Freedom

I read this:

...finally, India has a newspaper that explicitly supports the values of freedom, in all its forms, that I hold so dear.

I head out to the link kindly given. I realize that some people have a very different conception of freedom than mine.

Update:
Mint quote [reg'n required]:

... India continues to have one of the most fettered economic systems in the world. We still live in a country that is technically socialist and where the right to property is not a fundamental right. The state can brazenly take over private land for what it believes to be the public good.

Poor Wall Street Journal (one of the "partners" of the mint-flavoured newspaper). It must have given up on the US, where till this day, the state can brazenly take over private land.

The same Mint columnist also writes:

Caste and gender atrocities leap into prominence every once in a while. Religious pogroms, too. No country can claim to be free when people can be killed because of the accident of birth. We will support the individual against the insanities of tribalism in its various forms.

Color me cynical for not believing that. There will be occasional noises - if at all - but that's all there will be. Polite noises. And 'insanities of tribalism'?!

This is what the it is really all about:

We believe that prosperity is achieved by giving the market a free run.

What else, with the WSJ powering it.

Conversions And Caste

When I read about conversions till now, I always thought it justifiable that people should escape from the caste system into caste-free religions like Christianity or Islam. It has become clear that that was a delusion. Over the last few weeks or so people have been writing in to The Hindu's Letters to the editor section, listing the mechanisms by which caste is perpetuated, with great eagerness. Separate streets, separate burial grounds, separate seating at church, separate car festivals, no inter-marriages, no inter-dining even. Having read nothing about how muslim dalits fare in terms of discrimination, one does not know if the situation is similar there. But this is depressing enough.

The US and Us

From the BBC, via Juan Cole:

The global view of the United States’ role in world affairs has significantly deteriorated over the last year according to a BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people across 25 different countries.
...
Some of the sharpest drops in positive ratings over the last year came from four countries that have tended to be quite positive about the United States. Poland’s positive ratings dropped 24 points from 62 percent a year ago to 38 percent. The Philippines dropped 13 points from a very high 85 percent to a still-high 72 percent. India fell from 44 percent to 30 percent. Indonesia plunged 19 points—40 percent to 21 percent positive—perhaps due to the waning of the positive effect of the American aid to Indonesian tsunami victims.

And relatedly, from The Hindu:

EAST ASIAN countries, bracing for economic cooperation, are slowly relegating the United States to the margins of the region. The current eclipse of the U.S. in East Asia is far more evident behind the scenes than in the public domain.

Yet Japan and Australia, allies of the U.S., are privy to its latest marginalisation by the East Asia Summit (EAS). On January 24, Japanese Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma asserted that U.S. President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 was "wrong." And, Japan, which recently pulled out its troops sent to Iraq on a non-combat mission, could not be bound by his latest moves.

Money Can't Buy Me Democracy

With apologies to The Beatles. Read this.

As a result of the rampant truancy, the Speaker is contemplating "fining members $400 for every missed session" and replacing absentees. But... there's a problem. "For the proposals to be put in place, a majority of members in Parliament have to be present to pass them."

That's what a trillion dollars buy.

Water

Hope it wins the best foreign film oscar. That should give Mira Nair enough recognition and backing to make the next Munnabhai film.

Sagarika

Caught the last few minutes of a segment by Sagarika on CNN-IBN in which she was equating secularism with how many people attend/celebrate religious festivals of faiths other than their own. She also said something like: "we" have wrongly come to equate secularism with atheism, before summarizing with a healthy dose of generalizations. Thing is, she always seems to be making a plausible point, but with a small nut loose somewhere. Funny.

Mystified

I'm mystified by this Sidhu decision. This report from The Telegraph tells it better than others as to what the it means for him:

The relief to Sidhu removed the legal hurdle to the former cricketer’s renomination from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.

Had the conviction not been stayed, the three-year jail term imposed by Punjab and Haryana High Court would have kept Sidhu out of the fray.

Moments after the Supreme Court ruling came today — two days before the deadline to file nominations — BJP president Rajnath Singh announced Sidhu’s candidature from Amritsar.

The significance of the stay goes far beyond the candidature of a cricketer-turned-politician known for his machine-gun mouth. This is the first case in 57 years where a conviction has been stayed till the apex court rules on an appeal against a lower court verdict.

Usually, when an appeal is admitted, the Supreme Court stays the execution of the sentence — the punishment — not the conviction itself.

That means the accused need not go to prison till the apex court rules on the appeal. Legally, however, the accused remains a convict and the law that debars candidates apply to them.

Those who have to serve over two years cannot fight elections for six years after release from jail. However, if conviction comes after the election, the House membership can be retained till the expiry of the term or the final decision on the appeal that has to be filed in three months.

So this first-in-57 years decision just so that he could contest? What if the conviction is upheld in the SC? Sidhu resigned after being docked for 3 years - that is the 'high standard'? Since when did Soren become the yardstick for political morals?

Eerie

The eruptions have subsided. As if nothing happened at all.

On Policemen Being Attacked

Increasingly people don't seem to be too afraid of attacking policemen. From DH:

The policemen tried to enter the building. Out came the ladies, who threw chilli powder at the men in khaki.

Undeterred, the police began climbing the stairs only to be attacked by some youngsters with choppers. Central Crime Branch inspector Nanjundegowda was injured in the act. Later, a few more policemen trooped in and the boys were taken into custody and weapons seized. But none of the women were touched.

Is it desperation or a belief that they will be bailed out by their political sponsors?

A Picture Is Worth ...

From DH:
Such a soothing, peaceful sight. Like little babies. But what do these guys do at night if not sleep?

Madness

DH hits the nail on its head:

The sudden violence that has engulfed parts of Bangalore since Friday — and had got completely out of control by Sunday — clearly demonstrates the havoc jobless politicians can cause when the police fail in their duty to nip the trouble in the bud.

Why on earth do theese jobless politicians think it is ok to endanger life and property?

College Admissions

A recent editorial in TOI (well, I was forced to - away from home, TOI was one of the two newspapers available). It's about the lack of consistency of some academics who want more autonomy for universities, yet want quotas to be set by government.

The admission of students and the appointment of teachers are two of the basic processes through which the university maintains its identity and continuity as an institution. These are complex and delicate processes whose successful operation requires the adoption of good rules and the exercise of sound academic judgment.

Nothing could be more detrimental to the health and well-being of the university as an institution of teaching and research than to whittle down its freedom to exercise academic judgment on the ground that such judgment is bound to be arbitrary, subjective, and socially biased.

Now something I had read sometime ago and was meaning to post about for sometime. It's about the admission process of Ivy League universities in the US - it doesn't get higher than those,does it? I had heard about admissions requiring good references and essays written by the candidates and concluded that, well, they don't just concentrate on academics but on a well-rounded personality. Then I read the thing I mentioned above (link here) and realised the real reason. The blogger is discussing a review of a book. It turns out it was all due to the need to keep Jews out in the 1920s (no, these are not conspiracy theories):

Have you ever wondered why that process places so much emphasis on sports, extracurriculars, personality, “leadership,” “character,” and suchlike, as opposed to the more obvious intellectual criteria? The answer, it turns out, is that in the early 1920’s, Harvard and Co. had to find some way to limit the number of Jewish admits:

By 1922, [Jews] made up more than a fifth of Harvard’s freshman class. The administration and alumni were up in arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school … Finally, Lowell — and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton — realized that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the wrong kind of student, the solution was to change the definition of merit. Karabel argues that it was at this moment that the history and nature of the Ivy League took a significant turn.

