Labour or Mob Law: Scaring Situations

Posted on October 15, 2011 by indra

It’s not only the corruption but some other recent developments are equally scary. The government is so busy in managing the corruption in apex court and outside with all its resources that the governance is at stand still. Many important positions of secretaries and heads of PSUs are waiting to be filled. Many thermal plants will soon stop generating electricity because of shortage of coal.

The plant of Maruti Suzuki at Manesar in Haryana is under cease. The workers have occupied the factory premises and are resorting to violence and causing the damage of assets. The workmen are defying the High Court order that directed the striking workers to vacate factory premises and asked the police to provide the agitating workers with a place to lodge their protests and ensure that workers who wanted to work in the Manesar unit was not attacked by those on strike. The rising labour trouble in automobile industry of MNCs is emanating very poor signals to the foreign investors. I am sure the Japanese now holding the major stake must be cursing their decision on to set up the plant in Manesar. Haryana chief minister is busy in campaign of a bye-election. Surprisingly the Prime Minister declares that he is working on streamlining the labour laws.

The prominent citizens have joined the activists of the country to close the commissioned Nuclear plant in Koodankulam,Tamil Nadu till all an independent body investigates and reports positively about the safety all nuclear plants in India. How can the job of technical experts be taken over by the activists and so-called prominent citizens and court? Surprisingly, China is marching ahead with its nuclear energy projects with fiercest speed. Are they fools? However, the prime minister wishes to solve the problems by writing letters to the equally arrogant chief minister and the religious heads. Sometimes I feel like doubting if the country was ready for democracy and freedom of expression at the time of independence and even after 63 years thereafter.

It is shocking that the government and administration goes in action only after some serious situation arises. Its machinery fails to be proactive.

Is it only a labour law that requires reform or the country needs a code of conduct for the citizens at large particularly for those who matter such as the new growing clan of activists and vocal intellectuals with vested interests?

As I fail to understand the law of the country. The whole country saw two days ago how a rogue young man kept on hitting and kicking brutally a frail senior advocate in or near the Supreme Court premises in present of a crew of news channel. The advocate would have been killed. But the very next day, the gang including the main culprit was granted bail. I am sure the clear possibility of death of a person is more serious than losing few crores of rupees.

Where is the hope for this great nation when every day something or the other creates shock wave in the mind of common citizens?

Posted in governance, management, manufacturing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Heroes Fighting on Poverty Line

Posted on October 12, 2011 by indra

I am of a view that the system- the government, politicians and bureaucrats- is busy today in devising hundred of schemes that will perpetuate poverty and incentivize people to remain below the poverty line. Since Montek Singh’s planning Commission came out with the reference line of BPL as Rs 32 (urban) and Rs 26 (rural) per person per day expenditure, the intellectuals through media are only having intense debate rather a battle on the defining amount but hardly anyone talks about integrating the multitude of poverty alleviation schemes to empower the people to cross the line.

The TV channel reporters are busy in catching the persons under BPL categories from different urban regions and are forcing them to answer questions about the family size, monthly earning, and government assistance to prove the mistakes of planning commission. The answers are almost same from all. The number of family member is five. Monthly earning is around Rs 5000. The PDS is non-existent. The reporters hardly go any further about the accommodation, sanitation facilities or schooling and healthcare. They invariably live in shanties or jhuggis with none of the facilities. In Noida, the households in the villages integrated in the township have built filthy barracks for this working population and are making money.

The Planning Commission and the Jairam Ramesh are trying to resolve the issues of defining those under BPL

I narrate here the actual story of some who are in BPL. These young Indians, from the same deprived class and with not much of formal education and assistance from anyone, are trying to improve their quality of living by working hard.

Hari got known to us when we came to our own house in sector 41 in Noida in 1997. He was the washer man. He washed our clothes and ironed them. He charged Rs 50 person per month for washing. It has gone up to Rs 200. For ironing the charge is now Rs 2 against Re 1 at that time. For the curtains, bedcovers, saris, etc, the unit charges are more. He used to start the day with washing and collecting the clothes for ironing washed on the previous day. He was not married. Over the years he got married and has now three children. He expanded his work. Today he does also clean the cars early in the morning for Rs 200 a month. The rate for the bigger cars is more. As estimated, Hari may be earning Rs 8,000-10,000 a month. He has a room in a nearby village, Morna on rent, where he lives with his family. His son goes to school. His wife is sick and frail. She hardly shares Hari’s work.

