Friday, July 29, 2016

Ostensibly No Sanctuary For Persecuted Muslims



Ostensibly No  Sanctuary For Persecuted Muslims

The Modi government, keeping a campaign promise, has taken a liberal line with persecuted Hindu and other non-Muslim minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan; letting them stay on when their visas expire.

Now, the draft amendments are ready, to formalise the move, by tweaking the Indian Citizenship Act 1955.

The Act has been amended twice already, once in 2003, to regularise many of the illegal immigrants, largely Muslims from Bangladesh.
And then again, in 2015, to accommodate some of the wishes of the influential and widespread Indian diaspora.

This latest changes, when, and if, enacted, will allow ethnic Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Jews, from these neighbouring countries, to apply for Indian citizenship, in a structured manner.

This, in addition to those who have recently been given unofficial sanctuary, after coming in on tourist visas.

That is, all, except for Muslims claiming persecution, in China and Myanmar for example, where they are not in an overwhelming majority!

However, everyone can, and occasionally does, apply on a case-by–case basis, to obtain citizenship under the ‘naturalisation’ and other  clauses of the existing act. 

Some commentators, versed in the law and the constitution, have been questioning the exceptionalism of the proposed move, and wondering about the language the amendment would incorporate.

How will the tweak specifically exclude Muslim applicants, without falling afoul of the secular and equality-under-the-law clauses in the Indian Constitution? How will the tweaked law stand up in court, if and when challenged?

The logic for it however is compelling. Pakistan and its latter day offshoot Bangladesh, created from the rib of East Pakistan, chose to become ‘secular’ Muslim states in 1947, and later on, in 1971. 

That they have chosen to become sharply majoritarian since, riding rough–shod over their miniscule minorities, is most unfortunate. Afghanistan, friendly to India overall, has been plagued by extremist Taliban depredations.

That they  have, along with China and Myanmar, complications and factionalism between the more liberal and the orthodox  within the population - internecine conflict too, between the Shias, Sunnis, other ‘Islamic’ sects/organisations. These too, have certainly thrown up different sets of religiously persecuted Muslims.

With nearly 200 million Indian Muslims, consisting of Shias, Sunnis, Bohras, Ismailis, Sufis and so on, we do not have the same problem.  A majority Hindu country, India has not tried to drive out even one Indian Muslim for belonging to a religious minority!

It is good to remember that both Pakistan and Bangladesh had undertaken to protect their minorities too. Instead, some have seen fit to push out their miniscule minorities, and claim their worldly possessions and property, without the slightest compunction.

It is only India, amongst the sub-continental trio, that seems to have kept to its original commitment.

So now, as a secular Hindu majority country, with large and small minorities of different kinds, living in relative harmony, we want to officially take back those Hindus and other minorities who are persecuted and unwelcome in their countries of origin.

But to add all persecuted Muslims in our neighbouring countries to the list, via this amended citizenship act is considered inappropriate.

Exceptions to the commonsensical rule, such as Pakistani-British singer Adnan Sami, do apply from time to time, and are also accepted.

Bangladeshi-Swedish Writer Taslima Nasrin has been allowed to live in India indefinitely. Others will, no doubt, apply, and be accepted, but on a case-to-case basis.

India has traditionally, from ancient times, been a haven for the persecuted- Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahais, Sufis etc..  

Since 1947, the modern Indian government, at some cost to its own realpolitik, has taken in successive waves of people.

It incurred the seething wrath of the Chinese, by taking in the fleeing Dalai Lama in 1959, along with thousands of his followers. This played its part in the War of 1962, and continues to be an irritant in Indo-Chinese relations to this day.

India also took in a gush of more than 10 million Bangladeshi refugees in 1971, after the Indian supported liberation of East Pakistan, most of whom were Muslim. This figure has since swelled to more than 35 million by way of illegal immigration/infiltration.

Over the years of the LTTE agitation for Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of ethnic Tamils, including dangerous insurgents, came into South India. And many of these ‘immigrants’ are still here, long after the demise of the LTTE and the quest for Eelam.

And so, there is hardly a worthy case left, for the would-be legal, or moral, challengers, to take up in practice.

For: The Quint  
(750 words)
July 29th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Jihad With Its Back To The Wall, And Staring Down a Barrel

Jihad With Its Back To The Wall, And Staring Down The Barrel

The world keeps turning, albeit more turbulently than usual in 2016. And each day, comes the news of fresh atrocities perpetrated by the troops of radical Islamic terrorism.

It is killing dozens of innocent civilians, men, women, children, the sick, the dying, even the handicapped; victims include Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, those from other religions, somewhere, seemingly anywhere, around the world.

