Vox Populi: Issue 67 Onwards

by
Aam Admi
Issue: 88 Date: 26.11.2011
Contents:
1. FDI In Retail
2. Kishenji’s Death
3. Goa Is In A Mess: Water Woes
4. Slapping Pawar? A Reminder For Proper Action
5. Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) Issues
6. Standardize Accident Compensation

FDI In Retail

The incumbent UPA government has thrown another spanner in this economy’s works by announcing FDI in retail. At first glance it seems that this is yet another knee-jerk reaction to the criticism that the government is facing from domestic constituents particularly industry leaders and foreign countries as well about policy paralysis. This decision one presumes in this government’s assumption will show that they are capable of taking major policy decisions. The timing of the decision by the Cabinet seems rather inopportune considering that Parliament was in session and it was well-known that this matter would be a sensitive one. In the alternate one can also look at the devious option of saying that the UPA government deliberately took this decision at this time to derail Parliament so that they could monopolise the process of governance according to their own wishes. By avoiding putting anything up for debate you side-step the possibility of getting questioned on the floor of the House. The UPA spokespersons taking the virtuous position by saying that they did not postpone the FDI decision until the present Parliament session was over and wanted to be open about it with the House, is showing up their lack of management skills and the awareness of gamesmanship as a tactic to get things moving. What is achieved by stalling Parliament and blaming each other for it is something that the aam admi does not understand. For him the option is simple and that is the steering wheel had been given by him to the Congress and the UPA, but he sees them at each parliament session driving the House car into an alley and then saying that the Opposition put up a wall in front of them. It is by now clear that the Congress and the UPA needs someone to give them a lesson in House management. Coming back to the announcement of FDI in retail (51% in multi-brand and 100% in single brand) is only to benefit the foreign retail chains like Walmart, Tesco and others. It is going to benefit them more than the Indian farmer or consumer. There will be no reduction in prices that the consumer will see or no higher realization that the farmer will get but the retail chains will only add another layer to the farm gate to consumer chain. And the Indian aam admi be it consumer or farmer will have to pay for the ambience, air-conditioning, computer systems and livery of the employees of the big retail chains in the food or item cost. The projections that prices of food will come down as now being suggested by the US retail industry which has welcomed India’s decision can be assessed by drawing an equivalence between our domestic air fares a few years ago and what is prevailing now. At that time you would see the airlines promoting the Rupee 1 fare or the cut rate fares which have all but vanished. The reason that they are no longer existing today is that they have served their purpose to bring the customers in. So also retail chains initially to draw the fly ( consumer) into the spider’s web (retail chain) will price items attractively and then once the consumers are hooked, they will in the manner of lifting the kitten by the scruff of the neck will hike the prices to prevailing international levels. This has been the marketing strategy of the retail chains from time immemorial in the Western world and why we have to succumb to these sucker deals is something which is not understood. As for Shri Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce’s claim that 10 million jobs both direct and indirect would be created over a period of time once the FDI policy kicks in, is all humbug. Who will be there to assess the number of jobs created? These figures are just being quoted to overwhelm the aam admi’s imagination so that the policy sails through. If this was the level of job creation why was the FDI policy kept hanging fire since 2004 and not implemented earlier on priority. There are also many clauses within the FDI policy which are purely decorative like the stipulation of sourcing from local SME’s which is against WTO norms and will be struck down if someone goes to court. This policy of handling the retail trade in India will cause a massive loss of livelihood of local people particularly that of the non-literate and unskilled work force who will have no alternative but to starve if the FDI policy is appr4oaved. Not only that the onus of managing prices within the Indian economy for items like food, commodities and white goods will be shifted to the corporate MNC’s like Walmart etc. and then our government will have to track and manage prices and inflation through Walmart CPI indices and not their own. A good thing some would say, since it will constitute a leaner government and allow the Indian consumer to be firmly in the maws of the MNC’s. The problem finally with this policy is that it proves that though India became independent some 64 years ago we have not been able to rid our minds of the servile, colonial mentality and at every chance we are willing to give our tikki or pig-tail to foreign entities so that we are dragged by it whether willingly or unwillingly. When will Purna Swaraj dawn on this country, God only knows!

Kishenji’s Death

Kishenji’s death has been attributed by his cadre and his relatives to a fake encounter and a claim that the body bore marks of torture. This is rather incongruous since those that have been killing without compunction and in cold blood suddenly wake up to the niceties of death and want the rule of law to be made applicable to their people! The Maoists need to realize that if you live by the sword then more often than not you die by the sword. One also does not understand why our media and governments, including surprisingly that of Mamta Banerji, gives importance and coverage to such spurious claims by the near relatives of Kishenji including that of a probe into the killing by the CID as announced by the West Bengal government. The approach that needs to be taken is that the matter is done and over with and no comment will be entertained since the people like the Maoists did not operate within the ambit of the law and any double standards in approach by them now need not be tolerated.

Goa Is In A Mess: Water Woes

Goa over the three months of the monsoon (June – August, and then maybe until September/October) averages 100 – 125 inches of rainfall. Almost the entire amount of this water flows into the sea, completely wasted. There has been no attempt to capture this water in Goa, be it at beachside or in the hinterland. Holding this water at beachside in artificially made water bodies will not only re-charge the over-exploited ground water but also be useful in offering water sports to tourists that throng the beaches. In the hinterland also the captured rainwater in terraced lakes and ponds can be used for irrigation and will lead to raising the ground water level. Some exercises are being done in this regard in the interior hilly regions of Goa where the ponds are being lined with plastic sheets to prevent run-off and water stored for captive use in plantations. This program has to be not only expanded in scope and coverage but also the ponds should be increased in size. In fact most of the mining in Goa is open-cast and it could be made mandatory that the licencees should build large reservoirs to capture rainwater. This water can then be used in the dry summer season or round the year. In the absence of these initiatives Goa faces a perennial shortage of potable water which is getting worse year by year. This is more so in the tourist infested beachside. The shortage of potable water is now made good by private tanker operators who tend to usurp water meant for supply to home consumers and/or tend to draw water randomly and indiscriminately from wells, borewells and sometimes open water bodies. This misuse and exploitation by the private tanker operators of the existing water can be stopped if the base supply of water is expanded. This will also ensure that everybody gets legitimate and standard water and that no one is deprived of water because organized groups like the hotel industry are monopolizing the resource. Plans have been set in motion in Goa to augment water supply on its own but also under a Japanese government aided project. However the foreign aided project suffers from the criticism that it will make water, an essential need, which should in concept be supplied free, if not at the lowest possible cost, very expensive. Other initiatives being that industry mostly pharma Cos. which tend to dominate the existing industry profile in Goa will be supplied with raw water and not potable water. This assumes that pharma Cos. in any case have to purify the water before they can use it and hence they will be able to use raw water. Industries which have large water requirements can also use stored rainwater, as a much criticized Co. on the environmental pollution count at the time of its inception, showed by using stored rainwater for all its water needs and disconnected its water supply from the municipal supplies. If this example is emulated by other Cos. within Goa then they would exhibit their environmental awareness and the consciousness of using a scarce resource (potable water) more judiciously. The other major thing plaguing Goa’s water supply is the leakage where almost 40% of the water is lost because of leakages in the old and defective pipelines and municipal taps. A decision was taken sometime back to disconnect the water supply to municipal taps but no one knows to what extent it has been implemented since taps continue to leak near market areas and in villages without anyone bothering to get them repaired. If Goa is able to capitalize on nature’s bounty of plentiful rain that is bestowed upon it then it should within a few years be able to provide water on a 24/7 basis which is the solution for all of Goa’s water woes except those related to leakage, otherwise we will increasingly get into a situation where the common man will be deprived of water because the rich have monopolised it and there is every likelihood of strife over this very essential commodity.

Slapping Pawar? A Reminder For Proper Action

The slap in Sharad Pawar’s face shows the growing disenchantment of the common public with this under-performing government when it relates to managing inflation and controlling prices which has been seriously eroding the aam admi’s budget. There will now be many more instances like this in the short-term where people will vent their emotions against symbols of authority and power in government. The common man is at his wit’s end on how to balance the household budget not only with current level of prices but the threat of more rising prices. With the eroding value of the rupee against the US dollar will probably see the petroleum fuel prices going back by Rs. 2 a litre that was reduced recently. Then we have the State level Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERC) particularly in Maharashtra threatening that every year electricity prices will go up by 10%. What this government ensconced in their air-conditioned ivory towers does not seem to realize is that with the price hike in any particular commodity or service, the trade and manufacturers in India in the manner of testing the waters hikes the prices of other items leading to a chain of price increases which then spirals out of control. This essentially is the reason for the government’s inability to curb inflation since everyone in business feels that if the other party can get an increase, why can’t we? Thus where essential items like petrol have necessarily to see a price increase because of international price reviews or currency rates, everything else follows not necessarily because of the factoring of transportation cost increases. To give an instance over just one month the courier charges for a parcel from Goa to Bangalore have gone up by Rs. 10 where if you analyse the service there is no real reason to hike the price. More so with Rs. 5 loosing its value in terms of purchasing power all hikes of relatively medium to higher priced goods are in the multiples of tens or hundreds. Thus controlling inflation has to be done apart from the use of monetary policy instruments by a stricter control in the market place by supply side initiatives and rigorous monitoring of prices. With Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Dy Chairman of the Planning Commission recently admitting that they were wrong in the projection of inflation and thus in managing it, we have yet another gaffe exposed of this government’s lackadaisical approach to managing prices. This was known all along since a couple of months earlier the government had admitted that the CPI indices were wrong and therefore do not reflect the prices in the market place. With this whether it is the production indices like IIP or growth figures or food inflation, which supposedly over the last week has come down from 10% to 9%, all of these numbers are taken with a pinch of salt. They today completely lack credibility and our economy in the words of J K Galbraith penned in the 1960’s – ‘continues in a state of organized anarchy.’ No wonder that it has gone completely haywire. Why the complete set of economists at the helm of affairs now are not sacked including Montek Singh Ahluwalia is something that defies comprehension, which would have been the normal method of tackling inefficiency and wrongdoing at the micro level like in corporate organisations while at the macro level for these gentlemen the yardstick seems to be completely different. As a consequence of Sharad Pawar’s slapping, the government is understood to be beefing up security for its ministers and officials which will only lead to increasing the alienation of the elected representatives from their constituents. Whether this is desirable in a democracy is something that the government and the aam admi should decide.

Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) Issues

There is news again that the prices of CFL lamps are going to be hiked since China has cornered the manufacture and supply of what are called the heavy metals in which phosphor is the one that goes into the manufacture of CFL’s. Apart from this the CFL lamps have attracted criticism since they contain mercury and defective lamps at the time of disposal will have the mercury released and contaminate the environment. Mercury is harmful to human beings if ingested directly or through the food chain leading to long term health problems. In addition to these concerns lately to make CFL’s competitive in price terms at the time of purchase, manufacturers of these lamps particularly in China have tended to compromise on the quality of the lamps leading to a lower life. The lesser life of the CFL lamps being now supplied particularly to the Third World which is lax in enforcing minimum standards of supply goes against the selling point of CFL lamps that over the life of the lamp, considering their lower power consumption they tend to be equal to or marginally higher than the good old filament bulb. Our personal experience over the last 4-5 years has shown that the CFL’s available in India even leading brands as Philips tend to fail just beyond the 12 month guarantee period and in the latest incident one of our CFL’s shorted taking along with it the MCB fitted on the line. Thus CFL’s are neither cost effective and can with related parts failure like MCB’s be a costly nuisance to use. Thus as in the US where there is a move to bring back the good old incandescent filament 60W bulb in a more energy efficient and conversion to light form and drop the CFL altogether in favour of the LED (Light Emitting Diodes) bulbs, so also should India consider these options. The LED bulbs offer the same amount of electrical power saving and light conversion ratios as CFL’s and are less polluting at the point of disposal.

Standardize Accident Compensation

In Mumbai there was a freak accident two days back where the door of a moving suburban local came off and hit the Udyan Express traveling on the next track which resulted in the severing of the arms of two persons: a lady and a minor. The news item reported that an interim ex-gratia of Rs. 5000 was given to the victims and that the hospital expenses would be borne by the Railways. What is the basis of arriving at the amount of compensation here is something that needs to be assessed? Even the minimum amounts as specified under the ESI Act or the Mediclaim schemes of government owned insurance Cos. for limb injuries is very much more than the paltry sum of Rs. 5000 paid out in this instance. The problem is that in India the amount of compensation for accident victims be it from natural disasters or general accidents or terror incidents varies according to the organization responsible and the particular government under whose jurisdiction the accident site falls as also whether the accident has happened in a metropolitan city or semi-urban or rural area. Thus according to this yardstick the railways will pay less than the airlines, while accident victims in cities can expect to get a higher amount than those affected in a semi-urban or rural area. The award by the courts to the victims of the Air India crash at Mangalore based on the income and earning capacity of the victim was a welcome change but it is now mired in court with the authorities contesting the high rates of compensation ordered. In fact this is how it should be and even internationally the earning capacity and remaining years of productive earning life determine the level of compensation paid out. We need to do something like that in India and set a base level of compensation for everybody which will then be moderated depending on the victim’s anticipated capacity to earn. In the event of injury the compensation should be set according to the part of the body affected and like the ESI or the Mediclaim a table should be made out on the amount that is to be paid out. In addition to this free medical treatment in government hospitals should be given for a minimum period of 5 years to the injured victim’s for the injury and/or disability which should be extended if the medical problem persists like in the case of the terror victims as we have seen and those affected in the Bhopal gas tragedy. In the event of government hospitals not having the particular facilities for treatment of the injured they should be referred to private hospitals and the entire cost should be borne by the government. This will make the compensation policy standardized and equitable. It will not be dependent on organizational policies and/or the whims and fancies of the particular government in whose area the accident or disaster has occurred. In fact all compensation should be paid out through a National Disaster Management Board to which the Centre and State governments are required to transfer funds. This will hopefully ensure that victims will not have to run from pillar to post to obtain the compensation that they fully deserve.

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

Vox Populi
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 87 Date: 19.11.2011
Contents:
1. Be Serious In The Fight Against Terror
2. Crimes Against Women
3. Government Strategy At Kudankulam NPP Will Rebound On Them
4. The Mess That Our Economy Is In Or Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth
5. Petrol Price Cut: Review Or Rollback?
6. Corruption Plank Discrediting Karnataka Lok Ayukta Office

Be Serious In The Fight Against Terror

With the Malegaon blasts accused release after being confirmed about their wrongful arrest in the incident and no trace of terrorists involved in the recent blasts in Mumbai and Delhi, our investigating authorities are proving as inept as they were expected to be. Not only this not a single terror blast has been solved over these years by our police or intelligence authorities or the special terror cells constituted within the police force or even by the NIA and it has been freedom country for the terrorists to try their wares in India knowing full well that they will be able to get away scot-free or even if apprehended will like Ajmal Kasab be accorded 5-star hotel treatment with Z+ security even in jail at the cost of the Indian exchequer. At last count the Maharasthra government is said to have spent Rs. 16 crore on Kasab, while at the same time farmers for lack of a fraction of this money are committing suicides. As reported in the press, in Andhra Pradesh after the harvest failure this year 90 farmers have killed themselves in the last one month. Why we should keep pampering Kasab is something that any right-minded Indian will never understand? Is the image of our judicial system as fair and just in international forums be so important for us rather than the 180 odd people killed, mostly Indians, that Kasab and his cohorts killed during the mayhem on 26/11 in Mumbai? If we had made an example of Kasab’s public hanging then it would have been a signal to prospective terrorists from abroad as also from those within the country that India means business when dealing with terrorism. As for our investigative capabilities related to terror attacks they are in a complete shambles and lack any credibility of being effective and efficient. This in spite of our Home Minister’s statement about a month back at a national security conference in Delhi that over the last two or three years 50 terrorist sleeper cells have been dismantled and their members apprehended. This claim lacks substance since none of these attacks even the high-profile ones were not reported in the press or other media. Why the law enforcement authorities do not publicise these activities and parade the terrorists as ordinary criminals are done in front of the media is something which is beyond the comprehension of the common man? This would put the fear in the prospective terrorists and not only buy time before any next attack or give the investigating authorities the breathing space to conduct their work. Even if 50 of the terrorist sleeper cells have been nullified the ex-chief of the ISI has claimed that there are some 300 sleeper cells in India and which they can call upon to make nuisance as and when they like. Granted that Pakistan is prone to hyperbole in their claims, there must be some 100 sleeper cells in India taking their instructions from Pakistan and/or other terror organizations in that country. If so, then we have dismantled just 50% of the terror capabilities that Pakistan has implanted in India and given the fact that one attack even it kills 20/25 people is grievous enough then you can imagine what the remaining 50 Pakistani terror cells can do to spread terror in our country. Let our Home Minister and our law enforcement agencies wake up and not just resort to palliative statements in the fight against terror in India and show something substantive as a consequence of their actions.

Crimes Against Women

The recent attacks in Mumbai on women and those that attempted to protect them are dastardly acts and are indicative of a systemic problem. This is more so since over the last week there have been three such attacks, at Bandra/Andheri, Goregaon and Dombivli. The pattern of the attacks have been similar. Sometime back there was the incident of a young girl being raped at the railway station after she had arrived in the pre-dawn hours. These attacks, as reported, have been done by goons under the influence of alcohol and/or narcotic substances. They also smack of intolerance and mob psychology, in the sense that the attackers went back to get reinforcements and weapons before they completed the heinous assaults. With easy money in the hands of young males, they get a feeling of arrival in society and compounded with liquor and other vices like drugs, the threshold for restraint being lowered, develop a gripe that that why should these women who go out with others not go out with us, irrespective of the fact that two of the above attacks were on married couples. Women are being considered as easy prey partly because of the projection of women on TV & films as objects of desire or not worth giving respect to which aspect needs to change. We need to cut down on the needless exposure of flesh or skin-show in our movies and TV programs by women and also eliminate item numbers in films. In most films the item numbers are not part of the story-line and are just put in, one or two per film to specifically to pull in the sex-starved audience into the theaters. These are to be cut. Women on their part are also requested to dress appropriately, if not chastely, so that they are not targeted by these misguided males as above whose number is increasing in our society. Things like the ‘slut walks’ held recently in Delhi have to be eschewed since most of those on the walk move about in cars or protected transport and it is the unfortunate women who necessarily have to come on the streets for work or for normal recreation like in the above three cases get hurt along with their male escorts. These attacks on women are not exclusive to Mumbai and are a national malaise since you things like this happening all over India. It is therefore necessary to have a strong law to give severe punishment for all crimes against women and not necessarily rape which will act as a deterrent to prospective attackers.

Government Strategy At Kudankulam NPP Will Rebound On Them

The Kudankulam agitation shows up once again the uptight, patriarchal and condescending attitude of the Central government, or for that matter any government, in the context of the Committee formed by the Centre not interacting with the protesting public in a manner of showing equity in position and/or relationship. Given the fact that nuclear energy matters are complex, it is necessary for the technical people on the Committee to take the local people into confidence and in that process generate commitment towards the project. Or at least that should have been the intent of the Committee it is presumed. This is also to make up for the shortfall in this exercise since the project commenced. There has surely been a deficit on this aspect at the project and there is now a need to fill up this shortfall. Instead of that the Committee’s nominees mostly technocrats who have been associated with India’s nuclear energy programs, who one would naturally expect to be favourable towards the project and will not shed light on its cons has been, as it is understood, to refuse to come out of their shell of technical expertise and thus are giving an impression to the public that they are unwilling to listen to them. Public relations and handling public hearings is a skill that few technocrats have and particularly those who have been associated with our nuclear energy programs which have been forever shrouded in secrecy and thus the experts in this area have also gotten their way without having to explain or rationalize on any matter except with their own colleagues and superiors. Showing off your knowledge, taking the stance thus far and no further and ‘we know what’s good for you’ will not lead to a successful achievement of the objective to get the Kudankulam NPP back on track again. This problem has been further compounded by the government bringing in the aspect that the agitation has been motivated and funded by vested corporate interests including foreign entities. Where you already have a deficit in credibility with the people and then trying to cow them down with unsubstantiated allegations of a foreign hand will only accentuate and sharpen this divide. One wonders why our governments do not realize that by generating people’s confidence in governance and in its credibility you can win the hearts and minds of the people. This yet again is another bad strategy being played out in complete contrast of the objectives that needs to be achieved and highlights the muddleheadedness of this UPA-2 government.

The Mess That Our Economy Is In Or Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth

Our Prime Minister along with his coterie of preferred economic advisors (Rangarajan, Basu, Ahluwalia, Subba Rao & Co.)are leading this country’s economy onto a limb from which it seems that there is no likelihood of any return. These people continue to theorise which may sound very nice but in their practicals they will all get a big Zero. This fact we have seen in the manner of how the economy has been handled by them in the past two years. The PM and none of his economic group has a clue as to what is going on with the economy. Manmohan Singh crediting with opening the Indian economy and instituting the first phase of economic reforms should be viewed as the man who opened the stable door but when the horses ran away he did not know what to do. Again in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 there is a soldier swathed completely in bandages and except for a hole where his mouth should be, he is completely covered in white. That precisely is the condition of the Indian economy with 13 interest rate changes in the last 18 months and 11 price changes for petroleum fuels in the last 15 months. If you consider each price change figuratively being applied as a band-aid on the Indian economy you can imagine the state it is in akin to the bandaged soldier as above. Another analogy which you could draw upon is the little boy who seeing a leak on Holland’s dykes tried to stem the water by putting his finger into the holes, but however much he tried each time he put his finger in the hole another hole would develop. And he had just ten fingers that he could use! This exactly is the manner in which our PM and his A-team of economists is dealing with the specter of inflation which elusively is keeping on going, up and up. From the measures being taken it is quite clear that these people do not have a clue as to what is going on with the country’s economy and they have tended to resort to bluffing time and again that ‘shortly’ things will normalize and inflation will be in control, once the supply side measures decided by the government kick in. The above comments are very much valid which you can yourself analyse from the various economists statements in the media by the PM’s A –team. The PM, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Rangarajan have all been parroting that petroleum fuel prices should be de-controlled and they welcomed the last hike before it was finally rolled back. Have these people considered where the aam admi will get the money to pay for the fuel that he needs for his day to day activities if the prices keep going up every month or so? He is already occupied with the concerns of making both ends meet with almost everything that he and his family going up every 15 days or so. It is all right for people who ride in government cars and do not see the reality of shelling out the prices for fuel at the petrol pump but at least senior people like the above should spare a thought for the aam admi’s plight since do they not hold responsible positions and are vested with the authority to do the common good. More so Ahluwalia is wont to make irresponsible statements like saying that with petroleum fuel prices being de-controlled the government has nothing to do with it and the OMC’s should be held responsible. This cannot work in a mixed economy like India’s where the government has always played a role in fixing prices particularly for petroleum fuel and now they cannot suddenly set the price balloon free to rise as much as it can. Such irresponsible actions will only lead to the country coming to a grinding halt within the next decade. Further the same Ahluwalia has said recently that industrial production is not stagnating because of high interest rates since two years ago at the same rates growth was 9%. Now we would like him to tell us given the position that he is holding why this is happening now and was not happening two years ago and not like a politician make a sweeping statement and move on. We all know currently that credit offtakes from the banks by industry has been falling steeply, and many leading industrialists have been talking of a decision and policy paralysis in the incumbent government as far as economic matters are concerned. Then we have Ahluwalia commenting as late as yesterday (19th) that the Planning Commission was wrong on the matter of inflation and on how to handle it. This is all quite easy for these officials to say – sorry, and move on. If it was a lower level flunkey there would be a black mark on his CR or if he was in the private sector, he would be sacked. Why does Ahluwalia not get sacked? He fully deserves it since in any case the Planning Commission is non-functional, or dysfunctional at most, and all these comments coming on top of the affidavit that the poverty line is set for those who cannot spend Rs. 32 per day in urban areas and Rs. 26 in rural areas given under his call, it is not that India will miss his departure. Or send him off to pasture on an UN assignment. It is not only Ahluwalia but also Y V Reddy, the erstwhile Governor of RBI and considered quite eminent in his field, has just the other day said that the social welfare schemes are bringing the Indian economy down. These people are old with grey hairs which have grown grey while they were working in India and still they come out with such statements! India to remove poverty cannot, simple cannot, do away with any of the social welfare schemes. The important thing is that they need to be better managed so that the money allocated is not squandered as it is right now. Then we have Subba Rao, the incumbent Governor of the RBI and the principal initiator of the interest rate hikes since he has either nothing better to do or is not aware of anything better to do, commenting on the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US instead of concentrating on his job. If he continues to perform in the present way then it will not be far before we have an Occupy RBI Movement in this country and he will have to vacate his chair. We have also Kaushik Basu a lost soul who like others keeps making statements while at one time he says that nothing should be subsidized for the poor like food or fuel, he magnanimously says that health care should be free for the poor. A saving grace there! Concluding, these gentlemen including the PM who are in charge of our economy should get our of their air-conditioned ivory towers and see actually what is happening in real terms on our city’s streets and the country’s marketplaces and instead of aping Western models of economics work out a model which is truly suited for our local conditions and emerging out of our own basic needs. That exactly is the problem since by following some other’s medication, we resort to tinkering with the economy since we are not aware on how to make the foreign model work properly and end up by making a bloody mess that we have all seen over the last decade, and more so in the last two years.

Petrol Price Cut: Review Or Rollback?

The petrol price hike review a couple of weeks after it had gone up by the OMC’s should be looked at as a rollback since none of the logic given by the top brass of the OMC’s holds up in the face of facts. The international prices for oil may have firmed up but the stated fact that the rupee rate is more comfortable against the dollar is untrue since just the day before the petrol prices were reduced by Rs. 1.80, the rupee crossed the Rs. 50 barrier against the dollar, the first time in the last two years. Thus political pressure from the Trinamul and from within the Congress in the light of the UP elections must have been the motivator for the reduction. For this the aam admi should be ‘ever grateful’ since at least the OMC’s have taken the first step in reducing the prices of a commodity which was always going up. Even then the Congress are counting their political gains in this reduction by stating that the Opposition has now no issue in talking about petrol price hikes. What have our politicians and their parties gone down to? They have sunk so low as the workers in a cemetery who may make a business out of human skeleton!. In any case, the OMC’s as far as the de-control mechanism for petrol and other fuels have finally understood that they need to be open and transparent in the process of price review. They are finally talking of a fortnightly review in prices as a standard mechanism which is what it should be. This will make the aam admi exposed to the changes and get him used to it and work out his own mechanisms for managing his budget on fuel. Not only that the regular price review process will give him the confidence that the OMC’s are not taking him for a ride since now he has the suspicion that any benefits in terms of falling international crude prices will not be passed on to him and be swallowed by the OMC’s. The OMC’s should also realize that inspite of this transparency there are methods by which they can manage their returns even within this price review process. Thus it is a good step which is proposed but we will have to see how much of it actually translates into practice.

Corruption Plank Discrediting Karnataka Lok Ayukta Office

The very reason that the Lok Ayukta office has not been able to get a head since Justice Santhosh Hegde has demitted the office for the last few months has been the reason for the BJP led, of course, by Yeddyurappa to try to discredit the office and try to close it down. Not only that on the words of a Dy Superintendent of Police, which level, we all know, is in the majority part of the corrupt and/or politically committed, who was associated with the Lok Ayukta office, that the office itself was corrupt and that Justice Hegde refused to go after the corrupt elements within the office and instead hounded people like him out. Thus if you look at it, the institution of the Lok Ayukta is being sabotaged for the reason that the watch-dog body cannot get anyone to head who is beyond the taint of corruption and more so, on the basis of a junior officer who may be himself having ulterior motives in not having the Lok Ayukta office function. And more so this DSP’s comment is being used by Yeddyurappa to buttress his stand that the Lok Ayukta office is not required in Karnataka. This is akin to a criminal being recruited to draft the penal code. These attacks or slander against the Lok Ayukta office are not new since even with some of the other incumbents heading the office, a couple who were quite flamboyant in going about unearthing corruption in government offices, permission to proceed legally against some of the government officers was refused by the successive incumbent governments in Karnataka. Not only was permission refused to proceed against these offenders but some were even promoted by the government inspite of the black mark in their personal files. This shows you how deep the rot is or how pervasive corruption is in government. Once the moolah is shared amongst them, you can see how they close ranks to protect each other. More so with the above going-ons the BJP is no position to talk against corruption at a national level unless they put their house in order in Karnataka. On this they can make a good beginning by appointing someone of impeccable credentials as the Lok Ayukta immediately. With all this drama going on one wonders after the Lok Pal institution comes into existence with all the hullah-gullah that we have seen up until now, we will have vested interests in the political establishment try to not only undermine but brush it aside and make it non-functional or just wind it up after some years.
*****************************

Vox Populi
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 86 Date: 12.11.2011
Contents:
1. Goa Is In A Mess: Sanitation Issues
2. Value Those Who Come Out Of Our Own Education System
3. L K Advani’s Jana Chetana Yatra A Complete Waste
4. Taking Liberties With The Truth

Goa Is In A Mess: Sanitation Issues

Go anywhere in Goa today and the sight of plastic bags filled with garbage will meet your eyes while at the same time the putrefying smell of rotting refuse will assail your nostrils. This is more so near the beachside where a large number of tourists descend during the season. Inspite of the best efforts of the authorities to put garbage bins near the beaches and plastic segregation spaces, the tourists mostly Indians tend to mess up the place throwing refuse and plastic material like bags and bottles wherever they like and even on the beach sands. Thus what they come to enjoy year in, year out they make filthy and go away. Not only that where you have the buses bringing in the tourists on a travel package to visit Goa you find sometimes these people cooking in the open dirtying up the surroundings and making it more miserable by urinating and defecating wherever they halt. These people should realize that Goa is not a place which is a garbage dump and an open public toilet and they can mess up the place. The more Goa is kept clean the more will be their enjoyment and where people come for pilgrimages a clean place surely gives a better spiritual experience. The authorities here in Goa are trying by putting up notices and whatever near the important places where tourists tend to visit but this sense of civic consciousness which puts hygiene foremost is something that has to come from within. It is not that Goans themselves are not at fault in this matter since in every village you will find unattended garbage dumps stinking to high heaven and plastic bags cartwheeling in the wind on the village football grounds and other open spaces. The local people should realize that garbage is generated in every household and thus in every village, and that is exactly the place where it should be disposed off, treated and converted to compost or incinerated. The last option can be used to generate electricity which Goa desperately needs. The same thing in cities where the issue should be tackled at the ward level rather than at the apex city level like at Panaji and make a bigger mess of the garbage. If there are proximate areas near the cities and within its municipal limits which can be installed with garbage recovery installations as mentioned above then these should be gone into. But let us not create garbage mountains like at Curca or Sonsoddo which apart from spoiling the surrounding environment like soil and groundwater are also hazardous by the number of fires that have raged at the latter location particularly, spoiling the atmosphere with smoke, gas and fumes to the discomfort and detriment of the health of the residents in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Efforts are on at the village level to build composting plants to dispose off garbage at the local level but then these programs have to move apace since garbage is a distressing and urgent issue that demands immediate disposal or processing. More importantly the panchayats or the civic authorities should have anticipated the need for disposal of garbage since it is a relatively easy exercise to forecast. And composting plants are not very expensive to install. Thus there is time still to rush these programs of garbage disposal quickly so that a healthy Goa can be created. At the beachside the problem is a bit more aggravated since the tourist influx tends to vary over the years but taking a base load in addition to the village garbage handling system an area can be demarcated to install garbage handling plants. There as said earlier can be garbage incineration units which can generate electricity which can meet the village and beachside needs. This electricity can work towards a self-sufficient power scenario over time within Goa. Why but for one proposal, which finally even that did not see the light of day, such installations have not been pursued in Goa is something that no one will understand? Bangalore and Delhi have such plants which are operating very successfully and which should be emulated in Goa. Thus let us strive to provide ourselves and our visitors a clean and hygienic Goa where even the air we breathe can be part of the experience of an enjoyable visit. Consider when you enter Panaji, the capital city of Goa, what you smell first is the putrid, thick, sickly smell of garbage and of fermenting compost. What a welcome and this composting plant is under one of the Mandovi bridges and bang opposite the cruise jetty where tourists tend to throng during the tourist season. The idea possibly is that if they have missed the smell while entering the city you should not make them miss it when they come to board the cruise boats. Or it may be a sign of the times to come, where Panaji is looking at decay and rot in the future!

Value Those Who Come Out Of Our Own Education System

There is a much larger emphasis now for our students to go abroad and study. Earlier it was restricted to a large extent to postgraduate and further higher programs of education in foreign universities. But lately we see people going even for pursuing undergraduate programs and specialized courses. This has largely happened for two reasons. The first, is that admissions to colleges and particularly professional courses in India has become very difficult with lakhs of aspirants competing for a handful of seats while earlier the number of those trying for admission used to be just in the thousands. Moreover the number of colleges though has expanded, those that the aspirants seek have not been able to increase the number of seats that they can offer. Thus you have a situation where lakhs of students are left disappointed on not getting admission to a college or course of their choice within India. These students then have no choice but to look abroad for higher studies. This option has also been made possible by the increasing affluence among those whose children seek foreign education and the relaxed foreign exchange scenario consequent upon India’s economic liberalization over the last two decades or more. However, this is to give a word of caution since we find that those who have studied abroad are given, if they want to return to India, a preference over similarly qualified people who have studied in India. This is wrong since the existing system of education has contributed to the development of India and its relative economic success as we see it today. And in fact this is the success which has been created by those who went through the Indian education system which has not deteriorated very much as we are given to believe, by certain people who tend to criticise it for the heck of it. Further it is the people who have built this edifice of modern India from the home-grown system that has made it possible for some of our youth to pursue studies and higher education abroad. And therefore the products of our education system should not be cast aside in favour of those with similar qualifications from foreign universities. The contradiction in this is apparent since even President Obama talks of the falling standards apart from enrolment for higher education in the US, which is a fact in other countries also where our youth flock for pursuing higher education. While we give the graduates from these foreign universities a special preference! We have also seen lately not only in Australia, but also in the US and UK where some of the purported colleges and universities (!) have failed or shut down their operations leaving a large number of our students in the lurch in a foreign land. The reason for such incidents occurring is partly because of the craze for foreign education among Indians which unscrupulous and money-hungry ‘educationists’ actually swindlers in these foreign countries , sometimes not without the connivance of Indians, exploit. Thus let us first ensure that our local system of education is consolidated and strengthened to support our country and also give employment to those who are coming out of this system before we flock for the craze of ‘phoren’ degrees which may not even be worth the paper they are printed on.

