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The Deccan Herald came out with an article on the shifting of bus depots from Majestic at the end of the month in preparation for the Metro station construction. This means that construction may actually start sometime in the near future, only 8 months late. However, some things in this article do not match up with the information we have received from KSRTC officials:

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will relocate its two depots functioning in the premises of KSRTC bus stand in Majestic area to hand over the land for Metro rail works.

KSRTC has more than two depots, and at least three will be shifted for construction, according to our sources.

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will relocate its two depots functioning in the premises of KSRTC bus stand in Majestic area to hand over the land for Metro rail works.

We were told that the total area given to BMRCL would be 27 acres, and that 7 of those would be kept for the Metro station (This could be an error by DH : 20 acres (for workspace) + 7 acres (for station) = 27 acres)

Of the total 35 acres belonging to KSRTC in Majestic area, 20 acres will be handed over to BMRCL by the end of this month.

The numbers we got were: KSRTC owns all the land, including BMTC space, which is 42 acres (article says 35). Even if you just count the KSRTC side, we were still told that was 32 acres.

This conflicting information is puzzling. Not sure if this reflects changes in plans (possible), misinformation by the people we talked to (also possible), or just bad reporting by the Deccan Herald (very possible).

On a related note, BMRCL decide at its board meeting in New Delhi that they would reinvite tenders for the underground stretch of the metro in order to help lower cost.

I (Ken Chapman) received email received from James Van Leeuwen from Pincher Creek.  He gave me permission to post part of it in this blog.

James is a consultant, investor and entrepreneur focused on the development, deployment and application of information and communication technology for progressive economic, community and cultural development.  And he is registered for Reboot Alberta.  He shares some of his thinking:

The 2 Cents from James Van Leeuwen

I see the ’structural’ challenge facing Alberta as decentralization in almost every respect. We don’t need better leadership so much as we need a heck of a lot more leadership, and much better navigational tools to enable better leadership.

Power, people, capital and control have become too concentrated, perhaps the result of too many Albertans failing to take responsibility for their own learning, their own futures, the futures of their communities, and the future of their society. Complacency *rules*. Not to pick on Alberta… the whole country seems off the rails in this respect. 

Reggie Crowshoe of the Old Man River Cultural Centre once explained to me the fundamental difference between ’western’ societies and aboriginal societies (as they used to be). Aboriginal societies survived here for thousands of years because their central organizing principle was social responsibility, including responsibility to past and future generations. There was no practical alternative when it came to sustainability, but we’re still figuring this out.

In my mind, the key question is how to inspire, incentivize and generally invigorate social responsibility (personal, corporate, etc.) in a society that does little to acknowledge or reward it.

By itself, I believe environmental responsibility is largely a fruitless theme. I think it is best engaged in relation to the theme of intergenerational responsibility, really a form of social responsibility. People tend to empathize with other people, not trees, oceans and air. So let’s work with that.

My business interests are focused squarely on building the ICT infrastructure that will enable full and competitive participation and prosperity in the societies and economies of the 21st century. 

Fibre-to-the-everywhere with wireless connectivity in between. Data centres co-located with sources of green power generation – the streamside mills of the Information Economy. Advanced visualization systems that revolutionize our ability to tell stories, share and build on ideas, comprehend complexity, interdependence and interconnectedness, and basically map our way into the future.

There’s good business in all of this, and it’s also pretty cool stuff. I believe this same infrastructure and its countless applications will be powerful catalysts for the changes I think we need. 

There is much to look forward to.

My 2 cents.

Admittedly, I was almost shocked while reading about what the UK prime minster Gordon Brown suggested in Scotland:

G20: Gordon Brown calls for global tax on financial transaction

Then why planning theorists and thinkers are trying to implant planning operation in local level, when, somewhere else a centralized controlling system, which is acting at global level, is being established.

Many of the planning institutions such as APA and RTPI interfering in training planning people, as planners, emphasize those accounts that facilitate the decentalization act, but the whole operation is being taken to another place.

The contradiction and gap between what is to be assumed as democratic control of planning and what is asserted to planning at practical level as contol by law are very bizzare.

At local level planning organizations reject any type of disceretion and metion the only force that should be able to lead planning is market but at the global level we are seeing many disceretion like the current one that allow G20 to control whatever they think that they need to do.

Indonesia merupakan salah satu negara di Asia yang  melakukan transisi menuju demokrasi. Selama kurang lebih 30 tahun,  pemerintahan Orde Baru  berkuasa  dengan cara authoritarian, sentralistik serta mengalir dari atas ke bawah. Setelah Soeharto lengser tahun 1998, pemerintahan baru yang dipimpin Habibie menghadapi tuntutan masyarakat akan pemerintahan yang demokratik dan transparan. Habibie di bawah petunjuk lembaga-lembaga seperti World Bank dan IMF mengeluarkan kebijakan desentralisasi yang salah satu outputnya adalah program otonomi daerah.

Desentralisasi yang didefinisikan  sebagai transfer kekuasaan dari atas ke bawah dalam system politik, sering dianggap sebagai syarat untuk demokrasi. Menurut UNDP desentralisasi merupakan   “the logical application of  the core characteristics of good governance at the sub-national and local levels”. Namun pada sisi lain konsep desentralisasi dilihat oleh para ahli memiliki potensi konflik yang tinggi. Ada beberapa syarat yang harus dipenuhi agar desentraliasi sebagai proses demokratisasi dapat berjalan, yakni  kondisi dan situasi keamanan tertentu, kecukupan sumber daya dan otonomi, kebijakan yang akuntable dan transparan dan hubungan yang sehat dengan kekuasaan yang lebih tinggi. Masalah yang akan timbul  dengan desentralisasi di negara yang masih  dalam transisi  adalah munculnya  kekuasaan di tangan elit di tingkat bawah/daerah, yang justru akan menjadi jurang antar daerah sekaligus memicu konflik etnis dan agama.

