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| Saturday,
November 10, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Severe blow to farmers Pakistan
and Taliban Another case of corruption |
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Small enterprises in dire distress
Melancholy but mirthful
No need for draconian laws
Optimists too are stress-prone
1908, Chemistry: ERNEST RUTHERFORD
Grow old, the best is yet to be — it’s official now
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Severe blow to farmers ANOTHER hare-brained proposal is being floated to tackle the mounting stocks of wheat and rice. But this time it is much more than a proposal; it looks clearly like a firm decision. The Centre wants to retreat from the more than three-decade-old commitment to procure every grain offered by the grower at a fixed price in Punjab and Haryana, the cradle of the green revolution and the saviour of the country from food scarcity of the mid-sixties. Western UP too figures proudly in this list but the state government undertakes guaranteed procurement considering the small area of production. In contrast, much of the irrigated districts of Punjab and Haryana produce wheat and rice (which they do not consume) for use elsewhere in the country. Union Public Distribution Minister Shanta Kumar has revealed the new thinking and has called for a nationwide debate. The statistics he reeled out are way off the mark as is his reference to the World Trade Organisation stipulations. These are props to support the government’s anti-farmer policy. For three years now the FCI has been refusing to buy wheat and paddy, imposing stringent standards knowing fully well that the kisan is not responsible but the weather was and he would face a huge loss of income. Then came the call to the private sector to buy and store the grains and relieve the government of its basic responsibility. Now comes the decision not to procure foodgrains but to fix a minimum support price (MSP) and compensate the kisan if he gets a lower price in the open market. The thinking is bizarre, to put it mildly. The FCI is sitting on a mountain of wheat and rice and ready to offload it at cut rates. The government has tried several measures to thin down the stocks and can still take more desperate measures in this direction. In that case the private traders will be squeezed and left holding huge unwanted stocks. Mr Shanta Kumar has said, without meaning it, that the government spends about Rs 21,000 crore to buy and stock the offered grains. It is plain that the trading community and flour mills do not have that much money to relieve the government of its task. The talk of income support system, invoking a flawed WTO rule, is so much hot air. Also, referring the issue to the Abhijit Sen committee is to get a high-powered endorsement of a patently poor policy. Mr Shanta Kumar has called for a national debate and agricultural experts and kisan organisations should enthusiastically participate in it. |
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Pakistan and Taliban THE
USA seems to be finally turning the heat on Pakistan as well. Some of
the recent decisions of the Musharraf government are indicators enough
that it is being pressurised like never before to sever the umbilical
cord with its creation. A few days ago, it directed Afghan Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef to abandon his daily Press briefing. And now comes another missive telling Afghanistan's Taliban regime to close its consulate in Karachi. Since Pakistan was insisting till very recently that it continued to be the only country in the world to recognise the Taliban government only to keep a channel of communication open with it, the latest feast of humble pie has obviously been partaken at the bidding of Uncle Sam. The decisions are bound to go down very badly with the Taliban hardcore as well as its numerous sympathisers within Pakistan but General Musharraf really had no choice. Surely, he could not continue to hunt with the hound and run with the hare for all time to come. The Press conferences held by the Afghan Ambassador were giving the impression that Pakistan was a safehouse of Taliban mullahs. However, it would be wrong to conclude that it has yielded to American pressure entirely. While it is making all the necessary motions of severing ties with the Taliban, it has yet to stop clandestine aid to them. Ironically, on the very day that the news about the closing of the consulate appeared in newspapers, there was another story that it was secretly supplying arms and ammunition hidden in food and relief trucks being sent on a daily basis to Afghanistan. The USA indeed has a serious problem of duplicity to contend with. Saudi Arabia has also not minced words while exposing the Pakistani role. If Washington continues to turn a blind eye to such backstabbing, it can be only because of the tactical necessity to keep Pakistan on its side at this critical juncture. That raises the hope that the fountainhead of terrorism would also not be spared, although it might take some time to mount an offensive. Subtle signals in this regard are already emanating. On the one hand, the USA has reportedly asked Islamabad to hand over to India Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and others accused in the Bombay blast case who have taken shelter in Pakistan. On the other, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has stated in no uncertain terms that “we have told the Indian Government that we intend to fight terrorism wherever we see it. That includes in India …”. Earlier, such sage advice was seen in Delhi as delaying tactics. But the Capitol Hill has displayed a new sincerity in the last few days. What Ms Rice has said further is even more specific: “We believe that our relations with any country in the world begin with an understanding that the support of terrorists is unacceptable. That includes any country in the world, including Pakistan”. That should set alarm bells ringing in Islamabad. About time! |