Namdev comes from another village where he has a small plot of land on lease for growing flowers. Earlier he used his cycle to distribute the flower in the morning. Now he has bought a motor cycle. We pay Rs 100 now every month. He supplies flower to 100 families. He earns about Rs 6.000-7,000 per month. But he remains sick and absents.

Sam is our newspaper vendor presently and works for main distributor Siyaram. He is from Jharkhand. He lives with his wife in someone’s kothi in Noida as caretaker. For distribution of newspapers, Sam gets Rs 1500 and from the owner of the house Rs 3000. His wife also works with two households and earns around Rs 1500. They don’t have any child As Sam is not to pay rental, he is satisfied with what he earns.

There are hundreds of Haris, Namdevs, Sams and other service providers, be it milkmen and vegetable sellers besides those working for organized ones such as Mother Dairy and Safal in each sector of Noida. Ongoing construction works in Noida keep the demand high.

Evening Bazaars almost once in every sector and permanent vendors for many items around the established markets of Noida keep many self employed engaged and employed. With thriving economy, they all make good money and try to live in better ways. This is how expanding urbanization can help any region of the country.

But I get morose when I see again some lazy young men from the nearby villages coming on every Saturday to beg in name of God Saturn. A number of times, I caught hold of some and appealed to work. With many patrons, how can they shun easy earning? Many residents keep on distributing some food items or few coins to the beggars including small kids in hope of getting the blessings of the Gods and goddesses for success in whatever they do. Many a time I appealed to the kids for going to the schools in the temple. Some have started going. I wish the rich residents of Noida do something to empower these destitute for a better life through RWAs having good cash reserves.

Sai temple is doing a wonderful job for educating the children of underprivileged in Noida. It also provides medical treatment through its dispensary. I wish the affluent residents participate in this task to improve the quality of facilities. The doctors with huge practice and the headmasters of the public schools can contribute a lot with very little change in mindset. Shouldn’t the Noidites take pride in contributing to making Noida a benchmark for other satellite towns?

Can’t the government think of empowering instead of doling through various schemes that leak mostly for enriching middlemen? I believe Jairam Ramesh’ ministry spends Rs 1 lakh crore on welfare and pro-poor programmes annually. Should not 2 lakh poor families be given Rs 50 lakhs each in cash and brought over BPL instead of losing the amount in the hands of persons with vested interest?

Posted in economy, governance | Tagged | Leave a comment

Life of Steve Jobs, Some Lessons

Posted on October 7, 2011 by indra

I never expected that on a day after Vijya Dasami, all the national newspapers, Hindustan Times, Indian Express or Times of India including the pink ones such as Financial Express or Economic Times in the editions from all metros will have so much of coverage of Steve Jobs and his life. I consider it as great success of globalization. I wish the local language newspapers would have also covered Steve in the similar manner. People reading the language papers are many more and would have been benefited. Unfortunately, as much as I know, the language journalists hardly keep themselves updated on any topics other than local politics.

I am really indebted to the media for providing me and millions with so much of inspiring information about Steve Jobs (Images), the great designer, and visionary business leader.

Steve proved that a genius does neither need a great parentage nor great education career. Steve’s thrust on the excellence of design and technology also proved that the academic preference of the Indian youths, even engineers from IITs and other great technological institutes, for management courses is not desirable. Steve proved that a great product is a great business too.

I got surprised to know that Steve in his very early life had learnt about India’s gurus while in US. I don’t still know how he got the idea of coming to India in search of such a miracle man. Fortunately, he didn’t get one.

B. S. Raghavan’s article in Businessline of Hindu Group- ‘When will India have its own Jobs?’ made me feel like thinking and writing on the subject. Raghavan asks, ‘When will India have its own SteveJobs? Or Gates Or Larry Page, and Sergey Brin?’

Indian top management doesn’t encourage talent, can’t tolerate rational dissent and doesn’t appreciate the failures. It will take many years for Indians to appreciate Ramanujam and many like him who are there or have already got vanquished and vanished or gone away.

Right at this moment I know a boy who is class XII and has very good practical knowledge in computer and its working. But none even after knowing his strength will like to see him pursue that in right manner, or the educational system will accommodate a person like him. Everyone keeps telling him to score high marks in his school examinations that includes Hindi, English or some other subject. Why can’t the school system allow a student to select one subject of the student’s interest and facilitate him to know the most about the subject and be judged on basis of his performance in that subject?

