OH NO! NOT MORE ON TERROR!
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
‘Hagney jad aavey tho loto ro yaad aavey’
These days, I am at the receiving end of everyone’s outpourings on terror. Our PM is talking about a federal agency to deal with the scourge, our opposition about bashing Pakis, our chatterati about bashing politicians, and our media (and no doubt our phone companies) about sending messages in support of or against this that and the other. Some are linking the above average post-terrorist-strike noise with the fact that the English speaking elite got hit instead of the usual migrants from Bihar, others with elections being around the corner. And I am increasingly being reminded of the old Marwari saying featured above. And I too would like to add my piece to the rhetoric.
In sum, I would like to say what I have yet to hear – that we will have to live with terrorism until and unless we deal with corruption. And we will have corruption as long as our political system depends upon black money. And in all the rhetoric, there has been no mention of the need to address this and get the state to fund elections. This is because, for our political system, terrorism is a small price to pay for the spoils of office that high corruption allows, more so because the spoils accrue to the neta-babu-thekedar nexus and the price is paid by the aam aadmi. And expecting the nexus to change the rules in favour of honest and transparent governance is the equivalent of expecting Al-Qaeda to formulate rules for the US for better inland security. So – are you lukewarm about corruption? Do you think of it as an ‘enabler’? Do you see it as a wheel of the economy? If yes, do not crib about terrorism. You, like Lashkar-e-Toiba, are part of the problem. And yes, I do realise that my argument rests upon the link between terrorism and corruption, and this is what this paper is about. Please read on!
Allow me to take you back to class 6, when we learnt that fire required three ingredients – oxygen, fuel and a spark. A fire cannot begin without the presence of all three, and can be doused by removing any one of these. Terrorism too requires three ingredients to thrive. The first is the existence of a large number of very angry and aggrieved people in the general population. The second is the existence of organisations with the ability to motivate a core group of desperate young people into doing anything. The third is the ability to move people, weapons and explosives.
Much has been made of the fact that the US and the UK, unlike India, have dealt with that one terrorist attack in such a way as to ensure that there have been no others. Well, there are large numbers of people majorly pissed with the US and plenty of organisations willing to work on terrorist strikes against it – but they are all sitting in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa. We have them next door, in every direction, and even within. The UK too has angry people and organisations – many sitting within, but procuring and moving weapons and explosives is so difficult that they find it easier to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan to vent.
It is the existence of all the ingredients that makes India particularly vulnerable. With politicians who should be in jail for crimes against humanity legitimately occupying high office, with a sclerotic legal system, and with opportunities available only to a miniscule minority, I think it is safe to say that we can be certain of large numbers of angry and aggrieved people in the foreseeable future. And as the old saying goes – you can fight history but you can’t fight geography – and we are stuck with the neighbours we have. As long as they remain chaotic basket cases for failed states, there will be space for non-state actors to go about their business of motivating and training disaffected youth and coordinating terrorist strikes. And they too will remain so in the foreseeable future. And our not seeing Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Nepali stability and prosperity as being in India’s strategic interest does not help the situation. It is the last piece of the triumvirate that can be worked upon – that it is so easy to procure and move weapons and explosives, to create identities, to establish safe houses and to generally go about the mundane activities that are necessary for intent to be converted into action. And this is where corruption is a critical factor.
Terrorist operations do not build logistical chains – these are usually too complicated. They merely adapt existing ones for their requirements, chains that have been built up for the illegal movement of drugs, hooch, contraband, and people (prostitutes, child labour, etc.). And these chains have political connections and police protection, if not ownership. They cannot operate without these. And if you look back at any terrorist act and dissect it, you will see the role of corruption as a critical enabler at every stage. Yes, the same corruption that we see around us all the time!
If I have convinced on the link between corruption and terrorism, let me take the argument a step further. There is no way of separating corruption relating to terrorism from corruption relating to crime, politics, extortion and speed money. If you want to curb one, you have to curb all. And curbing corruption is our only way of realistically preventing further terrorist attacks. However, curbing corruption is not easy. It is naïve to expect that individual citizens can do this by standing up and saying no – refusing to accept bribes and refusing to pay them – or by signing on to some media website. The root of the problem is that a politician does not have the option of honesty – s/he has to generate funds to pay for elections. And if the person at the top of the food chain has to generate a slush fund, there is no way of preventing lesser minnows doing the same. And the only way around this is to have the state meet the election expenses of all major political parties, thereby removing the top persons’ need for corruption. Unfortunately, this requires statesmanship – not a quality associated with our political establishment. It is easier to talk about creating more bureaucracy in the form of another agency, and of Paki bashing, and of uniting people against terror. And then to just forget about the whole thing! Until the next terrorist attack! And then do the same again! And again! As has been the case so far!
Acronyms etc.:
Aam-Aadmi Ordinary Person
Neta-Babu-Thekedar Politician-Bureaucrat-Contractor
PM Prime Minister
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
AN ICY WIND
AN ICY BREEZE
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
Introduction: Readers of my generation may remember the novel “Running Blind” by Desmond Bagley – a good book made better for its introducing the reader to a small island nation nestling just under the Arctic Circle. Iceland occasionally popped up in the news after that – from its location as somewhat in between Moscow and Washington and therefore a good place to hold contentious discussions during the cold war years to the exploits of the singer Bjork. Readers of human development indexes would know Iceland as a country that combines wealth with equity , travel addicts for its mountainous and volcanic interior and for whale watching, and scientists for its energy policy and research on genetics . And hardcore Olympics watchers this August, such as yours truly, would have followed the country’s men’s handball team trying to win its first every gold medal (they lost in the final and settled for silver).
Iceland burst into the news again last week as the first nation-casualty of the current financial crisis! Its banking system has broken down, its currency is in free fall, and it has moved from being a wonderful example to a horrible warning – all in one week. What happened? Why? And what are the lessons to be had?
What happened? The first indication that it was not only banks going under and that an entire nation was in deep s--- was on 7th October, when the Icelandic government made three announcements –
1. That it was abandoning its efforts to peg the Icelandic Krona at 131 to a Euro.
2. That it would nationalize the country’s three largest banks – Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir.
3. That it was in the process of obtaining a loan of Euro 4 billion from Russia.
The British were the first to react! Upon not getting a guarantee protecting British deposits in the banks, Gordon Brown announced the freezing of Icelandic assets in Britain on 8th October and used anti-terrorist legislation to do so. Other countries with a significant Icelandic banking presence followed suit. The Icelandic Krona dropped in a day to 340 to a Euro and then went into free fall. There was no sign of any money from Russia, and Iceland’s Prime Minister Geir Haarde backtracked to say that the loan was still being negotiated.
Why? How did a country fall so far so fast? Iceland had traditionally been dependent upon fishing – its location and lack of neighbours give it a natural advantage in this field. Somewhere in the 1990s, the government decided to liberalize the economy – starting with the banking sector. Banking prospered, and soon found that Iceland’s demographics did not match the banks’ growth ambitions. Aggressive expansion followed – into the UK, the USA, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Deposits were attracted by high interest rates , which were in turn forced up by Iceland’s high inflation – about 14 percent in the 12 months up to September 2008. They were successful! IceSave, an Internet banking subsidiary of Landsbanki, had about 300,000 depositors (about Iceland’s population) in the UK. Landsbanki’s owner, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, became a billionaire and Iceland’s second richest man (after his son) and went on to indulge in typical billionaire stuff like buying an English football team.
And then, the sub-prime crisis happened and banks stopped lending to each other. Icelandic Banks, like other banks, were unable to roll over their loans – and with a combined foreign debt of about seven times Iceland’s GDP, a falling currency (thereby increasing the value of foreign debt in Icelandic Kronur), and a high inflation rate (thereby adding momentum to the falling currency), they were particularly exposed. This is normally where a central bank would step in and play the role of a lender of last resort – but this was not possible here with the debt being so much more than the size of the national economy.
What’s going to happen? Difficult to say, with events still unfolding every day! Can the USA play guarantor, as it has chosen to do with its own banking system? Possible, but it does relegate Iceland to Puerto Rican status. Can the European Union? In the long run, Iceland may see value in joining the Euro – but not right now, Iceland’s current ruling party and opposition are both anti-EU and anyway the EU is unlikely to be interested. On the other hand, the fundamentals for Iceland are intact – the fish haven’t gone anywhere, there are still no aggressive neighbours, and its human capital remains among the best in the world. Its currency was considered the world’s most overvalued and could do with a correction. The tourism industry is already benefiting from Iceland being a less expensive place to visit. I would bet on a large loan (from Russia?), a circumspect recovery, less flirtation with neo-liberal concepts, and, for the West Ham United fans among you, Mr. Zola not getting funds for a major expansion this January.
What are the lessons here? The first is a sobering note for all the insurgent elements in India who are looking to break away – running a small country requires more than the ability to fire an AK-47 and suck up to fringes in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi armies. You have to run an airline, maintain a central bank and a currency, and develop a football team for world cup qualifiers. And when large fish decide to screw you, you have to lie down and take it – witness Geir Haarde’s comment when Gordon Brown used anti-terrorist legislation to send Iceland into a tailspin, a mere ‘this is not a friendly act’. Iceland may be the richest, whitest and most progressive country on the planet, but when the fertilizer hits the fan who cares – the world can afford it to fail.
The second is more worrisome in the Indian context. Policy makers choose between enabling growth and fighting inflation. Policies that enable growth, such as low interest rates, more circulation of money and larger fiscal deficits, tend to be inflationary and to reduce the rupee’s value. And policies that fight inflation, such as high interest rates, squeezed money supply and circumspect government spending tend to curtail growth. It is an interesting tightrope walk and one that is not so much of an issue in times of high growth and low inflation – this was the case over the past few years but is not the case now. The Indian government had reacted to the difficulties faced by people because of rapidly rising prices by taking anti-inflationary measures. The priorities appear to have u-turned in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and all hands are now on the pump that looks to maintain high economic growth and protect the integrity of the country’s financial systems. In effect, they have chosen the interests of those with businesses, jobs and bank accounts over those who use a significant proportion of their earnings to buy food. Given the number of elections scheduled over the next year, I am yet to decide whether this is brave or foolhardy.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
Introduction: Readers of my generation may remember the novel “Running Blind” by Desmond Bagley – a good book made better for its introducing the reader to a small island nation nestling just under the Arctic Circle. Iceland occasionally popped up in the news after that – from its location as somewhat in between Moscow and Washington and therefore a good place to hold contentious discussions during the cold war years to the exploits of the singer Bjork. Readers of human development indexes would know Iceland as a country that combines wealth with equity , travel addicts for its mountainous and volcanic interior and for whale watching, and scientists for its energy policy and research on genetics . And hardcore Olympics watchers this August, such as yours truly, would have followed the country’s men’s handball team trying to win its first every gold medal (they lost in the final and settled for silver).
