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Saturday,
December 1, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Enron is sinking Rightsizing government Resignation drama |
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The American crisis of understanding
A day in Delhi
All dressed up and waiting for tourists
1931 Peace: JANE
ADDAMS & NICHOLAS BUTLER
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Enron is sinking AMERICA'S, and the world’s, biggest gas trading company, which also owns thousands of kilometres of gas pipeline and is building one across the continent in Latin America is going through death throes. RIP Enron. Its collapse within three weeks has shaken stock markets across the world, shattered the hopes of thousands of retailers and also suppliers of gas in all continents other than Australia. Late last year its share fetched $ 90 or more and on Wednesday it hit a humiliating 36 cents. In other words, its assets worth more than $ 60 billion have been reduced to scraps of paper. Today it owes more than $ 12 billion and it has to repay immediately at least $ 3 billion. A few months back Enron and its powerful boss Kenneth Lay could have organised this money with a few telephone calls. Now they are helpless. A leading credit rating agency has lowered Enron to junk status, shutting out any loan. In fact the market is rife with rumours that the only alternative before the company is to file for bankruptcy to prevent the creditors from either grabbing its assets or suing it for their dues. There is also a move on behalf of leading creditors to seek a prepackaged deal under which the fresh worth of the company will be investigated and vital questions like restructuring Enron to make it viable or dispose of its properties and divide the money equitably among the creditors. It is now obvious that Enron had overreached itself and its last desperate measure to sell it off to a rival Houston-based gas trader for $ 7.7 billion came
unstuck on Wednesday triggering the crisis. Prophetically it warned on its online site that gas prices should be carefully analysed before deals are struck. It did not take this advice seriously a few months back when it greedily contracted to buy huge volume of gas hoping to reap rich profit from the power crisis in California. But the government stepped in and rushed gas thus dealing the first blow. The US Securities and Exchange Commission added to the woe by exposing wrong
accounting methods. An alarmed New York Stock Exchange began shedding prices. The New York Mercantile Exchange which deals in gas warned its members to suspend trading relations with Enron. The nosedive had truly begun. Brazil has said that it will seize the electricity utility if the company files bankruptcy application. India too has the Dabhol Power Corporation, meaning a similar option is available to the lending agencies. For DPC the development is particularly unwelcome. Its legal battle has become meaningless. Its three bidders will scale down their original offer. And maybe the price will now be only half of $1.6 billion. Who gets to own the DPC is left to the bargaining skills of Tatas, BSES and Reliance. |
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Rightsizing government TO encourage the staff to take up self-employment ventures, the Punjab Government has offered to send them on paid leave for at least three years which can be extended to five years. If they fail, they can return to their job with all benefits intact. If they succeed, they would be entitled to pension, gratuity and other retirement payments. If an employee does not have three years accumulated leave, he or she can go on leave without pay. To be eligible, the employees must have put in at least eight years of service. However, the employees who have signed a bond to work for a specific period, those on contract employment, or those who have got any specialised in-service training or face any departmental inquiry or have been suspended are not to be considered for this special offer. When the scheme was first announced in the Budget session of the state Assembly earlier this year, few thought that the state government was serious about it. Now that it has been given a concrete shape, those in the administration who formulated and pushed it needs to be patted, especially in view of the coming Assembly elections, which is a good enough excuse to put on hold any such plan. The question to be asked and answered is : will it work? Government service over the years has become quite lucrative, particularly in Punjab where the employees, going by the official claims, are the best paid in the country. More than the salary, what attracts an employee is an opportunity to make under-the-table money with little risk of being caught. Even if caught taking a bribe, chances of going scot-free by paying a bribe are bright, given the poor conviction rate. A government job also brings in stability in income, social status and power, which a private enterprise may not provide. Besides, the timing of the scheme is questionable. The economy is passing through a recession. Small units in the state are crumbling. The failure of the projects at Goindwal, Kaljharani and Padhri Kalan, launched with fanfare, will act as a dampener. Poor infrastructure, costly and cumbersome process of getting credit, bureaucratic hassles and rampant corruption