Fleece the middle class, caress the corporate defaulter

Few weeks ago SBI was back in the news for all the wrong reasons. A circular that appeared on its website was the reason for all the chaos. In the said circular, SBI had announced that it will charge Rs.25 for every ATM transaction. Due to public outrage, later SBI clarified that the circular was not about savings bank account holders, but only about State Bank Buddy customers, who will be charged Rs. 25 for every ATM transaction.

Though SBI clarified later that the circular was the result of an inadvertent mistake on their part, it is quite difficult to believe it. In all probability it was done only to test the waters to see how customers would react to it. If the reaction was subdued, they would have continued with charging Rs 25 per ATM transaction, but as the reaction was rather fierce, they stepped back from the proposal.

After demonetisation the challenges that banks face are manifold. Even before the disruptive policy of demonetisation added extra pressure on the banks, they were reeling under their non-performing assets (NPAs), which mainly include bad loans of large corporate houses. Credit growth has gone down to 5.4% by 31 March 2017, which is the lowest rate in the past 60 years. This is in contrast to what advocates of note ban had predicted. Their argument was that, with note ban, banks would be flush with money and hence they will offer lower interest rates, which would catapult credit growth to magnificent levels. But that didn’t happen and because of the shock that note ban gave to the economy at large, productive activities slowed, which further reduced demand for credit.

In addition to the debilitating pressure of the NPAs, banks are also faced with the prospect of spending a lot of money as interest payments to its customers. With the note ban, most customers have put all their money in their bank accounts. Banks will have to give interest to all such customers, at a time when there are few takers for bank loans, with which banks would have gained loan interest.

Foreign credit rating agencies as well as international monetary agencies are putting a lot of pressure on the government to act and reduce NPAs of public sector banks, which they claim is affecting investor confidence in the economy of the country. Crony capitalists, who are the main defaulters of bank loans, are adding to the pressure on the government to waive off their loans. A clear pattern can be seen among the comments of the bureaucrats as well, whereby they support reducing the NPAs of the bank by waiving off loans of corporate defaulters. At the same time, they are adamant against waiving off farmers loans in the various states of the country.

In a bid to reduce their working pressure, banks like SBI are increasing all service charges that would affect the ordinary customers badly. Getting back money from corporate defaulters, thereby reducing the NPAs is not easy, particularly when the crony capitalists have great support and backing from the political class. So the only way out for the banks to reduce their financial burden is by fleecing the middle class with exorbitant increase in the service charges. 

RBI has failed to protect the customers from the rapacity of the banks. Also, there hasn’t been any significant protest from any quarters when the banks increase their service charges. The opposition parties have completely failed in organising any mass movements. In the absence of such protests, banks and the central government think that they can get away with anything. The social media has been the only saving grace as far as the objections to the fleecing practices of the banks are concerned. 

It is high time for the middle class to come together and form pressure groups to prevent the banks from making it the scapegoat for saving big corporate defaulters.  

Understand the divisive agenda behind the development facade

Some political commentators expressed great surprise at the elevation of Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Yogi is known as a political rabble-rouser and as a polarising figure in Indian political scene. The poster boy of Hindutva politics, Yogi Adityanath is often considered as the leading divisive politician in the country. BJP’s selection of such a person as the head of the government in the most populous state in India raised many eyebrows, even among some of the staunchest supporters of Narendra Modi’s party.

However it must be said that anyone who is aware of the Hindutva project envisaged by the Sangh will not be surprised by the selection of Adityanath. With former Sangh pracharak Narendra Modi at the helm in the centre and with a handsome electoral win in UP for the Sangh ideology, this is the most favourable time to put Hindutva to the centre stage. This writer has written earlier about Sangh’s two-pronged strategy of gaining electoral wins. They use development facade, engineered mainly by Modi, to gain the votes of the young, aspirational class while using the Hindutva card, carried on effectively my Adityanath and his ilk, to garner the votes of those who are easily manoeuvred by communal and casteist agenda. 

