Rasheeda Bhagat turns a nice phrase:
Well done!As the BJP continued its attacks on the CBI and its acts of commission and omission, the investigating agency got a respite on Monday with the Gujarat police officer Mr N.K. Amin, one of the main accused in the encounter, offering to turn approver. This should worry the BJP, because when a police officer sings, one never knows what his refrain will be.
Alok Ray, former professor of economics at IIM, Calcutta, writes in DH: Where is inclusiveness?. He notes India's growth is not all that inclusive. We lag behind in adult literacy, life expectancy, malnutrition, number of people below the international poverty line, to take just a few indicators. Job growth seems to have slowed down post-liberalisation:
In terms of equality we seem to be doing well, which is quite surprising. It does look like inequality is rising (see the graph in this wikipedia article). And then there is this factoid: The total value of the assets of the country's five billionaires equalled those of the bottom 300 million people (link). C P Chandrasekhar sums it up concisely, as he writes about a well-ignored recent study of Indian poverty, in The Hindu:One area of major concern is that post-liberalisation, job creation which is a major mechanism of inclusion of more people in economic prosperity, has been slowing down. Employment growth fell sharply in the post-reform years, from 2.6 per cent per annum over 1983-1993 to 1.2 per cent over 1993-2000.
The fall in employment growth rate was specially concentrated in organised sectors (particularly in the public sector). This trend has been reversed to some extent as the latest available National Sample Survey (NSS) data show employment growth during the period 2000-05 was 2.7 per cent per annum. But, then again, the growth in jobs has been mostly concentrated (about 87 per cent) in the unorganised sector.
Finally, it has been known that once we went beyond pure income measures of poverty and looked at other indicators of deprivation, not only was the incidence of deprivation substantial in terms of indicators varying from literacy to child malnutrition, but the progress in alleviating certain forms of deprivation had slowed during the high growth years. The problem is not just that India has significantly underperformed when addressing poverty and deprivation over 60-plus years of post-Independence development, but that progress has slowed in precisely those years when the surpluses available to tackle this problem has increased substantially. The problem is not inadequate growth, but one of institutional inadequacy. It is also one of an increasing reluctance of the elite to address those inadequacies and, therefore, of the failure of what is undisputedly one of the most remarkable experiments with parliamentary democracy.Relatedly : Inclusive Growth, Lip Service Only
I posted How Rigged Is The Indian Stock Market? back in June. Relatedly, though not on insider trading/front-running as that post was, is this bit of advice from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs: 'Beware of investment advice on TV'. An excerpt:
Not giving too much of credence to 'free' advice is ok, even though that is what our 'business' channels are filled with the entire day. But we can't even trust the company accounts?! On what basis does one actually make investment decisions? Is this one more way to drive money to mutual funds etc?"Beware of the media, especially the stock-specific advice on electronic media. Too many saints in the capital market offering free advice!.. In reality, many of these advisors have vested interests," the guide said....
Do not blindly take decisions based on accounts just because these are audited, the guide cautions, "high incidence of fraudulent accounts and mis-advertising of financial results. Satyam case is a wake-up call."
“They” provide us a running commentary from morning till late evening. “The morning session is crucial,” they say. And if you thought that was a cricket commentator talking about the first hour of play, you are mistaken.
These are market commentators. “The middle session is crucial” and subsequently “the final hour of trade is crucial.” Repeated use of the word “crucial” is aimed at turning on the viewer and making him believe that something big is happening.
This live relay is further followed by expert analysis till late into the night. If you thought “they” were merely commentators, you are possibly wrong. “They” have a deeper and a far more complex agenda — of influencing the minds of the viewers.
Talking up share prices or talking them down is part of the strategy of these “anchor investors”. Thanks to the silence of the market regulator, SEBI, all these have now come to be characterised as acceptable.
Addressing a press conference here after a meeting of the Southern Chief Ministers, the Finance Minister said the assessment of inflation is dependent on what is taken as a base. The inflation during the year is about 5.5 per cent. While the food inflation was coming down, the recent fuel price hike has added to this.Does Pranabda have an ace up his sleeve? Looks like it, for close to the above article, we have this: New inflation index likely next month: DIPP Secretary.
The Government is set to introduce a new inflation index, which would add around 250 more items, from next month.By far the best way to fix inflation! Will we see that inflation after all is not so high and that the impact on the people is minimal by August then? Can't wait to find out.
“We are ready with the new index now. Most probably from next month we will start,” said Mr R P. Singh, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
The present monthly inflation measurement based on the wholesale price index has 435 commodities but this figure would go up to 670 under the new index. The base year of the new index would also be changed from 1993-94 to 2004-05. The new index is expected to give a more realistic picture of the price rise and its impact on people.
There can be nothing more disappointing. After 63 years of Independence, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has also expressed its helplessness in feeding the country’s hungry.What about China, they aren't doing too well are they?
The hungry must live in hunger. That’s the clear verdict. For a country which has the largest population of hungry in the world, and given that half of all children in India is under-nourished according to the National Family Health Survey III (2005-06), I was expecting Sonia Gandhi to spell out a time-bound programme to make hunger history. But from what we read in newspapers, the NAC recommendations will not make any significant difference to the life of millions of hungry and malnourished.
Let us look at China. Its population is approximately 200 million more than that of India. Against India’s foodgrain production of 230 million tonnes, China produces 500 million tonnes of foodgrains. Even with more than double food production, it imports huge quantities every year to meet the domestic needs. Unlike India, which exports foodgrains and other agricultural commodities by keeping its own people hungry, China has emerged as a major importer of food and agricultural products primarily to feed its teeming millions.Sad.
