Question of security

The inspection of security  arrangements at the Tribhuvan International Airport by a team of “experts” from India does open up some questions for the government. It would have been understandable and even proper if such a team was an international organisation like the ICAO which monitors aircraft security and safety. But this one is a team from neighbouring India one of whose aircraft was hijacked on its way from Kathmandu to New Delhi. Deplorable as the hijacking was to the extreme possible extent, the act of terrorism itself was a fall out of conflicts within the South Asian region. The Indian Airlines which ferries the bulk of Indian tourists into and out of Nepal had suspended all flights to Kathmandu until such a time when it is satisfied with the security arrangements at TIA. The Indian team presently in the capital is obviously there to give a clean chit on the TIA security arrangements, presumably after issuing directives to our security personnel on how best to overcome the “shortcomings” which the team had come across. The Indian Airlines then will announce its resumption of flights to Kathmandu and the tourist industry will be happy. But then there are other airlines like Biman, PIA, Thai, Gulf and Qatar, among others operating at the TIA, and they too might think it worth their while  to examine the TIA security arrangements. What then?

What is at stake in matters like this are principles. The government would do well  to take note of the fact that Nepal is a member of the United Nations and other international organisations and agencies including the International Civil Aviation Organisation. The ICAO not only looks after aircraft navigation but also their safety and security. The organisation also has a say in airports administration including security there. We would have appreciated the government opening the working of its security system to any ICAO team but to do so to any team from any country is a sign of unnecessary weakness. A clean chit from any internationally recognised body like the ICAO should have sufficed, if indeed this was at all necessary. No one expects any airport anywhere in the world to be 100 percent safe from security point of view.

But what is wanting in our own case is the government’s faith and trust in its own people to properly implement all the security measures already in place. No one else needs to tell us what to do in sensitive areas. Our government never seems to take lessons and wilts under the slightest foreign pressure. That is our biggest security threat.

Marketing, competition & consumer behaviour

-By Aditya Baral

Market arena in Nepal has been witnessing several changes in character and complexity for the last few years. These changes include a higher reach of mass media, particularly due to an increased penetration of satellite channels, availability of a greater assortment of products and services, a higher level of consumer spending on items other than basic necessities, a more discerning choice behaviour exhibited by consumers and a clear indication of consumer preference for better value in products and services. A gradual development of the economy has indeed influenced these changes. However, the most important impetus for the transformation of markets is the visible increase in competition. Given these signals, the key question vexing  most companies is: how does one compete and grow in rapidly changing and competitive markets?

It is ironical that many formidable international brands, despite the equity they enjoy in other developed markets and the hype and fanfare associated with their launches in this country, have not been resounding successes in the Nepalese market. But at the same time, several other lesser known brands, some from even smaller players, have succeeded well in their chosen niches. Developing a deep understanding of consumers and fine tuning the offers based on the needs, preferences and purchasing habits of their chosen set of consumers is the only way one can perform the market. Think global and act local dictum assumes significance at this crucial juncture.

Amidst a time where product’s life cycle is tremendously shrinking due to the excessive pressure mounted by the competition.   Equally vulnerable has been the market scenario juxtaposed by the spurious products. Thus, the perceptual marketing threat is hovering around every producer’s mind. This has led to additional emphasis on the activity of marketing as a complex discipline assuming greater importance than the product itself. Basically, the cut short in product’s life is conspicuously apparent in other than electronic items.   Every item purchased today becomes outdated in an overnight. Hence, the product with its added features would not keep on satisfying the consumers for a long time, as was before.

Therefore, the concept of feedback study, to some extent will help act as a panacea in recognizing the consumers’ genuine needs, a concept still a far cry in our marketing practice. The study in fact awards the marketer as a last resort to bridge the bond of friendship between manufacturers and consumers, know-how about the future needs and an opportunity to perpetuate the relation established for turning the future potential to the marketer’s favour. It would even pave the way for discussing whose panoply of critical issues in threadbare. This would position the company to have a “ trickle down effect” in its marketing activities.

Today’s marketer clearly knows that even a best product does not sail smoothly itself without the help of marketing. Take the examples of cars, stereos, toothpaste and detergents. Almost all the products produced are equally competitive and are nothing less in terms of their pricing, promotion and packaging. Most companies’ success or failure story is somehow closely associated either with the marketing excellence or myopia.

The revolution brought by the media and computers have positioned consumers as the king, elevating them to the draconian height. The information diffusion has not only helped create additional unwanted demand but also made accessible to source in no time. In an information age, innovation fetches infinitely higher profits than physical assets like a mine or factory. This has pushed the suppliers in a vulnerable state. Locating an appropriate demand and bombarding with the matching material is as tough as waging a war. Suppliers, in fact, initially cockfight among themselves prior to reaching the potential consumers. The sensitivity attached to supply part has eliminated the immature players right at their production infancy.

