Inflation: Revised

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Ever wonder how contemptuous the term "Hindu rate of growth" is? In this day and age of political correctness, it sounds so anachronistic. Ironically Hindus had little to do with it, except to be at the receiving end. Anyway, we digress.

Just how bad is inflation at the moment? Well, it is any body's guess. The office of the economic adviser publishes WPI numbers with a 2 - 3 week lag. Even this figure may get revised after a month or so. The March numbers have just been revised (light saffron band in the image above) upwards. Usually the revision stays within 0.2 - 0.3%, this time around it was almost in the ballpark of a full two percentage points.

One indicator of how bad the inflation is comes straight from the FM himself:

I’ve said this many times in the past. In the 70s and 80s average inflation was well over 8 percent, in the 50s and 60s it was even higher but since the 90s the tolerance level of inflation has come down drastically. Since the turn of this century, I think tolerance level of inflation is only between 4 to 5 percent. Therefore when the headline inflation number goes beyond 5 percent there is resentment and naturally political parties seize the opportunity to feed this resentment. We are doing everything to control the situation, but I don’t think it will have too adverse an impact on our government [link]

The FM might want to ponder what happened at the turn of this century that suddenly the tolerance level for inflation went down? In any case, we haven't heard this type of indictment of a previous Congress regime from the establishment before, especially of the Nehruvian golden age. The FM is of course lying (also known as speaking for social justice) about tolerance level coming down only recently. Just ask the dollar-a-day crowd.

The FM has also tried to suggest that India's inflation remains lower than other developing countries. Aside from the fact that India uses WPI, we still haven't seen the revised estimates for the current numbers yet. We already breached 8% in March.

The following chart makes it easy to visualize the trend:

Can you see the nasty red line snaking upwards?

Essentially the FM is betting that high growth rates will sustain and the resultant high revenues can be group targeted (via schemes such as NREGS, loan waiver etc.) towards the most needy. This is a dangerous game. First of all, India's growth can cool pretty quickly in the coming year following a US recession. Secondly our national debt is about 75% of GDP, while the true fiscal deficit climbs towards double digits as well:


As this image shows, India's true budget deficit is about 7%. This doesn't factor in the recent largesses. A high deficit and high debt-GDP ratio can lead to a ratings downgrade for India. This may in turn reduce FDI.

So, are we heading towards another BOP crisis? Probably not, fortunately we are sitting on a cushion of large foreign exchange reserves. In terms of opportunities lost, the cost is incalculable, just remember the days of "Hindu rate of growth".

Karnataka Election Coverage

Happened to catch some of CNN-IBN coverage of the Karnataka elections. Here is a rundown.

Silly Board Game: The election coverage was as high-tech as it gets, complete with live updates, split screens, well coordinated multi-location video input, digital touch screens etc.

They put a strange device on the studio floor, a map of Karnataka with different colored cubes on it that could be moved. This device proved to be too cumbersome and especially when BJP started gaining momentum, the artifact was left untouched for the duration of the program.



Cartoon TV: They used a feature in which a politician would be shown in an inset mock TV screen surrounded by a cartoon audience. Only BJP politicians seemed to get this treatment and even when making completely neutral statements. We can't seem to figure out why Yediyurappa would be shown on the cartoon TV when he was merely thanking K'taka people.







Intellectuals: CNN-IBN invited a curious creature called Gauri Lankesh as a special guest. She was so upset that she was at a loss for words most of the time, at one point of time recalling the word "fascist" with great difficulty and then losing the chain of her thoughts completely. She called it a black day for Karnataka and that she believed Yediyurappa will be extremely bad for the state. Future tense. She also claimed Gujarat had higher rates of farmer suicides than Karnataka.


At one point of time intellectual Ramachandra Guha rued that BJP hadn't fielded any Muslim candidate although the state had 20% Muslims. He was duly reminded that K'taka has about 12% Muslims. Do watch the video, it is instructive.

