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Sunday,
September 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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The WTO meet at Cancun On Record |
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Jalan’s nomination will
make RS richer
Comments Unkempt
The need for adjustment in marriage
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The WTO meet at Cancun Though WTO is divided in several sub blocs, at Cancun two major blocs — one led by India and China and the other by the European Union and the USA — will be involved in the prolonged tug of war on some contentious matters such as Singapore and the framing of modalities for tariff reduction. Obviously, there are serious differences among developed and developing countries over the issue of tariff reduction. While the US -EU bloc is for common tariff reduction formula for all the developed and developing countries, the China-India bloc supported by Brazil and Pakistan and 16 other countries such as Cuba is for a different tariff reduction formula for developing countries. In other words, India and China bloc is for a special and differential treatment for developing countries. US Deputy Trade Representative Peter Allgier says that there could not be a two-tier system of tariffs in WTO. “We are for common set of rules for developed and developing countries”, he asserts. However, countries like US, just to win the support of the least developed countries (LDCs), are ready to give duty free access in various sectors of their markets. Countries like India are facing danger from LDCs such as Bangladesh, especially in the export of textile garments. In the industrial sector, the US has proposed to bring down the tariff level by all countries to 8 per cent by 2010 and complete elimination of these by 2015. But countries like India, where the small-scale industrial sector is crucial, cannot afford to do it. India is progressively lowering the tariffs by 5 per cent every year in the industrial sector. It would offer to reduce the tariffs on textiles to 5 per cent in lieu of duty free access to its textile merchandise in the markets of the developed countries. Unfortunately, the WTO has failed to turn the world into a global village. At present, it has to deal with three categories of countries — developed, developing, and least developed. Several regional and intercontinental trade groups function against the WTO spirit. Having signed preferential trade agreements ( PTAs) among member countries, they try to prevent the entry of goods from non-member countries. For instance, the US, Canada and Mexico have signed a North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The US is even trying to set up more and more free trade areas, posing a big threat to countries like India. The US and the EU are for greater access to the developed countries in agriculture markets of developing countries. They have been seeking the lowering of tariffs on the import of the agriculture products by the developing nations. They will go whole hog to press developing countries to remove protections from their agricultural markets. However, developing countries feel that developed countries have made them lower various tariffs in the past years but not reciprocated in an adequate manner to give concessions to them (developing countries). Consequently, the India-China bloc is preparing to mount a forceful attack on the developed countries to reduce or cap the various green box agricultural subsidies. As for agriculture, the US and other developed countries are highly protectionist. Even the World Bank supports this view. These give several kinds of production, export and other hidden subsidies to their farmers the number of which is very small compared to India,China and even Pakistan. Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley, who also holds the additional charge of Commerce and leader of the Indian delegation to Cancun, feels that it would be wrong to make Indian farmers compete at this stage with the highly subsidised farmers of EU and US. He has been pressing for more safeguards and checks to protect Indian farmers from the onslaught of highly subsidised agriculture produce of their counterparts in the EU and the US. Imports of foodgrains at a cheaper price from the developed countries will endanger agriculture and allied sectors in the country. The EU is imposing non-tariff barriers. Mr Amnish Banerjee, President of the Indian Dairy Association, says that there is no procedure to register milch cattle, to prepare the pedigree chart and health statistics in countries like India. The Cancun conference should address the issue of non-tariff barriers, he adds. Three years ago, when India had lowered the tariffs in dairy products, milk products from the EU flooded the market destablising the dairy sector here. The Union Government was persuaded by the Indian Dairy Association to enhance the import duty to protect the dairy sector. India wants to keep the issue of investment out of the WTO’s purview on the ground that investment is not related to trade. The EU, Japan etc wanted unfettered liberty to make investment in India and China, which allow investment only in the areas of their choice. India fears that if developed countries are allowed unchecked investment, they would opt for highly profit making sectors to make a fast buck. Moreover, unregulated investment would be dangerous in the long run. It is for this reason that political parties have opposed casinos. Other issues are competition, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement. India should bring the issue of the mobility of labour at the meeting. Developed countries have always shown interest in pushing forcefully the capital related issues. By getting the tariff barriers removed, they wanted to ensure greater mobility of capital to their countries by way of exports. —
