Smell the coffee

Corruption needs the killer dose

The reputation of Indian politicians and bureaucrats on corruption is truly impeccable. In fact, Indian citizens have reason enough to assume that there are hidden skeletons in every cupboard and dark corners in every lair.

And if a person like Meera Shankar, India’s ambassador to US, attempts to speak up and throw some light, what else can we say other than “Welcome”! Meera Shankar’s diligent complaint to the PMO about huge sums of bribe paid to officials in Indian government establishments by US companies is creditworthy. The same cannot obviously be said of the silence over the letter from the PMO for eight months (curiously broken after the assembly election results came in).

Meera Shankar has cited the report filed by the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which names companies that have allegedly made illegal payments to Indian officials over the years. Most shockingly, it pulls the Indian defence forces into the scrutiny as well. York International Corporation, with their products of heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration, had paid-off $1,32,500 to Indian Navy between 2000 and 2006 to secure 215 orders. A US industrial valve manufacturing company Mario Cavino of Control Company’s Inc., has pleaded guilty of paying $1 million to electricity boards of four countries, including the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. Dow Chemicals has paid $200,000 to Nocil Crop Protection Ltd., including an illegal payment of $39,700 to the officials of Central Insecticides Board. Other cases of bribery include $11,800 to Sales Tax Officials, $3,700 to Excise officials and $1,500 to Customs officials.

The concluding case cited in the letter was of oil and gas major Pride International, which disclosed that it may have made third party payments to be transferred to a government official in India. Our ‘international pride’ is at stake indeed; so is the integrity of our institutions. The government has to stem the rot plaguing these institutions since years. Already, the fact that we need a report by a US agency to wake up to our own skeletons is embarrassing enough.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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One major flaw in the growth of agriculture is lack of marketing

While many private companies are present in the food processing business, more often than not the companies find it better to be a part of a bigger brand rather than making their own mark. While this helps a few, mostly the MNCs, for the Indian companies the business opportunities are killed and in turn farmers feel the heat. This not only applies to the producers, but also to the people involved with the associate industries like the seed industry. L K Pandey, National sales head, SUNGRO SEEDS avers, “It is very important to have a USP. For example- some of our seeds mature one week earlier than other rival seed company products. This gives us strong competitive edge.”

And competitive edge is precisely what is lacking in agriculture marketing in India. From the starting of the process till the end there are loopholes. It is an opportunity for a few, but for the majority of those related to agriculture it is turning out to be Achilles’ heel. While it is all the game of infrastructure on one hand it is about removing corruption within the system on the other. There is a lot of scope for private parties, but the markets as such are not developed thus hampering their entry. And since the segment is capital intensive, it is also making exit a trouble for those who want to. As such the kind of government investment is less compared to what the sector needs. In such a case the only answer is to tighten all the screws and nuts and go for what is called ‘business process re-engineering.’ Agriculture can’t grow unless the input front and the output front work in tandem and this can only happen when the marketing is done in a proper and effective manner. Till the moment the small average farmer has his tractor in the field and his eyes on the market, agriculture will continue to be in the dark.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Setting up of plants and SEZs on forest land

At the other end of the spectrum, industrial houses have reportedly threatened the Union government with precipitate action if the latter fails to rein resistance to the setting up of plants and SEZs on forest land.

Bernard D’Mellow, noted political economist, says: “It seems sections of monopoly capital have given an ultimatum to the state governments concerned and the union government that they will dump their proposed mining/industrial/SEZ projects if the local resistance to their business plans is not crippled once and for all.”

And this is why paramilitary forces were deployed all over the forest area of the so-called Red Corridor six months before the final deadline of December 31, 2009, for recording individual and collective claims on land under the Forest Rights Act. In an article published recently, D’Mellow analysed that the long-standing deprivation of the forest dwellers has helped Maoists expand their base in the jungles of West Bengal.

Joya Mitra, writer, poet and environmentalist, said: “These forests belong to those who have lived there forever. Governments occupied these forests without the consent of the tribals. It is time to rectify the situation.”

