So, in as many times in the last two days, my online comments on two articles in the web version of Hindustan Times have been deleted/barred from public viewing.
The first article had to do with Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose's exit/long leave of absence from CNN IBN (see article here). In my comment I said that both of them had abused the privileges of the channel and used it as their "personal playground" to engage in systematic Modi bashing. I also questioned Sagarika's article from many years ago, where she asked for a rewrite of the Hindu hymn, the purusha sukta.
The second article had to do with Barkha Dutt's opinion that our Prime Minister, Mr. Modi's silence on issues is perplexing (see article here). I replied to her stating that she should also expect disappointment if he does not oblige as also comments to the effect that the rules of political engagement by the current PM and his office have changed now.
My responses to both these comments was civil and I believe comply with HT's Ts & Cs as well as its privacy policy.
I have certainly seen worse comments including personal attacks on both these articles (my opinion) that have made it past the goal post.
I find it strange that the Hindustan Times seeks freedom of speech and expression as a media house but is unwilling to extend the same courtesy to the people who visit its website and post comments. Did their monitoring/review people feel personally threatened when I made those comments? Or that it would spark furore and outrage? Or start an online flaming war?
Shame on you Hindustan Times.
Sumanth
Showing posts with label State of the Nation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State of the Nation. Show all posts
Saturday, June 07, 2014
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Overage Cynic
I was reading an article titled "Please don't cheer the loot-fest" by Chetan Bhagat in this morning's Times of India (couldn't locate the link, sorry). In it, he argues for the boycott of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi by not "watching them . . . not going to the venues . . ." and so on.
Crap if I ever heard of anything. It reminds me of the arguments propounded by some idiots a few years ago to boycott the purchase of petrol for a single day as a protest against rising fuel prices. What those idiots did not realise is that the loss suffered on account of one day's missed sales will come back and bite us in the arse in the form of income taxes (or some surcharge) to help futher subsidise the three oil PSUs. I had argued for an increase in petrol and diesel prices way back then but let me not digress. . .
As regards the CWG, a similar simplistic view point emerges before my eyes. If the games do not make any (or even a little) money, who's going to be burdened for that further deficit. I believe it will be the Indian citizen.
And whilst I am at it, this is also an appeal to the Times of India. You are an almost crappy paper, saved by the writing of the likes of Messrs. Aiyar, Akbar and Dasgupta, from time to time. Please do not waste print space on arm chair intellectuals like Bhagat. At least, use the column inches to run a few ads. You will make some money.
S
P.S. Am not advocating any solution, just ranting against Bhagat because I do not like him. So, there.
Crap if I ever heard of anything. It reminds me of the arguments propounded by some idiots a few years ago to boycott the purchase of petrol for a single day as a protest against rising fuel prices. What those idiots did not realise is that the loss suffered on account of one day's missed sales will come back and bite us in the arse in the form of income taxes (or some surcharge) to help futher subsidise the three oil PSUs. I had argued for an increase in petrol and diesel prices way back then but let me not digress. . .
As regards the CWG, a similar simplistic view point emerges before my eyes. If the games do not make any (or even a little) money, who's going to be burdened for that further deficit. I believe it will be the Indian citizen.
And whilst I am at it, this is also an appeal to the Times of India. You are an almost crappy paper, saved by the writing of the likes of Messrs. Aiyar, Akbar and Dasgupta, from time to time. Please do not waste print space on arm chair intellectuals like Bhagat. At least, use the column inches to run a few ads. You will make some money.
S
P.S. Am not advocating any solution, just ranting against Bhagat because I do not like him. So, there.
Monday, October 01, 2007
On 2 October 2007
2 October 2007 marks the 139th birth anniversary of Mr. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, one of the architects of India’s freedom struggle. Come the morrow and we will witness a series of tributes to the “Father of the Nation” – prayer meetings and floral tributes, token fasts, music concerts for peace and non-violence, addresses by several khadi-clad people including prominent personae from walks of public life, dramas featuring sections of Gandhi’s life re-enacted by children in schools, screening of Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi” in several (dubbed) Indian languages, October 2 specials on news channels on the life and times of Gandhi, probably an odd screening or two on entertainment channel of Lage Raho Munnabhai to provide comic relief for the masses – in short, one day of lip service and celebrations “honouring” a man who orchestrated and participated in our freedom struggle and won for us freedom from colonial rule.
