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For people’s sake Broadcasting Bill Funds, but no jobs |
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For new dawn in Afghanistan
The jargon
Deadly buses, desperate students While others fear bust, China booms Defence Notes
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Broadcasting Bill THE arrest of three television reporters accused of threatening three tribal MPs that they would be “exposed” in a sting operation is the latest incident in which television journalism has been shown in a bad light. A few days earlier, a TV reporter and his accomplice — a budding journalist — were arrested for a fraudulent sting operation against a lady teacher, who was accused of pushing her students into prostitution. Another television channel did not serve any public good when it telecast bathroom pictures of Monica Bedi taken when she was lodged in the Bhopal central jail. All these incidents caused revulsion among the television viewers who rightly expect the severest punishment to the “journalists” concerned. What is noteworthy is that in all these incidents, the police did not feel any inadequacy of laws to take action against the guilty. Of course, it is better to prevent the telecast of such questionable stories than take action after the damage has been done. While steps in this direction are welcome, the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill the Central government is planning to enact is not the right remedy. It is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, reminding the people about the obnoxious anti-Defamation Bills Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister and Jagannath Mishra as Bihar Chief Minister sought to enact. Small wonder that media organisations like the Editors Guild of India have slammed the new moves as an attempt to smother the freedom of the Press. The Broadcasting Bill is unacceptable, as it will give the government enormous control and clout over news channels. The Broadcasting Regulatory Authority the Bill envisages is for all intents and purposes a government body, which will enable the government to twist the arms of the media. Similarly, the Public Service Broadcast Council will enable it to convert all private channels into another Doordarshan. There is need for a content code for the electronic media but it is for the media itself to ensure that it is followed through a process of self-regulation. And for those who have been wronged against by TV channels, there can be a body like the Press Council, which they can easily approach. However questionable some sting operations may have been, a blanket ban on them will only “restrain public scrutiny of official malfeasance”. The remedy the Bill suggests is worse than the ills it seeks to cure. |
Funds, but no jobs Although
the Punjab government plans to set up a separate department for the unemployed, how serious it is on the issue can be gauged from the fact that it has failed to use funds made available by the Centre under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. While Punjab’s fund use is barely 0.02 %, states like Tamil Nadu (55.53 %), Tripura (43.32%) and Chhattisgarh (39.37%) have put up a better performance. According to media reports, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland too have not been enthusiastic about the rural employment scheme, which was launched two years ago. The Punjab government has not even constituted district-level committees for using the funds. The reason given for the non-utilisation of funds by the Punjab Rural Development Minister is that the minimum wages in the open market are higher than the Rs 70 amount allowed under the NREG Act. Other states too face this problem and some, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat, have indirectly hiked the wages by reducing the quantum of work to be performed by each worker. The Centre has taken a serious note of this malpractice as the ruling leadership in these states takes political benefits at the Centre’s cost. Although it is the Congress scheme and is expected to yield political dividends to the party in the coming general election, it is the BJP-ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which have excelled in implementing the programme. The vocal champions of the downtrodden, the Leftists have made little headway in implementing the pro-poor scheme in the states (West Bengal and Kerala) under their charge. However, despite shortcomings like fudging of muster rolls and corruption by contractors and government officials, the rural job scheme has been a success compared to the implementation of other social sector schemes. It has been a bold initiative of the UPA government and needs to be closely monitored, not only by the government agencies, but also by the media and NGOs. |
For new dawn in Afghanistan After
