Abolish Plan Panel : IEO

n 2004, when UPA 1 came to power former prime minister Manmohan Singh asked deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia to create a delivery mechanism to ensure that the government’s economic programmes benefit the poor. Ten years down the line even the panel would agree that it has not been able to fulfil that mandate, though it cannot be solely blamed for such a result.  However, along the way, the plan panel, which was set up in 1950 to advise and provide guidance for the formulation of India’s five-year plans, annual plans and state government plans, has been accused of creating hurdles in the path of India’s progress. The naysayers not only include Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also some of the former ministers in the UPA. On Monday, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), which ironically is attached to and funded by the plan panel,  asked the Prime Minister’s Office to abolish the Commission and instead set up a ‘Reform and Solution Commission’ as a government think tank through an Act of Parliament.

Calling the plan panel a “control panel”, the  IEO echoed the current government’s view on the matter, saying that the Commission “in its current form and function” is a “hindrance not a help” to India’s development. The IEO feels that the panel is a parking slot for bureaucrats who don’t have domain knowledge and should be replaced by experts.  While it is bit drastic to say that bureaucrats don’t have domain knowledge, the larger view that the plan panel needs to be shaken up is acceptable.
Having said that, however, one must acknowledge the fact that all institutions — be it the existing plan panel or its new avatar — will always depend on what the government of the day wants it to be. If at all a new panel comes into being, the NDA should be very clear from the word go what it expects of the organisation and also ensure that its performance is measurable against some standards.

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/abolishing-the-planning-commission-is-fine-but-its-replacement-must-be-result-oriented/article1-1233254.aspx#sthash.62ZxpIKM.dpuf

n 2004, when UPA 1 came to power former prime minister Manmohan Singh asked deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia to create a delivery mechanism to ensure that the government’s economic programmes benefit the poor. Ten years down the line even the panel would agree that it has not been able to fulfil that mandate, though it cannot be solely blamed for such a result.  However, along the way, the plan panel, which was set up in 1950 to advise and provide guidance for the formulation of India’s five-year plans, annual plans and state government plans, has been accused of creating hurdles in the path of India’s progress. The naysayers not only include Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also some of the former ministers in the UPA. On Monday, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), which ironically is attached to and funded by the plan panel,  asked the Prime Minister’s Office to abolish the Commission and instead set up a ‘Reform and Solution Commission’ as a government think tank through an Act of Parliament.

Calling the plan panel a “control panel”, the  IEO echoed the current government’s view on the matter, saying that the Commission “in its current form and function” is a “hindrance not a help” to India’s development. The IEO feels that the panel is a parking slot for bureaucrats who don’t have domain knowledge and should be replaced by experts.  While it is bit drastic to say that bureaucrats don’t have domain knowledge, the larger view that the plan panel needs to be shaken up is acceptable.
Having said that, however, one must acknowledge the fact that all institutions — be it the existing plan panel or its new avatar — will always depend on what the government of the day wants it to be. If at all a new panel comes into being, the NDA should be very clear from the word go what it expects of the organisation and also ensure that its performance is measurable against some standards.

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/abolishing-the-planning-commission-is-fine-but-its-replacement-must-be-result-oriented/article1-1233254.aspx#sthash.62ZxpIKM.dpuf

In 2004, when UPA 1 came to power former prime minister Manmohan Singh asked deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia to create a delivery mechanism to ensure that the government’s economic programmes benefit the poor. Ten years down the line even the panel would agree that it has not been able to fulfil that mandate, though it cannot be solely blamed for such a result.  However, along the way, the plan panel, which was set up in 1950 to advise and provide guidance for the formulation of India’s five-year plans, annual plans and state government plans, has been accused of creating hurdles in the path of India’s progress. The naysayers not only include Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also some of the former ministers in the UPA. On Monday, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), which ironically is attached to and funded by the plan panel,  asked the Prime Minister’s Office to abolish the Commission and instead set up a ‘Reform and Solution Commission’ as a government think tank through an Act of Parliament.

Calling the plan panel a “control panel”, the  IEO echoed the current government’s view on the matter, saying that the Commission “in its current form and function” is a “hindrance not a help” to India’s development. The IEO feels that the panel is a parking slot for bureaucrats who don’t have domain knowledge and should be replaced by experts.  While it is bit drastic to say that bureaucrats don’t have domain knowledge, the larger view that the plan panel needs to be shaken up is acceptable.

Having said that, however, one must acknowledge the fact that all institutions — be it the existing plan panel or its new avatar — will always depend on what the government of the day wants it to be. If at all a new panel comes into being, the NDA should be very clear from the word go what it expects of the organisation and also ensure that its performance is measurable against some standards.
- See more at:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/abolishing-the-planning-commission-is-fine-but-its-replacement-must-be-result-oriented/article1-1233254.aspx#sthash.62ZxpIKM.dpuf

n 2004, when UPA 1 came to power former prime minister Manmohan Singh asked deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia to create a delivery mechanism to ensure that the government’s economic programmes benefit the poor. Ten years down the line even the panel would agree that it has not been able to fulfil that mandate, though it cannot be solely blamed for such a result.  However, along the way, the plan panel, which was set up in 1950 to advise and provide guidance for the formulation of India’s five-year plans, annual plans and state government plans, has been accused of creating hurdles in the path of India’s progress. The naysayers not only include Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also some of the former ministers in the UPA. On Monday, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), which ironically is attached to and funded by the plan panel,  asked the Prime Minister’s Office to abolish the Commission and instead set up a ‘Reform and Solution Commission’ as a government think tank through an Act of Parliament.

