THE Lutyens’ Delhi address of 16, Ashok Road, is a palatial house that has been generally allotted to senior Ministers, former Chief Ministers or senior MPs. Former Home Minister Buta Singh lived in this house for years. Sajjan Kumar and his MP brother, Ramesh Kumar, also enjoyed living in it. Now this house has been allotted to Mulayam Singh Yadav, former Chief Minister of UP. It is a well-appointed house but Mulayam did not like the décor. So, for the past two months, interior decorators of repute have been working on it.
It is not uncommon to see top politicians getting their bungalows done up by fancy interior decorators.One can only marvel at how these leaders call themselves the servants of the masses.
Of more interest is that the cost is being borne by a liquor baron from UP who is also the main supporter of Mayawati. The benefactor professedly wants the house to be so luxurious that it will draw not only admiration but also envy. It is but a small gesture for the UP leader, and money is no matter. One can only guess how many crores are being spent….
Drama aboard Air India One
tv journos create ruckus
AS is the convention, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently went to Southeast Asia, a group of mediapersons was taken along to present an accurate perspective to the nation. This time, there were more TV journalists and also more women in the group. The routine press conference on the flight out was skipped. On the way back, it was announced that the customary press briefing would be held. Immediately, the TV journalists started talking about the issues they would raise – Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi, Maoism, Advani’s rath yatra, and so on.
The officials got wind of this and informed the PM. The press briefing was then called off. This led to a fresh clamour. Finally, after a lot of persuasion, Shiv Shanker Menon, Security Adviser to the PM, briefed the press. The print journalists were aghast over the behaviour of those from the electronicmedia, for an interaction with the PM, even off the record, gives them an insight into current developments.
Deora’s bucket-list
wishes to be congress treasurer
FORMER Petroleum Minister Murli Deora is keen to become treasurer of the Congress. Managing the funds of the ruling party requires discretion because nobody knows how much is in the kitty except for Sonia Gandhi. The post gives direct and any-time access to the party president. Deora’s problem is that Motilal Vora, a Brahmin leader and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, is in the post and known to be honest, low-profile and hardworking. Vora’s biggest asset is that he is not a pawn of any international lobby.
Deora has the support of the anti-Brahmin lobby, a top industrial house, and the US. He also has the capacity to collect funds. The only problem is that he does not enjoy Sonia’s complete trust because his performance as Petroleum Minister was not up to expectations. He erred in pursuing the agenda of his masters in Mumbai. But this is an insurmountable problem as the Congress treasurer is not supposed to have two bosses.
Power of Pawar
Maratha strongman gets his way
THE petrol price episode, when prices were hiked and then rolled back, caused some jitters for the Manmohan Singh government, especially with Mamata Banerjee threatening to withdraw support. Sharad Pawar was the only Cabinet Minister in the coalition government who openly supported the Prime Minister, stating that, as an economist, he knew more about the pricing of petrol. Pawar’s colleagues were surprised while Manmohan was appreciative. But Pawar’s moves, such as supporting Manmohan’s economic liberalization steps, are calculated.
Earlier, former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh smelt a rat in Pawar’s schemes and objected to clearance of the Lavasa township project of the Hindustan Construction Company. He was ousted from the Environment Ministry but the clearance had been blocked. Pawar was also upset with the PM over Vinod Goenka’s arrest in the 2G scam. Pawar and Goenka’s proximity is well known in Maharashtra.
Then, in one fell swoop, Pawar solved both problems. The Lavasa project got its clearance and Goenka is out of jail. So much can be achieved with just nine Lok Sabha members in a coalition government…. g
THE officials in South Block are at their wits’ end. The Army needs to phase out all its medium and heavy field guns asap but whenever it initiates a step towards doing this, some problem or the other crops up. The process to acquire guns was initiated in 2006 and the Defence Ministry has allocated the funds. But the foreign purveyors of weaponry, especially artillery, are grappling with court cases in India. The top sellers of guns – Soltam of Israel, AB Bofors of Sweden, ST Technologies of Singapore, Rheinmetall Defence India of Germany and Denel of South Africa – are all facing court cases.
Whenever the process of selecting guns to be bought starts, complaints against the manufacturers reach all the investigating agencies. Senior officers can do nothing about it as there is an all-pervasive atmosphere of fear in the Ministry. They suspect that India’s enemies may have a role in engineering all this.