Iraq, Afghanistan is the most dangerous place on earth. At one time, not long ago, this label was put by the West on Kashmir. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are interlinked and part of global Islamic terrorism. A defeat for US-led coalition forces in Iraq would seriously undermine their war effort in Afghanistan. These wars, in turn, are linked to the violence in Waziristan and Balochistan and the growing turmoil in Pakistan. The repercussions from these conflicts could rock J&K. It is in India’s national interest that US forces remain engaged in these conflicts. The US resolve to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda astride the Durand Line has sucked in Pakistan’s Frontier Constabulary and elements of the Army. The frequent battles in this region are seen by the local people as Pakistan fighting the US war in Afghanistan. The other disturbing feature is the movement of the suicide bomber eastwards from Iraq. He has touched the heart of Pakistan, posing a direct threat to its Army-led regime. A former DG, ISI, noted recently that it is not possible for Pakistan to roll back the Taliban from the Frontier areas as long as foreign forces are in occupation of Afghanistan. The people of this region have usually submitted to external superior force but are now resisting it more determinedly. The aftershocks of this Frontier war will haunt Pakistan and destabilise this region. This geostrategic reality is strengthened by the indefinite deployment in Afghanistan of NATO and US forces who have their eye on resource-rich Central Asia. Some of the British troops, when pulled out from Iraq, are likely to be redeployed in Southern Afghanistan where military success cannot be converted into political victory due to the paucity of troops to hold the ground liberated from the Taliban. Development is feasible only when security conditions improve and Afghans are convinced that troops, foreign or local, are there to stay. The war of words between American and British senior officers over the war and the counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq has spilled over into Afghanistan which will work to the advantage of the Taliban. Its leader, Mullah Omar, who carries a bounty of $10 million, has urged the Afghans to unite against “colonial forces”. On the ground, Western armies have performed well and claimed inflicting massive casualties on the Taliban mainly from air bombings and artillery. These have led to colossal collateral damage and civilian casualties. Neither side is winning the war, whose outcome will be decided by the side having greater staying power and local support. After training for decades to deter a Warsaw invasion, NATO has found a new role outside its traditional area of activity. Six years after Operation Enduring Freedom, one-third of the 34 provinces, including half of Southern Afghanistan, are under the Taliban. The situation, far worse than what it was between 2002 and 2005, nosedived last year. Part of the reason is contained in a CIA report of 2002, which outlines policy follies and flaws of the Pentagon and the US Central Command. Grossly underestimating the resilience of the Taliban, the report says commanders made “sweeping miscalculations” about “decimating the Taliban” and “rendering it a spent force”. The Iraq war diminished the US effort in Afghanistan by the diversion of military resources like Special Forces and CIA teams to Baghdad. The promised Marshall Plan never materialised. Instead the focus was on hunting down the Taliban without any serious effort towards nation building. The Afghans feel that the Karzai government lacks legitimacy, the political process is imposed and there is no feeling of ownership. A federal system is being thrust on a state which for centuries has been unitary. Three parties are calling the shots: the US, the UK and the EU (sometimes Pakistan, too,). With a weak civil society, no effort is being made to revive local governments. Armed groups have not been disarmed and the drug war with two successive years of bumper crops is making no headway, given the fact that drug lords are linked to the members of Parliament and other VIPs. The Taliban strategy to bleed the International Special Assistance Force (ISAF) and force it to leave involves a periodic change in tactics. Currently these are asymmetric attacks, but none on posts including IED, suicide bombing and kidnapping. These yield publicity and the last fills up the coffers. Incidents of suicide attacks have risen phenomenally in the last two years to nearly 200, considering the first suicide strike was against the legendary Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Masood, two days before 9/11. The Taliban enjoys grassroots support against foreign military occupation. But this could change depending on which side provides roti, kapda aur makan. The key to peace in Afghanistan lies in Pakistan. Islamabad has valid strategic interests and concerns in Afghanistan —strategic depth, the Durand Line and refugees. For Pakistan, strategic priorities may be changing from east to west. Afghanistan has been accusing Pakistan on cross-border terrorism and taken up the issue with the trilateral border commission