Pachauri is back at TERI, what a shame!

It is unfortunately a fact of Indian life that the rich and the powerful can commit any misdeed and get away with it. Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar laments in The Economic Times today:

"Police investigations and trials take forever in India. Virtually no famous or resourceful person is convicted beyond all appeals. Probably Pachauri will die of old age before the cases against him reach final conclusion."

It is disgusting to know that R.K.Pachauri has resumed his charge as Director General of TERI. TERI's board members have shamefully abstained from taking any action against this sexual predator. Swaminathan Aiyer's desperate questions must be haunting them every waking moment:

"Why do we not hear fireworks from Teri’s distinguished board members? Naina Lal Kidwai, you have won awards for defying gender biases to get to the top of HSBC, one of India’s biggest banks in India. Why are you not lashing out against a man who typifies male terrorism? Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, you are famous as India’s top female entrepreneur. You must know how prevalent male harassment is in Indian business. Why are you not screaming your head off in this case? Deepak Parekh, you have long epitomised ethics and corporate responsibility. Why are you silent? It’s time to go on the warpath."

The Greek drama

Prof.T.T.Ram Mohan of the Indian Institute of Management has an interesting blog that discusses many events passionately and at times dispassionately (ttrammohan.blogspot.in). Regarding the Greek crisis, the professor has argued that the lenders must agree for partial waiver so that the country can be back on its track.

This view attracted the following comment:
"Will debt forgiveness not amount to incentivisation of indolence? Greece entered Euro Union by faking its financials. The basic moral and legal principle that fraud should give no advantage to the fraudster cannot be transgressed. Waivers now will snowball into major disasters in future. The choice is not between forgiveness and failure, but between discipline and disaster."

Mr.Ram Mohan responded as follows:
" Whatever Greece's original sin, the rise in the debt to gdp ratio is the result of austerity policies forced on it. Debt has to be reduced for growth to resume. Do we want to punish Greece for its past sins or do we want a way out of the present problem?"

The professor has presented the problem as past vs present. Are we to focus on past sins or present problems? 

We may arrive at a different answer if we frame the problem as one confronting the present and the future. Do we want a temporary way out of the present problem and get into a bigger soup in future or do we want to painfully negotiate the present and evolve a better future? Pandering to the Greek greed for serial bailouts is not a panacea for its ills; on the contrary, it only serves to defeat its aspirations for a better future.

Indo-Pak relations

India and Pakistan are distant neighbours. They view each other with a lot of suspicion and perhaps hatred too. This approach is costing them both heavily. Yet, the historical baggage is such that no solution appears to be in sight, however long-sighted one is!

The summit meetings between the two prime ministers do not really break ice. The atmospherics of such meetings has become predictably boring and of a set pattern. Joint statements will be issued with a slight advantage for one side after one meeting and one can be sure that the next joint statement will marginally favour the other side. It does not matter who is in power in either country.

Once the leaders get back home, they will give a different spin to the statements and the significance of joint statement will be totally lost. In case the relationship between the two nations is normalised and moves away from bellicosity, the GDPs of both nations will head northwards.

Prodigal delinquency of Greece

Greece is forcing Europe to test the untravelled path by openly violating the unwritten principles behind the Euro currency. Fiscal discipline is the foundation of a common currency. Flagrant aversion to austerity is an open invitation to economic armageddon. Why should the disciplined resourceful continue to subsidise the deliberately reckless?

Greece has tried to enjoy the best of both worlds: a common currency and an uncommon liberal pension system. The Greek approach encourages abstinence from hard work and indulgence in indolence. Even an individual cannot carry on with this culture for a long time. When a whole country espouses this harmful  ethic, its lurch down the precipice is certain.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel said it right: "We have lost a valuable currency namely 'trust'".

Personal liberty vs public good

Alan Rusbridger, a former Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian posed a very significant question while delivering a lecture in Chennai on 'Journalism after Snowden'. Is the threat of terrorism today big enough to sacrifice the accumulated values of freedom and individual liberty? He implied it is not so. Not all may agree.

