India Banao!

This is an editorial that Mr. N. Ram of THE HINDU penned himself on hearing that painter Mr. M. F. Husain had been conferred Qatari citizenship.

This is the edit that ‘New IndPress’ wrote, mocking Indian democracy.

These are the replies that Mrs. Hilda Raja, now domiciled in Vadodara, penned to both THE HINDU and ‘New IndPress’ in her blog.

Check out the comments that the editorial of ‘New IndPress’ drew.

Besides her blog posts and the comments in the ‘New IndPress’, check out this edit in SIFY as well. Vir Sanghvi offers a healthy perspective too.

The readers of these newspapers are aware of the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of the so-called secular elites of India.

At the minimum, Mr. Hussain should have had the decency to apologize for having caused (intended or unintended) hurt to the sentiments of many.

I did not know that he had supported Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s emergency. What happened to the importance of civil rights, then?

Suffice to say that Mr. Husain has finally arrived at a right place for himself and for many (like Yours Truly) who did not see art or taste in what he painted. I doubt if it is a sad day for India as Mr. N. Ram chose to call it.

Mr. Ram was speaking for himself and a very small minority.

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(Cross posted at http://tgs.nationalinterest.in/2010/02/27/collage-of-views-on-the-indian-budget-for-2010-11/)

I shall start with mine. You can find it here. India’s Finance Minister presented the fiscal budget for 2010-11 on Friday, February 26th. He promised a vision document. It did not quite amount to that, to put it mildly. Given what had happened in Greece and given the fact that this was no ‘election year’ in India, bold strokes were both needed and expected. But, they did not come. As M. J. Akbar puts it, he promised vision but gave revision.

The header that Economic Times gives to the views of Swaminathan Aiyar is misleading. In my view, Swami Aiyar focuses on the key assumption behind the budget. Any budget statement can be evaluated on its specific measures and/or on the underlying assumptions behind the macro targets.

The budget assumes 8-8.5% real growth and 4% inflation, giving 12.5% nominal GDP growth. This very optimistic scenario assumes that the global economy will not slow down. If it does, all bets on deficit reduction are off. [More here].

In my piece in MINT, I had focused on this too. The nominal GDP growth assumptions for the next three fiscal years are 12.5%, 13.0% and 13.5% respectively. A good way to get there would be to achieve 8.5% to 9.0% real GDP growth and an inflation rate of between 4% and 5%. What has the budget done to achieve these combinations? Second, what has the budget done to guard against the risk of these assumptions not materializing and de-railing the fiscal deficit reduction targets? Third, what has the budget done to ensure that all the outlays are going to result in outcomes?

Writing in ‘Business Standard’, Jahangir Aziz voices similar sentiments:

But if the government truly thinks that the recovery is fragile, wouldn’t it have been wiser to be more conservative as it was last year?… As we have seen recently, the global recovery can turn up nasty surprises and create enough anxiety to keep domestic financial markets volatile. Relying on a narrow set of adjusters is plain risky. If a few things go wrong, the budget will look shaky….So in the coming months we will be living on a prayer for continued high growth, high global liquidity, low global risk aversion and low oil prices. [More here]

Staying with ‘Business Standard’, I find Mr. Ninan’s comments understated but it is not difficult for any one to grasp the underlying message. The Finance Minister has been lucky. He has to stay lucky. Not too different from Jahangir Aziz’s message. I must say that, based on some of his recent comments, Mr. Ninan’s form has returned.

Ajit Ranade, inspired by Sachin Tendulkar’s terrific double-hundred in a one-day match recently against South Africa, trains himself to look at the positives. It would be silly to dismiss his comments as cheer-mongering:

After twenty years of India’s reforms, nay his debut, Sachin recently scored four test centuries and an awesome ODI double ton. His best is not over. Assuming his journey is mimicking India’s economic journey, with GST and DTC round the corner, look for a high scoring economy in the coming years. [More here]

I was surprised to find MINT sounding positive on the budget. Both the edit and Niranjan’s comments convey satisfaction with the work of the Finance Minister. The edit calls it a fine blend of pragmatism and vision. Actually, on closer look, Niranjan’s comments are more guarded and neutral than the headline suggests.

Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express subsumes his positive comments on the budget in an overall panegyric on the Prime Minister based on, what he sees as, the developments in the last seven days.

While he is positive based on recent developments, over in ‘Economic Times’ Professor Arvind Panagariya warns of complacency and backsliding on economic reforms. He points to three developments that make him worry. One is the ban on imported machinery and equipment for power sector, second is minimum wages in the organised sector and the third is the ban on Bt. Brinjal that Jairam Ramesh, the Minister for Environment announced recently.

Regardless of whether these developments turn out to be damaging and/or irreversible, I agree with him on one thing: there is a certain sense of complacency on the possibility of higher economic growth rates. To an extent, the budget is an example of that complacency.

Finally, it was delightful to see the Finance Minister of the ’secular’ UPA government invoking the blessings of Lord Indra to help deliver a broad-based recovery in the coming months. That is what many mean by the essential Hinduness of India, not the ‘Hindutva’ propounded by VHP and Bajrang Dal.

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(Cross-posted at http://tgs.nationalinterest.in/2010/02/20/gujarat-kerala-and-good-news/)

In the ‘India Today’ issue dated Feb. 8, 2010, there are two different articles with two common themes: one common theme is Gujarat and the other common theme is that of checkdams that Gujarat has pursued relentlessly. The first one about the second Green Revolution in Gujarat is a box-item in the cover story discussing price rise.

