THE TIMES OF INDIA EDITORIAL

                                                     The Gujarat Miracle 

There is no denying the major economic advances the state has made under Narendra Modi

Arvind Panagariya 


I recently wrote about why the accomplishments of chief minister Nitish Kumar – that at last bring hope to Bihar – could not be underestimated. Today, i turn to Gujarat, which has been generally more prosperous in the post-Independence era and has performed impressively under chief minister Narendra Modi. Critics who insist on viewing everything related to Modi through the 2002 lens and, thus, fail to separate their economics from politics have fallen short of 20/20 vision. 
    Begin with growth. The relevant comparison here is with larger, richer states. Based on per-capita Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) in 2009-10, Gujarat ranks third, behind Maharashtra and Haryana but ahead of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab and Karnataka in that order. 
    Modi came to office in October 2001. In the following eight years spanning 2002-03 to 2009-10 (2002-10), NSDP grew at 10.5% annual rate in Gujarat and at 10.1% in the nearest competitor, Maharashtra. The rate during the preceding eight years, 1994-02, was 5.9%, behind only Haryana’s 6.3%. Modi inherited a vibrant economy and has taken it to new heights. Gujarat had ranked sixth in terms of per-capita NSDP in 2002-03. Outperforming Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Punjab, it moved up to the third spot in 2005-06 and has remained there. 
    While the performance in agriculture has received the greatest attention, perhaps the most exceptional feature of Gujarat’s success has been the performance of manufacturing. Compared with the national average of 15%, manufacturing in Gujarat accounted for 27.4% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in 2009-10. 
    Critics might say that this proportion has risen only one percentage point since 2002-03. But given the uphill battle manufacturing faces in India, even maintaining the share at this high level is a challenge. In all comparator states, this share has been below 20%. Moreover, with the exception of Punjab, none has been able to raise it by more than a percentage point during 2002-10. 
    With a high and rapidly rising 
per-capita income, it should come as no surprise that Gujarat has a significantly lower poverty ratio than India as a whole and it is fast declining. Based on the Tendulkar poverty lines and methodology, overall poverty in Gujarat fell by only six percentage points during 11 years between 1993-94 and 2004-05. But during just five years between 2004-05 and 2009-10, it fell an impressive nine percentage points. In 2009-10, the poverty ratio in Gujarat at 23% was almost seven percentage points below the national average. 
    The decline in poverty has been observed across all major social groups. My ongoing research with Megha Mukim finds the poverty ratio for the scheduled castes tumbling from 40.1% in 2004-05 to 21.8% in 2009-10. The decline has been less sharp for the more numerous scheduled tribes (ST) – from 54.7% in 2004-05 to 47.6% in 2009-10. Given the continued high absolute level of ST poverty, the state must think of imaginative ways to bring the fruits of growth to the tribal belts. 
    Critics frequently deride the exceptional growth in Gujarat by pointing to its lack of achievement in the social sectors. But they often do so by focussing on selective indicators. A consideration of a broad set of indicators hardly offers an indictment of the state even in social sectors. 
    The critics’ case is particularly weak in education. Gujarat added 10 percentage points to the literacy rate during 2001-11, more than any other comparator state. At 79.3%, the literacy rate now stands one percentage point behind Tamil Nadu and three percentage points behind Maharashtra. Indeed, once we take into account the low literacy level of Gujarat at Independence, its progress looks more impressive than that of even Kerala. 
    To eliminate the bias that may result from differences in initial levels of literacy in evaluating the improvements in literacy, compare the three-decade progress in Gujarat during 1981-2011 to that in Maharashtra during 1971-2001 and Kerala during 1951-81. The initial literacy rates in these states during these periods were almost equal: 45% in Gujarat in 1981, 46% in Maharashtra in 1971 and 47% in Kerala in 1951. But three decades later, larger improvements by Gujarat had taken it ahead of both Maharashtra and Kerala. 
    On a longer-term basis, Gujarat’s gains in the vital health statistics are nothing to scoff at either. If the levels of these statistics compare unfavourably, it is because it began the race with a disadvantage. In life expectancy, it began a year below the national average during 1970-75 and remained exactly there in 2006-09. Infant mortality rate per thousand live births in Gujarat exceeded the national average by 15 in 1971 but fell below it by two in 2009. Under-five mortality and maternal mortality rates in 2006-09 were, likewise, well below the national average. 
    Data do show Gujarat performing worse than the national average in child nutrition between 1998-99 and 2005-06, the latest period for which consistent data are available. The government can do much social good by targeted action in this area. The good news is that with high growth, the state has the necessary revenues to successfully address the problem. 
    While one can selectively poke holes in nearly every success story, taken as a whole, it is difficult to remain unimpressed by what Gujarat has achieved. I would be only too happy if its economic success spread next door to my home state, Rajasthan. 

The writer is professor of economics at Columbia University.

The state’s success is built on sound economic principles.......

Times Of India Editorial

                                                   Back In Great Form

The PM’s bold measures to revive the economy could herald his finest hour in office

Dileep Padgaonkar 


Will sound economics – which is what the slew of muchdelayed measures announced by the government to boost investors’ confidence amounts to – also prove to be sound politics? 
    One answer to the question should come with the way the government has dealt with Mamata Banerjee’s ultimatum. If it continues to remain firm as it has in its dealings with her, it will signal the strength of its resolve to risk its survival in office to uphold the national interest. That, in turn, will stymie to some extent the efforts of other parties to push UPA-II to the wall. The SP, in particular, will then think twice before it lets its increasingly strident rhetoric against the Congress reach a point of no return. 
    Even more significantly, the BJP, which championed reforms when it was in power but has now become the piedpiper of a no-holds-barred populism, will find it hard to sustain its fierce opposition to the government. As it is, the party’s endeavour to paralyse Parliament hasn’t gone down too well even in those sections of opinion that have been outraged by ‘Coalgate’ and other scams that have dented the reputation of UPA-II – possibly beyond repair. 
    But if the government manages to ensure that the SP does not abandon it, the BJP will be in a tight spot. In fact, it will face a worse prospect should some of its allies – such as the Akalis – break ranks with it on the latest reforms package, not least because it allows states to fashion their own policies as regards FDI in multi-brand retail. This move is very much in keeping with the more pronounced, and growing, federal sentiment in the country. 
    Fortune, they say, favours the brave. Battered by negative publicity at home and abroad, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has run a political risk that bears the cachet not only of courage but also of bravado. 
He took that risk when, in the face of stiff opposition from the CPM, he pushed through the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. The CPM that had to eat crow. This time the risk is, if anything, more severe since the new measures announced are bound to adversely impact public opinion directly, at least in the short term. And the short term more or less coincides with the time that is left before general elections are held in 2014. 
    For a prime minister who is cautious to a fault, such risktaking must surely be rooted in hard-headed calculations. With the elevation of Pranab Mukherjee to Rashtrapati Bhavan, he was able to get out of his way an opponent of the so-called trickle-down theory. With P Chidambaram’s reinduction in the finance ministry he was able to neutralise, in a manner of speaking, A K Antony, another cabinet colleague whose enthusiasm for the reformist agenda has been less than lukewarm. Chidambaram not only backs reforms to the hilt but he also shares, much like Antony does, an excellent rapport with Sonia Gandhi. So it stands to reason that the Congress president, despite her soft corner for the anti-market civil society activists, has lent her full support to the measures recently announced regardless of their political consequences. 
    Armed with the backing of his cabinet and that of his party’s leadership, the prime minister made bold to take the steps he has taken. That such boldness wasn’t expected of Singh shows the extent to which analysts have underestimated his ability and willingness to rise to the occasion. His silence is misunderstood as inaction; his words often fail to inspire. But when he acts on the strength of the policies he believes in with the requisite amount of tact and discretion, he makes a mark. 
    The policies include not just economic reforms but also mending fences with neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan, and deepening mutually beneficial ties with major players on the international scene. In the bargain, he manages to keep one eye firmly fixed on the government completing its full term in order to enhance the electoral prospects of the Congress party in the next general elections. And the other eye is on the legacy that he will leave behind. 
    Each one of the measures announced over the past few days is thus a pointer to a dramatic change in the prime minister’s approach to governance. He has, to put it plainly, begun to overcome the fear of fear. If he continues on this trajectory and finds ways – ordinances? – to usher in other reforms stuck in Parliament, especially the ones related to curbing corruption, there are good reasons to believe that the negative public perception of his government will gradually take a turn for the better. 
    But on one condition: no compromise in the face of pressures from recalcitrant allies, from an opposition that is yet to get its act together and, no less important, from shady figures in his own party who cut unsavoury deals ostensibly to fill the coffers of the Congress. This could then be the advent of Manmohan Singh’s finest hour in office.

