to invest in Balochistan, Pakistan has ensured that any response to future instabilities in the region shall automatically involve Beijing. A plan has just been announced to set up a joint counterterrorism army command comprising of the militaries of China and Pakistan.

This is not to say that there is a need to accommodate all of Beijing’s concerns as a rule, but adjusting to the discomfort of the Sino-Pakistan nexus is a bitter pill New Delhi will have to settle with for the time being.

A Divided Leadership?

The last issue deals with the Baloch leaders themselves (specifically the ones visiting India), as they squabble with each other over the authenticity of representation and the future course of action. While Naela Baloch called for setting up a Baloch government-in-exile in India, Brahmadagh Bugti dismissed this demand and responded by emphasizing the need for consensus among the exiled members of the Baloch community before taking any decision. Not only did Bugti question Professor Naela’s credentials as a genuine representative of the Baloch movement, he also accused her of damaging the Baloch cause. Again, in this regard, there has been no official word from New Delhi regarding the composition of leadership it is set to endorse.


Given these issues, there are some serious obstacles ahead. However easy it might have seemed to announce this policy shift, the road ahead is indeed precarious if India’s new Baloch policy is to be executed with sincerity.

UN Failed West Papua 22 09 16

The UN no longer considers West Papua to be “colonized,” leaving activists hard pressed to find solutions.

 A decade ago, Herman Wainggai caused a diplomatic furor between Indonesia and Australia when he boarded a homemade canoe and crossed the Arafura Sea to the northern tip of Australia. Escaping his home in the Indonesian-controlled territory of West Papua, Wainggai feared that his campaign for West Papuan independence would soon cost him his life. In March 2006, Australia recognized Wainggai as a refugee and granted him protection. Indonesia responded by temporarily recalling its Australian ambassador.

With reports of renewed intimidation by Indonesian authorities in West Papua, Wainggai will once again embark on a controversial journey to seek justice for his people. This time, his destination is New York’s UN headquarters to lobby at its 71st General Assembly. “We want to remind the UN they can’t let West Papua be colonized for so long,” said Wainggai in a telephone interview.

But Wainggai’s task will not be easy. The UN has slumbered in its decolonization efforts, with only one state, Timor-Leste, achieving independence in the past 20 years. Added to that, West Papua is currently unrecognized by the world body as a colonized “non-self-governing territory”—it lost this designation over four decades ago, when West Papua was integrated by Indonesia through controversial means.

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This leaves West Papuan independence activists in a uniquely undesirable position: fighting to be recognized by a world body that has lost much of its ability and will to bring about decolonization.

Decolonization once defined the United Nation’s very existence. When the UN was first conceived in 1945, a third of the world’s population still lived under colonial rule and many of those territories were agitating for autonomy. Under the heat of global anti-imperial movements, colonial territories disintegrated to form independent states, and the UN’s membership doubled in size in just 20 years. In 1960, the UN General Assembly adopted United Nations Resolution 1514, which declared the “necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations.” A year later, the Special Committee of Decolonization formed to carry out the UN’s mandate and help colonized nations achieve autonomy.

But this help came at a price. The UN’s decolonization mandate was often brought in and out of play by its two largest powerbrokers—the United States and the Soviet Union—so they could extend their influence in the post-colonial world. As a result, the UN’s decolonization efforts did not always make the autonomy of colonized peoples its first priority.

West Papuans became one of the first causalities of the UN’s perfidious promise of self-determination. In 1968, under the watch of UN observers and the United States diplomats, Indonesia was handed control over West Papua when its military hand-picked a fraction of West Papua’s population, and ordered them to vote in favor Indonesian annexation in the UN-supervised “Act of Free Choice.” A 2004 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School explains that “Indonesian military leaders began making public threats against Papuan leaders… vowing to shoot them on the spot if they did not vote for Indonesian control.” The United States, acting both independently and through the UN, tacitly allowed West Papua’s annexation to ensure Indonesia would not fall to communism.

In such a way, the UN’s decolonization efforts were always conditional on the whims of international politicians. As U.S. and Soviet tensions receded, so too did the UN’s ambition to guide colonized territories to independence. The U.K., U.S. and France all moved to abolish the Special Committee on Decolonization in the early 1990s, and the U.K. and U.S. formally withdrew from the committee in 1986 and 1992 respectively. Persistent campaigning from the world’s small territories was all that revived the Special Committee from its deathbed, though doing so compromised much of its function and scope.