What impressed Swaminathan most was the Modi Government’s decision to give soil health cards to farmers so that they could assess the quality of land. Steps were also taken to improve the quality of seeds, raise the groundwater table by building almost a lakh check dams within a decade in Kutch, Saurashtra and north Gujarat besides extensive use of technology by bringing scientists and farmers on one platform.

Kutch, that never knew what Kesar mango was, now produces and exports it. Similarly, the region is now cultivating Arabian dates. The state increased its cotton yield sixfold in nine years from 175 kg per hectare to 798 kg, more than the world average of 787 kg. [More here]

If one reads the special quotes from other Chief Ministers and public officials, I am not sure they are getting the real causes behind the price rise. It is about productivity and that is what constrains supply of essential commodities.

Other factors like hoarding or speculative activity in commodity exchanges might play a part but they come into play only because there is underlying scarcity. In other markets in the world where there are commodity futures, agricultural commodities do not always go up in price. In the early part of 2008, they did. Then they collapsed because harvests were ample in 2009.

The growth rate in the output of six core infrastructure industries in December 2009 was 6.0% as opposed to 0.7% in December 2008. 6.0% is not enough for an economy growing at a nominal rate of around 13% to 15%. That is the problem to focus on. BTW, I was not aware that the Ministry of Finance publishes a monthly economic report. I got this statistic from that report. A good initiative. Looks like it has been going on, for quite some time. Unfortunately (for myself), I was not aware of it until recently.

The other story is that of development beating back Maoists in the hilly district of Dang in South Gujarat. Here too, check out the role of checkdams.

Today, the dairy centre at Kosimda collects a litre of milk each from 150 families of the village and sends it to the Sumul dairy in Surat, providing income to the villagers. It also has 17 borewells, 35 open wells and a school up to Class VII with computers. Outmigration from the village in search of jobs has come down substantially. The villagers used to grow only millets, but now have flowing fields of pulses. A small reservoir caters to the crop. Not just Kosimda, almost all 311 villages in Dang have 24-hour power. Over 700 check dams in the district ensure water for the district. Till the mid-’90s, the dairy industry was almost unknown in Dang, where the cattle quality is poor. Today, it collects 30,000 litres of milk a day. At Rs 15 a litre, sales translate into Rs 4.5 lakh per day. [More here]

This news item, on the face of it, looked like a good story. It is about the turnaround in public sector profitability in Kerala. The ten-item checklist of success, on the face of it, does not look like a ‘free enterprise’ approach. Some of it is but most of it is not. The good things are the cross-political synergy, co-operation from the labour unions and the increase in salaries and perks given to the Chief Executives. Well, let us not quibble too much.

In my view, this is the best news of all. Traffic in India captures all that is worst in us or brings out the worst in us in India. If some one could show that it could be made better, then there is hope for our country. The news-item shows how Angamali, a small municipality in rural Ernakulam district has brought about a sea-change in the attitudes of pedestrians and vehicle-users. Wonderful stuff.

Update: It was good to read that Swaminathan Aiyar visited Bihar last week to verify if numbers lie. He first reported in January that Bihar was growing at ‘Chinese’ rates. His visit confirms that it is true. That is the good news. The bad news is that Nitish Kumar, the Bihar Chief Minister, has lost many by-elections. Second, if Laloo Prasad Yadav returned to Patna as the State Chief Minister, Swami Aiyar is not sure that the Bihar miracle would continue. The third minor disappointment is that Nitish Kumar turned a bit soft on Maoists, somewhat needlessly.

Development with a big stick in hand is the best approach. Soft approach is not interpreted generously but as a sign of weakness. That is as true in geopolitics as it is in national politics. Either Indian politicians do not get it or they do not care. When and what would make them care?

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My good friend D. V. Sridharan used to update his wonderful website www.goodnewsindia.com. It was a balm amidst all the bad news that one got from the sensation-seeking media.

He has stopped updating the site and is working on a project, which is a great value addition to society. In short, his project is all about sustainable farming.

I would not be able to step into his shoes. He used to expend personal energy, time and money in checking out good news stories before writing about them with great flair and humour.

I would just highlight a few that came to my attention in the last few days:

1. This is about fast-track justice for rape accused. They were sons of police officials!

2. Young friend Harsh Gupta is doing a fieldwork evaluating NREGA implementation as part of a special assignment for MIT Poverty Action Lab. Nothing like empirical verification to ascertain what works and what does not and how. He sent a mail on this. It is a gem.

He was chatting with an IAS officer from Chattisgarh who has a PhD in Public Policy from Princeton University. He is now on sabbatical. The IAS officer from Chattisgarh told him that, in his home state, ration card holders now get SMSes that their quota of grains have left the PDS godown for the fair price shop, so that the ration shop guy can’t cheat (at least, as easily)! Wow! That is fantastic stuff

I came across this article on this topic although what it writes about and what my friend is reported to have heard are slightly different. This sounds like quite an impressive feat:

The state has been awarded in the category of excellence in government process re-engineering. The department was selected for the national award for fully computerising the civil supply system across the state. Among other features, the system will provide automatic calculation and release of monthly allotment of public distribution system (PDS) schemes to 10,400 fare price shops.