Iceland burst into the news again last week as the first nation-casualty of the current financial crisis! Its banking system has broken down, its currency is in free fall, and it has moved from being a wonderful example to a horrible warning – all in one week. What happened? Why? And what are the lessons to be had?
What happened? The first indication that it was not only banks going under and that an entire nation was in deep s--- was on 7th October, when the Icelandic government made three announcements –
1. That it was abandoning its efforts to peg the Icelandic Krona at 131 to a Euro.
2. That it would nationalize the country’s three largest banks – Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir.
3. That it was in the process of obtaining a loan of Euro 4 billion from Russia.
The British were the first to react! Upon not getting a guarantee protecting British deposits in the banks, Gordon Brown announced the freezing of Icelandic assets in Britain on 8th October and used anti-terrorist legislation to do so. Other countries with a significant Icelandic banking presence followed suit. The Icelandic Krona dropped in a day to 340 to a Euro and then went into free fall. There was no sign of any money from Russia, and Iceland’s Prime Minister Geir Haarde backtracked to say that the loan was still being negotiated.
Why? How did a country fall so far so fast? Iceland had traditionally been dependent upon fishing – its location and lack of neighbours give it a natural advantage in this field. Somewhere in the 1990s, the government decided to liberalize the economy – starting with the banking sector. Banking prospered, and soon found that Iceland’s demographics did not match the banks’ growth ambitions. Aggressive expansion followed – into the UK, the USA, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Deposits were attracted by high interest rates , which were in turn forced up by Iceland’s high inflation – about 14 percent in the 12 months up to September 2008. They were successful! IceSave, an Internet banking subsidiary of Landsbanki, had about 300,000 depositors (about Iceland’s population) in the UK. Landsbanki’s owner, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, became a billionaire and Iceland’s second richest man (after his son) and went on to indulge in typical billionaire stuff like buying an English football team.
And then, the sub-prime crisis happened and banks stopped lending to each other. Icelandic Banks, like other banks, were unable to roll over their loans – and with a combined foreign debt of about seven times Iceland’s GDP, a falling currency (thereby increasing the value of foreign debt in Icelandic Kronur), and a high inflation rate (thereby adding momentum to the falling currency), they were particularly exposed. This is normally where a central bank would step in and play the role of a lender of last resort – but this was not possible here with the debt being so much more than the size of the national economy.
What’s going to happen? Difficult to say, with events still unfolding every day! Can the USA play guarantor, as it has chosen to do with its own banking system? Possible, but it does relegate Iceland to Puerto Rican status. Can the European Union? In the long run, Iceland may see value in joining the Euro – but not right now, Iceland’s current ruling party and opposition are both anti-EU and anyway the EU is unlikely to be interested. On the other hand, the fundamentals for Iceland are intact – the fish haven’t gone anywhere, there are still no aggressive neighbours, and its human capital remains among the best in the world. Its currency was considered the world’s most overvalued and could do with a correction. The tourism industry is already benefiting from Iceland being a less expensive place to visit. I would bet on a large loan (from Russia?), a circumspect recovery, less flirtation with neo-liberal concepts, and, for the West Ham United fans among you, Mr. Zola not getting funds for a major expansion this January.
What are the lessons here? The first is a sobering note for all the insurgent elements in India who are looking to break away – running a small country requires more than the ability to fire an AK-47 and suck up to fringes in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi armies. You have to run an airline, maintain a central bank and a currency, and develop a football team for world cup qualifiers. And when large fish decide to screw you, you have to lie down and take it – witness Geir Haarde’s comment when Gordon Brown used anti-terrorist legislation to send Iceland into a tailspin, a mere ‘this is not a friendly act’. Iceland may be the richest, whitest and most progressive country on the planet, but when the fertilizer hits the fan who cares – the world can afford it to fail.
The second is more worrisome in the Indian context. Policy makers choose between enabling growth and fighting inflation. Policies that enable growth, such as low interest rates, more circulation of money and larger fiscal deficits, tend to be inflationary and to reduce the rupee’s value. And policies that fight inflation, such as high interest rates, squeezed money supply and circumspect government spending tend to curtail growth. It is an interesting tightrope walk and one that is not so much of an issue in times of high growth and low inflation – this was the case over the past few years but is not the case now. The Indian government had reacted to the difficulties faced by people because of rapidly rising prices by taking anti-inflationary measures. The priorities appear to have u-turned in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and all hands are now on the pump that looks to maintain high economic growth and protect the integrity of the country’s financial systems. In effect, they have chosen the interests of those with businesses, jobs and bank accounts over those who use a significant proportion of their earnings to buy food. Given the number of elections scheduled over the next year, I am yet to decide whether this is brave or foolhardy.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Football and Life
FOOTBALL AND LIFE
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
‘Football is not a matter of life and death – it’s a lot more important than that’[1]
Introduction: I have been at the receiving end of lectures on the evils of football for a long time (some of my dear readers – do you recognise yourselves?). There is a pattern to this. The crescendo is highest during a World Cup or a Euro and during my (increasingly frequent) injury breaks. The troughs occur when I am listless, pale and crabby, when it is pretty obvious that I am ‘not getting enough’. I have learnt to accept them with equanimity – along with the comments about the need to focus on the important things in life and the observations that it is just ‘22 morons in perms chasing a ball’. I was also recently witness to a friend’s 15 year old son getting one of these from his father – something along the lines of ‘what do you learn from sitting up every night to watch Euro 2008?’[2]. Having also been awake every night for three weeks in June, I am reasonably qualified to address this question for my friend and similar sceptics. But first –
Why football? Many people consider two things important to growing up – playing a team game, and having a dog. The former teaches you about group dynamics, supporting each other, winning, losing, and rejection. The latter provides you with love that is pure and non-judgemental while teaching you about authority and responsibility. I don’t have any specific recommendation for football – most team games (basketball, hockey, etc.) are just as good, cricket possibly minutely less so being an individual game that is played in a team, rugby possibly more so except for the higher chances of your body parts being severed. A deeper analysis of the specific benefits of football is available in my blog theintelligentwomanstoyboy.blogspot.com in a paper entitled ‘Alive and Kicking’.
Lessons in life from Euro 2008: Much has been written about the successes of Euro 2008. As a neutral football lover, the quality of football on display was, for the most part, brilliant. The best team actually won. And, with no British teams playing, we could watch with the volume on and not have to cringe at the moaning, griping, whining English commentary[3]. But were these lessons in life? Nope – these follow!
TTMO: There is an old joke that goes – what is the similarity between dying and taking a crap? The answer – when you gotta go, you gotta go! Unfortunately, some teams had players who should have taken their walk into the sunset earlier, and these teams did badly. Particularly at fault were the French and Italians, where many were playing a tournament (or two) too many – particularly criminal for the French because they had the young talent available. The Swedes were the oldest team of the tournament and they were huffing and puffing in the second half of their games. The Greeks brought in the same personnel and tactics that won them the tournament in 2004 only to find that the same legs were four years older and the world had moved on. The tournament was better for these teams packing their bags at the earliest possible stage[4]. In contrast, the youngest team (Russia) had a run into the semi-finals, demolishing the tournament favourites on the way, and losing only to the second youngest team – who went on to become champions. It was different with managers – the oldest won the tournament, and two other oldies reached the semi-finals with teams that set the tournament alight.
What can be discerned from this? First, glorious comebacks do not happen – you have to be Zidane to do this gracefully, and none of us are. If you should go – go! And when you go, don’t turn around! And second, there is a time when you should be moving on to new challenges, and when you get that TTMO[5] (time to move on) feeling, you will not be doing yourself and your career favours by choosing comfort and stagnation over hunger and achievement. Past achievements are nice, but life has to be lived in the future.
Hype vs. Substance: The two most hyped players on the planet (or at least the English Premier League) were there – chocolate looks, silken skills and all. How did they fare? Cristiano Ronaldo had all the lesser lights flabbergasted by his stepovers but went missing at the first sign of real opposition (when Portugal played Germany). Fernando Torres was substituted in every game that Spain played, but he also decided the tournament with his only significant contribution to the team – a goal that was marvellous for its intent, aggression and power – no chocolate here. Football lovers were blindsided by Russia and Turkey, who reached the last four from nowhere. With the advantage of hindsight, Russia was a pretty obvious candidate for success, with one of football’s most brilliant tacticians managing them, and a Russian team just winning the UEFA Cup. But, no pushy PR agent behind them! So – real success is defined by performance on the ground – not by who your godfather is, not by how you look, not by what you (and others) say, and not by the weight of your wallet. And there are no short cuts for this!
Screw-ups happen: The lights went out in Vienna (an electrical storm, we were informed), disrupting the coverage of the semi-final between Germany and Turkey in Basle for viewers across the world. Yes, apparently this happens outside India. Bihar State Electricity Board – it looks like you have competition.
The lightness of nationalism: The Swiss team had three Turks. The Portuguese were, as usual, overloaded with Brazilians. The Turks had a Brazilian and an Englishman, the Germans had Poles, the Poles had a South American and even Spain had a Brazilian. The team lists were pragmatic reflections of ability and availability rather than national pride and honour. Even Spain lacked the usual sub-nationalist tensions within the team, and seemed better off for it. It was left to the Swiss authorities to indulge in jingoism, playing a pre-world war II national anthem for a Germany game – supposedly a mistake, but one that pissed German fans off big time.
The myth of the free market: The English Premier League is the best football league in the world. It is also the richest. It is also the one most guided by free market principles. You may dispute the first statement (though you would be on thin ice with four English clubs making it into the last eight of the Champions League in 2008, three into the last four and two into the final), but there is no disputing the second and third. The players are the best paid, the clubs have the money to buy the best players, and ticket prices are the highest. Anybody with money can own an English club – Russian oligarchs, Thai politicians, sheikhs from Dubai, Indian steel tycoons, US business magnates – anybody! In fact, the English Premier League was the league with the second-highest number of players at Euro 2008 (after the Bundesliga) – without any British team having qualified.
What was that again – England did not qualify? Yes, the national team was not good enough to be among the sixteen best teams in Europe. A cursory analysis suggests that this was an aberration caused by a bozo of a manager. A deeper one points to the fact that players are not coming through the lower divisions into the Premier League any more – better players are available cheaper from South America and eastern Europe. Great for the clubs, which sometimes play eleven foreigners, great for the quality of the league, but is it good for the national team and for the larger interests of English football?