L K Advani’s Jana Chetana Yatra A Complete Waste

L K Advani’s Jana Chetana yatra is a complete waste of money for the BJP and has created more fissures than unity within the party. In Karnataka with the earlier much touted first BJP government down south, since in disrepute with Yeddyurappa’s shenaninagans, split between the ex-CM’s followers not attending the rallies while the yatra passed through the State, there is clearly a division of loyalties in the BJP ranks there. Not only that even in Gujarat with Narendra Modi paying only lip-service to the yatra shows that Advani is past the age where he could be looked upon to command a following within the party and also draw the masses. Not only that with Advani’s PM aspirations in the event that the BJP wins the next general elections clearly being the first priority of the yatra irrespective of the fact that this is being denied by Advani himself will lead to more dissension within the BJP than any cohesion which it has to achieve if it has to do any reasonable showing at the next hustings. All in all the Jana Chetana yatra is an example of good money being spent to revive someone past his ‘use by date’.

Taking Liberties With The Truth

Towards the end of last month a fire tender turned turtle at the Mumbai airport due to over-speeding. This news was duly reported in the press. The next day the IAAI spokesperson came out with the rebuttal that no fire tender had capsized on the Mumbai airport runway but it could be that a similar incident had occurred on one of the exit roads from the runway leading to the apron. Now examine this incident in an approach to what is called hiding the truth by our government agencies and their spokespersons. Logic suggests that a fire tender could have turned turtle or not turned turtle at the Mumbai airport. There are no two interpretations to this. And the fact that it had turned turtle was what was reported in the media. There was no question of suggesting that the incident had happened on the runway. But the spokesperson is trying to draw a shroud on the incident and diffusing the truth with the ultimate objective of maybe denying that the incident ever happened. This is the approach of our government. Where the attempt is to manage the truth until it becomes a lie or nothing like that ever happened at all. This kind of thing you will notice in most recent incidents where the matters are connected with the highest authorities of the incumbent government. In the now famous, or should we say notorious, note on 2G submitted by the Finance Ministry to the PMO where it is said that if the then FM, P Chidambaran had wanted he could have put a stop to the scam and which note is ‘approved’ or ‘perused’ for issue by the incumbent Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherji and carries the last-named person’s signature. It is said that this note was a summary on the 2G issue which has been rocking Parliament and seizing the imagination of the nation for the last six months or more and it is purported to have been asked for by the PMO and prepared jointly by the PMO and Finance Ministry officials. We also know that this note was part of the ‘celebrated’ tiff between the two very senior above-named ministers which was ‘resolved’ in the ‘kiss and make up’ press conference in front of South Block. Those who have been regularly reading on the 2G issue will recall that first the government had refused the very existence of the said note. It was left to Subramaniam Swamy to unearth this through a RTI application and which he duly submitted to the Supreme Court and that is when like they say the proverbial ‘shit hit the ceiling’. Now as said earlier in the case of the fire tender, there is a note or there is no note. And if there is a note what is the point denying it. Then is it not an embarrassment to this government that it is understood on this note that the word ‘approved’ is overwritten and replaced with handwriting by the word ‘perused’. Is this the way our government works? Does it not only leave the credibility of this document becoming suspect but also all actions of this government? Since this is clearly an attempt to hide and/or protect someone, however high he or she may be, by modifying a government document. In this instance, Pranab Mukherji got off the charge of having directly pointed a finger at P Chidambaran. Thus managing the truth or taking liberties with the truth is something that one does not expect from an elected government and it is by right that all information should be brought into the public domain except those matters related to national security, which specifically means acts of aggression with our neighbouring and other countries. It is clarified that matters between ministers in the Central cabinet are not related to ‘national security’. These matters are also to be viewed in the context of the PM’s comment in the recent past that the RTI may need to be modified since it is acting as an obstruction to the functioning of government. Concluding, the following is a real life incident which happened to the undersigned last week where upon a request to a senior government functionary, he refused to sign on an application to his subordinate for provision of a certificate stating that in future if some one requests on RTI, it should not be seen to be that the subordinate officer was pressurized by his superior by the fact of the latter’s affixing his initials on it. This is just an instance of how RTI is changing the functioning of government which in the past was very normal with a comment like - Please see or please do needful.

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


Vox Populi
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 85 Date: 05.11.2011
Contents:

1. Kalam On Kudankulam NPP
2. Yet Another Petrol Price Hike!
3. Corruption: How Deep The Rot Is
4. Goa Is In A Mess: The IFFI & INOX Multiplex

Kalam On Kudankulam NPP

Ex-President Abdul Kalam by giving a blanket clearance that the Kudankulam plant is safe has done a grave disservice to the people of that area and to the nation at large. This statement was completely unwarranted since the earthquake risk is not the only risk that Kudankulam faces. The question is intrinsically whether nuclear energy is an option for India with high population densities and the inherent uncombatable effects in the event of an accident and the long-term deleterious health hazards on the human population in the surrounding areas of the plant. He has further compounded the problem by coming up with facilities under PURA of providing highways, medical facilities and other services in the Kudankulam area.This is completely off the point. The issue of providing this kind of infrastructure is in any case required as part of the development of the area and not necessarily because you have a nuclear power plant there now. Maybe, yes, in the event of an accident all these facilities will help people to be evacuated faster! Or is the government talking through ex-President Kalam that knowing that an accident is inevitable the facilities of better road infrastructure and medical services is being provided.

Yet Another Petrol Price Hike!

The petrol prices have risen again by Rs. 1.80. Notice it is not Rs. 2 but just below that like Bata footwear which is priced almost always at Re.1 below the rounded figure for the comfort feel that customers have that it is not Rs. 300 or Rs. 400, but below that. This kind of pricing is a great motivator in buying psychology at the retail level and the oil Cos. are getting smart. With the furore caused by the price hike on the back of the one in September, you would have noticed how the common man is akin to a ping-pong ball being shuttled between the government and the oil Cos. Senior government people are saying clearly that petrol is a de-controlled commodity and it is up to the oil Cos. to do as they wish. While at the same time the oil Cos. are saying that if the government wants us to roll back the hike, we are prepared to do that. So the aam admi who has been used to looking up at the government when it comes to fuel price reviews finds himself with no ‘mai-baap’ and has become ‘na ghar ka, na ghat ka’. It has thus been excellent strategy on the part of the government to push the responsibility of being answerable to its people on account of petroleum fuel price changes to the oil Cos. Since the access of the aam admi to corporate entities is limited and less enforceable, he finds himself at the receiving end of the problem. Like the oil Cos. first kept on saying that the international fuel prices have been going up and with that justification implemented the Sept. 2011 hikes and after that they kept on talking of the rupee loosing its value and therefore dollar imports becoming costly, which would impact fuel prices. This has been the rationale for the Rs. 1.80 increase now. While in July – August 2011 when international fuel prices had dipped the oil Cos. did not bring domestic prices down, since as we are told they were compensating for past losses. Thus it is clear that the aam admi will hereafter see only increases since the accumulated past losses are huge and the oil Cos. willfully or not will not let go of the logic of making up for it. Notice the manner of the current increase where the Petroleum Minister just the day previous, talks of exactly the Rs. 1.80 increase that is required and in the same breath says that there are no plans to increase the prices immediately. While the oil Cos. say that though they would want an increase they are looking up at the government for advice. Within 24 hours of this and without warning the price hike is implemented leaving the aam admi stunned. There has to be a review of these prices and for that the government has to reduce customs and excise duty to nil on incoming crude oil and the States have to forgo the sales tax that they earn on petrol and other petroleum fuel sales from the present 26 -34% average across the various States to somewhere below 18% average. This is the only way that the aam admi can be protected against the buffeting impacts of the rising prices of either petrol, milk, eggs, meat, pulses and sugar. This kind of thing also happens for EMI’s on consumer and home loans taken by common citizens. Open any Indian newspaper any day over the last month and you will find one or the other of these items seeing a price hike. Where will the aam admi go since all of them are not covered by salary income where at least the employed see the benefit of upward reviews.

Corruption: How Deep The Rot Is

Ever since Justice Santhosh Hegde’s term as Lokayukta was over, the incumbent government in Karnataka is not able to get anyone to occupy the chair who has a clean image. The earlier judge appointed quit not being able to take the heat on his holding two house properties in Bangalore while according to the Bangalore Development Authority’s rules, you have to ‘give’ a declaration that you do not own any other site or dwelling in Bangalore before you can apply for allotment of a site within the city. Two current contenders for the position, one a retired High Court Chief Justice and the other a retired Supreme Court judge, are both likely to be caught up in similar illegalities with allotment of housing plots and with one among them owning some 6 plots in Bangalore. See the stature of these people and look at how clean their slate is as far as their personal record is concerned. If this is so then how can you expect lesser mortals to be clean on the count of probity in their individual actions. The same kind of issues we saw with the A-Team where both Kiran Bedi and Kejriwal were caught up in allegations of one overcharging her event sponsors on air fares and Kejriwal not paying up on breaking the terms of his government bond during his service with the IRS. While Kiran Bedi tried to give some logic to explain her obvious lapse in not telling the sponsors of what she was doing, it speaks of applying a negotiable moral code as far as the individual is concerned and then taking for granted that the matter can be explained away. Similarly Kejriwal’s issue arises from the fact that whoever, if ever, pays up a government bond? And irrespective how many reminders come seeking payment, it is common practice to ignore the communication knowing that the government will finally get tired and stop bothering you. Once you are in public life, and claim morality as your plank, you need to be prepared that there will be people out there who will be trying to debunk you. It is not without basis that the A–Team has been accusing the authorities and others of having targeted them. Getting away with a wink and a nod, and hoping against hope not to be caught and trying to distance oneself from the matter as much as possible and finally if one gets caught there is always the chance that you could explain your way out or at the worst pay some money and get rid of the problem, is a part and parcel of life in India. Thus corruption is deep rooted even at the individual level and to remove the rot within, it will be a gargantuan task akin to cleaning the stables as Hercules is said to have done.

Goa Is In A Mess: The IFFI & INOX Multiplex

At the time of the inaugural IFF in 2004 Goa got its first multiplex. This facility is owned by the government but is contracted out to INOX since they were involved in establishing the multiplex at the time of inception and have been carrying on its running through successive lease arrangement over the years until now. In the initial period after commencement INOX had been quoting low on the lease and operation fees taking advantage of the favourable impression of theirs with the authorities of having assisted in running the IFFI. INOX themselves have been quite keen to associate themselves with the multiplex considering its association with the IFFI which advertisement rubs a halo onto their image as film exhibitors. It is only in the last few years that INOX has been quoting some ‘reasonable’ amounts for the lease rentals and in the last year they had paid some Rs. 36 Lakhs and odd. INOX works on its bids for renewal of their lease for the multiplex knowing that full well that the government would not be able to operate the facility on its own and other multiplex operators from outside Goa would not bid for the contract. Thus in the latest bid for deciding on the next period of lease it is understood that INOX has quoted an amount of Rs.19 Lakhs. This amount is ridiculous and in fact, measly. Considering the facility and the location along with the space that it enjoys at current costs the ground rent itself in that area on the Mandovi waterfront should command a rental alone of Rs. 3 crores a year and after that a share of the revenues to be given to the government by the multiplex operator. Thus INOX is under-quoting the operations contract and utilizing their kind of ‘indispensable’ position in running the multiplex to get the facility at that kind of money. They in fact need to pay the government for the advertisement that INOX gets for being associated with the IFFI every year. For Rs. 19 Lakhs no operator would be interested to run the multiplex, not even INOX and that is where the government has to call their bluff. The contract should be negotiated starting with the ground rent that has been mentioned above and once that has been frozen, then discussions should start on share of the revenue. Nothing less than 40% of the revenue should be given to the government. If INOX for any reason is unable to accept this then the government through its ESG should take up the running of the multiplex. This will then have the ESG gather the expertise of the running of a multiplex, have a captive screening facility apart from the two screens it has at the Maquinez Palace and generate within Goa the expertise of becoming a film exhibitor. If the government is for some reason unwilling to take up this program then it should get any local entrepreneur like Vinsons Graphics who already have a strong interest in cinema to diversify into this area. Initially the government can hold the hands of the local operator for some time and then let him fend for himself. As an aside on the IFFI, the Goa location was chosen because Panaji had the closest ambience to Cannes what with its riverfront and the Mandovi estuary but then this year (2011) the IFFI will be inaugurated at Madgaon. This is where the current CM Digamabar Kamat comes from and what better way to show his clout to his electorate before the elections than claiming that he brought the IFFI to Madgaon! So the basis of the premise of waterfront, Cannes ambience is all thrown out of the window. Madgaon happens to be the commercial capital of Goa and is the railhead for the Konkan Railway and is very much away from any sort of river or even the sea. This is where we continually make mistakes in India of having important events with an international slant being made use of by our politicians to serve their own ends and in that process putting everyone arriving for the event into great difficulty. It is understood that after the inaugural at Madgaon the screening of the opening film will be at Kala Academy in Panaji which means all the delegates and VIP’s attending the inaugural will have to be transported back and forth just to suit the whims and fancies of the CM. And who said anything about costs for doing all this additional effort, we have enough money for such things! From where does the money come from? The standard rejoinder to that would be – Will you never shut up? And then it was just the other day that Manohar Parrikar, the former BJP CM and current Opposition leader said that Madgaon had not seen development for the last 14 years, forgetting perhaps that the first five odd years was under his regime! But then is this not development that for the inaugural of the IFFI at Ravindra Bhawan in Madgaon not only is the venue being spruced up but also the approaches to the venue right from the Kadamba Circle on NH17 to the Fatorda Stadium at a cost of Rs. 30 crores!

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

VOX POPULI
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 84 Date: 29.10.2011
Contents:

1. Goa Is In A Mess: Power Woes
2. Self-Censorship Becoming The Bane Of Our Education System
3. Rising Food Prices: Do Ministers Have the Good of People In Their Hearts?
4. Another Brainless Festival: The Tomatina Fest
5. A-Team Tactics

Goa Is In A Mess: Power Woes

The sunshine State of Goa is in a mess. It has been in this situation for some time, but the mess now has, like they say, got messier. The loadshedding that has hit almost all States in India consequent of floods in Odisha and the Telengana agitation which stopped the coal movement to thermal power plants has also impacted Goa, more so since it has no power generating facilities within the State except for a miniscule unit run by Reliance-Salgaonkar. For the last ten years or so activists, common citizens, industrialists, everybody so to speak has been advising the government to put in at least two thermal power plants each of 250 MW in North & South Goa which has all fallen on deaf years of successive governments in power, first the BJP and then the Congress. Each time when an issue is raised on this the government throws up its hands and says that they have asked the Centre. But then like it is said, God only helps those who help themselves. So also Goa cannot wait to be spoon-fed when it should be eating on its own, that is creating electrical power generation for itself. The power is required by the State and there is no need to wait for the Centre to take the initiative but it is for the State government to go to the Centre and obtain the sanctions. As time goes by on the power front things are going to become worse and a day may come when the sunshine State will become completely dark in the nights! There could be a solution to this and that is to get the sun to shine also in the nights! Levity apart, the point is to switch substantially to solar power. Charge during the day and light up in the night! Have solar panels on top of each house, apartment complex, commercial buildings, government offices and the like to cater for the night electrical loads and use it. For commercial and institutional buildings like government offices which may not need much power in the night, the Electricity Department can evacuate this and feed it to common infrastructural uses like street lighting, power for water pumps etc. Coming back to the need for Goa having its own generation for power, this government and our politicians should realise that as time goes by the cost of these plants will keep escalating while at the same time customer demand for power also will keep on increasing and therefore it will end up as a catch-up game where demand will always exceed supply. Fortunately right now Goa needs 450MW which is still good enough to be met by two plants of 250 MW as positioned earlier. This same demand some decade ago was about 300 MW. Thus the issue is still manageable as far as Goa is concerned with the base load met through conventional power generation by coal or gas based and the top-up capacity supplied through non-conventional means like solar or whatever. Talking about costs if one does a study then with the growth of assets of our politicians particularly Ali Baba and his 39 (not 40) thieves in the Legislative Assembly over the last decade and the money lost as revenue through illegal mining which is being variously put in the range of Rs. 7000 crores to Rs. 20,000 crores, Goa could have got not just two 250MW power plants but easily four 250 MW plants and its citizens would have slept peacefully in the nights. If our politicians had had a little sense to do some good to its people then the least they could do is to provide sufficient and uninterrupted supply of the two basic necessities that human beings mostly need and that is water and power. Instead of this we continue to reel with unscheduled load-shedding, switching off loads between the Maharasthra supply and the Karnataka supply etc. etc. And in all this there are our ‘very-smart’ politicians like Manohar Parrikar who when in the CM’s chair did nothing for Goa’s electrical power generation but spent Rs. 300 crores on the IFFI infrastructure which if spent on a thermal power plant would have been the 10% seed money to have the Centre provide the rest. Not only did Parrikar not do anything to seed power generation in the State he used to boast that from the Centre’s allocation of power to Goa which was in excess of demand at that time, he was earning revenue for the State by selling that excess power to other States of the Indian Union. How much did he get after doing all this? A measly Rs. 6 crores! This is the problem when you have politicians with no or very limited imagination who would rather count the pennies they save and have the big picture escape them. Like the incumbent CM Digambar Kamat who was the Electricity Minister in Parrikar’s cabinet and knowing full well of Goa’s power woes has done nothing to resolve them. When asked, he is wont to say – ‘What power shortage? I have power at my house all the time.’ Not knowing that it is the assured power supply to VIP’s and he would never know when that is shut off and the DG set comes on to have the CM and his family ensconced in air-conditioned comfort while the rest of the State is groping in the dark.

Self-Censorship Becoming The Bane Of Our Education System

The Academic Council of Delhi University is understood to have voted to take out the book by A K Ramanujan entitled 300 Ramayanas from its BA (Hons.) course under pressure from religious fanatics who had sometime back resorted to vandalism in the DU’s History Department protesting against this book. This is on the back of the Shiv Sena protest against Rohinton Mistry’s book – Such A Long Journey in Mumbai University last year which again resulted in the book being withdrawn from the course curriculum. Then we have in the recently concluded MAMI film festival at Mumbai, M F Hussain’s movies like Gaja Gamini and others which could not be shown because of the organizers receiving threats not to show the movies even in memory of the eminent artist who had died recently. The man is dead for God’s sake, and you still continue to protest anything that he has created for the sake of some nudity shown in his depiction of Indian gods and goddesses. These harebrained and limited mind protestors should understand that our gods and goddesses in their times lived possibly in the nude and what is the problem in depicting them in real terms consistent with their times. As for the Delhi University succumbing to and withdrawing Ramanujan’s book in the face of protests, why do our youth not understand or the leaders of the political parties to whom they are affiliated explain to them that they come to the universities to broaden their vision which happens only if you imbibe knowledge on any subject as much as is possible and like in a debate if you know more about the pros and cons of any matter, you are only learning more and upping yourself on the knowledge scale relative to that subject. If the intention is to obtain knowledge with blinkers on, then they need not come to the universities and they can remain at home and learn there from their elders or in the indoctrination schools of the political parties from their party leaders. They will thus find themselves ill equipped to tackle even political issues as they progress through their lives and come across as self-centred, boorish dullards. Delhi University’s decision in this matter following on the heels of the Mumbai University is bad for Indian education as such since it hits at the basics of plurality that education is supposed to inculcate. One is not supporting this or the other book since most books are read and imbibed even beyond the ambit of course curriculum by students. The Academic Council is free to change the complement of books in the course over a typical period, say 5 years or so, in the interest of generating a variety in the course and giving the students a different exposure as also giving the teachers new challenges by not falling into the rut of teaching the same old books for 10 or 20 years. This approach would modernize the course also. Further the fact that the Academic Council voted to take out Ramanujan’s book is something which is disappointing since our senior academic faculty should try as much as possible not to have such like matters put to the vote. The concerned faculty has to show the skill and ability to defuse situations and handle matters not by a, for or against opinion. Education does not deserve this kind of an approach. Since any vote by its very nature particularly on emotive or strongly felt issues tends to be biased. And in case of a decision taken arising out of a biased vote will be mostly wrong or does not serve anyone. Nothing can be done for the two above named books but let our universities not take the easy and safe way out in the future.

Rising Food Prices: Do Ministers Have the Good of People In Their Hearts?

We have K V Thomas, our Civil Supplies Minister doing a variation on Marie Antoinette's famous words that if the people do not get bread, why do they not eat cake? - by saying that basically foodgrains prices are stable but prices of milk, vegetables, meat and fish are rising. The reason for this, he says, is that people are eating these items more since they have more money in their hands. What was he expecting? That India would continue to remain poor and only people like him and the rich would have access to a protein rich diet. What these politicians say sometimes, one fails to comprehend since do they not have the desire to do the basic good of the people? Is that not what politics was all about, to serve the people and work for their betterment? Was it not expected that with per capita incomes rising, people would aspire for better diets for themselves and their children? With so many institutions and think-tanks like the Planning Commission, was this home truth required to be brought home to ministers like Thomas only with prices going through the roof. Why was this not planned for? Or if it was why was nothing done to increase supplies of milk, vegetables, meat and fish? The other day there was a headline in the papers that the quality of notes to be put up for EGOM's should be exceptional and of high quality. What is the point? Some people who can appreciate these notes should be sitting on judgment with them. With the current crop of ministers who lack the basic ability to understand and appreciate issues and then arrive at a decision for the future, how are high quality government notes, going to help? Like on the matter of inflation at least there seems to be no clue on how to tackle it? Or is it that our famous bureaucracy is not acting on the advice of the ministers. But in any case, it is all a blame game, the politicians will blame the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats will blame the ministers. Take milk after V K Kurien's and the Gujarat co-operative dairy movement like Amul's which kicked off the White Revolution and even until 10 years ago, India was a milk surplus country. The dairy farmers were throwing away milk because of no takers. What has happened since then? Who has messed up for Thomas to say that there is a shortage of milk and that is what is driving up its price? Again vegetable prices are spiraling upwards and the Minister says that this is a temporary phenomena and within two weeks they will come down. On what basis is he making this comment? Does he have inside information? Or is this a deliberate ploy on the part of the Congress to allow now the vegetable lobby to make money for 2 weeks? Moreover why do our ministers.and planners not tell us when prices of any item are going up but they are quick to make a comment on telling us when the prices will come down. At least if the common man is given an early warning of escalating prices, he can to the extent of his means, stock up for his immediate needs. Like on the issue of things coming down, we have been waiting now for inflation to come down either in March or June. So many of these unfortunate months have come and gone in these last 3 years but nothing has happened and neither are our administrators giving up on these months and if you ask them when prices will come down, they will tell you again by next March or June depending on which part of the year they are in at that point in time. This is the sad state of our country. Mohammed bin Tughlaq’s kingdom would have been a hundred times better.

Another Brainless Festival : The Tomatina Fest

We have another brainless festival to be held in Goa – the Tomatina Fest, by the organizers of the Sunburn Festival. This is aping the Spanish festival where tomatoes are thrown by people at each other until literally the streets turn red with tomato pulp. One could say that it is alright for Spain to hold this according to their sensibilities and tradition but holding such a festival in India shows the callousness of the organizers. Where so many people of this country have to go without food, wasting an edible item like a tomato, even, is a shame. There is no earthly logic to defend this action since it is not that they can pay for the stuff and therefore they can do what they like with the tomatoes or whatever. This is exactly the kind of conspicuous consumption and behaviour attributes that our rich should eschew. It should be made criminal to waste food like this particularly when vegetable prices are going through the roof. Or maybe the tomato prices in Goa are hitting new highs because of the Tomatina Fest! I just happened to buy a kilo today at Rs. 40/- which is almost double of what it was a week ago. If the organizers of such festivals do not have the brains to not organize such events, those from the authorities should stop giving permission for such festivals. Postscript: After the outcry from activists and NGO's the organisers of the Tomatina Fest decided to restrict the fest to a symbolic display of tomatoes at the venue and stick to just music.

A-Team Tactics

The tactic being used by the establishment in tackling the A-Team is - Discredit, Defame and Destroy. The politicians are past masters in this game since they do nothing but this. The A-Team does not have the same level of expertise in this matter and neither do they have a large organisation to fall back upon to support them in this or waste time on this. There are then others in the other part of the civil society including some 'eminent' journalists who having been isolated by the limelight that the A-team has been enjoying who want to get back at them and the 'scandals' that are being unearthed about the A-Team are more ammunition for their diatribes about the A-team and they are using it profligately. The A-Team in all this hustle and confusion and the din, dust and smoke should hold their cool and not respond to every single accusation. Their policy should be let the law be applied and they are willing to go along with it. The more the A-Team shows that they are getting bothered the more the critics or detractors will realise that their strategy is working and they will up the ante. There is no end to this. The other thing that Anna Hazare and the A-Team should remember is not to use what is termed un-Parliamentary language. Gang of Four is OK but not calling ministers ruffians and worse. Anna Hazare and the A-Team should understand that for whatever reason circumstances has thrust leadership upon them and they should act as leaders. But by using uncouth words they should not devalue themselves. More so they will loose the credibility that they still enjoy with the common citizens, though one must admit that in the last few weeks there has been a big dent in this aspect.

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



Vox Populi

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 83 Date: 22.10.2011

Contents:

1. Free Up Interest Rates For SB Accounts Without Balance Proviso
2. Support The Kudankulam NPP Agitation
3. The Pied Piper of Inflation Hums Along!
4. Is the A-Team Breaking Up?
5. Government Should Talk In One Voice

Free Up Interest Rates For SB Accounts Without Balance Proviso

The RBI in its latest advisory on monetary policy has apart from increasing the interest rates yet again, the 13th time in the last 18 months, to tame inflation has freed the savings bank account interest rates. But this is only applicable for those holding balances in excess of Rs. 1 Lakh! Which average account holder has this kind of money in his savings account? This is yet again a measure aimed at benefiting the rich not the middle class and the poor. After daily interest calculations for savings accounts was announced one thought that with this new measure the government and the banks are becoming friendly towards small and medium account holders. But it is not so. The interest rates on balances below Rs 1 lakh have to be the same for all banks. Why is this? Is this a a measure to protect the existing interest rate for fear of the banks reducing it further? But in the current increasing interest rate regime this is not possible. Why should the small account holders not benefit also by removing the limit of Rs. 1 Lakh for freeing the interest rates? The RBI would be well-advised to do this.

Support The Kudankulam NPP Agitation

The PM’s Kudankulam NPP assurance about security is to ‘allay the fears of the people’. And not as it seems to provide fail-safe security of the NPP. Otherwise why should a committee to address the fears of the people be constituted now after the people have been agitating for closure of the plant. If the PM and his government were so concerned about the security of the people should they not have constituted this committee at the time of ground-breaking of the project and taken the people along with them through the construction of the plant. These measures are only face-saving just to show that the government ‘did all it could’. The agitating people should put a simple question to the committee and that is will they assure that there would be no accident at the Kudankulam NPP. We should see what the committee members say to this since in any case the complement of the committee is heavily biased towards the nuclear establishment and other ‘yea-sayers’ of this government. The other thing is that the agitation is being twisted to be interpreted as a State vs. Centre issue. The PM in his letter, which the TN CM says never reached her, has suggested that without the Kudankulam NPP the development of TN could be at stake. Firstly, is it not silly that while two such senior people deal with each other like the PM & the CM, we have in this country, these childish excuses that the letter did not reach! That apart is it not gentle blackmail on the part of the PM to suggest that TN’s development could be at stake. The same thing is being down in Maharasthra where the people had risen against the Jaitapur NPP for which their reward was that last month Ratnagiri went without power for 12 hours at a time in a day and Khed on a day went without power for 24 hours. In such situations, the government will say – You know, we told you so. If Jaitapur comes then you will have no worries. This is the tactic of pushing people to the wall that the government is playing. Recall Dabhol when the power plant was coming up there, then Sharad Pawar had promised the sky but nothing happened, the plant never came up, the people involved made their money and the region remained without power. Let us also look at the situation of equipment suppliers from Japan & Germany for NPP’s. Where on safety grounds these countries are giving up on nuclear power they are encouraging their nuclear power Cos. to export the same equipment and technology which could be suspect. In both these countries the lobbies which involve themselves with fair play and human rights have criticized the incumbent governments for this policy. And what do we do? We go to these countries and beg these Cos. or the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) to give us this equipment! Both Japan & Germany have very strong economies and their per capita consumption of electricity is much higher than in India, but even then these countries have decided to eschew progressively the use of nuclear power. They have chosen to go in for alternate technologies like solar power and greener thermal power plants particularly in case of Germany. Why we cannot do the same even now rather than have emphasis on nuclear power alone is something which one can never understand? We are a sunshine-rich country and given our geographical span have vast hydel resources, added to that we have the second largest deposits of coal. All put together can we not evolve our energy security using our own resources. Start with greener plants using coal and then have it phased out as hydel and solar generation picks up. Just because Manmohan Singh has a bee in his bonnet (read turban) for nuclear energy and because he went and signed the Indo-US nuclear deal, does not mean that the country should be railroaded towards a sequential string of nuclear disasters waiting to happen with all these shore-based NPP’s. Thus the agitating people at Kudankulam should not give in and allow the functioning of the NPP since on their success depends the scrapping of the other NPP’s that are planned around the country.

The Pied Piper of Inflation Hums Along!

Prices continue to rise particularly of food; inflation is rampant and by now one should say uncontrollable, while the government and its top policy officials continue to debate between controlling inflation and sacrificing growth. This dilly dallying has been going on for the past two years since inflation first raised its head and going by all accounts of statements of senior economic policy officials, they do not have a clue on how to tackle it. While Rangarajan says that RBI has no option but to continue playing with interest rates, Montek Singh Ahluwalia says that apart from interest rates other measures should be examined to tackle inflation. While the PM continues to harp as at the National Development Council meeting that India cannot sacrifice growth. The FM continues to be ‘concerned’ about inflation and is a perennial fence sitter in this debate Again Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economic Adviser, is now waking up to the reality that more money in people’s hands given after the revision of salary packages to government and other employees is fuelling inflation. Granted he cannot do anything to the private sector, but where was he when the 6th Pay Commission salary revisions were being implemented at the Centre and then in the States and further to all Central & State PSU’s. Why like in earlier times, part of this money was not blocked by way of compulsory long-term savings in Govt.bonds or in the PF so that people would not have too much ready cash in their hands and thus fuel inflation? Or was this intentional since by buying goods and services with the money, they were fuelling growth! Like they say, there lies the rub. The four most important people involved in financial policy are not talking in a coherent or one voice reminding one of the poster of a pack of donkeys pulling a cart in different directions while in the next panel they are shown pulling together and the cart moving forward. This is the sad state of the ‘cart’ of the Indian economy. Resultant effect has been where people should be enjoying the festivities like Diwali, the newspapers are full of headlines saying that the festivities this year will be muted because of rising prices. Is this what the citizens of this country expect from their government of having to ‘manage’ rather than live well? Off and on our FM has been talking about international food prices being high and therefore casting an inflationary impact on the Indian economy. But this is all humbug since our domestic stocks of foodgrains are at its highest point thanks to a good monsoon and consequently a bumper harvest for wheat, sugar and rice. Thus we import maybe some pulses and edible oils on which a higher price impact could be there because of world prices. But why should the prices of domestic food items across the board keep increasing? Why does the government not use the excess foodgrains over buffer stock with them in the godowns and distribute it to the people ahead of the festivals so that we can call ourselves really at least for once the land of plenty. Why not try and wipe off the starvation within the country? Instead of the foodgrains getting eaten by rats in the FCI godowns at least let people eat it! If the bulk supplies of wheat, rice and sugar are released in the market then the prices of these items will fall leading to a pulling down of prices of other items as a general trend and then maybe inflation would come under some control. But these policies of bulk intervention directly by the government will have its own detractors within the Cabinet of people like Sharad Pawar who will feel that instead of the high prices feeding their coffers, the depressed prices will spell the end of their power and influence and bring them closer to doom. This is how the cookie crumbles as they say and as long as we have a vapid government unable to think for itself and get itself out of this mess, Indian citizens will have to keep dueling with increasing inflation.

Is the A-Team Breaking Up?

There has been discord aimed at the A –team as also from within the team. The physical attacks on Prashant Bhushan and Kejriwal were reprehensible to say the least. These attacks are a slur on the incumbent governments and indicates a complete breakdown of the law and order machinery of the government. On one end of the scale in Delhi, we have a terror attack at the High Court after the terrorists had presumably conducted a dry run a few months earlier to the main attack and then a prominent member of the bar and one who has been at the centre of media attention over the last year being part of the A-team is beaten up in his chambers just opposite the Supreme Court! And not only that the next day when the perpetrators are brought to court their supporters beat up with impunity and without any mercy the A-team supporters. All this while the police are looking on without doing a thing and the TV media also covering the events without going to help the assaulted persons. Professionalism and focus on news is all right for the media but then one thinks humanity is more important. This is not the first time that the TV media has covered such heinous action unfold in front of them from almost all over India with even women and children being mercilessly beaten up in front of the cameras. The media one thinks should use their position of influence to defuse or lessen the impact of such incidents so that few people are physically assaulted right in front of their camera lenses. In any case coming back to the A-team, they should also understand that they must hold their tongue. There is no need for the A-team members to be founts of wisdom on every subject under the sun like the plebiscite in Kashmir etc. etc. The problem in India is that once a person comes into the limelight, it is not only that he/she thinks that they are experts on all matters and voice their opinion on every single issue but also the media provokes and/or incites them for an opinion. They thus fall into the trap and say something which more often than not gets them into trouble as we have now seen with Prashant Bhushan. We have seen this also with government spokespersons who time and again put their foot in their mouth when queried about a host of issues on some of which they may not have the least knowledge. Therefore, the best thing for the A-team members to do is to remain faithful to the single point agenda of eradicating corruption and bringing about the Lok Pal bill. This issue is large enough and complex enough to keep them occupied and that is where they should not fritter away their energies since implementation of the Bill is also on the anvil. Once they have got the Lok Pal bill done then they can move onto the next issue in a step-by-step process. Trying to do everything and all together will only have the A-team ending up in a mess and nullify all the good work that they have done up until now and that is bringing a consciousness to tackle corruption and bring the issue centre stage across the nation. Apart from that aligning themselves in a political positioning which is either anti-Congress or pro-Opposition is only going to get them to do more firefighting on non-issues and extraneous matters other than the fight against corruption. Therefore the Hissar bye-poll positioning as anti-Congress was a wrong strategy. As expected the Congress and the government will only ramp up their attacks on the A-team members credibility and that of the organizations that they represent as we are seeing in the revival of the call to probe Anna Hazare’s NGO and that of Kiran Bedi having to explain about her air travel bills. These will be there and the A-team has to take all this in their stride. These are nothing but akin to the age-old story about Indian crabs being exported in an open carton and the buyer abroad wondering why none of them escaped! When one went up to try and get out, the other crabs pulled it down. The simple way to answer the detractors of the A-team questioning the NGO accounts is to tell them that there is an established system of auditing accounts of NGO’s in the country and refer all their queries to their auditors. The important thing is that the A-team should remain focused and concentrate on the current core issue of corruption. Then there is the criticism that the A-team is talking in many voices and that some people are leaving the team. In this we need to understand that the A-team is a voluntary organization and the more voices are heard the better it is for the team to function better. The problem in India is that leadership is not understood as something which marshals together the opinions of everyone and then works towards a consensus on tactics, strategy and policy but like that in a dictatorship where everyone talks in one voice like that of Kim in North Korea. These people are not leaders and are definitely not following any democratic principles. Thus let the A-team members speak and only on corruption for now since then only good will come out of it. As for members of the A-team leaving, it is their choice since there may be a mismatch of interests which they are directly involved in and corruption may not be their total mindshare or they may find it difficult given their original interests and work to participate in the A-team and therefore if they want to leave then they should, since no group should become unnecessarily large since then decision making becomes unwieldy. As long as they join together on the corruption plank that is fine. Thus the message to the A-team is stay focused, stay true to the cause of eradicating corruption.

