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Bengal bandh Bhopal: 20 years after |
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Tigers beware!
Economic Outlook
“Second” ring ceremony
Punjab under fiscal stress Deadly hot summers ‘to become the norm’ Defence notes
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Bengal bandh FRIDAY'S 12-hour bandh in West Bengal sponsored by the Trinamool Congress is deplorable because it was in gross defiance of the Calcutta High Court order declaring it as illegal and unconstitutional. When the High Court, in response to a public interest litigation, had ordered the party to call off the bandh by Thursday evening, party chief Mamata Banerjee should have complied with the directive in keeping with her status as a seasoned political leader and former Union Minister. However, this was not to be and she went ahead with the bandh, setting a wrong precedent. If people’s representatives, as lawmakers, have no respect for the judiciary and violate the court orders with impunity, how will they train people to uphold the rule of law as citizens? Unfortunately, bandhs have become too common in West Bengal. The one called on Friday was the third in the state in the last three weeks. Amazingly, politicians of all hues do not understand the incalculable harm bandhs cause to the people. It would be difficult for one to defend or justify bandhs of any kind. Bandhs are always a nuisance as they cause inconvenience to every section of society. True, there are two arguments on bandhs. One is the citizens’ “democratic right” to go on strike and the other is whether they have the right to hold the state or the country to ransom in the name of exercising their “democratic right”. But the Supreme Court had banned all kinds of bandhs in 1997. The Bombay High Court had clamped fine on the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party a fine of Rs 20 lakh each for having organised a bandh in Mumbai on July 30, 2003, in protest against the Ghatkopar bomb blasts. This ruling was in conformity with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the meaning and concept of one’s right to observe a bandh. The issue in question is even more serious in the sense that Ms Banerjee has brazenly flouted the Calcutta High Court’s order. Surely, as the judiciary is the sentinel of the Constitution and upholder of the rule of law, the Trinamool Congress should have followed its directive. Ms Banerjee, however, generally likes to be governed by her own agenda. |
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Bhopal: 20 years after TWENTY years after the world’s worst industrial disaster at Bhopal left some 20,000 dead and one lakh suffering from chronic, untreatable diseases, relief is yet to reach the victims and the law is yet to catch up with the culprits — the Union Carbide and its then Chairman Warren Anderson. A local court allowed Anderson to leave India on a $2,000 bail. He never returned to face trial, was declared a fugitive and a request for his extradition was rejected last year by the US. The damage to the environment has been realised rather belatedly. The Union Carbide’s Bhopal unit, when handed over to the Indian government in 1998, had dumped thousands of tonnes of toxic chemicals in and around the factory between 1969 and 1984, thus polluting the underground water. A Greenpeace survey in 1999 of the underground water and soil at the factory site in Bhopal confirmed the chemical contamination of the underground water, which local inhabitants continue to drink in the absence of an alternative. The global environment guardian, Greenpeace, has, therefore, justifiably accused the US of “environmental racism” for ignoring the “polluter-pay principle” and not making Dow Chemical, the present owner of the Union Carbide, to pay for a clean-up of Bhopal. Clearing the toxic mess at Bhopal is estimated to cost Rs 200 crore. While the culprits are safely ensconced in the US, taking advantage of the inadequacies of the Indian law and its poor enforcement, the poor Indian taxpayer may have to pay for the detoxification work also. Had a similar disaster struck in the US, the multinational would not have escaped so lightly. With globalisation, multinational companies are entering the developing world, which is known to have lax administrative and judicial checks on corporate activities. The need, therefore, is to have, as Amnesty International has also emphasised, “a universal set of legally enforceable norms to hold corporations to account to ensure their activities do not violate human rights”. The country itself has learnt few lessons from Bhopal. It has taken the Indian Council of Medical Research 20 years just to prepare a report on the toxic gas leak’s effects on health. The judicial-administrative setup is still not equipped to deal with any recurrence of such an eventuality. |
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Tigers beware! THE female of the species is more dangerous than the male. That is only too obvious from the way the tigress, Chandni, in the Pipli zoo attacked Krishna when the tiger sought to mate with her. What is baffling is that this goes against the conventional wisdom of hell having no fury like a female scorned. Here is Chandni, single and eligible and obviously in need of a proposition from a prospective mate, and she was being courted, not spurned. Since jungle cats in the zoo perforce have to settle for “arranged” mating unlike their kind that thrive in the wild, the authorities decided to find her a suitable partner. First it was Jwala, three years ago. For all the effort of the authorities that went in to the selection of a suitable mate, the matchmaking attempt ended in a fiasco with Chandni viciously wounding the hopeful