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The more the merrier Strength in unity |
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Ratan Tata is right
New Cold War?
Miserly ways
Document World Bank
President nominee a tough negotiator Delhi Durbar
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The more the merrier Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh’s proposal to set up one Central university in each state will enhance the access of students to higher education. Reviewing the status of higher education at a high-powered meeting, he lamented that 16 states did not have a Central university, 604 districts did not have a degree college, and nearly 350 districts had an enrollment ratio lower than the national average. He asked the Planning Commission and the University Grants Commission to jointly work out a strategy to rectify the imbalance. Undoubtedly, Central universities occupy a place of pride in higher education. Set up by an Act of Parliament, these are funded by both the Centre and the UGC. As they are generally not starved of funds unlike most state universities, they are able to provide quality teaching through better infrastructure. Setting up more Central universities in the states will also compel the existing local universities to improve their standards. Of late, however, all is not well with these universities because of the UGC’s policies. For instance, the Vice-Chancellors of 18 Central universities, at a conference in New Delhi, called for a substantial increase in the allocation for higher education. If a university manages to generate resources on its own, the UGC should not reduce its budgetary allocation, they said. Resource crunch has also hit advanced study and research in some universities. The current system of recruiting faculty is not helping tap the best talent across the country. In many cases, they have been unable to get competent scholars from abroad. In view of its plan to expand the network of Central universities, the Centre would do well to tackle these problems. The Prime Minister has also said that the Centre will help all states set up a degree college in every district. The enrollment ratios being very low for rural areas, more degree colleges would mean higher enrollment and greater access to education. More important, it will bridge the rural-urban divide and meet the new requirements of the economy. While the Centre’s initiative is welcome, it should give due thought to the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendation for providing needy rural students with a fee waiver and scholarships. |
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Strength in unity In
a strong push for a more integrated South Asia with healthy social, economic and political links, and where the ordinary human being is at the centre of all concerns, South Asian parliamentarians got together at Shimla on the weekend to give a resounding call for united action towards common goals. The stated goals, including that of setting up a “South Asian Parliament”, will certainly take time. But the very fact that parliamentarians from all the SAARC countries, cutting across party lines and representing one-fifth of humanity, came together on a single forum is enormously significant. It reflects both the potential and the desire among South Asian peoples for a more constructive relationship among the eight nations which now constitute SAARC. While the forum, meeting under the auspices of the South Asian Free Media Association, has been careful to stress that the SAP will not in any way compromise national identities or sovereignty, its mere articulation is a bold statement of confidence in the region’s ability to work together. The Shimla declaration that has emerged is a wide-ranging document that spans issues concerning economic cooperation, people-to-people contacts, political interaction, cooperative security, poverty, gender, the environment, energy and water sharing, human rights and terrorism. The declaration’s focus on the need to place people at the centre of all security concerns and on the need for viable poverty alleviation programmes is particularly noteworthy. It makes a strong plea for deliberate government policy actions in ensuring that the fruits of economic growth are more equitably shared by all people. Such a vision can definitely inform SAARC’s deliberations and contribute to the evolution of a viable mechanism for implementation and action. While SAARC has often been unable to translate words into action, any sustained articulation of common goals is a pre-requisite for a critical mass to be generated towards action. The very idea of a SAP with a deliberative role in policy-making in SAARC countries can create its own momentum. Along the way, many a significant step forward can be made in endidng mutual antagonisms. It is a process worth nurturing, and leaders of all the eight countries would do well to work towards it constantly and with hope. |
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Ratan Tata is right The
media and industry seem to have overreacted to the Prime Minister’s remarks on CEO salaries, which were more advisory in nature than indicative of any government regulation. The government has been taking pains to clarify that it does not intend to cap private sector salaries. It is in industry’s own interest to limit income disparities and contribute more vigorously to public welfare. If economic growth excludes large sections of the population, it could fuel social unrest in the country. Poverty and low wages generate disaffection and, in turn, vitiate the atmosphere for economic growth. Mr Ratan Tata has rightly pleaded for corporate responsibility towards society: “While we grow, we must not forget the fact that there are numerous people living below the poverty line, especially in the rural areas”. The Tata group’s fondness for social responsibility is well known. It is usually in family-owned concerns that salary disparities are glaring. Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, wants shareholders to question CEO salaries. The well-meaning advice may not work as families own the majority shares and small shareholders are usually inactive and powerless. Representatives of government financial institutions also easily fall in line. Newspapers have published Indian and foreign CEO salaries, pointing to large take-home incomes of CEOs of family-owned firms. The salaries in professionally run companies and public sector undertakings are somewhat reasonable. If the sharp gaps in salaries are bridged voluntarily, it can lead to a better work environment. Although the electronic media has focussed on CEO salaries, the PM’s speech at the CII meeting last month was also directed at the “vulgar display of wealth”, which has grown manifold with the high growth multiplying corporate wealth. The government can discourage this trend with appropriate taxes. At the same time, the government cannot escape responsibility for the inadequate reach and effect of its welfare schemes. Quite often, the government’s inability to ensure that all the money meant for development reaches the needy causes disappointment among the people and, at times, tension. It must ensure proper utilisation of development funds. |
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I had rather be right than be President.