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Another case of corruption THE arrest of Mr Someshwar Misra, Chief Excise Commissioner (Delhi Zone) by the CBI allegedly for accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh should not be treated as a sensational development. Yes, it is part of the routine the CBI has perfected for staying in the limelight as a prime agency engaged in the daunting task of exposing corruption in high places. The owner of the Noida-based Flex Industries, Mr Ashok Chaturvedi too was taken into custody for allegedly having committed the offence of offering the bribe. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Will the case result in the conviction of the well-connected suspects? The Misra-Chaturvedi case is just one of the many high-profile ones that the CBI and other agencies have investigated and cornered ill-deserved media attention. The rate of conviction should serve as the only yardstick of the efficiency or lack of it of the CBI that has even appointed an official spokesman for briefing the media about the cases it claims to have cracked. Without meaning to be unduly critical of the methods adopted by the investigating agencies, it must be pointed that at some stage political pressure is brought upon them for leaving loopholes in the cases involving senior politicians, bureaucrats and influential businessmen. According to media reports Mr Chaturvedi started his career in Kanpur as an ordinary salesman. Today his guest list reads like a veritable who is who from the world of media, civil service, politics and entertainment. Only recently he had thrown a party in honour of Shah Rukh Khan. After reading the full account of the influence that the Misra-Chaturvedi combine exercise in the corridors of power even a first grade school kid would not go wrong in predicting the outcome of the case when it comes up for trial. The bitter truth is that society as such has to become more assertive and demanding for making the fight against corruption at any level really effective. Neither the setting up of a Vigilance Commission headed by the voluble Mr N. Vittal nor the promises made by the political leadership can really deliver so long as the promise of transparency in public dealings is not fulfilled. As far as the public perception is concerned as of today no one in positions of power is perceived to be clean. Most people see the campaign against corruption as a charade in which the corrupt are expected to expose the corrupt. |
Small enterprises in dire distress INSTEAD of talking endlessly about the political quagmire and economic gloom we are in it is time we turned our attention to specific issues and their solutions. One issue that begs immediate attention is the miserable state of small enterprises and the near total failure of government and its institutions to boost this segment of the economy, which is most critical for employment generation and income distribution. In this context the recent comments of the Parliamentary Committee of the Ministry of Small and Agro Industries assume significance: “It has become imperative that the policy of protection for the small scale sector should pave way for a more proactive approach of helping such units enhance their competitiveness. If small and tiny enterprises have to compete in globalised environment they require an enabling and responsive environment which provides adequate and timely credit”. Far too long government departments and institutions charged with the responsibility of promoting and funding small enterprises have adopted a reactive and coercive approach that is proving detrimental to the Indian economy. All that these departments and institutions do is to proclaim pious policies, announce odd concessions, issue vague guidelines, set up corporations and agencies and go through the motion of “promoting small scale industries”. As proof of their success these entities often come out with figures of start-ups “registered”, loans “sanctioned”, entrepreneurs “trained” and the amounts “spent”. This is the typical “Fund & Figure” approach that government departments in India are fond of. But the “figures” do not include registered but non-existing units that have fallen and folded up even before they could stand. These far out number the start-up units “registered”. The fact of the matter is that small enterprises in India today are in dire distress. Hemmed in from all sides, these enterprises have virtually become a “gamble by the desparate” to earn a livelihood. With hurdles all the way and “stiff, unfair competition from imported goods”, viable and dependable small enterprises have become an “endangered species”. Given half a chance an educated and enterprising youth would rather grab an unchallenging