which includes the US. Delhi’s heightened presence in Afghanistan is fuelling the fear of Indian encirclement of Pakistan. Indian consulates in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharief, Jalalabad and Kandahar — especially the last two — worry Pakistan as these are accused of fomenting troubles in Balochistan and Waziristan. It is another matter that these consulates existed in 1978 and have merely been restored now. Some Pakistanis admit that India’s $750 m aid programme, especially the small humanitarian projects like Indira Gandhi Hospital in Kabul, have earned it huge goodwill. Pakistan has been urged to emulate India instead of being made a fringe player. Nearly 3000 Indians are involved in reconstruction and development works. A key project is the 213-km Zarang-Delaram highway being built by 300 BRO personnel, protected by 400 ITBP soldiers after two Indians were kidnapped by the Taliban. Afghanistan went out of its way during last month’s peace jirgah at Kabul to secure a trade transit corridor for India. But Pakistan hedged the idea for fear of cheaper and better Indian goods outselling its own. It is estimated that nearly $240 billion worth infrastructure has been destroyed in Afghanistan. As many as 2000 external stakeholders are involved in the Afghanistan Recons-truction Trust Fund and the Afghanistan Development Forum of Donors. The challenge is how to deliver development during insurgency. India and Pakistan could show the way by cooperating instead of competing or confronting each other. The common threat from Al-Qaeda emanating from this region should unite the two sides in seeking ways and means to help Kabul in nation-building rather than cancelling out each other in Afghanistan. Both bilateral and multilateral SAARC avenues need to be explored and ideas operationalised through a joint or tripartite mechanism of cooperation. The new Great Game must start with breakfast in Delhi, lunch in Islamabad and dinner in Kabul to usher in a new dawn in
Afghanistan.
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The jargon
The
wife enjoys reading a lot of glossy magazines. Apart from giving her a more voluble presence in the gossip circles, it helps keep her jargon current. “The GDP is galloping”, she said during her last brief visit to the home base from baby-sitting a granddaughter, “The country needs to arrest the trend.” That was a strange observation, not at all in sync with what our dear PC keeps gloating about on TV sets. I pointed out my disagreement to her almost anti-national sentiment. “Oho!” she exclaimed with impatience, “I am using the term GDP as it is understood in the 70 per cent of rural India — going deeper in poverty.” I almost felt inferior. Living alone with our two dogs, I do not have much scope to contemporise my vocabulary. I did visit the malls a few times in the hope of catching the young in conversation. The attempts misfired. My hearing impairment forced me to close in with the conversationalists, who turned up their noses and moved away discreetly. “Our film actors seem to be suffering from the FM disease”, was her salvo as she returned from Mumbai, the Hollywood of India. My ego did not permit the ‘what is FM?’ query. I began analysing. Could it be financial mismanagement? This was one possibility keeping in mind how the IT sleuths had some time back called on Big B even in the hospital. Or is it fashion modeling? The thought of IT following fashion closely left me musing. Our film stars view the two as exact opposites. In the IT they conceal a lot and reveal little; in the fashion they reverse the trend. Seeing me lost in thought, she tried to throw hints. “First it was Aamir, and now it is Shah Rukh.” I was dismayed to realise that I was on the wrong track. Neither of the two has been in the news for either IT or fashion. Unless, of course, you call it fashionable to fall in love with a blind girl, as Aamir inexplicably did in one of the movies. I was not getting anywhere and the wife knew it - wives always do. “I mean, they speak on subjects they know nothing about”, she said helpfully, “Not their fault really; with his busy schedule where would Aamir have the time to realise that the Narmada dam would help cultivate lakhs of hectares of parched farming land? And Shah Rukh finding similarity between the colas and a mother’s milk? I mean apart from others it would be so difficult bottling the latter.” “But the FM disease?” I politely interjected as she paused in her monologue. “Can you think of a better example of foot-in-the-mouth?” she said almost with a teenage
glee. |
Deadly buses, desperate students The
