Prem Shankar Jha has gone about bush-whacking George W. Bush (Trigger-Happy Texans, March 5), ignoring the customary 100-day self-imposed truce the media generally observes, at least in the US, after the inauguration of a new president. Give the man a chance. During his campaign, we learnt that Bush was practically unknown outside his country. And since Granada and Haiti are no more available to ‘wage’ a new foreign policy initiative, Iraq emerged as the likely choice for the new President to focus world attention on him.
Kangayam R. Rangaswamy, Durham, US
Apropos Retention Riddle (March 5) I worked with Wipro Technologies for two years before coming to the US for my MS. My stint made me realise that most Indian companies provide software services rather than develop new-generation technologies. And we cannot become an IT superpower unless we create intellectual property. IT companies in India lack vision and end up making their employees nothing more than cheap software clerks. That’s perhaps why people like me come to the US.
Apropos The Structures of Control (March 5), so what’s new? A bill to monitor construction engineers is good going indeed. The new law will be welcomed by all government agencies as one more tool to harass the common people and make money out of them. Architects will now probably hike their fees to include the paybacks to corporation clerks/officials to get the necessary certificates. What we need is a simplification of procedures and some method in the enforcing of simple, but effective rules. How about ensuring a single window for all construction activity, further accountable to organisations like the Institute of Engineers?
Vilas Shukre, Kuala Lumpur
In his Bangalore Diary (February 26), Krishna Prasad gives his tepid views on Bill Clinton, Thrissur, the Tamil film marquee, Azharuddin in Hyderabad and Pongal. The word Bangalore figured just once, that too just to highlight some actress there. Do you take your readers to be so "locationally challenged" that you can dish out any puerile crap and expect them to take it? This is exactly the sort of complacency that forced India Today to ‘downsize’.
Jasbir Singh, Bangalore
According to you, the recent attack on gnlf chief Subhas Ghising (Degrees of Separation, February 26) is a result of growing separatist sentiments among the Gurkhas. Being a part of the Gurkhas, I can well understand their sentiments by virtue of which I can guarantee that there is no such thing on their minds. It is just an eyewash for the nation, being fashioned by the likes of Chattray Subba, the ulfa, the nscn et al. The Gurkhas themselves are still loyal and faithful.
Amol Kashyap, Gurkha Rifles
It was with great anguish that I read about the plight of the pachyderms at Corbett (Evil’s Vanishing Spoor, February 26). How inhuman can poachers get to stalk the hapless animals and kill them so brutally? In the interest of our ecology and environment, the colluding personnel at the park have to be removed, through a reshuffling of the staff. A special force should then be constituted to maintain these reserves. Also mushrooming villages and farmhouses have to be cleared to fully secure the area.
Syed Altaf Ahmed, Chennai
Zafar Meraj’s piece, Enforcing an Eternal Peace (February 26), about the alleged custodial deaths in Kashmir generates more heat than light. Reading it, one wonders whether it’s an issue of Outlook or a capsule on ptv. It seems based entirely on hearsay, whether it’s the alibi of the locals or the security forces. Meraj seems predetermined to condemn the security forces and the police rather than sifting the truth.
S.P. Tyagi, New Delhi
Betraying its more than 100-year-old legacy, the Congress seems to have renounced all principles and is bent upon coming to power at any cost, even if it means aligning with the likes of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jayalalitha. Given the bad company it keeps, it won’t be a surprise if the party fails to reach even the 100-mark in the next Lok Sabha elections. It can always better its worst performance since Independence—112 seats in the last LS polls.
A. Srikantaiah, Bangalore
I read with concern the article The Circuitry of Darkness (February 19). How was a project this size sanctioned by the government without first estimating our repayment capacity keeping in mind parameters like inflation, the dollar-rupee parity, product-absorption capacity of existing and future clients?
Indranil Sen, on e-mail
Like millions of others, I too took pride in contributing towards the efforts being made in relieving sufferings of the Gujarat quake victims. However, it pained me to read (The Two Per Cent Excess, February 19) that the additional income tax I am paying this year may not actually go towards the intended cause but could well be utilised in shoring up the budgetary figures of an incompetent government. A pity!
R.K. Sudan, Rajouri, J&K
Both Outlook’s exposé (Builders and Friends, February 19) and Deepak Mepani’s column (A Continuing Sin, February 26) point out the problems with the construction industry. But has anyone given a thought to the fact that not only do builders invest black money in construction but indeed most of their transactions are done in black. Most buyers are aware of the violations, yet are mute supporters of the happenings.
Sujit Ghosh, New Delhi
The political killings Anita Pratap mentions in her column Failings of False Gods (February 19) are nothing new. The rivalry between the Communists and the rss will continue until workers of both parties realise that they are just puppets in the hands of their respective leaders, who don’t give a damn about a few of their cadres being killed by the other side.
P. Das, Thiruvalla, Kerala
Being a Keralite I appreciate whole-heartedly what Anita Pratap has written. Her observations—that Keralites are literate but not educated—are bang on. How else do we account for the savagery going on in several parts of the state?
Matthew Abraham, Pala, Kerala
Your outlook is not only anti-Vajpayee, anti-bjp, but also anti-national and pro-Pakistan. Be it Pokhran or Kargil, Adml Bhagwat or Surinder Singh, you only see the darker side of things.
Dr Akshay Kumar Samal, Sambalpur
Congratulations on your giving readers a very revealing piece on the doings of the Gujarat chief minister and his gang (Builders and Friends, February 19). If he had the slightest shame, he’d have stepped down and instituted an enquiry into these murky dealings, particularly of his son.