This URL from the National Informatics Centre provides further information.

3. Read in the Tamil magazine, ‘Kalki’ dated 31st January 2010 about Malliyampattu Panchayat (Trichi district, on the way between Trichirapalli and Kumara Vayaloor – famous for Murugan temple) and its dynamic and clean leader, Kathirvel. Streetlights work, water tank is full with clean water, Panchayat schools work and teachers teach, roads are like runways etc. It was pleasing to read.

I called my long-time friend Ilango Ramaswamy, former President of Kuthambakkam Panchayat to find out if he knew Mr. Kathirvel. He did not but he was very keen for me to send him a scanned version of the magazine article. I would do so.

Then, I spoke to the ‘Kalki’ office. They gave me the telephone number of the reporter who wrote the story. He gave me the contact number of the Panchayat President, Mr. Kathirvel. He was very pleased to hear from an overseas Indian calling to convey his pleasure and best wishes for his good work. He said that it motivated him no-end.

He belongs to the DMK. He said that his father had brought him up with very strong foundations in ethics and dharma and that those are his guides in his role as the Panchayat President.

One of the good things he does is to make sure that he taps into all the State and Central government schemes (including MPLAD) for implementing welfare initiatives for his Panchayat.

He has promised to send me articles/reports prepared by students on the work he has done. I have promised to visit him soon.

If any one is interested in visiting him, let me know.

4. This article in IBN Live is very refreshing. Accountability within government can come from public scrutiny. Despite all its limitations, the Right to Information legislation facilitates, public. See the next bullet on a RTI initiative, in which Yours Truly played a role.

The article makes for refreshing reading for many reasons: One is that the gentleman, Shri. Prajapati Trivedi wrote to the government. He persisted. The government accepted his offer to help in performance measurement. He seems to know how to work with government officials:

“You have to keep your ego aside. I literally went to all secretaries, met them, enquired what they did. It helped. People are waiting for someone to break the ice. They are willing to help, give me tips on what to do and how to do. My networks help a lot. “

He is also realistic about what he can achieve. I think his instincts on how this would help are sound: “the biggest motivation will come from naming and shaming.”

As an aside, I guess those who are looking for a topic for a seminar can find one in this observation of his: “To my mind the debate between private and public efficiency is not so much about the ownership as much as about competition. You unleash the power of competition and see how it works”.

5. I have contributed with partial funding for this initiative brought to my attention by friend Nitin Pai who had met with Shri. D. Dhanuraj of Centre for Public Policy Research in Ernakulam (Cochin) in 2007. It is an RTI-Wiki project. It aims to create a database of RTI queries and responses so that it becomes progressively easier for RTI users and authorities, to use pre-existing information.

Their website was launched on Thursday. The links to other RTI sites is rather useful.

6. I would like to link to this article by Prof. Vaidyanathan (of IIM Bangalore) that complained about how banks calculate interest on savings accounts based on the minimum balance in the account between the 10th and the last calendar day of the month and is thus ripping off savings account holders. He notes that what Indian banks are doing is not common international practice.

He hoped that the RBI would stick to the deadline it gave to the Indian Banks’ Association to change to the daily balance method for calculating interest payment on savings account. The deadline is April 1^st of this year. Predictably, IBA was opposed to the move.

But, it looks like RBI has stuck to its guns. Good show.

7. According to the ‘Business Standard’ the government increased the price of urea and gave freedom to the industry to fix prices of other fertilizers. That is a bold move. It deserves praise and support from all right-thinking people regardless of their party affiliation.

In a recent speech, the new BJP President said that his party would have no hesitation in extending support to the Central government and non-BJP governments in various states, whenever and wherever they were taking the nation forward.

This was an opportunity to put those words into action.

The following exchange between Shri. Yashwant Sinha and a journalist on CNBC-TV 18 is not very encouraging either:

Q: Kirit Parikh report has been submitted, the BJP, the NDA government had tried to move towards the partial dismantling of the APM, will you support a price rise if the government were to move ahead with some of the recommendations of Kirit Parikh report?

A: We had on the April 1, 2002 announced the deregulation of the petroleum sector which was completely undone by the first UPA government. Now, we have the Kirit Parikh report, it is not breaking new ground, they are not repeating the old formula. When we dismantled and whenever there was price rise, the Congress party representative did not come and garland us at Vijay Chowk, so we are not going to garland them at Vijay Chowk.

Q: Are you going to take darnas and morchas opposing it?

A: Why not. This is politics and they did exactly the same thing to us. Why shouldn’t we give it back?

Q: It is a fair game?

A: It is a fair game.

Q: You will give it back?

A: We will oppose price rise.

The full interview is here.

8. To wrap this post up, I link to the latest Gallup poll of Americans on the countries they like (h.t: Rohit Pradhan). India comes sixth behind Canada, Germany, Britain, Japan and Israel.

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It was a special morning. I received two very important and wonderful emails from Madhu Kishwar, the founder-editor of ‘Manushi’, the magazine, the Trustee of ‘Manushi Sangathan’, social activist, occasional Op-ed writer and many other things.

Since I received them as a member of the ‘Manushi’ e-group, it is not that easy to provide a link to the emails. You can become a member too, however, by visiting www.manushi.in and clicking on ‘Join e-group’.

