Saturday, September 29, 2012

Auction not the only method

SreeNair | 7:48 AM | Be the first to comment!

Earlier this year, on  Feb 2nd,in the wake of the 2G telecom scam, the Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Singhvi had clarified that the allocation of the scarce natural resources must through the transparent market process of open auction by the Government. Consequently the court order cancelled all 122 spectrum licenses allocated during A Raja's tenure as telecom minister in 2008 and ordered their re-auction.

This has put the Government on a sticky wicket and to wade through the dilemma the government had first filed a review and later withdrew it to send a presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution.

The Presidential reference was made on April 12th and the hearing began in May.

The apex court had clarified that at the beginning of the hearing in no uncertain terms that it would not entertain any arguments for review of the 2G rulings on auctioning radio frequency for mobile telephony.

The 5 judge constitution Bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia in the unanimous judgment, said that the auction was a method directed only for 2G spectrum and not mandated to apply universally to all natural resources .

“ Auction could be the better option when the aim is maximum revenue ,but every method other than auction of natural resources can not be shut down.” Justice J.K.Jain of the Bench opined that "Auction could not be elevated as a constitutional mandate" maintaining that the court could not go in to the wisdom of the executive in the policy matter and decide on which is the suitable method of allocating the natural resources. Alienation of natural resources is a policy decision, and the means adopted for the same are thus, executive prerogatives,” said the court.

Again In a separate but concurrent judgement justice JS Khehar said that "Natural resources should not be disposed as a matter of charity, donation or endowment for private exploitation". The court said that when natural resources were to be made available by the state to private persons for commercial exploitation exclusively for their individual gains, the state’s endeavor “must” be towards maximization of revenue returns and auction or competitive bidding could be the way.

The country has witnessed a furor over the CAG report in the spectrum scam in 2G and the coal block allocation which saw high-decibel emotional catharsis in the Parliament and pulverized the Government and has given the regime a bumpy ride. Justice Khehar also took “judicial note” of the political hauling of the Government over the coals in the Parliament following the CAG findings on  disbursal of coal blocks .“One is compelled to take judicial notice of the fact, that allotment of natural resources is an issue of extensive debate in the country, so much so, that the issue of allocation of such resources had recently resulted in a washout of two sessions of Parliament.” said Khehar.

The government it appears have over-played its hands in consider the order as a means to squire up to the flak across the country. It is chin-up having reposed its faith in the over-reading of the verdict that the order should allow the UPA some lee-way on economic decisions frozen by the prospect of judicial overreach.

Welcoming the SC decision, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said the judgement vindicates the Government stance. Hailing Supreme Court judgement on auction of natural resources, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said the apex court has brought "constitutional clarity" on the issue.

But the order cannot be construed as a vindication of the Government policy of rejecting the competitive bidding mode whereby the scarce natural resources are at throw away prices. The CBI investigations in 2G spectrum and coal blocks have brought out that the process were arbitrary and mired in corruption and nepotism.

The caution the SC exercised is patently obvious in its verdict. The Bench said that it lacked the expertise to conduct a comparative study of different methods of distribution of natural resources to suggest the most efficacious mode and hence it was left to the wisdom of the executive.

There are various other schemes to decide the most efficacious modus operandi with each having its own flaws. Each process fits in its peculiar slot. Bidding works best when the queue is not very long while lotteries do a good job with large numbers. Queues can be jumped, lotteries rigged and auction bids fixed. None is inherently superior to the other. Lotteries and early-bird schemes tend to create a black market. Collusive bidding depreciate the market value of an asset. It has been reported that , in the last four years, Democratic Republic of the Congo lost over $5.5 billion in asset sales from its state-owned mining company to private investors in which the assets sold, on a first-come first-serve basis.

Decision on the dissemination of the scrimped natural resources is a process involved in subtle and complex economic domain on which the court felt that it will not go in detail. “The methodology pertaining to disposal of natural resources is clearly an economic policy. It entails intricate economic choices and the court lacks the necessary expertise to make them. The court cannot mandate one method to be followed in all facts and circumstances. Therefore, auction, an economic choice of disposal of natural resources, is not a constitutional mandate,” the bench said.

The apex court said the government was free to adopt the mode which would serve larger public interest while distributing natural resources and favored the open auction in most cases as more transparent when it involves private operators.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Hide/Delete blogger Nav bar

SreeNair | 12:14 AM | Be the first to comment!

What is blogger Navbar

Blogger navbar allows users to easily navigate to other random blogs and it also has a feauture to search the blogs ,and mark any blog as spam.People love to remove/hide this bar because they tend to believe that it is more cosmetic with out it.

This is very simple.Just see how I have done it.Right click to find the source code.Just before the variable declaration part you will find the following style declaration.

#navbar {
      height: 0px;
      visibility: hidden;
      display: none;
}

Do not remove the navbar altogether.

Google with a request."How to remove/hide the blogger navbar.

Monday, September 10, 2012

The taste of the nation

SreeNair | 10:17 AM | Be the first to comment!

Dr Verghese Kurian, the legend and the father of the “White Revolution”, and founder chairman of the National Dairy Development Board, died in the wee hours on Sunday at the Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital in neighbouring Nadiad near Anand. He was briefly ill and was 92.

