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| Wednesday, November 29, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Corruption: Vittal calls it financial
rape Infosys chief: they all killed
competition USA: the best democracy money can
buy Daewoo allays fears
on spare parts, kits Are mobile phones good for
children? |
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Oriental Bank camps
settle 486 loan cases Tatas, Birlas
owe huge tax arrears Insulin shortage in
Delhi
Tellabs launches
centre at Gurgaon Tata Infotech floats
e-commerce course
Beauty turns you powerful?
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Corruption: Vittal calls it financial
rape NEW DELHI, Nov 28 — Business might have to learn to live with corruption but this also means that “integrity is no longer the luxury of the virtuous — it is a business necessity,” the participants at the India Economic Summit here were told on Tuesday. In fact, they devoted a full 60 minutes to the subject over breakfast on the concluding day of the three-day summit. “A corruption-free society is humanly impossible,” Abdul Aziz, representing the international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, told the 70-odd participants at the Taj Palace Hotel, where the summit was organised. For India’s vocal anti-corruption watchdog, Central Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal, graft was akin to “financial rape” - just try the picture of a citizen bribing unwillingly merely to get his work done. And for journalist-columnist Tavleen Singh, India had moved from “feudalism to feudal-socialism to corruption” over the years. But what, or who, begets corruption? “There is a demand side and there is a supply side,” said Vittal, looking the businessmen squarely in the eye. “Politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, NGOs (non-governmental organisations, criminals,” were listed by the CVC as key corrupters. “Four years ago,” Tavleen Singh recalled, “a Health Minister bought condom machines. Sources said he made Rs 2 billion on the deal. And what happened to the machines? Nobody has heard about them.” “Forty per cent of India’s GDP (gross domestic product),” added Vittal, “is black money.” So, India is now the eighth most corrupt country in the world. On the scale of integrity, where Finland stands first and Nigeria at position 90, India is 69. And the problem is compounded, Vittal added, by the statistics available from the judicial system: an average disposal rate of 20 years and a conviction rate of just six percent. But Aziz, called in to lecture on how to fight corruption, was quick to speak against despair and in favor of hope, as illustrated by the example of Singapore that banned the German multinational corporation Siemens from doing business there only because the government found it was involved in corrupting officials. Just a few years ago, Aziz recalled, global forums such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank thought little about corruption. “It is now high on their agenda,” said Aziz said. A word of caution from him for modern India: just watch out on privatisation as it is “highly susceptible” to corruption. For Vittal, the solutions to corruption could be quick and simple. Allow business to donate openly to political parties, bar those against whom criminal charges are pending in a court from contesting elections, confiscate properties of the corrupt and stamp out proxy ownership. Columnist Tavleen Singh offers yet another angle to tackling the menace: take away the perks of the politicians and the bureaucrats and instead pay them “decent salaries”. Secondly, state funding for elections “must be considered immediately”. And, of course, create an information law that mandates ordinary citizens to demand any and every information. — IANS |
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Infosys chief: they all killed competition BANGALORE, Nov 28 (UNI) — Infosys Chairman N.R. Naryanamurthy has blamed politicians, bureaucrats, academicians and corporates for the ills plauging the country. “The tragedy of India is that the last two generations of politicians, bureaucrats, academicians and corporates have betrayed this country”, he said while speaking on “Have economic principles mattered in policy making in India—a layman’s view” at the Institute of Social and Economic Changer here on Monday. Adaptation of socialism has done very little for the poor, he lamented. Making a comparison of the observations of noted economist Michael Parkin and the Indian experience, he said the country has squandered the opportunities with its policies in the post-Independence era. India did not utilise its advantages to propel economic growth instead tried to remain insulated, thereby killing the competition. Referring to the high tariffs and licensing systems, Mr Narayanamurthy recalled that even the software and hardware industry was burdened with an overdose of taxes in the fear that Indian companies would suffer. Now the taxes have been brought to virtually