In India, the average per capita availability of food grains is less than 500 gm a day. On the other hand, China provides six times more at 3 kg per day.
For the past 70 years, four families of the Bhangi community, who work as night soil workers, have been living in huts built on land belonging to the Savanur Town Municipal Council (TMC).At a meeting some time ago, the TMC decided to evict the families and build a commercial complex in its place. Ever since, the TMC has employed various devious ways to force the families out of their homes.
Starting with an oral directive, the TMC has resorted to cutting water connection to the families, dumping waste in front of their homes, barging into their homes, insulting their women and threatening them.
Instead of these devious ways, why not use the most straightfoward way to evict them: give them an alternative place to stay? As the article asks:
And the other question is: Why, when manual scavenging is constitutionally illegal in India, are people still being employed to do it? Don't they deserve better?What can be said of a system that forces a community to inflict upon themselves the lowest form of humiliation, just so they are allowed to live in their own homes?
Interesting timeline of pronouncements on inflation, from Business Line:
We can safely say that it is completely under control. Nothing to worry!
There's a bit more at the link.From a land of elephants, poverty and beggars, a shiny new image of India emerged in the West. Farmers drinking pesticide, 800 million or so on less than two dollars a day, increasing food prices and state-corporate grabs for land and minerals — that was all conveniently brushed aside. It didn’t fit the agenda of India as the new chic.
A similar process was also occurring in the UK. The spit and polish was applied in an attempt to gloss over those parts that were not shining. It started a little earlier there — in 1997 to be precise, when Tony Blair and New Labour came to power.
Tony was hip, Tony was cool. He was tuned in and turned on to the meaningless ‘cool Britannia’ soundbite manufactured by the media at that time. Brits were told that it was cool to be British and to bask in their achievements in music, industry and youthful endeavour.
Suddenly, from a country still reeling from the destruction of manufacturing industry, coupled with rising crime and community erosion, the UK was transformed overnight to a ‘can-do’ place of individual endeavour. Whatever happened to the permanent class of wageless labour and the legacy of 11years of Thatcherite rule?
Children growing up in the UK were on the road to suffering greater deprivation, worse relationships with their parents and exposure to more risks from alcohol, drugs and unsafe sex than those in any other wealthy country in the world. That too was neatly brushed aside by the spin doctors and a compliant mainstream media.In both the UK and India, it was the creamy layer that was shining. Millionaires and billionaires were on the increase. Even over the last year, in a period of crisis and recession, the richest portion of UK society increased its wealth by around $120 billion — that’s almost half the public debt that ordinary working people are having to pay for via public sector cutbacks.
So when prime minister Cameron and the rich bankers and financiers who hold the key positions in his government tell us in the UK that we are all in it (the hardships) together, some of us are a heck of a lot more ‘in it’ than others.A new index for poverty now indicates that eight Indian states account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African countries combined. According to this measure, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have 421 million poor people. This is more than the 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.
The Patna High Court on Thursday asked the CBI to investigate the ‘fraudulent withdrawal’ of Rs 11,412 crore from the State exchequer, in which Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Health Minister Nand Kishore Yadav and 44 others have been named accused....The CBI probe ordered today by the High Court is a grim reminder of the Rs 950-cr fodder scam in which the Patna High Court had asked the CBI in 1996 to investigate the case involving the then chief minister Lalu Prasad and others.Politics or is it for real?
These 18 insurance companies had so far been providing cashless services at over 3,000 hospitals pan-India. But a recent study carried out by the TPAs found that only 350 of them or roughly 11% were consuming more than 80% of the total claims.
It was also found that customers were overcharged for each hospitalization, irrespective of the treatment, and were left with very little funds for their next treatment.
Related is this : Union fears nexus between BSNL officers, telcos; seeks probe. The famous revolving-door problem.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's employees' union has sought a probe into the possibility of a nexus between some officers with private telecom operators to stall the PSU's roll-out plans. This comes after the Government last month hauled up two former BSNL officers for taking up a job with a private telecom company post-retirement without taking approvals.
In a letter to the Cabinet Secretary, the Sanchar Nigam Executive Association (SNEA) said that one of the main reasons for the present state of serious crisis in BSNL is that a good number of officers belonging to top level management and closely involved in taking strategic and critical policy decisions have been on the pay rolls of service providers and vendors. “The modus operandi of such an unholy and unscrupulous nexus is carefully calibrated and the mechanism of its detection is so feeble that hardly anyone is brought to book. But, the fact of the matter remains that a large numbers of officers of top management of BSNL, particularly at the board/CGM level, develop a very close nexus with service providers, while in active job, and, immediately, after their retirement, joins them as consultants,” said Mr G.L. Jogi, General Secretary, SNEA.
Recently, the Government issued an order against Mr Satya Pal Kalsi, former Chief General Manager, BSNL (UP east) and Mr Shabbir Ahmed, former Director BSNL, for undertaking commercial employment with Reliance post their retirement in 2003 without obtaining permission.
She ends up with some advise:
A better way to live, I believe, is to stop searching outside of the self for someone who can “make” you happy. Happiness, satisfaction, contentment — call it what you will — isn't something you'll find “out there.” Instead, it's something that you'll create when you decide to work with what you already have. Of course, there will be circumstances in which you will have tried everything you can think of, and you've done so repeatedly, and still things aren't working out. But in the vast majority of cases, a change of attitude is all that would be necessary to alleviate the great weight of dissatisfaction so many of us feel. The key to contentment has nothing to do with what you do or don't have. It's all about what you decide to do with what is already yours.
