VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue:140

Date: 24.11.2012

Contents:

1. ‘Snoop The Snoopers’

2. The Malaise of Corruption

3. The Mish-Mash That Is The Indian Economy

4. NOTW, Savile & BBC Bungles Reflect The Scars In British Society

5. The Savita Case In Ireland

6. Indian Agriculture Has Become A NCP Fiefdom

7. Israel Has To Show Restraint

8. Congress Suffering From Empty-Headed Leadership Syndrome

9. Dual Pricing of LPG Cylinders

‘Snoop The Snoopers’

The sexual indiscretions in the US that have hit recent headlines involving serving and other generals of the Army as well as Gen. (Retd.) Petraeus heading the CIA from which he has since resigned indicate that Congressional hearings and the like that officers of the government go through before they are confirmed in their job extend only to their past practices and not to current habits. Army generals have been lumped together above since Gen. (Retd.) Petraeus is of that category and was recently having joint command of the forces in Afghanistan and the other named generals in this category are his successor in Afghanistan and the one commanding the famed 81st Airborne Division. These are also very senior command positions privy to top secret information and the fact that these generals being compromised could indicate a grave security risk to the US government. The CIA being ‘top dog’ among snoop agencies in the world does not snoop on its own has been proved in the case of Petraeus since the FBI persistence in the investigation into antagonizing email between two of the ladies involved is what broke the story. But then maybe like in many of Robert Ludlum’s novels there is a need for the NSA or some similar covert agency to ‘snoop on the snoopers’.

The Malaise of Corruption

The venal side of most of our politicians and legislators is well known. The same applies to our bureaucracy since just this week we had the lady ex-Chief Secretary of UP indicted for corruption by the CBI. Along with this the person heading the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal was being investigated by the CBI for showing concessions and favours to a private group. All this on the back of a number of IAS officers being caught in corruption cases and having disproportionate assets and as far as the IT Dept. is concerned we have had Commissioners indicted for corruption leading up to even the Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). One therefore need not reiterate that corruption is a pervasive phenomena in Indian society. What hurts the common people is that our authorities refuse to even see this problem and particularly the Congress governments who in fact encourage this sort of thing and turn a blind eye to it. Like again last week we have had a news item highlighting bogus ration cards in Mumbai where the authorities have now ruled that if there is no drawal against a ration card for 3 months, it will get suspended. We all know of some 40 lakh bogus cards in Karnataka and that this problem is common enough around the country. It is just like the petrol mafia, this is yet another mafia which uses these bogus ration cards to siphon off foodgrain stocks to the open market for windfall gains. Again last week, we were told that 50% of cellular towers in Mumbai are illegal! If out of 3600 towers in Mumbai, if some are illegal then it is to some extent acceptable but with half of them being unlawful, it reflects the broader malaise that affects India these days. And this in a hi-tech sector where we have the organized corporate sector including multinationals involved. The common tendency in India is not to follow the law most of the time and if caught try to bribe your way out of it. It has become an embedded culture now to do things beyond the pale of the law knowing full well that you can get away with it by paying money. This essentially is the root cause of corruption and it is an attitude issue which needs to be corrected. For one or the other reason the average Indian is willing to pay to get his work done rather than be either hassled or wait in line. Thus for all those who scream from the pulpits about corruption and the need to get rid of it, in their own lives when things have to get done, one is reasonably sure that they pay up quietly and not have it known to the public at large. The same goes for black money which is a problem intertwined with corruption. The average Indian indulges in generating and using black money since otherwise society brands him as a duffer and an idiot. If you have an honest government officer, you will find that the pressure on him from his immediate family to becoming corrupt is the highest and if he resists this temptation there are chances that the people around him may treat him as an outcast. Thus the person has not much choice. Therefore if we have to limit, reduce or eliminate corruption, the change has to come from within and among all of us. Say – NO, to paying up unauthorized demands when you interact with any agency be it government or otherwise and that’s when a start would have been made in the war against corruption.

The Mish-Mash That Is The Indian Economy

The economic headlines during the last 10 days or so, have read something like this. Industrial growth falls further with YoY 2.4%. Manufacturing and capital goods are major laggards. Export growth shrinks. Trade deficit widens. Exports to China encouraged. Fiscal deficit widens. Inflation reduces to 7.45%. RBI refuses to touch interest rates. Rupee touches 2 month low. Sensex remains range bound. Moorat trading (at Diwali) does not give a fillip to the Sensex. 2G auction a damp squib. Thus even a novice at economics will tell you that the country is going downhill with the UPA at the helm of affairs. It is not that one is gleeful about this state of affairs but then one has to recognize the situation for what it is before one can go about correcting it. Thus only exports that has seen dull movement is something that can be justified considering that world markets are facing recession and in Europe many countries are toying with imposing austerity measures faced with recession. The point is that none of the above figures may be correct because of basic structural flaws as reported in the past, therefore one cannot but reiterate the conclusion that our policy planners in the economics arena are probably shooting in the dark. Thus whenever they see a ray of hope in any one indice or sector, they jump to embrace it as if there is no tomorrow. But they end up proved fallacious or disappointed making the age-old adage come true – That one swallow does not herald the onset of spring. Our FM had seen the 2G auction as something that would bail him out from his budget deficit crisis little realizing that the Telecom Ministry and the Congress High Command had other plans and deliberately sabotaged the auction so that they could come out spotlessly clean on the 2G scam. As reported the spectrum released was so nominal that none of the telecom Cos. even felt that it was worth sniffing at. Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s comment last month that the recessionary tendencies seem to have bottomed out, have again also been proved wrong. The Sardarji forever makes the same mistakes time and again and because of the unreliability of his forecasts he would best be deputed to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) where his talents are better suited, rather than at the Planning Commission. In fact the entire economics team of the UPA-2 government should be shown the door and immediately at that since they exhibit no fundamental understanding of how the Indian economy works. That is the only way that the country will turn around and start performing again.