public concern over the dangerous conditions on Delhi roads at last seem to have reached the office of the Chief Minister. I use this occasion to highlight serious deficiencies in the way regulatory policy is formulated in our country and I illustrate the power of modern theory of contracts with two apparently very dissimilar problems that can be analysed by a unified methodology to derive regulatory policy prescriptions. Half a century of a controlled economy has left a curious legacy – the Indian economy is unregulated and our decision-makers do not know how to regulate. Indeed, a senior officer is on record as saying that it is not possible to monitor a million bus trips individually. The problem with this very correct statement is that it displays a complete lack of awareness of how to regulate. One needs a proper regulatory mechanism precisely because it is not possible (or cost effective) to monitor a million actions. In the modern theory of contracts this problem is posed exactly in these terms: a principal (offering a contract) is unable to observe all the actions that the agent, in his or her self interest, might take. Hence, you build into the contract, incentives and punishment that compel the agents to do what you want them to do. I shall discuss two very dissimilar problems that can be solved only by using this asymmetric information principal-agent theory, the errant Delhi buses and the millions of students seeking higher education. The asymmetry of information is created by the fact that the principal does not know what actions the agent might take but, of course, is aware of the agent’s objective. It may be useful to note as an aside that in the last 12 years five Nobel Prizes in economics were awarded to those working on asymmetric information. Checking the condition of the buses and fitting speed governors are welcome technological solutions, but public memory is short – similar actions were taken some years ago against what used to be red line buses. Indeed, their colour was changed to blue as well. Speed governors are like electronic meters in three- wheelers – the first person to take one apart to figure out how to tamper with it is, you know who. I can assure the Chief Minister that that exactly is going to be the fate of the speed governors. Forty kmph by a bus in a city is too high anyway. Here is another example. I have often seen a small chain dangling underneath inter-state buses on the Ring Road and never really paid attention until some one enlightened me. Those chains are magnetised or something so that when they touch the road surface, fancy (and costly) radars used by the police to catch speedsters get blurred. Those drivers have really good consultants. Any technology is on route to being defeated by another one. Two measurers are desperately needed. First, instead of trying to nail millions of bad drivers of every kind of vehicle, fix the driving “schools”. It is a common place occurrence now that the “trainers” in these schools are great buddies of transport department officials in their respective zones. People get licences without touching the steering wheel. I have sat in a training school car and heard the trainer scream at his student not to touch the brake. It is a dual control car and he was insisting that braking was his job and not of the driver! The driver would get her licence without a test drive and without ever having touched the brake. As for heavy vehicles, the only serious, proper training in Delhi is provided by Maruti in its centre in Loni. Learners go through a 15-day rigorous drill that costs over Rs. 5,000 for getting a licence and the drivers who are given a licence have to go back for annual refresher training, both theoretical and practical. Even responsible private schools like DPS send their bus drivers here. The mass distribution of licences to kill cannot be unknown to the police! The private buses and cabs during office hours do not cause accidents by speeding; that generally happens late at night in cities and on highways. The second point concerns incentives and punishment which is what this article is about. Increasing monetary fines for speeding by private buses or call centre cabs simply encourages/forces them to speed more because they try to make up for the fine the only way they can which is by making more trips. The authorities consistently overlook the fact that along with the police and the driver there is a third party in the game, the passenger. The passenger is not interested in making many trips, the passenger usually wants to make one trip (to office, college etc.) in time and if that time is shortened the passenger is happier. What he/she does not want is to be late. There is a very simple way to set the interest of the passenger against that of the driver. That is to announce and widely publicise the following punishment rule: wherever a bus driver is found speeding, he will be stopped for 15 minutes. All passengers will be against the driver speeding. The driver gains nothing by speeding; in fact, he runs the risk of being stopped again. Finally, the police. Impose no conditions at all on the police letting a driver go for a bribe; the threat of uncontrolled bribes will by itself force the driver not to speed. It is an entirely credible threat. The upshot is that there will be neither speeding nor bribes. And the owners and contractors cannot help; speeding by drivers would reduce their in-takes. What the above scheme proposes