One of the evident side-effects of the Metro construction in Bangalore has been the incessant cutting of trees across all major areas of the city.

If you now take a look at Seshadri Road, Nanda Road and roads around Malleswaram, you will see how a once-lush-green canopy has given way to a bare concrete view. Is there really a need to take away a portion of Cubbon Park? Was there a necessity to chop trees in Lalbagh (which even today stands as one of Bangalore’s integral identity)? The planning and development of the Metro has taken quite a few people by surprise. There has not been enough information shared in the public domain by the concerned authorities. The benefits of the Metro were never really listed out in comparison to other cheaper modes of transport (bus services being one of them).

What has happened so far is that the Metro juggernaut has rolled on, sucking in millions of rupees on its way and destroying the very fabric of Bangalore that had made it a preferred destination for many in the recent past. Democracy, in its definition, somewhere does include the phrase public participation. And voting is just one part of this public participation. The other and more significant part is to ensure that our public servants are questioned on their policies and to have a say in everything that affects us.

Today there was yet another protest against the haphazard construction and destruction taking place in Bangalore in the garb of urban transport management. We gathered at the BMRCL office (on K H Road) and protested with placards and slogans. Leaflets in Kannada and English were distributed to passers by, highlighting the glaring lapses in the Metro execution.

The group Hasiru Usiru has filed various RTIs (Right to Information) and the information obtained is quite far away from what the initial plans of the Metro were. For instance, the Phase 1 initial cost was Rs. 5800 crores and the present Phase 1 cost estimate is Rs. 11500 crores! Add to that the fact that the Phase 1 project is only 25% done and you get a scale of things to come. While the initial plan stated that around 400 trees would be cut, the actual number of trees are more than 1200 – a number that is only going to increase.

While I do not possess the acumen to judge whether the Metro will be beneficial in the long run or not, what I do know is that a lot of this destruction could be saved or at least handled in a better manner. If you are interested in meeting the group and taking part in the protest, please attend the next meeting at Tagore Circle on 4th November at 5:00 pm.

You can find resources and information regarding the Metro at the Hasiru Usiru website.

A good friend of mine (and a former classmate as well) left a comment on the Facebook Wall asking me why I hadn’t posted here for a long time now. Well, here I am and I would like to thank BV for getting me back on track on this blog. I must mention here that he runs an excellent blog on movies – Srini at the Movies

There have been many things to update, but just not enough motivation or time to write them down here. However, off-late, I have been more into micro-blogging (twitter etc) than blogging. Some of my recent updates on Twitter are:

Bhadmanus – A play in Hindi at Rangashankara on Tue, 31st March. Telebooking on 9739803104 , 9739096270 | Onlinebooking: www.indianstage.in

Just finished reading book 1 (Kapilavastu) of the series Buddha by Osamu Tezuka. Its a beautiful graphic novel. Recommended read.

Watched Majid Majidi’s highly acclaimed film – The Song of Sparrows. Visual metaphors abound and make you think – http://tinyurl.com/d9ye9w

Coming back to more interesting details, the media frenzy over the upcoming elections has been fun to watch. Every news channel worth its hosts is selling the election fever. One such piece of news was that of the emergence of a professionals’ political party – which aims to get into politics on the strength of the proverbial educated class of the society. The television campaigns urging people to vote has worked well on me and I am ready and armed to go to the polling booth. Bring the candidates on the inspection stage. The only problem, however, is that I am not quite sure whom to vote for. All the parties currently contesting have dubious track records and not-so-morally-correct candidates. I am aware that there is a vote to “not vote” , but I hope I don’t end up doing that. Because in that case, I would have had no say in the government that will be formed post these elections.

The emergence of the Third Front has been a welcome addition to the already full newspaper columns. It wasn’t enough to have the Left and the Right. We needed a third direction, which will perhaps not take us anywhere, but at least it is an option. Then there are the inflammatory speeches by certain candidates and retaliation from the others.

At one point in time, don’t you feel really disgusted at this whole song and dance show? At this mad craving for power at no matter what cost?
And we running to the poll booths to satisfy the hunger of these authority-seeking supposed servants of the public? I don’t know about you, but I do feel disgusted on seeing this crazy circus during pre-elections.