Skirting defence
AND here’s another quandary that the Ministry of Defence is grappling with. It is looking for a Joint Secretary to play the role of adviser to the Raksha Mantri (Delhispeak for Defence Minister). The Ministry of Personnel has drawn up a panel of names and sent it to Shashi Kant Sharma (Secretary, Defence). He is keen to get the appointment done but there is no candidate available. The ones on that list have politely declined.
The reason is that the fraternity of Joint Secretaries is well aware of the disadvantages of joining the Ministry of Defence. The moment an officer of that level joins, he or she comes under the scanner of all the investigating agencies.
And everyone has become even more cautious since the arrest of the former Secretary in the Ministry of Communication.
Cosmetic bureaucracy
RECENTLY, all IAS officers of the 1981 and 1982 batches and some from the 1983 one went to the US for a month-long training programme under the aegis of the Ministry of Personnel and Training. This is a routine programme for senior officers and the DoPT has made it mandatory. On their return, the training was capped off by a 10-day programme at Mussoorie, where they were addressed by the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shiv Raj Singh Chavan, and the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh.
Chavan declared that most of the officers had a negative attitude. Then he added that most of the work was done through Collectors and SPs, and the rest of the bureaucracy was quite redundant. Raman Singh said that two-thirds of his State was infested with Maoists and even he could not enter half of those areas. Ninety percent of the industrialists in his State paid money to the Maoists, “and I can’t do anything about it,” he said. He also said, “People call me chawal [rice] baba as I have streamlined the PDS.” The audience got the message – today, CMs need only efficient Collectors. The rest of the bureaucracy is decorative.
Red star over Leh?
THE intelligence agencies have uncovered some astonishing skullduggery by China on Indian territory. Beijing is reportedly trying to woo a Buddhist leader in Ladakh – the Gyalwang Drukpa. It seems the Chinese intelligence network has started trying to influence the Gyalwang Drukpa. Beijing has apparently offered His Holiness resources to buy land in Ladakh and elsewhere in India, and has also held out the promise of a large monastery in Tibet. Sources say the offer was turned down. The External Affairs Ministry and the PMO have been informed but there has been no reaction as yet. India’s intelligence agencies warn that Manmohan Singh should not repeat the mistake of Morarji Desai.
THE fact that the announcement of big ticket reforms like FDI in retail, Cabinet approval of the Company Law Bill, restructuring of the AI loan by the RBI and signs of moderation in inflation failed tocheer the markets indicates how depressed the market sentiment is. The reason may be traceable not only to the depressing international scenario with weak global risk appetite but also the deteriorating fundamentals of the Indian economy.
The expectation that the gloom in the West will turn out to be a boom for us is fast disappearing due to the investors’ apprehension of widening fiscal deficit that is likely to far exceed the government’s projection of 4.6% with growth likely to take a severe beating. The fiscal deficit for the year can go past 5.5% with real GDP growth slowing to less than 7%, prompted by already slipping IIP numbers.The impact of the widening deficit is already being reflected in the rapid depreciation of the rupee that is going to make matters worse regarding inflation, interest rates and growth. The steady fall in exports, rising imports, declining capital inflows, rising subsidy burden and contracting revenues have all been adding to the woes of the government. The RBI may not even pause regarding the rate hikes unless the international scenario turns disastrous.
Poor risk management of corporate India can further lead to heightened
volatility in stock prices in the days to come, accentuated by large
quantities of pledged shares.
All this will get reflected in poor corporate results in the quarters to come, as indicated by the steep downgrades of earnings by all the leading analysts. Poor risk management of corporate India can further lead to heightened volatility in stock prices in the days to come, accentuated by very large quantities of pledged shares, FCCBs and foreign currency loans in the books of Indian companies.So what happened with Bilcare may well happen with many other stocks. The redemption pressure on funds is compelling them to book profits wherever they can and they are preparing for anticipated future redemptions so long as the European crisis is not getting resolved.
The market is therefore likely to remain bearish for at least another couple of quarters. Lack of depth and investors’ unwillingness to take a call due to continuing uncertainty and expectation of more bad news flowing in can see stocks declining sharply even with small bouts of selling. The overall risk for the markets are higher than they were at the time of the Lehman collapse due to the sheer impact of the possible default by several nations, the sums involved and the difficulties in handling the scenario emerging out of it all. The domestic situation is also worse than what it was in 2008, looking at the political, economic and corporate scenarios. Some of the sectors are struggling to keep afloat andmay have serious repercussions for the financial system of the country.