The most important advantage of such a strategy is that BJP can easily avoid appealing to the minorities, who are anyways absent in BJP’s core ideology that focuses solely on Hindutva prominence or crude majoritarianism. That BJP didn’t field even a single minority candidate in the UP elections speaks volumes about this electoral strategy. When they have swept the polls with such blatant majoritarianism, it is certainly a signal that the majority people of UP wanted a Hindutva icon as their CM. So in that regard it must be accepted that the BJP has shown that they are honest to the people of UP by bringing Yogi Adityanath as the CM.

With the elevation of Yogi Adityanath as the leader of the government in UP, the fringe elements of the Hindutva brigade has ceased to exist, as the fringe has now become the new mainstream. The apologists of the BJP government at the centre, including many leading journalists, actors and businessmen, who had meticulously defended the divisive comments made by the rogue elements in the party, will now have their task cut out. If the re-emergence of cow vigilantism, with increased vigour and amplified brutality, is a sign of things to come, then we are certainly looking at a bleak future. While the fringe is creating mayhem with their vigilantism, the mainstream is virtually supporting them with their increased call of bringing in vegetarianism as the uniform food habit of the nation. The covert support that the state provides to vigilante thugs is not helping the matter either. The whole project of cow vigilantism is aimed at imposing the Brahmanical view of Hinduism to the entire nation, including the Dalits, the Muslims and other minorities.

In the face of such large-scale thuggery, the silence of the media is deafening. The shameful opportunism of the media makes them crawl in front of political power. However when the history of our present times will be written, what will come for serious criticism will be the silence of the aspirational class, who are inherently liberal, but are shockingly averse to raising their voice against the attack on the constitutional values and on the concerted efforts towards destroying our social fabric. 

The facade of economic development that the present regime has erected has blinded them to the methodical erosion of all the values that this great country had kept close to its heart since independence. The liberal ethos of our nation, which helped us to focus on scientific advancement and the resultant systematic, albeit slow, upliftment of the poor, is under grave danger. We have started our hazardous journey down the slippery slope of communalism and religious bigotry. Unless we act with great alacrity, we are in danger of becoming a Hindu Pakistan, where chaos is the rule, order, an exception.

Daylight robbery of the middle class

After demonetisation banks were in the forefront of bringing back calm in the lives of the people affected by the surprise decision by Government of India. Kept out of the loop of the decision making on demonetisation, banks did all they could to bring back normalcy to the financial system of the country. Though remonetisation isn't complete, banks and bank employees were largely appreciated by the common man for their efforts. However many decisions that were taken by the bank after the demonetisation chaos subsided were purely anti-people.

In the essay Banks' daylight robbery of the middle class, this writer argues how banks' decision to put penalty on all those who can't keep minimum balance in their accounts is nothing but daylight robbery of the middle class.

No demonetisation windfall, will the government accept its failure now?

Demonetisation was introduced as a path breaking policy decision on 8 November 2016. What should have been announced by the RBI governor through a press release or a press meet was announced by the Prime Minister of India in a televised live address to the nation. Though Prime Minister Modi’s penchant for high drama is well known, a policy decision that resulted in 86% of Indian currency going out of circulation within a few hours from the announcement of the decision may well have warranted a direct message from the PM.

Since the announcement of demonetisation, the supporters of the decision were unanimous in their assumption that the government will receive a windfall gain from the decision, which it would be able to pass on the people of India. Other than big infrastructure investment, the windfall gain of the government was assumed to be used to spur demand and growth and to give tax breaks to genuine tax payers of the country. It was also believed that government will announce schemes to write off debts of farmers or will put Rs.15,000 in every Jan Dhan account. However Budget 2017 has put to rest all such assumptions of windfall gain for the government and subsequent benefits for the common man.

Even after two income disclosure schemes in this financial year, the net tax revenue of the government grew only by 17%, which is exactly the rate it grew by in the previous financial year 2015-16. The taxes on domestic petrol have increased by 152% from June 2014 to November 2016. The major share of increase in net tax collection could be accounted to this enormous increase. So it becomes clear that demonetisation had no significant influence in the growth of net tax revenue of the government.

In order to adhere to the fiscal deficit target of 3.2% of GDP, the total expenditure of the government is projected to fall from 13.4% of GDP in 2016-17 to 12.7% of GDP in 2017-18. If there was a windfall gain for the government after demonetisation, why should the government restrict itself in revenue expenditure?

