EDITORIAL
Better or worse?
After a long cold spell the sun has become a
little warm these days. It promises more comfortable days
ahead. Let's keep our finger crossed. It is possible that
it is flattering us to deceive. It may go into hiding
again leaving the field once again open to wicked forces
that have made it a horrible winter. There is nothing
wrong, however, in hoping for the best. We can sing for
the time being: "I think there's a change in the
weather, I think the weather is going to change. I hope
it's a change for the better and it will brighten up my
day. I think there's a change in the weather, I hope good
weather is here to stay. I hope it's a change for the
better and it will brighten up my day." Whoever
wrote these lyrics apparently has visited our land. He
sympathises with our concerns. We are looking for some
solace and will, therefore, cling to any word that cheers
us. Cold winds, snow avalanches and dipping temperatures
have made life miserable for us. In this city
particularly the inhabitants come under severe pressures.
They don't possess means to keep their homes warm as they
do in Srinagar and even in Leh across the Himalayas.
There is no 'kangri", no "bukhari" and no
gas-based heaters. Power shutdowns render blowers
virtually ineffective. In any event the cost of
electricity is rather high compared to natural fuel.
Chilly conditions greet us even outside our houses.
Streets in old cities provide relief during summers by
keeping the mercury's effect down by a couple of degrees.
However, these turn into cold storages during winters. If
it rains which it does often without serving an advance
notice the city turns into a water pool. A sort of
egalitarianism prevails in this context right from
Panjtirthi to so-called posh colonies of Karan Nagar at
one end and Trikuta Nagar on the other. Everywhere one
has to wade through ankle-deep waters. Who says that our
administrators don't believe in equality for all? For our
sake (it is too early to forget) they have marched
together regardless of their political differences to cry
foul play by higher authorities. Who will show such
courage for the people? What can we as citizens do just
in case we are reminded that we have voted a civic
dispensation which is incapable? Should we too wail?
The difficulty with us is that we can't gnash our teeth
in anguish. It is a luxury not permitted to ordinary
masses like us. In fact, we are not given time or right
to think about climatic changes. If we keep worrying
about the moods of the weather the majority of us
especially those living below poverty line will find it
hard to make both ends meet. Newspapers have to meet
deadlines. Television channels must stick to their
minute-to-minute schedule. Shopkeepers have to keep their
establishments open. It is a religious routine for
millions of pilgrims to undertake visits to the Trikuta
hills to pay obeisance to the deity: It has to be
business as usual if we have to survive in today's tough
world. Those who stop and dig into their monetary
reserves to run the show run the risk of being knocked
out of the race. For them all the prospects are bleak.
They may turn lazy. They are likely to face penury.
Worse, they invite self-imposed seclusion that may sap
their normal human emotions. The best course for us,
therefore, is to look forward to a "change for the
better" ---the sun or no sun.
Common man left out
By Sisir Basu
The world's second highest economic growth
rate has not yet helped India hoist itself away from its
customary position in the global development report card.
The Human Development Report for 2007-08 released by the
UNDP ranked India 128 out of 177 countries, working it
out through measures of life expectancy, education and
income. India's human development index (HDI) of 0.619
puts it just below Equatorial Guinea (0.642) and Solomon
Islands (0.602). India's life expectancy of 63.7 years is
sandwiched between Comoros (64.1) and Mauritania (63.2),
while Malawi and Rwanda have higher adult literacy than
India.
The report found that India's GDP per capita (purchasing
power parity) is $3,452, far below China's $6,757.
Iceland is at the top with Norway, Australia, Canada,
Ireland, Japan, France, the US, the UK, Israel, and
Singapore among the top 25 nations in the development
chart. India was ranked 126 by the HDR 2006, a rung
higher than the previous year's 127. This year, it
continues to be dubbed a country at medium level of human
development. An economist said he was not surprised that
the country's impressive economic growth rate-only
China's growth surpasses India's 9 per cent-was not
reflected in the human development report.
While India is growing fast but it is not reflected in
the welfare term of the common man, instead there is
growth of billionaires in the country, and it has
unseated Japan as the country with the largest number of
billionaires in Asia. The latest list of 40 richest
Indian citizens, annually published by Forbes magazine,
had to exclude 14 billionaires who fell below the $1.6
billion cut-off point. As recently as 2001, the number of
billionaires in India had been in the single digit.
