Even the strong China cannot escapte from the ethnic violence. The recent bloodbath in Xinjiang province between the Han Chinese and Muslim Uighurs signal the worst days.

The Times of India editorial says (8 July 2009)

In some ways, China's reaction to the worst ethnic violence to erupt between the Han Chinese and the Muslim Uighurs in the troubled Xinjiang province in a decade stayed true to the copybook for repressive regimes. Authorities blamed western agencies for inciting and organising the riots while clamping down on the dissemination of information. The state media has been saturated with the official version of events, while online services like Twitter have been blocked. Access to mobile phones and the internet has been cut off, ostensibly to prevent the riots from spreading.

The spark that ignited decades of accumulated ethnic tension into a full-blown riot seemed to have come from the recent deaths of two Uighur men during a dispute between factory workers in Guangdong. Although there have been scattered reports of unrest in Xinjiang before, more information is leaking out this time. That may be due not only to the advent of new media, but also to a change in strategy by Beijing itself. Rather than banning foreign media and journalists from the region entirely, Beijing invited some foreign journalists to Urumqi, to see first-hand where the riots happened. But there are divergent stories of whether the initial protests were peaceful. The official story suggests that the Uighur protesters violently attacked innocent passers-by. But footage circulating on the internet even before the state media acknowledged there was a problem seems to show a peaceful protest.

We may never know who really started the violence, or what the truth of the matter is. The official story, however, suggests that the violence is the handiwork of Uighur separatists with Islamist leanings. If that is the case, Xinjiang could be developing into China's Kashmir. That would have interesting strategic implications, as Beijing has so far given New Delhi little sympathy on Kashmir. It has also refused to join Washington in pressuring Islamabad to turn decisively against international jihadists based in its tribal territories, leaving an escape hatch that Islamabad adroitly exploits.

Since public opinion in Pakistan tends to be anti-American and pro-Chinese, pressure from Beijing could be very effective in persuading Islamabad to commit the bulk of its forces to fighting the Taliban instead of squaring off against India. That's what both Washington and New Delhi should be telling Beijing now. China should no longer be in denial about what its skewed South Asia policy is doing to its own interests.

Despite the global meltdown and negative local weather, Pranab Mukherjhee had presented a positive budget. The sily market which is very selfish had reacted badly by shedding over 800 points. But who cares about it? After all 80% of the Indians don't know about the stock market. The private sector naturally unhappy with the budget which gave priority to the aam admi should learn to live with the mass situation. It is high time they drop the useless ideas of over leverage to the corporate and undervaluing the public enterprises. At no point of time profit making PSUs should be privatised.

The Hindu editorial writes (8 July 2009)


The United Progressive Alliance government counts among its successes the high growth rate of 8.5 per cent registered during the last five years and its programmes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) that sought to make that growth inclusive. The budget presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee focusses sharply on one part of the success story, that is, inclusive growth, even as its efforts to restore the economy to the path of high growth h ave not been so robust. The big idea that emerges out of this budget is the Food Security Act to which there is now an express commitment of a time frame for implementation. That measure would guarantee as a right to every family below the poverty line the supply of 25 kilograms of rice or wheat at Rs. 3 a kg. Who exactly will be eligible, when it will be rolled out, and whether it will be started on a smaller scale before it is extended to the whole country much in the manner of the NREGS remain unclear. Unlike the NREGS, which has a works component built into it, the food security scheme would be a pure income transfer programme; it is bound to have an even more direct and dramatic impact on poverty. The experience of States that have launched subsidised foodgrains programmes – at Rs. 2 a kg – shows that it would be politically rewarding as well. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has indicated that finding the resources for such a programme going by the conservative estimates of the below-the-poverty-line population adopted by the Planning Commission would be within the realm of practical politics, although a larger programme based on higher poverty estimates may pose problems of funding.

The focus on inclusiveness continues through the increased allocations for the flagship programmes, with the NREGS getting a 144 per cent increase to a total of Rs. 39,100 crore. A total of 44.7 million households are expected to be covered this year as against 33.9 million last year and the scheme is to be brought into convergence with other rural schemes such as water and forestry projects to ensure that tangible assets are created through work under the NREGS and the rural infrastructure strengthened. The Bharat Nirman programme and the National Health Mission are also to get substantially higher allocations. Also commendable are the plans to increase credit availability in the rural areas, assistance for women’s self-help groups, and the commitment to provide social security to sections in the unorganised sector. The extension of the Integrated Child Development Services to cover all children under six is a measure that was overdue. An attempt has been made to take advantage of the changing demographic profile with the continuing increase in the working age population through the emphasis on skills development programmes.

Where the budget falls short is in the area of stimulating growth. The increased expenditure of Rs. 61,000 crore over the interim budget should overall serve as a substantial stimulus. Not much need be made of the reaction of the stock markets that had gambled on some parts of their wish list coming through and were disappointed. Yet there is nothing in the budget that is particularly significant or dramatic enough to change the mood of uncertainty and pessimism that has gripped business and industry. The Finance Minister was not inclined to reduce the corporate income tax rate on top of the plethora of exemptions that result in lost revenue but the corporate sector did get some relief through the abolition of the fringe benefit tax. This tax was meant to discourage the loading of personal benefits on to companies as business expenses but was regarded as too burdensome in terms of record-keeping and compliance. Also, the sharp cuts in excise duties effected at the beginning of the slowdown have not been reversed. In customs duties, the goal that has been set by the government is to take the peak import duty rate close to the levels prevailing in the ASEAN countries. Yet at a time when industry has been hit by the downturn, a measure of protection was considered necessary and the Finance Minister did not move towards that goal. The increase in the personal income tax exemption limit by Rs. 10,000 is no more than a token gesture to the middle class, although Mr. Mukherjee did not really have headroom to give away much more. Even more significant than the rates is the Finance Minister’s promise to simplify the tax code and make tax collection procedures less burdensome. While the budget may be short on measures that have an impact on business sentiment, the increased outlays on infrastructure, particularly agricultural and rural infrastructure, will strengthen the foundations for long-term growth.

