Voice of India

Role Of Education In The Moral Deficit Puzzle Of India

2011-10-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

This morning, in the BBC Hardtalk, Stephen Sackur was talking with George Bizos regarding growing concerns on lack of human rights and freedom of speech in South Africa. One point that Sackur made, which applies probably more in India today, in the context of recent dangerous culture of intolerance on Prashant Bhushan is; how come, a nation that fought hard for human rights, and freedom of speech until 1994, today denies the same to all within South Africa..
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In India, the issue is not only about a dangerous culture of intolerance. Prioritizing the challenging issues facing the nation seems to be another challenge, and debatable task in itself. Dangerous levels of corruption in all places with a defeatist mindset to take on corruption, dangerous levels of lack of integrity and ethics in all levels, dangerous levels of poverty, illiteracy and semi-literacy or whatever one calls it, dangerous levels of inequality in socio-economic parameters, dangerous levels of lack of transparency as if asking for transparency is committing a crime, and many more - they all struggle to get due attention of the all powerful policy-makers..
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But the policy-makers in India have one single minded ‘blinkers on’ road ahead. None of above actually matters much to the policy-makers. Amartya Sen calls it ‘growth-mania’, many others globally see it as ‘GDP-cult’. .
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Going by traditional economic mindset, one may find nothing wrong with this approach of the policy-makers; however, if reality proves that increasing the size of the cake does not necessarily increase the size of the pie of the most deserving ones; one needs to learn lessons from reality quickly, and not from text books, at best valid in a different context. Galbraith termed same as ‘horse and sparrow theory’; whereas Warren Buffet felt that the yachts are rising faster with a growing tide than the boats (in the US or global context). In India, probably, many of the boats are literally not rising at all, because they have been anchored so hard with the ground of backwardness..
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The reason probably lies in amount of trickledown effect possible. Unlike in developed world, where the trickle down starts from a significant percent of middle to well-to-do rich families (>50%) to the underprivileged (<50%); in India it starts from hardly 5% or even less affluent; and there exists a dog-eat-dog kind of war for survival for the bottom most 80% of the population. Adding size to this distribution does have a multiplier effect. It probably makes one understand why status quo, laissez-faire trickle down may take centuries to deliver anything in India..
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To have a society pride-worthy of global human civilization in the 21st century, one must ensure human dignity, human rights, freedom of speech, intolerance to corruption, and to any type of unethical, illegal and immoral activities. ‘Have nothing poverty’ and ‘have nothing moral values’ probably best categorizes Indian populace in a simplistic way with exceptions, and have become part of Indian GDP-cult; and no one has time to think about implications of other challenges. The GDP-showbiz must go on..
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The three key elements, in my opinion, that form the backbone of a healthy society of which we can be proud of are: (1) Good Governance, (2) Good Media and (3) Good Academics. In a developed society, all these three essential components of a healthy society are good, without facing a chicken-and-egg story, and thereby timely checks-and-balances are in place, whenever, and if at all, one slips..
Unfortunately in India, we have bad governance (barring exceptions), bad media (again barring exceptions). In such a situation, role of academics become critical. I would not have the stupid audacity to call Indian Academics categorically ‘bad’ as I probably did for the other two..
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However, there clearly is an alignment and synchronization problem. The cut-copy-paste mentality of measurement system of Indian academics is not working. And in case we want to change governance from bad to good, and so for media; the only hope is academics. It surely would give results as global studies proved ample times, at times with a lead-lag period of two decades..
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In the western society, integrity, honesty, academic integrity, truthfulness, abiding by the law – these are all taken for granted. No compromise ever can be made in any of these categories. In India, these 'must have' moral values are exceptions; particularly with the top 10-20% of the population who decide the fate of another one billion, living in some sort of abject and vicious poverty..
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Should Indian academics, starting from primary to higher education, have blinkers on approach in not seeing the dangerous social evils all around, and award the toppers in class in junior or senior schools, without promoting integrity of character from an early age, and awarding that too. How much time and effort should be dedicated in class discussions for moral values, barring the introduction of another book on moral values? Should the performance measure of teachers, in higher education, in social science areas particularly, be publishing papers for academic enrichment and promotions, and not telling their students never to commit an unethical practice, for whatever temptations?.
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Should IIT Kharagpur take more pride in Arvind Kejriwal (recognized duly by IIT Kharagpur with The Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2009) than UDCT takes in Mukesh Ambani? This is a complex social question. They both are great achievers. But when it comes to an academic institute taking pride in an alumnus, what standards should the academic institute apply? And what standards should the society apply in awarding the nation’s citizens?.
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There is one missing piece in the unresolved equation of Indian puzzle on dangerous deficit levels on all moral values. No one talks about academics. As long as we try and catch up with the West, or even with China in publishing, patents, and keep the GDP-machine running with supply of skilled manpower; Indian academics is doing a fine job. Most believe that taking care of the moral deficits of the society is the problem of the broader society, Government, and at best of the media..
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There have been many criticism of Indian education system from CII, FICCI, NASSCOM, ASSOCHAM or other industry-lobby groups, as they often state that much of the product of Indian education system is not employable. The point is well-taken, valid and as academicians, we understand and accept. However, there has never been any criticism of Indian education system for producing students who may not be fit to live in a healthy society. Very few of them directly commit corrupt or unethical acts; most tolerate silently, may even suffer; but in the 21st century information age, they are afraid to raise their voices..
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Until and unless we get the equation right with this one vital missing piece, the equation will always remain unresolved. The pictures of the men who was hitting Prashant Bhushan, or that of many of the behind-Tihar characters, either from senior Government positions or from private sectors, along with their more-powerful-and-still-free backers on 2G scam, flash in my mind as I end this article..
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They all definitely graduated; some probably did post-graduation studies as well. We never taught them moral values, and unfortunately in India, neither did the society. No attempt has been made in answering one single question from Indian teachers..
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I invite you to take a look at my book,Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

A Case Study on Academic Integrity in an Indian B-School

2011-10-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

“A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops”.
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Henry Brook Adams.
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Sometime back, an incident happened in my academic life. As I recall it now, I realize I probably did not give it as much thought as it deserved. However, as I revisit the story now, I think I made a mistake in not doing so..
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We in India have been inspired by the academic excellence that Western Universities offer. There have been active discussions and debate on global ranking of Indian educational entities, and standards of Indian academicians. We all see a tremendous capacity building focus, initiated by the Government, for justifiable reasons..
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I read many articles on how influential teachers can be, in shaping a future mind, starting from the young ages of the child. Most of those has been Western stories, again more so in primary to secondary educations. We Indians are not that good in documenting our stories. These stories help us in sharing, thinking, understanding, appreciating, and also in policy-making. Yes, we need to do lot more in lot many areas..
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Taare Zameen Par, a movie of the recent times, did an excellent job on it..
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This incident is about following e-mail content (verbatim for this section) that I received from a student: .
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<‘I’ve told you the truth but it is unexpected to get such an honor for this. It is not for me but because of your greatness that you took this simple thing to such a higher peak. I’m saluting you from the core of my heart for your greatness & down to earth nature. For the first time I get such an honor for honesty, you are a great TEACHER Sir & I’ll never forget this honor till the end of my life.’ > .
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Background of the e-mail: The student, on his/her own, confessed that s/he didn’t contribute to a group assignment, in a mail prior to the completion date. My experience in India showed students normally don’t do it, and contributing students from same group try to help others as ‘Good Samaritans’, without realizing its downside impact (treated as violation of academic integrity in evolved universities of the developed nations). I used that mail, without disclosing the identity of the student, to my student-group, requesting them to respect, honor and follow this honesty, but not the practice of not contributing to group assignments, for whatever reasons. This student also received this mail of mine. This quoted content was in response to it. I also received few appreciations from other students, which I duly forwarded to this student..
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Over the last few days, I have been giving much thought to this mail, particularly the underlined section of it. This underlined section is also the reason why I think I made a mistake in not giving this mail the due attention it deserved..
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As I read, re-read it, it indeed shocks me (the student, in my guesstimate, would be around 30 years), and prompted me to introspect a lot on Integrity vs. Performance issues (I have partly dwelled that in ‘A Question From Indian Teachers’, which was not at all motivated by this mail. As I checked the dates, I received this mail afterwards)..
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As I said, I read quite a few articles on education, role of teachers, and various evolving practices, particularly in higher education. Stanley Fish provided an in-depth pros-and-con of capturing student evaluation. But that is ultimately a score. I am not sure whether the student wrote anything like quoted text while rating me after the end-term. We faculties here are used to getting mid-term reviews as of now; and this type of feedback was no where in the content, going by my collective past memory. And there is no way of knowing which student is rating (both in words and/or in a Likert Scale score) how much, for justifiable reasons. .
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I can sense and understand that there is a high degree of possibility of this student getting emotional when s/he wrote this mail. I accept it with all due humbleness, and I myself don’t think I am an excellent teacher, in its true sense. But I have been trying. Keeping aside that content, I have been indeed intrigued by this part:.
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’For the first time I get such an honor for honesty’.
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These words coming from some 30-year old student have started haunting me. Discounting the high-degree of possibility of emotionally charged content, let me discount the student’s immediate family-members and close friends. Beyond the class, I have not interacted much with this student. We probably met twice in my room. Once it was on the difficulties s/he had faced in continuing with the studies, and I encouraged the student to continue, stating that at IIFT we all were ready to support the student, but we can not dilute our standards; the student didn’t expect it either. Next time was when the student informed me that s/he would not be able to attend a session of mine in time, but would try to come late. I said fine. And if I remember right, I observed s/he entering the session in between. .
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I never extended any additional help, on my own; neither s/he sought any. For little better understanding of the reader, let me add that the student belonged to the Executive MBA we offer, might be reflecting, to some extent, the story of ‘In the basement of Ivory Tower’. The difference is, this is a Post-Graduate Program; and I am a full time faculty. In my opinion, another major difference was with the student, as s/he did not need any special assistance as such, but needed dedicated, undisturbed study time, mentally; and time to think/introspect over that contextual material as management education demands..
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Even after these obvious discounting of this content, what remains in ’For the first time I get such an honor for honesty’, is still shocking..
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I wonder what might have happened in the student’s past academic life, in social life and in professional life..
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I don’t want to drag this article any further, leaving the story here, for your own interpretation. I wish we academicians start honoring academic integrity before we honor academic performances, starting from primary education. I wish policy-makers take due attention..
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I am not sure whether there exists any such award for academic integrity in my Institute, or for that matter, in any Indian academic Institutes. We normally honor the academic toppers, measuring their academic performances. To the best of my knowledge, there probably is none. Even in the IITs, where I spent all my higher education (IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay), there are awards for multiple categories of students, focusing on all around developments of a student. To the best of my knowledge, there probably exists none in IITs too; although I have not been to all the IITs. Moreover, as I never dreamt of winning any in IITs, I did not follow these awards closely..
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It is time that I myself start thinking about it, on how such an award can be initiated in my own Institute. I think I made a mistake in not thinking in these lines earlier..
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I invite you to take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes. You are also invited to join me on twitter.

2011-04-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Jan Lokpal Questions Indian Media:
‘You’re Either With Us, Or Against Us’

Leaving aside the historical context of ‘You’re With Us, Or Against Us’ – its origin, and criticism; the logic probably proved to be untenable, and ineffective in the US–led ‘War Against Terror’, in its global context.

To nullify any doubt that readers may have, regarding Jan Lokpal asking such a question to Indian Media, the answer is loud and clear ‘no’, as the core team behind Jan Lokpal has not yet put Indian media with that choice.

As a supporter of Jan Lokpal, I personally pose that question to Indian media as they hound members in Jan Lokpal Committee, and demand ‘proprietary demands that they should step down’, ‘holier than thou attitude of civil society’, ‘same level of scrutiny’, ‘Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion’, and what not catch lines in mindless TV debates, or newspaper articles.

I sincerely hope that I am not alone, and not in the group of minorities either.

At the same time, we all must ask (to be true to our professions, and justifiably so), why should one use such a war-like hysteria (in declaring ‘You’re Either With Us, Or Against Us’). People having other views would legitimately argue that, after all, it is not a war.

The answer is, if we slightly modify that quote of Bush and replace ‘terror’ with ‘corruption’ in Indian context, and put that choice as: “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against corruption in India”, it becomes easier to justify. It actually is more than a war.

Still there exist some elements of hysteria in that polarizing statement, and people in the opposite camp would demand, legitimately so, for further justifications for offering such war-like comparisons.

Rightly so, because against whom are we at war, in our fight against corruption? Against our own politicians, surely not all whom are directly corrupt or even indirectly aiding corruption; against some big business houses without acknowledging their contributions, entrepreneurial abilities and dedications in creating a more competitive market with dynamic market forces, and thereby offering Indian consumers better products at lower prices; against our judiciary system who might have been bogged down by ‘justice delayed is justice denied syndrome’ in spite of having many a judge and judgment of which India is proud of; against our investigative agencies or anti-corruption autonomous bodies who might have failed more times than succeeded, due to their inherent characteristics and not because they lacked individual ethical standards in its employees?

No, this is not a war against any person, or democratic institution, or category of professionals. There can never be such a war.

It rather is a war against a collective system that inculcates more corruption without fixing accountabilities, or lack of having genuine mechanism of effective and speedy trials of those corruption charges, irrespective of the source of such corrupt practices. It is an attempt to reengineer the system, the processes and agencies involved, at a war footing, to counter the growing menace of corruption in India, which happens pervasively, but no one owns up.

The present and existing system, in spite of having multiple agencies and laws, has acquired a nasty reputation to prevent or even inculcate a fear among many high-ranking officials as they routinely engage in graft charges, or even penalize corruption once it is proven beyond doubt; and thereby needs a thorough revamp.

As a citizen supporting Jan Lokpal, in spite of admitting Jan Lokpal not to be a panacea or perfect, I would hold “You’re either with us or against us in this fight against corruption” to any, who engages in any action to derail or even demoralize any of the five civilian members of present Jan Lokpal Committee. It is secondary whether the detractors indulge in such actions deliberately with evil intentions, or even genuinely to have a better system or credibility in this collective fight against corruption.

Any unnecessary questioning without offering absolute clarity is against the bigger interest of this nation and its people. Indian media simply can wait – until two deadlines set – 30th June and 15th August, one for placement of the draft bill in parliament, and the other for its passage from the parliament, are comprehensively crossed. That does not mean the institutions investigating these allegations need to wait.

Unfortunately, the accused members also can’t wait to clear their names. They are more needed in the ongoing war now.

A fight, that India has been fighting in an unorganized manner for forty-two long years, against this menace of corruption, has now escalated to a war since the outcome of the fast of Anna Hazare. And it has surely been organized now, little better – but again not perfect.

I must concede that my argument of escalating this fight against corruption to war, from an unorganized level to little better organized level, is little untenable. Because this war is definitely not a war again of the five civilian members against the five government nominated members.

At the same time, there can’t be any denying, on who would argue in the forthcoming battle of words in the drafting committee meetings, for a bill giving more teeth to fight against corruption at all levels, and who would try to dilute that for the privileged power enjoyed in pockets of governance.

Many of us have tried to use our limited resources to be heard; many of us, who believe any change in civilian members in Jan Lokpal committee would derail or significantly weaken the system, have offered many of these views against the tenability of the detractors, genuine or vested.

Based on new allegations as they surface like unending barrage of missiles from unknown sources, here are a few more justifications to allow Bhushans not only to continue, but to strengthen their spirit, and the overall Jan Lokpal spirit, in the bigger interest of the nation.

The little bit of learning many of us have, surely have informed us - provided we cared to learn, that the devil always lies in the deep. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity or resources to go through the detailed allegations. It is based on the media noise – so there may be shortcoming in my interpretation of the same.

Regarding the proprietary of land allotment, isn’t it too familiar a story that middle class Indians have faced in all urban pockets on land? Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal repeatedly stated so – questions should be asked to Noida Development Authority or the allotting agency. If the analogy isn’t grossly wrong, here’s a piece against land allotment discretionary policies, enjoyed by many such authorities, depriving Indian farmers (or original land owners). Recently Prashant Bhushan himself wrote an editorial in The Hindu, pointing his concerns (and Bhushans probably fought, or even have been fighting legally, against the procedures followed in this particular allotment also, right?).

2nd point comes, as one panelist pointed out in one of these TV shows, that there was an interview in the allotment process. None of us know what happened in the interview process that determined quality of application for land allotment. Did Bhushans offer bribe, or diluted their fight legally against such practices subsequently? We simply don’t know.

Next question comes, applying even a higher degree of moral judgment that if we feel something to be wrong, why subscribe to that land offer made by the authority here. Bhushans should have never applied to that advertisement knowing drawbacks of it. Even if they applied without knowing the drawbacks when the adevrtisement appeared – they should have rejected the allotment as there was arbitrariness in the allotment process when questions on that process subsequently surfaced, and particularly when they initiated legal proceedings against the same allotment process.

Sounds fine, but how many of us do it? Let’s take another analogy that million of Indian middle class families are familiar with.

It happened with our family, and we did not reject the allotment of admission that our son got in, in one of the respected schools in Kolkata. It went through the standard processes that all parents go through, at the beginning of admission session at junior nursery (or KG) levels. In this incident, the kid along with the parents, were called for an interview based on our application (five years ago). I am not sure whether the rules forbidding interviewing kids, and interviewing parents for school admissions did come up then (they probably exist now, right?), surely these practices were being discussed. Morally they were untenable then too. I myself had that moral view then, without exactly knowing the details of the admission criteria (and parents role in it, through an interview process).

However, irrespective of what rules state, or moral values indicate; hundreds of private schools still engage in similar practices. And irrespective of what moral values we parents have, we simply can’t refuse those coveted admissions, in the ground that they flout norms – explicit or implicit ones.

So, with my limited knowledge and understanding, Bhushans didn’t do any wrong. If their action of receiving land, based on available alleged facts if proven to be true, is wrong; we all are, in some way or other.

(One relevant point here is, because of the profession of Bhushans, and assuming this noise that they challenged the land allotment process from which they may have benefited in a court and it still is ongoing, being similar to the analogy of any parent coming from legal profession again and having high moral values suing a school following above-explained admission processes, for admission of his/her own kids, irrespective of the outcome of his/her own application. The relevance comes regarding timing and continued sincerity displayed by the lawyer in following up the legal case. At the same time, the nation must not hold Bhushans accountable, as ‘the only moral police’ for the whole nation, for cases they fight or don’t fight or even give up later, in their crusade against corruption or wrong processes that may inculcate corruption, expecting them to devote equal attention to thousands of similar wrong practices across the nation).

Coming back to the CD, the controversial comment is, Shanti Bhushan is quoted to have said he could influence a judge for four crores. Harish Salve, another eminent lawyer, in a TV panel said, many a lawyer many a time claim such things, irrespective of truthfulness of such claims, to impress their clients. The CD itself is disputed. In a corrupt system, if one falls for merely stating it (none of us again know what happened subsequently), s/he does not need to come clean without knowing the whole context and subsequent related actions.

Coming back to the school admission analogy, many of us may recall such informal discussions, that seats are being offered at such and such costs, at so and so schools. Does it mean that every one of us, who ever passed a comment on the price-tag in such physical peer-group informal discussions, or telephonic conversations, always got our ward admitted through that discussed price tag, and not through the regular process that the school follows?

I must repeat the disclaimer again – the devil lies in the deep. I am probably engaging myself in not following this adage, to my own discomfort, because the cacophony of the media did not answer the specifics and the timelines of the context (else, I might have missed them).

At the same time, isn’t it what Indian media is best at most of the time – debate without reading the details, or understanding, and thereby failing to debate the subject in its full context to the benefit of the people, where the noise is always louder than the quality of the content? So the discussion becomes ‘CD’, ‘land allotment’ rather than the content and the context of the same, and judgments are passed and hanging too takes place.

(As an academician, I blame myself for such poor quality of TV debates in India – fault of which definitely lies with the journalists, and the institutes that produce them. I wish I had the moral authority to grade them ‘F’ repeatedly, had they been my students. However education in India isn’t the same as in the best of the societies.)

Coming back to ‘You’re Either With Us, Or Against Us’; let’s take the analogy to its rightful context. God forbid, it should never happen again; but assuming a war breaks out between India and Pakistan. And at that point of time of continuance of war, if vested interests or genuine questions from Pakistan raise similar points of allegations against Indian defense chief/s and establishments, leading to questioning their commitment to India’s causes for that war, to demoralize Indian troops and citizens; how would we response?

By asking our key guys, from defense or democratic authorities supervising Indian defense interests, to step down and clear their names, and substitute them with other eminent leaders of having impeccable capabilities – as the war continues?

You can’t be more hilarious.

Corruption is a much bigger enemy to India than Pakistan is to India (Pakistan isn’t an enemy at all, in my personal view). And the war against corruption has indeed started, although it surely won’t be the last one. The deadlines are clear – 30th June and 15th August.

Rest all can wait. What can’t wait is the moral of these five-member armies representing India’s fight against corruption.

In one side, there’s an organized army, habituated in defending or not acting against corruption for forty-two years; in another side there’s a civilian and amateurish attempt to get organized to fight corruption. The analogy partly reminds about ongoing developments in Libya, without any possibility of al-Qaeda like elements ever being, in any way, present in Indian civilian members representing the Jan Lokpal committee.

‘You’re, Therefore, Either With Us, Or Against Us’.

Following is further added on April 22nd to the original article dated 21st April

One assumption in above article is wrong. The article clearly stated that was the assumption based on media noise created around it. It is about Bhushans challenging this particular controversial land allotment (of Noida) decision in a court of law, in the past - or even on an ongoing basis.

The actual fact, as given in India Bloom article titled ‘Shanti Bhushan Defends Land Controversy’ states following:

‘“It is also to be noted that both myself and my son Jayant Bhushan have been fighting cases against Mayawati in courts and the question of obtaining favours from her or her govt does not arise at all.

“Jayant was fighting the case against the Mayawati government on the Mayawati statues along the Noida bird sanctuary. I, and Prashant Bhushan have been regularly appearing in PILs against Mayawati in the Taj corridor case even as recently as last week. These cases are still continuing,” said Shanti Bhushan.’

Sorry for assuming this - my apologies. “Facts are sacrosanct, opinions are free” is a dictum in journalism - so it is corrected. However the article as such isn’t in any way affected by above slip (as it was an assumption in the original version of article, and therefore remains an assumption as it is now - without any change in article).

I invite you to take a look at my book,Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes). You are also invited to join me on twitter

2011-04-18T00:51:00.000-07:00

Technology Is On The Side Of The Jan Lokpal

Part I of the article can be found here.

In India, credibility of statistics on Internet user-base has always remained questionable. At the same time, it may be safely stated that Internet may not have reached even ten per cent of Indian population yet. Further, going by the learning curve of these 10% of people – most are still in the initiation stage as of now.

Technology, in the context of India, therefore must include basic mobile services also, where the penetration may be closed to 60%.

So the journalists who questioned Anna Hazare movement no doubt did their job by visiting Jantar Mantar on the 1st or 2nd day of his fast, and were not wrong in reporting credibility of the demand with hardly 200-300 people being present. Where they went wrong is in underestimating the role of the technology and network effect of it, in spreading the demand to a lot of the 1.21 billion Indians who are connected in some way with the information revolution – be it through Internet or a phone (or a TV too).

Anna Hazare and Jantar Mantar, for some time during this movement featured within top ten twitter trends, world wide. Who could have ever thought this being a possibility on the 1st day of the movement (other than probably a cartoon in The Hindu that showed Hazare growing bigger by the day against the Prime Minister)? It even surprised researchers having knowledge of power of the Internet and technology. And this is where experienced journalists and policy-makers got it wrong.

They were also wrong in overplaying role of Indian private television channels in spearheading the demands of the protesters. Lord Meghnad Desai got it right when he stated (against threat to the movement in case private TV channel covering news start focusing on the forthcoming IPL cricket matches), live from Jantar Mantar, that most of the Indian mainstream media, too, has been a follower than a leader for this fight against corruption.

Now it’s been a classic case of a winner having many parents and a loser being an orphan. Even government has also been claiming that credit of parenting it, which some part of Indian mainstream media feels to be legitimately their child.

The actual parent is civic society, under a credible leader, in the context of the famous saying of Victor Hugo – ‘nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come’. The all important technology has been on the side of the idea.

Here’s one of the best journalistic organization in the world who understands how technology has made traditional journalism irrelevant. In comparison, one sees mostly ‘paid journalists’ or immatured, inobjective lot of Indian journalists. Point is, like the custodians of the Church in the 15th century, no one loves to be challenged about the authorities that’s been traditionally bestowed on a profession – be it policy-makers, be it journalists, or be it academicians.

Journalists in India still believe they can influence public opinion, they can make a real difference in society. The objective is laudable, and society support journalists who do it with honest intentions. However, matter of fact is, they can probably ruin all their credibility in a single day or event, in one wrong or unethical step.

Jan Lokpal bill attracts another criticism due to its naivety; as many legitimately felt, that one more autonomous body or law would not be able to weed out the corruption-gene from the Indian society. The author humbly agrees with that possibility, having the optimism that it may at the same time make a little difference. People talking about weeding out corruption altogether from Indian society (or any society per se), due to Jan Lokpal Bill draft being passed as a law, suffer from the Pollyannaish syndrome. Jan Lokpal Bill merely attempts in creating a credible check and balance, and with the much needed teeth too, as proposed in its draft. Therefore it may eventually succeed to a certain extent.

At the same time, all of us must remember that there is no universal panacea in any textual law or in any policy-tool, the remedy actually lies on how the same law and tool is being practiced in reality in the grass root levels to the top echelons of public offices.

Let’s hope Indian citizens fighting against corruption will eventually get it right. No doubt that they will make mistakes, they must learn how to face obstacles and failures quickly lest the patience of the country should run out, no doubt there would be questions on their ability sooner or later. They would surely faulter, but they need to get up quickly and get the direction right.

At the same time, civic society should also know that too much expectations too soon, in this age of ‘fast food’ culture, can kill a great idea.

Let’s hope for the best. Technology seems to be on the side of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

I invite you to take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes. You are also invited to join me on twitter.

2011-04-18T00:40:00.000-07:00

Technology Is On The Side Of The Jan Lokpal

History has probably been made in India with Government acceding to the demands of a group of social activists, led by Anna Hazare. The demands essentially asked for having half of the say in drafting a bill that is supposed to have all pervasive ambit, with the much needed teeth too, in dealing with corruption in India.

As Parliamentary democracy demands, the draft bill needs to be passed by the Parliament, and needs to be signed by the President to be a law.

There are people who would try and measure corruption in India with rankings from Transparency International or other such bodies; and there are people like this author whose humble opinion is that corruption probably can no where get worse than what it has been in India in the recent past.

It suffices to say, that political leaders rarely spoke the truth over the public media, that too proudly day-after-day. The only way these minority few, who should have represented Indian citizens through representative democracy, could do so is because they probably thought of India as the nation of ‘another 1.21 billion people’ believing in the noble moral code of ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’ from the East about these policy-makers; while the political leaders themselves, overtly and covertly, engaged in all types of evils.

However bizarre as above may sound – that’s what actually have been happening until an old man stood up and declared war against corruption in his own ‘Gandhi-ji’ style on 5th April. This old man displayed the rarest of the rare courage to state to the Indian Prime Minister, in an implied manner in a letter during this protest movement, that ‘Hon’ble Prime Minister, you are lying’.

Rest is history.

The core group of the people, who led to this history making process, practically putting Government of India on the back foot, has since then thanked all the people who supported the movement. They have termed it as ‘people’s victory’, justifiably so, because that’s what people’s desire has been in India, irrespective of how policy-makers in India interpreted the people’s desire, or even hijacked same.

This core group of people spearheading this history of Jan Lokpal bill has been probably right in terming it as ‘people’s victory’ when one considers a much-required inclusive definition of people that should also include the way these people have been using technology, to express themselves and their views, on the role and type of governance that they want.

However few puritans, particularly from the sections of policy-makers, media professionals or even constitutional experts, who are not comfortable with that definition of ‘people’ that includes ‘people using technology to be more vocal and thereby be heard’; technology needs an explicit mentioning, and thereby also deserves to be thanked for the success of this movement.

Yes, without technology the movement led by Anna Hazare probably would have been dead. At best, it could have tested worse situations before being successful, which many would believe, it achieved quite comfortably. So it effectively is a people’s victory in the age of the technology, as it redefined what Government should mean in the age of the 21st century information age.

As expected, there are quite a few of those ‘puritans’ in India, shedding crocodile tears, or genuinely confused, since this history making process started; as they worry about ‘precedence’, to ‘norms of parliamentary democracy’ to ‘constitutional nitty-gritty’. As these puritans from certain sections of Indian society expressed their views in bewilderment on these developmentsthat, that challenged their age-old knowledge (or baggage of knowledge?); they need to be reminded the obvious that’s ‘blowin’ in the wind’, since history started recording itself.

They may start from the magna-carta, to Jefferson, Paine and Franklin, to the implied desires of the founding fathers of the Indian constitution. If they had got it right, then Anupam Kher, an actor and educator who supported the movement led by Anna Hazare, would not face privilege motion for ‘defaming’ the constitution or his house would not have been attacked by an unruly mob under vested interests of some political leaders.

Bizarre India policy-makers think that anyone questioning the constitution or the pillars of the constitution is blasphemous, as if the constitution is a sanctum sanctorum – not to be questioned for ever. They simply forget that the constitution merely legalizes the moral values of a nation and its founding fathers, therefore one must not pay more attention at the legal details ignoring the moral values totally, and probably deliberately too. They also forget that when India declared her constitution, it had a population of barely one-fourth of what it has today, or a literacy rate of barely one-third of present time.

The aspirations of the people, more in number and more literate now than it was in 1950s, have made Indian citizens realize how the same constitution have not come to help citizens of India in a timely manner in spite of its stated explicit or implied objectives when Nadigram happened; or when Tademtla, Morapalli and Teemapuram have been happening – in a repeat of Nandigram like incident.

Examples of how Indian policy-platforms have been hijacked are aplenty, and arise from all possible sources of vested interests.

Coming back to the role of technology in this movement, it has merely started doing what the printing press had done to the authority of the Church back in the beginning of the industrial revolution. That is the prophecy of Peter Drucker – the guru of the management gurus:

‘This (the information revolution in society) is very similar to what happened in the printing revolution—the first of the technological revolutions that created the modern world... What the new industries and institutions (as an outcome of this ongoing information revolution) will be, no one can say yet.’

The puritans – genuinely ignorant of these developments, or due to their vested interests deliberately, ignore the historical perspective of human civilization, and thereby can’t stomach too much change too soon that at times may even look like an anarchy to parliamentary democracy. They have not heard about Trafigura: and how a few tweets restored freedom of speech, they have not heard Benkler - when he quoted about Frederick Roosevelt’s call on muckrakers, and the role of media in the context of WikiLeaks (and the author of The Wealth of Networks), they have not heard about Metcalfe’s law on how networks can multiply, and they have also not heard about the empowered, online citizen who is now very much part of the fabric of everything in society.

Here’s a piece that policy-makers to journalists to constitutional experts from any field better pay heeds, lest they should be irrelevant:

‘Not too soon or too fast, for the Internet has not yet reached five-sixths of the world. But even now, with this low base, the alarming call to the policymakers rings loud and clear, getting stronger with each passing day. It’s a wake-up call. Governments and policymakers take heed. Before the Internet makes you irrelevant.’

It got repeated from South Korea when OhmyNews played a pivotal role in the Presidential election back in 2002 with underdog Roh Moo-hyun getting elected due to OMNI’s citizen-centric campaign, to President Obama in 2008 in his campaign to WikiLeaks to the recent Arab revolutions.

Part II and the concluding section of the article can be found here.

I invite you to take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes. You are also invited to join me on twitter.

2011-03-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

WikiLeaks Cables Put Indian Media Under Further Trial (Part III)

If Indian media did its job, WikiLeaks cables on India should not have anything substantially new.

‘What about the press? What about the media? Isn’t it the job of the press, isn’t it the job of the media, isn’t it the job of journalism to expose what governments do? Don’t journalists learn from I.F. Stone, who said, “Just remember two words,” he said to young people who were studying journalism, he said, “Just remember two words: governments lie”? Well, but the media have not picked up on that…. They didn’t do their job of questioning.’

Howard Zinn

This is the third and concluding part of the series of articles that look at Indian aspirations, how it probably got hijacked under imperialists influences and vested interests; and what needs to be done now. Part I (India’s Aspirations and Hysterias in Light of Imperialists Anonymous and WikilLeaks) and Part II (Bizarre Indian Priorities, Policies and Media) of this series provide the necessary background.

It is time that Indian mainstream media grows up, thereby acts as an adult for a matured audience. It is time Indian media starts questioing itself once more, rather than questioning tainted Indian politicians alone for their coziness to the US diplomats that may have compromised genuine aspirations of Indians to the US interests.

Many respected global interpretations of the content of the WikiLeaks cables stated that there is not much new substance in these WikiLeaks cables (including the NYT, and many more, because their articles had provided the same insights before the leaked cables did).

Can most Indian media organizations claim so? And if not, why? Should they act as the spokespersons of the Government and reproduce information in Government web-sites under one more web-page, or should they report on how the inner machineries of the Government work - from the grassroot levels to the foreign office to the PMO? Haven’t most Indian journalists learnt those two words of I. F. Stone - “governments lie”? (else the buck should come back to educators like us?).

Before this article deals with the title of this article, few obvious cables need to be reviewed, in light of the disappointments in India during Premier Wen’s visit compared to the jubilation of President Obama’s visit, back in Nov-Dec 2010. And Indian media owes an explanation on what went wrong with Premier Wen’s visit, compared to President Obama’s visit.

On the UNSC, Indian media was silent on the ‘in the years ahead’ part of Obama speech. If the (UN and the) UNSC need to be relevant for a changing world, it has to have India at some point of time in future, provided India acts on the legitimate aspirations of its people, locally and globally. India must not go with a begging bowl for the position that India already deserves. India just needs to make the impact of its absence bigger (barring the population factor alone). The way China has been bargaining, for itself and also for the whole block of developing nations, for a bigger say in the World Bank and in the IMF, speaks about the route to follow.

In the humble view of this writer, if President Obama exceled in playing upto the Indian gallery without delivering much content; Premier Wen(#) tried to mend the delicate Sino-Indian relations pragmatically; but failed against the mental wall of Indian policy-makers, magnified many times over by the Indian media.

Question is - during Premier Wen’s visit, the objective reporting of Indian media got lost due to the usual characteristics of Indian media, or was there further vested interests in play, under imperialists influences.

WikiLeaks helps India in understanding the validities of Indian aspirations. Between Obama and Sarkozy’s visit came WikiLeaks cable on how the same Obama administration views ‘emerged’ India and India’s aspiration of having a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, ‘in the years ahead.’ Premier Wen talked about need of reform in the UNSC without making tall, open-ended promises.

Hillary Clinton didn’t say anything wrong based on the present global geopolitics when she termed India as the ‘self-appointed frontrunner’ for that coveted position. She merely spoke the truth. As a global leader of the world, it takes courage to state such factual representations of aspirations. It is true that she didn’t do so on national television as Prof. Zinn thought of, but anyway it should have had its consequential impact on Indian policy-forums and media. For a change - ‘it’s time, you know—time to tell the truth” – and she had done it, in diplomatic cables, that got leaked.

Surprisingly, it did not have any lasting impact in India. Had there been an impact, Indian media or policy-makers should not been disappointed by the reform idea of the UNSC that Premier Wen Jiabao talked about.

WikiLeaks, however, does not (and can not, as of now) help in explaining the bizarre actions of Indian media, as it does for Indian government. Radia-leaks, to some extent did that, and also showed the lobby at work, exploiting the ‘GDP-cult’ hysteria.