Admittedly, a significant part of the wealth of the
billionaires in India has resulted from the unprecedented
boom in the stock market in the last two years. For
example, according to Forbes, Mukesh Ambani saw his net
worth jump up by $30.5 billion to $49 billion within the
last year and Anil Ambani by $30.2 billion to $45
billion. An eventual correction in the stock market is
likely to wipe out substantial chunks of these increases
in the wealth.
This qualification notwithstanding, the real wealth at
the top has risen sufficiently to cause a significant
increase in wealth inequality recently. This is in
contrast to the consumption inequality, which, according
to the latest large National Sample Survey, has remained
approximately unchanged. The consumption-based Gini
coefficient, a commonly used measure of inequality, was
approximately the same in 2006-07 as in 1983 and 1993-94.
The rising inequality threatens India's growth.
Last month there was a protest march by 25,000 landless
workers, indigenous tribes people and untouchables to New
Delhi to demand a better tomorrow for themselves.
Chastising the Press for its preoccupation with the stock
market and the Prime Minister for choosing the visiting
heads of states over the protesters, it is a fair bet
that when the ruling elite of a poor developing country
ignores a non-violent protest by 25,000 desperate
citizens, it will soon face a violent one.
No one disagrees that the Government could and should do
more to improve the lot of the poor than it has done to
date. Many state governments that have the primary
responsibility for agricultural reforms, rural
electrification and rural road construction have been
dragging their fact. The central government, which
tirelessly displays its commitment to the farmers, has
also failed to do its bit.
Yet it is not clear how one connects the protest march to
growing inequality and sees the signs of impending
violent protests in it. For one thing, marches such as
this one have been a part of India's landscape for
decades: government efforts to launch the Green
Revolution alone had led to more than a thousand
demonstrations around India in 1966 and 1967. But more
importantly, the march is better explained as the outcome
of the revolution of rising expectations triggered by
accelerated growth and poverty reduction. That revolution
has replaced fatalism on the part of the poor by hope.
Consequently, they see greater payoff to the demands for
rapid and direct action by New Delhi.
Causally linking such marches to rising inequalities and
issuing warnings of impending bloody protests places
India's entire growth process at risk. Those familiar
with India's past would know that the well-meaning
efforts to curb the concentration of wealth in the 1960s
and 1970s led India to adopt policies that deprived
entire generations of Indians of economic opportunity and
left the poor without hope. Tightening of investment and
import licensing; exclusion of big business houses from
all but a handful of "core" sectors;
nationalisation of banks, oil companies and mines; and
ever-expanding small-scale industries reservation, which
stifled India's growth and left the country in a poverty
trap, were all aimed at checking the concentration of
wealth.
Even the case for levelling the billionaires-the most
visible symbols of wealth inequality-to promote equity is
not as obvious as it may seem.
Thus, consider just three points. First, replacing a
billionaire by 1,000 millionaires may reduce wealth
inequality but it is almost sure to increase conspicuous
consumption that is regarded as socially repulsive. The
thousand millionaires are likely to have much greater
propensity and time and gadgets than one billionaire. As
Azim Premji, who still drives a Toyota Corolla, flies
economy class and lives on the Wipro campus in Bangalore.
Second, when it comes to poverty alleviation, the
ownership of wealth matters far less than how it is
invested and spent. And on that count, a billionaire is
far more likely to invest his billion productively and
use it for philanthropy than a thousand millionaires. If
the policy regime is right, he will invest the bulk of
his wealth in labour-intensive industries, generating
well-paid jobs for the poor.
Finally, the presence of a few billionaires is a powerful
inspiration to other entrepreneurs. When a Narayana
Murthy, Nandan Nilekani or Tulsi Tanti becomes
billionaire entirely on his own, it gives confidence to
other Indians that they can do the same. Not too long
ago, young Indians watched the richest man in the world,
Bill Gates of the United States, as an object of awe
rather than emulation. But no more! Once again, Premji
puts the matter in perspective, "With the attention
I got on my wealth, I thought I would have become a
source of resentment, but it is just the other way
around-it just generates that much more ambition in many
people. INAV
What ‘health
campaigns’ mean to poor and hungry ?
By Dr. Jitendra Singh
A life long vegetarian, George Bernard Shaw
had once quipped that as a final homage to him, all the
bird folk of the world would join his funeral because he
had refrained from harming any of their fellow beings.
