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Family feud Fifth generation fighter |
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Selling credit cards
The Lalu phenomenon
Bringing up Father!
Andhra pushes IT growth Experts work out plan for bird flu Delhi Durbar
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Family feud THE Shiv Sena could not have suffered a worse setback than the resignation of Mr Raj Thackeray from all the posts in the organisation. This is primarily because he is the nephew of Mr Bal Thackeray. Though he still swears loyalty to Balasaheb and says he will remain in the party, his words cannot be taken at their face value. The reason why he chose to chalk out an independent course of action is not far to seek. He seems to have concluded that he has reached the end of the road in the Shiv Sena, particularly after the big leader anointed his son Uddhav Thackeray as his heir apparent and executive president of the party. He knows that under the banyan tree of Uddhav, he cannot grow beyond a height. The development indicates a sea-change in Maharashtra politics. The Shiv Sena was considered a fiefdom of Mr Bal Thackeray where his word was the law. Until a few years ago, it was impossible to believe that anybody could rebel against him and yet remain in politics, let alone thrive. Mr Chagan Bhujbal was the first to prove that for a Shiv Sainik with his own support base, there could be a life without the Shiv Sena. Those who thought his was a fluke phenomenon were in for a surprise when Mr Narayan Rane parted company with the Shiv Sena. Not only that, his spectacular victory in the recent by-election in Malvan showed that the Shiv Sena supremo no longer enjoyed the clout he once wielded. Mr Rane has already indicated that some more legislators and MPs of the Shiv Sena would gravitate towards the Congress. Why is Mr Bal Thackeray becoming a caricature of his former self? His political philosophy that Mumbai is for Mumbaikars and Maharashtra is for Maharashtrians has lost much of its appeal when Mumbaikars and Maharashtrians look for and obtain jobs outside of the state. Over the years, his image has suffered a dent. In public perception, he is no longer the grand patriarch of the party who rises above all parochial and filial considerations. By favouring his son in his feud with his cousin, he has been reduced to yet another politician for whom blood relations are more important than larger party interests. Little surprise, more and more Shiv Sainiks are finding career opportunities outside of the Shiv Sena. |
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Fifth generation fighter Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s invitation to the Russian Mig Corporation to make a presentation to the IAF on its concept for the so-called “fifth generation fighter” follows similar presentations made in New Delhi by the Sukhoi Design Bureau, on jointly developing a fifth generation fighter with India. It is almost four years since Russia granted the Sukhoi Design Bureau the tender to develop a plane with supersonic cruise and high stealth and manoeuvrability, to rival the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the F-22 Raptor. But clearly, the amount of money involved and India’s own vision of what the IAF might require have so far prevented the project from moving forward. While Russia has decided to allocate $ 1.5 billion, that sum is grossly inadequate. The avionics package and an advanced version of the AL-31 FP engine powering the Sukhoi – 30 MKI (now with the IAF) might each cost that amount. Total estimates have even gone up to a mind-blowing 20 billion dollars. Russia is clearly looking for financial participation, and Indian involvement would be predicated on the kind of aircraft that we ourselves might need in 15 years. The projected time frame from concept to prototype of nine years is also over-ambitious. Though Mig’s concept is for a lighter aircraft presumably more suited to India’s needs, financial requirements will still be large. The JSF, the F-22 and the Raphael have all had time and cost overruns, a fact repeatedly pointed out by the beleaguered engineers of the LCA. And then there is the questions of the future role of a manned fighter plane – technologies to create unmanned combat vehicles are proceeding apace. With the development of precision targeting and weapon delivery from stand-off range, traditional concepts of fighter based ground attack and air defence might itself be in for a change. But whatever the fate of Russia’s 5th generation aircraft and India’s participation in it, one thing is clear: India will have to push its LCA programme, ensuring that its gap in aeronautics does not, at the least, widen. |