At the same time, because there is no ‘WikiLeaks’ like evidence (few opinions did cover these issues, like the one talking about George Fernandes’ visit to China when he was the Defense Minister, post-his comment on China being India’s number one threat, and his change of stance from that visit) against US policy-influence on Indian media; one must also not come to any hasty conclusions that no such pressure (or monetary benefits) comes from the US Government directly or indirectly on Indian media, or from the freewheeling capitalism of these two nations.

In spite of the fascinations that Indian media have been showing on the India cables now, a minority number of Indians surely had inklings of behind the scene diplomatic influence the US have been having on India, without those cables as NYT stated that there was nothing substantially new in these cables. This minority group in India also have similar readings on most of the Indian media.

Is the vast majority of Indian media indeed ignorantly objective in their reporting when it comes to ties with China, Russia, or even with Iran; or overly jubilant when it comes to the US or the UK?

The recent Jasmine Revolution in the Arab world led to some discussions in Indian media on the poor Indian media presence in these parts of the world, and elsewhere as well – barring the US and the UK. The more important point, however, is to ask how many correspondents do they have in the hinterlands of India, and not based in Indian metro cities alone, doing only desktop journalism in the comfort of the AC rooms in a networked world of the digital age (or at best collating same from a ’source‘)?

And if the Indian media, on a broad scale, have not been as objective as Radia-tapes revealed; one needs to ask whether their exists more vested influence in the areas of foreign policies reporing of the Indian media. The matter is too important to be ignored, in the context of the soft-power influence of information and news, in our 21st century world.

Coming back to the legitimate aspirations that India should follow, it should primarily focus on literacy, on poverty reduction, and on how to provide universal access of basic soft and hard infrastructures to its people. If India works with as much focus as it does for the ‘GDP-cult’ growth rate, it would take care of its GDP growth rates better, and its distribution parts (inclusive growth agenda) as innumerable global studies have shown, with the coveted UNSC seat as well.

India’s external policies should try and build mutually beneficial relationship with its geographic neighbors. It is critical, in the short term, as the inevitable withdrawal of America happens from Afghanistan, a writing in the wall that India ignores to read:

‘But at some point the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) will come to an end. At some point, the United States will do in Iraq (and Afghanistan) what it did in Vietnam, after saying, “We will never leave. We will never leave. We will win. We will stay the course. We will not cut and run.” At some point, the United States is going to have to cut and run from Iraq (and Afghanistan), you see. And they’re going to do it because the sentiment is going to grow and grow and grow in this country and because more and more GIs are going to come back from Iraq (and Afghanistan) and say, “We’re not going back again,” and because they’re going to have more and more trouble supplying the armed forces in Iraq (and Afghanistan), and because the parents of young people are going to say more and more, “We are not going to allow our young people to go to war for Bechtel, you know, and Halliburton. (Note here that US corporations have not been winning as big in Iraq and Afghanistan as China’s firms have). We’re not going to do that.” So at some point, yes, at some point we are going to do what they say we mustn’t do: cut and run.

We don’t have to cut and run. Cut and walk. Cut and swim. Cut, but get out, as fast as you can, because we’re not doing any good there. We’re not helping the situation. We’re not bringing peace. We’re not bringing a democracy. We’re not bringing stability. We’re bringing violence and chaos. We’re provoking all of that, and people are dying every day.’

The U.S. will not be in Afghanistan a single day more than needed, for the sake of India…be it they do ‘cut and run’, or ‘cut and walk’, or ‘cut and swim’. They will do it as per the U.S. priority alone. It will further aggravate when Pakistan openly goes against the U.S. policies as the power of the U.S. relatively declines eventually, with respect to a rising China, more so in the very neighborhood of India.

Following the Washington-consensus policies, India may never succeed, even in the longer term, to provide its billion-plus citizens a quality of life anyway closer to that, that the West had provided its citizens years ago. India would need new technologies (renewable energies where China has been leading leaving behind the US, thorium-based nuclear technologies due to Indian reserves of thorium), new thinking, new relationships, and most importantly new perspectives that represent genuine aspirations of India without any hysterias and fears.

New Delhi, to meet the genuine aspirations of the vast majority of the Indians, would need Beijing more in future than it has needed Washington in the past. It is high time New Delhi realizes the fear and hysteria and the lobby-interests that have hijacked India’s aspirations, and follows-up with a road-map of course-corrective actions.

#This series of articles faced little constraint as no official Chinese translations of Premier Wen Jiabao’s speeches in India was found (as per research back in December). The writer requested for those copies, even to the Government of China back in December, however in this one single area so far - Chinese efficient machineries failed to deliver.

I invite you to take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes). You are also invited to join me on twitter.

2011-03-28T01:12:00.000-07:00

Bizarre Indian Priorities, Policies and Media (Part II)

‘…bizarre thinking is possible when you create fear and hysteria. And we’re facing, of course, that situation today…’

Howard Zinn

Part I of this series of articles, titled ‘India’s aspirations and hysterias in light of Imperialists anonymous and WikiLeaks’ provides the necessary background.

Zinn was not talking about India, or the validity of these so-called Indian aspirations as strongly embedded in Indian (1) ‘GDP-cult’, (2) desire for the UN Security Council Permanent Seat with Veto-Power and in her (3) Pakistan bashing attitude. For India, other than fear and hysteria, one needs to add-in the role of lobby-pressure in understanding these so-called Indian aspirations.

Let’s now examine validity or bizarreness of each of these three aspirations, representing the will, and the priorities of aspirations of these 1.2 billion Indians. In the ICC World Cup, with India-Pakistan Semifinal approaching in the game of cricket, let’s start with Pakistan bashing. It links us to the other two as well.

Let’s first accept that terrorism exists, and Pakistan has been one of the root causes of it for long, and has also been in its receiving end lately for obvious reasons. However, rather than being ‘hysterical’ about it, a pragmatic policy would be to find out what best can be done to manage or even fight this evil, if need be by joining hands with Pakistan, than blaming Pakistan.

With the above disclaimer, does not India have her own in-house terrorism in the form of Naxalites, which the PM termed as ‘India’s biggest threat’? It is another matter that Rahul Gandhi, the prince charming, thought that the same credit should go to Hindu Terrorism…how bizarre can one be…

Coming back to Naxalites, here’s what Manish Kunjam says in an interview with The Times of India (Manish Kunjam is ‘the only politician from tribal belt in Bastar who continues to organize Adibasis peacefully for their organizational rights’ – that’s how ‘We Want a Dialogue Between Naxalites and The Government’, The Times of India, 17th Dec., described him):

‘Question: Will such repression force your cadre into inaction?

Answer: If that happens, democratic ways of protest will come to an end. Then only two forces will remain: the police and the Naxalites. The latter don’t believe in the Constitution; the former are supposed to follow it, but don’t. If on both sides you have inhuman tactics, the use of guns and bombs, you can imagine what will happen to the society affected by them. The country’s intellectuals should think about this.’

Do you see surprising similarities in what Manish Kunjam says and what Howard Zinn said? If you don’t have that time, this article will simplify that for you, to help you know the right perspective of a little bit of local and global history (and the surprising similarities of above views of Manish Kunjam with Howard Zinn, as if they have been reading from the same pages):

‘It doesn’t take much thought about terrorism to realize that when somebody talks about a war on terrorism, they’re dealing with a contradiction in terms. How can you make war on terrorism, if war itself is terrorism? Because—so you respond to terrorism with terrorism, and you multiply the terrorism in the world.

And, of course, the terrorism that governments are capable of by going to war is on a far, far greater scale than the terrorism of al-Qaeda or this group or that group or another group. Governments are terrorists on an enormously large scale.’

It also explains adequately why ‘Pakistan-bashing’ aspiration of India is countered by ‘India-bashing’ aspirations in Pakistan. More than sixty-years after freedom, both nations feel that the bashing it receives is much more severe than what it counters.

Isn’t it bizarre, when Indian Naxalites state BBC Hindi to be their “only source of objective information” compared to the umpteen ‘free’ Indian media? It should ring an alarm bell among Indian media and policy-makers, but unfortunately it does not. GDP growth rate slips by a few basis points, and fire-alarm starts in Indian establishments.

The roots of terrorism, Maoists or otherwise, flourish in India because the fruits of growth, the growth as advocated by the ‘GDP-cult’ policy-makers and media, have not reached a significant size of its population, that may even be its majority. Various global statistics on poverty, illiteracy, hunger and derivatives of hunger in the form of malnutrition – particularly among women and children speak about that lopsided growth story; other than in the increase in number of billionaires, millionaires and graft cases.

Or consider the recently reported per capita expenditure on public health at $7 in India compared to $30 in Sri Lanka. One may stop at these two figures of $7 and $30, however further probing on effectiveness of $7 and $30 may highlight how mismanaged Indian processes and systems are, on top of $7/per capita, when it comes to serving its underprivileged sections.

True that many such articles, like the story of Manish Kunjam, appear in Indian media; but get comfortably tucked away under the carpet, both by policy-makers and media. It is the ‘10-minutes fame’ syndrome. If in a quarter GDP growth slips by 0.5% from 9% to 8.5%, it inevitably leads to big concern in India; but not poverty, illiteracy, poor universal access of basic infrastructure to significant number of Indians. How much media coverage, or policy discussions, has the Millennium Development Goals of the UN have received in India? Isn’t it India that contributes the biggest of those numbers of people, without any close competitor, for which the UNMDGs are made?

If one still remains skeptical on the ‘hysteria’ of economic growth and industrializations in India, one may simply go and ask Buddhadeb Bhattatarya, Chief Minister of West Bengal, where ruling left parties are likely to face the same fate as many-a-Arab leader after thirty-five years. Not long back he came with the slogan – ‘do it now’; and Indian media was abuzz with articles from eminent columnists, quoting big industrialists, that ‘Buddha is the best Chief Minister in India.’

Singur and Nandigram and many more such cases are example of that ‘GDP-cult’ hysteria of India. The lobby-pressure at work is also too obvious to be ignored.

An understanding and comparison with China on the ‘GDP-cult’ is necessary. There is no room for debate that GDP growth and its distribution are the only way to increase the size of the cake, and thereby improve quality of life at the bottom of the pyramid. In developing societies like India, the bottom of the pyramid represents its physical share in percent of population as the real pyramid.

The first part of it, Indian GDP growth - because of its intrinsic nature, seems to be on an auto-run now, and is likely to grow at near double digit-rates, unless catastrophic events hit global economy, or extreme bad monsoon persists, or pathetic governance mis-manages it completely. China has been giving much more attention and policy-actions on the distribution part of the economy in a sustainable manner. UN MDG goals are a priority in China, Chinese top leadership attends global MDG summits (away from China) whereas Indian PM attends CII-like events. China overtaking Japan’s economy is a low-key affair in China.

The bizarre thing about India is a paranoid attitude on ignoring completely the distribution part of it, expecting trickle down effect to take place. In a dog-eat-dog world today, trickle down effect is nothing but the horse and the sparrow theory of Galbraith.

Cold war led to bizarre thinking in the US, in the former USSR and in other significant parts of the world. Socialism and state-ownerships lead to fear and hysteria within the US even today, however capitalism does not lead to any such fear and hysteria in China.

Other than free speech and free media, China has been able to steer itself clear from such fear and hysteria driven policies. India, in spite of having free speech and free media, is deeply mired by this fear-hysteria psychosis, exploited rightfully by Indian private business houses, or imperialist forces.

The concluding article (Part III - WikiLeaks Cables Put Indian Media Further on Trial) of this series, with help from WikiLeaks, covers how Indian aspirations got hijacked, role of Indian media in it, and corrective actions needed.

I invite you to take a look at my book,Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes. You are also invited to join me on twitter.

2011-03-28T01:07:00.000-07:00

India’s Aspirations and Hysterias in Light
of Imperialists Anonymous and WikiLeaks (Part I)

The developments of our rapidly changing world today remind many of the prophecies of Howard Zinn, who once wished for something like ‘Imperialists Anonymous’, in line with ‘Alocoholics Anonymous’.

‘Don’t people join Alcoholics Anonymous so that they can stand up and be honest about themselves? Maybe we ought to have an organization called Imperialists Anonymous, you know, and have the leaders of the country get up there on national television and say, “Well, it’s time, you know—time to tell the truth.” It would be—I don’t expect it to happen, but it would be refreshing.’

We may never have an ‘Imperialists Anonymous’ as Prof. Zinn desired, due to the nuances of Governments that Prof. Zinn himself understood best. However, due to the ‘phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen’, of which WikiLeaks is just a small part, we have been getting the closest equivalent to that (and Radia-leaks in purely Indian context, although for the time now, it has stopped leaking as matter is under jurisdiction).

Back in December 2010, Indian noisy media following its noisy democracy, had shouted at the top of their voices about India’s disappointments over the outcomes from the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, even before he left India. It indeed highlighted poor images of the rich centuries-old Indian culture and heritage, which advocate treating any guest as God.

China bashing in Indian media, during Premier Wen’s visit, was taken as the finishing line of a test in proving Indian media’s patriotism for India; and most Indian media entities didn’t want to come second in that mad race.

Important point is to understand that visit of Wen happened after Obama’s visit to India in November 2010. As per Indian media and policy-makers, President Obama met India’s aspirations beyond India’s expectations.

In India, one often wonders whether Indians should be proud of the quality of the democracy that India has, and whether she should also feel proud of the quality of its free media. Both actually go hand in hand, however Indian media would have problem in accepting that hard truth.

And here lies the similarities of these two biggest democracies - people of both nations feel broadly same, although their governments think differently from those broader interests of the people. Media in the US have started questioning both government and lately, the Wall Street, on justified grounds, for their actions, moral ethics and sense of priorities.

In this context, it is critical to understand and compare the character of Indian media, and its reaction to Wen’s visit with that of Obama’s visit, for the fulfillment of the key legitimate ‘aspirations of India’. This alone can throw some meaningful light in understanding the validity of India’s aspirations, as perceived through the very own construct of it, in Indian media and policy-platforms.

It also helps one understand the relevance and the perspective of the Imperialist influence of “The India Cables” based on the US diplomatic cables accessed, and being published now by The Hindu newspaper in India, via Wikileaks.

These two words – ‘India’s aspirations’ – need some clarity and legitimacy. Careful distinction must be made here to note that one school of thought on India’s aspirations should not be viewed as an agenda (or even propaganda), mutually exclusive from another different opinion on the same topic. These aspirations should be seen as per the order of priority for a nation, considering the priorities of the vast 1.2 billion Indians, around 18% of global population.

On India’s aspirations, as perceived by a section of Indians, this is what President Obama said on the economic growth achieved in India that had successfully created a ‘GDP-cult’ amongst Indian policy-makers, amongst her elites and thereby in the mainstream Indian media as well:‘

For in Asia and around the world, India is not simply emerging; India has emerged. (Applause.)…’ The sound of this applause from the Joint Session of Indian Parliament carried over with multiplier effect, and echoed from Indian media too.

Many Indians had definitely loved to hear it, including Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman of India’s biggest business empire, as he used this very quote, in contrast of ‘The Banana Republic’ India, that suddenly fell for the Niira Radia tapes, that too within days of Obama’s above speech.

Apparently Premier Wen Jiabao didn’t mention any such ‘Indian-ego-boosting’ statements, in line with these Indian aspirations, while in India; so there’s been a disappointment in policy-forums. And Indian media too, got more badly disappointed, reflecting its consensus with policy-makers, albeit for a change this time because it comprised foreign policies of India.

Isn’t it a bit surprising or coincidental that this same Indian media, which never loses any opportunity to bash Government of India on any domestic issues, never finds any fault, whatsoever, with India’s foreign policies? Going by the size of India (as per different measures), India’s influence in world affairs speaks about the merits of the foreign policies of India. And Indian media never finds anything wrong in those foreign policies of India.

This act of agreement itself speaks enough on merits of both (Indian foreign policies and quality of its media in interpreting those foreign policies to meet aspirations of India) in understanding geopolitics of present time, keeping in mind again those same aspirations of 1.2 billions of Indians.

The elite Indian also aspires for India to be one of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, with the veto-power. President Obama didn’t disappoint Indians here either:

‘That is why I can say today, in the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member. (Applause.).’

And after Obama came the ‘emperor without the cloth’ to visit India, and supported this Indian aspiration unequivocally, and probably without as significant motives of imperialism as the US had.

One more Indian aspirations, as per this same section of Indian society, from any of the visiting leaders of any of the leading nations is that they must bash Pakistan for Pakistan’s active support of terrorism against India, while in India.

Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron - none of them disappointed India on this front either, whereas Uncle Wen went ahead to visit Pakistan directly from India, and announced lot many projects in Pakistan that may truly reflect aspirations of both China and Pakistan. In the eyes of few Indians, it further acted as firm evidence on how Premier Wen didn’t care much for the concerns of the 1.2 billion Indians while trying to meet aspirations of Chinese and Pakistani people.

These three aspirations, as projected day-in-and-day-out in the clueless Indian policy-making in Government, to their reflections in noisy Indian media, naturally builds a concern in the minds of Indians who have access to various forms of news media (and its noisy interpretations).

Amidst all these noises, a rare few wonder, legitimately, on how and when India’s aspirations, as presented above so far, got hijacked. And if it indeed got hijacked, it further calls for a thorough understanding of the hysteria and fear in India that has been driving these so-called Indian aspirations, and how genuine these aspirations indeed are for the vast majority of the 1.2 billions Indians.

This series of articles, conceptualized back in December 2010, further tries and answers the questions raised here in its Part II on fears and hysterias in select pockets of Indian society . Part III of the article puts Indian media on trial.

I invite you to take a look at my book,Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes. You are also invited to join me on twitter

2011-03-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

Jasmine Revolution Raises its Head Among Tata Group Employees

Freedom. Sweet Taste of freedom. Seems to be returning at long last amongst hundreds of thousands of employees of the Tata Group of India.

Libyans may be experiencing an uncertain phase regarding this fleeting taste of freedom as Gaddafi-backed forces lash out against civilians demonstrating against his regime, however the signs are palpably positive in corridors of the ninety-odd Tata Group firms.

They surely have been sensing signs that the clutches of Radia-empire that stifled them from the society and the media to be weakening within the empire. They relish this beginning of professional freedom of speech at last. The employees are thankful to Mohammed Bouazizi, the vendor from Tunisia, who started it with his life. It has not been a waste for the Tata Group.

A brief historical understanding is needed for people who may have superficial knowledge of the Tata Group, more so for those specific lot of Western Journalists who don't hesitate to write on this iconic group in global media as soon as they start parachuting down on India, or may be even from abroad - without ever understanding and visiting India.

Tata Group had not been so suffocating for professionals in past as such. On the contrary, it rather was the opposite, in spite of being a house-owned business with monarchy like succession. One probably could have disagreed with JRD Tata (man before Ratan Tata) and even reach the top and be be a member of the Board of Tata Sons.

However good times don't last for ever.

All that professional glory associated with Tata Group eventually changed as Ratan Tata increased his tenure at the top, as leaders of the Arab World did. For Hosni Mubarak, it took thirty years; for Gaddafi - it's been forty-two years; and for Ratan Tata - it's been twenty years.

Inside information show that Ratan Tata as such has always been an excellent man - with all managerial qualities and with a great sense of ethics. That explains why Mr. Ratan Tata didn't bomb Outlook or Open offices (magazines that leaked Radia-tapes) as he had that opportunity when he flew in a F/A 18 Super Hornet (remember that there was no 'no fly zone' over those offices as it is being debated in Libya) back in February 2011. After all - Mr. Ratan Tata is not Colonel Gaddafi.

However things started going wrong as soon as Niira Radia entered Tata Group. Smart people do crazy things when they come in association with Radia-like woman. A group that mostly stood for good corporate governance started floundering on it from that moment she entered the Group. The entry of Niira Radia itself remained an unsolved puzzle for researchers, as inside sources now reveal.

No satisfactory answer emerged as of now - in spite of the credible spoof research - on the nature of the door through which Niira Radia had entered this iconic group. It is more likely to be through the back door because no visitor of that name ever entered Tata Group firms from the front door - as revealed by an extensive search of the computerized visitors lists of that period across all Tata premises.

So how bad was this lack of freedom of speech period in Tata Group? Professionals were gagged as no body could open their lips without a permission of Niira-Ma'am. It suffices to say that grown-up adult professionals, including CEOs of large divisions of Tata Group, had less freedom of speech than what my son of class three (9-years) enjoys at school. What I understand from primary school experience of my son is that they start chatting as soon as their Ma'am gets into something else or leaves the room; however that freedom was badly missing to the heads of all the PR teams of Tata group of companies. 'Head down' meant head down - 'silence' meant absolute silence - it was after all Niira Ma'am.

Going by the credibility or lack of it in mainstream Indian media, it is presumed that discretionary readers of The Spoof would always ask for evidence of above lack of freedom of speech allegations in Tata Group; ignoring the credibility that The Spoof correspondents anyway offer. So here are a few of those evidences that Spoof never fails to produce:

Outlook, in an article stated following on this lack of freedom of speech within Tata Group:

'...initially there was considerable scepticism about her (Ms. Niira Radia) abilities and the "hold" she had on the Tata supremo. But all that died down when everyone quickly figured out that "rnt (Ratan Tata) will not hear one bad word about her".

And here's what an ex-Reuters journalist wrote on how Muthuraman, the erstwhile MD of iconic Tata Steel that acquired Corus during his tenure, responded meekly 'yes ma'am' to Niira Radia in a media-attended event. Radia had power of final say over Tata Group CEOs, even for Tata Steel MD (Mr. Muthuraman here) as Reuters journo describes the event. Here's another such conversation between them that show what went on Muthuraman's mind as he spoke with Madam Radia.

There were umpteen other news reports during that period which stated 'The Group did not respond to the media query' or something similar. The reason was, as revealed now from inside sources, is the group companies had no choice but to forward the query to Ma'am - and she preferred to engage in Government formation for the benefit of her clients than spending her valuable time on clarifying such trivial media queries.

So that was the lack of freedom of speech period for CEOs in Tata Group, and lack of professional freedom for the top brass of the management team in it, which, in a metaphorical sense is akin to the lack of freedom, and lack of freedom of speech even for Generals of Gaddafi's army. One can imagine the inhuman suffering the man of the street - an ordinary citizen in Libya or an ordinary employee at Tata Group had to suffer. It was all about 'Yes Ma'am' to Niira Radia as "rnt will not hear one bad word about her".

Since November onwards, when the Radia-leaks happened in India, there's been jubiliation amongst ranks and files of the Tata Group employees, to many of its boardrooms. Although Mr. Ratan Tata verbally and legally attacked Outlook and Open Magazine (for leaking the tapes), a vast majority of Tata-employees, including some of the erstwhile influential CEOs within the Group, were visibly jubilant. On condition of anonymity, as there's been a fear of professional backlash in their careers within the Tata Group, many informed this reporter that they sent sweet packets to the editors of both those two magazines, and also to Anil Ambani.

Things need further elaboration for non-Indian readers to understand this character called Anil Ambani. He is the younger son of Late Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of India's biggest private firm - Reliance Industries. It broke into two after his death. Mukesh, the elder son is deeply philosophical in his heart, and believes in the Sankrit Proverb that means - 'do your work, forget about the result'. To be the single inheritor of Reliance dynasty, Mukesh wanted his younger brother Anil to be kicked out of the Reliance dynasty, post the death of their father Dhirubhai. However he did not fully succeed in doing so as Anil cried 'Mummy'.

Mukesh always keeps his cool in all his endeavors. Leaked tapes show how he hated to show his emotions while robbing the nation of its natural resources like gas and oil. While Mukesh believed in doing his work of robbing the nation without emotion, his younger brother always cried 'mummy' whenever he saw his brother denying him his legitimate share of the Reliance empire, and 'SEBI' (equivalent to SEC) whenever his companies share prices fell.

So a desperate Anil found a way of tapping Niira Radia telephone through a genuine or forged letter to the Government of India, as some sources state. And then it got leaked. Rest is history.

However never in his wildest imagination Anil probably thought that the skeletons in the cupboard would also cover some of his own.

However all bad things, too, eventually come to an end, as we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt. Coming back to this sweet taste of freedom as now being re-tested by Tata Group employees, it started when company PR chiefs could comment online without the permission of Niira Radia Ma'am. A comment in CNN showed how a publication from Wharton (which unlike Harvard, has not probably received money from Ratan Tata, as LSE did from Col. Gaddaffi) has been critical on Nano - and the PR head of Tata Motors discharged his duty, albeit a bit over-enthusiastically, by denying that comment.

The story behind this change of heart of Ratan Tata to empower the PR teams of their respective companies to do their job and have more freedom is full with myths of epic proportions. Spoof correspondent from beyond the earth and life confirmed that while laying a floral tribute on the 172nd birth day of the Group founder Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, Ratan had a trance-like situation. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was apparently at pain at the recent questionable developments within the Group, and thereby sent a message to Ratan to distance himself from Niira Radia, and commanded Ratan to reinstate the professional freedom that his employees badly needed. Mr. Ratan Tata, however, neither confirmed nor denied this heavenly incident, when asked by the Spoof Team.

Although almost every one of the big Tata family is happy about this development, Anil Ambani is not convinced. He threatened to move to SEBI on this forward looking statement on profitability of Nano issued by the PR head of Tata Motors on Nano, as Mr. Ambani feels strongly against such disclosure practices. 'It should come from the CFO or the CEO' - not from the PR head, stated Anil Ambani. Junior Ambani also pointed out to another report at the WSJ that stated 'Still auto parts makers say Tata has to sell many more Nanos for everyone to break even on the project.' 'So if it is not breaking even for parts suppliers - how could it already be profitable for overall Nano' - asked Mr. Ambani. He also hinted at a collusion to mis-inform shareholders of Tata Motors that is bringing down share prices of his own firms, following the 'Butterfly Effect'

Most others however is ready to overlook the content of the comment - one can make a comment online without 'Ma'am's' permission demands jubilation - they say.

Spoof understands such jubilation is a part of the success as it has been observed earlier by Spoof correspondents from the Tahrir Square. Spoof also wishes Tata Group employees luck in their struggle to get absolute professional freedom of speech, from their decades of suffering under Radia-regime in Tata Group. Indian media may be corrupt and Tata Group employees may have been let down by them, however Spoof can give this assurance to Tata Group employees that it would also stand by human rights, freedom of speech and ethical practices.

The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.

I invite you to take a look at my book,Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted many of the economic and geopolitical crises, to the gold prices and the currency disputes. You are also invited to join me on twitter

2010-12-16T01:39:00.000-08:00

What Tata Can Learn From Toyota - Part IV (On Niira
Radia Controversy)

Part I and II of this series of articles dealt with the evolution and functioning of the online media which many, including probably Mr. Ratan Tata, fail to grasp. Part III dealt with the ‘promise of ethical business’ that ‘Brand Tata’ probably also meant, and salvaging that ‘Brand Tata’ now following the 2009-10 vehicle-recall example of Toyota, another iconic brand that stands for safety and quality. Toyota looks to have succeeded by placing its promise before its profits. Part IV, this concluding section, highlights the challenges for the Tata Group now as the two compared cases also differ where it hurts the most.

Doing business anywhere in an ethical manner is something central to the concept of doing business itself; however the reputation of ethics in Tata Group has been further strengthened due to the various philanthropic activities that Tata Group has been engaged in, genuinely and proactively, over the years. Tata Group has also made its points on ethics known to its various stakeholders and to media many times in past, in a tacit or in an implicit manner.

Just days before the controversial leak of the tapped phone conversation between Mr. Ratan Tata and Ms. Niira Radia, Tata was quoted in media to have said how his group refused to pay a bribe, to seek an entry into the aviation sector. A bribe might have facilitated that process is the implied meaning, and as expected, the Business Group refused to do so. People perceived Tata Group to be different, because they viewed the Tata Code of Conduct in sharp contrast of ‘India’s culture of corruption’.

A promise in business always should come before profit. I don’t know if some eminent person ever said it. I came to know it from the business practices that one of my student claims to have been practicing in his entrepreneurial ventures. The promise that Toyota brought, tacit or implicit, is about safety and quality (or as per Akio Toyoda: 1. Safety, 2. Quality, 3. Volume). Most respected firms globally would never compromise their ethics or code of conduct. Increasing global scrutiny and suspicions have rather forced companies to be more stringent in their ethical standards, over the years.

Ethics, at the same time, is very difficult to be defined and that’s why I liked this article of William D Cohen (You’re Welcome, Wall Street).

Toyota probably never openly and tacitly claimed that it makes ’safer’ cars than its competitors, but that was the implicit promise that it created amongst significant section of its customers globally, based on the performance of its vehicles. The additional promise that Tata Group brings to millions of Indians is about ethical business practices. One may say that Tata Group never said so tacitly, but we can’t deny the implicit stand of Tata Group and this implicit understanding that many people in India or abroad may have about this group.

Such tacit or implicit promises, in normal times, work towards the advantages of the firms. However when things go wrong or even may apparently look to be going wrong, this advantageous position that firms did enjoy can quickly backfire. And that’s what we saw during The-Toyota-Product-Recall-Days of 2009 and 2010. That’s what we again have been seeing in social media over the Tata Group. The challenge Mr. Tata faces now is to further strengthen this promise of ethics in business practices, as commonly perceived by many members of the society against the ‘blue logo’ of brand Tata, and as it tacitly is implied in the Tata Code of Conduct (TCoC).At the same time following the footsteps of Mr. Toyoda may prove to be difficult for Mr. Tata due to the differences that these two contexts present. Mr. Toyoda acted as an effective leader, in a group facing a crisis as a company, and steered it ahead. Irrespective of the past achievements Mr. Ratan Tata might have had for the group, here his own individual actions might have been an embarrassment for the group.

This article would only highlight two of these areas of that fuzziness which demand an explanation and actions from the Tata Group:

1. Clause:13 of Tata Code of Conduct says

‘Third party representation

Parties which have business dealings with the Tata group but are not members of the group, such as consultants, agents, sales representatives, distributors, channel partners, contractors and suppliers, shall not be authorised to represent a Tata company without the written permission of the Tata company, and / or if their business conduct and ethics are known to be inconsistent with the Code.

Third parties and their employees are expected to abide by the Code in their interaction with, and on behalf of, a Tata company. Tata companies are encouraged to sign a non-disclosure agreement with third parties to support confidentiality of information.’

If one isn’t mistaken, Vaishnavi Corporate Communication should come under this category (third party representation). It’s seen in some section of media today how Ms. Niira Radia filed a petition in Supreme Court to clear her name against the allegations that the leaked conversations may have created (and thereby to clear her firm from any violation of the ‘Code’, although a comment from one of the judges from the same court was in the line of ‘profession is something honourable’).

Mr. Tata can’t probably state as Mr. Toyoda did that he hadn’t known about the problems. Unless, of course, Mr. Tata was wrong in judging veracity of ‘Vaishnavi Corporate Communication and its employees are expected to abide by the Code in their interaction with, and on behalf of, a Tata company’ from his interactions with Ms. Niira Radia.

It would also be difficult for the the whole Group to state again that they didn’t know about existence of confidential reports as mentioned in ‘The Radia Papers - Raja, Tata, Ambani connection’.

Irrespective of the pending Supreme Court judgment to Ms. Niira Radia petition, public opinion on Ms. Radia based on her 100+ leaked conversations is unlikely to change soon. Extending what Economist Jagdish Bhagwati said about Indian political leaders (‘public figures are considered to be corrupt unless proven otherwise’), another (spoof) article stated same years back for Indian business leaders (where CII stands for ‘Corrupt Indian Industries’).

Tata Group, if an exception from that definition that CII represents in that spoof article, should better act on Vaishnavi Corporate Communications on its own, than wait for the SC judgments. And violation/s of the Tata Code of Conduct, when scrutinized thoroughly, may not be limited in Clause 13 alone.

2. The other one is about another article in Outlook that stated (author, however, is not sure about the credibility of following para, as no source has been cited in the following para):

‘This (engaging Vaishnavi Corporate Communications of Ms. Niira Radia for all the 90 Tata Group companies as their PR agent) did not go down well with some CEOs of the Tata Group companies—initially there was considerable scepticism about her abilities and the “hold” she had on the Tata supremo. But all that died down when everyone quickly figured out that “rnt will not hear one bad word about her”.

Assuming that there is an element of truth in above paragraph, particularly the last line of it, it presents the iconic Tata Group in a poor light, not from ethics here - but on grounds of professionalism. It is not the professionalism that true business professionals expect from theTata Group.

Ethics is not limited to paying bribes alone. Tata Group reputation, in this context, will not depend on the Supreme Court judgments alone on the pending cases. It will depend more on the internal actions that the Group can initiate, on a proactive basis. It essentially is about accepting that everything might not have been all right, and actions therefore are needed than merely denying any wrongdoing, whatsoever.

It actually is in the control of the group – starting with Mr. Tata himself to all the top managers of the Group. The case is evolving, and may eventually die down (the author would be glad if that happens, with of course, due clarity); however to encourage Mr. Tata to initiate the bold steps as Mr. Toyoda did in a different context – here’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln (in his letter to his son’s teacher):

‘Treat him gently,
but do not cuddle him,
because only the test
of fire makes fine steel.’

Mr. Tata surely knows how to make the finest steel. He also understands what cuddling may mean, which, Lincoln didn’t suggest for his son.

Over to you, Mr. Tata...

Before moving to academics, the author worked with a company, enlisted as a Tata Group Company, in its Senior Management Team.

I invite you to visit my blog, Wondering Man (or take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted the housing-led economic crisis of 2008, rise of gold prices to the currency war being played now). You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

2010-12-16T01:30:00.000-08:00

What Tata Can Learn From Toyota - Part III (On Niira
Radia Controversy)

Part I and II of this series of articles dealt with the evolution and functioning of the online media which many, including probably Mr. Ratan Tata, fail to grasp. Part III, this section of the article, deals with the ‘promise of ethical business’ that ‘Brand Tata’ probably also meant, and salvaging that ‘Brand Tata’ now following the 2009-10 vehicle-recall example of Toyota, another iconic brand that stands for safety and quality. Toyota looks to have succeeded by placing its promise before its profits. Part IV highlights the challenges for Mr. Tata as the two compared cases differ where it hurts most, and as it seems that Tata Code of Conduct (Point 13) has been violated.

Part II of the article can be found here.

It is all about denial to acceptance to action.

Toyota happens to be an iconic company. Similarly the Tata Group has earned an iconic image of doing business professionally and ethically in India, and now the group has expanded significantly beyond India’s borders, under Ratan Tata’s leadership. Tata Group also happens to be India’s largest group, when measured in terms of market-capitalization.

Toyota globally revolutionized Production and Operation Processes with its legendary Toyota Production System (TPS). It earned the respect of the world by creating new benchmarks and sustaining it. So did the Tata Group across India and around the world, in an implicit way, for ethics. Both have a long history of being good corporate citizens or groups, and have emerged as stronger than ever before with every new challenge they faced during their evolution.

One may legitimately raise questions in comparing Toyota recalls of 2009-10 (that involved theories from sticking floor mats, to accelerator pedals getting stuck, to anti-lock brake software problems) with an ‘apparently insignificant’ Niira Radia tape leak for the Tata Group, involving its Group Chairman, Mr. Ratan Tata.

Back in those days of Toyota recall, one would recall reading many articles in global media that reported the problems and the (in)actions taken by Toyota (or (in)actions to test reports from Government regulators). There were even reports of brake failure or heating, but the tests did not confirm the 1st version of the stories made by many of those drivers.

Many of us do not have any expertise in that area of technical recalls involving complex technologies (the author here included), nor that people who had it was of much help to them as none offered a convincing clarity. A researcher surely could have got insightful findings merely by focusing on what the readers thought about safety of Toyota vehicles, as those comments or tweets came up on a real time basis against those news articles/opinions, and whether Toyota had broken or even overlooked any of its tacit and/or implicit promise/s of safety that its products brought to millions of customers world-wide.