Reacting to the MP government suggestion regarding the entry of MNCs, she said: “Tribals nurture the forest because their lives depend on it. Corporates destroy forests to harness profit. Despite the Forest Act coming into force, conditional permission has been given to several PSUs and other corporates to set up and operate businesses on forest land.”

Mitra asserted that more than 100,000 hectares of forest has been denuded in this way. “The corporates, even the PSUs, have done no new plantations to comply with the preconditions laid down by the government. It is a proven fact that they have no stake in protecting the forests while the tribals do. So, MNCs should be kept out of forest land,” she said.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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“Min Ratl Hakya Tafham Wiqya”

Yemen’s disintegrating financial system has shaped ground for the swell of radicalism and the rise of secessionist activities. Financial woes in the country has been aggravated by prevalent fraud, social inequality and a sharp decline in oil income, which makes up two-third of Yemeni state revenues.

On the other hand, its regime is following the Al Capone maxim of “Gun and nice words” with the home grown version of al-Qaeda. It has acknowledged an open confrontation against al-Qaeda, which has been emerging powerfully since January 2009 when the Yemeni limb fused with the Saudi to form the so-called ‘al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’ (AQAP). The US and the UK is teaming up to facilitate Yemen, which is faced with an armed uprising in the north and greater-than-ever separatist attitudes in the south. And, it has started showing results. “The latest strike that killed several al-Qaeda members was in coordination between Yemen, US and other Arab nations. It has left them confused and has deterred tribesmen, who were gradually been enticed by them,” said Obaid al-Jamhi, a Sana’a-based expert on terror tactics, while talking to TSI.

However, Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh has also sent clear signals that he is willing to talk to al-Qaida members who have laid their arms and suggested that he might offer them the same kind of clemency as he has done with other militants in the past. This cautious approach of Yemen is justified amid worries over a probable backlash in a nation where antagonism against the US is common.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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Dr. Malay Chaudhuri, founder director, IIPM

Dr. Malay Chaudhuri, founder director, IIPMWhy did you name this award in the memory of Rabindranath Tagore?

Why did you name this award in the memory of Rabindranath Tagore?

I would like to take this opportunity to make your readers aware that Rabindranath Tagore’s influence was far beyond the world of literature, dramatics, painting and other performing arts. He was also concerned with rural economics and poverty of the peasants. Indeed, with the money he obtained from his Nobel Prize, he set up a bank to help rural people. He not only set up handicraft units in Sriniketan (West Bengal), but also sent his son, Rathindranath, to study agriculture in USA. Therefore, when we thought of instituting a prize in People’s Economics, we decided to dedicate it to his memory. Since 2011 is his 150th birth anniversary, we thought it proper to award the first prize in People’s Economics in that year.

What was the philosophy behind instituting this prize?

When we started our institute in 1973, it was supposed to be named Indian Institute of National Economic Planning and Management but we adopted the name Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) to make it simple. The core of our course, since the founding years, has been National Economic Planning (NEP). NEP is not only concerned with coordinating the growth of different sectors of the national economy, but also coordinates the growth of people’s purchasing power matching with the growth of production of mass consumption goods, which ensures the sale of these goods as they come out of the factories – and in turn ensures that there is no crisis from time to time as it happens in the capitalist mode of production. Therefore, the rate of growth under NEP is obviously more than the capitalist growth of economy, which progresses through crisis and boom. So, from our point of view, when we look at the names of the recipients of Nobel Prize in economics, we find that most of the recipients have been in the area of econometrics while one group of economists who have been left out are Marxist economists (e.g., Maurice Dobb, Oskar Lange, Joan Robinson, etc). These economists have always been concerned with the distribution of national income, so that the benefits of national economic growth percolate down to the poorest, and this does not necessarily happen in the framework of market economics. By instituting this prize in the areas of people’s economics, we emphasized the need to reorient studies and researches in economics towards the benefit of the underprivileged, ultimately leading to an economic system where there is no exploitation of man by man.

So, is this prize exclusively for People’s Economics or are there any other categories?