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Selling credit cards THE RBI has finally stepped in to regulate the credit card business recklessly pursued by competition-driven banks. Customers, and even non-customers are harassed no end by banks and non-banking finance companies through unsolicited offers of credit cards and personal loans. Calls are made or messages sent on mobile phones repeatedly and even at odd hours disregarding the customer’s privacy. The RBI has introduced penalties for banks offering unsolicited credit cards and loans. Its guidelines, to be implemented by November 30, will require the banks to quote annual interest rates, send bills on time and allow customers a fortnight’s time for making payments before charging interest. A customer can surrender the card without paying any extra charge. The new RBI norms are customer-friendly and welcome, particularly the setting up of grievance redressing mechanism. But there are certain glitches that need to be removed. Each bank, for instance, is required to maintain a “do-not-call registry”, a list of customers along with their mobile and landline telephone numbers who do not want unsolicited marketing calls. This work could have been trusted to the regulator, some nodal agency or one bank to avoid duplication and reduce the workload. This will bother customers too as they will have to get themselves registered with different service providers. Although the banks may not like such disciplinary measures initially, it is in their interest to have clear-cut rules for playing the game fairly. The pressure to perform and competition quite often drive organisations to cross the limits. It is feared that the new guidelines would raise the costs for banks and slowdown the credit card business, now growing at 30 per cent year on year. There are about 3.5 crore credit card users in India. Such fears are also not valid as transparency and a rule-based business will attract many more customers. |
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Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained. — Duke of Wellington |
The Lalu phenomenon
IT is easy to rubbish Lalu Prasad Yadav, now that he is down in the dumps. For 15 years, he has been a subject of ridicule for cartoonists, middle writers and humourists. In journalism, the maxim has been, “if you are short of subjects, write on Lalu”. Is he a spent force and his Rashtriya Janata Dal a non-entity? A cursory look at the results suggests that if Ramvilas Paswan were on his side, by now it would have been their nominee in the saddle in Patna. Even without Paswan’s patronage, the RJD won nearly as many seats as the BJP. This means it is too early to write off the Lalu phenomenon. Call Lalu by any names – a fodder eater or a village joker or a rank casteist — his arrival as a leader in his own right in 1990 signified a cataclysmic change in the way politics was conducted in the state. Until then, decisions on Bihar were invariably taken in the Prime Minister’s “darbar” in Delhi. The chief ministers so chosen always belonged to the Bhumihar or Kayastha or Rajput or Brahmin castes. And to fortify the Congress’ secular credentials, there was that odd Abdul Ghafoor. Today, even a party like the BJP can’t afford to ignore the caste factor while appointing a deputy chief minister. The subaltern castes – the Yadavs, the Koeris and the Kurmis – were allowed to sulk on the sidelines even when they produced leaders of the eminence of the late Ramlakhan Singh Yadav and Dharambir Sinha. Small wonder that when the late Chandra Shekhar Singh and Bhagwat Jha Azad were chosen for the post of Chief Minister, few journalists in Patna had any clue who they were. Many party workers went to the airport, not so much to receive them as to see how they looked like. And what did they do to Bihar? Jagannath Mishra was in power when I made my first visit to Jehanabad, where the Maoists raided the high-security district jail this month. What struck me most was the disappearance of all the electric wires from the poles. “Thieves took them away” was the simple explanation I got. In any case, power never flowed through those wires. Central Bihar has been aflame for far too long. Bihar was the first state to think of land reforms but it was never translated into action. Many cunning landlords transferred major chunks of their land to the names of their sidekicks and even pet animals. When the Muslim landlords of the area migrated to Pakistan, the land vacated by them should have ideally gone to the landless but the wielders of power misappropriated it. Whenever the landless resisted the domination of the landed gentry, the latter colluded with the police to unleash violence of the kind Arwal witnessed in the late seventies. Massacres became dime a dozen in the region. The Kurmis, to which caste Nitish Kumar belongs, were the first to form the