India's One Basket Diplomacy

One lesson India should have learned from past experience in dealing with other countries, especially those in its neighbourhood, is that constructing a foreign policy based mostly around individual personalities is perilous, as once that individual is dislodged then his or her successor may simply undo everything. Another problem with strengthening an individual perceived as being weak and unpopular simply because he or she is pro-India is that in the long run it can breed anti-India sentiment in the country. With these points in mind, Indian policymakers should be careful to cultivate a range of political actors in a given country, especially if a particular leader looks like they are at risk of being too closely associated with India. Failure to do so means India risks that leader reversing policy to protect themselves politically. The India- Pakistan relationship of the late 1980 s is a good example—much was expected of the Benazir Bhutto-Rajiv Gandhi meeting in 1988. But while at the time there looked to be a genuine thaw taking place, Bhutto did a complete about face when threatened domestically, delivering a number of vitriolic speeches against India in the process. Sadly, India doesn’t seem to have learned anything. The clearest illustration of this is its Bangladesh policy, which hinges on Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister and leader of Bangladesh’s Awami League Party. Many in India argue that such reliance is justified as Hasina is pro-India, and they point to her government’s consent to India’s longstanding demand to grant transit facilities to New Delhi as evidence of her good faith. Yet although there’s no doubt that Indo-Bangladesh ties are currently on a high, the goodwill seems based largely around the personal rapport between Hasina and Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. But what if Mukherjee, currently extremely influential in the ruling United Progressive Alliance, should leave office? Or if the current Indian government were ejected from power? Would Hasina still hold India in such high regard? Conversely, there’s the question of whether, when Hasina is out of power, India be able to do business with the Bangladesh National Party, which is considered closer to China. This seems a genuine possibility as Hasina’s popularity wanes at home, not least because she is viewed by critics as an Indian puppet. Shahid-Ul-Islam, a researcher at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore who specializes in Bangladesh, made this point recently in a blog entry on bilateral relations. In an entry titled ‘Transit, the Great Wall of India and Indo- Bangladesh Relations,’ he wrote: ‘Against the will of common people, the foreign policy of the current government in Bangladesh focuses primarily on India at the cost of developing strong ties with other major powers. The masses desire better bilateral ties with New Delhi, but at the same time would not like Bangladesh to be treated as a “satellite state” of India.’ Even if Hasina does survive, India must seriously ask itself if she will continue to support ties with Delhi so strongly now that it’s clearly so politically dangerous for her to do so. Certainly, she will come under increasing pressure to shift tactics as her opponents seek to include an anti-India plank in their political platforms. While India has been mature in assuaging the concerns of Bangladesh on issues like the shooting of Bangladeshis by the Border Security Forces, policymakers should still reach out to other political actors so as to ensure that there’s a genuine and sustainable improvement in bilateral relations, rather than an intense honeymoon followed by an acrimonious divorce. As US statesman Henry Kissinger once said, ‘No foreign policy, no matter how ingenious, has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.’

No Bangladesh If Pakistan Had Nuke!!!

Writing in the Newsweek magazine, Abdul Qadeer Khan, popularly known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb tried to defend his country’s nuclear weapons program. “Don’t overlook the fact that no nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn. Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn’t have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently,” Khan said. Khan would have been wiser, if he stopped there. Unfortunately, he went further to add that Bangladesh would not have won independence in 1971 if Pakistan had nuclear weapons. The statement by Khan, quoted briefly in the title of the article, is not only audacious but it also exposes his total ignorance about the war of independence in Bangladesh. By making this statement he is trying to justify the actions of the Pakistani military junta that refused to handover power to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose party won an absolute majority in the general election in 1970 , and unleashed a reign of terror in Bangladesh by killing innocent and unarmed civilians in millions, dishonouring hundreds of thousands of Bengali women and driving ten million Bengalis to India as refugees. The Bengalis fought the war of independence against the Pakistan army to stop the genocide in Bangladesh and to free the country from ruthless political and economic exploitation by the Pakistani rulers. The war was, therefore, fully justified from both moral and political grounds. Knowing Khan’s background, I am not at all surprised by his statement. Pakistan utilised the centrifuge technology to produce enriched uranium that was used to build the nuclear bombs. The so-called father of the nuclear bomb did not apply his expertise to develop this technology. He found it easier to steal it from his previous employer, the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory of Holland, who trusted him and allowed him access to a secret document on centrifuge technology for translation. He failed to keep the trust. Khan contacted President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan and proposed to build the nuclear bomb using enriched uranium. At that time Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was trying to build the bomb using plutonium. Both enriched uranium and plutonium are suitable materials for making the bomb. Uranium can be enriched by diffusion or centrifuge method. Plutonium can be obtained from irradiated uranium through chemical separation in a reprocessing plant. Bhutto agreed with Khan to try an alternative path to build the bomb. Khan fled from Holland with the secret information and returned to Pakistan. He later established what is now known as Khan Research Laboratories at Kahuta. By early 1981 , the enrichment project was fully functional. Khan’s nature did not change even after detonating the nuclear bombs and receiving the national awards like Hilal- i-Imtiaz and Nishan-i-Imtiaz. In 2004 , he confessed in writing that he had provided Iran, Libya, and North Korea with designs of centrifuge technology in exchange for substantial financial benefits! Had he not been pardoned by the President of Pakistan, he would have spent the rest of his life in prison. Khan is not perhaps aware that he is overestimating the importance of the nuclear weapons. Could the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan prevent the US helicopters from intruding into Pakistan territory and killing Osama Bin Laden in Abottabad or can it stop now the flying of the US drones over Pakistan territory? Can Khan explain why was it necessary for a superpower like the United States of America with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world to withdraw its forces from Vietnam and Iraq without winning the wars? Is the USA near victory in Afghanistan now? Khan will surely find it difficult to find answers to these questions with his “stollen” knowledge. Khan’s statement on Bangladesh is unfortunate and ill-conceived when some respectable members of the civil society in Pakistan are demanding that Pakistan should apologize to Bangladesh for the atrocities committed by their army against the Bengalis in 1971. It is time Khan should forget about Bangladesh. He should, instead, concentrate on protecting the rest of Pakistan not only from the intrusion of the US drones but also from frequent attacks by insurgents from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (former North West Frontier Province) and Baluchistan? Will his nuclear weapons protect Pakistan against such intrusions and attacks?

