The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

A three-scam week

THE country last week rewrote the record for scams – three in all. The headlinegrabber was the arrest of Ketan Parekh who has dipped deep into bank funds to manipulate share prices. His biggest benefactor was a cooperative bank in Ahmedabad which issued pay orders (similar to demand draft) for about Rs 600 crore. This is the second leg of the scandal. The third is unrelated but located in Ahmedabad and involves a jewellery exporter who borrowed gold from banks at heavy discount and lost heavily and has vanished. This cost the banks Rs 70 crore. Of course, the real sensational case was the customs chief and his fabulous wealth. The Ketan Parekh fraud was waiting to happen. He has patterned his methods after his illustrious predecessor Harshad Mehta of the 1992 crash fame. He had learnt his lessons diligently but none of the watchdog institutions even remembered 1992. He selected a few information technology stocks and started buying them as though the prices could only go up. With newspapers incessantly talking of the new economy and how American investors were swooning over these companies, the mood was set to jack up the share prices to the stratosphere. Nobody knows what his initial capital was but once his stocks started soaring daily, he could pledge them to raise bank funds and shift the spiral to a higher and higher plane. He was using depositors’ money to lure investors to their inevitable doom. This is not a new phenomenon but it is alarming since this practice was allowed to go on for at least three years and nobody bothered to trace the source of his unending flow of funds. Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) firmly looked the other way and it is the market regulator. The RBI was blissfully unaware of the doings of the cooperative bank and it is the banking regulator. Now it says it could not do much since the bank is under the control of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies. Still this fact did not stop it from shutting down over 60 such cooperative institutions. Also what about the rule that cooperative banks should not lend money to share brokers?

Now everybody is thrashing about. The CBI has arrested Parekh and his relative. It may take persons from the involved banks into custody. The income tax department has sealed his lockers and bank accounts. The Bank of India (BoI) which discounted the huge cheques has suspended two manager-level officials. Here too more heads will roll. Some senior RBI officials tried to bale out the broker by asking the BoI not to press for immediate payment but roll over the pay order. All this after the crisis had erupted in full fury. But the buck must stop at Sebi. It was common knowledge that Parekh was rigging the prices and initially raking in crores of rupees. One day income tax officials raided his office and he made an on-the-spot payment of Rs 30 crore . A grateful I-T department converted the raid into a survey and the stock exchange shed its nervousness and returned to its bad old ways. Sebi has a surveillance department and should hunt down every unusual movement of prices or sharp increase in volume of sale. And it is screen-based trading now and every bit of information is stored in computers. Yet there are malpractices of every variety. Ramping up of prices, insider trading and, of late, circular trading. So far it has not taken any action and the forced resignation of former BSE chief Anand Rathi was for seeking prohibited information. The malaise lies deeper and elsewhere than in the stock exchange or the banking system. The laws against financial crimes are lenient, the manpower to bring the criminals to book is short and political and bureaucratic support to wrong-doers is extensive. Harshad Mehta was arrested one day in 1992 and the prosecution has just started. This is misplaced generosity at the cost of small investor. Punishing an innocent investor and allowing some bulls or bears to loot him is incongruous in a democracy.

Pakistan, cricket and Sharjah

INDIAN cricket and Sharjah have seldom had a happy relationship. Most records in the desert sheikhdom by other teams have been made against India. Among the rare happy memories associated with the off-shore cricket centre is the one in which Sachin Tendulkar’s single-handed effort literally tamed a desert storm which helped India humble the mighty Australians. On an earlier occasion the vociferous support for Pakistan, resulting in palpable tension, forced the Indian board to put Sharjah on the blacklist. However, this time a letter from a director in the Union Ministry of Sports is meant to help India back out of its commitment to play a triangular series with Pakistan and Sri Lanka from April 8. The language of the letter conceals more than it reveals. It is a classic example of a clever bureaucrat trying to pull a fast one on the cricket fans. Of course, the Board of Control for Cricket in India would stand to lose $300,000 because of the official directive restraining it from sending teams to Sharjah, Singapore, Toronto and other irregular centres for a period of three years. However, the letter does not clarify whether the ban on playing off-shore cricket is related to the Centre’s stand on sporting ties with Pakistan or addresses the larger issue of these venues being linked with betting and match-fixing scams.

