EDITORIAL 19.08.11

Please contact the list owner of subscription and unsubscription at: editorial@samarth.co.in

media watch with peoples input                an organization of rastriya abhyudaya

Editorial

Month August 19 edition 000815 collected & managed by durgesh kumar mishra, published by – manish manjul

 

Editorial is syndication of all daily- published newspaper Editorial at one place.

For ENGLISH  EDITORIAL  http://editorialsamarth.blogspot.com

 

THE PIONEER

1. SEN GETS HIS JUST DESSERTS
2. DISAPPOINTING MEASURES
3. CONGRESS FACES ITS KANDAHAR - ASHOK MALIK
4. NOBLE CAUSE, ARROGANT MEANS - ARINDAM CHAUDHURI
5. BUCK STOPS WITH BCCI - HIRANMAY KARLEKAR
6. CONGRESS'S MISMANAGED MESS - KALYANI SHANKAR
7. DOES INDIA NEED A SECOND GREEN REVOLUTION? - ANURADHA DUTT

 

THE TIMES OF INDIA

1. SEIZE THE DAY
2. QUALITY BEFORE QUOTA
3. IT'S THE MIDDLE CLASS, STUPID - SWAGATO GANGULY
4. 'IF A MILITARY RULER CHANGES THE CONSTITUTION, HE'LL BE TRIED FOR TREASON' - RUDRONEEL GHOSH
5. AZAD INDIA - JUG SURAIYA

 

HINDUSTAN TIMES

1. FREE PASSAGE FOR OUR RIGHTS
2. NO SPORT AND SUPPORT
3. NOT SO HIDDEN DRAGON - ASHOK KUMAR MEHTA
4. THE WORLD'S NOT ENOUGH - SHASHI THAROOR AND KEERTHIK SASIDHARAN

 

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

1. NO MORE SEVENTIES
2. UPPER HOUSE RULES
3. THAT LAST STAND
4. INDIA'S TEA PARTY TIME - DILIP BOBB
5. FOOD FUNDAMENTALS - COOMI KAPOOR
6. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BUDGE A JUDGE? - P P RAO
7. NO MORE 'WITH US OR AGAINST US', ANNA - JSBANDUKWALA
8. THE ANNA EFFECT - SEEMA CHISHTI

 

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

1. CAPITULATION FEES
2. THE MAN WHO MADE IT
3. THE SEARCH FOR AN HEIR - KRISHNAMURTHY V SUBRAMANIAN
4. INDIA'S VERY OWN GREECE - SUBHOMOY BHATTACHARJEE

 

THE HINDU

1. TRANSCENDING GENERATIONS IN EDUCATION - DILEEP RANJEKAR
2. PAKISTAN'S COMMERCIAL CAPITAL ON THE BOIL - ANITA JOSHUA
3. INVESTMENT SANS EQUITY
4. EAST AFRICA FAMINE CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON FUTURE
5. U.N. CHIEF'S PLANE 'WAS SHOT DOWN' - GEORGINA SMITH

 

THE ASIAN AGE

1. UPA MUST SHOW PEOPLE IT'S SERIOUS
2. PARLIAMENT: A CURIOUS INDIAN INSTITUTION - SHASHI THAROOR
3. 365 DAYS OF FREEDOM  - JAGMOHAN

 

DAILY EXCELSIOR

1. JAMMU DEVELOPMENT
2. COLOURFUL NATION
3. GOVERNMENT COMMITTING POLITICAL SUICIDE - BY TAVLEEN SINGH
4. ITS WAR AGAINST CORRUPTION - BY VIRENDER RAINA
5. UNDERPRIVILEGED DEPRIVED OF ECONOMIC GROWTH - BY RAMESH KANITKAR

 

THE TRIBUNE

1. NEW VENUE, OLD PLANS
2. THE FURY OF FLOODS
3. MILITARY IN PAKISTAN
4. FOLLY OF ARRESTING ANNA HAZARE - BY INDER MALHOTRA
5. TAILORMADE FOR TROUBLE - BY RAJI P. SHRIVASTAVA
6. JUDGES MUST BE BEYOND ALL SUSPICION

 

MUMBAI MIRROR

1. RUPEES, ANNAS AND VICE

 

BUSINESS STANDARD

1. TRUST THE GATEKEEPER
2. PAY TO BE POLICED
3. THE BUSINESS OF BANKING - JAIMINI BHAGWATI
4. HOW SINDRI WAS BORN - BHUPESH BHANDARI
5. DEFUSING THE FEAR FACTOR - SHYAMAL MAJUMDAR
6. THE LAND LAW AND JUSTICE - NITIN DESAI

 

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

1. JUDGING THE JUDGES
2. BIG, BLACK FOLLY
3. NEW BAHU SHOWS
4. THY LEGACY, CHIEF MENTOR!
5. REALITY CHECK FOR REALTORS  - V RAGHUNATHAN

 

BUSINESS LINE

1. IN SEARCH OF THE RIGHT MEDICINE
2. THEY ALSO SLIP... - SRIDHAR KRISHNASWAMI
3. TIME FOR INTROSPECTION ON ALL SIDES - B.S.RAGHAVAN
4. WORLD SEEN THROUGH BRITISH EYES - T.C.A.RANGACHARI
5. HUMBLE PERSON, GREAT BRAND - RAMANUJAM SRIDHAR
6. WHEN RBI CHIEFS SPEAK THEIR MIND - K.KANAGASABAPATHY

 

DECCAN CHRONICAL

1. UPA MUST SHOW PEOPLE IT'S SERIOUS
2. HELLO! ANYBODY THERE?
3. NEW AGE STIR FINDS NETAS OUT OF SYNC
4. THE MYTH OF SOCIALIST PARADISE
5. 365 DAYS OF FREEDOM
6. AM I PROPOSING CENSORSHIP? YES.

 

THE STATESMAN

1. U-TURNS UNLIMITED
2. HEAR THE WHISTLE BLOW
3. IMPLICATIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT'S BAN ORDER - BY AJAY K MEHRA
4. POWER OF THE PEOPLE  - OFF LIMITS ~ SEEMA MUSTAFA
5. THE EXPLOSIVE TRUTH  
6. CAPITAL CONTROLS: FROM HERESY TO ORTHODOXY
7. SPECULATORS

 

THE TELEGRAPH

1. ALL FALL DOWN
2. WINGS CLIPPED
3. A SERIES OF ERRORS  - DASGUPTA
4. HOW TO SPOIL THE SHOW  - BONAFIDE: MALVIKA SINGH

 

DECCAN HERALD

1. HISTORIC MISSION
2. ANARCHY AGAIN
3. PEOPLE'S POWER  - BY KULDIP NAYAR

 

OHERALDO

1. DAVID CAMERON HAS ANOTHER SCREW TO TURN
2. FOUR YEARS IN PRISON FOR A FACEBOOK POST?
3. THOMAS L KNAPP
4. HEALTH CARE INITIATIVES IN GOA - DR GLADSTONE A D'COSTA

 

HAARETZ

1. ISRAELI GOVERNMENT IS STILL OBLIGATED TO THE MIDDLE CLASS - BY YOEL MARCUS
2. PRESTIGE VERSUS PROFIT
3. FREE COMPETITION IS A MUST FOR ISRAEL'S ECONOMY - BY NEHEMIA SHTRASLER
4. PEOPLE, NOT JUST MONEY, MIGHT FLEE ISRAEL - BY YOSSI SARID
5. LOOKING BEYOND 'BIBISMS'  - BY DORON ROSENBLUM

 

THE NEW YORK TIMES

1. TRUTH ABOUT SYRIA
2. THE WRONG IDEA
3. NOT THE AMERICA THEY EXPECTED
4. SOME VERY GOOD SENSE
5. THE QUESTION-DRIVEN LIFE - BY DAVID BROOKS
6. CUTTING COSTS THE MONTANA WAY - BY BRIAN SCHWEITZER

 

TIMES FREE PRESS

1. U.S. GETS NEW CREDIT DOWNGRADE WARNING
2. SPENDING BY WEALTHY
3. OBAMA ON 'UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET'

 

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

1. TURKEY AT THE SYRIAN CROSSROADS
2. CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT
3. RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT: WHO AND HOW?
4. WASHINGTON'S GROWING PKK LIABILITY
5. PROFITEROLE FOR THE KURDS? (REVISITED)
6. NEVER MIND THEM KHAYYAM, MY FRIEND
7. KANAT ATKAYA - KATKAYA@HURRIYET.COM.TR
8. WAS GEORGE BUSH A SLEEPER?

 

THE NEWS

1. KARACHI IN FLAMES  
2. CRIME DATABASE
3. UNSAFE CUSTODY
4. A LAND IN THE GRIP OF FAIRYTALES -  AYAZ AMIR
5. THERE IS GOOD NEWS,  -  KAMILA HYAT
6. ANYONE FOR SAVING PAKISTAN?  - NAWAB MUMTAZ ALI BHUTTO 
7. THE BHADRALOKS OF DHAKA  -  ISHAQ KHAN KHAKWANI
8. BUREAUCRACY, POLITICIANS AND DEMOCRACY  - SHAFQAT MAHMOOD
9. SIDE-EFFECT  - HARRIS KHALIQUE

 

PAKISTAN OBSERVER

1. KARACHI SITUATION TAKES WAR-LIKE TURN
2. IS IT TIME FOR SNAP POLLS?
3. INDIA SHOWS ZERO TOLERANCE FOR CORRUPTION
4. SHOULD THE THIEF BE THE JUDGE? - M D NALAPAT
5. CHINESE NAVY & US CONCERNS - SULTAN M HALI
6. GAMBLING IN ISLAM — 18 - SIRAJUDDIN AZIZ
7. SYRIA: POWDER KEG OF SECTARIANISM - WAQAR KHAN KAURAVI
8. A NEW 'GANDHI' SHAKES INDIA - PATRICK FRENCH
9.  

THE AUSTRALIYAN

1. RBA NEEDS FINELY TUNED BALANCE
2. NOWHERE TO HIDE FOR WA AUTHORITIES ON FIRE FIASCO
3. BOYCOTT THE UN'S RACIST FARCE

 

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

1. THE BEST INTERESTS OF NO ONE AT ALL
2. CANBERRA'S INBOX ON EVERY DESKTOP
3. STATE FALTERS AT FIRST TEST OF HOSPITAL REFORM

 

THE GUARDIAN

1. SYRIA: ASSAD AT BAY
2. A-LEVELS: METHODS AND RESULTS
3. IN PRAISE OF … BRAHMS

 

THE JAKARTA POST

1. DO MUSLIMS TRULY IMPLEMENT THE VIRTUES OF RAMADHAN?
2. MAHMUDI ASYARI AND MUIZZUDIN
3. MAKING SENSE OF CURRENT EVENTS IN PAPUA - BUDI HERNAWAN
4. DEFINING INDONESIA'S NEED FOR A GRAND STRATEGY - LIE NATHANAEL SANTOSO
5. BRACE FOR REVERSE CAPITAL FLOW

 

***************************************

******************************************************************************************

THE PIONEER

EDITORIAL

SEN GETS HIS JUST DESSERTS

BUT WHAT ABOUT OTHER TAINTED JUDGES?

The Rajya Sabha deserves unqualified applause for successfully impeaching a tainted judge of Calcutta High Court, Justice Soumitra Sen. Once the Lok Sabha approves of the impeachment motion, which it is likely to do with a matching majority, later this month, Mr Sen will make history as the first judge to be removed from office for misconduct. Parliament would also make history for taking this extraordinary measure to cleanse the higher judiciary of corrupt individuals. The last (and first) time a judge faced impeachment in May 1993, the motion failed to muster sufficient votes in the Lok Sabha where it was introduced. Or else the dubious distinction which now goes to Mr Sen would have gone to Justice V Ramaswami of the Supreme Court. On that occasion, the Congress members of the House had abstained from voting, a shame that they shall never be able to live down. A third tainted judge, Justice PD Dinakaran, escaped impeachment by resigning from the office of Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court on July 29. Had he not taken that step, he would have faced the same fate as Mr Sen — in this season of sweeping popular unrest and mounting anger against corruption, it is unlikely that any party would have come to his defence, although it is surprising that the BSP members of the Rajya Sabha chose to vote in support of Mr Sen on Thursday. That vote is in conflict with Ms Mayawati declaring her support for Anna Hazare's crusade against corruption. It may have done nothing to fetch relief to Mr Sen, but it is bound to influence public opinion outside Parliament which would not be to the BSP's advantage.

Indeed, it is rather inexplicable as to why the BSP should have chosen to go against the tide, that too at a time like this. It would be absurd to suggest that Mr Sen is not guilty of the charges brought against him, especially his misappropriation of money kept in his custody as a High Court-appointed receiver, since they have been established through several inquiries, including those conducted by a committee of judges and a panel appointed by the Rajya Sabha.

That the higher judiciary has one corrupt judge less no doubt offers reason for satisfaction. But it does not necessarily help deal with the problem of corruption in the judiciary, more so the lower judiciary which forms the foundation of the justice system in our country. There is also the issue of judges with a tainted record escaping punishment of any sort; some are even rewarded with post-retirement jobs that allow them to live off the hard-earned money of taxpayers. Unfortunately, such judges are usually from the higher judiciary, a point exemplified by the former Chief Justice of India, Mr KG Balakrishnan who now occupies the office of the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and is smugly confident that nothing shall ever be done to make him accountable for the charges levelled against him. The issue is really about ensuring that only individuals with unimpeachable integrity are appointed as judges at every level of the judiciary. We could dicontinue with the present system of appointment of judges in the higher judiciary by setting up a National Judicial Commission to replace the Collegium of Judges. But what about the bulk of the appointments that take place in the lower judiciary?

***************************************

THE PIONEER

EDITORIAL

DISAPPOINTING MEASURES

MERKEL, SARKOZY HAVE FAILED EUROPE AS LEADERS

After meeting with French President Nicholas Sarkozy to discuss measures that would restore investor confidence in the embattled Eurozone, one of the first things that German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters at Élysée Palace is, "We can't solve problems in a big bang... What we are proposing will allow us to regain confidence step by step." In many ways, this approach is typical of modern day European diplomacy. Yet, what the Eurozone needs today is not a carefully measured, well-paced, almost piecemeal sort of response to the brewing crisis. It needs, in the words of Ms Merkel, a "big bang" response that will jolt the continent out of its debt-induced stupor and compel its leadership to take some bold and drastic measures. These are key to containing Europe's overwhelming sovereign debt crisis which earlier this month spread to Italy and Spain, forcing the European Central Bank to declare last week that it would purchase Government bonds from those two countries on a large scale. The ECB's decision was both historic and desperate at the same time, yet even that was not enough to stop panic selling within the Eurozone: A huge red flag that Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy refused to acknowlege. Little else could explain the rationale behind the two proposals that the leaders put forth in Paris on Tuesday. First, they recommended that all Eurozone countries amend their Constitutions as early as mid-2012 to make balanced Budgets binding on their nations — a fanciful legislation that Mr Sarkozy has failed to push through in France. Given that the deficit in Eurozone countries is estimated at 4.3 per cent of GDP, such legislation, which would also prohibit countries from applying the kind of stimulus measures that helped many of them tide over the crisis early on in 2009, is not only untenable but equally damaging. Moreover, it does little to change the spending habits of Eurozone members which is essentially what lies at the core of the crisis.

The second proposal was to impose the Tobin tax on financial transactions but this will only bring about insignificant results and should really be avoided since it runs the risk of shooing away investors to non-taxed markets. The Tobin tax would have made sense if currency speculation, excessive trading, etc, were at the root of the crisis; but in Europe that is not the case at all. At this point, if there is one thing that can possibly shore up investor confidence it is if all Eurozone countries agree to pool together their debts in the form of Eurobonds, and promise to pay it back as one financial entity. And this was the one measure that the two leaders kept off the books, possibly because it would mean that Germany — the only financially sound European country — would have to shoulder the bulk of the burden.

***************************************

 

 

THE PIONEER

COLUMN

CONGRESS FACES ITS KANDAHAR

ASHOK MALIK

The ridicule that the Congress has been exposed to following its amateurish response to Anna Hazare's protest will return to haunt it again and again.

It is tempting to look upon the Anna Hazare episode as the UPA Government's very own Kandahar. Just as that extraordinary surrender on a cold, windswept day in Afghanistan came back to haunt the BJP over and over again, the public ridicule the Manmohan Singh Government has been exposed to will be with it till the end of its term.

The manner in which a single political activist, strengthened by nothing but his cussed moralism and the sense that public sentiment was with him, began 24 hours of bargaining with the Government of India was bewildering. True, it spoke of the empowerment of the Little Man in a democracy, but it also reflected the collapse of the Government's credibility.

Mr Hazare played hardball. He refused to leave Delhi's Tihar Jail till the Government more or less conceded his right to fast at a location and for a length of his choosing. One by one, he got the Government to agree to not extern him on release; to agree to a three-day fast; to agree to a seven-day fast; to agree to a 14-day fast. It was slow murder, played out in real time on television.

The UPA Government has shown a fundamental weakness and a lack of political finesse. How long before others exploit it? This doesn't necessarily mean a series of copycat fasts. It just lays bare the Government's essential vulnerability.

The Kandahar analogy is both appropriate and yet not so. The NDA Government was not responsible for the original sin in 1999 — the hijacking of the plane once it took off from Kathmandu. It's only misstep — but a fundamental misstep — was to allow the plane to leave Amritsar, where it landed temporarily.

In the case of Mr Hazare, the Congress and its posse of too-clever-by-half Ministers and spokespersons have faltered at every stage. They created this crisis by seeking to thwart an essentially political agitation with bureaucratic stonewalling and using the expedient of denying permission, citing obscure regulations.

A backlash was inevitable. The Congress's response to it was further denial. India has seen a genuine middle-class protest in the past few days. The Congress discounts this, alleging it is all BJP-RSS mobilisation.

The BJP has been accused of "playing politics". In saying this, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told the Opposition in Parliament, "You are not protecting the dignity of the House … Hazare's fast and his demands are un-constitutional." This is strange logic. If the Government makes mistake after mistake, and puts off vast sections of people, isn't the Opposition bound to grab the opportunity?

To go back to the Kandahar incident, it is an open secret that relatives of hijacked passengers were joined and instigated by Youth Congress workers to add to the pressure on the NDA Government. Was not the Congress then 'playing politics' with national security and oblivious to 'protecting the dignity' of India?

There are two principal lessons for the Congress from the past week. First, it can continue to pretend the issue is one of a battle between competing versions of the Lok Pal Bill — the Government draft and the activists' draft. That is not how most people see it. They are not so much supporting Mr Hazare and his Jan Lok Pal Bill — which, let it be said, is severely flawed and no guarantor of a corruption-free India — as they are showing their hostility to a Government they regard as insensitive.

People don't turn against a Government, much less come out on the streets, over any one issue. It is usually a combination. In this case, corruption — especially egregious and publicly visible corruption in the form of the Commonwealth Games swindle — has been complemented by inflation, economic uncertainty and a sense of listlessness in the UPA regime.

It is easy to argue that all of these are long-term, systemic problems. They will not go away by simply getting rid of one Government. This is true. Yet when that Government is not seen as showing sufficient urgency in tackling these concerns and actually appears to be underplaying them, it can hardly escape blame.

The corruption-inflation correlation needs to be made. As travels outside Delhi have made apparent — at least to this writer — the unremitting price surge is the number one talking point among ordinary Indians. It beats corruption hollow. However, it also adds to the disgust with corruption: "We are paying through our noses for food, while those fellows are stashing away billions." That is why the corruption-linked protests are only a symptom of a larger unrest.

That unrest, that energy and that heady (or surly, depending on where you stand) emotionalism was evident in the past few days. It will probably be on display at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan as Mr Hazare's fast intensifies in the coming fortnight. It is not going to go away. Elements of it will crystallise into an anti-Government vote in 2014, never mind which party or politician benefits.

Second, unfortunately or otherwise Indian politics is increasingly driven by media images and television theatre. The Congress's communication management is, frankly, abysmal. Some of its spokespersons — including at least one Minister — come across as loud and obnoxious on television, unwilling to listen to anything but their own voices.

This has a deep impact on fence-sitters and just normal people, those without an ideological position on the Jan Lok Pal Bill.

The 'Anna versus Congress' story was a replay of David versus Goliath: It is impossible for the politician to win such a PR battle. He has to duck the issue, appear humble and polite, and wait for his chance. An overzealous outburst is a complete no-no. Here Mr Manish Tewari's insistence that Mr Hazare was "involved in corruption from top to bottom" and his claim that the so-called Team Anna comprised "armchair fascists, over-ground Maoists, closet anarchists … lurking behind forces of right reaction and funded by invisible donors whose links may go back a long way abroad" was spectacularly badly timed.

A few days later, his colleague, Mr Rashid Alvi, added to it by wondering if the Americans were backing Mr Hazare. In the 1970s, this would have been a convenient conspiracy theory to spin, with quiet briefings to two or three friendly reporters. In 2011, with 24x7 media scrutiny, it only ends up making the Congress — and the UPA Government — seem a bunch of amateurs.

--malikashok@gmail.com

 

***************************************

 

THE PIONEER

OPED

NOBLE CAUSE, ARROGANT MEANS

ARINDAM CHAUDHURI

It's important for Anna Hazare and his fellow civil society activists to become more flexible and respectful towards the democratic process to give a bigger thrust to their India Against Corruption movement. Team Anna cannot be arrogant and sanctimonious all the time

I was too young then to really remember it all, but I have heard from many people that the mass protests generated by the arrest of Anna Hazare are similar to the uprising led by the late Jayaprakash Narayan in the mid-1970s. In fact, it was the mass protests and the chaos that followed and a historic blunder by Mrs Indira Gandhi that led to the imposition of Emergency in 1975. Many people are comparing today's situation to the Emergency days.

The people of India are so fed up and so disgusted with corruption and our rotten and corrupt system that the wave of protests we see is hardly surprising. I have often publicly called India not a democracy but a demonocracy where crooked politicians and their criminal cohorts are openly plundering the nation, well aware that a dysfunctional judicial system will allow them to get away. In almost all cases, they have actually got away and have hence acquired the arrogance and swagger of pirates who know they are above and beyond the law.

To that extent, the waves of protests, demonstrations, candlelight vigils and passionate slogans that are being witnessed across the nation were inevitable. And there is little doubt that the simplicity and stark clarity of the message being delivered by Anna Hazare has convinced thousands and thousands of Indians that he is a modern day messiah. One still remembers the Jantar Mantar fast of April when I was moved to write very strongly in favour of Anna Hazare and even bring out a special supplement on the power of civil society protests. I still think there is enormous power and truth in the anti-corruption message that Anna Hazare is delivering.

Yet, I must confess that I do find some things a little disturbing. I know passions and emotions are running high at the moment and that I run the risk of being vilified as a Government stooge if I criticise Anna Hazare and his methods. But just as I have often gone against the tide and slammed the Government for many policies and actions, I feel strongly enough about this issue to point out to all passionate and emotionally charged Indians some basic home truths about this controversy.

Across India, people young and old are lambasting the Government for being arrogant as well as adamant. Often rightly, they are accusing the Government of not even bothering to listen to other viewpoints. There is no doubt that some highly irresponsible and uncalled for statements by senior leaders of the ruling alliance have strengthened this perception and further fuelled anger among people already fed up with corruption.

But if the Government is guilty of being adamant and arrogant, is not Anna Hazare guilty of being the same? Anna Hazare and his supporters accuse the Government of being intolerant and insensitive because it is refusing to accept their version of the Lokpal Bill which they call the 'Jan Lokpal Bill'. Are they not displaying intolerance and insensitivity when they routinely brand anyone who expresses doubts about their version of the Bill as a 'traitor' and a 'stooge'? How can Anna and his team declare so confidently that it is only their version of the Lokpal Bill that is perfect and no one else can say anything critical about it?

If the Government is hiding behind the fig leaf of a 'popular mandate' and the supreme authority of Parliament, isn't Team Anna guilty of hiding behind the fig leaf of sanctimoniousness? I fully support the right of Anna and his team to criticise the ham-handed manner in which it is treating the Lokpal Bill. But I also fully support the right of any Indian to criticise the draft prepared by Team Anna. Surely not blindly agreeing to whatever Anna says doesn't make a traitor out of an Indian? Quite frankly, over the last few months, both the Government and Team Anna have been guilty of being intolerant, inflexible and insensitive.

So many thousands of Indians are genuinely angry because some Congress leaders have publicly abused Anna and his team and accused them of being corrupt. But what has Team Anna been doing since April if not publicly abusing the Prime Minister, Parliament, elections and even democracy? I do agree that many should be abused in the Government, but at the end of the day there has to be a democratic way. It can't be imposed through the dictatorial will of one group just because it is able to generate popular frenzy. There is a Constitution, there are courts and there is an elected Parliament and things have to happen as per its guidelines. Anna must protest. But he can't be adamant about imposing his views. Protests have their own effect and change does happen. But it can't happen without support of our Constitution and democratic machinery.

As I write this, Anna Hazare is preparing to leave Tihar Jail. Many Indians see this as his indomitable fighting spirit. But come on. The Government blundered by arresting him in the first place after imposing stupid conditions on his fast. But mass protests have forced the Government to virtually cave in and surrender. It is publicly saying that Team Anna and his supporters can go on fast; it is publicly withdrawing all the stupid conditions.

So is Anna Hazare being gracious in victory? No, he is now insisting that he must be allowed to do whatever he wants and that the Government must surrender in totality to everything that he is demanding. Meanwhile, thousands and thousands of emotional supporters are at constant risk of physical harm as they protest across India. Is that not adamant, arrogant and insensitive?

As I pointed out at the beginning, I was too young during the early-1970s to clearly remember the events that led to the Emergency. But of course I do know that Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan is still a revered leader, a Gandhian who fought all his life for a cleaner and better India. Anna Hazare is already being hailed as another JP. But I also know this: Many unbiased historians who personally admire Jayaprakash Narayan now openly say and write that his inflexible manner and his call to fellow Indians to paralyse the nation was nothing short of being irresponsible and short-sighted. Will history judge Anna Hazare similarly?

The writer is a management guru and Editor, The Sunday Indian. ***************************************

THE PIONEER

OPED

BUCK STOPS WITH BCCI

HIRANMAY KARLEKAR

The Cricket Board chose unfit players for England Test series

It is hardly surprising that the Indian cricket team's dismal performance in England has set tempers on fire in a country where the game is linked to national pride. Nor is it surprising that anathema has been called down upon cricketers. They are the ones out in the middle whose performance with the willow and cherry is what people flock to see, and who have applause showered on them when they deliver.

Of the several things that have fuelled the ire of the public and pundits, a principal one is the cricketers' attitude to the game. None other than the venerable Sunil Gavaskar has lashed out on the small screen that the way some of them conducted themselves on the field suggested that they just didn't care how the match went. Without the kind of proximity that Sunil Gavaskar has to the game and those who play it, this writer cannot swear endorsement of his stand. What, however, was reasonably clear even on the idiot box was that our men in white could not sustain their exertion except in short spells. They had England down on the mat on a couple of occasions during the first and second test matches but could not press their advantage home and the Brits bounced back in no time.

This short exertion span disorder — if one can put it that way — has been attributed to both fatigue and the baneful influence of an excess of one-day cricket. Both are credible explanations. The kind of murderous schedule cricketers have been put through would exhaust even Tarzan or the Phantom, the Ghost who walks. Understandably, players have been complaining of too much cricket and not understandably — except in terms of obsessive greed — the BCCI has been dismissing their plea.

There have, of course, been other factors at play, poor technique and inadequate preparation being two of them. The fell impact of the one-day tamashas, which encourage shots that are not in the book but fetch runs, is clearly manifest in case of the former. One can get away with improvising shots across the line of the ball while living dangerously for a short while at the crease but not during the prolonged ordeal of test matches when tempting providence could lead to dire consequences, and rather swiftly.

That the Indian team was going into the Test matches almost totally unprepared should have been clear to all even remotely aware of the challenges the conditions in England pose. Normally, the team plays several matches with county sides before the beginning of a Test series. In this tour, it was flung into Tests after playing just one match! This, of course, raises the question of the BCCI's role which, strangely, has not attracted the kind of outrage it should have. And this despite the fact that its culpability has been much greater than that of players. It is where the buck stops. Yet, it is a body where the shots are called by people who have never played the game at any significant level and whose ascent to power has principally been due to their skill in playing cricket's electoral politics, which, in turn, is a carry-over, in some cases, of their expertise in managing elections to legislatures.

It is not just a question of the BCCI fixing an absurd schedule for the current tour of England but, much worse, importing to the game an ethos alien to its original character and more appropriate to the corridors of predatory capitalism. Nothing underlines this more strikingly than the Indian Premier League, which is emblematic of the culture of sleaze overtaking the country and which belongs more to the realms of circus and sexual voyeurism — with revealingly-clad, gyrating girls on display — than the world of cricket.

The IPL treats cricketers as commodities for auction. A person who allows himself or herself to be auctioned accepts the measurement of his or her worth in terms of the auction price. Gradually, money becomes the measure of everything. Everything else, including the nation's and one's own honour, becomes secondary. The urge to stretch oneself beyond one's limits for victory in a test match is severely eroded. The result is the kind of indifference and listlessness one saw in the field.

 

***************************************

THE PIONEER

OPED

CONGRESS'S MISMANAGED MESS

KALYANI SHANKAR

The only reason why Anna Hazare, who till recently was unknown outside Maharashtra, has attained the status of a national hero is because the UPA Government has repeatedly mishandled his agitation

If anyone is to be blamed for the sudden larger-than-life persona of civil society leader Anna Hazare, it is the Government for it allowed him to assume such a role. Four months ago, Anna Hazare did not even have a fraction of the popularity he enjoys today. In fact, he was barely known outside of Maharashtra. He also had no Team Anna.

But then, Anna Hazare seized the issue of 'aam admi' based on which the Congress had come to power in 2004 and again in 2009. This made it difficult for the Congress as it could be seen fighting anyone but simply not the aam admi.

However, the defining moment of Anna Hazare's movement was the day he was arrested and sent to jail. At that moment, the fight moved from the Lokpal Bill to the citizen's right to protest which gathered him enormous support. The one telling picture of Anna Hazare meditating in Rajghat also added to his cause. That is when his popularity increased manifold and he became a larger than life persona.

Of course, the electronic media also built him overnight as one comparable to Mahatma Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan, and his movement against corruption is now likened to freedom struggle of yesteryears.

So the question is could his arrest have been avoided? The answer to that is yes. The Government could have handled Anna Hazare case with more sensitivity. If his arrest was a surprise, his release too has raised many eyebrows. Many would think that now if the genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be put back.

But arresting Anna Hazare was not the first mistake the Government had committed. Starting from April when Anna Hazare was fasting at Jantar Mantar, the Government had committed a series of one faux pas, one after the other.

First, the Government gave him legitimacy when he initially started talking about corruption. As the NDA convenor Sharad Yadav pointed out that while the Opposition had been discussing corruption and price rise, the Government gave Anna Hazare credibility by negotiating with him and his team. The Prime Minister met him, Ms Sonia Gandhi appealed to him to not go on a fast and finally, the Government in a knee-jerk reaction invited Team Anna to participate in the joint drafting committee on the Lokpal Bill. The Government in fact went all out to engage the Team Anna.

The next mistake was not handling the whole thing as a political issue but treating it as a legal issue instead. Political problems have to be dealt with political tact. But the Ministers in charge only talked in legal terms while Team Anna went ahead and mobilised public support. Then, when the Government tried to project Team Anna as one that was dictating terms to Parliament, the Opposition saw it fit to side with Team Anna in both Houses of Parliament. By now to the dismay of the Government, the focus had shifted from the Lokpal Bill to that of a citizen's right to protest peacefully. The Opposition had also united in blaming the treasury benches for mishandling the Anna Hazare issue.

The Government's third mistake was its failure to communicate to the public the rationale behind its decision to arrest Anna Hazare and his aides. This was despite the fact that a high profile group of Ministers had been put in charge. Team Anna, on the other hand, was not only media-savvy but also use the latest information technology including Twitter and Facebook to gain public sympathy. They even smartly recorded Anna Hazare's message on Youtube, even before he was arrested and televised the message as soon as he was taken into custody. In fact, the team has won the media war to a large extent for its ability to anticipate future events.

The Government's fourth mistake was perhaps to 'realise' that Anna Hazare was corrupt much after it had engaged Team Anna and involved it in the drafting of the Lokpal Bill. They dug out the old 2003 Justice Sawant report that alleged that Anna Hazare was corrupt. This personal vilification of Anna Hazare backfired to a large extent with the result that Mr Rahul Gandhi had to step in and make sure that there were no more personal attack on Team Anna.
The
fifth mistake was that after arresting Anna Hazare, the Government could have released him instead of allowing him seek bail. Since Anna Hazare refused to seek bail, he had to be lodged in Tihar Jail along with Suresh Kalmadi and A Raja. The Government did ultimately release him but if it had done this sooner, then it could have saved face.

So, with the Government not willing to yield and Team Anna, goaded on by huge public support, will there be any movement forward? For now, Anna Hazare has won the first two rounds — first, by finding his team a place on the joint drafting committee and the second round by forcing the Government to release him from jail. The Prime Minister has thrown up his hands saying he has no magical wand but if his Government is serious about tackling corruption, then it has to do better in handling this crisis. It should view this as a golden opportunity to rebuild its corruption-tainted image.

 

***************************************

THE PIONEER

OPED

DOES INDIA NEED A SECOND GREEN REVOLUTION?

ANURADHA DUTT

In his Independence Day speech Manmohan Singh has emphasised on the need for a second green revolution and the Food Security Bill. While making these comments, he has completely ignored the Supreme Court's proposal to distribute surplus food rotting in the open among the poor

Political observers, who watch the Congress-led ruling coalition's moves with suspicion, are somewhat alarmed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's refrain of launching a second green revolution, as well as the implications of the Food Security Bill. He stressed the need for a second green revolution in his Independence Day speech as well. Baffled commentators have since long been pointing out that before initiating this exercise, which requires enormous investment, policy-makers should try and implement the Supreme Court's proposal that surplus foodgrains be distributed free or at minimal cost to the poor and hungry, instead of rotting in warehouses or wherever.

It is a national scandal, with the media routinely reporting about sacks of foodgrains being left out in the open, in school rooms, beside roads, anywhere, exposed to the elements and assaults by rodents and pests. If the UPA Government is serious about feeding those who lack food security, it should have heeded the apex court's suggestion.

Instead, last August Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar had stated that it was not possible to distribute food grains free. But the Government was buying wheat at Rs 16 per kg and selling it for Rs 2 a kg to the poorest of the poor. It is difficult to ascertain whether such wheat is reaching all the targeted people. So far as storage of foodgrains is concerned, a large quantity continues to rot in the absence of proper facilities.

One might have assumed that after the ineptitude of the Food Corporation of India in this matter was exposed, remedial action would immediately have been initiated. That is expecting too much. Last August, seven FCI open godowns in Haryana's Kalyat, Kaithal district, were found full of mud. More than 10 lakh bags of wheat were reported to be rotting inside. The godowns were private, and had been hired by the FCI with the State Government's help. The colossal waste was replicated this year, with TV channel Headlines Today reporting:

"Hundreds of tonnes of wheat and rice are rotting in godowns across the nation — the reason being there is simply no space. So, while paddy sacks are dumped inside classrooms in Andhra Pradesh, wheat is left to rot on the roadside in Kurukshetra and sacks can be seen lining up parking lots of residential areas in the fertile wheat belt of Punjab and Haryana."

This is a criminal waste. The Prime Minister must explain to the nation why we need a second green revolution when India is said to be self-sufficient in foodgrains. The report estimates that foodgrains production including wheat, rice, pulses and coarse cereals will go up to a record 235.88 tonnes. The earlier record was 234.47 million tonnes in 2008-09. The report adds that the current storage capacity is 62.8 million tonnes, which is proving inadequate.

There were record rice and wheat stocks of 65.6 million tonnes in godowns in early June. The problem is expected to become worse after the kharif harvest arrives by September-October. Clearly, what ails India is a lack of will to create better storage and ensure that the hungry get access to foodgrains at an affordable rate, even free, during hard times.

Our cattle, too, should be fed the surplus since that would mean better milk yield. Non-dairy cattle can be saved from slaughter houses and deployed to till fields and for providing natural fertilisers, in place of agrochemicals. That is also a cheaper option for farmers, otherwise forced to borrow from banks to buy costly and toxic pesticides and fertilisers. The grain yield would be healthier without chemical residue, with people in southern Punjab reportedly afflicted by a range of cancers, infertility, neurological and other maladies, resulting from sustained use of agrochemicals.