Leave Grameen Bank Alone : Md. Yunus

Professor Muhammad Yunus talks with Arun Devnath and Md Fazlur Rahman of The Daily Star in an exclusive interview, the first after his resignation from Grameen Bank.

The Daily Star (DS): You have often said misconceptions float around Grameen Bank. What are they? Which misconceptions upset you the most?

Muhammad Yunus (MY): The very common misconception is, Grameen is an NGO, but it is not an NGO because it is a commercial organisation. It has owners and all the features of a business. Grameen Bank is a special organisation, not just another bank. But people like to see it in their own way and put a label on it.

Some think that Professor Yunus owns this bank and is earning a lot of money out of it. I do not own a single share in the bank. I was just an employee.

Now the government is promoting an idea that it is a government bank, which never existed in the minds of the people. Even the review committee report gives the impression that it is a government bank and their entire mental setup was based on the misconception that we are public servants.

To call it a government bank, it has to be owned by the government as the majority shareholder. Even in private banks, the government may have some shares. It does not make a private bank a government bank. In Grameen Bank, the government has effectively a 3.5 percent share, while 96.5 percent shares belong to the borrowers.

The only argument the government is using to try to justify its claim is that Grameen Bank is created under a special law of the government. Even Asian University for Women in Chittagong has been created under a special law. But it is not a government university. It is a private university. The vice-chancellor of the university is not a public servant. How come suddenly we have become public servants?

Grameen Bank is a bank under a charter. That the government created a charter does not mean it is a government bank. It is another misconception that is floating around.

The other misconception is this bank is run by foreign donations. People think that Professor Yunus goes around the world and brings in money, but that is a gross misunderstanding. Since 1995, GB has not received any money from outside. At that time, it was decided unilaterally not to receive money from outside. The money now comes from deposits and is lent to borrowers.

Grameen Bank has now more than Tk 10,000 crore in deposits. Of that, Tk 6,000 crore is coming from borrowers. GB does not take money from outside; rather, it is generated from internal sources. The bulk of the fund is the fund of the borrowers themselves. It is a self-reliant bank.

The other misconception is Grameen Bank charges a high rate of interest. I can say GB has the lowest among all MFIs (microfinance institutions) in Bangladesh. It has been repeatedly proven. Luckily, the review committee has endorsed our claims.

Some doubt whether microcredit activities have any impact on the lives of the poor. They claim that the poor are becoming poorer. GB has 83 lakh borrowers who constitute a major part of the total microcredit borrowers in the country. Whether we did it or someone else did it, the poor are definitely not getting poorer.

These poor people have Tk 6,000 crore in deposits in Grameen Bank. You cannot say there is no impact on their families. Their children are in schools, GB is giving them education and scholarships. So, a new generation is coming out of this.

If you are looking for the impact, there are many ways to see that. You can look at savings, loans, deposits, children and the quality of housing.

It is not that everybody has gained from it. There might be some who could not. It is as following: You open a school, you take students and in the final exams, not everybody gets first class. Some get first class, some get second, some get third. People used the money in different ways -- under different circumstances. Some lost out, some gained a little bit while others gained a lot.

