| Some hard-hitting facts and figures about Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that rarely make it to the headlines | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What is an SEZ? A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a specially demarcated area of land, owned and operated by a private company, which is deemed to be foreign territory for the purpose of trade, duties and tariffs. SEZs will enjoy exemptions from customs duties, income tax, sales tax, service tax. After the passing of the SEZ Act by Parliament in June 2005, the law came into effect in February 2006, though some states like Gujarat had passed provincial SEZ legislation in 2004. Why SEZs? The stated purpose of creating SEZs across India is “the promotion of exports”. Commerce and Industries Minister Kamal Nath claims that exports will ultimately grow five times, GDP will increase by 2%, and 30 lakh jobs will be generated by SEZs across India. The government also claims that SEZs will attract global manufacturing through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), enable the transfer of modern technology and create incentives for infrastructure. How many SEZs will there be?
There are less than 400 SEZs around the world at the moment. In India, the government is planning that many in one country alone. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Will there be displacement and loss of livelihoods? Estimates show that close to 114,000 farming households (each household on an average comprising five members) and an additional 82,000 farm worker families that are dependent on these farms for their livelihoods will be displaced. In other words, at least 10 lakh (1,000,000) people who primarily depend on agriculture for their survival will face eviction. Experts calculate that the total loss of income to farming and farm worker families is at least Rs 212 crore a year. This does not include other income lost (for instance, of artisans) due to the demise of local rural economies. The government promises “humane” displacement followed by relief and rehabilitation. However, historical records do not offer much hope on this count: an estimated 40 million people (of whom nearly 40% are adivasis and 25% dalits) have lost their land since 1950 on account of displacement due to large development projects. At least 75% of them still await rehabilitation. Almost 80% of the agricultural population owns only about 17% of the total agricultural land, making them near landless farmers. Far more families and communities depend on a piece of land (for work, grazing) than those who simply own it. However, compensation is being discussed only for those who hold titles to land. No compensation has been planned for those who don’t. Will SEZs create jobs? The growth of employment in the entire organised sector since the inception of the reforms in 1991 has been negligible. Total employment in the organised sector is still less than 3 crore. Even in IT and ITES, boom areas of the economy, employment is less than 0.15 crore (60% of SEZs are for IT). The Indian labour force is estimated to be 45-55 crore. Thanks to growing automation, modern manufacturing grows joblessly around the world (in India, automobile production has grown rapidly, while employing less labour than before). With more automation, organised services also require limited supplies of labour. SEZs will attract modern industry and services in order to succeed. To that extent they are unlikely to generate too many jobs. Moreover, the few jobs that will be generated will be for highly skilled labour, usually not available in the countryside -- from where working people are being displaced to make room for SEZs. Kamal Nath’s claim that SEZs will create 30 lakh jobs within a few years is a fantasy: those many jobs have not been created in total since the inception of the reforms in 1991! The government does not provide information on jobs lost, only on jobs created. Further, if the experience of existing SEZs in places like Noida (or Shenzhen, China) is anything to go by, the working conditions -- poor wages, non-existent benefits, long working hours, occupational hazards, discrimination, etc -- under which people will be employed will inevitably violate human rights, apart from keeping the benefits of growth away from the poor. Are we moving towards new corporate city-states? Many SEZs, like the Mahamumbai SEZ (to be built by Reliance Industries), will be like mid-sized cities, over 100 sq km in area (the size of Chandigarh). There will be no elected local government. A government-appointed development commissioner will govern the SEZ with the main aim of facilitating economic growth. SEZs have been declared “public utilities” under the Industrial Disputes Act, making collective bargaining and strikes illegal. Infrastructure like power, roads and water supply is guaranteed to investors and developers, not to the people of the region. Several lakh people may be living/working inside the SEZ. In some cases, the developer may have the right to tax the population in order to provide essential services. The constitutional tenability of private monopolies running local governments (for a sizeable cluster of the urban population) without being elected is questionable. All the non-economic laws of the land under the IPC and the CrPC would be applicable to SEZs. However, internal security will be the responsibility of the developer. Will SEZs turn ultimately into sovereign states -- treasure islands of prosperity in a sea of poverty and misery -- unaccountable to the vast majority of citizens in the neighbourhood? Will there be loss of public revenue? Thanks to exemptions from customs duties, income tax, sales tax, excise duties and service tax (even on luxury hotel facilities, shopping malls, health clubs and recreation centres) given to SEZs, the finance ministry estimates a loss of Rs 160,000 crore in revenue till 2010 (the ministry has also asked for capping the number of SEZs at 100. Finance Minister P Chidambaram wrote to Cabinet colleagues saying: “SEZs per se will distort land, capital and labour costs, which will encourage relocation or shifting of industries in clever ways that can’t be stopped. This will be further aggravated by the proliferation of a large number of SEZs in and around metros.”). The foregone tax revenue every year is five times the annual allocation for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and is enough to feed 55 million people each year who go to bed hungry every day. Furthermore, given the concessions on import duties (not merely for the investors who will produce exportable items, but also for the developer who will not), there are likely to be foreign exchange losses (rather than gains). For the five-year period ending 1996-97 the foreign exchange outgo on imports made by units in SEZs and the customs duty forgone amounted to Rs 16,461.58 crore against which exports of only Rs 13,563.87 crore were reported. Moreover, these zones are exempt from sales tax, octroi, mandi tax etc on the supply of goods from the domestic tariff area (rest of India). SEZs or REZs (Real Estate Zones)? What are SEZs likely to become in a few years’ time? According to a clause in the SEZ Act (Section 5(2)), as much as 75% of the area under large SEZs (above 1,000 hectares) can be used for non-industrial purposes. This lacuna in the law is likely to become a loophole for the accumulation of land banks by private developers and property dealers for the purpose of real estate speculation (this explains why so many of them have been buying areas for SEZs). In fact, it may well be the case that the rationale for the above clause in the SEZ Act is the uncertainty surrounding the economic attractiveness (and ultimate viability) of SEZs. If adequate productive investment is not forthcoming, the SEZ developer can at least cash in on the land value. Conglomerates like Reliance already own upwards of 100,000 acres of land in the countryside. Furthermore, the government has enabled Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in real estate as of January 2007, leaving the door wide open for massive amounts of international speculative investment in property. Far from giving “land to the tiller,” as the original idea of land reform had promised, the present tendency of the Indian government is to remove all ceilings on the ownership and use of land, thereby serving the interests of big business. It is noteworthy that there is no legal upper limit on the size of land area under an SEZ. Are there legal violations involved? The following are the main legal violations arising out of the SEZ Act, 2005:
Are there resistance movements in defence of rural lives and livelihoods? The political landscape of India in the last 20 years presents ‘a million mutinies’. In every region and state, small and large people’s movements have emerged to fight the appropriation of natural resources, livelihood and survival by government and large national and international corporations. Brief snapshots of these rebellions follow: In the south
In central and western India
In the east
In the northeast
In the north
Prepared by Citizens’ Research Collective, March 2007 |
Monday, April 30, 2007
Some hard-hitting facts and figures about Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
Gmail - [focusorissa] Some hard-hitting facts and figures about Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Aseem Shrivastava: Behind the Curtain of SEZs
Aseem Shrivastava: Behind the Curtain of SEZs
Weekend Edition
April 21 / 22, 2007
The Indian Predicament
SEZS: Behind the Curtain
By ASEEM SHRIVASTAVA
"Few cities anywhere have created wealth faster than Shenzhen, but the costs of its phenomenal success stare out from every corner: environmental destruction, soaring crime rates and the disillusionment and degradation of its vast force of migrant workers"
--"Chinese Success Story Chokes on Its Own Growth"
The New York Times, December 19, 2006.
Within the short span of a few decades China has become the envy of the world. Corporate managers across the globe lose sleep worrying about "the China price". Real wages and working conditions rivaling those of industrializing, pauperizing Britain two centuries ago have enabled the country to leave far behind any global competitor who has to worry about such inconvenient matters as labor laws and environmental regulations. Thus has accelerated the inter-national race to the bottom that has generated fear since the early days of this phase of corporate globalization. The labor force in the global economy doubled overnight in the early 1990s (from 1400 to 2900 million) when China, India and the Eastern Bloc nations joined it after the fall of the Berlin Wall, under Bush I's "New World Order." If real wages and the share of wages in national income have fallen sharply in recent times, and if inequalities have risen dramatically at the same time, the answer to the riddle lies in this quiet accretion, cashed in on by China-based corporations who have set the pace. The logic of capital has inveigled the entire world into a race of totalitarianisms--which inevitably enrich the few and pauperize the many in every country.