The prize will be primarily given in the field of People’s Economics/Management. If we can mobilise more funds, we shall extend it to the fields of Literature and Peace. We have noticed that the Nobel Prize in Literature have a bias towards Western countries. Nobel Peace prizes have also been awarded to people who should be better tried as war criminals rather than felicitated as peace brokers.

How do you see the popularity of this award growing over the years?

If our selection is proper and research based, the awards will be coveted by people all over the world over a period of the next few decades.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Gandhis never became a Dynasty

Priyanka Rai traces Mahatma Gandhi's descendants scattered around the world and across many domains of human endeavour

Much is known about the non-violent movement Mahatma Gandhi led for India’s independence but little is known about the family of the Father of the Nation. Gandhi's 120 direct descendants live in five nations across the world. They do everything from selling computer software to working for NASA. The youngest child of Gandhi’s eldest son Harilal, Renu, is an architect, has done her masters from Berkeley University and now works in a village near Ahmedabad. But none of the members of the family got anywhere close to accomplishing the great deeds of their illustrious ancestor. It is not easy being descendants of the Mahatma. “Mahatma is not in the genes”, says Tushar Gandhi, his great grandson. “Greatness and popularity are not hereditary. So it is not quite in order to have great expectations of the descendants of a great man. Popularity or fame depends on what we do and achieve as individuals.”

Asked about the rest of his extended family, he says, “By and large my cousins are private people and believe in doing their own work quietly. They deliberately chose to remain private. It started from my grandfather’s time. All the four children of Gandhi deliberately led low-key lives and their children followed their example.” Tushar says that he is the most ‘notorious’ of them all but has realised that he does not have the qualities to be a politician. Tushar is the son of US-based Prof. Arun Gandhi, whose father Mani Lal was the Mahatma's second son. Tushar had contested the 1998 Lok Sabha elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket and lost. He is the second member of the Mahatma's family to try his luck in politics, the first being his uncle Rajmohan Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi’s youngest son Devdas, who was fielded by the Janata Dal against Rajiv Gandhi in Amethi in 1989. He was defeated and became a Rajya Sabha member before disappearing from the political stage. Tushar runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation in Mumbai and is working for a project of building a shelter and school for rescued child labourers in the twon of Kolhapur.

Most members of Mahatma Gandhi’s clan may not be in the limelight today but they are all doing well in different sectors. In their own quiet way they are serving not just their own country but the world. Significantly, the Mahatma’s four sons were deprived of formal education. In fact they are just what the Mahatma would have wanted them to be. They were not allowed formal education which would have provided them with their own choice of livelihood. The boys were schooled at home. Gandhi had mentioned this in his autobiography that he didn’t want to give his children what other children could not get. Gandhi’s contacts would have secured them places in the best European schools but he never wanted any favour for his family. But today his extended family includes lawyers, medical professionals, teachers, professors and scientists.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Where Charan Singh is God

Baghpat is Ajit Singh’s stronghold because mass loyalty to his father hasn’t diminished one bit, writes Anil Pandey

At first, it is difficult to believe Ompal Singh, the aged pradhan of Malakpur in Baghphat when he says he travelled from Delhi four days after an open heart surgery to cast his vote for Choudhary Ajit Singh. “I told my sons and the doctors that I would jump from the hospital if not released in time for the election. Choudhary Saab after all is our God”, says the toothless, bespectacled elder, clearly a rarity in an age where the distance between the electorate and its elected representatives is ever widening.

Baghpat lies to the north-west of Delhi but has none of the metalled roads or gleaming malls that dot Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad or Noida. Though UP’s sugarcane belt is monied territory, its uneven roads and tacky advertisements for promised cures for venereal diseases tell a tale of neglect. The route we have chosen to get there weaves through two VIP constituencies: Ghaziabad of BJP president Rajnath Singh and Baghpat of former Union minister Choudhary Ajit Singh.

We are at Chaproli, the stronghold of Ajit Singh and the constituency which elected his father from 1937 to 1977 to the Vidhan Sabha. Since then the Chiproli seat goes to whoever the Choudhary family favours. In this Jat dominated land, Ajit Singh leads by such mammoth margins that for the opposition the fight is only for second place.