If you look at women's empowerment, you have to see they own the bank. They have got their own money in the bank. They can deal with an institution. It is a big thing.

DS: How do you define the relationships between Grameen Bank and its associated organisations or companies? How were the associated organisations formed? Explain the shareholding pattern, sources of funds and revenue/profit sharing.

MY: Grameen Bank was set up to help the poor, particularly women, in income generating activities by providing collateral-free loans. Along the way, I saw many other problems of the poor. How to get them out of the poverty trap was always on my mind. I started reacting to each problem.

When I saw a problem, my instinctive reaction to solve the problem was to create a business. So I created a company. I went on and set up company after company. Whenever I created an organisation, I used the "Grameen" name for it -- to make it known that it was part of a series.

The word, Grameen, came from me, not from the bank. It was like a pet name from me. I like it. People know that I am involved with it. The Grameen name does not have a trademark right. You cannot register this word as a trademark, as it is an adjective.

I liked the word Grameen as it carries my association with it when I set up any company. None of them has any link, legally, with Grameen Bank. Each one is an independent organisation. Even the review committee was confused about it. They arrived at the idea that all these belong to Grameen Bank and we must do something about it as Prof. Yunus is making a mess of it. They have made strong recommendations about them, without trying to understand what these organisations are.

They are all legally independent and registered with the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms. The Grameen Bank Ordinance does not allow Grameen Bank to create any other organisation. The review committee says Grameen Bank has violated rules by creating companies, but we have not violated any rule because Grameen Bank has not created any organisation.

I have created all these organisations in my personal capacity and as a volunteer, not as the managing director [of Grameen Bank].

I do not think becoming members of many boards while working as an employee of Grameen Bank creates any conflict of interest. Most of them are non-profit organisations, so there is no conflict in that sense, as the board members do not gain personally from these. It is not a conflict of interest. It is rather about supplementing each other, as we are trying to address certain problems, not make personal gains out of it.

Most of the companies are non-profit. A few of them are for-profit. All the for-profit companies are owned by non-profit companies. So, there is no way anybody can gain personally from them.

Nobody, including me, owns shares in these companies personally. Our colleagues on board do not get any honorarium or financial benefits or fees for sitting on the board.

Once a non-profit owns a for-profit, the money goes to the non-profit. Individuals do not get it; rather the non-profits get it to promote their objectives, reaching out to the goals they have set for themselves. Many charity organisations rent out places and do other thing to earn money so that they can run their charity organisations. There is nothing unusual about it.

When I created these companies I needed money to start them. Sometimes it came as a donation. In many cases, I created the business so that it continuously brought in money itself and could grow. Grameen Shakti, a good example, has grown big. It started in a small way and then we started selling solar home systems, which made revenues. We reinvested and made more. Luckily, the government created IDCOL, which was looking for this type of an organisation to finance. We borrowed money from IDCOL and continued to grow.

The seed money for these companies did not come from Grameen Bank. There are two entities which received seed money from Grameen Bank: Grameen Kalyan and Grameen Fund. The seed money for these two companies came from donor money. Donors gave the money for special purpose activities, not for regular Grameen Bank activities. One is called Social Advancement Fund and the other is Social Venture Capital Fund.

These funds were created inside Grameen Bank. What we did was, we created independent companies and put the money into these independent companies as loans and purpose oriented grants. This money was not given to Grameen Bank to carry out its core activities.

Each of the companies, such as Grameen Healthcare Services, which was set up later, found a donor or an investor, or took a loan to start the business. One thing must be clear that these are independent creations and are not legally connected with Grameen Bank. There may be institutional connections. For example, Grameen Kalyan provides healthcare services and has a focus on Grameen Bank borrowers. Grameen Shikkha looks after the educational programmes for Grameen and non-Grameen families. They supplement each other.

DS: The review committee suggested that the government merge all associated companies under Grameen Bank. What's your reaction?

MY: The proposal to merge all associated companies bearing a Grameen name or related to Grameen Bank in some way came from a big misconception. The misconception is that all these companies are part of a conglomerate, meaning that Grameen Bank is the mother of all these organisations.

Once you know that they are not, the recommendations become meaningless. And that is what it is. I am sorry that the review committee did not have enough time to study and understand what these organisations are.

The review committee had a very limited time and had no prior experience of Grameen Bank. Grameen Bank is not an ordinary organisation. It is a very originally designed organisation with an innovative character. It is not only an innovative and unique organisation. It is an important organisation -- locally and globally.

You do not see any parallel to it in any other country. Members of the Review Committee had no experience with Grameen through their professional exposure. You are inviting people to do a job they are not prepared for. I feel sorry for them that they had to undertake such an assignment.