can deter anyone from dreaming of launching a unit of one’s own. But the need to make this scheme successful is imperative. The state departments and corporations are terribly overstaffed. Sixtyfive per cent of the Budget is spent on paying staff salaries. Rightsizing the administration is the need of the hour. Computerisation and liberalisation have made many jobs redundant. Most employees, having little work to do, are virtually on leave already. In self-employment, they will have to learn to work. The government’s sincerity itself is in doubt. On the one hand, it is trying downsizing, and on the other recruitment is going on. To make the scheme effective, first discipline the employees, make the jobs insecure, provide them expert guidance and necessary training, and create an environment conducive to the growth of private enterprise. |
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Resignation drama DELHI Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has tried to make virtue out of compulsion while securing the resignation of her Cabinet. She knew that the strictures passed by the Lokayukta against some of her ministers on corruption charges were going to snowball into a major confrontation. Seeking the resignation of one or two ministers like Dr Yoganand Shastri (Food and Supplies) would have given the impression that she was succumbing to the pressure of the BJP. Hence she and AICC man in charge of Delhi, Mr Kamal Nath, have come up with this “Kamaraj” plan. The device offers another potential advantage. During her three-year rule, Mrs Sheila Dixit and her team have gathered a lot of moss. In fact, the popularity of the ministry is dismal. The spring cleaning that she can now carry out can help her in getting rid of this bad odour and make a fresh start. Many of her ministers have earned a name for inefficiency, if not rank corruption. Perhaps the high command stands behind her mainly because it hopes that the bold move can lessen the effect of the incumbency factor, which is bound to haunt during the election time. Two years is a long enough period for winning friends and influencing voters. It is at least twice as long as the time given to Mr Rajnath Singh in Uttar Pradesh by the BJP. But all that is in the domain of wish fulfilment. In politics, things do not always move along expected or desired lines. The Congress may very well find that its well laid-out plan has boomeranged. In party forums, most leaders have been congratulating Mrs Dikshit for her “bold step”, but they express exactly the opposite opinion in private. They are sore that the move was thrust on them. Right from the beginning, the Chief Minister has been considered an outsider by a sizeable section. Opponents of her may grow more vocal now. Mrs Dikshit will also have a tough time in allotting berths. She needs to select her ministerial colleagues on the basis of their capabilities, but may end up choosing them on the basis of their loyalty to her. That will take the whole matter to square one. Things may settle down immediately after the formation of the new ministry in the backdrop of the forthcoming civic elections. But three months or so from now the old rivalries may raise their head again. There are too many claimants for the ministerial berths and everyone who is left out is a potential dissident. The next two years are not going to be any less difficult for Mrs Dikshit than the previous three were. |
The American crisis of understanding IN a lighter vein, so characteristic of Mark Twain, the American anti-Establishment writer remarked: “It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it”. When we ponder the discovery, history and march of America, particularly since the end of World War-II, the U.S. ascendancy in world power-politics is hugely a matter of contingencies. And the evolution of the American collective psyche over a period of time has made the US mindset a very complicated affair with deep Freudian-Adlerian-Jungian overtones. I do not have the space here to enlarge the argument, but it may well be understood that American literature is littered with the slaughtered dreams of their Mayflower pilgrim fathers. And even now when America leading the war against global terrorism since September 11 appears to be wobbling in relation to the war in Afghanistan, voices of sanity and dissent are there in their universities and schools to remind Uncle Sam of his historic “manifest-destiny” — of the American Moment which, in larger terms, could be compared to great moments in history, one such being the Renaissance moment in the 15th-16th century Europe. Right now, I’m referring to the statement made by the American radical philosopher and linguist, Naom Chomsky, who has not faltered in his judgement when the occasion to rouse the American conscience has risen. Just a few days ago, another radical thinker and writer, the celebrated Guntur Grass, had opined that so long as the world of economic, social and racial indignities remained, terror per se would always be there. Terrorism is a state of mind, not just a group or a people who use violence to achieve their end, and it would, therefore, diminish only when the deprived and the dispossessed of the world would also have their measure of the sun. In order to understand the intellectual and moral anxieties of the American intelligentsia, we have to understand the basic “complexes”, “fixations” and evasions of the American people, in general. The sins of the American past slave-era atrocities when American capitalism had become a natural force like typhoon as well as a coercive local engine of energies around the turn of the 19th century are still there as a ghost to upset the guilty usurper typhoon. With all these hidden and not-so-hidden aspects in view, the US government’s present crisis of character in the war in Afghanistan becomes a little clearer. I’ve been watching the Larry King show, and the BBC World commentators apart from the Indian TV channels to realise how and why the war in Kabul has become “a theatre of the absurd”. Osama bin Laden’s sins are dark enough to make new horror comics for the American kids, and there’s no doubt that the Pakistani ISI and the American CIA have done not a little to make things foggy, and upset our normal expectations. Yes, the “demonisation” of Laden could be understood, but he has, thanks to several maverick aspects, become a figure hugely out of proportion. He dominates the American mind, the White House, Congress etc to cause unexpected dislocations. Fancy, a mighty US-UK commando force, and their bombers indulging in ‘carpet’ bombing have yet to reach their retreating quarry. The latest reports indicate that the British commando forces have located his hideout, but the uncertainty lingers. And at the same time, the Islamic “world is all aflame with the jehadi sentiment. All, because of the divided vision of the invading forces. Thus, the confused American policies continue to be in a kind of “twilight”, as a BBC commentator put it. It is not certain what the White House and the
Presidential advisers want, now that Kabul has fallen, and the Taliban either defeated, or sent into the wilderness of their hide-outs in the rough mountains. There are independent and rude warlords in possession of some areas; there are the Rabani forces wanting to be installed in Kabul, and there is, above all, Pakistan, unhappy to figure out its own position in the expected setup. And Pakistan with the military dictator firmly behind America presents another imponderable. A brief look at the American foreign policy in recent years should help light up the things to some extent. It must be remembered that the USA became a world power only at the end of World War II, with its desperate act of unleashing atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And from that point onwards, it established its global hegemony creating a new type of imperialism. And this economic and military imperialism continues to increase in proportion to American over-lordism. The Islamic side of the problem, of course, does worry the USA, and there’s also the danger of a possible Russia-China-India “axis” to counter it. A distant possibility to be sure, but the commentators have not ruled it out. All the support the USA has received from its Islamic “friends” — Saudi Arabia, the Sheikhdoms, the Jordan King etc. is again a very complex and shaky affair. For these “client” kingdoms are to face their own Muslim opponents within their own countries. And the Islamic “factor” becomes more and more difficult to handle. All these musings lead us finally to the big question — the human rights issue — and there again, the American record is fairly dismal and dismaying. The USA having assumed its “watchguard” role the world over, comes a cropper when we examine its umbilical relationship with dictatorial and authoritarian regimes abroad. Its support — money, guns, CIA espionage etc — has continued from Peron to Pinochet today. Such figures fit into their scheme of things. I’ve hinted at the ironies and absurdities of the world’s best military machine chasing a shadow in the remote areas of Afghanistan. To catch the ‘arch-devil’, Osama-bin-Laden — a will-o’-wisp that has confused it, and continues to make the Afghanistan situation more and more absurd. In conclusion, I may add that American inability to see things vertically in such situations is its misery. A divided vision, if you like! The American century has yet to become what its destiny is, and there are enough forces of reasonableness and deep humanity in America itself to assert, and make the White House conscious of its Jeffersonian promise. During World War II, a Presidential candidate, Senator Wilkie talked of “One World” — free of want, penury, tyranny and oppression etc. That American vision was jettisoned in the Dulles era of the cold war against the Soviet Union — an era also notorious for its McCarthyist state terrorism. Well, after half a century or so, America has, once again to fulfil, its destiny as the world’s future. For that’s the way, the world is going to be, American attitudes, living styles etc having become a universal phenomenon. Mark Twain’s witty remark was prophetic even if his yankee humour was a double-faced affair. It’s interesting to speculate what would have been the US policy in this crisis had President Clinton been occupying the White House. His bold and thoughtful foreign policies in Ireland, in the Israeli-Arab conflict, his clear understanding of India’s position in Kashmir and his salute to that Eternal India which remains out of the line of vision of the likes of President Bush — all these are a question of epistemology — of a wider vision, indeed. |