Substitute companies for clubs, economic growth for the premier league and broader national interest for the national team and you revisit the debate about whether an unfettered free market is in the best interests of a nation.
It isn’t over till the fat lady sings: Watching Turkey play must have had Turkish heart patients dropping like flies. In the league, they lost to Portugal, were one down against Switzerland and scored twice (including once in the last minute) to win, and were two down in the must-win against Czech Republic before scoring three times in the last 15 minutes to go through to the quarters. Croatia scored in the last minute of extra time (the 119th minute of the game), only to see the Turks equalise in the 122nd minute, take the game to penalties and win it comprehensively there. Turkey had only 11 eligible players against mighty Germany (the rest were injured or carded), but came out and played as if they were the favourites for the game – ultimately losing the semi-final 2-3. What a team! And what a lesson on not giving up until the absolute end!
In conclusion: A relationship with football is akin to love – it gives pleasure, it gives pain, and it gives a lot more. If your child loves football, get used to it. Get used to the smell of sweat in his/her room, to the TV being on at odd hours once in two years, and to weekend football being more important than parties. Don’t fight it! If it dies, it will do so on its own. If it doesn’t, s/he will probably one day be just short of 45, confined to the home with a foot injury, writing about love. Like I am right now! Life could be worse!
[1] The statement is attributed to Bill Shankly, a legendary football manager.
[2] Coincidentally, I had also been witness to the same friend getting a similar lecture from his father back in the early 1980s.
[3] No offence meant – they are good commentators when they are neutral, and they are not neutral when a British team is playing. For the experienced viewer, it brought back memories of the last tournament with good English commentary – the 1994 World Cup.
[4] Yes, yes, before the Pundits among you bombard me with email beginning with ‘Are you aware’, the exception was Italy, which lost in the quarterfinals.
[5] I thank Shampa Kamath, my colleague at India Today, for introducing me to this term some years ago.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
‘Football is not a matter of life and death – it’s a lot more important than that’[1]
Introduction: I have been at the receiving end of lectures on the evils of football for a long time (some of my dear readers – do you recognise yourselves?). There is a pattern to this. The crescendo is highest during a World Cup or a Euro and during my (increasingly frequent) injury breaks. The troughs occur when I am listless, pale and crabby, when it is pretty obvious that I am ‘not getting enough’. I have learnt to accept them with equanimity – along with the comments about the need to focus on the important things in life and the observations that it is just ‘22 morons in perms chasing a ball’. I was also recently witness to a friend’s 15 year old son getting one of these from his father – something along the lines of ‘what do you learn from sitting up every night to watch Euro 2008?’[2]. Having also been awake every night for three weeks in June, I am reasonably qualified to address this question for my friend and similar sceptics. But first –
Why football? Many people consider two things important to growing up – playing a team game, and having a dog. The former teaches you about group dynamics, supporting each other, winning, losing, and rejection. The latter provides you with love that is pure and non-judgemental while teaching you about authority and responsibility. I don’t have any specific recommendation for football – most team games (basketball, hockey, etc.) are just as good, cricket possibly minutely less so being an individual game that is played in a team, rugby possibly more so except for the higher chances of your body parts being severed. A deeper analysis of the specific benefits of football is available in my blog theintelligentwomanstoyboy.blogspot.com in a paper entitled ‘Alive and Kicking’.
Lessons in life from Euro 2008: Much has been written about the successes of Euro 2008. As a neutral football lover, the quality of football on display was, for the most part, brilliant. The best team actually won. And, with no British teams playing, we could watch with the volume on and not have to cringe at the moaning, griping, whining English commentary[3]. But were these lessons in life? Nope – these follow!
TTMO: There is an old joke that goes – what is the similarity between dying and taking a crap? The answer – when you gotta go, you gotta go! Unfortunately, some teams had players who should have taken their walk into the sunset earlier, and these teams did badly. Particularly at fault were the French and Italians, where many were playing a tournament (or two) too many – particularly criminal for the French because they had the young talent available. The Swedes were the oldest team of the tournament and they were huffing and puffing in the second half of their games. The Greeks brought in the same personnel and tactics that won them the tournament in 2004 only to find that the same legs were four years older and the world had moved on. The tournament was better for these teams packing their bags at the earliest possible stage[4]. In contrast, the youngest team (Russia) had a run into the semi-finals, demolishing the tournament favourites on the way, and losing only to the second youngest team – who went on to become champions. It was different with managers – the oldest won the tournament, and two other oldies reached the semi-finals with teams that set the tournament alight.
What can be discerned from this? First, glorious comebacks do not happen – you have to be Zidane to do this gracefully, and none of us are. If you should go – go! And when you go, don’t turn around! And second, there is a time when you should be moving on to new challenges, and when you get that TTMO[5] (time to move on) feeling, you will not be doing yourself and your career favours by choosing comfort and stagnation over hunger and achievement. Past achievements are nice, but life has to be lived in the future.
Hype vs. Substance: The two most hyped players on the planet (or at least the English Premier League) were there – chocolate looks, silken skills and all. How did they fare? Cristiano Ronaldo had all the lesser lights flabbergasted by his stepovers but went missing at the first sign of real opposition (when Portugal played Germany). Fernando Torres was substituted in every game that Spain played, but he also decided the tournament with his only significant contribution to the team – a goal that was marvellous for its intent, aggression and power – no chocolate here. Football lovers were blindsided by Russia and Turkey, who reached the last four from nowhere. With the advantage of hindsight, Russia was a pretty obvious candidate for success, with one of football’s most brilliant tacticians managing them, and a Russian team just winning the UEFA Cup. But, no pushy PR agent behind them! So – real success is defined by performance on the ground – not by who your godfather is, not by how you look, not by what you (and others) say, and not by the weight of your wallet. And there are no short cuts for this!
Screw-ups happen: The lights went out in Vienna (an electrical storm, we were informed), disrupting the coverage of the semi-final between Germany and Turkey in Basle for viewers across the world. Yes, apparently this happens outside India. Bihar State Electricity Board – it looks like you have competition.
The lightness of nationalism: The Swiss team had three Turks. The Portuguese were, as usual, overloaded with Brazilians. The Turks had a Brazilian and an Englishman, the Germans had Poles, the Poles had a South American and even Spain had a Brazilian. The team lists were pragmatic reflections of ability and availability rather than national pride and honour. Even Spain lacked the usual sub-nationalist tensions within the team, and seemed better off for it. It was left to the Swiss authorities to indulge in jingoism, playing a pre-world war II national anthem for a Germany game – supposedly a mistake, but one that pissed German fans off big time.
The myth of the free market: The English Premier League is the best football league in the world. It is also the richest. It is also the one most guided by free market principles. You may dispute the first statement (though you would be on thin ice with four English clubs making it into the last eight of the Champions League in 2008, three into the last four and two into the final), but there is no disputing the second and third. The players are the best paid, the clubs have the money to buy the best players, and ticket prices are the highest. Anybody with money can own an English club – Russian oligarchs, Thai politicians, sheikhs from Dubai, Indian steel tycoons, US business magnates – anybody! In fact, the English Premier League was the league with the second-highest number of players at Euro 2008 (after the Bundesliga) – without any British team having qualified.
What was that again – England did not qualify? Yes, the national team was not good enough to be among the sixteen best teams in Europe. A cursory analysis suggests that this was an aberration caused by a bozo of a manager. A deeper one points to the fact that players are not coming through the lower divisions into the Premier League any more – better players are available cheaper from South America and eastern Europe. Great for the clubs, which sometimes play eleven foreigners, great for the quality of the league, but is it good for the national team and for the larger interests of English football?
Substitute companies for clubs, economic growth for the premier league and broader national interest for the national team and you revisit the debate about whether an unfettered free market is in the best interests of a nation.
It isn’t over till the fat lady sings: Watching Turkey play must have had Turkish heart patients dropping like flies. In the league, they lost to Portugal, were one down against Switzerland and scored twice (including once in the last minute) to win, and were two down in the must-win against Czech Republic before scoring three times in the last 15 minutes to go through to the quarters. Croatia scored in the last minute of extra time (the 119th minute of the game), only to see the Turks equalise in the 122nd minute, take the game to penalties and win it comprehensively there. Turkey had only 11 eligible players against mighty Germany (the rest were injured or carded), but came out and played as if they were the favourites for the game – ultimately losing the semi-final 2-3. What a team! And what a lesson on not giving up until the absolute end!
In conclusion: A relationship with football is akin to love – it gives pleasure, it gives pain, and it gives a lot more. If your child loves football, get used to it. Get used to the smell of sweat in his/her room, to the TV being on at odd hours once in two years, and to weekend football being more important than parties. Don’t fight it! If it dies, it will do so on its own. If it doesn’t, s/he will probably one day be just short of 45, confined to the home with a foot injury, writing about love. Like I am right now! Life could be worse!
[1] The statement is attributed to Bill Shankly, a legendary football manager.
[2] Coincidentally, I had also been witness to the same friend getting a similar lecture from his father back in the early 1980s.
[3] No offence meant – they are good commentators when they are neutral, and they are not neutral when a British team is playing. For the experienced viewer, it brought back memories of the last tournament with good English commentary – the 1994 World Cup.
[4] Yes, yes, before the Pundits among you bombard me with email beginning with ‘Are you aware’, the exception was Italy, which lost in the quarterfinals.
[5] I thank Shampa Kamath, my colleague at India Today, for introducing me to this term some years ago.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Alive and Kicking
ALIVE AND KICKING
By Ajit Chaudhuri
Written in December 2003
Published in Simply Delhi of January-March 2004
Are you one of those who is bleary eyed at work every four years in June with your body clock adjusted to the time in some faraway country? For whom the World Cup brings about images of men in yellow rather than blue? Who, if invited by Aishwarya Rai to her home for a cosy dinner for two, would check if she has ESPN before accepting? If you are, then join the growing tribe of football fans in Delhi.
A love affair with football used to be painful for the urbane Delhi-ite. Play in school, and get yelled at by your parents on the need to “focus your energy on your future”. Play on in college and watch the cricketers, basketballers, badminton players and even the chess players get the girls. Join a job and that used to be it.
Initially Delhi had only two football tournaments, the DCM and the Durand. Though it was fun to watch JCT Mills play a Bengali or Goan team, the football was mediocre. You had to skip work to watch the game. And there was always the risk of being tear-gassed if some local team lost by a contentious goal. The only real options were to switch to golf or some racquet game, or to give it up all together. Either way, there was a void in life.