I am still sorting the emails out in my head. I guess it is a life-long process!

The comments that follow below are in response to the email on the historic judgement of the Delhi High Court on the plight of rickshaw pullers in the Capital City/State.

The government of India (or, for that matter, that of many countries in the world) does not restrict us from owning as many motor vehicles as we want and, of course, the law-abiding citizens that we are, we do not restrict ourselves too. We pollute. That is, we make full use of the un-priced right to pollute.

But, that privilege is not extended to all. No, it is not about the right to pollute. Even the right to own as many vehicles as one can afford to. Such is the fate of rickshaw-pullers (owners cum pliers) in the capital city of Delhi (and many other cities in India? - I do not know). They are licensed to own one only!

For many of us, this is one more opportunity to shake our head at the inequities in the world for a minute or longer and then proceed to contributing to perpetuating it further.

Not so for Madhu Kishwar and ‘Manushi’. For more than 13 years, they have fought ceaselessly, tirelessly and even at risk to personal lives, on occasions, for the cycle rickshaw puller’s rights.

More broadly, it is about fundamental right. Political or economic reforms is about the practical realization of the fundamental right to engage in gainful and legitimate economic activity, unfettered and unrestricted by the State or by any one else.

Economic reforms are not about consumer choice. It is not about comparing the sizes of the shopping malls in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore with that of similar concrete structures in Dubai and Singapore, the brand names available inside them for the consuming class and whether the Indian state empowers them to buy those items without having to dip more into their bulging wallets than their cousins and friends in Singapore and Dubai have to.

Reforms are about public welfare. Madhu Kishwar understood that.
Perhaps, the only social reformer or even policymaker who bothered to understand that, when it is convenient not to do so.

In 2001, PM Vajpayee issued a directive to the MCD to implement changes in the laws and rules that govern (or, ruin) the lives of rickshaw pullers and pavement vendors. To no avail, of course.

That did not stop Madhu and her volunteers. Efforts continued.

Now, in a historic judgement, the Delhi High Court has quashed the rules restricting the ownership of a rickshaw owner-plyer to one rickshaw.
This is an amazing victory but it is also only a milestone. The journey probably never ends.

The judgement is attached.

(2) The text that comes below is the email I sent to my mailing list on seeing the Charter of the All India Ganga-Yamuna Panchayat that was held between 8th February and 10th February.

Please see the attached PDF document for the Action plan emanating from the Panchayat.

This is amazing and inspiring work. We can only nod and shake our heads in wonder at the commitment that other are showing. After that, we are back to our mundane pursuits and even more mundane and meaningless battles of ego, settled on the racefields of material acquisitions, where the pitstops are lunch, dinner and drinking sessions in which the racers exchange and compare notes on their latest accomplishments/acquisitions.

About most of us, ‘trapped’ is the word that comes to mind.

Myriad emotions come to the surface when one reads that protesting against illegal mining on Ganga riverbed is a criminal activity in Bharat!

(3) Any one wishing to contribute to the stellar work of ‘Manushi’ should visit the website (www.manushi.in) for details on how to go about it.

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My interest in James Tooley’s book, ‘Beautiful Tree’ was triggered by a conversation that good friend Narayan Ramachandran had with me on January 4th. Sitting on the stairs of my apartment complex in Raja Annamalaipuram in Chennai and enjoying the stiff sea-breeze, I listened to him recommend this book strongly. Honestly, that was the first time I heard about the book.

I made one attempt to buy the book in Chennai on that day but could not succeed. Then, I saw a review of the book by Gurcharan Das on his blog on Dec. 21, 2009. You have to scroll down on the blog to locate this post. It does not have an independent URL by itself. He had written that the ‘Right to Education’ Act gives the government three years to close all unrecognized private schools.

I quoted him in my MINT column and some one took exception with me for doing so. He chastised me for having dared to write something without either having read the book or the ‘Right to Education’ legislation. He was right but, to be fair to myself, I did not claim that I had done so. I had explicitly stated that my source was Mr. Gurcharan Das’ blog.

In subsequent interactions with the offended reader, I found out that he was disappointed with my criticism of the government when the ‘Right to Education’ Act does provide for vouchers for poor people to educate their children. He said that the government could not provide vouchers to be used in all private schools since some schools could come up just to profit from vouchers!

Now, I do not know if the vouchers would fully pay for the cost of tuition. If not, then unscrupulous private schools would face scrutiny of fee-paying parents. Hence, their unscrupulous behaviour cannot sustain for long. Let us assume that the vouchers compensate fully the cost of education. The incentive for parents to do thorough ‘due diligence’ goes down. That would be the narrative. But, I doubt if it is such a big problem. If children are not happy with what they learn and if teachers harass them or if they do not show up, they would tell their parents. When it comes to their children’s education, parents would take action, even if they were not paying for it, fully.

So, I agree with Gurcharan Das that there was no need for the government to engage in an exercise of ‘recognition’ vs. ‘non-recognition’ of private schools. It has left open the door for coercion, extortion and bribe. Perhaps, that was intended?

This is the problem with many do-gooders. They want to devise a system that would ensure that focuses on the criminals. In the process, they fail to reckon with the costs imposed on those who comply. When governments create legislation and frame rules that seek to ensure no loopholes that criminals could take advantage of, they make economic activity needlessly strenuous and even impossible for all others.