Bumper harvests are negated by letting grain rot or be devoured by pests. The public distribution system, the ubiquitous ration shops of the socialist era, are rife with malpractices, with commodities being diverted to the open market, hoarded and misused. The Supreme Court had ordered enhancing storage facilities. There really would be no need for the food security legislation if the concerned agencies could ensure proper storage and distribution of foodgrains.

Mr Pawar has already voiced reservations about the mammoth cost and burden of the proposed legislation. He is reported to have written to the Prime Minister, suggesting direct cash transfer to target groups, in place of cereals and foodgrains. But such cash transfers are likely to reach the pockets of middlemen, in part or whole, just as essential commodities under the public distribution system are often diverted. Under the Food Security Bill, framed by the National Advisory Council, an extra constitutional body, the state will give 35 kg of foodgrains to each household below poverty line every month at Rs 3 for rice, Rs 2 for wheat, and Rs 1 for millets. General category households will be entitled to 20 kg of foodgrains at half the minimum support price.

The Government will undertake an agricultural survey, like the economic survey, before tabling the Bill. The second green revolution presumably will be launched to fulfil the commitments made in the Bill, with the Government expressing worry about the successive failure to achieve the targeted four per cent growth in agriculture in the last three Five Year Plans.

However, cynics interpret this as a prelude to letting in agro MNCs, with the second green revolution hinging on the latest agrochemicals, patented seeds and genetically engineered inventions, available at great cost. Traditional farming methods, more congenial to health and the economy, would perish. ***************************************

 

******************************************************************************************

THE TIMES OF INDIA

 COMMENT

SEIZE THE DAY

 

New Delhi's Ramlila Ground is the new stage for Anna Hazare's anti-corruption crusade. A deal between team Anna and Delhi police removed many restrictions on his hunger strike, including on its site and time limit. Which begs the question why the government chose not to be accommodative earlier, going in instead for the wholly avoidable third degree. By arresting a social activist who'd caught the popular imagination, it invited brickbats for its high-handedness. By capitulating subsequently, it showed it lacked the courage of its own convictions. By falling between two stools, the UPA has merely come across as out of sync with the public mood.

The Congress's bid to link the call for a strong Lokpal to a supposed conflict between elected MPs and unelected interlopers in the political space has been an exercise in obfuscation. Parliamentary democracy and participative democracy have never been mutually exclusive. By dubbing anti-graft protest as "fraught with grave consequences" for lawmaking, the prime minister misses this point. He'll do better to enunciate what his government intends to do about its Bill's perceived lacunae. There are several ways to move forward, from revisiting the controversy-generating oversights in its draft to having Parliament or a qualified, non-partisan panel consider the relative merits of the Lokpal and Jan Lokpal variants and suggest compromise solutions.

Manmohan Singh isn't wrong in saying that a Lokpal alone won't defeat corruption, especially when itself not subject to checks and balances. Here, India Inc's fear that a protracted legislative logjam on the issue could derail reforms is very relevant. Apart from striving to quickly resolve the Lokpal tangle, the PM must effectively communicate why broader reforms mustn't be lost sight of: it is one of our most powerful anti-corruption instruments. Industry voices have said less corruption means a proportionate rise in GDP growth that'll bring big returns: more jobs and revenue as well as resources to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure to empower people. In the anti-graft debate, this point needs driving home.

Singh's government hasn't lacked good ideas. It implemented the RTI Act. It initiated the UID project and proposes better targeting of subsidy, both of which can reduce systemic leakage. Reform by its nature generates transparency, linking political activity, policy making or services delivery to rules and results rather than discretion and clientelism. Hence its need in key economic sectors, be it to counter predatory middlemen exploiting poor farmers, politically patronised land or oil mafias or anti-competitive forces in areas from labour markets to mining. The UPA must welcome people's call for accountability in public life, seizing the opportunity to both expeditiously settle the Lokpal issue and push systemic reform. Expectations in new, youth-driven India are higher than ever before - on the street, in college campuses, in company boardrooms. The PM must respond, as the reformist he's known to be.

 

 

***************************************

THE TIMES OF INDIA

 COMMENT

QUALITY BEFORE QUOTA

 

The Supreme Court has directed central universities not to lower admission cut-offs for OBC students below 10% of the minimum eligibility criteria for general category students. This will bring little cheer to the harassed student community as a whole. Struggling to fill a large number of quota seats, Delhi University colleges recently issued the 10th cut-off list for OBC scholars. Some institutions plan to lower cut-offs further. Not that this will help all the intended beneficiaries, many of whom are unable to compete with cut-offs soaring as high as 99 to 100%. Fearing that further reductions will affect academic standards, the DU vice-chancellor has asked colleges not to reduce the differential merit by more than 10%.

Last year 20 DU colleges failed to fill 50% of their OBC seats. Worse, transfer of vacant quota seats to the general category isn't policy in all institutions in the country. This, despite the fact meritorious students often find it difficult to gain entry into colleges of their choice. Transfer of seats is required to meet the demand for admissions of students scoring high marks. Ironically, 27% quota isn't of much help to target groups even today. Many students in the reserved category get admission only to drop out mid-way, unable either to cope with academic pressures or pass exams. The way out of this mess is for government to make a sincere effort to improve the quality of primary and secondary education in India. The less privileged access government schools blighted by lack of facilities and teacher apathy and absenteeism. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage later in life. Higher education quotas won't benefit the needy if schooling standards remain abysmally low.

 

***************************************

 

THE TIMES OF INDIA

IT'S THE MIDDLE CLASS, STUPID

SWAGATO GANGULY

 

Nobody within the government saw it coming. The middle class has risen massively in support of Anna Hazare, upsetting the government's calculations about being able to manage the anti-corruption movement easily. In doing so, the middle class has upended the received wisdom that it is politically apathetic.

Some element of that received wisdom must have played its part in the government's assessment that the Hazare group was just an unrepresentative bunch of civil society activists who would be easily browbeaten. That assessment has proven spectacularly wrong, with the government having to eat humble pie on the very day he was arrested. It's clear by now that Hazare's arrest was the spark that lit a prairie fire of protests across the country.

The middle class has stamped its character on those protests in many ways, not limited to the goodly number of professionals, white-collar workers, housewives and college students hitting the streets in support of Anna. The protests are novel in that they have been remarkably disciplined and peaceful wherever they have been staged - as opposed to the rioting, stone-throwing, brick-batting, arson, prolonged public bandhs and damage to property that are the norm for political protests in India.

Moreover, instead of being relayed through caste, clan and kinship networks or routed through political parties, the organisers have used modern forms of communication - such as text messages, Twitter and Facebook - or relied on secular civic organisations to quickly assemble large crowds. And there's no denying the role that saturation television coverage has played in transmitting their message.

That has caused some commentators to glibly conclude that the protests are a superficial TV phenomenon that will die down when the TV cameras go away. But the point about 24x7 news coverage is that the TV cameras never go away. In that sense, we live in an inherently tele-visual society; this has played a role in seminal events in history. The fall of the Berlin Wall, for instance, has been attributed partly to the beaming of West German TV images into East German homes, allowing people in the communist half a glimpse into life in West Germany.

For many of those who have hit the streets, it isn't really about the merits or demerits of the Jan Lokpal over the Lokpal Bill, of which they have only a hazy idea. Rather, the Lokpal debate is merely a trigger for the sense of inchoate rage they feel at a political system which displays contempt for their priorities. It's not divorced, for example, from their response to the outrageous loot of Commonwealth Games coffers, or to the fact that 76 MPs in the current Lok Sabha - 14% of its total strength - stand accused of not ordinary but serious crimes such as murder, kidnapping, extortion, rape.

For politicians of the old order (and professional pols belong mostly to the old order), only the two ends of the social spectrum matter. While moneyed elites can bring in the moolah, the poor masses have the votes. The middle classes don't figure in this equation. On the other hand, when a middle-class person looks at the taxes deducted from his hard-earned salary, he's liable to ask what the government is doing with his taxes. That's a basis of democratic politics everywhere, but given shoddy governance standards in India the answers - or more accurately the lack of answers - are likely to enrage him. Taken in its widest sense, the theme of corruption is just a metaphorical way of broaching the question - what are you doing with my money?

It's here that India has arrived at an inflexion point. The middle class (defined as those with monthly household income between Rs 20,000 and Rs 100,000) has exploded in numbers from 25 million in 1996 to 160 million currently. By 2015, it's expected to hit 267 million. That makes it a significant proportion of the electorate, a 'vote bank' politicians can no longer afford to overlook. Moreover, this rapid rise in numbers indicates a shift in the balance of power within the middle class itself. The 'new' middle class - which owes nothing to state employment - is eclipsing the 'old' middle class that was a creation of the pre-liberalisation Nehruvian state.

The old middle class is less likely to question the state, since it is dependent for employment, professional life and pensions on the state. Moreover, its symbolic economy and world view are convergent with that of the state itself, and therefore its needs are better taken care of. It is the new middle class that has reason to feel disconnected. And it will count more and more as a strategic factor in Indian politics.

Anna Hazare is just a catalyst who happens to chime with the middle-class mood today. But the arrival of the new middle class is a more lasting phenomenon than Hazare himself. Just like the TV cameras, this middle class is not going to go away. Smart politicians had better hone their strategies to co-opt middle-class rage. They ignore it at their peril.

 

***************************************

THE TIMES OF INDIA

                                                                                                                                                Q&A

'IF A MILITARY RULER CHANGES THE CONSTITUTION, HE'LL BE TRIED FOR TREASON'

RUDRONEEL GHOSH

 

Bangladesh's Parliament recently passed a 15th Amendment to its Constitution - restoring secularism. Bangladeshi MP and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on ministry of law, Suranjit Sengupta, spoke to Rudroneel Ghosh about the need for this amendment and its implications:

What does the 15th Amendment mean for Bangladesh?

Bangladesh earned its independence through an armed liberation struggle against Pakistan and its supporters. The basis of our Constitution is the proclamation of independence. From this flowed the formation of the Mujibnagar government under which the liberation war was conducted and won.

Following independence, a constitutional presidential order created a constituent assembly. A 34-member constitutional committee was formed. I was inclu-ded as the lone opposition member. This committee drafted the Constitution in 1972. Demo-cracy, secularism, Bengali nationalism and socialism were the four fundamental pillars of the Constitution.

But those who lost the war could not accept this. They conspired and killed the father of our nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, and changed the Constitution. Short of making Bangladesh an Islamic republic, a sort of Muslim Bangla emerged. The 15th Amendment seeks to go back to the 1972 Constitution and its secular tenets.

What changes does the Amendment bring?

Although it's called the 15th Amendment, it is actually much more. It replaces as many as 51 articles. The amendment flows from the historic judgment of our Supreme Court last year, which said whatever changes had been made in the Constitution through extra-constitutional means are illegal. The Constitution can only be amended in the manner prescribed in the Constitu-tion itself.

Under martial law after Mujib's assassination, the military regime unconstitutionally amended the Constitution, including introducing the phrase 'Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim' on top of the Preamble. They then indemnified the military law proclamations through the infamous 5th Amendment. The same happened during the military dictatorship of Hussain Muhammad Ershad when he made Islam the state religion.

The 15th Amendment undoes most of the martial law proclamations and restores secularism as the fundamental principle of the Constitution.

But compromises have also been made - how do you justify them?

In certain areas, we've had to take cognisance of ground realities. After all, it's been 35 years. Take, for instance, 'Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim' above the Preamble. It is a sensitive issue. If we change it, there's bound to be a major hue and cry. We did not want to give communal forces a handle. So we retained 'Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim' but added another line, 'Param korunamoy naame shuru korilam' (In the name of the all-compassionate we start). In doing so, instead of hatred, we have sought unity. As far as Islam being the state religion is concerned, we have added that Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and any other religion will have the same patronage from the state as the majority religion. These are tactical things. You can't really call them compromises.

Do you fear communal forces might change the Constitution yet again?

I don't think so. The proclamation of independence has been made a part of the Constitution this time, so future generations will know we are a proud nation that has got both an independence day and a victory day. Bangabandhu's historic telegram declaring independence has also been made a part of the Constitution. Bangabandhu's stature as the father of the nation has been protected. The basic structure of the Cons-titution has been made unamendable. It has been ensured that if any military ruler comes and changes this Constitution, he and his collaborators will be tried for treason.

 

***************************************

THE TIMES OF INDIA

                                                                                                                                    JUGULAR VEIN

AZAD INDIA

JUG SURAIYA

 

By arresting Anna Hazare a day after Independence Day the sarkar demonstrated its commitment to total freedom, purno swaraj, for India. While sarkars elsewhere in the world - the sarkars of lesser beings such as Barack Obama, and others of that ilk - are niggardly about freedom and its celebration, earmarking celebratory rites only for their respective independence days, our sarkar has made sure that India gets to celebrate freedom every single day of the year, with a bonus dollop of freedom every leap year.

The India that celebrates this freedom is, of course, official India, the India of the sarkar, which celebrates its freedom of doing whatever it likes, wherever it likes, whenever it likes, without having to ascribe any motive for its actions. If this isn't total freedom, what is? The British, from whose rule sarkari India gained its independence 64 years ago, were wimps when it came to exercising their freedom. Every now and then they'd put people in jail for spouting nationalistic nonsense, or beat up people going on a protest march to collect salt. But by and large, there seemed to be a feeling among the most imperial of the imperialists that they were, all said and done, only tenants in India. Tenants on a long lease, granted, which lasted over 200 years, but tenants all the same. They didn't ever actually own India. So the freedom they enjoyed in India, to do whatever they liked, was to an extent inhibited by their sense of transience, of being here today and gone tomorrow, transitory tenants and not permanent landlords.

This changed when the British finally upped and quit India, handing over vacant possession to a forebear of our present-day sarkar. The sarkar that took over after Independence was at first hesitant about freedom, and how it exercised it. There were restrictions on the Indian sarkar's newly won freedom. These restrictions, called rules and laws, were contained in a code of conduct known as the Constitution. It was something of a nuisance, this tether of the Constitution, which restricted sarkari freedom in free India. But it was something that had to be put up with whether you liked it or not. Like summer heat, or winter cold, or the force of gravity.

What India needed to fully enjoy its freedom was a new monarch. Not a foreign, imported monarch this time, but a swadeshi, home-grown ruler, who would preside over India not as a temporary tenant but as a permanent landlord enjoying all the freedoms that are bestowed by full and total proprietorship. The monarch who ushered in India's new dawn of unprecedented freedom was Indiraji I (it is best to add the numeric suffix to the name so as to avoid confusion later on if someone of the same name ascends the imperial gaddi, causing confusion among future students of history). Indiraji I's greatest contribution to India's new freedom movement was called the Emergency. It was called that because what emerged from the Emergency was the freedom of the Indian sarkar - which was synonymous with India (India is Indira, and Indira is India) - to do whatever it chose to, irrespective of what an obsolete and out-of-print publication called the Constitution, which had been sold off to the raddiwala, had to say about it.

Since then, barring a few minor glitches now and again, Anna being the most recent, the freedom movement launched by Indiraji I hasn't had to look back, having gone from strength to strength. Or from scam to scam, some would say. The most illustrative example of India's freedom, sarkari India's freedom, is scams. People who resort to highway robbery or hold up banks are constrained, by their lack of freedom, to put on masks while doing so in order not to be identified by law enforcement agencies. India's sarkari scamsters are free to dispense with such disguises for they are the law.

To have the last word on its freedom, the Indian sarkar just needs to amend one line in its theme song: Jaya hey, jaya hey,/ Jaya, jaya, jaya, jaya hey!/Sarkar bhagya vidhata.

***************************************

******************************************************************************************

HINDUSTAN TIMES

FREE PASSAGE FOR OUR RIGHTS

Through the lens of 24/7 television cameras, a visitor to India could be forgiven for thinking that the protests in favour of Team Anna amount to a societal tsunami engulfing everything in its path. Yes, there is no doubt that there is much empathy with the crusade against corruption and respect for the 74-year-old Anna Hazare though we would not go so far as to say that his fast puts him in the league of Mahatma Gandhi. Now that the government and police have caved in and allowed him to conduct his 15-day fast in the Ram Lila grounds at a time of his choosing, things should be seen in perspective.

While huge numbers support Anna and his cause, an equal, if not greater number of people, do not have the luxury of being able to hang out at the Ram Lila grounds or other venues of protest though they may be in full sympathy with anti-corruption movements. As we have seen in the past, such protests tend to take on a life of their own and spread out over public spaces, putting those who want to get from one place to the other out of gear. The protestors who are fighting the good fight should ensure that those who want to get to their workplaces, educational institutions or hospitals should be allowed to traverse unhindered. They should not insist on shutting down educational institutions and other establishments and observing hartals to boost the fight for clean governance. We have seen the results of such shutdowns in places like West Bengal and Kerala where the economy was pushed to the ropes at great cost to the people. Of course, those who want to stay away from schools or work are free to do so, but Anna and supporters cannot create conditions of chaos where normal life comes to a standstill. In the democratic system that we are all fighting to save, maybe not quite as vocally as Anna and his supporters, people have an equal right to get on with their daily lives and not be prevented from doing so by the security measures undertaken by the police or the rallies undertaken by the Anna faithful.

Anna has proved his point, that his democratic right to dissent cannot be taken away by a muscular government. In that spirit, he should exhort his followers to confine themselves to the areas designated for them by the police, and for people who have not come out on the streets to protest in whatever way they see fit as long as this does not intrude into anyone else's space. It now falls upon Anna to ensure that this is really a democratic protest in every sense of the term. The very same cameras which have created a multiplier effect for him, could mirror a less than positive image if he and his followers are seen to create hardship for the common man whose cause they are championing.

***************************************

 

HINDUSTAN TIMES

THE PUNDIT

NO SPORT AND SUPPORT

The photo wires were on fire yesterday with photographs from Russia, which had been supplied to them by a 'third party'. In other words, the photographs of two fit and trendy men (wearing near-identical clothes and dark glasses) — President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin  — were government handouts, also known as propaganda material. However, at least for once, we will not crib about propaganda but about the aesthetic value of the photographs. But first the story behind the photographs: the two leaders, who are believed to be close to a decision on which of them will run for president, spent a day — not debating the future challenges in chintan baithaks and plenary sessions — but fishing and boating on the Volga river. Then they set off for a boat trip to take underwater pictures. Mr Medvedev even caught a fish(!), though the photograph looked like a set-up. This is not the first time that, at least, Mr Putin has shown his adventurous streak: who can forget a bare-chested Putin (Rambo style) riding a horse a couple of month ago? American presidents are also adept at showing their sporty side with photo-ops of them playing golf or cycling.

But when it comes to India, our netas are stiff as a poker. There are some honourable exceptions like Farooq Abdullah but then it's more to do lifestyle than sports. In short, we have no leader who is sporty (ah, we forgot our tennis ace, SM Krishna) who can do a Putin here. Sometimes, we do see our well-fed, under-exercised MPs don their cricket whites for a lazy game in the winter sun. The only major exercise they get is once in five years, when they have to do daily marathons to woo the voters.

But New India would definitely like some of our shy politicians tell us all about their hobbies. Who knows, maybe the once-loved and now much-maligned leader is a closet martial arts expert. Or maybe a rotund party chief is an ace diver. Even for us, with such fertile imagination, these sound incredible. Alas, there is no other option but to shift our gaze back to Mr Putin.

***************************************

 

 

 

 

HINDUSTAN TIMES

NOT SO HIDDEN DRAGON

ASHOK KUMAR MEHTA,

The forthcoming debate in Parliament will focus on the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils but the more important issue about the diminution of India's strategic leverage to China in Sri Lanka is likely to be lost. Hambantota rings the bell.

Famous for salt flats and arid and hot weather, the sleepy environs of Hambantota district are destined to become the primary port of call in Sri Lanka. Reason? As the political constituency of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, it is central to his Vision Document 2025. It has the world's first inbuilt harbour carved out of land, strategically located astride the busiest East-West shipping lane and poised to challenge the primacy of Singapore's port.

The port, of course, was made in China at friendship prices. Last month, just one ship was berthed in the harbour.

So how did India let China spread its wings over much of the country including Hambantota? Much of it owes to Rajapaksa's strategic decision to reduce dependence on India, a process that has accelerated after the defeat of the LTTE, ironically an outcome in which New Delhi played a key role. Rajapaksa says he wants to reposition Sri Lanka as the 'pearl of the old Silk Route', doubtless an unintended congruence of China's string of pearls concept that envisions a necklace of bases across the Indian Ocean to challenge Indian and American trade and diplomacy. In August 2009, Rajapaksa clarified: "India need not fear China's role in Sri Lanka. The Chinese will come and go. But Indians will stay."

But the Hambantota episode has an Indian twist. The first offer was made to India when Nirupama Rao was the high commissioner there. Rejection was dictated by cost and utility of the port facility. At Port Blair recently, national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon said that 70% of India's shipping is handled by Colombo port which is also being modernised with Chinese assistance.

Speaking about the Indian Ocean Region in 2009, Menon was equivocal about Hambantota becoming a part of China's 'string of pearls'. Publicly, the Indian foreign office expresses no concern about China's enlarging footprint in Sri Lanka though according to WikiLeaks, in November 2007, Mohan Kumar, the joint secretary dealing with Sri Lanka, had told US embassy official Ted Osius in New Delhi that "we are concerned over China's access to Hambantota."

In May 2011 in Beijing, Sri Lankan foreign minister GL Peiris said Hambantota will never be a military port. Yet, Gwadar and Chittagong ports, both constructed and modernised by China, are commercially and militarily 'off the beat' and less attractive than Hambantota which requires just a five-mile deviation from the shipping lane.

At the Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore in May 2011, Chinese defence minister Gen Liang said he was unaware of any plan to use Gwadar as a naval base and he had not heard about any base in Sri Lanka.

Many Sri Lankans are happy at the turn of events. "We are now in a position to juggle India and China but we are closer to China which has no strings attached," noted a diplomat. Another diplomat said China will have storage and fuelling facilities at Hambantota. "So can India," he quipped.

China has become Sri Lanka's biggest benefactor, with its activities increasing dramatically since Rajapaksa took command in 2005. Beijing's substantive political and military assistance during and after the war in tandem with Islamabad has undermined India's supply of defensive weapons. China's assistance now stands at $3.2 billion, overtaking Japan as Sri Lanka's biggest donor. It is Sri Lanka's biggest exporter after India with China-Sri Lanka trade doubling in the last five years to $1.13 billion. China was the biggest foreign investor in 2009. The yuan, not the rupee, has joined the authorised currency list for international transactions.

India's visibility is confined to the northeastern part of Sri Lanka. Still, India holds the ace: the clause in the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 that "Trincomalee or any other port in Sri Lanka would not be made available for military use to any country in a manner which is prejudicial to India's interest." India, though, should now go by Colombo's deeds, not words.

Ashok Mehta is former commander of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka. The views expressed by the author are personal.

***************************************

HINDUSTAN TIMES

THE WORLD'S NOT ENOUGH

SHASHI THAROOR AND KEERTHIK SASIDHARAN

In the last two decades, India has gone from being one of the least globalised economies in the world to one of the most dependent on international commerce. Right up to the late 1980s, foreign travel was a rare and much-coveted luxury for the middle classes. If one got to go abroad, one had to depend on the largesse of foreigners, since you could carry out of India only a measly foreign exchange allowance of (for much of that time) $8. Foreign goods were largely unavailable; visitors from abroad, bringing what for them were routine consumer items, were greeted almost as if they had introduced frankincense and myrrh to Bethlehem.

Today, to use a cliché, India is not what it used to be. The world has changed, and in order to take advantage of it, India has changed too. Our markets are more open, we enjoy a wider range of consumer items than ever, and those who go abroad (far more than ever before) finance their travel and expenses with foreign exchange. Business process outsourcing has tied large numbers of Indians to foreign work environments and business partners. The world is no longer a strange, intimidatingly inaccessible place for most Indians. And in turn, the world sees India differently too.

Indian companies continue to expand outwards.  They continue to set up overseas subsidiaries and partnerships.  From the behemoths like Tata Consultancy Services in China and Bharti Airtel across Africa to small diamond trading units in Belgium or agricultural firms like Harrisons Malayalam buying plantation land in South Africa, to turnkey infrastructure project firms like GVK Power and Infrastructure in Indonesia, and many more examples too numerous to mention, Indian firms continue to expand and operate successfully in the rest of the world.

Now the India that is going global is also a remarkably young country. India's youth population remains an under-utilised economic asset. Census figures tell us that nearly 1/5th of India belongs to the 15-24 age group. By 2020, the average Indian will be 29 years. (At that time, the average Chinese will be 37 years old, the average European 49.) It is precisely this age group that, given the opportunity, seeks to travel, to escape home, to leap past the humdrum of school or college and see the world.

This provides us with a unique opportunity as a society.  We are at a golden moment of being able to create a more globally-aware generation to shore up India's place in a globalised world.

The need is acute. Either we train and prepare our young people for a 21st century global economy, or we face disaster. Each year, based on 2005 figures, we will add around 5 million young adults (between 15-24 years) per year. These are 5 million potentially productive workers. But if they are unemployed or unemployable, they are also potential revolutionaries, Naxalites or stone-pelters. The frustrations of jobless young men lie behind most of the violent protests in the world.

Indian companies that operate outside India should be encouraged, through the diligent application of tax incentives, to use our young people as interns and specialist trainees.  There are two benefits from such an arrangement: the firms get the ability to scrutinise and develop talent in-house for the future, while the young person gets the opportunity to work in a professional setting in a foreign country. Over the period of the contractual agreement, it is only natural that this young intern will travel around, interact with the local societies and — over a period of time — we will have Indians who know the world much better than the generation before.

There are many models we can study to fine-tune such a programme. The French, for example, have a governmental division that oversees its VIE (internship) programme, which is subordinated to the Secrétariat d'Etat au Commerce Exterieur (State Secretariat for Foreign Trade). Young French citizens apply to go work abroad for French firms via this agency. Their remuneration is such that one part of it is fixed, while the other is contingent on local wage levels. Often the retention levels at the firms that engage them are high as well. Over the years, the French have created a pool of young people who have served in far-flung areas — and reinforced Paris' own global vision and sensibilities.

In India, our industries and firms are at the cusp of expanding globally in an unprecedented fashion. Our young people are raring to travel, work and experience the world. There is no reason why we cannot bring them together and why a systematic competitive programme run by the government can't create a new generation of Indians who — while they enrich their own lives' experiences — will help build and project India's reach into the world.

Shashi Tharoor is a Lok Sabha MP and Keerthik Sasidharan is a New York-based investment banker. The views expressed by the authors are personal.

***************************************

 

T tion c wo Indian scientists -- Ajay Anil Gurjar and Siddhartha A. Ladhake -- are wielding sophisticated mathematics to dissect and analyse the traditional medita- chanting sound `Om'. The `Om team' has published six tion chanting sound `Om'. The `Om team' has published six monographs in academic journals, which plumb certain acoustic subtlety of Om that they say is "the divine sound".

Om has many variations. In a study published in the Inter- national Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, the researchers explain: "It may be very fast, several cycles per second. Or it may be slower, several seconds for each cycling of [the] Om mantra. Or it might become extremely slow, with the mmmmmm sound continuing in the mind for much longer periods but still pulsing at that slow rate." The important technical fact is that no matter what form of Om one chants at whatever speed, there's always a basic `Omness' to it. Both Gurjar, principal at Amravati's Sipna College of Engineering and Technology, and Ladhake, an assistant professor in the same institution, specialise in electronic signal processing. They now sub-specialise in analysing the one very special signal. In the introductoy paper, Gurjar and Ladhake explain that, "Om is a spiritual mantra, out- standing to fetch peace and calm."

No one has explained the biophysi- cal processes that underlie the `fetch- ing of calm' and taking away of thoughts. Gurjar and Ladhake's time-fre- quency analysis is a tiny step along that hitherto little-taken branch of the path of enlightenment. They apply a mathematical tool called wavelet transforms to a digital recording of a person chanting `Om'. Even people with no mathematical back- ground can appreciate, on some level, one of the blue-on- white graphs included in the monograph. This graph, the authors say, "depicts the chanting of `Om' by a normal per- son after some days of chanting". The image looks like a pile of nearly identical, slightly lopsided pancakes held together with a skewer, the whole stack lying sideways on a table. To behold it is to see, if nothing else, repetition.

Much as people chant the sound `Om' over and over again, Gurjar and Ladhake repeat much of the same analy- sis in their other five studies, managing each time to chip away at some slightly different mathematico-acoustical fine point. The Guardian

******************************************************************************************

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

NO MORE SEVENTIES

 

The Congress party's inept political reaction to Anna Hazare's movements has been the major contributing factor to allowing Anna Hazare's "movement" the degree of mindspace it occupies today. And even after that, the party seems to have been unable to operate in these times with the wisdom they require. Consider, for instance, how party spokesperson Manish Tewari's poorly thought-out accusation that Hazare was corrupt elided much of the truth. Remember: that accusation came after the government had made conceded space to him as part of the "joint drafting committee." The back-and-forth trick that the Congress has played shows that at no point has it taken the long view; it has hurt its own cause because it has consistently reacted — or over-reacted — on the instincts of the moment.

And those instincts are too often way off-base. Congress spokesman Rashid Alvi on Wednesday accused the US of being behind the Hazare-led protests. Taking off on an ill-advised reference by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Lok Sabha to "many forces" that would not like to "see India realise its true place in the comity of nations", Alvi asked: "Who are these forces?" He then proceeded to answer his question: "What was the need for America to state that Anna's movement should go on? This creates doubt and suspicion." (A junior US state department official at a daily briefing had been asked about the protests in India and said little more than that the US believes in freedom of dissent, and that India, as a democracy, no doubt shared those values, and would let protests continue.) Alvi went on to wonder how the Hazare team had managed to fund itself, implying again that the US was responsible: "We should find out the forces that are working behind this movement... What are the reasons, and why is the US supporting this movement?" With Alvi's off-base rant, the 2010 Congress's similarity to the statist, defensive, "foreign hand"-blaming Congress of the 1970s seems to have become complete.

That the Congress's politics in the public glare has been so awful is another reminder of the importance of Parliament. Of course, the opposition scored a few good points at the Congress-led government's expense, but the very give-and-take of argument that raised the level of debate somewhat restored the executive's equilibrium. The Congress must strive for a more coherent, far-sighted political strategy — and learn to respect Parliament more.

                                                   ***************************************      

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

UPPER HOUSE RULES

 

Sitaram Yechury was not exaggerating when he said Rajya Sabha met at a particularly fraught time for Parliament. And it is not just that doubts have been raised on the street about Parliament's capacity to take up issues of corruption — the impression has been all too often strengthened by MPs that they are not committed to bringing due deliberation to debates and legislative business. Certainly, when it discharged the function of a jury to assert the legislature's institutional role in keeping a check on the judiciary, Rajya Sabha would have been expected to rise to the occasion. And it did — engagingly, attentively and thoughtfully. But with the impeachment proceedings now passing to Lok Sabha, the Upper House has set a bar in attentiveness it needs to hold itself to.

Rajya Sabha MPs underscored the importance of the moment in the larger context of doubts being expressed by some — however small in number and lacking in representativeness as they may be — about Parliament's centrality in our democracy. Those doubts don't hold up to scrutiny, though to the extent they spur the legislature to find its equilibrium through activity and debate, it may yet be collateral benefit. However, in past months there have been questions asked about Rajya Sabha's utility, most notably by a chief minister as well as a member of Lok Sabha. Given the manner of nominating and electing MPs, does its composition reflect the voice of the states or the whims of party leaderships? May not the Upper House be a better guarantor of federalism and continuity if its members were directly elected by statewide electorates, in the manner of the US Senate? Can there not be another mechanism to have a smaller percentage of MPs chosen through indirect election to retain the Indian variant of the spoils system?

It's not that Rajya Sabha need account for its existence. Instead, the challenge before the House is to be a chamber always engaged in the issues of the day — and for its members to find their individual voices to give counsel as "elders", perhaps by asserting more often the benefits of a conscience vote.

***************************************

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

THAT LAST STAND

 

Twenty years ago, August 18-22 witnessed the short-lived coup attempt against then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, when the hardline putschists put him under house arrest on holiday in Crimea. But much had changed within the Soviet Union to truncate the coup. The biggest was the effective civil resistance led by the late Boris Yeltsin, then president of the Russian Federation, who had become the most powerful voice against the CPSU, thanks to the political reforms under Gorbachev. When Gorbachev returned, his authority was gone. Yeltsin capitalised on the moment, and in December 1991 the Soviet Union was dismantled. Never before in human history had an empire been dissolved so completely without bloodshed, with plenty of evidence of decay but no ringing warning of its sudden demise.

Debating Gorbachev's legacy is a difficult, painful job. Reviled within Russia, revered without, many hold that had Gorbachev overseen the Soviet dissolution, Russia's socio-economic indicators on many counts today wouldn't be worse than the USSR's. Others contend that the force of history was too strong for an individual to make a difference, to say nothing of Gorbachev's conspicuous loss of face.

The key to understanding the great unravelling that ended the world born of World War II is that crisis didn't lead to liberalisation and democratisation, causing the Soviet regime's collapse. Rather, liberalising experiments caused the crisis that swallowed up 74 years of history. Nevertheless, the political and economic reforms that Gorbachev began, along with the end of the Cold War and the democratisation of East Europe, showed him as the wise old man who couldn't deliver a new order but knew what couldn't continue. Thanks to him, the English language boasts "perestroika" and "glasnost".

                                                   ***************************************        

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

INDIA'S TEA PARTY TIME

DILIP BOBB

 

The Gandhi topis, the non-violent crowds, the banners and other symbols of protest, including tonsuring of heads, meditating mendicants, patriotic songs and fervour and, of course, the fasts, are seen as a throwback to the days when the Mahatma exerted enormous and unquestioned moral authority over the ruling government, political leaders and the populace. Most references to the "revolution" started by Anna Hazare and his group, now immortalised as Team Anna thanks to inventive headline writers, compare Anna himself and his ever-expanding crusade to Gandhi and his principles of ahimsa and public displays of self-sacrifice. Anna Hazare has that part down pat, but there the resemblance really does end. Gandhi's crusade was to do with the eviction of a colonial power and, once that was achieved, the focus shifted to a crusade against communalism, casteism and other social and cultural faultlines in Indian society. Of course, India was too poor and economically backward for corruption to be an issue, but he was perceptive enough to understand that India's core problems were to do with religion and caste and that rural India was the key focus area to solve those contentious issues.

Hazare and his band are taking on their own government, a battle joined from the capital city, and the ever-widening support they are attracting is from so-called "civil society" which they say they represent. It's largely an urban phenomenon, populated by the middle class which finds real resonance with the call for a corruption-free world. There is no dearth of idealism, no shortage of catchy slogans, no barriers to dreaming of a supercop that will ensure the Rajas and Kalmadis of this world are prevented from putting their hands in the public till. No one can argue with their message, even if the methods may be debatable, but there is a hidden danger: a challenge to the established instruments and norms of parliamentary democracy. The problem is that those who sit in Parliament, the politicians, are perhaps enjoying their lowest level of credibility and the issue itself, corruption, has aroused such powerful anti-establishment sentiments that the Hazare movement has taken on a life of its own with very little knowledge of where it will end. History, and events, have been hijacked by a portly little man in khadi and headgear we had forgotten about.

Today's events, in effect, draw great comparison with another movement thousands of miles away. American politics has been hijacked by the so-called Tea Party, and their aims and objectives are very similar to those of Team Anna. The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is bypassing traditional political channels to influence change, attack the Obama administration's fiscal policies and, in their words, return America to the original interpretation of the US constitution. Like Team Anna, the Tea Party is composed of a loose affiliation of national and local groups that determine their own platforms and agendas. Its activity is described as "Astroturfing", a form of advocacy in support of a political agenda designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The name stems from the famous Boston Tea Party, a protest by colonists objecting to British tax on tea, an act that triggered the American revolution in 1773.

Like the Anna movement, it is largely backed by conservatives, mainly the middle class, who see themselves as patriots standing shoulder to shoulder defending the constitution. Their main slogan is: "One man with courage is a majority." Sounds familiar? They also have taken American politics by storm, despite nothaving a central leadership, just a man, John Paul, described by some as the "intellectual godfather" of the movement. The candidates they support are emerging as serious contenders to become the next president of the US in a situation where, like in India, the popularity polls for the head of the state are at their lowest ever.

