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UP deserves division
Mismanagement of oil |
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King-sized trouble
Punjab in debt trap
Wanted: Stay-at-home dads!
BANKING ON SPERM BANKS
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UP deserves division In the run-up to the 2012 Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mayawati has played her master card --- the idea of carving out four states from the present state of Uttar Pradesh. She has done it in desperation, as she is unlikely to repeat her performance of 2007, when her party got a comfortable majority in the UP Assembly. But it is difficult to reject her Cabinet’s proposal for UP’s division.
S Population-wise and otherwise, UP is too large to be governed properly from Lucknow as its capital. With a population of over 200 million and an area of 2.5 lakh kilometres, UP would have been the fifth largest country of the world had it been an independent nation. We have a state of such a huge size despite the creation of Uttarakhand comprising the former hill regions — Garhwal and Kumaon — of UP in the recent past. After the birth of Uttarakhand there has been no strong movement for dividing UP into smaller states. Ms Mayawati floated such an idea after capturing power in 2007, but she avoided pursuing it as the state’s size and the substantial number of MPs (20) belonging to her party, the BSP, helped her emerge as an aspirant for the Prime Minister’s post. Mr Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal has been talking of Harit Pradesh comprising the western districts of UP, but his demand has been too feeble to be taken seriously. Ms Mayawati now seems to be ready to take her idea to its logical conclusion — creation of Pashchim Pradesh, Budelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Poorvanchal from UP. Besides the BSP, the Congress and the BJP have expressed their views in favour of smaller states on different occasions. The Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav is the only party opposed to such an idea because of its scattered support base. The BSP’s core following of Dalits is there substantially in all the proposed states. With one masterstroke, Ms Mayawati has added to the worries of not only the SP but also of the Congress which, being the ruling party at the Centre, is not well placed to take a clear stand on UP’s division because of the demands for separate states like Telangana elsewhere in the country. |
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Mismanagement of oil It is difficult not to see the Union government’s hand in the oil companies’ decision to cut petrol prices by Rs 2.20 a litre. On paper petrol prices were decontrolled in June, 2010. The situation has not changed much since November 3 when the last price hike was carried out to warrant a rethink on the issue.
Though in the first half of November the crude price fell to $115.85 a barrel from $121.67 in October, part of the gain has been eroded by the falling rupee, which touched a 32-month low at Rs 50.66 to a dollar on Tuesday. There is no perceptible downtrend in commodity prices despite a slowdown in the US and troubles in Eurozone to justify a u-turn on petrol, especially when the oil firms had hesitated cutting the prices in the last about three years. The truth is the UPA has succumbed to political pressure even after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had ruled out a price hike reversal and suggested a decontrol of the left-out items. The last price increase sparked protests, even from the UPA allies. Trinamool Congress threatened to withdraw support to the government. The UPA move is aimed to calm the frayed nerves ahead of the Parliament session, beginning on November 22. The partial decontrol of petrol has not helped much. Oil firms still take government permission before announcing a decision. They have not earned public confidence for price decontrol. When oil gets cheaper in global markets the benefit is not passed on to consumers immediately. Besides, in the absence of competition, government firms are run inefficiently. Corruption, theft and adulteration are rampant in oil distribution. The oil users and taxpayers bear the burden of incompetence. Since diesel and LPG are sold at below-cost prices, the government’s annual fuel subsidy bill is a staggering Rs 1,10,000 crore. Of this Rs 67,000 crore is used to subsidise diesel, 23 per cent of which is consumed by car/SUV owners and captive power plants. The government obviously needs to take hard decisions on better managing and targeting the fuel subsidy. |
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King-sized trouble
The
beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines says that it does not need a bailout, but there is no doubt that it is in major trouble as mounting debts and a cash crunch have led to curtailing of its operations and a dip in the value of its stocks. While the focus has been on one airline, it is widely recognised that the airlines industry is in trouble, be it private airlines like Jet and SpiceJet, or even the government-owned Air India. The high rate of aviation fuel, fierce competition which has led to cutting of fares, servicing loans taken for various reasons, including ill-timed decisions to buy new airplanes and some government rules have all come in the way of profitability for these airlines, which are also demanding a level playing field, one in which Air India is treated on a par with them. The airline’s charges have found some traction among the financial community and the public at large. While it stands to reason that, in principle, there should be no bailout of private sector companies, the industry as a whole can be helped. It is for individual companies to negotiate loan terms with their banks and get out of the financial trap they are in, but some industry-wide issues need the government’s intervention. It is unreasonable to keep the price of aviation fuel so high, and since such fuel amounts to more than half of the operating cost of the airlines, any rationalisation there would dramatically help all airlines. The government will lose out on easy tax revenue that the taxes on such fuel generate, but taxing oil, especially petrol and aviation fuel, is a device which is now proving counterproductive. Allowing foreign direct investment in the sector would also allow for fresh infusion of cash and expertise. The airlines, however, should be required to serve strategic low-traffic areas as a part of their social responsibility. Kingfisher Airline’s troubles have brought the focus on an industry that needs help, it has also highlighted the perils of flying high without being grounded.
