BIKASH CHOUDHURY
Back Ground: India and Pakistan due to compelling historical factors spend over 50% of their mind space and resources on foreign policy and military might; which has continued for over six decades in spite of many near successful intervention in between these six long decades. To a lay man, it would appear that apparently we are missing one important link some where. And, important think for India is to solve the Pakistan puzzle for good to emerge as global power. Further, acceptance of fact that it require at least a long term consistent effort of ten years to turn Pakistan as a peaceful neighbor at our western borders.
Problems: Trust deficits of Pakistani Military, Weak Political Institutions of Pakistan, Competing Interests of Global Powers, ISI factor, Pakistani Media under chains, and lack of national consensus in India on how to deal with Pakistan.
Solution: Simultaneous and multiprong approach with a consistent policy of engaging all the problem makers of India-Pakistan friendship with a road map for a decade.
Tools:
* To invite top 25-50 Generals/Officers of Pakistan Military to India with their family for a private visit to explore one to one relations with their counterparts in India in an informal setting.
* Sending an Industry delegation to Pakistan to explore investment opportunity and to convince their counter parts to open trade and commerce with MFN or common market paradigm.
* Exchange of cultural delegation at least twice a year.
* Encouraging Indian media to collaborate with Pakistani media and frequent exchange of media luminaries.
* The main Idea is that we were one country for centuries and there must be some thing in common that could bury the bitterness of last half century; that need investigation, exploration with patience.
* These activities I guess may have to be pursued with minimum short term expectation and media hype.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
How to Minimize Corruption?
BIKASH CHOUDHURY
Corruption at high places has occupied the mind space of millions of ‘Aam Admi’ of this country, most part of the year 2010. IT IS ANY BODY’S GUESS IF THE YEAR 2011, a few days away would be any different. Rich and famous enjoy as infamous ‘Radia tape’ confirm recently; while people at the bottom of the pyramid pay heavy price and buy onions at Rs.80 a kilo, suffer with bad and pot holed roads, schools minus teachers, home without roof, hand pumps without water and lack of basic convenience for personal hygiene even for young women in rural and urban areas and river water unfit for consumption.
After witnessing daily doses of soap opera on corruption in plethora of 24x7 news channels millions of people feel a genuine disquiet inside; knowing fully well that CWG, Adarsha housing and 2G spectrum scams are just the tip of the ice berg. Much and many such or bigger scams go unnoticed from public eye. People in the know are also not surprised at the news of unholy collusion between politicians, Businessmen, Media and middlemen-read lobbyist to defraud the public exchequer. JPC or no JPC, these games and gamesmanship of siphoning of public money into private coffers would continue unabated; unless and until the very genesis of corrupt activities dealt with completely.
As popularly believed, the buck does not stop with politicians alone; though they are the most maligned species in our society. The buck stops at, we the people who eventually elect them to administer. The buck stops at our hypocritical electoral system wherein one has to shell out
Rs. 20-50 crore to get elected as member of legislative assembly or Member of Parliament and more over the political parties need five times the amount to survive in the competitive electoral politics practiced and pursued at present.
It has been repeated too often our country need an open &transparent mechanism to raise funds for genuine political activity and electoral politics which off late has become an expensive affair. Secondly, country badly need police reforms to stop undue and illegal political interference on routine law and order enforcement. Thirdly, we must have reforms in judicial system so that at least the perpetrators of heinous crimes are dealt with exemplary punishment within a time frame of six months to one year; in order to enforce the rule of law without any bias for caste or class and to create fear in the minds of potential law breakers. Without that, time and again innovative scamsters would surface in new avatars and we will see macabre greed for amassing wealth in our society. Let us hope New Year 2011 would bring some good news on this score.
Corruption at high places has occupied the mind space of millions of ‘Aam Admi’ of this country, most part of the year 2010. IT IS ANY BODY’S GUESS IF THE YEAR 2011, a few days away would be any different. Rich and famous enjoy as infamous ‘Radia tape’ confirm recently; while people at the bottom of the pyramid pay heavy price and buy onions at Rs.80 a kilo, suffer with bad and pot holed roads, schools minus teachers, home without roof, hand pumps without water and lack of basic convenience for personal hygiene even for young women in rural and urban areas and river water unfit for consumption.