Yet, I shall go vote. Because I also believe that only by voting can we bring about a change. It might be a slow, very slow process. But it will be worth the effort. And, lest you forget, it will give the news channels something to talk about.

Enjoy.

This makes for sad reading: Big and Helpless

The popular dubbing right now, I am told by a close friend, goes as ‘Singh is King’. The UPA government managed to scrape through and is now in power without the nudging Left.

I watched bits of the debate and it was appalling to see the stature of politicians who have the nation’s blood supply in their hands. Although Manmohan Singh did not get a chance to speak, he submitted his speech to the Speaker, and which is now made available for the public.

Read the entire speech here (I highly recommend you do so).

The conclusion of the speech stands out brilliantly:

The Management and governance of the world’s largest, most diverse and most vibrant democracy is the greatest challenge any person can be entrusted with, in this world. It has been my good fortune that I was entrusted with this challenge over four years ago. I thank with all sincerity the Chairperson of the UPA, the leaders of the Constituent Parties of the UPA and every member of my Party for the faith and trust they reposed in me. I once again recall with gratitude the guidance and support I have received from Shri Jyoti Basu and Sardar Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

I have often said that I am a politician by accident. I have held many diverse responsibilities. I have been a teacher, I have been an official of the Government of India, I have been a member of this greatest of Parliaments, but I have never forgotten my life as a young boy in a distant village.

Every day that I have been Prime Minister of India I have tried to remember that the first ten years of my life were spent in a village with no drinking water supply, no electricity, no hospital, no roads and nothing that we today associate with modern living. I had to walk miles to school, I had to study in the dim light of a kerosene oil lamp. This nation gave me the opportunity to ensure that such would not be the life of our children in the foreseeable future.

Sir, my conscience is clear that on every day that I have occupied this high office, I have tried to fulfill the dream of that young boy from that distant village.

The greatness of democracy is that we are all birds of passage! We are here today, gone tomorrow! But in the brief time that the people of India entrust us with this responsibility, it is our duty to be honest and sincere in the discharge of these responsibilities. As it is said in our sacred texts, we are responsible for our actions and we must act without coveting the rewards of such action. Whatever I have done in this high office I have done so with a clear conscience and the best interests of my country and our people at heart. I have no other claims to make.

To give a personal opinion, I stand for the nuclear deal. Hence, I am glad that the UPA got the go ahead to pursue the deal.

In the last budget, the Finance Minister had announced a significantly sized loan waiver for farmers. While this had economists starting to talk and the pro-farmer lobby to celebrate, I was keen to know how this plan was implemented and what is its real impact on the people concerned.

After some searching, I found that Mint has been running a sort of constant coverage of events related to the loan waiver.

There are some interesting things happening out there, cut-off from our inflation glazed spectacles:

1. On Day 6 of the Yavatmal, Maharashtra coverage, the report states that there is a new class of farmers who are agitated and disappointed. Reason? The Government had promised that waivers will be given to farmers holding lands upto 5 acres in size. Now, in the Yavatmal region, the measurement system adopted is a traditional one where 2.2 hectares make up 5 acres. According to the Government and the new measurement system, 2 hectares make up 5 acres. Therefore, many farmers who hold 5 acres according to the traditional measurement system will lose out on the waiver. In fact, this makes one question the idea of a size limit. What the article states is that in areas like Vidharbha, the productivity is low and hence farmers need to have larger holdings of land in order to earn on par with farmers in other areas.

2. In Mandya district of Karnataka, a farmer M. Maraiah has a loan of Rs. 10,000 against him. This loan has been waived off. Reason for Maraiah to celebrate right? Wrong. He had already sold off that land since he was unable to pay back that loan ages ago. So the waiver didn’t really make any difference to him. His current profession: Daily wage labourer. Agriculture is just not viable, he says.

3. In the village of Sampla, Haryana, the farmers don’t care about this whole waiver stuff. Real estate prices are so high here that almost every farmer is a potential millionaire. No debates happening here.

4. In Bharatpur, Rajasthan, less than 4 out of 10 farmers default in their loans. Quite naturally, majority of the people are highly discontent on this waiver scheme. An excerpt:

A farmer from Talimpur village, who took a Rs2 lakh loan for sinking a borewell on his farm, was also all set to start paying off his dues. “I could not start paying back last year because the crop failed,” said the farmer, who identified himself only as Ashok. “This year, with early rains, I was thinking of paying off but now I am expecting to qualify for the loan waiver.”