Exit Poll: Various theories were put forward by the CNN-IBN team about why the exit polls went wrong. Apparently the polling errors and vote-percentage to seat translation errors cancel each other out. Only this time they went the same way. This does not explain why the other three polls did so much better, one of them being practically bang on the mark.







Yogendra Yadav blamed Dalits for the errors in exit poll. This brings up an important question. Despite dogged campaign by the media and incessant carpet bombing by intellectuals, Dalits are voting for the BJP in large numbers. Also, Mayawati's magic doesn't appear to work outside of a few states.








Whatever it takes: CNN-IBN blog-gal Divisha Gupta was making pulse checks on the blogosphere. Only secular blogs were quoted. The only reference to BJP blogs was a general statement, saffron blogs are euphoric.

Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose had dropped all pretense of neutrality long ago. This time they went much further, directly identifying themselves as part of the family in questions such as "how could we have done better", fielded to Congress leaders.

Towards the end, Vidisha Divisha and her team chimed the team slogan: whatever it takes (to defeat the communal forces).


Concedes defeat: In every election Congress loses, CNN-IBN puts up this silly frame. As if it imparts some sort of magnanimity on the party. Everyone who has observed the countdown knows that Jayanti Natarajan and Manu Singhvi were in no mood to concede defeat, even after BJP was leading in 100+ seats. We all know what would happen if Congress-JD(S) combine exceeded the BJP tally. As a matter of fact Singhvi went on record by saying the largest single combine should form the Government. He should remember that for the next general elections when UNPA runs him over with their train wreck coalition.


It was a narrow win for the BJP and we anticipate constant trouble for the party. It is the curious statistics that only six seats went to rebels and miscellaneous parties and BJP needs at least three. You can imagine the horse trading that will ensue in the days to come.


CNN-IBN supremo wore saffron to the studio a day after the election results.

Why Democracy?

Trailer and details available here.

New word

Syncretic.

Replaces secularism.

.

Looks like you are shy three horses.

The last supper

George Orwell on pacifism

Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

I am not interested in pacifism as a ‘moral phenomenon’. If Mr Savage and others imagine that one can somehow ‘overcome’ the German army by lying on one’s back, let them go on imagining it, but let them also wonder occasionally whether this is not an illusion due to security, too much money and a simple ignorance of the way in which things actually happen. As an ex-Indian civil servant, it always makes me shout with laughter to hear, for instance, Gandhi named as an example of the success of non-violence. As long as twenty years ago it was cynically admitted in Anglo-Indian circles that Gandhi was very useful to the British government. So he will be to the Japanese if they get there. Despotic governments can stand ‘moral force’ till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force. But though not much interested in the ‘theory’ of pacifism, I am interested in the psychological processes by which pacifists who have started out with an alleged horror of violence end up with a marked tendency to be fascinated by the success and power of Nazism. Even pacifists who wouldn’t own to any such fascination are beginning to claim that a Nazi victory is desirable in itself. [link]

Interesting editorial

BOMB blast in Jaipur. Round up the usual suspects. Calling Abdul, Rahman, Rahim, Karim, Salim. All you "illegal" Bangladeshi immigrants within our borders. Report to the newest detention centers. It's not who you say you are, it's what we say you are. Bangladesh has emerged as the all-purpose "Nondo Ghosh" (joto dosh) for Indian intelligence agencies. Attack on train station? Defused bombs? Bicycle bombs? Bag bombs? It must be the ultra-efficient, tentacle-spreading spectre of "terrorist organisations based in Bangladesh." [...]

I remember the old days of Indian media hysteria about "Pakistani" militants. Bullet riddled bodies (the dead don't talk) and Pakistani passports (always in their pockets!). But Pakistan has become more complex, with its role in the US axis of the willing. Plus, the public wants new, fresh faces. Some time in the last few years, it has become easier and acceptable to bring out the Bangladeshi "militant cell" bogey. That there is Islamist politics inside Bangladesh is not in question. [...]