DS: Did the review committee visit the Grameen Bank headquarters?

MY: During the review, the committee members did not visit Grameen Bank. They did not visit branches of Grameen Bank to see what Grameen Bank is. They did not meet the borrowers of Grameen Bank. Maybe some of them individually met some borrowers in the past, but as a body, as part of the committee work, it never went on site to see what Grameen Bank really is.

They did not talk to the staff of Grameen Bank. The committee talked to me for an hour when I went to them and answered a few questions. Additionally, they talked to the deputy managing director for a few minutes.

For an organisation that has been running for 34 years and working all over the country and which won a Nobel Peace Prize, a one hour discussion with the CEO of the company does not give you the feel of the company, nor does it give the sense of what it is all about.

The committee had preconceived notions and perceptions about Grameen Bank. Based on their perceptions, they made the recommendations. It was very unkind to give such a big task to them. It is extremely unkind for Grameen Bank to receive those recommendations. After all, we should not take Grameen Bank so lightly.

I think they have studied books and papers on GB but the physical contact, when you are making such important recommendations, is important. It is like you are asking someone who is living in Sierra Leone to amend the constitution of Bangladesh. Would you do that when you did not know the society and their aspirations?

The report said the committee depended highly on one person on legal matters. That person is a highly biased person. I do not know whether he had ever visited Grameen Bank, had a chance to see and understand how it works, or checked through the legal structure of one of the organisations with the Grameen name.

They even recommended that these two organisations [Grameen Kalyan and Grameen Fund] should become "departments" of Grameen Bank. Both are independent companies. How could any one make a recommendation like that? They were so innocent about the legal issues.

The committee could have taken help from other lawyers, sit down and spent a day with them to understand the legal issues, before they made recommendations about a nationally and internationally important institution.

They could have invited the board members -- all board members of Grameen Bank, or at least nine of them who came from villages. They could see their faces, they could have had a conversation with them. After all, they represent millions of borrowers. It is their bank. The committee never consulted the representatives of the people who own 96.5 percent of the bank. Then the committee stated that they are illiterate women!

By meeting the borrower representatives in the board, the committee could assess whether they have any understanding of their bank. This would have given the committee an understanding of what type of a board Grameen Bank has.

DS: According to one observation, Grameen Bank has a rubber-stamp board of directors and women directors don't have an independent voice in the state of affairs. What's your response?

MY: It is not a rubber-stamp board. Grameen Bank has nine seats in the board for the elected borrowers and they come from around the country, which is divided into nine constituencies. A borrower who has a board membership has to be elected at centre level, branch level, area level and zonal level to finally make it to the board. She has to be an outstanding person.

DS: The report said it is a personality-based organisation -- one person decides everything. What's your take on it?

MY: I think this is a very humiliating remark for the board. If the committee had met the board, they probably would not have said such an offensive thing. The Grameen Bank board from the beginning has been headed by the chairmen, who are very distinguished persons of the country. It started with Professor Iqbal Mahmud, then came Professor Kaiser Hossain, Dr Akbar Ali Khan, Professor Rehman Sobhan and Mr Tabarak Hossain.

They are outstanding people of the country. The government has two other nominated board members because they have 25 percent shares in the bank. They were always at the level of secretaries -- active secretaries, not retired ones. Currently, the defence and cultural affairs secretaries are on GB's board.

We always tried to make decisions on the basis of consensus. If there was serious opposition and one was not yielding and insisted that it should not be done in a certain way, then we withdrew that item from the agenda.

We came back to the next board meeting after redesigning the proposal. The board paid attention to all views. Now we are told that it is a rubber-stamp board. It is again a misconception.

It is not that Professor Yunus (or the chairman) dictates everything. It is because what the management proposes is so reasonable and simple. Grameen Bank is not giving loans to big companies that could be debated. It was a routine process. There are not too many things that needed to be strongly debated.

DS: What's your view on the educational level of the nine women board members?

MY: Some of them have some level of education but not higher level. But the important thing is that they bring the reality to the board. If the review committee had sat with them, their recommendations would have been completely different. Then I can guarantee that they would not have made the unfortunate comments about them in the review report, as they have done now.

They bring the reality of life, and the ground realities are reflected in the board. Sitting face to face with them, the tone and the attention level of the seasoned secretaries change. Every time we meet, we talk about how their life is, how the centre is doing, any important news from their centre and how the beggars in their centre, who are also the borrowers, are doing.

When the women board members come to the meeting, they come with many ideas. They suggest things to do because it is their life. They say our husbands suffer so much and our children suffer so much. 'Can you do something about this?' So, passing remarks such as -- 'they are illiterate and what can they contribute? Do they know about banking?' -- is very sad.

DS: What's your reaction to another recommendation that the Grameen Bank Ordinance should be amended? What do you fear the most about any amendment to the ordinance?