Gladwell writes that from that point forward,

The admissions office at Harvard became much more interested in the details of an applicant’s personal life. Lowell told his admissions officers to elicit information about the “character” of candidates from “persons who know the applicants well,” and so the letter of reference became mandatory. Harvard started asking applicants to provide a photograph. Candidates had to write personal essays, demonstrating their aptitude for leadership, and list their extracurricular activities … The personal interview became a key component of admissions in order, Karabel writes, “to ensure that ‘undesirables’ were identified and to assess important but subtle indicators of background and breeding such as speech, dress, deportment and physical appearance.”

Well, that was in the 1920s you say. Things can't be the same now. It turns out things aren't different. A quote from an Economist article by the same the blogger, a year later:

Mr Golden shows that elite universities do everything in their power to admit the children of privilege. If they cannot get them in through the front door by relaxing their standards, then they smuggle them in through the back. No less than 60% of the places in elite universities are given to candidates who have some sort of extra “hook”, from rich or alumni parents to “sporting prowess”. The number of whites who benefit from this affirmative action is far greater than the number of blacks…

Most people think of black football and basketball stars when they hear about “sports scholarships”. But there are also sports scholarships for rich white students who play preppie sports such as fencing, squash, sailing, riding, golf and, of course, lacrosse. The University of Virginia even has scholarships for polo-players, relatively few of whom come from the inner cities…

What is one to make of [Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist, who opposes affirmative action for minorities while practising it for his own son?

Two groups of people overwhelmingly bear the burden of these policies — Asian-Americans and poor whites. Asian-Americans are the “new Jews”, held to higher standards (they need to score at least 50 points higher than non-Asians even to be in the game) and frequently stigmatised for their “characters” (Harvard evaluators persistently rated Asian-Americans below whites on “personal qualities”). When the University of California, Berkeley briefly considered introducing means-based affirmative action, it rejected the idea on the ground that “using poverty yields a lot of poor white kids and poor Asian kids”.

Re-read this excerpt from TOI again:

Nothing could be more detrimental to the health and well-being of the university as an institution of teaching and research than to whittle down its freedom to exercise academic judgment on the ground that such judgment is bound to be arbitrary, subjective, and socially biased.

We may be not as far gone down the "success" lane as the US, but that doesn't mean we won't get there.

Do read the New Yorker article mentioned above. I don't know about you, but I'd never thought of the Ivy League colleges as being in the "luxury brand-management" business.

An Idea

Mr Narayana Murthy:

Just one example is if all exporters paid their taxes, and if we were to go and tell Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to constitute a fund that will be used to provide breakfast and lunch to 35 million schoolchildren at Rs. 10 a meal, and if the Government were to make a matching grant, we would have Rs. 32,000 crore to bring more children to school.

Addenda

Adding to the list:

11. Your (i.e., India's) time is now
12. A pulsating dynamic new India
13. An India that does not follow but an India that leads.
14. An India ready to embrace the right to an increased voice

Thank you Mr Brown for uttering all of those in a single concise paragraph. Now please tell us your tongue was not in your cheek as you spoke.

Fools Rush In

Dear TOI,

You are not my representative. I voted for my representative in the last general elections. I don't remember his name, but it was not you. Thus you cannot claim this:

As your representatives, we will carry civil society’s torch of change to key figures in government, Opposition and others in office.

And I don't even want you to be my representative. You're sloppy. Take this stupid cartoon for example, from the 15th January, Bangalore edition. It's Dubyaman and Mr Jug Suraiya himself:

Though you take pains not to mention their relative ages here, there was only a three year difference between them. So, no, the fact that you came up with a dumb pun involving two words "father" and "daddy" does not allow you to use it in this context. Here's what sugar daddy means (from the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, no less: straight from the horse's mouth):

A wealthy, usually older man who gives expensive gifts to someone much younger in return for companionship or sexual favors. For example, The aspiring young actress and the sugar daddy are a classic combination in Hollywood. The sugar in this term alludes to the sweetening role of the gifts, and daddy to the age difference between the pair. [Early 1900s]

And I'm still waiting for the Gangsta movie from Mira Nair.

I too know a nice idiom: bugger off. A bit rude I'm sure, but it goes well with this sentence: stop calling yourself my representative.

Warm Regards,
Yours truly.

New Year Top Ten List

The year is still young. So here is my top ten list, of things I wish I never have to read or hear again. And then it will be too soon.

1. Someone or something representing the face of New India
2. Brave New India
3. Resurgent India
4. India Poised
5. India Rising / Shining / Flying / Emerging / Soaring / Sitting / Nodding off
6. India set to take/reclaim its rightful place "on the international stage"/"in the comity of nations"
7. GenX - specifically with reference to India's younger generation - and it's great new attitude
8. Taking-off - as in "Indian economy is on the verge of taking -off"
9. Has arrived - as in "India has arrived on the financial scene"
10. Superpower/giant - as in "India is an emerging superpower / giant"

Media people, stop it. My ears ache.

Poised For What?

So, TOI has ensured that we are all aware that India is poised. But the question is: poised for what? With this simple question in mind, I searched on Google, knowing fully well that Google does not disappoint. I can now safely say what it is that India is poised for. These are the first two pages I got:

So, folks, hope you're all ready for the pharmaceutical boom.

Land Scams

As we digest the daily news about Singur, Nandigram, and SEZs, we couldn't go too wrong reading what Ramesh Ramanathan had to say sometime ago:

I wrote an article in this publication a few weeks ago that was critical of SEZs. Among the responses were a surprising number from professionals in the corporate sector – those who were involved in working on SEZs. And their sentiments were deeply disturbing: without exception, the common refrain was that the SEZ idea was a runaway train, and that it was using the singular, concentrated force of greed and self-interest to rip open the land market in the country. An executive from one of the big four consulting firms told me, “I advise my clients on succeeding in being a part of these SEZs, but I am selling my soul.” Another lawyer said, “Unfortunately, it’s the biggest money-making opportunity we have ever seen.” A senior IT industry executive said, “I agree that it’s a land scam, and it shouldn’t be happening. But we ourselves are bidding for them, because we can’t be left behind. I have my shareholders’ interests to protect – they would tell me, ‘You want to be Gandhi, don’t do it on our money.’”

I consider myself a middle-of-the-road person: I believe in the potential of the market, but also in an affirmative state that regulates the market vigorously and transparently. I recognise that public policy choices are not black-or-white, and need to balance various views, while always keeping the citizens’ and the nation’s interests in mind. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out the compelling argument for SEZs in India . Their stated benefits are debatable. On the promise of job creation, five lakh jobs is too trivial a target for the incentives being provided – close to 50,000 hectares of subsidised and clean-title land, leaving aside the tax-breaks....

And also what an economist had to say in general about governments taking land from Peter to give to Paul:

There is a general view that where there are large externalities — urban renewal programmes, for instance — there may be grounds for government to try and buy land and help renew a city or part of a city. But the dangers of doing this when there is a single firm without externalities are enormous. This is because the government often uses the right of eminent domain with compensation below market price.
...
In general, there is a price at which people would sell their land. The reason these firms ask the government to do it is because they don't want to pay that market price. So once you get into that mindset, it becomes a very dangerous precedent.
...
You have a problem when land is fragmented, or there are land market inefficiencies, and difficulties in getting clear title. Markets might be so poorly developed that businesses can't acquire land and that becomes an impediment to development. Of course, the right answer is to solve the problem of the land market and not to solve it for this particular person by taking over that particular piece of property!

