Skyfall

The year 2012 marked fifty years of the James Bond franchise. It had been already fantastic for Bond in 2012, with an appearance in the opening ceremony in the London Olympics as the Queen's escort. That is perhaps a huge tribute to Bond's contribution about "being British" and  it sealed Bond as a cultural characteristic of Britain. Skyfall, too had a grand premiere coinciding with the release date of Dr. No, which also saw the Totals too in attendance.

So, how is Skyfall, when compared to the previous Bond movies? First, it is very rare in Bond movies to not know who the villain is for the first 20-25 minutes. Perhaps, the only time it has happened is in The Spy Who Loved Me. Secondly, this is the first Bond movie in which the villain has no more than a personal agenda. Raoul Silva's sole motive is to avenge the perceived injustices committed by M when she was in Hong Kong with Silva working under her. In all previous Bond movies, the villain had a motive to achieve either a monopoly which would lead to economic benefits or achieve a stage to be in a position for obtaining windfall economic gains. Except, in Thunderball and From Russian with Love, where the villains wanted to establish a new 'perfect' world. In terms of gadgets too, this is not a very typical Bond movie, especially when you have seen the action involving Q's gadgets. It is more along the lines of Dr. No, where Bond is armed with very minimal gadgetry, a Walther PPK and a bag with fifty sovereigns, a knife and an explosive opening case. I cannot recall Bond finishing off the villain with something mundane as a knife in any movies. This is perhaps because of continuation of the reboot, which began with Casino Royale. Of course, with Q coming back, it marks his trademark requests to Bond about returning the equipment in one piece and we all know how Bond treats it. And finally, after fifty whole years, we know the full name of the new M. And Miss Moneypenny's too. If Gareth Mallory continues as M and Eve Moneypenny is allotted screen space in Bond 24, it is the first time M's and Moneypenny's full name would be known to people. All in all, Skfyfall marks some notable departures from previous Bond movies.

Dear Indian media, there are others apart from US elections

This post is born out of frustration. About reporting in the Indian web and electronic media. With the US election scheduled in November, everyone was busy reporting on the tiny details of the two candidates. Where Obama spoke, where did Romney have dinner, how their wives felt, etc. Hell, on the last two days, the reporters went into a kind of frenzy, reporting every step the two candidates took, that Obama cried during his final speech and many more. Now, most of the netizens will not be able to point out on the map, any of the cities or towns these two campaigned in. So, why are these elections so important to hog a major portion of the news space in India? Do we have no other newsworthy matters in hand?
Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister, chose to visit India at perhaps a wrong time. Because our media was not interested in bringing to us what Harper had brought for the country. Our media felt that it is of more importance for Indians to know who the next US president is! So, nothing was in the prime time about Harper's visit to India. Nor was anything reported about his security personnel rejecting Indian measures and shipping in their own security limousines for Harper. Who is going to find out the truth of why this happened? When a visiting dignitary has to bring in his own security vehicles, is he being snobbish or is our government guilty of inadequacy? But of course, this doesn't matter to our media. What is more important news is how Obama cried in his last campaign speech.
Forget this negative part. The Harper government signed a few agreements with the Indian government. Of these, one was setting up a research programme with three Canadian universities and the IITs in the area of clean water technologies. But we know nothing of that! More importantly the two governments signed an agreement where temporary Indian employees working in Canada and temporary Canadian employees working in India and their will not have to contribute towards their social security or pension plans. This allows both, the companies and their employees, to save costs incurred on things whose benefits they wouldn't have ever received. Do we know of this? No, but we do know that Obama cried during his last speech. Doesn't matter if many Indians working on-site have been crying for years on the unjust contributions they have to make to the US social security system, when they are not eligible to receive any benefit from it.
We cheered Obama when he came to India and hailed him to take the nuclear reactor deal forward. But nuclear reactors run on uranium, which will not come from USA, but from Canada as it has one of the largest reserves of uranium. But we do not yet know at what stage is a deal for uranium supply with Canada? And what did Harper's visit achieve in that direction? We will have to read Canadian newspapers for that because our dear media was busy dissecting why Romney lost and Obama won! More importantly Canada wants to sign a free trade agreement with India. What will this agreement cover? What is the Indian government's view about this agreement? No we won't know of that till our media finds time from reporting how democrats and republicans will never reach any agreement because each controls one house of the US government.
Seriously, I am tired of this minute-by-minute updates of all that doesn't matter to our country. How do these affect India? In almost no way. Romney or Obama it doesn't matter to us. They don't do us any favour. While India has been purchasing military equipment from the US firms through its tax payers' money, the same are given to our western neighbours as part of aid to "fight terrorism". And why cheer Obama who has, during his campaign, talked of India only as a job stealer through outsourcing? More importantly, why not cheer Harper, who has given Indian employees on Canada their fair dues?  What I am seriously tired of is the Indian media. They have their own ideologies and iron-cast agendas. They won't budge from that. The nation's interest is secondary. That's why we saw more headline space for Sandy, compared to Nilam. In the web media it appeared as if Nilam had just kissed the Indian coast while Sandy rammed through the USA. New York's preparations where highlighted throughout, but not Tamil Nadu's. And of course, they conveniently missed the fact that the same Sandy had caused far more devastation in poor countries like Haiti and Cuba, which face crop loss too. But alas, they weren't having elections where the state was ruled by an opposing party to the president.

