To say that the salvos were unexpected is to put it mildly. The timing for critiques of the regime could not have been more appropriate. Mumbai, capital of Maharashtra where the ruling party in Delhi has this past week suffered political humiliation by being ‘ousted’ out of power by its ally the Shiv Sena.On the same day that the SS-NCP-Congress alliance proved its majority comfortably in the assembly and Maharashtra was given a government after a whole month of election results resulted in a hung assembly, the BJP’s strongman was in for another rude shock.

Veteran industrialist Rahul Bajaj told Amit Shah to his face that there was an atmosphere of fear in the country, drawing rare, applause from corporate India and prompting the Union minister to counter the assessment but concede that such perceptions of a fearful environment needed to be removed.

At the Economic Times awards event, surrounded by a host of ministers, policy makers and industrialists, Bajaj also boldly to the 100-day-old incarceration of former finance minister P. Chidambaram without naming him and the controversy over BJP parliamentarian Pragya Thakur allegedly calling Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, a patriot in the Lok Sabha. Rahul Bajaj raised concerns over the ability of the Narendra Modi government to accept criticism, its lack of action against mob lynchings and BJP MP Pragya Thakur’s recent remarks on Nathuram Godse to a crowded room of India Inc elite and top ministers including Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal.

Bajaj is known for being outspoken in a field where few dare to speak truth to power and he did not mince any words during the question-and-answer session when he was among the audience and Shah on the dais. “We are afraid…. This atmosphere is definitely on our minds, but nobody will talk about it, none of my industrialist friends, I will say that openly (applause). But a better reply has to come, not only a denial…. An environment has to be created. A clean environment is very important. Delhi is getting a little better, fine, but an environment has to be created where…,” Bajaj said.

He continued: “In UPA 2, we could abuse anybody, that is a different matter. You are doing good work but still we don’t have the confidence that if we openly criticise you, it will be appreciated. I may be wrong, fine. But we all feel this way that, I cannot speak for everyone, but I should not be saying this. People are laughing, that go and get hanged (applause)….”

The octogenarian industrialist set the tone from the outset by telling Shah that although the minister may not like it, the industrialist was named “Rahul” by Jawaharlal Nehru. Both names are anathema to the Modi-Shah regime. Bajaj also referred to the phrase “tax terrorism” and said it’s not only that, adding he did not know if the word was right or wrong. Then he made the thinly veiled reference to Chidambaram.

Bajaj said: “It’s not only that Bhagwatji (RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat) says lynching is a foreign word. Lynchings happen in the West… minor points maybe, but it creates a hawa. A hawa of intolerance. We are afraid. It is our fault that we are, but there are some things I did not want to say, we see that someone has not even been convicted, not become a convict, not rape, not treason, not murder, white collar crime, very bad, pickpocket, all right, a matter of thousands of crores, yes that is wrong, but without being convicted someone is in jail for 100 days. I am not supporting anybody. I don’t even know the person except hello-hello. In 40-50 years, I have never met any minister in office or at home, Piyush (minister Piyush Goyal who was present) will agree with that because I know him very well. Never asked anything….”

In his opening remarks, Bajaj had said: “I was born anti-establishment, UPA or anybody else. My concern is minor things…. Today anybody can be called a patriot, you know the man who shot Gandhiji, or is there any doubt about that, I don’t know. This was said earlier, you gave the ticket, she won, that’s all right, she won because of your support, no one knew her. Gave her a ticket, then you brought her into the consultative committee. The Prime Minister had said that it would be difficult for him to forgive her, still you brought her into the consultative committee etc. etc. All right, she was removed, and for this session, this small session, she won’t have the permission to attend. This is one example.”

At the outset, Bajaj had said: “I have to wrongly or rightly maintained my reputation, it’s very difficult for me to praise anybody. I was not born that way and I have to be supportive of the poor, of the disadvantaged. My grandfather was supposed to be the adopted son of Mahatma Gandhi. My name, you will not like it, my name Rahul was given to me by Jawaharlalji.” (laughter)

Bajaj did live up to his reputation. Responding to Bajaj, Shah said: “After your question, I don’t think anyone will believe that anyone is afraid. In truth, Bajaj sahab, a hawa has been created. As soon as Pragyaji’s statement came, immediately senior BJP leaders have criticised it and have taken steps, and later she has apologised in Parliament. Actually, there is confusion, whether she was saying about Udham Singhji or Godse, we could not tell because both were named in Raja’s (DMK member A. Raja who was interrupted by Thakur) statement together. But the BJP does not support any such statement, we strongly condemn it and there is no hesitation in saying so.”

“Today anybody can be called a patriot, you know the man who shot Gandhiji, or is there any doubt about that, I don’t know. This was said earlier, you gave the ticket, she won, that’s all right, she won because of your support, no one knew her. Gave her a ticket, then you brought her into the consultative committee. The Prime Minister had said that it would be difficult for him to forgive her, still you brought her into the consultative committee etc. etc. All right, she was removed, and for this session, this small session, she won’t have the permission to attend. This is one example,” the industrialist said.

The home minister was compelled to respond. Shah referred to the mention of apprehension, saying: “About fear, I only say that no one needs to fear. Papers have written a lot about Narendra Modi, people are still writing…. We have been the most written against but still, as you are saying, an atmosphere has been created, we too will have to make an effort to improve it, but I want to say that no one needs to be afraid. People do speak, on affidavit and in Parliament. Nor does anyone want to scare.

“Nor have we done anything whose criticism the government needs to worry about. The government has been run most transparently, we are not afraid of any opposition and if anyone criticises, then going by its merits, we will try to improve.”Shah added: “As far as lynching is concerned, I can only say that lynchings happened earlier and they happen today, perhaps fewer than before. But this is not correct that no one has been convicted, many have been convicted and sentenced, but it does not appear in the media….”

“But even then, if you say that there is a certain kind of atmosphere, we will have to make efforts to improve the atmosphere. But I would like to say that there is no need for anybody to fear… No one wants to scare… and we have done nothing to be concerned about any criticism… The government has run in the most transparent way, and we have no fear of any kind of opposition, and if anyone does criticise, we will look at the merit of the same and make efforts to improve ourselves (Magar phir bhi aap jo keh rahe hain ki ek atmosphere banaa hai, hamein bhi atmosphere ko sudhaarne ka prayaas karna padega… but main itna zaroor kehna chaahta hoon ki kissi ko darne ki koi zaroorat nahi hai… Na koi daraana chaahta hai… Na kuchh aisa karaa hai jiske khilaaf koi bole to sarkar ko chinta hai… Most transparent way mein ye government chali hai, aur hamein kissi bhi prakaar ke virodh ka koi dar nahin hai, aur koi [virodh] karega bhi to uske merits dekh kar hum apne aap ko improve karne ka prayaas karenge),” he said.

On the issue of Pragya Thakur, the home minister noted that neither the BJP nor the Centre supported any of her statements on Godse and that they indeed condemned it. Shah was also quick to add that there may have been some confusion over whether the Bhopal legislator had meant Godse or revolutionary Udham Singh.

Others from corporate India have ventured to make criticism. Anand Mahindra, also CEO of Mahindras is one such, be it the lynchings or Pragya Thakur’s remarks. Here is one of his tweets:

If there’s one thing that worries me about the future, it is dictatorship by mobs…Not too long from now, we will have the largest population in the world & our Demographic Dividend has a flip side that is Disastrous. Quelling these mobs has to be non-negotiable.. https://t.co/Uw7WBR6lXv

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) August 10, 2018

Bajaj, a diehard critique

Though the sangh brigade  on twitter was intolerant as expected of Bajaj’s remarks, accusing him even of being a Congress stooge, the fact remains that Bajaj has always been a critique as he was also of UPA II in 2013. That time, the Bajaj Auto Chairman, Rahul Bajaj has hit out at the government, blaming it for the slowdown in the economy, while predicting that it will be a “very tough” year for the domestic motorcycle segment this fiscal.

In his letter to shareholders in the company’s annual report for 2012-13, Bajaj said despite growing at over 9 per cent for three successive years under the first Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, India failed to “create the necessary infrastructure and investments to maintain healthy growth in difficult times”.

“Instead of focusing on highways, power, rail, ports and IT networks that are critical for sustained growth, we steadily raised the nation’s fiscal deficit to finance consumption-based subsidies and handouts,” he said.

Corporate India and Modi

The anti-Muslim genocidal carnage in Gujarat in February and March 2002 had left the nation aghast. Like all others, business leaders also gave vent to their anger. Deepak Parekh said India’s image as a secular country was damaged. NR Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji condemned the violence. At a Confederation of Indian Industry, or CII, event in April that year, Anu Aga (of Thermax) had received a standing ovation when she gave an impassioned speech on Gujarat. The accusation was that Modi did little to stop the rioteers.

