A “repair” budget
PUNJAB finances are in a mess and that is no news. But Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh promised tough remedial action and he has indeed gone ahead and done just that, and that is big news.

Pune shows the way
IT is becoming increasingly clear that most Indians want to live life by the rule book rather than get caught in the seemingly all-pervasive web of corruption and crime in high places.

AN AVOIDABLE CONTROVERSY
by Hari Jaisingh
THE Indian state is in a crisis, thanks to certain types of politicians and their shady collaborators in different segments of national life. Of them, Christopher Thomas wrote recently in his book “Assignment India”: “I believe there is no vindictive adjective too strong to describe them, considering what they have done and continue to do with their grubbing manipulations and hateful ambitions.”

China and Asian economic gloom
by S. Sethuraman
CHINA'S one trillion dollar economy, the seventh largest, has begun to slacken in output and exports, forcing the government to budget a huge deficit in order to shore up growth at not less than 7 per cent in 1999, the lowest after more than a decade of explosive expansion.

The mad world of capital
By M.S.N. Menon
MONEY is a veil: it hides many mysteries. And being mysteries, we know so little about them. Boom and bust are manifestations of these mysteries. But they take place away from us. Now the crisis is in our neighbourhood — in East and S.E. Asia. We now know the magnitude of the tragedy.

Remembering Hemingway
by D.R. Sharma
SINCE 1999 happens to be the birth centennial year of Ernest Hemingway, popularly called Papa Hemingway, the American novelist who won the Nobel Prize in 1954, I first thought I would attempt a 5000-word article on his art and achievement. A moment later I decided to leave the scholarly part to some younger and brighter colleague and write a short piece instead, sharing the thrill of having saluted the Hemingway Memorial in Sun Valley, Idaho, about 30 years ago.

75 Years Ago

Public roads closed against non-caste men
WHEN the Kerala Congress Deputation recently visited Veykam, where Ezhavas and Nairs predominated, it was brought to its notice that certain public roads in the town were closed against Ezhavas and Pulayas because they are only Hindus and not privileged to be caste men, also.

A “repair” budget

PUNJAB finances are in a mess and that is no news. But Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh promised tough remedial action and he has indeed gone ahead and done just that, and that is big news. It has come as a surprise in these weary days of state after state presenting budgets with no new taxes and uncovered deficits. The budget philosophy is simplicity itself. It proclaims that the days of the government being “mai baap” are over and has gently pushed up sales tax on more than 20 items. But the increase is mostly symbolic, by about 2 or 3 percentage points to yield a mere Rs 70 crore. The Minister has mostly targeted the urban consumers, not because it is politically safe but because it is they who can afford to bear the burden. What this also means is that the rural population, barring the landed gentry, will be by and large insulated from ST-induced price rise. This should come out more tellingly when the government announces where it will apply the 15 per cent reduction in subsidy.

Capt Kanwaljit Singh has often said that subsidy to agriculture will remain untouched and assistance to the poor and the needy is a priority item. Yes, no more any populist gesture. He has steeply jacked up levies on road transport and economic logic is solidly with him. It is a lucrative business and the operators will merely collect the additional fees from the ultimate users. The imposition of sales tax on the installed capacity of vanaspati units is a welcome innovation. The starting point levy is easy to enforce and eliminates evasion and needless harassment.

Downsizing of the administrative machinery is out and it should cheer the employees. But they will grumble about the suspension of the leave travel concession and the hike in house rent. Only the two top officials in each district have the benefit of rent-free accommodation. Those in the high income tax group will now have to pay less, in view of the “full payment” of rent. Obviously the Minister has calculated that the fairly sharp hike in their salary will find the employees in a generous frame of mind. There is a major area of worry though. The impending pruning of subsidy will affect services like health and education. Since it is intended to be continued for three years, the cumulative effect could be quite severe. One alternative will be to rework the fee structure and make the affluent to partly pick up the tab of the less fortunate ones.

Capt Kanwaljit Singh’s unlimited problems and limited options stem from an inherent flaw in Centre-state relations. All elastic and major sources of revenue are in the hands of the Centre, leaving only sales tax and excise with the states. This is one side of the problem. The other side is that all big ticket functions are with the states — law and order, social sector and infrastructure. The states meet between 80 and 90 per cent of all expenditure on these. It is double squeeze. Successive Finance Commissions merely tinker with the problem, content to administer aspirin. The Minister has stressed the need for a thorough overhaul of the relations so that the government which takes care of the basic needs of the people also has the resources to meet the obligation. On his part he has set the state firmly on the path of greater financial discipline and there is no going back now. The first step is the most difficult and the months of much publicised financial difficulties had set the right mood for him to effect a breakthrough. His position in the Akali Dal too has been of much help.