The Finance Minister has made a huge gamble in moving so far from the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act targets and leaving a fiscal deficit of 6.8 per cent of the gross domestic product. Add to this the off-budget items and the deficits of the States, the combined total fiscal deficit may well exceed 12 per cent of GDP. Excess capacity in many industries does provide a cushion against an immediate spurt in inflation but after a period when the slack is taken up, the build up of liquidity is bound to have its impact on prices. Further, as the excess of expenditure over income is to be funded almost wholly through government borrowing, there will be a hardening of interest rates at a time when a lowering is called for. Mr. Mukherjee has promised a return to the process of fiscal consolidation at the earliest, but he will have to reckon with several imponderables, among them the recommendations of the Finance Commission that will have a deep impact on central finances. The widening deficit certainly poses a major risk but it is a risk taken in pursuit of the broader objective of inclusive growth and may well be politically justifiable.

For the last twenty years the finance ministers have discovered an open secret to overcome the budget deficits. To show the world they are smarter and intelligent ministers they have sold the PSUs for peanuts. Especially the government hotels and industries were sold for petty prices. Now Mr. Pranab Mukherjhee is keen to sell off major stakes. I plead humbly to him not to sell profit making PSUs. Even the loss making ones should be sold for reasonable price.

Siddharth Vardharajan writes in The Hindu (9 July 2009)



Of all the affronts that the slogan ‘India Shining’ evoked in 2004, none was symbolically more fatal for the political fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party than the “strategic sale” of key public sector assets to a handful of lucky private companies.

In the most well-developed of capitalist economies with bureaucratic transparency, a well-functioning judicial system and deep competition, the auction-based sale of companies is fraught with problems of price discovery. That is why the offering of PSU shares to the public through the stock market has been the preferred route to privatisation in advanced market economies rather than the outright sale of the company. India, where virtually none of the textbook conditions for efficient auctioning obtains, made the mistake of following the second route with disastrous results.

Whether there was collusion or not, the sale of Modern Foods, BALCO, IPCL, Centaur and the numerous standalone hotels of ITDC amounted, in the public mind, to little more than sweetheart deals. Not only did the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance government not realise the full value of all underlying assets these companies came bundled with, especially land, but the very rationale for privatisation was never very convincing. At a time when a single bungalow in Lutyens Delhi was selling for more than Rs. 100 crore, the sprawling Lodhi Hotel complex nearby was auctioned for just Rs. 72 crore. The official valuation made of BALCO, sold to Sterlite/Vedanta for Rs. 550 crore, was a scandal, as was that of IPCL, a fact noted by the CAG. And the extensive property owned by Modern Foods in every big metro was not valued, with the government claiming — falsely — that the new owners, Hindustan Lever, would have no right to dispose of the land.

In 2001, the Supreme Court unwisely put its imprimatur on the sell-off process by declaring in the BALCO case that economic policymaking was beyond the purview of judicial review. However, the political controversy generated by these sales — and the inter-corporate battle over who would get to grab the lucrative rents on offer — led to the slowing down and eventual suspension of the privatisation drive even before the NDA’s defeat in 2004. When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government came to power that year, it did not require much prodding from the Left to declare that disinvestment would no longer be a priority. And with India’s GDP continuing to grow at a fast rate, it became clear the lack of privatisation was not a binding constraint on the economy’s potential.

Nevertheless, for the corporate sector and followers of the Sensex cult, the fact that this potential ‘sale of the century’ had come to an end so abruptly was always the source of heartburn. And today, with the economy in the doldrums and the stock markets not quite in recovery mode, the sale of public sector assets is being pushed as a tonic for restoring investor confidence, kickstarting growth, promoting economic efficiency and reducing the fiscal deficit.

In the run-up to the budget, the markets had worked themselves up into a frenzy because the re-election of the Congress and the formation of UPA-II without Left support seemed to suggest the return of aggressive reforms. When the budget failed to deliver the opportunities for quick enrichment that ‘reformers’ were clamouring for, the markets tanked. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the privatisation agenda has gone away. In their post-budget statements, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee have both spoken of the importance of disinvestment. One can only assume the government is waiting for a more propitious moment, both politically and financially, before rolling out its sell-off plan.

Before going down this route, however, it is essential that the case for privatisation be discussed anew from first principles. And that this discussion be conducted rationally, without the free market dogma and leftist sentimentality that has tended to cloud the real picture.

Broadly speaking, one needs to ask four questions. First, is public ownership of industry inherently inferior to private? Second, is private ownership the only way to deal with managerial inefficiency? Third, is there a difference in the positive and negative outcomes produced by privatisation through the strategic sale route and through the sale of shares to the public? Fourth, is plugging the fiscal deficit a sound rationale for disinvestment?

In his recent book, Privatisation in India: Challenging Economic Orthodoxy (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), by far the most comprehensive and rigorous study of the issue in the Indian context, T.T. Ram Mohan of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, conclusively debunks the assumption that the private sector is more efficient than the public. After carefully reviewing both financial performance and input-output related physical productivity in the two sectors, he concludes that “the evidence thus shows that the perception that the private sector is uniformly superior to the public sector … rests on a weak evidential foundation.” This does not mean other aspects of the reform package are necessarily bad.

Indeed, Professor Ram Mohan argues that the advent of reforms in the early 1990s has led to a convergence between the public and private sectors. If this is so, there is a strong case for looking at the reforms process — especially the introduction of greater competition, and the partial public listing of PSUs — as a way of unshackling the public sector rather than doing away with it altogether. Indeed, the empirical data of the past decade strongly indicates that those PSUs which had greater functional autonomy and public accountability through mechanisms like stock market listing and professional boards improved their financial performance.

Like other serious scholars of management, Prof. Ram Mohan also points to the pervasive nature of the “agency problem” in modern capitalism where there is a separation between ownership and control in large corporate entities. Public ownership may exacerbate this problem but poor corporate governance and law-enforcement make it likely that agency problems will be as acute under private ownership. In other words, serious reform should focus not on a change in ownership but on devising mechanisms for more effective governance. One suggestion has been made by R. Nagaraj of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in a recent paper: that the government examine the feasibility of “Japanese and German style interlocking ownership of complementary PSUs tied together with a bank that enforces greater managerial accountability, and encourages long term outlook of output growth and acquisition of technological capabilities.” There may be other ways of doing this as well.