Of course, there are many Bangladeshi immigrants inside India. There will always be. The real question about Jaipur is -- who are these people in the "Bangali Para" -- what were they doing all this time? Working for middle class Indian families, of course. Everyone in India knows exactly why these people are there -- to work. As household help, cleaners, sweepers, cooks, maids, taxi drivers, tailors, weavers, jewellery makers, construction workers. Keeping Shining Indian rolling along. Yesterday, they were your convenient and easy source of cheap labour. Why are they a problem today? As India develops as a hyper-growth Asian tiger, with Bangladesh next door, immigration is inevitable. Until we become a medium growth country, we will be as a "Mexico" to India's "United States." Bangladeshis, hungry for work, willing to work, with families to feed, will cross the borders. [link]

Can you trust Dr. Margaret Chan?

The vaccine scam is getting hotter by the day, with the Left joining the fray. More facts are coming to light and some of these are very disturbing.

Meanwhile Dr. Ramadoss is as usual frothing at the mouth. His latest claim is that the Tobacco and Alcohol lobby is targeting him. Last time he got cornered, he alleged casteism.




The facts of the case are simple but it could just be that India is about to give away its competitive advantage in yet another field.

So, to recap:

1. Dr. Ramadoss, the maverick health minister, does not make a peep from 2004-07 about vaccine production.
2. In 2008, three renowned Chennai based vaccine producing PSUs were suddenly shut down.
3. Dr. Ramadoss suddenly becomes concerned about vaccine quality, citing reports by the WHO.
4. It appears that the three PSUs were supplying vaccine to hundreds of millions of Indian kids with very little problem. The employees and administration cries foul.
5. A buddy of Dr. Ramadoss launches a private facility, ostensibly to replace the PSU capacity.
6. Buddyboy also gets a loan of Rs. 15 crores, facilitated, get this, by another PSU!
7. Now left parties join the fray, claims that there might be vaccine shortage.
8. Dr. Ramadoss now claims he had no intention of shutting down the PSUs. He is even quoting the prices of the private facility! Just like the WB ministers were providing daily updates to Nano production schedule. Talk about public-private partnership.
9. It also comes to light that India produces 80% of the vaccines for developing countries, generating a revenue of $15B.
10. Dr. Ramadoss unveils a hitherto unknown and unheard of plan for a 400 acre vaccine park!
    

Even a paanchvi-paas could tell you that the above sequence does not sound normal.

Needless to say, socialists are not even making a peep on an issue that could potentially endanger the lives of hundreds of millions of infants ("there is no alternative", "the communals must not come to power", "do not politicize vaccine production").

We have however a different take on the whole issue. The WHO has been inspecting and giving warnings on these PSUs for several years now. Pushed into a corner, Dr. Ramadoss is now citing the WHO director Dr. Margaret Chan's concerns about vaccine quality.

Now, we looked up Dr. Margaret Chan's bio:

Dr Margaret Chan, from the People's Republic of China, obtained her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She joined the Hong Kong Department of Health in 1978, where her career in public health began.

This should send alarm bells ringing. Dr. Ramadoss should defend his country's facilities, instead of playing monkey tricks and making spurious allegations. If we have been supplying 80% of developing world's vaccines, the WHO has no business to shut us down.

Just where is inflation headed?

(Click image for a larger version)

The correct answer is North! Just kidding. You don't want that to happen, do you? Rising food prices means millions of people earning less than $2 a day are giving up health care and education. Those living on less than $1 a day are giving up meat and vegetables, and those living on less than 50 cents are facing increasingly desperate hunger. How many such people might be there in India? Ask your socialist friends.

The chart above can be used to see the current trend. The last column is the familiar WPI growth figure. The weekly annualized columns for 2007 and 2008 show the growth of the WPI index week over week, annualized. If you see the averages for the weekly annualized growth in the last row, it clearly shows this year the WPI number is growing much faster than last year. In other words, even if prices suddenly become flat, inflation as reported will not come down by much. For instance, consider the row highlighted in green. This is what the Minister of State for Industry believes will be the inflation figures in a few weeks from now. As you can see, it is going to be pretty tough to get down to that number.