Calling the plan panel a “control panel”, the  IEO echoed the current government’s view on the matter, saying that the Commission “in its current form and function” is a “hindrance not a help” to India’s development. The IEO feels that the panel is a parking slot for bureaucrats who don’t have domain knowledge and should be replaced by experts.  While it is bit drastic to say that bureaucrats don’t have domain knowledge, the larger view that the plan panel needs to be shaken up is acceptable.
Having said that, however, one must acknowledge the fact that all institutions — be it the existing plan panel or its new avatar — will always depend on what the government of the day wants it to be. If at all a new panel comes into being, the NDA should be very clear from the word go what it expects of the organisation and also ensure that its performance is measurable against some standards.

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/abolishing-the-planning-commission-is-fine-but-its-replacement-must-be-result-oriented/article

n 2004, when UPA 1 came to power former prime minister Manmohan Singh asked deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia to create a delivery mechanism to ensure that the government’s economic programmes benefit the poor. Ten years down the line even the panel would agree that it has not been able to fulfil that mandate, though it cannot be solely blamed for such a result.  However, along the way, the plan panel, which was set up in 1950 to advise and provide guidance for the formulation of India’s five-year plans, annual plans and state government plans, has been accused of creating hurdles in the path of India’s progress. The naysayers not only include Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also some of the former ministers in the UPA. On Monday, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), which ironically is attached to and funded by the plan panel,  asked the Prime Minister’s Office to abolish the Commission and instead set up a ‘Reform and Solution Commission’ as a government think tank through an Act of Parliament.

Calling the plan panel a “control panel”, the  IEO echoed the current government’s view on the matter, saying that the Commission “in its current form and function” is a “hindrance not a help” to India’s development. The IEO feels that the panel is a parking slot for bureaucrats who don’t have domain knowledge and should be replaced by experts.  While it is bit drastic to say that bureaucrats don’t have domain knowledge, the larger view that the plan panel needs to be shaken up is acceptable.
Having said that, however, one must acknowledge the fact that all institutions — be it the existing plan panel or its new avatar — will always depend on what the government of the day wants it to be. If at all a new panel comes into being, the NDA should be very clear from the word go what it expects of the organisation and also ensure that its performance is measurable against some standards.

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/abolishing-the-planning-commission-is-fine-but-its-replacement-must-be-result-oriented/article1-1233254.aspx#sthash.62ZxpIKM.dpuf

Women Reservation in Police

In a pioneering move, Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Tuesday announced 33 per cent reservation for women in the police force.

“It is necessary to empower women for their uplift in the society. My government has decided to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in new recruitment in the police force.

It will be implemented in all cadres,” Ms. Patel told reporters.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/33-quota-for-women-in-police-force-in-gujarat/article6146471.ece

Judicial Reforms

• Govt to rethink on both
• Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill (in view of objection from judges)
  
• National Judicial Commission.
  

• Judicial accountability bill  pending in Parliament, seeks to lay down enforceable standards of conduct for judges. It requires judges to declare details of theirs and their family members’ assets and liabilities and it creates mechanism to allow any person to complain against judges on grounds of ‘misbehaviour or incapacity.

• On a National Judicial Commission providing for appointment and transfer of judges in the higher judiciary, ..On a National Judicial Commission providing for appointment and transfer of judges in the higher judiciary,

Mobile Seva - UN Award

Mobile Seva - one-stop solution for all mobile-based public service delivery needs through mobile-based channels, including SMS, voice/Integrated Voice Response System and mobile applications, gets second place in UN Public Service Award.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/un-award-for-govts-mobile-seva-initiative/article6146469.ece

An initiative conceptualised by Indian government’s Department of Electronics and Information Technology to enable delivery of public services electronically through the mobile platform has been awarded a United Nations public service award.

Mobile Seva, a nationwide initiative conceptualised, funded and implemented by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), is among the second-place winners of the 2014 UN Public Service Awards, along with Bahrain, Brazil, Cameroon, Republic of Korea and Spain.

The vision of Mobile Seva is to mainstream mobile governance in India as a new paradigm for e-delivery of public services through mobile devices. It leverages the massive penetration of mobile phones in India to substantially enhance access to electronic services, especially in the rural areas.

The main objectives of the initiative are to be a one-stop solution for all mobile-based public service delivery needs through mobile-based channels, including SMS, voice/Integrated Voice Response System and mobile applications, a statement said. — PTI

India-Bangladesh

• Sushma Swaraj visiting Bangladesh
  
• Boundary :
  
• India   --> Bangla : 17000 acres
• Bangla--> India  : 7000 acres
  
• Trade :
  
• Now   :  $6.6 billion
• 2018  :  $10  billion (possibly)
• (??) increasing power supply on the new transmission grid from Tripura to Bangladesh
  

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/india-yet-to-ratify-land-border-pact/article6146467.ece

India is yet to ratify the Land Border Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh that involves the exchange of about 17,000 acres for about 7,000 acres of land, which would put to rest a decades-old dispute.