On the third question, international evidence suggests there is no reason to assume that the strategic sale of PSUs will produce better efficiency outcomes than the sale of PSU shares to the public. So far, at least, it seems as if this is one lesson the Manmohan Singh team seems to have learned from the negative experience of the BJP’s experiments with privatisation. Mr. Mukherjee’s budget speech spoke of bringing the government’s holdings in the public sector down to 51 per cent. If this is done gradually, the limited sale of shares to retail investors may raise substantial revenues. Prof. Ram Mohan’s study conclusively suggests that this kind of limited disinvestment enhances the managerial efficiency of PSUs, especially if it is accompanied by greater autonomy. But care has to be taken to ensure that the issuing of shares does not turn into a cover for the eventual transfer of ownership to private hands, an outcome that would have no fiscal, commercial or social rationale if the PSU concerned is actually making profits.

If there is a rationale for the limited and well-planned divestment of PSU equity as part of a long-term process of governance reform of the public sector, it would be utterly myopic on the government’s part to think of such sales as an easy means of plugging the fiscal deficit. The deficit ought not to be an issue when there is a global recession lurking around the corner. But to the extent to which it is, it is far better for the government to find ways of broadening the tax base and ensuring better compliance. Here again, the myth of the private sector needs exploding. This year’s budget papers contain a study of revenue foregone under the Central tax system in the previous financial year. There we see that the effective tax rate of the corporate sector was 22.24 per cent “which was substantially lower than the statutory rate of 33.99 per cent.”

When the corporate data is decomposed, the tax liability turns out to be unevenly distributed: PSUs pay a larger proportion of their profits than the private companies; IT enabled service providers and BPO service providers and software development agencies had a tax liability of just 15 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. Total revenue foregone from corporate taxpayers in 2008-9 was Rs. 68, 914 crore. That is 17 per cent of this year’s budgeted fiscal deficit. If the government wants to cut its deficit, let it focus its efforts on the tax system. For that will pay recurring dividends rather than the one-time payoff that each piece of family silver will fetch. The only thing worse than disinvesting badly is to do so unnecessarily.

Students are unfortunately by local people whenever they are frustrated. Hassan Suroor writes in The Hindu about the fate of Pakistani students in London (9 July 2009)

Nine Pakistani students are languishing in British jails because of an absurd diplomatic stand-off that neither Pakistan nor Britain appears in a hurry to resolve. They were arrested in April in connection with an alleged terror plot whose existence was never proved and were released in May after the police failed to produce sufficient evidence to charge them. But instead of being allowed to resume their studies they were immediately detained under immigration rules relating to national security and ordered to be deported.

So, why have they not been deported?

Britain which had no qualms colluding with American and Pakistani authorities in the torture of alleged terror suspects following the 9/11 attacks (there’s a damning High Court judgment about this) is insisting on a written assurance from Islamabad that these boys would not be tortured when they return home.

This, it says, is consistent with its long-held policy of not sending people back to countries where they are likely to be tortured. It already has agreements with a number of countries including Jordan, Libya and Lebanon that terror suspects deported to these countries would not be ill-treated.

Why is, then, Pakistan not willing to give a similar assurance?

Apparently, British officials went to Islamabad to persuade the interior ministry but were rebuffed. The Pakistan government is said to be angry that its nationals are being treated as criminals without any evidence, and it does not want to be a party to their deportation which it regards as arbitrary. In fact, Pakistan’s High Commissioner in the U.K. Wajid Shamsul Hasan and officials in Islamabad have publicly called for the students to be released and allowed to resume their studies.

There is a view that Pakistan may also be reluctant to give such an assurance because it would amount to acknowledging that it has a torture policy. Whatever be the real reason, the upshot of this lingering diplomatic row is that the students who should have been pursuing their studies remain in detention while their lawyers fight a legal battle.

The students, of course, have the option to voluntarily go back to Pakistan but they say they want to clear their names first and complete their studies. They have challenged their detention on the ground that it is illegal and in breach of their human rights as the government has produced no evidence to substantiate its claim that they are a security risk. Due to Britain’s peculiar terror laws that allow the government to detain an individual on the basis of secret evidence which is disclosed to neither the accused nor their lawyers, they find themselves in a Kafkaesque situation where they don’t know what exactly they are accused of.

But in a landmark verdict last month that is likely to benefit the students a nine-judge panel of Law Lords ruled that the use of secret evidence impeded fair trial. A trial procedure could “never be considered fair” if a party to it was kept in the dark about the case against them, said Lord Philips who chaired the panel.

Human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who is representing some of the students, says that the government continues to use secret evidence to detain terror suspects despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that it is a “non-negotiable violation of a fundamental right.” She believes that sooner or later the British state would have to stop using it.

Human rights and student groups have launched a nationwide campaign to press for the students’ release. At a meeting in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, last week speakers accused the government of abusing terror laws. Tariq Mehmood, a founder-member of the campaign, said he had just returned from Pakistan where he met the families of some of the students. They had made “enormous sacrifices” (some even sold their family jewellery) to send their children to Britain for higher studies.

“They are devastated. Other innocent Pakistani students in Britain are living in terror that they could well be targeted next,” he said.

Addressing the meeting over the phone from Pakistan, family members of two of the detained students appealed to the British government to allow them to complete their studies . Ejaz Burki said his brother Abdul Wahab Khan had finished nearly 95 per cent of his course at Liverpool University and was about to sit his final exams when he was arrested. Nasrullah Khattak said his son Abid Naseer was due to sit his final exams in September and his whole year would be wasted if he was not able to take them.

Dorothy Wright of the University Lecturers and Staff Union condemned the increasing use of secret evidence against “innocent” people in the name of fighting terror. She disclosed that a Sri Lankan Tamil Muslim student at the School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine where she taught was told that his visa had been cancelled after he returned from a brief visit to Sri Lanka. He was now in prison although he had not been told of any charge or evidence against him. There was a climate of “fear” among Muslim students, she said.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on July 27 when the High Court is due to hear their bail application.

Knowingly or unknowingly Pakistan has been breeding hardcore terrorists in its soil for a very long time. Now its own president Asif Ali Zardari had admitted this known secret publicly.

The Indian Express reports (10 July 2009)


For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.
But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency on Tuesday night.

Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said.

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said.

"The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," he added.

Labelling Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism, Zardari pledged to eliminate this scourge from society. "I have taken charge at a difficult time and will come up to the challenges the country is facing."

His remarks came days after his comments in an interview that the Pakistan Army would even target militants it had backed in the past for use as a proxy force against India.

The army is currently engaged in a campaign against the Taliban in the northwestern Swat valley and is gearing up for a push against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud and his network in South Waziristan tribal region.

