Jairam will do well to mind his business

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 25 May 2011 11:33:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 26 May 2011 12:41:33 AM IST

Jairam Ramesh is known as much for his carefully coiffed hair as for his penchant for becoming involved in controversies. Last year, he was asked to hold his tongue after having criticised — and that, too, on foreign soil — the home ministry’s “alarmist” outlook towards China. More recently, he conceded that he had been under pressure to overlook environmental norms — his special charge — for the sake of major industrial projects. Now, his unwarranted potshots at the IITs and the IIMs have drawn flak from the institutions as well as his own colleagues while his party has chosen to look the other way.


His contention, however, that the IITs and IIMs are world class because of the students and not the teachers is not as logical as it should have been. For the students to attain a certain intellectual level, they need inspiration and academic guidance from the faculty. To describe the latter, therefore, as virtually useless because of the paucity of research papers is to overstate the case. Not surprisingly, the remarks have been called “unfortunate” by the science and technology minister, Ashwini Kumar, while the HRD minister, Kapil Sibal, has only conceded that no Indian educational institution is ranked very high globally without specifically endorsing Ramesh’s statement.

Ashwini Kumar’s comment, however, that he was “better equipped” to speak on the subject and that he did not approve of “decrying the IITs and IIMs lock, stock and barrel” underlined the point that Ramesh should have stuck to his own portfolio instead of trespassing into the fields of others, as he did both about the home ministry’s policies on China and the national highways authority’s inadequate re-forestation efforts, which was construed as a dig at the surface transport minister, Kamal Nath.

As a recipient of the distinguished alumnus award from IIT, Mumbai, Ramesh can claim to have the right to speak about his alma mater, but only as a private citizen. As a minister, he should observe greater restraint lest such off-the-cuff remarks and the consequent irritated responses show the government to be speaking in many voices

Krittika is a victim of US racial outlook

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 26 May 2011 10:56:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 27 May 2011 12:55:26 AM IST

The recent wrongful arrest of Krittika Biswas in New York has raised a whole lot of questions. Daughter of a diplomat at the Indian Consulate at Manhattan, she was arrested for “sending obscene e-mails to her teacher”. She underwent physical and mental torture for no fault of hers, as it was established that the e-mails in question were sent by a Chinese student. That she was promptly released does not mitigate the harassment she had to undergo. It will take a long time for her to get over the shock. Biswas is well within her rights to sue the New York city police for the cruelty meted out to her.


Even if the charge against her constituted an offence that warranted police intervention — ideally, it should have been handled by the school authorities themselves — the police should have given due consideration to the fact that she was a diplomat’s daughter. Their argument that diplomatic immunity was available only to the embassy staff, and not to the consulate staff, is unacceptable. In that case, the US consulates in Chennai and Kolkata, for instance, won’t be able to claim such a status. What’s worse, they did not even show the courtesy of informing her parents while taking her away to the police station.

It’s obvious the police had no prima facie evidence against her. It is not the first time that Indian diplomats have suffered at the hands of various wings of the US administration, the pat-down received by Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar in Mississippi being a case in point. If anything, this smacks of racial prejudice against the brown people. The policemen who thoughtlessly arrested a young girl on a baseless charge need to be taken to task, which is possible only if the Government of India takes up her case in right earnest

Govt should'nt act as broker for industry

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 26 May 2011 10:52:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 27 May 2011 12:54:46 AM IST

It was as if the government was waiting for Mamata Banerjee to resign from the Union Cabinet before pressing the accelerator on its land acquisition initiatives. Such a view will seem credible since the latest proposals penned by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council are exactly what the former railway minister had opposed during the Singur and Nandigram agitations. Her point then was that the West Bengal government was using the 1894 law to grab land for the corporate sector. Now, the NAC has done exactly that by suggesting that the government should acquire all the land even if its purpose was to serve the private industry.


In a society where land is valued more than life, this is bound to create more problems. The argument that the government acquisition will stop private entrepreneurs from cheating innocent villagers is untenable as the government has enough powers to prevent this. Instead of using law to deprive farmers, the government should let the private sector buy all the land it needs directly from the farmers at the market prices and on their conditions. At best, it can acquire 10 per cent of the land for development of infrastructure after the entrepreneurs have bought 90 per cent from farmers without using coercion or deceit.

The other suggestion about moving ahead with the acquisition if 75 per cent of the landowners agreed is problematic as it ignores a ground reality that many rural communities are not homogeneous groups, but societies splintered based on caste and creed and skewed power relationships. An artificial attempt to forge consensus in these communities could lead to social strife and even violent clashes. As Union minister for rural development Vilasrao Deshmukh has himself pointed out, NAC’s suggestion to club the compensation and rehabilitation packages under one law is impractical, because displacement-related rehabilitation is required in other circumstances such as natural calamities also. The fact that the Sonia-led NAC and the ministers of the Manmohan Singh government speak in many voices on such an important policy issue only underlines the complexities of two power centres in the process of governance

Enforce International Air Safety standards

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 27 May 2011 10:24:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 28 May 2011 12:30:48 AM IST

Thursday’s air crash near Delhi which claimed 10 lives, might have been averted if a number of precautionary measures were taken. First was the need to warn the air ambulance coming from Patna about the deteriorating weather conditions in Delhi. Considering that even Boeings coming from the east found it difficult to stick to their flight path because of the high winds, the tiny nine-seater had no chance of survival unless its flight path was diverted. Although the meteorological department did issue a warning late in the evening, it wasn’t in time for the single-engine turboprop and its ill-fated passengers.


It is only now that the civil aviation ministry has called for equipping all small planes with black boxes and making it mandatory for all medical flights to be in two-engine planes. For the present, the absence of a cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data recorder in the crashed plane means that the real causes of the crash will never be known. All that can be surmised is that the aircraft was being badly tossed around by the gusty winds, considering that the pilot reported bad weather when the plane had virtually stalled and was then found ascending to 14,000 feet even after being told to descend to 11,000 feet.

The belated, knee-jerk reaction of the aviation authorities has underlined yet again their lackadaisical approach to safety regulations. Such laxness is all the more regrettable considering that April and May have been fatal months for air travel with 37 people having died in the period. They include the former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister, Dorji Khandu, and 18 tourists who were travelling in a helicopter in the northeast. Given the increasing popularity of air travel even by the middle classes and the rise in air traffic, the urgency of bringing the safety regulations to international standards is obvious. But, as the scandal of fake pilots showed, the ministry and the DGCA have been unable to get their acts together

Set timeframe for presidential pardon

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 27 May 2011 10:25:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 28 May 2011 12:31:45 AM IST

Nobody questions the President of India on the grounds on which she accepts or rejects a mercy petition. Pratibha Patil would have had the right reasons to reject the mercy petitions of a Khalistani militant and a murderer from Assam. The rejection became newsworthy as it was the first time since 2004 that the president rejected such a petition. What is most distressing is that the decision came only after one of the condemned prisoners approached the apex court seeking an end to the uncertainty on his petition. In both cases the petitions have been pending with the president for several years.


Though the president alone has the power of pardon, her decision is based on the advice given by the Union home ministry which, in turn, draws upon a report from the state, where the incident occurred. It would be improper to say that the president is just a cog in the wheel of the bureaucratic process, though it won’t be all that untruthful. While the Constitution invests the president with this power, it has not set any timeframe for a decision. It’s this lacuna in the system that has allowed bureaucrats to sit almost interminably on mercy petitions, while the petitioners rot in the jails.

As long as all those on the death row are entitled to plead for mercy, there will be no shortage of such petitions. This is all the more reason that a reasonable period is set for deciding such petitions, given the fact that it is an injustice to keep their fate hanging. Criminologists are one in admitting that certainty of punishment is the best deterrent against crime. Yet, the mercy petitions of, say, Afzal Guru, who attacked Parliament in 2001, and Ajmal Kasab, one of the perpetrators of 26/11, have been pending with the president for no rhyme or reason

BSNL may court private equity funds for tower unit

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/bsnl-may-court-private-equity-funds-for-tower-unit/436605/


Mansi Taneja / New Delhi May 24, 2011, 0:35 IST

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is planning to rope in private equity investors, including telecom companies, to pick up stake in a new company that will be floated by hiving off the state-run telecom major’s towers.

