Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

The two are expected to marry shortly. Miss Kabaeva is famous in her own right. She has represented her country in two Olympics, is a model, film actress and a member of the Russian Parliament. Mr Putin has reportedly separated from his first wife. In contrast Mr Musharraf is luckier. He retains his strong family ties and is yet described as a "hunk" by Miss Pakistan World Mahleej Sarkari. According to Ms Sarkari, "going to international pageants we have found how much Musharraf is known to all beautiful young girls …like Benazir, all men around the world thought she was a beauty, similarly Musharraf is a hunk. He has enoughcharisma to have young girls going nuts." Yes, she..more

Soaring retail food prices

By Nantoo Banerjee

The mighty tenant

By Chandra Mohan

Rahul Gandhi, the ‘Prime Minister - in-waiting’ !

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

EDITORIAL

Hearts and heads

Hearts ruling over heads! Strictly speaking it is not exactly so. It is just that two beauties have fallen for Heads of State in our vicinity. Both have different styles. Nevertheless it needs to be said that there is something more dignified about them than what we have been exposed to in the White House, the abode of the President of the world's most powerful democracy. Let us, however, forget Mr Bill Clinton and Ms Monica Lewinsky for the time being. We may rather envy the luck of Russian President Vladimir Putin and, whether or not we like it, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf who lives our next door. According to reports from Moscow 24-year old Alina Kabaeva has given her heart to an elderly Mr Putin. The two are expected to marry shortly. Miss Kabaeva is famous in her own right. She has represented her country in two Olympics, is a model, film actress and a member of the Russian Parliament. Mr Putin has reportedly separated from his first wife. In contrast Mr Musharraf is luckier. He retains his strong family ties and is yet described as a "hunk" by Miss Pakistan World Mahleej Sarkari. According to Ms Sarkari, "going to international pageants we have found how much Musharraf is known to all beautiful young girls …like Benazir, all men around the world thought she was a beauty, similarly Musharraf is a hunk. He has enough charisma to have young girls going nuts." Yes, she would like to date the General-turned-President "any time". The Pakistan President's good fortune stops here! It is only well known that most Pakistani girls taking part in beauty pageants don't reside in their country. They can't afford to do so in the face of threats by self-professed champions of human particularly women's dignity. As a result they are condemned to be NRPs (non-resident Pakistanis). Ms Sarkari herself is settled in Canada. She is a Baloch who had grown up in Karachi. Having gone to Canada she has stayed put there knowing full well that she will have problems back home in pursuing a lifestyle of her choice. Is Mr Musharraf's theory of "enlightened moderation" having impact beyond its intended audience and territory?

Arguably, Heads of State are also human beings and have heads. They do have hearts too and are entitled to flaunt them at will and get noticed as well. In the West they do it more often. One has just to recall the tension in this country in January this year over the treatment to be met to supermodel Carla Bruni who was then a girlfriend of French president Nicolas Sarkozy during his official visit. Since Ms Bruni was not the wife of the guest she could not have been entitled to certain ceremonial privileges including like being seated next to him at the highly prestigious Republic Day Parade. In the end one and all were saved the embarrassment with Ms Bruni not turning up. There was a debate in the intervening period whether or not New Delhi should be more liberal in its understanding of the Western life. The question, however, whether a friend can substitute for a wife was not satisfactorily answered. Mr Sarkozy married Ms Bruni soon after his return to France. In Germany 78-year old former Chancellor Helmut Kohl is tying the nuptial knot with 41-year old economist Maike Richter. Quite a few of our politicians have not been free from their share of flings. These relationships have generally been talked about. None of these, however, has been formally recognised thanks to our brand of morality.

Soaring retail food prices

By Nantoo Banerjee

The reliability of the inflation index especially in the context of wholesale prices of select agri-products, the prices of which are being publicly notified by the Delhi-based Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), could be a suspect to an ordinary man. If these prices are genuine, the middleman is certainly milking the common man in the retail market right under the nose of the department of consumer affairs. The price list of wholesale rates of fruits and vegetables, foodgrains and pulses in the regulated markets (Mandis) of Azadpur, Narela and Naya Bazar - all in Delhi -- released "in the public interest" by APMC for the week ended April 19, 2008, would read like a fairy tale to any ordinary housewife in any part of the country.

