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Showing posts from 2008

Automobile revoluation in India

Telecom revolution in India is a telling anecdote in discussion groups around the world. Telecom tariff in India has touched the lowest in the world offering variety of service providers. Leading handset manufacturing companies like Nokia, Sony, Motorola and leading provider companies like Singtel, Vodafone, Virgin are a few investors in India to be listed here. The outcome is a competent mobile market urged to innovate almost everyday. Success stories are replicated in many other sectors too; one among them is Car industry. I am not discussing the pros and cons of the Singrur controversy but the larger spectrum of the availability of number of car brands on Indian Roads. I remember the days when my aunt (that was one of the first car that was bought in our family), bought a car more than two decades ago, neither me or anyone else in my family could imagine any other car than Ambassador cars owned by Hindustan Motors. Indian car industry was synonymous with Hindustan Motors for more

Green field strips is the key……..

It was one of that fine afternoon I took my flight to Kathmandu way back in 2005. It was my first international flight and I was gleaming with the fact that I was carried by Jet Airways. Two years later, I had another flight to Kathmandu by state carrier Indian Airlines. In between I had many domestic flights and I could sense the differences in the facilities offered by private and public airlines. I was told by many during the second flight that many reimbursement schemes are possible only if they take state carrier. This thought came to my mind when two of our Hon. member of Parliaments delayed the departure of Delhi   - trivandrum flights a couple of days ago. They were complaining about decayed condition of the state carrier. I was surprised by two factors; why don’t they raise these matters in the Parliament and why don’t they prefer a better alternative offered by the private companies? Looking more into the matter, I learnt that one of the MP is from a small town, Allapuzha whi

Ideological battle or schizophrenia??

Kerala has witnessed debates over the realisation for the quest for economic reforms and investment in recent times. Party idealogues differ as usual in most of the cases; some of them are for Special Econmic Zones while other are for incorporation of a separate law for SEZ. there are elements averred to the whole idea too. this is not a new battle ground. The state has witnessed bandhs, hartals and protest marches on the issues ranging from introduction of computers to hanging of Saddam Hussain. i wonder what we have achieved by all these protests over the decades? at the same time, respect is given to any individual to oppose and protestthe government policies. but kerala has become the paradise of the protest marches over the decades. now the issue is with regard to SEZ and converting KSEB to a company. in both the cases, Government has taken interesting positions; while the rest of the country has opposed SEZ by forceful acquiring of the land, the State has approached the union gov

Hartal - a Kerala misnomer

this is a continous debate on Hartals in Kerala Hi all, Issues are numerous in Kerala... I had a new enlightenment after listening to Prasant's experiences in Kerala. I think its worth a thought by all of us.. Here in Kochin we say tht its a metro city or a cosmopoliton city, think about the transportation system..... First, all the bus boards are in malayalam only...How can a person frm outside kerala travel by our buses without anyone's help??? (this might be our method of compulsory teaching of malayalam...!??) Second, there is no share auto system in the city, which makes the travel expensive... Third, food prices....dont talk abt it...its very expensive and we know the reasons.. Garbage disposal..... dont ask..... salim kumar's famous dialogue (Kochi ethee.. Kochi ethee...) is not at all an exaggeration!!! street lights... dont ask... And the crown of it is bus strikes and hartals (® by kerala state)... How is Cochin going to be the investment destination??? God save G

Farmers gain from big retail, no loss to kirana stores: ICRIER

New Delhi (PTI): Amid a debate on whether organised retail kill livelihood of mom and pop store owners, an official study on Monday said there was no real threat to neighbourhood 'kirana' stores from modern retail chains. In fact, farmers as also consumers stand to gain from organised retail in terms of competitive pricing, says the government-sponsored study. There is "no evidence of a decline in overall employment in the unorganised sector as a result of the entry of organised retailers," said the report by think tank ICRIER. However, it admitted that initially, mom-and-pop stores located in the vicinity of big malls have seen drop in sales and profit, but the impact would disappear in the long run. It said farmers benefit significantly from direct sales to organised retailers. "Profit realisation for farmers selling directly to organised retailers is about 60 per cent higher than that received from selling in the mandi." At a time when inflation is

Indian Standards

I have been working on a transport project for some time. During the visits to Government offices, I asked them about the standards prescribed by Government in cases of road construction, pedestrian sidewalks, pedestrian crossway's etc. Everyone gave me the usual answer; it will be available in the other office. when i repeat the same question in the next office, they would also have some other offices to enquire. After three months, i realized that there is no standard available in these offices. Some one referred to Indian Road Congress website. Unfortunately, their website reflects how chaotic our transport system is; we may need to put up signal system there also to search for the paths we need to take to search for the document. Some one suggested Bureau of Indian Standards. When i went to their website, i could not digest the value of existence of such an organization in India. Later, I downloaded many standards from other websites. But there has not been any Indian website i