Of late, this jihad factory, is obviously quickening the pace, but why?

Does it want to dominate the news? Is it suffering too much attrition? Is it ramping up the effort to perpetrate its indiscriminate crimes against humanity, in order to provoke a more massive retaliation? Is it fighting for its survival with its back to the wall?

This, in the mistaken belief that it will radicalize ever larger numbers of moderate  Muslims, and drive them willingly into its arms, seeking revenge for debatable wrongs done.

And all in the name of an Islam rendered hard to recognize, by a large, saddened, embarrassed, and suffering majority of its adherents. What happened, some amongst them are wondering aloud, to the peace of Islam?

But the jihad factory expects to attract more warriors to its fanaticism- against the whole world, excepting, perhaps, only themselves. Factional fights, and the rivalries and differences of leadership apart, it is super busy batch-processing young people to die for their doomed cause.

What medievalist cause is this though, that is against everything modern and progressive, except weaponry and explosives?

It is thought up by radical Wahhabi clerics, in Saudi-funded madrassas and mosques, that blatantly double as armories; and twisted field commanders; all deliberately misinterpreting and distorting Islam, and brainwashing their charges/congregations to suit.
What is the meaning of this bloodbath, unleashed by ‘commanders’ who use illiterate peasants, LTTE fashion, as suicide bombers? Are they, after several years of depredations, about to meet the same fate as the LTTE?

Why do they want to overthrow and/or annihilate if they get hold of the means to do so – ‘the Godless, nominally Christian West, the pagan Hindus, the Zionist Jews, apostates in their own midst, but as defined by themselves?

Shias are being killed, if it is ISIS or the Taliban acting. Sunnis are dying, if it is the Hezbollah! Islamic states are just as much under attack - perhaps so that they can be terrorised and goaded into greater fundamentalism and support for this bloodthirsty quest.

But, with oil and gas prices languishing, at less than half of what they used to be, and little hope of revival, the bottom may have been knocked out of the jihad business. 

There’s drugs, prostitution and extortion left, of course, but the organization needed for this, has been much degraded by enemy fire and competition.

Women, as always for these misogynistic people, are in the cross hairs. The liberated and westernized ones, the non-believers, for being ‘depraved, immoral creatures’, and  traditional muslim women too, so that they don’t dare rise into asserting their equality.
These killers operate under constantly changing banners and methods. There are  lone-wolf executioners, suicide-bombers, remote controlled explosives, vehicles, trucks, assassins, women, even children, pressed into becoming the instruments of the slaughter. It is a guerilla war of immense cunning. 

In recent times, there have been new mass terrorist killings, in France, Germany,  Afghanistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, the  US, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, the UAE, Somalia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Norway, Portugal, India, Sweden, Switzerland; and even in the land of their chief financier and promoter  of  Wahabbism, Saudi Arabia.

How long before these worthies go after Pakistan’s all-weather friend China, and spread into every other country, on the basis of the doctrine that if you are not overtly for us, with money and guns supplied, you must be against us!

And yet, ISIS,, the Al Qaeda, the LeT, the Taliban, and their lesser and greater affiliates, have been steadily losing their top leadership at an enhanced pace, as the world gathers its intelligence and strikes back.

The attacks in Saudi Arabia are both illustrative and significant. Is the money-flow slowing, or drying up, with the drop in oil revenues? Is the intense military pressure on ISIS etc. bringing them to the point of final collapse? Is it do or die time for them already, with not a little blackmail thrown in?

Why is Pakistan, both its civil and military leadership, plus the JeM, trying harder  than ever to bring the Kashmir Valley to the boil? Are they losing too many infiltrators inside the country, and having difficulty sending in more? And are their local support bases in J&K, and elsewhere in India, being flushed/rooted out and wiped clean much too often for their comfort?

The savagery and frequency of the latest, almost daily terrorist attacks, including those on Islamic states cracking down on terrorism, suggests desperation.

The rise of Donald Trump in the US, is terrifying for the jihadists and their financiers, if early noises from Qatar and Saudi Arabia are to be listened to.

Should he win the presidency in November, it will certainly go badly for them all. NATO will be galvanized into action as a force multiplier and consensus builder, and the trainers, supporters, and sponsors of international terrorism, such as Pakistan, will find their feet held to the fire.

Knowing this, it is curious that the jihad factory is trying, harder than ever, to browbeat both Europe and America into a psychological surrender.

This, via terrorist attacks taken to the enemy, and other forms of  practised savagery, such as beheadings, throwing homosexuals off roofs, and so forth, on home turf. 

