Crisis in our skies

India is one of the few countries where air passenger traffic has been rising year after year. More airports are being opened across the country. With a number of airlines in operation, competition is intense and the resulting fare war has, over the years, made flying an affordable option to many new air passengers. But, at the end of the day, none of the airlines seems to be making a profit. Perhaps only Indigo the low-cost, no-frills, airline has been able to keep its head above the waters. At the other end of the spectrum lie Air India and Kingfisher. For Air India, being a national carrier is both an asset and a liability. Kingfisher's malaise has more to do with extravagance and poor management. Today, the employees of both these airlines have resorted to strikes, protesting against the non-payment of salaries for months. The Prime Minister had himself to assure Air India pilots that their dues would be cleared over a period of time, and the Kingfisher Chairman, Vijay Mallya, had to meet unions and pilots to give them a fresh timetable for payment of salary arrears. So what's wrong with the airlines, or even the aviation industry in such a growth centre as India? Why is the sector booming in China but not here? The airlines, speaking in one voice at least on this, insist that it is the lack of a positive, coherent aviation policy since the opening up of the skies that has led to this crisis. Though traffic is growing, the cost of operations has risen sharply. Aviation fuel accounts for nearly 50 per cent of the costs, and its price increase over the past two years has been substantial, eating into already low margins. Air fares have not risen correspondingly because of competition and the need to raise the load factor. Airport charges, particularly after the advent of privately developed greenfield airports, have also increased manifold. For Air India, the unwise and as yet incomplete merger of Indian Airlines and Air India has remained an albatross, while the now-on, now-off aircraft acquisition programme has led to a huge debt and interest burden. The Centre's decision to allow airlines to directly import fuel has been a welcome measure. But it is too little too late. The Civil Aviation Ministry must discuss all the issues affecting the economics of the industry threadbare and come up with a positive aviation policy to revive the sector without giving anybody a bailout or compromising on safety. The airlines, too, must set their houses in order and take employees into confidence, without leaving them in the lurch. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Menace of twin deficits

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It is generally well known that India is one of the few countries with both a current account deficit and a fiscal deficit. However, the extent of deterioration in both is a matter of deep concern. According to the Reserve Bank of India's recent data on balance of payments (BOP), the current account deficit (CAD) rose to 4.3 per cent of the GDP during the third quarter (October-December 2011) of last year, sharply higher than the 2.3 per cent during the same period in the previous year. The sharp spike might have come as a surprise, but there was enough evidence of the deteriorating trend. Indeed, the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council which projected the CAD to be around 3.6 per cent by March 31, is just one of the many official forecasters which had anticipated a deterioration in the current account of the BOP. There is an expectation that a jump in the earnings from invisibles during the last quarter would help in moderating the CAD. Even so, its comfort levels variously estimated at between 2.5 and 3 per cent appear to be as elusive as ever. More ominously, during the third quarter, for the first time since 2008-09, capital inflows were not sufficient to bridge the current account deficit necessitating a drawdown of foreign exchange reserves by nearly $13 billion. India's fiscal deficit projections have gone haywire with the government revising last year's budget estimate to 5.9 per cent from 4.6. The recent budget hopes to bring it down to 5.1 per cent by March 2013, a level which is still considered very high. The co-existence of a large fiscal deficit with the CAD has invited comparisons with the period preceding the 1991 crisis, when the twin-deficits apparently presaged bad times ahead. Such comparisons can be very superficial however. By any yardstick, the Indian economy is in a much better shape today. However it is good to realise that the co-existence of the two deficits has made the economy more vulnerable to external shocks. For instance, high petroleum prices have inflated the import bill and contributed to merchandise trade deficit besides straining the fiscal situation. Policymakers face quite a challenge in minimising the deleterious consequences of the twin deficits. The RBI might be reluctant to cut interest rates if it is not satisfied with the progress of fiscal consolidation. As recent data indicate, foreign capital flows might be even less forthcoming, given the twin-deficits. All these, in turn, will have wide ranging implications for the macro economy, including exchange rate policy.

An all too familiar first

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Even the unprecedented can be unsurprising. For the first time, the Election Commission of India has been forced to countermand an election to the Rajya Sabha: in Jharkhand, following incidents of horse-trading and attempts to influence the electors Members of the Legislative Assembly by offering cash for votes. Until now, the bribing of electors has never been a visible factor in elections to the Upper House of Parliament, unlike in Lok Sabha or Assembly elections, where the poll process is routinely suspended as candidates come up with different ways of luring or pressuring voters. However, the seizure of Rs.2.15 crore in cash from a car belonging to the brother of an independent candidate in the Rajya Sabha election from Jharkhand could not have come as a total shocker. The surprise, actually, was in the seizure, not in the attempt to bribe. When the candidates are few and the electorate is small, as is always the case in Rajya Sabha elections, malpractices normally escape public attention. Jharkhand certainly was not the first instance of moneybags seeking easy entry into the Rajya Sabha. Industrialists and businessmen have always found a way to enter the Upper House. The preferred mode of operation, however, is striking a deal with top party leaders, not individual MLAs. In recent times, several industrialists or their representatives and lobbyists have entered the Rajya Sabha through this door with little or no affiliation to the party that supported them. Once elected, these MPs are under no obligation to their electors, and further their own personal or business agenda in Parliament. The Jharkhand case, however, has its peculiarities. Two seats were at stake in the Rajya Sabha election, but no party was in a position to win even one without the help of others. With five candidates, including two independents, in the fray, the field was wide open for a dark horse. The Bharatiya Janata Party at first announced its support for a Non-Resident Indian businessman, but backtracked following criticism. It later talked of abstaining from the vote, but finally announced support for its ally, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. In such circumstances, the two independents, both with considerable financial clout, must have fancied their chances, and lobbied hard with the MLAs. The EC did the right thing in countermanding the election after the cash seizure as the situation was getting murkier by the hour. But unless it is able to prove wrongdoing by some of the candidates, and then disqualify them, the same set of circumstances will be repeated when the elections are held again.