is a regulation scheme which depends upon and utilises their own self-interest as perceived by the respective agents of the problem, but it is so designed as to achieve a socially desirable objective of the regulator. The colleges and universities subsidised by the UGC support over three million students while nearly 15 million of those are desperate to get enrolment. This is the gap that is filled by “private” educational institutions, and policy-makers (including the UGC itself) are desperately struggling with the so-called problem that the fees in those private institutions are “too high.” Let us examine the problem carefully. The colleges the UGC supports get about 95 per cent of their costs from the UGC. The central government universities get full 100 per cent from the same source. The cost of running those huge establishments are very high and the tuitions (Rs 20 or so per month) are laughable. The colleges bemoan perpetual lack of “resources” but only the UGC knows what it costs the system to keep them in their penury. If we factor in the UGC subsidy, then the cost per student will easily run into six figures. But the UGC is not talking about this. So even if a private institution charges the actual UGC costs, the fees would be higher than obtains in the UGC-supported institutions. Where would the students get that kind of money? Maybe 10 per cent have private resources, the rest need bank loans. It is at this point that the principal agent problem appears. The principal, the Bank Manager, faces numerous agents (the students) whose behaviour the manager cannot observe and hence he/she demands collaterals against the risk of loan defaults in future. The only trouble is a vast majority of students do not have those collaterals. Indeed, if they or their families did have such assets then more than likely that they would not need the loan. As in the blue line bus problem, one must unravel this one by enquiring, what does a student want? The student wants a degree as the main, if not the sole instrument to getting a job. That degree is her or his future and so if the bank can hold that degree as collateral then the student has mortgaged his future! Hence, the banker has to sign a contract not just with the student (degree receiver) but also with the student’s institute (degree giver) that the student will only get a photocopy of the degree till he or she fulfils the mutually accepted norms of repayment and the state needs to implement a policy – maybe through fresh legislation – that those photocopies are acceptable in the job market. The RBI and the banks have to stop acting like 18th century money-lenders. We need a fresh protocol and legal structure to handle a 21st century problem. The RBI data shows that it is the big borrowers who default the most; Prof. Yunus in Bangladesh and Ela Bhatt in Gujarat have proved how safe it is to lend to small borrowers. Banks in India can certainly operate with the students’ future as collateral. Joseph Schumpeter, writing on a theory of economic development in 1911, described the banker as the kingpin of the process of innovation that generates development; the banker accepts the risk of introducing those innovations in the process of production. The banker is “the ephor” of economic development. Time has come for the banker to make an equally innovative intervention in another market. We have analysed two apparently very dissimilar problems in terms of a unified methodology. The proposed policy measures will utilise a common structure, the study of the motivations of the agents as perceived by the principal. That is what regulation is all about. The writer is the Director General and Principal of IILM,
Gurgaon. |
While others fear bust, China booms Dai Yunping
has never traveled far from his home. But next month, he will indulge in a weeklong tour of Southeast Asia to the tune of $6,500. Upon his return, Dai, 27, plans to move out of his parents' home here and buy an apartment in the old French Concession area. Where's the money coming from? Not from his family, nor his $650-a-month salary job as a trade merchandiser. Over the p ast three years, Dai has made more than $200,000 on the stock market – and now he's starting to live it up. "I don't hesitate anymore to go to expensive restaurants," Dai said on a recent afternoon as he checked his accounts at a packed trading hall, a case containing a new $1,600 Hewlett-Packard Co. laptop slung over his shoulder. Stock markets around the world have been wobbling amid turmoil in the U.S. subprime mortgage industry and increasing worries about a possible economic downturn in the United States . China's stock market has bounced up and down, too, but it's mostly gone in one direction. The benchmark Shanghai composite index has climbed more than 350 percent since the start of 2006. Monday, in what has been a common pattern, the Shanghai index rose 1.5 percent even though every other stock market in Asia fell in the wake of the unexpectedly weak U.S. employment report Friday that raised fears of recession