The reason for the lack of clarity is not difficult to understand. Last month the Indian hockey team won a rare gold by beating Pakistan in a tournament in Dhaka. Had the Pakistan factor been offered as a reason for India’s non-participation in Sharjah the Union Sports Ministry would have had to explain why the hockey team was allowed to play in Dhaka. Although the official letter is deliberately vague, it is clear as daylight that the present dispensation in Delhi is out to destroy the universally accepted principle of not mixing politics with sports. The inclusion of Singapore and Toronto in the blacklist only confirms the suspicion that what the sports ministry is doing is not exactly cricket. Had the intentions been honourable the letter should have categorically stated that the government is not opposed to strengthening sporting and cultural ties between the countries, in spite of Pakistan’s open support to cross-border terrorism. Had it made the curse of match-fixing and betting as the only reason for putting the irregular cricket centres on the blacklist, a case could have been made out for mobilising global support in favour of India’s stand. Sharjah, Singapore and Toronto should be abandoned because the International Cricket Council has no control over the conduct of the game at these centres. The ban should remain until an acceptable solution is found for putting the game of cricket beyond the reach of the dirty hands of fixers and gamblers.

Corruption as ‘political fodder’!
Why value judgements by politicians?
M. G. Devasahayam

IN the wake of the tehelka.com expose the Congress has launched a crusade, nay an “all-out war”, against corruption and has condescended to lead a coalition to unseat the much-maligned BJP-led government at the Centre. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but for whom the BJP would never have captured power in the first place, put much rhetoric in her Bangalore speech. The honourable gentlemen of the Opposition converging at the house of Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet of the CPM have formed a “People’s Front” for the same purpose. The objective is common — act as if you flog a demon called corruption and ride on its back to power and influence only to indulge in more venal acts of corruption. This is exactly going to happen if the past is even a faint indication.

Let us have a look at the recent past. Barely hours before the release of the Tehelka tapes, senior leaders of the CPM and the Congress (through its surrogate TMC) had signed contracts with Ms Jayalalitha for an electoral alliance to usher in “clean and good governance” in Tamil Nadu. Earlier, leading lights of these parties had declared corruption as a non-issue. In fact, they are at present collaborating with Ms Jayalalitha in putting corruption on a pedestal by making a virtue of black money and easy “cash circulation” during her rule compared to that of Mr Karunanidhi.

In the event, a stinging editorial in The Statesman (15-3-2001) rings loud and true: “Therefore for the CPM and the Congress to rush into the well of the House and insist on clean government smacks of something more vulgar than hypocrisy. A citizen in good conscience is entitled to a sense of betrayal and outrage but it does not lie in the mouths of the Congress and the CPM leadership to deliver themselves of demands for a clean government.” This is reflective of the minds of all right-thinking people in the country.

Disgusted as they are with the way politics is being played in this country, the last thing the people expect the politicians to do is to pronounce value judgements. Yet, this was precisely what the politicians were doing, if one goes by the spate of pre-Tehelka statements on corruption. In the seventies, at the height of JP movement, Jayaprakash Narayan had written, “As I diagnose the root cause of the country’s critical state of health, I identify it unhesitatingly as corruption and precipitous fall in the moral standards of our politics and public life.” A quarter-century after these anguished words were written, peddlers of coalition politics are traversing the length and breadth of the country, propagating the “gospel” of venal corruption. Statements and pronouncements like, “corruption is preferable to communalism”, “corruption is not a public issue” and “corruption is a personal phenomenon” have been ringing loud in the electronic media and staring from the newspapers almost every day.

In Tamil Nadu a myth had been manufactured and touted around that people of the state have accepted corruption as a virtue and are going to vote Ms Jayalalitha overwhelmingly back to power. Ironically, of all the political outfits, the TMC and the communists, once known for probity in public life, are turning out to be the greatest apologists for corruption! From “ayya” Moopanar and “veteran” Harkishen Singh Surjeet to the local factotums, almost the entire TMC and the communist parties appear to be working overtime to sanctify corruption and give respectability to Ms Jayalalitha and others, who are convicted of charges of bribery, criminal misconduct and misappropriation of public funds. It looks as if even old warrior Karunanidhi — who is presently perceived as a saint in the midst of sinners — has fallen in this trap. Otherwise, how would one explain the inclusion of Mr Kannappan, against whom corruption cases have been registered by the Tamil Nadu government, in the DMK-led coalition!

