Aug

13

The economics of swine flu - I

August 13, 2009 posted by indiatime | 8 Comments

The swine flu epidemic is so far purely a health crisis. And it will be so for a while. But one of the downsides of not having managed to stem the tide earlier, is slowly going to be seen on the economic front. Already, many avenues on that economic fronts are being hit hard:

1. Retail: since people will be staying home and not strolling in the malls and on the streets. With the festival and holiday season right around the corner, the impact is even worse, since many retailers make much of their annual income during these few months.

2. Entertainment: Especially, Bollywood, since so much of the business there is based on crowds showing up at the movies. Television, will however, have a bigger audience and many more eyeballs watching.

3. Transportation: Actually, transportation and civil aviation may be showing an uptick in the initial period, as people scramble to get to the place of their choice during such critical times. Most will be traveling home to be closer to families, plus since the cities are affected the most, there is a mini-exodus away from the cities to smaller towns and villages.

4. Tourism: Tourism will take a major hit, near-term as well as long-term. International tourism will drop rather drastically. Visuals of locals moving around in masks is hardly the kind of tourism commercial India would want the international tourists to see.

5. Food-related industries: e.g. a lot less eating out, and the restaurant industry will take a direct hit.

6. Pharmaceuticals: Typical flu season remedies are already in high demand, but the biggest beneficiaries are the mask-makers, especially those that make and distribute the special flu masks or respirators.

7. Medical Tourism: Takes a huge hit because of swine flu. With TV images of unclean hospitals with unhygienic conditions and discarded and infected masks lying around or thrown on the streets, it’s hard to convince the world that cheap is better.

8. Outsourcing: Although outsourcing is supposed to work remotely and via telecommutes, India is where the actual human factor of outsourcing lives, so any shift in the workforce is bound to affect that. In an industry where deadlines and timely deliveries can mean much, employees not showing up can prove quite inconvenient.

9. Sports: The world badminton tournament has already lost a few teams where players of some countries have chosen to flee home. Soon, Cricket too, may take a backseat to the epidemic flu. Thankfully, the commonwealth games are a year away.

10. Finance: Reduction in short and long-term investments is one of the adverse effects that is little discussed but is much-feared.

Scientists who study the effects of epidemics on economy, point out that the need for flexibility in resource allocation and the limitation of movement of the masses are two of the biggest challenges posed by epidemics. In a country like India, those challenges are further heightened, firstly by existing infrastructural challenges in resource allocation and distribution, and secondly by the size of the population where it’s not just limitation of people’s movement but the challenge of limitation of movement for a billion people.

Swine flu has already overwhelmed and overburdened some giant economies. For India, however, it brings economic challenges of proportions that are best best kept mum about. Unless controlled soon, we may be seeing the impact of this H1N1 flu for many years to come.

Jul

10

burger_king_lakshmi_adThe insensitive geniuses at the Burger King (BK) corporation deserve to have their buns whipped. Their creative department recently came up with an advertisement depicting Hindu Goddess Lakshmi sitting on top of a beef (or ham) burger. In a year when their brand is vying to enter various world markets, Burger King, it seems, has made a stupid, stupid mistake that may not go away with mere apologies and superficial gestures.

La merienda es sagrada (The snack is sacred), said the caption below the Lakshmi commercial. The ad ran in Spain, where Lakshmi isn’t a household name or a symbol. So it would seem kind of pointless for Burger King to make a point about the sacredness of some entity few in Spain are even aware of. It’s one thing putting someone else’s Goddess in your commercial (that itself would be enough to generate controversy), but it’s downright ridiculous when the product you’re advertizing is considered taboo, even blasphemy, in the religion that reveres this particular Goddess.

As multinationals sprawl and spread around the world, one of the things they need to be sincerely mindful of, is the sensitivities of the places where they hope to sell their products. If corporations like Burger King do not understand that, then they should stick to selling their value menus to their own countries. It is globalization 101 and Burger King’s smartbuns strategy shows us that they don’t get it yet.

For now, the food chain has supposedly apologized and pulled the ad in question. But they haven’t yet cut the ties with the ad agency and creative partners that created the Lakshmi commercial. Even if one assumes that this was just a wet dream on part of some idiot adman in Spain and not an ad that was to run across the continents, there still needs to be some urgent frying and roasting due, at BK’s creative department. If the BK brand can’t respect one-sixth of humanity, then they don’t deserve to be serving to the rest five-sixth, either. Burger-making isn’t rocket science you know, and there are other brands to choose from.