Every current atrocity committed however, is acting like a shot in the arm for the Trump campaign. So why are they doing it? Is it to panic his Democrat opposition into suing for peace with the jihadists? Are they hoping against hope that Trump won’t win?

But the opposite seems to be happening willy-nilly. Around the globe, the once  moderate and liberal, having had their countries bloodied, again and again, are starting to give up on their own instincts.

They too, and are being sucked into altogether tougher approach to terrorism advocated, for example, by both candidate Trump, and our own prime minister Modi, amongst others.

With almost every country coming under the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism, the world is rapidly losing its patience. All the leftist apologia on colonialism/neo-colonialism, and its consequences, now worn threadbare, causes a certain impatience, what with the scourge coming ever closer. Nobody is exempt, after all - more so, the rich and privileged, who make more attractive targets than random innocents.

For: Nationalist Online
(1,101 words)
July 26th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Monday, July 25, 2016

When Did Things Stop Going Better With Coca Cola?


When Did Things Stop Going Better With Coca Cola? 

Indians are addicted to their sweet tooth, if the ‘diabetes capital of the world’ tag, is anything to go by. After all, a full 33% plus are afflicted.

This mithaifest doesn’t however seem to include our consumption of Coca Cola. It, the company, has claimed ‘inadequate demand’, speaking from its wholly-owned bottling company, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages.  

Is this perhaps because Coca Cola isn’t sweet enough? Is it losing out to rival Pepsi, which uses a few spoon-fulls more in its formulation?

The Coke, that things apparently does go better with, at least among the rich and famous, is the infamously contraband ‘narco’ stuff, made famous by Colombia’s master-criminal Pablo Escobar.

But, is the black and sweet fizzy liquid, rumoured to have included a pinch of the narcotic in its original formula back in the day, reaching the end of the line?
Quintessentially American, Warren Buffet’s favourite drink still, at 85, accompaniment to globe encircling quantities of burgers, pizzas and fries; zillions of dollars worth; the mind boggles. 

Buffet says he still eats like a child, cokes, burgers, fries, ice cream, chocolates- and so much for the harm it does!

Despite this, have the health buffs in this country, plus our many native substitutes and variants, done in the Coke fizz with instant awareness?  

Even prime minister Narendra Modi recently advised soft drink makers to add some ‘real juice’ to their sodas - probably to help Indian fruit-growers. And some have already taken up the challenge.

Meanwhile, the government is considering imposing another, special, tax on sugar-sweetened soda beverages. The Rs. 14,000 crore aerated soft drinks industry, already attracts an excise duty of 18% . One more tax would probably break the camel’s back. So maybe the early passage of GST, if it happens, will come to Coca Cola’s rescue as well.

Coca Cola and its franchisees, started off by owning 24 bottling plants each, spread across the country, and most, in water plus areas, are still going strong.
Demand growth though, is lagging, in rural areas in particular. And even in urban India, our inveterate chai and kafi walas tend to consume ‘cold-drinks’ only in the hot summer months.

Combined with a running battle with advocacy against the drink, green activists, environmentalists, water starved farmers anti the plants; the company must do more serious rethinks on its product strategies.

Like the tobacco companies, the soft drinks ones have had to branch out into healthier - waters, flavoured and straight, juices, snacks, other non-food and drink businesses. So, what next?

Weak demand, plus bad press on pollution and consuming too much groundwater, particularly in a country largely dependent on erratic rainfall, prone to droughts, is definitely taking its toll.

It has led to Coca Cola recently shuttering three more of its wholly-owned bottling plants, bringing the tally up to five, or almost 20% .

But the weak demand problem is not untrue either, because the activist/farmer opposition has been a constant, complaining steadily for well over a decade.

The plants that have just been shut down are in the desert state of  Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Meghalaya.  They could start up again though, if market forces brighten. Another two, in Kerala, and Varanasi, UP, closed down earlier.

But despite all this, according to 2012 figures, India is Coca Cola’s 6th largest market worldwide. Considering it is sold everywhere, that is significant. It had plans to inject $5 billion more into the country by 2020, said the company in 2012. Now, it appears, this may not happen.

Meanwhile,Coca Cola blandly denies all environmental charges, terming its water needs as ‘miniscule’, and claiming it uses international best practices with regard to pollution.

Still, the gap in perception has not narrowed from either side, not over Coke’s nearly two decades on the ground.

The opposition to its plants has been fierce enough though for it to shelve plans for a facility in Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, and expanding one in Uttar Pradesh.
Precipitously falling ground water levels are indeed a big environmental issue generally, with increasing drawdowns of water for construction as cities expand, drinking, intensive farming, no recharge in concrete jungles, etc. This, in the absence of adequate rain and irrigation, and the ravages of El Nino.