The FDI threat?

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, finally 'bit the bullet' and announced a slew of economic reform measures. When cornered, even a cat puts up a fight. The government definitely was cornered by a lots of issues. The biggest being fiscal deficits. Now, there may be a big, big controversy and disagreement over how oil companies compute their losses made on sale of diesel, petrol, kerosene and LPG below market prices. But, the point is that these are auditor-approved losses and hence, the government has to compensate for these losses, as they do not allow the oil companies to freely set these. And hence, the government had to raise the price of diesel, as crude price was rising through the summer and almost through the entire year. But, that is not the point of discussion here.

The second, which we would all agree with is the aspect of foods getting destroyed due to lack of adequate storage and distribution infrastructure. Hence, an artificial inflation, when harvest quantities at farms are not drastically short. The government, on its part, failed to erect cold storage facilities, store houses and a flexible policy on farm harvest procurements. For decades, the wholesalers in the agriculture produce market committees (APMCs) have ruled the roost and enjoyed a monopoly in procuring farm produce. The monopoly extended to labour that could be used to load and unload the produce. The farmer was forced to pay for labour to unload his produce. He couldn't get cheaper labour of his own to do the work. These two monopolies- the wholesalers and the APMC labourers- have never worked in favour of the farmers. What more, they are such a strong political force, that very few have dared to take them on. These people have never invested or enabled anybody to invest in infrastructure that will prevent loss of food products between the farm and the fork. The government's monopoly too, has hurt the cause. We keep on hearing about how grains are rotting in granaries and not effectively reaching those who need them. But, will FDI solve this particular problem? I do not think so.

A set of people who would be affected by entry of Wal-Mart, etc. are the kirana shop owners and people whom they employ. But, they have been weathering the heat from players like Big Bazaar, Reliance Fresh, More, etc. Why would they suddenly wilt if Wal-Mart arrives on the scene? As I have said in a previous post, big retail shops tend to sell products in large packaging. E.g. a toothpaste of 200 gm., or three soap-bars together. But, when a city like Mumbai has more than 50% of its population living in slums, are they going to buy from the big retailers? Mind you, many of them are not poor in the perceived sense, but just that they can barely make their ends meet. Most of them, have a monthly credit with the local kirana store. And they buy stuff in small packages. A bar of soap, half-a-kilo of sugar at a time, etc. FDI in retail, if implemented as seen in North America and Europe, is not going to help these marginal families.

A bigger issue that should be of worry to many, is the accounting practices of many of the wholesalers and kirana store owners. Never, do we get a receipt, with its sales tax and VAT numbers. Most of the sales accounting is done on a piece of newsprint quality paper. So, many of us, of the salaried class, whose income taxes are routinely cut even before we get to see our pay-check should be definitely worried if these kirana stores are paying the taxes that are due. Will the big-box retailers be honest enough to pay their taxes? May be not 100%, but compliance would be way better than the kirana stores. If you haven't noticed, do check the receipts you get from stores like Big Bazaar, D'Mart, etc. They do carry a CST/BST number and VAT registration number and the sales do get recorded into their accounting system. Kirana stores have, for long, not modernised their business practices. If they do not, then they would definitely lose business to the big-box retailers, whether Indian or foreign.

Finally, is the government in a looking-London-talking-Tokyo mode? There was a time when the unions of employees of leading national banks went on strike, refusing computerisation in banks. They feared that this would lead to job losses. They pressurised the banks into agreeing on a fixed pace of computerisation, which was so slow that banks would never have achieved computerisation in a reasonable time-frame. To get over this, the government allowed private banks into the market. These had completely new labour, free from the union tactics of nationalised banks' employees. They introduced a slew of computerisation and digitisation in their working, which made banking easy. People flocked to them in large numbers. This scenario made the unions of public banks realise that if their branches are not computerised fast enough, they would any way lose business and customers. And after two decades of allowing private banks, government banks are still competing and flourishing, only because their employees chose to adapt. Similarly, is the government forcing the wholesalers and kirana owners into modernising their business practices through another way? Ghee seedhi ungali se nahi nikal raha, to ungali tedhi karni hi padati hai.

Finally, is FDI in retail going to benefit anybody? It is definitely a double-edged sword. Consumers may get better quality stuff at cheaper rates. Producers may get better deals. But all depends on how honestly is the policy implemented and how honestly is the implementation tracked to achieve its stated goals.