Tujuan utama desentralisasi di Indonesia mencakup lima hal. Pertama, meningkatkan akuntabilitas pemerintahan lokal dengan cara membawa mereka lebih dekat dengan para pemilihnya (konstituen). Kedua, mempromosikan pemberian pelayanan yang lebih baik dan adil. Ketiga, memperkuat komunitas dan pemerintahan lokal lewat pengelolaan sumber daya sendiri. Keempat, untuk meningkatkan partisipasi masyarakat.  Dan kelima, mendorong serta menguatkan integrasi nasional dengan mengembalikan kewibawan dan kekuasaaan yang lebih besar pada daerah.

Desentralisasi dan otonomi daerah dijalankan dibawah dua payung hukum yakni UU No 22/1999 tentang Undang-undang pemerintahan daerah dan UU No 25/1999 tentang UU Keuangan Berimbang.  Lewat kedua undang-undang ini pemerintah Indonesia ingin menciptakan pemerintahan yang bercirikan kekuasaan dari bawah ke atas (bottom up).

Maluku sendiri sejak bulan September 1999 telah dibagi menjadi dua yakni Maluku utara dan Maluku. Ketika pemilu di tingkat daerah dijalankan pertama kali dengan konsep langsung dan “demokratis” yang terjadi justru menguatnya sentimen dan kepentingan primodial berdasar etnis dan agama[1]. Analisis tentang besarnya pengaruh pemilu 1999 sebagai faktor pemicu konflik Maluku telah banyak dilakukan[2]. Desentraliasi lewat otonomi daerah justru menjadi boomerang karena  kapasitas birokrat yang masih minim dan tak terhindarkannya “raja-raja kecil” di daerah. Sebagai gambaran singkat daerah yang memiliki anak daerah  di birokrat atau DPRD biasanya daerah mereka akan memperoleh pembangunan yang lebih baik daripada daerah yang sama sekali tidak memiliki. Kondisi ini  berjangkit dalam semua hal yang justru menguatkan sentiment kedaerahan dan  agama.

Pertanyaan selanjutnya bagaimana kemudian memperkecil konflik di daerah post konflik seperti Maluku?

[2] Lihat; Adijondro, George J., “Orang-Orang dibalik Tragedy Maluku”, 2001. Eriyanto, Media dan Konflik Ambon, Media, Berita dan Kerusuhan Komunal ambon 1999-2002. ICG, Indonesian Briefing Paper Indonesia”s Maluku Crisis : The isssues, 19 Juli 2000. Klinken, Gerry van, The Maluku wars : Bringing society Back In” 2001. Salampessy, Zairin dan Husain, Thamrin, Ketika semerbak cengkeh tergusur asap mesiu: Tragedi Maluku di balik Konspirasi Militer, Kapitalis Birokrat dan kepentingan elit Politik, 2000. Yanuarti, Maria, Triatmoko, Konflik di Maluku  Tengah : Penyebab, Karateristik dan Penyelesaian Jangka Panjang, 2003.

It was Tuesday, November 3 when I saw in the Philippine Daily Inquirer a full-page ad for a petition for the government, and “us” to, in the ad’s words, “take advantage of the proposed Metro Manila make-over…to reform our cities once and for all”.

This I read as a sober call for the government to rethink its World Bank-recommended urban development program. Remember when it was reported that the World Bank recommended centralization? So the government felt encouraged in its mission to swamp Metro Manila with citizens. As a result, a huge number of residents in Metro Manila live in informal settlements. Large swaths of land are “devoted” to informal settlement, and people are forced to live in unsanitary and close quarters, leading to greater incidences of pregnancy and death by disease - a grisly consequence of the belief that Manila is paradise on earth. Ondoy and Pepeng and company have supposedly shaken that paradigm to its foundations by now: the government is announcing it will “decongest” Metro Manila because among the hundred-thousands, if not millions, of informal settlers, are those who made the mistake of living in Pasig and Taguig, near Laguna de Bay. The land there is wet and prone to flooding come heavy rains. But no: they settled in the land and their settlements became the cause of flooding not only for Pasig and Taguig, but also for Marikina, a little farther from the lake.

Of course, the people are not to blame. Some would say they should have settled in the North, in Quezon City, in other places. But the objective of these settlers is to get as close to Manila as possible: you can’t expect them, then, to settle in Bulacan, etc. Why? Because the government centralized all growth in Manila, Makati, Mandaluyong, and Quezon City. The latest of these mentioned is not even a commercial center, except maybe for Cubao in the south, where much of the commerce is concentrated. Quezon City was designed to hold government offices at the time Manila itself was rebuilt after the Second World War, not be the commercial center.

So Manila improved and grew, and attracted many immigrants. Too much, apparently. Did the government improve Cebu? Naga? Davao? Baguio? Legaspi? Zamboanga? All these cities and others were cities, all right, but only in name. At most, they were only “cultural nodes”, and people in the capital treated these cities as if they were buzzwords, sometimes of a negative kind, their lives all connected to Manila by virtue of Manila being the capital. For example, one would define Cebu as “where they have this old Magellan’s cross”, Naga as “where they have this giant river procession”, Davao as “where they get durian”, Baguio as “where we go every summer because it’s cool there”, Legaspi as “where they sell pili nuts and spicy food”, Zamboanga as “where they speak a sort of weird Filipino Spanish”, or “where Dakak is”, or, worse, “where the Abu Sayyaf are”. The ones speaking, the “we”, are Manilans. They can go to Cebu to see Magellan’s cross, to Naga to see the Penafrancia Festival, to Davao to get durian, to Baguio to while away their Holy Week in cold splendor, to Legazpi to buy pili nuts and pili candy, and to Zamboanga for Dakak. It’s as if the entire Philippines is one whole museum in Manila and the cities mentioned above are mere exhibits.

This, my friends, is how “nationalism” is construed in the 7107 Isles. This is exactly what “Imperial Manila” means. And this is why the immigrants from the “provinces” are flocking to Manila: the government has centralized not only its administration, but education, social services, and commerce.