The government as usual hardly bothers. Why should an IITian without at least a five years experience in industry be allowed to pursue management courses and that too in financial subjects in IIMs? Why should the industry be paying so high to the management students? Instead why is the industry not collaborating with the institutes of technology and engineering to make the course relevant to its requirement? Why can’t the industry pay significantly more to a good M.Tech and Ph.D than what it does today?

Going back to the schools, why should the state level education put the life histories of politicians instead of Ambani, Raman, or Khorana and Chandrasekhar in the text books?

The government and the intellectuals even with little concern about the future generation must see how the major mass of the population starts talking and discussing many other essentials subjects of concerns for the country instead of politics.

But let me go with Raghavan who concludes his article with some hope for India. “Electronics Association of the US recently asked in a survey where the next Bill Gates will come from; 40 per cent of Americans predicted that he would be from either India or China. Amen (despite being bracketed with China)!” One would see a flicker of that hope in the India’s first tablet that was launched almost on the day Steve Jobs left this world.

So we can still hope for a Steve Jobs from India.
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PS:
Steve Jobs:The Beginning, 1955-1985
Steve Jobs: The Wilderness, 1985-1997
Steve Jobs: The Return, 1997-2011
Eric Schmidt on Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs Departs a World He Helped Transform
Steve Jobs, The magician

Posted in education, industry, management | Leave a comment

Narayana Murthy vs. Chetan Bhagat

Posted on October 5, 2011 by indra

For a long time, I have been writing about the ill-effect of coaching industry that prepares the aspirants for IITs. For all practical purposes and unfortunately too, the coaching mafia has taken over the business of education. It’s not the old tuition system on one to one basis. Coaching in class room ambience has made education a business of passing the tests and examinations instead of learning. It’s parallel rather the predominant sector where the parents are pouring in the money. The traditional schooling has become secondary. And the coaching institutes adopt many stinking means to attract students and make more money.

However, my thrust had been on IIT. I still feel that the individuals or administrative agencies in IITs responsible for the entrance examination are colluding with the coaching industry to make it a necessity and to grow. IITs have not tried to make the commercial coaching redundant. And that is certainly possible with proper question papers. If in our days in IIT, we couldn’t answer questions set for open book examination of physics where we were allowed to a carry all books, why is that the similar question papers can’t be used for entrance examination? Many times I feel that IITians themselves and even some teachers are behind the flourishing of the coaching industry. Some owners of these coaching centres are IITians.

But today I am writing for a different reason on the same subject. I didn’t like the comment of Chetan Bhagat on the views of NR Narayana Murthy, which was similar to my own. It was against all norms of Indian culture. I don’t know if Narayana Murthy would have got hurt or not, but I got shocked and hurt too. Chetan might have attained certain celebrity level through his writings, but his making of a sweeping remark on Narayana Murthy’s contribution to Indian IT sector was certainly not on expected line. (“It is ironic when someone who runs a body shopping company and calls it hi-tech, makes sweeping comments on the quality of IIT students.”) Narayana Murthy has become a benchmark of entrepreneurship in tech industry. He went for something that none did before him. Chetan must not underrate his contribution. I don’t think he is qualified enough to do that. If he considers himself someone high enough to pass judgment on any one, I just pity him. I think Chetan owes an apology to Narayana Murthy.

I myself and many believe that the quality of the students entering in and passing out has deteriorated. Reasons are many. While for the entering flux coaching is certainly responsible, for the outgoing lot the teachers and the administration must own responsibility. No excuse is good enough. Most of the teachers are hardly interested to know what’s going on in the industry. How can they make the students ready to accept the challenges in industry without that knowledge and networking with qualified executives and managers in the industry? Directors and teachers once selected in educational institutes such as IITs will have to set very high benchmark for themselves full with many sacrifices.

PS: As reported, Chetan has apologized.

Posted in education, social issues | Leave a comment

Meeting Old Friends and Missing Some

Posted on October 3, 2011 by indra

IITians in Bangalore / South are holding the Golden Jubilee Meet of the 1961 batch Alumni in Bangalore on 4th November, 2011. OP Khanna has invited me and I am going to join them on the day.

