Presidential Prescrition - An over reach of Press

In a leader in "The Hindu" today, a heavy dose of prescription is handed over to the Presidential nominee.

This presidential election from the start has been a controversial one. To a very large extent it reflects the mindset of the politicians on the purported fluid political situation. The ground reality is different. It is therefore unbecoming of leading news papers to further disillusion the ruling class by prescribing restraint when there is no cause of a provocation. The opposition is fragmented and no one, even the worst enemy of the congress will like to rock the boat now.

Coming to the prescription itself and the instances quoted in the history based on which such prescriptions are handed over, it is to be said that times are changing and the same Victorian approach may not be what the doctor will order. The media is only partly free and excessive restraints at the wrong time on the part of the President may not be advised.

One needs to allow the incumbent to act and have faith in her advisers and the other administrators of the constitution of India. In our 57 years of Republic, except for a brief period in 1975, our independence was never at risk. We managed to come out of that crisis as well.

I would strongly argue for an active President of India, whose actions will of course have to be within the powers granted by the constitution. While restraint and private reprimand in some cases may produce extraordinary results, it must be left to the judgment of the first person to choose the option.

One stop solution as indicated in the Leader is not what the doctor will order

The Leader is Looking Ahead .

SEZ Policy

SEZ policy which was supposed to be a single stop solution for all the ills of the exporters has hit a road block much to the chagrin of some in the government. The issue is the land which in most of cases is snatched from small farmers and handed over to the industrialists & corporates. Our rural folk have skill sets which support agriculture and it is naive to expect that reclassification of Land use which effectively rules out the repossession of the land by the current owners for generations will be smooth. Further the literacy level and the language barriers prohibit these farmers to move on to another location in our own country with out major setback. Policy makers and corporates should be humane enough to understand these issues and take appropriate action.

For instance in the case of Reliance, one of the suggestions is to take these farmers on contract basis and provide them with leased land and need based funds to engage in farming. Such farm output could be sold through their own proposed retail network. Such forward thinking and inclusive development models should be deployed by the corporate leaders like Reliance.

The Need for Talent to multiply Talent

The Need for the Talented to Multiply Talent

In the Indian context not a day passes with out a mention of the looming talent crisis to be faced by the IT and ITES sector. A shortage of similar magnitude is increasingly being felt by the brick and mortar industry, in infrastructure projects, Neither the Services segment is spared, as is seen in the shortage of qualified accountants. We are recruiting at third year level (two years prior to graduation) and the trend may continue.

What is needed is a multi pronged approach to tackle the problem on an immediate basis.

Education being a concurrent subject, has now become every government’s (state and central) problem. As is always the case under such circumstances every decision maker has come with up quick fix short term stand alone solutions with out a clear cut approach to prepare talent which are recognized at the state and national level as well as the international level. One wonders whether the decision makers at the education departments are aware of the need to nurture talent and provide enough opportunities for them to develop. While it is impossible to alter the basic structure of decision-making and governance, we need to start to address the issue.

The best way to start is by appointing a Central Education Regulator supplemented by state Education regulators. The Education Regulator functions and powers shall be structured in a similar manner as is done for the other industry like the Telecom. Today most of the institutions in the private sector are being run as an enterprise with clear responsibility to the promoters rather than to the student. Such undertakings need to be regulated and a quasi-judicial body needs to be constituted to streamline their operations on an immediate basis.

The regulator shall at the policy level lay down the following guidelines:

· Uniform Syllabus across states from the Higher secondary School onwards(8th Standard onwards),

· Lay down the principle of selection of teachers and their appointment, including fixing their service conditions.

· Fix Student – teacher ratios for each level

· Define minimum infrastructure requirements for each type of curriculum

· Define evaluation procedure

· Evaluate new specialization avenues and through the support of expert bodies and consultants formulate structured courses for new avenues.

· Specify minimum funding requirements

· Bring in a system of transparent accounting and acceptable maximum norms of return on the investment, Debt - equity norms and other investment guidelines to encourage Public Private partnership.

At the implementation level regulators role will be supported by multiple organisations and it is therefore necessary to appoint State Regulators. The state regulators in addition to laying all policy framework for the primary education, will be responsible for the implementation of the Central Regualtor's policies with in the defined state geographical boundaries.