Be that as it may, these statements sanctifying corruption and giving certificates to its avid practitioners cannot be allowed to go unchallenged and unquestioned. While the ills of communalism are known and should be countered effectively, it needs to be realised that corruption is like gangrene which sucks up and destroys the basic value system on which a society is founded, and has no cure if allowed to go beyond a certain stage. Furthermore, unbridled corruption in the government and public life could be a major causative factor in instigating and inflamming communal passions and disturbances. Besides, corruption, by slowing down economic development and accelerating poverty, is a major factor in causing and sustaining social inequalities and tensions. What is worse, corruption is a grave threat to national security and honour as vividly brought out by the Tehelka episode.

Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal, in his famous treatise, “Asian Drama — An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations”, has candidly brought out the political and economic dangers of corruption. According to him, on the political side, “the significance of corruption in Asia is highlighted by the fact that wherever a political regime has crumbled — in Pakistan, Burma, China for instance — a major and often decisive cause has been the prevalence of corruption and misconduct among politicians and administrators and the resulting spread of unlawful practices among businessmen and the general public. The problem is of vital concern to the governments of South Asia, because the habitual practice of bribery and dishonesty paves the way for an authoritarian regime, which justifies itself by the disclosures of corruption and the punitive action it takes against the offenders. Elimination of corruption has regularly been advanced as the main justification for military takeovers”.

Turning to economic development, Professor Myrdal has this to say: “Corrupt practices are highly detrimental to any efforts to achieve modernisation ideals. The prevalence of corruption raises strong obstacles and inhibitions to development. The corruption that is spurred by fragmentation of loyalties acts against efforts to consolidate the nation. It decreases respect and allegiance for the government and its institutions. It often promotes irrationality in planning and limits the horizons of plans.”

India, being ranked among the top most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International, always has the danger of collapsing politically and economically if corruption is allowed to sustain itself in the system of governance. A recent World Bank study on the impact of corruption in developing countries, including India, depicts the following picture:

Macroeconomic stability is undermined due to the loss of government revenue, excessive spending and leakages. The costs of this instability are mostly borne by the poor.

Foreign direct investment is severely constrained, sometimes even stopping totally.

Since corruption increases the costs of doing business and small firms bear a disproportionately large share of these costs, small entrepreneurs are badly affected.

Since corruption compromises on pollution norms, the environment is endangered.

The poor suffer the most since they are denied access or suffer low quality public goods and services and have no “exit” option such as private schooling and healthcare.

There is negative correlation between the level of corruption and the level of investment in the economy. This severely constrains economic growth and employment generation.

Any number of reforms or “perfect ten” budgets are not going to help as long as corruption rules the roost. Besides these negative impacts, large-scale corruption can be instrumental in causing death and destruction as in illicit liquor tragedies, accidents due to faulty construction or equipment and the use of spurious medicines. What is worse, by spawning inequity and injustice, corruption many times is the underlying cause for the growth of terrorism and militancy that have taken a heavy toll of human lives. It is a fact that corruption is the single major factor in keeping India poor and backward despite having the best of natural and human resources. It is a major destabilising factor in politics and economics. Corruption is the antithesis of justice and, therefore, of social harmony.

Despite such a debilitating impact of corruption on India’s national character, polity and economy, the political class has been indulging in this venal pursuit almost in demonical devotion. Political parties, including the Congress and the CPM, have been crafting alliances and chalking out strategies to make corruption a non-issue and, what is worse, place this demon on a pedestal for people to endorse. Now, overwhelmed by the public revulsion over the expose of corruption at high places, these time-servers have put on the mantle of honesty and probity, giving out battle cries against corruption. Yet their contracts and MoUs in Tamil Nadu to bring the corrupt back to power are in tact.

