The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Security – a national concern
Centre, states to fight for it together

It was a pleasant surprise to see all the states and union territories responding in a spirit of unity during the Chief Ministers’ conference on internal security on Sunday. Even the Chief Ministers of the states ruled by the BJP did not strike a discordant note. In fact, the Union Home Ministry received compliments even from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for being swift and positive in its response to requests from states. It was also acknowledged that the Centre had considerably reduced the response time to requests made by states. This welcome convergence between the Centre and the states was in sharp contrast to the latter’s criticism of the Centre on the issue of price rise. It raises the hopes that more coordinated efforts will be made in the days to come to meet the threats to the country, which are far more serious than law and order problems.

Apparently, realisation has dawned on the Centre and the states that they have to pull together to defeat the monster. Whether it is left-wing extremism, cross-border terrorism or insurgency, they all require an integrated action plan that can succeed only if all state actors are on the same page. The best example is the Naxalite threat which has been spreading only because states fought it in a piecemeal fashion in the absence of seamless synchronisation. Governments have to rise above party labels to tackle what is a serious internal security challenge for the entire nation.

While the Centre is there to oversee and coordinate the drive, the states cannot abdicate their responsibility. Certain inputs can only be provided by states’ security forces which are familiar with local terrain and attitudes. Once they and the Centre pull in the same direction, dark forces would find it infinitely more difficult to escape the security dragnet. Strong action and meaningful information sharing are the need of the hour and everybody has to chip in.

Tainted babus
Centre must weed out the corrupt

Reports of Income Tax sleuths having recovered unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 3.10 crore and security deposits worth hundreds of crores from an IAS couple’s official residence in Bhopal on Friday demonstrate the extent of corruption in the higher bureaucracy. The bundles of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination packed in nice bags were so many that the raid team had to requisition the currency-counting machines. Arvind Joshi is the state Principal Secretary (Jails) and his wife, Teenu Joshi, is Secretary, Women and Child Development. Though one has to wait for the last word on the ongoing probe by the Income Tax (Revenue Intelligence), one can infer that both have amassed huge wealth, misusing their official positions. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has suspended them. But is it enough for a couple that has brought disgrace to the IAS? In another raid in Raipur, Income-Tax officials have found Chhattisgarh Agriculture Secretary B.L. Agarwal to have 220 bank accounts, several of them on fake names and addresses, and assets worth millions of rupees. The ends of justice will be met only if they are tried by a special court and handed out exemplary punishment.

According to Central Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha, a list of 123 tainted IAS, IPS and IFS officers (from many states) has been put on the commission’s website after the completion of all processes, including deliberations with the CBI and other departments. Though he had recommended prosecution or imposition of penalty against them in September last year, little has been done till date. Clearly, most officers go unpunished because of their unholy nexus with the politicians and the loopholes in the system. The government’s failure to punish them promptly has only emboldened them to amass more wealth. Indeed, Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily admitted that “departmental inquiries are soft-pedalled either out of patronage or misplaced compassion”.

As corruption has become a serious threat to the quality of governance, the authorities should act tough on the tainted. The corrupt don’t deserve any constitutional protection and the Centre should revisit Article 311 of the Constitution that mandates prior permission from the government for courts to prosecute a corrupt civil servant. As tainted officers are misusing the constitutional safeguards, the government should rationalise the laws to enforce transparency and accountability in public administration.

Thought for the Day

A guilty conscience needs no accuser. — A poverb

ARTICLE

Sharpening divide in Mumbai
Time to get tough with Thackerays
by Kamlendra Kanwar

It is very unfortunate that vote bank considerations are re-injecting a fresh dose of regional chauvinism into the politics of the Shiv Sena, misguiding gullible youth into nurturing hatred for immigrant communities from UP and Bihar. The damage this is causing to the spirit of unity among Indians in general should be a matter of deep concern.

Clearly, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav see the ground slipping from under their feet with the former’s nephew Raj Thackeray trying to steal the uncle’s thunder on the espousal of the “Marathi Manoos” card. They cannot tolerate the fact that Raj won some brownie points in the last assembly elections by opposing cine idol Amitabh Bachchan who originally belongs to U.P. and then taking on the Bihari taxi drivers of Mumbai.