Of course, as the interviewer in the above interview asks, it is a paradox that the same industrialists who want less and less of government interference when they want to sell, go to the very same government to acquire land.

Oil And US

An editorial appeared in The Hindu speculating as to what would happen next after Saddam's execution. It was very clear : After Saddam it will be oil. It predicted:

Now that Saddam Hussein is gone, in the coming weeks and months one can look to see events that will help consolidate oil security for the U.S. Even at the cost of Iraq's balkanisation.

Now we hear:

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

Meanwhile, people continue to draw parallels between what Saddam did and what the US/UK are doing in Iraq today:

If Saddam could be held criminally accountable for torture despite the absence of any written order, any honest court would not think twice before convicting Mr. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld for what went on in Abu Ghraib.

Of course, what Bush has done is far worse in scale. So I would like to think: after Saddam, one gone, one more to go.

Tharoor's Readers' Answers

Shashi Tharoor is flooded with responses to his question which I'd written about here. Some that I agreed with:

Dr. Masthi says with feeling: "If we cannot retain our doctors, the whole notion of merit in education has no value for people like me who are paying a very high tax to subsidise their education in the hope that they will give back something to the community which sponsored them". He would rather have an average student joining a medical college and staying on to serve India than a bright student who goes abroad, "because ultimately in medicine it is experience and commitment which makes a doctor good".
...
An NRI blogger named "Seeji" (Dr. C.G. Prasanna) lists "[the] minimal number of post-graduate seats not catering to the thousands of [medical] graduates, illogical reservation system, a very low pay package compared to other professions" amongst the reasons why doctors emigrate. Seeji asks: "How justified it is to blame doctors alone when even IITians and IIM guys have studied with the same taxpayers' money?" But he proposes the passage of a law that would bind graduates to work in India for a specified number of years. "That should be applied to doctors as well as engineers", he suggests.

They should start working on that law.

Those who support doctors who emigrate after getting subsidized education mainly cite low pay, bad facilities, discomfort, and safety (from angry kith and kin). I like the crib about low pay, bad facilities, discomfort - coming from people who have obtained crucial degrees paying next to nothing. Another doctor argues that 98% of subsidy is for treating patients. Well, the patients do provide living laboratories for the students to learn their profession unless I'm mistaken.

Update: Of course, I have nothing against people emigrating, including Indians emigrating to other countries. They have the brains, and the skills to succeed in other places and all the more power to them. But not on taxpayer money.

Saddam And US

Use and throw.

Wondrous

These photographs. Hat tip to Recursive Hypocrisy.

Singur

Tehelka weighs in.

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

Path To A Flat World

Filled with potholes.

Letters From China

By Pallavi Aiyar in The Hindu. She gets better and better with time.

Some More Cricketing Fun

kmp sends in a bunch of mails about a bunch of cricket posts. I'll copy them below first, and later discuss them in the same order.

Re Harmless Fun he writes:

I was watching the TV night before these headlines ( I mean when he[Ganguly] was selected, but not yet in SA)…Rajdeep Sardesai’s prime time select panel included Mohinder Amarnath (understandable – original comeback-man ), Saurav’s biographer, and CPI-M MP Gurudas Dasgupta. Now, I don’t know what this groaning Marxist was doing there to discuss capitalistic cricket, and a rich main’s come-back (both out of place with their ideology). His point was, he was thrown out “un-ceremoniously” but he agreed that he should be dropped if he does not play well in future. As far as I know, he was not playing well when he was dropped so I attached more importance to the “ceremony” part. Next time, Greg should give more importance to that – my opinion. The biographer was almost crying (adding to that his Bengali accent made me feel that he was really crying) and his only concern was how he will be welcomed in the dressing room by two men – Captain and Coach. And, he repeated it three times. Again, the “ceremony” part crossed my mind ;-)

Now, with this background – I was bit more curious than usual with the newspapers and I found the “news” apt – although I was disappointed not to find any mention about the ceremony in the news.

Re Good Old Movie Plot he writes:

I differ. It still makes a “Good-Old-Movie-Plot” though – in many movies the protagonists are not always the good guys in the beginning, they become one later ;-)

I do not think dropping Ganguly was wrong then, he was not playing well – period. I did not believe that it was cricketing reason that made him to be picked, and I thought “they” were doing wrong again, however I was proved wrong (mind you, that does not mean I was wrong earlier – the dropping part). Anyway, it was good to see him among the runs, and those flowing vintage offside drives. In fact this makes me believe that dropping him has done him good, if nothing else the *grit* is back (coz I haven’t seen him playing with the same grit when he was out of form and in those matches we lost after the world cup)

And finally re And The Brickbats Keep Pouring In he has this to say:

Consider the awfulness of what might have been. If Yuvraj Singh hadn’t ruptured himself playing kho-kho or kabaddi or whatever else Chappell considers a necessary cricketing skill, he would have played the ODI series. Had we won or even drawn the ODI series, Yuvraj would have been a certainty for the tests, and had Raina managed a couple of fifties, he would have been rapidly translated into the test squad too. Ganguly wouldn’t have been recalled, nor would Zaheer, and Laxman would still have been the wallflower in the dressing room, not the vice-captain of the Indian team. Harbhajan, had he taken a handful of wickets in the ODIs, would have been preferred to Kumble and the first test at the Wanderers wouldn’t have had a happy ending.

Usually you should not use as many “ifs” to prove-a-point. With all the ”if”’s he says the first test at the Wander’s would not be a happy ending. My question is what’s the point if (oh, not again) we add one more “if” at the end: “if India had won the wanders test” with those 50s, 100s and couple of wins in ODI… ;-)

1. I haven't watched Rajdeep, and neither - to keep it balanced - whoever is his counterpart at his ex-employer, for a long time. They strain my brain cells. Thus I missed this humour-fest. But the MP was on probably because Rajdeep - always an eye on the TRP - invited him. And, hey, Das Kapital does not mention cricket - it does refer fleetingly to BCCI hoarding money in its grubby fists, but definitely not cricket. However, should an MP be spending time gassing about cricket on national TV at all? I'm not sure.

I don't know what the biographer was expecting, but the point I was making here was that the reports were mostly probably inaccurate. The Deccan Herald line I quoted has to be an outright lie. If the think-tank weren't averse, they would have said so, and DH would have reported so long before Ganguly landed up for match practice. I didn't read anything remotely suggested that the think-tank thought so. Even the warmth mentioned in The Hindu is a bit hard to believe exists. They are all professionals - and being one myself, I know that one cannot go around with scowls on one's face and mouthing personal invective when one is putting in a day at the office. All I was saying was: spare me the false sentimentality. And Indian Express actually did that in a report titled "Ganguly back: handshakes but no happy family photo-ops yet" (italics mine throughout the post):

Around 10.30 am, Ganguly walked into the Willows hotel, two kilometres away, blazer in place, the smile, too. A quick change of clothes, one final turn towards the ground, and he stepped out quietly, specks of bright grey glowing beneath the India cap.

Where is Greg Chappell?