Personally, I value Gandhi’s contribution to our freedom struggle as much as I do the several others and my heartfelt thanks go to their "collective" efforts, efforts as a result of which I am able to proudly say I was born in a free India. However, is the India we live in today really representative of the freedom that Gandhi and his compatriots in the freedom struggle had in mind? I sometimes wonder, were he alive today, would he feel proud of what he sees around him?
Our cities are fast turning into vast cesspools where all of India’s dishonesty, greed, hatred, intolerance and lust drain into and are left to fester unhindered. Daily I see and read about instances like an Alastair Pereira walking free in Mumbai after killing seven people in an instance of rash driving, people killed in New Delhi for questioning simple but inequitable acts like breaking traffic rules in acts of brutal road-rage, vigilante justice in Bihar in defiance of the law, sexual favours for promotions/recuitments in the police force in Uttar Pradesh, non-implementation of the Justice Srikrishna Commission Report in Maharashtra, terrorist bombings in Hyderabad in the name of religion, bomb blasts in Assam by ULFA separatists, strikes in Tamil Nadu sponsored by the ruling DMK protesting against a court order in the Setu Samudram project, a school child stripped and humiliated in a New Delhi school for not completing her homework, political volte-face in Karnataka, the list is endless. I see and hear these all around me and I feel sick in my gut at Mera Bharat Mahan and what it was becoming.
I see hunger, poverty, illiteracy, pestilence, abuse of authority, disrespect for law and order, mis-governance, corruption, abuse of women and children, among several other ills – sadly, all the “Gandhian” ideals exist only on paper today or in some forgotten library shelf.
It is a shame that we do not properly appreciate the meaning of freedom and the responsibilities that it carries with it. To me, these responsibilities are quite simple and articulated in Article 51A of our Constitution, thus:
“It shall be the duty of every citizen of India–
(a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem;
(b) to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom;
(c) to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;
(d) to defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so;
(e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;
(f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;
(g) to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures;
(h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;
(i) to safeguard public property and to abjure violence;
(j) to strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement;
(k) who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years.
On 2 October 2007, rather than engage in mere lip service to Gandhi, we’d do better to refresh our individual and collective memories about our fundamental duties as Indian citizens and actually work towards upholding those duties. I see that as a more fitting tribute for this man and the ideals he stood for.
Cheers
S
Saturday, August 18, 2007
A Quick Comment on The Impending Indo-US Nuclear Deal
The last few days have seen emotional outbursts from both sides of the government on the pros and cons of the nuclear deal ranging from impassioned rhetoric for support from the UPA to cries of betrayal of national interest by the Left parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Economist in its print issue dated 2-8 December 2006 called the deal damaging to a global anti nuclear regime and opposed it on more [logical] grounds that it violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and could open the doors to further proliferation fallout from North Korea's bomb test and Iran's continuing nuclear defiance.
More recently Dr. Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists wrote last week on his blog here that India got what it wanted without any safeguards although I beg to differ with his primarily onesided analysis. I personally believe this deal is good for India because:
1. We will achieve a nuclear fuelled power capacity of 20,000 MW (10% of total power requirement) by 2020, a self professed goal of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.
2. We generate power that is clean and not environment polluting like the fossil fuelled power plants.
3. We get fuel supplies internationally and we have the right to reprocess the spent uranium.
4. We have not opened up our sites for inspections.
5. We have access to high technology in several areas including defence and space, and
6. We get to keep our weapons (although I am personally opposed to the notion of a (nuclear) arms bearing state as I am completely and unashamedly pacifist in my outlook).
- among the several other doors it opens for us, since our ostracization from the West post the 1974 tests that India conducted.