Government Should Talk In One Voice

The Prime Minister is supposed to be the first among equals in the Cabinet and protocol-wise after the President it is the Prime Minister who comes in second in the pecking order. This position or status needs to be respected is what our Cabinet Ministers should understand particularly the frequently changing spokespersons of the Congress party and specifically their new man for all ‘speakings’, Salman Khurshid. The incident was relating to the RTI Act where the PM addressing the RTI Commissioners said that the Act is turning out more than a hindrance to governance than facilitating any improvement in its working. He also said that it would lead to a less than active participation or exposure of views by senior bureaucrats on files related to important and/or critical matters. This comment was coming in the heel of the submission by the government pleader in the Supreme Court on the 2G case that information obtained via RTI not giving the complete picture is ‘de-stabilising our society’. Almost simultaneously Salman Khurshid made the statement that the RTI Act is not up for revision which though is the correct stand will be seen by many as contradicting the PM whose tattered credibility has got yet another hole in it. It is important that the RTI Act be expanded so that open governance is the norm and the bureaucracy should be sent for training programs to learn how they should work in ‘open systems’. By the way, not working at all, is not one of the options! In a similar manner, the Election Commissioner had made a statement last week that the ‘right to recall’ and the ‘right to reject’ are not practicable options in India considering the possibility of frequent elections that would arise with the implementation of these measures and lack of an across-the-board common standard to assess the performance of the legislators whom the electorate would like to recall. In this matter, the Election Commissioner with his background of a bureaucrat is taking the easy way out by saying it is not possible without properly applying his mind. It is important for our senior officials depending on the suggestions and their merit apply themselves in an innovative way to examine if the suggestion can be implemented. The ‘right to reject’ is an option that is provided for in our Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and can be implemented straight away. There will be a need for multiple elections sometimes and here Mr Quraishi is wrong where he says that Indians are tired of frequent elections since in contrast the people who actually go out and vote would actually want more elections, since more of elections, results in more money for them! But levity apart, the frequent elections will be an initial phenomena and the system will stabilize itself with more acceptable candidates coming into the fray in the long run. As for evaluating legislators performance is not so much a complicated matter since Manmohan Singh had at one time (in the UPA-1 term, but no more in UPA-2!) put out the performance ratings for his Ministers and also had proposed that even the senior bureaucracy would be paid on an incentive basis based on their performance. Thus the legislators lie somewhere in between and there should be no problem in generating a scorecard on what indices the people expect from them on which the legislators can be judged. We are in the age of information technology and there are many things which can be done as along as we apply our minds to it. But then, let us come back to Salman Khurshid who again contradicted the Election Commissioner (EC) saying that the ‘right to recall’ is something that can be done and he has had discussions with the EC , who though having reservations on the matter, he is confident that the measure can be worked through. Here is Salman Khurshid again the ‘nay-sayer’ but on both counts he may be the positive thinking person but maybe he is not going to score very high on the PM’s and the Election Commissioner’s popularity charts. This aspect also brings to the fore the fact that this government speaks with multiple voices and no one particularly the aam admi has a clue on what its real thoughts, policies are, from which one expects action to arise and/or nucleate. These positions are all right when you are into gambling but for a government it severely erodes the faith and confidence that its people have in it and that is why it will stumble and fall.

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

VOX POPULI
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 82 Date: 15.10.2011
Contents:

1. 2G Case: Defend Chidambaran & the PM At All Costs
2. Corruption: The Rot Within
3. Yeddyurappa & The Lok Ayukta Report
4. RTI Act: One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward
5. No Nobel Prizes For Indians In The Humanities Either
6. Lok Pal Up In The Air

2G Case: Defend Chidambaran & the PM At All Costs

The approach of the UPA government to the 2G Supreme Court proceedings seem to be designed with one thing in mind and that is to protect P Chidambaran and the Prime Minister. This can be assessed from the government pleader stating that the PM had already asked that the 2G spectrum be auctioned but A Raja ignoring this advice went and allotted it on a first come-first served basis to serve his own ends. In this what one cannot understand is that did the PM and his office have no role to follow through on the letter and ensure that their will would be done. In the same manner P Chidambaran is attempted to be defended stating that he had nothing to do with the 2G matter though days prior to the allotment of the licences A Raja had a meeting with the then FM, P Chidambaran. Should then Chidambaran not have ensured that the maximum recovery would accrue to the government? His defence is further corroborated by the Congress’ new man for all ‘speakings’ succeeding Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid that the then FM could not have recommended auction of the licences since then it would be going against the Cabinet decision of allotting on first come-first served basis. The strategy is clear for the Congress since the first line of defence now is P Chidambaran and they have to show that he is not culpable since otherwise the stain of guilt leads straight to Manmohan Singh’s door. There are some amusing situations arising out of the 2G proceedings where at one point the government pleader requested that the 2G court proceedings should not be publicized otherwise they will ‘de-stabilise the system’. Even the judges on the Bench were at a loss to understand this strange request since it is but necessary to ask is that whether our Indian system be it political or related to our society so weak that it will be de-stabilised by a court proceeding. There were other issues like just last week before the bail hearings of the arrested head honchos of the telecom Cos. Salman Khurshid asking that if we throw industrialists into jail will we get foreign investment? The above earlier comment and this very inopportune but timely comment, does our Law Minister not know are completely out of form since he is commenting on a matter that is sub-judice. In his second comment it can be interpreted that he was trying to influence or lead the Court towards a decision. Is this not a misdemeanour and should he not have been hauled up before the Court on this charge? This was precisely how the financial scandals like Bofors relating to Quatrocchi close to Sonia Gandhi was created by being afraid of the foreigner since then India would not get FDI. I fact, the Congress specializes in these things. The law should it not be the same for everyone be it commoner influential or foreigner and if they have committed any offence give them their due punishment. The problem is that people like Salman Khurshid, who still are captive to the colonial raj sentiment, fail to realize that if any of our people get caught in similar situations abroad then the foreign government will show no mercy howmuchever the hullabaloo we make in India seeking for their ‘special’ treatment. The example of frisking of our VIP’s by the Homeland Security in the US and by US airlines over the last few years is there for all to see. And there is more. Someone in the Congress party said that ‘they (meaning the public) should not speak of the Congress party’ which is surprising for a political party which should normally thrive on people speaking about it. So should it not go into purdah then?

Corruption: The Rot Within

The Upa Lokayukta of Karnataka has also resigned from his position on the same issue of owning two houses in the Bangalore Metropolitan area. Earlier it was the Lok Ayukta who had succeeded Justice Santhosh Hegde who had decided to quit for the same reason. This shows how ingrained compromise of values and permissiveness towards corruption is ingrained in our daily lives. If people at the level of judges have this kind of background, you can imagine how deep the rot is in the rest of our society. To highlight this point, just in the last week in Mumbai a senior police official who had been feted for storming a man who had held a girl hostage in his flat a short while ago and had got injured in the process, was caught by the ACB (Anti-Corruption Bureau) while accepting a bribe to sort out a property issue. The amount was Rs. 50,000/-, piffling by today’s standards but then this policeman an icon for society particularly for the youth fell off his pedestal for this amount. Change has to come from within us if corruption has to be brought under control since it can never be eradicated.

Yeddyurappa & The Lok Ayukta Report

One can never understand legalities. This is being stated in the context of Yeddyurappa, the erstwhile CM of Karnataka being arrested on orders of the Lokayukta court for his role in the allotment of unauthorized sites to his near relatives. These offences were part of the list of offences that the ex-CM had committed which were listed in Justice Santhosh Hegde’s report that among other things also covered illegal mining. Recently the Attorney General Acharya of Karnataka had commented that the Lok Ayukta report lacks legal substance since the accused have not been given the chance to explain themselves and thus natural justice not being offered the report cannot be used to proceed against those that have been accused. Then why should Yeddyurappa have in the first place resigned as CM, except for being the sacrificial goat for the BJP, and how is he being sent to jail now? One must concede that the ex-CM has the best lawyers but then one cannot but be puzzled by the different positions on the same question by lawyers and judges who are surely expected to know their business.

RTI Act: One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward

The PM's recent comment about amending the RTI Act for fear that government servants would be hesitant of putting any notings on sensitive files and that any single document would be misinterpreted and would not on its own give a complete picture of the issue at hand, are all again a process of succumbing to the bureaucracy and vested interests in the political system who have been for long not wanting firstly, the implementation of the RTI and its extension throughout the arms of the government. The PM should stand up to these forces and as the RTI Commissioner said that touching the RTI as it stands today and reducing its scope would be retrograde. That is the correct position and the PM like he has done on other issues should not take one step forward and two steps backwards on the RTI also.

No Nobel Prizes For Indians In The Humanities Either

The Nobel prizes for Literature, Economics and Peace are out and again no Indians in it. So none in sciences and none in the humanities is the position as far as India is concerned as far as the Nobel prizes are concerned not only this year but for almost a half a century or more. The last being C V Raman and Rabindranath Tagore who were our own home-grown Nobel laureates. And do not bring in Chandrasekhar, Hargobind Khurana, Venky etc. since their work arena was not in India. Thus for all the pride that we have in our advancement, do we not have to retrospect whether we have as far as brain power and artistic ability is concerned gone backwards. Scientific studies have shown that lately humans are having smaller and smaller brains! That must be the case with Indians for whom this process is maybe somewhat accelerated which will then explain the Indian of the 2011 vintage, from whom we have been seeing some major gaffes!

Lok Pal Up In The Air

The Lok Pal bill is getting caught up with one-upmanship between the Anna Hazare team (A-team) and the Congress/UPA government. While the A-team is making a big mistake by getting political with the Anna Hazare plea not to vote for the Congress in the Hissar by-poll unless the Congress supports the Jana Lok Pal bill, the Congress is toying with conveying constitutional authority to the Lok Pal by amending the Constitution. The A-team by allowing itself to be drawn in the political cauldron is deviating from its undiluted stand to oppose corruption. The cracks in the A-team platform by siding for or against any party will be exploited by the opponents of the parties and colour the action of the A-team which will lead to the end of the Anna Hazare movement. Choosing Hissar was also an error since by asking people not to vote for the Congress the A-team will be indirectly thus siding with the Chautalas, known as one of the first families of corruption in Haryana. The A-team position thus is already shaky and the middle-class will further move away from them. As for the Congress party the shamelessness of politicians is to the fore here since by according constitutional authority to the Lok Pal and 'making it stronger than the Election Commission', we are only institutionalising corruption. It will be a sad day for Indians to be seen around the world as having a Corruption Commission which straightaway confirms that corruption is endemic in the Indian system. It is also in one sense legitimising corruption since the corrupt will believe that let us go ahead and take that bribe since it is one way to challenge the Corruption Commission while for the aam admi, he would lower his guard against corruption believing that in any case there is the Corruption Commission to take care of it. Thus in this race of whose proposal is better, the corruption issue is getting blatantly side-tracked. What was expected after the successful conclusion of Anna Hazare's fast in August was that the A-team would move more to the centre from its far right position on the Jana Lok Pal and the government would accept to bring more entities under the control of the Lok Pal and make the body's operation more effective. Instead of that we are confusing the issue again with the personalities involved rather than concentrate on making a strong Lok Pal.

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

VOX POPULI
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 81 Date: 08.10.2011
Contents:

1. Orienting Our Research & Malaria Eradication
2. The Liability Issue In Nuclear Power Plants
3. What Makes Manmohan Singh Tick?
4. PM's Empty Assurances On Safety At Kudankulam Atomic Power Plant
5. The Misconceived Afghan Treaty

Orienting Our Research & Malaria Eradication

Recently there was talk that for all India’s pride being one of the top scientific and engineering pool of talent of the world, acknowledged even by President Obama, there has not been a single contender for the Nobel Prize in the scientific disciplines who has been a home-grown Indian and working in Indian labs or Cos. since the Late C V Raman. This clearly puts our scientific and engineering establishment in the dock. The bane of scientific research and application engineering in this country has been two-fold. On one side they are hide-bound to existing tradition and work and refuse to think out-of-the-box which everyone will surprisingly say – Is it not the first thing about research? The second is the refusal to think breakthrough and think big. We will take a simple example of malaria control in the country. We have multi-disciplinary agencies working on combating malaria but not eradicating malaria. Nobody is expecting results overnight but we should be told in which direction they are working so that generally people can judge if that is the right track. We claim that in the life sciences that we have some of the best talent in the world. We also know that it is the female of the mosquito which bites and spreads the vector disease of malaria. Why we have not worked in the area of genetic control of limiting the number of female mosquitoes in the process of procreation is something no one can fathom. This while we specialize in killing female human babies while they are still in the womb and then through female infanticide, refusing health care, proper diet and living conditions for the majority of females in this country. What we do to human females, why can we not do for female mosquitoes? It was left to one of the labs in the Western world to announce a mechanism of genetic control by which a gene is implanted in a mosquito which resists the malaria parasite and therefore the mosquito not picking it up from the affected person, is unable to transmit to others through the process of biting. Similarly recently researchers in the West are spraying a poison on certain types of shrubs and flowers whose nectar are fed upon by the mosquitoes. This poison is safe for humans. The resultant effect is that the mosquitoes die with less transmission of any of the diseases that they act as carriers for like malaria. Why do none of these initiatives come out of our scientific research establishment in India which happens to be one of the countries severely affected by malaria?

The Liability Issue In Nuclear Power Plants

Hilary Clinton has said that the onus on moving forward on the Indo-US nuclear deal remains with India. The liability issue remains the major stumbling block in activating any of the agreements signed by India with many countries like the US, France etc. on initiating nuclear hardware supplies. Why should this be so? If the nuclear hardware suppliers are so sure of their equipment and can claim fail-safe operation, then what stops them from accepting the unlimited liability in case of any accident? If not, why should the citizens of India take the risk of nuclear accidents which the suppliers themselves are unwilling to take? And how is our PM giving his citizens assurances on the security of the nuclear plants which the suppliers are themselves unwilling to give? Is it because Indian lives are cheap? The latest on the Fukushima atomic power plant tragedy is that the Japanese government has put 360,000 children through thyroid testing suspecting that the radiation leakage would have affected the thyroid gland in these children, which happens to be one of the first to get affected in the event of radiation exposure. Has India done anything like this and also on such a scale even for the Bhopal gas tragedy? In India relief means announcing some monetary sum for which the people will have to run from pillar to post to get the money, that too after paying a cut to the officials and once the money runs out and the health problems persist, the access to the government authorities is cut off because they have ‘better’ things to do. Why do we continue to delude ourselves that the nuclear option is the only way to energy security for the country when we are absolutely ill equipped to deal with nuclear emergencies? Can energy security not be ensured by ‘greener’ plants that will use our own coal and hydel generation which is environment friendly apart from solar power in a ‘sunshine rich’ country like India?

What Makes Manmohan Singh Tick?

It has been variously debated in the media recently that the Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister who could do nothing wrong in his first term is being pilloried on almost every front in his second term. It has been said that the dual centres of power in the Congress party between Manmohan Singh in the PM’s office and Sonia Gandhi as the President hailed as a historic arrangement in the first term has been slowly unraveling in the second term, what with Rahul Gandhi being eased into the succession slowly but surely. Due to the inclusion of Rahul, the proverbial ‘teesra’ or ‘kabab me haddi’ it has been said that Manmohan Singh is relatively peeved and hence the inaction on almost every front and the embarrassments to the government and party in handling every exploding issue be it scam or otherwise in the last year or so which smacks of complete political ineptitude. This tends to be a simplistic analysis since the scenario of Rahul Gandhi coming in at some time or other was a given thing, known to Manmohan Singh from Day 1 and that is something one thinks does not bother the PM too much. However, it could be an issue that while in the first term of the UPA everything was turning hunky-dory with the economy moving on oiled wheels so to speak, there were less worries for Manmohan Singh on his personal competence as an economist. But in the second term of the UPA, partly because of the world economy emerging out of a crisis and its impact on India, things on the economic front has not so much been under adequate control of Manmohan Singh and his team. This could be the reason where the PM has been loosing much of his sleep and could possibly explain the relative inattention of Manmohan Singh in matters of governance. The succession of scams like the 2G or the CWG which are the Central scams have occurred because of the leadership like the PM or whomsoever not putting their foot down at the right time. This could be as said earlier of Manmohan Singh’s worry with the economy and additionally the scathing criticism that has been leveled at him time and again by the BJP and the Opposition. For a bureaucrat worried about non-performance in his basic discipline and then being made a pin cushion for all the barbs that the Opposition could throw at him, makes an essentially sincere and honest personality like Manmohan Singh to recede into his shell. Compounding this has been the health issues that have dogged both him and Sonia Gandhi, as has emerged now, which also explains the inattention to matters of governance in a timely manner. While we can sit and analyse these matters until kingdom come, it is not expected that the country should stumble like a bagatelle ball from one scam to another, one bungling to another and that is where Manmohan Singh essentially and the Congress leadership should take a decision one way or the other. The reason for some action is also demanded by the fact that the perception of a scam-tainted India is affecting world opinion related to FDI and investments into the country as also a general feeling not only abroad but also among industry leaders within the country of a decision-paralysis in government. Obviously India cannot allow to go too far with this kind of thing. Therefore it is time for Manmohan Singh to either get back into action and quickly or to vacate the chair and allow someone else to take the reins of the government and country. This advice which to a die-hard politician may not be very palatable should at least be acceptable to a competent professional like Manmohan Singh to serve national interest better.

PM's Empty Assurances On Safety At Kudankulam Atomic Power Plant

The Prime Minister has assured the agitating locals near the Kudankulam atomic power plant that the highest order of safety would be accorded to the plant. This is expected to allay their fears and with a concurrent request to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa for support, the PM expects to defuse the situation at the plant which was scheduled to go in for trials sometime last month. But it is for the people to assess what the PM's assurance is worth. An example for this could be that while visiting the injured of the July 2011 blasts in Mumbai, he had said that steps would be taken that such attacks would not be allowed to happen again. These are meaningless assurances without any basis or supporting action which was proved by the Delhi High Court blast just two months later. But this time the PM said that it was a dastardly attack and that we would not bow down to terror. Naturally he could not say again that such attacks would never happen! In the same manner are the assurances being given for the Kudankulam atomic power plant by the PM without understanding the scope and extent of the tragedy that could happen. The PM in fact should be asked what sort of long term medical support and health rehabilitation measures have been made available to the terror blast victims in Mumbai which has seen three really major terror attacks the bomb blasts post-Babri Masjid demolition - 1992, the train blasts - 2007 thereafter and the 26/11 attacks on the South Mumbai hotels. People are still suffering with debilitating injuries which preclude them returning back to their normal occupations and the money given as assistance is just not enough to pay their medical bills. This is just in Mumbai while in every city that has seen terror attacks, the story is similar. And we are not even talking of the Bhopal gas tragedy victims where people continue to silently suffer inspite of multi-speciality hospitals being built for them that do not accord them treatment but prefer to treat more affluent people on payment. Any nuclear tragedy will be akin to the Bhopal gas tragedy where people will not even know that they are dying in the event of an accident and the long term health issues of the victims is something that India is just not geared for. The PM's safety assurances are also hollow if you look at these in the light of the Fukushima nuclear plant tragedy in Japan where inspite of tsunami walls being built near the coast the tidal waves consequent of the earthquake were much higher which simply swept adjacent villages and towns away and inundated the nuclear power plant at Fukushima. Even TEPCO the Co. operating the Fukushima atomic power plant has admitted that they did not anticipate that all three power back-ups for the plant would fail simultaneously which was the reason why the plant went close to meltdown and the Co. was unable to handle any coherent measures to address the accident when the crisis at the plant was at its peak. Since the tragedy at Fukushima there have been radiation leakages in the surrounding areas which has polluted water, vegetation and livestock in the area and the local people have been upset that they have not been truthfully informed of the radiation levels and the dangers by the Co. and the Japanese government. This has led to a backlash against any new power plants or existing plant expansions in the nuclear area. Activists have also been disgusted of the authorities doubletalk on safety issues that they have thrown a challenge to the Japanese government that if they think nuclear power plants are safe, then they should build one in Tokyo. In the same way, the Indian government should be challenged to build one in Delhi adjacent to Rasthrapati Bhawan, Parliament, 7 Race Course Road and 10, Janpath to prove to the nation that the PM is not giving empty assurances. That is the only way to fo for nuclear power plants in the future which may sound a very plausible option as far as energy security goes but is very scary in safety terms.

The Misconceived Afghan Treaty

The Indo-Afghan treaty or pact or call it whatever that has been signed during President Hamid Karzai’s recent visit to Delhi is something which needlessly draws us into the maelstrom of terror that perpetuates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is somewhat akin to the IPKF (India Peace Keeping Force) initiative that many years ago, India took for Sri Lanka in trying to rid the island of the LTTE and for which India became to this day sworn enemies of the LTTE and the majority of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka and also alienated some of the Tamils in India. It also resulted in the assassination of one of the Prime Ministers of India, Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE. Neither was this initiative with Sri Lanka groundbreaking in India’s relations with that country which continue to be marked by indifference as it was before the IPKF initiative. Thus by helping to train the Afghan police force and the Afghan army. India is picking up more enemies than friends. The entire terror networks active in Afghanistan will become sworn enemies of India and all things Indian like the Tamils and the LTTE in Sri Lanka and we will have another dangerous terror grouping to reckon with. If India thinks that it will get any leverage for it with Pakistan, our policy think-tank in the India foreign office is sadly mistaken since it will make Pakistan more active in stimulating more terror attacks in India. The earlier ISI chief is said to have boasted of 300 sleeper terror cells in India, and if our Home Minister has intervened(?) as claimed in 50 during his recent speech at the security meeting of all India police chiefs, there are still another 250 we have to reckon with and who can hit us at will. We have not been able to unravel, stop, interdict and/or investigate, inspite of our Home Minister’s claims, of any of the terror attacks on unsuspecting and innocent Indian civilians to this date, we are now adding the Afghan flavour to it. You should consider the above logic with regard to the current state of our relations with our neighbours. Pakistan and China have always been against us and with each other whenever it comes to being against India. While Pakistan deliberately incites and promotes terror inside India by indulging in cross-border terrorism and activation of sleeper cells in the country, China keeps our border disputes alive by regular intrusions in the swathe of the shared boundary from Arunachal Pradesh to Siachen. Nepal with whom we have an open border and a country that should have been firmly behind India considering the support its people and economy have gotten from India over the years has with the Maoist revolution in that country and with the elimination of the monarchy, become inimical to India. As for Bangladesh it is a blow hot – blow cold relationship depending on which party is in power and lately there have been terror elements like the HUJI which have got support from Bangladesh interests. The country had continued to give shelter to the separatist movements like the ULFA though with the current government in power in Bangladesh, there is a thaw and the likelihood of the ULFA leaders being repatriated to India and the assurance that Bangladesh would not allow its land to be used for any separatist movements against India. Thus we have enough and more problems with our existing neighbours without now asking the Afghans to come to the table. Thus it has been unwise to have got into any pacts with Afghanistan relating to the police and the army. Humanitarian help and that relating to health and education is acceptable but nothing more. Even the attempt to exploit Afghan iron ore and hydrocarbon deposits with Indian help is likely not to get any good results. When we have enough and more iron ore, which we are not able to exploit and use and have also lately been thinking of putting a ban on its export, where is the need to go into the inhospitable terrain of Afghanistan and extract iron ore. The same goes for the hydrocarbon deposits that Afghanistan is supposed to have. Getting involved in these two areas will also add to fuelling the ire against India by both Pakistan and China which as said earlier we are needlessly attracting when apart from the problems with our neighbours as recounted above, we have so many domestic issues on our hands. The India government has its plate full and let it make it a little bit easy before adding more problems to it. At that time with the prevailing anarchy prevailing in Pakistan, it would be best to take the initiative to directly de-stabilise that country which in any case does not need much help to do that, given the situation there now, to blow itself up on its own. At least in that way, we would have got rid of Enemy No. 1 on India’s list.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 80
Date: 01.10.2011

Contents:

1. A Little Sensibility, Please
2. Mining Rapes Goa
3. Poverty Indices Et Al
4. Break The Manipur Bandh
5. PM – PC: The Congress and UPA's Blue-Eyed Boys
6. Denial Is Becoming The Bane Of The Congress Party & The UPA-2 Government

7. Break The Manipur Bandh

A Little Sensibility, Please

One wonders if many have noticed that during the last days of Anna Hazare’s fast in August 2011, the TV coverage showed the President and the PM’s iftar parties. Also the clip showing the all party meeting convened by the PM to discuss the Jana Lok Pal had at the beginning, everyone of the senior MP’s including the Left MP’s reaching out for the snacks presumably cashews and munching away and not in the least bothered about the TV cameras. Both these TV clips showed the crass attitude of our senior leaders gorging away when a 74 year old man along with many others supporting him all over India going into their 9th or 10th day of fast. It is an issue of sensibility where we do not have to blatantly portray the contrasts between someone fasting for a cause and our senior political leadership assembled like at the all-party meeting to discuss that same issue stuffing themselves on snacks. The least that could have been done by our senior leaders was to have some patience and reach out for the cashews after the TV media have gone out of the room. Even this modicum of decent behaviour, do we have to teach them? As for the iftar parties, no one is suggesting that you should not hold them Hold them by all means but considering the public sentiment prevailing in the country then, a ban could have been put on the TV media from covering the parties.

Mining Rapes Goa

The illegal mining scandals arising out of ‘irregularities’ has hit Goa also with the Justice Shah commission visiting the State and people waiting with bated breath for the report since on that the fate of the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat will depend since it has been reported that he is complicit in many of the mining scams considering that he has hung on to the post of Mining Minister for quite a while now. In overall terms, mining has ravaged Goa and if you can ban mining activity in Bellary, Tumkur and Chitradurga, you can definitely ban it in Goa. The damage to the environment, the excessive ore truck traffic through village roads causing health problems and innumerable accidents where innocent local lives are lost including that of school children has brought the issue of mining to the forefront. If mining is allowed to continue in Goa then it will not be long before the entire population will be compressed into a ten kilometer strip along the beach since the hinterland will become completely uninhabitable. Just last year it is reported that 54 million metric tonnes of ore was exported from Goa primarily iron ore with some manganese and other minerals. With Goa stepping into the 50th year of Liberation and mining having been continued in the State from Portuguese occupation times, if at a conservative average you take 10 million metric tonnes of ore being exported every year for the last 50 years, you have 500 million metric tonnes of Goa being sent abroad! The closer to the truth would be 20 million metric tonnes of ore being exported, which would put over the last 50 years a ‘billion’ tonnes of Goa having been sent abroad. In Goa we have this sentimental phrase – Amchem Goye – meaning My Goa, to which one wonders how people reconcile with their Goa being dug, excavated, torn, ripped, and then dumped on trucks and barges and sent abroad. Why this mining activity cannot be stopped by local popular intervention is something that is not understood. It is time to do that and the time for it is – NOW.

Poverty Indices Et Al

The Planning Commission coming out with the guidelines of poverty to be below those who can afford to spend Rs. 32/- a day in urban areas and Rs. 26/- a day in rural areas is truly representative of the age old saying that if you shut yourself up in ivory towers you do not get wind of what is the ground reality. These indices for poverty are clearly a sham and show no application of mind. In one sense, we could possibly say that such figures could be linked to the mind set of inflation that has been the bane of this government for the last two years or more. And therefore with everything going up there has been a general tendency to deflate the figures. This tendency was probably applied across the board even to the poverty indices and only after they raised a clamour did the concerned officials in the Planning Commission realise their folly. In fact in inflationary times the indices should have normally been revised upward with the falling purchasing power of the Rupee. This makes one recall our Finance Minister while replying to a debate on inflation in Parliament sometime last year when he reeled off prices for general commodities which were typically 50-60% of what was prevailing then in the market leading people to wonder which India the FM was relating to. If queried more to tell us which shop these items were available so that we could all go and buy from there, he would have realised his mistake and then promptly blamed the concerned under-secretary for giving him wrong data. On the poverty indices the Dy Chairman of the Planning Commission on a visit to Beijing has responded that the figures given as above are correct and that is how they calculate the poverty indices. Moreover these figures were from the Tendulkar report thus absolving himself from all responsibility and the need to check if their method of computation was at all wrong and correct it if required. These incidents are reflective of the fact that it is rarely that our officials act with any sense of responsibility and the seniormost among them are more taken up with the importance of their position and their image in the media. In that context Montek Singh Ahluwalia instead of concentrating on his job was intent on starting a turf war with Nandan Nilekani, the head of the UIDAI project who reports directly to the Prime Minister, blaming the UIDAI even though on paper being attached to the Planning Commission not following the reporting structure and maintaining the checks and balances as applicable to government departments with respect to their purchases. Whether his criticism of the UIDAI was valid or not is another matter but shows his primary assignment of work priorities. In fact consistent with idea of controlling budget deficits and having a lean government it would be the fitness of things to say that the Planning Commission has outlived its utility and should be disbanded forthwith. The professionals in the Planning Commission of various disciplines can be moved to the relevant ministries in the government to make them more resourceful and thus more responsible for their activities. Also the Planning Commission has become generally a roost for those who have retired from government service and such people can be sent back home to potter around their gardens in peace. Postscript: Montek Singh Ahluwalia at a press conference convened to explain the basis for the poverty indices that the Planning Commission had submitted in an affidavit to the Supreme Court did not clarify the methodology of arriving at these figures and adding insult to injury said that these figures would not be used for determining any measures relating to poverty alleviation. So what are these something for the Supreme Court to play footsie with? Is the Planning Commission playing the fool with the Supreme Court? Moreover true to its colours the government has again said something that it never meant. And again true to its tying itself up in knots it will have all kind of poverty indices: the Tendulkar Committee’s, the NAC’s, Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s or the Planning Commission’s, the Finance Ministry’s and then the individual opinions like Sharad Pawar’s, Lallu Yadav’s, Manmohan Singh’s. So when it comes to outlining any measures relating to poverty they can pick from any of these and then claim that they are completely confused!

Break The Manipur Bandh

Manipur has been cut off by road from the rest of the country for 62 days now with the Kuki tribes closing off the only national highway that connects the State with the rest of the North East to support their demand for a separate district for them. As reported on TV news, petrol is being sold at Rs. 140/- a litre, a LPG cylinder refill costs Rs. 2000/- and one tomato costs Rs. 10/-. These are rather dramatic but sad figures and speaks of the complete neglect that Delhi has for the North East States. Would the Centre have allowed this situation to carry on to such an extent in any other part of the country? No, like we see in the Telengana agitation going into its 10th day efforts are on to negotiate and end the impasse. But this never happens in the North East States which remain neglected both for development and resolving such contentious issues. This neglect remains the root cause of the separatist movements and insurgency in that part of the country. But for those who have traveled in the region will tell you that the region is as beautiful as Kashmir and has a tremendous amount of tourism potential if the right investments are made in infrastructural facilities. In fact Manipur can be called the Scotland of India with its lakes and pleasant temperature all the year round. Blocking off the national highway has been the standard strategy used by protestors be it the insurgents or local activists which needs to be broken since it is the local people who suffer. Why the Central Govt. does not look at breaking the siege by airlifting all necessities into Imphal by using our Air Force cargo planes like the newly acquired C-130 Hercules aircraft. Once this is done and there is no longer a shortage of commodities and life returns to normal in Manipur, the protestors will be forced to come to the negotiating table and arrive at a reasonable solution. As for the Centre, this will be maybe a one time cost rather than be driven up a pole each time there is some problem issue that becomes difficult to resolve. The North East is a remote place where logistics is a challenge and therefore being an out-of-the-box place requires an out-of-the-box solution. Moreover just the sight of the big bird – C130 landing at Imphal airport will make the protestors shaky. Our government should realize that there is an imagination aspect to negotiations and conflict resolution. Does the Centre have any more thinking caps left or are they all being used up for resolving the petty squabbles between ministers in this sordid government.

PM – PC: The Congress and UPA's Blue-Eyed Boys

The PM – PC kiss and make-up story was enacted in front of the media yesterday (29th) evening in Delhi. For two stalwarts of the Congress party to come out like this and do this play-acting must have been in the least embarrassing. But both have much to thank the Congress party and particularly Sonia Gandhi on how these two are treated preferentially when it comes to any matters that come up against them. Some time back one of the senior functionaries of SEBI, who has since retired, blew the whistle on Pranab Mukherjee having shown some untoward favours to a few Cos. Not only was this complaint completely disregarded but the credibility of the individual was severely dented. It was akin to taking away the whistle from the whistle-blower or in naval terms, he was simply blown out of the water. P Chidambaran’s value has apart from other instances been established in the recent 25th March 2011 note from the Finance Ministry in the 2G matter, where it has been proved that the Minister is more important than the revenue he sacrificed for the country by not insisting that the spectrum be auctioned. This is how the Congress and the UPA functions and that is, the country be damned, our blue-eyed boys have to be mollycoddled and protected from the marauding Opposition. In any case Chidambaran’s matter is not closed since we will have to wait and see what the court advises in the matter. By rights it should pass a severe reprimand on Chidambaran and in all fairness he should then resign.