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                      Pushing Through Reforms

Will the change of guard in the finance ministry reverse the present economic trend?

Sudipto Mundle 


For several months now, the economic news has been exceptionally depressing. Will the change of guard in the all-important ministry of finance make any difference? In his first innings as finance minister P Chidambaram had initiated the direct taxes code, pushed the introduction of the goods and services tax, and demonstrated his strong commitment to fiscal consolidation and the FRBM Act, until things came apart in 2008. During that period the investment rate peaked, growth soared to over 9%, real wages rose, the stock market rose, and more foreign capital flowed in than at any time earlier. Can he repeat that act? 
    During the first week of his new innings at finance, Chidambaram quickly put together his team of key officers. Since then there has been a flurry of announcements, pointing to the resumption of reforms. The Shome committee is reviewing GAAR. Another committee is revisiting the reinterpretation of tax laws with retrospective effect, a move with ramifications much wider than the Vodafone case. Yet another committee under Vijay Kelkar, with some of his 13th Finance Commission colleagues, will examine how to return to the fiscal consolidation path they had laid out earlier. Assembling an effective team of economic administrators and technocrats was a necessary first step. It gave the right signals. But rebuilding investor confidence will require the actual implementation of at least a few key reforms. This is where Chidambaram is likely to face his toughest constraints: administrative inertia and political resistance. 
    The 1991 reforms are usually attributed to Manmohan Singh, C Rangarajan, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and a few other economists in government. Politicians like Narasimha Rao and Chidambaram himself are credited with having provided the necessary political leadership. However, the key role that the late A N Verma played remains an untold story. As principal secretary in the PMO, he made sure that the bureaucracy got things done, 
banging heads or patting shoulders as necessary. Today, once again, key civil servants in the PMO and the finance ministry need to play that catalytic role. It is a strong team and they can probably deliver at the administrative level. 
    But political constraints are quite another matter. There are barriers to reform at three different levels in this terrain. First, there is the official opposition, the NDA and the Left parties. Then there is possible opposition from Congress partners within the UPA, and some of its allies. Finally, within the Congress party itself there is a preference for populist measures, and tough reforms are opposed. Any reform that requires legislation will depend on the arithmetic of votes in Parliament. The Left and the NDA by themselves cannot successfully block any legislation, except constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds majority in Parliament. Reform legislation will therefore depend on whether or not such legislation can get past the second barrier, UPA partners and allies. Pension reform, insurance reform and introduction of the goods and services tax belong to this category. All of these will take time. The last in particular will be difficult because it requires a constitutional amendment and agreement with all the states. 
    There is another class of reforms, which do not require any legislation, and could get past the first two barriers through simple executive decisions. FDI in multi-brand retail and civil aviation or cutting the diesel subsidy belong to this group. The Left and the NDA, and some of the UPA partners or allies, could oppose these reforms and may even agitate against them. But they cannot block these reforms in Parliament. It is unlikely, though, that the government would ram through such reforms if allies or partners like Trinamool Congress and SP make common cause with NDA and the Left against these reforms. More important, there is likely to be strong opposition to these reforms from within the Congress itself, the third barrier. 
    This is the political arithmetic underlying the gridlock which we call “policy paralysis”. Can we then expect any mileage from the change of guard in the ministry of finance? One area in which Chidambaram can move quickly is reduction of the fiscal deficit. The switch from a positive to a negative list in service tax is already generating huge additional revenue, on top of additional collections from the increase in excise rates. Realisations from re-auction of 2G spectrum will also be a great bonanza, in addition to larger realisations this year from the sale of PSU equity. With these revenue gains the deficit reduction target should be met, even without a large immediate reduction in the diesel subsidy. 

    Diesel prices would still need to be raised, perhaps in small doses, for a cumulative impact on expenditure compression by next year, when the one-shot bonanza from spectrum sale will not be available. Softening of global oil prices would also help. Meanwhile, a reduction in the fiscal deficit will create space for RBI to lower policy rates if inflation cools down. These two policy moves would have a strong positive impact on investor confidence, especially if combined with investor-friendly resolutions of the GAAR issue and the Vodafone muddle. That in turn could reverse the decline in investment and drive up the rate of growth. 

The writer is emeritus professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi.

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                     Shaping Tomorrow’s Politics
The country can still benefit from the changed expectations created by Team Anna

Chetan Bhagat 


Many columns have appeared advising Team Anna on their political plans. Many have cheered, seeing them as a ray of hope for kick-starting our political cleansing process. Others have warned against the potentially disastrous move. I won’t add to the oodles of already existing, well-meant counsel. Team Anna has achieved a lot. They deserve respect for it. 
    They have also made mistakes. To stumble upon public attention is one thing, to sustain it quite another. But for true leaders, mistakes are lessons. If Team Anna has that vision and attitude, they will continue to make a difference. If they don’t, they will flounder, even with genuine intentions. 
    There is a political opportunity created by Team Anna’s current setbacks. The BJP, frequent opportunity-misser, has the most to gain here. The Congress can too. However, this requires the parties to stop gloating over the defeat of Team Anna and tap into the current public sentiment. 
    It is important to comprehend what Anna started as, what he became and where he is now. Anna began his current anticorruption campaign right after some of the biggest public scams in India’s history. Indians have, and frankly, can live with modest amounts of corruption. However, what they get angry about is blatant, in-your-face corruption. The Commonwealth and 2G scams were about flagrant abuse of power. The arrogant smirks on the accused’s faces as the government did little enraged people. 
    People were upset. Anna seemed like someone who could do something about it. Charged with a World Cup cricket victory, Indians lent support in droves. The media followed. Anna and team, perhaps unexpectedly to them too, became star activists overnight. As the movement swelled, the government came to the table to talk, adding to Anna’s awesomeness. 
    It was around now that the team needed to strike a deal, declare victory, and also let the government save some face, even if it meant a compromised Bill. 
This would have cemented the stardom. The team could have reserved the right to come back in a few years if the Bill didn’t work. However, Team Anna felt this would be a sell-out. They wanted to deliver the perfect Bill. 
    For a while, the defiance added to the stardom. The stardom itself became a burden. For the team was no longer an anticorruption symbol, but also carried the hopes and aspirations of millions of young Indians looking for change. Indians want a better life – not just low corruption, but also better jobs, education, power, water, healthcare – and don’t know how to get it. For a while, people felt Team Anna could help them achieve their dreams. 
    Obviously, Anna couldn’t, and he was never meant to anyway. The supporters felt lost as the team had inadvertently awakened their dreams, but had few solutions apart from fasts. In such a scenario, despair was bound to set in. The sudden calling off of the fast and announcement of a political party added to the disillusionment. 
    The current despair is the political opportunity. Someone needs to take the mantle from Anna. It doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be another activist outfit. For activists can at best create dreams. They cannot deliver on them. Only people in power can. 
    This despair can be tapped. For instance, it seems likely that the Congress will be blamed for crushing Anna. People will vent this anger in 2014 against the Congress. 
    The BJP can expedite this process, by reassuring people that even if Anna isn’t as prominent, the team’s message isn’t lost. 
    Of course, they should make realistic promises, based on what they can deliver. The BJP has its corrupt elements, and it should work out a way to cleanse itself over time. For this, the top leadership of the BJP has to learn to get along, immediately. They have a historic opportunity here. The anti-Congress sentiment can be smelt in the air. The BJP has to offer a whiff of hope and people will come to it. 
    At present, it seems the BJP leaders assume power in 2014 is guaranteed. Hence, several of them want to position themselves as PM. Such a short-sighted, selfish mentality will backfire. This isn’t just about winning 2014. This is about winning 2014 and the next 20 years. If they win and stay in power, everyone will get a chance to achieve their personal ambitions. 
    In some ways, the half-dozen top BJP leaders today control India’s future. If they learn to get along and back one solid candidate, they will win 2014 comfortably and can stay there for a long time. If they continue to bicker, we will have a fractured mandate, a weak government patched together by a coalition, and yes, no BJP PM at all. The top BJP leaders owe it to the nation to keep personal selfishness aside for the next two years. 
    The Congress, of course, can capitalise on the sentiment of despair too. They could pass the Lokpal Bill. They could also start certain new initiatives, such as fast-track courts for big corruption cases. Of course, this may mean some of their own will be punished. However, isn’t it better than everyone being punished in 2014? 
    If either party capitalises on Anna’s diminished movement, it could benefit them, but also the nation. If they don’t, it will hurt them politically. In some ways, this is what Team Anna wanted anyway, to create a political incentive to address corruption. Ultimately, it isn’t Congress, BJP or Anna that has to win but India. Let us hope that in 2014, that is what happens. 