Bhoomi Sena to fight the landless peasants, who came up with their own Lal Senas. Incidentally, all this preceded Lalu’s arrival. He did precious little to arrest the trend even as the senas sprouted. Now, every caste has a sena of its own, named after a caste hero like Ranbir Singh. Jehanabad remains as backward as it was in the seventies. It was to fight militancy, rather than to spur development, that Jehanabad was upgraded to a district in the same way the nearby Masaurhi was made a subdivision earlier. Similarly, roads were built in the area not to facilitate transport of goods but for the smooth movement of the police forces. Yet, the Maoists have been growing from strength to strength. By the way, who are the Maoists? Ask one of them, I can bet, he would not be able to tell who Mao was. They are the half-clad, semi-starving landless, belonging mostly to the Scheduled Castes. But ask them about oppression and whether they get the statutory minimum wages, suddenly they would become garrulous. Far from addressing their problems, the state has been thinking of the Punjab model to control them. It is fashionable to quote the British administrative expert Appleby, who had once described Bihar as the “best administered state”. But then he “appreciated the working of an administrative system which was designed to control society — a system which had been put in place by the British”. This system can no longer work in Bihar where people have become conscious of their rights and are ready to fight for them. Lalu’s regime facilitated this process so much so that some of the underprivileged even made bold to vote against him. There is no need to panic. The civil war in the US claimed more lives than any war between two countries. It only strengthened the foundations of democracy in the US. Walter Hauser, who did pioneering studies on Bihar, does not see anything amiss in the present spate of violence, which he believes will make Bihar a stronger and freer state in future. Unlike his predecessors, Lalu was not dependent on the Centre; for a long time, the Centre had been dependent on him. Yet, he could do precious little to give a new direction to the state. In his first term, he came up with the brilliant idea of setting up charwaha schools but he could not sustain it. He was the Chief Minister when the fodder scam, which began much before him, was detected. Ordinarily, he should have got credit for detecting it. But an unfriendly regime at the Centre sought to nail him on this. It even went to the extent of giving extension after extension to U.N. Biswas, the CBI officer who investigated the case. A decade after the investigation, nothing has been proved against Lalu while Biswas had to defend himself against the charge that his house in Kolkata was a beehive of drug peddlers. But this could not have but disoriented Lalu. His asset, which is “disproportionate to his income”, is the kind of money a minister routinely spends on a pre-marriage party in Punjab. Much before he came on the scene, leaders in Bihar had mortgaged Gandhi Maidan in the heart of Patna and the Patna railway station to a cooperative bank to take a huge loan. Yet, in popular parlance, Lalu is the epitome of corruption. Lalu’s greatest moment was when he stopped L.K. Advani’s rathyatra, which had left a trail of blood in its wake. It is this legacy that forced Nitish Kumar to put his foot down on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s earnest desire to attend his swearing-in ceremony in Patna last week. He gave the Muslims a sense of protection. But he could not do much to empower them while the Yadavs moved into the constabulary and the bureaucracy and virtually captured the transport sector. Lalu realised the importance of Information Technology only when his daughter Misa got married to an IT expert. But he failed to tap the huge potential for IT, given the large number of trained manpower the state has. Bihar also produces the largest number of Central services officers, which goes to prove that given the desired direction, it can achieve great success. Bihar has a rich potential. The farmers may be poor but they do not commit suicides. Nor do they wilt under floods and droughts, which come by rotation. They are a hardy people, yet to be subsumed by sub-nationalism as in many other states. Which other state will allow an outsider like George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav to win from the state in successive elections? It is pointless to blame Lalu for all the ills of Bihar. Now Mr Nitish Kumar has an opportunity to prove that he can transform Bihar into a modern state by tapping its huge potential. If he fails, people will conclude that tweedledum has merely replaced
tweedledee.
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Bringing up Father!