But there are hard-boiled business dictates at play here too. Coca Cola’s oldest plants, quite logically, are the first ones going down. The one in Kaladera, near Jaipur, for example, is 16 years old.


The machinery is exhausted, and the wells have run dry-but only in these five. 

(752 words)
July 25th, 2016
Gautam Mukherjee

Sunday, July 24, 2016

The New Disruptives In The IT Space


The New Disruptive 21st Century IT Beckons to India’s $100 Billion Plus Outsourcing Industry

When the same shrinkage in fortunes afflicts India’s top-three IT companies, TCS, Infosys, and Wipro, it is time to review the situation. All of them, at the same time, have posted their worst first quarter performance in a decade.

The bourses instantly punished their shares, with a sharp, nearly 10% per cent cut, before relenting a little, in the days after the results were announced, between the 15th -20th of July.

All three posted first quarter results up to June 2016, with an erosion of  margins and profits, none too encouraging forward guidance  either.

Andy Mukherjee, writing his influential column for Bloomberg, said future  ‘profitability is now capped by robots’. He was alluding to the strong move to automation, and the trend towards captive IT centres.

These are replacing swathes of work that was/is being done by big and small outsourcing majors from India. They once sent in their swarms of techies to work on the complex software problems on-site, at their client premises. But it is this that is facing erosion and change now.

But, to put a perspective on it, tech-celebrity Raman Roy, who sold his Spectramind to Wipro, and now runs Quatrro, says, outsourcing is here to stay, because it has gone ‘mainstream’ in America, and accounts for too much profit to be knocked out easily.

It, that is both IT and BPO together, use nearly a million Indian people in the US, on H1B and L1 visas. This, despite the higher cost of the visas, hefty fines for misuse, caps on their number, threats of visa allocations being cut further.

Roy didn’t spell it out, but all the political rhetoric apart, there is a severe shortage of Americans who have STEM talent, (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), available for a reasonable price.

Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall, for a migration to quality and high technology, from quantity and ‘cheap-at-the-price’.

Particularly, when the demand supply gap generally, is widening. The Us and European markets are weak and innovation is the new king of the hill. A protectionist sentiment and headwinds like Brexit, does mean cost cuts.

Margins of the big three from India are all under pressure- Wipro has 23%, Infosys has 25%, ditto TCS. This is down from the erstwhile 29- 31%.

Staff attrition, including at the senior-most levels, triggered by the restlessness brought on by slowed growth, meaner increments/bonuses/ stock options, is burgeoning- 21% at Infosys, and 11.3% at TCS. Wipro has changed several CEOs in the past decade, and has another, in Neemuchwala, erstwhile of TCS.

Vishal Sikka of Infosys, himself quite new to his job, is trying to talk away Infosys’s lacklustre 1st quarter results and guidance. He shuffled the top deck, in the face of  shareholder and market-watch criticism, but this has led to more senior level departures still.

What is the matter down deeper? Andy Mukherjee cites a need to come up to speed with ‘artificial intelligence’, ever newer ‘digital technologies’, and ‘blockchain’, the distributed database used for bitcoin transactions.

Tech Mahindra, risen from the ashes of Satyam, is focusing on co-option of the newer technologies- using automation, and ramping up digitisation.

Others, such as Vashishta, formerly head of Accenture, speaks of cloud-based services demand, migration to mobility/smart phones, and social media connectivity.

But the real McCoy is ‘artificial intelligence’, the new frontier, and something being called the Internet of Things (IoT). 

IoT will account for over $300 billion worth of business alone by 2020 according to several estimates, and India, with its over $ 100 billion outsourcing presence today, can aspire to barely 10-15 billion of it, as things stand.

The Department of Electronics &IT, ERNET and Nasscom have set up together to try and promote an IoT ecosystem here, but such a sarkari/quango construct, is not the best crucible for innovation of a high order.

Still, its heart is in the right place, and the government may well throw some money at it.

America may well seize the initiative once more, because in the highest technology innovation space, it is absolutely unparalleled.

So, it will go from driverless trains, already in operation, to driverless cars, now starting to show up and all sorts of ‘smart objects’ able to ‘talk’ to each other, ‘sensors’ collecting huge data, with a massive analytics industry setting up behind it.

Can the Indian IT industry gear up to meet this challenge? It had better.
Otherwise the 56% share of the services sector including IT in the GDP, may be in for a great Humpty-dumpty style fall.