But not any more! Football renaissance is evident everywhere. Quality football from around the world can be viewed week in and week out. There is also an abundance of playing options available to the recreational footballer. The football facilities at the Siri Fort sports complex and the practice grounds outside the Nehru Stadium are hotbeds of activity. Tournaments for children and working people have started to catch on. Informal teams have sprung up. Corporate firms too have begun supporting players.
What is it that makes grown men become willing to bear the aches and pains, the prospect of serious injury, early mornings and a nagging wife to play the game? To play, despite being too fat, too old or too slow, even if it is more impressive at cocktail parties to say “I play golf”. It may not be logical, but the only reason is that they love this game. It is a love that cuts through age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity and nationality. It is a love that you either have or you don’t, and if you don’t you will never understand.
If you share the obsession and venture out on to a football field, there are some fringe benefits. The first is that football has a certain therapeutic value. Much of the frustration of staying in Delhi – driving in traffic, dealing with rude people, struggling with power cuts and water scarcity – get drained out of you in that weekly hour on the football field.
Second, the game itself is physically demanding and playing regularly ensures a certain level of physical fitness. In addition, the realisation that some daily exercise can reduce the chances of you making a fool of yourself at the weekend inevitably dawns, and one begins to wake up early and do some jogging and toe touching.
Third, the football field is still a man’s space. In a world in which women are coming into bars, cricket stadiums and late-night movie shows, there is a dearth of places where a man can be a man without being politically incorrect. On the football field, there is no one to impress with your metrosexual sensitivity or your sweet nature.
Fourth, you make new friends. Delhi, as we all know, is a place where friends (as opposed to acquaintances and contacts) are not easily made. And the phrase ‘come over sometime’ means don’t come at all. But your football team is a group that you meet regularly. There is no pretence, and your mates know a side of you that even your family is unfamiliar with.
Fifth, you impress chicks. Telling beautiful women that your interests include football, and that you play over the weekend, conjures up images of a David Beckham-like character. They don’t need to know that you are part of a group of middle-aged beer-bellied men kicking a ball around. However, it is advisable not to be too generous with this information – requests to come and watch you play are not easy to refuse and can be euphemisms for ‘I want to marry you and make you go vegetable shopping on weekends for the rest of your life’.
Lastly, you impress your children and their friends. There is nothing like taking your children for your football game and letting them see their old man doing the same things that are on ESPN, albeit at a slightly different level. If they are a little older, they can even play along with you. It is these memories that they will carry of you into the long-term future, not the fact that you grouched about their results and were miserly with their pocket money.
If, by some chance, you are now convinced about making that move from the seat in front of your TV to the ground in front of your house, there are a few things you should know. The first is that football is a contact sport, and you will have severe aches and pains until your body is used to the strain. This takes time. You will also be injured occasionally in places that you won’t remember from your schoolboy playing days, and you will take longer to recover. Playing on Sunday will mean walking into office on Monday and probably Tuesday looking as if you have an exotic sexual disease. The second is that should you continue playing, there might be marital strife in the offing. Football takes up free time – the game itself, and then the time rendered immobile with injuries, time that could have been devoted to the family and to socialising.
So just focus on going out and doing it! Find a team, or form one, start playing, and fall in love again. You will never be the same.
By Ajit Chaudhuri
Written in December 2003
Published in Simply Delhi of January-March 2004
Are you one of those who is bleary eyed at work every four years in June with your body clock adjusted to the time in some faraway country? For whom the World Cup brings about images of men in yellow rather than blue? Who, if invited by Aishwarya Rai to her home for a cosy dinner for two, would check if she has ESPN before accepting? If you are, then join the growing tribe of football fans in Delhi.
A love affair with football used to be painful for the urbane Delhi-ite. Play in school, and get yelled at by your parents on the need to “focus your energy on your future”. Play on in college and watch the cricketers, basketballers, badminton players and even the chess players get the girls. Join a job and that used to be it.
Initially Delhi had only two football tournaments, the DCM and the Durand. Though it was fun to watch JCT Mills play a Bengali or Goan team, the football was mediocre. You had to skip work to watch the game. And there was always the risk of being tear-gassed if some local team lost by a contentious goal. The only real options were to switch to golf or some racquet game, or to give it up all together. Either way, there was a void in life.
But not any more! Football renaissance is evident everywhere. Quality football from around the world can be viewed week in and week out. There is also an abundance of playing options available to the recreational footballer. The football facilities at the Siri Fort sports complex and the practice grounds outside the Nehru Stadium are hotbeds of activity. Tournaments for children and working people have started to catch on. Informal teams have sprung up. Corporate firms too have begun supporting players.
What is it that makes grown men become willing to bear the aches and pains, the prospect of serious injury, early mornings and a nagging wife to play the game? To play, despite being too fat, too old or too slow, even if it is more impressive at cocktail parties to say “I play golf”. It may not be logical, but the only reason is that they love this game. It is a love that cuts through age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity and nationality. It is a love that you either have or you don’t, and if you don’t you will never understand.
If you share the obsession and venture out on to a football field, there are some fringe benefits. The first is that football has a certain therapeutic value. Much of the frustration of staying in Delhi – driving in traffic, dealing with rude people, struggling with power cuts and water scarcity – get drained out of you in that weekly hour on the football field.
Second, the game itself is physically demanding and playing regularly ensures a certain level of physical fitness. In addition, the realisation that some daily exercise can reduce the chances of you making a fool of yourself at the weekend inevitably dawns, and one begins to wake up early and do some jogging and toe touching.
Third, the football field is still a man’s space. In a world in which women are coming into bars, cricket stadiums and late-night movie shows, there is a dearth of places where a man can be a man without being politically incorrect. On the football field, there is no one to impress with your metrosexual sensitivity or your sweet nature.
Fourth, you make new friends. Delhi, as we all know, is a place where friends (as opposed to acquaintances and contacts) are not easily made. And the phrase ‘come over sometime’ means don’t come at all. But your football team is a group that you meet regularly. There is no pretence, and your mates know a side of you that even your family is unfamiliar with.
Fifth, you impress chicks. Telling beautiful women that your interests include football, and that you play over the weekend, conjures up images of a David Beckham-like character. They don’t need to know that you are part of a group of middle-aged beer-bellied men kicking a ball around. However, it is advisable not to be too generous with this information – requests to come and watch you play are not easy to refuse and can be euphemisms for ‘I want to marry you and make you go vegetable shopping on weekends for the rest of your life’.
Lastly, you impress your children and their friends. There is nothing like taking your children for your football game and letting them see their old man doing the same things that are on ESPN, albeit at a slightly different level. If they are a little older, they can even play along with you. It is these memories that they will carry of you into the long-term future, not the fact that you grouched about their results and were miserly with their pocket money.
If, by some chance, you are now convinced about making that move from the seat in front of your TV to the ground in front of your house, there are a few things you should know. The first is that football is a contact sport, and you will have severe aches and pains until your body is used to the strain. This takes time. You will also be injured occasionally in places that you won’t remember from your schoolboy playing days, and you will take longer to recover. Playing on Sunday will mean walking into office on Monday and probably Tuesday looking as if you have an exotic sexual disease. The second is that should you continue playing, there might be marital strife in the offing. Football takes up free time – the game itself, and then the time rendered immobile with injuries, time that could have been devoted to the family and to socialising.
So just focus on going out and doing it! Find a team, or form one, start playing, and fall in love again. You will never be the same.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Assumptions We Make!
THE ASSUMPTIONS WE MAKE!
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
June 2008
Introduction: I have a habit, when travelling by train, of scouring the passenger list for a profile of my fellow travellers. This is a residue from the many long journeys undertaken in teenage years, when the purpose was to locate the F 15 to 20s in the carriage. Recently, while travelling from Allahabad to Delhi, I read from the list that I was sharing a coupe with a middle-aged Muslim man. Sure enough, he turned out to have a long beard and a prayer cap, and I braced myself for one of those nose-in-my-book journeys that are particularly unpleasant when one does not have a good book. The guy turned out to be a Professor in Computer Engineering with a PhD from UCLA, and was in Allahabad to take the viva-voce for PhD students at the local university. We discovered a common passion for teaching and football, and the journey was as pleasant as it gets.
But this paper is not about him – it is about the assumptions that we make. As students of economics learn in the torture chambers of first-year college, your assumptions are critical to your model. This paper looks into the robustness of some of the assumptions that shape our models of work, love and life.
Your savings are safe in a bank: We all know of the hit the banking system is taking from the sub-prime crisis in the USA – but what does it have to do with our savings in our local banks? I was in the UK in September 2007 and saw the run on Northern Rock through the eyes of retired relatives, all of whom had substantial savings that were going to disappear into thin air. Much has been written about the causes of the crisis and the role that globalisation, diabolical bankers and lax regulatory systems played. Deep within the layers of hyperbole is one simple fact – that the line between ‘commercial’ banking (the business of looking after ordinary people’s savings, which is subject to heavy regulation and is protected by governments) and ‘investment’ banking (the business of investing money, which is subject to higher risks, higher returns and less regulation) has been erased. Banks have been indulging in risk taking with money that has been given to them for safe keeping rather than high returns – great when the going is good, but a social and economic disaster when not so good. And governments are baulking at providing statutory protection for speculation, rightly claiming that this is a heads-you-win-tails-I-lose situation for the taxpayer that has a ‘moral hazard’ dimension. The lesson to learn is that if your money is in a bank, the bank should be big enough to rock financial systems if it sinks – like Bear Stearns or Northern Rock. And if the only option is a cooperative bank owned by a relative of our current President, you are well advised to make some space in your mattress.
Thin is beautiful: What constitutes beauty? Probably ranked along with ‘what is love’, ‘how do I make more money’, and ‘how do I get my free kicks to swerve and dip simultaneously’ in the list of life’s eternal questions! This paper is not the place to attempt an answer, and I merely look to address two assumptions about beauty (and no, none of that crap about inner beauty being much more important, so please do read on). The first is the female assumption that thin is beautiful. Ladies, if beauty is about being attractive to men, the fashion industry is wrong – most men prefer rubenesque women. Please see models for the clotheshorses that they are and spare yourself the anorexia nervosa. The second is the male assumption that beautiful women are dumb[1]. Guys, you are missing amazing talent at science conventions, technical seminars, and in libraries.
