OPinionatED

or

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 170                 Date:  03.10.2016

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1.      The Way Forward In Kashmir

2.       Congress Party Struggling To Remain Relevant

3.      The Wrong Emphasis On Poverty Alleviation & Economic Growth

The Way Forward In Kashmir

We need to look at how Kashmir has been handled since the Modi-led BJP government came to power in the Centre. In an attempt to keep the Congress - National Conference at bay the BJP had decided to go in for an opportunistic alliance with the PDP to form the government in Kashmir. There was no ideological basis for the alliance and with the few seats that the BJP get in Jammu and looking at the PDP strength in the Valley a marriage of convenience was hurriedly cobbled up. The squabbling between the two partners post-elections continued though it did not reach a breaking point since both the parties realised that they had more to lose in separating than in staying together.  Then the PDP supremo, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed died and that event really set the cat among the pigeons for the alliance and by extension into Kashmir. Mehbooba Mufti anointed successor to lead the PDP by Mufti Saheb himself had cold feet on two issues. The first was sitting on the CM's chair and putting the crown of thorns on her head since being CM of Kashmir was nobed of roses. The second was the alliance with the BJP. Thus after an extended period of dilly-dallying explained away as the time of mourning that Mehbooba Mufti needed, she accepted the challenge of becoming the first woman Chief Minister of Kashmir.

The time between Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's death and Mehbooba Mufti accepting to become the Chief Minister was when Kashmir had essentially no government. This interregnum after a relatively extended period of peace was what was taken advantage of by the separatists to push through their agenda and foment local unrest and encourage terrorist activity from across the border. Thus Mehbooba Mufti had from almost Day 1 to face problems relating to either local law and order incidents involving stoning or cross-border terrorist activity and the continued over-reaction of the army and para-military forces in handling such activity. It was not settled times in Kashmir and the burning fuse was lit when Burhan Wani was killed in the encounter and the State immediately went up in flames thereafter. Close to a hundred days of disturbances followed with almost the same number of Kashmiris killed in this period and the unrest leading to disarray in the lives of innocent citizens. Is this what the BJP calls Kashmir being an integral part of India? Does Kashmir not deserve the calm and peace that other Indian citizens largely enjoy? Do the Kashmiri not deserve to go to schools and the youth to colleges in the pursuit of a better life? Kashmir was near normal almost six months ago when tourists had again started to return. But then what happened thereafter? Does the BJP have an answer to this question having been part of the government in Kashmir? Does the BJP not have a responsibility therefore by virtue of being a part of the government to ensure normalcy as close as it is possible for the Kashmiris to go about their day to day lives?

Let us step back a moment to almost two years ago when Narendra Modi took over the reins of government with the BJP getting an astounding absolute majority. This should have encouraged Modi and his government to try and resolve the problems in Kashmir and bring some normalcy to the State. If based on some of his utterances lately after meetings with Mehbooba Mufti and if he intends to get down to brass tacks then he has to follow some basic general principles. As it is known Kashmir has been a festering problem defying a solution because of the machinations of the separatists residing in the State, the activities of terrorists from across the border in Pakistan and PoK with quite some assistance from local people and finally the partly brainwashed local population who feel that India has given them a raw deal and schizophrenically inclined to independence for Kashmir or to be aligned with Pakistan. The situation has got further complicated with some insensitive and intransigent reactions of our armed forces both military and paramilitary based in Kashmir categorised as human rights excesses by the local population and desirable action to ensure law and order by the armed forces. 

Thus in this given situation any new government taking guard at the Centre should have accorded top priority to resolving the Kashmir tangle in winning over the hearts and minds of the local population. This more so when it ventured to hold the reins of government in the State albeit jointly with the PDP. However, strangely the BJP including its top brass refused to accept this responsibility and tended to ignore the reality in Kashmir and preferred to play second fiddle to the PDP in the government. Even Narendra Modi must accept the blame for not giving enough attention to Kashmir being completely obsessed with his foreign trips and when he fleetingly did with great immaturity it was to drop in for a cup of 'chai' with Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan. The ingenuous approach that Modi adopted to one would assume to break the ice that had settled more thickly than at the Arctic circle in the 69 years of Indo-Pak relations because of Kashmir has been proven now to be ill-conceived if not completely immature. Where Modi should have concentrated on the people of Kashmir he went across the border to find a solution to a problem of what he calls of his own people and an integral part of India. 

The people of Kashmir need to live a life of normalcy and not be perennially barricaded either because there is a bundh on the roads or firing or stone throwing. This kind of unrest disrupts the common population of going about their daily lives like buying essential necessities, going to school or college and office and with businesses shut there is a strain on the availability of goods and services. Considering the assumption that Narendra Modi and the BJP want normalcy to be there in Kashmir and taking off from the statement that Mehbooba Mufti made recently that 95% of the Kashmiris want peace, we should withdraw the armed forces from all civilian areas of Kashmir and repeal the AFSPA. This will build the confidence in the Kashmiri people that the government is serious about ushering in normalcy. At the same time it should be made clear that no nonsense will be tolerated and those that are not supportive of normalcy returning will be dealt with severely according to prevailing laws.

The separatists of different hues that exist in Kashmir should be clearly told that they should toe the line otherwise they should ship out to where they think that their interests are best served. However, as long as they are in Kashmir no separatist activity of any kind will be tolerated and they will be dealt strictly as per prevailing laws in the event they contravene any of the laws or act in a manner that will encourage public unrest. Given the earlier background of these leaders if they fail to listen to reason, they should be progressively put under house arrest, their movements restricted and passports withdrawn.

As for dealing with terrorists who sneak in from across the border, our army and paramilitary forces should beef up their strength and capabilities to man, patrol and intercept anyone from sneaking in and causing mayhem in Kashmir. In the event of further attacks by terrorists we should in the manner as we did in case of the Uri attack retaliate and take out the terrorists camps on the other side of the border as long as such strikes are militarily feasible. In this manner we should sanitise a 2 Km. swathe of area on the Pakistan and PoK side of the border and the LoC and make it free of terrorist camps. This will then ensure that we get respect from Pakistan that we mean what we say and are capable of enforcing our way in the event of Pakistan not amenable to our requests to control or stop terrorist activity either by they themselves or through ‘non-State actors’.