So the hundreds of comments those articles, covering Toyota recall of 2009-10 generated, included pure journalistic articles to opinions blaming it on Toyota (or its late response and delaying strategy because many stated that problems were ignored in its early days) to blaming it on drivers (supported by statistics to show number of Toyota vehicles facing accident was no different from others, if I remember right) to even blaming competitors for the propaganda. There were blogs that looked credible (or may still be credible) that criticized Toyota as it overtaxed many of its employees in terms of physical hours in job.

Effectively, media report of that time on Toyota proves that people to expert agencies were not sure about the root cause or causes of the problem. Most of those articles gave an impression that Toyota neither was sure about the root cause/s of the unintended acceleration problem. So many (this author included) did not know what Toyota intended to do by recalling the vehicles that would eliminate the root causes.

Essentially the similarities of the Toyota recall to the insignificant Radia-controversy lies here, in its ‘fuzziness’. In the early days, the problem looked to be irrelevant to something unidentifiable (for Toyota in identifying where the problem is, to defining ethics for Tata and its possible violation in Radia-case). Safety in automobiles is THE most important issue, whereas for any reputed group – including for the Tata Group, ethics must come before business profit or share of spectrums received.

The other similarity lies in the name. Mr. Toyoda stressed on the point:

‘As you well know, I am the grandson of the founder, and all the Toyota vehicles bear my name. For me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well.’

This may well be true for Mr. Ratan Tata. It may well be the last time as well when all Tata Group actions are scrutinized by that implicit understanding of ‘Tata’ ethics that its founders had, to be protected and strengthened by the subsequent CEOs having the same family name.

We may not have the next group chairman for Tata having a Tata family name. Mr. Tata must not miss this opportunity.

Toyota had been on the denial mode of the problem (genuine or perceived or somewhere in between as partly genuine but exaggerated many times more) for a long time, if some section of media was to be believed. But once they accepted that there seems to be a problem without knowing what exactly the problem was, they moved quickly to unprecedented action mode – by even suspending sales, not considering the costs of the recall when the recall was ordered, and many more in the face of customer safety issues.

And then came the testimony to the U.S. Congress on February 24 this year (where Mr. Toyoda admitted that he didn’t personally know exactly when Toyota had found out about the problem; and he hadn’t learnt about them personally until late 2009) which also probably took the sheen of ‘denial’ mode of attack against Toyota to some extent. Many in the U.S. opined that Mr. Toyoda’s testimony probably was not rightly received by many in the U.S. (or even within the U.S. Congress) due to the deep cultural gaps between Japan and the U.S.

However all these actions and an honest testimony from Mr. Toyoda soon turned the readers’ opinions from neutral or negative to more positives, against those articles on Toyota in various news media or Web 2.0 platforms. And then Toyota delivered too. It could be a good research project to look at twitter records pertaining to Toyota recall for that period to justify what I perceived by reading a fraction of the media.

Part IV and the concluding part of the article examines actions that Tata Group should take internally, as it seems that its fabled Code of Conduct seems to be violated.

Before moving to academics, the author worked with a company, enlisted as a Tata Group Company, in its Senior Management Team.

I invite you to visit my blog, Wondering Man (or take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted the housing-led economic crisis of 2008, rise of gold prices to the currency war being played now). You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

2010-12-16T01:18:00.000-08:00

What Tata Can Learn From Toyota, and From History -
Part II (On Niira Radia Controversial Leak)

I’m No Saint

Nelson Mandela

Part I and II of this article deal with the evolution and functioning of the online media which many, including probably Mr. Ratan Tata, fail to grasp. Part III of the article deals with the ‘promise of ethical business’ that ‘Brand Tata’ probably also meant, and salvaging that ‘Brand Tata’ now following the recent example of Toyota, that stands for safety and quality. Toyota looks to have succeeded by placing its promise before its profits. Part IV highlights the challenges for Tata Group as the two compared cases differ where it hurts most, and as it seems that Tata Code of Conduct (Point 13) has been violated.

Part I of the article can be found here.

The power of creating the first draft of history to its latest – and to its most viewed drafts of it - has shifted to the society and to its citizens. Victor Hugo probably understood it better (without seeing the digital media in digital age) when he said that an invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Newspapers, in its traditional sense, no longer are the solo producers of the first drafts of history. A few tweets on Trafigura, to recent round of wikileaks (that claims to have the power to rewrite history) to many more examples probably would justify that minor change in the process that creates history, to have a more inclusive definition of the history creation process.

I would love to quote from Howard Zinn, a man who probably shaped my thoughts to a great extent through his articles:

‘One of the things we can learn from history is that history is not only a history of things inflicted on us by the powers that be. History is also a history of resistance. It’s a history of people who endure tyranny for decades, but who ultimately rise up and overthrow the dictator. We’ve seen this in country after country, surprise after surprise. Rulers who seem to have total control, they suddenly wake up one day, and there are a million people in the streets, and they pack up and leave. This has happened in the Philippines, in Yemen, all over, in Nepal. Million people in the streets, and then the ruler has to get out of the way. So, this is what we’re aiming for in this country.

Everything we do is important. Every little thing we do, every picket line we walk on, every letter we write, every act of civil disobedience we engage in, any recruiter that we talk to, any parent that we talk to, any GI that we talk to, any young person that we talk to, anything we do in class, outside of class, everything we do in the direction of a different world is important, even though at the moment they seem futile, because that’s how change comes about. Change comes about when millions of people do little things, which at certain points in history come together, and then something good and something important happens.’

In my article on ‘Money, Knowledge and Power’; I extended this analogy of ‘a million in the streets’ to millions in the digital highways. In India, where we don’t know where to get justice or on which street to picket against the injustices we face, a limited few with Internet access is picketing online. So these wikileaks (or #CableGate), leaked conversations of Niira Radia’s tapped phone calls to influential people in India (# DalalMedia) are nothing more than an idea with thousands of people in the digital highways of this world, whose time has come. For a moment, even an experienced eye can make a mistake of thinking these voices to be an army of unruly mob. They actually aren’t an unruly mob – they rather represent an idea. Web 2.0 and Global Reform talks about this idea only.

In India, we may be at an inflection point of this history creation process, with the explosive leakage of conversations that was tapped, with Government approval by certain agencies of Government (whose legality may be a subjudice issue) for this Ms. Niira Radia, the promoter of one Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, a Public Relations firm based in New Delhi. Two magazines apparently have published these leaked, tapped conversations online, which also got their natural entry in YouTube.

Question arises on act of publishing here being a legal or an illegal activity from the front-end, in this age of ‘breaking story’ where verification of the process of an ‘illegal leak’ and a ‘legal leak’ can take hours or days. And then addressing next questions like leaking illegal - publishing legal, to both being legal to both being illegal - whatever be the outcome of this sub judice issue is, it surely would be historically significant. Privacy against right to information is another area of conflict.

Prior to the online leak of these conversations, these transcripts were also made available to few (or many?) news editors in India, which the recipient editors ignored applying their discretions – be it for the ‘content’ and/or for questionable ‘journalistic ethics’. The chronological order of the leak is quite murky anyway (and here I presented a limited idea, which may well be wrong, that I got by reading few articles on it) other than those same tapes being offered as evidence by an eminent and upright lawyer, Mr. Prashant Bhushan, before the Highest Court in India in the ongoing 2G spectrum allocation scam.

(Mr. Prashant Bhushan happens to be the son of one Mr. Shanti Bhushan, who, in my eyes, is fit to be a role model in a country of 1.2 billion in its present time; where stating that role models from social areas in India are an endangered species would be an optimistic statement. Mr. Shanti Bhushan also happens to be a former law minister, and a senior advocate).

In the online anarchy related to cyber-affairs, when no one can be 100% certain on how or who hacked Google; or why the U.S. – in spite of all its abilities, could not stop wikileaks from leaking confidential U.S. government documents again and again, it must be another challenging task in India to identify which website first leaked it, when or how.

But once 104 (or 142?) of these nearly 5000+ conversations tapped were leaked online (all of which now would be under the direct custody of the Highest Court of India), there is no way one can stop their circulations. One just hopes that Mr. Ratan Tata, chairman of India’s largest IT services firm, realizes that reality by revisiting Victor Hugo when he said that an invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. I support him when he petitioned to probe the leak, to ensure that no further private conversations get leaked. However I don’t know how a court can act on his petition to prevent further offline or online publishing of whatever has already been published online. Mr. Tata must understand that it is NOT an invasion against any private or public person’s privacy, orchestrated by a few immoral journalists, possibilities of whose presence I am not denying. This is about how digital media works in this digital age where no court can truly control it on a global level, and no government can influence it. Digital media essentially has no boundary.

Mr. Tata, if he wants to, with the might of the Tata Empire, and with the covert and overt support from the Indian Government and/or from the other influential Indian industrialists who may fear these leaks, can fight and probably even win against the army of known journalists; but not against the army of the idea that gets generated in innumerable other websites by unnamed entities.

The preamble has been unduly long. And we haven’t yet got Toyota in the picture. Toyota stands for the promise of quality and reliability; as Tata stood for ethical (and professional, yet profitable) business practices amidst an unethical business society and corrupt Government practices as in India. Mr. Ratan Tata should better follow the actions and examples set up by Akio Toyoda when he faced the upheaval challenges of vehicles recall in 2009-10; rather than trying to justify how Mr. Tata engaged Vaishnavi Corporate Communications of Ms. Niira Radia to ‘fight fire with fire’.

Part III of the article can be found here.

Before moving to academics, the author worked with a company, enlisted as a Tata Group Company, in its Senior Management Team.

I invite you to visit my blog, Wondering Man (or take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted the housing-led economic crisis of 2008, rise of gold prices to the currency war being played now). You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

2010-12-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

What Tata Can Learn From Toyota, and From History - Part I (on
Niira Radia Controversy)

I’m No Saint

Nelson Mandela

Part I and II of this article deal with the evolution and functioning of the online media which many, including probably Mr. Ratan Tata, fail to grasp. Part III of the article deals with the ‘promise of ethical business’ that ‘Brand Tata’ probably also meant, and salvaging that ‘Brand Tata’ now following the recent example of Toyota, that stands for safety and quality. Toyota looks to have succeeded by placing its promise before its profits. Part IV highlights the challenges for Mr. Tata as the two compared cases differ where it hurts most, and as it seems that Tata Code of Conduct (Point 13) has been violated.

In my brief four-years of life as a blogger, when I have covered wide areas of topics of my interests, and thereby have written articles on around two hundred topics; one single topic stands apart, as an exception.

I just wish that I didn’t show my catastrophic immaturity and inexperience in writing on Sony when Sony was undergoing the challenges faced by battery recalls that it supplied to the computer (laptop) makers, back in 2006. I have decided not to delete that article (anything, in its true sense, can probably never be deleted online, irrespective of traffic or links it might have created); so that I can remind myself again and again, that catastrophic immaturity and inexperience I had displayed in that article (another version of it, without experienced editorial control in BNN, probably looks worse).

I simply forgot that Sony is not just another company. Similarly the Tata Group, having tested the severe tests of ethics in a nation like India for over a century (142 years, to be more precise), is not just another business group.

The learning I (hopefully) had is: Before opening one’s mouth to say big things covering big issues, one should apply the additional discretion and caution.

Having stated it, we all are fallible to these catastrophic slips. To err is human. If Nelson Mandela could say, without moral hesitations that he is no saint, we all should and ought to follow him. Tata Group might have stood as an epitome of ethics in a country where unethical Governance and business practices is the norm; at the same time there is no harm if Tata Group, on its own, admits that they also aren’t any saints; and thereby initiates the internal cleansing process that must ensure that ethical slips, if any indeed happened this time, is not repeated again in future.

Unlike in academics, which happen to be my profession now; in journalism - journalists don’t have the luxury to follow a wait-and-watch strategy to perform a detailed post-mortem of a breaking story. Seconds matter here in journalism when globally renowned journalists ask legitimate questions on existence of journalism itself in its traditional sense in this digital age (the Hugh Cudlipp lecture of Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian, on questioning existence of journalism itself).

(It is another matter that many, who would not hesitate questioning existence of journalism in its traditional sense per se in this digital age, would also agree that importance of journalism now, therefore, is even more than ever before).

Real life managers need to take ex-ante decisions whereas we academicians have the luxury to dissect those decisions, at a post-mortem level, in MBA class-rooms over management case studies, or in our academic researches. Reporting journalists are like real life managers.

Practicing journalists, therefore, are not historians at their daily jobs, nor are they academicians. In an article, in the New York Times, Evgeny Morozov sums it up as:

‘If newspapers produce the first drafts of history, Wikipedians certainly produce its latest and — thanks to Google — most viewed drafts.’ (myself being a fan of both Google and Wikipedia, one can legitimately ask whether Wikipedia needs Google that way).

Prof. Eric Clemons pointed out this influence of Google when he acknowledged students telling him that they probably could not have graduated (Prof. Clemons said it about High School students, however I believe this can be legitimately extended in higher education as well) without ‘Google’; the academician merely corrected them by saying – ‘without search’, highlighting the process part of it.

Similarly if I dare to extend this argument of Morozov, I might just say:

‘If news media or social media (like twitter) produces the first drafts of history; it is the social media again like Wikipedia (and others like wikileaks) that produce the latest, and the most viewed drafts of it.’

The most extensive draft of history, which probably can truly be called something similar to a ‘People’s History’, is getting stored with search engines like Google that has all the ‘private’ records of most of our searches historically (only we ourselves individually and Google can access it). However it hasn’t leaked out yet, fortunately for all of us. However I am not sure that how long more it would remain truly private, and protected.

(Wikipedia, by the way, has been debating whether to retain the article on Nira Radia (which they finally didn't retain and merged with Nira Radia Tapes Controversy. I requested them to retain it, because there are other sources, without the credibility that Wikipedia offers. The external link in Wikipedia on original Nira Radia lead to a blank page, which may provide credibility to the the cover-up allegations).

Part II of this article can be found here.

Before moving to academics, the author worked with a company, enlisted as a Tata Group Company, in its Senior Management Team.

I invite you to visit my blog, Wondering Man (or take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted the housing-led economic crisis of 2008, rise of gold prices to the currency war being played now). You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

2010-11-25T04:22:00.000-08:00

A Question from Indian Teachers

As a teacher, I am increasingly getting confused. As a teacher, I must provide my students with necessary knowledge of the discipline, and help them develop independent thinking capabilities, along with other abilities and skills with which they can compete in the world in a fair manner, and thereby be successful in life.

The keyword above is, as I realize now, is competing ‘in a fair’ way. And while defining fairness, I opt for moral judgment of it than limiting myself with the legal definition of it. William D Cohan (You’re Welcome, Wall Street) provided some help in seeing the difference, while in doubt.

The confusion that I face (in India as a teacher) is probably the confusion that most teachers face in India. We, the teachers in India, don’t talk about it because we don’t see any solution to this confusion in present day Indian reality.

It is not getting any better, it rather is worsening. Alternatively, it is probably as good or as bad as it has been in the recent past - the skeletons at times come out of the cupboard, and get reported in media.

The confusion is all about the seemingly unending trade-off of becoming successful in life while remaining honest and fair as well. It is all about ethics, or call it business ethics as it makes a come back in B-school curriculum post the 2008 greed fiasco of the Wall Street.

Prof. Nitin Nohria of Harvard conceptualized an MBA-oath akin to the Hippocratic Oath of the medical professionals. We can sub-categorize ethics into business ethics, governance ethics, etc. - but it essentially does not dilute the basic importance of ethics.

Last couple of months - in India, we have seen CommonWealth Games Scam (CWG scam), then scam in Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai, and now on the 2-G spectrum allocation scam. I am deliberately missing a few more. Some section of media now have dragged the 2-G scam to unethical behavior of journalists, and even to a larger section of reputed corporate biggies and also to the overall Government and to the all important task of Governance itself.

‘India, the republic, is now on sale’ - thus opens an article in a (relatively) mainstream Indian media, reporting on the latest rounds of one of these many scams of India. The more I have grown older, the more I have become skeptical about Indian media. Truths, myths and outright falsified propaganda - they all have their wrongful places in Indian media as news stories to op-eds. Only a Pollyannish would believe in pure journalistic motives of most of these media stories!

The same media, also routinely covers, not on the front-page but somewhere deep inside, how a petty thief was murdered by the mob who caught him in the act; or how a poor student committed suicide because his parents could not afford a full pant for the school or a bag to carry books to school.

No one gets to the bottom of the truth involving the multi-billion dollar scams in India. Not the media, nor even the Government or its pillars of democracies - including, probably, the Judiciary. In present age, we increasingly have a short memory. Old unresolved scams get buried under new ones without fixing due accountabilities or without desired punitive actions being taken against the culprits. Talking about preventing future such scams by reforming Government or its regulatory powers in this context seems to be far-fetched ideas.

As a teacher - under above realistic circumstances, do I have any right to suggest my students to be honest, more so when I realize that it is hardly possible for one to be successful in life, more so in India, by following honesty and ethical means?

Am I therefore preparing my students to be unsuccessful in their professional lives compared to their individual potentials? What right do I have to do so? It is altogether another matter to discuss what influence a faculty has on a student’s mindset when it comes to the vital decision making process the student faces later in life while selecting one - ethics or success - between the only two alternatives. (I acknowledge that the context may be more complex than the black or white simplified version presented here - however the gray element here also bears an element of unethical behavior, the so-called ‘black’ part in it, right?).

Assuming many of the teachers have that influencing capabilities, should we advise our students to opt for ethical practices without an iota of hesitation?

I have probably been trying to do so. I am sure that there are many more teachers in India who do it much better. But increasingly I look to be a fool in my own eyes. I ask myself whether I have been attempting something as stupid as grooming a lion-cub to be vegetarian in support of non-violence. The reality tells me that corruption has become a part of the gene in Indian society as we have constantly and continuously been evolving through corruption.

As teachers on the denial mode, can we remove that gene from Indian society? If no, should we prepare our students to have the right version of that gene in their mindset to be more successful in life?

Ramachandra Guha, one of the rare species of academic voice that one comes across in parts of Indian media on such issues, once compared the atmosphere in New Delhi to be polluting enough for one to remain ethical (over the years). That speaks volumes on Indian society. As teachers, if we can’t make our students adapt to that atmosphere of our very own capital city, do we deserve our pay cheques?

It indeed is a difficult question. As teachers, do we acknowledge reality and work; or do we avoid reality and live in an idealistic, principled world? Providing up-to-date necessary knowledge and skill-set also happen to be a Key Result Area (KRA) by which media judge faculties in India.

Many members of Indian society and many of us - the faculties follow a different practical definition of success, which has got less to do with money (or exercisable power). However that may not be true for 20-something youngsters of present capitalistic and consumption-centric society. I must respect that view of the young students. We all need money to do what we want to do with our lives, but money never is enough. At the same time, lack of it can prevent us from achieving our broader objectives of life. And every member of society keeps on benchmarking with others when it comes to money, and to exercisable power. Students as present and future citizens are no exception.

Money and exercisable power largely defines success in modern society anywhere. And Indian society, when viewed from these series of scams, offers a naked posturing of that success.

In India, once one has money and/or exercisable tacit power, we no longer question the means by which the person gained that success. In seminars, in conferences - many of those successful people, who probably got it all by wrong means, come and deliver speeches on challenges of society, including on ethics. It hurts, it is unfortunate and painful. But that is the reality and there is no getting away from it. As teachers, we can’t be on the denial mode and hide from it any more.

The place that Indian academia occupies in those seminars or conferences is at most with the audiences. And in the evening, it happens to be in the drawing room of the faculty when such discussions get beamed over news-channels, involving many of those same lot of questionable people as panelists, preaching values of principles in one’s life and in broader society. One can better change society through the bigger reach and means of the mainstream media, however rarely we do see academic voices on the vices plaguing Indian society in mainstream media or events.

Indian society has confined faculties within the corners of the class-rooms, away from debates on public policies or in its makings (Noted here that our honorable PM happens to be a faculty, addressed later in article). In this context, how justified it may be to take the famous letter of Abraham Lincoln to his son’s teacher to Indian class-rooms? Would society, the parents of the students, the corporate that later recruit many of these students, the Government and its various Institutes who also offer employment for these students other than being a proud nation of such citizens - would all these stakeholders’ other than the students themselves permit a faculty to be so naive to quote Lincoln in saying that ‘it is far honourable to fail than to cheat’ in a class-room.

Because, the failure here goes beyond failing merely in an exam or losing an academic year. Can we teach our students that ‘it is far honourable to fail in your life than to cheat’ and be successful, in a society that India presents today? Can we ask our students to believe that ‘for every scoundrel there is a hero’ without mentioning the fates of Shanmugan Manjunath or that of Satyendra Dubey? The stakes in these cases were not anywhere close to billions of dollars!

I am thoroughly confused. As teachers, irrespective of the fields that we deal in, should we all be concerned about basic values we impart in our students? And if yes, how do we do that in the present context of Indian society?

For a moment, I had the temptation to state this article to be ‘An Open Letter from Indian Teachers to Our Prime Minister’. I resisted not because that sounds quite odd against the objectives of this article, but because it involves the broad society - the private corporate, the industrialists, and the media, all of us. It can at best be called an open letter from Indian teachers to all the stakeholders of education sector in India.

It would be indeed good, if different segments of stakeholders of education in India ponder about this dilemma that many teachers in India face, more so in higher education areas involving social and managerial studies. One can’t write it off as an insignificant issue that does not deserve time and attention from the holders of the highest offices - be it in Government or in private sectors.

Coming back to the area, where our Prime Minister also happens to be a teacher does not solve the problems of policy-making or debates or actions, or possibilities of further involvement of academic voices in each of these areas. The problem is in what we earn versus what is given to us. We can exercise our free power in what we have legitimately earned, however we can’t do the same if that is something given to us. The Prime Minister earned his academic credentials, however he did not earn his Prime Ministership because of any of those credentials. He was given the job of Prime Ministership. It is not a question of eligibility or capabilities, our PM may stand above board on these parameters. He is a deserving PM, however he did not earn it. UPA earned it, someone else did not accept it and that’s how he was given the job. Therefore he may be above board personally, however the board of the ship that he is captaining is further and further sinking in the scams of corruptions, involving billions of dollars, with high-level officials from public or private sectors.

As faculties, we understand and empathize the complex problems that our PM and PMO face or the overall Government face. We also understand, and thereby empathize with our private sectors, due to the competitive environment in which they operate. It goes for various other bodies as well.

However it is high time that they also realize the dilemma that Indian teachers face. The problem that we Indian teachers face looks much simpler than the complicated nature of the problems that our stakeholders face. We need answers on what values we should provide to our students on ethics. We just can’t be irrelevantly preaching as our students laugh at our naivety through twitter from the same classroom by saying ‘this implies it is esy 2 preach’.

I invite you to visit my blog, Wondering Man (or take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d that rightly predicted the housing-led economic crisis of 2008, rise of gold prices to the currency war being played now). You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

2010-06-24T03:09:00.000-07:00

India focusing on wrong measures

‘To measure Chinese power based on the tired rules of how many aircraft carriers she has or on per-capita GDP leads to devastating mis-measurement.’
Joshua Cooper Ramo, p.2

India is following the wrong measures. It becomes more evident every two years – during the (Summer) Olympics and during the FIFA World Cup. The later is up and running, with millions of Indians watching it as football becomes another global religion, debating about likely favorites or discussing about the games played or outcomes expected.

Unfortunately for India and more so for its millions of illiterates, malnourished people; India has been on the wrong track of processes and their measurements. Unfortunately in India, it’s not the economy; it should be education. It’s not the health of the economy as measured in GDP growth rates; it rather should be the health of Indian citizens. It should not be billionaires India produced; it should be how well India could meet with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the UN or how well India could reduce percent of people that goes hungry every day.

A natural outcome of the right measures gets visible to any man from the streets all over the world in every alternate years - during the Olympics or during the FIFA World Cup. There are exceptions to it; but this untested hypothesis probably passes higher confidence levels than most economic hypotheses.

Measurement Gurus Kaplan and Norton, and even before that Porter is credited with the saying "What gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets done”, which many claim, is an old adage. There was another insightful principle that Texas Instruments followed on importance of business (of governance) processes that went by: How do you expect a different result if you don’t change your business (governance) processes?

This article asks why India has not been getting a different result in terms of literacy, poverty reduction, reducing hunger or malnourishment or even participation in FIFA World Cup Finals or in terms of performance in the Olympics; in-spite of higher economic growths over more than a decade or nearly for two decades now (since liberalization).

In case of India, since the economic liberalization began in 1990s; growth rate as measured in terms of GDP might have changed for the better compared to the age-old ‘Hindu’ rate of growth; but there has not been significant change in illiteracy, poverty or in % of people that go hungry (as per latest UN report, same at 1990s level of 20-21%).

Do we learn anything from Texas Instruments? Are we following the wrong processes of economic growth measured in terms of GDP growth rates?

Is India, having a population in size similar to only China and a demography today that matched with Chinese demography few decades ago, focusing on the right processes and thereby on the right measures? One may argue there’s been enough historical evidence on how increase in GDP growth improves the lifestyle of the populace. Question is: how many of those evidences are relevant to an Indian situation, and for the 21st century world. It’s all about the ‘trickle-down economics’.
In a country like India, the question that should be asked is: what should be an acceptable rate of reduction of illiteracy or poverty or hunger with every percent point increase of GDP. Most other nations globally have achieved higher growth rates after they had tackled the problems of illiteracy. In India, the growth rates have come irrespective of higher illiteracy; and so far the higher growth rates have done little to alleviate illiteracy any faster. It broadly goes true for poverty or hunger.

Lately, I have started admiring management professionals more than the economists because the former understand the context and then look for the solution; whereas the later look for models in one nation and imposes that on the other irrespective of how different or similar these two nations or economies are, on a comprehensive basis. The 1st principle of management, if there’s any, is everything depends on the situation. The economists are yet to grasp it. There are problems for which there may not be any models. Management professionals can face those, not the traditional economists.

In India, since the economic liberalizations, our many of the western-educated policy-makers and heads of Governments followed the west in GDP as a measure of well-being of people; and growth rate of GDP to be a sole yardstick of natural choice of how well-being of people has been improving on a periodic basis. It’s the intoxicating shtick of Indian policy-makers to follow ‘The Washington Consensus policies’ without ever realizing how suitable that might be for a country having an altogether different demography, by all measures. Since India’s freedom, policy-makers in India were mesmerized by the U.S. (in terms of the federal structure or the constitution India has) and the U.K. (structure of our parliament, indirect election to elect the PM/CM).

Had India structurally have anything in common with the U.S. or the U.K. back in 1947? Was it driven by the awe of a teenager as the over-enthusiast leaders of the newborn nation looked at a superstar or by the logical thinking of an adult in what model suits him best?

Since liberalization, Indian policy-makers lacked the power of original thinking and blindly copied the West (or even before that, they tried partly to copy the USSR) in terms of economic policies where literacy is nearly 100% or ‘have nothing’ poverty (as per Indian standards) is nearly nil. China learnt from others, but innovated as its internal situation demanded.

Going before liberalization, India had a mix of Nehruvian economics. The transition over the years to the present model highlights the confusion Indian policy-makers faced, in understanding India-specific needs that economic policies should meet, presenting the mindset of a ‘traditional economist’ (without original thinking capabilities) with historically irrelevant models; than one that demands practical insights of a management professional.

So we have an India story today where the health of the economy is measured by louder noises of ‘GDP cult’ in government and media communications that would dwarf the ‘vuvuzelas’ of Africa in every 46 months out of every four years or so. The exceptions of those two months in every four years are during the FIFA World Cup and during the (Summer) Olympics. Sadly that ‘noise’ of India story remains absent at the venues of both the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics.

During these two months, the world also probably realizes that the Indian growth we have been talking about in India in economic terms isn’t real; it’s not reaching the majority of the citizens of this country and thereby not having any measurable impact of growth in the lifestyles of the majority people of this country, most important of that being physical health (indirect measure being capability in sports) followed by mental health of the citizens (education). Socio-economic measures are referred always on a comparative scale (monetary income, education or health of people of any country in comparison to other similar nations) as no economic measure on an absolute scale ever makes much socio-economic sense (barring exceptions like calorie intake, etc.).

In a country where (real) education for the mass (and not school enrolment) seems to be a luxury, no one has time to think about sports education. As a father of a school-going child; I sense it every day. Indian citizens and its policy-makers have taken it for granted that India is not likely to participate in FIFA World Cup in our lifetime or that of our next generation. It goes true for our performance in Olympics as well. Other than literacy and poverty, sports is another area where the ‘I’ stands apart from the ‘BRC’ in the ‘BRIC’ hype.

Statistical data and study after study from multilateral agencies prove that on a comparable footing, in spite of the high economic growth India enjoyed since the beginning of the century or even since 1991 as India liberalized, we have not been able to improve the literacy rates of overall India in any significant way. Countries having similar demographic profile but growing at much lower rate of GDP growth than India have been able to improve their (1) Literacy rates, (2) Child mortality, (3) Health of pregnant women, (4) Child health and finally (5) their performance in Olympics or in FIFA World CUP - two events that globally measure how good a country is in sports, compared to India.

The performance of India (along with South Asia) in these two global sports event proves conclusively the backwardness of India (and South Asia) compared with Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa, thankfully, have been able to generate lot of internal debates, global attention and the attention of resource-hungry Chinese policy-makers. Backwardness of India and South Asia, for some unknown reasons, gets ignored globally and locally.

The impact of wrong priority on wrong processes manifest beyond illiteracy, poverty, malnutrition. The average age at which Indian women get married, the latest round of ‘honor killings’ that gets media attention for the time being, the child labor, an unsustainable rate of population growth compared with available local resources…India tops in all these social evils; not in absolute numbers that may be expected, but in % of population as well.

The benchmark of comparison is obviously not Afghanistan et al. while stating above.

Beijing Consensus, on the other hand, is discussed openly more in the West than by Chinese policy-makers. Chinese policy-makers, per se, don’t openly discuss about Beijing Consensus. Bremmer talked about it (Quoting Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei: ‘Now that the free market has failed, what do you think is the proper role for the state in the economy?’) as Bremmer got the idea of his book (‘The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?) from that discussion.
I have not yet heard any such questions being asked by Indian media or in serious academic/industry seminars/discussions. It’s sort of blasphemous as India boasts about 8-10% growth year after year with liberalization. Free market (whatever it means in Indian context as ‘free market’ doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing across nations) finds its worshippers in India – in government, in industry lobbies and within pockets of academics as well. In India, there’s not yet been any war or even a dispute between the State and its corporations. Indian state welcomes the corporations with a red carpet, irrespective of the merits and demerits these corporations represent.

A country of 1.15 billion can talk only about merits of corporations where various statistics proved 70-80% of the population lives below $2-a-day, and another 30-40% or even more (depending on whom you believe!) lives below $1-a-day. Beyond official literacy, there is worse data on real literacy. Still, it’s a country 300 million+ people who partly is reaping the benefits of that GDP growth; still the 2nd most populous nation. Rest of the 700 million+ population can be and is comfortably forgotten by those believers of GDP and believers of free market.

However even these 300 million+ odd Indians fail to raise Indian flags high in these two world sports events. The sports education Indian society provides to the children of these well-off 300 millions+ Indian populace also reflects in overall performance of India in FIFA World Cup or in Olympics. The performance is no where among the top nations.

India has been following the wrong processes and wrong measures by believing in trickle-down economics when what’s happening is worse than 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.' At present rate of near-double digit GDP growth and its impact on illiteracy, poverty reduction, malnutrition; I am not sure how long it would take for India to achieve the MDGs. Unfortunately, going by the actions by Indian policy-makers, there’s not much crisis on missing the MDGs. The crisis happens when the GDP slips, even for a quarter, by a percent point or so.

It pains to see the government fanfare in celebrating 2nd October, birth day of Mahatma Gandhi when the same Gandhi stated: "the test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among its masses". In India, the positive correlation of GDP growth with number of millionaires far outscores the same of GDP growth and absence of starvation (is it +ve at all?).

Importance of GDP is not being undermined. Rest of the world understands GDP growth rates better now as they don’t face illiteracy, or ‘have nothing’ poverty as prevalent in India. The developed world dealt with these problems more than half-a-century ago. For them, India can be a poster boy with near-double digit GDP growth rates; however as a measure of its effectiveness on quality of lives for the masses and more so for its disadvantaged sections; India internally can adhere to other effective measures like literacy, poverty reduction, etc. Needless to say; the later gets more attention as economy seems to be on an auto-run now. To improve literacy or reduce poverty, the processes government needs to focus are likely to be different.

Advocating India to follow Beijing Consensus blindly is not metaphorical as India and China also have differences. However till the time India realizes that no single copied model would help her better realize her goals for its 1.15 billion citizens collectively; it can learn from the indigenous innovative model of ‘Beijing Consensus’ and its results – in literacy, poverty, malnutrition, GDP, trade, and also in its performance in Olympics. Beijing, irrespective of its advocacy of Beijing Consensus policies, realized that it had to find solutions to its problems by itself. That does not mean not learning from others; but it’s not blind copying.
India has so far been blindly copying the ‘Washington Consensus’ policies to please a minority of its vocal people (and the U.S.) when much of the developing world is talking less about shifting from ‘the Washington Consensus’ to ‘the Beijing Consensus’, but debating internally about it or have started acting on it. For the sake of those millions of illiterates, poor, malnourished Indians and for the sake of a better performance in future events of the FIFA World Cup Final or in Olympics; it is time that India explores other options, including adopting Beijing Consensus in parts, than sticking to sacrosanct ‘free market’ policies of the Washington Consensus.

It should no longer be a taboo to ask the Indian Prime Minister from economics background, or his blue-eyed blue-turbaned boy the question that He Yafei asked Bremmer: ‘Now that the free market has failed, what do you think is the proper role for the Indian state in the economy?’

I invite you to visit my blog, Wondering Man or take a look at my book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d. You are also invited to join me on Twitter.

2009-10-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

India – a failed state and South Asia – a failed region?

South Asia is in a sorrow state – much of its own making. India is in a sorrow state – as yesterday Naxals killed 17 policemen in Maharashtra and in Kabul, another attempt to blast Indian embassy resulted in similar number of deaths.

What’s happening in India? What’s happening in South Asia? And why?

Not long ago, Indian media was gung ho on ‘India superpower’ topic. I was one of the few skeptics – not because I am less or more patriotic. It’s something similar to the views one Singapore-based fund manager once said: whenever in his TV interviews he states Sensex may correct more than many other markets, he has been perceived as a non-patriotic.

The last two years may or may not have seen decoupling conclusively – however one decoupling that has happened conclusively is comparing India along with China in global forums and media. President Obama would be visiting Asia next month – India does not feature in the list of nations.

India, like China, deserves to be a superpower if counted by its population only. However sadly, in global stage, population numbers don’t count. And India still struggles to get a seat in the UNP5.

Question is: how much has India (and whole of South Asia) prospered relatively in (1) infrastructure, biggest of which is education; (2) regional collaboration, and (3) social justice over the last two or three decades? The world has been more concerned about Sub-Saharan Africa (and good to see they score better compared to South Asia in many parameters of HDI) whereas South Asia has further created problems of its own.

It was comforting to see Rahul Gandhi recognizing part of the Naxal-problem, true with some political color, when he attributed lack of governance and improvement of quality of life in the affected areas. On the Naxalite menance, Home Minister Chidambarm is right when he said that agitation and terrorism by Naxalite is hampering further progress of these backward regions. But that’s the obvious well-known problem, and not the solution. In-spite of that problem, we need to find a solution going beyond the chicken and egg story of vicious cycles of poverty to destructive agitations.

Externally too, India does not feature prominently in ASEAN or in discussions when many Asian nations talk about a common currency following the Euro.

The ‘easy and acceptable’ Indian view of above would be India faced tremendous challenge from inside out (diversity along with terrorism leave aside corruption) and outside in (unfriendly neighbors). The best example of the inside problem is the presence of elements like Raj Thackeray in Indian politics, whom media projected recently and who proudly showed his concern for Maharashtra by speaking in Marathi in national channels. Credits must be due to both Raj Thackeray and those channels!
The other view could be – can something else work because following the same path has not solved domestic problems, neither has Indian stature in AfPak, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or even China has gone up in recent years. One can even include Iran and Myanmar in South Asia, and again indecisiveness of India has acted against Indian interest (or broader interest of humanity) there. The reason is primarily Indian indecisiveness.

Best example of that is found when no one globally notices India as a responsible nuclear power (unlike Pakistan or even China), however what they notice is India has not signed the NPT.

The best example of this indecisiveness is epitomized in many an external relationship. I often heard from Indian Diaspora in African continent that whenever due to a natural calamity, some country there is affected – India takes years to send food grains/relief materials (due to bureaucratic delays) whereas assistance from China reaches them in days. It helps in creating public opinion.

Columnists (or bloggers) live with critics and one such feedback (by one Andrew) to one of my earlier related columns in BNN read like: ‘This is why India has no friend in the world because India is always so selfish. If India become a superpower, it will be the most selfish country too.’

For deliberate reason, I avoided the next sentence that Andrew had in his feedback. However as one sees how India stands in regional and global forums, one can’t but avoid noticing that India doesn’t have much friends to count on in the world or even within South Asia (or broader Asia). And leave aside the blowing Indian mainstream media, in the grassroot levels, India may not have many friends of its domestic policies too if the Naxal problem is indeed as deep as it’s popularly projected (25% of Indian districts). Naxals may be one such dividing force, India actually has many more. And surprisingly, all these happen in the land of Mahatma Gandhi!

I could not help but write a painful spoof article on that sometime back (India warns Iraq with Cold War rhetoric). One can replace Iraq with AfPak today whereas India again remains the common contender.

It’s time probably India relooks at its South Asian policies – ensuring militants are never helped by neighboring countries trying to settle scores with India (or any other countries). A true spirit of partnership rather than outdoing each-other is what is needed in all of South Asia, including India. A stable Pakistan is in India’s interest and so is for Pakistan. A strong China can be for India’s interest and as the 2nd largest power in South Asia, respecting India’s rightful positions can be of China’s interest. And all these interests can benefit 20% or more global people who live in South Asia. Even it is time that the west (the US, EU) involves local powers (India and also China) in solving their problems by being in South Asia.

India should also ensure the domestic issues are taken care from its roots rather than parliamentarian speeches and faulty policy-implementations. That probably demands reviewing how the Constitution works in grass-root levels.

India and whole of South Asia indeed needs a lot of genuine help from rest of the world – for the betterment of South Asia and for the betterment of the world. The rest of the world should not find faults with South Asia – due to its inherent unique historical characteristics. They should rather try genuinely to resolve same.

Lastly – this article needs a disclaimer. ‘India – a failed state’ may raise a lot of eyebrows within India and unnecessary criticism by being 'not in the same page' (or for South Asia). One such example comes to mind when a recent UN discussion talked about comparing caste based differentiation with racism and applying same to India. Many in India viewed that would embarrass India. But the truth is something deeper (and as stated by Rahul Gandhi again when he said he doesn’t believe in caste) and may be in grass-root Indian culture. Can we ask the UN to help us resolve that problem rather than finding fault with our historical diversity? Can we ask UN to help us in improving literacy rather than lecturing alone (and spare the public-private mode there)?

The objective of the article is to ensure India should never be anywhere close to a failed state and South Asia should never look like a failed region. But recent events are indeed disturbing. By taking the worst possible scenario, it’s time to re-think how India as the largest country in South Asia and as one deeply affected formalizes her internal policies and external relationships. India, due to her stature in South Asia, definitely owns a significant responsibility in bringing peace, stability and growth in the whole region. However lately we only see failures. And the blame games can’t continue.

The best thing one can learn from the media in the west is to critically self-evaluate oneself rather than glorifying oneself (what China so far does). Indian media would probably do more justice to India by critically (and not superficially) examining the effectiveness of India's external and internal policies, if anything like that at all exists. And that goes for countries in other South Asian nations as well.

One can learn from failures, alternatively one can sink further in those failures. If Russia and the US can do business leaving aside cold war memories, if the US and the communist China can do business for mutual benefit; why can’t China, India (and if need be with Pakistan, Bangladesh and others) do business for mutual benefit?
It’s time to think outside the box for the problems that India and whole of South Asia faces. That genuine out of the box thinking must start from India, percolate to other South Asian nations and finally to the rest of the world.

Ranjit can be followed at Twitter @ http://twitter.com/RanjiGoswami

2007-11-16T21:41:00.000-08:00

Can Indian Supreme Court learn from Pakistan, at least for Nandigram? (This I posted in BNN on 7th November)

No doubt Pakistan is going through difficult times. And difficult times bring out the true character of people, and Institutes. The world is getting a better understanding of the true characters of General Parvez Musharraf whose sole objective of emergency was to gag the Supreme Court. The General ousted the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, along with a large majority of his colleagues, who stood by values than bowed to guns.

And the whole judicial fraternity comprising a large number of lawyers did actively support Justice Chaudhry, while facing batons in the hands of the General in Pakistan, again and again.

India and Pakistan has traditionally been in a race to the bottom. However at this critical juncture, along with the world, India also salutes this spirit of the judiciary in Pakistan.

India is traditionally rated as a more stable democracy. The various Institutes that support Indian democracy apparently didn’t face the autocratic military challenges often, barring one single event of Emergency in 1977. It too was politically misused, and not military being of unruly type.

However ground realities of situations in India do not present that rosy picture, at least not always. Take for example Nandigram, which did hit media headlines back in March this year where many farmers died and many women were raped in their battle against forceful land acquisition practices of the State, for the purpose of setting up SEZs to have fast tract industrialization.

Those people, who suffered in the hands of the culprits, did visit every-one in Indian democracy to get justice. They visited police; they visited the state Governor and many more who are supposed to be accountable for that fateful mess. The Kolkata High Court even did order a CBI probe, and CBI also unearthed few evidences within a short period. But then there was a debate whether the Kolkata High Court is empowered as per the nitty-gritty’s of law to order a CBI probe. Apparently the case has been pending in the Supreme Court. (Please follow When the choice is between the Constitution or Innocent Lives).

And most of us at least have not yet heard anything more on the status of the last case. Whether the case is in ‘Cold Storage’ or in Supreme Court is left for any to decide. In Indian democracy, the nitty-gritty matters more than the lives of the innocent civilians, more so when they are ordinary citizens. And no one is sure how many more deaths in Nandigram would stir these various pillars of Indian democracy to action, independent Judiciary being one of them. Matter of fact is, the case is buried until more fateful burials in Nandigram take place.

And in last couple of days, there has again been a repeat of violence as it happened on 14th March in Nandigram. In between these eight months, many more died. The lawlessness, which even the state administration has admitted to be ‘war-like situation’, has been there for nearly last eight months, in front of the eyes of the pillars of Indian democracy.

And all the elements of Indian democracy has allowed ‘Might is Right’ to be tested once again in the turfs of Nandigram with innocent lives keeping Indian Constitution somewhere in a sacrosanct place. Sadly, at least in this case, Judiciary is also involved as more bloods get shed in Nandigram. And in-spite of the deadly silence and delay of the Judiciary in this case, for many citizens in India, Judiciary is the last hope.

And in Nandigram, Judiciary has allowed this last hope to be killed, at least as of now, by not providing justice to the victims of last carnage of 14th March; and thereby emboldening the culprits to carry out more carnage. That’s expected, and that’s happening now. More and more people are dying everyday in Nandigram.
The New York Times, in an article on Pakistan titled ‘Pakistani Lawyers’ Anger Grew as Hope for Changes Withered’ quoted a lawyer ‘“When the Supreme Court started acting like an independent institution for the first time in 60 years, they came down very hard (whereas), in the past, the Supreme Court had always connived with the establishment and the military.”’ And another lawyer asked ‘“How do you function as a lawyer when the law is what the general says it is?”’

Would someone from the pillars of Indian democracy please inform the people of Nandigram what law is for them? Let it even be the words of a General, but let there be a law for the people of Nandigram. Or is Indian democracy effectively telling the suffering people of Nandigram to knock on every possible door seeking justice and protection before they too get killed/raped? The bottom-line of Indian democracy is an absolute lack of accountability when it comes to ordinary people by not doing anything or even worsening the situation; and a war-footing over accountability beyond the legal limit when it involves someone influential.

Churchill was of the opinion that justice should be more from morality angle and less from legality angle; more so for a country like India where many poor, illiterate people may not understand legal terms and their implications. Judiciary, by sitting on the case of Nandigram for months when the carnage continues on ground and all the other pillars of democracy settles score, has effectively allowed the moral angle of justice to be compromised again by the legal angle of justice.
It’s high time that India and Pakistan stop racing to the bottom. And the beginning can start with Indian Supreme Court acting truly like an independent Institute that’s not afraid of the power-politics of poor governance of South Asia, as the failed Supreme Court of Pakistan showed its success in its failure, morally and legally.

The above article is not meant to criticise or dishonor in any way the Honorable Supreme Court of India. It is a desparate attempt of a citizen to draw the attention of judiciary on the events of Nandigram, so that law and order can be restored in Nandigram at the earliest, and the culprits are brought to justice.

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man Money & Go(l)d

2007-11-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

The bias in Western Media in matters of India and China

The title of this article could well be ‘Is there a bias in western (mainstream) media in matters of India and China?’

It’s a question to myself, and it’s a question to all others concerned. And the context is had one event like Nandigram happened in China, what would have been the reaction of mainstream media in west?

The context is relevant because of recent ‘war-zone’ situation in Nandigram that lasted for few months before resisting party eventually was conquered by the other, with might is right approach and state support.

Media was barred from entering the Nandigram war-zone for days. And it’s not about foreign media – local media was forcefully, illegally and unconstitutionally stopped to cover the events there as the ruling machinery decided to capture the grounds lost, at any cost. Police posts were removed, not that those were functional in any form before their removal. I have not heard this ever – not in Darfur, not in Palestine, not in China and even not in secretive North Korea. Villagers were forced to surrender their mobile phones and Internet cafes in those areas were censored to ensure modern world and history get any access to know what unfolded to the poor farmers and villagers in those few days.

And all those happened with all pillars of Indian democracy fully knowing what’s happening and what’s likely to happen. Indian democracy loves to react to fateful events, rather than acting proactively to prevent those. And they blame it routinely on ‘democratic federal constitutional uprightness’, again and again.

Sitting in Kolkata, the state-capital of this Marxist-ruled state of West Bengal, many of us have seen most of it in local Bengali TV channels. Local print media also covered a lot of it – day after day. National media covered it, but that was inadequate to the gravity of the situation. Eastern India being the laggard in Indian economy, and resource constrained as many of these national media are, the focus is much less than what Gujraat got for its unfortunate events back in 2002. Gujraat riots lasted for three days, Nandigram lasted for months, Gujrat was also not isolated from media whereas Nandigram remained isolated from the rest of the world for nearly a week.

The only resemblance could be with Prisoners of America’s war on terror being kept in Guatemala Bay, or old days of concentration camps of Hitler.

Now comes the role of western media over this event. Barring coverage that can be counted in one’s fingers, I haven’t seen western mainstream media wasting their time on Nandigram, although the events that took place here is against all norms of human rights, democratic values, and responsible governance. And for western media, lack of resources or focusing too much on consumerism (another characteristics of Indian mainstream media) are not excuses not to cover planned slaughtering of rural people, belonging to different political ideology, under state machinery.

The definitions of states sponsoring terrorism differ, however the actions of the state government over Nandigram do not allow scope of difference. The state in question here used its resources to kill its own innocent people. Had it been otherwise, the U.S. no doubt would have asked for stringent global actions against the nation in its global war on terror!

What’s amiss here from western media?

Western media often focuses on the numbers of demonstrations that take place in China. However, other than the brick-kiln coverage of abusing labor practices, and engaging bonded labors or even child labors, I didn’t come across any recent events in China that can withstand competition in terms of human rights abuse when compared with Nandigram (many called the March 14th event of Nandigram to be equivalent to Tiananmen of India, Tiananmen was not repeated whereas Nandigram got repeated last week). And authorities in China did take strong actions, against culprits of that brick-kiln labor practices, albeit after much delay, and initial inactions.

Had Nandigram-like incident happened in China, would western media have covered Nandigram with same negligence? I guess not.

One obvious and reasonable reason comes with the unimaginable rise of China. It automatically gets much more attention, where every action of its gets screened under a microscope. More so when there is any chance to malign the state on human rights records.

Nothing wrong in it. One can’t compete in global markets on economic ground with a trade-off record of human rights.

But that’s just one small part of the many possible reasons. The other more important ones come from the biased mindset that western media has for India over China. India is not yet an economic threat, India is a democracy, India can potentially counter the impact of rising China in parts of Asia, India follows ‘Washington Consensus’ policies, etc.

So favor India over China may come naturally to western media, knowingly or unknowingly. China happens to be a mystery, and there’s an undefined apprehension in the west about rising China. Selling democratic India over Communist-China to counter that feeling helps both national interest and western people’s interest.

As an Indian, I should be happy about it. However I can’t say that over western media’s role of ignoring unfortunate deliberate events like Nandigram.

Suffering people from Nandigram didn’t receive any timely help from state government (rather they orchestrated the whole event), the central government didn’t want to act against the state government whose support it badly needs to stay in power, and judiciary termed the event ‘unconstitutional’ only after the ruinous event sort of came to a natural end.

Peace loving people all over the world, more so from the west and its government and mainstream media need to play an important role here. And that’s by putting pressure on erring Indian government to act fast. Deliberately overlooking Indian records of human rights abuses and focusing on China alone would not serve west’s long-term interest over the region.

Had Nandigram happened in China, it would have, no doubt, received a lot more global attention. Yes, a hell lot of negative publicity…

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l0d

2007-06-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

(Spoof & Satire) India warns Iraq with Cold War rhetoric

The cold war days are back, yet again. Both for the superpower status and for the super-backward status.

Global media in its hype have focused much on the insignificant new missile test of Russia, which as per Russia, would help it maintain the balance of power for next forty years with the technical capability of this missile to strike targets irrespective of missile shields that the U.S. proposes for Eastern European states, much to the dismay of the Kremlin.

‘That can at best be termed as limping back of old cold war rhetoric and actions in global super power status, whereas the real escalation is in global backward super power category; and fortunately nothing much has yet been said on that yet’ said Hanif Mohammed, a veteran of 40-years in Global Institute of Backwardness in Kabul, Afghanistan.

‘In its usual superficial reports, what mainstream global media have missed is another round of dangerous escalation in cold war. It involves the undisputed global leader India as it increasingly gets concerned by the rapid rise in backwardness by a host of potential challengers for the global backward superpower status. Foremost in that list of challengers is Iraq, followed by Afghanistan and Darfur’ said Mr. Mohammed. He also added: ‘My sources tell me Indian government is keeping a close eye on developments in all these backward regions, getting hourly reports on domestic deaths and casualties there to match with Indian figures; and any shortfalls are quickly met’.

The International Think Tank and Research Center dedicated to monitor Global Backward Superpower Status, based in Myanmar, was the first to point out this dangerous escalation in its yearly report released yesterday. It compared the Gujjar-Meena conflict in Rajasthan (the western Indian state where the Thar desert is) where scores have died (last report 25) similar to the Shia-Sunni conflict of Iraq; and further stated that both India and Iraq seems to be in no mood to be 2nd to none in promoting sectarian violence within its land.

Confirming the escalation, a Strategic Cell within India’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that works closely with Empowered Group of Cabinet-Ministers (EGOM) and state-chief ministers, known popularly as Central Imbecile Agency (CIA) called Iraq’s ambassador in New Delhi to warn him about India’s growing concerns on Iraq’s competitive gains in the field of managing civil war.

India, however after a temporary lull in its various religion-based, terrorism-based, and caste-based conflicts and casualties is catching up fast, sources closed to the PMO office said.

A spokesman of CIA, confirming the development, confirmed following to the media:

‘India has maintained its undisputed competitive advantages in global backwardness since the 1970-s, thereby having the longest monopoly of backward superpower status in history. Many vested interests wanted to write us off by comparing us with other hyped-up backward stories; but time and again, we have proved that China, other nations in BRIC, or even Sub-Saharan Africa is no match to our superior socio-economic and military influence in global backwardness. India, as a responsible democratic liberal backward nation, have used her backward influence in fostering backwardness in all of South Asia, in neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and even in Afghanistan, which now poses a challenge to our supremacy. We want this whole region to grow and share our fruits of success in global backwardness.’

A cabinet minister from Rajasthan, while commenting on the issue, said: ‘India after watching the developments in sectarian violence in Iraq for last couple of years could no longer take its leadership position for granted. The Iraqi ambassador was called, and was informed categorically that Iraq must not move backward so fast; it must respect India’s internal violence related deaths, where India has a competitive advantage and leadership position for years; and Iraq must therefore refrain in scoring high casualties in various Shia-Sunni conflicts which can have long term backwardness implications for the world’s largest democracy’.

The Prime Minister himself declined to comment on the development. However a closed member of his cabinet informed ‘Indian Government has observed closely the last couple of years sectarian-violence of Iraq, which can potentially disown India from its unique position as observed by our Honorable Supreme Court when it stated: ‘'It has also to be noted that nowhere else in the world do castes, classes or communities queue up for the sake of gaining the backward status. Nowhere else in the world is there competition to assert backwardness and then to claim we are more backward than you.' Although global opinion is that Shia-Sunni fight in Iraq is to have more control over governance and oil-assets, which may not be in direct conflict with our objective of backwardness; however looking at the end results, we are concerned. We in India look at the results than the policies or actions. We have, historically, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to develop and be a truly progressive developed country. And we would maintain that untarnished image of free, liberal, democratic backward India at any costs.’

The latest round of full-blown caste-war in Rajasthan is viewed from that angle by Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq’s Mehdi army. A media-shy person; he informed CCN correspondent in Iraq that he has received messages from Iraqi ambassador in New Delhi; and suitable response to India’s conspiracy would be displayed in streets of Baghdad soon. ‘Jaipur-Delhi highway is nothing compared to what we have in streets of Baghdad’ – that’s the best one-liner that the CCN correspondent could get from al-Sadr. Allied forces have increased their vigilance over streets in Baghdad post the development

TheSpoof research shows that the Iraqis have been an endangered species in Iraq since last couple of years. What have come up in its place is Sunni Iraqis, Shia-Iraqis, Kurds; even within Sunnis there are Pro-and-anti Al-Qaeda Iraqis, then there are tribals; within Shias you have groups for al-Sadr and groups against al-Sadr. Similarly in India, Indians are another endangered species. However endangered species can be hunted down with rewards by influential people in India, which has further driven Indians to the position of near extinction in India. What India has now is Meena-Gujjars-Jats-Yadavs-Thakurs-….on top of religion, language and other diversities. In India, people don’t cast their votes, they rather vote their castes.

And though Indian government has time and again shown apathy to protect its heritage buildings of rich historical diversity; it has not only resisted any attempts by endangered Indians to bury the caste-system, but government has rather aided the caste-driven conflicts by increasing that competition to assert backwardness. The Meena-Gujjar conflict is because the Gujjars demand that they have been cheated on the assurance of the state government before election to make them as backward as Meena’s are. And the last line is not from TheSpoof.com.

It’s another matter that promises made by Indian politicians and policy-makers feature regularly in the best stories in TheSpoof. However Gujjars felt that they are not contributing to Indian backwardness as much as Meenas are doing by virtue of their postings in backward government with their backward status to keep the country backward.

The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d

2007-06-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

(Spoof & Satire) Indian Prime Minister: Doctorate but Illiterate

Mahatma Gandhi, to show his compassion to the millions of the poor Indians, lived a simple life. His simplicity was interpreted by many to be akin to living in poverty.

Any Indian political leader, by default, becomes a follower of The Great Mahatma. Dr. Manmohan Singh, current Indian Prime Minister is not an exception. Incidentally, Dr. Singh earned his doctorate degree from Nuffield College at Oxford University in 1962 and his honors degree earlier in 1957 from the University of Cambridge.

Following Mahatma’s footsteps, in a recent conference he declared himself to be an illiterate. He also assured that a country with as high illiteracy as in India (40% officially, unofficially much higher) can’t afford the luxury to have a fully literate Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

In the Corrupt Indian Industries (CII) conference held on 23rd May in New Delhi, delivering the key-note address on ‘Role of Crony Capitalism to Promote Exclusive Growth’, the Prime Minister stated following:

‘India has achieved phenomenal exclusive growth, and by all means we would continue our journey to achieve even better, faster exclusive growth. No major economy of the world, forget our poverty (nearly 70% lives below two-dollars-a-day) and illiteracy rates, could match billionaires’ contributions to the society as we have done. Today India proudly tops Asian Billionaires List; we plan to do that in the whole world by 2020. Our government can be poor, our people can be poor, however billionaires’ wealth, at three times our government’s annual budget, and growing at a much faster rate than government revenue or the economy, would make us proud globally as Indians. No other major economy is even close to one.’

The Prime Minister also acknowledged in the same speech his government’s compassion for the poor and the illiterates. He further stated:

‘Our government is equally responding to the need of the masses. Government after government in India has promised ‘garibi hatao’ (‘Abolish Poverty’), we have spent sloganeering on National Literacy Mission; but achieved none. This government, to deliver to the ‘aam admi’ (common man), have decided to engage illiterates in my very own (Prime Minister’s Office – PMO) office. We could not achieve 90% or above literacy in last sixty years; however we would ensure we achieve 90% or better illiteracy rates in next twenty years. The grudges of the illiterate would be less when most of us are illiterate, the poor would not feel the pain of the ‘wasteful blatant consumerism’ as done by a small section of the society when barring the billionaires and millionaires and politicians and bureaucrats; all would be made poor. The government has got multiple strategies to collect whatever small wealth the poor has, and ensure that it gets delivered with asset-multiplier effect to the billionaires. Having more and more SEZs on farmland, applying land-acquisition act of 1894 to take away farmers’ lands, by using 1931 census data to have reservations for the rich backward castes over merit and thereby kill our educational institutes; we would keep no stone unturned. That’s the least I could do by following Mahatma’s footstep and show compassion for the majority of the poor and illiterates of our country’.

The Prime Minister concluded by saying: ‘Our honorable Supreme Court recently observed that ‘Nowhere else in the world is there competition to assert backwardness and then to claim we are more backward than you.' Our government has taken the observation of the Highest Court of the land seriously, and has decided to make the whole country backward, illiterate and poor; barring the delegates present in this auspicious room’.

Addressing the same CII event, Finance Minister (Harvard-educated) Mr. P. Chidambaram stressed on the need of fiscal prudence. He explained how his team has reduced social sector spending with states cooperation by 4% in as many years, now that’s closed to 18% compared to 22-23% of government’s expenses in earlier days. ‘We have stopped funding roads, schools, and healthcare unless farmers give their lands for exclusive growth. And this time we aren’t sloganeering, as India’s biggest media pointed out its practice in grass root levels on 17th May ‘schools and a health centre in lieu of land for the SEZ'’, stated the FM.

Finance Minister further explained how his ministry, by cutting aid and promoting misadministration, is achieving its multiple goals of privatization, poverty, population control and illiteracy. The minister cited various media reports highlighting massive absenteeism of teachers in state-aided primary schools; or reports of rape & molestation on women patients along with negligence-related deaths in state-hospitals.

When asked about the Left-parties opinion on these measures, whose backing this government needs badly to stay in power, Finance Minister irritably quipped ‘Don’t you know that ‘Left’ is ‘Right’ in India?’

When media asked questions on sustaining the high dependence on agriculture (2/3rd of the 1.1 billion people rely on agriculture in India) in light of growing population and stagnating agricultural yields, Montek Singh Ahulawalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and a Rhodes Scholar, who had earlier failed in his IMF mission to have India impacted by the Asian currency crisis in the last decade and therefore doubly-dedicated to deliver in present assignment, vehemently denied of any draconian measures to achieve population control, referring to the ‘one child policy’ of China and its fallouts. He claimed: ‘India is a free liberal society; and we never interfere in our citizens lives. However with careful scrutiny, you will see that farmers in India have been committing suicides at an astronomical rate, which would compensate for the rise in population, and thereby would allow them to sustain on agriculture with even less land as we take away the fertile, commercial lands. We never even take away the right of people to commit suicide. That’s the democratic liberal values we have in India; we rather facilitate farmers to commit suicides. China abuses human rights to control population – how inhumane!’
He further added: ‘Another reason for the land acquisition is also derived from this high rate of farmer suicides. With fewer farmers now, India doesn’t need that much land for agriculture. Industry and billionaires have been demanding for more land for real estate; and we are reallocating the resources to have further exclusive growth with farmers and your money’.

An extinct species of academicians, who were feeling suffocated in that conference atmosphere as they mistakenly attended the CII conference, expecting some insightful thoughts from the learned trio, could be overheard debating the various speeches after the conference.

A scholar of IIT Kharagpur stated: ‘Now I understand why I didn’t receive any feedback from the PMO when I wrote to them in their web-site suggesting better policy-making for the land acquisition problem, which in present form affects all stakeholders adversely in any project in India. They do have a site, but they can’t read or write. How sad! That also explains why they asked all to limit the content within 500-characters whereas for the White House, they give you 5000-characters. Anyway it was a waste.’

Another scholar from IIT Bombay quipped: ‘No, they do read or write selectively, like sniffer dogs; they have been trained to identify words or group of words like ‘B-O-M-B’. I know a researcher, who was frustrated with absence of academic voice and absolute lack of meaningful research in policy-making in India. He wrote to the PMO few times, expectedly he received no response. However as farmers continued being murdered by state-administrations or committed suicides; he did shoot of an angry one-liner ‘Indian farmers would explode like bomb in a revolt’ to the PMO. And he was immediately heard’.

1st Scholar eagerly asked: ‘Great! So he was finally heard and his suggestions got incorporated in the policy. So we can expect something good now’.

The 2nd scholar sighed: ‘No, man…he is in Tihar Jail now. They could only read the word ‘bomb’, vacated the PMO as soon as they received his feedback, tracked him down, didn’t listen to his arguments, and now he is in Tihar. However in India, as a researcher it does not matter whether you are in jail or in society. Does Indian society ever take research to be an important part for policy-making? Never. What Corrupt Indian Industries come out as research is research, what we find in the name of research is all rubbish. You saw it here…didn’t you?’

Opposition parties, while commenting on the Prime Minister’s concern for the poor and illiterate, felt all to be hogwash. Confidential sources also reported that Oxford, Harvard and that lot is also debating with divided opinions both in for and against this type of policy-making in India by their alumnus. Few want the degrees awarded to Indian policy-makers who apply land acquisition act of 1894 or census report of 1931 in 2007 to be withdrawn to protect their academic stature; however other school of administration wants such prudence as shown by present lot of India’s policy-makers to be further awarded with an Honorary D.Phil or similar degrees.

The same confidential sources stated that 2nd school of thoughts is likely to come out as winner, and they take pride in Dr. Manmohan Singh and that lot. The John F. Kennedy School of Government in Harvard is launching a three-month program on how long term historical data can be used as recent data can be misleading. Citing India’s success story, the same group, in a white paper, proposed handing over America to the aborigines.

The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d

2007-05-21T03:33:00.000-07:00

When the Prime Minister asks, and no one answers

India happens to be an incredible nation. No doubt most of Indian political leaders post the 1st generation of freedom-fighters turned political leaders were seldom taken seriously, be it domestically and even more so globally, other than their contributions in the stage shows over the great Indian political circus.

Many of them never had enough credibility – because they seldom understood, stated and meant something noteworthy, rarely walked their talk and accidentally implemented, if ever at all, their shared dreams of a nation of 1.1 billion people into reality.

So a section of Indians who were tired by staid statements that India had tremendous potential but Indians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity in the global landscape to be anywhere close to that potential were suddenly excited when a dream team of Dr. Manmohan Singh (MS) and P. Chidambaram (PC) came to take on the two most important political positions nearly three years ago – that of the position of the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister after the unexpected political results of 2004 general elections. No one could dream of Manmohan Singh, not a mainstream politician per se, to occupy the chair of the Prime Minister in India. Add to that MS-PC team the blue-eyed boy of policy-making from IMF, Montek Singh Ahulawalia, in the position of Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission; and the team looked complete. To deliver in long last to the long-underperforming economy that’s already been growing at 7-8% when they occupied their respective positions.

Only to be proven otherwise, after three years.

So the dream team happened, accidentally. And same Indians, who started believing that India can never reach its potential, were all too keen to project India everywhere. The dream team went ahead with its dream plans; spoke to the investment bankers in the New Yowk Stock Exchange in the very first year, and now in the 3rd year of their office, a term called ‘Crony Capitalism’ comes out from the trademark inaudible voices of the Prime Minister, the leader of the team.

Dr. Manmohan Singh referred twice the term called ‘Crony Capitalism’ in two of his recent speeches – one back in March in an industry conclave, and having realized that the forum might have been wrongly suited for that question, repeated the term again in this month while inaugurating an academic institute.

It took many like us few days to understand the literary meaning of the term called ‘Crony Capitalism’, though matter-of-fact is Indians have grown up to seeing various forms of manifestations of crony capitalism in almost all parts of small industrialized Indian economy from the ‘License Raj’ era to the era of free-wheeling capitalism and liberalization of present times.

A huge underfed market always ensured that whatever was produced in secondary industries could be sold, and there was always less of supply than demand, barring primary agricultural products. It’s no different even today. India was, is and in near future would be a supply regulated economy in most areas of manufacturing, a statement that won’t be much off-the-mark probably in all manufacturing goods.

The results are everywhere to see. China could manage near double digit growth for couple of decades with 2-3% inflation; Indian economy with couple of years of closed to 8-9% growth shows sign of infallible overheating. Policy-makers in India tell us that high inflation is inseparable from high growth, whatever lop-sided that growth be. So the common man, the ‘aam admi’ as per the Indian National Congress which is the mainstream political party behind ruling alliance, suffers from the inflation without enjoying the rising tide of the economic growth.

The sinking of the common man could not have been more complete – thanks to the dream team of MS-PC-MSA combination.

India and China, in-spite of their commonality of populations, happen to be in two opposite poles when it comes to the management of economic growth. Many look at the top line population and the growth-rate alone, and there by may be open to missing the DNA of sustainable growth.

Globalization in India was never used for the benefit of the masses to kick start supply as prices were always regulated through high tariffs. One is surprised to see in India prices of steel, non-ferrous metals, cement, petrochemical products and all in that basket to be much higher than their legitimate production costs. It’s simply because domestic prices are always linked to import-parity based prices where in-spite of having the lowest cost steel producer or aluminium producer in India due to good quality easy raw material availability; these producers always sold their products in India at same prices as it would cost a consumer to import that, that too with significant import duties.

Matter of fact is, barring the low-cost labor and farm-products, or cases like low-capital intensive diamond-polishing or textiles to some extent, India never did utilize its competitive advantages of productions in any of the capital-intensive industrial goods.

So we rarely saw consumption growth as majority of the people didn’t have purchasing power when product-prices were linked with global prices. And unlike China’s 240+kg per-capita per-year consumption of steel, and that of South Korea and Japan being much higher (more than 600 kgs/capita/year); India even now has a per-capita per-year steel consumption of hardly 40 kgs. And India has one of the best iron ore reserves; and few of the steel producers have the lease of some of the best iron-ore mines at almost throwaway costs whereby they get tremendous cost competitiveness.

China incidentally rely a lot on Indian iron ore exports to feed its nearly 500 million ton steel capacity, largely consumed within China again.

True, low-ash coke has been a problem for India; however that still does not takeaway its cost leadership position.

Then why didn’t Indian firms produce steel closer to the 300-kgs per-capita per-year sustainable level, making that steel affordable to domestic buyers at a price which justifies good business domestically? They rather linked domestic prices to import-parity based models to profiteer at times of global booms; and ask government to protect domestic industry with more import duty during bust cycles.

And we expected steel consumption to grow with that favoritism given to the manufacturers!

The answer is obvious and easy – a country of 1.1 billion people always had and would always have enough market as long as the product is made available at the right sustainable price for the masses.

Examples of steel can be seen in power, cement, non-ferrous metals and in all other industrial commodities.

Mobile communications is another example on the other side where Average Realization per User (ARPU) in India happens to be the lowest globally, probably without any close competition even from China. China, with its monopoly structure and much higher user base (China Mobile alone has 300-million+ subscriber, 50% more than all mobile and landline subscribers of India) still can’t make mobile communications cheap like it is in India to Chinese masses. And the growth in mobile telecommunications has been phenomenal in India lately, though India still has less than one-fourth the combined subscribers that China has, and number of mobile operators in India is more than five..

In case of steel, where India always had and still has a competitive advantage, India produces less than 1/10th of steel that China does.

Important to point out here that in-spite of tremendous profit growth that large Indian mobile companies have seen with surprisingly low call-rates; most of these private sector players are yet to be cash flow positive. And smaller ones have reported losses also at times.

Probably it explains why services sector contributes more than 50% of Indian economy, a surprising economic juggernaut within emerging economies because when you are the lowest cost service provider globally, you don’t need protection.

Indian manufacturers have not faced that competition that services industries have faced. And as a result we see services industry in India to be competing globally where as manufacturing profiteers or crawls under government protection by creating supply-side cartels.

Interesting to note here that subsidies or sops given by government to services sector is practically nothing in comparison to subsidies and sops awarded to manufacturing sector in India. There is free land, tax free zones or specific industrial projects, subsidized mining rights, manufacturing industries demanded whatever is imaginary possible, and got more than that from federal government in India. And in-spite of the tax-payers money or collective wealth being doled out to manufacturing industries; India remains as one of the exceptions in emerging blocks to have continuous current account deficits. Even when excludes oil, trade-figure in India still runs in deficits.

Hard to believe indeed!

So when the Prime Minister repeatedly asks whether India has become the only playing field of Crony Capitalists in the 21st century, one is forced to take a look at a workable definition of Crony Capitalism:

‘Crony capitalism is a pejorative term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on an extremely close relationship between the businessman and the state institutions of politics and government, rather than on the free market competition, and economic liberalism. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.’

And words, as it came out in the leading Indian media, shows how this form of crony capitalism cancer has affected the bottom of the pyramid. Government, as a land-broker for industries that the farmers don’t want to give up stated following through its machinery:

'As part of the package, collector Prabhakar Deshmukh had assured monetary payment in one month, a job for one member of a family, 15 per cent developed land for setting up businesses, shares of companies coming in SEZ at competitive prices and schools and a health centre in lieu of land for the SEZ.'

That’s the worse form of crony capitalism that the working definition has not yet included, when Government promises basics of governance in lieu of the only belonging that the poor had.

‘schools and a health centre in lieu of land for the SEZ' Yes, Dr. Prime Minister, you must have had your answer on crony capitalism by now. Your collector got the message, and you still asking a question. True, asking the right question is at times more important than finding the best answer where no absolute right answers exist.

If you and your lots did care to put the schools and the health center there earlier, you and your lot would not have faced problem in attracting good quality investment anywhere in India. Today good investors also suffer because of the incompetence of you and your government as people in power felt government and governance can be sold against land for industries.

Obvious questions naturally don’t elicit any worthwhile answers. Please concentrate on governance rather than asking stupid, academic questions if you really want to free this country from the imperialism of crony capitalism, established by you and your own team and party over last sixty years after the 1st round of imperialism came to an end.

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of the book Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d

2007-05-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

Quality of Indian Mainstream Media

(This post is written as a comment against the charges of Plagiarism as posted by yossarin in BNN on 13th May)

Good that you pointed it out. Anyway there are ample evidences of such blatant plagiarism (examples of one whole article of the Associated Press lifted by one Indian media...so I am not surprised by your valid frustrations). I think the primary reason behind this is again a predominantly young work-force who have very little understanding and capability to analyze local and global affairs. However the root problem is not with the young work-force, but with the short-term money minded owners of the media who would do anything to improve their bottom-line as ad-money demands more and more display with less and less billings. So they would exploit this young work force without much knowledge-based training and/or proportionate salaries.

