India Insight

Delhi’s plastic bag and gutka ban: keep chewing it over

The Delhi government’s ban on plastic bags and gutka — the cheap mix of chewing tobacco and betel nut that you take for a quick high — is a welcome step, but it may be too soon to imagine city corners free of gutka “graffiti” and plastic-choked sewers.

Plastic bags lie strewn in city alleys, clogging drainage pipes, harming cows that eat them along with the garbage that they nibble on, and offer a prime breeding ground for harmful bacteria and disease.

Gutka, meanwhile, has an estimated 65 million users in India and causes tens of thousands of oral cancer cases every year.

People who don’t chew it have to deal with the nasty red mix of saliva and used gutka all over the street and the walls when they’re walking. People who do chew it, especially poorer people, find it an easy fix for a few rupees or less. Ban the trade, and watch it move underground. There’s always a way for a pot smoker to get what he needs, and there’s no reason to expect any difference with gutka.

When it comes to plastic bags, alternatives aren’t as cheap, but people tend to not mind flouting what they consider “nanny-state” laws if the fines aren’t that high. After all, paying the fine might be easier for some than hunting for a jute bag.

Enforcing bans also will be tough because there are plenty of states in India without such restrictions. A central government ban would make a bigger difference, but whether state governments would play along is another matter entirely.

The alcohol ban in Gujarat has been in effect for half a century, and has given rise to a huge underground market, and bootleggers find new ways to move their product.

The Delhi government's ban on plastic bags and gutka -- the cheap mix of chewing tobacco and betel nut that you take for a quick high -- is a welcome step, but it may be too soon to imagine city corners free of gutka "graffiti" and plastic-choked sewers. Join Discussion

Why is Bangalore such a dump (these days)?

They call it the garden city, though more lately it’s trash town, thanks to the recent shutdown of three landfills that take garbage from the city of more than 8 million people.

Bangalore’s residents in August and early September dealt with stench and garbage as tonnes of rotten food, flowers, paper and plastic bags leaking noisome muck spilled into the streets and roads.

People were forced to walk on roads clogged with cars, trucks and mopeds as filth caked the sidewalks, and wild dogs and stray cows gorged. Schools declared holidays to prevent students from falling ill, and the rain isn’t helping.

The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) ordered the landfills’ owners to shut their doors after villagers in and around the dumps complained to the board of deaths and health problems related to garbage disposal. The landfills recently reopened after the city promised changes in how it collects garbage, as well as how much it collects.

Bangalore, one of the few cities in India that has a robust door-to-door collection system, generates about 4,000 tonnes of garbage every day. The city dumps it in 310 acres of yards: 80 acres in Mavallipura near the air force base town of Yelahanka on the way to Bangalore’s shiny, new airport; 130 acres in Mandur, off Old Airport Road (not far from the Reuters office) and 100 acres in Doddaballapura.

The Greater Bangalore Municipal Corporation, or Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (which most people know as BBMP) began collecting garbage door to door through private contractors in 2004. Earlier, the city offered no such service, and people threw their garbage in community bins. You can imagine the result as Bangalore’s population swelled during the IT boom to its present size.

“Garbage world over is managed and not just cleared or dumped as it happens in Bangalore or elsewhere in India,” said Sandya Narayanan, a member of the Solid Waste Management Round Table that works with the BBMP. “Everywhere in India, garbage is simply dumped and not recycled. Most of the cities are really messy and dirty.”

They call it the garden city, though more lately it's trash town, thanks to the recent shutdown of three landfills that take garbage from the city of more than 8 million people. Join Discussion

From satire to sedition: the underbelly of Indian democracy

Images of a bespectacled, bearded and tousle-haired young man, waving his arms in defiance as police tried to shove him into a car, have taken Indian media by storm.

The arrest of Aseem Trivedi on charges of sedition for having drawn satirical cartoons, including one that depicts the parliament building as a lavatory buzzing with flies, is being seen as an attempt to stifle the freedom of speech and expression, a fundamental right under the Indian constitution.