The Annual State of Education Report (ASER) prepared by the NGO, ‘Pratham’ has now become essential reading for those interested in educating Indians. Wilima Wadhwa who is the director of the ASER Centre for Pratham wrote an Op.-Ed. in MINT belittling their own findings that favoured private sector schools in imparting education. The article ends with an implicit suggestion that the government is wrong to endorse private schools. That is unfortunate.

Roughly, a week later, MINT wrote an editorial distancing itself, in a way, from the thrust of Ms. Wadhwa’s article:

Why are poor people sacrificing a free lunch to spend a large chunk of their income? Are they too gullible to know that private schools aren’t better? Their primary complaint is that government teachers can’t be held accountable—so they’re voting with their feet. And in the hope of offering their children this oasis in an otherwise bleak future, they’re offering India a solid referendum on who is better at educating the youth.

The MINT editorial refers to this piece by James Tooley in Times of India. He elegantly refutes the implicit message in Ms. Wadhwa’s Op-Ed. in MINT:

In other words, the revolution revealed by Pratham taking place in rural India today features private schools serving a significant minority of children, outperforming government schools, at a fraction of the cost. Now, surely that’s something we should be celebrating?

Thus, without causing offence, he points out the unfortunate re-interpretation by Pratham of its own ASER.

It is clear that empirical questions are being addressed or being sought to be addressed on an ideological plane, as has been the case always in India. One hopes that the reformist Minister Mr. Sibal is not swayed by hackneyed arguments and that he supports the consumers in making their own choice of schools.

Separately, I managed to catch up with James Tooley’s three-part article in ‘The Globalist’ on his serendipitous discovery of Indian private schools and how that transformed his lives. You can read them here, here and here.

It is a MUST READ for all of us who see ourselves as social entrepreneurs, social change-agents or simply human beings who are trying to find their calling. He did so because he was restless with what he was doing and he persevered. That is the message:

But in the evenings, sifting and chaffing with street children outside these very same hotels, I wondered what effect any of my work could have on the poor, whose desperate needs I saw all around me. I didn’t just want my work to be a defence of privilege. The middle-class Indians, I felt, were wealthy already.

…. but as I returned to my room and lay on the 500-thread-count Egyptian-cotton sheets, my discomfort with the program was forced to compete with a mounting sense of self-criticism.

Left with some free time, I decided to take an autorickshaw — the three-wheeled taxis ubiquitous in India — from my posh hotel in Banjara Hills to the Charminar, the triumphal arch built at the centre of Muhammad Quli Shah’s city in 1591.

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Cross-posted on Jan. 11, 2010 at http://tgs.nationalinterest.in/2010/01/11/doing-enough-to-be-noticed
Two days ago, I received this article via email from good friend Dr. Chandru Rajam, currently living in the US. This talks of industry clusters. Some key sentences from this article:

The best example I’ve seen of a region that has successfully pursued cluster development is the unlikely locale of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, India. It wasn’t the government that made the magic happen, but the region’s ambitious entrepreneurs who prodded officials to follow their lead and team up with them. In a few short years, that group has turned the sun-blasted state once known for backwardness and poverty into an up-and-coming destination for top technology companies around the world.

It wasn’t just tech entrepreneurs and students who shared the dream. Many traditional industries are now employing modern IT practices in their operations. This has allowed them not only to compete globally, but to create innovative new business models. Consider Jaipur Rugs. In 2008, the company had annual revenues of $21 million and became one of the largest handmade rug fabrication companies in India. Jaipur Rugs comprises six business units serviced by a huge workforce of 40,000 independent contractors who weave rugs in their homes but tap into the company’s supply chain networks for wool, as well as quality-control methodologies. The company achieved compound annual growth rates in the mid-double digits over five years when it implemented ERP systems to manage all its complex operations.

These systems are equivalent to the best used by midsized Western companies. Jaipur Rug’s use of technology has not only meant more profits, but more work for contractors, many of whom are women or heads of families that previously languished in poverty. [More here]

I circulated it to my mailing list. One of my friends wrote back suggesting that I do a blog post on the article and also wondered when would FT post an article like this one. He did not have to wait long.

Tucking into my Muesli in cold and snowy Zurich this morning, I finished reading the full page article on innovations and R&D in Bangalore, written by Joe Leahy. It is in the European edition of FT today. Here is a sample from the article:

The research potential of India’s engineering talent pool first drew attention in 1985, when Texas Instruments opened a technology centre in Bangalore. Today, more than 200 multinationals have R&D centres in the country. The ventures aim to tap the country’s phalanxes of engineers – India’s better tertiary institutions churn out about 600,000 a year – as well as the enormous pool of expatriate PhDs working in the west who are keen to return home. Cost is also a factor. Partha Iyengar of Gartner India, a branch of the consultancy, says that in terms of “dollar spent per ounce of innovation”, India’s cheaper engineers mean the equation is “dramatically different” than elsewhere.

At first these R&D centres mostly supported their western counterparts. But in recent years increasing numbers have been entrusted with researching and developing entire products. In 2008, for instance, Intel launched the first commercial server chip wholly developed in its Bangalore design centre. The Xeon processor 7400 series marked a significant step forward for the US chipmaker, increasing the number of processing units built into each chip from four to six, enabling it to handle more intensive business enterprise applications.