Licensed to kill
That tobacco products are singularly responsible for a large number of cancer deaths in adults has once again become strikingly clear. According to a paper published recently in The Lancet, in India, tobacco-related cancers were found in 2010 to be responsible for some 1,20,000 deaths 84,000 in men, and 36,000 in women among adults aged 30 to 69. That tobacco-related cancers constitute about 30 per cent of the total mortality (3,95,000) from all cancers in the same age group is proof of the lethal effects of tobacco products. Oral cancer was found to cause more than twice as many deaths as lung cancers. The reasons are not difficult to find. According to the 2009-2010 global adult tobacco survey, 170 million Indians chewed tobacco, and 120 million smoked. While a majority of rural women chewed tobacco, many men in urban and rural areas chose to chew and smoke. Tobacco that remains in close contact with the sensitive mucous membrane of the oral cavity for extended periods is a potent and lethal carcinogen. What makes tobacco use all the more dangerous is that besides causing organ-specific cancers, it increases the risk of death from other medical causes. In urban areas, smoking-related deaths are more from heart attacks, while tuberculosis and respiratory diseases are the main causes in the rural areas. With smoking accounting for five per cent deaths among women and 20 per cent among men, a 2008 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated about one million deaths in 2010 in the 30 to 69 age group. Evidence from elsewhere paints an equally compelling picture. We know from a study that the mortality rate from lung cancer in 2009 in the American State of Utah was nearly 75 per cent lower than Kentucky. The reason: the prevalence of smoking in Utah was 10 per cent compared with 25 per cent in Kentucky. The single-minded pursuit of governments around the world should, therefore, be to reduce tobacco consumption through all means. The most effective way is to ramp up taxes. France has shown the way by tripling taxes between 1990 and 2005 and halving consumption. Using powerful pictorial warnings, as in many other countries, rather than the currently used ineffectual ones, and rotating them every year instead of once in two years, is yet another means. Maximum gain can be achieved by resorting to both these measures simultaneously. The government showed great eagerness to introduce into the national immunisation programme the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, the most common cancer among women in 2010. Sadly, it seems to lack the gumption to clamp down on killer tobacco products. Will the latest research results stir it into action?

For equality all the way

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010, redrafted on the basis of the recommendations of a parliamentary standing committee, has been cleared by the Union Cabinet. Its highlight, no doubt, is the provision to include irretrievable breakdown as a ground for the grant of divorce. This conforms to recommendations made repeatedly by the Law Commission of India and the higher judiciary to enable couples to end already extinguished relationships without further fuss and bad blood, in no-fault mode. A new provision to give adopted children of divorced couples rights on a par with biological offspring is also a step in the right direction. However, the provision to allow a woman a share in her husband's property, in itself a progressive step in line with international trends, does not go far enough. The share a woman is entitled to from her husband's property acquired during the period of the marriage is to be decided by the court on a case-by-case basis, also taking into account the woman's financial state. There are too many caveats here, and leaving the question to judicial discretion and interpretation will only add to acrimony over property. Instead, clear procedures need to be set down to make the process less potentially arbitrary and painful. As it is envisaged, the provision is unlikely to prove an effective legal mechanism for a fair and equitable division of property. Coincidentally, in February, the Planning Commission's Working Group on Women's Agency and Empowerment proposed a Right to Marital Property Act. That right aims to give separated or divorced women an equal share in property, with the onus of proving a husband's income resting on him rather than on the wife as is the case in the current scheme of things. In Maharashtra, meanwhile, a Married Women (Property Co-ownership) Equality Bill is being discussed actively. It is meant to ensure equal rights for women in their husband's acquired property, especially in cases of divorce. Goa already has such a law, put in place by the erstwhile Portuguese rulers: when a couple in Goa divorces, half of the husband's property goes to the wife, without any questions asked. Indeed, much of the world has what is called the community property law, a regime that is based on the principle that property acquired after marriage and before actual separation (but for gifts or inheritance) is owned jointly by both spouses and is divided upon divorce, annulment or death. Such joint ownership recognises the theoretically equal contributions of both spouses in the making and the functioning of a family entity. There is one question that, however, remains to be debated further. Should the regime not be made gender-neutral, cutting both ways?

A scandal and a cover-up

If the viewing of pornography by three prominent Bharatiya Janata Party Ministers during a session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on February 7 was not scandal enough, the report of the committee set up to investigate the incident is a disgraceful cover-up. Following public outrage at TV footage of the three poring over obscene videos during a discussion on drought, the Ministers resigned from the Cabinet and were suspended from the House. The House committee set up by the Speaker and boycotted by a dissatisfied Opposition placed its report before the Assembly on March 30, the last day of the budget session. The report is a model of obfuscation and disingenuous reasoning that unquestioningly accepts the weak clarifications made by the three BJP leaders, while overlooking the compelling evidence of the original videographic material. C.C. Patil, then Minister for Women and Child Welfare, known for his public admonishments of women who are sartorially indecent, claimed he was in discussion with Laxman Savadi on a district matter, when he saw the latter holding a mobile handset. Like a responsible legislator, he took the device from him and switched it off. The Committee has recommended his exoneration. Krishna Palemar claimed to have accidentally brought his mobile to the House and placed it on his desk. Mr. Savadi could therefore not have been using Mr. Palemar's mobile phone, the Committee reasoned, and recommended Mr. Palemar's exoneration too. Mr. Savadi's dissembling was hard to endorse, even by a committee willing to be persuaded. While some obscene images could have popped up while browsing, he was actually concentrating on reading a government order, he explained. The committee accepted this, and concluded he did not watch the images deliberately. However, as he had whole-heartedly apologised, and promised not to carry his mobile to the House again, the committee recommended that he be let off with an admonishment. Having let off the errant Ministers, the Committee then trained its guns on the messenger. The TV channels that captured the sordid episode were upbraided for recording other things rather than the House proceedings. A channel that ran separately and repeatedly the original images downloaded from the internet was criticised. The telecast of the damning visuals violated the dignity of the Assembly, the committee concluded, and recommended that only government broadcasters be allowed to record House proceedings. For the scam-and-faction-riven BJP government, this sorry fig leaf to cover up yet another scandal will only deepen the existential crisis it is already so deeply mired in.