MY: We have an ordinance. We needed some amendments to improve it. These amendments were done during the caretaker government's rule. When this government came, it did not present these amendments to the parliament for approval. So we were back to the pre-amendment ordinance. But this ordinance has worked well for us. This ordinance has created the winning institution, which brought the nation global recognition, brought us the Nobel Peace Prize. This ordinance has created the winning management team to make all these happen.

Should we now rush to change the law that produced a winning team and a winning institution? Even the age-old advice says: "Don't fix it, if it is not broken". In the case of Grameen Bank, it is not only not broken, it just got its Nobel Peace Prize. It is in its best shape.

Definitely, I will not take review committee's words seriously. They were time constrained, expertise constrained and biased. Maybe they want to amend it to make it more government-controlled, which will be terrible, simply disastrous.

Who would want an organisation that is running and winning to be handed to the government? While the government is trying to privatise banks, why should we now take a private bank and nationalise it? The moment the government influence comes into an institution like this, it gets caught in political in-fighting, the kind of thing we had seen. That is the end of the story. It will never be the same bank again.

It is a private organisation. Right from the beginning, I was saying that it should be owned by the poor people.

The original ordinance kept 60 percent ownership to the government and gave 40 percent to the borrowers. That's not the ownership pattern I was lobbying for. At that time, the finance minister assured me that he will change it to make the borrowers the majority shareholders. His successor picked it up and amended the ordinance to make it 75 percent for borrowers and 25 percent for the government. But in reality today, the government only has a 3.5 percent share; the remaining 96.5 percent is with the borrowers.

A few amendments that we have been pleading for many years was to have the chairman elected by the board, instead of being appointed by the government, to allow Grameen Bank to operate in urban areas (which is not allowed now), and reduce government ownership to a token amount of under 5 percent. The caretaker government accepted and introduced the first two amendments. The selection of a chairman by the government remains as an opening for politics to creep in. If the chairman is appointed by the board of Grameen Bank, it will be protected from political intervention.

DS: The review report claims that Grameen Bank has a tendency not to follow rules and regulations. How do you respond?

MY: It's again based on a basic misconception. The committee thought all these Grameen companies belong to Grameen Bank. Once you think that way, you start seeing violations, such as, the violation of creating companies that was not allowed by law, and violations of allowing business with each other. The review committee never had a chance to interact with these companies, but they guessed that there must be a chaotic situation out there.Grameen Bank does not have a tendency towards violating any rules. It has always tried to follow the rules and procedures in a transparent manner. It is a very law-abiding bank. Grameen Bank does not violate rules because that's the foundation on which Grameen Bank stands. Grameen Bank is based on trust. Without total commitment to rules and discipline, trust cannot survive. As a result, Grameen Bank cannot survive.

DS: Why did you not retire when you turned 60?

MY: I offered to resign when I was 60, but the board did not let me go. The board said: “We are the appointing authority and you should continue.” Grameen Bank's regulations allowed it. The board said: “You continue until we tell you [to retire].”

I turned 70 and again I offered my resignation. The board said we will not let you go. I tried all the time, but the board was telling me to stay. I wrote a letter on March 15, 2010, to the honourable finance minister, offering to step down. He thought my proposal was a good one.

The question was whether it was a violation of the law. There is no violation. The board said it was very important for me to continue. The board also said the law does not stop them. The board created the regulation. They made the regulation that the managing director does not have an age limit.

This issue of me going over the retirement age was raised by the audit teams of Bangladesh Bank. That team said you are going over your age-limit. We gave our explanation. We explained that there was no age-limit for the managing director of Grameen Bank.

They looked at our explanation. The next year, the issue was discussed in detail. We told them we are ruled by our own regulations. Under the ordinance, we created the regulations.

The audit team told us to bring all our papers. We brought all our papers. There were six people, chaired by the Bangladesh Bank general manager, reviewing these documents. When they saw all the documents, they said you are OK. At the time I was sixty and a half years.

Ever since then, Bangladesh Bank never raised the issue again. That means they had no objection to it. No question was ever raised again since then.

Suddenly the central bank came up eleven years later with a letter. If you discover a mistake 11 years later, you suddenly do not send a letter to fix it. You can pick up the phone, say a sorry we have made a mistake, we missed it and you missed it and let's sort it out. That is how it could be addressed.

I cannot say why they sent the letter after 11 years. I did not think it was legally correct. So I went to court. But the high court said I do not have the locus-standi to seek redress. They did not accept my case. Supreme Court upheld the High Court decision.

DS: What is the future path for Grameen Bank without you at the helm?

MY: Grameen Bank is at a very interesting stage right now. The second generation within Grameen Bank borrowers' families is becoming adults -- in large numbers. We have helped them go to school and finish school. Many went for higher education with Grameen Bank loans. They are completely different from their mothers. They grew up within a Grameen Bank environment. Grameen Bank's policy has been to create a new generation who will not only be free from poverty, but from this generation on, nobody will ever return to poverty. We have been encouraging them to become job-givers rather than being job-seekers.

The future of Grameen Bank could be an exciting journey of exploring new grounds. It could be a glorious journey. But if GB does not manage the transition carefully, it could end up a disaster. A friendly transition is the key to a successful future. We have already damaged that process. But we still have a chance to do damage-control by insisting on smooth continuity, by leaving the existing ordinance alone, by not trying to bring government control, by respecting the decision-making power of the board, by accepting my proposal to the finance minister in March last year, to appoint me as the chairman and by selecting a non-political person of high standing as the next managing director. Grameen Bank is a precious institution. It has demonstrated its ability to govern itself with world-class efficiency. If we keep it that way, we will not have to worry. We can relax and expect more success ahead for Grameen Bank.

DS: What's next in your efforts to help the poor? What's next in your life as a private person (as Muhammad Yunus)?

MY: I started out concentrating on the issue of poverty alleviation. All the companies I created are all focused on that. I will continue with that. I have no intention to slow down. I cannot even if I try to. I will continue -- some people may like what I do, some may dislike it, or some may even hate it. I will go on doing things that I think is the right thing to do. I get the feeling that my way of approaching world problems particularly appeals to young people. I enjoy working with them.

My work comes from a faith that all human beings have unlimited capacities. But society does not allow people to become acquainted with their capacity. We can start to create an environment where people will gradually start discovering themselves.

A part of poverty is because people are not aware of their own capacities. Most of the time, people are made dependent. They are being told that the state will take care of you, or the market will take care of you. They are turned into passive beings. We are not encouraging the person to discover his own inherent capacity to take care of himself.

I want to find ways to encourage people to explore their capacities, to give them a chance for self-help. I am not saying 'do not help them'. I am saying that the important part of the help should be to help them gain independence, not to get used to dependence.

On top of that, I strongly feel that each individual has the capacity to change the world. But he does not always get to use this capacity. We think we are too small to change anything. I want everybody to believe that he is big. He can change the world. He can come up with fantastic ideas. Human creativity is just limitless. We must believe in it.

This generation of young people is very different from ours. They have technology, internet access and are connected with thousands or even millions of others. If they can use the technology, they will be able to change the world much faster than we can imagine.

I started social business to solve social and economic problems. Young people are responding to that call. Many universities have opened their own institutes of social business, centres for social business and chairs for social business in countries such as Germany, the UK, the USA and Japan. Many are coming along in this direction, such as India, Russia and Colombia.

I see the positive responses from people. I see the possibilities. If the idea of social business catches up, it will bring a big change in the economy and the society. My mission will be to concentrate on that and make young people think big and get involved, rather than feel frustrated and withdrawn. I believe the young generation will transform the world in a fundamental way.

World Largest Democracy Censors A British Magazine

India ’s critics have long accused the world’s largest democracy, in size, of practicing intolerance under a carefully cultivated liberal image. Troubling incidents of censorship and undemocratic practices , such as rapes and murders of Christian nuns and 21 st century’s first incident of ethnic cleansing in 2002 , against more than 2 ,000 Indian Muslims, were often ignored by the American and British mainstream media, which preferred to give India a pass largely because the country was seen as an Am-Brit bulwark against China, Pakistan and Russia. But this month it seems India’s political and military establishments have picked up a wrong fight: censoring the prestigious Economist magazine because of a piece that sought to discuss border disputes between Pakistan, India and China. Both Pakistan and China allowed the said edition of the magazine to sell in their markets. But not India. The Indian government was not happy at an Economist map showing existing de facto borders in Kashmir , where a Pakistan- backed autonomous Azad Kashmir government controls one-third of the disputed territory and Indian military the remaining two-thirds. While the article was balanced, Indian officials said it failed to show the entire state of disputed Kashmir as Indian territory. The magazine editors said they only showed the reality on the ground, where India controls less than two- thirds of the region. They said Pakistan too claims the entire region but it didn’t stop the magazine’s distribution in the Pakistani market. The Indian government forced Economist to place a white sticker on the map to hide it. The Indian government is sensitive about Kashmir because its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru pledged at the United Nations to allow Kashmiris to choose their future in an UN-administered plebiscite. India reneged later on its pledge citing complex legal reasons and unilaterally annexed the territory. The Economist editors conceded that India is less tolerant about Kashmir than Pakistan or China, the other two parties to the dispute. Other western news outlets seized the opportunity to highlight India’s censorship practices that belie its declared democratic credentials. The BBC, for example, announced that “The authorities in India routinely target the international media, including the BBC, on the issue of Kashmir’s borders if the media do not reflect India’s claims. ” Kashmiris say India is so intolerant of open media that it has banned foreign news channels in Kashmir which is occupied by nearly 700 , 000 Indian military, police and paramilitary personnel. Pakistanis too have their own experiences with Indian censorship. While Pakistani newspapers and TV allow Indian writers and commentators to criticize Pakistan and contradict Pakistani position on Kashmir, Indian newspapers and TV channels don’t give Pakistani commentators a similar access. Indian news websites routinely ban registered Pakistani comment makers. During the people-to- people exchange of delegations between 2004 and 2006 Composite Dialogue, Pakistanis complained that Indian delegations refused to deviate from official Indian government positions. In contrast, members of Pakistani delegations visiting India freely interacted with the Indian media and often criticized some Pakistani policies. And in at least one occasion, Indian interior minister made an inappropriate remark when a Pakistani newspaper leaked the story of the induction of a battalion of entertainment girls as part of Indian military presence in Kashmir. India continues to enjoy the backing of the governments of the United States and Britain for strategic reasons, but independent-minded journalists in those countries are slowly opening up to the contradictions in India. For example, in 2010 , for the first time mainstream US media covered the massive Kashmiri uprising against Indian occupation after ignoring the conflict for a long time.

