The Technocratic Government of India

 

So what exactly is a technocrat anyway?

Destined to save our economy and our country, we Indians have been graced with the appearance of a technocratic government since last seven years, where economist Dr. Manmohan Singh (PhD) has been the prime minister. As the hero of our day – the UPA technocratic government - is largely unknown to many of our people, we summon a brief dialogue on technocratic government

Q: What's a technocratic government?

A: To answer this question we first need to be clear about how governments are formed in parliamentary systems. First - in a parliamentary system, the government must be approved by the parliament. Often this will require the agreement of more than one political party, resulting in a coalition of parties to support the government. As part of this "coalition agreement", the heads of ministries (or what are ‘Ministers’) are allocated to the different parties, who place representatives from their parties as the heads of their respective ministries. Moreover, the parties agree on a "Prime Minister" to head the government, usually but not always from the largest party in the coalition. Most of the time, the identity of this "Prime Minister" - conditional on election results - is known during the election campaign.

Q: Ok, so what's really a technocratic government?

A: Technically, a technocratic government is one in which the ministers are not career politicians; in fact, in some cases they may not even be elected members of parliament at all. They are instead supposed to be "experts" in the fields of their respective ministries. So the classic example is that the Finance Minister would be someone with an academic background in economics who had worked for years at the IMF, but has not previously run for elective office or been heavily involved in election campaigns.

Q: Is it required for the Prime Minister also to be a "technocrat"?

A: Not necessarily. You could have a prime minister from a major party who heads a technocratic government (i.e., most of the ministers meet the definition laid out above), or you could have a technocratic prime minister as well. In the current UPA government, the Prime Minister is both a technocrat and an economist. [To be clear: there is nothing in the definition of a technocratic government that requires it be led by an economist!]

Q: Why did the UPA appoint a technocratic Prime Minister, two times in a row?

A: The practical reason is often because a government has lost the support of the people who elect them to parliament, but also for various other reasons (including legal, pragmatic or political). If the parties in the parliament can't agree to form a normal government, then sometimes they can all agree to support a technocratic government. Just to make things even more complicated, it is possible to have a ‘partisan caretaker prime minister’ (which is basically what is going on in India right now), which then would not be known as a technocratic government, but instead is often called a "lame duck government".

Q: So why would elected politicians ever turn over power to unelected technocrats? Doesn't that go against the facts of everything we think we know about politicians: that they are above all else interested in holding elected office for self gain?

A: This brings us to the crux of the matter in terms of current developments. What seems to be going on is that a "received wisdom" is developing that only technocratic governments can carry out the "painful reforms necessary" to save our country. The theory here is that no major party is going to want to pay the costs of instituting painful policies alone. If this is the case, then one way around this predicament is to appoint a technocratic government that is not "of" any party but is supported by all the parties. In this way, blame can essentially be shared, and government can do the right thing, whatever that may be.

Q: Does it work?

A: Does anyone know?. First, politicians are not particularly good at "sharing blame", which will make the temptation for any of a number of major parties to undercut the technocratic government for political gains. Second, even if mainstream parties get behind a technocratic government, that doesn't mean fringe parties will as well. Indeed, a technocratic government supported by all of the mainstream parties seems a perfect recipe for the rise of non-mainstream parties.

Q: OK, but even with those caveats, technocratic government still sounds pretty good! Why doesn't everyone have one?

A: Well, there is this one small problem, which is that in a democracy; people are supposed to elect their rulers. Since, by definition, a technocratic government does not get elected for office, it is hard to call a country with a technocratic government, a democracy. Instead, we have a system where the people only get to vote for people that they send into Parliament; who then get to decide on who the real leaders of the government will be.

Q: Will technocratic governments save India?

A: The UPA made it possible for certain policies to be implemented in the short-term. But India’s longer-term problems are going to need to be solved (or not solved) by India’s elected officials. Democracy is about accountability. While UPA has made it possible to duck accountability, long-term policies are going to have been enacted - or at the very least maintained - by elected officials. The UPA technocratic government has failed miserably on most accounts and will never be an effective Government ‘of the people, for the people, by the people’.

Mumbai's illegal hawkers and the corrupt money economy.

All the citizens of Mumbai are fed-up with the growing number of illegal hawkers taking over all the foot-paths and open spaces of Mumbai city. The Municipal Corporation and police and the various political parties seem weak and unable to stop this menace. And it is a menace of huge proportions because most of the hawkers are from Bangladesh.

So, why is the Government so weak and ineffective in front of these illegal immigrants? It’s the money, big amounts of money.