Check out Mint’s complete coverage here. There are views of bankers too, which convey a different picture from what the politicians say. I found the insights very interesting. Economics isn’t really just about demand and supply, is it?

The government is contemplating removing the subsidy on petrol. Which will effectively hike up petrol prices by more than Rs. 10. On a purely economic basis, this appears to be a good decision.

The subsidy on diesel shall remain. This too is good economic sense because most of the essential goods are ferried across the country on diesel fuel. Additionally, farmers make use of diesel for their agricultural activities.

However, where this will backfire is there will be a greater demand for diesel run automobiles. All the swank and big cars nowadays sport technologically advanced diesel engines. With petrol prices going significantly up (and hence the difference between petrol and diesel prices crossing a critical threshold), diesel cars shall become the natural choice of all new car buyers. Which essentially means that the subsidy on diesel shall be availed by people who don’t really need the subsidy, and hence the oil companies will continue to bleed.

What the government needs to do is classify diesel into two categories: Automobile Diesel and Essential Diesel. Automobile Diesel shall be available only at the various fuel pumps across the country and shall not be subsidized. This will bring in a parity on petrol and diesel prices and at the same time will not be a burden on our publicly owned petroleum corporations.

Essential Diesel should be the one used by essential services (including transport vehicles which are used to ferry grains and essential commodities) and for farmers. And yes, this one should be subsidized (of course, there is a whole set of arguments against the concept of subsidy itself, but I shall refrain from commenting on that here).

Now the question is: How do we prevent automobile users from misusing this system and driving their cars using the Essential Diesel? Although both the categories are essentially (no pun intended) the same fuel, a color solvent can easily be added to the Automobile Diesel without affecting the properties of the fuel.

The color solvent shall ensure that the Automobile Diesel looks different from Essential Diesel. Now, the law enforcement agencies, who catch drivers to check for invalid licenses or below age driving, should conduct random checks on the color of the Diesel used in the vehicle. A sample of the diesel shall give away whether the fuel used was Automobile Diesel or not. If not, then the fine should be a hefty one (and a share of the fine should be passed on to the petroleum corporations) and this should serve as a deterrent for users from misusing the system.

Of course, law enforcement agencies have been found wanting in executing their duties sincerely, but then that is an administration issue that needs to be looked at. If the above system is implemented, then the subsidy on diesel shall go to the rightful recipients, our petroleum companies will breathe a little freely, and there will be a reasonable demand for mass transport systems across our cities.

Take a look at this:

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE
Staff: 11,711
Wages and allowances: Rs 191.25 crore
Total plan and non-plan expenditure: Rs 9,362.21 crore

RATIONALE: To formulate and implement national policies and programmes aimed at achieving agricultural growth through optimum utilisation of land, water and plant resources; formulate overall cooperative policy, oversee research and maintain statistics.

REALITY CHECK: Production of grains and pulses is stagnant for over a decade, productivity is down, almost 20,000 farmers commit suicide every year. There has been no breakthrough in seeds or yield since the Green Revolution and agriculture is unviable. The Center’s defence is that the problem lies with the states.

And this:

MINISTRY OF STEEL
Staff: 406
Wages and allowances: Rs 9.39 crore
Total plan and non-plan expenditure: Rs 150 crore

RATIONALE: To coordinate and plan the growth and development of the steel industry; formulate policies on pricing, distribution and imports; and development of input industries.

REALITY CHECK: Steel was one of the first sectors to be decontrolled in the first wave of Manmohanomics. As early as in January 1992, the Government of India disbanded all the controls that shackled the steel industry. That the ministry exists 15 years later is testimony to the power of pelf and patronage.

“Using coalition compulsions as a fig leaf, parties have kept alive 20 dead and useless ministries at a cost of over Rs 74,000 crore only to expand their umbrella of patronage and pelf, writes Shankkar Aiyar and Neeraj Misra in India Today” in this article here.