Pune shows the way

IT is becoming increasingly clear that most Indians want to live life by the rule book rather than get caught in the seemingly all-pervasive web of corruption and crime in high places. Once in a while, when someone with the muscle to take on the corrupt system appears on the scene, they go more half way in support. This seems to be the message from Pune where the protest against the transfer of the Municipal Commissioner, Mr Arun Bhatia, has taken the shape of a mass movement. Mr Bhatia had not completed even a week in his new assignment when he was transferred out as Commissioner of Archives in Mumbai. He must have done something extraordinary within such a short span to become the hero of the people of Pune. He simply put the fear of the law in those who had no respect for municipal rules. A large number of people turned up to pay their municipal bills and tax arrears once word got round that the new Commissioner meant business. Of the several hundred illegal structures demolished during his stay one belonged to the son-in-law of a former Shiv Sena Chief Minister and another to a Bharatiya Janata Party member of the Rajya Sabha. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has called Mr Bhatia’s methods as “madness” and the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, who belongs to the BJP, has said that his transfer orders would not be cancelled. But in Pune more than 150 citizens’ groups have come under the banner of Nagarik Kriti Samiti to fight Mr Bhatia’s “unjustified transfer”. What is unique about the campaign is that it has attracted people from the upmarket Koregaon to slum-dwellers, from Leftists to right-wing groups.

However, much would depend on the verdict of the Mumbai High Court which is hearing a clutch of public interest petitions against Mr Bhatia’s “mala fide transfer” from Pune. In response to the court’s notice the “people’s bureaucrat” has filed an affidavit stating, among other things, that the order goes against the guidelines that “ordinarily” no transfer should be effected more than once a year and “normally” an officer should retain a post for three years. During his brief posting a successful drive to collect property tax arrears from residents was launched “for the first time in the history of Pune”. However, the anger against the “sacking” of Mr Bhatia as the Municipal Commissioner of Pune should leave no scope for doubt that people, by and large, love and respect upright officers, Mr G.R. Khairnar, the “demolition man of Mumbai” became a folk hero overnight because he dared to raze the illegal structures of the high and mighty of the city. Mr K.J. Alphons earned the respect of the residents of Delhi when he launched a drive against illegal colonies as an officer of the DDA. There is a discernible current of excitement in Chandigarh over Ms Kiran Bedi’s posting as the Inspector-General of Police of the Union Territory. The so-called “corrupt policemen” are more happy than the average citizen at the prospect of not being forced to commit illegal acts by superiors. As the saying goes, corruption — like most evils — too begins at the top. But it is the small fish which get caught.

AN AVOIDABLE CONTROVERSY
Armed forces are not plaything

by Hari Jaisingh

THE Indian state is in a crisis, thanks to certain types of politicians and their shady collaborators in different segments of national life. Of them, Christopher Thomas wrote recently in his book “Assignment India”: “I believe there is no vindictive adjective too strong to describe them, considering what they have done and continue to do with their grubbing manipulations and hateful ambitions.”

He goes on: “What staggers me is that people forgive them, so that they can be dumped decisively in one election and come striding back in the next with a thumping majority only to exploit people all over again.”

I would not like to decry politicians as a class; some of them are first-rate. But the increasing number of them have either come from the underworld or are very much part of mafia power. Can’t this unholy nexus be broken?

Yes. We can do it provided we create a system of operational transparency and accountability and keep our “sacred” institutions beyond the grubby hand of corrupt politicians and their collaborators. One such institution is the judiciary. Another is the defence forces.

There have been attempts to politicise the judiciary. But the judiciary has had better sense. It resisted such attempts.

In the case of the institution of the defence forces there had been moves in the past to interfere with top-level promotions and appointments. But the worst damage was inflicted by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav during his short stint as Defence Minister. He not only tried to politicise the armed forces but also initiated moves to introduce casteist policies in matters of recruitment and promotion.

However, the recent dismissal of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat as the Chief of Naval Staff has “degenerated into a vicious personalised” issue. It has acquired “lurid partisan-political colours”. Allegations and counter-allegations, often wild and unsubstantiated, have been publicly hurled, vitiating the atmosphere. They have raised several questions on the quality of governance and the norms followed in taking vital decisions of national importance.