and rattled Wall Street. Analysts point out that China's stock market marches to its own beat. It is virtually closed to foreign investors, yet money is gushing in from speculators, state-owned companies flush with foreign reserves and savings-rich Chinese citizens who have limited investment options. Nowadays in China, stock investors are busy counting -- and spending -- their profits, producing the first signs of an emerging wealth effect, a term that describes how consumption rises as investors see the value of their stock portfolios increase. Leo Wong, general manager of Shanghai's Bentley dealership, is one beneficiary. This year, Wong's shop has been selling 10 Bentleys a month, for about $400,000 each on average. That's twice as many sales as last year. Wong figures half his buyers stepped up to a Bentley because of surging stock profits. Managers of high-end restaurants and boutiques also say they've seen an increase in business in recent months. So have tour operators such as China International Travel Service, whose managers were stunned to see how quickly their new 12-day Mediterranean Sea cruise, at $4,000 a person, sold out this summer. Economists say it's almost impossible to measure the wealth effect in China, because of a lack of reliable statistics. Most doubt the effect is very big at the moment, given that the boom in equities has benefited only a sliver of society. There are more than 100 million stock trading accounts registered with the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, but most of the investors hold dual accounts and many accounts have little or no money in them, according to experts and government reports. Still, a significant number of people in cities such as Shanghai have a direct stake in the stock market, and the ranks of mom-and-pop investors are swelling as elderly and other working-class people, being fed up with paltry returns from banks and hearing stories about neighbors getting rich, are buying stocks individually or pouring money into institutional funds. Retail spending in China has accelerated in recent months, growing at an annual rate of about 16 percent . The gains reflect higher wages and food prices. But it's also likely that rising stock and home prices have helped boost consumer confidence. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
Defence Notes The
Director General of Coast Guard has advocated penalties for ships and vessels that pollute the Indian waters. Presiding over a meeting on fighting oil spills, Vice Admiral RF Contractor called for stringent implementation of pollution control measures in harbours and port. Admiral Contractor also expressed concern over the operation of ageing vessels that posed a threat to the marine environment. As many as 18 ships have either sunk or been grounded along the coast so far this year alone. He said the Coast Guard would soon acquire three specialised, indigenously built pollution control vessels to tackle oil spills and other threats to marine ecology.
About 70 delegates participated in the 10th National Oil Spill and Disaster Contingency Plan and Preparedness Meeting.
IAF exercises An Indian Air Force contingent comprising 29 Air Warriors along with an IL-76 aircraft is participating in joint Indo-Russian Indra 07 exercises from September 11 at Pskov in Russia. Ex Indra 07 is an airborne exercise in which there will be a joint participation of the airborne forces of Ru sia, the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force. The Indian Air Force team led by Gp Capt SRK Nair will participate in paradrop and other exercise maneuvers. Exercise Indra 07 will boost the bilateral defence cooperation between India and Russia.
Military games The 4th Military World Games to be held at Hyderabad and Mumbai from October 14 to 21 is the biggest multi-sport international event. Considered next only to Olympics, the
Games will see the participation of 4,581military personnel from 89 countries. Of them 3,006 are athletes (2,272 men and 734 women) and 1,575 team officials. The participation of women is about 18 per cent. The maximum medals to be won will be in the track and field games, 28 and 26 each of gold. Next in order comes swimming with 28 and 23 each. Sailing is the only event in which the medals in the mixed category will be awarded.
Etiquette in Services Lt Gen SPS Dhillon, GOC Desert Corps, recently released the new edition of "Customs & Etiquette in the Services", a book that seems to have come at the right time with shadows of various misdeeds hovering
over the Services. The book has been written by Maj Gen RK Arora and Col HR Roach and is considered the Bible of etiquette among armed forces officers. The book was first published in 1956 and has been updated with every edition. The 216-page attractive book deals with customs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and is a semi-official treatise on how an officer is expected to conduct himself not only when on parade, but also when off parade. |
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