E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Shame of Warne
AS if there were not enough controversies dogging the ongoing World Cup already, the mother of all scandals has hit it in the shape of Australian spinner Shane Warne testing positive for a banned diuretic. The spin magician who was expected to be the cynosure of every cricket lover’s eyes is returning home in disgrace, leaving the tournament in turmoil. And to think that this World Cup was to be his one-day swan song! He should not really be held guilty till the results of his B-sample are declared in the next few days.

Readjust Railway budget
AS Himachal Pradesh elections are due to be held on February 26, there is considerable speculation on the Union Government’s desirability of presenting the Railway Budget in Parliament on February 24. It is believed that the Bharatiya Janata Party wants the Railway Budget to be presented on February 26 instead of February 24 so that any concessions that the Centre may announce in the Railway Budget for the people of Himachal Pradesh will not be viewed as sops by the government to woo the voters.

OPINION

The changing economic scene
Budget should revive capital market
Vinod Mehta
The Prime Minister stated recently that people should invest more and more in equities. But where is the equity market? The primary capital market in India has been almost dead for the last eight years even though there have been eight budgets. The few public issues that came up in the market a few years ago were riding the information technology wave.

MIDDLE

No return ticket available from here
V.N. Kakar
I recently ran into a small, exhilarating display of posters done by little kids along the outer wall of their school in the Alaknanda area of New Delhi. “ We would like to share with you,” proclaimed the display in bold letters, “what we have learnt in our school.”

New MD to give a boost to Haryana tourism
Haryana Tourism’s second woman Managing Director Navraj Sandhu has novel and far-sighted ideas to boost the earnings of the State. The first woman MD of Haryana Tourism was Keshni Anand Arora.

• Shiv Sena’s heir apparent

Women judges grace war crimes court
Justice came of age in spectacular fashion in New York last week when women bagged six of the top seven judicial seats on the new International Criminal Court.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Shame of Warne

AS if there were not enough controversies dogging the ongoing World Cup already, the mother of all scandals has hit it in the shape of Australian spinner Shane Warne testing positive for a banned diuretic. The spin magician who was expected to be the cynosure of every cricket lover’s eyes is returning home in disgrace, leaving the tournament in turmoil. And to think that this World Cup was to be his one-day swan song! He should not really be held guilty till the results of his B-sample are declared in the next few days. There are chances that he might be acquitted like Sunita Rani. But in the eyes of his fans, his reputation is already in tatters. They have a right to ask how one of Wisden’s five greatest players of the 20th century could let them down so badly. But then, Warne is no stranger to controversy. Rather, he has been the bad boy of the gentlemanly game, having been involved in everything from match fixing to phone sex scandal. And yet, to give the devil his due, the banned diuretic that he has been found to have taken is not a performance-enhancing substance. It is on the prohibited list because it can be used to mask steroids and to aid weight loss.

To think that the legendary leggy took all those wickets because of any drug does not stand to reason. Warne’s plea is that he had been taking the medication for his shoulder injury recently. But rules are rules and he should have been more careful in this regard. The Australian board has a clear drug policy which specifically says that any contracted player must consult the board’s medical panel before consuming any drug. Apparently, Warne did not and is having to pay for this mistake, even if it proves to be only technical. His ouster is a big blow to the Australian campaign to retain the World Cup but the way the team mauled Pakistan on Tuesday shows that the game is far bigger than any player. Perhaps the shock will help in the unearthing of new talent. Now that the egg has hit the fan, other cricket superstars should also do a bit of introspection. Things are no longer as clean in the dressing rooms as they should be. Cricket has become crassly commercial. The golden boys play less for their respective countries and more for their own mega-bucks. No argument with that, except that they must also remember that they happen to be role models for millions of frenzied fans. To that extent, they have to draw up a code of conduct for themselves which ought to be only slightly less stringent than that for Caesar’s wife.