However, while I shall meet some after many years, the very thought of IIT, Kharagpur 1961 batch mates and many with whom I got acquainted and developed friendship, are no more among us, makes me sad too. They played their destined innings and left for the final abode a little premature.

RP Dhingra had joined Hindustan Motors. For initial years before the marriage, we lived together. Even after he moved to Delhi, I was in touch with him. Every time I visited Delhi, I talked to him or met him. Either I would go to his place or call him in my hotel He had once visited us in Hind Motors too along with a friend and stayed with us for a night while going to Assam for some official work. We came to Noida in 1997, and as usual I called him. I was shocked to hear that he was ill and succumbed to some illness few months ago.

I was surprised one day, when I saw AK Mukherji in Bansal’s chamber in Hind Motor. Mr. Bansal was from the first batch of IIT, Kharagpur. We didn’t talk much on the day. Later on, Bansal told me that Mukharji was working in CK Birla’s Nigeria unit. One day after many years, KM Agrawal who was a senior from IIT itself and had worked in Nigeria with Mukherji and had returned, informed me that Mukherji was killed in Africa by the local police mistakenly when a group of burglars had attacked the colony where the Indians lived.

Ravi Mukherji and Nazimuddin Ahmed from electrical worked for TELCO Jamshedpur. I met Ravi in some conference in Calcutta. He was unhappy about the company promotion policy. Thereafter, I kept information about him through some friends in TELCO. Lastly, he headed the important department of industrial engineering and was happy. And then one day I heard that he was no more.

I met Nazimuddin when he had called me without knowing that I was from his own batch for conducting a two days training course on gear manufacturing for the managers and supervisors. And later on I heard the sad news of his demise one day.
Shrikant Singh and I had one thing in common. Maternal uncles of both practiced in the Sasaram court when we were in IIT, Kharagpur. He was in mining and RK Hall. Sometimes we used to meet and talk. For his rural background and simplicity, I liked him. One day I heard from someone that he was no more. It really shocked me.

PK Singh was also from mining, but a little snobbish. He was from a place near Arrah. In Rajesh’s marriage he was an invitee of Janardan Sharma, Rajesh’s father-in-law in Sitarampur near Asansol. I met him for the first time after the IIT days. Interestingly, Janardan was also in mining. One day Janardan informed me that he was no more.

Deshbir Singh invited me to work for Harig Crankshafts after I retired from Hindustan Motors. During IIT days, he always used to be in our group because of the proximity of letters in our surnames. After my by-pass surgery I left Harig, I started living between Noida and Salt Lake. And then one day a colleague at Harig came and told me about his untimely death.

And yesterday when I was going through Times of India- Crest, I came to know that Praveen Chaudhry who was from metallurgy and did brilliantly at IBM, USA, is no more.

I have not been great in maintaining the contacts with my friends, acquaintances and even relatives. But I loved their company whenever it was possible. TR Mulrlidhar visited us early this year with his wife and so did Dr. Kailash Narayan Singh of Agriculture department. I keep on talking with Dr. BB Pandey of Civil who is still with IIT, Kharagpur. Pandey lost his wife this year. Jialall Sharma, GR Gupta and Shikhar Jain are in Delhi, but we hardly talk or meet. It has become so difficult to move out at this age.
Deshbir, Shikhar, Kailash and GR Gupta tried to get into business and succeeded to a great extent. Dr. Pandey got the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2011. But many just worked in private or public sectors and have settled down for a retired life.

We know so little about our friends. How many of us know the pioneering work done by some such as Dr. Praveen Chaudhari who engineered the rewritable compact disc (CD), but wrote out the patent for IBM for a fraction of the billions Big Blue, Sony, Phillips and other corporations got from the invention.

We were told to believe in ‘Yogah Karmashu Kaushalam’ and we did our karma following the Bhagavad Gita’s advice karmanyevadhikaraste, maa phaleshu kadaachana (do your duty without regard to rewards).

Can’t we think some way to keep the memories of 1961 batch mates alive for the future generations?

But the memory of the four years at IIT, Kharagpur is still one of sweetest. One can’t just relive it again.

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Manmohan Losing Lustre

Posted on September 30, 2011 by indra

Sonia Gandhi had to undertake the arduous task of mediating between Chidambaram and Pranab at wrong time when she is still convalescing from a surgery. Both are the part of administration where Manmohan Singh is boss.