Raj was always politically savvier than Uddhav — a better organizer and a more pronounced chip of the old block. Yet, as has become the pattern among parties that revolve around an individual, Bal Thackeray anointed Uddhav as his political heir. There was no thought spared for whether the party cadres related better with Raj than Uddhav or whether Uddhav had the charisma to take the party forward in the absence of father Bal Thackeray.

In the dictatorial politics of the Shiv Sena, for anyone other than his son to aspire to succeed the supreme leader was sacrilegious even if the challenger was a close relative who was at one time the favourite of Bal Thackeray.

That Raj Thackeray was reaching out to his uncle’s constituency to build up his own base was not surprising because Raj had been tutored in the same brand of politics and had lived and thrived in the company of those who conformed to the same narrow parochial line of thinking.

As a rabble-rouser Raj has inherited his uncle’s skills. When he began establishing a foothold independent of Bal Thackeray, competitive politics propelled Raj on the one hand and Bal and Uddhav on the other to seek to outdo each other in rhetoric which aroused passions among the people at large. In fairness to Uddhav it must be acknowledged that he did try to shift the focus to daal-roti issues during the last assembly polls but it was Raj who made news with his vitriolic statements with strong regional overtones.

Bal and Raj Thackeray may be up to their respective game plans for their own political ends, but the effect that their chauvinistic planks are having on the supporters of their two parties is of spreading venom along divisive lines.

For the swelling ranks of the unemployed, it is not entirely surprising that they get swayed by rhetoric that ascribes all their hardships to the presence of outsiders who they feel take away the jobs that should have been theirs.

It is quite another matter that Mumbai without the immigant communities is unthinkable. Some of the biggest and most successful industrialists are Gujaratis without whose enterprise Mumbai could hardly have grown to be the business capital of the country.

Yet, anyone who seeks to downplay the role of the locals in any place’s development is living in a fool’s paradise. For Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi to suggest that it was the Biharis and Uttar Pradeshis without whom the battle against the 26/11 terrorists could not have been waged is to play into the hands of Bal and Raj Thackeray who are now reeling off names of Maharashtrians who went down fighting valiantly.

The tragedy is that political parties and politicians who are up in arms against Bal and Raj Thackeray’s unreasonable stand are as much guilty of playing vote bank politics as the Thackerays are. With elections to the Bihar Assembly due next year and UP a high-stakes state, political leaders from the North are more concerned about their electoral prospects than about the principle that Mumbai is for all Indians.

Be it Rahul Gandhi or BJP President Gadkari or the irrepressible Lalu Prasad Yadav, what they have in common is an eye on the northern vote banks to the exclusion of other considerations.

All said and done, it is shocking however that senior political leaders can go around saying that Mumbai is for Maharashtrians alone and take on those who speak the language of sanity that they are Indians first.

Is this not violative of the spirit and substance of the Constitution? Should not rabble-rousers who cause so much damage to the democratic fabric and to the integrity and solidarity of people across the country be arrayed before the courts and put behind bars?

It was bad enough when Raj Thackeray took on Amitabh Bachchan when the latter expressed pride in his heritage and alluded to his roots in UP. The systematic campaign against the iconic Bachchan was not matched by action against those who challenged him against continuing to live in Mumbai.

Recently, Bal Thackeray went a step further when he admonished and warned the redoubtable Sachin Tendulkar for having remarked that Mumbai belonged to all Indians and not to anyone in particular. In words that reaffirmed his nationalistic spirit Tendulkar added that while he is a Maharashtrian and is “extremely proud of that,” he is an Indian first.

In an editorial in Saamna, the mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray advised Tendulkar to focus on his international cricket and said that he had “hurt the feelings of Marathi Manoos.”

Thackeray went on to say: “Sachin may not know what Marathi Manoos went through to get Mumbai. You were not even born then.”