The Australian coach, whose leaked email spelt the beginning of the end, was a short sprint away, studiously watching the nets, calling up young pacer VRV Singh for a chat. He never turned this way.

Unfazed, Ganguly dragged his kitbag across, knelt down and started unpacking, stopping briefly to exchange quick handshakes and smiles with Munaf Patel, MS Dhoni, and Sreesanth - Dhoni had made his debut under Ganguly, the India captain.

Then, the big moment. Ganguly got up, walked across to Chappell.

As they shook hands, ears perked up all around the wire mesh, struggling to catch the few words that were exchanged. “He said, Welcome back, mate.” “No, he asked is it good to be back.” “I don’t think so.” Chappell smiled, Ganguly, too, a quick handshake and it was down to cricket.

... Just before he went in to bat, Ganguly did walk up to Rahul Dravid. They had a small chat of their own, both struggling to meet each other’s eyes. Remember Dravid the wicket-keeper?

A much more realistic report. Note especially the lack of "Welcome back" shouts and warm handshakes.

2. I believe no one is good or bad - one's actions are. Leaving that profound philosophical statement aside, I was thinking more of a good 'old' movie plot, indian movies at that. The norm there: heroes start good and remain good whereas the villain starts bad, meets his comeuppance and turns over a new leaf :-) And I believe I had not even brought in morality - just a wrong done to a man. Whether he was good or bad - not mine to know!

I have to point out one thing in kmp's response however. This is not consistent: when Ganguly is dropped it is because of cricketing reasons, but when he is picked it is just politics. If you concede that players get picked to the Indian cricket team for non-cricketing reasons, then you need to concede that players get dropped for non-cricketing reasons too - unless the facts say otherwise. And I don't see many facts out there to suggesting that he was recalled due to politics, in the newspapers which had cooked up all kinds of canards against Ganguly when he was dropped (For instance, the big argument with Dravid as Chappell watched, before a test in Pakistan when Ganguly was reportedly arguing vehemently against opening the batting. Needless to say this turned out to be false). And nothing else has changed apart from the chairman of selectors. The comrades are still holding up the government, same then as now. But there is a lot to suggest that his recall for for cricketing reaons. The editor of Cricinfo himself takes over:

Not much should be read into the meeting between Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, and the selection committee this morning, because Ganguly's fate had been decided earlier. Indeed, Cricinfo broke the story on Tuesday.

So what does one make of it? A knee-jerk reaction to a batting crisis? The irony cannot be missed: Ganguly, whose decline as a batsman has been attributed primarily to his vulnerability to the short ball, has now been picked to strengthen a batting lineup that has been systematically dismantled by the surgical, relentless use of bounce.

It can also be seen, however, as a pragmatic, immediate measure that wagers heavily on Ganguly's Test-match experience and his innate fighting abilities. His finest hundred came at Brisbane in 2003, the first Test of a hard tour, when India were four down for 80 in the first innings and Australia's fast bowlers were smelling blood. It was a brave and a scintillating hundred, compiled as much through skill as through sheer mental strength.

But by the time he'd lost his place in the Test team, he was back to chasing ghosts: even medium pacers were bouncing him out. India will hope that the time in the wilderness would have created a will strong enough to carry him past his shortcomings.
...
While it is inevitable that Ganguly will dominate the headlines, the much bigger issue is why and how his selection was necessitated. The truth is that once again Indian batsmen have been mercilessly exposed on harder pitches, and the selectors didn't really have too many options after the young men in whom they'd placed their faith failed make the grade. The selectors had the choice to let them learn from their failures or opt to try damage control. The passions involved in cricket in India are just too high for the selectors to be able to ignore the immediate. And the reality is that beyond Ganguly there was not much to look at anyway.

And as it happens I hold the converse view hence the movie storyline : I believe his being dropped was for non-cricketing reasons and that his recall was for cricketing reasons. And I think the facts bear me out. I've given the argument for the second part of that view in the preceding excert from Cricinfo.

Now, about his being dropped. As I'd mentioned here, I fully agreed with Ganguly being dropped when it first happened. But when he was toyed with during the Pakistan tour and after doing quite well in the one test match he played (according to Cricinfo, which I'd quoted in my post then), was dropped again, that suggested batting form was the least of it. He had shown that he had the determination and the ability too. He could have been retained for the Test side at least - if the coach was keen on youth and building a team for the World Cup. Yet he was dropped. And Chappell's email itself confirms this viewpoint. Bad attitude, deviousness, selfishness, cowardice, lack of respect. All there, bad batting form being just one reason, and not the main reason at all according to it.

And there is the Laxman angle too - he was dropped soon enough after Chappell had claimed that he was an 'integral part of the team'. And knowing how that worked out for Laxman, one wonders about the email. Whatever. There were non-cricketing reasons. In addition to the above there was a new coach with revolution on his mind. Add More to the mix and the picture is complete. And it can't be cricket when others were and are still given a free pass in spite of their non-performance. Tendulkar and Sehwag coming to mind immediately. As Ganguly said in his interview after the SA test - 'Tendulkar will never be dropped'. Envy maybe. But true.

3. Like Siddhu says - If 'ifs' and 'buts' are pots and pans then there would be no tinkers. In this case, if kmp's 'if' were added to the scenario, we wouldn't be discussing Ganguly's recall, and Laxman would still be watching the match on telly instead of being the vice-captain. And I wouldn't be writing this post at 2 am!

To clarify again, my main point was about the coach and his gobbledygook, and his willing doppelganger. Handing it over to the Editor at Cricinfo again from the same piece (italic not mine):

Indian cricket, you could say after reading the names in the Test squad, has completed a full circle. Prima facie, it would seem that the Greg Chappell-Rahul Dravid revolution has ended, or at least been temporarily suspended, and India are back to where they were 14 months ago.

Youth has been jettisoned, the process has been buried and, quite incredibly, Sourav Ganguly is back. And all this has happened so suddenly that it has left a lot of us struggling to comprehend its wider implications.

Let me go out on an limb and suggest one implication: this coach has wasted our time till now.
But having said that, these arguments will go on. I think it is futile for us to take Indian cricket as it stands right now seriously. Whether the team wins or loses, it really doesn't matter. It is just a circus.

An Exhibition

Please do come.

And The Brickbats Keep Pouring In

Like here. Fair enough - there were bouquets aplenty once.

Update: Actually the title could do with a bit of rework. "One Lone Brickbat Is Thrown" looks more like it.

Bush Does It Again

Removes some of the sticking points in the nuclear-cooperation act - or at least makes them basically not worth the paper they are presumably written on:

In an effort to allay official Indian concerns about several aspects of the nuclear cooperation legislation passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this month, President George W. Bush declared on Monday that he would not be bound by some of the law's provisions.

In a formal statement issued shortly after signing into law the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006, Mr. Bush introduced three specific caveats based on the executive's constitutional prerogative to conduct foreign policy.

This is a president who rules more like a king, and uses signing statements - the above is an instance of them - to do it. Or abuses them, though I'm not complaining in this case.

The Prime Minister seemed uncannily confident about India's conditions being met - maybe his people had done their homework on Bush. I'm not sure if all the criticisms have been allayed by this signing statement - it does not look like it. But things probably bode better for the 123 agreement which is in the works.