What is a government elected for? If they can’t protect innocent lives… then they should go. Which kind of government allows the killing of women and children? With due respect, I think the home minister and even the Prime Minister should take their share of blame. It’s a national failure. Riots have damaged India’s reputation more in the international forum than what is happening in Pakistan. Do we need to always sabotage our own chances of growth and international goodwill?

Indian corporates must come out in re-building Gujarat. The way we have done after the Bhuj earthquake. We can open community centres, (re)build burnt-down houses and educate children who have been orphaned. We at HDFC will certainly do our bit.”
— Deepak Parekh, chairman, HDFC.

Gujarat’s image as a progressive state has taken a beating because of the recent communal riots. Don’t underestimate the homework that multination companies (MNCs) do on their potential investment destinations, especially in terms of the city risk. They will not set up operations in Ahmedabad or Gujarat because the risk is too high.”
— Azim Premji, WIPRO chief, at IIM Ahmedabad.

Are we ostriches burying our heads in the sand? We frown upon inter-religious marriages but rape women; talk of vegetarianism and don’t even spare children. Such barbaric acts by a few destroy the country’s image. What’s more frightening is educated people justifying violence.’’
 Anu Aga, chairperson, Thermax Ltd. and chairperson, CII, Western Region .

 As the genocide spread from Ahmedabad to other cities and the countryside, a systematic attempt could be seen to target and destroy the economic base of the Muslim community.”
— Cyrus Guzder, CMD Air Freight, Is Secularism Good for Business? Speaking at CII, Ahmedabad.

(Source: Communalism Combat, March-April 2002

In February 2003, CII held a session at New Delhi for its members to interact with Modi. On the stage with Modi were Rahul Bajaj, Jamshyd Godrej and Tarun Das (then director-general of CII). The businessmen were unrelenting and Modi got incensed. A CII functionary who was closely involved with the event says the speakers chosen for the day (read Bajaj) were men who couldn’t have been controlled. Thereafter, almost 100 CII members from Gujarat threatened to quit over the incident. A handful of Gujarat businessmen known to be close to Modi – Gautam Adani, Karsan Patel (Nirma) and Anil Bakeri (Bakeri Engineers) – set up a rival organisation called the Resurgent Group of Gujarat. And in Delhi, CII saw its access to the BJP-led government curtailed. This was blunting CII’s edge in its core business of lobbying. When Das approached Arun Jaitley, then law minister, he agreed to broker peace – but CII would have to formally apologise. The letter was sent.

The next year, Modi agreed to attend another CII function in Delhi. All went well till a glitch was discovered: the television channels were playing tapes of last year’s acrimonious meeting. “Modi was livid,” recalls the man who had to bear the full brunt of his verbal volley.

However the turning point came in October 2008 with the Tatas coming in publicly in Modi’s support. Tata Motors’ factory to make the Nano at Singur in West Bengal had run into Mamata Banerjee. Exasperated, Ratan Tata, who was steering the group at that time, had said that he was prepared to relocate the factory. It was a prestigious project; many chief ministers activated their bureaucrats to grab it: Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The race was won by Modi, with his then mentor, LK Advani persuading then chief minister of Uttarakhand, Khanduri to sacrifice the prestige of having a Tata manufacturing show, since “Modi needed the inject of respectability.”

The site chosen was Sanand, near Ahmedabad. Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, in their book Nanovation, say the memorandum of understanding for the factory was inked within 96 hours of Tata’s announcement to quit Singur. Tata would later remark: “Usually, a state takes 90 to 180 days for land and other clearances. Gujarat took just three days. It has never happened before.” He then called Modi the “good M” and his Singur tormentor the “bad M”. Modi’s detractors and Tata Motors’ rivals insist that Gujarat gave tax sops worth thousands of crores to get the project. A Gujarat government officer discloses that apart from waiving off the stamp duty and registration charges, Tata Motors was granted VAT refund for 20 years (linked to investment). This was done, he says, because Modi knew “it would catapult the state as an investor-friendly destination.”

During the one in January 2009, immediately after the Nano deal was settled, said one report, “Tata drenched the (Gujarat) chief minister in praise”. And by the time Tata finished his speech, he “found himself locked in a hug with Modi who strode across the podium with open arms”. It is worth noting that Tata’s successor, Cyrus Mistry, chose to make his first public appearance at the Vibrant Gujarat summit held in January later at Ahmedabad.

The rest, as they say, is history. Once in the race and then the saddle to become India’s prime minister, corporate India had to bow. As many with others from sports and bollywood, repentance was sought by the Modi.1 regime after ensuring public obeisance to the man who made it, despite his controversial past, as India’s prime minister.

Related:

Shri Azim Premji calls on the Prime Minister

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Image courtesy: wiki optimy

Sporting activity  and  culture have had a long journey. Today sports as before has become an important aspect of life.Governments all over the world have A ministry for  the development and promotion of sports. Sporting activity has received special attention in the last few decades in India.

The sporting activity in the early history were more oriented towards sports that would enable and assist developing war skills. Swimmimg,horse riding, archery wrestling and few others are the remnants of the past era. Today  few of these sports are not as common as cricket and football.
The digital era has introduced online gaming culture which has badly affected the sporting culture among urban children and young adults.

Many counsellors have expressed their concern and are worried about the lack physical activity among present day children.
 

 “The school-going child has a developing body and it requires proper diet and a good amount of time and space to play,” remarked Saumil Majmudar, CEO and Co-founder of EduSports, as reported in The Indian Express.One child in every three was found unable to sprint as they could have at their age.(India Today)

In the fast changing life style and  shrinking spaces in present day residential colonies sporting activity has taken a bad hit. Few decades ago there were enough spaces available for children to play in the open areas that were  available. Increased traffic on roads has also reduced  cycling culture. Today one has to live in an area blessed with a sports ground to be able to fulfill his basic sporting activity for the day. It is mostly true that  generally only a  certain  area in a  taluka  or a district or even  a city is blessed with a sports ground. Urban development authorities have not  paid any attention to the  basic sporting requirements.

This has greatly affected the uniform development of sporting culture across different strata of the society. Games like badminton, tennis, squash,swimming,horse riding and archery to name  a few are beyond the reach of  most  children.

Childhood ,adolescent and young adulthood age are ages of enthusiasm, exploration and energy. Appropriate sporting activity can channelize their energy for their self development and physical strength. Unfortunately lack of opportunities for channelising this youthful energy has led to diversion of the available time towards unproductive and substance abuse. Sporting activity keeps the teenager and young adult  occupied in his leisure time. Hence it is important that we create spaces for basic sporting activity.
 

The latest trend of huge stadiums for corporate sponsored tournaments has led to absence of casual sporting activity.

This bring us to the need to study the influence of corporate bodies in converting sporting activity into a lucrative business option. Big corporate without investing in sporting infrastructure have been able to change the nature of our approach to sports. Today sports as physical activity for physical development and good health has disappeared and material oriented sporting careers has got a tremendous boost. The popularity of sports like cricket and football has created larger then life sporting heroes. The corporates have seized the opportunity and used such sporting heroes as their brand ambassadors.  So we often find our sporting heroes endorsing various brands. Two sporting heroes who advertise for two different brands of  alcohol in India we’re in news for the wrong reasons.

In an advertisement of a brand that Dhoni endorses was making fun of Harbhajan  so his mother was offended. And the Guardian reported this offence taken by his mother . “.Harbhajan Singh’s mother demands immediate withdrawal of TV ad featuring Mahendra Singh Dhoni, saying it insults her son” And the same article says ,”an advert for Royal Stag Mega Cricket equipment showed Harbhajan, a Sikh, at a ball-bearing factory in the Punjab with his papaji (father). The ad ends with the Royal Stag whisky slogan: “It’s your life, make it large.” Sadly the parents were not offended that their son was promoting an alcohol brand.

The money involved is so lucrative that most sporting heroes have readily accepted surrogate advertisements for alcohol companies and other beverages. The scantily clad cheer girls in the sidelines  reminds one of the sexual objectification of women and yet not many feminist have found any issues with it. An article published in daily Sabah  in 2018 reports ,” When the most glamorous sport in the world, Formula One, decided to ban the use of beautiful models at their events starting with the Australian Grand Prix in March earlier this year, the hope was that other sports would follow suit”.

Judging by the increasing use of nubile young girls as cheerleaders at international rugby and cricket events, just to use two examples of several others, this is clearly not the case.