This is the only way forward if Narendra Modi and his government wants to bring in lasting peace in Kashmir. There is a great deal of risk involved in the above proposition but like they say – Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained – and in the event it works then the greatest gift for India would be the Kashmiri people rejecting any of Pakistan’s interventions in Kashmir.

Congress Party Struggling To Remain Relevant

The Congress political party is clearly in disarray and losing relevance by the day. It is time that the Gandhis recognised this and took some concrete corrective action in re-vitalising the party. With Sonia Gandhi more often than not indisposed and Rahul Gandhi concentrating on sound bytes with his flippant and superficial comments against Narendra Modi which are going stale by the day, the leadership should realise that it is time the Congress raised substantive issues of governance to remain a political force in the country.

The Wrong Emphasis On Poverty Alleviation & Economic Growth

Arvind Panagariya Vice-Chairman, Niti Aayog stated recently that urbanization is the solution to poverty alleviation, quoting BRICS countries ratios of urbanization and wanting to catch up. This is nothing but being supportive of land sharks and the real-estate lobby sacrificing the interests of the aam admi. The hypothesis here is to initiate large scale migration to the cities from our rural areas. It is a well known fact that communities are best prosperous and happy where their means of livelihood is close at hand. Thus if our rural communities are assured gainful income from the produce that they grow in their fields or in the businesses that they run to support the agricultural activity, they will decidedly have nothing to seek from moving to our urban centres. The quality of life is definitely much better in the rural areas than in the slums that they would have to largely migrate to in the cities. In the BRICS countries other than in Russia which is a somewhat unknown factor rapid urbanization has resulted in a strain on the cities leading to the creation of ghetto-like slums not very much unlike Dharavi that we have in Mumbai. Surely this is not the quality of life that we would like to offer to those who will migrate to our cities. This kind of logic is being perpetrated by the UN also which for the last decade or more has been pushing the earlier UPA government and now the present government to encourage migration from rural areas to the cities. The premise here being that it will lead to an impetus to improved development. In fact, quite the contrary, it will lead to negative development. The Indian cities will break under the stress of this large incoming population from the rural areas and the consequent demand on essential services like water, electricity, sewerage, health services and education will undergo a breakdown or a distortion in supply. We seem sometimes to act in contradictory ways since the trend for supply of electricity and potable water is to charge consumers more and more. Will the newly migrated rural folk be able to pay for these essential necessities? If not, like the old saying are we thrusting them from the boiling pot into the fire? There is no problem with migration that is voluntary but we should not deliberately engineer it.

Thus all things considered it is best that we allow the rural community to remain where they are and involve in agriculture activity which will engender better availability of food and also spur growth rates of the economy. It has been a known fact that on the back of a good monsoon whenever our agriculture production has seen a reasonable growth, the Indian economy as a whole has done well. The reason being that more money in the hands of the rural people has led to a sharp increase in the demand for consumer goods, consumer durables and also automobiles and 2-wheelers like motorcycles and scooters. This has been the reason that close to two decades now the MNC’s involved in consumer goods have been concentrating on the rural market to secure double digit growth for their existing products, considering that the urban markets for these products are seeing a saturation. Even the late President Kalam had emphasized many a time that the future growth of the country’s economy lies in the rural areas and it is important that we concentrate on improving the services in these areas. Thus the Niti Aayog toeing the UN’s line is contradictory to local reality. This is all the more since if we encourage large scale migration from the rural areas to our cities, the agriculture sector already reeling under shortage of manpower will be deprived further of hands to support the growth of food for the Indian population. Long term this will result in shortage of agricultural production leading us to become more a food importing country than we are today. We all remember the days of the 1960’s when we had to manage with PL480 aid from the USA and on import of substandard rice from Thailand. WE should not bring back those days for our grandchildren and negate whatever benefits we derived from the Green Revolution.

Another wrong premise that is going the rounds of our economists is that if rural income goes up then it will lead to a spurt in inflation particularly for food. This is retrograde thinking since our farmers deserve to get the best prices for their produce and no consumer minds the increase of market support prices for their produce. The windfall profits in agricultural items is made by the intermediaries like the wholesalers and retailers where a mark-up of more than 2 to 3 times the price is imposed. That is where the control has to take place. Again the economists as above suffer from the mistaken belief that with farmers getting better prices their quality of life will improve thus enhancing the local demand for vegetables, milk, chicken etc. and thus limiting the amount of these items available for sale in urban markets leading to a runaway increase in the prices of these items.  So the choice is clear, we either consciously deprive the farmer of better prices so that his lot remains as existing or worse or we increase the factors of production that will lead to a large-scale increase in the production of these items for both the rural and urban markets. Any right thinking person will definitely go for the second option since the overall well-being of the country and prosperity is in this option.

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

OPinionatED

or

VOX POPULI

by

Aam Admi

Issue: 169                          Date:  26.09.2016

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1. The Terror Attack On The Uri Camp & Its Aftermath

2. The Indian Economy Continues To Flounder

3. Mumbai to Goa in 6 Hours Gadkari Promises

There was no issue of the Vox Populi dated 19th September 2016.