Democracy is a nuisance for capitalism. The success of China should demonstrate even to the most ardent of liberals that capitalism works most efficiently under despotic conditions. If capitalism coexisted with democracy in the Western world for some decades, the rise of China shows it up for what it was: a coincidence of history brought into relief by the fight for freedom and human rights by large sections of the working population of the West since the early days of 19th century British Chartism. The gains of working classes were consolidated by the institutionalization of the welfare state since Bismarck's Germany first brought in social legislation in the 1880s. They took a big step forward with the implementation of Roosevelt's New Deal in the US in the 1940s. Much of this was made possible, needless to say, by the spoils of war and imperialism, which enabled Western elites to maintain labor aristocracies within their own geographical boundaries. A prosperous domestic social peace was arranged on the ample backs of Third World super-exploitation of labor--and maintained internationally through arm-twisting "multi-lateral" agencies like the IMF, the World Bank, GATT and the WTO. And when they failed to work covert or military operations were always on the cards to ensure the desired outcome for Western elites (a practice that continues unabated).
One of the big historical gains of working classes in the West was universal adult suffrage--the cornerstone of modern democracies. By 1964--thanks mainly to the heroic efforts of the Civil Rights Movement under Martin Luther King--even the United States had it. After a while it became all but natural for commentators across the political spectrum to associate capitalism, in some umbilical way, with democracy and freedom. "History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom," the anointed public intellectual of the day, conservative economist Milton Friedman declared in 1962.
What history is revealing now is something altogether different: that far from being the precondition for political freedom, capitalism may be the growing thorn in the flesh of democracy, a thorn that democracy nourishes in the very core of its body-politic, a juggernaut of tyranny, remorselessly hungry for power both within and outside the country, without which its appetite for profits, growth and expansion cannot be met. As capital has had to bare its fangs, the dove of freedom and democracy has flown out of the window.
The Indian predicament
It is in this global context that India is having to chart its economic course.
In order to stand any chance of success in a global field where China sets the bottom-line and the long-understood practices of ruthless capitalist competition hold sway, Indian policy-makers have no option but to fall in line with the heartless rules of the game. It is vain to expect our leaders to then champion democracy--except when they are in the opposition just before elections. To subscribe exclusively to the growth imperative is to be necessarily forced to sideline all other social or political goals and sign on to the charter of (global) corporate tyranny. The private interest--the hunt for ever higher profits, justified by the promise to grow, invest and employ--is the public interest. No need to distinguish between the two any more. Thus, unsurprisingly, as the unfolding logic of capital has revealed its despotic character, even liberalism has lurched feebly towards a quiet grave.
The situation is further worsened by the fact that India's policy-making elite since 1991 has all but willingly had its hands tied by its acquiescence in the plans of global capital. Policy-making has been conducted under the close scrutiny of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. This involves many things. To please the IMF, social spending has had to be slashed and the government openly expresses guilt in performing economic functions which it is constitutionally bound to carry out. To keep the World Bank happy the government has to open the door to "development" projects of doubtful social value and destructive environmental effects. To find the ear of the WTO it has had to sell the rural poor down the river, allow subsidized Western imports of foodgrains, remove price supports for farmers and dismantle the public distribution system, thus (especially given the collapse of rural public investment in infrastructure, one of the consequences of IMF-diktat) making it ever more likely that more and more people will find agriculture an unviable option over a period of time--and will be willing to sell their land to corporations or the government.
This has meant that the government has effectively receded from any promise of economic welfare or development, indeed from any economic participation, which does not place corporate interests at the very centre of the public agenda. According to The Times of India there is public money to help Tata in its purchase of Corus, but none to expand the employment guarantee scheme.
The meaning of the Indian SEZ phenomenon
"When I expand, it is always in a capital-intensive, and not in a labor-intensive direction."
- Dinesh Hinduja, to Edward Luce of The Financial Times.
It takes only a little imagination to sense the despair among Indian policy-makers today. They have had to actually believe their own rhetoric--meant otherwise exclusively for public consumption. Thus, despite mounting facts to the contrary, it has become a virtual article of faith--with them as much as with the politicians and the media--that trickle-down economics actually works: that the only way to achieve economic development is via corporate-led industrial growth which will generate employment. Never mind that the modern sectors of the economy are destroying jobs.
That employment in India was growing more rapidly in the 1980s, when the economy was growing much more slowly than it is today, is of little account. That the entire private organized sector of the economy has generated fewer than a million jobs during the past 16 years (and still employs less than 9 million people), when over 12 million people are getting added to the Indian workforce every year should make our policy-makers worried whether we will be a sustainable society at all in the future--whether we will not dissipate ourselves in a welter of frustrated social violence, the kind that Star TV had the misfortune of experiencing in Mumbai the other day. None of this seems to alarm them.
And yet, how could it not? 22-year-olds fed on the dreams of unabashed consumerism are not going to sit idly and watch the rich race past in their speeding cars. Thus, it was not surprising when an ex-Union Minister was so taken by a 2000 visit to Shenzhen, China, where a Special Economic Zone has generated huge amounts of unprecedented wealth during the past generation. 20-30% has been the annual rate of growth, sustained over a quarter century. Over 10 million people have found employment in an area the size of Jaipur. The city has generated 14% of China's exports. Who wouldn't want to be like it?
Or is it? Listen to The New York Times correspondent after he returned from a field visit:
"among Chinese economic planners, Shenzhen's recipe is increasingly seen as all but irrelevant: too harsh, too wasteful, too polluted, too dependent on the churning, ceaseless turnover of migrant labor. "This path is now a dead end," said Zhao Xiao, an economist and former adviser to the Chinese State CouncilAfter cataloguing the city's problems, he said, "Governments can't count on the beauty of investment covering up 100 other kinds of ugliness." As the limits of the Shenzhen model have grown more and more apparent, other cities in China's relatively developed east are increasingly trying to differentiate themselves, emphasizing better working and living conditions for factory workers or paying more attention to the environment. "Some inland cities have started to provide migrants social security, including pension and other insurance," said Wang Chunguang, an expert in class mobility at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "In Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, residency controls are loosening up and education for migrant children is getting more attention.""
The province of Guangdong, where Shenzhen is located, recorded 10,000 protests last year--in what is known to the world as a totalitarian society. It appears that in China at least, SEZ is an idea whose time has lapsed. So why is it that in India it is an idea whose time has arrived?
The answers are to be found in the peculiarities of the Indian situation and the utterly odd world in which our corporate and policy-making elites find themselves today. The economy has been growing at a internationally impressive 8-9% for about 5 years now. Indian corporations have become globally mobile units, locating themselves in Eastern Europe and China, Bolivia and Equatorial Guinea, acquiring companies in Europe and North America, mines and oilfields in Africa, Latin America and Australia.
However, there is immense corporate frustration--still--right here at home in India. Some of the cheapest labor in the world is at their command. And yet, because of the inconvenience of democracy they can't be hired and fired in sync with the impulses of the business cycle, as it happens in China. Some of the most readily accessible natural resources are at their disposal. Except that there is the nuisance of bureaucracy in the shape of clearance of industrial projects by pollution control boards and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. They have firm control over the hearts and minds of politicians. But, from their point of view, there are still too many taxes to be paid. There is infrastructure in the country, but it is either in the city and already burdened or it is near fertile agricultural land (and must be somehow acquired: the reason that the conflict between agriculture and industry is arising in SEZ land acquisition in the first place). And so on.
SEZs offer a relief from this entire nettle of hurdles. All that can't be attempted in the civilized world outside will be the norm in SEZs. American corporations routinely abuse labor and the environment in Shenzhen in ways unacceptable to the Western world (though no one seems to mind the cheap shoes and clothing). In India, SEZs will provide a profitable refuge from the Indian Constitution, an effective waiver from democracy. The Development Commissioner and the SEZ Authority will have overwhelming powers, making local, provincial, national and international laws all but irrelevant. "Little Chinas" and Shenzhens can be developed. Soon, after their nominal success (inevitable, given the enormous range of concessions) is visible to all, the clamor for more such spots would be heard. And will be heeded. Unlike in China. Nandigrams and Kalinganagars will happen from time to time, but so long as they don't all happen simultaneously, and too close to an election, one could "move forward" in a stop-go pattern to accommodate the formal requirements of an electoral democracy.
This is the plan.
What else does it mean? Recent concessions (like the liberalization of foreign direct investment in real estate), the rush of builders and developers to acquire SEZ land, the fact that only 50% of the area under an SEZ has to be dedicated to processing (whose definition is stretched liberally to include everything from mining to agriculture), the fact that industrialists are all too often being granted land well in excess of their production requirements (whether Tata in Singur or Reliance in Dadri) all point in the direction of an engineered real estate boom through SEZ growth. Huge amounts of capital are pouring into the real estate market, both from within India and abroad. Returns of 30, 40, even 100 per cent in many segments of the market are becoming common--making Indian real estate markets one of the most attractive places anywhere to invest for global finance capital.
And the political implications of SEZs? Far-reaching and monstrous. A real-time pilot experiment in corporate totalitarianism is being launched through the high offices of the nation-state which, if successful, will reduce the latter to a mere clearance window between the corporate superstate in Washington and the emerging archipelago of fiscally autonomous post-modern city-states strewn across the country. As flags are raise once again in rajwadas and princely states, the long-slumbering glories of Indian feudalism may once again rise from the ashes under newly coined corporate brands, fitting snugly into the needs and imperatives of global finance, shoring up what would otherwise appear nakedly as capitalist stagnation worldwide.