“That really left a gap, a vacuum which still exists today,” said Dr. Carlyle Corbin, a former minister of the U.S.-controlled Virgin Islands who serves as an international expert to the UN on self-determination. Though there continues to be a need for the UN to follow its decolonization mandate, particularly in relation to its 17 recognized colonial territories, Corbin says that member states blatantly ignore this duty. Representatives from France, one of the few administrative powers that still interacts with the UN’s decolonization committee, make a point of walking out of discussions whenever the topic is French Polynesia.

UN members accept this lack of commitment since colonization is no longer seen as a modern phenomenon. “Decolonization is not on the radar,” Corbin said. “The idea is that it’s over.” Administrative powers that preside over colonial territories are able to hide behind this misconception, claiming that their dependent territories could not possibly be associated with this evil, outdated practice.

The United States, which currently administers three territories listed by the UN’s decolonization committee, argues that its territories have implied self-governance and therefore should be removed from decolonization talks. Indeed, many of the 17 recognized colonial territories have some quasi form of self-governance—Guam, America Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands all have non-voting representation in the U.S. Congress, and Britain’s overseas territories maintain localized governments, with ultimate constitutional authority remaining with Britain. In some cases, such as in the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, local populations do not want to concede their dependency relationships.

But for Corbin, this is beside the point. “Colonization by consent is not self-governance,” he said, and if the UN is to follow its own resolution on the rights of indigenous people, then it should work to eradicate any remnant of colonialism, however benign.

For West Papua, where instances of state oppression by Indonesian authorities harken back to more overt forms of colonialism, the UN has still failed to support its independence. The world body does not even recognize West Papua as a colonized territory, thus effectively depriving West Papuans of UN resources to fuel their struggle for self-determination.

The result of this omission is calamitous. There is strong evidence of gross human rights violations in Indonesian-held West Papua, yet the UN is has not yet intervened in this territory. The counterterrorism squad, Detachment 88, which was developed in 2003 by funding through the United States government, is accused of being especially violent toward indigenous West Papuans.

“They can operate independently and together, intimidating, harassing, beating up, and indeed killing people,” said Peter Arndt, executive officer of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Brisbane. He made the remarks last March following a visit to West Papua. A report compiled by Arndt accuses the Indonesian government of making new, violent incursions into the region, systematically expelling Papuans from their homes in what the report calls a “slow-motion genocide.” Some 30 years ago, 96 percent of West Papua was inhabited by its indigenous population. Today, that number is closer to 40 percent.

In such a state of emergency, the solution for West Papua might be to abandon the UN’s decolonization process all together. Wainggai and other West Papuan activists have chosen to bring their plight instead to human rights organizations, like the UN’s Human Rights Council, to urge change on humanitarian grounds.

There are also regional movements to recognize West Papuan independence—the Solomon Islands and Tonga both articulated support for West Papuans at last year’s UN General Assembly, with the Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare calling for “the full and swift implementation of the 1960 declaration on the granting of Independence to colonized countries and peoples.”


Nevertheless, Wainggai remains hopeful that one day, as the UN’s member states convene for another General Assembly in New York, a free and autonomous West Papua will be included in discussions. “That’s my American dream,” he said.

The Trouble With India's Projects in Myanmar 22 09 16

India has great ambitions for infrastructure construction in Myanmar, but falls short in implementation.

Myanmar President Htin Kyaw’s recent visit to India, the first by the head of a civilian government in Myanmar in over five decades, saw the two sides focus on improving connectivity and counterinsurgency cooperation.

In addition to reaffirming their commitment to “fight the scourge of terrorism and insurgent activity in all its forms and manifestations,” and “not allowing any insurgent groups to use their soil for hostile activities against the other side,” the two sides signed four agreements, two of which are aimed at accelerating completion of the much-delayed India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) highway.

Under these agreements Delhi has undertaken the construction of 69 bridges, including approach roads on the Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa section of the IMT highway, and also upgrade the Kalewa-Yargi section of this highway. The new deadline for completion of the IMT trilateral highway has been set at 2020.

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The 1,400-km-long IMT highway links Moreh in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar. It is the first overland link between India and Southeast Asia.

India is implementing several infrastructure projects in Myanmar. These are aimed at accessing Myanmar’s rich natural resources, improving connectivity between the two neighbors, and facilitating bilateral travel and trade.

Additionally, since Myanmar is India’s land-bridge to Southeast Asia, this infrastructure is aimed at linking India to markets in the region. It is expected to boost development in India’s economically backward northeastern states, several of which share borders with Myanmar. Importantly, Myanmar provides landlocked northeast India with an outlet to the sea, a route that is shorter than the current one via the Siliguri Corridor to Kolkata port.