Economic growth will trickle down: This assumption forms the moral justification for a school of thought that propagates economic growth above all else. It has resulted in extreme concentrations of wealth, rising socio-economic inequality, and a three-monkeys attitude (if you don’t see, hear and acknowledge them, they don’t exist) to those missing out. The previous elections were lost on this issue, but the policies continue with a few sops in the form of NREGS. There is a growing realisation that the trickle down is not happening or, if it is, its pace is too glacial to be politically acceptable. But, bandying about of new jargon such as ‘inclusive growth’ apart, little is being done to change policies to ensure a real trickle down. And now, with high inflation being added to the cocktail, what can I say except that we are going to be living in interesting times.
Children are safest in their families: Some of you may be familiar with the Siberian dilemma. It goes like this – if you are ice fishing with a friend on a lake in the Siberian winter (this constitutes making a hole in the ice and putting a fishing line through) and the friend falls through the hole into the water, what should you do? Leave her/him there and s/he freezes to death in 30 seconds! Pull her/him out and s/he freezes to death in 15 seconds! I feel a similar dilemma when I see children in distress – which I do on railway platforms, on the streets, in dhabas, in brothels, and yes, as servants in the homes of some of my relatives and friends. Blow the whistle, and come up against a sclerotic and corrupt system that at best results in repatriation to the same family that was a party to the child being in the situation in the first place. And then blow the same whistle again, thousands and thousands of times over. Ignore it, and see a life that will not achieve its potential. And then keep your eyes closed – until you cannot bring yourself to look into a mirror.
Strong NGOs means better communities: I remember a meeting in Lunkaransar (a sub-district town in western Rajasthan) in the mid-nineties that looked into the impact of ten years of the Urmul Trust (a local NGO) on the region. After the meeting, a representative of Urmul’s donor agency made an acerbic comment that he was unable to gauge whether the beneficiary communities had gained, but it was crystal clear that Urmul itself had significantly benefited[2]. The assumption that NGOs are the best vehicles for work against poverty and development problems, and that therefore support to NGOs translates to less poverty and a better social development status, has been a lucrative one for the NGO sector. While this is sometimes the case, the opposite scenario of large, resource rich NGOs working with communities that are in the same state they were in when the NGO started out is more common. And this may not be because NGOs are corrupt and inefficient (though they often are), but merely because they are not so important in the scheme of things. And until this pervades through, the show goes on.
[1] Put mathematically, it would go as Brains x Beauty = k.
[2]The person is on this reading list – Vinay Raj, will you please confirm. Others, be careful what you say to me – it may backfire on you a decade plus later.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
June 2008
Introduction: I have a habit, when travelling by train, of scouring the passenger list for a profile of my fellow travellers. This is a residue from the many long journeys undertaken in teenage years, when the purpose was to locate the F 15 to 20s in the carriage. Recently, while travelling from Allahabad to Delhi, I read from the list that I was sharing a coupe with a middle-aged Muslim man. Sure enough, he turned out to have a long beard and a prayer cap, and I braced myself for one of those nose-in-my-book journeys that are particularly unpleasant when one does not have a good book. The guy turned out to be a Professor in Computer Engineering with a PhD from UCLA, and was in Allahabad to take the viva-voce for PhD students at the local university. We discovered a common passion for teaching and football, and the journey was as pleasant as it gets.
But this paper is not about him – it is about the assumptions that we make. As students of economics learn in the torture chambers of first-year college, your assumptions are critical to your model. This paper looks into the robustness of some of the assumptions that shape our models of work, love and life.
Your savings are safe in a bank: We all know of the hit the banking system is taking from the sub-prime crisis in the USA – but what does it have to do with our savings in our local banks? I was in the UK in September 2007 and saw the run on Northern Rock through the eyes of retired relatives, all of whom had substantial savings that were going to disappear into thin air. Much has been written about the causes of the crisis and the role that globalisation, diabolical bankers and lax regulatory systems played. Deep within the layers of hyperbole is one simple fact – that the line between ‘commercial’ banking (the business of looking after ordinary people’s savings, which is subject to heavy regulation and is protected by governments) and ‘investment’ banking (the business of investing money, which is subject to higher risks, higher returns and less regulation) has been erased. Banks have been indulging in risk taking with money that has been given to them for safe keeping rather than high returns – great when the going is good, but a social and economic disaster when not so good. And governments are baulking at providing statutory protection for speculation, rightly claiming that this is a heads-you-win-tails-I-lose situation for the taxpayer that has a ‘moral hazard’ dimension. The lesson to learn is that if your money is in a bank, the bank should be big enough to rock financial systems if it sinks – like Bear Stearns or Northern Rock. And if the only option is a cooperative bank owned by a relative of our current President, you are well advised to make some space in your mattress.
Thin is beautiful: What constitutes beauty? Probably ranked along with ‘what is love’, ‘how do I make more money’, and ‘how do I get my free kicks to swerve and dip simultaneously’ in the list of life’s eternal questions! This paper is not the place to attempt an answer, and I merely look to address two assumptions about beauty (and no, none of that crap about inner beauty being much more important, so please do read on). The first is the female assumption that thin is beautiful. Ladies, if beauty is about being attractive to men, the fashion industry is wrong – most men prefer rubenesque women. Please see models for the clotheshorses that they are and spare yourself the anorexia nervosa. The second is the male assumption that beautiful women are dumb[1]. Guys, you are missing amazing talent at science conventions, technical seminars, and in libraries.
Economic growth will trickle down: This assumption forms the moral justification for a school of thought that propagates economic growth above all else. It has resulted in extreme concentrations of wealth, rising socio-economic inequality, and a three-monkeys attitude (if you don’t see, hear and acknowledge them, they don’t exist) to those missing out. The previous elections were lost on this issue, but the policies continue with a few sops in the form of NREGS. There is a growing realisation that the trickle down is not happening or, if it is, its pace is too glacial to be politically acceptable. But, bandying about of new jargon such as ‘inclusive growth’ apart, little is being done to change policies to ensure a real trickle down. And now, with high inflation being added to the cocktail, what can I say except that we are going to be living in interesting times.
Children are safest in their families: Some of you may be familiar with the Siberian dilemma. It goes like this – if you are ice fishing with a friend on a lake in the Siberian winter (this constitutes making a hole in the ice and putting a fishing line through) and the friend falls through the hole into the water, what should you do? Leave her/him there and s/he freezes to death in 30 seconds! Pull her/him out and s/he freezes to death in 15 seconds! I feel a similar dilemma when I see children in distress – which I do on railway platforms, on the streets, in dhabas, in brothels, and yes, as servants in the homes of some of my relatives and friends. Blow the whistle, and come up against a sclerotic and corrupt system that at best results in repatriation to the same family that was a party to the child being in the situation in the first place. And then blow the same whistle again, thousands and thousands of times over. Ignore it, and see a life that will not achieve its potential. And then keep your eyes closed – until you cannot bring yourself to look into a mirror.
Strong NGOs means better communities: I remember a meeting in Lunkaransar (a sub-district town in western Rajasthan) in the mid-nineties that looked into the impact of ten years of the Urmul Trust (a local NGO) on the region. After the meeting, a representative of Urmul’s donor agency made an acerbic comment that he was unable to gauge whether the beneficiary communities had gained, but it was crystal clear that Urmul itself had significantly benefited[2]. The assumption that NGOs are the best vehicles for work against poverty and development problems, and that therefore support to NGOs translates to less poverty and a better social development status, has been a lucrative one for the NGO sector. While this is sometimes the case, the opposite scenario of large, resource rich NGOs working with communities that are in the same state they were in when the NGO started out is more common. And this may not be because NGOs are corrupt and inefficient (though they often are), but merely because they are not so important in the scheme of things. And until this pervades through, the show goes on.
[1] Put mathematically, it would go as Brains x Beauty = k.
[2]The person is on this reading list – Vinay Raj, will you please confirm. Others, be careful what you say to me – it may backfire on you a decade plus later.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard
ADVERSE SELECTION AND MORAL HAZARD
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri, April 2008
During my post-graduate studies, a group of us used to frequent a restaurant in Baroda that offered an inexpensive non-vegetarian buffet. As repeat customers, we should have got warmer welcomes every time we went – but no, they were increasingly icy after the first time until, fortunately towards the end of our course, the sight of us descending from our motorcycles had them scurrying for cover, desperately looking for reasons not to let us in. No, we were not the Gujarat chapter of Hell’s Angels – the reasons for their behaviour were twofold. First, we were all young men with voracious appetites (anyone familiar with Vijaynidhi, Somnath Sen, Mathew John, Dinshaw Irani, Rajvinder Kohli, et al, in those days would sympathise with any restaurant they walked into). And second, we eschewed the soups, breads, salads, etc. (all the cheap stuff put out to take up stomach space), and concentrated our efforts on the mutton and chicken. And this little example illustrates the two phenomena that are the subject of this paper.
Adverse selection occurs when policies encourage the selection of ‘bad’ customers. The restaurant featured above priced its buffet based upon the average eater, but the ‘all you can eat for one price’ policy discouraged the plate-pickers and encouraged the gluttons. As they say, ‘everyone can’t be above average’, and I suspect that that buffet scheme did not survive us. The concept of adverse selection originates from the insurance industry and is used to describe the problem of insurance being purchased only by those most in need, such as life by the old and health by the sick, and the subsequent likelihood of the insurance firm going bust. Adverse selection is prevented by various means, such as reducing the information asymmetry between buyer and seller and ensuring that those at higher risk pay higher premiums (finding out, for example, whether there is a history of heart ailments in the purchaser’s family) and laws requiring everyone to have insurance.
Adverse selection also explains why my old school’s annual alumni reunion is such good fun (for the likes of me and my friends) – it is a glitzy event in a 5-star hotel for which the alumni association charges Rs. 1,000 per person with as much booze and food as you can imbibe thrown in. And while some seedha-saadha types do land up out of patriotic feeling, most of us, men and women alike, are there to have a wild time (nobody brings their spouse unless s/he is also an alumni) and proceed to do exactly that.
Moral hazard relates to the changes in behaviour that policies, especially those that insulate a party from risk, bring about. In the introductory example, it was the sticking to mutton and chicken when we would normally have balanced our intake with vegetables, rotis and stuff. In insurance, moral hazard happens in two ways to increase costs to the insurer. The first relates to the way a person with full health insurance seeks treatment for the most trivial of ailments, or the way someone with full cover vehicle insurance is careless about locking the car. The second relates to the lack of ethics in the medical profession – the way doctors and hospitals find out how much a patient can pay and then find ways to extract precisely that much. If you have cover or can pay, you will find yourself going through meaningless tests and treatments. If you can not, you can die like a dog on the road – like the lady in Kanpur just yesterday[1]. With India being the most privatised health system in the world[2], and with health expenditure being the single most significant cause of families falling below the poverty line[3], the combination of moral hazard, medical ethics and a government health policy that mouths platitudes about universal coverage while encouraging a rapacious health system spells disaster for us all.
