Go Go Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi proves that good governance can be good politics.

As the curtain fell last week on India's most visible business jamboree, the clumsily named biennial Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit, you could be forgiven for experiencing a sense of déjà vu.

As they had two years earlier, investors pledged to sink vast sums—upward of $450 billion, or about one-third of India's GDP—in the western Indian state's soaring economy. As in the past, a parade of India's top businessmen—among them Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Ratan Tata and Anand Mahindra—lavished praise on Gujarat's progress under Narendra Modi, the state's 60-year-old business-friendly chief minister, and a leading figure in the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). And unsurprisingly, going by press reports, Mr. Modi retained his place as India's most polarizing politician: loved and loathed in equal measure.

Nine years after Hindu-Muslim riots killed more than 1,000 people, three-quarters of them Muslim, the violence continues to cast a shadow over how Indians talk about Gujarat. Mr. Modi's critics accuse him of either abetting or failing to control the bloodletting in 2002. His supporters say he is a scapegoat for events largely beyond his control.

To be sure, this larger national conversation, at its heart about morality in public life, will not disappear any time soon. (Mr. Modi says he is innocent; a team appointed by the Supreme Court is investigating the charges against him.) But it ought not to obscure another, equally important, question: What can the rest of India learn from Gujarat's economic success?

Think of Gujarat as a slice of East Asia—say Japan in the 1960s or South Korea in the 1980s—set amidst the dust and drama of the Indian subcontinent. For nearly a decade now, the state on the edge of the Arabian Sea has averaged double-digit growth rates, the only large Indian state to do so. With only 5% of India's 1.1 billion people, Gujarat accounts for almost one-third of the country's stock-market capitalization, more than one-fifth of its exports, and about one-sixth of its industrial production. Per-capita electricity consumption in the state is about twice the national averageTwenty years ago, before the advent of economic reforms, the average Gujarati was about four-fifths as rich as the average resident of Maharashtra, the neighboring state that has long been India's industrial heartland. In 2008, according to the Reserve Bank of India's most recent figures, per-capita incomes in Gujarat and Maharashtra were virtually identical— just over $1,000 in nominal terms—despite the latter housing Mumbai, the country's business capital.

Under Mr. Modi, Gujarat has acquired a reputation for aggressively wooing both domestic and foreign investors. In 2008, it snagged the Tata Group's flagship Nano car project after political unrest forced the company to flee Communist-ruled West Bengal. The state houses India's two largest oil refineries, and one of the world's largest automated coal terminals. Its roads, ports and power plants are among the best in the country. Among its prominent foreign investors: General Motors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Canada's Bombardier.

What explains this superior performance? In a nutshell: a fortuitous mix of geography, culture and leadership. Gujarat, which has India's longest coastline, has been a trading culture for centuries. It also houses one of India's most entrepreneurial populations.

In Gujarat, wealth tends to be respected rather than merely envied. The global Gujarati diaspora—with its fingers in everything from real estate in east Africa to diamond trading in Belgium to motels and newspaper kiosks in the United States—fertilizes the state with know-how, ideas and international contacts.

Mr. Modi's supporters tend to exaggerate his contribution to the state's prosperity. Gujarat's culture and geography set it on the path to faster development as soon as New Delhi loosened the dead hand of the federal government with reforms in 1991. Nonetheless—apart from the major blemish of the 2002 riots—the chief minister can be proud of his record of governance.

Unlike much of India, Gujarat has streamlined and rationalized procedures for land allocation and environmental clearances. For instance, the Tata Nano project took just three days to get the green light in 2008. Foreign investors can use a web portal to track paperwork and make complaints.

In the business community, the famously frugal Mr. Modi has earned a reputation for not only being personally honest, but also for setting the tone for his administration. He is also perhaps the only major Indian politician—in a political culture built on government handouts—to espouse the gospel of small government. His motto: "minimum government and maximum governance."

The Gujarat council of ministers has just 20 members, remarkable for a large state. Unlike many Indian politicians, Mr. Modi, a bachelor, has no loutish offspring who expect to inherit political power by right. By appealing to pan-Gujarati pride, he has largely transcended the caste equations that marked Gujarat politics in the 1980s and still define elections—and the flawed policies that flow from them—in much of India.

In the end, most states can't hope to replicate, at least not overnight, Gujarat's entrepreneurial culture and sensible attitudes toward wealth creation. But other elements of the state's model—strong leadership, anti-corruption efforts, a streamlined bureaucracy and a welcoming attitude toward business—can travel without damage across its borders. And Mr. Modi, Gujarat's longest-serving chief minister, is proof that good governance can also be good politics. The sooner more states figure this out, the better it will be for India.

Antioxidants May Boost Baby Making

There are people who swear by the effects of antioxidants for everything from anti-aging to protection from cancer – whether or not science supports these claims. Now, a new study found that the tiny molecules may even boost the chances of making a baby.

Researchers from the University of Auckland in New Zealand reviewed 34 clinical trials that involved more than 2,500 couples undergoing infertility and subfertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization and sperm injections. The retrospective analysis found that men taking antioxidant supplements were more than four times more likely to get their partners pregnant than men who did not take the oral antioxidants. The antioxidants were associated with more than a five-fold higher rate of live births

"When trying to conceive as part of an assisted reproductive program, it may be advisable to encourage men to take oral antioxidant supplements to improve their partners' chances of becoming pregnant," said lead researcher Marian Showell of the University of Auckland in New Zealand in a press release.Is this reason to run to the health food store? Not so fast.