Last month for instance, they were out in force at the T20 Cricket final of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Very  few sporting personalities can be introduced as idols for young children because of their on -field and off-field behaviour.  The material orientation of sports has led to the diminishing number of sports personalities who stand up for justice except a few. The likes of sporting legend Muhammad Ali are rare today. Any opinion contrary to the ruling dispensation by the sporting icons  can lead to loss of contracts.
 

Likes of Mohammed Ali used to be role models earlier
 

The change is sporting culture from casual and fun sports  to extreme competitive and career   sports  has seriously affected our society. Coaches in Ireland who train children have faced complaints from parents  and it was reported in Irish times in the  following words“Over-competition in sport is problematic for children’s mental health. Some competition is fine to keep them focused, but too much is a problem. It’s bad for the less athletic kids because they feel bad [or feel] they may be letting the team down, and rejected if they are dropped. But it’s also a problem for the high-achievers who can become anxious about their performance.
 

“To make the most of the enduring mental health benefits from sport, it should be about enjoyment and passion, physical exercise, learning new skills, socialising, and working together at shared tasks.
 

Spectator sports has changed the economics of sports. Today sporting boards have become the  focus of corruption scandals and shady dealings.
 

Take the excerpts from the article  Fighting sports corruption in India: A review of the National Sports Ethics Commission Bill 2016 by Nandan Kamath
 

 “The brand value of the IPL was estimated to be US$3.5 billion in 2015 by American Appraisal, a Division of Duff & Phelps. According to the BCCI, the 2015 IPL season contributed Rs.1,150 crore (~US$ 170 million) to the gross domestic product of the Indian economy.
 

The increase in private investment in sport, combined with the resulting appreciation of the importance of public trust in authenticity of results, has brought the issue of participant-integrity to the forefront of legal discourse. Indian sport is no stranger to challenges of integrity. Match fixing, event manipulation and illegal betting have shaken the country’s primary sport, cricket, more than once in the last two decades. Combine the issue of fixing with age fraud, doping and sexual harassment and we have a quartet of familiar faces that are making their presence felt not only nationally but also internationally”

The competitive nature has introduced  the culture of doping. Hardly any sports is free of doping scandals. The sportstar reported ” Rising cases of doping by athletes, shockingly by even juniors in the Khelo India Games, has once again put the focus back on this menace. The sports fraternity is appalled at the cases where athletes have been assisted by coaches in order to enhance their performance by using banned drugs.”
 

The lucrative advertisement  contracts and the need to be on top has forced many to be dishonest in sports.
 

Diminishing sporting spirit and dishonesty at all levels of sporting activity among players and sporting institutions and organisations have unfortunately stained the  Indian sports  scenario.  These trends are a cause to worry. Behind the glamour of award functions and medals tally is hid a plethora of issues. Scratch the surface to know the underbelly of sporting world.
 

The Impact of  the  advertisement contract clause  especially of female where their choice of outfit is strictly monitored to keep it “appealing “to the audience has adverse effect on young girls who want to pursue sports but  the rigid rules of women’s clothing for sports debars any girl who desires to avoid wearing scanty clothes. Himani Kamra, a Delhi University graduate, who wants people to focus on the sport and the talent of the player rather than on applying social corrective measures on their sports attire. When asked if she agreed with the recently issued guidelines by LPGA, here’s what she had to say, “Well, of course, I don’t agree with it. They can wear whatever they want, they are there (on the field) to play, to showcase their talent, to utilize their skills in sports then why does it matter if they wear a short skirt or track pants? It’s ridiculous and totally unnecessary.”
 

National level medalist, Gurmanprit Kaur says, “Nobody likes to show their skin or compete in how short a dress they can wear. It is just what gives them confidence and what they feel comfortable in. They wear while playing to put their best foot forward.”(Shethepeople. TV)

When the objective of sporting activity is now  to  earn profits the rigidity of the rules and regulations has increased with many sporting boards specifying a unnatural  clothing code and refusing   to be accomadating of the choice of the women either way.  Many families  who value dignity of appearance refuse to encourage sports among girls for schools too demand to follow the unreasonable dress code. Many schools and clubs  refuse  students the opportunity to compete in sporting events who ask for a modest clothing to play. One of the  key finding of a survey conducted by  Youth Sports Trust in UK called  Girls Active Survey  was that girls did not like to be watched at while playing. The physical and emotional  nature of men and women differ  but the recent push for extreme physical sports among women will soon have it’s ramifications and the pressure will adversely affect the lives of young girls and women. Many cases of male coaches abusing young girls have surfaced regularly and alarmingly.

The total takeover of sports by corporates and turning it into a spectator orientated entertainment has been to the liking of the government’s. This has helped to keep the masses pre- occupied with sporting events  and distracted from the real issues facing the governance and they get a public that does not ask the right  questions.

The  authorities and the civil society needs to start an alternate sporting culture. A sporting culture that is free of corporate greed and is  local community oriented. One bright example that comes close is  the community oriented sports practiced in  few villages in Goa. Where each village organises sports activity  and tournaments on occasions ,involving  all the different age groups and sports. Sports should be  encouraged at  all levels   and be free of corporate pressure.

The sports authorities and schools  should invest in creating spaces for affordable sporting activity. The pressure of succeeding at any cost should be divorced from sporting activity. Sports has to be oriented with the greater goals  of life. Hence honesty,truthfulness and human brotherhood needs to promoted. The best example of  defeating racism ,regionalism and hate crimes  is a study by Stanford  University  which states  that after the  famous Egyptian footballer started playing for Liverpool  hate crimes reduced by 19% and online negative comments  against Muslims  reduced by 50%. We need more such sporting heroes and exchange to build bridges of understanding between continents, nations and communities.

Sports  has the potential to unite people but if politicians choose to play political sports in sporting arena then there is much to worry about.
 

Asif Husain is a Vasco Goa based social activist, attached  with  board of innovative education

Courtesy: Two Circle

The post Playing for Corporates appeared first on SabrangIndia.

During its first term at the Centre, the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government provided tax exemptions to corporate entities amounting to a whopping Rs. 4.32 lakh crore, according to Budget documents of various years. The amount of concessions increased every year from Rs. 65,067 crore in 2014-15 to about Rs.1.09 lakh crore in its last year, 2018-19. On an average, these concessions amounted to about 7.6% of the net tax revenue of the central government.

To see the scale of these concessions in perspective, have a look at what the government has been spending on different schemes and programmes that are meant to provide relief to people or uphold their welfare. The rural jobs guarantee scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) has been allocated Rs. 60,000 crore for 2019-20, mid-day meal scheme has been given Rs. 11,000 crore, anganwadi services (under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme) has got Rs. 23,234 crore, etc.

In fact, the amount allocated to various key departments this year is less than the amount of concessions given to corporates: department of health and family welfare is planning to spend Rs. 62,659 crore; department of school and literacy, Rs. 56,537 crore; department of higher education, Rs. 38,317 crore; department of drinking water and sanitation, Rs. 20,016 crore, and so on.

What are these exemptions? In a statement which is included as an annexure to the receipt budget, these tax concessions are defined by the government as “an indirect subsidy to preferred tax payers”. The government has been calling them “tax incentives” or “tax expenditures” since 2015-16, although earlier they were called “revenue foregone”, that is, potential revenue of the government which was foregone or not received by giving the concessions. Arguing that these concessions “could be seen as targeted expenditure for the promotion of certain sectors”, it is believed by the mandarins of finance ministry that giving such concessions could help generate employment or economic development.

The statement giving details of these and other tax exemptions (like those to individuals under income tax rebates or waivers, or to charities and religious trusts) provides a list of corporate concessions. This includes concessions given to units operating in Special Economic Zones (SEZ), those involved in key industries like power, minerals and natural gas, housing, and even to offshore banking units and ‘international financial centres’.

The trend of giving exemptions from taxes was not started by the BJP government. It has been going on forever. People became aware of its exact scale only since 2006-07, when a statement was included in the Budget. Under the UPA too, such exemptions were given. In UPA 2, the total amount of such tax exemptions was about Rs. 3.52 lakh crore. Clearly, the Modi government has not just continued with the policy but done so with greater enthusiasm, increasing the waivers by over 22%.

These tax exemptions to corporates underline the hollowness of repeated claims made by the government that it has limited resources to deal with various needs. It has been said that increasing resort to private investment (or Public-private Partnership) has to be made in order to fund various essential services. This argument comes up when it is pointed out that education or health infrastructure needs more funding, or that railways needs more capital investment or that farmers need irrigation systems based on surface water through canals.

Yet the government is willing to exempt a huge slice of taxes that could be levied on corporates. The argument that this would encourage the corporate entities to invest more, leading to more employment and output has fallen flat on the face because in the past five years, private investment in productive capacities is stagnating, not growing. All the concessions given to corporates have only helped boost their profit margins rather than employment or capacities.