Moral hazard relates to finance as well – financial bailouts of lending institutions can encourage risky lending in the future if risk-takers believe that they are protected from the burden of losses – the case of Bear Stearns comes to mind. It applies to borrowers as well, as the hue and cry over the effect of the decision to forgive agricultural debt on the long term credit climate will testify to. It applies to management – when top management is shielded from the consequences of poor decisions, or when funding for projects is independent of success. It applies to sociology – the way the powerful are especially susceptible to disrespecting the law of the land, the way men behave around women in skimpy clothes on the assumption that they are ‘asking for it’, and the way private bus drivers drive when they have paid an ‘all-purpose’ hafta to the traffic police.
Are adverse selection and moral hazard applicable to the development sector as well?
By working two jobs, one with an Indian donor agency and one with a British one, I see adverse selection at its starkest every day. Care Today can fund anybody it chooses to, and we have thus worked with and funded a variety of organisations including UNDP, Actionaid (whoever heard of an Indian funding agency funding the UN or a foreign funding agency – but we have) and the Indian Army. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, like all foreign donors in India, can fund only FCRA-registered NGOs – a much smaller universe of the good, the bad and the ugly with the one commonality that development requirements have to balance with organisational perpetuity concerns.
A recent case of moral hazard that I saw was in the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s work with an NGO. PHF normally supports for one year and then, if suitable, another three years. In this case, we at PHF decided to approve three years support, enough for the NGO to do all that it saw as required, in one go. This would enable growth with stability, I had argued to my bosses. Monitoring systems revealed that money for salaries and infrastructure was being absorbed effectively, but none of the activities that the NGO had so effectively communicated as critical for meeting its objectives were being done. Enquiries revealed that the NGO had been utilising its time and resources in undertaking sub-contracting assignments for one-time short-term donors. The NGO, seeing assured and stable support, had downgraded the priority of the PHF-supported activities and adopted an ‘incremental’ approach to further activities and funding. Needless to add, I am rethinking the basics of the relationship.
[1] Many news channels and newspapers covered this. For the sake of convenience, I will cite just one – ‘Woman who gave birth by roadside dies, 8 doctors suspended’ in the Indian Express of 25th April 2008.
[2] According to WHO Statistical Information System: Core Health Indicators, India’s health care system is 83% privately funded in 2004.
[3] According to the WHO, 24 percent of the families of all Indians hospitalized fall below the poverty line as a direct result of hospitalization. This is from Devadasan, Van Damme, Ransom and Criel, “Community Health Insurance in India: An Overview”, Economic and Political Weekly of 10-16 July 2004.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri, April 2008
During my post-graduate studies, a group of us used to frequent a restaurant in Baroda that offered an inexpensive non-vegetarian buffet. As repeat customers, we should have got warmer welcomes every time we went – but no, they were increasingly icy after the first time until, fortunately towards the end of our course, the sight of us descending from our motorcycles had them scurrying for cover, desperately looking for reasons not to let us in. No, we were not the Gujarat chapter of Hell’s Angels – the reasons for their behaviour were twofold. First, we were all young men with voracious appetites (anyone familiar with Vijaynidhi, Somnath Sen, Mathew John, Dinshaw Irani, Rajvinder Kohli, et al, in those days would sympathise with any restaurant they walked into). And second, we eschewed the soups, breads, salads, etc. (all the cheap stuff put out to take up stomach space), and concentrated our efforts on the mutton and chicken. And this little example illustrates the two phenomena that are the subject of this paper.
Adverse selection occurs when policies encourage the selection of ‘bad’ customers. The restaurant featured above priced its buffet based upon the average eater, but the ‘all you can eat for one price’ policy discouraged the plate-pickers and encouraged the gluttons. As they say, ‘everyone can’t be above average’, and I suspect that that buffet scheme did not survive us. The concept of adverse selection originates from the insurance industry and is used to describe the problem of insurance being purchased only by those most in need, such as life by the old and health by the sick, and the subsequent likelihood of the insurance firm going bust. Adverse selection is prevented by various means, such as reducing the information asymmetry between buyer and seller and ensuring that those at higher risk pay higher premiums (finding out, for example, whether there is a history of heart ailments in the purchaser’s family) and laws requiring everyone to have insurance.
Adverse selection also explains why my old school’s annual alumni reunion is such good fun (for the likes of me and my friends) – it is a glitzy event in a 5-star hotel for which the alumni association charges Rs. 1,000 per person with as much booze and food as you can imbibe thrown in. And while some seedha-saadha types do land up out of patriotic feeling, most of us, men and women alike, are there to have a wild time (nobody brings their spouse unless s/he is also an alumni) and proceed to do exactly that.
Moral hazard relates to the changes in behaviour that policies, especially those that insulate a party from risk, bring about. In the introductory example, it was the sticking to mutton and chicken when we would normally have balanced our intake with vegetables, rotis and stuff. In insurance, moral hazard happens in two ways to increase costs to the insurer. The first relates to the way a person with full health insurance seeks treatment for the most trivial of ailments, or the way someone with full cover vehicle insurance is careless about locking the car. The second relates to the lack of ethics in the medical profession – the way doctors and hospitals find out how much a patient can pay and then find ways to extract precisely that much. If you have cover or can pay, you will find yourself going through meaningless tests and treatments. If you can not, you can die like a dog on the road – like the lady in Kanpur just yesterday[1]. With India being the most privatised health system in the world[2], and with health expenditure being the single most significant cause of families falling below the poverty line[3], the combination of moral hazard, medical ethics and a government health policy that mouths platitudes about universal coverage while encouraging a rapacious health system spells disaster for us all.
Moral hazard relates to finance as well – financial bailouts of lending institutions can encourage risky lending in the future if risk-takers believe that they are protected from the burden of losses – the case of Bear Stearns comes to mind. It applies to borrowers as well, as the hue and cry over the effect of the decision to forgive agricultural debt on the long term credit climate will testify to. It applies to management – when top management is shielded from the consequences of poor decisions, or when funding for projects is independent of success. It applies to sociology – the way the powerful are especially susceptible to disrespecting the law of the land, the way men behave around women in skimpy clothes on the assumption that they are ‘asking for it’, and the way private bus drivers drive when they have paid an ‘all-purpose’ hafta to the traffic police.
Are adverse selection and moral hazard applicable to the development sector as well?
By working two jobs, one with an Indian donor agency and one with a British one, I see adverse selection at its starkest every day. Care Today can fund anybody it chooses to, and we have thus worked with and funded a variety of organisations including UNDP, Actionaid (whoever heard of an Indian funding agency funding the UN or a foreign funding agency – but we have) and the Indian Army. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, like all foreign donors in India, can fund only FCRA-registered NGOs – a much smaller universe of the good, the bad and the ugly with the one commonality that development requirements have to balance with organisational perpetuity concerns.
A recent case of moral hazard that I saw was in the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s work with an NGO. PHF normally supports for one year and then, if suitable, another three years. In this case, we at PHF decided to approve three years support, enough for the NGO to do all that it saw as required, in one go. This would enable growth with stability, I had argued to my bosses. Monitoring systems revealed that money for salaries and infrastructure was being absorbed effectively, but none of the activities that the NGO had so effectively communicated as critical for meeting its objectives were being done. Enquiries revealed that the NGO had been utilising its time and resources in undertaking sub-contracting assignments for one-time short-term donors. The NGO, seeing assured and stable support, had downgraded the priority of the PHF-supported activities and adopted an ‘incremental’ approach to further activities and funding. Needless to add, I am rethinking the basics of the relationship.
[1] Many news channels and newspapers covered this. For the sake of convenience, I will cite just one – ‘Woman who gave birth by roadside dies, 8 doctors suspended’ in the Indian Express of 25th April 2008.
[2] According to WHO Statistical Information System: Core Health Indicators, India’s health care system is 83% privately funded in 2004.
[3] According to the WHO, 24 percent of the families of all Indians hospitalized fall below the poverty line as a direct result of hospitalization. This is from Devadasan, Van Damme, Ransom and Criel, “Community Health Insurance in India: An Overview”, Economic and Political Weekly of 10-16 July 2004.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Home Work
HOMEWORK
By Ajit Chaudhuri
‘Rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air
And feathered canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way’[1]
The issue of work-life balance has finally hit the politically correct workplace. Options such as flexi-hours, working from home, and part-time work can now be taken without saying good-bye to your job – or so the bosses say. Of these, looking to work flexi-hours can be realistically got away with only if you have troublesome children, dying relatives, or clients in a different time zone. And part-time work brings about the vexing combination of having to meet full-time expectations on part-time wages. It is working from home that has serious attractions – a laptop, phone and Internet connection makes one productive wherever and obviates the need to commute, put up with the shitty coffee and have your finger on the abort key and your mind over the shoulder every time you play a game on the computer. But – will this actually work for you, and are there some pitfalls that you should be aware of in this seemingly win-win option? Is there something in those rats’ maze-like workspaces that makes work productive and fun? Are there downsides to peace and quiet and a TV and fridge within easy reach?
I have had an office in a large organisation as well as the right to work from home for the past nine years. Before that, I had stints working in an office and stints working from home. And before that, I worked completely from office. Here are the views of an expert!
When I first began to work from home, it was like a dream come true. No dressing up in the morning, no commute, no disturbances – I got a lot of work done in that initial month. The fringe benefits were great as well. I was able to watch Tendulkar bat on my large colour TV instead of having to sneak off to the small B&W at the nearby shop. My lunch was hot, and my tea as I liked it. And the guilt-free afternoon siesta … ah!
But then, I started getting on my wife’s nerves – I am still to figure out whether it was my mere presence or the frequent raids on the refrigerator. And the cleaning lady, ironing maid and dog walker began to think that I was unemployed, and even began returning change. Relatives began to drop in whenever they felt like, assuming that I was free and available to chat and do odd jobs. And I was very, very happy to go back to working from office, commute, shoes and tie, fresh shave and all. I now follow a middle of the road path, working from office for some days of the week and from home for some. And (while I do occasionally wake up in the morning and decide to slob out for the day) working from home does mean getting into work clothes, sitting down at a desk at a fixed time, and putting in the same hours with the same intensity.
For those planning a similar option, here is some advice.
First, go for this only if you are self-disciplined. Many of us need the structure that an office provides to be productive, and the business of getting up, ready and out of the house is necessary for its own sake. Those with a proclivity to slob out should beware! If the TV programme starts gaining in importance, or if you find yourself deciding to put things off until you are more ‘in the mood’ later in the day, get back to office.