A day in Delhi LUTYEN'S Delhi is India’s pride. The majestic Presidential Palace. Probably, the biggest in the world. With the beautiful Mogul Gardens. Big houses. Large open spaces. Green parks. Wide roads. The majestic India Gate. Other places of interest. Yes! It is all true. But we also know that in the recent past, Delhi had come to be known as one of the most polluted cities in the world. Not entirely because of the number of human beings. Or the smoking industrial units. But also because of the thick clouds of oily emissions from the ever increasing vehicular population. Seeing the state of affairs, my wife had given me a separate bag. It was always packed and ready. With all the dark dresses. To match my own colour? Yes! But also because the white shirt never looked white after it had been worn for a day in Delhi. Despite the use of what she calls the strong “Delhi” detergent. And the situation was continuously deteriorating. At least till the last weekend. What happened? There is a change. It was a pleasant surprise. Now Delhi looks different. The change is there for anyone to see. It was visible. Everywhere. On the road. There are vehicles all around. All are still not Euro II compliant. But if I stopped at a traffic light, the blast of hot air from the DTU bus was different. In the park, the plants did not have a thick coat of black soot. At home, the hands did not get dirty when I opened the gate. On the window gauze of my room, the dark deposit was missing. Also on the curtains. On the clothes. A couple of days in Delhi used to leave me with a bad throat. With cough. Congestion in the chest. Till recently, these were the normal symptoms. This time, I had virtually no irritation in the throat. The children and grandchildren were not coughing and consuming the usual syrup. Even the potted plants looked greener. Has pollution totally vanished? No! But there is a difference. It is visible. Despite the thick clouds of war which is going on in our neighbourhood? Yes! The sky is still clear. The stars are visible. The moon shines. The thick smog seems to have vanished. The difference is in the air. There may be no scent. But the smell and the stink are certainly not there. When you are sweating and a light and fans are off due to the frequent power cuts, it is possible to open the windows. To let in some air. To get the much needed relief from the congestion in the room. No small change! Is it not? And yet we complain. Most of all, against the court. For it did not relent and forced the government to do its duty? Of the tremendous inconvenience caused to the poor people? About the long queues of auto rickshaws, buses and cars. At the gas stations. Waiting for their cylinders to be filled up. And of discomfort to the “poor people” who are charged with the duty to administer. Undoubtedly, the queues can still be seen. At various places. Some people are bound to have been inconvenienced. So, we need to improve the available facility. Make it adequate. The need to improve does not justify the criticism. Finding fault is easy. We are good at it. It has become a national pastime. But it solves no problem. Normally, it provides no solution. It is easy to complain. To censor, condemn and criticise. To decry, disparage and destroy. Any fool can do that. But we cannot achieve anything like this. We must learn to commend. Praise is the righteous man’s wage for his virtue. It is a debt we owe to those who work for our good. This time, the court. It deserves our sincere gratitude. We must not hesitate to say it. Shall we? |
‘My maiden duty’ IN the Delhi Police training college we have at present over 1,600 police constable recruits who are under training. They have completed around six months and have another six to go. During Divali due to heavy demands for police presence some of the recruits were called out to perform duties. We at the training college were happy to send them as the trainees would be able to test their learnings in the field and assess for themselves the ground realities. But before we sent them we gave them an intensive briefing with clear instructions. One of the most important one was to consider their first Divali duty as their sacred contribution/offering in the service of public safety and security. On their return from duty I had a joint session with them. They were around 350 police recruits. I heard them directly and the feelings they expressed and observations they made were very intelligent and moving. I then told them to write a “Ankhon Dekhi” (an eye witness account) on their first duty. Here is one such narration by constable recruit Yajvender Singh written in Hindi and translated: Today 14-11-2001 I got an opportunity to go for arrangement duty with my platoon at 4. p.m. by bus. When we left the police training college (PTC) I was feeling very happy as it was going to be my first field duty amidst general public and I was about to experience the reality of it. I along with my nine fellow recruits were sent to the Paschim Vihar police station where we reached by 5.30 p.m. We were briefed by the Station House Officer Inspector Ahalawat. He counselled and told us that “you are here as responsible police officers and you have to work as if you are fully trained. For anything that happens during your time you must respond to it with a total sense of responsibility. Your behaviour should be courteous”. After this I along with my five colleagues were sent