The episode has catapulted the hitherto unknown 25-year-old to the position of a national hero, with his cartoons echoing popular resentment against a scandal-plagued government. Social media is abuzz with his pictures and twitterati have made #AseemTrivedi one of the most searched items on the micro-blogging website.

Trivedi’s arrest shows an alarming trend in Indian democracy — that of smothering opinions and ideas not in line with the credo of the political class.

From the prime minister’s office which attacks international media for being critical of Manmohan Singh to the imprisonment of a West Bengal professor for poking fun at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, politicians seem to have forgotten to take criticism in their stride. Instead, they choose to counter-attack it.

‘Block, ban and censor’ seems to be the new motto for politicians; be it the decision to remove a cartoon from the school curriculum or block more than 300 web pages and a number of Twitter accounts, including several spoof accounts impersonating the prime minister.

The government’s increasingly conservative shift is also reflected in its proposals to introduce alcohol permits or statements that Indian culture doesn’t allow women to smoke.

The arrest of Aseem Trivedi on charges of sedition for having drawn satirical cartoons, including one that depicts the parliament building as a lavatory buzzing with flies, is being seen as an attempt to stifle the freedom of speech and expression, a fundamental right under the Indian constitution. Join Discussion

iStream plans to become next Netflix for India

If you are an Indian sports buff, but were stuck in the office during the Euro Cup or the India-Sri Lanka cricket series, chances are the live streaming of the matches you caught on your computer or smartphone was from iStream.com.

A video streaming site that started off as a regional partner for YouTube and Dailymotion, iStream bagged the exclusive Internet streaming rights for two of the most-watched sports events in the country.

But regional content is the site’s forte — news, television shows and movies mainly in southern Indian languages Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, but also in Hindi and English. It has some 60-65 Indian television channels as content partners, and is in talks with U.S.- based production houses such as FremantleMedia Ltd, which owns “American Idol”, and UK-based “Big Brother” maker Endemol and ITV for content rights.

But iStream.com plans to go one step further: produce its own shows. “If there’s scope for an ‘America’s Got Talent’ or a ‘MasterChef’ sort of program in India, we’ll definitely look at having an online version of that,” said co-founder Radhakrishnan Ramachandran, who goes by Radha.

These could be offered as premium content, though they don’t think Indians are willing to subscribe to programming that way yet.

“As of today, we are depending on an ad-supported model,” Radha said. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, General Electric and Renault advertise on the site.

The idea for iStream.com had been in founders Radha and Chellappa Dhanukodi’s minds since early 2007, when Hulu meant just “gourd” in Chinese and Netflix was a DVD distribution company. But it seemed too early to work, so iStream began as a content acquirer and digitiser for third parties such as MSN, Yahoo, Rediff, Sify and France-based Dailymotion. In 2008, it started working with YouTube. By the end of the year, it broke even.

A video streaming site that started off as a regional partner for YouTube and Dailymotion, iStream bagged the exclusive Internet streaming rights for two of the most-watched sports events in the country. Join Discussion

Mining for votes in the middle of Coalgate

By Shashank Chouhan

It took more than 10 days for the chief of India’s ruling party to react to the ‘Coalgate’ episode that has tainted Manmohan Singh’s government and blocked parliamentary proceedings in the monsoon session that limped to its close on Friday.

But what was the reaction of Sonia Gandhi to alleged irregularities in coal block allocations that might have cost the treasury billions of dollars? Here’s what Gandhi told her party’s lawmakers at a meeting: “Let us stand up and fight, fight with a sense of purpose and fight aggressively.”

Instead of reprimanding her lawmakers over corruption allegations, she goaded them to take the fight to the enemy camp — the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Media reports about her speech said she made it clear that the Congress party must respond to the “negative politics” of the BJP in upcoming state assembly elections.

The Congress-led coalition government, now in its second consecutive term, has been unable to work out a fair, transparent method of coal block allocations. And when the country’s auditor smelled a scandal, Congress resorted to the easiest reaction: attack the opposition. Manmohan Singh preferred to keep silent – again — dismissing the auditor’s findings much like his government did in the 2G telecom scandal. Add to that the sheer absence of floor management in parliament, and what we get is chaos in a noisier, less productive parliamentary democracy.