Kurian, is known as the architect of “Operation Flood” which heralded a new era for milk cooperatives in the country. He has catapulted the country from a milk-deficit nation in 1970’s to the front running milk harvesters of the world.He made the the milkman a key player in nation building.

President Pranab Mukherjee expressed grief at the demise of Kurian and hailed him as the one who made enormous contribution to the fields of agriculture, rural development and dairy.

Mr.Kuryan has struck the code with the the Ghandhian philosophy that India lives in the villages and glued technology to innovate the nation. The revolution epitomized how the will and insight of a man could transform the lifestyle of the nation. Amul is not just a brand name for India. It is a great icon for the country. The Kurian model, transformed the nation in to the highest Milk producing nation in the world , not only serves something to be emulated by the entrepreneurs and the govt officials ,but is a model to the society and the future generations to come.

He is one of the greatest proponents of Anand model of co-operative movement in the world. He has founded around 30 institutions of excellence (like AMUL,GCMMF,IRMA,NDDB etc). He is the messiah to millions of modest milkmen whom he empowered and disentangled from predatory brokers by founding the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF).

Known as Amul Kuryan he spent his whole official life to empower the marginal peasants through cooperative endeavours . His professional life was dedicated to empower the Indian farmers through co-operatives. He presented the milky co-operative model to the whole world.

He was known as milkman of India and many a laurels came in his way. He was awarded the PadmaSree in 1965 an PadmaBhushan in 1966.He was bestowed with Padmavibhushan in 1999. Apart from that he was also accorded with Magsasey ,Karnegi Wattler award for world peace.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Vice President Hamid Ansari also expressed their condolences on his death.

Terming him as an icon of Indian co-operative movement and dairy industry, Dr Singh said that in his long and illustrious career, Dr Kurien set up the Anand model of co-operative dairy development and engineered the white revolution.

It was a mass pilgrimage to his residence to condole the bereaved family , from all walks of life in the society. The funeral was thronged by thousands unperturbed with the torrential rain.

Though a born-again atheist but a Syrian Christian from Kerala by birth he lived and died as a Gujarathee. The funeral was conducted in Gujarathee rituals. He was born in Kozhikkode in Malabar in the year 1921 ,a small-town-that-time , and graduated from Layola college in Phisics.He took degree in Mechanical engineering from Madras University.He obtained a scholarship to study diary engineering and underwent a specialised training at the Imperial institute of animal husbandry in Bangalore. He has done his post graduation in Metallurgical engineering from Michigan state University America with dairy engineering as a subsidiary subject. He was bond committed to the government of India which had funded his higher education. He came to Anand in May 1949 to join as a diary Engineer in the government Creamery in Anand. Kuryan reengineered the milk society begun at Anand under the auspices and instigation of Sardar Patel, Morargi Desai and the local peasant leader Thribhuvan Das Patel who was the then Chairman of Kaira District Co-operative Milk producers Union,popularly known as Amul. This experiment has lead to the formation of the National Diary Development Board ,The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Society and similar enterprises in North India. His achievements with the GCMMF led Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to appoint him founder-chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in 1965, to replicate the successes on a nationwide scale. A few years later, the NDDB under Kurian launched Operation Flood (or the White Revolution)—the largest dairy development program in the world. Operation Flood helped India become the world's largest milk producer. In 2010–11, India's contributed close to 17 percent of the global production.

Mr.Kuryan transformed the two milk societies which started with collecting 247 litres of Milk in to a world class enterprises. It was miraculous. Amul became the most prominent brand name in India. Kurian converted his ‘billion litre’ dream of making India self-reliant in milk and dairy produce to a tangible reality. Seventy-two thousand milk cooperatives were formed ,making Amul the house hold name in the process. Despite a splurge of criticisms like ‘faulty lactometers’ and ‘white lie’, the magic of Manthan endured. Today Amul has a turnover of 10000 crores. 3.2 million of Milk producers in 16100 villages in the 15 districts of Gujarath are its members.The countrys milk production has shot up from a mere 20 million metric (MMT)tonnes per annum in 1960 to a whopping 122MMT last year.

Kurian was mentioned by the Ashoka Foundation as one of the eminent present Day Social Entrepreneurs. Kurian's life story is chronicled in his memoir ‘I Too Had a dream’ in line with Martin Luther King. The dream was to uplift the rural life. Kuryan won the fight. It was the climax of an enduring fight,a crusade to emancipate the rural India from poverty and destitution and from the exploitation of milk monopoly like Polson Diary.

.Mandhan the famous celluloid creation from Benagal was the story of the triumph of peasants who contributed Rs.2 each for the creation of the co-operative society.

The Kurian story re-establishes the fact that sincere efforts coupled with modernisation can win the battle of the market. The full hearted devotion with incorrupt means only can uplift the rural India.

Mr.Kurian's 90th birthday was celebrated in a big way at his residence in Anand by the GCMMF on November 26, last year.

He is survived by his wife, one daughter Nirmala Kurian and a grandson, Siddharth. .He was cremated at ‘Kailash Bhumi,’ Anand’s ultra-modern crematorium.

He was truly the taste of India.