Denial Is Becoming The Bane Of The Congress Party & The UPA-2 Government

Again the denial syndrome is coming to the fore in the Congress with regard to the note from the Finance Ministry to the Cabinet Secretariat on the 2G.scam. Whether it is a record of the background of the 2G pricing or not, in one aspect it has been honest in stating that the then Finance Minister could have recommended for auction of the licences. Thus P Chidambaran has been delinquent on this aspect. This is not a criminal offence and for which he need not go to jail but it clearly shows that the Finance Minister did not measure up to the demands of his office of which the primary duty was to ensure that revenue to the exchequer is maximized. Whether his negligence or call it dereliction of duty, was as once the PM had said of the ‘compulsions of coalition functioning’ is something that can be debated. But one thing is certain that P Chidambaran is not a suckling babe not to know that A Raja would go in for the laid down policy of first come-first served (FCFS) and then take the money on the side. Therefore the Congress taking the position that the policy was followed is not enough since at such high levels of officialdom we do expect people to behave more than a petty accountant. Thus there is no point in the Congress contesting the issue or the PM saying that he has ‘full confidence’ in P Chidambaran or how redoubtable a professional is the man which is being put out by other Congress leaders, but cutting to the bone, the basic question is did he do the job assigned to him properly? Clearly he did not and therefore P Chidambaran should resign. This will simplify the agony for the Congress and in fact give them due credit for recognizing the situation for what it is and for having taken the correct action. As we have seen during the negotiations with Anna Hazare during his fast some people in the Congress and the UPA government are horrified that RTI is being used to target the government and from official documents obtained through this mechanism play up the different viewpoints in any issue as dissent among Cabinet Ministers and the party. Particularly Veerappa Moily’s comment on this is very disappointing since is he not able to read the writing on the wall? That from now on all governments should learn to live with an ‘open’ system of governance where they will have to govern with most things being in the public domain except maybe for issues of national security. Gone are the days of secrecy and playing with your cards held close to your chest and information being used as knowledge to extract privilege and wealth. This is thus a change in our democracy which we should recognize as moving to the next level where politicians will be expected to develop new skills which they hitherto never needed and which is respecting the people’s voice and learning to be accountable.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 79 Date: 24.09.2011

Contents:

1. Why F1 & Now Ice-Hockey In India
2. Say No To Nuclear Power
3. Fighting Corruption That Is Within

Why F1 & Now Ice-Hockey In India

We are likely to have the first F1 motor-racing event in the country sometime soon at the newly laid track near Delhi. Is it not time to ask whether these kind of events which are incongruous with the real India should at all be promoted in the country? To whom do these events cater for? Even for the race-track it has been reported that land has been taken away from the villagers at a pittance and now the facilities have been segregated from the surroundings with the villagers being intimidated even if they come near the boundary fencing for their normal activities like grazing livestock etc. The villagers will also not benefit in terms of jobs from the race-track since they are ‘obviously not qualified’ for any of the work required at the facilities except the most menial. Why these islands of gated communities and facilities should come up in India which accentuate the divide between the haves and have-nots is not understood? It is time to change and even now stop the F1 race from taking place. In a similar report sometime last week there was a press report that actor Akshay Kumar has given close to US$500K to set up an ice-hockey arena in the country to some developer from abroad. This report was close on the heels of the Indian hockey team coming back after winning the Asian hockey title for which Hockey India (HI) announced a measly prize of Rs. 25,000/- to each player which they rightfully refused. The Central Sports Minister Maken at least made amends by offering a separate prize money of Rs. 1.5 Lakhs per player which was somewhat reasonable. Compare this with the money being offered to ice-hockey by the actor which as a sport does not match the weather conditions in the country and will unnecessarily need a high investment in a separate infrastructure to maintain the ice-rinks for the game. Why the actor could not offer the same money to our hockey team which has been lately in a shambles but with still some bright chinks of achievement now and then showing with the above title win recently? If the same kind of money is put in hockey we can possibly bring back the glory days of Indian hockey all over again. Will we get our priorities right as far as sport promotion in this country is concerned since we already have made a big mistake in cricket by promoting in a big way the 20 overs format which led to the recent debacle in England in the longer versions of the game? Our players could not even hold a bat straight after being tested by pace and swing on some lively wickets in Old Blighty.

Say No To Nuclear Power

We have these protests against the nuclear plants hotting up all over India with Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu hitting the headlines recently where the Russian collaborated nuclear power plant was to go on stream shortly. The fear here has been the safety aspect of the plant and its impact on the environment particularly sea water which has the fisherfolk up in arms for fear of their continued livelihood. The protest has been diffused somewhat with the intervention of Jayalalithaa but it is likely that the Tamil Nadu Assembly is likely to pass a resolution condemning nuclear plants because of their safety risks particularly after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The highlight of the Koodankulam protest was the Central Minister Narainswamy specially deputed by the PM to talk to the protestors was not given a proper hearing when he reached the site. The moral of the story is that people have more faith in local leaders than those deputed from the Centre which has been the trend in the last few months. It is not only Koodankulam where the protests have occurred but all over the locations where nuclear power plants are proposed like in Maharasthra, Gujarat, Haryana and lately in Uttar Pradesh. The common thread in all these protests has been the dangers that these nuclear power plants pose to the local population coupled with other specific local issues like acquisition of fertile land and wherever the plants are located along the coast the pollution of sea water and its impact on local fishing. Moreover most of the plants proposed are at earthquake risk-prone areas and in spite of the government assuring the people that this is being taken care of in the design to make the core reactors and other facilities earthquake proof with the Fukushima disaster at the back of their minds, the government’s assurances are falling on deaf ears. It is more so because of the government’s track record in handling major disasters and terror attacks being dismal causing a serious erosion of their credibility. The government is known to throw up their hands in the event of a disaster and then say that they will equip themselves better and correct themselves in the next disaster while at the same time assuring that they will try and avoid a recurrence, but the problem is that common citizens refuse to believe them any more. The reason for this is with the government as has been the example after the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai it has been seen that they neither equip themselves or the leadership is changed who claim relief and seek another chance since they were not then there little realizing that the aam admi is the common denominator who is at the receiving end of the disaster. Thus making a separate Nuclear Safety Board will have no effect since they also swim in the same sea of Indian bureaucratic red-tape and sleaze. At least natural disasters and terror attacks are visible threats which can be seen to take counter-measures and relief but a nuclear disaster is something that cannot be seen and is somewhat akin to the Union Carbide gas tragedy in Bhopal where people will die where they are without knowing what killed them and those that survive will suffer deleterious medical effects for generations. Indian society is just not geared to handle and support relief for tragedies like a nuclear disaster and the best option is therefore to avoid nuclear power generation itself. This has been done by Germany followed by Italy in Europe and why we cannot pursue the same path is something which is not understandable particularly when India is more highly populated than these countries and the risks are therefore that much higher in the event of a nuclear accident. Talking about accidents the Indian nuclear body has been less than open in coming out with details on accidents in the past and has again had an accident recently at the Rana Pratap Sagar plant and talking of France from where the Areva reactors are likely to come for the plant near Ratnagiri in Maharasthra, has had a major accident in a plant near Nice. Even in Japan the expansion of some of the nuclear plants has been held up because of local protests fearing a Fukushima-like disaster and there is every possibility that Japan also will eschew nuclear power generation in the long run. Thus why should India pursue these plants and all along our coasts putting our entire coastline and the population living there at risk is something which is unfathomable.

Below is given - The Japanese Viewpoint on Nuclear Power as voiced by Norimutsu Onishi, an author writing in an article appeared in early July 2011 in the New York Times – Japan’s Nuclear Faith Was Built On Fantasy, says:

1. Over several decades, Japan’s nuclear establishment has devoted vast resources to persuade the Japanese public of the safety and necessity of nuclear power. The result was the widespread belief that Japan’s nuclear power plants were absolutely safe. Japan singlemindedly pursued nuclear power even as Western nations distanced themselves from it.
2. The belief helps explain why in the only nation to have been attacked with atomic bombs, the Japanese acceptance of nuclear plants was so strong that the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl barely registered. Even with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis, the reaction against nuclear power has been much stronger in Europe and America than in Japan.
3. Some Japanese are digging deep into the national psyche and examining a national propensity to embrace a belief now widely seen as irrational. Because of this widespread belief in Japanese plants absolute safety, plant operators and nuclear regulators failed to adopt proper safety measures and advances in technology. A senior Japanese government official comments – ‘In Japan we have something called the ‘safety myth’. There was an unreasonable overconfidence in the technology of Japan’s nuclear power generation.’
4. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis, what became clear was that Japan lacked some of the basic hardware to respond to a nuclear crisis.


The latest on the anti-nuclear protests in Japan is that the protestors have challenged the Japanese government to build a nuclear power plant in Tokyo if they are so sure that there are no risks related to safety. The Japanese government is yet to respond to this challenge.

Fighting Corruption That Is Within

The extent that corruption has got ingrained into the Indian psyche and society is given by the incident where the Karnataka Lok Ayukta Patil, the judge who succeeded Santosh Hegde, has submitted his resignation not able to withstand the ‘malicious’ slander that vested interests have been indulging in with regard to purchases of two plots by him and his family in Bangalore city. Without going into the details of the case, this incident is representative of many such cases where some things which are beyond the regular pale of the law are considered ‘acceptable’ in our society because ‘everybody does it’. No one expects any criticism in such cases and if it does come, then it is termed unfair. This is the extent of permissiveness on corruption that pervades our society. Among the various sectors of society the extent of permissiveness will vary like it is more when it comes to businessmen who look at corruption as a cost in the process of doing business and would rather buy peace than act as martyrs to be burnt at the stake of puritanical thinking by not paying the bribe. The permissiveness among those who are in the entertainment industry is further relaxed since a large part of their income is in black money and their compulsions are as they say – Who has the time to think about all this? The approach here is to throw some bread at the barking dogs which will at least shut their mouths. And in any case we can afford it. In middle class households which are into service either with the government or in the private sector nobody is averse to getting some income over the top, generally called ‘oopri aamdani’. In fact in northern India IAS or Central service like IRS grooms were preferred sometime back and maybe even now because the ‘oopri aamdani’ more than made up for the low salaries prevailing then. Now that the 6th Pay Commission has revised salaries to more comfortable levels the ‘oopri aamdani’ stays. Thus whoever thought that revision of government officials salaries would reduce corruption has been proved wrong since the ‘oopri aamdani’ remains constant. It would have been better to cut salaries to save the government some money in which case the ‘oopri aamdani’ would have played a more major role in government officials households in meeting home budgets An example of this was that recently a Dy. Commissioner of the BMC, Mumbai’s municipal body was caught while receiving a bribe which was intended to speed up payment of contractor’s bills. And you will understand that he was not the least bothered about the climate of corruption awareness that Anna Hazare had built up recently. Thus in the private sector those involved in the purchase, personnel and project departments are the ones who receive ‘oopri aamdani’ where the cut goes right up to the top in what are called baniya Cos. where doing business the ‘black’ way is more profitable than the legal way. Thus we in our personal lives have to say no to corruption and not fall to the temptation of taking the easy way out. This is something which is very difficult to do particularly like they say the fact that we pay bribes has got ingrained into our psyche so much over generations that we are intolerant of the hassle and delay in getting our work done by not paying the speed money. Further examples of different ways of corruption is when you create projects by underestimating the cost for reasons of showing economic viability or to meet current budgetary guidelines knowing full well that the project is bound to get delayed and there will surely be thus cost escalations which are the hunting grounds to make more money from contractors and the like. Also while talking of illegal mining which has been haunting Goa also, a senior local Congress functionary has sais that none of the Congressmen in the State are involved in ‘illegal’ mining but there could be ‘irregularities’ in their mining activities. This was rebutted the very next day by Justice Santhosh Hegde who was traveling in the State that there is nothing like ‘irregularities’ and ‘illegalities’ since everything is ultimately ‘illegal’ mining. This also teaches us a lesson oft-repeated that the lexicon or dictionaries are different and they will spend hours splitting hairs between the semantics of ‘irregularities’ and ‘illegalities’, full well realizing that one leads to the other and vice versa. So following Anna Hazare’s ideals on corruption are not easy to attain and it will also not be very simple to eliminate corruption completely from Indian society or even to bring it to manageable proportions.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 78
Date: 17.09.2011


Contents:

1. Anna Hazare Oiling The Wheels Of Governance
2. Black Money ‘Kissa’ 2
3. Is the Home Minister Lying?
4. Anna Hazare Making Govt. See Reality
5. Inflation Is like Kite Flying
6. Back of Hand Election Calculation for Proving Vote Bank Influence


Anna Hazare Oiling The Wheels Of Governance

Over the last week or so we have seen many of the initiatives being taken by the Delhi government as also the Centre to tackle corruption and speed up governance. These include the setting of time deadlines for Delhi government departments for performance with concurrent punishment for delays. Same day driving licence is also promised. Whether all this will actually work or again get lost with our inventive bureaucracy finding ways around adhering to these deadlines, only time will tell? This is valid skepticism given the experience in India that any citizen has had. But the important thing is that at least a start has been made and maybe we will improve as we go along or all these programs will also fall by the wayside as the other measures have done in the past. The problem is that we in India can make wonderful plans but we do not see how these will work actually on the ground and the bigger problem is that as time passes by there is no agency to track whether the measures are functioning as intended since more often than not the senior officials tend to remain in their shell and refuse to take their subordinates to task for non-performance. Maybe it is time we looked at external audit of government schemes by NGO’s or CA’s so that things remain on course and the aam admi is guaranteed of facilities over time. An example of a problem related to this is the recent advice from the Centre that considering the under recoveries in LPG each family will be limited to 4-6 cylinders in a year at the subsidised price and for extra cylinders they will have to then pay the full recovery price of just above Rs. 650/-. Will this at all work? Definitely not since with every dual pricing you will engender black-marketing. These kind of schemes are manna from heaven for the dealers in the commodity since he will always suppress the lower priced supply saying no stock and that you have to buy at full price and for those unlikely people who do not use even the 4-6 cylinders per year, the unutilized cylinders will be black-marketed at the full price by the dealer. Why the government does not announce a graded price increase for the LPG cylinder every six months or annually so that at the end of 3-4 years the full recovery on the cylinder is targeted, is something that cannot be understood. Why resort to these ‘fancy footwork’ schemes which sound great but are impossible to implement? Again the Centre to show that it is seized of corruption and is duty bound to tackle it has for the first time got a report expedited out of EGOM just constituted in last January and announced that discretionary powers of legislators for allotting LPG dealerships, allotment of petrol pumps etc. is being withdrawn. At the same time the government is fast tracking the permissions to allow government officials to be brought to trial for corruption or whatever. The fact that the EGOM has put out a recommendation so quickly is something that is extraordinary since normally such committees continue to deliberate until the issue is dead. We also need to try and see whether Anna Hazare and his team have been responsible for our governments to spruce up their act and if it is only to whitewash their image that is also to be welcomed. These are some of the advantages in having a civil movement that the A-team has launched that incumbent governments see a need to respond to aam admi demands. However, there is one aspect which Anna Hazare himself and his team will have to consider and that is a moderation in their public statements. In the cash-for-votes scam Anna Hazare’s comment was that all those MP’s who take money should be hanged and then in a TV interview he said gherao MP’s houses who do not support the Jana Lok Bill and stop them from leaving or entering their houses. Gherao is OK but no element of coercion should be brought into any agitation which is stated to be peaceable and Gandhian and more so in a democracy. These statements are all acceptable to garner publicity but if the A-team continues to do this they will loose the sympathies and support of the educated middle-class. Moderation from all sides and sincere action is required from everybody to support a vibrant democracy.

Black Money ‘Kissa’ 2

The latest on the black money issue abroad vis a vis the Swiss government and the banking associations agreement with the US and the European nations to release information and/or tax whatever money held by them and proven illegal by the nation whose citizens are holding the accounts in Swiss banks is that the Swiss authorities are responding. On the latter aspect our Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) while replying to questions as to why India cannot do the same as UK & Germany and ask the Swiss government to tax the amounts held by Indians with them @ 30% and remit the same to India, said that the European nations have their own problem of low growth and recessionary trends in their economies and to buoy tax revenues they need this Swiss bank tax infusion to balance their budgets. Is the situation any way different with our government? We are also on a deficit budget with the government at their wits end on how to control the deficit and any additional resources coming in by way of taxing the illegal money in the Swiss banks would surely be more than welcome. This kind of a crass response from the Chairman, CBDT clearly implies this government’s disinclination to pursue this money. The Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherji while responding to a TV interview also said that the DTAA’s are being signed with a ‘host of countries’ and there are ‘many’ implications about this matter for which ‘many’ committees have been formed to ‘look into’ the matter and the important thing is that the Swiss government has ‘not ratified’ the treaty with India on this yet to have this program roll! Which putting it all in a nutshell means that we are not going to do anything about it. This is the obtuse way with which our government deals with critical matters and bluffs us, the common citizens of India. The same issue in relation with the US is that the DTAA between them and the Swiss government has also not been ratified but inspite of this the US has got both the Swiss banks and the government to accede to their requests. The matter started with first UBS, then with Credit Suisse and another nine smaller Swiss banks which have all fallen in line of transmitting the information as requested by the US so that the account holders resident in the US can be tackled legally. The only requirement being that the US needed to prove to the satisfaction of the Swiss banks and the government that the money held by them of US citizens was illegal. Getting the Swiss authorities to freeze the money with them in the accounts and stop its transfer as also every year to transmit 30% as tax on it to India may be a better way to handle this resource rather than offer a Voluntary Disclosure Scheme (VDS) as being thought of now since with the VDS we will get only around 30% when the money is declared and nothing afterwards while the Swiss tax scheme is better since we will have a continuous revenue stream of the tax to India. So the situation simply put is that – Where there is will, there is a way. With the Indian government there is actually no will and therefore there is no way.

Is the Home Minister Lying?

We have yet another low intensity blast at Agra which the law enforcement authorities are chary of calling it a terror strike since they are already overloaded with opprobrium on the number of terror strikes which they have been unable to get to the bottom of and also to stop any further strikes. These go around the country like a game of musical chairs but our government is unable to find out who is playing the tune. The Home Minister continues to confuse himself, the common people, the State Governments and the Centre in whatever he says relating to policy. His common rejoinder when reminded about his disjointed comments, is that he has been misunderstood. At that rate, he must be one of the most misunderstood persons in this country. Examples of this behaviour by P Chidambaran are in the recent meeting of the sixty odd Maoist affected districts where he said Naxalism is a State problem while the PM sometime back had said that it is a serious national problem. Why is the government, speaking in two voices? Or is it the Home Minister speaking in two voices? Unless on a serious issue our leadership has a clear understanding, then one is afraid that they may not be able to do much to rswolve the problem. Then later in the meeting for security in that week of the nation’s police force he said that there have been 50 terror cases relating to the Indian Mujaheedin (IM) which had been stopped from happening by the action of the law enforcement agencies and the people involved had been arrested. Now none of these cases had been reported in the press anytime in the recent past and also if such a strong contingent of the IM was with our police then why have they not been able to break the IM network in India or even pursue investigation of the cases on terror that have actually taken place. For the many terror attacks that have happened our law enforcement agencies have not been able to crack even a single one and wherever they have arrested any of the terrorists it has been the situation of one step forward and two steps backward. Either the wrong people have been arrested or the police have been barking up the wrong tree. Thus our Home Minister as said earlier has been confusing himself as also the rest of the country. His favourite penchant currently is to talk about home grown terrorism without realizing that whatever be the brand of terrorism, it kills our innocent people whom he is morally bound to protect by virtue of holding office. Thus one has but to come to the conclusion that the Home Minister has been lying, to get himself off the hook of non-performance and delinquency on the job. We also do not want a confused Home Minister and if he is unable to sort out his ‘murku’ – the Catherine wheel crispy, mind, then it is time for him to go.

Anna Hazare Making Govt. See Reality

Anna Hazare’s agitation has pulled off the mask from many of the faces of the Congress party and this UPA government leaving them exposed. Some of the milder faces in the Cabinet like Salman Khurshid have had their rough side brought out in the open which was very apparent in his exasperation with the media towards the end of the 2nd fast of Anna Hazare that ended August 2011. Among the others whose fangs have been clearly exposed are Kapil Sibal and P Chidamabaran whose inability to make proper tactics and strategy very apparent while at the same time their compulsive tendency to bluff the people of this country has been laid bare. Pranab Mukherji always the ‘unwilling’ mediator has been horrified as a Bengali ‘bhadralok’ about the lack of respect that the A-team has shown to ministers and officialdom and because of that his ‘pout’ has been enlarging. The zenith of that hurt facial expansion was while responding to the A-team charges on the 25th August expressed to the media that the government has gone back on their acceptance of the three primary demands of the A-team at that time and that the government in contrast to their conciliatory or amiable manner on the previous day was dealing with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude. Pranab Mukherji was at pains to express himself through the pout that enveloped his complete face that there was no such thing. Similarly Narainswamy the Parliamentary Affairs Minister was at various times, shocked, aghast and in reactions expressed that bordered on interpretations akin to blasphemy committed by the A-team in their manner of negotiation with the government where the previously thought sacred pillars of office were being unceremoniously pulled down. The Congress party and this government has realized by now that it cannot continue in this manner by isolating themselves from the people of this country in their boarded up bungalows and behind layers of security. They are gradually recognising that government has to reach out to the people and listen to the feedback. We hope that this approach sustains.

Inflation Is like Kite Flying

Kite flying is an exhilarating pastime. The higher the kite soars on an occasional gust of wind, the spirit of the handler also soars. It is also a no-risk sport and relatively lo-cost. Maybe for that reason there is a phrase that is used – like in ‘kite flying’, which means claiming something without basis or just to see how far the bluff can be carried out. Thus our UPA government has been flying the inflation kite for close to three years now watching prices soar and soar. They have no clues on how to control the kite and keep telling us that next March (which March no one knows?) or in another six months knowing full well that as the prices keep going up the public will be more and more busy in fending for their daily lives and not so much concerned about government comments. The RBI akin to the kite flyer has in the last three years jigged interest rates some fifteen times which is as we all know is what is required to control the kite to rise higher and to counteract the buffeting crosswinds. Thus prices of basic things of need are going up like milk which is seeing in every months a raise by Rs. 1- 2 per litre. And now you have the petrol price hike again of Rs. 3 a litre which will add to inflation. Even here the government like in Red Indian language does not ‘speak with a straight face’. The Finance Minister when questioned on the petrol price hike blames it on the oil marketing Cos. saying it is they are the ones who are responsible. The oil marketing Cos. when asked say that while earlier it was the international oil prices going up now it is the depreciating Rupee but ‘promises’ that once international oil prices start coming down they will reduce the prices. Do they do that? No, never! Because a couple of months back when the US credit rating was revised and that country was looking at double dip recession, international oil prices fell to US$80 a barrel. At that time oil marketing Cos. had two excuses not to reduce the prices. The first was that international oil prices that they had contracted were based on long term contracts signed some time back and those were higher than US$80 a barrel. The second excuse was that the base for setting the domestic oil prices was below US$80 a barrel. But then just last week when the international oil prices were hitting US$105 a barrel on the Singapore spot market the oil marketing Cos citing this rise started talking of under-recoveries and within a week you have petrol prices going up by Rs. 3 a litre. Thus the oil marketing Cos are one up on our government since for reducing oil prices they go by the prices on their long term buying contracts while for hiking petrol prices they go by the spot international prices. Thus it is ‘win-win’ deal for them either way and they like all the other agencies and Cos. keep biting into the aam admi who is the filling for the sandwich being bitten from both sides. In the current hike diesel, LPG and kerosene have been exempted for the time being since the Trinamul Congress and the Left parties got into the act. One wonders why these same parties were not consulted before the petrol hike since then the petrol consumers would have been given some more respite. Some new flunkey of the Congress party has been saying that the government had no alternative but to hike prices. This is the constant refrain of the UPA-2 government saying that there is just no choice which means they are completely out of ideas in handling the situation. Then why do they not just quit so that someone else has a shot at controlling inflation. The problem is that when inflation is in the ‘air’ everyone meaning shopkeepers, retailers and the trade resorts to ‘kite flying’. When they see one commodity going up., they feel why do we not do the same since in any case when they want to buy other things than what they sell, they have to buy high and it is a time for testing how much more can the aam admi pay. Thus it is the people who are in service, the poor and the retirees who get hit in this game of ‘kite flying’ inflation since they have not much option to increase their earnings dramatically.

Back of Hand Election Calculation for Proving Vote Bank Influence

This is pursuant to my message sometime back attaching a paper on Proportionate Representation for use in our election system rather than the present one of majority or first past the post system that we follow.
Average Voter Turnout : 40 – 60% of eligible voters in the constituency.
No. of effective candidates let us take: 2 -3.
(Since even if we have more candidates in a particular constituency, the number of effective candidates can be at the most 2 or 3, since the others mostly tend to loose their deposit by polling practically no votes.)
Thus votes polled by winning candidate: in case of 2 candidates: 20 – 30%
In case of 3 candidates: 14 – 20%
(This assumes that votes are equally divided which is the normal pattern unless a VIP like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi or Mayawati or Jayalalitha is standing when almost all the votes go to the VIP.)
Thus if you see the above pattern polling anywhere between 14 – 30% of the registered voters in any constituency anywhere in the country you will be declared elected. The percentage will further dip if you take the total population of the constituency and that is where you have to ask yourself that by polling not even 25 % of the votes you get to be elected. Is this then democracy? Is the voice of the people then truly reflected in our legislatures since the majority of the people are not influencing the outcome of the elections or are not even being heard.
Here again you will see how vote banks become important like slum clusters which you have in almost every urban constituency or religious groups which easily account to some 1-2% of the vote going up to some 5% in some instances. Thus the politician has to nurture these vote banks and not be bothered about the average, educated, intelligent voter.
In the proportional representation system, a major part of the ills of our existing system are resolved since with multiple regression of voting, the politician has to really work on getting elected.
It will be in your own interest to raise questions about the proportional representation system to be implemented in our election system when electoral reforms are discussed in the near future.

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


Vox Populi

by

Aam Admi
Issue: 77 Date: 10.09.2011

Contents:

1. Who’s Responsible for The Parliament Log-Jam
2. Enough On the DoB of the Army Chief of Staff
3. The Death Penalty for Rajiv Gandhi’s Killers
4. Is the Congress Party’s Corruption Strategy Boomeranging On Them

5. In The Aftermath of Terror

Who’s Responsible for The Parliament Log-Jam

It was a petulant Pawan Kumar Bansal, the Parliamentary affairs Minister who addressed the media last week blaming the Opposition for the logjam in Parliament during the Monsoon session. He was clearly attempting to set the record straight that the Congress party did everything right but then the Opposition did not allow us to do anything. For the Congress party this has been the constant refrain that the Opposition is holding everything up. It is rare that the Congress party introspects on their actions and tries to rationalize the issue before unnecessarily apportioning blame onto others. As said earlier it is a childish manner to blame everybody else for your non-performance. Consider the just concluded Monsoon session, it started with the Anna Hazare agitation in the background. The manner in which the Congress and the UPA handled the agitation, was the primary reason why Parliament was always in uproar until 27th Aug 2011 and could not transact much of normal business. If the Anna Hazare strategy had been played out earlier by the Congress party and they had conceded to bring in the other versions of the Lok Pal bill into Parliament, then the House would have been able to conduct normal business and the 74 year old Anna Hazare would not have needlessly fasted to become the national icon that the Congress party made him finally. After the 27th Aug 2011 the Congress and the BJP had got together and there had been a consensus to push through some of the important Bills pending before Parliament, but then what did the Congress do. They through the Governor went over the Chief Minister’s head and appointed a Lok Ayukta in Gujarat. The BJP naturally caused an uproar since apart from whatever the law or rule book says, it is common courtesy to keep the Chief Minister informed of any important appointment in the State and the Lok Ayukta’s is surely more than an important appointment. It is irrelevant whether for seven years the Lok Ayukta’s appointment in Gujarat was pending since if Centre is doing anything about it then it should surely keep the Chief Minister informed. Then Amar Singh’s arrest for the ‘cash for votes’ scam which was inevitable but then why arrest the two BJP MP’s who had reported the matter to the House and even brought the cash onto the floor of Parliament. They could as well have kept quiet, and as hinted by L K Advani about some others, and pocketed the money and the House and the nation would have been none the wiser about the transaction. They should have been commended for their action but in place of that they are thrown into jail. What do you expect? That the BJP would take this lying down. Why BJP, whether it was the Congress or any other self-respecting party in the same shoes, none would not have accepted it. Thus the appointment of the Gujarat Lok Ayukta and the arrest of the two BJP MP’s in the ‘cash for votes’ scam could have been postponed until after the Monsoon session was over. This would have possibly allowed the Parliament to function normally. So who is to blame? Is it not the Congress since they and the UPA government are a completely confused lot and are operating in the manner of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. Or is this deliberate strategy by the Congress and the UPA government to avoid discussion on important Bills by having Parliament in confusion and then bring the bills quickly and vote on them without giving any chance for the Opposition to debate upon them and suggest amendments. This was seen earlier in the Budget session of Parliament and even earlier which seems to be a consistent strategy of the Congress to use Parliament as a rubber stamp for the laws proposed by them. So much for democracy and their claim during the Anna Hazare agitation on the Lok Pal bill that Parliament cannot be rushed while making laws. Epilogue: By arresting the two BJP MP’s in the ‘cash for votes’ scam and allowing L K Advani to get away with his comment on the floor of the House on 8th Sept 2011 that in this matter he should also be arrested since these MP’s had apprised him of their actions on presenting the money in Parliament and threatening a padayatra around the country in November on corruption, the Congress is making an ineffective BJP political figure larger than life and it will be, like Anna Hazare, to their massive disadvantage and cost them the next general elections.

Enough on the DoB of the Army Chief of Staff

The controversy of the birth date of Chief of Army Staff, General V K Singh whether the year is 1950 or 1951 is something which the nation surely does not want too much to know about. The simple question that needs to be asked here is that if a lowly jawan had committed the same mistake how would the Army have dealt with him. The same treatment should be handed over to Gen. Singh and he be asked to retire forthwith irrespective of which year he was born or what is said on his birth certificate and/or joining report since this should be handled in a manner akin to disciplinary proceedings. People like Gen. Singh who claim to be concerned about army morale etc. etc. should realize that by allowing such controversies to subsist impacts the morale of the forces under him. And therefore he should have closed the matter by himself as soon as it had surfaced by completing his term and vacating office per birth year of 1950. Allowing it to hang fire is not doing anything elevating to his reputation and integrity. Not only that it is understood that Gen. Singh has appealed against the decision conveyed to him to retire per the birth year of 1950. How this adds to morale in the armed forces is something which is unfathomable. The other thing in this matter is how can we trust a man to head our Army who either did not know the year he was born or did not bother to correct it in due time? Both these questions reflect on his capacity and ability to take decisions and more so sensitive decisions as Army chief, some of which could have grave repercussions on the security of this country. The reason for this is that it shows up a lack of application of mind to important matters which is not expected from an army Chief of Staff. Thus General V K Singh should gracefully bow out of office without any more tamasha on the date of birth issue.

The Death Penalty for Rajiv Gandhi’s Killers

The execution of the death penalty against Rajiv Gandhi killers has been needlessly politicized. The principles relating to this are as follows. If we believe that our justice system delivers fairly and equitably it would be a great injustice to review this judgment. This is more so after it has gone through the process of clemency up to the President and has been rejected. The fact that the clemency petition was delayed by 10 years is neither here nor there and we should look at it as ‘due process’ which all of us in India are fairly used to. Moreover the individuals sentenced to be executed should be happy that their sentences were not executed forthwith and they have added a decade to their lives. Whether the investigation into the case was fair or not is not to be decided now since all these matters should have been put before the trial court prior to the judgment being delivered and until the clemency process completed. Further, the political parties in TN should understand that they are also being a party to carrying out a grave injustice on the Indian judicial system. This kind of play-acting by getting an Assembly resolution sets off precedents which will sabotage Indian society. Murmurs of this are already seen where Omar Abdullah is proposing a similar resolution by the J&K Assembly in the Afzal Guru case. It is not whether there is merit in either case but once a judgment has been given and it has gone through the process of appeal, execute the sentence and be done with it. Our government authorities particularly the department in the Home Ministry responsible for processing these appeals and the office of the President that decides on the clemency should get a move on and decide on these cases expeditiously since then they support the judiciary in the decision whatever it may be and due respect is given to the judgment. One really wonders what work these two offices have to delay some of these appeals by a decade. By delaying these appeals inordinately we get caught in these emotional appeals which contemporary media is very much willing to exploit as one of the children of the killers of Rajiv Gandhi was asking whether her father should die for something he did not do. The simple question here is does she know more than the judge deciding on the case? The other overall alternative is to abolish the death penalty altogether in this country after a serious national debate but then this should be done for all future cases and not for those that have completed sentencing. It is for the people of this country to decide whether people who kill without compunction like Ajmal Kasab, or those that rape and kill children etc. should continue to live since for this category of killers the death penalty is more than apt. There is no need to waste our sympathy and emotion on this kind of killers just to show that our society is large hearted.