Not that the BJP can come out of this unblemished. Its obstructionism points to its desperation. In fact, when corruption fighter and media darling Anna Hazare had raised his voice, the BJP closed ranks with the Congress, saying nothing was above parliament and its power to legislate.

Now it looks like the BJP has eaten a healthy helping of crow. Arun Jaitley, BJP leader in parliament’s upper house, said: “There are occasions when obstruction in parliament brings greater benefit to the country … Our strategy does not permit that we allow the government to use parliament to end this debate without any accountability.”

It took more than 10 days for the chief of India’s ruling party to react to the ‘Coalgate’ episode that has tainted Manmohan Singh's government and blocked parliamentary proceedings in the monsoon session that limped to its close on Friday. Join Discussion

You can’t talk about Manmohan Singh that way!

Is it a compliment when the government of one of the largest countries in the world demands that you apologise for something you wrote? Ask Simon Denyer, India bureau chief of The Washington Post and a former Reuters editor based in Washington D.C. and India.

Denyer in a Post article called India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh a “dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government”. Denyer also said that the 79-year-old Singh has fallen from grace, and that he no longer fits the image of being a “scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat”.

Denyer didn’t leave much out: Singh is an object of ridicule, has ignored his cabinet’s corruption, has let the rupee’s value collapse, has let his reputation be tarnished, has given away coal mining concessions and cost the treasury billions, and lost the confidence of his party long ago. The implication is that his main value is to be quiet and do what he’s told.

The Indian government demanded an apology. Denyer refused.

His words might be strong, but were they really so strong that they shook a nation of 1.2 billion to its core? Other media, not to mention millions of people on Twitter, have said worse things about Manmohan Singh, the Congress party that he represents and India in general. Time magazine called Singh an “underachiever”. The Independent declared him Sonia Gandhi’s “poodle” (before apparently changing the word to “underachiever”). Nobody asked for an apology then.

Maybe it’s because the United Progressive Alliance, which the Congress party leads, smells its own blood in the water as the 2014 general elections start to look like they might vault its primary opponent, the Bharatiya Janata Party, into the leadership spot. This appears to have made the government more sensitive to criticism from the big, bad Western press.

The Congress is getting what it asked for. When Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi appointed Singh as Prime Minister, she knew that he would be a loyalist and not freelance on any big problems. Making him Congress’s choice as PM meant that he would never threaten the Gandhi family’s grip on their party. His personality is not going to change now, even though people say that India’s slowing growth, persistent poverty, repeated corruption scandals and other problems require a more outspoken leader.

Is it a compliment when the government of one of the largest countries in the world demands that you apologise for something you wrote? Ask Simon Denyer, India bureau chief of The Washington Post and a former Reuters editor based in Washington, D.C., and India. Join Discussion

from The Human Impact:

Rage in India a spotlight on Sri Lanka’s war victims

Almost four years since Sri Lanka's war ended, rage over the lack of rehabilitation for thousands of survivors of the bloody 25-year-long civil conflict has surfaced - not on the war-torn Indian Ocean island itself, but in neighbouring India. Join Discussion

Caste trumps merit for political dividends in India

Passions are running high in parliament and the stakes are huge. The contentious issue of reservation is back to haunt Indian politics and it may well decide who runs the next government in the world’s largest democracy. Sparks were seen flying in the upper house on Wednesday when two MPs from rival parties came to blows during the tabling of a bill to amend the Constitution, providing for reservations in promotions at work for backward castes.

The issue, however, is nothing new. Reservation is a recurring theme in India’s democracy. And Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s embattled government seems to be returning to identity politics at a time when it is badly cornered, thanks to a string of corruption scandals, a ballooning fiscal deficit and low investor sentiment.

The move comes after the Supreme Court in April struck down former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s policy of a promotion quota in government service.

It also comes at a time India is seeing something of an upsurge in communal tensions that seem to have been stoked by political parties — witness the Bodo-Muslim violence in the northeast, which the BJP has linked to illegal immigration, a favourite fallback of politicians around the world when they are short on ideas and achievements. At the other end of the country, in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has been stirring sentiment against Sri Lankans.