Free medicines as a mission

The Centre's move to introduce an experimental universal health package in at least one district per State under the National Rural Health Mission, with access to free generic drugs, is a welcome measure. But the larger mission to provide free essential medicines to all citizens need not await the results of such pilot studies. It should be rolled out for poor and non-poor alike quickly. There is no time to be lost because medicines make up an alarming 71 per cent of all out-ofpocket spending on health. The time for experimental schemes is therefore long past. What is more, efficient models of drug procurement and distribution by State governments involving low costs and improved access are readily available. Tamil Nadu is a leading example, having demonstrated this over the last 15 years. Kerala has replicated it and some other States are in the process of doing so. Clearly, it is feasible to provide carefully chosen essential drugs free, with higher government spending. Some reform is of course needed, and it should include an expanded National Essential Drug List, elimination of irrational drugs from prescriptions, priority for generic medicines and, crucially, a good centralised procurement system. The issues involved have been analysed by the High Level Expert Group (HLEG) of the Planning Commission on Universal Health Coverage. A quarter century of National Sample Survey data from households on availability of free medicines to patients reveals depressing trends. From about 32 per cent of drugs supplied free to in-patients in1986-87, the figure fell to 9 per cent in 2004. Data on free drug supply for all patients indicate weak controls and escalating price pressure from the mid-1990s. This has severely affected affordability and thus access. It is here that the role of government assumes importance. The Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation has been able to deliver results because Statelevel procurement has ensured competitive pricing and control over prescription of irrational medicines. Such a system works better because it meets the key principle of efficient financing, which is pre-payment. Obviously, half-measures will only slow the process down and give room for manoeuvring by special interests. The HLEG has provided two scenarios for partial and full drug security that can be achieved in the dramatic time-frame of two and seven years. Scaling up government spending from about 0.1 per cent of GDP at present to 0.5 per cent is essential to achieving this outcome. The Centre must show the political will necessary.

Call of the Deep:After stirring the imagination of people by

bringing them up close with the Titanic on the silver screen, legendary film director James Cameron recently pulled off another spectacular achievement that will go a long way in igniting public interest in deep-sea exploration. By plunging nearly 11 km down to the Challenger Deep located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean where a structure as tall as Mount Everest would be more than 2 km below the sea level Cameron became the first man to reach the deepest depths of the ocean all alone. After spending nearly two-and-half hours to descend in his Deepsea Challenger submersible, he stayed at the Challenger Deep for nearly three hours to collect samples and capture on film the life and terrain of one of the world's most harsh and inhospitable regions. Though the Swiss oceanographer, Jacques Piccard, and Don Walsh, a lieutenant with the U.S. Navy, were the first to reach the dark abyss in 1960 in their bathyscaphe Trieste, Cameron's journey has captured the world's imagination like never before. His timing has been perfect as our ability to build advanced submersibles equipped with a slew of sophisticated instruments for carrying out various scientific studies has improved vastly since the first journey. With the team planning to undertake three or more dives in the coming weeks to understand more about life on the rocky sides of the Trench, excitement and awareness is bound to increase. The Challenger Deep has already been explored in 1998 by Kaiko, a remote-controlled vehicle, and Nereus, a robot submersible in 2009. But these missions and their findings have gone largely unnoticed compared with Cameron's. It is beyond doubt that our understanding of many aspects of the deep ocean bottom is at best sketchy, and many times outright wrong. The spotting of snailfish at a depth of nearly 7 kms in different trenches flies in the face of conventional thinking that the deepest parts of the ocean are bereft of animal life. In fact, many unique marine organisms have been identified at depths greater than 6 km. For instance, free-falling landers that reached Sirena Deep, at a depth of 10.6 km last year, recorded the presence of xenophyophores, which are single-celled animals about 10 cm in size. Since they play host to a variety of organisms, their presence in the Mariana Trench is particularly significant. While each place has its own collection of unique species, their presence certainly strengthens the notion of deep ocean floors teeming with life. The need for a re-evaluation of the ocean floor ecosystem has therefore become inevitable. Cameron's expedition has set the grand stage for this.

Shrine diplomacy: In 2008, months before Asif Ali Zardari had

been elected President of Pakistan, he articulated a vision for relations with India that was breathtaking in its forwardness. It is another matter that even before the Pakistan People's Party had settled into its role as the elected government, the terror attacks in Mumbai ensured that just guarding the India-Pakistan status quo would be an achievement; everything else was put on hold. Four years later, in his own unique style, Mr. Zardari has given a push to bilateral relations. A visit covering two cities in half a day with talks squeezed in before lunch was never expected to solve all the problems between the two countries, but its symbolic value can hardly be underestimated. By coming to India as a pilgrim first and only then a President, Mr. Zardari has provided a new metric for high-level visits between the two countries, almost making such trips across the border seem normal and easy. By comparison, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's insistence that he will visit Pakistan only when there is a big breakthrough to celebrate shows a diffidence at variance with his grand vision of breakfast in Lahore, lunch in Kabul. The Mumbai shadow still hangs over bilateral relations, and as the Prime Minister rightly pointed out to Mr. Zardari, Pakistan must clean out its stables if the two nations can celebrate a durable peace. But the Pakistani President's decision to come to India over the threats and protests of Hafiz Saeed, the head of the Laskar-e-Taiba/Jamat ud dawa that carried out the Mumbai attacks is a good sign; it is the second time that the PPP government has taken courage to defy Saeed and his backers in uniform; earlier this year, Islamabad decided to go ahead with changes to improve trade relations with India, despite dire warnings from the Difa-e-Pakistan council, an umbrella organisation of JuD and like-minded extremist groups. Sunday's Zardari-Manmohan meeting will hopefully give new purpose to the dialogue process between the two countries. The tragedy at Siachen on the eve of President Zardari's visit was a cruel reminder of how close the two countries came to resolving this issue in 2006, and a warning of the urgency with which the two sides need to break the ice over it. Mistrust, and the recent memory of Kargil, were behind the Indian Army's objections to a proposed joint withdrawal from those icy heights. That the avalanche that killed 124 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians last Saturday might well have happened on the Indian side is a sobering thought. The disaster should spur both sides towards a resolution, so that there is no more the need to spend so much money and risk so many lives to assert a claim over what is essentially wasteland.