Should we wait till terrorism achieves a critical mass before we set limits on personal liberty? What is also implied in the question raised by Rusbridger is the painful acknowledgement that liberty is not absolute and that there could be circumstances warranting curbs on freedom.

In a different context, the comedian Bill Cosby's attorneys argued in a U.S.District Court that his right to privacy meant that the records pertaining to his sexual abuses should not be made public. The judge, Eduardo Robreno, had zero tolerance for this argument in the light of the "stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper and perhaps criminal conduct".

Criminals should be named and shamed. Terrorism should be fought even at the cost of personal liberty. Else, it may be too late.

The Maggi controversy

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has banished the Maggi noodles from the Indian market, at least for the present. Should the Indian consumers thank FSSAI for safeguarding their health or should they curse FSSAI for unreasonably going into overdrive and playing spoilsport?

This issue becomes relevant since the food regulators in Singapore, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have declared the product as fit for human consumption. FSSAI has tested the product for presence of lead and monosodium glutamate (MSG) whereas regulators in other countries test only for lead. The Indian regulation focuses on parts per million (ppm) and regulatory authorities in other countries look at grams per kilogram. Therefore honest differences are possible.

Nestle, the producer of Maggi, asserts that the same product that was sold in India is exported abroad. Only the packing is different to meet various regulatory requirements. If this is true, FSSAI has gone overboard especially when viewed in the context of Maggi having been a regular household snack for a long time. The question obviously arises as to what FSSAI was doing all along? Has it suddenly become conscious about our health?

On the contrary, if it is found that Nestle maintained different standards for domestic and export consignments, the government should claim condign compensation from the company for hurting the health of unwary consumers in India. BP has recently agreed to pay $ 18.7 bn in the Deepwater Horizon case for causing environmental damage.

Unfortunately, going by past events, it is clear that neither FSSAI nor Nestle will ultimately be held to account. This too shall pass!

Added on 10th July:

It is argued by some that the government has acted recklessly in banning Maggi noodles which has caused heavy losses to Nestle India in the form of loss in revenue, earnings, image and market capitalisation. If it is proved that there was lack of application of mind by FSSAI / government, the company should be compensated in tune with natural justice. If Nestle India fights it out in the court, we will have occasion to test whether the government , in  exercise of its duty,  has any immunity against compensatory claims. Vistas of interesting arguments would then open up. 

Gujarat Model?

Amartya Sen, the Nobel-laureate, had famously pronounced that democracies would not witness famines because any developing food crisis would receive a lot of media-attention and the government being democratic in character would be forced to take preventive steps to negate the possibility of a full blown famine. The same logic should apply to any health crisis like severe malnutrition.

But, Sen could not foresee the emergence of Narendra Modi’s style of democracy.  Government of India and UNICEF together conducted a state-wise study on nutritional standards of children and women. The study was completed and the report was ready in October, 2014. GOI is yet to release the report for public consumption.

However, The Economist magazine has managed to obtain the report christened the Rapid Survey on Children and has made it available at www.economist.com/indiachildren. The report shows that the state of Gujarat fares very poorly in various parameters relating to child nutrition. The proportion of hungry children in this comparatively wealthy state is as high as 33.5% . 42% of children in Gujarat are stunted (that is, short for their age) and 18.7%  weigh too little for their height. These statistics obviously are not an effective advertisement for the Gujarat model of development. At the same time, this cannot be the reason for withholding the eye-opening report from the public.

It is a shame that we need to know about ourselves from a foreign magazine.

Added on 5th July:

 Following additional statistics taken from The Economist are revealing:

1)Underweight children (aged under 5 years, % of total)

    Gujarat: 34%, All India: 29%, Maharashtra: 25%, Tamilnadu: 23%, Kerala: 19%

2)Stunted children (aged under 5 years, % of total)

    Gujarat: 42%, All India: 39%, Maharashtra: 35%, Tamilnadu: 23%, Kerala: 20%

3)Immunisation (children aged 12 months to 23 months, % of total)

    Gujarat: 56%, All India: 65%, Maharashtra: 77%, Tamilnadu: 76%, Kerala: 83%