VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:139

Date: 17.11.2012

Contents:

1. BJP Playing The Part of a Blithering Idiot‏

2. The 2G Auction Debacle

3. Barrack Obama Back In The White House

4. The Good Side Of IAC Exposures

5. BJP Shooting Itself In The Foot

6. Girish Karnad Goes Viral

7. The PM As The Prevaricating Dummy

BJP Playing The Part of a Blithering Idiot‏

It is now the turn of the BJP to play the part of a blithering idiot. What with the 'reputed ideologue' Gurumurthy making multiple comments on social media in the last few days on Gadkari's financing Purti group of Cos. which are all contradictory. The other BJP leaders who came out in support and against Gadkari on the matter have not firmed up their positions and strangely lapsed into silence. These tendencies are not good for a party which thinks it will lead the next government at the Centre. The least the BJP should do is to exhibit its decision making skills and convince the people of this country that when the chips are down they can get down to a decision. Unfortunately on any matter in the last few months be it moving a no-confidence vote in Parliament or handling its own internal matters it is the BJP's dithering that has come to the fore. In contrast the Congress may make money hand over fist but it keeps the wheels of governance oiled if not with grease at least with money and everyone is happy except the poor who get ground into the dust. So will the BJP wake up and show it is effective at least in the upcoming session of Parliament by moving a no-confidence motion on the FDI in multi-brand retail for which it has to woo the other Opposition parties for the motion to succeed.

The 2G Auction Debacle

With the 2G auction fetching less than Rs. 10,000 crore, conspiracy theories will abound. The first is that the government talked to the telecom Cos. to make the 2G spectrum auction a no-go which indirectly bails them out of the CAG charge that the earlier spectrum if it had been auctioned would have fetched close to Rs. 176,000 crores. Now the Congress and the UPA can tell the people of the country, we told you all along that it was not that much! The second theory would be that the telecom Cos. have themselves formed a cartel so that they underbid and force the government to sell the spectrum cheaply. It is also understood that Vodafone has emerged as the major bidder across regions picking up spectrum in possibly a celebratory mode considering that the parent Co. has decided not even to make a provision of US$2 billion or so on the taxation demand by the Indian government on its earlier big acquisition in India. The UPA government is understandably worried about the burgeoning budget deficit this year which was to be offset by the revenues generated among other things from the present 2G spectrum auction, which is in jeopardy now. A large budget deficit will render liberalization of the economy difficult which will bring the sword down of a lowering of India’s credit rating by international agencies thus messing up the plans of the government. Why our financial planners including our homily quoting PM not follow the maxim – Cut Your Coat According To The Cloth You Have, is something that is beyond anyone’s understanding. What they have to do is seal the revenue leakages in the system be it in the MNREGA or the public distribution system etc., cut down the size of government and ring in austerity measures like never before which will stabilize the revenue funnel which is looking like a sieve now. Is anyone listening?

Barrack Obama Back In The White House

Barrack Obama’s victory in the Presidential elections giving him a well-deserved second term re-affirms the fact that the US is still a country that has at its heart decent human values and the willingness to give a human being another chance. After a rather dithering and indecisive first term where the signal achievements for Barrack Obama were killing Osama Bin Laden, the Health Care Bill and the decisions for pulling out of both Iraq & Afghanistan in that order of importance, the second term will give an opportunity to show what real plans he has from America rather than just reacting to circumstances like he had to do in the first term. The recession, the two quite unnecessary wars were all thrust upon him by the previous Republican incumbent of the White House, George W Bush, and he had no alternative but to put his shoulder to the wheel and try to resolve them. Irrespective of the unwanted legacy that he had to carry, Barrack Obama still has to learn to be more decisive and do less on the consultative mode he tends to more often than not lapse into when faced with difficult decisions. The recent US Presidential elections showed that the Democrat strongholds are more on the coasts, both the eastern and the western seaboards and the Republican strengths are in the middle America running right through the centre of America or what is called in weather forecaster terms – Tornado Alley. In geographical terms Mitt Romney’s votes covered more area than Barrack Obama’s and the incumbent President won because the seaboards are more populated than the hinterland and the fact that the electoral college system is weighted towards those who can capture the coasts. However, in the final result this was not really a close election since Barrack Obama won by close to a million ballots in the public vote and in the electoral college he beat Mitt Romney by more than half the votes that Romney could get. That surely is decisive and quite impressive one must say of how Barrack Obama got back into the White House for a second term. With the Senate firmly in Republican hands, it would not be insensible for the GOP to move for electoral reforms and change the electoral college system so that the white Caucasian, middle American and middle aged vote counts.