LIFE is full of surprises, especially if you are a daddy. The other evening at dinner, my 4 year old son startled me by calmly making the following announcement: “Daddy, when I grow up I am going to be a paleontologist.” I started to say something but then I came to an embarrassing realisation. I hadn’t the slightest idea what a paleontologist was. Now four years of daddying and bringing up two 21st century children, I have learnt the Golden Principle: “Never let your little fellows know that they are smarter than Daddy.” So I remained calm and I requested a brief private consultation with the boy’s mother. I asked her, “Would you please tell this aging cop what his son is talking about”. Adjusting her pearls, my wife responded in her best condescending voice, “Oh, you know, a paleontologist is one who studies fossils and dinosaurs.” Oh. Well of course. I returned to the dining table and resumed our sparkling dinnertime conversation. “So, son, you like dinosaurs?” “Yes,” said the little fellow. “Well, that is great son. You know I like dinosaurs too,” I said. “Really, Daddy? Well, what is your favourite kind of dinosaur?” The kid was calling his Dad’s bluff. I started to say, “Well I always liked the little one on the Flintstones.” But somehow deep inside me I knew this would not satisfy the world’s youngest paleontologist. So like a bad professor, I resorted to the Socratic method, answering question with a question: “Well son, why don’t you tell me your favourite dinosaur?” “Diplodocus,” my son replied without hesitation. Diplodocus? Wasn’t he the Mayor of Athens who gave a rather long and boring speech during the opening ceremony of the Olympics Games? I struggled through the rest of the dinner like a politician facing a volley of questions during a live TV show. I tried to deflect issues like the stegosaurus, the pterodactyl and the T-Rex. To me it all sounded like the lineup of the Greek national football team. No doubt a wave of dinosaur mania has hit our household. It all started last month when we took our children to the London Museum of Natural History. And soon after that we bought a DVD called Dinosaur. My kids watch the movie very religiously everyday. Since all this their appetite for paleontology has been insatiable. They want plastic dinosaurs, dinosaur videos, dinosaur books and even a dinosaur wardrobe. I am not sure I understand this obsession with a bunch of big lizards that died over 100 million years ago. But I guess I really ought to be proud. Six months ago I couldn’t spell “paleontologist” and now my son is
one!! |
Andhra pushes IT growth MR Chandrababu Naidu might have been the face of IT in Andhra Pradesh, but the ‘farmer-friendly’ government of the Congress is not lagging behind in promoting the knowledge industry in the state. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhra Reddy, while yearning to be recognised as a grassroots man, has been steering the pace of development of the sector in a way that was not entirely expected, given his antipathy to Mr Naidu’s IT-savvy image. The state under the new regime achieved exports of Rs 8,720 crore in 2004-05 with a 64.5 per cent growth rate, the highest in the country, when the national average growth rate was 35 per cent. That’s not all. Information Technology exports from Andhra Pradesh have grown by 40-50 per cent and crossed Rs 4,000 crore in the first half of the current financial year. According to Mr B.V, Naidu, Director of Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore and Hyderabad, during the April-September period, Andhra Pradesh has also attracted 58 new companies. A total of 152 new software-exporting companies started operations in the state in the last fiscal. The IT sector tops in the overall exports from the state with a 45 per cent share of the total figure of Rs 19,552 crore. Andhra Pradesh has targeted Rs 69,000 crore in IT exports by 2009, and has announced aggressive plans for training manpower to achieve it. A major initiative in this direction is the development of a knowledge corridor in a 20,000 acre area around the proposed outer ring road. The eight-lane road, to be developed by the Department of Economic Development, Government of Dubai, will provide the necessary infrastructure for workers in IT, life sciences and financial services. The government is developing software product-specific special economic zones (SEZs) at Popalguda and Shamshabad on the outskirts in an area of 1,400 acres in the first phase, while another 2,500 acres is being earmarked for software as well as hardware industry at Shamshabad in the second phase,” says the State Secretary, Information Technology and Communication, Ms K Ratna Prabha. While Mr Naidu became known for his thrust to software industry, Mr Reddy wants to carve out a name for himself in the hardware area. The Chief Minister has declared hardware industry his priority and announced that Multiple Hardware Manufacturing Cluster Parks (HMCP) will be developed in the state. Already a Nano Technology Park is coming up near the Hardware Park in Hyderabad in an area of 50 acres with proposed investment of $ 1.6 billion and a production capacity of 30,000 wafers per month. While global IT giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, Computer Associates, GE Capital, HSBC, Nokia, Google, Deloitte, Vanenburg, Intergraph, Infosys, Wipro, ADP, Satyam and Accenture have a presence in Hyderabad, many others such as Sanota, Intelli Asia, Celestica, Patni Computers, DQ Entertainment, Boston Consulting Group, Verizon and Qualcomm are waiting for allotment of lands, according to ICT department officials. Mr Reddy has also focussed on developing Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Tirupati and Kakinada as tier-II locations in the state for setting up information and communication technology (ICT) companies. State IT department officials have already signed MoUs with 14 ICT companies for starting their operations in Visakhapatnam. The IT/ITeS exports from Vizag are expected to reach Rs 1,000 crore by 2009. During 2004-05, Visakhapatnam ranked 7th in tier-II locations in the country with 37 companies