The schools are now open

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the Centre and the States must do their utmost to provide eight years of good quality schooling to all children. The unsuccessful challenge to the Act, which went into effect on April 1, 2010, came from unaided private school managements who are required to set apart 25 per cent seats for poor children. Private schools that favoured a marketbased approach to universalisation relying on government education vouchers for the poor and filtered entry failed to make convincing arguments. They are all within the ambit of the law, except for unaided private minority institutions. Rather than view this as a loss of prestige, they must sagaciously open their doors to students of all social strata, and help those from the weaker sections integrate with the others. The letter of the law is a far-going reform measure and has the potential to create a generation of Indians who are equipped to participate in nation building. But it will take relentless efforts to turn the legislation enacted in furtherance of Article 21A which enjoins the State to provide free and compulsory education to all children aged six to fourteen into a revolutionary instrument. The immediate challenges lie in the area of recruitment, to meet the estimated shortfall of one million teachers, and toning up teacher training as per the pedagogic requirements of the National Curriculum Framework, 2005. With continued economic growth, it should not be difficult to allocate the Rs. 4.50 lakh crore that the Planning Commission thinks is needed for the implementation of the RTE Act over the next five years. The task will primarily be led by the States, but only a few, notably in the South, have the capacity to take on the challenge. The others must use the opportunity that presents itself to improve facilities and raise standards. Government and municipal schools have a long history of neglect and lack of investment in infrastructure, while affluent private schools use the most modern educational tools and teaching methods. It is worth pointing out here that the RTE rules have provisions to help bridge this asymmetry, in the form of perspective plans to be drawn up by individual schools. Moreover, the Act enables monitoring of the manner in which the law is being implemented, through the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. The NCPCR and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights can, of course, only perform their task if they have sufficient resources. The Supreme Court order makes it possible to speed up these vital reforms.

A bonfire of free speech: There is an oppressive climate

of intolerance towards dissent and free speech in West Bengal today. In an act of crude censorship, the government recently removed several newspapers from over 2,480 public libraries that it runs, aids or sponsors. Now, the police have arrested two people, including a professor from Jadavpur University, for allegedly defaming Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee through a cartoon they posted on a social networking site. These are blatant acts of authoritarianism that mock at constitutional values and freedoms and deserve to be condemned. The decision to purge the public library system of most mass circulation Bengali dailies and English language newspapers reflects a deep-seated contempt for democratic values. This has been done, ironically, under the guise of developing free thinking among readers. But the Chief Minister has only to read the Library Bill of Rights of the American Library Association to understand how far removed her government's views are from civilised practice. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation, the charter states, affirming the right of readers to have access to all shades of opinion. Specifically, nothing should be excluded because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. What makes the decision of the West Bengal government particularly offensive is its calculated approach to suppressing ideas and information. If democracy is to flourish, the public library system must be insulated from censorship. The Centre should strengthen the role of libraries and make their collections mandatorily inclusive. India's public libraries must be governed by a specific freedom charter that spells out their rights and those of readers. This can be done by making it mandatory for libraries to consult the community they serve through public hearings, and acquire publications based on local demand. Such principles are universal, and even titles that are not available at a given moment can be specially requested by readers. The repressive orders in West Bengal are aimed at chilling independent thought. School textbooks have been rewritten to remove the philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels because Ms. Banerjee has so decreed. And now, citizens are being arrested for merely lampooning leaders. State governments invariably pursue the goal of control of the media, and their favourite tool is grant or denial of government advertisements to bring about self-censorship. But in West Bengal, an era of a more direct assault on free speech seems to have begun. It needs a strong response from democratic forces.

Keep security on track: That the Railway Protection Force

(RPF) and policing on the Indian Railways badly need restructuring and revamping is beyond question. The more-than-million passengers that the Railways transport every day face some kind of problem or the other, and the policing and security systems now leave a lot to be desired. The limited mandate of the RPF confines it to protection of railway property, guarding railway premises, and prosecuting offenders under the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act. But it remains an armed force of the Union. On the other hand, the Government Railway Police (GRP) comes under the State police force, but provides on-board escort, mans Railway police stations, and handles crimes committed on running trains. The Centre now plans to do away with the GRP and empower the RPF to take on that role so that it becomes a one-stop force for anything to do with the Railways. Though under the jurisdiction of States, the GRP get funded by the Railways as they primarily attend to duties connected with the railways. The proposal to amend the RPF Act with a view to turning it into a full-fledged force was first mooted when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was still at Rail Bhavan. It is now at the receiving end of the wrath of Chief Ministers such as Odisha's Navin Patnaik and Tamil Nadu's Jayalalithaa. Objections to the proposed change revolve around questions of funding and jurisdiction, including access by regular State police forces to railway premises once the RPF takes them over. But a solution to these objections can surely be devised. There can be no doubt that the security and the crime prevention aspects of railway policing, not to speak of investigation and prosecution, need to be simplified and made passenger friendly. The plight of a passenger who is robbed in a moving train remains a standing example of how not to deal with a case. If the passenger is from Mumbai and gets robbed near Renigunta in Andhra Pradesh, the GRP in Renigunta registers the case and takes up the investigation. The less said about what happens after that the better. Before amending the RPF Act or interfering with the federal structure of the law enforcement system in operation, however, the Centre must initiate a detailed consultation with the State governments. The States too must bear in mind that the ultimate goal has to be the protection of railway passengers and not provincial prerogatives.