The researchers said further information is needed to confirm the findings. And some fertility doctors dismissed the study entirely, discouraging patients from putting all their eggs into the antioxidant basket.

Doctors Question Antioxidant Benefits

"To suggest that the use of antioxidants alone without correction of the primary cause of seminal dysfunction without treatment of the primary cause is not appropriate," said Dr. Lawrence Ross, professor of urology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Sherman Silber, director of the Infertility Center of St. Louis, had even stronger words.

"This is all trash," said Silber. "[Antioxidants] will not help. They will only delay while the wife's eggs get older. So, this will hurt rather than help by delaying IVF for a male treatment that does not work."

Not only did doctors find the results questionable, but other doctors found the study's methodology and numbers questionable. Of the 34 studies analyzed, not one had more than 1,000 study participants. Some trials had as few as 10 participants.

Beware of Kama Sutra virus

San Francisco: Sophos computer security firm has warned that hackers are spreading a nasty computer virus with a file promising a PowerPoint presentation of sexual positions from the Kama Sutra.

"Be careful what you do with that mouse," Graham Cluley of Sophos said in an online post. 


>"When you click on the file you do get to see a real PowerPoint presentation, but in the background a backdoor Trojan called Troj/Bckdr-RFM is installed which allows hackers to gain remote access to your computer." 

Once a computer is infected with the malicious software, the hacker can steal personal information and spy on users' activities or use the machine for nefarious deeds such as sending spam or attacking websites. 

In scant consolation, the booby-trapped file did present slides of more than a half dozen lovemaking techniques illustrated from the ancient Indian text, according to Cluley. 

Economic outlook: Five things that could happen in 2011

Did you see what happened? The Fed’s holdings topped $2 trillion for the first time ever. It took 95 years to get the Fed’s holdings to $600 billion. In the space of 3 years, it has added $1.4 trillion more. That’s something.

Extraordinary, no? Amazing, n’est-ce pas? Incredible, huh?

And yet, the feds expect this explosion of Fed assets to produce an ordinary firecracker of a recovery. They expect – or hope – that this fantastic increase in the base money supply of the US banking system will result in a rather run-of-the-mill rebound in the US economy.

RELATED: Top 10 investment trends to watch in 2011

The inflation rate (CPI) is only 1%…they think it will go to 2%. Long bond yields are expected to go up a little too – but not too much. Investor experts are predicting a 10% increase in stock prices in 2011. Almost every economist is talking about a “gradually strengthening recovery.” Unemployment is supposed to go down a little. House prices are expected to stabilize…and even rise.

In other words, an out-of-control monster of monetary inflation is expected to sire a pipsqueak of a recovery.

We’ve talked in the past about how nothing comes from nothing…and how you can’t produce real wealth with ersatz money. But what about this? Here we have the Fed doing something really big. Three times as big as anything they did in all the years since 1913.

And yet, economists expect nothing much to happen.

How likely is that? The feds don’t know what they are doing. They are juggling nuclear bombs…and testing runaway viruses on an unsuspecting population.

What might happen?

Here are some guesses:

1) It will create more speculative bubbles. We wouldn’t be at all surprised to see oil go to $100 and above, for example. The Fed’s money is, so far, not making it into the real economy. But it is available to speculators. And speculators are betting that they can make more money in commodities than in US T-bills. So, keep an eye open. Most likely, you’ll see some bubbles in 2011.

2) Emerging market stocks could soar. Imagine that you’re ‘trading’ for Goldman Sachs. You can borrow dollars for nothing. What do you do with them? Invest them in the world’s fastest growing economies! If you’re lucky, you’ll get 10%…maybe 20% return – on someone else’s money. And if you’re unlucky? Who cares? It’s not your money. And you won’t go broke. The Fed will give you more money.

3) Gold to $1,500. Why not? The IMF just completed selling. China, India and other emerging economies are adding to their stash. Speculators are getting in on the biggest and most reliable bull market in the financial world. Heck, even individual investors are catching on.

Passing through the airport in Miami last week, we noticed a gold vending machine! We had heard they were around. But this was the first time we saw one. How surprising would it be if more and more ordinary people started imitating the rich, who’ve been buying gold for years? Suppose people realize that their central bank is now working against them…and that they have to maintain their own real money reserves? We could easily see gold over $1,500 in 2011.

4) US bond yields rise; the bond market begins to break down. It looked like it was beginning a week or two ago. Bonds were going down just as Ben Bernanke was trying to push them up. Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen. Investors must eventually realize that buying US debt is a dangerous proposition; the Fed is actively trying to reduce its value. And if there is one thing the Fed ought to be able to do it’s to undermine the value of US debt. After all, the feds control the currency it’s calibrated in.

5) In contrast to this bubbly and bodacious outlook is a not-insignificant risk that the whole shebang will blow up. US stocks could crash. Bubbles can explode. Unemployment, housing, sales, consumer price inflation – all could get worse. Then what? Then, the US dollar and US debt will go up!

Well, which is it, you’re probably wondering. Inflation or deflation? Boom or bust?

Our answer? Yes!

It’s all coming. If not in 2011, then…later.