Here are more commonalities. What unites Tea Party supporters is less their geography or demography than their policy views: a deep-rooted conviction that the government has gotten too big and too powerful and a fear, largely irrational, that the nation faces great peril. Here's more. During the last election in America (2008), the Tea Party didn't exist. Now, it has energised the most active segment of the electorate, one that has created a new constellation of political heroes. Indeed, in America, political analysts refer to the Tea Party movement as less a party than anti-party, with a generally dyspeptic view of organised political power.

As Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian whose book about the movement, The Whites of Their Eyes, is scheduled to be published in October, says: "It's a party opposed to the idea of parties." The Tea Party reminds her more of a religious revival than a political movement, and the number of saffron-robed saints and sants and gurus who are congregating at the Anna camp smacks of a similar convergence. In polls and other indicators, Tea Party supporters have been profiled as a deeply engaged, highly sceptical group of people who do not identify with any political party, though they mostly support right-wing Republican candidates. Their main concerns are economic — taxes, national debt, government spending — but they are essentially a group of mavericks (Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin) looking to topple the established political order. Their main battle cry is less government, but what really resonates with the public is their conspiracy theories and the picture they paint of a dystopian future for America.

Like Tea Party adherents, in Anna's case, what has brought the urban middle-class out on the streets is their supposed sense of entitlement in governance. They feel they have earned the fruits of growth, not purloined it, and that allows them to stake their claim to a more transparent form of governance and greater vigilance on its actions. The demand for a more accountable government is in consonance with a new sense of participatory citizenship. The new urban Indian citizen now wants accountability for the tax that they pay to the government, and that is the mood that Anna has tapped into. Yet, if eradication of corruption is predicated on a supposed change in governance, even government, civil society in India must equally take into account the other issues that challenge the idea of India, casteism, communalism, violence against women, to name a few. In America, the Tea Party is seen as blinkered and narrow-visioned. How different is Team Anna?

dilip.bobb@expressindia.com

***************************************

 

 

 

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

FOOD FUNDAMENTALS

COOMI KAPOOR

 

It will be a mistake to assume that the food security bill, in its present form, will necessarily and sharply reduce India's embarrassingly high rates of child malnutrition. Satiating hunger and providing nutrients that are essential for healthy growth and fitness are not quite the same thing, a fact highlighted by the leading medical journal Lancet in a recent research paper. The article says the prevalence of anaemia in India is higher than that in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Southeast Asian countries. It cites the National Family Health Survey figures that 55 per cent of Indian women in the reproductive age, and 70 per cent of children under five, are anaemic.

While the budgetary allocation on India's nutrition programmes is substantial, a major flaw is a lack of focus. The most vulnerable sections of the population often fall between the cracks. The crucial window of opportunity to counter the adverse effects of undernourishment and malnourishment is in pregnant and lactating mothers and children under the age of two in middle- and lower-middle-income groups. It is a vicious cycle: anaemic mothers produce anaemic babies. Fifty per cent of Indian children under three are underweight, 38.4 per cent are stunted and 19.1 per cent are wasted. These unfortunate statistics have not cropped up simply because of lack of food, but a failure to introduce the right nutrients in the diet at the right age. Apart from iron deficiency, which results in anaemia, an estimated 50 per cent of children receive less than half their daily requirement of vitamin A, zinc and folic acid.

Most of these deficiencies in diet could be addressed fairly easily by reaching out to vulnerable sections through the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). Unfortunately, for years nutritionists and NGOs have quarrelled over the right strategy to adopt. In the bargain, anaemia rates have not declined for over a decade. While half-a-dozen high-powered nutrition committees have in general terms endorsed the importance of a cost-effective, easily doable nutritional intervention like fortification and providing fortified supplementary food to children under three, the Central government has failed to push for such measures.

Towards the end of UPA 1, the ministry of women and child development sent out an excellent set of guidelines to state governments, laying down nutrition norms for the ICDS. It recommended take-home rations of blended fortified mixes for children under three and fortified, cooked hot meals for older children. The guidelines took into account the crucial fact that children between the ages of six months and two years have a much smaller stomach capacity and require nutrient-dense meals rich in energy several times daily, whereas older children have different needs.

The message seems to be slowly percolating down. Fortified take-home rations for under-three children in the ICDS are finally being implemented to some degree in states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. On the other hand, there are states like Kerala, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam which stick to the old system of simply providing take-home grain rations for infants. The grain generally ends up as part of the family pot.

One reason why our ICDS policies are not uniform is that court commissioners in the Right to Food case argue that fortified mixes should be supplied only by small self-help groups, which would make introduction of fortification interventions on a nationwide scale impossible. Rajasthan, for instance, is actually contemplating pulling back on some of its pre-mix distribution schemes in the ICDS which are not run by NGOs.

The conventional method of treating anaemia through iron tablets has not proved effective, and hardly 30 per cent of the population has been covered because of distribution problems. It makes sound sense, therefore, to opt for the route of fortifying our staple foods, by adding micronutrients. The costs of fortifying are minimal, the risk negligible and the returns enormous. Wheat, for example, is commonly fortified with iron and zinc. Oil is the vehicle for vitamin A. In fact, 35 countries have made flour fortification mandatory.

In India, Gujarat has been a trend-setter, introducing legislation to make it compulsory to fortify wheat with iron and folic acid and oil with vitamin A. But even enforcing such laws is problematic. Despite a government decree making it compulsory to fortify salt with iodine, around 29 per cent of salt eaten in the country either has no iodine at all or is inadequately iodised.

express@expressindia.com

 

***************************************

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BUDGE A JUDGE?

P P RAO

 

It was assumed by our Constitution makers that once a judicial committee finds a judge guilty of misbehaviour, Parliament would automatically endorse the finding of the judicial committee and pass the appropriate address to the president with the requisite majority. That was the assumption underlying this provision. Unfortunately, Parliament did not build up a convention on these lines. Therefore, the procedure became difficult and doubtful.

In former Supreme Court judge Justice V. Ramaswami's case in 1993, the ruling party, the Congress under P.V. Narasimha Rao, did not issue a whip to the members and in fact, told them to abstain from the vote. Ramawami's supporters prevailed on the party, and this abstention by the Congress defeated the motion, which set a very bad precedent, and earned a bad name for the party. That event has encouraged some judges to take a very rigid stand: not to resign even when serious allegations are made against them by responsible persons. It has had a negative impact on the minds of these people, as errant judges assume nothing will happen to them since impeachment is such a difficult procedure. This has been a serious setback to the independence and the credibility of the judiciary.

Thereafter, there have been a number of cases involving judges of against whom serious allegations of misconduct have been made. There have been cases where criminal prosecution was also initiated. Shamit Mukherjee of the Delhi high court and Nirmal Yadav of the Punjab and Haryana high court are examples. There have also been some cases where the Chief Justice of India did not give his permission to proceed; such permission is required in law. K. Veeraswamy, a former chief justice of the Madras high court, was prosecuted for having disproportionate assets. The real point is that because impeachment is difficult and uncertain, some judges behave irresponsibly.

In the Justice Soumitra Sen case currently before Parliament, a committee was set up, consisting of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, Justice B. Sudershan Reddy, an eminent lawyer like F.S. Nariman, an eminent judge like Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal of the Punjab and Haryana high court. That committee found this gentleman guilty of retaining the monies of a client that he received as an advocate-receiver, and of holding on to that money in his account even after becoming a judge of the high court. He returned the money only later, after the high court ordered him to do so. This was considered to be misbehaviour on the part of the judge.

Instead of accepting the findings given by an impartial committee, Sen has chosen to challenge the findings in Parliament. This isn't a healthy development. The Rajya Sabha has since voted for his impeachment. Now it all depends on the vote in the Lok Sabha. According to me, in principle, it is not a wise decision to make MPs the custodians of judicial ethics and judicial conduct. If they are to apply their own standards of probity to the misbehaviour of judges, they might find it difficult to find him guilty of serious misbehaviour warranting removal. Therefore, there should be another method for easier removal of a judge found to be guilty of doubtful integrity.

I suggest an amendment of the Constitution to incorporate a provision permitting the immediate removal of a judge who, in the opinion of the collegium of the Supreme Court is a person of doubtful integrity and doesn't deserve to remain in office. He can be paid some compensation in lieu of the forsaking of service, instead of having to suffer him on the bench with doubts about his honesty in the minds of the public. The judicial system cannot afford to have such black sheep on its rolls.

If such a provision is made, it can be applied to public servants found to be of doubtful integrity. Proving corruption in a court of law is difficult because the bribe-giver and -receiver will thwart all attempts to prosecute them. The same problem arises with departmental enquiries. Even in those rare cases where prosecution succeeds, it takes a long time and by the time the decision comes, the judiciary would have suffered an irreparable loss. On the other hand, if such people are removed forthwith, on payment of some compensation, the system would be much healthier and will enjoy greater credibility.

Those inclined to accept gratification will also be under check for fear of removal forthwith if discovered. It will have a salutary effect even on the existing judges and will instill fear in their minds, so that they do not resort to corrupt ways, and remain honest. Of all the institutions, the judiciary especially cannot afford to have corrupt persons in its ranks. Therefore I strongly recommend such a provision being made in the Constitution. In that case, the impeachment procedure would become redundant.

There is a judicial accountability bill in the works, but well intentioned as it is, it does not go far enough, and does not have adequate teeth to deal with the problem effectively. There should be a provision for the suspension of a judge when complaints against him are being investigated. At the same time, we must take care to ensure that disgruntled litigants do not level false accusations against judges who might have decided against them. We have to protect judges from such baseless complaints. The judicial accountability bill will have the unintended effect of allowing false complaints to be made, which is not conducive to the independence of the judiciary. There is no provision for the speedy removal of an errant judge.

The Supreme Court has been trying an in-house procedure, but it is not a transparent one. There is a feeling that cases are pushed under the carpet for fear of adverse publicity. Therefore, there is a clear need for a transparent mechanism of accountability for judges. Even in the matter of declaration of assets in public, there was hesitation within the judiciary. It is necessary to ensure transparency in these matters in order to sustain the confidence of the people in the system.

The writer is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court, and an expert in constitutional law

***************************************

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

NO MORE 'WITH US OR AGAINST US', ANNA

JSBANDUKWALA

 

In a span of four months, Anna Hazare is on a second fast unto death on the issue of corruption, and for his proposed Jan Lokpal, which he says will substantially curb corruption. The media is all out to boost Anna. The question is essentially framed as a fight against corruption: either one is against corruption and therefore for Anna Hazare, or one is against Anna and therefore for corruption.

There is no middle ground — that asks, for example, whether the proposed Bill will actually reduce corruption. It presumes that a multitude of Lokpals/Lokayuktas will cover about 14 million Central and state government employees. Assuming a modest figure of one complaint per 100 employees, we may have around 140,000 employees investigated every year. These complaints are to be investigated in a fixed time. Even if one Lokpal can handle 100 cases a year, we will still need 1,400 Lokpals.

This figure may be higher then the number of high court and Supreme Court judges in the country. Are we creating a structure parallel to the higher judiciary, but with much greater powers, and very little checks and balance? Anna assumes that all these Lokpals will be most honest, efficient and just. This itself is absurd in an environment where civil society doubts almost all those in elective office — even chief justices and military chiefs.

Their appointment, and, in the rare case, removal, would be substantially outside the powers of the prime minister. Incidentally their removal would be even more difficult than the removal of senior judges, which is already almost impossible.

Much more frightening is the power such a Lokpal/Lokayukta would exercise over the senior judiciary and the council of ministers. By just a simple threat to initiate an inquiry he would cripple the authority of the judiciary as well as the council of ministers. Note that this would run across the entire spectrum: from budgets, to defence, to foreign affairs. Most important, they would even exercise restraining powers over the use or non-use of nuclear weapons. In one stroke the prime minister would lose his administrative aura.

I am surprised the BJP is supporting the Anna movement. Do they seriously want to cripple a future BJP prime minister?

Sadly, in our country the renunciation of power and wealth leads to acquiring a halo along the lines of the Mahatma. But should we not ponder whether the individual is capable of handling the huge responsibilities that goes with that halo? Everyone cannot be a Gandhi. And, just to remind our countrymen, our Dalit brethren very much resent the fast unto death used by Gandhiji at Pune 80 years ago.

Finally, it is time to condemn these fasts unto death. They are blatant emotional blackmail. The tactic may have made some sense for the towering figure of Gandhi, and under colonial rule. But it is totally disruptive of constitutional structure in an elective democracy, where over 80 per cent of voters exercise their rights.

Lest we forget, this civil society has no place for the poor, Dalits, tribals, backwards and minorities.

The writer retired as professor of physics from MS University, Baroda. He is president of the Gujarat chapter of the People's Union for Civil Liberties

 

***************************************

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

THE ANNA EFFECT

SEEMA CHISHTI

 

The Anna effect

Several Urdu papers have displayed circumspection and wariness about Anna Hazare's movement, and some have sharply articulated their unease.

Mumbai, Kanpur, Bareilly, Lucknow and Delhi-based Inquilab has lashed out at Anna's cheerleaders. Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi has been quoted on the front page: "Anna Hazare camera ke peecche bhaag rahe hain (Anna Hazare is chasing cameras). The real purpose of the movement is to defeat the government." The paper has conducted interviews with some prominent Muslims, who conclude Anna's movement is "backed by communal elements and is an attempt to ruin the atmosphere in the country." The interviewees say that "corruption will not be removed by these types of protests and demonstrations, but by generating an environment in the country against corruption."

Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow and Dehradun-based Sahafat has written a tough editorial titled 'The bubble of Anna Hazare's campaign'. It says Anna Hazare violates the Gandhian spirit and principles. The paper says that "when the MNS's Raj Thackeray was busy sending non-Maharashtrians out of the state, Hazare supported Thackeray and even issued a statement in his favour." The paper harks back to the stand taken by some influential papers during the anti-Mandal riots in 1991, who were opposing reservation for the backward classes, and were "90 per cent of the 15 per cent of the population." The paper alleges, "these are the same people who said no reservation, only merit then." Hitting out further, Sahafat is of the view that "the RSS is backing this to distract from its purported links with terror being unearthed." The editorial concludes that "some unelected people cannot be given preference over an elected Parliament." 

Hyderabad and Bangalore-based daily Siasat on August 17 covers the police picking up Hazare. The editorial is titled: 'The non-serious action by the Centre', and comments on how the Centre is "more concerned about cracking down on Hazare's protest rather than cracking down on corruption."

Honour in uniform 

Commenting on the Gujarat government's action against its senior IPS officers, Siasat writes in an editorial on August 12: "The Gujarat government's action is nothing but a punishment for their stating the truth. The entire nation, in fact, the entire world, knows that the Gujarat riots had the support and help of the government. Ministers of the Narendra Modi cabinet had been involved in these riots, and are currently under trial... These actions are motivated by the sentiment of revenge and are part of the conspiracy to deprive the riot-affected of justice. These attempts must be stopped. And the Narendra Modi government should realise that this country still has a judiciary and Muslims will definitely get justice."

Rashtriya Sahara, in an editorial on August 14, writes: "What should have been done was to give promotions and awards to these senior officers for their honesty and courage in raising their voice... But on the contrary, one of these IPS officers, Sanjiv Bhatt, was suspended and a chargesheet for indiscipline was slapped on another officer, Rahul Sharma. This decision came a day after the statement of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram in which he said that the Centre could intervene in the dispute between the Gujarat government and the IPS officers, if the officers themselves demanded such help."

US economy travails

Rashtriya Sahara, in an editorial on August 9, writes: "Somehow, by bowing before the opposition, Barack Obama has succeeded in getting the debt level raised by Congress. But, obviously, this is not a solution, only a small step that postpones the potential humiliation and preserves the US's image."

Inquilab, in its editorial on August 8 titled "America: bacha sako to bacha lo ki doobta hoon mein" (I am drowning, save me if you can), says: "It should be clear that this economic decline began during Clinton's tenure, and George W. Bush made matters worse. Because he had forced his attention and the attention of the American people, in fact, the attention of the entire world towards self-created problems, whose so-called solutions harmed the American economy further. Barack Obama was handed a choking economy. He directed his energy towards ensuring his own stability rather than the stability of the American economy."

Jamaat-e-Islami's Daawat, in a front-page commentary on August 13, writes: "It is amazing that after suffering such huge losses, America and those who support its capitalist system are not able to understand that the remedy for debt is not debt, and nor is the remedy for interest even more interest. Instead, serious economic reforms are needed. The Islamic system of economy is emerging as a clear alternative, capturing the world's interest."

Compiled by Seema Chishti

 

***************************************

******************************************************************************************

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

CAPITULATION FEES

There are no two opinions on the fact that there is a widening demand-supply gap in higher education. Two months ago, it had yielded a jaw-dropping cutoff of 100% for the BCom Honours course at Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. Now there is the news of a sensational R1.7 crore worth of capitation fee being collected for a postgraduate radiology seat by a private medical college in Mumbai—imagine the unnecessary tests which will be ordered to recoup this cost! Note that the Supreme Court had banned capitation fees in 2003 but obviously that ban hasn't eliminated such fees, only pushed them underground. Perhaps the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and University Bill, 2010 would provide a more effective counterweight, given that it actually prescribes penalties up to R50 lakh for charging capitation fees, publishing misleading advertisements and similar malpractices. So might the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill, 2010, which seeks to effect quality control by ensuring that every institute goes through a mandatory, independent and rigorous accreditation process. Both these Bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha last year. Both of them have fallen by the wayside, like so much other pending legislation, as Parliament sinks into an internecine quagmire.

The health sector has been one of the most ignored areas of India's economy. The ratio of hospital beds, doctors and nurses for every 1,000 people here is less than half of that in Pakistan, while Bangladesh beats us at the rates of immunisation for DTP3 and measles. Meanwhile, the Medical Council of India has proved itself not just an ineffectual but also a controversy-ridden regulator, with the corruption rot engulfing even its top officials. Yes, there have also been some sunnier developments, like the announcement of a common medical entrance test and the lifting of the bar on the direct entry of companies into the field of medical education. But the addition of seats just isn't keeping pace with the rise in aspirants, and it's the supply side that's critical. Unless matters are fixed at this end, it's the consumers who will really end up paying for price distortions at the training end. A few years ago, Assocham had reported that coaching for admission to engineering colleges was netting such huge amounts as could fund 30-40 new IITs. No doubt a similar calculation for medicine and capitation fees wouldn't be any less dramatic.

***************************************

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

THE MAN WHO MADE IT

TCS and Patni Computer Systems were the first to discover the offshoring model in the mid-70s, and Wipro followed suit a few years later. Yet, if there's one person that defines India's IT prowess, it is Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy who retires today after 30 years, having steered the company he co-founded with R10,000 borrowed from his wife to a $6 billion enterprise. A $6 billion firm in a $60 billion Indian software industry doesn't do justice to Murthy's legacy, and there's little doubt the company appears to have lost its edge of late—the $3 billion of cash it is sitting on is seen as evidence of its conservatism, something that Murthy's successor and ace-banker KV Kamath will have to change.

Though others were there before him, Murthy changed the paradigm with the global services delivery model that he perfected. Others are doing the same now, but it was Murthy who delivered quality services to clients through Infosyians located in different parts of the world—multiple-locations but completely integrated services. And for those who thought Murthy ran just a wage arbitrage-driven shop of coding jocks, keep in mind that the banking industry's most successful 'product' is Finacle, developed under Murthy's guidance. None of this would have been possible without a talented and motivated team, and once again it was Murthy that took ESOPs to an entirely different level—from the time Infosys was founded, the company has given out R50,000 crore worth of stock options to employees.

Though Murthy disappointed admirers for not standing up to the government when he was chairman of IIM Ahmedabad and the government wanted to push its reservation agenda, many see him as the first practitioner of 'do no evil', long before Google adopted this as its motto. He had no difficulty in parting ways with a colleague, widely seen as Infosys' rainmaker, on moral grounds; and when a top client (accounting for a fourth of Infosys' turnover) set unacceptable terms, he chose to walk out instead of cutting corners to deliver the product. Convincing clients of his corporate governance, however, required a lot more, so Infosys was the first Indian software firm to list on Nasdaq.

As Murthy hangs up his boots to create even more entrepreneurs with his Catamaran fund—it has investments in socially useful firms like SKS Microfinance and Manipal Learning—we wish him luck. His investors will cherish his advise more than his money—when the government-run education system didn't deliver, Infosys set up its own training facilities that rival many universities. Now that's thinking.

***************************************

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

THE SEARCH FOR AN HEIR

KRISHNAMURTHY V SUBRAMANIAN

 

If one leaves out the smooth CEO succession at ICICI a couple of years ago, we notice that family-run businesses are being more proactive in planning CEO successions when compared to the professionally managed ones. Take the biggest professionally managed companies such as L&T and ITC. CEOs in both companies have been quite indifferent to succession planning and have continued to latch on to their positions for a long time. ITC CEO YC Deveshwar has sought another five year term for himself, while AM Naik of L&T has yet to make any substantial noise on the issue. In contrast, Infosys has undergone a successful transition. Also, the Tata group has demonstrated serious intent in this regard by setting up a committee to appoint a successor to Ratan Tata. These observations raise the important question: How important is succession planning? Why are family-owned businesses paying the necessary attention to succession planning while the professionally managed ones aren't?

Internationally, each one of the top 25 global companies has a clear succession plan in place. In contrast, only 72% of the other companies have a clear succession plan in place. If we dig a little deeper with respect to the processes involved in succession planning, of the global top companies, 94% have been able to uniquely identify and distinguish a leader's current performance vis-à-vis his or her future potential. In contrast, only 64% of the other companies have completed this task. Second, 88% of the global top 25 companies elicit 360° feedback on the incumbent, which enables them to plan better the kind of skills that they look for in the successor to the incumbent. In contrast, only 56% of other companies complete this task. Finally, with respect to preparing a list of potential occupants for select positions in the company, 96% of the global top companies undertake this task. However, only 68% of the other companies do so.

These correlations imply that succession planning is quite highly correlated with firm performance. To consider an anecdote that illustrates this point well, when the former CEO of Bank of America Ken Lewis announced on October 1, 2009 his intention to leave by the end of 2009, Bank of America did not have a succession plan in place. Between September 30, 2009 and December 15, 2009, the period during which the firm searched for a successor to Lewis, its stock fell 10% while the Dow Jones industrial average rose 7.6%. In other words, compared to the benchmark index, the Bank of America stock underperformed by close to 18%, which is a significant drop.

Why do companies not undertake succession planning? Could this pattern differ between family-owned firms and professionally managed ones? Academic research suggests that CEO entrenchment is a crucial determinant in whether or not a firm undertakes succession planning. A CEO wanting to entrench himself may not groom high quality internal successors or may even hinder the career development of subordinate managers. In fact, capable executive directors are found to be less common on the boards of firms where CEOs are more entrenched. Since many companies may be reluctant to hire an outsider for the CEO's job, these findings suggest that incumbent CEOs try to entrench themselves by reducing the likelihood of an insider succeeding in his or her position.

In fact, the CEO's desire to entrench himself or herself may also explain why succession planning may be lower in professionally managed firms vis-à-vis family-owned ones. While corporate boards play a critical role in succession planning in professionally managed companies, the board's role is limited in family-run businesses, where the promoter family takes such decisions. Thus, an entrenched CEO is more likely to be able to capture the board in professionally managed firms, where shareholders are more dispersed. Since a powerless board is more likely to let the incumbent CEO continue when compared to a powerful one, we would expect succession planning to be less likely in professionally managed firms.

Consistent with this power exercised by the promoter family in the area of CEO succession, family-owned companies are increasingly appointing professional managers when there is no suitable candidate within the family. Companies such as Ranbaxy, Murugappa Group and Eicher have set a precedent in this regard. In 1998, when Dabur India realised the might of behemoth MNCs and their scale of operations, it valued the need for a professional to run the operations of the company in order to build a professionally-managed company with a strategic business outlook. And that's when Dabur India roped in an outsider as its CEO, Ninu Khanna, rather than passing the reins to a family-member. Sunil Duggal, Dabur's CEO since 2000, has taken the business to new heights by strategic acquisitions and has expanded the product portfolio to make Dabur a comprehensive FMCG company from an Ayurvedic products seller. Today, a majority of the board members at Dabur do not belong to the promoter family.

The message regarding CEO succession planning is clear. First, to avoid the risks stemming from inadequate succession planning, let the CEO not get entrenched. Second, use a powerful board as a counter-balancing force to keep entrenched CEOs from ignoring succession planning.

The author is a PhD in finance from the University of Chicago and is currently faculty in finance at the Indian School of Business

***************************************

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

INDIA'S VERY OWN GREECE

SUBHOMOY BHATTACHARJEE

 

At the last auction of state government papers by RBI this month, Jharkhand raised debt on better terms than Gujarat. West Bengal was rated a better paper than Andhra Pradesh and the banks and financial institutions thought the Punjab state government was the best place to put their money in, compared to all other states.

Just what sort of a credit appraisal does this pricing show? When successive finance commissions are putting their bets on larger market borrowings to discipline the state governments, the only signal from such a pricing is that fiscal indiscipline pays.

The worrying part of the cutoffs, however, is that there are not unusual numbers. In the world of state government borrowings, what matters is whether the papers have an SLR (special liquidity ratio) grade. The sweetener is whether the Centre has agreed to be the backstop for the state government's loans for the current year, when the deficit has ballooned too much.

Thus, without fail, no matter the time of the year, the state government papers are priced just about 40-45 basis points above the ten year GOI papers. This is absurd when between them these states span the entire range from basket cases to high fliers even by best global standards. In some way the state papers are more like the Euro area bonds, at the root of the present turmoil. Greece needed to borrow more than Germany but as both were borrowing on the strength of the euro, the creditors gave a spread that they should have reserved for Germany.

Something similar is happening in the state government market in India. Armed with the SLR grade, every state government paper passes the first test of reliability.

At the next level, when a state empties out its treasury through freebies, the Centre moves in with a larger plan support. The backstop makes the paper better in the eyes of the borrower.

How significant is this difference? Planning Commission data shows there was a net drain on Punjab's own resources in the last fiscal. In other words the state was using its tax and other receipts to pay off its past dues and had to borrow to even pay its current dues. At the same time the net resources of Andhra Pradesh, despite being strife torn, were covering 46% of its aggregate resources. But the yield on AP papers was worse than Punjab, at 8.56%, against 8.51% for Punjab. The advantage for Punjab is that there is distinct possibility the centre will intervene to reduce its debt overhang, the same as it has done for West Bengal.

Again where West Bengal has a draw on its resources to pay past dues ( as a percentage of aggregate resources, the state's own resources are -18.09%), Uttar Pradesh provides nearly 30% of its budget requirement from its own resources. West Bengal had a cut off yield of 8.55%, compared with 8.58% for Uttar Pradesh.

Essentially, as in the Euro area, the worse off states are borrowing on the strength of their stronger neighbours. The muscle of the central government is in some ways a pooling arrangement the EU lacks.

Bankers concede that the pricing of state papers moves in a narrow range primarily due to their SLR status. When it is fairly obvious that a state could get a bailout the market rates improve. For instance, this month, in the RBI auctions of the clutch of 10 year papers of seven state governments, the cutoff yields ranged in a tight band of 8.52% to 8.58%. The total sum mobilised was R7,012 crore. Officers involved in debt negotiations with the finance ministry at the Centre therefore concede the operative principle for their annual market borrowing limit is how much can the banks pick up, rather than a clear assessment of the risk profile.

If the bottomline, therefore, is an RBI and central government guarantee, how safe should the markets think those are? As the EU crisis and the flood of easy money that the US released show, there is a finite limit to sovereigns' guarantees. That piece of understanding seems to be pretty much absent in the centre-state fiscal relations in India.

But some statistics are rather worrying. The total internal debt of the central government at the end of March 31, 2011 has reached R37,74, 457 crore. That is above 48 % of the GDP. This includes the treasury bills issued to state governments, i.e. cash reserves parked by them with the Centre, but does not include support like that offered to West Bengal recently. So when states want to borrow more from the markets, that should be a cause for concern for the banks and financial institutions that subscribe to these papers. How different is this position from the Eurozone crisis in the essential framework?

These implications have become of consequence when the central government is walking a tight rope on fiscal deficit calculations. The numbers for the Centre could become worse if the international markets gum up soon. For the states, the big worry will be the unmet demands from the state electricity boards. As of now, there is no evidence that banks have become reluctant to pick up state papers. This is despite the excess SLR papers they are sitting on. But at the first sign of discomfort, the world of state government papers could come crashing down.

Again, just as the EU is being forced to accept the inevitability, of a fiscal union as the long-term goal, India too needs to move at an accelerated pace towards the national Goods and Services Tax to ensure the same mistakes are not repeated here.

***************************************

 

******************************************************************************************

THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

TRANSCENDING GENERATIONS IN EDUCATION

DILEEP RANJEKAR

It was the year 2003. As a part of my efforts to understand schools and children of all ages, I happened to visit a Bangalore school that had a pre-school section. I followed the standard strategy of being a "fly on the wall," observing, absorbing, and when the situation was conducive, asking questions to students, teachers and administrators there.

The four-year-old in the junior kindergarten class was smart and highly communicative. She was very forthcoming with her responses. I asked her what she liked and what she did not like in general. She loved her school, her teacher, her mother, and her grandmother. She did not like it when her elder brother fought with her. She also did not like it when her grandmother told her bed-time stories!

This was rather strange, since I had believed that most children liked stories told by the elders in the family. So I was wondering why she did not like her grandmother telling her bed-time stories. Maybe the grandmother saw too many "Ramsay Brother" movies and told her some horror stories — so I thought.

After some patient interaction, the little girl told us: "When she tells me the stories, I go to sleep. But she wakes me up and asks me — the moral of the story!" I was stunned by her unexpected explanation. What struck me personally was the girl's ability to explain her discomfort. I also began to think about several misconceptions that elders have about issues related to the next generations.

Such as that we believe the stories are told in order that they would understand the moral of the story. Or that children go to the school to learn. Or that employees go to office to work.

Is it correct to assume that children go to school only to learn? They could be going there because that is what is expected of them by their parents. Or because they like to be with their friends in school. Or for the one teacher who tells them nice stories. Or they like the playground and the sports facilities.

The children are not even at a stage to understand the "moral" of the story. They may understand it cumulatively through several stories — which would be sunk in several layers of their understanding, only to emerge later. Or their moral of the story would be different than what we understand it to be. What about the pure enjoyment of the story by itself? What about several other uses of the story — such as understanding the language, relating to the characters, imagining the ethos, the feelings, and so on?

Third-generation learners

As in many spheres of life, one of the biggest challenges in the educational system is that we have a first generation of leaders and educators that decide the education policy, the second generation of teachers that are responsible for facilitating education for the children who belong to a third generation.

Understanding third-generation children is a complex process and needs special efforts on the part of all concerned, including parents.

The third-generation children are fearless, articulate, independent, rational (capable of a high degree of analysis on "what is right and wrong" for them), impatient, non-hierarchical, and have wider methods of accessing knowledge. Therefore, what is likely to work with them is not position, age, seniority, power and experience, but strategies that promote equality, democracy, placing before them hard data for them to analyse and infer, and where required, allowing them to take charge of their own learning.

The steps needed

This requires a radically different organisation of schools and classrooms, including in terms of the seating arrangements, the teaching-learning process, methods and material, and the quality of interaction with the children. Parents and teachers must jointly understand that comparing situations with their own childhood and therefore expecting certain types of responses from the children, will not work.

The first step towards making this happen is to completely overhaul the teacher education agenda. Today's teacher education must educate them with multiple current and future scenarios, provide ample opportunity for teachers to interact with the current generation, understand them in a more systematic way and evolve effective processes to interact with them based on this understanding.

The second big requirement is to develop excellent "Teacher Educators" who have such an understanding — since the teacher educators are even more far removed from the current generation of children and hence add to the list of challenges.

The third important step is to find a method to educate parents to accept the fact that their children are bound to respond differently to situations than what the parents did when they were children.

The fourth requirement is to sensitise the educational functionaries outside the schools to appreciate the need to transcend generations, while determining and understanding the needs of the schools, the school administration and the education system.

Children and their future must be at the heart of any decisions about curriculum, classroom practices, examination system and school management system.

( Dileep Ranjekar is chief executive

officer of the Azim Premji Foundation .)

A radical re-organisation of schools and classrooms and the teaching-learning process has become essential to meet the needs of the current generation of students.

***************************************

THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

PAKISTAN'S COMMERCIAL CAPITAL ON THE BOIL

ANITA JOSHUA

Even by Karachi's own standards, the recent spate of ethnopolitical violence has been brutal and prolonged. For well over a month now, Pakistan's largest city and commercial capital has been on the boil, with 318 people killed in July alone. And, according to a body count done by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 1,138 people were killed in the first six months of this year.

The HRCP's count, by its own admission, is usually conservative but with 1,456 people killed and still counting — nearly 40 people including a former member of the National Assembly have been killed since Wednesday evening — violence has become a constant in Karachi this year. To the extent that people, according to Karachi-based civil society activist Zeenia Shaukat, have learnt to adjust themselves to the threat levels. "When vehicles are set on fire in a certain area, people don't step out of their houses; when shops are forcibly shut, people wait for a while and try to find out if the grocery shops are serving back door. Also, if one reads on a TV ticker that there is tension in a certain part of the city, and if one is planning to go out, one will take another route." When a city remains in the grip of violence for such long stretches and so frequently, staying indoors is a luxury few can afford.

Especially since the brunt of what is described as "organised warfare" has been felt most in the poorer quarters of the city. Some of the affected have openly said Israeli atrocities on Palestinians are not a patch on what Karachi'ites are going through in this seemingly never-ending turf war among the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Though there was a time when the MQM — representing the Urdu-speaking populace which had migrated to the city and Hyderabad following Partition — was identified with much of the violence, today nobody can quite say who the biggest villain of the piece is, as all are equally culpable.

What is worse is the extent of the ethnic rivalry. Increasingly, there are reports of one community barring people from the other from being treated in hospitals, burying their dead or sending their children to school in its areas. When violence peaks, such is the level of ethnic profiling that an innocent bystander's attire could get him into trouble, with the Urdu-speaker identified by his trousers and the Pashtun by his salwar kameez.

While all major political claimants to the city — which is said to account for 20 per cent of Pakistan's GDP — have their areas of influence, local media reports suggest that the perennial sense of insecurity is leading to ghettoisation which will only deepen the fault lines. Through it all, as per the HRCP's fact-finding mission, the law-enforcing agencies either looked the other way, abandoned their posts, delayed responding to distress calls or just joined hands with the criminals. In fact, there have been reports of the police suggesting violence to victims as a remedy for their misfortune.

There is a history to this, pointed out columnist Shafqat Mahmood in The News . Recalling the clean-up operation launched in Karachi during Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's second tenure, he wrote: "The hundreds of criminals it [the police] had arrested were released from jail through various political deals, some during Nawaz Sharif's second tenure and later through Musharraf's patronage. They came out and methodically killed police officials involved in operations against them and forced others to run away … No one in the police is ready to risk another onslaught on them and is happy to just watch."

Policing — rather the absence of it — apart, the HRCP team concluded, Karachi is in the grip of a multisided wave of insecurity-driven political, ethnic and sectarian polarisation. "While gangs of land-grabbers and mafias have tried to exploit the breakdown of law and order, they do not appear to be the main directors of the horrible game of death and destruction; that distinction belongs to more powerful political groups and it is they who hold the key to peace."

Ironically, the three key political players have been bedfellows for the past three years at the provincial level in Sindh and also at the federal level except for the brief spells when the MQM walked out of the coalition. This year, the MQM walked out in a huff twice and is poised to return yet again as it grapples with retaining its stranglehold over Karachi in the face of a growing Pashtun population — triggered by a displacement-induced migration from the strife-torn tribal areas and the Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa (KPK) — and the consequent rise of the ANP in the city. Apart from the political turf war, it is a battle for resources and jobs.

From 51.45 per cent of Karachi's population in 1951 and 54.34 in 1998, Urdu speakers now make up 48.52 per cent of the city. While the Sindhi population halved during the same period from 14.32 per cent in 1951 to 7.22 in 1998, the Pushto-speakers have more than tripled from 3.39 to 11.42 per cent. And, this demographic shift is said to have got further consolidated since 1998 with the usual migration that any city attracts, compounded by the displacement of Pashtuns from the tribal areas and the KPK over the decade since the global war on terror began.