However, some imitated cheap products have survived even at a fluid stage of production. They survived because they have positioned their products exactly recognising the needs of the real consumers. Knowing the price elasticity too high among the consumers of our nation, the Chinese products have developed a sizeable market in our country. The trend seems to perpetuate because the products incoming from the North are satisfying the needs of the lower income strata - whose needs are so strong that they unreasonably overlook the choice for brands and post purchase consequences. As we do not have our own supply base, our national market will be flooded with Indian and Chinese commodities, polarizing the existance market.

Today’s consumers are sovereign enough to choose the best. Their decision is always a rationale one although constantly impinged by either psychological or situational variable in and around them. The psychological variable directing or triggering the purchase action should be meticulously viewed and addressed accordingly for the sustenance of consumption. Because of the multiple brand options and lessening brand loyalty, the consumers today are finding difficult to comprehend and predict themselves.

The real concept of consumerism is still missing from the vogue although marketing terminology is not new to the businessmen of our country. Despite comprehending marketing as a major discipline by the major business houses, its application has been confined to the point of sale only. The cutting edge principle advocates that the main factor leading to survival breeds from satisfaction of needs, wants and preference is more than the varieties of offers. The marketers today overlook the core concept of marketing basically creeping at pre and post purchase spectrum. It is forgotten that consumers survive longer than the product or services they buy. May be  the day will come when we all realize that marketing is something beyond the realms of sale.

Maalan’s logic

-By Smriti Jaiswal

It had become a sort of ritual to sit around the voluptuous body of Maalan, to sip scathing hot ginger tea and eat Bajre ki roti. It was heaven especially in winters when the fire burnt warm in her earthen stove. We chatted on amicably, five curious college girls and one poor, traditional Maalan speaking with amused interest about the village she had left behind. She had so much to tell, her stock was indefatigable and everyday we walked closer to the point of becoming intimate. There was more than just hot ginger tea, Bajre ki roti and talks behind our friendship, there was this naughty fulfilment of speaking to someone who was experienced where we were covered with ignorance. We went to her with our Mills and Boons romance conception, told her our fantacies, questioned her about the thrills of carnal pleasure and bombarded her with demands which made her blush to the roots.

Dear Maalan, how tenderly do I think of her now, she never told us to mind our tongues, or our minds. She was our great matron, answering us to the extend as was possible for an illiterate woman with a heart of gold, but most of the time she had to shake her head in exasperation and smile indulgently. I believe the poor darling felt conered most often.

We were attracted to her humble abode because she was always so frank, she never lied to us, never deluded us with false hopes and promises.

So we sat around Maalan that particular evening and talked of chemistry between man and woman. Being in a girls’ college this had inevitably become our favourite topic of conversation. Suddenly one of my friends giggled and nudged at my side. “Look at her,” she said, “doesn’t she look tempting in that oh-so-deep neckline!”

I slapped Richa playfully on her back. “How silly”, said I but already my eyes were drawn to that daredevil decollete. Try as I might I could not look away from its generosity. Being now engaged elsewhere I stopped partaking in the conversation which was otherwise of supreme interest to me. My silence procured the expected reaction from my friends. They began to tease me mercilessly accusing me of dreaming of someone while they had no one with whom to idle their time away.

So I was showered with attacks from all sides, including Maalan. Partly to defend myself and partly because I was feeling wonderfully mischievous and devilish, I winked at Maalan “Say Maalan”, I said, “why do you wear such low cut blouses but veil your face so vehemently?”

The question had shifted the attention towards Maalan and she laughed breathlessly, trying to evade us, but I noticed with great admiration that she was not conscious in spite of our saucy inquiries. When we refused to relent and kept repeating “tell us Maalan, tell us”, she replied.

“God”, she said, “has given different faces to different bodies. You cannot imagine someone’s front by looking at her back, you have to see to know. But bosoms, well, it’s all a different matter there. No matter how much you hide one always knows. So what is the use? I hide my face to keep the men guessing and I don’t care how far a blouse goes!!”

There was a short silence before we broke into a loud guffaw. Once again Maalan had outwitted us and we were wowed. After all this was what we called Logic!!

Doubts that will not down

-By Kuldip Nayar

It was never anybody’s case that New Delhi should not have released the three terrorists when it was the only option to save the lives of 150 passengers and the crew of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane. The complaint is that the government has not answered the questions wracking the people’s mind. A month has gone by but none is wiser than before.

There is yet not a single, coherent, authentic account to explain how the hijackers were listed on the Airlines’ roster. Since it was an international flight, the nationality would have been shown against every passenger’s name. Who were the hijackers? If they were foreigners, they must have obtained a visa. The exemption is for the Nepalese, not for others.

Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh has said that the hijackers sneaked into the plane. It is possible. But then how did the number of passengers in the plane tally with the number of boarding cards issued? It is not possible that the one who got the boarding card did not travel himself and passed it on to a hijacker. Was it so?

Allowing the plane to fly off from Amritsar when the authorities had a warming beforehand that it might land there, is unforgivable. But why were the commandos late to arrive if they were flown from Delhi in time? Were the instructions given late? Since the matter is under investigation, one can withhold one’s judgment till the report is available.