But no, I’m not saying that GMA has turned this trend, or has even tried to, as she said in her 2006 SONA, or that she is the champion of this belief, as some people in DILA (the anti-homogenization, anti-assimilation society) and certain congressmen, one of whose surnames sound like a vegetable, enunciate and believe. GMA has been the only head of government to promise this and yet not carry it out. Now a slew of officials and luminaries are petitioning her to do so, in this ad that I’ve told you about. Among them: Naga’s Jesse Robredo, Cebu’s Tomas Osmena, Congw. Risa Hontiveros of AKBAYAN, Leila de Lima of the CHR (yes, the same person who fought for prosecution of the Melissa Roxas torture case), former Chief Justice Hilario Davide (who, it is set down here, is the coordinator of Liberal Party’s Cebu branch), former Education and Agriculture Secretary Butch Abad,  the bishops of Malolos and Infanta, an auxillary bishop of the Archdiocese of Manila, Religious superiors, Fr. Robert Reyes (yes, the running priest), and others. Even foreign nationals who have been studying the Philippines are in the petition. This must be a rather serious petition, but, for the very reason that it is rather serious, it will be unheeded by government, which is busy thinking about elections. I mean, you have a very hypocritical government telling all of us that they’re focused on work. In fact they will do everything in a rash manner, though not necessarily rushing, and concentrate on plans for re-election or re-corruption.

But this I would like to say, not to the government but to the petitioners in this ad, and by faint extension to Noynoy Aquino, who seemingly has the popularity today: Make this concern on the top of your to-do list when you take over. Decongest Manila by improving Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Zambaonga, Naga, etc. so that they are of the same economic viability as Manila, if not greater. So people will flock to more cities and growth will be distributed all over the country. And pollution and overcrowding will not be a great problem in the cities because the growth is not crammed in one city and therefore easy to sustain. The Philippines has so much to offer us by way of strategically economic growth bases. Only in this way could we move to greater economic growth, and then to improving political and military power.

A thought just entered my mind: isn’t the prevailing corruption of the government partly due to its being centralized? Or is corruption centralized as well, leading to its dominance in government transactions? Will talk about that in another column, I think.

The layout for Bangalore’s “Namma Metro” project consists of two tracks, which intersect at one location in the heart of the city, totaling 42.3km in length. The north-south line will start at Hesaragatta Cross and end at Puttenahalli, with a section from Swastik to past City Market underground. The east-west corridor will run from

Byappanahalli Terminal to Mysore Road Terminal, going underground from around the Cricket Stadium until just past the City Railway station. The largest station in the Bangalore Metro project will in the KSRTC Bus Stand at the intersection of the north-south and east-west lines. The station will be an L-shaped construction, lying four levels below ground, reaching a depth of 66 feet. The lowest level will be the east-west line, and the total area of the station will be slightly more than 7 acres. The estimated cost for this station is Rs. 500 crores.

The land on which the BMTC and the KSRTC Bus Stands lie is property of KSRTC, which is 42 acres in total. The KSRTC side is 32 acres, and the bus stand alone takes up 16 acres, 30 guntas. For construction of the Metro stand, BMRCL will occupy 27 acres for offices, workspace, materials, which will be handed over to them in three stages by KSRTC. After construction, the BMRCL will retain the 7 acres for the station, and return control of the rest to KSRTC. In exchange, BMRCL will give KSRTC 9.5 acres elsewhere in the city, 7.5 of which will be in Peenya. The land from bus depots 3, 4, and 5 will be handed over during construction, and the depots will shift to elsewhere, including on depot at Shantinagar. Additionally, due to the departure space KSRTC will lose when construction begins, they have decided to convert the front side of the building into a temporary bus stand. Already they have cleared many of the trees in the area, and removed the small garden space in front. KSRTC will then create a large C-shaped bus stand, including minimal commercial space which may accommodate some of the displaced shop owners from the existing bus stand. Already Mangalore buses have shifted to the front on the west side of the building.

Construction was set to begin in March of 2009, but has been postponed to August, then September, then 10^th October, and now nobody knows for sure. There have been a few reasons for the hold up, including decisions on land transfer, and the holiday season which slowed progress. Presently KSRTC is waiting for the Work Order from the BMRCL to commence construction, but does not know when this will be issued.

Last week’s news that Afghanistan will hold a run-off election between current President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah was certainly welcome. Taking place in the midst of President Barack Obama’s ongoing reevaluation of the U.S.’s Afghanistan policy, the massive fraud that characterized the August 20th Afghan election was a profound embarrassment to the United States, NATO, the UN, and to the Afghan government itself. The outcome of the run-off, nonetheless, will likely be a continuation of the status quo. Hamid Karzai will probably be re-elected, and his government will probably continue to be both ineffective and corrupt.

As a starting point, it is important to acknowledge that Afghanistan is not a nation that American policymakers have a whole lot of insight into. It is a largely rural nation dominated by tribalism, networks of corruption, and local politics that no outsiders are likely to be able to understand. It is also the world’s largest producer of heroin, which fuels both corruption and the insurgency. By all accounts, the majority of the Afghan people do not want the Taliban to return, but they remain extremely wary of the American-backed government in Kabul.

Our approach to the war in Afghanistan, unfortunately, is largely the product of inertia. Since taking office, President Obama has deployed an additional 21,000 troops, placed greater emphasis on infrastructure and other economic development efforts, and made a point of acknowledging the interconnected nature of the war in Afghanistan and the existence of Taliban and al-Qaeda safe-havens in Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Given the context, Obama’s ongoing review of America’s Afghan policy is long overdue. In the wake of our partial success, nearly eight years ago, in uprooting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, we have drifted along in Afghanistan without an adequate number of troops or even a strategy. In the meantime, both organizations have regrouped across the border in Pakistan and the insurgency within Afghanistan has become increasingly sophisticated and effective. October 2009 is already the worst month of the war in terms of American deaths. So far, fifty-three American troops have died; over the course of the year, two hundred and seventy-five Americans have been killed.