Bangalore: The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) plans to get tough with building owners who have violated the building bylaws and constructed their structures.On Friday: Bills passed sans debate:Following a directive from the High Court of Karnataka on June 24, BBMP Commissioner Siddaiah recently issued circular warning officials who have failed to check unauthorised construction and bylaw violations of stringent action.
Bangalore, July 15, DHNS: The State’s lawmakers passed as many as nine pieces of legislation, including the Sakrama Bill, which would facilitate regularising unauthorised construction and sites, and the controversial bill on banning cow slaughter, in the two Houses of the Legislature here on Thursday.The ball now is in the Governor's court. He's returned the Akrama-Sakrama bill thrice before this. Let's see what he does now. As for the implications of the bill, they are clear:
On the topic of breaking the law with impunity, the second councillor to be caught taking bribes is unfazed: Trapped corporator refuses to resign:“It sends a wrong message to the people that you can violate law with impunity as there is no punishment. It is a reward to the law-breakers and punishes those who rely on the system and build their houses as per law,” he said.
People are already losing faith in the system and law and such a step would further discourage them, Santosh Hedge felt.
He opined that there should have been a meaningful discussion in the House.An office bearer of Civic Bangalore, Kathyayini Chamaraj said, “We are opposed to any kind of regularisation. It penalises law-abiding people and rewards the people who broke the law. You happily violate law and get it regularised. The whole ethics of governance is turned on its head. Its a sign of the time, evil triumph over truth.”
“Why should I resign? Have the ‘gani dhanis’ (mining lords) and Sampangi resigned from the Assembly? Ask them first to resign, I will surely follow them,” Govindaraju remarked.Sampangi was the first councillor to be caught.
Traffic engineering expert M.N. Sreehari points out that Namma Metro can decongest city roads only by just 25 per cent, and that too along its corridor. Only when this corridor is networked with other modes of public transport can visible change occur on Bangalore's roads, Prof. Sreehari said.25% of traffic along its corridor. And the corridor is pretty narrow.
Prof. Sreehari pointed out that Namma Metro Phase 1 and Phase 2 will not be sufficient to cater to the growing demand for public transport in Bangalore. Along with other modes, more Metro lines should criss-cross the city as early as possible to reduce the pressure on roads.
Bangalore city is looking for a mass transportation system that can claim to be swift, ease pollution and congestion. The best answer to the city's various traffic woes appears to be the Metro Rail.ToI omitted the fact that the London Metro is actually called 'London Underground'.The London Metro, which spans the entire city, connects all important spots and even the airport. But travel is comfortable and takes just a few minutes, enhancing the quality of life. A majority live in the suburbs,where housing is inexpensive. For them, the Metro is the lifeline. Driving through London takes hours, which is also true of Paris, New York, Washington and other major cities, point out experts.
The department of performance management has created a pool of about 30 experts drawn from different fields and recently conducted a workshop for them on their functions. These experts are available for the ministries, depending on their area of work, for consultation. The facilitators include eminent professors from the Indian Institutes of Management, Ahmedabad and Bangalore and other reputable Indian consultants working abroad.More here.The pool was drawn up by Prajapati Trivedi, secretary, department of performance evaluation, cabinet secretariat and Arun Meira, member, Planning Commission.Amongst the facilitators include A Arindam Bhattacharya, managing director of Boston Consulting Group, business strategy advisor Ramesh C Jain, strategy expert Shankar Venkateshan and Jagdeep Chhokar, former dean and director-in charge of IIM, Ahm-edabad.
A commission setup to 'review the status of the unorganised/informal sector in India' submits its report. The report paints a bleak picture of the current situation - "77% of the population in 2004-05 had to make do, on an average, with no more than Rs 20 perday per capita" - and makes some recommendations. And the commission winds up after submitting the report. In April 2009. End of story.
Inclusive growth indeed. Link to EPW article on it: India's Social Question in a State of Denial (PDF). The actual report is here (PDF).
The CM admits what everyone already knew: CM admits illegal mining in State. But why does he retain some of the responsible mining kingpins in his cabinet? That is the question that he should be answering. While we wait for that, he also explains how the looting happened: How 30 million tonnes of iron ore was looted from State. Yawn. I think we knew that too:
Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa on Friday told the Legislative Assembly that illegal iron ore export had been going on for the last seven years and a whopping 30 million tonnes of ore had been illegally exported from the State.He also provides details on the amount of illegal ore exported:
In his 21-page reply to a weeklong debate on the resignation of the Karnataka Lokayukta and illegal mining in the State, Mr. Yeddyurappa said political parties that formed governments had given mining permits to their party men and relatives and were allowed to “loot” the ore illegally.
He said illegal export of iron ore was 20,49,961 tonnes in 2003-04; 52,39,528 tonnes in 2004-05; 21,71,492 tonnes in 2005-06; 47,44,645 tonnes in 2006-07; 57,61,048 tonnes in 2007-08; 33,96,126 tonnes in 2008-09 and 71,27,937 tonnes in 2009-10.Interesting that the all time high was achieved under the BJP government. Yet, only the small fry will get caught and the bigshots will be protected: I got only half of what I wanted: Santosh Hegde.
This is not likely to come cheap. Tentative calculations suggest that a comprehensive Food Security Act may cost something like one lakh crore rupees a year. This may sound like a mind-boggling price tag, but it is not. For one thing, in a country where half the children are undernourished, there is no quick fix — any serious attempt to deal with mass undernourishment is bound to be expensive. For another, one lakh crore rupees is just about 1.5 per cent of India's Gross Domestic Product. Is that an excessive price to pay to protect everyone from hunger?