The UPA government was unable to muster support from the Opposition, most notably the BJP, when it tried to bring the agreement to Parliament in the session February this year, and it is hoped that NDA government’s control of the majority in Parliament will help push for an early ratification.

Sources say that in the run-up to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit, Bangladeshi High Commissioner Tariq Karim also met with Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti to discuss the LBA and Teesta agreement respectively.

During her visit, Ms. Swaraj is expected to talk about increasing power supply on the new transmission grid from Tripura to Bangladesh, bettering trade relations, as well as focussing on border management issues. While Indian forces have claimed Bangladeshi forces aren’t doing enough to check illegal infiltration, officials in Dhaka say they are worried about the increase in civilian casualties from alleged firing by the BSF on the India-Bangladesh border.

There is still uncertainty over whether Ms. Swaraj will meet BNP leader Begum Khaleda Zia, who had abruptly cancelled her meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee when he visited Dhaka last year.

On Tuesday, the BNP criticised the deferment of a War crimes tribunal verdict, saying it had been done in order to avoid public outcry during Ms. Swaraj’s visit. “Everything in Bangladesh now is controlled from the neighbouring country, from South block,” said BNP leader Hannan Shah.

Ms. Swaraj will also deliver a lecture on ‘Bangladesh-India relations’ when she meets with think tanks, and is expected to meet officials of the Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

India’s bilateral trade with Bangladesh stands at $6.6 billion, a figure that could double to more than $10 billion by 2018, said industry body CII on Tuesday.

India-Bangladesh

• Sushma Swaraj visiting Bangladesh
  
• Boundary :
  
• India   --> Bangla : 17000 acres
• Bangla--> India  : 7000 acres
  
• Trade :
  
• Now   :  $6.6 billion
• 2018  :  $10  billion (possibly)
  

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/india-yet-to-ratify-land-border-pact/article6146467.ece

India is yet to ratify the Land Border Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh that involves the exchange of about 17,000 acres for about 7,000 acres of land, which would put to rest a decades-old dispute.

The UPA government was unable to muster support from the Opposition, most notably the BJP, when it tried to bring the agreement to Parliament in the session February this year, and it is hoped that NDA government’s control of the majority in Parliament will help push for an early ratification.

Sources say that in the run-up to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit, Bangladeshi High Commissioner Tariq Karim also met with Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti to discuss the LBA and Teesta agreement respectively.

During her visit, Ms. Swaraj is expected to talk about increasing power supply on the new transmission grid from Tripura to Bangladesh, bettering trade relations, as well as focussing on border management issues. While Indian forces have claimed Bangladeshi forces aren’t doing enough to check illegal infiltration, officials in Dhaka say they are worried about the increase in civilian casualties from alleged firing by the BSF on the India-Bangladesh border.

There is still uncertainty over whether Ms. Swaraj will meet BNP leader Begum Khaleda Zia, who had abruptly cancelled her meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee when he visited Dhaka last year.

On Tuesday, the BNP criticised the deferment of a War crimes tribunal verdict, saying it had been done in order to avoid public outcry during Ms. Swaraj’s visit. “Everything in Bangladesh now is controlled from the neighbouring country, from South block,” said BNP leader Hannan Shah.

Ms. Swaraj will also deliver a lecture on ‘Bangladesh-India relations’ when she meets with think tanks, and is expected to meet officials of the Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

India’s bilateral trade with Bangladesh stands at $6.6 billion, a figure that could double to more than $10 billion by 2018, said industry body CII on Tuesday.

Srikrishna Committee - Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission

When was the report released ?

• 2013

What it has recommended ?

• Setting up of two entities -
  
• one, a new “super-regulator”, the Unified Financial Regulatory Agency (UFRA);  solely responsible for the oversight of the securities market, insurance, pensions and commodities. In effect, it will take over the functions of the existing regulators, including SEBI and the IRDA
• two, a Financial Sector Appellate Tribunal to review regulatory decisions. .
  
• the financial sector will have just two regulators, the RBI and the proposed UFRA. In the new set-up, the RBI will have some of its existing functions, such as regulation of organised financial trading, taken away.
• a new monetary policy committee — which would be dominated by government nominees — and not the RBI Governor, to set policy interest rates.
• appoint the Finance Minister as the head of the Financial Stability and Development Council

Reactions

• RBI has oppossed these recommendations.
  

Source :

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/needed-more-deliberation/article6134194.ece?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication


Many of the key recommendations of the high-level Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) continue to attract criticism, more than a year after its report was released. Chaired by retired Supreme Court Judge B.N. Srikrishna, the FSLRC was given a wide mandate to prepare a blueprint for a new financial architecture. The report has evoked strong responses, with some calling it a potential game-changer and others faulting it for being out of touch with the Indian reality. The FSLRC has had to grapple with several dissenting views among its members. It is not surprising therefore that the report of the commission dealing with a radical overhaul of the financial architecture — an enormously time-consuming process — has remained on the back burner for a while. The renewed interest in the subject is probably due to the fact that the new NDA government would look at the subject afresh and implement some of the less controversial recommendations. Among the most contentious proposals of the FSLRC involve the setting up of two entities: one, a new “super-regulator”, the Unified Financial Regulatory Agency (UFRA); and two, a Financial Sector Appellate Tribunal to review regulatory decisions. The former would be solely responsible for the oversight of the securities market, insurance, pensions and commodities. In effect, it will take over the functions of the existing regulators, including SEBI and the IRDA. If this proposal is implemented, the financial sector will have just two regulators, the RBI and the proposed UFRA. In the new set-up, the RBI will have some of its existing functions, such as regulation of organised financial trading, taken away.