This is the first time that BSNL is looking for private sector investment. It has over 40,000 towers across the country, which, based on previous deals, are valued at around Rs 16,000- Rs 20,000 crore.

In the last few months, most tower company acquisitions have been undertaken at an average value of Rs 50 lakh per tower. Since BSNL towers are exclusively used by the company, they may fetch a lower value. The company is in talks with other telecom players to rent out this capacity.

“We are considering to hive off our towers into a separate company. This will enable us to unlock the true value of towers. Subsequently, we may look at inducting private equity investors, including telecom companies,” a senior BSNL official told Business Standard on the condition of anonymity. He did not say what percentage of the equity would be divested.

If permitted by the company’s board, BSNL will have to seek government’s approval to go in for private equity.

“The move, if implemented, will become an additional source of revenue for the company in these difficult times,” the official added.

Spinning out the tower business into a separate entity and then getting in investors has been a common strategy for most Indian telecom players. Bharti, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have spun off their towers into a common company called Indus Towers, which has over 100,000 towers. Tatas have also tied up with independent tower company Quippo to set up a joint venture to manage their towers.

Last year, Reliance Communications had started talks with GTL Infrastructure to sell its tower unit. The deal was valued at Rs 50,000 crore but was later called off, reportedly over the issue of high valuation. At that time, Reliance had about 50,000 towers while GTL had about 30,000 towers. Reliance, subsequently, engaged in discussions with financial investors for its tower unit.

BSNL has the advantage of having towers in remote areas, which can be used by other companies to expand.

A committee under Sam Pitroda, set up to find ways for revival of BSNL, had also suggested that it create a separate subsidiary for towers and all related infrastructure to monetise the assets.

Increased competition and dipping rates have taken a toll on the PSU, which was once among the top three players in the mobile industry. For the first time since its inception in 2000, BSNL posted a loss of Rs 1,823 crore in 2009-10.

'We will go for acquisitions for strategic reasons'

Q&A: Vineet Nayyar, Chairman, Mahindra Satyam

'We will go for acquisitions for strategic reasons'
K Rajani Kanth / May 24, 2011, 0:33 IST



In just two years after taking over Mahindra Satyam (the brand identity of Hyderabad-based information technology outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services), its parent company Tech Mahindra is looking at inorganic growth to take Satyam, which it had nursed back to health, to do a marathon. Mahindra Satyam Chairman Vineet Nayyar shares with K Rajani Kanth the company's mergers and acquisitions strategy, investment plans and new verticals that show promise for the future. Edited excerpts:

How has 2010-11 been?
I think it has been a good year. We had indicated earlier that the company was almost mortally wounded when we took it over. Like any other patient, it was in the ICU for a while. I do believe that phase is over and (the patient) is now convalescing.


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In the beginning of the year, our Ebitda (earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortisation) was four per cent. It went up to six per cent and has now gone up to 13 per cent. We are satisfied with the pace and the growth in the company. We are also putting up new buildings and structures in Hyderabad for our new employees for new projects which are coming in. So, by and large, the progress is satisfactory. My personal feeling is that the performance is much better than I expected.

What is the investment that is being infused into creating new infrastructure?
Capital expenditure for our Hyderabad and Chennai campuses is between Rs 300 crore and Rs 400 crore. In our Hyderabad SEZ, spread across 26 acres with a built-up area of 400,000 sq ft, the first tower has come up and 4,000 associates have already moved in. We have started working on the next tower too, which will accommodate another 4,000 employees. We are building a large campus in Chennai and expect the Phase-I to be inaugurated in a few months. Ultimately, we will put in about 8,000 employees in Chennai. But, to begin with, there will be 3,000 to 4,000. In addition, we are thinking of putting up two towers in Visakhapatnam. The planning is done and work will start shortly.

Mahindra Satyam has Rs 2,753 crore cash and bank balances as on March 31, 2011. How are you planning to utilise it? Are you looking at acquisitions?
It's our careful husbanding that has kept this money available to us. If an opportunity presents itself, we are always looking for acquisition deals. But we do acquisitions not for purely growing the company but for strategic reasons. To get into areas where we are not present. It will obviously be technologies .. that’s where we are in. The possible size of such deals depends on the opportunity. It could be a larger deal or a string of pearls. The cash is available with us.

Your rivals are already making big strides on the cloud computing. What about Mahindra Satyam?
We already have a special task force on cloud computing. In fact, we are already doing it. Cloud has just started, so how it will evolve globally we don’t know. People do believe there is a lot of potential for it. We are doing it, and if an opportunity presents itself, we will exploit it.

What will be your focus for the next two years?
It will be on segments that we have been specialising in. Media, manufacturing, engineering, and banking and finance are the verticals we are in and these will be the areas that we will be heading for.

China’s love for sanskrit is not without motive

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 18 May 2011 10:47:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 17 May 2011 11:21:56 PM IST

It is almost two millennia since Sanskrit went to China through Buddhist scriptures carried from India by Chinese pilgrims like Fa Xian and Xuan Zang (known in India as Huien Tsang). The language came to be called ‘Fan Wen’ in Chinese and was extensively used in ancient Chinese classics and Buddhist literature. By the advent of the medieval period in India’s history, China had become a treasurehouse of Sanskrit manuscripts. In an article in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’, famous Indologist Max Mueller acknowledged: “Being myself convinced of the existence of old Indian MSS in China, I lost no opportunity during last five and twenty years of any friend of mine going to China to look out for these treasures, but with no result.”


After decades of unconcern, communist China seems to have all of sudden woken up to revive its ancient ties with India. After marketing Sa Dingding, who won the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music in the Asia Pacific category in 2008 as the country’s first Sanskrit-singing pop icon at last year’s Shanghai Expo, Beijing’s Peking University has now launched an ambitious programme to train more than 60 Chinese students in Sanskrit.

The avowed objective of this newfound love for Sanskrit is to create a team of researchers to translate hundreds of manuscripts that have been found in Tibet and other centres of Buddhism in China. But the political imperative of the communist regime’s need to boost its acceptance among the Buddhists, who account for 21 to 30 per cent of China’s population, cannot be missed. Especially at a time when their tallest leader, the Dalai Lama, has announced his retirement from public life. As if to underline the message, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported last week that the remains of the legendary Hiuen Tsang will now be available for public worship

Hope for victims of NRI marriages

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 18 May 2011 10:46:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 17 May 2011 11:18:45 PM IST

The Supreme Court has given a ray of hope to Indian women married to non-resident Indians whose marriages are on the rocks. In a path-breaking judgment on Monday, the court has given relief to a woman, who has returned to India with her child after she was thrown out of her husband’s home in the US. She approached a court in India which, taking into account her distress, her child’s future and the fact that her husband had married again, granted her the child’s custody. But following her husband’s complaint that she had ‘abducted his child’, a court in California issued a red corner notice against her. When the case reached the high court, it set aside the trial court’s verdict on the ground that they were US citizens and, therefore, the court had no jurisdiction.


In such cases, the courts go by the ‘doctrine of comity of courts’ whereby they respect each other’s jurisdiction. Had the apex court also followed this, it would have been forced to treat the mother as an ‘abductor’. However, the fact is that she was a victim, who did not have the wherewithal to fight her husband and had, therefore, escaped to India. In most marital disputes, the custody of minor children is given to the mother, because she is in a better position to bring them up. Usually, the court also allows the father periodic access to their children till they attain maturity and can decide on their own whether to stay with the father or the mother or independently.