Also see the random jumps in the weekly annualized numbers - this shows a Government intervention. For instance, right now the FM is browbeating the steel and cement companies into reducing prices. Together, these two sectors contribute about 12% to the inflation index. A good time to build that home? Maybe.


A significant portion of the price rise must be due to increases in oil prices, although that does not fully explain the massive increase in food prices. The socialists can thank their Saudi friends and Venezuelan ally for this. The Saudis have refused to increase production. The 21st Century socialist Hugo Chavez can be counted on to create chaos later this year. Both these parties want to influence the US elections, towards the end of this year.


If the price levels seem bad today, wait till all the election promises kick in. The Government has found a nice way to bypass the FRBM act. The official deficit runs at around 3%, but many items such as fuel and electricity subsidies are kept off budget. The farmer loan waiver and NREG also belong to this category. Then you read items such as this almost every other day. It is the same old story, they give Rs. 2 a kg rice to a set of people, the other set starves. Who decides which set of people get to starve?

Pretty soon the Rs. 2 a kg rice and free color TV options will hit their limiting factors. The only thing left is distributing bags full of money. So far this has not been done since direct cash bribing may be marginally illegal. But given the recent supreme court verdicts and their underlying implications, it will just take a daring politician and a creative twist.

Karataka Election Watch: Phase II

As we had suspected, CNN-IBN did not run the candidate profile for the second phase of the elections. On the face of it, this seems non-intuitive:

A survey conducted by the Karnataka Election Watch, a non-governmental organisation, states that the Bharatiya Janata Party has the highest number of candidates with a criminal background. The BJP tops the list with 13 while the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular come second and third with 9 and 8 candidates respectively.

However, as we dig deeper, the reason becomes clearer:

The total assets declared by all candidates considered by KEW for phase 2 of the elections was Rs.902 crore, with average candidates assets of Rs.2.42 crore. The Congress led the parties with total declared candidate assets of Rs.470 crore and average candidate assets of Rs.7.35 crore. The BJP had total assets of Rs.249.8 crore and average of Rs.3.78 crore, JD-S Rs.77.9 crore and Rs.1.28 crore, and BSP Rs.40.6 crores and Rs.0.64 crore.

CNN-IBN was trying to prove that BJP has the maximum involvement with the mining mafia in central Karnataka, primarily by running an extremely biased item which only named a BJP politician. These stats would run counter to that story.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) is a very good initiative if you want to decriminalize and cleanse Indian politics. For obvious reasons this is not getting as much press or secular attention. Contrast this with the attention the various "Human Rights" groups get.

To hear the Election Watch guys, check out this YouTube video. See if you can recognize one of the most celebrated intellectuals on that video. You can also hear in the background someone's mobile phone going off, the ring tone being Mozart's Turkish Rondo.

Jaipur blasts: various fallouts

Apparently the main problem with the blasts is that BJP might exploit it as an election issue. CNN-IBN is trying to pass it off as a local governance issue, putting the blame squarely on Vasundhara Raje. Gosh, does this woman get mocked by media or what? And they claim they want a better playing field for women!

Recall the Gurjar agitation, when Sagarika Ghose of CNN-IBN sarcastically called out "Maharani Jago!", alluding to the fact that the CM was on a tour when the agitation turned violent. Interestingly Raje was not on a pleasure trip a la Pratibha Patil. She was actually on an official tour to solicit FDI. This time around Raje was lucky, she was close to the spot. Meanwhile can someone explain the trip by Sonia Gandhi to the region? Has she been to Nandigram?

Meanwhile the national security adviser's strong criticism of central intelligence agencies has put a dampener on secular media's efforts to pin the blame on state level agencies. They seem to have struck a compromise on "a problem of coordination" between central and state level agencies.

It turns out that the needle of suspicion is alternately pointing to HuJI and SIMI. Both these cases are tragic.

