The New Nation - Internet Edition

Cases pending before courts

ACCORDING to a recent newspaper report that quoted the statistics of the Supreme Court and the Law Ministry, at least 16,56,790 cases are pending before courts - from the Appellate Division to the Magistrates' courts - across the country. The huge backlog of cases continues increasing although the rate of disposal has increased with the implementation of the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court separating the judiciary from the executive on November 1, 2007. The backlog increases as the rate of filing of new cases continues to increase and the judiciary suffers from lack of manpower and logistics.

As per the 2007 annual report on the judiciary, the number of pending cases was: 8997 with the Supreme Court Appellate Division; 2,62,349 with the High Court Division and 6,02,173 criminal cases with the judicial magistracy. The report, however, did not mention any statistics on civil cases pending with or dealt with by the district courts in 2007. After the separation of the judiciary from the executive, the rate of disposal of criminal cases in the courts of magistrates increased by 51 per cent by the end 0f 2007. A total of 137 cases on an average were disposed of by each of the 242 judicial magistrates in November.

The magistrates as admitted by the Law Ministry are now disposing of about 55,000 cases on an average every month as against some 56,000 new criminal cases being lodged, whereas the monthly disposal of cases by the magistrates in 2007, before the separation of courts, was only about 1,200. Officials belonging to both the Law Ministry and the Supreme Court put the blame on lack of required manpower and logistics for the huge backlog of cases.

Combating the drug menace

USE of different varieties of drugs has increased in Bangladesh over the years. Youngsters belonging to various economic strata in society have become addicted to drugs in increasing number. In many cases, they behave unsocially, violating moral code. Drug addiction leads them astray, away from their studies and other works. Drugs take a toll on their health and many die prematurely. It is not only the young who have taken to drugs. Adults, particularly among the poor, have also become victims of drug addiction. Hard-earned money is wasted by the poor in buying drugs, at cost of their family.

The efforts of the law-enforcing agencies to identify and nab the drug addicts and the suppliers have turned out to be inadequate. The application of law has been inadequate to control the menace. The spread of drugs can be contained if social awareness is augmented. For this, parents of youngsters and teachers have to interact with the members of law-enforcing agencies. Local leaders and social workers have to work to motivate the poor drug addicts.

The Inspector General of Police, is reported to have said that laws relating to drugs are being applied vigorously within the limitation of manpower. Some of the terrorists in the country have reportedly used drugs for collecting money from targeted people and banks and hotels. They may try to use drugs for obtaining support in the polls next month. Measures for controlling the menace of drug addiction in the country have to be strengthened. Even the use of different farm-products for production of medicine and narcotics has to be brought under control. The law-enforcing agencies need to be given necessary support to combat the drug menace.

Why disagreement is good for democracy

Ripan Kumar Biswas

How it's possible to touch one of the great feelings of Mahatma Gandhi, "Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress!" It's only when disagreement becomes a deeper agreement, when people aren't willing to stop talking and start listening, or when the art of compromise is being followed by everyone to get things done.

Reading an excerpt or two, fills one with an uplifting feeling as his book "The Audacity of Hope" contains nothing but numerous uplifting anecdotes of building consensus based on understanding one's opponents' point of view, of bipartisanship based on mutual respect. He doesn't simply say that though he tends to lean toward the proponents' views, but he has great respect for the opponents, and he wants to work together on consensus solutions.

After the meeting on Monday, November 17, 2008, President-elect of US Barack Obama and his presidential rival Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) buried their bitter campaign in public smiles and pledged to work together saying in a joint statement that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together to solve the common and urgent challenges of the time.

Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent Senator who still registered as Democrat, showed strong support to John McCain during the presidential campaign and criticized Obama at the Republican National Convention, but the Democrats in the Senate decided not to take any revenge on him as Obama himself appealed Democrats to forgive him and to make sure he remains in the Democratic caucus in the Senate. Moreover, Democrats decided to let Lieberman remain chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

Though earlier in presidential bid, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) criticized Obama as a neophyte who could not be trusted to handle crises and who had not done much more in politics than make fancy speeches, but Obama is now strongly considering her as secretary of state in his new team. On the other side, both Obama and his defense advisors believe that the present Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who is serving as defense secretary under President George W. Bush since 2006, should remain in his position as according to them, this is the man who believes in service towards the country and when Iraq appears to be stabilizing and demanding more independence from America.

Obama, the 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, knew that he shattered more than 200 years of American political history, but he was regular as before and didn't forget to drops off his children at school before going to the gym as usual. More than 24 million viewers around the world who saw him along with his wife Michelle Obama in an interview with CBS "60 Minutes," were obliged to believe once again that he is not only the President of White House but also the President of those who hates him. By seeing his smiling face, people are now considering him celebrity of celebrities.

People around the world including, every single Bangladeshi, who saw them to exchange greetings with each other, were delighted. Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina and BNP Chairperson Khaleda, smiled, shook hands, and enquired about each other's welfare at a reception on the occasion of the Armed Forces Day at Senakunja at Dhaka cantonment on November 20, 2008.

It was a lovely episode and encouraging too as many among the people of different sections believe that if the two leaders sit together and try sincerely to reach an understanding; they can resolve any crisis and lead the nation to democracy.

The two leaders last sat face to face on October 23, 1987 and have not been on talking terms ever since.

As a nation, people place no greater responsibility on any one individual than they do on the country's president or prime minister. Could any job be more demanding and complex? General people ask the president or prime minister to be executive, diplomat, military leader, and consoler.

On any given day, he/she might have to make life-and-death decisions and propose policies that will change the course of the country. The President or the Prime Minister act as the head of his political party, the chief representative of the government, and the country's popular leader.

He/She is the Nation's chief executive and legislator. He/She gets his/her job by being elected. He/She makes and passes laws that affect everyone.

He/she is a strategist who pursues the most efficient and logical path toward the realization of the goal that he/she perceive or visualizes. He/she will often only associate with those people who can assist him/her in the implementation of him/her plan.

Inept assistants may be immediately discarded as excess baggage. To do otherwise could be seen as inefficient and illogical. On the positive side, he/she can be rationally idealistic and analytically ideological. He/she can be a bold decision maker and risk taker who can move society ahead by years instead of minutes. On the negative side, he/she may be unmerciful, impatient, impetuous and impulsive. Interestingly, his/her preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms.

Bangladesh is now in critical political juncture. Though parliamentary elections were hotly contested and placed, the parliament never functioned as an effective accountability mechanism.

Top leaders hardly had time to give any attention to reform anything for public interest. Most people feel they are duped into believing they have a say in how their country runs by the sham that is voting, especially the compulsory preferential type.

Leaders with good image have the ability to compromise. Because leaders deal with people with different opinions, the ability to develop cordial and compromising proposals is a huge advantage. In other words, leaders serve the people using the best ideas and plans from all sources, regardless of political views.

The military-backed caretaker government in Bangladesh committed to hold an all-in parliamentary election in December. People of the country want so much to see top leaders sit down and have a substantive discussion.

In the last eighteen years, the people have been witness only to the politics of violence and confrontation. It is the aspiration of the citizens that a qualitative change in the political system will require the two top leaders to come together and work towards ending the tradition of acrimonious politics.

For example, a working relationship between Khaleda and Hasina, when Bangladesh came out of its long tryst with military dictatorship in 1991 could have achieved wonders for the nation.

Honest disagreement, as Gandhi says, is a great sign of progress being made between individuals or within a group. The point he tried to make was that people, even when they're on the "same team," are not always going to agree, but they should always strive to disagree in a way that is productive and not personal.

We may disagree on how to achieve the goals, but we believe disagreement is good for the democracy. Of course, people want their leaders to be candid, but they also want them to respect their opinions and other candidates' opinions because national interest is not an ideology, and not the possession of a single cabal of self-appointed imperialists. It is not achieved by substituting consensus for principle. It is not bipartisanship for its own sake, or in pursuit of bad policy.

Global recession may boost local production

Dr Terry Lacey

Mustika Ratu the leading Indonesian cosmetics company is smiling because as consumers fall away from expensive brands like L'Oreal they head down-market, as reported recently in the Jakarta Post (13.11.08). So in the first nine months of 2008 Mustika generated $19.43 million of revenue, up 23 percent on 2007.

This middle and down market cosmetics company expects to hit 20% of its revenue on exports this year, to hold its Western markets despite recession because budget conscious consumers will stay with them and to build new export markets in the next few years in Asia, Europe (probably in Eastern Europe) and in the Middle East.

From the latest seminar in Jakarta on Investment Prospects in the Upcoming Election Year run by the Bisnis Indonesia newspaper group in Jakarta on November 13 the economic prospects for Indonesia for 2009 look mixed, but by no means all negative.

Economic growth can still reach 5 or 6 percent in 2009 and the country may not need to use the World Bank standby loan of $2 billion, triggered if growth falls below 5.8 percent.

The latest economic projections from the UK Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) arguing a growth rate for Indonesia of only 3.7% are much lower than those of local economists.

The projection seems to underestimate local strengths and perhaps reflects a mechanistic Eurocentric model.

The EIU projects global recession (based on global growth but under 2.5%) whereas local economists say Southern countries face a downturn induced by a Western recession, not a global recession.

There is no agreed definition of a global recession. It is not based on the agreed definition for a national recession, which is two consecutive quarters with negative growth.

The definition of global recession now put forward by the EIU (below 2.5% growth) and the IMF (below 3%) seems to be a way of taking the continuing relative success of Southern economies to facilitate a contradictory twin track argument. You are in the same position as us so give the liquidity you have and we don't. We may all be in the same boat but we are not in the same position. Those demanding access to Southern liquidity now were the ones who maintained a near political monopoly over the Bretton Woods system.

Some economists from G7 countries, faced with the end of its role as an exclusive global economic in-group seems to be attempting to globalize the concept of recession for their own political advantage rather than taking a more positive approach to mobilize the G20 to help get the world economy going again, as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested.

They seem determined to have one more try to subordinate the southern economies to the failed formulas of the old system. Southern political and economic leaders are deeply suspicious of the financial logic now being pursed by the IMF and fear it represents the replication of the mistakes it made during the 1998 Asian crash.

Southern countries, economists and politicians are increasingly fed up with mechanistic Eurocentric economic modeling that's seems designed to drag Southern economies down the same hole into which those of the West have already fallen.

And local stockbrokers trying to talk down confidence in the Indonesian banks with panic SMS messages in order to make money are likely to get themselves arrested (one was yesterday), while crooked bankers in Indonesia are also ending up in jail.

Indonesia got the IMF treatment once (in 1998) and if it needs a loan this time to finance economic counter-measures against the downturn then it will take a standby loan from the World Bank and on different terms from those of the IMF. God help Iceland, Hungary and Pakistan if the IMF does to them what it did to Indonesia last time.

Indonesia is now among the top 20 economies in the world (and on the UN Security Council) and its position within the G20 is assured by continuing growth rates. It is overtaking Belgium and Sweden and will overtake Turkey to become the largest Muslim-led economy in the world.

It is likely to keep growing and then join the top ten economies in the world sometime between 2020 and 2025. Indonesia is on the move, despite still having too much poverty and under-development. As long as it stays stable, with a strong democracy and gradually improving economic and financial management, then it will stay on track.

Indonesia still lacks confidence and has not fully recovered from the 1998 banking crash, when it took a greater hit because the IMF medicine initially made the illness worse.

However its economic results now speak for themselves and the country has much improved economic and financial leadership under the Government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and its formidable Minister of Finance and Acting Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

If Western leaders could see local Indonesian data on banks and business applied to their own countries, with 2008 growth at 6.3 per cent, low non performing loans in the banking system (around 3%), $50 billions cash of foreign reserves, $10 billion invested abroad and $60 billions of inward investment, then they would be over the moon.

