The modern thinking Indian

It has been quite clear for some time that the Left Central Leadership is not satisfied with the policies of the Congress Government in the center, looking at the Government as being too tilted towards the US (nuclear deal, military exercises, overall globalization, etc); at the same time, their Government in West Bengal, wanting to continue to stay in power, has to show actual development on the ground. For this, it has to adopt policies of liberalization, and has to attract investment in the state. And guess what, if you looked at the West Bengal government in terms of what it is doing for industry, it would not seem any different from other states in terms of policies or actions. They need a friendly central Government, and so far has been able to get the Congress Government to help them out. But, if the Congress gets miffed, or really starts to feel the heat in the center, they will try to strike back in the state. And they just got a big start:

The buzz has been there for quite some time now but Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee chose the setting of a madrasa students’ programme today to indicate, more clearly than she ever has, that she is set to part ways with the BJP. “We are now with no one and are trying to stand on our own,” she said, adding that her party was going ahead with agitation programmes on its own, be it Singur or Nandigram. “In West Bengal, our party is going it alone,” she reiterated.
The Congress, which has been prompting her to snap off ties with the BJP, was quick to welcome her statement. “We urge Mamata Banerjee to come back to Congress and fight the CPM jointly. We are sure that if she leads us, we will be able to throw the CPM out of the state,” Manas Bhuina, Congress Legislature Party leader, told.

Mamta Banerjee is feeling resistance from Muslims when she tries to get their votes due to her ties with the BJP, and given the large scale migration of Bangladeshis and their acquiring voting power, she needs their support. This is a good enough reason for her to spurn the BJP and go back to her voters with a claim of breaking away from the BJP.
Now, Mamta Banerjee is a highly populist leader, capable of stirring up lots of emotions, and if she does opt to go with the Congress, it has the potential to be a major challenge for the CPM rule. At this time, because of the way that the CPM has gone about implementing its SEZ agenda and land acquisition, there is an under-current of resentment against the party and Mamta Banerjee can take some advantage out of that, provided that she builds up an organization. And that is where the Congress can come in. It will be able to provide the requisite cadre such that the combined might will be able to overcome the immense pressure applied by the CPM cadre (who aim to win using any and all tactics).
The biggest question is, when does this play out. If Mamta Banerjee opts to join hands with the Congress in the next few days, it will put the Congress central leadership in an awkward situation. One the one hand, they are depending on the Left to not withdraw support, and on the other hand, they are courting the biggest opponent of the Left in their strongest state.

Labels: BJP, Congress, Left, Muslim, Politics, Sharing

Indian politicians many times have illusions of grandeur, and in the biggest dreams, they believe that they can create a party that can take a national role. India currently only has 2 parties that play a national role, the Congress (with some support from others) and the BJP (that has the NDA of people opposed to the Congress). The Left can hardly be counted as a national party with stakes primarily in West Bengal and Kerala, and with some power in Tripura, but a has-been in all other states.
Now at a state level, the situation is totally different. Each state typically has a party that is fighting with either the Congress or the BJP, or with both, for power. In such a case, given political opportunism, the state parties will typically tie up either with the Congress or the BJP for elections. The only exceptions to these are mostly Uttranchal, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress and the BJP fight each other without a third party coming in between.
Now, if states have more than one major party, there will come a time when these parties are not aligned to the central party, and this is where the fun starts. Anti-Congress runs in the roots of many of these parties, and aligning with the BJP makes them worry about a drifting of the Muslim vote. If the Samajwadi Party in UP cannot align with either the BJP or Congress, it is Jayalalitha who has burned her bridges with both the Congress and the BJP, the AGP in Assam is anti-Congress and has had a tie-up with the BJP earlier, and so on.
The left parties really do not like the dominance of the BJP and Congress in the national arena since it denies them a voice (their lack of many seats anyhow prevents them from being much of a voice on their own), and they believe that a Third Front will give them more stature (very unlikely, given the mix of personalities involved in the Third Front). So, this time a third front started to form out of the SP, AIADMK, INLD, AGP, with them claiming that they would be equi-distant from the BJP and the Congress.
Looks like all this happened too early, and their own political instincts at state level will make it very different for them to maintain this posture. Indeed, if they really try to be independent, they will get a much reduced section of seats.

Presidential polls dealt a serious blow to a strong bid to erect a non-BJP, non-Congress platform when four UNPA components - AIADMK, MDMK, INLD and AGP - abandoned the alliance's decision to abstain and instead voted for NDA-backed aspirant Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. The political betrayal by crucial ally AIADMK, whose supremo J Jayalalithaa emerged as the face of the UNPA during the strategy sessions, comes only days after their new catch, National Conference, did a U-turn to join the Congress fold.
The unravelling of the fledgling grouping is disappointing for proponents of UNPA as it came at a time when the disparate outfits had begun to gel together. More so, it also came at a time when Left too showed signs of joining hands at a later date, with CPM general secretary Prakash Karat openly stating that he was looking at a "third alternative" for the next Lok Sabha polls. Political compulsions of regional parties appear to have trumped the larger considerations of erecting a non-BJP, non-Congress third front, a platform which Left could be lured to for 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

Any third front will have no common agenda, no common ideology (except maybe that each leader is supreme in his/her own party), and no shared belief other than the anti-BJP and anti-Congress slogans. In reality, such parties also base their support on attacking central parties, and find increased support very easily by joining hands with another third party. India has seen only one experiment work like this in the past, which was VP Singh's experiment, but even that worked only with the support of the BJP.