In short, the concessions or exemptions to corporates are simply the central government’s way of helping the social segment that it represents.

Courtesy: News Click

The post During Modi 1.0, Over Rs. 4.3 Lakh Crore Worth of Tax Concessions Given to Corporates appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Pixabay/Image used for representational purpose only

The court asked the state governments to file affidavits by July 12, 2019.

The language used is not only harsh but is constructed to read as if the ‘rejected’ claims of forest dwellers and Adivasis are that of ‘encroachers’. This is because the Central government, who should have defended the law, remained conspicuously silent on the issue thus endangering the lives and livelihood of over two million Adivasis and other forest dwellers. The court, with its own pre-conceptions and deliberately un-aided by a Government that has made no secret of its brazen tilt towards crony capital, had perhaps already reached the conclusion that all the Adivasis are encroachers and must be evicted.

The Forest Rights Act 2007 came into effect after decades long campaigns and struggles of organisations and activists. These campaigns were geared to undo the historical wrongs perpetuated on the Adivasi and other forest dwelling communities predominantly Dalits, nomads and pastoralists.

It is a well-known fact that Forest Departments in the states (during and after colonial power and rule) and the environmental lobby has been creating huge obstacles towards the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, which came into being after massive public efforts as well as pressure from the Adivasi organisations who faced the brutality of the police and administration as most of the time they have been declared encroachers in their own land.
 

World over, institutions and governments have realized that the best way to protect the pending climate crisis is to allow the indigenous communities to live their way and follow the same pattern to protect our wild life and environment. 

The problem was not merely rejection of claims under the flimsy ground but deliberate attempts to deny people rights over individually held land. It is not as if poor are running from urban areas to forest areas to get the land. This law has recognised centuries old claims over those who have nurtured land, carried out cultivation and preserved forests. The law was enacted not only to provide justice to the Adivasis, of technically, what we call, Scheduled Tribes but also to other forest dwellers and forest peoples. The law recognises that forests are preserved by these communities.

Background:
The present case was related to the order of a three judge bench headed by Justice Madan Lokur, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Deepak Gupta, on March 7, 2018. The court made certain observation related to a previous order suggesting that enough time has lapsed and a fresh directive order was needed. It was in this context that the state was asked to file an affidavit in a specified time period.
The issues before the court were:

1. Immediate removal of ‘forest dwellers’ who they termed as ‘encroachers’. The entire premise is that due to FRA-2006, a huge number of bogus claims have been applied for and therefore they need to be ejected out of the forest zones.
2. The challenge to the Forest Rights Act 2006, suggesting that Indian Forest Act and Wild Life Protection Act provide enough protection to forest dwellers and that the spirit of the Forest Right act actually violate the Forest laws and its management.
3. Recognition of the Rights should only be decided by the officials and Gram Sabha must not have any power as it is an unskilled body.

Who should have been the petitioners in this case?
Which are the forces determined to destroy the peace and tranquility on our forest zones and who feel that the Adivasis are the threat to our environment and ecology?
 World over, institutions and governments have realized that the best way to protect the pending climate crisis is to allow the indigenous communities to live their way and follow the same pattern to protect our wild life and environment. 

But here in India, there are former forest Officials, ex zamindars and a few wild life organisations who rarely raised voices against the ecological damage caused by large resorts and eco-tourism being promoted in these forest zones by large corporations but want to get the Adivasis declared as encroachers in their own land.

Here are portions of the text of the Supreme Court order dated March 7, 2018:
“We have been informed that most State Governments have filed affidavits in compliance with the order of 29.01.2016 but some ofthem have not filed any affidavit of compliance. Be that as itmay, whatever information has been supplied pursuant to our orderdated 29.01.2016 is about two years old. This outdated informationmay not assist us in disposal of the present batch of writ petitions and transferred cases.
 

But here in India, there are former forest Officials, ex zamindars and a few wild life organisations who rarely raised voices against the ecological damage caused by large resorts and eco-tourism being promoted in these forest zones by large corporations but want to get the Adivasis declared as encroachers in their own land.

Under the circumstances, we issue a fresh direction to all theState Governments to file a tabular statement in the form of anaffidavit indicating the following:-
(i) The number of claims for the grant of land under theprovisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional ForestDwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006;
(ii) The claims should be divided into claims made by the ScheduledTribes and separately by other traditional forest dwellers;
(iii) The number of claims rejected by the State Government inrespect of each category;
(iv) The extent of land over which such claims were made andrejected in respect of each of the two categories;
(v) Action taken against those claimants whose claims have beenrejected;
(vi) The status of eviction of those claimants whose claims havebeen rejected and the total extent of area from which they havebeen evicted;
(vii) The extent of the area in respect of which eviction has notyet taken place in respect of rejected claims.
 
The cut-off date for providing this information is 31.12.2017.
 
There is no dearth of lawyers to fight the cases for ‘environment’ and wild life which can be seen in the list of lawyers appearing on behalf of the wild life organisations. It also shows how powerful these organisations are in terms of money, social capital and influence.

Shockingly, there was no representation from the Central government and the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Minstry of Tribal Affairs or National Commission for Scheduled Tribes. A moot question is why the Centre’s conspicuous absence was neither noticed nor commented upon by the court? Was any notice was issued to Central Ministry given that the statute under judicial axe was one passed by Parliament ?

In its order the Judges observed that the ‘learned counsel’ for the petitioner challenged the constitutional validity of the Forest Rights Act and Parliament’s authority to enact a law.
Should not then the judges give notice to the MoEF or the Central government to explain thing.

Is this not it justice denied to India’s 104 million Adivasis.

Can the obvious ‘lapse’ on the part of the government be condoned ?

Was it part of a deliberate attempt to allow the Act to be declared invalid by the court?

If notice was issued to the Central government and it did not appear then the Court’s should have taken the Government to task. Instead the Supreme Court has ‘benignly ignored this ‘absence.’
There was absolutely no effort by the Central government or various concerned Ministries and institutions to intervene pro-actively or positively on this issue and defend a legislation that came into being after years of struggle by Adivasis and indigenous people. It clearly appears that the government is deliberately interested in getting the FRA defunct so that its own agenda to promote corporatization of the forest is fulfilled.

The Supreme Court in its hearing on February 13, 2019 actually did not order anything new. It has simply passed a directive based on the affidavits filed by the states. The Supreme Court has not questioned the states about the stand taken by them especially since many of the stances by the states are ambiguous. Moreover, the court did not bother to demand the active presence and stand, in Court of both the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest or Ministry of Tribal Affairs in this regard.

How is it possible that hundreds of thousands of Indians who will be adversely affected by this Supreme Court directive do not get any opportunity to be heard? This violates all settled norms of jurisprudence.
 
Status of Implementation of FRA
An updated status of State-wise implementation of the Act as per the information collected till  March 31, 2017:

• 41,69,982 claims (40,31,557 individual and1,38,425 community claims) have been filed and 17,91,706  titles (17,28,817 individual and 62,889 community claims) have been distributed.
• A total of 36,38,234 (87.25%) claims have been disposed of as per the Ministry of Tribal Affairs website. This in the opinion of human rights groups are incorrect figures as most of the state were unable to give correct figures.
• According to a report in the Business Standard the total number of claims rejected are 1.89 millions or simply around 19 lakh people. It means that these families will have to be ‘evicted’ from their places as per the Supreme Court order.

 
This is data only based on those who have filed claims under the Forest Rights Act.

In my opinion the number can be far higher.

One, if the Supreme Court order is implemented at all, it is gives a ‘licence’ to Forest Officials to dislocate the Adivasis and other Forest Dwelling communities. The issues are not merely those related to FRA but there are other issues when the Forest Department have not acknowledged the land titles given by the revenue department to people living in villages. This is another crisis which has been deliberately kept alive by the Central government and state governments.

In Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region and Madhya Pradesh, this has resulted in a huge crisis because the land titles given to Adivasis and other dwellers many years ago have been rejected by the forest bureaucracy, who claim the land belong to them. Now, between the two departments, it is the rural poor and predominantly the Dalit, Adivasi, OBC who are facing the threat of eviction. The Supreme Court Order, in effet gives officials the handle to exploit people living there.
 

It is time that the Supreme Court and High Courts must fix up specific benches to deal with the issues of Dalits and Adivasis. Judges who are appointed in general and to hear these cases must have a record and established understanding of these issues.