With private airports, luxury housing, super-deluxe hotels, world-class shopping malls and multiplex plazas, SEZs offer us a window into the world of corporate consumer dreams. They also portend the end of effective democracy in this country.
The surrounding sea of human misery and squalor is bound to give rise to repeated and violent rebellions. Which is why the private armies of security guards are being trained and readied for approaching inevitabilities.
There are a thousand alternatives to this impasse. But to discover them and forge the collective imagination and will to develop them in practice will require a thriving public culture of democracy--precisely that which SEZs are being created to undermine. Globalization, far from bringing freedom to the world, is taking it away--in the name of freedom.
Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.comThursday, April 26, 2007
� Ban on hiring regular faculty in Orissa Universities is lifted
� Ban on hiring regular faculty in Orissa Universities is lifted
April 8th, 2007
April 8th, 2007
After a long time and with the Orissa financial situation improving the government of Orissa has lifted the ban on hiring regular faculty in Orissa Universities. For a long time, universities could not hire regular faculty and were hiring faculty on short-term contracts. This had resulted in the lack of quality faculty in the universities and as a result the Orissa universities suffered a lot. The lifting of this ban is an welcome step.
This news is reported in various newspapers. (Sambada, New indian Express)
In the first phase the Orissa government has sanctioned hiring of 70 regular faculty at the four universities of Sambalpur University (47 positions), Sri Jagannath Sanskrit University (4 positions), North Orissa University (Baripada-13 positions) and Fakirmohan University (6 positions). The 6 positions in Fakirmohan University is to start a new program in Applied Physics and Ballistics in collaboration with DRDO. 12 of the positions in the North Orissa University are for 3 newly introduced self-financing courses in biotechnology, business administration and computer science. 1 position in the North Orissa University is for a new department in tribal studies.
Entry Filed under: Fakirmohan University, Balasore, North Orissa University, Baripada, Sri Jagannath University, Puri, Sambalpur University
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Infochange India News Features Analysis Adjust kar lenge: The new SEZ policy?
Infochange India News Features Analysis Adjust kar lenge: The new SEZ policy?
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The cataclysmic events at Nandigram on March 14 – in which no one still knows how many people were killed, how many raped, how many are still missing – led to the scrapping of the 10,000-acre SEZ for the Indonesian Selim Group and the CPM’s hasty retreat from the area. Most importantly, the central government was forced back to the drawing board. It came out with some not insignificant changes in policy. What are they? There is a ceiling of 5,000 hectares (12,500 acres) put on an SEZ. There was no cap earlier. Much more significantly, state governments can no longer acquire land for an SEZ on behalf of private developers. In other words, though the government stopped short of spelling this out in so many words, no recourse is going to be taken to the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. It is also left unspecified whether SEZs are to be treated as a “public utility” nonetheless, exempting them from the full operation of the Industrial Disputes Act (which gives workers various bargaining rights). Nor can state governments form joint ventures with private developers if they do not already have land in hand to offer the project. States can also acquire land to develop SEZs on their own, provided they stick to the new relief and rehabilitation package to be announced soon. This was the very reason that the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 was invoked to accumulate land for SEZs. The state would then effectively act as a broker for private companies, hardly a role behoving a democratically elected set of people’s representatives. The conflicts and protests during the last several months in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab and elsewhere, have revealed the moral folly of such an approach. (In contrast to their Communist counterparts in West Bengal, the Gujarat government has skilfully minimised such conflicts by staying out of land deals in the first place. It has also avoided some problems by keeping agricultural lands out of the reckoning.) “This is not the Gita or the Bible. No?” That is how Union Minister for Commerce and Industries Kamal Nath responded to the media when queried about the new policy ruling on land ceilings for SEZs. Not surprisingly, just the previous day the Reliance spokesman on SEZs, Anand Jain, had told NDTV: “I am sure this is not a final no. There is much more to come. We will go to the government, we will place our ideas with them, and we are sure they will change their mind.” A good sample of how policies are made, unmade and remade in this fascinating democracy. Policies are made in the shadows. The government implements them by stealth. People protest. Government appears to budge. Money whispers. The media feels sorry for the megacorps. Politicians nod. They wait for people to get tired. Soon everything goes back to where it started. Kamal Nath was visiting China when he made that remark. Perhaps the perspective of distance made him feel secure in making the statement, within two weeks of the meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers on SEZs. The echoes of Nandigram might have faded in the din of Beijing. Being the biggest accumulator of SEZ land in the country, Reliance was “hardest hit” by the policy ruling of April 5. It had the sympathies of the media. Reliance has been in the process of acquiring, among other properties, two huge areas of over 25,000 acres each near Gurgaon in Haryana and near Mumbai. Evidently, their confidence is unshaken by the new policy ruling. They are not giving up: “The cap on the size of SEZs does not exist in any other country. This is one of the vital issues that will be taken up with the government,” Anand Jain told PTI the other day. (SEZs do not exist in most countries, the reason why caps on their size do not exist either.) Reacting to the government’s decision to distance itself from acquiring land for SEZs, he said: “The government cannot have it both ways. They cannot insist on the SEZ being on contiguous land and then refuse to get involved...” It becomes clearer how the government is being cornered to play the role of land broker once again. When asked how Reliance would acquire land in the face of protests by farmers and activists, Jain told NDTV that the compensation package to farmers will be like a lottery. So much for fair compensation. Exactly who calls the shots when it comes to economic policymaking ultimately becomes clear when you listen to Kamal Nath after his return to New Delhi: “Should a proposal for an SEZ be for an area larger than 5,000 hectares, after examining its impact on the economy overall, the government could consider it…Once the rehabilitation policy is in place the government will look into it. It (the ceiling) is not part of the SEZ Act, but part of the rules.” So why all the song and dance about the government changing SEZ policy? It wastes a lot of the public’s time. Movers and shakers According to The Times of India, having learnt from the events at Nandigram, the newly elected government of Prakash Singh Badal in Punjab may reverse its predecessor’s decision to acquire 485 acres of land for the giant builder-developer DLF across seven villages near Amritsar. This despite clearance from the central government for the SEZ projects in the state. Yogesh Verma, head of the SEZ division of DLF told the newspaper: “We had decided to go to Punjab following an assurance by the state government to provide us land. How can it go back on its promise? Land acquisition for our project should be considered retrospectively.” Besides DLF in Punjab there are investors in other parts of the country who are looking for a reinstatement of the original SEZ policy of the government. There is, for instance, the South Korean steel transnational POSCO, slated to bring the largest-ever foreign investment into India ($12 billion or Rs 52,000 crore, in order to access cheaply some of the best and largest iron ore deposits in the world) and waiting for the Orissa government to complete acquisition of the 4,000-odd acres of land in Jagatsinghpur district. The acquisition has been stalled not merely by the central government’s recent policy of suspending the clearance of SEZs (before April 5) but also by the fierce resistance the state has faced from three local tribal villages who are defending their heritage in a way no less zealous than the peasants of Nandigram fought for theirs. POSCO has applied pressure from the top, by getting the mayor of Seoul to approach the Indian Prime Minister himself. A dozen platoons of the Orissa police have surrounded the three villages, waiting for orders to strike. The villagers are ready for them. But Nandigram is too haunting a recent memory to allow either the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister (Naveen Patnaik) to take recourse so readily to force yet again. Besides, it would be a direct contradiction of the stated change in government policy (on April 5) if the government still found it within reason to use the Land Acquisition Act to take over the land from the tribal communities. And yet, an Orissa government release to The Times of India on April 20 has the temerity to claim that “the government of India requested government of Orissa to expedite land allotment to POSCO…POSCO may negotiate with land users for acquisition of private land if they want SEZ status, in which case the state government can facilitate the process.” So there we go: the state as land broker yet again. The alternative It is clear that the State must stay out of land acquisition (for SEZs or indeed, for any other purpose). That is the message of Nandigram and Singur. Wouldn’t the farming community then be vulnerable to local land mafias, who can be deployed by private builders and developers to seize the land of farmers? The State has a Constitutional responsibility to defend the private property of farmers and peasants. It is legally obliged to use its coercive policing powers to ensure that the land mafia does not use threat or force to seize the land from vulnerable peasants. This must be the demand made of governments across the nation as regards the policy of land acquisition. If governments can’t learn that lesson from Nandigram and Singur, they should at least draw it from the string of recent electoral defeats for incumbent parties throughout India. People have had enough of their needs being trampled upon by a State all too cosy with corporate India – in cruel disregard of pre-existing rights of the underprivileged. nfoChange News & Features, April 2007 | ||||
Friday, April 20, 2007
The Higher the growth, the greater the antagonism - Prabhat Patnaik
INDIA ABROAD, APRIL 13, 2007
PRINT EDITION, PAGE A-40
'THE HIGHER THE GROWTH, THE GREATER THE ANTAGONISM'
Economist Prabhat Patnaik discusses the dark side of India's economic growth with Senior Editor Suman Guha Mozumder
India's economy may be booming, its industries thriving, its middle class heady with the promise of a great future. But Prabhat Patnaik, a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, worries what the changes augur for the rest of the nation. Patnaik was in New York last month to take part in a public conversation on 'An Emergent India: Problems and Prospects' along with Nobel Laureate and Columbia's economics Professor Joseph Stiglitz. In an interview with INDIA ABROAD after the discussion, Patnaik, who is also vice-chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board, talked about his concerns about modern India.