Promises

Kept and unkept. A point worth noting:

Starting with the Second Plan, for the last 50 years our policy-makers have insisted that the salvation of India's countryside lies in urbanisation and industrialisation. Completely overlooking that for a nation whose cities are its biggest emerging disasters and where more than 700 million people are engaged in farming, there can be no escape from improving its agriculture — a sound agrarian base on which could develop a whole range of other nature-based livelihoods.

Also, I always thought our politicians were the new maharajahs. But no, there are others too.

Good Old Movie Plot

Man wronged, suffers but perseveres against heavy odds, a new dawn and the wrong set right, main villain capitulates in the final scene, The End. Ganguly's story :-)

Tharoor's Question

Writing about Indian doctors serving America's poor, he asks:

The easier route to a green card may not, however, be the only incentive for the foreign doctors. The New York Times wrote that many found greater professional opportunity in these blighted rural communities, less professional discrimination — and greater material comforts. Typical earnings, the newspaper reported, ranged from $80,000 to $2,00,000 a year. Only in America can you make that much by serving the poor.

No wonder Indian doctors prefer to work in Welch than in Warangal or Wardha. But must the Indian taxpayer subsidise them for seven years to do so? That's the question on which I'd welcome readers' views.

And though he leaves out "engineers and economists, scientists and scholars", I think the question should include them too. In a lot of cases they too are just following the money.

Here's a suggestion : let the government open new medicals colleges, provide them with good infrastructure, pay the faculty well, allow the best of only the non-general category students in - and have a clause making it mandatory for all students who study in them to serve in the villages for five years after finishing. Kill two birds with one stone.

Braindead Media

Pretty much.

1 FU = 6 Months

The flat worlder gets his own unit of measurement. The Friedman Unit.

Harmless Fun

It is amusing to read news reports on Ganguly's reception by the team and its management. Deccan Herald puts it like this:

It is no secret that the think-tank wasn’t averse to the idea of Ganguly flying out as a Test reinforcement.

The Hindu writes:

"Welcome back," shouted Greg Chappell, monitoring the nets as Ganguly walked up to the coach. The smiles were followed by a warm handshake.

Amusing because the Editor at Cricinfo had this to say last year (and he was reflecting a widely held opinion of those days):

Ganguly might not be able to see it now, but it does him no justice to be picked, not as an automatic choice, but through a process that's bound to create some delicate situations in Pakistan. It is no secret that neither the coach nor the captain wanted him on board.

And I remember seeing the coach's derisive laugh on the teevee after Ganguly completed a - for him - very difficult catch. This was during the Pakistan tour mentioned above. It was very evident that the coach's opinion of this particular player could not get very much lower than it was already.

And suddenly everything is warm and cosy between everyone concerned?

Bad Civics

In the IT capital people score badly in civics:

The country’s IT Capital of Bangalore may be on the information highway. But when it comes to civic awareness of its denizens, the performance seems to be “abysmally poor”.
...
Among those interviewed, only 20 per cent had interacted with the ward corporator and 85 per cent are not members of any resident welfare associations (there are over 300 resident welfare association in Bangalore).

The survey has also tried to dig into details of why people failed to exercise their democratic right of voting. While 22 per cent have said they were not in station, 32 per cent have said that their names were not in the voters list, 18 per cent were not interested, 15 per cent were not aware of the elections and 8 per cent have said there were no good candidates.

My excuse: I had no clue. I'm with the 15% then. And the 20% and the 85%. Never mind, help is at hand.

I'm All Shaken Up

In one of his articles, Ramesh Ramanathan notes:

bureaucrats and politicians tell me, "You have a romantic view of public participation. Most people are selfish, and care only about their own interest, not about the larger common good.”

Honestly, I was just joking when I wrote this back in October:

Who knows, many a politicians may be saying: "Look at these people, they break rules themselves, and they expect us to be upright. People are all inherently bad, corrupt, and interested only in themselves and their families. They have no time to think of the public good. I've completely lost faith in them".

Muslims and Education

The Hindu quotes the Sachar report:

only four per cent of all Muslim students are enrolled in madrasas; and Muslim parents are not averse to modern or mainstream education, and would, in fact, prefer to send their children to "regular school education that is open to any other child in India."

I thought so. At least the modern/mainstream/regular school education part.

Now They Tell Me

From The Hindu:

It is no secret that Indian cricket is in decline, in both forms of the game. Rahul Dravid's side did not board the flight to Johannesburg promising awe-inspiring feats on the hard, bouncy pitches of South Africa. With the most gifted Indian batsman of all time, Sachin Tendulkar, in a state of natural decline, with a once formidable top-order in disarray, with the bowling lacking firepower as well as discipline much of the time, and with the fielding lacking consistency, it will take a miracle to convert this team into a serious contender for next year's World Cup.

That is a rapid climbdown from the highs of less than a year ago, and the fond hopes the same vintage:

After scaling some peaks, Indian cricket plateaued and then entered what looks very much like a slump. Chappell can be trusted to guide the team through this challenging phase. He needs to be given a free hand to work out his philosophy and method of coaching. He will almost certainly have a greater say in team selection than his predecessor did. Indian cricket has the talent but it will take all that Chappell asks for to scale the higher peaks.

What is funny is that The Process does not seem to have had the almighty power of deliverance that it seemed to possess early in the day. Winning or losing was not important but The Process was, Dravid used to say. Nowadays it is one excuse after the other. It is the same with the coach - the author of The Process presumably - saying that it is all within the players themselves. They have to do it themselves, not he. Agreed, but what about The Process?

In A Spot - 191106

The series continues, with Ms Tavleen Singh's latest column.

Ms Singh in August 2005, getting angry about the ugliness of our towns and villages:

I ... find myself getting angry about the filthy living conditions in our own towns and villages and their ugliness. This is not, as some may think, because we are inherently a filthy people with a culture that disdains basic hygiene. Neither is it because Indian civilisation produced no great cities.

Some racist Westerners like to portray us that way but the truth is that even I (and I am not as old as all that) can remember that the India of my childhood was not a place of villages that looked like cesspools and towns that looked like garbage dumps. I can remember towns and cities with beautiful, leafy avenues and fine public buildings. I can remember my own Punjabi village as a place of genteel, rural elegance. So what went wrong? Why do we now live in such appalling filth and misery? Ask this question of our officials and politicians and the answer usually is: population. Too many people, they say, absolving themselves of blame.

Our infrastructure simply cannot cope. Of all the lies they tell us this is among the most barefaced. The truth is that the misguided socialism that was our creed for far too long made everything beyond the most basic idea of living seem like a sinful luxury.

Nehruvian, fabian, misguided socialism to blame for the ugliness. Right.

Ms Singh yesterday:

More than eighty per cent of diseases in India are caused by public defecation and primitive ideas of public hygiene. As someone who lives part-time in a village I have done some rudimentary research on the subject and found that our toilet habits have more to do with the social acceptance of public defecation and misconceptions of public hygiene than poverty. The residents of the seaside village in which I live are not poor. They are mostly middle class with middle class aspirations. The houses in which they live are all 'pucca' and clean with tiled roofs and charming verandahs. Many have small gardens planted with hibiscus and bougainvillaea, nearly every home has access to cable TV and consumer goods and all kitchens are indoors and spotlessly clean but almost not a single house has an indoor toilet. The beach is the village toilet. Villagers who baulk at the sight of women in shorts and swimsuits have no problem with their women squatting along the beach in full view of visiting tourists from the city.