Shaw may not be around today but our native protagonist
of animal species, the irrepressible Maneka Gandhi must
be driving sadist pleasure in watching people across the
country promptly giving up eating poultry products if not
in response to her two-decade long campaign but in
response to the fear of catching avian flu, popularly
described as ‘‘bird flu’’.
Scientific fraternity as also experts from field of
animal husbandry may have their own logic to explain the
recent spurt in the cases of bird flu. However, the truth
is that outbreaks like this own their basic origin to an
ever multiplying population in a country which has become
awefully congested for its over hundred and ten crore
people and where widespread poverty coupled with lack of
resources to ensure hygiene further compound the problem.
To large multitudes of people who barely survive by
eating left-overs discarded by wayside restaurants or
‘‘Dhabas’’, it is absurd to suggest
that they ought to wash their chicken thoroughly or boil
it at 700 C before cooking it. This sounds very much like
the anecdote in which a medieval queen on being told that
her subjects did not have bread to eat suggested that
they should be instead advised to eat cake and candy.
This should not, nonetheless, distract the concerned
authorities and agencies from their immediate task of
trying to halt the further spread of bird flu and of
keeping the human population as free of infection risk as
possible. While apparently the Government agencies seem
to have promptly swung into action, the nation is growing
weary of such knee-jerk reflex responses with which the
authorities wake up from complacence each time when they
are faced with a catastrophe only to soon once again slip
back into same complacence without having addressed the
basic issues or factors that contributed to the
catastrophe.
In the present hour of panic resulting from the news of
bird flu, the only silver lining one can wishfully look
for is the possibility....if any or ever.... of the dawn
of collective widom to devote ourselves to some of the
fundamental ills which are incessantly eating into the
nation's vitals and overtly mainfesting from time to time
in the form of one or the other calamity which is
invariably forgotten in little time to be overtaken by
yet another calamity.
Bird flu outbreak could atleast serve one positive
purpose, that of a wake-up call to contain rising
population which is essentially accompanied by an ever
increasing number of poor and hungry, and to allocate
sufficient resources to the health sector which is one of
the most neglected areas in annual national budget. And
of course, however much the resources, there can be no
redemption unless the programme implementation is rid of
corruption, embezzlement and bribery.
Besides government agencies, the NGOs too can play a
meaningful role if only most of them cease to be mere
semi-political bodies with a hidden vested agenda.
Finally, it is the individual awareness of the common man
which is the ultimate safeguard or else Umapathy will
remain ever vulnerable even if there is no bird flu, a
La, ‘‘Main Bach Bhi Jaun To Zindagi Maar
Daalegi......’’
Will BJP be unbeatable?
By Sunil Gatade
The coming Lok Sabha elections is not an
ordinary battle for any of the leaders. This is
especially so for the BJP and its Prime Ministerial
candidate L K Advani. The election is its last chance to
occupy the top executive post for the man who has
permanently remained 'number two' to Atal Bihari
Vajpayee. Advani has already turned 80 and the man who
has been instrumental for bringing the BJP to the
centrestage of Indian politics through the Ayodhya
movement will have to literally strive hard to hit the
power jackpot.
The road ahead is not easy given the fact that the BJP's
'feel good' bubble had burst in the 2004 polls giving a
shock defeat to the saffron party which had been
projecting a picture of 'India shining". In fact,
the last few years had witnessed a bad patch for Advani
having got himself embroiled in the Jinnah controversy.
But his fortune took a turn for the better with the
fag-end of 2007 witnessing his anointment as the PM
candidate by the party.
Things have also started looking up for the main
opposition at the Centre with Narendra Modi pulling off a
spectacular victory in Gujarat followed by wresting of
Himachal Pradesh from the Congress by BJP under the
leadership of Prem Kumar Dhumal. Success to the saffron
forces is possible only if they avoid the mistakes of
2004, do not become complacent and project a new and
vibrant agenda before the nation, which is passing
through a era of coalition.
In fact, Advani and company need to take lessons from
Dale Carnegie's book "How to win friends and
influence people" to spread the friendship network
far and wide as the tussle for 2009 is going to be a keen
affair and only the one willing to go the extra mile
would get the pot of gold. Gujarat is just one part of
the country and the experiment there cannot be replicated
all over. Congress had emerged successful in 2004 as
Sonia Gandhi learnt the trick of alliances in a smart and
fast way resulting in the UPA springing the surprise on
the NDA, which had failed to get its act together and did
not bother when some half a dozen allies left it before
the poll battle.