Q. There were concerns, especially during the rule of the government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier that while India was shining -- a slogan coined by the BJP -- it was not shining on all its population. Have things changed under the Manmohan Singh government?
A.I think they are continuing pretty much the same way. But one of two things that have happened is of some importance. One is the passing of the Employment Guarantee Act, which promises every rural household 100 days of guaranteed employment. It was initially launched only in 200 districts but it's understood that it will be extended to the whole country.
A lot of campaigning was done to get this through. This act differs from every other previous employment program as it actually makes it a right [to be employed]. But the only problem with it is the state machinery is so enmeshed in neo-liberalism that I do not think that even though it is rights based -- even though it is the case that anybody who demands employment and does not get it can take the government to court -- much might happen. The problems of non-implementation are to be found almost everywhere. Poor and unemployed people do not take the government to court. They just cannot. But, at the same time, I think this is something that gives us a handle, at least when public and political organizations take the cause of the poor and fight on their behalf. So it is a very enabling thing to do. The basic directions of neo-liberal policies have not changed, but because of intensive campaigning, this act has been passed, which is of potential significance.
Q. If the basic policies have not changed and, as you mentioned, poverty is actually increasing in India despite the growth ...
A. I would not even say that poverty is increasing despite the growth. I would say that the kind of growth we are experiencing in India is actually based on an exacerbation of antagonism. As a result it is growth where to expect a trickle-down effect would be absurd. In fact, the higher the growth, the greater the antagonism. Suppose you have higher growth. Then there will be even more demand for, let us say, a Wal-Mart to be opened. Therfore, there will be an even greater dispossession as far as petty and retail traders are concerned.
So, it is a kind of growth where it is not that higher growth would pull everybody up, but on the contrary higher growth would actually make things worse for a whole lot of people at the bottom.
Q. Could you elaborate?
A. When you have higher growth, there is more income at the upper level. Because of the kind of growth, which inequalizes growth any way, there will be more demands, let's say, for a golf course, or luxury apartments and therefore agricultural land will be taken away and there will be more dispossession of the peasants. So, it is not just that higher growth is associated with greater poverty, but actually this is a kind of growth where it is part of the intrinsic nature of the growth itself.
Q. So you mean this kind of higher growth would spell out displacemement from traditional occupations like agriculture and, in turn, lead to poverty?
A. Yes. That is the kind of situation I am talking about.[The result can be] unemployment, dispossession and displacement of petty producers and peasants, and a greater agrarian crisis etc. Suppose you have an even higher growth rate, there will be more people demanding that an airport be constructed. If there are more people demanding such things, investments will go there and not to social sectors or to the rural infrastructure development. So, in that sense, the increasing growth on one side and the increasing poverty on the other side are in fact interlinked.
Q. So, as they say, the rising tide will not lift all the boats.
A. Exactly. It's futile to expect that higher growth will actually have a trickle-down effect. Even now, higher growth has not touched the poor; if we still have even higher growth, it is not going to touch the poor. That is not going to happen.
Q. Tell me then, how does one go about industrializing a country like India? Obviously, you need to acquire land. Given the resistance against acquisition these days, what is the way out?
A. The point is, the peasants who are displaced must themselves have an interest in the industry that is being created for them. They should be employed. Also, you need to give them equity. Let them get compensation.
If you look at the case of Orissa, the tribals were given compensation, but within two years, their land value has gone up 10 times. Now they feel cheated. Therefore, for the foregone capital gain they would have made, you have to give them an equity share. You have to work a whole package, not just make promises, before taking their land, [ensure] they are compensated for the land, compensated for the loss of employment and for the capital gains foregone and share equity.
Q. Recently, a member of India's Commerce Ministry's Parliamentary Consultative Committee said in New York that the government is considering giving them equity and will announce that very soon. Do you think once that is done, the problems relating to land acquisition will be resolved?
A. My fundamental point is that these issues have to be settled through social consultations and negotiations. These are not issues about which you can just impose [a solution] on the peasants. In other words, legally, it is true that the government has the right to take land [after providing] adequate compensation for building something there for the public good. But here, we are talking about building industry by the private sector, so you cannot use the old principle or the law. It has to be negotiated properly with the peasants. It has to be done on the basis of democratic consultations.
Gone are the days when you could just tell peasants that you are taking their land and just give them some money in lieu. In a way they [protests] are good. It is a case of assertion by ordinary people, assertion of peoples' democratic rights and expression of a voice of people who are marginalized.
I welcome it, in fact, because normally such people would be brushed aside in the name of development. But if somebody stands up and says 'sorry, I'm not interested in giving you land,' then you have to negotiate with him. Now that is basically the assertion of a democratic right.
Q. Although this is not for a special economic zone, the Left Front government in West Bengal has taken land in Singur apparently with the consent of the farmers. Despite this, one is seeing protests and resistance building up there and elsewhere almost daily. Do you think it is a case of peasants being frustrated by the Left's turnaround after fighting farmers' rights and for the equitable distribution of land?
A. Actually, if you look at the details of the land acquisition, the West Bengal government's terms were probably better than many other states. In Orissa, I know those who were agitating against land acquisition used to demand the same terms as those of Bengal. There are two problems. One of course, is that many peasants who had given their land to the government for reasonable money, believed at the time of the sale that there was no option. Later, they found out the truth and began harboring second thoughts. The other thing is there is a problem with land acquired in West Bengal. Some of the unrecorded sharecroppers there have to be compensated.
The West Bengal government arranged for compensation for those who are recorded tenants. But, apparently, there were some unrecorded sharecroppers in the Singur area. This is not official as yet, but the government is going to compensate them as well. This is something being worked out. The issue is not just whether the West Bengal terms are good or bad, the issue is different. What is happening now is that various states in India are engaged in cutthroat competition to attract private investment.
The logic of capitalism is that capitalists compete against one another. But here, the capitalists have a monopoly and these governments are ruthlessly competing against each other to attract investments.This is absurd and West Bengal is caught in the same trap. I think the states and the [federal government] should get together. I think what is more worrying is that public exchequers are being used by the various state governments to subsidize capitalists.
Q. I remember you talked about the dwindling social sector expenditure by the government. Do you think the present unrest, incidents like peasants' suicides, etc. have something to do with the decrease in the social sector expenditure, especially in the farm sector?
A. Without a doubt. What many people do not understand is that obviously, when the peasants' prices fall or the costs rise, peasants' income dwindles and when that happens, if the peasants have access to a whole lot of things like free education, free healthcare, they have some security. They feel that while their income has dwindled, there are other areas from where they can have some security.
But, simultaneously [along with income decrease], if you find that your social sector expenditure is also dwindling, you have a situation that, when your father falls ill, you are forced to go to a money lender to be able to take him to hospital. At that point of time, you are not thinking about the fall in your income.
But if you had a proper government-funded medical service, some of these problems would not arise. The peasantry is driven to desperation because of reduced income that has been accompanied by reduced social security. The two together has actually made it impossible, which is why most of them are indebted to money lenders. The health expenditure, in fact, is a very important cause of debt to money lenders.
Q. Do you find it ironic that, somehow, the decline in social sector expenditure has coincided with the rising growth story of India?
A. That is quite correct. [Economist] Amartya Sen started this idea of the Kerala model. It was a wonderful case of social sector expenditure, covering all levels of human development, but when that was happening you found that growth was very little. On the other hand, in more recent years, growth has picked up, and social sector expenditure has dwindled. So it is a very clear example of how growth does not really enable you to have larger social sector expenditure. In fact, social sector expenditure requires a degree of commitment by the government.
Q. It is often felt that, in India there has been over emphasis on tertiary education and under emphasis on primary education. How do you link this to development?
A. I reject that view. I think it is not a question of one versus the other. In fact, the education sector as a whole has been neglected. Our total expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP is less than what the South African government used to spend on blacks during the apartheid era. So, India's expenditure on education as a proportion to GDP has been meager. It has to be raised; unfortunately, we had this idea for a long time of raising education expenditure to 6% of GDP, but we have come nowhere near it and are way below it even today.
How can you run a modern economy without ideas generated? Ideas are generated in universities. I think freedom of a country depends on having independent ideas. You can't borrow other countries' ideas and then expect to remain free. That being the case, this idea in some quarters that somehow India is spending too much on education is wrong. In fact, we have to spend more on education, both primary and tertiary.