A rather unscientific survey in 2010 – 11, states that Mumbai has more than 8 lakh (800 thousand) illegal hawkers spread over 227 municipal wards. These hawkers pay off the Police, the municipal officers and the local political parties for the right to occupy our city’s foot-paths & open spaces. Payment is either daily (for floating hawkers who move from ward to ward) to weekly payments by those who set up stalls either during rush hours or specific days of the week. Semi – permanent and almost permanent stall owners / operators pay on monthly basis and in some cases of large turnover, on a profit sharing basis.

These amounts of payments range from as little as Rs. 2000 ($ 42) to Rs. 50,000 ($ 1064); on a monthly basis.

Assuming an average amount of Rs 5,000 per hawker per month for 800 thousand hawkers; the monthly corrupt money economy is Rupees 40 Crores ($ 85 million) which works out to Rs 480 Crores ($ One hundred million plus) per year.

This entire amount bypasses the City Treasury and makes its way straight to the pockets of those who are supposed to stop this illegal activity. This is the reason that the illegal hawkers menace is not controlled or stopped by the Government officials. It’s their “super income” and it is fully tax free.

And who are the real culprits behind this menace? We, the People. It is we, the people who buy goods from these illegal hawkers at cheaper than store prices and think that we are being smart. But in reality, we are the idiots who lose a lot, to gain a little.

Congress Party's pathetic attempt towards Censorship... Again

 

Times of India reports that Union Minister Kapil Sibal has been in talks with Internet social media companies to put in place a monitoring mechanism. On Monday (05 Dec), the telecom & IT minister met executives from the Indian units of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to discuss the issue.

The executives were shown content which could allegedly hurt religious sensibilities and obscene images of Indian political leaders.

But the reality seems that Kapil Sibal is more concerned about the negative image of his master(s) Sonia Gandhi & Rahul Gandhi.

The New York Times reported that about six weeks ago Sibal called legal representatives from the top internet service providers and Facebook into his office and showed them a Facebook page that maligned Congress president Sonia Gandhi. "This is unacceptable," he said, reported an executive.

How dare Sibal say that critisism of Sonia Gandhi is unacceptable? Is she above the law or does the Minister think that the law of freedom of expression in India is a slave to the whims & fancies of the Congress party?

Sibal wants the above companies to appoint people to screen content before it is uploaded, with staffers looking for objectionable content and deleting it before it is posted. THIS IS CENSORSHIP.

Assuming that Minister Sibal is acting on the instructions of his bosses to curtail our freedom of expression, let us respond by a scathing critisism against him & his party all over the internet.

The net cannot be controlled by politicians who want to censor the right to free speech just for their self-survival; and it is time this point was made clear to them in the most direct fashion.

Wal - Mart Overview

 

Wal-Mart, the biggest American retailer, has a huge impact not only on the local economy but on the global one as well. The company’s strategy of having the lowest prices (which is not always necessarily true) seems to have much more implications than people think. The fact is that a low cost for a Wal-Mart customer is actually a higher cost for many other stakeholders, mainly referring to the American economy.

Wal-Mart was one of the first retailers to discover and leverage the power of information that is hidden in the barcode of every product on their shelves. The black and white stripes hold an encyclopedia of information, from tracking sales throughout the time to product and inventory information. This gives Wal-Mart a competitive advantage, making it an efficiency machine: it allowed to speed up deliveries from plants to shelves (Wal - Mart has a high turnover and low inventories). In this way, Wal-Mart became a world leader in logistics, giving them the edge to change the way goods are produced: a shift from “push production” to “pull production” where the retailer is the one making the decisions– the manufacturer is being told what and when to produce.

An interesting story refers to the relationship between Rubbermaid and Wal-Mart. Changes in the market made Wal-Mart Rubbermaid’s most important customer since it significantly contributed to its growth in a very short period of time. Their relationship went well until the moment when the price of a production material went up. Wal-Mart, a strictly cost focusing company, did not accept the price increase for the Rubbermaid products, which lead to less shelf space for the supplier. This case reflects the risks a supplier takes when focusing too much on a single customer with such a big market share. Having such a high negotiation power, Wal-Mart can always go for the best deal, most of the times bargaining for an amount as low as 20 paise.

Lately, the markets have become more and more competitive among the suppliers in their quest of getting on retailers’ shelves. China, the world’s supermarket for the production market, has a lot to do with Wal-Mart’s strategy to keep costs as low as possible. 90% of Wal-Mart’s suppliers are Chinese. In order to sell in a Wal-Mart, a supplier has to be very competitive in finding ways of cutting costs. In most of the cases, the place where that is possible is actually China.
The bottom line is that Wal-Mart offers consumers a wide range of products at very low prices at the expense of putting local people out of work and lowering living standards.