Zardari also stressed the need for greater national reconciliation, saying he intended to keep all political forces together because Pakistan cannot afford confrontation at this juncture.

"Dialogue is our most powerful weapon...we defeated a dictator through the power of dialogue and we intend to continue holding dialogue to resolve various issues confronting Pakistan," he said.

"We are on the brink and we must realise that personal political games can no longer be played," he added. Responding to various suggestions by the former civil servants, Zardari said the government is taking several steps to improve governance, tackle militancy and extremism, improve law and order, agricultural output and power generation, strengthen institutions and devolve power.

Indian women look distinct with sarees. Those charming ethnic wear is slowly disappearing. Now girls and women prefer kurtas and jeans than stunning sarees.

Coomi Kapoor writes in The Indian Express (10 July 2009)

Long after the Japanese gave up their kimonos, the Chinese their Mao boiler suits and the South Americans their boleros, we Indian woman, whether at home or abroad, clung loyally to our saris. You saw doughty sari-clad Gujarati women on the top of the Matterhorn, on a safari in deepest Africa or river rafting on the Iguaçu. When curious American tourists inquired about the practicality of the garment, Indian women would wax eloquent on the marvels of the six metres of cloth. It was cool in summer, insulating in winter, never went out of fashion, never got out of shape and doubled as nightwear, a sheet or a picnic cloth.

A tall tale retold for decades is that the sari is supremely comfortable. Examples are cited of the number of Indian women who play tennis, badminton and hockey in saris. And it is pointed out that in our villages women even go swimming in a sari. For most of us, however, the sari can start unravelling pretty fast when you exercise strenuously. And even without exercise, a woman tends to look like a dhobi bundle in a cotton sari if there is no starch in the fabric.

Another myth about the sari is that it is a modest garment since it covers you from head to foot. American actor Bob Hope once joked that the "sari was one garment which hides both the good and the bad points of the figure." This is not true. Anyone who has seen an Indian movie with the heroine drenched in the rain in a diaphanous sari will tell you differently.


Despite the constant endorsements of the sari, have you noticed that in the last two decades the sari is disappearing? Leading fashion designer Ritu Kumar, who began her career in the sixties designing saris, now focuses mostly on stitched garments like kurtas and lehengas. By the mid-seventies there were very few saris displayed on fashion show ramps.


With the coming of age of the urban worker and a more active lifestyle, women have started looking for more comfortable, practical and smarter alternatives. The first modernisation of the sari was switching from traditional handlooms and ethnic cottons to the more easy to maintain synthetic materials, with shower curtain-style floral and geometrical prints. Dayaram Printwallah of Ahmedabad became known nationally after Indira Gandhi patronised his aesthetic block printed cottons. When I visited a Dayaram store in Gujarat recently, I found that there were hardly half a dozen cotton saris in the shop. They have been replaced by wash and wear saris and cut pieces for making a kurta pajama set.


Long years ago, the norm in Bollywood was that heroines wore saris, and vamps dresses. But then Bollywood went mod and heroines started wearing outfits just as trendy and sexy as the gangsters' molls. And since Bollywood sets the trend in sartorial styles, the rest of the country followed suit. Even girls from South India now want Punjabi lehengas for their weddings. It is not just the movie stars who have altered public taste, other visible women who set the trend have also deserted the sari. Kiran Bedi, for instance, feels that pants suit her style. TV stars like Barkha Dutt, Navika Kumar and Suhasini Haidar believe in power dressing. Most domestic airlines have done away with the sari as the uniform for their airhostesses.


A random headcount on one of the capital's busy roads indicated that only two out of ten women were wearing saris and practically none in the younger age bracket. Abroad, even the elderly NRIs have adopted pants or kurta pajamas. On a recent visit to London, I did not see a single sari in the Oxford Circus area, though there were several hijabs and even a burkha or two.


Of course, the sari still remains the dress code for women in government service and politics. The former have little choice since the official code of conduct advises IAS officers to wear saris in office unless they are from the North East, when they can opt for their traditional dress. Among politicians, Sonia Gandhi favours the ethnic chic look; handloom saris in muted mud colours, a style statement she picked up from her mother-in-law. Sushma Swaraj belongs to the other school, which opts for bright colours and wash and wear convenience. Those from royal backgrounds, like Vasundhara Raje stick to pastel chintzes and georgettes. Mayawati is something of a trendsetter among major women politicians, as she opts for kurtas not saris.

Vous avez probablement déjà entendu cette citation de Mary Kay Ash*, qui dit ceci: « Il existe trois types d’individus dans ce monde: ceux qui font qu’il se passe quelque chose, ceux qui regardent ce qui se passe et ceux qui se demandent ce qui s’est passé. Nous avons tous le choix...» Et, vous, quel genre d’individus êtes-vous? Qui voulez-vous être vraiment ?

Ce que nous révèle ici l'auteure, c’est qu’en réalité la première catégorie d’individus dispose d’une plus vaste gamme de choix que la deuxième et la troisième car ils ont pris la décision d’agir sur ce qu’ils souhaitent réaliser. Les seconds regardent sans s’impliquer tandis que les derniers se rendent compte a postériori qu’ils ont manqué quelque chose.

Les troisièmes sont par la force des choses les plus contraints à se laisser emporter et à suivre le mouvement des autres, sans avoir le contrôle sur les événements. Déstabilisés par le changement qu’ils n’ont pas vu venir, ils réagissent après coup. Ils peuvent avoir le sentiment d’avoir été dupés ou que les choses leur ont échappé. Leur capacité d’action, leur marge de manœuvre se trouvent limitées par l’inattention dont ils ont fait preuve. Mais, où étaient-ils quand les choses se passaient?

• Les seconds sont spectateurs d’un mouvement, produit par les autres. Ils préfèrent l’observer plutôt que le créer. Idéalement, ils peuvent apprendre des erreurs des autres et éviter de les reproduire. Si le mouvement correspond à leurs valeurs, ils suivent, y adhérent, sinon ils choisissent une autre direction ou s’opposent à ce qui ne leur convient pas. Ils peuvent aussi payer le prix de leur passivité par le regret, la frustration, « j’aurais pu, si j’avais su… ». Il existe autant de limites que l’on est capable de s’en créer.