Such a scenario offers an excellent opportunity to those interested in building a long term portfolio of quality stocks. Investors are advised to look for quality mid cap stocks that have been severely beaten down with those companies that have robust business models, are not leveraged, and are run byquality managements who have not pledged their shares. g
Stock Shop
BY RAKESH BHARDWAJ
Orissa Minerals Development Company (OMDC)
(CMP Rs 37,000)
OMDC, a government-managed company, has six mines with reserves of 206 million tonnes of iron ore and 44 million tonnes of manganese ore. A re-assessment expects the reserves to double. Though currently not in operational stage, it is expected that two mines will get operational before December-end whereas the issue of one mine will be taken up by the Environment Ministry in the same month. The mining leases of all the mines are expected to be in place by April 2012.
OMDC is an indirect subsidiary of the second-largest steel PSU, RINL, which doesn’t have a captiveraw material base and thus OMDC fits perfectly into the scheme of things. A stock split and bonus could be in the offing, which will help in realizing the true value of OMDC’s shares. The fact that the stock split was deferred at the board meeting on November 18 led to a crash in the stock price, offering an excellent opportunity to grab the stock to all long-term investors. OMDC is trading at EV/ton of $1.8, whereas the largest miner, NMDC, is trading at EV/ton of $6.
The author has no exposure in the stock recommended in this column. gfiles does not accept responsibility for investment decisions by readers of this column. Investment-related queries may be sent to editor@gfilesindia.com with Bhardwaj’s name in the subject line.
secretary, health and family welfare, Karnatakaev ramana reddy
‘We are committed to achieving health for all’
AN IAS officer of the 1988 batch, Dr EV Ramana Reddy assumed charge as Secretary of the Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of Karnataka, on November 23, 2009. Venugopalan spoke to him about his initiatives in the health sector.
gfiles: Which are the prominent health initiatives taken by your department?
EV Ramana Reddy: We mainly deal with 15-20 national and State health programmes, including the Rural Health Component of the Minimum Needs Programme, Curative Services, National Rural Health Mission, National Leprosy Eradication Programme, National Tuberculosis Control Programme,National Programme for Control of Blindness, National Vector Borne Control Programme, National Guinea Worm Eradication Programme, Prevention & Control of Communicable Diseases like diarrhoeal diseases, Kyasanur forest diseases and so on, Health Education, Training and SchoolHealth Services, Nutritional Services, National Iodine Deficiency Disorder Control Programme, Laboratory Services, and so on.
‘The majority of patients coming to government health centres belong to the
below poverty line, SC/ST families. We keep a close watch on health
indicators like infant mortality.’
We have about 8870 sub centres, 2310 primary health centres, 326 CFCs and taluk hospitals and one district hospital. Through all these centres, we serve more than three crore out-patients and around 50 lakh in-patients every year.
The majority of the patients coming to the government health centres belong to the below poverty line, SC/ST families. We keep a close watch on health indicators like Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and Total Fertility Rate (TFR). At present (as per the 2009 figures), the IMR in the State is 41 per 1000 and it is expected to come down to around 25 by 2015. The MMR, which is now 178, is also expected to come down to 100 by 2015.
Similarly, the TFR is about 2, which is ahead of the target fixed by the Government of India.
gfiles: What schemes have been implemented for the nutrition and health needs of women and children?
EVRR: During the last few years, we have started some new initiatives, including a programme called Tai Bhagya. In addition, we have 3-4 components like MADLU. Under this programme, we give tips to mothers for child care after the delivery. The programme includes about 19 items useful for mother and child. Then we have a scheme, Prasuti Araike, where we give Rs 2000 as cash incentive to pregnant women. The first instalment of Rs 1000 is given during the pregnancy and the second after delivery in any health centre.
This is meant for wage compensation and rotational support for the pregnant mother. Under Tai Bhagya, we empanel certain private hospitals where the BPL women can get treatment during pregnancy and the expense is reimbursed by the State government.
gfiles: What is the criterion for this reimbursement?
EVRR: The government pays Rs 3 lakh for 100 deliveries, including normal and caesarean. We have the very popular health programme, Suvarna Aarogya Chaitanya. It is mainly a school health programme. Every year, during September-October, we cover all the school going children (from Class 1 to 12), even in private schools, for a health check-up. We provide this facility to over 90 lakh students every year. Under this scheme, even a small ailment is taken care of. Even if a child needs any kind of surgery, he/she is sent to a private hospital and the expense is reimbursed by the government.