Q. But there has been opposition from the Left to the entry of foreign universities in India.
A. That is right. It services no purpose. You have to strengthen your own universities because this whole business of foreign universities does not work. Our problems are different; our societies are different. In other words, education is not something like a supermarket. It must address itself to societal needs and, for that to happen, you cannot just have a little branch of Harvard or Columbia. It has to be specific to the country and society.
Q. Do you see any fundamental change coming in the 11th five-year plan?
A. Not really. I think the original approach paper was very conservative. There is a lot of criticism. It is pretty much going along the old way. I do not see any significant change in the five year plan.
Q. Where is India going, as far as development is concerned?
A. Let me put it this way. If the notion of development consists of becoming a big power, a major player in international arena and so on, then India has taken it seriously. But that is not my notion of development. Development is an improvement in the living condition of the people, and if that is the notion of development, I believe India is not doing well at all. To me, big-power status is irrelevant. What is relevant to me, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, is wiping away the tears from the eyes of every India. That is what we have to do.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Communally secular or secularly communal? by V. Sundaram
SPECIAL STORY: "'. "
Communally secular or secularly communal?
V SUNDARAM
'If India has to be saved from total destruction, Election Commission of India will have to derecognise the Congress Party first for its unabashed Communal Secularism'
- All the People of India.
If Muslim terrorists destroy the Madurai Meenakshi Temple in Tamil Nadu or Guruvayurappan Temple in Kerala or Puri Jagannath Temple in Orissa, the communal Congress Party or all the Islam-Embracing, Christianity-Coveting or Hindu-Hating political parties forming part of the so called non-communal coalition UPA Non-Government (in actual fact an NGO!!) in New Delhi will not view such criminal deeds as unprovoked acts of religious fanaticism or communal vandalism but as noble deeds of Islamic humanity and compassion forming a legitimate and indivisible part of 'Minority Rights'. What is shocking is that the CBI, IB, RAW, Ministry of Home Affairs and all the other enforcement agencies of the Government of India will also be equally enthusiastic and perceptive and smoothly slide along the same path with the same pseudo-secular fervour! All these disgraceful enforcement agencies under the indirect political control of a coterie having direct links with Italian Mafia will only get unduly disturbed by a routine RSS peaceful Baitak anywhere.
Against this known and 'solid' background, I am not at all surprised that the Congress Party and all the other pseudo-secular political parties are raising a big 'Hangama' against a CD that was sought to be released by some functionaries of the BJP Party in UP. If the BJP Party is communal, Congress Party is also equally communal. The Samajvadi Party, RJD, CPI (M), CPI, LJP, DMK, and all the other political parties supporting the Congress are no less communal. But the Election Commission of India will treat only the BJP as 'Saffronized and Communal' and all the other political parties, including all brands and shades of Muslim political parties as 'Non-Saffronized, Secular and Non-Communal'. In my view Dr.Manmohan Singh is communal. Sonia Gandhi is communal. Arjun Singh is communal. Shivraj Patel is communal. Mulayam Singh Yadav is communal. Lalu Prasad Yadav is communal. Ram Vilas Paswan is communal. Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat are communal. Thus we can go on without end in the murky cess-pool of our low level national politics today.
I was looking into the internationally accepted definitions of 'Racism.' All of them uniformly point out that any form of discrimination against any particular religion within a country or a State is a definite form of condemnable and reprehensible 'Racism'. Even the United Nations has adopted this approach. In Turkey, the Kurds have been the victims of 'Racism'. In Bosnia, we have the disgraceful phenomenon of racial discrimination against the Muslims.
In the light of this definition, I can adduce irrefutable documentary evidence to show that the surrogate UPA government in New Delhi (under the power without responsibility stranglehold of an Italian woman in absolute ownership of a Private Unlimited Company called the Congress Party!!) is a government which actively practices undeclared, unstated, undefined but definitely politically promoted 'Racism' founded on Minority Communalism against the peace-loving HINDUS in majority in India.
Nowhere in the world can we see the national disaster of a duly elected government officially announcing and promoting a pernicious policy of 'Racism' derived from Minority Religious Communalism particularly against the majority. Are we not having State-sponsored Communalism against the majority? Let me give some concrete instances to substantiate my major charge of 'Communalism' against the majority' which I am raising against the UPA Government, the Congress and all the other so called secular political parties:
1. In the dastardly name of 'Minorityism' on paper and petty vote bank politics in practice, the Congress Party under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, a sworn enemy of Hinduism, surreptitiously slipped in Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution in order to convert the Hindus in Majority in India into serfs of the 'Minority' in perpetuity. Does it not show that the Congress Party has been 'communal' ever since our Independence?
2. After declaring India as a secular State, the Congress Party under Jawaharlal Nehru introduced Haj subsidies for the Muslims in 1959. We do not have Haj subsidies in any other Islamic or non-Islamic country in the world. Was this not truly 'communal'? In this context, the poor Hindus of India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Rann of Kutch to the Bay of Bengal, would like to pose some simple and straight questions to the UPA government in general and Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi in particular: 'What crimes or sins we have committed as Hindus not to qualify for subsidies to visit places of our pilgrimage like Kasi, Manasarover, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Dwaraka, Puri, Kancheepuram, Madurai, Srirangam, Rameswaram, Kanyakumari, etc.? Are we in minority in India? Are we not discriminated against on the ground of the religion of our forefathers from times immemorial? Are you suggesting that we would instantaneously qualify for these subsidies only by converting ourselves voluntarily and cheerfully to Islam under the direct supervision of two Union Cabinet Ministers like Arjun Singh and Antuley?
3. Was it not an announcement of religious discrimination against the Hindus in majority - the recent policy pronouncement of Manmohan Singh that government of India will always follow the philosophy of 'Muslims First' in the matter of apportionment of development funds? As a responsible Prime Minister, is he not taking India on the treacherous path of fragmenting the country on 'communal' lines just in order to corner some Muslim votes in different parts of India? The real truth about the 'communal' fraud, the whole fraud and nothing but the fraud about the disgraceful Justice Sachar Committee has come out into the open. Why is the Election Commission keeping quiet when Congress leaders talk about the 'communal' glory and the grandeur of Justice Sachar Committee Report?
4. Why did the Union Finance Minister, recently announce a new 'Communal' programme of 'COMMUNAL LOANS' by asking the Banks to refashion and restructure their lending policy by earmarking 15 per cent of the priority sector loans exclusively for the minorities? Will it not throw open the gates of all the Banks in India to the Mullahs and the Moulvis to bring to bear their religious influence even on routine technical and financial matters relating to loans and advances in the banking sector?
5. Having declared India a 'secular' country under the Indian Constitution, will it not be illegal on the part of government of India to talk of religious minorities?
6. Was not Sonia Gandhi practicing 'Communalism' against the Hindus in majority in India when she described the RSS as a rightist organisation with a long track record of stoking the religious prejudices, inflaming the religious passions and polarizing the Indian society? Was she not aware of the Supreme Court verdict to the effect that the RSS is a purely socio-cultural organisation meant for the promotion of Hindu unity and Hindu solidarity? Does she not have contempt for this considered verdict of the Supreme Court?
7. Soon after the Mumbai train blasts, Sonia Gandhi visited Mumbai and declared that 'the feelings of the minority Muslims should not be hurt,' in spite of being fully aware of the fact that these acts of terror were perpetrated by the Muslims with the full backing of ISI in Pakistan. Is not the UPA government treating the peaceful and law abiding Hindus of India as the Jews in Nazi Germany?
In order to counter the impact of the 'Communal' (!) CD floated by BJP, a known and rabidly anti-Hindu group of 27 celebrities under the leadership of Shabana Hashmi has brought out a new CD for selling their anti-Hindu secular message in the on going UP Assembly Elections. Two young Anhad volunteers, Mohammad Zabeeh Afaque and Mir Basit Hussain, have made the VCD, one-and-a-half hours in length, with �stop hate� messages from these celebrities. The most spectacular thing about the fraudulent secularism of Shabana Hashmi, her husband and their other Muslim friends and non-Muslim colleagues in the Anti-Hindu Secular Brigade is that they will never take up the cause of the organized genocide of Kashimiri Pandits in Kashmir.
To sum up in the sharp words of Mohan Iyer:
1. UPA announcing quota for Muslims, on the basis of religion, is not communal.
2. Manmohan Singh, giving a clarion call that Muslims must have first access to national resources, is not communal.
3. Postponing Afzal's hanging, for the sake of UP elections, is not communal.
4. Releasing the communally doctored Justice Sachar Report is not communal.
5. Lalu, releasing Banerjee Commission Report on Godhra carnage (when Nanavati commission was enquiring into the incident) on the eve of Bihar Elections is not communal.
6. Rahul, telling that Babri Masjid would have been safe under Gandhi dynasty, is not communal.
7. Mulayam Singh's current attempt to close the criminal cases against SIMI terrorists is 'not communal'.
On the other hand according to the Election Commission, the Congress and all the other 'Secular Parties':
A. Talking about ethnic cleansing and massacre of Hindus in Kashmir is communal.
B. Talking about Bangladeshi infiltration is communal.
C. Talking about Bombay, Varanasi, Coimbatore, Delhi Muslim terrorist bomb blasts, is communal.
D. Talking about the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh is communal.
E. Talking about the greatest genocide on earth - i.e. the massacre of more than 100 millions of Hindus, during Muslim Rule for 700 years, is communal.