HuJI is Bangladesh based and as we pointed out earlier, this is a sad reminder that kinship trumps gratitude. New facts are now coming to light that shows that certain Bangladeshi elements were very much hand in glove with Pakistani rulers at the time. Till date no serious initiative has been taken to prevent the totally unchecked infiltration. Just make a trip to the North-Eastern states. Surely this builds up discontent among local residents? We are not exactly a resource rich country.

The case of SIMI is even more tragic and once again proves that the meaning of nationality has been perverted by "liberal democracies" to such an extent that we are perhaps trying to drag along a mere carcass of what was once the "idea of the nation". Founded by students (by no means poor or deprived) influenced by Wahabi ideology (the Saudi variant), SIMI leaders were a recalcitrant militant bunch from the get go. They created various mischief over the years but hid behind political leaders who didn't hesitate to nurture this poison pill for small electoral gains. It took a while before they were even declared a terrorist organization. Samajwadi Party chief and Congress bed partner for the next elections , Mulayam Singh Yadav gave a clean chit to SIMI earlier, in 2006.

Sadly, this tragic incident has completely removed the focus from issues like inflation, the Baalu scandal and the Ramadoss vaccine scandal. Not that we are suggesting that there is any connection.

Are you terrified?

India's terror anniversary calendar now covers every month of the year, except it seems, the month of June.

The stories are the same. N blasts, at least X dead, at least Y injured. Foreign hand suspected, etc.

What happens to the ones that don't make the official count? Are they rounding error?

Virus

We are deeply saddened by the recent catastrophe in Burma. To add to the misery of the helpless Burmese people, the Burmese military rulers are doing their best to sabotage international aid operations. From the looks of it, this thing is not going to pan out well. Expect deadly spillovers.


Anyway.



You must have noticed that TOI has started a Chennai edition. For the past few days, we noticed a few of similar stories [google search] out of Chennai and elsewhere:

MUMBAI: Even as health officials investigate the death of two children after they were administered Hepatitis B and DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccines, TOI has learnt of one more incident in which a two-month-old died this week, this time after taking the BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guerin) vaccine given to prevent childhood tuberculosis.

DHARMAPURI: Amid rising concern over baby vaccines, a 3-month-old baby boy died at Kambainallur village here this morning, 10 days after he was given the triple antigen or DTP and Hepatitis B shots. [..] vaccine from the Kambainallur PHC for analysis to rule out contamination.

Dharmapuri district Collector, Amudha, told The Times of India that 70 children were given the vaccine from the batch of five. And none of the other children developed any complications.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India has recalled over four million doses of a measles vaccine supplied by a south Indian drug manufacturer after four children died following inoculation with the drug, reports said Friday. "All state governments have been instructed to stop use of the measles vaccine manufactured by the Indian Immunological Limited until further orders," Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Further supplies from the manufacturer have also been halted, he said.

An Indian minister expressed concern that the development could jeopardise India's larger immunisation efforts, sometimes beset by rumours about the safety of the injections. In the past, India's attempts to eradicate polio have been delayed after some Islamic clerics spread rumours the vaccines would harm Muslim children.

HYDERABAD: A four-month-old boy K. Aravind died allegedly within hours of administration of vaccine at a Government medical camp at Sanathangar on Saturday.The Sanathnagar police registered a case of suspicious death under section 174 of Criminal Procedure Code following a complaint from the victim’s parents.

These looked pretty odd. First of all, there is no easy stats available on how many babies were administered the vaccine vs. how many died, if there is an increasing trend, if the deaths were unambiguously attributable to the vaccine itself or were the babies suffering from other conditions. But the key thing is that the media is very strongly suggesting that the vaccines are to be blamed. The Health Minister himself is making statements fanning the fire of suspicion.

The death of even one baby would be tragic but this is a particularly sensitive case. If rumors spread before there is credible evidence, it will create havoc for the future health of millions of babies. It took decades of efforts to get Indian mothers to get their babies vaccinated, especially the poorest section. It will only take a few irresponsible and malicious rumor to destroy this trust.