Vrindavan's 'Porn Swamy' arrested, CDs, cameras seized

Mathura, Jan 18 (IANS) The controversial Vrindavan 'Porn Swamy', accused of making pornograhic clips and movies using holy motifs and the backdrop of deities, was arrested Monday afternoon after more than ten days on the run, police said.

The temple city of Mathura, 380 km from Uttar Pradesh state capital Lucknow, was outraged after the case surfaced earlier this month, with Hindutva groups burning his effigies and demanding firm action.

The Bhagwatacharya, described as a multi-faceted personality, has been accused of producing movies against the backdrop of ghats, holy shrines and the Yamuna river, police sources said.

Police said Rajendra, who is a popular katha vachak (narrator of mythological tales) and painter, made porn clips for his foreign disciples, who helped him market these through some websites.

Police in Vrindavan, 15 km from Mathura, confiscated a movie camera, CDs, and hours of footage with kids, his wife and some foreigners.

Mathura police said he had been booked under section 377 (unnatural sex) of the Indian Penal Code and 67B of the IT Act.

Mathura police presented the arrested Swami before mediapersons late Monday evening.

However, Rajendra said he had made the films and clips of his wife for his personal use, which were later stolen and misused by some people. He told police that he was a painter and an artist and he used his wife as a model to make paintings.

His wife was not brought before the media.

The investigating officer said some of the pictures show him engaged in 'unnatural sex', while a few others show the couple with small kids in obscene acts.

Both of these being cognisable offences, the two have been arrested, he added.

The Bhagwatacharya denied all the allegations and said the CDs had been doctored.

Earlier, his wife filed a police complaint against an IT firm which allegedly leaked the film from a laptop Rajendra had given for repair.

She told police that Rs.10 lakh was allegedly demanded in ransom before the footage went into public circulation.

Mathura's Superintendent of Police (city) Ram Kishore Verma said that Rajendra and his family members had been shuttling between Kanpur, Mathura and Ghaziabad to avoid arrest.

Investigating officer Vivek Tripathi arrested him Monday as soon as he entered his house.

A police team also seized CDs and cameras from his relative's house in Ghaziabad.

The 10 Hottest Texts to Send a Guy

At work having very NSFW thoughts about throwing you down on my desk...

I know you're busy today, but can you add one thing to your to-do list? Me.

Just got out of the shower. Why don't you come over and help me get dirty again?

In 30 minutes I'll be getting off. Will you be here to join in the fun?

Wish you were here... [With a picture of your inner thigh or cleavage — without showing anything X-rated.]

Had a very dirty dream about you last night. Let's reenact it tonight.

See if you can decipher this abbreviation: OMG IWUIM

Using one hand to write this text and press the send button. Using the other hand to press MY button...

Practicing yoga poses...totally naked. Wanna see how flexible I am?

Just went to the bathroom at the [bar/party/restaurant] and took off my underwear. One less thing for you to remove tonight...

10 Workplace Myths

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 153 million people in the United States were part of the civilian workforce in July 2010 [source: Bureau of Labor and Statistics]. With that many workers out there, it's no wonder that there are thousands of people starting new jobs on any given day. If you're about to start your first full-time job, or if you're just looking for something new, you're among those thousands who are gathering information, sending out résumés and getting prepared for the first day in a new workplace.

As you research and prepare for the big day, you may ask for advice from friends, family and mentors. These folks are often glad to help, recounting their experiences and insisting that you take their most valuable pieces of advice to heart. But how do you know if it's applicable for you and your job?

First, consider the source. The workforce is changing as quickly as culture and technology, so some of your parents' advice may be outdated. Plus, each industry is unique in what employers expect, so advice about being a software engineer is probably not valuable coming from a restaurant owner or bank executive.

If you've considered the source a reliable one, the next thing to do is to separate fact from fiction. There's a lot of misinformation out there, and even the most well-meaning advisor may not know he's leading you astray. To help you get started, this article covers 10 common workplace myths you should know as you apply for jobs and before you get started that first day.

Patients Googling Symptoms: Just What the Doctor Ordered

The medical intern started her presentation with an eye roll. "The patient in Room 3 had some blood in the toilet bowl this morning and is here with a pile of Internet printouts listing all the crazy things she thinks she might have."

The intern continued, "I think she has a hemorrhoid."

"Another case of cyberchondria," added the nurse behind me.

In the end, the patient did, indeed, have a hemorrhoid. She was safe to go home with a treatment plan and some reassurance. But I wasn't so sure if what doctors call the "Google stack" (the printouts listing all the potential and worrisome diagnoses) was really such a problem. After all, her symptoms were scary — she may very well have come to the ER regardless of her Web search. The real problem was with my team: we weren't well equipped to deal with her online homework — and it became a distraction.(See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2010.)

Whether the Internet is a useful or dangerous place to get health information is not a novel question. Information overload, biased sources, complicated jargon, conflicting recommendations and stories that always seem to invoke nightmare scenarios are well-known reasons to be wary of Googling your symptoms.

Yet there is no question that patients routinely benefit from going online before visiting the doctor. Recently I saw a patient who came to the ER with a strange rash. She arrived with color printouts that correctly identified her condition. Not only was she correct in her self-diagnosis, but I am not sure I would have considered the right diagnosis so quickly if she hadn't brought in the pictures (it was a common condition with an atypical presentation). I know many health providers who have experienced similar circumstances.(See TIME's Health Checkup on how to live 100 years.)