NOTW, Savile & BBC Bungles Reflect The Scars In British Society

The News of the World (NOTW) scandal and the Murdoch involvement safely buried one would have thought that British society had put this kind of thing behind them. But then with the surfacing of the Savile scandal and the other McAlpine bungle in the BBC which has even caught the previous head Thompson to being embarrassed in his new job at the New York Times, it seems that hacking into the mobile phones of a 13 year old who killed herself to seeking salacious details from celebrity phones, is not necessarily the end of the story in terms of UK media interest. Media holds a mirror to a society in general and these stories show the extent of depravity that commonly prevails in Britain. The sexual indiscretions in the US that have hit recent headlines are similar to the above.

The Savita Case In Ireland

The case of Savita's death due to pregnancy delivery complications in Ireland has been hitting the headlines ever since the unfortunate incident took place. But then we need to look at the matter objectively. When people migrate they need to understand that by that very process they are accepting to live within the norms of the country to which they are going. This includes the laws of that country and the mores of that society. In this case, here is an educated couple who should have verified the laws of the country particularly when it is involved with a precious issue like childbirth. We all know that everything does not go in childbirth cases as planned, more so in these days where the expectant mother is expected to work and meet the demands of a job abroad. Thus if Catholicism in Ireland was an obstacle they could have flown out the mother back home or an adjoining country where the laws and customs are more friendly to them. Blaming the Irish government for their religious beliefs will not bring back Savita and that is what her family should realise and no amount of public outcry will change that fact. This does not mean that one should not record the protest since that is important for future such incidents where if the Irish government is open to change, precious lives could be saved. But that depends purely on Ireland and their willingness to amend their position on abortion. We should also look at such matters in the context that if anything was happening in India which would affect our religious sensibilities, would we be amenable to change? This is an important lesson to expatriate Indian families and those planning to migrate abroad to check out the laws of the land that they are going to so that the lives of theirs and those of their precious ones are protected and saved in the event of emergencies.

Indian Agriculture Has Become A NCP Fiefdom

What happened during the last Cabinet re-shuffle which many people may have missed is that Indian agriculture has become a NCP fiefdom with Sharad Pawar as Minister and Tariq Anwar as MoS. Henceforth the only growth that one will see in this sector beyond the nominal 2% that we have seen lately is in the size of the girth of the ministers and in their bank balances and assets both legitimate and benami. With a marginal drop of less than 1% in the inflation numbers the government is getting the aam admi ready for the next price shock since agricultural commodities have not shown any signs of any price plateauing or falling. Sugar has already hit Rs. 40/- a Kg. at the retail level with our godowns brimming with the white gold on the back of two successive bumper harvests while news reports indicates that the late monsoon this year has affected the crops of sugarcane by about 40% and also that of potato, onions and pulses. All this news had been coming out from Maharasthra, Sharad Pawar’s bastion obviously to manage the situation to his advantage. Like they say, whether the weather Gods are kind to agriculture or not, Sharad Pawar’s harvest is assured come rain or shine. FAO on the back of weather vagaries because of climate change which has affected food production in the granaries of the world like the US Mid-West, Russia and other regions has been predicting food prices to rise. At least with our bumper stocks of food particularly wheat and rice we can turn the tables on these trends and maintain our local food prices when international food prices are climbing. This, of course, will only be if the Pawars and Anwars of this world smile benignly on their countrymen. Why a man from Maharasthra should continue as Agriculture since the State has been leading the country in terms of farmer suicides in the country and as seen in the recent sugarcane price agitation in the State, Sharad Pawar wants his way in the matter rather than cede the credit to any of his other politician class like Raju Shetty etc.