India began construction of the 160-km-long India-Myanmar Friendship Road linking Moreh with Kalewa and Kalemyo in Myanmar in 1997 to link to Southeast Asian markets and to provide a fillip to its “Look East” policy. In 2002, India, Myanmar and Thailand decided to make this a trilateral highway by extending this road to Mae Sot. Delhi now plans to extend the IMT highway to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Clearly, India doesn’t lack for ambition when it comes to infrastructure building. Where it falls short, however, is in implementing projects; almost every Indian project in Myanmar is running behind schedule.

The IMT highway, for instance, was scheduled to be ready by 2015. Indeed, a bus service on this route was inaugurated late last year only to be shut down immediately as bridges along the route that were of World War II vintage were found to be unusable. Hence the signing of agreements during Htin Kyaw’s visit that will see India repairing bridges and approach roads with a view to putting the trilateral highway project back on track.

Like India, China is engaged in upgrading ports, extracting oil, and building roads and bridges in Myanmar. Indeed the two Asian giants often compete for infrastructure projects here.

According to Khriezo Yhome, research fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation’s Neighborhood Regional Studies Initiative, “In terms of the objectives of accessing natural resources or building strategic alternative routes in and through Myanmar, there is not much of a difference between what Delhi and Beijing want to achieve.”

However, India’s investment in Myanmar is a fraction of that of China. India invested just over $224 million in Myanmar during fiscal year 2015-2016, and no new investments were made in the first four months of fiscal 2016-17. In comparison, China invested $3.3 billion in Myanmar in 2015-16.

“China has left India far behind” with regard to infrastructure projects, Yhome told The Diplomat, drawing attention to the delays plaguing India’s infrastructure projects in Myanmar. Lack of coordination among different implementing agencies, poor monitoring, and financial constraints are among the main reasons for India’s failure to meet deadlines, he said.

There are other challenges too. “In areas where some Indian infrastructure projects, particularly roads and bridges, are being implemented, feeder roads are usable only for some months due to difficult terrains,” Yhome observed. There is the question of security too. Roads linking India with Myanmar run through insurgency-wracked regions, “creating problems for smooth implementation of projects,” he pointed out.

In addition, “flawed feasibility studies are hindering timely completion of projects,” an official in India’s Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDONER) told The Diplomat. This is the case with the Kaladan multi-modal transport project, which envisages linking Lawngtlai in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram via a road and the River Kaladan to the deep-sea port at Sittwe in Myanmar’s Rakhine province.

The India-funded and executed project involves developing Sittwe to handle 20,000-ton vessels (up from the 2,000 to 3,000-ton ships it handles at present); dredging the River Kaladan from Sittwe to Paletwa (a 158 km long stretch) to improve its navigability; building an inland terminal at Paletwa where cargo will be shifted from barges to trucks; and constructing a 129-km-long highway linking Paletwa to the Indian border.

However, the Kaladan project is running behind schedule. “Every stage of the project has suffered delays,” the MDONER official said, pointing to the fact that 13 years after the project was conceived it remains incomplete.

Delhi brought the multi-modal transport project to the Myanmar government in 2003. It then took five years for the two sides to enter into a framework agreement and it was only in 2010 that construction work began. It was originally due to be completed in July 2013. Several more deadlines were set and missed.

According to the MDONER website, the Myanmar government delayed in handing over land at Sittwe and Kaletwa to India.

But also, India had to revise its plans midstream. Under the original plan, the inland terminal was to be located at Kaletwa, north of Paletwa. However, the Kaladan River was found to be unnavigable beyond Paletwa. This required the road from Lawngtlai to be extended up to Paletwa.

This “underestimation of the road length on the Myanmar side” has resulted in cost escalations. A “more thorough feasibility report” could have prevented the “inordinate delay” in the project’s completion and the added cost incurred, the MDONER official said, adding that India’s “failure to deliver projects on time” in Myanmar has eroded its credibility there.

Like Chinese infrastructure projects in Myanmar, some of India’s projects are also opposed by activists and local communities. The Kaladan movement, an umbrella group of civil society organizations and environmental groups, for instance, has criticized India for opacity in the implementation of the project. Local communities were apparently not consulted or informed about the project’s impact. They are not being included in the project’s benefits and are being discriminated against with regard to wages. Activists are also drawing attention to the Kaladan project’s destructive impact on the environment and impacts on local livelihoods.

India has denied some of these allegations. While admitting that an environmental impact assessment was not done for the Kaladan project, Delhi argues that this is not necessary as the dredging of the river involves “minimum intervention.”

However, Yhome points out that India has been responsive to concerns raised by activists. It has “addressed these issues and been willing to discuss any issue with local protesters.”