In the February 2008 elections, this demographic change assumed political contours with the ANP winning two Provincial Assembly seats from Karachi. The PPP's greater indulgence of the ANP only added to the MQM's insecurities as its influence — despite efforts to make inroads elsewhere — does not extend beyond Karachi and Hyderabad. This erosion of control over Karachi was felt all the more because of the free run the MQM had in the city through the Musharraf years.

The general consensus among Karachi'ites and elsewhere is that the violence has its roots in crime because of the covert and overt support extended by the state and almost all political parties to mafias and powerful predatory groups that have largely come to determine the highly weaponised city's urban infrastructure development. The weaponisation can be traced back to U.S. transit of arms to the Mujahideen from the port city during the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

All three players treat the city like their personal fiefdom. The recent flip-flop over the system of local governance was rather telling. In a matter of weeks, the PPP changed the regime from a local bodies system to a commissionerate and back to the local bodies in what appeared first a punishment to the MQM for walking out of the alliance and cajoling it to its return.

While politicians play out their games of survival in the multiethnic city of 17 million people, the writ of the state is nowhere to be seen. Its absence, says Ms Shaukat, works for everybody. "For rangers and security agencies to continue to dominate the city; for mafias to continue to maintain a presence in the city offering people protection from rival groups. This may also explain the deep divisions among various ethnicities, communities and followers of religious sects. We have a state that is not interested in integration, and we have mafias whose interest lies in deepening the wedge between various groups/communities."

Lamenting the callous manner in which the stakeholders have been operating to further their selfish designs, Rehana Hakim, editor of the monthly magazine, Newsline , asserted that not one of them was making any serious effort to find a solution to the multiple problems that have led to the shutting down of industries and flight of capital from the city. What they have done rather successfully is turn Karachi into a virtual war zone.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says Karachi is in the grip of a multisided wave of insecurity driven political, ethnic and sectarian polarisation.

***************************************

 

THE HINDU

INVESTMENT SANS EQUITY

The focus of UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2011 is on a fast growing but less understood facet of international production and commerce. The term 'cross-border non-equity modes' (NEMs) appears to be an inelegant description of the fairly common activities of transnational corporations (TNCs), such as contract manufacturing, services outsourcing, contract farming, franchising, licensing, and contractual management. However, it does effectively signify the one common element in them: the absence of an equity investment while contracting out manufacturing or licensing patents and processes to a firm located in the host country. International production is not exclusively about foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade. Investments that fund mergers and acquisitions and greenfield investments involve capital flows across borders. Hence it is customary to classify them as 'cross-border FDI'. On the other hand, the NEMs are a mechanism that allows transnational corporations to coordinate activities in their global value chains and influence the management of host country firms without acquiring equity stakes in those firms.

The NEMs, which generated at least $2 trillion in sales globally in 2010, have acquired a significant presence particularly in many developing countries, including India, where governments have tended to put a cap on FDI in many sectors. Under the NEM arrangement, a TNC gains access to the productive capacity of a local partner without putting money into it. In some industries, major NEM firms, including those from developing countries, have become multinationals in their own right. Notable examples from India are software companies that have carved a niche for themselves in the technology outsourcing space. In the process of servicing their clients, they have expanded and established themselves in many countries. Development benefits flowing from NEMs are significant. In many countries, for example, their value addition is as high as 15 per cent of GDP. They employ 18-21 million workers worldwide, a chunk of them in developing countries, aside from boosting entrepreneurial skills and exports. On the negative side, the working conditions are known to be poor at least in some of the NEMs in developing countries. In the West, consumer groups have exposed the seamy side of some contract manufacturing units that have sacrificed safety and environmental standards for short-term profits. It is imperative for the developing countries to beware of the risk of getting tied up with low-value activities and adopt policies aimed at maximising benefits from the integration of domestic firms into global value chains.

***************************************

THE HINDU

A REVOLUTION AT 20

A British physicist's frustration with varied data formats and computers coming to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) laboratory in Switzerland from different countries in 1989 launched a revolution that today's generation takes for granted. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990 and published the first website on August 6, 1991 with the address http://info.cern.ch, giving shape to a single information network. A common hypertext language, interconnectivity, and the sea of data it has created in two decades are testimony to its profound impact. With nothing more than access to the Internet and a web browser, users effortlessly navigate the online world using hyperlinks. Thanks to the standardised web, they do this without having to master the more complicated Internet technologies in use a generation ago. In many countries, the www has unarguably democratised information. What is even more significant is that today it enables every individual to become a creator of content, and to publish it. The user 'pulls' materials of choice from websites in contrast to the passive consumer of yesterday, who received content 'pushed' by television. Sir Tim's invention swept the planet because of his laudable decision not to patent it.

As the public web enters its next decade, its immense potential for good stands out. Going forward, though, it should place in the public domain the thousands of terabytes of data held by governments and institutions. This will help researchers, scientists, economists and other social scientists, to come up with better solutions to problems. Such data have already been paid for by citizens, and by adopting an open, linked approach to their dissemination, low-cost answers to issues can be found. No one has reinforced this thought more vocally than the inventor himself. Tim Berners-Lee forcefully advocates the publication of vast amounts of data that can be both open and linked, to aid decision-making. These can, for instance, pertain to government, enterprise, science, meteorology, and events. Moreover, this is an activity to which the ordinary citizen can contribute his or her bit. The only factor that stands in the way of this transformation is the secretive attitude of established power structures, including opaque government. Let us also recall the advice given by Berners-Lee against doing away with net-neutrality, the system under which all data on the Internet, including web traffic, are treated equally. Privileging one set of high-paying users by giving priority to their data can only create disparities. The power of good is intrinsic to the free web, now an energetic 20, and to the Internet in general.

***************************************

THE HINDU

EAST AFRICA FAMINE CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON FUTURE

The Agriculture Minister of drought-hit Kenya appealed on August 18 for seeds, irrigation plans and infrastructure to avoid a repetition of famine and food crises in the Horn of Africa "every two years."

Sally Kosgei and other delegates at an emergency conference in Rome voiced what they said was a need to look beyond the starving populations' immediate needs and focus on longer-term solutions for the region.

"It is really very important that the world focus now on how to avoid yet another famine or many more famines," Kosgei told the delegates gathered by the U.N. agency Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Tens of thousands of people are feared to have died in the famine, caused by war in Somalia and drought in the Horn of Africa — Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia. More than 12 million people in the region need food aid, according to the United Nations.

Kosgei said that meetings with several delegations from all over the world over the past months have left her with the impression that "long-term solutions we have put on the table have not been taken seriously by those we have met."

"They seem to be more focused on what is to be done now, which is important," she said, "but what to do to avoid a repetition of this every two years to us is very crucial."

The Kenyan official called for drought-resistant crops to be spread across the region, small irrigation plans to be implemented to help small scale farmers, 60 per cent of all farmers in the area, and infrastructure to allow for quicker transportation of foods across the region.

Even those who survive the famine may be unable to support themselves or their families, as their animals are dead and their crop prospects dire, officials said.

Opening the second FAO conference on the famine in East Africa in less than a month, the agency's Director-General, Jacques Diouf, said that "what we are witnessing now is the unfortunate result of three decades of under-investment in agriculture and rural development."

Given modern technology, resources and expertise, he said, it was "inadmissible" that some 12 million people would be exposed to the risk of starvation. He called for building irrigation systems and providing feed and nutritional supplements to livestock, fertilizers and seeds well into the spring rainy season of 2012. — AP

***************************************

THE HINDU

U.N. CHIEF'S PLANE 'WAS SHOT DOWN'

JULIAN BORGER

GEORGINA SMITH

New evidence has emerged in one of the most enduring mysteries of United Nations and African history, suggesting that the plane carrying the U.N. Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld, was shot down over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) 50 years ago, and the murder covered up by British colonial authorities.

A British-run commission of inquiry blamed the 1961 crash on pilot error and a later U.N. investigation largely rubber-stamped its findings. They ignored or downplayed witness testimony of villagers near the crash site which suggested foul play. We have talked to surviving witnesses who were never questioned by the official investigations and were too scared to come forward.

The residents on the western outskirts of the town of Ndola described Hammarskjold's DC6 being shot down by a second, smaller aircraft. They say the crash site was sealed off by Northern Rhodesian security forces the next morning, hours before the wreckage was officially declared found, and they were ordered to leave the area.

Key witnesses

The key witnesses were located and interviewed over the past three years by Goran Bjorkdahl, a Swedish aid worker based in Africa who made the investigation of the Hammarskjöld mystery a personal quest since discovering his father had a fragment of the crashed DC6.

"My father was in that part of Zambia in the 1970s and asking local people about what happened, and a man there, seeing that he was interested, gave him a piece of the plane. That was what got me started," Bjorkdahl said. When he went to work in Africa himself, he went to the site and began to quiz the local people systematically on what they had seen.

The investigation led Bjorkdahl to previously unpublished telegrams from the days leading up to Hammarskjöld's death on September 17, 1961, which illustrate U.S. and British anger at an abortive U.N. military operation that the Secretary General ordered on behalf of the Congolese government against a rebellion backed by western mining companies and mercenaries in the mineral-rich Katanga region.

Hammarskjöld was flying to Ndola for peace talks with the Katanga leadership at a meeting that the British helped arrange. The fiercely independent Swedish diplomat had, by then, enraged almost all the major powers on the Security Council with his support for decolonisation, but support from developing countries meant his re-election as Secretary General would have been virtually guaranteed if he had lived until the General Assembly vote due weeks later.

Bjorkdahl works for the Swedish international development agency, Sida, but his investigation was carried out in his own time and his report does not represent the official views of his government. However, his report echoes the scepticism about the official verdict voiced by Swedish members of the commissions of enquiry.

Bjorkdahl concludes that: Hammarskjöld's plane was almost certainly shot down by an unidentified second plane; the actions of the British and Northern Rhodesian officials at the scene delayed the search for the missing plane; the wreckage was found and sealed off by Northern Rhodesian troops and police long before its discovery was officially announced; the one survivor of the crash could have been saved but was allowed to die in a poorly equipped local hospital; at the time of his death Hammarskjöld suspected British diplomats secretly supported the Katanga rebellion and had obstructed a bid to arrange a truce; days before his death Hammarskjöld authorised a U.N. offensive on Katanga — codenamed "Operation Morthor" — despite reservations of the U.N. legal adviser, to the fury of the U.S. and Britain.

New evidence

The most compelling new evidence comes from witnesses who had not previously been interviewed, mostly charcoal-makers from the forest around Ndola, now in their 70s and 80s.

Dickson Mbewe, now aged 84, was sitting outside his house in Chifubu compound west of Ndola with a group of friends on the night of the crash.

"We saw a plane fly over Chifubu but did not pay any attention to it the first time," said Mbewe. "When we saw it a second and third time, we thought that this plane was denied landing permission at the airport. Suddenly, we saw another aircraft approach the bigger aircraft at greater speed and release fire which appeared as a bright light.

"The plane on the top turned and went in another direction. We sensed the change in sound of the bigger plane. It went down and disappeared." In the morning at about 5a.m., Mbewe went to his charcoal kiln close to the crash site, where he found soldiers and policemen already dispersing people from the area. According to the official report the wreckage was only discovered at 3p.m. that afternoon.

"There was a group of white soldiers carrying a body, two in front and two behind," he said. "I heard people saying there was a man who was found alive and should be taken to hospital. Nobody was allowed to stay there." Mbewe never came forward with that information earlier because he was never asked to, he said. "The atmosphere was not peaceful, we were chased away. I was afraid to go to the police because they might put me in prison." Another witness, Custon Chipoya, a 75-year-old charcoal maker, also claims to have seen a second plane in the sky that night. "I saw a plane turning, it had clear lights and I could hear the roaring sound of the engine," he said. "It wasn't very high. In my opinion, it was at the height that planes are when they are going to land.

"It came back a second time which made us look and the third time, when it was turning towards the airport, I saw a smaller plane approaching behind the bigger one. The lighter aircraft, a smaller jet type of plane, was trailing behind and had a flash light. Then it released some fire onto the bigger plane below and went in the opposite direction.

"The bigger aircraft caught fire and started exploding, crashing towards us. We thought it was following us as it chopped off branches and tree trunks. We thought it was war so we ran away." Chipoya said he returned to the site the next morning at about 6a.m. and found the area cordoned off by police and army officers. He didn't mention what he had seen because: "It was impossible to talk to a police officer then. We just understood that we had to go away," he said.

Safeli Mulenga, 83, also in Chifubu on the night of the crash, did not see a second plane but witnessed an explosion.

There was no announcement for people to come forward with information following the crash, and the federal government didn't want people to talk about it, he said. "There were some who witnessed the crash and they were taken away and imprisoned." John Ngongo, now 75, out in the bush with a friend to learn how to make charcoal on the night of the crash, did not see another plane but he definitely heard one, he said.

Sole survivor

The only survivor among the 15 people on board the DC6 was Harold Julian, an American sergeant on Hammarskjöld's security detail. The official report said he died of his injuries, but Mark Lowenthal, a doctor who helped treat Julian in Ndola, told Bjorkdahl he could have been saved. "I look upon the episode as having been one of my most egregious professional failures in what has become a long career," Lowenthal wrote in an email. "I must first ask why did the U.S. authorities not at once set out to help/rescue one of their own? Why did I not think of this at the time? Why did I not try to contact US authorities to say, 'Send urgently an aircraft to evacuate a U.S. citizen on secondment to U.N. who is dying of kidney failure?'" Julian was left in Ndola for five days. Before he died, he told police he had seen sparks in the sky and an explosion before the crash.

Bjorkdahl also raises questions about why the DC6 was made to circle outside Ndola. The official report claims there was no tape recorder in the air traffic control tower, despite the fact its equipment was new. The air traffic control report of the crash was not filed until 33 hours afterwards.

According to records of the events of the night, the British High Commissioner to the Rhodesian and Nyasaland Federation, Cuthbert Alport, who was at the airport that evening, "suddenly said that he had heard that Hammarskjold had changed his mind and intended to fly somewhere else. The airport manager therefore didn't send out any emergency alert and everyone simply went to bed." Suspicion of British intentions is a recurring theme of the correspondence Bjorkdahl has examined from the days before Hammarskjold's death.

Formally, the U.K. backed the U.N. mission, but, privately, the Secretary General and his aides believed British officials were obstructing peace moves, possibly as a result of mining interests and sympathies with the white colonists on the Katanga side.

On the morning of September 13, the separatist leader, Moise Tshombe, signalled that he was ready for a truce, but changed his mind after a one-hour meeting with the U.K. consul in Katanga, Denzil Dunnett.

Anger of the West

There is no doubt that at the time of his death Hammarskjöld, who had already alienated the Soviets, French and Belgians, had also angered the Americans and the British with his decision to launch "Operation Morthor" against the rebel leaders and mercenaries in Katanga.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, told one of the Secretary General's aides that President Kennedy was "extremely upset" and was threatening to withdraw support from the U.N. The U.K., Rusk said, was "equally upset".

At the end of his investigation Bjorkdahl is still not sure who killed Hammarskjöld, but he is fairly certain why he was killed: "It's clear there were a lot of circumstances pointing to possible involvement by western powers.

"The motive was there — the threat to the West's interests in Congo's huge mineral deposits. And this was the time of black African liberation, and you had whites who were desperate to cling on.

"Dag Hammarskjold was trying to stick to the U.N. charter and the rules of international law. I have the impression from his telegrams and his private letters that he was disgusted by the behaviour of the big powers." Historians at the British Foreign Office said they could not comment on Hammarskjöld's death. British officials believe that, at this late date, no amount of research would conclusively prove or disprove what they see as conspiracy theories that have always surrounded the plane crash. ( Read the annotated U.N. cables on Hammarskj ö ld's death and the Katanga crisis at guardian.co.uk/hammarskjold) — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2011

In 1961, Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld died in Africa in a plane crash. Now, a researcher claims he has got to the bottom of the mystery.

***************************************

 

******************************************************************************************

THE ASIAN AGE

EDITORIAL

UPA MUST SHOW PEOPLE IT'S SERIOUS

The monumental folly of placing Anna Hazare under preventive detention before he could commence his protest fast in New Delhi on Tuesday has been somewhat undone by the government agreeing to let him carry out his plan at another venue in the national capital. It is on this condition that the anti-corruption campaigner — who has gathered star value along the way — agreed to leave Tihar Jail where he had been placed in judicial custody. It is time now to proceed to an informed and nuanced public discussion on the Lokpal Bill, if the proposed protest sit-in is not to acquire intimidatory tones.

The government's first action suggested it had badly misread the public pulse. Possibly, it also reflected a worry about having to deal with potentially large crowds in this age of terrorism and just-beneath-the-surface fires of urban violence which singe us periodically. The second official action — paving the way for Mr Hazare's release — amounts to contrition and appreciation of reality rolled into one. It is to be welcomed. At last there is a signal of politics at work and the dropping of hubris. There appeared more than a hint of arrogance of power in the government's initial reactions in the CVC case, in the Commonwealth Games scam, and in understanding the extent of the anti-corruption mood in the country.

It bears noting that a ruling of the Supreme Court in a 2007 case on Wednesday may also have informed the government's decision to persuade Mr Hazare to end his Tihar sojourn. The court ruled that a person cannot be picked up for preventive detention under Sections 151 and 107 of CrPC — the very provisions used against Mr Hazare — unless there are grounds to believe that he will commit a cognisable offence if not arrested. In any event, some sanity should now be restored to the discourse on corruption and on ways to deal with civil liberties and well-intentioned public protests.

All sides would do well to get on with the job. The Opposition parties and the protesters need to escape from their overblown rhetoric recalling the Emergency. This can continue to be invoked only at the cost of appearing ludicrous, considering what the Emergency meant. On the core issue of the Lokpal Bill, no injury to parliamentary positions can be caused if Congress — rather than the government — representatives call on Mr Hazare, as a matter of courtesy, to explain where they differ on his Jan Lokpal Bill, and why. This is the way politics was conducted for two decades after Independence. The Congress-led government has taken legislative steps to combat corruption. It has to persuade people that it is serious.

***************************************

THE ASIAN AGE

OPINION

PARLIAMENT: A CURIOUS INDIAN INSTITUTION

SHASHI THAROOR

The current visit to India of the Speaker of the UK House of Commons, John Bercow, offers an amusing reminder of the similarities and differences between our two Parliaments — one the Mother of all Parliaments, the other the vividly coloured offspring of India's political miscegenation with Britain.
In his interactions with Indian parliamentarians, Mr Bercow has been suitably respectful of the dissimilarities in procedures and practices between the institution over which he presides and its counterpart in New Delhi. Indian politicians have long been proud of the Parliamentary system we adopted upon Independence, patterned as it was on Britain's Westminster model. The choice was not accidental. India's nationalist leaders had aspired to enjoy the democracy that their colonial rulers had long denied them, and had convinced themselves the British system (from whose benefits they were excluded) must therefore be the best. When a future British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, travelled to India as part of a constitutional commission and argued the merits of a presidential system over a parliamentary one, his Indian interlocutors reacted with horror. "It was as if," Attlee recalled, "I had offered them margarine instead of butter."

Many of our veteran Parliamentarians — several of whom had been educated in England and watched British parliamentary traditions with admiration — revelled in the authenticity of their ways. Indian MPs still thump their desks in approbation, rather than applauding by clapping their hands. When bills are put to a vote, an affirmative call is still "aye", rather than "yes". An Anglophile Communist MP, Prof. Hiren Mukherjee, boasted in the 1950s that a visiting British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, had commented to him that the Indian Parliament was in every respect like the British one. Even to a Communist, that was a compliment to be proud of.
But six decades of Independence have wrought significant change, as exposure to British practices has faded and India's natural boisterousness has reasserted itself. Some of the state Assemblies in our federal system have already witnessed scenes of furniture overthrown, microphones ripped out and slippers flung by unruly legislators, not to mention fisticuffs and garments torn in scuffles among politicians. While things have not yet come to such a pass in the national legislature, the code of conduct that is imparted to all newly-elected MPs — including injunctions against speaking out of turn, shouting slogans, waving placards and marching into the well of the house — is routinely honoured in the breach. Equally striking is the impunity with which lawmakers flout the rules they are elected to uphold.

There was a time when misbehaviour was firmly dealt with. Many newspaper readers of my generation (there were no cameras in the houses of Parliament then) will recall the photograph of the burly socialist MP, Raj Narain, a former wrestl-er, being bodily carried out of the House by four attendants for shouting out of turn and disobeying the Speaker's orders to resume his seat. But over the years, standards have been allowed to slide, with adjournments being preferred to expulsions. Last year, five MPs in the Upper House were suspended from membership for charging up to the presiding officer's desk, wrenching his microphone and tearing up his papers — but after a few months and some muted apologies, they were quietly reinstated.

Perhaps this makes sense, out of a desire to allow the Opposition its space in a system where party-line voting determines most voting outcomes. In India, a raucous mob of MPs descending on the well of the House, shouting slogans and waving placards usually prompts the Speaker to adjourn proceedings — sometimes for half an hour, sometimes longer, and sometimes for the day. Last year an entire five-week session was lost, with not a single day of business transacted, as the Opposition bayed daily for a JPC to be established on the telecom scandal. By contrast, as Mr Bercow delicately pointed out, while he did occasionally need to call on members to reduce their noise levels in the august chamber, he had never — never — actually needed to adjourn the House.
Four decades ago, in more gentlemanly times, an Opposition legislator had ended a debate — whose outcome, given the size of the Congress Party's parliamentary majority in those days, was a foregone conclusion — with the words, "We have the arguments. You have the votes." Years later this very MP, Atal Behari Vajpayee, would become Prime Minister himself, and pride himself in cutting as much slack as possible to the Opposition.
The result is a curiously Indian institution, where standards of behaviour prevail that would not be tolerated in most other parliamentary systems. In India's Parliament, many members feel that the best way to show the strength of their feelings is to disrupt the lawmaking rather than debate the law. Their behaviour is enough to tax the patience of even that most gentle and patient of presiding officers, Speaker Meira Kumar. Yet she fully realises that the option of expelling offenders from the House, or even suspending them for the day — both actions entirely within the rules — are not really available to her, because of the uproar they would cause amongst MPs accustomed to laxer standards of enforcement. And then there is not much she can do if they actually refuse to leave when ordered to — a possibility Mr Bercow would not even need to contemplate.
In the UK, there is a tradition by which a newly-elected Speaker has to be physically dragged to the chair by his colleagues, as if reluctant to assume such a heavy responsibility. That was one British practice we didn't emulate. Given what we put our Speakers through, perhaps it would have been more appropriate here!

Shashi Tharoor is a member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram

 

***************************************

THE ASIAN AGE

OPINION

365 DAYS OF FREEDOM

JAGMOHAN

Last year, on August 15, The Asian Age published an article written by me, titled Did India Awake? In the article, I had referred to Jawaharlal Nehru's historic speech, delivered at mid-night of August 14-15, 1947, in which he had declared: "When the world sleeps, India would awake to light and freedom." Around this poetic expression, I had built up the proposition that India had indisputably woken up but was walking on an uneven and uncertain path.

Today, when I look at the intervening period between last year's Independence Day and this year's, I find that India's path has become far more uneven and uncertain. In fact, the country has started tumbling over and is hurting badly.
In this period of one year, India has seen its worst cases of "scams, scandals and swindling" — Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum and Bellary mines. These cases have no parallel in scale or sheer brazenness.

Take, for instance, the Delhi Commonwealth Games, October 2010. The main objective of bringing these Games to India was to enhance its standing among the comity of nations and to make it a more attractive destination for foreign investment, besides providing a long-term boost to tourism. But, after spending over `18,000 crore, all we were left with was a plethora of cases of corruption which have badly sullied the country's image.
Between August 15, 2010, and August 15, 2011, three notable judgments were delivered by the Supreme Court. One relates to the Chhattisgarh Salwa Judum case (July 5, 2011), the second one to the case of sewage workers of the Delhi Jal Board (July 12, 2011) and the third (July 4, 2011) to the writ petition filed by Ram Jethmalani and Others for the recovery of black money stashed abroad. In all these cases, the Supreme Court has, in its own way, pointed the finger at some of the deep and dangerous pot-holes in the path on which India is currently walking.

In the salwa judum case, the court order talked about how "the culture of unrestrained selfishness and greed spawned by neo-liberal economic policy" of the state is largely responsible for the Naxal/Maoist violence and how the "amoral political economy", coupled with scant respect for "the vision and values of Indian constitutionalism", has virtually created a "heart of darkness" in the tribal belt of Chhattisgarh.
With the same insight, the Supreme Court, in the Delhi Jal Board case, talks about how insensitive the state apparatus has become and how, even in the country's capital, sewage workers suffer "high morbidity and mortality" on account of the apathy of those whose duty it is to supply "protective gear" to them.
In the Ram Jethmalani case, by constituting a special investigative team under the chairmanship of Justice Jeevan Reddy (Retd), to investigate and initiate prosecution against the holders of illegal deposits in foreign banks, the Supreme Court has left no one in doubt what it thinks about the growing incapacity of the governance machinery to tackle vested interests. It is this incapacity which has enabled tax evaders to stash abroad amounts which, according to the Global Financial Integrity Report, may total up to $1.4 trillion (`70 lakh crore)

This one-year period also witnessed decline in various institutions of governance. The latest reports of the ministries and field organisations reveal that in 2011, "completion delays" alone are likely to cost the public exchequer additional `1,20,627 crore, and that the biggest casualty would be the key infra-structure projects. The International Finance Corporation and World Bank's report, Doing Business 2011, ranked India low, at 134th position, on the list of 183 countries surveyed for "Ease of Doing Business".

After the grim and gory tragedy enacted by terrorists in Mumbai in November 2008, which resulted in the death of about 170 innocent persons and showed the overall security apparatus of the country in extremely poor light, solemn assurances were held out to the public by the Central and state governments that counter-terrorism-machinery would be effectively strengthened. Massive resources were made available for setting up a National Investigating Agency and a National Intelligence Grid and also for upgrading equipment and operational skills of the police personnel. And yet, on July 13, 2011, the terrorists were able to carry out serial bomb blasts in the heart of Mumbai with ease and confidence.

Not very different is the position with regard to the challenges posed by Naxals who are now working on a new strategy to infiltrate into urban areas. Their aim is to tap disgruntled workers in the informal sector, build a cadre of urban guerrillas to establish supply lines of arms and ammunition to the rural areas.

In the economic sphere, too, the sign-posts do not point to an elevating path ahead.
The prices of essential commodities have risen sharply, and inclusive growth remains on paper. The number of dollar billionaires has increased to 69. They together hold wealth equivalent to one-third of the country's GDP, while about 800 million Indians live on less than `20 per day.

Hardly any housing is being provided to the urban poor and that's why the number of slums in our metros is increasing daily.

There may have been a few bright spots here and there, but the overall journey of the nation, during the year in question, has been extremely hazardous. Is it not time that all right thinking people of India got together to ponder over the numerous disabilities that the country has contracted while traversing the wrong path, and carve out a safer, surer and smoother course for the future?

History tells us in no uncertain terms that those who do not care to see the warning signals of a gathering storm are soon engulfed and destroyed by it.

Jagmohan is a former governor of J&K and a former Union minister

***************************************

******************************************************************************************

DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

 

JAMMU DEVELOPMENT

 

In a high level meeting held in Jammu, the Chief Minister approved Rs. 60 crore 4-lane Circular road project along river Tawi from Panjthirthi to Gujjar Nagar to be executed in a phased manner. The meeting chaired by him was essentially meant to take stock of the damages caused by recent heavy rains to houses, structures, bridges and other items of infrastructure. Chief Minister's personal visit to some of the affected spots in Jammu and Samba districts including inspection of damaged bridge over Uttarbahni and elsewhere, and his interaction with the people whose houses have been destroyed, is appreciable. Without waiting for the monsoon season to come to an end, the Chief Minister's visit is reassuring for the affected people. He has issued instructions to the authorities to implement relief schemes without loss of time. Sanctioning of ten crore rupees for the reconstruction of public infrastructure is a strong indication for the authorities that they are expected to undertake damage controlling exercise without delay.

 

This is all appreciable. But in a sense this is only piecemeal approach to the phenomenon of the development of Jammu. What Urban Jammu actually requires and towards which the government must focus its attention is not just one circular road from Panjtirthi to Gujarnagar. Entire urban Jammu roads and streets are choked with congested traffic. There is traffic jam everywhere, on every street that you may take to ride to your destination. The number of vehicles is increasing each day in the city making traffic situation extremely difficult. Then there is the power shortage in most parts of the city except a couple of localities where the bureaucrats or ministerial quarters are situated. Shortage of electric power and its frequent cuts have almost paralyzed life in the city. Public demonstrations and protests are of no avail because from the power minister down the line to the local lineman nobody opens his mouth to tell people where the malaise lies. The third major infrastructural deficit is of collapse of sewage system. Jammu city has large number of slums where garbage and litter are deposited for days and weeks before it is lifted. Jammu lacks modern garbage disposal units as well as garbage collection system. Whatever we have is old and obsolete one unable to respond to actual requirements. Water shortage in mot of the localities of the city is another shortcoming that makes life miserable in the city.
Jammu has many woes. These cannot be overcome by piecemeal treatment as the Chief Minster thinks. It has little to prove a modern city. As winter capital of the State, it has not enough that the Durbar movers remain content with basking in the warmth of Jammu winter and escaping the bitter cold of the valley. Urban Jammu needs modernization; it needs new localities to come up as modern townships because as a city of migrants, refugees, relocated and migratory labourers, pilgrims and as the future major rail terminus of Northern India, Jammu needs to be a sprawling, developed and planned modern city. We would therefore suggest that the Government of J&K constitute a special Development Board for Jammu urban, which will draw a comprehensive 30-year plan for developing the city as a modern and upgraded city providing all civic amenities and facilities to the citizens, Government can forward the plan to the Union Government as it has been doing in the case of many other projects like Chrar-e-Sharief reconstruction project in the valley. Piecemeal development in Jammu should be avoided as it might render it useless once a big and comprehensive development plan is scripted

 

***************************************

DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

COLOURFUL NATION

 

The nation is not happy with the statement of the Prime Minster given in the two houses of the Parliament. What he said is the view of the ruling party only and not of the nation. When addressing the Parliament on a national issue, the Prime Minister is expected to speak for the nation and not just for the party to which he belongs. What does peace mean and what are the conditions of peace? What is actual import of the contention of "disrupting or threatening peace?" There is no easy answer. Kashmir with entire minority extirpated and living in exile, and nearly forty thousand Kashmiris dead, and lakhs of security forces engaged in fighting the terrorists, is now called a peaceful and not disturbed area. Is it true? With Anna sent to Tihar jail and millions of people in all the four corners of the country in a mood of vehement protest, is it a condition of peace? No, it is helping disruption of peace.

The Prime Minister seems to be under pressure from the hawks in his party. This is evident from the terminology used by these hawks in recent days in the context of Anna Hazare's announcement of fast unto death. The speech of the Prime Minister before the two houses of the Parliament is markedly different in tone and tenor from what he said on the subject in his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Why such a sudden shift within one day? We know that the PM was personally of the opinion that the Prime Minister should come under the jurisdiction of the Lokpal if not the judiciary. But he was vehemently opposed by the hawks in the cabinet and had to succumb to their persuasions and withdraw the proposal. What is lurking in his mind is that the right thing is not being done in drafting the bill for Lokpal. This is what he subtly meant by saying that he too wanted strong laws to eradicate corruption as Anna Hazare does.

The Prime Minster is the custodian of the conscience of the nation. We are confident that in the ruling structure he is the unhappy person about how Anna and his movement are handled by the government. We appeal to him to assert according to his conscience and according to the aspirations of this nation. The world outside is laughing at us on seeing how the persons who are charged for corruption and the person who demands strict laws to curb corruption, both are lodged in the same jail and in the same cells, where they have time and space to enjoy their imprisonment. What a colourful nation India is!

 

***************************************

DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

GOVERNMENT COMMITTING POLITICAL SUICIDE

ON THE SPOT

BY TAVLEEN SINGH

 

The political events of the past few days have been not just extraordinary but unique because never before have we seen a government of India commit political suicide with such speed and efficacy. The best way I can think of to describe what has been happening in Delhi is to do it from a personal perspective. So here goes.
On the evening before Independence Day I agreed to appear on Barkha Dutt's 'We the People' show to discuss whether fasting unto death was a valid form of political protest or just political blackmail. I have consistently opposed Anna Hazare's attempts to ram his Lokpal bill down our throats through his indefinite fasts. I oppose his methods because I believe corruption is too serious an issue to be dealt with in such cavalier fashion and I believe that Anna and his team are misleading ordinary people by telling them that all we need is a powerful Lokpal and we will end all corrupt practices in our very corrupt country.

On top of this I have serious reservations about the members of Anna's 'team'. In my view their leftist political ideology blinds them to the real roots of corruption in India. So we have heard people like Prashant Bhushan and Medha Patkar state often and openly that they believe corruption is the result of economic reforms and allowing the Indian private sector to grow and play a leading role in the Indian economy. If you were watching television when Anna was in Tihar jail you would have heard Ms Patkar make a hysterical speech about how rich and powerful Indians were looting resources and land that should belong to 'the people'. Ms Patkar is a committed povertarian and her most recent protest in Mumbai was in support of a small handful of people who prefer living in slums to being rehabilitated in more hygienic accommodation. Other members of Anna's team include a Maoist sympathizer, Swami Agnivesh, dubious NGO types and retired bureaucrats who seem to be on the lookout for fresh avenues of employment. They are, in my view, a dodgy bunch with dangerous ideas and on Barkha's show I made my views clear. Little did I know that within 48 hours the Government of India would handle Anna with such ineptitude that he would become almost Gandhiji.

The first sign that things were going badly wrong for the government came on the afternoon of Independence Day when Anna appeared at Rajghat, seated on a white cloth, in an attitude of meditation. It was raining and soon someone arrived with an umbrella and sat beside him shielding him from the rain. Within minutes television cameras arrived and crowds began to gather. It should have been a warning to the prime minister and his advisors but they ignored it and went ahead and made the crucial mistake of arresting him and his team. They could not have done him a bigger favour because once they arrested him it became impossible for even a committed opponent of Anna like me to continue with my opposition.

Later that afternoon I spoke to one of the Prime Minister's key advisors and discovered from the short conversation we had that the government had no strategy at all for what to do next. So it should have come as no surprise that by the evening of the 16th the government, panicked by the crowds who gathered for candle light vigils, decided to release Anna. But, by then it was too late. Anna, by now fully aware of his power, refused to leave Tihar jail unless he was given permission to continue his indefinite fast in a public park in Delhi. Instead of conceding that Anna had won every round so far the government continued to defend what it had done and the Prime Minister made his pathetic statement in Parliament. By now the opposition parties had scented the public mood and resolved to piggyback on Anna's movement rather than make a suicide pact with the Government.

The rest is history. It is clear that Anna has emerged as the undisputed symbol of public anger against corruption that has been building ever since the telecoms and CWG scams tumbled out of the government's closet a year ago. He has succeeded so well in using the media to project himself as a decent, simple man whose only goal in life is to serve the country that it should surprise us not at all if in the not too distant future he forms a political party and uses the ideology of his leftist team to create a platform against the economic reforms if which the Prime Minister is a symbol. By the time his astonishingly apolitical middle class, largely urban, supporters realize what is happening much of what India has achieved economically in the past twenty years may have been nullified.

It may not be immediately obvious but much of what is happening is the result of the Congress Party having diminished the institution of the prime minister. For seven years what should be the highest job in a parliamentary democracy has been subordinate to the leader of a political party. We saw the direct consequence of this in the past few days when nobody in the Government of India seemed to know what to do. Until Rahul Gandhi returned to Delhi the Prime Minister and his Cabinet dithered between political paralysis and bad mistakes of which the biggest was the decision to arrest Anna. When public pressure forced his release there was a feeble attempt to credit Rahul Gandhi with this by leaking stories to friendly news channels but by then the crowds that gathered in the streets of cities and towns across India had shown that they were looking elsewhere for leaders. As I write this there is talk in Delhi's political circles of whether the government will survive till 2014. Will the Congress Party's allies in the United Progressive Alliance continue to support it in Parliament? And, even if they do will the government be able to do more than play a lame duck role? A populist movement against corruption has so gripped the imagination of urban Indians that Government and all our political leaders have been reduced to bit players. This is not a healthy development but the Government of India has only itself to blame.