As for the BJP, this party is true to its tradition of duplicity; double-speak and deceit. In the aftermath of the Tehelka expose, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee is putting up a “baby face” and his spin-doctors are juggling with posers and questions to all and sundry. This will not do. The nation is anguished and people are angry. There is a terrible sense of betrayal. It would be prudent for Mr Vajpayee to order a full and in-depth enquiry that should take no longer than a couple of months. Since the Prime Minister’s credibility, despite his own clean image, is at serious risk because of the terribly low image of the PMO, he should take immediate measures to reconstitute the latter. He should remember that in the aftermath of Bofors, Rajiv Gandhi’s pretense of innocence did not wash, and nothing, including the “JPC whitewash”, succeeded in hushing it up. Rajiv had to pay the heavy price of a humiliating defeat in the 1989 election from which he could not recover.

Despite the universal perception that Indian politicians and bureaucrats are among the most corrupt and incompetent in the world, political parties and successive governments have not lifted a finger to bring about even minimum reforms in the political and administrative systems in the country. Even now at this hour of national agony and shame these worthies are busy playing one-upmanship with the sole purpose of grabbing power by making corruption into “political fodder”. This fraud on the people should not be allowed to go on further.

The writer, a retired IAS officer, is a former Chief Commissioner of Chandigarh.

Buddha saved me
G. K. Sharma

RECENT Press Reports: “Buddha Statues (of Bamiyan) are gone”, brought memories tumbling of happenings of yesteryears. In a positive way though.... When Buddha saved me.

It was the morning of November 2, 1963. I was in Saigon when the military coup, led by General “Big” Minh, took place. President Ngo Binh Diem of (then) South Vietnam had been toppled and murdered. The whole city of Saigon was agog with rumours. In an adventurous mood. I, along with a friend, entered the Presidential Palace — the scene of the army coup — which was a walking distance away from our hotel. To know things first hand, and to satisfy our youthful curiosity!

We had tiptoed to a stationary army tank, which looked like an abandoned vehicle. But, suddenly, we spotted an officer standing nearby, and took shelter in a pit by the belly of the tank. Then, lo and behold! The tank roared to life! We thought we were dead meat. The tank engine’s noise, however, soon died down and the soldier who was hiding ostrich-like in the cockpit, jumped out and asked our identity. When told we were Indians, he spared us by saying “Ando Buddha” (Indians are Budhists — meaning peaceful). Then forgetting us, he joined the chorus of the troops milling around outside: “We have won!” We thanked our stars and ran for safety, thinking that it was enough experience for one day. Ambassador Govardhan did get some authentic on-the spot news! (But the cost would have been exorbitant if the tank had mowed us while we were lying hidden near its belly).

But little did I realise that I was out of the frying pan, into the fire! For, as soon as I had reached my hotel room, panting, and bolted the door from the inside to catch my breath, I heard a sharp knock on the door. I wished and prayed it was not the Military Police following me on my tracks. Then my hunch told me that it must be my room boy, as the knock was typically his.

When I opened the door, Ho (short name of the Vietnamese room boy) was standing there and making unintelligible sounds while entering. His version of Saigon news always intrigued me. This time Ho gave no news, but blurted out, “I today shall kill five foreigners. We have won. The Red Army and Comrade Ho Chi Minh have won. I must celebrate our victory by beheading five foreigners! Totally scared, I almost fainted... till, suddenly, Ho smiled, and with folded hands said: “Ando Buddha” — assuring me that I was not on his hit list. (Later, in the evening, I came to know that Ho did kill five American officers and had escaped to jungle terrain to join some guerrilla bands).

Why Ho had spared me, has always intrigued me. As an Indian, I would have been an easy target. So, probably, my identity as “Ando Buddha” was the saving grace! Buddha had saved me — both from the “charge” of a roaring armoured tank, as well as from a furious and delirious Ho.

And now about 40 years later, I can still visualise Buddha smiling even in pain in Bamiyan. His spirit and message of compassion will continue to be a saviour for succeeding generations, despite Taliban’s diabolical act!.

Poor-quality pesticides abound

AROUND 30 per cent of pesticides marketed in developing countries with an estimated market value of $900 million annually do not meet internationally accepted quality standards. They are posing a serious threat to human health and the environment, warn the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

According to the FAO and WHO, these poor-quality pesticides frequently contain hazardous substances and impurities that have already been banned or severely restricted in the developed countries. In developing countries pesticides are used not only in agriculture but also for public health, such as for the control of malaria.