zero in software and 15 per cent in hardware. But the country has got the best technology and products without affecting the Indian companies. He said politicians and bureaucrats lived in relative luxury while denying the same to the commonman. By levying punishing income taxes, the country denied the people an opportunity to create wealth honestly. “ We created a system to make incentives to evade taxes” he added. He had a dig at trade unions and the system of having a cap on salaries. The small scale industries were promoted without providing finance and this affected the big units. He said laws like the Urban Land Ceiling Act and the Rent Control Act had led to shortage of houses and it had also affected the growth. He shifted to Bangalore from Mumbai as housing was a problem in Maharashtra, he recalled. |
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USA: the best democracy money can
buy YOU could think of the $ 3 billion spent in the US campaign in positive terms. Call it ‘‘the efficient privatisation of the democracy’’ — though an outright auction for the presidency would be more efficient
still. If the guy who lost the vote, George W. Bush, nevertheless wins the White House, he’ll have surfed in on a crushing wave of nearly half a billion dollars ($ 447 million), my calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from corporate USA, a good 25 per cent more than Al Gore’s take. Mr Bush could not have amassed this pile if his surname were Jones or Smith. The key to Dubya’s money empire is daddy Bush’s post-White House work which, incidentally, raised the family’s net worth by several hundred per cent. Take two packets of payments to the Republican Party, totalling $ 148,000, from an outfit called Barrick Goldstrike. That’s quite a patriotic contribution from a Canadian company. They can afford it. In 1992, in the final hours of the Bush presidency, Barrick took control of US government-owned property containing an estimated $10bn in gold. For the whole shooting match, Barrick paid the US Treasury only $ 10,000. Former President George Bush was lucky, too. When the electorate booted him from the White House, he landed softly — on the Barrick Goldstrike payroll, where he comfortably nested until last year. Who is Barrick? Its founder, Peter Munk, made his name in Canada in the 1950s as the figure in an infamous insider stock-trading scandal. Munk headed a small speaker manufacturer that went belly-up, just after he sold his stock. This is not quite the expected pedigree for an international minerals mogul. If we look in the shadows behind Munk we can see the more accomplished player who provided the capital to set up Barrick — Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. During Bush’s presidency, Khashoggi was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. He had already run into trouble with US lawmen when, in 1986, he was arrested and charged — but not convicted — of fraud. He was bailed out of the New York prison by Munk, who provided the $ 4m bond. Bush performed an even bigger favour for Khashoggi: as his last act in office, the President pardoned Khashoggi’s alleged co-conspirators, key members of Bush’s own Cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi. In 1996, a geologist prospecting in Indonesia, Mike de Guzman, announced his discovery of the world’s richest gold field. Munk rapidly deployed his President. Bush, on behalf of Barrick, contacted officials of the former dictator Suharto who were in control of mining concessions. Thereafter, De Guzman’s company was told it would have to turn over 68 per cent of its claim to Barrick. Maybe Bush talked about Barrick’s mining experience in neighbouring Tanzania where, according to Amnesty International, Barrick’s subsidiary carried out ‘‘extra-judicial killings’’. Amnesty reports that 50 independent miners who refused to move off the Barrick unit’s concession were buried alive in the pits by company bulldozers. Barrick denies the allegations. Beyond Barrick, Daddy Bush has many other friends who filled up his sonny-boy’s campaign kitty while Bush performed certain lucrative favours for them. In 1998, Bush pre created a storm in Argentina when he lobbied his close political ally President Carlos Menem to grant a gambling licence to Mirage Casino corporation. Bush wrote that he had no personal interest in the deal. That’s true. But Bush fils did not do badly. After the casino flap, Mirage dropped $ 449,000 into the Republican Party war chest. The ex-President and famed Desert Strormtrooper-in-Chief, also wrote to the Oil Minister of Kuwait on behalf of Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush says honestly that he, ‘had no stake in the Chevron operation’. Following this selfless use of his influence, the oil company put $ 657,000 into Republican Party coffers. Most of that loot, reports the Centre for Responsive Politics, came in the form of ‘soft money’ That’s the squishy stuff corporations use to ooze around US law which, you may be surprised to learn, prohibits any donations