The Daily Indian

All in all, there have been some welcome extra investment in infrastructure and highways, good non-pollution initiatives, and some great tax structure changes if you are a tax-payer

Arindam Chaudhuri

No measures to stop speculation in food. No recommendation of strict punishment to the hoarders and no announcement of using the country’s huge forex reserves to import basic food necessities to increase supply and reduce prices. In other words, totally shocking. The reference to the aam aadmi went missing. It was clearly a budget for the mango people who live in India and not the aam aadmi who lives in Bharat.

The long-run steps to increase agriculture growth through a new green revolution got a token Rs 400crore. Nothing could have been more hilarious. Now, NBFCs (non banking financial institutions) can open banks and Rahul Bajaj must be very happy with his part of lobbying. But the real requirement of financial inclusion, which reaches a rotting low of less than 200 million people compared to the required 900 million people, still remains unsolved. At a time when so much had to be done for the poor who are the direct sufferers of the high inflation, the government gave away Rs 26,000 crore to the middle class and rich through its new tax structure favouring the two per cent top class of people who pay taxes in this country! I have been always for lesser taxes to increase tax base, but in a year like this, such a move was a bit too much to accept, especially when compared to the lack of commitment of resources for the bottom 70 per cent people.

The allocation of Rs 22,300 crore is marginally up for national rural health but still is too less when you look at the fact that 85 per cent of Indians do not have access to health insurance; and every year, an estimated 30 million people slip below the poverty line because they have to meet healthcare expenses though out-of-pocket expenses.
So is all bad? No! We are now going to have a new symbol for currency; similar to the dollar and the euro. And some agency, which will design it, will make a lot of money! It’s assumed that the developed world is so full of donkeys that despite the pathetic conditions that we have bestowed upon a majority of our people, the developed world will respect India due to a new symbol of our currency. Oh yes, how can I forget that in times of such internal security crisis and naxalite movement, a hilarious number of 2000 new paramilitary forces will be employed!

All in all, there have been some welcome extra investment in infrastructure and highways, good non-pollution initiatives, and some great tax structure changes if you are a tax-payer. For the rest, it has been an objectiveless exercise. Bringing me back to the question, ‘why have such a budget at all?’ When throughout the year, the government in any case keeps announcing various policies, then why should we not let the budget be a mere statement of results? Why this sham? There is no accountability… the poor hardly get anything; and to top it all, during the last year, a whopping Rs 1 lakh crore of allocated funds remained unused! It will only grow this year. I repeat, to me it was an objectiveless budget. A mere timepass.

(Arindam Chaudhuri is Editor-in-Chief of Planman Media)
Concluded

Is there any solution to the ongoing BT brinjal controversy? Do we really need BT modified crops? These and other questions are being debated by farmers, food experts, politicians and multinationals. The proponents of BT brinjal say that it will herald a second green revolution. But the opponents argue that India can manage without modified crops because some farmers in Karnataka villages already practice community seed banks.

They cite example of farmers, like Papamma, who have already started a second green revolution. Her house is full of vegetation. Not an inch of waste land around Papamma’s house or farm can be spotted. “Do you see the black sprinkles on the leaves and the beans? That is cow dung water I sprinkled to avoid pests,” says the 60-year-old Papamma who lives in D. Kurubarahalli, a remote village in Kolar, nearly 90 KM from Bangalore.
Keeping farm green isn’t an easy task in hot weather. But Papamma has been managing it for almost 20 years now. She produces crops through organic way. Besides, the family is content with the yield they get from two acres and one acre of paddy field. In two acres, she grows almost 20 varieties of crops. “If we have sufficient water we can grow more than 50 varieties of crops in the farm,” says Papamma.

Kolar district which is better known for its extreme weather depends on rain for the crops. Moreover, the district doesn’t have any rivers. “We dug a well in our farm and we use this for the paddy field because it needs much water compared to other crops. So, even if it does not rain in the season we normally do not worry,” adds Papamma.