***************************************

DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

ITS WAR AGAINST CORRUPTION

BY VIRENDER RAINA

 

The second war of Indian independence has begun. Anna Hazare symbolically has become the Mahatma of this movement, the expanse of which extends from North to South and East to the West of the country. It begun albeit gradually but is catching up with the masses like a wild fire. Young and old across all demographics have taken to the movement started by Anna Hazare and his trusted lieutenants as if it was the most natural thing to do. And why not, the scourge of corruption has engulfed this nation in an all encompassing grip. The disease of corruption is so wide spread that no part of our daily life has remained unaffected from its effects. This is the reason that everyone wants to be part of this movement.

The Jan Lok Pal Bill drafted by Anna Hazare and his team is the most natural piece of legislation that this country requires. This bill has been prepared by people of unquestionable integrity and even involves some of the finest legal and social luminaries of the country. The bill of Anna Hazare takes into account the views and aspirations of general masses of the country. The paradox here is that a bill that is good for the country and its teeming masses is not good for a coterie of so called law makers who are supposed to be the elected representatives of the same very people. Parliament is supposed to represent the collective will of the people of this country and in this particular instance there is a direct conflict. The matter is serious and as such requires statesmanship of the highest order to wade through the quagmire.

The ruling clique has made it into a point of prestige because they believe that law making is their prerogative and under no circumstances they want to delegate the same to Anna Hazare in this particular case. Without any doubt law making is the primary function of the parliament and nobody grudges them that but here we have an extraordinary situation and it requires a statesmanlike response. Instead the Government seemed to be hiding behind the administrative action of the Delhi police and arrested Shri Anna Hazare.Movement against corruption is an idea whose time has come and no police or administrative action can stop it. It's high time to realize that political problems need to be dealt with politically and it is not always possible to do a 'Ramdev' of Anna Hazare, lest it may boomerang on the Government.

In India we have constitutional supremacy and people are the sovereign of this great nation. We elect our representatives to run the country and that forms the parliament. Of course parliament is a paramount body as it represents the collective will of the people but always the constitution and the people remain the supreme authority. This is unlike the Westminster model of the British where parliament is supreme. They say in Britain, parliament can declare a man to be a woman and a woman to be a man but not so in India, here constitution is supreme. So wherefrom, a few parliamentarians assume unto themselves roles so as to defy the collective will of the sovereigns of this great nation, that is the people of this country. An overwhelming majority of the people of this country want a Jan Lok Pal Bill and of course Parliament shall pass the same. Anna Hazare at no stage has said that he wants to usurp the role of the parliament but he wants that the concerns of the majority of the people so as to bring the important functionaries of the Government within its ambit are addressed in a comprehensive manner.

The Government on its part wants to bring a toothless bill that ultimately would leave all the big sharks out of its ambit. This of course is in the backdrop where the nation is rocked by corruption scandals of a magnitude unheard of in recent history. It's high time that the government reads the writing on the wall and gives its people the law that of course even the most naive would not believe would end the corruption but would be a first honest step towards eradicating it completely.

Gandhi Ji liberated us from foreign rule of centuries and should Anna succeed in his mission he would liberate the soul of this country and would truly herald the emancipation of a people under siege of corruption. In this war there would be opportunities for everybody to prove himself, let nobody say that he did not get an opportunity. In all this there is a silver lining; we are not living in dull times.

 

***************************************

DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

UNDERPRIVILEGED DEPRIVED OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

BY RAMESH KANITKAR

 

Ever since Independence in 1947 regardless of the nature of the economic, political and social order, ensuring equal opportunities or economic justice has been an avowed goal of the government. In the year 2000 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) came forward with Millennium Development Goals that included eradication of extreme poverty, achievement of universal primary education, women empowerment, reduction in child mortality and environmental sustainability.

Measured against the Millennium Goals, India's progress has been lopsided for want of focus and urgency, despite impressive economic growth. Although comparisons are odious on account of vastly different political systems in China and India, larger masses of people have gotten out of poverty in China. The percentage of the population that has missed the bus of economic progress and security in China is 11 per cent as and in India it is 31 per cent.

The latest report of the UNDP shows that India's ranking among 169 nations under the UNDP Human Development Index has slid down to the 119th position. If recalibrated for disparities in income, education and healthcare, it would slide further down. The UNDP Report 2010 shows that Brazil and China are ahead of India with HDI of 0.699 and 0.663 as against India's 0.519. When HDI is adjusted for inequalities in income, education and health care, the Index for India goes down precipitously to 0.319 but stays high for Brazil and China. Benchmarks such as infant mortality, life expectancy at birth are way behind those of other countries such as Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The silver lining is that the Gini coefficient of 36.8 for India is lower than 41.5 for China or 55.0 for Brazil.

Adherents of most economic persuasions welcome this generic sentiment of caring for the poor for the sake of overall solidarity and for broad-basing material well-being. Like Kaushik Basu states "very often the equity objective and the growth objective are treated as two separate targets (for an economy) but that is not right" and "everyone should be included in the growth bonanza." Inflation of the order of 10-15 per cent further exacerbates rich-poor disparities and intensifies social strife.
Now the question is catering to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The late C. K. Prahlad would say it is good business to cater to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. This was also the drift of John Ruskin's Unto the Last, a masterpiece credited with starting the theme of social economy. Given the ethos of mass destitution, often growth increases disparities. Provision of food, clothing, education, health care and crime-free environment would be the best antidote to Maoist-Naxalite terrorist activities in Andhra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkand, and elsewhere.

Inequality can be moderated just like under the normal bell shaped curve, with a majority of the households hovering around the mean value and almost all households falling within a couple of standard deviations from the mean. Outliers, the scheduled tribes and castes, on the left-side of the bell curve need the maximum possible uplift. Otherwise, democracies tend to become oligarchies of the privileged.

Everywhere income gaps are widening: The cliched assertion: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer - is too conspicuous to be missed, even in communist China. China's emphasis on economic growth has ignored greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and ozone. There is thus self-evident environmental degradation, higher incidence of cancer, and a lowering of Life Index (PQLI), thereby aggravating disparities in standards of living. In a 2005 PQLI Report of The Economist, India's rank was 73, China's 60, and Vietnam's 63. There is ample support for environment-friendly technologies and avoidance of cocacolanisation in industrial development. Foreign practices and technology need to be notched to local specifications. Imitation is deleterious and may institutionalise inequity.

Corruption pervades almost all walks of life and aggravates inequalities. Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for India is 87 and for China 78. Everyone has a role in putting an end to the ambiance that encourages officials to extort bribes running into countless crores. There is a serious deficiency in national character worsening the gap between the haves and have-nots. Unearned and tax-evaded incomes increase income disparities.

Nobody would ask the Government to tax incomes 100 per cent and distribute the proceeds equally to end inequalities. What is disturbing is that there is hardly an earnest urge in Indian governance to encourage a just and caring social order. Government and the private sector could promote technology and jobs for the rural masses so that there is an all inclusive growth of all segments and no population segment is left out. It is time to transmit economic progress to the underprivileged to prevent jasmine revolutions like in Arab countries.
It would be unfortunate if radical elements, with little respect for democratic institutions took advantage of the deprivation of the low castes and tribes, and politically hijacked them and created anarchy like in Nepal. Spreading equal opportunities in education, health and minimum standards of living is our best hope for rapid inclusive growth which alone propels all-round progress. (INAV)

 

***************************************

******************************************************************************************THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

NEW VENUE, OLD PLANS

ANNA HAZARE FAST IS ON COURSE

 

It is a matter of relief that the standoff between the Central government and the Delhi Police on the one hand and anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare on the other has ended for now on an amicable note. The Delhi Police decision not to stand on false prestige and to climb down on some of the 'conditions' it had laid down for allowing Anna Hazare's protest fast is a welcome change. Some of the original conditions had smacked of arbitrariness like the ones laying down a ceiling on the number of protesters who could congregate at the then venue, a cap on the number of cars and a time limit of three days for occupying the venue. The tough conditions had followed a diatribe against Anna Hazare by Congressmen like Manish Tiwari and Kapil Sibal. While there was a subsequent toning down in the comments against Hazare and his team, the new accommodativeness of the police has sent out a signal of conciliation. Shifting the venue to Ramlila Grounds in Delhi has in one stroke obviated the need for a ceiling on the size of the congregation and the number of cars since this venue has more space than the earlier one. The three-day time limit has been replaced by permission to use the ground for Anna Hazare's fast for a fortnight after which there could be a review.

 

The Anna Hazare team has, on its part, agreed that government officials will do medical check-ups regularly and if anyone is found unfit, that person must discontinue the fast immediately. The time is propitious now for the two sides to sit across the negotiating table again to thrash out pending contentious issues so that the Lokpal Bill can be pushed through without further delay. The Anna Hazare team's insistence that its draft Jan Lokpal Bill be also circulated officially to parliamentarians after which the final call would lie with Parliament needs to be seriously considered.

 

The Lokpal Bill would be no magic wand. Ultimately, the success of efforts to curb corruption in the country would lie in the sincerity and commitment with which the cause is pursued.

 

***************************************

 

THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

THE FURY OF FLOODS

PREPARATIONS ARE RARELY THOROUGH, TIMELY

 

The monsoon is an annual phenomenon. Equally predictable are the tall claims made by the authorities before the onset of every rainy season that all preparations have been completed to grapple with the problem. But the hollowness of the claims becomes obvious once the rains start. History is repeating itself in most of the northern region this time as well with large areas in danger of inundation. This in spite of the fact that the rains have been none too heavy this year. Much of this misery could have been avoided if only adequate measures had been taken well in time.

 

Work on cleaning up the choked drains and repairing the damaged flood sites must be completed by the end of May but in many areas it starts only after the monsoon has hit the region. Even where it is begun in time, it is never complete before the deadline. There were major floods in the Malwa region of Punjab last year for that very reason. Unfortunately, no lessons were learnt. Once the monsoon starts, it becomes almost impossible to do the repair work, but that is how the drainage departments like to function.

 

Another reason for the annual trouble for the citizens is the never-ending quibbling among the states over the use of water. The Centre had decided in principle to bail out Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh from the repeated fury of the Ghaggar by sanctioning a Rs 1,150-crore national project, which would have utilised flood waters for ground water recharging, and thus solved two major problems. The three states were required to give an undertaking that they agreed to delink the taming of the Ghaggar from all existing inter-state water disputes. Because of the hesitation of Punjab, the project remained in limbo. It is such lack of farsightedness which perpetuates the misery of the common man.

 

***************************************

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TRIBUNE

COLUMN

MILITARY IN PAKISTAN

NO GOVT CAN GO AGAINST ITS WISHES

 

Whatever Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar may say about the role of the military, particularly the army, in policy matters, it is the most influential institution in that country. No one will take it seriously when she says, "We sometimes overrate the role of the military and overrate their intentions, specially when it comes to India." History cannot be ignored. Pakistan's history is full of incidents when the army has been in the forefront in deciding the country's policy in any area. It is not only that the army has ruled Pakistan for a number of years since its creation in 1947. Even when Pakistan has had a civilian government, it has been guided by the army. Sometimes the civilian government of the day did not know what the army did, as it happened in the case of the India-Pakistan Kargil war. The then Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, was kept in the dark when the army under Gen Pervez Musharraf launched its Kargil programme that proved to be disastrous for Pakistan.

 

Now take the case of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. When the PPP formed its government after the 2008 elections, Mr Gilani, a Benazir Bhutto loyalist, was chosen to become Prime Minister with an understanding that Mr Asif Ali Zardari would take charge from him later on. However, Mr Gilani proved to be a smart Alec, as he developed closeness with General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. His position became unassailable with the army's backing. Mr Zardari had to settle for the President's post. Even then Mr Zardari kept looking for an opportunity to remove Mr Gilani but in vain. The inference that can be easily drawn is that anyone who is in the good books of the army cannot be touched.

 

Whether Mrs Khar admits it or not, Pakistan's policy in the case of both India and Afghanistan is decided by the army. Most Pakistan-based terrorist outfits working against India had been created by the ISI, headed by a senior army officer. President Zardari has been giving hints for some time that Pakistan is interested in mending fences with India. There is a large constituency of people in favour of promoting people-to-people contacts. But this is not possible because the army thinks differently.

 

***************************************

THE TRIBUNE

ARTICLE

FOLLY OF ARRESTING ANNA HAZARE

IS CONGRESS-LED UPA LOSING THE PLOT?

BY INDER MALHOTRA

 

SEVERAL governments in New Delhi in the past have made mistakes, some of them serious and two catastrophic. But never before has a government tied itself into knots so thoroughly and made itself a butt of ridicule so manifestly as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has done. It had erred when it decided to launch an all-out attack on Anna Hazare, the most prominent civil society activist and evidently an icon of the "India Against Corruption" campaign. It then compounded this folly by arresting him even before he had started his fast and later by virtually surrendering to him.

 

In the meantime, there have been angry demonstrations not only in the national Capital but also in all metros, big cities and small towns in support of him and his cause. The government is apparently ignorant of the intensity of the anger against corruption, but it was one reason for the rulers' retreat. The other — as the CPM leader, Ms Brinda Karat, put it in the Rajya Sabha — was the advice to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the "Crown Prince", Mr Rahul Gandhi.

 

This said, there is no doubt that the government is absolutely right in insisting that laws have to be made by Parliament, not by unelected and "self-appointed" leaders and activists of civic society. On this score Mr Hazare is certainly in the wrong when he demands that only the Jan Lokpal Bill must be passed, not the "promotion of corruption Bill" the government has introduced. But this is a political issue that has to be thrashed out politically, not by denying Indian citizens their fundamental right to speak and agitate peacefully in support of their demands even if they are absurd. Denial of the rights enshrined in the Constitution and relying on repressive methods unworthy of any democracy, and surely of the world's largest, is disgraceful and totally unacceptable.

 

The conditions that the Delhi police imposed on Mr Hazare's agitation, no fewer than a score, were unreasonable, consciously contrived and highly suspicious. Then after taking Mr Hazare into "preventive custody" it dragged him to at least three "undisclosed" destinations. These are hallmarks of Pakistan's ISI, and must not be inflicted on India. Ultimately, however, he was hauled to Tihar Jail. That one of the highly respected and responsible dailies has editorially called the UPA government "corrupt, repressive and stupid" speaks for itself. So do other newspaper headlines such as: "Anna arrests government"; "Anna continues fast, makes government eat its words"; "People march, govt crawls" and so on. Some papers have gone overboard and written about the "Second August Kranti (Revolution)".

 

Reverting to the question of Parliament's undoubted "supremacy", provided this august body does function, and people's absolute right to enjoy fundamental rights, it is shocking beyond words that several Congress ministers, including some eminent lawyers, have been propounding a dangerous, new doctrine. Over TV they have been screaming that when an issue is under discussion in Parliament, agitation against it is impermissible, even "illegal". Nothing more chilling has been heard since the Emergency of the mid-1970s, when in reply to a question, the Attorney-General of the day, told the Supreme Court: "My conscience revolts, My Lords, but even if a policeman threatens to shoot a citizen for no rhyme or reason, under the law there is no remedy". No wonder, many, beginning with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, are asking whether the UPA wants to bring back the Emergency by the backdoor. This fear is unfounded, however.

 

In any case, the pertinent question is that if Parliament is supreme and civil society has no right to partake in the legislative process, then why did the Manmohan Singh government cave in to Mr Hazare's earlier fast in April and invite "Team Anna" to join a Group of Ministers to "redraft" the pending Lokpal Bill? The leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mr Arun Jaitley, has pertinently asked: "Who subverted Parliament by inviting Anna, not us"? He then rubbed in that civil society activists on the National Advisory Council, headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, were still helping the government draft legislation on food security and land acquisition.

 

This, sadly, is not the only clumsy lapse of a government so besieged by crises as to be dysfunctional. Even more staggering is its claim — emphatically made by all senior ministers, including the Prime Minister — that whatever was done to Mr Hazare was decided by the Delhi police alone, in pursuance of its duty to maintain law and order. If these worthies believe that anybody would believe what they are asserting, then they are living — to borrow Jawaharlal Nehru's words he used at the worst moment in his long and dazzling political career in 1962 — "in an artificial world of their own making".

 

The entire country knows that the Indian police, including all Central police organizations, still governed by the colonial Indian Police Act, 1861, ceased to be servants of the law long ago. They are now servitors of the political parties or combinations in power. As far back as 2006, the Supreme Court issued its final directives on the police reform. State chief ministers are not alone in brazenly refusing to carry them out. The Central government has also failed blatantly to enforce the reforms in the Union Territories for which it is directly responsible.

 

So mindless has the Congress party been in maligning Mr Hazare that a Congress spokesman said that the anti-corruption leader was "corrupt from top to toe". Obviously, the spokesman, usually intoxicated by the exuberance of his verbosity, hadn't done his homework because his charge has backfired since.

 

Most surprisingly, the government and the party of Dr Singh, who has invested so much in improving relations with the United States, have suddenly discovered that the CIA is behind the "Anna agitation". The Prime Minister said it between the lines in the statement that he read out in both Houses. Others in the party have gone to town on this. They should know that the "foreign hand" ploy didn't work even in Indira Gandhi's time. This time around it might boomerang.

 

No one knows how Mr Hazare's fast on Ramlila Grounds would work out, but many thoughtful and worried Indians are wondering whether the UPA is losing the plot.n

 

***************************************

THE TRIBUNE

OPED

TAILORMADE FOR TROUBLE

BY RAJI P. SHRIVASTAVA

 

A woman can afford to annoy the whole world but not her tailor. The truth is that the tailor rules with absolute authority and always wins in the end. Don't let the naive look, the measure tape between the teeth and the pencil behind the ear fool you. This masterji can teach an IIM graduate a thing or two about business management.

 

One expensive tailor in a busy commercial sector in Chandigarh is renowned for two things : he delivers stitched clothes on time and returns all left-over pieces of cloth to the customer. Thus, punctuality and honesty are both guaranteed, you might think. "What's the point!" wailed my friend, for her new kurti rode well above the midriff. "When he has ruined my kurti, what am I going to do with the extra bits of cloth he has returned!" Being familiar with her troubles, her enterprising husband had discovered a rehri market tailor who could 'repair' the errors of 'designer' tailors for a small price.

 

You can get a good tailor by word of mouth. But you cannot get a tailor who delivers consistent quality, garment after garment. A conversation between two friends is likely to go thus: "My tailor is terrible. He ruins every third suit." Her friend is likely to sympathise, "Really? That's too bad! Try mine. He only 'spoils' every seventh suit!" This will sound bizarre to you only if you are completely disconnected from the women in your life. (Or if you have no women in it, obviously.)

 

One encounters tailors with all kinds of idiosyncrasies. One chap asked his customers quite candidly if they had a tendency to gain weight, so that 'provision' could be made for such exigencies. In another case, the customer's delivery was faster than the tailor's, so her college outfit had to be made into a maternity smock. A third was notorious for outsourcing his work to seamstresses who worked out of their homes. So, if you were in a hurry, you were offered the option of picking up the kurta from his showroom in Chandigarh's Sector 17 and the salwar from a worker's home in Maloya village.

 

My sister, however, is the kind who says she will take no nonsense from her tailor. Some years ago, she entrusted her trousseau to her tailor with the firm instruction, "Please keep ready three dresses at a time, every fifth day." Mohan Tailor was not one to comply meekly. He made excuses every time. In turn, she would bluff on each such occasion, "I will be getting married three days later and today I am still chasing you for my wedding clothes!"

 

This cat-and-mouse game continued until finally, he packed her last churidar kurta into a pink carrybag. "Behnji, your wedding got postponed five times, sab acche ke liye hota hai, Jai Mata Di", he said with a wicked grin. She retorted with spirit, "Mohanbhai, what to do, with tailors like you, it is good I have an understanding fiance!" I watched in amazement as she completed her transaction and swung out of the shop in triumph, clearly believing that she had had the last word!n

 

***************************************

THE TRIBUNE

OPED

JUDGES MUST BE BEYOND ALL SUSPICION

 

While speaking on the motion for the removal of Justice Soumitra Sen, a Judge of the Calcutta High Court, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, highlighted that those who occupy high offices must live through the scrutiny of highest standards of probity. Excerpts from his speech:

 

This is a sad but historic moment in the Indian democracy. We have assembled to decide the fate of a man who decided the fate of others. This political house is here to perform a judicial function. We have heard a detailed presentation in the defence of the Judge sought to be impeached.

 

The power of removal/impeachment of a Judge of the Supreme Court or the High Court is a power which is to be used in the rarest of the rare cases. We invoke this jurisdiction to remove a man and save the dignity of the office, which is paramount.

 

Judges no longer live in ivory towers. Today, they live in glasshouses where the bar, litigants, public and the media watch them from close proximity. But then we have all to exercise utmost restraint. Judges cannot defend themselves against unfounded allegations. They must neither be summarily tried nor be thrown to the wolves. A Judge, under inquiry, must be candid. He cannot plead only technical defences. He cannot be too clever by half. He cannot invoke a right to silence like an ordinary accused, and shy away from speaking the truth.

 

In this case, when the Judge under inquiry says that his offence must be proved 'to the hilt' or 'proved beyond reasonable doubt' , he relies on technicalities rather than substance. A Judge is like Caesar's wife. He must be beyond suspicion. Those who occupy high offices must live through the scrutiny of highest standards of probity. A Judge must be unsuspectable.

 

Proven misconduct?

 

Justice Sen is guilty of a continued 'proven misbehavior' from his days as a lawyer when he was appointed as a Receiver; and this continued well in to his tenure as a Judge of the Calcutta High Court. He never rendered the accounts as directed by the courts both as a lawyer and as Judge. He created encumbrances, by withdrawing monies, which were in his custody as a Receiver of the court. He transferred these monies unauthorizedly to persons not authorized to receive them. He withdrew the monies himself. He transferred the money to another account, which he maintained as a special officer in Calcutta Fans case. Even after his elevation as Judge in 2003, he continued the misappropriation of monies. His case squarely falling under Section 403 of the IPC of temporary misappropriation of monies is a criminal offence. In any case, he continued to retain these monies till 2006. He only returned the monies under the coercive order of the court and not otherwise.

 

During his tenure as Judge, he put a false defence before the single Judge, the Division Bench, the in-house inquiry committee and the impeachment inquiry that he had invested these monies in a company which went into liquidation. The liquidated company had nothing to do with these monies. The Division Bench judgment is a judgment with consent of all parties. It does not lay down the law. It is a judgment in personam, which is binding only on the parties, and not a judgment in rem, which binds the rest of the world. It does not, in any way, restrain the jurisdiction of this House under Article 217 from examining a case of 'proven misconduct'.

 

Justice Soumitra Sen's conduct as a litigant was unfortunate. He led no evidence. He hardly cross-examined witnesses. He claimed the right of silence. He then misrepresented and put up a false defence. He has been held guilty, both by the in-house committee appointed by the Chief Justice of India, and also by the committee appointed by the Chairman, Rajya Sabha. He is conclusively guilty of an offence. A case of 'proven misconduct' is made out against him. A Judge has to lead by example. A Judge cannot rely on technicalities and try to escape the rigours of law. Litigants cannot be Judged by a Judge, who himself is stigmatized. The defence of Justice Sen has thus to be rejected.

 

Who must appoint the Judges?

 

The Constitution of India empowers the government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of India to appoint Judges. Since the government has the last word, the independence of judiciary was being seriously compromised. The theory of social philosophy of Judges was propounded in the early 1970s in order to provide for a 'Committed Judiciary' in India. The failure of a section of the judiciary during the Emergency and thereafter compelled the revisiting of the debate as to who should have the last word in the appointment of the Judges. The Supreme Court in 1982, by a narrow majority of 4 against 3, maintained the status quo. This enabled further politicization in matters of judicial appointments. In 1993, the balance of power shifted. The advice of the Chief Justice of India became binding upon the government. In 1998, the authority of the Chief Justice of India was diluted to provide for a collegium to appoint Judges.

 

The quality of judicial appointments, the best available not willing to become Judges, has not improved. Both the earlier systems have not succeeded. Thus the system of Judges alone appointing Judges must now change. India needs a National Judicial Commission to appoint Judges. It must be a combination of members of the judiciary, the executive and citizens' representatives in public interest who must collectively appoint Judges.

 

The more important question is what should be the criteria on which Judges should be appointed. Today, Judges perform the Executive function of appointment in an unguided manner. The discretion of the National Judicial Commission, if it is so appointed, or the collegium as at present must now be restricted and regulated by the provisions of the Article 14 of the Constitution of India. There must be objective criteria introduced with regard to the qualification of persons under consideration, their academic credentials, their experience at the bar, their quality of judgments if they belong to the judicial institutions, details of cases argued, details of judgments reported with regard to the cases the lawyer has argued, the number of juniors trained, academic papers authored, amount of income tax paid, and the reputation and integrity etc. Unless these objective criteria enable a candidate to cross the threshold, he cannot enter the zone of consideration.

 

At present we have an in-house mechanism, which judges the Judges. It is an extra constitutional mechanism which has not succeeded. The process of impeachment is a near impossibility. The National Judicial Commission thus, in matters of judicial discipline, should be the Judicial Lok Pal.

 

Threats to judicial independence

 

The appointment of political activists as Judges at times has compromised the judicial independence. The lack of integrity can be on account of several reasons, which influence the administration of justice. These include judgments delivered because of collateral reasons and prejudices on account of religion, caste or personal reasons.

 

There is an increased trend of the Executive distributing jobs to Judges post retirement. This has seriously compromised the independence of judiciary. In recent times , the cases of Judges delivering judgments in politically sensitive cases on the eve of retirement and getting jobs the very next day from the Government is on the rise. I believe that no Judge should be entitled to a job after retirement. If the age of retirement is sought to be increased in the case of High Courts, as per the existing Bill pending, the same must be accompanied by a constitutional amendment, which prohibits jobs after retirement. The Judge strength of High Courts can be increased and all judicial tribunals must be manned by serving Judges.

 

Separation of powers

 

The separation of powers is one the most valuable principles of the Indian democracy. Separation of powers is infringed upon when the Legislature or the Executive encroach upon the Judiciary's space or Vice Versa. It is only judicial statesmanship which prevents a confrontation between the institutions. Of late, with the weakening of the political Executive and serious division in the polity, the tendency of the judicial institution to encroach upon the Legislative or Executive space has increased. It has been argued that if the Executive does not perform its job, the Judges have to step in. This is a dangerous argument. By the same logic, if the judiciary does not perform its job, can somebody else step in? The answer is NO in both the situations. Recent comments and pronouncements with regard to whether India should have liberalized economy or regulated economy do not fall within the judicial space. How terror is to be fought is in the Executive domain. What should be the land acquisition policy, is a concern which belongs to the Parliament and the Executive. Whether a Pakistani prisoner in India should be released or exchanged for Indian prisoners in Pakistan, is to be determined by the Government and not the Supreme Court. Whether FDI is needed in the economy or not is an area that belongs to be Executive or Parliament. Unfortunately, recent aberrations in the separation of powers, have all been on account of judicial activism. Activism and restraint are two sides of the same coin. Each institution must respect the Lakshman Rekha.

 

A breach of trust

 

Finally Sir, we have before us a case of 'proven misbehaviour' by Justice Soumitra Sen. It is not that his misbehaviour is restricted to his tenure as a lawyer. There is a thread of continuity in his 'proven misbehaviour'. He became a Receiver of a court property. He opened a bank account in his own name. He was a Trustee of somebody else's fund. He misappropriated the funds. He put them for an alternative use. This he did as a lawyer.

 

In 2003, when he became a Judge, he continued the misappropriation. He did not ask the court to discharge him. When the court issued him notice, he did not respond. When the court passed strong strictures against him, he under coercive direction of the court returned the money in 2006 along with interest. He mis-representated to the court that he had invested the money in a private company and that the money got lost when the company became insolvent. No part of this money was ever invested in a private company. When the Chief Justice of India called him for an explanation, he moved the Division Bench through his mother and got an order of the single Judge set aside on the basis of concessions made by the advocates. The order shows the members of the bar not in good light. Before the in-house committee, appointed by the CJI, he persisted with his false defence. The committee found him guilty. Before the Parliamentary Committee, he did not volunteer the entire evidence. He resorted to technicalities and silence. He resorted to false defence.

 

His acts, both as a lawyer and a Judge, had all the ingredients of culpability of breach of trust. He misappropriated the money and he put up a false defence. He was not truthful or candid. This is a case of 'proven misbehaviour'.

 

I, therefore, support the address to be made to the President, that Justice Soumitra Sen be removed from office as a Judge of the Calcutta High Court. He is undeserving to occupy that office. We recommend the removal of an undeserving man to save the dignity of the office.

 

  *************************************

******************************************************************************************

MUMBAI MIRROR

EDITORIAL

RUPEES, ANNAS AND VICE

NO ONE IS DEBATING WHAT THE TWO LOKPAL BILLS ACTUALLY SAY AS PEOPLE ARE BUSY CRITICISING THE GOVERNMENT'S HIGH-HANDEDNESS

If there exists popular perception that this is a government with an embarrassment of vices – an inexhaustible capacity for corruption, inventive mendacity (the dementia defence), and, it now seems, even gross political ineptitude – the Congress-led UPA has only itself to blame. Arresting Anna Hazare, then offering to release him, imposing conditions on his right to protest and then launching personal attacks all tell of a rudderless government bent on committing political suicide by ritual disembowelment.

 

Among the government's several robberies, the largest is of the space for a civil discourse. The restrictions on Hazare and his arrest are probably illegal and unconstitutional. But because the government acted in a manner that is seen to be highhanded, no one is debating what the two Lokpal Bills actually say. Police actions are used to tar the government's bill and, by necessary implication, push the Jan Lokpal Bill. And, as a direct follow through, you are either "for" Hazare or "against" him; and if you are not for him, then you must be corrupt. This is not debate. This is just mindless.

 

Critics of the government bill say it excludes MPs. On a closer reading, here's what it does. The government bill excludes the sitting Prime Minister and the judiciary; the inclusion or exclusion of both these is, at the very least debatable. Contrary to what is being put out, the government bill does include past and present Union Ministers and members of both houses of Parliament, companies, trusts, directors and so on. What it excludes is any action of a Minister of Parliament "in respect of anything said or a vote given by him in Parliament or any committee thereof covered under Article 105(2) of the Constitution". That Article confers immunity on Parliamentarians on things said and votes cast in Parliament or any Parliamentary Committee. The government's bill only keeps intact the Constitutional provision. For this, it is said to be a joke. But the real joke is that the Jan Lokpal Bill demands a wholesale elimination of this Article, without a Constitutional amendment as required by law, and it does so by including Parliamentarians' speeches and votes in its definition of corruption.

 

There are many glaring holes in the government's draft. One of these is its refusal to accept the role of "whistleblowers". Instead of acknowledging their value, the government bill provides only for severe penalties for making false complaints. Although it has wide powers of investigation, search and prosecution, the Lokpal remains recommendatory in the government bill. It does not say what is to be done in corruption cases involving a certain class of public servants or how the Lokpal's recommendations are to be enforced. The bill is very unsatisfactory, but to argue that its failures cannot be corrected after following an established, constitutionally mandated parliamentary process returns us to the starting presumption that all of Parliament is corrupt. If that is to be accepted, then what is at stake here is our Constitution itself.

 

On the other hand, in its essential woolliness, the Jan Lokpal Bill is a bubble-and-squeak legislation, full of yesterday's leftovers. It still speaks of nominees being "persons with impeccable integrity and a record of public service particularly in the field of fighting corruption." Fighting corruption is not a "field" of endeavour, an occupation or a profession (or it might be subjected to service tax). And who would these persons be, and where might we find them? Would they include hirsute yogis with a penchant for cross-dressing?
    It is also a truly frightening document. Not only does it demand a budget of not less than 0.25% of India's revenue, but it arrogates to the Lokpal enormous powers, investigative, prosecutorial and punitive, against everyone in public life, from the PM and the higher judiciary to the neighbourhood beat cop. The CBI reports to the Lokpal. The Lokpal investigates, prosecutes, and it imposes penalties directly – including life imprisonment. To give an idea of the kind of power it demands, look at Section 8: the Lokpal has the authority to sanction phone taps and communication interceptions against everyone. If the present government has lost its moral, ethical and constitutional compass, the draftsmen of the Jan Lokpal Bill seem to have forgotten the grammar of liberty.

 

The government's repeated bleating about parliamentary supremacy in legislation is rightly criticized as hyper-technical tripe. Only a fool would deny that societal demands often force a law into being: labour laws, women's rights, and the Right to Information act were all driven by social pressure. But this is very different from saying that a mass movement will decide the frame of any particular law. That is entirely within the province of Parliament, and Parliament is not meant to merely wink and nod at everyman's stab at drafting legislation. If the Hazare brigade insists on its draft being made law and threatens unrest if it is not, then it is simply blackmail.

 

However noble their cause, we should beware the men who would be Caesar. And we should be careful what we wish for. We might get it.

 

GAUTAM PATEL THE PRACTICING LAWYER MAKES ARGUMENTS HERE HE CAN'T ALWAYS MAKE IN COURT

 

***************************************

******************************************************************************************BUSINESS STANDARD

COLUMN

TRUST THE GATEKEEPER

RBI CAN BE RELIED UPON FOR A FIT AND PROPER POLICY

The news of a meeting of minds between the Union finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the government's policy on issuing licences to new private sector banks has been widely welcomed. India needs new banks and a transparent and robust policy framework will boost public confidence in the licensing process. Given the heightened public concern about transparent licensing procedures, it is most unlikely that the government and the central bank would do anything to invite criticism. Although the final policy framework will be made public next week, information suggests that the minimum capital requirement for a new bank would be Rs 1,000 crore, of which the promoters' contribution is expected to be fixed at 40 per cent, to be brought down over a 10-year period to half that. As several analysts have noted, the guiding principle for both minimum capital required and the ceiling on promoters' quota should be that they are consistent with existing and widely acceptable risk management norms. The new policy framework is also expected to limit foreign shareholding in new banks to 49 per cent. In defining policy on this issue, the central bank may consider the suggestion made by some analysts that the definition of "foreign shareholding" should include, rather than exclude, the category of non-resident Indians. In other words, anyone permanently residing outside India should be classified into one category of "foreign investors", for both investment and taxation purposes.

The most contentious and controversial issue relating to the policy on new private banks remains the question of whether "large industrial houses" should be allowed to own new banks. The existing policy, defined at the time of bank nationalisation in 1969 and subsequently tweaked, disallows it. There is neither global uniformity on the issue nor an accepted "best practice". Global experience does not establish that there is anything inherently right or wrong about permitting industrial houses to own banks. However, there is no pressing reason for the government to revisit the existing policy at this point in time. It has been reported that the Union finance ministry would like to liberalise the policy, with riders and caveats that would disallow companies in areas like real estate from investing in banking. It is best to leave the matter to the central bank's judgement, which is capable of defining who is a "fit and proper" applicant and what constitutes a "fit and proper" criterion for granting bank licences. The central bank would naturally consider issues like concentration of business power, the need for checks and balances even in the private sector, and the need to identify credible private sector entities that have the resources to set up and run a bank. There are ways in which the power and control that can be exercised by private owners over banks can be restricted and RBI has pointed to this in its original discussion paper. The central bank is the best judge of its capability to regulate, monitor and punish large private sector entities, and should base its policy on an objective assessment of its own capabilities to regulate the private sector.

***************************************

BUSINESS STANDARD

EDITORIAL

PAY TO BE POLICED

INDIA'S PHARMACEUTICAL EXPORTERS FACE NEW US FEES

The United States federal government and the country's generic (out of patent) drug industry are reportedly close to an agreement under which the latter will pay $300 million in annual fees for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to inspect at least once in two years overseas plants from where active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for generic drugs sold in the US are imported. This is important for two reasons. One, 75 per cent of all prescription medicines sold in the US are generics and 80 per cent of the APIs used in all medicines are imported, mostly from India and China. Two, the cost-cutting healthcare reforms that the Obama administration has initiated would entail greater use of generic drugs. The new funding mechanism should speed up the approval process for marketing new products. The new fees are part of a package that also covers branded drugs and medical devices. Both the industry and the regulator have agreed on this financial proposal, so the US Congress is expected to pass it quickly.