The writer is a staffer in The Tribune
In its latest report, the World Bank has urged developed countries to slash the direct and indirect subsidies to agriculturists in their respective countries so that poor countries could have desired benefits from WTO. The European developed countries give $300 billion as subsidy to the agriculture sector of which $250 billion is given to producers. These countries give $6.4 billion only to sugar producers. The US gives $3.9 billion to cotton growers. Japan's rice production section is highly subsidised. In such circumstances, how do farmers from India, Pakistan etc compete with Europe and the US? Migrant labourers repatriate about $71 billion to their native countries from developed countries. If 3 per cent mobility of the labour is allowed, there could be an addition of $160 billion in this money, that could improve the lives of those in developing countries. |
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On Record
LABOUR unions across the board have been stung by the Supreme Court ruling that going on strike is not a fundamental right. General Secretary of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) M K Pandhe told The Tribune that the Supreme Court has gone beyond its powers. Excerpts: Q: What is your opinion on the Supreme Court judgement on the right to strike by government employees? A: The Supreme Court has gone beyond its powers. Attorney-General Soli Sorabji has effectively dealt with this aspect. Right to strike is not a right subject for judicial interpretation. The International Labour Organisation has already accepted this right as a part of the right of collective bargaining. This aspect is covered in the Declaration of ILO on Fundamental Principles of Rights at Work. Q: What is the strategy of trade unions in protecting the interest of workers and the larger implication of the Supreme Court judgement? A: Two years ago the Supreme Court gave a judgement upholding the ban on bandhs. After that more than 20 bandhs have taken place in different parts of the country without any action from the Centre or the states. In a similar manner, the judgement of the Supreme Court will not prevent strikes from occurring in the country. The Central and the state government employees are planning one-day strike all over India in protest against the retrograde judgement. The trade unions will raise the issue in the forthcoming session of the Indian Labour Conference and demand steps from the Central government to negate the impact of the Supreme Court judgement. There will be a powerful countrywide movement to register protest by the Indian working class. The CITU has already filed a complaint with the ILO against the repression let loose by the Tamil Nadu government against the state government employees. Q: Is strike the only means left with the workers to protest against the actions of the management? A: No trade union thinks that strike is the only means to protest against the action of the management. Only if all the measures fail to give any satisfactory results they go on strike as a last resort. Q: What are the adverse impact of the Centre’s decision on the employee’s pension scheme? A: The Union Government’s announcement of unilateral changes in the pension scheme of government employees will make the pension scheme contributory in nature for the new entrants in government service. These employees will have to pay 10 per cent of their basic wages and DA towards this fund while the existing employees do not pay any contribution. This practically amounts to a wage cut for the new entrants. Secondly, the quantum of pension will be drastically reduced. The new entrants will be at the mercy of the pension regulatory authority which will fix the quantum of benefits available to the employees. There is no justification for giving any retrospective effect to the scheme by the government. Q: Are workers’ interests being protected in firms where the government has divested its stake like Modern Foods, Maruti, Punjab Tractors Limited? A: The Centre’s disinvestment policy will help the private sector at the cost of public funds. There is no justification for selling PSUs which are making profits and contributing to the public exchequer. Last year BHEL paid seven times tax compared to Maruti company. The sale proceeds of disinvestment are utilised to meet the budget deficits of the government. The workers of Balco and Modern Food have complained about deterioration in working conditions and non-implementation of the commitment given to the union. Modern Food has closed down some of their units while Balco has embarked on the policy of retrenchment. These private companies have given a go-by to the national objective of economic growth with social justice. Q: What are the implications of the hire and fire policy demanded by the management at Singapore’s WTO meeting? A: The