But to debate whether patients should or should not Google their symptoms (which a surprising number of doctors seem to enjoy engaging in) is an absurd exercise. Patients already are doing it, it is now a fact of normal patient behavior, and it will only increase as Internet technology becomes ever more ubiquitous. The average Joe has more health information at his fingertips — both credible and charlatan — than all the medical libraries ever built put together. So the real question is, What can professionals do to translate this phenomenon into better health for their patients and the public?

First, they can adopt strategies in health-care delivery and education that endorse the process of patient self-education. Shared clinical decisionmaking is an influential model for patient care now being promoted by researchers, educators and the federal government as a way to get patients to partner with their doctors to take an active role in making decisions about health care. The ideas behind this model wereoutlined in the late 1990s by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and were important enough to be included in the language of both the federal stimulus and health-reform laws. This model recognizes that many choices in medical care often involve complicated trade-offs. In this process, patients are encouraged to become informed of the nuances related to a health-care decision in advance of the doctor-patient encounter; and the Internet has naturally become the place where these tools can be found in the form of worksheets, videos and decision aids.(See "The Health IT Paradox: Why More Data Doesn't Always Mean Better Care.")

Second, doctors can guide their patients to Internet sites that exclusively present current, peer-reviewed and evidence-based health information. There are select examples of both public and private websites that meet these criteria. Some of these sites are, in fact, set up to facilitate a doctor-patient encounter. This website, for example, from the U.S. government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is specifically designed to organize evidence-based health information so that it can be printed out in advance and taken by patients to a medical appointment.

Last, doctors and nurses are going to have to shed the presumption that the Internet makes patient care harder. The sanctimony that comes with the eye roll and the cyberchondriac label may be an extreme example, but it's still a problem if doctors continue to walk into the exam room with the belief that patients always need to be disabused of the wrong and sensationalistic information they picked up while trolling the Net.

Doctors are going to have to realize that often patients are doing the absolutely best thing for themselves by going online before the office visit. Clinicians will need to learn for themselves which are the best sources of patient-oriented Internet-based information so that when the patient does go in confused by wrong or poorly organized online data, the efforts can be redirected as opposed to dismissed.(Comment on this story.)

Of course, many patients are going to discover the best online health information way before their doctors do. They, too, have a responsibility: patients will need to signal to their doctor how they conducted their search in a way that was smart, directed and grounded in evidence. Only then will the Google stack be recognized and used in a helpful, not counterproductive, fashion.

Dr. Meisel is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and an emergency physician at the University of Pennsylvania. The Medical Insider, his column for TIME.com, appears every Wednesday.

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SC/STs missing in pvt sector jobs: India Inc’s first caste census

he first-ever caste census of India Inc’s human resources has revealed that the proportion of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe employees in the private sector in some of the most industrialised states of the country hardly reflects their strength in the general population of those states.

The only exception is Tamil Nadu, which ranks number one in industrialisation and employment (by number of factories and persons, according to the Annual Survey of Industries 2008-09). SCs/STs account for almost 18 per cent of the industrial workforce and 20 per cent of the state’s population.

In sharp contrast are some of the other most industrialised states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal, which show a sharp mismatch between SCs/STs as a percentage of the total workforce in the private sector and as a percentage of the states’ total population.

Rs 263 cr assets of IAS couple, says I-T

IAS couple Arvind Joshi and Tinoo Joshi, who were suspended after an Income- Tax raid at their house yielded Rs 3.06 crore in cash in February last year, are worth a staggering Rs 262.81 crore.

This is the figure arrived at by the I-T department in a 21-volume report containing 7,000 pages, in which it has estimated the total value of the properties and other valuables amassed by the 1979-batch couple.

A top officer in the I-T department told The Indian Express on Tuesday that copies of the report have been submitted to the state government and the Lokayukta, which has already registered a case against the bureaucrats.

The government had suspended the couple a day after the raids, without waiting for a formal report from the I-T department. The anti-corruption watchdog had also raided the couple’s official bungalow in Bhopal and registered a case against themThe couple own 373 acres of land in Bhopal, Sehore, Raisen, Balaghat, Mandla and Umaria districts. They have nearly two dozen flats in Bhopal and Kamrup district of Assam, beside a flat in Delhi. The estimated market value of their total property is Rs 220 crore, sources in the IT department said.

Besides, the Joshi family, including Arvind’s parents, had taken out insurance policies ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore. From real estate to resorts to liquor, the couple had investments in several sectors.

The couple had Rs 9.83 crore in bank deposits. The debit columns in the bank accounts are mostly empty, unlike the credit columns that have cash transactions running into lakhs.

8 foods that ward off stress

Stress is in the air, while on the move, we stress over poor road sense of fellow drivers, in office over mounting workload, at parties over surging real estate rates, and round up as impatient listeners at home. But just who is not stressed today? 

Experts blame an erratic diet as a predominant cause of stress, which usually spans into snack breaks, tea breaks and more snack breaks. Though we can do better by tweaking our diet chart to include foods that curb stress. 

Here is a list of eight foods that'll do the trick ... 

Yoghurt : Yoghurt works well especially in summer, as it is light and digests easily. Says Dr Shikha Sharma, doctor and wellness expert, "Yoghurt or any dairy product is rich in tyrosine which increases the serotonin level in the brain." She simplifies this for us, "Proteins increase neurohormone in the brain which eases stressed nerves and calms you down." If plain yoghurt bores you, try the ready-to-scoop-up, fruit flavoured version. Strawberry, blackcurrant, litchi and mango are some popular flavoured yoghurt. 