Quality journalism demands knowledge; and irrespective of the hype of India emerging as a hub of knowledge economy as created by few major IT/BPO firms in India (supported by mainstream media again); the fact is those jobs are mostly ‘cyber-coolism’ that relies on labor arbitrage. India would be truly emerging as another hub of knowledge economy when one would see the NYT, WSJ, BW, Forbes or others with similar stature referring articles of Indian media and not vice-versa to fill up the pages or content. I don’t understand how we nurture a false belief to be a significant part of global knowledge economy when we can’t even produce content that the world things to be world-class; rather mainstream Indian media borrows freely or legally from the content of others. What comes as original is mostly unreadable or unworthy of watching.

The good and bad thing about competition is over competition brings down the quality for end-consumer as most of the media in India is pathetically poor. Now when all are poor, the end consumer suffers because there is no competition on quality; and all end-consumers are taken for a ride. However one can be hopeful that eventually one or two would focus on quality; and the rest would be thankfully eliminated at the earliest. Unlike in the U.S., where unlimited resources back a potential winner (take for example Google), in India we back unlimited winners having the ability of raising few millions with self-claimed capabilities and expertise.

Otherwise I don't see much difference between qualities of Indian politics and mainstream (lamestream?) Indian Media. The day any one improves; the other one is bound to improve. Though there is no light of hope from any as of now; one is still forced to bet on media because of obvious reasons.

In this specific case, you should send the link with your valid charges by e-mail to Daily Pioneer (they should have anyway seen your article here; however they may still give the excuse that they are not aware of the charges); give them couple of days to respond and then take your e-mail back to Blogger News. I know publishers like Indian Express would throw two different data in their two different articles, difference being ten times; and when asked to explain; would prefer to be silent.

Part of the problem is ourselves because we tolerate their unethical quality of journalism silently. And this has come to a point where one can abuse Indian Politics and Indian Media by any democratic or undemocratic words; and they would never respond to that. Not even one of them has the guts to challenge the truth that most of them are indeed incapable. I would love to see at least one change and state that what’s going in the name of media in India isn’t a healthy sign for the society. Media criticizes administration, politics; in India one never sees one Indian media criticizing another Indian media; which at times is done by the NYT and that lot.

2007-04-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

Does the poor of the world matter to the World Bank

"What's in a name?”
--From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2), William Shakespeare

The first few words of the World Bank website are:

‘The World Bank: IBRD & IDA: Working for a world free of poverty’.

The obvious question that comes to mind for an organization that’s indeed working for that great goal and not sloganeering year-after-year are (1) where from the key personnel of this organization should come (ideally should be equally from all over the world), (2) where should important offices of this organization be located, (3) how much salary should be paid to the members of these organizations, and (4) who should decide how the World Bank should work, if not itself?

It’s true that one need resources first to be deployed efficiently to the poverty-prone areas of this world in a meaningful manner. And it’s the developed world, which still is rich in monetary resources through credit money; it was true in terms of capability and expertise as well till some time back; but stating capability-expertise advantage in 21st century would surely be open to meaningless debates.

Learning from business organizations, in-spite of their profit-making motives can help multilateral institutes a lot. Business organizations have reformed and reengineered continuously to remain in the business of business; and these organizations work with much more result-oriented focus. In order to do so, these business organizations have always benefited by concentrating single-mindedly on their customers. How much credit for whatever poverty reductions the world achieved since the inception (1945) of the World Bank is due to the World Bank in open to debate; and overall the bottom line performance the world achieved in poverty reductions till date remain pathetic.

It would be nice to explore, in case one tries to identify who all are the customers of the World Bank in its present mission of a world free of poverty, the possible basket of answers may contain (1) The poor people of the world, their societies and countries; (2) The donor countries who apparently funds the majority of the money of the World Bank in its noble mission, (3) All the world equally irrespective of degrees of intensity of poverty. There can be few more possibilities, or few overlapping these three alternatives.

Enough has been stated in the global media since the scandal of pay-and-promotion package given to Shaha Ali Riza, girlfriend of the president of the World Bank, Paul D. Wolfowitz broke out in last few days. Like other readers, I too read few of those articles. Going beyond the articles, I studied many comments as posted by common people like us in news sites that offered those comments features; and my limited sampling showed that 90%, if not more, of the respondents were unanimous in stating their opinion that Wolfowitz must go. Majority felt that the issue would undermine the Bank to a great extent, many also pointed out that the biggest casualty in case a weaker Wolfowitz stays would be the much needed reforms and the zero tolerance on graft and corruption in the World Bank (and in its aid-recipient countries), which unfortunately Wolfowitz himself was spearheading lately.

Noteworthy to mention that majority of these opinions originated from the U.S. (as I read English media), followed by the U.K.

Recommendations for Wolfowitz to head the Bank came from the White House, and closeness of 10, Downing Street with White House lately made many think whether we still need five permanent U.N. Security Council members, or one may go as the closeness of Bush-Blair legacy period always reflected one opinion on critical debates instead of two. What we must note here that lately, the public opinion of both these two nations is not in favor of their present leaders.

However 90% or more opinions unanimously agreeing on one issue in global media isn’t something often seen and heard. It would be foolhardy to ignore these online comments, for Wolfowitz, for the World Bank and for the backers of Wolfowitz.

On the contrary, latest reports suggest that Wolfowitz is now preparing to fight back with the help of Robert S. Bennet, a lawyer who gained prominence by defending President Bill Clinton against accusation of sexual harassment involving Paula Jones. Both the cases have apparently a lot of commonalities. And Bush-administration also has not yet taken that all-important critical support from Wolfowitz.

It only signals that the 90%+ opinion of people like me and you don’t matter, for whatever reasons, and whatever is the cost-benefit analysis if Wolfowitz stays.

In business management, it’s often said that even the worst of the situations can be looked as a critical deadly threat or as a budding opportunity, depending on how one looks at the situation. It’s only the worst of the situation that kicks us, painful though those kicks are, to think, act and move forward in a new direction. As a citizen, naïve about the complexities in issues regarding multilateral institutes like the World Bank, I believe that focusing only on the wrongful, unethical actions of Wolfowitz is actually the tip of the iceberg of present day global imbalances.

Therefore I view this round of crisis in the World Bank as an opportunity to examine the whole of the iceberg. However if opportunities aren’t used as opportunities, deeper agonies are bound to be the destiny of the Bank. And latest media reports indicate that unfortunate trend, as Wolfowitz apparently refuses to go.

Wolfowitz himself and all well wishers of the World Bank, in their objective to have a world free of poverty must ensure that this opportunity, which if used properly can indeed be the moments of the ‘birth-pangs’, in its right context, of a renewed World Bank; and thereby ensure that this opportunity is not lost in playing dirty politics. Wolfowitz must step down, and someone with equal mindset of zero-tolerance on corruption and with zeal to reform should take his position (with obvious ethical sense that zero-tolerance should include the person himself first). Wolfowitz should only be too happy to see his mission being carried forward.

However that can only happen when one examines the iceberg, and not the Wolfowitz-issue alone. To start with, Bush-administration should learn from its actions, and thereby should recommend someone with true credibility, and not with controversial past tenures at Abu Gharib or at Guantánamo Bay this time. But that would only be evading the crisis for the time being, another short-sighted approach instead of grabbing the opportunity presented in the crisis.

To make this crisis indeed an opportunity, the Bank should change its charter with the U.S. support; and better engage someone from Asia for a change for the post of its president. All over the world, an open cry is being heard that 21st century is the century of Asia. However with 60% of world population (3.8 billion), and with 2 billion of them living at less that two- dollars-a-day, and nearly one billion people in Asia still living under extreme poverty situations (more than 70% of world figure); one expects that the President of World Bank and its key people spend more than half their time in Asia, if they mean their words.

That can only be done by having its headquarter shifted to Asia, by having more representatives from Asian nations, by having its president from Asian countries (or alternatively from any nations); and through these changes the bank would only be imitating what business world does and delivers results – that of being closer to the customer in its true sense, and having a team that understands that customers’ languages, needs, difficulties better.

It’s indeed unfortunate that Asia, in-spite of what it is, is not having even a single headquarter of any global organization of repute. The World Bank can show the path that many would follow in future.

Otherwise one fails to understand that in terms of performance-based-pay-schemes, why the World Bank executives should get paid higher than many of the equivalent corporate jobs. At $193,590 tax-free salary that the World Bank gave to Shaha Ali Riza, in-spite of her not working for the World Bank over last two years, the Bank wasted more than thousand persons earning one-dollar-a-day for a year.

If it is not paying back in ‘black’ part of the aid that the World Bank receives from the U.S. Government, what else can it be?

As the US struggles to find its rightful place in the 21st century world, aided by faulty policies of Cheney-aided Bush-administration in-spite of making meaning contribution to 20th-century development of our world; it becomes more imperative that truly global bodies start distancing themselves from the exorbitant influence of the U.S. These bodies, mostly created after World War II, often fail to realize that the world in 2007 is not the same world that was there at the time of their inception, way back in the middle of the last century.

To state that hypocrisy, I quote from sections of ‘Wolfowitz Scandal Takes Bank Hypocrisy to New Heights’:

“Wolfowitz giving his girlfriend a more exorbitant salary than she had previously enjoyed is only the tip of the iceberg as far as World Bank governance is concerned. By convention, World Bank presidents are selected by the U.S. administration of the day. They are always U.S. citizens and are always sympathetic to U.S. interests. Among Wolfowitz’s predecessors is Robert McNamara, another architect of another failed U.S. war, namely that of Vietnam. The convention of giving the World Bank presidency to a man (they are always men) chosen by the president of the United States is one indication of a stark reality: when it comes the World Bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. vote is the only one that really counts. When questioned on issues of accountability in a panel discussion, one senior IMF staff member reportedly answered “Of course I consult. I consult with U.S. Treasury all the time.”

One can be reasonably certain that the World Bank isn’t much different in this aspect than the IMF. And it’s policies till date has not been directed by that grandiose statement: ‘Working for a world free of poverty’ alone. It was more for the U.S. interests; this punch line might have received a much lower ranking in terms of priority.

With global imbalances, when emerging economies hold closed to $ 4 trillion in forex reserves, and ballooning fast, that of China’s forex reserves alone growing by one million dollar a minute; emerging nations can alone utilize those dollar reserves for poverty-eliminations sending shockwaves to low-cost fund raising ability to the U.S. economy. At that rate, China alone would grow its forex reserves by $500 billion more a year, and with forex reserves of $200 billion or more with most emerging nations; millions of dollars of aid of these bodies make insignificant impact in terms of money towards poverty eliminations any more. Therefore we increasingly see a trend where starting with the U.S., the U.N., the World Bank, the WTO, the IMF – all struggle to find their respective roles in the new global stage of 2007. The problem would only magnify with each coming day.

The double standards are increasingly getting stripped, and showing their ugly bodies all over from whatever camouflage of clothing they enjoyed in their earlier days, thanks again to the Internet and its truly democratic platform.

The role of these institutes therefore should shift from the one of a money-lender for a great purpose to the other of framing right policies to help these emerging nations, and to help with money and expertise where needed for nations without the resources. Money is no more the key constraint. Employees of the Bank should descend from their existing high-headed levels to the reality, and need to make their hands dirty by working with other in-ground organizations to aid the poor rather than organizing conferences in five-star environments alone.
Otherwise like the United Nations which seldom is united under the egos of past century P-5 members and is always divided when it comes to attacking critical challenges like the climate change, global terrorism or economic imbalances where globally we would love to see their united face for a change; like the World Trade Organization (WTO) which works more like World Tariff Organization rather than promoting as much free ethical trade as possible; bodies like the WB would also face the same fate that other institutes faced.

The words were always too tempting for any to jump and support these institutes, the actions unfortunately was glaringly opposite. It started since 1945, and still continues unabatedly. Following excerpt is a declaration that had been stated at the birth of one such institute, which was murdered in 1971 by Nixon-administration unilaterally by breaking its promises to the world, without any words of criticism or actions from any multilateral agencies.

‘This Conference at Bretton Woods’, representing nearly all the peoples of the world, has considered matters of international money and finance which are important for peace and prosperity. The Conference has agreed on the problems needing attention, the measures which should be taken, and the forms of international cooperation or organization which are required. The agreements reached on these large and complex matters are without precedent in the history of international economic relations.’

In the 1970s, these multilateral institutes aided the U.S. not only to cover up that crisis, but also helped the U.S. to get over the crisis. No issues with that, however not even a fraction of that generosity was displayed during Asian currency crisis in 1990s.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The rest of the world does not want to be fooled again and again.

One can see those early signs brewing in Latin America now as Ecuador, following Venezuelan model, severed their ties with IMF. Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa recently stated that the World Bank official had tried to blackmail him when he was economy minister in 2005 with a loan of 100 million dollars. “We will expel the World Bank representative from the country because we are not going to take a bribe from anyone,” Correa apparently said, without naming the official. That’s what zero-tolerance is!

The signs are clear on the wall for these world institutes (in names’ sake) that seldom worked like truly world institutes in actions. Thousands of years of history are ripe with examples on rise and fall of countries, empires and local civilizations. However we don’t have that long term history with global institutes.

The latest Wolfowitz crisis is therefore a golden opportunity, provided the Bank grabs it by having meaningful introspections from age-old history, and thereby decides that the fate of the World Bank need not get linked with the fate of any single country, administration, or empire in the 21st century. If the World Bank needs to have its meaningful role in global affairs as long as human civilizations exist, and in order to make poverty history in the shorter term, all concerned should ensure that the big-bang beginning starts with the removal of Wolfowitz at the earliest.

And if that does not happen, the World Bank, irrespective of its name and stature, would remain as another U.S. policymaking tool, which rest of the world can quit, following the Ecuadoran model. As a world citizen, I want to save myself from the ignominy of seeing Wolfowitz heading the World Bank any more.

Unless, of course, we accept that the name’s been a misnomer for the World Bank. The world of the World Bank is different from the world that most of us identify with.

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d. The original article is in Global Issues

. However India as the undisputed country with world's largest poor people (and may be closed to 40% if not more); the article is placed here as well

2007-04-23T03:12:00.000-07:00

‘He Steals Best’ Called HSBC

The world’s local bank has indeed come a long way in Incredible India, giving credibility to its punch line. It’s no surprise that in emerging countries like India, business models like extortion is more rewarding than ethical banking business. More so when in India, the law-makers are most often found to be the law-breakers; banking regulators prefer the role of preaching than acting with the attitude of ‘see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil’, and systems working as systems is more of an exception than the norm.

As I look back at my past experiences of banking with HSBC, I can safely state that the bank has adapted to the changing need of Indian society in order to grow, mastering all those skills needed to succeed in ‘profiteering’ in its Indian operations quite fast, and at any costs.

Many of us know about the classic letter sent by a customer to a bank in the United States sometime back in 2002, which was subsequently published in The New York Times; because the bank manager thought it was amusing enough. The intriguing aspect was missed, and customers all over the world probably can vouch even today that there was absolutely no learning our slogan-shouting global banks had from repeated customer complaints other than fine-tuning the much abused slogans like ‘Customer is the King’ to ‘Customer Delightment’ to what not and to what extent. However what’s practiced is quite different, more so when it comes to a few extra bucks, that too unethically violating all senses of business and moral values; as same banks figuratively rape and murder these same customers to perfection without any slogan to that effect.

Let’s come to my story, where the story is unique in many ways, however the style of banking communications are more or less same; and many of us may have suffered similarly many times.

I had been a customer of HSBC for a period of few years, the relationship started almost seven years back. Along with few products, I also had a credit card of this bank. Thing were going smoothly as long as it was business as usual.

Some three-four years back, realizing that I had acquired certain Reward Points against the usage of my card, I visited their online rewards catalog and asked for, say ‘Product X’ to redeem my reward points. After a few days, I receive ‘Product Y’. When the same slip was pointed out to them, they acknowledged the mistake, and promptly sent a person to pick up wrongfully shipped Product Y from my residence, promising me to send Product X as soon as possible.

However in next couple of months, I neither receive Product X, nor I see equivalent Reward Points credited back in my credit card statement (the reward points were debited when ‘Product Y’ was shipped, and subsequently ‘Product Y’ was returned). I tried explaining them a few times over phone; however no one listened, took responsibility and acted to rectify the mistake. There was no outcome for couple of months as per monthly statements. My Reward Points were gone with some hassles but without any reward.

I used my HSBC credit card for the last time for paying the membership services in a library for the amount equivalent to the value of my Rewards Points that was wrongfully debited. Anyway, I had zero debit balance till then; and it was pre-decided that in case they fail to act in expected line till next billing statement; I would not clear this bill. Normally I cleared my credit card dues within interest free credit-period (and within days of receipt of the first statement post a transaction).

However this time I deliberately didn’t want to do that till the mistake at their end gets reflected in my card statement, because I felt I have every fair right to do that having being the victim of their wrongful actions.

The imbroglio continued for a few months, and with every passing month, the amount increased at a faster rate than the forex reserves of Chinese economy, and now has become almost ten times of the original disputed value. They even sent some debt recovery agents to my place couple of times, and I politely told them to understand the background and come again. Thankfully the debt recovery agent understood my point, and went back without causing much trouble, which by the way are unexpected in Indian society if media reports are to be believed.

Subsequently umpteen communications were sent to them till I tired; and thereby realized that in the other end there are few stones, and a stupid information system.

I gave up the communications, but was determined not to succumb to their pressure. And surprisingly what followed is one statement showing I have zero liability. Achieving victory, I threw away all the earlier statements, documents, mails along with the pieces of the card.

I was not aware that there were more surprises in the pipeline. I continued to receive statements from them again in-spite of my informing them that I no longer want to bank with them for any products, and stating that I have destroyed the already defunct card upon receipt of that zero-liability statement.

However the statements never stopped, and again started showing same earlier debit balances in my account as if the in-between statement never came, which was anyway thrown away (I regret throwing those documents today as I narrate this story, but then how many documents do we keep and that too for how long?).

I was at my wits’ end. I sent HSBC couple of e-mails stating their statements to be false, and also stating that they owe me equivalent money. Surprisingly this time they responded to my e-mail, denying my statement. I denied their mail, they again denied mine, I sent a final mail saying I can’t waste my time like this; and if they don’t agree with my mail, let them produce evidence. Things somehow came to an end in those exchanges of e-mails; however physical statements along with promotional materials were in my letter-box at regular intervals.

What has prompted me to write this piece here is another communication from them threatening me that they would now submit my record to Credit Information Bureau of India Limited (CIBIL), set up by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). They have also informed me in that same letter following:

“…we expressly reserve all our rights without further notice to take whatever action we deem necessary to best protect our interests. (Including, without limitation, the use of a debt collection agency (in India, debt collection agencies are mostly similar to extortion agencies run by gangsters) or the right to take legal proceedings and/or to exercise all other powers conferred on us by law or by any security, or guarantee held)”.

Honestly I don’t care what they do. I still am equally determined not to succumb to their pressure tactics. However I also felt enough is enough. Web 2.0 has given us voices that we seldom use as honest, law-abiding citizens. And the power that the world’s 2nd largest bank acquired would now be used to harass a customer as if harassments over last 3-4 years have not been enough. Web 2.0 has given us more power than the laws of the land, more so for countries like India where getting justice from judiciary or regulator is equivalent to another round of unending harassment.

Therefore after much internal debate, I felt I should take my real-life story with HSBC in BNN; and should not encourage these types of high-handed, unethical, unresponsive, immoral, corrupt business practices to continue for any other fellow customers anywhere in the world. I know I won’t achieve that goal alone; however together we sure can.

I also understand HSBC isn’t the exception India. Most Indian private banks, barring a rare few are in same category. India’s largest private bank, in order to grow, made the life of all urban Indian citizens miserable by calling them at least once a day in order to prospect/sale their different financial products. As the overall society grew aghast with those disturbing unwelcome calls, regulator (RBI) did talk about the need to monitor such disturbing calls through a ‘Do Not Call’ (DNC) registry. One can understand the need for such a centralized registry; however this private bank went ahead with a marketing campaign of ‘DNC’ as a private registry.

That means if customers indeed don’t want to be disturbed; they would have to register with hundreds of banks operating in India separately, and not through a centralized registry. What was surprising that the regulator also watched that marketing campaign without disgust whereas millions of consumers like us who suffered (think about someone not well physically and alone at home, and desperately seeking a nap gets some sleep may often find often by one such promotional calls, mostly in the afternoon hours) kept quite as we didn’t have a choice in a country like India; and can’t take on the erring parties and erring regulator every now and then with our individual efforts.

Taking a cue from that campaign of DNC, I have been thinking about inserting a fine-print in my web-site that other than specific listed purposes; no one should call me/send me mails; failure of which would make the erring party liable to be penalized by a significant monetary amount.

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami

2007-04-07T02:59:00.000-07:00

It's 'Indian' SEZs, Stupid

It’s more about accountability and uniformity.

After months of deliberations, empowered group of union ministers in India have come out with little more clarity on the 5th of April elaborating the myth called Special Economic (or Exploitation?) Zones (SEZs) that India needs to create to have a fast track path in order to achieve long-term economic developments.

The controversies and debates in Indian federal democracy since the SEZ Act (2005), that came into practice on 10th of February 2006, saw a fast-slow-stop-let’s-move-again approach so far, causing many violent protests and deaths of Indian farmers - the present land-owners, on whose lands most of these Chinese-styled SEZs would come up to prepare India to match, if not better Chinese records in manufacturing industries (true, there are proposals of few IT SEZs as well). The rush to set-up SEZs, hundreds in numbers, reminds one of the Californian Gold Rush of 1848. It looked like a one-way-street to richness and productive assets for organizations that could afford the investments needed to set-up one, if not more, in this SEZ rush of 21st century.

There’ve been enough debates on the SEZs, and expectedly in India, most of the meaningful debate was ignored in the new guidelines. The key point, per se, is not SEZs; the key point rather is India and Indian way of doing things. It’s ‘Indian’ SEZs, policies and acts at the core; and merely discussing about SEZs acts and policies by ignoring voluminous Indian standards in the background when what gets proposed and what finally gets implemented is as similar or as different as two different sides of a coin in India, one needs to be extra cautious.

For the rest of the world, the point needs to be explained with evidences.

In India, police forces at times take out their duty books and complaint books out of their police stations (which they aren’t supposed to) to get necessary signatures on complaints lodged by influential citizens as it recently happened with a Bollywood actor in Mumbai, whereas same police force consistently refused to lodge complaint against killers and rapists from marginalized sections as we found in Nithari. ‘Aam admi’ – the common man, if ever utters any un-parliamentary words against our political leaders in our moments of frustrations with them, would surely be behind jail whereas honorable Members of Parliament can engage into un-parliamentary acts within parliament itself and go unpunished in-spite of being video-recorded.

India probably had the best of the Constitution, in words, back in 1950, but in practice we took it to such an extent that a recent Supreme Court judgment on OBC reservations was forced to state “Nowhere else in the world is there competition to assert backwardness and then to claim we are more backward than you.” Police officers can get suspended for their dereliction of VIP duties; however when a strong police-force of 2000 or more kills poor village farmers, women and kids in a gruesome incident like Nandigram, Government shields them.
The examples can indeed be more voluminous than any of the epics; and to state a long story short; in India rules are flexible for those who mostly violate them and can flex some muscles, and rules are the strictest norms for those who abide by them and happen to be the weakest.

What have all these got to do with SEZs? Or even Indian SEZs?

A timely reminder, indeed. It’s all about rules and applying them uniformly in a timely manner.

The question we, with our experience and learning, need to ask is: do we ignore these background stark realities of our societies when we frame policies, and believe everything goes as per acts and policies and rules as in developed world, and thereby frame policies? Or do we proactively take cognizance of the actual situation prevalent across the breadth and diversity of our society and come out with policies and acts that we know we probably can implement?

Because so far, in-spite of having excellent rules, none was probably practiced uniformly ever even for 1% of the actual cases. For urban and global-centric Indians, we saw how a celebrity like Naomi Campbell can be ordered to engage into community services (that too in garbage-truck garage) for throwing a cell phone at her maid. And in our mainstream media, we often see many reports of violence against domestic maids, many times those maids being children (another unlawful act), and nothing much happens to most of these culprits after hitting newspaper for a day.

Or take even more relevant examples of SEZs vs. land-grabbing: haven’t most of us ourselves have seen how promoters take on water-bodies or free space anywhere unlawfully to create few more thousands of feet’s of concrete in our urban jungle to earn some extra money, in open collusion with regulators?

So the point is: who would regulate this much debated and what many may term now as much refined SEZ act and policy? A lot of concessions are being offered, justifiably or unjustifiably. Irrespective of policies, if one promoter exceeds the land that can be used for real-estate or other non-core purposes by more than 50%, that too deliberately, what happens to him or her, and all involved regulatory authorities. Matter of fact – as we know it – nothing, because if anything had to happen, most of the real estate promoters in major Indian metros would have been behind bars by now – for breaking laws and/or duping end-consumer with promises of excellent views and open space, and finally offering prison-cells.

Or consider other possible option – what if goods made in SEZs are re-routed back to India by showing as finished goods exports by SEZ first, and then by input imports by another group company. One may be surprised – how can that happen, but few know how smart many Indian business houses are in innovations and creativity, not for all their stake-holders; but for themselves. And what can potentially be incentives (the tariff division) – 40% or even more can pay for freight costs and extra profits; it thereby damages existing other domestic businesses as well.

So the essential question is: do we have adequate checks and balances to regulate that? Even without SEZs, such incidents were reported in the name of Forex earnings many times before; and when the incentives to break the rule is more; naturally the ingenuity is likely to be more.

And when wrong people apply these simple innovations that SEZs offer, honest, responsible firms operating in non-SEZ zones can also suffer from unsustainable competition.

Without checks and balances, without the much-needed carrots and the sticks, how do we regulate SEZs by matching what’s desired from them and what they actually deliver?

One may argue that rapid, fast track industrialization can’t wait for grass-root changes in all aspects of society. Valid point, however when SEZ acts could be passed in parliament with so much sops and Commerce-Ministry asking for more (e.g. service providers outside SEZs offering services to SEZs should also be tax-exempted, as reported lately. One won’t be surprised if potential demands list that, commercial sex workers should offer subsidized services to SEZs. Please don’t take this as a flippant comment from an immature mind, this rather is a painful cry from an ‘aam admi’) and thereby being in logger-heads with Ministry of Finance; why not also pass a special act in case any of the principles of SEZs are violated in spirit.

Make that a fast-track court where even the top man would be responsible for any violation with accountability equally shared by concerned authorities. Any result of such an act would be clearly visible to all of us as soon as it is in place – the stricter the punishment and fairer and speedier the judgment, more would be the fall outs from proposal to projects.

Competing in global markets ethically, legally and competitively isn’t easy. India’s balance of trade is a stark reminder of that, where our trade deficit is nearly $50 billion; and even when one excludes energy (crude) imports; we would still be running in trade deficits.

Just drop the land ownership or bring in strict monitoring of the land-usage, and one would be reasonably certain that the SEZs rush would boil down to genuine interested business groups meaning rare few right business houses still evincing an interest in SEZs. Till that happens, the skeptics can’t be blamed if they think that government is selling a proven oil reserve without the necessary exploration risks at throwaway prices, and that’s what explains this mad rush. The answer offered for failure of EPZs, and SEZs being the remedy is not convincing either.

Enough statistics has been thrown from both sides. One source stated: ‘The commerce ministry projects that by December 2009, the 63 notified SEZs will draw investments worth Rs 53,561 crore and provide employment to 15,75,452 more people.’ Now as ‘aam admi’ we don’t pretend to be omniscient; we get our information in bits and pieces from mainstream media and internet. However it comes to a figure of Rs. 3.3 lakhs ($8000) of capital investment (including land?)/job created. Going by the Economic Times reports over the longer term, projections of an overall investment of Rs. 300000 crores ($70 billion) for the 234 SEZs having formal approval and needing only 350 square-km of land would have capex/job of little higher than Rs. 7 lakhs ($15000)/job, and expected to create 4 million jobs.

Going by these 234 SEZs having formal approval and following ministry statements, isn’t it fabulous that in SEZs, we would generate 114 jobs/hectare of land?

Extending this ratio, in Nandigram there should have been 4.5 lakhs of job creations! People of Nandigram really didn’t follow logic. However what I fail to understand here is: when there is so much of job creation, there should not be much problem to reserve a small 10% of the potential created jobs for low skilled and less educated land losers, which yields at five jobs/acre of land.

But here lies the problem because we see authorities fumbling in reserving jobs, and passing the buck to another ministry. Are we missing something in these rosy projections?

Well, one knows that the SEZs would be labor intensive, but may not be ideally meant for SMEs where (job created/investment) is historically the highest. With all that investments of $70 billion, from domestic or overseas investments, we may well be less than 5% of Chinese investments. Cumulative FDI alone in China, mostly in its SEZs, was $650 billion, add with that the domestic Chinese investments. And with large sample size, we can believe data to converge in these two similar nations, be it capital intensive ones or in footwear or garment manufacturing ones. Superficial analysis of Chinese SEZs tells us that it takes a minimum capex of $60,000/job created.

There have been so many rosy projections of ‘Garibi Hatao’ (abolish poverty) to job creations, that if many of these projections made now do come true; we may create more jobs in India than we probably have supply of manpower. Investment Strategy for India is working towards the goal of $1.5 trillion dollars of investments in India over next five years, and applying same ratio there (which may be questionable, agreed), we would create another further 10 crores (100 millions) of jobs.

Another staring lacuna that strikes us in this mad competition with China is along with SEZs, China made a lot of investments in infrastructures also. Trillions of dollars of investments have been made, and are still being made. We know that infrastructure brings in economic growth. So why don’t we encourage infrastructure developments even more than the SEZs? As released by commerce ministry, we are made to believe that SEZs would occupy only 0.06% of total Indian land. True, developing infrastructure like power, roads, ports may not yield land ownership to the tune of SEZs; but isn’t it an even more priority than SEZs that our infrastructure covers 100% of Indian land.

As rightly stated in one cited reference, we haven’t seen mad infrastructure rush in-spite of similar benefits (‘Forget about SEZs, outside them too -- in the infrastructure sector -- you get the same tax holiday under section 80-I-A of the Income Tax Act. In SEZs, the extra benefit is in customs duty.’) offered. Shouldn’t it make one ask why? Why such a mad race for SEZs and why not for power?

And ask any person anywhere in India what’s needed more and the obvious answer would be power.

Agreed it’s not an either-or scenario. However experience tells us when something is too good to be believed, there must be something wrong in it.

Our present SEZ policy stinks from that too-good-feel-factor when viewed from any investor community, more so with that background of policy-one-implementation-another Indian mindset.

Let’s have an SEZ policy which we can implement. Let it not be another grandiose boardroom dreams!

As a roadmap, we just need couple of things to get it right, and not many of these debates (including this one). We need to learn from the Chinese (and others) experiences, and improve that. More so when China has much more land than we have in India, and 30-years back there was no concern on global warming and its impacts on food-grain productions. We find out an average {investment made (and potential future investments on same SEZs)/unit of land} along with job creation records from the Chinese experience; and implement that with minor adjustments/improvements. We debate on ownership of land with adequate safeguards to invite good business, and get some lock-in of the funds; more so where land ownership is being transferred. And we also have a stick in case states need to wield that stick which is not as inefficient and as ineffective as all the existing sticks so far been in dual-standard Indian societies.

Right investors don’t rush in mad gate-crashing parties. We need to stop this gate-crashing party of SEZs in India. The day that’s done with few interested parties, we would be certain that we have got it right.

2007-04-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

“Entry Barrier” through Multiple Exams

It seems that our Honorable HRD Ministry and its even more Honorable Minister Mr. Arjun Singh is hell bent to provide justice to the real needy, poor and socio-economically marginalized sections of the society. However in the background when all his noteworthy effort towards OBC reservation has come to a temporary halt due to the unfavorable Supreme Court verdict passed recently, as responsible citizens we must help our Ministry to find alternate means to achieve his broader goals.

Here is a suggestion that the Ministry should look after to keep them busy, which should receive no confrontation from most parts of students, guardians and broad society.

The daughter of one of my colleague is in final year +2 level this year. The board exams now being over, what awaits her now is a run of competitive exams like IIT-JEE, AIEEE, various state level JEEs, few private engineering and medical college exams, AIMS test, ISI…the list can be indeed long.

The picture is no different after graduation when most young students look for an aspiring MBA degree. There are CAT, JMET, XAT, MAT…no difference here too.

If one wants to apply in even few of them, it may cost one in tens of thousands of rupees alone in terms of application fees. Add with that the process of application and lack of infrastructure in rural areas, one immediately understands how difficult it is for good rural students to compete with their urban counterparts. For MBA admission, there are interviews again.

Most of these exams cost quite some significant money, more so when looked from the income level or rural people. Irrespective of the justifications on costs incurred by respective institutes and specific knowledge/aptitude they seek from their entrant students; when one examines how a student from rural or semi-urban place faces the economic and other burdens; one can easily concur that these separate multiple exams are nothing but an effective “entry barrier” that favors students from metros and relatively well-off families.

We know that people in Mumbai or in any major metros won’t like distant relatives from rural places to come and stay with them for few nights – because space is too precious. As most of these exams have centers in major metros/state capitals, any student from smaller towns or villages need to take the additional burden of travel – which adds to physical exhaustion along with the economic costs. Many even may not have relatives at these exam centers, and as most of them can’t afford hotel-stay multiple times; they therefore may have to directly come to exam-centers without getting a chance of being fresh for the exams. The urban students at least don’t face these additional traumas.

Irrespective of the USPs these exams offer (or as claimed by the organizers), one simply can’t ignore the basic obvious monetary benefits they accrue to the different institutes. The costs are multiple for the end-consumer, the stress is multiplied to students and guardians and in the name of uniqueness, this has indeed been taken too far stressing all students in general; and more so economically marginalized students from remote areas.

In the name of freedom and competition, many of us mostly forget the basic infrastructure, policies, systems that the United States of America offer through standardization. Irrespective of boards or school, there is one SAT, one GRE, one GMAT. And true, in case a good student accidentally badly performs in any of these critical exams, s/he can take that again without even losing a year.

We saw some developments on this front from government in regulating and controlling number of exams – limiting to two or three for MBAs couple of years back. The proposal eventually had a natural death as there was opposition from vested bodies. One isn’t ruling out possibilities of genuine oppositions; however with adequate representatives from these various institutes in an apex body like the formal Educational Testing Service (ETS) or its present form that GMAC (Graduate Management Admission Council) adopted through ACT Inc. and Pearson Vue; most of the genuine grievances against one admission test in India should get addressed.

Otherwise it’s a criminal offence we are practicing by stressing all students and guardians unnecessarily, and putting an enormous economic and physical burden to students who come from rural background. The worst sufferers are those with poor economic background from rural places.

A true reservation was to be meant for them – isn’t it? Well, till our government works out the basis for controversial reservation, one can always expect a speedy action from our Honorable Minister and his Ministry so that these types of effective “entry barriers” that act against these rural bright students from economically poorer families are removed.

2007-04-02T01:16:00.000-07:00

What’s “fair” land price, Dear PM?

No political party and no central or state government in India ever said anything against Indian farmers’ interests. If taken as a community, their number in terms of individuals, dependent on farming as a livelihood would be 700 odd-millions, and would beat any other similar community anywhere in any nations hands down by sheer numbers.

Surprising, that Indian farmers today mostly remain where they were, before Indian economy started booming, more so in last four years. Many may argue their relative position deteriorated. The statement may not be much wrong if one looks further back in history.

