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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
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Conflict Situation and Development Impact
-P.R. Ligal, Former Vice Chairman, NPC, Nepal
After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the high expectation among the political parties in ruling the country lead to a persistent political instability, infighting and power struggles, corruption. This has contributed in weakening government and destabilizing it.. The reform process that was started mainly keeping in view of the urban economy failed to deliver expectation in the rural areas. The economic benefits thus, fell well short of meeting the aspirations of the general public, causing widespread disillusionment. The frequent changes in the government contributed to a loss of confidence in government and the political system—further contributed to widespread discontent.
In 1996, the extreme left in, then a believer of the Parliamentary system, questioned the effectiveness of the democratic order established in 1990, opted out of the political mainstream, and declared a “people’s war” against the Nepalese state to achieve their 40-point agenda. The poverty concentrating, poorly developed infrastructure and low socio- economic areas of Mid and far-western region have provided them a good shelter for breeding and consolidating a movement later known as the "Maoist Movement " in Nepal. CPN/M have been clever enough to capitalized the sentiment of the people caused by the wide spread regional disparity in infrastructural development and socio-economic situation in the Mid and Far-western region. The insurgency, thus, started in the hill districts of Rukum and Rolpa in the Midwestern Development Region around has turned in to an armed conflict and has intensified over the past few years with varying degrees of intensity.
As noted earlier, there are many underlying causes for the conflict, some of which are political and ideological in nature. Poverty and its manifestation (in terms of regional, gender, ethnic and caste related inequalities), as well as poor governance, corruption and the failure to adequately deliver essential social services and infrastructure to rural communities and marginalized groups are other causes that contributed to intensifying the conflict in the country.
The conflict situation in Nepal which, started in 1996 has grown to a full scale arms movement by the end of the decade and expanded to other part of the country not limiting to the earlier breeding ground of Mid and Far –western region. In this process the mid hill belt of the country from east to far west and some development deprived districts of terai fell into the grip of the movement. The beginning of the 21 st century saw it intensifying all over the country, both rural as well as the urban areas.
With the expansion of the arms conflict, the security situation in most of the districts has worsened and as a result, as expected the governance system weakened – government offices are blown out and destructed, infrastructures are damaged and work in the infrastructure sector hampered , economic activities in the conflict affected areas came to stand still, assets of the common people confiscated and looted, young people are abducted and forced to join the arms movement, women and children are exploited and large scale displacement of people occurred. . It has also taken a deadly toll in the country; many thousands of people have either lost their lives or been wounded.
The growing insecurity and the absence of government officials have made it difficult to carry out development activities in the affected areas. Development programs have been adversely affected and as a result, income and employment generating activities as well as the delivery of basic services (health, education etc) have been disturbed severely. The destruction of VDC buildings, bridges, schools, health posts, communication facilities etc. and intimidation and subsequent absence of local officials have considerably weakened the productive capacity and infrastructure base for maintaining essential service delivery to the people, especially in rural areas
An in-depth analysis of the performance of the economy during the period shows a mixed but clear pattern of performances. While, the high economic performances during the first few years after the restoration of democracy can be attributed to a stable government and the new and far reaching economic policy, the mid years economic performances shows the political and the resultant instability in the government and less commitment towards continuing the policy reform agenda that was initiated earlier. The economic performance in the late 90's as well as the early 20's however, clearly exhibits the impact of instable political and the intensification of the arms movement in the country. The economy thus worsened at a rapid pace after due to the intensification of the arms movement in the country. Tables 1 and 2 below clearly exhibit the pattern of economic performances in the last 15 years or so.
The economic performances during 2000-06 show the underperformances of the economy due to intensifying arms insurgency. The grossly less than potential performances in agriculture sector, particularly the low performances of industry due to security threat and bandhs, disruption of movement of goods and services, low plying of transport system, break down in communication networks, destruction of infrastructures and mass displacement of the people hampered productive activities, new private investments and low public investments, low revenue performances and difficulty in grass root level income transfer activities. All these factors combined together has affected economy to perform below its normal potential growth.
