Showing posts with label #lrose. Show all posts

One Shot And Two Birds Of Raghuram Rajan

Can't blame Raghuram Rajan, the new Governor of the Reserve Bank Of India, for springing a surprise on everyone concerned with the Indian stock markets and the growth of Indian economy by hiking the interest rate instead of lowering it.

Every sensible Indian who is able to think for himself and even a little for his country would do the same if he or she were in the RBI Governor's shoes.
It may not be rocket science the Indian Media and financial market has started to expect from a financial whiz who is famously credited with correctly  predicting the last world financial crisis, but it certainly smacks of a well thought out political strategy, in resonance with the need of the hour and the ruling government.
If the media, especially the Indian set up which struggle to prove to be a biting one has failed to see the truth, it is because their myriads of persons touting a mike with a satellite dish at the other end, somehow forget to ask the right questions at the right time.
It may be an understandable lapse, especially when the celebrity they are facing is someone as charismatic  and charming as the young RBI governor who seems to have turned the press meet to be an occasion more glamorous than the  latest Bollywood release of a super star.
How else can you explain why none of the media persons and expert reporters at the Governor's press meet raised the question with Rajan if his measure had anything to do with the impending state elections?
Reuters have sited analysts explaining out the governor's action as "interesting experiment".
"I am not saying whether I know it will work or not, but I think it sort of shows the RBI's hand in the sense that they really want to focus more on the inflation side of things than on growth at this point."
However, the Governor's actions seem to be only the beginning of a well thought out strategy which goes beyond economic policy.
At his first-day press conference on assuming charge of the RBI Rajan had hinted at a comprehensive action plan to bolster the rupee and strengthen financial markets but also joked his job was not to accumulate "likes" on Facebook.
Somerset Maugham once said If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too. 
Whether Raghuram Rajan ever read any of Maugham, he seems to have had some similar insight guiding his actions when he accepted his new post as the Governor of the RBI. Why else should he take some steps which has wiped out a large chunk of capital off the market in a few minutes, when country's Industrial lobby had been hankering for concession in the name of growth.
Rajan seems to believe that by harnessing and clamping inflation for once, he can bring the  much needed stability to the economy, which as an ex IMF economist he knows is what the foreign investors love. But doing that now has also advantages which are not strictly financial, at the least.
For one thing, a lower steady inflation over a few months leading up to any election is what the voters like. On the other, there is no big merit in fattening up a lobby working against the government just before the elections, giving it additional clout, especially when things can wait until after the general elections.
The proof of the pudding in this occasion is the lack of visible whining from the North Block about the Governor's action. It was only a short while ago statements like "if we have to, we will walk alone" emanated from the Finance Minister when RBI actions did not meet its expectations.

One thing was clear from his "tounge in cheek"  responses punctuated by disabling smiles and jokes at the press meet. Rajan was seriously wondering why no one was raising the obvious question he would have found so difficult to answer. Has it got anything with the coming elections ?
Monday, September 23, 2013
Posted by Unknown

Is India, the Land of Contradictions, Falling Apart In Its Own Flip Flops?

No, this isn't about the contradictions Rudyard Kipling found in pre colonial India which made his stories so vivid and won him a Nobel prize. Neither is this about the gargantuan gap between the Ambanis and the poor Dalit family Rahul Gandhi spent a night with.

It isn't even about the dismaying array of differences curious foreigners visiting India find difficult to comprehend and the nasty feeling of unease in their guts they go home with.

I am talking about the double standard a billion Indians practice day in and day out, which makes nothing an Indian says can be taken seriously by the rest of the world. Not even what its defence minister reads out in the parliament about the death of five Indian soldiers and then change to please millions of war mongers.

Were they terrorist in soldier's uniform or soldiers in terrorist garb who killed the Indians? Who cares?

In the rest of the world when people say yes, or yes I do, they mean exactly the same. In India you are never sure what they mean.

When the Government says they need foreign investment they don't really mean it, because for some reason, Mauritius becomes not a foreign country for India.

When the government says we won't tax foreign investment, it doesn't mean they can't go back several years and claim taxes on ambiguous corporate deals like the one Vodafoneengaged in.

When Government says Indian companies are free enterprise and they can trade their shares and capital in world market like other countries allow, they don't mean its CAG can deem such transactions as corruption like in the 2G saga.

No doubt, the Indian administration has acquired this art of contradiction and flip flop from its neighbour who can only lie whether it is about the presence of Osama Bin Laden or Davood Ibrahim or about anything else for that matter, a nation which the word has acknowledged with a motto 'We Will, We Will Only Lie'.

For India, a nation which declares 'Truth Will Prevail' on its currency, such a trait smacking of national dishonesty is indeed matter of shame.

In fact somehow there is always a disturbing disconnect between what any Indian says and what he or she means, which can be anything according to the circumstances.

This is not same as accusing all Indians of blatant lying but not owning up to a genetic makeup of a race which they should ward off with conviction and commitment to honour one's word. The least they can do is to think before they open their mouths before they put their feet in them.

Not a day, not a headline pass without a contradiction, retraction or denial. So much so that news is reported more like the first serve in tennis which is bound to be a 'let' than a 'fault' and the server gets a second chance to take a position depending on the reaction.

Day in and day out so called, leaders, celebrities, spokespersons and anyone the media will insanely pursue and compete to get a word out of for filling the above fold of their publications and news channels will blurt out something or other which is an affront to common man's intelligence.

So you can ignore headline news and wait for the denial like the media who are now a days even providing empty space or time slots to accommodate such lat minute pearls of wisdom from those who control the destiny of the nation.

If for any reason, the statement is not exciting enough, there is always the 'misquotes' which are also so conveniently denied by a later statement.