Importantly, when activists raised environmental and social concerns over India’s construction of the Htamanthi hydropower project, with an installed capacity of 1,200 MW, and the Shwezaye hydropower project with 880 MW on the Chindwin River, India “suspended the projects at the request of the Myanmar government,” Yhome said.

This is in sharp contrast to China’s refusal to pull out of unpopular projects in Myanmar. The Myanmar government’s decision to suspend the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project in response to mass protests against the project evoked Beijing’s ire. Five years after the suspension, Myanmar is still under pressure from China to reverse the decision.

Myanmar’s civilian government is reportedly keen to diversify its economic partners in order to reduce China’s overwhelming influence over the economy. This would open up greater opportunity for India to play a role in Myanmar and expand its influence there.


The question is whether India would accelerate implementation of its infrastructure projects there. Should India continue to drag its feet in this regard, it could lose future projects to western and Asian investors like Japan. The window of opportunity opening up for India will not remain open forever.

India's Health Scare Gets Worse 22 9 2016

The current outbreak of vector borne diseases lays bare the inadequacies of India’s health care system.

It’s not the best optics for Asia’s third largest economy and a country aspiring to 8 percent GDP growth — people dying of vector borne diseases, health services crippled by lack of hospital beds, doctors in short supply, and a government looking on helplessly.

As vector species rampage across India, killing and debilitating thousands, the crisis has exposed the frailties of the health system in this nation of 1.3 billion. The capital city of New Delhi, ironically, is the worst hit, where there seems to be no respite from the viral onslaught. Chikungunya cases in this city of 18.6 million have spiraled up to over 2,600, with 1,568 of them being recorded in the second week of September, according to a municipal report, marking a massive rise of nearly 150 percent from the previous count.

So far chikungunya has claimed over 50 lives in the city (though some say government figures are fudged to underreport fatalities) turning on its head conventional medical knowledge that the disease is not fatal. There’s also a mystery fever going around with symptoms akin to dengue. Last week, when a 30-year-old Delhi resident succumbed to malaria, the city recorded its first death from the disease in five years.

The rest of the country isn’t faring any better. According to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program, around 12,255 cases of chikungunya had been reported across India as of August 31, when the census was last done. Karnataka alone has recorded 8,941 cases, Maharashtra 839, and Andhra Pradesh 492.

Ironically, even as the medical calamity is unfolding across Delhi, its government — helmed by Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung — is engaged in a bitter game of political one upmanship. The CM and LG are laying the blame for the current mess at each other’s door. While Jung is holding Kejriwal responsible for not being able to manage and control the epidemics, the latter is accusing the LG of an “uncooperative attitude.”

The warring LG and CM forced the Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda to step in and stress the need for “close coordination” between the center and states to deal with the outbreak, which has affected over 60,000 people across the country. Experts say that the viral epidemic has also amplified the political dispensation’s failure to craft a concerted strategy to deal with health emergencies.

The current situation augurs ill for a country already grappling with sundry other medical woes. According to Indiaspend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism nonprofit organization, millions of Indians cannot access India’s overburdened hospitals and inadequate medical facilities. The country remains nearly 500,000 doctors short of reaching the World Health Organization norm of one doctor per 1,000 citizens.

With more than 740,000 active doctors at the end of 2014 — a claimed doctor-patient population ratio of 1:1,674, worse than Vietnam, Algeria, and Pakistan — the shortage of doctors was one of the health-management failures cited by the report of a parliamentary committee on health and family welfare, which presented its findings to both houses of Parliament on March 8, 2016.

Dr Pavitra Mohan,  co-founder of Basic Health Care Services and director of health services at Aajeevika Bureau, writes in The Wire that India’s “public health systems are in disarray: about 15,000 doctor positions at primary health centers are lying vacant, and 4,000 out of 5,000 community health centers do not have even a single obstetrician.”

India’s poorer states have health indicators that are worse than many nations in sub-Saharan Africa while the country’s healthcare spending is the lowest among BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations, as are its health indicators.

Experts blame many of the country’s current health problems on its abysmal spending of 1.4 percent of GDP on public health, one of the lowest rates in the world. China spends three percent while the figure for the U.K. is eight percent  Even the world’s poorest countries, like Burundi in Africa, for instance, invest around nine percent in public health. As per world health statistics published by WHO, the per capita government expenditure on health in India was $18 in 2012, as compared to countries like Germany ($3,618), France ($3,592), Japan ($3,932), the U.K. ($3,019) and the United States ($4,153).