Conflict Initiated New Policies and Programs
Besides its effect on the economic performances, the intensifying conflict also forced government to initiate new policies and programs in the mid of the plan period. These initiations were made to smoothly carrying out the development activities and for better service delivery particularly in the conflict areas. These initiatives are discussed briefly in the present section.
a. Integrated Security and development Program
As the insurgency affected infrastructure construction and service delivery I the conflict area, the government decided to initiate a new program taking development and security together- continuing development activities protected by the security units. This program was called Integrated Security and Development Program and was launched in five conflict affected districts of Gorkha, Rukum, Rolpa, salyan and Pyuthan. The program was later extended to 11 other districts including some in the central and eastern hilly districts. Army and other security agencies were involved in a unified strategy under the overall responsibility of the Army, to implement and protect the identified programs. Respective departments and ministries were instructed to ensure all the vacant position in the district fulfilled and the personnel were involved to carry out the program under the protection of the security forces. Strategic infrastructure programs such as roads, irrigation structures, drinking water schemes, educational and health related activities, income and employment generating activities were identified as the program to implement in these conflicts affected districts. Priority was given in allocating budget and quick disbursement of budget release was ensured. A central Program approval and monitoring committee along with the district level monitoring and supervision committees were formed to ensure program success. Nom inal budget were also sanctioned to carry out programs relating to maintenance of school building and health office, irrigation and drinking water maintenance etc., as a program to win the heart of the local people by improving service delivery.
b. Because of the difficulties in carrying out infrastructure projects in the conflict affected region and districts, decisions were made to involve army in the development programs. As such a number of strategic high ways and inter-district roads were handed over to the army. Roads , such as, Surkhet – Jumla, manma – kalikot, Chhinchu – Jajarkot, Sitalpati – Musikot. Salyan, salyan – Dhorpatan – Baglung, Devasthal – karendanda – Chourjhari, Myagdi - Jomsom, Besisahar – Chame etc. are handed over to the Army for the overall construction over these years. A full fledged division, looking after the construction of these roads was created with in the army structure. The initiation to involve army in infrastructure construction was new in Nepal but the rising conflict situation and the difficulties in constructing these roads have forced the government to take these initiatives.
Devolution of Development Authority to Local Bodies
The frequent absence of government officials in the conflict districts had bad affected the implementation of the program. To overcome it and also to better prioritize programs a local level committee under the chairmanship of the DDC was formed and authorizes to allocate budget in the identified programs and implement it. A monitoring committee was also formed under the coordinatorship of the respective district parliamentarians to supervise development activities in the districts. The initiation has opened the door for full scale devolution of government tasks to local bodies in the subsequent years.
A host of other programs relating to poverty, income transfer, safeguarding industrial districts etc. have been initiated in the subsequent years to minimize the threat of insurgency and in safeguarding further deterioration in the life of the people. Besides, these new initiatives in terms of projects countering the impact of conflict, policy initiations were also made to strengthen the fiscal and budgetary management of the country. Introduction of Mid term Budget Review and Medium Term Expenditure Framework were initiated to better prioritize projects and programs and to ensure timely completion by guaranteeing resources on high priority projects. Measures were also taken to improve government revenue situation. Poverty Alleviation Fund was instituted to coordinate and channelize funds in activities related to poverty reduction and there by protect people to slip under poverty trap due to insurgency. National Development Volunteer System was introduced to provide technical support to VDCs and DDCs in carrying out host of development activities and social sector programs including education, health and population, mass awareness programs. The Volunteer services have fulfilled the gap of technical personnel mostly in the conflict affected districts.
Devolution of primary education, primary health care system, agriculture and live stock extension services, small irrigation and drinking water schemes, rural roads etc., to local body and community are implemented to improve the service delivery system affected directly by the conflict situation.
Excerpts from author's paper presented at a NEFAS seminar held recently in Kathmandu-ed.