Under the mobile health scheme, we have 114 units which work in remote areas and are run by different NGOs. The government reimburses the cost of treatment. We have some public-private partnership initiatives also. One is Arogya Bandhu, where we outsource Primary Health Centres to various NGOs and medical colleges. Until now, about 56 such centres are run by private agencies. The government reimburses their expenses. The Arogya Kavacha 108 scheme has also become very popular. Then we have a health insurance programme known as Arogya Shree.
gfiles: Are all these national health programmes?
EVRR: No, these are State programmes. The experiment of 108 emergency medical service is very popular in 10 states. Similarly, like Arogya Shree, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu also have similarschemes. Under this scheme ailments related to the heart, neurology, cancer, and so on are covered. If any surgery or hospitalization is required, the State government takes care of it. We have implemented a scheme for citizen healthcare also in all the district hospitals.
gfiles: What is done for capacity-building of the health department?
EVRR: The health department has 51,000 employees, including paramedical staff, doctors and specialists. For all of them, we have different training and development programmes. In addition, we impart administrative training in Mysore Institute.
gfiles: What challenges does the department face in implementing the schemes?
EVRR: The biggest challenge is human resources. Human resources have to be improved at any cost if we really intend to provide better health services to the people. If we have sufficient staff, we cando the best in rural areas. The main problem is to find the right human resources (specialists and trained doctors) who can work in rural areas. This is the biggest challenge faced by the department. We have taken many steps to improve the situation. At present, we have more than 600 specialists in rural hospitals.
gfiles: Are they permanent employees or on contract?
EVRR: They are permanent employees and have been recruited by the Karnataka Public Service Commission.
gfiles: Does the department have health management and hospital administration training courses regularly for health managers and hospital administrators?
EVRR: We send 15 medical officers for orientation programmes to training institutes. We send the same number for technical training programmes also. We balance the number of both technical and non-technical staff.
gfiles: What are the steps taken to strengthen the district health system?
EVRR: We have two types of hospitals. Under the State sector, we cover the hospitals with more than 100 beds. All the rural health centres come under zilla panchayats. This is the district-level health set-up. We have a two-tier health set-up in the State – District Health Society and District Health Mission. We have Arogya Samitis also, which have members from local bodies and the elected representatives. We also have Village Health Committees, which are run under the Panchayati Raj policy. A panchayat member is the chairman of this committee.
gfiles: What initiatives have been taken for environmental health?
EVRR: Pollution is a big health hazard. To curb it, we have taken many initiatives at various levels. For the past year, we are concentrating on minimizing these hazards. In taluka and district hospitals,we provide treatment plants for liquid waste and to remove the solid waste there are two types of treatment facilities. We provide essential technical information to each district through the Karnataka Health System Development and Reform Project (KHSDRP), which is a World Bank-aided project. Common treatment facility is also available in Uttar Kannada and other districts. We have tied up all the districts with a common treatment facility for solid waste management. It has been implementednot only in government hospitals but also in private hospitals.
gfiles: How many private hospitals are registered in the State?
EVRR: Under the Private Medical Establishment Act, we have received 23,782 applications and 14,295 have been accepted while 10,864 are under review. About 6,541 applications were rejected.
gfiles: What are the schemes for nutrition and health education?
EVRR: Nutrition of mother and child is taken care of by the Women and Child Department. We are expanding the nutrition intervention net through Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) and Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT).
gfiles: What are the schemes for stabilization of population growth?
EVRR: Population stabilization through fertility decline has long been a goal for the State government. Keeping in view the present demographic status and the State’s financial and other capabilities, realistic goals in respect of population control, child health and maternal health will be worked out and necessary programmes will be taken up.
gfiles: Which are the prime diseases in the State and what action is taken byyou?
EVRR: We do not find any epidemic-type disease in the State. There are only local diseases like malaria, cholera and so on. For malaria and chikungunya we have taken many initiatives, from village to urban level. We have provided guidance and necessary medicines to each district for prevention of disease. We have selected 68 Primary Health Centres where proper plans and efforts are made to curb disease.
‘In taluka and district hospitals, we provide treatment plants for liquid waste,
and to remove the solid waste there are two types of treatment facilities.’
gfiles: What is the fertility rate in the State?