Israel Has To Show Restraint

Israel is completely getting out of hand in its retaliation against the Hamas in its present conflict in the Gaza strip. The terminology by official Israeli spokespersons that they will 'reduce Gaza to its status in the Middle Ages' is completely against all norms of civilised national behavior. We all need to recognise that the position of Israel in its present geographical location is untenable and essentially because of this we have these random conflagrations, like the present one, with one or the other opposite number, be it the Hamas, Palestinians, Hezbollah, Syria or Iran. If a permanent solution is found to this basic problem by allowing Palestine self-rule with a Jewish minority and maybe an Israeli state with a Palestinian minority cohabiting next to each other within the present Israeli state then we would not have these rocket and airstrike exchanges which end up killing more innocent civilians and damaging public property. Even Israel has to be restrained by those who have an influence on them like maybe the US or some of the European nations not to use excessive and disproportionate force against essentially a weaker enemy. For a race that has seen oppression the tendency to go on the offensive to destroy (and eradicate) those opposing them, kind of shows that the scars of torture have not healed over seven decades. But that apart restraint has to be shown by any nation and Israel has to learn this. The other angle to these conflicts could be a representative one which the Western nations tend to exhibit often. Israel and most Western nations are highly militarised and continue to develop a variety of sophisticated weapons. Now these weapons have to be put to use otherwise the efficacy of these weapons cannot be assessed in battlefield conditions. Thus there is a need for escalation of tensions in any part of the world leading to short battles if not wars where these weapons can be put to test. That is the pattern you see ever since the Cold War gave over of conflicts worldwide. Notable among these are the fact that the Iraq war started on a wrong premise which took a succeeding US president in Barrack Obama to realise that it was completely unnecessary and as for Afghanistan it was a disproportionate reaction to 9/11 where Cruise missiles were being used in the early stages against the Afghans riding donkeys and carrying staves. Even in the case of Israel Barrack Obama has supported their right to defend themselves. No one wants to deny Israel this right but then 180 odd airstrikes in 48 hours with residential apartment blocks as targets and killing innocent women and children are not defensive tactics. It is time therefore that the US President leaned upon Israel to see reason and scale down its firepower while retaliating against the random rocket strikes from the Gaza strip.

Congress Suffering From Empty-Headed Leadership Syndrome

The Congress is suffering from empty-headed leadership syndrome. This normally comes on when the top leadership suffers from a disability of regular speech and the tendency to shut oneself up inside closed doors. We all know that Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh suffer from this disease and to a certain extent Rahul Gandhi also. Giving Rahul Gandhi to lead the charge for the Congress in the upcoming general elections is a clear symptom of this syndrome. In the Assembly segment in the past, he has made a mess of the elections in Bihar and then made a bigger mess in UP where in the last elections the SP came back to power with a resounding majority. In both States the Congress is on its last legs. Thus letting him lead the Congress party in the next general election will signal the death-knell of the party. R.I.P. The other thing that we all need to think about and introspect is about the Congress party, the oldest party in India, with uneducated people at the helm of affairs. Both Sonia Gandhi & Rahul Gandhi are not educated since if they were, then there would have been no hesitation to put their qualifications in the public domain. To govern a country though one must say that the dominant need is to be educated, at the least to the graduate level. Some of those leading the pack in the Congress party are even less educated and there seems to be an underlying motive in manipulating an electorate that is even less educated in the majority, thus keeping this country backward forever. If one is to comment on the fact that the present Gandhi family assumes their birthright to lead this country because of their ancestry. One must say that neither are their blood lines pure in terms of their link to the Nehru family. Sonia Gandhi obviously does not qualify to be even mentioned in this regard while Rahul Gandhi is diluted twice once through Feroze and then through Sonia Gandhi. Therefore why the Congress party should hang on to such wretched and irregular heirlooms of the Nehru family is something that is not understood. This talk of charisma and the ability to be a crowd-puller are all cock and bull stories. These myths around Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka have been perpetrated by the Congress party members themselves and cultivated by the present Gandhi family. In this Sonia is the major infarctor, down to copying Indira Gandhi’s style from her sarees and dressing style, the mannerisms of speech and gait while appearing at public meetings. The Congressmen unfortunately tend to believe in this more than in themselves. This leads them to follow the Gandhi family blindly and take any of their utterances as God’s own word. It is time therefore that this myth is busted. In fact the Congress has taken the first step in this regard by anointing Rahul Gandhi to lead them in the next elections which needs to be given a gentle push so that the process of decimation of the Congress party is complete. Like they say, maybe we have had too much of a good thing for too long, more than a century, and maybe it is time to change the Congress party now.

Dual Pricing of LPG Cylinders

We all know that dual pricing of any commodity particularly of an essential nature and in high demand, will lead to black-marketing. The government has seen this in kerosene over the years resulting in scarcity of the regulated price item and exorbitant prices for the unregulated one, leading to diversion of the regulated item. The low price has also encouraged the use of kerosene as an adulterant to petrol with the latter’s price spurting for various reasons linked with international oil price increases. Even lately when diesel prices were being considered for upward review and to bring them in line with petrol, the dual pricing strategy was discarded for precisely the above reasons of it turning diesel to another black-market commodity. But then why dual pricing of LPG has been resorted to now is not understood. Even though the 6 cylinders per year rule is up in the air with various inputs coming from across the political spectrum that the consensus is likely to be 9 cylinders per year, we are already seeing black marketing in the cylinders from the distributors. Like in Goa out-of-turn regular priced cylinders are available at Rs. 1000/- and unauthorized unregistered supply is available at Rs. 1200/- per cylinder. Time to speed up therefore the direct subsidy to the users through Aadhaar, not that it is the final solution, but then when nothing else is possible, we have to manage with half-baked solutions. Like they say half-baked measures call for half-baked solutions.

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