Bihar Election: Only voters will loose...

Election is near in Bihar. Election commission has already announced the date of election which will start on 12^th of October and ends on 5^th of November 2015. The political parties are making all the possible promises of development which could be included in election manifesto but have we considered anytime why is Bihar lagging behind in Industrial development viz-a-viz national growth? No political party has ever tried to address this very question rather all are blaming one another for the same which is not true. The state’s industrial demography has been made from the 90s in such a way that the obstacle for establishing industrial set up is gigantic there. First of all, I could discuss about the policy paralysis of the government. I can enumerate like there is no (i) single window redressing system, (ii) Land Bank so that industry can get Land immediately without any public outrage, (iii) marketing potential of the bye/end product, (iv) mechanism for identifying industrial sickness, (v) transparency, (vi) stringent but easy RTI law, (vii) adequate basic infrastructure like transport, water and un-interrupted electricity supply and last but not least there is a few effective established industrial park. These are common deficiencies in policy of the government rather much of them are that the government has identified only nine sectors for its key thrust areas which are Food Processing, Agriculture based Industries, Tourism related Industries, Super Specialty Hospital, Higher/Technical Educational Institutions, Information Technology based Industries, Electronic Hardware Industry, Textile Industry and Energy/Non-Conventional Energy. These obviously not included heavy industry, automobiles and export intensive industry like gems & jewellery, petroleum, medicament, ship’s boats, textile yarn and organic chemicals etc.

The government has much focussed on the traditional sector which can be good and can certainly lead to much development without any bigger effort, but how? There is no clear policy which is implemented on ground level to boost agriculture as during Lalu’s rein agriculture was much sought after and it grew on an average 10% growth while industry was witnessing meager 3.5% growth. During BJP-JD(U) coalition government industry grew with an average 10% while agriculture with 3.5% which is nothing but structural change and it means NDA government has done nothing but structural change which cannot be said to be healthy steps to revive the economy rather it was an act of pouring milk from one container to another. It would have been better to keep the pace of agricultural growth on top gear; the industrial growth could be accelerated with extra effort. Now let us forget the past and coming back to policy.

Incentives on land, capital, plant and machinery, quality certification and reimbursement of VAT etc. are meager and could not attract much attention for large/mega project e.g. plant and machinery subsidy is only 20% subject to maximum of Rs. 5.00 cr. for large industrial unit and Rs. 0.75 cr. for MSME. There is no special incentive on income tax, service tax etc. which the state could have given from the devolution of the central Government receipt. Are these the only cause of slow growth? Answer is no. let us examine further.    

Law and order in Bihar has become a thing of media blind fold. Comparison from 2001 to 2011 is not so impressive. According to the Bihar Police Website, total crime reported in 2001 which includes Cognizable, Murder, Dacoity, Robbery, Burgling, Theft, Riots, Kid, K.R., Rape, R.D., RR, BD are BR are 128,487  while in 2011 it was  188,917 an increase in 47% over the year 2001. Media was much blind over the issue reason best known to them but surely NDA regime was not a golden period of Bihar rather it could be said a blot on the Bihar. General people were satisfied with glory and false report rather victims failed to get proper attention. Public can be fooled but not the think tank of large corporate. Their risk tolerance in terms of law and order is very low. In spite of these which are heart touching, the government also failed to do good deeds with the established industry. State government made little effort to expand petroleum refinery industry and revive sugar industry with a growth in technology and Sugarcane productivity.

It is matter of fact that the few sugar mills in Bihar have old technology and substitute for the same could be the same as that of establishment of new mills and hence government has no scheme for the same also. Either government can develop the project or transfer the same to strategic investors after negotiations. I in totality can say that in last 10 years, the government has not taken any step which could boost the industrial growth.

Religious Extremists target their own religion first...

एडम स्मिथ ने अपने पुस्तक "The Wealth of the Nations" में लिखा है कि आत्म मंसा वाले पादरी ठीक वैसा ही व्यव्हार करते हैं ज...
Posted by Himanshu Shekhar Jha on Monday, July 6, 2015

Seeking religion reason is of limited use for it is without foundation

I don't understand all should be painted with the same brush in a single colour. Telling that Muslim's religious institutions creates terrorism, why not Hindu, why not christian and any other religion on the earth. Terrorism has no value, no ethics, no humanity. Above all terrorism has no RELIGION. ["In Yaksha Yudhisthir Samvad..., Yudhishtir is asked, "Could one depend upon dharma to protect one in this uncertain world? If so, how does a person go about finding dharma? Yudhisthir says that in seeking dharma, 'reason is of limited use for it is without foundation; neither are the sacred texts helpful as they are at odds with one another; nor is there a single sage whose opinion could be considered authoritative. The truth about dharma is hidden in a cave.'" - Gurcharan Das (The difficulty of being good)]