Whatever be the official status of the inflation index, the retail prices of agri-products along with processed foods such as bread, potato chips, tomato ketchup, pickle, jam and jelly, etc. are constantly shooting up. A nine-gram sachet of tomato paste now costs Re. 1 and 90-gram tube costs Rs. 12, making the processed tomato as costly as Rs. 100-130 per kilo. Ordinary bread and biscuits, both wheat products from bakery, are at least 15 to 20 per cent costlier than what they were six months ago. Some of the popular brand of Marie biscuits now cost as much as Rs. 70 per kilo.

The prices of vegetable oil have shot up by 30 to 40 percent in the last 15 months mainly because of a continuous shortfall in the domestic oilseeds production and firming up of edible oil prices in the international market. Most agricultural commodity prices traditionally go up during the summer months, followed by nearly a 10-week-long main monsoon (north-west) season covering the entire country barring Tamil Nadu. The food prices reach their peak levels around October. Therefore, no government action is likely to succeed in containing the retail prices of food items in the open market in the next six months even if the wholesale price index shows a lower growth rate due to other reasons such as the government's price and market control measures against certain industrial products carrying high weightage in the WPI.

A government intervention in controlling food prices at this stage through its public distribution system (PDS) could be counter productive in so far as their open market rates are concerned. The price intervention may come in two forms. First, the government may use its procurement agencies to buy up more foodgrains, pulses, edible oil, potato and onion from mandis or whole-sale markets and feed the fair price shops across the country through the PDS. Secondly, the government could use its price control mechanism to force reduction in the prices of certain essential items such as wheat and majority-consumed coarse variety of rice, select types of pulses and certain edible oils and apply the essential services maintenance act (ESMA) to punish the hoarders. The latter could be very difficult to implement in view of the size of the country and the unorganized nature of the business.

Even in the worst period of food crisis in the late 1950s, the government failed to implement such a move. Presently, the fair price shops cater mostly to the needs of the population living 'below-the-poverty-line' (BPL). The left parties have demanded that the facility be extended to cover any one who wants to use it. The demand has been promptly turned down by the Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, as not feasible. In the meanwhile, the government of Andhra Pradesh, led by the Congress Party, has expressed its resolve to make rice available to its impoverished population for Rs. 2 or so per kilo.

Such steps, including fresh procurement of foodgrains, pulses etc. from the mandis or wholesale markets, will not only raise the overall prices of food items in the retail market but also lead to massive unscheduled public borrowings by both the state and central governments. They will further fan the inflation and financially ruin the governments. Large-scale imports of wheat, pulses and edible oils at their current high international prices appear to be out of question. For now, rice can not be even imported as most rice exporting countries such as Thailand and Vietnam have temporarily banned such exports.

Therefore, there is so easy solution to the current shortage of foodgrains and other essential items in fair price shops and their high prices in the open market. The best thing the government can do for the present is to tackle one issue at a time. With the new wheat crop due to reach the mandis in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, the government may offer a higher minimum support price to farmers and ask the Food Corporation of India to step up its procurement programme to lift at least an additional two to three million tonnes of wheat from the fresh arrivals. This will ensure larger availability of wheat to the common man at a controlled price through ration shops. For procurement of other items, it has to go slow even at the cost of the suffering of the ordinary people and opposition criticism until their domestic production and supplies improve in the next few months.

Under no circumstance, the government should force a cut down of domestic output and export of industrial products such as steel, cement, tyres, petro-chemicals, etc. A high rate of industrial growth and higher export income will ultimately minimize the impact of lower domestic food production on the overall economy and the WPI as it was experienced in 1986 and 1987. If there is any lesson to be learnt from the current inflation and food shortage, it is that the country is in no position to neglect its agriculture or cut down farm subsidies, surrender to WTO norms for agricultural production and trade, weaken the good grains procurement and distribution systems.

It may also be time for the government to encourage the formation of agricultural co-operatives in a big way especially to bring together small farm land holdings to optimize production for the next stage of green revolution. No fertile agricultural land may be acquired or sold to promoters of industrial units. These honest efforts may not yield instant results, but they need to be started immediately to avoid crisis in future. Until then, the inflation index may be allowed an unadulterated movement to reflect the true status of the economy. The normal monetary and fiscal measures are most welcome if they are able to control the general inflation. (IPA)

The mighty tenant

By Chandra Mohan

Tenants in Delhi occupying commercial properties in prime locations have predictably reacted angrily to a Supreme Court judgement that gives landlords the right to get their premises vacated for bona fide needs. This is one judgement that should be of interest to people across the country where tenants have become de facto owners of rented commercial properties, reducing some of the landlords to penury. It will appeal to those landlords who, as once described by late 'Young Turk' Chandra Shekhar, move on foot or bicycles while their tenants ride Rolls Royce.