suitor, resulting in eventual death. The second time around, the matchmakers presumed that they would fare better and brought in Krishna from the zoo in Kota as a prospective mate. But obviously, they presumed too much: Chandni didn’t spare Krishna either. Had he not been rescued in the nick of time, the suitor would have lost more than his length of tail, which was ripped apart by the tigress. This raises anew the whole question of how one should go about mating a tiger and a tigress, especially when the female is violently assertive and unwilling to settle for an arranged match. There is no way that Chandni’s own expectations in the matter of a mate can be divined, given the communication gap. It may not be practicable to cast their horoscopes either, especially when one does not know whether a mate found by this route would be any more acceptable to Chandni; neither can the Internet sites be of any use as they have yet to evolve into the business of finding partners for four-legged animals. It is indeed a terrible dilemma, but it would be sad that Chandni would now have to remain as a single. Unless some unassuming male is ready to take a risk. |
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The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.
— Benjamin Disraeli
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Economic Outlook WHAT is it about highly successful entrepreneurs who are able to judge people with brilliant instinct that they cannot come to terms with the obvious possibility of their own children or progeny tearing their legacy into shreds after they are no more? Stories of sons squabbling over their father’s property are universal and as old as the hills. Nevertheless, the fact that individuals who spare no effort to fulfil their ambitions are often unable to predict the consequences of what would happen to their diligently-built fortunes after they are dead and gone, has once again been highlighted by the unseemly spat between the two Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, that has hogged headlines in recent weeks. Is there something unique about Indian family-dominated businesses - ironically, in the only country in the world where the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) is a legal entity - that makes them split after the death of the founding patriarch? Or is this a universal phenomenon? Why do children of wealthy industrialists quarrel over ownership and control of properties to the detriment of the overall health and future prospects of the corporate organisations they are meant to oversee? There are no simple answers to these questions just as there are no clear-cut replies to the question raised in the first chapter of textbooks on economics: What are human wants? A person with not a single shirt wants one. He might then want two and after that some more. There are, of course, some who fail to distinguish between their need and their greed and become like Mrs Imelda Marcos or Ms Jayalalithaa, both of whom lost count of the number of shoes and saris they possessed respectively. If dynastic tussles in business families are all about greed and sharing assets bequeathed on children and relatives by one or a few hard-working and motivated first-generation entrepreneurs, there is certainly no dearth of such examples from India’s recent corporate history. To be fair, not all families of businesspersons part ways after acrimonious battles. Well-known journalist T. N. Ninan of Business Standard has written about both categories of families in a recent article. Rama Prasad Goenka and his brothers, Jagdish Prasad and Gauri Prasad, parted ways reasonably amicably though at one stage, two family factions had bid against each other to acquire a company. The Kirloskar and Godrej groups are examples of business families that have lived together in relative harmony. The Murugappa group sorted out internal differences with the help of disinterested outsiders. J. R. D. Tata anointed his cousin Naval’s son Ratan as his successor during his lifetime though insiders claim the two were not exactly the best of friends. The undivided Birla family had carefully reorganised the group’s assets before Ghanshyam Das Birla’s death in 1983. However, the bitter spat between Rajendra Lodha and Birla family members after Priyamvada Birla - widow of the late Madho Prasad - did little to enhance their public image. There are many other examples of internecine family feuds that are well publicised. Manu and Kishore Chhabria alleged that each had purloined the other’s company. The fight in the Modi family spilled over into the third generation. The Mittal family that controls the Ispat group is no longer united. Two Pune-based business groups, the Bajaj group and the Walchand group, are deeply divided. The same is true of the Nandas of the Escorts group and the members of the family that was once led by Lala Shri Ram who established Delhi Cloth Mills. Ninan has written extensively about the Sarabhai family of Ahmedabad who had floated some 1,400 trusts at one juncture to control their corporate empire - these trusts had been named after numbers and alphabets and unborn children had gifted assets to family members who were generations older — before the income tax authorities clamped down hard on such dubious practices. This really brings us to the issue of management and control that is at the root of the public spat between the Ambani brothers barely two years after their father, Dhirubhai Ambani, died in July 2002 intestate or without leaving behind a will. India’s corporate laws are rather complex, to put it mildly. In order to avoid taxes, many promoters of companies hold shares through a complex web of investment firms, trusts and Hindu undivided family (HUF) entities. The