Reality or Myth that Nehru turned US proposal down to take India Permanent Membership In UNSC

२००३ की अपनी किताब "Nehru: The Invention of India" के १५७वे पृष्ठ पर शशि थरूर लिखते हैं, "in 1953, ... Indian diplomats...
Posted by Himanshu Shekhar Jha on Saturday, July 4, 2015

Whether Religious Education is Constitutional in India or not?

Maharastra Govt. has denied to recognise  Madarsa which does not teach English, Maths and Science as its subject and the student passed out of it will be deemed to be "Out of School". It will be very interesting to see what constitutional support it takes as Madarsa in Maharshtra runs as a private institution which seems to be constitutional as per Article 30 (1) of the Constitution of India​ which clearly says, "All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice." Hence, it is clear that the minorities of India has all the rights to establish educational institution of their own.

Maharashtra govt. is pleading that its intention is to bring students of Madarsa into "mainstream education" which likely to be somehow based upon the Article 16 of the Cosntitution but Article 16 (5) of the constitution says, "Nothing in this article or in sub-clause (g) of clause (1) of article 19 shall prevent the State from making any special provision, by law, for the advancement of
any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes in so far as such special provisions relate to their admission to educational institutions including private educational institutions, whether aided or unaided by the State, other than the minority educational institutions referred to in clause (1) of article 30." Stating more elaborately the State shall not have free authority to make any special provision relating to Madarsa and other such kind of minority run education institution.

Right to Education which is Article 21A of the Constitution of India states, "The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine." Here it is pertinent to understand the  definition of "State" according to the Constitution of India. Article 12 of the Constitution has broad definition of state when used in Parts III & IV of the Constitution and it says, "“the State’’ includes the Government and Parliament of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the States and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India." Now going to Article 44 of the Constitution which is nothing but a rudiment of India being a secular state defines, "The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India." Reading Article 44 of the Constitution, it is the duty of the state to protect all the rights of all the religion, languages and cultures in India.

Further Article 28 of the Constitution says,"(1) No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State funds.

(2) Nothing in clause (1) shall apply to an educational institution which is administered by the State but has been established under any endowment or trust which requires that religious instruction shall be imparted in such institution."

Now let us understand the status of Madarsa in different states including Maharashtra.

In Maharashtra, the govt. has not recognized any board for Madarsa and it is running as private organisation under the State Wakf Board and mostly focuses upon religious education. There are 1889 Madarsas with approx. 1.5 Lac students out of which 550 are educating their pupil with English, Maths and Sciences and getting aid from the government.

In Madhya Pradesh out of 7000 Madarsas, 1500 are supported by the government aid. Here Madarsa Board conducts examination upto class VIII. Xth and XIIth Exams are conducted by Madhya Pradesh Open School.

In Gujarat, there are only 150 Madarsas which gives only religious education and have not been registered with the government. There are two types of Madarsas there; one which focuses only on religious education and another which gives primary education also. For first one, no need to get government approval but for second it needs to get permission. Two years before the then government offered these for Madarsa Board by the government  which they refused.

In kerela, Madarsas are very much advanced. In Bihar they educate their people with English, Maths and Science and related to Bihar State Madarsa Board.

Now coming to the conclusion, this proposal by the Maha. government that Madarsa which do not educate their pupil with English, Maths and Science shall not be recognised and their pupil shall be deemed to be "out of school" if dragged in the Apex court will yield very interesting result. Let us see if any one moves to the Hon'ble Apex Court against the proposal of the state government and what the Hon'ble Court rules. However the same step was taken by the Ashok Gehlot led Congress Government of Rajasthan and no one whispered anything upon it. Finger Crossed for Good outcome.  

