M G WARRIER'S MY PAGE, MAY 2013
M G Warrier’s
My Page
A monthly bulletin from M G Warrier
incorporating select published letters/links to articles (and some stray
thoughts based on what he read/saw and wrote during the month). Mailed during
the third week of every month. Please send your responses and views to mgwarrier@rediffmail.com
Vol III, No 5, May 2013
M G Warrier, MLR-116-B, Mangalam Lane
Dear reader
My Page is also
being posted on Warrier’s Blog at http://mgwarrier.blogspot.in/
Links to
articles and important comments are posted at the blog as and when they are
published. Those esteemed readers who have difficulty in accessing blog can
contact mgwarrier@rediffmail.com
Regards
M G Warrier
May 28, 2013
Articles
The
following articles were published during March-May, 2013 (Till May 15, 2013)
1.
Cobrapost exposure:
What next? : May 2013, Moneylife.in
2.
What is RBI Reading?
‘End of Poverty’: Jeffrey D Sachs, RBI Newsletter, April 30, 2013.
3.
BRICS Development
Bank: Prospects and Challenges, Global ANALYST, May 2013.
4.
Do we need a
regulator for unclaimed deposits? May 4, 2013 Moneylife.in
5.
FSLRC Recommendations
on RBI: Stop, Look and Proceed! April 10, 2013 Moneylife.in
6.
A wake up call from Cyprus
7.
Wage Revision in
Banking Sector, March 2013, Business Manager, HR Magazine
8.
Succession plans in India
Letters/Comments
Business Standard
Business Standard May 27, 2013 Last Updated at 21:07 IST
Letters: Pay scale disparities
This refers to the
report "Delhi HC rules out pay parity between regular & contractual
workers" (May 26). We cannot expect a humane approach from courts whose
core function is ensuring the rule of law, and thus blame a bench of judges for
interpreting law and observing hence: "There cannot be complete parity
between contractual employees and those who undergo selection process and are
appointed as regular employees. On the principle of 'same work same pay', if
there is complete identity of work between contractual employees and regular
employees, a court can direct same basic salary and allowances to be paid. But
with reference to one set of persons not having undertaken the selection
process and the second set having undertaken the selection process, the court
could deny the benefit of increments." However, those responsible for policy
formulation should take note of the disparity in prices, wages and incomes,
which are relevant for a class that is rich and powerful and, therefore, has
hold over decisions and options. And an entirely different set of parameters
for arriving at the prices, wages and incomes applicable to another class that
comprises the majority and has no control over its destiny. The delay in
correcting this is already resulting in eruptive symptoms. In her Pulitzer
Prize-winning book Behind the Beautiful Forevers (Penguin Books), Katherine Boo
makes this observation: "In places where government priorities and market
imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbour is to risk
your ability to feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, the idea
of the mutually supportive poor community is demolished. The poor blame one
another for the choices of governments and markets, and we who have means are
ready to blame the poor just as harshly." Hairsplitting arguments or
lament over "legal position" cannot be a substitute for a humane
approach to poverty, hunger and deprivation.
M G Warrier, Thiruvananthapuram
Online comments:
CAG Vinod Rai
retires:
M G WARRIER
May 22, 2013 at 11:04
PM IST
Sandwiched between a
hostile community of beneficiaries of largesse from government via different
routes and a government benevolent in showering praises on CAG only when it has
to defend itself from opposition attack, Vinod Rai had to assert his stance
defending public interest in public on an ongoing basis, which is a tough task
for any civil servant in India. If the institution of CAG and the individual
have been able to carry on unperturbed, proactive support from media and
organisations like Moneylife Foundation did help the process.
The efforts taken by Vinod Rai and his predecessors to sharpen the available tools by infusing expertise into the organisation and by training and educating cadres down below have brought professionalism in the performance of audit function and improved the confidence level of staff. If similar initiatives had come from his counterparts heading several government departments and public sector or statutory organizations, the agony the UPA II government is now subject to would have been much less.
The efforts taken by Vinod Rai and his predecessors to sharpen the available tools by infusing expertise into the organisation and by training and educating cadres down below have brought professionalism in the performance of audit function and improved the confidence level of staff. If similar initiatives had come from his counterparts heading several government departments and public sector or statutory organizations, the agony the UPA II government is now subject to would have been much less.
RBI Audit:
M G WARRIER (Thiruvananthapuram)
9 Hours ago
Following certain tradition, our Constitution and some legislations
provide for prior consultation, in certain matters before GOI decide, with some
statutory bodies like CAG and RBI. In the instant case, suggesting two names
and awaiting RBI confirmation is as good as consultation, as this gives
opportunity to RBI to express views if they have different views. The second
issue, namely the one relating to transfer of surplus income/profit by RBI and
PSUs tagged to this, is an entirely different one. A greedy FM is trying to
coerce GOI-owned bodies to manipulate their accounts or bring down reserves to
plug holes in governmentâ??s own balance sheet. The present method of
‘budgeting’ huge receipts from PSUs and statutory bodies in advance and forcing
the organisations to pay is an unethical practice.