My simplistic six-point view aside, let's take a look at why is this deal really important to us and why we, as right minded citizens, should oppose any attempts to scuttle this. I am borrowing from Nandan Desai's comments here summarily as follows:
"Currently, the average Indian consumes 0.9 barrels of oil, 31.5 cubic meters of natural gas, and 610 kilowatt hours of electricity every year – and these numbers are going up by 4.5% - 5% annually. Add to that 1% annual population growth, and our total energy needs will increase by about 5.5% - 6% a year. This year, we will produce about 90% of our natural gas and 30% of our petroleum domestically, and import the rest. Capacity addition over the last few years has been quite rapid, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with the growth of demand. Judging by current rates of capacity addition, and borrowing some projections from the Energy Information Administration, by 2020 we will have to import 20% of our natural gas, and 80% of our oil; by 2030 those numbers will be around 30% and 90%, respectively."
Staggering, when you sit back and think about it. Nandan has done excellent groundwork for his article and while I have no wish to parrot it entirely again, I find myself agreeing to the three principal arguments that he has advocated - (a) energy security for now and energy independence in the longer term, (b) a good road to creating power infrastructure to build India and lift it out of its current morass, and (c) last but not least, increases our influence in the global scheme of things coupled with the imposition of greater responsibilities and transparency requirements on us.
One aspect of this deal is a rider, subtle or otherwise, that we work with the United States to contain Iran's nuclear program. Opponents of this deal claim that it harms India's sovereign interests. Whilst it bothers me a little that our foreign policy is now being subtly guided by US interests, I see it as a quid-pro-quo and a good one at that. A deal of this propensity requires a fair bit of give-and-take and if the ultimate goal is to work in cooperation to avoid a second nuclear showdown, I believe it to be ok.
And lest I forget, I find the arguments of both the Left parties and the BJP to be completely specious, the former looking out for the interests of their idealogical masters and the latter opposing this deal purely on grounds of jealousy that they did not get to ink the dotted line when they were in power. If we recall, the BJP did try to negotiate a similar deal when they were in power last.
Cheers
S
The Economist in its print issue dated 2-8 December 2006 called the deal damaging to a global anti nuclear regime and opposed it on more [logical] grounds that it violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and could open the doors to further proliferation fallout from North Korea's bomb test and Iran's continuing nuclear defiance.
More recently Dr. Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists wrote last week on his blog here that India got what it wanted without any safeguards although I beg to differ with his primarily onesided analysis. I personally believe this deal is good for India because:
1. We will achieve a nuclear fuelled power capacity of 20,000 MW (10% of total power requirement) by 2020, a self professed goal of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.
2. We generate power that is clean and not environment polluting like the fossil fuelled power plants.
3. We get fuel supplies internationally and we have the right to reprocess the spent uranium.
4. We have not opened up our sites for inspections.
5. We have access to high technology in several areas including defence and space, and
6. We get to keep our weapons (although I am personally opposed to the notion of a (nuclear) arms bearing state as I am completely and unashamedly pacifist in my outlook).
- among the several other doors it opens for us, since our ostracization from the West post the 1974 tests that India conducted.
My simplistic six-point view aside, let's take a look at why is this deal really important to us and why we, as right minded citizens, should oppose any attempts to scuttle this. I am borrowing from Nandan Desai's comments here summarily as follows:
"Currently, the average Indian consumes 0.9 barrels of oil, 31.5 cubic meters of natural gas, and 610 kilowatt hours of electricity every year – and these numbers are going up by 4.5% - 5% annually. Add to that 1% annual population growth, and our total energy needs will increase by about 5.5% - 6% a year. This year, we will produce about 90% of our natural gas and 30% of our petroleum domestically, and import the rest. Capacity addition over the last few years has been quite rapid, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with the growth of demand. Judging by current rates of capacity addition, and borrowing some projections from the Energy Information Administration, by 2020 we will have to import 20% of our natural gas, and 80% of our oil; by 2030 those numbers will be around 30% and 90%, respectively."