The writer is a best-selling novelist.

Giving voice to a nation's dreams and aspirations....

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                   COUNTDOWN TO MARS


Nasa Rover Set For Touchdown On Monday, Will Explore If Planet Can Support Life

Srinivas Laxman | TNN 



Nasa’s 900-kg SUV-sized Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover — Curiosity — is slated to land on Mars on Monday to explore whether the Red Planet had an environment to support microbes and survey it as part of the preparations for its human exploration. 
    The event is being billed as a path-breaking one which, if successful, promises to be as significant as the landing of humans on the Moon in 1969. 
    Curiosity would operate for 98 weeks (nearly two years) and is about five times larger than earlier Mars exploration rovers — Spirit and Opportunity. Scientists hope that Curiosity, equipped with a suite of 11 advanced instruments, will better success of the earlier explorations. It would cover nearly 570 million km distance before touching down on the Red Planet’s Gale Crater and its heat shield will reach more than 2,000 degrees C as it takes off. 
    An on-board laboratory on Curiosity will study rocks, soil and the local geological settings to detect chemical building blocks of life and see what the Martian environment was like in the past. The nearly $2.5 billion mission carrying Curiosity was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on November 26, 2011 on-board the powerful 58-m-tall Atlas V rocket as part of Nasa’s long term robotic Mars exploration programme. 
    Around 80 pyrotechnic devices will be activated on the spacecraft in quick succession to ensure that it lands safely during the final few minutes of Curiosity’s flight. An instrument on-board Curiosity — the Mars descent imager or Mardi — will record a full color video of the ground below and give space buffs an unprecedented sense of riding a spacecraft to a landing on Mars. 
    Indian engineer Ravi Prakash, helping Curiosity to manoeuvre complex entry, descent, and landing, said the mission is full of challenges and requires thousands of events to happen successfully in a matter of minutes. 
    He said the event is being called “seven minutes of terror’’ as it will take as much time for the spacecraft to halt on Mars after travelling from the top of the Martian atmosphere at a speed of 21,000 km per hour or five times as fast as a bullet. “During those seven minutes, the spacecraft will be on its own, automatically deciding when to perform each of the thousands of actions required for the landing,’’ he said.
    Prakash said the nervewracking part of the event would be that while Curiosity would be on the surface of Mars, they will not know if it had survived the unforgiving atmosphere of Mars for 14 minutes. “It takes 14 minutes, travelling at the speed of light, for Nasa to send a signal from the Earth to the spacecraft and vice versa.’’ 
    T he e n g i n e e r s a n d scientists working on the mission would monitor these developments at the mission control room at Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena near Los Angeles. 
    Prakash said millions of simulations of the landing have been performed to make sure that entry, descent and landing are properly choreographed and to find out what could cause its failure. “The mission remains difficult and success cannot be guaranteed.’’ 
    But MSL deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada is optimistic that everything would go smoothly. “I am pretty confident. We have done all we can to make it successful. But it is risky. I will be nervous on the landing day.’’ He said they have been living on Mars time for three months. A day on Mars is about 24 hours and 40 minutes. 
    Vasavada said they expect the first images from the rover about 90 minutes after the touchdown. “Colour images would follow a few hours later.’’ 
    Prakash said several technological firsts such as guided entry and precision landing on another planet as well as the entire sky crane manoeuvre to land the largest rover yet on the surface of Mars have been employed for the first time. 
    The new technologies are being tried especially during the critical entry, descent and landing phase. This makes it the most challenging manoeuvre ever fraught with risks like never before. 
COLD WAR RIVALS RUSSIA, US WARM UP TO SPACE JV 
    Cold war rivals Russia (then USSR) and the US have collaborated for the mission 
    The Federal Space Agency of Russia has contributed an instrument – dynamic albedo of neutrons (Dan) – to the rover that will detect water in the soil of the Red Planet 
    Dan consists of two blocks – one is a neutron generator and the other is an on-board micro computer 
    Dan’s neutron beams will be shot on the metre-deep Martian surface to detect water 
Mars mission’s desi connection 
A number of Nasa scientists and engineers of Indian origin are participating in the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. But apart from this, India ranks third in the world and first among the developing nations in terms of the names being sent to Mars on MSL’s Curiosity rover to the Red Planet. The names have been etched on a microchip which Curiosity is carrying to Mars. The US has sent 5,29,386 names followed by the UK’s 77,329. Next to the UK is India with 59,041 names. Nasa had invited people from all over the world to participate in the mission by sending their names to be etched on the chip. The response has been overwhelming, according to Nasa.

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                     Why We’ll Miss Chidambaram