• Les premiers sont des leaders car ils se donnent une direction qui correspond à leurs aspirations. Ils décident de conduire plutôt que de se laisser conduire….. Leur volonté d’agir leur procure une longueur d’avance, ils voient des opportunités avant les autres. Ils n’attendent pas que le changement se fasse, ils le provoquent, ils le créent ! En agissant, ils expérimentent un terrain connu ou totalement nouveau; les défis sont présents, mais ils peuvent se préparer, s’ajuster à partir du moment où ils en ont pris conscience. Ils sont responsables de leurs actes et leurs erreurs sont autant d’occasions d’apprentissages.
Vouloir réaliser un rêve, un projet, transformer une idée en action, prendre la décision d’agir, s’engager avec courage, motivation, confiance et détermination, voilà ce qu’il faut pour prendre sa destinée en main et devenir leader de sa propre vie.

* Entrepreneure américaine (1918-2001)

Mars 2009

Tout récemment, c'est le géant facebook, le plus grand réseau social en ligne avec près de 175 millions de membres, qui a été attaqué il y a quelques jours. D'après les experts, une application véreuse a traversé la barrière de sécurité, heureusement Facebook l'a supprimé très rapidement.
L'emergence des réseaux sociaux a en effet booster l'utilisation des TIC, et de nouveaux comportement sur le web.
Ces réseaux sociaux qui rapportent énormément sont donc à présent la cible des cybercriminels qui souhaitent faire voir à un plus grand nombre de personnes leur ingéniosité, qui est malheureusement répréhensible par la lois internationales.
Nous sommes donc loin à présent de l'époque où seul les établissements publics comme aux Etats Unies, ou comme tout récemment plusieurs ministères au Cameroun et ailleurs étaient victimes.

~PB

Regional Educational Imbalance

The southern and western states are in the forefront of educational development in India. Now it is reaching such a flashpoint that higher educational institutes are popping up everywhere. Is this going to create heavy migration of students?


Hemali Chhapla writes in The Times of India “A common wisecrack among engineering aspirants in Andra Pradesh is that every second building in the state is an engineering college. It may cease to be a joke when institutes dishing out management and engineering degrees start mushrooming all over the country.

Global depression may have taken the wind out of campus placements but the rush for starting professional institutions is at an all time high. Data from the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) shows that the dash to start professional colleges is more pronounced when it comes to engineering and management as compared to other streams like pharmacy, hotel management and catering technology or architecture.

AICTE has received 886 applications for starting engineering colleges and 1,084 applications for new anagement institutes. Fie states – Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, Maharastra, Karnataka and Kerala – account for 69% of engineering graduates , implying that they also have most of India’s engineering colleges

Rush year
States Engineering MBA
Existing Fresh Existing Fresh
Maharashtra 239 85 216 160
MP 161 50 63 80
Tamil Nadu 352 144 158 41
AP 527 176 255 209
UP 241 83 213 214
Haryana 116 38 66 47
Across India 2388 886 1516 1084

Source: AICTE. Fresh applications are for colleges from academic year 2009-10

Five Indian sties – Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala – account for almost 69% of the country’s engineering graduates, implying that these states also have most of India’s engineering colleges.

This year, too, most applications for starting new institutes have come from these states, making educationists worry about a high regional imbalance creepin in; states like UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Orissa together account for a measly 14% of Indian’s technological colleges.

Colleges that receive a nod by June 30 will be allowed to start classes this academic year itself; so officials expect even more applications to pour in.

Several academicians feel quality is losing out in the race to expand seats. “Can the country boast of even 100 engineering colleges that impart cutting-edge education?” asked a principal of Pune engineering college.
“So what is the point in a thousand new colleges every year? He asked. Part of the problem lies in the fact that most trusts running professional colleges are backed by politicians who pay little attention to quality, he added.

But the AICTE feels that meeting the massive demand for professional education is imperative. Twenty years ago, merely one per cent of a aspiring engineers got a seat.
Now nearly 70% manage to find a place, note AICTE officials, “It may come as a surprise but very few engineering seats wee left vacant last year”. AICTE chairman R.A.Yadav told TOI. “There is also a yawning gap between management aspirants and the number of seats in Indian B-schools.

“But how many management schools boast of full campus placement? And are even 30% of MBA institutes accredited by the NBA (National Board of Accreditation) asked an IIM-Bangalore faculty member.

Increasing the existing number of professional colleges is a must. In a view of the galloping population and raising educational aspirations of people more availability of higher educational institutes are must. But not by compromising the quality of the education offered.

Guesses were in the air. Whether Pranab Mukherjee, the acting Prime Minister and finance minister will unveil a voter populist interim budget? Contrary to the popular expectations he just presented the economic scenario and expenditure statement. In the past most of the heavy loaded interim budgets got backfired. The government which presented voter-centric interim budgets got defeated. This may be the dampener on the UPA dispensation. Nevertheless the politics of budget presentation was much stronger than any astrological calculations.

Sudipto Mundle writes in The Times of India (17.2.2009, p.20), reacting to the great bull run in US markets a few years ago, Allan Greenspan famously remarked that the market displayed ‘irrational exuberance’. Today it is tempting to misquote Greenspan that our our markets are suffering from ‘irrational pessimism’. The sensex dropped by about 3 per cent and the Nifty too headed down, while Pranab Mukherjee was still reading his Budget speech.

The Interim Budget is more a stock taking, along with expenditure proposals for parliamentary approval to keep the government running till the regular Budget by the next government. But even in such an exercise, which is by design underwhelming, there are a few important points worth noting. We had hoped in these columns earlier, as had others, that the government would temporarily shelve the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act. This has been done. The government has provided a huge fiscal stimulus during the fiscal 2008-09 amounting to over Rs.1,93,000 crore or 4.5 per cent of GDP over and above what was envisaged in last year’s Budget, which already provided for a deficit of over Rs.1,33,000 crore.

The true fiscal stimulus must include not only what was announced under the two packages in December 208 and January 2009, but also the expenditure under the two supplementary demands for grants approved by Parliament last September and December. It is another matter that these supplementary demands made up for the creative under provisioning of some known items of expenditure in last year’s Budget to remain within the fiscal parameters of the FRBM. The total consolidated deficit for 2008-09, including the actual budget deficit of the central government (6 per cent), the state governments (3.5 per cent) and some off-budget items such as the additional contingent liability for oil and fertilizer bonds (1.8 per cent), amounts to over 11.5 per cent of GDP or nearly Rs.6,26,000 crore.