And as agriculture, which engages 65% of Indian population for livelihood accounts for around 20% of Indian GDP with least growth rate (2-3%) whereas manufacturing and services maintain their growth momentum at double digit-numbers, India badly needs land for industrialization and development. However the debate remains on how this land is to be acquired from the farming community, many of whom may not be educated or skilled enough to benefit from alternate livelihood opportunities in immediate future. And protests, many in violent forms resulting into killings of farmers happen to be widespread in many Indian states - West bengal to Haryana to Maharashtra to Orissa. The debate encompasses creation of hundreds of Special Economic Zones to industrial lands.

In the search a compromise; an often-repeated phrase is repeated all over - starting from our Prime Minister to other policy-makers. And that’s ‘Fair Price’ – all in that group quote ‘Fair Price’ must be given to Indian farmers while acquiring his land.

We need to examine fairly what this ‘Fair Price’ means, and how much it potentially can be with one case of land acquisition for development in Rajarhat – the new town in Kolkata Metro.

One of my friends recently bought a flat in upcoming Rajarhat Township in Kolkata, one of the laid-back metro cities and erstwhile Indian capital till the beginning of the last century. The price tag happens to be a whopping Rs. 5 million (around $110,000) for a flat of around 1600 sq. ft. Most of us ourselves have done so, or we know our friends, or relatives who have done so. The scenario is even worse (or better, depending on who the reader is) in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore where ruling prices, on an average, may be much higher, thereby leading credibility to the often-cited comparison of Mumbai with Manhattan in terms of real estate prices.

And there’s nothing wrong in individuals acquiring flats at such astronomical prices as most of us worked morally and legally right to earn that money.

But a look at the value creation process behind the business model of real estate story, comprising urban development, office space or even industrialization starting with farmer to end consumer like one of us, or business organizations from acquisition to distribution to development to their final usage as it has happened in Rajarhat in Kolkata (and in many other places all over India), built primarily by sweating only one asset, i.e. farmers’ land to make room for a win-win model involving all interested parties may not show right moral or business sense with elementary arithmetic.

A report from Tehelka said “Recently, in Rajarhat, a suburb of Kolkata, land was reportedly acquired by HIDCO, a wing of the government at Rs 5,000-Rs 15,000 a cottah*. Today, the price of land there is Rs 10-20 lakh a cottah.” Telegraph, the leading english dai ly at this part of India, reported land prices to farmers were increased from Rs. 6000/cottah to Rs. 11975/cottah after protests from farmers.

True, mainstream media at times blow out their stories; and to remain conservative and unbiased; a conservative approach is needed, and followed here.

Based on above two sources, and taking the highest of those, it means roughly Rs. 9 lakhs/acre that government paid to the farmers, or likely other land owners.

True, government would again develop that place keeping common facilities, roads, gardens, parks which won’t entertain government to use that whole land for governance or for redistribution (read resale) to other private organizations/individual citizens.

Let’s look at following Table I for Rajarhat alone as an example on how government also makes profit by being the middle-man in the business of land acquisition to land distribution with primary objective being governance, equitable growth with fair deal or any deal with the semblance of some fairness. True, there are many assumptions here, which may not be accurate; however these are realistic assumption on the safer side.

These assumptions are (significant scope to refine these assumptions and figures exists):

Free land to developed land = 1:1 (meaning half of acquired land in Rajarhat would have roads, parks, gardens, free space, public facilities, etc.).
Government invests another Rs. 1.8 million/acre (twice the value of land price paid to farmers) to develop common infrastructure (land filling, roads, water, sewerage, etc.)
In Rajarhat, HIDCO distributed lands to cooperative, individuals as well as to business organizations at different prices. We assume, ¼ of total land is distributed to cooperative and individuals at an average of Rs. 74 lakhs/acre (around Rs. 1.5 lakhs/cottah).
Another ¼ is reserved for business organizations/real estate players (or even government buildings but not public infrastructures, for which too government should give same price as HIDCO is charging other business organizations) and price for that is Rs. 2 crores/acre

Please note, even at above prices there are more buyers (we will see why) than land available based on ground reality as stated often in media.

Prima facie check was done with HIDCO website which stated (HIDCO) ‘was set up as a Government Company on 26th April, 1999’. However no financial statement was found in their website while browsing thro’ it quickly over different headings in their homepage.

Table I

When one looks at above earning of government by acting as middle-man in land business for any Indian states starved for money; one immediately knows how badly state government needs this Rs. 2000+ odd-crores. It’s just one project, and when one looks at similar projects running all over from Durgapur to Siliguri within West Bengal (and all over India in other states); one can see that state government sees diversifying its business from governance to land-brokering to be much more profitable than managing basic state responsibilities in Indian Federal structure (which many believe it has already divested).

Add to above the various subsidies that farming sector in India receives as government outgo here due to land acquisition, and add various tax revenues (one time taxes like property registration tax to periodic various municipality taxes/corporate taxes) government can earn from these developments.

When one adds up the property tax registration itself, this Rs. 2431 crores may potentially increase to Rs. 5300 crores+ as 8% of developed property at ruling market prices amounts to an additional Rs. 2882 crores (refer able II below).

So by paying farmers Rs. 684 crores for their land, and keeping half of the land for public usage, and investing another Rs. 1388 crores for developing that area; various arms of government, primarily state government makes a net profit of Rs. 5000 crores+.

No one can say this to be bad business for the government to get in by applying Land Acquisition Act of 1894!

Now let’s look at how business organizations, be it real estate companies or otherwise (other category includes mostly IT/BPO firms who by buying this land at Rs. 20 million/acre, and developing it to office space own an asset whose market value gets much higher at prevailing rate of Rs. 3125/sq. feet thro' capital gain) benefit. We generate two possible scenarios in Table II below for business organizations:

Assumptions here are:
1. Land acquisition price = Rs. 2 crores / acre

2. Floor Space Index = 1.5 (taken at very low level, probably actual figure for Rajarhat would be higher. This broadly means actual developed area using the ratio (total floor space created/allotted land)).

3. Development cost has two scenarios. It essentially includes cement, steel, bricks, labor, fixtures and all other inputs other than land. The two scenarios are (1) Rs. 1000/square feet and (2) Rs. 2000/square feet. Experts state that 2nd scenario may be for rarest of rare premium category, whereas for premium category, Rs. 1200/square feet may be adequate due to low labor costs in India.

4. Commercially Developed real estate sales at Rs. 3125/square feet (as my friend bought, Scenario I) or even take that as Rs. 2000/square feet (Scenario II, though nothing much is available at this rate in Rajarhat). Therefore same rate is applied for asset-valuation benefit for IT firms as well because of their capital gain based on their office-space size. Please note ¼th of total acquired land is in this category, which HIDCO may have allotted to firms like a Wipro or a Unitech (its owner emerged as a billionaire as per Forbes latest list!) or even for ex-defense personnel for residential purposes. Our logic behind this is if Government wants to do much needed charity, that should not be at land-owners’ costs. Therefore for our purpose, we calculate the net profit or capital gains these organizations receive by applying market prices for their developed real estate; though all may not be sold as real estate.

Table II

Please note maximum possible net gain under given set of assumptions can be even higher, when development cost is at Rs. 1000/square feet (3rd column in above table) and sales price is at Rs. 3125/square feet (4th column). That figure comes to an astounding Rs. 20,000+ crores. Also to be noted here is real estate developers, one section of the owners of these 1900 odd-acres can run business on others’ (end consumers' money, who book flats by paying advance or directly through bank loans) money. There are no significant upfront investments, and there are fabulous risk-free returns for firms who can sustain temporary downturns.

The real owners of the asset don’t even make 2% of the valuation that the asset gains by changing hands with Government intervention. Indians know India needs this true 'unlocking of real estate' value creation process of economy to sustain, the question remains on what 'Fair Compensation" to be given to the farmers.

Here isn’t all. Based on some studies done on similar ground around Kolkata, its (Sewage-fed fish culture, a Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN study based on 1996 prices for Rajarhat/Salt Lake only, which has been adjusted based on present price/yields) found farmers’ present monetized net yield per acre, after adjusting for input costs (at 74% of sales) comes to a figure of around Rs. 80,000 – Rs. 90,000/acre (vegetable production gives maximum yield, and that’s taken here. Other yields can be much lower). So by getting around Rs. 9 lakhs/acre, fixed risk-free return at 10% interest rate hypothetically matches with agrarian income (true, by sacrificing liquidity as farmers’ need to have regular earnings and they can’t afford long-term lock-ins) similar returns with 10% interest rate.

So net-net, farmers’ either lose or stay neutral to this value creation. Even when one takes higher side compensation of closed to Rs. 15 lakhs/acre, the farmers with yearly interest rates of 6% may just manage to be neutral. Over the longer term, 6% yearly interest rates may not always sustain. Table III provides a summarized picture on what this process of development offers to the three involved stakeholders’ (Farmer, Government, End-User) :

Table III

So seldom would Indian farmers emerge winner with this compensation based on ownership transfer (and potential of value creation that their land ofers). Extreme high land prices would be counter-productive for genuine industries. So the only alternate model would be where farmer's retain land-rights, and be stakeholders of the industrial and developmental projects with limited risks.

There are only three possibilities by which any one can think of explaining above:
All of above are bogus, wrong calculations.

I felt so, and cross-checked couple of times. And it looked more or less OK. However one should check for any inadvertent slips in above calculations.
All farmers, and most citizens with moral business senses happen to be stupid, and so is Government.
Most of us have been fooled by a select few in business and government in the name of growth, development, industrialization when it comes to land acquisitions.

The nation, more so the 700-million strong farming community looks for the definition of “Fair Price” in light of above findings from our economist Prime Minister in his pursuit of 'inclusive growth' in India.

Special notes on monetary units and land units
US $ : Rs = roughly 1:44
*1 acre = 4047 square meters = Roughly 60 Cottahs
10 lakhs = 1 million, 10 million = 1 crore

Background to above article:

Above article is in the background when our PM, in his address to CII Steel Summit -“India Vision 2020 – Challenges Ahead” commented following:

'A comment has been made recently that most of our business leaders who have become billionaires seem to be operating in either relatively protected business environments, in oligopolistic or monopolistic markets or are dealing in scarce resources. If this observation is true then someone could say that we are promoting crony capitalism. That certainly should not be the case. The wheels of industry must move and move in all directions to enrich every region and every segment of our society.'

Now I should not feel so, but lately when I follow mainstream media or such comments from the levels of PM; I feel encouraged to blog, and voice my opinion through Web 2.0 platforms (remember Web 2.0 and Global Reform, and before we start talking about global reform, we need that even more badly in India). And I know there are hundreds like me, if not thousands. I happen to be the smallest cog in the wheel - with least reach, and readership, and overall ability/capability too. Having stated above, I have not seen what the PM referred by 'A Comment', unless my article (Billionaire India: Worse Off Than Sub-Saharan Africa?) on Tax to billionaires wealth and billionaires wealth to GDP did strike him or his speech writer. True, my reading is also limited, and I might have missed many worthwhile articles/comments on that. Having said that, many reports in mainstream media on what's expected on SEZs now bear some of the threads that I talked about.

The point, with all modesty, is we as bloggers can claim now that we are being heard, even in India! And our virtue is: most of us are not biased. True, we don't make any money, no credits (as of now at least in India), rare recognition...one may well say with those would be selfish motives, and thereby we would lose credibility in pursuit of those desires. On the other side - we are also human beings and crave for those as much as others do. Maintaining the right balance is crucial, which somehow could never be maintained if majority of mainstream media is observed.

So when we are being heard, above example (Rajarhat) is cited as an evidence to that observation of our PM - that of a 'crony capitalism'. Again let me be cautious, and any reader who has been following my blogs/articles consistently would know I don't mean that for all Indian billionaires or industrialists (that was the observation of the PM too). But when examples like Rajarhat and hundreds others clearly point to the existence of crony capitalism which's been on the rise lately at the cost of the marginalized ones, one can either pretend ignorance or even if one knows, be a sycophant to say: 'Yes, PM; we in India have perfect market economy and no state sponsored crony capitalism. Never'. But that won't lead us to Web 2.0 and Indian Reform.

Therefore it was necessary to produce the evidence of crony capitalism with land acquisition itself to corroborate that the observation is indeed true.

Added on 5/4/07: As I keep on reading the enthusiasm of one Ministry (Ministry of Commerce) in providing as much incentives as possible to SEZs in terms of tax exemptions (today's ET article on their desire to tax-exempt external service providers too), I get a feeling that sooner or later the government may ask commercial sex workers to subsidize their services offered to SEZ owners (or government sharing that subsidy). What's really painful is we don't have any system to check misuse existing systems which would be more true for SEZs exemptions as well(what if those goods are redirected at Indian domestic market via Srilanka or other places?). People have time and again proved to be smarted than stupid government in countries like India, more the business-men. So why create something which one can't even manage?

Copyright: Ranjit Goswami

2007-03-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

“Tamil” is secondary, they are Indians

While viewing the reports of another recent round of four Indian fishermen being killed in the hands of Sri Lankan forces (or in the hands of LTTE), many reports state that those who lost their lives were Tamil Fishermen. And certain of those reports that focused on the ‘Tamil Fishermen’ angle went on to explain how the ruling Tamil Nadu Government and DMK supreme, Muthavel Karunanidhi is putting necessary pressure on Indian government to view the matter as seriously as it demands; or the opposition is demanding similar actions citing failure of state government.

Politics has come to such a level in India that in many of these reports, we are aghast to see the number of MPs support DMK provides to ruling Indian coalition government to gauge the amount of pressure that may be effective to stir our central government.

How sad! It’s irrespective of the number of MPs or they being Tamil or Gujaratis or Naga; Indian government should always take up this matter with the utmost concern.

We Indians see them as Indians first, Tamil or other identities matter later. And all of India demands that Indian government needs to do the needful because of such loss of Indian lives at others’ hands can’t be tolerated and must be stopped – whatever be the situation there.

We in India don’t learn. A parallel incident, though different in many aspects over hostages of British troops in the hands of Iranian forces along the Shatt-al-Arab, where clarity on whose territory the incident happened is murkier due to historical reasons, claims and counter-claims. However point to be noted is none of those 15 British troops were physically harmed; and one can be reasonably certain that they would be freed without any physical harm sooner or later, once the egos of the two states get satisfied mutually.

For India, this is not the first. A series of such reports hit us from Tamil Nadu alone in last couple of months. Before that there were reports of such killings of Indian nationals in the hands of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), or others.

We in India should not at all have a posture of threatening our neighbors; rather we should seek the status of healthy neighborhood status for mutual benefits and developments. However what can’t be ignored is India seldom gets that respect from its neighboring states that India deserves. The failure of it needs to be squarely shared by our own government.

We demand an absolute stop of such incidents, and a thorough accountability for this mishap that killed another four in its latest round to be established; and the guilty punished – be through diplomatic means or others. They are Indians after all, and today if we don’t stand united – when would we? If need be, the matter needs to be raised in UN to embarrass the guilty, true the extreme possibility needs to be reserved.

We fully understand and empathize with government of Sri Lanka and its people; and broadly to all peace loving people in their effort to take on terrorism. However poor Indian fishermen can not be used as pawns in their battles.

We also demand that Indian government and Sri Lankan government, after bringing the guilty to books, adequately compensates those fishermen who lost their near-and-dear earning members. And if situation remains that fluid in the territorial waters between India and Sri Lanka in that area in forthcoming future, government should immediately advise fishermen not to venture out in the sea. And as that means they would lose their livelihood for these few days, the cost of that should be borne by respective governments again by paying them upfront compensations for those many days or months.

We hope we act as a nation, and stop politicians effort to play politics over caste, state of origin or language or by the number of MPs they offer for central government to stay in power. 1.1 billion Indians stand firm in their commitment to Tamil fishermen today. Hope our government also does that.
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2007-03-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

When the choice is between The Constitution or Innocent Lives

The Kolkata High Court today (Monday, the 26th March) ordered a temporary halt (for three weeks) to the earlier CBI enquiry it asked on 15th March, the very next day of the fateful incident over Nandigram killings. Taking cognizance of suo moto notice of the firing in Nandigram, WB, India; Kolkata High Court ordered a CBI probe into it and asked the agency to submit its report within ten days. CBI, after filing its initial findings, much of which was also anticipated and thereby reported in line with the process of investigational evidences in mainstream media, requested further time to continue its investigation.

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Since then, the people of India has been broadly informed by what went wrong on that day by mass media – at the hands of state administration, party cadre or even in other wrong hands as state administration claims. So if all these reports and video recordings are taken as evidences, the people of the country by now know what atrocities were carried on the villagers of Nandigram on 14th March, and who all was accountable for that. There’s been reports stating how those accountable tried to sabotage their evidences, which they successfully did in past in other instances when CBI arrived at the spot later.

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True, CBI did unearth few more evidences to corroborate those broader findings as reported in media over Nandigram. And true, CBI could do that only because it received its direction from The Kolkata High Court immediately after the incident. Media report again stated that in few earlier occasions, when CBI probe was ordered after few days of reported incidents, the probe didn’t help much to nail down the culprits because the perpetrators had enough opportunity and time to sabotage most of the evidences.

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This time CBI was more knowledgeable with its past experience of ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’ and moved fast, the very next day of receiving the court order.
This time too, in democratic India where the Constitution is held at the highest esteem, The Kolkata High Court order initially asking for a probe, or the public remarks of the titular head of West Bengal, Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi was put under the scrutiny of our Constitutional experts to check whether they remained within their statutory rights to do so, because law and order seems to be a state matter. And the state, who apparently is the culprit for that incidence in Nandigram, if media is to be believed, (and its party being a pillar of present ruling central government, to whom CBI reports, by providing external support as well) was not consulted to find out what went wrong and why and what punitive actions to be given to the guilty so that incidents like Nandigram don’t reoccur.

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Apparently, a suit to examine that right of The Kolkata High Court order of 14th March is pending with country’s highest court, The Supreme Court.

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Most of us, including I myself, happen to be naïve in matters of Constitutional matters. However as simple citizens what we know is the first duty of any state, more so for a democratic state, is to protect the lives of its innocent citizens.

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If above matters are looked from that angle and is indeed true, it won’t be wrong to say that the battle now seems to be between Constitutional uprightness in our Indian federal architecture, and innocent lives lost over Nandigram.

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Let’s face it – even if there exists a conflict in which scenario the Constitution does not allow The Kolkata High Court the much needed statutory power to pass an order for CBI enquiry immediately after it was reported without consulting the state administration, when the truth has been sort of out in the open, again thanks to the media; should we keep our Constitutional uprightness, or should we, again applying common sense and not getting into the jargons of Constitutional advice for such a scenario, try and provide justice to those who have lost their family-members.

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A retired Supreme Court Judge, in his article in The Times of India few days back said (quoting from Churchill, not verbatim here) justice should be more from morality angle and less from legality angle; more so for a country like India where many poor, illiterate people may not understand legal terms and their implications.

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I want to be an optimist like billion+ Indians. I would believe deep in my heart that we are changing for the better. And I would look forward to an early order from The Supreme Court (or if the need be even from the President’s office, who is empowered to protect our Constitution in its true spirit) requesting The Kolkata High Court to reorder CBI probe on Nandigram to continue at the earliest. True, today’s court order wanted time to study the state filing; however what one fails to understand in that order is why another parallel investigation need to be stopped for three weeks now, as has been reported again in media.

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If true investigation doesn’t happen irrespective of who carrries that out and if speedy justice is not delivered, I am sure that our original architect of the Constitution may be shedding their tears in their post-mortal life, if one exists. Because they could never probably imagine when they came out with this Constitution, in their wildest dreams, that the machinery of Government, who would do everything to protect this very Constitution of their vision of a future India can stoop to such a low level of moral values by debating on Constitutional provisions.

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I happen to be getting a feeling of being numb in expressing my feelings in word. Our visionaries could never think of a future developing India when the choice would be between protecting the Constitution or innocent lives.

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Sad but true, we happen to be in such a cross road today. And optimists as billions of Indians are, in case above facts are indeed true, we would believe that we would rise to the occasion and our authorities would take the right call, even if the sacrifice be a milestone in future history.

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Otherwise it would be billions of Indians who would state ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’; and unfortunate, painful as it may sound; that YOU would be our very own Constitution.

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Just like killing innocents in the name of regional fanatism over Holy Scriptures are wrong, as Holy Scriptures never said that but few wrongfully interpret it that way; similarly stopping an investigation over incidence of the magnitude of Nandigram in the name of Constitution would also be wrong. True, today’s court order never stated that Constitutional empowerment being the reason for its order; and this article is based on circumstantial facts, and writer’s own interpretation (which may be wrong as well).

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Today our country, India needs an answer, an unbiased just true answer, from our Constitution and its very own protectors on what went wrong in Nandigram on 14th March, and who all were responsible for that.

Hope we will get that soon, real soon.

Comment from Ranjit Goswami Date: March 27, 2007, 12:45 am
It seems there is some confusion on the HC order interpretation as of now as reported in mainstream media. Even after one day of the order, media (TOIN, Nandigram: HC defers decision, CBI probe to go on, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Nandigram_HC_defers_decision_CBI_probe_to_go_on/articleshow/1812727.cms) reported ‘Calcutta High Court on Monday did not pass any fresh directions on the CBI probe into Nandigram violence but it did not restrain the investigating agency from carrying on with its ongoing inquiry…On Monday, advocate Kalyan Banerjee, who is also one of the petitioners, prayed to the court to direct the CBI to probe the Nandigram incidents. Banerjee submitted that at least 27 people were missing in Nandigram and hence CBI should be directed to carry on investigations. This was also supported by counsel for Association for Protection of Democratic Rights Jaymalya Bagchi. However, this prayer for a fresh probe was turned down.’ So the question is whether the one sees investigating whereabouts of the missing persons fall under ongoing query or part of fresh probe. There were reports yesterday in mainstream media in line with above article (’Nandigram: HC no to continuing CBI probe’, http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=151079) and similar article appeared almost everywhere as well.

2007-03-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

“Overheating”: more of a social phenomenon in China and India

A lot of talk is going on in all economic and market circles on “overheating” of global economy, Chinese economy, Indian economy and probably on lot more other similar high-growth markets. These are further fueled by talks on slow-down in the largest consuming economy, in the U.S. because of retail sector slow down to recession, and more recently by sub-prime rate lending to the riskier borrowers.

A definition of the term “overheating” goes hand-in-hand with broader generic economic sense. “Overheating of an economy occurs when its productive capacity is unable to keep pace with growing aggregate demand” states Wikipedia.

Many, without a formal background in economics or sociology, fail to understand why “overheating” is expected in large markets like China or India, where domestic consumption can potentially sustain not only the existing capacities, but even the capacities in the pipeline. Because a simple look at the consumption level of goods like energy, cement, steel, cars or even when takes services sector; the service sector (that dominates overwhelmingly by 80% in U.S. economy).

That was on the demand side. Similarly, on the supply side, there is apparently no dearth of employees (or call it ‘labors’ in an orthodox manner). Well, there may be shortage of capital and other natural resources; however with global liquidity showing no sign of tiring; the 1st one is also unlikely in immediate future. And for most commodities, so long supply could keep pace with demand, true prices have gone up; but may not be to the extent in which demand have shot up. And even if tightening happens on supply side globally, doing business in these two countries purely from business and demand potential may still be attractive because of the present level of consumption, and growth potential.

Probably, true chances of that probability being remote, it may be possible that traditional economic sense of “overheating” that’s so far have stood the test of time with economies of at most 1/3rd to 1/4th the population of these two countries and that too with much higher initial consumption level compared to where consumption level is in these two countries; “overheating” may not be applicable to these two potential giant economies in a pure economic sense.

Irrespective of “overheating” possibility coming true in its economic sense in these two nations, another kind of “overheating” is already happening in these two giant economies. It’s very much in the radar of these two countries chief, President Hu Jintao for China (and also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China) and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh (and an economist) for India. And if one closely observes some of the latest comments of these two leaders from these two neighboring nations that’s been consistently growing at nearly double-digit numbers (one for couple of decades and one for four years), one increasingly senses this concern even more than the economic “overheating” concern.

Since last year, reforming and standardizing income distribution system has been in the limelight of Chinese policymakers. Frequent voices emerged, to phase out the disparity, and bring semblance of equality, Hu often referred to policies being compatible to the full consideration of the needs of the grass-roots, remote and poverty-stricken areas; more from western provinces of China. And in a historic move towards that, Communist China passed its first law recognizing private ownership last week. Gini-coefficient, a measure of income inequality in a society, happens to be marginally higher in China than in the U.S. Every person in urban China has nearly three times income level compared to his rural counterpart, which was around 1.7 back in 1985.

And along with the words to tackle these menace of inequality, there’s been huge monetary support in China in its last budget in rural and social sectors, more targeted at those left-behinds.

India faces a similar problem; however the problem is all over India with higher intensity again in central and eastern Indian states. The latest Forbes billionaire list showcased pointed out this inequality as billionaires’ wealth in % of GDP turned out to be one of the highest (approximately 25% against 7% global value), along with another dangerous signal of billionaires’ wealth when measured to overall tax revenue again topping the list (approximately nearly 3, world average being 1/3). Along with that, there’s been a consistent flow of media reports, thanks to better media freedom in India compared to China, on farmers’ suicides due to single-digit low agricultural growth with non-existent financial opportunities for leveraging their only asset. Maoists terrorism, having members primarily from Indian tribal-communities, is spread over 1/4th of Indian districts strikes India routinely at its inaccessible parts. Indian Prime Minister therefore talks more about “inclusive growth” more often than growth.

Here too, along with words of ”inclusive growth” came the Indian budget last month with highest allocation in social and agricultural sectors, with a year-on-year rise of more than 30% in few cases.

Finally looking at latest reports of incidents leading to violent protests emerging from both these two nations; by angry, significant sections of the population who are yet to get significant benefits of this high-growth rates; one clearly sees a clear sign of “overheating” happening in the social fabric of these two nations, with nearly 35% of total world population. Nandigram, the latest incident in India point to that overheating where to ensure supply side constraints in its economic sense are met, the basic prerequisite land supply itself becomes a problem for which farmers are ready to die. Media reports indicated that thousands of apparently unreported clashes have occurred in China too between state authorities and poor farmers, where its authorities have moved by overcoming the hurdles in its authoritarian style, and they happen to be growing by the day.

Going by the experience of these two nations with billion+ people, one is forced to wonder whether “overheating” for these two nations mean another economic terminology only; or something that’s better covered in sociology. Well, the reason for this social “overheating” may be deep rooted in fast economic growth rates, that’s what traditional “overheating” may be linked to.

2007-03-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Why Nandigram? Why SEZ? WHY?...because of YOU and I

Why are the Indian states encouraged to forcefully take over farmers’ lands at the cost of state exchequer and tax-payers’ money, to be distributed free of cost to any who barely promises to bring few million dollars, that too many times to firms of dubious local and global reputations, irrespective of how much money is actually brought to the table? That too, when global liquidity seems to be on the higher side (well, now may come the tightening cycle, which always is uncertain…but usually follows).

Somehow in Indian billionaires’ portfolio, there isn’t still 25% of India’s land. How unfair! They own 25% of India’s GDP in wealth, shouldn’t they deserve to own 25% of India’s land. Oh…yeah goes the duo from Oxford-Cambridge-Harvard. Justice must be prevailed for the marginalized sections as they have advocated reservations for under-represented lot, in similar argument earlier. So why not reserve up to 25% of Indian land, that’s ‘their’ share in GDP… slowly… just like share of backward castes in jobs or merit-based positions is decided by their caste population share for ineffective reservation by sacrificing the legitimate deand for the real poor and needy.

So as if existing growth rate of 8-10% is not adequate and sustainable, as if industries like the world’s largest grass-root refinery didn’t take place without such policies, government emulates Chinese model of Special Economic Zone, not six giant ones like China has with trillions of dollars of capital investments; with hundreds here in India, few with hardly $25,000/acre (how come this figure…please follow the article) of proposed chemical-hub SEZ investments that demands 40 million acres for trillion-dollar investment to ensure even faster growth rates, that too nearly three decades after China started, as if our policy came from God as a panacea for growth, faster growth, ‘inclusive' growth.

And one source[1], I didn’t search enough, reported ‘From 1979 to the end of 1996, a total of $175 trillion had actually been invested in China by foreign entities’, may be mostly in SEZs So at that rate, we need 7000 million acres of land to accommodate that capital investment. Valuation of that dollar was 1999 basis as it was a 1999 research conference paper, one may take equivalent dollar value today, and thereby may further inflate above 7000 million acres (7 billion) by 1.5 times.

Let me state honestly that above figure did blow my mind off too – it’s five times of present nominal global GDP. So one gets more surprised when one reads the next line ‘This figure is less than half of the total pledged amount of US $ 469 trillion’.

So to accommodate above figure (US $ 469 trillion, to attract capital investment, isn't it?) at $25,000/acre, one needs around 15 billion acres, if not more due to other stated reasons. Available land in India, as per CIA Factbook[2] is 2,973,190 sq km, which comes to less than 1 billion acre.

It's simple arithmetic if we get the units right - 1 sq. km = 100 hectares, and one hactare, equivalent to some 2-3 acres (1 sq. km = 247 acres, to be precise). I took the higher one (300 acres = 1 sq. km) for my ballpark calculations.

So to accommodate that kind of investment, Indian parliament, along with WB assembly needs to be converted to SEZ. And Indian democracy was razed anyway on 14th March, 2007 in Nandigram.

And if this isn't land grabbing in the name of SEZs, I don't know what land grabbing can potentially be. Please note SEZs aren't good or bad, democracy isn't good or bad, industrialization isn't good or bad, growth isn't good or bad - it's the way we implement those SEZs, we apply that democracy, we have that industrialization, we achieve that growth that makes them good, or bad.

All these are not causes - they rather are the effects (can be looked otherwise as well). And the causes (how and why) that lead to the effects are equally important.

I made my stand clear earlier[3] on why I believe concessions’ to industries should be stopped, because this race to the bottom amongst Indian states isn’t sustainable. Because after Singur incident, reports came that Jindals now wanted land-prices to be re-visited for their proposed steel project in WB. And why not? If Tatas can get it cheap land, why not them? And when the proposed investment is Rs. 35,000 crores ($ 8 billion compared to less than half-a-billion dollar for Singur)?

Does one see there how the race to the bottom continues for the state?

Though I argued there for no concessions for any, even in Singur, a Tata project; I also firmly feel if anyone at all deserves such concession, it should be like the house of Tatas, and similar reputed business houses (reputation not by size alone, so deserving smaller houses should also get that following this logic). Because this group, other than having strong ethical practices, also did a lot of good for India, in setting benchmarks for Corporate Social Responsibility where the group spends a significant part (and not in single digits of profit here, more than half?[4]) on various Corporate Social Responsible policies.

Having said that, I also fail to understand why Tatas have had to get the land at such a concessional rate? Rs. 150 odd crores isn’t big money for them (hardly $30-35 million, 10% of Tata Sons spending on social causes), when they anyway spend much more than that on genuine social causes? I can understand their logic that when most other business houses do get such concession, why not the Tatas? I also understand that Tata Motors is answerable to its shareholders for bottom line and not on CSR alone, and accounting standards for Tata Sons and Tata Motors may not allow such transfer of funds. But isn’t the last point a job for mere accountants to decide, whereas visionaries like Mr. Ratan Tata can look at the macro-thing, and thereby not miss another chance to set-up another example?

I will tell you why they should do that. Because if Tatas, even now, by canceling the attractive almost ‘free’ land deal (as it came in few vernacular media, another 'open secret') promises to pay WBIDC the real money that WBIDC paid to farmers; they set an example – a benchmark. Well, frustrated Tatas may again argue that Tatas have set so many examples; and what did Tatas get in return? I understand and agree: all their stakeholders in any business benefited, many times the shareholder has not even benefited as much as other peer groups offered, and that’s a track record they carried for a century or more. And when I look at new billionaires like Essar brothers, I rarely know anyone who benefited from their businesses, other than the Ruia family. Shareholders for steel, shipping, oil were mostly taken for a ride, institutional lenders were asked to re-write and write-off many loans and interests; and by that in less than two decades, they have garnered much more wealth than any individual Tata Sons family (probably). If there is one example for Tatas, there are hundreds of examples of Ruias, Agarwals (of Sterlite, who converted school of Balco, Korba, an acquiered PSU to godowns, as reported in the Times of India sometime back, true Sterlite group generated a lots of shareholder wealth, but how?), Dhoots of Videocon…I can go on.

I hope one would excuse me to cite evidence for everything…certain things people who need to know knows.

And thereby we, Indians are here…we are still worse than Sub-Saharan Africa in many measures (true, in many we are better and why SSA always?)...in the bottom of global ladder in most parameters which are good, and in highest order like issues of corruption, difficulties in starting and managing a business, which are bad.

And one is confused on why government, as a facilitator, does not get rid of corruption, improve good ethical businesses processes which probably would bring more investment than offering monetary or financial sops.

I am sure in India majority, like the ones who were 'murdered' in Nandigram for not knowing WHY, like the one who call bandhs and thereby engage into destructive activities may not understand; but few, who have seen the world, read a lot, worked with the best of the firms, played in financial markets, had the best of education, access internet to enrich their knowledge and stay 'connected' with the world do understand. However we, this 2nd category, are too occupied with our individual activities, and we also have the previlige to have selective amnesia which does not affect us directly.

And that's why I say it's YOU & I - yes we all are responsible for all these mess. We, who have been reading this online without engaging ourselves in bare minimum things that we can do from our daily official roles for a better society. We CAN do that - but we prefer keeping quite, even when we know better than those who 'pretend' to know (or in bits and pieces, collectively) in the name of law or in the name of democratic opposition, that they aren't right, always.

And I request us all to come forward to have our say – loud and clear on what’s right and what’s wrong. You may not agree with me, may pounce me. True, what I have been doing today from academics, I could not have done that from corporate world, where the cream of India still is, other than a small part being in academics. And true, governance is the job of government. But when they fail, should we look at how individually or organizationally we make even more money/profit from those failures…no, not any more. Most of us have made enough money by now by any Indian standard, if I am not mistaken.

And money never is enough.

Not by joining an agitation…we need to do what we are best at (I had academic publication from reports of Kalinganagar and other violences on land acquisition in 2006 where I suggested a better model, forgot...issue was revisited with SEZs, Singur when I wrote to PMO for policy-research on this. Nearly two months now - and expectedly no response. Agreed, very limited effort but I plan to do more with you now). By policy influence, by setting benchmarks that go beyond creations of shareholder wealth and individual wealth, industrial bodies by not inviting tainted industries, media-channels by not taking live TV interviews of same corrupt businessmen and politicians (who blatantly lie too!)…by not false advertisements to pay back a personal friendship at the cost of social responsibility as respected, talented, role model Mr. Bachchan is lately doing, and trying to justify something which fundamentally is not justifiable (personal friendship and social obligation belong to two different spheres and one can’t be compromised for other, it’s not ‘double-role’ original Don movie where he can be any, in advertisements, he is 'Big B', India’s pride and best global actor for last century as per the BBC pole).

Because money may come and money would go, but the standard of society, if deteriorates like as it’s been doing in India lately where in the name of money-making, everything is ‘chalta hai’ (everything is fine in war and love, that was the global version; and in India now, everything is fine in ‘making’ a quick buck); your kids…our kids…their kids inherit an unhealthy society.

And life and businesses should not be a mad race to top the list of billionaires, it’s good but not necessary (well, I don’t belong to the rich, super-rich, billionaire…so easy for me to say any nonsense here). I never even hint at billionaires being bad for society; most of them are great enterprising people, and are role models.

But I can say, with above examples, that many stink as well! Like many corrupt bureaucrats, politicians, ministers…

Let’s boycott those who stink, socially…in our circles, in our jobs, in our limited capacities.