IF THIS IS GOING TO BE THE PHILOSOPHY OF OUR SECULAR POLITICIANS AND PSEUDO-SECULAR JOURNALISTS, EVEN GOD CANNOT PREVENT THE SECOND PARTITION OF INDIA.
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
Monday, April 16, 2007
Unseemly race in arms
People's needs for food, health and education ignored
India on Wednesday test-fired the Agni-3 from Chandipur near Balasore on the
Orissa coast. It has a confirmed range of 300 KMs, and carries an explosive load of 1« tonnes. It is capable of carrying a nuclear war-head, and DRDO engineers claim that its range can be extended upto 5000 KMs. India's first experiment with it, in July last year, had failed. Now its success enables India to hit, if required, the main cities of Asia, from Turkey to Japan.
It qualifies India as an Asian power capable of projecting its military power far beyond the border. But, why so much of effort for something which is never likely to be used? Apparently, it was in response to the Pak experiment with its nuclear-capable, radar-avoiding Babar (HATF-VII) cruise missile, with a range of only 700 KMs. It, carries an explosive load, if necessary even a nuclear war-head of 500 kgs, although nuclear war-heads usually weigh around a ton. Though sub-sonic in speed these cruise missiles can avoid any anti-missile defence system. It is a product of Sino-Pak techno-cooperation, and is Pakistan's visible response to India's on-going experiments with the Brahmos produced with Russian cooperation. The Brahmos have a shorter range of 300 KMs, and can carry a lighter war-head of 300 kgs, but are super-sonic in their speed. So, the hing-cost race goes on.
Formerly, it was restricted to the armies and air forces of the two countries, but the same competitive attitude has now been extended to the realm of missiles, also. The purchase of tanks, planes, or highly sophisticated gadgets by either of the two countries immediately provokes the other to go in for their latest equivalent, in one way or the other.
Just as nothing is ideally hygenic to a doctor, and nothing is really sacred to a bishop, similarly nothing is really secure to the men in uniform. You may ask any of them and he will expatiate on the growing danger to the country's independence and integrity to protect which we should spend the last drop of our sweat and blood. There is nothing Indian or Pakistani about it. The military top brass, every where and always, smell danger and ask for more troops and equipments. But, in that process, the reality of the danger imagined and the remote possibility of the use of these highly expensive arms are usually lost sight of.
Let us take the case of India and Pakistan. Are they going to use their Brahmos and Babars against each other? If there was any chance of their misuse in the past, obviously there is none since 2004. The ruling establishments of both the countries and the masses, though usually mute, have realised the pleasures and privileges of peace. The utter futility of a war between two nuclear-armed states is obvious even to the blind. The people in the two countries want peace and an opportunity to make profit through investments. So, another major war between the neighbours of South Asia is presently out of question and these hi-tech weapons of the 21st century become obsolete within half a generation. Besides, when the highly developed nations of the world indulge in an arms race, they actually pander to the interest of their industrial -military complex. But, not so in our case. Virtually every single piece of these highly expensive sophisticated gadgets has to be bought from rich countries round the world, with the foreign exchange earned by the sweat of the brow of our poor. And, both India and Pakistan are buying these weapons with resources which could and should have been used for the upliftment of the poor neglected masses. Even now nearly 48% of the population of 'shining India' are under -nourished and only 61% are effectively literate. If in Pakistan the number of those under -nourished is around 10% less the proportion of illiterates is over 10% more. In both the countries there is much to be done to provide the majority with potable water, proper sanitary facilities, old age case and access to schools, medicare and markets. The masses in both the countries are crying for these basic needs of theirs. When these are neglected well-armed states, like the Shah's Iran and the USSR, collapsed, while a completely demilitarised Costarica, which disbanded its army in 1949, is an oasis of peace, progress and stability in the whole of Latin America notorious for insurgencies, coup-d'tats, blood-thirsty guerrillas and state -sponsored killers.
The frontiers of a state can never be protected as long as the foundations of its freedom and future are not based in the hearts of a happy population committed to save it in their own interest.
India on Wednesday test-fired the Agni-3 from Chandipur near Balasore on the
Orissa coast. It has a confirmed range of 300 KMs, and carries an explosive load of 1« tonnes. It is capable of carrying a nuclear war-head, and DRDO engineers claim that its range can be extended upto 5000 KMs. India's first experiment with it, in July last year, had failed. Now its success enables India to hit, if required, the main cities of Asia, from Turkey to Japan.
It qualifies India as an Asian power capable of projecting its military power far beyond the border. But, why so much of effort for something which is never likely to be used? Apparently, it was in response to the Pak experiment with its nuclear-capable, radar-avoiding Babar (HATF-VII) cruise missile, with a range of only 700 KMs. It, carries an explosive load, if necessary even a nuclear war-head of 500 kgs, although nuclear war-heads usually weigh around a ton. Though sub-sonic in speed these cruise missiles can avoid any anti-missile defence system. It is a product of Sino-Pak techno-cooperation, and is Pakistan's visible response to India's on-going experiments with the Brahmos produced with Russian cooperation. The Brahmos have a shorter range of 300 KMs, and can carry a lighter war-head of 300 kgs, but are super-sonic in their speed. So, the hing-cost race goes on.
Formerly, it was restricted to the armies and air forces of the two countries, but the same competitive attitude has now been extended to the realm of missiles, also. The purchase of tanks, planes, or highly sophisticated gadgets by either of the two countries immediately provokes the other to go in for their latest equivalent, in one way or the other.
Just as nothing is ideally hygenic to a doctor, and nothing is really sacred to a bishop, similarly nothing is really secure to the men in uniform. You may ask any of them and he will expatiate on the growing danger to the country's independence and integrity to protect which we should spend the last drop of our sweat and blood. There is nothing Indian or Pakistani about it. The military top brass, every where and always, smell danger and ask for more troops and equipments. But, in that process, the reality of the danger imagined and the remote possibility of the use of these highly expensive arms are usually lost sight of.
Let us take the case of India and Pakistan. Are they going to use their Brahmos and Babars against each other? If there was any chance of their misuse in the past, obviously there is none since 2004. The ruling establishments of both the countries and the masses, though usually mute, have realised the pleasures and privileges of peace. The utter futility of a war between two nuclear-armed states is obvious even to the blind. The people in the two countries want peace and an opportunity to make profit through investments. So, another major war between the neighbours of South Asia is presently out of question and these hi-tech weapons of the 21st century become obsolete within half a generation. Besides, when the highly developed nations of the world indulge in an arms race, they actually pander to the interest of their industrial -military complex. But, not so in our case. Virtually every single piece of these highly expensive sophisticated gadgets has to be bought from rich countries round the world, with the foreign exchange earned by the sweat of the brow of our poor. And, both India and Pakistan are buying these weapons with resources which could and should have been used for the upliftment of the poor neglected masses. Even now nearly 48% of the population of 'shining India' are under -nourished and only 61% are effectively literate. If in Pakistan the number of those under -nourished is around 10% less the proportion of illiterates is over 10% more. In both the countries there is much to be done to provide the majority with potable water, proper sanitary facilities, old age case and access to schools, medicare and markets. The masses in both the countries are crying for these basic needs of theirs. When these are neglected well-armed states, like the Shah's Iran and the USSR, collapsed, while a completely demilitarised Costarica, which disbanded its army in 1949, is an oasis of peace, progress and stability in the whole of Latin America notorious for insurgencies, coup-d'tats, blood-thirsty guerrillas and state -sponsored killers.
The frontiers of a state can never be protected as long as the foundations of its freedom and future are not based in the hearts of a happy population committed to save it in their own interest.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Forbes.com - Magazine Article
Forbes.com - Magazine Article
The World's Richest People
Plugging A Math Gap
03.26.07
The World's Richest People
Plugging A Math Gap
03.26.07
Harvard mathematician Shing-Tung Yau says China trails the pack in his field. He's tapping money and power to change that.
Americans suffer from an inferiority complex when it comes to math. They see China's students scoring higher in international comparisons and Chinese professors populating the math faculties at the best U.S. universities. But Shing-Tung Yau, a Chinese-born Harvard mathematician, doesn't see it that way. At the highest levels, he says, mathematicians in China are far behind their Western counterparts: "Most Chinese still use technology from America. I want them to create their own research so they don't rely on others and don't copy."