The article is well detailed and provides an in-depth analysis of the way ministries are being created and retained solely for political purposes.
Some of the disturbing text:

The crux of the matter is that departments and ministries are created not on economic or administrative logic but political arithmetic. “The multiplicity of ministries creates layers and nothing is quite delivered,” says Bimal Jalan, MP and former governor of Reserve Bank of India. As Jalan points out, such is the multi-layering that if one wants to improve sports facilities for women in rural areas it is not one but seven ministries (Rural Development, Social Justice, Sports, Youth Affairs, Finance, Women and Child Welfare and Panchayati Raj besides the Planning Commission) who will be involved.

C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and former governor of RBI and, I must add, a person whose class I have been fortunate enough to attend once at the ISB, puts it neatly:

“There is a need to create a new focus areas and retire old positions which have lost relevance.” As he says: “If there is a sunrise sector, there should also be sunsets.”

Article link here.

“He has been given the red light on the top anyway. Isn’t that enough?”

A question that made the two of us, an auto driver (the orator) and me, chuckle through the light rain that splattered across the gaping windows of the auto rickshaw.

It was a Friday evening and since I had not taken my car to office, I was on the lookout for an auto to head back home. A 20 minute long wait under a light drizzle ended when I finally spotted an empty auto who agreed to take me home.

“Quite difficult to get an auto today”, I muttered.

“Holiday sir. Today is a holiday, that’s why”, the driver replied.

That explained it. The day was off since people were celebrating the festival and hence there was a shortage of autos.

After a brief while during which I made a few calls, the driver said, “People here are so engrossed in celebrating festivals. There is absolutely no sense of service to customers”.

I didn’t quite get that and said so.
“About there not being enough autos, sir. What if someone has an emergency? What will they do? In the meanwhile these auto-drivers would be drinking and smoking, all in the name of the hubba (festival)”

I was surprised to hear him say this about his brethren. But, the best was yet to come.

“You should see the auto drivers in Mumbai. They are so disclipined. You don’t even need to ask them whether they are willing to go somewhere. You just sit in the auto, and off they will go.
However, here all these guys ask for one-and-a-half, 10 rupees more all the time. And most of the time they refuse to take commuters anywhere. They have absolute no sense of service.”

Having experienced the Mumbai auto drivers, I readily agreed with that fact of his. And Bangalore auto drivers are indeed notorious for not being all that commuter-friendly but are yet to catch up with their Chennai counterparts.

“Sir, there are 2.5 Lakh auto rickshaws in Bangalore alone”, he continued. Do you know why there are so many?

“Poor bus service?”, I ventured.

“No. That is there yes. But most of these kids fail their 10th standard. Then they hang around doing nothing for a year. When the pressure at home mounts, they catch hold of some auto owner near their locality, rent it out and earn some 50 to 100 rupees. This has become a culture of easily being able to make some money in a day.”

“These auto drivers just want to idle away their time at auto stops. And we all get branded as being rude and irresponsible”, he continued.

“Sir, the government is also being quite stupid.”

“Why?”

“These Tata Indica cabs cost around Rs 4.50 per km to run and for us auto rickshaws cost only Rs. 1.50 per km to run when on LPG. Yet, we are charging Rs 6.00 to customers like you. Isn’t this unfair?”

I always thought it was unfair.
“But, wasn’t it the auto association members themselves who wanted Rs. 6.00?”, I bring out the old angst against these people who always hold the city under ransom when their demands are not met.

“Yes, and those are idiots. If I am charging you Rs. 6.00 per km, should you not expect the same kind of service that a taxi driver gives you? The same kind of respect? These auto drivers don’t treat customers well and yet they want Rs. 6.00!”

Good point, I told him.

“Sir”, he continued, “auto driving has good money. We guys can easily earn more than government kelsa (government job). In fact today I put Rs. 150 worth of gas and have made a collection of Rs. 530 since morning. It is important to plan well at this age. Only good planning will help us in the future.”

“Yeah”, I mumbled, finding it difficult to believe that an auto driver was actually speaking against a fraternity that is held so close by many of his peers.

The rain continued to fall across the gaze of street lights which adorned the middle section of the sky. The vehicles were doing their usual honking and smoking bits.

Around this time, while we were waiting at a traffic signal, a convoy came and halted right alongside us. The Honda CRV next to us contained the former CM of Karnataka, Mr. Dharam Singh. The reason why I use the word contained is owing to the size of this occupant, who resembled more of a cargo shipment rather than a passenger.