More defence papers come under RTI ambit-India-The Times of India

In a move that could open the floodgates for Right to Information (RTI) applications in the defence forces, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has allowed approach papers and notings (documents with remarks related to the officer by his superior) to be put before the review selection board, to be disclosed within 10 days. CIC had earlier ordered that proceedings of the department promotion committees (DPCs) could be disclosed. In his recent order, chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah said that since DPCs were not treated as documents exempted under the RTI Act, except those that dealt with annual confidential reports, the documents demanded by the appellant should be disclosed. Lucknow resident Col (retd) Inder Paul had appealed to the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) — the medical wing of the defence forces — for approach papers related to review selection board meetings held on January 14 and August 8, 2003. The appeal was rejected by the first appellate
You can ask for I-T returns of political parties CIC Allows It Under RTI Act New Delhi: In a ruling that will open financial activities of political parties to public scrutiny, the Central Information Commission has said citizens can seek income tax returns of the parties to get details on their funding. he landmark decision, bringing political parties within the ambit of the RTI Act, came on an appeal of an NGO — Association of Democratic Reforms — seeking disclosure of income tax returns and assessment orders pertaining to such organizations. “The laws of the land do not make it mandatory for politi cal parties to disclose sources of their funding and even less so the manner of expending those funds. In the absence of such laws, the only way a citizen can gain access to the details of funding of political parties is through I-T returns filed annually with I-T authorities,” information commissioner A N Tiwari said. CIC said since political parties influence the exercise of political p

Urbanisation in India faster than rest of the world

The urbanisation of India is taking place at a faster rate than in the rest of the world. By 2030, 40.76 per cent of India’s population will be living in urban areas compared to about 28.4 per cent now. So says the United Nations’ ‘State of the World Population 2007’ report, which was released on Tuesday. But at the same time, the report adds, metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Kolkata have a far greater number of people moving out than coming in. It also says that a few cities will be the size doomsayers had predicted in the 1970s. Mega cities are still dominant but they have not grown to the size once projected and have consistently declined in most world regions, the report says. Releasing the report in India, Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy said urbanisation was a sign of liberalisation but the condition of slum-dwellers was even worse than that of the poor in villages. According to the report, over 90 per cent of slum-dwellers live in developing countries with China an

BRT is good

Transmilenio. That is the name of a success story told daily by 1.4 million people in Colombia's capital Bogota. These people are the commuters of the bus rapid transit (BRT) system there, which has 850 buses covering 85 km. It has reduced the travel time by 32 per cent, accidents by 90 per cent and gas emissions by 40 per cent. India's first ever tryst with what has been found so effective in Latin American countries, some American countries and even Bangladesh and Pakistan, has turned out to be a nightmare for some on Delhi roads. The main victims have been the private vehicle users, including school buses. The errors in planning are now being blamed on the BRT system itself, which segregates road space for buses to enable quick transport for all vehicles. If the city planners decide to fold up the initiative, alarmed by media headlines and the traffic mess, then it would be like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The system could have been started when schools were c

A road well-travelled

The Delhi Government is hunting desperately for a fig leaf after the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) fiasco. The Centre has washed its hand of, while the Chief Minister is trying hard to fix responsibility for a system that has left the capital city with massive traffic jams just in its trial run over a 5.2-km stretch, which cost more than Rs 200 crore. Six more corridors are on their way. The idea was borrowed from Bogota, Colombia, which has implemented a BRT network spanning 84 km, carrying 1.2 million passengers per day, and serving approximately 20 per cent of the city's total transit demand. However, traffic congestion is a problem not unique to the developing world, with congested cities. With more and more cars being added on to the roads, the world over experts are looking at solutions to manage traffic, and the answers are rarely simple: BEIJING: With the city’s vehicle fleet expected to reach 3.3 million by August, in time for the Beijing Olympics, persistent air pollution is

Raindrop Tears

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Problem Of Plenty Standing paddy across 10,000 hectares have been destroyed by unseasonal rains. No labour was in supply to harvest the crop in time. Mechanical harvesters couldn't be used since the CPI(M)'s union refused to give timely permission It requires union consent for Kerala farmers to bring in labour from outside or use machines Five farmer suicides in the last fortnight. Drastic fall in the acreage under paddy cultivation of late. Annual rice requirement: 40 lakh tonnes. Production: 6.41 lakh tonnes. *** S ummer has never been so harsh on the hard-toiling farmers of Kuttanad, the rice bowl of Kerala. The profit from farming at best totals Rs 13,000 per acre. Labour accounts for two-third the expense. Acre upon acre of unharvested, standing crop meets the eye as you traverse this 500 sq km, low-lying paddy belt in the coastal Alappuzha district. Unlike the usual story of the debt-stressed farmer taking his life, in Kuttanad much of the tragedy owes to the fact tha