Ambanis have not been any different. Thus, when Mukesh Ambani first talked about the unresolved “ownership issues” in the Reliance group that were in the “private domain” to the CNBC-TV18 channel, the rest of the media went overboard reporting the sibling rivalry in excruciating detail. It was obvious that there could be little that would be deemed “private” about the affairs of the country’s largest privately-controlled corporate conglomerate - a group with a turnover that was over 3 per cent of India’s national income, millions of shareholders, lakhs of employees and hundreds of foreign investors. The problems between the two Ambani brothers go beyond their contrasting personalities: Mr Mukesh Ambani (47) is said to be reticent while Mr Anil Ambani (45) is flamboyant. At stake are two giant projects that are mired in controversy. Reliance Infocomm, headed by Mr Mukesh Ambani, has been facing legal disputes with the government and two PUCs, BSNL and MTNL. Rajya Sabha MP Anil Ambani’s grandiose plans of establishing Asia’s largest gas-based power project in Uttar Pradesh is facing a controversy about the source of gas supply. While the two brothers have made a public show of conciliation and a host of mediators have become hyper-active, most observers contend that the differences are too deep to be easily papered over. One section contends that the group should remain united in the interests of investors and the public at large. Others argue that if indeed the two brothers are not on talking terms, then it is better for all concerned that they part ways as peacefully as they can. Subsequently, they can try and outdo each other in displaying their business acumen. Such a strategy would, it is claimed, not only preserve the sagging morale of the group’s employees but also ensure that critical investment decisions are taken by a now-divided top management. If parents are constantly fighting while staying together in the name of their children, the offspring could suffer. What the future holds for the empire that Dhirubhai Ambani built virtually from scratch in the 69 years that he was alive, only time and his sons can tell. But the fact remains that despite a lot of tall talk about separating ownership and management in modern capitalist enterprises that are supposed to be “professionally” run in a globalised environment, many of us in India still haven’t been able to get rid of the hangover of our feudal and colonial past. |
“Second” ring ceremony
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65-year-old worrying-woman’s relatives conveyed that she had been brought for the eye operation just as a child who was promised toys if he attended the school! (Baccha Boodha Ek Barabar, they say). Soon after the completion of surgery, when I told her that she could go home, she complainingly said,” Are you kidding doctor?” I don’t believe that the surgery is over.” But suddenly she realised that she could see around; things which had eluded her, especially her grand-children who were just toys that could only be felt and heard, her joy knew no bounds. She folded her hands, and even attempted to touch my feet more than once, much to my discomfort and embarrassment. She was satisfied following the second eye operation, too, and gave a discourse of lavish praise again. Last week, she ordered,” Doctor, your hand please.” I could not believe my luck! It had been quite sometime when somebody sought my hand. My astrologer friend, long ago, had indeed predicted one more female in my life, apart from much dedicated (“Fevicol”) wife; but was that the moment and have I really gone that old to get similar offers, I thought! Holding my hand she slipped a diamond-studded ring leaving me flummoxed and dumbfound. Never in my two decades of medical practice had such a thing happened. Now it was my turn. I folded my hands, touched her feet and requested her not to do such a thing since she has already paid the operation charges. “The vision which you have given me is incomparable and no act of mine can ever repay or reciprocate that. Doctors are great healers and triers and patients should consider that while feeling bad when the results sometimes don’t go as expected. Had the doctors been able to save all, nobody would have died on this earth ! Thanks very much doc.” She left in a hurry leaving me moist at her thoughts about the medical profession. There were still some caring souls in this world, I thought. While driving back home, and looking at the “Ring Of Gratitude” I was really afraid of my dear wife, though not for the first time. What will she think of this “Second” ring ceremony, without any invitation to her, I wondered. |
Punjab under fiscal stress PUNJAB was among the first few states to enact a fiscal responsibility Act. The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003, attests to the commitment of the Government of Punjab towards the problems of revenue and fiscal deficits and the high ratio of public debt to the Gross State Domestic Product. The single most effective feature of the Act is the inflexible limit imposed on long-term government guarantees, i.e., 80 per cent of the revenue receipts of the previous year. The Act clearly states that off-budget borrowings will be treated as borrowings by the state government, and the expenditure incurred on subsidies due to the enterprises in the power sector, whether paid or not, will be treated as expenditure by the state government. This introduces transparency in the borrowings and expenditure of the government. The Act requires the government to lay each financial year in the assembly a medium-term fiscal policy statement along with the annual budget. The Act also provides for corrective measures that are automatically to be undertaken once the actual