Why Guwahati is India’s next boom-town

A Marathi writer once told me how to identify the next investment hot-spot in India: watch where the politicians are parking their money.  If you see politicians investing large sums of time and money in an economic activity, no matter how obscure, expect that field to grow, he had said. The author provided many examples, of which I quote two: cricket, which the Indian politicians discovered as a lucrative investment option years before the IPL boom, and mining. (He also mentioned human-trafficking, but apart from the noble Indian ex-MP Babubhai Katara, there are no other known trailblazers right now).

Using this measure, one can also track the next geographical growth location: watch where corrupt politicians and bureaucrats buy land. By this measure, Guwahati seems to be India’s next boom-town. Arvind and Tinoo Joshi, corrupt IAS officers recently suspended by the Madhya Pradesh government, bought 18 apartments in Guwahati:

“SUSPENDED IAS couple of 1979 batch, Arvind and Tinoo Joshis’ reported amassing of assets worth Rs 300 crore has been the talking point among bureaucrats across the country on Wednesday, but what has intrigued many is why this Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS couple with stints at New Delhi and Bhopal chose to purchase 18 of out of 25 flats in far-flung North-East city of Guwahati? What’s their Assam connection? Or has Guwahati with its new property boom become a safe route to park unaccounted money of politicians and bureaucrats? No wonder, Guwahati’s property market witnessed a boom even when there was a dip across major metros thanks to global downturn and economic uncertainty.”

   

Even by the standards of corrupt Indian babus, the Joshi couple’s loot is eye-popping:

"The income-tax department here on Friday attached the bank accounts and properties of billionaire IAS couple Arvind and Tinu Joshi who are estimated to be worth Rs 360 crore.

As many as 77 bank accounts belonging to members of Joshi family, their real estate and other properties have been attached under the provisions of section 281-B of the Income Tax Act 1961."

Perhaps the Joshis were doing their bit towards national integration, addressing the growth imbalance in the North East.

Improving our cognitive toolkit

I’ve always enjoyed reading ‘Edge’, an online journal whose stated aim is to ‘promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.’ Every year, the journal invites answers from thinkers on a question. This year’s question is ‘WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?’

164 contributors, including various scientists ranging from Richard Dawkins to VS Ramachandran to Lee Smolin have answered this question in 200-1000 words. The answers make compelling reading, and have broadened my knowledge and made me aware of some interesting concepts, like Kakonomics.

I highly recommend the series. Enjoy reading!

Nothing’s changed here since 1947

Actor and social activist Rahul Bose has a moving piece in Hindustan Times on his experiences at Rehatyakheda, a village in central India.

"The village lives in darkness; its children are taught to play in the dark. Food is cooked during the day, eaten by the light of a kerosene lamp, carefully set at its lowest flame, at night. To save kerosene, 10 minutes is all they get to finish dinner.

The nearest medical facility is 30 km away. Pregnant women prefer to give birth in their huts rather than travel two hours on the bumpy dirt track to the nearest public health centre. They know the journey can lead to a haemorrhage (sic) and death, like it happened to those women who insisted on travelling to the nearest health centre. This situation has been the same since 1947."

Some part of the piece is naive – a celebrity realizing how dark is the country he inhabits, and some of the optimism is out-of-place. Yet, it is striking that Mr. Bose decides to spend time – no matter how little – in a place most of his peers from the film industry would not even know existed, and converts his experience into a hard-hitting mini-essay.

Read the entire piece here.

Can UID save India’s PDS?

Ashok Kotwal, Milind Murugkar and Bharat Ramaswami have an insightful piece on food security, where they implore for a new leadership and a fresh focus on the topic:

"There is no issue that is more significant in its moral implications and in the magnitude of its political impact than the issue of food security. And yet the present course of the national Food Security Bill is headed in a direction that does not bode well for the poor in India. The National Advisory Council (NAC) would like near-universal coverage but insists that it be delivered through the public distribution system (PDS). The Rangarajan Committee, set up to review the NAC recommendations, would like to scale it down on the grounds that it’s not viable. It says the government would be unable to procure so much grain and the subsidy required would be unaffordable too. All of this is under the assumption that the subsidy continues to be delivered through the PDS.

What is proposed is the worst of all possible worlds — a continuation of limited coverage under a wasteful system. Once again we are on the brink of creating another expensive token that will leave a vast number of the poor without the cover of food security. The act will be passed. But the poor won’t notice much change in their lives."

Like most public-welfare schemes run by the Government, the PDS is a case study in waste, corruption and inefficiency. In its 2005 report, India’s planning commission reported that for every Rs 4 spent on the PDS, only Rs 1 reaches the poor and 57% of the PDS food grain did not reach the intended people. Many observers have suggested the use of Aadhar IDs – India’s Universal Identification (UID) Project – to prevent the leakages in PDS.

A report by the UID project admits that ‘targeting is not serving its real purpose, as the beneficiaries do not get food grains in accordance with their entitlements.’ The report states a number of UID-based and technology-assisted solution to bypass the flaws inherent in the system, including creating a beneficiary database and tracking individual  beneficiaries.

Read the academics’ article here, and read the UID-PDS report here.

PS: This article mentions Milind Toravane, the district collector of Godhra, who used ‘technology to destroy a transporter-storekeeper nexus and save the district about R3 crore every month.’

A venture capitalist in a Zoo

Tehelka’s Ashish Khetan lays out the complex maze of companies, supported with intricate shareholding patterns, created to share the loot in the 2G scam. The report reads just like a puzzle book:

“The CBI believes that the conspiracy behind the Swan Telecom was hatched in early 2006 when ADAG created a web of newly formed companies named after animals.

…

Of these six companies, Parrot, Zebra and Tiger had inter-collapsible shareholding. That is, Parrot and Tiger owned Zebra, Zebra and Tiger owned Parrot, and Parrot and Zebra owned Tiger.

The shareholding pattern of Swan Capital Pvt Ltd, which was owned by ADAG companies till January 2007, was suddenly changed on 20 January 2007, with Tiger Traders taking over all of Swan Capital’s 10,000 shares.”

Looks like the conspirators were being too modest while naming the companies: shouldn’t the appropriate names have been: Vampire Bat, Dung-Fly, Boa Constrictor and Blood-Seeking Leeches?

PS: The report also mentions that ‘a stalwart in Maharashtra politics who is often touted as a prime ministerial candidate by his supporters have also made stupendous illegal gains from Swan Telecom’. I wonder who this politician could be, because there’s no one from the current crop of Maharashtra politician who can claim to be a stalwart, let alone be touted as a PM candidate – there are all pygmies out there.

Or could it be India’s alleged ‘biggest venture capitalist?’