Then, there was this news item about Bihar’s SDP registering a 11% rise in 2008-09. Although Bibek Debroy’s column in FE puts this in perspective, it is still a good story. It is worth reading Bibek’s piece. But, as one of my friends reminded me, it is important to visit Bihar to know more and better.

Then, came the story in FE with the following lines:

“Perhaps the most startling and indeed heartening conclusion of The Indian Express-Indicus study on how India will look in 2020, published in FE on Friday, was that India’s GDP can grow at an annual average rate of 9.6% in the next 10 years even if no reform were to happen.” Here is the link to the full article.

Laveesh Bhandari who runs Indicus has kindly sent me the full report and another study on trends in India’s small and big States. I hope to do a fuller post after reading the attachments he had sent.

While all of these stories are undoubtedly gratifying and confirm the case for a potential growth rate of the Indian economy in the region of 8% to 9% rather than 7% to 8%, it is important not to get carried away, for our potential is really much larger.

Just sample this great piece by Mr. Pradip Baijal (the former chairman of TRAI and the man who tried genuine privatisation in India under Dr. Arun Shourie).

Update:

The distance to be travelled is also captured in this article by Financial Times carried in the front page of its Asia edition on January 26, 2010:

China far outperformed every other nation, with a 64-fold increase in peer-reviewed scientific papers since 1981, with particular strength in chemistry and materials science.

“China is out on its own, far ahead of the pack,” said James Wilsdon, science policy director at the Royal Society in London. “If anything, China’s recent research performance has exceeded even the high expectations of four or five years ago, while India has not moved as fast as expected and may have missed an opportunity.”

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Cross-posted at http://tgs.nationalinterest.in/2010/01/23/upas-self-goals/ on Jan. 23, 2010

Two weeks away from Indian newspapers - I only managed to catch headlines on the IPL auctions. I thought Pakistan players were not automatically selected. Seeing all the discussion on the role of government, I - as did most people - could not help thinking that it was a wonderful way to lose goodwill among a vast section of the intelligent civilian population all over the world. If Pakistan had to operate a PR agency, perhaps, its best recruits would be had among Indian government.

One has to agree with Surjit Bhalla on everything that he writes, down to his comments on this government, on UPA - I & II and on the Congress party. T. N. Ninan takes the fight to the Pakistani military and intelligence. Not a bad comeback to make but he too does not spare the decision to drop all Pakistan players.

When I met some journalists from MINT in December, I asked them as to why they had gone soft on UPA-II. I thought the newspaper was quite a vocal critic of UPA-I’s fiscal policies, anti and non-reform stance, etc. For the most part, they were right.

Looks like they have been responding to my poser, lately. First, came this news item on the absence of work for and neglect of junior ministers by senior cabinet members of the UPA government. It is a great shame. There is plenty of scope to run a cabinet on corporate lines - MbOs, periodic reviews and appraisal, all done transparently in the public arena. Indian Cabinets are run as old age shelter homes for the most part. We can say they are also youth hostels?

Then, there was this edit on the anti-reformers in education. What our successive governments have done to education is either a scandal or a crime or both.

This editorial in ‘Business Standard’ too on the topic of deemed universities is good for the observations made by PM Dr. MMS. The edit is too soft on Mr. Arjun Singh. Political correctness whn it comes to a NDA Minister - Dr. MM Joshi - and a ‘Left-Secular’ Minister still reigns. Pity. Mr. Singh had done incalculable harm. It was all fine for the PM to have diagnosed the ills correctly:

The last words on this policy challenge were in fact uttered by the PM when he told the Harvard Alumni Association in India, in March 2006, that: “Private initiative can and must supplement public investment, which is vitally necessary in the sphere of education. However, we must make a distinction between public investment, public support and governmental facilitation, on the one hand and over-regulation, on the other hand. Paradoxically, our educational system faces the conflicting threats of anarchic growth in quantitative terms and moribund stagnation in qualitative terms. We need a balance between populism and over-regulation; between unbridled marketisation and excessive bureaucratisation.” [Full edit here]

The call to shut down the agriculture ministry could not have come a day sooner. Mr. Pawar’s tenure both in the earlier regime and now has been uninspiring, to say the least.

Acorn points to this edit too in MINT which says that complaints by Indian manufacturers about China’s cheap imports is an easier choice than doing something about it. One has to agree with their concluding paragraph which Acorn too highlights:

And if India wants its domestic manufacturing to compete at comparable costs, it should stop trying to block outside firms, and ask how it can better internal conditions. But that would mean a concerted policy that improves financing conditions, not to mention land acquisition clarifications and better regulations. Protectionism is just so much easier, no?

One has to conclude this post with Surjit Bhalla’s last paragraph:

The sad truth might be simple: This government is possessed with hubris; in simple English, unlimited arrogance. The decimation of the BJP, the extinction of the Communists, have seemingly left Indians with the option of no one but the Congress. Hence, it can do what it wants. If there is a food shortage, don’t release the piled-up stock of reserves which was created to counter just such an emergency. No matter if there is food inflation, the people will still vote you in. If the Mumbai politicians object, give in to their extraordinary demands and threats. Have no logic in the policy on visas. If someone even dares to question anything that the Congress party and its leaders have done over the last 60 years, then censor them, even if it is a guarded comment by one of your ministers. And remember, there was no such person as Narasimha Rao, even though it was under his leadership that the country changed, and the policies of the government changed. [More here]

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At the beginning of this year, in my end-of-the-year 2008 letter to friends and relatives, I wrote the following paragraphs:

“On Dec. 30th, it was great to listen to an hour and half of presentation from good friend Bharath Krishna Sankar (BKS) in Madurai on his “Thalir Thiran Thittam” (children skill programme). Actually, the programme is not about skills but about formation of right attitudes, perspectives and values. Most of us grow up to be spouses, parents and siblings with biological inevitability but with little of psychological preparedness. To the extent that this programme addresses that gap, even if to a small extent, it is a great first step to preparing children to grow into better, confident and more stable human beings.