Second, go for this only if you have a specifically demarcated workspace within your home and you are able to insulate yourself from incessant demands from the family on your time. The spouse will be unlikely to appreciate the fact that your presence will not reduce his/her burdens on shopping, cooking and housekeeping, and children tend to think that if an adult is at home, the sole purpose is to entertain them and do their homework. If you can’t handle it (and you will be shocked at the stuff they teach in schools these days – I for one am way out of my depth with my 11-year-old’s syllabus), you are safer in office. No spouse and no children? Not to worry, relatives, courier boys and salesmen will do an effective job if you are willing to be disturbed.
Third, keep a space in office functional if you have the option. A surprising amount of work gets done because of being around. The boss and colleagues can walk by for a chat, you can feel the pressures, you can figure out the politics, you can see the breakdowns and burn outs, and you can take timely action. Retaining a space is sometimes difficult – an office’s relationship with an under-utilised workspace is somewhat akin to nature’s with vacuum. If you don’t visibly occupy it, beware of covetous colleagues, it will be taken over – more so if it is the corner one with windows overlooking the park.
Fourth, watch out for danger signals. If you are losing your ability to focus on matters that are important in the long term because of the demands of a more immediate nature, get back to office before it all blows up on you. If you are graduating from watching only the football on TV during the day to the football and the afternoon weepies to these and the talk shows to anything at all, you are in trouble. And if you are being by-passed in decision-making chains, you are unlikely to get that next promotion smoothly.
Fifth, don’t see this as a long (or even maybe medium) term option unless you are willing to leave the fast track. You will notice that the boss does not work from home, except on weekends. While you may effectively meet your targets and do the stuff written into your job profile, doing the other things that are necessary to rise will be difficult – mentoring younger colleagues, supporting mentors in their battles, or dealing with that scum-sucking underling who has an eye on your job. And the chances of you being around to take charge when the fertiliser hits the fan are limited. And getting back on to the fast track, or on to any track at all, is surprisingly difficult once you are off.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I would advise against jumping at working from home if the option were available. It works for some, but it is not everybody’s cup of tea. If it’s not yours, recognise it, resist the temptation, and stick to office.
[1] This is the beginning of that old Joni Mitchell number ‘Both Sides Now’.
By Ajit Chaudhuri
‘Rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air
And feathered canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way’[1]
The issue of work-life balance has finally hit the politically correct workplace. Options such as flexi-hours, working from home, and part-time work can now be taken without saying good-bye to your job – or so the bosses say. Of these, looking to work flexi-hours can be realistically got away with only if you have troublesome children, dying relatives, or clients in a different time zone. And part-time work brings about the vexing combination of having to meet full-time expectations on part-time wages. It is working from home that has serious attractions – a laptop, phone and Internet connection makes one productive wherever and obviates the need to commute, put up with the shitty coffee and have your finger on the abort key and your mind over the shoulder every time you play a game on the computer. But – will this actually work for you, and are there some pitfalls that you should be aware of in this seemingly win-win option? Is there something in those rats’ maze-like workspaces that makes work productive and fun? Are there downsides to peace and quiet and a TV and fridge within easy reach?
I have had an office in a large organisation as well as the right to work from home for the past nine years. Before that, I had stints working in an office and stints working from home. And before that, I worked completely from office. Here are the views of an expert!
When I first began to work from home, it was like a dream come true. No dressing up in the morning, no commute, no disturbances – I got a lot of work done in that initial month. The fringe benefits were great as well. I was able to watch Tendulkar bat on my large colour TV instead of having to sneak off to the small B&W at the nearby shop. My lunch was hot, and my tea as I liked it. And the guilt-free afternoon siesta … ah!
But then, I started getting on my wife’s nerves – I am still to figure out whether it was my mere presence or the frequent raids on the refrigerator. And the cleaning lady, ironing maid and dog walker began to think that I was unemployed, and even began returning change. Relatives began to drop in whenever they felt like, assuming that I was free and available to chat and do odd jobs. And I was very, very happy to go back to working from office, commute, shoes and tie, fresh shave and all. I now follow a middle of the road path, working from office for some days of the week and from home for some. And (while I do occasionally wake up in the morning and decide to slob out for the day) working from home does mean getting into work clothes, sitting down at a desk at a fixed time, and putting in the same hours with the same intensity.
For those planning a similar option, here is some advice.
First, go for this only if you are self-disciplined. Many of us need the structure that an office provides to be productive, and the business of getting up, ready and out of the house is necessary for its own sake. Those with a proclivity to slob out should beware! If the TV programme starts gaining in importance, or if you find yourself deciding to put things off until you are more ‘in the mood’ later in the day, get back to office.
Second, go for this only if you have a specifically demarcated workspace within your home and you are able to insulate yourself from incessant demands from the family on your time. The spouse will be unlikely to appreciate the fact that your presence will not reduce his/her burdens on shopping, cooking and housekeeping, and children tend to think that if an adult is at home, the sole purpose is to entertain them and do their homework. If you can’t handle it (and you will be shocked at the stuff they teach in schools these days – I for one am way out of my depth with my 11-year-old’s syllabus), you are safer in office. No spouse and no children? Not to worry, relatives, courier boys and salesmen will do an effective job if you are willing to be disturbed.
Third, keep a space in office functional if you have the option. A surprising amount of work gets done because of being around. The boss and colleagues can walk by for a chat, you can feel the pressures, you can figure out the politics, you can see the breakdowns and burn outs, and you can take timely action. Retaining a space is sometimes difficult – an office’s relationship with an under-utilised workspace is somewhat akin to nature’s with vacuum. If you don’t visibly occupy it, beware of covetous colleagues, it will be taken over – more so if it is the corner one with windows overlooking the park.
Fourth, watch out for danger signals. If you are losing your ability to focus on matters that are important in the long term because of the demands of a more immediate nature, get back to office before it all blows up on you. If you are graduating from watching only the football on TV during the day to the football and the afternoon weepies to these and the talk shows to anything at all, you are in trouble. And if you are being by-passed in decision-making chains, you are unlikely to get that next promotion smoothly.
Fifth, don’t see this as a long (or even maybe medium) term option unless you are willing to leave the fast track. You will notice that the boss does not work from home, except on weekends. While you may effectively meet your targets and do the stuff written into your job profile, doing the other things that are necessary to rise will be difficult – mentoring younger colleagues, supporting mentors in their battles, or dealing with that scum-sucking underling who has an eye on your job. And the chances of you being around to take charge when the fertiliser hits the fan are limited. And getting back on to the fast track, or on to any track at all, is surprisingly difficult once you are off.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I would advise against jumping at working from home if the option were available. It works for some, but it is not everybody’s cup of tea. If it’s not yours, recognise it, resist the temptation, and stick to office.
[1] This is the beginning of that old Joni Mitchell number ‘Both Sides Now’.
Friday, February 29, 2008
TRENDS
TRENDS
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – February 2008
‘Time ….. I’ve been passing time, watching trains go by
All of my life ….. Lying on the sand, watching seabirds fly’[1]
Introduction: What does the future hold for us? What’s hot, what’s not, what’s going to be in, what out, what’s moving up, what down – we are subject to a kaleidoscope of punditry on trends. As a laid back observer to life, I have my own views. The following paper contains my take on five trends that will shape life in the medium-term future.
Changing agriculture: There has been much lamenting on the travails of Indian agriculture, especially with farmer suicides and a growth rate that has, for the first time since the 1960s, fallen below the rate of increase of population. But it looks like one of the (many) causes of this situation – that food is cheap – is going to change. Worldwide, food prices in grain markets fell by three-quarters in real terms between 1974 and 2005, they have jumped 75 percent since despite good harvests, and the indication is that this trend is likely to continue[2].
What does more expensive food really mean in India? It could mean an opportunity to re-vitalise agriculture, wean rich farmers off subsidies, and reduce rural-urban inequalities. It could mean that the economic rationale for converting agricultural land into SEZs and producing for bio-fuels may require rethinking. It will certainly mean an inflationary threat and trouble for urban consumers and landless labourers. There will be pressure upon governments to get the public distribution system working, and temptation to indulge in price controls to wave off a political backlash.
A sociological phenomenon: ‘Where are the nice men?’ is an increasingly common refrain. Unattached women tend to think that all the good men are already taken. And most married women, deep inside, think of their husbands as assholes[3]. And while this does cast aspersions on the male half of humanity, this is not the purpose of this paper. I would instead like to draw your attention to two observations. One, that the number of unattached women in most metros has increased significantly, especially so in the above-35 age group[4], thus possibly rendering the refrain as more to with the laws of supply and demand than with any male disorder. Two, that these women are not unattached for the traditional reasons of being ugly, broke, been dumped or having sacrificed their chances to look after an ageing relative – many combine beauty, intelligence and success.
So how has this state of affairs come about? I see three prime causes. The first is that serious careers require focussed concentration from the initial years onwards, and while men can get away with focussing and maintaining a relationship, women have more difficulty with their balancing acts. The second is that these women have high standards, and the pool of men meeting them is not significant. And the third is that early courtship rituals tend to be demeaning for women with a modicum of intelligence, and these ones chose not to hang around in bars or allow some idiot to be masterful in their youth.
What’s going to happen? As they approach an age that brings on biological barriers and a need for companionship, these ladies are looking around – and dropping their standards while doing so. And if you age the characters a little in that obnoxious Axe-effect advertisement, you depict the real-life situation of unattached forty-plus men. There aren’t nearly enough of them to go around (and as they are having such a ball they are loathe to change their status). There are good times ahead for the otherwise unsuitable – the married, the toy boys, the lotus-eaters and the greedy.
The rise and rise of the extreme left: They had their highs in the sixties and seventies! They were dormant for a long time after that, and restricted to pockets. They are back, and they are different! And they have finally been recognised for the threat that they are, what with the PM identifying naxalism as India’s biggest challenge, with coverage in the mainstream media[5], and with rapidly expanding geographical reach. Who are these people, and why are they sitting in jungles and blowing up police stations? On the first, those of you who have been lamenting about the youth – career-minded, mercenary, self-oriented, desperate to get to the USA, where are the one’s who want to make the world a better place and end poverty – well, this is where some of them are. As to the second, I can cite the usual reasons – economic policies whose basis is that the rich are not rich enough and the poor are too rich, corruption and injustice at levels that make people numb with anger, a political system that is a pyramid of family businesses, and tools of the state whose sole purpose is to enable the few to have a good time. And some of those at the receiving end have not lain down and died or hung around to live off the crumbs.
