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| Tuesday,
July 16, 2002, Chandigarh, India   
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Truant monsoon Talking of growth target Different rules for USA? |
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Trifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir
Piracy in harbour
Falling icons of globalisation A blind psychic who tells fortunes in a new way
Video games damaging brains?
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Truant monsoon THE
monsoon had kept its date with India faithfully for the past 14 years. That is why everyone, including the weatherman, was expecting it to be on schedule this year as well. But rain-gods had a different idea. Meteorologists have tried to explain away the huge differences between what they promised and what the clouds actually delivered. According to them, a break in the monsoon is nothing unusual except that this time the break has taken place even before the monsoon had set in properly. The dry spell got prolonged as the monsoon trough shifted along the Shivalik ranges from the plains of North India. There is no cause for despair, they reassure us. Conditions are developing which indicate that there will be rainfall during the coming few days. But all this pep talk and technical jargon hardly enthuse the man on the rural street who has seen kharif sowing being badly hit. At many places in Punjab and Haryana, farmers are having to resort to multiple sowing. Others are using tubewells non-stop for irrigation, that too with the help of diesel engines. The trouble is that irrigation facilities are not uniformly good all over the region. Even otherwise the use of diesel engines sends the input costs through the roof. Moreover, underground water level is going to be depleted. The rainfall received by Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh this year from June 1 till July 10 is the lowest during the past 10 years. At the moment, this deficient precipitation is the only cause for worry. If there is inadequate or no rain during the coming days, it is going to turn alarming because paddy production will be greatly affected. That shows how much we continue to remain at the mercy of the monsoons. Several years of bountiful rainfall made us oblivious of the havoc that a failed monsoon can cause. Very few states have satisfactory contingency plans. In fact, there are some which have none at all. Punjab and Haryana may scrape through somehow by going in for alternate crops like pulses, toria and even fodder, although small farmers will be in deep trouble. But other states may not be even that lucky. The economic recovery that India is looking forward to so eagerly may not come about. The increased cost of production will obviously be reflected in the selling prices and fuel inflation. The grim scenario reminds one of the sixties when grain shortage and ration queues were commonplace. Several decades down the line, our position seems to be not much better. |
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Talking of growth target THE new economic agenda of the NDA government is quite encouraging. It reflects enough confidence in the strength of the economy and its capacity to grow on the expected lines. This is based on the picture presented by the recently released revised estimates by the Central Statistical Organisation, saying that the economy grew by 5.4 per cent during 2001-2002, a much better performance compared to that the previous year. Many analysts believe that an eight per cent growth rate as targeted for the Tenth Five-Year Plan (which means till 2007) is possible provided the prevailing momentum remains undisturbed. That is why at Saturday’s Economic Advisory Council meeting Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee tried to assure the nation that the government would take all the necessary measures to enable the economy to move forward at the current pace or even do better. The regulatory processes are going to be overhauled so that growth hurdles are removed quickly. There was a specific reference to the environment at the council’s meeting. It has been pointed out that henceforth no project will get delayed or cancelled on the pretext of protecting the environment as it happened when Mrs Menaka Gandhi was part of the government and looked after the Environment Ministry. The approach is good. However, the environment has its own significance and needs to be properly taken care of. The government, it seems, is going to concentrate on the concept of “no free lunches” in a market-driven economy. That means the days of cheap power supply, higher education, healthcare, public transport and other such facilities are over. This is not unexpected in the changed economic climate. The problem, however, is that those who can pay are not getting their money’s value. There are places where eratic power supply leads to a considerable slowdown in industrial production though the consumers are prepared to pay the demanded price. Last year’s appreciable performance was possible largely because of excellent showing by the agricultural sector. Therefore, the government should pay special attention to this sector, besides looking into the problems in other areas, to achieve the ambitious Plan target. Agriculture should not be dependent on the monsoon in this age as is the case till now. Otherwise, all calculations may go haywire. The other thing that can speed up the economic march of the nation is the concept of single-window clearance for investment projects. An investor, whether local or of foreign origin, should never feel harassed. That can be