In a tone of warning, the Shiv Sena supremo wrote in the editorial: “Sachin, please keep it in mind that we praise you for your fours and sixes on the field, but if you use your tongue as a bat to hit boundaries against Marathi Manoos, we will never tolerate it. Please don’t lose on the ground of politics whatever you have earned on the cricket pitch.”

The Shiv Sena’s intemperate remarks against leading actor Shah Rukh Khan for having protested against the non-inclusion of Pakistani cricket players in the IPL tournament and the burning of Khan’s effigies point to growing intolerance that is sullying the image of a once cosmopolitan Mumbai.

Through all this the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra can hardly be absolved of blame for being soft on the likes of Bal and Raj Thackeray. In fact, the state government sent out all the wrong signals by announcing that taxi permits would only be given in future to those domiciled in Mumbai for 15 years and who knew how to read and write Marathi. That this indefensibly inward-looking statement was watered down subsequently does not detract from the fact that the Maharashtra government is afraid of speaking up for the “Indians first” plank.

While Bal, Uddhav and Raj Thackeray continue to run amuck, making outrageous statements that are sharpening the divide between Mumbaikars and non-Mumbaikars, there is nothing beyond some sabre-rattling by a few Congress leaders who too are speaking up perhaps because Bal Thackeray has taken on Rahul Gandhi. NCP supremo Sharad Pawar who pretends to be a torch-bearer of national interest is silent on the issue.

If then some right-thinking people call India a soft state where there is little accountability for the high and mighty, can there be any convincing refutation of it?

MIDDLE

Swing and smile
by I.M. Soni

After two laser eye operations, recovery from a frozen right shoulder and arm, and a bout of severe backache, I resumed my morning walk and went to the park.

Having ruminated a lot on ageing, I had thought of some tricks to tackle old age. In the park, I found swings unoccupied, an impish smile played on my lips and I swung into action. I am 75 plus. Now, it was the turn of others in the park to smile in their sleeves.

A friend has started sleeping on a mattress on the floor, discarding a regular bed. The reason: when he woke up in the morning his back curved and made it difficult for him get up off the soft bed. Now sleeping on a floor gives him a straight start, says he.

There are others who are also trying to get into re-shape. They drink and smoke less (if they are not fibbing), lose weight, switch to low-fat, sensible diets and have became bores!

They spend more and more time coming to terms with the inevitable decline of their physical powers, sometimes with unexpected results. A neighbour fell by the wayside when the old age infirmities took charge.

Some, however, just watch their waistlines expand into prosperous wastelands. If their purse is as bulging as their tummy, they go to expensive, fashionable gyms. They dye hair, and growth on upper lip to look deceptively young!

They unwillingly accept gasping for breath after climbing a flight of stairs, and resist before finally giving in to the glorious uncertainties of sunset years. Moderation is the word they are now understanding after paying hefty fees to specialists in medicine.

I acknowledge with grace and humour that my eyesight after two laser operations has become near normal. I have also regained my roving eye!

You, members of the “sunset club”, should not worry about the body which is deteriorating because it is inevitable. You should try to do what you can with what you have. Swing in a park!

It is too late for chasing good and beautiful things of life but not for thrills in swings in a park! You will smile, as others do. And every time you swing, smile or laugh, it adds to your life span.

OPED

Punjab’s fiscal muddle
Poor governance is to blame
by Gobind Thukral

It has taken close to three years for the Akali-BJP government to attempt a solution to the worsening fiscal matters of the state. Its debt burden is over Rs 60,000 crores with the annual interest liability adding up Rs 5,000 crore. In fact, the salaries, pensions and interest payments devour 70 per cent of the revenue. It leaves little for planned development.

Punjab’s current annual plan of Rs 8,625 crore, which has a budget component of Rs 4,000 crore, may fall short by Rs 2,000 crore. This presents a miserable picture. There is no way to fill vacancies of teachers and hospital staff, including doctors. There is a net burden of subsidising power, ration and old age pensions etc of Rs 4,500 crore.