Interestingly, the Indian pharmaceutical industry, which has a large number of FDA-approved production facilities and is the foremost exporter of quality generics to the US, has not been told about this proposal yet. Clearly, there is a huge lack of clarity. It is in the dark about the details of the fee structure. Will it be per inspection or per product? It also does not know how the fees will be shared between US manufacturing and importing interests and Indian manufacturer-exporters. Sources indicate that they will be happy to bear their share of the burden if it is done equitably. Otherwise, the fees will amount to a new non-tariff barrier. They can also be used as a weapon in intellectual property disputes. One US manufacturer speaks of the need to keep "falsified" drugs out. What on earth is this animal? Is it patent infringement or substandard and/or spurious medicines? There is a world of difference between the two.

Ideally, India should actively strive to build its own regulatory mechanism to ensure its pharmaceutical companies follow good manufacturing practices — which are as good as the best in the world. The whole Indian pharmaceutical story rests on the claim to marry high quality with low cost. But before it can be made possible, if the regulator of the number one importer makes its inspection and certification of Indian facilities more rigorous then it should be welcomed. The more better practices are mandated, the greater will be the spread of such a culture, which will also benefit Indian consumers. The process is akin to the role played by research and development facilities set up in India by global firms. The fruit of the effort is booked in a country where the company is incorporated, but India gains through the spread of skills and best practices. Finally, it is odd that an individual US industry must pay for the cost of policing it when the US treasury should pay for what needs to be done to protect its consumers. As stated earlier, this can lead to a cozy relationship between the industry and the regulator.

***************************************

BUSINESS STANDARD

THE BUSINESS OF BANKING

THE PROBABILITY OF INDUSTRIAL HOUSES INTERFERING IN BANKS COULD BE REDUCED BY RESTRICTING BANKING LICENCES TO COMPANIES WITH DIVERSIFIED OWNERSHIP

JAIMINI BHAGWATI

 

Jaimini Bhagwati assesses the key points in RBI's discussion paper on new bank licences.

 

A discussion paper put out by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in August 2010 examines the pros and cons of the "Entry of New Banks in the Private Sector". The central issue in the paper is whether large industrial houses should be allowed to sponsor new private sector banks. This article reviews the discussion paper and comments on the six topics listed in it for further debate.

 

The RBI paper starts with a discussion on widening financial inclusion as one of the objectives in granting licences to new private sector banks. A separate July 2011 RBI paper titled "Financial Inclusion in India: A Case Study of West Bengal" rates Indian states on the extent of financial inclusion achieved. Kerala, Maharashtra and Karnataka are ranked one, two and three and Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar are at positions 13, 20 and 21. Clearly, there is a positive correlation between social development levels and financial inclusion. New private sector banks could be required to help promote financial inclusion by using profits from their branches in urban clusters. However, such cross-subsidies will not be sustainable since banks can only complement development efforts, not substitute for them.   

 

The first and second questions posed in the discussion paper are: (a) what should be the minimum capital requirements for new banks; and (b) what should be promoters' contribution? My sense is that these two capital requirements may be Rs 1,000 crore and 40 per cent, respectively, with the latter number to be brought down to, say, 20 per cent over 10 years. The guiding principle for required minimum capital and ceiling on promoters' contribution should be consistency with a risk management framework that includes existing banks. The third question is the extent to which foreign shareholding is to be allowed in new banks. The licensing norms for new banks should not be complicated by simultaneously reopening the issue of caps on foreign ownership of banks in India. If anything needs to be changed on norms for foreign holdings in the financial sector, it is the often misused distinction between non-resident Indians and non-Indians. Everyone permanently residing outside India should be in one category for investment and taxation purposes.

 

The fourth, and most important, question posed in the paper is "whether large industrial and business houses could be allowed to promote banks". The Indian licensing guidelines of 2001 do not allow "large" industrial houses to sponsor new banks. The reasons go back to the dubious practices of such banks directing credit to preferred borrowers prior to bank nationalisation in 1969. All the disadvantages of allowing industrial houses to sponsor banks are as valid today as before. Among major economies, Canada, UK, Germany and France do not bar industrial companies from promoting banks. In contrast, the US does not allow industrial houses to own banks. It is evident from the dispersed nature of past banking sector breakdowns that permitting industrial houses to own banks or disallowing them was not a good indicator of whether banks would need government back-stop funding assistance. As the RBI paper has suggested, the probability of industrial houses interfering in banks promoted by them could be reduced by restricting banking licences to companies with diversified ownership.

 

On balance, continuing indefinitely with policies that restrict the entry of new private banks and, thus, inhibit competition would not be efficient. There could be ways through which large industrial houses can provide equity capital without the egregious wrongdoing of the past. The downside risk is that it may be practically impossible for RBI to prevent crony lending practices. Consequently, it is for RBI to assess whether, at our current stage of development, it can consistently monitor bank lending and stand up to pressures from corporate oligopolies.

 

The fifth question is whether non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) should be allowed to convert into banks or promote banks. A large number of Indian NBFCs are engaged in tax and other forms of financial arbitrage. Hence, while in principle NBFCs can be allowed to sponsor new banks, their antecedents and possible ownership links with corporate houses through non-transparent cross-holding structures should be investigated and taken into account. The last question is what the business model for new banks should be. The short answer is that there is no need for a separate business model for new banks.

 

Taking a step back, the RBI discussion paper needs to be broader in its outlook and should analyse the causal reasons for banks having to periodically depend on funding support from taxpayers. The section in the paper titled "lessons from the recent global financial crisis" is too short and perfunctory. Indian household and private sector debt, as a proportion of GDP, is lower than comparable numbers in several developed countries. As for smaller Indian companies, they often pledge shares as collateral to borrow. Indian banks have recently had to take over equity stakes in some companies that were not in a position to service their debt. Further, dark clouds are again gathering on the European and US economic horizons.

 

Consequently, we need to assess if periodic banking sector crises are inevitably linked to business cycles or whether they are more influenced by unconstrained and under-regulated growth of the banking sector as compared to the rest of the economy. For example, the banking sectors in the US, the UK, Iceland, Ireland, Cyprus and regional savings banks in Spain are significantly oversized and/or over-leveraged. It is high time to reflect on the received wisdom that more is good in banking since this promotes growth. A related issue is the extent to which deposit taking and investment banking should be segregated in new private banks in India. In this context, it has been reported that the UK Independent Commission on Banking headed by John Vickers is likely to recommend strict segregation of deposit taking from investment banking (the report is expected in October 2011).

According to press reports, RBI would soon issue draft guidelines for large industrial houses to sponsor new private banks. RBI should take its time to reassess outstanding levels of household, corporate and public internal and external debt, sectoral growth of credit and preferred size of the banking sector versus that of the economy before issuing licences for the entry of new private banks.

 

The author is India's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg
j.bhagwati@gmail.com

Views expressed are strictly personal

 

***************************************

BUSINESS STANDARD

COLUMN

HOW SINDRI WAS BORN

INDIAN FARMERS HAD TILL 1950S DEPENDED ON ORGANIC MANURE IN THEIR FIELDS. WITH SYNTHETIC FERTILISERS, THERE WAS CONSENSUS, THEY COULD PRODUCE MORE

BHUPESH BHANDARI

The government has made up its mind to revive Sindri Fertilizers. The plant, which has been lying idle for several years, will be handed over to Steel Authority of India Ltd. It'll be a tough challenge for the steel maker to operate the mothballed fertiliser plant successfully. It is perhaps a good time to revisit the historical significance of Sindri. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, firmly believed that the public sector alone could transform India from a poor agrarian country to a modern industrialised one. The private sector, he felt, was driven by the profit motive and not by the national interest. Sindri was among his first experiments with the public sector.

The Bengal famine of 1942 had ravaged the countryside. Two million men, women and children had died of hunger. Cattle in several districts had perished altogether. The government's hands were tied: the naval blockade had kept imported grain from reaching the affected areas by sea, there wasn't surplus grain available in other regions of the country, and trains were all booked for the movement of troops.

The need was felt that India should raise its farm output if such calamities were to be avoided. This would fill the government's silos from which grain could be released in times of shortages. One way to improve output was to use synthetic fertilisers. Indian farmers had so far depended largely on organic manure in their fields. With synthetic fertilisers, there was consensus, they could produce more. The Foodgrain Policy Committee in July 1943 had estimated that the country would require between two and three million tonnes of such fertilisers in a year. Hence, it recommended that a factory that could produce 250,000 tonnes of nitrogenous fertilisers should be set up. Later in the year, the War Resources Committee said that it should be a state-owned factory.

The first task was to find the right location for the factory. The criteria were that it should be close to coal reserves and should have adequate supplies of water and electricity. To help find a site, the government approached Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), the largest fertiliser company in the United Kingdom. A team of three came from ICI in June 1944 and submitted its report five months later. They had selected Sindri on the banks of the Damodar, 15 km from Dhanbad, the centre for coal mining in India. Chemical Construction Company of the United States was employed to make the designs of the factory, supervise its construction and see it into production. Power Gas Corporation of the United Kingdom was contracted to supply the plant. Work started in 1947 and ended in 1951.

But there was a hitch: while the initial project cost was Rs 10.53 crore, Sindri had cost the government over Rs 23 crore. Mr Nehru's detractors – the list included not only businessmen but also several right-wing leaders – had a hawk's eye on the venture. The newspapers wrote endlessly on the subject; there was uproar in Parliament. How could Mr Nehru justify such inefficient use of meagre resources? If these were the project implementation skills of the government, heavens help if it starts to run the factory. The episode threatened to give Mr Nehru's rivals enough fodder to derail his socialist policies.

Mr Nehru had to act quickly and decisively. In spite of his general dislike for businessmen ("I must frankly confess that I am a socialist and a republican and am no believer in kings or princes, or in the order which produces the modern kings of industry, who have greater power over the lives and fortunes of men than even the kings of old, and whose methods are as predatory as those of the old feudal aristocracy," he had said at the 1929 session of the Congress at Lahore), he decided to induct two from the corporate world on the Sindri board: Lala Shri Ram of DCM and J J Ghandy of Tata.

The two took an independent line from the very first day. Mr Ghandy wrote to C C Desai, the then secretary in the ministry of works, production and supply and the chairman of Sindri, on February 12, 1952: "It occurs to me that an attempt has been made in the articles of association to compromise between the authority of a limited liability company and complete departmental control of the activities of the company." He pointed out that the articles laid down that the President will approve all borrowing, fix salaries of all directors, clear all executive appointments of Rs 2,000 per month and above, and direct all allocations of profits to reserves.

Mr Desai, in his letter of March 4, admitted that the provisions were unsatisfactory "which appear to detract from the supremacy of the directors" but said that these would not hinder the independent functioning of the board. "They are more in the nature of experimental provisions at this stage of infancy of industrial enterprise in the public sector to dovetail the freedom and elasticity of the company form of management and the ultimate responsibility of Parliament, of which the government cannot divest itself." Thus began Sindri, torn from the word go between efficiency and duty to the nation.

***************************************

 

BUSINESS STANDARD

COLUMN

DEFUSING THE FEAR FACTOR

HOW TOP MANAGEMENT CAN DEAL WITH 'PSYCHOLOGICAL' RECESSION

SHYAMAL MAJUMDAR

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger is probably the world's most famous living pilot. The hero of what is known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" is now a much sought after speaker in business schools, particularly at a time when the world is going through a turbulent economic phase.

The "miracle" story is as follows: In January 2009, a US Airways Airbus A320 struck a flock of birds just after take-off from New York's LaGuardia airport. With both engines out, the cool-headed pilot manoeuvred the aircraft over New York City and ditched it in the Hudson River. All 155 on board were pulled to safety.

That's heroic enough, but what was striking was the way the aircraft's passengers behaved during those tense moments. They were no doubt scared, but what saved them was the absence of panic and willingness to follow the pilot's instructions.

Most of the passengers later said this was because the pilot told them the problem straight out and instructed them how to deal with it. It was clear that the pilot and his team recognised the danger of the situation, assessed what their limited options were and then acted in a way that gave the best possible chance for minimising casualties. That's leadership lesson number one at a time when slowdown signals are getting clearer by the day: leaders can defuse a lot of fear just by communicating clearly about the situation.

It's not a surprise, therefore, that Sullenberger is again being pursued with renewed vigour by B-schools and companies. Everyone agrees that the fear of uncertainty has come back and wants to know how to deal with it. Management experts have a name for it: psychological recession — a feeling of economic and psychological vulnerability and a growing sense that your employer gives a damn about you.

The reason employees are already going through a psychological recession is simple: a recent Harvard Business Review study said the first thing companies do just before a perceived slowdown is to stop hiring, start issuing pink slips, cut promotion budgets and freeze expansion plans. This is despite the fact that such knee-jerk reactions have often boomeranged.

To be sure, unlike in 2009, no Indian company is yet talking about pink slips or curtailing of operations, but that's small consolation as whispers about the uncertainty ahead have already started in office canteens and near the water-coolers. People have started fearing losing jobs, salary cuts, increment freeze — all telltale signs of a psychological recession. Unless managements read the tea leaves and start taking action now, it can cost them dearly — just when you need people to focus and engage, they lose focus and disengage.

The cost of such fears can be heavy since even in normal times, distractions consume as much as a third of the average worker's day and sap productivity.

HR experts say now is the time when top managements should engage employees more through frequent town-hall meetings, direct mailers, personalised meetings and so on, especially with the talent you need. HR heads of enlightened companies treat these town-hall meetings as diagnostic centres so that the doctor knows the exact nature of the ailment.

The root of psychological recession is the sense that people have no control over what happens to them. But winning organisations help people break through that hopelessness and channel their employees' anxieties into results.

In their book – Predictable results in unpredictable times – authors Stephen R Covey and Bob Whitman say the paradigm at the root of psychological helplessness is the widespread belief that people have no control over what happens to them. Martin Seligman has called it "learned helplessness" — a condition in which people act helpless, even when they have the power to change the unpleasant or even harmful circumstance.

Covey and Whitman have suggested three ways to face the problem.

• Be transparent: Don't assume everybody already knows how the turbulence is affecting the organisation. All they hear are rumours about downturns and layoffs, so they need to hear exactly where they stand and they need to hear that often. Winning companies would have simple goals repeatedly revisited, together with clear targets and strong follow-through, including the measurement of results 
   
• Talk about what's next: if you have a strategy, lay it out in clear terms. Give people the chance to share their feelings concerns and, most of all, their ideas. 
   
• Focus on clarity: This reduces fear even if what is made clear isn't very positive. A first guideline for leaders is to talk straight and listen with empathy to the concerns of the team. By not communicating, you are asking people to walk straight into the storm. It will crush them — privately, silently, but inevitably.

Sullenberger followed these three principles and came out a winner — saving not only himself but all the 155 passengers on board. What about you?

***************************************

BUSINESS STANDARD

COLUMN

THE LAND LAW AND JUSTICE

THE PROPOSED LAND ACQUISITION BILL WILL NOT ADDRESS THE UNFAIRNESS IN THE SHARING OF GAINS IN LAND VALUE

NITIN DESAI

The ever-energetic Jairam Ramesh has unveiled a new land acquisition policy for discussion. He has taken on the difficult task of changing an old law whose implementation has led to a sorry mess in Nandigram, Singur and Noida, to mention only a few of the recent cases that have hit the headlines.

India's policy regime for managing land rights and land transactions is totally dysfunctional. Greedy politicians in state governments have refused to transfer authority over land transactions to the local authorities because they want a cut of the land value gains that will inevitably accrue with rising population and prosperity. Encouraged by the impunity with which they could rake in money in urban land deals, a new trend is the direct involvement of politicians through their family members in urban land transactions. Even industrial corporations whose primary goal is not to profit from land deals and widely respected parts of the government like the army seem to have been corrupted by the lure of quick profits from unearned gains in land values.

We are confronted by a lethal combination of market failure and government failure.

This is the minefield Jairam Ramesh has entered. There are three key issues about the draft land acquisition Bill: the definition of public purpose, the provisions for compensation, relief and rehabilitation, and how the proposed process engages the community.

Take the first issue. The draft Bill spells out public purpose more explicitly than the existing Act does. It also lays out an institutional mechanism to determine whether a proposed acquisition serves a public purpose as defined in the Act and safeguards against speculative or excessive acquisition. It appears to exclude land acquisition for private purposes but it does allow acquisition on behalf of private parties for a public purpose and for infrastructure and industry, including public-private partnership projects, when "benefits largely accrue to the general public". The draft Bill requires the private party to secure the consent of 80 per cent of the landowners before it seeks the help of the government in securing the balance requirement.

One cannot predict how the courts will parse the language used in the Bill. However, a lay reading suggests that most of the cases that have hit the headlines lately would continue to remain eligible for availing of the procedures for acquisition with government help. However, it appears that land acquired by the government for one purpose, say an agricultural university, cannot be diverted for another purpose, say, a motor car factory.

The draft Bill is more helpful on the compensation, relief and rehabilitation issue. To begin with, it combines land acquisition and relief and rehabilitation in one law. This will presumably make the rights of the displaced more readily justifiable. It includes among affected persons not just landowners but also rights holders under the Forest Rights Act and others whose livelihood depends on the land acquired. It specifies that the minimum compensation will be six times the market price for rural land and twice for urban land. The value of this stipulation has been questioned on the grounds that officially notified prices seriously understate the real market value. It also provides for long-term compensation, housing and infrastructure for displaced people.

The market value of rural land used for agriculture would be well below the price that it could command in non-agricultural uses, particularly in areas adjoining large cities. Getting such permission is fraught with all manner of bureaucratic hurdles and widespread corruption. It is a major instrument used by unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats for transferring the capital gains from the change in use to themselves and their developer clients. The draft Bill includes provisions that would allow landowners to share in the capital appreciation after the acquisition; but the mechanism that can ensure this is not at all clear.

The engagement with the community has been stressed in the material put out with the Bill. But in more specific terms, it is mostly a matter of public hearings and the obligation to prepare a social impact assessment that sounds quite promising for social scientists in need of extra income! It also has the usual promises about transparency and full information disclosure.

The Bill will not mean the end of land acquisition controversies. The core issue is fairness in the sharing of gains from the increase in land values that comes from regulatory measures like changes in designated land use and development measures like the construction of new roads and the provision of infrastructure facilities.

When it comes to urban expansion, Gujarat has shown the way with a century-old town-planning procedure that involves negotiations with both those whose land is needed for infrastructure, typically roads and urban municipal services, and those whose lands will go up in value when the infrastructure is built. Not only do these procedures establish a certain degree of equality of sacrifice and reward, but they also raise resources for infrastructure development.

This type of negotiated solution between gainers and losers will be more difficult in irrigation or hydel projects and in mining and manufacturing projects where the costs in terms of land loss are borne in one place and the benefits accrue far away. That is why even in Gujarat the Narmada project has had its share of land acquisition controversies. But when such projects involve some degree of urbanisation, "land-adjustment procedures" may help ensure some measure of fairness.

The government-led land acquisition procedure survives because of the confused state of land records. The government is the only landowner with unquestionable rights to land. The rest of us are khatedars, occupants with land rights of varying degrees of firmness, which can be challenged by some other claimant at any time. If the government acquires land and then hands it over to a private party, this party is safe from such claims. If we had a system of guaranteed title to land and reliable record of rights, this reason for preferring government led acquisition would become less salient.

The draft Bill will improve matters relating to relief and rehabilitation. It will give lawyers and judges a starting point for building some sound jurisprudence on the notion of public purpose. But it would not address adequately the fundamental unfairness in the way in which unrequited gains in land value are shared.

nitin-desai@hotmail.com 

***************************************

 

******************************************************************************************

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

JUDGING THE JUDGES

WE MUST FIND A FASTER, LESS CUMBERSOME WAY OF ENSURING JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Regardless of the outcome of the impeachment proceedings against Justice Soumitra Sen, the process highlights the need for a quicker, less cumbersome mechanism for ensuring accountability in the higher judiciary, specifically, to pass the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill presently pending in Parliament. Under the law, an impeachment motion requires the go-ahead from 100 MPs of the Lok Sabha or 50 MPs of the Rajya Sabha. Once admitted, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha or Chairman of the Rajya Sabha is required to set up an inquiry committee to look into (and establish) the charges before Parliament can continue with the impeachment motion. The motion must be carried by two-thirds of those present and voting who must, in addition, constitute a majority of the total strength of the concerned House. After this, the motion has to be passed in a similar fashion by the other House. When both Houses recommend that the judge be removed from office can the President act to remove him.

The long-winded process is intended to ensure independence of the judiciary from the executive and ensure judges are able to take decisions without fear or favour. In practice, however, it has had only one consequence. Not a single judge of the higher judiciary (Supreme Court and high courts) has been successfully impeached to date. Justice Ramaswamy of the Supreme Court came the closest; the inquiry committee found him guilty. But the motion to impeach him did not get the required support in Lok Sabha. The charges against Justice Sen go back almost 20 years, when, as Court Receiver in the Calcutta High Court, he is alleged to have misappropriated large sums of money received by him and then misrepresented facts to the high court. The inquiry committee found him guilty on both counts; hence the present impeachment proceedings. An inquiry committee is investigating charges against Chief Justice Dinakaran of the Sikkim High Court as a prelude to impeaching him. Today, the reality is that it is virtually impossible to dismiss a judge once appointed. This must change, through a new law to hold judges accountable.

***************************************

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

BIG, BLACK FOLLY

IT IS A TRAVESTY THAT INEFFICIENT MONOPOLY COAL INDIA IS COUNTRY'S BIGGEST COMPANY

Coal India Ltd (CIL) is an unalloyed monopolist, with a multi-year record of stultifying output. The public sector monopoly in coal mining must be repealed without further delay. Continuing with such anachronistic policy would be at huge national cost. Note that against the backdrop of severe coal shortages nationally — never mind that our proven reserves add up to over 60-odd billion tonnes — in the last five years, CIL's total production has gingerly increased by under 20%, to 430 MT. And during the same time period, CIL's net profits have gone up five-fold, to add up to over . 10,000 crore. It is clearly monopoly behaviour: to restrict supply in the face of stepped-up demand for unearned rent seeking. Instead, we need multiple coal producers to compete for custom, subject to regulatory oversight, as is the case in any large industry. The fact of the matter is that absence of proper market design and the sheer lack of proactive policy keep productivity and efficiency levels in domestic coal mining way below global norms.

CIL has replaced Reliance Industries Ltd, for now, but analysts foresee limited upside to the CIL stock. It is possible that RIL would again lead in market cap, especially if it can boost gas output in the Krishna-Godavari basin. But it cannot be gainsaid that domestic petrochemicals major RIL derives much of its value from volumes-based commodity play, which is qualitatively different from the science-based, proprietary-technology driven value propositions of chemical majors abroad. And the glaring lack of proprietary technology and science-based growth restricts RIL's market cap. Meanwhile, Indian coal mining has to see a significant efficiency boost in both production and beneficiation. The unbeneficiated coal from CIL is a source of climate change. Long-wall mining systems and other modern equipment are only sparingly used at CIL. The largest coal producer in the world, CIL, is almost certainly one of the highest cost producers as well. Given steeply rising imports of coal, we can no longer afford to keep repeal of coal nationalisation and attendant policy overhaul on the backburner.

 

***************************************

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

NEW BAHU SHOWS

AMERICA'S OBSESSION WITH WIFE REALITY SHOWS COULD SPILL OVER TO INDIAN SCREENS

 For avid watchers of reality television, the news from Wall Street gets better, and saucier. W i v e s o f W all S t r e e t, the brainchild of Devon Fleming, who's married to a banker, which this column had noted earlier, might go on air soon. D e al-B o o k reports that auditions have been successful, and the prospective cast includes Melissa Matthes, married to a hedge fund manager for 20 years, who teaches the relation between theology and money and Tamara Hunter, married to an out of work 'Spanish Playboy.' Among others, it'll also feature the wife of a former employee of the French fund manager who killed himself after his investments with Bernie Madoff went up in smoke. And of course, it'll also feature Ms Fleming, playing herself. Indian television doesn't seem to have noticed yet, but the lives of wives are all the rage in the US today. And as K a u n B a n e g a C r o r e - p a t idemonstrated, copying big US reality shows is no crime, but a formula for success. Where is our D alal S t r e e t B a h u s?

Right now, there are 12 shows on misbehaving wives that are on air in the US. There are six franchises of R e al H o u s e w i v e s. Then there are M o b W i v e sand B a s k e t b all W i v e s. A r m y W i v e son L i f e t i m e, S i s t e r W i v e son T L C and P r i s o n W i v e s(wives in prison, or with spouses in prison?) on D i s c o v e r y. There's no chance of the catfights cooling off, either: a channel is now shooting W r e s - tli n g W i v e s, and some pro-golfers' better halves are clamouring for their own show. This list opens up magnificent vistas for Indian televised entertainment. Why stop at S a a s B a h u serials? In addition to D alal S t r e e t B a h u s, you could shoot C r i c k e t T e a m B a - h u sand I P L B a h u s, B olly w o o d B a h u s, C r o r e p a t i B a h u sand K i t t y - p a r t y B a h u s. And in this season of Anna, why not shoot B h r a s h - t a c h a r V i r o d h i B a h u sas well?

 

***************************************

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

THY LEGACY, CHIEF MENTOR!

N R NARAYANA MURTHY, WHO RETIRES FROM INFOSYS TODAY, GAVE TRUE MEANING TO LIBERALISED INDIA'S HOPES AND ASPIRATIONS

Three business leaders have defined the last 60 years. J R D Tata, genteel, principled, a humanist and visionary who shaped the first 20 years and laid the foundation for a modern India amidst the controls of the socialist era. Dhirubhai Ambani, who saw no limits to his dreams and who thought of global scales, huge investments and fostered an enormous investor community and whose success destroyed India's licence quota raj, shaped the next 20. India's liberalisation created the N R Narayana Murthy (NRN) era, of building a global business based on technology, the best corporate governance practices, creating a meritocracy, offering hope to India's educated middle class. This era ends today when NRN bids goodbye to Infosys.

I joined Infosys in 1994 as head of finance and reported to him. It was a fabulous experience. His conceptual ability and understanding of business was total. Within a fortnight he prepared a financial model which explained the business lucidly. He knew the smallest detail of the business and one can aver that he was the best manager of finance India has known.

He kept the business rules simple so that there was no confusion, he made fast decisions, pushed aggressive targets, monitored performance, planned for the future and ensured relentless execution. He said transparency was a competitive advantage. He followed the highest standards of governance, encouraged all of us to set standards in all we did, and set lofty goals for us — listing on the Nasdaq when we were a very small company. He supported us fully when we took decisions, the credit was ours; the failure, if any belonged to him.
A man of great compassion, all Infoscions loved him. He gave them India's largest and most generous ESOP, democratising wealth and forcing corporate India to do more, creating thousands of millionaires. Not once did he publicise his achievements or his awards; yet he must have been awarded about 20 doctorates from various universities.

He had a large holding when he started Infosys but ensured that all his co-founders had good stakes by diluting his own hugely. He built the company ploughing back surpluses, taking a meagre salary for himself. Not once did he use corporate resources for his personal purposes. He met his expenses fully and never involved family in business nor gave favours or jobs to anybody without merit.

He stepped down as CEO at the prime of his life, ensuring that his co-founders could also take their place in the sun. His loyalty to them and faith in them was awesome. He had great foresight investing hugely in the Infosys campuses, forever changing the workplace in India, giving us all we craved for. He invested personally in creating a fabulous sales team, making us successful. He ensured huge investments in internal education and training, creating the corporate university in Mysore, the largest in the world.

He was a stickler for performance, gave no quarter and accepted none. He was harsh on us if we faltered, sometimes we were terrified of what he would say, but when he felt we had done our best, there was no one kinder. He gave all of us the courage and energy to achieve great heights. For him merit was everything. The best argument won the day, not the person, not the position.

Everybody knew he had the last word on everything. He allowed us to argue our positions if we disagreed, but once he decided, all of us toed the line. On the ADR roadshow he pulled out a troublesome tooth to speak better the next day. He would make 9 presentations of 45 minutes each per day, forsaking lunch, with the same energy and drive for the last one as the first.

When he stepped down as CEO, he travelled more to give more space to his successor, pushing us away when we approached him. Yet he was always there if there was a crisis or a hint of things going wrong. He created a fabulous board, invited the most competent people to be members from around the globe. He made sure that board meetings were open, transparent and we called ourselves a debating society. He headed many committees for strengthening standards in governance, reporting, regulations and policies. He had a huge role in the creation of the corporate sector that we see today.

It has been good fortune working with the maestro. He was kind to this writer, almost affectionate, but also drove people hard. My greatest kick was to answer any question before he asked, trying to read his mind, especially on finance. He could dissect data many ways, his finger always on the pulse of business wherever he was. He demanded and got his P&L at 3 o'clock on the last working day of very month, impatient to know our achievements, meeting our numbers was religion.

He was cautious in making commitments, but aggressive in performance, honest in his pronouncements. Investors loved him, he was the messiah of great returns! He created a dream company, "God's own company", which proved all the Cassandras wrong. An exemplar, a role model, the standard bearer, the answer to the great Indian dream.

Now he will retire from his beloved Infy and walk away into the sunset. We will miss him, yet he would not have us feel this way. The journey should go on, the dream should live forever! Infosys should be the top company globally. But for this writer, it is the end of an era.

 

T V MOHANDAS PAI CHAIRMAN, MANIPAL UNIVERSAL LEARNING, & FORMER CFO, INFOSYS

 

***************************************

 

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

GUEST COLUMN

REALITY CHECK FOR REALTORS

V RAGHUNATHAN

 

It is heartening to see DLF slapped with a . 630 crore penalty by the Competition Commission of India for "brutal disregard of consumer rights" and "their hopelessly one-sided agreements" and its plans to initiate suo motu action against other builders similarly exploiting their dominant position vis-à-vis hapless home-buyers. As DLF is pointing out in its 'defence', this exploitation is indeed the 'industry norm".
On May 31, 2008, I wrote an Oped piece 'Dealing with one-sided contracts' in these very columns, stating, how "a typical contract for the purchase of house from a developer is so one-sided as to be a joke", the joke being on the home-buyers.

The piece listed some typical clauses from various real contracts that went something like these: While the buyer will have to pay a penal interest of 18% per annum for a delay of even 15 days on his instalments to the builder, the builder has no symmetric obligation for delaying the completion of the work by any length, often paying a compensation as little as 1% per annum! The instalments may be demanded every three months or upon each stage of completion, whichever is earlier, upon threat of penal interest, implying that the builder could extort payment without completing a stage of construction (which is what led to the Maytas scam in Hyderabad, where banks had released funds for apartments that were never built). The builder is not obliged to complete any of the promised facilities, like a club-house or a swimming pool, that he is supposed to provide at the time of handing over the house or even any time thereafter, even though he may have received payments from the buyers for those facilities. The home-buyers have no say in the quality of construction promised. The buyers cannot have any claim to warranty on defective construction even for one full season, the "guaranty" typically being for six months. The builder is free to encroach upon the buyer's property and build beyond the originally agreed spaces (that's how DLF built 29 floors against the agreed 19 floors) for which the initial buyers have paid full value. That's how skewed the contracts with builders are, leaving the home-buyers virtually helpless.

While CCI's move is most welcome, it still does not help an ordinary buyer at a time when an owners' association is yet to come into being. What is worse, in most cases, the housing cooperatives themselves are controlled by the builders. Few people have the savvy and the energy to get their grievances redressed from the CCI every time.

I had made some suggestions in my aforementioned piece, which I shall paraphrase again. Firstly, an omnibus CCI may not be enough to address most grievances of home-buyers. Home buyers perhaps need a dedicated regulator in the real estate segment.

Secondly, in many other countries, responsible builders associations prescribe standard proformas of contracts that are less skewed. In Australia, for example, there are three major associations of builders, each of which provides standard contract proformas to the potential buyers for various kinds of contracts ranging from purchase of a new property to existing property to renovation of bathrooms and kitchen in order to reasonably protect the interests of homebuyers. In India, we have no such luck. As a matter of fact, according to a written response from the New Delhi-based Builders' Association of India, which has been around since 1941, working on such a template doesn't fall under its mandate, as they are expected to represent only the builders' interests! Perhaps banks (being lenders to home-buyers), and regulators should work closely with builders to create a proforma contract that is less skewed, along the lines of the more informed countries.

Thirdly, at present, the agreements with the builder are linked to the loan contracts, so that the loan disbursals go directly from the banks to the builders. So it should be possible for banks providing the housing loan to require all payments from buyers to the builders to be made through an escrow account. The bank could also, for a fee, hold a limited power of attorney from the homebuyer (borrower) to ensure that the builder has met his obligations and once so satisfied, clears the escrow. In fact, such a service may encourage home loans, minimise cash transactions so prevalent in the building industry and prevent Maytas or DLF-like violations of the home-buyers' interests.

Specific suggestions along the above lines were also made to the RBI governor, the finance ministry, chairmen of HDFC, NHB, Planning Commission, et el, with little response of course. But one is happy to note at least the issue coming to the foreground thanks to the CCI. Well, the government's wheels do move after all, even if they move slowly.

 

***************************************

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

GUEST COLUMN

REALITY CHECK FOR REALTORS

V RAGHUNATHAN

 It is heartening to see DLF slapped with a . 630 crore penalty by the Competition Commission of India for "brutal disregard of consumer rights" and "their hopelessly one-sided agreements" and its plans to initiate suo motu action against other builders similarly exploiting their dominant position vis-à-vis hapless home-buyers. As DLF is pointing out in its 'defence', this exploitation is indeed the 'industry norm".

On May 31, 2008, I wrote an Oped piece 'Dealing with one-sided contracts' in these very columns, stating, how "a typical contract for the purchase of house from a developer is so one-sided as to be a joke", the joke being on the home-buyers.

The piece listed some typical clauses from various real contracts that went something like these: While the buyer will have to pay a penal interest of 18% per annum for a delay of even 15 days on his instalments to the builder, the builder has no symmetric obligation for delaying the completion of the work by any length, often paying a compensation as little as 1% per annum! The instalments may be demanded every three months or upon each stage of completion, whichever is earlier, upon threat of penal interest, implying that the builder could extort payment without completing a stage of construction (which is what led to the Maytas scam in Hyderabad, where banks had released funds for apartments that were never built). The builder is not obliged to complete any of the promised facilities, like a club-house or a swimming pool, that he is supposed to provide at the time of handing over the house or even any time thereafter, even though he may have received payments from the buyers for those facilities. The home-buyers have no say in the quality of construction promised. The buyers cannot have any claim to warranty on defective construction even for one full season, the "guaranty" typically being for six months. The builder is free to encroach upon the buyer's property and build beyond the originally agreed spaces (that's how DLF built 29 floors against the agreed 19 floors) for which the initial buyers have paid full value. That's how skewed the contracts with builders are, leaving the home-buyers virtually helpless.

While CCI's move is most welcome, it still does not help an ordinary buyer at a time when an owners' association is yet to come into being. What is worse, in most cases, the housing cooperatives themselves are controlled by the builders. Few people have the savvy and the energy to get their grievances redressed from the CCI every time.

I had made some suggestions in my aforementioned piece, which I shall paraphrase again. Firstly, an omnibus CCI may not be enough to address most grievances of home-buyers. Home buyers perhaps need a dedicated regulator in the real estate segment.

Secondly, in many other countries, responsible builders associations prescribe standard proformas of contracts that are less skewed. In Australia, for example, there are three major associations of builders, each of which provides standard contract proformas to the potential buyers for various kinds of contracts ranging from purchase of a new property to existing property to renovation of bathrooms and kitchen in order to reasonably protect the interests of homebuyers. In India, we have no such luck. As a matter of fact, according to a written response from the New Delhi-based Builders' Association of India, which has been around since 1941, working on such a template doesn't fall under its mandate, as they are expected to represent only the builders' interests! Perhaps banks (being lenders to home-buyers), and regulators should work closely with builders to create a proforma contract that is less skewed, along the lines of the more informed countries.

Thirdly, at present, the agreements with the builder are linked to the loan contracts, so that the loan disbursals go directly from the banks to the builders. So it should be possible for banks providing the housing loan to require all payments from buyers to the builders to be made through an escrow account. The bank could also, for a fee, hold a limited power of attorney from the homebuyer (borrower) to ensure that the builder has met his obligations and once so satisfied, clears the escrow. In fact, such a service may encourage home loans, minimise cash transactions so prevalent in the building industry and prevent Maytas or DLF-like violations of the home-buyers' interests.

Specific suggestions along the above lines were also made to the RBI governor, the finance ministry, chairmen of HDFC, NHB, Planning Commission, et el, with little response of course. But one is happy to note at least the issue coming to the foreground thanks to the CCI. Well, the government's wheels do move after all, even if they move slowly.