possible only when the country has the single-window system. This is the best way to attract
particularly foreign institutional and other investors, who are shying away from India. |
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Different rules for USA? IF both sides claim victory, it isn’t one. The UN Security Council vote on Friday that gave American forces limited protection from the new International Criminal Court is not a victory but a compromise, as a result of which UN peace-keeping operations around the world got a reprieve. The cost is the undermining of the underlying principle of the new court that no one would be exempt from punishment for war crimes. The USA has been demanding blanket immunity for its soldiers engaged in peace-keeping missions the world over, an issue which came to a head at a UN Security Council meeting earlier this month. The USA took a belligerent stand of vetoing the continuation of the UN peace-keeping mission in Bosnia. American opposition to the ICC, which started functioning at the Hague since the beginning of this month, has been consistent. The American position has also pitted it against its closest European allies as well as neighbours, Canada and Mexico. The ICC came into existence on July 1 and has jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed after that date. It has been ratified by 79 countries and 139 have signed the 1998 Rome treaty that established it. India signed the treaty but has not ratified it because of certain reservations about the role of the Security Council which seem well founded. As Mr Paul Heinbecker, the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, said: “We are extremely disappointed with the outcome and we don’t think it’s in the mandate of the Security Council to interpret treaties that are negotiated somewhere else.” Even Germany, a long-time US ally and, along with all European Union states, a signatory to the ICC, expressed its displeasure at the US attitude rather strongly when its Justice Minister, Ms Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, said: “Special rules for strong countries — particularly when the issue at stake is the global pursuit of the worst human rights violations — are inappropriate and not compatible with the principle of the rule of law.” The world community has found a voice that is critical of the US unilateralism. International bodies should not be treated as extensions of the world’s superpower. They have to be independent and be seen to be so. The International Criminal Court is a positive step by the comity of nations to provide a forum that can dispense justice against war crimes and act as a deterrent at the same time. It needs nurturing and the USA would do well to take that role rather than look only at its narrow, parochial interests. Like other UN peacekeepers, including a large number of Indian soldiers, US troops have been playing a much-needed and positive role in various trouble-spots around the world. Like others they can make mistakes, for which they would be disciplined by their own courts. It is only for war crimes that the jurisdiction of the ICC comes into the picture. For it to function in an effective manner, it will need the support of various democracies, not their opposition. Justice can never be dispensed if the rule of law is not equitably applicable. As Thomas Fuller put it so well over 300 years ago: “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.” |
Trifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir FEW knew that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which broadly lays down the policy for the BJP, knows the Kashmir situation in such little depth. Otherwise it could not have passed a resolution suggesting the trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir. The resolution recently passed by the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Manch, the executive council of the RSS, at its two-day meeting in Kurukshetra said that the Jammu and Kashmir state should be divided into three parts: Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. The first two could be turned into states and Ladakh made into a Union Territory. While the resolution was being debated at its secret session which was not open to the Press, someone should have warned the RSS members that it was unthinkingly converting the Kashmir valley into a separate state which could some day find itself easy to be parcelled out to Pakistan. This certainly is not what the RSS could want to happen. No other interpretation can be given to the resolution. It is unfortunate that the RSS considered the situation only from the narrow viewpoint of carving out a Hindu majority state to meet the demands of the BJP sympathisers in Jammu. Is that all that is needed to be decided in considering the future of Jammu and Kashmir, for the past 50 years the target of fundamentalist and secessionist onslaught from Pakistan? It is this propaganda