to a road tri-junction to help smooth traffic flow and keep watch on the movement of people in the busy market. Soon after we reached our place of duty, we saw that the area beat constable was deflating the tyres of rickshaws, which were bringing in “passengers” while totally ignoring the wrongly parked cars. He then told us “this is the way we must behave” just went away. I wondered to myself in what way was the fault of rickshawpullers different from the car-owners? Except that they were poor and powerless. We decided not to do what we saw. We moved on further. We saw that there was a corner where we could make the idling rickshaws park while they wait for their passengers. We then approached them one by one and they all agreed to clear the way and park where we told them to. The rickshaw-pullers appeared quite surprised at our helpful behaviour. Seeing us one woman passenger on the rickshaw asked us: “Which police force are you from because I have not seen a behaviour of this kind before.” We replied: Madam, we are not outsiders. We are from here only, from the Delhi police, but we are being trained in the police training college at Jharoda Kalan where we are being trained to serve the people. “The lady expressed great joy and said, I know who must be teaching you all this, it must be...” As we patrolled many shopkeepers and fruit vendors looked at us with apprehension. Some even greeted us with raised hands. But when they saw our helpful behaviour they appeared pleased and assured. While on duty we did not let unnecessary crowds gather. We kept a smooth flow of traffic. Alongside we kept an eye on loiterers due to which they did not attempt any nuisance, snatching or pick-pocketing which was quite possible in such environment. Around 8.30 p.m. the same beat constable who had left us came back and asked us to go back to the police station. On reaching the police station we asked the duty officer from where we could get some food . He said since it’s Divali night none of the roadside eating joints were open. So we decided to go searching. A little distance away we saw in a corner a small kiosk off the footpath where some poor men were eating. We went to it and ate two/three chapattis each and paid the cost which came to about Rs 45. He repeatedly thanked us. We all thanked him too. I saw his face. It had an expression of astonishment. He probably was expecting that we policemen would eat and go away without paying, forget about policemen would eat and go away without paying, forget about the ‘thank you’! We reached the PTC by midnight. I am very happy that during my maiden duty nothing untoward happened which could have brought a bad name to my PTC. This is a place where we are being given intensive human values education daily. And how could we not live up to its expectations? We wanted the people to see the “New Face” of the Indian police. I read all the 350 feedback pages and couldn’t resist the temptation of sharing at least one of them. All these first-hand accounts worry me and equally give hope. |
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All dressed up and waiting for tourists THE palaces of Rajasthan, usually bursting with foreign tourists when winter comes, are nearly empty this year. I write, sitting on a sunlit terrace in the Umaid Bhavan Palace Hotel, amid a murmur of excitement at news from the airport of the arrival of an unexpected charter bearing foreigners. There is a collective sigh of relief that they will all be staying here and not at the Taj. A hotel official tells me that it’s years since they had such a bad season. “At this time of year we would not have been able to find you a room and getting a flight here would have been nearly impossible. But, this year because of the war in Afghanistan nobody is coming to this part of the world.” The tourism industry calculates that there have been 70 per cent cancellations for November and December. There have been cancellations in September also but because of cancellation charges of more than fifty per cent some people decided to come. The next few months are likely to be much worse with an estimated fall in tourist earnings of a billion dollars. It is the September 11 effect. Jodhpur is a town that has geared itself up for tourism better than most. As you drive down from the palace you go past shops that sell handicrafts and antiques. There are so many shops that unless someone guides you it is hard to know which one to explore first. I head for Lalji’s where I have shopped whenever I come to Jodhpur. Inside there are glass lamps and bottles from an older time and painted Rajasthani artefacts from now, there are antique wooden carvings from Southern India, brass and copper statues from Delhi and metal candle stands of varying proportions that are being made locally. Prices, when compared with Delhi and Mumbai, are so attractive that I am tempted to buy everything but the shop is nearly empty. “It is not usually like this in November” the owner tells me gloomily “at this time we have so many foreign visitors that we can hardly cope with the demand. But, this year things are bad”. Jodhpur’s magnificent Mehrangarh Fort, once neglected from years of disuse, is now all dressed up with tourism in mind. The museum, newly refurbished, now has a shop that, in the manner of museums in New York and London, sells local crafts and textiles modelled on items