There are other issues too. India has deliberately denied many communities their ‘Adivasi’ status. Constitutionally, Adivasis are referred as Scheduled Tribe and not as Indigenous people even when India has ratified  UN Declaration on Indigenous People’s Rights which remain ‘unimplementable’ in the absence of a clear guideline and identification of communities. The fact is that in all our political and social parlance, Adivasis are known as Indigenous people but we do not want to accept it legally because it will create ‘hurdles’ for the cronies who want to suck our vast natural resources for their private profit.

The fact is that while the data compiled by Ministry of Tribal Affairs is actually based on the application for claims and their subsequent rejection(s), the Ministry itself has accepted that in many states the process has not even started. In almost all the states, the process has been deliberately delayed by the forest departments. Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar have shown the least respect for bringing peoples within the ambit of Forest Rights Act, 2007.

A report about the FRA implementation in the environmental magazine, Down to Earth says, ‘“Latest data compiled by MoTA on the implementation of FRA till November 30, 2018, shows that there have been more claims rejected than the number of claims for which title deed distributed. Of the approximately 42.24 lakh claims — both, individual and community-filed — so far, around 18.94 claims have been given title deeds, while around 19.39 claims have been rejected.” 
 
Diversion of Forest Land and dilution of laws to enable the private corporations to exploit it
What is happening today in the country can be understood as how the government is diversifying the forest land. Apart from the crony wild life groups that care little for human lives, there are others who are jumping in the bandwagon of agro forestry and afforestation process as if the entire thing cannot happen with the support and participation of the communities living there for centuries.
 
After the Modi government assumed power, it has diluted the norms to allow the forest land diverted for commercial use for the profiteering of the crony companies. The Forest Rights Act section 12 gives Gram Sabhas powers to reject the suggestions and recommendations of ‘expert’ ‘committees’ but in the ‘rejection’ of the claims, it is the dominance of the Forest Bureaucracy which has dominated the events but still the petitioners in the Supreme Court insist removal of this power of Gram Sabha as if they don’t know the issue.
 
The fact is that in the past four years, it is powerful corporations who have opposed the ‘consent’ clause  of the communities for Land Acquisition for which the government went out of its way to bring out ‘ordinances’ despite its failure to get these passed in the Rajya Sahba on several occasions. A  similar thing is happening now especially this so called pro-environmental lobby that has never ever challenged, in court, the hundreds of acres of forest land being diverted for mining and other non-forest purposes. The forest range for Adivasis and other communities is shrinking as while the government continue to give land to companies as well as for Wild Life Sanctuaries, Tiger Reserves which are being exploited by the ‘Eco-tourists’. There is a deafening silence on the impact of these on our forests.

A detailed report of how Forest Land has been diverted for the non-forest purposes was tabled in Parliament in December 2018. ‘ “According to the official data revealed by the National Democratic Alliance government in Parliament in December 2018, a total of 20,314.12 hectares of forest land (almost the size of Kolkata) was diverted in three years 2015-2018 (till December 13, 2018). During this period, the ministry had received a total of 4,552 proposals and of those 1,280 (28.11%) got approved.According to information revealed in the Parliament, Telangana topped the list with 5,137.38 hectares of forest land diverted, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 4,093.38 hectares and Odisha with 3,386.67 hectares of forest area diverted. The three states together account for over 62% (12,617.43 hectares) of the total forest land diverted during the said three-year period.With close to 70.82 million hectares of forest area, about 21.54% of India’s land is under forest cover.According to another set of data of the environment ministry, since the enactment of the Forest Conservation Act 1980, nearly four decades ago, a total of about 1.51 million hectares has been diverted for 27,144 projects. To put it in perspective, it means forest land equivalent to over ten times the size of India’s national capital has been diverted in the last four decades for various kind of developmental projects.”

Role of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and National Commission for Scheduled Tribes
There are about 617 Protected Areas including 50 Tiger Reserves in India as per the information available and ironically more than 70% is invested in Tiger preservation while the rest of the 567  protected areas are getting a a meagre 30% of the total budget allocated for the purpose.

In February 2018, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribe wrote a letter to Ministry of Environment and Forest stating that any displacement of tribal from Protected Zones and Tiger Reserves under the Wild Life Act, violate the Forest Rights Acts and rights of the communities living there and must be stopped unless a fair compensation of Rupees Twenty Lakh and four hectare of land is granted prior to the beginning of the project. According to The Economic Times, the Commission had formed a three member committee to look into these particular issues.

We do not know whether this committee ever reported back but given the nature of these commissions post 2014, nothing substantial can be expected from them. Most of the reports and interventions on important Adivasis matters took place before 2013. At the moment, when the Ministry of Environment and Forest has become a facilitator for the big corporate interests. Under these dire circumstances, it was the duty of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to have intervened in the cases but nothing but silence has been forthcoming. The National Commission for Scheduled Tribe too remained quiet.

Now the situation is serious. There is a need for immediate intervention. The question is will the Supreme Court intervene and commit a crucial issue to a larger bench ?

Need a White Paper on Adivasis of India
The fact is that the number of Adivasis dislocated from their natural habitat because of various developmental and other projects is estimated to be around 11.5 million for the period between 1950 to 1990. This is a pretty moderate estimate. The situation is much worse now in the aftermath of the globalization and economic liberalization process hence a white paper on Adivasis is now required which can give the whole picture of how much we have protected their rights or betrayed them. Post 1990s when India embraced the ‘liberal’ economic policies that had nothing liberal but more greed of the corporate sector to grab the vast natural resources so well protected by the Adivasis and other forest dwelling communities.

Big dams, wild life, Protected Zones, Tiger Projects, Mining, Eco Zones have been the ‘new developmental’ module for the 21^stcentury India which are necessarily made on the destruction of the adivasi culture and life. This has created an enormous crisis of civilization when indigenous resistance is being criminalized and plunder of these regions have been legalized.

Protests by the Adivasis against their displacement without any honorable rehabilitation has been resisted by the states who have bent their rules to benefit the crony corporate. Laws have been changed, altered and diluted in states like Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh and Odisha to enable these companies to easily acquire land despite people’s protest. Besides, Adivasis zones have been militarized and those protesting against this are targeted and criminalized. The number of Adivasis in Indian jails is substantially high and they have been languishing for a long period.
 

Will the courts take the political leadership to task for failing in its duty to protect the rights of India’s indigenous people in need of support and justice from the institutions and the state? 

Political participation of the community has been nominal and now even the affirmative action (‘reservation’) meant for them in the government services along with the scheduled castes has been under attack (13 Point Roster System by MHRD is just one example). The tribal population in India is about 104 million as per 2011 census which is 8.6% of our total population but their percentage in the government services remain far below this percentage. With the 10% quota for the upper caste ‘poor’ and a new system of appointment in the academic institutions and universities, the savarna (Brahmanical) leaders of India have ensured that the percentage of Adivasis dips further in all our representative bodies and institutions. The Courts in India have not brought themselves any glory on issues related to the rights of Dalits and Adivasis, especially in the more recent past.  The singular bias of the Court is apparent, whether this is on the question of affirmative action or reservations in particular, the view of the Court on the SC/ST Atrocities Act, or on the issue of rights and access to land and other natural resources.

The fact is that the Scheduled Tribes in India are entitled to rights and benefits in tune with the UN Declaration on Indigenous People’s Rights. This despite the fact that the Government of India did not, at the time, accept, that there are any particular communities who may be called ‘indigenous’ who existed in India. This is and was definitely a deliberate ploy to deny Adivasis their legitimate rights over the forest and other natural resources. The UNDIPR gives indigenous people autonomy on their land which is resisted by most of the governments but it has been explained in the documents that the ‘sovereignty ’ issue not meant as ceding from the nation state but honoring indigenous people’s autonomy within the nation state.

It is time that the Supreme Court and High Courts must fix up specific benches to deal with the issues of Dalits and Adivasis. Judges who are appointed in general and to hear these cases must have a record and established understanding of these issues. These issues relate to the wider issue of deepening of our institutions and social justice. the Government cannot allow them to be dealt in the cavalier and casual way that it has done. This has given a free license to corporate sponsored environment lobby to legally destroy the livelihood and culture of the Adivasis who need justice and honor historically denied to them by us.

Will our Courts rise to the occasion to be the Defenders of social justice and human rights of the people or will they simply go by the corporate lobby terming the Adivasis as encroachers in their own land ?

Will the courts take the political leadership to task for failing in its duty to protect the rights of India’s indigenous people in need of support and justice from the institutions and the state? 

An insensitive decision has the potential to result in chaos and anarchy in the hitherto peaceful Adivasi zones which will only be detrimental to the wider national interest.