The Cost Of Pakistan's Double Game

The past week has witnessed major attacks on key Pakistani military and intelligence facilities by the Tehrik-i- Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group that for the past several years has fought an increasingly brutal and brash war in the heart of the Pakistani state. Yet while the attacks, and in particular the lengthy siege of the Mehran naval base in Karachi, have brought condemnation on the military for lax security procedures , few within Pakistan have openly questioned the state's long- running dance with militant groups, many of whom cooperate closely while alternately working with and fighting Pakistan. But a string of events in the past few years have made the question of Pakistani support for - or allowance of - terrorist and militant groups unavoidable.[[BREAK]] In the days after the 9 /11 attacks, President Bush's remarks that nations would from then on be "with us or with the terrorists" and his direct threats to Pakistan to sever ties with militants forced then-military leader Pervez Musharraf to take a U-turn and begin targeting selected al-Qaeda and other militant leaders. However, as the dust from the U.S. warning started settling down, truck- loads of Arab and Uzbek fighters and their Taliban facilitators from eastern Afghanistan's Khost province and other parts of the country started traveling to and settling in Pakistan's tribal areas. Through the payment of money along with various kinds of intimidation, those terrorists and their supporters won the loyalties and support, or simply the acquiescence, of the tribesmen, many of whom continue to suffer at the hands of their unwanted guests. Yet even after militants were allowed to settle in the tribal areas with little resistance from the Pakistani state, the tribesmen were (and are still) told that it was because of U.S. drone strikes that these "holy warriors" fled to their areas. Hence, each missile against foreign militants or their Pakistani counterparts increased the potential number of militants flowing in and fueled rising anti-Americanism in Pakistan, serving the short-term political interests of pro- Taliban elements in the country's security establishment, while allowing the army to play on anti-American sentiment domestically while still occasionally offering militants to the United States, either for arrest or targeting by drones, as a sign of good faith and in order to maintain a steady flow of military aid. Recent history provides ample room for suspicion that the relationship between militants and the Pakistani military or intelligence agencies continues. Some key points should lead informed observers, for instance, to suspect some knowledge of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's presence in the highly-secured cantonment town of Abbottabad among Pakistani intelligence officials. For instance, the structure of the house is very different from the rest of the buildings in the area, and that plus the barbed wires atop its 18

to 20 feet high boundary walls would have likely drawn some suspicion to the compound's residents. The compound is located less than a kilometer from Pakistan's Kakul Military Academy. Security officials, who keep a strict watch on anyone entering and living in a cantonment zone, somehow managed to miss the compound, which sticks out from the others around it. The Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani even visited the Kakul Academy less than 10 days before the May 2 raid, something that was undoubtedly preceded by security officials combing the nearby areas for any suspicious people or activities, as is the standard practice for such visits. Additionally, locals told the writer that three gas connections were provided to the house within a few days after its construction, which otherwise takes weeks if not months. But again, no alarm was raised. Additionally, groups like Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT) and Sipah-e-Sihaba Pakistan (SSP) continue to operate openly despite being nominally banned. Indeed, locals I have spoken with in Kurram agency blame Pakistani intelligence for bringing the Sunnis against the Shi'a there, simply to show the world that Pakistan is heading towards de-stabilization and only U.S. and international support can save the society from becoming radical (not to mention the benefit accrued by the Haqqani network, who now have space to operate if their North Waziristan sanctuary is compromised). And a brief look at some of the militants operating in Pakistan currently raises questions about how they have been able to implant themselves and continue operating. For instance, is it believable that Khyber agency-based militant and former bus driver Mangal Bagh, a warlord with no more than 500 volunteers, can operate just 15 kilometers away from Pakistan's 11 Corps headquarters in the town of Bara, kidnapping people from Peshawar and other parts of the country, attacking powerful tribal elders, ministers, and journalists from Khyber agency, attacking NATO supply convoys, and carrying out public attacks and executions? Maulana Fazlullah, a leading warlord in the Swat Valley, a man who was once a chair-lift operator on the Swat River, became the most powerful commander in the area in a span of two years, with little government opposition. When the military conducted an operation in Swat upon the request of the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) government in Khyber- Puktunkhwa, Fazlullah somehow managed to break a cordon of 20 ,000 soldiers backed by helicopters and jets to escape. And in Bajaur, Taliban commander Faqir Muhammad's forces were "cleared" in 2008 , but though hundreds of thousands of locals were displaced, their houses destroyed, their crops burnt and their cattle killed, Faqir Muhammad continues to leave peacefully in the agency. And those who rose up to confront the Taliban received little protection from the government. When the ANP, after coming into power in Khyber- Puktunkhwa, raised its voice against the Taliban, party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan was attacked by a suicide bomber inside his house in his hometown of Charsadda. Since then, the party leadership has lived in Islamabad. The party's spokesman and Information Minister Mian Iftikhar's son was killed by armed men close to his house last July. Mian Iftikhar and another outspoken minister of the KP government, Bashir Bilour, escaped several attempts on their lives; Asfandyar Wali Khan's sister Dr. Gulalay, who is not involved with party politics, was attacked in Peshawar, and ANP lawmaker Alam Zeb Khan was killed in a bomb attack in the same city, before finally the party leadership and members were forced to stop their vocal opposition to the militants. *** One key problem in the Pakistan-U.S. relationship, particularly in the present situation, is that both countries are dependent on each other despite pursuing contrasting interests in Afghanistan and in South Asia. And to keep this marriage of convenience going, the U.S. will likely come out with some praise for Pakistani efforts, more than Sen. John Kerry did during his recent Islamabad trip , while Pakistan may launch some kind of sham military operation in North Waziristan and may kill or arrest some Haqqani, Taliban or al-Qaeda leaders just to brush aside the U.S. and international opinion about its support for the al-Qaeda and Taliban. Just last week the Pakistani Army announced the arrest of a "senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative" named Mohammed Ali Qasim, or Abu Suhaib al-Makki, in the teeming city of Karachi. While al-Makki's place in the al-Qaeda hierarchy is in dispute, he was somehow able to live undisturbed in Pakistan for 10 years, only to be arrested just days after bin Laden's death. Expect to see more "senior" leaders arrested or killed, whether in operations or drone strikes, in the coming weeks and months. Meanwhile, the Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliates, drawing covert support from some individuals in the intelligence apparatus, may carry out attacks in cities, on mosques, and even on military and government installations just to remind the world that the country is itself a victim of terrorism - just look for example to last week's devastating suicide bombing in Charsadda on a paramilitary constabulary post, claimed by the TT P, the attacks last week against the Saudi consulate and a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, or this week's attacks against the Mehran base and yesterday' s attack on the police Criminal Investigations Department in Peshawar. The Pakistani media does not and will not help ease the heightened tension between Pakistan and the United States. Heavily influenced by the security establishment, it presents an image of the society that is anti- American to the core. This image is simply not true, but instead originated from the handpicked anchorpersons of the private Pakistani TV channels, who run after interviews with Taliban commanders to increase their profiles, and some selected analysts and commentators, who present that picture of Pakistani society to the United States, constantly raising the specter of a Pakistan on the edge of a collapse into fundamentalism. But instead of turning away from Pakistan, the United States must listen carefully to the demands of the Pakistani security and political establishment, while also plainly conveying their own. And instead of investing in the generals and politicians, the U.S. should focus its attentions more thoroughly on Pakistani society and its long-term economic and social needs that have nothing to do with the Taliban. It is the army and the government who always disappoint the United States, and it is the Pakistani people who always end up disappointed with the United States. These are the simple but key steps that have to be taken. If not, instability will prevail in Afghanistan and terrorist safe havens will survive in the tribal areas. Innocent people in all parts of Pakistan will continue to fall prey to the Taliban and other jihadist groups, and the eventual U.S. withdrawal from and the hastily arranged peace deal in Afghanistan will not alleviate the situation. But no change can take place unless President Obama and the world revive Bush's ultimatum, and tell Pakistan's military and civilian leadership that they are either "with us or with the terrorists."