For: ABP Live
(753 words)
July 24th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Saturday, July 23, 2016

The Efficacy Of The Make In India Programme

The Efficacy Of The Make In India Programme

More than the statistics, which at $62 billion inflow, between 2014-16,  so far, define the biggest FDI gush yet - it is the sea-change in thinking that the Make In India programme represents.

Not only are we at a unique juncture in the global scenario, where very few really good investment destinations present themselves, but we have something of an insatiable appetite, thanks to the size of the country, its needs, its population and its growth rates.

And with dynamic changes in policy- we are not cleaving to the old shibboleths of a mixed economy any more, nor to the  ‘commanding heights’ reserved for the state and the public sector. We are growing pragmatically, with the collaborations and stand-alones working to achieve the best fit instead.

The DRDO, for example, is being tasked harder than ever before to deliver, but it will not be thrown over. But neither will it enjoy its lazy and inefficient monopoly, alongside HAL, as Air India knows only too well.

It is early days yet, but given a straight run for the next 15 years, this Make in India programme, in its vastness, will change the face of India, as we know it, forever.

It has brought the private sector into partnering highly sensitive defence production of planes, helicopters, guns, tanks, etc. for the very first time, but without any hesitation.

And also, into the private aviation space, submarines, ships, tanks, armoured carriers, artillery, ammunition and aircraft-carrier spaces.

The public-private and government-private/government-government collaborations include missile development/deployment, surveillance/attack drones, super-computing, satellite tracking, solar, nuclear energy machinery.

It includes electricity infrastructure and manufacturing equipment.
There is leap-frog technology ingress in road/port/ bridge/tunnel/airport building, operating, and maintenance know-how, and technology.
The much needed real-time intelligence sharing apparatus to catch terrorists also needs very high technology. This too is being inducted.

Other moves are in the area of crop improvement, farm production, distribution, marketing, food-processing/value addition/wastage/spoilage reduction/packaging/specialised handling, transportation, storage processes, and infrastructure, to serve a full 50% of the population. 

In construction of smart cities, and housing for all by 2022 programmes, there is much induction of the intelligence of things (IoT), and other advanced artificial intelligence, automation, and IT involved. This is a catch-up and deliver game for our sweated-shop IT industry so far, and will have a bearing on its survival rate too.

With the 4th largest railway system in the world, languishing for most of the 70 years since independence, barring some electrification and diesel engine induction, the move is towards the latest railway and metro building technology, coming in thick and fast.

In addition, realising the limitations of wanting to share in the latest and the best beyond a point, India has invited very high-technology defence manufacturers around the globe to come and make in India with 100% ownership of its own assets and technology secrets.

Lesser percentages of foreign ownership, in collaborations, are also being welcomed. Anything up to 49%  FDI in defence manufacturing is now put on an automatic fast track.

Tens of thousands of billions, perhaps trillions, in this investment intensive  space, with possibilities of a brand new and high-value export stream are on the horizon.

This, particularly as we are new members of the missile club already (MTCR-Missile Technology Control Regime), and within barking distance of the nuclear supplier’s group (NSG), and even the UNSC.

And lakhs of employees with high technology skills will be created also for the very first time.

India continues to be the largest defence related purchaser in the world. This includes vehicles, planes, tanks, guns, arms and ammunition, but encompasses many other items which are part of the defence logistics requirement.

Meanwhile, naval ship building has come of age, to an extent when we are able to build patrol boats and stealth frigates almost in their entirety domestically, and are beginning to export such ships as well.

We are now extending this capacity to aircraft-carrier building in collaboration with the best in the US. And submarines, including nuclear submarines, with our first indigenously built one in sea trials now prior to induction.

Of course, in all of this, missiles included, where we are probably the most advanced in know-how, a great deal of bought-out componentry is a feature still. Our own R&D set-up is quite woebegone, but there is the argument about rebuilding the wheel as well.

We are also beginning, because the political will favours it at last, to finish the marque 1 of the indigenous light combat aircraft project. after a quarter of a century delay, and manifold cost over-runs.

We have now inducted the first two Tejas  fighters into the Indian Air Force (IAF). The idea is to build up  a squadron in due course, and build a marque 2 of the Tejas, with more advanced features for further combat squadrons, at a much lesser cost than bigger fighters being negotiated for joint-venture development/manufacture, as well.

But this induction represents a major change in the mind-set that refused to let indigenous production gain ground.

Meanwhile, while these corrupt shenanigans dominated defence and security policy-making, the armed forces were starved of essentials as well as state-of-the-art equipment.

Our IAF planes are so old that they routinely crash, killing their pilots and passengers.

We didn’t have any field gun purchases since the Bofors artillery pieces, purchased in the eighties. Now, at last, the Modi government has placed orders for American howitzers for mountain warfare, and more, with the South Korean ones being manufactured by L&T, tracked for off-road use, and for the plains.