The Good Side Of IAC Exposures

The exposures by Arvind Kejriwal and his IAC do good to the extent that hitherto taboo matters like the financial dealings of the Gandhi family and their relatives along with other political families and also the dealings of the super-rich like the Ambanis etc. and finally the issue of black-money which in Indian society everyone indulges in but is chary to talk about it let alone fight it have come out in the open. The positive thing out of all this is that some action has been initiated by the government in the light of Kejriwal ‘s exposures. Even a face-saving probe was launched by the Congress government in Haryana on Robert Vadra’s land deals while Nitin Gadkari is caught in a bind with his financial improprieties in relation to his Purti group of Cos. The Ambanis and others like them have come out to clear and rebut the allegations made about having unauthorized bank accounts abroad. Even HSBC accused of serving as a money launderer has had to release a public announcement, necessarily bland, that it complies with the law of the land in all the countries it operates in. Even the government has had to announce that a probe is on on the black money Lagarde list of those Indians holding accounts abroad which may not go anywhere but at least a start has been made to be transparent to the extent that there is confirmation that a list exists and the authorities are working on it. Thus such matters earlier hidden under multiple veils of innuendo and secrecy are at least being addressed now with. The reasonable assumption is that if things get talked about some action on them is likely. And the credit for all this clearly goes to Arvind Kejriwal and his team. As for HSBC it is not only in India that it has been accused of money laundering but also in the UK and the US where the fines that are likely on the bank may run up to US$1.5 Billion. In India also there had been cases with them allowing NRI’s to operate accounts which go against US laws. Do we not need then to check if the reverse also is legal since HSBC may be assisting the NRI’s and/or local Indians from breaking Indian foreign exchange laws? We will also be hesitant to take action against HSBC for fear that taking on a big foreign bank may have major repercussions in our ability to get foreign investment (FDI) which is like the Holy Grail for the incumbent government now. The Vodafone retrospective taxation issue is fresh in the minds of our leaders which will prohibit them from considering any drastic punitive action on HSBC. In fact what should be done is to temporarily suspend the banking licence of HSBC in India until they can clarify the money laundering charges against them and prove to us that their India operations are above board. From here where do we go is something that is not known but then whistleblowers and people like Arvind Kejriwal are required since then we at least know how far gone are we on the road of infamy and perdition as a country and a society. It is only then that we can judge what kind of action is required to bring us back to the state of normality. There are a number of eminent journalists in the print media who seem to be jealous of Arvind Kejriwal and his team going to the extent of saying that he has re-found his calling of an Income Tax officer, but then these journalists need to ask themselves what they did all these years but share a cozy relationship with government and big business accepting freebies and the like, indirectly supporting the crony capitalism culture.

BJP Shooting Itself In The Foot

The BJP is again in a mess and that too just before the winter session of Parliament. Where they had enough ammunition to put the Congress & the UPA on the mat in this session starting from Coal gate to Robert Vadra's cozy real estate deals to Salman Khurshid's trust scam, they are looking now inward and fighting amongst each other. It is a completely divided house within the BJP on the Nitin Gadkari financial dealings in relation to the formation of his Purti group of Cos. where any lay accountant will tell you that he will find it extremely difficult to explain the source of his funds. Why the BJP brought in RSS 'ideologue' Gurumurthy to give a clean chit to Nitin Gadkari on his financial dealings vis a vis the Purti group, little realising that he was eroding his own credibility and professional reputation in the process. India is not full of suckling babes as most of the political parties seem to think and a major part of the India success story has come because of the ability and enterprise of its people inspite of having to carry the political class on its back. Not only that other RSS 'ideologues' are complicating the pitch further by bringing in the Gujarat angle against Gadkari. These 'ideologues' well past their prime and with no accountability for their utterances and actions are making a mess of the BJP's position. Thus it is not as if the BJP does not have its hands full with its own in-fighting but this matter is being compounded by such irresponsible RSS interference. It is high time therefore that the BJP shrugged off the heavy hand of the RSS on its shoulder otherwise as a party it will be always hobbled both in terms of formulation of policy and in taking quick action on major issues. Further the BJP itself seems to be suffering from the same dichotomy that affects the Congress party most of the time. In this regard the double standards are very obvious on the part of the BJP decision making since for B S Yeddyyurappa it acts and advises him to demit office and refuses to bring him back even after on some of the corruption cases against him the High Courts take a lenient stand and allow him bail while for Nitin Gadkari under similar circumstances of financial impropriety they prefer to brazen it out and in that process get caught up in a quagmire of their own making. All this is going to cost the BJP heavily in the upcoming general elections and if there had been a chance for them to come up with a better showing and even have an outside chance of forming the government this time around, all that has been squandered away now and looks like a lost dream.