The matter is even more shameful because it has happened under the leadership of A.B. Vajpayee, a thoroughly honest man. Let us sincerely hope that the bjp, for its survival, will not condone such misdeeds.
M. Gupta, New Delhi
Your cover story Rigging the pmo (March 5) makes several factually incorrect and baseless allegations concerning Reliance in the power, petroleum and telecom sectors. Outlook has a history of running a deliberate campaign of calumny and disinformation against us.
It was in January 1999 that Reliance entered into an agreement with Southern Energy Asia Pacific Limited (now Mirant Corporation) on a 50:50 basis. So, there is no "Reliance’s Hirma project"; it is a Reliance-Mirant venture.
The project was not pushed by the pmo. Neither did it fix deadlines. These were done by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (cerc) while determining the tariff for the project.
The allegation that before Reliance came into the picture, the five beneficiary states were directly negotiating the terms of supply of power from Hirma is baseless. The Hirma project was conceived way back in 1994 through an MoU between the project promoters and the Powergrid Corporation of India, a goi undertaking. The Union ministry of power was the ‘Overall Coordinating Agency’ for tariff negotiations and ppa, etc.
The allegation that the pmo is pushing for counter-guarantees because a counter-guarantee will result in an assured return to Reliance for the next 20 years is specious. The Hirma project is structured on the principles of stand-alone tariff, against the standard "cost plus" based approach. Under this tariff-based system, there is no "pass-through" concept, and no assured returns to the developers.
The article further alleges that the finance ministry has objected to the counter-guarantee as, in its view, this is an "Enron-like project". The Hirma project is entirely different from Enron. The tariff of the Hirma project is fixed in the most transparent form by cerc, as against a negotiated tariff for Enron.
The allegation on Hirma is that "words were put in the mouth of (the PM) when he went to Lisbon...the result was the MoU was signed...they justified it by saying they had signed it because the PM had mentioned it in Lisbon."
It’s not known which trip of the PM to Lisbon is being referred to. The MoU reference may possibly be to the Development Agreement signed in September 2000 in Washington during the PM’s US visit.
As for the allegations relating to Reliance Petroleum and the petroleum ministry, you make totally uninformed allegations and conjectures about supposed benefits accruing from terminalling charges, naphtha tariff and input-output norms.
Terminalling charges have nothing to do with the cost of products and are instead charges payable in respect of petroleum products handled through storage terminals. Under the existing policy regime for psu oil companies, they are all being reimbursed terminalling charges from the Oil Pool Account. The allegation that the government has agreed to pay in instalments for a facility rpl has constructed for its own export and import activity is untrue.
On the inverted duty structure on naphtha, the existing import tariff
on it is based on the recommendations of the Expert Technical Group (Nirmal Singh Committee), which published its report in ’97, three years before the rpl refinery was finished.
With regard to Reliance and limited mobility in the telecom sector, you allege that Reliance is a major beneficiary of the decision to allow fixed service providers to provide wireless telephony. Such a move is for the benefit of the entire telecom industry, not just Reliance.
Tony Jesudasan, Senior Executive V-P (Corporate Communications), Reliance Industries Limited, Delhi
Outlook replies: Here are a few facts to consider before levelling charges against Outlook and Dr E. A.S. Sarma, a recognised expert on power:
Your cover story India Talks: A Wish List (February 26) was very informative and eye-opening. However, one wishes to ask the finance minister if there is a way in which all the utt ("Under the table and tax free money") can be accounted for, or more importantly, done away with? Wouldn’t the balancesheet of India Inc look a lot healthier?
Jude D’Souza, Bangalore
Your survey reflects people’s expectations from all walks of life in our country. Privatisation is the only answer to improve the quality and efficiency of our industries as most of our psus have been on an unending honeymoon of loss-making for so many years. The divestment process must be well worked out, and be transparent. Globalisation has not brought in the expected results, especially in the agricultural sector, and instead badly upset the rural economy. Hopefully, the coming years will see the end of this phase.
K.V. Raghuram, Krishnagiri
The government in its hurry to divest its stake in the psus is selling away the family jewels dirt cheap. What the government should have done in the first instance is to have amended labour laws to afford psu managements more flexibility to hire and fire its labour force. Secondly it should have appointed senior managers to head all those "headless" psus at a remuneration of say 2% of the net profits or .5% of the turnover. Labour should have been offered shares of their company. To my mind the single biggest drain on the exchequer right now are our politicians and bureaucrats.
Vandana Rathi, on e-mail
Your pre-budget poll shows that more and more people have become conscious of the implications of the budget in recent times. But they do not seem to have changed their stand from previous budgets on the question, ‘should agricultural income be taxed?’. A majority of 70 per cent saying no to it must surely be good news to a pro-agriculture FM like Yashwant Sinha.
Bhaskar Sen, on e-mail
Apart from the results of the opinion poll, the public seems well aware that the politics of taxation involves conflict over the distribution of wealth in society. They now understand better "who gets what".
A.S. Raj, on e-mail
It oughtn’t be difficult for you to answer your question: "will your tax reach her at all?" which you ask in a caption below the picture of an old lady in the article Crisis as Opportunity (February 19). It certainly won’t as it’ll go towards financing our netas’ jaunts—a la Kumarakom; towards their treatment abroad—a la V.P. Singh’s; and mostly towards providing our numerous netas security against their own people, while these same netas will bombard us with their sabhyata and parampara rhetoric.
Brig F.F.C. Balsara, Mhow
