The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Hapless whistleblowers
Paper tigers need real teeth & claws

WE in India have poor levels of confidence in fighting corruption because we fear retaliation and intimidation from the very system that one is seeking to protect. The tragedies of Satyendra Dubey and Shanmughan Manjunath are not wiped out from public memory. Both young technocrats lost their lives trying to save billions of rupees from public funds which were being pilfered by a corrupt few. So, even though it may be a small incident involving some officials of the Forest Department of Haryana, where the officer who reported a corruption case involving a colleague is victimised, instead of being rewarded, it is symptomatic of the larger malaise that attacks the efficiency of the system from within. And it happens despite the fact that the Whistleblowers Protection Bill was cleared by the Union Cabinet in August, 2010, promising to protect them from any discrimination or victimisation in their workplace.

Yet, as reports say, a forest range officer, who was found guilty of embezzling over Rs 3.5 lakh for selling timber belonging to the Forest Department to contractors and not depositing the proceeds with the government, was asked to deposit the money after an enquiry was ordered by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Haryana. For some strange reason now the very PCCF has ordered withdrawal of the FIR against the officer after he has deposited the money with the government. Not only this, the same PCCF has ordered suspension of the officer who had reported the case against his colleagues, with the permission of his superiors. Cases like these discourage upright people from exposing the corrupt.

As if all this was not enough, in a bizarre Kafkaesque manner, DD Misra, currently working as Deputy Inspector-General in the Uttar Pradesh fire service, was sent to a mental hospital because he threatened to make public files containing evidence of massive fraud of funds in the purchase of some equipment. These cases prove that the Bills passed by Parliament keep adding more paper tigers to the kitty while the corrupt continue to enjoy protection from those who are supposed to protect the system for the sake of the common man.

The mess in kabaddi
Failed dope tests tell their own story

THE ongoing 2nd Kabaddi World Cup was supposed to give a boost to the sport, or rather, the Punjab version of the game, in the state, while providing some impetus to the ruling party and its bigwigs in terms of popularity. At least on the first count, the plan has gone seriously awry. While the people have thronged the centres where the matches were played and since almost all the teams in the fray are represented by NRIs, mostly hailing from Punjab, it has been quite a party on-field. But behind the scenes, it has been one failed dope test after the other. Many of the teams have had multiple offenders and the last straw was when one of the Indian team members too failed the test.

An alarming proportion of the samples collected by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) have tested positive. While many teams are upset with the result, there is no doubt about the dubious nature of the functioning of these associations. It would be a safe bet to suggest that these federations are actually not registered with their respective national governments. Even if they are, as associations, they are routinely breaching the rules governing dope-free sports.

Most of these are just a collection of Indian-origin people getting together to play a game that is inherently Asian and using all means possible, fair or foul, to gain strength and muscle in their quest for some glory along the way. There is no affiliation with the National Olympic Committee and given that this format of the game – the Punjab-style or cycle-style – is not a recognized format, even the International Olympic Committee or, for that matter, the Indian Olympic Association are oblivious of the mechanics of this sport. In any case, there are no real medals to be won. A lot of money is at stake, but there is not even a semblance of method to the manner in which the sport is being played and guided. That indeed is the unfortunate truth of it all.

Thought for the Day

Peace begins when the hungry are fed.

— Anonymous

ARTICLE

Anna’s drive gets politicised
Will middle classes’ interest remain intact?
by S. Nihal Singh

STRANGE as it may sound, the Anna Hazare movement is suffering a mid-life crisis so soon after its original triumph in placing corruption centre stage because it struck a chord with the masses of people fed up with the level of sleaze in public life and in the smallest transactions with officialdom. How quickly it has lost its sheen is a complex story in which the leader himself and particularly his associates were overwhelmed by the success of an idea whose time had come, the less-than-sterling conduct of some members of the team and an anti-Congress and pro-saffron inclination that became more pronounced each day.

Perhaps the culmination of Anna’s political sympathies was in his recent statement that if a strong Lokpal Bill were not passed during the winter session, he would canvass against the Congress in the forthcoming state assembly elections. In other words, he is giving an incentive to the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to sabotage the Bill in the coming session to win a valuable ally in electoral contests. And the Anna team has extolled the Lok Ayukta Bill adopted by the BJP-ruled Uttarakhand as a model to be copied.

Inevitably, the Anna team has lost some of its credibility by not having a word to stay about Mr Narendra Modi, whom Anna has extolled, refusing to have a Lok Ayukta for the last seven years. And the act of Mr Arvind Kejriwal, a principal spokesman of his leader, lending his voice to a full campaign against the Congress in the Hisar byelection in which the grand old party’s candidate lost by more votes than expected, did not hide his inclinations.

The BJP is delighted by this turn of events when it is not obsessed by the competing claims of Mr L.K. Advani and a second string of leaders for nomination as an aspirant Prime Minister. The Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) is rock solid behind Anna’s movement and is encouraging its cadres to buttress it. Apart from making a last desperate attempt at the Prime Minister’s chair, Mr Advani is seeking to take advantage of the winds generated by Anna’s anti-corruption crusade through his trademark rath yatra to benefit the BJP.

Indeed, there are signs that the Anna movement is being metamorphosed into a fledgling political party. An attempt was made to get a Muslim and a Dalit child to break his fast at Ramlila Maidan to counter the widespread perception of its pro-BJP-RSS leanings. That idea of political symbolism is now sought to be expanded by revamping and expanding the core committee to undertake the politically correct task of including other identifiable groups and communities.

Interestingly, political India is fighting back. After a long silence, the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, had her speech read for her at an Uttar Pradesh rally striking the first blow without naming names. She said corruption would not be banished by making speeches, and it was time those fighting the evil would introspect. Thus far, one of the Congress general secretaries, Mr Digvijaya Singh, was charged with giving a daily running commentary on the contradictions of Team Anna pronouncements. He had adopted the ploy of blaming Anna’s associates for exploiting their simple-minded leader by taking him up the garden path.

What has upset Team Anna more is the sharp reply of the Bihar Chief Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, ruling in an alliance with the BJP, telling off the anti-corruption crusaders who said they were disappointed by the state’s Lokpal Bill, which fell woefully short of the ideal decreed by them. They asked him to take the straight and narrow path. His answer was that he was responsible to the people of Bihar who had elected him, not to a self-appointed outside tribunal. Perhaps Mr Kumar has realised that too close a proximity with a saffron-tainted Anna Hazare would do his prospects in the state with a substantial Muslim voting population no good. It is one thing to campaign against corruption, quite another to try to boost the BJP and the Sangh Parivar in the country.

It remains to be seen whether Anna can revive the initial fervour of the middle classes in carrying out a politicised anti-corruption campaign. The Congress party has many sins to answer for, but no one wants to be taken for a ride in supporting a political movement that has lost its impartiality and is becoming an adjunct of right-wing forces of the ilk of the BJP and the RSS. Politicians, for their part, are increasingly resentful of an interloper seeking to intrude into their political space, except for the parties benefiting from this phenomenon.

The irony is that the more the BJP benefits from Anna, the greater is the in-fighting in the party for the top honour. The BJP took more than a year to recover from its defeat in the 2004 general election and despondency gave way to desperation with the Congress obtaining a bigger majority in the next general election. With some reason, the BJP is now betting on the lacklustre performance of the United Progressive Alliance Mark II, entangled in scams, to hope for better times.

The atmosphere in the BJP has not been helped by more than one party leader greeting Mr Advani on his birthday as the most suitable candidate for Prime Ministership. And there is Mr Modi, portrayed as the strong leader so beloved of the RSS rank and file, among others, casting his long shadow. It would, indeed, be a miracle if a person of Mr Modi’s record in the anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 were to be elected as the leader of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country.

Even more strangely, the BJP president, Mr Nitin Gadkari, harbours his own ambitions by reiterating nearly every day that the choice of the party’s aspirant would be a collective decision. He has, however, omitted his earlier caveat that such a choice would be made after the general election.

How Anna would retrieve his earlier glow, should he want to, remains to be seen. There are no easy answers for a supposed anti-corruption movement that has grown political ambitions.

MIDDLE

‘Extras’ of life
by V.K. Kapoor

WE were sitting on the terrace of a hotel facing the Juhu beach. We had worked together in the Ministry of Home Affairs. He was a senior cop in Bombay. On the beach, a film was being shot where girls were playing ball with the hero. He saw my colleague and joined us. There was something fishy and depraved about the man.

My colleague told me that he was connected with the film industry. I asked him whether he was in production or direction. He said that he supplied the ‘Extras’ in films, and pointed towards the frolicking young damsels. My friend remarked about the ample figure of the girls. He said in a matter-of-fact tone that “To have a houseful, you need a blouseful”.

I asked him how did he like working in this glamorous profession. He said it was like working in a living hell. Every individual is a commodity. It is a heartless profession. Mumbai is a city of crashed dreams and dashed hopes. Hope cheats more than cunning can. In Mumbai, in his view, only three kinds of professionals enjoyed life: police personnel, politicians and those in the underworld. They have a common umbilical cord. He had the hard-earned wisdom of a survivor. The shot was over, and he left with his entourage.

I remembered my old teacher, who used to say, “Either you use the world or the world uses you”. To succeed in life one needs resilience, cunningness, stamina and loneliness of a long-distance runner.