Other than curbing and bringing back black money, demonetisation was also declared to be a step taken for containing terrorism and neutralising fake currencies. Even after 8 November, we are not seeing any reduction in the number of terrorist attacks. Reports state that fake currencies, even of the newly introduced 500 rupee and 2000 rupee notes, are available in the country now. The constant shifting of the demonetisation goal posts by the government has now resulted in a new target - cashless economy.

Initially, marketing demonetisation as war against black money had seen most citizens of the country blindly supporting the decision. The government was able to project those against demonetisation as worshippers of black money. But as demonetisation chaos spread to the streets, people started to understand what a stupid economic decision it was. We can see now that in the election campaign trail in UP, Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand, no BJP leader is speaking about demonetisation. Any mention of demonetisation, the leaders believe, will put the common man against the party.

From the silence of RBI about the amount of money that has come back to the system after demonetisation, we can safely assume that almost all of 15.44 lakh crore of demonetised money has come back. So where is the windfall gain for the government? Are we to believe that all the difficulties we faced since demonetisation were the result of the stupidity of a group of men in the government? It is high time we hold the government responsible for such irrationality.

Uri attacks: How can Pakistan be given a befitting reply

The eerie similarity between the Pathankot attacks and the recent Uri attacks by militants is hard to miss. One of the significant things that needs to be noted is the fact that we haven’t learnt any lessons from the Pathankot attacks. Moreover the government also made the ludicrous mistake of allowing Pakistani investigators to come and probe the crime scene, only to be informed by them later that they found no evidence to incriminate terror elements from Pakistan. But let’s keep that issue aside for the time being, as we are confronted with more serious issues. 

We cannot allow militants from Pakistan, with the blessing of the establishment, to run amok in our country by killing our jawans and civilians. We must give them a befitting reply and must do everything in our powers to isolate Pakistan in the world stage. What all options do we genuinely have?

We have much to be thankful for as it is not the jingoistic blabbering on prime time TV that forms the basis of policy making during times of crisis. If the participants of prime time television discussion had their way, they will immediately send the army to our borders and would declare a war against our nuclear-armed rogue neighbour, Pakistan. However as sane strategic analysts would know, war against Pakistan is not an option. 

Unlike in the past, in the present day, world is more connected than ever before and any conflict in any part of the world has geopolitical implications to every other region. Pakistan army would be more than happy to engage in a war with India, not because their army is any stronger than India’s, but because they know that in such a situation their all-weather mate China would make their presence felt in the conflict and would not waste a minute to raise the Kashmir issue and internationalise it – what precisely Pakistan wants. India would not desire such a situation as it is against India’s long time stand that Kashmir issue is India’s internal problem.

Now that a full-fledged war against Pakistan is out of question, what other options do we have to teach Pakistan a lesson? Can our army go all out for a surgical strike against the militants inside Pakistan’s boundary as US Navy Seals did at Abbottabad to neutralise Osama bin Laden? We did a similar operation in Myanmar recently under the NDA government (about which the sanghis were gung-ho in social media for many days). However many strategic analysts are of the opinion that it is going to be difficult for two reasons. One, our intelligence agencies are not sure about the exact location of the militants’ training centres or hideouts in Pakistan. Two, more importantly, it is easier to do a surgical strike inside the territory of a friendly country than one inside an enemy country. Myanmar may not have any issue with Indian troops entering their territory for a surgical strike, but Pakistan will not be a mute spectator and its reaction may trigger a full-fledged war in the sub-continent.

While in opposition our present Prime Minister had many creative ideas of providing befitting reply to Pakistan’s aggressive intents. During his election rallies his abusive denunciation of Pakistan had given goose bumps to his followers and fans. But now, when confronted with real issues, he appears to be clueless about what to do. When war mongering is not a viable alternative, as a Prime Minister, one must resort to other effective policy options, including diplomatic and economic means. Analysts are of the opinion that he has many such alternatives available with him if he chooses to utilise them.