The court's ruling could result in nearly half of Delhi traders facing the threat of eviction. All that may be a bit of exaggeration. When the fashionable malls and boutiques built without authorisation were pulled down last year by court order the same cries were heard. But there is no doubt that the apex court's judgement should worry a large number of tenants in Delhi who have been paying insignificant amounts as rent for occupying commercial properties in best business districts.

The 'due process of law'-euphemism for the snail's pace of justice in India--will ensure that even if the court's orders are applied immediately, no 'commercial' tenant will be in danger of being thrown out overnight. The traders have said they will put up a fight. They have spoken about appealing against the court judgement; their representative bodies have threatened agitation. The traders will also bank on support from politicians, particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party which has always been known for its proximity to traders. With election in the air, politicians will be only too happy to support the traders.

The traders who perceive threat from the court judgement have said that many 'landmarks' in Delhi will disappear if the tenants from prominent commercial areas are evicted. That will be indeed sad but then the public may be able to quickly adjust to new landmarks that will surely emerge if the old ones go away.

Many new 'landmarks' are coming up in Delhi as it races to become a 'world class city'. In fact, one of the oldest and most famous commercial landmarks in Delhi, Connaught Place, was on the verge of extinction and an even older one, Chandni Chowk, had fallen on bad days till their fortunes were revived by the advent of the Metro.

The politicians who come to the aid of traders need to understand that the apex court's judgement is not very different from what they had themselves decided back in the 1990s when parliament had 'unanimously' passed a legislation that had also received the nod from the President. The new law, an improvement upon the previous one passed in 1958, was supposed to give the landlords the right to get their commercial premises vacated. The Delhi Rent (Control) Act 1995, however, never came into force because the necessary formality of 'notifying' it had been withheld deliberately.

There are perhaps very few instances in the history of the country when a legislation was virtually aborted despite its 'unanimous' approval by the elected representatives and the head of the state. The 1995 Act met the fate it did because of the clout of tenants doing business in thriving commercial areas while incurring ridiculously low rent liability. They had shown that they could subvert even a piece of legislation. A popular belief among many Indians is that 'fools build houses (property) and wise men occupy them'!

It is clear that a large section of politicians acted as accomplices of the commercial tenants in preventing the enforcement of the 1995 act. But this time if the politicians repeat that trick they might have to confront the highest court in the land.

The politicians have to be told that the Supreme Court thought that the previous law that prevented eviction of tenants in possession of commercial premises was unconstitutional because it violated 'the doctrine of equality' embodied in Article 14. The court has observed that a legislation may be 'quite rational and reasonable' at the time of its enactment but with lapse of time or due to change of circumstances may become 'arbitrary' or violate 'the doctrine of equality.'

What made the politicians conduct in relation to the 1995 measure questionable was that almost the same set of politicians that eventually opposed the legislation had earlier pledged support to the landlords. That is why the bill for the new act was passed quickly-and unanimously--in parliament. But the BJP then did a sudden about turn and went about complaining that the legislation was introduced and passed in parliament without providing an opportunity for deliberating upon it.

The traders who are likely to be affected oppose any move that they think favours the landlords and does not take into consideration the problems they (traders) might have to face. The tenants are not ready to surrender the huge advantage that they derive by paying incredibly low rents. In areas like Chandni Chowk and Connaught Place, for instance, monthly rents paid by old tenants for running their commercial establishments are generally a few hundred rupees or a couple of thousand rupees, whereas the 'market rent' is said to be in six or seven figures.

Whatever they might say the tenants in thriving commercial places do not want a pay the current 'market rent' for running their business because they have been occupying the premises for decades-in some cases perhaps a century-and that makes them virtual owners of the property. The traders justify the low rents on the ground that when the premises were first rented they or their ancestors had paid a handsome 'pagri' (deposit) to the landlord. That sounds true though it is highly doubtful if that amount equalled the value of the property taken on rent, as the traders -tenants say. If that was the case why didn't the original tenant buy the property outright instead of taking it on rent? It cannot be said that in a free country the owner of a property has no right to expect increasing returns.

Many, if not most Indians, continue to see investment in property as insurance for future. Nobody builds a property to see that it gives zero returns and becomes a liability when forced to spend more on its maintenance than the income received from rent.