EVRR: The total fertility rate (TFR) varies from district to district. We have achieved the target of 2 at State level, but in some districts it is low – from 1.5 to 1.08. In Udupi, it is lowest (0.98) and in Yadgir itis about 3. There would be a focus on the entire life cycle of women. It means ensuring adequate nutrition and physical and social conditions for mothers during pregnancy, providing access to healthservices, implementing measures to prevent female foeticide and infanticide.
gfiles: You appear satisfied with the rural health services. But doctors are still not interested in working in rural areas. Do you have any policy to send doctors to rural health centres?
EVRR: The main problem is human resources. We have amended the service rules of the State. In the sixth year, it will be mandatory for all medical students to serve in rural health centres. The ruralhealth services have now improved.
gfiles: What is the situation with regard to e-governance?
EVRR: We have taken many initiatives, including Health Management Exam System (HMES), Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) and Procurement System (PS). Our entire health management system is being computerized. All the pregnancies since January this year have been entered under the MCTS. Since last year, all procurements are done through computers. g
OF all his politician contemporaries in Uttar Pradesh, Chaudhary Charan Singh is the only one who stands out as a character. The others, Chandra Bhan Gupta, Kamalapati Tripathi and Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, were merely politicians. Two others of the time come to mind: the socialist leader, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, and his maverick follower, Raj Narain. Each was a character in his own right but the first was a national leader and in every way a class apart from Charan Singh; the second, though remarkable, was in a totally different category.
Measured by his political mission, Charan Singh was largely a success. Measured by his political ambition, he was an utter failure. Opportunity knocked three times and he even grasped it but then failed to hold on.
Twice, in 1967 and 1970, he became Chief Minister and once, in 1979, he ascended to the office of the Prime Minister but on all three occasions he fell flat on his face in a matter of months. His first term as Chief Minister lasted 11 months, the second just eight. He lasted a mere 170 days as Prime Minister, from July 28, 1979 to January 14, 1980 and then slipped off the high chair rather disgracefully – becoming the first and only Prime Minister so far to have never faced Parliament. An even dearer ambition of his was to occupy the office his hero, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, had onceadorned – that of Union Home Minister – but there too his tenure was fleeting: just four months.
Every time he fell from office, Charan Singh blamed his fall on the machinations of his factional rivals.Sometimes, he moaned that he had fallen because he was the only straight man amidst so many crooks. But his disappointed followers blamed his unbending nature. Political correspondents who knew him well cited his failure to build a faction of his own within the party. His opponents blamed hiscasteist image, which, they said, had reduced him to being a mere Jat leader.
There is some truth in every one of these statements. At the end, it was basically his simple inability to make friends. He was too much of a moralist and disciplinarian, too stern, too cut and dry, too stubborn and too demanding of his followers, utterly lacking in the dirty necessities of politics. He was, therefore, never able to create a substantial following or build a faction within the party or outside. For most of his life, he was forced to plough a lonely furrow.
Charan Singh was born to a reasonably well-off Jat peasant family in 1902 in a village in Meerut district of western UP. He studied law, practised as an advocate at the local district court, joined the Indian National Congress in 1927, participated in the freedom movement, went to jail on several occasions like everybody else of his generation and finally won a seat in the UP Assembly in the first election held before independence in 1937.
Until then, there was nothing remarkable about him. He was one of many such emerging leaders thrown up in the mass movement for freedom under Mahatma Gandhi. He first drew notice when he introduced a Bill in the Assembly in 1939 to protect farmers from the practices of food grain dealersor arhtis. The Bill outlined the contours of the concerns and causes he would espouse and despise lifelong. Paul Brass has dealt with these concerns in good detail, drawing a vivid and, by and large, fair and unhesitant portrait of Charan Singh as a vigorous champion of all the peasant causes of his time. I must use this opportunity to admit that I owe a debt of gratitude to Brass. It was his Factional Politics in an Indian State, published in 1965, that first gave me a glimpse into the intricacies of themany-sided and complex politics of UP where I began my career as a political correspondent in the late 1960s. I used his book as a primer in politics and learnt much from it.
Measured by his political mission, Charan Singh was largely a success. Measured
by his political ambition, he was an utter failure.
THIS latest work of his is in a way a continuation of that first book on UP politics. The book tracks Charan Singh’s career up to 1961 and is only the first part of a multi-volume project on the politics of northern India. As far as Charan Singh is concerned, a second volume will take the readers through the remaining years of his career up to 1987.