It was gratifying to see the confident responses and feedback from children on how they felt that the programme benefited them. It has been piloted in five schools in Tamil Nadu. It was also heartening to hear from the teachers and principals of the pilot schools that student-conflicts have come down since this programme began. He is preparing to roll it out to thousands of schools. He is doing it through his Aparajitha Foundation funded by his personal resources. All strength to him.”

A bit on who BKS is, before I proceed further:

Bharath Krishna Sankar is the Chairman and Managing Director of Aparajitha group, headquartered at Madurai. He is a post graduate in Commerce, a Fellow of the Chartered Accountants Institute and an Associate of the Cost and Works Accountants Institute of India. Bharath is a gold medallist in the Chartered Accountancy Inter and Final Examinations and is a first generation entrepreneur.

He has a keen interest in ‘people management’ and his passion is to nourish the entrepreneurial spirit in youngsters. The initiative ‘Thalir Thiran Thittam’ is his brain child. He teaches at the Great Lakes Institute of Management and is the current chairman of CII - Madurai Zone.

Just a few days ago, I received an invitation from him for the launch of this programme in 4000 schools across Tamil Nadu, as the Minister for Education Hon. Thangam Thennarasu had taken a keen interest in the project. BKS wrote that the programme would start with students in the seventh standard this year and all other classes would be taken up next year.

BKS told me that the website would have a lot more information on the scheme soon. But, I was happy to find more than what he told me on the website

Specifically, in this URL, you would find some details of what the programme seeks to achieve.

The objectives of this program are to

1)Equip students to make informed choices by providing them with skills that they need to cope with issues and problems related to the entire spectrum of their survival and well being
2)Prepare students to become more responsible and confident adults, enabling them have a high self esteem and self worth,
3)Make students fit for the real world in which they would lead lives as responsible citizens, contributing well to themselves, their families and the society at large.

The page says that children coming from a ‘less privileged social or economic background have an initial disadvantage’ in coping with the ‘real world’ compared to children from more privileged background. It is correct. But, dysfunctional lifestyle, misplaced priorities and ego-clashes are universal.

Talking of dysfunctional lifestyle and habits, Thalir Thiran Thittam should include a special module on road etiquette for children and adults. Check out what this ‘Indian Express’ editorial says on Indian roads.

These things define a nation. Order and discipline achieved on Indian roads would instil self-belief and confidence to take on bigger problems. All political parties can unite on this. It would be transformational.

That is why I feel that Bharath has hit up on a wonderful programme. I think its scope can and should be expanded. It would turn out to be a boon not just for poor students but also for all students. Well, for adults too.

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When I heard that good friends Arvind and Neela were moving to Jakarta from Hong Kong, I wanted to check with them how was it for cosmopolitan and well-travelled Indians to live in Jakarta. Although I visit the city quite often as part of my work, it is never the same as living there.

So, I asked Neela if she could give me the perspective of the home-maker settling down in a new place. She had a good and satisfying job as a lawyer in a law-firm in Hong Kong, having done her Master’s degree in Law from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in the U.S. Arvind now heads the consumer banking division of Barclays in Indonesia.

Surely, it is a country with a tremendous potential and remains to be seen if they would realise it. The signs are more promising than they were few years ago.

This is a country with strong historical connections to India. Yet, as my friend Nitin Pai puts it, India does not have a direct flight to this neighbour. A great pity. I first wrote about it in MINT some nine months ago.

What Neela writes below would resonate with many who live in India or have moved to India recently. This is my small contribution to keeping Indonesia in the frame in India.

Over to Ms. Neela Arvind.

A City of Two Tales - Moving to and living in Jakarta – from an Indian friend who has moved from Hong Kong

Over this summer, we moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. My husband and I consider ourselves adept at relocating our lives, having completed 6 international moves in the last 20 years. Anathema as it is for my naturally disorganised soul, we actually have our act down to a pat after all these years – mailing list for address changes, inventory list for insurance, list of services to be terminated, personal treasure lists of numbers to be passed on to friends, etc. Armed with all this, our self-proclaimed open minds, our sense of adventure (& humour, which is critical!) plus the inevitable list of phone numbers of friends, friends of friends and family friends in the destination city (for Indians, this is par for the course), we felt ready to tackle any move. But when at the end of last year my husband mentioned a possible move to Jakarta, my reaction was mixed.

We had spent three years in Hong Kong, that world city that packs a punch in every corner. Throw in three kids who were happy in school, our respective jobs and our precious friends, life seemed to be about as good as it could be. However, there was no denying that gnawing restlessness within us, borne out of a nomadic lifestyle of moving every three years or so. As for Jakarta, I have positive memories of several work related trips (those were the few deals that actually closed; never mind that many of them were restructured in later years!). Friends who have lived there seem to have loved it for a few reasons, at least. And, there were the two memorable holidays to Bali. Yet, I knew enough of Jakarta to sense that this move would be different from the others. A bit of a roller coaster ride. Much like a move to India might be, I thought.