The Terror Attack On The Uri Camp & Its Aftermath

The attack on the Uri army camp in Kashmir by terrorists  allegedly belonging to the Jaish-e-Mohammed based out of Pakistanis yet another nail in the coffin of the competence and preparedness of the Indian army serving in adverse conditions. How a handful of terrorists can first breach the Line of Control and then cut through the barbed wire fence at the back of the camp and attack our sleeping soldiers, is something that defies comprehension? What the Army says is that the attack was at pre-dawn and at the time of changing the guard. These are no excuses since you are based at the LoC  and these are the times when you need to expect enemy or insurgent action. Not to protect your rear and flanks is a shame since that is the first thing that is taught in Army manuals be it in India or around the world. To look at the other side of the coin the terrorists seemed to be better equipped with intelligence  since they precisely knew not only when to attack but also knew the location of the diesel dumps inside the camp to blow them up and cause maximum mayhem. On the back of the Pathankot attack, the Uri camp attack is another blot on the fair name of the Indian armed forces. Our Army top brass need to take lessons from this and not treat our jawans like cannon fodder to be felled by actions of a few terrorists. The fact that you cannot limit infiltration since the fence along the LoC or across the border is difficult to implement because of terrain issues is understandable. But what is not negotiable is the fact that the Army is incompetent to guard its own camps and protect them from terrorists creeping in. Our Defence Minister just last week said that his objective is to make the Indian armed forces one of the mightiest in the world, but this cannot be done until the armed forces themselves believe in this objective. As for the attack itself the quickness with which it was attributed to the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Pakistan leaves independent observers a little non-plussed. It is easy to blame Pakistan fpr everything wrong that is going on in Kashmir but does not the Indian army not think that it is insulting to admit to the fact that this country and its agents are able to run rings around us. There is no harm in blaming Pakistan as long as you have clear and irrefutable evidence that they have been involved for which take your time to gather this evidence and then produce it for the whole world to see. We have seen from past instances like the Mumbai terror attack and the Pathankot attack that inspite of hard evidence pointing at Pakistan's  complicity, they have been able to deflect it claiming that these are actions by non-State actors. As for retaliation, India has for long been talking of hot pursuit and to eliminate the training camps of the terrorist organisations across the border but has taken no concrete action in this regard. It needs to act now taking advantage of Pakistan's admission of the involvement of non-State actors and eliminate camps of such outfits across the border in both PoK and Pakistan. Care must be taken that ordinary Pakistani citizens are not caught in such action and are killed. If Pakistan contests this then we can claim that it is only non-State actors against whom action is being taken which Pakistan itself has not been able to curb.  This argument can also be used in international forums to justify our intervention. By such action India should clear a swathe of a width of at least 2 KM. in Pakistani territory right across the entire border and the LoC and demarcate this as a de-militarised zone. If this is done then it will be difficult for both Pakistan and the terrorist organisations to stage attacks against India. This is the only way that we  will be able to stop terrorists infiltrating into India and causing the deaths of our military and para-military personnel as well as innocent civilians in Kashmir. 

The Indian Economy Continues To Flounder

Our economic  pundits in the government need to put their heads together and find out what is wrong with the economy and then try and set things right. The ambiguity about the economic indices continue with them being questionable what with the IIP showing a reduction in July of more than 2%. Here the government is again talking of base year variations of close to 5% which they claim to have pulled the data down apart from the sector concerning rubber which dropped by 29%. The base year issues had also plagued the GDP figures issued sometime back which at just above 7% with an adjustment factor of 5% turned out to be no growth at all. This assessment seems to be correct since with IIP showing a consistent pattern of fall over the last few months, low capital formation indicating laggard investment and no increase in jobs.  The claim therefore of Indian GDP growth as the 'fastest growing' in the world is very debatable. Inflation continues to be the bugaboo for the Indian economy with no signs  of abatement what with the WPI showing the highest increase in August in excess of 3.4% though CPI normalised at 5.5% on the back of softening of vegetable prices . The CPI will start climbing again when the effect of the high WPI kicks in. We have also had back to back fuel prices being jacked up twice in the last one month, once substantially and then there was a correction, using economists parlance for a smaller increase. Exports continue to fall  but for a June month increase which in these questionable times of figures could be considered an aberration since world trade have not shown any dramatic increase lately.

With the falling exports  there has been talk of depreciating the Rupee which sent jitters over the last week in the stock markets. Devaluation will not be a good thing for the Indian economy now though it is a short-term measure to boost exports, but it has wider ramifications in the economy. The devaluation will also not increase exports since with softening demand worldwide it will only send wrong signals about the Indian economy in international circles. Imports in June have also contracted by close to 20% which is indicative of softening industrial production and bodes no good for the IIP in coming months.  The problems with the Indian economy are structural and the fissures run deep  and superficial measures like lowering interest rates or devaluing the rupee will not help.  Investment in industry will not grow unless the NPA issue with banks is sorted out. As long as the banks carry this millstone around their necks, industry will be hobbled and neither will you see growth or new investment. It is important that the NPA issue is resolved one way or another to clear the decks so to speak for the Indian economy to move forward. 

Among all these storm clouds in the Indian economic skies, it is rather incongruous to see the Indian stock-markets dancing to the tune of the US Fed Reserve actions which saw a close to 500 points jump on the BSE index last week and then another 300 points jump yesterday, 23rd Sept 2016 when the Fed Reserve Chairperson indicated no increase in interest rates but with a hint that it could still happen in 2016. Where the Indian stock markets should reflect the state of the Indian industry and the economy, in the manner of a subsidiary State of the USA, it is dancing to US tunes. Opportunistic gains are being made in these fluctuations  by local investors which is more like a gaming scenario than anything else. 