Labels: BJP, Congress, Election, India, Politics, Sharing

Another attempt to appeal to the aam admi, or an attempt to play to the left gallery ? In a speech to the CII, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advised that the business fraternity should display a simpler life, and avoid public vulgar displays of wealth, as well as be more careful with setting the salaries of CEO's such that these salaries are kept in control.
One wonders about such advice ? I wonder where the Prime Minister is when political leaders invite thousands for weddings and use state assets for such occassions; witness the marriage of Lalu Prasad's children where babus were galvanised into action, witness the birthday celebrations of Mayawati in the past where massive celebrations where held. Even more, witness the enormous amount of pomp and show that goes into functions held in government facilities such as Hyderabad House (meant for banquets for state guests) and Rashtrapati Bhavan (where money is spent to maintain a figurehead). At leas the money spent by companies is money that belongs to the company; the waste indulged by the governmet is money that belongs to all of us, it is the tax that we pay out of our hard earned money and watch some minister or MP blowing up on a state sponsored junket to escape the summer heat.
Further, in order to make India competitive, it is Indian companies and Indian business that is going to do it, not the Government or its fossil PSU's. The Government has to give up the feeling that it can control what people can do, or even more, do an introspection and recognize that lectures of frugality and dispay of wealth are least suitable when it comes from politicians. A company depends on its CEO to run the business, and the fact that CEO incomes are pretty high is a measure of the importance assigned to the CEO. It is the CEO who is trusted by the shareholders to run the business, and the success or failure of the business is
assigned to the CEO. Just like we pay lots of money to film stars and highly successful sportsmen, the art of guiding a business is a rarified art. After all, power with responsibility is something that does not come easy to politicians; while power without responsibility is something that they can do with their left hand. A CEO on the other hand shoulders the responsibility for successes or failures.
Refer this article to read some reactions as well:

India Inc is divided over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's advise to limit the CEOs' salaries, with CII and ASSOCHAM stating the remuneration should be left to companies themselves while FICCI said it would consider the issue.
"These things cannot be legislated. Shortage of skills in key areas at the top level is a serious and genuine problem specifically in the services industry, which is facing pressure of high salaries," the new president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Sunil Mittal said.
Prime Minister in his address to the CII had said on Thursday that the industry should ‘resist excessive remuneration to promoters and senior executives and discourage conspicuous consumption’.

These are serious people, dependent on the government, and could not have afforded to laugh in the face of the Prime Minister when he made such comments. It would have been far better if they had used the occasion to question the Prime Minister about such things as the flip-flop over the SEZ issues, about the inability of the government to curb corruption in the country, about many ministries in the government that seem to be not doing anything, and so on. However, I guess when the Prime Minister talks about an issue seriously, they need to take heed.
Of course, industry need to have a social angle to their work and need to make sure society benefits as a measure of their progress, but modern industries have shareholders by the crores who have sunk their hard-earned money in these companies, and would rather that the company do what it can to make sure that it grows ethically; and if this involved paying to get the best person to run the company, then so be it.

Labels: Corruption, Development, Governance, India, Sharing, Welfare

Labels: Cricket, Image, India, Sharing

The latest version of Time Asia has an interesting covery story, something that is very relevant in the Indian context. The report is all about how the male parent (atleast the examples it is quoting) are trying to do some reform so that they are no longer only slaves to their office, but are equal partners in the home, more so in terms of giving more time to their children. The relevant article is available here:

It's embarrassing for these upstanding burghers of Singapore—so methodical and conscientious in their professional lives—to dwell upon the possibility that they might be falling short at home, but Wong lets them fidget and cough for a few more moments before resuming. "Watching your children over the Internet is one thing," he says, "but the goal of parenting is to get them to do the right thing when you're not looking." And there are plenty of hours in the day when Asian fathers are not looking.
Fathers all over Asia share that sense of guilt over their inability to balance work and parenthood. Dr. Sanjay Chugh, a New Delhi psychiatrist, says these harried, overburdened men stream through his consulting rooms: "Indian fathers have less and less time to spend with their children. When stress goes up for a father, it affects not only the quantity of time he spends with his children but the quality."
Every day, pleading overwork, millions of men cancel millions of promises made to millions of children. Dads cannot read bedtime stories or go to the park. Dads are in their offices, or on the road, or on conference calls. The effects of this physical or emotional absenteeism are actually quantifiable: numerous academic studies have shown that children with distant fathers score lower on tests of empathy, reasoning and brain development than those whose fathers are more involved. The former behave more aggressively, don't get on as well with siblings, tend to be less popular in school and are more reluctant to take responsibility for their misbehavior.

In earlier generations, things were more tranquil. The normal motto was that men would work outside, and women would work at home, bringing up the children and keeping the family together. In today's fast paced world, such a thing is mostly as dead as the dodo. Women have claimed and got their just right to build a career and work equal to men. However, given that there are an enormous amount of work pressures, the amount of time spent by parents on children has declined; after all a double income moves the family towards prosperity faster.
As this article points out, a number of fathers are starting to realize their responsibilities in the changed environment, regulating the amount of time that they are spending at office, and trying to take quality time out for their children, as well as trying to be a part of their lives. This includes taking on more responsibilities for the work needed to be done at home. In India, this trend is anyhow necessary due to the joint family system slowly breaking apart into more nuclear families. This change comes with much greater responsbility for ensuring that everyone contributes towards activities at home.
My experiences with friends who have passed through this phase is that these oh-so-proud men are changing, and becoming more sensitive. I had a friend who married with the condition that his wife would not work, and that attitude remains; however another used to be still expecting to be spoon-fed in the early days of marriage, but after a baby, he quickly realized that things were not the same and now is a great helper to his wife; and then there are the ones whom you can see as the ones who take great pride in helping thier wives, spending as much time as possible with children. However, on the basis of my circle of friends, is difficult to generalize on how much the Indian male is adjusting ! Anyone care to share their experiences ?

Labels: Child, Family, Responsibility, Sharing