The family, which is known across the state as ’seed bank Papamma,’ has more than 50 varieties of pure indigenous seeds. Displaying her rare collections, she says: “See this is the paddy that I stored four years back. Still it is good; you can either use it for sowing or husk rice out of it. Did you see the leaves on the paddy? They are custard apple’s leaves. They keep the seeds afresh.”

Adds Papamma: “These are brinjal seeds.” When asked why she has saved brinjal seeds in four different jars, she says: “In my farm I only have four varieties of brinjals…” What about the BT brinjal? Papamma’s answer was spontaneous: “No… see in my farm, I grow four or five types of brinjals, and in our village you can easily find around 45 varieties of brinjals, so just imagine how many more varieties India can have. People say it is a ‘technical’ brinjal. When we have enough variety of brinjals then why import BT brinjal and spoil soil and health? I do not think, we will need a brinjal ‘which has been operated and injected to perform well.’ It is not good for health. What we have is more than enough and I do not see any reason to welcome it.

“As I am following organic farming method, I may get a bit less crop compared to the farms which are using chemicals. But as far as my family is concerned, health is more important than profit. My farming is not a commercial venture.”

“For almost a decade, we never purchased food items from the market, but fetch it afresh from our farm. I preserve the seed in the seed bank for the next crop. If the seeds are more, then we sell it in the market. Why should we say yes for genetically modified crops?”

Papamma and her husband Papanna do sand mulching also. She was taught organic farming by her villagers twenty years ago. But after some time, the villagers started using chemicals to increase their production.

In the middle of such an environment, what’s the role of an annual budget? Is it to maintain status quo or to give the world a robust signal that we are committed to our people — the 45 crore people who earn below 1.25 dollars a day

Arindam Chaudhuri

Shortage of a hundred and fifty million rural employment jobs. Shortage of twenty five million urban employment jobs… Additional Rs 1 lakh crore required to replace urban slums… And Rs 10,000 crore required every year for five years to give justice to every Indian by ramping up the judiciary… Another Rs 20,000 crore required every year to make universal primary education a reality and have equality in education opportunities… And additional Rs 10,000 crore required annually to give some basic access to health facilities… Welcome to India. A country where the hospital beds to population ratio is 1:1422, ranked 161 alongside sub-Saharan African countries, against an ideal ratio of 1:333 prescribed by the United Nations. A country with 2.4 million temples but only 1.4 million temples of education i.e. schools… A country with 30 million cases pending in courts, making life hell for the common man who wants justice, because our courts have only 12 judges per million population compared to 120 judges per million in the developed world.

In the middle of such an environment, what’s the role of an annual budget? Is it to maintain status quo or to give the world a robust signal that we are committed to our people – the 45 crore people who earn below 1.25 dollars a day? If the objective is to maintain the status quo, then Pranabda has delivered a perfect budget, as loudly proclaimed by each and every member of the equally objectiveless and visionless industry organisations like FICCI, CII and ASSOCHAM etc. They were too happy that the entire stimulus package had not been withdrawn. As it is, the spokespersons aren’t independent intellectuals. They are timid business men – however rich they might be – scared to ever speak against the government as their businesses are at stake! In most cases, they aren’t even capable of commenting on the budget, such low is their understanding. But they are the people who give the bytes and that’s what next days headlines look like in papers indirectly and directly owned by them and mostly run by sold out editors or editors intellectually incapable of analysing a budget or how it needs to be. So the verdict that they have given is thumbs up!

The man on the street, of course, has no voice. And his concerns are of no importance to politicians or media. Media has no vision to effectively and constantly focus on their cause in order to effect a change. They are more interested in rapes, murders and sex, which keep the readers confined to intellectually dumbed-down dustbins of these media houses.

The truth, however, is that if we were to look at this budget from the perspective of people – those 45 crore that I mentioned above and another 35 crore who are just marginally better off – then this budget is a hoax for them. Allocations to the best scheme of the Sonia government, or for that matter any government in ages – the NREGA scheme – wasn’t even increased enough to cover the inflation! What was done was a mere increase from Rs 39,000 crore to about Rs 41,000 crore. At a point of time when the common man is being made to pay an astoundingly scary Rs 50 per kg for sugar and Rs 100 per kg for dal, when the food inflation has touched horrific proportions and when they were looking up to the budget for some relief, forget immediate relief measures, there were no signs of any long run relief either in this budget. No lip service even to stop hoarding.