The washing of dirty linen has badly affected the morale of the forces. Perhaps, it cannot be helped. It could have been avoided by maintaining decorum, though.

As already stated, the Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat affair has raised several sensitive issues having a bearing on the morale of the armed forces. Several charges and counter-charges have been made on the purchase of weapons for the services. The issue is, therefore, no longer confined to the right or wrong of the sacking of the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS).

Two wrongs do not make one right. Nor do one right and one wrong make the government functioning credible.

While the resumed debate in Parliament on April 12 might throw new light on all related matters, much will depend on the standard of parliamentary discussion and the extent to which the government is prepared to share information with the nation.

The acrimony and controversy of the past few weeks could have been avoided had the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister been more forthcoming with basic facts.

The people have the right to information. This is what democracy is all about. The current air of secrecy has to end. In India the ruling class has made a virtue of it. It is also imperative that the sluice gates of disinformation and misinformation should be closed, whether they are operated by the PMO or the Ministry of Defence or by individual officers.

However, while pleading for the right to information, it is conceded that no one expects the government to come out with defence secrets which might jeopardise the security of the nation. This is the last thing people should expect from the government. The need, therefore, is for balancing the national interest and security with the demands for openness and transparency in defence deals.

A line, therefore, has to be drawn between strategic and operational affairs and other functional facets which throw light on the working of the political and bureaucratic system. For, this is a matter of transparency in the working of the system.

In fact, a number of questions which have been raised in recent weeks have a direct bearing on the openness of the system. This is all the more necessary in view of the serious charges cast against those at the highest levels on defence deals.

In a way, the critical question of arms purchases has been with us ever since the controversy with regard to the Bofors gun and related matters of pay-offs cropped up in 1987. The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was appointed for the purpose. But nothing substantial has come out of it. Why? The answer is very simple: political parties tend to view every vital matter with their narrow angularities. We are never able to reach the bottom of the truth.

Though India has well-defined norms for the selection of weapons, we need to re-examine the entire purchase procedure so that the nation feels reassured that the armed forces have the advantage of having the best equipment in the world. There must not be any compromise on the quality of weapons for those guarding the frontiers with dedication and determination.

The time has come to evolve a rational perspective on defence matters. First, under no circumstances should we allow politicisation of the armed forces. India’s defence forces have the reputation of being highly professional. And it is this image which makes our forces stand out in the comity of nations. Viewing the armed forces with political angularities and dividing them on caste lines is a dangerous game which must be opposed and resisted tooth and nail.

Unfortunately, there have been aberrations galore. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, during his tenure as Defence Minister, talked about a quota system in the armed forces. His caste card has had serious repercussions on professionalism. The nation was, however, fortunate in seeing him out of this coveted position. Mr Yadav’s loss was the nation’s gain.

In sharp contrast to the style of working of Mr Yadav, it must be said to the credit of Mr George Fernandes that his approach has, by and large, been professional. Some of his initiatives have won him the admiration of the officers and jawans. He acted tough in punishing those bureaucrats who were sitting over the request of supplying proper equipment to the forces posted at Siachen. He showed guts and it is praiseworthy.

However, the question which still remains unanswered is the handling of the Admiral Bhagwat affair. The nation would like to know the facts about this and other related matters.

Political and caste factors apart, any communal consideration in the decision-making mechanism can be equally dangerous and harmful to the nation’s interests.

It is a pity that over a period of time the politico-bureaucratic system has been tampered with and it has so developed that it works at all levels for the benefit of those at the helm. In the new permissive atmosphere everyone wishes to look after oneself to the detriment of public good.

On the face of it, the situation seems hopeless. But all is not lost as yet. The nation is still vibrant and the public vigilant. All that is required is to build public pressure through a free flow of information. Only free but responsible debate can clear the present atmosphere of intrigue and negativism.

The nation has the right to information on the sacking of Admiral Bhagwat. Less of secrecy and more of openness are the basic requirements for building a corruption-free society. Over to the Prime Minister.

China and Asian economic gloom
by S. Sethuraman

CHINA'S one trillion dollar economy, the seventh largest, has begun to slacken in output and exports, forcing the government to budget a huge deficit in order to shore up growth at not less than 7 per cent in 1999, the lowest after more than a decade of explosive expansion.