As an initial step India can downgrade or withdraw “Most Favoured Nation” status it has accorded to Pakistan. The status given to Pakistan, in accordance with international trade practices and WTO regime, gives them low trade tariff and high import quota vis-a-vis its trade with India. Though India gave them the MFN status in 1996, Pakistan hasn’t returned the favour till now. In view of the Uri attacks we must immediately snatch away the favour from the Pakistanis.

In the aftermath of the Uri attacks, India had summoned Pakistan High Commissioner yesterday and conveyed to him India’s outrage on the attacks that killed 18 army jawans. We need to further escalate our diplomatic indignation by calling back our High Commissioner from Pakistan and asking Pakistan High Commissioner to go back to Pakistan.

India has a potent force in its hands to compel Pakistan to mend its inimical behaviour of exporting terrorism to India. Our nation needs to abrogate the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, which gives Pakistan undue advantage of using water flowing from the six rivers of the Indus water system. When Pakistan is in the habit of reneging from many bilateral agreements with India, including the Simla agreement, it can’t selectively demand India’s compliance with bilateral treaties. India’s diplomatic mission should tie compliance to Indus water treaty with Pakistan’s efforts to stop cross border terrorism emerging from their land. If India backs away from the treaty and stops sharing water with Pakistan, then it would negatively affect industrial and agricultural production in Pakistan.

We must also resort to various economic blockade of Pakistan and above all should make it unequivocally clear that we are not ready for bilateral talks till terrorism emanating from Pakistan stops completely. It had always been the policy of India that terror and talks won’t go hand in hand. But in his over enthusiasm to be seen as a statesman of impeccable quality Narendra Modi made amends in that long held policy and went to meet and talk with Pakistani PM whenever he got opportunity.

The present Indian government appears to be lacking in a coherent and robust Pakistan policy. It seems to be a confused lot, unable to come up with a consistent strategy when confronted with a strategic problem. Its Pakistan policy is a mess, always reactive and thoughtless. Narendra Modi’s credibility is at risk and unless he quickly finds a logical solution to this quandary, his standing in the eyes of his countrymen will take a serious hit.

Image credit: The Hindu

What cricket can teach us about attitude and guts

After many months, Candid Minds is back into action. Please read this writer's essay "What cricket can teach us about attitude and guts" in Calpine Blog, the Official Blog of Calpine Group.

Kanpur loss: India needs to make some hard decisions

You need to chase down 304 in an ODI, your opening batsman makes a 150 and still you lose then it is time for some serious introspection on your game plan and strategy. In the first ODI of the Gandhi-Mandela series at Kanpur, India was on the brink of a victory, but still lost by 5 runs. There could be many reasons for a loss, but when one of them is poor team selection, then questions are raised on the captain and the team management. The Kanpur loss makes a case for such an analysis.

Rahane has no place in Indian ODI team: Ajinkya Rahane is one of the most talented batsmen in India today. Time and again he has shown his worth in the Indian test team. With such brilliant show of talent in the test arena and with some scintillating batting performance for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, Rahane made it impossible for the selectors to ignore him in the Indian ODI side. However as the Kanpur ODI loss shows Rahane’s inclusion in the playing eleven creates a lot of problems for the line up. If he is not playing as an opener, which is improbable as long as the right hand-left hand combination of Rohit Sharma-Shikar Dhawan plays well, accommodating Rahane could cause imbalance to the team. If he is made to play at No.3 then you need to move down Virat Kohli from that number, which is undesirable owing to Kohli’s brilliant performance over the years at that number. At the same time if Rahane is moved further down, he may have to bat in the death overs, where he may have to start hitting from the first ball itself, which a player of his style may find difficult to adopt. Before the start of the Kanpur match, Dhoni had also hinted at the possibility of not considering Rahane in the playing eleven.

Kohli at No.3: Virat Kohli has the highest average while chasing. At Hobart against Sri Lanka in 2012, at Nagpur against Australia in 2013 and at many other successful Indian chases we have seen the No.3 batsman taking his game a notch higher. While Kohli has such a good record at that position, it is silly to remove him from that position in order to accommodate Rahane. In the match at Kanpur one could also see how disturbed Kohli appeared when he was not sent in to bat at No.3. During the season of 2002, Indian had experimented similarly with the batting position of Sachin Tendulkar whereby he was removed from the opening position and was made to bat at No.4. The strategy was reverted after a short span as no particular benefit had come to the team from such a move.