In many pesticides, the active ingredient concentrations are outside internationally accepted standards, and labelling is often inadequate. For the consumer, the label is often the only source of product information that can guarantee safe and effective use of the chemical. Falsely declared products continue to find their way to markets for years without quality control. In a memorandum of understanding signed between FAO and WHO, the two organisations have agreed to cooperate in a joint programme to develop specifications for pesticides. WFS

Armed gunman works in shop after raid

An armed gunman who robbed an Oregon shop locked up the assistant and started serving customers.

The robber held up the Plaid Pantry shop in Portland and forced the assistant into a back room.

He then put on an apron and served customers for nearly half an hour before fleeing with cash and the apron.

Police are looking for the man who was captured on the shop’s CCTV system, the KGW site reports.

Driver training

An unidentified 22-year-old man was taking a driving test with a license examiner near The Hague, the Netherlands, when he got stuck on a railroad track. The driver and the examiner ran for safety just before a train rammed the car, dragging it 150 metres down the track.

But the car came right back to them — a second train coming the other direction hit the car and dragged it back other way. Reuters

Alleged drug trafficker foiled by hungry prison guard

A New Mexico woman’s plan to smuggle heroin into a prison inside some food was apparently stopped by a guard who tried to eat it.

The guard at the Albuquerque jail bit the burrito she was delivering to two inmates. He said there was something crunchy inside.

He allegedly found a plastic bag filled with black tar heroin inside. The police says the guard didn’t suffer any effects.

The police charged the woman and the two prisoners with drugs offences, the Albuquerque Journal reports.

Reform caught in conflicts
P. Raman

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha repeatedly assures the chambers that his reform programmes would not get entangled in Tehelka tapes. Arun Jaitely is equally emphatic that no one can any more dare to block the measures initiated by his government. Yet the foreign investors and domestic business see serious hurdles in the way of carrying out the second generation of globalisation and privatisation programmes.

The troubles were in the horizon even before the tapes exposed the political fixerati. The change of track by the Congress on economic policy has been the most crucial factor. But the BJP ministers would have us buy the theory that the Congress will return to the reform fold after the Kerala and West Bengal elections. This is far from truth. The Congress has adopted the new line after over two years of intense internal conflicts which we had dismissed as tussles. Now the party has reached a stage from where it cannot afford to be seen as supporting the BJP government’s economic decisions.

Until last year, the Congress parliamentary leaders have been trying to find some ruse to extend support to the government’s reform-related business. It had done so in the case of the insurance bill and the general budget. Now in the changed national mood, it is seeking excuses to frustrate the government proposals even on minor issues. Unlike last year, the Congress is not going to allow a smooth sail for Yashwant Sinha’s budget even in the event of the Opposition returning to the House. The party’s new strategy is to go the whole hog to highlight and oppose all measures that would adversely affect sections like the farmers, rural poor, middle classes, pensioners, senior citizens and those hit by the interest cuts on petty deposits.

This will help it endear itself to the affected sections even while exposing what the Congress strategists call the ‘true colour’ of the NDA. The party could also use this to tom-tom the ‘anti-poor’ image of the NDA allies in states. The Congress calculation, right or wrong, is that now that the Vajpayee government is no more a darling of the middle classes and it had become sufficiently unpopular, the charge of ‘destabilisation’ would not stick on it. The rapidly changing public mood, the perceived erosion of the government’s moral authority and Vajpayee’s weak position make it right time to strike at the NDA.

No reform measure can get through parliament without the Congress cooperation in the Rajya Sabha. Three dozen bills are awaiting parliamentary approval. Among them at least half a dozen are reform-related legislations. Sinha’s proposal to amend the Industrial Disputes Act and Contract Labour Act to enable the industrial units to freely hire and fire workers and close down the units is certainly on the rocks. Pranab Mukherjee, hitherto a reform enthusiast, has made it clear that the party would not allow them to be passed. Even Narasimha Rao who had initiated the economic reform, has in his paper opposed such measures as lease of airports and the “sell off” of Air India and Indian Airlines.