The GDP fell below the target of 8 per cent in 1998, export growth declined and state enterprise reforms ran into difficulties. Chinese leaders have decided to stimulate demand with massive infrastructure spending while continuing with reforms to overcome the structural weaknesses in the economy.

China claimed to have posted a GDP growth of 7.8 per cent last year though doubts are cast on the reliability of the official data. The budget deficit is set to go up by 56 per cent in 1999 in the attempt to achieve a 7 per cent growth. The loss of export momentum has raised the possibility of China exercising the devaluation option it had so far resisted in the face of the hefty depreciation of several Asian currencies.

Current trends in China, in the midst of the unrelieved gloom in the crisis-hit countries of South-East Asia and the worst recession in Japan, have worsened the economic outlook for the Asian region as a whole. India is also entering its new fiscal year in April after growth in industrial production and exports in 1998 turning to be lowest since 1992-93. The prospects are for subdued GDP growth in 1999 after the estimated 5.8 per cent in 1998 in the context of the global recession and uncertainties in capital flows.

Financial market turmoils appeared to have calmed somewhat at the end of the first quarter of 1999, but the world economy still faces serious risks that could lower the GDP estimates for several countries, especially for emerging economies. World output was already down to a 2 per cent level in 1998, half of the 4 per cent average of the previous three years while the IMF projection for 1999 is no more than 2.2 per cent. Global trade, growing by an average of 9 per cent for four years in succession, expanded slowly by 4 per cent in 1998 and is unlikely to do better in 1999.

For the developing countries, the external environment, besides global trade slowdown, is far from favourable with the steep fall in commodity prices, the sharp decline in capital flows, and the limited access to export markets as new protectionist barriers emerge in advanced countries. Russia is looking for a new bailout by the IMF while Brazil, despite a 41-billion dollar arrangement with the IMF in December last, suffered a capital flight. This largest economy in Latin America will have virtually no growth in real terms for the second year, and this will impact on the prospects for the region.

After uninterrupted growth for seven years, notching close to 4 per cent in 1998, with record levels of unemployment and inflation, the US economy is expected to slow down in 1999. The stock market had remained at a peak level fairly through the turbulences that swept the financial markets in Asia, Latin America and Russia. But business confidence in the USA may be beginning to decline, according to analysts, as a spectre of deflation worldwide haunts the rest of the global economy.

The USA has been pressuring Euro-Zone countries and Japan to stimulate their economies, after its own interest rate cuts. The German economy has lately been shrinking and the single currency union countries have yet to forge a concerted growth strategy, which would impart greater confidence in the new currency, Euro, which is not holding up steady vis-a-vis the dollar.

International oil prices on a downtrend for some months have plunged to 10 dollars or below a barrel and are viewed as moving closer to the pre-1973 price of oil in real terms. However welcome a price fall for importing countries, it will hit the oil-exporters hard and weaken their ability to finance imports from the rest of the world. Over the longer term, depressed oil prices would hinder exploration efforts to tap new sources.

According to UNCTAD, FDI flows to five crisis-hit Asian countries in 1998 suffered a decline of $ 2 billion though for Korea and Thailand, there was some increase in inflows. But foreign bank lending and portfolio investments have not recovered to the pre-crisis levels.

Pointing to downside risks, a UN report says another round of financial instability could push an already fragile world economy into recession. The report urges expansionary policy actions by industrialised countries to sustain developing countries growth and suggests a special allocation of SDRs and debt relief to make up for the depressed financial flows to these countries in 1999. Commercial bank lending is expected to remain low this year and risk aversion could see further outflows of short-term funds, and all these could damage the prospects of recovery in the developing world.
— IPA

Remembering Hemingway
by D.R. Sharma

SINCE 1999 happens to be the birth centennial year of Ernest Hemingway, popularly called Papa Hemingway, the American novelist who won the Nobel Prize in 1954, I first thought I would attempt a 5000-word article on his art and achievement. A moment later I decided to leave the scholarly part to some younger and brighter colleague and write a short piece instead, sharing the thrill of having saluted the Hemingway Memorial in Sun Valley, Idaho, about 30 years ago.

On a crisp cold morning of October 1 accompanied three American graduate students from the University of Utah for the annual conference of the Rocky Mountains Modern Language Association, which that year was being held in Sun Valley, nearly 500 miles to the north. I was looking at this trip as a pilgrimage since I had read almost every word that Hemingway had written as well as what others had written on or about him. While working in my carrel, with Hemingway to my right and left, I would often dream of places associated with his name and wonder how Sun Valley looked like, and where Ketchum exactly was.