deficits show signs of exceeding their targeted value in any year. The Act checks election-year opportunism as it carries a specific ban on fiscal sops six months before elections. The revenue effort of the state has to be stepped up without damaging the quality of public service delivery. A review of the Act shows that it does not provide any targets for time-bound minimum improvements in investment in human resource development and infrastructure, which are crucial for both equity and rapid economic growth. However, it makes an allowance for not meeting the targets due to a calamity declared by the central/state government. It provides for an independent agency to carry out a periodic review for the compliance of the provisions of the Act. The Act does not seriously address the problem of financing public expenditure. In the context of the decline in the tax-GDP ratio during the nineties, targets for an increase in this rate should have been accorded top priority. Not only is there an absence of any such target, but also the need for effectiveness of tax administration and collection is not recognised in the Act. The achievement of targets of the revenue and fiscal deficit and a cap on debt and guarantees as given in the Act can be assessed only when the actual data for 2003-04 are available. However, the Act is reviewed on the basis of the revised estimates for 2003-04. Except for compliance of revenue deficit as a proportion of revenue receipts, the government has failed to even remotely adhere to the Act. This reflects the non-seriousness of the government towards its own commitment. For high growth, along with a rapid elimination of the major ills plaguing the Punjab economy, it may not be enough to lay down targets for revenue surplus and leave it to the government to choose the fiscal deficit it considers appropriate. The reasons are: (i) the same amount of deficit can come about through a wide variety of scale and composition of the government budget, affecting the primary objectives differently And (ii) given the close connection between fiscal deficit and revenue balances over time, the government may continue to opt for scaling down urgently needed expenditure rather than raise taxes and rationalise prices of publicly provided goods and services. In view of the government’s responsibility relating to growth and human resource development, the Act could have fixed targets for expenditure in some critical areas with the provision that in case these targets and those of revenue balance are not met, the government must reduce its administrative expenses. At the same time, it is also necessary to reduce wastage and plug leakages in the government’s expenditure programmes. The Act is expected to be effective in achieving the targets and should go a long way in making the budgetary process transparent. This can be possible only if the government shuns political populism. |
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Deadly hot summers ‘to become the norm’ BLISTERINGLY hot summers similar to the one in 2003 when thousands of people in continental Europe died of heatstroke will become commonplace because of climate change, a study has found. Scientists estimate global warming has already doubled the risk of similar hot summers, and if the climate continues to change, they will occur every couple of years. It is estimated that between 22,000 and 35,000 people died heat-related deaths in Europe during the summer of 2003, when soaring temperatures and drought also caused widespread forest fires and crop failures in the Mediterranean area. Until now it has not been possible to say with any accuracy how much of this extra heat was the result of man-made global warming and how much of it was the result of a naturally warm summer. But Peter
Stott, of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, and Daithi Stone and Myles Allen, of Oxford University, have found a way of teasing apart the human and natural influences on the temperatures measured across Europe in 2003. Using a computer model of the climate, they found the extra heat that made the summer of 2003 the hottest for at least 500 years was largely the result of human influences, such as the burning of fossil fuel which exacerbates the planet’s greenhouse effect. Dr Stott said: “We simulated 2003 summer temperatures over Europe, with and without the effect of man’s activities, and compared these with observations.” “We found that although the high temperature experienced was not impossible in a climate unaltered by man, it is very likely that greenhouse gases have at least doubled the risk. “Our best estimate is that such a heatwave is now four times more likely as a result of human influence on climate.” The study, published in the journal Nature, calculates that human influence is to blame for 75 per cent of the increased risk. At the rate at which the climate is changing, the scientists estimate that by the 2040s more than half of the summers will be warmer than that of 2003, and by the end of the century a summer similar to 2003 will be classed as unusually cold. Lawyers wishing to pin blame on organisations or governments for exacerbating global warming may use scientific analysis as evidence in a court of law, said Dr Allen, who has co-authored a study into the legal implications of such research with Richard Lord, QC. “Quantifying the costs of climate change requires being able to separate natural from man-made contributions to weather risk,” Dr Stott
said. Doug Parr of Greenpeace said: “This study could be a stepping stone to holding climate villains to account. “Like the tobacco industry big polluters could face massive lawsuits. Polluters should know that if they ignore moral arguments for action, legal liability could hit them.”