to presidential campaigns in the general election. Not all of the elder Bush’s work is voluntary. His single talk to the board of Global Crossing, the telecoms start-up, earned him $ 13m in stock. The company also kicked in another million for his kid’s run. And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not have the right to vote for President, they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas of US church leaders, daddy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $ 100,000 per talk) sponsored by organisations run by Rev Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat — and formerly, the guest of the US federal prison system. There are so many more tales of the Bush family daisy chain of favours, friendship and campaign funding. None of it is illegal — which I find troubling. But I don’t want to seem ungrateful. After all, the Bushes helped make the USA the best democracy money can buy. — Observer News Service
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Daewoo allays fears on spare parts, kits NEW DELHI, Nov 28 (PTI) — Daewoo Motors India (DMIL) said today it would continue to provide uninterrupted supply of parts and knocked down kits (KDs) to its customers and dealers and the current restructuring process would lead to an easy takeover of bankrupt Daewoo Motor Korea by General Motors (GM). DMIL would continue to increase production, expand its dealership network, after-sales service outlets and launch new marketing initiatives in the country, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Y. C. Kim said in a statement here. Terming yesterday’s agreement in Seoul between the union and the management to agree for jobs cuts as a major breakthrough, Kim said Daewoo Korea has crossed the “biggest stumbling block in the revival of the company” and would now be able to implement the restructuring plan as soon as the court in South Korea approved it. Kim said the agreement would pave the way for fresh infusion of funds by creditors and “the implementation of the restructuring process will not only speed up revival proceedings but also lead to a relatively easy takeover of Daewoo Korea” by GM. He expected GM to execute an MoU by the end of December, complete the final due diligence in January and enter into final negotiations by February next year. |
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Are mobile phones good for
children? LONDON: All mobile (cellular) phones sold in Britain are set to carry health warnings about the dangers of excessive use, particularly for children. The warnings, expected to be launched in the run-up to Christmas, are aimed at parents buying mobile phones for their children as presents. The move, which phone manufacturers believe is unnecessary, comes amid concern at the possible effects of cell phone use on the brain because of microwave radiation. In May an official inquiry found no evidence that mobile phone use damaged health, but neither could it prove it was harmless. The inquiry, chaired by Sir William Stewart, said the widespread use of mobiles by children should be discouraged, but left it to parents to make an “informed choice”. Last Christmas mobile phones were one of the most popular presents with 4m sold. Nearly half the British population has one, with 25m having been bought. The wording of the leaflet is being finalised and it is unlikely it will state how much time a day it is safe for a child to use a mobile. A source said: “This will not be a cigarette packet style warning. We think consumers need advice on how to and how not to use a mobile phone.” Mike Caldwell, from the Vodafone network, said: “It’s a precautionary approach aimed especially at children. In broad terms it will say if children have to make a call, they should be kept to a minimum. The Stewart report did not give any guidance on how long should be applied, but common sense is the best bet.” The Consumers Association welcomed the “better informing of consumers about mobile phones”. A British industry source said: “The health scare has not slowed the market in the slightest. People are of the opinion that there is more chance of being run over by a bus.” In the USA fears over the risks of
mobile phones to children’s health last week led the Disney company to stop licensing its cartoon characters for cell phones. — The Guardian. |
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Oriental Bank camps
settle 486 loan cases AMRITSAR, Nov 28 — Oriental Bank of Commerce (Amritsar region) today organised two recovery camps at Patti and Fatehgarh Churian. The General Manager of the bank, Mr P.K. Sharma, who presided, said that under the new settlement policy of the Reserve Bank of India, the bank has settled 486 old loan cases and recovered lakh of rupees. Later, the General Manager handed over kisan credit cards to 175 farmers on the spot. Mr Sharma said that Oriental Bank is at excellent position with regard to deposits, advances, profit and productivity per employee. The bank’s NPAs are the lowest among the banking industry. The bank aims at zero per cent NPAs against the present level of 3.5 per cent. Bank officials are visiting every NPA borrower at his door-step and also organising recovery camps which are being attended by senior officials of the bank. The bank also organised an “Adalat” at Moga on November 27 where more than 100 recovery cases were settled. |