Jun

29

No need to panic..nothing to worry

June 29, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

India’s capital city has been plagued with water and electricity problems for last several days. Sheila Dixit, the chief minister, didn’t bring in much relief, when she told Delhi’s residents that their city was prepared to face the power crisis. For many residents, the power crisis has already been going on for days if not weeks, and thus the power disconnect was evident not just in the electrical overhead lines but also in the corridors of power.

That begs the next almost inevitable question of how India is ever going to cope with such crises, when very soon, most of India’s population is about to shift from its villages to its cities. Urbanization experts are predicting that the largest rural country in the world is soon about to become the largest urban country in the world.

If the urban migration cannot be slowed or halted, the resource crises, such as ones for water or electricity will soon engulf most other pressing issues of national importance and national security. And the total dependence on nature, like the current crisis with delayed monsoon winds, highlights how delicate the situation is.

One wonders where the geniuses in the planning commission are when, for the last six decades, everybody including newborn Indian babies have known about these things. India, the world’s soon-to-be most populated country has ridiculously pathetic infrastructural challenges, the kind of which, most of the rest of the developing or developed countries overcame decades ago.

A case in example is in India’s most advanced city which today, is bragging about an over-the-water bridge being opened to the public this week after an agonizing wait of 10 years, when the neighboring China and Japan built several more bridges like that in less than half the time and spanning more than several multiples in length.

So one truly wonders what the chief ministers or cabinet level central ministers are smoking when they keep telling the citizens that the country is prepared to handle water, power or food crises.

“…There is absolutely no need for any panic or worry. This trend of delayed monsoon activity is nothing new. As Agriculture Minister at the Centre, and in Maharashtra before that, I have seen such a trend. Even last year there were good rains in the beginning. After that there was a lull for a week. Again it started raining and again stopped for one to two weeks. Thereafter it continued to rain heavily…” the agriculture Minister told the media.

The food minister promises there won’t be a drought. The science minister promises the monsoon winds will eventually manage to find their way to India. The Defense minister promises India is prepared to handle national security as never before. The chief ministers promise their states are prepared to handle crises they’re already in. Cricket team captains promise their teams are fittest and readiest to become world champions. Bollywood item girl Rakhi Sawant promises she wants to get married to one of the 16 eligible bachelors on India’s copy of the Bachelorette show.

Man, are we screwed or what.

Jun

28

Testosterone and mercury, in a tropical tango

June 28, 2009 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

A recent study by University of Minnesota scientists has concluded that humans and animals delay reproduction when resources are scarce, living longer as a result. “..Food scarcity is a signal that population is likely to decline, so reproduction is delayed..”, concluded the study. The study also cited fluctuations in testosterone levels as an example of how the environment and organisms interact to guide reproduction.

To me, those conclusions don’t seem to hold water here in India. The natural resources, including food and water have been scarce for a long time in this part of the planet. Starved or satiated, urban or rural, northerners or southerners, hungry or thirsty, literate or illiterate, Indians over last several centuries, seem to have had very high levels of testosterone levels. In fact, scarcer the resources, higher was the reproducing rate, sending the population over a billion, dwarfing the rest of the planet in reproduction rates.

But why just humans, even animal behavior in India pretty much thwarts the Minnesota study. Stray animals and urban pigeons, seemingly fighting for scant resources, seem to be reproducing at astonishing rates all over India, especially in big cities where resources would be expected to be scarcer.

And in those same big cities, the human population, fighting for water that shows up at their taps only a few minutes per day and standing in long lines over pretty much everything else, doesn’t seem to mind that scarcity. No matter what the conditions, people don’t seem to be able to keep it in their pants.

But that’s a fact that scientists from colder regions just can’t understand, I think. Up there in Minnesota, with the outside temperatures dipping close to zero, the scientific imagination seems to shrink a bit, probably because of a brain freeze. Here in the hot and humid tropics, testosterone and mercury seem to be in a perpetual embrace, doing a hot sexy tango. Add a dash of scarcity to the heat and you really can’t tell between humans and animals.

Mar

12

The year of the rat

March 12, 2009 posted by indiatime | 18 Comments

Rodents have lately said to become a huge problem in India’s northern states, which are some of the most productive farming areas on the planet. Apart from invading and consuming food supplies, rodents are also said to be responsible for relocating landmines in the border region, throwing the entire landmine removal operation in chaos. The state and central government as well as the transportation departments have increasingly been spending more money every year to tackle the field rats and mice explosion.