— By the arrangement with The Independent, London |
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Defence notes by Girja Shankar Kaura THE country has lost more than Rs 1,700 crore in the past 30 years as a result of the MiG crashes. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee gave this figure in the Rajya Sabha earlier in the week. He also disclosed that 157 IAF pilots and 40 civilians were killed in these crashes since 1971-72. Incidentally, 54 of the IAF fighter aircraft had gone down in the last three years only. The Defence Minister said measures to enhance the quality of training to improve the skill levels, exercise sound judgement and enhance the situational awareness of pilots are being pursued.
Testing female
candidates The controversy over female candidates examined by male gynaecologists refuses to die down. The Ministry of Defence’s latest explanation in Parliament has just not been helpful. Contrary to the practice, the ministry had no Hindi translation of the answer sought by five members of the Lok Sabha. Secondly, it has admitted that due to the shortage of female gynaecologists with the Army, male gynaecologists carry out a “visual” examination of the female candidates. The reply says that only a visual examination to rule out any congenital abnormality is carried out in the presence of a female nurse and no internal examination is conducted. The procedure is now being modified so that in future the examination of female candidates is conducted by lady doctors. However, an internal examination carried out with modern equipment may not require a visual contact, it is the “visual examination” which is embarrassing for
the female candidates.
Action taken on
molestation Following instructions from the Chief of Army Staff, Gen N.C. Vij, the Army has carried out prompt investigation of a molestation incident which occurred on the night of October 24 last on National Highway 54, near the CIJW School, Vairengte, in the North-east. Two soldiers were booked under the Army Act. While one was dismissed, the other was reprimanded and prematurely discharged.
Be wary of China The Ministry of Defence’s annual report has again stressed the need for New Delhi to still be wary of Beijing. The report released recently said that both sides are trying to address differences over the boundary question and are agreed that pending an ultimate boundary settlement, they would work together to maintain peace in their border areas. China’s close defence relationships with and regular military assistance to Pakistan, including assistance in the latter’s nuclear missile programmes at critical stages, need to be closely monitored, warns the report. China’s build-up in the Tibet region, its military modernisation, its nuclear and missile arsenal and its continental and maritime aspirations also require observation. |
Man may undergo a cycle o births and deaths for centuries together, but ultimately he has to be put on the right path and secure his evolution towards God into whom he is to merge, because Jiv is also a spirit like God and hence not subject to death or decay. — The Sikhism The people who are weak, controlled, idle and self indulgent are devastated by the slightest twist of destiny. — The Buddhism The path of knowledge is very difficult but being impartial towards all helps one on this path. It means not having loved ones or any hated ones. Everyone must be treated equally irrespective of relationships. Sages spend life times searching for this balance. — The Bhagavadgita There is no destruction, for the one who tries to attain perfection either here or hereafter. A transcendentalist is never put to grief. The less evolved unsuccessful one is reborn in the house of the pious and prosperous after attaining heaven and living there for many years. — The Mahabharata In the developed countries there is a poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love. There is no greater sickness in the world today than that one. — Mother Teresa  |
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