Not much of a guarantee

This is an important month for India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The Act came into force in 2006 in 200 districts. This month it is being extended to over 600 hundred districts — virtually the whole country. The Act decrees that each rural household has the right to 100 days of employment each year. So the government is required to run rural work programmes where the poor can work. Unlike previous employment-guarantee schemes (with the exception of Maharashtra’s EGS in 1973), the NREGA makes employment a right of the worker. A worker can move the courts if no employment is provided, and is, in such an event, entitled to unemployment allowance. I have been reading several evaluations of NREGA and have visited some sites where it is being implemented. It is a well-intentioned programme that involves many dedicated people. But there can be no denying that NREGA has been an overall disappointment. The money spent on it in 2007-08 was Rs 10,133 crores, and, according

Central info chief clueless on RTI pleas-India-The Times of India

Like charity, transparency begins at home. India's topmost body, created to enforce your right to know, just learnt this the hard way. The Central Information Commission has been caught on the wrong foot after an RTI activist exposed how the commission — known for ticking off public authorities which fail to maintain records, leading to lack of transparency — is itself unable to furnish to the public information as basic as the number and status of cases and appeals pending with it. The reason: it maintains no such record. Faced with proof that a citizen cannot know the status and pendency of cases in the commission, a stunned chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah has ordered inhouse upgrade of records. Habibullah's orders to remedy the "grevious defect" came recently after his public information officer admitted the commission kept no record of judgements and orders passed or pending on cases heard. "The CIC’s registry will take immediate ste

Hindustan Times

Industry body Assocham said on Monday that over $13 billion is spent every year by about 450,000 Indian students on higher education abroad. Over 90 per cent of students appearing for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) entrance examinations are rejected due to capacity constraints, of which the top 40 per cent pay to get admission abroad." "Over 150,000 students every year go overseas for university education, which costs India a foreign exchange outflow of 10 billion dollars. This amount is sufficient to build more IIMs and IITs," it said. The primary reason for a large number of Indian students seeking professional education abroad is lack of capacity in Indian institutions. The trend can be reversed by opening series of quality institutes with public-private partnership by completely deregulating higher education, Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot said in a statement. Higher education in India is subsidised as an II

Private sector can help overcome doctor shortage: Report-India-The Times of India

According to a Planning Commission report, while India is short of six lakh doctors , 10 lakh nurses and two lakh dental surgeons, Indian doctors who have migrated to developed countries form nearly 5% of their medical workforce. "The group is of the view that the only way to accomplish this (bridging the gap in doctors) is for the medical education sector to be opened up completely for private sector participation. Other entry barriers such as the requirement of land and built-up space need also to be lowered to realistic levels in order to facilitate the opening of new colleges. Government's role should be limited to opening a few high quality institutions dedicated to research," the report said. The report also drew attention to the very low turnout of personnel with post-graduate degrees. To combat these shortages, the 11th five-year plan envisages setting up of six AIIMS-like institutions and upgrading 13 existing medical institutes. It is planned that 60 new

IPRI - International Property Rights Index

Category Score World Rank Regional Rank Overall 6.2 36 of 115 8 of 18 Legal and Political Environment 5.9 40 of 115 7 of 18 Judicial Independence 8.2 13 of 115 3 of 18 Confidence in Courts 7.5 10 of 115 3 of 18 Corruption 3.3 59 of 115 10 of 18 Political Stability 3.3 92 of 115 11 of 18 Physical Property Rights 7.4 20 of 115 6 of 18 Property Rights Protection 7.8 25 of 115 7 of 18 Registering Property 8.2 59 of 115 14 of 18 Ease of Loan Access 4.6 21 of 115 6

A K Bhattacharya: Fewer holidays pose a bigger challenge

A central government employee is entitled to 30 days of earned leave every year. For the civilian staff, there are eight more days of casual leave and 20 days of half-pay leave, which can be commuted to medical leave. In addition, there are two restricted holidays and 17 “gazetted” holidays including the three national holidays. If you add to this 52 Saturdays and 52 Sundays every year, when government offices are closed, the total number of holidays a central government employee can enjoy is 171days. That is close to half the number of days in a year. This context has to be kept in mind before judging what may well turn out to be the Sixth Pay Commission’s most controversial recommendation. To be sure, the Pay Commission does not favour a reduction in the number of earned or casual leave to which an employee is entitled. Nor does it propose switching back to the six-day week system, in vogue before Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister introduced five-day weeks in the late 1980s. There is no