(Arindam Chaudhuri is Editor-in-Chief of Planman Media)
To be continued

No political discourse in Tamil Nadu is complete without the mention of Kachatheevu, the uninhabited barren Island of 285 acres in the waters between Sri Lanka and India. When the maritime boundaries between India and Sri Lanka were settled in 1974, this small island, which belonged to the Raja of Ramanathapuram, was ceded to Sri Lanka by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. But the traditional rights of Indian fishermen to take rest on the island were well in place in the agreement between both the governments.

But for the fishermen, the sea had no boundaries. They were going beyond Kachatheevu into the Sri Lankan waters to fish. They used to attend the annual festival on the island. Indians and Sri Lankans would come to worship at the St Antony’s Church. This small church was built by an Indian fisherman in the early 20th century who was believed to have survived a storm near the island when he prayed to St Antony.

There were no problems till 1983 when ethnic riots against Tamils in Sri Lanka first took place. The Sri Lankan government stopped the festival. The territorial waters were strictly monitored by the Sri Lankan navy. When Indian fishermen went beyond the Indian boundary towards Kachatheevu and adjacent places, they were shot at.
More than 300 Indian fishermen were shot dead in the waters near Kachatheevu in the last two decades as the Lankan Navy suspected them of supporting the LTTE rebels with supplies. As the civil war intensified, the number of deaths of Indian fishermen also rose. Tamil politicians were pressuring the Centre to take the island back from Sri Lanka. J. Jayalalithaa’s case in Supreme Court in this regard is still pending. Her contention was that New Delhi ceded the island by an executive order which violated Article 368 of the Constitution.

On last saturday morning, Fishing Boat no. 404, after getting essential clearance from the Indian Navy at the Rameswaram Jetty, was speeding past the Palk Bay waves. I was on it. The owner and driver of the boat, Sudalai Kasi, was an excited man. With over thirty years of fishing experience in the Palk Bay, he had seen the island many times but never could set his foot upon its shores in the last two decades. “Earlier, only a thatched shed was there as a chapel. Then in the 1970s, the tile-roof structure was built. Thousands of people from India and Sri Lanka would meet there every year. There will be exchange of goods and gifts,” Sudalai Kasi reminisced about the old times.

C. R. Senthil, another co-passenger of the boat actually had his relatives living in northern Sri Lanka. “We used to write letters to them saying what we would bring for them. They would also write to us stating what they needed from India,” he says. Senthil’s relatives, no longer live in Sri Lanka. The war made sure they were displaced and ended up as refugees in India.

Kittur Chennamma, an Indian Coast Guard boat, guided us past the international maritime border. After three hours of travel, we were near the shores of Kachatheevu. The Sri Lankan Navy boats were busy in transporting people to the shore as the fishing boats could not go near the land due to rocks in the water. We waited for three hours and a country boat transported us to the shores.

Tell me now boys, after reading all this, doesn’t it occur to you that there are obviously better ways to improve productivity than to have female bosses?

A Sandeep

The smirk on my face all but got wiped out when I saw the University of Colorado 2005 report ['Worker wellbeing and supervisor gender'] which confirmed beyond doubt that “working in a more female dominated environment” was truly beneficial for employee health!

Chauvinist that I was, I couldn’t digest the fact that finally, to get ‘healthier’, I had to work under — of all blistering barnacles — a female boss!!! I mean, there obviously had to be better methods to get healthier than getting fried in the devil’s pan, right?! And there began the quest of my team members to escape perdition.

In fact, if one thought that not having a female boss would lead to productivity losses, the National Business Group on Health [representing 185 companies, primarily Fortune 500 firms covering more than 40 million workers...] shows how, for US firms, “…productivity loss resulting from… smoking related diseases cost a staggering $157 billion every year.” [In fact, the Purdue University's Health Care Special Report puts this at a killing $234 billion].