Men are even less embarrassed about exposing themselves and squat happily on the edge of the ocean so that they are saved the need to carry a 'lota'. Public defecation is such an acceptable social habit that it continues despite the village having aspirations to become a seaside resort.

So, could it after all have something to do with us rather than Nehruvian, fabian...socialism? My research in Ms Singh's columns shows that it could. Yet how - how - can - that - be?

Shall We Ever?

Someone asks here. I don't know. I like to think that we are a young nation - after all we've been on country only for fifty years - and we'll improve given time. But another part of me is stumped just as the above writer says he is.

Poetic Justice

Remember this post which mentioned a US politician using an racial epithet? Well, he lost. And the downslide started with that very incident. That may not have been the only reason for him to lose as this DH article says, but it was the trigger. And it helped the Democrats to take control of the senate - a double-barrelled victory for them. It also helped the man himself to get a college admission, in the processing yielding what must be one of the shortest essays ever in English.

The Bad Guys Lost

The morons. And much of the world's wish is granted. From The Hindu last week:

The political landscape of the United States could change dramatically in the next few days if the Democratic Party is able to overcome the habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
...
With so much at stake, much of the world will fervently hope that the Democrats have it in them to deliver the knockout.

The Capital of Narcoanalysis

Watching the steady stream of high-profile shady criminals and glamorous molls coming into Bangalore to have their lies called, I was proud for my city. Now some party-pooper comes along and tells me that all that may have happened was that these assorted liars got a free high, while the police got a heady mix of fact and fantasy:

Some of what has emerged from suspects' statements seems liberally laced with fantasy. For example, key suspect Faisal Sheikh told interrogators that one member of his cell received instructions from the "ISI chief" to assassinate the former Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani. To anyone even remotely familiar with the workings of covert services, it seems unlikely that the then Director-General of the ISI, Lieutenant-General Ehsan-ul-Haq, would have met with a low-level agent to discuss such plans. Another suspect, CNN-IBN television recently reported, claimed to have seen top Al-Qaeda operative Mohammad Atta while training in Pakistan — a disclosure that would have been sensational were it not for the fact that the terrorist died during the New York terror bombings of 2001.

Several points of detail also need clarification. Suspects, for example, have told the Mumbai Police that a Pakistani national fabricated the devices used in the bombing — a somewhat mystifying act, since the suspects themselves are stated to have received training in Pakistan. Finally, why so many Pakistani nationals were despatched to carry out the strikes when local Lashkar cadre were available needs to be explained.

My personal favourite is the Mohammad Atta sighting. Maybe these guys were always a bit delusional and in the clouds.

The Hindu's Writers

When they write, they make sure their point gets across. Like here.

In A Spot - 240906

Again. Tavleen Singh weaves together a column filled with inaccuracies and flawed reasoning.

Commenting on the SC issuing notices to the J&K High Court Bar Association, she writes:

The Chief Justice of India made an important comment last week that went unnoticed except by one newspaper...

Justice Y K Sabharwal reprimanded the J & K Bar Association for its decision to deny legal aid to the defendants and for saying that the sex scandal showed the “entire world the real face of India in Kashmir”. Justice Sabharwal said, “It is only in India that despite these comments you are being heard. In no other democracy will it be heard”.

With this comment the Chief Justice becomes the first high official in India to acknowledge that our homegrown Islamists are taking advantage of Indian democracy to propagate unacceptably retrograde views on a wide range of subjects.

First off, I searched for the one newspaper which seems to have "noticed the comment" as she puts it. I expected that there would be an exact quote of the SC acknowledging that homegrown Islamists are taking advantage of Indian democracy etc. My search threw up reports on the SC order in Indian Express, The Hindu, MSN, Zee News, The Telegraph. None of the reports mentioned this comment at all. All they mentioned was the SC chastising the J&K Bar Assocation - the "it is only in India..." quote was missing from all of them. Possibly the SC order did contain the sentence. But still no report implied that the SC was talking in general about Indian Muslims. Ms Singh seems to strangely believe that the J&K Bar Association and Indian muslims are synonymous.

Next she writes:

The atmosphere of Islamist orthodoxy ... results in ordinary Indian Muslims identifying with pan-Islamism to such an extent that thousands took to the streets of Mumbai to protest against George Bush’s visit to India but it was hard to get even a hundred into the streets to condemn the bombings that killed nearly 200 people on Mumbai’s commuter trains in July.

Mr George Bush is perhaps the most hated head of government across the world currently. He was possibly only a shade less hated when he visited India. Is it surprising that "a few thousands" turned up to protest a visit of this guy? And whatever muslims turned up had enough reason to do so without needing to be brainwashed into pan-Islamism. George Bush invaded and basically screwed up Iraq in which are some of the most holy Muslim places like Najaf and Karbala. Why wouldn't they turn up to protest? It is very surprising that the numbers weren't larger. A few thousands out of 150 million muslims? That's like 0.1%! That's a miserable failure on the part of the "priests" - if what she says about the "priests" is true. And it is surprising that more non-Muslims didn't join in. But we Indians seem to have a soft spot for the cowboy. The way I remember it, when he visits a country - which he does very rarely - a security bubble needs to be created around him to shield him from the people who he has come to visit. And the protesters are a varied bunch. UK and Australia which he also visited then had much more massive protests. And they were not fanatic Islamists smothered in Islamist orthodoxy. Not by a long shot.

As for protesting the Mumbai blasts - I don't remember seeing too many of those. There were prayer meetings, sure. And what is the point in protesting such a thing? One could hope that protests would make a Bush reconsider his actions by showing him that people are angry or displeased. But a terrorist - that's what they want to do isn't it - make people angry, miserable? I don't think there were too many protests when the twin towers fell. Or when the Gujarat riots happened. But then, maybe my memory fails me.

Then she talks about a 'sense of persecution' being felt by muslims in India and how it is "beginning to dangerously influence the way Indian Muslims see themselves". Why shouldn't they feel persecuted? Gujarat, Malegaon, Iraq, Palestine, and people like Ms Singh who are ever ready to spout venom, and the politics of the recent past which seemed to revel in alienating them. But is the sense of persecution really there ? Some muslims I know are busy making ends meet and others are sending their kids to school where they learn and top in Sanskrit. Do the acts of a few terrorists represent a whole community?

She then writes,

The Prime Minister did just this last week when he told chief ministers that the terrorist threat was so serious that our nuclear installations could be targeted but quickly added that Muslims must not be targeted as a community. Think of the message that goes to the police? Does it not indicate that the Prime Minister wants them to continue fighting only a defensive war? This is all they have done so far and yet there is a deep sense of grievance in the community that is being fed constantly by sympathy from high officials in Delhi.

No it doesn't indicate that, it only indicates that do they job correctly by going after the real cultprits and their accomplices whoever they are, and not target people because they happen to belong to the same religion as the suspects. The exact quote is here. She goes on,

We need to ask ourselves if we are not carrying things too far. We know that the bombers on Mumbai’s trains were all Muslim. We know that they would have taken shelter in one of this city’s Muslim areas, possibly even in mosques, but when the Mumbai police started detaining Muslims for questioning we in the media spoke in one voice against the “targeting of a particular community”.

The cry was taken up by Muslim MPs in Parliament and last week Mumbai’s Police Commissioner, A N Roy, wrote a letter virtually apologising for his law enforcement measures to such patently Islamist organisations as the Raza Academy and the Dar ul Uloom Mohammadiya.

