WEEKEND LIGHTER: MMS speech in RS
(November 26/27, 2016, No.50/2016)
Weekend Lighter is posted every Saturday @mgwarrier.blogspot.in
Demonetization worries, Bloomberg style…
I
Opening remarks
Manmohan Singh’s RS
speech
This
refers to the report “Govt. must take
action: Manmohan”(The Hindu, November 25) filed by Vijaita Singh and Suhasini Haidar. The
managers of the Indian Economy and the Indian Financial Sector, who opted to
procrastinate action against the looting of the common man in India
post-liberalisation should pro rata share the entire blame contained in the Manmohan
Singh’s 6 minutes speech. Generations to come will remember MMS for this
speech, as it is not a political speech, but one backed by long years of
experience as economist of international repute, central banker, finance
minister and Prime Minister.
Dr
Manmohan Singh’s advice to ‘reflect’ on the content of his speech needs to be
taken seriously by all including the victims(common man) and factored in, in
their future action plans. Instead of throwing the ball back, alleging that MMS
did not act or speak at appropriate times or in appropriate forums, policy
makers should opt to commission the former PM’s experience and wisdom to make midway corrections in the crusade
against corruption, fake currency and terrorism. Once he cools down, definitely
he will help and never leave you in the lurch. After all, having managed an
unwieldy coalition for a long time, more than anyone else, Dr Manmohan Singh is
aware of the constraints with which governments work.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
II
RECENT RESPONSES
Demonetization worries, Bloomberg style
The
Bloomberg story filed by Vrishti Beniwal & Anirban Nag captioned “Central
banker missing in action as India escalates war on cash” (Business Standard,
November 24) , following closely on the heels of a BBC lament about how India
will handle 20 billion pieces of useless currency notes, is interesting
reading. Let us not underplay the anxieties of external agencies, though they
have only pedestrian interest in our real problems. Let us go by the same priorities
listed in the report.
First,
RBI Governor has spoken just only once, since November 8 announcement of
demonetization. Earlier, someone had researched and found out that during the
entire 2 years plus tenure as Deputy Governor, Urjit Patel had made only one
public speech against the tally of fifty-plus, posted by one of his colleagues
and two dozen posted by his immediate predecessor Dr Raghuram Rajan. The report
says, a ‘powerful’ bank union has called for Patel’s resignation. Till this
time, there are no reports about subsequent developments.
Two,
the observation “a senior bureaucrat was tasked with firefighting” is based on a senior Secretary in the Finance
Ministry explaining the measures taken by GOI to ameliorate the inconvenience
caused by withdrawal of the legal tender character of Rs500 and Rs1000 notes
announced by PM on November 8. In the given context the official was doing his
assigned duty, while RBI was busy with ‘follow up’ measures. Robert Hocket, who talks in ‘general’ terms, appears
to be totally out of touch with the Indian context.
Three,
K C Chakrabarty, another person whom the writers have contacted, has already
gone on record saying that when he was RBI Deputy Governor, the demonetization
proposal received in RBI (he said it was immaterial whether the proposal was
made over the phone or in writing) to which, in his words, “We said, no”. So
the ‘benefit of doubt’ offered by him to Urjit Patel must be genuine.
Four,
though repeated references are being made to 1978 demonetization in the media
by analysts, the context, content and magnitude of the 2016 measure make any
such comparison ridiculous.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
Taming the killer monster
K
Balakesari’s article “Rerailing the Indian Railways” (The Hindu, November 23)
should be an eye-opener for the policy makers responsible for reforming
Railways and provides useful information to those who quickly blame the
employees of the organization concerned, whenever something goes wrong in the
system. If the Indian Railways with its massive responsibilities is still
functional, the major part of the credit should go to the thousands of Railway
employees (including retired railmen engaged on contract basis for various
skills they could not pass on to the next generation of Tech-savvy ‘engineers’,
but are relevant as the infrastructure has not been modernized) who work 24X7. The letters I and R which stand
for Indian Railways, do stand also for the Integrity and Reliability of the
workforce which run the Railways.