But the police in the state of Haryana are now claiming to have found an innovative solution to the complicated rodent problem. The Karnal district police had toyed with various solutions to address the rodents who were eating the police records and past archives in their records room. Rat poisons, baits, traps, nothing seemed to work. The rats were eating not just paper, but gunny bags and clothing. They were drinking the confiscated alcohol and consuming the contraband drugs stored in the police warehouse. These rats were not just your ordinary criminals, they were professional looters and gangsters, savvy and opportunistic invaders.

The help came in the form of a stranger from nearby Ambala who claimed to know the remedy for such a problem. He advised the police to employ domesticated lab rats to police the rest of the rat population. The authorities started letting the lab rats loose in the records rooms every night, allowing the policing rats to stroll through the documents overnight. The trick was to keep the lab rats so well fed with milk and cookies that they seldom had appetite for the rest of the junk in the records rooms. The strategy was so successful that the pest infestation vanished practically overnight and the public records and the archives that had yet escaped the wrath of the rats, will remain safe for some time to come.

Have the Karnal police hit upon something that transcends the local rodent issue? Let’s see. Rats dressed up as politicians, bureaucrats and public officials, have been eating away at India’s seams for decades, now. And the rats that were supposed to police them - those dressed up as police and the judiciary, joined those already eating away at the nation, putting the rest of us in dire jeopardy. Going by the Karnal theory, had we kept our politicians and public officials well-fed with milk and cookies, they would have been less inclined to steal and we would have been a less corrupt society. Unfortunately, political rats are mutant animals that defy the laws of nature. Feed them well and they turn into pigs. Feed them a little more and they turn into hogs and hyenas and wild boars. THEY will trap you, THEY will bait you and THEY will poison your lives. Your only choice is to switch loyalties, and choose the smaller political rats whenever you get an opportunity to do so. Those smaller ones will eventually become large incumbent rats. Every 4 or 5 years, India has a year of the rat. This will be another one.

Feb

23

Shiva la vida

February 23, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

Viva la vida :- Live the life

The harmony between the lunar and the solar calendar couldn’t have been more perfect. What better way to celebrate an Oscar night slumberdog party than to celebrate the whole of next day and night drinking marijuana-based bhaang in the name of Shiva. Tonight, in India, is Maha Shivaratri - the great night of Shiva the great lord of the Himalayas.

samudra manthanHindus have a good reason to be grateful to Lord Shiva. When the Gods and Demons churned the giant oceans, out came a bitter poison that could have destroyed the universe. Had Shiva not gulped the poison, humanity would not be around. What better way to show that appreciation than to get drunk and dance and show Shiva that you’re almost ready to be his disciple? It’s a spiritual excursion millions look for every year around this time in early spring.

It’s good to have such excursions and escapes in the middle of all the poison all around. India showed that same escapist spirit last night when it gave Oscars its highest ratings in years by showing up at the ceremonies in billions, thankful for being recognized as one of the poorest and filthiest countries with irrational dreams. India’s own Bollywood has provided Indians with that same escape for almost a century, now. When things get overwhelming and life comes fast to bite you in you know where, get out and go to the movies. For the hapless whose daily goal is to manage a bite or two to calm down their ever unsated stomachs, the movies are a welcome way to forget their woes. For many in India, movies and marijuana can’t be told apart, both with similar powers of intoxication, both temporary abodes for pained hurtful souls.

Not just Indians, but many all over the globe are hurting too. But Shiva comes in many forms. Shiva can appear as a stimulus package, as a cool breeze, or as a windfall. He can show up at your doorstep as a mailman who brings good news or as a friend or a community who give you hope. He can take your pain, your woes, your ills, so you won’t have to digest the poisons of life. So wherever you are and whoever you are, whisper a word of thanks to the great Himalayan king and pray for his eternal life. Long life to Shiva! Shiva La Vida!

May

4

Drinking water woes

May 4, 2008 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

A week ago, a few parliament members posed this question to the minister of urban development, about the steps taken by the Government to provide safe and adequate quantity of drinking water to every citizen of India.

Here’s how he answered it:

- As per Constitution of India, the subject of water supply falls in the state list.