In the instant case, the Supreme Court was guided solely by humanitarian considerations. Though there is a craze for NRI grooms among some communities, a good number of such marriages fail, mainly because of adjustment problems. Whatever be the reasons for the failures, the victims are almost wholly the transplanted wives. The problem is so acute in Punjab that organisations to fight for the victims of NRI marriages have been sprouting. The Supreme Court’s verdict is a shot in the arm for such initiatives

A demented Pasha dangerous for India

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 18 May 2011 10:45:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 17 May 2011 11:14:37 PM IST

Just as New Delhi had treated somewhat casually Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir’s post-Abbottabad fulminations, including the outrageous assertion that the issue of bringing the 26/11 perpetrators to justice was outdated, it has again tried to downplay ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha’s hostile remarks of having identified the sites which Pakistan will target if India undertakes an Abbottabad-type operation. Pasha has even said that Pakistan’s response has been rehearsed although it is not clear what he meant. What is clear is that our neighbour is behaving in a more demented fashion than ever before.


Even if this palpably abnormal conduct is the result of the disorientation caused by the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s lair, India cannot afford to lower its guard. The need to be careful is all the greater because it was speculated immediately after Osama’s death that Pakistan might indulge in some kind of military adventurism against India to offset the humiliation it has suffered before its own people. Besides, there is every possibility of the ISI urging its terrorist clients to step up attacks on India, which it apparently wanted to do during the cricket world cup matches. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the various post-26/11 proposals to deal with such threats are yet to be implemented, with the failure to set up a national counter-terrorism centre the most regrettable.

It is undeniable that India’s habit of waking up too late to external threats has a long history — from Jawaharlal Nehru’s futile courtship of Zhou Enlai during the Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai days to Shivraj Patil’s “spectacularly inept” stint at the home ministry, to quote WikiLeaks, which left the country open to terror attacks virtually every month on markets, temples and trains. Given the frenetic manner in which Pakistan is building up its nuclear arsenal — it already has more warheads than India — and its refusal to adhere to the no-first-use doctrine, India cannot afford to brush aside the tirades of the Bashirs and Pashas as the ranting and raving of frustrated individuals

The prince’s diaries miss the point

Ravi Shankar EttethFirst Published : 14 May 2011 11:12:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2011 01:25:00 AM IST

Is Rahul Gandhi the Abhishek Bachchan of Indian politics? Both big flops, they keep getting big roles. However, Abhishek has worked with many directors, Rahul has only one—Digvijay Singh. Abhishek also has a beautiful wife, while Rahul has Digvijay Singh. Abhishek is versatile; the smouldering cop in Dhoom2, the brooding desi Michael Corleone in Sarkar, the adorable rogue in Bunty aur Babli, the earthy, swaggering tycoon in Guru. But Rahul? A sleepover in a farmers hut when starvation grips rural Maharashtra; a sleepover in a Dalit farmer’s hut to try upstage the BSP; a sleepover in a farmer’s hut to give British Foreign Secretary David Millbrand a taste of the bucolic life; a sleepover in a farmer’s hut as Mayawati cracks down on agitators in Greater Noida.


To cultivate both farmers and fans, the constant gardener of zeitgeist needs to gauge popular appetites right. When Raavan flopped, Abhishek was devastated because he had “put his heart and soul into it.” Maybe the young Gandhi does too—but politics is not about heart and soul alone, it is about the brain as well.

So, what does this young man, whose good looks have failed to translate into charisma do? Like a schoolkid at a frat party, Rahul repeats his favourite party trick—he gives bodyguards the slip (by now renamed Rahul’s ZZZZZZZZ-Class Security), rides pillion on a mobike and lands up in Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida—where agitating farmers have been taken away by UP cops—for a pajama party in a farmer’s hut! True to script, Mayawati contemptuously arrests him—Varun or Rahul, all Gandhis are the same in UP. “Our slogans come from the villager’s hut,” is Rahul’s warcry, “and not from TV studios.” Meanwhile, TV cameras show the ‘arrested’ Rahul driving away smilingly in the backseat of a Scorpio as the camera pans out. It is a bizarre male version of The Princess Diaries.

The lessons of history are learnt in the solitude of introspection and application. Before M K Gandhi took on the British Empire, he had already experimented with satyagraha in Durban. Gandhi understood the mythos of eternal India; the acceptance of destiny and passivism as a virtue, which he turned into a powerful new weapon called non-violence. Unlike Rahul, the Mahatma was a natural politician who innovated ways to connect with people—he walked for miles to Dandi and Noakhali, he rode second class in trains and went on fast in public to enforce his will. Rahul is presumably borrowing passages from the dog-eared book of Indian politics called Gandhigiri; disappearing into tribal villages in Orissa, hitchhiking on a train, partaking of the spartan hospitality of the Indian poor. Unfortunately, all this comes across as unreal and unidimensional; the reason why the current state election results are a profound rejection of Rahul’s politics.

Both Rahul and the Congress should realise that the Crown Prince simply doesn’t make the cut. The nephew hasn’t even inherited his uncle’s scorching aggression—when the Janata Party arrested Indira Gandhi in 1978, it was Sanjay Gandhi’s public belligerence and organisational skills that made Morarji Desai look like a wimp. Going by the poll wind in Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the Virgin Queen of Uttar Pradesh is likely to sweep young Rahul off his feet the way a duststorm will. Meanwhile watch out for Bol Bachchan, all set to hit theatres this year.

ravi.shankar@newindianexpress.com

The big winner? Not Mamata or Jaya

T J S GeorgeFirst Published : 14 May 2011 11:13:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2011 08:55:10 AM IST

Election Commissions and voting machines can only tell us a superficial kind of truth. The substantive, eternal truth is that those who win are not always the winners, and those who lose are not necessarily the real losers. Never was this eternal truth more dramatically brought out than in the latest round of assembly elections in five states. Look behind the headlines to know who are the real winners and losers.


The biggest winners are not Mamata Banerjee and Jayalalithaa. The size of their victory margins is as sensational as the comprehensiveness of their adversaries’ defeat. This does give their triumph a historic dimension. But take another look, and we can see that they won primarily because their opponents had to be defeated.

Bengalis had been longing for a change, considering the cell rule enforced by communist rulers in the countryside, the steady increase in poverty levels and the misery of everyday existence. But they did not know where to turn to. The Congress had committed harakiri in Bengal, as in several other states, and the BJP was always an alien idea. Mamata’s steps were tentative in the early phases, but after she joined forces with popular emotions in the Nandigram movement, people found their saviour. Every other vote she won was a vote cast against the ruling government.

Very similar was the case in Tamil Nadu too. When the Karunanidhi Government turned into a dynastic ogre, utterly self-centred and utterly arrogant and utterly corrupt, the voters looked for an escape route. The only available route was Jayalalithaa. They had tried her out in the past and found her wanting. But they turned to her anyway because it was the only way to get the DMK gang out of the way. Jayalalithaa won because Karunanidhi lost.

Seen in that light, the biggest winner in this round of elections is V S Achuthanandan. By every known precedent of Kerala politics, he should have lost ignominiously because he was not only the incumbent, but his own party was against him. Instead, his personal popularity pulled the party through to an unprecedented performance. Technically, the Congress-led coalition will form the government and Achuthanandan’s Communist-led coalition will be in the opposition. But the difference between the two groups is so minimal that victory is as bad as defeat and defeat as good as victory.

Who are the biggest losers? No, not Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and not M Karunanidhi, though their defeats have a humiliating ring about them. The really big losers in this election are two men who did not even contest—Prakash Karat and Rahul Gandhi. Their action was as disastrous as their inaction.

Prakash Karat knew first hand what was going wrong in Bengal and Kerala. Yet he did not lift a finger to correct the course in Bengal or to rein in the party’s capitalist-minded syndicate in Kerala. In fact, he sided with the syndicate. If he had advised the party to stand united under the mascot of Achuthanandan, his party would have returned to power comfortably in this election and probably the next one as well. Karat simply does not have the leadership quality his position requires.