In all walks of life, the small fry gets used. Without these “Extras” of life, one cannot live. A driver, a peon, a cook, a waiter and a maid make our life comfortable, but they are always short-charged.

A senior police officer, after reaching the party venue, used to lock the official car and carried the key to avoid its misuse by the driver. He enjoyed the party, but the driver remained hungry.

I remember an old incident at the Golf Club. Before us was a “four-some” of senior bureaucrats. When the caddy handed over a wrong club, the bureaucrat was so furious that he gave the caddy a hard slap. The caddy cried. He raised his hand again to hit the caddy when the sentry at Raj Bhawan shouted at the bureaucrat and told him that in case he slapped the caddy again, he would fire and kill him. The menace in the voice of the sentry had the desired effect. A senior bureaucrat told his colleague that he would speak to the Governor and get the sentry sacked. I ensured that the sentry was properly rewarded.

These “Extras of Life” - the aam admi - are like Mother India, and all of us who are well of are India. India exploits Mother India. Aam admi is used, misused and abused because he cannot hit back. They are the people who make our life comfortable.

OPED — WORLD

What Europe must do, now, to avert calamity
Governments acting together are far more effective in a globalised world. The G20 urgently needs to come up with a plan to get growth going again.
Alistair Darling

Europe’s growth has stalled and its leaders continue to wring their hands ineffectually. The longer the delay in doing what is needed the greater the financial cost will be. Worse, the longer nothing is done the greater the risk that markets will doubt not only the political will of eurozone leaders, but their financial ability to do what is needed. Now we hear of plans yet to be disclosed to break up the euro in the midst of the raging firestorm. Talk about careless talk costing lives.

A leadership vacuum lies at the heart of the global crisis. Last week’s meeting of the G20 leaders was an abject failure just at a time when the world needs strong leadership and a clear sense of direction. Europe still fiddles as Rome threatens to burn and ignite a fire far beyond its borders .

Understandably people are frightened of what the future holds. They are worried about their jobs and why no one seems to be getting a grip. They are confronted with austerity yet they see their leaders offering little more than weary resignation to perhaps years of stagnation. The cry goes up, there is nothing to be done. It is not surprising that the nascent protests in London and New York, despite their inchoate and disparate demands, attract so much attention. There is not much else on offer.

Globalisation, we know, can bring immense benefits. But at times like this the downsides are all too felt. National governments struggle to impose order in this new world where there is no overarching global governance. How frustrating then that where there is some semblance of structure, in Europe for example, it is not being used. Or in the case of the G20 last week, it is reduced to apparent impotence.

The G20 had apparently three objectives. An action plan for growth, the removal of key obstacles to growth. And of course sorting out the eurozone. They failed spectacularly on all three.

The G20 is far from perfect. But it can work. In 2009 when it met in London its decisive statement to do whatever it took to avoid recession sliding into depression gave markets confidence that governments were not powerless in the face of global events. And it worked because ministers were scared stiff of what failure would mean.

Today the situation is far more serious. If ministers are not yet scared they should be. We are now told that G20 finance ministers may meet again before Christmas. Another failure will reinforce the sense of hopelessness and engender further scepticism if not cynicism about what governments can do. Leaders should order their finance ministers to start work immediately to see what countries can do together to get growth going. Governments can make a difference.

For the 30 years before this crisis struck there was a consensus that the role of government was limited. The crisis in 2008 changed all that. If ever there was a case of where governments can make a difference that was it. Without growth, deficits will go up, not down, as we are seeing here at home. Across Europe, imposing austerity is killing off growth. Borrowing is likely to rise, threatening recovery.

Governments acting together are far more effective in a globalised world, as we saw clearly two years ago. The G20 urgently needs to come up with a plan to get growth going again. Even Asian governments are now fearful that what is happening in Europe will slow their economies right down again. The bigger questions of imbalances between countries like China and the US can only be resolved at a global level. A repeat of the grand bargain struck in 1944 at Bretton Woods would be a useful starting point.

Surely the G20 with all the political firepower it has could have persuaded the eurozone that it cannot allow this crisis to fester on and threaten the entire global economy? Here is the irony: the European Union and the eurozone do have structures that could be made to work. The European Central Bank can buy government bonds. Existing treaties offer decision-making powers.

A single currency means the richer countries must help the poorer ones. Of course countries must help themselves. There have to be reforms in Greece especially. But we cannot afford to let this crisis carry on any longer.

