Arindam Bharath

ndamMarch 11, 2010
FOR MEANINGFUL AND COMPETENT REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT, WOMEN NEED EDUCATION AND EMPOWERMENT, AND NOT RESERVATION!
So, the women’s reservation bill, which was first drafted by H. D. Gowda government in 1996, finally got cleared in the Rajya Sabha on the 8th of March, 2010. Of all the pending bills, this one in particular was the most contentious as most political parties could neither accept nor reject it, owing to vote-bank politics. Finally, amidst some ugly chaos and commotion, the bill got passed on the 8th of March in the Rajya Sabha. As expected, what followed was customary celebration, wherein all media houses projected the passing of the bill as one of the landmark moments in the history of independent India.

No doubt, the celebrations are too early, as the real test is yet to come; and that is when it goes through the Lok Sabha. Going by the precedence set in the Rajya Sabha, things do not look that simple. From the very beginning the Congress, along with the BJP and the Left , have been in support of the bill; whereas most other political parties have been opposing the bill in its current form. But then, it is also important to understand the contents of the bill that’s making so many political parties oppose the same. It is not just the Rashtriya Samajwadi Party (RJD) or the Samjwadi Party (SP) which has been most visible, the parties representing the backward and the oppressed classes have also been opposing the bill in its current form. In fact, the bill proposes to provide reservation to women at all levels of the legislature, starting from the Lok Sabha to the state to the local legislatures. It proposes to reserve one-third of the total number of seats for women in the central, state and local governments. The political parties who have been backing the bill argue that this bill is going to pave way for gender equality, would fight abuse and discrimination and would work for the overall cause of women who have been historically deprived in India. On the face of it, the arguments sound benevolent and profound as there is no doubt in the fact that women in our society have been pushed to the margins on all socioeconomic counts!

Then what is the opposition’s problem? Lalu Prasad Yadav’s contention has been that such blanket reservation would only invite the elite to exploit the reservation – the poor and marginalized would remain unrepresented. According to him, the reservation is justified only when there is a reservation within the reservation for Dalits, backward classes, Muslims and other religious minorities. Similarly, Mulayam Singh’s argument is that as such 22.5% of the seats in the Parliament are booked for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Now, with another 33.3 % reserved for women, more than 50% of the seats would come under the reserved category! It is not fair for the other stakeholders of the economy to have less than 50% representation left for them. As I said earlier, from a logical standpoint, both these arguments have definite merits, and their opposition to the bill in its current form does make adequate sense, though at the same time, their actions in the Rajya Sabha do not make any sense.

As a matter of fact, it is not just about this bill in particular, but I am not in favour of reservation of any kind. As I strongly feel that a reservation necessarily incubates incompetence. It is not that I am against women’s participation in active politics or their engagement in public offices, but I feel that it should be only and only based on merit. If by means of merit, they have been doing so well in other walks of life, why do we need a reservation here? Reservation would not guarantee that able candidates fill the seats up. On the contrary, what we might see post reservation is blatant compromise at all possible levels. There is no guarantee that proxy and incapable candidates would not be put in the Parliament as people’s representatives, wherein the real control would lie somewhere else. And it is nothing new that I am stating. This is something that is prevalent today, even without any reservation. Imagine the scale of such operation post reservation then.

So, if the government wants to get meaningful and competent representation of women in the Parliament, then they should invest in educating and empowering them at the grassroots level. As such, with women comprising of 30%-40% of any class of Arts, Management and Commerce, the day is not far where the woman would find a place for herself in mainstream politics, making the bill completely redundant!

But if the government still wants the bill to pass, then provisions should necessarily be made for Dalits, Muslims and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes as just like women, they have been historically the most marginalized section of the Indian society.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:52 AM 2 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
March 4, 2010
AN ‘OBJECTIVELESS’ AND TIMID BUDGET
Shortage of a hundred and fifty million rural employment jobs. Shortage of twenty five million urban employment jobs… Additional Rs 1 lakh crore required to replace urban slums… And Rs 10,000 crore required every year for five years to give justice to every Indian by ramping up the judiciary… Another Rs 20,000 crore required every year to make universal primary education a reality and have equality in education opportunities… And additional Rs 10,000 crore required annually to give some basic access to health facilities… Welcome to India. A country where the hospital beds to population ratio is 1:1422, ranked 161 alongside sub-Saharan African countries, against an ideal ratio of 1:333 prescribed by the United Nations. A country with 2.4 million temples but only 1.4 million temples of education i.e. schools… A country with 30 million cases pending in courts, making life hell for the common man who wants justice, because our courts have only 12 judges per million population compared to 120 judges per million in the developed world.

In the middle of such an environment, what’s the role of an annual budget? Is it to maintain status quo or to give the world a robust signal that we are committed to our people – the 45 crore people who earn below 1.25 dollars a day? If the objective is to maintain the status quo, then Pranabda has delivered a perfect budget, as loudly proclaimed by each and every member of the equally objectiveless and visionless industry organisations like FICCI, CII and ASSOCHAM etc. They were too happy that the entire stimulus package had not been withdrawn. As it is, the spokespersons aren’t independent intellectuals. They are timid business men – however rich they might be – scared to ever speak against the government as their businesses are at stake! In most cases, they aren’t even capable of commenting on the budget, such low is their understanding. But they are the people who give the bytes and that’s what next days headlines look like in papers indirectly and directly owned by them and mostly run by sold out editors or editors intellectually incapable of analyzing a budget or how it needs to be. So the verdict that they have given is thumbs up!

The man on the street, of course, has no voice. And his concerns are of no importance to politicians or media. Media has no vision to effectively and constantly focus on their cause in order to effect a change. They are more interested in rapes, murders and sex, which keep the readers confined to intellectually dumbed-down dustbins of these media houses.

The truth, however, is that if we were to look at this budget from the perspective of people – those 45 crore that I mentioned above and another 35 crore who are just marginally better off – then this budget is a hoax for them. Allocations to the best scheme of the Sonia government, or for that matter any government in ages – the NREGA scheme – wasn’t even increased enough to cover the inflation! What was done was a mere increase from Rs 39,000 crore to about Rs 41,000 crore. At a point of time when the common man is being made to pay an astoundingly scary Rs 50 per kg for sugar and Rs 100 per kg for dal, when the food inflation has touched horrific proportions and when they were looking up to the budget for some relief, forget immediate relief measures, there were no signs of any long run relief either in this budget. No lip service even to stop hoarding. No measures to stop speculation in food. No recommendation of strict punishment to the hoarders and no announcement of using the country’s huge forex reserves to import basic food necessities to increase supply and reduce prices. In other words, totally shocking. The reference to the aam aadmi went missing. It was clearly a budget for the mango people who live in India and not the aam aadmi who lives in Bharat.

The long-run steps to increase agriculture growth through a new green revolution got a token Rs 400crore. Nothing could have been more hilarious. Now, NBFCs (non banking financial institutions) can open banks and Rahul Bajaj must be very happy with his part of lobbying. But the real requirement of financial inclusion, which reaches a rotting low of less than 200 million people compared to the required 900 million people, still remains unsolved. At a time when so much had to be done for the poor who are the direct sufferers of the high inflation, the government gave away Rs 26,000 crore to the middle class and rich through its new tax structure favouring the two per cent top class of people who pay taxes in this country! I have been always for lesser taxes to increase tax base, but in a year like this, such a move was a bit too much to accept, especially when compared to the lack of commitment of resources for the bottom 70 percent people.

The allocation of Rs 22,300 crore is marginally up for national rural health but still is too less when you look at the fact that 85 percent of Indians do not have access to health insurance; and every year, an estimated 30 million people slip below the poverty line because they have to meet healthcare expenses though out-of- pocket expenses.

So is all bad? No! We are now going to have a new symbol for currency; similar to the dollar and the euro. And some agency, which will design it, will make a lot of money! It’s assumed that the developed world is so full of donkeys that despite the pathetic conditions that we have bestowed upon a majority of our people, the developed world will respect India due to a new symbol of our currency. Oh yes, how can I forget that in times of such internal security crisis and naxalite movement, a hilarious number of 2000 new paramilitary forces will be employed!

All in all, there have been some welcome extra investment in infrastructure and highways, good non-pollution initiatives, and some great tax structure changes if you are a tax-payer. For the rest, it has been an objectiveless exercise. Bringing me back to the question, ‘why have such a budget at all?’ When throughout the year, the government in any case keeps announcing various policies, then why should we not let the budget be a mere statement of results? Why this sham? There is no accountability… the poor hardly get anything; and to top it all, during the last year, a whopping Rs 1 lakh crore of allocated funds remained unused! It will only grow this year. I repeat, to me it was an objectiveless budget. A mere timepass.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 6:07 AM 30 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
February 25, 2010
INDIA’S INTERVENTION IN SRI LANKA IS AN IMMEDIATE IMPERATIVE!
When the war against LTTE in Sri Lanka got over, it was thought that finally peace would arrive in the island nation after a brutal civil war for more than three decades. It was expected that there would no more be any major turmoil in that country and that finally it would be able to concentrate on the much ignored economy. It was also expected that tourism, which has been one of the mainstays of its economy, would finally get a breather now that the chances of any more conflicts would come down drastically. But all those presumptions now seem to be premature given the shocking developments taking place in Colombo in the last few weeks. Riding on the overwhelming popularity that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been enjoying since his endeavour to take the LTTE head on and finish its top leadership without capitulating to global pressure against the same, he called in for elections much before it was due. But little did he predict that his closest confidante and the real architect in the victory against LTTE – former Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka – would also stake his claim to this popularity and contest the election. Needless to say that Fonseka is one of the shrewdest and most tactical army generals of the world in recent times, given the way he defeated the LTTE even when the Americans are struggling in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, for someone like him coming to the election process, should ideally have been seen as an indicator of a healthy democracy. But Rajapaksa took it as a personal insult and threat to his own popularity and survival. Thus, when the election verdict came out and Rajapaksa won with convincing majority (cornering 57% of the votes as against 40% of Sarath Fonseka), he became vindictive. Fonseka himself had been extremely concerned for his life since the election results were out. In fact, the election process itself is doubted to have had major rigging and other malpractices to make the result in favour of Rajapaksa. Fonseka had been so worried about his personal security that he had even sought help from the Indian government. But the Indian government, in its own style, turned out his requests of mediation or giving any asylum to him by terming the incidents inside Sri Lanka as internal matters of that country. While this Indian response could have its genesis in past Indian misadventures in Sri Lanka, this inaction of India bolstered Rajapaksa to take the next step of dissolving the parliament and arresting the former general by slapping a charge of divulging sensitive information to the public, and of plotting both a coup and an assassination attempt on the president and his family. Now that Fonseka has been arrested, there’s no trace of where he has been kept in confinement. And shockingly, the Indian government still chooses to remain silent!

Irrespective of Fonseka’s flip-flop statements in the past where he has said one thing at a time and meant something else at another, at least there isn’t any doubt in the fact that Fonseka has been a true patriot for Sri Lanka and a real warrior, who led from the front and without whom, it would have been impossible for Sri Lanka and its incumbent president to either win the war or to take credit for it. A genuine government would have treated him like a war hero and given the highest honour of the country. But the sudden turn of events and his humiliating arrest – coming at such close heels of the elections – exhibit a suspiciously blatant misuse of power on the part of Mahinda Rajapaksa. It is pertinent to note that across many nations suffering political turmoil, this has been an uncannily common trend – of the winning party arresting the opposition leader on charges that seem outrageously egregious. Just take a look around at India’s neighbours and you’ll get what I mean. It is also a fact that not everyone in Sri Lanka is happy with the way the former general has been treated. If the fight against the LTTE united the Sinhalese against a common enemy LTTE, then this incident between pro and anti-Rajapaksa groups can ignite another and violent unrest in Sri Lanka. And at a point in time when the priority of the government should have been to ensure that the battered economy is taken care of and the fragile unity of the whole country is given a facelift , the current moves against Fonseka are perhaps sowing the seeds of another major unrest.

While on one hand the inaction of Indian government is worrisome, on the other the disturbing fact is whether the Sri Lankan President is doing it on his own or being made to do this by someone else with vested interests in South Asia? There is no doubt in the fact that there is clear tilt of the Rajapaksa government towards China and the latter too has been a big supporter of Sri Lanka during the war against LTTE – as Chinese arms reportedly played a crucial role in tilting the scales in favour of the Sri Lankan Army. But is it that China is trying to take some mileage out of all this by making Rajapaksa do things in a particular manner? Is China, through a proxy ruling, trying to destroy the democratic system of Sri Lanka, given the way the Sri Lankan President has been crushing on the opposition parties and any voice that is raised against them? (It was almost a year back that the editor of The Sunday Leader and a friend of the president, Lasantha Wickramatunga was murdered in broad day light). While many of these questions are nothing more than questions right now,

What one is demanding is not that India support Fonseka (or reject Rajapakse – the man could well turn out to be an extremely helpful ally to India if handled well), but to realise that unless India re-emerges in the South Asian diplomatic circles – and in this case, in Sri Lanka – as a vociferous opinion leader and commentator, China, for all its rights and wrongs, would easily take over the mantle of being the new foreign policy leader in this region. India’s intervention in Sri Lanka, therefore, is an immediate imperative!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:59 AM 7 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
February 18, 2010
A Budget for Three Idiots
“History is a race between education and catastrophe.”
H G Wells

“All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”
Aristotle

I think this is the first time I have started a write-up with quotes from famous people. I normally do not do that, because I usually feel so strongly and passionately about issues that I simply start writing and words just flow out in a torrent. But I am making an exception this time. And I have strong reasons for doing so.

Let me digress a little before stating them. This will be the 10th consecutive year that I have written and presented an ‘Alternative Budget’. This will be the 5th consecutive year that the ‘Alternative Budget’ appears in Business & Economy (Yes, your favourite magazine – when it comes to sharp, incisive and thought-provoking intellectual analysis – is about to complete 5 years!). For close to 10 years, I have been repeating ad nauseam that India can never hope to be a country that is respected in the 21st century unless there is a drastic and dramatic overhaul of social infrastructure. Apart from occasional good news on that front, budgets over the last decade have been largely disappointing when it comes to dealing with social infrastructure. Of course, lip service and wise quotes from historical personalities have always been offered by successive finance ministers. Of course, ambitious schemes with thousands of crores of budgetary allocations have been launched. Of course, well meaning policies have been designed and implemented. But has there been a really substantive improvement in outcomes? Do poor Indians actually have better access to healthcare now than they had when the 21st century began? Do they actually have better access to education? You know the answers as well as I do.

I have often been frustrated and dismayed by the answers. This prompted me to present an Alternative Budget in 2008 with a headline Ban the Budget. My logic was that too much needless attention was lavished on the Union Budget. My suggestion to the Finance Minister was to use the Union Budget to launch some path-breaking policies for the social infrastructure sector and let nitty gritty issues be handled through the year during the normal course. In 2009, I went a step ahead and presented an Alternative Budget with a headline Khao aur Khilao Budget. My logic was simple. I raised a fundamental question: How come China and South Korea with levels of corruption as deep and endemic as India have delivered fantastic outcomes in social infrastructure while India has failed to do so? I also argued that economics was all about incentives and if a Union Budget offered the right kind of incentives, stakeholders in India, too, could dramatically improve social infrastructure. Just in case you are interested in what the Khao aur Khilao Budget suggested, please visit www.businessandeconomy.org/09072009/storyd.asp?sid=4485&pageno=1.

Having digressed a little, let me come now to the theme and headline of my Alternative Budget this year. It is called A Budget for Three Idiots. You guessed it. It has been inspired by the iconoclastic movie that revealed how hollow our education system is. It also offered us hope and redemption. And it told us poignantly that the biggest challenge for India in the 21st century is to transform its education system. The quotes that appear right at the top of this write-up tell me that thinkers and philosophers throughout history have consistently argued that a society, a nation or a civilization simply cannot survive – far from flourish – without the right kind of education. Aristotle mused about the power of education to sustain an Empire more than 2,000 years ago. And in the 20th century, George Orwell, the author of timeless classics like Animal Farm and 1984 highlighted the importance of education in an equally compelling manner.

Of course, you don’t need to be a philosopher to understand the value and power of education to make or alternatively mar the future of India in the 21st century. And the way things are going at the moment, only the naïve will believe that India is on the cusp of an era where it will reap the much talked about ‘demographic dividend’. Just a few days ago, the international body UNESCO released a report called ‘Education for All Development Index’. It tracks the progress made by various nations on the key Millennium Development Goals of achieving universal education by 2015 from 1999 to 2007. The results in the report are sobering, if not disturbing for those who keep prattling childishly about India’s demographic dividend. The rank given to India is 105, below Bhutan, Zambia, Vietnam and Ghana to name just a few. That is not really surprising since India is consistently ranked pathetically when it comes to human development indicators; and justifiably so. More disturbing are results buried in some tables in the 300-plus page report. A staggering 49 percent of the children drop out of school before they reach elementary level. And before you start talking about some sinister western conspiracy to show India in a poor light, please remember that the report is based on government released statistics.

Let me present some data in a different way to puncture this triumphal talk about India’s demographic dividend. The total number of illiterates in India (as per the official definition of literacy) is more than the combined population of England, France, Germany, Italy Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea and Japan. If you take a more realistic definition of literacy, the number of illiterates in India would be more than the entire population of the whole of Europe. Each year, the number of children in primary school who drop out altogether is more than the population of Australia. Each year, the number of Indian children who fail to go beyond class V is more than the population of South Korea. Each year, the number of Indian children who cannot cross the secondary school barrier is more than the population of Japan. Look at it in another way; the number of illiterates in India is more than the population of India in 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru sought to make a tryst with destiny. What’s more, the number of places of worship currently stands at 2.4 million, whereas the number of places for education stands at 1.5 million! I am sure that things would not have improved since 2000, when the Planning Commission reported that almost 44% of all workers were illiterate and some 22.7% had done schooling till primary level! One would be really optimistic to talk about the demographic dividend in the face of such humiliatingly distressing data. And unless a drastic overhaul is launched right away, hundreds of millions of young Indians will be condemned to live on the margins by the beginning of next decade; and India will be condemned to remain a third rate power!

That brings me back to the Budget for Three Idiots. If things are as bad as they seem, how can Indians like me have even an iota of hope for the future? Actually we can, and we should. Every crisis is an opportunity, as they say, and this could be a game-changing opportunity for the Finance Minister. Often, the right set of people under the right leadership at the right time trigger changes that can have seismic impacts. It needed a Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s to rope in Sam Pitroda from the United States to launch technology missions that could change India. Pitroda faced insurmountable challenges from vested interests and even quit in a huff. But it was his team at C-Dot that had sown the seeds of the telecom revolution that is sweeping across India. In 1991, on the verge of defaulting on its debt obligations, a shaky Congress regime under P. V. Narashima Rao made Manmohan Singh the Finance Minister and gave him a mandate to dismantle the license permit raj and unleash the entrepreneurial spirits of India. The results are there for you and me to see and marvel at. The current regime – the second term of the UPA – has a similar mix of people who can deliver change. In a stroke of inspirational genius, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have made Kapil Sibal the Union HRD Minister. And with a pragmatic, seasoned and wise Pranab Mukherjee as the Union Finance Minister, one can definitely be hopeful.

For most of the past 20 years or so, the Arjun Singhs of India have been HRD ministers. And both you and I know what they did with and to the education system in India – running patronage networks that were doling out deemed university status to fly-by-night operators as if there was no tomorrow. As against that, just recently, Mr Sibal outlined his vision as the HRD Minister in an exclusive write up for The Sunday Indian dated February 7, 2010 (you can read his exclusive write up at www.thesundayindian.com). Quite clearly, Kapil Sibal has the mandate from Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to play game-changer. And in Pranab Mukherjee, he has an ally who can come out with the right mix of policy instruments and initiatives in his Union Budget. There is another fact I must not forget to point out. The UPA has appointed the same Sam Pitroda (the man behind the telecom revolution in India) as the Chairman of a newly formed Knowledge Commission. Predictably, he and the Knowledge Commission have been persistently hamstrung, criticized and sabotaged by vested interests. It is time now for Kapil Sibal and Pranab Mukherjee to examine and implement the proposals that have been suggested by the body in tandem.

And now for a Budget for Three Idiots. Who are the ‘Three Idiots’ who will play the key roles in this transformational exercise? The stakeholders, of course. The first set of ‘idiots’ would be the students (and their parents) who can actually help India reap the demographic dividend in the next two decades. The second set of ‘idiots’ would be the teachers and administrators, whose job is to ensure that Indian children and youth get the kind of education and skills that will make them human resource assets in the 21st century. The third set of ‘idiots’ would be the regulators whose job is to ensure that schools, colleges and universities – both in the public and the private sector – deliver the kind of education and skills that India needs in the future. As Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee can partner with his colleague Kapil Sibal and implement a set of bold policy initiatives that will simultaneously target all the ‘three idiots’. Piecemeal efforts targeted at one set of ‘idiots’ have been tried in the past. But clearly, they have failed. That is why the school dropout ratio remains so alarmingly high despite schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Midday Meals. The basic problem is, the latter two sets of ‘idiots’ simply haven’t been doing their jobs, leading to untold misery for the first set of ‘idiots,’ which is the students and their parents. Quite simply, in most cases in India, the teachers don’t teach and the regulators don’t regulate. As per reports, there is an estimated shortage of around 25 lakh teachers! Worse, the State has been perpetually reluctant and has been suicidal in withdrawing from its most fundamental duty – of imparting primary education.

So the Budget for Three Idiots should start with the basics and keep it simple. Though accurate data will be available after the actual Budget is presented on February 26, 2010, the government will spend approximately Rs.25,000 crore on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and the Midday Meal scheme. In consultation with Kapil Sibal, the Finance Minister must quadruple the allocation to Rs.100,000 crores. You think that is too much? Think again. The National University of Educational Panning & Administration conducted a survey of 1.1 million primary and upper primary schools across 604 districts of India in 2007. The survey found that close to 100,000 such schools did not have a single functional classroom. About 14% of such schools in urban areas and more than 9% of schools in rural areas did not have any classroom. Another 100,000 schools were in desperate need of urgent repairs and were literally crumbling apart. How do you expect children to come to schools and get even a semblance of education without classrooms – forget about libraries, laboratories and toilets? And where would the midday meals be cooked and where would the children eat those meals? As such, our budgetary allocation on education, as a percentage of GDP, is a meagre 3%, whereas for a nation like Cuba, it is around 18%; clearly indicating the priority they attach to education as a whole.

The Finance Minister can tweak the crucial NREGA and make it mandatory for the funds to be utilized for productive assets like durable buildings and classrooms for the more than 1 million primary schools in India. Not only will at least one member of a poor family get 100 days of employment; but children of such families can then hope to go to functional schools with physical infrastructure. This is not a complicated policy initiative; but it will be game-changing. Functional schools with physical infrastructure will ensure that future generations of children will have access to schools, while their parents have earned a livelihood constructing those same schools. In effect, the actual allocation for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and Midday Meal schemes will not be Rs.100,000 crores, as a large part of NREGA funds will be utilized for this. More importantly, since parents will understand that the very future of their children lies in those modest buildings, they will gladly take all help they can from activists to ensure that corrupt contractors do not cheat their children. It will be a classically win-win policy, even with the notorious corruption that is associated with the implementation of such schemes. The same model can be subsequently implemented for secondary schools too, where the problem is even more acute (as per World Bank, gross enrollment ratio in secondary education is lower than world average, even less then East Asia and Latin America) with the same transformational results - a classic mix of NREGA with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.

Now that the first set of ‘idiots’ have a school to go to, the challenge is to make teachers and principals actually work in those schools. One huge and persistent problem has been the tendency of teachers and principals to simply not show up at schools. The best and most innovative way to tackle this is to use the same NREGA and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan funds to implement a carrot and stick policy. The Finance Minister should announce a cash incentive of Rs.1 lakh for teachers who deliver the best ‘pass’ and ‘student retention’ ratios in their classrooms. Similarly, an incentive of Rs.2 lakh should be announced for principals whose schools deliver the best ‘pass’ and ‘student retention’ results. There are about 4 million such school teachers and principals in India. Even if only one in 10 gets that kind of incentive, the total funds spent in a year would not be more than Rs.5,000 crore. And the fact that only one in 10 will get that incentive will make teachers and principals compete to deliver better quality education. And how do you check fudging? Quite simple actually – the incentives would be given only after 5 years of results have been demonstrated, both for primary and secondary schools. So, a teacher would get the incentive only after he or she has successfully steered students from class I through class V. It would be very simple for the UID project being piloted by Nandan Nilekani to keep and monitor the data.

These proposals, implemented through a Budget for Three Idiots, will actually lead towards universal primary education. But then, what will poor students do when they pass out of school and seek education that will help them build a career? Are there enough opportunities and capacities for higher education? Not really. Currently, around 10 million (according to the last report by Ministry of HRD, 2005-06) students apply to colleges every year. And there are only 20,769 colleges in all, and just 490 universities. And mind you, here we are referring to just general education. The situation gets worse when it comes to professional education. The second question is that can these poor students afford higher and professional education, even if the capacities are created? Quite simply, they cannot. The Budget for Three Idiots must increase the allocation for post-matric scholarships by more than 10 times to about Rs.20,000 crore. This will ensure that no poor student fails to get a decent professional education for want of money. Along with scholarships there should also be a provision for unsecured education loans through banks on relatively low interest rates. Probably India is the only nation in its league, which still offers education loans against collateral security!

And what about the third set of ‘idiots’. I am even more optimistic here because Kapil Sibal has already initiated steps to dismantle corrupt and dysfunctional regulatory bodies like AICTE and UGC with something better, more efficient and transparent. The Finance Minister just has to tweak a little and simply transfer the funds allocated for such bodies to a super regulator that will soon be in place.

Agreed, even though the proposals in this Budget for Three Idiots are simple, they will not be easy to implement because of vested interests. But I think if anyone can do this, it is the current team! And please don’t even think of whining about where the money will come from. I have been saying ad nauseam for almost a decade that abolishing direct and hidden subsidies for the middle class and the rich will easily generate the funds required by a Budget for Three Idiots.

Our education system has been churning out idiots for a few generations. Don’t you think it is time we changed that? All we need is the will to re-orient the existing programs like NREGA and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. Really, it could be as simple as that. And India could well be on its way to miracle!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 6:34 AM 12 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
February 11, 2010
B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!
We had started our magazine with the first edit headline written as “We will change your outlook”. Yes, the idea was to change your outlook in all respects including the one I am writing today. Well, the story started way back in 2002 when Outlook – the magazine – did a B-School ranking and ranked IIPM – our parent institute – very high! We had participated for the first time ever in a B-School survey and the reason was it claimed to be the only survey where everything was quantitative; so there was no question of value judgment! And the result really excited us. The next year also we participated and their magazine ranked us high; in fact one rank higher! Just that there was one problem. The surveyor who had come to rank us, a gentleman by the name of Prem Chand Palety, the owner of a one-man market research firm called C fore (on behalf of another gentleman named Maheshwar Peri – the publisher of Outlook) had told me that he had already surveyed all other B-Schools and we were the last B-School he was coming to. And going by our figures on one parameter – that of industry interface – he was sure that our rank will be No 1 in that category.

He had scrutinised our papers thoroughly and cross questioned us like an Income Tax officer before saying what he said about ranking. So, when the ranking came out and we saw we got ranked 4th, I was a little amused. But since the ranking was really high, I didn’t bother much. However, while closing the magazine, I saw one line written below the article. It said that the details of the rankings are available at a website called www.indiabschools.com . So I went there just out of curiosity. Our overall rank was 17th and the industry interface rank was 4th. And in most other quantitative parameters, we were in top ten to fifteen. Then how was our rank 17th? Well, after all claims of quantitative parameters of ranking came four ranking parameters, which we were never told of. These were parameters like industry perception, faculty perception, student perception etc., where our ranks were 46th to 49th! Out of 50 BSchools!! Below the names no one had heard till then!! I then realised the game. To keep our rank low, this was the game he had played – that of perception parameters where he could freely manipulate. So I called him up and said what he has done is most unethical and we will never participate in his fraud rankings ever again and banged the phone down! The next day I read it in a leading national daily that IIPM has been taken out of the Outlook B-School rankings due to heavy complaints of data fudging. There were no complaints in the first year! So they came during the second year too; and they ranked us one step higher! And suddenly complaints came when I caught their fraud. Well, I took this matter up as aggressively as possible with the paper. But strangely, they refused to listen to us. Every other media house was satisfied with our logic and didn’t bother to pick up the false story. But they didn’t budge. Later, I came to know that this man Palety’s close relative is very close to the people at the top in that newspaper and is a big media personality who got him the Outlook B-School ranking account too. So it was obvious. And the matter ended there.

