VOX POPULI by Aam Admi

Issue: 112

Date: 12.05.2012

Contents:

1. Of Sense Of Humour & Buying Peerages

2. Uniform Compensation & Hostage Exchange Policy

3. Shooting In The Dark On Economic Policies

4. Gaddhafi Turns In His Grave and Smiles!

5. Japan Cleans Itself Of Nuclear Energy

6. Cheaper To Store Grain & Have People Starve

7. The Taliban Is Growing Stronger & The US Wiser

8. PM Needs More Dead To Visit Dhubri Boat Accident Site?

9. Recover Excess Money For Her Relatives Foreign Trips From Pratibha Patil

Of Sense Of Humour & Buying Peerages

In your Sunday Express of 6th May 2012 Meghnad Desai in his column is extolling the UK media in terms of their lampooning the parliamentarians in that country while at the same time complimenting the sense of humour of those being made fun of who show tolerance for the media’s cartoons or whatever. Desai contrasts the situation in India where we have many ‘holy cows’ and people in high positions particularly those in politics take umbrage of their cartoons in the media or similar instances of being made fun of. This was evident lately in the case of Mamta Banerji, the Chief Minister of West Bengal who had hauled up those who had put up matter inimical to her like cartoons on the Internet. What Desai fails to realize is that being made fun of, cartoons, sense of humour and the like is a reflection of a society’s mores and values which is in a broad sense represented by its culture. Therefore what is done by or followed in the UK is not relevant here. That essentially is the spirit of diversity of opinion and feelings is what Desai should realize. Specific to the media the UK scandals involving Rupert Murdoch and the hacking of phones by his paper the News of the World (NOTW) since closed is something that will never happen in India. Random hacking of phones of celebrities to extract content down to a teenage girl who killed herself as purportedly done by NOTW cannot be conceived as representative of any civilized society. And if the NOTW is being missed which was noted in carrying such scurrilous content, it talks of a malaise in UK society which is very much deeply rooted. Thus Desai should follow the ‘live and let live’ or ‘each to his own’ philosophy. It is also natural that Desai having stayed in the UK for long should be true to his salt and their having given him a peerage obliges him more though there were also scandals in the UK that most Asian peerages were ‘bought’.

Uniform Compensation & Hostage Exchange Policy

The compensation policy for accident victims needs to be made uniform. Like in the recent Dhubri boat disaster in Assam a compensation of Rs. 2 Lakhs was declared for those who died while in the last Railway accident the amount given for those who died was Rs. 50,000/-. In the same manner those who died in terror attacks in our metropolitan cities were paid much more. When lives lost have the same impact on their near families one cannot understand why the compensation should vary and all over India there should be a uniform policy announced so that people do not feel mistreated. In the same manner like the Chattisgarh CM, Raman Singh has asked for the hostage rescue policy in exchange for prisoners should also be made uniform. Considering that this is a sensitive matter there is need for not making this public but given as a guideline to the State Chief Ministers and the seniormost police personnel in the State. Otherwise we end up like now with Alex Paul Menon’s case where upon his release there is politics being played out on the issue. This will only encourage the Maoists and terrorists to play around with us in hostage situations complicating matters. In the case of hostages, we should follow a ‘no-exchange’ policy for the perpetrator organizations prisoners who are in our jails and awaiting judicial process. But if we are to decide upon a ‘hostage for prisoners’ policy, then it should be uniform across India.

Shooting In The Dark On Economic Policies

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherji’s rollback of the excise duty on jewelry & TDS applicable on sale deeds as also pushing out GAAR by one year are typical of the maladies which have been haunting this government and that is not knowing what it is doing and why. Thus you have almost by public clamour or specific interest groups a number of measures that are inserted and then randomly one or the other is withdrawn. The sad part is that some of the obviously erroneous measures in this process gets overlooked and they remain hurting the economy. In the process of withdrawing or rolling back a measure the government wants to give themselves the credit of being responsive and sympathetic to people’s needs which actually it is not. This is just a ploy to conceal their obvious inefficiency and stupidity. This is precisely the reason why the Indian economy is going nowhere currently. The last figures for exports show a slump and the government is again thrashing around to find out why. Pranab Mukherji’s contention that everybody is doing badly and compared to that we are doing better is sounding like an undergraduate talking about his Grade Point Average where every student hopes that the other guy has done worse than him but that rarely happens. So also when comparing with the West Pranab Mukherji should remember the levels of their economies and that of ours. We are less geared to face shocks than they are and with our large population that is close to the poverty line, the impact could be a matter of life and death.

Gaddhafi Turns In His Grave and Smiles!

Gaddhafi turns in his grave and smiles upon hearing that Sarkozy has lost the French Presidential elections. The same had happened with Tony Blair who lost the Prime Ministership and had to surrender his government to the Conservatives and the LibDem coalition in the elections held just after Saddam Hussein’s execution in Iraq. At that time Saddam had given a wry smile in his grave, now it is Gadhaffi’s turn. Though George W Bush won his second term based upon his launching of the military campaigns in Iraq & Afghanistan and pursuing the Al Qaeda, he would not have possibly won a third term, if it was allowed under the US Constitution. Thus the legacy issues of these campaigns in terms of their being one of the contributing issues to the economic slowdown in the US had to be faced by Barrack Obama. It is for precisely this reason that President Obama’s first term has been lackluster. The message in all this is that the West’s leaders should more concentrate on home issues rather than start riding posse around the world with the intention to reform it. Put your home in order first is the old adage which has come true to those leaders in Europe who were at the forefront of military adventurism.