Girish Karnad Goes Viral

Girish Karnad's rantings on first Naipaul, very well deserved, and on Rabindranath Tagore, a little less deserving, are to be taken as expressions of our democracy and categorised as individual opinions and need not necessarily feed a media frenzy. Like they say there is a fine line which divides genius and insanity which also is conditioned as age progresses with the debilitation of the mind called senility. Thus you have to take what anyone says today with a pinch of salt and also take it in your stride which is what needs to be done in the case of Karnad's utterances. As for his comments on Naipaul they are very much valid, who styles himself as a latter-day Nirad C Chaudhuri with the carte blanche to pronounce on all matters Indian, the more controversial the better. On Guru Dev, Karnad is less informed and should not have made those comments at least in the vituperative manner that it has come out in the press, after all the only Nobel Prize winner from India deserves a modicum of respect. Why no one speaks of Salman Rushdie in the same vein, is something that astounds one, considering that in recent times he is the biggest pretender to be a novelist with some links to India? Karnad, are you game for this one?

The PM As The Prevaricating Dummy

Our government keeps saying that there is no alternative to most things like the petroleum fuel and LPG price hikes or the need for nuclear power and lately FDI in multi-brand retail. This is because they take the advice of the professional experts in the field, which is important and desirable, but unfortunately this opinion is not moderated by policy or planning experts. Thus what are called interested parties like the professional experts tend to vociferously push their opinions to the exclusion of all others and therefore alternatives are not considered. It is only this but our PM falls for this hook, line and sinker. And then with the PM it is always ultimatum raj, either this or nothing. We have shown this side of him many a time and notably during the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal. He has shown no ability to build a consensus through structured debate and discussion throughout his incumbency in office otherwise our Parliament would not have been stalled session after session, though we have to ascribe some blame for this to the Opposition particularly the BJP. But then the buck for running this country should finally stop with the man in the driver’s seat and that is the PM. Take the case of petroleum and LPG price hikes, why was this not done all along and that too in stages? Even last week when the price of non-subsidised LPG was supposed to be raised by some Rs. 27 per cylinder by the oil Cos., the announced hike was deferred by the government, presumably because of its impact on the Himachal Pradesh elections where the Congress perceive they have a chance to displace the incumbent BJP regime. So also time after time this dithering government for one or the other tenuous or assumed reason over the last 8 years, that it has been in power, has postponed decisions on petroleum fuel price increases and then this man, our PM, has the temerity to tell us that we are on the edge of the precipice. Why has no one asked him who got us there? It is not only this but the distributor hikes in margin both for petroleum fuels and LPG of some below Rs. 1 for the first and below Rs. 12 for the second, the government, whether it be the State or the Centre, did not absorb it but passed it on to the consumer. When the state levied taxes on these products range from 21 – 29%, could the government not have absorbed them and not passed them on to the consumer? These changes affect the middle class the most in India which is viewed as a punching bag by the government, to be hit any which way and any which side, and they expect this class of citizens to keep quiet. Not any more as Arvind Kejriwal of the IAC has shown lately. The middle class will wake up and will ask searching questions as time goes by. Take also the case of FDI in multi-brand retail, we are looking at it as a magic wand to save our farmers from penury, provide our educated youth jobs and generating growth in our GDP, little realizing that we are throwing the chains of foreign domination again around our necks. Oonce we jump into it, it will not be long before we have to ask Walmart to give us our economic indices like CPI & WPI just like the US Dept. of Commerce does. If they can do it, what’s wrong with us doing the same, will be the refrain of our die-hard pro-US supporters even though Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist has said that introducing FDI in retail will do nothing to increase India’s GDP and we need to be wary of Walmart’s labor practices. But then who can argue with our government who has shut its ears for fear that it may stray from the path of supporting US capitalism.

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