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Tatas, Birlas
owe huge tax arrears NEW DELHI, Nov 28 (PTI) — Top industrial houses owe an outstanding amount of Rs 37,603 crore towards corporation tax, Customs duty and Central excise duty as on March 31, 2000, the Rajya Sabha was told today. While the outstanding amount towards corporation tax was Rs 28,348 crore, Customs duty was estimated at Rs 1,034 crore and excise duty at Rs 8,221 crore, Minister of State for Finance Gingee Ramachandran said in a written reply. Out of this, an amount of Rs 481 crore of Customs duty and Rs 6,810 crore of Central excise duty was controversial or disputed, he said. Three top industrial houses owe income tax arrears of Rs 681.75 crore as on March 31 last with the Tata group topping the list with an accumulated tax arrears of Rs 630.48 crore, Ramachandran said. The Tata group’s
outstanding demands were Rs 438.75 crore during the corresponding period last year. The Birla group has an outstanding demand of Rs 18.07 crore as against Rs 12.12 crore for the corresponding period last year, the Minister said. The Modi group has an outstanding demand of Rs 33.20 crore this year as against Rs 17.11 crore for the corresponding period last year. Most of these demands were disputed in appeals pending before various appellate authorities and courts, he said, adding that some of the demands were also stayed by courts and appellate authorities. |
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Insulin shortage in Delhi NEW DELHI, Nov 28 (UNI) — Popular grades of insulin, essential for diabetics, have virtually disappeared from Delhi. Bovine insulins like nph insulin and plain insulin are not available with most of the Delhi chemists, according to Dr
A.K. Jhingan, President, Juvenile Diabetic Association of India. These insulins normally cost Rs 55-70 a phial and last for about 10 days. This was freely available and about 70 per cent of the patients use this, he said. While these insulins have disappeared, expensive human insulins which cost Rs 210-250 a phial are available in plenty in the market, he said. Many patients, especially children, are coming with complaints about unavailability of low-cost insulins and this has created a serious situation. |
Tellabs launches
centre at Gurgaon GURGAON, Nov 28 — Tellabs, a US “Fortune 500” company, inaugurated its Software Development and Research and Development Centre, the first in the Asia-Pacific region, here today. The new outfit, Tellabs Gurgaon, is billed to
fulfill the role of serving as an international software engineering hub for the company’s optical networking development efforts that are underway. These new optical networking developments will help lead carriers to the next generation
communications, it was added. Mr Brian Jackman, President, Global Systems and Technology, for Tellabs, said that the company was focused on developing state-of-the-art solutions for the international communications market. Dr Peter Viereck, Vice President and General Manager, Tellabs, Denmark, said Tellabs Gurgaon is expected to grow from the current 30 to 100 soft engineers in a year’s time. Tellabs — whose stock is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market(TLAB) — designs, manufactures, markets and services, optical networking, next generation switching and broadband access solutions Tata Infotech floats
e-commerce course CHANDIGARH, Nov 28 — Tata Infotech Education, has now launched its new e-Commerce course, e-Tech. what sets this course apart from other e-com courses available in the market is the job guarantee that comes with it. The job guarantee is offered in two ways. Select students doing the course in nine cities across India have a chance to work with Tata Infotech Ltd, provided they meet certain criteria, on the many e-com projects its System Integration Division is executing for its customers across the globe. At the same time, the placement programme of Tata Infotech Education, Profiles IT, will ensure that each student gets three interview opportunities with companies in the field of e-Commerce and other software development areas. More than 15 web modules are taught in depth, along with project work and case study approach to education. A student can do this course in six months and become a true e-Com professional. The course backed with awards like Networking Masters 2000 from Voice & Data for excellent project execution skills. |