In Rahul Gandhi’s case, what is in his favour is that no one expects anything constructive from him. But that does not mean that people expected destructive moves from him—like his making fun of Achuthanandan’s age, for which he received the most memorable verbal lashing in recent political memory, the “Amul Baby” tag. That one faux pas by Rahul must have got a chunk of votes for Achuthanandan. The Congress princeling made a couple of visits to Tamil Nadu, taking care not to meet his ally Karunanidhi. Nor did he do anything to put life back into the dead horse that is the Congress party in Tamil Nadu.

The big political story from this election is that the Congress party is losing ground across India. But don’t expect it to learn any lessons from this decline. That is the beauty of democracy—you don’t have to learn anything

Bhardwaj loses right to continue in office

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 17 May 2011 10:38:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 16 May 2011 11:49:46 PM IST

Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj is like a person who cannot be woken up because he is pretending to be asleep. His recommendation of president’s rule in the state is one more proof that he is unwilling to learn the basics of statecraft, raising questions about his competence to hold the gubernatorial post. Before sending the recommendation, which can evoke only derision, he should have turned the pages of recent history to learn that he does not enjoy any such power. Gone are the days when a governor could get away by dismissing an elected government, as in Kerala in 1959. No longer does any ambiguity exist about the governor’s role in situations in which an elected government’s majority is in doubt.


What has emboldened the governor to strike against the B S Yeddyurappa government is the recent quashing of the disqualification of 16 MLAs prior to the confidence vote it won in October last. The Speaker’s decision might have been questionable but, then, much water has flowed down the Kaveri since then. In any case, the new development does not give Bhardwaj any right to interfere in the functioning of the state legislature. If at all he had any doubt, he could have asked the chief minister to prove his majority in the House. In fact, he merely had to agree to the Cabinet’s request to convene a session of the House, where the Opposition could have moved a no-confidence motion, or a member could have asked for a ‘division’ on any Bill.

Instead of performing the constitutional duty of convening the House, Bhardwaj saw in the Supreme Court verdict an opportunity for petty politicking. There is the voluminous Sarkaria Commission report on Centre-State relations and several Supreme Court judgments, particularly the one in which the conduct of then Bihar Governor Buta Singh was condemned, which make the point as clear as daylight that it is on the floor of the House that the majority of a government is tested and not in Raj Bhavans. If Bhardwaj cannot understand this simple rule, he has no business to be in Bangalore

US shouldn't factor in India-Afghan Ties

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 16 May 2011 10:35:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2011 11:37:31 PM IST

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s two-day visit to Kabul has raised India-Afghanistan relations to the level of ‘strategic partnership’. The visit — the first after Osama bin Laden was killed — was indeed special. That he was invited to address Afghanistan’s parliament and was accommodated at The Arg, the residence of Afghanistan’s last king Zahir Shah, showed how much importance Kabul attached to the visit. In fact, President Hamid Karzai did everything possible to make the visit a grand success. The Prime Minister’s announcement of $500-million assistance in key social sectors like agriculture is in addition to the $1.5 billion commitment India has already made.


The warm response Manmohan Singh’s address to the Afghan parliament evoked is reflective of the public mood in the warn-torn nation. All this cannot be to the liking of Pakistan, which has all along been trying to sabotage Indo-Afghan relations. In the post-Osama situation in which the US will hasten its retreat from Afghanistan, Pakistan hopes to wean Kabul away from India. Nobody knows Islamabad’s sinister motive better than Afghan leaders, who were shocked that Pakistan had been virtually hiding Bin Laden while the Americans were searching for him in the mountains of the land-locked nation.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake has welcomed the strengthening of India-Afghan relations. The Americans are yet to recover from the shock that their ‘closest ally’ in the war on terror had been sheltering their ‘enemy No. 1’ all these years, until Operation Geronimo was successfully carried out. Given the ‘use and throw’ policy of the US, India cannot depend on Uncle Sam to free Afghanistan from the influence of Pakistan, which control sections of the Taliban. Experience has taught India that the Russians can be relied better to insulate Indo-Afghan ‘strategic partnership’ from Pakistan’s extraneous influences.

Rise in price of fuel is unacceptable

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 16 May 2011 10:35:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2011 11:31:46 PM IST

The hike in petrol prices by state-owned oil companies — the steepest in India’s history — just a day after the announcement of the results of five Assembly elections has left the people seething and the Opposition crying foul. It is bound to fuel inflation further as commuting costs and freight go up and add to the crushing burden on household budgets already stretched with soaring prices of essential commodities. The government’s plea that the oil companies were compelled to jack up domestic prices to cover their losses due to skyrocketing crude prices in the international market is unacceptable. While claiming that the government had no role to play in the price hike, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has virtually stood by the oil companies’ decision, saying the crude rates have gone up by $42 per barrel in the last 11 months.


The argument is specious. This is the eighth hike in petrol prices after it accepted the Kirit Parikh Committee’s recommendation to deregulate them in June last year. After more or less monthly price hikes since deregulation, the companies had not announced any hike since January this year. The fact that they kept petrol prices on hold till Assembly elections proves that they dance to the tune of their political masters and announced the hike only after getting the green signal from the Centre.

The fact is that it is the government’s persistent refusal to rationalise the tax structure on import of petroleum products, which account for over 18 per cent of the government’s revenue, forces oil companies to pass on the burden to the consumers. If the government agrees to cut customs and excise duty on crude and return the cess revenues earned by it due to rise in international prices to the oil companies, there would be no need to hike prices and burden the people. The state governments have also found it easy to impose additional taxes on sale of petrol and other petro-products to consumers. It is time the Centre and States found other sources of income, such as reviving the capital gains tax, and spared the common man.

Only a SIT can bring out the truth

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 12 May 2011 11:03:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 13 May 2011 03:37:31 AM IST

The UPA government’s flip-flop on corruption stood exposed on Thursday when the Supreme Court pulled up its Enforcement Directorate (ED) for keeping it in the dark about filing a chargesheet against Hasan Ali Khan. The court was piqued by the fact there was no mention of the chargesheet in the status report on the case submitted to it by the ED on May 4 and its tone and tenor made it clear that the omission was deliberate. Noting that the chargesheet had been filed in a special court in Mumbai on May 6, Justice B Sudarshan Reddy said, “It is obvious that you had the chargesheet on May 4 and chose not to inform us.” The court also found it surprising that the chargesheet was not placed before the 10-member high-level committee formed by the government to circumvent formation of a Special Investigation Team.


When the apex court had started monitoring the Hasan Ali case, it had given rise to expectations that it would prove to be India’s most explosive money laundering case. But if media reports about the content of the chargesheet are true, it is turning out to be one of the biggest whitewash jobs in ED’s history. The chargesheet does not contain the names of any of the top politicians, bureaucrats or industrialists named by Ali during his interrogation. The ED investigations showed that his black money operations ran up to over Rs 36,000 crore, stashed in safe havens abroad. But the charges framed against him show that the scam was worth just a few hundred crore rupees.

It is clear that the government is going out of the way to ensure that the probe into black money operations of people in high places is sabotaged. Smelling the rat, the court has made it clear that any further action on the chargesheet by the Mumbai special court would be subject to its direction. However, it is too much to expect that an investigating agency working under the government can unravel black money operations, in which people occupying high positions and wielding tremendous influence are involved. Only a SIT working under the directions of the Supreme Court can bring out the truth.

Stop this grandstanding over land acquisition

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 13 May 2011 11:55:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 14 May 2011 01:32:02 AM IST

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s dramatics at violence-hit Bhatta Parsaul in UP that resulted in his arrest and release had more politics than concern for the farmers. Had farmers’ welfare been his primary objective, he would have gone to Jaitapur where the local people have been agitating against forcible acquisition of land. However, what drove the young MP to the village is his overweening ambition to re-establish the Congress’ lost hold on the state. He believes that his political future is dependent upon his ability to capture the imagination of the people of the largest state. The village provided not just a photo-opportunity but a chance to establish his credentials as a farmers’ friend.