Incidentally, India already spends more than that sum on things that are rather trivial compared with the right to food. I am not just thinking of military expenditure, which could do with some pruning, especially when it is being used also for internal repression. The fertilizer subsidy is in the range of one lakh crore rupees a year, with doubtful social benefits, not to speak of the environmental damage. And the annual “revenue foregone” on account of tax exemptions is more than five lakh crore rupees, according to the Finance Minister's own “Foregone Revenue Statement.” This includes about Rs. 80,000 crore of corporate income tax foregone (some of it “on account of contributions to political parties”) and nearly Rs. 40,000 crore of foregone customs duties on “vegetables, fruits, cereals and edible oils.”
Sometime ago, a state BJP leader had bemoaned the fact that the party workers were of the view that the BJP had ceased to be a party with a difference: Erasing the difference.
Now, the parent organisation bemoans the same fact: BJP is no different: RSS.
“The dream of Rama Rajya is crumbling. We (in the RSS) are pained that our party could not show the difference. The Chief Minster (B.S. Yeddyurappa) is in a dilemma. Money and corruption have taken deep root in the party, even among sections of the core group which comes from the RSS,” [RSS leader M.B. Puranik] said.
No sooner had the tears dried up than Yeddyurappa said he was “prepared to write out in his blood” that his government would not betray the trust of the people, especially the farmers whose land he sought to usher in greater investments in the infrastructure sector.
He repeatedly reminded the audience that he was a farmer’s son and would never ignore the welfare of the farming community. “Farmers do not get two meals even after working hard through the day. I have made it compulsory the rendering of Raitha Geete, penned by Kuvempu, during all programmes,” he said.
The police on Sunday evening brutally caned farmers at Hemmigepura near here and even thrashed one farmer with an iron rod when they were agitating against the arrest of their leaders near the Chief Minister's home office, ‘Krishna', in the city for protesting against keeping them out of a crucial meeting related to the controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project....
The police, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Devaraj, resorted to merciless caning. The video footage captured by a private television channel showed an agitator collapsing soon after he was assaulted by a senior police officer with the iron rod.
The call to tighten the norms relating to personal transactions comes in the wake of the SEBI penalising an employee of HDFC AMC for tipping off his close associates about the substantial buying and selling pattern of the AMC so that they could place their orders ahead of the AMC. These associates could square off their positions within the same trading session even as the AMC's orders were coming, thereby making huge profits.In 2007, a dealer from UTI securities was found guilty of customised front-running in the Ballarpur Industries stock in collusion with employees of two other brokerages and a select group of clients.
...
The market is rife with cases of front-running thanks to the magnitude of inside information that participants possess and wish to cash-in on.
Not very surprised. I know inside tips emanate outwards from Mumbai. Just learnt last night from my friendly adviser that a stock recommended by her was a heavily manipulated one and that was the reason she suggested it to me :-)
The question, then, is how Trinamool managed to break the Left's winning streak in West Bengal. Surely, the principal reason is the growing disenchantment of the voter with the Left, and a definitive turning point was the manner in which Didi took up the cause of the farmers and the peasants who were set to lose their land in both Singur and Nandigram, to make way for industrial projects.As she took on Mr Ratan Tata's Nano project in Singur, and eventually forced its exit to Sanand, Gujarat, the elite and educated Indians, as well as mainstream media, were clearly on the side of India's most admired and trusted corporate icon that Mr Tata certainly is. Some pretty unsavoury stuff was written about how Mamata was stalling the industrial development of West Bengal.
But then came Nandigram, and we saw the unleashing of ugly violence on the protestors who refused to part with the land which either belonged to them or over which they had enjoyed rights for several years. With charges of the Left workers getting into the act, along with the police, to “punish” the protestors, beat up the TMC workers supporting them, and wreak vengeance and violence on the women and children, it no longer seemed right to endorse the government's stand.
After Nandigram, Mamata clearly emerged the definitive political leader who had the spunk to take up the cause of the deprived and the downtrodden, even as the Left leaders continued to be arrogant and indifferent to the real public mood. Suddenly the leader sans frills, who lives an austere lifestyle in a single-storeyed house in Kolkata — here is she as different from Mayawati and Jayalalithaa as cheese from chalk — had become the darling of the Bengali masses and intellectuals alike.
The ongoing disaster of the petroleum volcano caused by blowout of the BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should provide a sobering object lesson. Thinking that does not consider high-consequence but low-probability events borders on folly. BP also considered an uncontrolled blowout to be very low probability. As it turns out, BP, as one of the world's largest corporations, can provide the tens of billions of dollars of damages. But no nuclear company in the United States has the financial muscle to compensate a significant fraction of the maximum officially estimated damages.Makes sense.
The irony is that even as it has pushed the regime of legal channelling on the rest of the world, the U.S. system of economic channelling of liability allows tort claims as well as an unrestricted right of recourse for the operator. That is how, for example, Metropolitan Edison, the operator of the Three Mile Island reactor, sued its supplier, Babcock & Wilcox, after the 1979 accident.What is it that makes the U.S. so hypocritical?