I am sure those interested in UP and the national politics of these years and Charan Singh’s role in those tumultuous events will await the second volume. Brass’s portrayal of Charan Singh is sympathetic, even appreciative, but never over the board. He has admitted his admiration for his subject. Yet he does not gloss over Charan Singh’s failures or shortcomings or his lack of sufficientconcern for landless agricultural labourers and caste groups placed lower in the social hierarchy than the landowning backward peasant castes whose causes he championed throughout his life. In that respect, his portrayal is honest.
Although, during his life, Charan Singh was portrayed as a kulak and casteist leader, he was really not a champion of rich or large farmers. Nor was he casteist. The charge of casteism was thrust uponhim by the Leftists. At the most, he could be called a reluctant caste leader. At the end, he became one against his best wishes. He strongly resented being called a Jat leader. “How can you say that?” he would often rail. “I am a champion of all peasants and of no particular caste.” There is, no doubt, much to show for his championship of peasant causes like his role in abolition of zamindari and consolidation of land holdings.
Charan Singh had an abiding interest in the welfare of tiller peasants. He was a Gandhian in the tradition of Sardar Patel, strongly opposed to almost everything that Jawaharlal Nehru represented ideologically – capital - intensive big industry, cooperative farming, westernized English-speakingurban middle class, Muslim appeasement and Sanatani Hinduism.
He was against caste, too, and suggested several measures to eliminate caste from public life. He stood for simplicity, honesty and sobriety in personal life, integrity and probity in the public sphere, Hindu Arya Samaj values, stringent enforcement of law and order, and a strong but highly disciplinedbureaucracy in administration.
He was equally robust in his advocacy of causes and in criticism of those he despised such as moneylenders, food grain dealers and lower-level babus in government, especially those connectedwith revenue administration like tehsildars and patwaris. What did him in at the end was his intolerance of those who disagreed with him and his total lack of understanding of modern currents in science and technology. g
Why Mallya the Czar of Good Times is taking a back seat while Indigo’s Bhatia is flying high
by RAJENDRA BAJPAI
THE high-flying, slightly overweight and pony-tailed Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher Airlines is always in thenews. And not always for a good reason. Right now, his financial woes and valiant efforts to save his airline are all over the front pages of newspapers and magazines. In the past, he has been in the news for holding grand parties on his yacht and flying friends to South Africa in his personal jet to watch a cricket match.
Mallya owns race horses, a Formula 1 team, an Indian Premier League cricket team, football clubs and a hugely successful liquor business. He also owns Kingfisher Airlines, which has been bleeding him for years.
The trouble is, he lives on credit and living on credit is living dangerously. He buys aviation fuel on credit. He defers payments to creditors, making the loans even more costly. Rahul and Kapil Bhatia also own an airline – IndiGo. They don’t have a personal business jet or a yacht. They don’t hold parties in Cannes. They do not fly their friends to South Africa or the West Indies to watch cricket matches. They don’t own cricket teams, football clubs or race horses. And they pay cash for fuel they buy for IndiGo’s 40 A-320 Airbuses.
Both parties are equally wealthy. Mallya, with a net worth of $1.11 billion, is ranked 49 on Forbes’ list of rich Indians. The Bhatias, with a net worth of $1.09 billion, are ranked 51. Mallya and the Bhatias came into the aviation business at about the same time. They knew the business was fraught with risks. For both, it was a gamble. The Bhatias exercised financial prudence from the start. They gambled prudently, Mallya gambled heartily. Both produced first-class airlines. Mallya’s business plan was to run a full-service airline. The Bhatias decided to put together a low-cost carrier.
Kingfisher is generous to its passengers and pampers them. IndiGo would not give you a cup of tea for free. And that is where the difference lies between a profit-making and a loss-making airline. IndiGo keeps a stern eye on its finances. Kingfisher is unhesitatingly bountiful.
The result of IndiGo’s parsimony is that it made a profit of Rs 500 crore in the year ending March 2011 while Kingfisher reported a loss of Rs 1,027 crore.
The lifestyles of Mallya and the Bhatias have left a deep imprint on their business. The Bhatias are careful with cash and avoid both controversy and publicity. Mallya is generous, flamboyant and courts both controversy and publicity. Mallya is always in the news, the Bhatias never. Mallya will be recognized anywhere in the country, the Bhatias nowhere.
IndiGo made a profit of Rs 500 crore in the year ending March 2011
while Kingfisher reported a loss of Rs 1,027 crore.