Rahul does not realise that what UP Chief Minister Mayawati has done is what Congress chief ministers like Bhupinder Singh Hooda have been doing. They are one in misusing a British-era law that empowers the government to acquire land for ‘public good’. While the Hooda has succeeded in buying peace by paying a better price to the farmers, his UP counterpart has failed in this regard. Both are equally guilty. The Allahabad High Court has, while setting aside acquisition of 100 hectares of land in Gautam Buddh Nagar district for ‘industrial development’, questioned the bona fides of the government and ordered the return of the land to the farmers.

If Rahul wants to end the exploitation of farmers, all he has to do is to force the Centre to bring a law that will stop forcible acquisition of land. The onus of acquiring land at market rates should be on those who want to set up industries — not the state government. Since every such piece of land also has a ‘potential value’, the farmers must be given a stake in the projects for which the land is acquired.

Helping Air India take off

Businessline: It is far cheaper to bail airlines out from time to time than to run them. The taxpayers will mind but not as much as they do now.

Seldom, as Winston Churchill might have said about Air India's never-ending tragedies, has so much been written by so few about so little. The Indian Railways (IR) has a 1,000 times more capital invested, carries a 100 times more passengers and is in a much bigger mess than Air India (AI). Yet, far more attention is devoted to the latter. The reason is well known: planes are sexy while trains are dreary. But surely Governments, especially those that claim to speak for the common man, should not be swayed by such considerations. Nor is it just their plights that the Railways and Air India have in common. They are both run by government departments although, nominally at least, AI has a corporate structure. But there are differences too, and two of these are critical. One is that while IR has a trained cadre to manage it, AI has only civil servants — mostly from the IAS but also sometimes from other services. Some have their hearts in the right place but alas, not the intellectual capacity to go with it; others have their brains in the right place but not their hearts; a small, but usually influential, minority has both in the wrong place. Second, the present dispensation notwithstanding, ministerial whimsy and discretion in IR are subject to considerable control. But for Air India, the ministers and the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Civil Aviation are all-powerful beings. So, if the Railways delivers value for less, it is clear where and what the problem is. To resolve this issue, the government must either abolish the Aviation Ministry, while empowering the DGCA and AERA, or it must staff the former with a cadre of aviation professionals, as the IR does. Whatever is decided, the present system must go.

It is also worth asking if the taxpayer must fund an industry whose average returns, globally, in any given span of 10 years, are around 1.5 per cent. The simple point is that, while aviation is physically non-risky, financially, it is worse than dog-racing. That is why the business requires so many risk-mitigating policies, such as non-compete guarantees (which is what ‘bilaterals' are) and even officially sanctioned cartels (which is what IATA runs). Such policies are because of the high capital and skill intensity of the business. As market structures go, it is as close to perfect competition as one can get; in fact, however, the whole business is a cartelised oligopoly. Since the Indian government is short of the two main ingredients, should it be in this business at all? Therefore, along with staffing the Civil Aviation Ministry with professionals from the business, 74 per cent of Air India must be sold off, if necessary as a garage sale.

For the Government to stay on in the aviation business is like an indigent staying in a 5-star hotel. It is far cheaper to bail airlines out from time to time, as other countries do, than to run them. The taxpayers will mind but not as much as they do now.

Infosys looking for consulting firm in Europe or Japan

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Mr S.D. Shibulal, Chief Operating Officer, Infosys (file photo). -- G.R.N. Somashekar
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BANGALORE, MAY 9:
Infosys Technologies Ltd is looking to buy a consulting company that has deep penetration into Europe or Japan.

“We don't set aside any budget for acquisition. We keep looking for an opportunity. There is no target because acquiring a company is like falling in love. I don't think anybody sets a target for falling in love,” Mr S. D. Shibulal, Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder and Member of the Board, told Business Line. According to sources close to Infosys, the IT bellwether is in talks with a few companies in Europe for acquisition.

Mr Shibulal, who will take over as CEO and Managing Director in August, said Infosys — which gets 65 per cent of its revenue from business operations, 25 per cent from business transformation and around 9.5 per cent from business innovation (including Finacle) — was very strategic about acquisitions.

“In business operations, we have enormous strengths, so we may not gain from acquisitions. We could look at a consulting company in the area of business transformation. In business innovation, we can build it ourselves, co-create with a client, or take the acquisition route. Here, co-creating with a client is a better option because there is a client on the other side pushing us to do the right thing.”

Discussing the evolution at Infosys, he said the company has fine-tuned its model several times the last 30 years. “In 2002, this company was very different from 1999. In 2003, we had no consultants; today we have 4,000. In 2004, we didn't have infrastructure management as a service; today we get $400 million out of it.”

Being the only founder to have had experience outside of Infosys has also given him a different perspective, said Mr Shibulal. Referring to his brief stint with Sun Microsystems between 1991 and 1996, he said, “It does give you a different perspective because Sun at that time was a big corporation. Also, it was going through the whole transformation of the Internet era at that time. It definitely gave me a perspective that is different from Infosys.”

Keywords: Infosys Technologies Ltd, to buy a consulting company, Mr S. D.

iGATE buys 20% more in Patni via open offer

MUMBAI, MAY 9:
Nasdaq-listed iGATE has completed its open offer to acquire an additional 20 per cent stake in Patni Computer Systems.

iGATE now has 81.29 per cent stake in the Mumbai-based IT outsourcing company

The $1.24-billion transaction, which was backed by buyout giant Apax Partners, is one of the largest inorganic deals in India this year.

Of the 3.43 crore valid shares tendered under the offer, 2.7 crore shares were accepted at Rs 503.5 a share, according to details available on the BSE. The Patni scrip was up 0.72 per cent to close at Rs 394 on the BSE today.

Keywords: iGATE, Patni Computers, open offer

Intel arm Wind River to set up design centre in Bangalore

K. V. KURMANATH
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HYDERABAD, MAY 10:
Wind River, a subsidiary of Intel Corporation, will set up an India Design Centre to cater to the local needs of its customers in the area of avionics and Defence.

The company will finalise the initial staff requirement for the proposed centre in the next two months.

“We have hired people to head the centre,” Mr Jim Douglas, Senior Vice-President (Corporate Marketing), of Wind River, told Business Line.

OFFERINGS IN INDIA

The Alameda (California, the US) based company, which earned 30 per cent of its global revenues from software services, is planning to replicate its services offerings in India. It offered device development portfolio.

There had been requests from our customers such as DRDL for providing India-specific solutions beyond technology. The India centre would explore opportunities in the services segment and localisation in the areas the company operated.

Mr Jim was here to deliver the keynote address on ‘Advancements for 21st Century Warfare: Safe and Secure Intelligent Systems' at Wind River India Aerospace and Defence Regional Conference held here.

Wind River, which seized to announce standalone results after it was bought by Intel, said Asia-Pacific contributed 17 per cent to its revenues. “We would like to take this to 25-28 per cent in the next five years,” he said.

Mr Venkatesh Kumaran, Country Manager (India) of Wind River, said the company would bring in technologies that cater to medical and mobile phone into India. At present, the company addressed avionics and Defence businesses.

MEDICAL SEGMENT

In the medical segment in India, the company would focus on bringing in technologies for MRI, CTI Scan and diagnostic tools in the next one-two years.

The company was also on talks with mobile OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in India to sell its mobile software. With a lot of Indian brands swarming the market, the company saw a business opportunity.