In a recent article, Evelyne Ameye has confronted the flawed logic of channelling, making a safety-cum-engineering argument in favour of suppliers remaining liable for accidents their products may cause. (“Channelling of nuclear third party liability towards the operator,” European Energy and Environmental Law Review, 2010). This can be done in two ways. Liability for an accident can still be channelled on to the operator but his right of recourse in the event of supplier negligence is left unrestricted. The Russian Federal Act on Atomic Energy, for example, does not impose a limit upon the operator's right of recourse. (Alexander Matveev, “The Russian approach to nuclear liability,” International Journal of Nuclear Law, 2006). South Korea's liability legislation also allows operators to recover damages from suppliers in the event of negligence. A second way would be to allow victims to sue suppliers for fault-liability under tort law so as to win damages over and above what the operator pays through strict liability. Thus Germany, a party to the Vienna Convention on nuclear liability, entered a reservation stressing its right, under national law, to hold persons other than the operator liable for nuclear damage. Besides, several conventions on environmental damage — such as the 2003 Kiev Protocol on industrial accidents in transboundary waters — now explicitly provide for strict as well as fault-liability to run side by side.
Speaking at a press conference here Rajan Bharti Mittal, President of the FICCI, said, “It is a little unfortunate that when we have the first Indo-U.S. strategic dialogue on the one side, and then you have, with your own strategic partner you defined, dual technology denials, or entities which are on a list or watched.”Mr. Mittal added that while the U.S. was, on the one hand, discussing collaboration on space with India, on the other it was preventing the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from using U.S. space technology by keeping it on the Entities List.
Also, he said, “While you talk about the most [joint] defence exercises being done between India and the U.S. … you [however] have the Defence Research and Development Organisation… on their banned list.”
Thus there was a need to look at the Indo-U.S. strategic relationship, “in a very different way,” he said.
In yet another letter to the Indian Ambassador after the meeting of the Forum on September 14 2005, Mr. Liveris said “to facilitate the Indan-U.S. strategic partnership and to help chart a path forward, the following proposal is designed to help resolve a specific legacy legal issue — the Bhopal matter.”Mr. Liveris in the letter goes on to outline as the first step of the proposal, “The GoI will implement a consistent, government-wide position that does not promote continued GoI litigation efforts against non-Indian companies over the Bhopal tragedy.” He added that “identified companies” should be invited to discuss their views directly with the relevant ministries of the GoI at the request of the latter. Linking this request for a softer approach to foreign companies facing liabilities to the broader issue of U.S.-India business ties, Mr. Liveris said, “One of the top areas cited as a barrier to mutual business success was legacy legal issues within India. Several companies face such issues, and all agree that legal matters which are unpredictable and changeable are a barrier for any company to feel certainty in the investment climate.”
NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., which is already reeling under severe financial crisis, is being forced to pay hiked spectrum charges, while private mobile companies have been given temporary exemption.
BSNL, which is likely to report loss for the first time in its history for the last fiscal (2009-10), will have to bear financial implications worth over Rs.700-800 crore every year. All pleas by BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Kuldeep Goyal to Telecom Secretary P.J. Thomas, seeking exemption from paying hiked spectrum usage charges till the matter is finally settled has so far gone unheard.
In February, the Department of Telecom (DoT) decided to hike the spectrum usage charges for all mobile players (GSM and CDMA) as per the spectrum being held by them. The hike was in the range of 1-2 per cent and supposed to come into force from April 1.
However, private players immediately moved the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT). It stayed the order and asked the DoT to continue taking the existing charges till the mater is resolved. All the companies that approached the TDSAT got the relief; but being a government-owned firm, BSNL did not approach the TDSAT. Since then, BSNL has been paying more spectrum usage charges.
Is the aim to ruin BSNL? No points for guessing who will benefit the most from that: the private players.Telecom operators are required to pay between 6 and 10 per cent of their annual revenues to the Government as licence fees. However, private operators pay the revenue share only on income earned from telecom services based on a judgment given by the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT). But since BSNL was not part of the petition filed by the private players it is continuing to pay licence fee on the total revenue, including income from non-telecom activities.
In a letter to DoT, Mr Kuldeep Goyal, Chairman, BSNL, said, “It transpires that private operators are now paying the licence fee on the basis of the TDSAT judgment while BSNL has been instructed to pay licence fee without taking the benefit of the TDSAT judgment. I would request you that BSNL may be permitted to account for the payments of licence fee on the basis of TDSAT judgment.”
He pointed out that in the wake of the Bhopal gas disaster when many affected people and voluntary organisations approached the court of law, the government woke up to the situation and at the intervention of the courts, tried to enforce measures for the treatment of effluents before discharging them in the public places.
But under pressure from the industries, the “polluter pays” theory was given the go-by and in most of the cases the industrial units discharging pollutants were made to pay only 20 per cent of the cost with the remaining 80 per cent coming from the general tax payers, the State and Central government funds and the financial institutions.
The industrial houses did not even bother to maintain the treatment plants or expand its capacity when the load increased. The GPCB kept on issuing notices, but no one ever bothered about violation of its norms and the Board remained a silent spectator doing nothing to make the industrial houses bend.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment.
[The NY Times ]research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways.
... stretched resources [at the regulators] are only part of the reason polluters escape punishment. The Times’s investigation shows that in West Virginia and other states, powerful industries have often successfully lobbied to undermine effective regulation.
Even for Washington, the revolving door between government and Wall Street spins at a dizzying pace. More than 1,400 former members of Congress, Capitol Hill staffers or federal employees registered as lobbyists on behalf of the financial services sector since the start of 2009, according to an exhaustive new study issued Thursday.But of course the lobbyists will be devoted to doing what is right for the people. To think otherwise is unwarranted.
...