Computer Virus
- Ekendra Lasmal
Computer Virus, a self-duplicating computer program, interferes with a computer’s hardware or operating system. Viruses are designed to duplicate or replicate them and to avoid detection. Like any other computer program, a virus must be executed for it to function: That means, it must be located in the computer’s memory, and the computer must then follow the virus’s instructions. These instructions are called payload of the virus. The payload may disrupt or change data files, display an irrelevant or unwanted message, or very often cause the operating system to malfunction.
The Way of Virus Infection
Computer viruses activate when the instructions or executable code runs programs are opened. Once a virus is active, it may replicate by various means and tries to infect the computer’s files and the operating system. For example, it may copy parts of itself to floppy disks, to the computer’s hard drive, into legitimate computer programs. It may attach itself to e-mail messages and spread across computer networks by infecting other shared drives. Infection is much more frequent in PCs than in professional mainframe systems because programs on PCs are exchanged primarily by means of floppy disks, e-mail, or over unregulated computer networks.
Viruses replicate and deliver their payloads only when they run. Therefore, if a computer is simply attached to an infected computer network or downloading an infected program, it will not necessarily become infected. Typically a computer user is not likely to knowingly run potentially harmful computer code. However, viruses often trick the computer’s operating system.
Some viruses have an ability-to attach to legitimate programs. This attachment may occur when the legitimate program is created , opened, or modified. Viruses can also reside on portions of the hard disk or floppy disk that load and run the operating system when the computer is started. Such viruses thereby are run automatically. In computer networks, some viruses hide in the software that allows the user to log on (gain access to) the system. With the widespread use of e-mail and the Internet, viruses can spread quickly. Viruses attached to e-mail messages can infect an entire local network in minutes.
Generally speaking, there are five categories of viruses. These mention worthy are parasitic or file viruses, bootstrap sector, multi-partite, macro, and script viruses. Parasitic or file viruses infect executable files or programs in the computer. These files are often identified by the extension.exe in the name of the computer file. File viruses leave the contents of the host program unchanged but attach to the host in such a way that the virus code is run first. These viruses can be either direct-action or resident. A direct-action virus selects one or more programs to infect each time. A resident virus hides in the computer’s memory and infects a particular program when that program is executed.
Bootstrap-sector viruses reside on the first portion of the hard disk or floppy disk, known as the boot sector. These viruses replace either the programs that store information about the disk’s contents or the programs that start the computer. Typically, these viruses spread by means of the physical exchange of floppy disks.
Multi-partite viruses have combine abilities of the parasitic and the bootstrap- sector viruses. They are able to infect either files or boot sectors. These types of viruses can spread if a computer user boots from an infected diskette or accesses infected files.
Other viruses infect programs that contain powerful macro languages, programming languages that let the user create new features and utilities. These viruses, called macro viruses, are written in macro languages and automatically execute when the legitimate program -is opened.
Script viruses are written in script programming languages, such as _VBScript (Visual Basic Script) and JavaScript. These script languages can be seen as a special kind of macro language and are even more powerful because most are closely related to the operating system environment. The “I LOVE YOU” virus, which appeared in 2000 and infected an estimated 1 in 5 personal computers, is a famous example of a script virus.
In 1949 Hungarian American mathematician John von Neumann, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton , New Jersey , proposed that it was theoretically possible for a computer program to replicate. This theory was tested in the 1950s at Bell Laboratories when a game called Core Wars was developed, in which players created tiny computer programs that attacked, erased, and tried to propagate on an opponent’s system. Later, in 1983 American electrical engineer Fred Cohen, a graduate student, coined the term virus to describe a self- replicating computer program.
The so-called Brain virus appeared in 1986 and spread worldwide by 1987. In 1988 two new viruses appeared. Stone, the first bootstrap-sector virus, and Internet Worm, which covered the United States overnight via computer network. A computer worm is a subset of a virus. However, instead of infecting files or operating systems, worms replicate from computer to computer by spreading entire copies of it. The Dark Avenger virus, the first fast infector, appeared in 1989, and polymorphic virus in 1 990.E
Computer viruses grew more sophisticated in the 1990s. In 1995 the first macro language virus, WinWord Concept, was created. In 1999 the Melissa macro virus, spread by e-mail, disabled e-mail servers around the world for several hours, and in some cases several days.