Now is the time…because when ‘aam admi’ and ‘aam admi’ government looks at $ 500 million[5] investment for 22,000 acres of integrated one-piece land[6], true the actual figure varies from 10,000 acres to 27,000 acres, they may find nothing wrong in it . But you who know a lot, and people like me who knows a little? And as a researcher, I don't take anything just by face value when I know government lies too, and government can make a mountain from a molehill - so simple arithmetic of all these SEZ and 'Nandigram issue' (or somewhere else now) boils down to a proposed capital investment of hardly Rs. ten lakhs/acre of investment, for a proposed chemical hub, and more than twenty farmers already killed since January (actual number, and how many more…no one knows).

This is not land prices, but proposed capital investment/acre. However in any business that uses so much land, to make money one is expected to invest in core business than in land, unless it's agriculture. So they are likely to pay much less for the land prices if investment figure is right. And just ask any on the streets in Indian metro on what's the price of land and how is it shooting. Well this was Nandigram and the others are metros. But can the difference anywhere be that high, unless it's our very own India in its 'Unity in Diversity'?

One may argue that the Indonesian group would bring more investments as time proceeds. Then my questions are: has that group got that reputation? It’s not Tatas or Ambanis or Bharti's Mittals or Infy or Wipro or similar Indian groups, or a global GE or Toyota again with both right intention and capability…we give land upfront, and investment will come later…we have heard many things like that before. Where’s the agreement? What’s the penalty clauses if they fail?

Yes, few of us may have seen Indian media reports on credibility of this investor. I am not drawing any conclusions based on those media reports, but has any studied those in details? I am matter of fact ignorant of this group, but now research and even in-depth research with government resources don’t take much time and money.

Well, I was one of the bottomer in my chemical engineering graduation degree, I was not a great technical manager in my Reliance days, I didn’t understand many things in my MBA, and now too I don’t understand many academic/technical/managerial/economic things. But what most knows is a sort of chemical hub proposed for Nandigram is capital intensive industry, and it’s not for organized farming, which even may demand more investment.

If that's not land grabbing at the name of industrialization, at the name of attracting capital, I don't know what it is.

If this is what the dream of SEZs of our country that will drive industrialization, and thereby India to new highs…I am sorry. I am stupid then, and true, I was always stupid. Yes, I am angry, upset, frustrated since yesterday, and may not be thinking thro’ my head. I also believe in my heart that both our PM of India and the CM of my state, WB, is clean. At least they, to me personally, aren’t corrupt.

But educated as they are, policy makers as they are, responsible as they are…I don’t see them competent enough to head a country or a state with that level of policies regarding SEZs. May be the fault is in their team, but it's there.

Therefore you and I need to pitch in…in our respective roles…along with our existing roles.

Howard Zinn, author of ‘Voices of People’s History of the United States’ said following:

'One of the things we can learn from history is that history is not only a history of things inflicted on us by the powers that be. History is also a history of resistance. It’s a history of people who endure tyranny for decades, but who ultimately rise up and overthrow the dictator. We’ve seen this in country after country, surprise after surprise. Rulers who seem to have total control, they suddenly wake up one day, and there are a million people in the streets, and they pack up and leave. This has happened in the Philippines, in Yemen, all over, in Nepal. Million people in the streets, and then the ruler has to get out of the way. So, this is what we’re aiming for in this country.

Everything we do is important. Every little thing we do, every picket line we walk on, every letter we write, every act of civil disobedience we engage in, any recruiter that we talk to, any parent that we talk to, any GI that we talk to, any young person that we talk to, anything we do in class, outside of class, everything we do in the direction of a different world is important, even though at the moment they seem futile, because that’s how change comes about. Change comes about when millions of people do little things, which at certain points in history come together, and then something good and something important happens.'

I urge you to do that…for our country…for our next generation. While returning from Salt Lake in Kolkata this evening (15th evening), I saw various possessions and slogans for a better 'Bandh' (Strike) tomorrow. It’s bad…we don’t want that. But at the same time, let’s also not have a selective ‘bandh' (amnesia) in our mindset’ by ignoring ground reality of corruption, wrong doings, mis-administration, a mini-event of ‘Remember Tiananmen Square’[7] being replayed in Nandigram on day-before (14th March, 2007).

Let’s finally end in Bollywood style…remember ‘Pher Bhi Dil Hain Hindustani’ (We all are Indians?) of SRK…closed to the last scene when SRK appeals all to join him in stopping the hanging of an ‘aam hindustani’ (An ordinary Indian). None of us want to be alone in that journey…you will, when feeling alone, find me behind you and I will find some more in our this campaign. As he said...let's listen to our hearts for a change.

I know life is not Bollywood movies…but let’s try…pleaaaase….

Quick references:
[1] ‘Foreign Direct Investments To and from China’ by Philippine APEC Study Center Network (PASCN), pp3 http://pascn.pids.gov.ph/DiscList/d99/s99-21.pdf. As the figure was astounding, I checked the reference for author, Rosalina Tan in Google scholar, and found evidence to find author credible enough. However one can never be certain about that without long term research, and I am not from this field.

[2] https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html
[3] ‘The need of having a government’ http://desicritics.org/2007/03/13/024918.php
[4] As per a TIME-CNN report of 12th Nov, 2006 states ‘Tata Sons, the holding company that manages the group, is 66% owned by 11 charitable trusts, which spent $379 million on social causes in 2003-04’. One can calculate what the group profitability (and from their Tata Sons profitability, as Tata Sons is another share holder of group companies, so a % of group profitability comes to Tata Sons profitability. From ‘India’s Tiger’, http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1558320,00.html.

[5] ‘Centre clearance later, state to go slow on Nandigram SEZ’ http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=223886, land requirement as per this is 27,000 acres, whereas for my calculations I assumed lower figure following next reference.
[6] As reported in Washington Post, ‘Indian Farmers Set Fire to Gov't Office’ of 15th March, (today) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031500387.html
[7] Ashok Chavda, Mumbai, I believe someone like you and me in ‘Readerspeak: Shocking indeed is the news’ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Shocking_indeed_is_the_news/articleshow/1765276.cms
.

Special note added on 23/3: As that $175 trillion (or even more $469 trillion figure) sounded close to impossible, I started crosschecking. And now I believe in cited source, there exists a gap between billion and trillion; these two words may have been interchangeably used at least once in my citation (Reference 1 'Foreign Direct Investments To and from China’ by Philippine APEC Study Center Network). On page 7, it's $469 billion and on page 50, it's $469 trillion. $175 trillion was stated on page 3 and again on page 50. I have been trying to find out actual FDI flow in China which would be more than $ 2-$4 trillion by now (my guess), may even be little higher but likely to be still in single digits. I acknowledge this slip (in my citation, and it's my responsibility to check my citation as well; more so when it's closed to impossible). It's so gross that it should hit any. It did hit me too on that day itself…I should have double-checked. My sincere apologies… more so on what I stated on Indian democracy based on that reference (irrespective of the Nandigram incident in the background). However the broader point of less capital investment for chemical hub, and closed to 25% Indian land needed to bring in equivalent of Chinese FDI may still stand valid.

“Cumulative FDI into China is about $650 billion” - states ‘China’s Economy: Problems and Prospects(2007-2-14)’ @ http://www.danmex.org/spansk/tekst.php?id=327

2007-03-12T01:49:00.000-07:00

The need of having a Government

This article is in continuation of my previous article ‘Billionaire India: Worse off Than Sub-Saharan Africa?’ Well, while writing that article, I didn’t think that it would be a series; but the responses demanded that I deserve a chance to defend what I said, and that too with evidence and not with perceptions. True, I could have posted another feedback on that article; but it already was heavy with meaningful long content.

Let’s first agree on what the job of media and socio-economic research should be. They should report facts, and wherever they see something going wrong; alert all citizens about the potential danger that may strike us ahead. Now researchers aren’t astrologers; they can’t predict future. So they either raise genuine alarms or false alarms. Most felt that my article was an unnecessary false alarm. No problem with that as long as we use healthy debate to express our views with evidence, and not with perceptions.

And let me also state that I would be the happiest Indian if my alarm turns out to be a false alarm. However, I would still prefer to raise an alarm because the facts and evidences, latest as these are, point to such a situation; and the situation is indeed a grave, dangerous one. This alarm is something similar to the one of global warming, on which there were divisive opinions till a decade back. On certain grave situations, it’s better to play safe and still be wrong than to be certain and pay a very hefty price in case, in remote case the concerns become true for future days.

Take another example on potential U.S. attack on Iran. Though both the U.S. government (and its ally, Britain) has time and again assured their own citizens that they don’t have any plan to attack Iran; most sensible media talk about the possibility of another such disaster; and generate public opinion against one such attack. History is rich with facts that governments anywhere don’t learn from its mistakes; and a hypothetical diplomatic solution over Iran impasse in future can’t be taken against those opinions, which are up against arms against a military solution in Iran.

Rather a diplomatic solution would be their victory as they generate grim scenario that a military attack may lead to a worse than present Iraq status-quo.

So it’s better to be careful and concerned than to be certain and sure. So either my article was a false alarm when there was no alarm, or there already are remote chances of fire bells ringing loud and clear, however we knowingly or unknowingly love to ignore those fire bells.

The earlier article necessarily asked three broad questions, and asked whether present policies do tackle those challenges right:

Acquiring land for industrialization where there can be another model where land-owners get life long rents (a sort of fixed + variable model because the land-owners are risk-averse) against selling off their lands. So land-owners maintain ownership, are financially secured (whereas upfront large money against land may not last forever because most farmers aren’t equipped to manage a port-folio of investment) and industrialization also takes place. One may cry foul that then cost of industrialization goes up, whereas my limited research indicates there is no evidence to suggest that.

The 2nd question that earlier article asked was how healthy and sustainable this so called ‘competition’ between states of Indian economy is in attracting investments. One state promises ‘tax-free’ zone whereas the other offers free land, the 3rd may say that they would offer subsidized mining rights and the fourth would say they would build roads to power infrastructure to ports for that specific project. Note that the last one is indeed good because so long government didn’t build roads and power infrastructure for its citizens, but now to attract investment it does so. However the question is: should we encourage selective development when an industry house demands so; or should we develop infrastructure first and then let industrialization prosper. The fine line of difference here is in one case government has its say, whereas in 2nd industry (and the billionaires behind that industry) has its say.

For example, note Government of West Bengal gave the Singur land to the Tatas virtually free of cost to counter the excise benefit the project would have got in Uttaranchal. That means, Government, which is the custodian of common wealth, can give that to any as it feels free. Here again I am not passing any judgment on the correctness of this model; I am merely questioning the sustainability of this model, and how far can it get and where would it end.

To cite more examples, there are reports that Indian IT giants bargain from states for lands at lower than market values to set-up their offices. One may argue that the jobs they generate pay for it better in the long run. I agree with them; however my counter-argument is even without those sops, they would still need land, and that too in India itself; because of other competitive advantages India offers (low-cost employees and huge supply). So states can well stay away from offering those sops, and get little richer at the cost of the companies; and not the other way round.

There exists ample research here to suggest that in-spite of higher than usual taxation compared to competing economies, investors flock to China and India because of the other competitive advantages these two nations offer. And when industry associations claim about 40% overall tax rate being higher in India, no research states how many don’t pay any taxes or get subsidies in the beginning itself.

This is similar to the concept that I termed ‘race to the bottom’ within Indian states. The race to the bottom is a well-researched area in global economics where exporting economies deliberately try to keep their currencies low (thereby they indulge in the race to the bottom, which is evident now from China and Japan; and when large developed and developing giants indulge in that practice; think about the power that poor Bangladesh or Kenya in gaining export competitiveness. So for every winner in this race to the bottom, there would be many more losers; and the real winner is the country who is importing against credit money because finally he pays less for his imports, and contains inflation).

In the Indian scenario, our present policy asks Assam to compete with Gujarat. Well, here again one may indulge into post-mortem research and blame Assamese for their backwardness relative to the prosperity of Gujaratis; or one can get into ex-ante research and ask what can be done so that both complement each other’s growth rather than they eat into each other’s growth. The pie must be increased, and I admit that every unit of money if hypothetically taken away from the rich would result in few paisas in the hands of the poor. So that’s a ‘lose-lose’ proposition. However that does not mean that Indian states indulge into a similar race to the bottom where, like Kenya or Bangladesh, Assam or Bihar has no chance of competing with a Gujarat or a Maharashtra.

One may very well stop there and state, well, let that be. Because remember that in the competitive basket, Mumbai competes with Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and those places are developing fast. So Mumbai can’t be burdened with underdeveloped Assam or Bihar (or even take West Bengal, I get a feeling that I am shying away from it) when the comparative race is tough with Mumbai’s counter-parts.

I lived in Mumbai, and then I used to curse policy-makers in Delhi for collecting most taxes from Mumbai but investing that in infrastructure of Delhi; where as ‘Mumbaikars’ lived with pathetic infrastructure.

So what I have been hinting at that no easy solution exists; but that does not mean this race to the bottom is the best solution. Can we legitimately blame Assam or some other state tomorrow if many from there believe they have not benefited by being part of this vast nation, rather they have been forced to compete unevenly. Remember, that from such feelings take root of separatist movements and terrorism.

And I believe in the long run such a scenario doesn’t augur well for Mumbai as well. Size can be advantage when the size does not engage in an unhealthy, unsustainable competition within parts of that size itself to benefit the very few billionaires, rather than benefiting the overall size.

My 3rd question was: whether what was true for Europe and America in the beginning of the industrial revolution can be true for India in the 21st century? Few feedbacks also pointed to that; however what we must not forget is the size of the population. Europe and America, with their huge size of economies cater to a population of 300 million each; India caters to a population of 1.1 billion and organized employment is hardly 10% of the size of the overall labor market. So market forces would look at the marginal return of money from so-called ‘consumerism’ point; and one rupee at the hand of lower-middle class would generate more consumerism than one rupee at the hand of the poor (who would spend that one rupee on much more basic food that is not the product of any firm). So by following that ‘low hanging fruit’ model, India can sustain and develop a large market, hypothetically to the size of the U.S. or Europe with 300 million middle-class Indians without much purchasing power to the poor.

There was not much feedback on the first two as I read and understood the valued opinions; and I sincerely believe that when the question is pointed and clear (that’s what I have attempted here); most may agree to the challenges ahead.

To further strengthen my argument, let’s take a look at another important parameter. And that is (revenue earned by government / billionaires’ wealth). One may well ask what senses are to be made of such a ratio. It just shows relative power of government in forming neutral policies to benefit its majority, rather than succumbing to few in determining the ‘right’ set of policies. Government generates resources through taxes to fulfill the need of governance, and to provide basic amenities to citizens. When government is able to generate enough resources, it can rely on its neutral policies and invest in right infrastructures that suit the needs of majority of its citizens. And needless to say, developing economies like India need more common resources as infrastructure here is virtually incomparable to that of developed world.

The figures are ballpark figures, and may not be accurate to their decimals; however they can be broadly OK for our discussions.

Global tax revenue/global billionaires wealth = nearly 3

U.S. tax revenue/billionaires wealth in the U.S. = nearly 2

Japan tax revenue/billionaires wealth in Japan = around 10

Tax revenue of our Indian Government / Indian billionaires wealth (excluding the like of L N Mittal, as I did last time also) = 0.43

Does it say anything? I am not sure, but it says India is different. It truly is ‘Incredible India’, and I am not aware of any similar economy having such a pathetic ratio. The tax earned by the Government of 1.1 billion people is less than half of some 35 odd-billionaires’ wealth.

What does it mean? I said I am not sure, but I try to imagine a small country of 30 million people for simplicity that makes sense for our discussions. This country needs a lot of money to invest in lot many areas, and have an annual budget of $2 billion, average per capita income being same as India at $700. And in same country, there lives a billionaire with wealth of $5 billion. As expected and familiar as we are with these incidents around us, the government takes up a lot of ambitious projects as well as wants to run existing ones better with its bureaucracy and inefficiency; but are constrained by capital everywhere. And the billionaire chips in – and says ‘you allow me to manage your healthcare for little money’, ‘you allow me to manage primary education for little money’, ‘you allow me to manage your defense for little money’ and the Government, without any option by its lack of resources is forced to give in.

Well, I hope all these are FALSE alarms. And individually I still have no problem with such a potential scenario have I had a Social Security from our Government. Unfortunately, none worthwhile exists in India. And under such a reality, I am CONCERNED.

Because I fail to understand why we at all need a government under such a scenario? Because money ultimately speaks, and when money at the hand of a mere 30-40 billionaires is much more than the resources that a government can collectively generate from 1.1 billion people and for 1.1 billion people; that government is forced to toe the line that further strengthens those hands that money power dictates.

Let it indeed be a FALSE ALARM so that such a genuine alarm never strikes India.

2007-03-08T23:43:00.000-08:00

‘Aam Admi’ rule in India results in Asia’s largest billionaires

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Well, India indeed happens to be a fascinating nation – the more one sees it, more one gets mesmerized by its sheer diversity. And many of us, Indians who see India closely wonder on what’s the true identity this country should have in the global landscape.

For a long time, India took the center stage in something called ‘Non-aligned Movement’ (NAM) with many more 3rd world countries from Asia and Africa. I am not sure what has happened to NAM, because I haven’t seen NAM in global media for quite some time, and the word ‘alignment’ also needed redefinition after the collapse of erstwhile Soviet Russia. Those were the days of ‘Nehruvian Socialism’, ‘Hindu-growth rates’ and falsified idealism.

In mid-70s, there was ‘Garibi hatao’ (Abolish Poverty), and in 2004 it was ‘Aam Admi’ (the common man) campaign that Congress, the party behind present ruling coalition government had. The result of the former, if can be concluded after almost three decades, is for any to see when 70% of Indians live below $2 a day and more than 30% below a dollar a day.

And incredible India has again shown incredible results with ‘Aam Admi’ government, as India continues shining in global billionaires list published by Forbes recently.

Japan, with its size of nominal economy more than five times of Indian GDP, and population of less than 1/8th has 24 billionaires (combined net wealth $64 billion) whereas India has 36 billionaires (combined net wealth of $191 billion).

Let’s look at what these means thro’ some simple measures and ratios:

Billionaires wealth in India as a % of GDP = 25% (excluding L N Mittal, this would still be closed to 22-23%); and probably the highest in the world.

Billionaires wealth in the world as a % of global GDP = 6-7%

Billionaires wealth in Japan as a % of Japan’s GDP <>

Billionaires wealth in the U.S. as a % of U.S. GDP = around 12-13%

India’s share in global GDP = 2%

Indian billionaires share in combined billionaires (globally) net wealth = 6%

India’s population share globally = 17%

Per capita income in India = $700

Per capita income (global, nominal figure) = $7000

India happens to be the fourth largest (nominal) economy in Asia, and in terms of per capita income (GNI), India ranks poorer than Sub-Saharan Africa. A flow of reports lately have shown that on most of the parameters of Human Development Index, India ranks at the lowest of the ladder, and much worse than nations from Sub-Saharan Africa.

So without much research, one may not be much off-the-mark to state that the 8-10% growth that India has seen in last four years have been able to increase exponentially the net-wealth of the rich and famous than the common man. Their wealth may be growing by more than 30-50%, whereas majority of these (1.1 billion people – this few odd billionaires) struggle to survive. And one wonders on the composition of our society when our GDP reaches couple of trillion over next few years with billionaires wealth hitting even higher percentage as evident from last few years.

Nothing wrong in it when one gives up the hypocrisy and says India offers the best opportunity to grow wealth fastest for the people who already have wealth. Capitalism, business, investment means that as I understand with my limited understanding. Contrary to that, our Finance Minister and our Prime Minister forces ‘Aam Admi’ Indians in the race to the bottom where states indulge in an endless race of tax concessions to subsidizing land that globally has been played before, and proved to benefit the rich. Our Prime Minister argues giving even more incentives to the SEZs, as if existing rate of wealth creation isn’t adequate from above facts, and he fears capital would fly elsewhere. So each nation does that, each state does it and then each nation, each state and each district sales out themselves to the rich and the famous and don’t collect enough money to invest in health, education, infrastructure.

One may be tempted to ask our Havard-educated Finance Minister and our Oxford-Canbridge-educated Prime Minister that at which point they believe that doling out more incentives to the billionaires should end – be it in the central policies or in state policies. And they should answer who bears the costs for those incentives. Take it the stock-market casino where capital gains is tax-free for long-term capital gains (and how most FIIs use it), take it the Singur project where the state subsidizes land acquisition for a private project with citizen’s money, take it in our various national and state-level industrial policies which clearly show the rich always indulges in hard-negotiations with our Governments to make investments by getting concessions to subsidies.

‘Inclusive growth’ with these policies would remain another slogan, and wishful thinking of our policy-makers.

On the other hand, globally there is one thing that’s in excess supply and that’s easy money and liquidity (capital). We have seen ‘yen-carry’ trade in Japan, and after a small blip; the practice is likely to continue. So one can borrow yen, as an example, invest in land in India and make billions – and Government facilitates that land-acquisition by not even paying a market price to our Indian farmers; rather forcing them to sell.

If there is anything in short-supply, it’s the natural resources; and mostly land. The world knows that well, and importance of land can’t be overstated for the 2nd highest populous country with less than 2% of world’s land. Let Government privatize its PSUs, nothing wrong in that; but don’t force – I repeat don’t force to sell someone land that too at a dictated price.

Our ‘Aam Admi’ government has produced a few more billionaires in our real estate firms at the cost of millions of farmers. Farming land can be taken for industrialization just like a building owner collects rents for his buildings. And there’s been a report of a successful model like this working near Pune where land-owners become leasers and thereby partners than are forced to sell-out their lands.

What’s more concerning is the fact that politicians, policy-makers, mass-media all needing money again continues to ignore these glaring facts of imbalances, and plays the beats that our rich loves to hear. Rapid growth anywhere leads to imbalances (Gini-coefficient, a measure of equitable growth, is more in socialist China than in Capitalist US, showing more inequality in China). Acknowledging the fact, China lately has embarked into massive equitable-program to sustain social harmony. And the world takes China seriously because it so far did what it promised; unlike Indian Government (where growth is again more external-driven and despite our policies).

The danger that India has is its vast majority of undernourished, underfed, undereducated, people can very well be forgotten. We know the size of any market with Europe and the US, where 300 million people with some buying power means huge markets. Marketers, with policy-makers aids would address these 300 million Indians than care about another 800 million Indians. And from these 300 million Indians itself, one can make enough money for enough years so that the urge to expand the market in a country like India may not be there. It’s the same ‘low hanging fruit’ concept that market forces have traditionally shown, and expected to show.

Indian rich and middle-class comprises that low-hanging fruits; whereas rural India, tribal India, poor India lives truly in inaccessible India.

Incredible India already presents Manhattan to Somalia in its commercial capital Mumbai; one can only imagine what Incredible India would offer to its own two-classes of citizens when India indeed becomes a global superpower following same set of policies.

One can sincerely be optimist that India won’t ban its 2nd class-citizens to live in that ‘hypothetical’ Superpower India, because in the end someone needs to be fooled continuously so that they vote, keep faith in democracy, and help the rich grow even richer at the cost of the poverty of the vast majority.

2007-02-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

India Needs Policy-Research

Many in India don’t believe, or even want to take notice of the data provided by multilateral institutes like the World Bank, the IMF and similar ones. I won’t deny that I too had a degree of suspicion while looking at the data presented by these bodies not too long ago, more so at their prescriptive remedies that were packaged with those data. But that was before I entered academics from a research mindset.

And then I found that other than those, we don’t have many quality primary researches undertaken in India from policy-perspectives without the much-needed aid from those multilateral institutes or their country-level counterparts like the IDFC, the DFID, etc.

The background gets important as many debated from local media on ‘India Poised’ to the other opposite end that looked at the immaturity of India as a superpower in global media. In one case, we presented perception as evidence. And in the other case, the global media, as they are used to, cited evidence, rightfully or wrongfully, from global researches of credibility.

And the obvious question comes, why don’t we Indians argue, as Argumentative Indians suggest of our characteristics, with evidence as evidence and not as perception as evidence. We need to pay better attention at the sources of the evidence and their credibility and methodology. If we did that, we aren’t likely to engage ourselves in much of wasteful arguments on wishful thinkings to hypes on which we mostly argue, and thereby can get into implementation of our policies, which matter more.

Facts, figures, statistics, sources with debates and the counter-arguments backed by evidence again are basic prerequisite of any policy-making. During policy-making only, we take our status quo starting with where we stand, decide our destination from possible alternative ones and reason why we need to be there, and also decide which path to take to reach that destination from a medium-term to long term perspectives. It’s in this stage that policy makers’ debate on how that destination and path suits us best by analyzing the interests of all involved stakeholders.

The evidence and debate comprises facts, figures, hypothesis, and sources of those facts in the footnotes with the references on how one deduced those conclusions. Any sensible man would feel sorry at the plight of 1.1 billion Indians if our campaigns, and even policies are based on wishful thinkings of media and politicians like that of ‘Make 2007 the year of India’ (what was wrong with 2006, 2005, 2008, what is wrong with rest of the world in 2007?), or the ‘Cradle Campaign’ as announced lately as a remedy to feticide of female child as soon as another horrific (but expected) story breaks out. Then there was the infamously famous campaign of ‘Garibi Hatao’ ((Abolish Poverty) by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

And rest of the world, more so developed world, don’t pay much heed to these ‘wishful thinkings’, and these wishful thinkings didn’t deliver much, expectedly. We know what happened to ‘Garibi Hatao’ even after almost three decades. Shouldn’t we ask questions, and look for evidences when faced with such policies and campaigns? Isn’t that what we should be learning (& teaching) as 1st year students in any colleges – against any self-concluding hypothesis in social sciences.

Many of us may recall seeing the evidences ‘produced’ by last US Secretary of State Colin Powell on the floors of the United Nations back in 2002 broadcast live in global media to build global opinion in his case for invading Iraq, which looked so real as if we could feel the Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs) lying in Iraq. And while many were convinced by those evidences of WMDs, they conveniently forgot to ask those fundamental questions – ‘hey, what’s your sources? Where are the footnotes? What’s the credibility of the sources?’

And the world, more so people from Iraq continues to pay dearly for not asking those questions. Expectedly, these are debated in the U.S., because that country, seldom failed in policy-making; and this failure (a deliberate ploy as per many conspiracy theories) is therefore widely debated, and scrutinized.

American people not only have been holding Bush-administration responsible for that intelligence-failure, but also have squarely put that responsibility on failure of Media. Media too got carried away by that hi-tech presentation, and therefore forgot to ask those elementary basic questions.

Coming back to India, we seldom see debate and arguments with evidences at the policymaking stages. Those policies, from time to time, originate from the tables of some bureaucrats or from the minds of some ministers like words from the Bible. We know the quality of debate that takes place in our parliament, and we also know the qualification of our parliamentarians in meaningfully contributing to such debates.

We, in popular media and in our day-to-day life do a lot of (wasteful) debate on those without evidence, may be because the policies themselves didn’t have any evidence in the beginning. These were and are mostly ad hoc measures – be it our independence or economic reforms (were we prepared and therefore planned how to prevent the expected riots that followed our independence? No. Did we plan how to proceed in following market reforms like China did? No. And probably these two are two biggest events of free India).

Irrespective of the fact that policy-research has remained a neglected field, and whatever policy-research is carried out remains in the wrong hands mostly; there’s no denying of its importance; more so in transient economies where India stands now. India, to really come out from her various hurdles and thereby to take a better place in competitive global economy, badly need better policymaking.

Policymaking comes under institutional infrastructure, and plays as important and complimentary a role in economic development as other two categories of infrastructure do, i.e. the hard infrastructure (roads, ports, power) and soft infrastructure (education, healthcare). If we had the right policymaking environment, we would not have had the inhuman daily traffic problem in Mumbai or the power shortage in Maharashtra now, or in some other state at some other time. With wrong policy making, our policy makers allot more than 30-times on university education than on primary education on per capita basis.

Does India need a graduate Indian 30-times more than a literate Indian? Policy-making, even at its rudimentary senses for a country of 35% or more illiterates shouldn’t say so.

And even when they do invest so much on university education, then why not invest on few of them for policy making as well. We haven’t seen our bureaucrats and ministers ever attended a seminar as audience rather than as speakers as if by virtue of some gift, they possess the answers to all the problems. It’s indeed unfortunate that a country that claims to be building her case to be the hub of the knowledge-economy, policy research remains to be seen as words from certain sacrosanct sources.

Let me cite my evidences with more examples.

In December 2006, to pursue my academic research, I was searching for some data on Internet usage in India. My limited research yielded me following confusing figures with their local and global sources:

Ø CIA World fact Book – 60 million (2005)
Ø Internet World Stats (Dec’06) – 40 million
Ø IAMAI-IMRB (Sept 2006): 37m ever users and 25m active users
Ø IOAI-Cross-Tab: 25 million (around middle of 2006)
Ø eStatsIndia: 30.5 million by 06-end.
Ø European Travel Commission (eTForecasts, September 2004): 37.0 million.
Ø PricewaterhouseCoopers (July 2004): 30.0 million
Ø eMarketer (April 2005): 21.3 million
Ø Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU, February 2005): 15.7 million
Ø TRAI (Indian Govt.) figure on subscriber base (June’05) = 5.9 million (subscriber, and not user here)

So, as any person, forget about a researcher, I was confused (in-spite of having worked with leading e-commerce companies for five years). Two of the most respected here, the EIU and the CIA World Factbook defined the range, and rest all were somewhere in-between, true the time period was different. And anybody could have played with any figures. So when we read in media that ‘Internet usage has grown by 60%’, one must be careful on what base (earlier research); otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.

And imagine when someone would like to make some policy-making to make Internet penetration more widespread based on above set of data. We simply don’t know where we stand exactly, and unless we know our exact position; how do we set our destination?

And during this research only, I realized that it’s difficult because we don’t have any definition in the first place of what is meant by ‘An Internet User’. Unlike a phone subscriber or a cell-subscriber, how do we define an Internet user? In the US (in China too, and true for most sensible countries) policy-makers have in the first place defined on what an Internet user means (based on minimum age, frequency of usage or last usage) years back. I haven’t yet come across anything like that in India until then from Indian policy-makers, although one Indian research body has attempted that definition in its last report. So effectively it means we can publish anything without much of evidence and sources or even by stating that as primary data as long as we remain in that range, and finally define an Internet user as we individually like.

Imagine with that level of policy-making, we want to be a key-player in global knowledge economy. God help us.

Or take for example the latest SEZ example, of which we are more familiar. I am not aware of much debates, awareness, and evidences with alternatives presented before the policy was out for implementation. No problem so far, but after some 67 SEZ licenses were given, another 80 in-spite of receiving in-principle approval out of 267 notified ones, suddenly the Government realizes something wrong in it and now plans to revisit rest by putting a hold on the balance 200 proposals. May I ask the Government and policy-makers what was wrong with the 68th and thereafter proposals? It simply looks like that parties who got a license simply benefited from bad immatured policy making if acquisition gets costlier and more bureaucratic from this ‘review’, and good proposals waiting to take off suffered due to again bad policy-making. If one needs to revisit, revisit all quickly; otherwise don’t revisit any.

One can’t have discriminating policies for early gatecrashers and a different one for those who take time to study, understand and then decide. The controversy surrounding these SEZs point out not at the failures of the proposal and the private parties, but at Government’s immaturity in thinking through them before implementing the policies.

And expectedly a review has been called, no heads roll within Government machinery to share the accountability. Even in case there was policy-making, whatever pre-matured that was, failure needs to be squarely taken up by so-called policy-makers, who continue to take one after another such whimsical policies. Land acquisition act of 1894 can’t be suited for SEZs for 21st century, and policy-makers should know that too well.

As academicians, we don’t like to publish papers only for citations. We believe as researchers, we can get involved, please note involved and not comment, in policy making from inception to implementation stages, more so when we see these glaring failures in policy making day after day in our capital resource-deficit country, and when time is critical. Getting it right the first time is important, and that too as fast as we can.

True, it’s easy to criticize and difficult to be involved and deliver. I know a very few academicians to be involved in policymaking, more as exception than as norm. Are we, as academicians, taking up the initiatives to get involved? True, may be not; but I can’t desist sharing one of my personal experience here, may be as an exception or may be as the norm.

Almost nine months back, following the incidents prevalent that time from Kalinganagar (where 13-tribals were killed in Police-firing in their protest against land acquisition for a Tata Steel project) or Gangavaram Village in Visakhpatnam over building of Gangavaram port where again there was casualty or even the famously infamous ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ (Save the Narmada), and many other similar ones over mining rights in light of global commodity boom, I came out with an academic publication where I argued that these incidents point the growing need to have involvement of Government, mining firms, local bodies and even NGOs for smoother implementation of these sensitive projects thro’ a work-breakdown structure. Long-term economic benefit of any such project is expected to be positive, there should be proper means of sharing that output with the stakeholders so that all parties eventually win.

I thought of sending that paper then to corporate houses who were facing time and cost overruns due to project delays from these causes, and also to few Governments; because it was designed to be public-private partnership till land-acquisition. But then better senses prevailed, and I conveniently forgot about that academic work; until recently there were more deaths reported from Nandigram, and violence from other similar land acquisition projects.

A deep sense of guilt flooded me – why didn’t I make any effort to take my research seriously. At no stage I claim here that it was of great quality, true there may be many more similar academic works suggesting better solutions to this problem; but the point I have been trying to make is they all were big waste in building a better India. Bitten by that conscience bug, I one day visit our PMO’s web site and put a message asking for policy-level research on land acquisition for industrial developments.

That was almost one month back. And till date, I received no response – not even a formal acknowledgement has come.

There are many projects we can take up as researchers to contribute in our policymaking at different levels. However those need funds, whatever small that be. And matter of fact is, we mostly have none. One can get peanuts after lot of bureaucratic hurdles, but by then one loses his/her energy to pursue that research.

And then in global forums we see researchers from MIT or Harvard presenting their primary research based findings on India. It’s true but sad that they have the funds, and they feel investing that fund on primary research towards better policymaking is justified even though they happen to be in the US; we in India lack a fraction of those funds to carry our own research.

Not for publications alone, but to help by providing right inputs to policymaking.

No one puts forward these wishes of researchers to our Finance Minister before any budget. We have funds for hard infrastructure, we have funds for soft infrastructure; true they need much more. However please allocate a fraction of that on policy-research so that we get best returns on the other two.

And hope our Finance Minister listens.

2007-01-28T06:07:00.000-08:00

India needs a BPR

A lot of euphoria has been generated lately - to some extent by media, industry and also by politicians on the India Story – call it Emerging India or India Poised or India Everywhere or India Inside or India Growth Story. In line with our diversity, we have not been able to agree on how this should be worded exactly, true that they all essentially mean the same and therefore the variety in catchlines don’t matter. I happen to be at a loss to understand this hype, and while acknowledging little merit to the emerging growth story, I have a different view on that.

Coming from academics background, we look for clarity, evidence and meaningful causality. In the catchline ‘Emerging India’, meaning of emerging is not clear to me, in ‘India Poised’, poised sounds equally unequivocal (poised for what?), in ‘India Everywhere’, everywhere needs to be further defined (everywhere in the world? when one in every six man in the world is an Indian, and again by how much?), and in ‘India Growth Story’, we need further clarity on ‘Growth Story’ and also on that comparative basket (against whom).

Don’t get me wrong. We academicians, as I found in a recent overseas conference, may be more bureaucratic than even Indian Bureacracy. We ask for evidence (like Judiciary) when that evidence is in front of us, in all forms and shapes (we were debating on convergence policy of media within various APAC countries, and arguments ran that most countries in this region don’t have credible convergence policies; I was wondering that the convergence has already arrived, probably in better shape than any policy could have resulted, do we need any more policies?). My doubts on India Story may sound similar to many because the evidence, as we all see (including myself) around us 24X7 is the biggest proof of that story. Yes, there is change and there were, are and would be stories – the question is how much of that is India specific, and how much of that is driven by us.