The Makalpur sugar mill, where we met Ompal Singh, as as good a place as any to start a conversation. Soon a horde descends. The adjectives used are different but Singh clearly is their “angel”. Quiz them on the potholed roads and Ompal jumps in: “Farmers don’t need roads. We need sugarcane mills. Choudhary Saab has given us new mills. As for the roads, if they are too smooth and cars begin to race on them, our children are at risk of accidents”, he says. How do you counter that?

Try another one. Ajit Singh lives in Delhi. He doesn't even have a home in Baghpat, isn’t that indicative of a lack of commitment to the electorate? Again a shower of voices, silenced by Ompal’s boom: “What will he do here? Will he labour for us? In Delhi he is working for our betterment. Look how he tackled Sharad Pawar who was trying to rob us of our money,” he says. I try a different tack. “In his public meetings Charan Singh would say, "I am the son of a farmer and hence understand your problems. My son is born to a Prime Minister. He will not understand your pains, so don’t vote for him,” I say.

Ompal Singh almost boils over. “Any idiot can understand that its sarcasm directed towards Sanjay Gandhi.” I persist: “Ajit Singh is perceived as an opportunist leader who aligns with any and every party.” Ompal is ready: “He does it for our good. He needs to stay in power so that the interests of farmers are safeguarded.” And then a wide grin spreads over Ompal’s face as he mocks me: “Poocho, aur poocho” (ask me more).

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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WORLD IS FLAT

Thomas Freidman may take credit for the branding; but the fact is that convergence and information technology have been the real stars of the decade. Terms, inventions and innovations like Outsourcing, Facebook, Google, Twitter and the like have indeed made the world much smaller, and flatter. Alas, if only the information technology and telecom revolutions could have made the world much more tolerant and peaceful.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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South Asian writers

The decade saw the emergence of Indian and Pakistani writers on the world literary scene. Subcontinental storytellers writing in English are now visible everywhere. Salman Rushdie was once a lone ranger in these climes, but today he has ample company. Not a single year goes by without a writer of Indian, Pakistani or Bnagladeshi origin finding a mention in the Man Booker shortlist. The names that attracted attention were Hari Kunzru, Arvind Adiga, Kiran Desai, Amitabh Kumar and Jhumpa Lahiri from India, where as Bapsi Sidhwa, Mohammad Hanif, Daniyal Mueenuddin and Mohsin Hamid from Pakistani, made their country proud. Detractors, however, maintain that most of these books were written keeping western readers and the Man Booker in mind and that these works lacked the depth of true literature.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Get Sunburnt at Goa!

Asia’s biggest electronic dance music festival is here!

When New Year is around the corner, everybody is looking out for the best parties around. Those who can afford to fly out, don’t think twice before heading to the Mecca of partying – Ibiza. Or if they’ve had enough of that Spanish isle, then Mykonos in Greece is the next choice of the discerning clubber. And for those who prefer to pile on the air mile reward points head to South Beach in Florida. Goa, on the other hand, is where the rest of us try our level best to get to. Goa is the Indian man’s Ibiza, Mykonos and South Beach, and with a crazy number of parties and DJs who really can work a crowd, it does truly live up to all the hype. But before you begin planning to fly in on the 29th December this year, here’s a tip – Goa gets hot and happening a lot earlier, from the 27th to be precise – when thousands will be getting together to bump ‘n’ grind at Goa’s Candolim Beach to electrifying dance music at this year’s edition of The Sunburn Festival.

With a line-up that includes the world’s no.1 DJ, it’s hard to imagine that this will only be the third edition of The Sunburn Festival. In Nikhil Chinapa’s (Festival Director and Creative Consultant) words, “The line-up that we have is the most glamorous, most heavyweight line-up that we’ve seen in Asia ever. We have the world’s no. 1 DJ Armin Van Buuren, arguably the world’s no. 1 House DJ, Roger Sanchez, and the DJ who’s risen up the ranking most spectacularly in the past four years – Sander van Doorn. To add the cherry to the cake, we’ve got Gatecrashers hosting a whole stage, and people who’ve been following dance music for the past 20 years, know that Gatecrashers is to dance music what Pink Floyd is to rock.” A number of Indian artists and bands will also be playing at the festival like Pearl, Jalebee Cartel and Tuhin Mehta. Aiming to offer an irresistible synergy of music, entertainment, food and shopping, the organisers are positive the festival will be the biggest and the best that Asia, and not just India, has ever experienced.