The imports from America too are to be supplied quickly at first, to meet urgent requirements, and then manufactured in India in joint venture with the Indian private sector.

We don’t use a modern state-of-the-art automatic rifle yet, when even  Pakistani terrorists do. And we don’t even have enough ammunition!

Our troops do not have protective gear such as bullet-proof vests and helmets in adequate numbers, or up to the required strength and quality. Ditto night-vision goggles. This litany can go on and on.

But, at last, something is being done about it all, and in a comprehensive manner.

Look at the evidence. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SAAB-AB, Dassault Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Shinmaya of Japan, the Russian S-35 in joint-development, T-90 tanks replaced by Arjun Mk2, are all, once more, in the fray.

The fighters/bombers/transport aircraft, procured/agreed-to will be a combination of fly-away and manufacture/assembly here; replete with technology transfer, upgrades, development of the supply chain, spares, and localised R&D.

From Japan, a supply of 12 amphibious search-and-rescue planes for a start, is under negotiation. In the end, much of all this will see itself to fruition including particularly, the early successes of indigenous production.

This partially because with a Rs. 2.58 lakh crore defence procurement budget, India has the capacity to make the difference between solvency and bankruptcy in several of the cases. But if the bulk of it is spent in India, it can make a big difference to both preparedness and the economy.

Meanwhile, the K9 155 mm Vajra mobile howitzer (a version of the Samsung mobile howitzer), from L&T, is on order. It is Rs. 4,500 crores worth, for a 100 guns. These can scoot around at 60km an hour on its own tracks and fire eight rounds a minute.

Tata Advanced Systems has signed on with Bell Helicopter to make both commercial and military rotary wing helicopters in India.

And Tata Boeing Aerospace in Hyderabad is going to co-produce fuselages for the  Apache combat helicopters, its AH 64; considered to be the world’s most advanced.

Boeing is also training Indian IAF pilots locally at its first Globemaster III Simulating Centre  opened  last year, in Gurgaon (Gurugram).

There are missile systems already inducted, developed in joint-venture with Israel and Russia, Brahmos, Barak and so on.

While automobile projects, including parts, ancillaries, and electronic factories connected with mobile telephony, account for most of the FDI into manufacturing/assembly at present; this activity, prominent today, is really in continuation from UPA times.

A lot of it is designed to take advantage of more favourable taxation if the manufacturing/assembly is done locally, and to a certain extent as a process that fuels export to other countries, over and beyond the considerable local demand.

In vehicle parts and accessories, indeed even aeroplane parts, India has a good reputation now, and its production is specified as OEM in top end marques such as Mercedes Benz and Boeing.

Meanwhile, another automobile manufacturer, Kia of South Korea is planning to come to India shortly, and is scouting locations for the purpose.

In future though, nuclear, solar, even conventional thermal electricity generation and equipment connected to it, may however, prove to be the biggest Make in India growth areas, outside, that is, of defence and infrastructure.

It seems that the opposition that mocks this programme as grandiose, and ultimately vacuous, have no idea about the strides made in 25 months, and its potential to transform - or do they?

For: The Pioneer
(1,493 words)
July 23rd, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Pakistaning Is Now a Verb, Meaning Deception

Pakistaning Is Now A Verb, Meaning Deception

Indophile Francois Gautier posted a cartoon of a man and his wife on Facebook, in which the man balefully accuses his wife of pakistaning him for years. It is a unique but apt new verb for Borgia-grade deceit.

A process that has grown ever more thuggish over the 70 years our two nations have had to coexist.

It was bumptious in the early years of Ayub Khan of the handlebar moustache and the beetle-browed Yahya Khan, whisky-swilling old -style British-trained soldiers, with a glad eye, and the usual quota of human weaknesses.

It continued to be tolerable, in the realms of fairly sharp diplomatic skulduggery, during the Sindhi Zulfikar Ali, ‘we will eat grass but we will have the bomb’, Bhutto’s innings.

He, of the designer choke-coat, God forbid, one couldn’t call it a galabandh, even if it wasn’t the same, because it had Nazi style work on the collar.

And the vast Piloo Mody’s friend Zulfi, of the Simla, or is it Shimla, Accord. With our own Indira Gandhi, smiling fiendishly down her nose;  dressed in a black cape.

Things started to go seriously downhill when Zia Ul Haq’s turn came- he of the middling intellect, but with a double-dose of cunning.

Ul Haq was the author of  the ‘bleed India with a thousand cuts’ policy, and ‘I’ll hang the blighter, by Jove’. And so he did.