Dark chocolate : Dark chocolates are nothing short of a delicacy, they send our taste buds spiralling. But there is more to dark chocolate such as lowering stress hormone levels and improving other stress-related bio-chemical imbalances. Agrees Chef Sachin Sahgal, food and nutrition expert, Tivoli Garden Hotel, "Our body requires a fair dose of antioxidants, and in chocolate the antioxidants come in the form of flavonoids. Besides, the flavonoids are maximum in dark chocolate." Chocolates also go a long way in enhancing mood. Explains Chef Sahgal, "Chocolates are good aphrodisiacs, also known as 'love chemical' which is a mood stimulant and booster. They contain phenethylamine - a safe natural ingredient that is released in the brain when positive emotions such as falling in love are experienced." 

Citrus fruits : Any fruit of your choice is good enough. "Fruits have natural sugar which de-stresses the mind. It is best to go for citrus fruits or any summer fruit. Besides, the natural sugar in fruits is very healthy for the body. Make any one meal fruit rich, and you will feel the difference in your energy levels," says Dr. Shikha Sharma. 

Almonds : Almonds not only promote shiny mane, but also work as stress relievers. Elaborates Chef Sahgal, "Almonds are packed with vitamin B2, vitamin E, magnesium, and zinc. B vitamins and magnesium are involved in the production of serotonin, which helps regulate mood and relieve stress. Zinc fights some of the negative effects of stress, while vitamin E is an antioxidant that destroys the free radicals related to stress and heart disease." 

Herbal tea : Black tea or herbal tea checks calories, and at the same time betters your mood. Justifies Dr. Shikha Sharma, "Chamomile tea, jasmine tea, tulsi tea and other herbal variants of tea do wonders to our system. The herbs act like medicine in calming and relaxing our mind." 

Fish : An abundant source of Omega 3 fatty acids, fish contains important B vitamins, particularly the renowned stress fighters B6 and B12. "In fact, B12 is one of the most important vitamins involved in the synthesis of the 'happy' brain chemical serotonin; a vitamin B12 deficiency can even lead to depression. Seafood contains high amount of zinc which relives one from stress," reasons Chef Sahgal. 

Broccoli : Broccoli is such a happy, green vegetable. It works magic when added to pasta, rice, salad or simply sautéed with mushrooms and baby potatoes. But did you know the vegetable had stress-busting properties? "Broccoli is chock-full of stress-relieving B vitamins including folic acid, which is also part of the B vitamin family. Folic acid helps relieve stress, anxiety, panic, and even depression. It is also high in fiber content which is helpful in treating constipation and the loose stools associated irritable bowel syndrome which is one of the long term effects of stress," says he. 

Garlic : Outside of keeping vampires at bay, garlic eases tension and stress, and reduces glucose levels in the body. If you are not sure about how else to include garlic in your diet, pickle it. Garlic pickle lives long and tastes good with quick snacks, rice and chapati. Shares Chef Sahgal, "The development of hypertension is implicated by a state called as oxidative stress where our body produces reactive oxygen species much higher than its antioxidant capacity. Garlic is rich in antioxidants and helps restore these antioxidants which in turn soothe our stress levels."

Can't control supply of corruption: Jairam

NEW DELHI: Environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday made a veiled attack on corrupt practices in the corporate world saying, "I can control the demand for corruption but someone has to control the supply of corruption too. I cannot stop that." 

Ramesh was addressing the media after a closed-door interaction with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on environmental governance and climate change. He made the remark in context of the number of companies found flouting green laws and his ministry's ability to check the violations. 

Clarifying that he was not on a witch-hunt of high profile violators, Ramesh said, "I am not sniffing around for a big guy to catch... my actions are not suo motu actions. My actions are in response to the representations I receive from different organisations." 

The minister held the first formal meeting with CII delegates since taking charge of the ministry in wake of sharp reactions from industry and his Cabinet colleagues on his strong action against violators and in implementation of green laws in cases like Vedanta, coal mining regulations and Adarsh. 

His purpose of meeting CII on Tuesday and slated meeting with Ficci on January 24 would be to "alleviate fears and concerns of industry that environment is becoming a constraint to industrial growth". 

Taking on critics within and outside the government who raise concerns about sacrificing economic growth at the alter of environmental regulations, Ramesh said, "I don't think animal spirits would be unleashed by giving up these laws." 

CII and Ficci will form an advisory panel, which will consult the ministry on a quarterly basis, he said.

New Age Corruption

In the last two years alone, we have seen ten or more major scams in India, each one outdoing the other.  The recent 2G scam is pegged at 176,000 Crores.  That’s 1,760,000,000,000 Rupees amounting to nearly 3% of our GDP.  Satyam scam was around 14,000 Crores while Common Wealth Games scam is at 70,000 Crores.   I was talking to some young people the other day and was telling them that in the early 1990s PV Narasimha Rao was embroiled in a 2 Crore scam.  They could not believe that a tiny amount of 2 Crore could actually result in a scam.    Even the much touted Bofors scam, because of which Rajiv Gandhi lost power in 1980s, was only 64 Crores.  So what happened to us as a nation in the last twenty years?  How did we go from mere 2 Crores to 176,000 Crores? 