No country for baby girls: The much publicised case of

Baby Afreen's tragic death in a Bangalore hospital will perhaps go down among the most brutal instances of the prevalent prejudice in India against the girl-child. In March, two-year-old Falak met with an equally tragic end in Delhi after she was trafficked and cruelly tortured for months. There is much in common between these two unrelated and widely publicised tales of violence and abandonment and the many hundreds that go unreported. In India, gender discrimination and violence against children and women defy caste and class barriers and urban and rural divides. The effects of these and other gender disparities are writ large on India's human development indicators. Look at the child sex ratio in the 0-6 years age group two decades after the inauguration of India's economic reforms: In 2011, the figure stood at 914 females for every 1000 males, down from 945 in 1991. Years ago, demographers established that technologies that determine the sex of the foetus could be the root cause of the rapid decline in the population of female children. But the law banning this manifestly blatant abuse of modern technology is observed in its breach, thanks to collusion among pliable medical professionals and the bureaucracy. Policymakers too must take their share of the blame, insofar as they remain impervious to the implications of the two-child family norm in a society where the preference for sons is predominant. At least one state law seeks to disqualify elected representatives of local bodies if they have more than two children. Proponents of such punitive measures miss the following common sense point. Fertility decisions are influenced by the survival chances of children, which are linked to the economic security of families. Hence, it would be highly arbitrary to include family size as an eligibility criterion for public office. Sadly, the courts have upheld these sorts of laws, arguing that population growth has an adverse impact on the country's development and elected representatives should lead by example. Mercifully, the enthusiasm for such indiscriminate incentives and disincentives has waned, possibly because there was talk of extending its application to members of State Assemblies and the Lok Sabha. But combating socially engendered discrimination against women and children calls for creating equal opportunities in education and employment and promoting equity and justice, besides enforcing the law on matters like foeticide and dowry. Only thus could traditional stereotypes be broken and the changing roles of women accorded respect and recognition.

Lost in politicking: That an item not supposed to be on the

agenda could cast a long shadow on the meeting of Chief Ministers called by the Centre to discuss internal security speaks poorly of the status of Centre-State relations in the country. Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his opening remarks announced that a separate meeting would be held to discuss the controversial proposal to set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre, some of the Chief Ministers were sufficiently ill-at-ease with the proposal to feel compelled to bring up this very issue. What hogged the attention was not Kashmir, North-East, Left-wing extremism, communalism, or terrorism but the Centre's perceived encroachment on State powers. Prime Minister Singh conceded that the burden of the fight against terrorism falls largely on the States. The proper course, then, would have been to provide the State police forces with the equipment, training and manpower to undertake this fight, and not to unilaterally move on an NCTC with a nationwide mandate and wide powers. At the meeting, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram drew attention to the existing coordination with the States in tackling terrorism, and to the absence of any conflict between the Central agencies and the State police forces at the operational level. But what he did not touch upon was the absence of political consultations on matters related to national security. For many of the nonCongress Chief Ministers, the motives of the Centre on this front are suspect. However, State governments also need to introspect. Many have often misused the police for political ends, sabotaging investigations in crimes involving the rich and powerful or initiating cases against political rivals. The Narendra Modi government in Gujarat is a case in point: many of the victims of the 2002 postGodhra riots had to approach the highest court in their effort to get justice. In Odisha, the violence against Christians in 2008 exposed the state of policing in the State. In Bihar, sloppy investigation and prosecution in the 1996 carnage of Dalits in Bathani Tola has now resulted in the acquittal of all the 23 accused by the Patna High Court. Clearly, State governments, whether of the Congress or the non-Congress variety, have been no different when it comes to employing security agencies under their command for partisan, political ends. Security is too serious an issue to be turned into a political football. Instead of pointing fingers, the Centre and the States need to step up coordination at all levels to neutralise the threats the country faces.

The game-changer:Agni V, India's most powerful long-range

ballistic missile, has lived up to the hopes of its creators at the Defence Research & Development Organisation. In its maiden flight on Thursday morning, the missile demonstrated that it could accurately lob a dummy warhead weighing slightly over one tonne to a distance of over 5,000 km. India already has nuclearcapable missiles that can reach all of Pakistan and Agni V is clearly intended to provide a similar deterrent capability with respect to China. More test flights will be necessary before the missile is inducted into the country's strategic arsenal. V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, has called the missile a game-changer that can perform different roles, from carrying multiple warheads to providing anti-satellite capability and even launching tiny satellites into orbit. Like its progenitor, Agni III, this missile has a two-metre diameter (as compared to the one-metre diameter of Agni I and II). Agni III and V are therefore the first Indian missiles that can potentially be equipped with several warheads each (known as Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles or MIRV). MIRVs, however, pose their own technological challenges, especially the need to considerably shrink the size and weight of nuclear warheads. Despite China's earlier start, its ballistic missiles are still thought to be equipped with single warheads, not MIRVs. This suggests that developing an operational MIRV capability is not easy and will take time for both countries. Which is just as well because mutual security as the superpowers discovered during the Cold War does not lie in going down that path. Both China and Pakistan possess formidable nuclear-armed missiles of their own. The former is in the process of replacing its liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles with more modern solid propellant ones. From bases in Qinghai and Yunnan provinces, these missiles can reach all of India. In addition, in 2004, China launched the first of its second-generation Type 094 Jin-class nuclear-powered submarines that will carry JL-2 solid-propellant ballistic missiles. Islamabad too has a number of long-range missiles in its armoury. An assessment carried out by an Indian strategic studies group found that Pakistan had a credible deterrent structure organised around the solid-propellant Shaheen-1 and -2 missiles. However, responsible possession of nuclear-armed missiles for the purposes of deterrence also requires working assiduously to remove sources of friction that can erupt into open conflict. It is also important that India and China start talking to each other on nuclear matters.

