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Trouble erupts in BJP
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No need to panic
Dealing with ASEAN
Road to
recovery
Mein Hindustani
Bullies and the bullied
Taliban shadow over Afghan poll
Health
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Trouble erupts in BJP
IT does not require a “chintan baithak” for the BJP to know that it performed badly in the last elections due to the unsustainability of what it stood for — Hindutva — as also by the failure of its leaders to know the mind of the people, plus factionalism in the party. Yet, no lessons seem to have been learnt and a bitter war has broken out in the party among the top leaders on the eve of the brainstorming session to be held in Shimla from August 19 to 21.
It is not only middle-rung aspirants who have drawn up the battle lines; The party’s enduring prime minister-in-waiting and leader of the parliamentary party, Mr L K Advani, himself has dug in his heels and refuses to take the RSS suggestion to call it a day. Taking a cue from him, his staunch supporter Vasundhra Raje too has cocked a snook at party president Rajnath Singh who had wanted her to step down as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly. She has dared him for a show of strength — a development not common in a party which used to brag about party discipline. Not quite unexpectedly, she has derived support from Mr Advani. More than displaying a break with the RSS, the defiance shows the onset of acute organisational confusion in the party which at one stage took pride in the loyals of its rank and file. Obviously, no leader is either willing to acknowledge his or her role in the election debacle or keen to step down when it is time to do so. Since accountability — the word often invoked by Mr Advani for others — is at a premium, the succession war that has broken out in the party can become more messy in the days to come. Unfortunately for the BJP, there is no leader whose word carries weight any longer with all factions and who can play the role of a neutral peacemaker. Mr Rajnath Singh was never tall enough and Mr Advani’s influence has diminished considerably, thanks to his keenness to stick to his position. It is not certain whether the Shimla conclave will throw up a solution to the party’s problems. |
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No need to panic WITH pandemic H1N1 virus showing little signs of abating, the number of infections rising and the death toll climbing even further, the government has rightly expressed serious concern and initiated major changes in its testing and treatment strategy. The government’s admission that the virus has established itself firmly in the community and could lead to cluster formation in Pune, the epicentre of swine flu, clearly doesn’t bode well.
However, the panic stricken populace can take comfort in the results of first large-scale studies in the US and the Europe that have once more reinforced that the virus is not as deadly as it was feared. According to the study, the fatality rate (till July 30) in the US is 0.6 per cent and in Europe it is 0.1 per cent. Thus, there is no cause for taking an alarmist view which can spread panic. Be it the scramble for masks or tests, public response to swine flu outbreak bordering on anxiety has, as some health experts say, gone out of hand. Closure of schools, colleges and cinema halls has not helped matters. That is not to say that the level of preparedness should go down. Health authorities, especially at the state and district level found wanting must gear up to tackle the challenge. Delay in testing results as has happened in Gurgaon can prove to be fatal. The refusal of some private hospitals to admit swine flu cases can only be condemned and made punishable. Private medicare has to step in to share the burden and must look beyond commercial interests.
The public must remain calm and collected and remember that a well-informed approach and not panic is the best weapon against the H1N1 menace. Cured patients, as few are already doing, can spread the word — swine flu does not necessarily spell death. |
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Dealing with ASEAN
THE free trade agreement signed with ASEAN in Bangkok on Thursday is as important for the products covered as for what it has left out. The FTA would have been more favourable to India had software and information technology been included in the deal. India’s IT industry is very powerful in the developing world and badly needs to look for markets other than the US and Europe. Investment and services, two other sectors in which Indian companies’ strengths are known, have also been left untouched by the agreement. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma hopes negotiations on these areas will resume soon. The FTA, which has been concluded after six years of hard negotiations and will be effective from January 1, 2010, aims to lower import duties to facilitate the entry of goods made in ASEAN countries. There was stiff resistance from political leaders of states like Kerala and Karnataka. Defence Minister A.K. Antony was among those who lobbied for protection of the farm sector. Because of the pressure, India has got 489 agricultural products excluded from the FTA. The agreement will reduce the tariffs to zero on the products covered between 2013 and 2016. Tariffs on highly sensitive products like palm oil and coffee will be reduced in about 10 years.