Specialists recommend that at least 2.5 percent of GDP be marked for public expenditure on health because of the huge burden of diseases in India. In addition to the current chikungunya outbreak, India is also highly vulnerable to yellow fever in view of its highly susceptible population and the abundance of the mosquito vector species, Aedes aegypti.

Higher spending on health is all the more critical for India as a UN report predicts that non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer could cost the Indian economy a whopping $6.2 trillion during the 2012-2030 period due to its rapid urbanization.

“Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) present not only a threat to human health in cities, but also have significant economic implications,” said the GLOBAL REPORT ON URBAN HEALTH jointly released by the WHO and the UN Human Settlements Program earlier this year.

The WHO states that more than 5.2 million lives are lost annually in India and the death rate in urban India is expected to rise by 42 percent by 2021. While one person dies of a stroke every minute in India, every sixth patient below 40 years is a victim of cancer and cardio vascular disease.

Another crucial measure, which determines the impact of a health emergency on a family’s welfare, is what proportion of health expenditure is paid out of a citizen’s pocket, as opposed to state provided healthcare. In India, that figure is a staggering 62.4 percent, as against a world average of 18.2 percent.

Experts predict that India cannot become a knowledge economy or a global superpower with its current quality of healthcare. “Governments must spend more on preventive public health measures, such as providing clean drinking water and being proactive in controlling epidemics such as the current one. At the same time, it also needs to raise its number of healthcare professionals and adopt a decentralized approach to medical governance,”  advises Dr. Arvind Purohit, head of internal medicine at Max Hospital, NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh.

It’s not as if India is incapable of getting its act together. It has some of the finest doctors in the world and its prowess in medical technology is world class. The country also boasts of some remarkable achievements in public health such as significant declines in infant and maternal deaths. In 2014, India averted 126,000 deaths among children under five years of age, according to data released by the Registrar General of India. The survey indicates an 8.16 percent decline in under-five mortality during 2013-14, more than the decline of 5.76 percent during 2012-13.

A change in governmental attitude is also visible. As per the 12th Five Year Plan document, total public funding on core health is envisaged to increase to 1.87 percent of GDP by the end of the plan. The Draft National Health Policy 2015 also plans to progressively raise the public health expenditure to 2.5 percent of the GDP.

However, if India fails to adopt these measures, or register a quantum increase in health allocations, the outcome can be dire. As Dr. Pavitra Mohan writes,  the country “will remain ailing, and large numbers of its citizens, who cannot afford expensive private healthcare, will remain diseased and undernourished.”

Putin tightens his grip

The outcome of Russia’s parliamentary election was never in question. The United Russia party of President Vladimir Putin has dominated the political landscape ever since it was founded in 2001. Even so, the margin of the victory was unexpected. The September 18 Elections  were held against the backdrop of a protracted economic crisis, tensions between Russia and the West, and a war of attrition in the country’s neighbourhood. Lower oil prices and western sanctions have hit ordinary Russians hard. Russia’s economy contracted by 3.7 per cent last year and is expected to shrink further by 0.7 per cent this year. Conventional wisdom suggests that economic hardships trigger anti-incumbency sentiment. But in Mr. Putin’s Russia just the opposite has happened. When the results were declared, his party won more than three-quarters of the 450-member Duma. The Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party have retained some presence in the national Parliament, while the Yabloko and the Parnas, the two liberal parties critical of the Kremlin, failed to even enter the Duma. This could partly be because of the lack of a united opposition in Russia. The Communists and Liberal Democrats are hardly opposition parties, and agree with the Kremlin on most policy decisions. The anti-Kremlin parties have failed in, or been hindered from, building a broad base among the electorate. Alexey Navalny, the leader of the popular anti-government protests of 2011, has been barred from contesting elections. Boris Nemtsov, another popular opposition leader, was shot dead last year in Moscow. At present, there is no opposition leader in a position to challenge the personality cult of Mr. Putin.

In any case, memories of the anarchic pre-Putin era may still be prompting Russians to stick by him. Mr. Putin is largely credited with fixing the economy and providing a stable political leadership to the country. Under his watch, Russia has come out of its self-imposed strategic retreat and started playing an active global role. Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and a combative foreign policy in Syria and elsewhere have proved popular among his domestic constituents. But the Russian economy continues to be heavily dependent on energy exports. If crude oil prices remain low for long, economic pain will persist. Though the muscular foreign policy is popular at home, Moscow has had to pay a heavy price for it. Whatever Mr. Putin had done in his first and second terms to rebuild ties with Europe, particularly with Germany, lies in a shambles in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. If Mr. Putin wants to rebuild Russia as a credible global power, a persistent economic crisis and a stormy neighbourhood are not going to help.