There’s reason to believe past smugness on security and terrorism just came back


Ashok Malik 



The departure of P Chidambaram from the home ministry is worrying. This is not simply because a competent minister has moved on, but because there is a danger that complacency in the absence of an immediate crisis – such as the 26/11 terrorist attacks, which brought Chidambaram to North Block in the first place – will see a pivotal ministry being viewed in an old, outmoded way. 
    To understand why, one has to look at the history and evolution of the home ministry. For all his faults, Chidambaram was India’s first modern home minister, seeing it as a technocratic charge – as technocratic as, say, the finance ministry – with a specific mandate to upgrade internal security firewalls. In India, reasonable to good governance or success of public institutions tends to be driven by individuals. Our politics doesn’t encourage institutional rigour and memory. As such, there is no guarantee Sushilkumar Shinde, Chidambaram’s successor, will imagine his job description in the same manner, or be up to it anyway. 
    Till the 1990s, the home ministry was a largely ‘political’ office, in that it was the ministry the ruling party used to further its politics. Home ministers were usually the second-most important ministers in the cabinet. At least that is the tag the ministry carried. That is why L K Advani was home minister in the NDA years. That is why Arjun Singh desperately wanted (but didn’t get) the home ministry in the P V Narasimha Rao government, to establish his number two credentials. 
    In the days of one-party dominance, the home minister had a broad-based and largely political duty. He often bullied state governments run by opposition parties. He threatened president’s rule, or more or less ran a state under president’s rule. He used the intelligence and police agencies under him to extract leverage and occasionally to spy on political opponents. 
    Within the home ministry, internal security was twice carved out as a separate jurisdiction looked after by a minister of 
state – under Arun Nehru in the 1980s and Rajesh Pilot in the early 1990s. The nature of internal security then was very different. Challenges were either limited to specific regions (Punjab, the Bodo demand for subautonomy in Assam) or were decidedly political (moving central paramilitary forces from place x to y because of religious/ ethnic disturbances). Contemporary terrorism, as it emerged after 9/11 or 26/11, with a possibility to strike anywhere in the country, was unknown. 
    Chidambaram grasped the essence of this change. To be fair, the change was obvious enough after the Mumbai attacks of 2008 and the series of smaller terrorist bombings that had occurred earlier that year. He approached the home ministry as a technocrat and not a generalist, with internal security in its 21st century form as an obsessive focus. 
    It is not that an internal security minister or overseer must necessarily be from a policing or field-operations background. India after 26/11 needed to address juridical lacunae in meeting terrorism-related situations. It needed to construct a legal and threat-anticipation architecture that would integrate the state governments and New Delhi. It needed to ask itself about the right balance between antiterror laws and civil liberties. 
    In many senses, a lawyer politician was appropriate for this job. Chidambaram may not have always got what he wanted and there may have been genuine grounds of disagreement with the details of some of his proposals – such as the plans for the National Counterterrorism Centre – but at least he bought a certain seriousness to his job. 
    A confident, and some would say imperious man, Chidambaram had no qualms in expanding the ambit of the home minister. Since his primary remit was protecting the lives of citizens and residents of India, he had no problem in making clearheaded statements about sources of violent extremism in, say, Pakistan, whether this fitted into the foreign ministry’s timetable or didn’t. Realising the criticality of access to real-time intelligence he began to take meetings of chiefs of intelligence agencies. Gradually the home minister, rather than an official in the prime minister’s office, became India’s both de facto and de jure intelligence czar. 
    No minister can carry on forever. Sooner or later, Chidambaram’s stint in the home ministry would have ended. It would have helped, though, if he had been replaced by somebody who was either as purposeful or had a similar skill set. Indeed, several people, including the former home minister himself, have suggested the home ministry needs to be reorganised. The wing of the government that has responsibility for counterterrorism and internal security cannot also busy its minister with requests and lobbying for Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri awards, freedom fighters’ pensions and promotion of Hindi as an official language. 
    Such a structural overhaul of the home ministry is absolutely overdue. Far from making a move towards it, the UPA government has regressed, and brought in a home minister who seems unfortunately reminiscent of the 1980s. Perhaps Shinde will prove all of us wrong – though who would bet on it? For the moment, it appears the smugness of the past may just be back. 
The writer is a political commentator.

The moment the country realised just how vulnerable it is....

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                        Who Turned The Lights Off ?


The government needs to learn lessons and work on critical power infrastructure in the country


E A S Sarma 



The two successive blackouts on July 30 and 31, each lasting more than 10 hours, caused havoc in the north of the country as well as the east and the northeast. Whatever the excuses put forward by the government, years of neglecting power sector reform and misplaced investment priorities are at the root of the crisis. 
    On the first blackout day, confronted with a volley of questions, Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde tried to nonchalantly explain it all away by saying that his ministry was planning huge generation capacity additions – and that the situation would improve in coming years. He also attempted to place the blame on power overdrawals by some 'errant' states. Worse, he even pointed to the blackout that had occurred in New York some years ago; his logic was that we should not view the latest blackout in our country so seriously when even developed countries in the West faced such problems. 
    He was so anxious to prove the point that he proudly informed the impatient questioners that some of the developed nations had sought advice from Indian power sector experts on solving blackout problems in the West. What he, however, forgot to say was that we had rarely heeded the advice of those same experts who provided excellent advice to other countries! 
    The problems faced by the residents of Delhi and the other places were of immediate urgency. They wanted to know why such a debilitating grid collapse was allowed to occur in the first instance and why it had taken such a long time for the authorities to restore power supply. There was visible anger in their voices. They wanted immediate solutions to the problem, not verbose generalisations. As if to call Shinde’s bluff, there was a multiple grid collapse the next day – a sequence of crises that will not be forgotten for a long time. 
    There are eight state grids interconnected through highvoltage alternate-current (HVAC) links in the northern region. There are a few crucial highvoltage direct-current (HVDC) 
links also that transfer bulk power among the states according to an established formula. There are several high-voltage transformers that step up and step down voltages in the system. There are both state and regional load dispatch centres with stateof-the-art technology that keep a minute-to-minute tab on the power system health, triggering preventive and corrective action when needed. 
    When there is failure in any one of these protective systems, grid collapses occur. Responses to crisis situations should be automatic, not manual. They should be based on highly sensitive, quickly responding, automated under-frequency relays that isolate the troubled portions of the grid before the contagion cascades into a grid collapse. 
    The power drawals in each state should match power availability. If the demand exceeds the availability, the frequency drops dangerously causing the tripping of the system. Before that can happen, the demand needs to be managed prudently. Also, when power availability exceeds demand, the frequency can shoot up dangerously. Then, it becomes necessary to back down some generation. Both high and low frequencies, beyond certain reasonable limits, damage power equipment and cause power plants to trip, which in turn can cascade into blackouts of the kind we have just witnessed. 
    Apart from automated underfrequency relays and other protective means required to safeguard grid stability, electricity tariffs linked to the system frequency with inbuilt incentives and penalties for maintaining discipline in load management can facilitate system equilibrium. The ‘availability’ tariff introduced by the Union power ministry years ago was aimed at this. 
    One disturbing aspect of India's power planning is that there is greater emphasis on adding new generation capacity than in directing investment towards improving the operation of existing power plants and strengthening the transmission and distribution (T&D) system – particularly when it comes to reliable high voltage transformers and their proper maintenance, as well as on protective equipment that responds automatically to crises. 
    The excuse put forward by the power ministry that “warnings” to cut down electricity drawals had not been heeded by some states reflects the fragility of system management procedures. The ministry should take the states on board and evolve a lasting institutional arrangement, backed up by modern technology, to prevent such crises. 
    The government should immediately review the extent to which lessons drawn from earlier blackouts were followed up – and whether investments in the transmission segment, recommended by the expert committees, were actually made. 
    We need to look at every failure as an opportunity to learn, not an inconvenient episode to be quickly forgotten. Instead of addressing the real problems – technical, commercial and institutional – the Centre and the states are trying to divert public attention with a mutual blame game that leads us nowhere. 
    Despite the crisis, Shinde, the man at the helm of affairs, has been catapulted to the home ministry. The power ministry has now slipped down the ladder of importance with corporate affairs minister Veerappa Moily asked to “look after” it as a second charge! Such flippant, unprofessional responses to major disasters are not going to provide solutions. 
    The writer is a former Union power secretary.

Poor policies have plunged it all into darkness time and again......