Within Afghanistan itself, our options appear to lie on a spectrum between two poles. At one extreme, often associated with Vice President Joe Biden and political pundit George Will, the United States would focus on “counter-terrorism.” In essence, we would rely on targeted Special Forces attacks, air strikes, and Predator drones to contain and hopefully diminish the operational capacity of al-Qaeda. Under this approach, U.S. and NATO troop commitments would be significantly smaller than they are now. Importantly, our efforts would be focused on limiting the reach of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization whose attacks were the cause for our invasion of Afghanistan in the first place.

At the other extreme, the U.S. would go all in, greatly increase troop levels, and heavily fund nation-building efforts. Casualties would almost certainly increase, placing political pressure on President Obama comparable to that experienced by President George W. Bush at the height of the Iraq war or, in a worst-case scenario, to that faced by President Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam. Political support from Democrats would likely prove lacking, and Republicans would probably express reservations about the emphasis on “nation-building.” Under current political conditions, support from either party would not be guaranteed.

These two options, of course, are highly stylized and far from incompatible. President Obama has proven himself notably open to taking out al-Qaeda members via Predator Drone attacks and, as I mentioned earlier, has already committed additional resources to building up Afghan infrastructure and to economic development efforts. It is difficult to imagine that he will pull back from either approach in the near future.

By itself, the Biden-Will approach appears bizarrely short-sighted and unworkable. There is little reason to believe that targeted attacks will prove capable of taking down al-Qaeda. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have located themselves in the semi-lawless border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan precisely because the region is inaccessible to American forces, NATO forces, Afghan forces, and (to a lesser extent) Pakistani forces. We seem to have developed some human intelligence capacity in the region and we are undeniably capable of blowing up people living within it. Nonetheless, by most accounts, Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders walk the towns of the border region with impunity. In short, as long as Pakistan’s tribal areas continue to operate as a Taliban emirate, hopes for a largely bloodless (for Americans) air campaign must be regarded as painfully over-optimistic.

Along with these significant drawbacks, pulling out large numbers of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan at this point would allow the Afghan Taliban to further expand its influence within Afghanistan itself. Returned to Taliban control, the nation’s South and East would likely reemerge as a staging ground for terrorist attacks against a wide variety of targets, including other nations within the region as well as the United States. Significantly, this strategy would be perceived by al-Qaeda and many others in the Muslim world as a major defeat for the United States, comparable to that suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is reasonable to conclude that this would further embolden terrorists with a grudge against the United States.

While less blatantly unworkable, option number two- an increased troop presence and new emphasis on nation-building- has its own serious drawbacks. We are taking on a tenacious and capable insurgency that, while fighting for a mode of government despised by many Afghans, understands the local population and its way of life in ways that we never will. Worse, there exists a genuine possibility that the U.S. and NATO will leave Afghanistan at some point and that when we do so the nation will not have a stable government. If this happens, Afghans in many regions of the country can expect that the Taliban will take control. They can also expect that the Taliban will not look favorably on previous support for the U.S. or for the Karzai government.

If we hope to limit the future influence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, we will need to mobilize local populations in support of local governing institutions. American soldiers, sweeping into an area and interacting with its residents via interpreters, are not an ideal means for creating or fostering legitimacy for such institutions.

Worse, Afghanistan’s constitution, adopted in the wake of the American invasion, makes Afghanistan a largely unitary state, meaning that the bulk of the government’s power is held by Hamid Karzai (and to a far lesser extent the national Parliament) in Kabul. The local accountability and political legitimacy that, in a highly tribal, rural, and diffuse nation, would likely be advanced by decentralized democratic institutions, does not exist. We are fighting on behalf of a clearly unworkable cause.

Afghanistan, as any number of others have pointed out, has never had a functioning central government. In addition, after nearly eight years, mobilizing wary locals on behalf of the distant, corrupt, and ineffective government in Kabul will likely prove impossible. Devising a new, federal, governing structure should be a central component of any expanded nation-building effort in Afghanistan. In helping the Afghans to draft a new Constitution, we should accept and work within the context of the nation’s ethnic heterogeneity and long history of decentralized rule. Continuing to pretend that Afghanistan can be governed by a government that can barely project meaningful authority beyond Kabul does not make much sense and is unlikely to lead to stability in the foreseeable future. Competent government and local legitimacy are both plausible, though far from certain, outcomes of greater decentralization in Afghanistan.

Convincing President Karzai, who has a vested interest in the current governing arrangement, to support Afghan decentralization may prove a difficult task, but the alternatives border on unacceptable. We cannot fight indefinitely in support of a government that does not work and cannot expect the Afghan people, who must be the foundation of a stable and legitimate Afghan state, to support a government that does not work.

As part of our effort to enhance the legitimacy of the Afghan state and as a step towards putting an Afghan face on the anti-Taliban effort, we should focus on the creation of a large, multi-ethnic, and capable Afghan national army. Although additional American and NATO troops may help to bring stability in the short-run, their presence in Afghanistan will ultimately feed local resentment and add to the ranks of the insurgency. As it stands, the Afghan army is small and Americans are at the forefront of the war effort, ensuring both local skepticism and potentially dangerous misunderstandings between American soldiers and local populations. Ideally, we will leave Afghanistan at some point and the Afghan national army will take control of the counter-insurgency campaign.

Even under a best-case scenario, we cannot expect a new Afghan constitution within the next year. Training an Afghan army will take even longer. These are essentially remedial measures, necessary groundwork for a more legitimate and workable Afghan state but far from sufficient for ensuring that one emerges. It is entirely conceivable that neither a new constitution nor an Afghan national army will be created any time soon. A number of other issues, including the nation’s economic reliance on the production of poppies and heroin and the question of whether some Taliban fighters may be “redeemable,” must also be confronted by both the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO policymakers.

Along with these pressing internal Afghan concerns, an expansion and rethinking of our effort in Afghanistan requires us to consider at a minimum two other, potentially more problematic, issues: the relationship between our actions in Afghanistan and the ongoing consolidation of the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the more fundamental question of why we are fighting in Afghanistan. I will discuss these issues in later posts.

*As a note, my use of the term “tribalism” is intended as a description of the organization of rural Afghan society and should not be taken to suggest a value judgement.

This is what he said in the context of the Govt response to the Naxal problem in Chattisgarh. Do read this whole interview with KPS Gill, for valuable insights into how every problem is different and how local problems need local solutions.

What Delhi cannot accomplish, Hyderabad cannot accomplish either. Governance need to be brought to the people’s localities. The failure of an excessively centralized governing system is more often due to lack of information about local needs and local problems and what works in a particular region. The local self governing bodies exist in name, but are stripped of financial resources and power to tackle the issues. This centralized governance also leads to situations where no single person can be held responsible for any failure (the credit for successes is all taken by the political families in charge of course, be it YSR/Nehru-Gandhi/Babu) or negligence, leading to no motivation among the bureaucrats to take control of any situation. Decentralizing spending responsibilities and clearly identifying a single person to be in charge of affairs goes a long way in fixing the duties and responsibilities, while leading to better tailored solutions for the problems. This will also lead to fast response and a more responsible resource utilization.

Loksatta on decentralization:

Speaking on governance reforms, Dr. JP pointed out that many districts in India are bigger than 50 percent of the countries in the world and the metropolitan cities are larger than 80 percent of the countries. Yet the local governments have been made irrelevant. No wonder, most people in the country do not know the names of Mayors of even large metropolitan cities in India, unlike those of London, New York or Mexico City.

Dr. JP said that power had been concentrated so much that there are only three decisions makers in India – the PM, the CM and the DM (district magistrate).

He called for genuine decentralization with devolution of powers, responsibilities, resources and personnel on the local governments. The people would not realize the importance of their vote unless they appreciated how it was going to transform their lives. Otherwise they would succumb to short-term sops or money and liquor offered by political parties.

Dr. JP underlined the need for civil service reforms. India is perhaps the only modern democracy in the world, which clings to institutions created by colonial rulers a century and half ago.

The Lok Satta President said that decentralization should provide for local policing and local courts. There has been a market demand for criminals and thugs because the people could not depend on the police and the courts to render them timely justice.

Recently I read Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near.” Kurzweil, a reputable futurist, takes the reader through his vision for a future in which machines overcome human intelligence, recursively redesigning themselves in an “intelligence explosion” known as the singularity (don’t be afraid, the machines don’t overtake the human race, we become the machines). Kurzweil predicts that ongoing advancements in the fields of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics will lead us into (and beyond) the singularity. These advancements raise questions about the energy and infrastructure required to support our ongoing technological development and increasing population. One of the themes revisited throughout the book is sustainment through massive decentralization of our infrastructure.

Decentralization is the localization of services currently administered through large hubs – think power plants, industrial agriculture, and water treatment centres. Given our state of technology, it has historically made sense to keep these systems centralized; however they are susceptible to a number of dangers. Recall the immense blackout of North America’s eastern seaboard in the summer of 2003, caused by the shutdown of a generating station in Eastlake, Ohio. While electrical power IS distributed through a grid, the generators are large nodes on which we are very dependent. Ideally individual households could act as generating stations, connected through a self-organizing, self-repairing network not unlike the brain. Of course, this level of decentralization is not yet possible (we would need the ability to more efficiently harness the sun’s energy, while mitigating factors – from noise to meltdowns – that currently keep our power plants and treatment centres away from home), however it does provoke interesting discussion about the benefits of decentralized resources – namely decreased dependence on individual nodes.

Consider cloud computing – Amazon is just one example of a company now offering this service having realized they could put their otherwise idle servers to use outside of the busy holiday shopping season. Instead of hosting files on one computer, Amazon keeps your information on a network of computers. If, for some reason, one server were to catch fire and become irreversibly damaged, never fear! Your information is safely stored around the world. And because the Internet is quite adept at finding new paths around damaged nodes, you probably wouldn’t notice that a fire had happened at all.

Can principles of self-organizing networks be applied to resource and infrastructure problems? I think they can with a little effort. Maybe the Jetsons weren’t so far off in their depiction of the future home. There may be a market for faucet-sized water treatment devices, solar-generating windows, and green-roof vegetable gardens. The Internet could be the platform to support this development. Let’s get this singularity moving people!

Here’s the story from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

The Mexican president shut down a money-losing state-owned electrical utility, taking a labor union down with it. The union is howling, but the shutdown is one of the best things to happen to Mexico.

For months, the SME union had been trying to intimidate Felipe Calderon into continuing to subsidize the Luz y Fuerza del Centro electrical distributor, even as its $16 billion in revenue didn’t come close to its $32 billion in salaries and pension costs.

And why not? The union had done the same thing to all the other reform-minded Mexican presidents and saw all of them back off.

But it didn’t have a clue about Calderon, a former energy minister who on Sept. 24 warned the union to cut costs or else. The union ignored the warning and tried to intimidate Calderon with political tactics, whipping up fear that he intended to privatize the utility. Calderon had a better idea: shut down the utility.

The stunning decision to disband the company and lay off 44,000 workers effectively ends the SME union.

Yes, he’s a conservative.

Check out the effects:

It took just hours for Mexico’s peso to rise on news that a huge financial burden had been lifted from the government. Luz y Fuerza del Centro was a money pit that cost the government $42 billion a year in subsidies. Analysts said the shutdown would save $25 billion — enough to enable the government to scrap a planned 2% tax hike.

The improved fiscal picture will keep interest rates in place and avert a ratings downgrade. All of this increases Mexican purchasing power, helps the government finance itself and releases money for lending and investment in a new economy.

Read the whole article. He sent in troops.

It’s a proud day for Mexico. Like Canada, Mexico is on the way up. But the United States is on the way down. Canada elected a conservative, and Mexico elected a conservative. Only the United States was blind and ignorant enough to elect a radical socialist.

One other thing: I was having lunch with one of my agnostic co-workers today, who was following this story. He was concerned that Mexico would start up a new company to take the place of the old, inefficient one. But that is not the case. The Mexican government has decided to liquidate the inefficient company and pass its customers to another firm.

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)  Shortly after being  sworn in as Prime Minister, George Papandreou unveiled his first Cabinet yesterday, presenting a relatively new team with a few party heavyweights.  The premier has downsized the number of ministries from 16 to 14 and deputy ministers from 26 to 21, plus two alternate ministers. Of the 37 individuals making up the government, 24 will be living the ministerial experience for the first time.  Additionally, nine members of the cabinet are women, a proportion which is a novelty in Greece. One of the surprises is the reinstatement of the post of deputy prime minister, which hasn’t been seen since the 1980s.  There is one new ministry, that of Environment, Energy and Climate Change. Many other ministries have been altered in some way: Citizen’s Protection; Infrastructure, Transport and Networks; Interior, Decentralization and e-Governance; Economy, Competitiveness and Merchant Marine; Education, Lifelong Learning and Religion; Justice, Transparency and Human Rights; and the former ministries of Culture and Tourism have merged into one. Kathimerini daily: Some surprises in Papandrou’s new team

I am doing some thinking right now on the US environmental policy. The tenth ammendment of the constitution states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” As the constitution does not say anything about environmental policy, it follows that that it should be left to the states or to the people. This however is not what we see. I conclude therefore that the current environmental policy of the United States is illegal, and should be decentralized and left to the states. More on this later.

State and ethnic conflict

Monday, September 28, 2009

by Dr Rubina Saigol

The writer is an independent researcher specialising in social development

In a highly centralised and authoritarian state, the rights of the federating units tend to be undermined. The issue of provincial autonomy has acquired added urgency in the face of simmering discontent and alienation among the provinces against the monopolisation of power and resources by the centre. The state in Pakistan has engaged in prolonged and serious conflicts with four out of five of its original units because of the denial of provincial autonomy.

When the state was initially imagined, a federal structure was envisaged. The Pakistan Resolution of 1940 declared that “areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.” Maximum autonomy and sovereign control were inherent in the very foundation of the new state. However, increasing centralisation led to the construction of a state that was severely distorted.

Religious nationalism, which in the struggle for Pakistan was a unifying force, had outgrown its validity once Pakistan was created. As Hamza Alavi points out, “the moment that Pakistan was established, Muslim nationalism in India had fulfilled itself and outlived its purpose. Now there was a fresh equation of privilege and deprivation to be reckoned with in the new state. Virtually overnight there were ethnic redefinitions. Punjabis who were the most numerous could boast of a greater percentage of people with higher education and were most firmly entrenched in both the army (being 85 per cent of the armed forces) and the bureaucracy. They were the new bearers of privilege, the true ‘Muslim’ for whom Pakistan was created. The weaker ‘salariats’ of Bengal, Sindh, Sarhad and Balochistan did not share this and accordingly they redefined their identities as Bengalis, Sindhis, Pathans and Baloch who now demanded fairer shares for themselves.” The authoritarian state attempted national integration through the use of religion in an attempt to weaken language-based ethnic nationalism. For example, Ayub Khan declared in 1962 that “it is immaterial whether you are a Bengali or a Sindhi, a Balochi or a Pathan or a Punjabi – we are all knit together by the bond of Islam.”

The sense of deprivation and anger among the federating units began as early as the 50s when the language conflict broke out over Urdu being declared the national language despite Bengali representing the language of the majority. Moreover, the foreign exchange earnings from East Pakistani jute went into the development of West Pakistan while the Eastern half was deprived of development. The economic disparities were such that when Ayub Khan seized power in 1958, the per capita income differential between the two wings was 30 per cent. By the end of the first five-year plan in 1965, this difference increased to 45 per cent and by the time of Ayub Khan’s removal in 1968, it had grown to 61 per cent. The West Pakistani rulers were unwilling to share power with East Pakistanis or recognise them as equals. When the Awami League won 151 out 153 national assembly seats in the 1970 elections, the military and civilian rulers of West Pakistan refused to transfer power to the legally elected party. A reign of terror was unleashed on East Pakistan, the leaders were declared traitors and conspirators, and finally the Punjab-dominated army committed untold atrocities upon the Bengalis leading to a resistance movement which culminated with the separation of East Pakistan from its exploitative western wing.

In West Pakistan, the creation of one-unit in 1955 led to the fear of erasure of cultural and ethnic identities among the units. Balochistan, where the Shahi Jirga had voted to join Pakistan, was repeatedly denied its just share and rights in the new federation. There were resistance movements in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. In the 70s, an armed movement began in which combat helicopters were used against 55,000 Baloch guerillas fighting 80,000 troops. Around 15,000 Baloch were killed in the army action. In 2004, the military built cantonments and resistance against militarisation by the centre led to the death of Nawab Akbar Bugti and seething resentment against the centre. The capture of Baloch resources such as gas, zinc, gold, copper and marble, and the failure to pay just royalty have led to alienation among Baloch youth who have joined liberation movements. The disparities are glaring: the per capita income of Balochis is 60 per cent of Punjabis and their representation in civil services is around one fourth compared to other provinces. The literacy rate is the lowest in Pakistan while its share of industrialisation in the 80s was 0.7 per cent. In recent times, the largest number of missing people was from Balochistan.

The state was once again embroiled in violent conflicts in the decades of the 80s and 90s in Sindh. August-December 1983 saw a massive civil disobedience movement in Sindh, during which several activists courted arrest and risked imprisonment and state violence. Helicopter gunships were used by the military to suppress the revolt in which hundreds were killed and wounded. Selig Harrison reports that in this uprising, 45,000 Punjabi troops faced make-shift Sindhi guerilla outfits and the Sindhi death toll came to 300 people. According to Shahid Kardar, “the alleged death of 50 students at the Thori Railway crossing and the horror of the action taken to suppress the Sindhis in 1986 have left very deep wounds in Sindh.” Sindh contributes 67 per cent of the national revenue and receives roughly only 23 per cent as its share in the NFC award. The tail-end of the Indus receives so little water in the IRSA system that Sindh’s agriculture is threatened with extinction. The insistence of Punjab that the Kalabagh Dam should be constructed is yet another wound that threatens violence in this historically peaceful and tolerant land of Sufi saints. In the 90s, Karachi saw a prolonged conflict between the state and the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs with crimes committed by all sides in the conflict. Even though the Sindh Assembly was the first to vote to join Pakistan, Sindhis have not received their due share and rights as the province that feeds the country.

The latest conflict is the military action in Pakhtoonkhwa to root out militants created and nurtured by the state itself. Scores of civilians have been killed by both the military and militants. Pakhtoonkhwa too has historical grievances. Its leaders were declared traitors for their commitment to peace and composite nationalism. It has not received just royalty for its water resources, and its objections to the Kalabagh Dam are ignored by Punjab. The intransigent attitude of Punjab in objecting to the change of name to Pakhtoonkhwa can have serious consequences for a state locked in struggles with its units. The ethnic and linguistic sharing of identities across the Durand Line can ultimately challenge the integrity of a state perpetually at war with itself.

A highly centralised state has suppressed the unique and multiple identities of the federating units. There is a long concurrent legislative list that encroaches upon provincial rights. The only way for the state to survive is to recognise the rights of the sovereign and autonomous units and, with the exception of defence, foreign affairs, currency and communication all subjects should be in the provincial list only. The NFC award needs to be based on multiple criteria including under-development, population and revenue generation. The lower riparian should receive its just share of the waters of the Indus river. Until the state dismantles its colonial structure of exploiting the units as colonies, conflict and insecurity are likely to persist.

Email: rubinasaigol@ hotmail.com

I recently joined the Alexandria blog, thanks to H.M. Stuart, and waded into the forum here with a couple of posts on economic matters affecting our country. Now I feel perhaps a fuller introduction to just what the hell my personal blog is all about may be in order….

“…and to the Republic, for which it stands…”

How many times have we recited that line in our school days? Did we understand just what is a “republic”? That our country has largely been a “republic” in name only since the Civil War? Or, most importantly, that we even care?

My personal blog is called “The Small r,” the lower case “r” referencing “republicanism” the political philosophy. This philosophy does not fit neatly into the contemporary (upper case) Republican mold. In fact, as we define these entities today, republicanism does not fit neatly into Democratic, liberal, conservative, progressive, or libertarian molds. It cuts across the political spectrum.

Some of the main attributes of small-r republicanism (as it was generally understood in America’s Founding Era) include citizen engagement in the political process; a belief in individual liberties, balanced with the responsibilities that accompany liberties (or, as John Locke framed it, liberty without responsibility is license, which can render harm to a society); equality; sovereignty rests in the people; individuals have the right to private property; and the need for localized systems, both political and economic. These are just a few attributes of republicanism; a longer list and accompanying definitions can be found here.

All of these attributes are viable considerations in our society; their legitimacy and importance do not wane with the ages. Thus, the republicanism discussed at The Small “r” is brought forward, used as a lens through which contemporary issues can be examined, and as a means to generate alternative responses that are not a part of the current public discourse on the issues.

This site’s core belief is that modern, complex societies do not fare well when centrally regulated. Treated as a monolithic entity, their social, political and economic structures are too convoluted for a legal system to properly govern; their mechanisms discourage meaningful social interactions, encourage hyperindividualism, yet shield members from personal responsibility; and their increasingly impersonal and oppressive management leads to the indignity of the individual and the inevitable loss of personal liberties.

Rather, modern, complex societies fare better when regulation starts at the local community, whether that community is a neighborhood in a vast city, or a small town in a rural setting. Treated as a series of interlocking entities, such a society creates structures and institutions on a human scale, allowing individuals to engage socially, politically and economically; personal responsibility emerges and self-regulation supports a functioning legal system; veering from heavy-handed and impersonal oversight – emanating from either their place of employment, their government, or both –  individuals instead find a dignity for their existence, a social space free of intrusions on personal liberties, and a contentment that surpasses the false promises of an increasingly fierce and competitive struggle to exist, an ugly reality that has emerged due in part to large centralized entities.

Some have attacked small-r republicanism as nothing more than simplistic yearnings. As Robert Hollinger, who teaches philosophy at Iowa State University, wrote in his book, Postmodernism and the Social Sciences, “The notion that all was wonderful in some real or imagined Gemeinschaft¹ [i.e., community - ed.], or could be in a new one, and that things have been going downhill without one is little more than a nostalgic longing for something that never existed.” Hollinger continues: “Even if there was ever such a Gemeinschaft, its feasibility and desirability in the modern world, with all the attendant complexities and diversities, is by no means obvious.”

In pushing back on Hollinger’s characterization, it should be recognized that 1) there were never any halcyon days in American history, not even at the height of America’s democratic-republic era in the early 19th century; 2) my forum discussing small-r republicanism does not suggest a “return” to such days, whatever a “return” may suggest; 3) small-r republicanism does argue for a decentralization of political and economic structures because we have a “modern world, with all the attendant complexities and diversities.” It is empirically obvious to anyone who lives in our times that after an approximately 150-year trend in centralizing our political and economic systems in America, the unceasing attempts to fine tune these systems so that they will properly function one future day has not worked, nor will it ever work.

A democratic republic is a living, breathing collection of individuals working out the complexities of daily life within human-scaled systems and institutions. A democratic republic is not a solution, but a framework for finding solutions. It is a messy, roll-up-the-sleeves engagement to find answers with educated allies and opponents alike. The smaller the scale of these efforts, the easier it becomes to accomplish useful ends.

So what would small-r republicanism look like, inserted into 21st-Century America? In an upcoming post, I’ll use a pragmatic example, namely, the local economy. Stay tuned.

¹ Gemeinschaft – communities characterized by a moderate division of labor, strong personal relationships, strong families, and relatively simple social institutions. In such societies there is seldom a need to enforce social control externally, due to a collective sense of loyalty individuals feel for society. (This is simply a definition, not an advocacy on my part – ed.)

By Doris C. Bongcac
Cebu Daily News First Posted 19:19:00 08/26/2009

Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay vowed to advocate for decentralization and empowering local government units (LGU) if elected president.

Binay said basic services are best delivered to the people if LGUs are well-funded and allowed to attend to these needs.

“I believe that if the barangay is progressive, the town or city will also be progressive. If the towns or cities are progressive, the provinces will also be progressive. And if the provinces are progressive, then the country will also be progressive,” he said.

Binay was at the CEBU DAILY NEWS office yesterday to talk with reporters and editors for the paper’s Election Roundtable 2010.

The outgoing Makati mayor said his plan would depend on political developments within the opposition group.

If he would become an hindrance in unifying the opposition, he added, he would rather run for vice president.

He did not discount the possibility of running for vice president as an independent candidate.

Binay said he would not run for senator because his expertise is in the executive.

“Legisaltion is not my line. There is very slim chance that I would run for senator and I will end up as chairman on the committee on silence,” he said in jest.

Binay said he was more experienced in handling executive functions being Makati mayor since 1986.

He was the first appointed mayor after the Edsa People Power revolution. His appointment as Makati mayor came on Feb. 28, 1986.

Binay said that among the presidential aspirants, he is the most senior in terms of experience in handling the executive functions.

His experience as chief executive of Makati City, the country’s financial district, is enough to make him qualify for the country’s presidency.

Under his administration, he managed to increase his city’s revenues from only P240 million in 1986 to P10.6 billion in 2008.

The function of a mayor, governor and even the president of the country is the same. It only varies in scale, he said.

“If I will be privileged and elected president I will not be there in Malacañang as if I’m an OJT (on the job trainee),” he said.

He said he talked to his constituents in Makati because to be able to make good decision, the chief executive should have good information.

Binay said the LGUs should be decentralized and empowered and run like a private corporation so the delivery of basic service would be made more efficient.

The Lioness’ Den has two interesting posts on how secession, anarchism, and other localism movements (ie, anything that moves us towards A Thousand Nations) will affect society.  What will a decentralized world look like, culturally and economically?  These are important questions, and it’s great to see someone grappling with them – especially since they are questions I often get asked, and the cultural aspect is one I must admit I haven’t thought deeply about.

In Decentralism for the Masses: The Big Sort and What It Reveals About Localism and Voluntary Segregation, she writes:

I’ve seen two major options so far for what a decentralized world might look like. Kevin Carson presents a model of decentralism of driven by necessity through eroding transportation and lack of mobility, characterized by small regional markets, localized production and high levels of economic autarky. By contrast, Keith Preston portrays a model of decentralism by choice along lines of interest and affinity, a panarchy of multiple systems in which social, political and cultural factors are motivating influences, and some degree of segregation and separatism are likely (though not necessarily universal).

Which is more likely to occur — and which would be more successful? According to Bill Bishop ’s The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (2008), an experiment along these lines is already taking place. The United States is becoming progressively more differentiated into smaller units along political, social, economic and geographical lines. What do the data show?

So far, the process fits more into Preston’s model of decentralization by choice rather then necessity, enabled by mobility and based on personal preference rather than economic need. Although the two are interconnected, it is primarily sociocultural choice that drives economic reorganization. People are going to places with people they like and jobs they want, rather than adjusting themselves to local necessities.

That’s only the beginning, as she moves on to cover “The Psychology of Tribes and Neo-Tribes: How Free Is Galt’s Gulch?”, “Political Subcultures and Partisan Lifestyles”, and “Genetic Implications”.  She clearly gets the idea of a market for government, concluding:

A complete micronational-anarchist system would be quite different, with many more options and a more-market-like structure in which communities would compete for mobile resources like people, trade and investment, rather than centralized political influence. Thus, the Big Sort should be seen as only a very rough intimation of what true panarchy or anarcho-pluralism would be like.

Nonetheless, it is the road down which we are now moving. Whether it continues will depend on political, economic and environmental .factors, including whether energy shortages induce constraints on mobility (as Kevin Carson has argued.) If technology succeeds in keeping up with such changes, and if new political visions of anarchism, secessionism, and microanarchism take hold, the 21st century could witness the transition into a decentralized America.

The consequences of freedom of association need to be understoood as a set of trade-offs: large-scale diversity and local segregation, individual choice and group homogeneity, political autonomy and economic specialization . Unlike collectivist visions of utopia, it offers no guarantees; people sometimes become snared in their own choices.

Read the whole thing.

You may also want to check out: Does Decentralism Lead To Social Regression?, which begins:

There’s an assumption…that decentralized, organic communities will necessarily be socially conservative, much more so than communities in the same geographical areas under statism, and they will remain so permanently with no incentive to change. I do not see any reason to assume this. The fallacy arises from the fact that the only such small-scale, autonomous societies that we currently know of, with few exceptions, are from earlier stages of history: tribal, ancient and medieval. Therefore these simple societies serve as the image and model in terms of which we imagine decentralism. There is, however, no reason to assume that a shift to political and economic localism will necessarily require a regression toward more restrictive traditional mores, any more than it need require the abandonment of modern science and technology.

HT: TGGP

Last year I wrote about bad customer service , shocked to find how companies and businesses can so easily dismiss customer relationships due to apathy, or more often, to lack of autonomy on the part of the customer servants. Besides individual work ethic, much of the problem stems from centralization; a company’s unwillingness to put control in the hands of the purveyors of customer service.

I was recently reminded of this topic when reading one of Gary Hamel’s latest posts “Unshackling Employees”. In this post Hamel compares corporations to democracy and free markets, positing the difference between to two as degrees of autonomy. Democracy and free markets let people do things pretty much as they see fit, working only within agreed upon guidelines. Whereas, corporations try to manage everything and create rule structures that limit action.

As an example of a changing corporate system he offers up the 150-year old Bank of New Zealand. An old stodgy behemoth like this is certainly a perfect candidate for being centralized and standardized to the gills, controlling every move every employee makes.

Well, for the most part, that appeared to be true for BNZ, but its potential held so much more. Hamel talks about how a couple free thinkers in the organization tried to change things. More importantly, he points out that it wasn’t the free thinkers, but the bank management itself that allowed the change to happen, simply by loosing the reigns and furnishing freedom where it was desired and where it made the most sense.