The two coalition partners’ constant nagging over fiscal matters led to the formation of the two-member committee consisting of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Industries Minister Manoranjan Kalia. Its report has been accepted by the Punjab Cabinet without discussion. One can spot in this report a clever exercise to halt free power for the farmers and mop up some resources before the budget.

It is clever by half to decide that instead of free power to the farm sector the government has allowed the Punjab State Electricity Board to charge the farmers at Rs 50 per BPH and the government will reimburse the payments twice a year. This productivity-linked bonus to the farmers can be increased, decreased or stopped in future. For all intents and purposes there is no free power for the farm sector. In the first case as every Punjabi knows too well corruption may not allow any future benefit to farmers.

Punjab will continue to bear the burden as farmers will pay a fraction of the total power subsidy. The government claims that Rs 621 crore will be collected by charging farmers for power. Experts put the amount at Rs 494 crore only . The total agriculture subsidy comes to Rs 2,797 crore and the government will have to pay the board Rs 2,303 crore. In the tariff order for 2009-10, the Regulatory Commission had calculated the average price of one unit supplied to the agricultural sector at Rs 2.85. It comes to Rs 283 per HP per month.

The argument behind this decision is not that Punjab does not want to free power for farmers, but to save the future of agriculture. The conditions that may come up with the World Trade Organisation regime in India will not allow any direct subsidy, but permit productivity bonus.

The same logic goes into the reintroduction of charges for the canal water supply at the rate of Rs 150 per acre. Punjab could now seek World Bank loans in this sector. The farmers may get less canal water, but will have to cough up money. Right now the condition of Punjab canals is pitiable as is the case with the power supply.

The PSEB may escape the fiscal collapse that stared it in the face but what about the farmers who suffer long power cuts? Farmers are not so silly to miss the point that free power is a thing of the past. The Akali stalwart, Mr. Parkash Singh Badal, knows too well the political cost. But the fiscal crisis has left little choice for him. These are the wages of the past sins. Will the sluggish and corrupt governance in Punjab let the ‘laudable’ measures become functional?

The government has not increased the retirement age of government employees from 58 to 60 years. They could get one-year extension minus any pension benefits. There is no saving of the proposed Rs 1,500 crore. How will the state help those 35 lakh unemployed youth who daily protest on the streets? It is increasing the strength of the police by 1,600 to meet such challenges.

All other subsidies, including atta-dal, shagun, old-age pension and welfare schemes for women Dalits and economically weaker sections, will continue. There is not a word about improving the delivery system. Newspapers every day unmask the corrupt delivery system and how powerful are cornering the benefits.

There is also no word about the large-scale tax evasion in which the ruling party workers are involved. Some recent cases detected in Mandi Gobindgarh suggest the siphoning of crores of rupees through bogus firms. All these welfare schemes are deeply mired in corruption.

The recommendation for an upward revision of the VAT, bus fares and collectorate rates has been accepted. There are new taxes on property, institutions, the DTH service and electricity duty on power generation for captive consumption, besides a surcharge on the VAT. How these steps would generate additional Rs 4,000 crore per annum remain unexplained.

The bus fares are up by 13 per cent to benefit the private passenger transporters who now control over 60 per cent of the business. The DTH service users will pay Rs 10 per month per connection. The cell towers will require one-time regularisation fee of Rs 1 lakh and an annual payment of Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 depending upon their location and the size of the city. In all fairness, these measures should have been left to the assembly. This back-door exercise will seriously undermine whatever is left of the democratic functioning of the Punjab assembly.

Punjab passed the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act in 2003. It adorns the statute book. It has done little to check the over-staffing in government departments and to improve efficiency in the tax collection. Its own appointed Reforms Commission believes that the government expenditure can play a critical role in supporting the social and economic life of the poor even in a relatively developed state like Punjab.

What exactly is at the root of this fiscal crisis? The Centre-state fiscal relations are skewed with elastic resources like income tax, excise duties, customs and capital taxes being with the Centre and inelastic sources like sales tax, land revenue, excise duty on liquor etc with the states. Major development burden like education, physical and social infrastructure, falls on the shoulders of the states. The states’ autonomy in fiscal matters is under serious threat.