Love Bug and ILOVEYOU virus are the world’s most prevalent and costly viruses on arriving 2000. By the time, the outbreak was eventually brought under control but the heavy loss. The loss was estimated at US$10 billion, and the Love Bug is said to have infected 1 in every 5 PCs worldwide.
There are other harmful computer programs that can be part of a virus but are not considered viruses because they do not have the ability to replicate. These programs fall into three categories: Trojan horses, logic bombs, and deliberately harmful or malicious software programs that run within Web browsers, an application program such as Internet Explorer and Netscape that displays Web sites.
Detection and Prevention Strategy
Several types of antiviral software can be used to detect the presence of a virus. Scanning software can recognize the characteristics of a virus’s computer code and look for these characteristics in the computer’s files.
Most antiviral software uses both on-demand and on- access scanners. On-demand scanners are launched only when the user activates them. On-access scanners, on the other hand, constantly monitor the computer for viruses but are always in the background and are not visible to the user. The on-access scanners are seen as the proactive part of an antivirus package and the on-demand scanners are seen as reactive. On-demand scanners usually detect a virus only after the infection has occurred and that is why they are considered reactive.
Antivirus software is usually sold as packages containing many different software programs that are independent of one another and perform different functions. When installed or packaged together, antiviral packages provide complete protection against viruses. Many more antivirus packages also use heuristics, problem-solving by trial and error, to detect new viruses. This technology observes a program’s behavior and evaluates how closely it resembles a virus. It relies on experience with previous viruses to predict the likelihood that a suspicious file is an as-yet unidentified or unclassified new virus.
The authors of viruses have several strategies to circumvent antivirus software and to propagate their creations more effectively. So-called polymorphic viruses make variations in the copies of themselves to elude detection by scanning software. A stealth virus hides from the operating system when the system checks the location where the virus resides, by forging results that would be expected from an uninfected system. By using the combinations of several virus-writing methods, virus authors can create more complex new viruses. Many virus authors also tend to use new technologies when they appear.
In order for a computer system to recover from a viral infection, the virus must first be eliminated. A few anti-virus software attempts to remove detected viruses but very often they results unsatisfactory. Turning off the infected computer and restarting it with the aid of a write-protected floppy disk obtain more reliable results deleting infected files and replacing them with legitimate files from backup disks; and erasing any viruses on the boot sector.
Text courtesy: Science and Future Vol.1 N8-ed.
Let us rededicate ourselves to advance the SAARC goals and objectives
- Girija Prasad Koirala, Prime Minister of Nepal
It is a great pleasure to extend warm greeting and best wishes to the people of the South Asian Region on the occasion of the 21 st Anniversary of the founding of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). I firmly believe that it is a time to introspect into the noble objectives of SAARC and to reassert ourselves to the lofty ideals of the regional body as envisaged in the Charter.
From the time of its inception, SAARC has been continuously striving to meet the hopes and aspirations of the people of South Asia by mobilizing available resources in the region. It has chalked out pertinent plans, programmes and strategies to capitalize on the existing complementarities and inherent strengths. Burning issues of the region such as poverty eradication, promotion of wider and deeper economic cooperation, social development, preservation of the environment and combating terrorism are being addressed progressively. After traversing more than two decades of journey, SAARC is poised to deliver results that are coveted by one fifth of the humanity of the world, constituting the population of the region. It calls for bolder initiatives and concrete action, further unity of purpose and cooperative resolve to implement all relevant programmes, including those in the core economic areas.
South Asia has a huge potential, which is, unfortunately, marred by the debilitating effect of poverty. Improving the quality of life of the people and promoting collective welfare should therefore need focused attention as well as an urgent action.
