OPinionatED
or
VOX POPULI
by
Aam Admi
Issue: 169
Date: 26.09.2016
Contents:
1. The Terror
Attack On The Uri Camp & Its Aftermath
2. The Indian
Economy Continues To Flounder
3. Mumbai to Goa in
6 Hours Gadkari Promises
There was no issue
of the Vox Populi dated 19th September 2016.
The Terror Attack On The Uri
Camp & Its Aftermath
The
attack on the Uri army camp in Kashmir by terrorists allegedly
belonging to the Jaish-e-Mohammed based out of Pakistanis yet another nail in
the coffin of the competence and preparedness of the Indian army serving in
adverse conditions. How a handful of terrorists can first breach the Line of
Control and then cut through the barbed wire fence at the back of the camp and
attack our sleeping soldiers, is something that defies comprehension? What the
Army says is that the attack was at pre-dawn and at the time of changing
the guard. These are no excuses since you are based at the LoC and these
are the times when you need to expect enemy or insurgent action. Not to protect
your rear and flanks is a shame since that is the first thing that is
taught in Army manuals be it in India or around the world. To look at the
other side of the coin the terrorists seemed to be better equipped
with intelligence since they precisely knew not only when to
attack but also knew the location of the diesel dumps inside the camp to blow
them up and cause maximum mayhem. On the back of the Pathankot attack, the Uri
camp attack is another blot on the fair name of the Indian armed forces. Our
Army top brass need to take lessons from this and not treat our jawans like
cannon fodder to be felled by actions of a few terrorists. The fact that you
cannot limit infiltration since the fence along the LoC or across the border is
difficult to implement because of terrain issues is understandable. But what is
not negotiable is the fact that the Army is incompetent to guard its own camps
and protect them from terrorists creeping in. Our Defence Minister just last
week said that his objective is to make the Indian armed forces one of the
mightiest in the world, but this cannot be done until the armed forces
themselves believe in this objective. As for the attack itself the quickness
with which it was attributed to the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Pakistan leaves
independent observers a little non-plussed. It is easy to blame Pakistan fpr
everything wrong that is going on in Kashmir but does not the Indian army not
think that it is insulting to admit to the fact that this country and its
agents are able to run rings around us. There is no harm in blaming Pakistan as
long as you have clear and irrefutable evidence that they have been involved
for which take your time to gather this evidence and then produce it for the
whole world to see. We have seen from past instances like the Mumbai terror
attack and the Pathankot attack that inspite of hard evidence pointing at
Pakistan's complicity, they have been able to deflect it claiming that
these are actions by non-State actors. As for retaliation, India has for long
been talking of hot pursuit and to eliminate the training camps of the
terrorist organisations across the border but has taken no concrete action in
this regard. It needs to act now taking advantage of Pakistan's admission of
the involvement of non-State actors and eliminate camps of such outfits
across the border in both PoK and Pakistan. Care must be taken that ordinary
Pakistani citizens are not caught in such action and are killed. If
Pakistan contests this then we can claim that it is only non-State
actors against whom action is being taken which Pakistan itself has not
been able to curb. This argument can also be used in international forums
to justify our intervention. By such action India should clear a swathe of
a width of at least 2 KM. in Pakistani territory right across the entire
border and the LoC and demarcate this as a de-militarised zone. If this is done
then it will be difficult for both Pakistan and the terrorist organisations to
stage attacks against India. This is the only way that we will be able to
stop terrorists infiltrating into India and causing the deaths of our military
and para-military personnel as well as innocent civilians in
Kashmir.
The Indian Economy Continues To
Flounder
Our
economic pundits in the government need to put their
heads together and find out what is wrong with the economy and then try
and set things right. The ambiguity about the economic indices
continue with them being questionable what with the IIP showing a
reduction in July of more than 2%. Here the government is again talking of base
year variations of close to 5% which they claim to have pulled the data down
apart from the sector concerning rubber which dropped by 29%. The base year
issues had also plagued the GDP figures issued sometime back which at just
above 7% with an adjustment factor of 5% turned out to be no growth at all.
This assessment seems to be correct since with IIP showing a consistent pattern
of fall over the last few months, low capital formation indicating laggard
investment and no increase in jobs. The claim therefore of
Indian GDP growth as the 'fastest growing' in the world is very debatable.
Inflation continues to be the bugaboo for the Indian economy with no signs
of abatement what with the WPI showing the highest increase in August in
excess of 3.4% though CPI normalised at 5.5% on the back
of softening of vegetable prices . The CPI will start climbing
again when the effect of the high WPI kicks in. We have also had back to
back fuel prices being jacked up twice in the last one month, once substantially
and then there was a correction, using economists parlance for a smaller
increase. Exports continue to fall but for a June month increase which in
these questionable times of figures could be considered an aberration since
world trade have not shown any dramatic increase lately.