Dhoni at No.4: As Shiamak Unwalla argues in his article in Cricket Country, Dhoni is no longer the finisher he was in the past. It is quite visible nowadays that Dhoni’s finishing abilities are on the decline, as seen in the Kanpur ODI. However it is would be foolish to assume that his days as a batsman are over. Again coming back to the example of Sachin Tendulkar, we have seen that in the latter part of his career, the legend adopted a new style of batting, quite different from the dashing style he had had in the former years of his career. Similarly Dhoni’s position now in the team would be more of the anchor that teams need in the middle overs. Dhoni himself has shown his interest to bat at No.4, from where he can control the pace of the game. He is one of those batsmen who is good at finding the gaps and making singles and doubles, a skill much needed in the middle overs of an ODI.

Binny’s place untenable: It is a shame that India’s quest for an all-rounder ended with Stuart Binny, who can at best be described as mediocre. One can hardly fail to notice the fact that Roger Binny’s position as a national selector when his son Stuart is in the probable list is a matter of conflict of interest. And when you consider junior Binny’s record in the international matches he has played so far, you cannot help but think that he is in the Indian team only because his father is a selector. If he is the bowling all-rounder then he should at least be able to economically bowl his full quota of 10 overs, if not taking lot of wickets. If he is the batting all-rounder, he should be able to play a match winning innings with the bat. But as of now he hasn’t shown any particular talent in either of the department. It is high time India move on and find an all-rounder who has the abilities to become a match winner.

Dhoni has always been known as a person who adapts well with the changing circumstances. He also has the services of Ravi Shastri, often considered a walking example of practical wisdom, as the Director of the team. They both need to come together and find solutions to the problems so that India could turn the tide and get back to winning ways.

Commuting woes of Infoparkians

They say that the corporate life of a techie is a bumpy ride. Deadlines, client expectations, performance appraisals, office politics, backstabbing and the likes make it a very difficult proposition altogether. Education institutions of our day have been following a practice of giving training to the students to help them prepare for this difficult ride of corporate life. By following such a salutary practice, Infopark Kochi seems to have embarked on a similar mission – of preparing employee mentally to face the bumpy corporate ride. For that they have meticulously prepared approach roads to Infopark that give the employees of Infopark, the Infoparkians, a bumpy ride, quite literally, during their daily commute to their offices. 

If you are relatively new to Infopark and its immediate neighbourhood, you could only watch with envy the skill with which Infoparkians ride and drive their vehicles through the Infopark approach roads besmirched with potholes of all sizes and variants. The deftness with which they negotiate those potholes, though often jumping into them, but emerging out unscathed, is some sight to behold. An Infoparkian’s commute to Infopark is no less perilous than a soldier’s patrolling the frontiers of our nation, both facing similar threat to life, though with dissimilar probability of occurrence. Those who have laughed at the foolishness of driving tests in Kerala – through ‘8’ shaped track for two wheelers and ‘H’ shaped track for four wheelers – are now marvelling at the long-sightedness of those wise men while they travel through these Infopark approach roads. If not for that well practised pyrotechnics how we would have traversed these bumpy roads?

The Kakkanad-Edachira road to Infopark is so much in shambles that if you tell a person that once there had been a well-laid road there, he/she would find it almost impossible to believe that. The road has been deteriorating for so many months now that it is a grave crime that the authorities haven’t done anything to restore the road. To make matters worse, recently two deep pits have been dug out on that road, with concrete slabs on top of them, thereby raising their height by at least by 5-6 inches above the residual road. These two pits have made sure that vehicles are unable to pass from both sides simultaneously, thereby causing terrible traffic blocks. For what purpose those pits are dug, God only knows.