The RBI will have a diminished role, confined to being the monetary authority and regulator of banks. In another recommendation, the FSLRC wants a new monetary policy committee — which would be dominated by government nominees — and not the RBI Governor, to set policy interest rates. There are more instances of explicit bias towards the government as seen by the recommendation to appoint the Finance Minister as the head of the Financial Stability and Development Council. Over a year ago, the then Governor, D. Subbarao, sought to protect the RBI’s turf. It is now Raghuram Rajan’s turn to shift the spotlight to what he considers to be ill-conceived recommendations. For instance, the enhanced role being given to ill-equipped and inexperienced appellate tribunals will undermine the role of regulators and paralyse the system. Underlying Governor Rajan’s strong words is the belief that an overhaul of the financial architecture as suggested by the Srikrishna Commission will have to be preceded by more deliberations, a point of view that will be appreciated by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Challenges to interlinking rivers

Mainly 3 challenges

1. Political     When Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have stopped just short of violence over sharing Cauvery waters, is it likely that so many states will agree to share this most precious of all resources? There are issues too with our neighbours: When the Farakka barrage has proved such a contentious issue with Bangladesh, how will it countenance any diversion of the Ganga and Brahmaputra in summer? And precisely at a time when external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj is making her first visit to Dhaka to discuss the Teesta water issue?
2. Engineering  The second is engineering. There are tremendous difficulties not only in creating barrages across rivers and canals to carry water but also to lift water from the supposedly surplus Indo-Gangetic plain to the deficient Deccan peninsula — up to 116 metres, requiring some 3,700 MW of power, also a resource which is severely short. When there has not been a single dam or irrigation project that has met deadlines or kept within its budget, is it realistic to expect a slew of such mega projects to do so?
3. Environmental     The third is environmental. The inter-linking of rivers takes a technocratic view of rivers as entities that can be “cabined, cribbed and confined”. But rivers have a life of their own and any constriction of their flow can have disastrous consequences downstream. Thus, to imagine that westward-flowing rivers, which originate in the Western Ghats, can be dammed to redirect their flow to stop flowing “wastefully to the sea” and join the eastward-flowing Godavari, is to negate their distinct ecological role. As it is, these ghats, a Unesco World Heritage Site, are threatened as one of the eight ‘hottest hotspots’ in the world for their enormous plant and animal species.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/a-hydro-hubris/article1-1230988.aspx

India and her Neighbours

Bhutan	Hydroelectricuty,
Sri Lanka	Implementation of 13th agreement FTA Tourism Construction of bridge over Ram Sethu
Bangladesh	Land transit - Access to Tripura Illegal migrants River water sharing agreement Land Boundary agreement - enclaves. Access to Singapore and Myanmar
Iran	Chabbra port - petrochemical complex India's voting in UN..

India’s influence has cratered over the last decade. Significantly diluted by external interference, competing powers have built strong military relationships and gained access to key ports. A String of Pearls girds the Indian Ocean, while the mountains bristle with highways and ballistic missiles. The strategic fruits of 1971 have been frittered away from a weak state, overridden by parochial concerns, sandwiched between ad hoc reactions and political gain. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a significant gesture in refocusing foreign policy towards realpolitik. It is now time to revive South Asian amity.

Kautilya’s shadgunya (six-fold) theory prescribes six attributes to foreign policy. A nation should make peace with a stronger one, stay quiet when a rival is equal or more in strength and seek shelter when depleted in power. It ought to use to sama (friendship), dama (gifts), bheda (division) and danda (punishment) to recalibrate its neighbourhood. This ancient strategy is apt for this moment.

Bhutan has been left bereft. A country that is emphatically a model neighbour, it faces similar tensions with China, with claims on the Doklam Plateau, adjacent to India’s Chicken’s Neck area, serving as a strategic threat. Beijing continues to build roads and infrastructure on Bhutanese territory, seeking an altitude advantage. Joint hydropower projects like the 600-MW Kholongchu, 770-MW Chamkarchu, 570-MW Wangchu and 180-MW Bunakha plants have languished, with economic viability reviews pending. Bhutan should be offered greater infrastructure development and a better price for such electricity exports. Losing it is not an option.

India should have a special relationship with Bangladesh. Squandering this potential, due to illegal migration, state-level parochialism and water disputes, has left our North-east wracked with insurgencies and poverty. The Land Boundary Protocol, dating back to the Mujib-Indira LBA of 1974, which addresses the issues of enclaves, exchanges 111 inaccessible enclaves for 51, reduces border conflict, opens up transit and builds regional trust. While necessary constitutional amendments would need to be made, closure on this border dispute would provide mutual benefits. Water-sharing agreements should be explored to ensure equitable distribution. The creation of a special transit facility by the Bangladesh government for shipment of food to Tripura is a welcome step. Illegal migration will only diminish through a close economic partnership, helping to revive Kolkata as a South East Asian hub. The road to Myanmar and Singapore goes through Bangladesh.