We didn't think any more of the matter then, except to reflect that Dr. Ramadoss had earlier blamed UP and Bihar folks for spreading Polio in Maharshtra. He didn't have the scrotum to say which group of people from UP and Bihar though.

The mystery gradually unfolded as we read the following article:

A Chennai-based private company, owned by a close associate of Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, was granted a Rs 14-crore bank loan for starting production of vaccines just two weeks before the Health Ministry banned vaccine production by three Central public sector undertakings (PSUs).

Ramadoss ordered the closure of vaccine production by three PSUs citing a June 2007 WHO report, which claimed that these units were using redundant technology. BCG Vaccine Lab (Chennai), Pasteur Institute (Coonoor) and Central Research Institute of Kasauli were asked to close down production on January 22. Incidentally, the private company -- Green Signal Bio Pharma -- received Rs 14 crore as loan from Union Bank of India, Chennai, for starting production of vaccines on December 27, 2007.

As bank guarantee, the private company hypothecated its vials and other products, for which it had entered into a supply contract with BCG Vaccine Lab, Chennai, a PSU under Health Ministry. This shows that the PSU facilitated procurement of the loan for a private competitor.

It is well known in Tamil Nadu's political circles that Ramadoss and the Green Signal Bio Pharma owners are close. The company's chairman and managing director, P Sundaraparipooranan, is a politician-turned-businessman. The company was registered in November 2005 but it decided to get into vaccine production only in December 2007, when Ramadoss banned the three Central PSUs. [link]

This has been going on for a while. As it happens, in India, a lot of vaccine is produced by PSU units. The units have been under constant scanner from the WHO, which claims they do not meet standards. Now, we are no big fans of public sector units, but up until now there were no issues with the product. As a matter of fact, the units failed only in the documentation part of the standards, while doing a pretty good job in process and production. After all, the products were administered to hundreds of millions of babies, perhaps many of the readers of this blog too.

Dr. Ramadoss, who didn't make a peep from 2004-07 suddenly shows great concern for vaccine quality in '08. Well, he was too busy trying to oust Dr. Venugopal. Almost simultaneously, the secular media starts singing the vaccine death chorus. Meanwhile Ramadoss' cronies get lucrative contracts, health ministry initiated bank loans etc. PSUs, which have been producing vaccine for Indian babies for decades are shut down all of a sudden.

The funny thing is, India still imports a lot of vaccine from China and as you know, China does not believe in inspection by the WHO.

Kannadigas: Good or bad?

You could be a Kannadiga yourself but the odds are somewhat low. Surely you know some Kannadigas? Perhaps your boss is a Kannadiga. Maybe you have friends or neighbors from the state.

In any case, the question that must be burning in your mind is, are Kannadigas good or bad? For instance, Gujaratis are bad. Plenty bad. After the last assembly elections the Gujaratis proved how insensitive they are, all they care about is "Dharma and Dhandho", as Shankarshan Thakur of Tehelka informed us. Many editorials expressed dismay about the moral decay of Gujaratis. Likewise, we came to know from an ecstatic Sagarika Ghose, Goans are very good. But, how about Kannadigas?

Unfortunately you have to wait a few days yet to know the answer. Going by some of the scenarios being charted out by pollsters, the time may never come and we may end up with a hung assembly. In the somewhat likely scenario of a Cong-JD(S) alliance, plenty of editorials will inform you how good Kannadigas are. CNN-IBN will carry specials on Kannada cuisine, the serene beauty of Bangalore etc.

In the somewhat unlikely scenario of BJP coming to power (the once bitten twice shy party has vowed not to form an alliance this time), prepare for an avalanche of editorials informing you that Kannadigas can no longer be trusted. Sagarika Ghose will write blogs. A.G. Noorani will do a psychoanalysis in the historical context and prove that the concrete jungle is creating havoc in the minds of an otherwise peaceful people. Arundhati Roy will hatch conspiracy theories and offer how the mindless urbanization is displacing people and creating trouble, because after all, everything is a problem of "displacement", including throwing Taslima Nasreen out of the country.