While one might imagine that The Sunburn Festival is here to become the East’s answer to Ibiza-like parties, the Festival is in fact interested in catering to families. “Our aim is to make Sunburn Festival the Glastonbury Festival of the East, with lots of different bands, different acts, different genres of music, with flea markets, with art and lifestyle areas, and we definitely want to introduce the concept of camping at a festival. But to do that, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got the security apparatus in place. It’s not just that the people can get there, but be safe too. It will take some time to get to those levels, but we aim to get there eventually,” says Nikhil.
This annual three day festival is not just god-sent for all music-lovers, but for Indian musicians, and could potentially put India on the map as a dance festival destination. And while Goa so far has been our answer for the best parties in India, The Sunburn Festival also gives us desis hope of camping at our very own Glastonbury Festival, very soon...

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Doomed prophecies

Prophets of doom never give up, so why should we?

It’s been a while since people have been running around like frightened chickens expecting the sky to fall on their head or the earth to split wide open and gulp them down. The Romans, for example, believed philosopher Seneca, who had prophesised that the world would go up in smoke. So in AD 79, when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, they believed the apocalypse was here. In 1665, when the Great Fire of London set the town on fire, Londoners imagined that it was a result of God’s wrath and that the whole world was to go up in flames. The year after, 1666, was also believed by European Christians to be a year of doom, as 666 is described as the number of the Beast in the Bible. Sixth June, 2006, saw a revival of the same sentiments. Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian offshoot, had predicted 1914 as the year the world would end. When it did not, they predicted that it would end ‘shortly’. In 1997, a UFO was supposed to follow the Comet Hale-Bopp, and though nothing of the sort occurred, 39 members of Heaven's Gate cult did choose to commit mass suicide, so that their souls could board that aircraft. More recently, we were all supposed to have perished when the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn fell in line with the Sun and the Moon on 5 May, 2000.

Despite all the panic caused by end of the world soothsayers since hundreds of years, the world has happily continued. Will the world continue to spin post 21st December, 2012? Considering how previous prophecies haven’t affected our world one bit, we’d say it most probably will. As Yogi Ashwini says, “Nothing would happen in 2012 and we have to stop looking for reasons to panic and start hoping for peace and spreading joy.”

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At the mercy of irate teachers

Schools dole out violence, leave children scarred

Corporal punishment in Madhya Pradesh’s schools is on the rise. Teachers have turned on their students, punching and beating them, even fatally at times. It is also observed that many school managements try to hide such incidents in order to evade action. Moreover, the school education department is not making any concerted effort to stop such brutalities.

Within just a month, the state has reported three major incidents of merciless beating. A teacher punched a Class V student of a primary school, Premlata, so badly, that she died in hospital a few days later. Premlata’s fault? She answered a question incorrectly. She was admitted to hospital with severe concussions. She succumbed to her injuries three days later. The dust hadn’t yet settled on the Premlata tragedy when another sordid incident emerged, this time in Bhopal’s Saraswati Vidya Mandir School. According to reports, a delicate upper KG student, Anmol Kushwaha, misspelt a word in class. His teacher got so enraged that he broke his bones. Anmol’s injuries were so severe that doctors had to operate on him. It is no consolation that under extreme pressure the school management offered to foot the hospital bill.

In the industrial town of Jabalpur, prayer turned into a nightmare for a Class IX student. A teacher beat Mudit Tiwari with a bench slab for a minor transgression during a prayer meeting and fractured his hands. Mudit’s fault? He says he was asking a fellow student to “stand properly in line during prayer.” His teacher picked up a bench slab and beat him till his hands broke. According to Asif Shek, secretary of Jan Sahas, an NGO: “Physical punishment is now a crime, but students are badly hit by the teachers for every small mistake in the name of discipline. Incidents of fractures and even accidental deaths due to corporal punishments are occurring repeatedly.” According to a survey conducted by the women & child welfare department, about 65% of schools in the state take recourse to physical punishment to enforce discipline among students.