Sri Lanka shows reluctance in implementing the ‘Thirteenth Amendment’ in its Constitution, offering greater autonomy to its ethnic Tamils. It must be held to account on this. However, our trade partnership needs to expand as well, with the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, liberalising trade in services and investments, ripe for finalisation. Investments in energy and infrastructure, particularly a proposed bridge across the Ram Setu and a common electricity grid, would elevate this relationship. Higher Indian economic growth will also carry Sri Lanka along, with our tourists mingling in its casinos.

The Maldives has been heavily courted by China. A new port facility, at Uthuru Thila Falhu, northwest of the Maldives capital Male, will provide ship berthing facilities and include naval repair stations. Our shared regional interests and our combined naval security should make India the ideal partner in this project. The airport cancellation fiasco should not be repeated. Islamic radicalism is on the rise there. The String of Pearls continues to enlarge, with China’s proposed Maritime Silk Route an ingenious way of disguising naval outreach. India’s influence should prevail in its ocean.

The West is accepting Iran and we should not shy away. The strategically located Chabbar port, just outside the Persian Gulf, is being built along with a vast petrochemical complex. With an SEZ on offer, India should make strategic investments in this port, helping to build a direct shipping route to Kandla and increase LNG imports. Tehran’s revised oil and gas incentives should draw Indian investments, particularly in the upstream sector. While the bitterness of India’s ad hoc voting against Iran in the UN remains, trade should be boosted; creating a hub for transit to Central Asia.

India has invested blood and treasure in stabilising Afghanistan. However, the Taliban’s rehabilitation, despite the Haqqani Network’s continued terrorism against Indian consulates, is paradoxical. Returning them to power, even in a coalition, would undo Afghanistan’s shaky democracy. With the upcoming US withdrawal, a concert of nations should help stabilise Afghanistan, providing it with budgetary support, infrastructure investments, linkages to Iran and Central Asia and security training. India has its part to play here.

Pakistan will continue to be a vexed neighbour. With recent attacks on the naval base and airports in Karachi, the Pakistani deep state will soon have to engage in a power struggle. Quick wins can be achieved by agreeing on Siachen and Sir Creek and expanding trade. With the Pakistani military increasingly tied up, talks should be held with Nawaz Sharif. The Most Favoured Nation status should be granted by Pakistan. Making some borders irrelevant, through increased trade and transit, should be initiated. Kashmir, however, will have to wait for another generation.

Saarc needs to be revived, with the Safta and the South Asian University given additional impetus. Our shared cultural heritage should be celebrated, through visa-free travel and PIO-like benefits. Rebuilding our relationships, through a just combination of Kautilya’s four precepts will require strong leadership, with a realpolitik sense of the national interest. Fate has given India a strong government again. This opportunity should not be frittered away. India’s diplomats remain too few. India’s hard power remains scattered. With a fresh approach at the Centre, this will hopefully be set straight.

(Varun Gandhi is BJP national general secretary and a Lok Sabha MP. The views expressed by the author are personal.)

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/pursue-the-kautilya-line/article1-1231370.aspx#sthash.LdnuFHuT.dpuf

SEBI measures to attract investment

• Mandated 25 % min public shareholding in PSUs in next 3 years (its already 25 % for pvt companies, but 10 % for PSUs)
• Allowed top 200 companies (market cap) to make offers-for-sale.
  

Good move because FIIs have huge holdings at this point, which is not very good.

// Will also increase transparency with increase in number of retail investors.
//SEBI has also streamlined KYC norms, to avoid repeated verification. one KYC applicable for another.

SEBI’s measures will help extend the gains in the secondary market to raising fundsfor investment

The Securities and Exchange Board of India’s latest measures to resuscitate the primary market couldn’t have been better timed. Mandating a 25 per cent minimum public shareholding in listed state-owned firms (as against the existing 10 per cent), allowing the top 200 companies by market capitalisation to make offers-for-sale through stock exchanges (a facility now limited to the top 100), and reserving 10 per cent of the issue size through this route for retail investors who will also be eligible for price discounts are all welcome in the current context. At a time when the secondary market is doing well — notwithstanding Iraq and El Nino — SEBI’s actions will help increase the supply of quality paper, encourage companies to raise monies and lead to greater retail investor participation. These could also have a virtuous impact — empirical evidence suggests new investors rush in when the primary market is robust and there is a deluge of attractive offers.

No less significant is the boost the Centre’s disinvestment programme will get from SEBI’s announcements. Currently, as many as 36 listed public sector undertakings (PSUs) have below 25 per cent public shareholding. Most of these are good companies enjoying a monopoly status or a dominant domestic market share in their respective sectors. The fact that the Centre’s stake in them has to be brought down to 75 per cent in the next three years means investors aren’t going to be starved of quality paper from at least one source. Besides, SEBI has permitted non-promoters who own at least 10 per cent shares to offload their holdings through offers-for-sale via stock exchanges. The Centre — or, for that matter, Life Insurance Corporation and other public financial institutions — can use this to shed even its residual stakes in companies such as Hindustan Zinc.