A dozen years ago Yau set out to make that happen. He's been building three advanced math institutes--in Hong Kong, Beijing and Hangzhou, 100 miles southwest of Shanghai--and conducting a relentless courtship of wealthy moguls. Thanks to millions chipped in by Li Ka-shing (No. 9 on the billionaires list), Robert Kuok (No. 104), brothers Ronnie and Gerald Chan and others, Yau's institutes have trained hundreds of postgraduates. Many are going on to teach in Chinese universities, slowing the brain drain that has long had China sending its smartest students abroad, never to return. "I hope these students will have an influence on the future of China," he says. "For China to become a society built on technology, it needs a solid background, and math is the basic language for that. Physics, software, engineering, banking, insurance--all depend on math research."
The flow of funds has helped Yau persuade Chinese math minds from around the world to sign on as associates of his institutes. But a big attraction is the 57-year-old Yau himself: He's the leading Chinese mathematician and ranks among the top ten in the world, says Phillip Griffiths, a math professor and a former president of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Yau has been a professor at Harvard for 20 years, specializing in geometry, differential equations and mathematical physics. A U.S. citizen, he won the Fields Medal (the equivalent in mathematics of a Nobel Prize) in 1982, a MacArthur "genius grant" in 1985 and the President's National Medal of Science in 1997. "Yau is like God in China," says Tony Chan, the assistant director for mathematics and physical sciences at the National Science Foundation outside Washington, D.C. and a visiting professor at the Hong Kong institute. "He goes to China and he can see the premier. In the U.S. even the director of the NSF cannot see President Bush."
But in the past year Yau has gotten into two very public spats. One was with Beijing University, which he accused of corruption. The other was with the New Yorker, which in August portrayed him as trying to steal credit for proving the Poincaré conjecture, a 103-year-old problem that was the holy grail of topology. The theorem concerns a three-dimensional space with no boundaries. It says that if in this space any closed-curve object, such as a rubber band, can be shrunk to a point, then the space is topologically equivalent to a sphere. Yau says the magazine's charge is completely false; other news outlets looking into the issue found evidence to back him up.
Occupying three floors of the simply named Academic Building No. 1 of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the New Territories, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences started slowly. "In Hong Kong most rich men [who give to schools] want a building named after them," says Yau. "But we didn't even have a building."
An undergraduate at Harvard led Yau to his first big donor, one who didn't ask for naming rights and turned down an honorary degree. That donor was the student's father, Malaysian tycoon (but Hong Kong resident) Kuok. He gave $6 million that started an endowment and attracted the institute's first full-time faculty member in 1998, a professor from New York University. Then Kuok introduced Yau to his friend, Asia's richest resident, Li Ka-shing, who donated $1.3 million. Ronnie Chan, a Hong Kong real estate magnate who had known Yau since the professor's days teaching at Stanford University in the 1970s, introduced him to his uncle, Thomas Chen, who dished out another $1.3 million.
A $2 million check came from William Mong, owner of Shun Hing Electronic Holdings in Hong Kong, a Panasonic distributor since the 1950s. The Japanese brand's technology "made me wish we had more capable engineers in Hong Kong and China, and that's my aim now." The money helped endow a chair and hire another permanent faculty member. Today the institute gets 100 applicants from China and elsewhere in Asia for each class of 20 in its five-year master's-and-Ph.D. program. The program includes such novel topics as betting on horse races, creating 3-d images of people and predicting the weather.
For Yau's Morningside Center in Beijing, he got help from the Chinese government and the Chan brothers. The government donated a plot, and the brothers put up the money for the building that the center shares with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It trains 250 researchers a year in six-month sessions. Now, in a bid to take on research institutes abroad, it offers an award that it hopes will someday rival the Fields Medal.
Yau is one of eight children. His family fled across the border to Hong Kong after the Communists took control of China in 1949. Growing up without electricity and running water in a village near Chinese University--where his father was a professor--he was more interested in skipping school than in learning arithmetic. But when he was 14 his father died and he became serious about his studies. He enrolled at Chinese University and in 1969 moved on to graduate school at UC, Berkeley. In 1971, at just 22, Yau earned his Ph.D.
Next to his math talent, the most remarkable thing about Yau is his ability to collect money. "Yau knows how to sell," says Peter Li, a math professor at UC, Irvine. "He is relentless in his pursuit, like a car salesman." Yau says he is very practical about it, although his friends say a better term is "too direct."
"Normally you have to go to ten dinners with these rich people before you can ask about a donation," says Yau. "But I don't have that kind of time, so I ask after the first dinner." He tells potential donors: "Money is nothing. It's all about your legacy." Over breakfast at a Howard Johnson motel he once persuaded a Chinese engineer living in New Jersey to donate $2 million to his Center of Mathematical Science in Hangzhou.
And maybe it's this bluntness that got him into trouble with Beijing University--which he accused of inflating the value of its research--and the New Yorker. "He's a very forceful personality, and in academia they may not be used to a bulldozer of a guy," says a friend of Yau's. The magazine alleged that Yau was taking credit for solving the Poincaré conjecture away from a Russian mathematician, Grigory Perelman. Yau demanded an apology, but the magazine issued a statement saying it stood by its story. "That article was a misunderstanding of the culture of mathematics and a misunderstanding of Chinese culture," he says. Perelman had posted the answer online, but he didn't fully show how he solved it. That set off several teams in a race to recreate Perelman's discovery and fill in the details. Two of Yau's students, spurred by Yau, won this race in 2006.
Yau is an impatient man. Sitting in his office in Harvard Square, he answers e-mails while chatting with a visitor. "There is a fear in the news media that China is rising," he says. "But it's better to create understanding between cultures, and math is a common language for that." His vision, he says, is to make his Hong Kong institute--his only one that awards doctorates--the Harvard of Hong Kong. "It took Harvard a few hundred years to be built. Hopefully, it won't take us as much time."
Click Here for List of Billionaires from Asia and Australia.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
The Telegraph - Calcutta : Opinion - Santa Claus Visits Tatas - Ashoke Mitra
The Telegraph - Calcutta : Opinion
Santa Claus visits the Tatas
- Freebies from a debt-ridden government
Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra
The uproar over Nandigram — and Singur — in West Bengal will not die away soon. Competitive democracy has its own laws; those opposed to the party ruling in the state will try to squeeze the maximum advantage from the discomfiture it has brought upon itself.
Speculation continues on the riddle as to why, despite repeated assurances to the contrary, the state administration fell back on a colonial-type police offensive to re-assert its authority in Nandigram. The underlying reason, informed sources suggest, was a strong message from the Salim group, who were promised vast stretches of land in the area for their chemical hub project; they might move away elsewhere, the message said, if the land was not handed over to them within the next few weeks. That set the panic bell ringing; the sequel has been horrifying.
Nothing illustrates more glaringly the spell globalization has cast on the country, even on those whose ideology and praxis should have prepared them to cope with it in a better manner. Industrialization, the rationale of which few will dispute, is being taken to be synonymous with industrialization under private auspices. To talk of industrial growth in the state sector is assumed to be heresy. Questions such as whether a particular private project will actually lead to a net increase in employment or output are discouraged too. Fables are having a field day: the private sector means efficiency to the nth degree, public enterprise is the other name for sloth, incompetence and wastage. The stunning achievements of the National Thermal Corporation, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Nalco, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, the Gas Authority of India or the Indian Oil Corporation in recent years are conveniently ignored. Also brushed aside is any reference to the huge resources at the command of public sector fiscal agencies such as the Life Insurance Corporation of India and the Unit Trust of India.
As in the other poorer countries, here too fiscal devices are introduced at the behest of US-led international financial institutions to compel ruling politicians to desist from taking new initiatives in the public sector. The Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act is being applied to admonish both the Centre and state governments not to ‘fritter’ resources on public sector extravaganzas. There is, in consequence, a gradual maturing of the belief that industrial activities are a natural monopoly of private entities, foreign as well as domestic.
The Left Front in West Bengal is the product of a historical movement which had as its credo the expansion of public goods and industrial growth through the deus ex machina of the public sector. Those currently in charge of the Front government in the state have apparently convinced themselves that, in the era of globalization, ideological shibboleths are poison, development ipso facto is development sponsored by the private sector, the government has only the residuary obligations to acquire land, on behalf of private tycoons, on which industry is supposed to be set up, and, in addition, provide costly infrastructural facilities the private sector will not build on its own because of their low profitability.
Once development is defined in such constricted terms, maximizing the rate of return for private operators becomes the only criterion by which to judge success. The logic is simple: if private profit expands, capitalists feel good; if capitalists feel good, they will expand their activities and the economy will have growth. The state government does not dare to enquire whether activities undertaken by capitalists will be on the basis of any careful analysis of costs and benefits, or whether in deciding the technology for the investments undertaken, alternative choices will be considered. Fifty years ago, when official faith in economic planning was still extant in the country, any investment proposal would be examined, taking into account the expected rate of income growth, the expected rate of employment growth and the expected rate of surplus or profit. With the eclipse of the planning era, such elementary practices have gone the way of all flesh; the only desideratum regarded as relevant is the expected rate of generation of private profit.