While affirmative action is recognised in several countries and even gender quotas for woman have been debated in Europe, the multiplicity of religious, cultural, caste and class identities in the world’s second most populous country make it a complex issue.

Reservation in jobs and educational institutions for the underprivileged in a country where the caste system reduced millions to the status of untouchables for centuries is much needed. And almost all opposition to reservation comes from the so-called higher castes who believe it isn’t fair to them.

A promotion quota is, however, a different ball game. After getting a job, shouldn’t all employees be given an equal opportunity to learn, prove themselves and move high up the organisational ladder? As it is, the practice of promoting employees on the basis of seniority — the case with almost all government service promotions — is an archaic idea. Add to it the reservation in promotions and it becomes a heady cocktail of low productivity and mismanagement.

Passions are running high in parliament and the stakes are huge. The contentious issue of reservation is back to haunt Indian politics and it may well decide who runs the next government in the world's largest democracy. Sparks were seen flying in the upper house on Wednesday when two MPs from rival parties came to blows during the tabling of a bill to amend the Constitution, providing for reservations in promotions at work for backward castes. Join Discussion

The race for India’s next prime minister

With the Congress-led coalition government more than halfway through its five-year term, the political temperature is heating up in the world’s largest democracy. The question on everyone’s minds is — who’s going to be the next prime minister?

A recent Nielsen survey had showed Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was the top choice for the post, ahead of Congress party scion Rahul Gandhi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

But last week’s conviction of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker in the Gujarat riots is a blow to Modi, and the political fallout from the case may have dented his hopes of sitting in the prime minister’s chair.

Senior party leader Lal Krishna Advani had earlier stoked controversy by blogging about the possibility of a “non-Congress, non-BJP prime minister” after the 2014 elections.

It’s not just internal party dynamics, the BJP’s allies are also giving Modi sleepless nights. Janata Dal (U) leader Nitish Kumar has made it clear he won’t be happy if Modi is projected as the BJP candidate.

And what about the Congress? Incumbent Manmohan Singh seems to be out of the reckoning and several senior Congress leaders have hinted at the elevation of Rahul Gandhi.

But that’s easier said than done. A political crisis over suspected corruption in the allocation of coal blocks has put the government on the back foot. Its performance in this year’s Uttar Pradesh state elections, often a barometer of success at the national level, wasn’t good enough to stave off regional rivals. What was more painful — its main campaigner was Rahul Gandhi and his ‘magic’ did not work.

With the Congress-led coalition government more than halfway through its five-year term, the political temperature is heating up in the world's largest democracy. The question on everyone's minds is -- who's going to be the next prime minister. Join Discussion

Forget CRR cut, Subbarao should cut down his humour

Is Duvvuri Subbarao, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, considering an alternative career in stand-up comedy? In July, Subbarao tried to lighten the usually grey world of central banking with a self-deprecating wisecrack, linking rising prices and his receding hairline.

“I must admit that even at a personal level, I do not know how to interpret inflation. Twenty years ago when I had a thick mop of hair, I used to pay 25 rupees for a haircut … and now, when I have virtually no hair left, I am paying 150 rupees for a haircut,” he said at a conference.

That’s harmless, and pretty funny. But on Tuesday, the governor went a step further.

In a remark that briefly moved markets, the governor joked about appointing a committee to debate whether to do away with the cash reserve ratio (CRR), just before his speech at one of the country’s largest and most prestigious banking events.

He said this in the backdrop of the SBI chief’s recent comment seeking a national debate on whether CRR should be phased out, which had drawn a sharp reaction from deputy RBI Governor K C Chakrabarty.

It’s a competitive world. Information moves markets in today’s sensitive times and investors, traders, money managers, journalists — all need news, some for themselves and some for their clients.

It’s hard to imagine what Subbarao was thinking, as he knows every word he says has the potential to move markets.

Bank shares did react to Subbarao's comment, but luckily there wasn't much damage. But now, Subbarao needs to think and decide whether he wants to be a comedian or a central banker. The two things don’t really mix. Join Discussion