If
70 percent of the accidents are attributed to ‘staff failures’, one can easily
assume that the stress put on employees due to overwork due to extended or
repeated duty shifts were not factored in, while making the judgments. While
large number of deaths happen in accidents like the one between Pukhrayan and
Malasa, the average 10 to 12 deaths(no reliable estimate about injuries) caused
everyday by overcrowding and indiscipline in Mumbai suburban locals do not draw
any attention from policy makers or even social activists. Here the entire
blame should be owned by the system, comprising the management of Railways and
GOI. After all, the service is not provided free and as a consumer, the
passenger has a right for reasonably acceptable and safe services.
All
these point to the need for fast and comprehensive reform of existing rail
services. Introduction of metro or monorail systems or superfast trains in long
routes cannot be a substitute for improving the efficiency and safety of the
existing services.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
Demon(ET)isation!
Vivek
K. Agnihotri’s Open Page article “The demons of demonetization”(The Hindu, Open
Page, November 22) is the best article yet, I read on the subject from November
9, till date. The piece stands out in coverage of several dimensions of the
measure, its current and future impact on the concept of currency as an
instrument of exchange and the agony and ecstasy felt and enjoyed by the common
man during the last fortnight.
From
Trump’s triumph to ‘drowning of sorrows’, the narrative is well decorated. The
only conspicuous omission-being a Malayalee and an ex-auditor (two-in-one!), I
am trained to pick up at least one hole in any perfect creation- one can point
out is that the writer spares the media-social, anti-social, electronic and
print- left their half-done stories on the midnight of November 8 and focused
on demon(ET)isation all through. One is in total dark about all other
developments in the universe since then.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
Consensus on corruption
This
refers to the piece “Corporate funding of political parties should stop” by
Sitaram Yechury (Business Standard, Opinion, November 20). Yechury’s speech in
the Rajya Sabha on November 16, signals a possibility of consensus on possible
sources and uses of funds raised by political parties and broad agreement on
transparency in election expenditure. Time is opportune for Modi government to
make the right moves to initiate processes to formally debate state funding of election
expenditure. Several related issues will crop up, if a serious proposal of this
nature is discussed in public.
Sitaram
Yechury has suggested stopping corporate funding of political parties. This is
easier said than done. It may not be practical to ban private contributions to
political parties. Election funding, or pumping money to ensure that candidate
‘X’ wins from a particular constituency is a different matter. Here, the
ceilings for expenditure per candidate should be fixed rationally and enforced.
Where candidates from ‘recognized’ political parties have no known sources of
income for funding election expenditure, or have inadequate resources,
government through the Election Commission should part-fund such deficits. The
corpus for such funding should be created by appropriate mobilization from
political parties and corporates in a transparent manner.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
III
LEISURE
Where
are the legal philosophers?*
Propounding
legal principles
Through the centuries, many legal
philosophers left their indelible mark on shaping institutions of governance.
Many of the systems of governance and rule of law as are familiar today have
been developed by applying principles expounded by legal philosophers. To
Aristotle, justice was all about “giving every person his due” and the purpose
of law was to develop a just society that made this possible. Kautilya’s Arthashastra postulated
that the king was the fountainhead of justice but with the limitation that even
he was obliged to rule according to the Dharmashastras. William
Blackstone, through his book, Commentaries on the Laws of England,
guided the growth and development of English law in no small measure; John
Austin popularised the theory that law was command of the sovereign made
credible by threats of punishment for its disobedience. The horrors of the
World Wars galvanised dialogue on a new wave of legal philosophy that
recognised the existence of some inalienable rights in every individual that could
not be eliminated even by state-made laws. One could also discern their
application in the famous Nuremberg trials where the defence of the Nazi
officers — that they could not be punished because everything they did was in
execution of valid legal commands — found no acceptance. The path-breaking work
of several legal philosophers of that time had their impact in the promulgation
of certain important international documents and treaties like the Charter of
the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European Convention
on Human Rights and the 1959 Declaration of Delhi on the rule of law.
*Excerpts from an article in The
Hindu, November 24, 2016(link above)
Blog Post No 244625112016
Blog Post No 244625112016
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