Agriculture, which ensures food security and takes care of 60 per cent of the population, has been pushed back since 1991 when reforms began. Just 2.5 per cent of the GDP is spent on agriculture. No big irrigation projects have been launched.

And in Punjab the 150-year-old canal system has not been maintained, leading to 30 per cent water losses. No doubt the yearly growth rate is falling short of expectations. How could we have the Second Green Revolution about which our economist Prime Minister talks passionately? There is something inherently wrong with the path of development and the economic model that has created a small class of super rich and a vast majority of poor.

Another Greek tragedy unfolds
by Stephen King

It's the politics, stupid. After years in which market forces dominated, in which economies were supposedly self-regulating and in which the nation state appeared increasingly to be impotent, markets are now struggling to cope with the return of what might loosely be called "political economy". Since the beginning of the year, the economic news has, for the most part, been reasonably good.

The US economy is expanding at a decent pace, allowing the unemployment rate to fall, the Chinese economy is booming and European economies are, for the most part, pulling themselves out of recession. Yet the mood in financial markets has changed dramatically. The euphoria which dominated much of 2009 has, since the New Year, been replaced by a hangover.

The return of politics is unsettling for investors. For many years, investors thought they understood the "rules of the game". Central bankers were dedicated to the achievement of price stability. If inflation was a bit too high, interest rates would go up. If it was a bit too low, rates would come back down again. Finance ministers, meanwhile, were devoted to fiscal conservatism. Not for them the evils of big budget deficits and Keynesian demand management policies. Their job was to borrow as little as possible, thereby keeping interest rates at low levels to allow investment in the private sector to flourish.

These were simple rules. Investors loved them. Yet the rules have now been torn up. In their place, we now have political whim and policymaking expediency. This is hardly surprising. Markets have not exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years. Yet the fallout from this shift away from market forces is, as yet, poorly understood. Investors are no longer able to make confident predictions about the future because the future will increasingly be determined by politics, not by markets. And that makes investors feel uncomfortable.

Consider, for example, the tragedy unfolding in Greece. It is not really an economic tragedy, even though the rise in Greek bond yields might be regarded as the ultimate market punishment for the fiscally deviant. California is also in a fiscal mess. California, however, isn't facing an economic and financial crisis of the same kind.

The reason is simple. California is part of a greater political entity called the United States which happens to have a federal fiscal system. No one expects California to go bust because the American people simply wouldn't allow it. For Greece, however, the situation is more problematic. Greece may be part of the eurozone but the eurozone is not the United States. There may be a single monetary policy but, in the absence of a federal budget authority, there is no single fiscal policy.

If California faces a fiscal crisis, financial markets will assume either that California delivers austerity or that Washington will provide a bailout. Few will bet on the third possibility, namely that California might default on its debt. When it comes to Greece, however, investors are simply not so sure. The Three Musketeers' "all for one and one for all" may work in the US but, in the eurozone, it's an untested proposition. Will other eurozone nations really bail out Greece? And, if they do, what would Ireland then say, having already swallowed the bitter austerity pill?

The Greek tragedy reveals an essential weakness within the eurozone, a legacy of pre-crisis conventional economic thought. Policymakers in most countries in the Western world thought it was possible to detach monetary from fiscal policy. On this view, it didn't seem to matter that fiscal decisions in Europe would be taken at the national level whereas monetary decisions would be taken at the European level. Yet, whether policymakers like it or not, the two are linked.

It now looks as though some countries within the eurozone will need to deliver a huge improvement in competitiveness to restore their economies to post-crunch health. Wages are too high and productivity is too low. But with a low inflation target for the eurozone as a whole, the weaker members will only be able to deliver the necessary competitive improvement by forcing wage cuts on to their citizens. Lower wages and prices, in turn, will lead to lower government tax receipts which will deliver an even bigger budget deficit and, perhaps, higher bond yields reflecting rising default risk. In these circumstances, it's not difficult to generate a vicious downward spiral, leading to social and political unrest.