The halt at Dubai, like the one at Amritsar, was not on the hijackers’ itinerary. For obvious reasons, they wanted to land in Afghanistan, preferably Kandahar, which is purely Pusthu-speaking and which does not have the smattering of other tribes as Kabul has. However, once the plane reached Dubai for refuelling, what were the efforts made to keep it there? Pakistan Chief Executive Pervez Musharraf has alleged that the Indian government did not ask the UAE authorities not to the let the plane take off. Is this true?

 After the plane landed at Kandahar, there was no activity, although three days had passed by then. The hijackers had made it clear, after capturing the plane over Lucknow, one hour after leaving Kathmandu, that they wanted to have direct talks with the government of India and that they wanted the release of the 31-year-old Maulvi Masood Azar, imprisoned ideologue of the Harkat-ul-Ansar. What was New Delhi’s purpose in delaying the negotiations? Why did they not agree to Azar’s release and clinch the settlement when the plane was still in India?

These and some other questions, even if replied by the government, will not satisfy the nation. The entire episode has not been dealt with in a transparent manner. The government’s credibility is in doubt. There has to be an inquiry by a commission headed by a Supreme Court or the High Court judge, serving or retired, to go into the entire gamut of hijacking and the government’s response at different times.

And it was sad to note that Jaswant Singh’s telephone calls to Foreign Ministers of several countries elicited no immediate response. President Clinton spoke on Kashmir but did not mention a word about the hijacking when the lives of some 160 men, women and children were hanging in the balance. A few countries said something through their spokesmen, more to please New Delhi than to name the instigators of hijackers. Even the tone of condemnation was cursory.

When the  negotiations began, there were leisurely sessions. It is understandable that the team headed by a joint secretary could not take any decision on its own. But the communication, back and forth, was too sluggish. India lost an opportunity to put the hijackers in the wrong. For example, it could have accepted straightaway two out of the three demands, paying in cash $ 200 million and sending the body of Harkat-ul-Ansar chief Sajjad Afghani in a coffin. The Taliban got the credit for making the hijackers withdraw those demands.

New Delhi could not even expose the mercenary approach of the hijackers. It was essentially a war of nerves. It was only after reaching Kandahar that the hijackers, who wanted Azar to begin with, raised their demand to the release of 35 more terrorists. Surprisingly, even before the Union Cabinet met to sanction the release of the three, the Pakistan press had already reported that only three people were sought to be released.

On December 27, four days before Jaswant Singh went to Kandahar, Air Marshal (Retd) Ayaz Ahmed Khan said in an article, Hijacking at Kathmandu, in a Lahore daily, The Nation, that “the ball is in India’s court in the sense that New Delhi will have to accommodate the hijackers’ demand of release of three of their compatriots...” Incidentally, this again shows how much Pakistan knew about the hijacking all along. By merely denying, as General Musharraf has done, or by saying that it is “India’s pilot”, as foreign Minister Abdus Sattar has done, Islamabad does not absolve itself of the charge that it was an ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) show.

In retrospect, what should one say about Pakistan Foreign office spokesman Tariq Itaf, who said within 48 hours of the hijacking: “A reliable source told us that an Indian agent is on board the plane. Soon you will know the identity of this RAW agent.” Hostility towards India makes the Pakistan Foreign office tell a white lie, without batting an eyelid.

It is, however, not understandable why New Delhi is pussy-footing on Islamabad’s involvement in the hijacking. If the government has the information, as Prime Minister’s secretary Brijesh Mishra has claimed to possess, then it should let the country and the world know. The impression given by official sources is that ISI men planned the hijacking and guided negotiations all through, although the Taliban were in the forefront.

In the last stint of the Vajpayee government, the Home Ministry had promised to issue a White Paper on terrorism from across the border. The document, listing Pakistan’s activities, was withheld after printing. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore reportedly came in the way. The White Paper should be distributed now.

The Taliban have, no doubt, 80 to 90 percent of Afghanistan under them. But they have only enforced their authority, not established it. They lack popular support and their legitimacy is still questioned. The much-wanted Usman Bin Laden continues to enjoy their protection. They, as a Pakistan expert has said, are “recognised more as a source of terrorism -- the world’s largest poppy-growing area for drug trafficking and violation of human rights -- than as an orderly, civilised state.” One only hopes that New Delhi’s contact with the Taliban is not followed up with something else.

The government must realise that the Taliban allowed the hijackers and the three terrorists to disappear. Whether they crossed into Quetta or not is  irrelevant. Both the Taliban and Islamabad will see to it that no harm comes to them. If at all Pakistan does arrest them, under pressure of the world opinion, it would be a stage-managed show. Former ISI chief of Pakistan Hamid Gul has already said: “The borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan are very porous. There is no way you could monitor them or exercise control over them there. In the area, there are tribes which straddle both sides. They can give them (the hijackers) sanctuary and will not hand them over.”

One recalls how the Khalistanis, who hijacked the Indian Airlines plane to Lahore, more than two decades ago, were kept in a bungalow after they were tried and ‘sentenced’ by a Pakistan court. They were never sent to jail. They are now free persons. The arrest of hijacker, who also murdered an Indian passenger, does not mean much in Pakistan. They should be handed over to India if the ends of justice are to be met.