Beauty turns you powerful? LONDON: Is beauty an advantage? Does it make the beautiful individual powerful? Does it, as researchers at London Guildhall University revealed last week, result in substantially better pay and opportunities in the workplace? “Looks are always talked about as if they’re power, when what it is of course is that power has to be about action, and beauty rests on other people’s reactions,” said domestic goddess Nigella Lawson in a recent interview. “One has no control over other people’s reactions, therefore it seems to me to be wrong to talk about power.” Lawson has become a talking point of late. But it’s not the likeness of the cheese crust to the one pictured on page 116 in her cookbook that forms the topic of conversation. It’s Nigella’s eyes, her hair, her body, her sticky licky fingers. She is beautiful. Men love her. Some women are beginning to loathe her. Advantage or disadvantage, beauty still provokes an unruly range of emotions, from pure lust to sheer envy. It is 10 years since feminist author Naomi Wolf pronounced on the beauty myth. “Beauty is a currency system like the gold standard,” she wrote. “Like any economy, it is determined by politics and in the modern age in the west it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.” Wolf decried society’s obsession with female beauty and challenged us to place more value on intelligence, complexity, empathy and humour. But your sneaking suspicion that Nigella’s face counts for more than her talent with a hand whisk would suggest that in the past decade we haven’t taken up Wolf’s challenge. Television, newspapers and magazines are as beauty-obsessed as ever. Across the board, the visual diversity of women’s looks is under-represented. How often do you see grey-haired women presenters? How often are they bigger than a size 12? How often have they got a big nose? The media may not be entirely to blame. True, the constant bombardment of images of flawless models creates unrealistic expectations of women, but according to an evolutionary psychological analysis, we are only behaving as we always have. David Buss of the University of Texas believes women’s desire for beauty stems from men’s mate preference. The results of his and other studies into this area have led Buss to believe that, over evolutionary history, men have imposed their desire for attractiveness on women because physical attractiveness provides a set of proximate clues to health and youth, and therefore fertility. In the book Sex, Power, Conflict, Buss states: “A woman enhances her own beauty at the expense of other women because she improves her own odds of attracting a desirable man at a cost to her competitors.” How we actually judge what is beautiful, though, is the subject of other important scientific research. We know that babies respond more to “pretty” than not so pretty faces. But further studies have revealed that the more regular and symmetrical the features, the more likely we are at any age to judge a face to be beautiful. Model good looks, then, are all about averageness equalling attractiveness. But do those model good looks bring other advantages? My model agent friend Helena is equivocal. “People outside of the modelling industry think that somehow the very fact of being a model will bring you instant self-esteem. We generally pluck these girls from relative obscurity — the school or community where they are quite clearly the prettiest. We pop them on a headsheet next to 59 other beautiful girls and sometimes the competition becomes too much.” “Even some of our most well-known, successful girls are paranoid about their weight, their spots, their cellulite. The real joke is that while the general public are busy trying to look like the girls in the ads, the girls in the ads are busy trying to look like another girl in another ad. I could tell you stories of really famous girls who can barely get through the day because their self-esteem is so low. Being beautiful actually makes them miserable.” Nancy Etcoff would agree. In her book Survival of the Prettiest, she stated that beauty is no asset to an ambitious woman. “There is an assumption that beautiful women are too flaky, too sexual and unable to lead the troops, and they often fail to reach the top. For women wanting to climb the corporate ladder, there is evidence that they must conceal their beauty in order to get ahead.” The fashion industry, by its very existence, perpetuates an idealised image. But, perhaps surprisingly, it is also the best place to learn the true value of beauty. As a journalist, you are never part of the beauty currency because there is always someone younger, slimmer, more beautiful than you. As you stand by and watch another 19-year-old having her 15 minutes, you realise that although we are seduced by it, beauty has a very limited value in the real world. Of course it can be an advantage, but unless you’re model material, it won’t make you money. In the real world, beauty is a marketing tool that can occasionally open doors and occasionally slam them in your face. And on TV it can turn a very dull subject into a ratings success. As Simone de Beauvoir said: “To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.” — By arrangement with The Guardian  |
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