INDIA EASES DEFENSE PURCHASING
India is taking overdue steps towards easing its notoriously cumbersome defense acquisition process. To this point, any defense contract valued at more than $21.7 million required approval from India’s Finance Ministry. However, new regulations announced by the Finance Ministry state that, beginning in July, the Defense Ministry can now award contracts up to $108.6 million without getting the former’s approval. In addition, the bar for review by India’s Cabinet Committee on Security, the top national security policymaking body, was raised to $217.3 million. The move is expected to facilitate contracts for spare parts and maintenance and clear as many as a dozen lingering defense contracts.
Also under consideration by the Defence Ministry is a raise in the limit on foreign direct investment in Indian defense companies. Currently, foreign companies can take no more than a 26 percent stake in Indian defense companies; proposed changes would raise that limit to 74 percent, a regulatory change that could have a profound impact on India’s defense landscape. (Defense News June 25, 2010)
MAOISTS GET THEIR WISH, NEPAL PM RESIGNS
A months-long political standoff between Nepal’s Prime Minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, and the Maoist opposition, has ended in the resignation of the former. The Maoists, who waged a bloody war against the Nepali monarchy until 2006, swept to power in Nepal’s parliament in 2008, when the country formally became a Republic. However, political gridlock forced the Maoist-led coalition apart and Nepal took over the prime minister’s post in May, 2009. After regularly sparring with Nepal, the Maoists besieged the government for the past five months with regular strikes, blockades, and public demonstrations, as well as threats of violence. The prospect of a return to civil war was alarmingly high in May, when it became clear that a deadline to draft a new constitution would not be met. Nepal’s resignation is seen as the price the Maoist’s demanded for agreeing to a one-year extension on the constitution –drafting deadline. (Times of India June 30, 2010)
AFGHANISTAN DRAWS CLOSER TO PAKISTAN
For the first time since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Afghan government will send military officers to be trained in neighboring Pakistan. The announcement is controversial, given the two neighbors’ historical and contemporary tensions. Besides sharing a disputed border, many in Afghanistan fear and distrust Pakistan, which they are convinced continues to support the Taliban insurgency, while Pakistan is concerned Kabul has grown too close to Pakistan’s arch-rival, India.
The program will involve only between a handful and a few dozen officers but it is highly symbolic: until now Afghan officers have been sent to Turkey and India for training and have been trained by Western countries in Afghanistan, but never in or by Pakistan. Yet in recent weeks, the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has shown signs of warming to Islamabad as Pakistan makes a concerted push to negotiate talks between Kabul and the Taliban. Karzai recently had his first meeting with Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, while the resignation of Afghanistan’s interior minister and the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, two powerful ministers who were openly critical of Pakistan and generally lauded by U.S. officials, led to suspicion that Karzai is dismissing officials at Islamabad’s bidding. (Washington Post July 1, 2010)
AL QAEDA DOWN TO 500 OR LESS
Recent estimates by the intelligence community suggest there are likely fewer than 500 members of al Qaeda operating in the Af-Pak region. In the past few weeks, Michael Lieter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, estimated that there were “more than 300” al Qaeda leaders and fighters in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, while CIA director Leon Panetta, assessed that there were between 50 and 100 al Qaeda members operating in Pakistan. Lieter, speaking at the Aspen Institute, noted the U.S. had recently enjoyed “incredible successes” targeting al Qaeda’s leadership, but both officials warned that al Qaeda’s modest numbers did not represent a fully diminished threat, given the groups ever-deepening linkages to like-minded extremist outfits. (New York Times June 30, 2010)
CONTROVERSIAL NEW MEDIA LAW IN PAKISTAN
A proposed law to be introduced in Pakistan’s National Assembly would ban live coverage of militant attacks and the broadcast of “anything defamatory against the organs of the state.” Media rights groups are up in arms about the bill, which could punish offenders with up to three years in jail or over $100,000 in fines for the broadcast of suicide bombings, the bodies of victims of terrorist attacks, statements from Islamist militants and any acts “which promote, aid or abet terrorism.” Pakistani officials contend that the law will be used to prohibit the airing of extremist propaganda, which is not uncommon in Pakistan. “Nowhere in the civilized world are murderers, terrorists and extremists given air time on electronic media to expound their views,” says Farah Ispahani, an MP on the Committee on Information and Broadcasting. In fact, the bill would amend – and some say, water down -- a law passed under President Pervez Musharraf during emergency rule that banned statements ridiculing the county’s leaders. (Reuters June 30, 2010)
[Editor’s Note: One of the few areas where Pakistan has made tangible progress over the past decade is in media freedom. Indeed, in a country where liberal practices and institutions are depressingly scarce, Pakistan enjoys a remarkably free press – an advance largely gained during the tenure of President Pervez Musharraf (although Pakistan suffered a reversal after Emergency Rule was imposed in November 2007). It remains to be seen whether the new law, if passed, will be used as a valuable tool to drown out extremist voices or a political weapon to wield against legitimate dissent. The probable answer: both.]
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