Interestingly, the Congress seems determined to hijack the economic nationalism and swadeshi of the RSS by plying an aggressive economic policy. Mukherjee would not concede this because it was ‘they’ who had “fraudulently” hijacked the old Congress plank. If the RSS and its Swadeshi Jagran Manch were so keen on economic nationalism why did they collude with the Vajpayee government when India’s economic interests were subverted? This apart, the Congress will soon launch SJM-style campaigns against what its Bangalore resolution calls the NDA government’s “imported ideologies” and “economic fundamentalism”.

The Congress has vowed to fight against Vajpayee’s ‘unbridled liberalisation and globalisation’ and ‘capitulation’ and surrender to the external pressures. The Congress would not allow ‘indiscriminate’ disinvestment in profit making PSUs. Instead, it wants such units to be strengthened. In the case of chronically sick PSUs, the sales proceeds should not be used for filling the budget gap. The party has also taken a firm position against the sale of government banks. The BJP government has listed 27 PSUs for sales to ‘strategic’ partners. The Congress, in its new combative mood for the kill, is set to make a hue and cry about all such moves.

BJP ministers — as also rootless Congress apparatchiks like Jairam Ramesh — still cling to the semantics of the Bangalore resolution to convince the foreign investors that all is not yet lost. Certain palliatives in the Congress resolution are more to accommodate those like Manmohan Singh who needs a reasonable time to adjust to the new ‘mixed economy’ mode. All former reformers have already rationalised their change of posture by claiming that the economic reform of 1991 has been a course correction of the Nehruvian model. It was the BJP regime that had made a ‘parody’ of the Manmohan Singh reform and distorted it. The Congress, they claim, is not obliged to back the BJP’s ‘second generation’ reform that had strayed away from the Congress path of reform with a humane face.

For the Congress, there will be no going back on its Bangalore decision so long as it is in the opposition at the Centre. It might sing a different tune, as the BJP has done, only in the event of it getting back to power on its own. This has been the virtual reality of any government in the globalised world. While an opposition party will always have to go by the electoral realism to gain votes, the ruling party’s concern is its government’s survival for which it has to follow the global dictates.

For the Congress, it took about five years to complete the cycle. It began as an avowed supporter of the reform it had initiated. Then it began giving qualitative support to the BJP as a ‘responsible’ opposition party. It was a time when the party was nursing the hopes of returning to power when the coalition collapses. As the hopes faded, there began a debate on the need to adopt a politically pragmatic approach to economic policy and convert the party into an aggressive opposition party. The decline of the Vajpayee government and the need for converting the people’s disillusionment into votes have made the Congress to act fast.

The BJP government will find the gathering politico-economic storm really formidable. If the Congress, which is either a ruling party or the main opposition in over 15 states, takes up the sufferings of the excluded millions, no party can ignore its deadly political fallout. The earlier middle class euphoria has already given way to frustration. Even George Fernandes this month conceded that the number of educated unemployed had gone up from 3.65 crore in 1995 to 4.14 crore now. Each day brings reports of small industrialists, jobless workers and small men cheated by stock markets committing suicide. Such widespread frustrations among different sections will give a cutting edge to the Congress in the coming months. In that event, the NDA allies in states will be under growing pressure to change their own agenda.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

"I am in you and you are in me",

To the Glacier, said the sea.…

*****

Glacier:

"... I am solid and solid I will be;

My form is different; cannot you see!

*****

Your shade is blue and I am white

And I rise up to a mountain's height

Each of us has a different name;

How then could both of us be same."

*****

Sea

"Ego and ignorance, you display; wisdom will come in spring, one day;

The Truth, in summer will unfold;

You are in winter and therefore cold.

*****

In the warm season, you will melt

And tighten up your belly's belt;

In mother's lap a child you are;

This knowledge's day is not too far.

*****

We are one with God; note well these words,

All, humans, beasts, insects and birds;

The atma (soul) in all is but one;

In form, we are many for God's fun.

— Sai Blossoms, 52

*****

O friends it is now that I learn

how love and law are related.

By drinking a cup of love

all things are forgotten!

In every house abides the Lord;

I find him pervading one and all.

— Bulleh Shah

*****

It is very good to have a high ideal but do not make it too high. A high ideal raises mankind, but an impossible ideal lowers them from the very impossibility of the case.

— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. II, Sayings and Utterances