The EconomistAugust 31st 2019 Asia 471F
or a septuagenarianmember of In-
dia’s somnolent upper house, five years
out of government, Palaniappan Chidam-
baram is a man much in demand. He served
as finance minister in 2004-08 and 2012-14,
and as home minister during the interim,
in governments led by the Congress party.
After Congress was crushed at the polls in
2014 by the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) led
by Narendra Modi, Mr Chidambaram re-
ceded from the spotlight. On August 21st,
however, an armada of satellite dish-
topped tvtrucks appeared at his house to
watch plainclothes police officers vault
over his garden walls and arrest the ex-
minister on corruption charges.
Mr Chidambaram was one of the most
powerful men in the country under the
previous regime. For a time he was spoken
of as a potential prime minister. In office
he maintained a stately air even while
bashing together backroom deals (much
like his successor as finance minister, Arun
Jaitley, who died on August 24th). Since his
arrest he has been appearing in court al-
most daily to plead for bail, arguing that the
Central Bureau of Investigation (cbi) has
no cause to keep him in custody. At the
same time his legal team is fending off the
Enforcement Directorate (ed), which han-
dles financial crimes and wants him on re-
lated charges.
Both agencies claim that Mr Chidamba-
ram and his son, a Congress mp, accepted
bribes in exchange for approving foreign
investment in a media firm in 2007. They
argue that he should stay in jail, although
they have yet to present any evidence
against him. That is unusual: even accused
murderers are sometimes released on bail.
His lawyers say the government’s motive is
revenge. As home minister, Mr Chidamba-
ram once had the man now in the job, Amit
Shah, arrested on charges of murder, extor-
tion and kidnapping. Mr Shah, whose case
was eventually dismissed, was refused bail
for three months.
In Paris this week Mr Modi told an ad-
miring crowd of expatriates that his “new
India” is combating corruption like never
before. Three days later the tax authority
sacked 22 career bureaucrats who faced
pending charges. A prime justification for
Mr Modi’s decision to revoke the special
autonomy enjoyed by the state of Jammu &
Kashmir on August 5th was that corruption
in its political class had made reform im-
possible. Hundreds of Kashmiri politiciansDELHI
An anti-corruption campaign revs upClean government in IndiaVaulting for
probity
T
he kakapo, a cuddly bird that lives in
New Zealand, is not designed for sur-
vival. Weighing up to 4kg, it is the world’s
fattest and least flighty parrot. It mates
only when the rimu tree is in fruit, which
happens every few years. Like other weird
and wonderful creatures of the antipodes,
it evolved in the absence of land-based
predators, so instead of soaring above the
trees it waddles haplessly across the dry
forest floor below. When it stumbles across
something that might kill it, it has the la-
mentable habit of standing still.
Such oddities turned the kakapo into
fast food for human settlers—and for the
cats, rats and possums they brought with
them. It seemed extinct by the 1970s, until
scientists stumbled on two undiscovered
populations in the country’s south. These
survivors were eventually moved to small
predator-free islands, where the Depart-
ment of Conservation has spent decades
trying to get them to breed.
Its patience may finally be rewarded.
The rimu was in fruit this year, and more
than 80 chicks hatched after a bumper
crop, making this the best breeding season
on record. Many have survived into adoles-
cence, increasing the number of adult ka-
kapos by a third, to 200 birds.
But another threat to the kakapo is a
lack of genetic diversity, because of low
numbers and inbreeding. This is one rea-
son why fewer than half of kakapo eggs
hatch. By sequencing the genome of every
living bird, scientists can identify closely
related individuals and prevent more in-
breeding by putting them on different is-
lands. Well-matched birds cannot be
forced to mate, but artificial insemination
is also proving effective. Every bird is fitted
with a transmitter to track its slightest
movement. If a female mates with an “un-
suitable” male, the process can be “overrid-
den” with another bird’s semen. Time is of
the essence, so drones are being used to
whizz kakapo sperm to the right place.
This helps the males whose advances
are rejected by fussy females, so would not
otherwise procreate. It also allows re-
searchers to identify useful genetic traits.
One male, Gulliver, was found to have
unique disease-resistant genes. Andrew
Digby, the programme’s scientist, thinks it
“could hold the survival of the species”.
A bias towards male chicks has been
corrected with a blunter tool: dieting. Fat
females seem to produce more male off-
spring, so each bird’s transmitter is used to
unlock hoppers that dish out strictly calo-
rie-controlled meals. Once laid, some eggs
are sent away for incubation and replaced
by smart fakes, which wiggle and cheep so
that the mother is primed for her hatch-
ling’s return. Sickly babies are reared for
months by hand.
All these efforts cost almost nz$2m
($1.3m) this breeding season. Yet the kaka-
po’s future still looks precarious. Earlier
this year a fungal disease tore through the
population. And tiny as the number of ka-
kapos is, space is running out on the two is-
lands where most of them live. New preda-
tor-free havens must soon be found. 7Efforts to conserve a pudgy parrot are finally being rewarded
Bird life in New Zealand
Cheep dates