IndiGo pays cash for its fuel and oil companies offer it a discount. Kingfisher buys on credit, which is far more expensive. This is the key difference between the two because aviation fuel accounts for 42% of an airline’s cost. An airline which cannot control this component of its cost has very little chance of making a profit. Kingfisher has shown no inclination to do this. In fact, it owes more than Rs 1,000 crore to oil companies and some have now refused to give it fuel on credit. The result is that scores of its flights have been cancelled.
That Kingfisher is in deep trouble will be an understatement. It is gasping for breath. The airline’s losses last year erased the profit of Mallya’s other six companies. The group’s net loss stood at Rs 315 crore.
Some voices in the government, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s, have hinted at the possibility of a bailout although there is no logical reason for such generosity. In a free economy, you keep your profit and you pay for your losses. Still, it is more than likely that commercial banks andother creditors will come to Kingfisher’s rescue. If they don’t, they will be in as much trouble as Kingfisher. The airline owes creditors Rs 7,000 crore.
Kingfisher will probably have to radically change its business model. Whatever model it adopts, there will be no escape from reining in expenditure and cutting staff costs. At present, Kingfisher employs 140 people per aircraft compared to less than 100 by IndiGo.
Mallya has enough business and political clout to deal with the crisis at hand but he is running out of options. He has already decided to discontinue Kingfisher Red, the low cost carrier. Obviously, he has decided to vote in favour of a full-service airline. g
The current proposal regarding the None Of The Above option on EVMs is fraught with risk in the Indian context
by PRASHANT HAMINE
BY voicing his opposition to the proposed electoral reform of empowering voters with the Right ToReject Candidates provision, Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi has reversed the Election Commission of India’s stance on the issue. One of his predecessors, TS Krishna Murthy, had in July 2004 written to the Centre, favouring the introduction of the provision, which is also referred to as the None Of The Above (NOTA) option, or the No Vote option, or the Negative Vote option. However, Dr Quraishi’s opinion is more in tune with the worldwide trend.
But the concept has caught the imagination of some activists. Team Anna member Kiran Bedi sermonized the crowds at Ramlila Maidan on the Negative/Neutral Vote (49-O) in Indian electoral law. The demand is for installing a differently coloured button labelled None Of The Above on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). What the advocates fail to understand is that the complexities of the Indian electoral system require home-grown solutions rather than adoption of Western liberal concepts.
The current provision of 49-O in a way reveals the identity of the voter, who announces his decision before the Presiding Officer, the election agents of the candidates and others at the polling booth. But measures to protect the identity of such voters can always be worked out, as with witness protectionor whistle-blowers.
Nevada is the only State in the US which introduced the NOTA provision in 1976 after the Watergate scandal. It is now trying hard to get rid of it. In the US State, the provision is not binding and the second-placed candidate still gets the nod. For some it is a “Thrown-away Vote”.
Team Anna member Kiran Bedi sermonized the crowds at Ramlila Maidan on the
Negative/Neutral Vote (49-O) in Indian electoral law.
Australia, which has compulsory voting in federal elections, has the Provisional Vote provision. It provides for “a vote cast where an elector’s name cannot be found on the certified list or the elector’s name is already marked off the certified list as having voted, or the elector is registered as a Silent Elector”.
What is 49-0?
MANUAL OF ELECTION LAW – VOLUME II THE CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS RULES, 1961Part IV / Chapter II / Page 147
49-0. ELECTOR deciding not to vote.—If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form 17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.
There is another provision under which a ballot paper that is not marked or identifies the voter is treated as an “Informal Vote”. The average percentage of such Informal Votes in federal elections conducted by the Australian Election Commission between 1998 and 2010 has ranged between 3.2% to above 5%. Only twice, in 2004 and 2010, did the Informal Vote percentage cross the 5% mark. Due to compulsory voting, the voting percentage in the 2010 federal elections in Australia was around 93% for both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Swedish voters have no option of rejecting the candidates on the ballot paper. According to Helena Brogren, Administrator, Election Authority of Sweden, “In Sweden, if a voter does not wish to vote for any party or any candidate it is possible for the voter to use a blank ballot paper. By this act, the votercan prove that he had and wants to participate in the elections, but does not want to support any of the parties that run for elections.” But in India, the crucial issue of voters’ lack of awareness about their rights and duties arises. The NOTA provision can be misused by spreading misguided information or by vested interests seeking to further their own agenda.