What sort of Prime Minister is Manmohan if he can’t manage two stalwarts of his own cabinet? Could not Manmohan postpone the visit to earthquake affected Sikkim for a day when bringing the truce between Chidambaram and Pranab was so urgent? Doesn’t the image of the country get tarnished with so senior ministers fighting? Have any of them got his image enhanced because of the ego war? Why was Manmohan not proactive in stopping it or does the infighting help him keeping his chair in tact?

One can very well understand when Sonia handles the party men or the alliance to assist Manmohan. Why did then Manmohan not try to get the statement from Pranab what Sonia could get? Actually the note of Pranab implicates even Manmohan. Manmohan couldn’t have convinced Pranab to do that. Pranab had been Manmohan’s boss and even today he is defacto Prime Minister. Chidambaram is a better subordinate towing Manmohan’s line. So Manmohan requested Sonia to help him, which she did by calling Pranab, discussing the subject in presence of Antony and Patel and almost ordering for a truce as soon as possible And Manmohan made himself unavailable by visiting Sikkim. The two warring ministers met him in end only for a formality.

How can Manmohan escape the fallout of 2G scandal when he was informed at every stage? Moreover, as the head of the government Manmohan would have taken the responsibly of so huge a loss to the nation because of corrupt means used, and as clear from the note prepared by so many of the ministries together after so many meetings.

As clear from the body language of the cabinet ministers, there seems to be intense internal politics in the cabinet ministers some siding with Prime Minister against Pranab who would have been a better alternative to Manmohan at this stage in the national interest.

Unfortunately Sonia Gandhi is still not ready to accept the end of ineffective Manmohan regime for a change, as Rahul is not ready.

Manmohan, on his own will not like to exit? Why should he sacrifice himself for someone to replace? After all Manmohan is working for some sort of record? But should Manmohan be compared with other Prime Ministers of the country? He can’t not be called anything but a CEO appointed by the largest party chief.

Posted in governance, indian politics | Leave a comment

Do Bigha Jameen

Posted on September 22, 2011 by indra

In 2020, about 98 % of the farming family will have a shrunk holding of only ‘do bigha jameen’. Normally, today a farmer gets around every year Rs 20,000- 30000 worth of grains from an acre of land that is a little less than two bighas. This is when the farmer family remains with the traditional farming of wheat and paddy. Naturally, the revenue will not be sufficient to feed a family of five. What can be the way out for the family to generate better revenue and earnings to sustain the family? Two possible routes will be one through increasing the minimum support price of the grains by the government and the second, by improving the yield from the farm that must be aimed to reach the yield of the best in the country and then that in the world.

The 2010-11 acreage and production numbers suggest that the average wheat productivity surged perceptibly to 2.94 tonnes a hectare, from 2.83 tonnes in 2009-10. At this level, India’s average wheat productivity is comparable with that of the US’ at 2.6 tonnes, though it is far below China’s at 4.7 tonnes.

The farmers and also the concerned government agencies in other state such as Bihar must at first try to achieve the productivity in wheat production to the level of Punjab removing all the constraints and then draw a roadmap to reach the productivity of the farmers in China. The government must facilitate and motivate the farmers to enhance the productivity levels of the production of various grains, be it paddy, pulses or oilseed.

Many are exploring to improve upon the productivity and earning through various means. Farming needs the knowledge of its science, management and business approach. The farmers today can’t compete or grow without a new approach.

As reported, Anju Srivastava has been able to explode productivity by introducing high-value, low-water use crops and modern farming techniques. When Srivastava tweaks traditional cropping pattern, swapping jowar and bajra for herbs and salads, converting to drip irrigation to save gallons of water and bring down electricity bills, using composting and other sustainable farming techniques to conserve and improve soil, she gets exponentially higher output of already high-value produce.

Srivastava, through these techniques, has managed to get ’12 lakh per acre per annum, thus creating wealth. “My farmer’s family incomes have gone up from ‘20,000 to ‘3 lakh per annum,” for every acre of land they continue to own.

Fortunately, many are trying to experiment on the ways and means to make farming as professional interesting and profitable.

Contract farming, improved irrigation facilities, progressive farming practices besides the better seeds from right sources do bring many miracles that were not known earlier.

The state agriculture universities must shake off their laboratories-centric mentality and take their innovations to the farmers. The state government must make it happen. Nitish Kumar wishes to send the farmers to China. I wish the farmers from all over the country must start learning from the best achieved in the country. There must be extensive exchange visits among the farming community.