ASEAN is India’s fourth largest trading partner after the US, the European Union and China. Almost 80 per cent of the bilateral trade is in the fields of electronics, chemicals, textiles and machinery. Leftists say India’s market is being opened up at a wrong time.
Admittedly, India is not an equal partner in trade with this 10-country Southeast Asian bloc. However, India also has a long-term non-economic, Look-East policy agenda to engage with this grouping. Besides, if cheap Chinese goods have not been able to hurt India’s industry, ASEAN products won’t either. Moreover, India has been a vocal critic of US protectionist policies; now it cannot itself turn protectionist. |
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People are in greater need of your praise when they try and fail, than when they try and
succeed. — Bob Moawad |
Road to recovery
IS the Indian economy all set for economic recovery? Are the green shoots visible? Is the US economy also coming out of recession this year?
Even though India has not been as badly affected by the global meltdown as the EU or UK, a recovery in the US can give a boost to India’s recovery process.
As India’s biggest trade and investment partner, any signs of economic recovery in the US will be good news for us.
However, one single bad news that can stagger economic recovery in India is the deficient monsoon (141 districts have been affected by drought) and as we all know monsoons are the lifeblood of Indian agriculture. Deficient rains means smaller output and this will impact on the availability of food grains in the country. Already, the poor are suffering from the burden of high prices of essential commodities. They are spending around 60 to 70 per cent of their income on food, leaving them with little or no savings. Ironically, there have been reports that the well-heeled have started spending more on food in fine restaurants and are seen buying luxury goods like imported cosmetics and clothing but these few whose purses were never quite affected by rise in food prices, really do not count and they cannot by their spending alone spur recovery. We have to take into account the average person and his or her spending. A failed monsoon in India has been accompanied by bad news on the power front because the reduced coal availability at thermal power plants has pushed India’s power deficit in June to a five-year high of 13.8 per cent, according to the latest data released by the Central Electricity Authority. Coal-based power generated in June fell short by over 1200 million units of the targeted 42,000 million units of electricity. Hydro power plants also generated only 9,600 million units of electricity in June as compared to over 10,500 million units generated in the same period last year. Obviously, water is going to be a big problem because according to the Central Water Commission, water storage at the 81 reservoirs across the country was a meagre 9 per cent of the total capacity of 151 billion cubic metres of these reservoirs in June. Water, power and food availability are the vital drivers of the economy and any shortfall in these would affect industrial growth adversely. Another problem with the recovery process in India is that some exports like textiles, garments and leather are still not doing well. Exports are falling and went down by 28 per cent in June and the earnings were at $12.8 billion. Even imports have gone down continuously amounting to $18.98 billion. Export industries are continuing to see job losses and many more people have been laid off in recent months due to slack export orders. Indian consumers could have increased their consumption of goods meant for exports. But with lower disposable incomes on account of high food prices, the average aam admi has little to spare. Decrease in imports also is not a good sign and does not indicate that recovery process is on because it means reduced imports of capital goods and essential raw materials including gold. If the imports decline, it means that certain critical investments are being postponed in the ‘state-of-the-art’ technology and latest equipment that would erode competitiveness. It is feared that companies are cutting capital expenditure and, according to one report, there will be a 25 per cent drop in capital expenditure. However, the positive sign favouring economic recovery is that 82 per cent of the listed companies saw profits in the first quarter (April-June). Some companies like Hero Honda, Dr Reddy, Grasim, cement maker ACC and M&M even saw spectacular profits. Their recovery was spurred by lower borrowing costs, falling raw material costs and a modest growth in wage bills. There is also a rise in demand for passenger cars and trucks recently. But most airlines are posting huge losses and Jet Airways is going to download 2,000 of its staff. Airlines and hotels in general are not doing so well. Clearly, airlines and hotels depend on tourist traffic and recovery in the developed world, especially in the US, will promote an upturn. Recently, there has been much optimism regarding recovery starting in the US, because job cuts announced in July were lower than expected. There were 47,000 jobs lost in July compared to the expected job loss of 320,000 which means that unemployment rate has eased to 9.4 per cent from 9.5 per cent of the workforce. It is the first time since the economic recession began in 2008 that jobless rate has fallen.