Democracy with transparency

When anyone asks me whom I like most, Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi, I confidently answer I like both of them. I like Rahul Gandhi because he let his government to curb corruption irrespective of the fact that this could severally damage and ruined his image in public and has dented his chances of becoming prime minister of the third largest economy of the world, India. There were two similar findings in the world during the 90ies of 20^th century. One was that Rajeev Gandhi found in India only 17 paise reaches to the people after spending Re. 1, an indicator of the fact that there was acute corruption in welfare scheme. Rajeev Gandhi was assassinated within few months of his observation and no one in India could challenge his finding by unveiling corruption in the system and every government was just sweeping it under the carpet and it took almost two decades to challenge his findings by the government formed by his party in June 2009 led by Dr. Manmohan Singh. It took all 5 years of his government to unearth the most corrupt system formed by the globalisation in India. Crony capitalism and the nexus between public private partnerships have spread in such a way that it has weakened the root of the development.

Another is the case of Uganda where it was found that after spending 100 dollars by the government only 20 dollars would reach the destination. 80 dollars become the disappeared ghost or somehow siphoned off. There the credit goes to Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile who without thinking that taking steps to focus light upon these could ruin him and would lead to political scandal did work on it and he resolved such problem.

I like Narendra Modi as a prime minister in first instance as I see his drive to lead the Manmohan initiative of corruption free India ahead. There are two consecutive steps to make your nation free from all kinds of corruption. One is to resolve the problem of corruption after taking risk of political scandal as happened in India and it happens all around the world normally and second is to make your development process simple and transparent to your public i.e. to form open government what the world is now doing and we have started these way back in 2005 followed by China. Dr. Singh took risk of political scandal and made all efforts to unearth the corruption in India “And miles to go before I sleep”. Sri Modi is now inviting the public to participate in development program where he knows that “Woods are lovely, dark and deep”. Though it is a slow start since March 2012, but I have kept my finger crossed in a hope that he will certainly give a pace to function open government and will not allow public private partnership to intervene for founding obstacles in it. When Rahul Gandhi can risk the biggest political scandal after independence, why not Narendra Modi? In normal course, what I apprehend is that the distance is minimum a decade to come congress in power and in the meantime UN, WTO, WHO, World Bank and OECD will pursue India for Open Government like anything. We must not forget that World Bank is most effect foreign institution which is the biggest victim of corruption in developing countries across globe and hence it will not spare a single chance to pursue India for open government. Tunisia can take credit of being pioneer of open government but we are one mile ahead as we have taken Civil Society into confidence in making Lokapal Vidheyak. Anna Hazare was the leader of the civil society which participated in making legislation.

There is no way to ignore the participation of civil society by the Indian Government as the trend is very similar across the globe. On March 30, 2012 the Indian Government in collaboration with the government of USA launched Open Government Platform (OPL) an open source version of USA’s Data.gov. Though there is certain limitation regarding sharing the data in India as it is a matter of copyright and when publishing it with the open source there will be stifle between government and private partners, yet there are many ways to resolve it. For example, the government can encourage it by putting simple norms by the banks and financial institutions to rely only those data which are publicly available. One problem regarding government data may come about sharing data of First Information Report (FIR) which is very much difficult as it is lodged differently by police in different stage, yet the government has to do it as more than 150 countries since November 4, 2011 jointed in open government initiative.

India is a country which is financially very much strong and she has huge market potentiality. Countries Like, Germany, Japan, France, USA and china whose economy is dwindling between the economic uncertainties have eye upon her markets. They are investors and they will ask insurance of their single penny. Mr. Modi’s “Make in India” initiative could not be successful without open government. 

Lots but least.

I was reading "Man's Search for Meaning". Here Frankl writes, "In a position of utter desolation, when  man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his suffering in the right way - an honourable way- in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment." This sentence is self explanatory and true. I cannot argue this line as this is written in a real situation.

A news which broke my heart is that Chhatisgarh Govt. has decided to reduce paddy procurement in a bid to curb losses if the Centre doesn't allow bonuses. I am seeing dooms day for farmers as they won't be able to fetch the cost of farming if it continues. Yes, I agree this move will reduce the open market price of paddy which the consumer will enjoy but what will be the fate of the farmers. Need to rethink on it.

I congratulate Mr. Arvind Subramanian for his appointment as the Chief Economic Adviser to the Govt. of India. He deserves this post and above all his is a colleague of Mr. Raghuram Rajan, the Governor of RBI. These two same minded genius will certainly lead India to a new height. I was skeptic about this but after Mr. Subramanian's appointment, I am relieved.

Government of India has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court of India and I donot have any opposition in it. A govt. can do what it thinks best in the interest of a nation.

Good Night to All. 

Nobel Prize to Jean Tirole for economics

Today i hear the news that Jean Tirole got the Nobel prize for economics, i am very much happy as someone outside USA has secured it for long time.