Peace prevailed for a few years. Till we decided to enter the media business ourselves. We started with Business & Economy. Almost immediately, one competing business magazine, which was behind the market leader Business Today (and knew they would be hit most with the success of Business & Economy) initiated one of their consulting editors to do a word by word blatantly false and patently negative story about us in her private yellow journal. And then they spread that story in every other media. Unfortunately, not many picked it up again and it remained a petty blog thing. Seeing the failed effort, the business magazine concerned picked the story itself only and did a hatchet job – unable to hide their agenda anymore, i.e. to defame us and harm our business so that our magazine cannot take off . Of course, our magazine took off . In fact, it sky rocketed; and ate into the business of the competing brand immensely. That’s when we started planning to do what we wanted to do always. Launch our own weekly news magazine. The word spread and Outlook magazine, rather Maheshwar Peri again got activated and hyper active. They knew India Today was the leader and the magazine which will be hit most by the launch of a new weekly newsmagazine would be Outlook.

So, through Outlook, Peri again started a malicious campaign against us. We decided to respond back with legal action. That’s when they probably came up with a brilliant idea. They decided to allow their publisher, the same Peri fellow to start an education magazine of his – with obvious support from them and other vested interest groups. Thus, Peri today is perhaps the only publisher of a media house whose owners are gracious enough to have let him start a profit making education magazine too on the side – at least that’s how we are made to believe!! And now while Outlook stays clean, this poor in quality and shady new yellow journal called Career 360 keeps doing illogical and brazenly false stories about IIPM! The latest being a story based upon the response to a false question sent to the education authorities in Europe where our partner Institute is based in – a process they followed in past too. Of course, we at IIPM like answering all these disgusting yellow journalists in court. And the courts have admitted our defamation cases against them. And it is only a matter of time before justice is done.

The real issue is somewhere else. And it is the lucrative business of ranking B-Schools – from where the entire muck started… and the mafia that exists and flourishes there.

Well this is how Prem Chand Palety used to operate then. Before leaving our office in the first year he ranked us i.e. in 2002, he said he wanted a small favour. He had a small website called indiabschools.com where all institutes he ranks, including the IIMs, advertise. So he wanted an ad from us for his website. It was not very clean specially because he wanted the ad money of one lakh rupees in cash. We said no. But said we will support his website if he would take a cheque. He readily and happily agreed. And we paid up. I didn’t feel too good about it. But he promised us this was a personal favour and his site was visited by lots of B-School students. His logic was we would benefit and the act of giving him money for an ad was not a bribe (it was just a personal favour!) and it had nothing to do with the rankings as they were totally based on quantitative parameters. Anyway, the next year before leaving, Palety made the same request again. Only this time the amount was 2.5 lakh. We paid that too. By cheque of course. However, there was a feeling of dirt inside me. So, when I saw the fraud he was committing, even when it came to the rankings by introducing qualitative parameters and deliberately giving us last rankings there, I had no qualms about giving him what he deserved over the phone. And I am very proud of it. The way he was operating, it was obvious he was making all this money hands in glove with Peri. And, it was an open secret that he was taking money from all B-Schools he was ranking. And we told it to Outlook too that it was unethical to let a man who had business interests with B-Schools through his website rank B- Schools. No one bothered to listen! And he continued ranking for some years for Outlook till he joined Mint and started using Mint to do his filth – including writing brazenly false articles on IIPM – directly and indirectly. Incidentally, the investigative team of TSI have captured Palety on camera happily saying that for Rs 50,000, we could take his letterhead and fill it up with whatever we wanted. For details of this really interesting footage, please do go to www.thesundayindian.com .

Of course, with Palety out, but the B-School relations intact, Peri had to start his education magazine! And no wonder in the last issue of his magazine Career 360, he has ranked the best B-Schools of India! What still riles me is the sanctimonious and holier than thou attitude adopted by Maheshwar Peri and his brazen double standards when Outlook was slamming IIPM in 2008. At that time, Outlook publicly wrote that it was de facto banning another B-School for misleading data and vowing never to take any ads from that institute. That institute happens to be one of the heaviest advertisers supporting Peri and his immoral ventures even now! Talk about double standards! What a mockery of journalism and rankings! And it continues! At TSI, we promise that never has such a thing happened. And never will it. That’s why Planman Media, and The Sunday Indian in particular, have become symbols of fearless journalism in India. And has for many, changed their Outlook!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:37 AM 8 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
February 4, 2010
HATS OFF TO SHAH RUKH KHAN FOR STANDING HIS GROUND! IT’S NOW TIME TO END THIS HOOLIGANISM ONCE AND FOR ALL AND MAKE MUMBAI A UNION TERRITORY!
SRK is great! Not just because he is such a star, but because he genuinely is the most amazing person and has such a logical and sound brain. And now the entire nation idolizes this man all the more because he has become a symbol of sheer courage as well! And I think all it required was someone like him to stand up coolly and say, “This is not right, I’ve done nothing wrong and I won’t apologise.” When he was saying this, one could almost see the schoolboy rebel in him – not ready to cow down to an illogical man trying to act as the school headmaster. I am writing this editorial immediately after coming back from a show on NDTV 24x7, which was on the topic, “Is Sena the real power in Mumbai?” I was one of the speakers. It was sad to see Uddhav Thackeray, who was another speaker in that show, sticking to a stance that cannot be defended by any sense of logic. When questioned on the show by the NDTV anchor on his tendentious comments against SRK, Uddhav’s reply was that one should ask the average man on the streets how many times had he (Uddhav) troubled him on similar issues. True, he hasn’t. Then why now? Uddhav’s answer was an illogical “everyone should do their own work rather than commenting on everything” – implying that SRK should keep acting instead of speaking on issues! What a joke! We live in a democracy – and look at what we are saying! That we don’t have the right to speak on subjects of national interest? Unbelievable! And then, there was Gul Panag too on the show, who, in a most apologetic manner, kept stammering that after all, Shiv Sena had the people’s mandate, so they should be respected; and that issuing these kinds of threats wasn’t fair on the Sena’s part. It’s unbelievable we don’t realise that in an illiterate democracy, many people get the so-called “people’s mandate” often; but that doesn’t automatically make them or their actions right!

And then, we had a few others on the show giving exactly similar diplomatic answers. It’s so sad that despite seeing that someone had taken a brave stance and decided to stand up to illogical hooliganism, no one was ready to speak forthrightly in his favour! What’s more amazing is that the entire Bollywood is standing like a mute spectator virtually. It’s sad... Very sad... They make us really feel as if the real power is with the Sena. But the truth is that it isn’t! The real power rests with the State and the intellectuals. Unfortunately, with the intellectuals abandoning their duty and most people more interested in protecting their personal interests, it all becomes an illusion.

Barring once, the Sena has never ever won the assembly elections in Mumbai; and never got more than a 25% mandate in the state! Despite that, we not only see the film fraternity – filled with security-less individuals – not coming forth, but also notice a similar shameful behaviour from the State. It’s time for the State to show its power. And with Rahul Gandhi showing a clear tilt against the Sena, let’s hope this will happen soon. However, what I want to say goes much beyond this.

I want to challenge the very concept of Bombay belonging to Marathi manoos – not just from the perspective of India being a democracy and the city belonging to everyone, but even from the perspective of history. Bombay, till 1960, combined Gujarat and Maharashtra till the two states were separated. What then came to be known as Bombay – that is, today’s Mumbai – was built literally by the Gujaratis and the Parsis, with the Marathi manoos playing a much lesser role. It symbolises the ‘city of the great dream’ – if we were to borrow this phrase from the Great American Dream – where people from everywhere came and chased their dreams. They made Bombay what it is today. Even today, fi ft y percent of people are non-Marathis who run this city – a city that is the backbone of the Indian industry. So even historically, this concept of Bombay being for the Marathi manoos, is incorrect. Of course, one doesn’t really need to care too much about history when the key question is about the democratic right of an Indian to live anywhere he wants and say anything he wants. It’s a shame that such an incident is actually happening... and there is still no guarantee that this will be stopped soon!

The solution is to make Mumbai a union territory. Give it independent statehood if required, because the heart of the Indian industry cannot be held to ransom by a few parochial politicians whose last hope depends upon dividing a great city on the basis of language and regionalism for no real cause. Of course, they are free to do so in a democracy, but the majority must come together and destroy such forces without a real cause.

If the cause of Marathi manoos was really so important, then the Shiv Sena should have been holding the state government to ransom for keeping the Marathi manoos hungry and jobless for years and forcing them to commit suicides. What a shame that when it comes to the real Marathi manoos, the Sena’s heart doesn’t seem to beat as aggressively. So Bombay needs to become free of Maharashtra and acquire a character of its own. The character of the great melting pot of languages, religions, values and beliefs. The character where every Indian is safe and goes on to fulfi ll his big dream! Something that SRK symbolises so well!

And till then, I would say the same things as my colleague Sutanu has written in his editorial in Business & Economy’s latest issue. It’s time for the Nana Patekars, Ritesh Deshmukhs, Madhur Bhandarkars and Ashutosh Govarikars (all Marathi manoos) to come up and show the same courage in real that their reel avatars are about. It’s time for the Marathi manoos to come up and repay the love that they have got from every non Marathi. And speak up! Get inspired from Sachin. Lataji where are you? You wouldn’t have been what you are without the RD Burmans and Yash Chopras. Speak up… Sing a song. Not just for SRK but for the cause of India and its democracy!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:36 AM 124 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
January 28, 2010
THE SANCTITY OF PADMA AWARDS ARE AT QUESTION, AND WITH THAT THE DESTINY OF OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE GENIUSES!!
Resul Pookutty was an obscure name and would have remained like that, had he not won the Oscar. In his own country, he would have always remained a dispensable and not so important sound technician, had the Oscar jury not decided to give him the coveted award. When the Oscar jury had shown to the world what Resul Pookutty was and what talent he had, his country’s government suddenly realized that it was time to give him something. And thus, he was given the Padma Shri award – thanks to the Oscar of course! One is forced to think then how many such Resul Pookuttys might be there in this country, people who are never recognized.

Since Independence, the Padma awards have been one of the most coveted set of awards of this country, and for not just the award in itself, but for the prestige and honour that it carries. It is meant for the best and is meant to encourage others to strive for excellence. Yet, in spite of all these, and in spite of the supreme importance attached to it, one is left to wonder how the decisions about conferring these awards are taken. One is also forced to wonder who all decide the awards and how much can personal interest or influence decide the matters vis a vis institutional procedures. The Oscars – awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – are considered to be one of the best in the world for not just the fact that the awards are given only to the best of the best and that too in the US, but also the fact that the whole process of selecting the films and scrutinizing nominations by a large jury of eminent individuals, reflects the level of scrupulous transparency. Thus, it becomes very difficult for anyone to influence the ultimate result. Needless to say, the Oscars have their own process in place wherein the government of US has no role to play. And the same is true for all globally recognized awards. The question is, for the Padma awards, do we have a jury of eminent people who decide the winners’ names based on certain transparent and structured processes? On the contrary, it has been revealed most shockingly through an RTI (Right to Information Act) application that it is the Cabinet Secretary, Home Secretary, Principal Secretary of Prime Minister and the President’s Secretary, along with four non-official members, who decide on the names (of the winners) and then send the same to the Prime Minister and the President for final approval. The ‘exclusive’ credentials these secretaries ostensibly have to decide about who all deserve to be given the highest national award of the country, remain questionable in themselves! And what guarantees that there is no scope for lobbying and favouritism in awarding the awards? To top it all, there exist no set parameters for these awards, which makes it even simpler for the above team to act on their whims and fancies. Isn’t the whole Padma award process getting transformed into the way the bureaucracy runs this nation? Today, no one bothers about who becomes the minister and who votes for whom in the Parliament – as it has become rather an open and perhaps an acceptable secret that everything can be bought with the right infl uences in place. So, are we witnessing a scenario wherein the Padma awards too are going in that direction? How does one justify then that in response to an RTI application fi led in 2009 by Subhash Agarwal, it has been revealed that Olympic medalists Vijender Singh and Sushil Kumar’s names were not included in the final 2009 awardees list by the Padma Awards Committee, even when their names had been forwarded to the Committee by the Sports Ministry within the due date.

When someone like Aamir Khan or A. R Rehman receives a Padma award, one can only feel happy for and proud of them because of the incredible contribution they have made in performing arts. But to believe that some US-based Sant Chatwal would be getting this award even when there are allegations of his being involved in some financial scam and being charge-sheeted for the same by CBI on four accounts (he reportedly has a $9 million default with SBI and some other public sector banks), raises the questions in terms of the veracity of these awards. And now, one is again forced to wonder how could someone like him receive the nation’s most coveted award? Let’s get it straight – Sant Chatwal is no Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, and neither has he conjured up any major contribution to society, barring some failed efforts to promote his son Vikram Chatwal in Bollywood. So, is it for all of these that he is being awarded and put on the same league as the brilliant Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, an Indian American and a Padma awardee who won the most recent Nobel Prize for Chemistry?

One has to accept that there are very few institutions on which the common man of India today has trust and faith. The Padma awards are precisely one of them. If this too gets mired in red tape, nepotism and bureaucracy, then that would probably be the worst conspiracy against our existing and future geniuses!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:50 AM 9 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
January 21, 2010
TRANSFORM THE CURRENT STRUCTURE OF SPORTS GOVERNING BODIES INTO RESULT-ORIENTED CORPORATE ENTITIES!
The year when India is going to host both the Commonwealth Games as well as the World Cup Hockey championships couldn’t have started in a more unfortunate way. The first is of course the fracas revolving around the strike of the Indian hockey players and their refusal to play till the time their arrears were paid. While the governing body known as Hockey India was quick to literally term the players unpatriotic and accuse them of putting money before the essence of playing for India, what was appalling was not only the fact that the arrears (running into lakhs) of the said hockey players had not been paid for a long duration, but also that Hockey India actually offered a pittance of Rs 25,000 for each player in lieu of the arrears. And this too was offered to them only with the condition that either the striking players accepted it or left the conditioning camp within 48 hours. Needless to say, the authorities were perhaps thinking that it would be easy for them to lure junior players to replace the existing team. But then as it turned out, the juniors refused to budge and sided with their seniors. The striking hockey players have been consistently telling that this agitation is not for any self-serving mission, but to fix the rot in the system. And finally, when it caught the fancy of the common man and the media, and there were cries to set things right, money did start pouring in and things were settled down for the time being after the intervention of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Chairman, Suresh Kalmadi. But this clearly is more like a band-aid strip. The rot still remains!

The second incident is with respect to the way the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) behaved with Abhinav Bindra. NRAI suddenly remembered that discipline is a virtue and disqualified Abhinav Bindra from participating in next month’s Commonwealth Shooting Championship. Well, Abhinav needs no introduction. But for those who manage NRAI, perhaps being India’s lone gold medalist in the Beijing Olympics was not a sufficient condition to give Abhinav a readymade berth. This time too things got sorted out later after the intervention of the IOA. As in the case above, the rot still remains.

It goes without saying that Indian hockey players are paid chicken feed when compared to their cricketing counterparts. And the most shameless thing is that even when this team wins the Asia Cup (2007), Azlan Shah Cup (2009) or bags the bronze medal at a Champions Challenge tournament in 2009, they are still not paid their promised piecemeal few lakhs in time. Well, patriotism is not something that can happen on empty stomachs. The crux of all the problems lies in the way each of the sports associations have become a personal fiefdom of politicians and also a place to settle their remaining political scores. For example, for a long time, Indian hockey was the personal fiefdom of former Punjab police DGP KPS Gill. It was in 2008 that the Indian Hockey Federation was dismantled following a series of bribery scandals and it was replaced by Hockey India, which has proved to be equally inept. The same is the case of IOA, which has almost become a personal fiefdom of Suresh Kalmadi, even when India’s performance in international sports has only been sliding and has almost reached the nadir. Had it been a private entity, no such non-performing CEO would have been kept at the helm for such a long time without any substantial result to show. Just like a soldier cannot fight without the right kind of support system in terms of logistics, food, ammunitions, weapons, clothing and information about enemy positions, no team of any sporting order can perform effectively unless the governing bodies are accountable for what they deliver to the players, as well as to that game. Cricket is an interesting case in point. BCCI is one of the richest sports bodies of the world, yet has created a clear demarcation between election bodies and the efficient administration of the game. It has been extremely successful in marketing the game – and thereby bringing in billions of revenues - and also in nurturing and nourishing new talents. And the results have been there to see. Not only has BCCI nurtured and worked towards improving the Indian cricket team’s performance in this century, but BCCI also has been successful in launching the IPL and making it a resounding success and an interesting example of what a sporting body can do to a game. IPL has opened up a vista of opportunity for hundreds of players, who would probably not even make it to the final eleven of their national teams, yet have enough talent to enthrall the audience. The same is the case with what FIFA has done to football.

The only thing that can save India’s sports now is when we learn from China about how a nation can win hundreds of medals - mostly gold - while we remain content with just one gold and a few bronze medals. The need of the hour is perhaps to completely shun all the politicians and non-professionals from all the governing bodies of each sport and convert these bodies into corporate entities, which are accountable to the government. BCCI actually can play a crucial role in nurturing the sporting bodies. Let professionals run the organizations. Let retired players be the selectors and let everyone and not just the players be accountable. What was shocking to see was that the government didn’t react much to either of the incidents mentioned above. There was no furor among the political parties. Couldn’t the government have stepped forward with a few crore rupees to save India’s hockey? Couldn’t someone have taken action against those who insulted Abhinav Bindra? Unfortunately, this apathy from the top is the crux of all the malaise.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:24 AM 9 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
January 14, 2010
HATS OFF TO BIHAR, BUT IT HAS A LONG ROAD AHEAD!
In the first week of January 2010, most newspapers carried a stunning report. And the report was based on data from the Central Statistical Organisation, which revealed that Bihar has clocked the second highest growth rate in the country, only second to Gujarat, between the period 2004/05 and 2008/09. Although in the same period, most of the backward states have shown a reasonably decent growth rate, but none could match up to Bihar. And what is even more remarkable is the manner in which the state has turned around. It was only in 2003/04 that it had shown a (de)growth of a negative 5.15%. Five years hence, the state has an aggregated growth of 11.03%, beating all conventions.

Initially, analysts were skeptical about the data, but once it was reported that the data had been released by CSO – a central government agency – all doubts were put to rest. What is more interesting is the fact that most of the growth has taken under Nitish Kumar’s regime – which also proves that howsoever poor a state might be, finally it all depends on an able leader whether a transformation can occur. And all credit should go to Nitish Kumar for his intent and a proper follow-through with governance. It is not just Bihar – the same can be said with respect to Uttarakhand, Orissa, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, as these states have clocked growth rates of 9.31%, 8.74%, 8.45% and 7.35% respectively for the same period, beating the conventional growth rates that had been seen over the years. What is even more intriguing and creditworthy is that of these states, four states – namely Bihar, Uttarakhand, Orissa and Jharkhand – have beaten the national growth rate of 8.45% during the same period!

But then, without taking away any credit from these states, there are a few issues that should also be taken into perspective for a more balanced evaluation. Though on the face of it, Bihar has stood second nationally, and next to Gujarat, but the fact is that the state has a long way to go to even get close to Gujarat in real terms. As we all know, growth rates are always relative. And in absolute terms, the growth of these states is nowhere close to that of Gujarat or a Maharashtra. States like Bihar, Jharkhand were growing on a very low base of historically languishing state GDP, whereas states like Gujarat and Maharashtra are already on a much larger base. Therefore, if states like Bihar, Orissa et al have to catch up and earn any kind of parity with other progressive states, then they have to grow even faster than the latter. Other than this, a high growth rate also does not guarantee that the growth is uniform – encompassing all sections across the state. A case in point has been Madhu Koda’s government. We all know the level of corruption that states like Jharkhand have been subjected to in the past few years. Indications now also are very clear that the so called growth rates have actually not touched upon the masses in these states – and this is not good news at all. As this means that the income disparity has grown not only at the national level, but to a large extent at the states’ level too. Along with all this, we also know that these newly praised states are also the states which are subjected to the maximum number of Naxal atrocities, which is also an indicator that though apparently the states have scored well on growth, the masses still remain disconnected. I’ve written about this a number of times earlier and would like to reiterate here that Naxalism has a deep connect with poverty. Over the years, Naxalites have prospered only in those states where poverty has been deep-rooted; and that’s why we don’t hear about the Naxal menace in Gujarat, even though we hear about the same in Maharashtra (because there are poor pockets in Maharashtra where Naxals thrive).

But then, as I said earlier, the credit can’t be taken away from these states. The better news is that if they have reached this far, the day is not far when they would even tread the extra mile to ensure growth to masses as well. Their biggest achievement is that they have been able to come out of the ‘BIMARU’ tag, with which they had been living for decades. But to finally be counted amongst the truly leading states of India, these states would have to ensure that growth looks meaningful and inclusive. For now, it’s at least visible!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:50 AM 14 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
January 7, 2010
3 IDIOTS IS CERTAINLY NOT FIVE POINT SOMEONE. IT IS THE BEST FILM EVER MADE WORLDWIDE ON ANY COUNTRY’S EDUCATION SYSTEM
I hadn’t read the book, but even before going for the film 3 Idiots, I had heard the movie was based on Five Point Someone. So after seeing the movie, I immediately congratulated Chetan Bhagat on the outstanding philosophy of his book! However, after the controversy, I thought of reading Five Point Someone... and immediately realised the crux of the trouble! The book and the film have about ten to fifteen percent similarity. The book is more of a diary on IIT days without taking a strong stance on anything and without inspiring anyone to think of changing the education system. It has got its locker room humour of friends and is a decent read. But after reading the book, you don’t start thinking of the education system and about how to change it. So, to say that the film 3 Idiots has a lot in common with the book, is totally incorrect...

The Aamir character in the book is a plain rich guy who doesn’t like the education system but does nothing to change it either, completely unlike what Aamir does in the movie. And of course, the character in the book is surely not a gardener’s son, as portrayed in the movie. Neither is he even close to Phunsuk Wangru (the research genius in the movie)... nor does he start a science school... or vanish into oblivion after graduating. The book’s character is not even a topper but one who trudges in last academically. In fact, the book doesn’t even have the quintessential Chatur character, nor does it have even a millimetre of the Javed Jaffrey character. The Principal is not the crazyscientist variety either. And further, the Kareena character in the book actually has an affair with Madhavan; and by the end of the book, they both don’t even get married – they split! Well, that’s how similar the book is to the film. It would be criminal to take away any credit from the extremely talented writers of 3 Idiots and give the story credit to anyone else. Yes, the story surely must’ve been conceptualised around Chetan Bhagat’s book’s characters, but it’s purely a new story.

All I would say is, if you wish to know what is called making a movie out of a book, watch the Clint Eastwood-directed The Bridges of Madison County – you can virtually feel Robert Waller James’ best-selling novel unfold right in front of you, page by page, character by character. Nothing of that sort happens in 3 Idiots. Anyway, that’s not the crux of this article.

On a lighter note, even my mother almost cried after seeing the film. She felt the writers/director must’ve heard me speaking on education during one of my seminars or must have read my articles on the IITs/IIMs and lifted the film idea from there! :-) It took me some time to explain to her that Rajkumar Hirani had made a similar film earlier called Munnabhai... and had there too tried to visualise similar things on the education system. Two concerned people can surely think similarly, can’t they? :-)

Now, coming to the movie, having seen almost every film made anywhere on the education system, I can say that I have not seen a film that has been better made globally! Without getting moralistic, Rajkumar Hirani has mastered the art of making a statement in the most commercial manner, yet retaining a very strong message for all those who care about a message. To me, this film is not about the 3 idiots, it’s a film with a strong message to the many idiots running the education system of this country and to the millions of idiots who accept this system without questioning – in turn ruining the childhood of millions of children and making them handicapped in their abilities for the rest of their lives; not to mention the innumerable lives lost in the form of unfortunate suicides in the process.

It’s time our educators woke up to the fact that the system stinks. Kids spend thirteen years in most schools having no clue about what they are studying and how it’s going to supposedly change their lives. Teachers enter classrooms and teach in the most uninspiring manner without an iota of a passion to change lives or to make education entertaining and interesting. They transform the most interesting subjects into disastrously painful experiences. Parents are no less, ruining the childhood of their kids by trying to live their personal complexes through their children – by labeling it their ‘dream’. And to fulfil these so-called dreams, parents pressurize their children into a crazy race for more marks, a race which has never benefited anyone.

This is what 3 Idiots is about! It’s not a film; it’s education in itself. I should suggest that everyone should go and watch the movie for a second time – and this time to learn, than to get entertained. Because unfortunately, most people I spoke to only got entertained and didn’t learn much. The film by itself, like Raju Hirani’s previous two Munnabhai films, is a parallel system of education for this country’s youth, educators and parents. And that’s why Rajkumar Hirani is the first director ever to feature on The Sunday Indian’s cover!

I don’t want to write more on the education system of this country – I have written too much over the years in our magazines and otherwise too – nor do I want to write what 3 Idiots is all about, for everyone would already have seen it by now. All I want to say is that in the excitement of seeing big boys in their undergarments exclaiming ‘Tohfa Kabul Karo’, one shouldn’t forget the message that the film gives – that engineering colleges are the breeding grounds of some of the most inhumane and perverted ragging in our country, and this needs to be stopped. In the hilarity of the promise that Madhavan makes to marry Sharman’s sister while Sharman is recovering, one must not forget that for every suicide of a young child happening around us – and in the last week we saw quite a few –we all are responsible, with the teachers and the parents. In the fun of seeing Aamir and Kareena kiss, we must not forget that success is not about how much money we make, but about excelling in doing something that we are passionate about. Every line, every scene of 3 Idiots is packed with a message and a lifetime’s education. I hope we don’t miss that. Because then the whole point of making such films will be a waste, despite the movie becoming such a totally deserving monstrous blockbuster!

THIS FILM IS NOT ABOUT THE 3 IDIOTS, IT’S A FILM ABOUT THE MANY IDIOTS RUNNING OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 8:35 AM 28 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
December 24, 2009
IT IS SO UNFORTUNATE THAT WE HAVE CONVERTED THE WORLD’S FOOD BOWL INTO A BEGGING BOWL!
While the government would make us believe that all is well with the economy, and that the Indian economy is resilient enough to withstand the shocks of global recession, one visit to any vegetable market in Delhi or for that matter anywhere in the country actually gives a very different kind of a picture. Food prices, in the last one year or so, have skyrocketed to such an extent that many items have become beyond the reach of the common man. For the common man in India, the staple diet consists of things as basic as potato, pulses and rice. But given the way the prices have increased in the recent past, today they can no more be called the ingredients of the common man’s diet. The price of pulses is almost touching Rs 100 per kg, while that of potato is hovering around Rs 40 per kg. Even a year back, pulses were available in the market for less than half the price and almost a fifth in the case of potatoes. So does it mean that all of a sudden the farmers of the country have decided to quote higher prices and pocket the abnormal surpluses?

Well, if that had been the case, then I would surely have been one of the happiest persons, as then for a change, the tables would have turned towards the farmers, whose increase in income and thus the purchasing power, would have definitely helped the Indian economy to grow manifold. It would have also ensured that the farmers are able to come out of the debt trap and become self sufficient. But unfortunately, that is not the case. While the common man is finding it difficult to make both ends meet and is probably even contemplating skipping one meal a day to make sure that the house budget doesn’t go beyond control, the farming lot of the country continue to be equally distressed. A recent piece of news carried in The Times of India had stated that there is a 400% increase in the price of vegetables by the time it reaches the vegetable vendor from the dealer via the mandi. This is not just shocking but outrageous. The issue here is that if the farmers continue to get a pittance for all their effort, then would they ever be able to be financially viable and self sufficient? As such, there is not much organized debt available and farmers are always vulnerable to private money lenders, who charge the most obscene interest rates (the biggest reason for farmers suicides in India); and on top of it, there is no viable option for the farmers to market their produce.

There is no reason why the middlemen in Indian agriculture should get such high margins. More shocking is the fact that in the case of no other commodity, especially in the industrial sector, have the manufacturers been a deprived lot as is the case with the Indian farming community. The middlemen add no value whatsoever and yet corner heft y margins. Most of the elements involved in these activities have strong political lobbies because of which they are always able to prevent the entry of organized retailers in this business. We all know how e-choupal of ITC benefited the farming lot. Similarly, if organized wholesalers like Metro Cash & Carry or Reliance Field Fresh are allowed to enter into contracts with the farmers directly, then the farmers would surely get far higher prices than what they get right now. Also, along with all that, the central government should take necessary steps to amend the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) system. It is through this that state governments control agriculture in their respective states. And this is the system because of which farmers cannot sell their produce directly to the end user or the retailer. Reform in the APMC would go a long way in correcting the anomaly in the agricultural market. In an era where the price of everything is going down, there’s no reason why the price of farm produce should increase – and given that, why the farming community should continue to be the deprived lot.