Promise of a Generation

Our concern is that for the first time since Independence, the next generation will struggle harder to do better than the last. In the past we took it for granted that if we worked hard, if our children worked hard, they would be more prosperous, and have greater opportunities.
But the last few years show that the promise to the next generation, cannot be taken for granted. As a parent, like all parents, we judge Ourself on the opportunities Our children will have, should have and the happiness that can provide. As citizens, we will judge the nation on the opportunities that India should provide for the next generations.

What unites us is that there is too much politics and not enough action. And what is happening to our next generation is those unspoken facts that people know about – but the politicians refuse to discuss. Rampant uneducation and growing unemploment. Parents who don't understand, that despite their hardest efforts – raising their children correctly and giving them every opportunity, their children have no prospects of a successful life. Parents are working longer hours than ever before and spending less time with their family, with no real success in sight.

Our generation is on the road to failure in our duty to the next; to uphold the promise of a Society from which we all should benefit; not only because our elder generation has failed us, but also because we are not willing to take corrective action to change our path to the road of success.

Some of these are big problems that are rooted in the way the country's been changing for years, not just over the decade. And our governments are doing nothing to turn things around. In fact on many issues, they are making the situation worse. Their only benchmark of success is dividing to rule. Our government have, and are, piling debts on our economy; debts will make it far harder for the next generation to start a business or buy a house. It is harder for families to survive, and that's not just bad for them but for the country as well. They have consitantly failed to understand the problems and decline in economy. They will quote statistics and talk about rising GDP, but refuse to accept the growing poverty. They have no ambition to change, no national concern except political survival.

Ask the people if they or their children will find it easier to find jobs, own a home, have a bank balance, have a secure retirement or fulfil their potential and they will tell you by vast majorities that 'the answer is No'. In these circumstances, how could we, the people possibly believe the country is heading in the right direction towards growth and prosperity?

To replace despair with hope will require us, once again, to be a force for major change in India. So the task we must set for our selves and our society is to identify how we can turn failure into success.

First, we need to increase and create jobs for people. We cannot just stand by when nearly 350 million people are out of work. We also have to recognise that seven out of ten graduates who work are not doing jobs for which they studied. In other words they are not being given the opportunity to use the skills for which they have worked so hard. Our ambition has to be to reshape our economy so that Indians can choose a business based on higher skills and higher wage jobs; not in low skill, low wage jobs.

And for those young people who choose not to go to university we need to construct a better route through vocational training, apprenticeships and entrepreneurship which give people fulfilling work and chances to achieve success and their dreams of a secure life. That is why our challenge is not just to open the economy to all our people, but also to change something that politicians hardly talk about – the culture of long working hours, low pay and insecurity at work.

When the time comes, future generations will look to our record just as we look towards those of the earlier generations. We owe a committment to equality, democracy, and freedom; not only to ourself but to our children and their children. A committment of a better and secure future, a promise of a generation.

We do not need another Gandhi

 The Confusing Anna Hazare

The anti- corruption crusader Anna Hazare is preparing for battle again with his demand of the tabling of his (the Civil society’s) version of the “Jan Lok Pal Bill”. However; news reports about his plan of action are confusing at the best.

The news reports on Tuesday (Oct 4th) state as follows: “Anna Hazare on Tuesday put Congress on notice on the Lokpal issue, saying he will campaign against it in election-bound states if the Centre fails to get his version of the anti-corruption bill passed in Parliament's Winter Session. To begin with, Hazare said, he will appeal to voters in Hisar Lok Sabha constituency in Haryana where bypolls are scheduled on October 13 not to vote for the Congress candidate as the party was "deliberately" not bringing the Jan Lokpal bill.

"If the Jan Lokpal Bill is not passed in the Winter Session, then I will name the Congress and ask people not to vote for it in the Assembly polls scheduled in five states next year," he said addressing a press conference in his native village, 50 km from Pune.”

This report in itself states Hazare’s focus to take the anti- corruption fight to the Government, since it is the Congress (I) that leads the UPA coalition in the center. Which is good & fine and it will attract the support of the educated middle class that is sick & tired of the prevailing corruption.

However; IBN Live reports on the same day that: “Social crusader Anna Hazare on Tuesday came out in support of arrested Gujarat police officer Sanjeev Bhatt who has accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 communal riots. What Narendra Modi has done is wrong. It is not good for democracy in the country.”

So, Anna Hazare has opened a second battle front against the BJP. That is now raising some questions in the mind of the public:

a) Since when did the Hazare agenda change from being against Corruption to being against politicians?

b) Is the agenda for support of the Civil society’s version of the Lok pal bill now turned into a political agenda of Anna Hazare where he has started to criticize on Government & political actions across all parties?

c) If Hazare is against the Congress and also against the BJP; who exactly is he supporting on the political front, since he and his team have denied any political aspirations?

d) When there are elections, people will vote and someone will win the majority in elections. What happen’s post elections? If Hazare does not like the new party, will he agitate against that party who has won the election? Will this not be considered that Hazare is actually against the people just because they do not agree with him?

e) And if Hazare is against the Congress and also against the BJP; then who exactly does he expect to be occupying the seats in the Legislative assemblies in the States?

We have had one such person before in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who wreaked havoc in the democratic process of the then Indian National Congress with his selfish “i, me & mine” attitude. We do not need another Gandhi to create a new havoc.

How can India reduce Corruption?

Bharatvarsh (India), as we all know; is a land of diverse cultures, ethnic languages and multi- religious social groups all trying to find space in a over populated mass of land that has been divided once before by the British (1947).

Regardless of the diversity of our Nation's population, almost all residents of India are victims of food inflation, lack of required income for human standards of living and a corrupt Government at all levels; from village administrators to the Central Government bureaucrats & ministers.

Everybody agrees that corruption needs to be removed or at least reduced drastically for our Nation to survive. Here are some ideas that may be considered, not by those in power: but by those whose lives are constantly threatened by corrupt people in power.

1. All members to Rajya Sabha, must be elected by the People by direct voting.
 

2. All Governers of State(s) and Lt. Governers must be elected by the People by direct voting.

3. The President, Prime Minister & Deputy Prime Minister of India must be elected by the People by direct voting, No longer should we allow the political parties to dictate to the People as to who will be the Prime Minister or President. Let it be the choice of the People. The same applies for Lok Ayukta at State level and Jana Lok Pal at national level. All have to be elected directly by the People.
 

4. Immediate dissolution of the IAS & IPS. The entire concept of the IAS & IPS is a remnant of the British Raj policies where the natives (us Indians) needed to be governed by a "higher class" of rulers (initially the British and now the pseudo Brits). Every State in India has its own cadre of Administrators & Police officials who are more capable than the IAS or IPS.
 

5. Segregation of Police departments at the levels of town / village, district, state and national police. Each town / village & district police department will be independent of each other and independent of the state police dept in terms of administration and duties but will report directly to the Governor of the State. The state police will report to the Chief Minister of the state. Even the Courts can have their own police department that reports to the Chief Justice of India. All police departments will be answerable to the President of India, independently.
 

6. The Central Police organizations will be answerable to the President of India directly. They can also be made answerable publicly to the full session of the Parliament of India.
 

7. Draconian punishment for Capital offenses. Capital offenses should include per-meditated murder, kidnapping, rape / gang-rape, misuse of Government office, misuse of Political office, and any other crime that benefits the person or their family at the cost of the Nation's treasury. Punishment should include confiscation of all assets of the guilty (including ancestral property & property in name of spouse, children and siblings), naked flogging in public and hanging to death in public.
 

8. Enforcement of law& order and public discipline. The law must be applied equally to all residents of India, regardless of their status in Government or position in the bureaucracy or other administrative positions. Family members of people in power have a tendency to misuse Government (i.e: People's resources). In such matters the person in power should also be prosecuted along-with his family member to the full extent of draconian law.
 

9. Today criminality is on the rise due to the 'economics of crime' that favor the criminals. This 'economics of crime' must be made extremely expensive for the criminal by use of draconian punishments (both financial & physical). Only this will put an almost instant brake on the criminal and lawless activities in India. Financial punishment should start with fines that are minimum at 11,000 and increase in multiples of 10 for every additional offense. Physical punishments should include flogging and daily physical work on the roads of India during the term of the punishment. The prisoners to be isolated from family & friends at all times during the full duration of prison sentence being served.
 

10. Every resident of India (regardless of whether Indian citizen or not) must be brought into a electronic / bio-metric database. Every law enforcement & judicial department must have easy access to each Indian resident(s): I.D photo, finger prints, iris scan (eye print), blood group and DNA profile. When criminals know that they can be traced and caught, their enthusiasm to commit crime reduces drastically.

These are only some of the suggestions that I can think off to start the process of a disciplined society with drastically reduced crime and lowest corruption index. When those in power are answerable to the People and also to the Laws of India; I am confident that crime and corruption will reduce drastically.

जय हिन्दुस्तान