The scientists must go for intensive research to make ‘do bigha jameen’ productive enough to sustain a small family

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Modi and Bihar’s Leaders

Posted on September 20, 2011 by indra

As far as I know, Modi has never expressed his wishes for becoming the prime minister. Neither his party has declared his candidature for the high post. Why are then the political leaders of all hue and cry have come out with all the weapons against Modi? One could expect nothing but the opposition on this notional issue from Congress, but why should Shriman Yechury of CPM be so hasty to write against Modi’s fast? But I feel just pity when the so-called sycophants of Nitish vomit venoms against Modi? Has Gujarat deported any Muslim poor from Bihar who has gone to Gujarat for earning his livelihood? JD (U) and Nitish Kumar had already insulted Modi against all norms of decency from a chief minister to a chief minister just for keeping the opinion makers of a vote bank satisfied.

Why can’t the leaders like Sharad, Sadanand, Lalu and Ram Bilash keep their mouths shut on national issues? Whenever, they speak, be it in Parliament on Anna’s fast or now about Modi’s fast in Ahmedabad, they annoy others unnecessarily. It only harms the people of Bihar. None of them could build institutes of higher education or created jobs in Bihar. The people of Bihar today go all around the country for higher education and in search of jobs. Bihar no more contributes in the polity of the country. In none of the political parties, the leaders from Bihar hold responsible position neither are they respected for some serious inputs as Rajendra Prasad or Jai Prakash Narayan and to a certain extent Babu Jagjivan Ram were treated. The people all over the country as well as the intellectuals respected them and gave weightage to their views.

What right the present politicians of Bihar have to speak against Modi who has provided thousands of Biharis employment in his state? Perhaps, it is because of the presence of the people of Bihar in labour force in Bihar that Ram Bilash plans to contest all the seats in assembly election of Gujarat next year. Is it not a mockery of democracy for a person who couldn’t get elected in his own state using all his resources and who has hardly any member of his party in the assembly of Bihar? Who is going to finance his election expenditure? Why should not election commission stop a blanket ban on such endeavours?

What has Sharad Yadav done himself to improve the lot of poor people of his own state, his own district and even of his own village to express so much concern such as “Half the population in India does not get a single decent meal a day.”

What is the credential of Sivanand Tiwari to judge Modi about his Rajdharma, once the party don’t care to abide by the Alliance=dharma?

I wish the leaders to focus on the real development work in Bihar where 80% of the population still lives in villages in pitiable condition, with no healthcare, sanitation and electricity. The state must improve the quality of higher education and bring its colleges, universities up to a respectable level in imparting knowledge and researches and shun to be known only for having caste clashes, when the students of other states start coming for studies in Bihar. Let the state ensure that whatever big named institutes are coming up reach the same level of excellence as their counterparts in other states by providing all the infrastructure and facilities.

How can these leaders talk so big when they can’t provide even the minimum facilities for the Hindu Indians coming from all over the world in Pitri-paksha to Gaya? Many a times, it appears perhaps the government is afraid of taking any such initiative to keep its secular character intact.

How many of these leaders have transformed even their own village and made the quality of living there better?

Even Nitish Kumar must be bold enough to take non partisan approaches. Who stops him from taking steps that ensures education to 100% of the minority children? Can his government take this challenge and make the state a unique one?

Posted in bihar, governance | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Nalanda: Prestigious Project and My Views

Posted on September 19, 2011 by indra

The issue raised by ‘Bihar Times’ about the VC of NIU, Dr. Gopa Sabhrawal and her team that has started operating from New Delhi, must be worrying to many who dreamt of the institute as the revival of the glorious past of Bihar in a grand manner. As I have written earlier I and many wished NIU to have score of autonomous International Schools for teaching, researching, and contributing in the knowledge domain of various subjects from humanities, law and medicine, to science and technology. The head of each of the autonomous school would have been the most respected person in the subject. Even the ancient Nalanda was not restricted to only Buddhist studies. May be that each participating country could have set up a school on a subject best developed by the country. Just for example, I wished Japan to set up a world class school for manufacturing and Japanese system of management. The university would have grown as one and only unique institute in the world attracting students and teachers from all over the world. I had person such as Jagdish Bhagwati in mind to head it as its first Vice Chancellor. I am sure there would have been other Indians and other nationals with worldwide accepted capability who would have been requested, if necessary, by the economist Prime Minister and the engineer Chief minister to help in setting up the institute and ensured of free hand and all support.