 

***************************************

 

******************************************************************************************

BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

IN SEARCH OF THE RIGHT MEDICINE

This month, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) turns 14. It shoulders the onerous task of balancing the interests of the consumers who take medicines and the companies that produce them. With the estimated Rs 1-lakh-crore drug industry seeing tumultuous change, especially over the last six years, the NPPA has not really kept pace. At present, 74 drugs on the list of essential medicines are under price control and the rest are monitored if the price increase is over 10 per cent in a year. With medicines accounting for over half the hospitalisation expenses of an individual, it is only natural that there is an ongoing debate on whether more drugs should be brought under price control, as opposed to allowing market forces to achieve the same. Be that as it may, it is possible to carve out the required space for forces of competition, and yet ensure that the NPPA does justice to its assigned role as a price regulator and guardian of consumer interest. The NPPA's road ahead, though, can be re-defined only when the long-pending Pharmaceuticals Policy sees the light of day and aligns itself to the structural changes in the industry over the past decade. The Drafts of 2002 and 2006 have lapsed, and the NPPA is left to operate on the lines of the Drug Price Control Order, 1995. Meanwhile, the amended Indian Patents Act has been operational from 2005, enforcing product patents, allowing companies to protect their intellectual property and keep at bay other companies making similar versions of innovative drugs, at lower costs. Recently, the biggest names in the pharmaceutical industry have totally or partially sold their operations to multinational drug companies. This has triggered valid concerns about medicine prices — albeit among the lowest in the world. It's not just an innovative cancer medicine that is priced at over a lakh a month for life-long use; even its generically similar version, at about Rs 10,000 a month for the rest of one's life is no mean sum.

This is where NPPA has a role to play. It is surely possible to crack down on inordinate mark-ups, which are indicative of monopolistic or oligopolistic practices. But NPPA lacks support from the Centre and can hardly make a meaningful impact in delivering affordable healthcare. Merely threatening companies with more price control is unlikely to work, as companies end up taking the medicine off the shelves, saying it is unviable to manufacture. The root problem is the absence of a policy framework that reconciles regulation with competition, and therefore the interests of consumers and producers. But with medicines being just part of healthcare, it is time for the Government to train its guns on other facets of healthcare cost, including diagnostic tests, hospital facilities and doctor fees.

***************************************

BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

THEY ALSO SLIP...

SRIDHAR KRISHNASWAMI

Once again the Americans are in the news. This time, it is thanks to poor choice of words by a diplomat in Chennai.

"… my skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians," Ms Maureen Chao, Vice Consul at the US Consulate in Chennai, said while recounting her 72-hour train journey from New Delhi to Orissa many years ago. Ms Chao was addressing the Semester Abroad Programme of SRM University.

As expected, everyone present was offended, though the remarks never meant to, with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister demanding an apology for stereotyping, racial slur and what not. The American Mission in Chennai quickly regretted the "unfortunate" remarks, reiterating that it was never the diplomat's intention to hurt anyone's sentiments.

Inappropriate and poor choice of words, yes, it was; but there did not appear to be any intent of a racial slur. Prior to her diplomatic assignment, Ms Chao was a student counsellor for many years at an American university and she wouldn't have lasted there had she harboured any politically incorrect views!

This is not the first time that an American politician or diplomat has courted controversy with poor choice of words. Ms Chao stands in the distinguished company of former President George Bush, the present Vice-President, Mr Joe Biden and the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, all of whom were hammered in the media for their unfortunate remarks. But they had not intended to wound, even indirectly.

RACIAL SLUR

"We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis that there is a way to deal with their problems without going to war," quipped Mr Bush in 2002, without realising that the word "Pakis" is a racially-offensive epithet that is not acceptable. In fact, even prior to Mr Bush, Mr Sandy Berger, the National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton, came to realise the hard way that the term "Pakis" isn't acceptable usage. Of course, it's another matter that Mr Bush was reprieved by Pakistan.

"I would give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was said in passing. I would say it doesn't amount to racial slur," remarked the then Spokesman of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington.

Two years later, in 2004, at a fund-raiser, the then New York Senator, Ms Hillary Clinton, joked that Mahatma Gandhi used to run a gas station in St. Louis. That comment did not go down well, as it is associated with certain ethnic groups running gas stations in America.

"I have admired the work and life of Mahatma Gandhi and have publicly spoken regarding that many times. I truly regret if a lame attempt at humour suggested otherwise," Ms Clinton said in an interview shortly thereafter.

It does not take too much for so-called slurs to be noticed, but what needs to be kept in mind is that there are those Chaos, Bushs, Clintons and Bidens who may mean nothing offensive, except for their misconstrued attempt at humour and poor choice of words. Diplomats are trained to be culture-sensitive, just as scribes are, for the most part, trained to be sensitive to the larger picture. This should be borne in mind the next time such a controversy breaks out.

***************************************

BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

TIME FOR INTROSPECTION ON ALL SIDES

B.S.RAGHAVAN

There is no need to take an entirely negative view of the events of the past few days following the fierce face-off between Anna Hazare and his supporters, on the one hand, and the Delhi Police and the Government at the Centre, on the other, arising from Anna's determined bid to go on an indefinite fast at the Jayaprakash Narayan Park, brushing aside the conditions imposed by the Police and in violation of the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

That, despite the highly surcharged atmosphere throughout the country, the mass upsurge has remained entirely peaceful with not even a minor untoward incident, is akin to a miracle. At any moment, with tens of thousands, carrying candles and torches, in a fever-pitch of anger and agitation, something could have easily gone amiss somewhere resulting in a horrendous holocaust. The exemplary behaviour of the protesters everywhere is in and by itself proof of the extent to which they have been touched by the greatness and nobility of the cause.

On the developments

There is yet another aspect whose vital contribution to the making of an enlightened citizenry should not be overlooked: The white-hot debates and controversies aired by the print and electronic media have also served to educate the people on a massive scale on the merits and nuances of the various issues relating to the fight against corruption, the part that the people can and should play, and the opinions for and against the Government's and Team Anna's drafts of the Lokpal Bill.

In the period since the first fast of Anna Hazare in April, in the course of my casual chats with autorickshaw drivers, hotel bearers, vegetable vendors and even young school students, I was amazed at their perceptive and constructive analysis of the developments and the practical and purposeful nature of their suggestions.

What is now needed is an earnest introspection on all sides on the rights and wrongs of what transpired and the respective roles of the Government, the police and Team Anna itself. It should be done with an open and receptive mind, without locking oneself into pre-conceived positions.

UGLY CONTRETEMPS

There is no question that the Government will have to take the largest part of the blame for mishandling the situation. It heavily counted on a legalistic, law-and-order, take-it-or-lump-it approach that went back to days of British imperialism, whereas the challenge before it was a moral one, and called for total identification with the sentiments and sufferings of the people. Instead, it muddied up the issue as one of rule of law, supremacy of Parliament, sanctity of prohibitory orders, obedience to police diktats and the like. It descended to the level of consciously indulging in character-assassination and intemperate vilification through its chosen spokespersons.

If only, right at the start, Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Pranab Mukherjee or Mr P. Chidambaram had made conciliatory overtures, and kept both the Anna Team and the Opposition engaged in efforts to build a consensus, it could have avoided all the subsequent ugly contretemps.

The police showed little intelligence and imagination in thinking that it can thrust down Team Anna's throat its long list of conditions, many of them absurd and arbitrary beyond belief (For instance, how to count the crowd to keep its size within 5000? Why the number of days of fasting should be three, and not four or five?)

Finally, the largest share of introspection falls to Team Anna itself. To me, Anna seems bent on fasting for its own sake. What is it that he expects to get out of it? Substitution of the official Lokpal Bill by his Bill? Is this realistic and realisable when there are honest differences of opinion among even sympathisers of Anna about many of the impractical features pressed by him?

He could have achieved far more if, on the strength of the enormous moral authority acquired by him from his first fast, he had hammered out an agreed version in concert with the Standing Committee of the Lok Sabha to which the official Bill has been referred.

***************************************

BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

WORLD SEEN THROUGH BRITISH EYES

T.C.A.RANGACHARI

The Africans as a whole are "not only not averse to cutting off their noses to spite their face; they regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery."

The Arabs are worse than most people at linguistic flatulence.

The average Nicaraguan is among the "most dishonest, unreliable, violent and alcoholic of Latin Americans". The 'Icelanders are 'xenophobic, grasping, opportunist, unjustifiably conceited and ashamedly supplicant'.

These observations – and many more in similar vein - are from classified Valedictory despatches written by Her Majesty's Ambassadors and High Commissioners around the world.

The Valedictories, a centuries-old tradition which, to the regret of many, was effectively ended in 2006 by the then Foreign Secretary, were exceptional because they gave the Ambassador the opportunity to be even more wide-ranging, critical and self-indulgent them usual. They were brutally frank – the Foreign Office sought "full, frank and hard-hitting advice" and not always complimentary to the host government or people. They were, for that matter, equally unsparing towards the home government. They were valued because the honest assessments were felt to be critical in enabling re-think and reform in policy and implementation.

This compilation, Parting Shots, edited by Matthew Parries and Andrew Bryson, ( Penguin), is the follow-up to a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast in 2009 in which the editors aired the Valedictories and also interviewed several Ambassadors on their contents. The editors had managed to get 40 Valedictories – they had sought some 60 pertaining to 1979-2006 period - released under the RTI. The quality of the Valedictories, as the editors acknowledge, are not always even; generally though they are of exceptionally high standard.

The diplomatic life is often trivialised as "Protocol, Vitriol, Alcohol." Diplomats, particularly of the developed world, can hardly be blamed if they consider that 'distance, dirt and danger' (as a former British High Commissioner to India put it) are more the norm than champagne buckets at breakfast. The world has become an increasingly dangerous place. The diplomat was never immune from targeted violence; irrational or accidental violence in this age of terrorism has opened up new risks.

Proximity to VIPs dictated by protocol can be heady but, at times, also disastrous. In 1981, the then British Ambassador in Cairo, was two rows behind Anwar Sadat when he was assassinated; he escaped (the Belgian Ambassador seated near him was badly wounded) by diving under the chairs!

More insightful

Diplomats often have a more insightful analysis of their own country's strengths and weaknesses as they see their country from the others' eyes. Several Ambassadors, at different points, warned of the impact of the decline in British economy, the inward focus of the people and the parties, the consequent attacks on and reductions in the aid budget, the need for effectively discharging Britain's historic responsibilities to the peoples of colonial possessions by imparting adequate training in institutions of governance being left behind, inability to use the British Council and other tools of 'soft' diplomacy etc.

On a wider scale, they lamented the nationalism and isolationism of Britain vis-à-vis the continent; some made a similar point about the EU's and the US' neglect of each other. They complained of ham-handedness of the officialdom in London in trotting out mindless rationalisations for actions that could be otherwise justified. There are warnings of the deleterious consequences of the inability to lead — the British reluctance to become an active participant in the integration of Europe conceding space to the French and the Germans. Sir Nicholas Henderson's 1979 valedictory on the eve of Margaret Thatcher sweeping Labour out of office calling for a "new sense of national purpose" lamented lost opportunities which led Britain to lose out on the benefits of European integration to the French and Germans; the malaise had made Britain not just "poor but un-proud".

Errors of judgement

The Valedictories reveal striking errors of judgement. Peter Jay, a political appointee — he was Prime Minister Callaghan's son-in-law — as the Ambassador in Washington predicted a second term for Carter and that Edward Kennedy wouldn't run against Carter. The Ambassador in Moscow, Sir Bryan Cartledge, forecast the continuance of the Soviet system into the 21 {+s} {+t} century barely a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the events that it triggered leading to the collapse of the USSR. The then Ambassador in Tehran, Sir Anthony Parsons, got it all wrong all through 1978 about the continuance of the Shah forecasting that he would be "able to govern, as he is at present, without any genuinely dangerous opposition from any quarter."

The inability of the Embassy to foresee that which was 'blowing in the wind' remained a major embarrassment to the Foreign Office and left a powerful imprint on succeeding generations serving in the region. The error, however, did not do much harm to his professional reputation as a diplomat. He moved to New York as the British Permanent Representative to the UN and later as the personal adviser on foreign policy to Margaret Thatcher. David Owen, the former foreign secretary, subsequently noted, the "worst public servants are those who never take risks, who always hedge their bets;" the best, he wrote, "pose the right questions, but are also ready to give wrong answers."

Little from China

It is a pity that only a couple of Valedictories from China have been included. One dating to 1974 speaks of the 'sufficiency' of food, of 'so much confidence' 'so little fear'.

One can only surmise with the benefit of hindsight that that was influenced by the still-fresh 'opening' to China engineered by the US and a reflection of the Western approach to build up China as a counterpoise to the USSR – an approach which made Moynihan complain that everyone was speaking of the absence of flies in China, but none about the absence of liberties. The Chinese themselves have judged that period otherwise.

Back in 1969, the British Ambassador in Rio (then the capital of Brazil) was pointing to its rich natural resources, hydro potential, demographic advantage and, in consequence, an 'irresistible propensity' to be rich and prosperous.

If that was not so, the Ambassador mused, it was because the country was badly governed, had a bloated bureaucracy and corruption was rife.

At about the same time, the Ambassador in Uruguay was pointing to similar infirmities citing the staff strength of over 800 of the national airline which had but four or five aircraft and could put none in the air. In the three years that he had served there, he concluded, 'materially the country had galloped ahead, but its politics had gone backwards.'

On India

We do not know whether there was a similar assessment regarding India. The two Valedictories from India (1982 and 1998), included in the book, refer to political stability, democracy, of being 'best administered' of all developing countries (this last might be seen also as patting one's own back).

There is reference, too, to India being a "cacophonous cauldron", 'high and growing' level of corruption, "slow and precarious" law-and-order systems, media's "abuse" of the freedoms it has and 'colossal amount of humbug' instead of substantive discussion of national issues or long-range programmes — assessments which might be said to have stood the test of time!

The book should be essential readfor diplomats.

***************************************

BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

HUMBLE PERSON, GREAT BRAND

RAMANUJAM SRIDHAR

Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy is retiring from Infosys, the company that he founded (with a few of his friends), a company that he led to pre-eminence even as everyone is asking "Why" and not "Why not?".

To a perpetual student of branding like me, Mr Narayana Murthy is the ultimate personal brand — demonstrating in no uncertain terms that people from the corporate world can as much be brands as people from sports or entertainment.

For five years, brand-comm, the company I founded did a business leadership survey amongst management students in India and every year, Mr Narayana Murthy with predictable and monotonous regularity was the most admired business leader as chosen by India's future managers.

We promptly gave up doing the study after five years!

Tempted as I am to wax eloquent about his rise to personal brand stardom, I shall desist and stay with my views of him as a person that I knew. Although my opportunities to interact and learn from him were limited, they were impactful enough to make an impression on me and provide opportunities to learn from.

The early years

I first met Mr Narayana Murthy when I was the head of Mudra in Bangalore and it was our agency that had handled the advertising for the public issue. I remember a team of eight of us going for the meeting. (To those of you who are unfamiliar with the advertising industry,

I must confess that we believe in the strength of numbers rather than in the power of ideas). In those days, Infosys operated in a small office at Koramangala. Today that is a heritage office of the company.

But believe it or not, there were not enough spare chairs in the office and some of the employees went out to stretch their legs. And just see where NRN has taken the company in two decades! A simple lesson — it is not where you are now, but where you wish to be that matters in the ultimate analysis. I did have a small regret though.

The cutting edge campaign that we created for the company was not approved. In hindsight, the company took the right call as the campaign depicted what Infosys could be, and not what it was then. Even in its advertising, the company was not making forward-looking statements — something that other corporates might do well to note.

An unlikely cricket fan

I had wanted to interview Mr Narayana Murthy for my first book One land, one billion minds and he readily agreed. I was carefully noting down whatever he was saying in his cabin when we were interrupted.

He had an unexpected visitor in G. R. Vishwanath, who incidentally was my favourite cricketer. Mr. Narayana Murthy excused himself and when someone introduced him to Vishy, he said, "Of course, I am a great fan of yours. I was at Kanpur at your debut with my friends and can never forget your innings."

To which that wonderful cricketer said with a twinkle in his eye, "Not the first innings, I hope," , as he had scored a duck in the first innings.

While the incident itself was a simple one, it showed a new dimension to the great man. The wonderful game of cricket had an unlikely follower in one of India's leading lights of industry who even knew what the batsman had scored on his debut.

There was another aspect of the great man that I must mention. When the government thoughtlessly decided to control the functioning of the IIMs, the IIM-B alumni association of which I was a part sent a letter of support to over 40 board members of the different IIMs.

We got one solitary acknowledgement — that was from Mr Narayana Murthy who was the chairman of the board of IIM-A. Not even IIM-B, our alma mater, responded!

I have always admired Mr Narayana Murthy's ability to always acknowledge and respond to mails and letters. Sadly not many follow his example in today's corporate world, and perhaps not even in Infosys.

With brains and a heart

It is easy to talk at length about Mr Narayana Murthy's simplicity, his spartan life style, his down-to-earth qualities and the influence of his values on the company that he founded. His phenomenal success over the years had no impact on him as a person.

Even today, when he has become a global brand, he remains the same simple individual that he was in '91. And let us not forget his contributions and those by his family members to various social causes.

I wish corporate India had more gentlemen with brains and open wallets like the founder of Infosys who retires. He leaves with Infosys a legacy of success, values and ethics that few have created in their lifetime.

I am sure the future holds greater things for him.

***************************************

BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

WHEN RBI CHIEFS SPEAK THEIR MIND

K.KANAGASABAPATHY

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has enhanced and strengthened its transparency and disclosure practices considerably in the post-reform period after the mid-1990s and, thereby, enlarged the open area of two-way communication with the market.

First, the RBI publishes extensive data and information on the central bank's operations periodically. Second, the policy statements have detailed pronouncements and clear statements of stance. Third, the interventions have become more frequent — the two half-yearly statements have now increased to twice a quarter. Finally, such assessments bring out both the upside and downside biases and risks to the RBI's own outlook and projections as also the policy dilemmas.

Speeches by Top Management

One key element of the RBI communication has always been the speeches delivered by top management in different fora. The media eagerly looks forward to such speeches and pick up insights into policy-making. Many a time, such speeches were path-breaking, at times, confronting the public policy environment to bring about desired changes, and establishing the credibility and autonomy of central bank's operations.

The former RBI Governor, Dr C. Rangarajan, in 1993, came out forcefully in favour of procuring greater autonomy for the central bank in his Kutty Memorial Lecture. This paved the way for setting the limit for net issue of ad hoc treasury bills, putting an end to automatic monetisation of government deficits.

Dr Y. V. Reddy, while talking on dilemmas in exchange rate management on August 15, 1997, in Goa, subtly raised the issue of whether the rupee was overvalued or not and pronounced that, as per the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER), it would certainly appear so, irrespective of the base chosen. This paved the way for a much-needed correction in the rupee exchange rate which helped to tide over the impact of Asian financial crisis shortly afterwards.

Dr Bimal Jalan, spoke less compared to others, but made his strategic thoughts on exchange rate and reserves management policies from time to time. While speaking at the symposium of central bank governors in London on July 5, 2002, with considerable foresight, he enunciated three fundamental requirements, quite unconventional at that time, for a country to prevent a financial crisis: First, careful monitoring and management of exchange rates without a fixed target or a pre-announced target or a band with ability to intervene, if and when necessary; second, a policy to build a high level of foreign exchange reserves which takes into account not only anticipated current account deficits but also "liquidity at risk" arising from unanticipated capital movements; and third, a judicious policy for management of the capital account, discouraging short-term capital for financing investments and encouraging foreign direct investment and portfolio investment. It is now history that these home-grown principles stood the test of time and entrenched in Indian policy-making since then.

Dr Y. V. Reddy, as Governor from 2003 to 2008, had brought out the risk of global imbalances and mispricing of risks in global markets that enabled him to keep a tight leash on monetary policy stance throughout this period.

Dr Duvvuri Subbarao, with his forthright views expressed on several occasions on the role of the RBI in financial stability, promoted amendments to government's intervention on financial stability issues and helped reconstitution of the Financial Stability and Development Council.

Who Spoke on What

The RBI, in the archives section of its Web site, provides a complete list of speeches by top management, at least from 1997. Governors have delivered in all 172 speeches since 1997 and Deputy Governors as many as 322 speeches.

A subject-wise distribution of speeches shows that in order of priority, banking, with 122 speeches, topped the list. Monetary policy attracted only 33 speeches, perhaps because there are regular policy statements issued on the subject. The other major subject areas were Indian economy (65), financial markets (55) and financial sector reform (33)

Functional Delegation

There has been a welcome functional diversification in communication in the recent period. The Communications Policy of the RBI has enunciated the following broad principles: The Governor and Deputy Governor in charge of monetary policy are the only spokespersons on issues relating to monetary policy and the exchange rate; Deputy Governors are the spokespersons in their respective areas of responsibility; and the Executive Directors (EDs) and heads of departments speak only with explicit authority from the Governor/Deputy Governors.

Speeches by EDs were obviously rare till 2009 and, thanks to some activism of Mr Deepak Mohanty and, of late, Mr. G. Padmanabhan, there were as many as 23 speeches by EDs in the last about two years.

Mr Mohanty has been the key architect of the recent changes in operating procedures of monetary policy and has, appropriately, brought out the rationale behind the new operating procedures and the main challenges that need to be recognised. He has observed that the transmission of policy signals is most effective under deficit liquidity conditions and the challenge is to keep the systemic liquidity in a deficit mode consistently.

Any prolonged phases of autonomous liquidity infusion due to sustained capital inflows or liquidity drain due to persistent surplus of government cash balances would call for creating the capacity to conduct operations through instruments such as outright open market operations, market stabilisation scheme and cash reserve ratio, besides a scheme of auctioning government cash balances. There is a need for further deepening of financial markets by removing structural rigidities coming in the way of market determination of interest rates.

Drawing attention to the debate on internationalisation of rupee, Mr Padmanabhan has observed that international interest in the Indian rupee and emerging off-shore markets are consistent with progressive globalisation of the Indian economy and the efforts must be to bring all genuine users seeking to hedge underlying exposures on-shore.

Such speeches have further strengthened the Communication Policy of the Reserve bank and help in providing forward guidance to market participants.

***************************************

 

******************************************************************************************

                                                                                                               DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

UPA MUST SHOW PEOPLE IT'S SERIOUS

 

The monumental folly of placing Anna Hazare under preventive detention before he could commence his protest fast in New Delhi on Tuesday has been somewhat undone by the government agreeing to let him carry out his plan at another venue in the national capital. It is on this condition that the anti-corruption campaigner — who has gathered star value along the way — agreed to leave Tihar Jail where he had been placed in judicial custody. It is time now to proceed to an informed and nuanced public discussion on the Lokpal Bill, if the proposed protest sit-in is not to acquire intimidatory tones. The government's first action suggested it had badly misread the public pulse. Possibly, it also reflected a worry about having to deal with potentially large crowds in this age of terrorism and just-beneath-the-surface fires of urban violence which singe us periodically. The second official action — paving the way for Mr Hazare's release — amounts to contrition and appreciation of reality rolled into one. It is to be welcomed. At last there is a signal of politics at work and the dropping of hubris. There appeared more than a hint of arrogance of power in the government's initial reactions in the CVC case, in the Commonwealth Games scam, and in understanding the extent of the anti-corruption mood in the country. It bears noting that a ruling of the Supreme Court in a 2007 case on Wednesday may also have informed the government's decision to persuade Mr Hazare to end his Tihar sojourn. The court ruled that a person cannot be picked up for preventive detention under Sections 151 and 107 of CrPC — the very provisions used against Mr Hazare — unless there are grounds to believe that he will commit a cognisable offence if not arrested. In any event, some sanity should now be restored to the discourse on corruption and on ways to deal with civil liberties and well-intentioned public protests. All sides would do well to get on with the job. The Opposition parties and the protesters need to escape from their overblown rhetoric recalling the Emergency. This can continue to be invoked only at the cost of appearing ludicrous, considering what the Emergency meant. On the core issue of the Lokpal Bill, no injury to parliamentary positions can be caused if Congress — rather than the government — representatives call on Mr Hazare, as a matter of courtesy, to explain where they differ on his Jan Lokpal Bill, and why. This is the way politics was conducted for two decades after Independence. The Congress-led government has taken legislative steps to combat corruption. It has to persuade people that it is serious.

***************************************

DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

HELLO! ANYBODY THERE?

 

Is it a bird, a plane or a UFO (unidentified flying object)? Humans have always — for centuries — had the curiosity to know if they are the only living beings in the universe or there are others in the cosmic neighbourhood. Time and again they scan the skies and spot a mysterious looking object which they feel is a visitor from a distant planet. There are even stories of people being abducted by aliens. Hundreds of books, films and websites are devoted to the subject. Though many sightings have been exposed as hoaxes, others have remained mysteries and still others shown to be the result of a feverish (and possibly alcohol-induced) imagination, but the UFO industry goes on. The latest such episode took place a couple of days back when a UFO was believed to be spotted over an airport in Jiangbei in southwest China, disrupting flights for an hour. Often the explanations for such sightings turn out to be mundane — an aircraft or a flock of geese or, as in the latest case, probably a balloon. But how dull life would be without some romance and mystery? The scientists who assure us there is no hard evidence about creatures on other planets are spoilsports. Government departments quietly suppress all information about UFOs in secret files. But we know the truth — it's out there. And if you don't believe us, just check YouTube, where you'll get all the proof you need that we — as in earthlings — are not alone.

 

***************************************

DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

NEW AGE STIR FINDS NETAS OUT OF SYNC

 

A notable feature of the India Against Corruption campaign by Anna Hazare and his civil society compatriots is that most, if not all, support has come from the urban middle class. Where mass movements in India were usually populated by the dispossessed or the working classes, this is the revolt of the comfortable. These modern-day crusaders out on the streets, shouting slogans, offering soundbites and rushing to court arrest are mostly educated and well-off. They are different from their counterparts of a generation or two ago: not for them the slow, painstaking legalistic process, constitutional niceties or indeed debate and discussion. They want quick fixes and instant results; they like polls with "yes" or "no" options and are happiest coining clever tweets. The painstaking political path, which takes time to show results, does not work for them. It's therefore not surprising that the government and the political class — talking about parliamentary procedures and standing committees — has failed to find any appeal. These modern crusaders have, apart from taking to the streets, also taken their battle to the social networking world. The cyber arena is their universe — where they have used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube with great effect to spread the word. No sooner was Anna Hazare picked up by the police early Tuesday morning than his sermon was uploaded on to YouTube to reach his legion of followers across the country almost instantly. Tweets flew thick and fast with the latest developments, and helped motivate Mr Hazare's supporters, who then came out in significant numbers to march on in cities and towns across the land. This indicates a professional approach, belying the belief that this was a spontaneously planned affair. There was clearly a lot of strategising behind the scenes. In this, the India Against Corruption agitationists seem to have learnt from and refined tactics used in similar mass movements in Arab nations and in the recent violence on Britain's streets. So alarmed were governments of those countries that sought ways to shut down social networking websites. In India, the government has had its eye on such sites for a while, and will not doubt propose some steps to control them. The use of social media to this extent shows us that the old cut and thrust of public debates via newspapers and the mobilisation of people by ferrying them in trucks and keeping them motivated with loudspeakers are now long gone. The disconnect from the past is also visible in the casual invocations of this being "the second freedom movement" or to a "new Emergency", without necessarily knowing or caring to know about the historical context. But there is no denying that a completely new social paradigm has emerged. India's middle classes now want answers, and are deploying all the forces and tools at their command to demand them. In effect they are saying that they want accountability from all those who rule them, and that the old excuses won't work any longer. The political class as a whole, and more specifically the government, simply have to recognise that they simply cannot afford to lumber on in the old ways, offering clichés and platitudes of the past.

 

***************************************

                                                                          

DECCAN CHRONICAL

OPED

THE MYTH OF SOCIALIST PARADISE

 

Three years ago, Tibetans from Lhasa to Lithang rose up against Chinese rule in Tibet. Earlier this week, a Tibetan monk set himself on fire — the second self-immolation this year, and a testament to China's continuing repression and Tibetans' continued resistance. We do not encourage protests, but it is our sacred duty to support our voiceless and courageous compatriots. In 1950, when the Chinese Army first came to Tibet, they promised a socialist paradise for Tibetans. After more than 60 years of misrule, Tibet is no socialist paradise. There is not socialism but colonialism; there is no paradise, only tragedy. Some Tibetans helped build roads to Tibet from China and were paid in silver coins by polite and respectful Chinese soldiers. However, once the roads were built in early 1950s, tanks encircled strategic urban areas, trucks headed straight to the mineral-rich mountains, and Chinese workers arrived later to exploit and mine billions of dollars worth of gold, copper and uranium. Overnight, it seemed, something had changed. The polite Chinese people changed, too, and became overbearing and aggressive. They used their guns. Battles erupted. There was death and destruction. The continuing political repression, cultural assimilation, economic marginalisation and environmental destruction in occupied Tibet are unacceptable. The new railway line from Beijing to Lhasa is bringing more heavy equipment to exploit our natural resources and more Chinese migrants, who are beginning to demographically dominate Tibet. Today, around 70 per cent of private-sector firms are owned or run by Chinese, more than 50 per cent of government officials are Chinese, and approximately 40 per cent of Tibetans with university and high-school degrees are unemployed. And this is made worse by Chinese officials who treat Tibet as their personal inheritance, and behave like latter-day feudal lords. Earlier this year, several Chinese leaders visited Lhasa to celebrate 60 years of so-called peaceful liberation. But the reality is that the anniversary was observed under undeclared martial law. Troops carried automatic machine guns as they marched through the streets of Lhasa while sharpshooters positioned themselves on rooftops. Tourists, of course, were banned from visiting during the "celebration." The Tibetan political leadership is still committed to non-violence and a peaceful resolution through dialogue. We will continue our "middle way" policy, which seeks genuine autonomy for Tibet within the People's Republic of China, a win-win proposition for both the Tibetans and the Chinese. China aspires to be a superpower. It has a fast-growing economy backed by growing military power, but sadly, its moral power is lagging behind. And moral power cannot be bought in the marketplace or forced with military might. It has to be earned. As long as Tibetans are reduced to second-class citizens in their own homeland, there will be resistance to Chinese rule. Finding a lasting solution to the Tibet question, on the other hand, will improve China's image in the eyes of the world and help protect its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Peaceful dialogue could lead to genuine Tibetan autonomy within China. This is a solution that will satisfy both Tibetan and Chinese interests and it will be a victory not only for the Tibetan people, but for all marginalised people around the world.

 

***************************************

DECCAN CHRONICAL

OPED

365 DAYS OF FREEDOM

 

Last year, on August 15, The Asian Age published an article written by me, titled Did India Awake? In the article, I had referred to Jawaharlal Nehru's historic speech, delivered at mid-night of August 14-15, 1947, in which he had declared: "When the world sleeps, India would awake to light and freedom." Around this poetic expression, I had built up the proposition that India had indisputably woken up but was walking on an uneven and uncertain path. Today, when I look at the intervening period between last year's Independence Day and this year's, I find that India's path has become far more uneven and uncertain. In fact, the country has started tumbling over and is hurting badly. In this period of one year, India has seen its worst cases of "scams, scandals and swindling" — Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum and Bellary mines. These cases have no parallel in scale or sheer brazenness. Take, for instance, the Delhi Commonwealth Games, October 2010. The main objective of bringing these Games to India was to enhance its standing among the comity of nations and to make it a more attractive destination for foreign investment, besides providing a long-term boost to tourism. But, after spending over Rs 18,000 crore, all we were left with was a plethora of cases of corruption which have badly sullied the country's image. Between August 15, 2010, and August 15, 2011, three notable judgments were delivered by the Supreme Court. One relates to the Chhattisgarh Salwa Judum case (July 5, 2011), the second one to the case of sewage workers of the Delhi Jal Board (July 12, 2011) and the third (July 4, 2011) to the writ petition filed by Ram Jethmalani and Others for the recovery of black money stashed abroad. In all these cases, the Supreme Court has, in its own way, pointed the finger at some of the deep and dangerous pot-holes in the path on which India is currently walking. In the salwa judum case, the court order talked about how "the culture of unrestrained selfishness and greed spawned by neo-liberal economic policy" of the state is largely responsible for the Naxal/Maoist violence and how the "amoral political economy", coupled with scant respect for "the vision and values of Indian constitutionalism", has virtually created a "heart of darkness" in the tribal belt of Chhattisgarh. With the same insight, the Supreme Court, in the Delhi Jal Board case, talks about how insensitive the state apparatus has become and how, even in the country's capital, sewage workers suffer "high morbidity and mortality" on account of the apathy of those whose duty it is to supply "protective gear" to them. In the Ram Jethmalani case, by constituting a special investigative team under the chairmanship of Justice Jeevan Reddy (Retd), to investigate and initiate prosecution against the holders of illegal deposits in foreign banks, the Supreme Court has left no one in doubt what it thinks about the growing incapacity of the governance machinery to tackle vested interests. It is this incapacity which has enabled tax evaders to stash abroad amounts which, according to the Global Financial Integrity Report, may total up to $1.4 trillion (`70 lakh crore) This one-year period also witnessed decline in various institutions of governance. The latest reports of the ministries and field organisations reveal that in 2011, "completion delays" alone are likely to cost the public exchequer additional Rs 1,20,627 crore, and that the biggest casualty would be the key infra-structure projects. The International Finance Corporation and World Bank's report, Doing Business 2011, ranked India low, at 134th position, on the list of 183 countries surveyed for "Ease of Doing Business". After the grim and gory tragedy enacted by terrorists in Mumbai in November 2008, which resulted in the death of about 170 innocent persons and showed the overall security apparatus of the country in extremely poor light, solemn assurances were held out to the public by the Central and state governments that counter-terrorism-machinery would be effectively strengthened. Massive resources were made available for setting up a National Investigating Agency and a National Intelligence Grid and also for upgrading equipment and operational skills of the police personnel. And yet, on July 13, 2011, the terrorists were able to carry out serial bomb blasts in the heart of Mumbai with ease and confidence. Not very different is the position with regard to the challenges posed by Naxals who are now working on a new strategy to infiltrate into urban areas. Their aim is to tap disgruntled workers in the informal sector, build a cadre of urban guerrillas to establish supply lines of arms and ammunition to the rural areas. In the economic sphere, too, the sign-posts do not point to an elevating path ahead. The prices of essential commodities have risen sharply, and inclusive growth remains on paper. The number of dollar billionaires has increased to 69. They together hold wealth equivalent to one-third of the country's GDP, while about 800 million Indians live on less than Rs 20 per day. Hardly any housing is being provided to the urban poor and that's why the number of slums in our metros is increasing daily. There may have been a few bright spots here and there, but the overall journey of the nation, during the year in question, has been extremely hazardous. Is it not time that all right thinking people of India got together to ponder over the numerous disabilities that the country has contracted while traversing the wrong path, and carve out a safer, surer and smoother course for the future? History tells us in no uncertain terms that those who do not care to see the warning signals of a gathering storm are soon engulfed and destroyed by it. Jagmohan is a former governor of J&K and a former Union minister

 

***************************************

DECCAN CHRONICAL

OPED

AM I PROPOSING CENSORSHIP? YES.