Keywords: Wind River, Intel Corporation, India Design Centre, avionics and Defence

Back on the rails: The new microfinance rules should end the crisis

Business Standard / New Delhi May 11, 2011, 0:59 IST
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) regulations for microfinance institutions (MFIs) registered with it as non-banking finance companies – these make up most of the MFI space – have been largely welcomed by the sector. There are several reasons for this. One, there are now at least some rules to go by, good or bad — one of the main problems earlier was the absence of such rules. Two, the sector finds the regulations to be a considerable improvement on the Malegam committee’s original proposal. This indicates that the regulator is willing to listen to the practitioners, thereby adding meaning to the interactions that took place after the committee’s report was released. It also implies that the issues on which the sector continues to have doubts are likely to be addressed once the guidelines are put in place and the consequences become apparent. The industry has been plagued by enormous uncertainty ever since it imploded in Andhra Pradesh, so any kind of return to business as practicable, if not as usual, will give satisfaction. This is a matter of vital national concern since income capabilities of millions of poor people now depend on a well-functioning microfinance system.

The regulations have sought to address several key concerns: MFIs charge exorbitantly high interest rates; their ways of calculating interest rates and practices like taking security deposits result in a higher rate of interest than officially declared; and multiple lending leads to diversion of funds from income generation to consumption, paving the way for greater future indebtedness. By fixing an interest rate ceiling of 26 per cent, defining how the interest should be calculated, putting a 12 per cent ceiling on margin requirement and abolishing the practice of taking security deposits, the regulations have sought to address some of the concerns. While industry players do not have much to complain about the above, they are negative about the RBI allowing a repayment period of two years. An individual MFI loan cycle does not exceed a year and giving a longer repayment period creates the risk of the repayment amount being used for consumption. MFIs also need to discuss how the margin amount should be calculated.

In the light of these regulations, the Andhra Pradesh government needs to relook its regulations to determine whether they are onerous. There can be justification, in fact a necessity, for strict rules in the face of improper practices adopted by lenders but once lessons have been learnt, it is necessary to go by regulations that do not choke off lending entirely. At present, recoveries in the state are in the range of 10 to 15 per cent. If this persists, MFIs with large exposure in the state are unlikely to survive. Rescheduling loans from banks to MFIs in trouble can help but there is no light at the end of the tunnel if borrowers think they need not repay. If that happens, they will be the ultimate losers.

General Kayani all bluff and bluster

The New Indian ExpressFirst Published : 06 May 2011 11:02:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 07 May 2011 12:21:16 AM IST

Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s rhetoric against the US and India should be seen in the context of the body blow he suffered when the US raided Osama bin Laden’s hideout. Now it is as clear as daylight that the Pakistani army had no clue about the raid until after the raiders had taken away Laden’s bullet-ridden body. That the hideout was close to an army establishment at Abbottabad raises questions about the army’s state of preparedness. What has been smashed is the common man’s faith in its capability to safeguard Pakistan’s sovereignty. None of its famed F16 aircraft and radars could detect, let alone intercept, the intrusion by the US forces.


If anything, the raid has exposed the Pakistani army as a force that cannot even protect its air and land space. In a country where the army remains the only ‘credible’ institution, Kayani knows only too well how the US operation has dented its image. His statement warning the US and India against any such adventure can only be described as ‘sound and fury that signify nothing’. The US has already clarified that, if necessary, such raids would be repeated. Given this background and the US capabilities, the General will have few takers when he warns the US. However, he knows India is a different ball game, for there is a large constituency in Pakistan that can be energised simply by anti-India rhetoric.

Though US President Barack Obama does not consider US’ 9/11 comparable to India’s 26/11, they are identical in the sense that their masterminds had found a safe haven in Pakistan. It is a different matter that while the US pursued the brain behind 9/11 to his lair at Abbottabad, India has only been pleading with Pakistan to bring to justice those who planned and executed the Mumbai 26/11 attack. If India has not resorted to hot pursuit, it does not mean it has no right to do so. Kayani’s unwarranted pot-shots at India should serve as a warning to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who reads too much into the bonhomie on the cricket field to conclude that India-Pakistan relations are at a take-off stage.

Laughter in the times of fear and terror

Ravi Shankar EttethFirst Published : 03 May 2011 10:55:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 03 May 2011 11:13:56 PM IST

Every soldier has a funny story. Have you heard the one about how an army patrol in Kashmir, seeking shelter in a snowstorm, found a cave full of sleeping militants, all drunk on Indian army rum? In conflict zones, horror begets a Falstaffian cross breed, black battle humour. Like the Kargill war hero Captain Vikram Batra who laughed at death, shouting “Dil Maange More!” as the Pakistanis kept shelling his bunker.


Combat stories across the world are full of dark humour. In 2001, when the Israelis were cleaning up the West Bank of Palestinian terrorists, a colonel was briefing the visiting General Shaul Mofaz on an encounter with a Hamas gunman: “The terrorist came out of this house to say hello. Well, hello, hello, we got him!” Shiv Sahai, who is currently the IG Police, Kashmir has a story of his own.

One day, when he was the SP, Baramullah, Sahai was informed over the police wireless that the airport road was blocked by a large group of women. They had staged a sit-down in the middle of the road that led to Srinagar airport, wailing and shouting anti-India slogans, protesting the death of a woman supposedly killed in police firing. Reaching the spot, Sahai saw that the women were sitting around a corpse swathed in a white burial shroud; they were tearing their hair, beating their breasts and screaming for “Indian dogs” to go home. The policemen asked them over the megaphone to disperse.

The wailing only got louder. Sahai turned to his men and ordered them to fire in the air. The first one in the group to jump up and flee the scene was the corpse.

All war zones are full of irony, something battle hardened warriors bear like medals of honour. Many I’ve spoken to, made drunken toasts to in cheap glasses inside dusty barracks and rickety police stations, find defending democracy has a funny side, too. A cop who had served in Punjab in the 1980s once told me about a colleague of his “decorated for wiping out 6 terrorists in a firefight” who was sent to jail for a custodial death, sharing a cell with captured militants; the very men he was fighting.

No wonder, war turns ordinary soldiers into philosophers. Paul Mehlos, an American soldier who fought in Afghanistan writes in his book “The Poor Bastard’s Club,” “War, by its very nature, sometimes allows too much time in between the missions for deep thinking. If you dive too deeply into the pool of your own emotion you may never reach the surface again and find yourself descending into the darkness. And it is madness you see. This wafer thin veneer of societal normalcy we carry like a child’s cardboard shield will not ward off the ugliness and savagery of those to wish to destroy you.”

Little is known about the nameless Navy Seals who went into the Abbotabad mansion to put an end to a monster’s life. Wonder what they must have been laughing about.

--- ravi.shankar@newindianexpress.com

India takes care of lobbies

T J S GeorgeFirst Published : 30 Apr 2011 11:07:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 01 May 2011 02:13:20 AM IST

The endosulfan controversy is typical of India, of Indian politics, of Indian corruption, and of Indian morality. There were 173 countries in the Stockholm Convention that debated whether or not there should be a global ban on this notorious pesticide. Of these, 125 had banned it outright. All 47 of the remaining 48 sat on the fence and generally kept quiet. Only one argued vehemently on behalf of endosulfan. That one-in-the-world nation was India.


India was further isolated by the silliness of its arguments. It said, for example, that America’s Federal Drug Administration ruled in 1998 that endosulfan posed no health hazard. The US has the most stringent and independent regulatory agencies in food and environmental matters and therefore American rulings are taken as a benchmark in the rest of the world.

But India cited American authority only to mislead. In 1989, a decade before the purported FDA ruling, the US Fish & Wild Life Service had said that endosulfan was fatal to endangered fish species. In 2007 the US Environment Protection Agency began a review of pesticide policies and decided, in 2010, to phase out endosulfan. The industry lobby said this was not a ban, but only a de-registration. The fact was that Bayer, the first and principal manufacturer of the pesticide, closed down its American factory. The only remaining factory, an Israeli company, started winding down as per the phase-out period allowed by the government. The pesticide, it was declared, “poses unacceptable risks to farm workers and wildlife”.