An elusive turnaround:The more the government gets into

it, the greater the mess Air India seems to become. None of the plans hammered out till now, including the ill-advised merger of the two national carriers, has succeeded. The Centre has been in emergency response mode for years, pumping in small doses of equity and loans to keep Air India alive and permanently in the red. Last week, the Union Cabinet cleared a Rs. 30,000 crore restructuring plan for the airline, to be implemented between 2012 and 2021. This includes an upfront equity infusion of Rs. 6,750 crore, and assured equity support of over Rs. 23,000 crore over nine years. The government will also guarantee nonconvertible debentures for Rs. 7,400 crore. Given the Centre's own financial crunch, this is a major financial commitment. The immediate benefit for the struggling and virtually grounded airline will be the induction of 27 Boeing 787 Dreamliner' aircraft, whose acquisition has been delayed by three years, at least in part, because of the financial crisis in the organisation. Perhaps, the employees will now start getting their salaries, may be in instalments. The consortium of banks has also cleared the turnaround plan by converting working capital and other loans into medium and long term debts, with a moratorium of one to two years. But the more significant element in the Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) relates to the hiving off of two main business arms ground handling and Maintenance, Repairs, and Overhaul (MRO). The government, under the FRP, hopes to rid the airline of about 12,000 employees to the ground handling unit and another 7000 to the MRO, thereby reducing the staff strength of Air India to approximately 11,000. The objective seems to be to develop these two services as independent, strategic business units that can become profitable on their own. It is quite likely that Air India will enter into joint ventures to run these units as profit centres. The fundamental question remains: Has Air India consulted its employees and unions on the FRP and other plans to make it succeed? It should not remain, like the merger issue, a thorn in its flesh that could lead to further illness. Though the Cabinet has given its nod for FDI in the airline sector, it is very doubtful if the state-owned Air India can ever attract a suitor in the present circumstances. Worse still, the ability and capacity of the state-owned and politically influenced airline to implement a stringent FRP itself remains doubtful. Unless Air India gains autonomy to function as a viable, commercial airline without political interference, such ambitious plans can hardly succeed.

Fake notes, real threat:The counterfeit currency menace is

growing in India. In 2011, the rupee appeared to have emerged as the counterfeiter's currency of choice internationally, displacing the greenback. By all accounts, Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) continue to be pumped in much of it from abroad. A recent report compiled by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Union Finance Ministry estimated a 400 per cent increase over recent years in counterfeit transactions in India's financial channels. During 2010-11, the agency detected 4,23,539 incidents of FICN with a face value of over Rs 35 crore. The 2011-12 figures are higher. According to a 2011 report of the U.S. State Department, India faces an increasing inflow of high-quality' counterfeit currency, produced primarily in Pakistan, and smuggled in through multiple international routes including Nepal and Bangladesh. Terrorist and underworld networks could be using the fakes to finance their activities in India. India has repeatedly blamed Pakistan as one of the major originating points. Porous borders facilitate the flow. The magnitude of the problem has not even been quantified. Economic crimes involving black money, hawala foreign exchange remittances and money laundering are but concomitants. Gone are the days when a fake note could be detected by touch and feel: today, it has become almost impossible to make the distinction as counterfeiters employing sophisticated methods and materials have succeeded in replicating almost all the security features. In the face of such an organised and high-tech threat, in addition to stricter policing and intelligence gathering, India needs to deploy the right technological options on a massive scale to catch and root out the counterfeiters. The kind of machines that Indian banks need at the cash counters are those that can not only verify images but also check the chemical and physical properties of paper, ink, resins and other materials used. India should also look at options in pattern recognition technology and equip banking and other financial channels with them on a wide scale in order that every single note that passes through them are checked. The government should seek global expertise to incorporate more security features in currency notes. It also needs to indigenise the production of currency note paper and end the current dependence on imports from producers who supply it to multiple customers. India should raise the issue effectively at the inter-governmental meeting of the Financial Action Task Force to be held in June. This is a challenge worth investing in.

A bond that is no panacea:A government bond to be

executed by doctors going to the United States for higher studies cannot by itself solve India's human resource crisis. The first order priority must be to strengthen the public health system if a significant shift in the availability of doctors is to be achieved. It is worth pointing out that just over a quarter of the doctors in India reside in rural areas, and they serve nearly three quarters of the population. Under the terms of the bond announced by Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, a doctor who fails to return after studies in the U.S. will not be allowed to practise medicine in America because the Indian government would revoke its No Objection Certificate. Naturally, such a measure would appear to be in India's interest, serving as a barrier to migration of doctors who are desperately needed at home. But it is a coercive measure all the same, and does not meet a key principle of the World Health Organization on recruitment, which is not to limit the freedom of health professionals to migrate. There is, of course, a strong case to be made for more doctors to be available. India is, quite depressingly, listed among the countries that face a crisis in human resources for health. There are six doctors per 10,000 population, which is woefully low, in comparison with, say, Cuba which has 59. China has 16, the U.K. 54 and the U.S., 55. The goal of the Health Ministry should be a circular migration of doctors, which would bring well-trained professionals back, to train others. This suggestion in the voluntary WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel is more likely to encourage doctors to come back, and avoid pushing them to other foreign shores. Building an ethical code into the admissions process is also necessary. Among the arguments made in support of a bond is the high cost of medical education, much of it funded by the public. Producing doctors is undoubtedly expensive and there is a legitimate expectation of a social dividend. A well thought out plan to make suitable rural service a prerequisite to be eligible for higher studies may yield some benefit. Again, if training costs are high, it is equally true that advances in medicine can come to India only by enabling global exposure. The way forward is to heavily invest in human resources as part of an expansion of the public health system. Many African and Asian nations are today doing just that. India needs to also build a good health professionals migration database and set up a designated authority for this. Many public-spirited doctors have already made a reverse migration, and many more will follow, if the policy emphasis is on inducting them into a strong public health system.