In all this environment, if one can call the Finance Minister the Captain of the Ship for the Indian economy, in the form of Arun Jaitley, we find him with his nose up in the air making banal statements in his hamhanded attempts to talk the economy up. Like when questioned about the veracity in the economic indices being put out by the CSO, he said that even the IMF accepts them! That is neither here nor there since the IMF accepts the figures given by each and every country without going into the correctness of the figures since that responsibility lies with the country submitting the information. Get your house in order, Mr Jaitley, since even the economists within our banking system have been questioning the correctness of the recent IIP, CPI & WPI figures being put out commenting that these seem to be in line with the government's intention of painting a rosy picture of the Indian economy.While addressing the senior management of the PSB's last week again exhibited his wishy-washy nature of blowing hot and cold. His advice was to aggressively pursue clearance of the NPA's while at the same time saying that no one is interested at this time to pick up 'stressed assets'. He correctly cautioned banks on the tendency to write-off loans but gave no indication of how they should pursue the NPA's aggressively. Either he should tell the bankers that they should pursue these outstanding loans like they did Vijay Mallya's and proceed on seizing pledged assets and passports which would mean that the Who's Who of Indian industry would be in Tihar jail joining the likes of Be-Sahara Subrata Roy and others. Some of the PSB top management would also find themselves in hot water for having colluded in sanctioning out-of-turn loans to these industrialists. That is one method to clear the NPA's which would be akin to Hercules cleaning the Aegean Stables but in this context the Indian financial system. The other alternative is to write-ff these NPA's to show the true colours of this BJP government which is pro-business and anti-aam admi. To defend themselves in Parliament Jaitley will have the quid pro quo of quoting that the UPA government wrote off Rs. 60,000 crore worth of farmer's loans and he is doing no different with industrialists who after feathering their own nests do at least provide jobs to the aam admi, so he is benefiting both. But given the size of the NPA's, Jaitley will have to formulate a 5 - year plan over which he could take it off the bank's books so that the action is not overtly beneficial to big business and at the same time which the economy can absorb. These are the times that we are living in and it is difficult to understand whether we should laugh or cry at things going on around us since everything is like they say - bitter for some and sweet for others.

Mumbai to Goa in 6 Hours Gadkari Promises

Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Surface Transport has promised that by 2018 the journey by road from Mumbai to Goa will be completed in six hours. While the present status is that the same road has been closed at Chiplun and traffic has been diverted to the NH4 via Kolhapur to reach Goa. A few days back there were reports on the state of the road near Panvel and Uran where with the potholes the road had become unpassable. And just about a month ago again on the same road we had the old 100 year bridge getting washed away with 2 State Transport buses and a number of cars falling into the flooded river. What people like Gadkari should understand is that being a peddler of dreams is all fine but we have to take care of existing facilities and keep them functional under different weather conditions so that we are able to use facilities in present times so that we can reach the promised dream. What we have to try to achieve and make each engineering project is to ensure that it will stand through time with some unique  attributes  related to the local topography and also take into account environmental conditions like maximum flood levels when it comes to bridges etc. Even for being a peddler of dreams Gadkari may in a few months state that he had been misquoted and never promised the 6 hour transit between Mumbai to Goa just like he said the other day that the promise of 'acche din' to come was never made by Narendra Modi and the BJP. 

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

OPinionatED

or

VOX POPULI

by

 Aam Admi

Issue: 168                      Date:  12.09.2016

skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:

1.       PM Modi Should Put Through His A-Team Through A Course If He Is Interested In A 2^nd Term

2.        Goan Politics Verging On The Extremes

3.       Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

   PM Modi Should Put Through His A-Team Through A Refresher Course If He Is Interested In a 2^nd Term

The BJP ministers continue with being confused in their speech and about their responsibilities which leads to the lack of delivery of any meaningful governance and creation of avoidable controversies. Lately there have been two statements which hit national headlines and drew equal amounts of opprobrium and praise. The first was Manohar Parrikar’s comment that Pakistan was Hell and the second was by our Tourism Minister, Dr Mahesh Sharma, who said women wearing skirts should be banned from visiting temples. If you look at these two statements there was nothing wrong with them except in the manner that thet were put forth. Parrikar had spoken in the context of a terrorist incursion in Kashmir where two of the intruders were killed by security forces and the remaining two or three escaped back to Pakistan. Thus he had said that two were killed and the others escaped back to Pakistan which is the equivalent of going to Hell. The comment was factual and did not deserve the criticism it got in the national press and from different sections of our society. In the same manner Mahesh Sharma’s statement as Tourism Minister had said that skirts are best avoided by women while visiting temples and they are asked to come fully clothed. The emphasis on banning skirts in the comment could have been deflected to coming fully clothed to maintain the sanctity of temples. The problem with the BJP ministers is that they are not so comfortable speaking to the English press considering that a majority of them are not so proficient with the language and its nuances. While with the vernacular press they seem to be more comfortable and at ease. We have also seen how the items that interest the vernacular audience and that of English are generally somewhat different. Also issues in the vernacular press are quickly raised to a fever pitch but they die down as quickly. In this, one is confused a bit, since with the English press is it not that the same thing that is happening presently? To curb such infarctions and limit the embarrassment the government is best advised that the BJP Cabinet and senior functionaries of the party go through a crash course in public speaking in English as also in public relations.

Similarly among some of the senior ministers Arun Jaitley also seems to be confused on what his responsibilities as a Finance Minister are since he had again lately said that with the new RBI Governor talking over he would look forward to him taking initiatives to increase jobs. But, Mr Finance Minister, it is you who have a wider charter to initiate policy measures to stimulate employment and not the RBI Governor! In the same way Nirmala Sitharaman, our Commerce Minister, was saying just prior to the last interest rate review by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan that interest rates should be reduced by 2%. This is a rather unfortunate comment by a senior minister without looking at its overall ramifications on the economy. The problem with relatively stagnant industrial production and lower exports is not because of interest rates being high but because of credit being blocked in massive NPA's with banks for which reason they are hesitant to extend newer lines of credit. Unless the Gordian knot of NPA's with banks is broken, the sluggish Indian economy will not move forward. Thus Ministers should be aware of the overall state of the economy while handling ministries like commerce.

All in all it is best that Narendra Modi initiates a course for his ministers and senior BJP functionaries in expanding their mental horizons and teach them to speak keeping all ramifications in mind, if he is interested in getting a 2^nd term of government come 2019.