onslaught, coupled with the material support from across the border, that has created the present militant situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Before passing the resolution the RSS thinkers should have considered the situation in its entirety and debated whether its passage would take the Kashmir valley a step near joining Pakistan. The RSS resolution says that Ladakh which is mainly inhabited by Muslims and Buddhists, should be given the status of Union Territory and in that way made safe from the political powers that dominate Srinagar and Jammu. It has recommended that Jammu should be converted into a separate state. The rest of the present territory, the Kashmir valley, should be converted into a separate state. The RSS which always declares itself steadfast in upholding the unity of the country is silent about the regions which have been usurped by Pakistan, including the occupied part of Kashmir (PoK), Baltistan and Gurez, which have almost been integrated into Pakistan. As also the portion given out to China. It is surprising that the RSS should have passed such a resolution. Also, by making Kashmir a separate state, it divests the valley from the Jammu influence, destroying the integration of Jammu and Kashmir. Nothing could have been more communal than this. It would befit the thinking of a man like Jinnah, not any Indian leader. Why has the RSS taken such a damaging stand? Judging from the reports about the passage of the resolution, it is clear that the RSS has gone only by the complaints of its members in Jammu that they were not getting full representation and were dominated by the Muslim-majority? Kashmir region. This takes a very narrow view of the situation in Kashmir. By disintegrating the present geopolitical life of Jammu and Kashmir, how is it going to serve the unity of the country? The main objective is that Jammu should be made into a separate state, so that it will have its own assembly and a government to fulfil the ambitions of local BJP chieftains and politicians, little remembering that the security of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh lies in remaining together. There are, of course, cultural and linguistic differences. But these can be met by resorting to proper safeguards. Cutting the Indian part of the state into three states cannot be the answer. The resolution has been put together by a three-member committee which was presided over by Mr Jitendra Veer Gupta, a former High Court judge. Unfortunately, it decided to base its recommendations only on the grievances of the people of Jammu. Should their local ambitions and grievances be taken into consideration by subverting the national interest? The committee’s main fear and warning should have come from the fact that the separatists in the Kashmir valley would only be counting days to strengthen the movement of those who would want to walk over to Pakistan. This fear has not been gone into by the policy-makers of the RSS. The only redeeming feature is that the NDA government has not endorsed the RSS resolution. The committee was told of the allegations of discrimination against Jammu indulged in by the Kashmir government which is dominated by parties and members who have a greater say in the valley. Is discrimination going to be the main reason for the creation of a new state? If there is any discrimination the BJP should fight it but by not destroying the unity of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. If the RSS is troubled by allegations of discrimination, it should instead have impressed upon the rulers in New Delhi to take steps against the present government in Kashmir. That is how discrimination should be fought and not be creating a new state which will have its doors more open for propaganda blasts from Pakistan. The resolution said the Farooq Abdullah government was “discriminatory”, with “sinister motives” against the Hindu community. What an allegation for the RSS to make against a constituent of the NDA government, the National Conference! Does it find itself so helpless that it cannot discipline the National Conference, which is part of the NDA? Has it no method of doing so except taking out Kashmir from the state? The people are horrified at the way the BJP and the National Conference are dealing with each other even though both are within the NDA. So long as it is a case of taking advantage of the spoils of office, they are together. But while it concerns cutting each others influence, Dr Farooq Abdullah shouts abuse on the BJP and the RSS. And when the RSS and the BJP have to look at their own interests, they launch a blast at the National Conference. This is a strange way of carrying on a unified policy by the constituents of the ruling coalition. Kashmir is a difficult subject to handle, mainly because it is exposed to extreme pressures from the international community, the fundamentalist Muslim countries and direct intervention from Pakistan. If Kashmir becomes a separate state it will get, cut off from the restraining influence of Jammu, be under direct fundamentalist political pressures from the next-door neighbour — Pakistan. Will this help the situation? Many years ago a Kashmiri Muslim leader, a former Chief Minister of the state, told me that he would not be surprised if some day the BJP might, after getting tired of fighting Pakistan, say that it would buy peace by handing over Kashmir to the enemy. Is that what is happening now? |