After witnessing daily doses of soap opera on corruption in plethora of 24x7 news channels millions of people feel a genuine disquiet inside; knowing fully well that CWG, Adarsha housing and 2G spectrum scams are just the tip of the ice berg. Much and many such or bigger scams go unnoticed from public eye. People in the know are also not surprised at the news of unholy collusion between politicians, Businessmen, Media and middlemen-read lobbyist to defraud the public exchequer. JPC or no JPC, these games and gamesmanship of siphoning of public money into private coffers would continue unabated; unless and until the very genesis of corrupt activities dealt with completely.
As popularly believed, the buck does not stop with politicians alone; though they are the most maligned species in our society. The buck stops at, we the people who eventually elect them to administer. The buck stops at our hypocritical electoral system wherein one has to shell out
Rs. 20-50 crore to get elected as member of legislative assembly or Member of Parliament and more over the political parties need five times the amount to survive in the competitive electoral politics practiced and pursued at present.
It has been repeated too often our country need an open &transparent mechanism to raise funds for genuine political activity and electoral politics which off late has become an expensive affair. Secondly, country badly need police reforms to stop undue and illegal political interference on routine law and order enforcement. Thirdly, we must have reforms in judicial system so that at least the perpetrators of heinous crimes are dealt with exemplary punishment within a time frame of six months to one year; in order to enforce the rule of law without any bias for caste or class and to create fear in the minds of potential law breakers. Without that, time and again innovative scamsters would surface in new avatars and we will see macabre greed for amassing wealth in our society. Let us hope New Year 2011 would bring some good news on this score.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Federal Systems Under Threat
Bikash Choudhury
The farmers of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra sou motto received central aid of Rs 400 crores as compensation towards crop damage owing to unseasonal rains; however, Farmers of Odisha received non and had to be satisfied with the announcement of visiting central team to assess crop damage. How do you explain such parochial decision of union govt.? A school student could figure out that it is a political favor since Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra being UPA ruled State; farmers of Odisha need suffer for electing a non-UPA govt. This unequal treatment between State on the basis of political expediency of central govt. is no small matter that can be glossed over under the carpet. Actually, this is a threat to our federal system, unity and integrity of our nation. The growing divisive forces in the State of J&K is the result of unimaginative, ham handed and selfish policies of Political parties in union govt. for over six decades. Our country should not be at the mercy of political expediency of ruling dis-pension at the center.Opposition parties in parliament must rise to the occasion without calculating political returns on supreme national interest.
The farmers of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra sou motto received central aid of Rs 400 crores as compensation towards crop damage owing to unseasonal rains; however, Farmers of Odisha received non and had to be satisfied with the announcement of visiting central team to assess crop damage. How do you explain such parochial decision of union govt.? A school student could figure out that it is a political favor since Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra being UPA ruled State; farmers of Odisha need suffer for electing a non-UPA govt. This unequal treatment between State on the basis of political expediency of central govt. is no small matter that can be glossed over under the carpet. Actually, this is a threat to our federal system, unity and integrity of our nation. The growing divisive forces in the State of J&K is the result of unimaginative, ham handed and selfish policies of Political parties in union govt. for over six decades. Our country should not be at the mercy of political expediency of ruling dis-pension at the center.Opposition parties in parliament must rise to the occasion without calculating political returns on supreme national interest.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Structural Reforms
BIKASH CHOUDHURY
Currently, we see a systematic program of some political party to concentrate minority votes. Recent efforts on high decibel RSS bashing would be counter productive. The results of Bihar election has clearly shown that minority community no longer has fear in their mind which lingered for a long time after partition of the country.Minority community have been taken for a ride for half a century. Now they increasingly joining mainstream and more inclined to vote on the bais of quality of candidate, development track record and issues of Bijli, Sadak, Pani, Kapda, Makan and Education; which is a good sign for our national renewal. Terrorism is religion neutral and terrorist now come from rich and poor, educated and illiterate back ground; therefore, it would be very difficult to brand any single organisation or political persuation with terrorist mindset as it is omnipresent. The principal raison detere of terrorism is " island of opulence within the ocean of deprivation" in our society; further, increasing disparity of growth among regions within the country and state is fueling extrimist ideology. Solution lies in Imginative and Collective Leadership to rise above narrow party politics for a decade or so to resolve structural issues of our governance for good.