As the name includes International, I wished NIU to have the Vice Chancellor and heads of the schools selected from among the best in the world. However, Bihar Times’ question, “Did not Amartya Sen find anyone from Bihar, which has proven fertility in case of academics and scholarship?”is shocking. I wish the Bihar Times would have researched and suggested some names too.

The first Vice Chancellor of an institute such as NIU is certainly a very important person and would have been selected more prudently. Perhaps, the mentor group came to the decision a little too fast in a hurry.

I wonder why Nitish Kumar, who showed so much initiative and enthusiasm to get the project initiated and his protégé NK Singh could not take care of the long term interest of Bihar and the institution. The speed with which the land for the university was acquired and handed over was exemplary. Why is he shirking off the responsibility now?

After my blog on the subject, one of the two persons whose name was in media for VC wrote to me about his fear about the project.

“What will deter people from Nalanda is not hard work (anybody good works 20 hrs a day) or the conditions in Nalanda. It is that it is not clear that the basic plan of the University is well conceived or that there will be support for all the things that are necessary to make it a success. Money is not an issue. But the Mentor group did not understand Indian conditions and what should be in place for the Univ to be a success, and neither does the government.”

The communication highlights the apprehensions of the intellectuals about the government projects of national importance. The governance in the country will still take many years to mature to get the confidence of the people in its intention and support.

I fear the reports of the controversy in media are getting uglier. It should not name person/s and should point at the weakness of the system for such a prestigious project.

I had dreamed also of an international city growing around Nalanda International University on line it has happened over the years around many other universities. Will the government come out will the necessary clarifications to remove the clouds from around the project to see it executed fast.

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Inflation, Government and Growth

Posted on September 17, 2011 by indra

Inflation remains high.

Following set rules, RBI has increased the Repo rate. That is the only solution known to them to curb inflation, though it has not happened after so many of the increases in last few months. For a change, why can’t RBI stop increasing the repo rate and instead reduce it and see what happens?

The interest rates on home and cars will increase. And it will also increase many other rates. Companies from auto to real estate, infrastructure and fast moving consumer goods have expressed their angst against the RBI’s hike.

The oil companies have increased the price of petrol by Rs 3 per litre to maintain their profit margins. Transportation sector has started enhancing the rates. Travel agencies will also increase the price. The government agencies add salt onto the wound. And person such as the deputy chairman of planning commission calls the rise of petrol price rise as good news. Mother Dairy has increased the milk price again. All vegetables have gone costlier. The government would have increased the price of cooking gas too. The heat of the people’s anger has postponed the decision on the hike of the cooking gas price.

Government can’t reduce its taxes on crude or petrol that will reduce its collection that are channeled to the schemes such as MNREGA and food subsidies not because the common people will get affected but because the intermediaries will lose their earnings.

Allies of the ruling Congress government as well as the main opposition and its partners have opposed the rise of the petrol price. BJP went in protest march on the streets of the capital.

But will it make the government roll back the petrol price?

The situation has pushed the key manufacturing sector of Auto to go in slower lane. Investments have stopped. Some vested interests are also fanning labour troubles on irrational ground. As usual neither the central nor the stale governments are taking proactive steps to kill the problem. The major car manufacturer has stopped production. The trouble looks like spreading from North to south. Where is the governance? The real estate sector will also slow down.

The indecisiveness on land acquisition is already holding up many projects and thus industrial development. How many months will it take to the promised bill?

Helpless Indians want this inactive government to go but don’t know how. Anna and his team can protest for a notional utopia but can’t rise in revolt for such anti-people move. Can they do it?

The government knows following the practice of democracy and constitution the people will have to wait for two and a half years to change the present government. And those in the government are sure of their Aladdin’s lamp doing some miracles to make people forget the injuries inflicted on them.

Perhaps this was the time when the economist Prime Minister with his command of the subject would have come out with some innovative solutions to curb the inflation. But he talks on everything else but the inflation and slow down of the economy.
The main opposition is busy with Modi’s publicity festival. The left is engaged in organizing labour unrest. Can the person like Anna and his team get them involved in removing the miseries of the people? Or are they also the members of the millionaire club running the government and hardly realize its necessity for the common men and women in million?

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