But it is a fact that the BJP has started first and fast
this time preparing for the next polls by choosing Advani
as the leader for the epic battle of the ballot and
ensuring a smooth stamp of approval from the opposition
alliance-the NDA- which it leads.
Advani knows how to marshal his forces but the 'killer
instinct' in him which was witnessed during the hey days
of the Ayodhya movement has been missing since then.
Though the senior BJP leader has kept up a prominent
position in the party, the days have gone when his was
the final word. The RSS and Sangh Parivar outfits have
done enough damage to him in the wake of the Jinnah
controversy and following the 2004 poll debacle.
Also missing for Advani will be the guidance from party
patriarch Vajpayee who is seriously ill. Advani knew that
Vajpayee would be a far more acceptable leader than him
and had announced that he would be the BJP's Prime
Ministerial candidate much in advance before its first
and fleeting brush with power in 1996.The liberal in
Vajpayee had ensured that the NDA ship not only remained
afloat but sailed comfortably for six long years
notwithstanding the fact that AIADMK supremo teamed up
with Sonia Gandhi in 1998-99 to ensure downfall of his
Government. Kargil came handy for Vajpayee to stage a
comeback as Prime Minister.
Another limiting factor for Advani would be the absence
of Pramod Mahajan. The late leader was head and shoulders
above others in the second rung leaders of his party and
was an organizer and campaign manager par excellence.
Mahajan had managed Advani's Ayodhya yatra that
catapulted him to the centrestage of national politics.
Any dramatic saffron comeback at the Centre is now
possible only if the party is able to revive itself in
Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.
BJP's dream of capturing the Centre became a reality when
it achieved a dominant position in the state through 'Ram
lehar',
At present the BJP has been relegated to a third position
with BSP and SP calling the shots. A consolation for BJP
is that the Congress is in the fourth place. But BJP has
to realize that Sonia Gandhi is no pushover and would
stage a fierce fight back to retain power for the UPA.
This is notwithstanding the fact that her recent illness
has brought a dullness in the organization.
Sixty year old Sonia has stakes high in the political
game and wants to establish her son Rahul Gandhi before
the mantle could be passed. A cause for worry for Sonia
is that the rule of the UPA is not the case of flowing of
milk and honey for the people despite proclaiming from
the rooftops that it was a regime that cares for the aam
aadmi. The price rise has been a sensitive issue and the
expectations of the poor and downtrodden are high at a
time when they see that the high class is going higher
and higher with economic liberalization. Well begun is
half done.
But the question is whether the BJP will be able to
maintain the tempo for the next one year. It could be a
different story, if the saffron loses steam as it
approaches the general election as the path to New Delhi
will be clearly visible after a series of state
elections.
Politics is not exactly like the provebial hare and
tortoise race. The moral in the Aesop's fable however
applies to politics too. The manner in which BJP and the
Congress go about their task in the next few months would
decide "What would be the big picture after the Lok
Sabha elections. (PTI).
Pakistan elections 2008
By D Suba Chandran
Elections for the national and the four
provincial assemblies in Pakistan are scheduled for 18
February. Originally scheduled in January, they have been
postponed to February after the assassination of Benazir
Bhutto. The real question is not whether the elections be
held, as scheduled during next week. Rather real
questions are the following: How free and fair they will
be? What is the likely result? And more importantly, how
would Musharraf react, if the post election results are
not likely to be in his interests?
First, will the elections be free and fair? Elections are
not only about the polling and what happens on that day.
Rather it is a process, which include pre-poll, poll and
post poll happenings. The pre-election process is
certainly not encouraging and there are enough hints,
this election has already been rigged. Musharraf's
attempt to gag the judiciary is a carefully crafted
strategy, aiming at stealing the elections. A strong
judiciary under the leadership of Iftikhar Chaudhary was
a threat to manipulate the elections, hence the attack on
judiciary. If the sacking of Chaudhary in March 2007 was
a beginning, arbitrary removal of 60 judges from the
Supreme and High Courts, by Musharraf in one stroke of a
pen, was the highlight of this process in undermining the
power and independence of the judiciary. Today, the
judiciary in Pakistan is the weakest and cannot question
any pre-poll rigging.
Second, the local governments led by the Nazim have
totally aligned with Musharraf and the PML-Q. Elected in
2005, the Nazims owe their allegiance to Musharraf to
PML-Q, and have been engaged in using the development
funds to favor a particular candidate. Besides, the
political parties have been accusing the Nazims for
playing a decisive role in choosing the returning and
polling officers and also for instrumental in picking up
police officials in their respective constituencies. Are
the Nazims and their selected officials for polling
likely to play a neutral role on February 18? Highly
unlikely.