Japan Cleans Itself Of Nuclear Energy

With the shutting down for maintenance for a period of 60 days of the last of the nuclear power plants, Japan became nuclear energy free last week. This was a day of celebration for the Japanese activists who have been campaigning for this for quite some time. Going into the summer Japan knows it will have problems relating to power and the people there are preparing to face power cuts and the like. But at the same time they are firm on their resolve that they cannot afford to have another Fukushima type disaster which is still spewing radiation into the air and into the sea. This approach of wanting to become a nuclear free nation by Japan and earlier Germany as also the resolve of Italy in this regard needs to be lauded. It is rather unfortunate that we do not see India sharing this philosophy in spite of having such a large land mass compared to these named countries and also endowed with much more natural resources. Echoing the PMO, Ms Jayalalithaa, the Tamil Nadu CM has said recently that in a week’s time the Kudankulam NPP will go on stream. It is clear that she has been bought with the promise of some 500MW of power from the Kudankulam NPP going into the summer with Tamil Nadu facing acute shortages of power. Sacrificing people’s interest for short term gains like this is a common enough political position in India. In addition Srikumar Banerji, the erstwhile head of the Atomic Energy Commission has also commented that India cannot do without nuclear energy. Such comments are clearly not sustainable by Banerji or Kakodkar or anyone for that matter from within the atomic energy fraternity since they have an obvious axe to grind in this matter. What they should do is to put up their case and then let our policy planners put it up through Parliament for approval. It is unfortunate that clear and open debate is something which does not happen in our country and it is ruled by vested interests of different kinds and in the end it is the poor common man who suffers. It is time we changed all this.

Cheaper To Store Grain & Have People Starve

With bumper harvests grain storage has become a big issue now. To compound the physical problem of space there is the additional financial issue that the MSP being higher than the PDS price, the grain stored cannot be moved out since it is costly to do so. In Haryana & Punjab where the grain is stored in temporary tents/ ‘kutcha’ plinths, it has already started rotting. Also Haryana has recommended that the 3 year old grain in the stocks needs to be mixed with fresh grain and disposed off. These surely are the problems of plenty. It is thus clear that we can neither handle famine and starvation nor a surplus in food stocks and have to shut it away in godowns. This while many parts of the country are near starvation and the poor eat only one meal a day and 60% of the country manages at Rs. 35/- per day according to the latest survey of the NSSO. Thus the dilemma created of having to further subsidise the grain is another one of those economic measures that are being done by this government which are inflationary and are essentially being created to feed the yawning budget deficit. It is time that this government took drastic measures and allowed market forces to take over. It will have severe implications on the economy but it is well worth the risk. In the long term this will reduce the size of this government and thus the deficit. The ‘fiddle here - fiddle there’ economic policies is getting us nowhere and leaving the Indian economy swathed in bandages and fix-it plasters in the manner of the Unknown Soldier in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 who had only the 3 orifices open, one for input and the other two for output and was recumbent on the hospital bed with one leg strapped up high on a brace. That is the condition of India under world renowned economists like Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Kaushik Basu!

The Taliban Is Growing Stronger & The US Wiser

The Taliban strike in Kabul once again hours after Barrack Obama had left upon completion of his secret visit to commemorate the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s killing and to sign a 10 year pact post-2014 withdrawal of the US force in Afghanistan, is yet another clear sign that the Taliban is active, resourceful and still capable to target and attack at will. The US has been lately talking that the Al Qaeda organization is on its last legs but refuse to be drawn into a comment on the strength of the Taliban. This essentially is the tacit acceptance that once they leave in 2014, the US does not much care for what will happen in Afghanistan. This is also the message coming out of Barrack Obama‘s latest speech on the Presidential campaign trial about extracting the US from the expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the US’ late realization that the money spent on wars abroad in the current context of its economy could be better spent at home to come out of recession, create more new jobs and stimulate recovery. It is a very costly exercise to convince the US policy planners about avoiding unnecessary wars and they seem to wake up only after trillions of dollars have gone down the drain in the conflict countries. The problem in this whole thing is the tendency of Western planners to involve themselves into computerized game theory kind of exercises which time and again has proved that the results that the West expects to obtain are lost in the probability cracks or what is called in the wrong throw of the dice. Time to change, saves you dollars, lives and helps spend resources on much needed improvements at home.

PM Needs More Dead To Visit Dhubri Boat Accident Site?

There was a massive boat disaster in Assam at Dhubri last week with some 100 dead and many more missing. Manmohan Singh has been elected from Assam to the Rajya Sabha but he did not find it fit to visit the accident site nor meet those in hospital after being rescued. Why was this? Is 100 people dying in an accident not justify a PM’s visit to express commiseration? Or is the scale of dead higher for a PM to visit? Manmohan Singh has rarely visited any accident or terror site during his two tenures and therefore lacks the touch with the common citizens. In the Dhubri incident he thought fit to depute Rahul Gandhi. Is this part of the build-up of the Gandhi family scion to occupy the PM’s chair but then if we go by track record the UP Assembly elections do not support this story.

Recover Excess Money For Her Relatives Foreign Trips From Pratibha Patil

Pratibha Patil through her PR advisor has tried to explain her foreign jaunts with accompanying relatives being justified saying it is a practice done by everbody like President Clinton bringing his daughter, Chelsea to India etc. This is completely irrelevant since what the US & other countries do, there is no need for us to emulate it. What is the level of the economy as far as the US is concerned and where are we? Even if Pratibha Patil is invoking the precedent of past Presidents, why does she not compare her foreign jaunts with relatives to that of her immediate predecessor, Abdul Kalam. Apart from that should we not set examples not necessarily of austerity but of frugality? If Pratibha Patil had set an example in this regard, then people would have appreciated her and remembered her for it. In any case, what should be done now is to recover the money from Pratibha Patil for all excess family members than one male and one female member who traveled with her during her tenure as President. Thus a reasonable part of the Rs. 205 crore spent on her foreign jaunts will come back to the exchequer.

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