recording exports worth Rs 70 crore. Ms Ratna Prabha said IT majors like Satyam, Wipro and TCS have identified Visakhapatnam as their tier-II location in the state, while Sharp is setting up a facility at Tirupati by December. Buoyed by the strides the IT sector in the state has made recent times, the Reddy government has come out with a new series of policy initiatives to drive the growth of both software and hardware sectors. Under the ICT policy (2005-2010) enunciated by the government in March this year, a host of incentives have been provided to the IT sector. These include: exemption from statutory power cuts; exemption from inspections under various labour laws; 100 per cent reimbursement of stamp duty, transfer duty and registration fee; incentives of Rs 2,000 per candidate for training centres, which provide placement; assistance to start-up companies; entrepreneur development programmes; venture funding for entrepreneurs; and reimbursement of 20 per cent of expenditure incurred for obtaining quality certifications for CMM level 2 upwards. Taking advantage of the infrastructure woes in Bangalore, Andhra has turned proactive in luring Wipro Infosys. The state government recently cancelled the proposed IT Park at Vattinagulapally, near Hyderabad, in favour of Wipro for its new campus at the same location. The total areas for this park is around 150 acres. Another seven acres were allotted in Visakhapatnam to the IT major, which already has a significant presence in the state. IT mandarins in Hyderabad are also working overtime to allot a 100-acre land in the city for Infosys’s second facility. Company mentor Narayana Murthy had met Chief Minister Reddy in August last and sought more land for the proposed second facility. The AP government also wants Mr Narayana Murthy to be the anchor client or the co-developer of the proposed software SEZ. However, Hyderabad has to go a long way before it can give India’ Silicon Valley a run for its money. The late starter that the City of Charminar is, its software exports are only one-third (Rs 8,270) of the Garden City’s Rs 27,600 crore. No wonder, AP officials do not want to talk about competing with Bangalore. “We are not competing with anybody. We are only promoting Andhra Pradesh,” Ms Prabha, the IT Secretary said. |
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Experts work out plan for bird flu
Hong Kong : More than 600 health experts and economists from hundred different countries struggled for three days in negotiations at the World Health Organisation’s main office at Geneva in the last week of October to put up in place a three-year plan to meet exigencies of the awaited disaster of the bird flu. The fight with the catastrophe will be under the aegis of the United Nations with its multi-level and multi-sectoral agencies coordinating with several nations to control and contain bird flu as and when it breaks out. This sounds good in theory. However, the reality is that no one knows how this deadly quirk of nature would strike and how it would spread before it was contained. Estimates vary from five million to 150 million. In the last three months only 263 cases of human infection have been detected in several Asian countries with reported deaths of 67. Highly pathogenic and deadly for domestic birds, chicken and other wild birds, the virus, known now as H5N1, can change in one genetic drift into a form that could be transmissible from human to human, sparking the inevitable flu pandemic. It could be deadly. It can be seen from the fact that nearly half of the infected humans have perished due to the flu. H5 carrying migratory birds fly off to warmer climes in southern parts. Reports of bird flu have come from South East Asia as well as from Europe and Canada also leading several countries to ban the import of poultry products from countries where the outbreak of bird flu among the poultry farms has been reported and confirmed by WHO experts who were rushed to the spots for investigation. During the past few weeks, international concern over an “inevitable” flu pandemic reached fever pitch with US President Bush committing his nation to a fund of $ 7 billion to fight the awaited scourge. China spared two billion yuan for the fight against the disease. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged all nations to be prepared for the possible pandemic. Bird flu fears also dominated the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum meeting held at the port city of Pusan in South Korea in the second week of November. The member countries committed themselves to openness and information sharing with the US and China taking the lead. The hope is that the first signs of a pandemic can be detected and a rapid response from all levels can contain it though no one is sure as to how much time it would require to contain the spread. But the authorities in the special administrative region believe that they are well prepared with stockpiles of anti-viral drugs, including much used Tamiflu. They also intend to introduce at the airport and also the border posts for the temperature screening. Japan has already introduced these check-points and visitors to Japan coming from countries that have had outbreaks have to go through viral detection. There are several schemes for educating people on hygiene and good immunity. People are being asked to stockpile at least a month’s supply of surgical masks, anti-fever medicines and thermometers at home as a precautionary measure. |
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Delhi Durbar AS the BJP grabbed the Volcker report and launched a scathing attack on the Congress and Natwar Singh for allegedly receiving tainted money from the oil-for-food scam in Iraq, innovative and inquisitive members of Parliament have come up with a unique Marathi connection to Paul Volcker. They forcefully argued that had it not been an Indian connection to the UN investigator, such a hue and cry would not have been made. To buttress their point, they said like Solkar, Tendulkar and Agarkar, Volcker is also a surname of Maharashtrians. So goes the joke in Parliament’s corridors.