and unproductive but “secure” government job rather than persisting with a challenging and productive but “insecure” enterprise. Banks and financial institutions [FIs] created to facilitate enterprises with an “enabling and responsive environment by providing adequate and timely credit” have largely contributed to the failure and closure of enterprises due to their inertia, inefficiency and disregard for public interest. What is worse, after killing the enterprise these very banks and institutions claim astronomical sums as dues by compounding principal, interest and penal interest, which keeps shooting up every month. When entrepreneurs cannot pay these “massive dues” their honour and livelihood are destroyed by confiscating and selling whatever personal assets left with them. Things had come to such a pass that the Supreme Court of India in the Mahesh Chandra vs UP Financial Corporation case [1992/93] came out with scathing observations on the manner in which working capital to the small industries is being sanctioned and disbursed. In a significant judgement the Supreme Court said: “Unless the unit starts generating internal resources and earning profits, running the unit or industrial concern itself becomes difficult and the ability to repay principal or interest gets impeded. The industrial concern or unit, thereby, would be further burdened with additional cost of interest, penal interest and interest over interest. Delay in disbursement results in delays in completion of the project or commencement of its functioning or loss of its running capital which gives cause for default in payment of the installments; accumulation of the liabilities and the ultimate closure of the unit or the industrial concern, defeating the objectives of the Act and the Constitution of India”. Instead of assisting the units to run viably and earn returns for repayment of principal amount and interest payable financial corporations have been functioning in a “power charged” manner by indiscriminately using the coercive powers under the Act. Holding that financial institutions were visualised not as profit-earning concerns but an extended arm of a welfare State to harness business potential of the country to benefit the common man, the Supreme Court directed that before exercising the coercive powers to confiscate and sell entrepreneur’s property, “every endeavour should be made to make the unit viable and put in working condition”. These observations and directives apply to all banks and institutions that advance term loan and working capital to industries. Under Article 141 of the Constitution directions and observations of the Supreme Court are binding on all concerned and non-compliance could amount to contempt. Yet FIs and banks have totally disregarded these observations/directives and Central/State governments who own these entities have done nothing to ensure compliance. So not much has changed for small enterprises despite pointed intervention by the highest court of the land. The Reserve Bank of India, however, made a fair attempt to address this issue when in July, 1995, they issued broad guidelines and in May, 1999, specific guidelines to the commercial banks to settle bad and doubtful dues in the small sector by adopting prudential norms. Since banks did not make much progress, in July, 2000, the RBI circulated simplified, non-discretionary and non-discriminatory guidelines to provide a one-time settlement of chronic non performing assets up to Rs 5 crore. These guidelines were operative till June, 2001, and all applications received up to this date were to be processed by September 30, 2001. Though representations were made to the RBI for further extension of the scheme they have not done so since according to them “sufficient time has already been provided”. However, the broad framework for settlement continues to be in place, and banks are free to design and implement their own policies for recovery and write-off incorporating compromise and negotiated settlements in a non-discretionary and non-discriminatory manner. It is doubtful whether in issuing these guidelines the RBI acted in public interest as provided in the Banking Regulations Act because that purpose has not been achieved and most of the settlements are “discretionary and discriminatory” between one bank and another and one NPA and another. The ultimate sufferers were the ‘genuine entrepreneurs’ who had furnished adequate collateral, had sincerely made efforts to run the enterprise viably and attempted to revive it against heavy odds. Besides, the RBI did not make any attempt to settle such NPAs in state financial corporations who are equally guilty of choking SSIs. Obviously neither entrepreneur morale nor industrial growth seems to have concerned the RBI. In the meantime the Union Finance Minister has been shouting from the rooftop that NPAs are crimes committed by entrepreneurs and he will have them punished. He did not even bother to go into the factors that prompted the Supreme Court to make such sweeping observations about the manner in which bank loans and working capital to SSIs were being disbursed and take remedial action. In the event there is distress and apprehension among entrepreneurs and very few are coming forth to start ventures. This is why though banks are flush with funds they are not attracting “quality borrowers”. No amount of “protection” would help. What is needed is a dynamic and proactive approach wherein adequate and timely availability of credit at reasonable cost is ensured and entrepreneurs get the assurance that they need not pay heavily for the corruption and inefficiencies of FIs and banks. But this is not happening if one goes by the recommendations of the core group commissioned by the Ministry of SSI recently who have only addressed the legal aspects, totally byepassing the fiscal and financial issues related to the SSIs. India as a nation is richly endowed with entrepreneurial talent. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor-2000 estimates India’s entrepreneurial activity rate at 6.3 per cent, making it one of the more active entrepreneurial countries of the world. Yet, less than 1 in 100 adult invests in new business start-ups, the lowest business angle rate of all GEM 2000 countries. This is because our institutions, particularly banks, are choking the entrepreneurs making enterprise an arduous task. This is the root cause for the poor performance of the economy and the nagging poverty and unemployment afflicting the country. No country has prospered without enterprise and India cannot be an exception. The time to make amends is now and small enterprises is the area to start the resurgence because that is where entrepreneurship blooms. |
Melancholy but mirthful MISERY and sorrow are inseparable in day-to-day living. If we revel in gloom and doom, then we see nothing but gloom and doom. We cling to our sorrows and develop a fatal fascination for them. Andrew Cohen says: “It is akin to living in a house with dead, rotting corpses.” It is a form of mild madness. It is unmistakable judging from its effect. Romantic poets want to “Swoom unto death” under its spell. Are you possessed? Let’s give it a peek-a-boo. Give yourself the following quiz. Do you wake up in the morning with a feeling that doomsday is rapidly approaching? Are you a morose, morbid, introverted, easily depressed, gloomy sad sack of an individual? If so, you have a streak of sadness. But there is the flip side of the coin, too. The misery you hug so fondly and ardently (yehi gham hai ab meri zindgi, ese kaise dil se juda karun) is, in fact a close kin of mirth. This means that you are endowed with an equally powerful sunny side. There is a merry-man struggling to emerge from the prison of your morbidity. Is not the joker always crying inside? Those who have seen Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker will bear me out. One reason “Joker” failed at the box-office in its first run was that people expected it to be full of fun and frolic but it turned out to be the tragic story of a thrice-broken heart. No wonder, a wag has said: “A joke is a serious thing.” Sample this: the greatest joke about politicians is that they get elected! Unfortunately, we have not adequately recognised the contribution of the sedate, the serious and the sorrowful to our world. It is because they wear a mask that shows a crying face. Reverse it and it shows a laughing joker. Here is a real-life story which proves that those weeping inside, provide the world with mirth. It is a case of misery wedded to mirth. A joker working in a circus suffered from severe fits of depression. He tried many ways and means to come out of the shadows of his life but nothing worked. Finally, he was referred to a psychiatrist for treatment. The learned man quizzed him for hours and came to the conclusion that he could practically do nothing for his patient. However, he suggested: Better go to the local circus. The clown there will make you laugh. “I am that clown,!” replied the patient. There is nothing new in man’s nature. If misery and sorrow existed in the past, so did levity and laughter. Humour is as old as man. Even the Stone Age had its “comics.” I have read that a popular sex joke goes back to the days of Socrates. My guess is that it was not new even in the days of sad Socrates! Perhaps, Khushwant Singh, the rolly-polly of Indian journalism, will like to throw some light on the subject from his bulb. A joke puts us in tune with our fellow beings because it reduces tension and dissipates stress. It makes us offable and even affectionate, or at least, tolerant. That is why a well-developed sense of humour that brings mirth and merriness has both a therapeutic and a social value. It pierces through our arrogance and vanity. It brings about an invisible bond of goodwill. The fact is that, “hyenas excepted, man is the only animal who can laugh. Ill-temper and hostility stem from our inability to take humour seriously. The tragedy is that we take it non-seriously and thus plung ourselves into gloom. If we do not want to be called messengers of misery, we should take humour seriously. Groucho Marx said of his childhood days: we were so poor that I could not give my sister her 16th birthday gift till she was 26. |
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No need for draconian laws IT
