Cleaning some muck

In the middle of all the things that mainstream media keeps itself busy with, there are several positive items that have been but a blip in the information deluge. Such as this news this morning that the Government has banned import of plastic waste, tonnes of which end up in India for recycling. India itself generates many more tonnes of its own plastic waste, clogging its water bodies and entering its food chain. Similarly, India's turning into a dumping ground for the developed world's electronic waste, which, frankly, we can do without.

What I am most keenly watching is how we manage water. Historically, India has been horribly underprepared to deal with its environmental problems, and now when the water crisis is becoming more real by the day, this under-preparedness manifests itself in Sewage treatment plants never built, industrial waste norms never enforced, or billions of liters of monsoon rains never stored.

Take the case of The Ganges, a water body that has a documented history of thousands of years, is a dying river. Such has been the lack of intent in this country to protect the river that even after spending billions of Rupees over many decades, we don't even have accurate data measurement in place. As you read this, 5000 Million Liters of untreated domestic sewage, and 500 Million Liters of toxic industrial effluents, enter the river EVERY DAY. 

As always, there remains hope that this Government will perform when previous governments have failed. By next year, it has committed to build Sewage Treatment Plants in 118 towns on the river. If they can deliver, it would bode well for the rest of the country, where 80% of all surface water is polluted, most of which is from domestic sewage.

Just as importantly, though, there is a growing realization that this is not just the Government's job, and a participatory approach is perhaps the most impactful way in which India can tackle its environmental pollution issues. In fact, its perhaps the only way. After all, its not a Government that litters, its you and me, and I think that is why one of the most important deliverables of the national campaign, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, is that it will take its message to the classrooms.

While in the long run, climate impact, population growth, rising consumption will make it tougher and tougher for this society to sustain itself as it is today, society though, I feel, has a seed for resilience that just might force it to start looking for solutions when adversity really, really stares us in our faces. 

Is India finally standing up to the bullying China?

For some of us who believe we are filled with a little more nationalistic fervour than the rest, the film Haqeeqat may be of some relevance. The 1964 film by Chetan Anand was based on the 1962 Sino-Indian War, and starred Dharmendra and Balraj Sahni in the lead. I remember seeing the movie at a very young age, and It left a very strong mark in my mind. Perhaps not because I was already bubbling with patriotism, but because I was a young boy and the scenes of war and death shook me to the core.

The film is about a platoon of Indian soldiers in Ladakh during the war, who are heavily outnumbered, who all die while keeping the Chinese at bay. The music, by Madan Mohan, and the lyrics, by Kaifi Azmi, do their job of invoking the sense of grief at India’s losses in the war.

I, personally, have never been able to trust the nation of China since. I do not trust their intentions, I do not trust their actions, and I do not trust any parlays of friendship they make towards any other nation. Increasingly, India, for all its good intentioned Nehruvian worldly outlook till date, and the rest of the world, is coming to the same conclusion. R Jagannathan explains it very clearly that China’s worldview, and its ambitions, are much bigger than India, and the latter must find its own voice, and more importantly, be more strategically aware of its role in the world, because the Chinese he says, respect only power.

For many who follow geo-politics, India’s lack of a world view can be very frustrating. If we read our post-independence history, we have been a nation that was only too happy to be a self-reliant, soft spoken, good to its neighbours, “why can’t we all get along?” republic that never wished ill for anyone, even if they spat in our face or tried to take our territory.

Of course, keeping my sarcasm aside, there have been times when India has been aggressive, and in my limited knowledge and reading of our history, those times include when India liberated Bangladesh, and when India tested the first nuclear device, both under Mrs. Gandhi. Whatever her faults, or Operation Blue Star, or the Emergency, her foreign policy was hawkish. Of course that does not take away at all the blots from her political life.

Needless to say, the Modi Government is treating its foreign policy imperatives like a twenty twenty cricket match, going out of their way to strengthen ties, create new ones, forge partnerships, and establish a new India to the rest of the world. This aggression in foreign policy is a welcome departure from the pathetic mishandling of India’s foreign affairs in the Sonia Gandhi Government.

A lot of people who invest in the derivatives markets know that market sentiment is not entirely based on hard numbers and mathematical models. While the Prime Minister and his team have a very uphill task of getting India back on track, a lot also rides on the sentiments that are present. Modi, no doubt, brings lots of positive sentiments, and dispels a lot of the gloom that had set in in the last many years under Sonia Gandhi and her puppet Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The Planning Commission had become an instrument to allocate funds to her socialist schemes, and the National Advisory Council became the controlling instrument for the Prime Minister’s Office. Sonia Gandhi as its Chairperson gave her the status of a Cabinet Minister and all the perks that came with it, in fact, it was her brainchild. It is no wonder that the Indian voters gave Modi a mandate to govern never seen in the last two decades.

While India’s internal systems and processes are on their slow mend and will take time, no matter how impatient some of its critics get, India’s foreign policy is certainly on an upswing, with the PM leading the way himself. After most Heads of State attended his swearing in as the 15th Prime Minister of India, he has visited Bhutan, Nepal, Japan, Brazil and is in the United States now. Sushma Swaraj, the Minister of External Affairs, has been under the media radar but has been busy in her own right, travelling to Bangladesh, Vietnam, Singapore, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Even the President of India visited Vietnam, in a very clear foreign policy move. In the same period, India has welcomed leaders from the US, Australia, England, France and Russia.

Now in the United States, Modi is drawing rockstar crowds. I do not doubt that there is a hint of deliverance and grandstanding in this massive event planned at the Madison Square Garden, after the US denial of visa to him for so many years. What Modi and Obama will be able to hammer out in NYC is another matter.

To close it all out, China is most certainly wary that India now has a hawkish leader who talks tough and is taking India’s foreign policy very seriously. Given China’s grand vision of itself, surely there is something to be read between the lines when Xi Jinping comes calling to India instead of formally inviting Modi to Beijing. As R Jagannathan points out, perhaps his haste was a Chinese attempt to see for themselves the mettle of the new government.

India will have no shortage of allies if it decides to take its issues with China to the next level. They have their eyes on the lands of all the nations around it, the seas around it, and having firmly established themselves as the world’s manufacturing hub, on most global resources. They have made their intentions known to everyone everywhere, and I hope India will be there to remind them that they simply cannot bully and bribe their way into being a superpower.

Saving the #Ganges

With so much being written about cleaning the Ganga, I am fairly positive that I probably would not have anything new to contribute to the discussion. The NDA Government has been taking about it, and it seems that high level meetings and discussions have indeed begun in earnest, and there have been time bound commitments made by the political leadership.

The Ganges rejuvenation has been a key project of Narendra Modi, and multiple stakeholders have emerged who want to be a part of it, or have at least begun speaking about it. The Honourable Supreme Court recently pulled up the Government, asking them to show a plan to clean the Ganges, and that given the current pace of clean-up, it would take centuries for the river to be clean.

While there may have been a tinge of sarcasm in the Honourable Court’s voice, a more believable reality could be that the Ganges may not even survive till the end of this century.

It is expected that this government, under Modi, means business and would be a much more active government than its predecessor. In addition, in only a few months since coming into power, the Prime Minister has been leading India’s foreign relations from the front. Even as the Prime Minister is busy preparing himself for Xi Jinping’s arrival, a number of India’s traditional, and not so traditional partners, have offered their services and expertise for helping clean up the river.

The British Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, on his recent short visit to India offered Britain’s services, sharing their experiences from cleaning up the river Thames. As the Deputy PM rightly points out, the Thames flows through one of the largest cities in the world. However, it remains to be seen whether the Ganges, over 2000 kilometers long, with over 500 million living in its basin, can use the same solutions that helped the much, much smaller Thames.

Israel, now one of India’s traditional partners, is branching out of its role as our defence supplier, working on various issues such as agriculture. The Israeli Government, it seems, has already contacted their Indian counterparts with some proposals.

Globally, rivers are in decline. The Ganges has been identified as one of the ten most endangered rivers of the world by the WWF as far back in 2007, a list that includes other mighty rivers such as the Nile, the Yangtze and the Indus. Its fair to assume that India is not the only nation where its rivers are dying. India is not alone in following the global development pattern where development is synonymous with extraction, production and consumption.

The environment had been providing us plenty till a few decades ago, and it is only now that this whole pattern of development is being questioned. Unfortunately, humankind is hooked to this version of development, and it makes the task of weaning away towards a more sustainable model even more difficult. Why should our citizens be deprived of driving a nice car and using the latest gadgets, ask the developing nations.

As I have always believed, and I am not being very original when I say so, the Ganges cannot be resurrected without the active support, willingness and action from the people that depend on it. As I have already mentioned, it has one of the largest basins in the world, and supports millions of people directly and indirectly, by supplying water for everything from electricity to agriculture to drinking to manufacturing. Recently, the Prime Minister met with his key minsters and called upon the need to make the Ganges rejuvenation a mass movement.

Recently, the the Water Resources Minister, Uma Bharti, released a website that brings together all the Government schemes on cleaning the river.

The task of cleaning a mega river is firstly, not, and cannot, be bound by deadlines, secondly, the causes of its pollution are too many and far spread, and thirdly, the myriad of solutions that are required, keeping in mind the human complexities and necessities, ensure that this will be a very tough, and demanding task. This is not the first time that the task of cleaning the mighty river has been taken up. Thousands of crores have been poured in, and the Ganges has only gotten more polluted. A task of this scale will require nerves of steel, because I anticipate a huge opposition to many of the things that I believe are critical for this project.

The small industrial units linked across the length of the river would not want to spend extra to install equipment for effluent treatment, stack emissions or waste management, for example. The country has numerous laws on dealing with industrial waste and pollution, but these are largely disregarded by most industrial units because of lax enforcement, and corrupt authorities.

Similarly, lack of urban planning, low or nil sewage systems, and greatly underwhelming sewage treatment capacity have ensured that most of the human waste generated, right from the very mouth of the river in Uttarakhand, goes into the river as it is.

In my line of work, we often repeat – what cannot be measured cannot be managed. Measuring and monitoring of all industrial, agricultural and human activity in the Ganges basin is essential. Millions of litres of untreated sewage and effluents are poured into the river, and the Environment Minister, Prakash Javadekar announced recently that polluting industries along the river will be measured 24x7.

I find myself spiritually, environmentally and socially linked with the Ganges. I have always found peace on her shores, seen her at Devprayag, where the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda become the Ganga, and at Kolkata, where the Hoogly is about to enter the ocean. I worry for the many species that it supports that are on the brink of extinction because of human activity. If this has to be done, the time is now. 

#Achhe Din?

A lot has been written, and is in the process of being written, about Narendra Modi's term in office as the Prime Minister. While the vast fan base of Modi, and the many thousands of conservative Indians who seem to have found a voice on social media, is refocusing its efforts in highlighting the new government's work, his critics have been more than vocal in asking where the acche din are.

No doubt, that kick-starting a behemoth that is the Indian system is not a work of days, or even months. For India to amply demonstrate that it has turned the corner after what many argue is one of its worst governed periods in independent history, it could take a lot time for any visible impact on the ground.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you look at it, the opposition is so weak that it can at best troll and flame bait the government. While the Government did face a sticky situation when it could not get the Insurance Bill passed, the ever optimist that I am, believe that was because the BJP is simply learning the ropes of running a government at the Centre, and it is not easy for anybody in the present government, who are all relative newcomers on the national arena.

This holds true for dealing with the media as well. The Prime Minister has more certainly gotten down to running the Government, and is much more sparse in his social media presence, and participation in Parliamentary debates. The Cabinet too, is not without its share of controversies. A lot has been made of Smriti Irani's educational background, a lot of it is artificially contrived if you ask me, and she recently got the NDA critics all excited when she claimed to have a degree from Yale, which, it turns out, is a short certification course she once participated in.

Another perpetual discussion that always rides pillion with the Government is the allegiance of Arun Jaitley. He's been known to be close to the Gandhis, he's been known to be close to NDTV, and the conspiracies rage on. Its another matter that he's in the line of fire for leading two of the Government's most important and high profile ministries - Finance and Defense.