In fact, the villain of peace with respect to Indian agriculture is none else than the government itself. Asymmetries are being deliberately engineered in this sector simply because that’s the only way political parties can go about extorting votes from farmers (as they form the majority of the voting population and their illiteracy being the biggest boon for politicians). The dynamics is pretty simple. First, you make the farming community perennially vulnerable by denying them organized debt while guaranteeing market distortions. At the peak of their vulnerability, to extort votes, you become a demi-god by waiving off loans to the tune of thousands of crores for the farmers. And why would you not! After all, waiving thousands of crores is a visible and populist act, and on top of it, it is the tax-payers’ money. So why bother at all! As such, tax payers are just 2% of the entire population and most of them are so disgruntled that they don’t even vote. So while this continues, the middle men make merry by cornering abnormal margins and money which in turn finds its way into election campaigns.

All in all, Indian agriculture is a classic case of sustained political abuse. Otherwise, it had the potential to not only feed the entire nation but the world at large. It is so unfortunate that we have converted the world’s food bowl into a begging bowl.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:36 AM 14 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
December 17, 2009
It is a dangerous precedence to create more states based just on mere political ambitions!
The untimely demise of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy could not have happened at a worse time. The sequence of events that happened post his death proved the same. If initially it was a major political crisis that erupted with respect to the nomination of a candidate as the next chief minister of the state, later on, it was the demand of K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) for a separate state of Telangana that turned one of the most prosperous and properly administered states into a virtual battleground. The state, which for a very long period has been in the news for its strides in Information Technology and the successful battle against Maoists, is now in the news for all the wrong reasons. True to its style, the government at the Centre easily gave in to the demands of K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was quick to realise the political vacuum that was created by the death of YSR and found the revival of Telangana movement for a separate state an ideal platform to re-launch his political career graph.

But what was most surprising was the manner in which the decision makers at the Centre and especially in the Congress High Command believed in what they saw in the media and steered according to the way it was ill-advised by some political opportunists who thought that a formal announcement by the Centre to create a separate state would douse the flames that had erupted in Hyderabad and were engulfing almost the entire state. Thus, with the formal announcement of the Centre about its intent to create a separate state like Telangana, for KCR, victory (subsequent to his tactically timed fasting) was imminent. But what he and the decision makers at the Centre did not gauge was the extent to which anti-Telangana sentiments prevail in the state. The resignation drama in the Andhra Pradesh assembly that followed, forced the government to be on the back foot again. But by then, the damage was already done. Even before the Central Government realised its folly in hurrying up the creation of a new state – although not surprising – newer and rather ridiculous demands for newer states started emanating from different regions of the country. There have been fresh movements for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh into Harit Pradesh and Poorvanchal, and also a shocking Bundelkhand with some regions of Madhya Pradesh too. There have been demands for Gorkhaland, Greater Cooch Behar, Kamtapur as also Vidharba. What is disgusting is that in many cases, these demands for new states have had one individual proponent whose political career depended solely upon the creation of the new states. Thus, while there is Bimal Gurung in Gorkhaland, who has literally isolated that place from rest of West Bengal, there is Ajit Singh of Rashtriya Lok Dal for Harit Pradesh, and then once-upon-a-time part-time actor Raja Bundela leading the Bundelkhand campaign.

The two issues that need attention here are: One, would these proposed new states be viable on their own or not? Two, should new states be created merely to fulfil the political ambitions of struggling politicians? Can states like Bundelkhand or Gorkhaland ever be viable on their own without external support? In the issue of the Telangana movement, Hyderabad is a wonderful case in point. One of the most critical grudges of the pro-Telangana agitators is that the whole region has been deprived of all development which has gone to the coastal regions. Yet, in the last one decade or so, Andhra Pradesh has become synonymous with the incredible development of Hyderabad and its prominence as the pioneering hub of information technology. Now, this development in the once notorious Hyderabad was not brought about by the people of Telangana but by the people of Andhra Pradesh as a whole. Today, Telangana cannot ask for Hyderabad just like that. Billions of dollars have been invested there by people who are not originally from Telangana. Similarly, the calls for a Gorkhaland to be made into a separate state curved out of West Bengal are absurd because, for example, the hill-station of Darjeeling is completely dependent on millions of tourists coming every year from the plain-land of Bengal, and is also dependent on the trade of tea, for which Kolkata is the hub.

The last three states that were curved out in India were Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. Barring Uttarakhand to some extent, there hasn’t been much development in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Both have literally failed to tackle the problem of Naxalism; and corruption is rampant. The common man there is not far better off than what they were before the creation of the states. Of course, people like Madhu Koda have made billions by making the best of the political instability in terms of number games in the legislative assembly.

All in all, even if India needs to create smaller states for better administration, the objective to create such states should be purely based on better governance and overall development rather than caste, creed, religion or regionalism as that would only divide India more. More than that, it is an extremely dangerous precedence to set for the future!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 6:24 AM 14 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
December 10, 2009
THE UN COPENHAGEN CONFERENCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES LIKE INDIA AND CHINA TO SET THEIR OWN STANDARDS
AND WORK TOWARDS THE CREATION OF A BETTER AND CLEANER WORLD!

An interesting piece of news had come out a few days back, where it was stated that the government is planning to replace polluting ‘chullahs’ in rural households with green stoves (stoves fuelled by biomass). As stated there, this flagship program would cover around 140 million households. In other words, it would cover over 560 million people. This, in itself, is a wonderful initiative and would go a long way in not just saving the precious forests of India but would also arrest many ailments which emanate from the poisonous smoke of chullahs. Another interesting news that has come up in the recent past is that India’s forest cover has grown by 728 square kilometers during 2005-07 and thus now stands at 21%. Similarly, one has also witnessed that there has been a sincere effort on the part of the government and also the judicial system to crack down on illegal mines in forest areas and force the fuel guzzling and polluting vehicles on the streets of Delhi to convert to CNG. Kolkata too has followed the queue. The average car on the Indian streets today conforms to Euro-3 or Euro-4 norms and the awareness with respect to the environmental damage that is caused by plastics has been on a constant rise. All these are good initiatives which would definitely help India and its commitment towards the global environment. And for all these, one doesn’t need to go to Copenhagen and deliberate with representatives of developed nations.

But then a summit like the Copenhagen one is imperative! It is imperative because all those six nations which contribute to 60% percent of global greenhouse emissions might not do what India is doing. Had they been doing the same, then today’s Copenhagen and yesterday’s Kyoto would not have been needed in the first place. In fact, not just India, but even China has set the tone for the ongoing summit by making self-commitments in terms of cutting down the greenhouse emissions by 2020. Even though the per capita emission and energy consumption in India and China are far less than what they are in the developed nations (As on date, although India globally might stand sixth in terms of greenhouse emissions, with respect to per-capita emissions it is a tenth of the US!), the fact remains that with increase in prosperity in both these nations, more and more people will consume an increasing amount of energy. And if two billion plus people start consuming as much energy as a few hundred million people in the West consume, then the world is surely doomed. So while this is true that people in China and India have all the right to have a far better style of living – which would invariably increase the level of emissions – there is also this blatant fact that the West and especially the US have been extremely disinclined to cut down on emissions. While they might create stringent conditions of environmental factors on imports from underdeveloped countries and thus limit the competitive edge of developing and underdeveloped countries in terms of cost factors (as investments in less polluting production systems would surely increase cost), the developed countries would continue to waste energy. The Environmental Protection Agency has this shocking revelation that US is forced to spend a whopping $1 billion every year only on disposing the food left overs of Americans. Likewise, the value of wasted food in countries like UK is around £10 billion annually.

Thus, when China, which emits almost 21% of global greenhouse gases, takes a voluntary commitment of cutting down its emission by 40-45% by 2020 based on 2005 emission levels, and India, which emits just 4% of global greenhouse gases, follows suit by committing to cut its emission by 20-25% by 2020 based on 2005 emission levels, it puts tremendous pressure on the US to make meaningful commitments. US, by far, has been one of the biggest abuser of the environment and has managed to escape the Kyoto Protocol as well. Bogged down by the impending pressures from China and India, the US has offered to cut down its emissions by 17% by 2020 based on 2005 emission levels. Clearly, the commitment is far too low with respect to what the nation is emitting as a whole. But more than that, there are two other problems. Firstly, back home, Barack Obama is facing too much resistance in terms of making this offer, with the Republicans putting pressure on him to resist the passing of any treaty in Copenhagen citing that the whole issue of global warming is an exaggeration and orchestrated by scientists. Secondly, if the US offer is accepted, then all those wealthier nations who ratified Kyoto by cutting down emissions with respect to their 1990 levels, would also ask for a shift of the base year from 1990 to 2005! And if that happens, it would not only give an undue advantage to the wealthier nations, it would mean an obituary to Kyoto. More than that, this will set an extremely dangerous precedent for other nations to follow the same path in the future.

It is not the first time that the world is observing double standards of the developed world, but then Copenhagen should be an opportunity for developing countries like India and China to set their own standards and work towards the creation of a better world!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:28 AM 5 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
December 3, 2009
THE WORLD NEEDS DUBAI!
Dubai sent shockwaves across the world when the news broke out that Dubai World, Dubai’s chief investment vehicle, wanted to defer its repayments on all or part of its $59 billion in debt. Dubai World alone is responsible for almost 75 percent of the entire debt of Dubai, which stands at $80 billion. Although post 25/11, when the news broke out for the first time, the ruler of Dubai did release an official statement comforting global investors (specifically on December 1, 2009 – the global financial markets stabilized a bit after that statement), but the world is still keenly looking forward to December 14, 2009, as that is the day when bonds worth $3.5 billion for Nakheel – the real estate arm under Dubai World and the company behind the prestigious palm shaped manmade islands – become due. A great deal of Dubai’s future and global investors’ fate would be determined on how the company deals with the bonds issue!

In fact, for getting the right perspective of what is happening to Dubai, one has to peep into Dubai’s recent history. Today’s crisis is not a result of any overnight occurrence, but has been something that has been brewing over the years. And the answer lies in the growth model which Dubai appropriated for itself almost a decade and a half back. The manner in which this particular emirate grew in the last one and a half decades, dwarfing all conventional growth models, is no secret! Long back, the rulers of Dubai – The Makhtoum family – realized that with depleting oil reserves, they had to find out an alternate development model which was different from the traditional petro-dollars model adopted by most economies in the Gulf region. So, for the past one-and-a-half decades, the focus was mainly towards transforming Dubai into a real estate heaven, and a financial and trading hub of the entire Gulf region. Initially, Dubai faced a lot of criticism with respect to its growth model (as it embraced Westernization) from the other nations in the Middle East region, including the other emirates of UAE; but gradually with time, it became the darling of investors. As Dubai stepped up on the construction-led growth and started showcasing to the world that something almost impossible could be achieved in a desert land, investors and investments started pouring in. In return, Dubai merrily kept riding upon cheap money that fl owed in from various parts of the world – particularly Europe and Middle East. Gradually, Dubai started suffering from the ‘est’ syndrome, which defied basic economics. Whether their markets needed it or not, everything they constructed had to be the tall‘est’, long‘est’, high‘est’, bigg‘est’ et al. So starting from the manmade biggest ice skating rink, to the tallest building in the world, to the biggest manmade islands, to the longest shopping malls – Dubai, in the name of grandiose and opulence, created everything that man had ever dreamt of. Such was the scale of the construction drive that it is estimated that almost 60 percent of global cranes were working in Dubai till sometime back! It was not that all investors were sold on the Dubai idea.

It was only those who got sold on the dream that Dubai created, and those who wanted to make a quick return on their investments, who were the ones who got drawn to this fairytale island. But then, there were certain sections of analysts who always found the Dubai market extremely intriguing. It is estimated that during the peak of investments flow into Dubai’s real estate, almost 30 percent of office area lay vacant on both sides of the Sheikh Zayed road – the central business district of Dubai. But still, Dubai kept on piling more space and raising old spaces to create new ones. And what was more asynchronous was the fact that real estate prices kept on spiraling northwards in the meanwhile. This was kind of strange as it meant that demand was being artificially created by restricting supplies of already built-up spaces. Thus, in their quest of creating a dream destination for investors, Dubai forgot two basic principles: First, in any market, artificially created imbalances cannot sustain for long (They can sustain till the time investments are fl owing; and those too cheap ones). Secondly, that one day Dubai has to pay the pile of debt that it is creating and just in case something goes wrong, everything would go for a complete toss as Dubai does not have oil to fall back upon. Unfortunately, that’s what happened – a global recession tightened the flow of investments and gargantuan construction came to a grinding halt. Real estate prices came crashing down as there was no real demand to consume the created inventory (not to talk about projects under completion and the ones which were to take-off ). Dubai real estate prices have seen a correction of over 50% from their peak prices! Recoveries became impossible, pushing the economy to the brink of a crisis.

But then, for this impeding crisis, Dubai is not the only one at fault. The fact is that if Dubai is at any fault for this crisis, then every investor who tagged along is also at fault. What is incredible is the kind of double standard that is being exhibited by the global media towards Dubai. Till the time everyone made money, Dubai was the ‘Jewel of the Emirates’; and the moment the crisis dawned, it became the ‘Lehman of the Middle East’! Global media needs to realize and thank Dubai, for had Dubai World not made the announcement of deferring their repayments, the investors would have continued putting in their monies and gone into deeper crisis. They should also not forget that not long back, if there was a plausible investment destination for global investors post their adventures with the derivative world, it was this emirate only. They should also not forget that investors who had been investing till now have been getting their returns – probably this is one nation which has delivered the impossible and that too at a pace which has created new benchmarks in the real estate world. And they should also not forget that unlike Lehman, Dubai World is backed by the Dubai government. So to compare it with the former is an anomaly in itself! Lastly, if everybody wants to forget everything, they should not forget that whatever said and done, the world needs Dubai. Going by the evolving geo-politics of the Middle East region, Dubai is an imperative. It has been the only nation which could not only embrace westernization but also successfully neutralize the conservative Gulf culture to a large extent. Interestingly, over the past few years, even nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who were extremely critical of the Dubai model initially, have started replicating the same in their own countries, though in their own conservative way!

And lastly, for all selfish reasons, we need Dubai for us. How much so ever Indian banks try and console each other, that there is nothing to worry as their exposure is negligible, how can there be no worry, knowing that Dubai has given employment to millions of Indians (Indians form almost 40% of Dubai’s current population)? How can there be no worries when we know that collectively, these Indians remit billions of dollars (Kerala alone receives over $10 billion from those Malayalis who are working in Dubai) back to India? How can one not worry knowing that the majority of South Indian households live a dignified livelihood only on account of the fact that someone in their family is out there, employed in Dubai?

And in all, if through all this, Dubai in its own way stood by the global investors and nations alike, today, then it is the latter’s chance to stand by Dubai!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 3:47 AM 10 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
November 26, 2009
ON THE EVE OF THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF 26/11,
THE FOCUS OF UPA SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON ISSUES RELATING TO HOW SUCH INSTANCES OF MAYHEM CAN BE AVERTED IN THE FUTURE, RATHER THAN RAKING UP A NEARLY TWO-DECADE-OLD BABRI ISSUE!
The recent controversy regarding the submission of the Liberhan Report and the leakage of the name of the former Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee as being one of those indicted in the report, has undoubtedly started the kind of furore and controversy that could have been well avoided by the government. Needless to say that it has again united all the ranks and fi les of the Sangh Parivar that is vying for a major face-off with the government over the manner in which such a confidential report was leaked to the press even before it was even tabled in the Parliament. Eyebrows and conspiracy theories would invariably be raised over the timing of the submission of the report and the systematic manner in which the name of Vajpayee has been leaked.

The Babri Masjid demolition is undoubtedly one of the most unfortunate incidents that have happened in the history of modern India. It was something that should have been avoided. But then, that’s just one side of the incident! The other side of it is the manner in which such a significant incident was probed! Justice Liberhan took a staggering 17 years to probe the case! Although this should not shock anyone as the history of commissions in India is not something worth talking about (well, remember what has been the fate of the Sri Krishna Commission set up in 1992-93 over the Mumbai riots?). In a democracy like India, the easiest way to calm down the public angst over such politically instigated shameful incidents is to appoint some retired High Court or Supreme Court judge to head a commission, and then spend hundreds of crores on an investigation, the findings of which may or may not be accepted purely at the prerogative of the government. It goes without saying that most of the time after the cursory fanfare revolving around the photo-shoot and press coverage during the submission of the reports, almost all the reports face the same fate of gathering dust in some corner. But then, Babri Masjid was not like any other case – it was a blatant blot on the face of the Indian democracy; and that’s why it should have been probed immediately by imparting justice on the perpetrators, irrespective of whosoever they were. That did not happen.

The bigger question is about why the UPA has picked up the issue at this point in time! Of course, with time, Babri Masjid has taken a backseat in the people’s memory, even in those who were the most affected. Today, India has gone far ahead in terms of economic and social reforms. The common man is too busy worrying about rising prices and threats of terrorism to think about Babri. So why now?

No doubt, many more people than meets the eye were involved in the harrowing demolition act with their commissions and omissions. But the way the then government of Narasimha Rao has been given a clean chit by the report – while indicting Vajpayee – definitely raises questions! In fact, interestingly, the submission of this report coincides with the fresh success that the Congress is getting in UP and the political fortune that it is seeking over there in the near future. And if that is the intent, then I must say that things can go horribly wrong for UPA! As this report – which is clearly aimed at galvanizing the minority vote-bank and woo them away from Samajwadi Party and BSP – might also just prove counterproductive for UPA if the BJP is successful in using the Vajpayee sympathy cause in the right manner. It is quite clear as to who all have been named in the report. But clearly, given the political heavyweights involved in it, and going by past precedence, even the UPA would not have the conviction to arrest Advani or any other leader of that stature. And this probably would become counterproductive for the Congress and would help BJP consolidate its saffron vote-bank. Probably this is the last opportunity for the BJP – an opportunity it has been eyeing for long to bounce back from the fringes that it had pushed itself into. Even Mulayam Singh is itching to cement his party’s position by again playing around the minority card using the Liberhan report as the base.

All in all, if UPA’s calculation in terms of the timing of this report goes wrong, then they solely would be responsible for bringing back the ugly face of communalism into Indian politics, at the same time not only weakening their own alliance, but also opening a window of opportunity for those opportunistic political parties who are struggling currently. In fact, it is foolish that rather than concentrating on the good work that has already been done by the UPA and further building upon it, the alliance is instead focusing on digging the nightmarish past and fuelling mayhem all over again! On the eve of the first anniversary of 26/11, the whole focus of the government should have been on issues relating to how such instances of mayhem can be averted in the future, than on raking up a nearly two-decade-old issue on which the hope of getting justice is at best non-existent.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 5:29 AM 4 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
November 19, 2009
OBAMA, LIKE HIS PREDECESSORS, HAS CLASSICALLY EXHIBITED DOUBLE STANDARDS FAVOURING CHINA!
It is not that Washington has done something like this for the first time. In fact, the US has got a checkered history of taking gratuitously arbitrary and insensitive stances, with a singular objective of fulfilling their own selfish motives. I’m referring to Obama’s recent trip to China and his most ridiculous statement of how China can play an important role in making the Indo-Pak relationship healthier. Not just this, Obama has clearly indicated a visible tilt towards China by offering to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together with China to promote peace, stability and development in that region!

Although US Presidents have had a sparkling history of purposefully committing such extravagant blunders (for selfindulgent American gain), Obama seems to surpass them all, as it has been extremely rare for any American President to acknowledge China as a harbinger of ‘peace’ in South Asia, and that too with respect to India and Pakistan! It is not that Obama is sophistically ignorant of Chinese adventures in Tibet, Taiwan and India. And after knowing what China has been doing, it is clearly insane for Obama to even acknowledge China’s role in the restoration of any kind of peace process in any region across the world! What is even more outrageous is the very fact that going by Obama’s apparent rational outlook, he should have ideally discussed the infringement of the Chinese in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, their perpetual intervention in the North-East region of India, their blatant aid and support to the Naxal movement in India, along with funding of Pakistan’s terror camps. Forget India, the least that was expected of him was to discuss China’s hostility towards Dalai Lama. None of these seemed to be there in Obama’s agenda.

Now the question that arises is why did Obama issue such artful statements? Why, all of a sudden, has China seemingly become so important that Obama has had to force a feel-good atmosphere by making such statements? There are two visible reasons that might have instigated Obama to issue such baseless statements. First, as I’ve written in one of my columns earlier, Obama’s popularity index is sliding down by the day. And amongst a host of other reasons – which includes health, employment and economic revival issues – one reason that has become a huge contention is American expenditure on Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, the Obama administration is struggling to mange the investments to send 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, which is an imperative now as the jihadi and Taliban forces have become extremely active, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But given the current economic environment, it is becoming extremely challenging for Obama’s administration to send these troops to Afghanistan. And Obama knows that China can be hugely instrumental in stabilizing Afghanistan. Just like his diplomatic and self-serving predecessors, Obama’s tilt towards China is nothing else but an effort towards laying down a red carpet to them to contribute towards stabilizing Afghanistan. Now, the second reason – US also knows that if there is one nation which has the might to contain North Korea and Iran (who are ravaging a nuclear campaign against US), it is none other than China! So what difference does it make to Obama if by making a couple of pleasing statements, he can bargain Chinese support, which in turn de-stresses the American economy both politically and financially? What more, even American citizens are happy, as they never could make any sense of either Iraq or Afghanistan! How does it matter what happens to an India or a Pakistan, when dividends are so high for America?

Obama’s statements have not gone down well with New Delhi.Historically, India has always opposed any third-party intervention in the Indo-Pak issue, which we all know has to do with only Kashmir. And rightly so, for Kashmir has been an age-old issue, which is core to India. Nobody in the world can sensitize with Kashmir more than us, for we have been living with its problems, which has only exacerbated over the last two decades! It is also true that as a nation, we have not been able to resolve the issue for a very long time, and it has been a drain to our exchequer. But then, recently, there have been some developments on that front as well. In the last three weeks, there have been two meetings between former Pakistan High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan and RAW chief A S Dullat. According to news reports, the Track II initiatives between India and Pakistan could hopefully lead to a reasonable outcome on the issue. And even if that does not happen at this point in time, it definitely would in times to come. But that in no way means that a third party – and that too one with a character of China – needs to intervene in this process, further instigated by the manipulative diplomacy of the US.

When Obama was elected as President of the United States, I was very happy, for I could see a new hope in him. And I wrote extensively about him in my editorials, praising him. I keenly listened to his speeches and believed that if one man could change the current world order, it had to be him! While I had always expected double standards from Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W Bush (who always lived up to my expectations), I never did so from Obama. But after what he Obama has done in China, I feel he is no different!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 7:56 AM 8 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
November 12, 2009
Manu Sharma has been a classic metaphor of delayed and discriminating judiciary!
Manu Sharma is back in the news again, and like always, for all the wrong reasons! For me, Manu Sharma is a special case, as his case is a classic metaphor of the state of judiciary in our country, which is painfully slow and visibly discriminatory! It is no secret that Manu Sharma was finally convicted with life imprisonment in 2006, for a murder that he committed in 1999! It took our courts close to a decade to convict him for a heinous crime like cold blooded murder, wherein evidences were yelling against him. Not to forget that he almost managed his acquittal in 2003; and it was only after Sabrina Lal’s (Jessica’s sister) determined fight for justice, media’s persistent and systematic follow up and a huge public outcry that Sharma was finally convicted in 2006! And it has been just three years that he was found partying at a lounge bar in Delhi couple of days back. As is reported, he managed to do so as he was out on a parole, initially for a month and then further for another month, allowed by the Delhi government.

According to reports, he was granted parole as he had to attend to his ailing mother, the last rites of his grandmother and some business related work. In fact, the judiciary here has discriminated in favour of Manu on two grounds, leave aside the fact that his mother seemed to be perfectly fine as she was addressing the under-19 women’s cricket team last week. First, parole is generally granted after a convict has served a minimum of five years of his term, and that too only for attending a wedding or medical emergency or funeral, or attending to someone who is their sole responsibility – none of this applied in the case of Manu. Legally speaking, a request needs to be put through jail authorities, which then gets vetted by the legal department of the lieutenant governor; and then based on the lieutenant governor’s recommendation, parole is granted. It is usually granted for a period of one month, and under special circumstances, could be extended by another month. Going by the book, Manu was granted an out of turn parole. The second discrimination in favour of Manu was that in a country where more than 12,000 prisoners are decaying in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, only 11 of them were fortunate to get a parole this year; Manu was one of them! Manu has made it to a list where, on an average, only 17% of the total parole applications get approved in any given year! One should not forget that of the 300,000 under-trials awaiting justice, a staggering 75% have already served a term of imprisonment that is more than what they would have otherwise served if convicted of their respective crimes. Also worth mentioning is the fact that these hundreds of thousands of under-trials are awaiting justice for petty crimes. So what makes Manu so special, such that the entire administrative machinery was hell bent upon doling out undue favours after favours?

Honestly, it is indeed a big deal that Manu is behind the bars! Going by his credentials, and also going by the precedence of justice delivery, he should have been ideally moving around scot free. As I said earlier, had it not been for Sabrina Lal’s unflinching determination, systematic follow up by media and public outcry, he should have been a free man today. Starting from a business background with over Rs. 1,000 crores in assets, to a strong political legacy, Manu possesses all necessary credentials to buy justice in his favour. Everyone knows that had Manu not been convicted, Manu’s father, Venod Sharma, would have made it to the Chief Ministerial post of Haryana. He is the closest aide of the current CM, and this time he has been instrumental in getting Congress back to power in Haryana, by convincing 9 independent candidates to support the Congress. No wonder the Delhi government immediately came to Manu’s rescue, when attacked by media, on his presence in a Delhi bar during his parole (as legally he is not permitted to step out of Chandigarh during parole).

All in all, this episode has further reinforced the fact that in this country, justice is not just delayed but blatantly discriminatory in favour of the rich and influential! Not just this, it has also reinforced the fact about how the entire criminal-political machinery comes into action to favour and safeguard another criminal at the cost of millions who are endlessly waiting for justice. In 2006, if his life sentence had reinstated some faith on justice delivery within the common man, Manu Sharma’s abuse of parole has eroded it once again!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 3:02 AM 5 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
November 5, 2009
Mamta's life is not safe… Because in these elections, nothing else can prevent the inevitable from happening!
There is mayhem in Bengal. In fact, that’s been the other name of Bengal since years of CPM rule. Open a Bangla news channel and all one sees are murders after murders. All political murders. Complete unrest. And it is so unfortunate to see the interviews of the helpless relatives – they can but do absolutely nothing. Really, opening the TV channels is so disheartening. Not that the rest of India is far better. But what’s happening in Bengal is unbelievable and never seen before in any part of the country, including Bihar. The CPM government – seeing their end coming nearer – has gone berserk and increased their complete total gunda raj by many folds. In between all this mayhem, there are some other interesting developments. The old man who was the man behind the whole mess, Jyoti Basu, has suddenly decided to get more active issuing two requests! One, to the Congress Party to stop supporting the Trinamool Congress and start supporting them to preserve peace! He has also appealed to Congress party supporters to vote for CPM because Trinamool and Mamta were hands in gloves with the Maoists! Although at his age, the latter part of the gibberish can otherwise be excused; yet, behind his appeal, there could be a much well thought out scheme! And Mamta should be careful to not fall into the trap. What I suspect is that the cunning, old hat that Basu is, this attempted truce could snowball into something bigger. CPM and Congress have always been quite close. And if by chance, Basu succeeds to win the Congress over, then the CPM – despite all odds – again stands a remote chance to win the forthcoming elections!

A tie up – more than splitting Trinamool votes – would mean that from the Centre, the Congress won’t supply enough reserve force during elections to man the various booths. That will leave CPM with the golden opportunity to create the worst kind of mayhem and rigging. After all, Jyoti Basu is the man behind years of scientific rigging practiced by the CPM over years! During his time, rigging used to be more specialised and scientific, with detailed grassroots calculations of the non CPM households. Rigging was done only in places where such households were more in number; and that too only as much as was required, by simply not allowing some people to come to vote from their homes. With years, however, CPM has grown in violence as the anti-CPM households have grown in numbers. And if this year by chance the Central Reserve Police Force is absent during elections, it will be the worst elections in Bengal’s history because this is a do or die situation for CPM. There are already whispers in political corridors that CPM, with its years of black money, is all set to buy the Congress support through some agents in Congress. However, the truth is that only two things can make CPM win this time.