TB or not TB:With tuberculosis killing two people every three

minutes and the number of people with drug-resistant TB increasing manifold every passing day, even the reports of the first few patients being detected with totally drug-resistant tuberculosis i.e., resistant to all first- and second-line TB drugs in Mumbai in January did little to spur the government into acting decisively. On the contrary, as in the case of the NDM-1 superbug case, its initial reaction was on expected lines denying and rubbishing the find. That the World Health Organisation is yet to formally recognise the TDR-TB term cannot be cited as a reason for inaction. TDR-TB was first reported from Italy in 2007 and Iran in 2009. Worse still, the government has further exposed its lack of ingenuity and leadership with its meek response: launching a website next month for monitoring and tracking patients with drug-resistant TB, and using the data from the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short course) programme for creating awareness. This move is nothing but a reflection of its unwillingness to tackle a potentially dangerous public health problem. The government is fully aware that the DOTS programme does not cover all TB patients in the country. With a large number of them, including those with drug resistance, turning to private practitioners, even the most robust tracking procedure will never be able to solve the problem. If the government's focussed TB programme is miserably equipped to handle drug-resistant TB, the state of private health care to tackle such cases is appalling. As on 2010, there were nearly 300 million TB-infected patients, and as per 2006 data, more than 110,000 had multidrug-resistant TB. The first and most important step for tackling the disease is to make every medical practitioner accountable and treat every patient correctly. This can be achieved only by making TB a notifiable disease. The only reason the government has not done this is that the actual number of cases will be known. But hiding the truth is no way of solving the problem; instead it will only compound the crisis. Educating doctors about correct drug regimens and testing protocols should be done simultaneously. Increasing the number of drug-resistance testing centres and the use of new rapid drug susceptibility technology must become a routine for every patient who fails to respond to first-line drugs. These measures will go a long way in preventing the number of people developing resistance to existing drugs. Such bold initiatives are required and should be implemented swiftly if the government is serious about preventing a crisis from getting out of control.

Land as largesse: Despite the courts repeatedly cautioning and

often striking down the allocation of public resources to private parties on specious grounds, there seems to be no end to the whimsical and opaque ways of the netas and babus. The latest to join the dubious and growing list of those hauled up for improper allotment of land, one of the most sought after assets, is a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh. Last week, the Supreme Court severely criticised the State government for blatantly shortcircuiting procedures and allotting about 20 acres of prime land in Goregaon to a private company for a paltry sum of money. It saw through the arbitrariness and rightly cancelled the allotment. The doling out of largesse has become a regular practice with all political parties. In 2006, the Madhya Pradesh government gave 20 acres in Bhopal district to the Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust, which had prominent members of the BJP as its trustees. Not only did the government overrule the revenue department's suggestion that the land be auctioned to generate maximum revenue, it allocated the property for a meagre annual lease rent of one rupee. The court rejected this allotment as a blatant act of favouritism. In another incident, a few years later, the Left Front government in West Bengal allotted land to Sourav Ganguly for starting a school in Kolkata. This too did not stand up to legal scrutiny and was quashed. The usefulness of discretionary allotment of land in justifiable instances such as slum development or post disaster rehabilitation is understandable. But favouritism must not be allowed to masquerade as public interest. The question is not whether the executive has a right to work out policies for resource allocation as it sees fit. Rather it is whether the distribution of resources has best served the common good. Was the policy discriminatory and did it favour a select few? The State is only a steward of resources. Political parties in power cannot treat them as a part of their personal fiefdom. Even when claims were made, as in the above mentioned cases, that the land was given for a public purpose such as starting an educational institution, the courts have consistently ruled that in order to achieve a bona fide end, the means must also justify the end. The government is obligated to follow settled procedures and cannot surreptitiously favour an applicant, which will deny opportunity to other eligible persons or institutions from seeking public resources. Management of community assets be they land, mines or spectrum must be directed by definitive guidelines to ensure the transactions are transparent, fair and genuinely in public interest.

A clash averted:In purely constitutional terms, the battle between

Pakistan's Supreme Court and its government has thrown up no clear winners or losers. That may be just as well. The court's sentence to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani for contempt imprisonment until the rising of the bench and the reasons it gave for this token punishment were an admission of the limitations of the judiciary's powers. Contrary to popular expectation that Mr. Gilani would be sent to jail for the maximum imprisonment of six months, the court considered the consequences of the conviction a likely disqualification from the National Assembly and consequently from the office of the Prime Minister serious enough by themselves. Again, instead of pronouncing him disqualified from parliament, the court has left this decision to the National Assembly, where it is the Speaker who will adjudicate. Pakistan has been spared the political confusion of a jailed Prime Minister, and the possible institutional clash that might have ensued. But there is no getting away from the conviction itself. The court had directed the government more than two years ago to write to the Swiss authorities asking for a reopening of money laundering cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. It was the failure to do this that led to the court slapping contempt charges. Unimpressed by Mr. Gilani's plea that he went by the advice of his government on presidential immunity, it asserted itself by convicting him. In the political arena, the Pakistan People's Party has tried to make capital of the whole episode, projecting it as a continuation of its struggle with the establishment since the day the Supreme Court sent its founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to the gallows. Indeed, there was something more than inelegant in the way the judiciary singled out Mr. Zardari's cases for follow-up when it struck down in 2009 a Musharraf-era ordinance closing thousands of corruption cases. Mr. Gilani has flaunted his conviction as a badge of honour, spurning opposition calls for his resignation on the ground that he still enjoys the confidence of the National Assembly. However, the problem with victimology is that while it helps to motivate the faithful, it does not win over anyone else. Mr. Zardari is perceived as corrupt by many Pakistanis; and the PPP is seen as going to any extent to protect him, even if it means defying the law. Already in the home stretch of its five-year term, the party may believe this is a battle it can fight better on the electoral turf. But there is more than one rival contender, and a less cynical use of democratic processes would not hurt a party that can rightfully take credit for putting Pakistan back on the democratic path.