There are other indications also that there is a change for the better. Indeed, the decline in the US economy’s growth in the second quarter of 2009 (April to June) has been less sharp than in the previous quarter and exports as well as imports have declined less rapidly than before. The growth rate, however, is still in the negative. One disturbing trend is that private consumption expenditure of Americans is still showing a downturn — decreasing by 1.2 per cent during the second quarter after having risen by a modest 0.6 per cent during January-March period. People are consistently refusing to construct new houses. Construction of new houses decreased by over 29 per cent. However, the sale of single-family homes increased by 11 per cent and house prices in 20 largest cities rose by 0.5 per cent in May but were still 17 per cent lower than a year ago. The American consumer confidence index also fell to 46.6 in July from 49.3 in June. As expected in all economies in which the government is playing a major role in the economic recovery through huge bail out packages, the US government spending at federal, state and local levels increased, showing a positive growth. It means that the huge fiscal package is working and reversing the declining trends. But it also means that the recovery is dependent on public spending and what is needed is a boost to private consumer spending. In India too, the private sector spending and ordinary people’s spending of goods and services would be important for encouraging speedy recovery. But this can only happen when food prices have been controlled so that people have money to spend on consumer goods and consumer durables. Unfortunately, the monsoon deficit will further raise food prices in the coming months and unless sound contingency plans are in place, the aam admi will not only go hungry but will be in no position to spend more on other consumption items. It will mean a postponed recovery and a lower GDP growth rate this year. |
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Mein Hindustani
A
COUSIN back from her grand trip to Europe announced rather pompously: “Oh! It was a great experience. My children learnt so many values.” Values and the west?
My desi mind fed on reverent pride in mera Bharat mahaan refuses to swallow her bite even when she qualifies that it’s civic values she is alluding to. Yet the journalist in me cannot help but mull over her remark. Wondering aloud—are we still miles behind our western counterparts? — I take a quick look at my immediate surroundings with a prompt check list in my hand. And I who prides myself on being a Hindustani who years ago fought tooth and nail hubby dearest’s desire to immigrate realises to my horror that the votaries of foreign lands and their civic value system are not off the mark. Naye daur mein likhenge hum mil kar nai kahani… hum Hindustani. But where is this new-gen Hindustani? Well, there he (could be she, me too but for convenience sake let us call him, he) goes, honking full blast and full speed, overtaking all and sundry. Never mind that in this most important race against time he can’t move his vehicle (nor can others) even when the light turns green. Rather, he has ensured that the traffic comes to a standstill (a feat that the police, too, would find difficult to emulate) for the first 15 seconds of the Go Ahead signal. For, he and many like him, are in the wrong lane. Right, left, right of way……hey what Greek are you talking? Even the ever-vigilant Chandigarh traffic police has not bothered to enlighten him on this civility. So would it not be better if such men (and their vehicles) who don’t know their left hand from a right one are off the roads? Well, well… heaven help you, if he decides to turn the engine off and park his vehicle. For the only place he can find in this entire galaxy is right behind yours. A true-blooded car owner, don’t you dare expect him to walk (a few steps). The empty parking space simply doesn’t attract him. It is from this vantage point (behind your car) that he is the closest to his destination. How you move your car out of the parking slot is not his business. Unlike the good old intrusive Indian, ever ready to offer help and suggestions, he minds his own interests. As for the rest of the world… does it exist? Or even has the right to? The (in)famous BMW mower Sanjeev Nanda is not the only monarch of all he surveys. He has ample company. Only what stops other cars from turning into trucks is the alert and wary pedestrian himself. So, he gets full marks when he decides to walk? Think again. For the evening or the morning walker, the dictum “love thy neighbour” means quite something else. As he sets out for a whiff of fresh air for himself and his favourite pets, his vision is limited to the neighbour’s manicured lawn where the adorable pugs and labs must ease their bowels.