One, if didi decides to dig her own grave by showing some immature tantrum and walk out of the Centre (She is very capable of it and has done it in the past). That’s the only way the Congress will find it easy to leave her and back CPM. However, that is less likely this time as Mamta – quite unlike her character – is being quite restrained as she also understands that this is her golden chance to realise her dreams. The second way she can lose is again by digging her own grave, but this time literally. She has no second line and failed to capitalize on the chance to make one when, instead of the 4 cabinet rank ministries she could have taken, she chose to take only one in the government, only to keep her second line out of limelight. That means that God forbid, if something happens to her, Trinamool Congress will not be able to win due to the lack of another saleable second in command. And that is why I fear that the worst resort of getting rid of her must be there in the minds of her rivals. And if by chance something happens, only she will be to blame. Because she hardly takes care about her security properly. I don’t think that’s bravery. I think that’s being foolhardy. After all, if they do manage to harm her, what will happen? Yes, a lot of bloodshed from her party workers side too. But how does it matter? In a state where there is so much anarchy already, a little more will hardly be a big deal. However, this can ensure Trinamool is wiped out almost forever. And the blame can easily by then be shifted on to the Maoists!! That is why I fear it as a possibility as this is total do or die for CPM. And they are killing to avoid death. The only question is, how far will they try to stoop down. Mamta must understand that there is real risk to her life. And be extremely careful about it. Because after all, nothing else can prevent the inevitable from happening these elections! She is sure to win this time. All she has to do is to stay alive.

Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 1:45 AM 5 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
October 29, 2009
DISCOVER THE DIAMOND IN YOU!
As I look back, over the years, I realise that I’ve ventured far away from what I started my career with... I was supposed to be this management teacher whose passion lay in the areas of leadership and motivation. However, with time, especially after I wrote ‘The Great Indian Dream’ with my father, I have given very less time to writing on management! So much so that when I look back today, ever since the start of The Sunday Indian, I have only – and only – written on economics and politics, and at times on sports and cinema, but never on management! So this time, I thought I’ll write on my first love! More so, I have a reason for it. I really have been thinking – with the way our system is functioning, the best way to feel good and change things around is by changing ourselves, and by ourselves being the change we want to see! There is hardly anything that we can’t do if we want to, because we are all diamonds in waiting – in various stages. Some of us yet to be discovered, some of us yet to be cut, some of us yet to be polished, some of us yet to dazzle... And some of us – who have lost their sheen and sparkle a bit with time – in need of a re-polish! But we are all diamonds, that’s what I’ve always believed about human beings!

And if a diamond were to be the metaphor for us, then there are four things which make up a diamond... The first being the diamond’s carats. You would’ve always heard questions like, “How many carat diamond is that?” That’s the most important quality of a diamond. In human beings, carats are about the depth that we have; and it is represented by two Ps: Passion and Positive Energy! These are the two most important aspects that differentiate us from being a diamond with a high carat value! All successful achievers always have these two most important characteristics within themselves. They are extremely passionate about what they do... Passion for the poor is what made Mother Teresa go on and on despite being from a foreign country and being stuck in a dirty city with unseen poverty all around. Such people are also always full of positive energy. They never see negativity in anything! You talk to them about anything and they have a positive attitude. Friends of Sabeer Bhatia say that even when he was nothing, he would always dream big. That’s the attitude which led him to create Hotmail! Thus, a human being’s carat value is determined by his outlook in life, which is in turn dependent on his passion and positive energy!

The second great quality of a good diamond is its colour. And in successful human beings, colours are synonymous with two more Ps: Personality and People Skills! That’s what makes for the next most important quality of a diamond! If you want to bring out the diamond within you, you must inculcate a super personality and have high quality people skills. Successful people have great personalities; they nurture it, they groom it and they practice it! Personalities aren’t developed overnight! Personalities are developed with a lot of clearly directed efforts. And here, the ‘LAW’ of personality is about looks, actions and words... The way you look – not physically, but the way you carry yourself – the way you act or behave in front of others and the words you choose, make a personality. Prannoy Roy is an ideal example of a personality! The moment you look at him, there is respect; the way he behaves and uses his hand movements to explain things make him interesting; and of course, finally, when he speaks, the words leave you awestruck. And that’s why even after years he is still such a favourite of the masses despite so much competition on television today.

The other aspect that determines the colour of a human diamond is people skills. People who believe that they can go it alone or those who don’t respect the need to work with people for a common goal, can never be successful! It’s because Narayana Murthy believed in having good people around him and nurtured them, that today not just has he been able to retire peacefully, but even his deputy Nandan Nilekani has been able to hang up his boots leaving the organisation on Kris Gopalakrishnan. Infosys is the most beautiful example of how great people make great organisations and how no one needs to be indispensable in a great organisation.

The third quality of a good diamond is how well has it been cut! In human beings, the cut is about the hard work which is represented by another two Ps: Performance and Perseverance! Every successful human being has to lead by example. He has to perform. And his performance should always be an example to others. SRK is not SRK for nothing. Every star who acts with him praises him and becomes his fan. Why? Because when they see him and know him, they see his hard work; they see his track record of delivery; they see his performance. And they know he is a well cut diamond. The other aspect of performance is perseverance. As they say, talent is table salt. It is available aplenty. What differentiates the talented from the ordinary is a lot of hard work... and the ability to persist in the face of adversity. That’s what makes a Shah Rukh Khan what he is!

The final characteristic of a great diamond is its clarity. And in the human diamond, clarity stands for three different Ps: Principles, Perspective and Patriotism! These three Ps define a human being. Do you have principles that you can live by? Do you have a perspective and a plan of where you are headed towards? In other words, do you have a vision? And finally, what defines the human diamond is whether the individual has patriotism inside or not. If you don’t have any of these three, you will only remain a diamond that is perhaps well polished but will never dazzle and make its presence felt. Nurture these 9 Ps of a human diamond, and you will discover the diamond in you! All the best!!!
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'Discover The Diamond In You' is the name of Professor Arindam Chaudhuri's forthcoming book. The above article is a synopsis of the book. If you would want to know more about the book, send an sms DTDIY along with your comments on the article to 0-9818101234
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 7:59 AM 13 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
October 22, 2009
THE DANGEROUS DESIGNS OF THE CHINESE WILL COME TRUE IF INDIA DOESN’T START ACTING IN A COMMITTED MANNER IMMEDIATELY
I’ve always been an admirer of China. I have also been an admirer of Mao Tse Tung – despite the scandalous (true or untrue) details of his private life – and believe that today’s China, good or bad, is an absolute direct result of his vision. What I have admired the most about China is the way they have been able to pull out millions of people from below poverty, in a matter of a few decades. This feat of China is unmatched in recorded history. What has made them achieve this unbelievable feat is their macroeconomic bottom-up model, wherein they focused on creating purchasing power directly within the poor. This has enabled them to become one of the formidable forces in the world today. They also know that if there is one nation which could pose challenges in the path of Chinese glory, it is India. So some time back, I came across an intriguing article, which generally got overlooked by most. It was reported by almost all mainstream newspapers that a Chinese strategist has contended that China should break India into 20-30 independent states! And this piece got featured in the new edition of the website of the China International Institute for Strategic Studies (CIISS), an influential think tank that advises Beijing on global and strategic issues. What made this article intriguing was the very fact that China, unlike India, is not a democracy where one can write anything howsoever frivolous and still get away with it. China is extremely strict about dissemination of information and when something as serious as this gets featured in a strategic think tank website, it could almost be said for sure that the statement carries an official approval.

What is more worrisome is the fact that the article also states that China should go about doing this with the help of friendly countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. And all of a sudden, this looks like a plausible option going by the kind of relations that India has with four of its immediate neighbours. Furthermore, the article ostensibly suggests that Bangladesh should woo Bengalis in India to form a separate Bengali nation independent of India, with the support of China! All this in just one article, which as I mentioned got featured some couple of months back. What is most shocking is the fact that China, in various ways, has already started taking its recourse towards disintegrating India in its own way. To begin with, it has started issuing separate visas to Indian passport holders from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, projecting that J&K as a state is separate from India. They went on to propagate the same by distributing handouts to visitors of Tibet, especially journalists who were invited by the Chinese government recently.

That’s not all. The perennial dispute with respect to Arunachal Pradesh’s ownership has pushed China to such an extent that in August this year, they stalled a loan from Asian Development Bank to India, which was to be deployed for the development of Arunachal Pradesh. What’s more, in this dispute, Google has been playing its own role: Google Maps in China feature Arunachal Pradesh as a part of China; Google Maps for India feature the state as a part of India; and show it as a disputed territory in the rest of the world. Over and above all this, China now has plans to build a dam across the Brahmaputra to divert some 200 billion cubic meters of water to feed the Yellow river on account of severe water shortage. This in itself has raised significant concerns for the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

All in all, China has been moving extremely strategically with a definite objective in mind. In fact, for this audacious thought and various moves of China, no one is to be blamed other than us. With national politics being highly fragmented, India seems to be becoming increasingly vulnerable, at least politically. National politics is so disoriented that it caters not just to regional needs but has also further moved down to cater to caste and class based agendas. Myopic viewpoints and self-centered objectives have created such a disillusion that no one seems to have any vision for the nation. No doubt, the Chinese are extremely astute to realize this and are dreaming of capitalizing on the same.

As it is, while Shivraj Patil was sleeping and changing his dresses, the Maoist Naxalite forces in India spread their wings in a manner that Chidambaram is finding almost impossible to handle despite his apparent strong words. Nothing perhaps is of bigger concern for India’s internal security than the Naxalites who are creating havoc in the areas they rule, not only by the night but increasingly by the day now. And now, the proposed governmental plan of spending Rs. 7,200 crores over the next three years on the poor people of the Naxalite infested region is utterly laughable and shameful. In the first place, Rs. 2,400 crores spent per year means approximately Rs. 1,200 per year, per family, which is as good as nothing. Add to it the fact that 95% of this money will be eaten away by government officials and the realization hits hard that India is doing nothing to tackle this huge problem which the Chinese would love to capitalize upon – and are indeed already capitalizing upon – given the first opportunity, to make their dream come true.

Dividing India into 30 different states is indeed a laughable idea. However, if India doesn’t act fast to tackle its internal threats like Naxalism, things might look drastically different in the near future. India needs to immediately increase its budget for removing poverty amongst the Naxalite infested areas by about 25 times as a first step towards thwarting these dangerous dreams of the Chinese. Simultaneously, it needs to take China absolutely head on in terms of various other Chinese talks, threats and desires. Only that will help India consolidate its position of an equal partner in this region that will dominate world politics in times to come.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:57 AM 11 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
October 14, 2009
The desirability of living forever
Two weeks back, I read this most amazing article in The Times Of India’s international news page. It spoke of a scientist claiming that those who live for another twenty odd years might actually go on to live forever. The scientist, Ray Kurzweil, has been dubbed by none other than Bill Gates as the smartest futurist on earth. So when he speaks, you listen. As per Ray, in another twenty years, science would probably invent ways to re-programme our bodies and thereby reverse the ageing process; and then nano-technology would let us live forever! Already, ‘submarines’ called nanobots, no larger than even blood cells, are being tested on animals. And soon, they would be tested on human beings. These nanobots can be used to destroy tumors, unblock clots and perform operations without scars and should ultimately replace blood cells in human bodies and help the body work thousands of times more efficiently! Thus, in effect, what it could mean is that people who are currently aged around sixty years and who will on an average live for about 80 years could expect to go on to live forever. Because once this technology starts working, it will reverse the process of ageing and then help human beings to remain in their mature youth form forever!

This thought can be very, very exciting as well be very, very depressing! From the moment I read about the issue, I have been debating with everyone around on the good and the bad of it! That’s why we thought our readers must get a holistic view of the entire debate because such an issue requires a 360 degrees analysis! And in my own little way, here's what I think of it...

My first reaction was, of course, not as futuristic as the prediction. I don’t want to live forever. Why should I? Today, I get up in the morning and run behind my work, because somewhere inside there is a fear of death. So I have to do various things before it’s too late. I love people close to me that little extra, simply because I don’t know what the future has in store tomorrow! I come back home early and sit for dinner with my parents because they are old; and I want to spend as much time with them... And I feel that life becomes life only because of death. Having seen the death of my younger brother when he was only 20 years old, I felt that I would have never known the importance of people close to us had it not been for his death. Ever since then, the fear of losing people close to me has driven my life. Then there is the fear of utter boredom... What do you do in life if you were to live forever? Is there really so much to life? Would it not be simply boring to carry on living forever? Wouldn’t living become aimless? Would we have any reason to get up in the morning and do more and put in more efforts when we know that there is no “time” that is running out?

And of course, add to that the big question. Will we remain human beings at all? As it is, science has advanced to a stage where ultimately, in a few decades, we will be able to copy, store and clone human beings with every detailed gene, even the brain structure; which would in effect mean that we could have the same man with the same feelings again even if the person were to die by accident because his brain details have been stored and could be reproduced; thus, in a way, guaranteeing immortality! The same scientist I mentioned above goes on to state that nano-technology will extend our mental capacities to such an extent that we should be able to write books within minutes. The same technology will help us go into a virtual reality mode where nanobots will shut our brain signals and take us to wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will become commonplace in our daily lives (immortality would most likely force us to look at unlimited sexual gratification – like in the primitive times – as one of the key motivations of living), hologram-like figures will pop up in our brains explaining what’s happening around and human being will become cyborgs with artificial limbs and organs.

That does sound scary, doesn’t it? I mean, if human beings are going to have their bodies programmed and run through nanobots, instead of blood cells, then what’s the difference between us and robots? And who the hell wants to live like robots? Instead of living for 80 years, if I were to live for 8,00,000 years – assuming no accidents were to kill me by then and all diseases had been taken care of by advancements in science – would there be any charm left of living? Wouldn’t the sole aim of living then be to seek pleasure? Would not we be forced to go back to the days of survival of the fittest in an over crowded world of immortals? And what about families and marriages? Would you really wish to stay with the same spouse for those many years? Would you be able to feel as lovingly and passionately for your great great great great great great great great...grandson as you could for your own grandson? Would you even care about him? Wouldn’t your son actually stop caring about you since he knows you aren’t going away anywhere soon; and being youthful, you would anyway be less dependent on him? These questions kept haunting me... and I was surely bending towards the not wanting to live forever!

In the last forty years or so, urban Indians, on an average, have increased their life spans from 40 to 80. If we were to start living on an average for 250 years about 250 years later – or 8,00,000 years about 8,00,000 years later, whichever is the case – I am sure living that long would have become an easy process as we would have gotten used to actually living that long by then. But not if we were to start living thousands of years longer in just another twenty years. The earth and science wouldn’t have yet discovered ways to adapt to this new reality that fast. These were the words with which I was debating with my brother-in-law, Prashanto Bannerjee, whose columns you regularly enjoy in this magazines lifestyle section. Prashanto was vehemently for the idea of living forever. While he thought we had so much to see, I thought life’s happiness was in our close people; and after a point, the Swiss, Italian and French countryside all look similar. The point is not about seeing more and seeking more and more endless pleasures, but about spending more and more meaningful time with people you love! I wasn’t really keen on going to Mars to see how the planet looks like! Given a choice, I said, I would have preferred to live for about 120 years or so healthily, and then to take a pill that could peacefully put me to rest forever...

And that was it! I had not realised that while this debate went on fiercely in our drawing room on the day of Navami this year, my son, who was born on another Navami nine years back, had been listening all along. And he almost broke down. He said, “Papa, why won’t you take the medicine that could help you live forever? What makes you think that we will become inhuman robots? We will be different. We will remain as loving and caring,” – just what Prashanto also was emphasizing, saying that “we don’t love anyone for the fear of losing him or her. We love because we love – and we will all stay together like this forever...” Seeing him almost in a breakdown stage, I wrapped up our debate and said, “Well, I will take the pill to live forever for him!”

Maybe that day, I still took my son less seriously and said those words to finish the debate. But the days that followed have changed my thinking completely. Because ever since that night, the only thing that has bothered my son day and night has been the fear that I may not be willing to live forever. The fear that his grandparents whom he passionately loves may not live for another twenty years to take advantage of this scientific advancement – he has gone on to convince himself that if my dad’s mom could live for 92 years, then my dad too could live that long and take advantage of the same – has been haunting him (My father, incidentally, is 72 years old; and mother, younger still).

Thus, despite being convinced at this point of time that living forever might mean immortality of man, and surely also the death of ‘human beings’, seeing the love for all of us in my son’s eyes, I am forced to think that the idea of living forever may not be that bad after all... If that’s how we are to evolve, then so be it! After all, what are science and medicines about? They’re about discovering ways to prolong life and destroy diseases. So while we laud every medical advancement that helps us to live a little longer, would not the achievement of finding ways to live forever be the ultimate scientific discovery? Isn’t that the ultimate goal for which medical practice has been striving for unknowingly? And most importantly, whom do we live for? If anyone were to ask me when do I want to die, my answer would easily be definitely after my parent’s death – as I can’t bear the thought of them living to see another death – and ideally, after my son was adult enough to live life without me. So the answer in effect is we live for others. And if my son who loves me the most thinks I must live with him forever, I will want to live with him forever. And wait for life to show how to live.

And that precisely is what this issue aims to do. It aims to answer futuristic questions on the earth's limits. The desirability of living forever! The consequences of living forever – like, do we stop having children to save this earth or have children in a ration system only when someone dies in an accident? We delve deeper into questions like the relevance of God and religion if man were to become immortal. What are the new laws that will govern Earth where human beings are immortal? Immortality can lead to a crazy population explosion causing unbelievable harm to the environment, if births are not controlled by law. At the same time, would countries then encourage wars to have more deaths? We also look at some entertaining questions like what would happen to superstars? If SRK were to live forever and Big B were to become the same angry young man again, then would there be place for new superstars? All in all, we hope you enjoy reading this issue as much we enjoyed thinking of it and creating it! Because human existence hasn’t had a bigger breaking news ever!!!
Blurb 1: In effect, people who are 60 years of age and who can expect to live till 80 years can go on to live forever.

Blurb 2: Isn't living forever the ultimate scientific discovery? Isn't that the ultimate goal of medical practice?
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:25 AM 14 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
October 1, 2009
WHEN AMERICANS PROTEST OBAMA’S HEALTHCARE PLANS, INDIANS HAVE REASONS TO WONDER!
Just a couple of weeks back, some tens of thousands of American citizens got together to protest US President Barack Obama’s healthcare plans. Obama has been trying his best to expand health coverage for American citizens, at the same time also trying to arrest the ever increasing healthcare costs in the US. As per his plan, healthcare is going to adequately cover as many as 97% of the American population. Currently, it is estimated that around 46 million Americans do not have health cover and around 25 million of them are not adequately covered. Now, on the face of it, the plan looks fine; but what has agitated an average American is the very fact that this plan (of adequately covering 97% Americans under health insurance) calls for a budget of $600 billion, which would be mobilized through higher taxes. This element of higher taxes has antagonized the Americans, coupled with the fact that they do not want the government to interfere into health affairs. Such is the fury among Americans that Obama’s popularity has taken a severe beating on account of his health plan initiatives!

What is interesting is the fact that sitting in India, an average Indian might be wondering why Americans are going wild over their President? Agreed, as per Obama’s new plan, an average American has to pay more taxes; but then, even that should not annoy them. Simply because out here in India, even after paying taxes, there is absolutely nothing in the name of health cover that a citizen gets! That too considering that an average Indian is at least 20 times poorer than the average American. And mind you, here we are talking about averages, wherein the reality is that almost 400 million Indians do not even make two dollars a day! Although healthcare costs are relatively lesser in India as compared to the US, but then in income parity terms, it is much higher. As per reports, on an average, healthcare costs in India are around one fifth to one tenth that of America, which makes Indian healthcare even more expensive (almost double of that of an American in America) for an average Indian. Also, it is a known fact that there is almost nothing in the name of health insurance. Currently, an abysmal 10% of the population is covered under health insurance. On top of that, there are no records whether this 10% population is adequately insured or not. To put it on record, with respect to health insurance, India is the worst performer in the category of large nations. No wonder why an Indian wonders when an American protests!

This, coupled with the fact that public health infrastructure is too poor, forces most Indians to resort to private treatment even for curable ailments. It is estimated that on account of poor public health infrastructure, the out of pocket expenses as a percentage of total health expenditure is a staggering 80% for Indians. A few years back, the World Bank had reported that health expenses are the single reason of driving a majority of Indians towards poverty! In fact, it is a known fact that we need to increase our budgetary allocations on health; but then, what is even more perilous is the fact that whatever budgets are being allocated are going in to pay salaries of existing doctors and administrative staff. There is hardly anything left for creating infrastructure or provisioning insurance. And mind you, this is all tax money; and so there is no reason why an average Indian should be amused when an American protests.

And the final icing comes when the large private players of the healthcare sector do not abide by the mandated requirement of provisioning world class health facilities to poor, absolutely free of cost. It has been recently reported that of the 38 private hospitals in Delhi, 22 have not been adhering to the norm of providing free healthcare (OPD) facilities to 25% people who are poor. This against the backdrop that in 2007, the Delhi High Court had directed all the 38 private hospitals to provide free treatment, against which they had been granted prime land by the Delhi Development Authority or the Land and Development Office. And these are big names including Max, Fortis, Gangaram et al. In fact, as per some reports, hospitals like Moolchand and Rajiv Gandhi Cancer hospital have been outrightly refusing to treat the poor. And what is even more interesting is the fact that Apollo has been charged with a fine of a meagre Rs. 2 lakhs for not adhering to this norm! In fact, as per the ruling, 10% of the beds were to be allocated to the poor. And it is no secret that there is a blatant abuse of the same by these hospitals.

If this is the state of affairs in Delhi, one wonders how it would be in other parts of the country. All this leaves an average Indian, who is poor, wondering as to why an American protests when their President is trying his best to provision healthcare for all in lieu of a higher tax. For that Indian knows the fact that the concept called universal healthcare is still a farfetched dream for him!!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:56 AM 9 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
September 24, 2009
THE POWER OF A STING OPERATION!
I remember when Tehelka did the sensational sting exposing the dirty world of Indian defence dealings. To me, it was inspiring. So was each of the stings carried out by them later, and then by India TV quite oft en. And as a mark of respect to the brave torch bearers of sting operations who put almost everything they have at stake to show the world the truth, we at The Sunday Indian started our sting operations cell. Our past stings have exposed the fake passport racket in India and the way cow bones are used to make statues of gods and goddesses in India. But I think those stings were nothing compared to the sensational sting operation that we carried in our last issue... It showed the world how an Abu Salem or a Kasab can enter India – despite being well known – and then systematically get a driving licence, a house ownership, a house on rent, a bank account, a mobile number and even a PAN card! All we didn’t do was to apply for an Indian passport on that basis; I am sure we would’ve got that too, as we had proven in our previous fake passport sting. In our last issue’s sting, horror of horrors, our able journalist Umesh Patil went ahead and got India’s most notorious address – that of Nithari accused Moninder Singh – to be owned by none other than the name-changed Abu Salem, India’s most notorious gangster, and then rented out to the name-changed Kasab, India’s most notorious terrorist! When I saw it all, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry! Laugh, because this is most unbelievable – it’s hilarious that all this can happen in India. And cry, because this is how easily we sell ourselves in India despite all the three – Salem, Kasab, Moninder Singh –being red alert cases. This is how we compromise with our nation’s security. And this time, it wasn’t the government doing it. It was us, the common people, who were unknowingly helping a terrorist get a new identity. It was a private sector bank giving him a bank account; it was a private sector telecom company allotting him a mobile number. This is our respect for the lives of Indians and this is our respect for the security of our country and this is how we pay homage to 26/11.

This sting was important for us to carry out. Because there is no other topic on which I had ever written five consecutive edits! Yes, 26/11 shook this nation and me. And I wrote for five consecutive weeks on the same topic (refer to http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com/2008/11/media-politician-anti-hindu-nexus-has.html, http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com/2008/12/destiny-saved-me-but-our-blood-sucking.html, http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-educated-youth-must-join-politics.html, http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com/2008/12/education-next-thing-to-lobby-for-if.html, http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-not-outsource-our-parliament-itself.html ) and had said that such an incident will happen again. Thankfully, it hasn’t yet. But typically, such incidents start during the festive season in India. It’s the beginning of that season now and we wanted the government to know the loopholes and plug them before another attack happens. We wanted to show how easy it is to make such incidents happen. And we wanted to show that India has learnt nothing. A driving licence, a bank account, a Pan card, a mobile number, are all not as simple as they sound. They are of relevance to this nation’s security; and if these keep getting sold for prices as low as a few thousand bucks, then we are ourselves planning the murder of our nation’s peace. This, we must not!

It actually made me happy to read the way the RTO at least acted – from shutting down the Mathura RTO, where the sting happened, to starting a whole process of cleansing nationwide, it was heartening. It was also very exciting to see about fi ft y newspapers in 12 languages pick up the news and propagate the sting and the cause. And above all, it was so heartening to have India TV living up to its courageous reputation and coming to support us as our TV partners. With their huge TRPs, India TV reached almost every other Indian household in a manner only they could’ve done! I do hope that the effort that we made, to expose how vulnerable we still are despite 26/11, doesn’t go waste. And I also hope this warning helps us wake up and avoid further calamities. However, our job is to keep giving you, our readers, the very best in terms of commitment in exposing the rot in this nation, and thereby help in nation building. We will keep doing our job through great journalism or through powerful stings. For stings do sting! And for those who missed out on our last issue, please log on to our website (www.thesundayindian.com/27092009/storyd.asp?sid=7756&pageno=1 ) for the full story. Or to www.Indiatvnews.com/videoarchives/ to see the recordings of the India TV coverage. Do send us your feedback and comments. It’s always invaluable. Jai hind!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:45 AM 6 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
September 17, 2009
The current austerity drive is commendable, but to create the real impact, the axe has to fall on the other wasteful expenditures!

Although on paper, we are one of the largest democracies in the world, but in a lot many ways, we are functionally more feudal. Otherwise, there is no other reason for such a hue and cry about the current austerity drive carried forward by the Ministry of Finance. In fact, the resistance against such a drive is justified simply because over the past sixty years, people’s representatives have indulged themselves so much in wasteful expenditure and made it such a norm, that any minor deviation from it looks abnormal. And here, the Ministry of Finance is all set to aggressively jam the brakes on every such expenditure. To begin with, the Ministry plans to cut the expenditure on domestic and foreign travel, publications, advertising and purchase of vehicles, by a whopping 10%. These heads are just a part of the non-plan expenditure, which is pegged at a staggering Rs. 6.9 trillion. Going forward, the Ministry also plans to cut the other components of the non-plan expenditure (excluding interest payments, repayment of debt, defence capital, salaries, pension and the Finance Commission grants to the states) by 5%. The Ministry has gone completely ballistic by cutting another 10% of budgetary allocations for seminars and conferences. Not to forget that holding of exhibitions/seminars/conferences abroad is strongly discouraged, with a complete ban upon holding of meetings and conferences at five star hotels!

As anticipated, of all these cuts, the maximum resistance from ministers is coming with respect to travel and hotel stays. And in fact, the maximum rot lies there itself. As reported in 2007-08, a staggering 75% of ministerial spending was on account of travel alone, which was 67% and 62% in 2006-07 and 2005/06 respectively! As per the finance account of 2007-08, the Union Council of Ministers’ expenditure was Rs. 192 crores, of which tour expenses accounted for almost Rs. 138 crores! The same figure for the year 2006-07 was Rs. 121 crores and Rs. 82 crores! And mind you, so many crores spent in traveling with literally no account on the resultant work accomplished. And then, on top of that, ministers have the audacity to resist such expenditure cuts! It was sad to learn the knee-jerk reactions from our Foreign Minister SM Krishna and his Minister of State Shahsi Tharoor, when they were asked to vacate their five star accommodations at Maurya and Taj! It was even more outrageous to learn our Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Sharad Pawar’s reaction on the same. According to him, it is hazardous to fly economy class as there is intrusion by other co-passengers (fellow citizens). He also postulated that the environment is not conducive to deal with files, and space constraints! He should realize that the money saved out of the hazards that he faces every time he travels economy class, can save the lives of those farmers of Vidharba who are dying by a dozen every week!

In fact, even in the most powerful democracy in the world, that is the US, the senators stay in rented accommodation and move around in taxis. They willfully take public transport and have no grudges about it. And mind you, that’s the United States of America, an economy which is almost 15 times bigger than us and whose per capita is almost 20 times of India’s. Given that fact, such expenditures in our economy look even more obscene. There is no reason as to why in a country, which has one of the highest number of people living below the poverty line, one of the largest number of people in the world who suffer from malnourishment and has probably one of the largest number of people in the world who suffer perennially from the miseries created by floods and droughts, the representatives of those people should have king-size lifestyles at taxpayers’ expense. Not just citizens, at this point of time when every business entity is suffering on account of the economic slowdown – and yet when one witnesses that the representatives of such a nation continue to indulge – then it is nothing short of blasphemy.