The Indian economy today is investment starved. By facilitating disinvestment, SEBI has created an avenue for the Centre to mop up large resources that can, in turn, be deployed towards productive capital expenditure and kick-starting investment activity. Thankfully, there is market appetite now for both PSU stocks as well as IPOs of companies with good managements and sound business models. Equally important is the need to widen the investor base in Indian equity markets which have lately become the preserve of foreign institutional investors. FIIs, in fact, have the largest shareholding in listed Indian companies after the promoters themselves. SEBI’s earlier move to increase retail holding by laying down the minimum public shareholding limit of 25 per cent in listed non-government companies has not really worked. Although promoters’ holdings have come down by around 5 per cent in the last two years, it is only the stakes of FIIs that have risen correspondingly during this period. Holdings of retail investors and domestic institutions have remained the same, if not fallen. This will hopefully now change with the latest reforms.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated June 21, 2014)

Cause for increase in Food Prices

• Food prices have increased like never before, as reflected in recent WPI.
  
• It is often suggested that removing MSP is the solution.
  
• However, that is very much a part of the problem.
  
• MSP is fixed based on =  production cost + margins. 
• Production cost increasing because of reforms and subsidy cut. 
• Also, food prices increasing because govt not releasing food to open market.
  
  

Food prices: Reading symptom as cause

C. P. Chandrasekhar

• 
• 

TOPICS

economy (general)

Economy Watch (column)

recession/slowdown

economy, business and finance

economy (general)

As the BJP-led NDA government settles into governance, sowing seeds of controversy in the process, it is faced with the challenge of reining in food prices. Just released Wholesale Price Index data point to an unexpectedly high, month-on-month annual inflation rate of 6.2 per cent. Food prices in particular rose in May by 9.5 per cent compared with a year earlier. Actual consumer prices are rising even faster than WPI-based inflation. And with this year’s monsoon expected to be below normal, the inflationary trend is likely to aggravate.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitely has decided to make a show of being up to the task of addressing the problem, by shifting responsibility to the states. In a Facebook post, he attributed the rise in prices of food articles to “the withholding of stocks on account of apprehension of a weak monsoon," and called on the state governments to “take effective steps to ensure that speculative hoarding is discouraged."

Meanwhile, some economic pundits are trying to find straightforward causes for inflation, which they claim can be easily addressed. One such explanation, heard quite often these days, is that food prices are rising because the government has been repeatedly raising minimum support prices. If it stops doing this, food price increases, they argue, would moderate.

There are many assumptions here. The first is that it is not any imbalance between supply and demand that is influencing prices, but the rising floor set by the minimum support price policy. Second, therefore, if the government does not intervene to set a minimum price at which it would procure stocks of commodities like rice and wheat, food prices would not rise and could possibly fall. Third, even if prices fall, production would not be affected to a degree where supply-demand imbalances drive up prices.

Clearly, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely, who sees expectations of a deficient monsoon and speculative hoarding as underlying the price increase, does not go along with this view. But that is not the reason why the MSP hike explanation for food price inflation needs to be dismissed. It is also because the evidence does not support the explanation, and because the explanation confuses symptom for cause.

Consider paddy and wheat, for example. An examination (Chart 1) of increases in the MSP for these commodities over the last five years shows that year-on-year changes: (i) have been quite volatile, indicating that there is no simple proportionate rule that influences where the MSP is set; and (ii) there have been three years when the increases in MSP have been below the overall inflation rate, and in the case of wheat at or below 5 per cent, suggesting that MSP increases have not been abnormally high.

This should not surprise, since the MSP recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) is supposed to reflect costs of production plus a reasonable return. The adoption of this measure of price intervention was part of the strategy to raise food production through the Green Revolution. An essential component of the Green Revolution strategy was the decision to incentivise production by setting a ‘remunerative’ cost-plus floor to certain agricultural prices. The government guarantees purchases at these prices of surpluses delivered to it during the procurement season. The farmers, on the other hand, can either sell their produce to government agencies at the MSP, or in the open market, depending on which is more advantageous to them. This does mean that (a) the MSP sets a floor to the open market price; (b) that floor is determined by cost of production movements; and (c) that the flow of grain to the government’s warehouses would vary with changes in the levels of production and supply, which influences the level of open market prices relative to the MSP floor. Thus, demand-supply imbalances do have an effect on market prices and government foodstocks.

To summarise: how much the recommended MSP rises would depend on how much costs of production increase. What is more, as Chart 2 indicates, in most recent years the actual support price provided by the government has equalled the recommended MSP. So if a rise in the floor set by the MSP is seen as responsible for inflation, this must be due to increases in costs. This increase in costs has, in turn, been partly determined by cost increases resulting from reform-induced increases in administered prices and cuts in input subsidies. The effort to reduce subsidies has resulted in a continuous increase in the prices of commodities such as petroleum and fertiliser whose prices are administered. A rise in the MSP was the inevitable outcome.

But this was and is not the only influence on market prices. The government has opted for raising the issue prices of food provided through the public distribution system in order to reduce the subsidy bill as part of fiscal reform, and pushed up market prices in the process. Moreover, imbalances between demand and supply of primary products have been accentuated by the government’s reluctance to release additional food through the public distribution system in order to curb subsidies. These factors too have imparted upward pressure on market prices. Thus, cost-push and demand-pull pressures, resulting partly from economic reform, are in substantial measure responsible for the buoyancy in food prices. This means those who blame food price inflation on the MSP do not just confuse symptom with cause, but also ignore the effects of reform that need to be addressed in order to combat inflation.

Critique of US foreign policy

US has had two policy failures - Iraq & Afghanistan

• Post-intervention, it has hastily retreated.
  
• Iraq - it has not done much to build inclusive policies, leading to shia-sunni divisions.
  