Driving through the picturesque landscape with cedars and trout streams all around and the snow-clad Sawtooth Mountains in front, we made it on time for the inaugural session at the Sun Valley Lodge which had been specially scheduled to honour Mary Hemingway. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing — Hemingway’s widow in flesh and blood sitting right in front of me and a celebrated critic, Philip Young, sitting to her left, and Hemingway’s son Jack on her right. What does “dream come true” mean?

After a thunderous applause from the audience, Mary stood up to explain her plans to get some papers of Hemingway published by Scribner’s with clear instructions that “not a word be changed.” Then she recalled in a resonant voice, certain quaint habits of her late husband who loved to preserve all old bills, roll up his manuscripts, and wilfully misspell living as “liveing” and movable as “moveable”. She called it “Ernest’s romance with E.”

I think the earth did quake a bit when, after her speech, I stepped forward to shake her hand and introduce myself as a “Hemingway scholar.” She said she received every week at least one letter from some Indian student asking her to elucidate one reference or the other. She looked pleased when I pestered her for no autograph. Then spoke Jack on his father’s passion for the outdoor life in America, Europe and Africa. After the talk I asked him about his own passion and it turned out to be “simply fishing.”

Early next morning the four of us walked to Katchum, the adjoining town, where towards the end of his career Hemingway had settled in a two-storey house. Since Mary was staying at the Sun Valley Lodge — in the same suite in which she and Hemingway often stayed — the house was locked. Slender aspens and a sparkling stream seemed to be guarding it.

After viewing the verdant splendour of his house we moved to the Memorial, about a mile to the north-east of Sun Valley. A wooden plaque indicated its location, a few steps down to the right. His metallic face, sharply etched, pointed to the east with majestic hills. A renunciatory gaze suggested a deliberate distrust of the world that “kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially”. At the same time his replica sought to highlight his rapturous fusion with the wide blue sky, the gushing wood-rivers and the overlapping cottonwoods.

The seven lines of verse, his epitaph, looked familiar. Hemingway himself had composed those on the death of his friend, Van Guilder, in 1939. The two alike had loved the Fall, the high blue windless skies and the leaves floating on the trout streams.

Once Hemingway remarked that the dead were dead. “No, the dead never die,” suggested the Memorial. And his intrepid assertion carries a message for man: “Man is not made for defeat.

The mad world of capital
By M.S.N. Menon

MONEY is a veil: it hides many mysteries. And being mysteries, we know so little about them.

Boom and bust are manifestations of these mysteries. But they take place away from us. Now the crisis is in our neighbourhood — in East and S.E. Asia. We now know the magnitude of the tragedy.

Currency speculation is the cause of this tragedy. It is keeping much of the world in a state of crisis. The poor nations are the worst affected. No wonder, at the G-15 meeting in Jamaica, the vagaries of the international financial market received the utmost attention.

There was a time when production (of goods and services) formed the basis of the world’s growing wealth. But no more. Today wealth grows mainly through speculation and manipulation. Paper billionaires are on the increase.

It was manipulation of oil prices in the early seventies that put into the pockets of US oil companies and Arab Sheikhs trillions of petro-dollars. The result was the Mexican crisis. But while Mexico became a pauper, US banks and speculators made their billions.

This “hot money” (as it came to be called) is ever on the increase through speculation.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh says: “If there can be a mechanism to regulate trade in goods and services, then it stands to reason that currency, which is now the largest unorganised trade, must have a mechanism to regulate it. Very logical. But the USA, which has been the lender in the postwar years and is the citadel of short-term capital (hot money) is not in favour of regulation of capital. Wall Street and the US Treasury (called the Wall Street-Treasury complex today) are backing this policy.

Long-term investment capital is welcome all over the world; not hot money. The former is regulated; the latter not. There is a growing feeling that this hot money flow must be brought under control.

But how to control it — this is still not clear. The IMF pretends to be concerned. But its remedies make matters worse. It is yet to change its ways.

In the meantime, the World Bank has drawn up two lessons: Regulation of the capital must go hand in hand with financial liberalisation and more thinking is needed on how to control hot money.

It is now recognised by even the G-7 nations — the USA, UK, Germany and others — that there is need to reform the international financial market. Even President Clinton is in favour.