This dirge is just the tip. The US Office of Technology & Assessment conclusively proved [in 'Burden of Tobacco on Your Workplace'] that smokers averaged a whopping 300% more sick leaves than non-smokers.

Seattle University showed how “the propensity for smokers to become disabled and retire early is almost 600% greater than for non-smokers!” But what left me stunned was this incredible research of Cappelli, Pauly & Lemaire of Wharton, ['The Effects of Obesity, Smoking & Drinking...'] who quote that “obese individuals have 30%-50% more chronic medical problems than those who smoke or drink heavily!”

The authoritative US National Bureau of Economic Research and Chicago GSB confirm in their benchmark September 2008 paper that “expenditures on health care in the US are likely to rise from a current level of about 15% to about 29% of GDP by 2040.”

That is a mind boggling $3 trillion even at current prices! So are global firms getting worried? Hewitt Associates’ April 2007 survey found out after surveying 8 million workers that now 77% of firms are “profiling chronic health conditions prevalent in their workforce!” This figure was a mere 43% just a year back.

Without doubt, employee health & productivity are perfectly correlated! Period! GEMI, a top non-profit research firm with Fortune 500 firms as members, irrefutably proves [in 'Clear Advantage: Building Shareholder Value'] that excellence in health [and even environment and safety issues] can add dramatically to shareholder value by almost 50 to 90%, apart from reducing operational and capital costs [16% less for high performing companies, as per the noted Towers Perrin '2008 Health Care Cost Survey'].

So who should take the blame for all the productivity losses occurring due to bad health habits? The big league Watson Wyatt covered 5 million workers in their stupendous 2005/2006 survey ['Staying@Work: Employee Health...'] and established that a compelling 74% of organisations believe that “their employees should be held accountable.”

Weyco Inc, a top health care firm, now has a policy of throwing out employees even if they smoke at home. BusinessWeek’s February 2007 cover story shows how the ‘totally-smoke-free’ $2.7 billion Scotts Co. throws out its employees for failing nicotine detection tests [for which, Jack Welch exclaimed to Scotts' CEO Jim Hagedorn, "Man, you have balls of steel!"].

Tell me now boys, after reading all this, doesn’t it occur to you that there are obviously better ways to improve productivity than to have female bosses?! Tony, to have the guts to say yes, all you will need, like the thrice-married Jack mentions above, are two metallic spheres! Got them?

(A Sandeep is Editor of Planman Media)

The concept of ‘homeschooling’ has not caught-on with parents in this part of the world. But then, in most of the developed countries the whole idea of homeschooling has gone beyond mere alternative education and has entered the ambit of politics and lobbying.
For the starters, homeschooling is the education of children at home and is seen as an alternative, in developed countries, to formal education. However, the surge in homeschooling is hitting the market of conventional education system in the US. A conservative estimate shows that over 50 million children are enrolled in over 100,000 schools in the US. The average per student expenditure in the US public schools is around $7,000.

In the US, where quality of formal education is quite worrisome, parents are largely opting for homeschooling. Take for instance, the IQ level (and maths skills) of an average American student is far too less than his counterpart in the developing countries. A 2007 survey by the Department of Education reveals that 88 per cent of homeschooling parents felt their local public schools were unsafe, drug-ridden or unwholesome in some way and 73 per cent complained of shoddy academic standards.

However, in developing countries, the practice of homeschooling is not so common. Reason being, that homeschooling is too expensive in metros (even surpasses school’s tuition fees). And in non-metros (or tier-II and tier-III cities) parents are not able to match up with modern education syllabi. Moreover, homeschooling is not encouraged at the time of college admissions. Unlike the West ­- where there is a strong network of activities and legal lobby that has ensured colleges/institutes to have a separate policy – developing countries do not have any body to advocate this concept.

Homeschooling in Africa is highly influenced by many missionaries, who are homeschooling their own children (due to lack of good schools and domestic instability). But there is an ongoing struggle between homeschoolers and the government over control of curriculum. Moving to Asia, there are a limited number of homeschoolers and many governments are against homeschooling.