By the stroke of luck, if somehow you reach The Carnival building (formerly Leela building) after that arduous journey through the Kakkanad-Edachira road, a new challenge awaits you. The Infopark-Brahmapuram road has been awaiting beautification and the laying of 4 lane road for quite some time. The process of tarring the road was started some two months back, but the work is not complete till now, resulting in lot of dust particles floating around in the air. Infoparkians who have the misfortune of walking on that road are in grave danger of contacting lung diseases. To add up to the chaos in that road, you have illegal car parking on both sides of the road. As there are no enough space for car parking in the Carnival building, employees working in that building are forced to park their vehicles on the road. The whole affair shows the terrible absence of proper planning.

After getting so much troubled by commuting through such terrible road if you decide to change your track to office and make use of the Express Way to reach Infopark, you will be faced with a more serious threat. If at Kakkanad-Edachira there is only some probability of getting killed, journey through Express Way has in reality taken some lives in the recent past. It was only a few days back that two lives were lost in an accident at Express Way. Accidents have become so much of a routine affair that the district administration has taken special attention to find solutions for this menace, after many complaints from the citizens.

All in all, daily commuting to Infopark has become a matter of life and death for Infoparkians. It is a shame that the Thrikkakara municipality, under which the Infopark comes, is not taking adequate care in making life any easy for them. Professional tax deducted from the salaries of these Infopark employees accrue to the coffers of Thrikkakara municipality and still they are unwilling to spend money to build good roads, to do maintenance works and to create better traffic system. Employees at Infopark are not organised and hence district administration and municipality tend to disregard their grievances. However if things continue in this fashion Inoparkians would be forced to organise themselves and agitate against the authorities. We have seen how the workers of Munnar organised without the banner of any political party and succeeded in gaining their rights. Infoparkians could well follow suit.

Picture Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle

Hit by the Lodha bouncer, can BCCI get back to its feet?

The decision of the Lodha committee to suspend Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) for the next two seasons and to ban Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra for life from participating in anything related to cricket has been a well directed bouncer that has hit the BCCI right on its head. Had any wise men ever reminded the BCCI of the famous adage ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ during the IPL spot fixing scandal, a lot of embarrassment could have been avoided. But when the establishment itself becomes part of the problem, there cannot be a lot of valid options left for it to take. 

The moment BCCI allowed its President to own an IPL team it invited trouble. Anyone with a little common sense would know that it is a matter of serious conflict of interest. But the then President N. Srinivasan was adamant and always tried to brazen it out whenever it was pointed out to him. His son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, for all discerning eyes, was the real authority of Chennai Super Kings and was always seen with the team, even on the ground. But when the allegations of match fixing came to light and aspersions were cast on Meiyappan, CSK claimed that he has nothing to do with the team and he was only an enthusiast. The CSK owners even made India and CSK Captain MS Dhoni to make the same claim. Now that the Lodha Committee has found Meiyappan to be involved in betting, his father-in-law’s position as Chairman of ICC has become highly untenable. The logic behind such a position is simple – N Srinivasan is the owner of India Cements that owns CSK. His son-in-law, who for all practical purposes was the owner of the team or was assigned the role of ‘Team Principal’, was found involved in betting, which by extension puts the owner of the India Cements under the scanner too. In view of the Lodha committee decision BCCI has to take action against the teams and if one of those teams is owned by the Chairman of ICC, how can BCCI take disciplinary action against it? 

During the initial phases of IPL, while the discussions on the structure and compostion of the IPL format were going on, some laws in BCCI rule book were twisted to allow the President of BCCI to own an IPL team. There were no questions asked and a group of people did this as they wished. It was highly improper for the BCCI President to own an IPL when it was the prerogative of the BCCI to make and amend rules for IPL, when it has the sole responsibility of running the show. Now that the Lodha committee has come down heavily on Srinivasan’s CSK, he is trying to distance himself and the team from Meiyappan, thereby paving a way to retain his ownership on the team when it will get back to the IPL fray after the two year suspension period. Such an act of impropriety must be stopped or else IPL and BCCI run the risk of bringing further disrepute to the game.

Opinion pieces in newspapers and blogs and discussions in social media and visual media will keep on explaining how much important it is for N Srinivasan to step down from the Chairmanship of ICC. But those who know about how the BCCI works will expect nothing forthcoming from the organisation. Here is an organisation that is accountable to none, answerable to none, an organisation that works based on the whims and fancies of the governing council, a body filled mainly with self-serving politicians and some self-obsessed businessmen, who have no particular love for the game of cricket, but only a keen mind to identify opportunities to make profit. What credibility and accountability can we expect from such an organisation?

One of the biggest anomalies in the administration of cricket in India is the existence of politicians and businessmen in the BCCI, who hold sweeping powers to control and influence the game in India. It defies common sense when we see fewer cricketers in the various committees of BCCI but many politicians of different hues in them. It is one place in India where politicians of different ideologies come together and share a great rapport. At present we have BJP’s Anurag Thakur as the Secretary of BCCI and Congressman Rajiv Shukla as the IPL Chairman. It is high time for the BCCI to bring in reforms in their bylaws to include more cricketers in the committees. Cricketers are in the knowhow of what is required for the advancement of the game. They would know more about the requirements of budding cricketers. They know the technical details of the game, about who the coaches should be, what type of pitches are needed for the new generation of cricketers to sharpen their skills and what all things are required to keep the current players fit and healthy. It is a poor argument that cricketers would not be good administrators. There are umpteen numbers of examples to prove that argument wrong. Professional sports bodies around the world had and many still have players as able administrators managing the affairs efficiently.

If one tries to find out the reason why India never sends its cricket team for Asian Games one will find that the Indian government has no say as far as the commitments of the Indian cricket teams are concerned. BCCI is the sole representative body of Indian cricket and it is an autonomous body that has no relation with the Government of India. It is a shame that cricket, the greatest national unifier, is not owned by the government or the people of India, but some independent body called BCCI that elects its members from among members of its own regional cohorts.

Contrary to the opinion that many detractors of IPL hold about it, this writer believes that IPL is inherently a good initiative for the budding cricketers of the country. By way of IPL matches, youngsters of our country are getting an avenue to rub shoulders with the best in the world - to compete with the best and to gain valuable inputs from the best. While trying to rectify the flaws in IPL, we must guard against throwing out the baby with the bathwater. BCCI must change and come clean, trouble makers must be jettisoned and people with love for the game must be given a chance to bring back the reputation of the game that it lost due to the fraudulent exploits of some unscrupulous forces. 

Image Courtesy: The Hindu

Mysterious deaths, corruption, impropriety, fake degree: BJP in a soup

As this writer wrote elsewhere, criticising the NDA government under PM Narendra Modi could be considered a grave sin by many in this country who voted for it believing the promises of ache din that the then PM candidate quite ostensibly gave. At a time when the whole country was invariably annoyed at the various corruption scandals that came up against the UPA government, Narendra Modi, a master tactician, effectively sold to the Indian people a dream of a corruption-free, nepotism-free, development-oriented government that would take India to enormous heights. To stroke the passions of the common citizen, Narendra Modi was touted as a future PM who has come up from a very humble background (at a time when the truth remains that all Indian Prime Ministers, with the exception of those from the Nehru-Gandhi clan, have all risen from humble beginnings). However one year into the office, the ruling party and the Modi government are in a soup owing to continuation of ministers with fake degrees as well as allegations of corruption and impropriety.

Of all the leaders in BJP, scandal hit first the most widely respected of them all – Sushma Swaraj. Unlike in the case of other political scandals, the media and even the opposition were very sceptical and calculated in making allegations because they knew that they were pointing their fingers at someone who has had enormous goodwill among political supporters as well as detractors. Ms. Swaraj’s extension of a helping hand to the absconder Lalit Modi in gaining travel papers to travel to Portugal for his wife’s surgery was shown as humanitarian assistance by the government and her party. While the opposition and the media alleged that what she did was an instance of grave impropriety if not illegality and a matter of conflict of interest. One fails to understand why Ms. Swaraj bypassed all governmental procedures of the External Affairs Ministry and spoke directly to Keith Vaz MP of UK to arrange travel documents to Lalit Modi. The whole government machinery was kept in dark by Ms. Swaraj, at a time when both her daughter and husband are part of Lalit Modi’s legal team. Even if for the sake of argument one accepts that Ms. Swaraj helped Modi on humanitarian grounds, as an External Affairs Minister she could have done so many other things to make use of this occasion to bring the absconder back to the country to face the charges (16 of them in total by Enforcement Directorate). She could have asked the British government to give him travel papers for one time visit to Portugal, so that he could have no other option but to return to India after the visit. Instead she allowed the British government to give him travel papers for two long years. The opposition was increasingly training their guns at Ms. Swaraj when she was dubiously saved by the bigger scandal of Vasundhra Raje helping Lalit Modi to stay in UK.

During their investigation on the Lalit Gate, media dug out evidence suggesting that Vasundhra Raje Scindia, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, had furtively filed an affidavit in an UK court in 2011 favouring Lalit Modi’s immigration application in the UK when she was the Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan Assembly. What made the case more curious was that in the affidavit Ms. Raje had requested the UK court not to make her affidavit known to Indian authorities. Simultaneously the media had also found out that Lalit Modi had diverted some funds from one of his bogus companies in Mauritius to the company owned and run by Dushyant Singh, son of Ms. Raje. This was being considered by many legal experts as a matter of money laundering.

When the BJP was thus engulfed in such scams related to Lalit Modi, it got another blow from a Delhi court as it took cognisance of a complaint that HRD Minister Smriti Irani had given false information about her educational qualification to the Election Commission of India. In many interventions during social media discussions this writer had made the point that it is a matter of absolute shame that India has an Education minister who has faked her education degree. Though the minister as well as her many supporters kept on claiming that one should judge her only by her work and not by her college degrees, what many failed to accept is the fact that it is not the degree or the lack of it that is the major issue, but that she lied on it that should bring out outrage in the country.

The emergence of Vyapam Scam in the state of Madhya Pradesh has shocked the conscience of the nation. Mysterious deaths of 47 persons associated with this scam made news, while the Chief Minister of MP, Shivraj Singh Chauhan of BJP, against whom there are allegation of complicity, claimed innocence. During the initial phase of the scam, where there was calls to transfer the case to CBI, the BJP government in the state resisted it. But when petitions were filed in the Supreme Court, asking for its intervention in transferring the case to CBI, BJP changed their official position and proclaimed that they are ready for it if SC asks them to do so. Like the rest of the nation, SC was also unnerved by the magnitude and enormity of this scandal. The apex court also issued notices on a plea to prosecute MP Governor Ram Naresh Yadav for his alleged complicity in the scam. Even when Mr. Yadav has been named in the FIR, the central government doesn’t think it important to remove him. When BJP was quick to remove many Governors appointed by the erstwhile UPA, it smacks of dubious intent when we find that BJP is quite reluctant to remove the MP Governor, when he is also someone appointed by the UPA government.

At a time when BJP is embroiled in controversy after controversy or ‘scam-a-day’ as the social media likes to call it, what is most conspicuous is the studied silence of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Someone who gained a name as the most eloquent of all political leaders in present day India, Mr. Modi has surprised both his supporters and detractors equally with his silence on these issues facing the nation. At the same time he still goes on merrily in social media by congratulating even many insignificant nations of the world on their independence days, wishing birthdays to many world leaders, sometimes in their own languages and speaking voraciously on many of his pet schemes in his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ on Indian radio. Mr. Modi had in the past made fun of Manmohan Singh’s silence by calling him ‘Maunmohan’ Singh, but when he came to power he is closely following his predecessor’s footstep as far as remaining silent on national issues is concerned. By not giving out his ‘mann ki baat’ on national issues he is increasingly losing his sheen as a decisive leader. His blistering eloquence has made way to deafening silence, his defiant rhetoric to uneasy quietude. Now the nation knows that his electoral promise of zero-tolerance to corruption was no more than a gimmick to fool the people and garner their votes.

Political analysts are also remarking that all the corruption and impropriety charges have come up against Narendra Modi’s political rivals in the party, save Smriti Irani, who is a Modi loyalist. So it could well be a ploy hatched by the Modi-gang in the party to politically thwart his critics and buy their silence. Even if it is so, with the emerging facts about large scale corruption and impropriety in the central government and other BJP ruled states, PM Modi’s and his party’s image has received a serious dent, rectifying which would be quite a difficult task.

Image Courtesy: Cartoon 'Politickle' by Manjul