Let's read how the affected people see it,

Most Muslims leaders whom DNA spoke to felt that the letter was mere rhetoric, and that the police would be better served finding the actual culprits. There is undoubtedly fear in the city’s Muslim community that innocent people were being targeted, often on the basis of their appearance.

Said Abu Asim Azim, MP and president of Quami Majlis Shoora, “Roy is trying to be a politician. On the one hand, he assures us that the community would not be hounded. On the other, innocent Muslims continue to be at the receiving end of a prejudiced probe. We don’t want assurances on paper. We want the real culprits to be brought to justice.”

This is a view shared by many. Those responsible should be caught. However, some also see that the current climate in the world also plays a role in perpetuating prejudices. Rizvan Haider, president, Youth Citizen’s Forum said, “Those involved in terrorist activities have no religion. They are contract killers. Look at Pakistan and other Muslim countries which are also reeling under terrorism. Islam does not preach violence. A true Muslim will never get involved in such activities. This is rhetoric by superpowers (read the United States) to keep us alienated from the world.”

Many leaders repeat the point that religion has nothing to do with terrorism, ironically, the point with which Roy opened his letter. According to Adul Latif, executive member, human rights protection under UN Charter, India, “No real Muslim will be a votary of violence. I have faith in the judicial system of this country. Indian Muslims are basically religious and it’s only the misguided ones from other countries who get into terrorism.”

One viewpoint that agrees with the commissioner comes from Safdar H Karmali, president, Khoja Siya Jammath who said, “So far, I have not received any complaint about police harassment from Muslims in my area. We wish the real culprits are caught and the innocents not harassed. I trust the police to be just in their role.”

That feeling is extended and reiterated by Abraham Mathai, vice president of the Minorities Commission who said, “The Mumbai police commissioner’s letter is an important confidence-building initiative. These are times when a healing touch needs to be extended to one and all to foil the evil designs of those that seek to divide and destroy.”

But the healingtouch is not going to come from Ms Tavleen Singh. Nor from Mr Sudheendra Kulkarni who writes this:

We must remember that many Muslims too suffered in the terror attack. Many Muslims too came forward to help wounded and stranded passengers. I know a little bit about the Muslim community in my city, and I have no doubt that this attack will further cement Hindu-Muslim relations.

But perhaps remembering his Advice to L K Advani on a certain matter involving Jinnah and the after effects, hastens to add a point very similar to the one raised by Ms Singh:

Why did certain Muslim (along with leftist) organizations in Bombay showcase the largest ever Muslim mobilization in the city to protest US President Bush’s visit to India and, why, in contrast, they have never mobilized even a few thousands to condemn those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam?

PS: I was meaning to post about it since Sep 9 when it appeared but was unable to for the usual reasons - laziness, not-in-the-moodness, and so on.

Reliance Gets 25,000 Acres

For an SEZ. Fine. But what makes me gasp is that all of Bangalore is just 50,000 acres. So Reliance is getting half a Bangalore? And we are complaining about the tribals? Ramesh Ramanathan of Janaagraha, and now JNURM, discusses SEZs here.

His latest article which is not only yet, is fully reproduced here:

SEZs – STOP THE RUNAWAY TRAIN

I wrote an article in this publication a few weeks ago that was critical of SEZs. Among the responses were a surprising number from professionals in the corporate sector – those who were involved in working on SEZs. And their sentiments were deeply disturbing: without exception, the common refrain was that the SEZ idea was a runaway train, and that it was using the singular, concentrated force of greed and self-interest to rip open the land market in the country. An executive from one of the big four consulting firms told me, “I advise my clients on succeeding in being a part of these SEZs, but I am selling my soul.” Another lawyer said, “Unfortunately, it’s the biggest money-making opportunity we have ever seen.” A senior IT industry executive said, “I agree that it’s a land scam, and it shouldn’t be happening. But we ourselves are bidding for them, because we can’t be left behind. I have my shareholders’ interests to protect – they would tell me, ‘You want to be Gandhi, don’t do it on our money.’” So much for Munnabhai.

I consider myself a middle-of-the-road person: I believe in the potential of the market, but also in an affirmative state that regulates the market vigorously and transparently. I recognise that public policy choices are not black-or-white, and need to balance various views, while always keeping the citizens’ and the nation’s interests in mind. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out the compelling argument for SEZs in India . Their stated benefits are debatable. On the promise of job creation, five lakh jobs is too trivial a target for the incentives being provided – close to 50,000 hectares of subsidised and clean-title land, leaving aside the tax-breaks. These jobs - and more - could surely be created through other, cheaper means. On catalysing economic devel opm ent, there is little credible evidence that SEZs actually make a difference by themselves, unless accompanied by a slew of accompanying actions.

I have tried to educate myself by talking to people, and reading up material related to SEZs. There are some successful examples across the world, and there is apparently far greater understanding today of the conditions to make SEZs more effective – one trend seems to be to make them bigger, with more mixed use – almost like private cities with their own governance environment. Even supporters of SEZs concede, “When evaluating the success of an SEZ, it is important to determine how the resources would have been used in the absence of the zones. Would capital have remained in the country and would employment be created in more productive areas? When there has been a failure to put in place adequate legal and regulatory frameworks, and a trained administration to oversee its correct implementation, the cost of SEZs outweighs the benefits since the benefits such as job creation are short-term and considerable amount of existing revenue is lost through avoidance.” This is from a World Bank site on debate about SEZs.

Shenzhen, arguably among the most “successful” of China ’s SEZs, raises more questions than answers for us. A sampling:

“ The costs to the state for developing Shenzhen will not be recaptured until probably the second decade of the 21st Century. The size of the net loss was projected in 1990 to be US $131 billion by 2003.” (Wu, China’s Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, 1990).

“Early on, manufacturing took on the most important focus. The following few years saw more real estate speculation than industrial devel opm ent. Speculation in the property market has been “little short of anarchic.” (Studwell, Unlocking China : A Key to Investment Regions)

I looked up the list of countries that have SEZs: Brazil , China , Hong Kong, Kazhakstan, Leichtenstein , Monaco , Philipines , Russia , Singapore , Srilanka. I thought of India ’s buzzword in Davos 2006, when we made the big splash – “The world’s fastest growing democracy”, emphasis on democracy. Examine our august SEZ company when it comes to this qualifier: there is not one mature, functioning democracy in that list – with Kazhakstan, we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. So have we reduced democracy to a tagline now?

There is an old proverb – “cross the river by feeling the stones”, meaning do it carefully. As we gingerly tread the path to economic prosperity, our democracy is what is holding us together. We do have a system of checks and balances – however inefficient it may seem to an outsider or a layman. Clearly, there is an urgent national economic imperative especially given our demographics, and what seems like an opportunity to capitalise on the current momentum. But we are also beginning to slowly rip apart into two countries, with the naxalite movement spreading across more than 30% of the districts.
There is an 85 km. barrier fence with check-points that separates Shenzhen SEZ from the rest of Shenzhen municipality. Is this what we want our cities to look like, walled-off economic fortresses? These boundaries will become the contested terrain of conflict between the two Indias , one globalised and competitive, the other left behind, with no tools to participate and only the rage of disaffection. This is besides other distortions like the use of fertile agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, or skewed spatial planning outcomes.

I have a great deal of faith in the sensitivity of our business leaders to know that they are aware of this. But the SEZ concept is a dangerous force that aligns self-interest in a particularly intense manner, and corrodes checks-and-balances, as the earlier statements from those involved in these structures shows.