With
the falling exports there has been talk of depreciating the Rupee
which sent jitters over the last week in the stock markets. Devaluation will
not be a good thing for the Indian economy now though it is a short-term
measure to boost exports, but it has wider ramifications in the economy.
The devaluation will also not increase exports since with softening demand
worldwide it will only send wrong signals about the Indian economy in
international circles. Imports in June have also contracted by close to 20%
which is indicative of softening industrial production and bodes no good for
the IIP in coming months. The problems with the Indian economy are
structural and the fissures run deep and superficial measures like
lowering interest rates or devaluing the rupee will not help. Investment
in industry will not grow unless the NPA issue with banks is sorted out. As
long as the banks carry this millstone around their necks, industry will be
hobbled and neither will you see growth or new investment. It is important that
the NPA issue is resolved one way or another to clear the decks so to speak for
the Indian economy to move forward.
Among
all these storm clouds in the Indian economic skies, it is rather incongruous
to see the Indian stock-markets dancing to the tune of the US Fed Reserve
actions which saw a close to 500 points jump on the BSE index last week and
then another 300 points jump yesterday, 23rd Sept 2016 when the Fed
Reserve Chairperson indicated no increase in interest rates but with a hint
that it could still happen in 2016. Where the Indian stock markets should
reflect the state of the Indian industry and the economy, in the manner of a
subsidiary State of the USA, it is dancing to US tunes. Opportunistic gains are
being made in these fluctuations by local investors which is more
like a gaming scenario than anything else.
In
all this environment, if one can call the Finance Minister the Captain of
the Ship for the Indian economy, in the form of Arun Jaitley, we find him with
his nose up in the air making banal statements in his hamhanded attempts to
talk the economy up. Like when questioned about the veracity in the
economic indices being put out by the CSO, he said that even the IMF
accepts them! That is neither here nor there since the IMF accepts the figures
given by each and every country without going into the correctness of the
figures since that responsibility lies with the country submitting the
information. Get your house in order, Mr Jaitley, since even the economists
within our banking system have been questioning the correctness of the recent
IIP, CPI & WPI figures being put out commenting that these seem to be in
line with the government's intention of painting a rosy picture of the Indian
economy.While addressing the senior management of the PSB's last week again
exhibited his wishy-washy nature of blowing hot and cold. His advice
was to aggressively pursue clearance of the NPA's while at the same
time saying that no one is interested at this time to pick up 'stressed
assets'. He correctly cautioned banks on the tendency to write-off loans but
gave no indication of how they should pursue the NPA's aggressively.
Either he should tell the bankers that they should pursue these
outstanding loans like they did Vijay Mallya's and proceed on seizing pledged
assets and passports which would mean that the Who's Who of Indian industry
would be in Tihar jail joining the likes of Be-Sahara Subrata Roy
and others. Some of the PSB top management would also find themselves in hot
water for having colluded in sanctioning out-of-turn loans to these
industrialists. That is one method to clear the NPA's which would be akin to
Hercules cleaning the Aegean Stables but in this context the Indian financial
system. The other alternative is to write-ff these NPA's to show the true
colours of this BJP government which is pro-business and anti-aam admi.
To defend themselves in Parliament Jaitley will have the quid pro quo of
quoting that the UPA government wrote off Rs. 60,000 crore worth of farmer's
loans and he is doing no different with industrialists who after feathering
their own nests do at least provide jobs to the aam admi, so
he is benefiting both. But given the size of the NPA's, Jaitley will have to
formulate a 5 - year plan over which he could take it off the bank's books so
that the action is not overtly beneficial to big business and at the same time
which the economy can absorb. These are the times that we are living in
and it is difficult to understand whether we should laugh or cry at things
going on around us since everything is like they say - bitter for
some and sweet for others.
Mumbai to Goa in 6 Hours Gadkari Promises
Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Surface Transport has promised that by 2018 the journey by road from Mumbai to Goa will be completed in six hours. While the present status is that the same road has been closed at Chiplun and traffic has been diverted to the NH4 via Kolhapur to reach Goa. A few days back there were reports on the state of the road near Panvel and Uran where with the potholes the road had become unpassable. And just about a month ago again on the same road we had the old 100 year bridge getting washed away with 2 State Transport buses and a number of cars falling into the flooded river. What people like Gadkari should understand is that being a peddler of dreams is all fine but we have to take care of existing facilities and keep them functional under different weather conditions so that we are able to use facilities in present times so that we can reach the promised dream. What we have to try to achieve and make each engineering project is to ensure that it will stand through time with some unique attributes related to the local topography and also take into account environmental conditions like maximum flood levels when it comes to bridges etc. Even for being a peddler of dreams Gadkari may in a few months state that he had been misquoted and never promised the 6 hour transit between Mumbai to Goa just like he said the other day that the promise of 'acche din' to come was never made by Narendra Modi and the BJP.
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