Goan Politics Verging On The Extremes

The Goa political scenario is swinging to the extremes. What with Subhash Velingkar declaring the Goa prant of the RSS independent of the Konkan unit and conducting his show of strength at the 12^th Sept 2016 meeting at Cujira, has found an uninvited strange bedfellow imposing upon him. This is in the form of the Shiv Sena who clearly want to fish in troubled waters. One is sure that Velingkar would not have bargained for the Shiv Sena, among the more extreme of the Hindutva brigade come calling on him. In the same manner you have the Marathi Rastrabhasha Samiti (MRS) making noises as a follow-up to the independent MLA’s private resolution seeking official language status for Marathi in Goa in the last Assembly to be implemented before the next elections. The move by the government in passing the private member’s resolution in the House with a rider that it should be subject to the acceptance of the people was with an eye to split the BBSM movement into Marathi and Konkani groups. The BBSM as an organization aligning itself with the RSS with Velingkar as its then head was unusual since the majority of the RSS in Goa would want Marathi to continue as MOI. This is not really wrong considering the precedence of the majority of vernacular schools in Goa being Marathi and that BBSM stands for Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch. But then the quid pro quo was expected to be placed before the BBSM members at any time and that was to make Marathi also the official language of Goa. Those in the RSS and now the new Velingkar-led Goa RSS would not be averse to this proposition. So the BBSM will find itself being pushed into an extreme corner where it will have to compromise since the majority of its leaders are considered pro-Konkani and not so amenable to Marathi. People like Uday Bhembre who their entire life have been working against making Marathi the official language in Goa will be left with no choice but to accept it as the 3^rd official language of Goa. What next but Romi Konkani will follow as the next entrant to the official language status since it obviously has more right than Marathi. Thus the BBSM in its MOI agitation has clearly sacrificed the interests of Konkani. As for the BBSM forming a political party, almost 12 years ago, it is called a tup in the Hindu measure of time, Uday Bhembre and Arvind Bhatikar had been asked to form a regional party in Goa building on the Nitoll Jin platform that they have. At that time they had said that regional parties will not work in Goa. What was the compulsion now to consider forming a party? Was it just the MOI issue? Would a single point agenda form the basis of a party is what these eminent people heading the BBSM should mull over? On a point of principle the BBSM position on the MOI is divisive seeking to divide the people on language sounding at the same time holy because you are defending the mother tongue! If at that time Bhembre & Co. had listened to form a regional Goa based party since there were enough and more issues like corruption, protecting Goan land, IIFI etc. then one of the present leaders of the BBSM would have been the present Chief Minister and maybe the MOI issue would never have become an issue to agitate about. Now it is a big, political khichdi that has been formed and Goa may not come out of it unscathed and maybe will continue to be ruled from Delhi. POSTSCRIPT: This is what the same leaders did to the Konkani language by not allowing Romi Konkani to have equal status by treating it as a step-sister to Devnagari Konkani. Where language should be treated as a free flowing river touching many banks, assimilating many vocabularies, dialects and sub-sets of language, which would make it expansive and richer and form the unifying force for a region like the Konkan ranging from the north in Thana and Panvel to the south until Trivandrum and in the east until Bangalore, we have insularly stuck to Konkani in its Devanagari temple, close fisted as it were and exulting in that literature and culture which hesitantly slips through the clenched fingers and stands devoid of energy to live a limited and short-lived life. Now those who did this to the Konkani language are on the MOI issue without realizing the real-politik involved are sacrificing whatever current status that it enjoys.

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

Recently in the case where a man threw acid on a girl who did not reciprocate his one-sided love and in which the girl died, the man was sentenced to death indicating that the crime was premeditated and heinous enough for a death sentence to be given. However, it is important that the death sentence is completed as quickly as possible since then only it will act as a deterrent to other possible perpetrators who may consider such crimes. In the Nirbhaya rape case that happened in Delhi in Dec 2012 though the multiple attackers who were adults, were awarded death sentences the punishment has not been carried out even though almost 4 years have passed since the crime was committed. Not only that the main attacker, a minor, got off by just being sent to a remand home and was out of the home in 2 years time. One hopes that if the sentences were executed promptly rapes would not have continued to dot the country particularly the Hindi heartland where just in the last month there were instances of rape in Agra and Bijnor where in the first a teen attacked a 11 month old baby and in the second a 13 year old attacked a 7 month old baby. There have been other cases across the country like In Kerala where in a Nirbhaya style incident a young law student was raped, the body mutilated. In the case of the minor involved in the Nirbhaya incident who was as produced in evidence as the principal instigator who committed the rape also, there was widespread debate that he should be treated as an adult and the law deal with him in the same way as the the other adult attackers. This should have been done since though we should follow the letter and spirit of the law, the judge should be given the leeway to decide when compelling evidence indicates that the minor was as much a party to the crime as the others and considering the bestiality of the crime and the ultimate death of the victim, that the minor be treated as an adult since in physical age he was almost at the border of being an 18 year old. Like it is said that the delay in carrying through the punishment sometimes becomes no punishment at all and leaves the door open to appeals and counter-appeals by the perpetrators diluting thus our justice system which we should avoid encouraging at all costs.

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OPinionatED

or

VOX POPULI

by

 Aam Admi

Issue: 167                                                                       Date:  05.09.2016

Contents:

1. Social Security For Senior Citizens Below IT Exemption Limit

2. Twists & Turns In The Political Scenario Of Goa

3. The BJP Make in India Program

Social Security For Senior Citizens Below IT Exemption Limit

Finance Minister Jaitley has been talking about the transition of our country from a developing to a developed society for which one of the indices is a Social Security Net for its citizens. A start could be made by adding a scheme of giving a guaranteed rate of interest of 15% to Senior Citizens on their Fixed Deposits (FD) with banks not exceeding Rs. 20 Lakhs. This scheme can be given only to those senior citizens who have taxable income below the exemption limit of Rs. 3 Lakhs and live off their interest earned from the FD's. This is the segment who in the sunset phase of their lives are finding their income being eroded by rampant inflation particularly for food and are forced to encash their FD's making their future more uncertain. The difference of interest between the 15% on the scheme and what is payable by the banks on equivalent FD's can be transferred to the account of the senior citizen under the DBT (Direct Benefits Transfer) mechanism. These citizens in their own small way would have contributed in building this nation and doing this for them would mean recognising them for their contribution. At 15% p.a. on Rs. 20 Lakhs gives the Senior Citizen Rs. 25,000 p.m. interest income sufficient enough for 2 people to survive on in these times. This is the level of income being set now under the 7th Pay Commission for Class IV workers of the government which at least the Senior Citizens deserve. Postscript: Jaitley has been talking with a forked tongue as is the habit of the BJP Ministers and their functionaries, who rarely speak linking their past statements on any issue. For them each time they speak on the subject it is like they are speaking anew and disregarding whatever they have been saying on the same matter in the past irrespective of the fact that they may be contradicting themselves. In the context of the Social Security net that he was talking about, Jaitley referred to instruments of saving like life insurance, pension funds and health insurance schemes which the BJP government has announced keeping in mind the senior citizens. But all these schemes are contributory schemes and the citizens are expected to pay up first and then become beneficiaries depending on the maturity of the scheme and or in the event of premature death. Thus the government is not doing anything for the citizens be it senior or otherwise. In fact, quite the opposite.  Jaitley had also said in the recent past that banks should reduce interest rates on FD’s since it is a high cost instrument for them. This statement was made obviously without looking at who are the critical beneficiaries of the FD’s. These are in the majority those senior citizens who are not part of the pensionable sector and the interest income from FD’s is what they use for their expenses. Other than this Jaitley recently had put an embargo on employees taking loans against their PF contributions for which across the country there was an uproar and then the government had to hurriedly back-track on the issue. PF is considered to be employee’s funds and the practice has been that they take a loan for meeting urgent family expenses be it medical or otherwise. The government banning this was clearly unjustified and indicated that it was keen to appropriate employee funds. It is another matter that interest on PF deposits has been going down year by year with the government pleading that it is unable to afford it. This is rather sad since PF is a long-term saving instrument for employees. The high interest rate of PF was the excuse for the government to invest the PF corpus in securities, shares and foreign based pension funds under the plea that they would get better returns and therefore be able to pay higher interest to PF subscribers. But strangely the government was silent as to what happens if the returns are below the targeted rate of return. Thus the above scheme for senior citizens below the IT limit of Rs. 3 Lakh per annum was thought of considering that the government has so many schemes and sops for different sectors of our society but nothing for those who have actually served the country and are finding it difficult now towards the end of their lives.

Twists & Turns In The Political Scenario Of Goa

The political scene in Goa is hotting up with many twists and turns. First there was talk of a Mahagatbandhan a.k.a the Bihar style where the JD and the RJD had got together to get the better of the BJP. But this idea was shattered because the principal opposition parties like the Congress could not see eye to eye with the other parties on the number of seats that each would contest. It ended with a resolution that the number of MLA's in the Assembly should be increased from the present 40 to accommodate the demands for seats by all the parties! The bigger the premature idea, the harder the fall was the maxim that played out here. 

After that the MOI – Medium Of Instruction - agitation launched by the BBSM started to pick up steam. The background to this agitation is that the instruction to the children at the primary school level should be in the mother tongue – Konkani. But unfortunately there are not many Konkani schools in Goa and the Catholic Church in the framework of the Diocesan Society that had adopted Konkani as the MOI at the time of Liberation of Goa in 1961 has since changed over to English. Other than government schools which teach in Konkani, there are also Marathi schools which exceed the number of Konkani schools. The second demand of the MOI agitation is that giving government grants to schools that teach in English should be stopped while it can be continued for schools that teach in Marathi, even though the latter is not a mother tongue for Goans. This latter demand refuses to accept the reality that parents today for many economic reasons prefer that their children are taught in English. It also refuses to accept that the Church schools were originally teaching in Konkani and have lately switched to English for which reason the government grants cannot be taken away from such schools which has been availing grants for close to 50 years for some of the schools.

This agitation was what got the BJP royally riled up since where they took the RSS support for granted, they had to fend the State chief of the RSS leading the BBSM – Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch, not only campaigning publicly against them but also giving ultimatums to them. The BBSM plank of the mother tongue, Konkani being the only language as medium of instruction (MOI) in Goa's primary schools and the withdrawal of government grants to English-medium schools is fraught with political dynamite. The reason being it is just not a language issue but has polarised civil society along religious divides with FORCE in the majority a Christian dominated grouping which has been pitching for English as MOI and demanding that government grants to English-medium schools should be continued in the framework of a law. Thus in the upcoming elections the BJP cannot afford to have the MOI issue bubble up since it may mean losing a majority of the Christian vote. The BBSM issue has got further complicated with Subhash Velingkar, the head of the RSS in Goa, being summarily removed from his post. This has resulted in the en-masse resignation of the RSS members - karyakartas in the State. In arithmetical terms, there are just 400 of such RSS members which in election maths is not a very big number but the fact that the BBSM had promised that with this force they would canvass and get 2 lakh volunteers - matribhasha rakshaks, who would fight for defending the mother tongue, gives the matter a significant twist. These kind of numbers projecting a different view than the BJP's will dent their chances severely leading to a loss of at least a couple of seats making them go below the magic figure of 20 in the Assembly.

There is another googly in the equation. This is with the MGP publicly announcing that it supports the BBSM on the MOI issue and that it will make it an election plank. The BBSM clutching at straws has asked the MGP to declare its support to the BBSM on the political platform by Sept 30, 2016. Further the BBSM has said that it will form a political party and intends to field some candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls. Even with a person like Uday Bhembre in charge of the BBSM's political aspirations these moves seem to be premature and too much and too quick. They will only end up falling flat on their face and with the race lost will stand to further lose whatever support they have up till now. Sudin Dhavlikar of the MGP has tried to dissuade the BBSM by saying that it is not easy to form a political party. The BBSM should also realise that theirs currently is a single point agenda with the MOI issue and their position is not known on many of the woes that are affecting Goa as also their political agenda. Without thinking through the matter the BBSM is better advised to stay away from the electoral fray at least for 2017. The MGP is playing the BBSM along since it fits into their game plan of getting a larger vote share thus ensuring that whatever candidates they put up will win.