Readjust Railway budget

AS Himachal Pradesh elections are due to be held on February 26, there is considerable speculation on the Union Government’s desirability of presenting the Railway Budget in Parliament on February 24. It is believed that the Bharatiya Janata Party wants the Railway Budget to be presented on February 26 instead of February 24 so that any concessions that the Centre may announce in the Railway Budget for the people of Himachal Pradesh will not be viewed as sops by the government to woo the voters. Suffice it to mention that under the Code of Conduct prescribed for all political parties by the Election Commission, governments — at the Centre and in the states — are prohibited from making any official announcements that would tend to influence the voters, directly or indirectly, during the conduct of elections. Such an announcement would also be tantamount to violating the provisions of the Representation of People’s Act and attract penal action. To avoid unnecessary inconvenience and embarrassment to the governments at the Centre and in the State, it would be better for the government to adopt a flexible approach on the matter. The Union Government would do well to postpone the Railway Budget to February 26. The timing of the presentation itself can be fixed at 3 p.m. so that the Budget would not tend to influence the electorate in Himachal Pradesh in any manner. Clearly, this process of readjustment will in no way affect the Union Budget: while the Economic Survey can be released on February 27, the Union Budget can be presented the next day, i.e. on February 28, as has been scheduled originally.

It is true that Himachal Pradesh has no major railway centre. However, the Northern Railway earns good revenue during the holiday season — both in the summer and winter — from Shimla, Kalka and Una railway stations. These are the three important stations in the state and any budgetary proposals for the development of this region might also be seen as attempts by the government to derive pecuniary advantage in the elections. Concessions in the form of sops to voters apart, there is also the other angle associated with the Railway Budget this time. Keeping in view the reports of possible hike in passenger fares and freight tariff, it is feared that, in such an eventuality, the Railway Budget might antagonise the voters and affect the electoral prospects of the BJP in Himachal Pradesh. In the light of possible scope for misinterpretation of the Railway Ministry’s professed intentions towards the development of the railway network in Himachal Pradesh, it would be in the fitness of things if the Railway Budget is presented to Parliament on February 26. There is no need to be rigid on an issue of this critical importance. The government needs to be flexible when it is a question of ensuring free and fair elections which are the sine qua non of a functioning democracy.

Why “rasta roko”?

WHILE addressing his party men who blocked traffic at Malout on the busy Bathinda-Abohar state highway on Monday, Mr Parkash Singh Badal is reported to have said: “The anti-people steps taken by Capt Amarinder Singh have increased the sufferings of people. From day one, the Chief Minister has been victimising people. False cases have been registered against those who tried to oppose the anti-people steps of the government”. Mark the word “people” figuring so frequently in Mr Badal’s speech. He has frequently voiced his concern for the people of the state and yet, ironical as it may seem, the state-wide “rasta roko” protest organised by his party, the Shiromani Akali Dal, caused maximum inconvenience to the very people for whose “benefit” the agitation was launched. Traffic jam of late has emerged as the most favoured mode of protest. Whether it is the farmers in Punjab or Haryana demanding the payment of their sugarcane dues or ordinary residents angered by a death in an accident or protesting against some police highhandedness, blocking traffic is considered the easiest and most effective method to convey their anguish or demand to the government, which unfortunately reacts only when some such drastic action is taken. Wearing a black band to register protest or express a sense of mourning is quite a dignified, internationally accepted practice. But in this country such symbols carry no meaning. If you block traffic, the Press and TV channels too take notice. The longer the protest and the consequential discomfort to the public, the greater the success. It does not matter whether a patient on way to hospital is stopped or an unemployed youth going for an urgent job interview is held up, the protesters have their own concern, small or big, before them.

What kind of democracy are we promoting? The common people, employees or farmers may be forgiven for taking this extreme step as they have limited options, but what should one say about political leaders, who have so many platforms like the media, the state assembly and even Parliament, to voice their grievances or convey their feelings to the government and the people? Is this how we interpret democracy ? Is this the way to exercise the freedom guaranteed by the Constitution? Has the travelling public no rights? This is time we address these questions collectively and reach a conclusion. This is also time we ask official machinery why it takes so long to respond to public grievances. If the sugarcane growers of Ropar district block a road and force the government to pay their dues, doesn’t it send a message to the farmers in the other districts to take similar action to get their demands accepted? If development is our priority, we must ensure smooth and unhindered flow of agricultural, industrial and consumer goods. On the one hand we spend huge sums on building highways of global standards, on the other we permit and helplessly watch road blockades. A developing country faced with global competition cannot allow such irritants to come in the way.