In America and Europe, in China and Japan, scientific studies lead to fairly quick policy decisions. In India about 80 expert study-teams have reported on the Kasaragod victims of endosulfan, examining everything from breast milk to male reproductive systems. Yet the Government kept saying that expert studies were needed before a ban could be considered. Sharad Pawar was the sole fighter for endosulfan initially. Later the Prime Minister and the green warrior Jairam Ramesh joined him. What was going on?

It is true that excessive and careless use of pesticides led to the tragedies in Kasaragod (where children are born with horrible defects) and in Punjab’s Bhatinda area (where cancer is endemic). Civilised societies impose responsibilities on the industry, as well as on government agencies, to ensure proper and controlled use of poisonous chemicals. In Bhatinda, what steps did the industry and the Government take to guide farmers, many of whom could not even read the instructions on the packets?

The Kerala Government’s lapse was even more reprehensible. Irresponsible aerial spraying of the lethal chemical was carried out by a government undertaking, the Plantation Corporation. Was any official of the corporation booked for the offence and punished? The state’s case against the Central Government would have been stronger if it had held its own offenders accountable.

Perhaps we should not be surprised at Delhi’s defence of the indefensible and its indifference to India’s isolation in the world. India already has a shameful record of bowing before multinational lobbies. Drugs that are banned in Western countries become easily available in our country. Field trials disallowed in America are carried out on unsuspecting Indian patients. Genetically engineered products must be so labelled in other countries. In India there is no such rule because the GM lobby has “persuaded” the authorities against it.

Many things happen in India that cannot happen in countries concerned about public welfare. The needle of suspicion must naturally point to the possibility of corruption. We hear pesticide lobby’s arguments from the mouths of government leaders. We hear arguments in favour of chemically engineered brinjal from agricultural experts who have received lucrative research grants from GM companies. World opinion has now forced India to agree to a phase-out of endosulfan over the next 11 years. Given the hold the lobbies have on India’s power structure, there is no guarantee that the phase-out will work as transparently in India as it did in the US. Scepticism is in order when decisions about poisons in our water bodies and soil and food chains are in the hands of people like Sharad Pawar.

Congress Senses Victory, But That Could Be The E

Prabhu ChawlaFirst Published : 08 May 2011 01:22:00 AM ISTLast Updated :

When Home Minister P Chidambaram quite confidently told me “Let us wait for May 13,” the day when the counting of votes for the five Assembly elections takes place, he sounded quite confident about the verdict.


It wasn’t just an off-the-cuff remark. It came from a home minister who thinks twice before speaking even once. He was predicting a clean sweep for the Congress.

After an hour-long interview—the first given to a media organisation since the election process began— Chidambaram defined the contours of post-election politics. As the home minister, he has access to umpteen sources, known and unknown, as well as credible and discredited sources of information. He was also one of the star campaigners for his party in most pollbound states. From his body language, it was evident that he felt the civil society movement against corruption, coupled with the detention of former ministers and Congressmen, wouldn’t affect the party’s credibility with the masses. Though he didn’t elaborate, it was obvious that the Congress was expecting a surge to power in the company of its allies in West Bengal, Assam, Puducherry and Kerala but perhaps not Tamil Nadu. An opinion poll, however, conducted by a TV channel predicted a victory for the DMK alliance and further boosted the UPA’s morale.

A Congress win in four states will not only change the tone and tenor of the political discourse in the country, but will also make the party much more arrogant and intolerant as both an ally and an adversary.

Chidambaram’s confidence was reflected later in the aggressive posturing of Congress leaders against PAC Chairman Murali Manohar Joshi. For the past few weeks, the Congress party has been on the offensive against its opponents in every part of the country. Over half-adozen cabinet ministers led by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal and Communications Minister Kapil Sibal have not missed a single opportunity to take their adversaries head-on.

Even the discreet Vayalar Ravi, the Union Civil Aviation Minister and former trade union leader, decided to teach agitating Indian Airlines pilots the lesson of a lifetime, ignoring a possible adverse impact on the party’s electoral prospects. The Congress is betting on regaining its lost moral authority once the state elections results come in. For the past one year, the UPA has been at the receiving end of national and Opposition disapproval. Many of its leaders, including a chief minister, lost their jobs over corruption charges. Due to a concerted Opposition attack, even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s credibility was eroded. Sensing the public mood, the Congress High Command didn’t involve him in electioneering. But the UPA is confident that happy days will be back again. Waiting to be armed with a popular mandate, the party is gearing up to tackle its opponents from its newly acquired moral high ground.

On the other hand, all the opposition parties have suddenly lost their bite and shine. The BJP mumbles half-heartedly about forming an AGP-BJP government in Assam. The CPI(M) is demoralised at the prospect of losing both West Bengal and Kerala to the Congress and its allies.

If it happens, the Left would be left with only tiny Tripura in its kitty for the first time in three decades. The Congress party’s buoyant mood stems from the massive turnout of voters in all the five states. Moreover, the Election Commission was able to contain the misuse of money and state power in all the states. It is for the first time in three decades that the Congress didn’t complain about rigging in the West Bengal elections. With a voter turnout of over 80 per cent—the highest ever since Independence— the party expects the Reds to be reduced to less than 50 seats in West Bengal.

The looming poll verdicts are significant in more than one way.

Even if the Congress wins all, its dependence on regional parties for survival at the Centre and ensuring good governance will become much more precarious.

The UPA is already a minority government that has survived only thanks to outside support from other parties. With Mamata Banerjee as the chief minister in West Bengal and J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu, the UPA government may face a powerful duo who could dictate the national agenda. Even a demoralised DMK may assert itself and demand its pound of flesh. If all of UPA’s allies come together on a common platform, they can make life much more difficult for the prime minister than what he has been facing before the states went to the ballot box.

A visibly victorious Congress may in reality be a helpless one while persuading its allies to push through Parliament various legislations such as labour reform, the Land Acquisition Act, Foreign Direct Investment in retail, the entry of Foreign Universities and environmental issues. Most allies are disinclined to support the Congress on many of the proposed economic reforms. For the Congress, the biggest headache would be to bring all its allies on board to get its nominee elected as the next president of India. The outcome of the Assembly polls will change the complexion of the Electoral College, which is slated to elect the new president in July 2012. In 2007, the Congress managed to get Pratibha Patil elected only because of the support it got from the Left that had over 60 MPs and controlled two big states.

Now the Congress will have to talk to many more parties in order to reach the magic majority number not only in Parliament but also in all the states. The Congress rules only in 12 of the 28 states and seven Union Territories.

Having less than a third of the voting strength needed to secure the presidential election, the party will have to walk that extra mile to persuade others to support its candidate. After all, a president neutral or hostile to the Congress will be a cause of discomfiture to a party that will seek to retain its post-election halo. As the 2014 election countdown begins, the Congress will need all the lights on in Rashtrapati

A dead Osama more potent?

S GurumurthyFirst Published : 02 May 2011 10:44:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 03 May 2011 12:30:38 AM IST

Osama Bin Laden, who terrorised the US and the West for almost two decades, is dead. Proudly claiming that on his supari the CIA has killed Osama, US President Barrack Hussein Obama has declared that justice has been done. A US White House spokesman has claimed that the war on terror has ended. The cause of Osama’s death at the hands of the CIA is obvious; but what about its consequences? Is it the end of Islamic terror? It calls for a study of Osama and the history of his version of Islam.


Osama’s bio will captivate any pious Muslim. He was undoubtedly the soul, head and face of the global Islamic terror. But he was not a product of Islamic history. He was the yield of the Cold War story; a product of the US geo-political alliance with extremist Islam against the Soviet Union in the Afghan war, where the modern global Jihadi Islam incubated. On Nov. 5, 1979 when Khomeini was declaring that the “Americans are the Great Satan”, Osama was a trusted ally of US, being part of the Jihad in Afghanistan supported by the US. Yet, Osama — not his Jihadi-senior Ayotullah Khomeini — fathered the modern global Islamic Jihad. How?