Of course, a dog is a dog…. can’t be expected to have toilet manners, for heaven’s sake. Ah, but civilised men and women do. Yes, in foreign lands they do. Right here in apna Bharat, remember flush is not quite an indigenous invention… pardon granted if one forgets to use it. Or if he overlooks the dustbin in the market, in cinema houses, fast food joints. The telltale signs of his arrival and departure have to be recorded. Even if the signature tune sings an incessant song —spill more and more, thoda khao thoda phainko. On the fast lane to be the first among first, public and public spaces aren’t his domain. I, me, myself….. .that makes Hum Hindustani. The only person he sincerely believes that matters in India is he and he alone. Of course, he can still go to Europe and sing paeans in praise of their civic
values. |
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Bullies and the bullied
ALIA
BIBI and her two-year-old daughter were shot in her own house by people who had come looking for her father, a local Trinamool Congress leader in Nandigram. The child died but the young woman survived to tell the tale. That was in 2007.
Two years later, in Khejuri, Prasanta Mondal was not as lucky as her. A CPM leader who had dared to desert the party and join Trinamool Congress, Mondal was shot dead and his wife was allegedly raped by way of revenge. It has not been a one-sided affair though and scores of CPM leaders in the districts of Midnapore, Hooghly, Bardhaman, Nadia, 24 Parganas and Murshidabad have been on the run since the Left Front was virtually routed in the Lok Sabha elections this year.
Many of them have been killed and had their houses vandalised and demolished. CPM offices have been a particular target of mob fury in the districts and many of them have been reduced to rubbles. As many as 73 lives are said to have been lost in political clashes in the three months since May and it appears to be an unending spiral of violence and revenge. The ruling dispensation is clearly unable to put down the fire. But the CPM missed the irony when a Left Front delegation called on the Governor, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, to complain of the spiraling violence unleashed allegedly by the opposition. The failure of the state and the police was implicit in the delegation’s plea for help. But when the Governor made the same point in a statement and publicly hoped that the state would take urgent steps to curb the growth of illegal arms and bring the perpetrators to book, he was accused of being partial and not being able to differentiate between the ‘killers’ and the ‘killed’. The Governor’s statement, in which he had voiced his anguish at the ‘veritable tandava of political violence’ in the state and expressed his belief that violence was not abating in the state because those ‘who can act, are not doing so’, was certainly a public indictment of the Left Front government, which stands accused of being partisan even while upholding law and order. One of the main reasons for the state government’s inability to control violence is the complete loss of control of political parties over their workers. And not just the CPM cadres, even the Congress and Mamata Banerjee’s flocks are no longer regimented or disciplined groups acting on orders from the leadership. It is, finally, a free-for-all war for turf where everybody fights for himself. The sharp political polarisation in Bengal, where it has always been “ We vs. They”, has also contributed to the desperation. At the village level in West Bengal, the colour of politics can determine decisions related to jobs and livelihood besides social status, which possibly explains why retaining one’s political clout is often seen as a matter of life and death or at least as a matter of honour. While all parties are responsible for this situation, the communists naturally are to be blamed more because they have been in power for a record, uninterrupted 32 long years in the state. Corruption, infighting and a gradual bankruptcy of leadership had already weakened the Left bastions. The continuing arrogance of CPM leaders had already alienated a section of the population. And now with Maoists sniping at the state and anti-CPM forces on the rampage, the CPM is finding its citadels crumbling and its workers are beginning to desert the ship. Violence has always been a part of politics in the state though. Soon after 1947 the communists, steeped in Stalinist thought, channelled the anger and frustration of refugees, who had poured in from across the border, and taught them to treat the government, more specifically the Congress, as the enemy. Violent uprisings and defiance of the law were more a norm as refugees were encouraged to forcibly occupy land and take on the police. The peasant uprising led by the even more radical Left in Naxalbari, a small village in north Bengal, took violence to even higher levels as well-off farmers, the police and intellectuals were singled out as ‘class enemies’ and killed. The Congress and its student-wing, Chhatra Parishad, retaliated in kind. They took help from the police to kill suspected Naxalites and sympathisers on the campus in Kolkata. Nobody was spared. Teachers, students, vice-chancellors were all singled out in a grotesque tableau of revenge. Ironically, some of the Congress leaders who took a leading role in ‘annihilation of Naxalites’ in the late sixties are today prominent leaders of the Trinamool Congress. Militant trade-unionism was a logical extension. Industrial workers were mobilised to assault and kill managers and owners of industrial units for perceived ‘wrongs’ committed by them or for higher wages. The police was used by both the Congress and later the Left Front government to suppress political uprisings. Barely