- The Ministry of Urban Development has not established any high level committee to study the drinking water problems of the country, but the government has launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) on 3.12.2005 to give focused attention to integrated development of urban infrastructure and services in 63 select cities

- 99 water projects costing Rs.11100.47 crore have been sanctioned under Urban Infrastructure & Governance component of JNNURM, and 205 water supply projects costing Rs.3393.21 crores have been sanctioned under the small towns component.

- A technical Expert Group (TEG) has been set up to examine various emerging issues in drinking water and sanitation sector in respect of rural areas and to suggest measures to tackle the new challenges vide Department of Drinking Water Supply`s order dated 16.8.2007

- A national water supply and sanitation programme was introduced in the social welfare sector in the year 1954

- Government of India provided assistance to the States to establish special investigation divisions in the Fourth Five Year Plan to carry out identification of the problem villages

- Central Government introduced the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) in 1972-73 to assist the States and the Union Territories with 100% grants-in-aid to implement the schemes in such villages. This programme continued till 1973-74, but with the introduction of the Minimum Needs Programme (MNP) during the fifth Five Year Plan (from 1974-75), it was withdrawn

- The programme was however, re- introduced in 1977-78

- The entire programme was given a Mission Approach when the Technology Mission on Drinking Water and Related Water Management also called the National Drinking Water Mission (NDWM) was introduced as one of the five Social Missions in 1986

- NDWM was renamed as Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission in 1991

- Drinking Water Supply is one of the six components of Bharat Nirman

Folks, it is a simple question about life’s simplest need. Why can’t every Indian citizen get drinking water? The ridiculous convolutions and contortions the government goes through to answer that simple question tells me that New Delhi has never had any idea on how to achieve this simple goal for India’s citizens. Launching ten satellites with one slingshot should have come later than the drinking water priority, don’t you think?

Apr

17

Cook dies after falling into hot sambar

April 17, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

An assistant cook in Madurai became the victim of a freak accident, when he fell into boiling hot sambar, the hot vegetable stew popularized by southern Indian cuisine.

While cooking for a marriage party, 40-year old Lakshmanan was passing by the huge pot of boiling sambar as other workers were moving the pot away from the fire. Lakshmanan tripped over a piece of log, lost his balance and fell into the pot. He was immediately pulled out and taken to the nearby hospital, but had already succumbed to his injuries.

Cooking accidents related to new brides are not that uncommon and usually, in India, news about a cooking accident would typically be a news about a bride burning, reported as an accident. Another recent case of a cooking accident was something that became a huge controversy in the state of Gujarat when a fire aboard a train killed dozens of pilgrims leading to one of the worst religious riots in the country. One of the government reports on the riots, concluded the cause of the fire to be a cooking accident aboard that train. Barely a month ago, a cook in Charleston, South Carolina died after he accidentally stabbed himself with a steak knife, while reflexly moving his hand away after accidentally burning it.

Surprizingly, Lakshmanan isn’t the first human being to die drowning in hot sambar. Three years ago, a Jansirani, 6-year old girl died after she fell into hot sambar meant for a midday school meal. And surprizingly, that incident, too, happened in the same state of Tamilnadu.

Mar

22

The day India becomes a Marijuana nation

March 22, 2008 posted by indiatime | 15 Comments

Today is holi, the Indian festival of colors and dance and fun. And today, India drinks, not tea or coffee, not coke or pepsi, but bhang, an intoxicating concoction made with hemp leaves and milk. The medicinal aspects of the drink have been known to Indians for hundreds of years, and Indians have associated the drink with a devotion to deities such as Lord Shiva.

J. M. Campbell, a gazetteer to the Bombay presidency in the British India of the late 19th century, thus penned some words of wisdom from the then British India Hemp commission:

“…(forbidding or restricting the use of hemp) would rob the people of a solace in discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves them from the attacks of evil influence…Bhang is the Joy-Giver, the Sky-Flier, the Heavenly-Guide, the Poor Man’s Heaven, the Soother of Grief…”

If starbucks ever becomes big in India, they would probably have to include a bhang flavor for the month of March, at least for the day of festive intoxication, the day when even the ministers and government officials are busy gulping marijuana drinks. There isn’t any legal age for bhang drinkers either. Adults and children, men and women, cops and conmen, Indians of all races, colors and ethnicities relish it. For a day, this tea-drinking nation pays homage to the God of intoxicating drinks, the one and only Lord Shiva.

It is one of the fantastic contrasts of India, a country that reveres a God of restraint and a God of reckless abandon alike, a place where Gods drink marijuana-laced nectar and dance merrily with young maidens, a place where religious devotion is officially allowed to turn into an out-of-body sensory high.