“All these people are crooks, sir. This white car of his is because of our money. What did this guy have before getting into politics? And now they roam around with our money”, the auto driver suddenly had his face dropping down in disgust. The earlier enthusiasm of talking about setting the auto rickshaw system right was gone and was replaced by a sense of despair.

“Shouldn’t the traffic cop at the signal give way to us? How come this guy is also stopping at the signal along with us?”, I asked more as a question to myself.

“He is in the opposition now, sir. Why will the traffic cop pay any heed?”

“Still, he is the former chief minister after all. Shouldn’t there be some respect shown?”

“He has been given the red light on the top anyway. Isn’t that enough?”

As he said this and turned around with a flash of a smile, we both broke into laughter.
The rain continued its drumming as we found a strange sort of comfort in the collective sarcasm of our laughter. Our sarcasm knew that in spite of all our remarks, it was always going to be us at the receiving end of the much talked about system . Yet, we were laughing at the irony of it all. And the rain seemed to pretty much nod in agreement with its repeated pattering.

Atanu Dey writes a good article on the need to liberalize Indian education at The Indian Economy Blog.

Although I do advocate liberalization but my thought is that it should be done only under the right circumstances under a favourable environment which shall enable an open market to nurture and thrive.

Mr. Dey writes:

My prescription is simple. Allow free entry into the education business. Give absolute freedom to schools and universities to charge what they wish, to hire who they wish, to pay what they wish, and to admit who they wish. By allowing free entry in the education business, there will be no competition for the market. There will be competition in the market. Prices will reflect true costs and quality will improve.

One hears the argument that if you allow free entry, would not all sorts of shady fly-by-night operators open up schools and bilk the general public? Let’s paraphrase that argument a bit. If you allow anyone to open a bakery, would not people who have no expertise in baking open up shop and sell garbage to the general public and make tons of money? Now that is a stupid argument, is it not? After all, unless the general public is totally brain-dead, the bakeries with crappy bread will go out of business because given free entry, there will be other bakeries. It is only when the government hands out limited number of licenses for bakeries that the people don’t have any choice but to take what they can get from government licensed bakeries.

In case of the current education status of our country, a majority of the population is not literate (by literate I am referring to have completed atleast 10 years of formal school education). In such a scenario, you have a significant population that is not aware of the dealings of the business world. This population cannot differentiate between what is good and what is not in the open market primarily because they do not have the ability to seek information and process it.

The government has to chip-in to ensure that these people, who are illiterate by definition of the word, are not taken for a ride by the fly-by-night “educational” institutions that will enter the market when it is opened up.
The analogy used by Mr. Dey is not quite appropriate for two reasons:
a) A bakery can be judged good or bad based on a decision making ability that does not require formal education – An illiterate man and a scholar can equally conclude which is a good bakery and which is not. That ability to decide does not require any expertise. However, in case of a school, the common man does not have the ability to decide its worth. A common man does not have the means of obtaining knowledge about various schools and then coming to a conclusion.

b) Switching costs are not high in case of a bakery. A buyer can easily buy something from another bakery down the street. In case of education, this is difficult. You make significant investment of time, effort and money to get your kid to a school. One cannot afford to have all that go waste when the supposed school shuts shop.

Hence, liberalization of education in India is definitely not an attractive idea, atleast for the near future. We first need to have our major chunk of people educated. Empower them so that they can take decisions. Only way this can be done and should be done is for the government to provide the support to people by ensuring that only credible educational institutions put up their flags in the country. I accept that the government is not doing a great job on this front – but that is a separate implementation issue. The solution to that lies in better governance and not in liberalizing the market.

When you look at it, it is like a tight circle – Government control is not needed and markets need to be opened up. But to open up the markets you need the government to have educated the people concerned. For this you need government control.

One suggestion that could be considered is the liberalization of the higher education sector – Graduate and Post graduate program providing institutions should be allowed to compete in an open market. There is an implicit assumption that students reaching a graduate or post-graduate level have the acumen and knowledge to decide on which institutions to opt for.
The government ofcourse should have a legal recourse well-defined for the students to ensure that they do not lose out on any front in case any shoddy educational institution drives away with the moolah.

I agree that the government should not be in the business of running schools – but at this moment in time, we do not have a choice. Right now, we need the government to regulate our schools. Atleast for some time in the near future.