(The views expressed by the author in this article are personal)
 
 

The post Opinion: Corporate Conservationists use Judicial Process to Annihilate India’s Indigenous People appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delhi: Farm loan waivers by state governments engender heated media debates and thus loom large in public consciousness, while use of government funds to infuse fresh equity into government-owned banks following large defaults by corporate borrowers goes nearly unnoticed.

This is unwarranted, the data show. The scale of the corporate non-performing assets (NPA) problem is of a higher magnitude, and corporate defaults have cost the public exchequer more than farm loan waivers. If recapitalisation of banks is welcomed, a farm loan waiver should be as acceptable.

In the financial year 2017-2018 and to date, 10 state governments have announced farm loan waivers totalling Rs 184,800 crore.

In contrast, the total debt of India’s top 10 corporate borrowers alone was nearly four times that amount, at Rs 731,000 crore as of March 2015, and of the top 12 NPAs nearly twice, at Rs 345,000 crore.

Data show that the percentage of impaired loans in agriculture has been far lower than that in industry.

Expensive for the exchequer
Total gross bank credit (the amount in loans disbursed to companies or individuals from the banking system) was Rs 71.5 lakh crore as of March 2017, and Rs 77 lakh crore as of March 2018, according to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report in December 2018.

Of this, agricultural credit was Rs 10 lakh crore for each period, making up a 13-14% share, on average, in overall bank credit.

Total credit to industry was at Rs 26-27 lakh crore during each period, amounting to a share of 35% in overall bank credit. Within this, loans to large borrowers–who the RBI defines as receiving loans larger than Rs 5 crore–amounted to Rs 22 lakh crore each year.

More specifically, total credit to the top 10 corporate borrowers as of March 2015 was Rs 7 lakh crore, accounting for 10-14% of total bank credit, and 27% of total credit to industry, as per a research report by international financial services company Credit Suisse.

For the same period, the total credit to agricultural and allied activities was Rs 7.7 lakh crore–the entire agriculture sector owed the banking system the same amount borrowed by the top 10 Indian corporate borrowers.

Total gross NPAs in Indian banking were Rs 8 lakh crore and Rs 10.3 lakh crore as of March 2017 and March 2018, respectively, according to RBI data.

The share in NPAs of large borrowers has been increasing over time, with a share in total advances (lending by banks) of 40%, and a share in total stressed assets (including NPAs, restructured loans and assets written-off by banks) of 70% at the end of March 2017.

Share Of Large Borrowers In Total Advances And Indian Banks’ Stressed Assets

Source: Reserve Bank of India, April 2018

Among NPAs in the banking sector, the top 12 which make up approximately 25% of total NPAs were identified and referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (for resolution and recovery) by the RBI in 2017. Of these, four have been resolved within a year with about 52% of their dues recovered. This recovery represents only 14%, or Rs 48,300 crore, of the total Rs 345,000 crore owed from all 12 NPAs. Thus, about Rs 3 lakh crore remains outstanding from just eight corporate NPAs–nearly double the total farm loan waivers announced by the 10 states.
 

Source: Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India Quarterly Newsletter, Oct-Dec 2018

Upon further research, we see that for a group of other large exposures (or total loans to a particular entity, for our purposes defined as higher than Rs 1,000 crore), recovery of dues has been to the extent of 30%.
 

Source: Compiled from Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India Quarterly Newsletters

The amount written off by banks for just five corporate NPAs is thus Rs 11,106 crore–more than the combined farm loan waivers in two states, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

Farm loans for corporate activity in farming sector and to large borrowers
While popular opinion on farm loan waivers vilifies the poor and marginal farmer, small farmers benefit the least from agricultural credit since they borrow largely from informal sources such as moneylenders. Therefore, these farms do not benefit from loan waivers announced by governments that are not applicable to non-formal sources of credit.

Agricultural credit in India is now mainly large-ticket (of larger loan amounts) and goes towards corporate activity in the farm sector, as data show. The share of high-value loans (above Rs 10 lakh) increased from 4.1% in 1990 to 23.8% in 2011 of all ‘direct’ agricultural credit, which goes directly to people/institutions directly involved in farming and allied activities (as opposed to, for instance, funding for further lending by cooperatives or to state electricity boards for provision of electricity to farmers). The share of small loans (Rs 2 lakh) decreased from 92.2% to 48% in the same time period.

Sources: Economic Survey, 2014-15 and Review of Agrarian Studies, Feb-Jun 2014)

The RBI revealed that public sector banks (PSBs) had handed out Rs 58,561 crore to 615 accounts in agricultural loans in the year 2016, in response to a Right to Information application filed by The Wire. This averages out to more than Rs 95 crore in agricultural loans to each account.

It is actually corporate borrowing that has spurred the growth of agricultural credit in India, thanks to the RBI mandate that 40% of banks’ lending (or ‘adjusted net bank credit’) must go to to priority sectors of the economy, with a sub-limit of 18% for agriculture. Strong growth in bank credit to industry and other segments of the economy has, as a by-product, led to the growth of agricultural credit.

Not only is the growth of agricultural credit mainly in the big-ticket segment, two other things stand out: Most agricultural credit is disbursed just before the end of the financial year for banks to meet their priority-sector lending targets–and is as such off-season credit that does not really help farmers–and an increasing and large proportion of agricultural credit is disbursed via bank branches in urban India, according to a paper by R. Ramkumar and Pallavi Chavan published in the Review of Agrarian Studies in 2014. Agriculture-related disbursals for meeting targets, which largely go to corporate activity in the farm sector, do not help the real small farmer.

The increasing and large percentage share of big-ticket loans in agriculture does suggest that the corporatised ‘farmer’ is enjoying the benefits of the way the regulator has incentivised the banking sector. On the other hand, the small and marginalised farmer now depends heavily on non-institutional and expensive forms of credit. As the chart below shows, over-dependence on usurious finance for small/marginal farmers is reflected in the very low (14.9%) share of access to institutional credit of farmers with land holdings smaller than 0.01 hectare.

Why farmers’ situation is more precarious than big businesspersons’
A key underpinning of bankruptcy procedures is the limited liability clause that protects the assets of promoters unless explicitly pledged. Corporate bankruptcy, therefore, is a simultaneous process of cleansing bank balance sheets and a mechanism allowing optimal risk-taking by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can come out of bankruptcies with their personal assets unscathed, whereas a farmer who loses a crop–due to unfavourable weather conditions or a price crash–can lose everything.

A farm loan waiver is a sector-wide extinguishing of loans mandated by the government, usually after an election to fulfill a poll promise, with the exchequer compensating banks. Although corporate NPAs do not normally entail government obligation (unless NPAs originate in public sector banks or are due from public sector corporations), the exchequer gets involved when conditions warrant that the state must indirectly bear the burden of corporate NPAs by infusing funds into banks–as is happening now in India, and happened in the US following the 2008 financial crisis.

Equivalence can also be drawn when the problem of corporate NPAs repeats itself in the same sectors, implying that banks keep lending to the same sectors even in the absence of structural improvements.

Lack of structural changes
Cases in point are persistent problems in the power and infrastructure sectors. We looked at RBI data on segment-wise performance of exposures of banks to address this question. We analyse two time periods: The position as of March 31, 2001 and then the position between the period March 2009 and March 2013. Contributions to total gross NPAs of the banking sector by large industries, medium industries and agriculture as of March 2001 were 21%, 15.8% and 13.3%, respectively.

Source: Muniappan (2002), RBI Deputy Governor at CII Banking Summit 2002 on April 1, 2002
 

Source: Reserve Bank of India

Of the top 10 borrowers in the Indian banking system, even if one excludes Reliance ADAG and Videocon (the latter does have substantial interests in infrastructure and mining), all others have businesses primarily in pure infrastructure and heavy industries.

Next, for industries (overall) and agriculture, we consider the movement in percentage of total impaired asset ratios between 2009 and 2013. Around 10.2% of all loans to industries were impaired in March 2009 and this increased by 5.8 percentage points to 16% by March 2013 (and the position has only worsened after 2013 as shown by the table). For agriculture, 5.4% of exposure of the banking sector was impaired as of March 2009 and this worsened by 2.8 percentage points to 8.2% in March 2013. As is evident from the data, the percentage of impaired assets in agriculture has been far lower than that in industry.

The then RBI Governor, YV Reddy, in a speech delivered at the National Institute of Bank Management, Pune, on January 6, 2004, had acknowledged that banks followed a sort of rule in lending: Small industry loans at 11%, agricultural loans at 10% and industry loans at 7%.
This means that the credit quality (the principal criteria for judging a company’s creditworthiness or risk of default) of large corporate borrowers is not superior to that of agriculture/priority sector lending. Interest rates charged by banks from large corporate borrowers are therefore incommensurate with the risks involved.  