"Companies pay a premium for lobbyists who've spun through the revolving door because it can be a small price to pay relative to the huge payoff if they can shape legislation," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "These lobbyists tap insider knowledge and personal relationships, knowing that their old friends and former co-workers won't want to let them down."
It is not about development. It is about rights. This government has to understand — how is it that land ceiling was implemented in Kerala? Why is there no Maoist movement there? You know what happened there? Under EMS Namboodiripad, the law was so strong that anyone who was a tenant farmer for 12 years, the ownership of the land passed to him without compensation to the owner. We are now in 2010, but in most parts of the country, we are behaving as though we are in 1610 or something. Do you know in Australia and the US now, they say that if any minerals or oil is found in the Reservation areas, that resource belongs to the Aborigines and Native Americans. In India also, the first thing that should be declared is that if minerals are found in the forest, it belongs to the people of that forest. The MOUs should be signed by all the people of that village with that company. After that, give them legal guidance and see that the profit comes to their accounts. Is the government in Delhi prepared to do that? Why should they? Every MOU has a Swiss Bank account attached.Will he be invited on TV shows? Unlikely. All they seem to want is an eye for an eye, bullet for bullet and strafing the forests from the air. But the Maoists/Naxals don't seem to be in it for the money and are hence more dangerous. And the tribals have nothing to lose and all to gain.
Twenty-six years after thousands of people died in a cloud of toxic gas in the world’s worst industrial disaster, tragedy struck Bhopal a second time on Monday when a court here sentenced eight persons to relatively light punishment, including fine, and then granted them bail.A lawyer weighs in, in The Hindu:
Eminent lawyer K.T.S. Tulsi agreed with the activists, saying that the investigating agencies as well as prosecutors “mishandled” the case. “It is the sheer incompetence of investigators as well as prosecutors. They must share the blame. In a trial like this, the judges ought to have made up the deficiency, directed further investigation and ought not to have become merely recording machines.”“In every case, where rich and powerful are involved, there is an attempt to cover-up. The question is why did it happen so conveniently? Why was the press not so vigilant?” he said, adding that justice had not been done in this case.
“It is the obligation of the judiciary that people get justice. Unfortunately, in this case they have not got justice.”
According to its own estimates, over 77 per cent of Indians lived on an expenditure of Rs 20 or below per capita per day, certainly higher than the official Below the Poverty Line estimate of Rs 12 but not much better.An interesting thought:
Statistically, it could be claimed that the number of BPL families in extreme poverty had declined but as the committee pointed out, that still left a large section, 77 per cent, “poor and vulnerable”.
In the words of the committee, “Most of the population of this group were also either illiterate or without even primary education, and also suffer from malnutrition.
These groups emerge as a sort of a coalition of socially discriminated, educationally deprived and economically destitute, whereas less than one fourth of our population only was enjoying a high rate of growth or their purchasing power.”
“Europeans believe that Indian leaders in politics and business are so blissfully blinded by the new, sometimes, ill-gotten wealth … that they are living in defiance, insolence and denial to comprehend that the day will come, sooner than later, when the have-nots would hit the streets…In a way, it has already started with the monstrous and grotesque acts of Maoists.Hope someone is putting one and one together and coming up with the right answer.
The drumbeats of these rebellions are going to get louder and louder (leading) to a revolution …And when that occurs, not one political turn coat will escape being lynched”.
"It's been discussed among players in the IPL - more wondering whether it goes on. There's a strong thought that we'd be naive to think it's not happening, because it's a pretty easy target. There's a lot of accessibility to players and it's early in its governance," Gilchrist, who is here to play for county side Middlesex, said.Of course, the one of the 'players who have been approached' is a English county cricketer who was approached by an Indian businessman. Link here.
The retired wicketkeeper-batsman said corruption in cricket can only be stopped by heightened vigilance."I've been made more aware of it since getting here, seeing some of those comments from players who have been approached," Gilchrist told 'The Daily Telegraph'.
It was nearly eight months ago in the first week of October last year that unprecedented rains and floods ravaged over 1,500 villages in 14 districts of north Karnataka. Raichur, Bellary, Bijapur, Koppal and Bagalkot were among the worst hit and nearly 2 lakh families were rendered homeless.I would have thought the floods would have been a showcase for the BJP to put its "efficiency" on full display. Apparently not.
Around the same time, the Yeddyurappa government was also in turmoil as, unmindful of the people’s suffering on such a large scale, the Reddy brothers had raised a banner of revolt and spirited away about 40 MLAs to Hyderabad and created a deep political crisis for the chief minister.
The US has said that it would collaborate with India in evolving a National Broadband Plan.“We have initiated talks through the ICT joint working group last week in New Delhi. We have fixed a time-bound schedule to discuss things. The two sides will soon identify points of contacts for one-to-one interactions,” Mr Philip L. Verveer, Ambassador (US Coordinator for International Communication and Information Policy), said.
So sweet of them. Of course, if it results in a few dollars flowing to their business, nothing like it:
The [ICT] group comprised top Government executives and representatives from businesses.
An official probe by the US Senate found “substantial and persuasive evidence” that non-commercial traders pushed up futures prices, disrupted convergence between futures and cash prices and increased costs for farmers, the grain industry and consumers.And:
A study by Christopher Gilbert (‘Speculative influences on commodity futures 2006-08', UNCTAD Discussion Paper No 197, Geneva) has found that index traders amplified price volatility to the extent of 30 per cent in oil and metals prices and around 15 per cent in foodgrains prices.
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil — and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general’s report to be released this week.(via Atrios).
