Barack Obama – The New George Bush

A few issues back, I wrote an editorial on how the revolution was happening in Egypt and how civilisation was changing elsewhere in the Arab world... Ergo, when a few days later, we got this incisive article from my icon Fidel Castro (see the following page), it was a tough decision to run it concurrently with my editorial. One feared people would think that Castro’s perspective was the opposite of what I wrote. Still, we didn't discard Fidel’s column, as we thought we would carry it in the succeeding issue of our sister publication The Sunday Indian (TSI), with a clarifying note... And then the Japanese disaster took place and this article went into the back burner. Personally, I would have wanted the column to be the cover story of TSI’s issue dated 28 March-3 April 2011, but for the fact that Dr. Binayak Sen’s Supreme Court hearing was coming close and, after all, we are more committed to India than to any other part of the world. [The cover story in that issue of TSI was titled, ‘Supreme Court must initiate a change in sedition laws and release Binayak Sen’.] However, what is happening in Libya makes my blood boil. Col. Muammar Gaddafi is that man who, 40 years back, made the OPEC and in one go made the Western world pay the right price for oil and made Arab nations rich. He is that way an icon by himself for the developing world. That one stroke which hit the West so hard is something they haven’t been able to digest yet. And therefore, the moment they got a chance, they have started bombing Libya; and, for a change, India has rightly shown true courage in strongly condemning the attack. Sarkozy, on the other hand, has totally lost it at home and found this a lovely way to divert attention and act smart. But the most disgusting part is the final revelation that Obama, the ludicrous Nobel Peace Prize winner, is no different from Bush. Shame on what the greedy West is doing. The real rogue nations like Pakistan and conspiring nations like Saudi Arabia remain friends of the West, while they ruthlessly bomb the oil-producing nations for their personal benefit. The saddest part, however, is that oil was $40 a barrel before the Iraq war. Following the war, it touched the $100 plus mark. Now, with the pounding of Libya, it will end up touching $150 plus! And the West seems to not have learnt its lessons from Afghanistan. You can't win a war in such lands through air strikes... And in Libya again, they will lose it. I will only end by saying that it’s time for a grand alliance of India, China and Russia to neutralise these imperialistic forces from creating more destruction in this world for greed.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

Will India’s most politicised death penalty ever come to a logical end?

Voices are rising over demand for clemency for Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru. But indifferent to the politics, which is being played around his death, one martyr’s family says there is no other option but capital punishment for the one who shattered all their hopes.

Death penalties have always evoked controversies and differences of opinion amongst thinkers. And if the sentence of death happens to be upon Mohammad Afzal aka Afzal Guru, the main accused in the 2001 Parliament attack in New Delhi, how can one stay away from it? As expected, the trial and subsequent proceedings have been successful in attracting great media attention with several political parties debating the issue, time and again.

For the uninitiated, Afzal Guru was awarded the death sentence by a Delhi court on December 18, 2002 after being convicted for plotting an audacious attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 (the attack had claimed 11 lives, including nine security personnel out of which 5 were policemen. Had it not been for these people, who laid down their lives on that fateful day, the death toll could have been much worse and included many of our Parliamentarians). The death sentence was upheld by Delhi High Court on October 29, 2003 and Afzal’s appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court two years later on August 4, 2005. In fact, a sessions court had even fixed the date of his hanging on October 20, 2006 in Tihar jail, but Afzal Guru’s wife Tabassum filed a mercy petition before the President and the execution was stayed.

However, six years after Afzal appealed to the President of India to commute his death penalty, the Ministry of Home Affairs has finally sent its opinion (in August this year) to President Pratibha Patil recommending rejection of the clemency petition. The move could pave the way for the likely hanging of Afzal, an issue that has already generated much controversy. The file is now with the President who will have the last word on the matter.

While Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been a vocal supporter of death for Afzal, has welcomed the move, Jammu & Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said he was worried that the hanging of Afzal Guru could revive militancy in the state. Not too far behind the political sparring are various human rights groups who have come out on streets demanding clemency for Afzal. Emotions are high, and so is vote politics. This is perhaps the only reason why opinions on the matter are flowing in from every nook and corner of the country. But what about the families of the policemen who laid their lives for the country on that day?

Well, away from the high octane environment of Delhi, for Jayawati Devi, widow of Vijender Singh, a Head Constable of Delhi Police who died after a bullet hit his chest during indiscriminate firing between the terrorists and the police outside the Parliament, there is no peace of mind yet. Justice, she says, will be served to them only with the death of Afzal Guru (Jayawati at present lives with her two sons Vipin and Sachin, Vipin’s wife and her 10-month old granddaughter in a house in Molarband village near Badarpur on the outskirts of Delhi). “My husband sacrificed his life for the country. But delaying justice is dishonour to the death of martyrs,” Jayawati tells B&E.

The six years after the family lost its only earning member have been deeply traumatic. Seeking payment of compensation promised by the government was a tedious task. “For six years, we were running from pillar to post to get files cleared. Getting clearance for the petrol pump, which was allotted to us as a part of the compensation, was a horrifying experience,” says Jayawati. She even claims that district officials in Faridabad had categorically demanded an upfront payment of Rs.40,000 for giving the necessary clearances. However, the family decided not to entertain the demand (which she claims had come down to Rs.10,000 in the next couple of days). Instead, they contacted higher officials and got two government officials arrested and suspended from work. “Things started moving only after we took this step. We realised that we had to be assertive in order to be heard,” she tells B&E.

