India-Pakistan, Chhattisgarh, ‘God Particle’

The Foreign Secretary-level India-Pakistan talks have ended in the Capital without any perceptible progress on the terror front. At the joint press conference Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai succinctly underlined the Indian position by asserting that Pakistan “bringing to justice” the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack would be the “biggest confidence-building measure” for the two neighbouring states; but his Pakistani counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani, remained in the denial mode strongly refuting any suggestion that state actors from Islamabad’s side were involved in the assault.

Nevertheless, the talks found the Indian side proposing July 27 for External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s official visit to Pakistan. Earlier the visit was to take place on July 18 and 19 but it had to be rescheduled in view of the presidential elections here. The Indian eagerness for the visit shows that New Delhi is keen to continue the dialogue process and not allow the postponement of the trip to be viewed negatively in both countries. The urgency of the visit is significant because of the latest arrest of LeT operative Abu Jindal, and both sides want to convey that the dialogue process is not held hostage to Abu Jindal’s revelations during interrogation. Moreover both sides want to firm up the dates of PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to Islamabad, and this is likely to happen during Krishnaˆs trip. The PM is expected to go to Pakistan sometime between September and November this year.

The killing of 19 adivasi men, women and children in a so-called encounter with the Maoists by the CRPF in Sarkeguda, Chhattisgarh on June 28 has caused consternation not only among tribals in the area but the society at large. Human rights crusaders have described the CRPF onslaught as a “cold-blooded massacre”, a charge upheld by Congress leaders of the State including former CM Ajit Jogi. This has put both CM Raman Singh and Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the backfoot. On July 1 the CRPF ordered an internal inquiry into the incident while on July 4 Chidam-baram, who had already given a ‘clean-chit’ to the CRPF, said he was “deeply sorry” if any innocent villagers were among the victims.

The authorities should have known any such operation (like ‘Operation Green Hunt’ in Chhattis-garh) to flush out the Maoists was bound to lead to collateral damage thus reinforcing the Maoists’ political and ideological mass base thereby streng-thening them organisationally.

On the global plane scientists claimed on July 4 in Geneva of having spotted a sub-atomic particle “consistent” with the Higgs Boson or ‘God particle’—a crucial building block in the formation of the universe. This signifies a quantum leap in physics that would exert enormous influence over science across the continents, another evidence of humanity’s stupendous advance (wherein the Indian contri-bution is not in the least inconsequential).

July 5 S.C.