Is a “free” flow of capital necessary? There are serious doubts on this. Prof Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University says: It is ideological humbug to say that without capital mobility, the world cannot function. Mr Joseph Stiglitz, Chief Economist of World Bank, sees no merit in short-term capital.

It is savings which serve as the capital in most countries. It is best that way. Thrift is a universal virtue. Nations must cultivate it (Only the USA seems to be averse to it.) But savings are not always adequate. Hence the need for the savings of others. But should we pay an unacceptable price for it?

Foreign aid was never more than 10 per cent of the total investment in India. The world is in need of long-term capital. But it is short-term capital which floods the capital market. It is in search of quick profits and good returns. The borrower is of least concern. Naturally, it takes to speculation. In the process, it creates crises. We cannot allow this to go on.

According to Prof Paul Krugman of MIT, in two years there will be capital control in most of the countries and the IMF’s role will shrink. This will be welcome.

There is a growing feeling that behind the crisis in Asia is a US conspiracy. The IMF was the cat’s paw. The idea was to open the region to hot money by introducing full convertibility (hot money also wants a good return), to gain a stronger foothold in Asia and to reduce the economic importance of Asia. In all these, Washington seems to have succeeded.

American and European currency traders, bankers and fund managers have all made huge money from the crisis. UNCTAD puts it at $ 250 billion. Such profits are not possible except by creating a crisis. George Soros, a leading hedge fund operator, made two billions in just a few days! Citicorp, the US bank, is reported to have made $ 865 million in 1996 from currency speculation and $ 1.5 billion in 1997.

We have reliable authorities backing our suspicion. The Economist says: “Some of the demands (made by IMF) have Washington’s fingerprints all over them”.

Today corporate scouts of the West are hunting in East and S.E. Asia for windfalls. The method is simple: you pick up bankrupt companies, hold on to their assets and sell them at a profit when the tide turns. In South Korea alone, 20,000 companies went bust. About $10 billion are said to have been invested by the end of 1998.

Currency traders say that if countries have sound economic policies, there would be no attack on their currency. True, countries in East and S.E. Asia were rotting within. A fixed exchange rate led banks and corporations to borrow large amounts of hot money. It gave an impression of zero risk.

What was the role of Washington? It used the IMF to batter down the tariff and investment barriers to US exports and capital. And Japan and China looked on benignly.

How does a country become bankrupt overnight? The mystery is in the currency value. As speculators push down the value of the currency, the country is in a crisis. No sane world can accept such make-believe.

In 1985 a dollar was worth 0.85 rouble. In another year or so, a dollar was worth 5000 roubles! Almost overnight, the Indonesian rupiah lost 80 per cent of its value! This is not the science of economics. It is madness. It is time to get out of this lunacy.

Till 1970 the world had fixed exchange rates. With fixed rates, speculation was not possible. But with floating currencies, speculation has become rampant. The only remedy against speculation is to have adequate foreign exchange reserves. But most of the countries do not have this advantage. In any case, they are unable to combat a sustained attack.

Today about $ 1.5 trillion worth of currencies are traded daily. Only 10 per cent of it is required for international trade. The rest goes into currency speculation. This is gambling. It has no economic sense. It is true currencies get over-valued or under-valued. There is need to correct this. Speculation is supposed to do it. But you don’t need a global crisis to do it.

In the meantime, billions of new money is created, which too enters the world of speculation. The question is: how long can this madness continue? At present it benefits the West alone.

Two things are vital for man: his personal security and economic well-being. In both, man has created a mad world, thanks to US leadership.

75 YEARS AGO

Public roads closed against non-caste men

WHEN the Kerala Congress Deputation recently visited Veykam, where Ezhavas and Nairs predominated, it was brought to its notice that certain public roads in the town were closed against Ezhavas and Pulayas because they are only Hindus and not privileged to be caste men, also.

The Wairs, the premier Hindu community of the place, have been found amenable to the position of the Congress in this matter. Mr K.P. Kesava Menon, on behalf of the deputation, announced at the public meeting that a procession of caste and non-caste men would be taken along the roads.

This announcement had evidently disturbed the official equilibrium. The officials, in their over-anxiety to anticipate the wishes of the Maharaja, whom they suppose to be an orthodox Hindu, have taken the initiative and got some Brahmins, attached to the Siva Temple under Government management, to prepare and present a petition alleging that the roads were meant for temple purposes only and that they have not been open to all people and that, therefore, if any non-caste people enter the roads, a breach of the peace might ensue.