Nevertheless, while the jibes on #achhedin continues to be the way to go for all critics and opposition, what I do believe in that we will see change. Undoubtedly the Government will face stiff opposition and criticism from the whole gamut of its usual and perennial critics, whether justified or not, and that Modi will have a tougher job of pushing through his agenda when there are a lot more stakeholders to convince, and a lot more toes to step on, but he can draw strength from the immense mandate he has received, to lead this country. Something that could be used to override an opposition that seems to be committed to block any of his decisions, with or without merit.

Each and every part of the system is crying for an upgrade. There are archaic laws and regulations that need to be updated or removed altogether, there are delivery systems that have leaks in every place, and there are people sitting in the government that are simply not able to deliver, or do not want to deliver. To change all this is not a matter of weeks or months, but as Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. The only way is to keep chipping away on the block of rock that is contemporary India, and slowly but surely it will turn into something better.

I've been so busy lately that I haven't time to do much of anything else, other than take care of my responsibilities at home and at work.

I do get to spend some time on Twitter in a day, but there's just so much information and discussion on that forum that I can only take a few news bites and sound bites in a day.

Today, for example, I learnt that Rahul Gandhi was pouring his heart out in Rajasthan, invoking the deaths of his grandmother and father, and giving the people glimpses into his childhood. Frankly, I have never heard any of Rahul's speeches in full, and this is a speech I would have loved to hear.

The news of the digging for gold in Unnao is well, quite stale now. Of course, nobody thought twice about the Government of India sending a team from the Archaeological Survey of India an old fort site in a village in rural UP after a Swami is visited by the old King who was killed over 150 years ago (He was killed by the British for rising against them in the War in 1857, and at least this way his memory was reopened, which is the only good thing I see in this whole thing) who tells him there is over 1000 tonnes of gold buried underneath and that it needed to be taken care of.

What everybody did think twice, thrice, four times, and many more times is that Narendra Modi ridiculed the Government for sending a team from ASI to dig a site for gold based on a dream which may or may not be real. Apparently there were some snide comments made, some rebuttals made, and Modi, as reported in some sections of the media, had to tone it down. What a great day for the Congress puppets on Twitter that was.

There were some major changes in the ownership and editorship at the Hindu, which were again because of reporting on, you guessed it, Narendra Modi. It was well discussed on Twitter, but don't think the mainstream media really made much of it.

India is just waiting for the elections 2014, and everything that is being said or done at the government level is done only to change their fortunes in that direction. The Communal Violence Bill for example is the new poster child for the UPA Government, and it seems they are keen to ride to victory on the Muslim vote in one way or the other. Never has the time seemed more ripe for the marginalized Muslims of India to demand their fair share, and ask the Government to answer why they have only been fed promises and rhetoric for so many decades by Rahul Gandhi's forefathers.

Of course these questions won't be asked and therefore not answered. We live in our own vicious circle of misplaced priorities, and avoidance of asking the right questions. So lets continue enjoying the election juggernaut, and lets see whats in store for this great nation of ours.

Politics fatigue

This is one of those nights when I think that the 2014 elections just couldn't come sooner. The viciousness and the ruthlessness with which the Government and opposition are at each other, it would seem that the future of this country depended on the results of the elections in 2014. From the looks of it, it could very well be.

There is no doubt that the past few years have been very tough for the Government of India. They've lost credibility domestically and internationally. There were two groups running the country, those of Manmohan Singh and the second one, the real one, of Sonia Gandhi.

While nothing is credibly available in the public domain, or at least I couldn't find one, Sonia Gandhi could not be the Prime Minister of India for reasons best known to the powerful and important people in Central Delhi. In comes Dr. Manmohan Singh, the exalted architect of India's economic reforms, a man of impeccable image and very loyal to the Gandhi family.

Such has been the loyalty of the man that he has watched India go back to the same economic conditions that PV Narsimha Rao and he worked so hard to get out of. All this while, the Prime Minister rarely spoke, even in the face of eye popping scandals, thus becoming the butt of joke for millions around the country.

All this while, Rahul Gandhi remained firmly ensconced as the next Gandhi family member to become the Prime Minister. Backed by powerful Congress stooges of the Sonia Gandhi camp, a never ending supply of photo opportunities and staged interactions, it seemed that Rahul Gandhi could really become the next Prime Minister of India without ever having lifted a finger in protect against the injustice and lawlessness prevalent in the country. At this point, there could be no greater example in the entire world than Rahul Gandhi of a person who has greatness thrust upon him.

Such is the effort put behind his election as the country's next prime minister that the usual Congress loyalists  of the likes of AK Antony, Khurshid, Manish Tiwari, Digvijay Singh, going out of their way to regurgitate how he's ready to lead and how they would love to work under him. Of course, none other than the Prime Minister of the country endorsed Rahul's candidacy to the seat that he is holding, saying he is ready.

In terms of survival, the Congress has been around the longest, and survived riding the Gandhi name since independence. They are fully aware where the voters are, and is fully aware of what they need to do to get the votes in. In terms of policy, Mrs. Gandhi and team have realized that this whole development/infrastructure wave is passe, and could see that the poor and the marginalized were getting increasingly disenchanted.

The middle class was also disenchanted, but in terms of voting, they don't vote, so they don't get a say. I don't blame anybody for thinking this way. As it is said, people get the government they deserve.

Coming back to the marginalized, the UPA is aware that it has completely screwed up the economy, it is scared to take decisions given the unprecedented levels of corruption in all levels of government, and not much maneuverability in the international arena.

In such a time when nothing seems to be working right, it helps to the grand old party of India, with a strong control over the media, no qualms to misusing federal institutions for meeting political ends, and fully activating the dirty tricks department.

In such a situation, Narendra Modi had been rising slowly as a person who was an able administrator, a no nonsense guy, a somebody that the people of India were increasingly clamoring for, given the utter lack of control the Prime Minister had, and the utter unaccountability that Sonia Gandhi operated with.

In such a time when Modi's own PM ambitions are rising, the people are increasingly getting disenchanted with the UPA, and Rahul Gandhi is unable to step up to the plate, it is but obvious for the Congress to activate a potent weapon it its arsenal - the secularism card. What happened in Godhra is a tragedy, and after so many years, remains shrouded in mystery on what really happened. With the liberal media never allowing the issue to die, and with steady fear mongering among the Muslims that if Modi came to power, they could be next, the Congress has been able to hold fort.