I believe that we are witnessing a completely new set of rules being played out in the corrupt India (BTW, India proudly ranks 87^th in the world on the corruption index).  And unlike what many people think, I believe it is the younger generation, not the older generation, which is setting these new rules.  It is New Age corruption, which is vastly different from the old school.  The old school’s appetite was small, and therefore was content with small money and stored it as cash stuffed in pillows or deposited it as gold in some foreign accounts.  The new age is rapacious, they want to become the world’s richest, get hold of all vital natural resources of the country, and they route the money through legal methods like IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, to convert their black money into white money.

I discuss this New Age corruption through the following three trends. 

1. India is creating more wealth

India is creating more wealth than ever before.  It is creating wealth beyond the means and mechanisms of how our administrators and politicians are used to handling funds.   India is making money on an unprecedented level because of the reforms that have set in early 1990 by Manmohan Singh under PV Narasimha Rao.  That has resulted in entrepreneurs, companies, industries, financial institutions, creating mega wealth for this nation.  The treasury’s coffers are filled with loads of money, but our rulers and bureaucrats are incapable of using those funds for better use.  They lack the vision and it is clearly showing. 

Some of the ministers, babus, administrators are not used to handling this kind of money.  Most states send back the funds they receive for various schemes unspent.  Most of the social schemes send back the money to center unspent.   Right now, India allocates so much money to various schemes that most leaders who are given the mandate to spend this are not in a position to spend it wisely. 

Old habits die hard.  The politicians and the bureaucrats continue to steal the money.  In the beginning they stole less, but each year, the bureaucrats are setting newer and higher targets for their politicians, ready to craft the necessary paper work, thereby increasing the amount of money appropriated at exponential rates.  The net is widening.  More number of people are getting the share of the pie. If previous minister took 5000 crores, they would like to take 15,000 Crores for the new minister. 

The old school reacts only one way, the old way, by filling their pockets, their kin’s pockets, their friend’s pockets.  But they do it so haphazardly that no matter what they do, it eventually shows.  You just cannot fill your pockets with new money which is quite huge.  It’s too much money to be filled into one’s pockets.  Shibu Soren of Jharkhand, Lalu Yadav of Bihar and few others are examples of this.

In this vacuum of visionaries and leaders, come new set of leaders, the smarter ones.  Smart because they know how to steal the money without having to fill one’s pockets.

2. Scamsters have become smarter

New Age corruption plays by different rules now.  New Age corrupt do not just take cash in suitcases, they take a stake in your company, a percentage in the new venture, they take investments into a dummy venture, and so on.  They use the new liberalization policies to take corruption to a mega level, a level that no old school politician could have imagined. 

For example, in addition to liberalizing the economy India has also liberalized laws to allow people to take raw ore out of India.  That alone has created a set of new industry where the politician’s sons set up companies, get the required permissions to mine, and sell the ore to foreign companies.  The Chinese take satellite pictures and tell our politicians’ sons, ‘Hey, we want this hill and this hill, don’t do any preprocessing, don’t create any industry, just send the hill as it is’.  Our New Age entrepreneur even gets the dynamites from the same Chinese, blasts the hills to loosen the soil, and then hires the local people to come and carry the soil onto the nearby trucks.  These trucks then go the nearest port where a Chinese ship is waiting to gobble up the hill.  These ships take the ore to China, create a mega industry, provide employment to its people, create the metal, and then they export the metal to other countries, including India.  

India is witnessing a funny phenomenon. It would have been hilarious if it was happening on a magic show.  There is a hill today, that hill is no more tomorrow.  Hills are just being gobbled up and sent to foreign countries.  And no sustainable industry is being created in India because of this.  When Nehru and Tata set up steel plants, they created townships, like Jamshedpur or Bhilai.  Nowadays, the natural resources do not create industry or the townships.  It only fattens up the politicians so much that they are capable of buying entire electorate and entire assembly of MLAs.  Indian politicians and their sons must have looted this country of its natural ore in the last ten years more than what British looted in two hundred years.  We are setting a different record altogether here.

The New Age politicians make their sons industrialists first before allowing them to enter politics.  As industrialists, these sons use their father’s connections to usurp resources, grab lands, get better schemes, and then go onto convert black money to white money through fake acquisitions, write-offs, etc.   By the time the son is ready for politics, he already knows how to use the government funds and schemes to make mega wealth for himself.   Real estate, construction, energy, mining, are some of the areas where the new age corrupt have come to dominate. 

3. Being corrupt has become a virtue

The old school looked at money with guilt.  The older generation was guilty when they made excess money.  This is where the new age differs starkly with the old school.  The new age corrupt wear it as a badge displaying it as an Olympic medal.   They are not squeamish about it.  In fact, they participate in ostentatious display of their ill-gotten wealth, squandering it, buying new toys, palaces, spending money on birthday bashes. 

The competition is not between the corrupt and the honest anymore, the competition is between the corrupt themselves, outdoing each other, outsmarting each other, excelling over each other, coming up with various tricks and methods to bypass the system.  The winner is the one who has smartly outmaneuvered every other contender who wanted to appropriate this money. 