One obvious way to deal with this problem would be to raise the European Central Bank's inflation target, thereby making it easier for the weaker, more deflation-prone, countries to stabilise their fiscal positions without having to make spending cuts in cash terms. No wonder the central bankers in Frankfurt are feeling nervous.

Whatever the near-term resolution of Greece's problems – and policymakers know the clock is ticking – I suspect this latest European crisis will leave the eurozone's architects facing a choice. Do they allow the eurozone to lose its way, leading to rising speculation with regard to defaults and exits from the system?

Or, instead, do they strengthen the eurozone's political backbone by creating a federal fiscal system, thereby reducing the economic sovereignty of individual member nations still further? Given the history of European integration over the last sixty years, I suspect it will be the latter. How Europe's leaders get there, however, is another matter altogether.n

— By arrangement with The Independent

Delhi Durbar
Jaitley won’t annoy Narendra Modi

BJP leader Arun Jaitley is generally disdainful and dismissive of most people in general. So naturally he had dismissed NDA partner Shiv Sena's current fulminations against 'Itailian' Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi with the necessary contempt, saying "Shrillness does not pay anymore. Moderation is a virtue. Political idiom has changed with changing India. When you present your case these changes have to be factored in."

But when reminded of his mentor, friend, philosopher and guide Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's recent threat of writing to Sonia in Italian, Jaitely suddenly switched off. Naturally, he dare not criticise Modi for his Rajya Sabha seat is Modi's gift. The other day a BJP socialite from Mumbai, Shaina N.C., organised a special screening of Shahrukh Khan's latest film 'My Name is Khan' at the Films Division auditorium. But such is the awe of the Thackerays even in Delhi that most first-rung BJP leaders kept away from the auditorium.

Foreign Minister’s take on Pakistan

That India was mulling over resuming dialogue with Pakistan became quite obvious during the past fortnight. Positive signals had already started emerging from the Foreign Office in this regard.

What surprised many a journalist was the hurry exhibited by External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna to demonstrate his statesman-like qualities. After attending a function organised to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Fulbright programme in India, Krishna was exchanging pleasantries with guests when he noticed that TV cameramen had taken positions to get a sound byte from him.

He immediately instructed one of his aides to take a TV scribe aside and tell him to ask a pointed question on Pakistan. The TV reporter did not disappoint the minister and asked him when India would resume talks with Pakistan. "Doors were never shut on talks with Pakistan," the minister replied promptly, setting off speculation about the proposed dates of the dialogue between the two Foreign Secretaries.

Sports journalists unhappy

Sports journalists are in for a tough time. Those interested in covering the World Cup Hockey starting at the Dhyan Chand Stadium (earlier known as National Stadium) on February 28 have been asked to fill a two-page police verification form. This form is a must for even those who have a PIB accreditation. The form seeks details like the school in which one studied as also the college and university background.

There are over 12 columns which ask an applicant whether he/she ever had a brush with the police – any sort of case registered against him/her etc. The applicant is also asked to give information about his/her father, where he/she was born, what he/she is doing and the address.

The applicant has been asked to provide an identity card – not the office card. It has to be a PAN card, a voter identity card, a PIB card or a photocopy of the passport. Naturally, the sports journalists are not happy. However, they have no option but to give all these details if they want to cover the event. If this is the case with the World Cup, which is to be held at a single venue, one shudders to think as what is in store for them when they cover the Commonwealth Games.n

Contributed by Faraz Ahmad and Ashok Tuteja

Corrections and clarifications

The headline “Southern sectors suffer in basic amenities” (Page 2, February 8) is clumsily worded. It should have been “Poor basic amenities in southern sectors”.

In the headline on the test tube baby case (Page 2, February 8, Chandigarh Tribune) the word ‘Builder’ has been mis-spelt at ‘Bulider’.

The headline “HC on Vigilance cases” (Page 4, February 6) is unclear. It does not convey the spirit of the report.

In the headline “Rahul hops onto Mumbai trains to snub Shiv Sena” (Page 1, February 6) ‘on’ and ‘to’ should have been separate words.

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua
Editor-in-Chief