Born of the tenth wife of his wealthy father, Osama had all the wealth to enjoy. But that did not attract him, nor distract him. He did study economics and business administration, but found more meaning for his life in Quran and Jihad and in interpreting both. He married first in 1974 at the age of 17, went on to marry thrice more, and fathered as many as 25 or 26 children by 2002. But this huge domestic burden did little to deter the young Jihadi. Look at him from the Muslim perspective. Will not a Muslim youth see him as an idealist who spurned all the fun the world had offered and preferred live in forest and mountains for his beliefs instead? What was the bite in Osama, which Khomeini lacked? That bite was the Wahhabi Islam — the idea of mass killing for Islam’s sake.

Wahhabi Islam bears the surname of Mohammed Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab who was born in early 17th century. But, according to Charles Allen, a renowned historian of the British Raj in India, the roots of Wahhabi Islam go back to late 13th century. Ibn Taimiyya, an Islamic theologian, was eyewitness to the slaughter of millions of Muslims — men, women and children — by the Mongols led by Chengis Khan, later by Hulagu Khan, who had all but wiped out the Islamic power. He evangelised that Muslims, if they were to survive, should give up the lesser Jihad (Jihad Kabeer) preached by the Sufis and start the greater Jihad (Jihad Akbar). He classified Islam’s enemies into four: One, Christians with whom peace was possible; two, un-Islamic Muslims with whom no peace was possible till they were back to Islamic ways; three, Muslims not practising Islamic rituals, who must be killed mercilessly; four, those being Muslims but rejecting Islam, too deserved no mercy. Ibn Taimiyya was rejected in his own times; he was jailed repeatedly and even branded heretic. Taimiyya’s theology, says Allen, was never forgotten and continued attract adherents. The violent ideology of Taimiyya’s survived and exploded after him, through Al-Wahhab first, Osama later.

Al-Wahhab was schooled under Mohammed Hayat — believe it! — of Sind in India and his father, both Ibn Taimiyya’s disciples. Al-Wahhab and Shah Walliullah from India were co-students under Hayat. Shah Walliullah’s famous appeal to the Afghan ruler Ahmed Shah Abdali to invade India to re-establish Islamic rule is part of history. Yet, Wahhabi Islam was hated in Sunni Islamic societies till 1744 when Al-Wahhab forged a remarkable partnership with Muhammed Ibn Saud, the ancestor of the Saudi royalty, and found legitimacy. Result. Wahhabism, became the dominant religion of Saudi Arabia. And yet Saudi Arabia is the closest Islamic ally of US. The US had done away with Osama; but can it do away with the thought that inspired him? Never.

Osama was no accident of history. He was the spiritual successor of Ibn Taimiyya and Al-Wahhab. Wahhabism is a powerful idea. Some 80 percent of the mosques in US are under Wahhabi control and 70 US Muslims are Wahhbis. In the last 30 years, the House of Sauds has reportedly given away some $85-90 billion to Wahhabis to spread the faith all over the world and to “leave the House of Sauds alone”.

Osama protested against this betrayal. He wanted the House of Sauds to be true to their founding ideology. He later founded his own borderless empire — the Al Qaeda. With him the Al Qaeda may decline, but not terror. For, men die; but not ideas. Like Wahhabism lived after Taimiyya and Al-Wahhab, it will survive Osama also. The Americans know it, though they may not admit it.

The Western media first saw the ongoing revolutions in the Islamic world as secular and democratic. In its issue (Feb 5-11) The Economist magazine glorified “Egypt rises up” on cover; later (Feb 19-25) it celebrated “The Awakening”; but its cover story (April 2-8) “Islam and the Arab Revolutions” was full of worries. It wrote: religion — read Islam — rather than democracy is a “growing force in the Arab awakening”. The West, happy when Libya exploded, became terrified when Syria boiled. Islamism — read anarchy — and not democracy, may replace the falling chieftains. Osama wanted anarchic Islam, not democratic states. A dead Osama, seen an Islamic idealist and a courageous Jihadi against the mighty US, may provide greater inspiration to Muslim youth than Ibn Taimiyyah did to Al-Wahhhab. Result: Osama death may inspire more, not extinguish all, terror.

The writer is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues

E-mail: comment@gurumurthy.net

Force Pakistan to dismantle terror

The New Indian Express First Published : 03 May 2011 10:51:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 03 May 2011 11:44:36 PM IST
Amid fully justified celebrations over Osama bin Laden’s elimination, the US and the rest of the world will do well to remember the unpalatable truth. It merely marks a milestone on a very long road, not the end of that road. In Arabic, al-Qaeda — the organisation he headed — means “the base”. As Osama bin Laden himself envisioned and articulated it, the base or foundation for a globally dominant Islamic caliphate. He himself, alas, was one stone in that base or foundation and, in recent years, not necessarily the cornerstone of that base. His killing might amount to winning a battle, but the war must go on. And the one inescapable inference emerging out of this two-decade long battle is that Pakistan is fast becoming one of the most hospitable sanctuaries for terrorists. That Osama was living in the garrison town of Abbotabad, where the Pakistan Military Academy is located, is not without significance.
India has rightly pointed out that the latest developments only confirm its repeated assertions that Pakistan has been playing a dual game of pretending to be a committed partner in the US-led war against terror while remote controlling terrorist activities against other countries. India should press the US and its Western allies to make sure that Pakistan stops sheltering, training and funding terrorists operating on its soil and dismantles their bases. Any display of hesitation on this count would erode the credibility of the US-led war on terror.
Common threads that run between Laden’s al-Qaeda and LeT, the group behind the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, should be a major cause of concern for the Indian security establishment. It must review its assessment of the post-Laden terror threats and work out an effective strategy to face it. Simultaneously, the government of India should not miss this opportunity to push Pakistan in a corner. It must mobilise world opinion in pressurising Pakistan to prosecute terrorists involved in the Mumbai terror attacks as well as other Jihadi groups indulging in anti-India activities. Till there is credible evidence that Pakistan is willing to do so, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should give up his obsession with Pakistan and go slow on the so-called confidence building exercises.

India should rebuild ties with Arab world

The New Indian Express First Published : 04 May 2011 10:52:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 05 May 2011 12:28:13 AM IST
Unlike some of their counterparts in neighbouring Pakistan, the Muslims in India have reacted positively to the death of Osama bin Laden, who they saw as an ugly face of terror and not as a religious leader committed to the salvation of the community. While they did not exactly share the celebratory mood of United States and its western allies and even accused them of creating a Frankenstein, the elimination of al Qaeda’s leader has left them with a sense of relief. Both Shia and Sunni clerics hailed it as a major blow to terrorism and pointed out that Osama had defied and defiled Islam with his statements, prompting some to issue a fatwa against him.
Pakistan and its role in sheltering, funding and supporting crossborder terrorism came for bitter denunciation in the reaction of Indian Muslim religious leaders as well as intellectuals. Many of them supported Salman Rushdie’s demand that the international community declare Pakistan a terrorist state. Islamabad’s claim that it was unaware of Osama’s presence in Pakistan has been debunked and they fear that Pakistan will continue its support to crossborder terrorism against India.
This should serve notice to Indian politicians who have always manipulated the community for petty political considerations by using them as ‘vote banks’. Indian Muslims have, time and again, reiterated their faith in the democratic process and have shunned terrorism. In the light of the democracy movements in the Islamic countries, this should cause a rethink in the government’s approach toward the unrest underway in West Asia and North Africa. As a growing power, India needs to take this opportunity to rebuild its ties with the Arab world. The task is unenviable. While it is justified in waiting till credible interlocutors emerge in the region, its inability to empathise with forces that may decide Arab destinies in future would seriously circumscribe India’s policy options in the long run. The Muslim masses in this region became susceptible to the terrorist rhetoric only when their democratic options were foreclosed by colonial western powers. Now that the global landscape is changing, India should help in consigning religious fundamentalism to the dustbin of history.