In any case, the first phase is over. CNN-IBN has not published an exit poll survey yet, while almost all major newspapers have predicted a lead by BJP. We are also breathlessly waiting for CNN-IBN to do a report on the criminal past of candidates for the second phase of the poll. We do not have too much hope though, because as you know, it could be a generic problem. They just ran a generic story (since the richest candidate turned out to be secular) about too much money flowing in the elections and managed to bring up Bangaru Laxman in that context!

The Global Food Crisis

A quick search on google on "the global food crisis" yields a surprising number of special features by leading newspapers. The feature on The Washington Post was very comprehensive. Check out this interactive on the presumed causes and effects.

Meanwhile, while the Indian media has run stories on inflation (more on it on the ext post), they have not run alarmist stories on the impending crisis. As they say, this is the silly season of political news coverage as far as India goes. In 2004, all stars were strangely aligned. Both India and US had general elections. Secular media in both countries wanted the incumbent out. It created a unique synergy, a never before seen blitzkrieg of coverage which spelled doom for the world and great misery for the hapless public.

Most unfortunately, this time around the US and Indian elections are out of sync. So while the US (and global) media is showing scary statistics, the Indian media's response has been muted. Hence no special shows on global food crisis.

CNN-IBN ran a few pretty weird shows on inflation. One of them exhorted the rich people in India to consume less so the grain prices come down. Most surprisingly the montage of Indian companies shown at the beginning of the program had the Infosys headquarters as the very first image, with a stern voice over indicting rich people in India for consuming too much. Narayana Murthy is not the richest man in India by miles, but for obvious reasons draws the most flak. Perhaps if his family consumes less sambar, prices of pulses will come down.

The BIFR route to prosperity

India's corporate bankruptcy laws are fairly strange - basically companies are not allowed to die and in the rare cases when they eventually close down, they are denied a decent burial. The agency that deals with corporate bankruptcies is the BIFR. The philosophy behind corporate bankruptcy laws differ from country to country. In the US for instance, very few companies actually liquidate. Most undergo restructuring, trying to recover as much of the senior debt as possible. In the UK, most cases end in liquidation and fire sale.

In India, the companies must continue to exist even at a great economic cost, but not a single employee must be fired. That forms the basis of BIFR actions. The combination of a mostly state controlled banking system and labor laws, BIFR etc. makes for a most potent playground for crony capitalists.

Consider the recent scandal involving shipping and transportation minister T. R Baalu. While people endlessly debated the involvement of the PMO, it was conveniently forgotten that Baalu's two companies were nothing but major league scams. The key thing here is that Ballu's companies defaulted a Rs 4.35 crore loan from IDBI and a Rs 1.93 crore loan from IFCI. One of the companies is a sick unit under - you guessed it, BIFR! Baaluji has suddenly developed a huge concern for shareholders and employees, who will suffer if these porkers are closed down.

There is no official estimates of how many such cases exist. Many politicians run companies, often taking loans under dubious pretexts from state run banks. The companies are dead from the get go. The hapless taxpayers foot the bill.

Baalu has now fallen back on the tried and tested communal vendetta angle. Unfortunately this report proves to be a huge dampener.

Meanwhile the PMO and the Petroleum minister are acting innocent, as they say, the gentlemen doth protest too much:

The Petroleum Ministry had restored gas supply in January to King India Chemicals Corp—one of the two firms for which Union Shipping and Surface Transport Minister T R Baalu was pulling strings—but it quietly withdrew the order last Monday after the Opposition badgered the government on misuse of office.

While a din was being raised for the third consecutive day in Parliament on April 28, Under Secretary K K Sharma of the Petroleum Ministry wrote to GAIL (India) Ltd’s CMD that the letter dated January 4 asking GAIL to supply natural gas to KICC "is hereby withdrawn".
[link]

The dark side of CNN-IBN

The Karnataka assembly elections is turning out to be a huge bore. There are no burning issues being debated. The drama surrounding the failed alliance of BJP and JD(S) and the subsequent betrayal by JD(S) has gone stale.