economic policies of liberalisation have immensely damaged the
interests of the working class. The ILO has noted that in the era of
cut-throat competition the working conditions are made worse in the
name of cutting down the cost of production to be competitive in the
market. Industrial sickness has increased substantially due to the
policies of globalisation. Downsizing manpower has become the order of
the day leading to large-scale unemployment all over India. |
Jalan’s nomination will
make RS richer Those who have seen him in action in the Planning Commission recall a silver-gray hair figure with thick spectacles, casually dressed, grappling with planning the country’s economic future. So much so that he had come to be known as Czar of the Planning Commission. He looked very much a university don, an absent-minded professor and nobody could imagine that he was a bureaucrat having held such high ranking posts as Banking Secretary and Secretary, Economic Affairs. Dr Jalan has never been making of a bureaucrat and this explains his rise from the ranks of officialdom to world’s one of the noted economists. His ascent has been remarkable indeed. For five years, from 1974, he was Adviser, Industry Ministry and then, Director, Economic Affairs, at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London. On return, he was appointed Chief Economic Adviser, Finance Ministry by Indira Gandhi. His predecessors included Dr Manmohan Singh, Dr Ashok Mitra and I.G.Patel, all reputed economists. Restructuring of the Finance Ministry was a key element of future reforms and Rajiv Gandhi saw potential in this economist having appointed him the Banking Secretary and then Executive Director for India at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Come P.V. Narasimha Rao’s regime, reforms were ushered in and the economy thrown open. Dr Jalan became more indispensable than before and the then Prime Minister entrusted him with the task of laying the parameters of India’s new economy; Dr Jalan was made Chairman of the PM’s Economic Council. The new economic policies raised new questions; Was there a place for centralised planning, a legacy of Nehruvian socialism? Dr Jalan’s precept had been shifting from “detailed, centralised, physical and administrative controls by bureaucracy to financial, parametric and fiscal direction”. Though Dr Jalan has lived in Delhi and, later, in Mumbai as the Reserve Bank Governor, he is basically a “Kolkatawala”. When he began life in the then Calcutta six decades back, the metropolis was India’s powerhouse, British Raj’s second city. The Indian economists those days were mostly from Calcutta’s Presidency College, known as Mecca of the Bengali elite. The joke doing the rounds then, particularly in British academic circles, was that the Presidency College genius were only Mukherjees and Chatterjees but Jalan, a Marwari young man, broke that myth. Industrialist R.P. Goenka too was another exception. Jalan graduated with an economics degree shortly after Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and Sukhmoy Chakraborty. A rather long stint at Oxford and having obtained M.Phil, Dr.Jalan returned to India, taking up briefly teaching at Delhi School of Economics. He joined the Union Government in 1973 as an Adviser to the Ministry of Finance. Jalan’s father was an eminent lawyer and his grand father, I.D. Jalan, was the first Speaker of the West Bengal Assembly. He was also the Law Minister. Dr Jalan has written many books. Notable among them are, “India’s Economic Crisis: The Way Ahead” and “The Indian Economy: Problems and Prospects”. In the first book, penned in early nineties, he has convincingly argued: “ Though the post-independence consensus on centralised planning and direct state intervention in the economy was inevitable and even desirable during the fifties and sixties, the inadequacies of those perspectives can now be ignored only at our own peril”. A most fitting tribute has been paid to Dr Jalan, as he lays down the office of the RBI Governor by Mr M Narashiman, who himself once headed the RBI. In a farewell note to Dr Jalan, he has observed: “You have not merely been a successful Governor but, if I may say so, a great Governor the likes of whom we have not had over the last 50 years. I believe you will take your place in the pantheon, along with the likes of James Taylor and C.D. Deshmukh”. As Dr Jalan prepares to enter the red-carpeted Rajya Sabha, he has made it clear that he is not a party man and that his efforts would be to contribute to the debates “as much as I can”. |
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Comments Unkempt THERE