Current newspaper headlines in Indonesia point to plenty of good news in this giant archipelagic country, five hours across on a jumbo jet.

Seen from Jakarta, Indonesia, the ups and downs of Wall Street and Main Street in the United States are a long way away and London, Paris and Berlin are not much nearer. But the cold winds of the Western recession are affecting Indonesian export markets and having some negative impacts on the financial system and the real economy.

However there is absolutely no chance of a national recession here. Although many Southern countries will suffer a downturn most are unlikely to go into national recession, if the economic news in Indonesia is anything to go by. Local news headlines are about declining growth in some sectors and additional risks to be managed. But some companies are doing better because of the worldwide downturn and there is an opportunity to focus on strengthening the economic grass roots here while the West takes two years to recover.

Paradoxically the more integrated, globalized and Westernized an economy is, the more likely it will be to join the Western countries in a full recession, so Singapore may have a recession while Indonesia will not.

Bank of Indonesia Deputy Governor Muliaman D Hadad warns that the rate of non performing loans could go up, because of fluctuations in commodity prices, especially oil palm. Also that the growth in bank lending may decline from 33% in 2008 to 22% in 2009, but that the latter target is perfectly realistic.

Meanwhile Ramzi A Zuhdi, Bank Indonesia director of shariah banking, points out that the shariah banking sector is expected to grow by 20 per cent in terms of assets and 30 percent in terms of loans in 2009. Indonesian shariah banking will have grown in this current year by 35% in terms of deposits and 26% in terms of assets and lending. In Indonesia shariah banking is under-developed and has a long way to go, but its expansion appears to be almost 100% insulated from the Western recession.

Local front page financial news has been dominated by the stock market crash in the first week of August and the ensuing saga, like a trip-roaring novel on high finance and intrigue, of the renowned Indonesian conglomerate, the Bakrie Group. But Bakrieland is not Indonesia.

Its just a part of the picture but not central to the new fundamentals. Indonesia has a self-generating economy sustained 65% by consumption, and a huge and growing number of SMEs, backed by a large +$100 billion state budget, and a strengthening tax base.

The stock market crash of the Bakrie Group and its Herculean efforts to sell off a 35% stake of the shares in the Bumi Resources coal company, said to be worth $1.3 billion, but subject to plummeting share prices in the last month, attracted rival offers from Northstar Equity Partners, a US buyer lined up with local Indonesian State Owned Enterprises, versus an offer from San Miguel Corp, the largest food and beverage conglomerate in the Philippines, which also has heavy clout in ASEAN and global reach.

This story tended to dominate the Indonesian headlines and the trades on the Stock Exchange. But this will not determine the future of the Indonesian economy.

What it tells us about fundamentals is of more importance. Indonesia has substantial resources including huge coal reserves. It has an under-developed energy sector requiring an additional 40,000 Mwe of power by 2025, with large potential for hydro power, geothermal and renewable energy and biofuels. Indonesia needs $100 billion of private investment over ten years, half of it for energy.

If Indonesia is to continue to grow at between 5 and 6 per cent, or to push the growth rate up to 7% after 2010, then what is needed is less focus on the adventures of a few politically connected oligarchic families who previously dominated the economy, along with the State Owned Enterprises, and more focus on strengthening SMEs in the decentralized provinces, right down to community level, to mobilize the coalition that can put Indonesia into the top ten economies in the world.

Many Southern countries are now sympathetic to what UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, says is needed. To invest and finance our way out of trouble, and to mobilize the wealth and liquidity of Brazil, Russia, India, China, (the BRICs) and of Asia, the Middle East and the G20 to get the world moving again. Working together on this basis to save the world economy and help each other is a great idea and Southern public opinion will support this, but subject to one political condition.

This means the restructuring of the world's financial architecture and economic management, taking account of the new global balance of power. That's the deal.