— Henry Clay |
New Cold War?
Are
we witnessing the beginning of a New Cold War? US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deny it. Yet the phrase is increasingly creeping into the vocabulary of international diplomacy. The world has been witnessing a new turbulence, as the rhetoric on the two sides of the old divide gets shriller. There was even a recent compact of sorts to tone down name-calling. Isn't the world one great happy family after the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union? The United States has defined the post-Cold War world age and its vision could not last once Russia emerged from its dark night. Perhaps the beginning of the new phase started with President Vladimir Putin's address to the Munich security conference last February. In a broadside, he launched an attack on "one single centre of force, one single master", on the US having "overstepped its borders in all spheres — economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states". President Putin was sending several signals. Having brought about political stability and flush with energy dollars, he was giving notice that the days of Boris Yeltsin's subservience to the US were gone for good. Moscow now was fully prepared to fight for its national interests and was willing to cross swords with anyone pursuing hostile policies. If the United States wished to pursue a policy of containment of Russia, Moscow had its own ways of looking after itself. The tragedy of the modern age stems from the American decision, under President George W. Bush's predecessors, to seek advantage from the disintegration of the Soviet Union by squeezing Russia through a re-division of the European continent. The former communist states and the Balkan states were thus invited into NATO, the Cold War organisation, and the European Union. Not only were western frontiers extended to the very borders of the Russian Federation but the US also acquired a new band of followers who tilted the EU against Moscow and placed their relations with Washington above their European loyalties. Russia had been watching American moves with suppressed rage. It saw the emergence of the "coloured" revolutions, in Georgia and Ukraine in particular, stoked by American money and volunteers. It saw the completion of an American plan to take Central Asian energy to Western Europe by bypassing Russian territory. Other provocations were to come later. Russia is now fighting battles on two fronts: with the United States and a European Union tilting against it. The tone and content of presidential speeches have changed. Recently, President Putin proved he could give as well as he received. He trumped Western moves to take Central Asian energy out of Russian control and influence by concluding a series of agreements for augmenting gas supplies from the region to Russia through new and expanded pipelines. How long the new Cold War will last depends upon a whole complex of circumstances. To begin with, will the European Union be able to surmount its problems to present itself as a credible centre of power? Leaving aside Britain, which has its own equations with the US even outside Mr Tony Blair's peculiar brand of subservience, will the main continental powers, Germany and France together with Spain and Italy, be able to assert themselves against the new members' dual loyalties? Although President Bush might have gone to excess in promoting neoconservative policies, both Republicans and Democrats are of one mind in extolling the virtues of American exceptionalism and in seeking world dominance into the distant future. Democrats and traditional Republicans would perhaps speak softly while carrying the big stick. The difference essentially is over when to use force unilaterally. Russia, on its part, is not bereft of choices in this New Cold War. There is the Russia-China-India triangle, for its symbolism, if not substance. And there is the world of Africa and Latin America, with the latter witnessing a new flowering in seeking to find its own path outside the shadow of its mighty northern neighbour. China has already made its mark in Africa in seeking new energy resources and Russia will, no doubt, expand its horizons in Latin America, a soil receptive to building multilateral alignments. Adding to Russian anxieties is the new hostility it is meeting from its neighbours. Estonia recently removed a statue of a World War II soldier signifying the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany from the centre of Tallinn, leading to riots by the considerable Russian ethnic minority and one death. Georgia and Russia often trade charges although their sharpness has decreased of late. And Ukraine is hopelessly mired in a crisis, with the nation divided between a pro-Western half and a pro-Russian rest. Moscow cannot forget how American money and volunteers stoked the fires of revolt, hoping to recruit Ukraine into NATO. A new equilibrium between Russia and the West is still some way away. America has given no indication that it is interested in giving Moscow its due. The plan to install elements of a new missile defence mechanism in Poland and the Czech Republic in Russia's own backyard has inflamed passions in Moscow. The US argument, that it is meant to counter missiles from rogue states (read Iran), convinces few. Indeed, the symbolism of the plan, rubbing the Russian nose in the dirt, will not be lost on any Russian. Changes in the top hierarchies in the US and Russia in the coming years (Mr Putin is due to complete his constitutional term next year) might introduce a new dynamic to the present gloomy picture. Iraq has been a sobering experience for Americans, but the establishment elite is not about to change the American belief that it should remain the dominant power in the world for as long as the planet
survives.