Is the Congress Party’s Corruption Strategy Boomeranging On Them

The grand strategy of this UPA government and the Congress party before the ensuing State elections leading up to the general elections was possibly to target corruption and thus come out as they have been saying the first government that has tackled corruption on a sustained basis. Thus you had the 2G scam with the Rajas and the Kanimozhis sent off to Tihar, followed by the CWG scam with Kalmadi and his cronies adding up to the Tihar crowd and then finally you had Amar Singh bringing up the tail in the ‘cash-for-votes’ scam to add to the jail attendance register. Before this you had Ashoke Chavan being asked to quit as Maharasthra CM after the Adarsha CHS scam surfaced at Mumbai. There were sundry other smaller incidents where the small fry in one or the other government department was hauled up. The intention in all this was to give the Congress party a much needed white-wash as far as the tar of corruption with which it has been painted for long. But then if you look at the above named they are all part of the UPA or were onetime allies like Amar Singh. Thus it was more like ‘hara-kiri’ made famous by the Japanese soldiers in WWII by killing themselves rather than be captured by the enemy or should we say ‘political hara-kiri’ as far as the Congress was concerned. It was known that this approach was going to hurt the Congress party and murmurs by members at lower levels were being heard as to why the party is bent upon committing suicide. Added to that was the fact that before one goes out and walks the plank on corruption, any party would make sure that its own house is in order. This is particularly true for the Congress party which is known for its ‘laizzez faire’ policy towards corruption which reads that you go ahead and do what you like but remember to reciprocate when we also ‘come to the party’. Moreover it is the oldest party and the major corruption in this country has obviously to relate to them. Thus you have another saying that you should think twice before throwing stones into filth since there is bound for some which will splatter and have the muck fall on you. The Congress on its white charger to fight corruption probably did not remember the above adage or the horse was going too fast for it to think with reason and then proceed with caution. Since in any of the above named cases who was benefiting? It was none other than the Congress party and their allies like the DMK on the 2G scam. So it was more of myopic thinking than anything else by the Congress party or were they pressurized by the BJP-led Opposition or was it public opinion! All this has led to a lot of dissent within the Congress party as one could see during the 5 weeks that Sonia Gandhi was away abroad for medical treatment. The mish-mash in handling the Anna Hazare matter where the satraps were unwilling to bell the cat and were passing the buck happily to the A-team’s advantage. And then in the last 2 Cabinet meetings where the Sports Bill was thrown out and the Land Acquisition bill was approved but with a number of adverse voices pitching in for changes. Thus like they say when there is likely to be a change at the top then the contenders tend to flex their muscles to show who is the best successor. That is what seems to be going on in the Congress party. Sonia Gandhi must be wishing that she should have insisted on Rahul to get involved in politics much earlier than he actually did since then he would have been ready by now to pick up the reins of the family property, the Congress party that is.

In The Aftermath of Terror

The responses coming from this government and its agencies are true to form after every terror attack that we are doing all that we can and nothing can essentially be done to prevent a terror attack. Why no one is asking them that after all the promises made post-26/11 attack in Mumbai, why was nothing done? If the promised CCTV’s had been installed around Mumbai then at least some credible evidence could have been collected to track down the perpetrators. The situation now is that re the July terror attack in Mumbai, the investigations are at a dead-end though Prithviraj Chavan, the incumbent CM is stating that the progress is a ‘secret’ and P Chidambaran, the Central Home Minister has also been throwing broad hints that the case is moving towards closure and they would have the CM make the final announcement. Now, this could be one of two things. The first is that the whole thing is ‘secret’ because as expected there is no progress in the investigations or secondly, if there has been progress then the authorities should tell this to the nation and explain if the July Mumbai attacks and the Delhi High Court attack this month are linked. Since again in Delhi after the May blast at exactly the same place, the investigations moved to a dead-end and all the holy promises of installing CCTV cameras etc. just like in Mumbai were given the go-by. The Home Minister, P Chidambaran has gone on record blaming the CPWD for getting entangled in red-tape on not installing the CCTV cameras around the Delhi High Court. This is rather surprising as to why senior people always tend to blame the juniors or subsidiary departments for not acting. From personal experience, I recall working for a State PSU, on the matter of installing CCTV cameras and security control system at 7, RCR during the time that Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister and had walked into the CCI&E (Chief Controller of Imports & Exports) office at 10.00AM with the SPG personnel and collected the Import licence for close to Rs. 1 crore of equipment by 4.00PM. And this was the time prior to the reforms swept India post-1991. Thus like they say, where there is a will there is a way. The problem with our current leaders is that they are pygmies compared to our leaders even three decades ago and there is absolutely no will to back their convictions. They are happy to be pussy-footin’ around giving this, that or the other excuse for not having done something and more importantly try to first look for a scapegoat on whom they can apportion blame. Thus any terror investigation in this country does not last beyond 72 hours after the attack during which time everyone runs around like a headless chicken until the dust of the blast settles down and then things revert to normal with the government bureaucracy kicking in. Otherwise after the Delhi High Court attack, the PM is still talking of the paucity of intelligence gathering on the ground and this after there have been seven or eight major and minor terrors attacks in each of Mumbai and Delhi in the last two decades. A sufficient amount of time has elapsed to review our intelligence infrastructure and to make it more effective but the sad thing is that nothing was done. Our leaders continue to make top heavy institutional infrastructure to tackle terror which requires nimble footed, street-smart and technology-savvy law enforcement personnel working in flat organizations to respond and hit at the same speed as the terror groups are hitting us. Thus the government is working at cross purposes in our approach to address terror. And that is precisely the reason why nothing happens and innocent civilians going about their daily humdrum lives die on Indian streets. Some comments and situations are enumerated which shows the callousness of our authorities and government after the recent attacks in Mumbai and Delhi. The PM says that all medical expenses of the Delhi blast victims will be borne by the government. Why is this being announced separately? Was it not so for all previous blasts in the country? When the aam admi walks onto the street and if he is injured in a terror attack, it is clearly the responsibility of the government to bear all expenses for his treatment since it is because of the government’s negligence that he has got hurt. It is not enough to announce financial assistance and expect the terror victim to fend for himself. If this is not being done on an automatic basis then it is time to announce this immediately and across the country. Apart from this all formalities relating to release of bodies, providing treatment should all be fast tracked and no money should be charged to the terror victims or their families while complying with government formalities. Then we have R R Patil, the Maharasthra Home Minister, who continues to remain in his chair even after the 26/11 debacle had the temerity to leave for Nasik to attend a function on the day the July 2011 bomb blasts hit Mumbai and had to be called back to Mumbai reminded of his first duty. On the terror preparedness at Mumbai he cut a sorry figure in the Assembly by responding as if 26/11 was just another incident. Then we have had Salman Khurshid after the Delhi High Court blast asking people not to talk about it as to who is responsible. Why these circumspect approaches in a democracy like India? Let free speech flow since that alone can find solutions. Secrecy and circumspection will only encourage sloth, inefficiency and nuisance. Then we have the Coast Guard and the Indian Navy giving all kinds of excuses of why two substantially large ships came to Juhu beach and ran aground during the recent monsoon. The Coast Guard was beefed up in the last decade precisely to secure our coast line and more so after 26/11. Then we have our Indian Navy having designs on becoming a ‘blue water’ Navy and planning to operate far at sea in the Indian Ocean as a security agency in international waters but allows unknown ships into its own backyard. Any of these shows could have been a floating bomb or more so with a ‘dirty’ atomic bomb and you can imagine what would have happened to Mumbai. And the point is if you cannot intercept ships before they hit your shores then how can you intercept boats like those used by Kasab and his cohorts in the 26/11 incident? And one does not remember any such incidents in recent memory not one but two ships running aground on Mumbai’s beaches since both the above named agencies blamed it on the monsoon and the irregular currents. Both these natural factors we have been having for the last 50 years but why did this not happen earlier and why only now? And concluding we have the PM asking the Supreme Court to beef up their security since one of the terror emails talked of targeting the highest court of the land. There is no harm in doing this but then a terror email should not be the trigger to provide security. Should we not have done it of our own volition? And what if the terror email is to divert our attention so that they can hit other less protected targets. Thus security should be treated on a holistic basis for the country and not on a ragged, piece-meal basis since that will expose gaps which the terror apparatus will keep hitting to hurt us grievously.

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

VOX POPULI
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 76 Date: 03.09.2011
Contents:
1. Terror Strike At Delhi: The Aftermath
2. Libya is ‘Independent’
3. The DSK Saga Continues
4. Balanced Growth, Inflation Etc.
5. Corruption Continues To Thrive
6. Cancel the Privilege Notices Against A-team Members
7. The Jana Lok Pal Bill: The Final Denouement
8. The Black Money ‘Kissa’

Terror Strike At Delhi: The Aftermath

We have another terror blast in Delhi now. It is gut-wrenching to see the poor victims being rushed for medical help. It is more shocking to see then our automatic rifle-wielding jawans parading down at the terror site. This all seems like a put-up show and one keeps getting the horrendous feeling that all this has been happening earlier and one has seen the exact same scenes sometime in the past. It is almost like a film being re-run, spooling out without any control until the film runs out with a snap and then the screen goes black, end of story – the victim is dead! And what does our government do? Nothing! Simply nothing! This was seen in the July blast at Mumbai where it was found that for all the pious platitudes mouthed post 26/11 that preparedness would improve, absolutely nothing was done. The same thing is happening in Delhi all over again post-blast with the blame being passed around between different government agencies, between political parties with no one having a clue as to who is responsible for the attacks and how to tackle these terror groups. In the meanwhile the citizens are dying like cannon fodder while the government caught in its own web of bureaucracy is unable to protect its people. Why the Delhi blast will be held more as a black mark against our police and law enforcement authorities is because there had been a low intensity blast in May at the Delhi High Court which one believes that the police did not see it fit to pursue since maybe it was ‘too small’ for them to condescend to investigate or because no one was injured or killed. This was possibly the trial run for the bigger blast in September now. We thus seem to be following a caste system in police investigations also. The Bombay blast in July remains unsolved while for the recent Delhi blast there is a claim by the HUJI group that they were responsible. But the government has no idea where these people are based and what is their organization in India. Thus our authorities like they say are shooting in the dark and are more bothered about forming apex agencies like the NIA without increasing the ground intelligence or what is called footfalls on the ground. In any case, our intelligence apparatus within the law enforcement authorities has to be strengthened and dramatically improve in its performance as also the police should reach out to civil society and seek help so that the terrorists are intercepted before they can do their mayhem. An example of this is in Mumbai where in the case of a 3 year old’s rape the police took the help of a local citizen’s group to quickly locate and arrest the offender. Such is the cooperation required since it is only a vigilant society coupled with a cooperative police force will be able to bring down the incidence of terror. The Home Minister though responsible for the Delhi Police is taking no responsibility and is washing off his hands in the matter by saying that a terror advisory was issued some three weeks back that a terror incident was ‘likely’. Should he not resign at least after the Delhi blast to own up that he is not up to the job? It is not that this is succumbing to the terrorists since this is precisely what they would want and that is to destabilize the government, but someone, somewhere has to show that he cares. The PM had said after the July Mumbai blast that this ‘will not happen again’. There must have been some basis for these comments. What was this basis? Why are we having this blast then at Delhi? Is it for him just to mouth some words and disappear from the scene? Is that kind of a person that we have as Prime Minister? The comments yesterday after the Delhi blast were – ‘It is a cowardly attack. It will not shake our resolve to fight terror.’ But then what about the people who were killed? Who will answer to their families that there was no one to protect them while they went about their daily lives? Why for that matter, there is no guarantee for the aam admi to get protection in this country from the government and he is the person who is being ground through the wheels of everything, be it taxes, be it prices, be it terror, be it anything. The only solution is that he has to rise and defend himself. The time has come for the aam admi to take charge since if he does not, then he and his kind will be exterminated like the way you swat flies or mosquitoes.

Libya is ‘Independent’

Libya has been ‘liberated’ of the tyranny of Gaddhafi! This country will go the same way as Iraq and Afghanistan and lately how Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen have gone, slowly slipping to anarchy while the short-sighted proponents of democracy in the West celebrate the collapse of yet another dictator. Consider the case of Libya and its relationship with the West over the last 20 years, it has swung from Most Hated Enemy culminating with the Lockerbie bombing and then progressively a thaw which moved to even releasing by Scotland of one of the prime perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing. Libya was over this period being wooed into the mainstream of international affairs and the European states across the Mediterranean notably Italy had substantial economic and trade ties with Libya and a rare bonhomie was seen between Gaddhafi and his family with Berlusconi. Then the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ wind blew In North Africa and touched Libya. Overnight things changed, Gaddhafi became Public Enemy No. 1 and even Italy, a onetime Libya ‘friend’, joined hands with France to bomb Gaddhafi’s strongholds. In the meanwhile during the thaw period as is now coming out the CIA and the MI6 was using Libya’s infamous jails to interrogate their terror suspects. Thus the policy of the West is clear and that is to use the individual and the country as long as it is convenient and then in the manner of a paper napkin, wipe your hands, throw it away and try to make a clean exit. This is not in support of Gaddhafi or any of his ilk around the world but to suggest that the revolutions in each of these countries should be let to grow on their own steam since then alone it will sustain. The West has had examples of failures in Iraq with Chalabi and in Afghanistan with Karzai, the pro-West so-called protagonists of democracy which was just a veil to ensure that the US dollars would flow through them. Similarly whether it was in Egypt or as it is in Jordan or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, the West is on the side of the repressive regime as it has been in many of the other countries around the world. This has been to secure some diplomatic or economic or strategic advantage. So the way the West is playing the democracy game, it is by making some more equal than others, some more preferred than others, some more hated than others. Is this then the meaning of true democracy?

The DSK Saga Continues

The case against Dominique Strauss Kahn of having kinky sex with a chambermaid at the New York hotel has been withdrawn! Kahn and his wife are celebrating this fact as is understood from media reports and have returned to Paris. This case highlights how money makes a difference in the interpretation of crimes against humanity. Just because the highly paid lawyers of Kahn succeeded in tearing apart the respectability of the poor (as in without money) chambermaid, DSK got off the hook. The predatory nature of this man in terms of sexual appetite is horrendous and has cost the chambermaid, her normal life whatever it may be. Just those few moments in DSK’s room has completely left her life shattered and turned upside down. There were reports going up to the time of trial that this woman had been talking to one of her boyfriends in the US after the incident that DSK could be a good catch in terms of blackmail which was one of the reasons apart from many others, of course, to slander this woman. But the point is at the moment when she was accosted, she possibly did have no clue how big DSK was as a man but for his member. The knowledge that he was a big-shot came obviously after the event. Thus DSK did exploit this woman and there is no question of consensual sex since which woman meeting as this pair did come across each other by chance would agree for a blow-job unless she was coerced. Apart from the ability of the defence lawyers to prove that this African woman has a penchant for vanilla ice-cream cones. Thus there has been a serious miscarriage of justice by the New York courts and DSK should have been incarcerated in a US jail until there was a satisfactory conclusion of the case of criminal assault and rape. This is more so since DSK with his tiger in the tank has been on the prowl since 2001 if not earlier and there are many who have now come out accusing him of having outraged their modesty. But you must give it to the man that there is at least one among his brutal conquests who has sung paeans to his libido and passion. How the French could have even thought of DSK as a Presidential candidate is something which is beyond comprehension? But now surely the situation on his attempt at the French Presidency is in serious doubt. In fact DSK should be shut away in one of these specialized rehabilitation clinics and undergo treatment for his behaviour otherwise no woman in France would be safe. The travesty of justice in the US should be rectified and that can only be achieved with DSK shut away in prison for a reasonable period of time.

Balanced Growth, Inflation Etc.

The latest figures released for industry growth is 5.1% and that for agriculture is 3.9%. These are quarterly figures and are probably the closest that we can come to ‘balanced’ growth for the Indian economy. Though it would be preferred that agricultural growth reach a figure of 6%. The reason for this is that if agricultural growth increases then the country will not only be self-sufficient in terms of escalating food prices around the world but will increase rural area income which apart from reducing the disparities of income between rural and urban areas will lead to a spurt in demand for consumer and consumer-durable goods which will be good for industry. Instead of looking at the issue in this manner which is also a deflationary strategy our government particularly the Finance Minister is lamenting the scourge of inflation and looking at the above figures in a negative manner by saying that the overall growth rate for the economy will have to be re-jigged to 7% this year. The problem is that our government have not had any clue of the Indian economy and how to rein in prices and when queried about the double digit rise of 10% and above in food prices lately, Pranab Mukherji gave the standard answer that by March inflation should come down to 7%. We need to ask which March? Is it of 2012? Since we have seen many Marches pass on this road of forecasting inflation but prices have been on the up and up. Not only that Pranab Mukherji is particularly shameless while taking credit that just about a year ago food prices were at a high of 20-21% and now they have been brought down in a span of 12 months to 10%. You do not take an extraordinary peak and then pat yourself on the back for having brought down the figure. Rather take the norm and see whether you have been able to beat that for judging true effectiveness. He gave also the example of sugar prices which he claimed has come down and that the country has now surplus stock of sugar, which nobody is denying but he was not asked or did not clarify why sugar prices continue to rule at Rs. 30 per Kg and why they cannot come down further considering the stocks we are holding. The media does not ask these probing questions for fear that they may not get the next interview with the FM. We have to change this fear complex in the media which they politely call good sense or sagacity or whatever.

Corruption Continues To Thrive

In the four months gone by with the Anna Hazare campaign on corruption at a high the incidents of corruption or the approaches towards it by the corrupt do not seem to have lessened in any way. Highlighted are some instances which appeared in the newspapers that could be considered representative. An Income Tax Commissioner at Mumbai seeks a bribe of Rs. 4 Lakhs from a Co. for settling their assessment and is apprehended. The police continue to seek money to settle disputes and in Goa we had a case where the family of a person dead from drowning was asked a bribe to release the dead body to them for conducting the funeral rites! Then the Secretary to the Lok Sabha Speaker when raided in a disproportionate asset case claimed that this was because some builder had enmity against him and had complained to the authorities. Imagine if that supposed builder had not complained then this IAS officer would have continued unscathed. Then we had the ex-Karnataka CM, Yeddyurappa at the height of the illegal mining scam and just before the Lok Ayukta’s report was coming out, stated that the business affairs of his sons have got nothing to do with him when they have been given multiple advantages like land allotment, land conversions, donations to trusts which no other sons of Karnataka citizens have got. So surely because of them being the sons of the CM, there must have some special favour at least which lies at the root of their prosperity. This was not the end in Karnataka but the press reports said that Yeddyurappa and H D Kumaraswamy were getting together secretly since both are prominent players in the Justice Santhosh Hegde’s report, in a damage control exercise and to work out some methodologies that the penalties or strictures likely to be imposed upon them are not very severe. Thus if you see nothing has really changed in the corruption scenario since right from the level of the aam admi that is the police to bureaucrats and then politicians, it is business as usual. For these people everything can be fixed, can be bought or has a price. Even in the recent disclosures of assets by the Central Cabinet, there is no need to smirk, since we all know that in some of the cases there are a couple of zeros missing in the declarations. Like Sharad Pawar at a declared level of Rs. 12 crores needs to be multiplied by a factor of 100 to come anywhere close to his actual nett worth. There could be a connected issue to this is that it was reported recently the law on ‘benami’ holdings though passed some 6 years ago could not be implemented since the rules for it were not framed. Very convenient then, is it not! The declaration of assets by the Central Cabinet comes under the ambit of corruption since it is clearly akin to ‘underinvoicing’ which is an offence, is it not?

Cancel the Privilege Notices Against A-team Members

The privilege notices against the A-team members of Bedi, Kejriwal and Bhushan and the demand from the IT authorities from Kejriwal for recoveries relating to his tenure of employment with them smacks of a police state and harks back to the black days of the Emergency. These actions by this government when taken with the preventive arrest of Anna Hazare and his team on 16th August 2011 only confirms the worst doubts as above. The issue of privilege for members of Parliament has to be viewed in its proper context. And that is whether the privilege that they want to protect, do the members themselves respect it and follow it. To be frank listening to the majority of Parliamentarians particularly like Lallu Prasad Yadav and H D Devegowda during the corruption debate on Saturday, 27th August 2011, it was very disappointing considering for the sake of form they were mouthing the words to combat corruption while wallowing in the practice themselves as if they were body corruption on their own. The problem has been that members of Parliament are considering themselves a class apart from the aam admi of this country which is a completely baseless premise. This is more so with the ministers in the incumbent UPA government who are acting as if they are drunk with the power that they yield. And this has clearly gone to their heads which is what is apparent by their statements or their action. This was seen when Anna Hazare during his August fast had called for the peaceful picketing of MP’s and minister’s houses at which these people took umbrage saying that this is not an acceptable form of protest. If so, then what form of protest is acceptable they should spell out since if the aam admi writes to his MP’s he does not get a reply, if he seeks a meeting then the dignitary is unavailable and if even the aam admi is able to give in a representation then nothing is done on it. Thus if this whole issue is to protect the status of Parliament and for the sake of form the privilege notices have been slapped on the A-team members, then it is OK since we should not definitely lead to a situation where our Parliament prestige should be brought down by all and sundry taking the example of the A-team. In that case the Speakers of the Houses of Parliament should take them up all together and taking cognizance of the registration of these privilege notices acquit and absolve the A-team members of any guilt. This would then be in the greatness of the spirit of Parliament and its members that the problem is noted and acted upon considering the larger context of the anti-corruption movement. If not just like libel laws in India are antiquated so also should the laws of privilege should be reviewed and made consistent with the contemporary environment of interaction in this country.

The Jana Lok Pal Bill: The Final Denouement

The drama on the Lok Pal Bill keeps going on thanks to the incumbent government keeping the fire burning with its ill-thought out actions. But it is time to objectively take stock of what is the reality vis a vis the Bill and its possible fate. Rewind to the time at the beginning of the public agitation of Anna Hazare in April 2011 when the A-team demands were very vociferous on the constitution of the Lok Panel appointments, the need for inclusion of the PM, the lower bureaucracy and the judiciary under the Lok Pal and the very stringent sentences that were proposed for the corrupt offenders. These demands as we have seen coming through August have been more in the nature of negotiating points and there have been some concessions extended by the A-team after the last round of discussions pursuant to Anna’s second fast. There have been many opponents and detractors of the Jan Lok Pal proposed by the A-team and the general comment has been that it will not eliminate corruption. No law by itself will eliminate corruption, only the manner of implementation of the law will eliminate corruption. But the law can act as a deterrent and that is where the strong penal provisions of the Jan Lok Pal bill will move towards reducing corruption. Something like corruption which is endemic in our society, in our body politic and government for decades cannot vanish overnight and that is where we have to calibrate our expectation to what time-scale Anna Hazare gives and that is it may take 10 to 15 years. But the important thing a start needs to be made. When the A-team brought in the Jan Lok Pal bill and pressurized the incumbent government, they in turn and we will give them the grace for it, came out with their version of the Lok Panel bill and this was in a rush sent to the Standing Committee. This was obviously done to convey that the Lok Pal bill issue is closed as far as Parliament is concerned and any further interactions will have to be with the Standing Committee. But in the hurry the government failed to verify what kind of a Lok Pal bill were they forwarding to the Standing Committee which clearly implies recommendation. The bill was a watered down version and was more pro-government and pro-its officials which prompted the A-team to call it the – Promotion of Corruption Act. It was not only the A-team which criticized the government bill but all sections of informed society and one respected elder print media journalist called it ‘not even worth the paper it was printed upon’. Thus those Parliamentarians who are taking umbrage that law making is a serious business and that civil society cannot do that on their own and force Parliament to accept the draft and rush the process should at the least ensure that they are deliberating on something that is worth deliberating. And when there has been a need, has Parliament not burnt the midnight oil to push through important legislation. Thus if they feel corruption is an important issue should they not have done the same for the Lok Pal bill. Now as far as the A-team is concerned they have been good at tactics but low on strategy. Since we should look at what has been achieved by the second 12 day fast of a 74 year old man like Anna Hazare. The Jana Lok Pal bill has also been referred to the Standing Committee along with some other two drafts from civil society and all will have to interact with the committee but the final draft of the bill will come out of the committee’s deliberations. Thus not only has this government succeeded in getting its way in terms of process but also broadened the feedback on the bill to include Aruna Roy’s and Dr Jayprakash Narayan’s. It will have now more than a strong influence on the final wording and clauses of the Lok Pal bill. Thus apart from a ‘sense’ of Parliament, which admittedly is a moral victory, what has the A-team achieved? Was it worth it for getting Anna Hazare to fast, though he may have volunteered, and to take him to the brink of death? Is this the approach that we expect from the A-team? Should they not take more responsibility towards the well-being of their team members particularly that of a 74 year old? The point is was there no other method to get through the A-team’s points? And what worth is the ‘sense’ of Parliament with the government that the A-team has seen so closely in the last 4 months and has proved to be unreliable and deceitful. The PM’s letter is something that can be seen as a commitment since he personally had wanted a strong Lok Pal bill and had agreed that the PM should be under the Lok Pal but again if Manmohan Singh quits office given the uncertain position of Sonia Gandhi now, the Congress and the UPA government as we all know is quite capable of saying that they do not know what that letter is all about. Therefore the advantage is clearly with the government and all of the A-team’s persuasion and negotiating skills sans the obduracy and confrontationist attitude, will be required to push a strong Lok Pal bill through.

The Black Money ‘Kissa’

The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee like his government has been acting dodgy on the issue of black money by refusing to publish a ‘White’ Paper on it as recently reported in the press. The reasons that he gave was that three public economic policy institutions as also the CBDT are seized with the task of analyzing black money and methods to curb it. Thus until their reports come out the black money as far as this UPA government is concerned will remain comatose. This is the classic governance strategy which says that when in doubt form a committee. When the issue is very huge or very active in the public mind form more committees. Thus the issue will no longer remain burning and the government has also a plausible escape route and can say that they are ‘seriously’ looking into it. And finally when the reports of these multiple committees come in then the government can itself tie themselves in knots or considering that no two experts will ever agree, at least in India, on a common course of action the committees with their recommendations can tie the government in knots. At the end the government can come out with a helpless position that they did all they could but the experts could not agree on a common course of action. And the issue remains in the same position or status as it was before the formation of the committees but the government has covered itself with credit for ‘at least trying to do something’. This exactly is or will be the position of black money. On corruption we have seen during the recent Anna Hazare agitation for the Lok Pal bill how the UPA government was in avoidance mode. And corruption is one of the prime sources for black money. Not only that the UPA government has been refusing to tackle black money very seriously and has even been pulled up by the Supreme Court for dragging its feet on the matter. Representative of this fact is the prevarication or lack of purpose in pursuing the Hassan Ali case, the hesitation in declaring the names given by the Liechtenstein bank of Indian nationals having accounts there, the Telgi case etc. The list is like they say on black money, long, dark and deep and the UPA government has many promises to keep (with apologies to the poet Robert Frost). It is a fact that cannot be denied that there is a large amount of unaccounted money of Indians at foreign locations and mostly in Switzerland. Inspite of knowing this government in its two terms has done little to act on this knowledge apart from signing DTA (Double Tax Avoidance) agreements with most countries and now it is understood that personnel from the Enforcement Dept. will be posted in our embassies in the countries with whom we have signed DTA’s. This is another cushy posting for some of our officers with good political connections. Otherwise in the manner that the US forced Switzerland to part with information on offshore accounts of US citizens which they said was illegal money from crime, drug and terrorism and which Switzerland complied is something that India has not done. Switzerland has indicated that if they are given proof that the money held by them is by way of illegal offence then just on the basis of the name of the account holder and the account number, they are willing to part with full information on the person. Why does our government not declare that all money held abroad by Indian citizens is illegal unless they prove that it is legitimate and then approach Switzerland with the request to part with information? Instead Pranab Mukherjee himself talking some time back to the press had said that once the DTA with Switzerland becomes operational we can get information from April 2012 on unauthorized accounts. What does this mean? That the FM being a leading Congressman has drawn a thick, ‘black’ veil on black money until April 2012. Thus it is like our Voluntary Disclosure Schemes that are announced from time to time and all your black money until April 2011 is safe. Various estimates have put the black money from India at some US$1500 Billion that is held overseas, a majority of it being in Switzerland. Concurrent with the complete lack of interest by the Congress party and this UPA government, they have not even attempted to find ways and means to make this money work for us on a today basis. The UK having a lot of its citizens unaccounted money in Switzerland on which taxes were not being paid forced the Swiss authorities to tax this money at 30% and send these taxes to the UK. This would at least allow the UK to balance their budgets with this amount. Following the UK lead Germany has now pushed Switzerland to remit the taxes on such unaccounted money. What do we do? We do not even think about it. Since once the taxes if at all are remitted by the Swiss authorities then it would be a confirmation of the unaccounted money abroad and then our government would have to do something about it. Thus we see our government is permanently in denial as was very obvious in the method of its handling the Anna Hazare agitation against corruption.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 75 Date: 27.08.2011

Contents:
1.The Anna Hazare Phenomenon
2.Privilege Motions Are The First Volleys Of Attack
3.All’s Well That Ends Well On Anna Hazare But The Congress Needs To Seriously Introspect
4.Rahul Gandhi In Action In Parliament

The Anna Hazare Phenomenon

The Anna Hazare phenomenon needs to be analysed and understood since many want to brush it off as a one-off event which it is not in any case since we had one episode in April and the other in August, the latter which evoked rare fervour and intensity across the length and breadth of India. Those from other civil society groups, academician like sociologists etc. and NGO’s who come on the TV talk shows need to recognize that the stage is solely and wholly the domain of Anna Hazare and they are but planets basking in his light irrespective of how much you try to run him down There are some among the groups mentioned above who try to remain in the TV arclights by coming out with outlandish ideas like saying that Anna Hazare’s movement was akin to the Maoists. There are many who rightly say that those who turned up first at Jantar Mantar, then at Ramlila Maidan and at the many venues across the country have not studied the Jan Lok Pal bill draft which is authoritative, draconian and intends to build an independent power centre in the country. But inspite of that the people came out in his support without coercion or cajoling and that is the important aspect. That is the charisma that this man - Anna Hazare has. Apart from Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi there may not be anyone to draw the kind of crowds that Anna Hazare has been able to attract and that too here the people came voluntarily. Even for the last two named above the crowds would come for ‘peeking’ value just to see how they look and then disperse quickly. While any of the politicians will have to pay money to get these kind of crowds. Retracing a bit, the clauses in the Jan Lok Pal bill are unimportant since from the A-team they are but negotiating positions and we have to realize that India’s law making process is strong and robust enough to buttress wayward and beyond-the-pale clauses otherwise one must say that all the critics of the Jan Lok Pal bill have themselves no faith or belief in India’s democracy. Now we should look at the positives that Anna Hazare’s agitation has been able to bring in. When was the last time the Gandhi topi was popular or in fashion? In the 1940’s that is 70 years ago. When was the last time that the Gandhi topi hit the headlines? This was when the Mumbai dabbawalas went to Prince Charles’ second wedding and that was also quite a while back. And now in the space of 5 months between April and August in 2011, the Gandhi topi is a rage, worn by the youth and is a fashion statement. This is what the man has done. Look at the people in the majority who have been working for the A-team at the lowest level and they have been the youth of this country. Look at the crowds that were milling around the protest sites like Ramlila Maidan and other sites around the country and you would see youth. This was the same youth which had been derided as having no interest in anything but material things and in aping the West who at the call of a 74 year old have come out on the streets, are wearing his Gandhi topi and swear by him. What was the motivation? Was it the issue of corruption which affects everybody including the youth in their daily lives? Was it the sincerity of purpose shown by Anna Hazare and his A-team? The same youth was courted by many political parties before the last general elections considering that the election age had been reduced to 18 and young voters were expected to make a significant difference, but they never turned up to vote then in very large numbers. Then there is the spirit of nationalism and patriotism which with the abundance of national flags carried by Anna supporters is but a significant indicator. Otherwise you would see them only on two days of the year August 15 and January 26 but seeing so many Indian flags milling around, being waved around and swaying to the music at Anna’s rallies was simply exhilarating. The spirit of nationalism and patriotism represented at flag hoisting ceremonies or when the national anthem is sung is but a formal affair and only when it becomes voluntary that it drives you from the comfort of your home onto the streets, it becomes active, functional and representational of an inner driving force. That is what came to the fore during Anna Hazare’s agitations. We need to harness this and make it happen more often on issues that are important for the country. There are again cynics who are saying that the same youth who came out now may not turn up at election time. But that is a different moment, a different time, let us worry about it then. But for the time being the moment is clearly Anna Hazare’s. Let us have the grace to give it to him.

Privilege Motions Are The First Volleys Of Attack

The privilege motions against Kiran Bedi and Om Puri by some members of Parliament are wrong and without any basis. There is nothing wrong in speaking the truth in free India where the MP’s themselves have devalued the reputation of Parliament. Granted that all MP’s may not be as described by the above two accused but then the majority of them are like that and the reputation of anything is determined by the majority. The criminality among MP’s is stunning with close to 40% of Parliament’s strength having criminal cases against them. For this they use one or the other stratagem to explain why they can continue in Parliament and none of the political parties have shown the strength of will to ask existing MP’s to resign for reasons of criminality or stop giving election tickets to those who have criminal cases against them. In the words or antics used by Kiran Bedi and Om Puri if the words are un-Parliamentary then there is some basis but one thinks that we all have heard worse from our MP’s on the floor of Parliament and as for the antics of Kiran Bedi what she has done is much less than what is seen in the legislatures of this country where apart from beating each other, throwing chappals, damaging House property etc. have been seen. Do these not constitute bringing down the reputation of the House? And if so, when they do it, it is acceptable while when others do it and just a perceived slight, then the Laxman Rekha is crossed and the people who did this, will have to be pulled up. Thus the Speakers of Parliament have to give a sound and fair judgment on this issue and it is up to them to put a lid on it. In the broadest sense, this was to be expected as a corollary to the Anna Hazare agitation where politicians and particularly MP’s have been put under pressure and have had a need to capitulate and that they would at some time or other close ranks and extract revenge. This is precisely what we are seeing in the Kiran Bedi and Om Puri case. The corruption issue is a sore spot and it hurts the politicians badly. They are also shaken by this people’s movement of Anna Hazare which has upset their cozy nooks into which they could retreat and browbeat the people by reminding that Parliament is sacred and unassailable. That the political class and those in government would do this is logical but one sees among the civil society and the media there are some who are trying to shoot at the credibility of Anna Hazare and his team by saying that ‘we agree with the objectives but not with the means’. We all know that but there comes a time in the history of men and nations where some individuals stand out and exploit that moment of opportunity which is precisely what Anna Hazare has done. If he had thought about the validity of the means then we would be in the same boat as those criticizing him of having done nothing. Thus whoever it may be whether it be common people, media professionals, NGO’s (even those aligned with the government) and all others should now rise to the occasion and support Anna Hazare and his movement since for the first time in the history of this great country there has been an involvement of common people in moderating upon legislation which even the incumbent political class has acknowledged and this time will not come again. The Anna Hazare movement will with participation of all become surer, stronger and more aligned to democratic values and traditions and not by people staying outside and shooting it down, since then this opportunity as outlined above will forever be lost. Not only that the road ahead even on the Lokpal bill is long and rocky and like Anna Hazare himself said the job is just half done and the political class will use all the means at their command to avoid bringing a strong Lokpal bill, since otherwise this law would not have been more than forty years in the making, and that is where all of us the common citizens of India have to stick together and make it count.