The new age youth is completely OK with making money through schemes like Harshad Mehta, or Telgi.  They think there is nothing wrong making money that way.  Like how Akshay Kumar says in Hera Pheri, ‘main paise yu banaunga, short cut tarikey se’, the youth is ready to use short cuts to make money.     

In a country, which confuses habits to values, corruption is not a bad thing, as long as you continue to visit Tirupati every year, put your feet at Sai Baba, and shun meat and alcohol in the public.  You are considered virtuous based on your dietary habits.

The combination of these three trends, that India is making money on an unprecedented level, that the new age politicians and their sons are smarter and have found mechanisms to usurp wealth with mega appetite, that the new generation is completely OK with cheating to make money, are some of the reasons why we see such big scams today.   What we have seen is only the tip of the iceberg.  We are only seeing scams where scamsters were just inefficient and foolish.  There are so many other scams which are not exposed because the scamsters there are quite smart.   There is a good chance that those scams will never be exposed

Why Srikrishna Committee thinks Telangana is NOT Backward?

Telangana 73: Are we condemned to repeat history?

The authors of Indian constitution, unlike the current generation of Indians, did not believe that the states, districts and mandals within India are static, unchanging, and permanent.  They had the maturity to accept that states would evolve and change, and hence made provisions for creation of new states in Indian Union.

Indian Constitution

Article 3 of Indian Constitution addresses the topic of ‘Formation of new States and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing States’.  It says:

Parliament may by law

(a) form a new State by separation of territory from any State or by uniting two or more States or parts of States or by uniting any territory to a part of any State;

(b) increase the area of any State;

(c) diminish the area of any State;

(d) alter the boundaries of any State;

(e) alter the name of any State; Provided that no Bill for the purpose shall be introduced in either House of Parliament except on the recommendation of the President and unless, where the proposal contained in the Bill affects the area, boundaries or name of any of the States, the Bill has been referred by the President to the Legislature of that State for expressing its views thereon within such period as may be specified in the reference or within such further period as the President may allow and the period so specified or allowed has expired Explanation I In this article, in clauses (a) to (e), State includes a Union territory, but in the proviso, State does not include a Union territory Explanation II The power conferred on Parliament by clause (a) includes the power to form a new State or Union territory by uniting a part of any State or Union territory to any other State or Union territory

The steps for creating a new state are as follows: A bill on a new state has to be recommended by the President.  In India it is usually the Cabinet which requests the President to do that.  Article 3 makes it clear that the Parliament is the sole authority on making a decision on a new state.  President refers the bill to the State Assembly for its views giving it a certain period of time.   Parliament is not obligated to follow on the views of State Assembly.  If the State Assembly does not express its opinion within the specified period of time, the bill could be introduced in the Parliament after the expiry of the specified period.  

Why did the authors of the constitution put complete responsibility of creating new states ONLY with the Parliament?  Why did they not provide a bigger role for a State Assembly other than expressing ‘its views’ on the topic? 

To understand the intentions behind a certain clause in our Constitution the legal experts refer to the discussions of the authors that preceded the formulation of these clauses referred to as Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD).   One legal expertclarifies:

When the Constituent Assembly was deliberating in November 1948 on the scope and content of Article 3, there was a proposal by Prof. KT Shah that the legislation constituting a new State from any region of a State should originate from the legislature of the State concerned. Had this procedure been approved, the power to decide the statehood of a region seeking separation would have been vested with the State legislature dominated by the elite of developed regions.

Opposing the same and using the then demand for an Andhra Province as an example, Shri K Santhanam stated as under: “I wonder whether Professor Shah fully realises the implications of his amendment. If his amendment is adopted, it would mean that no minority in any State can ask for separation of territory… unless it can get a majority in that State legislature.

Take the case of Madras Province for instance. The Andhras want separation. They bring up a resolution in the Madras Legislature.  It is defeated by a majority. There ends the matter. The way of the Andhras is blocked altogether. They cannot take any further step to constitute an Andhra province."  Thus Article 3 emerged in its current form.

It is the Constitutional intent that the will of the people of a region to form a separate State be the sole criterion for the Centre to initiate the process of State formation. This is the Constitutional benchmark for creating a new State for a region, as amply demonstrated in the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly and as reflected in the current phraseology of Article 3 of the Constitution of India.

This interpretation of Article 3 prevailed over creation of many new states in modern India thereby nearly doubling the number of states in the last fifty years.  If not for this interpretation, Andhra State would never have formed.  If India had not honored the ‘will of the people of a region to form a separate state’, there wouldn’t have been states like Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura, some of them composed of only two districts.

Supreme Court Verdict

A constitutional democracy also refers to legal verdicts which decide on the interpretation and set a precedent on applicability of a certain clause from Indian constitution. 

Back in 1960 a Bill was introduced in the Indian Parliament proposing the formation of Maharashtra and Gujarat. This Bill was referred by the President to the State Assembly to obtain their views.  Upon receiving the views, the Bill was passed in the Parliament.  A petition was filed against this by Babulal Parante in High Court of Bombay: 

His contention was that the said Act was passed in contravention of the provisions of Art. 3 of the Constitution, since the Legislature of Bombay had not been given an opportunity of expressing its views on the formation of the composite State.  The High Court dismissed the petition.

In this case, Babulal Parante v. State of Bombay, 1960 AIR 51, 1960 SCR (1) 605, the court explains the provisions of Article 3:

The period within which the State Legislature must express its views has to be specified by the President; but the President may extend the period so specified. If, however, the period specified or extended expires and no views of the State Legislature are received, the second condition laid down in the proviso is fulfilled in spite of the fact that the views of the State Legislature have not been expressed.