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Miserly ways
I
was always slow in spending money. It took me more than a decade and a half to come around to it when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to my rescue. A decade and a half back, I earned less and hence spent less. As the economy boomed (with very little help from me), my salary increased. Despite finding a lot more to attract the eye, my needs remained static with the result that most of my earnings landed in the bank. From around that time onwards, finance ministers, it seems, did not like my money resting in a bank. They wanted it in circulation. To force me to it, they reduced interest rates and began counting the interest on my principal as income. This was a double blow to my principal amount. But as my needs remained more or less the same, the money retained its place in the bank. My buck still continued to stop there. Soon I began to lose out in the race of life. Without a mobile phone, how could I vote for my favourite singer in a television contest if I couldn’t SMS it to the channel? While Lalu Prasad had eliminated the need to stand in a queue to buy a railway ticket with his e-ticket and i-ticket facilities, I couldn’t put it to use without a credit card. Nor could I buy goodies on sale on the Internet without a credit card. To add to this, my friend, who is an investment consultant, declared, “With this inflation, your money is losing its value. Inflation takes away more than what your saving account earns for you. As a result of inflation, your fixed deposits are giving your money only 2 per cent growth.” “Invest in mutual funds and the share market. Earn more and spend more is today’s mantra. While the economy is booming, ‘your money sleeps’,” he pronounced as a TV advertisement does. These inducements for over 15 years had an impact and I decided to buy these “essentials for today’s life” when the Prime Minister asked the nation’s rich to cut down conspicuous consumption. Desist from showing off your wealth as it makes the poor look poorer, he advised. Another advice he gave as part of his 10 commandments to industry at a CII function recently was to put a ceiling on the earning of top professionals. While his advice had today’s professionals --- most of whom wanted government to first become more efficient --- fuming, it made me stop in my tracks. I had been following the Prime Minister’s latest advice all this
while. |
Document The
following are extracts from the Shimla Declaration issued by South Asian Parliamentarians, after a two day conference in Shimla from June 02-03, 2007, organised under the auspices of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA): The participants overwhelmingly endorse the view to initiate a process of moving towards the creation of an institutional interactive mechanism for parliamentarians of South Asia, keeping in mind the concept of a South Asian Parliament (SAP). A full fledged SAP may take a decade or two, but it is time to initiate moves in that direction. To begin with, the conference proposes: a) Creation of an Intra-Parliamentary Union in South Asia; b) SAARC may in principle agree to create a South Asian Parliament and appoint a group of experts, responsible before the SAARC Speakers Forum, to prepare a comprehensive report and a timeframe to establish it in stages and through an evolutionary process; c) The SAARC Speakers Forum should be activated; d) To begin with, SAP may be set up as a deliberative and consultative body, not as a legislative body, so as to create regional opinion and build regional pressures on the issues pending for implementation at the SAARC level; e) There may be an annual conference of parliamentarians to discuss issues of common regional concern. This deliberative body may work within the SAARC agenda, by ultimately creating a South Asian Parliament, the evolution of a regional South Asian identity, without in any sense compromising on or conflicting with respective national identities and sovereignty of nation-states of the region. In order to implement the above, a South Asia Parliamentary Commission, consisting of four MPs from each member countries of SAARC to be nominated by the heads of leading parliamentary parties, and two experts to be nominated by SAFMA, is to be constituted under the patronship of Somnath Chatterji, Speaker, Indian Lok Sabha. The Commission will meet periodically to pursue its agenda. Beyond cooperative security, South Asian nations must ultimately move towards South Asian Human Security by placing people – their well being and rights to peaceful life and development – at the centre of security concerns, rather than intensifying the arms race. To include the excluded, governments of South Asia should take concrete steps to implement the SAARC Social Charter and give priority to poverty eradication by implementing the ISAPC Report on Poverty Alleviation and meeting the Millennium Development Goals. This can be done by