Privatising health care: A planning commission proposal

The Planning Commission of India came up with a radical proposal to move the mechanism of managing and delivering primary healthcare from the government to a select network of private organisations. Though this is still a proposal and the final outcome may differ, it is a dangerous move. Of course, we agree that the current government handled system of primary health care is in shambles, but then privatisation is not the answer to improvement of services.

The Planning Commission, instead of suggesting a sustainable mechanism of improving easy accessibility to and availability of healthcare, wants the government to get out of it to a large extent. Instead, it wants the these activities outsourced to the private sector!! Nothing could go far wrong from that. Do you think any private sector healthcare provider would want to invest in remote and rural areas? The Planning Commission wants the healthcare centres modelled along the lines of those in the US and Mexico. But do you know that around 50 million people in the USA are uninsured and hence, do not have access to healthcare. That amounts to 16 % of the population in a country which is the world's largest economy. Did the concept of 'managed care' (as defined in the Planning Commission's draft) help assure access to healthcare?

The health industry in India itself is testimony to the fact that the private sector isn't interested in spreading into areas which are not financially viable. So, we see big hospital chains only in metro cities. The small towns and villages are served either by small individually operated hospitals or government ones. Of course, I am not asking super specialty facilities in every town, but that's the point. Run a search through the internet and you will find thousands of instances where private hospitals have not reserved beds for treating the poor people free of cost, despite this being mandated by law and Supreme Court judgements. And we want to leave basic health care in the hands of the private enterprise?

Another case is about drug research. The pharma industry too has been spending millions of dollars (rupees, pounds, etc.) on developing drugs that cure lifestyle diseases, but very very few are involved in discovering medicines for T.B., which kills thousands of poor every year!! This is a fact and can be searched easily on the internet. The point I am trying to make is that the private sector, by definition, will be looking to maximise its return on investment. Hence, they are not going to willingly venture into areas where they see losses or no return on capital!

We in India hail the telecom sector as an example of what privatisation achieved. Sure, we have the lowest call rates in the world, sure mobile usage has peaked and reached various corners of the country. But, this was partially fuelled by the government's decision to give spectrum at affordable cost. And still, many taluka headquarters aren't served by anyone else other than BSNL! Forget remote places, but on the popular beach of Ladghar in Dapoli (Ratnagiri, Maharashtra), the only network they ever receive is BSNL's (March 2012). Moreover, when it comes to customer service (and especially billing disputes), most readers would agree that the private sector is as good (or bad) as BSNL. So much for the private sector's achievements.

The Health Ministry has rightly torn into the Planning Commission's proposal and the furious uproar has led to the Commission saying that these are proposals and not final action plans. I hope this is not implemented. It will be the beginning of a dark era in primary health care. And till now, I haven't even talked about what the unholy nexus between private parties and those in the government can possibly do to see that the private sector is not unnecessarily burdened with the social objectives of the government. That would lead to a cheap game of playing with the lives of the vulnerable people.

I am waiting for P. Sainath to say something about this. It would turn out to be a wonderful piece by him.

Numb3rs: TV series

Oh yes, I'm watching many T.V. series now-a-days. Numb3rs is an FBI detective T.V. series that ran between 2005-2010. Agent Don Eppes is an FBI agent in Los Angeles and handles crime cases that occur in the L.A. area. In this work, he is assisted by his brother, Charles Eppes, who is a professor of Applied Mathematics in the (fictitious) CalSci university. Charlie (as Charles is fondly called) tries to apply his mathematical and statistics knowledge to come up with probabilistic solutions about the crime and about persons involved in it.

Now, here is a professor, who is involved in solving crime for the FBI, using all the knowledge of mathematics he has. Moreover, the FBI officers are portrayed to take his methodologies seriously, even if the conclusions may some times seem wrong or absurd. This  portrayal of a mathematics professor does help in creating a positive image about professors in research universities. There is a big prime-time audience watching this programme.There are many parents and teens in the audience. These are impressionable minds. If they see a particular character being portrayed positively and in a heroic manner, they would certainly develop a liking towards such a character. Remember, how as kids, being a policeman meant having the ability to bash up the bad guys and create piece for the good ones. This is partly because many Bollywood heroes (especially Amitabh Bachchan) were portrayed as positive inspectors. Or like Iftekhar, who invariably was the DCP or DIG in almost every movie. Or how we didn't want to be the lala or sethji since they were portrayed as someone who lives off by making poor people suffer.

 Can something similar be replicated in India? I'm not talking of a detective series alone, but a serial where college professors are shown to positively contribute towards problem solving. Can the 'consulting' aspect of professors be woven in to the story? Today, in most TV series in India (and even movies) a professor is portrayed either as a caricature or some one who is always too theoretical in his/her approach to anything in life. People, therefore, tend to view a professor's career too, in a similar manner. So, while parents complain about the deteriorating quality of teaching, no positive image of professors/teachers is being created, which would motivate young children to take up those jobs. The 'soft-power' of the television needs to be harnessed effectively. Someone in the film/television industry must help out with this. Anybody listening?