It was indeed great and impressive to see leaders of Pranab Mukherjee and Sonia Gandhi’s stature using the economy class for traveling by air. And it was a pleasure to see how others were forced to fall in line as now traveling in economy class equates to good politics. But everything said and done, such austerity drives and cut downs on travel expenditures are just a miniscule part of the overall wasteful expenditure on the part of the government. Unless the axe falls on several other areas where the real kind of wastage happens (like sprawling accommodations and related expenses, other expenses of ministers, multiple ministries, et al), the recent measures would only remain as symbolic ones for the masses and the media.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:25 AM 9 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
September 10, 2009
CLEARING THE 3 CRORE BACKLOG CASES BY 2012 IS FINE, BUT THEN IT SHOULD COME ALONG WITH OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
TO STRENGTHEN THE WHOLE JUDICIAL SYSTEM!

As a media house, from the very beginning we have been extremely vocal about the Indian judiciary. For we strongly believe that a poor justice delivery has been the root cause of most of our problems. It goes without saying that India has a weak, or rather a limping justice delivery system, which makes sure that justice is denied in most cases; and even if delivered, does not hold any value, thanks to the time (read lifetime) it takes. In the given scenario, the decision of the Centre to clear all the pending cases in the Indian judicial system is indeed a bold and welcome move.

By its (the Centre’s) own admission, there is a staggering number of nearly three crore court cases pending at several stages in different courts of India. While in many cases, the petitions have been pending in most of the lower courts, on many other occasions, even after getting a favourable verdict, the common Indian has to again fight it out at a higher level court. And the saga goes on. Sometimes the defendant wins, while at other times the prosecution wins; and this unending trauma continues till the time the case finally (if at all) reaches the Supreme Court and final justice is delivered. Thanks to the years or decades that it takes to execute a case and take it to its culmination, the legal fraternity invariably ends up making a windfall profit. And thanks to the absence of a time bound justice delivery mechanism, making moolah is not at all a challenge for our legal fraternity, as they are quite adept at purposefully making cases hang on for years. The reason is simple. The more the cases lingering on, the better are the chances to squeeze money from the common man. Expediting a case fast would be akin to killing the golden goose!

That’s one side of the injustice. If one has to go by the announcement of the government, by 2012, all the pending cases would be cleared. Liquidating nearly three crore cases in just a matter of three years is going to be a daunting challenge, knowing how the machinery is made to work currently. One fear that would always remain is that in the quest for speeding up the justice delivery, India should not end up delivering injustice. And if that happens, then the chaos that it would create would be more dangerous than the issue of having to deal with three crore pending cases. Indeed, one has to take care of the fact that the rot, which has been purposefully created in the system since years, has to be eliminated in a time bound manner rather than in haste. Yet, even if the Centre ends up in making the impossible possible, there is no guarantee that the predicament of pending court cases would not start spreading again. The only way to solve this issue is by passing statutory laws in the Parliament that would guarantee and typically force the delivery of justice in a timely manner. In developed countries like the US, for petty cases, people filing cases in the morning get justice literally by the evening. Even if India doesn’t end up being so fast, still the concept of having a law that enforces that a case be solved within a stipulated time would be good enough.

Incidentally, the issue of quick delivery of justice is one thing, the fear of law quite another. In India, the prosecution is in most cases very weak, which reduces the chances of getting fair justice for the common man. So, unless several other issues – like witness protection, the freedom to have a prosecutor other than the designated public prosecutor, the corruption in the judicial system and similar such nuances – are taken care of, merely speeding up the delivery of justice would only go on to create a bigger monster rather than a panacea. Another important reform that the judicial system in India needs is that of opening up of the Indian legal service industry to foreign competition. If the Indian consumer can have access to world class technology and medicines, why can’t he have the right to have access to the best legal firms of the world? Such a move would invariably end up making the Indian legal fraternity far more professional than what it is now. Beyond this, it is a fact that judicial reform will have to go hand in hand with administrative reforms. For example, unless the police is given the right kind of legal power, manpower and time to investigate a case, prosecution would continue to end up being weak and succumbing to the pressures of the defence; speedy delivery of justice would surely then become a farce.

All in all, over the years, the judiciary has been engineered to be slow to create a convenient ground to criminalize every aspect of our democracy. As a result, justice delivery has been made so scarce and painful that a majority of citizens have lost faith in it. So the Centre would face two challenges. The first challenge would be to counter those criminals who would try their best to keep the machinery as slow and corrupt as possible. The second challenge for the Centre would be to restore the faith of the common Indian in the judiciary. It goes without saying that both of these have become national imperatives now! So though it has started late, the Centre should still chase this deadline without any compromises, along with making necessary reforms to strengthen the whole judicial system – it could well mark the dawn of a new judicial future...
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:44 AM 7 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
September 3, 2009
If Rahul Gandhi can successfully pave a path for young and visionary leaders with clean track records to plunge into mainstream politics, it would be his biggest contribution to the nation!

In retrospect, the results of the 2009 General Elections have proved that the legacy of the Gandhi family and its deep union with the Congress Party is not just for namesake. The handsome numbers of seats with which the UPA roared back to power proved many pundits wrong – though the fact is, a deeper analysis of the factors which made the decisive victory of UPA possible indicates that probably even the UPA did not expect the mandate to be so much in their favour. Frankly speaking in terms of performance, the previous term of the UPA regime was not at all exciting, at least not enough to earn them such a landslide win. Although they had taken a few steps in terms of NREGA (which they have further consolidated, post their win) or the rural loan waiver scheme, those alone couldn’t have been so decisive in making the victory so seamless. Moreover, the nation then had just recovered from the mayhem of 26/11 and was reeling under an economic slowdown! But won they still did, and that too by a huge margin, clearly indicating that the Indian voter was so tired of witnessing the likes of Mayawati, Amar Singh, Lalu Prasad or Prakash Karat and their near zero interest in the long term development of India coupled with complete lack of vision, that they voted against them.

Other than this, the other key reason for the win was that barring Congress, there was no other political party which had fielded so many young candidates. And without any iota of doubt, the credit of the victory of UPA has to be given to Rahul Gandhi. Prior to the last Union elections, for so many months, he had been single handedly trying to motivate the youth of this country to join mainstream politics. The incredible results of Uttar Pradesh in which no one expected Congress to do so well was not because of any significant or strategic caste calculations. On the contrary and against the odds, it was all about this young man who reached out to the masses of UP and showed them a better future without fragmenting them on caste or religion. In fact, for a long time, it has been the trend that to win elections in India, it is important to divide the populace and make them vote either on caste or religious lines. It was refreshing to see someone after a long time who was trying to do something else.

It might be a little too early to state that Rahul Gandhi is probably the best politician of the country today and that he is better than the rest. But what is great about him is the fact that he is trying to bring a fresh breath of air in Indian politics, and particularly in Congress. He is instrumental in developing his own brand of politics which is a little less vitiated, devoid of personal vendetta and is definitely bereft of muscle and money power, factors which have been the biggest entry barriers for clean people to enter mainstream politics. Who can forget his unabashed appreciation of Nitish Kumar for the good work that he had been doing; it was a clear reflection of a politician who by Indian standards is completely apolitical. And there is no doubt in the fact that India needs more such people to fill the seats in the Parliament and less of the thugs who fill it up otherwise. In fact, it was amazing to observe that the impact of Rahul was such that the voters of UP booted out some of the dreaded gangsters indicating that for them, enough was enough. It was heartening to observe that the common man dumped those who would have otherwise enjoyed life with public money and loathe doing any good work worth talking about for their own constituencies. In itself, it is a remarkable transition for the UP electorate.

This time, undoubtedly, the youth of this country have been inspired to vote. And many of their votes have actually helped Congress to come back to power. For the young Indians, it is development that matters all in all. And most of them are looking up to Rahul Gandhi who has also set benchmarks by not trying in anyway to sit in the Prime Minister’s chair. By opting out this time, he has also shown that it is not necessary to sit in the coveted chair for continuing the good grassroots level work, the type of which he has been doing for long. And hence, after UP, now he is headed for Haryana.

In many ways Rahul Gandhi reminds me of his dynamic father, Rajeev Gandhi, and the way he ushered in economic and technological revolutions in this country, most apolitically. Many expect Rahul to repeat the same. But Rahul’s real contribution would be if he can inspire India’s youth to believe and participate in politics, which stands completely eroded today. It would be his biggest contribution to the nation, if he can drive his campaign and successfully pave a path for young and visionary leaders, with clean track records, to plunge into mainstream politics. That would change the future of this nation forever...
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:23 AM 4 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
August 27, 2009
BJP is in a mess and sending dangerous signals to the nation; but I do hope they come out of it strongly. India needs them!
The last elections had invariably cast a heavy spell on BJP. As a result of which, over sometime now, the party had had been busy in meetings. And aptly so, these high profile and highly secured meetings had been named Chintan Baithak (‘thought sittings’). But ironically, the outcomes of these meetings have not been as thoughtful though! On the contrary, the party has been reeling under a perpetual conflict, and unfortunately all of this is coming from the leadership. The lineup of miseries starts with Arun Shourie’s remarks and stretches up to Vasundhara Raje's clichés with the party over her resignation and the suspension orders served to her loyals Rajendra Rathore and Gyan Ahuja. Before Raje’s episode could have been resolved any further, a new episode on BJP leader and party veteran Jaswant singh popped up, wherein he was recently expelled for writing a book on Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his thoughts on partition.

On this, the two veteran leaders, Arun Shourie and Vasundhara Raje (who is having conflicts with the party on other matters too!), challenged the decision of the party high command. Like Raje, even Shourie is having conflicts with the party on his remarks. To reiterate, on August 24, 2009, Shourie asked the RSS to takeover BJP’s control and described Rajnath Singh as “Alice in Blunderland” during a programme on a television channel. He further tagged BJP as “Ek Kati Patang” and said that all top leaders should be removed. All in all, there seems to be no stoppage of the crossfire of remarks from BJP’s top-guns. From Advani to Shourie to Arun Jaitley to Sushma Swaraj – no one is leaving any stone unturned to further complicate the matter. If Mohan Bhagwat is fighting for leadership on one hand, then on the other, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie are being scrutinised over their accountability on the elections’ performance.

The fact is that the hangover and the aftermath of loss in the Lok Sabha elections seem to have shattered the party’s foundation. The party expects Vasundhara Raje to resign when the majority of the MLAs want her to continue; they even summon BS Yeddyuruppa (BJP Chief Minister of Karnataka and the first BJP CM in any southern state) and seek an explanation for his not being able to deliver the promised numbers; and BC Khanduri, former BJP CM of Uttarakhand, even after giving his best shot, is asked to leave!!

There is no doubt in the fact that this churn was visible within BJP since sometime now. Unfortunately, it has taken a turn, wherein it is making the party extremely vulnerable from within. And worse is the fact that the BJP is creating opportunities for the opportunistic and self-centered regional and fringe parties to come to the center-stage and make their positions formidable. That probably is going to be the biggest loss for the nation, for none of these fringe players has a national vision as most of them serve their regional mandates. The sooner BJP evolves from this crisis, the better it is; but the manner in which they are going about it, things don’t look bright as of now. In fact, their current crises are sending extremely dangerous signals to the nation.

Take the case of Jaswant’s expulsion. There are two things that evolve out of it. First, has Jaswant become less important for BJP with time – like Natwar Singh or Arjun Singh had become for the Congress? In essence, was the party simply waiting to get rid of him any which way? And if that was the case, when people become old in Indian politics, why can’t they be allowed and guided to step down in a dignified manner? Why don’t we explain to them to do so, and give them a nice farewell instead of expelling them at the slightest ridiculous reason? Secondly, if indeed the BJP did expel Jaswant for his Jinnah encomium, then what is the signal that the party is trying to send to the nation? Are they trying to say that – hey, we hate freedom of expression, don’t believe in democracy, support M F Hussain’s paintings being vandalized in exhibitions; and will continue doing that even when we come to power, as we already do all this inside our party too? Or are they trying to say that – hey, we are categorically a Hindu party and there is no way we will let Muslims feel we are secular (then why the sham of having a Shahnawaz Hussain and an M A Naqvi in the party in the first place)?

BJP needs to realize that only inclusive agendas will bring a party to national power in days to come. Urban India doesn’t categorically understand this gagging of expression or non-secular saffron clad behaviour. And if the BJP does understand that and changes, only then will they perhaps be able to not only give a democracy like India what it needs the most – a strong second party – but also itself a chance to come back to power.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:35 AM 5 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
August 20, 2009
"MY NAME IS KHAN… AND I AM NOT A TERRORIST"
SRK's interrogation is not the issue. The issue is that Americans need to learn humility.

The week’s big story was Shahrukh Khan's interrogation in the USA. True, as people would say, why give so much importance to SRK being detained in the airport for two hours, when there are so many more important socio-economic issues bogging the country – from poverty to illiteracy! But truth also is that while socio-economic issues should be picked up constantly – and we at The Sunday Indian do attempt the same most religiously – yet, there are the SRKs who will make news from time to time because they too impact the country in many ways. And this time around, SRK’s detention has brought to light the plight of thousands of others who go through a similar kind of a treatment on a most regular basis. Personally speaking, I haven’t ever been subjected to a detailed profiling; but yes, the kind of questions and the way I have been asked were good enough for me to decide years back that I would not go to the USA unless it is a matter of utter emergency. And thankfully, there has been no such thing as ‘utter emergency’ that has been able to take me to USA for years now.

My dislike for Americanism, of course, has a lot to do with their greed driven material culture as well. But that apart, I have always preferred Europe to America, even in the pre 9/11 days, and felt that while Europeans have always been at the top of civilized behaviour, Americans – despite their pretence of being the global leaders – have always lagged far behind in terms of civilized behaviour. The proof lies in the high rates of homicides, rapes, drug abuse and racial abuse Americans suffer when compared to Europeans. Countries in Europe face security challenges similar to America and undertake equally similar strict checks at their airports. European authorities also, at times, take you aside for profiling – especially in the UK. But when they do the same, at every moment during the time one is being questioned, one feels that this indeed is the need of the hour. The world definitely requires to see the end of terrorism; and if some people who look like us or have a similar skin colour have been at the forefront of such destruction, then we surely need these checks for safeguarding our own future. The way the staff at European airports are trained to handle such profiling and questioning is amazing. Not only are they very very polite and courteous, but they would also never make you feel like a suspected terrorist.

The feeling one gets in America is quite the opposite. The staff lacks basic courtesy and they behave with you as if they own the world. That you are a suspect is made obvious to you in numerous ways. And that is precisely the reason why Indians, from Abdul Kalam to Irrfan Khan to now SRK, have had to face awkwardness from something to do with America and not Europe or any other country/continent. It is these qualities of highhandedness and arrogance that make Americans trip to make such a mistake with an SRK. Because even if he needs to be checked as per their normal procedure, it would take any official only about fifteen minutes to realise who SRK is – in whichever part of the world one is, and especially in USA where one doesn’t have to look too far to spot an Indian colleague – to let him go. Detention for a period of two hours, by any standards, is extreme humiliation for any citizen; and definitely for someone who is so easily identifiable.

Having said all that, it is also worthwhile mentioning that the entire security detailing that Americans have been undertaking has in reality been a very advantageous exercise – they surely have prevented another 9/11 from occurring. It is just that Americans need to change the dirty legacy that Bush has left behind and learn more humility. America needs to have that humility transferred into the personalities of its citizens. Barack Obama is doing well to undo a lot of Bush’s legacy personally. But it hasn’t yet gotten translated into the personalities of his office bearers; and that is why it’s not just about SRK, but even the Harvard professor who is handcuffed in the most humiliating manner by the American police under the same pretext – they didn’t know who he was! The problem is that in their highhandedness, Americans don’t care to know who is who because if you are a black, brown or Muslim, then you are to be treated badly even if your own President is a black man today.

On another tangent though, as I say this, I feel that before we talk about Americans, we need to take a look at ourselves too. The manner in which we have historically treated the majority of Dalits and Muslims in India in terms of their access to mainstream education, employment etc. is most shameful. And even today, despite such a huge electoral defeat, we have a party like BJP refusing to change its stance vis-a-vis the Muslims and sending such wrong and further alienating signals to the masses by expelling a Jaswant Singh for having said a few good things about Jinnah.

Coming back to the Americans, I would conclude by saying that until they are able to make their people more cultured about human dealings, many like me would rather stay away from America than take the stress of an unnecessary discomfort or humiliation at their airports, and that too at the very start of a leisure or business trip. What they are doing is right, but the way they are doing needs to undergo a vast improving change. For that, I guess Barack will have to drink many more beers with his people – similar to what he did with the Harvard professor and the police officer who handcuffed him – to drill down some humility and respect for human beings. They must realise that every Khan is not a terrorist – something that SRK’s character says in his forthcoming film – “My name Khan... And I am not a terrorist!”
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:34 AM 11 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
August 12, 2009
ALONG WITH ARRESTING SWINE FLU, THE FLU THAT AILS THE HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE -
THAT IS, THE POLITICAL MINDSET - TOO NEEDS TO BE CORRECTED IMMEDIATELY!

The impending pandemic of swine flu has once again brought to the fore the hapless condition of Indian healthcare, the under preparedness of the government as well as the indifference with which the babudom tends to treat such incidents that generally plague the common man to a large extent. Incidentally, just as the news of swine flu is spreading panic like wildfire, these days there are also reports of thousands being affected by cerebral malaria in Bihar. Yet, that doesn’t make prime news; and won’t make much news even if the casualties there were to happen in multiples of those dying due to swine flu. And the reason? Well, deaths due to malaria and such diseases like dengue, Japanese encephalitis or say diarrhoea have a correlation with the socioeconomic conditions of the people affected by them. Thus, in the protocol driven corridors of babudom, the chances of these diseases creating any significant impact is slim. And so, they don’t make much of news.

But swine flu is different. It’s contagious and spreads fast and has nothing to do with the socioeconomic hierarchy. Anyone could get affected by swine flu even in the cleanest of environments. Chances are high that the impact would be more in public places like shopping malls, airports or hotels. Interestingly, unlike other diseases that have the possibility of becoming a pandemic, swine flu is spreading from cities to the other parts of India and not the other way round. So, the chances of anyone getting affected irrespective of class and creed, is much more. In spite of all the semblance of alacrity being shown by the government, what is visible all across is how the public healthcare system is woefully inadequate to take care of India’s burgeoning population. If the population, on one hand, is a reason for the inability of the handful of public hospitals in taking care of all cases, inefficiency and lack of proper management are also equally responsible for the same. Thus, the government has been forced to rope in private hospitals for checking the spread of swine flu. And surely this has happened for good.

The matter of fact is that whether it is swine flu which attacks irrespective of socio-economic background or the likes of malaria, dengue and encephalitis, it is imperative for the government to accept that private initiatives will have to be given its due importance and without that, India’s healthcare system would not improve. The reason for the same is simple. It has been observed that in most of the sectors wherever India has excelled, those have been private initiatives that have really played a critical role in bringing a paradigm shift in that sector. Whether in the telecom industry or in the aviation, insurance, consumer durables or pharmaceuticals industry, private players have played a critical role in bringing back resurgence. I wonder how many of the critical drugs that we generally use are from Indian government-owned pharma companies. If intense competition in telecom, insurance and consumer durables has been successful in bringing down the prices and in making products affordable for the poor, then one wonders why the same cannot be applied in the case of healthcare too. In this respect, what is important to note is that the upper middle class and the rich have stopped going to government hospitals a long time back, thanks to pathetic treatment, indifference and lack of basic hygiene. It is only the poor or the lower middle class who visit the government hospitals; but even then, it has been seen that given the huge number of patients involved, hospitals either find it difficult to treat each case or find it more convenient to simply brush their hands off . The nightmare happens especially in the case of surgery related issues in government hospitals, where most of the accessory expenditures are borne by the patient’s family; or the waiting time to get a date for a critical surgery is so long that they are forced to get the operations done in private hospitals.

It is for this reason that private participation is imperative in a big way in health care. And it is not that we do not have examples within the nation. The pioneering initiatives by renowned cardiac surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty with respect to affordable healthcare in Karnataka have been extremely successful and have shown that it is possible to have health insurance for something as low as Rs 5 – much like the chhota recharge concept in telecom. Just as the microfinance concept of Md. Younus has been revolutionizing rural business where conventional banking has relatively failed, the concept of micro health insurance has a similar ability to fuel a major change in the way healthcare is taken care of in India (This becomes all the more important, especially because of the fact that India’s standing is a dismal 128 in the Human development Index, a poor reflection of the state of things in rural India). No doubt, such innovations would originate only from entrepreneurs and not from government hospitals. Nevertheless, these need to be nurtured. Unfortunately, here too everything comes to a knot as it seems that not only is there a considerable lot of resistance by the bureaucracy but there is also a tendency to not let the leash or control of things go out of hand.

In the given environment, it is not just swine flu that needs to be arrested, but even the flu that ails the entire health infrastructure, i.e. the political mindset, needs to be corrected simultaneously.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:47 AM 7 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
August 6, 2009
THE GOVERNMENT’S PLAN TO MAKE NAXALS GIVE UP THEIR ARMS BY PROVIDING THEM FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE IS ANOTHER FAILED ATTEMPT!
Although the Naxalite movement today has grown to become one of the biggest threats to our internal security, I would not blame the Naxals completely for this current predicament. And I have my reasons for the same. A movement that started as a class struggle in Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, in the late 60s, has now spread over the entire country. If observed carefully, this movement has strategically spread to those rural hinterlands, which have been completely cut off from any form of economic development. Naxalism has spread like a wildfire in those areas of Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, which are completely cut off from mainstream India. Lack of development coupled with years of negligence and oppression have further added to the Naxalite struggle. So much so that today, thousands of young men and women, mostly tribal, have joined the movement because that is the only recourse left for them to lead a very basic dignified life – a life, which ideally the government at the state and the Centre should have provided to them long back. Forget livelihood, the government has failed in providing even the most basic infrastructure for a humane existence. These people have been left in the lurch with no roads, no schools, no portable water, no sanitation and no health facilities. And on top of that, the highhandedness of the state administration has left so much of bitterness that these young men and women do not bat an eyelid before killing scores of innocent soldiers and policemen. For them, these jawans – and police – are the faces of the government; and killing them is their response to their own long standing neglect! In the past five years, the Naxal movement has killed thousands of jawans and policemen, burnt down millions worth of property unabashedly and has grown to be a monster, which is beyond the state machinery’s control. It is so very unfortunate that as recent as even a year back, our former Home Minister, Mr. Shivraj Patil, was still not ready to accept the fact that Naxalism is contemporary India’s biggest internal threat!

Now, it seems, the Centre is trying to formulate a strategy to counter Naxalism. As per some news reports, the government is now finalizing a strategy by providing Naxalite groups financial assistance. As per reports, the Ministry of Home is likely to offer Rs. 2,500 per month as a stipend and put in Rs. 300,000 as a fixed deposit for three years for those who give up arms. The government is hopeful that with this scheme in place, they would be able to convince around 10,000 Naxals to surrender. And if that happens, this new proposition will annually cost Rs. 400 crores to the government. As per reports, the scheme has got an impetus post our honourable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s suggestions that a national plan to rehabilitate the Naxals was imperative after the states failed in making the Naxals surrender their arms.

No doubt, the intent of the policy draft is noble and comes with a clear cut objective – to bring back those Naxals who have taken up arms, back to mainstream. But then, I have serious doubts in terms of the success of this policy. My apprehensions stem from the fact that Naxalism has manifested from a class struggle, wherein their fight has always been against the establishment and general administration. Over the past forty years, Naxalism has only grown and spread. And with that has grown the trust divide between the Naxals and the State. The distrust is so deep – and for valid reasons – that it is going to be extremely challenging for the government to bring the Naxals to give away their arms. Most likely, even this new attempt is going to be another failed attempt, similar to the previous attempts made by various state governments.

On the flip side, even if the new proposition becomes successful and succeeds in making the Naxals give up their arms, then too this would remain a failed attempt, for then it would send the wrong signals to other fringe groups or organizations that – like the Naxal movement – are threats to the national security. In other words, this policy indirectly is incentivising those who pose a threat to the national security. And of course, we have not even touched the fact that anyway, the government does not even have officially confirmed records in terms of the numbers of Naxals and the amount of arms and ammunitions they possess – figures that are the basis for this plan to succeed. There are also chances this new attempt might give birth to rackets – for example non Naxals claiming they’re Naxals, just to earn a quick buck – which would milk this opportunity to make some money.

Lastly, if today the government is ready to budget Rs. 400 crores just to pay stipends to these people, then why didn’t the government budget the same all these years to connect the rural hinterland to mainstream India? For then, this would have never allowed Naxalism to flourish in the first place. Moreover, what about those people who kept on believing on the government and did not join the Naxal movement. Today, when the government pays Rs. 2,500 per month (which is big money in rural India) to the ones who picked up guns against the establishment, I’m sure the ones who put their faith in the government and did not pick up the guns would definitely feel cheated and defeated!

Today, as a nation, we are paying a price for a divide, which the government of India should have provisioned for a long time back. The bigger fear is that just in case this plan succeeds, it is going to create another divide for which our future generations will have to pay a massive price.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:25 AM 3 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
July 30, 2009
Mr. Obama, you are honest and that’s why the world’s expectations from you never end!
When Barack Obama occupied the White House around six months back, expectations from him were tremendous! A considerable amount of this expectation building can be credited to his predecessor, who had done so much of damage that people all across the globe were waiting desperately for the big change in America’s highest office. And the rest of the credit goes to Obama’s mind blowing speech that he delivered in Illinois post his win, which further exponentially compounded those very expectations that people had of and from him. So not only were those beleaguered Americans residing in the US and their brethren marines in Iraq expecting a miracle from the new President elect, but also people from all shades of life all across the world, who eagerly accepted that change had finally come. In fact, it was not surprising to observe that Iranians sitting in Teheran had as much faith in Obama bringing change to the Middle East as a Chinese sitting in Beijing. All of a sudden, it seemed that hope had turned into firm belief that change was about to come.

Six months down the line, much of that expectation has withered away and the world is perhaps none the better or worse as it was in the days of Bush. Or perhaps in the days of Bush, things ironically were a little better. The global economy then was not as much in a shambles as it is now. Obama, though, has not been as lucky as Bush as Obama inherited an economy which was no more worth calling an economy. And probably that’s why, in most of the fashionably known popularity indices, Barack Obama's popularity has been on a constant downslide. Though Americans in general approve of Obama’s foreign policies – particularly with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan – they still strongly disapprove of his policies pertaining to taxes, health care, the federal budget deficit and the economy as a whole. As per a recent Gallup data, as many as 83% of Americans feel that the steps taken by Obama would push the economy from bad to worse. Some 82% of Americans are worried about the ever expanding deficit. Around 78% are worried about the inflationary pressure and 69% are concerned about the increasing role of the US government in the economy! As a matter of fact, today looking around within the US, one doesn’t find any positive indications, except for a change in the economic condition from bad to worse after more job losses. The least said on the economic front, perhaps the better it is for everyone, as all this does is only to add despair amongst the readers. Trillions of dollars of bailout packages and billions of dollars of relief notwithstanding, American companies continue to collapse. Rhetoric on stalling of outsourcing has not helped much either. And probably no one has any clue as to when the US economy, which runs on trillions of dollars of current account deficit, would be back on its feet.

Outside the US too, Obama has failed to drive in any conclusive change till now. The Middle East is in no way better today than what it was when Obama was campaigning and promising change. True, he gave some exceptional speeches especially in Cairo with a clear cut objective to reconcile much of the notional and real differences that exist between the US and the Islamic world. Without doubt, that speech in Cairo by Obama was perhaps one of the best ever given by any US president; the speech was not only honest but carried a considerable amount of dignified humility. But then, by this time he would have already realized that however great an oration might be, a speech always has a limited shelf life. Beyond that shelf life, speeches don’t work much. The situation in the Middle East has not changed much. Iraq epitomizes what a failed state is and is a contemporary example of how the US adventure was completely misplaced. The damage is so deep rooted that even Obama withdrawing US soldiers from Iraq would not solve the problems. On the contrary, it would only aggravate the problems, as Iraq would either become a safe haven for all kinds of terror organizations with allegiance to the likes of Al-Qaida, or it would become an extension of a belligerent Iran. The animosity between the Arab world and Jews has only aggravated; and if Iran is pushed beyond a point by the US to give up nuclear options, a nuclear catastrophe is not too far away.