If you ever wondered why India plays host to so many Gods, there’s a good reason for you. Where else on the planet does God get to take a break from the day-to-day serious business and have fun and dance and drinks? Where else on the planet does God get to be human for a day and humans get to experience heaven at the cost of pocket change? Where else on the planet does one get to see the magic of mind-body continuum that manifests as the infinite colors of Holi?

Feb

26

What should India put in the doomsday vault

February 26, 2008 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

The doomsday vault opened today in a remote area of Norway, a giant container that will house seeds to protect world crops in case there is a biological, nuclear or climatic disaster that destroys the food crop on the planet. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was built by Norway and is owned by Norway, but any country can store their own crop seeds without any charge and is allowed to retrieve those seeds whenever it wants.

Besides storing the obvious wheat and basmati rice and things like that, I want to begin creating a list of seeds that I think India should store in case there is a big disaster:

1. guava (my personal favorite)
2. mango
3. tea
4. spices (turmeric, cumin, red pepper etc)
5. amla (Indian gooseberry)

Send your suggestions quickly or else Laloo and his friends in the parliament wil start filling the wagons with betel seeds (to chew paan once the big disaster strikes).

Dec

31

NRI brothers shot to death

December 31, 2007 posted by indiatime | 4 Comments

Ravinder and Paramjit Kalsi, who owned the Sahib Indian restaurant in the town of Richmond in California, were shot to death last Thursday night, just as they had closed for the day.

Kalsis who were originally from Punjab, had bought the restaurant about 5 years ago, and were known to the local community as hard-working businessmen. The brothers frequently sent money to their disabled sister who is still back home in India. Ravinder, the younger brother, had recently gotten engaged and was planning to get married soon.

It is not known yet if the killings were a random robbery or a hate crime.

Nov

12

India fares poorly on hunger index

November 12, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Despite all the appearances of progress and prosperity, India still remains one of the hungriest nations on the planet. Recently released Global Hunger Index (GHI) puts India at a rank of 96 amongst 119 nations with even Nepal and Pakistan doing a few ranks better than India.

The Global Hunger Index is calculated from surveys conducted by Washington’s International Food Policy Research Institute, which relies on household surveys that elicit information about dietary quality and quantities. That focuses the index on

1. Is enough food available?
2. Is the available food of good nutritional value?
3. premature mortality (deaths under the age of 5) due to undernutrition

The survey concludes that hunger and poverty become major issues in remote locations where infrastructure facilities, education, and progress haven’t yet made much inroads. Equally alarming is the ’systematic exclusion’ of certain groups to access of resources and markets. These issues create what becomes a ‘poverty trap’ for certain groups or households or communities, and it can take years if not decades for such households to come out of that poverty and hunger trap.

Those alarming findings actually make it easier to point fingers, because from the looks of it, it is clear that the government policies on the federal, state or local levels are mostly the culprits as those policies have the maximum chance to make a major impact on the lives of poor households. Recent fiascos in places like Nadigram in West Bengal are a classic example of what the government policies can trigger when they are focused to benefit not the poorest but some of the not-so-poor. The hunger index findings are also a major proof that policies like reservations and quotas have little impact on the real problem of hunger and poverty as such policies, by their very nature, are exclusion-based rather than inclusion-based and their focus innately veers away from the economically backward but towards larger vote-banks.

I have mentioned it before and I will bring it up once again. Readers might remember from their high-school Chemistry books, that in any chemical reaction, it is the slowest step that always determines the rate of that chemical reaction. In the more important matters of a society’s progress and prosperity, the measure of any society’s prosperity is not how many billionaires it can brag about, but how many people it leaves behind to die of hunger and poverty. By those standards, Indian society, must still be called a failure, since we are not able to feed every person in the country. One can take all that IT progress, all those Bollywood songs, all the 20/20 Cricket, and all the modern politics and ancient wisdom and shove’em somewhere if those things cannot enable us to feed each and every soul in the country.

Enough said. Now go back to your diwali sweets.

Oct

6

Farmers in the western state of Maharashtra, organised a rally this October 2nd, to protest mass suicides by cotton farmers all over the country. In Maharashtra alone, more than 800 Maharashtra farmers have taken their own lives, almost a hundred a month. Thousands of farmers across India have met the same fate in last two years.