All’s Well That Ends Well On Anna Hazare But The Congress Needs To Seriously Introspect

Even though it is said that – All’s Well That Ends Well, which should also apply to the Anna Hazare drama enacted over the last 13 days at the Ramlila maidan in Delhi. But even then there are some lessons emerging out of that drama for the nation, the main protagonists and the Congress party and its UPA government. The deep malaise affecting the Congress party came to the fore and was reflected in the Congress ‘man for all seasons’ Pranab Mukherjee’s pout when called to defuse the situation after the Anna team (A-team) had run rings around Salman Khurshid and Sandeep Dixit in the second week’s negotiations. The Mukherjee pout became more pronounced when the A-team tried to question his credibility about his comments and attitude in his meeting with them after the all party meeting on 25th evening. Having had to defend his izzat or self-respect was a ‘matter of prestige’ for this Bengali bhadralok. But here Pranab Mukherjee had forgotten that his and the Congress credibility had been eroded by their own actions and was at an all-time low while consequent of the actions and words of the Anna team, their credibility with the nation was several notches higher. The Mukherjee pout originally having come because of his being forced to deal with the matter after washing off his hands from it a week ago while in Bengal when he had responded to a question by the media about Anna Hazare that it was Chidambaram’s problem and he was to deal with it. Earlier it was another debacle where Manish Tewari, the Congress spokesman, having called Anna Hazare a corrupt man from head to toe, where this is just 5 feet 4 inches of him while each of the Congress leaders corruption list would run into miles, retraced and ‘regretted’ his comments. He did not have even the grace of apologizing properly and behaved like a chastened schoolboy doing something without his heart in it. This is the state of the Congress party and its members who lack clarity in whatever action that needs to be taken, and then suddenly in that confusion act in haste and then retract their actions in the face of some more appealing alternative course. This was even apparent on the 26th August in prevaricating their decision in a love me or love me not style of shedding the petals from a flower in either seeking an assurance of withdrawal of fast from Anna Hazare or not and the next day(27th) on vote or not and resolution or not. Spending time on these matters made them loose the moral advantage to the BJP in seeking a vote on the motion and proposing a resolution. The earlier ‘toughies’ like Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram in the beginning stages of the Anna Hazare agitation had all bit the dust and were nowhere to be seen in the end game. Similarly Ambika Soni and Veerappa Moily and sometimes Salman Khurshid were sounding incredulous in the manner that their cozy niches and comfort zones of Parliamentary procedures and Constitutional propriety were being thrown to the winds by the A- team. The Congress thus came out as a doddering, hidebound and ponderous institution led by a reticent leader and in the absence of their President showed the extent of dissent and lack of co-operation between the senior members. Further the Congress were showed up by the A- team that just like the Indian cricket team on their debacle in England lacked bench strength so also the Congress lacks bench strength to get a winning combination to frontally take on a problem issue. But history will record how a retired jawan of the Indian Army called Anna Hazare at the age of 74 with a competent A- team brought an age old institution like the Congress party of almost the same age and its government on its knees and dragged it akin to a rope tied to a nose ring put on a bull to do his bidding.

Rahul Gandhi In Action

For all the dithering and prevarication that the Congress and the UPA-2 government did during the 12 day fast on the Lokpal bill by Anna Hazare, the crowning moment was when for no obvious reason but to let the Gandhi ‘pup’ get his place in the spotlight, Rahul Gandhi was allowed to speak on the Lok Pal issue during Zero Hour. That there was no immediate relevance to what he said and if at all he had wanted a constitutional body like the Election Commission to handle corruption, should he not have spoken earlier rather than come in at a crisis point with a completely new suggestion. Was the Congress party thinking that Rahul’s comments would be so earth shaking that the complex and difficult situation that both the party and the government were finding themselves would get diffused? Not at all. But for not speaking earlier, he did say that he needed time to think before he spoke and we know that the Gandhi minds churn ‘slowly but surely’ and considering his age we have to give him the grace. The point is when the water was boiling over it is better to have first a law and douse the fires and then consider having an institution, if at all it is required. Again what impression does it give the world of India which is way down on the Transparency Index to have a constitutional body like a Corruption Commission. That way we will be stamped and sealed as a corruption-prone country by way of our own actions of formally institutionalizing it. To give an extreme example, it has been said that Delhi is the rape capital of the world and considering that every 5 minutes you have rape happening somewhere in this country, would we set up a Rape Commission since the matter is of the ‘highest priority’. Thus the seniors in the Congress party should have told him that let us get on with the law and if need be, we can think of the commission instead of accepting his demand to speak in the Lok Sabha, to the single committed audience of his sister Priyanka who but naturally lauded her younger brother’s suggestion.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 74 Date: 20.08.2011

Contents:

1. Anna Movement : Move Towards Closure
2. On Anna Hazare: LET THE DIALOGUE BEGIN
3. Corruption: Mechanism & Vested Interests
4. The Anna Hazare Tamasha In Delhi


Anna Movement: Move Towards Closure

The Anna Hazare fasting case was turning out to be a management case-study on the art of negotiation which all business schools in the country and around the world could take a lesson from. How a 74 year old man god-gifted with charisma can turn a nation on its head, in whichever manner positive or negative – considering that there have been many detractors, and also bring a government to heel, is something that will be written in the books of history? In the face of this onslaught the government and its ministers have been running from pillar to post, scratching their heads on ways and means to defuse the crisis. Their defence has been to quote pithy phrases about the sanctity of Parliament, the overriding supremacy of the Constitution and what not which the aam admi has no understanding of. The aam admi is looking for a solution which the government has not realized even now. They want something to happen and not necessarily the acceptance of the Jana Lokpal bill. By the diffidence and inability of the government to take a decision, they are confirming the opinion of the aam admi that this government is nikamma or useless. This is changing the dimension of the problem which is moving from the issue of corruption to one of incapacity and incapability on the part of the government. This while the government and its ministers keep trying to find shelter in the familiar symbols of democracy which have protected them all this while shielding their misdeeds. Sometimes it is said that all things that you hold sacred should be questioned to reiterate their sanctity and that is what the Congress party and this government is not doing since the Constitution and Parliament are fast loosing the meaning they had to the aam admi and if this needs be questioned then, so be it. The erosion of these values has been because of a succession of lack-lustre leaders and government over the years and it is the political class which is responsible for the problem. The latest in the Anna drama is back-tracking on the negotiations over the 23rd & 24th August with the Anna team which just like Anna’s arrest is a flip-flop. This is nothing unusual but confirms the leadership vacuum within the government since even the PM is unwilling to move forward and propose an acceptable initiative. The all-party meeting held on 24th August 2K11 is yet another effort though laudable on paper was just so that the opposition parties do not castigate the government any further and also so that this government can go to the nation and say that everyone also thought so and thus legitimize any action that they are planning to take. However, in all this though it may be a political game for the political parties there is the life of Anna Hazare at stake going into the 10th day of his fast. Both parties should realize this and particularly Anna’s team and not stick to un-negotiable positions and move towards a solution. Issues like withdrawing the government Lokpal bill are political arguments and if the PM has said that through the Speaker the Jan Lokpal bill will be introduced in Parliament, accept that offer and through the Standing Committee get it approved. No country can have any legislation passed on the barrel of a gun and if there is a need for good legislation which the Anna team would like to take credit for then give time for the proper Lok Pal bill to come through Parliament which will in any case be close to the Jan Lok Pal bill. This will at least save the life of Anna Hazare. Being bull-headed, stubborn and intransigent is not the way that the Anna team should take since then having come so far and so close to their objective, they would loose whatever credibility that they have earned with the nation up until now. The government has been trying to mobilize other voices from civil society to voice their opinion on the Lok Pal bill which is again a strategy that they say is to broaden the base of feedback on the bill but is actually to legitimize their position and show that they allowed all voices to be heard and these being cultivated voices echo the position of the government. There are others in civil society who lack access to government but have been through the media trying to shoot down Anna Hazare and his achievements by questioning why he did not raise his voice earlier like in the case of farmer’s suicides, or why he did not take along the minorities etc. In all this a man can do what he can reasonably can and there has been no need to spread himself thin on every issue and thus doing justice to none. Thus choosing corruption, the most critical of India’s concerns today, was the correct thing to do. Once this is taken care of then he and his team could turn their attention to other matters. As for the minorities if the Lok Pal bill comes in then does it not help the minorities! And it is not a political movement that you lobby each society group and garner their support. The Lok Pal bill once made into law will benefit every single citizen in this country irrespective of caste, creed and religion and that is why we should support it.

On Anna Hazare: LET THE DIALOGUE BEGIN

The manner in which Anna Hazare has captured the imagination of a varied set of people in almost all segments and across the length and breadth of the country is stunning. This government and all our political leaders need to take a lesson from this, analyse the method and find out why they have not been able to do the same. As for the Congress and the UPA government in the handling of the Lok Pal bill saga, from the beginning it has been a case of missed opportunities. The original fast in April would not have happened if the government had called the Anna team and discussed with them the draft of the Bill, since like everyone in the Congress and this government are now saying, that there was no problem in discussing the draft with civil society. After that when they did call the Anna team for the discussions the attempt was to firstly, denigrate the team, secondly, try to cow them down and in that process ramrod the government‘s draft of the Bill. Little did the government and the Congress party realize that by their actions they were eroding their own credibility and getting the reputation of a bully. Now the moderate voices, hopefully they mean what they say, within the Congress party like Ambika Soni and Ashwini Kumar are talking of dialogue and indirectly regretting the methods employed in dealing with Anna Hazare and his team. This initiative could also have been taken prior to this fast threat by Anna Hazare, then all this tamasha that we have been seeing unfold since 16th August could have been avoided. The problem has been that this government and the Congress party have refused to get off their high horse of authority, drunk in their own self-esteem and with some senior members like the PM shutting themselves in their ivory towers have fielded the hard-liners like Kapil Sibal and Manish Tewari to defend them. One must say that both are wet behind their ears particularly the latter in so far as political strategy is concerned and have this hopeless belief that the people of this nation are so gullible that they will swallow all that they say. Unfortunately it is not so and circumstances on the ground have proved that fact. Take the aspect of accusing Hazare of corruption on a supposedly Rs. 2 Lakh spend which also has no judicial merit is like a spot when compared to the huge globs of corruption that our political leaders indulge in. Thus if Anna Hazare is completely corrupt from ‘head to toe’ because of this instance then our political leaders by equivalence are doused completely with the sticky glue of corruption. Even after the drama at Tihar jail with Anna Hazare refusing to come out and negotiating from there the terms of the ensuing fast, the government and the Congress party are completely engrossed in that drama while they can even now rise above that and start discussing the Lok Pal bill draft with Anna Hazare and his team through the Standing Committee process. This will at least avoid Anna Hazare from going on fast again and be consistent with Abhiskek Manu Singhvi’s supposed ‘concern about this elderly person’s health’. Or are the government and the Congress party bent upon giving Anna Hazare more free publicity at the Ram Lila maidan or as the press has named the jamboree ‘Annalila’. One thing that everyone involved should realize is that dialogue should start and in no case be avoided. Or is the Congress party ham-handed because of the absence of Sonia Gandhi from the country and Anna Hazare’s fast will have to continue until she becomes better and is able to apply her mind to the issue. Thus the trade-off is between one coming off from infirm health and the other going to infirmer health. There is a break-point or deadline there somewhere, which none of us can put our finger on. As for the many voices from the media, activists, lawyer fraternity and others that Anna Hazare should not be encouraged are all a sign that ‘grapes are sour’. They are unable to accept the stature that Anna Hazare is earning for himself and as said earlier this man may be stubborn, irascible, irrational and radical but he remains very much a human being and the government and the Congress party will find to their downfall and ruin that he is not a man as said earlier to be cowed down or ignored. Therefore, LET THE DIALOGUE BEGIN.

Corruption: Mechanism & Vested Interests

The fact that corruption has gone endemic and got deeply absorbed in Indian society is very obvious if one sees the widespread support that Anna Hazare’s movement has got. People have been debating ad nauseum on TV talk shows as to why so many people are coming onto the streets in support of Anna Hazare and his team. The reason is simple, these are the people who have to pay at every step for getting any of their work done, be it with municipal, state or central authorities. The students are coming out since they are looking for a brighter future in the face of not getting admissions into higher colleges to pursue higher education. Just yesterday it was reported in the newspapers that a radiology seat in a medical hospital at Navi Mumbai went for Rs. 1.5 crore while another went for Rs. 1.3 crore. With these kind of capitation fees how many students can pursue professional colleges let alone doing radiology? The rich and industrialist class which was sitting on the fence until last week have in the majority announced their support for Anna Hazare since they see their cost of corruption for doing business going down. Who are the people that are complaining about Anna Hazare hijacking the ‘institutions of this country like Parliament’ are the politicians and more so those from the Congress party since they are the ones who are going to be hit the most? Thus it is clearly that vested interests are at play and the politicians will not have their cozy nooks of black money and corruption snatched away from them. But let us look at how corruption has lately emerged as the single most distressing matter for this country. In the philosophy that if you share what you have then there will be more gratitude for you and consequently lesser complaints, this government has resorted to bribing its constituents. How? With the 6th Pay Commission the government employees, first Central and then State then Central undertakings and then State enterprises, got massive hikes in salary which was essentially to get them to shut their mouths. Thus when runaway inflation then started first with phenomenal rises in the prices of pulses, then sugar, then vegetables and regular increases in milk and fuel prices during this period, this large chunk of government employees as given above did not protest, did not say a thing since they had been bribed indirectly to keep their mouth shut. If you remember earlier, back pay consequent upon salary revision was not given in full but always a part of it was put into Banks or the PF so that it did not fuel inflation. But after the 6th Pay Commission such a method was not adopted and back pay was fully given to employees to make the bribe philosophy as mentioned above work perfectly. Thus the ministers, officials, and political parties had a clear field to pursue their agendas of 2G, CWG, Adarsh and other scams which have all been falling ‘like skeletons out of the closet’ of the UPA & Congress party to borrow a phrase from our PM Manmohan Singh alluding to the sins of the BJP and the Opposition. If you also notice each time a Congress functionary is trapped on the issue of corruption on these TV talk shows he or she keeps squealing about how much the UPA government has done to fight corruption compared to the BJP and the NDA. Little do these muddle headed Congress functionaries realize that what they are doing now is important on the issue of corruption, just having laws in your bookcase are not enough and what’s so funny about the Congress knowing and doing about the corruption since being steeped in corruption for these 64 years they are the best people to be aware about it and also do something about it. There are other politicians taking umbrage that all MP’s are being tarred with the same brush of corruption when some may be clean. That is a rare breed it is known and those who take umbrage are those who obviously have something to hide and the arrows have hit at very vulnerable places in their psyche. That corruption is planned to be hereditary can be seen from the number of progeny of ageing senior political leaders that are in politics today not only from the main national parties but also from the regional parties. The need for this is simple since the sons and daughters, at least one, of senior leaders should remain in politics to protect their ill-gotten gains otherwise all their investment over generations will be washed away. It is being said that Anna Hazare’s movement is all urban-based and held in the media glare of Delhi and other metropolitan cities. Let it be so since it has only shut down parts of Delhi in the last few days for a couple of hours since God forbid, if it became a rural movement too then just like a few months back prior to Ambedkar Jayanti when the tribals and rural people in lakhs marched into Delhi, the outpouring this time could shut down Delhi for at least a week since corruption hits the rural folk more at every step and in very real terms. Thus to get out of this mess the UPA-2 government should initiate a dialogue with Anna Hazare and his team and once and for all and sort out this immediate issue of the Lok Pal Bill. With both sides willing, one does not see why a solution cannot be found to protect an elderly man like Anna Hazare from fasting indefinitely.

The Anna Hazare Tamasha In Delhi

The drama orchestrated by this UPA government in first arresting Anna Hazare and his team yesterday (16th) and then releasing them late evening is assuming ludicrous proportions. This after every minister starting from Home, HRD & Telecom, Tourism and Finance came on live television and in press conferences during the day to justify their actions in arresting Anna Hazare. In any case most of these sound bytes were far removed from reality and clearly showed that the UPA government had been completely outmaneuvered. In the comments made by Kapil Sibal and MOS Narainswamy in trying to cast aspersions that Anna Hazare and his team are supported by one or the other political party, the first was mumbling that flanking Kiran Bedi on 16th morning was the BJP councilors from Delhi and the second, was saying how is he able to manage to get so many people onto the streets without the support of some organization. These comments clearly once again established the disconnect between the ruling Congress party and the aam admi to have a Minister almost say incredulously that we have to pay money to bring in crowds and this man without even asking is able to attract such mammoth crowds not only in Delhi but all over India. Ambika Soni was trying to wash off the Congress and the UPA government involvement in the matter by saying that the entire decision making was with the Delhi Police. This was making provision for a scapegoat in case things went wrong which is what every smart politician does. The Home Minister, P Chidambaran as usual was looking officious and talking as if to a class of recalcitrant schoolchildren and quoting irrelevant CrPC acts little realizing that the nation knew better than that. All this pointed out to a complete breakdown in the decision making process within the Congress party and the UPA government with everybody or anybody wanting to try and salvage the situation. This is essentially because of a lack of leadership which is resulting in the individual satraps bouncing up and down to make themselves heard. If all the above named dignitaries felt so morally correct about the arrest then why the ‘volte face’ in the evening and the decision to release Anna Hazare and his team unconditionally. Rumour suggests that Rahul Gandhi interevened with PM Manmohan Singh. If so the same man, who refused to deal with Anna Hazare prior to the fast and directed him to the Delhi Police, suddenly gets involved. Another reason why Anna Hazare has appealed to the masses is that he at least speaks, and since April of this year he has probably spoken more to the people of India than their own Prime Minister has done for the last 4 years or more of this UPA government. We hope Manmohan Singh now realizes the virtues of speaking out loud and clear in relation to his policies and vision. The anachronism in the 16th August incidents at Delhi are firstly allowing Anna Hazare to hold his fast, limited or whatever, in the Jayprakash Narayan Park. The latter gentleman had brought the then Congress government to its knees and for people with some insight the symbolism will not be missed. Second, is sending Anna Hazare and his team to Tihar, which created history by housing people of both sides of the divide on corruption, Kalmadi, Raja and Kanimozhi on one side and Anna Hazare and his team on the other. Concluding, Anna Hazare has shown to this UPA government that he is no Baba Ramdev but a tough cookie and no threats or police action will cow him down. Here’s wishing Anna Hazare all success in his crusade.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 73 Date: 13.08.2011

Contents:

1. The Government Desperately Needs A Neera Radia
2. Its Independence Day Again!
3. Look Inwards Before You Look Outwards & Shoot Your Mouth
4. And What A Fall There Was, My Countrymen!
5. The Firing Deaths on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway
6. My India That Is The Forgotten Bharat


The Government Desperately Needs A Neera Radia

The UPA-2 government has gone and done it again by arresting Anna Hazare ahead of his proposed fast. This is wrong strategy and will elevate him to the status of a martyr. They should have accepted him to hold his fast wherever he wanted and then allowed it to fizzle out. If the fast was likely to endanger his health then the government would have had every right to intervene and take him into custody and provide him medical treatment. At every turn in the Anna Hazare - Baba Ramdev and now back to the Anna Hazare saga the government has been consistent in making blunders. The completely immature spokesmen for the government and the Congress party have made a mess of the public relations strategy and been outmaneuvered at every instance. Firstly, it does not behove a party like the Congress which is a collective organization and the UPA government which is a larger collective organization to pounce on an individual even of the status of Anna Hazare whom both these above named organizations, given the way things are shaping up, may consider him of equivalent status. This is the same old David and Goliath story reproduced in modern times, where the sympathy will always be with David, in this case Anna Hazare. Moreover the Sawant commission report to prove that Anna Hazare is corrupt is more than 6 years old, which no one including the media is mentioning. It is not also being mentioned that the then Maharasthra government found that there was nothing in the report that they could seriously pursue against Anna Hazare and hence it was dropped. The accusations of corruption against Anna Hazare will all fall flat and the government and party spokespersons should have some sense even for political reasons not to emphasise this aspect very strongly. As for his team, Digvijay Sing, the Congress loose cannon, has said that Lehmann Brothers gave Kiran Bedi’s NGO Rs. 2.5 crores! Firstly, Lehmann Brothers should have that kind of money to give for charity! Or in another sense, maybe that was the reason that they went bankrupt! Then you have the joker, Kapil Sibal saying that in a democracy people also have responsibilities along with their rights and cannot protest using hunger-strike as a weapon whenever they like. What kind of a statement is that did Mahatma Gandhi seek permission from the British when he should fast and this government is acting no less than a colonial ruler and are complete outsiders as far as the common people are concerned, and Anna Hazare has every right to exercise his right to protest in any manner. Then we have had Pranab Mukherji say that no one can be allowed to commit suicide. Putting all these statements together it is clear that both the Congress party and the UPA-2 government are completely at a loss and bereft of ideas on how to tackle Anna Hazare. Even the President in her Independence Day eve speech has said that individuals should not try to erode institutional credibility hinting at Anna Hazare’s dig at politicians and Parliament. Where was the need for this? Giving this man undue publicity. In any case, the point is that our Parliamentarians themselves have completely eroded their own credibility and that of Parliament in these 60 odd years. Little does the President realize that there is nothing left to erode. The manner to handle Anna Hazare and his civil society team was to clearly tell them that the Lok Pal bill is before Parliament and considering that it had been referred to the Standing Committee, that any issues that they have should be referred to that Committee. Any other method would be to insult the democratic process and Parliament. Drumming this home would have discredited Anna Hazare and his team in the eyes of the people since with parliament in session there was eminent sense in this approach. In fact Anna Hazare and his civil society team were themselves wavering towards this approach a week back and to postpone the fast. The minor crack in the opponents negotiating position the government should have exploited by extending the tentative ‘olive’ branch as above. But then having not necessarily covering themselves with glory during the drafting Committee meetings on the Lok Pal bill the government had lost all credibility with the nation and Anna Hazare and his civil society team and consequently the ability to push through any initiative. Now they are in the process of putting the ‘halo’ firmly on Anna Hazare’s head for perpetuity. This is where the government need a good public relations consultant and a Neera Radia would have helped! Conceit and the reluctance to meet anyone half way will cost this UPA-2 government very severely in the days to come which can be seen in their ham-handed approaches in almost every matter. Shutting oneself out of evolving strategy and initiatives will also turn out to be the bane of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister.

Its Independence Day Again!

We celebrate our 65th Independence Day today. Has it not gone long enough? Even government employees retire at 60, so should the Independence Day not have gracefully retired? This is being said in the context of the negative connotation that Independence Day also carries and that is having been under the British. We have won our independence, is that not good enough or do we even after 64 years keep ourselves reminded about having been under colonial rule. Is there any relevance in this celebration since in the majority the people who manage our economy, industry and are representative of society today are all the post-independence generation. These people and the youth in India today aim for the world, thanks to the efforts of the generation that got them the freedom. Do we need to again saddle them at a national level by reminding them of our colonial past. All this is necessary for people who have lost relevance today and the political parties particularly the Congress to remind the nation that it is they who got the country its freedom. What should be done is that we should have a National Day and that could be either the Republic Day or Mahatma Gandhi's birthday on October 2. If either of these days are celebrated as the National Day then it will have positive vibes that will help a surging and prosperous India take its rightful place in the world. Similarly the birthdays of our eminent thinkers, literary persons and even our leaders who got us our freedom should be celebrated on a much larger scale than what we do today. These are the people and events that needs to be sewn into the psyche of every Indian and not tell them that we were under the British and then they gave us our independence. It is not that we should not have Independence Day as such, have it by all means but celebrate it in a lower key than what we do today.

Look Inwards Before You Look Outwards & Shoot Your Mouth

The riots that literally ran 'riot' through some of the major cities of the UK starting off from London has exposed the seaming underbelly of unrest that is just below the surface in British society. In the same manner, the bickering over expanding the credit limit in the US between the President and the Democratic and Republican parties brought to the fore that it is no longer the nation that the GOP is so much bothered about than itself. By bringing down the image of the US in the eyes of the world, the GOP has done no favour to America which was reflected in the Standard & Poor's downgrading the US' credit rating from its AAA status. It is not whether S& P was correct in doing so but the 'downgrading' was symbolic that the position of the US on that AAA pedestal was more than shaky. The involvement in very expensive wars abroad and the winds of recession time and again sending a chill through the government economists spines apart from the deep pain in common citizens that the government was bailing out US Banks who in turn were shortclosing on home loans of ordinary citizens while the bank top managements was glorifying themselves with unseemly financial bonuses. Similar are the financial uncertainties in Europe where excess borrowing and surging budget deficit concerns have put economies ranging from Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy at risk of going under. Thus the Western nations have more than a necessity to look inward and set right their own houses before they can go around the world advising other countries how to manage their affairs. So look inward first before you go dishing out advice to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Libya. David Cameron, the British Prime Minister has realised to his chagrin that the very social networks he was praising during the 'Arab spring' or 'Jasmine Revolution' in the Arab world has been instrumental in spreading the riots in London to the other outlying cities of the UK. Moral of the story: A certain circumspection is in order before you praise breakthrough technologies since they can sometimes be like a double-edged sword cutting both ways.

And What A Fall There Was, My Countrymen!

The manner in which India has been humiliated by England in the on-going Test cricket series is a shame. With each Test the margin of defeat for India has been increasing and one wonders if the performance by our cricketers continues in the same vein, what one should imagine would be the margin of defeat in the last Test at the Oval. Can anything be worse than the 'double' innings defeat in the third Test since beyond the innings deficit the number of runs India were short at 242 to make England bat again was almost the same as their score in both innings in the match. So the way things are going India has to bat thrice for England batting once! We knew the Indian bowling particularly without Zaheer Khan would not be able to get England out twice in a Test but the strategy of batting England out of the Test has miserably failed with none of our batsmen except Dravid giving any consistent performances. Even Tendulkar has been groping around for that elusive 100th ton in international matches and the manner of his dismissals particularly in the second innings of both the Lords and Trent Bridge Tests gave the impression that he felt it better to be in the pavilion rather than score a century when India was loosing to add to the legend that 'whenever Tendulkar scores a century India looses'. The bowlers but for Praveen Kumar who has bowling his heart out have been exposed in their lack of ability to exploit the English conditions. This kind of technical deficiency was also applicable to the batsmen who except for Dravid have shown that they are not able to handle pace as well as the swinging ball. In fact the ODI and T20 formats and their impact on the batting in Test cricket was brought clearly to the fore in India's batting performance during this series. Why we did not play R P Singh after flying him out at short notice to replace Zaheer Khan is something no one will be able to understand? Since a left arm pacer could have made a difference and R P Singh in his better playing days has always been one of the first to get a breakthrough and has been consistently taking wickets. On the structure of the team with 11 players and the necessity of taking one wicket keeper, we should try playing with 5 each of batsmen and bowlers. With our famed batting line-up at least on paper and if they come good and with Dhoni able to wield no mean bat we have the 6 batsmen and keeping 5 bowlers will at least give us a chance of trying to bowl out the opposition with more options. Thus in the Oval Test we should go in with 4 pacers and one spinner which will surely make a difference. A time to revisit strategy, boys, since it is not loosing the No. 1 spot in Tests or wahtever but at the end of the day your reputation as a cricketer and playing for India counts.

The Firing Deaths on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway

It is shame that three farmers had to die in the unprovoked firing at Mawal on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. The farmers were unarmed and were protesting what they were thinking was a valid cause. There was a need to talk to them and explain that blocking the expressway indefinitely was not the way to resolve their problems. Why the police should resort to firing is something not understandable since after all they are our own people. If there was violence from the farmer group then the police could have backed off, got reinforcements and come back. Again without a District Magistrate's order how can the police open fire with guns on a gathering of people? Is a Superintendent of Police (SP) authorised to take this decision? Moreover if you see the footage on TV the crowd was retreating and you see these police officers firing at their backs. Are the police even when they have to resort to firing on a crowd are expected to fire in the air first and then below the knees. Is this training not given to the police? If they are not following it or are not able to understand these instructions then they should be summarily dismissed from the police force without any benefits. Then we have this clown R R Patil, the Home Minister of Maharasthra making a statement that the firing was started by an unknown man in an 'unknown' Indigo. The man could be unknown, if at all this story is true, but then the Indigo cannot be unknown, since it would have a number plate. Did the police on site get its number at least so that the unknown man could be traced? However, this story in no way takes away the callous manner in which the police acted in this incident. And we should not have clowns in responsible positions and particularly this joker R R Patil who has been there in that same chair since the Mumbai terror incident involving Kasab, making all kinds of excuses for his stupidity. He should also resign failing which the CM should sack him forthwith.

My India That Is The Forgotten Bharat

On the eve of the 64th anniversary of our independence from the British we need to take stock of our country. Consider our common people, some educated, some not; some skilled, some not; some advantaged, some not (in the context of living in an urban setting and/or advantaged by association with the wealthy like family retainers etc.); some educated, many not. These people understood that many of the things they wanted at the time of the colonial rule could not be given to them because we were not free. But 64 years hence they still have the same problems, nothing for them has changed and this is more so in rural India. Take for instance food. In colonial times, food was available. Work was available. People were more sympathetic and compassionate. If you had no money then you could work and the master or mistress of the house would give you a square meal. Nowadays food is available. They say in plenty. They say our godowns are full. But it is available at a price. But then one has no money to buy food. Then there is no work to earn money. People nowadays shoo you away if you tell them of your misery. They want no part of it. There is very little charity. So one has to go hungry while the food continues to rot in the government godowns. In the 60’s we had no food that is why people had to tighten their belts and maybe starve, today they have to starve because we have plenty of food but it is all in the godowns. The government they say has many schemes to give cheap food to the people. But then when you go to the ration shops located particularly for the strata that are entitled to subsidized food there are never any stocks. Some say that all this food is diverted to the open market by the traders and their mafia who sometimes do not allow the food to reach even the ration shops but divert it directly from the government godowns. So where will one get his food. Just like food there is supposed to be subsidized kerosene for our use as cooking fuel. It never reaches the shops and we never get it. We have to buy it at blackmarket prices from the corner hole-in-the-wall shop run by the local toughie. Some say that here also there is a mafia which adulterates petrol with the subsidized kerosene and makes money. There was news that this mafia is so strong and well-connected (With whom? The politicians, who else?) that in the last one year they have killed an IAS officer and a Collector-sahib. But in spite of this they still run strong and their trade has not got affected. There is now talk that the kerosene subsidy will be paid directly into our bank accounts and the price of kerosene will go up to Rs. 60/- a litre. Where will we get the money to buy even that one litre of kerosene even though we may need more, and then claim subsidy on it? Who wants all this jhanjhat – rigmarole? And then crediting our bank account, when entering a bank is difficult for us, the officials treat us like dirt and then the mukhiya will say that the bank account has to be a joint one with him or one of his family members. There also we will have to pay a hafta or cut. If like this is it a plan to cut down on kerosene consumption then it is fine. Because less and less people will want to go through all this jhanjhat. Or is it a plan to kill us? Then they could give us some subsidized dhatura seeds from the ration shops. Problem solved One time only! What do these people know sitting in air-conditioned offices about the problems we face? They make theoretical schemes which are not practical and will never work. Take this Jawaharlal Nehru Rozgar Yojana called also MNREGA. We are supposed to get work. But then we have to wait our turn until all the panchayat members and their families have been shown on paper as working and then the high castes in the village have get their share and then only the remaining slots are given to us. That too to people who are willing to pay the highest hafta and then his name is included in the list. Then you have the Sadak Yojana among many yojanas which are all named after Bapu or Chachaji or Indiraji or Rajivji but even with their names associated with these schemes nothing works for us. Under the Sadak Yojana bills are passed for roads that were never built it and the money is all pocketed by the panch members. Rajiv Gandhiji 20 years ago or more said that that for every rupee spent by the government only 20 paisa reaches the poor or those targeted under the program. Today the situation is worse with not even 10 paisa reaching the targeted people out of every rupee spent. So have we become worse in some matters than what we were 20 years ago? Where does all this money go? Clear and simple. It goes into the pockets of the politicians and government officials. The first cajoles you during election time and then you do not see even his tikki until the next election comes around and all the promises he made remain unfulfilled. The second threatens you on the plea that they are busy and you are not the only one that is asking for something to be done. And if they do it for you then what about all the others? These are all scare tactics to raise the amount of money they want to make since they play one against the other and will tell you that if you cannot pay there are others who will and you will loose the opportunity to get what you are asking maybe forever. Thus these are the people who are the new sahibs. Earlier under colonial rule it was the white sahibs and now they are called, someone said ‘brown sahibs’. Just like the white sahibs these people also isolate themselves from the people behind security guards, gated and protected houses and then hide in government offices refusing to see people except their own coteries which add to their ill-gotten gains. And then we thought we had azaadi or freedom after the British left and with our own people ruling, we had thought it was ‘our’ government. But at every step they reassure us that it is ‘their’ government. They expect us to elect them and then shut up tolerating whatever they say or do and have the temerity to scold us more often than not, insult us more often than not by saying that we will not understand what they are doing and finally to top it all will say when we are persistent that it is the ‘tyranny of the unelected’. On corruption if we raise our voice tired and disgusted of paying at each step or turn in our daily lives, the ‘brown sahibs’ when confronted will initially deny the issue, with further persistence they will go through the following phases: resort to rebuttal, then threats and then suddenly stunning silence. If you pursue the matter more at higher levels then firstly you are denied access, if you use the judiciary and they pass a favourable judgment then the judiciary is accused of ‘overreach’. You pursue more with the help of the media or whatever and even then nothing happens and at the highest level there is also no sense of responsibility and/or accountability with the Prime Minister as someone who is rarely seen and even lesser heard. So you are butting your head against a blank wall and beyond a point nothing happens. On corruption everyone linked with the government or the politicians makes money and there are rare instances where some are hauled up in our courts and penalized and/or sent to jail. But no one has heard that the money that they stole has been returned to the exchequer. So they will be penalized and they will pay the fines with their ill-gotten gains, which is all yours, mine and our money, and if they go to jail they will come out and join their families and/or cronies who were enjoying the money all along. It is not that everything about our country is negative, things have become better but only for a limited category of people who use cars, fly on planes, have expensive cellphones which after being got with investments from our money and who work in factories built on our fertile land which the government, ‘our’ government took from us at dirt-cheap prices and depriving us of our livelihood, sold to these industrialists at a profit, look on us as if we are outsiders. Thus there was no swaraj, no freedom for us. It was all a transfer for us from a system ruled by ‘white sahibs’ earlier to ‘brown sahibs’ now. The real freedom was for this small miniscule minority as outlined above who pride themselves to be with the world while it leaves us in the dark ages. Thus they are the new, free India while we are the old, plodding, suffering Bharat. If Bapu, the Father of Our Nation and the other founding fathers of Bharat watching from Vaikunt see the plight that their beloved country has been brought to then they would shed tears and ask themselves – Is this what we fought for? Was it worth it? Would it not have been better that we remained under alien rule loosing our self-respect, loosing our pride for the sake of our people who could be given at least two square meals a day.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 72 Date: 06.08.2011

Contents:

1. Government Double-Speak
2. A Vibrant Democracy That Is India
3. Lok Pal Bill: Dignified Forms of Protest Required
4. The Yeddy, Steady, Go Circus @ Bangalore
5. Invasion of Privacy vs. Death by UN Resolution
6. Controlling The Bogey of Inflation
7. Participative Democracy

Government Double-Speak

The double-speak of people in this UPA government is consistent and is vented just for the sake of saying something, anything without meaning it or with no intent to take any concurrent action. The latest examples of such kind of double-speak are as follows. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherji while replying in the debate in Parliament on rising prices and inflation without being specific of any concrete measures to tackle the problem talked of a ‘differential’ pricing for diesel giving statistics of how a large proportion of subsidized diesel goes for use in passenger cars. The very next day he says that the government is not thinking of any ‘dual’ pricing for diesel. Maybe the significance is in the two words: ‘differential’ and ‘dual’ which one wonders whether the Bengali babu himself understands. But how many of our common people will fathom all this and it will be said that this government says one thing one day and contradicts itself the next day. In similar manner the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh fully aware of our overflowing FCI godowns and with food rotting while being stored in the open exhorts on the back of a record harvest of 241 million tonnes foodgrains produced last year, to produce still more. For what purpose, to waste more? The least the PM could have done is to mention in his speech about the storage problem of foodgrains, then outline action proposed to resolve the matter and then ask the farmers to produce more. Lastly with Mamta Banerji quitting as Railway Minister, we have had a spurt in railway accidents not that there were any fewer during her tenure and most of these have been in West Bengal and the North East or for trains originating from Kolkata. The prestigious Kalka Mail from Kolkata went off the tracks in UP while proceeding at a speed reported to be of 120 Kmph since as per preliminary findings the driver applied the brakes suddenly to save something that had come on to the tracks. Then a few days later we have news that the railway ministry is looking at introducing trains that will run at 150 Kmph. First why do we not make our present system accident – proof and secure for our passengers rather than without proper tracks and related signaling proceed to think of hi-speed trains with the intention to kill more? We know life is cheap in India but the government with full knowledge and deliberate intent should not turn into a murderer.