Staggering, when you sit back and think about it. Nandan has done excellent groundwork for his article and while I have no wish to parrot it entirely again, I find myself agreeing to the three principal arguments that he has advocated - (a) energy security for now and energy independence in the longer term, (b) a good road to creating power infrastructure to build India and lift it out of its current morass, and (c) last but not least, increases our influence in the global scheme of things coupled with the imposition of greater responsibilities and transparency requirements on us.
One aspect of this deal is a rider, subtle or otherwise, that we work with the United States to contain Iran's nuclear program. Opponents of this deal claim that it harms India's sovereign interests. Whilst it bothers me a little that our foreign policy is now being subtly guided by US interests, I see it as a quid-pro-quo and a good one at that. A deal of this propensity requires a fair bit of give-and-take and if the ultimate goal is to work in cooperation to avoid a second nuclear showdown, I believe it to be ok.
And lest I forget, I find the arguments of both the Left parties and the BJP to be completely specious, the former looking out for the interests of their idealogical masters and the latter opposing this deal purely on grounds of jealousy that they did not get to ink the dotted line when they were in power. If we recall, the BJP did try to negotiate a similar deal when they were in power last.
Cheers
S
Friday, June 29, 2007
The Pre-Weekend Rant a.k.a Why I Pay More For My Daily Dal-Roti
The BBC yesterday reported news of World Bank (“WB”) assistance to India in the form of a $600MM loan package aimed at improving [?] access to financial services by India’s poorest farmers. This was part of the WB’s “Strengthening Rural Credit Cooperatives Project” that supports our Government’s program to reform and revitalize India’s rural Credit Cooperative Banks (“CCB”).
Quoting extracts from the official bank release, “Since the early 1990s, India has introduced impressive financial sector reforms that have resulted in increased competition, diversification, openness, and depth. Yet, India’s rural population still has limited access to finance from formal sources, relying instead on extortionate money lenders. The problem is particularly severe for small and marginal farmers, who are among the poorest of India’s rural dwellers farming, respectively, less than one acre and between one and four acres of land. World Bank estimates suggest that some 87 percent of marginal farmers and 70 percent of small farmers have no access to credit from a formal financial institution.”
While at one level, I am extremely happy – after all $600MM translates into a little over Rs. 2,400 crores and at an average loan outstanding of (say) Rs. 500,000 per farmer (a gross overestimate by my account and I am happy to err on the side of caution here), that is like saving or at least improving the lives of nearly 48,000 farmers, not to mention cascading benefits that include not having to watch the likes of a Barkha Dutt wannabe mouthing uninformed platitudes off a teleprompter, reporting live from Kurnool or Mandya to boot.
However, this is not what this rant is about. Just this morning, I read about India planning to import an additional 1 million tones of wheat through our State Trading Corporation (“STC”). The STC has already tendered overseas for the import of 5.5 million tones of wheat – shameful is it not, considering we were once a net exporter of this grain. We have just taken a huge begging bowl for our collective national stomach!!!
On the other hand, we have food inflation, currently running at circa 20% according to recent Morgan Stanley research estimates, with food grain inflation at 10.1% compared with 1% in FY2004. Shocking is it not, a 10x rise in grain inflation in three years – and this was caused by structural demand and supply side problems including a clear deceleration in supply side growth.
Playing to the gallery, and I will give credit to the UPA government nonetheless, relief packages totaling over Rs. 16,000 crores have been announced by the government together with an increase in the budgetary allocation for agriculture and an additional Rs. 24,000 crore plan for the farm sector. However, I agree with a view that this pressure is likely to persist in the near-medium term.
The MS report also said food grain output has actually decreased by 0.1% y-o-y for the last 5-years compared with a 1.3% growth in the 5-years ended March 2002. Average growth in grain production has not kept with population growth. Vegetables and fruit growth has declined to 2.5% in FY2001-06 compared with 5.5% in the 1990s and milk production has declined to 3% from 4.3% in the same comparative periods. Food imports in calendar year 2006 have risen 32% Y-o-Y, a majority of it caused by wheat imports.