two years after they took over the reins of the state in 1977, the Left Front government sent the police to evict refugees from Marichjhampi, an island on Sundarbans, to evict refugees. Water and food supply to the island was cut off and when refugees tried to escape, they were allegedly mowed down. Little is known till today about what happened there and how many people died. In 1982 as many as 18 Anand Margis were burnt to death near Kolkata’s posh Ballygunge area. While officially it was stated that a mob lynched the saffron-robed Anand Margis, suspecting them to be child-lifters, the Anand Marg has consistently claimed that CPM workers were behind the massacre. Political violence, pointed out Gopal Gandhi, is purposeless and does no credit to the perpetrators. “ In a mature democracy, neither vengeance nor vendetta can be allowed,” he asserted. His appears to be the only sane, rational and objective voice in Bengal today, rising above the shrill, emotional and unreasonable outbursts. It will be a pity, therefore, if he is not persuaded to stay on after his term ends in December this year. Bengal does need Gopal
Gandhi. |
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Taliban shadow over Afghan poll
WITH more than 40 candidates to choose from, the presidential elections in Afghanistan on 20 August will give Afghans the chance to shape — possibly transform — their political environment. Neither the path to this change, nor the change itself, are likely to mark an end to the ongoing strife in Afghanistan. The elections are fraught with risks. The Taliban have already threatened to disrupt the polls and could make both voting stations and citizens their targets, thereby hampering the electoral process and whatever little chance there is of a political transition to a more stable Afghanistan. As if to make the point, they launched a bomb attack on Herat on 3 August in which a dozen people were killed, and fired nine rockets into Kabul on 4 August. Such rocket attacks have not been mounted since the overthrow of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001, and highlight both the increased strength of extremists and their capacity to change their tactics to put pressure on international forces in the run-up to the vote. Nato does not want the elections to look like a 'foreign show', so Afghan troops will protect voters, with some 10,000 international soldiers standing by at some distance, and they will come closer only if asked for help. But an underfunded and undermanned Nato campaign means that some voting booths — less than 50 miles away from Kabul — will be unprotected by Nato or Afghan troops. For the rest, much will hinge on whether the surge in American troops — 20,000 ordered by President Obama — and the recent push in the southern province of Helmand by American soldiers will suffice to provide safe voting on election day. The Taliban cannot win out as long as Nato remains in Afghanistan, but their truculent attitude can keep Nato mired in Afghanistan for some considerable time to come. What Nato can do is to make it clear that the costs of attacks on voters would be very high. That may be easier said than done. One reason is that Pakistan continues to provide safe havens to Mullah Omar, the extremist Afghan Taliban leader, who was ejected from power by the US in 2001 and has no intention of entering into dialogue with Kabul, Washington or the UN, simply because he interprets any talk of dialogue as reflecting the desperation of a defeatist Nato. Meanwhile, the Pakistani army's campaign against militants in Swat has not quite cleared even the urban areas of terrorists, although the government has encouraged people displaced by the military assault on the Taliban to return to their homes. But the army has yet to move against extremists in South Waziristan, where extremists have been deeply entrenched over the last eight years and which has been the springboard for the terrorist attacks that have thwarted the success of Nato's Afghan campaign. Meanwhile, President Karzai presides over a weak and corrupt administration and is not the favourite of the west, which has on occasion blamed misgovernance for Nato's failure to win hearts and minds and make headway against the Taliban. But the west does not have another protégé. And the easiest way for any candidate to be discredited would be for him to look like a western stooge. Karzai’s government has also been accused by Ashraf Ghani, his former finance minister and main opponent, of corruption, but there is nothing new in these charges. No election result will automatically usher in good governance, no matter who wins, in this country which has been riven by war for three decades. If any one candidate wins at least 51 per cent of the votes in the first round of polling his election as president will be assured. If he wins less, the very need for a second round of voting could deepen political rifts and exacerbate insecurity, giving impetus to the Taliban to step up violent attacks throughout Afghanistan with a view to testing Nato's morale. The chances of insecurity being exacerbated by the elections are great. It is noteworthy that, even as General McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has called for greater attention to be paid to protecting the population, he may also request the Obama administration to deploy more American troops. Again, security remains the top priority, merely to facilitate the holding of the
elections. The writer is a Professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution |
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Health
WANT a business reason to turn off the computer, leave the office and hit the gym? How about news that regular exercise could make you a better leader?