• Afghanistan might see similar fate.
  
• US president is a reciepent of Nobel peace prize! 
• West has entered and is exiting the nation with only a myopic, military-focussed strategy, and an utter lack of appreciation for the complex social and political realities that inexorably shape the balance of power on the ground.

How not to end a war

Narayan Lakshman

At the heart of the gloomy nadir in Washington’s foreign policy engagement are several profound lessons that, regrettably, are never likely to be recognised

MYOPIC STRATEGY:The reason why Afghanistan is poised to head ‘back to the future’ is that yet again the West has entered and is exiting the nation with only a military-focussed strategy. Picture shows U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan in 2011.—Photo: Reuters

June can be an uncomfortably hot month in Washington but no one must have felt the heat more in the beltway in recent weeks than U.S. President Barack Obama, a man on the verge of witnessing his most cherished campaign promises bite the dust.

The 44th President may be ruing the day he vowed to wind down two wars, flushed as his 2008 dream run to the polls was with the idea of “Hope.”

Nearly six years on, the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s vision lies in tatters, courtesy of a toxic combination of terrorists from al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Afghan Taliban and their vicious cousins across the Durand Line.

Delivering the death blow

This month ISIS in particular appeared to strike the death blow to the prospect of Mr. Obama claiming peace in Iraq as his enduring legacy, even as Twitter was flooded with images showing what seemed to be the militant group’s squads gunning down Iraqi air force recruits in Tikrit, some 1,700 of them, if propaganda materials were to be believed.

After capturing Tikrit, Mosul and possibly Tal Afar, ISIS was said to be no more than 60 kilometres from Baghdad and U.S. military personnel are being rushed in to protect their embassy in the city.

A much-vaunted “no-boots-on-the-ground” moment turned into an international joke.

In the face of this menace, the words of Qubad Talabani, son of the Iraqi president, are most ominous: “The Iraq that we know has come to an end,” he said in a recent media interview.

In Afghanistan, the murky saga of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier of questionable conduct who was held prisoner by the Taliban for five years and then swapped for five senior Taliban commanders held in Guantanamo Bay, has again exposed Mr. Obama’s keenness to tie a bow on his legacy at any cost, regional security concerns be damned.

Could there be any scenario under which the Taliban’s intelligence chiefs, chief of army staff, interior minister, provincial governor, and one prisoner linked to a joint Taliban al-Qaeda cell would not seek revenge on the Western power that stuffed them into orange jumpsuits, and then force-fed and brutalised them in a myriad of ways for the better part of a decade?

At the heart of this gloomy nadir in Washington’s foreign policy engagement are several profound lessons that, regrettably, are never likely to be recognised, for they all have to do with ending the ‘long wars’ that the U.S. seems to have an irrepressible taste for.

Consider Iraq, for example, where the toppling of Saddam Hussein was followed not by any lasting, inclusive agreement assuring a fair deal for the country’s Sunni minority, but rather a backsliding Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who sought to steadily degrade that community, ever more since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in December 2011.

Initially Mr. Maliki was said to have targeted Sunni vice-president Tariq al-Hashemi, who is now in exile, and then along with others manoeuvred against the cross-sectarian Iraqi National Movement, or Iraqiyya coalition that had been a vehicle for the representation of Sunni Arabs in the 2010 parliamentary elections.

The U.S. adopted an aggressive sanctions regime against Iran over disputed claims about nuclear enrichment violations; why could it not bring itself to exert similar pressure on Mr. Maliki to include Iraqi Sunnis in his country’s grand bargain? Or, thinking creatively, why not help all parties involved explore the prospect of a bifurcated or trifurcated nation respecting hard-to-bridge ethnic divisions?

The defence that this would be tantamount to meddling in a sovereign nation’s domestic political affairs is eyewash given the U.S.’ willingness to embark on the military occupation in the first place, based on a proven-disingenuous Weapons of Mass Destruction allegation.

As it turned out, Iraq’s refusal to sign a bilateral security accord with Washington was the coupe de grace for any hope that a small contingent of U.S. troops may remain in the country after 2011.

The breathtakingly quick dash for the exits that this precipitated seems to be paralleled only by the ferocity of the ISIS-led insurgency scarcely three years down the line.

Looking beyond this emerging vortex of regional instability, the fact of greatest concern to policymakers as far away as New Delhi is that the mirror image of events in Iraq 2010-11 is Afghanistan 2014-15.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has similarly refused to approve the bilateral security agreement with the U.S. and NATO.

Resilience of Taliban

If there is one thing the Bergdahl saga demonstrates, it is the resilience of the Taliban, who, similar to Sunni extremists in Iraq, are likely to step in to fill the security vacuum left by departing Western forces.

Finally, just as ISIS took over vast tracts of neighbouring Syria and used these to establish safe havens for recruiting and training thousands of jihadists for the Iraq offensive, so too a neighbour to Afghanistan’s east has both government and militant-linked groups that would be delighted at the prospect of setting up terror training camps, networks for illicit weapons-and-drugs trade and much, much more.

The reason why Afghanistan is poised to head ‘back to the future’ — essentially to where it stood in the early 1990s — is that yet again the West has entered and is exiting the nation with only a myopic, military-focussed strategy, and an utter lack of appreciation for the complex social and political realities that inexorably shape the balance of power on the ground.