After almost 15 years, someone outside the USA has been conferred the Nobel Prize for economics. His research was very simple but full of deep analysis. He bravely understood the market power and regulation. He understood the "essential nature of imperfect competition and contracting under asymmetric information." Yes mostly economists understands and research assuming perfect competition but in reality it is  not. For me competition is created by wealth incorporating bad practices of incurring loss either for some period or upon some goods.

These days there is trend to incur loss earlier for capturing the market and then enjoy the monopoly once you got the brand. Marketing and business is very much different from politics. In business, the older you are, the credibility gets enhanced.

Mr. Tirole has rightly taught the practical significance of economic theory and it shuts the mouth of those who says economists are theorists only and have nothing to do with the practice. He points out that in some industries average costs are minimized when production is concentrated within a single firm.

He also argues that sustainability in an industry which requires rapid innovation is little bit tough as the firm innovates for some time and then new player comes in with super innovation. Whether you like it or not but there is a live example of facebook and orkut which substantiate his argument. Orkut fails due to want of innovation and suddenly Facebook innovates and get the dominance over the market.

I think we should take rest and good night.

Sunday makes me crazy! We change our god after instruction from Nautankibaaz Guru.

Oh Sunday! I love you! you make me crazy! This one day i could devote my time for my personal work and reading. During the week and round the clock, i have nothing much to do but to search for livelihood. To err is human, but it is frivolous for a professional like me. I am not expected to err. I have to be Mr. Perfectionist and so the life becomes boring.

Yes! I read a book today. It is not new but very old one. The Road to Surfdom. Yes I have researched upon the economic reason of establishment of colonial rule in India. What i found is very much surprisingly. There were three main forces which alleviated the poverty and slavery in India. One was ofcourse the fiscal policy which was nothing but to appease the foreign traders; second  was Land Taxes which hardly yielded the Indian Labours their profits after deducting the expenses and paying taxes and third was non other than Labour Laws which deprived them from their fundamental rights.

These days India is also going to be something like this. For few days FDI in every form is depicted good while before general elections, Indian protested it in mass. Why we change our god just at the instruction of few nautankibaaz guru?

Good Night! Take decision with open eyes. Do not follow blindly. Ask your soul and then reacts.

Globalization is Reality

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji returned from the USA some of my friends have opened two schools of thoughts. One is dictating the pros of Globalization while others cons. Sometimes I am called upon in it as a guest and even after my refusal they drag me in at least to examine and declare the result. For me globalization is both good and bad. It is globalization which gave two World Wars in modern times. It is globalization which spread economic epidemic. It is globalization which keeps unrest between two neighboring countries and day after day egging the tensions on between them. But this happens only when globalization is the child of violent usurpation after breeding during the seizure of one country's sovereignty. 

When globalization is accepted and adopted by the countries for the welfare of the states, societies and locality, it gives the best result one has ever imagined. While it is helpful in reducing poverty, it creates lots of jobs. It makes countries dependable on each other. I agree that due to globalization, inequalities have increased and wealth has been accumulated in few hands but at the same time it enhances the standard of living of common run. Easy access of technology and reducing distances to treading has escalated the fascination of globalization. 

I am very much skeptic when government is bringing the FDI at the cost of labour. East India Company invested in India after depicting the miserable conditions of Indians and later Poverty and low wages of labour which discouraged the Indian Manufacturer and encouraged the British Manufacturer resulting in they were the pioneer of Industrial Revolution whereas we are lagging behind using technology even today in our industrial arena. Recently Rajasthan has changed labour law, as an industrialist, I could be happy but on humanitarian ground it must be argued. You are the democratic government of a welfare state and hence your first priority is to look after your elector and in any history of times labourers are the main electors.

Economic fraternity ends wars as it makes the nations strong in defense and weak in attacks. India is very much strong in defense and hence no first war will be launched on Indian side. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asserted "No First Use" policy regarding atomic weapon and it is testimonial of my statement. But, in Indian context I am seeing it differently. There are two ways of capturing the market (i) To make a balance of EXIM (Export - Import) between the countries and (ii) To annex some territory of the country what China and Pakistan is doing with us. If you balance the trade between these two countries with us, you may find they are in better position.

Making short conclusion globalization is best when it is based upon fraternity and it has ability to tie the countries in one single thread, hence it reduces poverty, increases standard of living and spread technology even at the bottom as India is the best example.