The report, which describes inappropriate behavior by the staff at the Minerals Management Service from 2005 to 2007, also found that inspectors had accepted meals, tickets to sporting events and gifts from at least one oil company while they were overseeing the industry.
A team of top US transportation experts along with officials from Boeing is set to join Indian aviation authorities in probing the Air India Express flight crash in Mangalore that killed 158 people.According to sources, the team,which will assist Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in investigation into Saturday's plane crash, is scheduled to reach Mangalore on Tuesday morning.They're coming as the result of a request from India.
I would like the readers whose passions are running high in the wake of Dantewada II to go through Chapter IV of a 2009 draft report authored by Sub Group IV of the Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms, set up by the Union Ministry of Rural Development, besides offering their suggestions to wipe out the Maoists. While addressing the question of large-scale acquisition of tribal lands in the mineral-rich area, the Report talks of the forcible evacuation of entire villages and herding the populace into camps, from which those who escape are branded as Maoists and wiped out. The Salwa Judum, which organised the evacuation, according to the report, was “created and encouraged by the [State] government and supported with the firepower and organisation of the central forces.”The report is here. An article from Outlook quotes a small paragraph:S.V. Rajadurai,
Kotagiri
This open, declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever.... Tata Steel and Essar Steel...wanted seven villages or thereabouts...to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India. (After) initial resistance from the tribals...the state withdrew its plans. A new approach was necessary.... (It) came about with the Salwa Judum...headed by the Murias, some of them erstwhile (Maoist) cadres. Behind them are traders, contractors and miners.... The first financiers of the Salwa Judum were Tata and Essar...640 villages...were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. (Some) 3,50,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district, are displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed and their youth maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and managed by the Salwa Judum...640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder. The latest information being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines.”The Outlook reporter calls it 'devastatingly frank'. That it is without a doubt, though it's from a committee set up by the government and not by a group of some wild-eyed Maoist-sympathisers.
A Home Ministry circular alerts heads of paramilitary forces and police in the Maoist-affected states that the CPI-Maoist has 57 “front bodies” of peasants, labourers, women, students, tribals and trade unions who have helped the banned outfit raise the level of its tactical warfare, including winning court battles and getting their arrested leaders released.Apparently one of the 'front bodies' includes a group that has a former supreme court justice as a 'key member':
Among the groups being watched include People’s Union for Civil Liberties that has Justice (Retd) Rajinder Sachar as one of its key members. The group was formed in 1976 by Jaiprakash Narain.If that doesn't tell the Home Ministry that it is barking up the wrong tree by targeting these groups and 'intellectuals' in general, I don't know what will. It's not only ex-Justices who are in the government's spotlight:
Blaming “unrealistic judicial activism” as the main reason for increased Maoist activities, the [Law and Justice] minister said: “If the courts had exhibited restraint and gone according to ground realities in the forests, the situation would have been totally different today”.Here's another former Justice speaking out in support of dialogue & addressing root causes:
A group of 25 intellectuals and activists, including Justice V R Krishna Iyer and Arundhati Roy, on Monday welcomed the statement by Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi that the ''root cause'' of naxalism has to be addressed while decisively acting against them.As B S Raghavan argued in Business Line:
“We welcome the public statement of Sonia Gandhi that the extreme neglect of the tribal areas is at the root of the present crisis in those regions.
“We hope that this appreciation of the need to go deeper into the question would lead to initiatives for immediate cessation of hostilities and dialogue so that the process of people-oriented development can be made feasible,” they said in a statement.
The so-called war on Maoism has fast degenerated into a war of words. This phony war is entirely the offshoot of the political establishment, governing class and security agencies unleashing their combined might against those whom they castigate as the apologists, accomplices and sympathisers of Maoists, defined as any group of balanced, thoughtful analysts who have the temerity to argue that full-throated, blood-curdling cries of a ‘fight-to-the finish' with all the forces at the Government's command are no answer to Maoism.
In the ongoing war between international finance capital and the citizens of the world, it is remarkable how many recent battles finance has won. Recent events have shown how economic policies of governments and the socio-economic rights of citizens in both the developed and developing worlds are increasingly hostage to the whims of financial markets, based on fear of the havoc they can create. Even more than before, the world seems to be enslaved by finance.Link here. Reminds me of the ancient mariner and the wedding guest.
“Our country is facing an enormous challenge from the Naxalites. While we must address acts of terror decisively and forcefully, we have to address the root causes of Naxalism. The rise of Naxalism is a reflection of the need for our development initiatives to reach the grassroots, especially in our most backward tribal districts.”She should be more careful when expressing such things which can be interpreted as offering support to the Naxalites : Supporting Maoists will invite 10 year jail. Of course this threat of jail-terms seems to be totally unconstitutional - our Constitution apparently even protects people that talk against the very idea of India itself.
The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has however been a bit more specific in his appeal to industrialists that they should “partner” the Government in the latter's efforts to develop the interior regions of the country. Among other things, he is reported to have said that industry needed “to plough back cash into the areas from where it is hoping to make money”.Positive news definitely.
The CII president, Mr Hari Bhartia, reportedly said that Dr Singh wanted industry to invest in building trust in the Naxalite-hit districts, and that improvement of the “condition of the people in these areas has to be a priority for the state and industry”.
Importantly, the CII chief said that industry was “not immediately looking at doing business there... we want to go in and build trust”. This is a noble intention stated unequivocally, and Mr Bhartia should be complimented for the exercise.