Coming back to the economic mess up, I believe that India is a fairly resilient and large economy to take many shocks, and I believe that the Congress has been testing this very notion. With the UPA responsible for almost a decade of jobless growth, the benefits weren't reaching the poor. Having ruled over most of the duration before 1991, I am sure the Congress still has many sharp practitioners of socialism in its ranks, and it was time to dust the old plans, and go back to the days of socialism when the government provided for everything, taxed the rich, doled the poor. The Food Security Bill, the Land Acquisition Bill, the Right to Education Act, etc, are all documents that, in an ideal world, should greatly improve the economic well being of the bottom of the pyramid, but in reality, operate in an environment where they do not have any effect of the situation at all.

The creaking public distribution system managed by the corrupt Food Corporation of India is supposed to manage the Food Security Bill for example. With creaking education infrastructure, and India remaining a laggard in terms of total investments in education, all children are supposed to attend schools that have no teachers, or have no toilets for girls, or simply do not exist. To counter the jobless growth, the Government comes up with the rural employment guarantee scheme, named after Gandhi ji of course, that provides for a 100 days wages to millions of rural Indians. It is another matter that most of them got paid without getting substantial work, but they won't complain, and would surely vote for a Government that pays them for nothing. Besides, 99% of the country does not care, nor understand what a bloating fiscal deficit, current account deficit, could result in.

In this backdrop, I would like to say that I am tired. I am one of those followers of social media where I am just tired of the dirty tricks and asinine plots unraveling themselves every day. The latest being the ordinance that would have countered the Supreme Court's directive to bar politicians with criminal records to contest elections. The Union Government pushed forward the ordinance that would have countered this, but for Rahul Gandhi's PR masterstroke of calling a hurried press conference and basically telling the Prime Minister to trash the ordinance. Immediately he is resurrected, hailed as the people's Rahul, and adulated as the man who has finally stood up to the challenge.

There is just way too many expectations riding on the weak shoulders of Indian voters. There is no doubt that the poor, and the not so poor (the food security bill covers 67% of the population) would probably reward the Congress for its move back to socialism. If they come back, it would imply that the move back to socialism is necessary, and one would expect more of it from the next puppet Prime Minister from the Congress.

It pains me to see the country in this race to the bottom, with the government willing to put everything at stake to ensure that they win, but its the people who would be paying the price, and expensive that price will be. 

race to the bottom for the economy

That the Congress agenda since coming to power has purely socialism should not be doubted by anyone. Slowly but surely, the Government has been putting in the systems and regulations that take India back to the days before the economic meltdown in 1991. With the Government in control of resources, and being a provider of basic goods and services to a vast majority, India is again moving back to the days when entrepreneurship stifled and government interference rose. 

I feel this time the situation is not so black and white. While there is still a considerable private sector contribution to the economy, the Government seems to have focused less on creating an enabling environment for them to grow, and more on creating an environment in which the poor are even more dependent on the state for subsistence. 

As Sagarika Ghose, of all people, tweeted, it is ironical that the Government is proud of declaring that 66% of the country's population does not have secure access to food grain, on the occasion of our 67th Independence Day. Of course she was referring to the Food Security Bill, which is to be tabled in the Parliament today. 

The basic premise of the Bill is, as quoted from the link above - Under the law, about 81 crore people would be entitled to receive rice at Rs 3 per kg, wheat at Rs 2 a kg and coarse grains at Rs 1 a kilo. 

This Food Security Bill would rest, of course, on the remarkable Public Distribution System of India, which pilfers and steals more than distributes. This same system has now been tasked with the responsibility of distributing food grains to crores of Indian families efficiently, on time, for cheap. All I know is that the middlemen and officials of the Food Corporation of India must be smacking their lips. 

Now coming to the current state of economic affairs, with unclear rules and regulations, lack of a general desire from the Government to govern, and foreign money again going out of the country, and a ballooning fiscal deficit, I think other than Sonia Gandhi's super duper economist and socialist team sitting in the National Advisory Council, nobody believes the economy can afford the grand socialist schemes of the Congress. Her minions parrot the same thing. 

One of the key features of globalization is that it puts all of us more or less on the same boat. Like they say, when America sneezes, the effect is felt around the world. Surrounded by the developed economies, the third world simply does not have the strength to not be affected by a global slowdown. One could argue that India should have grown considerably bigger to be a big boy at the table now - a big boy I said, on a table of men. Unfortunately, that is not so. The BRICS, a term coined by the God's Own - Goldman Sachs, is more or less dead. Brazil is limping, India well, doesn't even seem to want to be in the race anymore, Russia is on its own curve, and China is having its own issues. Popular opinion now seems to opine that the BRICS in itself was nothing but a marketing slogan, and anyways, it was all China. But as late as yesterday, South Africa hosted the first BRICS Business Council meeting. 

I took an entire paragraph on BRICS to explain that the global economy is in a pretty bad shape, and it certainly, certainly does not help matters when India's national government seems to be working on its own tangent and on its own economic agenda. Till now, the Congress was more than adept at dismissing any criticism as being communal. Anybody who was critical of the UPA was a rabid communal. Unfortunately for Sonia Gandhi and her dream of putting Rahul Gandhi into the seat of the Prime Minister of India, they may have created a monster that will be very hard to tame for the next Prime Minister of India. 

Dr. Manmohan Singh has done irreparable damage to the position of the Prime Minister with his inaction, silence, and very Gandhi'esque secrecy. The common man, the one who works hard, consumes goods and services, and relies on the free market as a source of inputs and a market for outputs is surely going to see through this charade soon, one would like to think so! How long will the population continue feeding on the facade of secularism while their economic strength continues to drain under the UPA regime? No doubt, the economy simply does not believe the UPA anymore. 