The president of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Shanta Sinha, says: “Schools should be safe zones for students and the teachers responsible should be suspended. Authorities should investigate the matter quickly and take action.”

NCPCP has stressed the need to strengthen the time-tested parent-teacher association (PTA) system to ensure swift action against the erring teachers. In fact, about ten states have also submitted a list of measures to the commission, seeking to prevent and control incidents of such punishment at school.

Madhya Pradesh, however, is gaining the dubious distinction of reporting a rise in the number of such cases.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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Is cia encircling iran?

Senior Pak politician reveals CIA's design to encircle Iran by extending Drone attacks into Balochistan

Secretary General National Party, Tahir Bizenjo believes that the option to go for drone attacks in Balochistan by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is essentially an attempt by the US government to encircle Iran.

“Drone attacks in Balochistan ostensibly to eradicate the Taliban leadership based in Quetta will be disastrous, since it will de-stabilise Pakistan,” he said.

“It is essentially an attempt to gain access to neighbouring country Iran, where the Americans are keen to interfere since the ouster of Shah of Iran in 1979,” he said.

In an exclusive interview with TSI, the former senator said drone attacks in Balochistan will be counter productive for the Americans as well since it will heighten anti-American feelings among the people while Taliban would gain sympathy.

“Afghan crisis can’t be resolved through encircling Iran,” he said. “It can be resolved only if India, China, Iran, Russia and Pakistan are taken on board in talks with the Taliban, keeping in view their respective interests in the region,” he said.

Referring to “Balochistan Package” offered by prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani recently, he said it was nothing but a political gimmick.

“It’s a political gimmick. The government has tried to evade major issues,” he said.

“Though slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti has been termed as a martyr in the package, the government has announced to form a commission to investigate the murder of Nawab Bugti although everybody knows who was behind the murder,” he said, referring to ex-president Gen (retired) Pervez Musharaf.

“Commissions are formed in Pakistan to put an issue under the rug. Former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto established a commission under justice Hamood-ur-Rahman to investigate about the actors responsible for dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 but Gen. Yahya Khan was buried with full military honours and he did not spend a single day in jail although he was the main culprit,” he said.

He pointed out that National Party and other nationalist parties in Balochistan suggested that “missing people” should be released and if there was a charge against them they should be tried in a court of law.


“We also suggested that the assassins of Nawab Bugti should be tried in a court of law and everybody knows Musharaf was involved in it. He should also be tried for abrogating the constitution,” he said.

He further pointed out that thousands of people in Marri and Bugti areas have been displaced due to military operation in Balochistan and have been forced to take refuge in Southern Punjab, interior of Sindh and even in Karachi, and they need to be rehabilitated.

“In the second phase, the government could have invited nationalist parties for talks. This did not happen,” he said. “No wonder that National Party and Balochistan National Party (Mengal) have rejected the package,” he said.

“The 27-member committee, led by Senator Raza Rabbani and representing all parliamentary parties was asked to make suggestions ahead of Balochistan Package but the government failed to pay heed to any suggestion,” he said.

“I think the people of Balochistan can still live in a federation provided we make a loose federation confined to foreign policy, currency and defence and all other subjects are handed over to small provinces,” he said.

“The smaller provinces should have rights on their natural and mineral resources. These measures will satisfy the smaller provinces to a great extent,” he said. “The question is whether a centralised federation or strong provinces can strengthen Pakistan,” he said.

He said the 62-year-old history of Pakistan has amply demonstrated that strong centre was not the panacea to keep Pakistan intact. “History shows that centralisation has only generated disharmony, anarchy and friction amongst provinces. As a result, the former East Pakistan opted to become Bangladesh,” he said.

“Bengalis played a major role in the creation of Pakistan but a military operation was initiated against them in 1971 and they were forced to become an independent nation,” he said.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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