A recent government survey indicated that a Vidarbha farmer makes minus 400 Rupees. That is because amongst the interests and charges on the bank loans, there is less than zero take-home money for the farmer. Plus, the banks, even the big named ones, have been known to use threatening tactics and pressure strategies to extract their share of the interest and finance charges from the farmers. Many of the farmers have simply opted to take their lives and end the suffering.

One would think the ministry of agriculture would take the matter seriously. In any other place on the planet, thousands of suicides by farmers would initiate an emergency response on a war footing to stop the farmers’ suffering and at least address their woes.

But Sharad Pawar, the politician who leads the ministry of agriculture, hasn’t had time to pay attention to farmers’ woes. Mr. Pawar, you see, is also the president of the Board of Cricket Control in India, the person who is entirely in charge of the game of Cricket in India. Year 2007, has been quite a busy one for Mr. Pawar. First the World cup of Cricket in the spring, then the formation of an alternate Cricketing league that is seemingly threatening his own league, then the 20/20 overs world cup, couple of changes in the test team captaincy, International Cricketing body politics, etc.

So between the farmers’ suicides and the Cricketing frenzy, the minister seems to have chosen the sports fields rather than cotton fields. Some might argue that he is one of the most efficient and astitute political minds in the country. But if he were so astute, wouldn’t he channel all the mega billions his Cricket management is creating into the cotton fields for farmers who are making minus 400 Rupees per month?

I wonder what the Vidarbha farmers must be thinking when they hear of the nation going crazy over a 20 over Cricket match victory and millions of dollars in prize money to Cricketers who already make a fortune with their bookie connections. I wonder if they feel let down by their government. I wonder if they feel despair and sadness. I wonder if they remember another political mind who, born on October 2nd, constantly reminded the nation that it could not forget its farmers and soldiers.

In the midst of globalisation, IT-revolution, Formula-1 hype, multi-league Cricket craze, Bolly-Holly handshakes, there are tens of thousands of unfortunate victims of corporate and state neglect, who have reached a point of no return in their lives. Amongst the noisy tickertape parades of pampered celebrities, the cries from Vidarbha grow fainter and fainter everyday.

Oh wait! It’s another one-day Cricket game! Turn that TV volume up, will you? I just can’t bear those cries for help.

Aug

27

Army daughter dies of hunger in the capital

August 27, 2007 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

A 37-year old daughter of a late Indian army retiree, has died of starvation in New Delhi. Her two sisters were found emaciated and starving in the same house where her own body was rotting for a few days. One of the sisters had lost her job a few months ago, and the family had been going without food for several days.

The neighbors sensed that something was wrong when they the foul rotten smell of the young woman’s dead body spread out of the house. The two surviving sisters have now been admitted to a medical facility.

There haven’t been any official comments from any politicians as of yet. India’s first woman president, meanwhile, was busy watching the screening of Bollywood’s new hit ‘Chak De India’ at her presidential palace. “…You were too good in the film..”, she told Shah Rukh Khan, the king of Bollywood.

Aug

24

Mayawati, the legal innovator

August 24, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

Only a few weeks ago, Mayawati’s Uttar Pradesh government set a novel precedent by introducing the resevation and quota system into private sector. Yesterday, Mayawati continued her trend of innovatively interpreting the law of the land by shutting down large retail stores in her state. Her rationale? Preserving law and order!

It is true that local small-time retailers have come out swinging against the Reliance grocery megamarts. Of course it has created a law and order situation. But the right way to deal with it would be to pursue a legal challenge to the monolithic monopolies of giant chains and argue in defense of the livelihoods of many who will be displaced by the retail giants.

Once may argue that Mayawati has good intentions when she stands for the poor. The problem with her rationale, however, is that she is setting another dangerous precedent where the government can step into almost anything anytime giving the all-too-familiar ‘law and order’ excuse. And once that excuse becomes a tradition, how can anyone oppose anything else that is shoved down the public throat down that ‘law-and-order’ route?

No, this not about Mukesh Ambani losing some. They can close all the Reliance stores in the country and it may still not amount to pocket-change for him. This is about the Bohemian tendencies of supremely powerful politicians the likes of whom have been known to cross the line before the public bats an eyelid.

Ms. Mayawati is an innovator, no doubt. From her election campaign to this day, she has never failed to amaze us with her penchant and courage for innovative approaches to intractable social issues. The danger lies, however, in the workarounds she keeps devising around the legal system that is the fabric of the democratic norms of the state.

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