So, if the executive and legislature have failed us, should we – as we are beginning to do with increasing regularity – turn to the judiciary? If this be so, I hope that an effective case is made, because I am not sure that we can afford the price that SEZs will extract. This runaway train must be stopped.

The Tribal Bill - Let's Face Reality

And recognise that there is a price to pay for 'development'. Says Pankaj Sekhsaria, talking about the criticism of the Tribal Bill:

Thousands of acres of productive land are being acquired to create Special Economic Zones at the cost of thousands of families and millions of existing livelihoods; traditional tribal lands (many which are thickly forested) are being mined and drowned with impunity across the length and breadth of the country; huge infrastructure projects are being created in some of the most sensitive ecological systems and dollar-earning tourism projects are being advocated in lands where traditional communities are being displaced in the name of wildlife conservation. There was an interesting report a couple of years ago of encroachment and tree felling by tribals deep inside the Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Orissa. Investigation revealed that these were people who had been recently displaced by huge mining projects in neighbouring Jharkhand. These, we have to realise, are human beings and cannot be expected to vanish into thin air. They have to go somewhere; they have to do something to ensure their survival and that of their families!

Still tiger vs. tribal?

It has also been argued that the tiger has no votes, the tribal is a huge vote bank and that is why vested interests with short-term political horizons are willing to sacrifice the forests and the tiger. That's true. The tiger has no votes, but incidentally, neither does the huge "capital" (increasingly foreign) that wants to mine the tiger and elephant-rich forests of Niyamgiri, construct a port at Dhamra right in midst of Olive Ridley turtle habitat (both in Orissa), rip apart critical wildlife migratory corridors for coal in the Jharkhand's North Karanpura Valley or ensure fast moving rail and road traffic that has claimed a number of wild elephants in forests across North Bengal. Gujarat Forest Department figures, for instance, reveal that nearly 150 wild animals, including leopards, hyena and neelgai were killed in road accidents between 1998 and 2004 in the Vadodara Forest Circle of the State alone. This is not an isolated case and is happening across the country. An animal killed by a tribal can at least be eaten. Of what use is one that is flattened within minutes between fast moving rubber and rock hard bitumen?

Let's accept the fact that development, speed and GDP growth will come with a price. Let's be honest about it. We've eaten the cake (certainly eating it at the present) and we are also crying that we are losing it. We, obviously, cannot have both things at the same time. What's worse, however, is we want to pass the responsibility of what is happening on to somebody else — the tribal, the tiger, the elephant... those that don't really have a voice, have never had a voice.

A major criticism of the Tribal Bill is that once the people get ownership of the land, there will be a virtual stampede to sell it to the highest bidder and/or a virtual carnage in which the forests are decimated. As I'd noted here, it is not at all clear that the situation will be worse than it is now, when the forest department/government owns the land. The above article gives a lot of instances to prove the point, from someone who seems to be in a position to know. As did a serendipitous discovery of a dysfunctional website.

Maybe we really should, as the above writer suggests, realize that development has its side-effects and get used to losing our forests, instead of blaming tribals.

Leadership

The PM provides it at least in this instance (from The Hindu):

He made it clear that there was no question of his Government approaching terror as a phenomenon linked to any particular community: when there was terrorism in Punjab, it did not mean the Sikh community had a propensity to it; likewise, the Tamil community could not be held suspect because of the implication of the LTTE in terrorist crimes.

I read somewhere that a leader thinks differently. Mr Singh certainly does that here.

The editorial piece also talks about "...the paranoid attitudes and political styles towards Muslims — encountered in several western countries". Well, that's an interesting story, of how

The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists.

It is well told here.

In Which I Discover A New Racial Slur

And a site which documents all of them. The slur is 'macaca' and it was used, not that it is really important, by a US politician against an Indian. The video is here. The story is here and here.

Dictionary updates

Time to clean up the dictionary. The word "moral" has to be expunged. It is meaningless. Read this and see this. Maybe the links aren't needed at all. The very fact that a leader who launched an entirely unjustified war and killed thousands of civilians including innocent children is still at large is enough to justify the clean-up. And of course we from India don't need to go so far at all. All we need to do is reflect on the plight of the poor kids in our own country. What a stupid state for the world to be in.

Election Fraud

In the US? Well read this written by Robert Kennedy, an US senator. Via Kung Fu Monkey. An excerpt:

After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's [i.e., George W Bush's Republican] party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004(12) -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.(13) (See Ohio's Missing Votes) In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.(14) And that doesn?t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.(15)

Oh, the great democracies of the world.

A Solution

To the reservation issue is proposed in The Hindu. This is a follow-up to the column I'd mentioned in my previous post. Sounds reasonable.

Merit

Count on The Hindu to sober things down a bit:

... if we understand merit as sheer innate ability, it is difficult to explain why it should seem to be an upper caste monopoly. Whatever people may believe privately, it is now beyond doubt that arguments for the genetic or natural inferiority of social groups are unacceptable. If so, how is it that, roughly speaking, one quarter of our population supplies three quarters of our elite professionals? The explanation has to lie in the social mechanisms through which innate ability is translated into certifiable skill and encashable competence. This points to intended or unintended systemic exclusions in the educational system, and to inequalities in the background resources that education presupposes.

It is their confidence in having monopolised the educational system and its prerequisites that sustains the upper caste demand to consider only merit and not caste. If educational opportunities were truly equalised, the upper castes' share in professional education would be roughly in proportion to their population share, that is, between one fourth and one third. This would not only be roughly one third of their present strength in higher education; it would also be much less than the 50 per cent share they are assured of even after implementation of OBC reservations!

Valuing Family

Above others. Our politicians do it. Apparently other politicians do it too. The Vice-President of the US, too, in fact.

The Flat Worlder

On Iraq and the decisive moment/turning point in that situation - for him that moment is always six months away! Via Atrios.

Scientific Rigging

Said some. Way back.

If democracy is to survive, it has to get rid of the menace of scientific rigging in West Bengal because of which the State is suffering under the Marxist yoke for more than 28 years.

The term scientific rigging was first used by former chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan as he too failed to conduct free and fair elections in the State. Bureaucracy and the police in West Bengal are totally under the thumb of CPM. Its control and command system works in accordance with the wishes of party bosses, leaving the Opposition in pitiable helplessness. For the last three Assembly and Panchayat elections, the entire Opposition in West Bengal has been crying foul.

The Telegraph gloats. Now:

The psephologists too have been sure that some hanky-panky must be involved, otherwise the results could not have been so monotonously the same. Ponderous editorials in newspapers have expressed similar concerns.

The major initiative taken by the Election Commission this year with regard to the assembly polls in West Bengal is obviously in response to this collective disquiet. It took altogether unprecedented measures to improve surveillance over the poll process. Voting was staggered over five widely-dispersed dates. Paramilitary personnel were imported from the rest of the country. There was a massive mobilization of observers at different levels, drawn from the pool of serving government officials all over the country. The vigil enforced during the campaign and on the polling dates deserves to be described as belonging to the Z-category.

And yet, confound it all, the Left Front has romped home victorious for the seventh time in succession, even as everybody, including the rabble of opposition parties, agrees that the elections have been scrupulously free and fair. For the moment, along with the opposition parties, the psephologists as well as leader writers are stunned into silence.