Piracy in harbour THE town of Casablanca in Morocco, though a bit primitive, is a lively place to visit. They say that on any week day half of Casablanca is selling and the other half is buying the same. We loaded 20000 MT of rock phosphate for the Nigerian port of Lagos located in the blight of Benim. During our week long halt at Casablanca we became friendly with the doctor on board the “Chyorni Mir, a 60000 MT bulk cargoship. She was also booked for phosphate cargo for Lagos. Indian merchant ships are neither armed nor carry doctors on board but Russian ships do. The fuelling halt was at the Generalissmo Franco Jetty in Las Palmas in Canary island ruled by Spain. The families on board bored by poor quality of shopping in Casablanca were looking forward to shop in glittering arcades of Laspalmas. However, with expected time of arrival at Laspalmas being midnight, ladies were apprehensive and disappointed. But luck smiled and entire shopping arcade brightened up with glittering neon lights and all shops fully opened for brisk shopping. Families shopped heavily for warm Scottish tweed suiting cloth, Christian Dior perfumes, majolica pearls, Barbie dolls and Gucci leather purses. Both ships sailed for Lagos further south on the same coast line, after fuelling for five hours. We faced heavy seas with wind force 7 while approaching port of Accra in Ghana, en route. There were at least eight more ships waiting for their turn in that congested port of Lagos, anchorage position allocated to us was 5°_ latitude north and 4° longitude east. The Russian ship was anchored half a nautical mile north of us. The economy of Nigeria had suddenly boomed with new find of mineral oil but port facilities were not adequate to receive sudden influx of imports ordered. It was anticipated that we could be berthing for unloading only after six days. It was only on the midnight of the third day at the anchorage when it happened. At about one o’clock in the morning our unarmed security watchman sensed movement of fast motor boats heading towards the direction of the Russian cargo vessel. The boats seemed to be carrying powerful search lights. There was nothing suspicious worth reporting in such movements. At 8 a.m. next day the duty officer on the bridge noticed that the Russian ship at the anchorage was no longer there. During further enquiries addressed to harbour master a copy of the following radio message received from the master of the Russian ship at day break six o’clock local time was transmitted to us. The copy of the master’s message read: “Last night a gang of four African armed pirates tried to board my ship and attempted to overpower the two security guards. Boats used in attack fled away after leaving four dead bodies floating in harbour. Please arrange to pick up the dead ones. Am leaving harbour. Consider unloading of cargo cancelled “AUR REVOIR”. One of the immediate outcome of this sorry episode was that our captain doubled the number of security guards near the gangway and stopped altogether the visits of the African salesmen boarding the vessel at anchorage to sell uncut raw diamonds from Sierra Leone. |
Falling icons of globalisation WE have grossly underestimated the significance of the violent upheavals gripping the US multinational corporations. The tendency in India has been to dismiss the large-scale corruption as a minor aberration — like our own innumerable post-liberalisation scandals. The collapse of Enron had direct impact on us. When the WorldCom scandal broke out, our first response was to find out how much it affected VSNL. The reluctance to recognise the unpleasant fact has been due to two reasons. Continuously fed on the infallibility of liberalisation and the new global capitalist order, we found it convenient to ignore those inherent contradictions of globalisation. Our own spin doctors of the new exalted model needed more time to reconcile to what is written on the wall. Second, business writers want to underplay the disastrous trend so that their consequences will be minimum. They tried to do so during every crisis in the post-Soviet reform decade. The latest challenge to globalisation began with the collapse of the very edifice of the multinational corporations on which the whole world order is sought to be built. It began with last year’s sudden fall of Enron, an epitome of corporate efficiency, global spread and quick growth. Enron, like the rest, has been on the top of the list of contributors to George Bush’s election fund. It is an old story how full US machinery was used to further this firm’s business interests. The case against WorldCom, second largest long distance provider, is that it defrauded its expense accounts by about $ 4 billion. While enforcement officials began punitive action, the firm started issuing pink slips to 17,000 of its employees. With this began a string of more startling disclosures. Law suit has been filed against Merck-Medco, second largest in the field, for ‘improperly inflating’ revenue. The share market world was stunned to know that the amount defrauded by the firm was to the tune of $12.4 billion. Then came the Xerox