The SAFTA Agreement that came into effect from the beginning of this year is certainly a milestone in the free trade arrangements, which will lead to deeper economic integration and more even spread of opportunities in the region. The implementation of SAFTA will direct the organization to the realization of ultimate goal of South Asian Economic Union in a planned manner.
As SAARC comes of age, it is heartening to note that more countries and regional organizations are taking interest in forging deeper cooperation and collaboration with us in achieving common goals. It is definitely a growth in the visibility of the SAARC process from within and without. We need to take pride in our common heritage and the common future that we are going to forge.
On this happy occasion, let us rededicate ourselves to advance the SAARC goals and objectives as enshrined in its Charter by exerting our willpower for collective action.
Message by the Prime Minister of the Government of Nepal made on the 21 st anniversary of the SAARC
Establishment-ed.
Our endeavors should continue until we forge a South Asian Economic Community
-K. P. Oli, Foreign Minister of Nepal
It is a great honor and pleasure to extend best wishes to all our brothers and sisters in South Asia on the occasion of the 22nd SAARC Charter Day. The birth of SAARC on December 8, 1985 marks an epoch-making event in the history of the South Asia Region. We in South Asia had a very rich past in terms of unique heritage and civilization. And through SAARC, we are trying to create an economically prosperous, peaceful and stable South Asia for the future. We must take pride that our region covers the most diverse terrains, from the level of the sea to the highest mountain range on earth, and is home to more than one fifth of the humanity of the world. We have so many shared values, beliefs and aspirations that bind us in unison.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is the largest regional cooperation group in the world. Our potentials are indeed enormous. We do harbor a lot of complementarities and prospects for development, which we are endeavoring to harness for the benefits of the people in South Asia . The Charter of SAARC puts our people at the center-stage of development in its goals and objectives. The noble objectives, aims and principles enshrined in the Charter function as a perennial source of inspiration for us to provoke thoughts and spur into action. It stipulates a worthwhile vision and mission, the realization of which can transform the developmental landscape of South Asia and the quality of life of our people.
Over the last two decades of its existence, the process of SAARC has evolved progressively, encompassing several, areas of cooperation, collaboration, joint initiatives and pledges. It has created very positive environment to make accelerated progress in fulfilling the Charter objectives of promoting the welfare of the peoples, enhancing economic growth, social progress, cultural development and strengthening collective self-reliance among the South Asian countries. Yet much remains to be done to get the results of our efforts. Poverty is still a debilitating problem in South Asia and needs to be addressed with urgent attention. Unless and until we accelerate cooperation in the core economic areas of trade and investment, we fall far short of realizing the Charter objectives. The institutions, processes and instruments such as independent South Asia Commission for Poverty Alleviation, SAARC Poverty Alleviation Fund, SAARC Development Fund, SAFTA, etc, we have created for cooperation, need to be made effective and their provisions implemented properly.
Though we are still short of tangible achievements, SAARC has kindled the South Asian spirit for a positive thrust. Countries and region which are economically much more advanced than South Asia have increasing interests in developing constructive linkages and cooperation with SAARC. This is clearly an indication of increased importance of SAARC as a socio-economic community on the global stage. This outward visibility and linkage of SAARC would be enhanced when we pursue serious result-oriented efforts and translate our commitments into actions. In an age of globalization and interdependence, SAARC has to prepare itself to face the challenges and opportunities being generated from within the region and outside. We need to direct our political will to speed up the engine of SAARC.
Through SAARC we have made promises to our people, who are real strengths. It is their right to live in dignity and realize their full potentials. With two decades of sincere efforts, we have carved courses for multi-sectoral development of the region. The Charter of SAARC is constantly reminding us of the lofty vision we have set for progressive transformation of our region. I strongly ‘feel that our endeavors in this direction should continue until we achieve the ultimate goals of forging a. South Asian Economic Community. We commemorate the Charter Day to reassert our faith and commitment to the cause of SAARC.
Message from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Government of Nepal on the 21 st anniversary of the establishment of SAARC-ed.