A break-up of the euro now would harm not just the eurozone but us too. It is the last thing we need. The eurozone will have to decide if it wants closer union and whether its membership remains intact. If there is closer union then that clearly raises issues around the relationship between it and the rest of the EU. That, however, is not today’s problem. There are three things Europe’s leaders need to do right now. First, even with a new Greek government there is no one who seriously believes that the present Greek fix will work. A plan that leaves Greece with debt at 120 per cent of its GDP in 2020 – more than it had when it went into this crisis – is doomed to fail. We know that. So why not fix it now?

Second, bank recapitalisation cannot wait until next summer. If Greek, Italian or Spanish banks begin to falter, what happened in 2008 will seem like a squall compared to the hurricane that would be unleashed in Europe, and soon.

Third, the rescue fund does not exist. Nor does it look like existing any time soon. The European Central Bank does exist and should be allowed to buy bonds from distressed countries. In a crisis you have to use what tools you have to hand. We are now in a worse position than we were in 2008. It is compounded by a lack of vision and leadership at every level. Time is running out. To avoid this foreseeable calamity we must act now. — The Independent

The writer was Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2007 to 2010

George Soros’ advice for the euro zone
Chrystia Freeland

George Soros Europeans could use a little cheering up this week. One man who is trying to do that is George Soros business magnate, financier, philosopher and philanthropist. He knows his way around a currency crisis, of course, and he isn’t usually accused of being a Pollyanna. Soros thinks it is not too late to save Europe and the euro — but he warns that time is running out and that Europe’s leaders must fundamentally change their strategy to succeed. Let’s start with the bad news. “Right now, the crisis has hit a new high, because there’s an unresolved government crisis in Greece and in Italy,” Soros said this week from Warsaw.. “There is also a looming worsening of the financial crisis because all the efforts to leverage the EFSF have run into legal or technical difficulties,” he said, referring to the European Financial Stability Facility, the bailout fund for the euro zone.

“That means that currently Europe has no ring fence against a possible Greek default, and that is what is pushing the market into a renewed panic,” Soros said. “I expect the market to fall into despair and panic and I expect that to get worse.”

Despair may indeed be the right emotion, if you accept Soros’s prediction of what will happen if European leaders don’t get ahead of the markets: “This crisis is potentially bigger than the crash of 2008, because we have survived the crash of 2008 and we have not yet survived this one. There is a danger if they get it wrong, then you have a financial meltdown,” he told me in Budapest last week. “If there is a disorderly default in Greece, and the rest of the euro zone has not been insulated from contagion, then you could have a meltdown not only of the Greek financial system, but of the European and in fact the global financial system because we are so interconnected.”

So far, so dire. But Soros has two ideas that should perk you up. One is about the bazooka, and one is about the most important woman in the world.

The bazooka is the financial weapon Europe has created to defend ailing European economies from the skeptical traders who are betting against them. To end the crisis, Europe needs a bazooka big enough to convince the markets that making a wager against Frankfurt will be futile—and expensive. Until now, the story of this financial crisis is one of European leaders consistently being one step behind the markets: bringing a fist to a knife fight, then a knife to the gunfight—and never bringing out the bazooka. Conventional wisdom—and the verdict of the markets this week—is that the European Financial Stability Facility war chest of 440 billion euros, or $600 billion, is a continuation of this pattern of insufficiency.

Soros disagrees: “It actually has the bazooka in its hand, provided it uses it in the right way.”

To do that, Soros said, Europe must first acknowledge what its bazooka is too small to achieve: rescue Europe’s faltering members directly. The bailout fund, he said, “was designed as a way of providing guarantees on government bonds, but for that purpose it is clearly inadequate. It cannot be stretched to cover Italy and Spain.”

But the bailout fund is big enough, Soros thinks, to save Europe in a different way. “It needs to be used to guarantee the banking system,” he said. “That would create a lender of last resort, which is currently lacking.” The bailout fund, he continued, could take the solvency risk, which is beyond the legal mandate of the European Central Bank.

The Soros plan is essentially a way to get around Europe’s fundamental economic flaw: It has a single currency, but no lender of last resort. “It’s a trick, but a trick that would work.”

The second reason for Soros’s relative optimism is his conviction that Germany and its leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel—the afore-mentioned most important woman in the world—have recently had a crucial change of heart. “It is entirely in the hands of Germany,” Soros said. “Angela Merkel’s attitude has changed. She recognizes that the euro is in mortal danger and she is willing to risk her political future to save it. I think she recognises that Germany has caused the crisis to get out of control, and she is now determined to correct that.”

Merkel is very good at getting what she wants, so fans of Europe and the euro should be somewhat reassured by Soros’s verdict. But only somewhat. Soros is a persuasive salesman of his plan to rescue Europe, but his most telling remark comes when I ask him what he would do if he were still actively trading.

“I would be sitting on the fence like everybody else, because the situation is so uncertain.” — Reuters