With the Congress on a clear, undeniable action plan to win the next elections through this systematic recall of socialism, and the BJP in no seeming position to behave like a responsible and credible opposition, with the internal fighting and conflicting ideas, the gainers have undoubtedly been the regional parties. They have been parts of government, parts of the opposition, and had a jolly good time providing outside support to the Congress to pass its bills in the Parliament. Now whether it was under duress, or blackmail, or after receiving lots of money, or just because they really like the Congress, is anybody's guess, but no doubt, politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Jayalalitha, Mamata Bannerjee, and the likes have shown that they are happy to play with the Congress, as long as their demands are met. Of course, the Congress has shown exceptional dexterity and skill in misusing the institutions of India for its political ends and arm twist these regional leaders into submission. Mulayam Singh Yadav, as expected, will support the Food Security Bill. 

Coming back to the end game, Congress has more often than not shown itself to be a master manipulator. They play the media very well, and have great expertise in propaganda. For all we know, they will end up convincing half the country that they are poor and will not survive without the direct cash transfer, the food security bill and other Gandhi named national schemes. Then its onto UPA III. I am certain Sonia Gandhi and her team have discussed the plans if they ride back into power, and surely they would have discussed the pathetic state of the economy they have led India to, and surely it would have involved how Rahul Gandhi can ride in like a knight in shining armour and take us to salvation. Till then, let us keep suffering. 

My initial thoughts on the new Companies Bill

I had sent a letter to a news publication last week on my thoughts on the new Companies Bill, that was recently passed by the Rajya Sabha and is now awaiting final signature from the President. They didn't publish it, but I thought i'd still like to put it in the public domain.

The new Companies Bill should be welcomed for its newness, if for nothing else! The fact that it replaces a piece of legislation that is over 50 years old should itself be an indication of how inadequate our corporate laws have been in dealing with contemporary economic issues.
 Corporate Governance is not a term limited to Board rooms and annual reports anymore. With increasing media scrutiny and demands for greater transparency, corporations can hardly afford to work behind opaque management and ownership structures. Corporate Governance scandals, long scoffed at as a thing to be seen only in Europe and North America, now occur in India with more alacrity than we would like to admit.
 There is no doubt in my mind that the intangible strengths of any organization are closely linked to its financial health. Corporate Governance issues in an organization certainly factor in investors sentiment that drives any company’s share price. Through the new Bill, there is an expectation that now organizations will be forced to be more transparent about their management styles and ownership structures, and greater transparency, in my opinion, is a good thing in itself. Considering that Boards are now tasked with direct responsibility on many issues, it can be expected that organizations will have no choice but to appoint more capable, and independent in the true sense, directors who must be willing to step up and take on the responsibilities.
 Board structures today seem to be driven by a quid pro quo understanding. Many independent directors sitting on the Boards of some of the blue chip companies are there to simply lend their good name to the Board, and not necessarily as an active, and alert, independent director who is willing to go against the popular opinion if need be. In return, they get a good compensation, have to attend only a few Board meetings in an year, and few of them sign on the Company’s annual accounts.
 While it will take more than a Bill to change this way of doing business that is firmly entrenched in our typically promoter driven organizations, I do expect that it will pump in some adrenaline into the nascent shareholder activism in the country.
 Now coming to the second, and perhaps the more discussed and contentious issue in the Bill, the mandatory CSR spend within the parameters stipulated in the Bill. To contend that this requirement is thrust upon companies that do not have the competence to run such activities is misplaced.
 For one, Indian companies are already responding to their social obligations and expectations in a variety of ways. Large organizations, the kind that Clause 135 aims to include, already have flourishing CSR practices that focus on a host of social issues, such as education, healthcare, livelihoods, and infrastructure.
 Secondly, the Bill is not looking to create a new bureaucratic layer to police on companies to ensure they are following the guidelines, but aims to achieve compliance through enhanced reporting, and clearly assigning roles and responsibilities within an organization.
 Through the Business Responsibility  Report and sustainability reporting, organizations are already reporting on their social and environmental activities in and around their areas of operations, and the various ways through which they are engaging with their internal and external stakeholders. SEBI, through the Business Responsibility Report, clearly mandates the top 100 organizations to assign the responsibility of an organization’s CSR activities on a member of the Board or executive, apart from clearly listing the scope and size of their CSR activities.
 Thirdly, I think this Bill will formalize, and make more transparent, the processes and roles within organizations that undertake CSR activities. From a corporate governance point of view, this greater transparency will ensure that the flow of funds is fully accounted for and reported at all points in the value chain. From a corporate governance point of view, this will deter promoters from misusing the existing rules to claim tax benefits on activities that can hardly be seen as CSR.
 In the aftermath of the 2008 economic meltdown, a common refrain was that when organizations make profits, it is theirs, but when they falter, the society has to bear the burden. Expecting organizations to step on their activities that give back to the society should not be seen as an anti-economic measure that will erode their competitiveness. No organization today can function without obtaining its social licence to operate.
 Organizations that have realized this would think that this new Bill does not change much, other than bring the Government at par with the current trends. 

I find it extremely intriguing how this world manages to keep itself busy. There are millions of societies around us, each with their own priorities, nuances, and headlines. What's important to one may not be important to the other. What is pointless to one may make all the difference to the other. 

Yet this world is getting smaller and smaller. Despite living our billions of different lives, we are connected by the same mediums that bring us thousands of pieces of information to us every day. Only one wall separates me from my neighbours and we both could be watching television yet what interests us on tv could be completely completely different. 

In such a state, how do then societies stay together, how do countries keep its people together, and most importantly, how does the media manage to keep us engaged all the time? 

How does media prioritize what piece of information could be most well received by the largest section of the population? Of course, since nothing works in vacuum, this whole story of different people having different priorities is greatly influenced by a lot of different factors. 

We all may think different, but we all are also just as closely bound to each other. Many thousands of individuals will get on a local train to get to work in Mumbai every morning, many hundreds will trudge into shiny gleaming corporate offices in Bangalore, many thousands will open the shutters of their shops in Guwahati. 

Then, we are affected by the same incompetence of the Government, the same thievery of our political leaders, the same unresponsiveness of our governance systems, and the same inequalities of our economies. If I look at it that way, then I find media's success in finding the right nerve to be a lot more believable. 