A Vibrant Democracy That Is India

The bogey of corruption has raised its head again for the UPA government with the CAG report on the CWG creating a furore in Parliament. One is bound to admit that with our Supreme Court and CAG in tandem the politicians lately have spent many a sleepless night and are busy cleaning up their closets to avoid being caught in the event of a raid by the authorities. The CAG has been particularly doing exemplary and pro-active work and that too after a long time instead of just burying their noses in the accounting have been asking some tough and embarrassing questions. Their credit has been noted even by the PM who has mumbled something about all agencies working within their respective boundaries. These are signs that augur well for Indian democracy


Lok Pal Bill: Dignified Forms of Protest Required

The burning of the Lok Pal bill draft that was introduced in Parliament by Anna Hazare and his team is clearly showing them in a bad light. There are different ways to protest but carrying things too far undermines the credibility of the protest in the public mind. Thus in this way Anna Hazare and his team will fritter away the small gains that they have achieved in the lead-up to the Lok Pal bill. To recount these gains, the first is to resurrect a 40 year old dead bill and give it priority clearance to being adopted; the second is to get civil society involved in the draft of a bill and lastly, giving a feedback to government of the status of public opinion on a legislative measure by polling different regions in the country on which version of the Lok Pal bill they would prefer. These gains should not be squandered away by hasty, precipitate and incoherent action which may be a good thing to attract the illiterate masses but will definitely have educated society shy away from Anna Hazare and his team. There is some sign that the team is thinking out its strategy in the proper way by Kejriwal coming out with an advice that Anna Hazare may be inclined to postpone his fast until after the Lok Pal bill discussions in Parliament conclude which will not only get Anna Hazare enhanced respect from the people but also from the legislators in Parliament and officialdom of government.

The Yeddy, Steady, Go Circus @ Bangalore

The Yeddyurappa fiasco has thankfully subsided with one of his cronies being installed in the CM’s gaddi who again has been blackened with the stain of malpractice in converting one of his residential sites in Bangalore and building a commercial premise on that site. Thus we will have to see how long he lasts in the dog-eat-dog politics of the BJP in Karnataka. But the manner of Yeddy’s departure played out in the media where a person who granted may be deeply religious brought on rank superstition and disrespect for the gods in trying to cling on to his seat. The superstition aspect came out a few months back when he had suggested that the Opposition was using black magic to overthrow him. And the disrespect to the gods by inviting H D Kumaraswamy to visit with him Lord Manjunatha at Dharmasthala so that they could respectively swear about their innocence in matters of corruption and leave it to the Lord to decide who among them is corrupt. Where in the matters of men you stoop to very low levels in politics is it not improper to bring the gods into it? Then in the face of the damning Santhosh Hegde report on illegal mining, first Yeddy refused to quit and then not only insisted on having his nominee as Chief Minister but also wanted for himself the state party president post. In the face of obvious and blatant charges of corruption, how could Yeddy demand such things and how could BJP as a party accept these kind of shenaninagans. Yeddy’s strategy is understood to be to get himself cleared of the Lokayukta report charges and then get himself re-instated as Chief Minister. The BJP has been rightly accused of double standards in its pandering to Yeddy’s demands so that the party did not split in Karnataka. Yeddy himself in his anxiety to prove himself blemish-free has said that he is not responsible for the misdeeds of his sons which again is like a drowning man clutching at straws by trying to distance himself from his sons. Everyone knows that his sons are nobodies without Yeddy in the CM’s chair. This example is showing yet again the venality of Indian politics where even the parties which claim themselves to be lesser tainted on matters of corruption cannot free themselves of dishonest politicians like Yeddy. One lesson that Yeddy has learnt in all this is not to invite trouble unnecessarily since he has claimed that it was he who asked the Lokayukta to look into illegal mining and was it not he who banned illegal mining, and then he gets caught in the act. Or was he trying to bluster it out and attempting to get a clean chit without considering the integrity and tenacity of Santhosh Hegde? In any case, the attempt by the BJP to retain its first government in south India should not turn out for them costly in the long run.

Invasion of Privacy vs. Death by UN Resolution

The phone hacking saga has gone beyond Rupert Murdoch’s paper and touched other papers including the Daily Mirror whose then editor Piers Morgan now with CNN being asked to clarify on Heather Mills accusation of her phone being hacked when she was in the midst of her break-up with Paul McCartney. There are others from the media that have got arrested in this parading of agony in this infringement on privacy. There is a lot of heart-beating and sympathy towards those that had their phones hacked on both sides of the Atlantic after it was reported that even those who lost family in the 9/11 disaster had had their phones hacked. These are issues which are justifiably to be probed considering that they are a deliberate intrusion into the private lives of individuals and systems set in place such that in future things like this do not happen but then are the rights of the people in the West more valued than those of people in other lesser privileged parts of the world. Like in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, innocent people were killed which you could say in one sense is wiping out privacy from the individual completely. But then there were or are no qualms for these poor people who died or dying even now. Are they not human enough for this kind of consideration that is now being dished out to those whose phones were hacked? Or is it because the people of the West feel that action in the named countries as above was morally justifiable in the context of an available fig leaf to hide their shame in the form of a manipulated UN resolution?

Controlling The Bogey of Inflation

The issue of rampant inflation has seized Parliament in the current monsoon session which has been making the lives of the common people miserable over the last 3 years. The UPA government has done pretty much little about tackling inflation seriously and has in fact contributed to its runaway nature by its action as well as inaction. Whenever it has acted it has been to add to inflation like the regular increases of petroleum fuel and LPG prices which has made the disposable income of average households to keep shrinking. Again whenever any such price rises are implemented the government has always tried to justify it by giving their side of the story with nary a concern for the story from the side of the common man or the poor. That each action of theirs maybe clearly justifiable in economic theory is having the aam admi pushed closer and closer to the edge of the precipice of penury and in the case of the poor towards starvation. The PMEAC headed by C Rangarajan in its recent report has again put up its hands stating that the Indian economy is an enigma and to decipher it is well nigh impossible. This kind of explains the inability of the RBI with its 14 hikes in interest rates over the last 10 months to control money supply and thus contain inflation. The persistent use of the monetary policy instrument of interest rates, is it a sign of helplessness with relation to the Indian economy as the PMEAC has suggested or the RBI not knowing what measures to adopt is continuing to play with interest rates, the most obvious and visible measure to tackle inflation, so that it is an apology for having taken at least some action and nobody can blame them for doing nothing. Why this government and the RBI are not using supply side methods to contain inflation is something that baffles the average observer of economic theory? With overflowing godowns and a record production of foodgrains in the last year at 241 million tonnes, this government would rather have the foodgrains rot in the open in the present monsoon than move it to the States and have it reach the people. Instead of having the grains rot is it not better to move it out to the consumer particularly to starvation prone tribal areas like in Orissa which with the rains failing is staring at a severe drought and progressively famine like conditions. Instead of taking up this issue on the topmost priority and on a war footing, our Public Distribution Minister, K V Thomas is only sending reminders to the States to pick up their allotted foodgrain stocks and then complaining that a majority of the States are not acting on this advice without telling us that the Centre would not supply the foodgrains without payment and the States not having funds to pay are leaving their allotted quotasremain in the Centre’s godowns. When you have a crisis situation why the Centre should insist on payment is something which is not understandable? Is it that the Centre would like the foodgrains rot than reach the stomachs of the poor and needy? Market intervention is also important and the Centre should have its policies clearly tuned up to respond quickly to divert stocks from public distribution to trade. This will ensure large scale supply into the market which is bound to bring down prices. This is clearly seen in the case of sugar where after the spikes seen last year and with again record production in the last year and another record harvest expected this year prices of sugar in the market have not gone below Rs. 30 per Kg. Here again with the issue of levy sugar and non-levy sugar being a deterrent to a quicker response to control prices in the marketplace is required. The overflowing sugar godowns in Maharasthra particularly are seeing chances of sugar dissolving and/or becoming unfit for human consumption in the heavy rains of the present monsoon. Here again you have the issue of States not able to pay for their allotted levy sugar quotas and the Sharad Pawar lobby of wanting to export sugar rather than reduce prices for the domestic consumer. This strong Maratha lobby to plunder the country and deprive its citizens from reasonable priced sugar has been in existence for long and it has been getting fatter and fatter on its ill-gotten gains. That this government has ineffective and very lethargic tools at its disposal is evidenced by the fact that recently the Commerce Ministry announced the MEP (Minimum Export Price) for non-basmati rice which was ‘lower’ than the MSP (Minimum Support Price); the CPI (Consumer Price Index) which is the primary tool for monitoring inflation turned out, wonder of wonders, not to reflect changes in inflation thus resulting in the government shooting in the dark as explained earlier with its measures to contain inflation! And the CPI is what this government all along has been using as the measure for tracking inflation! This UPA government is also on the verge of making a massive mistake by allowing an excess of 51% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in organized retail which will hand over the necks of the aam admi for squeezing by MNC’s until his last drop of blood is extracted. This measure is a complete abdication of the responsibility of this government to monitor prices and control inflation and in future we will have to live as in ‘banana’ republics with the CPI’s published by Walmart, Marks & Spencers and the like. There can be no greater shame than this. The government has been pressurized by the US mafia in our PMO and ministries like the Chief Economic Advisor and others on this retail FDI issue since having been bogged down by scams, it was being said that there has been no action of this government to push through economic affairs of importance. It is expected that retail FDI will bring in large amounts of investment and technology into the country which will bring down retail prices of items by cutting down on the supply chain margins and wastage in case of perishable goods. While this is a debatable issue the conditions for FDI relating to providing for employment, investing in rural areas and buying items from MSME’s are all in the nature of recommendations and are not mandatory. Therefore from past experience we can say that the incoming MNC’s will give these the go-by and invest as expected where they can extract the maximum profits. Is this desirabl;e is something that this country should decide? Concluding if this government has any intention to perform its role as that with a ‘human face’ which is the long forgotten slogan that Manmohan Singh gave his government in its first innings then it has to do market intervention on a massive scale, participate with the States in bringing down hoarding and black-marketing, be nimble in moving stocks from public distribution to trade and have indices which are more tuned to market realities.

Participative Democracy

The Anna Hazare team going to the people to poll their views on the Lok Pal bill is a good initiative which augurs well for democracy. There is a complaint, which is very much true in a democracy, not only in India but in most parts of the world that once the legislator gets elected there is a tendency to scorn and/or avoid his constituents. Thus for the term that the legislator is in office there is little that the constituents can do to influence the elected representative's actions, though in India people have been talking of 'call-back' options. In the 'call-back' option if the legislator is found not performing to the expectation of the people he or she can be asked to demit the legislative position. Particularly in our modern times where IT has advanced by leaps and bounds, there can be a system by which the incumbent government can poll the views of the people on any measure or bill that they intend to bring in. And if the polling establishes that more than 50% of the constituents are against this legislation then it should be dropped. The government can then get a chance to convince their electorate of the measure and bring it back for another poll. This method will ensure participation of the people in government setting the ground for what can be called 'participitative democracy'. By doing this democracy as we know it will be enhanced and become more effective. This is being done already in some countries where the opinion of people is sought in the format of a referendum, not in the legal sense that we perceive in India, but just like an opinion poll. Like in Italy recently they held a poll where the people overwhelmingly voted against the further expansion of nuclear energy. This process will also be useful in cases like the Iraqi and Afghanistan offensives where at the height of the conflict, people in millions came out on the streets of London, Washington, New York, Paris and other cities of the developed world asking their elected representatives to pull back from the named countries. Nothing happened to these initiatives and the war in these countries dragged on increasing the cost in terms of people, equipment and money and as we have seen lately because of this, among many other reasons, the US almost went bankrupt with its AAA credit rating becoming questionable. Thus we should have these processes in place to have opinion polls on any serious government measure so that people participation apart from being assured, the government gets an idea of the relevance of the measure in line with the expectations of the people.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 71 Date: 30.07.2011

Contents:

1. Spirit of the Game, Vaseline Et Al
2. Skeleton vs. Real Corpses
3. The Lok Pal Bill By Due Process
4. Pakistan’s Habitual Indiscretion
5. The UK ‘Summer of Cleansing’
6. Slutwalks Not Wanted

Spirit of the Game, Vaseline Et Al

The Bell incident at the recently concluded Test match at Trent Bridge left a bad taste in the mouth not for the reason that Bell did not add too many runs to his score after the incident or for the fact that India lost the Test by a huge margin, but for the reason that why should countries like India have to shoulder the cross for the 'spirit of the game'. One does not see any of the other Test playing countries be it England themselves or Australia or South Africa being bothered with the 'spirit of the game' and in contrast pride themselves on their gamesmanship and in enforcing the rules . Only when India or Pakistan is involved there is a clamour for the 'spirit of the game'. Like Sunil Gavaskar said about the Bell incident, that if Bell himself, knowing full well that he was justifiably declared out, had declined Dhoni's offer for returning to the crease to continue his innings, then the 'spirit of the game' would have been more greatly served. Did England require the concession that was given Bell, not necessarily from what the scorecard suggests. Thus England should realise that they themselves have a responsibility towards the 'spirit of the game' and therefore not have Strauss and the England coach run to the Indian dressing room to seek recompense any more in the remaining part of the series. There was another incident in the Trent Bridge Test where Swann after being hammered in an over kicked at the stumps and broke them dislodging the bails. One does not know whether he was pulled up by the match referee for this incident for showing disrespect to the game. Thus where countries like England and others get away with sledging and such kind of bad temper incidents as above, it is the cricketers from the sub-continent that are caught for minor infarctions. Further Michael Vaughan's comments about 'vaseline' on Laxman's bat stopping the 'hot spot' technology from detecting the supposedly faint nick is again in very bad taste. It was England who had great belief in this technology before the start of this series and had even expressed the reservations that India had in accepting this technology whole-hog. and it is they who complain about it now. Secondly, coming off the controversial Pakistani series some time back Vaughan probably thought that India was also fair game for these kind of insinuations. Let Vaughan fed on Murdoch-gate and Expense-gate (on MP's fudging their expenses) choose some other lurid means to pander to the tastes of the tabloid devouring public of the UK but let it not be at India's expense. Further Broad had the temerity to say that he had felt Laxman's bat while the hot-spot technology was examining the incident and that there was nothing there like 'vaseline' or whatever. Here again why should firstly, Broad have to do this furtively and secondly, have the stupidity to say out loud about what he did. England should remember that India plays its cricket fair and square as can be seen from the two debacles in consecutive Tests.

Skeleton vs. Real Corpses

Manmohan Singh has set the confrontation ball rolling on the eve of the monsoon session of Parliament by saying that the BJP & NDA have many skeletons in their closet. This was not required since this session is planned to have a large number of bills introduced and was expected to be a very busy session. In this context the PM's comment particularly as head of this government is not very statesmanlike. As a rejoinder to Manmohan Singh's comment anyone could have said that the UPA in contrast have real corpses in their closet and the stink is polluting this country.

The Lok Pal Bill By Due Process

The Lok Pal bill in whichever avatar is moving and if all goes well should be introduced in Parliament during the upcoming monsoon session. It will be debated by the various political parties in both Houses and then made into law once the President gives assent to the Bill. This is due process and needs to be respected. Thus Anna Hazare and his team should now stop complaining and accept this process. The Anna Hazare team had their opportunity under the sun but they squandered it by their own stubbornness, irascibility and lack of maturity of understanding the Indian parliamentary system and its process. Now no more and going on fast as threatened by Anna Hazare from August 16th is not going to bring in any meaningful conclusion. He should realize that in the selection of his team he made major blunders since the Bhushans and Kejriwal were not the competent persons to deal with the complex task of negotiating with government. It was to be remembered that all the cards were stacked against the Anna team and there was a need for someone within the team to find a way to outwit the government rather than go pell-mell at them which was what the team did and which was obviously not going to lead to any concrete results. Instead of that the Anna team was completely outmaneuvered by the government who at the outset lent a compassionate ear, succumbed to constituting the Lok Pal committee, discredited the Anna team members and then finally had their way. Thus the sympathy factor of the people will now be with the government who will be thought of having ‘done their best’. Anna Hazare and his team though one must say have done signal service to the Indian people by showing that public participation by common people in governance is possible. The fact that Anna Hazare and his team could not win will not be held against them since it was the first time and you cannot win them all and particularly not the first time. The mistakes that Anna Hazare made was in the first instance that of constituting his team and like as said earlier having both the Bhushans and Kejriwal in it was a mistake. The Bhushans with a dual presence negated the participation by another member who could have brought his own views and maybe attempted to elevate the dialogue. The Bhushans being lawyers tend to be in a fault finding mode and operate in trying to justify things which is not what is required while drafting a law. Here being advocates was their pitfall apart from the not so clean reputation that they enjoy. Kejriwal seems to be always in a gripe mode and refused to concede points which is sometimes very important in a negotiation. Thus as said earlier the dialogue rarely went beyond griping and fault finding during the committee meetings and the government in a bulldozing mode took advantage of this and drove their draft home. The fact that Anna Hazare and his team refused to see the light that the Bill should not create a parallel judicial system outside the ambit of our democratic institutions was the major stumbling block that finally made the government give up on carrying the dialogue with the Anna team any further. You cannot subvert democracy and ignore elected members of Parliament of whatever ilk, colour and shame that they may be and have a watchdog body external to it. That is something which is not clearly democracy. We surely do not want a coup in the country by an oligarch of individuals under the Lok Pal umbrella who work on the basis of fear and repression with the very plausible veil of fighting corruption. Thus let the Lok Pal bill now go through Parliament and get enacted. If there are problems with it then they can be tackled as we go along by introducing amendments. It is not that corruption which has been endemic in Indian society will vanish overnight even with Anna Hazare’s version of the Lok Pal bill and therefore it is best that we take these small but sure steps to eradicate corruption in our society.

Pakistan’s Habitual Indiscretion

Hina Rabbani Khar, the Pak Foreign Minister's meeting with the Kashmir separatists, irrespective of their moderate to strident colour, immediately upon landing in India should have been reason enough to call off the Foreign Ministers meeting between the two countries. Inspite of the Pak Foreign Minister saying that she comes to signify a change of heart within Pakistan of the relations with India, her actions are contradictory to her words. Playing hardball with Pakistan would have shown them that we mean business and that Pakistan needs to toe the line. For argument sake, if the Indian Foreign Minister while on a visit to Pakistan wanted to meet the rebels of Baloochistan or the NWFP or whatever, would the Pakistan Foreign Office or their authorities, comply with such a request. Surely not! Even when India goes across to Afghanistan with its re-building initiatives for that war-torn nation, Pakistan not only objects to it, stalls it and worse attacks our Embassy in Kabul with its conspirators. Thus why we cannot stop these misguided elements in Kashmir from visiting Pakistan's dignitaries when they come to India is something that is beyond comprehension. Not only did the Pak Foreign Minister meet our Foreign Minister, she went on to meet the PM, L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj as also tried to meet Sonia Gandhi who was down with a fever. None of these people pulled her up for insulting our hospitality. Why we do not realize that by her meeting the Kashmir separatists and also our senior ministers of government, Pakistan is equating the separatists to our dignitaries. When will we have a foreign policy which has the dignity and muscle appropriate to our economic strength and influence in the region, God only knows.

The UK ‘Summer of Cleansing’

The ugly Rupert Murdoch drama has gone far enough and should be taken off the media top line since it is benefiting him and his tabloid culture in monetary terms by increasing present circulation than any other print media. Essentially the charade being ventilated in various forums on the phone-hacking issue is exposing the seamy insides of a corrupt and intrusive society. In the UK with the MP’s being caught fudging their bills to make money which included some members of the hallowed House of Lords, it was freedom time for every level of society to use their position to bring in the illegal pennies. Thus the police got involved with the media in very cosy arrangements which as is coming out now is not restricted to just Rupert Murdoch’s publications. With TV and mobile phones increasingly usurping the position of newspapers to disseminate news, it was but natural for the tabloids to dominate the print media with the lurider of the lurid at the top of the pack with the broadsheets receding to the background to service those who had the time and the last shreds of intelligence in a consumerist, dog-eat-dog society. Intrusion into the privacy domain through methods like phone hacking, and one is sure there must be other means also, enabled journalists to have access to private information helping them to create their lurid stories. It is time that the UK put a stop to this since it has the potential to go into a downward spiral very fast and very quickly and therefore a stop is put to it, the earlier the better. A negative or reverse compliment should surely be given to Rupert Murdoch and his group who with their global media reach and imminent complete control of BSkyB in the UK ensured that this story hit the deadlines since if it was any other publication or group, it would possibly have died a common death not getting any publicity whatsoever and would therefore would possibly have continued in a lower profile with the perpetrators taking more precautions. The UK can pssibly call this the ‘Summer of Cleansing’ and whether it carries David Cameron with it, one will have to wait and see.

Slutwalks Not Wanted

On the 'slutwalk' proposed in Delhi aping similar walks around the world where women dress 'as they like' and take out a procession in the streets, one needs to realise that in any case women dress these days the way they like and instead of random peaks of exposure, if they organise a single mass demonstration then leering males will get an eyeful and also enjoy the experience. One should thank women for this kind of a show! But levity aside in India such 'slutwalks' are not desirable since they may not put the kind of women that participate in these walks to risk since they move about in private vehicles but those from the category that needs to regularly go out on the streets for their daily lives and have to take public transport will be put at more risk. Men will take the example of the 'slutwalk' and consider all women as fair game and indulge in sexual attacks on those women who are the most vulnerable and the most ill-prepared. We should therefore discourage such walks and in necessary have the police haul these women up for public exposure.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 70 Date: 23.07.2011

Contents:


1. The 'Wall' Stands Tall @ Lords
2. The 'Overreach' Of the Supreme Court in the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple
Affairs
3. Of Godmen & Their Riches
4. Review Konkan Railway Operations & Wind Up Air India
5. Why Mumbai Is Time & Again Targeted By Terror


The 'Wall' Stands Tall @ Lords

There has been so much hype about Sachin Tendulkar getting his 100th ton in cricket at the ongoing 100th Lords Test between India and England that people have quietly overlooked the 'quiet' man of Indian cricket appropriately nicknamed The Wall and that is Rahul Dravid. Without any hullaballoo he has shown who is important to Indian cricket by quietly scoring a century and thus getting his name inscribed in the dressing room at Lord's, a honour that thus far had eluded him. The century saved India, the No. 1 team in Test cricket, from an ignominious follow-on while most of Tendulkar's centuries have been made for personal landmarks and it is rare that when he has made a century that India has won a match. In fact for Tendulkar the opposite is more true, more often than not when he has scored a century India has lost. Dravid in contrast has been a team man from the beginning and inspite of being pilloried for his style of play not being suited for ODI's and his captaincy not suited for Indian tastes, he has always put his hand up when the team needed him. Like in the current Test in the second innings he has opened the innings in the absence of an injured Gambhir while Tendulkar is purportedly down with a virus. The virus is understood to have developed after Dravid had got his century. Now if Tendulkar wanted to satisfy the expectations of his millions of fans should he not have come out to open the second innings which would have given him the opportunity to get his 100th ton and also save India from certain defeat in this Test. However, Dravid and Lakshman, the two most derided people in Indian cricket, have been playing well and we hope that they show who is more important for Indian cricket by drawing this match.

The 'Overreach' Of the Supreme Court in the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple Affairs

Many a time there has been comment about judicial ‘overreach’ being exercised by the judiciary particularly the Supreme Court. Most of the time these complaints have been coming from the incumbent government. However, in the case of the Shree Padmanabhaswamy temple it is time that civil society raised their voice regarding such judicial ‘overreach’. Firstly, on what basis did the Supreme Court allow this case to be taken up. What was the locus standii of the person, since deceased, who had filed the suit? If the person had a grouse, he should have represented to the temple committee and upon exhausting the remedies there come to the judiciary. That is what the Supreme Court should have told him. Assuming this process was followed, the Supreme Court has further compounded the ‘overreach’ by asking the vaults at the temple to be opened. Now these vaults and what they contain was never part of the day-to-day management and the assets that are in use which was what the complainant should have been concerned about so where was the need to open them and then create a controversy. Further the Supreme Court has finally given an advice that the last remaining vault at the temple should be opened and appointed a 5-man committee to assess the treasures revealed and how they should be audited and thereafter displayed. This is yet again part of the ‘overreach’ since the judiciary should not step into the shoes of others like in this case the temple committee and the royal family of Travancore particularly when it has no understanding of matters like at the temple. Matters connected to the temple are those of spirituality and cannot be reduced to a file bound with red tape or put more simply in black and white for the judiciary to decide upon. The aspect of opening the vaults thus has more to it than just opening it and listing the contents therein and the court should have abided by the King’s wish in this matter and that is the consent of the Lord or the ‘devprashnam’ should have been sought. Further the manner of recording should be again left to the temple committee and the royal family and their wishes should be respected. Thus if no video recording should be done within the temple precincts is the decision by them then the Supreme Court should accept that gracefully. Further why this 5-man committee appointed by the court since is not the temple committee and the royal family not enough. This body and its predecessors is what has kept the treasures intact for centuries so where is the need to bring in outsiders into the whole thing. Lastly after the media came out with the value of the treasures the security has been beefed up and devotees are complaining that the spiritual atmosphere of the temple is being eroded with gun-toting policemen all around. Thus the Supreme Court without realising the maxim that the best security is no security and also not to make anyone aware of the wealth has completely vitiated the atmosphere of the Shree Padmanabhaswamy temple by its unnecessary interference. Thus it is best now that the Supreme Court pull out of the issue, disband the committee formed and dismiss the case since the petitioner, is in any case dead and trust the temple committee and the royal family of Travancore to handle the affairs of Shree Padmanabhaswamy.

Of Godmen & Their Riches

It looks like in Kaliyug even the Gods and those who consider themselves or made out to be Gods like Sathya Sai Baba have the need to be assured of their divinity by being comforted with material riches. This is kind of obvious with more riches and hordes of cash being discovered in the private living quarters of Sathya Sai Baba. Like it is said it is not only what you do in your present life but how you will be remembered is what will become your final cornerstone in history. So also why people who claim to be godmen need to be surrounded by material wealth is something beyond what anyone can fathom when actually they should be setting examples of character by simple and austere living. In the ultimate analysis it will be said that godmen never aspired to that position as such but it was the folly of the people that put them on that pedestal. That is where the crux of the matter lies.

Review Konkan Railway Operations & Wind Up Air India

There are two organisations which needs review and closure on a most immediate basis. The first is Air India which has been bleeding and at last count as reported in the papers the accumulated loss along with outstanding loans amounts to Rs. 68,000 crores. Why we need an haemorrhaging organisation like Air India which is a constant drain on the country's exchequer is what the government should review. The national flag carrier is a matter of sentiment on which we cannot waste good money on bad organisation and management. Give the national flag carrier challenge on a rotational competitive basis to private airlines which will be more than up to the job. The other organisation that needs serious review is the Konkan Railway Corporation which come the monsoon for three months has an interrupted schedule due to landslides on the tracks and sometimes accidents, this year thankfully up to now there have been none. The Konkan Railway Corporation was set up with a high debt which has saddled its operations from Day 1 and even now has not been able to come out of the red. Apart from that along the western coast that the Konkan Railway runs is soft, lateritic rocks and soil on which the tracks have been laid. These do not stand a chance during the heavy rains that this coast gets during the monsoon and the tracks have no chance since they see erosion from the bottom and landslides from the sides of the channel that the railway runs through in rocky terrain. Irrsepective of what the engineering team at Konkan Railway does to shore up the tracks it is a loosing battle and again as said above throwing good money at bad projects every year. The interrupted and uncertain schedule is a great nuisance to commuters also. Therefore it is best that passenger traffic on the Konkan Railway is closed down and it is used as a high speed corridor for freight traffic along the western coast along with the Ro-Ro facility it offers loaded trucks plying on the NH17 coastal highway. This way there will be avoidance of human life in accidents and the existing line used to support economic growth along the coast as also make the NH17 more safe for motorists.

Why Mumbai Is Time & Again Targeted By Terror

Post 26/11 that no action was taken in terms of police preparedness, be it groundwork or intelligence, for terror attacks and also to intercept the terrorists in the event of a hostage situation is now coming out. The government both in the State and at the Centre seems to have gone back to their slumber to awaken as now after 13/7 and see that there has been yet another terror attack. This is a sad commentary on the ability and priorities of our government for whom clearly human life at the street level is of no value. An example of this is the print ads to observe and report unattended objects started coming out after 13/7 while they should have been coming all along in both at print and visual media, in cinema halls screened before the movies and by outdoor hoardings at prominent places in the city and with posters where people collect like at train stations, bus stops etc. The Mumbai police while saying that their investigations into 13/7 will bear fruit shortly fail to realize that they and their superiors, both higher level officers, officials in government and ministers should have been on continuous alert since 26/11 to prevent another terror attack. Maybe we need also to change the reward system in the police force and give credit to investigative and interceptive work which stops major terror and criminal action and not only just give the rewards posthumously to those who died from the police force like after 26/11. Investigating 13/7 is important no doubt but the way the Mumbai police seems to be going about it is like taking out names from a hat as to who is responsible. First it was IM, then the 313 cell within the IM, then it was the LeT, then lately it is the HUJI and finally we have the senior police officers telling the press that nothing is ruled out and they are also looking beyond the above named outfits. Which to the lay person is saying that the Mumbai police is actually clueless. Further the NIA which was set up to go into terror investigations, both prevention and detection post-event, have not been involved in the 13/7 attack and also not in all the terror attacks that have happened since the NIA was formed. The reason for this is obviously turf wars between the Central agencies and the State police. Thus while these law enforcement agencies fight amongst themselves the aam admi continues to die on the streets. Thus the PM’s comments post- Mumbai visit to see the victims of 13/7 that he will ensure that such terror attacks will not happen again are clearly empty words that ring hollow. The PM cannot act on his own on such situations but the least he can do is to streamline the agencies involved and ensure that they work to their charter and show results by not having any such attacks happen again. Concluding, there are many who have been asking why Mumbai is being targeted time and again by the terrorists. It is not Mumbai alone but any of our metro cities with teeming populations and hordes of traffic and people on the roads are prime targets for terrorists since for them escape post-incident is relatively easier since they can melt into the crowds. While commending Mumbaikars on their spirit to take everything in their stride and at the same time condemning all terror attacks in the city including 13/7, there is one feedback that Mumbaikars should note and that is that they should be more alert to their surroundings and what is happening around them. The Mumbaikars to keep rushing everywhere without even any purpose is something that will have to change and to look at and observe their brethren on the street since many are the times that accident victims are not given help by others on the street and where a life could be saved or a more serious situation averted, the victims tend to die or the incident gets needlessly aggravated. This could be also one of the reasons why Mumbai is targeted by terrorists since where people do not care about their fellow brothers or sisters on the street they are more sure of success.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 69 Date: 16.07.2011

Contents:

1. Respect For Terror & Accident Victims + R R Patil Should Go
2. Pet Liability vs. Human Concerns
3. A Perspective On The NOTW Affair
4. Mumbai Terror Attacks Another Saga Of Carelessness
5. NSG New Rules & India Liability Issues


Respect For Terror & Accident Victims + R R Patil Should Go

The fact that the Mumbai police and the Central agencies are clueless as to who was responsible for the recent blasts is very much apparent by now. The activity aimed at currently is to find out who were behind the blasts, which is very much required to be known, but then there does not seem to be any intelligence pre-blast which will help the law enforcement agencies to crack the case. This emphasis on the future will not help more people from dying in the next blasts anywhere in the country. This approach was summed up by R R Patil, the Maharasthra Home Minister, who claimed that lack of funds stopped the equipping of the local commando force to fight terror. This is an easy argument since if there is no money then nothing will be done is a known fact to us Indians. Thus that all the promises made after 26/11 have been forgotten is very apparent and that the intelligence agencies and police live from one blast to another for only post-blast investigations. For these blasts on 13/7 the Mumbai and Maharasthra police is also reported not to be unified in their efforts to investigate the blasts and are bent upon their own petty turf wars. The only way out of this situation for the time being is to get a strong and effective Home Minister or to let this ministry be handled by the Chief Minister so that appropriate attention is paid towards citizens security. R R Patil's head should roll yet again! And no reinstatement this time! Another fact that our government and its agencies should understand is that they should be sensitive to those killed and assist the next of kin in transporting the bodies of their near and dear ones or conduct funerals at the place of the incident. We spend so much on various measures but lack the courtesies to the dead. Such situations are evident in cases reported from Kolkata where one of the 13/7 victims relation had to pay money to the police to get the body released from the morgue and then pay the police to get the coffin on board a flight to Kolkata. In cities like Mumbai, at least, where facilities are available after any such incident the government should announce a Helpline which will help the victims kin any sort of assistance including as mentioned above free of cost. After their people have died we should not add to their misery by asking for money to transport their dead. We are a compassionate and tolerant race, let us at least keep the semblance of it going.