For their part, all the parties have announced massive largesses. We liked the Congress manifesto, why work when you can vote for Congress?

So far, the secular media didn't have too much headroom to play. CNN-IBN made a mild attempt to add a communal spin earlier. Today they seemed to have struck gold:

Forty seven candidates with criminal records are present in the electoral fray for the first phase of elections in Karnataka being held on May 10, an organisation said.

Among the major parties, the BJP has 12 candidates with criminal records, BSP nine, the Congress 10, JD(S) 13, JD(U) and Samajwadi party and Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha (KCVP) one each, the NGO which conducted the study, Association for Democratic Reforms, said. [link]

So far CNN-IBN never really paid any attention to the ADR election watch report, because in most cases it makes Congress look pretty bad. During the last Gujarat assembly elections, this statistic didn't even find a passing mention in the newspaper. As luck would have it, Congress narrowly beats BJP (10 versus 12) in the number of candidates with criminal past, in Karnataka. The item was the lead story on the site for almost half a day.

Also note the convenient alphabetical ordering of the parties.

The report then suddenly takes a detour into irrelevant editorial comments, thus burying the other related stats:

There are 14 candidates who have declared assets of over Rs 30 crore, of this five are from BJP, seven from Congress, and two from the JD(S), he said.

Candidates who have "high assets" between Rs 5 crore and Rs 30 crore exist in all the parties. The BJP has 14, BSP nine, INC 21, JD(S) 19, Sastry stated.

There are 33 candidates who have declared very low assets of Rs one lakh or less. The BJP has one, BSP 11, INC two, JD(S) two,JD(U) five and SP 12.

Keep in mind these stats are only for the first phase of the election. We will be curious to see what the stats for the other two phases look like.

Shocking

Jolting his own party in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Congress MP from Jammu-Rajouri Madan Lal Sharma has alleged that two senior state party leaders, including Assembly Speaker Tara Chand, escaped arrest in the Srinagar sex scandal probe "only because of the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad".

Sharma made these allegations at Sunday’s public rally in Akhnoor. Though today he was disowning his own remarks, he told the gathering in Akhnoor that "he (Sharma) fell at the feet of Sonia Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad" and "saved Tara Chand and (then Pradesh Congress Committee chief) Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed" from arrest. He even said these leaders should have been behind bars like Pappu Yadav. [link]

The story vanished from CNN-IBN home page faster that you can say "secular". No special shows either.

Look who is more "liberal"

Between 1999 and 2003, there was not one case of Fulbright visa rejection. No scholar was asked by the NDA government to change his or her research subject except one in 2003-04. Even that was more semantic than anything else: New York scholar Rachel J Anthes changed her subject from "From sacred whore to sex worker" to "The Sacred Feminine." And she was allowed to do research in the institution of her choice, Sanskriti Pratishthan, New Delhi. US officials say that visa clearances came within the stipulated time-frame of three months or, at worst, four months.Some of the subjects that the NDA raised no objections to: study of Hindu religious reform movement, ethics of religion and politics, local roots of religious nationalism, Brahma Kumaris and globalisation, religion in campuses, labour diaspora in the Middle-East and Brahmin authority and patronage.

In sharp contrast, between 2004 and 2007 during the UPA regime there have been 23 rejections, delays have ranged from eight months to 21 months. Subjects the UPA government didn’t allow include Left politics in Maharashtra, Islamic feminism, Muslim women’s perceptions of the role of women in society, ethno-botany in India; the many faces of Meenakshi temple, language ideologies in Mumbai schools and even a film on the life of a Muslim girl. Rejected, 10 scholars didn’t bother to re-apply, seven are still waiting for the government’s approval after they changed their subjects.

Said then HRD Secretary S C Tripathi: "We believed there was no need for Intelligence Bureau to clear Fulbright scholars." So on content, too, official records show that unlike in the UPA regime, the NDA wasn’t playing the thought police. [link]

Do as we say, not as we do.