OPINION

The changing economic scene
Budget should revive capital market
Vinod Mehta

The Prime Minister stated recently that people should invest more and more in equities. But where is the equity market? The primary capital market in India has been almost dead for the last eight years even though there have been eight budgets. The few public issues that came up in the market a few years ago were riding the information technology wave. Even this has now stopped. The two capital market scams in the past one decade had almost shattered the confidence of the small investor. Will the Union Finance Minister pay attention to the revival of the capital market in his budgetary proposals later this month?

For a growing country like India, this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue for long. Both policy makers, including the Finance Minister, and the regulators of the primary capital market must put their heads together to revive the primary capital market before it is too late.

May be the revival of the primary capital market is linked with the pace of our economic reforms. In spite of the fact that economic reforms were initiated in the early nineties, a lot of controls on the economic activities still remain. On top of it the procedures for setting up new industries are still very cumbersome. There has been no change in the archaic labour laws, company laws and so on. These archaic laws could be holding back new investments.

The country has been talking of an exit policy and social security net for the past one decade, but nothing concrete has emerged in this sphere. Exit policy without a social security net is going to be very painful as has been the experience of Russia. The Indian trade unions are not likely to accept any exit policy without a corresponding social security net.

Therefore, the country will have to simultaneously think of an exit policy as well as social security net so that all the players involved in the setting up of new industries know where they stand and what is expected of them. The ruling communist parties in China and Vietnam have understood this and have revised the stringent labour laws which have proved beneficial to their industry.

Setting up of new industries is always a big risk. The time a project is conceived and the time the project is realised, there are many developments on the political and economic front, both at the national and international levels, that could make all the initial calculations wrong. It happens most of the time, but what makes things worse is that after one’s calculations have gone wrong there is no way one can get out of it. For instance, when a well-known industrial group started building a steel mill the price of finished steel was quite high in the international market, making all their calculations go wrong. But by the time it could be completed the price of steel fell the world over.

In other countries the promoters could sell it off to a healthy company and get out of it. While in India it becomes a sick unit because the promoters can neither get out of it nor are they able to run it anymore. The shareholders are also stuck with the shares which cannot be sold in the market.

In fact, India has the largest number of sick industries in the world where a large amount of public funds are locked. The money lent by the banks to these units has become non-performing assets of the banks and financial institutions while money invested by shareholders has become dead savings for all purposes. The total outstanding bad debt of sick industries is estimated to be more than Rs 12,500 crore.

India must get out of this state of affairs at the earliest. The takeover code which was introduced half a decade ago has not been helpful in tackling the question of sick industries. Therefore, the exit policy has become very important. As far as the labour and trade union laws are concerned, we have yet to initiate a meaningful debate on these crucial issues.

It is thus in India’s interest to at least start moving, in a transparent manner, in this direction. The vested interests in the trade unions in the organised sector will continue to oppose tooth and nail any change in labour laws, but a beginning has to be made at some point; the outdated labour and trade union laws cannot be allowed to hold the country’s economy to ransom. However, the process should not be a one-way affair and the labour sector should be taken into confidence.

At another level, the regulatory authority like SEBI should become more active and intervene at appropriate levels and at the appropriate time, so that the primary sector market grows at a healthy pace. The established companies will not always enter the primary capital market in a big way for their new units as they can always tap their internal accruals or come out with rights issues. The new entrants in the primary capital market are generally the people who are entering the business for the first time. Therefore, it is very difficult to say whether the promoters are genuine players or not. This risk will always be there.

However, what SEBI can do is to create a vast data-base of new promoters, entrepreneurs and their companies which enter the primary capital market and monitor their functioning. If any company and its promoters have not done well or have disappeared from the market, they should never be allowed to enter the primary capital market again; they should never be allowed to set up any new company again. With computer networking, it is easier to keep track of the unscrupulous elements in the primary capital market.

Apart from this, the government must develop positive programmes to encourage young entrepreneurs to enter the primary capital market. Setting up of a new industry in a competitive environment is always a Herculean task for young entrepreneurs. They have to be mentally and financially prepared for it. The Japanese have been handling this problem by setting up what they call science parks.