The central regulator as an overseer of the implementation shall

· Introduce Licenses and certification mechanisms to ensure orderly implementation of its policies

· Shall establish transparently educational fees to be paid by the public at large

· Shall regulate the pricing of the educational materials which are consumed by public at large

· Establish cross subsidy norms and generate funds for rural education utilising the premiums now being paid at the Metro level through a transparent mechanism.

· Regulate coaching centers and monitor them.

· Regulate Mid day meal scheme

· Regulate student concessions

· Intervene in any area of concern (such as Vehicular Transportation for Children) which affect the student or the teaching community at large

· Adjudicate on issues related to examination are recruitment

As is clearly seen above there are various agencies either attempting to regulate these issues and in some of the cases the issues are not addressed at all. Providing such an encompassing role for the regulator could be contested by many, it is necessary to understand that unless all these issues are addressed it will be impossible to move quickly forward.

The main fall out of such a transparent regulatory policy frame work will be to encourage private investment. If our software companies are hesitant to invest in large scale in education, it is because of the need for themselves to collate data on the institutions. Further they need to supervise the implementation themselves and that requires a lot of responsibility which is outside their core competencies. No wonder there are so many crying over issues in the educational system with out doing anything about it.

Taxation Policy of the government and the credit policy shall be structured to encourage investment by corporates in to the certified institutions. At the personnel level outright allowance of say Rs. 1 lac per individual as set of in the taxable income from the salaried class will see the investments rushing in to the system. There are many a professional who will be willing to invest directly given this additional incentive.

e Learing which is a nascent phenomena needs to be encouraged. Innovative mechanisms shall be thought of to use such as utilising the off peak bandwidth available with leading service providers to deliver content to remotest areas of the country.

Across sectors Indians have proven their mettle and will definitely look at an opportunity to spend more time in India and invest their talent and resources. Persons in the educational field especially, given their typically strong religious leaning, will not waste an opportunity to return. But they will return only if the climate is right and the overall environment is conducive to investment and nurturing of talent, their own, their peers and the new stock.

India is currently uniquely poised to leverage its position in the Knowledge based industry. There are many diverse issues starting from the robust all round performance of our own economy, a renewed interest in the Indian market by our own Diaspora, the crashing of the distances and increased globalisation, etc which have created an opportunity for the government to seize the moment and provide the frame work to the talented to multiply talent.

Last but not the least, the talented Indian Diaspora is aware of the increased inequalities that are getting created in the western world, which are solely attributable to their talent. If it were to boil over it is any body's guess, who will be the first affected and no body can pretend to be not aware of the such a situation developing.

Disinvestment a different Perspective

All the assets which are currently considered as Navaratnas have reached that status due to the protection they enjoyed during the start up stage through various tariff protection measures and in some cases by denial of permission to create additional competing capacities by governments diktat. It is therefore not wrong to say that these assets are created through Regulation efforts and not necessarily through the enterprise efforts of the government. Such being the case, it is but obvious that the ownership will have to be transferred to the public who has basically suffered to create this asset. One cannot wait generations to reap the benefit.

It will be therefore appropriate to offload the Navartna equity to individual citizens who have suffered to build these capacities and have the first moral lien on these assets. So the return of the equity to the public cannot be considered as "Dis Investment". By this process funds are garnered for creating similar assets, which over a period of time can again be returned to citizens thereby creating a value creation. In appropriate naming has vitiated the entire process of returning the assets to the true holders.

Automatic Meter Reading Solutions

The caption is misleading as the author is actually in favour of locating Mega Power Projects along coastal basis. His main concern is water and hence he prefers coastal based power plants.

Given the current Power deficit in India we need to have many more of these Mega Power Projects to provide even a single lamp connection to many of our citizens' households. While the Distributed generation modules will survive in a grid backed up by good base load generating capacity, the model will fail miserably in our country where we have severe shortages.

Mega projects bring with it scale of operation and high level of automation and latest technology. If we have to achieve 4000 MW of generating capacity even by 3 to 4 plants as suggested by the author we will add up a minimum of 3 times the labour force required to operate a 4000 MW power plant. And that is sheer waste and even in a populous country like ours we are running short of qualified staff today.

It is therefore in the interest of the nation that power professionals appreciate the need to bridge the gap quickly and work for it.