Obama’s speech in Prague, similarly, further pushed away Iran from Europe; and his contention that the US and NATO should go ahead with anti ballistic missile shields in Poland and Czech Republic has only helped antagonize Russia more. Reconciliation then becomes far from reality. And so far as China is concerned, it seems the Obama Administration does not have much idea about how to contain or control it, and in which direction this relationship should be taken. Pakistan, likewise, is on the brink of failure and a belligerent as well as unilateral policy of US to bombard NWFP regions with missiles fired from drones has only increased collateral damages and consolidated the fundamentalists. Terror attacks continue unabated all across the world and Africa continues to be the same old Dark Continent in exile, comparable to what it was before. Obama’s African background perhaps has not been sufficient enough to restore sanity in that continent.

Though a little too early, but perhaps Obama himself knows this that it is far easier to talk about change and give fiery speeches than to actually bring about changes. It was evident when he himself stated in his Cairo speech, “I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point.”

Mr.Obama, you are honest and that’s why the world’s expectations from you never end!!!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 7:35 AM 4 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
July 23, 2009
SONIA AND MAMATA: THE TALE OF TWO LADIES!
As I watched Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Calcutta on 21st July, I was forced to wonder where her courage comes from! It was simply amazing to see a lady managing an entire show all on her own in the middle of quite a heavy rainfall. She was drenched and so were all her members on the stage. But she carried on. Kept giving her simple and honest speech! Kept inviting on the stage and felicitating one after the other of her still honest party members. And the thousands of people present kept watching it all and applauding it all amidst the rains – some under umbrellas and some completely drenched. But no one seemed to be interested in going back! The crowd further had the presence of one of CPM's ardent past supporters Mahasweta Devi, who, despite her deteriorating health condition, had made it a point to be there! And the crowd had another old woman too!

43 years ago, a 12-year-old boy had fallen to police bullets when students hit the streets for food, kerosene and exercise books in ration shops. At that time, that boy Nurul Islam had become the face of the Left movement in Bengal. Even now, Left student leaders place wreathes at the martyr’s memorial at Subodh Mullick square. In an ironical twist to history, Nurul's 80-year-old mother Asiya Bibi was amongst those thousands who attended Mamata's grand show and showed their support for her. For those who aren’t aware, Mamata's rally happens every year on the same day in memory of 13 people killed in police firing in 1993 when Jyoti Basu was the Chief Minister – of course the numbers thronging the rally multiply every year. It couldn’t have been a more symbolic turn of the tables.

Looking at her growing support, one can safely say that she has taken Trinamool Congress to the brink of history! And it’s all thanks to her courage – the courage to retain her simplicity and carry on amidst the dictatorial communist regime. Who would have ever imagined that one lone woman would one day shake the communist base in Bengal – that too just after being completely written off just about three years back! As I sat watching the television, I could only admire this woman and her courage!

And while I thought of her, I couldn’t but help think of the other woman who has silently, amidst a lot of criticism, taken another Congress – the main one at the Center – to the brink of history. It’s now being said that the Congress has never been in a more favorable situation nationwide since Indira Gandhi's peak days! Her courageous battle amidst criticism about her behind-the-scenes leadership is again what amazes me. From a simple woman who never wanted her sweet and smiling husband to enter politics, she was forced to not just see him enter politics but also see him meet the most tragic end possible. That was most certainly the end of her tryst with politics, till she realized that the Congress kept coming back to her, as without the dynasty, fortunately or unfortunately, the party just couldn’t survive. And with amazing poise and courage, despite being the target of some of the nastiest personal attacks on her Indianness – to many of her critics, having an Indian citizenship and an Indian husband who gave his life for the country, it seems, doesn’t still make a woman Indian enough – she consolidated the party. She kept herself and her son out of power, and gave the country a Prime Minister whom the entire nation stands proud of today – and yet remained the main source of strength for the Congress.

If one looks at things the way they are today, then one can say that though we have a woman President and a woman Speaker, it’s these two women – Sonia and Mamata – who are on the verge of making the biggest impact on Indian politics in more than two decades. Both the Congress and Trinamool are in a historically advantageous position. And they essentially just need to build upon it so that the fringe players and nuisance creators like CPM are marginalized for years to come. If the Congress can grab this huge opportunity amidst the crazy infighting inside the growingly “out of tune with times” BJP and a disappearing Communist party – the key Third Front player – and work hard around its policies, it will come back to power in a much bigger way in five years from now. And obviously, that will be with Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister without an iota of doubt; unless, of course, he is made the Prime Minister before the next elections itself!

That would complete the transition of the Congress back to total stability as the strongest national party, leaving behind years of instability after the death of Rajiv Gandhi. At the same time, if Mamata can capitalize on this golden opportunity of the anti-Left wave that’s sweeping Bengal and can hit the final nail in the CPM’s coffin with precision two years from now, she would be creating history. By destroying the CPM, she would in the process help bring considerable stability at the Center as well. If both Sonia and Mamata succeed, it would be thanks to the supreme courage that the two women have displayed against all odds – Sonia on a personal front and Mamata on a political front. In fact, their similarities don’t end here! If you were to look at both of them a little more closely, you would find something very interesting. Behind their mostly very determined stance and look on their face, they both have a very simple, shy and affectionate smile! That kind of tells what I call “the tale of two ladies”. A tale of a journey of courage against all odds of two women, for whom at least their two parties must stand up in unison and salute!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:43 AM 3 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
July 16, 2009
Shame on BJP, SP and CPM! Hail EC and hail EVM!!
Nandan Nilekani’s resignation as the co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies might be a great loss for one of the most iconic companies of India but is indeed a great gain for Indian governance. Now that he has taken up a job, which in certain respects is more challenging than what he had done for more than three decades at Infosys, Nilekani – as the Chairman of the newly formed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) – if he succeeds, could forever change the way the poor can be served in this nation. Yet, even when such a card is a long time due and even when almost the full majority of Indians would be happy to have a card like that, one can take it for granted that many in the bureaucratic corridors of India, down to the people in the local administrations of the block offices, would abhor if such an occurrence were to eventually materialize. The reason for the same is simple – such a card would be a permanent roadblock to their ability to earn the extra buck that they have got used to, by manipulating and robbing the Indian poor for decades. No wonder, Nandan Nilekani should be prepared for many roadblocks on his way to executing the project. The moot question is whether the administration and those down in the chain can alone be blamed for such blatant corruption? Well, not really, for there is no doubt that they would invariably resist following the footsteps of their political masters.

A decade and a half ago, the then Election Commissioner, T N Seshan revolutionized democracy and elections in India by pioneering the concept of voter ID cards. Since then, the Election Commission (EC) has consistently created new benchmarks in refining the election process in India. The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is a marvel in its own self and the concept is so unique and effective that many Western developed countries send their officials to India to learn about the mechanics of the machine. In fact, even the United States has not been able to make its entire election process as sophisticated as India has succeeded in doing. EVMs not only make the voting system tamperproof, but also – along with the stringent security measures that the EC resorts to with the help of the paramilitary forces – ensures that the voting process in India has reached such levels that in many parts of India where rigging was a way of life, it has been checked to a large extent. But if the recent murmurs are to be believed, especially the ones coming from the quarters of BJP, SP and the CPM, they want to ban the EVMs and get back to ballot boxes!! According to them, the most important reason for their miserable performance in this election has been the EVM, which they feel can and has been tampered with in favor of the victorious parties. Well, such a thought is not only insanely ridiculous and farthest from reality, it is also a reflection of disrespect that they hold for the electorate! It is a matter of shame that these political parties who are talking of ballot today are not willing to learn from their mistakes and are trying to find a scapegoat in the EVM, which fortunately after decades of rigging and blatant loot of votes, has provided some form of voice to the electorate! But then, if one looks at the parties who are raising the concerns over EVMs, the picture becomes evidently clear.

SP as a political party is probably not even worth talking about given the level to which it has taken the criminalization of politics in India. And so far as the Left and BJP are concerned, the fact that defeat has taken sanity away from them is vindicated by the statements emanating from their highest levels of leadership. As a political party that could be India’s best alternative to Congress, BJP does have a lot of responsibilities. It is indeed funny for the BJP to come up with such statements knowing that some of their chief ministers like Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan of Madhya Pradesh and Narendra Modi of Gujarat have not only decisively and consistently won elections in their own states but have also been appreciated for the ground level social reforms they have initiated in their respective states. This was reflected by the near wipeout of Congress in state elections in MP, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. In the Rajasthan state elections, even though BJP lost to Congress, the margin has been nominal. And in each of the states, it was the same EVM which made the BJP victorious. But the BJP didn’t blame it then, did they?! It was only when they lost the union elections because of a hollow and failed plank of Hindutva that they started belatedly blaming the EVM. In the same league, the likes of Prakash Karat should realize that this country does not adhere to his Stalinist ideologies and they have been rejected hands down across all bastions, including their own in West Bengal. And thus the likes of Prakash Karat do not want the EVM to stay as it punctures their incredible skills in scientific rigging that the CPM cadres have mastered for decades. Without the EVMs and the stringency of the EC, the turn of events in West Bengal would have been unthinkable!

The writing on the wall has always been very clear, particularly in these elections. You deliver and the electorate votes for you. And if you don’t, then you stand to get marginalized! And this has been possible only through an agile EC and an unbiased EVM! So contrary to what the BJP, SP and CPM are chanting and wanting, the nation is truly hailing the EC and EVM!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:19 AM 7 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
July 9, 2009
At long last, a budget that has clearly placed first the agendas of people who have no lobbies!

Not that it has done everything that had to be done for those who have been deliberately marginalised by the society now for decades and ignored just to fill the coffers of rich industrialists of India. But kudos that it has reached here at least. I, personally, and our media house have both been severely critical of budgets year after year. After presenting alternative budgets for nine years on the trot, I finally see a government that has at least had the courage to come out in the open and present a budget which hardly has any sops worth talking about for the industry. Yes, the advantages that a few industrial houses will derive haven’t gone unnoticed. But as I had written – with a lot of sarcasm and desperation – in our last issue: Let this budget be a ‘Khao Aur Khilao’ budget. And I won’t look at vested interests which got served here and there. I will only look at the good that has happened. After more than four years post the launch of Business & Economy and our media house, here is a budget for which I have first class marks! It surely deserves a 6 to 6.5 out of ten. Just for its vision and boldness to announce only social measures one after the other at the cost of getting the middle getting upset. At the cost of stock markets registering their heaviest falls. At the cost of industrialists quietly having had to gulp down their disappointment and give TV bytes praising the budget – not because they realise the reasons why the budget is good, but because they knew their was nothing to logically criticize it on.

Now let’s take a look at the details of the budget. Of all the rank bad budgets by the previous Congress terms – of course, with various kinds of external pressures – the only scheme that can be clearly considered their pet project that had Sonia, Manmohan and Rahul's full support was the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) scheme. And the best part of even this budget has been the huge 140 percent increase in NREGA allocations; and of course, the food guarantee scheme. The plan for providing direct subsidy to farmers is a very good move, coupled up with the concept of biometric unique identification cards. It’s a positive step towards removal of corruption.

This budget also sees a sense of gradual move towards strong reforms through the formation of the integrated energy act, shift in the fertilizer subsidy and efforts towards making domestic fuel prices move in sync with global prices. Further, another positive and super step towards removal of corruption in politics is the move to make all donations to political parties tax free. This would curtail donations in cash and make the system more transparent! For direct tax payers, the only real good news is that the incredibly silly and bureaucracy inducing FBT (Fringe Benefit Tax) has gone. Planman Media has been a very vocal and strong critic of the same since much earlier. At the same time, the increase in the minimum slab for income tax is so minimal that it gives absolutely no excitement. Either this ‘minimum’ should have been increased by 40k to 60k; or if not, could have remained the same! And on the corporate front, investments linked tax structure is a great improvement.

On the flip side is the increase of Rs. 40,000 crores on defence – I am not sure which external country is posing any immediate threat for that kind of an increase. However, the move to strengthen the central paramilitary is great; similarly great is the move to make their allowances at par with the army. Accepting the ‘one rank, one pension’ philosophy for ex-servicemen is brilliant; it was a long standing demand of defence personnel and will result in an immediate increase in their pension! Where the budget really fails is that there is nothing really concrete on the all important issues of primary education, housing, women's jobs, slums, primary health, women and child health. It sure is a big budget – it passed the rupees ten lakh crores mark for the first time – with considerable improvement compared to the past, yet it lacks a concrete social development framework despite the NREGA and food security promise of 25kg rice at Rs. 3 per kg.

Finally, I would comment that two of Mr. Pranab Mukherjee’s statements – for which I cannot say I saw very concrete steps – are very motivating. One, he said he wants to improve the rule of law for all citizens. Two, is his urge to make India slums free in five years. It’s high time to have such a vision. Speaking about vision – though it seems a little less, yet the promise to create 12 million jobs a year is a super beginning. In 15 years then, we can remove the problem of unemployment from India! And of course, the aim to achieve 9% growth rate becomes more logical! I just hope this budget really is the beginning of budgets which are more meaningful (in frustration last year, our readers would remember, I had implored for the banning of the budget) and which move away from the private sector, big industrial houses and the agendas of the mostly middle class –or industrialists bought out – media; I hope this budget sees the new beginning of budgets which will focus year after year solely on the poor – the seventy percent of India which lives on less than a dollar a day.

Pranabda, let the short-sighted and illogical stock markets crash more often for the next four consecutive budgets. Keep on this track and keep improving upon this new bold initiative of yours. You will not only help Congress come back to power in a bigger way in 2014, but you will create history by doing to India what no other finance minister has done in past. You would have really brought millions of Indians out of poverty. And we will keep supporting you blindly for anything and everything you do for those who earn below a dollar a day. And as the poor Indians get purchasing power, the media and industrial houses, all will start seeing sense because then they will sell more and make more profits like Chinese industrialists; and India will see double digit growth rates. This budget is only for a few months, we look forward to your next big one in February with the greatest anticipation and also look forward to more concrete steps on issues ranging from poverty eradication to slum removal! Till then, here's an initial thumbs up to this budget!!!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:38 AM 5 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
July 2, 2009
THE TEN THINGS KAPIL SIBAL MUST DO FOR INDIAN EDUCATION!
I write this with a sense of unfulfilled hopes. Last time, when Congress came to power, I was very excited to get a call from Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia one fine day, asking me if I was ok in becoming an advisor to the Education and Social Sector Consultative Committee being set up by the Planning Commission of India. A couple of days later, even before I received any official confirmation from them on the same, I read in the papers that I was indeed a part of it! As an educationist myself, as well as a passionate social sector thinker, I started preparing the suggestions I wanted the government to implement. However, as was the case with the entire Congress regime last time, very soon the blackmailing CPM created a huge noise on how could people from multinational consulting firms be part of the Indian planning process – and the consultative committees had to be abandoned! My suggestions remained with myself, though through my televised alternative budgets every year, in any case I have been trying to give those suggestions to the governments for the last nine years!

As the new government starts off with an unbelievable enthusiasm – this time free of any blackmailing forces – one of the areas where the action is perhaps highest is the education sector. And thank god for that. Unlike in the past – the less said about it the better – here we have this time an honest and educated minister at the helm of the ministry who means business (his interview in the next few pages will prove that)! And thus, with huge hopes, as someone who is in the field of education, first before anything else, I thought of summing up the key recommendations for him in ten simple points! And here they go... 1. Sir, I need not tell you that after the right to health – a right which guarantees life – and the right to employment that guarantees living, it is right to education that is the most important duty of the government, as it guarantees the right to life and living with dignity. And thus, it is a must that the right to education is something that should be implemented in reality. Every child born in India should have access to good schooling and should have access to the means required to get educated. If there is anything that accounts for a level playing ground, it is education, education and education. An educated man is any day a more worthwhile resource for an economy than an uneducated man, and education, it must be said, is the cheapest service that any government can provide its citizens. And education has nothing to do with poverty. A poorer Kerala has almost double the literacy rate than a far richer Punjab; as is the case with a poorer Vietnam when compared to India. Sir, do make the right to education and access to it, a reality and not mere lip service.

2. In your reform agenda, the topmost priority should be for primary education. Because what is important in achieving higher literacy rates in a nation is not just teaching a man how to sign his name. But giving functional literacy. That means the poor man should be educated enough so that he can be functionally literate. That means that he can, for example, read the instructions on a fertilizer pack – or for that matter the headlines of a newspaper – and understand it... And for this, it is primary education which is of prime importance. It is this that has, however, been most neglected in this country. While about 96 percent kids officially enroll for schools, 40 percent drop out even before the age of ten, with the dropout percentage being much higher in the case of women. Around 75,000 schools in India don’t have a single classroom, while another 100,000 schools have just a single class room. And that makes about 15 percent of total schools. Teacher absenteeism in the rest of the schools ranges between 15 percent in Maharashtra to 42 percent in Jharkhand. More than 15 percent of schools still don’t have more than two teachers. And UP struggles to provide even one teacher per school to 900 schools! The money being allocated to education as a percentage of GDP is 3.5%; this can obviously go up to 6. But let me tell you that even the current allocation is great. The problem is that the allocation is being mainly used to pay salaries to teachers who are never in school and are busy earning through private tuitions. Sir, you must change these ground level realities and it should be your first priority.

3. While you do this sir, of course, it will be great if you can take – but in stages as the system improves – the money allocation of education to 6% of GDP. Even a capitalist America spends 5.3% of GDP on education at this high stage of development. And at our low levels of development, 6% is only the bare minimum. This additional resource shouldn’t go to higher education but to making a robust primary education system in this country.

4. Sir, the primary education system suffers from India's immense poverty. So despite creating schools, you might see parents not sending their children to school or taking them out in the first few years itself. Also, these poor children suffer from the problem of illiteracy in the family and their upbringing is not conducive to studying at home. I would go till the extent of suggesting that every child sent to school should be accompanied by a compensation to the family through various incentives. However, the biggest incentive for education is giving free hostel accommodation to poor students in schools. This will guarantee a conducive atmosphere to poor children to study – though, as a father, I am quite against sending my son to a hostel, if given a choice. However, the situation in poor families is quite the reverse. The cost of providing free hostels is again quite minimal, as I – along with Dr. Malay Chaudhuri – had worked out in my book, The Great Indian Dream.

5. As you give greater access to primary education to the children of India, you must have a proper policy to phase out the reservation system in India. Reservations are required only till the time the playing field is not level. Good primary education will guarantee a level playing field; and then, students must compete on merit. And assuming you take two years to set the system right, then reservation should be out of the Indian economic system in the 12 years post that. Because students, after 14 years hereon, would be passing out with equal opportunities at primary level and be ready to compete properly with others in a healthy manner. However, till then, reservations – which should have ideally been done away with within the first fifteen years after independence – will be required without debate.

6. Your suggestions around scrapping the tenth board exams are brilliant and just mindboggling. I would go to the extent of suggesting that you open additional debates, not just about scrapping the twelfth boards as well, but even about scrapping the concept of class twelfth being the final school year (and instead, making class tenth the final school year). As a teacher and student, I have realised that the way we repeat the curriculum from 6th to 8th, then from 9th to 10th, and then 11th and 12th is a joke. By studying Newton’s law four times, the law doesn’t change for heaven’s sake!!! The current generation of children are ahead of our times by at least two to three years. Make the current graduation compressed into two years and call it high school, if you may. And make graduation studies more serious, unlike the flippant way it is taken currently – a three year picnic time where one goes to college to have fun and not attend classes. It will also make a huge psychological difference to poorer people who can afford education only till tenth, as they would then be ‘school-pass’, and it will reduce the entire cost of schooling straightaway by about 20 percent. I know I might be sounding extreme, but you have shown the courage to speak out radical concepts, so as an educationist, I thought this was a radical idea at least worth sharing. It’s something that the Think Tank at IIPM has been working upon.

7. Your suggestion for allowing FDI into higher education and privatisation are more than welcome; and so is the super idea of scrapping UGC and AICTE. At IIPM, we have been very proud that we were never a part of that system that we never believed in and were openly highly critical about. However Sir, it is important that you see to it that the new body of accreditation is truly a competent body of literates who share your vision for education in this country; and not another form of a corrupt, illiterate body like AICTE. I am sure you knew that AICTE and UGC had almost fixed rates for various forms of recognitions on sale through their agents, depending upon the state and location of the institute/university. When someone would refuse to be a part of their corrupt system, they specialised in sending illegal and clearly false notices to such institutes in order to extract money from them. You can’t have privatisation with this kind of corruption. I do hope you make the new body totally transparent so that even someone like me feels motivated to be part of the system, than be proud to be away from it.

8. It is a must that you break the false monopoly of government supported institutions like the IITs and IIMs.. While in IIMs, the education imparted is at least of a world class level, the fact is that in IITs, the education standards are no way comparable to the best in the world. The idea of having any government backed institution at a higher level is two folds. One is to provide world class education – else the government need not be present in this sector, having once given great education at the primary level. And the second motive is to see to it that the maximum number of students get access to this kind of subsidised education. The idea should not be to make elitist hubs where a few get admission and enjoy the public money to make a false snob value around themselves. The best case is that of the IIMs. It imparts basic, commonsense education that can be imparted to almost anyone after class twelfth. But instead of reaching out to masses, it teaches only an average of 150-200 students in its 70-100 acre campus on an average. This is such a shame. And the only reason to limit this commonsense education is to create a snob value around it, through garnering higher packages for their students. The fact is that even if they were to increase the number of seats they have, to 300 on an average, their packages will come crashing down to about Rs.6 lacs on an average from their current Rs. 9 lacs. The idea is not to provide a few higher packages at the cost of giving education to many more.

9. Nor should the idea be to have a massive waste of resources at the IIT level, where students don’t become engineers but join management. And then again, investing so much at the IIMs where students look for foreign jobs instead of helping India grow. At every stage, people changing their fields must be made to pay back to the country what the country invested on them. And those leaving the country should be made to pay back to the country again or impart service to the public and government sector for a stipulated minimum number of years before going abroad. The current system of subsidising higher education in India though elitist institutions is nothing but a waste of public money to create a bunch of semi-educated primarily unpatriotic selfish snobs that the system unknowingly makes out of the students studying there.

10. Finally Mr. Sibal, in the US today, a much higher proportion of students from poorer sections are pursuing their higher education than the proportion from the richer sections. US has in the past and is now changing tomorrow’s gap between the rich and poor. It is leaving much lesser people marginalised out of the mainstream society and therefore, has ensured much lesser cases of evils like religious terrorism or extremist movements (like, say, the Naxalite movement in India). And Sir, this higher proportion of access to higher education is not just because of access to great primary education. It’s because at higher education where costs are higher, prospective students have access to education loans. Instead of talking reservations like many of uninitiated leaders of the past, the need of the hour, I again say, is great primary education; and then once everyone is able to compete, great access to education loans regardless of the financial background of the students. This is what will help poorer students finally have access to great higher education.

And this is what will finally lead to an educated civilised India without the current humongous ill of having such mass scale illiteracy. Interestingly, this will also be the sure shot way to stay in power in the long run!

While we thoroughly enjoyed your interview and got inspired by it, we do hope you enjoy our suggestions as much and feel they’re worth it!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 10:05 AM 19 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
June 25, 2009
NOW THE WORLD SEEMS TO FOLLOW OBAMA’S CHANGE!

It has been quite sometime since Barack Obama was elected the President of USA and his iconic speech of “Change we believe in” left the whole world enthralled. The fact that the Western world and many in the rapidly developing economies like India and China could relate to his speech and felt that such changes would benefit their countries too was not something new. But I shouldn’t be surprised if many in some other parts of the world, which are not conventionally considered to be open minded or liberal, too were watching with intent and hoping for change in their countries as well. Over the last few months, as the Obama administration settled down with work and the rest of the world forgot much of them, at least some of the real changes have started showing their presence. No, I am not talking about the initiatives being taken by Obama to bail out loss making American companies; and neither am I referring to the restrictions on outsourcing that are being imposed by him. On the contrary, I am talking about the sudden glimpse of change in Iran, and the uneasiness about it that is visible in its radical government. In the recently concluded Presidential elections in Iran, though the incumbent President Ahmadinejad won with around 62% of the popular vote, defeating the pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, there has been massive violence since then in the streets of Teheran. Young men and women have defied all the threats and dictums of their radical and often fanatic government to come out open in the streets, not just exhibiting their strength but also in massive defiance of the way their voice is often suppressed in their society. The death of Neda Soltan (a young Iranian woman shot to death during the protests) and her bleeding photograph have literally become the rallying point of all debates revolving around the sudden appearance of change in a society, which the contemporary world loves to hate. And thanks to the exponential proliferation of internet, the scenes of protest and the desperation of the government that has indoctrinated a nation with hatred for so long, is open for all to see.

Iran always had a strong cultural heritage; and so, unlike other radical countries, young Iranians are not as much against Western culture as is often propagated. But for long, that was overshadowed by an overpowering government that would not let this liberty to grow. Yet, in the last few months, the average young Iranian who has not yet been fully radicalized has been witnessing the most impartial, honest and very much un-American-like efforts of Barack Obama to bridge all the divides in Middle East. His speech in Cairo was path-breaking and Iranians have also been witnessing how Obama, unlike his predecessors, has not been blindly siding with Israel. The fact that he stresses on his Muslim lineage has also helped the case in point. And thanks again to the proliferation of the internet, the Iranians have also been witnessing that the US is not perhaps as bad as it has always been projected by the government owned media and their leaders at home.

Obama’s greatest success till now has been the way he has been able to connect with ordinary people, and most importantly the youth. If Obama’s influence is of any indication of what is happening in Iran today, it is something which was unthinkable even a year back. It is also true that the current protests need not change Iran in a day or two. And it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden an average Iranian youth would become hostile towards one’s own nation. In fact, such a thing, if it happens, would not help the cause of global peace either. But what is more important is the fact that the world now knows that Iran need not be absolutely synonymous with Islamic radicalism. Even more important is the fact that if the government of Ahmadinejad has to sustain, then it necessarily has to make room for certain fundamental changes within the country. And truthfully, that would not have to go against the very pillars of Iran. On the contrary, a certain dose of social reform would bridge some of the deep divides that lay for no reason across the continents and would surely help in creating a more peaceful world. Hopefully, Obama too would see sense in not meddling much in the internal affairs of Iran. It is important for him not to follow the footsteps of his predecessor in jumping to some vague conclusion and invading Iran for a hypothetical liberation and thus plunging it into mayhem forever. If that happens, it would perhaps be the worst consequence of the now seemingly pro-reform and rights protests enveloping Iran. With time, such protests would surely force their government to change. Obama should continue with his constructive engagement with Middle East and especially with Iran. If he can do so, it would perhaps be one of the most formidable changes that he could have brought in this world.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:31 AM 3 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
June 18, 2009
From the success of Slumdog Millionaire to racist attacks in Australia, economically growing Indians are the envy of the recession-struck developed world!

Before we talk about the jaundiced racist attacks on Indians in Australia, we have got to go to some basics. And unfortunately, the basics lie in India's enviable growth story of late. As long as the western world was growing, India's provocative growth story made great news. After all, the altruistic western media had to look charitable and benevolent to their lower ranked earth mates. The problem, however, began as their economies started getting into recession – something that was of their own doing. Instead of looking at going full throttle to develop markets in lesser developed regions like Latin America, India, China etc, Europeans and Americans kept capriciously selling to their own citizens through artificial means like luring non-creditworthy people into taking loans – in the process making their people dehumanized materialistic consumer dustbins. The delinquent process bombed, their banks started failing and they realised that a Japan-like zero growth era was here to stay.

At such a time of exasperating global recession, for the west to see a third world country like India growing at 6.5 percent plus – a rate of growth they haven’t seen in a few decades – can have dire consequences psychologically. It started with Slumdog Millionaire. The movie ridiculed India in every possible way – every aspect of life that touches foreigners in India was ripped apart in the form of a love story. The cheeseparing west enjoyed it so much that it showered the film with awards after awards, the Oscars included. To me, the clearly partisan name of the film, its huge success and those grandiose awards – all smacked of illiberal racism. At a purblind time when the west was spluttering economically, they found a special thrill in seeing the film and metaphorically consoling themselves that well, India is the world’s ‘slumdog’ becoming a millionaire by pure luck and coincidences. And as expected, in cricket matches in New Zealand, one could see jingoistic posters with racist undertones saying the Slumdog Millionaires are here.