This transformation is illustrated most luridly by the details the state administration in West Bengal has finally been forced to disclose concerning the agreement it has reached with the Tata group apropos the small car project at Singur. The Tatas are, of course, rolling in money. Only a couple of months ago, they invested a sum roughly the equivalent of Rs 50,000 crore to take command of a giant international steel complex. To persuade this fabulously rich group to start a modest-sized car factory here, the state government has already spent something around Rs 150 crore to acquire close to 1,000 acres of land. The least that was expected was that it would recoup this amount from the Tatas. Nothing of the sort. Instead, the Tatas have been handed over this entire tract of land on a ninety-year lease without any down payment at all. For the first five years of the lease, they will pay only one crore rupees; for the next twenty-five years, the payment will increase by 25 per cent at five-year intervals; for the next thirty years payment will be raised at five-year intervals by 33 per cent; for the final twenty years, the rent will be only Rs 20 crore per year.
The discounted present value of what the Tatas have agreed to pay, any respectable accountant will vouchsafe, will hardly exceed Rs 50 crore. Equally necessary to take into account here are the historical trends in the rate of inflation and the likely explosion of real estate values through the decades of the 21st century. The conclusion is incontrovertible: the government is, really and truly, making a free gift to the Tatas of the land in Singur.
That is, however, only a minor part of the story. The state government is, in addition, offering the Tata group a gift coupon in the way of a loan worth Rs 200 crore carrying a nominal interest of only 1 per cent (as against the rate currently charged by the banks of at least 10 per cent); the principal, one suspects, is never intended to be returned. Finally, in terms of the lease agreement, the entire proceeds for the first ten years of the value-added tax on the sale of this precious car in West Bengal are proposed to be handed back to the Tatas, again at a nominal interest of only 1 per cent. If 40,000 cars are sold every year in West Bengal — not an unreconcilable assumption — with a value- added tax at 12.5 cent, this particular act of magnanimity on the part of the state would ensure an extra bonanza of more than Rs 500 core for the Tatas.
All told, therefore, the group is being offered the allure of around Rs 850 crore by the state government, apart from their being spared the bother of acquiring the land through their own efforts. The deal does not though mention what the Tatas are, in exchange, offering West Bengal. There is not even a stray reference to the likely employment, direct or indirect, consequent to the setting up of the plant. Were the employment generated not to exceed 10,000, that would just about equal the number of share-croppers and landless farm workers displaced at Singur following the acquisition of land. The state’s outlay of Rs 850 crore would be for nothing.
Suspend the debate over the ideology of development. Also steer clear of the pastime of apportioning moral responsibility for the deaths and other incidents in Singur and Nandigram. Forget for the moment the dubious economics too. What about one’s sense of aesthetics though? Does it not appear obscene that a state government, carrying a burden of debt of more than Rs 150,000 crore and with a countless number of problems, would offer a freebie of Rs 850 crore to an industrial group which has made an outlay of over Rs 50,000 crore only the other day to satisfy their expansionary ego overseas?
Santa Claus visits the Tatas
- Freebies from a debt-ridden government
Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra
The uproar over Nandigram — and Singur — in West Bengal will not die away soon. Competitive democracy has its own laws; those opposed to the party ruling in the state will try to squeeze the maximum advantage from the discomfiture it has brought upon itself.
Speculation continues on the riddle as to why, despite repeated assurances to the contrary, the state administration fell back on a colonial-type police offensive to re-assert its authority in Nandigram. The underlying reason, informed sources suggest, was a strong message from the Salim group, who were promised vast stretches of land in the area for their chemical hub project; they might move away elsewhere, the message said, if the land was not handed over to them within the next few weeks. That set the panic bell ringing; the sequel has been horrifying.
Nothing illustrates more glaringly the spell globalization has cast on the country, even on those whose ideology and praxis should have prepared them to cope with it in a better manner. Industrialization, the rationale of which few will dispute, is being taken to be synonymous with industrialization under private auspices. To talk of industrial growth in the state sector is assumed to be heresy. Questions such as whether a particular private project will actually lead to a net increase in employment or output are discouraged too. Fables are having a field day: the private sector means efficiency to the nth degree, public enterprise is the other name for sloth, incompetence and wastage. The stunning achievements of the National Thermal Corporation, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Nalco, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, the Gas Authority of India or the Indian Oil Corporation in recent years are conveniently ignored. Also brushed aside is any reference to the huge resources at the command of public sector fiscal agencies such as the Life Insurance Corporation of India and the Unit Trust of India.
As in the other poorer countries, here too fiscal devices are introduced at the behest of US-led international financial institutions to compel ruling politicians to desist from taking new initiatives in the public sector. The Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act is being applied to admonish both the Centre and state governments not to ‘fritter’ resources on public sector extravaganzas. There is, in consequence, a gradual maturing of the belief that industrial activities are a natural monopoly of private entities, foreign as well as domestic.
The Left Front in West Bengal is the product of a historical movement which had as its credo the expansion of public goods and industrial growth through the deus ex machina of the public sector. Those currently in charge of the Front government in the state have apparently convinced themselves that, in the era of globalization, ideological shibboleths are poison, development ipso facto is development sponsored by the private sector, the government has only the residuary obligations to acquire land, on behalf of private tycoons, on which industry is supposed to be set up, and, in addition, provide costly infrastructural facilities the private sector will not build on its own because of their low profitability.
Once development is defined in such constricted terms, maximizing the rate of return for private operators becomes the only criterion by which to judge success. The logic is simple: if private profit expands, capitalists feel good; if capitalists feel good, they will expand their activities and the economy will have growth. The state government does not dare to enquire whether activities undertaken by capitalists will be on the basis of any careful analysis of costs and benefits, or whether in deciding the technology for the investments undertaken, alternative choices will be considered. Fifty years ago, when official faith in economic planning was still extant in the country, any investment proposal would be examined, taking into account the expected rate of income growth, the expected rate of employment growth and the expected rate of surplus or profit. With the eclipse of the planning era, such elementary practices have gone the way of all flesh; the only desideratum regarded as relevant is the expected rate of generation of private profit.
This transformation is illustrated most luridly by the details the state administration in West Bengal has finally been forced to disclose concerning the agreement it has reached with the Tata group apropos the small car project at Singur. The Tatas are, of course, rolling in money. Only a couple of months ago, they invested a sum roughly the equivalent of Rs 50,000 crore to take command of a giant international steel complex. To persuade this fabulously rich group to start a modest-sized car factory here, the state government has already spent something around Rs 150 crore to acquire close to 1,000 acres of land. The least that was expected was that it would recoup this amount from the Tatas. Nothing of the sort. Instead, the Tatas have been handed over this entire tract of land on a ninety-year lease without any down payment at all. For the first five years of the lease, they will pay only one crore rupees; for the next twenty-five years, the payment will increase by 25 per cent at five-year intervals; for the next thirty years payment will be raised at five-year intervals by 33 per cent; for the final twenty years, the rent will be only Rs 20 crore per year.
The discounted present value of what the Tatas have agreed to pay, any respectable accountant will vouchsafe, will hardly exceed Rs 50 crore. Equally necessary to take into account here are the historical trends in the rate of inflation and the likely explosion of real estate values through the decades of the 21st century. The conclusion is incontrovertible: the government is, really and truly, making a free gift to the Tatas of the land in Singur.
That is, however, only a minor part of the story. The state government is, in addition, offering the Tata group a gift coupon in the way of a loan worth Rs 200 crore carrying a nominal interest of only 1 per cent (as against the rate currently charged by the banks of at least 10 per cent); the principal, one suspects, is never intended to be returned. Finally, in terms of the lease agreement, the entire proceeds for the first ten years of the value-added tax on the sale of this precious car in West Bengal are proposed to be handed back to the Tatas, again at a nominal interest of only 1 per cent. If 40,000 cars are sold every year in West Bengal — not an unreconcilable assumption — with a value- added tax at 12.5 cent, this particular act of magnanimity on the part of the state would ensure an extra bonanza of more than Rs 500 core for the Tatas.
All told, therefore, the group is being offered the allure of around Rs 850 crore by the state government, apart from their being spared the bother of acquiring the land through their own efforts. The deal does not though mention what the Tatas are, in exchange, offering West Bengal. There is not even a stray reference to the likely employment, direct or indirect, consequent to the setting up of the plant. Were the employment generated not to exceed 10,000, that would just about equal the number of share-croppers and landless farm workers displaced at Singur following the acquisition of land. The state’s outlay of Rs 850 crore would be for nothing.
Suspend the debate over the ideology of development. Also steer clear of the pastime of apportioning moral responsibility for the deaths and other incidents in Singur and Nandigram. Forget for the moment the dubious economics too. What about one’s sense of aesthetics though? Does it not appear obscene that a state government, carrying a burden of debt of more than Rs 150,000 crore and with a countless number of problems, would offer a freebie of Rs 850 crore to an industrial group which has made an outlay of over Rs 50,000 crore only the other day to satisfy their expansionary ego overseas?
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About Me
- Sandip K. Dasverma
- Arise Awake Stop not till the goal is reached. - Swami Vivekananda Swami ji is my inspiration, not as a monk but as a social reformer and for his universal-ism.