must be many like me who are as horrified by the car bomb at Najaf as by the explosions in Mumbai. In fact, the whole American expedition in Iraq, with the British following like a poodle, is a nasty aberration in our time. Those hi-tech bombs shattering an ancient city and civilisation well aware of civilian casualties, (collateral damage!) the blood and chaos in the hospitals, fleeing refugees. They remind our generation of the terrible crossings in Punjab after partition; the holocaust in Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Rumania, Albania and other Central European countries; the pitiful trail of refugees from France, Poland and elsewhere and of the genocide in Rwanda, and the refugee trail in Africa, of the Japanese Death Railway in Thailand. These are only some of the atrocities carried out openly in our time against which we seem to have shut our memories and hearts. In all of these conventional religion seems to have been important and impotent. America has millions of Catholics, Britain millions of Anglicans. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s condemnation of the Iraq War was like a tickle on the hide of rhinoceros. Israel is a country created out of religion but its use of weapons of mass destruction against the Palestinians is horrendous. Egypt, Jordan, Iran are great Muslim countries — but they throw nothing but “resolutions” at the “Coalition” as it rumbles another great Muslim country Iraq. I was going to add Pakistan to the list but that would simply be to turn a blind eye towards our great Hindu country, the birthplace not only of Rama but of Buddha as well. What interpretation would Vivekananda or Aurobindo or even that politician Gandhi have put on the Trishul Brigade, the assassins of the Staines in Orissa, The Gujarat Revenge Army (or whatever is its name)? In this critical moment of ours and the world's history the political brand of Hinduism has failed us. Whatever is being done to succour is, ironically, from the countries which produce the largest number of lethal armaments. The International Red Dharmachakra, let us call it, has not been set up in Gandhi's land, the Medicins Sans Frontiers has not given rise to a sister body in India and we are about to wine and dine the “Butcher of Shatila” Ariel Sharon. We have the world's largest number of peripatetic sadhus and fabulously rich mahants. What are they doing to hold back those who destroy mosques? The Ramakrishna Mission does excellent work, still following the direction of Vivekananda, but they refuse to accept more responsibilities. One very senior Rama Krishna Mission monk once told me, “We are a monastic order, we cannot go more and more into social service”. Also, their creed of sanyas forbids them from associating and collaborating with women, but women are the prime movers in social change. So it is really left to the peace army of the Women of India to stop carnage and injustice in the name of religion. They should combine into an army to stop the Indian and Pakistani armies standing at each other’s throats, they should confront those who indulge in female foeticide, Godhra, and its Hindu aftermath. They number half a billion in India, plus half the populations of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. If their menfolk are self-serving and cowardly opportunists let the women give the lead. No use waiting for a heaven-sent leader. Gandhi, Vivekananda, Martin Luther King and the Mothers of Argentina who have banded together to find their “disappeared” and murdered sons were and are all people of common clay. In the meantime India refuses to allow the Amnesty International into India (whose General Secretary is, for the first time, a Bangladeshi woman). And our President and Prime Minister refused to meet the woman whose contribution to the banning of land-mines got her the Nobel Prize. Their diaries were full said our bigwigs. *** Though it might mean little as a commemoration I would like to add another image on India's postage stamps. Recently I was asked to be interviewed on television about Professor Humayun Kabir and found, on returning to books I had not touched for years that I had almost forgotten him. In his time a scholar with spirit and a conscience could not cloister himself and so Kabir Sahab went into politics and trade unionism. But he would have been better probably as an educational and cultural administrator. With his brilliant mind and understanding of education he perhaps could have done something about our bedraggled and leaderless universities, mountainous illiteracy and greedy educational institutions. His long list of Indians and international honours are as nothing to him as the creation, for the Tagore Centenary Year 1961, of a multipurpose auditorium for each of India's states capitals to be called Rabindra Rangashala, Rabindra Sadan or whatever. The number of states has increased since his passing but the Rabindra Sadans remain the same in number. Is there one in Tripura, Goa? From Faridpur (now in Bangladesh), from a zamindari family he came to Calcutta and then Oxford and won every possible academic award. Maulana Azad drew him into politics as his Political Adviser in the days before Independence and wouldn't allow him to go back to Bengal. There he was a true Bengali without a shred of communalism in a province moulded equally by Hindus and Muslims. He fought for non-communal politics before he left Bengal and after, when he returned to Calcutta, but by then it was too late. The worms of “coalitions” and communalism had eaten too deep into the State’s fabric. Kabir Sahab had also become too tired to fight against Communism. So he died before his time, unhappy. He was before Mamata Banerjee’s screechings and Jyoti Basu’s road-swallowing convoys. Surely a postage stamp would not be too much to add to his long list of