increased investment, enhanced economic growth and development, which do not necessarily translate into poverty alleviation unless structured to address the root-causes of poverty and give priority to human resource development, employment generation and empowerment of the dispossessed, women and poor in particular. Poverty is the most serious issue that has to be handled both at national and regional level. The South Asian region has all the resources, economies are growing, yet poverty is worsening. Increasing defence budgets and heavy debts are two major contributing factors to the phenomenon. Therefore, we demand an early resolution to all conflicts and a considerable moratorium by the lending agencies and countries for the repayments of the debts. The whole issue of poverty must be fast-tracked and address with a comprehensive approach – this would include targeted social intervention, safety nets, micro finance and micro enterprise development, access to markets and improved distribution facilities, direct investments in basic infrastructure and diversification of exports. The equitable distribution of income is a responsibility of the government -- policy measures need to be taken to ensure proper sharing of the GDP. All countries in South Asia constitutionally guarantee the equality of women as severe biases against women prevail in all states. The feminisation of poverty has to be addressed by mainstreaming of gender in national and regional macroeconomic policies. We need gender sensitivity through the engendering of overall development plans with priority to education, health and access to resources. All political parties in the SAARC region must provide for affirmative action through enrollment of women in their governance offices and enhanced role in the electoral process. South Asian region is under high environmental stress brought about by both natural and human made causes. Intra-State and inter-State conflicts are a major contributor to environmental destruction. Countries may act on the knowledge base of the vast range of environmental issues in the region only by sharing this knowledge. Given the regional scope of the emerging environmental crisis there is a great need for regional level cooperation in disaster preparedness and management. Energy, a major factor in economic development, may require a regionally integrated power infrastructure. The Draft on Human Rights Code presented before the Bhurban Parliamentary conference may help as a starting point for SAARC to address human rights issues and evolve an agreement on a Human Rights Code for South Asia. Countering the widespread threat of terrorism, the SAARC countries must implement the current protocol for cooperation against terrorism and bring it in line with the international norms. The regional efforts against terrorism must also include measures to combat the spread of small arms and light weapons, narcotics trafficking, smuggling, organised crimes and criminal mafias. This will require exchanges and interaction between the national intelligence and security agencies with their counterparts across the border and greater interaction between the armed forces and military establishments in the region. The SAARC countries should offer no shelter, no arms, no training to terrorists. A joint policy of all SAARC countries is needed to fight terrorism and narcotic export. |
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World Bank
President nominee a tough negotiator
In
Goldman Sachs we trust,’ was
the title of one of the chapters of John Kenneth Galbraith’s, ‘The Great
Crash’ his account of the crooked practices that triggered the stock market
bust of the 1920s. US President George Bush will not have had that unflattering chapter in the Wall St. bank’s history in mind when he nominated Robert Zoellick to head the World Bank last week. Mr Zoellick, 53, is a senior executive of Goldman Sachs, who until recently was deputy US Secretary of State. Before that he was the US Trade Representative where he dealt abrasively with ‘globalisation nihilists,’ as he described opponents of US trade policy towards the developing world. World reaction to his nomination has been broadly positive, but France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has said Mr Zoellick must move swiftly to restore confidence in the World bank’s role in rolling back poverty. “I hope Mr Zoellick will re-establish, or establish, our confidence in the World Bank. It is absolutely crucial.” Mr Kouchner said, “Between the partners and the World Bank it is mainly a question of confidence.” President Bush’s nomination of another Goldman Sach’s senior executive is unsurprising given that the bank enjoys virtual revolving door access to the White House. At the World Bank he will have to quickly apply balm to the raw wounds caused by the forced removal of President Bush’s neo-conservative ally Paul Wolfowitz. Those wounds were still in evidence yesterday as Mr Bush went out of