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                       Revolution Without Ideas


Anna’s aims are laudable, but he should not make fasting his sole means of protest


P K Siddharth 



As Anna Hazare’s fast-unto-death enters the fourth day, the UPA government has shown no signs of relenting on Team Anna’s main demand: the enactment of an effective Lokpal Bill to curb corruption in the top echelons of the establishment. Ironically, this is a country where millions go hungry every day without attracting public attention. But fasting voluntarily and with such frequency to press for the noblest of all causes today – prevention of corruption – has seldom been witnessed in independent India before. Not surprisingly, it has attracted unprecedented attention and adulation. 
    However, while undertaking repeated fasts for enactment of an effective Lokpal Bill underlines the unwavering commitment and courage of Team Anna, at the same time it highlights certain other facts. It shows the agitators are not trying to build a parallel mass base on the strength of a constructive programme, as was done by Mahatma Gandhi. Fasting is the last weapon in the armoury of a non-violent movement, and its rampant use tends to blunt the edge of the weapon. 
    While Gandhi, the creator of this weapon, used it on many occasions, he had many other weapons too in his armoury, especially his constructive social programme. Team Anna, however, lacks other tools of mass mobilisation or social reconstruction. Fasts, undertaken by whosoever, even Gandhi – have an element of drama and suspense in it, which is why they attract such a lot of public attention. 
    But getting the nation’s attention solely through this prism poses danger for Team Anna, which might ultimately in public perception be reduced to the status of a brave drama troupe. They might finally look, in nature if not in magnitude of impact, like a street-play group that has the good intention of inducing social change and awareness. 
    To quote V S Naipaul on the JP movement in India: A Wounded Civilisation: “The revolution was an expression of rage and rejection; but it was a revolution without ideas. It was an emotional outburst, a wallow; it would not have taken India forward...” Though harsh in 
tone and tenor, the comment conveys a powerful message. 
    The JP movement, which was without doubt the most powerful protest movement that took place in independent India, left important lessons for the posterity of revolutionaries and reformers wanting to bring macro-level change in the country. JP himself wrote that for a revolution to succeed it required a revolutionary leadership as well as a revolutionary organisation. JP forgot to mention that it also required a revolutionary programme of action. In his movement, only one component was present: a revolutionary leadership. There was no attempt to build a revolutionary organisation to assist the leadership and no revolutionary programme of action, detailing a broad roadmap for change. It was not surprising that the movement finally failed. 
    After JP’s, Anna’s is the second powerful pan-Indian movement that seeks to bring about macro-level change in the country in a non-violent manner. However, it needs to draw from both the Gandhi-led movement before Independence, and the JP-led movement of the 1970s. Its persistence is entirely laudable, but Anna’s movement suffers from many pitfalls. 
    If Anna’s group had projected itself as a pressure group for fighting corruption, these pitfalls would not have been evident. However, Anna’s hunger seems to be wider. After breaking his fast last year Anna said he was hungry for nothing less than a total revolution, which put his group in a different perspective and whetted the nation’s appetite for more. 
    Mahatma Gandhi once said that fasting might not succeed against ‘tyrants’. Team Anna will do well to understand that it is up against tyrannical rulers, who subject millions of Indians to abject poverty year after year and decade after decade by siphoning off public money and making a farce of governance and development. 
    That is not to say fasts are no more relevant as a pressure tactic. But the strategy to deal with rulers forever postponing the creation of an effective anticorruption body has to be redesigned. First, the movement has to be made more holistic. There has to be a larger vision and roadmap for the country. A countrywide constructive programme has to be undertaken, and a revolutionary organisation created which believes in non-violence not as a policy but as a creed. 
    In addition, the onslaught has to be not against one party or individuals aligned to one party but against all corrupt parties. Selective onslaught has made the Anna movement appear to many as partisan, designed to damage the political prospects of one party, while benefiting another almost equally corrupt party, heading some of the most corrupt state governments. 
    This perception is bound to erode Team Anna’s moral quality, which initially made it the darling of the masses and the youth, when Anna undertook his historic 12-day fast at Ramlila Ground in Delhi in August 2011. In addition, the organisation, breaking out of a leadership coterie should broaden itself with fresh inductions on the basis of merit and a transparent system of elections. 
    The closest example here is the Indian National Congress of the olden times, which was founded and controlled by a British civil servant – A O Hume in the beginning. It, however, gradually evolved into a vehicle of mass participation, allowing different people to take up leadership at different times based on democratically conducted organisational elections. The sooner this is understood the better it is for Team Anna and, perhaps, the country. 


    The writer is national convener, the Citizens Commission for National Issues.

Anna has created space for a civil society movement, but will he be able to sustain it?

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                              Understanding The Bihar Miracle 



Nitish Kumar has lifted the state from the depths, but much remains to be done



Arvind Panagariya 



The political row between chief ministers Nitish Kumar of Bihar and Narendra Modi of Gujarat has spilled over into an acrimonious debate on the performance of their respective states. Defenders of each state have gone on to rubbish the accomplishments of the other state. This is a painful spectacle since the achievements of both states are considerable and deserving of celebration rather than rebuke. 
    Focussing exclusively on Bihar today, let us begin by noting that this state has suffered from neglect by the Centre as well as local leaders during much of its existence beginning in 1947. It is fashionable to blame Lalu Prasad and his wife, Rabri Devi, for the woes of Bihar. While it is true that 15 years of misrule by this husband-wife team held back the progress of Bihar during India’s crucial reform era, the state’s misfortunes go much farther back. Few chief ministers preceding Lalu and Rabri had shown any passion for building an economically strong state. 
    Data testify to this long-standing neglect. As far back as 1980-81, per capita income in Bihar as measured by per capita net state domestic product was the lowest among all states. Even Rajasthan, the second-poorest state, enjoyed one-third higher per capita income. And the richest state, Punjab, had per capita income almost three times that of Bihar. 
    Unlike Rajasthan, which managed to climb up to the fifth place from below among the larger states in the subsequent decades, Bihar remained steadfastly at the bottom. The creation of Jharkhand, accounting for a quarter of the state’s original population, left it further impoverished. Because the more industrialised and richer parts of the state went with Jharkhand, the per capita income of new Bihar fell by 10 to 15% overnight. The break-up also resulted in a decline in the proportion of the population living in urban areas. 
    By 2004-05, the last year before Kumar came to power, per capita income in the second-poorest Indian state, which was now Uttar Pradesh, had moved up to 
two-thirds higher than that of Bihar. The richest among the large states, Haryana, had per capita income almost five times that of the latter. Bihar had started the poorest in 1980-81 and it grew the slowest over the following quarter-century. 
    Unsurprisingly, the task facing Kumar was Herculean. He began with a per capita income that was barely two-thirds of the average of India a solid 25 years earlier. The law and order situation was in a shambles with rampant corruption and skyrocketing rates of crime. Infrastructure was among the worst in the country. A whopping 78% of the rural workforce depended for livelihood on low-productivity agriculture. 
    What has Kumar accomplished? Between 2005-06 and 2010-11, total incomes in Bihar have grown 9.9% annually. If we take out the first year of his administration during which his initiatives could not possibly have had any impact, growth in the remaining five years averages 11.7%. In addition to being the period of highest growth in the recorded history of Bihar, these five years have also been characterised by the least fluctuations. 
    In terms of other indicators, the most impressive progress has been in the literacy rate, especially among women. The proportion of the rural workforce employed in agriculture has declined from 78% in 2004-05 to 67% in 2009-10. Prudent fiscal management has helped bring the debt burden down significantly. 
    The change is not just good luck but the fruit of special efforts in which the chief minister is directly and actively involved. Efforts to cut down on serious crime have been greatly intensified with all indicators in terms of convictions as well as safety of citizens showing dramatic improvement. New teachers have been hired at accelerated pace, translating to rapid expansion of enrolments. And roads have been constructed at a speed not previously witnessed in the state. 
    While Bihar has, thus, turned a corner, it is not out of the woods by a long shot. In terms of level rather than change, in most indicators it remains 30 or more years behind the Indian average. Per capita income remains below that of India as a whole in 1980-81. Much more dramatically, urbanisation at a paltry 11% compares unfavourably with the 17% Indiawide average prevailing six decades earlier in 1951. The share of manufacturing in state output stood at an abysmally low level of 3.9% in 2010-11. This is the result of more than just the loss of a vast chunk of industry to Jharkhand. The share has in fact seen a secular decline since 2000. Sectors that have driven growth are construction, hotels and restaurants and telecommunications. 
    For the first time in more than 50 years, Kumar has brought real hope to Bihar. To turn this hope into true prosperity, the state will need to sustain the current momentum of good policies for many more years to come. The state must continue to improve law and order and combat corruption. It also needs to reverse the decline in manufacturing and accelerate the process of urbanisation. 
    And, of course, if there ever existed a case for the central government to generously assist this third most populous state of the nation in its struggle against extreme poverty, it is now. The government must rise above petty politics in helping this land of Chandragupt Maurya, Ashok and Chanakya, birthplace of Buddhism and Jainism and home to the great ancient university of Nalanda, regain some of its former glory. 


    The writer is professor of economics at Columbia University.

Bringing the change that Bihar needed......

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                                      Aiming For Glory 


London Olympics present India’s best chance in decades to have its tryst with sporting destiny


Boria Majumdar



London: Following seven years of preparation for a 15-day extravaganza, London is finally ready for its tryst with Olympic history. £10 billion of expenditure and a regenerated East End described by Jim White as “derelict outpost to centre of the universe in five years” (but which continue to raise questions of rehabilitation for the original inhabitants and apprehensions over security) – it hasn’t been smooth for Londoners in the lead-up to the world’s greatest sports spectacle. Awful weather hasn’t helped and staging a successful Olympic Games will be a test of the organisers’ mettle. 
    As the newly created transport network ferries thousands of people from across the world to the Olympic Park in Stratford, and many thousands descend into the newly built Westfield mall adjoining Olympic Park, ‘Brand Olympics’ – currently valued at $47.6 billion and the second most valuable brand in the world after Apple – will also be on show. Questions like whether it is a simple sports competition or a global peace movement with serious political ramifications, will be answered over the next two weeks as the world’s best take centre stage for the ultimate sporting glory. 
    London is the first city ever to host the Olympics for a third time; lucky, considering its past record isn’t anything to be proud of. Soon after the Games ended a hundred years earlier in 1908, Baron de Coubertin, founder of the modern Games, had this to say: “It will be necessary to avoid copying the Games of London”. Graeme Kent, author of the definitive book on the 1908 Games, agrees: “The London Olympics of 1908 were supposed to display the glories of the British Empire at its zenith, but they ended in uproar – everything that could possibly have gone wrong did so.” 
    1948 was little different. Known as the “austerity Olympics” or the “Make-do and Mend” Games, organised in the aftermath of the World War II, the Olympics weren’t half as 
glorious as they are in 2012. At the same time, the spirit, which is so very essential to the Olympic movement, was very much on display. In the words of Emil Zatopek, star of the 1948 Games, it stood for ‘‘the sun finally coming out after the war”. 
    The same spirit is in evidence in 2012. Despite a serious recession, the Olympic venues are excellent and Britishers, not simply Londoners, are much enthused by the event. Despite a critical home media echoing fears of a security and transport meltdown, almost all events are sold out promising packed stadiums and the very best sporting action. 
    Bringing in much needed international investment and a wave of international tourists, the opening ceremony, choreographed by Danny Boyle, will see an unprecedented 204 nations and two athletes with no nationality march today under the banner of the five rings in the Olympic stadium. Importantly, each of the 204 teams have women in their ranks making the 2012 Games the first gender-equal Games in history. Boyle too is aware of the high stakes involved. He knows there’s no chance of a retake and the world will pounce on the smallest mistake. With nearly half the world’s population watching on television, the significance and symbolism associated with the Games can hardly be underestimated. 
    For India too, the stakes are huge. With the best ever Indian contingent set to make the Olympic stage its own, chances are that years of neglect and lament for ‘what could have been’ will finally become a thing of the past. Hoping for medals in six disciplines, Indian Olympic sport is all set to come of age in London. 
    With the biggest ever media contingent from India already in London, a good London 2012 will help catapult Olympic sports to the forefront of the nation’s imagination. Corporate coffers have opened up for these athletes and each of them is well aware that an Olympic medal is the key to a life of recognition. 
    Importantly for India, interest in the Olympics is all set to be sustained till the last day of competition. With the archers taking the stage later today at the consecrated Lord’s turf and Sushil Kumar due to fight on August 12, the concluding day of competition, London 2012 will continue to be front-page news in the country for the next 15 days. 
    Finally, London, it is important to emphasise, has a very special place in the history of Indian Olympic sport. At the last Olympic Games in London in 1948, the Indian hockey players presented their countrymen with a befitting Independence gift – yet another Olympic hockey gold, which was made sweeter by a 4–0 victory over England in the final. 
    For a newly independent India, the 1948 Olympics were more than a mere sporting event. They offered independent India an opportunity for assertion and were a stage for a young nation to cement for itself a place in the world parliament of successful sporting nations. The hockey team successfully satisfied this national yearning. London 2012 offers a budding superpower an opportunity to rewrite its dismal sporting history and correct years of frustration and failure at the highest levels of international sport. 


The writer is senior research fellow, University of Central Lancashire.

It’s called gunning for gold........

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                          Redefining The Presidency 


Pranab Mukherjee is likely to be interactive and not an aloof president


Neerja Chowdhury 



Pranab Mukherjee, who will be sworn in today as the 13th President of the Indian Republic, is a man conscious of his political stature. He is also a realist. It’s the combination of these two qualities, which, in all probability will come to define his presidency. As a skilled practitioner of statecraft, it’s not surprising that “Arthashastra” is his favourite book. Or, that a picture of its author Kautilya adorns his room. 
    Here’s a pointer to an interesting facet of his persona. Mukherjee had refused to pick up the phone and dial Mamata Bannerjee’s number himself to seek her support for his candidature. Instead, he got his secretary and senior Congress leaders to line up an appointment to see her. The meeting, though, did not materialize. Fearing Mamata’s rejection Mukherjee might not have wanted to land himself in such a situation. It’s another matter that Mamata was later compelled to eat her words and vote for him. 
    By way of an explanation for his reluctance to make that phone call, Mukherjee recounted what Indira Gandhi, who influenced him deeply as she did a generation of Congress leaders, had once told him. Political standing, Gandhi said, must never be compromised. A six feet tall man could lose weight if he was not given enough to eat. But he couldn’t and shouldn’t lose height! 
    Pranab Mukherjee has also demonstrated a rare ability to read the writing on the wall. This was evident in his agreeing to work under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which, given his seniority and experience, could not have been easy. As finance minister in the early eighties, Mukherjee had signed the order appointing Manmohan Singh as the RBI Governor. Yet he stood solidly behind the PM as Singh increasingly resorted to running the government through GOMs and EGOMs, most of them headed by Mukherjee. He showed this realism once again in 2010 accepting that he wouldn’t be able to become prime minister, and turning his attention to Raisina Hills. 
    Presidents come and go every five years. Each Rashtrapati has defined his presidency. R 
Venkataraman saw his presidency as an “emergency light” which automatically came on in a crisis and went off after it was over. K R Narayanan saw himself as ‘working’ president, while APJ Abdul Kalam was the ‘people’s Prez’. 
    How will Pranab Mukherjee fashion his presidency? Will his tenure be like that of the first president, Rajendra Prasad, who enjoyed a parity of stature with the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru and counseled the government on a host of issues? But, while Rajendra Prasad often volunteered advice, even unsolicited, to Nehru, Manmohan Singh is likely to informally seek Pranab Mukherjee’s advice himself. There are a thousand informal ways for a President to help the PM. 
    The extent to which Pranab Mukherjee will be able to act as a friend, philosopher and guide to the government, and even troubleshoot behind the scenes, will depend on the kind of working relationship he and Manmohan Singh are able to establish in their new roles. There was a time when Manmohan Singh used to refer to Pranab Mukherjee as “Sir”. In 2004, Singh became PM, but still out of habit, continued to call his number two “sir” in private. Mukherjee isn’t likely to be a rubber stamp President like Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed who signed on the dotted line promulgating emergency in 1975. Neither does the constitution expect the Rashtrapati to be one. At the same time, Mukherjee isn’t going to be an adventurist, controversy courting President. Essentially a middle roader, a believer in the system, Mukherjee will be a constitutionally correct President, probably an active and interactive one too. Having been used to a 16-hour working day, he is unlikely to confine himself to Rashtrapati Bhawan’s lawns. But he will also be watched by his erstwhile party to see whether he interferes in government decisions, given his familiarity with its functional details. 
    The President’s discretionary powers have aroused more than the usual interest this time, primarily because the 2014 verdict is expected to be more fractured than in 2009. Many Congress baiters are hoping that Mukherjee would not facilitate the elevation of Rahul Gandhi as PM in case of a muddled verdict. Here are some pertinent issues for consideration. 
    Firstly, the powers of the President to invite anyone as PM have been restrained since the days of Shankar Dayal Sharma. The latter invited Atal Bihari Vajpayee to form government in 1996 without clarity on how he would get a majority. Sharma’s successor KR Narayanan insisted on letters of support, and various Supreme Court judgements have also laid down floor test as the ultimate yardstick, which, any President would have to be mindful of. Secondly, no President can deny Rahul Gandhi – or anyone else – the opportunity to form a government if he, as the leader of his party, can prove his majority. What is more, Mukherjee is unlikely to do something unconstitutional at the end of his long political innings. 
    The more interesting question is whether, as the head of state, the commander in chief of the armed services, and Visitor to central universities, Mukherjee will try and restore health to our democratic institutions, which have taken a severe beating. He may not have executive powers. But will he use his position to persuade, restrain, counsel and encourage without getting into a confrontation, to move in this direction? 


The writer is a senior political commentator

All eyes on the new president

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                         Charting The Right Course 


The government must remedy the problem of poor administration in the aviation sector



Rajiv Pratap Rudy 



The civil aviation ministry found itself in the news recently when the minister heading it up – Ajit Singh – showed firm resolve in ending the Air India pilots’ strike and de-recognising the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG). The pilots finally took refuge under court order to scramble to work without notable gain, but not before adding another Rs 700 crore to the beleaguered carrier’s cumulative losses and financial mismanagement of Rs 1 lakh crore. Singh’s actions hint at the possibility of redrawing the roadmap for a beleaguered national carrier struggling hopelessly to revive itself. 
    As matters stand now, the aviation sector seems entangled in a Gordian knot. Air India and Kingfisher are poised for free fall while Indigo, Jet, GoAir, and Spicejet are precariously placed. The 2011 estimate for total accumulated losses and debts was a staggering Rs 1.2 lakh crore with growth plummeting to 12% from the 35% witnessed after NDA reforms in 2003. The comptroller and auditor general audit has damned the ministry. Air prices are rising and cartelisation is reemerging. Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) import remains in limbo. High ATF taxes and airport tariffs remain an impediment. The FDI policy on the anvil is no panacea to the current ills. 
    To add to these problems, the ministry had Bharat Bhushan, the directorate general of civil avation (DGCA) chief, tossed out unceremoniously. It is believed that he was set to issue orders to suspend Kingfisher Airlines amidst its burgeoning arrears, mismanagement and erratic cancellations. Interestingly, everyone is aware that bitterness and animosity at the top level was responsible for his ouster. 
    The DGCA, entrusted with formulating and enforcing regulations and air safety, has failed to position someone from within its ranks in this extremely technical position. The rules of appointment have been made so rigid now that no insider can ever meet the UPSC requirements. Ultimately, the position of DGCA chief ends up going to a ministry official on an ad-hoc basis – from 
Naseem Zaidi to Bharat Bhushan to Prashant Sukul, and now to Arun Mishra. 
    Zaidi was moved in DGCA in 2008 after he returned from his tenure in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICOA) as India representative. He is credited with ensuring the Indian aviation sector measured up to the US federal aviation administration (FAA)’s international aviation safety assessment, thereby enhancing India’s credibility. Zaidi was subsequently elevated to secretary of civil aviation and Bharat Bhushan was drafted in as the ad-hoc DGCA chief. In Vayalar Ravi’s tenure as aviation minister, Bhushan was given an extension for six months post-December 2011. He would have needed the approval of Ravi’s successor, Ajit Singh, for a further extension, but the PMO chose to keep Singh out of the loop while granting the extension. Singh took on the PMO, labeling the appointment committee’s action illegitimate, and the PMO had to backtrack. 
    The PMO had to bite the bullet on an earlier occasion as well when Arvind Jadhav replaced Raghu Menon as the chairman and managing director (CMD) of Air India in 2009 through a search committee. The opposition raised a hue and cry in August 2011 alleging that that the appointment was manipulated and irregular as Jadhav had earlier been considered unfit for appointment. The government was compelled to sack Jadhav in a huff and under enormous adverse publicity, with Rohit Nandan, another IAS officer, replacing him. Even Praful Patel had removed Sunil Arora, another influential CMD found to be cozying up to the PMO for his extension. 
    Currently, Sukul who holds the charge of joint secretary looking after Air India, has been given additional charge of DGCA. He will eventually be replaced by Mishra, also earlier in the civil aviation ministry after returning from the ICAO. But Mishra can’t be posted until another joint DGCA chief who happens to be a senior IAS officer is shifted out. Now Sukul is set to move awaiting clearance from the external affairs ministry to ICAO. 
    Meanwhile, Zaidi, who is set to retire this month, has been officially notified as Indian candidate for the presidency of ICAO; an ambitious goal. Another joint secretary looking after airports is to move to the personal secretariat of Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and Akhilesh’s private secretary to move to the ministry. It’s all a glorious game of musical chairs being played by the Indian bureaucracy with little or no accountability. 
    Arguably, the civil aviation ministry also has been used as bait in one election after another; after Praful Patel, it was given to Vayalar Ravi prior to the Kerala elections and was subsequently used as a bargaining chip with Ajit Singh before elections in UP. With another reshuffle round the corner, one ponders on the next incumbent. 
    Amidst all this, there seems to be no policy vision in the aviation sector. Little wonder the government has been toying with the idea of a new civil aviation Bill seeking to modernise the sector besides providing teeth to the DGCA. The government has found itself on the backfoot many a time when faced with the archaic Aircraft Act of 1934. It is time to reboot the policy framework of the industry, establishing a level playing field to incentivise the fastest growing sector. The ministry has to haul itself out of the maze and get rid of the culture of adhoc administration. 



The writer is a member of parliament and former civil aviation minister

In for a rough landing if the captain continues to slack off

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                            Laying Down The Ground Rules 

 To protect the underprivileged the state must be an arbitrator in land acquisition

Muhammad A Khan 

Following the introduction of the newly drafted land acquisition, resettlement & rehabilitation bill in the Lok Sabha in September 2011, the parliamentary standing committee on rural development undertook a thorough review of the bill. In May this year the committee submitted its report containing recommendations for modification and amendment to the legislation. 

A key legislative initiative of the UPA-2 government, this important bill seeks to replace the existing 1894 law on the subject. It entails a comprehensive revisit drawing upon the lessons of forced displacement and severely inadequate compensation that have characterised almost all past land acquisitions. 

The single most significant and far reaching recommendation made by the standing committee relates to the omission of the state as a party to the process of acquisition. The committee, in its wisdom, believes that a party requiring land should negotiate the process of its purchase/acquisition directly with the owner without involving state agencies as arbitrator or intervenor. 

    Despite addressing the same subject matter, the legislative epicentre of this new bill is not the same or even similar to the existing law. While the current law pits the absolute might of the state against individuals whom it itself disempowers, the new bill greatly narrows the power of the state and significantly empowers those marginalised sections that are at the greatest risk of being displaced. In other words, the new law invests in the individual justiciable authority while diminishing that of the state. The existing law does the opposite. 

    Removing the state from the process of acquisition is both undesirable and infeasible for the following reasons: 

    Firstly, the sheer inequality in terms of bargaining power between large-scale corporations and small farmers and other marginalised groups increases the likelihood of unfair agreements. Contracts tend to be signed in favour of the party negotiating from a greater position of strength. That is why government is required to bridge the 

gap and bring balance to this relationship. Government is the big stick to defend the rights of the disenfranchised. 