I agree with lots of changes in India, many for the better, in last few years. But my queries are – (1) Are these changes happening only in India (compared to elsewhere in the world or in an Apple to Apple comparison?) (2) Are these changes happening faster in India? (3) And what are the real causes of this so called ‘India Story’ – is it internal (coming from within, due to our actions or inactions, which if true can lead to a more ‘credible’ India Story) or more a result of global forces coming from external factors (common sense tells us that a combination of both, however how much due to what factors is the point we need to debate).

In answering all the above three questions, we obviously don’t see any India story, not even a weaker one emerging in the sense we understand this India Story. Unless, obviously the mode of my framing the questions was intentional to misguide and therefore misconstrue an obvious real evidence. And that question is (4) Is this India Story in 2007 is in comparison to another India Story of 1980s or so. We can’t go back much in the past, because then the story may again vanish.

And my view is - it's more of a global pull than India-centric push which is causing much of that growth, wealth creation, and to some extent an overall improvement in quality of life for the nearly 1.1 billion Indian people - may be not equally, but in different degrees. To justify my argument, I would like to give a simple (and even crude!) example: what happens in any affluent party with ample food...there is extra in the end, which, if used by marginalized section with right means and measures become useful; otherwise that's a waste. A look at global money supply would justify where, taking US as an example, runs $200 billion+ budget deficit and $600 billion+ trade deficit. So paper money supply is increasing, from developed world (and all over), and that money isn’t necessary being dumped back to the ocean again. So someone is getting hold of that money (along with global savings, however growth in money supply remains major driver), and investing that money somewhere or buying some asset class and a very very small fraction of that is landing in Indian economy and markets as well (one may expect even a higher % to come here). Out of above figures, we know how much 5% of that money alone can do for Indian stock markets.

[Academicians should create controversy – because there is nothing new in stating the obvious, believes one school of academicians. Without belonging to that group, I also believe in another controversial to blasphemous theory – that of Indian freedom is more of a result of post-2nd world war global and European, including British readjustments than Indian freedom struggle. A look at how many European colonies gained freedom post WWII would justify that theory. However let me admit here that I respect and admire our freedom fighters as much as most other Indians do].

Coming back to present India story and its drivers, consumption from (or even income of) developed world can't grow year after year, neither can a catastrophic gap of income between developed and developing world (call it developing, middle-income nations or low-income nations) be sustained for ever. In 1960, Per Capita Income in richest 20 countries was 18 times of the poorest 20, in 1995 that almost doubled to 37 times. So it has widened and widened, and probably reached a point beyond which it can’t be stretched. Economist Sean Sweeney stated ‘a seismic reaction brewing to the maldistribution of wealth’ and that seismic reaction, at least within country perspective, did need some balance, and some minor reversing trend is visible now on a within country basis, true at the cost of that maldistribution of wealth increasingly hurting societies of developing nations.

India ranked poorer than Sub-Saharn Africa (as per World Bank Development Indicators, India is at 137, and SSA at 136 in Per Capita GNI, 2005 figure; agreed that any economic measures may be misleading). I have nothing against Sub-Saharan Africa per se, however that's what is taken to be the last destination of growth globally. So based on that figure alone, can’t I argue that India Story may be true for a handful of urbanites in India - for many of the previleged ones like us who are little awash with this new growth story? India happens to be the home of highest number of poors, and highest number of illiterates (and closed to 35% of our population). Again these statements may be inadequate considering the fact India also happens to be 2nd most populous nation with no close competition from 3rd , so nothing wrong in having highest number of poors or illiterates in that sense. However when it’s said that more than 40% of Indian children are malnourished, and 75% of Indians live below $2 a day and more than 35-40% below less than a dollar a day, India becomes a black spot in global human civilization. Reports few days back showed 95% of rural India lived with below a dollar a day consumption expenditure, and 5% below $0.2.

So India shining, another such slogan may be true for 30% of Indian population at most. So if it’s not for the majority of Indians, can we take ‘India’ in any such story legitimately? I hope not.

So I am not content with this emerging India growth story, and glorifying it; more so in the backdrop of Nithari, Nandigram, Assam, continued farmer suicides, and other similar stories. I believe we, Indians, deserved a much better share globally. I feel ashamed that my country does not hold a permamnent UN Security Council seat when 10% of the world (in population) holds 80% of its share (vetoing power). There’s not much debate (like India Poised) when Sashi Tharoor had to relinquish his candidature for the post of UN Secretary-General, not much of soul searching was done on why the post should not go legitimately to an India. We don’t try to talk about our failures and learn from them, we would see why. Many of us have forgotten our past - for two thousand years or more India contributed 20% and more to global GDP (source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective), and then only in last 200 years we slipped so much that we have forgotten our past, felt we don't have any present and stopped seeing dreams for our future. That was even in the nineteenth century, and now our share in global trade and economy is less than 2%, for a country with 17% of global population. And we call it India everywhere!

Then the world needed a destination for service outsourcing to remain cost-competitive (have we developed computers? No. Have we developed much of IT products? So far no, lately we have been trying. Have we done anything to be service outsourcing center of the world? No - British legacy did that. We spoke English (and we have a large population)). So I hope now I have clarified my earlier statement when I said it's more of a global pull than a local push. Somehow we have a tendency to overlook the global developments and have a blinkers-off India-centric approach.

We didn't want to grow - the rest of the world - to sustain their growth needed us - and then the much needed awakening came. The world, a vast majority of it was moving fast and lately the momentum has caught up with us. It’s like the tactonic econmic plate of the world moving at a higher pace, and there was seismic imbalances because we did not keep pace. When the imbalances increased to a point of unsustainability, we either had to find another planet or had to move faster. Thankfully, the global forces were much stronger than the dormant domestic lethargy. We were kicked, stirred just like a farmer pushes his bulls who don’t move under an over-loaded bullock-cart. Thankfully the global forces own. And therefore I am appalled at seeing media (and political, with industrial association) hype when we have achieved closed to 8-10% growth in last couple of years - that too not consistently. There's hype on quarterly growth (hits news-paper headlines). We have forgotten the base and we have forgotten that China did that for couple of decades; and to some extent same story is repeated all over the world.

Let’s seek the answer now – why do we coin such catchlines? Probably those headlines help our ego. That too not all of ours - only for the previleged ones like us who can access net, English Dailies or premium news-channels and thereby feel part of global economy.

Therefore I am amazed at the 'instant expertise' of our anchors and reporters who constantly feed that India Story - without fundamentally much research and soul-searching (I am against making strong statements because they come and hound back the originator, however here I couldn’t help but committed the same mistake).

The same 'instant expertise' has got deep roots now. One of the premier columnists, after a return from China, wrote that Indian politicians should try and explain economic growth - like a rising tide lifts all boats. How - thro' TV channels. He was suggesting remedy to avoid controversies like Singur or Nandigram. The last sensible thing I expected from that columnist for whom I still have respect - but it showed how much the urban-rural (or call it rich-poor) divide has been. People who have access to TV don't need that campaign. The Sensus figure of 2001 showed 40% of Indian household to be without electricity (few rural households may watch TV without electricity by paying the ‘poverty premium’ for power). I realized same instant expertise in me too when recently I had the opportunity to listen to Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras. He gave glaring examples on why villagers don’t accept notes from ATMs, or don’t trust the electricity supply (known as ‘brown outs’ unlike ‘black outs’ where voltage supply varies from 80V to 400V). That forced me ask myself when did I last spend a night in rural India, where 70% of Indians live. And I found the answer – not in last twenty years, may be more; although I have my roots and early childhood in rural India.

And lately research also shows that a rising tide does not lift all boat. Financial Times based on World Bank studies reported in November'06 that 'China's poorest worse off after boom'. I felt solving SEZ (which was formed by acts of this century) thro' land acquisition act of 1894 is impossible. And without asking those marginalized sections for their opinion in media - we ask these so-called experts for the realistic solution (no one asks academicians in India, however as researchers we would love to contribute thro’ meaningful debates and policies than only having publications and citations) who now seem to have lost touch with ground reality thro’ increased divide.

Alas - who gave us the right to coin all these slogans of India Story without the vast majority of Indians being a part of that story. Let's face it - most of us are thinking about how to make as much money as the party lasts (individually, organizationally that includes the media companies as well). Do we indeed care for the vast majority of Indians, for an equitable society? Does our popular private media care for them as they sort of project and claim? In Internet while browsing, I landed in some Naxalite site. I was appalled at one post ‘Salawa-Judum: Rape two, murder one for free! Hurry offer open till tribals last’!
I was appaled. Is it my India? Are they part of the same India Poised story? Yes, they are marginalized, in wrong path and they are the result of our 60 years of faulty reservations, social and economic neglect. I am against reservations based on caste, more so for the creamier layer, but in India – who cares for the right policies? India is shining, few of us who felt we don’t have any present and forgot to see dreams are suddenly receiving a small part of the increased global money supply, and isn’t it a strong case of ‘India Story’?

Tagore said if we leave behind somebody - s/he would pull us back. That's what is happening with us today - within societies of India and within the nations of the world. The world left us back (or we ourselves declined to move), and then when the world realized that the gap has grown so much that we are pulling back their growth, they forced us to join. Can we repeat within India in our societies what the world has done for India? I would like to be an optimist and believe we can, but the signals are alarming.

We have the numbers – we miss the quality (our tally in Olympics). Along with having the highest number of TV news Channels beating their own drums with ratings and exclusive stories, can’t we think of having one like the BBC or the CNN, one news-paper like the New York Times or The Guardian, one weekly magazine like The Economist. Along with having hundreds of political parties that are in the race of benchmarking against each other over issues like Nithari (unlike what Amartya Sen suggested how benchmarking within Indian states over some of our better achievements), can’t we have 2-3 political parties that would claim our votes because the other two are not bad; but because in-spite of other two being good – the 3rd believes they can be better. Can’t we have a judiciary that can deliver justice within a reasonable timeframe as justice delayed is justice denied? Can’t we have a police and state administration that does not use future tense in terms of what they promise (‘we will look into it’, ‘we are taking steps so that things like this don’t happen’ and we know many more like that would happen); but uses past tense on what they have done (‘we have taken steps so that any judiciary cases would be resolved within three months’).

All these can be done provided we do something else in the very beginning. It’s the BPR (one of the many thee-lettered acronyms that come and go so that consultants can make money, but the spirit always remains) as business world knows it – or call it re-engineering Governance. Don’t look at the Constitution, IPCs, thousands of other legal pages – rather start with a single blank page. Small economic reforms won’t solve Indian problems – a genuine BPR in its true sense may.

Well, to do above, many argue that Indian youth should join politics. Our President also advised same recently. I have been thinking about joining politics for quite some time now – however, whenever I broach the topic with my wife, she tells me coldly that in that case; she would leave me (with our son). That’s too much of a cost to pay. I, having learned negotiation from my son, don’t give up so easily and try to negotiate with my wife. ‘See Darling, I have been a failure in corporate world, I have been a failure in starting my own business, I have been a failure in the booming Indian stock market. With all these credentials behind me, I am bound to be successful in politics’ having said that, I look at her for some assurance. She gives me a murderous loving cold look, ‘Well, I told you my decision. In-spite of that, if you want to go ahead, don’t blame me for any outcome. And remember, when you join politics, I would ensure that you have something to feel proud of. You at least won’t say that we in India don’t have an Abu Gharib, forget about Google, BBC, National Geographic, or the NYT. I would ensure that you get better treated than a first hand experience of Abu Gharib. OK’. My son, without realizing the consequences, feel it must be another fun game, and pleads to his mother ‘Let’s do it right now, Mom…please’.

I close my eyes – and try to think. Yes, my loving, caring wife is an Indian and that further explains why we in India badly need a BPR. Not only in the Constitution, in our legal system, in our political system, in our media; but also in our mindsets.

2007-01-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

An SOS to Our President - whom we all love

Yesterday night I wrote 'Why Can't we...Indians...?'. I talked about Nandigram - it was 11pm or so. Today morning...disturbing news in local media.

I desperately want to concentrate in my academics... why the hell I should do all these? Am I making any imapcts - doing any good (overall good or overall bad, good for few - bad for more, can it be judged?). However when one feels deep emotions inside, one does something to vent that (stupid or right). So after wondering for sometime - I felt of sending an SOS to our President, thankfully now our President is Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.

Here is what I wrote there, hopefully it would have an impact and our President, who also may be disturbed by these loss of lives (poorer ones), cheap politics around that, and failure of administration in three states - UP, WB and Assam. If more need to be added - let it be. So Dear President - please impose President's rule there. Our defense is doing a great job - let them rule under you, Dear President.

This is the post:

Dear President,
As an Indian I am not proud of many things Indian - however I am proud with you as a President, as a human being, as an Indian.
And that respect and admiration would hold true irrespective of your office finding any merit in my request.
When everything fails, dear President - you rule.
I am a researcher with IIT Kharagpur. Right now, I want to concentrate for righting a paper for a forthcoming conference. However watching the situation all around forced me to take this extreme step - of writing to you.
Yesterday night - as I wrote in my blog (http://indian-voice.blogspot.com/) 'why can't we' achieve lot many things that you often told us. Today morning I hear new killings in Nandigram, yesterday came the reports of Assam, and before that Nithari.
Dear President - many of us can sense how strong you are to be where you are. That strength comes mentally, from the understanding of you knowing you know it right and you can, therefore make a difference.
We can't have 'business as usual' in politics, and even in Constitutional affairs. I admire the principles of our constitution. And even that constitution allows you the power, dear president.
India wants to change...Indians want to have a better living.
Dear President - you please don't be another one who came, saw, played by rulebooks (you did lot many things other than the rulebook too, that's your strength).
Dear President - please, please impose President's rule in UP, Assam an WB. That, thankfully would be seen apolitical by our political bodies (may lead to further destabilization but I am sure you, with your strength can handle that, Dear President).
And then let's make a system which is not in books - but in practise. Minor operations don't help Indian system - we need major operation.
We need Business as Unusual to grow, to get our rightful place in world.
Dear President, please forgive me if I don't understand many things and thereby am making this 'stupid' request to you.
Why I made this request - other than lot many discussions happening in our 24/7 media. Because I feel your this act is the only genuine short-term solution. And then we need to revamp the old system, which is the long term solution.
Dear President - if many of us Indians have been able to know you by now, we know in your heart you do agree with what I have been and Indians at large want (in above form). So Dear President - please don't let rulebook or constitutional/presidential precedence stop you taking that call of your heart.
We want You - our last resort to act...when nothing else does.
With sincere regards.
Ranjit Goswami

Research Scholar,

IIT Kharagpur

PS: Dear President, I am copying above and posting above in my blog too. I believe nothing fundamentally wrong in that. The purpose - not to have a cc as needed with majority of our administration; but to see whether our President - in whose Capability and Mental Strength we never would have any doubt - plays by rules and precedence, or plays as per His Heart and Mind and as the situation demands. In case your office feels it's improper, let me know - and I would ask for forgiving me again and take that blog post down).

WE LOVE YOU, DEAR PRESIDENT...>

2007-01-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

Why can't we...Indians...?

A lot of euphoria has been generated lately - to some extent by politicians and then equally by media on an emerging growth story. Without giving its due merit to the emerging growth story, I have a different view on that.

And that view is - it's more of global pull than India-centric push which is causing much of that growth, wealth creation, and to some extent an overall improvement in quality of life for 1.1 billion Indian people - may be not equally, but in different degrees. To justify my argument, I would like to give a simple (and even crude!) example: what happens in any affluent party with ample food...there is extra in the end, which, if used by marginalized section with right means and measures become useful; otherwise that's a waste.

Consumption from developed world can't grow year after year...India here ranks poorer than Sub-Saharn Africa (find there India at 137, and SSA at 136). I have nothing against Sub-Saharan Africa, however that's what is taken to be the last destination of growth globally. India - for many of the previleged ones like us who are little awash with this new growth story - happens to be the home of highest number of poors, and highest number of illiterates.

As I write this post in the background of different TV programmes on in my TV - I occasionally hear their comments and thereby realize this gap. There's a lot of discussions on Nithari now (two leading channels discussing that without any single representative from the lots of the victims as if they don't have an opinion or the TV target audience don't want to hear what our majority underprevileged have to say). Similar programmes earlier ran on Singur, Nandigram...It's a complex issue...hopefully I would get opportunity to cover that in ibibo as get accustomed with this blog.

So I am not content with this emerging India growth story, and glorifying it. I believe we deserved a much better share globally. I feel ashamed that my country does not hold a permamnent UN Security council seat when 10% of the world holds 80% of its share. Many of us have forgotten our past - for two thousand years or more India contributed 20% and more to global GDP (which China also did), and then only in last 200 years we slipped so much that we have forgotten our past, felt we don't have any present and didn't see dreams for our future (source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective). That was even in the nineteenth century, and now that share in global trade and economy is less than 2%. Then the world needed a destination for service outsourcing (have we developed computers? No. Have we developed much of IT products?So far no, lately we have been trying? Have we done anything to be service outsourcing center of the world? No - British legacy did that. We spoke English (and we have a large population just like China has the other to produce goods for the world). So I hope now I have clarified when I said it's more of a global pull than a local push.

We didn't want to grow - the rest of the world - to sustain their growth needed us - and then the much needed awakening came. I am appalled at seeing media (and political) hype when we have achieved closed to 8-10% growth in last couple of years - that too not consistently. There's hype on quarterly growth. We have forgotten the base and we have forgotten that China did that for couple of decades.

Probably those headlines help our ego. That too not all of us - only for the previleged ones like us who can access net and feel part of global economy. For the vast majority - not much difference has taken place.

The article is increasingly waivering because I am trying to highlight two issues...hope it gets clearer as we move forward.

I started with the question - whay can't we have a BBC, a CNN, a National Geographic, a Google, or even an Alibaba or a Baidu? i would quote from another blogger (Anurag Gupta) here: ‘there is no Indian Internet brand which has either gone global or shaken the Internet world by sheer innovation. Why is that despite having a talent pool of good technology & business professionals and despite VC/PE (Venture Capitalist/Private Equity) money chasing Indian Internet business ideas we do not have even ONE global internet brand! More so, when the playing field is really level in the digital world – after all isn't that what internet is all about? Forget about creating a global brand, where is India's answer to China's Alibaba or Sohu, which can get a Google or Yahoo to sit up and take notice.’ In a recent management conference, I presented a paper on similar line with research backing stating two obvious reasons - (1) Lack of innovation (& contention too), & (2) lack of market. Have you seen an Infosys catering to Indian clients - all big IT and BPO majors get 90% or even more revenue from lucrative developed world.

Alas - same is the reason why we don't have a BBC or a CNN. I and I am sure many of us would love to see a CNN-IBN, an NDTV, a Times Now or many of our vernacular regional channels for news - for global and local developments. But just like our politicians whom we don't like but have to live with, it's hard but honest - it's same with most of those media channels (and internet portals).

And here I sincerely hope ibibo becomes different than another 'me too' one. Why are they not watchable...let me try and defend that 'allegation', in case any of my readers love them.

Sometime back I wrote an article in Desicritics (and also in my blog) on 'Glaring lack of original content in Indian Media' (some type-mistakes were there...sorry for that). However what I wanted to state then and even now is: 'just like Indian politicians want our vote, our emerging media firms our eyeball for their ad-revenue. Problem with 1st is - middle-class people who know politicians motive, and don't trust them. Advantage of 2nd is - with recent history (former had a history of nearly sixty years), middle-class people trust them'.

And the 2nd come and project as the saviour!

I am amazed at the 'instant expertise' of our anchors and reporters - without fundamentally any research and knowledge. Bad state of affairs, indeed.

I must highlight that now-a-days watching DD news is easier for me than any of the so-called premium news-channels (Times Now is little better).

The 'instant expertise' has got deep roots now. One of the premier columnists, after a return from China, wrote that Indian politicians should try and explain economic growth - like a rising tide lifts all boats. How - thro' TV channels. He was suggesting remedy to avoid controversies like Singur or Nandgram. The last I expected from that columnists for whom I still have respect - but it showed how much the urban-rural (or call it rich-poor) divide has been. People who have access to TV don't need that campaign.

And research now shows that a rising tide does not lift all boat. Financial Times based on World Bank studies reported in November'06 that 'China's poorest worse off after boom'. In an article, I tried explaining that solving SEZ (which was formed by acts of 2005-6) thro' land acquisition of 1894 is impossible. And without asking those marginalized sections for their opinion in media - we ask these so-called experts who now seem to have lost touch with ground reality of this divide for the solution.

Alas - who gave us the right to solve others problem. Let's face it - most of us are thinking about how to make as much money as the party lasts. Do we indeed care for them? Does our popular private media care for them as they claim?

Couple of days back - I suddenly had a realization. I found my articles in few blogs - few of whom apparently had a Naxalite bent of mind. I was alarmed - am I becoming like them? In my college days - I hated that word. I still believe that old saying (which Kiran Karnikar - nasscom chief also said: 'in younger days if you were not communist, something wrong with you. When you are grown up, if you still are a communist, something again wrong with you'. I hope I have grown up and I would like to believe in above words.

And as I was searching that tag of my article, I landed in some Naxalite site. I was appalled at one post Salawa-Judum: Rape two, murder one for free! Hurry offer open till tribals last!

Is it my India? Yes, they are marginalized, in wrong path and they are a result of our 60 years of faulty reservations. I am against reservations based on caste, more so for the creamier layer.

Tagore said if we leave behind somebody - s/he would pull us back. That's what is happening with us today.

So suddenly we find our pro-growth and pro-industries lobby ( I am also in that lobby! don't get me wrong) is talking about a lot of history from agriculture to industry for land acquisitions. However they seemed to have forgotten lot more history - take for example from The Republic of Plato who only talked about 'haves' and 'have nots' as only two permamnent classes since ages immemorial.So we use history and statistics when it suits us - and thereby take advantages.But why can't we ...why can't we be UNSC permanent member (one Indian in every six), why can't we have a Baidu, soho, BBC, Google?

The reason is that as I stated in my other post today - that of easy money as moneycontrol showed by plagiarism. The reason is we never felt our markets can also support the likes of the Economist or a Salon. Calcutta Times recently had an article saying Bollywood now proudly says they copied from two Hollywood movies...Moneycontro does that without claiming that.Our politicians didn't allow us to grow - we sat and watched.

Why state all that here? because ibibo can be different...and many of us would like to look for that different light from ibibo. Is blogging for money (or awards) ethical - I believe not. Microsoft has recently raised a lot of dust on that by giving bloggers Ferrari laptops.

I only wish we get lot more media like the Indiatimes group (Bennet & Coleman) - like that of global scale - to free us from our politicians and this 'new avatar' of media. Not to have their blinkers off - but to be really all encompassing...

Best wishes ibibo - hope you make it so that we don't say 'Why can't we have a blogspot?'

2007-01-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

'Weakests' fall victim to serial killing from Ipswich to Noida

Lately, two separate incidents of serial killings were reported – both, expectedly, having some similarities and having many differences as well. Both the stories did hit news headlines – one globally; another locally, and nationally (so far). One hit headlines in last December, another, reported in last December hit the headlines in this January. One took place in developed world; another took place in developing world. Both had different types of victims; one set comprised adults, the other involved mostly minors. In both, victims were from weaker sections – one weaker professionally and the other weaker socially. In UK Government’s ‘zero tolerance’ forced prostitutes there to search for isolated areas to solicit clients making them easy victims, poverty in India forced weaker section to fall for any trap that looked as small opportunities – be it a chocolate or few bucks. In UK, one had choices but drug addiction forced many to take on that weakest profession; in India, widespread backwardness and increasing income divide make the victims more susceptible to fall for any baits for any serial killers, again driven by that poverty.

In one case, the victims sold sex; in other case the minor victims, were sexually exploited. In Ipswich, the serial killer murdered at least five prostitutes, before being arrested; in Noida – near New Delhi – the capital of India, one is still not certain how many were murdered. Reports so far indicate minimum twenty-two minors and women being killed based on recovered skeletons; the higher side of the estimate varies from thirty-to-fifty based on number of missing children from same area over same time period. The arrested person for serial killing of prostitutes in Ipswich, Stephen Wright, worked as a driver of trucks and fork lifts, and thereby definitely was not part of the so-called elite section of society in Britain. Moninder Singh Pandher, the Noida culprit belonged to the elite section of Indian society.

The action of the Police – one in Ipswich and one in Noida expectedly varied. In Ipswich, Police were in actions in Hollywood style as soon as two similar bodies were recovered in same area from same profession. There was all around alertness, they advocated awareness and advised Ipswich prostitutes to stay indoor in nights, even compensating them for that monetarily. Many defied that, and few more paid off dearly. But sooner than later the Police finally caught up with the culprit, apparently because till proven guilty, one is expected to be innocent. However Stephen Wright has not entered a plea against police charges, and the killings have stopped, at least temporarily. Starting from 1st killing to arrests, it didn’t take more than couple of months.

In India, Police acted as mostly shown in Bollywood movies. Parents and guardians of missing kids went to lodge police complaints, but Police refused to lodge complaints mostly. Kiran Bedi, who now heads Bureau of Police Research and Development, known as a super-cop and recipient of Raman Magsaysay award back in 1994 informed the ground reality of the Police forces across states. She said in an interview that Police is under pressure not to lodge complaints and First Information reports (FIRs) as more the number, more discredited the Government gets in assembly, in media and in people’s mindset. So how do one eliminate crimes officially in India – not by not eliminating crimes from society but by not recording crimes officially. And in this case, as all the victims came from the marginalized sections of society, there was no pressure on police to act. Reports of police-personnel having tea and snacks with culprit’s associate has also been reported.

So the obvious question remains – how did the crime get reported? From a lost mobile phone from one of the victims was found with the accomplice of the culprit, and then the skeletons, literally came out from the drains from that house of the culprit. Unlike few months in Ipswich, the missing cases have been going on since last thirty months in Noida.

Ipswich incident forced British Prime Minister Tony Blair to concede ‘there may well be lessons that we have to learn as a result of the terrible events of the past few weeks’ around middle of December in British Parliament in answering a question. Many are demanding fairer practices to reduce related risks to the profession of prostitution in Britain that so long blighted communities and fostered organized crime, as stated by Association of Chief Police Officers when British government tightened enforcement of laws on street prostitution, forcing them to resort to isolated places to solicit clients.Indian Prime Minister has not yet commented officially on this incident, other than an unofficial assurance of CBI enquiry as people’s faith in state police machinery dwindled. In any system where everything works systematically, heads of any Government can let that system work. And where nothing works because part of the same federal Government won’t like the system to work, words from even a Prime Minister would be lip service.

Manmohan Singh, not a seasoned politician but a seasoned economist commented few days back to make Indian economic growth ‘inclusive’, so that the weaker section of the society gets benefits from lately observed economic growth story. However incidents like the Noida serial killing shows that same Government machinery don’t consider the marginalized section of people to be ‘included’ in same society which comes under the constitution and legal framework. Unless people irrespective of background gets included uniformly in society, India won’t see ‘inclusive’ growth, and as that’s a remote dream, incidents like Noida would come and go from limelight.

Both the stories have one more similarity – that of Government role in making certain section weaker by law and by inactions. In developed world, when wrongs happen; Government machinery at least acts and then discussions on corrective actions from learning of that incident take place. In India, with upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, where Noida is, it’s more of politics than of corrective actions. Politicians after politicians appear in heated live televised discussions on Noida serial killing stating that they have not been politicizing the issue with obvious politicizing statements that popular media probably loves. As citizens, we hope that they have been telling the truth – however when one looks at one recent proposal by Supreme Court in de-politicizing the police force from state Governments, irrespective of party lines – most state Governments opposed that.Things look so similar and still so different in two different worlds, thereby giving opportunity to these two serial killers in past and to any potential future serial killers to identify their victims from weakest sections of society i to satisfy their evil intentions and their psychopath mindsets.

Our Governments failed to have policies that would have allowed chimes of freedom to ring loud and clear all across, and thereby minimizing opportunities to those exceptional evil minds. As citizen journalists, we would love to believe and gaze at the chimes of freedom, apparently there was none for the mistitled prostitute in Ipswich. And in India apparently, there never was any chimes of freedom flashing for the countless millions of confused, accused, misused, luckless outcasts and marginalized people. Dylan, the master song writer was right even more than forty years back – things haven’t changed much fundamentally from Ipswich to Noida, and globally too.

2006-12-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

Is India indeed ready to move in top gear?

25 farmer suicides in five days – that too in a small region of Vidarbha (around 24,000 square kms out of 3.3 million square kms of Indian territory), in one of the fastest growing and rich states in India, Maharashtra. No big headline in Indian news dailies. When any news get repeated day after day, the glamour of that report dies down (as may be visible in global press on Iraq deaths). At best it gets a cursory mention at the 19th-page of some local vernacular dailies.

Vidarbha represents the dilemma and the pain of the 'India story' as India continues its quest for double digit growth after decades of Hindu rate of growth, a term coined for unique Indian growth rate since independence to the late nineties of last century.

The story is nothing new in Vidarbha, within India or elsewhere in the world as increasingly the Key Result Areas (KRAs) of policymakers, more from the laggard developing blocks are defined in terms of growth rates. One can sense the fanatic rush in certain section of policy-makers and industrial bodies in India as the sense of losing the bus to China due to their inactions in the last decade sinks in. During License Raj, one had to wait years to get the permission to set-up an industry, which was the height of inactions then. And now, same policy-makers acquire owned by marginal sections of the society, primarily farmers whose earning depended for generations on that farmland, within practically weeks and months to set-up industries, and to replicate the Special Economic Zone model that China excelled.

Corporate world has been familiar with the three-letter KRA acronym since years, and as any measures do have limitations and may have conflicting objectives; a spurt of accounting scandals like Enrons made one increasingly cautious about the all important profit obsession with the corporate world. Starting from Bush in Washington to Manmohan Singh in Delhi – all talk about that KRA called GDP growth, irrespective of how it is achieved and whether the measure, indeed is a right one.

Don't get me wrong. I am not anti-growth, anti-rich, anti-industrialization or anti-Government. Let me admit something obvious - that it's easy to criticize; it's more difficult to deliver. However when one set of wrongs were committed for years in India by following utopian Nehruvian-economies, broad majority of Indians suffered when a handful of industries gained in spite of their lack of competitiveness, and taking consumers and citizens for a ride. Now to undo the damage, policy-makers move in fifth gear in bumpy and potholed Indian roads that can hardly support 2nd or 3rd gear speed, leave aside the fact that many of the villages may not have motorable roads at all. The competitive advantage lost to the country due to our slow speed for 50 years can't be undone by moving in top gear suddenly – it's likely to cause more accidents than to speed up the economy. People who have safety belt on, and who are secured deep inside the car enjoy this ride at the top gear by making a fast buck in this economy – with returns for few and riots for more.

However, and alas – the broad majority of Indians just try to get a foothold on that fast moving economy. It ideally represents the traditional trekker or auto that ply in rural India (why rural India, take commercial capital Mumbai and its bloodline – the railways), having a capacity of 8, but carrying not less than 28. So accidents happen. And those farmer suicides are not to be taken as exceptions, but rather as a norm in trying to move in top gear in an economy that's not ready for it.

Any transition is painful, more so are rapid transition when the broad majority of the people are not ready for that transition. Looking at all the non-monetized fundamentals – literacy rate, infant mortality rate, rural connectivity rate where 70% of Indians live (1/15th of urban connectivity); India simple is not ready to move in top gear.

Does it mean that we, the Indians lose another bus early in 21st century to attract the much-needed foreign investments that's badly needed for all-around growth? Money does not seek equality anywhere, money rather seeks growth. So that's a challenge our world faces today – in different degrees from capitalist US 'The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them') to socialist China or newly-opened up Vietnam.

Answers to difficult problems are not easy. As one slowly gets over the honeymoon period of rapid growth and free markets – be it through globalization and free trade, one increasingly understands that the problems are of global nature, and traditional local solutions don't apply globally.

The hypothesis of seeking higher and higher growth lies in the theory that a rising tide lifts all boats. However, results now make one circumspect about the validity of that hypothesis. Financial Times based on World Bank studies reported last month 'China's poorest worse off after boom' , the sample size is not insignificant when it focuses bottom ten percent of Chinese population – almost 130 million people. Poverty and growth blog of the World Bank suggested 'Poverty will be more responsive to growth the greater the equality of income distribution' whereas growth tends to be wealth-distribution neutral.

What's surprising in case of India, the country I live and love, like million other Indians (and also like million other global citizens would love some semblance of equity in world growth) who may agree or disagree with above facts (as statistics can be mis-leading) is how come Governments’ repeated calls since last three decades, that I am aware of, to take care of basic and primary education through universal schooling to the rural and backward belts, their repeated slogans to ensure each village gets drinking water, electricity, and basic healthcare has not yielded any significant result. An article back in 1990s, by Clive Crook, then Deputy Director of The Economist showed that many economies in South East Asia – more so S. Korea and India having similar levels of income and literacy levels back in 1970s. But then, those economies invested heavily in basic education, which resulted in growth subsequently. Indian policy-makers merely applied lip services in their anti-poverty and equal growth slogans.

A comparison of those repeated calls for poverty elimination and equality has not yielded much result in last many decades. But a look at the land acquisition since SEZ bill was passed have seen immediate actions and deliverables to the dismay of many. In the state of Maharashtra alone, till November – 41 SEZs were proposed, each demanding an area of between 2500 – 10,000 hectares. Taking the average, it leads to a stupendous area of more than 250 square kilometers. And going back the beginning report of farmer suicide, it means taking away lands from similar 200,000 farmer-families. Statisticians with knowledge of average farmer-family land-holding in India know that's a super-optimistic picture, as there exists millions of landless share-cropper and labor depending on agriculture.

Governments take from us and give what it takes back to us – may be more with right policies and may be less through wrong policies and corruption (as in many countries in Africa). Question is how right would Government be in taking from some sections of us and giving it back to some other sections of us if consumption, affordability, income and wealth does not support such a decision. Looking at Indian growth story, one is forced to ask policy-makers what have they done to the thousands of Indian villages, which have no primary school, healthcare facilities, electricity, roads for fifty years after independence. So effectively they didn't gain from Governance much – but today when Government asks them to handover their age-old land (Governments can claim that land, but practically nature gave them the land – be it tribals who live in remote parts where land-records may not even exist, or farmers in relatively better-off Singur), one inevitably gets the feeling that the wrong set of people are forced to sacrifice for country's overall growth.

Dragging Tatas in Singur project controversy would be unfair – they want land for industrialization, and it's Government's responsibility to get that land from right places at right prices with right re-habitation offering to the affected ones. It would also be unfair to ask for employment against land from Tatas, well – it's a different matter and fact that the local development would generate other employment opportunities.

And though not directly linked, a disaster may happen with these rapid capacity buildings and SEZ creations, if purchasing power with domestic market can't move up faster. Many believe that the rapid growth of the world, more so its consuming market may not be repeated in future as in last decade. There's already tremendous capacity created – be it in the world's manufacturing hub in China or elsewhere. So a slowdown in near future would affect those, and also the new-coming capacities more severely. Playing the game that China played twenty-five years back in India may therefore be a costly game.

The world has changed a lot in last three decades. And it would change at an even rapid pace in future. However in present India, the cost of catching up, and thereby making up for the lost time for missing the growth-bus historically in last century, is increasingly borne by those who never figuratively rode any modernized motor vehicle. They plied the bullock cart, and today they are asked to cling on to the rapidly moving economic bus, that too without a firm footing deep inside the growth bus. To illustrate that, many of the reforms targeting 8-10% GDP growths are 21st century bills and notifications of Government, whereas land acquisition bill of India dates back to 1894 – that of colonial days of nineteenth century. Without denying the fact that land, and agricultural land was, is and will be needed for growth; a semblance of their applicability should be contemporary. The British formulated that land acquisition bill for Indian needs but suited more for British interests, today Government follows that again for Indian needs suited more for select privileged interests.