It is this massive fiscal stimulus combined with sustained monetary stimulus measures from the RBI, that have kept the Indian economy chugging along at 6-7 per cent growth, even as most of the developed world has gone into a deep recession. It has also helped to arrest the free fall of stock market and the depreciation of the rupee. Conventional wisdom suggests that to be successful, such stimulus packages have to be timely, targeted and temporary. With these measures having come within a few weeks of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, and with much of the stimulus directed at the worst affected sectors – exports, infrastructure, real estate, transport – the government and the central bank have clearly passed the first two tests.

But what does the Interim Budget have to tell us about the future? It provides for a central government deficit of 5.5 per cent in 2009-10, though Mukherjee indicated that this could rise by a further 1 per cent. Adding to that 3.5 per cent deficit of state governments, and possibly some further off-budget provisions, 2009-10 could also end up with a massive deficit of 10-11 per cent. Coming on top of the huge stimulus this year, this could indeed go a long way in pump priming demand, compensating for the loss in export demand from developed countries. Moreover, much of the additional spending is targeted at infrastructure, employment programmes and education and health programmes.

However, the question is how this massive deficit will be financed. The large government borrowing this year has crowded out the private sector. This is why interest-rates have not come down substantially, and banks are still shy of lending to private borrowers despite all the policy measures taken by the RBI. If next year’s deficit too is to be financed by market borrowing, that could be bad news for the private sector, and severely put at risk the recovery of private investment.

It is important, therefore, that a large part of the deficit be monetized .e financed by government borrowing from the RBI which prevents RBI financing of government deficits. The finance secretary did indicate that something of this kind may be in the offing. Low inflation minimizes the risk of inflationary pressures arising from the consequent increase in money supply. The shelving of the FRBM and the putting on hold of the MoU with RBI would set aside the two key anchors of prudence that have guided fiscal policy in recent years However, exceptional times require exceptional measures.

That being, said, it has to be added that abandoning fiscal prudence is fraught with risk, as we have learned to our cost in the past. Hence the third test of the stimulus, that it must be temporary. The fiscal and monetary stimuli are like major shocks being applied now to revive the economy. Research shows that the lag generated by such shocks being applied now to revive the economy.

Research shows that the lag generated by such shocks can last for years, making the recover itself fragile. It is imperative that the fiscal and monetary breaks be applied as soon as the economy returns to a high growth path. As Mukherjee indicated, strong fiscal and monetary compression, return to the FRBM regime and the MoU with RBI must remain high priorities. Hopefully, recovery will occur by 2010, so the fiscal consolidation can be initiated within the first half of the next government’s tenure, before the compulsions of the next electoral cycle take over.

Wisely the UPA government had presented the economic scenario as the interim budget. Without stirring the hornet’s nest it has moved to face the electoral battle. It is true that major decisions can be announced few days before the election code of conduct comes into force. In that sense one has wait for the last minute to see the government’s mood to restructure the economy. Anyway, decision without many controversies affecting public lives with adequate coalition arithmetic can win elections. One can assume that the government is steering the no controversy ship rather than high pro activity with controversies. This cool and calm may win another term for UPA not its ability to put the economy on the high speed track.

Everyone is in a hurry. No one knows where they are heading. This speed breaker free world is dangerous. Money, career, achievements, promotions ----- there is no end to the human desires. But at the end of the day those high end chasers are not happy. They are anywhere and everywhere but without happiness. After the recession they have added financial worry to their kitty of troubles. Are we in the right direction?

Sadhu Vishwamurtidas writes in The Times of India (17.2.2009 p.20)“ The best of countries and corporations are so because they have the best of budgets. Hence the concern over the national budget. However, if people spent as much time worrying about their domestic budget as they did about the national one, globally, things would be different. How many focus inwards to analyse how exactly they have budgeted their own hard-earned money.

Many of us continue to spend well beyond our income, inviting debts. Bhagwan Swaminarayan advises in his Shikshapatri, “One should keep a daily record of one’s expenditure and income and should always live within one’s means. All of us, rich or poor, should give something to charity”.

Still fewer people have worked out a ‘life’ budget for themselves. A life budget includes committing time to self, family, society and God. The lives of those who do this get enriched not just financially, but also socially and spiritually.

Many corporate executives invest all their time and effort in pursuing their careers and climbing the professional ladder. It is at all worthwhile? Most discover that their victory is empty and that they won it at an irreparable loss to their health, family and psyche, incurring obesity, heart disease and fatigue on the physiological front; separated spouse, estranged children and uncared-for-parents on the familial front; frustration, depression and stress on the physio-psychological front.

In many societies, this phenomenon has resulted in a tragic burgeoning of societies and cardiovascular and cancer-related deaths. The Royal bank of Canada devoted one of its monthly letters to this problem with the title, “Let’s Slow Down’, “we are victims of mounting tensions”, it enunciated. “We have difficulty relaxing: we are not living fully”.

For many in India too, life has taken on these contours, and living it is rather like going downhill in a truck without brakes. But it is still not too late. The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that stress will be the Number One killer in the world by 2020. And stress is usually nothing more than an individual’s failure to balance his lifestyle.

Living life is a healthy manner and living it fully means we have to maintain regular food habits and follow a sensible diet, regular exercise and rest, going out with family, working for charity and spending some time in reflection, mediation and prayer.

There is only one way to survive overwork or burnout. Be brave and bailout or you will be a loser. Life’s rat race only produces losers. It has no winners. Even if it does, the winner is still a rat. And usually a very large one.

A sage asked a prosperous king, “If you were about to die of thirst and starvation and someone offered you a glass of water and a loaf of bread in exchange for your wealth and kingdom, would you give them to him?” “of course I would”, replied the king. “Anybody would”. “then why”, asked the sage, “have you wasted your entire life amassing all this land and wealth when they are worth no more to you than a glass of water and a loaf of bread?”

Human life is priceless. God has bequeathed this limitless treasure trove to all. And as diversification is one of the secrets to successful investment, so is it the secret to a joyous and blessed life. Reach into your soul, and reach out to your family, society and God. Budget well.

Fast driving on the lifeway without control over the vehicle amounts to suicidal attempt. No one’s live is a straight line. Ups and downs are normal. There is no prediction or forecast which can help us to avoid. Crisis and cyclone can come without prior warning. Knowing this one should slow down and take time out to read the bold signals on the sides. Calm going can help to get rid of the bad consequences and make life ha

There is not a single culprit in the climate change crisis who wants to mend their ways. Every day new pollutants are emerging with more dangerous contributions. From electronic junks to eating habits air, water, soil and other essential common properties are damaged. In this nature destructive game advanced countries are the real villains.