is puzzling that in the debate that POTO (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance) has generated there has been no mention of the Nadeem case. It is a case that the Indian government — and certainly the Maharashtra government — would like to forget but we who represent the public need to remind ourselves of it when we consider the possibilities of more draconian preventive detention laws. Nadeem Saifi of the Nadeem-Shravan musical team is the music director who the Maharashtra police believes masterminded the killing of Gulshan Kumar, who was shot dead in a Mumbai street in 1997. The unknown assailants, who were allegedly caught later, allegedly confessed that Nadeem had paid gangster Abu Salem to order the killing. Nadeem happened to be holidaying in London when the police announced he was wanted in connection with the murder. He not only escaped arrest but also managed to get the British courts to acknowledge that there was no real evidence against him and that he would not get a fair trial in India because he was a Muslim. Well, at about the time that our government was pondering over the intricacies of POTO, Britain’s House of Lords was ruling that the evidence submitted in the Nadeem case by the Indian Government was “tainted, rendering a fair trial impossible”. The House of Lords threw the Indian government’s appeal out and ordered that a compensation of £9,20,000 be paid to Nadeem for the harm done him. It had other unpleasant things to say about the Indian criminal justice system. It said that the procedures employed in the Nadeem case smacked of “preconceived judgement” of his guilt and that the police work was shoddy and prejudiced. “We infer that the police has an improper interest in interfering with the evidence in this case”. No sooner did these words reach the Maharashtra police than a whisper campaign began in Mumbai. Friendly hacks, touts, society gossip were suddenly full of stories of how the Maharashtra police had proof of Nadeem’s guilt but was not allowed to present all its evidence to the British courts. Nobody explained or understood why not and my own small involvement in the case convinces me that the police made a case against Nadeem simply because they needed someone to pin it on and he happened to be the first person they came up with. There are those in Mumbai’s film industry who go further and say that he was framed only because he was a Muslim and there was a BJP-Shiv Sena government in power in Maharashtra at the time. Personally, I set no store by rumours of this kind but can tell you that at least one of the men they arrested and killed in connection with this case was not the man they said he was. In this column, three years ago or so I wrote about a peanut seller called Javed Fawda, who the police had allegedly killed in an “encounter”. Well, I went to meet Fawda’s family, who lived in a chawl in a Mumbai suburb, and after meeting his sister and old, sick mother, I was left with no doubt that the man they had killed as a gangster had made his meagre living by selling peanuts at a railway station. Far from being involved in an encounter he was dragged off in public view in a police car and then only his body was returned. Everyone forgot about Fawda quickly and as far as I know nobody has so far been brought to justice in his extra-judicial killing. The point I am making is that this is how the police works in India, we all know this, we also know that there are enough laws already available under which the police can virtually do what they like with suspects. So, why do we need another, more stringent law? The Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, a very clever lawyer so usually put forward by the government to defend the indefensible, has come up with clever arguments about how Rajiv Gandhi’s killers may never have come to justice if TADA (Terrorism and Disruptive Activities Act) had not been available. What he does not tell you is that nearly 80,000 people were arrested under TADA and only a handful were convicted of the crimes they were charged with. As someone who covered Punjab, when terrorism was at its height, I would like to add that it did not work even when it came to convicting terrorists despite its provisions for in-camera trials and secret witnesses. It was also often misused so that journalists found themselves jailed under it and in Gujarat, which had no terrorism, there were so many arrests that it discredited the law. It was later dumped and now we have POTO. These are difficult times and it is hard to attack an anti-terrorism law without seeming to be on the side of Osama bin Laden, but we need to remember that the Indian police do not need more laws to hide behind but better police work. The Law Minister also needs to find ways in which the justice system actually works. That it does not work at the moment can be gauged from the fact that it takes an average of 20 years for even a murder case to be decided. If arrested terrorists cannot be brought to speedy trial, it should be clear that what we need is speedier justice, not draconian laws. Considering that we in India have faced terrorism — as the Prime Minister frequently reminds us since September 11— for more than 20 years you would think that by now something would have been done about the justice system. Why has it not happened? That is a question the Law Minister needs to answer. One reason is that we need to rid ourselves of silly laws. Instead, we are now landed with a ban on smoking in public places imposed last week by the Supreme Court. And, how is it going to be policed? Do we even need it when you consider that we cannot even provide our people with unadulterated food, clean drinking water or clean air? Did we need another unenforceable law? Do we need POTO or better police work? Perhaps, clever Mr. Jaitley should try answering these questions. |