We now come to the Congress which is a divided house as usual and forever looking up to the High Command at Delhi for advice. They have been bickering about old faces and new faces to be put up for the elections. The old faces do not want to let go while the new faces are a risk considering the winnability factor. Some of the new faces seeing this and recognising that their future is none too bright in the Congress decided to jump ship and join the new Goa Forward party a few months ago. The Congress risks becoming just a South Goa party and even there they may have to contend with rebellion in Quepem. Calling Congress  a South Goa party is because the younger Rane, true to the aspirations linked to his name of Vishwajeet, wants to anoint himself the King of Sattari with his Yuva Morcha and has sought autonomy in decision making for this area from the local Congress leadership. Thus the Congress will end up getting even lesser seats than in the present Assembly and if that happens it will be the end of the Congress in Goa for some time to come. This is being stated because in all this the role of the Churchill brothers and Mickey Pacheco's GVP has not been factored in which will further take away key seats or reduce the vote share across South Goa for the Congress.

There are the small players like the GVP, UGDP, GSRP which may not figure in opening their account in the new Assembly. Among the new players both the Goa Forward and the AAP are new entities which will cut into the traditional vote share of the Congress. Essentially both parties are devoid of any agenda and are only reacting to the present government's failures. Where the Goa Forward has no mass base and is looking towards Vijai Sardesai to helm them through this first election, he will look for support from other Independents in the present Assembly like Rohan Khaunte and Naresh Sawal to make the party appeal to the people across Goa.

The AAP is better off being in Delhi and up north and should not needlessly dream of achieving anything in Goa. Their problem is that they have no roots in Goa and will suffer from the fact that in their parent charter of governance in Delhi, they have miserably failed. Blaming the Centre for anything and everything does not give them any credit. Moreover day by day their ministers and officials have been caught in one or the other embarrassing situations which gives the party a negative image. The advice to AAP would be, put your house in order and deliver on existing responsibilities before venturing out further across India. Interestingly match-fixing as we know it involves fixing the outcome of matches, but the AAP has come out with a new twist to that and they have fixed a poll on the likely outcome of the Assembly elections and given themselves a vote share in excess of 30% and seats in excess of 20.  This is an amateurish attempt to turn people's mind which will not work. There is still more than 6 months left for the elections and the AAP fail to realise that anything could happen in this period.

Summing up one is reminded that it is popularly said that if 3 Keralites get together, there will be 5 political parties formed. This was and is the situation in Kerala where the multiplicity of parties has fragmented the votes so much that they finally had to make the Congress-led UDF and the CPM-led LDF, which essentially became a 2-party political model which has been alternately winning elections in the State. Goa is going the same way with so many parties whose agendas are none too different confusing the voters. Thus in the upcoming 2017 Assembly elections in Goa it is predicted that you will have a hung Assembly with even the BJP and its allies not able to get a majority. This will lead to horse-trading and those parties and/or individuals with the 2 or 1 seat that will tip the majority scales will sit pretty with their loaves of office well buttered. But as we go towards election time we will continue to have dramatic announcements, resignations, maybe even formation of even newer parties to keep the gossip mills grinding but nothing would change the above predicted outcome.

The BJP Make in India Program

This BJP-led NDA government has been strongly promoting its Make in India program. Essentially this is nothing but the indigenisation program that India has had for five decades or more. When it started the emphasis of the indigenisation program was to build self-sufficiency and replace imports considering that we always had a foreign exchange problem. Overseas manufacturers were earlier invited to manufacture in technical collaboration with local partners and different sectors were allowed with varying degrees of foreign holding in the locally established facility. It was rare that overseas manufacturers were allowed to hold more than 51% equity and never 100%. In the present context where times have changed the Make in India program is getting overseas manufacturers to build products locally. The basic objective of the program is the same and that is to come to India and produce here. Thus there is nothing new in the Make in India program.

Another related issue to FDI is that India up to the 1990's never had sufficient foreign exchange to fund our essential imports and extended our palms to the world mostly the developed countries seeking foreign aid and also food. After economic reforms were introduced progressively through the 90's our foreign exchange position from a point where we were compelled to pledge our reserves of gold with the Bank of England in 1991 to fund immediate imports, has reached a level of some US$ 300 billion or more but we continue to still seek foreign direct investment (FDI) and even lately foreign aid. This anomaly needs to be checked and corrected since in spite of comfortable foreign exchange reserves and falling oil prices considering oil is a major component in our imports, we still beg! Earlier the foreign investments were for critical and essential sectors mostly high technology so that we build local competence and reduce imports. The motive word was import substitution. Now imports are allowed across the board and that is why we see cheap imported products from China flooding our markets.

As for FDI we need it bring in technology in desired sectors, for expansion and where we have gaps in investment funding. But it seems we are allowing it indiscriminately. We are allowing it in aviation to the extent of 100% now which could be acceptable since it is a high investment sector. But we have to ponder if it is really desirable since our problems are related to expansion of airline services to second and third level cities and also to remote sectors like the North East. For this the airports are needed to be made ready or revamped and from existing available infrastructure. Though plans had been drawn up for this airport network not many investors have come forward and put in their money. In the same way flight connectivity is being hampered because of lack of infrastructure at existing airports even the major ones (Mumbai airport is unable to grant any additional slots for local flights because of lack of parking bays!) and that flights to some destinations is unprofitable because of poor load factor. Thus where existing airlines are chary to expand services and where local investors have hesitated to put in money to build airports, do you think that foreign investors will jump in and take up the challenge. This belief is somewhat far-fetched. Even if the foreign investors come in they will put a host of conditions by which they would like to protect their investments. This may extend to making the airports in the far flung areas as enclaves in which they will ask for long term ownership of land and options for alternate investments in these areas and also maybe prohibit local people to venture inside on grounds of privacy and/or security except in transit for availing air services. We will thus build foreign enclaves which will dot the country like sometime back the Japanese wanted to build golf courses in some Asian countries to serve only their people. Do we want such a thing to happen in our country?  Further at these times of terror and security concerns, we will have the aviation sector with foreign ownership creating additional turf wars to allow access for our law enforcement authorities to pursue investigations and/or intercept and restrain people. We could also have 9/11 style incidents with planes flying into our high density population centres in hara-kiri mode. Just a couple of years back there were questions raised of some Gulf foreign holdings in Jet Airways and for which there was a big hullabaloo related to national interest and security concerns but now we are freely allowing 100% FDI in the airline and airport infrastructure sector. Has anything changed from then to now except for the mindset of our policy planners? The general impression among foreigners is that the domestic air fares in India are relatively cheap when they consider their own countries. Thus with the airlines becoming of foreign ownership, you may find the domestic air fares being hiked indiscriminately and maybe indexed to the US$.