... one leading former international player told me categorically, albeit off the record because of his fear of reprisals, that fixing was a regular occurrence.
I have always been deeply ambivalent about the IPL: the gross commercialisation, the greed, the pandering to celebrities and the salesmanship of some older players who should know better have done little to enrich the game.
Modi’s marketing genius — and it was just that — will be missed, further straining revenues. It will begin to feel more like a cricket tournament than a giant commercial advert with cricket attached.
I believe cricket as it is in our country currently, is nothing but a hanger on which ads for lousy products like the fizzy drinks can be hung. It is also a money-making enterprise for its practitioners and administrators. The money is not always made playing the game as it should be played. I could care less about IPL's fate.
and financial institutions being a special species within the private sector, this story does not allow for any generalized critique on the private sector itself.
... confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. ...
Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.
Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet Cargill, like most meat companies, relies on its suppliers to check for the bacteria and does its own testing only after the ingredients are ground together. ...
Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder's discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment.
[The NY Times ]research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways.
... stretched resources [at the regulators] are only part of the reason polluters escape punishment. The Times's investigation shows that in West Virginia and other states, powerful industries have often successfully lobbied to undermine effective regulation.
I also disagree that the story of the crisis was "incredibly complex". Though the technical details of some of the financial instruments etc are definitely difficult to grasp for lay people like me, the basic theme is simple: greed. The basic story is also pretty straightforward as I understand it: Giving loans to anyone who had a pulse, packaging the loans, and then dicing and slicing the packages into all kinds of different financial instruments and selling the instruments and placing bets on these instruments failing, backed by insurance provided by reckless (or clueless) insurance companies.
The Minister for Corporate Affairs, Mr Salman Khurshid, played the IPL controversy with a straight bat. He also ducked with aplomb all bouncers on possible corporate governance failures among the franchises. That he was a classicist in cricket came out in the open when he said last week at an industry event that IPL isn't cricket although it looks little bit like it. “It (IPL) looks like cricket, but it isn't”.
It was just 10 years ago that cricket was rocked by the game's biggest-ever match-fixing scandal. That too had its centre of gravity in Indian cities, and involved Indian bookies and Indian businessmen. But along comes a new hyper-commercialised version of the game. It has scandal-waiting-to-happen written all over it and the media say “wow! This looks great,” promptly going into the “willing suspension of disbelief” mode. This venture had the right names, high glamour and, above all, big advertising and corporate power. There were obvious conflicts of interest (apart from what it did to cricket, the game) from day one. Here was Big Business in open embrace with its political patrons. There were also those who did not give the public office they held a fraction of the time or importance they gave to the BCCI-IPL. But few serious questions came up in the media.
To the extent that cricket is the only sport that Indians seem to enjoy, the demand for it far exceeds supply.
The convenience that TV offers, of being able to watch it in the comfort of your home, has enlarged the supply-demand gap disproportionately because even those who would not otherwise watch cricket watch it now.
Add to this the fact that the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) has the monopoly over cricket, and the perils of short supply become very evident. The flies begin to gather.
Top it all off with the terrifying amount of money floating about in the world looking for sure-fire investments, and what you get is an IPL-like phenomenon, namely, super-normal profits caused by a huge demand-supply gap and a monopoly.
Indeed, the IPL is different from other controlled businesses — like mining, for example — only in that it is entertaining and therefore more visible. But it has its share of sleaze balls in the same proportion as Defence deals, road-building contracts, mining and so on. They also get attracted to what in economics are called ‘supernormal profits'.
..according to a knowledgeable scholar, Dr Walter Fernandes,between 1947 and 2004, nearly six crore persons were forcibly displaced due to acquisition of land for development purposes, and of them 40 per cent constituted Scheduled Tribes.
Out of a total population of generic tribals of eight crore, 2.4 crore people were involuntarily thrown out of their land, home and occupation. This figure constitutes 30 per cent of the total tribal population.
Official figures admit that only 28 per cent of the displaced tribal population has been rehabilitated. Assuming that even this low figure is not an exaggeration, what happened to the remaining 72 per cent of the displaced tribals numbering 1.44 crore?
When the Ministers and MPs in illegal occupation of vast official mansions in Delhi, owing crores of rupees to ‘‘We, the People'' in rent, electricity and water charges, and having their own extra homes elsewhere, are sought to be evicted, do not they raise Cain and cling to their illegal possessions, defying Parliament and the people? Do not the fat cats of the corporate domain let out a howl whenever the exemptions they have grown accustomed to are touched? You want the poor, the deprived and the downtrodden, subsisting without food or water, to feel ecstatic when you trample them under foot?
The law-and-order maestros are horrified at the violence and savagery from the side of Maoists and want to exterminate them at all costs and by all means. True, violence is abominable and deserves to be condemned.
But, then, people are forced to take to violence because only then the powerful governing class deigns to invite them for talks! People have come to know by experience that the government functionaries are stone deaf and the only way to jolt them is by exploding a bomb or setting fire to public property, for, only then, everyone from the Prime Minister down rushes out to listen to them.
In the past decade, nearly every pillar institution in American society — whether it's General Motors, Congress, Wall Street, Major League Baseball, the Catholic Church or the mainstream media — has revealed itself to be corrupt, incompetent or both. And at the root of these failures are the people who run these institutions, the bright and industrious minds who occupy the commanding heights of our meritocratic order. In exchange for their power, status and remuneration, they are supposed to make sure everything operates smoothly. But after a cascade of scandals and catastrophes, that implicit social contract lies in ruins, replaced by mass skepticism, contempt and disillusionment.