The Times of India (16.2.2009) writes “When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the real Hummers of food, scientists say. Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week. That’s because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18% of the global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit. Even though beef only accounts for 30% of meat consumption in the developed world it’s responsible for 78% of the emissions, Pelletier, said.

That’s because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 killograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry. Pelletier said. If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70%, Pelletier said.

Another part of the problem is people are eating far more meat than they need to. “Meat once was a luxury in our diet,” Pelletier said. “we used to eat it once a week. Now we eat it every day.”

If meat consumption in the developed world was cut from the current level of about 90kg a year to 53kg a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44%.

“Given the projected doubling of meat production by 2050, we’re going to have to cut emissions by half just to maintain current levels.” Pelletier said.


No one knows the consequence of beef eating. The awareness about beef and pollution should be spread intensely. Anything excess is detrimental to both people and environment. What affects personally in certain matters undermine the environment too. Unlimited beef eating is dangerous for individuals health and ecology.

Indian courts are notorious for prolonging the legal battles. People who filled petitions in their young age of 30 are not alive today to hear the final pronouncement. It takes decades for the courts to arrive at a conclusion. By the time court decides the petitioner is not alive. Due to this inordinate delay few people have faith in the judiciary. Rape, murder, property misappropriation or arson not many people would like to lodge a police complaint and seek judicial recourse. They know very well the petitioner will be harassed endlessly without any justice coming in his or her life time. The immediate help for any justice to the crime committed is underworld and criminal gangs. The instant revenge and justice are vented by these gangsters who are fully time involved in killing. If the situation is allowed to continue the judicial and police systems will lose its relevance permanently.

According to The Times of India report (11.2.2009, p.1 & 7), 3,32,141 cases came up before the Delhi High Court in 2007-08. Each of these cases received five minutes of hearing (4 minutes, 55 seconds to be precise) and each minute of the court’s time cost a staggering Rs.6,327 to the state exchequer. Even adjournements without hearing don’t come cheap. All listed cases cost the court Rs.1,300 (on average), even if many got adjourned. The report released by Chief Justice A.P. Shah, claims HC disposed of 56,612 cases, including 47,017 filled in that year alone.

While clearing 56,612 cases, Delhi High Court worked with 32 judges, much below its sanctioned strength of 48, Chief Justice A.P. Shah said. While pointing to the “Crushing load” on the courts, the Chief Justice said at present rate of disposal, it would take 466 years for the high court to clear its backlog of cases entirely. He, however said “we have been able to reduce the cases of arrears from 79,818 in 2007 to 74,599 in 2008”.

The report adds that the rate of disposal of criminal cases in the year worked out to be 0.5 case per day. While such “working ours” analyses are done every year for bodies like Parliament and state legislatures, this is perhaps the first time a judicial body has come up with its figure.

Case study
No of cases listed before HC 332,141
Total expenditure incurred Rs. 42,45,47,490
No of cases dealt on a single day 64
Total number of working days 213
Time available for one hearing 4 min 55 sec
Cost incurred for one minute of a hearing 6,327
Average number of benches during ’07-08 24(8 division & 16 single)

The time and money spent have been worked out excluding “matters handled during summer vacation (June) and on three working Saturdays during 2007-08”. In order to calculate the time judges gave for each hearing. HC factored in the total number of cases dealt by judges. Sitting as a single bench or division bench, in a day (64 cases on average) with the total time available for them to hold court (315 minutes).

The total expenditure incurred by the court last year was Rs.42.45 crore for 213 working days. “the average cost of listing each case before a judge worked out to Rs.1,297 and the average court expenditure per minute by the court was Rs.6,327 or Rs.19,93,180 for each working days.

The judiciary must ensure justice is dispensed atleast during the life time of the petitioner if not immediately. With multiple options available for reformation, courts should not delay further. Immediately it should implement all the suggested reforms. Decentralising and expanding the judiciary are two crucial steps. Above all the top leadership should have the requisite will to cleanse the system and make it functional.

Les comparatifs entre Windows et Linux se multiplient, mais ne sont pas toujours pertinents. Celui posté sur Tux Radar intéressera tout particulièrement les professionnels, car il se concentre sur les problèmes de déploiement, de temps de démarrage… et de performance.

Ce test est effectué sur une machine moderne pourvue d’un Intel Core i7 920 (comprenant quatre cœurs et cadencé à 2,66 GHz), de 6 Go de mémoire vive et de deux disques durs de 500 Go. Le choix des OS est cohérent : Ubuntu 8.10 (stable) et Ubuntu 9.04 (alpha) côté Linux, Vista (stable) et 7 (bêta) dans le clan Windows. Les versions 32 bits et 64 bits sont testées dans chacun des cas.

Contrairement aux idées reçues, Linux s’installe bien plus rapidement que Windows et avec moins d’interventions de la part du technicien. Un bon point pour les déploiements en masse de cet OS. L’Ubuntu occupe également très peu de place. L’installer sur un netbook pourvu de 8 Go ou 12 Go de disque Flash est très largement envisageable. Nous ne pouvons en dire de même avec Windows 7, bien trop gourmand en espace de stockage : ici, un disque de 16 Go ou 20 Go semble être le minimum vital.

C’est une constante, Linux met plus de temps à démarrer que Windows. Par contre, une fois le bureau affiché, cet OS est entièrement chargé en mémoire, alors que Windows continue à lancer des services et à effectuer d’autres tâches pendant un temps qui peut atteindre les dix minutes. La stratégie employée est donc différente. Linux se rattrape sur le temps avant extinction de la machine, ici très court. Notez que si l’Ubuntu 9.04 64 bits adopte le système de fichiers ext4, elle reprend la seconde place de ce classement, 2,2 secondes derrière la version 32 bits de Windows 7. Pas mal !

La manipulation de données sur le disque dur couronne Linux comme grand champion. Avec l’ext4, les résultats grimpent encore, et parfois de plus de 25 % ! Il est à noter que Windows n’est pas très bon lorsqu’il s’agit de supprimer des fichiers, cette opération pouvant prendre parfois beaucoup de temps (ou parfois très peu). Linux ne fait toutefois guère mieux, la suppression de très gros fichiers (plusieurs gigaoctets) étant systématiquement assez longue sous ext3.