on display in the museum. Outside the shop craftsmen have been invited to make their boxes and bangles so that tourists have the pleasure of culture and shopping at the same time. A new restaurant has opened on the fort’s ramparts and it has to be said that Mehrangarh has developed an approach worthy of emulation by museums in Delhi and Mumbai. Things were going so well that this winter season should have been better than any if September 11 had not happened. But, although Rajasthan may be suffering some bad season blues this year it is one of the only states in India that has understood the importance of tourism. Goa and Kerala are trying hard as well but most other state governments continue to remain oblivious to the enormous improvements in the local economy that tourism can bring. Government spending on tourism is so low that, according to the World Tourism and Travel Council, India ranks nearly at the bottom —153 out of 160 — in terms of government spending on tourism. The result is that all of Southeast Asia’s countries attract more than twice as many tourists as we do. Last year Malaysia attracted 10.2 million tourists, Indonesia nearly matched this figure with 9.6 million and little Thailand managed to attract 5.1 million foreign visitors. Most of these countries have little to offer when compared with India but we managed no more than 2.64 million visitors. A hotelier I know believes that even this figure is misleading because it includes returning NRIs, prospective investors, foreign government officials and all sorts of other visitors to India most of whom did not technically count as tourists. So, in terms of tourism, India is nowhere near realising its full potential and the main reason for this is that the government’s approach to tourism has been seriously flawed. Take just the fact that Indian taxpayers pay for tourism offices in different parts of the world where officials from Delhi wangle postings. How else to get to foreign lands? Anyone who has had the dubious privilege of visiting these offices knows they serve little purpose by way of tourism promotion and usually consist of disinterested officials sitting at cheap desks beside posters of the Taj Mahal. The usual Government of India tokenism. If foreign tourists come to India it is usually through the promotional efforts of hotel groups and the tales of our country that spread by word of mouth. If we closed down all our tourism offices abroad it would make little difference. That our approach to tourism is hopelessly bureaucratic can be seen from the recent announcement by the Prime Minister that he planned to set up a National Tourism Advisory Council. This will amount to little more than an employment agency for a few more officials. The Prime Minister would do much better to consult senior members of the hotel industry to find out what needs to be done and how urgently. What he will be told is that tourists go where there is adequate tourism infrastructure. We need hotel rooms and there are never enough in a good season because it takes an average of seven years to get permission to build a hotel. The process of getting permissions is so convoluted and defeating that only the brave survive. The other vital component of the tourism industry is modern and efficient means of transport. So, there is no point in saying you would like five million foreign tourists to come to India ( a target set by every Tourism Minister for the past ten years) if you do not have the ability to bring them into the country. In a good season waiting lists in winter can sometimes be a month long. |
Pindi Arms Act case
Rawalpindi: Lt. Col- Frizelle, Sessions Judge Rawalpindi, has delivered judgement in the appeal of the “Pindi Arms Act case.” in which L. Mangal Sain Bhandari was convicted and sentenced to 3 months’ rigorous imprisonment by Malik Sher Ahmad, Revenue Assistant, Rawalpindi, under section 19 of the Arms Act, for the alleged offence of keeping a “chhavi” in his possession. The learned Judge, disagreeing with the lower court, has accepted the appeal and discharged the accused. |
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A scholar who sins will not be spared, An unlettered saint will not be entrapped, A man will by his actions and deeds, Be judged and known good or bad; Play not the game of life in such a way, That you may be denied a place in His Presence. The scholar as well as the unlettered man By their deeds be judged in His Court. The self-willed and the boastful Will suffer agonising blows. —Guru Nanak Dev,
* * * Noble birth and great fame, Are as worthless as dust; God is the only protecting shade; A man may boast to men of his own goodness, But the truth about him will be known in God's presence; He whom the Lord exalteth, is exalted indeed. —Guru Nanak Dev,Sri Rag ki Var. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 83. * * * We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done. —Morning Prayer (of Christians), General Confession. * * * True spirituality consists in earning not only for our own subsistence but in spending it on others and for spiritual goods. — Maharaj Sawan Singh,
* * * Gossip needs no carriage. — A Russian proverb * * * Gossip is an evil thing by nature; she is a light weight to lift up, Oh very easy, but heavy to carry, and hard to put down again. — Hesiod,
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