Looking beyond the downgrade

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There are two ways of looking at the downgrade of India's rating outlook by Standard & Poor's (S&P) last week. The first is to dismiss it as something that points to what is obvious to all a deterioration in major macro-economic indicators, whether fiscal deficit, current deficit or GDP growth. Indeed, this was how the markets reacted, shrugging off the news and showing neither shock nor surprise. To some extent this is understandable because the Reserve Bank of India had already sounded a warning in its monetary policy statement of April 17 pointing to worrisome data. The other choice is to take the downgrade in outlook from stable to negative as a wake-up call and initiate steps to put the economy back on the rails, which is ideally how the government should view the development. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee struck the right note with his statement that the downgrade should be taken as a timely warning, even as he rightly pointed out that there was no reason to panic. Yet, more than words, what's needed is action, which alone can prevent a downgrade of the sovereign rating to below investment level in the next review by the rating agencies. Tough decisions are necessary to rein in subsidies, especially on fuel and fertilizers. An increase in the retail price of petrol, diesel and LPG will help the government rein in the fiscal deficit even as oil imports may drop as consumers cut down consumption. With oil being one of the two causes (the other being gold) for the rising import bill, lower imports will also have a salutary effect on the external payments situation. Gold imports may decline following the imposition of a 4 per cent duty in the Budget but the government needs to watch the trend closely and if necessary increase the duty further to keep imports in check. There is pressure from some quarters to liberalise FDI norms in the retail, insurance and banking sectors, the argument being that such a move will boost sentiment among investors. But these proposals are politically contentious and it is not even clear they will deliver the desired impact. For the moment, other reform measures such as the fast-track implementation of the Goods and Services Tax need to be given a conscious push. A trend towards fiscal consolidation together with positive reform measures will also strengthen the RBI's hand in easing interest rates further. This will hopefully boost investment in the corporate sector, giving a leg up to GDP growth. However, none of the above can be achieved in the absence of political consensus. And that appears to be the biggest risk to the economy at this point in time.

The Sudan challenge

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The sudden escalation in the long-simmering tension between Sudan and South Sudan is something neither country can sustain without inflicting serious hurt on their respective populations. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) made South Sudan the world's newest country in July 2011, but disputes continue over provinces such as South Kordofan in the Nuba region, Abyei on the border, and Blue Nile. There are also tensions over oil; landlocked South Sudan's pipelines run northwards through Sudan, but it has 75 per cent of the former unitary country's oil reserves and has closed down further supplies, possibly because transit fees were in dispute. The latest fighting has seen the number of refugees in the South rise to 100,000, almost all of whom are already at risk in the fierce dry heat, with severe flooding and water-borne diseases awaiting them when the rains start in a few weeks' time; 30,000 more have fled to Ethiopia. Recent refugees tell of air attacks ordered by President Omar al-Bashir's government in Khartoum, and the Southern President Salva Kiir, during an official visit to China, announced that Sudan had declared war on his country, though he himself had presided over an attack on Heglig in the second week of April; 35,000 civilians are on the move as a result, despite the fact that Juba has now withdrawn its forces. In all this, it is easy to forget the two million who fled their homes in the western province of Darfur. As so often, the key problems are political. The CPA left the status of South Kordofan and Blue Nile subject to referenda, but those are yet to be held. Secondly, Khartoum had neglected Kordofan for years, mainly because a substantial proportion of its population are Christians or have their own strand of Islam; the province had received no benefits from its oilfields. A rigged 2011 election there led to an uprising, followed by Sudanese reprisals, which were also inflicted on Blue Nile. Worse still, Southern militias are operating in Sudan, and vice versa. In this cauldron of mutual fear and violence, international intervention can achieve little. China, which buys oil from both sides, has long refrained from interference in the internal affairs of its African trading partners. The African Union (AU) and the United Nations Security Council have called for hostilities to cease, but neither side is willing to listen. If there is hope, it lies in the fact that Egypt had a hand in the South's withdrawal from Heglig; the AU, possibly through Egypt, might be able to put enough pressure on both sides to cease their violence. The AU, however, must not stop trying to reach a settlement.

Monsoon reading
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Come April, it is time for an important ritual in the run up to the monsoon the Indian Meteorological Department's forecast of how the rainy season, which still sets the pace for so much of the country's economy, will turn out. This early in the game the rains typically set in between the end of May and early June and without a scientifically reliable crystal ball, the IMD has an unenviable task. The monsoon is a hugely complex phenomenon, and scientists are still in the process of deciphering how the ocean and atmosphere interact to decide its progress. Without such understanding, attempting to predict how the rains will fare can look rather like soothsaying. The IMD's forecast for this year's monsoon used a statistical model to estimate the probabilities for various outcomes. It predicted an 88 per cent probability of the monsoon turning out to be normal' in the sense that scientists generally use the term (meaning a season when the nationwide rainfall is between 90 per cent and 110 per cent of the long period average). Rainfall data for over a hundred years shows that seven years out of ten turn out that way. The IMD forecast would, therefore, appear to indicate enhanced odds for a normal' monsoon. But that prediction needs to be taken with some degree of caution. How the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific, especially in the central part of the ocean, evolve in the coming months can impact the monsoon. Several coupled models, which attempt to simulate processes in the oceans and atmosphere, are already suggesting that the central Pacific will warm and a weak El Nino could develop as a result. An El Nino often adversely impacts the monsoon. At present, those models do not show rainfall deficits over India. But that could change as time goes on. However, it is noteworthy that even if the monsoon does turn out to be normal,' the IMD's probabilistic forecast already indicates that it is likely to be towards the lower end of that range. The category it terms as below normal', with the monsoon rains between 90 per cent and 96 per cent of the long period average, has a probability of 24 per cent. That is higher than its climatological probability of 17 per cent. How the monsoon fares will also depend on what happens in the Indian Ocean. There are some indications that this ocean too may not favour a good monsoon. Such uncertainties over the fate of a monsoon should diminish as scientists gain more insights into the phenomenon and consequently are able to improve models that simulate it. One hopes that the National Monsoon Mission, which seeks to do just this and has now received governmental approval, succeeds and soon.