The current caustic situation in Australia is just an extrapolation of similar feelings. All over the developed world, they see that places of higher education are full of ‘yellows’ and ‘browns’. They also see their jobs being outsourced to the same yellows and browns. And now, in these troubled times of rampant job losses, it’s a pain to see educated Indians getting jobs in their own country. Thus, the still existing – in subconscious – racist and apartheid feelings have started showing their ugly misanthropic colors. And no wonder they are against the student community – the community, which is the real future threat. History is testimony to the fact that unemployment and frustrations always lead to crime. And it’s time the prejudiced governments in developed countries launched campaigns to educate their citizens on how to deal with these termagant times than to close their eyes and allow the citizens to take to racial crimes – unless of course they too, in the heart of their hearts, want Indians to leave their country. And if education campaigns fail to prevent the corrosive racial attacks in the short run (such campaigns work best in the long run), then the governments should step up their policing to put an immediate end to such shameful acts of clear-cut racist violence, instead of trying to pass them off as isolated and sporadic cases of non-racist crimes. What a shame! Indians are culturally and by nature peace loving and nonviolent due to various reasons. In India, there are unfortunate crimes against foreigners; but these have more to do with lust and petty theft. They aren’t racist crimes. But what’s happening against students in Australia is certainly and increasingly intolerantly racist. And it must be brought to an immediate stop. It’s time the developed nations got used to the idea of the Indian growth story, and it’s time they worked hard to take part in it rather than ridicule it, as that would serve them no good. For if we were to stop companies of developed nations from coming into India’s blossoming markets, their corporations’ last hopes of revival would see the end of the day.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:28 AM 8 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
June 11, 2009
Why the Communists lost Bengal and how Mamata Banerjee can easily ruin her big opportunity to destroy the CPM even now!

If anyone has destroyed CPM, it is the CPM itself. I can personally bet that most workers of Trinamool Congress are also communists at heart because in Bengal, most hearts beat for the masses. The revolutionary fervour is a part of Bengali blood stream. It’s no wonder they tolerated a rotting communist party for so many years rather than vote for anyone else. The amazing thing is that even in these elections, out of a total population of 5.73 crores who voted in Bengal, Trinamool Congress got only five lakh votes more than the communists. Of course, rigging happened in many, many places where the communists won – from people not being allowed to leave their homes in the first place (something that can be never caught by the CRPF personnel who were posted) to threats at the voting booths, every trick in the book was rampantly used. But then, there are people who voted for CPM without coercion too. From people who actually benefitted from their regime, to their grassroots party supporters to communist lovers.

Before going any further, let’s first analyse, why did the CPM lose? Well, they lost primarily because they lost the support of the Muslim voters they had pampered for years (by allowing them to migrate freely from Bangladesh). This time alienated due to Nandigram-type issues, the Muslims came out and voted against them. And the fact, as I have always mentioned, is that Muslims are brave people for sure. There is no party that is strong enough to use muscle power to rig Muslim votes when they come out united. So, alienating the Muslims was a big mistake.

The second reason is that finally, the media played a positive role by default. Due to the pure nature of how nothing misses the media glare today, Nandigram got reported in mass media in an expansive way and became a huge issue, even though Buddhadeb’s predecessor Jyoti Basu had created a far bigger carnage at Marichapi in Sunderbans years back. At that time, the incident didn’t get reported properly; and he escaped media glare.

Thirdly and most importantly, CPM has paid for its huge regime of ruthless dictatorial suppression and muscle power that it had exercised for at least the last 22 of the 32 years they have been in power. Many governments in India use the police to their advantage; and people somehow overlook the same. But the ruthless CPM used their own party offices to get back to people. People used to be picked up from their homes and taken to the local party offices where they would be interrogated, beaten up ruthlessly, threatened and eventually tamed. Delhi-centric media typically never reported such rampant atrocities and CPM’s muscle rule in Bengal thrived. Years of torture later, people in West Bengal, under the leadership of Mamata, finally got the chance to hit back. Today, CPM party offices are being burnt down by CPM workers themselves – undoubtedly wrong, but a natural consequence of their own past coming back to haunt them.

Finally and fourthly is the firebrand leadership of ‘Didi’ – Mamata Banerjee. It takes guts to take such a CPM regime of shameless rogues head on. She has done that and hats off to her. At the same time, I fear that she might just fail to turn this huge opportunity into a grand win in the Bengal elections to be held two years from now. And my worst fear is that she might have herself to blame for it.

First and foremost, I am a little surprised at her choice of ministry. The railway ministry does have a huge budget but there is very less that can be done to make a massive impact. And more so since Laloo had actually been doing a good job. Keeping in mind the Bengal elections, my suspicions are that she might have nothing much to do especially in the next two years to showcase her leadership potential. On the other hand, by taking a ministry like Panchayati Raj, she could have actually impacted the lives of the poor in villages, empowered them and displayed her leadership potential within two years. The big railway budget is just a show. However, perhaps the worst is that while DMK took three cabinet rank ministries (it’s a different matter that those posts are for his trusted dynasty members), Mamata took only one. Clearly a sign of insecurity and lack of courage to share a similar platform with any other party leader. The fact is that if she doesn’t empower her party leaders, her party will not grow. Good leadership is about making leaders of your people. She had a clear chance to take three to four cabinet rank ministries and make a huge impact on the national government; thereby spreading a great word back home as a leader whose party is making a national impact. Unfortunately, she lost the chance. My bigger worry is however something else. As she has done in the past, she shouldn’t suddenly show her adamancy and temper to walk out of the government. She has already started showing signs of attitude problems with the government. That can be suicidal. She needs to realise that it would be the central CRPF support to curb rigging during the future elections that can be the real big difference between her loss and win two years later. She must act in a planned manner now and deliver the killer blow. After all, it’s only an edge of five lakh votes that she currently has. She has to turn it into ten times more in the next two years to feel really safe. And for that, she must display strong and sharp leadership skills and not self-ignite the Prakash Karat way to doom.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:43 AM 7 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
May 28, 2009
Will India now show some spine and see to it that Tamilians get their due human rights?

LTTE is finished! Prabhakaran has been killed!! Perhaps Sri Lanka was left with no other choice. And perhaps it’s good for their future. However, the debate is not so simple. Successive Indian governments, from the time of our late Prime Minister Nehru, have had an important role to play. Not in any good manner but in a very spineless negative manner. History is testimony to the fact that after Independence, we have always played a pathetic role when it has come to managing our neighbours, thus allowing a very negatively aggressive China the upper hand. We gave away Tibet to China – though historically Tibet was always a part of India – thereby allowing China to come literally next to our borders and create continuous nonsense. We have failed miserably in handling even a country like Bhutan, which used to shield ULFA terrorists against us. We gave away Bangladesh very gallantly, but despite that, we failed to manage relations with the Bangladeshis; and speaking about Pakistan is next to useless.

Sri Lanka, similarly, has been managed as badly. The small country is astoundingly close to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Expectably, scores of Tamilians are settled within Sri Lanka. However, the Sri Lankans, ever since the very beginning, have denied Tamilians many basic human rights and have made them live under horrible conditions. For years, Sri Lankan Tamilians were treated as unwanted people – from the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, which forced civilians to stop using Tamil as their language, to the 1958 and 1977 anti-Tamil riots, from the 1981 burning of the reputed Jaffna public library to July 1983, when Sri Lanka witnessing the bloodiest ever anti-Tamil riots by the Sinhalese majority after the LTTE had ambushed a few army personnel. In these Black July riots, thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils were massacred, more than a lakh fled the country. The Human Rights Watch has confirmed that Sri Lanka is now amongst the countries with the highest number of unexplained and mysterious disappearances of civilians. Most of them who have disappeared have been Tamils, with the Human Rights Watch expressing that the Sri Lankan government has displayed deliberate lack of resolve to even investigate these disappearances. The United Nations Working Group places Sri Lanka second on the ignominious disappearing list and documents cases of rape, torture and custodial killings at random. The US State Department, the EU, and almost all other top countries have accused the Sri Lankan State machinery of being complicit in the human rights crimes being committed. LTTE, perhaps a terrorist organisation to many, has been a result and consequence of similar Sri Lankan atrocities against the Tamilians.

All the LTTE wanted in reality was a dignified existence for Tamilians settled there. Unfortunately, that was never to be, and it became a full blown conflict between LTTE and Sri Lanka, putting them often in a bad light. Somewhere down the line, even LTTE lost its basic track and started doing things, which could easily get classified as acts of terrorism. Having said that, the fact is that innocent Tamilians have suffered throughout, and never more than during this LTTE cleanup operation by the ruthless Sri Lankan army, an entity which has definitely violated many human rights and bombed them to destruction. No admonition from any global entity, be it UN, Amnesty International, or even the US, has worried the emboldened Sri Lankan army this time. And now, they have even stopped the access of agencies like the International Red Cross and other aid agencies to the war zone and various Tamil camps in a deliberate bid to restrict medical and food aid to thousands of Tamilians at the border of death.

Rarely would any other big country have allowed such kinds of acts of inhuman barbarism in its neighbourhood the way India has allowed since the times of Nehru himself. Jawaharlal Nehru should have decidedly taken a stance and seen to it then itself that the Tamilians got their independent rights – after all Sri Lanka, unlike Pakistan, was a democracy. But Nehru’s weak policies led to China's nonstop growing clout in our neighbourhood; to such an extent that today, from Pakistan to Sri Lanka to Bangladesh to Nepal, China is funding all these countries against Indian interests.

And China is a heavy, clear and present threat to India because on pen and paper itself, China's military might is about twice of that of India’s today. In dangerous reality, being a dictatorial country with no need to maintain proper accounting systems, the fact is that China’s real might could very well be at least five times more.

Coming back to the plight of Tamilians in Sri Lanka, it is time for India to finally act and show that it has got what it takes to defend its people and their rights across the world; and definitely across the next door. This treatment meted out to Tamilians openly and in front of the entire world’s eyes in violation of all basic human rights is a direct challenge to India’s might and insult to its existence. It’s time for the Indian government to show some spine. And this should be completely high up in the new government’s cross border agenda.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:29 AM 12 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
May 21, 2009
Lessons from Elections ’09 on management of Indian voters!

The election results are out! We were not into any prediction games, but tried to base our prediction in the last issue on what others tried to predict! And it seems apart from Total TV and Live India, there was no one else who could make the right prediction about the election results! But I’m excited. Excited, because though no massive change in governance or the corruption index is likely with our current breed of rulers, the voters are exerting their powers in their own way; and that means that although very slowly, in another twenty years from now, these voters will elect the right people to power finally. The signals this time were clearer perhaps than ever before.

Firstly, anti-incumbency is more or less out – only your performance matters! Although the mandate nationwide was clearly against BJP, in the states where they have been doing creditable work, they still have won more seats. Even in the Assembly elections, it has been the same scenario. In Delhi, Sheila Dixit led the Congress to a win again and again, cleanly sweeping the constituencies – and mind you, hers is not the muscle powered dictatorial way that the CPM used to keep its power in West Bengal for so many years. And to imagine that at one time, BJP was known to be the traders’ party; and Delhi a trader’s city! The Indian electorate has time and again proved that they are no fools. You deliver results, you earn votes; even if it might mean the electorate time and again voting for the same party. You don’t deliver, the electorate immediately votes against you to see if other parties perform. That means the only assured way to winning the next time is to work and prove your worth.

The second great news is that the Indian populace has clearly given the signal that even if in the states they experiment with regional parties, in the Center, they still realize the importance of national parties. They also realize the significance of giving a clear mandate to one party to allow them freedom. And they further realize which are the parties that they need to keep away from power! The third exciting happening, and perhaps the most crucial, to occur is the anti-CPM mandate – in West Bengal especially and throughout India in general! It was long coming and it finally happened. Just a few days back, the West Bengal Chief Minister had commented that although he had heard for long that the days of CPM was over, he had never seen it happening. Well, now he definitely is seeing it happening. And it is my firm belief that the CPM’s days in Indian politics are now as good as over and for years to come. The reasons are simple. Worldwide, no one identifies with communists anymore; it is only the Bengal intellectuals who had faith in them. The Karat-led dictatorial dogmatic era went some steps worse and finally helped CPM destroy itself. And with the youth growing as the key deciding factor with every passing election, one can be assured that they will never vote for communists in many years to come. Also, in Bengal, on a wrong note, the CPM alienated the Muslims; people who aren’t scared of any muscle power. Everything put together, it is the end of CPM in India. Being a passionate believer of the socialist ideology, this is painful for me personally, but the CPM had every possible negative of communists and not a single positive. So in reality, they paid for it. Along with that, the signal is also clear that only inclusive politics will help, which brings us to my next point.

The days of BJP hype also look as good as history. There is clearly not a single youth in metros that identifies with the party. At a time when boys are even embarrassed to wear a red tilak on their forehead and to go to a temple, it would be plain wishful thinking to imagine the Indian youth coming out and voting for BJP’s ideology. Not to take away credit, the BJP will remain the second national alternative; but only when the Congress mess it up bad, will they get a chance. That too after a lot of image building exercises. The BJP now has to rebuild their image around modern people with modern outlook and modern personalities. Forget the elderly Advani, how many amongst India’s youth wish to be like the more younger leaders is also a matter of deliberation. The BJP has got to now project a progressive image, with a clear cut economic policy and a more inclusive party profile; to an extent that – to make people believe in their inclusive nature – the BJP perhaps should almost make it a policy to have ten percent and more BJP candidates as Muslims and another ten percent as Dalits. Even in states where BJP won, they lost in cosmopolitan cities like Bangalore. That’s their biggest problem. The youth does not identify and this problem will only grow with youth voters increasing in numbers by the year. And with the outright ridiculous acts of moral policing that they silently keep supporting, they are only doing their image more harm. If Rahul Gandhi revived the Congress in UP, it is another Gandhi, i.e Varun, who destroyed the BJP. Varun won, but the BJP’s and Advaniji’s silence on the issue made people feel alienated. And people realized that Advani is surely not for PM.

In addition to all this, from this election onwards, let us put to rest the debate about dynasties. The rule of dynasty is here to stay! Indian voters throughout the country have voted to power about twenty dynasties. It is not monarchy or a dictatorial system we are talking about. These are democratically elected leaders. If we love voting for our favourite leader, then we love voting for our favourite leader’s son/daughter as well and giving them a chance. If these sons/daughters fail to perform, of course, it might not be the same story next time. Yes, one doesn’t expect inner party democracy to also prevail and dynasties within the parties getting elected in a more believable process.

And finally and most importantly, let’s give our Prime Minister the due credit. Yes, it is true that Sonia Gandhi’s dignified ‘speak less’ stance has been appreciated by one and all, and people do look up to her as an able, behind the scenes support system. Yes, Rahul did revive Congress in UP and he does connect with the youth. But the country really voted for the Prime Ministerial candidate of Congress. The country voted because they believe in Dr. Manmohan Singh. They believe he is able, honest, sincere, positive and focused. India voted for Dr. Singh and that’s the truth. Sir, it is now over to you to this time to make sweeping changes that you as an economist best understand. And this time, you are the master of your own world! The nation looks up to you with immense hope! As a management exponent, I can only say that the Congress managed its campaign to perfection – sending clear signals in simple words including through their advertising campaigns. And BJP failed to manage to send any clear signals – not even about their consensus leader; neither could they manage their image to match it with the voters’ expectations.

At the end of the day, it is now a lot about management in politics and elections too. But winning is just the beginning in management. It is delivering that decides the future. Hope Dr. Singh delivers this time. Cheers!!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:47 AM 12 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
May 14, 2009
Earlier, it was the opportunistic political class, and now it is the Naxals, who have been robbing the Constitutional right from rural India!!

There isn’t any doubt with the fact that over the years, the percentage of electorate turning out to exercise their franchise has been falling at an increasing rate. And no one other than the political class needs to be blamed as to why such a large proportion of the electorate stands politically disengaged. And this trend, which in itself is not so encouraging, is most visible in urban India. Rightly so, for the informed and empowered urban India realizes how the political class has been continuously defeating the entire purpose of elections. But then, this has not been true for rural India!

It is rightly said that the rural heartland is actually the heart of political India. Therefore, anybody willing to make it big in his/her political career would have to necessarily make it big in the rural heartland. And that is the reason most of the political class routinely marches towards rural India, albeit only during elections. While the rest of the time, not many would be much interested about rural plight, come election time and things change for sure. The reason is quite simple. In India, it is the rural mass which ceremoniously votes. Unlike their urban counterparts, they are less informed, mostly illiterate, disempowered, and on top of that have not yet given up their hope on elections. And it is for the very same reasons that for a long period of time, rural India has also been a hotbed of election malpractices. Duping the gullible rural mass has not been much difficult and vote rigging has always been a common practice. Wherever other things failed, raw muscle power has been efficiently put to work, and democracy in rural India has always been reduced to mere tokenism.

Thankfully, in the last one decade, in some states, much of that has started to change on account of two important reasons. The first is the introduction of electronic voting machines – or the EVMs – which has not only revolutionized elections, at least in some states, but has also ensured transparency in voting to a large extent. Thanks to the sophistication of technology and the efficiency it brings with it, mass rigging in polling booths is now futile as the voting machine just records one vote every around 15 seconds. The second reason is the massive deployment of central paramilitary forces and micro-observers by the Election Commission, moves which further rule out the chances of voter coercion. There can be no doubt about the fact that the whole election process today is relatively more efficient and foolproof than what it was a decade and a half back.

Yet, the most unfortunate thing is that in spite of all these, the fate of the rural folk has not changed much. If the proactive measures of the Election Commission have given rural India some respite from the bloodsucking political class, then another monster of modern day India, i.e. Naxals – again created by the very same political class – has taken away their peace. The movement that started for the sake of bringing justice to the rural lot, who have been actually deprived for ages, has today become one of the biggest impediments to development in some of the remotest and most backward districts of India. Today’s shocking reality is that even though the government has realized the monster that they have created, they can’t do much about it. Rather, they have not done anything about it! It is so very tragic that particularly during elections, the Naxals or the Maoists have been ruthlessly killing poor innocent villagers as they get paranoid with the fact that voting would not only wean away the rural lot from them, but would also undermine their own hold in the regions where they hold sway. For the sake of holding on to power by spreading fear and false propaganda, Naxals today have gone to an extreme extent. In the past one month, they have killed more than 50 police personnel and are hell bent on destroying anything which is symbolic of India’s democracy and Constitution, or whatever is left of these. They don’t even mind conscripting young children as rebels; and instead of giving books in children’s hands, rifles are thrust upon them to kill without even knowing for what reason – not that any reason could ever be justifiable. Today, several parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa have been transformed into war zones. Thousands of square miles of land have been plastered with landmines by the Naxals to prevent the paramilitary forces from coming in. Development has almost taken a backseat in most of these places.

All in all, it is most tragic that the most underprivileged rural India is perennially at the receiving end! No doubt, elections would become meaningful only the day that these rural folk can fearlessly visit voting booths and exercise their franchise. And the icing on the cake would be the day when they can vote not for an opportunist criminal, but for a leader who can give them back what they have deserved for generations!!!
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May 7, 2009
Loot the nation: The real verdict of 2009 Union election!!

Midway through this election, I would not be surprised if some insider reports state that at least some of the national parties, if not all, have already started working for the next election. And by this I mean the next Union election, which in any case would be much sooner than expected. For if one were to believe the exit polls results by most media houses, then I have no doubt in saying that we are heading for a terribly fractured mandate. And probably given the economic environment, there could not have been a more damaging news than this for the overall economy. With economic slowdown plaguing the whole world, it has been witnessed that the governments of most of the economies worth talking about, have been extremely involved in finding ways to tackle this recession; and if possible, to arrest its mayhem as much possible. And what we are observing in India is just the contrary, with possible election outcomes just adding to it!

In today’s India, political alliances are mostly based on selfish compromises rather than ideologies. Thus, it doesn’t take much time for yesterday’s allies to become today’s rivals. The hype around the success of the UPA government being a helping hand of the common man notwithstanding, the way some of its key allies like RJD, Samajwadi Party and Lok Janashakti Party have gone ahead with forging a Fourth Front – in addition to the utopian dreams being woven by the Left through a Third Front – makes it sure that at best, India is voting to a disastrous outcome. Worse is the fact that this mandate would be more fractured than it has ever been in the past. A struggling Congress is in no position to form the next government without the support of the Fourth Front and perchance even the Left. And while the Left is still smarting from the slap it received when it withdrew support to the UPA (only to witness the UPA carrying on with support provided by the Samajwadi Party), the fresh overtures of the Congress towards the Left indicates that the next government might just not be possible without them. And if the Left accepts this glad eye premise, then it is tantamount to their endorsing the nuclear deal – a proposition they would find very difficult to sell to their constituencies. Thus, turmoil is inevitable even if UPA forms the next government with Left support. In the same league, given the number of aspirants for the post of Prime Minister this time, starting from Sharad Pawar to Lalu Prasad to Mayawati and even Prakash Karat (well, of course in addition to a beleaguered Manmohan Singh), it is for sure that the Congress would not have that much leeway in propping up its candidate for the post of PM even if it gets the same number of seats that it got in 2004. And the way the Congress is running with the hares and hunting with the hounds – with appreciation for Lalu’s bete noire Nitish Kumar and flirting with the Left while courting Mamata Banerjee – the problems would only get compounded as each would want to have their own pound of the Shylockian flesh.

Given the precedence, I don’t think BJP would be in a position to form the government (however, I just wish they had fielded Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate instead of sticking to the tradition of fielding a senior leader and trying to assure themselves of a thumping victory!!) even though I am pretty confident that it would improve its tally. And thus, the chances are high that a fractured UPA would try it out once again. For a while, the well practised musical chairs would go on; and there isn’t any doubt that India would witness another election sooner than later. And if that happens, the worst is going to follow with respect to the economy! Anticipating that such a coalition cannot run for the next five years, for whatever time it survives, the ruling coalition would desperately try to hold on to power in every possible manner. And like in the past, policy decisions and policy making would completely take a backseat. Moreover, with the changing power equations, ministries would be traded to keep the coalition satisfied and intact. And with this, what would follow is an obscene national loot!! Given the limited shelf life of the ruling coalition, partnering parties would clamour for juicy portfolios and would completely suck them out as much as possible. And there cannot be anything more damaging than this, considering the economic turmoil that the country is going through!!

What is most unfortunate is the fact that while the time was ripe for India to consolidate its position in the globe (as I had mentioned in my previous edits), India miserably instead is going to lose out on this opportunity. So, while the various governments across the world would leave no stone unturned to capitalize upon the economic slowdown, an ugly national loot would continue in India. And this is the unfortunate outcome of this Union election!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 8:39 AM 6 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
April 30, 2009
US is setting a shocking precedence by irrationally doling out money to Pakistan!!
Imagine the worth of the 70 Taliban fighters that Pakistan is claiming to have killed in its latest, but disputatiously reluctant assault over the ever expanding and over ambitious Taliban. Well, hold your breath – it’s an incredible US$1billion! Yes, that’s the amount that the US government has gratifyingly pledged to give Pakistan for carrying out its indolent military operations against the Taliban, which was within touching distance of Pakistani nuclear establishments. While Pakistan is too happy to oblige the US dictums for the bait of $1 billion, what is completely getting ignored is the fact that this operation in the districts of Buner, Swat and Dir is nowhere near to routing the Taliban. And yet, Pakistan gets the money!

During the Bush regime, Pakistan had to embrace the American war against terror in the post 9/11 era and had to perfunctorily fight those very rogue elements which it had incubated, nurtured and nourished over decades. In return to this so called ‘favour’ that Pakistan did for the US, it was given billions of dollars and access to sophisticated American weapons systems under the kooky pretext of carrying forward the war against terror. It is a known fact that such weapons – many of which are intended for mass destruction – and their delivery systems, like the F-16 jets, had more utility in carrying out aggression against neighbouring countries like India than containing incendiary terrorism, which needed a completely different approach. Yet, the bizarre Bush regime turned an imbecilic blind eye to any such point of view and went ahead absurdly with supplying the same to Pakistan, perhaps with the addleheaded hope that such a patronizing bait would eventually take Pakistan away from virulent radicalization. Half a decade down the line, the very opposite of that has happened. Not only has the ungovernable Pakistan continued to be a safe haven and a breeding ground for global terrorism, its own homegrown, viciously radical elements have literally outsmarted its doltish master and are on the verge of taking over Pakistan today. This clearly vindicates that like every other policy, George Bush’s preposterous policy towards Pakistan has been a risible disaster!

Obama’s advent as a change agent was expected to usher in a new transformative policy towards Pakistan and the global fight against terrorism. Yet, unfortunately, while none of that is happening, all this while Taliban’s rabid crusade and the fatuous failure of the state of Pakistan continues. In fact, it is nauseatingly shocking to see the way the White House still continues to repose delusory faith on those very duplicitous people who till now haven’t shown much of a resolve to see the end of Taliban and radicals. It is not just about what happened on 26/11 in India, but also about the injudicious way loutish Pakistan is literally reeling against relentless terror attacks. The opprobrious visuals of the Sri Lankan cricket contingent being frightfully attacked in Lahore in broad daylight and the attackers vanishing without a trace, coupled with several daring terror attacks in police establishments, and the way the blockish Pakistani establishment has most gleefully accepted the demand for sharia in Swat Valley and proposed to expand it in other places, merely point towards the reprehensible extent of rot in the puerile system. At this rate, one should not have been surprised even if Pakistan had condescendingly allowed the Taliban to run over Islamabad and put its syndicant hand over the nuclear button. The reason is simple. At least, radicalization in Taliban is visible. The more dangerous fact is the extent of fetid radicalization that has happened in the exorbitant Pakistani establishment as well as the sanctimonious Pakistani Army. It’s hard to accept that the writ of the Taliban could have continued like this without the blessings of some (if not all) of the double-dealing Generals in the rank and files of the military establishments there. And it goes without saying what a fulminating role ISI is playing there. Therefore, one should not be at all surprised if the proposed $1 billion that the US is glibly giving Pakistan would be used for the very same purposes which had erstwhile created the Taliban!

In the month of April, the Indian Army alone lost nearly a dozen of its Para Special Force personnel in its operations against foreign terrorists who had infiltrated into Kashmir. Recent reports state that there are probably more than 400 hundred such dreaded terrorists, most of them Taliban fighters, waiting to cross over to India. There is no doubt that Pakistan would continue to do this as this is the only way it can contain the jihadi menace inside Pakistan, i.e. by channeling it towards India and elsewhere.

It is for certain that merely a few waddling bombing sorties would not end the termagant menace of Taliban and that torpidly killing 70 odd of them does not finish them away. The finagling Pakistan today is left with no option but to keep the ghost (or rather the body and soul) of Taliban alive and kicking; and to time and again allow it to come shockingly close to the nuclear installations to extract monetary and non-monetary garnishing from the US. Given this macabre situation, the odious precedence that the US is setting up – by allowing a venomous rogue State to carry on with its most dangerous game and by ludicrously providing it a so-called bait of money even while knowing where this money would eventually end up in – is nothing less than appallingly shocking!!! This is clearly just the beginning of the obnoxious show. If Barack Obama does not take a tough stance on this right here right now, then I dare say an unspeakably ghastly nuclear holocaust is not far away!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:17 AM 9 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
April 23, 2009
Mr. Obama, I appreciate you, for you have again proven that unlike your predecessor, you are receptive to change and don’t stick to irrational logic just for the heck of it!

Prior to this editorial, I’ve written a couple of more editorials on the American President, Barack Obama. In those editorials, I have been extremely appreciative with respect to his historic win; and more than anything else, with his win that had actually made the American citizen the real winner. I had also been extremely candid with my appreciation towards him, not just for him becoming the President but the arousing reasons that made him so. For the uninitiated, I wrote that he demanded change from his fellow Americans, not simply with respect to the economic outlook or foreign policy, but in something graver; he beseeched them to realise that in the hardships of today should not be forgotten the intensity of the American character of past. This is not to miss how enamoured I was with his outstanding speeches.

But then, that’s history now as President Obama is already a few months old in the White House. And since then, much water has flown under the bridge. In these past few months, he has made statements that have been contradictory to his own earlier statements that had earned him this office. Sometime in mid March, Mr. Obama was heard appealing to the developing nations to join hands with America to counter recession. He said, and I quote, “As aggressive as the actions we are taking have been so far, it’s very important to make sure that other countries are moving in the same direction, because the global economy is all tied together.” This statement came just before the G20 meet, which was held in London a few weeks back. Further on, he also said that he would use the London forum to “make sure also that we are not falling into protectionist patterns” in reaction to the global recession. Well, coming from him it sounds pretty strange, simply because he was the one who was hailed to the White House campaigning for protectionism, with his illogical disposition towards outsourcing, particularly with respect to India. In fact, in my editorial dated January 22nd, 2009, for the same magazine, with respect to his campaign against outsourcing, I had categorically stated that for all the gallery motivating speeches, Mr. Obama would fail double time on this particular issue of outsourcing. When I said that, I was definite; but that it would come so soon from him, was something I was not expecting.