Third, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), though
sounds powerful in theory, also remain weaker in
practice. Election Commission though consists of five
members and the Chief Election Commissioner. The ECP is
highly handicapped in terms of the numbers; half of the
members have never been nominated. In effect, the ECP is
a three member commission led by the CEC. Some of its
decisions have also been controversial. For example, the
CEC's decision to use a new list, instead of the existing
one has created serious doubts on the number of voters,
who are likely to vote on February 18. According to the
2002 elections, the number of eligible voters was 72
million; taking into account the population growth, it
was expected that the number of eligible voters for the
2008 elections would be 77 million. However, according to
this Election Commission's new list, there are only 52
million voters. What happened to the 25 million voters?
The political parties have filed a case in the Supreme
Court and the EC's response to this has not been
satisfactory.
Now on the election outcome. Despite the above pre-poll
rigging, what is likely to be the result? For this, an
understanding of politics and contemporary situation
inside the four provinces of Pakistan is essential.
Sindh, which has 61 seats in the National Assembly has
the simplest equation of all the four provinces. The
contest is likely to be between the MQM and the PPP. Both
are extremely strong in their respective constituencies.
MQM has been powerful in Karachi and is likely to win 12
to 13 seats. MQM has always remained strong in Karachi in
all the elections that it took part since 1988. However,
in rural Sindh, the PPP is likely to sweep the elections.
The sympathy wave for Benazir is likely to be the
heaviest in rural Sindh. Not only the PPP is likely to
win maximum number of seats in rural Sindh, but is also
likely to win with a huge margin. One could expect the
PPP winning at least close to 30 seats for the National
Assembly from Sindh.
Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan, that
borders Sindh, has the smallest number, in terms of its
contribution to the National Assembly. There are only 14
seats allocated for Balochistan and the contest here has
always been dispersed. Neither the PPP nor any factions
of the Pakistan Muslim League have been popular, in terms
of gaining electoral votes from Balochistan. The PPP
could never get more than two seats from Balochistan and
in the last election, it failed to get even a single
seat. The performance of the PML-N and PML-Q was no
better. The regional parties - led by Baloch and Pashtun
parties including the JWP and National Alliances have
been the most successful, though only relatively,
securing four or more seats. In the last elections, the
religious parties led by the MMA were able to secure six
seats for the National Assembly. The forthcoming election
is also likely to witness the same trend, with the votes
being dispersed, between the regional parties and to an
extent the JUI-F. Neither the PPP nor the PML-N are
likely to gain more than two seats from Balochistan. The
killing of Akbar Bugti and the indiscriminate use of
force against the Balochis, is likely to consolidate the
Balochi votes towards the regional parties. While amongst
the Pashtun dominated areas of Balcohistan, one is not
sure whether it would be the pashtun parties or the
JUI-F, that are likely to secure the pashtun votes.
In the volatile North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the
contest is likely to be divided between the regional
parties led by the ANP, PPP and the religious parties,
especially the JUI-F. Out of the total 35 seats for the
National Assembly, in 2002 elections, the MMA succeeded
in getting most of them, with the regional parties being
totally wiped out. In the forthcoming elections, the ANP
is better positioned. On the other hand, though the five
years of the MMA rule was not satisfactory, the local
population in the NWFP is likely to vote for the JUI-F,
due to the pashtun anger against Musharraf and his
policies in supporting the US and the War on Terrorism.
The contest, hence is likely to be trilateral, with the
JUI, ANP and PPP securing seats in that order.
However, Punjab holds the key, with 151 seats for the
National Assembly. The contest is likely to be trilateral
between the PML-Q, PMLN and the PPP. Given the pre-poll
rigging and the divide, it is extremely difficult to
predict the outcome in Punjab, though the PML-N and PPP
are likely to fare better in this election. Unlike the
2002 elections, Musharraf is highly unpopular in Punjab
today and the PML-Q discredited; on the other hand,
anti-Musharraf and anti-PML-Q sentiments are likely to
result in increasing the vote share of the PML-N and PPP.
If these sentiments are allowed to express, in a
relatively free and fair polling, the PPP and PML-N are
likely to secure 80-100 seats, helping them to form the
next coalition government at the national leve. That is,
if elections are held on February 18 and if they are
relatively free and fair.
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