On the one hand, schools in the West are lobbying with top officials to regulate homeschooling and discourage parents (of course, for obvious reasons!). Whereas on other hand, this concept can, to a large extent, compensate for lack of schools. This can also help those who are sole bread earners of the family and thus are not able to attend conventional schools. It will also help children in those parts of the states who can’t attend school because of domestic instability. What government needs to do is to recognise homeschooling (and standardise the syllabi) and make it acceptable during admission in college admission procedure. Moreover, with intervention of ICT (Information & Communication Technology) this medium can reach a larger audience.

However, this form of education is not an answer to lack of good schools and quality education, but for the time being can solve the problem of education (and schooling) in rural hinterlands of developing countries across the world.

The Union Budget is increasingly becoming a futile exercise

Prasoon S Majumdar

The Union Budget is increasingly becoming a futile exercise. Each and every year I observe the budget with keenness, expecting that this time there would be some path breaking announcements, which would change the course of India and Indians in times to come. And this year the expectation was even more high as the team was competent, the intent was overtly aam admi centric and what more, there was no challenge of any coalition. But then, the banality of this year’s budget was such, that at the end of it, it only left despair and dejection!

In fact, there is absolutely nothing that is worth mentioning about this year’s budget. On the contrary, I was bemused by the fact that why our finance minister (FM) had to talk about launching a symbol for rupee in the budget. I guess, a Republic Day or an Independence Day or for that matter Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary could have been the days to declare such initiatives. Whether we have a symbol or not, it no way changes our national accounting, which is in utter mess! If we have to emulate a dollar, or a euro, or a pound, or even for that matter a yen, there is a lot more to be emulated than just their symbols. But then, our FM did, and with a grin on his face while other parliamentarians, most of whom were half asleep, applauded! Frankly, such rhetoric does not suit our FM, particularly at a time when consumers are reeling under back breaking food prices coupled with slow economic recovery.

Similarly, I did not quite understand as to why the FM had to declare the hike in fuel prices at that forum. Was it that he wanted the Opposition’s focus to rest on this issue and shift it out from other relevant issues? If that was the case, then I would say that the FM was quite successful as immediately after his misplaced declaration on fuel prices, the Opposition staged a walk out. And mind you, we are here referring to national accounting where we all are stakeholders and the parliamentarians are our elected representatives in the house. Honestly, here again, I did not quite understand as to why was the announcement made in the first place and why did the Opposition walk-out? Post the budget session, the media focus shifted to the Opposition leaders who exhibited concerns over the fuel price hike; as according to them it is going to create a cascading affect, further pushing up the food prices. Well, empirical studies prove that the effect on fuel prices on food is very marginal, and today if food prices are going up, it is not on account of fuel prices or anything that is even close to that, it is only due to the kind of abnormal margins that the retailers are keeping with themselves. Few months back, The Times of India reported that the difference in vegetable prices between wholesale and retail is as high as 400 per cent! And nothing is being done about that! But then as I said, there was no reason for the FM to make such an announcement in that forum.

It is so unfortunate that when the Opposition should have ideally opposed, they applauded and that is when the FM declared tax rebates. This rebate is not only going to increase the dispensable income in the hands of people, which is inflationary, but also cost the exchequer a staggering Rs 26,000 crores! It is not the fuel prices, but this rebate which can be detrimental to any kind of price rise arrest! Lest we forget, what all could have been done with this additional Rs 26,000 crores!

I can endlessly keep writing on most of the announcements that were made that day, and how futile they were. The more I think, the more I get sceptical about the entire session. Probably I was expecting too much…

(Prasoon S Majumdar is Editor Economic Affairs of Planman Media)

Ever heard of Bhint Budrak? If you haven’t, chances are that you have no idea of the enormity of what this tiny village in Gujarat’s Surat district has achieved thanks to the success of an unusual “bank” – a bank that collects gobar (cow-dung) from residents and then supplies it to a biogas plant that takes care of the hamlet’s energy needs. The people of Bhint Budrak deposit cow-dung in the gobar bank and receive biogas at a nominal cost in return.