his way to thank Mr Wolfowitz, while he lavished praise on Mr Zoellnick’s track record as an international diplomat and trade negotiator. Mr Wolfowitz left under a cloud after pressing for a large compensation package for his girlfriend Shaha Riza, who also worked at the bank. But for all his honeyed words about Mr Zoellnick’s role in re-uniting the two Germanys, bringing China into the World Trade Organisation and trying unsuccessfully to bring peace to Darfur, it is his hardnosed reputation as a free trade zealot that precedes him at the World Bank. While calling for a “level playing field” and demanding open markets for US goods in the developing world, the US subsidies agriculture to the tune of $8 billion a year. Development economists say that the combination of subsidies on US cotton, corn and wheat in particular devastate the economies of African countries by undermining local producers. The bank’s 24-member board which is dominated by European donors must approve the appointment. In a statement the board said it was essential that the next president, among other things, have “political objectivity and independence.” The bank’s new chief needs to quickly persuade countries to contribute nearly $30 billion to fund a high profile programme of providing interest-free loans to the world’s poorest countries – most of them African. “The test of Zoellick is whether he manages to turn around the bank, which has been in huge disarray,” said Elizabeth Stuart, senior policy adviser for Oxfam International. That caution from an organisation that described Mr Zoellick as a “hypocrite” in the past is shared by health and environmental groups. Mr Zoellick demanded the opening up of developing world markets, Oxfam’s chief researcher Kevin Watkins says the US $4 billion subsidies on cotton growing was undermining some 11 million households depend on cotton cultivation for their livelihoods, and where cotton is a crucial source of foreign exchange and government revenue. The result was further impoverishment in Africa. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Delhi Durbar On
the surface, Congress president Sonia Gandhi might be seen keeping a safe distance from the decision- making process of the Manmohan Singh government. Her say, however, is crucial, even in making important appointments to constitutional posts like the heads of the National Human Rights Commission and the Law Commission. Insiders say that the entire process of clearing the appointments of NHRC Chairman Justice Rajendra Babu and the Law panel head Justice A.R. Lakshmanan, was executed under Sonia’s supervision and the guidance of Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj, one of her close confidants. Former CJI V.N. Khare was roped in to persuade Justice Babu to head the rights panel, a post he had earlier politely declined. Justice Babu even made a courtesy call on Sonia later. Similarly, the name of Justice Lakshmanan, who was mired in a controversy before his retirement in the Mulayam assets case in the Supreme Court, was also cleared by her.
Art of helping Art of Living Founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was in Iraq recently where he met Prime Minister Nouri al Malaki and leaders belonging to various ethnic groups. Art of Living has been running a centre in Baghdad since 2003 and its volunteers have been conducting trauma relief workshops in Baghdad and other parts of the country. Apart from providing medicines, local people are being taught breathing and meditation exercises. In 2006, a batch of 43 persons, mostly women, graduated to be Art of Living teachers. The NGO has also initiated a woman empowerment project to provide vocational training. When most NGOs were compelled to evacuate their volunteers from Iraq in the wake of increased unrest and kidnappings, the Art of Living has stayed put.
Loyal soldier The new Union Minister for Communications A. Raja left no stone unturned in order to please his beloved leader and DMK supremo, M Karunanidhi, while announcing the slash in roaming charges. He took the opportunity to score some brownie points and show his loyalty to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. He did not offer free roaming as promised by the erstwhile minister Dayanidhi Maran, who was compelled to make an ignominous exit after ruffling feathers in Karunanidhi’s succession matters. Raja countered mediapersons who asked about free roaming, stressing that Maran had not actually initiated any steps to making roaming free. Asked if Maran had had other plans, Raja declared that the facts speak for themselves. On his part, Raja made the new scheme pertaining to roaming take effect on June 3, which is Karunanidhi’s birthday. Contributed by S.S. Negi, Prashant Sood and R Suryamurthy |
Never scorn food, for food is the sustainer of life. Whoever loves to meet Ishwara, Ishwara will meet him. Submission to God’s will, is his true worship. |
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