How policy has played a role
Policy has focused on keeping food prices low for consumers through restrictions on farmers and subsidies to consumers. The average yearly revenue lost by Indian farmers between 2014 and 2016 on account of export restrictions, after deducting the subsidies they received, was Rs 1.65 lakh crore, as per the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

This model of development is no longer tenable, many experts and policy-makers concur. First, India can no longer rely only on exports and must ramp up domestic demand to power its growth. And skewing income distribution away from a sector which employs 42% of India’s workforce will not help. Second, cities are unable to manage the influx of refugees from agriculture, so farms have to be made more productive and remunerative. Third, the Swaminathan/National Commission on Farmers report of 2006 clearly states that India’s food security cannot be achieved through imports, thus emphasizing the imperative of a healthy agricultural sector. Finally, from an ethical point of view, taking care of the big farmer who, unlike the corporate promoter, risks losing personal assets in the event of a default, is as important as taking care of the big businessperson.

In sum, structural problems in both the agricultural and corporate sector must be addressed with equal urgency. Empathising with the corporate sector for its woes while deriding the farm sector for its alleged profligacy is a recipe for pitting town versus country in a battle that no one can win.

(Prasad is a professor at Management Development Institute, Gurgaon and author of Blood Red River; Gupta is a banker with an interest in economic development.)

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

Courtesy: India Spend.com

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The existing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), was launched on 1 April 2008 by Ministry of Labour and Employment (since 2015 being administered and implemented by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare) to provide health insurance coverage for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families through a decentralized implementation structure at the state level. It provided for total insurance cover of Rs. 30,000 per family per annum, with cashless attendance to all covered ailments and transportation costs within an overall limit of Rs. 1,000. The insurance cost was to be borne by central and state governments in the ratio of 75:25. It had won plaudits from the World Bank, the UN and the ILO as one of the world’s best health insurance schemes. If this modestly formulated scheme failed in implementation^[1], the far more ambitious AB-NHPS scheme that targets 100 million families with insurance cover of Rs 5 Lakh each, and higher share of states (60:40) without any commensurate infrastructural support naturally creates skepticism.

India’s Healthcare
The public health expenditure in India (total of center and state governments), despite recent increases in allocations, has been little over 1 % of the GDP. It is abysmally low as compared to the world average of 6% and even with our neighboring countries like Maldives (9.4%), Sri Lanka (1.6%), Bhutan (2.5%) and Thailand (2.9%). The National Health Policy (NPH), 2017 aspires to increase it to 2.5% of GDP by 2025, but the fact remains that India has not even met its 2010 target of 2%. India’s total health expenditure of 3.89% as a percentage of GDP also is among the lowest as seen from the Table 2.

Table 1: Total health expenditure as percentage of GDP for select countries

Source: WHO Global Health Expenditure Database (2015)

Even it is lower than the average for Sub-Saharan (5.35%), low income countries (6.02%) and far below that of high income countries (12.38%). Out of the total expenditure, about one-third (30%) is contributed by the public sector, which also is far lower than that for other developing countries (Brazil- 46%, China-56%, Indonesia- 39%) and developed countries (USA- 48%, and UK- 83%). Out of pocket expenditures– the payments made directly by individuals at the point of services which are not covered under any financial protection scheme– dominate to the extent of 95%, balance 5% being insurance.  Table 2 provides distribution of the out of pocket expenditure.

Table 2: Major heads for out of pocket expenditure

Source: Household health expenditure in India (2013-14), December 2016, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

This out of pocket expenditure is typically financed by household revenues (71%), followed by state government (13%), Union government (5%), Other funds (7%) and local body funds (1%). About 86% of rural population and 82% of urban population are not covered under any scheme of health expenditure support. Due to this high out of pocket healthcare expenditure, about 7% population is pushed below the poverty threshold every year.

Modicare and Poor
It is in this context that Modicare will be implemented. The scheme seeks to provide coverage for hospitalization at the secondary (provided at district hospitals) and tertiary levels of healthcare (provided at specialized hospitals like, AIIMS and Apollo, etc.). The need of the poor, however, is to get cost-free access to basic health services. The High Level Expert Group set up by the Planning Commission (2011) had recommended that the focus of healthcare provision in the country should be towards providing primary health care. It had rightly observed that focus on prevention and early management of health problems can reduce the need for complicated specialist care provided at the tertiary level. As such, the priority of the government should have been to create a robust network of primary health centers (PHCs) with reasonable infrastructure in terms of beds, doctors, nursing staff and medicines, and an effective delivery model. In absence of this, the poor has to go to private doctors and purchase costly medicines as prescribed by them. In the urban areas, the General Practitioners (GP) who provided healthcare at nominal cost in neighborhood are vanishing fast and are being replaced by the specialists (MDs) who charge multiples of what a GPs charged for consultation (which invariably included medicine). In rural areas, even where the PHCs are created (like toilet construction under the Swachch Bharat Mission), there are no doctors to man them. Because of the lack of infrastructure, both at the PHC as well as in the village to professionally and personally engage them, the qualified doctors are not ready to work in rural areas. The skewed distribution of doctors in rural and urban areas–74% of doctors for 30% urban population and 28% of doctors for 70 % of rural population indicates this basic malady.

The private sector consists of 58% of the hospitals in the country, 29% of beds in hospitals, and 81% of doctors.[2]According to National Family Health Survey-3, the private medical sector remains the primary source of health care for 70% of households in urban areas and 63% of households in rural areas.[3] The study conducted by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics in 2013, across 12 states in over 14,000 households indicated a stea[4]dy increase in the usage of private healthcare facilities over the last 25 years for both Out-Patient and In-Patient services, across rural and urban areas. Some studies observed that health care providers in the private sector tended to extract more money by making patients stay for longer duration and conduct more diagnostic exams compared to their public counterpart.[5]The thrust of the Modicare on hospitalization does not address the need of the poor whose most out of pocket expenditure (84%) is made up by buying medicines (52%), private hospitals (22%) and diagnostic tests (10%), and not hospitalization. Our own experience with such a scheme revealed that such schemes covered only 4 per cent of illnesses and yet consumed a quarter of the State’s health budget.[6]

Intent versus Actions
The NHP does speak of establishing 1.5 Lakh ‘Health and Wellness Centers’ as the foundation of India’s health system, which is certainly laudable as it will bring healthcare closer to people. They do address real health issues of people. But it got just Rs 1,200 crore in the budget and expected contributions of the private sector through CSR and philanthropic institutions in adopting these centers. This is the fond model of Public Private Partnership that lies behind most of Modi’s public schemes. The NHP may thus be counting on private initiatives as it is not at all reflected in Modi’s budget allocations. The allocation of Rs 52,800 crore for health in 2018-19 was merely 5% higher than the revised estimate of Rs 50,079.6 crore, in 2017-18. It is estimated that to meet the NPH objectives, the governments, both central and state, together should increase their total allocation towards health to Rs 800,000 crore, up from the current Rs 200,000 crore by year 2025, which means the central government health budget alone should increase at least 20 percent year-on-year for the next seven-eight years. There is no evidence of that happening yet.

The same could be said of the AB-NHSP. It is faulted by many public health experts for its underestimation of resources. According to them the actual fund needed might be as high as Rs 2.5-3 lakh crores. Many private hospitals including the Indian Medical Association (IMA) problematizedlow package rates for various procedures and interventions. Even after conceding the volume discounts, the insurance premium estimated by Niti Aayog at Rs 1,000-1,200 per family appears too optimistic when compared to Andhra Pradesh’s existing Rajiv Aarogya Raksha plan, which costs Rs 1,200 per individual for Rs 2 lakh cover for little more than 1,000 diseases. Even taking it valid, the scheme would entail Rs 10-12,000 crore every year as against Rs 3,333 crore provided for. Even factoring in states’ contribution (40%), the allotted fund adds up to only a portion of the required amount. The other imponderable is its assumption that it will subsume existing health schemes of the states. Whether the states will really forsake their political branding of such a pro-people scheme is a vital question that could be answered only by the unfolding politics. 

Like any of Modi schemes, the AB-NHPS may be a good concept but launched without adequate preparation, a la GST. The issues relating to funds may be covered up by the government but how will it create doctors and hospital beds? Modi’s own economic advisor, Bibek Debroy, had sensibly admitted that the scheme would take 20 years to be fully rolled out.[7]There are other issues too– no protection for OPD or medicine expenditure, lack of public health infrastructure, work force, quality, insurance frauds, excessive diagnostics and interventions by private sector, overcharging, etc.—which are hanging without any certain answers.What is certain,however, about the AB-NHPS is that it will channel huge public funds to the private coffers of the insurance companies and private hospital chains, with questionable gains to the target population.