Bhint Budrak certainly isn’t the only village in the state that provides biogas to its residents. What sets it apart is the spirit that drives the project. Every single household is actively supportive of the process of change.

The results that the experiment has yielded in Bhint Budrak is in sharp contrast to how other villages have responded to the concept. Sometime ago, the state government had helped several other Gujarat villages set up biogas plants of their own, but most of these plants ran aground in next to no time in the face of apathy on the part of the people that they were meant to benefit.

The village of Methan in north Gujarat’s Sidhhpur taluka has had a community gobar gas plant since 1987. Most residents here use biogas that is produced by the plant. The sarpanch of Methan, Sultan Momeen, says, “It is difficult, but definitely not impossible, to construct and operate a gobar gas plant. It is crucial to involve the locals at every step.” Both Methan and Bhint Budrak are living testimony to that truism.

In Methan, the seeds of success were sown by the village leaders, asserts Momeen. “Everybody was actively involved from day one. The Central government sanctioned Rs 19 lakh for the project. The design and technology was provided by GEDA (Gujarat Energy Development Agency). The people of the village toiled day and night to construct the biogas plant.” A gas connection was provided to every household in Methan with the help of the central government grant. A co-operative society was then set up for the day-to-day administration of the community gobar gas plant. It is still up and running.

Methan is anything but a conventional village. For one, it has never witnessed panchayat elections. The sarpanch and members of the panchayat samiti are nominated by the villagers and they assume office unopposed. The village, inhabited by a mix of Hindus and Muslims, has never seen any communal tension. The Muslim population here is very prosperous and they have provided plenty of assistance to the setting up of and running the gobar gas plant.

The president of the Methan gobar gas plant, Kasambhai Elimad Thuka, says, “In 1987, village leaders like Jaffer Mohammad and Rahim Karedia broached the idea of a gobar gas plant. It was very difficult in the beginning but every resident of the village contributed a lot.” For plant maintenance and gas usage, every household with a biogas connection is charged Rs 50.

But a huge question mark now hangs over the future of the biogas plant, which has been hit by a shortage of cow-dung. Says Kasambhai, “The younger villagers have migrated to foreign countries. These families do not own cattle anymore. Hence the quantity of cow-dung is dwindling. We once had 50 stables in the village. Now there are only about ten. So we have to often obtain cow-dung from nearby villages. But the supply can be rather irregular.”

The effects are being seen on the ground. Methan once boasted 300 households with a gas connection. Now only half that number use biogas. “The shortage of cow-dung has led to low-pressure supply, forcing villagers to opt for stoves or LPG gas cylinders.

In theory, the Indian consumer can approach a consumer court for relief. But in practice, large companies and their battery of lawyers have made the process a frustrating grind for the consumer

Sutanu Guru

April 1, 2009 could well turn out to be a red letter day (due apologies to Prakash Karat) for Indian consumers. Following a directive from the Reserve Bank of India, you and I can withdraw money from any ATM anywhere in India without having Rs.20 to Rs.50 deducted from our accounts. Banks opposed it fiercely, even issuing threats that they will be reluctant to expand their ATM networks if they can’t impose ‘transaction’ charges. For a change, their lobbying efforts with the RBI have failed, and the latest move will be a huge convenience for Indian consumers.

This is a rare victory for the Indian consumer. Even now, banks have surreptitiously imposed such crazy conditions that an average bank account holder will, more often than not, pay extortionate charges. Take the little known policy whereby a bank account holder cannot access her own bank’s ATM more than thrice or four times a month without paying ‘transaction charges’. The banks say this is to discourage unnecessary crowding at ATM counters. Years ago, the same banks used the same logic to deny account holders access to a bank branch. Account holders were encouraged to use ATMs and actively discouraged (sometimes even prohibited) to use their own bank branch for basic transactions. Consumers were told then that unlimited access to ATMs will be better than waiting in a queue at a branch. But then, unlimited access to ATMs was soon restricted. This is just one example of how banks routinely fleece their consumers. Anyone with a credit card or a deposit in a private or multinational bank will have horror stories.