Another word which should be banished from the Indian English dictionary is the much bandied 'slam' which lets everyone blow up and complicate non issues and stuff one should ignore in to massive waste of time and resources.

The truth is that, lack of intelligence, ability to grasp the subject and do a contextual analysis and necessary historical checks, all fundamental requirement of journalistic profession, on the part of the reporters and editorial staff are conveniently ignored, even condoned for the sake of circulation and eye balls.

The result is creation of dangerous mass hysteria like the recent one which forced a change in well thought out government stance, taken in national interest, making India look ridiculous before the world.
Spoken words can't be taken back. When blurting out irresponsibly and irresponsible relaying and amplification of statements without context, like in the recent speeches of Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi can play with the emotions of a billion innocent Indians, the media is indeed toying with dangerous stuff more powerful than, at least a part of India's arsenal.

The question is who in India will own up to this shameful trend and do something to change it? Is it going to be the so called educated young or the media which tend to lay claim to parity with world media in quality and standards?


Sunday, August 11, 2013
Posted by Unknown

Is it Time The Congress Party Brought British Raj Back to India?


India was 'one' nation for two hundred years when it remained under the British Raj.

Today the cry for the bifurcation of yet another state of India, Andhra Pradesh, the capital of which was once the richest Kingdom in the world, is threatening its very integrity. Many more bigger and smaller states are waiting to pounce on the opportunity to demand creation of their own little kingdoms.

Futile squabbling and vacillation have ended up in wasting of so much of national resources and administrative time, hampering development and creating unsolvable political dilemmas, dividing people. Parochial interests and selfishness is driving India back to the middle ages making it easy for its vile neighbours to exercise their ambitions of hegemony in the near future without efforts.

Isn't it time educated and responsible Indians who profess love for India and its integrity investigate why and how the British Raj kept India united and prospering?

Unfortunately the very mention of the Raj will make many Indians virtually explode in indignation and bloated national pride even in the 21st century, despite passage of a couple of generations since independence along the time line.

Even the fact that India is projected to become the number one economy in a couple of decades also can't alleviate the pain of the Raj for its so called techie generation. Such is the strength of the inferiority complex on the Indian psyche imposed by the strangle hold of the Raj. In many ways, Indians need to feel liberated, despite nearly a century of independence.

However In myriad of ways, it was indeed the Raj which made the fight for Independence and its successful culmination a reality.

On the one hand, Whigs and Liberals expounded sentiments most iconically expressed by TB Macaulay in 1833: 'that... by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government, that, having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. ... Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history.' 
From Empire to Independence: The British Raj in India 1858-1947 Dr Chandrika Kaul

In reality India under the Raj was not a fully united nation. Two-fifths of the sub-continent continued to be independently governed by over 560 large and small principalities, with whom the Raj entered into treaties of mutual cooperation. Read Maya, Mulayam, Mamta, Jaya, Nmo et al in the 21st century.

The real success of the Raj was the administrative wisdom of dividing the rest of India in to governable blocks without any regard to language and cultural identities of Indians like for example, the Presidency of Madras which encompassed parts of four southern states.

In such administrative divisions, very similar to the modern Union Territories of India, no one complained or agitated about water, land, forest, language or education. Like the Union territories, these provinces have only prospered and progressed in time, though the benefits were mostly repatriated by the ruling British.

No doubt this experiment of governance of a large landmass like India with a diverse population and culture, though co-operation with local chieftains and non linguistic and impassionate administration of rest of the land did work smoothly, bringing all around prosperity, which remain quite relevant even in the context of modern India.

Among the benefits bequeathed by the British connection were the large scale capital investments in infrastructure, in railways, canals and irrigation works, shipping and mining; the commercialisation of agriculture with the development of a cash nexus; the establishment of an education system in English and of law and order creating suitable conditions for the growth of industry and enterprise; and the integration of India into the world economy.

In reality, the Raj even succeeded in uniting Indians, albeit in common hatred for the aggressor, at least for some decades before the independence.

That, that hard won unity did not transform in to a permanent unity of a billion Indians in a sense of fraternity is the tragedy of modern India. Today India is virtually as divided as when the British found it centuries ago thanks to the religious division left behind by the British and linguistic division enforced by their successors.

Imagine if Karamchand Gandhi were to try to incite and unite the disparate and hopelessly fractured India, which 1.3 billion Indians now call their country in 2013, even against a Martian invasion ? Even the Martian's would have given up at the rueful prospect of ruling modern India!

Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejeriwal are walking examples of the fallacy of expecting the impossible; to unite India again by raising the bogey of corruption. Corrupt and jailed Jagan Mohan Reddy has won more assembly seats! Corrupt accused leaders have been elected back to power elsewhere.

Narendra Modi and his coterie with the Gujrath model development is another example of someone with their heads in cloud nine, with the idea of a united India lapping up the rhetoric. They simply don't get how divided are the states of India in comparison to the United States of Barack Obama.

By contrast, Kiren Reddy, the CM of congress ruling Andhra Pradesh is a realist who see the danger to his own political future and party, if not for the integrity of the nation, in the destructive trend.

In reality, Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Congress party has proved to be much more of a pragmatic leader who has recognised the inevitable divisiveness of India.

Not surprisingly, though inadvertently, her pragmatism in agreeing to the local aspirations of the people of Andhra Pradesh while declaring and keeping Hyderabad as a Union territory smacks of the pragmatism of the Raj.

Why just Hyderabad, every project area like the contentious Kudamkulam Nuclear Thermal Power station or Integrated Steel Projects and every Metro in the country country, where massive central government investment has been pumped in must be declared a Union territory, to clean them from the evils of parochialism and foist, unhindered growth and prosperity.

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