Tomorrow i'll wake up, get ready and set out on my daily journey to work. I will pass by hundreds of cars. Each person at the wheel will be on the same road, take the same bridge, pay the same toll, but each of us will have something different on our minds. Its amazing. 

Pride

I think one of humankind's biggest weaknesses is its refusal to learn from the past. This refusal is seen in every society, country or region on this planet. 

Globalization has made the world a much smaller place, with each economy closely intertwined to the next, and has resulted in a world where the vast majority of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. Till last decade, the equation was fairly straight forward. The developed world controlled the resources and was home to the corporations that sell us most of the things we buy while the third world provided the resources and the labour to produce the goods and services consumed. 

In the past 20-30 years, such has the dependence of the third world grown on the consumption of the first world that even a slight downturn in a capitalist market could result in substantial upheaval in the third world. In the past two decades, we have been presented with numerous examples of economies that followed the consumption driven path prescribed by the World Bank and fell to their knees. Argentina, Mexico, South East Asia all faced massive economic shocks when their markets in the first world stopped consuming their goods. I have no doubt that India, China and Brazil are fast heading there. 

This refusal to learn from the past comes perhaps not from pride as much as man's greed. The glorious 1990s and the early 2000s when the global economy was booming, consumption was rising, production was rising, salaries were rising, employment was rising, mergers and acquisitions were the order of the day, is now a faint hum of a train engine that has long left the station. What's left now is uncertainty, and a massive global effort to stop economies from tanking. 

How has it come to this? Greed. We want more, we consume more, we all want a bigger car, a faster gadget, and shop till we drop. Everybody wants quick money, and the early 2000s epitomized this, when unscrupulous banks and financial institutions were selling a giant ponzi scheme of toxic derivatives of derivatives of derivatives, all resting on a strong belief that real estate, the real hard asset at the bottom of it all would remain a precious commodity. 

So across Europe, the US, and the developed economies that are closely linked to these two economies produced, sold, splurged, and then it all came crashing down. People were unable to pay their debts of various kinds, jobs were lost, consumption was hit, and institutions that had been standing for decades fell in an instant, and the governments were left to figure out how to keep it from crashing in a giant fireball. 

The third world that had been producing the goods and services that the first world had been consuming is still shaken up, but is now focusing on increasing its own consumption base to allow for those mills to continue churning the products and services for consumption. It is exactly as Engels (or was it Marx?) who said that capitalism will always need to continue growing in order to survive. This is exactly the pattern followed by corporations since decades - search for new markets, search for new products, search for new sources for raw material, and the constant pressure of bottom line growth defining their actions.

So as the third world now begins to look inwards, it seems to be going through the same cycle of growth that brought a large part of the first world to its knees. Looking at the way India, China, and other nations are evolving, I really do believe that this is the only way that nations have grown, and where Japan was 60 years ago, or the United States 100 years ago, that's where the BRICS, and many other developing nations, seem to be standing. There is constant chaos, a constant churn, and a really really ambitious set of people who are driven to make it big. 

So in India we seem to be going through the same phase. There is no dearth of entrepreneurs who are willing to turn crook if they can make more money, the laws and regulations are 20 years behind times, crony capitalism is the order of the day, real estate is unaffordable to a vast majority of Indian families, infrastructure is creaking, and yet the consumption levels are racing up like there is no tomorrow. 

Today's Indians are saving less and spending much more than our previous generations and I very strongly believe that this growing inequality in the country is going to come to its head sooner than later. 

So I am sure that in this connected world, urban Indians are taking on more debt and saving less knowing fully well that this gratuitous consumption is what caused the developed giants to falter. But as the Indians and Chinese are saying, why can't I manufacture more, why should I have to follow environmental rules, why should my citizens have to curb their consumption, and similar questions. They know what debt can do, they know consumption without replenishment is unsustainable, but hey, everybody wants a piece of the action, whatever happens, we'll see later. 

So I do see this circle repeating itself. Its time for the developing world to consume, and grow more unequal, and go through the same cycle of capitalism that nations before them have gone, and committing the same mistakes that have brought them down, but really, its like a drug, you just can't stop! Eventually, with our polluted waters, depleted forests, and smog filled cities, we will perhaps pause to take stock of the situation. Till then, lets hit the pedal.

#Uttarakhand

Its been over a week since the deadly floods in the upper reaches of the Himalayas in Uttarakhand. Thousands are still missing, over a thousand are dead, which is a gross under-estimation, and many thousands are homeless or stranded far away from their homes in the rest of the country. 

As with most natural calamities in the country, the civilian systems of delivery and governance proved entirely inadequate and capable of handling the calamity, and as in most occasions, the Army and paramilitary were called in who got to work, and did a far better job in a single day than the entire time before that in which the state machinery tried to get into gear without resources, without leadership, and without a plan. 

Uttarakhand is a changed place, and nowhere is it more visible than its capital, Dehradun. What used to be a sleepy, lush green town known for its schools and litchi orchards, considered a haven for retirement, is an overcrowded cesspool of crass construction, haphazard planning, deforestation, and way too much money. The place is full of vehicles, has very little parking space, its civic infrastructure is creaking, and its fast losing its green cover as the orchards and fruit trees make way for more houses and apartments. 20 years ago, I would have never thought that a place like Dehradun would have high rise buildings. Now there are plenty, and plenty more coming up. 

That has exactly been the attitude of people with money, and people in power. Where it can be built, it will be built, where it can be encroached, it will be encroached, where rules can be flouted, they will be flouted. 

When you build a dam, of any kind, at the mouth of the river, you are hurting the natural flow of water no matter how many tunnels you blast into the mountain, which again is a huge environmental crime in itself. The upper tributaries of the Ganges, Mandakini and Alaknanda, have hundreds of small dams within a few kilometers of each other, each requiring diversion of the river, and tunnel blasting into the mountains. when the rains come pouring down, and the excess water has nowhere to run, you are telling me these dams don't play a role? 

The deaths in Uttarakhand are probably a lot higher because a lot of them were staying in the many hundreds of illegal and very unsafely built hotels and lodges that dot each and every small town up there. They were built so close to the river that when the high waters came, they stood no chance. Despite rules, despite warnings, no environmental code was adhered to. 