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It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final. — Anonymous
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Punjab in debt trap The Punjab government has been stressing again and again that the state’s financial condition is not bad and there is no shortage of funds because its revenue has increased substantially. The argument goes that much hue and cry is being raised without any basis.
At the same time, crying from housetops about the financial sickness of the state is driving away potential investors. In the first place, investment is certainly a very shy bird and it flies away even from the fore-shadow of the coming adverse events. We have examples of portfolio investments flying away from an adverse investment environment to greener pastures, where there are better chances of making profits. Good investments, which cannot move out so easily, are, however, based on a thorough analysis of the financial, physical and policy environment of the destination country or state. This is true both for domestic and foreign direct investments in independent as well as collaborative projects. The analysis helps the investor in knowing the environment and possibility of success much deeper and faster. It is, therefore, not possible to keep the investors in the dark about the financial health and investment environment of the host state. One wonders how the Punjab government believes that investors can be misled or kept in the dark and can be lured into making investments in the state. If that is what the people running the government believe in, they are in a state of utter allusion. Punjab’s direct debt burden by the end of this financial year would be The highest proportion of loans consists of market borrowings — Rs 32,533 crore — and the costliest loans are from small savings, to the tune of Rs 27,062
crore. Central government loans and advances are only Rs 3,389 crore, and loans from the Reserve Bank of India, NABARD and the LIC put together are Rs 3424 crore only. If the Central government comes to the rescue of the state government, their degree of freedom is limited to
Rs. 3,389 crore only unless the Centre becomes benevolent enough to take over the market loans or loans taken against small savings, which appears to be a distant dream. In the given financial situation, the claim that the financial health of the state is in good shape looks hollow and completely misleading. In addition to these liabilities, the government has given sovereign guarantees for borrowing through the losing and even zero-equity corporations to the tune of
Rs. 49,832 crore. Equity of many of these corporations is zero and most of them are running into losses. Surprisingly, even the Punjab Mandi Board, which generates huge amounts of extra-budgetary resources from market fees and other taxes and cesses on agricultural produce, has a long-term loan outstanding to the tune of over
Rs. 289 crore. These corporations under the present administrative dispensation can never repay these borrowings and the financial liability falls directly on the government. In the economic jargon, the level of borrowings by the state is quantified and often justified as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP). Yet the very caveat is ignored that the capital borrowings are meant for making investment to enhance the capital formation in the economy that would generate additional incomes and repaying capacity to retire the loans. Normally, the savings from revenue receipts after meeting the revenue expenditure — revenue surplus — is supplemented with capital borrowings for making capital expenditure that enhances the capital stock of the economy which serves as the driving engine for growth and development. In case the borrowings are used to meet the revenue deficit and committed expenditures like salaries, pensions, interest, etc, that would lead to the accumulation of debt that eats into the very vitals of the economy. This is exactly what is happening in Punjab and the debt is wrongly justified in terms of percentage of the GDP. In 2006-07, the revenue deficit was to the tune of Rs.1,749 crore which escalated to Rs 3,788 crore in 2010-11. Correspondingly, the direct burden of the state increased from Rs 48,344 crore to Rs 71086 crore in 2010 and is estimated to be Rs 77,585 in 2011-12. The real test of prudence in financial management should be judged from the borrowings on the capital account as a percentage of the total net capital formation in the state or the country. If capital account borrowings are used for committed expenditures on the revenue account, it is bound to drain the resources meant for the creation of additional assets and for development purposes. No doubt, there are some grey areas between the revenue expenditure and capital expenditure, and part allocations under the revenue expenditure are used for development purposes, yet these are normally the committed expenditures in the non-plan budget. Capital borrowings are supposed to be put through the Plan budget for capital expenditure to build capital assets and enhance the level of capital formation. When this distinction gets obliterated, untenable development claims can be adumbrated, as is being done in the case of Punjab. The powers-that-be in Punjab need to understand that the debt trap cannot be swept under the carpet and investors cannot be misled to prefer Punjab as an investment destination in the present financial and policy environment. Some bold politico-administrative decisions will have to be taken and policy stance modified drastically to reduce the debt burden of the state to manageable levels and make Punjab an attractive investment
destination.n –––––––––––––––––––– The writer, a former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University,
Patiala, is a well-known agricultural economist.
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Wanted: Stay-at-home dads!
The
other day I chanced upon an interesting conversation that took place in my house when my mom, a working woman, asked my dad to look after onerous household chores as she had an important assignment. As expected, my dad showed his reluctance to accept the request, arguing that he, too, had to take care of his important official responsibilities. Later on, however, he gave in when he was told that our next-door neighbour took care of home without much fuss! That reminded me of a recent statement by David Willetts, Minister for Universities in the UK, saying that a new generation of sit-at-home fathers had come into being with women increasingly overtaking men in education and at workplace. The new trend shows successful women preferring to marry men less qualified than them. They look for partners who are supportive in their career, and not those who can provide them financial stability. Gone are the days when William Shakespeare’s off-quoted “Frailty, thy name is woman” was used to describe them as fickle-minded and weak. Society is realising the mistake of continuing with female foeticide. The results of the tests for premier services like the IAS and the IFS show that more and more women are making it to these creamy posts. In the Civil Service Examination, 2010, law graduate Divyadharshini topped the list, followed by computer engineer Sweta Mohanty while the only man to come close was R. V. Varun Kumar, a dentist, who got the third rank. Surely, women are also entering the hitherto taboo professions for them like the Army, which got its first such batch in 1992. Earlier, the entry of women was limited to the Army Medical Corps, the Army Dental Corps and the Military Nursing Service. It was in 1990 that a decision was taken to induct women into the non-combat wings of the armed forces as short-service commissioned officers. Now they are there in all such wings in substantial numbers. The growing communication industry sees a shift in its intake tilted towards women year after year. The recently held Commonwealth Games showed that more women than men won medals. The World Cup Kabaddi held in Punjab for the first time had three women teams. The party heading the ruling coalition (UPA) at the Centre is headed by a woman. The country has many more women of substance holding key positions. Even in the corporate world, we have women stalwarts like Indra Nooyi of Pepsico and Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank who have shown to the world that women today are not what they were in the past. How the change is sweeping through can be gauged from a recent advertisement that appeared in a daily newspaper seeking a “traditional husband who is homely, loyal, and dexterous in household chores. Educational qualifications and income not the sole criteria.” Francis Bacon, the famous essayist, once wrote, “Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses”. But there seems to be a role reversal in the beginning of the 21st century with women looking for home-loving, accomplished and, above all, traditional
husbands! |
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BANKING ON SPERM BANKS Sperm banks are a boon for couples, which are unable to give birth to a child due to male-factor infertility. However, the development of sperm banks is somewhat controversial with regard to ethics and values, but it provides a wonderful control over reproduction. The sperms, donated by donors, are checked and examined comprehensively before storing them in the bank. With these stored sperms, thousands of couples get children, which, otherwise, might not be possible. Along with married couples, these sperm banks are a boon for lesbian couples and single parents who, otherwise, cannot have their own biological children. People now have more and more choices to choose their sperm donor to get a child. They can choose the sperm donor, either from their family, or can also go for an anonymous sperm donor. Most of the sperm banks offer pictures of the sperm donor, along with audio and videotaped interviews, about why they have become sperm donors. Tests for VDRL, HIV and Hepatitis-B are performed after every three months in order to ensure that the sperm samples are absolutely free from any kind of disease and infections. A historical perspective When the California Cryobank opened its doors in 1977, the technology for preserving or “banking” human sperm by cryogenic methods, while nearly a quarter century old, was still in its infancy. The prefix “cryo” comes from the Greek word “kryos,” meaning cold or frost. The science of cryogenics deals with the effects of extremely cold temperatures on matter. Applying this technology to the preservation of sperm was a natural outgrowth of the development of artificial insemination. Legality and authority Sperm donors are not responsible for the children produced by their sperms. They have the security of knowing that their sperm is being used to help a woman, who cannot conceive otherwise. The sperm donor would not be considered as the father of the child, though he is the biological father of the child. Once the donor donates his sperm, the sperm bank has the authority to use it for any patient and as many times as it wants. Sperm banks usually are controlled by local legislation and are intended to protect the unborn child and to help the couple, which otherwise, cannot have a child. There are a few countries in the world where sperm banking is not allowed to be operated. In fact, sperm banking is treated as a threat to humanity