Mr. Obama once called the Iraq occupation a “dumb war.” A dumber war-ending there never was.

narayan@thehindu.co.in

The U.S. adopted an aggressive sanctions regime against Iran over disputed claims about nuclear enrichment violations; why could it not exert similar pressure on Mr. Maliki to include Iraqi Sunnis in his country’s grand bargain?

Printable version | Jun 20, 2014 11:04:31 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/how-not-to-end-a-war/article6131914.ece

Significance of Wikileaks to society

1. We learned a lot about the illegal activities of the U.S. and other great powers.
   
2. WikiLeaks revelations put secret services on the defensive and set in motion legislative acts to better control them.
   
3. WikiLeaks has achieved much more: millions of ordinary people have become aware of the society in which they live. Something that until now we silently tolerated as unproblematic is rendered problematic.

Has it also caused a change in stance of US in Internet Governance?

Source :
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/how-wikileaks-opened-our-eyes-to-the-illusion-of-freedom/article6131915.ece
We remember anniversaries that mark the important events of our era: September 11 (not only the 2001 Twin Towers attack, but also the 1973 military coup against Allende in Chile), D-day, etc. Maybe another date should be added to this list: 19 June.

Most of us like to take a stroll during the day to get a breath of fresh air. There must be a good reason for those who cannot do it — maybe they have a job that prevents it (miners, submariners), or a strange illness that makes exposure to sunlight a deadly danger. Even prisoners get their daily hour’s walk in fresh air.

Today, 19 June, marks two years since Julian Assange was deprived of this right: he is permanently confined to the apartment that houses the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Were he to step out of the apartment, he would be arrested immediately. What did Assange do to deserve this? In a way, one can understand the authorities: Assange and his whistleblowing colleagues are often accused of being traitors, but they are something much worse (in the eyes of the authorities).

Assange designated himself a “spy for the people.” “Spying for the people” is not a simple betrayal (which would instead mean acting as a double agent, selling our secrets to the enemy); it is something much more radical. It undermines the very principle of spying, the principle of secrecy, since its goal is to make secrets public. People who help WikiLeaks are no longer whistleblowers who denounce the illegal practices of private companies (banks, and tobacco and oil companies) to the public authorities; they denounce to the wider public these public authorities themselves.

We didn’t really learn anything from WikiLeaks we didn’t already presume to be true — but it is one thing to know it in general and another to get concrete data. It is a little bit like knowing that one’s sexual partner is playing around. One can accept the abstract knowledge of it, but pain arises when one learns the steamy details, when one gets pictures of what they were doing.

When confronted with such facts, should every decent U.S. citizen not feel deeply ashamed? Until now, the attitude of the average citizen was hypocritical disavowal: we preferred to ignore the dirty job done by secret agencies. From now on, we can’t pretend we don't know.

It is not enough to see WikiLeaks as an anti-American phenomenon. States such as China and Russia are much more oppressive than the U.S. Just imagine what would have happened to someone like Chelsea Manning in a Chinese court. In all probability, there would be no public trial; she would just disappear.

The U.S. doesn’t treat prisoners as brutally — because of its technological priority, it simply does not need the openly brutal approach (which it is more than ready to apply when needed). But this is why the U.S. is an even more dangerous threat to our freedom than China: its measures of control are not perceived as such, while Chinese brutality is openly displayed.

In a country such as China the limitations of freedom are clear to everyone, with no illusions about it. In the U.S., however, formal freedoms are guaranteed, so that most individuals experience their lives as free and are not even aware of the extent to which they are controlled by state mechanisms. Whistleblowers do something much more important than stating the obvious by way of denouncing the openly oppressive regimes: they render public the unfreedom that underlies the very situation in which we experience ourselves as free.

Back in May 2002, it was reported that scientists at New York University had attached a computer chip able to transmit elementary signals directly to a rat’s brain — enabling scientists to control the rat’s movements by means of a steering mechanism, as used in a remote-controlled toy car. For the first time, the free will of a living animal was taken over by an external machine.

How did the unfortunate rat experience its movements, which were effectively decided from outside? Was it totally unaware that its movements were being steered? Maybe therein lies the difference between Chinese citizens and us, free citizens of western, liberal countries: the Chinese human rats are at least aware they are controlled, while we are the stupid rats strolling around unaware of how our movements are monitored.

Is WikiLeaks pursuing an impossible dream? Definitely not, and the proof is that the world has already changed since its revelations.

Not only have we learned a lot about the illegal activities of the U.S. and other great powers. Not only have the WikiLeaks revelations put secret services on the defensive and set in motion legislative acts to better control them. WikiLeaks has achieved much more: millions of ordinary people have become aware of the society in which they live. Something that until now we silently tolerated as unproblematic is rendered problematic.

This is why Assange has been accused of causing so much harm. Yet there is no violence in what WikiLeaks is doing. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the character reaches a precipice but goes on running, ignoring the fact that there is no ground underfoot; they start to fall only when they look down and notice the abyss. What WikiLeaks is doing is just reminding those in power to look down.

The reaction of all too many people, brainwashed by the media, to WikiLeaks’ revelations could best be summed up by the memorable lines of the final song from Altman’s film Nashville : “You may say I ain’t free but it don’t worry me.” WikiLeaks does make us worry. And, unfortunately, many people don’t like that. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2014

(Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.)