 

It feels odd to start a column having failed to persuade oneself that what one proposes is sensible. My problem is this: Whenever I put the thoughts that follow to friends whose judgment I respect, they talk me out of my conclusion. Convinced by their counter-arguments, I banish the idea. Then I wake up in the small hours — and the idea's back. It is this: That should the civil disorder we saw a week ago turn into something more chronic than the chip-pan fire we've just experienced, then those who shape Britain's newspapers, television and radio ought to try — at least to try — to reach some sort of informal sector-wide consensus on a set of voluntary guidelines, necessarily imprecise, on how to report events honestly, factually and comprehensively, in ways less likely to sensationalise or amplify the drama. On the night of August 8, with the rioting at its worst in Britain, all the rolling TV news channels backed their reports, which they kept repeating, with what appeared to be looped videotape of burning buildings. So many sirens were coming out of people's TV and radio sets that it was hard to know whether the emergency was on the airwaves or in the street outside one's flat. After that, billowing smoke and orange flames became the media wallpaper of our week; and wailing police sirens the backing track. Anyone who works in journalism knows there are ways of ramping up or calming down a story without inventing or suppressing facts. Tone, prominence, vocabulary, sheer repetition are tools in any reporter's toolbox which, used skilfully, give shape and mood to a report without misrepresenting or even, strictly speaking, "distorting" the truth. It's disingenuous for us to claim that all we're doing is holding a mirror up to events: there's often a mood we aim for. I simply ask whether there might be national threats where it might be right for editors to talk to each other about what this mood might responsibly be. Well, now to the objections. They are formidable. I concede that they may be overwhelming. This is how my friends respond: 1. Admit you're proposing a kind of censorship. 2. Assuming you don't want government-dictated manipulation of the news, you must be asking media outlets in vigorous competition to dull down their own news reports. This would be an impossible demand. People would break ranks. It wouldn't work. 3. It isn't true that the media have dramatised the riots or inflamed public anxieties. They have simply reported the drama and the anxiety. 4. Hoodies and looters don't read the Times, the Telegraph or the Guardian. Most of them don't read at all. They weren't watching TV on August 8: they were rioting! They communicate by mobile phone, Facebook and Twitter, and it was these informal media that fanned the flames and brought new recruits to the disturbances. Let me attempt what response I can to each. First, that I'm proposing censorship, however subtle. Yes I am. We all censor ourselves, and are in turn censored, wittingly and unwittingly, by prevailing attitudes and our own sense of the public interest. We even accept that there are circumstances — war's an example — when the public interest may require systematised and codified forms of censorship. So this cannot be an argument about censorship in principle, but about where to draw the line. Second, that it wouldn't work. Maybe, maybe not. Many years ago a senior British politician suffered a serious family upset which would have been big news had his office not requested the media to observe a complete ban on mentioning it. The ban held. The public-interest argument for a voluntarily modified approach to riot coverage would be stronger than in that case; the interference with reporting less stark; so can we really assume that any attempt to coordinate editorial policy would be hopeless? Third, that all the media are doing, anyway, is making a dispassionate report. I simply don't accept that. Finally, that the traditional (and influenceable) organs of the media would be without impact on lawless youth. Not directly, I agree, but there is such a thing as a national state of excitement; it influences even those who do not see or hear the national media. Things permeate. A mood settles on everyone. By none of the objections, and by none of my replies, am I entirely convinced. So couch it like this: Would it be obviously futile for editors in due course to convene, informally and voluntarily, to explore at least the possibility that the broad outlines of agreement might be reached on how to report, without inflaming, any future crisis of civil disorder? I only ask.

***************************************

******************************************************************************************

THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

U-TURNS UNLIMITED

UPA BRAND OF (MIS)GOVERNANCE

 

SOMERSAULTS are frequently performed by circus clowns ~ probably because more demanding feats are beyond them. So too it would appear with the UPA government. Devoid of anything remotely resembling a political strategy to counter Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign (pristine though that is certainly not), it has indulged in a series of flip-flops and inconsistencies. Thus not only eroding its credibility among those least attracted to Anna's agitation, but also encouraging those spearheading that campaign to feel they now have a huge advantage to drive home. Just take the botched-up arrest: Anna was taken into preventive custody soon after daybreak, by sundown it was realised that he posed no threat to peace and order, and release-action was initiated. Why? Because it was feared that the apex court would deliver another "rocket"? Or because the rising son (Prince Charming as he has since been dubbed) proved more politically sensitive than Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram, Sibal etc? But not as politically adept as Anna who refused to quit Tihar Jail until the government ~ in the guise of the police commissioner ~ capitulated.

The Ramlila ground had earlier been rejected by the cops, so also the duration of the fast. Glaring were the inconsistencies in what ministers said in Parliament. All this a replication of the flip-flop in first sending a high-powered delegation to welcome Baba Ramdev, then getting the police to "take out" his camp. So also, first setting up a joint-drafting committee, then resorting to near-invective against the non-official members. And a concerted attempt to contend that an adamant Anna was challenging the authority of the legislature.
How? Yes, he is pressuring the government to accept his draft of the Lokpal Bill ~ but at no stage has he been foolish enough to suggest that it be enacted sans the approval of both Houses of Parliament. Such "spin" only points to the UPA's hesitation to counter corruption ~ lest that inflict in-house damage. It is now imperative that Team Anna not betray the unprecedented public support the anti-corruption crusade has evoked.
The gloating over forcing the government to buckle must not lead to the arrogance, rigidity and false prestige which have heaped ridicule and condemnation upon the UPA and its loudmouths. Just as the Prime Minister must "take charge", so too must Anna rein in his lieutenants. All this rhetoric about a "second freedom struggle" and "people power" must retain focus ~ which must be on eradicating corruption, not promoting individuals. Anna must prove himself a true Gandhian.

 

HEAR THE WHISTLE BLOW

AND KILL THE BLOWER

There are two facets to the tragedy of the gunning down of an RTI activist in Bhopal. It showcases the mortal stifling of a citizen's right to know, in this case a whistleblower. The other is the frequent killing of tigers in Madhya Pradesh, a state noted for its wildlife sanctuaries and eco-tourism. It scarcely needs an investigation to conclude that 35-year-old Shahla Masood was done to death by the mafia, one that is engaged in the surreptitious trade in tiger skins. Through her queries under the Right To Information  Act, she was intent on opening a can of worms. The menace has doubtless assumed serious proportions. The killing of wild life in Madhya Pradesh confirms that humans are a threat to tigers, the superape anxious to go for the kill at the cost of the ape. Bert Haanstra, the Dutch film-maker, would have been aghast at the jungle crime in the periphery of the sanctuaries.

Beyond tracking down the killers of Shahla ~ and they appear to be a well-organised gang ~ a critical task devolves on both the law enforcement authorities and the forest department. Both will have to crack down on the mafia that has been killing tigers at will. They have now killed  the whistleblower as well.
The tragedy is somewhat reminiscent of the killing of doughty officials in UP, Maharashtra and Bihar for having confronted the fuel mafia and the wheeler-dealers of the Golden Quadrilateral. Tuesday's murder of an RTI activist threatens a purportedly flagship legislation of the UPA government. Ironically enough, legislation embroidered with the "flagship" tag have either foundered or have been deliberately scuttled by the establishment or the stakeholders. This is the second death of an RTI activist; Niyamat Ansari was killed at Latehar in Jharkhand last April for exposing the embezzlement of NREGA funds. Shahla Masood's murder in Bhopal has exposed the sinister underbelly of the forest resorts.

 

UNWANTED BILL

CHAMLING BUYING TROUBLE

THE Sikkim Prevention & Control of Disturbances Public Order Bill, tabled in the assembly on 11 August, will be withdrawn, according to an official press release. The legislation appears to rest on plausible grounds, while simultaneously being self-serving and excessive. It seeks to tackle all manner of social vices and offences such as extortion, drug abuse, menace created by drunken behaviour, use of children as domestic help, preventing those below the age of 18 from smoking and barring them from visiting bars and discos. There are also provisions to punish those who use unfair means to lay water pipes in their houses and tap power illegally. There may not be any quarrel over some of these provisions, and indeed many would be welcomed as reasonable restraints.

But the provisions that have raised hackles of opponents are those that ban street protests, processions, hunger strikes, shouting slogans on public thoroughfares, carrying black flags or display of objectionable acts that  "have the tendency or potentiality of promoting enmity or hatred between groups and communities." Such provisions are obviously aimed at circumscribing citizens' fundamental rights.

The opposition has reason to be apprehensive that the Bill will be passed because the ruling Sikkim Democratic Front government led by chief minister Pawan Chamling does not have any opposition. A man deeply committed to welfare of his people, Chamling needs to ask himself why sitting comfortably in the chief minister's seat for the fourth consecutive term he feels it expedient to come out with laws that could well be deemed tyrannical. Retreat ~ or judicious pruning of the more draconian provisions ~ perhaps will be a wiser course. Chamling's cure could well turn out to be worse than the disease.

 

***************************************

THE STATESMAN

ARTICLE

IMPLICATIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT'S BAN ORDER

BY AJAY K MEHRA

 

THE Supreme Court has banned the Salwa Judum. The provision on Special Police Officers in the Indian Police Act, 1861, has also been struck down. Almost in parallel, a mentally challenged person was killed by a Territorial Army jawan, anxious to win a medal. The death was passed off by the authorities as that of a Lashkar-e-Tayyaiba militant. Both the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government have decided to file a revision petition on the Salwa Judum order.  The matter calls for reflection.

The Supreme Court has ordered the Chhattisgarh government and the Centre to immediately disband the Salwa Judum. By implication, the other states have been ordered to wind up the Special Police Officers scheme. The Salwa Judum was formed as an anti-Maoist militia under the Indian Police Act's provision for SPOs. And this was incorporated in the Chhattisgarh Police Act (CPA), 2007.

In effect, the Supreme Court has put both the Centre and the states on notice. The Chhattisgarh government wants to redeploy the disarmed members of the Salwa Judum in the regular police battalions that have been raised recently. It is a moot question whether this is a rational move or one that will create fresh problems. The concept of the SPO and its utility deserves critically to be examined.

Sections 17, 18 and 19 of IPA, 1861, have provisions for SPOs. Under Section 17, the SPOs (the number has not been specified) can be appointed during exigencies, when the police force is inadequate to control "any unlawful assembly or riot or disturbance of the peace". The request must come from the local police (not below the rank of Inspector) to the nearest Magistrate for  administrative and judicial sanctity.
Section 18 grants the SPOs the powers, privileges, protection, and duties similar to those of ordinary police officers. Section 19 gives them certain responsibilities. It also binds individuals to be drafted as SPOs unless they have "sufficient excuse, neglect or refuse to serve as such".

Obviously this colonial law, that was enacted in the wake of the Revolt of 1857, was designed to ensure compulsory drafting of local communities in the task of defending the Raj in the event of breach of the peace.  Since the person(s) can be excused only if they have valid reasons, the Act was tantamount to conscription for police duties in order to weaken resistance in the event of a local rebellion.

The provisions for SPOs in the police Acts that are in force in Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are almost entirely on the lines of the Indian Police Act, 1861.  The rules for recruitment of SPOs for "special situations and reasons" appear to be conscriptive by nature rather than voluntary.
The Chhattisgarh Police Act, 2007, which was examined by the Supreme Court in response to a Public Interest Litigation against the Salwa Judum, mentions the recruitment of SPOs in Section 9 (1&2). It provides for and authorizes the district Superintendent of Police "at any time, by an order in writing, to appoint any person to act as  SPO for a period as specified in the appointment order." As usual, the powers and privileges are the same as that of a regular police officer.  While other Police Acts have virtually used the same conditions as in IPA 1861, the CPA 2007 leaves that undefined and the Supreme Court has taken note of the lacuna. "That would be grant of discretion without any indication or specification of limits, either as to the number of SPOs who could be appointed, their qualifications, their training or duties. Conferment of such unguided and uncanalised power, by itself, would clearly be in the teeth of Article 14, unless the provisions are read down so as to save them from the vice of unconstitutionality"'.

Taking into consideration the Chhattisgarh government's arguments and the "New Regulatory Procedures", the Supreme Court found fault with the standard of recruitment. Those who had only passed Class 5 were being recruited as SPOs. They were being put on combat duty against well-trained Maoist guerrillas and after a two-month training programme, which was optional ~ "Only if the Superintendent of Police is of the opinion that training is essential for him and only if the person has been appointed for a minimum period of one year and is to be given firearms for self defence" (sic).

The Supreme Court observed that the Union Government had not discharged its constitutional responsibility. Its role "is limited only to approving the total number of SPOs, and the extent of reimbursement of honorarium paid to them, without issuing directions as to how those SPOs are to be recruited, trained and deployed and for what purpose."

The Supreme Court cited strong reasons for striking down the provision for recruitment of SPOs under the IPA 1861 or its variants in state Acts across the country. The judgment as well as the provision for SPOs merit discussion for two reasons.  First, the provision as it exists undoubtedly deserves scrutiny. In a sense, it is a form of community policing. Second, the provision has been misused in Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir and the North-east. But the faultlines can of course be corrected.

The Centre, Chhattisgarh and several other states want the Supreme Court order to be reviewed. The judiciary has rapped the executive on its knuckles. What was perceived as a decision in the public interest has been defeated by a Public Interest Litigation petition. The Chhattisgarh government's move to deploy all the SPOs from the disbanded Salwa Judum into the regular police force appears to be a post facto justification of a measure that has evoked mixed feelings. The Salwa Judum was formed in 2005. The Chhattisgarh Police Act made it official in 2007. It has been banned by the Supreme Court in 2011. The state government had six years to raise additional, regular battalions. Why wasn't this done?

The provision should be amended to state that the Superintendent of Police in every district will oversee community policing.

The writer is Honorary Director, Centre for Public Affairs, Noida

***************************************

THE STATESMAN

PERSPECTIVE

POWER OF THE PEOPLE

OFF LIMITS ~ SEEMA MUSTAFA

Anger against corruption has spread and will link itself to the struggle for land

THE last few days of the Anna Hazare drama have been like a movie ~ unbelievable and almost surreal. It started with loud assertions by Congress ministers and spokespersons who went to the extent of saying that the 74-year-old Gandhian and his small group of advisors were clothed in corruption and had no right to take away the power of Parliament (read the Congress and its cronies); then threatened action against all those taking the law into their own hands and trying to blackmail the government by saying they would go on a fast unto death (wonder what Gandhi would have had to say about that!) and, finally, within 24 hours of facing the people's wrath across the length and breadth of India changing the language from "Hazare" to "Anna Hazareji" and crawling to meet all his demands.

What a pathetic performance by the government. And what an amazing assertion of the people's might that not just challenged the arrogance of those in power but successfully inverted the pyramid of power in a matter of hours. To understand why the Congress did what it did — first attack Hazare and his team, then prevent them from going ahead with the hunger strike, then arresting him from his residence in the early hours of the morning, then sending him to Tihar Jail — it would be necessary to understand the character of a party that has functioned under a Dynasty for decades.

Dynasties survive on servility and, to ensure there is no dissent, become increasingly authoritarian through a chicken-and-egg syndrome, with the one giving birth to the other. Dynasties also generate mediocrity by rewarding loyalty over intelligence and merit. Dynasties exist on a belief of being better than the others and, hence, encourage arrogance, even as they frown on dissent. Above all, Dynasties, as a combined result of the above, lose touch with the pulse of the people, ruling for themselves and their cronies and not the populace at large.
All this and more has been on display for years now, but even more so in the days leading to Hazare's arrest and subsequent release. The Congress and its government were unable to understand the mood of the people, being run by a cabinet of politicians, many of whom who have never faced the people in an election. Most of them are in position because of the Nehru-Gandhi Family and spend all their time in pleasing their rulers than in serving the people.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh presided over an amazing drama of blunders, with Congress scion Rahul Gandhi by his side. The Congress missiles — in the form of P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Manish Tiwari — were unleashed on the unsuspecting Hazare and his team with the result that when the people poured out into the streets in visible anger, they all became the targets of criticism. And faced with the fury of the people of India, the government crawled back into the woodwork, desperately trying to undo all that had been done.
The first sign of this worry were the almost apologetic and yet pompous press conferences held by the powerful ministers who have taken extreme delight over the months in issuing threats against all those who question and disagree with government policies. There was this spectacle of the Union home minister insisting that Hazare had been arrested by the Delhi Police and that while he was kept informed he was certainly not in charge of this particular operation. Amazing!

The day that began with Hazare's arrest ended with the authorities begging him to leave Tihar Jail and agreeing to his every condition for the fast. The pomp had gone out of the voices of the Sibals and the Tiwaris of the Congress as the party tried to wade out of the crisis it had itself created.
The story now lies not in Hazare's arrest but in the impact of his arrest and release. The Congress, if it is at all able to read the popular mood, will see the writing on the wall and start counting its days in power. The anger against the Central government has spread across the country and it is almost certain that this movement against corruption will link itself to the very important and vital struggle for land that is going on in several states.
This is imperative to give real substance to the movement, more so as the acquisition of land by the government today for private parties and the real estate mafia constitutes one of the biggest acts of corruption in the country. It was heartening to note that Hazare, in his remarks before the arrest, took care to make these linkages and it can only be hoped that the movement will embrace the ongoing struggles and protests across India.
It is also clear that the political class is already feeling the pressure from the people. The Samajawadi Party, long ambivalent on the issue of corruption for obvious reasons, has come out with a strong statement in support of Hazare. The Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh has taken action against a corrupt minister even though it had defended him in the state assembly at the onset. The Left and the BJP are both on board in this people's movement.

The regional parties, including allies of the Congress, will not be able to swim against the tide now as they know the dangers of being swept away and, despite not wanting to do so, they will have to follow the people who needed only a catalyst to express their pent up anger with the governments of the day. Needless to say, the state governments are under pressure as well, with one of the biggest protests taking place in Bangalore, where the BJP has been taking a free ride on the corruption roller-coaster.

All this, if it follows the logical course, will make the UPA at the Centre shaky and weak. The present Congress leadership and its government will not be able to stem the tide as it lacks the cerebral resources to do so. The people, thanks to Hazare and his team, are in power now and it is unlikely that the government will be able to function as it has been doing for the past eight years. Corruption is clearly one of the issues, judging from the response of the people on the streets. There is tremendous anger as well against the government's attempt to take away the democratic space and the people's right to protest, with an "Enough, no more" message flashing across India from every nook and corner.

The government, of course, has become Gandhi's Little Monkeys ~ unable to hear, see or speak.

The writer is Consulting Editor,

The Statesman

 ***************************************

THE STATESMAN

PERSPECTIVE

THE EXPLOSIVE TRUTH

JAPAN INSISTS ITS NUCLEAR CRISIS WAS CAUSED BY AN UNFORESEEABLE COMBINATION OF TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE. BUT NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS ITS REACTORS WERE DOOMED TO FAIL. DAVID MCNEILL AND JAKE ADELSTEIN REPORT

IT is one of the mysteries of Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis: how much damage did the 11 March earthquake inflict on the Fukushima Daiichi reactors before the tsunami hit? The stakes are high: if the 'quake structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every similar reactor in Japan may have to be shut down. With almost all of the country's 54 reactors either offline or scheduled for shutdown by April next year, the issue of structural safety looms over any discussion about restarting them.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co and the government are hardly reliable adjudicators in this controversy. "There has been no meltdown," government spokesman Yukio Edano repeated in the days after 11 March.

"It was an unforeseeable disaster," Tepco's then president, Masataka Shimizu, famously and improbably said later. Five months since the disaster, it is now known that meltdown was already occurring as Edano spoke. And far from being unforeseeable, the disaster had been repeatedly forewarned by industry critics.
  Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: it was the earthquake that knocked out the plant's electric power, halting cooling to its six reactors. The tsunami then washed out the plant's back-up generators 40 minutes later, shutting down all cooling and starting the chain of events that would cause the world's first triple meltdown.

But what if recirculation pipes and cooling pipes burst after the earthquake – before the tidal wave reached the facilities; before the electricity went out? This would surprise few people familiar with the 40-year-old reactor one, the grandfather of reactors still operating in Japan. Problems with the fractured, deteriorating, poorly repaired pipes and the cooling system had been pointed out for years. In September 2002, Tepco admitted covering up data about cracks in critical circulation pipes. In their analysis of the cover-up, The Citizen's Nuclear Information Centre writes, "The records that were covered up had to do with cracks in parts, known as recirculation pipes. These pipes are there to siphon off heat from the reactor. If they were to fracture, it would result in a serious accident in which coolant leaks out."

On 2 March, nine days before the meltdown, the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency, a government watchdog, warned Tepco on its failure to inspect critical pieces of equipment at the plant, including recirculation pumps. Tepco was ordered to make the inspections, perform repairs if needed and report to Nisa on 2 June. It does not appear, as of now, that the report has been filed.

The suspicion that the earthquake caused severe damage to the reactors is strengthened by reports that radiation leaked from the plant minutes later. The Bloomberg news agency has reported that a radiation alarm went off about a mile from the plant at 3.29 pm, before the tsunami hit.

 The reason for official reluctance to admit that the earthquake did direct structural damage to reactor one is obvious. Katsunobu Onda, author of Tepco: The Dark Empire, explains it this way: a government or industry admission "raises suspicions about the safety of every reactor they run. They are using a number of antiquated reactors that have the same systematic problems, the same wear and tear on the piping."
  Earthquakes, of course, are commonplace in Japan.

Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a former nuclear plant designer, describes what occurred on 11 March as a loss-of-coolant accident. "The data that Tepco has made public shows a huge loss of coolant within the first few hours of the earthquake. It can't be accounted for by the loss of electrical power. There was already so much damage to the cooling system that a meltdown was inevitable long before the tsunami came."

As Tooru Hasuike, a Tepco employee from 1977 until 2009 and former general safety manager of the Fukushima plant, says, "Tepco and the government of Japan have provided many explanations. They don't make sense. The one thing they haven't provided is the truth. It's time they did."

the independent

 

***************************************

THE STATESMAN

PERSPECTIVE

CAPITAL CONTROLS: FROM HERESY TO ORTHODOXY

ANDREW SHENG ENDORSES A NEW BOOK ON HOW MALAYSIA BEAT THE CURRENCY SPECULATORS

ON 1 September 2011 it would be 13 years to the day when Malaysia first introduced capital controls to stem the effects of the Asian financial crisis on the domestic economy. In 1998, it was heresy to introduce capital controls on capital flows, since it was IMF orthodoxy to liberalise the capital account.
From the perspective of history, one tends to forget that in 1945, when the International Monetary Fund was first established, the consensus opinion amongst bankers and academics alike was for hot money to be controlled. Indeed, the intellectual father of the IMF, John Maynard Keynes, remarked that "what used to be heresy is now endorsed as orthodoxy".

In the old days, courtesy to living persons and the statute of limitations would allow history to be written only after 60 years when official archives were opened to the public. Today, we live in an age of unfettered information, when oral and documented history can be published rapidly, from authorised biographies issued shortly after a leader leaves office to unauthorised leakages from Wikileaks.
The publication of a new book by Wong Sulong, former editor of the Star, called Notes to the Prime Minister: the Untold Story of How Malaysia Beat the Currency Speculators, only two months after the IMF, in April 2011, announced new thinking on capital inflows, is a remarkable achievement. Sixty-six years after the IMF was formed, capital controls have moved full circle from orthodox to heresy and back again to (qualified) orthodoxy.

The Notes comprise 45 notes to the Prime Minister written by Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, minister in the Prime Minister's Department, between 3 October 1997 and 21 August 1998 to then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. In short, they were the key briefs that helped Dr Mahathir make up his mind on the key economic policies to help combat the Asian financial crisis.
For both historians and practising policy-makers, this new book offers deep insights on the serendipity and the practice of successful policy decision-making. There is an element of serendipity, because Dr Mahathir recalled that he spotted Nor Mohamed walking down a street in Kuala Lumpur just before he left for Buenos Aires in September 1997 via Hong Kong, where he attended the World Bank annual meetings and clashed publicly with George Soros on currency trading.

On 29 September 1997, he summoned Nor Mohamed to meet him in Buenos Aires because he needed someone who understood currency trading. It is a tribute to a politician trained as a doctor that he was willing to spend repeated sessions with an experienced currency trader to understand the intricacies of modern financial markets.
Reading the 45 notes in historical sequence, one gets a far better appreciation of how the decision to impose capital controls was arrived at. The notes not only have historical value, but also current day applicability, as they explain not only offshore currency, the psychology of fear and greed that drive markets, but also market manipulation in thinly traded emerging market currencies.

The major problem of the proponents of the Washington Consensus in 1997 was that most of them were macro-economists who had little understanding or experience of how the markets actually worked. Free markets became a dogma and objective in their own right, rather than the means to an end for a better livelihood for all.
The Notes also revealed that in complex decisions under uncertainty, it was vital to understand clearly the key parameters for action. Note 7 clearly pointed out that Malaysia was different from other countries under currency attack because it did not have large short-term external debt. Note 11, dated 21 October 1997, spelt out the factors that determined exchange rates, with a particularly illuminating explanation of market manipulation. Market manipulation was seen as due to concerted effort by hedge funds, using large gearing and available tools and then triggering the element of fear amongst the long-term investors who have legitimate currency risk.
In other words, if the wolves can trigger the herd to move, then the fundamentals can move. The perception of fear changes the whole game.

Note 39, dated 9 July 1998, is an important study on the effect on Malaysia of the Central Limit Order Book for trading of Malaysian shares in Singapore. The note identified that the Clob was a convenient way for capital outflows. Hence, one of the most effective ways for exchange control was to impose the condition that Malaysian shares could only be traded on a Malaysian exchange, which came on 31 August 1998, with exchange controls imposed the following day. In Dr Mahathir's words, "During the financial crisis, we faced two parallel situations; the ringgit was falling rapidly and Malaysian shares were also falling rapidly. So we had to put an end to both."

The IMF has come out with six key principles for formulating capital control policies. The first is that there is no "one-size-fits-all" policy mix. The second is that capital controls should fit long-term structural reforms. Third, capital controls are only one tool and not a substitute for the right macro policies. Fourth, capital controls can be used on a case-by-case basis, in appropriate circumstances. Fifth, the medicine should treat the ailment, and, finally, the policy must consider its effect on other market participants.
It is hard to argue against these common sense "motherhood" principles. The trick in real life policy-making is how to apply them to local conditions.

One of the features of the current Chinese capital controls is that China also has a large amount of Chinese shares listed outside capital controls, such as Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York.
This is a book that is a must read for all emerging market policy-makers interested in liberalising their capital accounts and for IMF experts to ponder emerging market experience. I recommend that this new book be translated into Chinese, so that Chinese policy-makers interested in internationalising the renminbi can look at the Malaysian experience.

The writer is Adjunct Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and University of Malaya. He was formerly Chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission, Hong Kong.

asia news network 

***************************************

 

 

 

******************************************************************************************

THE TELEGRAPH

FOLLOWING FORM

ALL FALL DOWN

As the Eurozone crisis gathers more steam, it is becoming increasingly clear that events have overtaken the countries' leaders in the region, and there is no one in charge. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, met on August 16 in Berlin and proposed electing a permanent head of the Eurozone to bolster its governance to deal with crises like the current one; but apart from the proposal, there was little to suggest that the two most powerful economies in the European Union were going to do anything more right away. The proposal would require conversion into a political union; and, in theory, such a union would have its own quasi-federal debt-issuing agency with discretionary powers and authority like the Federal Reserve Board of the United States of America. The EU's current governance structure has very limited ability to control the fiscal profligacy of its member countries. Further, it is unlikely that countries would be willing to give up their sovereignty over their fiscal affairs. In the years that the Eurozone has been in existence, members have violated the basic agreements in the Maastricht Treaty of keeping their debt-to-gross domestic product and fiscal deficit levels to below agreed-upon benchmarks (of 60 per cent and 3 per cent respectively). With the troubles facing French banks and the slowdown in the German economy, the problems are likely to get worse and the solutions even more difficult to find.

Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy stated their "absolute" commitment to defend the 17-nation common currency, the euro. Some analysts and economists have suggested that an orderly exit strategy for distressed countries — such as Greece and Portugal — is worth considering. The Maastricht Treaty had no provision for it. The exit strategy is one of three ideas that people have put forward as necessary for dealing with the crisis, the other two being to let the European Financial Stability Facility rescue banks and to have an agency that can issue Eurozone level bonds (that would have the kind of relationship with the European Central Bank that the US Federal Reserve Board has with the US treasury department). But both Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy said that it was too early to discuss the introduction of Eurobonds. A solution encompassing all three ideas individually and collectively would be complex and politically difficult to implement. But it is also evident that what has been done so far is unequal to the task of resolving the crisis, and resembles Winston Churchill's aphorism about "feeding the dragon hoping he will eat you last".

***************************************

 

THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

 

WINGS CLIPPED

Publicity, even of the negative kind, can make careers. But Prakash Jha can hardly hope for such luck. The Bollywood director, who is known for making films with a conscience, has run into serious losses over his latest offering, Aarakshan. It is alleged that the film, which explores the controversies surrounding caste-based reservations in India, has ended up endorsing derogatory attitudes towards Dalits. Three state governments have banned it, and audiences elsewhere are, understandably, wary of going to film theatres that are heavily guarded by the police and liable to erupt in hooliganism any moment. While it is quite possible that the film does not live up to the expectations of certain sections of its viewers, there are civilized ways of recording such disapproval. Banning a film is not one of them. Such a stance violates the basic freedoms that the Indian Constitution gives to every citizen of the country. It is also irrational to confuse reality with fiction — which is what a film is mostly based on. Such neat correspondences become especially problematic when the subject of the film is as knotty as reservation — where right and wrong, black and white are notoriously conflated.

It is unfortunate that India is yet to earn the title of a mature democracy even 65 years after its Independence. Books, films, paintings and plays continue to be banned by the State at the slightest hint of trouble. In nearly all these cases, as with Mr Jha's film, an ulterior motive is usually involved in the demand for censorship. For some state governments, rabble-rousing over the depiction of caste relations in a film may be a useful strategy to gain political mileage on the eve of assembly elections. But such deluded notions are going to hold water with only a handful of party loyals and anti-social elements who need but an excuse to disrupt civil society. Rather than promoting social justice, such outbreaks of violence may ultimately prove detrimental to the advances, big and small, that have been made in the arena of caste politics. And what, one wonders, is the meaning of such State paternalism when there is open trading in pirated books and DVDs on every Indian street and the internet has revolutionized the idea of access?

***************************************

THE TELEGRAPH

OPINION

A SERIES OF ERRORS

WITH ANNA HAZARE, THE GOVERNMENT DIALLED A WRONG NUMBER SWAPAN DASGUPTA

Among my most enduring memories of the Emergency — which, mercifully, I experienced fleetingly, being overseas for most of the time — was an overheard conversation between two 'progressive' faculty members of Delhi University in early July, 1975. One of the two gleefully told the other of the strange shortage of teachers in the Sanskrit department. "Most of them have been arrested," he chuckled. There was neither outrage nor fear in his voice, just a puerile delight.

The subtext of his happiness was clear to those of us familiar with the university. The Sanskrit department, or so the stereotype went, was dominated by 'Jana Sanghis' and 'chaddiwallas' (the pejorative colloquialism for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh members) and, as such, was unworthy of sympathy, never mind solidarity. In those fear-filled days, there were two ends of the university. At the privileged pole stood the 'progressives' — Congress activists, Communist Party of India members and 'friends of the Soviet Union' — and at the other end were the outcasts — those associated with what the 'progressives' dubbed rightwing, communal and casteist (read Lohia-ite) parties.

According to the 'progressive' version of history, faithfully narrated by India's most prominent textbook historian, it was the desperation of the conservative, communal and casteist forces to "oust Indira Gandhi from power even if the legitimacy of the parliamentary process and the party system was put into jeopardy" that forced the Emergency. As the CPI cheerleaders said in justification, circumstances demanded "a spirit of unity and urgency to inflict a decisive defeat on the forces of fascism and counter-revolution". Since the Emergency was ostensibly imposed to save democracy from its enemies, it naturally followed that there was one place for Sanskrit-spouting enemies of constitutional government: jail.

The dramatic events in Delhi over the past few days, particularly the prime minister's statement that the powers and sanctity of Parliament couldn't be outsourced to the rabble on the streets, are eerily reminiscent of the misplaced constitutionalism that led to the derailment of democracy 36 years ago. At that time too, it was a battle against corruption and arbitrariness that came to be viewed as a challenge to democracy and the parliamentary process. In terms of mobilization, the Jayaprakash Narayan-led movement's ability to get people out on the streets far exceeded the show of solidarity with Anna Hazare. On March 6, 1975, for example, JP led an eight-kilometre-long march to Parliament with a charter of demands that included the immediate dismissal of the state governments in Bihar and Gujarat.

However, despite the apparent similarities, it is facile to suggest that the Manmohan Singh government's approach to the Anna Hazare-led crusade against corruption has produced an "Emergency-like" situation. There are important differences.

For a start, unlike Anna's campaign, which rests on spontaneity, media support and the endorsement of Magsaysay award winners, the JP movement was far more organized and involved the active participation of nearly all the non-Communist Opposition parties and their affiliated student wings. JP played the role of a symbolic leader but the activists were invariably attached to political parties. Many of today's non-Congress politicians, from Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar to Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi, cut their political teeth in the JP movement.

In 1974-75, when the reach of the print media was fragmented and limited and the electronic media spewed government propaganda, the reliance on established political networks was understandably greater than it is now. The Anna movement has consciously chosen to bypass the networks of political parties. This is partly because of the perception that the entire political class is the problem and partly because the so-called Team Anna is fearful of being eclipsed by politicians who are more accomplished in the extra-parliamentary game.

The detachment from organized politics has conferred a halo of moral superiority on Anna and given many television channels a reason for extending support to an ostensibly trans-political (at times anti-political) initiative. However, it has paid a price for this exaggerated sense of virtuousness. The social depth of the Anna movement is limited: geographically it is confined to metros and the bigger towns and socially it appeals mostly to students, the retired and the small businessmen.

In another age, a movement centred on the frustrations of those who came of age with the post-1991 liberalization would have worried a government but not triggered a panic. Compared to tremors caused by the Ayodhya movement and the Mandal agitation, Anna's movement resembles a good-natured street festival. It is a commentary on both the political ineptitude and the inherent fragility of the United Progressive Alliance government that it was so thoroughly unsettled by Anna that the prime minister had to take cover behind a mythical operational autonomy of the Delhi police chief.

It was the 'Emergency mindset' which initiated the series of miscalculations. Emboldened by its success in out-manoeuvring Baba Ramdev with duplicity and repression, the government felt that the process could be repeated with Anna. The calculated manner in which the negotiations with Anna and his infuriatingly sanctimonious team was allowed to meander into irrelevance and the shrill campaign of character assassination that followed provided clear indications of a brewing confrontation. Had the government confined the clash to a war of words, it is entirely possible that the Anna campaign would have made injudicious utterances and ended up pitting their stage army of the good against a united political class.

The 'Emergency mindset' led to the government converting an innocuous battle over an abstruse piece of legislation into widespread outrage over its scant respect for democratic rights. That high-handedness was also in evidence during the post-midnight police action against Ramdev's followers two months ago. But the government got away relatively unscathed from that encounter partly because Ramdev made an ass of himself by trying to evade arrest by dressing up in women's clothes and partly because media attitudes were shaped by modernist derision for a practitioner of yoga and herbal remedies. With Anna, however, the government dialled a wrong number.

First, the pre-emptive morning arrest of Anna coupled with his peremptory despatch to Tihar jail where the great symbols of corruption and venality are lodged were seen not merely as unfair but an attempt to mock an elderly man who had the country's best interests at heart. It was the unfairness and the undemocratic response of the government that provoked outrage. Secondly, the government erred grievously in underestimating the obstinacy of a Gandhian. Anna, it would seem, has imbibed a sense of politics from his inspiration. Like Gandhi, his response to the government combined steely righteous determination with a clever sense of symbolism. His decision to decide the timing of his own release from Tihar was a masterstroke that left an already disoriented government completely flummoxed. After 24 hours of pleading with Anna to leave prison, the government surrendered unconditionally and accepted all his demands. Anna was not merely a winner but the government, including the prime minister, was shown up to be disingenuous and duplicitous.

The surrender in Tihar exposed the fragility of the government and made it look ridiculous. At the same time, quite intentionally, Manmohan Singh punctured the self-serving alarmism about an impending Emergency-type crackdown on civil rights. The Emergency was the contribution of a strong leader determined to prevail at all costs. Today, the political authority of the government has been further eroded by a non-functioning dyarchy comprising a plasticine prime minister and a 'youth icon' whose role has been taken by a 73-year-old Gandhian. An internal Emergency today is as likely as Don Quixote playing Stalin.

 

***************************************

THE TELEGRAPH

OPINION

HOW TO SPOIL THE SHOW

BONAFIDE: MALVIKA SINGH

It is now clear that during the tenure of UPA I, Sonia Gandhi managed the coalition with comparative ease, occasionally giving in or extracting a pound of flesh to consolidate her party in the larger public space. She demonstrated her political and intellectual acumen as well as her concern for the masses, who have been neglected and orphaned by an inept, insular, arrogant and a semi-dictatorial administration. She used her influence as party president to pass several bills in Parliament that have begun to question the lack of probity, integrity and accountability in governance. Sonia Gandhi carried the day for her party, and proved that she is connected with the people of this country.

Economic and legal rationalizations after an unforgivable deviation from the fundamental tenets of democracy that include liberty and freedom of thought and expression have shamed our nation. The ruling dispensation has been equated with dictatorships in Egypt, Syria, Libya and suchlike, because it has been seen assaulting its own people who are demanding their civil rights and dignity. This development has put India in the same league