Reaction from the external world did little to reassure me. Mention of the move often produced an exaggerated cry or a pregnant pause during which minds seem to be racing to find a diplomatic way of sympathising. Inevitably, the standard imagery was that of impossible traffic, poor infrastructure, inefficiency in the services sector, plentiful yet unpredictable domestic help, slow pace of life & work, relatively poor quality of professionals, etc.

My own expectations changed dramatically in the 6 months that I had prior to the move and once we’d done our research, I really started warming up to the idea of living in Jakarta. It helped tremendously when our teenage daughter, who had been quite upset about leaving Hong Kong, did a volte-face after hooking up on Facebook with four friends at the Jakarta International School, all of whom had attended school with her in some other country (there’s a completely parallel network that exists in the international schools!).

So, now that I am here, what is Jakarta really like? Put simply, it is the ultimate city of contradictions. And right there for everyone to see. Run-down and infrastructure-challenged neighbourhoods lie adjacent to an impressive downtown with shining high-rises and wide roads to rival any of the world cities I have been to. Luxury sedans jostle for space on the roads with motorcycles carrying entire families. A well-planned four-lane expressway leads to a maze of organically-evolved, narrow Jalan Tikus (from my limited knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia that literally translates to ‘Mouse Roads’). Mega malls and mom & pop stores are equally cherished. You will find incredible services at local banks (you can pay all your bills to any service provider directly at the ATM) while being totally outraged at the quality of other services. You see youngsters in familiar attire such as pants, skirts, shorts walking side by side with friends in sarongs and head cloths. The regular calls of the muezzins are an immediate confirmation that we live in an Islamic country while the strong influence of Hinduism and Buddhism is reflected in their art. Bombings and earthquakes appear to stun the city to a halt but then the next day it is bustling again.

As a place to live, Jakarta takes some getting used to. The chaos is in front of you (and in your head from all that you’ve heard and read) but there does appear to be a method to the madness. It just happens to be a different one from the typical metro madness we are used to in Singapore and Hong Kong. Of course, having taken a temporary break from the work place to settle down, my observations are essentially from the point of view of a homemaker.

Like the weather in London, the traffic in Jakarta is a topic that features at the start, middle or end of all conversations. It would be an understatement to say that the traffic is bad and cars begin crawling as they near Jalan General Sudirman, the arterial road in the business district. As a newcomer and infrequent visitor to the business district, watching the array of cars, two wheelers, traffic jockeys, car jockeys and pedestrians keeps me distracted from feeling frustrated about spending all that time on the road. Thankfully, we have managed to make traffic a bit of a non-issue in our daily life. We live close to the kids’ school, close enough for them to be able to cycle/walk. My husband bears the brunt of the commute in terms of distance but with some help from his demanding job, he manages to leave ahead of morning crush and returns well after the evening peak traffic has subsided.

Of course, it is not all smooth sailing. The repair services are a completely different story. While in our cramped Hong Kong apartment, we day-dreamed of all the space we would have in our new house but like everything else in Jakarta, living in a house is a mixed package. After the first couple of weeks in our new home, I made a laundry list of issues around the house for the landlady. The response was quick but I just wasn’t prepared for the parade that followed! Every day, without warning, I would have several batches of 2-3 people descend on me. With arms, legs and a few words in Bahasa Indonesia, I would manage to communicate enough to figure out whether they had come to attend to the phone, the plumbing, the carpentry or the electrical connection. The next day, an entirely different set of people would turn up to look at the very same problems! And after about four visits from various people, one of them would declare the problem fixed – which it would appear to be, at least until the following day when we’d be back to square one. After some frustrating moments, I have learnt to take it in my stride. My belief in Karma has been reinforced and I think that some things are just meant to remain unfixed!

The people make the real difference in Jakarta. I like to classify cities based on the overriding feeling you get when living there – do you feel the pulse of the City, the pulse of the Government or the pulse of the People? In Jakarta, as in India, it is the pulse of the people that you feel. The people seem to have a natural calm and an inner strength. Observing the gentle nature of the locals (my Bahasa Indonesia teacher takes great pains to clarify that it is only the Javanese who are this gentle!) and their ability to bounce back after every tragedy or trauma has actually helped us cope with the unfamiliar stresses of bombings and earthquakes - at least for now! Here, people have time to be civil, to answer your questions, to help you even if it is not part of their job. Domestic workers are accepting of their lot, taking a hiring or a firing in their stride. Security guards appear to be happy just to have time to strum a guitar once in a way. Drivers are willing to do any tasks around the house just so they can be of help. It’s a different rhythm.

Bottom line - Jakarta has lived up to all that I expected, and then some. It is indeed like a roller coaster ride, plunging from good experiences to bad. And there’s more to come. While I am sure exploring the cultural and environmental treasure that is Indonesia will be rewarding, I am not at all looking forward to the monsoon season when the low-lying roads are bound to get flooded and traffic, significantly worse! As I anticipated, the experience for me is very much like India, a very real place with very real issues and a place that is difficult to sum up in a few words. For now, my interest is piqued.

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