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Optimists too are stress-prone Although optimists are often more resistant to stress, they may actually be more susceptible to stress-related illness when facing severe pressure, according to researchers. “Optimism is more complicated than some people think,” Suzanne C. Segerstrom, an assistant professor of psychology, said “Just because you’re optimistic, don’t assume that you will never be stressed or vulnerable.” Segerstrom tracked 48 first-year law students to measure whether their personality type affected their stress levels and health. The students were asked whether they considered themselves optimists or pessimists. Segerstrom hypothesised that optimists would do worse immunologically than pessimists when faced with conflict between academic and social goals, because they would try harder than pessimists to meet both sets of goals. Pessimists, on the other hand, would just give up on some goals and thus, face less stress. And in the absence of conflict, optimists would do better than pessimists. To test the hypothesis, the researcher compared stress levels between students who had relocated to school or were locals, based on the assumption that locals would have pre-existing social networks they would struggle to maintain, while newcomers to the area would develop a less demanding social network that matched their diminished free time and thus, feel less stress. According to the results, the optimistic students who had relocated had a higher number of immune cells. But optimistic students who had not relocated, and presumably had more conflict about their social ties, were more prone to negative moods and fewer immune cells. “Optimists are less likely to give up on important goals than pessimists are, “Segerstrom noted. Reuters |
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Grow old, the best is yet to be — it’s official now Life really does begin at 70. New research has found this is the age people are at their happiest as they find time to pursue hobbies and forget about the stress of work and paying the bills. Despite increasing health problems, reduced income and encroaching mortality, the largest survey of its kind has found that British septuagenarians report an overall life satisfaction far higher than anyone else of any age. “Our findings have shown that the ageing process is intimately connected with becoming happier”, said Jonathan Scales, of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University, England. “It’s surprising but refreshingly heartening.” According to the research, the overall life satisfaction of people aged from 15 to 90 resembles a U-shaped curve, although teenage optimism plummets sharply after the age of 15 before flattering out slightly at 18 into a gradual downward slide that continues until the subjects reach the age of 40. From 40 to 50, the respondents maintained a low plateau of depression before their enjoyment of life began to rise, reaching a peak at 70 years of age more than 15 per cent higher than their short teenage bout of high hopes. The findings were compiled by the British Household Panel Survey and the Future Foundation from the responses of 9,000 people over for consecutive years.
The Observer Minister asked to apologise for defamation A senior Indian minister has been slapped a legal notice demanding Rs 10 million and a public apology for defaming a social scientist sacked in August from a top government post. Mr
M.L. Sondhi, dismissed as Chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research
(ICSSR), served the notice on Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, demanding the compensation and a public apology. Mr
Sondhi, a former Indian Foreign Service officer, was dismissed on charges of “unbecoming behaviour”, financial irregularities and injudicious spending, allegedly causing resource crunches in the multi-million-rupee budget
ICSSR, which has 27 research institutes and regional centres in its charge. A Law Ministry official told IANS: “This is the first case of its kind. We have asked the minister to handle the case at his level and avoid going to court.” Mr Joshi has been advised to go for an out-of-court settlement. The notice gives Joshi three weeks to comply, failing which Mr Sondhi would begin legal proceedings including filing of suit for defamation and consequent damages in court.
IANS |
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My greatest skill has been to want but little. * * * To maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely. * * * Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. * * * Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? * * * Petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. * * * To be awake is to be alive. * * * All intelligencies awake with the morning. * * * An abode without birds is like a meat without seasoning. * * * I found myself suddenly neighbour to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them. * * * The devil finds employment for the idle. * * * Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature. * * * Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths while reality is fabulous. * * * There are the stars and they who can, may read them. * * * Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then. — Henry David Thoreau, Walden |
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