Currently, we see a systematic program of some political party to concentrate minority votes. Recent efforts on high decibel RSS bashing would be counter productive. The results of Bihar election has clearly shown that minority community no longer has fear in their mind which lingered for a long time after partition of the country.Minority community have been taken for a ride for half a century. Now they increasingly joining mainstream and more inclined to vote on the bais of quality of candidate, development track record and issues of Bijli, Sadak, Pani, Kapda, Makan and Education; which is a good sign for our national renewal. Terrorism is religion neutral and terrorist now come from rich and poor, educated and illiterate back ground; therefore, it would be very difficult to brand any single organisation or political persuation with terrorist mindset as it is omnipresent. The principal raison detere of terrorism is " island of opulence within the ocean of deprivation" in our society; further, increasing disparity of growth among regions within the country and state is fueling extrimist ideology. Solution lies in Imginative and Collective Leadership to rise above narrow party politics for a decade or so to resolve structural issues of our governance for good.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
How to create new jobs?
(Published in The New Indian Express on 20 December 2010)
Bikash Choudhury
If I were to claim of having a tool to create new jobs in the economy;
then, the prime ministers and presidents of the world would make a
beeline at my doors the next morning. Such is the attraction and
interest of global leaders to create new jobs in their economy. Recent
visit of US president to India was one such visit that focused on
creation of jobs back home. Many economists would have searched for a
tool that would have delivered new jobs and credibility to their
profession. Unfortunately, there is none in existence at the moment.
But, there is a perspective on how to deliver new jobs in the economy
looking at past trends.
Historically speaking the Industrial revolution delivered huge
amount of new blue collar jobs in Europe. And, most recently in India
the Information & communication Technology (ICT) revolution would have
added 12 million new white collar jobs to Indian Economy in the last
decade. Again, Google in six years of inception has added half a
million new jobs directly and indirectly. Taking into account our
traditional economic theory and above cited examples; we can safely
conclude that large scale jobs can be created by satisfying unmet or
undisclosed needs of customers more than proportionately. Another
inference could be that jobs also can be created by developing
solutions for chronic problems of customers in the market.
In Indian context, there is a huge unmet need of quality school
education, primary health care, energy, logistic for goods-services
and human movements. Further, we have problem on technology front for
creating World class Durable roads, railway infrastructure and
affordable air travel in shortest period of time. The fulfillment of
such needs and solution of above cited problems has the potential to
deliver millions of new jobs in Indian economy.
As a matter of policy, we need to create Business Models around each
verticals and try to attract domestic and foreign capital with some
amount of assured returns under sovereign guarantee and some portion
left to risk & reward matrix of market forces. These things are easily
said than done. However, someone somewhere in the country would make a
start in this decade. This process can be speeded up if top 500
business houses in the country create a separate venture capital fund
to finance the projects of their employees who wish to pursue
entrepreneurial dreams in the country in chosen verticals. Guess
twenty percent success rate could return an eighty percent ROI. Any
takers?
Bikash Choudhury
If I were to claim of having a tool to create new jobs in the economy;
then, the prime ministers and presidents of the world would make a
beeline at my doors the next morning. Such is the attraction and
interest of global leaders to create new jobs in their economy. Recent
visit of US president to India was one such visit that focused on
creation of jobs back home. Many economists would have searched for a
tool that would have delivered new jobs and credibility to their
profession. Unfortunately, there is none in existence at the moment.
But, there is a perspective on how to deliver new jobs in the economy
looking at past trends.
Historically speaking the Industrial revolution delivered huge
amount of new blue collar jobs in Europe. And, most recently in India
the Information & communication Technology (ICT) revolution would have
added 12 million new white collar jobs to Indian Economy in the last
decade. Again, Google in six years of inception has added half a
million new jobs directly and indirectly. Taking into account our
traditional economic theory and above cited examples; we can safely
conclude that large scale jobs can be created by satisfying unmet or
undisclosed needs of customers more than proportionately. Another
inference could be that jobs also can be created by developing
solutions for chronic problems of customers in the market.
In Indian context, there is a huge unmet need of quality school
education, primary health care, energy, logistic for goods-services
and human movements. Further, we have problem on technology front for
creating World class Durable roads, railway infrastructure and
affordable air travel in shortest period of time. The fulfillment of
such needs and solution of above cited problems has the potential to
deliver millions of new jobs in Indian economy.
As a matter of policy, we need to create Business Models around each
verticals and try to attract domestic and foreign capital with some
amount of assured returns under sovereign guarantee and some portion
left to risk & reward matrix of market forces. These things are easily
said than done. However, someone somewhere in the country would make a
start in this decade. This process can be speeded up if top 500
business houses in the country create a separate venture capital fund
to finance the projects of their employees who wish to pursue
entrepreneurial dreams in the country in chosen verticals. Guess
twenty percent success rate could return an eighty percent ROI. Any
takers?
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