These science parks have all the infrastructure under one roof to help the budding entrepreneur to start his business. It has science laboratories to develop new products, provide practical tips on setting up new ventures, help look for sources of finance, marketing of their product and help enter the capital market. The budding entrepreneur is also provided with office facilities in the initial stages. They also provide facilities like hotel, restaurants, banks, post offices, tourists offices, a shopping centre, conference rooms and so on within the same building. They help bring together the new entrepreneurs and the prospective buyers of products. In short, the science parks prepare the budding entrepreneurs to face competition in national as well as international markets for their products. It is for this reason that the success rates of new entrants in the primary capital market are much higher in Japan than in India.

The states also need to emulate the example of science parks to prepare young entrepreneurs to enter the primary capital market, so as to ensure a high success rate. It would be a good idea if cyber cities and science parks come up together. The Centre as well as the regulatory authority like SEBI along with our management schools and scientific laboratories can help set up institutions like science parks in every state.

Another way could be to encourage small-scale units to go to the primary capital market for raising capital for their expansion schemes. Moreover, foreign firms, apart from bringing their own funds, may be encouraged to raise a part of their capital requirement from the domestic capital market. This will be of great help in reviving the primary capital market.

In the coming budget, the Finance Minister should seriously consider the revival of the primary capital market so that new manufacturing industries can come up in the country on a large scale. It is the manufacturing industry which provides economic strength to the nation.

MIDDLE

No return ticket available from here
V.N. Kakar

I recently ran into a small, exhilarating display of posters done by little kids along the outer wall of their school in the Alaknanda area of New Delhi. “ We would like to share with you,” proclaimed the display in bold letters, “what we have learnt in our school.”

One of the posters which drew my attention in particular carried the sketch of an aeroplane belonging to Air Nicotine. The caption atop it said: “Fly Now and Pay Later.” I jotted down the message that followed. It said: “We can fly you to many destinations. These include lung cancer, paralytic attack, mouth cancer, food pipe cancer, bladder cancer, still birth, impotence, bronchitis, emphysema. Most of them lead to the Great Getaway — a heart stopping experience that snatches your breath away. Four million of our best customers will reach there.......

“Free gifts for all customers. On boarding, every customer will get bad breath, stained teeth, smelly clothes, cough..... Special youth offer. We catch you young. If you start as a teenager, you will be our privileged customer and the chances of your early trip to the Great Getaway are very high.....

Frequent flyers awards — the more you use Air Nicotine, the sooner you will reach the destination through special bookings and superfast carriers. Free tickets for your family.....”

Down below, on the left side of the poster several carriers for surface transport were mentioned. These included cigarettes, bidi, cigar, pipe, hookah, chillum, gutka, snuff and zarda.

Apparently, some teacher had guided the students in doing that display. The print line mentioned the name of a professor from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. As I jotted down the contents of the poster, my mind went back to early nineties when I had my first massive heart attack. “Do you smoke,” the good Dr Lochan in the Batra Hospital, where I was taken, had asked me while examining my X-ray. “I used to smoke pipe,” I replied guiltily. “but I gave it up years ago.” That was too late. He did not say that. But it was apparent to me.

Six years later, when I had to go through heart bypass surgery in the same hospital, Dr Upinder Kaul, head of the cardiology department there, put to me the same question. And I gave him the same answer.

I am fairly all right now, though I have to take all the precautions and drugs regularly. We can’t change our yesterdays into todays but as I scribble these lines, after seeing that display by the kids, I am reminded of a long short story by the great Russian Nobel laureate, for literature Alexander Solzhenistyn. In that story, the hero is exiled to a remote inhospitable place in the erstwhile USSR for raising his voice against Stalin and all that he stood for. One of the things that he sees on the platform of the railway station of the city to which he is exiled is a billboard which proclaims loudly. No Return Tickets Available From Here.