ON FSLRC:
The finance
ministry and FSLRC, it is by now clear that, in a hurry to resolve minor issues,
ignored the evolution of the role of RBI and the care with which RBI has
nurtured the financial sector. Various observations since made by present RBI
Governor and the dissenting notes appended to the FSLRC Report itself are
adequate proof (if proof was necessary!) to show that the report written by the
Chairman of the FSLRC to satisfy some mysterious interests did not care to
understand the Indian situation or the strength of RBI while doing the ‘cut and
paste’ from the abundance of material placed before him. FSLRC depended on the
experience of small countries whose history and geography are different or
listened to experts from developed countries where central banking needs are
totally different from those in India
M G WARRIER
My Page Choice of
the month:
New Indian
Express, May 2, 2013
A septuagenarian’s look at
existence
02nd May
2013 07:59 AM
Exit from
this world is certain for all, but while in your teens, the probability of
having to call it quits and depart any time any day does not nag you
significantly. However, once you cross the Biblical span of three score and ten,
you suddenly feel you have to pack. Till fifty or even sixty, one dreams,
hopes, plans and acts but into seventy, one undergoes a metamorphosis; one
feels a reasonable certainty about the hour for the swansong that hitherto
loomed only in the shadows. One gets a hunch one can almost count the hours —
nay, minutes — left for the sands to run out.
Stoicism
sets in. Boredom takes over. Neither hopes nor fears goad the mind
that has passed through the best of times and the worst of times. After
all, what momentous event can be expected or feared in the next five years,
three years, two years! Indifference reigns supreme in all your thoughts, words
and deeds. In your younger days, you used to spend sleepless nights worrying
why one of your casual acquaintances who always greeted you with a respectful
smile was indifferent on a particular day. But now you have learnt to
nonchalantly jettison all such non-events; in fact, in the other extreme, you
even become apathetic to the extent of ignoring men and matters,
confident that such alienation would “pass by you like an idle wind which
you respect not’’.
Your
“withdrawal symptoms’’ show in the way you start shunning social functions.
Days when, on occasions like marriages, deaths and so on that see friends and relatives
flocking together, you used to pick up the old threads with gusto and enjoy
re-living the good old times, spiced with vociferous banter and back-slapping,
are gone for ever, never to come back.
When the
ebullient youngsters indulge in their pet pranks, fun and frolic in your
presence, you inwardly sing with the bard, “Lord, what fools these mortals
be!’’ In audible silence, you tell them: “Don’t be oversmart, kids. I
have also passed through these stages and I know all this is just sound and
fury signifying nothing.’’ May be because you are in your second childhood, you
might develop an increased affinity and affection towards children.
You find
yourself capable of vibing well with them, relating to them. Appetite wanes.
Gluttons who, in the past, lived to eat, not ate to live, push away their
plates untasted. The change is biological as well as psychological — mostly the
latter. The horse that galloped unstoppable with virile sinews and an
indefatigable spirit has gradually started gasping.
Limbs, as
well as the mind, fall into the lap of lassitude. And, as Shakespeare put it,
we remain “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’’. A rare few are
granted the luxury of colourful dreams during the mid-day nap. “Recollections
in tranquility’’ afford me adequate compensation. And for this reason, I am a
contented septuagenarian.
*
C Divakaran is an ex-rbite based in Thiruvananthapuram
Comments (6)
One of the best articles
from the author. The concluding remarks, “Recollections in tranquility’’ afford
me adequate compensation. And for this reason, I am a contented septuagenarian,
is very apt and true. Narayanan
Silliest
article. Drawing generalization on negative aspects of ageing, psychologically
speaking, and offering them on a platter as a must have situation for all
septuagenarians is wrong. See Fauza Singh, Khuswant Singh and many others. Both
are above a hundred years of age. One is running a marathon and the other is
still writing novels and is always at his funniest best. I know many
octogenarians who are as positive and active as they were in their fifties.
Time to move
away from dampening Shakespearean thoughts and proceed on to grasp, follow the
thoughts of Swami Ramakrishna Paramhansaji, Adi Shankara, Swami Vivekananda,
Ramana Maharishiji or any other great man of one's preference; one's batteries
could be recharged anyday any time. Just a matter of situational perceptions
apart from undergoing a Master Health Checkup in a corporate hospital and
taking further treatments as advised by the senior physician there; Many
hobbies, choices exist depending upon one's inclinations. Think of lesser
privileged mortals. There are people in their eighties and nineties still
enjoying their lives. This is the bonus period of the author's life; and he can
enjoy, live this remainder bonus spell life the way he wants to live, after
weighing afresh various options available to him. One hopes he keeps on writing
and reminiscing on various varied happenings, incidents etc. Here is wishing
him best of health, times for a decade or two more...
Yes it is
packing time for me as I am going to touch eighties in another year. But that
makes me only over active to give finishing touches to things to be completed,
especially in the fields of reading, thinking, writing and sharing. Was waiting
anxiously for my visa to heaven from my sixties did an awful lot in all fields
during this waiting time and I feel happy to continue doing the same to share
what God has helped me to experience. Happy to go any time the call comes and
happy to be up and doing my best till then.
That is the true spirit of a true
man of art.
The article has
served its purpose, if the purpose was to provoke thoughts. One need not worry
too much about the one final thing that is death, as no one has left this
planet alive so far. World outside is not as bad as the media pictures for you.
There will be many kids waiting for your smile, even after you are toothless!
There are many who would like to hold on to your hand even when your limbs are
weak. Enjoy life.
Comments