The ECI recommended introduction of negative voting in 2001 and
reiterated it in July 2004. It then proposed that there should be
provision for a column called “None Of The Above”.
The ECI first recommended introduction of Negative or Neutral Voting to the Union Law Ministry on December 10, 2001 and reiterated it in July 2004. It then proposed that there should be provision for a column called “None Of The Above” after the particulars relating to the last candidate in the ballot unit, to enable a voter to reject all candidates if he so desires. The ECI had proposed that Rules 22 and 49-B of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, be amended to incorporate the provision of NOTA onthe ballot unit of the EVM.
A core committee of the Ministry had dwelt on the aspect of criminalization of politics, leading to voter intimidation, pre-poll freebies and there being no desirable candidate left in the fray. In such circumstances, undesirable candidates are returned elected and contribute to further decay in the system. So voters need to have an avenue whereby they can express their dislike for all the candidates.
The PRS Legislative Research, in its draft report on electoral reforms submitted to the core committee, also advocated inclusion of Negative or Neutral Vote. The committee in its report further recommended that there could be a provision whereby, if a certain percentage of the vote is Negative or Neutral then the election can be nullified and a fresh election conducted. This proposed electoralreform was rejected by the Dinesh Goswami Committee in its report submitted to Parliament in 1990. The Goswami Committee was of the view that the proposed electoral reform did not serve any purpose. The Law Commission, in its 1998 report, had advocated the concept of Negative Vote.
But neither the ECI, the Union Law Ministry nor the Law Commission have articulated as to how the proposed electoral reform should be implemented in practical terms and how secrecy of identity of the voter who chooses to exercise the option of Negative or Neutral Vote can be ensured.
Another question is, are we in a position to bear the additional cost of a repoll? Already, state funding of elections and fixed terms for elected bodies are envisaged to ensure the nation or a State do not have to face repeated elections.
In Nevada, and in Australia, Colombia, Greece, Spain and the Ukraine, the Negative or Neutral Votedoes not lead to a re-poll. Some Western democracies do allow voters to cast blank ballot papers, but certainly do not give them the right of Negative or Neutral Vote.
According to Mark Nyack, Public Information Officer at the Elections and Democracy division of the UK’s Electoral Commission, the commission had examined the issue of Positive Abstention or the None Of The Above option as part of its 2003 report on Ballot Paper Design. “The current system inthe UK does not allow electors to register their dissatisfaction with candidates in a positive manner. Such an option could lead voters to not vote for Independent candidates or smaller parties,” he says. g
THE Lutyens’ Delhi address of 16, Ashok Road, is a palatial house that has been generally allotted to senior Ministers, former Chief Ministers or senior MPs. Former Home Minister Buta Singh lived in this house for years. Sajjan Kumar and his MP brother, Ramesh Kumar, also enjoyed living in it. Now this house has been allotted to Mulayam Singh Yadav, former Chief Minister of UP. It is a well-appointed house but Mulayam did not like the décor. So, for the past two months, interior decorators of repute have been working on it.
AS is the convention, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently went to Southeast Asia, a group of mediapersons was taken along to present an accurate perspective to the nation. This time, there were more TV journalists and also more women in the group. The routine press conference on the flight out was skipped. On the way back, it was announced that the customary press briefing would be held. Immediately, the TV journalists started talking about the issues they would raise – Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi, Maoism, Advani’s rath yatra, and so on.
FORMER Petroleum Minister Murli Deora is keen to become treasurer of the Congress. Managing the funds of the ruling party requires discretion because nobody knows how much is in the kitty except for Sonia Gandhi. The post gives direct and any-time access to the party president. Deora’s problem is that Motilal Vora, a Brahmin leader and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, is in the post and known to be honest, low-profile and hardworking. Vora’s biggest asset is that he is not a pawn of any international lobby.
THE petrol price episode, when prices were hiked and then rolled back, caused some jitters for the Manmohan Singh government, especially with Mamata Banerjee threatening to withdraw support. Sharad Pawar was the only Cabinet Minister in the coalition government who openly supported the Prime Minister, stating that, as an economist, he knew more about the pricing of petrol. Pawar’s colleagues were surprised while Manmohan was appreciative. But Pawar’s moves, such as supporting Manmohan’s economic liberalization steps, are calculated.
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Every time he fell from office, Charan Singh blamed his fall on the machinations of his factional rivals.