    Secondly, a legitimate need for acquisition by the state itself (to build public goods such as roads, schools and hospitals) can be undermined and stalled by groups with vested interests. If there is no sovereign power to compel these groups, a single individual or group of individuals can hold a process hostage, if they so desire, merely by refusing to part with land for selfish reasons. Or sometimes, even without reason. Furthermore, in times of crisis such as war, famine and floods, coupled with absence of legislation clarifying and guiding the state’s exercise of eminent domain, situations can emerge jeopardizing human lives. 

    Thirdly, land can be acquired indiscriminately through transactions between private parties without giving any thought to its impact on surrounding areas and ecosystems. ‘Privity of Contract’, a long standing maxim of contract law, does not require the concerns of a third party to be addressed by the parties to the contract. It also deprives any third party of any right to speak in a contract with which it is not directly concerned. Furthermore, a third party such as government or a civil society agency, cannot decide the terms of the contract (such as floor price, parity, resettlement) between individuals. The new bill puts in place a process called ‘Social Impact Assessment’ that weighs the impact of the proposed project in holistic terms including on seemingly tangential interests. If the state were not a party, such a review would not take place. 

    Fourthly, the measure of what constitutes ‘public interest’ cannot be left to the discretion of a private player for fear of it being subverted to suit private interests. The Jeremy Bentham Standard which mandates the purpose of law to be the advancement of the greatest good of the greatest number cannot be met by private individuals simply because private individuals lack the pure altruism of the state. 

    Finally, removing the state as an arbitrator renders the transaction one of ‘purchase’ and not one of ‘acquisition’, thus acquiring the dimension of a private matter beyond the realm of legislative intervention by the central government. The central government cannot legislate on purchase without the states abdicating unto it the authority to do so. This renders any statute, which seeks to clarify the law on acquisition, infirm and redundant. We are then left with a law that lacks Constitutional sanction and is thus susceptible to being challenged. 

    A true measure of satisfactory public purpose would lie in the community feeling a sense of pride and investment in the project after it is completed. The constructions of the Delhi Metro, our national highways and airports, all have required some individuals to sacrifice their land (and in some cases their livelihood). And all of these projects are revered as symbols of an India that can be. 

    Land acquisition, even if an inevitable companion to industrial growth, can be carried out in a humane manner that honours and respects the sacrifice of those called upon to give up their land. A law cannot undo the loss but it can mitigate the severity of displacement. True, these greater safeguards and regulatory requirements may lead to a longer acquisition process. But we can at least ensure that these established structures have the support and pride of the community in the service of which they are ultimately erected.

The author is the Officer on Special Duty to the Minister for Rural Development

संपादकीय अग्रलेख

                                                            The Dirtiest Picture
                   Censors, khaps and mobs thrive in a culture that kills joy instead of  spreading it

Rupa Sengupta 

What do cartoons and mobiles, malls and pubs have in common? They are all scowled at in a culture that kills joy rather than spreads it. Communication, consumption, leisure – they create enjoyment. But enjoyment, as unfettered human interaction, is a dirty word in India. Pleasure’s for the birds, not model citizens in general and ‘decent’ women in particular. 
To start with, political aversion to cartoons is instructive, uncritical reverence being indispensable to our mai-baap culture. Poked fun at, could self-perpetuating circles of political privilege inspire awe? No doubt, then, politicians will frown at an NCERT committee’s no to the Thorat panel’s recommendations. If they had their way, we’d see humour vanish from textbooks. If departed national figures are barricaded against irreverence, their humourless political heirs can also avoid being ribbed for their ineffectual fight against socio-economic ills, including gender bias. Ban subversive laughter and you weaken interrogation of power-obsessed rather than performance-oriented politics and the feudal set-up that props it. The habit of questioning, remember, is an enemy of the status quo. 
So is technology that’s a force of change and modernisation. A village panchayat in UP has barred women from using cellphones or moving about freely. North India, it thunders, will bow to its diktats. The political response has been breathtakingly flaccid – who dares confront the Jats who, constituting 17% of west UP’s population, can sway electoral fortunes? Apparently not the chief minister, who’s said the matter is for scribes to debate. Meanwhile, an RLD MP suggests the Baghpat panchayat’s only managing its house like any family elder – read patriarch – would. The analogy couldn’t be more telling. Or the fact that Baghpat is RLD chief Ajit Singh’s parliamentary constituency. Why has access to communication technology come up against deeply entrenched social conservatism? Mobiles revolutionise the way we live. In work or play, they help us reach out and touch someone: friends, information givers, distant markets, even support systems for abused daughters or battered wives. This can make local monopolies of sagacity and protection – family heads and village elders, matchmakers and middlemen, indifferent public servants and inept service providers – dispensable. 
In Baghpat’s case, mobiles also seem accused of facilitating unmediated contact between the sexes. Unless love and sex are demonised, “love marriage” can threaten acquisitive endogamy. Allow personal choice and you cede a key weapon of social – and political – control, especially over women’s sexuality, that mythical repository of male honour. Moral policing isn't confined to rural settings. Consider why fast-globalising urban India is accused of spawning so-called dens of hedonistic vice: malls, pubs, watering-holes, nightclubs. The mall – the former chief minister of a prime tourist state once declared – corrupts boys and girls into holding hands and worse. The pub, meantime, is a place where Sri Ram Sene activists thrash women, cops wield hockey sticks and predators sniff out prey. Note that the first incident took place in Mangalore, emerging IT hub. The second occurred in Mumbai, India’s financial and glamour capital. The third happens everywhere.  Last week, it happened in Guwahati, Assam: a teenager was assaulted, molested, stripped. Tellingly, the thugs involved looked straight into the camera. They smirked into it. It’s as if they said: In our testosterone-driven world, violence punishes ‘transgression’ and there’s little law enforcers can do about it, because they’re one of us – the same society produced us, the same patronage systems keep us ticking. That rings chillingly true in a votebank-driven order whose numbers games and call to primordial loyalties – caste, creed, community – strengthen lobby groups and ultimately the mob against the individual. Look around. Leaders pledged to the Constitution wink at Taliban-style strictures. Lawkeepers harass victims more than they do offenders, even cavalierly revealing their identity as happened in Assam. And no less than parliamentarians snarl at “par kattis”, to protect male preserves. Routinely, authority blames the victim – especially if it’s a woman. Denied her humanity, she is either goddess or harlot. She has no business having ambition, and even less having fun. Domestic toil is her lot; she can never own the night, when men are out to play.  It’s for their own good, shouts the patriarch, the politician, the pulpiteer, the vigilante. For, ultimately, a killjoy culture infantilises all citizens. So, textbooks are pruned to kill thought. Awardwinning cinema suffers 100 cuts to be telecast – blood and gore passes muster, not ‘bold’ themes. And people’s yearning for good times and the good life undergoes ritual bashing from populists whose idea of socio-economic leveling is to have everybody stagnate. Entertainment and enchantment, love and laughter, dreams and desire – it’s all a dirty picture. So dirty that hoodlums carry out street purges. Khaps tell women who vote they can’t shop. And political scissorhands sanitize reality in line with a nanny state’s idea of morality.  Let’s not fall into the trap of blaming socio-economic divides – haves versus have-nots – for growing illiberalism and attacks on ‘westernised’ lifestyles. That’s a copout. Enforcing the law isn’t enough – so the argument goes – we need socio-economic justice to remove mass frustration and envy. This sidesteps the issue of deeprooted gender bias. It also suggests that violence is selectively excusable and delivery of security to all citizens is negotiable. It isn’t.  Either we believe in constitutional democracy and the rights it guarantees – or we don’t. Are we still in two minds, after six decades of freedom?

Lady rings the blues