(This article is also being published in the Economic and Political Weekly and is being published here with the permission of the author)

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पूंजीपतियों के इस मेले में आप अकेले घोड़े थे। जिसके बारे में इन धनकुबेरों को विचार करना था। फिर वहीं पर आप के ऊपर दांव लगाने का फैसला हुआ था। उसके बाद से कारपोरेट ने अपनी पूरी तिजोरियां खोल दीं। निजी टीवी चैनलों से लेकर अखबारों और सोशल मीडिया से लेकर अपने निजी तंत्र को आपके हवाले कर दिया। लोकसभा चुनाव के दौरान पांच से लेकर सात चार्टर्ड विमान आपकी सेवा में लगा दिए गए। हेलीकाप्टरों की तो कोई गिनती ही नहीं थी। 

एक विदेशी एजेंसी के अनुमान के मुताबिक 24 हजार करोड़ रुपये आपने पानी की तरह बहाया। क्या ये पैसा बीजेपी के पास जमा था। या फिर संघ ने उसे मुहैया कराया था। या आपके घर-परिवार वालों ने दिया था। जनता के चंदे से तो पार्टी कार्यकर्ताओं का खाना भी नहीं चल पाता। ऐसे में यह मत कहिएगा कि जनता के बल पर चुनाव लड़े।

दरअसल कारपोरेट घरानों ने आपको गोद ले लिया था। क्योंकि उसे लग गया था कि यही वो शख्स है जो उसके लिए सबसे ज्यादा फायदेमंद साबित होगा। अनायास नहीं अपनी पुरानी चहेती पार्टी कांग्रेस की नाव को छोड़कर यह हिस्सा रातों रात आपकी गाड़ी में सवार हो गया। ऐसा नहीं है कि कांग्रेस उनका कोई अनभल कर रही थी। सच यह है कि इस देश को वैश्वीकरण के रास्ते से जोड़ने वाला शख्स ही उसका प्रधानमंत्री था। लिहाजा उस पर भरोसा न करने का कोई कारण नहीं था। 

लेकिन कारपोरेट जितनी तेजी से देश के संसाधनों को लूटना चाहता था। या उस पर काबिज होना चाहता था। कांग्रेस उसके लिए तैयार नहीं थी। क्योंकि उसने मानवीय चेहरे के साथ उदारीकरण के रास्ते पर बढ़ने का फैसला लिया था। जिसके चलते उसे तमाम कल्याणकारी योजनाओं को भी चलाना पड़ रहा था। कारपोरेट जिसके धुर खिलाफ था। क्योंकि बाजार में उसके फलने-फूलने की राह में यही सबसे बड़ी बाधा थी। इसलिए कारपोरेट ने सामूहिक तौर पर आपके साथ जाने का फैसला लिया। क्योंकि उसे पता था कि आप देश के संसाधनों से लेकर पूरे बाजार को उसके हवाले कर देंगे। नीतियां कारपोरेट की होंगी, लागू सरकार करेगी। अनायास नहीं सभी सरकारी संस्थाओं को पंगु बना दिया गया है। बारी-बारी से कल्याणकारी योजनाओं को वापस लिया जा रहा है।

इसलिए मोदी जी बिकाऊ की बात तो दूर आपका तो रोम-रोम कारपोरेट के यहां गिरवी है। और अब आप बारी-बारी से उसी कर्जे को उतार रहे हैं। अदानी को पूरे कच्छ जिले की जमीन 1 रुपये प्रति एकड़ की लीज पर देना उसी का हिस्सा है। देश का पूरा सोलर प्रोजेक्ट अडानी के हाथ में है। कोई हफ्ता शायद ही बीतता हो जब बाबा रामदेव के लिए किसी तोहफे की घोषणा न होती हो। अंबानी का तो पहले साउथ ब्लाक तक ही रिश्ता था। वह भी दलालों के जरिये। लेकिन अब उनकी सीधे पीएमओ में दखल हो गई है।

नोटबंदी का फैसला इसी कारपोरेट को सीधे लाभ पहुंचाने के लिए किया गया है। आप ने आगरा की रैली में खुश होकर कहा कि 5 लाख करोड़ रुपये आ गए हैं। और अब जनता और जरूरतमंद को लोन दिया जाएगा। लेकिन सच यही है कि उससे जनता नहीं बल्कि कारपोरेट की झोली भरी जाएगी। और जनता के बीच से जो लोग लोन लेंगे वो भविष्य में आत्महत्या करेंगे। लेकिन कारपोरेट का लोन माफ कर दिया जाएगा।

आपने कालाधन धारियों को गिरफ्तार कर सजा देने की बात कही है। कुछ जगहों पर छापे की खबरें भी आ रही हैं। ये कितनी अफवाह हैं और कितनी नौटंकी। इसका कुछ समय बाद ही पता चलेगा। लेकिन सच यही है कि निशाने पर अभी भी छोटी मछलियां ही हैं। अगर आप इस पूरी कवायद को लेकर गंभीर होते। तो अडानी के तकरीबन 5400 करोड़ रुपये के बाहर भेजे जाने वाले मामले में एसआईटी की जांच में बांधा नहीं डालते। लेकिन सच यही है कि आपको बड़े कारपोरेट घरानों के काले धन से कुछ नहीं लेना देना। और न ही विदेशों में जमा धन आपकी चिंता का विषय है। आप का मुख्य मकसद जनता के पैसे को बैंकों में लेकर उसे कारपोरेट के हवाले करना है।

मोदी जी जुमलों की एक सीमा होती है। यह भ्रम भी बहुत दिनों तक नहीं रहने वाला। क्योंकि इसका असर सीधे जनता पर पड़ेगा। जनता को जुमला और कारपोरेट को थैली का पर्दाफाश होकर रहेगा। वैसे भी झूठ की उम्र बहुत छोटी होती है।

Courtesy: National Dastak

The post आपका रोम-रोम तो कॉरपोरेट के पास गिरवी रखा है मोदीजी appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Really?? Hmmmm.

Let’s have a look into few figures;

What if I told you that total Bad Loans of Indian Banks right now is close to Rs. 6,00,000 crore. What if I told you that PSU Banks are in a miserable condition right now, and need immediate infusion of money to shore up their lending capacities.

What if I also told you that few weeks ago, credit rating agency Moody’s had stated that Indian banks required Rs. 1.25 lakh crore capital infusion? What if I told you that in July 2016 the Centre injected 23,000 crore into 13 public sector banks. What if I told you that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said it in 2015 that the Centre would pump in more than 70,000 crore in PSU banks in coming four years.

And..What if I told you that this demonetisation is nothing but a measure to infuse money in those ailing banks so as to shore up their lending capacities?

Can’t you see people queuing up banks to deposit their hard earned money, waiting hours for their turn?

What other “Masterstroke” would have made this possible?

Just trigger the panic button by stating that your old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency is no longer a valid legal tender, and Voila!!! People are queuing up since morning to deposit their hard earned money.

What for? To curb the menace of black money? By bringing in new Rs. 2000 note?

You don’t curb black money by bringing in notes of higher denomination. In fact, you are now simplifying hoarding of black money by bringing in new notes of higher denomination.

Ok. So what would banks do with the fresh infusion of money from public pockets? Lend of course. That’s what their business is. And to whom would these banks then lend their money to?

You? Me?

Indeed, very sweet of you.

You are in the deposit queue dear.

Those in withdrawal queues are these privileged or shall I say chosen ones: (Note: the figures in bracket are their present repayable amount which they owe to various banks)

10. GVK Reddy (GVK Group) (33933 Crores)
9. Venugopal Dhoot (Videocon Group) (45405 Crores)
8. L. Madhusoodan Rao (Lanco Group) (47102 Crores)
7. G M Rao (GMR Group) (47976 Crores)
6. Sajjan Jindal (JSW Group) (58171 Crores)
5. Manoj Gour (Jaypee Group) (75163 Crores)
4. Goutam Adani (Adani Group) (96031 Crores)
3. Shashi Ruia & Ravi Ruia (Essar Group) (1,01000 Crores or Rs 1.01 trillion)
2. Anil Aggarwal (The Vedanta Group) (1,03000 Crores or 1.03 trillion)
And finally
1. Anil Ambani (Reliance Group)(125000 Crores or Rs 1.25 trillion)

The government just carried out a surgical strike on your pockets, and now you are running like chickens. That’s how crony capitalism works.
Now call me whatever you like- Marxist, Communist, Anarchist, Congi agent, conspiracy theorist blah blah blah.

Courtesy: Janata ka Reporter

(The views expressed here are solely the author’s own. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Janta Ka Reporter and Janta Ka Reporter does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same)

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