The intention seems to be to give an opportunity to the State Legislature to express its views within the time allowed; if the State Legislature fails to avail itself of that opportunity, such failure does not invalidate the introduction of the Bill.

Nor is there anything in the proviso to indicate that Parliament must accept or act upon the views of the State Legislature.

Clearly, Indian Constitution envisioned a situation where a state may refuse to provide its view or provide negative views about a formation of a new state, and therefore gave full powers to Indian Parliament to go ahead with its decisions irrespective of opposition from the State Assembly. 

Case of Telangana

Telangana region consisting of 10 districts was always a strong contender for a separate state from the beginning.  Even in 1956, there were strong indications that it would remain a separate state.  However, bowing to the pressure of the prevailing sentiments of that time it was merged with Andhra State to form Andhra Pradesh.  To allay the apprehensions of Telangana people, India gave this region and its people certain ‘constitutional guarantees’ protected by a ‘regional standing committee’.  All of these experiments stand failed.  Telangana has erupted in a violent agitation in 1969 to be brutally suppressed.  Telangana then rose in a long and sustained agitation of the last fifteen years.

On 9 Dec 2009, in one pithy statement, Home Minister of Indian Union, P Chidambaram, announced the steps towards formation of a new state in India called Telangana:

“The process of forming the state of Telangana will be initiated.”

It was one of the most ecstatic moments for people of Telangana rivaling the last one which came on 17 September 1948 when Indian forces liberated Hyderabad State from Nizam’s rule. People came out onto the streets, danced and celebrated through the night.  The next day, the national and international newspapers ran the news that India gets a new state.  Unlike in some democracies countries, Indian leaders have a habit of going back on their words.  Little did people of Telangana realize, little did news channels realize, little did international media realize, and little did P Chidambaram himself realize, the catch was in the very next statement! 

“An appropriate resolution will be moved in the Assembly.”

With the first sentence the Home Minister of India heralded a new chapter for 35 Million of Telangana supposedly ending a 54 year old struggle, and with the very next sentence he put hard brakes on that new chapter. 

Instead of creating the bill for Telangana at the center, in a clear breach of the procedures proposed by Indian Constitution, he referred it directly to State Assembly.  It is unfortunate that Honorable Home Minister of India did not do his homework before referring the fate of Telangana back to the State Assembly.  If he had followed the proper procedure as prescribed by Indian Constitution, this region would have been spared of so much agony, frustrations, agitations, protests, and also would have avoided nearly 350 suicides of young students. 

Immediately after the historic December 9^th statement, a series of egregious events unfolded in the State of Andhra Pradesh.  Political leaders from Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema resigned en masse to adjourn the State Assembly so that no resolution on Telangana could take place.  This is the third time that the majority Seemandhra region has resorted to such a tactic to subdue and suppress the interests of minority Telangana region.  It is ironic that the rationale for creating Article 3 in the current form stemmed from fulfilling aspirations of Andhras to form their own state, but it is now being denied by the same region to people of Telangana.   

It is clear that P Chidambaram did not follow the correct procedure.  The Indian Cabinet should have created the Bill at the Center and asked the President to refer it to the Andhra Pradesh State Assembly specifying a deadline for expressing its views.  If the State Assembly did not respond in time, it could still introduce it in the Parliament. 

Instead of realizing his folly, the Home Minister of India reversed his Dec 9^th decision and rolled back his plans for separate Telangana, thereby rewarding the majority region of Seemandhra for their unconstitutional tactic, thereby undermining the very basis on which Article 3 was created.  On 23 Dec 2009, in a blatant volte face of this previous statement, P Chidambaram said:

“However, after the (Dec 9^th) statement, the situation in Andhra Pradesh has altered. A large number of political parties are divided on the issue.”

“There is a need to hold wide ranging consultations with all political parties and groups in the state. Government of India will take steps to involve all concerned in the process,” he said indicating that the process for evolving all-party consensus over Telangana will have to be undertaken afresh.

Though there is a clear divide within each political party along the regional lines, P Chidambaram expects all political parties within the state to reach a consensus on such a contentious issue, without realizing that Indian Constitution does not recognize political parties as legal representatives of people.  Only elected leaders are true representatives of its people.  And it is clear that most of the leaders of this region, irrespective of their political affiliation, are in support of separate Telangana. 

An all-party consensus is not possible in any democracy.  Many bills have been passed in the Parliament though some of the political parties opposed it.   Such an expectation, to get an all-party consensus in the matters of creation of states, shows political immaturity emanating from Indian Cabinet.

Step forward

Indian Government should accept that it has made a mistake in referring the issue of Telangana to Andhra Pradesh State Assembly.  Now, it has to create a Bill for Telangana solely on the basis of will of the people of the region to form a state, as seen clearly from massive agitations and protests across the region, and evident from the support from elected leaders of the region irrespective of their political affiliation.  President of India could then refer the Bill to Andhra Pradesh State Assembly for its views clearly specifying a deadline.  If the State of Andhra Pradesh fails to comply or even votes negatively on the Bill, the President of India should still go ahead and introduce it in the Parliament understanding that Article 3 was created to protect the will of smaller region from being suppressed by majority region.