and culture, especially if the sperm is donated to an unmarried woman. Sperm bank working The donor has to take a prior appointment before going to the sperm bank. He then is taken into a private room where he provides a sample of his semen, which is kept in a clean and sterilised container. Some special containers are made for this purpose. In some places, the sperm bank allows the sperm donor to bring the semen sample from their own place. For this, the bank provides an overnight collection kit to the donor. There is usually an upper limit on how long the frozen sperm can be stored. The sperms must be prepared well before storage so that they can be used for IVF, ICI or ART treatments in future. Studies show that in the UK, sperms are stored for an average of 21 years and many babies are born using those sperms. When the sample is collected, it is then screened and examined comprehensively by lab technicians of the sperm bank. These thorough examination of the semen sample includes tests for any sort of infection, hereditary diseases or sexually transmitted diseases. This incorporates the deadly diseases such as HIV AIDS and Tay Sachs disease. After testing, if the sperms are free from any kind of infections and diseases, it is quarantined for six months in the store. These are stored in a deep freezer. This process of freezing the sperms is medically termed as Cryopreservation. The samples of sperms are handled quite carefully in a medicated solution to avoid any kind of infections during thawing and freezing. The sperms are then sealed immediately in vials and frozen in liquid nitrogen vapor at a temperature of -320 °F. After six months, the sperms are dispensed off to the recipient’s uterus. The conception could be carried either using a cervical cap conception device or a needle-less syringe. The cervical conception device holds the donor’s semen near the cervix for 6-8 hours, which increases the chance of fertilisation, and thus conception. In some cases, the donor sperms are supplied directly to a registered medical practitioner, who then performs an apt method of insemination, using the sperm to make the woman pregnant. A pregnancy, achieved by using the sperms from a sperm back, is medically the same as the pregnancy achieved by sexual intercourse. It may be different ethically though. Donor selection Usually, the sperm banks provide all details and information about the sperm donors so that the recipient could select their donor. The details of the donor include the height, weight, race, blood group, physical health, and eye color of the donor. The sperm banks provide these details via online catalogs on the official website of the sperm banks. Most of the couples prefer using the sperms of the donors whose features and characteristics are somewhat similar to their partner. Some parents also enquire about the blood group of the donor before accepting the sperm for pregnancy. The parents can also ask whether the sperm they are using has already been used for any birth or not. If a woman wants to conceive another child from the same donor, the parents can approach the sperm bank again, which can then check whether there is a sufficient amount of sperm left from the same donor or not.
A BOON FOR Cancer PATIENTS If a man has been diagnosed with cancer and is starting with the treatment of cancer, he can consider the option of freezing his own sperm in a sperm bank, as the treatment for cancer may affect his fertility drastically. Banking his sperm is the only way to get his own biological child in future, even if he loses his fertility after completing the cancer treatment. Only a few sperms are required to create pregnancy. So, if one has a good sperm quality and can provide several semen samples to be stored in the sperm bank, one can get one’s own biological child.
Misconceptions Sperm banks are a major source of sperms for artificial conception for couples or women, who are unable to conceive. However, there are some misconceptions and myths about sperm banks and how they work. These are some of the myths l It is a new and unidentified technology: This is an absolute myth as sperm banking has been into practice for more than half a century now. Sperm banks were first opened in Japan in 1965. l Few children are born using stored sperms: Studies report that almost
4,000-5,000 children are born every year by using donor sperms. l Sperm count remains same: It is believed that the sperm count, whenever examined, is always the same in number but actually the sperm count may vary and the sperm motility may also get affected by time, ailments, medications etc. l Age doesn’t matter: It is a wrong belief that the age does not affect the male fertility. In reality, many couples, in their thirties and above, have to struggle while conceiving their second child. l Chances of conception are very low: This is absolutely false. The results of artificial insemination are quite good and chances of conception are pretty more. Usually 60 to 70 per cent women get pregnant after six to nine months of insemination treatments. The writer is an infertility expert and gynaecologist associated with Lilavati Hospital,
Mumbai and Fortis La Femme, New Delhi
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Sperm
l It is not a widely used method: People believe that sperm banking is not used widely, and a very few people all over the world use this method to get their own biological child. Whereas the truth is that around one in every eight couples use the donor sperm to conceive. The sperms stored are placed into woman’s vagina through artificial insemination.