A study from the Center for Creative Leadership found that executives who exercise are significantly more effective leaders than those who don't. Using data from CEOs and other top executives collected over a span of 10 years, we compared two groups: those who were regular exercisers and those who were non-exercisers or sporadic exercisers. We cross-referenced the exercise status with "360-degree" assessment tools in which the individual executive is rated by colleagues on various leadership attributes. We found that the exercisers rated significantly higher than their non-exercising peers on overall leadership effectiveness. They also scored higher on specific traits including: inspiring commitment, credibility, leading others, leading by example, energy, resilience and calmness. Of course, the lives of executives are busy and stressful. Finding time for regular exercise is a challenge for most. Competing priorities, guilt over setting aside the time, long work hours, long commutes, and tiredness are common roadblocks. For all of us, finding time to exercise takes effort, drive and creativity. You can start by setting a goal to do something active every day. You'll begin to pay attention to where your time goes and seek out slots for exercise. You may end up with 15 minutes on most days but find you can fit in 30 to 60 minutes two or three times a week.
Other strategies for maintaining regular fitness programs in spite of extremely busy schedules include: 1. Do more, more often. Find little ways to increase your activity throughout the day: walk while talking on the phone, take frequent stretch breaks, park at the far end of the lot, and take the stairs. Take advantage of an open slot in your calendar whenever it appears. Even ten minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise can boost mood and energy. 2. Keep track. Log your workouts: what you did and for how long. You'll be able to track progress, set goals and stay motivated. 3. Mix it up. Your stationary bike or treadmill may be convenient, but be sure to add variety. Physically, it is important to change your pace and intensity; mentally, you are likely to get bored if you always do the same thing. Go outdoors. Play a sport. Try a new exercise class. Go dancing. 4. Focus on exercise not size. Consistent exercise matters more than weight loss. The CCL study found that levels of body fat made no difference in how leaders were rated by their bosses, peers and direct reports. These findings don't negate the potential health detriments of excess body fat, but your first priority should be to make exercise a habit. Weight loss and other fitness goals can be addressed later with guidance from your doctor. 5. Get a trainer or exercise coach. A personal trainer or access to a trainer at your gym can be a great motivator and a time saver. The trainer can help you plan your exercise program, show you safe ways to intensify your workout, and keep you going when you want to quit or take it easy. 6. Take it on the road. Road warriors and occasional travelers can work in exercise with minimal effort. Pack a set of stretch cords for resistance training, a pair of running shoes and a swimsuit. Walk between airport terminals and gates when you have the time. Use stairs. Get smart about your hotel: Many have fitness centers, nearby gyms, or will even put a treadmill in your room. 7. Be patient. Many people start a program because of health concerns. At first, exercise is a chore. If you stick with it, the daily benefits will kick in. Executives who exercise regularly look forward to it, saying that it is a stress release, a great way to think of new ideas, to feel strong and flexible, to have stamina, and to have "time for
me." — By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post |
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