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The need for adjustment in marriage I entered the venue late. The Habitat Centre venue for the Unnati Public Speaking contest on the topic that has baffled generations — “What do you think of marriage?”. But when I did reach, I was in for a major surprise for just about then the question was thrown open and teenagers from Delhi's top eight schools had their hands raised. Save for one child, as though saying save me from marriage, the rest were all for the institution called marriage. In fact, not holding myself back, as always, I asked Unnati’s Shree Venkatram what was her reaction to these teenager enthusiasm for marriage. She said that even the judges and she were surprised. “In their short speeches, these school kids have shown such maturity — they have no romantic notions about marriage, but each one of them spoke of the need for adjustment in a marriage, the understanding and commitment to the partner …stressed on the right to choose one’s life partner and a parents' unnecessary control over the choice of partner leading to misery…” Those of you young readers who’d like to express your views on this topic can still do so, for it is an ongoing event. Shree says, entries in any form of creative expression — paintings, essays, poems, songs are invited from 15 to 25-year-olds on the current competition — “What do you think of marriage?” The last date for receiving the entries is October 25,2003. The entries should be properly certified by the head of the educational institute or head of workplace if the participant is employed and marked "The Sixth All-India Unnati Competition" and sent to Post Box 3082, Lodhi Road Head Post Office, New Delhi-110003. The annual All-india Unnati competitions for senior school and college students are organised by Unnati Features and sponsored by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. So go on and express yourself. Just don't hold back your views. Faraz’s visit Ahmad Faraz, Pakistan's leading poet and writer, who is also heading the National Book Foundation, was here to attend the book fair. Last Saturday I heard and met him at the writers’ monthly meet at Ajeet Cour's Academy of Arts and Literature. The evening was complete as verses were rendered by V.P. Singh, Kunwar Narain and, of course, Ahmad Faraz. A rebel poet, Faraz's lines hit and then he leaves nothing unsaid. But whatever was left unsaid was made up the next afternoon — at the lunch hosted in his honour by the leading lawyer of the capital, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and his artist wife Anita. Week of protests Last weekend was completely overpowered by people’s power to protest. I attended two major protest meets. One was called by the artists and activists of Sahmat to focus on the blatant banning of veteran theatre personality Habib Tanveer’s play by the outfits of the Right Wing government. The other meet was called by
Action Aid India, to highlight that the charges slapped by the Gujarat government on Nafisa Ali are totally uncalled
for. |
He who indulges in greed, avarice and falsehood, reaps only what he sows. — Guru Nanak Moral results can only be produced by moral restraints. — Mahatma Gandhi Jesus says: “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice”. — The Bible Whatever they may be, tiger, lion, wolf, boar, worm, moth, gnat, mosquito, they become aware of particular life when they are born into it or awake. — The Upanishads You should not do injury to another on the ground that he has done injury to you... Resist not evil by causing evil in return. — Shri Ramakrishna |
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THE
Fifth Ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation scheduled to be held at Cancun in Mexico from September 10 to14, has generated considerable interest in India and other developing countries. As agricultural sector is expected to dominate the conference this time, states like Punjab have special interest in the agenda and proceedings of the conference.
Dr. Bimal Jalan has turned a legend in his lifetime, in planning India’s economic future for the 21st century. He is the architect of India’s Ninth Plan. Doubtless, Rajya Sabha will be richer by the debut of this economic genius. The framers of the Constitution had exactly persons of Dr. Jalan’s eminence in mind when they created the nominated category in the House. Regrettably, the provision was misused by politicians to serve their selfish ends. The honour bestowed on Dr Jalan in this context is a welcome step.