Performances pures : Windows repasse en tête

L’article de Tux Radar se termine sur un test de performance cross-plate-forme relativement complet. Ici, les performances de Windows sont supérieures à celles de Linux. Relativisons toutefois : les performances des versions 32 bits de Windows sont nettement supérieures à celles des versions 32 bits de Linux. Par contre, les moutures 64 bits des OS proposent des performances presque identiques, quoique toujours en faveur de Windows.

Cet écart entre les OS 32 bits et 64 bits s’explique aisément : Windows et ses applications sont adaptés à l’ensemble des spécificités des processeurs du marché. Si vous disposez d’un Pentium MMX, l’unité multimédia MMX sera utilisée dès que possible. Si vous disposez d’un Core 2 Duo, le système s’adaptera aux optimisations spécifiques à cette puce (présence du SSE, instructions plus rapides, etc.). Bref, le code est presque toujours exécuté au mieux, car les optimisations sont dynamiques.

Linux pourrait faire de même, mais les développeurs adoptent une approche souvent différente. Ainsi, il est compilé avec un jeu fixe d’optimisations, compatible avec une majorité de processeurs : en mode 32 bits, les unités multimédias (MMX, SSE, etc.) sont tout simplement ignorées, le système étant compilé pour fonctionner sur des 386 pourvus d’une unité de calcul sur les nombres flottants. Vous disposez d’un Core 2 Duo qui propose du SSE et accélère certains traitements ? Hélas, le code ne prendra que rarement en compte ces spécificités.

En mode 64 bits, les choses changent : les processeurs x86 compatibles avec ces instructions sont tous de la classe Pentium et intègrent tous les unités multimédias MMX et SSE. Aussi, le compilateur se fixe un lot d’optimisations de base bien plus conséquent. En conséquence les performances grimpent.

Au final, les résultats sont peu glorieux pour Windows Vista et Windows 7. L’Ubuntu bat ses deux OS à plate couture. La situation s’inverse toutefois lorsque les performances pures sont mesurées. Windows reprend alors l’avantage. Cependant, si vous optez pour une mouture 64 bits de Linux, cette différence de vitesse sera imperceptible (moins de 1 %).

The forecasts by economists provide feel good statistics about the economic health. But on the ground nearly two-third of the citizens feels the heat of economic crisis. They do not have enough means to sustain their lives. Inadequate food, clothing, shelter and other essentials frustrate them. Without taking common people’s living standards economic data simply bracket them into Purchasing Power Parity and bundle them into the larger GDP dimension. The result of macro definition of the economic health without fine tuning the problems on the surface twists the tale and offers it all rosy. Countries like Bhutan define human happiness index along with the GDP. It is a tiny mountainous nation with no big income. People in Bhutan are bubbling with happiness despite low incomes and no skyscrapers to boost. France is trying to redefine its economic outlook. It is high time that all nations go beyond GDP and bring out the crux of the crisis and minimize people’s problems.

Sanjeev Sanyal writes in The Times of India (10.2.2009, p.14) “The world is reeling from two major crises, the financial/economic crisis and the crisis of climate change and ecological collapse. Both are a result of the same human error, a colossal misallocation of resources, financial capital in one case and natural capital on the other. A combination of counter-cyclical policies and time will eventually get us out of the financial mess. However, climate change and catastrophic environmental degradation threaten human civilization as we know it.

Many blame globalization and capitalism for the large-scale misallocation of resources. However, isolationism and socialism provide no alternative we tried them for decades with disastrous results. A market-based system is clearly more efficient. The problem is not with the tools of capitalism but the failure to define its goals. The power of the markets is being harnessed to maximize the wrong paradigm.

The most commonly used paradigm for measuring human progress is provided by national income accounts and, more specifically gross domestic product (GDP). Virtually all economic policy-making is oriented directly or indirectly towards maximizing GDP growth. It is so ubiquitous that people forget it as an entirely artificial construct created in the 1940s as part of the war effort.

Of course, rulers from ancient times have kept some record of economic activity for taxation purposes. National accounts as we know them were created during World War II by Richard Stone and James Meade with support from John Maynard Keynes, as a way to keep track of war-time economic activity. Given the circumstances, their framework was necessarily ‘industrial’ in its essence, without space for niceties like environmental degradation and socio-demographic developments.

Post-war, this framework was adapted to create the GDP number now used. Unfortunately, the system remains an arbitrary way to measure value creation, especially in areas relating to externalities and natural capital. For instance, if we cut down a pristine rain forest we are destroying value in terms of biodiversity, watersheds, carbon sequestration, flood control, non-timber forest produce and so on. Yet, in the current system, destruction of value will show up as GDP growth from logging!

This does not mean the creators of GDP were unaware of its limitation. In his Nobel Memorial Lecture in 1984, Richard Stone stated, “The three pillars on which analysis of society ought to rest are studies of economic, socio-demographic and environmental phenomena.” He added that his work had focused mostly on economic accounting and he had not spent much time on environmental accounting even though “environmental issues, such as pollution, land use and non-renewable resources offer plenty of scope for accounting.” In short, the creators of GDP thought of it as work-in progress. Unfortunately, the world has continued to focus much of its energy on maximizing an incomplete and out-of-date paradigm.

There are ways to adjust for the short comings of GDP. One is to create additional matrices for measuring progress. The Human Development Index and Carbon Footprint are concepts that can be used to enhance the raw GDP approach. Unfortunately, they failed to gain a serious following beyond the world of activists and conferences because these measures lack the simplicity of a single GDP number.

The only real alternative then is to recalibrate GDP itself to reflect genuine value generation. This can be done by assigning monetary values to things like water pollution, deforestation, land degradation and other changes in the stock of natural capital. Similar adjustments can be made to account for changes in human capital stock (health, education etc). The result would be a new GDP number more closely reflecting true value generated by various human activities.

Economists should redefine GDP and incorporate ground situation. They should make economy fly in the air when there is no possibility of sustaining its stay on the sky. By infusing a course correction they can perform a social reengineering which is need of the hour. Poor must get the attention and priority. Simply giving the number of poor people is not sufficient. Using the latest technological prowess economists should filter down the most needy people and those in the seat of power should help those identified poor people to improve their lives. There is no alternative to this model.