I think the fact that no environmental code was adhered to has a lot to do with the Indian psyche, which I think has become very urban, very middle class, and very, very materialistic. Unfortunately we measure everything with affluence and comfort now, and sustainability, which used to a hallmark of the Indian way of life and the Indian approach to the environment, have lost all meaning. The Government, the environmentalists can cry themselves to sleep but I think the Indian bourgeoisie is simply not capable of understanding what they are saying. If there is money to be earned and spent on comforts, the Indian middle class stops listening to anything else. 

A few years ago, there was a festival being celebrated in Dehradun, and the well meaning religious volunteers were distributing some sweet drink to all passers by on a busy lane. Every scooter, cycle, bike or car was stopped and offered the drink. When it got over, that street was littered with plastic cups. The drains were full of empty plastic cups, and the good volunteers disappeared, expecting somebody else to come up and clean the mess, if at all. That is my point, I am sure it didn't even occur to anybody over there that this is called littering and its inappropriate and it needs to be cleared up. 

This ignorance must, must be addressed, and the government, oh yes the Government, must consider introducing civic sense lessons to our children at a very early age. I have seen enough fat children feeding themselves and littering because their parents are too ignorant to even know the difference, and there is no body else to tell them that. 

I do not doubt for once that the commercial exploitation that humans do when they grow up probably has its roots in this lack of sensitization towards the environment. Of course by then everybody starts recognizing and craving the smell of money. 

I am in the sustainability domain, and yes, I know the value of money, yes I am working towards more of it, and yes everybody thinks I'm a social worker, but this is exactly what it is. Products can be consumed, food can be had, experiences can be experienced, things can be manufactured, in a sustainable way, in a way that it does not permanently harm our ability to continue doing it. 

The mountains of Uttarakhand have seen a lot of exploitation in very little time, and I have no doubt that we will go back to where things were once the rescue operations are over. Hotels will still be built, politicians will still scratch the backs of investors and pilgrims will still throng the mountains and litter to their hearts content. Its a vicious cycle and we'll be none the wiser. 

The Army will go back to its barracks, the Government of India will continue its efforts to push India to the brink of economic ruin to stay in power, and the God fearing Hindu, well, will continue to visit temples, litter all around it, and pray to God for money and richness. 

This was one of my favorite idols of Shiva. I hear its gone now. 

Ads really do brainwash you. As an adult who enjoys their animation once in a while, its shocking to see the kind of advertising that our children are bombarded with each day. Each one is about consuming a product, and each one appeals to their sense of joy when consuming it. 

Children are naive, and the FMCG companies make full use of this characteristic of the human growth cycle. Children today are exposed to food items laden with high sugar, artificial flavours, and plenty of additives, but they are packaged in such a wonderful way that one would believe that it is the best thing a parent could give their child. 

Such is the power of advertising that now children are refusing to eat the traditional food items that so many millions of Indians each every day. I have heard stories of children simply refusing to budge from in front of a McDonald's till they are taken inside and fed. Similarly parents are now being targeted by these ads with 'solutions' to their children's fussy eating habits. She does not eat her poha or upma or other breakfast options? Replace it with a bowlful of sugar laden cereal and watch her lap it up.She's hungry after school? Whip her a quick instant noodles in only a few minutes, and watch them thank you again and again. Never mind the fact that instant noodles are cooked in palm oil and are loaded with preservatives and artificial flavouring. Ads today tell children what they should eat, and tell parents how their children can eat them better.

This evening when i switched the television on, there was an ad for a juice brand that once again, was positioning itself as a solution to a child's fussy eating. The kid was refusing to eat his papaya, and when replaced with the juice, lo and behold, the kid asks for a second helping of the juice, much to the pleasure of the mother. 

Its a very sad state of affairs. Parents are increasingly not finding the time to look after their children, and have replaced their presence with the television, and their learning with money. Now children have a lot more money to spend on food, clothing, electronics, and a host of consumer goods that I couldn't dream of owning as a child. Urban kids are growing fatter and fatter with a bigger and bigger sense of entitlement. 

#NCPee

I'm sitting here in Mumbai as the country is eagerly waiting for the rains to arrive soon. Large sections of the western part of the country are in draught like situations, and the politicians have gobbled up thousands of crores of rupees that were supposed to be for preventing and helping in precisely such a situation. 

Ajit Pawar is an illustrious Maharashtrian politician who came into power riding on the broad shoulders of his uncle, the great, the one, Mr. Sharad Pawar. Ajit Pawar is a prime accused in the 70,000 crore Maharashtra irrigation scam but he has come out of it, thanks to deft political work done by him and his uncle. The Maharashtra Government in fact, was quick to get a white paper out on the scam and he was given a clean chit. Yes, in Indian politics, thats just how easy it can be. 

So this same Ajit Pawar told a farmer that if there is no water in the dam, should he pee in it? The crowd he said it in followed it up with amused guffaws but the media soon picked this story up, perhaps mainly because it caught fire in the social media. 

Amid the calls for his punishment/resignation/whatever, dalliances are being made to bury this crass statement of his, with apologies from Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar himself and many others. As for calls for his resignation, the other great beneficiary of Sharad Pawar's political stature, his daughter Supriya Sule, has said that the media should back off because it is an internal matter of the party. Sharad Pawar has also said that he has apologized and it should be the end of the matter. In fact, Sharad took it upon himself to scold Ajit.  

Ajit well, as we found out yesterday, was filled with remorse and to punish himself, sat down on a one day farce, I mean fast. Meanwhile, the farmers and the general public in Maharashtra is seething, and rightfully so.   Twitter has certainly noticed and appreciated this noble and repentant move by Shri Ajit Pawar. 

I do hope the Maharashtra voters can see the folly of voting in such a corrupt and morally bankrupt party so frequently. I sincerely hope they are paying attention, and throw this Pawar family out of business for good. As for the billions in movable and immovable assets they are sitting on, I do hope at least some of it is salvaged.   

Twitter made me do it!

Its been many months since i've written anything in my beloved blog. Yes, I moved into a new profile with a lot of work and very little free time, yes the shenanigans in my personal life keep me busy and with all that is going on in my life, when I come home at the end of the day, I am too deflated to write anything.

There is something else I did in the meantime. I joined Twitter. It brought a lot of changes into my interactions with my external stakeholders. My interactions and inputs became more frequent and my responses, well, became limited to 140 characters.

I'm not happy about it, yes, but I am enjoying the political sniping I get to do there. I went on Twitter following the many politicians and journalists who are active there, and definitely wanted an opportunity to put in my own views to them, and express displeasure at the atrocious and unaccountable way the country is being run by the UPA. Being on Twitter does give me the views and opinions of a whole lot of people, including an entire gamut of pro-Congress tweeters and reading their views and opinions really makes me wonder if we are talking of the same India!

The cauldron of national politics is certainly boiling, and it is becoming increasingly clear that Rahul Gandhi may not be the person to stand up as the Family's choice for Prime Minister. He has said he is neither marrying nor is interested in the post of the Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi's health is failing, and keeping aside the opacity, secrecy and unaccountability of their actions, she runs the Congress like a warden of a boarding school. Of course, some students do get away and commit scams worth thousands of crores without her knowing, but then, who am I to doubt the integrity of the woman who gave up the post of the Prime Minister for the good of the country! ;-)

theatre of the absurd

There’s a lot of Community going around these days. Since we have one of the most secular parties leading this country, led by one of the most secular and open families, it is only obvious that they have managed to sprout this great sense of pride among all and sundry in their own communities.

When Pranab Mukherjee was made the President of India in case he had to contribute if by any chance the 2013 elections resulted in a hung Parliament, the Finance Ministry was expectantly given to a man who had been in it before, Mr. P. Chidambaram, who stamped his comeback into the Ministry of Finance with good news from the Supreme Court who quashed the case against him in the 2G case.

Now the ever-important Ministry of Home Affairs, earlier handled by some of the most notable Gandhi faithfuls, Shivraj Patil, was open. Sonia Gandhi chose another great Gandhi faithful, Sushil Kumar Shinde for the post. There are many things that should disgust any voting Indian who bothered watching his statements on being elected.

Shinde thanks the Queen Mother of making him the Home Minister because he is a Dalit. He says that the Gandhi family has done a lot for the Dalits in this country (which does not explain why 65 years hence there have been no noticeable improvements in the lives of Dalits). His performance as the Power Minister was pathetic according to whichever opinion piece you pick up and read today.

Let me just add an interjection here - the ‘downtrodden’ communities of this country must ask their leader tougher questions and open their eyes to the fact that they have been used and abused for throughout this country’s independence by unscrupulous politicians. The quotas have been abused by all and sundry and this Government seems hell bent on creating even further rift among communities by staunchly setting up the Muslims and the Dalits against the rest. The OBC’s, well, seem to have won their own battle by getting their own reservations in the system.

Coming back to Mr. Shinde, we know he has been a great server of the Gandhi family, and the Hindu reports that only two days ago, he waxed eloquent about how the CON party has never had a leader so great as Sonia Gandhi. Such disgusting flattery by the Union Home Minister of the world’s largest kleptocracy makes you wonder of the pride in the hearts of these men. More than that, the depth and brazenness of subservience that CONgressis demonstrate is sickening.

In an interview with Prabhu Chawla in a Hindi news channel, Sushilkumar Shinde proudly declared –

“I am Sonia’s Soldier”.  

“Our leader is so intelligent, talented and understanding; knows fully well what work has to be given to whom.” Unabashedly admitting to being a Gandhi sycophant, Shinde says he looks forward to serving under Rahul—someone he has seen in Rajiv Gandhi’s place even before the young Gandhi joined politics.

Of course, when one is elected to such a high office in a feudal-democratic set-up not for their ability but because of their loyalty, there are bound to be instances where they will not have any idea what is going on. Shinde’s already had a few on his resume.

And this is the person who is the Leader of the Lok Sabha apparently after the departure of Pranab da as he waits for further instructions.

But I am getting sidetracked. My point was to not talk about Sushil Kumar Shinde’s ability as a Home Minister, which besides is fairly obvious that he became for his loyalty to Sonia Gandhi, but I really wanted to talk more about the brazenness and ridiculousness with which the Government of India politicians have been making asinine statements and making the castes and communities the centrepiece of most their recent statements.

The Coal scam is yet another scam in the long list of CON achievements during their two tenures. Shriprakash Jaiswal, the present coal minister in Sonia’s team of merry men (and women), says that he is being targeted because of his community.

In his statement, Jaiswal states the very obvious modus operandi of the current government set-up, which I really hope that most Indians will be able to see through and remember when the elections come. The poor victim of caste discrimination said –

“The UPA government will not be affected by the allegations as it is headed by an honest prime minister (Manmohan Singh) who is also a renowned economist,” said Jaiswal.

Does it even make sense? Its really impressive to see the cronies in the government so confident of their abilities and power that they believe that any unintelligent comment should be enough to quell any queries from the general public and the media.  

Beni Prasad Verma, another Gandhi loyalist, said that it’s a good thing that prices are going up in the country, because that means the Indian farmer is getting more. If the citizens of this country spare some time from their television and try to find out about the economics of agriculture in our country, they will realize that it seems to be a punishment to be a farmer in this country now. Beni Prasad Verma has been a politician for a long time, and this comment shows that there are many politicians out there who, despite spending so much time as a politician, in power and in the opposition, still have no idea of the basic issues that afflict this country.

Another great Sonia spokesperson, Kapil Sibal, blames the private sector of this country for the policy paralysis we have been seeing in this crony government for the past many years. 

As for good ol Rahul, he must be so thankful for surrounding him with so many well wishers and protectors. He doesn't even have to speak a word to the media or to the people of this country and yet here is a mass of politicians praying for him to lead them. 

So all in all we are definitely seeing a great theatre of the absurd being played out all across the country. Citizens are insecure and unhappy, governance at all levels is breaking down, national security seems to be in tatters, and we seem very close to stagflation even if all the Queen’s horses say we aren’t. At such a time what can I do other than pour all my anger and bitterness in my blog? I know I will vote in the upcoming elections, and it surely won’t be the CON party, because if Rahul Gandhi becomes the Prime Minister, I know the people of this country deserve it.