How we fight Corruption

When a politician or civil servant takes a bribe we call it corruption. Corruption is also when the political elite steal from the state. It means the state can’t train nurses or teachers. Nor can it pay judges properly, so the corrupt get away with it. When corrupt doctors steal medicines from state hospitals and sell them privately, poor people are paying for treatment that should be free. If they can’t afford it, they do without. Goods, people and money move around the world more than ever before. But too often public money finds its way into private bank accounts. Britain has pledged to: Make sure that aid is used for the purposes it is meant for; Help developing countries fight corruption; Promote responsible business; and Close the international loopholes that allow people to launder stolen money. On top of that, the UK Government has set up special police units to investigate foreign bribery and money laundering. Corruption is wrong and it hits the poor hardest. Find out more ab

Roads will lead to rural prosperity-Swaminomics-Swaminathan A Aiyar-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India

Roads will lead to rural prosperity-Swaminomics-Swaminathan A Aiyar-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India What is the best way of reducing poverty? The UPA government has highlighted its rural employment guarantee scheme (NERGA). It has allotted huge sums to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all) and irrigation. It has increased spending on rural electrification and health. And it ordains subsidies worth tens of thousands of crores for fertilisers, electricity and rural credit. But are these the best ways to reduce poverty and stimulate growth in rural areas? I have long argued that rural areas need, above all, connectivity. The cities have been connected to the global economy and have taken off. Do the same for rural areas, and they will take off too. Today, alas, many villages are not even connected by road or telecom to the closest town, let alone the world. Roads are not, of course, the only things that matter - other rural projects and policies matter a great deal too. But conn

FOOD SECURITY: THE WAY AHEAD

Manu Sankar. Researcher, Delhi India is a land of small farmers. 650 million of her 1.2 billion people are living on the land and 80 percent farmers are owning less than two hectares of land. In other words the land provides livelihood security for 65 percent of the people and the small farmers of the country provide food security for over one billion of the population. Policies driven by corporate globalisation are pushing farmers off the land and peasants out of agriculture. This is not a natural evolutionary process. It is a violent and imposed process. More than 1,50,000 farmers have committed suicide in India due to distortions introduced in agriculture as a result of trade liberalization. The killing of peasants in Kalinga nagar and Nandigram who were resisting land acquisition is another aspect of the violence involved in the forced uprooting of India’s farmers. It is also depressing to know that the Government is also least interested to improve the lot of the farmers and the a

To help farmers, don?t kill the moneylender - livemint

To help farmers, don?t kill the moneylender - livemint If farmers don’t have to repay their loans, why do I have to pay mine?” That’s the question Maheswar Jena of the village of Ankula in Orissa has been asking himself ever since finance minister P. Chidambaram announced a Rs60,000 crore debt waiver for farmers. Jena, 38, had borrowed Rs95,000 for five years from State Bank of India to set up a shop. That was about two years ago. Since then, the business has failed. And now Jena wants the heavily subsidized loan — it carried an annual interest rate of 2.6% — to be forgiven. The debt write-off, the centrepiece of the Union Budget, is threatening to balloon into a subprime crisis of sorts, complete with “moral hazard” and fiscal recklessness. In less than 48 hours after the amnesty was announced, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, had issued a full-page newspaper advertisement. In the ad, Mayawati, who uses only one name, expressed her displeasure that the

Harthal for wholesale marketing

Kerala has witnessed one Harthal and a few local protests in this month itself. Sometimes it is felt that the state known for its welfare policies is very much in tune with the holidays packages to the employees of public sector enterprsies by accomdating hartal calls. The Popular wiki article shows the word Harthal has a Gujrati origin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartal ). The economics of the Harthal is not only the accumlataed loss of money on that day but has also given the birth to interesting websites like http://www.indiamarch.com/Content-25/HARTHAL-SCHEDULE.html . Economic survey at the national level reflects on the number of lock outs and the number of man days lost in last year in India as a result of strikes and Lock outs( http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=beco&bKeyFlag=BO&autono=315332 ). Some other studies show that there are 80 Shutdowns in 18 in last four months ( http://mutiny.in/2008/02/20/80-shutdowns-in-18-months/ ). If some

Who is Socialist ???

Commorade Jyoti Basu was reported widely for his comments on Socialism in last couple of days. It was on the same day Ratan Tata unveiled Nano, the one lakh car to global market. I was wondering who is the socialist. it is not because of the reason that Nano is assembled in Communist hinterland of West Bengal but this may lead to more equality among the lower middle class population in terms of the car ownership. if the socialism preaches on the equality, justice and common good, Nano features such a platform for the world populace. I doubt who is the socialist in this scenario. Yes, Jyoti Basu is right in his contention