Benazir Bhutto, with her landlord, Mr. Ten Percent, was an interlude in rank insincerity; matched only by the reasonable incomprehension on the part of a personable, but blank, Rajiv Gandhi, and his dimpled Italian wife.

It ended in pieces for both scions, in their own time; but that’s another separate irony of the sub-continental drama.

Nawaz Sharif, the quintessential Lahori, would have preferred to have a cordial relationship, if history, and chaps in khaki didn’t keep prodding him in the midriff with their Glocks.

And middle-parted Pervez Musharraf, who could never really disguise the loathing he felt for India. It had been bred into him during a walled city upbringing in Delhi. No one can hate as well, or quite as completely as a Mojahir.

Even an honorary one, like Dawood Ibrahim, has demonstrated that. Rotting away, these days, he is, literally, with gangrene in his legs, diabetes-ridden, under the watchful eye of wife, if not lover, the formidable Meejabeen.

But, getting away from this backdrop, and table-setting ; it must be acknowledged, that we have been on the receiving end, ever since Zia Ul Haq, the cunning general, changed Pakistan’s focus  from trying to beat India in a conventional war, to killing us every day in a perpetual war.

Things have never been the same since. Of course, why we don’t sneak across their borders, and let off a few crackers of our own, where they don’t like it, I simply don’t know. It doesn’t seem to jive with Indian policy and its world-view.

But still, a fella might be forgiven for wanting a little less maturity and a little more revenge.

Particularly since their only super-efficient entity, the dreaded ISI, has also been winding up the disgruntled elements in this country, and in Bangladesh, to do some of their dirty work for them.

Killing Indians, men, women, and children, is a Pakistani passion. And they don’t mind killing Indian Muslims any more than they mind killing any other kind, as long as it’s Indian. This war of attrition aka jihad/terrorism has worked very well for Pakistan.

 The Pakistani regular army doesn’t want to tangle with us in a frontal attack anymore, after losing 1965, and East Pakistan, and Kargil too; but speak often, and menacingly, of their new tactical nuclear weapons. They promise to use it on our army, if we enter Pakistan, but seem to long to use them on us anyway.

For good measure, they throw in threats of nuking us with their bigger ones, where we sleep, about once every two weeks.

And when the Pakistan army, the ISI, their more trenchant media elements, and the politicos, run out of breath, from all the abusing and threatening, the LeT supremo Hafiz Mohamed Sayeed, promptly starts up, seamlessly - dipping into his bottomless wells of hate.

But through all this, there is a sense that poor blown-up Zia Ul Haq’s  ghost is unhappy. His policy of them cuts, is now coming to a head.

Indians are getting really good at catching infiltrators and local allies and despatching them post haste. There is too much matching muscularity, even if the Indian rhetoric is saved up for the various capitals of the world where a consensus is building. It’s building against all the good old holy warring that has kept so many home fires burning in Pakistan for so long.

Last week India clamped down on the Valley in Kashmir and started killing the last of the Mohicans too.  This kind of thing could give pakistaning a bad name, and make it difficult to find new recruits. To have a life span of a week, after the joining up, is barely better than being born a fly.

And the propaganda of the vale of tears doesn’t seem to move the present dispensation a jot. They don’t even proffer a tissue.

Pakistaning the West is getting difficult too. Besides Europe going broke and Britain going mad, threatening to nuke people just like Pakistan, even the US doesn’t just hand over the money and the planes like they used to.

The Chinese seem to believe all the pakistaning still, but they are so inscrutable you never know what they’re really up to.  They are building roads and pipelines through the length and breadth of Pakistan, all the way to Gwadur in Balochistan. But what will they say after it’s all done?

India might be turning this jihadism on its head with its preemptive strikes and talk of procuring Predator drones. Today they’re killing the helpless jihadis. Tomorrow they could try to ‘secure Pakistan’s nuclear assets’, egged on by a red-faced blond German-American called Trump.

It’s all changing. The Indians are not waiting for trouble to come to them like in the good old days like nice Hindu sitting ducks. The Indian Army is being given its head, and the poor jihadis don’t stand a chance. 45 infiltrators killed in the Valley in one month!

Actually, its more. But what can one say. Vegetarians are getting the better of red-blooded meat eaters. Shameful.    

Pakistan needs a new strategy. But, more importantly, India must get itself a new government. Congress is right. Shocking how this one doesn’t listen to anyone anymore.

For: The Pioneer
(1,097 words)
July 18th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee

Is This the NGT or Nero at Work? NCR Woes for Diesel Car Owners!



Is This the NGT or Nero At Work? NCR Woes For Diesel Car Owners!

The act of parliament, that set up the National Green Tribunal (NGT),  in 2010, probably did not anticipate the total lack of comprehensiveness  in its approach so far.

Invested with going into ‘substantial questions relating to the environment,’ the NGT has managed to do little but court controversy and fuel outrage.

This despite the NGT being manned by 10 judicial officials with the chairperson being a sitting or retired High Court Chief Justice or a Supreme Court Judge, and 10 bureaucratic ‘experts’, of the minimum rank of Additional Secretary, or Principal Secretary if serving/retired in the states, with at least 5 years experience in environmental matters. Or, ones holding a doctorate in the subject.

Its latest volley on banning/scrapping/impounding old diesel vehicles has come on 20th July 2016, when it modified its earlier order of the 18th , in the face of an uproar of protest from the automobile industry, the central government, and car owners, amongst others. 

On the 18th , the NGT directed the Delhi Regional Transport Office (RTO), to forthwith de-register all diesel cars 10 years old, in order to prevent them plying in the NCR. Curiously, it was silent on the RTOs in Gurgaon, Noida, Bhiwadi and Alwar. On the 20th , it  asked the Delhi RTO to begin de-registering 15 year-old diesel cars instead.  

This latest eruption was born, probably out of frustration, after the Delhi police reported that it was finding it very difficult to keep 10 year old diesel cars off the road, pursuant to the NGT’s earlier order of April 2015.

Some 10-15 year-old cars are taxis, representing the livelihood of the people plying them, having bought the older cars cheaply.

Besides, the 3,000 cars that were impounded over the last year, had to be let go with a fine, after various magistrates ordered their release.

Also, the Supreme Court, cleaning up  after the  NGT, which incidentally has powers equivalent only to a  ‘civic court’;  has earlier directed that NOCs be granted to all 10 year old diesel cars, impounded or otherwise, so that they could be sold in rural areas outside the NCR.

Now, the NGT, in an inadvertent over-ruling of the Supreme Court, says 15 year old vehicles must be scrapped, and no NOCs are to be given!

There is still no financial compensation mechanism instituted, and the NGT only envisages the DDA providing large parking lots where the scrapped vehicles can be parked.

There is utter confusion on whether 15 year-old trucks, buses etc. will be taken off too, being the most polluting of all. This, because of the chaos  that will result in the NCRs supply chain and public transport system if this is done.
The NGT is certainly going after the low-hanging fruit of diesel passenger cars, while doing absolutely nothing about construction dust, industrial pollution, and other particulate matter emitting activity.

This is both baffling and perplexing, and as ill-conceived as the disruptive even-odd programme run sporadically by the AAP government, without appreciably denting pollution statistics.

This latest ruling aimed at the NCR comes, despite the fact, that as recently as June 2016, the Kerala High Court has stayed the NGT’s Kerala branch orders of May 2016,banning and scrapping 10 year-old cars AND  trucks.
Happily, this fresh NCR ruling was promptly contested by the central government. 

The Additional Solicitor General, Ms Pinky Anand, appearing for the Ministry of Heavy Industry, described the NGT ruling of the 18th as ‘harsh’, and stated that particulate matter from diesel vehicles, currently no more than 2%, would come down to the level emitted by petrol and CNG vehicles, via 2020 pollution control norms.

She pointed out that the automotive industry contributes over 8% of all FDI, and is a major source of employment generation under the government’s ‘Make In India’ programme.

Toyota has already called for a review before making fresh investments in India.

Ms Anand also pointed out that private vehicle owners had paid their 15 years worth of road tax, and had every right to ply their vehicles for that duration. 

This may have prompted the revision in stance on the 20th.

Also, a number of automotive companies, including market leader Maruti, have added diesel engine and car manufacturing lines recently, spending crores of rupees to cater to the greater demand for economical to run diesel cars.

The NGT had, in fact, decreed, to no avail, in 2014, that all vehicles, both diesel and petrol were to be scrapped once they were 15 years old.
Industry observers and spokesmen, taken by surprise, felt that even the new orders will not withstand legal challenges.

The NGT had also banned new high-end diesel SUVs of over 2,000 cc capacity; exempting trucks, buses, and public service vehicles.

Expensive high-end SUVs , made with the latest technology, have minimal emissions, sometimes less than their latest petrol versions. This is possibly acknowledged in the order of the 20th , with references to Bharat Stage I &II pollution norms named unacceptable.

However, this order has also been stayed by the Kerala High Court, and, under pressure, is presently held in abeyance in the NCR too.

For: The Quint
(851 words)
July 20th, 2016

Gautam Mukherjee