It is not just banks. Telecom companies, passenger car makers, FMCG companies, commercial aviation companies, insurance companies… just about any enterprise in India with an interface with a consumer ends up fleecing her. Sample a few more examples. A study found that more than 80% of the new electronic meters installed by a private electricity distributor in Delhi were so hi-tech that they ran faster than actual electricity consumption! Of course, the hapless consumer has to first pay an inflated bill and then argue because his power will be cut off otherwise. From out of the blue, private airport operators in Bangalore and Delhi started charging a Rs.200 plus fee from every passenger. This was never a part of the lucrative deals they had signed with the government. And yet, the Civil Aviation ministry – tasked with protecting the interests of the Indian air traveller – connived with private operators to loot the Indian consumer.

In theory, the Indian consumer can approach a consumer court for relief. But in practice, large companies and their battery of lawyers have made the process a frustrating grind for the consumer. Consumer courts were formed to ensure that cases can be settled without lawyers. That basic philosophy has become a joke. In any case, even if a consumer court passes an order favouring the consumer, other Indian courts now promptly — and distressingly — provide relief to the company. Very soon, consumer courts could resemble the average Indian court, where a case might be settled after the litigant has died.

Sure free access to ATMs is a great move. But without much, much more, it could well be an April Fool gesture!

(Sutanu Guru is Managing Editor of Planman Media)

Last month, the Obama Administration made it clear in no uncertain words that the companies which are recipients of money under the Troubled Asset Regulation Program (TARP) as part of the financial stimulus package will have to abide by the new restrictions imposed on outsourcing of work to destinations like India.

For many in India, it was nothing but an obnoxious move on the part of a dogmatic Obamasque US administration seeking the easiest (but definitely counter-effective in the long run) way to fix the problems of the US economy rather than dealing with the real structural problems plaguing it. Intriguingly, however much one might criticise Barack, the reasons for which Obama has taken this path are the same that come into play when Indians or Chinese thump their chests when companies of their country’s origin go out and handsomely acquire a US or a Europe based company. The string that binds both Barack and us is fanatic economic nationalism, for our respective countries of course.
Quite some time since the homo sapien race decided to exit forests and to materialize the concept of society, the concept of ‘he’, ‘his’ people and ‘his’ land have always been more important than ‘they’, ‘their’ people and ‘their’ land. Evidently, this philosophy hasn’t changed much till date. So, from the era of hostility between Sparta (present day Greece) and Troy, when Achilles decided to fight for his bête noire Agamemnon, the Spartan king, because Spartan ‘pride’ was at stake, to the era of the British, French, Dutch and Spanish empires, when they often fought prolonged and violent battles keeping imperial interests in mind, it was all the same nationalistic fervour in play.

In fact, the time-line between the beginning of the First World War and the end of the Second World War and furtheron after it, has been the most intriguing period in terms of the transformation of nation states into nationalistic states. While four established empires — namely Russian, Ottoman, German and Austro-Hungarian — were washed away by the tides of the First World War, this period also witnessed the emergence of the violent form of ethnic nationalism which almost destroyed the world with the rise of the German Nazis and their fanatic obsession with the obliteration/subjugation of Jews and in fact anyone who — according to them — was not a pure Aryan.

Incidentally, the way Hitler galvanized a disparate Germany, which was humiliatingly defeated in the First World War, into a reckoning force vindicated the fact of how potent a force the war-cry to resurrect the lost pride of fatherland (or motherland) could be.
Nazis became a spent force for good after the defeat of Germany in World War II, but ethnic nationalism continued. Oddly, that the Jewish State succeeded to an extent against all ‘odds’ and emerged as a pioneer in high end technologies is also proof of how nationalism drives the fanatic passion to not only survive, but consolidate and fortify. Had it not been for the ethnic pride and the quest to wipe the humiliation of the past, Japan and Germany wouldn’t have had such incredible resurrections (both economic and political) in just a few decades’ time to become the second and third largest global economies respectively, their decimation in the Second World War notwithstanding.