In fact, the family’s decision to return the Shaurya Chakra awarded to Vijender Singh is proof enough of their disgust over the delay, not only in releasing compensation by the government but also in hanging Afzal Guru. And they are not alone. The martyr’s family has found support from the families of Vijender’s colleagues who lost their lives in the 2001 attack and later, and also from some of the families who fell victim to the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. What is more disappointing is that the despair these families feel stems from a sense of hopelessness, specifically with the political class. Jayawati, for one, blames the entire political class for their indifference. “Why doesn’t the government answer us on why it is choosing to keep Afzal Guru alive? We have good reasons to demand his death. It’s been around 10 years since that fateful day. We have lost our family members. The person accused has been found guilty by the Supreme Court,” she says. And her angst is not limited to the government. On being quizzed whether she is happy with the way opposition has supported her, Jayawati says, “Things would have been no different had the opposition been in power. It is just a question of vote politics.” In fact, the whole experience has left her very angry and disappointed.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri 
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles. 

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting

Painful but cathartic verdict

By terminating all 122 licences issued by former telecom Minister A. Raja, the Supreme Court has shown its utter disgust and contempt for policies that smack of bias and are rigged to serve partisan interests. Will the government now come up with a transparent policy for allocating licences?

Much muck and dust has been flying around ever since the 2G scandal prised open yet another egregious instance of the unholy nexus between our crooked politicans, complicit bureaucrats and compromised businessmen. The landmark Supreme Court judgement early this month, cancelling all 122 2G licences issued by former telecom minister A Raja, brings to an end the kerfuffle that had been reverberating in the nation’s corridors of power and business. The SC verdict marks the opening of a new chapter in an otherwise so far sordid saga that has dogged India’s telecom sector in recent years. Immediately, following the verdict, telecom minister Kapil Sibal announced at a hurriedly called press conference that his government welcomed the SC ruling, which would help “remove the uncertainties clouding the telecom sector.”

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the apex court ruling, several telecom operations seem to be in a state of funk. Many of them snapped up licences thinking they were buying into India’s telecom success story. But the SC ruling, some people say, seems to have thrown out the baby with the bath water. Copping the blame on the telecom players for obtaining a licence given out by the government on the basis of a policy that the Supreme Court has now repudiated seems a tad rich. Unfortunately, in light of the cancellation of telecom licences, these operators now look like having become dupes of the con played out by Raja and his underlings. The court’s ruling also comes as a stinging excoriation of the UPA government which, despite being alerted by various quarters to the flimflam orchestrated and pulled off by Raja and his minions, chose to string along with the first-come-first-serve policy for granting 2G licences.

Some players are certain to bear the brunt of the SC judgement more than the others. Already, Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco) has announced that it is pulling out of its joint venture with STel and exiting India. The C. Sivasankaran-owned STel was among the beneficiaries of Raja’s 2G spectrum allocation. United Arab Emirates operator Etisalat, Norway’s Telenor and Russian company Sistema are the other foreign firms affected most as they had bought shares in the Indian companies whose licences have been scrapped. The court has given these companies four months’ time to shut shop. With the cancellation of all its 22 licences, Uninor (Telenor’s JV with Unitech) is the worst affected by the judgement. Though the company has one of the lowest average revenue per user of Rs 98, Uninor has the highest number of subscribers (36 million) amongst the greenfield operators. It has a workforce of around 17,500 and is operational in 13 circles. Uninor has also made substantial investments of around Rs.140 billion in the market.

Not everybody stands to lose though. Older incumbents such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea stand to gain a lot since they are the ones who have been in operation well before 2008 when Raja gave out the new 2G licences. Idea has not done too well in the new circles it had won and hence its loss of nine circles does not amount to much. These players will most likely bid for maximum circles when fresh auctions are held so as to expand their reach further. “The court has said the government must now get the market value of these licences,” said a visibly elated Subramanyam Swamy, who was one of the parties that challenged the 2G licence allocations in the court.

While the angst of players adversely affected by the judgement is understandable, the SC has, in one deft stroke, dispelled the fog and murkiness surrounding Raja’s 2G licence allocations. The court’s verdict has ensured that the law of the land prevails. It has sent out a strong message to both the industry and government that crony capitalism will not be tolerated and that corrupt business deals facilitated by a collusive government will be subjected to judicial scrutiny. Says Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrashekhar, “This is the first time that there has been such a detailed judicial scrutiny of the licence issuing process. This judgment signals that the sector is finally open to only those investors and stakeholders who wish to invest, build and succeed by following the laid down rules and laws.” He adds that the judgement clarifies many policy confusions and also lays down the mammoth task of cleaning up and reorganising the sector over the next year or so. “This scrutiny and the judgement establishes the unambiguous basis for licence grants through auctions or market-based mechanism by the government today and in the future.”

In order to prepare the ground for a fresh round of 2G spectrum auction, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has come out with a pre-consultation paper. The regulator has also sought to allay fears of existing subscribers in circles where telecom licences of operators have been cancelled. According to TRAI, subscribers need not fear about their connections as they can port to other service providers in their respective circles. While the modalities for holding the auction are being worked out, the government expects the auction to fetch a revenue of about Rs 750 billion. However, following the cancellation of licences there is likely to be an overabundance of spectrum in the Indian market, which will ensure that prices remain low. Besides, incumbent operators have already paid through their noses for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA). These investments will take a long time to turn profitable. In such a scenario, it seems doubtful whether these service providers will warm up to participating in another round of auction. Moreover, the incumbents (whose licences have not been cancelled) have enough 3G spectrum which can be used to accommodate new subscribers. Says Rajan Mathews, Director General of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), “I don’t think that kind of money is available with domestic players. That is why the government itself indicated that it will raise the FDI limit to 74%.” Just to ensure that his reasoning comes across more convincing, Mathews draws your attention to 12th Five Year Plan proposals for the telecom sector. “The preliminary numbers put out by the Planning Commission suggest Rs 6,500 billion as the outlay for rolling out various initiatives by government. They themselves admit that 80% of that would have to come from international sources.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting