Economic Survey 2016-17:Long-term Damage From Demonetisation Is Minimal

Economic Survey 2016-17:  Long-term Damage From Demonetisation  Is Minimal

The Economic Survey 2016- 2017 has just been tabled in parliament by the Finance Minister. It asserts, flying in the face of more pessimistic forecasts from various quarters,  that the GDP for 2016-17 will range between 6.75% and 7.1%.

This implies that the negative and slowing impact engendered by the structural adjustment of demonetisation will not cast any shadow beyond the first two quarters of 2017-18.

And also that India will resume being clear and above the fastest growing economy in the world in 2017-2018.

This, aided partially by the positive effects of demonetisation, the world’s biggest digitalisation exercise, and a surge in cashless transactions.

Notably, agriculture is to grow at 4.1% in 2016-17, up from 1.2% in 2015-2016. This is particularly commendable because much was made of how badly the demonetisation had affected this vital sector.

Even the Service Sector, said to have been severely impacted by a global slowdown in demand for its wares, is projected to grow at 8.1%.

The Survey, prepared under the auspices of the Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian, was presented after the President’s Address.  

The President laid out a long list of the government’s accomplishments over the last year in a thoroughly upbeat manner. He covered the implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP), the ‘surgical strike’ across the line of control  (LoC) with Pakistan, and the positive effects of demonetisation, amongst very many other issues such as electrification, green  energy etc.  

However, the President’s address coincided with news of the US introducing an H1B Visa Bill in US Congress, resulting in jitters in India’s  IT industry stocks listed, even though the road to the legislation being actually passed is generally  a long-winded one.

The Congress Party, spearheaded by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, aired its own  ‘Real State of the Economy 2017’  document at a press conference on the 30^th January, a day before parliament reconvened for the  Budget Session.

Predictably, it asserted that the economy was in much worse shape than the government would have the people believe. It said the GDP figure was projected to plummet to the IMF forecast number of 6.6%, down from the erstwhile 7.6%  reckoned prior to demonetisation.

Former FM P Chidambaram lamented the low credit growth, which he said was at 5%, characterising it as the ‘lowest in decades’. ‘Where are the jobs’, asked Congress. ‘Where is the new capital investment?’  

However, the economy is actually in fairly good shape. Inflation is down with the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) averaging at 2.9%. Core inflation is stable at under 5%. The Current Account Deficit (CAD) narrowed to 0.3%. And these figures are considerably better than the state of affairs when this government came into power after 10 years of UPA administration.   GDP was at just 4.74% in 2013-14 for example.

By way of a new idea, the Economic Survey suggested that a new body should be set up to look at the rehabilitation of public sector assets. If this means unlocking the value of land banks and the like, it may prove to be a very good idea, freed from the operational pressures which the managements of public sector units (PSUs) routinely face.

However, throwing good money after bad at failing public sector units to revive their operations has been tried before and has failed miserably.

It will be interesting to see what impact the Economic Survey has on the Annual Budget to be tabled this time on February 1^st for the very first time, instead of the last day of February.

What is certain is much of the doom forecasting coming from the Opposition post-demonetisation, has been clearly overblown.

For: ABP Live

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January 31^st 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

Challenging The Status Quo Simultaneously In Kashmir & Israel

Challenging The Status Quo Simultaneously In Kashmir & Israel 

Two long pending moves were made in the very first month of 2017. One of them is national, the other international. Both have great potential to alter the status quo.

The bold initiatives perhaps reflect the reformative zeal of both the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the just inaugurated US President  Donald Trump respectively.

After more than two decades, registered Kashmiri Pandits, driven out and languishing as refugees in Jammu, Delhi, and elsewhere in India, are to be resettled in multiple locations of the Kashmir Valley.

They will be settled, provided security, and government jobs for their sustenance. This flies in the face of inaction on the topic except by way of lip-service. The fear of reprisals from anti-national forces and their apologists has kept this issue in cold storage for decades.

Now, the J&K Legislative Council has made up its mind. It has passed a resolution unanimously, meaning inclusive of the opposition National Conference,(NC), on January 20^th 2017 to welcome back the displaced Pandits into the Kashmir Valley. And, the Legislative Council resolved, to create a conducive atmosphere for their rehabilitation as full-fledged Kashmiris.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti refused to countenance objections in the name of ‘demographic change’, in this endeavour to restore ‘our own people’ into Kashmir once more.

Most of Kashmir’s Pandits that contributed to its unique culture and communal harmony for centuries, were driven-out of the Valley starting in 1990. And they have been gone ever since.  

Having well begun, the matter is swiftly moving into the early stages of implementation already.

The bold initiative underlines the resolve and sincerity of the current state government to practice, at last, what has long been preached and promised.

Belying the dire predictions against the merger of ‘opposite forces’ and ‘unlikely bed-fellows’, the government in J&K is remarkably stable. Even though it is formed jointly by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) once in cahoots with the separatists, and the Hindutva espousing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

The J&K government naturally also benefits from the largesse of  BJP ruling at the Centre, in concert with its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners.  

Recent events have underscored that the Pakistan Army, its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and other of its ‘non-state actors’ have been restrained effectively by India’s armed forces, despite efforts to escalate tensions in Kashmir and elsewhere in India.

And all attempts to internationalise the Kashmir  issue on the part of Pakistan, even helped by all-weather ally China, have been rebuffed and have failed.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the J&K government  has chosen this very time to move forward  on an old pledge, held for so long in abeyance.

And in West Asia, a new initiative from distant America is about to change things irrevocably.

The US, redeeming a campaign promise of President Trump, has already begun early negotiations on the modalities of moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

This is welcomed by Israel and the powerful Jewish community in the US. There is even a 1995 Act of US Congress authorising the move. But, it has been put off ever since by successive US governments, out of anticipated concern for strong Palestinian and Arab reaction.

However, with no strategic dependence on Arab oil any more, the leverage of the Arab world in American foreign policy is much diminished.

The US move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, would go a long way to confer legitimacy on the Israeli take-over of East Jerusalem during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. East Jerusalem was formerly under Jordanian administration.

However, the Arab position on the Israeli annexation  of East Jerusalem, designated by them as the capital of the pending full-fledged Palestinian State, is illegal. However, the Arabs have not been able to make any headway on this in fifty years.

Now that the US has decided to bite the bullet, it could upgrade its long-standing consulate in Jerusalem, or build a brand new embassy on a large plot already on long-lease from the Israeli government. It could, also, simply have the US ambassador work from Jerusalem in short order.

Both the actions and directions taken in Kashmir and Israel will potentially have far reaching consequences. At this juncture, they merely reflect the minds of the current Indian and US leadership. Both heads of government seem unwilling to kick the can down the road as previous governments in both countries have done.

It may even be emblematic of these two leaders for their bias towards change and renewal in spite of the risks, turbulence and disruption involved.

And underlying both moves seems to be the courage to call the bluff of naysayers.

The militants in the Gaza Strip, and those operating out of Syria and Lebanon and elsewhere in thhe region, the Arab regimes that have aided them with money and arms purchases over the decades,  will  all have to come to terms with a fait accompli that is not in their power to roll-back.

And moving ahead like this means they must recognise that the US government is not cowed down by the threat of terrorist attacks and reprisals elsewhere.

In Jammu & Kashmir, long allowed to be dominated by the anti-national elements in the Kashmir Valley, a new realisation that they cannot have  things their way in future may also be recognised now.

Dreams of an independent Kashmir, or one amalgamated with Pakistan, are unlikely to be ever realised.

On the contrary, it is Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) including Gilgit and Baltistan, and other provinces such as  the would-be Pakhtoonistan, Baluchistan, and Sindh, always restive under the oppressive and ethnic-cleansing Pakistani-Chinese yoke, that could be liberated/unified in times to come.

(944 words)

January 24^th, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

China At Davos: Globalism or Hegemony?

China At Davos: Globalism Or Hegemony?

President Xi Jinping delivering the key-note address at snow-clad Davos 2017, located near Zurich Switzerland, was the first supreme Chinese leader to grace the mountain meet’s 47 year history.

Formally known as the 47th World Economic Forum at Davos, it is attended annually by the global political, financial, and corporate elite, and generally sets the economic themes for the coming year.

In his hour-long address, Xi Jinping, pointedly attempting to step into the vacuum created by the vigorously protectionist views of the incoming Trump administration, audaciously chose to sing a song for globalism.

This, in the backdrop of a rapidly closing gap between the US and Russia in the upcoming Trump presidency.

That hardly anybody from the Trump camp, all busy with the  presidential inauguration on 20^th January, is present in Davos, was seen probably by the Chinese, as an opportunity not to be missed.

In fact, outgoing  US Vice President Joe Biden, chose to dwell on Russia and its allegedly less than salubrious new Cold War motivations. He said Russia was attempting to put the clock back.

This set piece from the outgoing Obama administration, quite ignores that there is bonhomie and a meeting of minds, not animosity, between  Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

But coming from Xi Jinping, with his own militarist background in the PLA, and China’s ruthless hegemonistic policies, ‘globalism’ is both a difficult fit and a hard sell.  

China brooks no opposition in restive Tibet and Xinkiang. Its land hunger  and sabre-rattling on the borders with India is palpable. Its virtual capture and subjugation of Pakistan through the CPEC and military cooperation, is blatant.

With its own massive militarisation and aggressive foreign investments, particularly into infrastructure, China follows a predatory initiative in its entire geopolitical neighbourhood.

It does not like any reaching out to Taiwan or indeed the Dalai Lama, and refuses to accept international advice on its militarisation and occupation of strategic points in the South China Sea.

Of late, caught up in a dangerous and belligerent hubris,  it is also not above challenging the US for top billing. It frequently warns the US on various matters unofficially through its media mouth-pieces.

So, coming from Xi Jinping, the word globalism does not seem benign and avuncular at all.

However, the world is hungry for a saviour and appreciates a rich contender wanting to take up the challenge. And like all countries that have clawed their way into the reckoning, there comes a time when it needs to take a broader view.

Unfazed by realities of the past and present, as the world watched,  Xi Jinping spoke feelingly in favour of globalism. He held it blameless for the West’s recent economic ills since the partial implosion of 2008.

Instead, he attributed it mildly to the pursuit of ‘excessive profit’. This implies, the growing disparities between rich and poor notwithstanding, that it was still good and valid.

Various speakers, coming  after Xi, also pointed out that a few multi-billionaires held as much of the world’s  wealth as hundreds of millions in poverty, and how such disparities must be reduced.

But, this kind of talk is something of a cliché in opulent and expensive Davos. It happens to be heard almost every year.

Striking a discordant note to Xi’s hypnotic vision of globalism intactica, IMF’s Christine Lagarde said that with economic possibilities such as they are,not just the poor, but the middle classes were now in crisis.

 Also, notwithstanding China’s horrific green-house gases and pollution record amounting to a full ‘10% of the human influence on climate change’, according to a recent report, Xi Jinping praised initiatives to roll-back its ill-effects.

Xi also spoke of keeping open house in China when it came to trade and business, exhorting others, read America, to do likewise.

However, this flies in the face of the opaque Chinese reality of state owned enterprises, and Chinese media murmurs of raising barriers to defy the Trump administration.

Xi Jinping, warming to his theme at snowy Davos, quoted statistics that made it seem as if China was going to buy in or import in trillions of dollars, and only sell in mere billions going forward. How that, improbable as it sounds, was going to save its plummeting annual growth rate, is unclear.

But, since China enjoys huge and intractable balance of trade imbalances in its favour with almost all its trading partners, including the US and India, what kind of additional ‘level playing field’ was Xi seeking?

Was he pleading for things to be left alone as they are, rather than the 35% import duties Trump has been threatening?

Brexit in the UK, now being spelt out in terms of ramifications and implementation, a referendum coming up in Italy, and the election of Donald Trump, has the high and mighty at Davos wondering about the future.

If there is a take-away even before the last of the limousines draw away after the week-long conference, it is encapsulated in one word: uncertainty.

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January 19^th, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

Will Power Surplus Lead To Lower Tariffs For All?

Will Power Surplus Lead To Lower Tariffs For All?

A Committee composed of the chairman of the Central Electricity Authority, the secretary of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), the president of Industry body FICCI, the energy secretaries of Bihar, Tamil Nadu, the principal energy secretaries of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh - is about to finalise its report.

The report is on how to tariff electricity in future, not to ration out a scarce resource as before, but to increase its demand.

India is rapidly moving from shortages to surplus of this highly perishable commodity.

A month or so earlier, the same committee was reportedly of the opinion that industries which currently cross-subsidise domestic power tariffs for the poor, should be incentivised to consume more power with lower tariffs. They should also get cheaper power during off-peak hours, felt this committee.

The thinking was not dissimilar to how the Indian Railways are hamstrung and in decline because of its high freight rates, low capacities, dismal performance and safety records and losses over subsidising passenger fares. Even as, despite all this, it loses freight business to road transport.

Then, the electricity committee’s view went, the cross-subsidy burden to keep electricity cheaper for the poor, should be passed on to the larger domestic consumers instead, defined as those who consume more than 800 units a month.

That these domestic consumers, particularly those in the middle classes who ran air conditioners in summer and heaters in winter, were already paying much high tariffs for consuming a couple of thousand units of power or more, notwithstanding.

Now, as the report is about to be finalised and tabled, the committee has happily revised its stance.

It now plans to suggest that ALL large consumers, including domestic ones, should pay progressively less for higher consumption.

The revision in its thinking is prompted by the tendency towards lower generation costs in new facilities, thereby lowering average costs, and the compelling fact that electricity wheeled out must be consumed by ready-made demand or lost irrevocably.

The slabs and steep larger use tariffs, created to serve a chronic power shortage scenario, particularly for domestic consumption, are now rapidly becoming obsolete.

Instead, the idea is to generate enough ready demand in order to sell all the new electricity that is being generated, inclusive of increasingly green - nuclear, wind, hydroelectric and solar power.

With backbone improvements alongside, it is now being transmitted all over the country, and to neighboring countries as well.

In the West, which made sure it does not have any shortage of electricity, utility companies are numerous, largely private, and make routine profits by catering to local area demand.

To them, large consumers, be they industrial, commercial, or domestic, are valuable customers, and to be rewarded for consuming more via reduced charges per unit.

The slab system, obtaining here in India, works in reverse there. Small consumers, more numerous and costly to  service, pay a higher rate.

While it is not appropriate that the millions of the poor should pay more here in India, it is important to take into account that they often cannot, or do not, pay at all.

But, the state electricity boards can only be financially healthy by selling their electricity to solvent large users.

Incentivising them therefore, is the best way to ensure that the impact of cheating, pilferage, transmission losses are recovered. Also that money for operations, maintenance, renewal etc. can be paid for, largely by increasing consumption exponentially.

And this, in tandem with increasing production.

Production of electricity has long been a bottle-neck to India’s industrial and commercial growth, both in terms of scarcity and high tariffs, compared to neighboring countries in South East Asia, let alone much bigger manufacturing countries such as China.

This weakness, combined with other infrastructural lacunae such as connectivity, communications, living conditions in remote areas etc. have held us back, and rendered Indian manufacture uncompetitive internationally. It is no wonder that our biggest success area is in services, particularly in IT, where a lot of it is conducted in host countries. 

Our advantage is cheaper charge-out rates for personnel. Theirs is in the superior infrastructure.

Ambitious programmes such as Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, largely targeted towards high technology and precision defence manufacturing, must suffer from this lack of infrastructure attractiveness for foreign investors.

But under the dynamic Union Power Minister Piyush Goel, electricity, as one of the vital inputs necessary, is not only likely to reach every village before the end of the first term of this government, but is being exported as well.

With the recommendations of this committee now, it may also result in higher and profitable consumption of electricity domestically.

The policy direction being taken by the committee is commendable. Many state governments have rendered their state electricity boards sick. They have given away electricity free to farmers and large non-recoveries from other constituents for political considerations.

While the intentions behind some of this may well be laudable and pro-poor, it is unsustainable in the medium term.

Electricity boards in the red makes it very difficult to repair, maintain, augment, even replace, the concerned facilities.

With losses and mounting debts, there comes a time when the state government itself finds it difficult if not helpless to honour its commitments of providing electricity round-the-clock to all.

Most industry, unable to depend on inconsistent supply, has had to set up captive electricity generation/transmission and distribution facilities, and also use expensive and polluting diesel-based generator banks extensively in order to cope. This is the ground reality over recent decades.  

But, as India moves towards developed nation status from  an emerging economy, it cannot afford to be retarded by lack of essential utilities and facilities.

The past may have been one of neediness and want because of  the adoption of misguided socialist policies. Not only did they result in negligible GDP growth  but compounded mounting problems with backlogs.

But now India is amongst the fastest growing of major economies in the world, with an impressive PPP rating and aspirations to be in the very front rank of nations. 

It therefore cannot but attend to the basic demands of its sustenance.

The danger now is not in boldly enhancing capacity but sliding back because of a povertarian mindset.

Our political establishment and administrative bureaucracy must understand that there is no mileage in harking back and citing our shortcomings.

That post-colonial India with its quaint notions has grown as obsolete as our erstwhile place in the third world.    

For: Nationist Online English

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January 15^th, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

A Magic Wand Moment: SC Bans Communal Politics

A Magic Wand Moment: SC Bans Communal Politics

Sometimes the Supreme Court (SC) with its frequent interventions seems like the proverbial good fairy with the magic wand. It is the highest court in the land and cannot be denied. Even politicians must obey it.

It instructs traffic policemen to get strict with red light jumpers and city speedsters. It tells politicians to remember the Constitution. It bans Jallikattu, only to be roundly defied.

But armed with its torrent of strictures, it certainly increases the cash income of various enforcement agencies.

 “No politician can seek a vote in the name of caste, creed or religion,” intoned Chief justice T.S. Thakur in a rather wishful Supreme Court (SC) order of January 2^nd 2017.

Justice Thakur was heading a 7 judge bench on the matter and announced the verdict days before he retired from the SC.

The Chief Justice nevertheless had to use his vote in favour of the order to break through the three each judgements.

Judges who agreed with his view were MB Lokur, SA Bobde and LN Rao.

Chief Justice Thakur added for good measure that the election process must be a “secular exercise”, completely ignoring the  present realities of vote-bank politics that Prime Minister Modi has been trying to break out of with exhortation to support “Vikas”.

The ruling came at long last on a petition filed by a politician in distant 1996! The apex court was revisiting a 20 year old judgement that called Hinduism a “way of life”.

The fact that the judgement was not unanimous is telling, as telling perhaps as the Indira Gandhi era (1976) insertion of ‘secular’ into the Preamble.

The dissenting judges, DY Chandrachud, Adarsh Kumar Goel and Uday Umesh Lalit termed the order a ‘judicial redrafting of the law”, and that it reduced “democracy to an abstraction”.

The judgement preceded the imposition of the model code of conduct by the Election Commission (EC) on January 4^th. And it will need to be observed and enforced by the EC in the coming couple of months and beyond. But determining its breach in subtle ways will not be easy.

Results for all five states going to the polls, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab, will be out on March 11^th.

But this ruling, unless superseded by another in future, will be in place for other coming elections too.

It is an irony that it is difficult to say which of the contending parties, candidates and states now going to polls will be most hampered by the judgement.

But can it be really this simple? Will these and other forthcoming elections be fought on merits and issues alone?

After all, the SC has only reiterated what is supposed to be done in the first place as per the Indian Constitution since  1976.

Or will the politicians find euphemisms, metaphors, innuendoes, proxies, events, victims, deflections and surrogates as usual. Putting out polarising messages are thought to motivate voters. 

Some parties project themselves as protectors of minorities and specific castes. Some are clearly set up along these lines from the word go.

Most politicians have been careful to not directly step on such banana peels anyway. But political correctness in India does not mean the same thing as it does in an increasingly multi-cultural West, because the native Caucasian and nominally Christian populations are in a vast majority. 

Nor for that matter does it compare with countries that profess a state religion and even follow religious law such as the sharia.

Here in India, issues of caste, creed and religion have a distinct economic dimension that towers above issues of discrimination and affirmative action or as we often call it, ‘reservation’.

And secularism as practiced here, may, in fact, fly in the face of the majority community in cruel, discriminatory, ways. It may seek to underplay or even obliterate religious observances for fear of stepping on secular toes.

In this particular instance sequentially, five state elections are taking place after the momentous disruption of demonetisation.

So will the debate on the effects of notebandi and its aftermath overshadow all else? Will it become a referendum on the increasingly left-leaning policies being pursued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

If so, the chances of the BJP and NDA doing very well might overshadow judgements such as this one.

Almost all politicians quoted from the different political parties were quick to pay lip service to the SC judgement by saying they welcomed it.

But you could almost see their brains whirring with strategies on how to energise their voters without falling afoul of it.

An obvious effort began almost immediately after the verdict.

It was to blame the BJP and the Congress for making it necessary for the SC to pronounce on the subject in the first place. Might as well get the kettles out to call the pots black.

One man’s “way of life” is another man’s discrimination in the artificial world created by Indian secularism. It is not a native concept at all. Tolerance is. Not secularism. So better luck with the new Chief Justice and Jai Hind!

For: SirfNews

(843 words)

January 13^th, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

Liberals & Advantage-Takers Be Warned:Trump Is Intimidation Proof!

Liberals & Advantage-Takers Be Warned: Trump Is Intimidation Proof!

Nothing about the victory of President-elect Donald Trump has   been digested by some, even eight days before his inauguration.

So yet another surreal, badly mistimed attempt to queer the pitch was essayed, as if it was still early campaign season.

It preceded Trump’s first press conference to America and the world after five months, on the 11^th.

Getting to the substance of it, Trump had, on display, his two grown sons Eric and Don Jr., his precise lawyer Sheri Dillon, heaps of legal documents (to illustrate handing over control of his businesses to his sons), and the Veteran Affairs nominee David Shulkin.

He was also roundly endorsed by Vice President-Elect Mike Pence for his ‘energy’ during the transition period.

Trump, looking rested and chipper, said he wouldn’t personally run his business empire for the next ‘eight years’.

He also made clear that military veterans who had been ‘horribly’ dealt with, will be treated much better in the forthcoming Trump administration.  

The globally covered occasion, as expected, put China once  again, on notice, both for being allowed to take commercial advantage of America, and for its militarisation of the South China Sea.

The President-elect promised to generate jobs for the ’98 million unemployed’ Americans. The days of American companies freely ‘offshoring’ are over, he said.

Trump said he believed the Russians had indeed hacked into the Democratic Party servers, in a 21^st century echo of Watergate.

He couldn’t resist gloating over some of the revelations on Hillary Clinton and other Democratic Party people the hacking had put out in the public domain.

But, he trashed the suggestion that the Russians had compromising information on him personally. And he refused to comment on his business dealings in Russia, and indeed his much sought after tax returns, saying he had already won.

Trump acknowledged the Russian contribution to his victory however, declaring that a better relationship with Russia should be seen as an ‘asset’.

Trump said the hacking epidemic was actually more widespread from ‘China’ and some other countries too. In any case, he promised to investigate, and have a report presented to him in 90 days.

The oft mentioned wall on the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants, would begin to be built shortly, he said, and will, either by way of ‘border taxes’, or other forms of ‘reimbursements’, be eventually paid for by Mexico.

While Trump said nothing specific on India, the need for Indian IT companies and others to go ‘on-shore’, set up or buy companies there, and employ much larger numbers of Americans is very clear.

There were comments on replacement of Obamacare, on the over-charging of the pharmaceutical industry, the cost and performance of the F-35 project being rationalised and bettered, on supreme court appointments, on the grand inauguration coming up.

The motivated but unverified canard was released on the 10^th, just a day before. It was put out by website Buzzfeed citing Russian sources via a 35 page dossier prepared by one Christopher Steele, an operative of Britain’s MI6 from the Tony Blair years.

The most salacious part of the dossier, was about a younger Donald Trump. The businessman was allegedly cavorting with Russian prostitutes in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow, involving certain sexual perversities.

Apparently, Steele was financed to gather dirt on Trump’s Russian connections by anti-Trump Republicans at first, and then by the Democrats.

In addition, elements of the outgoing Obama administration’s US Intelligence establishment, in the FBI, not only put out a two-page summary to President Obama and President-elect Trump, but allegedly leaked the entire dossier.

In addition to Buzzfeed, the contents were also amplified by CNN and the BBC. Trump pointedly thanked those in the media who refused to put out the unsubstantiated libel.

By way of contrast, all involved were scathingly berated. Trump called Buzzfeed ‘a pile of failing garbage’, CNN purveyors of ‘fake news’, and BBC ‘another beauty’, in his now trademark style.

Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer came out swinging from the first moments, pointing out the report’s many inaccuracies.

And Trump’s controlled fury on the matter saw to it that most of the media steered clear of the lead balloon after the 58 minute conference.

However, the slur could have been the unexploded bomb in the room for a less confident person. The innuendo might even have competed with the authority of a phalanx of 10 American flags hung on eagle standards that Trump stood in front of.

But as it happened, it failed miserably, despite the new round of opeds stating the opposite.

Donald Trump, red tie, blue suit, and blond Dennis the Menace hairdo, underscored the message that he was tough enough for the most powerful job in the world, and could not be intimidated.  

For: ABP Live

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January 12^th, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee

Cleaning Up The Augean Stables: Simultaneous Elections, State Funding

Cleaning up the Augean Stables: Simultaneous Elections, State Funding

Every election is determined by the people who show up- Larry J Sabato, Pendulum Swing

Before everything there has to be an admission. Are we willing to sacrifice some element of personal freedom and democratic process for faster growth and development?

If yes, then much of what follows here is worth the candle. If not, then it is an approaching encroachment, even a reengineering of our fundamental rights as citizens.

In the roiling manthan of the post demonetisation period, the near immunity of the political parties regarding their massive  anonymous cash funding stood out in sharp contrast.

It seemed as if the rule of law enumerated in the Income Tax Act was simply not applicable to the political class.

Of the nearly 2,000 registered political parties, only a few ever fought elections. What did the rest do? Were they registered only to launder black money?

Ironically, once the Election Commission (EC) has registered a political party and allocated it a symbol, it does not possess the authority to de-register it.

The largest amongst them, the Congress, the ruling party for decades past, and the presently ruling BJP, have long been opaque, even on the source of their non-cash funding.

However, the Prime Minister has now said that the public has a right to transparent disclosure of such political funding too.

Hopefully he will sponsor the legislation to make this happen. But of course, having made such a statement, he has already scored vital political points over those opposed.

In addition, this government has boldly mooted state-funded electioneering, political donations entirely by cheque, and simultaneous elections to the Centre and the States.

It sounds improbably utopian, and yet such ideas have never been spear-headed by an Indian Prime Minister before. Narendra Modi says he is determined to curb corruption and make India foreign investment friendly by way of motivation.

There have indeed been many committees on partial or complete state funding of electioneering already. Perhaps, once economic liberalisation came to our soviet style ‘planned economy’, thoughts on improving political processes followed.

There was the Indrajit Gupta Committee on the State Funding of Elections (1998), the Law Commission Report on Reform of Electoral Laws (1999), National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2001), the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008), and the Law Commission of India Report on Electoral Reforms (2015).  

Were any of the worthy recommendations from so many studies ever implemented? The answer is no.

Advanced countries such as Germany, Austria, France, Denmark, Israel, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Canada, Japan, Spain, Australia, South Korea, the presidential election in the US, have had partial or comprehensive  state funding of elections mechanisms in place, and operational, for 30 years now.

But, it must be said, everywhere, it has not prevented vast  raising of monies and additional spending by a candidate and/or his political party.

If state funding was intended to keep lobbies at bay, it has not worked in any of these countries, and it won’t do so here either.

But combined with white money funding, and transparency on the names of donors, amplified during the electioneering, it might yet clean up the Augean Stables and better help the voter make up his own mind.

Despite its many edges, a potentially transformative discussion on this and related issues will be tabled at an all-party meeting just before the forthcoming budget session.

Ideally, a political consensus would be desirable. But, given the polarisation along party lines and routine acrimony in parliament, this seems near impossible.

Because of this endemic mistrust of the NDA’s brute majority and its alleged non-secular agenda, new laws on electoral reform, if any, will have to be pushed through by itself.

And this, debate initiation notwithstanding, presumably only after it improves its numbers in the Rajya Sabha.

This could happen shortly, particularly if the reported approval of its demonetisation initiative continues to prevail during the five forthcoming assembly elections.

So far, the BJP has done very well in almost all municipality elections held after November 8^th.

The government’s numbers in the Rajya Sabha will be boosted enormously by 2018, if the ruling NDA wins in Uttar Pradesh.

While the EC has been pushing for various aspects of electoral reform for quite some time, it has met with very little legislative support. Conventional wisdom too dismissed the possibility as it would reduce elbow-room for the political classes.

And yet, the Modi government sees considerable advantage in it, thinking, no doubt, of 2019 and beyond.

The Prime Minister promptly welcomed the EC’s recent call to limit anonymous cash donations to political parties to just Rs. 2,000 each, asking for them to be banned entirely.

And he reiterated his call to hold simultaneous elections to the Centre and the States.

That it would save time and money, and free the government to concentrate on its work uninterrupted for five years is both compelling and undeniable.

And yet, smaller political parties argue that the elections to the Centre are fought on national issues while state elections are focussed on more localised matters.

Some political pundits argue simultaneous elections would curb India’s essential diversity, never mind the chaos and expenditure.

In addition, to club all of them may distort the voting patterns if there are pronounced swings in favour of a given party at the centre. 

The resistant are, of course, thinking of the ‘Modi Wave of 2014’ being repeated.

And so, many regional parties, facing other existential crises, afraid of being swamped in their own strongholds, are not in favour.

The decision comes more easily to a national party that runs various state governments. But this currently applies only to the BJP, to a lesser extent to the Congress, and only slightly to the nearly vanished CPM.

If Congress continues on its precipitous decline, it will leave just one national party standing to benefit.

Besides, all the implied neatness is disrupted instantly if either the central government or any of the state governments fall in the course of their tenure. As they do, owing to political tugs and pulls, quite often.

It would then imply, that to cement the process, there must be fixed tenures as well. How democratic that would be in a Westminster style parliamentary democracy as envisaged by our founding fathers, is yet another issue to mull over.

If we implement all this soon, we may have to make more changes still, probably towards a presidential form of government.

There will also have to be many practical adjustments made to make one-size-fit-all.

Some states will have to cut short their terms to fall in line, and others will need to extend theirs. However, it would only have to be done once and for all. But try telling that to an elected state government, say two years into its tenure!

The current narrative also leaves out problems such as a large number of parliamentarians and state legislators with criminal cases against them.

Legislation has already been passed to debar those who are convicted. That it still doesn’t prevent them operating via proxies, often close family members, is another evolutionary loophole of our parliamentary democracy to be tackled in future.

It all began with the grand adoption of universal suffrage in a largely illiterate country. But after 70 years, the fact that this enormously complex electoral process for almost a billion voters works so well, warts and all, is impressive by any standard.

That is should also be in need of course correction and reform is not surprising. Particularly since the need to grow economically is essential to poverty alleviation and present day aspiration.

Getting rid of some enormously expensive and disruptive electoral freedoms will not take away anything from the people. However, the jury may be out amongst the much pampered political class.

For: The Sunday Guardian

(1,292 words)

January 11^th, 2017

Gautam Mukherjee