IN THE NEWS

New MD to give a boost to Haryana tourism

Haryana Tourism’s second woman Managing Director Navraj Sandhu has novel and far-sighted ideas to boost the earnings of the State. The first woman MD of Haryana Tourism was Keshni Anand Arora. Apart from promoting highway tourism and tapping the enormous potential of the ongoing Surajkund Crafts Mela, Ms Sandhu is determined to promote destination tourism in a thematic way by promoting Kurukshetra for religious tourism and Morni Hills for adventure tourism.

Daughter of Panchkula-based radio journalist Rajinder Singh Shah, Ms Sandhu finished school in Delhi and graduated from Government College for Girls, Sector 11, Chandigarh. She did her postgraduation in Political Science from Punjab University, Chandigarh. She did her MBA from the University of Queensland. Her husband, Mandeep Singh Sandhu, is also an IAS officer (Punjab cadre). He is currently Secretary, Punjab Agriculture Marketing Board.

Shiv Sena’s heir apparent

As is now legion of continuing with dynasty rule in politics, Shiv Sena’s Balasaheb Thackeray too has left out outsiders from occupying the hot seat. Keen on being a chip of the old block, the suave and bespectacled Uddhav as the heir apparent has assumed charge as Executive President of the Shiv Sena.

Raising the issue of Amchi Mumbai, impartial observers maintain Uddhav is trying to establish a legacy by asking the Maharashtra government to stop the daily influx of people into Mumbai thereby raising a fresh scare among the so-called outsiders comprising South Indians, Gujaratis and Muslims. The ascension has removed all doubts that he is the ageing 76-year-old Balasaheb’s successor. Having his father’s unstinted support, Uddhav is credited with fashioning the 1994 campaign that saw the saffron brigade occupy the seat of power in the Mantralaya in Mumbai ending four decades of Congress rule in Maharashtra. He has tried to bring about inner party democracy by eliciting opinion from others unlike his father who hands down dictats to be explicitly followed down the line.

Seen as the future Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav, 43, is a graduate of the J J School of Arts and dabbles in wildlife photography. He avidly watches documentaries on wildlife and has a huge collection of CDs on the subject. He is married to Rashmi and the couple have two sons. Though the line of succession has now been clearly drawn, it remains to be seen if Uddhav succeeds in providing a corporate look and vision in running the Shiv Sena as an enterprise. His friends emphasise that the jeans clad Uddhav is ruthless when it comes to the party’s interests.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Women judges grace war crimes court

Justice came of age in spectacular fashion in New York last week when women bagged six of the top seven judicial seats on the new International Criminal Court.

Intensive lobbying by a women’s rights group saw female candidates dominate early rounds of voting for judges on what will be the world’s first permanent war crimes court.

‘It’s completely historic,’ said Vahida Nainar, of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice. ‘It’s the first time for international courts. In 85 years the International Court of Justice has had just one woman judge. The Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has had none in 26 years.’

The women elected were Elizabeth Odio Benito (Costa Rica), Maureen Harding Clark (Ireland), Fatoumata Diarra (Mali), Akua Kuenyehia (Ghana), Navanethem Pillay (South Africa) and Sylvia Steiner (Brazil). The election will deepen the rift between Europe, which backs the court, and the United States, which is its key opponent. The USA has already stepped up its diplomatic offensive to isolate nations that have signed on to the ICC.

The signs are, however, that the court is poised to grow. Originally conceived as a permanent successor to the present United Nations Hague Tribunal now trying Slobodan Milosevic, the ICC has branched out.

For the caucus, the presence of women judges raises hopes that the ICC can provide a deterrent for regimes around the world that persecute women. The court has powers, under crimes against humanity, to prosecute not just obvious gender crimes such as rape but also abuses such as honour killings, enslavement and the restricted movement imposed in Middle Eastern nations where women have no right to travel freely. The Observer

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The sins, earned during hundreds of crores of existence of that son who drinks the water of the lotus-like feet of his parents, perish.

***

That meanest man, who eats without honouring his parents, lives in the well of insects and hell till the end of Kalpa i.e. till the end of the world.

***

He who abandons his sick, old or distressed parents.... would straightway go to the hell named Raurava.

***

All his religious merit would be exhausted by not feeding his parents. A son who does not revere his parents, though resorting to sacred places and gods, does not obtain their fruit and remains like a insect on the earth.

—Padmapurana, chapter 50