shock. As much as $ 2 billion was involved in their global scandal. According to market sources, the actual dodged amount will be as much as $ 6 billion. Partly to divert attention, Xerox immediately came up with the revelation that its Indian partner Modis had paid $ 700,000 to Indian officials as bribe. This prominent MNC’s escapades are legion. Two months back, it paid $ 10 million as penalty to settle some earlier accounting frauds. We have an endless list of corporations whose blatantly corrupt practices have come to light in recent months. Among these who have become controversial are Global Crossing, Tyco International, Rite Aid, Imclone Systems, Adelphia and even Larry Ellison of Oracle. Even the highly reputed Merrill Lynch had to pay a $100 million fine after an inquiry established that its equity research division had deliberately pushed the shares of certain firms. The crisis of confidence has shaken those who have placed full trust in the fairness and reputation of the US gospel of business. Over a dozen major US telecom companies have filed for bankruptcy due to such varying reasons as losses, business frauds and scandals. Some had got into trouble after vastly overstanding the bandwidth demand and spent on billions worth optical fibre networks. At the initial stages of the trouble, the firms usually indulge in undesirable practices to remain in business. Under the relatively rigorous US laws, such trickery can give only be a temporary respite. Many fear that barring half a dozen, all of the 30 odd US majors in telecom sector will soon face doom. A recent Merill Lynch study showed that one-third of office space in Silicon Valley remains unoccupied. Similar has been the case with the countries who have been trying — under compulsions or admiration — to emulate the US business models. It is fast spreading to the EU countries. Vivendi, second largest media giant in the world, is charged with profit inflation of about $ 1.47 billion. This week, German automaker Mercedes has accused its rival BMW of inflating sales figures in US to ensure that it remains the best-selling premium brand. Such rapidly spreading corporate scandals and skulduggery have tarnished the halo attached to the over-rated corporate culture, business ethics and transparency. Along with the quick erosion of the corporate myth has come about the demise of its highly inflated executive icon. The efficacy of the corporate governance, its boardroom culture and the miracles of management executive — from the juniors to the CEO — have been diligently built up as part of the globalisation saga. It has a purpose. It is on the divine powers of this new Brahmin class that the whole edifice is raised. Watch all the preachings on the virtues of professional management as against the family business. However, none of the fawning magazine covers and idolatrous tomes could prevent the sudden fall of the great CEO. Now as the corporate bubble explodes their halowed executives are also becoming fallen idols. Bosses of Intel and Amazon DotComs were Time magazine’s “Man of the Year”. Now they, along with that of General Electric, are facing the ire of the shareholders at special meetings. A law suit has been filed even against the Vice-President Dick Cheney for accounting fraud when he was the director of Halliburton Co. The irony of the American corporate model has been that it fell victim to its own aggrandisement. The USA has the best rules to check frauds. Unlike most others, it bars bribing of the foreign governments for business. Yet the US corporates have to be competitive if they have to survive in this globalised world of their own creation. Bush has promptly set up a task force to end the account frauds and bribing. But if he really enforces stricter rules, how can the US firms compete with the Japanese or East Asian counterparts who are not bound by such moral restraints? A closer look will reveal the dire compulsions of the US corporates. Their own institutions have let them down. Every scandal-ridden firm has indulged in such unethical acts as inflating project costs, under and over-invoicing, cooking up accounts, etc to be in the good books of the investors. The new corporate philosophy centres solely on the ‘share-holder value’. All other factors like the staff, customers and society are simply dispensable. This is based on the theory that a company’s worth is measured on the share value. Hence large corporations are disappearing under the weight of excessive debt or accounting frauds. The supposed gatekeepers of the system — auditors, stock market regulators, market analysts, fund managers and banks — have all failed, again, under the competitive compulsions to checkmate the globalisational need to get-rich-quick by any means. The absence of a critical media added to the present plight. Practically, every globalisation bubble raised during the post-Soviet liberalisation decade is now being called into question. The USA itself seeks to rewrite the rules of free trade on items like steel, chemicals and textiles. Every country is pressing for its own WTO norms. It is not the East Asian or EU crisis alone. After the dot com bubble we have the much more disastrous telecom bubble. But the greatest tragedy is that if the corporate bubble is allowed to burst, it will damage the foundation of the MNC-driven globalisation itself. |