What has caused this? Firstly, complete apathy resulting in low spending for agriculture related infrastructure. In a country where 2/3 of the population subsists on a sector that contributes to 20% of GDP, this is criminal. The infrastructure I am speaking about are of course warehouses, distribution networks, etc – the lack of which lead to losses on account of wastage, pilferage, perishing, rodents, theft and a myriad other factors.
Next up is inadequate spending on irrigation – statistically, ~40% of India’s farm land is irrigated with average growth in land under irrigation declining to 1.5% in the 1990s and through 2004 compared with 2.4% in the 1980s and 2.7% in the 1970s.
Thirdly, agricultural land holdings are highly fragmented. About 60% of the farm land area is with marginal, small and semi-medium farmers (about 107 million land holdings). The average land size per farmer is only 0.005 square miles (1.4 hectares). As pointed out in the Fifth Report of the National Commission on Farmers, these resource poor farmers are unable to benefit from the power of scale at either the production or post-harvest phases of farming. These farmers are also more vulnerable to adverse weather conditions and high levels of indebtedness. Hence, they are unable to increase investments to improve productivity and growth.
Lastly, the government’s fertilizer policy has distorted the trend in fertilizer consumption and therefore the mix of soil nutrients. While the government subsidizes nitrogenous (N) fertilizer and has decontrolled phosphatic (P) fertilizer and potassic (K) fertilizers, the prices of decontrolled fertilizers are relatively higher than urea (controlled fertilizer). Farmers therefore use more urea, which has a higher nitrogen content. The result is that the NPK ratio in India has deteriorated resulting in low productivity. According to the Planning Commission of India, this is one of the proven and well documented reasons for stagnation in the productivity and production growth rate since the early 1990s. Hence, it is imperative that the imbalance be corrected. Although, the private sector players are trying to educate farmers, the government also needs to adjust the fertilizer pricing policy to encourage farmers for making this shift in fertilizer use mix.
Small wonder then – my taxes have pretty much been used up in domestic oil subsidy and the farming subsidy as well as paying interest on the government’s external borrowings that there is no money left for development expenditure including agriculture. Interestingly, the Government’s policy towards agriculture has proven to be ineffectual so common sense dictates that more private participation be encouraged. However, that also does not seem to be forthcoming.
And lest I forget, someone ought to remind the WB that access to credit was never the burning issue. Our farmers are unable to do anything productive with the credit that they availed and could not repay their loans. Probably rectifying the structural issues might help. Of course that’s just my opinion. . .
In the meantime, I will plan for a 5-10% Y-O-Y hike in my household’s annual grain and pulses budget.
Cheers
S
PS: In other news, defunct pop group Spice Girls announced their re-union tour. Fabulous, since in the absence of enough food, we could all get by singing 'Oxygen' (dubbed in 20 vernacular languages, of course)!!!
Quoting extracts from the official bank release, “Since the early 1990s, India has introduced impressive financial sector reforms that have resulted in increased competition, diversification, openness, and depth. Yet, India’s rural population still has limited access to finance from formal sources, relying instead on extortionate money lenders. The problem is particularly severe for small and marginal farmers, who are among the poorest of India’s rural dwellers farming, respectively, less than one acre and between one and four acres of land. World Bank estimates suggest that some 87 percent of marginal farmers and 70 percent of small farmers have no access to credit from a formal financial institution.”
While at one level, I am extremely happy – after all $600MM translates into a little over Rs. 2,400 crores and at an average loan outstanding of (say) Rs. 500,000 per farmer (a gross overestimate by my account and I am happy to err on the side of caution here), that is like saving or at least improving the lives of nearly 48,000 farmers, not to mention cascading benefits that include not having to watch the likes of a Barkha Dutt wannabe mouthing uninformed platitudes off a teleprompter, reporting live from Kurnool or Mandya to boot.
However, this is not what this rant is about. Just this morning, I read about India planning to import an additional 1 million tones of wheat through our State Trading Corporation (“STC”). The STC has already tendered overseas for the import of 5.5 million tones of wheat – shameful is it not, considering we were once a net exporter of this grain. We have just taken a huge begging bowl for our collective national stomach!!!