Pet Liability vs. Human Concerns

There has been some news that our government is considering a law for the ‘protection of pet animals’ which may end up in a penalty of up to Rs. 1 crore if the pet owner is found to be cruel to his animals. The complete illogicality of this legislation and the involvement of special interest groups in pushing through such unnecessary laws shows how much vapid our government is. Where we should be looking at humanity - the poor, infirm, elderly, little children of working parents, orphans, physically and mentally challenged children, we go out and make a law of penalty of Rs. 1 crore if you are cruel to your pet animals. What about if you are cruel to humanity as defined above? Is the penalty higher or is there no penalty? As far as one knows there is no penalty if you ill-treat human beings since there are many cases all over India of children used as servants or in sweat-shops being beaten, ill-fed, burnt, maimed and sexually abused. Therefore scrap this rule and instead bring a law by which pet owners do not abuse the tolerance of society by having ill-trained pet animals who are a menace to people, do not go around dirtying the neighbourhood for which the owners should be made to collect the poop as is done in western countries etc. In addition bring a law that all human beings are to be respected and if anybody is found willfully abusing, beating and ill-treating another then he would be summarily fined a sum of Rs. 1 Lakh and in default of payment will be summarily jailed. Let us first learn to be sensitive and compassionate to our fellow beings before we look at pet animals.

A Perspective On The NOTW Affair

The News of the World (NOTW) scandal in which Rupert Murdoch finds himself embroiled reeks of double standards by the West. The issue is a simple case of criminality involving hacking voice mail and additionally in a social context of an invasion of privacy. Therefore one really does not understand all the hullagulla of beating breasts by the British up to the level of their Prime Minister. David Cameron getting involved is understandable since one of his media advisors was of NOTW vintage during the time the phone hacking was current and an explanation from him personally is in order. An apology to the public by NOTW would have sufficed while the case of criminality related to phone hacking could have been pursued against the individuals who were actually involved in the act. The tabloid therefore need not have closed down and many jobs could have been saved. The UK middle class diet of prurient and salacious news would have continued. For Rupert Murdoch the need for the closure of the NOTW in this manner came as a heaven sent opportunity since in any case the tabloid was bleeding money. The closure also would put him in a perceived advantageous position vis a vis his BSkyB satellite TV bid. This position of Murdoch is apparent considering that he has not sacked Rebekah Brooks one of the tabloid editors when the phone hacking was at its peak. The other aspect in this matter, that is not clear is why should British Parliament get seized of this matter to the extent that they are now calling the Murdochs to depose before them. Is this something not for the police and the courts to decide or the relevant administrative ministries? Considering the pressure being put on the Murdochs they have reluctantly succumbed and pulled out of the BSkyB bid. The Murdochs reactions can be attributed to their shares taking a beating in the countries that they are listed in and with the intention to restore credibility to the group and thus shore up their shares. There is an underlying message in this where corporatisation of an issue gets a reaction appropriate to expectation while the bureaucratization of an issue only ends up with stone-walling so that the issue remains without a solution. This is being stated in the context of Murdoch who needed to react to the UK public and government pressure which was hammering his and his group’s nett worth in terms of share values dropping and thus decided to close down NOTW and also pull out of the BSkyB bid. In a similar instance a few years back public opinion was against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and had peaked with the suicide of a senior member of the British intelligence establishment apparently on certain qualms of conscience that he had in the conduct of these infructious wars. Consequent upon this nothing happened inspite of a board of enquiry being set up to go into the celebrated suicide and a commission set up to enquire whether Tony Blair did ignore and/or manage the intelligence to justify the Iraq aggression. If the British government was a corporate institution a la Murdoch then Tony Blair would probably not have been able to ignore public opinion of some half a million people collected in Trafalgar Square to march to Whitehall and would not only have had to step down as Prime Minister but also pulled out of Iraq some three years ago. As for the British public it is rather sad that they did not pursue their hurt in relation to Iraq with the same dedication as they have this NOTW phone hacking issue. If they had been more dogged on Iraq many innocent lives of civilians could have been saved there as also those of British soldiers who have been killed in action in Iraq during this interregnum.

Mumbai Terror Attacks Another Saga Of Carelessness

We are in it again. Bomb blasts in Mumbai, not 1, not 2 but 3. It was only last week that our esteemed Home Minister commented that we have had a quiet year with regard to terror but the words had hardly slipped from his lips that we have these dastardly bomb attacks during the thick of rush hour in Mumbai. What have our ant-terror cells in the Mumbai Police or our intelligence officials at the state and Central level been doing? It is not that they should be only active after the blasts but even before so that such kind of blasts can be prevented. Our police and intelligence authorities specialise more in post-mortem than anti-mortem. In the few hours after the blasts we could track that a company of NSG commandos left Delhi for Mumbai etc. etc. What will they be doing - guarding dead bodies? The Home Minister also making that comment was unwise since it lulls our own law enforcement officers while at the same incites the terrorists in the manner of a challenge. Thus the best thing for the Home Minister would have been not to - Say Nothing & Do Nothing!, but Say Nothing and Do Everything To Avoid Further Attacks. The atmosphere currently in the country of a lackadaisical and corruption-ridden government also encourages our officials to concern themselves more with watching the unfolding drama in the Supreme Court, the political scenario and the Central government rather than concentrate on their jobs. The Mumbai terror attacks will be yet another load on the donkey's beast of burden that is this UPA-2 government. One cannot fathom why these kind of terror attacks continue to happen in India since with the US after the 9/11 attack there has been no successful attack in that country. Agreed that it is easy to conduct terror attacks in Indian cities particularly Mumbai because of the teeming population which should actually spur our government and police force to higher levels of endeavour rather than be complacent and after the event go around counting the bodies and collecting great forensics.

NSG New Rules & India Liability Issues

The NSG new rules related to re-processing of spent fuel to be allowed only to those who have signed the NPT is another obstacle on the road to implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal and to operationalise the nuclear energy pacts that India has since signed with Russia and France. The US and these countries are making the right noises that the exception granted India will be honoured but these noises are muted and not from any level which would give India the confidence that it would have a smooth ride through the process of NSG approvals. In the meanwhile India is finalizing its nuclear liability bill which proposes to limit the liability to contentious clauses of guarantee and performance of equipment by the suppliers which are never implementable and, God forbid, if we have an accident at any nuclear facility then we will be caught in complex legal tangles without any recourse to the suppliers for protracted periods of time. One can imagine what would happen to the victims of the nuclear accident which in any case would be many times in magnitude to the Union Carbide Bhopal gas disaster. But the approach in this matter of our government seems to be our people be damned as long as the suppliers are protected that is OK. In that case why should we at all have a nuclear liability bill since if we make the suppliers liability free then all the suppliers would flock in to India with their sub-standard and prototype equipment and kill our people, which latter aspect would be a manner of population control which we so desperately need. With the recent statement of the Japanese PM that Fukushima will take decades to clean up, it is time that India puts its expansion of the nuclear power program in mothballs to be revived if there is no other alternative by 2050.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 68 Date: 09.07.2011

Contents:

1. Kapil Sibal’s Favour to RComm ADAG
2. The Dominique Strauss Kahn Case in New York
3. Rahul’s Bhatta-Parsaul Padayatra & Village Development
4. PM’s Being A Bureaucrat: Root Of All Evils
5. The Wisdom Is Off Juhu, But The River Princess Remains On Goa Beach
6. The PM & His Gaffes
7. The Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple Riches


Kapil Sibal’s Favour to RComm ADAG

Kapil Sibal has come out screaming in his own defence in relation to the PIL filed in the Supreme Court where it is said that he showed undue favours to RComm ADAG in a quid pro quo arrangement by reducing a fine of Rs. 650 crores to just Rs. 5 crores. He has called the PIL malicious and defamatory but refused to explain on what basis the Telecom Dept. officials had computed the amount of fine to Rs. 50 crores per circle which he then reduced to Rs. 5 crores. Now please understand that this is being done by a Minister who has just headed the ministry for 3-4 months and he is going against a financial decision that has been vetted by the Telecom Dept. officials. Whether Kapil Sibal at all familiarized himself thoroughly on the matter before taking a decision is something that needs to be established. In fact it is in Sibal’s interest to clarify his stand and come clean on the matter. The position that Sibal takes more often than not is like in a road rage incident where the persons involved follow the motto that aggression is the best form of defence. So also with Sibal who tends to bully and browbeat his accusers or detractors. The Supreme Court has rejected the above PIL on the grounds that it is not related to the 2G scam that it is pursuing. This is a technicality and the case should be pursued to get to the bottom of it. By Sibal’s own standards when he tried to bluff his way through the 2G scam worth by CAG estimates more than Rs. 160,000 crores he called it – NIL and then a JPC was constituted to investigate it, therefore on his denial of favouring RComm ADAG on a piffling Rs. 650 crore at least a CBI enquiry is warranted, considering the scale of reduction is substantial.

The Dominique Strauss Kahn Case in New York

The Dominique Strauss Kahn (DSK) case in New York may have collapsed based on the lack of credibility of the victim but then the predatory sexual nature of DSK considering his past history of similar cases and with another case filed against him in Paris on similar lines, it is time that the New York case be pursued to its logical conclusion inspite of the brinkmanship shown by DSK and his lawyers not to plea bargain by accepting culpability. As for the Socialist party loyalists in France who have been screaming that the New York case against DSK was a plot so that he does not stand for the French Presidential elections next year, they are welcome to sponsor a candidate who is dumb enough to fall for a plot like this. This will speak for the individual as well as the party. If by chance DSK makes to the Elysee Palace in the 2012 elections then either all women employees should be banned at the palace or they should be fitted with muzzles as is used on canines and also chastity belts.

Rahul’s Bhatta-Parsaul Padayatra & Village Development

Rahul Gandhi’s padayatra through Bhatta-Parsaul and other villages of UP will give him hopefully the correct and true perspective on which issues to concentrate in politics. This would be not to emphasise the development process through corporates and MNC’s but depend on micro projects which will make a difference in the poor man’s life of this nation particularly in the rural areas. While walking through villages on mud roads avoiding stepping on cowdung and human excreta and jumping across open sanitation puddles and staying in huts without electricity or with interrupted power, Rahul Gandhi must have realized that his padayatra is like a political eye-opener for him. We do hope he has in the true sense kept his eyes ‘open’ so that when he comes back to Delhi, and not like the name of the movie –Eyes Wide Shut, he knows which of the issues in the rural areas that he needs to concentrate upon. Sparring with Mayawati and bluffing about rapes in villages is not going to get him anywhere but serious development which makes a difference to the life of the villagers will get him and his party their sustained support.

PM’s Being A Bureaucrat: Root Of All Evils

If one takes a very broad overview on the PM’s approach to governance and the problems that have been dogging this UPA-2 government one after another, it is probably his background of a bureaucrat. This is being said also in the context of the PM’s ex-media advisor, Sanjay Baru’s comment recently where he said that the PM lacks the will to enforce his political authority. This kind of sums it up since it is rare that a bureaucrat will enforce any kind of authority unless it is to benefit himself. When the question of benefiting oneself is not there like in this PM’s case then there is no need to enforce any authority, political or otherwise. The reticence in speech and the reluctance to come into the public limelight whether it is to meet the media or address the nation or appear at the spot of any turmoil, accident or whatever, one has hardly seen the PM take the bull by the horns and say – Let’s get on with it. Even in the recent media interaction the PM had with a few editors, the answers are clearly that of a bureaucrat who avoids the issue rather than confronts it and outlines his vision for the country on any matter. The corruption issue in the present Cabinet for which many Ministers and top officials have had to bite the dust and some having to go to jail is also the bureaucrat’s malaise. When the PM’s nose is buried in files, 18 hours a day, as claimed, he has no time to look around him and see what they are doing. So in the manner of the boss involved in his own affairs the employees in an organization tend to follow the adapted old adage – When the Cat’s Attention Is Away, The Mice Are At Play! And when anyone asks him about corruption in his Cabinet, the PM mumbles about the compulsion of coalition politics rather than take the responsibility himself to bring his colleagues to book. Even with regard to being PM he has said that this was a job given him by the Congress party and he will hold it until the party tells him to go! This is again clearly a bureaucrat’s response. Mr Manmohan Singh, the PM assignment is not a job, it is a mission for this country and if you have not understood it, you are clearly a misfit. When Manmohan Singh took over the reins as the PM in the first UPA government this country had a great hope that with his background as an economist and inside knowledge of government working, he was the right man to lead India in this ‘economic’ century but those precise qualifications have become a millstone around his neck and consequently around the nation’s. Therefore the earlier he goes the better it is since otherwise he will drown and take us all with him.

The Wisdom Is Off Juhu, But The River Princess Remains On Goa Beach

The MV Wisdom is off the Juhu beach because the Mumbai authorities had the ‘wisdom’ to ensure that it got off quickly. This is a lesson for our authorities here in Goa where inaction compounds, complicates and makes a mess of a problem from which it is difficult to extricate oneself from. It is not only the nuisance but also the amount of money that you keep spending on something which is simply not worth it like the MV River Princess which has been sitting on the Candolim-Sinquerim beach for more than 10 years now. Like the MV Wisdom got off the Juhu beach because it had the ‘wisdom’ to do so while the MV ‘River’ Princess was maybe ordained to be stranded because she is at sea! We will have to still wait and see if with Arihant the River Princess, maimed and disfigured, will finally move out.

The PM & His Gaffes

Our PM has gone and done it again with another gaffe by saying that 25% of the people in Bangladesh hate India. This has raised the hackles of the government and people of Bangladesh with whom we have reasonably good relations though there are some prickly thorns related to the border issue, river water sharing and terror support by some fundamentalist groups in that country. Complicating the turf before his visit there in September of this year seems to be the penchant of our PM and this kind of thing he specializes in doing with our immediate neighbors. One will recall the Sharmal Sheikh meeting in Egypt with Pak PM Gilani where in the joint communiqué after the meeting our PM allowed the Pak delegation to put in the issue that the Indian role in the freedom struggle of the disturbed area of Baloochistan in Pakistan will be investigated. This gave a convenient handle to the rabid Pakistanis to beat India with this hammer in bilateral and international forums. This our PM did when just about a month or two earlier to the Gilani meeting he had snubbed President Zardari on account of the Mumbai 26/11 incident. We have to admit that since our PM is nice he must have felt bad after snubbing Zardari and therefore to restore his personal equations with the Pakistani leaders, he gave Gilani a hammer to beat India with! One can understand reticence but the penchant to commit gaffes with our immediate neighbours whenever he opens his mouth is something that our PM must definitely control. Is it a factor of age where the tongue slips out before the mind has made up what to say? Or when people rarely talk, they tend to make a mess whenever they talk.

The Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple Riches

The Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple riches unearthed from its cellars is the hot topic for discussion these days. But we need to remember that these riches belong to the temple and nobody can or should touch them except by a decision of the royal family of Travancore and the trust committee managing the temple. The very fact that these treasures have remained intact is something that we need to feel proud about the royal family of Travancore who are the epitome of simple and devout living. The progressive approach of the royal family through the generations of serving Shree Padmanabhaswamy as his ‘dasa’ is something which no royalty in India or in the world can come close to. Therefore the riches now unearthed at the temple have to be dealt with according to the wishes of the royal family of Travancore and there can be no two things about it. The Kerala Chief Minister, Oomen Chandy has already made a comment in this same spirit which is very heartening. We also need to remember that among the major temples in Kerala the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple is the only temple not managed by the State Devaswom Board which shows the regard that the government and people of Kerala have for the royal family of Travancore and it should remain like that for posterity. The lack of ostentation at the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple and the discipline and simplicity that is followed for visitors is something that other temples in India should emulate. If anyone looks at the temple then one would hardly imagine it to be the richest temple now in India. This is the austerity and piety that we should admire. In TV talk forums immature, ignorant and misinformed people are conducting discussions who like they say are not even worth the fingernail of any of the royal family members of Travancore and who have no idea or capability to imagine the spirit of renunciation and philanthropy that this family has done not now but for generations that go back in time. Thus if we do not ask or interfere in the workings of the Tirupati temple or the Shirdi Sai Baba temple or in the vast properties that the Christian Church holds in India so also should we not get ourselves involved in the riches of the Shree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. There are people in the royal family of Travancore who know best what is to be done and let us leave it to their better judgment.

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

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 67 Date: 02.07.2011

Contents:

1. UPA-2 Government Is Itself A Scam
2. Do Not Disregard Gaddhafi’s Threat To Attack Europe With Terror
3. Let Us Not Demean Shivaji Maharaj's Name
4. Cut Sales Tax On Petroleum Fuels
5. Sex Offenders In The Foreign Office
6. Play Hardball With China
7. Congress Duplicity & Condescension
8. The Navy Should Show A Little Maturity


UPA-2 Government Is Itself A Scam

This UPA-2 government is in itself a big scam. This charge is being leveled against them since they deserve it by virtue of their behaviour and actions. Let us start at the top. The recent PM’s media interaction with some print editors is one example. What stops the PM from either addressing the nation or interaction with media through a full-fledged televised press conference to explain his stand on various issues that are faced by the nation and what action he is proposing to tackle these issues and such other matters? It is understood that he did not want to do that. If so, why did he go through the electoral process and become the PM? The chair demands a certain process and manner that you are expected to conduct yourself with and the least that Manmohan Singh can do is to oblige the Indian nation. Instead of that you have this shadowy, bearded character who is rarely seen and even rarely heard about whom we are constantly being told that he is on the job and working for the nation’s good while we cannot see anything good around us but scam after scam after scam. Thus the PM as the head honcho of a scam on the Indian nation is playing this part to the hilt. That is being uncertain, indefinite, non-committal and inaccessible. If anybody has any other opinion feel free to express it. It is not only the PM but most of his Ministers and spokespersons who specialize in the manner of working in a scam organization specialize in contradicting the impressions of the general public. Like the Home Minister on the ‘bugging’ incident in the Finance Ministry and calls it a ‘non-event’. Having ‘chewing gum’ at some eighteen places in the Finance Ministry, including the FM’s office, the offices of his aides and the conference rooms, is a ‘non-event’ then the Indian nation begs to differ. By sheer numbers i.e. 18 it is an event, in fact it is more than an event and saying that the Finance Ministry gets a lot of visitors who must have stuck the ‘chewing gum’ is asking the Indian nation to stretch its imagination which per Hooke’s Law will snap and you will have stark and raving lunatics in this country after this and it will then be more than difficult for this government to govern. For this reason this whole ‘bugging’ incident requires an investigation and the country needs to be told clearly what the matter was and if it was just ‘chewing gum’ then forensics should be done on it to tell us brand, make, colour, consistency, stickability, past incidents (if any) of this kind within the ministry and government offices, buying characteristics so that the Indian citizens themselves can conduct an investigation and catch the culprits who have been sticking ‘chewing gum’ in Pranab Mukherji’s offices! But of you look at the HM’s reaction it is like a manager of a scam organization would do and that is a forceful denial and play down the concern. Similar patterns we can see with Kapil Sibal who on the 2G scam came out blustering – Who scam? What scam? There is no scam. What amount? Rs. 120,000 crore! It is actually NIL! And then they go and agree to a JPC on the 2G scam and come out saying that the scam could be some Rs. 15,000 crore. Then you have from A Raja to Suresh Kalmadi to Shashi Tharoor to Dayanidhi Maran and sundry other ministers in the scam organization making money left, right and centre with no one to let alone question but who tacitly give them indications that we will look the other way but make sure that you do not get caught! This is exactly how a scam organization works where knowing that the top is making money everyone at his level makes that level of money as he can with the tacit understanding that if you get caught then it is you who will go to Tihar jail and we will not lift a little finger to help you. This is precisely the reason why people from civil society like Anna Hazare and even fakes like Baba Ramdev have gained prominence in recent times riding on the plank of corruption and black money. These leaders from civil society need not be elected to prove their credentials which is what our leaders in this government do not understand because the average citizen pounded by rising prices and with the scale of mind-boggling corruption unfolding before him, has finally got to a stage where he is saying credentials be damned let us latch on to whomsoever can promise to do something to resolve our problems and bring this government to book. And this UPA-2 government instead of confronting this situation head-on, since there is still time to explain, instead is receding day by day within itself making the situation unbearable and this silence worse. Thus the biggest scam for this country has been to send this UPA-2 government back for a second term with a larger majority where in contrast of their delivering positive progress and development for this country have been redolent in their laziness and ineptitude and making money hand over fist as if there is not going be another turn at government and as if there is no tomorrow. Manmohan Singh should realise that his oft repeated statement that he is a honest man holds no water when he presides over a government that indulges a laizzez faire attitude towards corruption. It is the citizen’s money that is being stolen by these lumpen elements and what has he done about it or what does he propose to do about it?


Do Not Disregard Gaddhafi’s Threat To Attack Europe With Terror

Responding to Gaddhafi’s threat to target Europe with terror attacks as retaliation for the NATO’s continued bombing of Tripoli, Hilary Clinton has asked Gaddhafi to get out of Libya first and threaten Europe later. Not that Gaddhafi’s threats are to be taken seriously but let Hilary Clinton understand that by creating the Taliban in association with Pakistan as a counter to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, by making the Al Qaeda the face of terror in the world by targeting them and the invasion of Iraq has made the mercenary and terror networks stronger in the Muslim world and now the bombing of Libya targeting Gaddhafi are all errors of judgment that the US has made. Therefore by completely discounting Gaddhafi’s threat to show American bravado let not innocent civilians die due to increased terror attacks against them. The US should realize after its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that the drum-beating military march kind of approach to terror situations is mostly infructious and costly for America since a more low-profile, high-intensity approach towards terror would have been more effective as exemplified in Operation Geronimo. She may as well ponder on whether any of these interventions as above has resulted in a greater image for America in that part of the world. The answer is a clear – NO. The US is not liked by those it went to help like in Iraq and Afghanistan if you see the groundswell of antagonism with the public in these countries and also another country, Pakistan that the US is helping where it has remained in the Top 3 of the charts of Public Enemy over the last decade or more. The US military after the debacles they have faced since Vietnam and in the above named countries is considered ineffective and unable to deliver results inspite of having a generational superiority in technology and arms.

Let Us Not Demean Shivaji Maharaj's Name

The name of Chatrapati Shivaji is being bandied about again by these immature political parties to name a scheme for the humble vada-pav. Where is Shivaji Maharaj and where is the vada-pav? If any of these political parties have any respect for Chatrapati Shivaji they should not demean his name by associating it with these kind of items. And if it has been done for the earlier zunkha-bakhar stalls that should also be withdrawn immediately. With such run-of-the-mill items being named after Chatrapati Shivaji, if he had been alive to this day, not only would he have felt insulted but also sliced off the head of anyone who proposed such a thing. We see this also in Goa where the bar & restaurant signboards mostly as – Bar & Rest will have names like Francis Xavier Bar & Rest or Vinayaka Bar & Rest. As a policy of the government they should not approve such names of famous personages and/or Gods and religious persons for any business activity and for those who own such establishments it should come voluntarily from within not to name their business activity with such names.

Cut Sales Tax On Petroleum Fuels

The unwarranted price hike on diesel, kerosene and LPG are not going to go down well with the common citizens. Though the government has been claiming that there has not been any complaint at the consumer level as seen from the purchasing at the petrol pumps for fuel continuing unabated but then when people need essential and unavoidable fuel to move about their daily business, it is difficult for them to find time to complain. But it is clear that the price hike including that of LPG is going to break the back of the poor and the lower middle class and those who are not of the salaried category. This anger will come out in the next elections which the Congress and its UPA allies will realize to their chagrin. The indirect taxes on petroleum fuels and LPG is disproportionately high and though the UPA has now touched upon rationalization of customs and excise duty this time around the States also have to be told to bring down their sales tax on these items. Fuel to move around is an essential commodity lubricating the economy of the nation and that cannot be the beast of burden for State governments to raise their revenues upon. The more they load it there will come a time when the beast of burden like the proverbial laundryman’s donkey will collapse to the ground with its legs splayed under it. At that time there will be few options on taking action by the governments. The working of oil PSU’s can be easily brought onto a no profit-no loss operation by rationalizing the indirect taxes. The fact that the government has to subsidise the oil PSU’s for under-recovery on the fluctuating international oil prices which will in any case add to the deficit which has to be ultimately paid by the common citizen through taxes is no logic for passing this burden directly onto the consumer. If it is a question of finding the resources to fund the under-recovery then let the government find it at their own end without penalizing the consumer at the first stage itself. And why have the oil PSU’s not announced a common price mechanism to arrive at domestic prices of oil based on international prices. More transparency is required in this process since more often than not the consumer in the face of rising fuel prices has the feeling that the oil PSU’s and this government in tandem are taking them for a ride. This feeling is compounded by the fact that the oil price rise is not done at one time but after the base price hike there is always another raise to cover petrol pump margins leading to no clarity on what the real price rise is. Even this time around the petrol pumps are agitating for more margins – 5% of invoice value - after being met already. This may not be so much of a major problem in urban areas but in rural areas where people cannot afford the hikes the issue is compounded by petrol pump owners setting their own prices in the time where prices are being worked out. There is already a problem in the rural areas which the undersigned has personally experienced is that the petrol pump owners randomly and at their discretion stop the sale of regular diesel or petrol claiming no stocks and push sales of the upgraded fuels. On top of that we have people like the Dy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia who firstly claims that the fuel price hikes are justified and secondly says that the price rise has been nominal and still the oil PSU’s are facing under-recoveries. Here the definition of ‘nominal’ has to be established since just a couple of years ago when petrol or diesel prices were raised by Rs. 1 or 2 there was a lot of agonizing on it and that was the index of ‘nominal’. But nowadays when prices are being raised by Rs. 3 – 5, we are still saying it is ‘nominal’. Let alone the question of LPG which has been seeing price hikes of Rs. 50 at a time now on the last two occasions. Now these leaders should realize that we have sent them to manage the economy on our behalf and not to tell us that they will have to raise prices all the time and project then that they are doing us a favour by only increasing it by a ‘nominal’ amount. This while all the time they are hiding the fact of how much money the government is making on the same fuel by way of indirect taxes. If this is the situation then we do not need all these super-qualified people at the helm of affairs since any Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram can just pass on the price increases without managing it for the benefit of the common citizens. Concluding it is felt that it is still necessary that all State governments bring down their sales tax to a range of 12 -15% from the existing 27-32% on a most immediate basis to bring some relief to the aam admi.

Sex Offenders In The Foreign Office

Prabhu Dayal at the Indian Consulate in New York and in the thick of the storm in not paying his maid the promised amount and also for sexual harassment, whose name seems to ring a bell since was he the same guy apprehended on board a plane reaching the US for groping a woman passenger or airline staff a few months back. If so, he will find it difficult to escape the charge brought in by his maid and if not, with two people on the way of lust in the Embassy & Consulates of ours in the US, the Indian Foreign Office in Delhi need to look for lust certificates with the least proclivity for provocation before they place their people to the US and other Western countries.

Play Hardball With China

We need to play hard-ball with China since on our North and North-Eastern borders while they are continuing with construction of strategic and economically necessary infrastructure on their side, they are trying to claim that these will not affect India or are sometimes blocking the same kind of development activity on the India side. Consider the dams proposed upstream on the China side of the Brahmaputra river which will have a major negative impact on the majority of the North-Eastern States though it could be beneficial also considering that the river is in spate every year during the rainy season and any dams upstream may regulate the flooding. In this project China has to take India into confidence while proceeding with the construction and share statistical data on the volume of water flow and other parameters, which will be on a reciprocal basis with India furnishing similar data from their side, and thus get commitment from the India side for the success of the project as also allay fears that the river could be reduced to a trickle or dry up with the new dams. It is not enough for China to say that nothing will happen to the river flow and proceed with unilateral construction of the dams. In this case, it is best that India go to multilateral forums like the UN or appropriate body and evolve a tripartite interaction on these projects which have a major impact on both sides of the border. India tends to go soft on such matters and S M Krishna wanting to play down the fears of the North-Eastern States on the Brahmaputra river issue is completely inappropriate. Our peoples concerns should be listened to carefully, analysed and the projected in the same manner is what this government should understand. China has on their part objected to Indian construction on the border in Ladakh while it has constructed motorable roads right up to our border in Tibet and Siachen and airports in Tibet by which they can move men and machinery in the event of a conflict with India quickly. There have been some incidents of Chinese incursions into Arunachal Pradesh lately which again India is down-playing. China is also involved in constructions in Gilgit and PoK which considering it being a disputed region, India should object but then India tends to play soft with China which we have learnt to our chagrin in 1962 and 50 years hence we are poised for a replay.

Congress Duplicity & Condescension

The denial mode that the UPA-2 government adopts once too often is leading to a serious erosion in its credibility through insulting the intelligence of its common citizens. In every single matter the UPA-2 government has done this in the last 6 months or more like the CAG report on the 2G scam, then on the 2G scam itself, the CWG scam, the acceptance of the JPC on the 2G scam, the CVC Thomas sacking issue etc. etc. Major bloopers by this government indicating a governance deficit were in the PM making a statement in Parliament stating that he did not know that P J Thomas was implicated in the Kerala palmolein import case. This when Sushma Swaraj, Leader of the Opposition and the whole country was aware of it. Amusingly at that time it seemed that only the PM and the Home Minister were not aware of it. Now it is coming out that P J Thomas was not even released by Kerala for a deputation to the Centre but he still continued to hold important posts in government including Telecom Secretary and through his CVC termination case continued to be obstinate and even contested his case in the Supreme Court and embarrassed the government. Look at this man’s audacity! Does this need not be enquired into? But that like they say that is another story. Then it was the turn of Kapil Sibal, the Court Jester saying the 2G scam amount was trifling and not Rs. 120,000 crores, called Anna Hazare the Pied Piper of Hamlin, and in this process calling respectable Indian citizens - rats and in his communications using very much unparliamentary language that does not suit a leader and a Minister to boot. His speciality is to shoot from the mouth and then think later like his latest that he can turn the massive loss-making BSNL into a profit in 6 months. Mr Sibal, have you not been handling the Telecom Ministry for close to 6 months now and what did you do except release a half-baked Telecom policy document? In Kolkata football, there is phrase – Playing to the gallery, meaning someone who is showing off his skills but not concentrating enough to get a win. This is Kapil Sibal’s position. Then we have Jayanti Natarajan commenting on the Lokpal Committee where it was the government and the Congress party which took the decision for inviting the civil society members to the Committee and then she starts taking potshots at them. If these members were so ‘nikamma’ as they are being made out to be now then did this divine realization come only now or is that this government is so short-sighted that it cannot assess people before jumping into Committee beds with them or is it that it is soft and the firmness comes more as a delayed reaction. This was pretty obvious when not one, not two,...but four senior ministers hung around Delhi airport for hours to meet a person like Baba Ramdev prior to his going on fast. Is this the kind of situational judgment that Indian citizens deserve from the government? Then the recent fuel price rise for diesel, kerosene and LPG is symbolic of complete non-governance since apart from the hike coming at a time when international oil prices are dropping, it flies in the face of the RBI trying to contain inflation. And then there are spokespersons within this government saying that this price rise will settle down in about 3-4 months. What is the meaning of this? What the government is saying that prices will rise so much in the next 3 months that we will get used to the fuel price hike. And since when has this government been able to make predictions on inflation and control prices of essential commodities since for the last 2 years or more every single prediction or deadline by them relating to prices has failed. The approach thus is to say something and get away quickly and then bank on the fact that public memory being short they will forget before the next statement on the issue is made. Then there is the position that this government takes that we know what is best for you. This is also another thing that is going to hurt the Congress badly since they ‘do not really’ know what is good for us. And the manner smacks of condescension. This was apparent when Home Minister P Chidambaran was asked about the bugging incident of the FM’s offices and he blithely said that it was a non-event. Either the Home Minister is a dolt or if there is nothing in the incident then what stops the government from publishing a White Paper on it. The request from the common man is – Please do not try and bluff us. We have had enough of it. It is time that every single minister in this government puts in his papers so that we can have a fresh election and usher in a new dawn.

The Navy Should Show A Little Maturity

The Indian Naval Chief after the INS Godavari’s incident with the PNS Babur while escorting the pirated ship MV Suez has said that we could have given the Pak Navy a punch on the nose. This after getting some minor damage to the Indian warship by the Pak ship which is tantamount to getting swatted on the behind and then blustering that if we wanted, we could give them a bloodied nose! The Indian Naval Chief should get his marbles right which will help him walk the talk. The incident with the PNS Babur was clearly avoidable since both ships were on humanitarian missions and it just happened that the Pak ship was nearer to MV Suez while the INS Godavari was as we are told further away and busy elsewhere. Thus if both the Pak and Indian ships were busy with their jobs, there was no need to get upset with Indian media reports that the Indian navy ship did not rush to the aid of the Indian sailors while the Pak ship did. The Indian Naval Chief should act the status of Big Brother that we have in South Asia and advise his officers that a little patience and pragmatism goes a long way in protecting your own equipment.

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