Stormy start for Priya Dutt Moments after Priya Dutt, daughter of the late cine star Sunil Dutt, took the oath as Lok Sabha MP, the NDA-led Opposition stalled the proceedings by raising slogans and demanding the resignation of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Natwar Singh. Ms Dutt, who has been allotted the seats in the baba log brigade row, inquisitely asked her party colleague and fellow Mumbaikar, Milind Deora, whether she had done something wrong that there is so much of noise. When she was told about the stormy proceeding and how much the Opposition was agitated with the Volcker report, she had a hearty laugh.
Dasmunshi’s gesture Before assuming charge as Information and Broadcasting Minister recently, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi made a gracious gesture by requesting his predecessor Jaipal Reddy to attend the inaugural function of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. Leaving no room for speculation about the outgoing minister’s presence on the opening day of the festival, Munshi called on Reddy and requested him to attend the valedictory session of the Children’s Film Festival in Hyderabad and the inaugural session of the IFFI. Munshi said that he extended the courtesy to his predecessor, who he considers as his brother. “Mr Reddy had proposed my name for the Indian Youth Congress President’s post in 1971. I remember it till this day,” Munshi explained.
Paswan happy with outcome Despite the losses his party suffered in the Bihar elections, Lok Janshakti Party chief and Union Minister Ramvilas Paswan showed no signs of angst at the results. He was “satisfied” at the outcome, which had resulted in the defeat of the Rashtriya Janata Dal led by his bete noire Lalu Prasad Yadav. Paswan was not apologetic on questions about his party splitting the “secular vote” and possible demands for his ouster from the Cabinet. He said the RJD contested the Assembly poll separately in Jharkhand but no demand was made for the resignation of the RJD ministers from the Cabinet. Contributed by R Suryamurthy, Tripti Nath and Prashant Sood. |
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From the pages of Fight for right IT is true a vast army of British Indians is fighting the cause of the King and country. Thousands of Indians have gladly shed, and are still shedding, their blood in the struggle for right. But the sight that meets the eye on British Indian soil is different from that of French India. There are yet no signs here of equal opportunities of distinction and treatment to Indians such as French Indians have been granted. What is depressing is the denial of the elementary right of joining volunteer crops and defending one’s own hearth and home in times of peril. Thoughts of differentiation like these are calculated to chill the heart and bring enthusiasm to freezing point. But in the midst of depression and discouragement British Indians have nobly acquitted themselves in their own restricted spheres of activity. Their faith in the righteousness of the struggle is as strong as ever it was, and their feeling of identity of interests with the British is as intense as ever it was. Far-sighted statesmanship ought to turn this faith and this feeling into fruitful channels and broadbase India’s connection with England on a practical annihilation of racial inequalities. |
We create our own experiences. It is really an exercising of our soul’s powers of creation. Karma, then, is our best spiritual teacher. We spiritually learn and grow as our actions return to us to be resolved and dissolved. —Sanatana Dharma In the developed countries, there is a poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love. There is no greater sickness in the world today than that one. —Mother Teresa Those of you who wipe away the memories of acts in which you were abused, shamed, defeated or destroyed, are the ones who will win their way to happiness. This is as sure as the rising sun at the break of day. —The Buddha The person who has realised the Supreme Truth becomes one with God. He becomes one with that power which is beyond both the expressible and the inexpressible. He becomes one with the eternal. —Bhagvad Gita A day will come when you will be separated from everything irrespective of whether you are an emperor, king, landlord or pauper. Why haven’t you still awoken? —Kabir |
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