On the other hand, we have food inflation, currently running at circa 20% according to recent Morgan Stanley research estimates, with food grain inflation at 10.1% compared with 1% in FY2004. Shocking is it not, a 10x rise in grain inflation in three years – and this was caused by structural demand and supply side problems including a clear deceleration in supply side growth.
Playing to the gallery, and I will give credit to the UPA government nonetheless, relief packages totaling over Rs. 16,000 crores have been announced by the government together with an increase in the budgetary allocation for agriculture and an additional Rs. 24,000 crore plan for the farm sector. However, I agree with a view that this pressure is likely to persist in the near-medium term.
The MS report also said food grain output has actually decreased by 0.1% y-o-y for the last 5-years compared with a 1.3% growth in the 5-years ended March 2002. Average growth in grain production has not kept with population growth. Vegetables and fruit growth has declined to 2.5% in FY2001-06 compared with 5.5% in the 1990s and milk production has declined to 3% from 4.3% in the same comparative periods. Food imports in calendar year 2006 have risen 32% Y-o-Y, a majority of it caused by wheat imports.
What has caused this? Firstly, complete apathy resulting in low spending for agriculture related infrastructure. In a country where 2/3 of the population subsists on a sector that contributes to 20% of GDP, this is criminal. The infrastructure I am speaking about are of course warehouses, distribution networks, etc – the lack of which lead to losses on account of wastage, pilferage, perishing, rodents, theft and a myriad other factors.
Next up is inadequate spending on irrigation – statistically, ~40% of India’s farm land is irrigated with average growth in land under irrigation declining to 1.5% in the 1990s and through 2004 compared with 2.4% in the 1980s and 2.7% in the 1970s.
Thirdly, agricultural land holdings are highly fragmented. About 60% of the farm land area is with marginal, small and semi-medium farmers (about 107 million land holdings). The average land size per farmer is only 0.005 square miles (1.4 hectares). As pointed out in the Fifth Report of the National Commission on Farmers, these resource poor farmers are unable to benefit from the power of scale at either the production or post-harvest phases of farming. These farmers are also more vulnerable to adverse weather conditions and high levels of indebtedness. Hence, they are unable to increase investments to improve productivity and growth.
Lastly, the government’s fertilizer policy has distorted the trend in fertilizer consumption and therefore the mix of soil nutrients. While the government subsidizes nitrogenous (N) fertilizer and has decontrolled phosphatic (P) fertilizer and potassic (K) fertilizers, the prices of decontrolled fertilizers are relatively higher than urea (controlled fertilizer). Farmers therefore use more urea, which has a higher nitrogen content. The result is that the NPK ratio in India has deteriorated resulting in low productivity. According to the Planning Commission of India, this is one of the proven and well documented reasons for stagnation in the productivity and production growth rate since the early 1990s. Hence, it is imperative that the imbalance be corrected. Although, the private sector players are trying to educate farmers, the government also needs to adjust the fertilizer pricing policy to encourage farmers for making this shift in fertilizer use mix.
Small wonder then – my taxes have pretty much been used up in domestic oil subsidy and the farming subsidy as well as paying interest on the government’s external borrowings that there is no money left for development expenditure including agriculture. Interestingly, the Government’s policy towards agriculture has proven to be ineffectual so common sense dictates that more private participation be encouraged. However, that also does not seem to be forthcoming.
And lest I forget, someone ought to remind the WB that access to credit was never the burning issue. Our farmers are unable to do anything productive with the credit that they availed and could not repay their loans. Probably rectifying the structural issues might help. Of course that’s just my opinion. . .
In the meantime, I will plan for a 5-10% Y-O-Y hike in my household’s annual grain and pulses budget.
Cheers
S
PS: In other news, defunct pop group Spice Girls announced their re-union tour. Fabulous, since in the absence of enough food, we could all get by singing 'Oxygen' (dubbed in 20 vernacular languages, of course)!!!
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