Organised retail has also been opened up with 100% FDI which just a few years back had been pushed back with the likes of Walmart and other retail chains from the UK and France pulling out because of uncomfortable conditions. What has happened in the interim for a change of decision is not known but the domestic chains among others like Big Bazaar, Reliance Fresh and Godrej have been doing a commendable job in bringing products ranging from fresh vegetables to household goods and necessities to fashion items across India. Some of these chains have been buying directly from the farmers and giving the grower more return than even the APMC and entrenched middlemen offer. The government should have supported these local retail initiatives since they are more familiar with local availability, conditions and customer preferences than the foreign chains. The support among others could have been in terms of helping them to set up cold chains for handling fresh produce, seafood and meats. With the foreign retail chains coming in they will not be sensitive to our farmers needs and progressively all products will like airfares, as mentioned earlier, be indexed to the US$. The day may come and not too far into the future that at the cash counters of such departmental stores you may be told by the cashier that onions are just 99 cents i.e. 1 cent below the US Dollar when you were buying it regularly at around Rs. 20 per Kg., a factor of increase by almost three times. 

In areas like pharma where we know that research is oriented towards finding that molecule that will get the MNC Cos. a billion Dollars maybe allowing a larger level of equity is acceptable and there could also be a condoning factor here since this area is related to the health of our people.  At the same time we know that these Cos. overprice their products as has been seen in the AIDS cocktail of medicines that the UN was trying to promote in Africa where Cos. from India like Lupin were found to be much cheaper. Again as said earlier the condoning factor is that the MNC's who produce drugs locally here sell these at prices much below what they sell the same in countries like the US or elsewhere. So on the pharma sector one cannot castigate the government much for opening up the FDI/equity holding. Though one would have preferred that the government like South Korea did after the war in the 1950's chose some select Cos.'s like Lupin and other locally proficient Cos. to become MNC's in their own right. Though one must say that some of these Cos. have done exactly that without any governmental support.

Defence is a sector that should not have been opened up to foreign investment since issues of national security are involved. The earlier method of licensed manufacture by local Cos. like HAL or BEL or Bharat Dynamics with foreign defense equipment manufacturers should have been followed. The idea of allowing FDI in this sector may be to reduce pricing of both equipment as well as spares and consumables like ammunition etc. by getting the foreign defense equipment manufacturers having an interest in the local Co. But this is essentially a naïve approach since these manufacturers after having dealt with banana republics in Africa and elsewhere as well as mercenaries, have become bloodsucking leeches themselves. Thus what they would do is factor in their investment while working out the technology transfers for the proprietary items in the package and reap profits hand over fist. While going to war our boys in the defence forces will be constantly thinking whether any of their equipment would actually work since it was partially made by the country they are opposing. The FDI in the defence sector is therefore an ill-conceived premise and needs to be dropped at the first instance. However, what is commendable is that in the defence sector, we have the likes of industrial groups like our Tatas, Mahindras, Larsen & Toubro and the Reliances take up production of different items that are required by our armed forces sometimes in technical collaboration with foreign Cos. It is this initiative which should be promoted and fostered to early fruition rather than any direct Make in India initiative by any foreign Co. through a dummy local partner. The lack of wisdom in opening up the defence sector is highlighted by our own experience with Chinese manufacturers who were supplying in association with their local counterparts the entire plant and equipment requirements of our thermal power plants considering that they were much cheaper than the equivalent foreign vendors and also local Cos. like BHEL but then it was found that these equipment were prone to regular failure and availability of regular and timely supply of spare parts was an issue from the Chinese vendors. Thus the Chinese vendors for plant and equipment for thermal power plants are not so much favoured now. In another case, though not directly related to defence but a similar critical area of telecommunications a few years the Chinese Co., Hua Wei with a software development centre at Bangalore was found to be involved in spying and some of the engineers had been arrested. At around the same time there was a case in US courts where the same Chinese Co., Hua Wei was pulled up by US regulators for not fully sharing the source code of the software that runs the Co.’s electronic exchanges. The point being that the US regulators feared that the Chinese Co. could use the secrecy to peep into the US telecommunication networks including that of the defence services and be open to sabotage. Thus we cannot have obviously a situation where our thermal power plants stop generating electricity because of faulty equipment and our telecommunications network is controlled by Chinese software engineers. That precisely is where we will end up if we open India’s defence sector to foreign Co.’s

Lastly one does not understand why we should open up our dairy industry to US Co.’s which Modi on one of his visits to the US made a strong plea. The strong dairy industry is in New Zealand or in Europe among the Scandinavian countries where we should have gone, if at all, it was required. In fact in the FDI announcement the dairy industry figured. Are our co-operatives like Amul not good enough for our government? Or the fact that prized bulls from Andhra and Orissa fetch a high price and are taken to Brazil to perform as stud bulls since their bloodline is strong and they help in producing cows that give milk in large volume? Brazil is in this process making money from Indian stud bulls, while we sit around sucking our thumbs. Is our government aware of this and if so, what are they doing about it? Why do we not support our own home-grown possibilities before we jump to conclusions that foreign things are better for us?

Concluding, the Make in India is a good initiative, but it is nothing new, and any developing country aspiring to become a developed society will aspire to localize a large part of goods and services that it needs within its country. But we need to be selective and see where our local strengths lie and only after assessing them move towards foreign sources. Such an approach generates a strategic balance of resources and capability and is more sustainable in the long run.

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