Well, there isn’t any doubt that the entire world is going through one of the worst economic slowdowns. It is also true that one America alone cannot counter this slowdown and truer that all nations have to necessarily build a common consensus and then act upon it. Along with these two truths, there is another truth for which the developed world has always maintained a delusive conspiracy of silence. And that is the fact that if the world economy has to recover, China and India would have to play a cyclopean dominant role. And this is where I differed with President Obama’s illogical heretic rationale of protecting American jobs by arresting outsourcing. In fact, the truth is that it is outsourcing which can create jobs in America. The logic is pretty simple and rudimentary. It is a universal fact that outsourcing reduces operating costs of large American corporations by a large extent (in some cases, cost savings are to the extent of 90%), depending on the processes outsourced. While on one hand, the cost thus saved adds on to the thinning bottom lines of these large corporations, on the other hand, the jobs generated in developing countries like India expand employment as well as disposable incomes. With increasing disposable incomes, geographies like India, which have huge population base, become more vibrant and open up new opportunities in the form of markets for the very same American corporations, making them even more profitable. And ever increasing demand from markets like India not only results in an upsurge in production, but also in the expansion in employment opportunities domestically, in America.

The same thing happens with respect to China as well. The more China sells its goods in America, the more jobs get created in America itself, in the longer run. So, however patriotic ‘protectionism’ may sound, the truth is that it cannot provide meals to an average American who has lost his job. And as I wrote in my previous editorial, I reiterate again that it is high time for America and the developed world to realize that the future markets lie in India and China to some extent. And the developed world cannot continue to write these two off as they have been doing all this while. No doubt, this slowdown has come as a big learning for the west to look at these markets more seriously than what they have been doing till now. From the balance sheet perspective, all this while, India and China’s significance was acknowledged through mere lip service and tokenism, but this would invariably go through a transition.

All in all, this economic slowdown has come as a huge opportunity for India, and there cannot be a better time to consolidate our position in the global market! And Mr. Obama, I still appreciate you for the fact that unlike your predecessor, you are receptive to change and don’t stick to irrational logic just for the heck of it!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:40 AM 12 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
April 16, 2009
How the western recession is the real beginning of great news for India!

Yes! Indeed the western recession is really the beginning of good news for India! But to understand that, I’ve to take you away from the topic of western recession for a while... to the Japanese recession! For years, I’ve admired the Japanese style of management as a management teacher and given its examples in scores of my workshops. However, over the last one decade or so, I’ve been continuously facing one key question from my workshop participants – mostly CEOs from top corporations of India Incorporated. Their question to me invariably has been, ‘If the Japanese management style is as wonderful as described, then why has Japan been in a recession for the last decade and more?’ This question is what I guess one needs to understand first, if one has to really understand the beauty of the current western recession. My answer to this question has always been very simple. I believe culture plays a very important part in shaping up economies. What succeeds in one culture fails somewhere else. Kenichi Ohmae, a famous strategy guru, wrote in his bestseller, The Mind Of The Strategist, that if you want to sell a new kitchen appliance to a Japanese housewife, you have to first enter a Japanese small sized kitchen. And then, from the stacked kitchen appliances on the kitchen shelves, you have to tell her which one of them is to be thrown away to make way for the new appliance. Well, they are all excellent in quality. Long lasting. And tough to throw! And that’s why the Japanese economy has been in a recession for a decade now.

Because culturally, these Buddha lovers are basically non materialistic. And however much rich they become, unlike Americans, they cannot just keep throwing and buying endlessly. And once they have almost everything they need, there is a saturation point. After this point, there are primarily three kinds of demand. Replacement demand, new product demand and FMCG demand. And that can’t keep giving an economy a double digit growth rate! Add to that Japan’s rapidly aging population and negative population growth rate (the Japanese Ministry of Health forecasts that even till 2050, they won’t have a positive population growth rate). That’s exactly what happened with Japan. The government tried everything. They gave shopping holidays. They gave mass discount vouchers. But nothing could increase demand. However, every time a new breakthrough product – say, like an iPod – was launched, it was a sell out in the first week itself in Japan. The same with fancy new Louis Vuitton purses. The stores would run empty on the first day itself! It was only when companies like Toyota realized that they cannot keep selling cars endlessly to their home market that they went really aggressive in the western markets – and the rest is history. While General Motors is about to file for bankruptcy anytime, Toyota is the now the world’s No.1 car maker! Japanese companies grew bigger by catering to the world markets when their home markets shrunk!

And the markets have to shrink finally after one level of affluence! And that’s great for the world. Because Earth needs sustainable development. It doesn’t need monstrous consumers who keep consuming at the cost of the environment and the Earth. There should be limits to growth; and consumers, for their mental wellbeing, should not be converted into material dustbins for the profits of a handful of corporations. That’s why the Japanese recession has been good for the Earth. And what the Japanese – due to their small homes and culture – stopped doing years back, is finally going to happen with the west, now with this recession setting in. And nothing can prevent this from happening. No Barack Obama, no bailout packages. And thank god for that!

It’s the western diehard, capitalistic, greed-driven materialism that made these economies create artificial demand for most of the last decade or so, resulting into the total collapse of the system (as I had predicted five years back in my book The Great Indian Dream). Because of the materialistic culture in the west, it was possible to keep selling them newer products despite having existing ones which served equally good. If someone was happy with his car or house and did not have enough money to buy more, he was lured through advertising and marketing techniques of ‘dustbinisation’ of the consumer; and then finally, once he became a ready customer, he was given loans and credit to help him buy. But credit systems have logical limits. And that is, no bank would be ready to give credit beyond, say, fifteen years of future income. What happens when all the possibilities of excess savings by you over the next fifteen years have already been booked by the virtue of various products you’ve already bought? Well, then you cease to be a part of the market (For example, the US savings rate has declined from around 3% in April 2002 to near zero in April 2008; savings rate in UK fell to around 2% in the last year, its lowest in a decade; similar with other western economies). And what happens when aggressive sellers have lured all creditworthy people into pledging their next fifteen years income (the ratio of average household debt to disposable income is now around 140% in US and 180% in UK)?

Then there is hardly any scope of further selling in this market apart from the replacement demand of people who finish past loans every year. And this is only 6 percent of the market... Let’s assume that even this much was fair. But at least this should have been the time when corporations should have started looking at newer markets and avenues. But instead, they took the shortcut. They went to the non creditworthy people and gave them loans. At double the rate, assuming fifty percent will return the loans. But unfortunately, these non creditworthy people are non credit worthy; and they all expectably defaulted and the entire system collapsed. And now, there is hardly anything that can be done! Bailouts are ineffective because when corporations have debts exceeding two trillion dollars, even the current one trillion dollars loan cannot help them revive. The bailout just disappears into paying back loans. To revive corporations, one needs to give upwards of three trillion dollars as a loan so that while two trillion of those dollars can be used to pay off the loans, another trillion can be used to revive. Unfortunately, that kind of money as well as vision is unseen and unheard of. To that effect, the current governmental ‘bailout’ is not going to help much!

So the question is, what is going to help? Well! Like Toyota, American companies will learn to find newer markets! And that’s the excitement for India. This country – which was till now just being paid lip service, but is in reality a great concept bubbling to make a global mark – will finally make the mark. Not because some Mittal or Tata. But because of its common man! The billion plus population that will in the next twenty five years become a consuming middle class. And that’s the big chance for western companies who are currently in search of a shortcut. Once all such metaphoric ‘shortcuts’ fail to realise, these corporations will indeed look towards China, India and Latin America to begin with, and finally at Africa as well. For just India can give them three times the combined markets of the west. If all the other countries are to be combined, this will be many times more! And that’s the good news for today’s Henry Fords! They won’t die. They will innovate and enter these markets and rule again. Unless of course, the Toyotas and Hondas do it before them. But whoever does it, it’s still good news for the world. Finally, the world’s attention will shift in reality to the developing world. Finally, there will be real surge in income of these people and in the next fifty odd years, one can really hope to see an equal world in terms of material plenty, with poverty being almost nonexistent! And it will happen not by selling more to Americans and Europeans. It will happen by creating markets in India, China, Latin America and Africa. By giving their people purchasing power and by making products for them. And the subprime situation will take another fifty years to hit these markets!

When Japan was in a recession, no one bothered. Now that the west is in it, they will realize that it’s not because of worse management techniques, but because of limits to growth. And they will realize that it is great for Planet Earth. After all, how many cars and houses must the rich own before calling it enough? It’s time for them to look at the others as well. Many years back, to increase his own profits, Henry Ford had started paying his workers more – so that they could buy his cars. Now, the developed world will pay the developing world people more – so that they can buy their cars and washing machines. Henry Ford started a process that made Americans more prosperous in general. This recession will kick-start the process of making the entire world more prosperous, and lay the foundation of limits to growth in the west and the foundation of real globalization in the world – the globalization of prosperity. And one of its first beneficiaries will be India! Thanks to the huge market it has to offer the world. A market that is the only solution to the western recession. Once the current panic in India gets over and the hunt for shortcuts to getting over the economic crisis in the west gets over, their focus will be on India. And India will only grow! Maybe 7 percent this year. But high double digits sooner than later!
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:36 AM 26 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
April 2, 2009
Sanjay Dutt Is Small Fry. What About The Real Big Boys?

I often welcome a hearty laugh when I watch news on television or read newspapers; because what I see and read is usually so exasperatingly infuriating and depressing that anger and frustration simply overwhelm me. So I had a hearty chuckle the other day when I found out that Sadhu Yadav – the brother-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav – will be a Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. That, I thought, was delicious irony. I also laughed watching the media cover the manner in which film star Sanjay Dutt was projected and nominated as a Samajwadi Party candidate from Lucknow, a seat that is still held by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. From Vajpayee to Dutt would have been an interesting transition! But then, Sanjay Dutt happens to be a convicted criminal who is also a Bollywood megastar. I have the deepest sympathies for him and his family; but I have always wondered if the Indian judiciary, and the media, were going commodiously soft on him because of his background. I mean, he did allegedly confess to storing AK-56 rifles and grenades (given to him by the gangster Abu Salem who is now behind bars but more than willing to contest elections)!

So my first thoughts when the Supreme Court refused to allow Sanjay Dutt to contest elections was a mild sense of relief that maybe we are moving in the right direction. That maybe we, as Indians, are heading for a galvanised situation when criminals can no longer utilize their contemptible clout or specious charisma to contest elections, get elected and announce that they have been vindicated by the ‘court of the people’ – the ultimate authority in a democracy. But before I could even think further along those lines, I remembered the putrescent scores of criminals who were openly making a mockery of the Indian democracy even during this Lok Sabha election, with the Indian judiciary looking on helplessly. I checked with my editorial team and found to my horror that criminals are serious and leading candidates in every major state in India; and that they belong to virtually every political party. Even more shocking, criminals who have been convicted and are spending time behind bars and who are not allowed to contest elections are planning to enter the Lok Sabha through the back door by having their wives, daughters and other close relatives contest the elections. In fact, I am still finding it hard to digest the fact that many so called criminal politicians with serious allegations of being in league with terrorists are also serious players this time. God really help India, I say.

I am simply appalled at how India’s electoral and judicial system has allowed this to happen and how much worse continues to happen. I squarely blame both the political class and the Indian judiciary for this intolerable failure that threatens to destroy India. My editorial colleagues have done much research and told me that both the Election Commission and the Supreme Court in fact wanted to take steps that would prevent criminals from contesting elections. The tipping point for them was when, back in 2002, all political parties conspiratorially and concomitantly got together and passed a law that actually allowed criminals to contest elections. Many thereon say that Indian judiciary tried its best and it should not be blamed.

I totally disagree. I think the Indian judiciary and the political class are both guilty of depriving the average Indian citizen of even basic ordinary choices. Economics says that crime too is ruled and infected by incentive – that is, the less the chances of you being punished, the more the chances of you committing a crime. The rancid Indian political class is aware of this delightful incentive. And the pallid Indian judiciary has generously not bothered to redress the balance. Look at Sanjay Dutt. He was arrested for a crime allegedly committed in 1993; and you have puissant Indian courts still trying to decide if he should contest elections! It is only in the last few years that sustained pressure from civil society has forced the judiciary to send even powerful people – including politicians – behind bars. Otherwise, it was simply case after nauseant case of a criminal politician benefiting election after election as cases dragged on in regrettably inefficacious courts.

The deeper problem is the Indian judiciary not making an example of rotten apples within its own suppurating system. We have been profanely embarrassed by public revelations that millions of rupees have been delivered to the houses of High Court judges. We have seen the peccant spectacle of a High Court judge facing impeachment. We have seen credible allegations of a top judicial officer passing orders to favour his family. We have seen the caustic provident fund scam in Uttar Pradesh where numerous judges – some now in High Courts and the Supreme Court – have brazenly misused their powers. We have seen a licentious High Court judge enterprisingly exchange sexual favours for judicial orders. We have seen snappish judges protesting vehemently that they can’t declare their assets. And one thought Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion! We seem to have seen it all. And yet, where is the movement towards basic reforms in judiciary where the rotten apples could have been punished so severely that the ‘incentive’ system would have worked against malefic corruption and worse?

If even those opprobrious judicial officers facing serious allegations of corruption and crime can use the system to get away, what can one expect of pathologically criminal politicians who anyway don’t make tall promises about sobriety and honesty?

Sanjay Dutt is simply a small fry. The real bigger fry are continuing to make merry at our expense. Civil society needs to tackle this twin menace most urgently if it wants a future for India.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:35 AM 17 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
March 26, 2009
IS IT THAT IPL ORGANISERS ARE USING ELECTIONS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO RUN AWAY FROM INDIA
AT A TIME WHEN IT IS NOT ABLE TO GUARANTEE RETURNS TO THE OWNERS?

Unlike last year, this year’s IPL is in the news for all together a different set of reasons. Now that it has already been declared (assuming this decision to be the final one, without further change) that this season’s IPL would take place in South Africa, it is time for India to take stock of what she has lost and what not on account of this decision. But before that it is even more pertinent to question why IPL organisers accepted this in the first place? Is it that they are deliberately trying to run away from hosting the event in India, using the general elections as an excuse? And considering the fact that general elections should be given topmost priority, was it so very challenging to postpone the event by some time, and hold it later on in all the states? Why is there so much hurry to force upon a decision, and that too, to host one of the most popular sporting properties of India outside India? Is it that the organisers knew that as a pure business model from the perspective of the investors, the IPL format hasn’t worked in India? And is it also because of the economic slowdown, wherein people in general are reluctant to spend on entertainment, (for example, even good films – but without star cast – are doing miserably at the box office) there are hardly any signs of it becoming a profitable venture even this time around?

For all those who are hypnotised by the glamour quotient of the game – and completely sold out by the idea of IPL – here goes some awakening facts. Last year during the IPL season, barring a few final matches and matches that were held in Kolkata, most of the other stadiums were nearly half-empty. But the TV channels, who were incidentally also investors in the property, astutely kept focusing only on those parts of the stadium which had some crowd. Not that the same would have happened this time too. The fact is that in the last season, none of the teams except for Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals were able to make returns on their investments. To reiterate the fact, I would like to clarify that only Rajasthan Royals made money because of their consistent performance, while Kolkata Knight Riders made it simply on account of brand value, creativity and innovation, viz. merchandise sales and sponsorships.

While Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals netted profits to the tune of Rs 13 crore and Rs six crore respectively, the rest of the teams, namely Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers, Deccan Chargers, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI incurred losses of Rs 16 crore, Rs 43 crore, Rs 18 crore, Rs 0.2 crore, Rs 6.6 crore and Rs 2.4 crore respectively. Collectively, the losses were to the tune of a jaw dropping Rs 67.2 crore directly, and around Rs 90 crore overall (including indirect investments)!!

Given the precedence and the current economic scenario, it definitely seems that the IPL authorities were actually looking for an exit route. On top of all this, even their last hope of the Santa-Claus list, the investors, has been backing out big time this season. With all doors showing them a ‘no-entry’ signboard, IPL organisers thought that it was wise to use the past season’s hype and make another country pay up to be the host for this season. And as far as the Indian audience is concerned, the organisers would time the matches in such a manner that they don’t lose out on TRPs. In doing so, they have subtly accepted the fact that IPL is going to be more of a TV spectacle than a live stadium spectacle in India! Nevertheless, even if it is in South Africa, the sport scene is quite different there as compared to India. Countries like South africa or UK, unlike India, have a culture of sports ingrained in them. So such competitive sporting tournaments always attract the crowds. But wouldn’t it be funny that people there would be expected to come and cheer for a Kolkata Knight Rider or a Rajasthan Royals (no wonder even the names of the teams will be no less than a tongue twister for them)? It is just like hosting an NBC basketball tournament here and expecting that like the way Americans love it, Indians too would throng to the stadiums!!

The only upside that I see in this entire thing is that after terming India as the world’s Slumdog Millionaire, the West will now cheer for the Indian Premier League. Though the truth is that any day I would have loved to see it happen in India. And I find it quite embarrassing too that it’s not happening in India because India sure hasn’t yet become Pakistan that we couldn’t manage security for some players – so what if the elections were happening simultaneously. It sure doesn’t speak highly of India’s confidence in its own security systems. Or is it, as I said, that IPL organisers are using the elections as an opportunity to run away from India at a time when they are not able to guarantee returns to the owners?
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:39 AM 8 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
March 19, 2009
AAMIR KHAN HAS TAKEN AN OATH TO VOTE AGAINST EVERYONE WHO IS ANTI-INDIA. PROBABLY HE DOESN’T PLAN TO VOTE THIS TIME!!

With general elections round the corner, it is not just the political parties but various organisations that have voluntarily launched themselves into the election campaign. The only difference being that the former is wooing the voters to vote for themselves, and the later is making various attempts to either get voters to the booth or educating them on their franchise rights. And with each passing day, the visibility and the audability of such campaigns are increasingly getting louder. So, on the one hand it is Aamir Khan beaming on the radio – ‘aao hum apne bachchon ke sar pe haath rakh kar kasam khate hain that we will vote. Not for, but against. Against those who are against our nation’. Or on the other hand, some other campaigns are saying something like - ‘the dot on your finger is hot’. No doubt, if one has to judge on the merit of mere campaigns, full marks to their efforts and the very right, motivational and positive intent… but then the truth is that a nation cannot just run on campaigns and jingoism, particularly where criminalisation is so deeply entrenched into the political system.

Exercising adult franchise is just one aspect of the whole process of elections, but what pedigree of candidates are getting elected is not just a passing matter but perhaps an even more pertinent issue. To get a perspective on the extent of criminalisation in Indian politics, one has to understand that almost one fourth of current Parliamentarians have some kind of criminal backgrounds. And we shamefully have the entire mix of criminals present in our Parliament – starting from violent crimes like murder, attempt to murder, robbery, dacoity, kidnapping, theft and extortion, rape and other violent crimes like assault using dangerous weapons or causing grievous hurt, to petty crimes like cheating, fraud, forgery, et al, we have them all. And mind you, this is the list of those who finally make it through to our Parliament. Imagine the character of the list which an average voter has to vote upon, irrespective of any constituency. Not that every Parliamentarian is a criminal but then being in the same political party that houses criminals, does not make them any less criminals. And this is irrespective of whether it is a national or a regional party. Criminalisation in politics is ubiquitous across the nation. So, in the given environment and amidst all such overpowering campaigns, the moot question is never answered – who should the Indian voter vote for? Think for a while – does the Indian voter actually have any option to exercise his/her franchise and yet not vote a criminal to the Parliament? The answer is perhaps a big no! Almost every candidate standing for elections that most of us go to, and vote for, is an anti-national and a criminal. For some statistics, take a look at these crazy figures!!! In the last Lok Sabha, there were 120 MPs with proper charges against them!! BJP had 29, Congress had 24, SP had 11, RJD had 8, CPI(M) had seven, BSP had seven, NCP had five and CPI had two. The number of cases against them were a whopping 333!! SP led the pack with 80 cases against their MPs, followed by BSP with 43, and so on… and that is purely the ones with legal charges against them. Then there are scamsters who haven’t been caught (which includes almost every politician of this country) and the ones who have a very clean front but are actually anti India in their policies of being anti-poor!!

Therefore, one should definitely ask oneself that is the dot on your finger really hot? Or is it a big embarrassment because the dot on your finger might actually tell others that you have also voted for an anti-national criminal in all likelihood… So the question is that in this given environment, how can we make people vote, yet not vote criminals to the Parliament. To cater to this issue, we need to understand that if voting is the right for every citizen of the country, then he should also have the right of not to vote. Every ballot paper should have a provision wherein the voter can exercise his franchise of not to vote for anyone from the list ie an option which says “none of the above”. At least, this would ensure that the franchising is democratically respected, which currently stands blatantly abused. When something like this happens, it is only then that every Indian can go and vote with his head held high and proudly exercise his/her power of franchise. And that’s when the dot really becomes hot! And that’s why we must campaign for the right causes, not just slogans which sound nice...

Till then, unfortunately, even when an Aamir Khan tries his best to make people vote, and yet not for anti-nationals – that probably means that the voter might really go and vote, but on account of a lack of option, and in all probability would vote for one such criminal, anti-national to the Parliament, once again. Probably from Aamir’s own constituency he will fail to find a truly patriotic person to vote for. And that’s the big problem with India. If you don’t vote its not a great thing on pen and paper, but if you vote then in all probability you vote for an illiterate or a criminal. So is not voting an option?? Well, if you go purely by statistics then it is a fact that almost half of the educated developed world doesn’t care to vote. Not because they are non patriotic but because they are educated and realise their votes don’t bring about any change, and that’s why, when suddenly they see hope – as in someone like Barrack Obama – they go all out and vote! Assuming that we don’t have any rigging, one may actually argue that going to vote just for the heck of it is almost a crime, because that means you are making sure that not only a criminal comes to power but he comes to power with a huge confidence and support!!

Real voting, therefore, can happen only when we have the real hope that change is around the corner. Till then, we can only sit confused. Undecided whether to go and vote for criminals, or to sit at home and not vote, despite the media-created populist frenzy that voting is happening because the dot on your finger is hot!!

I strongly appeal to my readers that have the intent to vote for sure, and do try to vote (more especially if there is any chance of your vote being rigged)… but vote for someone who is really not anti-national. And if you think that’s a tough choice, and you are helpless to change the face of the nation, then go ahead and someday sooner than later, be the candidate whom people can look up to and vote for...and if you win, do live up to the promises you made and the expectations you created.. and if you can’t enter politics, at least motivate someone you trust to enter politics. That is probably the only way out and probably that should be the only campaign for this nation!! Let the educated and truly patriotic people enter politics someday soon. Let us truly be the change we want to see!

Blurb 1 : what we need to understand is if the dot on your finger is really hot, or is it just going to elect another criminal to the parliament.

Blurb 2 : let the educated and truly patriotic people enter politics and let us truly be the change that we want to see in this country.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:32 AM 17 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
March 12, 2009
CAG should necessarily have powers to bite!!!

In the current Union Budget, while the UPA government was increasing the allocation for its flagship NREGA program – from Rs 16,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore, resulting in a hike of an incredible 87% – it was again surreptitiously trying to ignore the CAG report. The CAG, or the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, has been consistently criticizing the government for alleged misappropriation of funds, faulty record maintenance systems and rampant corruption that have become synonymous with NREGA and similar other government initiatives. For example, for the financial year ended March 2007, out of an outlay of Rs 12,074 crores, all that was spent was Rs 8,823 crores for NREGA. Not just this, the CAG report also indicted the government for making available only 37.05 man-days of work against the promised 100 man-days. For the year 2007-08, the more shocking revelation that was made by CAG was that while the government had allocated more that Rs 51,000 crore to NGOs for implementing welfare schemes, the government literally doesn’t have any record about where or whether that money has at all been spent. Not just this, CAG further states that India has been rather comfortably sitting on foreign assistance worth Rs 78,000 crores, which has not been utilized even when India continues to pay mammoth commitment charges to World Bank and ADB!! These are a few instances where CAG has exposed the cover-ups of the government and gives an idea about why, in spite of all the money spent in India on various rural development and poverty alleviation programs, India’s rural urban divide continues to just widen.

Not just with respect to social initiatives, but CAG also has been consistently raising flags against various other expenditure and non-expenditure issues, which are imperative for the economy. Consider this! Even when the terror threat is looming large in India, and especially in prime metropolitan cities like Delhi, the CAG report reveals that a substantial portion out of an earmarked Rs 6,000 crores for the modernization of Delhi Police was returned. In addition to this, Rs 4,287 crores was returned last year by the Ministry of Defense for its inability to judiciously spend the money on acquisition of fighter aircrafts, warships, helicopters and artillery – thanks to India’s archaic and snail-paced bureaucratic process. All this at a time when the armed forces have been crying hoarse to the government to acquire more defense hardware. And the list goes on…

In fact, CAG is one of the very few organizations in India which works rather independently and is unabashed in its criticism of the government when it comes to misappropriation or wastage of money. Over the years, as coalition politics and regional based politics became even more compulsive, incumbent governments as well as the opposition have been giving too much stress on increasing allocations in budget to appease concerned vote banks. And once such populist allocations are made and announced in the budget, no one cares a damn where that money is heading and how it is being spent. Perhaps this is where CAG becomes so significant. Over the years, successive governments in India have been extremely uncomfortable with the exposures made by CAG, and have thus tried best to counter that with even bigger promotional campaigns to highlight their achievements rather than rectify their own mistakes. In the present report, CAG also brought in recommendations for rectifying around 14 grave mistakes in the government machinery. But then, the government cares a hoot for such issues, especially when elections are round the corner. Most shockingly, there is no separate dedicated time in the Parliament to debate over the findings of CAG. It is audacious that the Indian Parliament has time to debate issues of all lesser relevant issues than its own financial health.

Ironically, financial resources in essence have never been a problem in this country. At least, it has seemed so, given the level of allocations that have been made by successive Indian governments. Yet, all that is required is a CAG with statutory enforcement powers to not just indict the government but force it to change its way of functioning. The Election Commission has shown what wonders can be done if statutory powers are given to the body which conducts elections so as to make sure that the Commission doesn’t become subservient to the incumbent government in times of an election. And therefore, just as it is important to have the most fair elections for the largest democracy of the world, it is equally important for that democracy to have a statutory watchdog which would prevent the misconducts of the government or even the custodians of the national wealth. It’s time to implement the same basic principles of corporate governance, even in the case of government functioning.

Every year, when the CAG brings out its annual report, there is a bit of furore for some days in the media and then everything settles down. One rarely sees any Minister or government official being held for financial wrongs and then being penalized or debarred from contesting the next elections. If something like that is done, it would just be a matter of time that the very focus of budget would change from outlay to outcome; as it is a known fact that Indian politicians are very adaptive, especially when it comes to contesting future elections.
Posted by Arindam Chaudhuri at 9:35 AM 5 comments
Labels: Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM, Planman, The Sunday Indian
Psychodynamic Theory and Psychoanalysis
The word 'psychoanalysis' strictly speaking refers solely to the theories of Freud and the method of psychotherapy and investigation based thereon. The key concepts concern the structure of the personality into the id, ego, and superego; the development of children through psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital); the Oedipus Complex; 'ego defence mechanisms' of sublimination, repression, denial, displacement and projection; neurotic symptoms (Freudian slips); and therapy (free association, rich interpretation, transference, dream analysis).
The fundamental psychodynamic model, proposes that mental illness is caused by unresolved, unconscious conflicts originating in childhood. Instinctual drives are satisfied during the stages of childhood (oral, anal and phallic), any disturbance results in a fixation and anxiety. Furthermore in such cases, defence mechanisms, such as the repression of unpleasant memories, serve to protect the ego. Neurotic symptoms were argued to be the result of conflicts between repressed or unfulfilled desires and attempts to control or resolve them. Freud argued that recovery depended on insight and working through past problems.
There has been much literature on Freud, since these theories were revolutionary at that time. Yet today it is recognised that Freud made an important contribution in recognising childhood as a critical period of development, and in identifying sexual (physical) and unconscious influences. As a result this theory has been enormously influential within psychology, and even further beyond - Hall and Lindzey (1970) suggested that Freud's idiographic approach, is presented in a broad but deep manner in a fine literary style.
However psychodynamic theory has not been free from criticisms either. The theory has been criticized as lacking rigorous empirical support, especially regarding normal development. The 'evidence' comes largely from case studies of middle-class European women, many of who were disturbed. The data was retrospectively collected and given subjective interpretation (experimenter bias). Other commentators dislike its reduction of human activity to a basic set of structures - which are reifications, nor its deterministic implications placing too much emphasis on innate biological forces that it argues determine infant behaviour and adult behaviour is determined by childhood experiences