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A blind psychic who tells fortunes in a new way THE
top news story enthralling Germans this summer concerns a blind psychic who tells fortunes by feeling people’s bare buttocks. Pictures of 39-year-old Ulf Buck engaged in hands-on ‘’readings’’ have been plastered across tabloid front pages and he has been featured on three major national TV networks. Buck claims he has been practising his unique form of posterior palmistry for years though, curiously, no one seemed to have heard of him until Germany’s biggest tabloid paper discovered him earlier this month. Buck says he ‘’went blind overnight’’ due to diabetes when he was 25 and that he spent the following year in a state of despair until he began to realise he possessed the gift of second sight. ‘’Sighted people are distracted by the dazzling world about them,’’ he says. ‘’My eyes are blinded to this distraction and that enables me to open up my inner eye to much more wonderful visions. What I possess is ‘insight’ in the purest form.’’ Buck, who lives in a village north of Hamburg, says buttocks have similar lines to those on the palm from which he can divine his clients’ personalities as well as their future wealth, happiness and health. As in traditional palmistry, these ‘’lines’’ are not so much anatomical creases as they are lines of psychic energy. It is these esoteric lines which a palm reader ‘’sees’’ and which Buck claims he ‘’sees’’ on the gluteus maximus. Charging up to 100 dollars for a reading, Buck says he has countless satisfied customers, including a German TV celebrity and a prominent stock analyst. ‘’The stockbroker has been coming to me for two years for advice on the markets, so I must be doing something right,’’ Buck says.
DPA |
Video games damaging brains? PSYCHOLOGISTS and neuroscientists have dismissed the theory which claims that parts of the brain could become chronically underused by constant playing of computer games, as inconclusive and premature. Akio Mori, a professor of neurology specialising in cranial nerve study at Nihon University in Tokyo, has warned that playing video games everyday may lower the activity of the part of the brain that controls emotion. He plans to present his findings at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in November in Orlando, Florida, says a report in New Scientist. Mori has based his theory after in his study he recorded a lack of beta brainwave activity in young people who played frequently. He claims this reveals that the gamers were hardly using the frontal regions of their brains, which are important for emotional processing, planning and self-control.
ANI Spitting out your nicotine addiction UK researchers have developed a new test, called SmokeScreen, to help smokers quit the habit. The new measure shows the level of nicotine in their saliva and help health experts to tell the smokers about how nicotine can spread disease in the mouth — including gum infections, and also tooth loss. Dr Graham Cope, Professor Iain Chapple, and Dr Kit Barnfather from the University of Birmingham, who developed the new test, said results have shown that many of those taking part in the trials of the test go on to quit the habit later on. For the study, the researchers involved 100 people, the 50 who were told the results of their SmokeScreen saliva test were able to “significantly reduce” their habit more after being shown the damage smoking was doing to their teeth and mouth.
ANI |
That man is a first class friend whose heart melts always at the grief of others, who tries to do good to others, who serves others without the asking and is the protector, at the proper time of wife, wealth and secrets. Others are three-fourths, halves and quarters. The man who envies and who are envied, both are enemies and can be defined by the same term. Learning, valour, skill, prowess and patience — these five are said to be natural friends; wise men follow these. Instructions to the foolish are the cause of their anger, not pleasure, just as the drinking of water by snakes for the making of poison, not nectar. By appropriate means the terrestrial beings can soar into the sky and even the thunder can be pierced ... The dear friend who speaks of demerits exactly becomes unfriendly. Can that man be friendly who talks of one's merits as if they were demerits. Slang should not be used to anybody even in a friendly way. — Shukraniti, Chapter IV, section I
*** A servant who aspires after happiness, a beggar who expects honour, a dissolute man who hopes for riches, a profligate who seeks salvation, an avaricious man who covets fame and a proud man who craves 'the four rewards of life' — all these are like men who would expect milk by milking the sky i.e. they are asking for impossible. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Aranya Kanda
*** It is because of his confidence in his master that a servant feels quite carefree as does a child that trusts its mother. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Krishkindhakanda
*** Known to all the world is the fact that loyal service is difficult to perform. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Ayodhya Kanda |
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