Recently the New Delhi Municipal Corporation decided to undertake the job of restoring the façade of mostly privately owned Connaught Place buildings, housing many 'landmark' shops and business premises, to their original shape. The job should have been taken up by the landlords but they have obviously refused to do so because they do not get any reasonable return from their tenants. The NDMC need not have taken on an exercise involving taxpayers' money if a realistic policy dealing with landlords and tenants in commercial areas had been in place. (Syndicate Features)

Rahul Gandhi, the ‘Prime Minister - in-waiting’ !

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

The recent clamour in the Congress Party asking Rahul Gandhi to take over as Prime Minister followed by an endorsement from Arjun Singh and Pranab Mukerjee followed by Jayanti Natarajan's apparent rejection of any such proposal---all form a part of a familiar pattern known to Congressmen for several decades. That is perhaps the reason why Arjun Singh remains unfazed even if his suggestion is dubbed as ‘‘sycophantic’’ by some of his party colleagues because as a veteran Congressman he understands better than others that it is none other than Rahul Gandhi who is deemed to take over as the Prime Minister if Congress stays in power and that Manmohan Singh, whatever his merits, is only a stop-gap Prime Minister.

But, is this about all ? Is there nothing more to it than meets the eye ?

Much water was flown down the Ganga and Yamuna on the banks of which and around the Triveni Sangam at Allahabad, Rahul's great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru grew up learning, by his own admission, his first lessons in Indian ethos and imbibing the spirit of patriotism from the surcharged milieu of Anand Bhavan. Nehru, as independent India's first Prime Minister, did not appoint daughter Indira to any Government office even though his critics like Ram Manohar Lohia always accused him of tacitly grooming Indira to take over the mantle from him. The preference for dynastic succession, however, came forth with rude arrogance after Indira Gandhi took over as Prime Minister. The initial few years of Indira's reign were spent in dealing with strong antagonism from the Congress Party's Syndicate group comprising the likes of K Kamaraj, Morarji Desai and Nijalingappa. But, after the victory in Bangladesh war, Indira Gandhi emerged with an indomitable confidence and went ahead no-holds-bar in encouraging Sanjay Gandhi to rule the country as a proxy Prime Minister. The rest is history. Sanjay's undeterred march was sought to be halted by an adverse electoral verdict in 1977 but he again returned to gain power in 1980 and was infact India's Prime Minister -in-waiting before nature stepped in to correct this anomaly. Ironically, even after Sanjay's tragic death, Indira Gandhi refused to heed the providential message and now chose to bring in her other son Rajiv. Rightly perhaps, Madhu Limaye had once described Indira Gandhi as a more deveoted ‘‘mother’’ than a Prime Minister. So, it was actually Indira Gandhi who institutionalised the preogative of the dynasty to succeed the highest office in the country. And the progeny, both Sanjay and Rajiv who were the immediate beneficiaries, conveniently ignored the fact that their father Feroze Gandhi was vehemently opposed to the prospect of drawing any mileage from his family linkage with father-in-law Jawaharlal Nehru and had as a Member of Parliament chosen to stay alone in an officially allotted quarter even when wife Indira left him to join her father at the PM's ‘‘Teen Murti’’ residence.

Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that Rahul Gandhi's hesitation to immediately jump into the saddle is less out of humility if any and more as a part of a calculated strategy chalked out for him by his Italian-Indian mother Sonia Gandhi. Rahul is neither a reluctant politician like his father Rajiv nor a rampaging enthusiast like his uncle Sanjay. Charisma certainly counts but not like in the days of Indira Gandhi and therefore Rahul has cleverly opted for a cautious brick-by-brick approach.

Rahul, like earlier in case of mother Sonia, has swathes of party workers asking for his induction. But he chooses to draw lessons from mother Sonia's experiment who renounced prime ministership to end up becoming the ‘‘virtual’’ Prime Minister of India. With the party support behind him, Rahul knows too well that it is he who is going to call the shots in the Congress party and therefore he can take the liberty to choose the most optimum moment for him to step in and take over the reigns of the Government.

Meanwhile, the over-enthusiastic Congress leaders may have to hold on for some more time before Rahul Gandhi finally takes over. And, the common man may be spared for some more time the fate of saluting yet another Nehru-Gandhi Prime Minister while Umapathy waits to applaud mother Sonia's maternal dream-come-true with poetic gratification. ‘‘Mere Bachche Mera Khwaab, Mere Awaaam Meri Santaan......’’