Where is this going to lead? It is unlikely that the causes that have led to their rise will abate – all indications are the opposite. The state sees them as problems rather than symptoms, and policy veers towards exterminating them rather than addressing the issues creating them. I see them extending beyond their traditional bastions, and into Karnataka and Delhi in the medium term future. Will this die out, like last time? This lot are not from the elite and will be unable to integrate back into the corporate sector, government, and academia when they get bored. We might just have to learn to live with them.
The growing irrelevance of NGOs: I have written about this several times and would prefer to avoid the temptation of regurgitating. Organisations that survive the purge of irrelevance will require combinations of the following virtues. One, they will need to be well governed – in that ownership is separate from management, a second (and third) line of leadership exists, and the tenements of honesty, answerability, transparency, rigour and adherence to systems are internalised. Two, they will need to have a base in the community within which they work. Three, they will need to move beyond the foreign institutional donor and begin to attract financial support from within India and from people who have earned their money. And four, they will need to identify tomorrow’s problems and gear up to work on these rather than those of yesterday. The rest? They can run their parallel tourism industries, they can cut ‘HIV/AIDS’ and paste ‘Climate Change’, they can continue pontificating at seminars in Lutyens Delhi – but – they will die. And the space will be claimed by private sector social responsibility initiatives.
Travel: My generation would remember sending telegrams to make onward journey reservations, spending time in general compartments, and indulging in slimy practices to sleep on a train[6]. Things have changed for travellers, and inshallah our children will never see the inside of a general compartment toilet (let alone have to sleep in one with four other people). Some changes have been well documented; the movement of the railway platform crowd into airport waiting rooms, the increased use of private vehicles for inter-city travel, and the use of the Internet to enhance convenience. Others have escaped attention, such as the segregation of dhabas[7] and the movement of the highway prostitution industry on to bypasses[8].
One key trend I see is that the airline industry will consolidate and the very cheap fares will be a thing of the past. Those indulging in landing up at airports and purchasing tickets on current will not get the great deals that they used to, and will need to start planning their journeys. Those for whom airfares are elastic will return to the railways and will be pleasantly surprised. Another is that we will have many more road accidents – driving habits show no signs of change, the on-road numbers have increased exponentially (this will continue with the Nano), and public transport remains the pits.
[1] I can’t quite remember the 1980s movie with Richard Gere and Debra Winger (“An Officer and a Gentleman”?) that had this as a soundtrack.
[2] “The End of Cheap Food”, The Economist issue of December 8-14, 2007.
[3] Please be honest here, ladies, and if you actually don’t please get back to me – I’ve got to meet the guy and get a few tips.
[4] This may, of course, be because of biases in the direction of my observation.
[5] I have recently seen front page headline coverage in the Indian Express and India Today, as well as read the book ‘Red Sun’ by Sudeep Chakravarthy.
[6] My favourite was to pick up sweets from the station and then get into a compartment with plenty of children and start plying them with the sweets. Small children would have a berth of their own, but would always sleep with their Mothers. I was usually very nicely told to use the free berth.
[7] The one’s catering to middle class travellers looking for an experience, with chairs, toilets, potato chips and refrigerators are quite different to the one’s at which truck drivers eat, sleep and wash their underwear.
[8] The deal is that you can pick up the lady at one end of the bypass and drop her at the other. And if you need more time, you will notice many motels on the bypass that charge on an hourly basis. But – if you choose to exercise the latter option – you might find that you are a star in a Pallika Bazaar CD.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – February 2008
‘Time ….. I’ve been passing time, watching trains go by
All of my life ….. Lying on the sand, watching seabirds fly’[1]
Introduction: What does the future hold for us? What’s hot, what’s not, what’s going to be in, what out, what’s moving up, what down – we are subject to a kaleidoscope of punditry on trends. As a laid back observer to life, I have my own views. The following paper contains my take on five trends that will shape life in the medium-term future.
Changing agriculture: There has been much lamenting on the travails of Indian agriculture, especially with farmer suicides and a growth rate that has, for the first time since the 1960s, fallen below the rate of increase of population. But it looks like one of the (many) causes of this situation – that food is cheap – is going to change. Worldwide, food prices in grain markets fell by three-quarters in real terms between 1974 and 2005, they have jumped 75 percent since despite good harvests, and the indication is that this trend is likely to continue[2].
What does more expensive food really mean in India? It could mean an opportunity to re-vitalise agriculture, wean rich farmers off subsidies, and reduce rural-urban inequalities. It could mean that the economic rationale for converting agricultural land into SEZs and producing for bio-fuels may require rethinking. It will certainly mean an inflationary threat and trouble for urban consumers and landless labourers. There will be pressure upon governments to get the public distribution system working, and temptation to indulge in price controls to wave off a political backlash.
A sociological phenomenon: ‘Where are the nice men?’ is an increasingly common refrain. Unattached women tend to think that all the good men are already taken. And most married women, deep inside, think of their husbands as assholes[3]. And while this does cast aspersions on the male half of humanity, this is not the purpose of this paper. I would instead like to draw your attention to two observations. One, that the number of unattached women in most metros has increased significantly, especially so in the above-35 age group[4], thus possibly rendering the refrain as more to with the laws of supply and demand than with any male disorder. Two, that these women are not unattached for the traditional reasons of being ugly, broke, been dumped or having sacrificed their chances to look after an ageing relative – many combine beauty, intelligence and success.
So how has this state of affairs come about? I see three prime causes. The first is that serious careers require focussed concentration from the initial years onwards, and while men can get away with focussing and maintaining a relationship, women have more difficulty with their balancing acts. The second is that these women have high standards, and the pool of men meeting them is not significant. And the third is that early courtship rituals tend to be demeaning for women with a modicum of intelligence, and these ones chose not to hang around in bars or allow some idiot to be masterful in their youth.
What’s going to happen? As they approach an age that brings on biological barriers and a need for companionship, these ladies are looking around – and dropping their standards while doing so. And if you age the characters a little in that obnoxious Axe-effect advertisement, you depict the real-life situation of unattached forty-plus men. There aren’t nearly enough of them to go around (and as they are having such a ball they are loathe to change their status). There are good times ahead for the otherwise unsuitable – the married, the toy boys, the lotus-eaters and the greedy.
The rise and rise of the extreme left: They had their highs in the sixties and seventies! They were dormant for a long time after that, and restricted to pockets. They are back, and they are different! And they have finally been recognised for the threat that they are, what with the PM identifying naxalism as India’s biggest challenge, with coverage in the mainstream media[5], and with rapidly expanding geographical reach. Who are these people, and why are they sitting in jungles and blowing up police stations? On the first, those of you who have been lamenting about the youth – career-minded, mercenary, self-oriented, desperate to get to the USA, where are the one’s who want to make the world a better place and end poverty – well, this is where some of them are. As to the second, I can cite the usual reasons – economic policies whose basis is that the rich are not rich enough and the poor are too rich, corruption and injustice at levels that make people numb with anger, a political system that is a pyramid of family businesses, and tools of the state whose sole purpose is to enable the few to have a good time. And some of those at the receiving end have not lain down and died or hung around to live off the crumbs.
Where is this going to lead? It is unlikely that the causes that have led to their rise will abate – all indications are the opposite. The state sees them as problems rather than symptoms, and policy veers towards exterminating them rather than addressing the issues creating them. I see them extending beyond their traditional bastions, and into Karnataka and Delhi in the medium term future. Will this die out, like last time? This lot are not from the elite and will be unable to integrate back into the corporate sector, government, and academia when they get bored. We might just have to learn to live with them.
The growing irrelevance of NGOs: I have written about this several times and would prefer to avoid the temptation of regurgitating. Organisations that survive the purge of irrelevance will require combinations of the following virtues. One, they will need to be well governed – in that ownership is separate from management, a second (and third) line of leadership exists, and the tenements of honesty, answerability, transparency, rigour and adherence to systems are internalised. Two, they will need to have a base in the community within which they work. Three, they will need to move beyond the foreign institutional donor and begin to attract financial support from within India and from people who have earned their money. And four, they will need to identify tomorrow’s problems and gear up to work on these rather than those of yesterday. The rest? They can run their parallel tourism industries, they can cut ‘HIV/AIDS’ and paste ‘Climate Change’, they can continue pontificating at seminars in Lutyens Delhi – but – they will die. And the space will be claimed by private sector social responsibility initiatives.
Travel: My generation would remember sending telegrams to make onward journey reservations, spending time in general compartments, and indulging in slimy practices to sleep on a train[6]. Things have changed for travellers, and inshallah our children will never see the inside of a general compartment toilet (let alone have to sleep in one with four other people). Some changes have been well documented; the movement of the railway platform crowd into airport waiting rooms, the increased use of private vehicles for inter-city travel, and the use of the Internet to enhance convenience. Others have escaped attention, such as the segregation of dhabas[7] and the movement of the highway prostitution industry on to bypasses[8].
One key trend I see is that the airline industry will consolidate and the very cheap fares will be a thing of the past. Those indulging in landing up at airports and purchasing tickets on current will not get the great deals that they used to, and will need to start planning their journeys. Those for whom airfares are elastic will return to the railways and will be pleasantly surprised. Another is that we will have many more road accidents – driving habits show no signs of change, the on-road numbers have increased exponentially (this will continue with the Nano), and public transport remains the pits.
[1] I can’t quite remember the 1980s movie with Richard Gere and Debra Winger (“An Officer and a Gentleman”?) that had this as a soundtrack.
[2] “The End of Cheap Food”, The Economist issue of December 8-14, 2007.
[3] Please be honest here, ladies, and if you actually don’t please get back to me – I’ve got to meet the guy and get a few tips.
[4] This may, of course, be because of biases in the direction of my observation.
[5] I have recently seen front page headline coverage in the Indian Express and India Today, as well as read the book ‘Red Sun’ by Sudeep Chakravarthy.
[6] My favourite was to pick up sweets from the station and then get into a compartment with plenty of children and start plying them with the sweets. Small children would have a berth of their own, but would always sleep with their Mothers. I was usually very nicely told to use the free berth.
[7] The one’s catering to middle class travellers looking for an experience, with chairs, toilets, potato chips and refrigerators are quite different to the one’s at which truck drivers eat, sleep and wash their underwear.
[8] The deal is that you can pick up the lady at one end of the bypass and drop her at the other. And if you need more time, you will notice many motels on the bypass that charge on an hourly basis. But – if you choose to exercise the latter option – you might find that you are a star in a Pallika Bazaar CD.
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