The Narendra Modi government, faced with three intractable problems (the ex-servicemen's demand for a "one rank one pension" system, the Patels' demand for reservation, and the disruption of Parliament), has already capitulated on the first. On all these issues it does not seem to have the power to do what is right and the Opposition is doing its best to engage in one-upmanship. Is there a way out? There is and isn't.The pension demand is not just unaffordable but unjust to the vast majority of the nation which does not get any pension at all, leave alone parity. Now that ex-servicemen have got what they want, the same demand will be raised for all other retired government servants, both at the Centre and the states. The railwaymen's union has already done so. What looms ahead is enormous pressure on the government's resources with known serious downside.In fairness, there is an urgent need to extend pensions to all who have a working life behind them, particularly if they are poor. Wh

Subir Roy: Why national politics is helpless

Business Standard

Some of my happiest memories from my bachelor days are centred around the few months I spent in the early seventies in Bhubaneswar as a trainee in a bank

Subir Roy: You can't fight over happiness

The issue of payments bank licences to as many as 11 entities will change the face of the remittance business in the country

Subir Roy: A banking revolution

The men who were travelling by the general compartments were equally outraged and to protest against the protest, squatted on the other line, thus stopping both up and down train movement on the route

Subir Roy: Gender War has begun!

The Indian software industry is again at an inflection point; and, going by its history, it will successfully evolve. It is grappling with dramatic changes in response to the latest challenges posed by clients going "digital", of which cloud computing is a part. The global economic slowdown has added a sharper edge to the changes being dictated by technology.Global information technology (IT) spending is projected by Gartner to fall by 4.3 per cent in current 2015 to $914 billion. While this is attributed to the economic slowdown and is expected to recover over the next few years, what is important for Indian IT is the sharper cut taking place in offshoring, the part of the spending that goes significantly to Indian companies. According to KPMG, the value of outsourcing deals struck last year (2014) was down 17 per cent over the previous year, to $120 billion. A report in the Wall Street Journal has spoken of an "existential threat to the players who fail to adapt" and one professional

Subir Roy: Another challenge for Indian IT

A lot that is wrong with the Indian medical profession has been bared for all to see across the world through a Reuters investigation into the controversy surrounding Ketan Desai. He is set to take over as the president of the World Medical Association (WMA) next year but the global body was not aware that two criminal cases were pending against him when he was elected to the position. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) wrongly informed the WMA that all charges against him had been dropped - but that related to a charge dating back to 2001. In both the pending cases, relating to 2009 and 2010, Dr Desai has been accused by the CBI of entering into a criminal conspiracy to help two medical colleges increase the number of students they can take in. This was when he was the president of Medical Council of India (MCI) which regulates medical education.Dr Desai's name hit the headlines in particular when he was arrested in 2010 after purportedly being caught by the CBI, which laid a trap,

Subir Roy: Dark clouds over doctors' policeman

Two films, Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, both released recently, could not be more different. The former is an art film that has played to very limited audiences. Even in Kolkata, where Bengalis like to see themselves as connoisseurs and patrons of high art, the film had a tough time securing a slot at the main hall of the state-owned Nandan cinema complex. The latter, on the other hand, is an out and out big budget commercial venture which has become the second highest grosser ever with more to come in.The former marks the sparkling debut of Aditya Vikram Sengupta as a director and has won him two awards - as the best debut director in Venice Days (the independent fringe event to the Venice Film festival) and the best first film of a director at the National Film Awards. The latter is one more hit starring Salman Khan in his decades-long film career and who, also the producer, has won his prize where it matters, at the box office.It is difficult to call the

Subir Roy: Two films and a nation

The outlet of the retail chain in our neighbourhood is convenient and we go there often. Recently, while moving down the aisles I felt thirsty and picked out a soft drink in a tetra pak and started sipping through the straw that comes with it. On finishing, I carefully kept aside the empty pack in my shopping basket as it had to be billed.At the counter I was in for a shock. The clerk was put off by the sight of the pack, said it was etho (jhootha, meaning already tasted, so unclean), billed it without touching it and asked me to throw it away. Deeply embarrassed, I picked it up and asked where the waste bin was. His reply was even more perplexing. There was none within the outlet for etho jinish (jhootha stuff) and pointed towards the glass front door for me to go out and throw the pack away.I felt relieved as I went out to find the waste bin. There was a table and a few chairs outside for people who bought kababs from the kabab counter which was part of the outlet and wanted to have

Subir Roy: How to let the sweeper in

It is not as if we did not know a lot of this, but it is still very useful that the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 definitively tells us the following:India remains predominantly rural. Altogether, 73.5 per cent of Indian households live in the countryside. The comparable figure for China is 47 per cent (in 2013).Less than half of rural households are engaged in agriculture. Of all rural households, only 30 per cent are engaged in cultivation. So, the role of agriculture as the main source of livelihood in rural India is not all that it has been cracked up to be. The clear task ahead is to find enough jobs away from agriculture not just for those entering the job market but also those who wish to quit an overcrowded sector.Manual casual labour is the key source of rural livelihood. Over half of rural households, 51 per cent, earn their livelihood by doing odd jobs. These could be in cultivation, during key agricultural seasons like the times of planting and harvesting, but they c

Subir Roy: India remains mostly rural and poor

Jhargram, a subdivisional town in West Bengal, is the gateway to Lalgarh which was a centre of Maoist action less than a decade ago. It is part of the forested Jangalmahal area, stretching across several districts to the west of the state, with a significant adivasi population. Unsurprisingly, the current president of the local Lions Club, Bishnu Pada Ray, is not a business heavyweight but a retired government officer who sells life insurance policies.Ray's claim to local fame is neither government nor insurance work but the way the fascinating story of his life has unfolded. Early in life in Lalgarh his family received two blows. In 1955 the zamindari system ended, taking away his father's job with the raja, and the family agricultural land by the Kangsabati river was almost entirely eaten away by erosion. The family moved to Jhargram, stayed in a jhopri, their mother made and sold muri (murmura or puffed rice) and young Bishnu somehow managed to clear his school final exams in 1957.U

Subir Roy: A one-man scholarship factory

What the government can and is already seeking to do is improve the ease of doing business and facilitate investment in infrastructure. But the problem is, all wisdom says 'hasten slowly' in these areas

Subir Roy: What's the new ETA for acche din?

Something quite unbelievable can be spotted at the southern end of Kolkata's Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, now very much a part of the city. In two modest shopping arcades next to each other there are as many as six off-licence liquor stores. In a stretch of just over three km there are nine such outlets! This is not counting one on a nearby road.People in Kolkata have traditionally been great tipplers but surely there has to be a limit, and an explanation for the river of grog flowing out of all these wellsprings. A facetious one is that the stuff goes to provide the creative juices for those at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute across the road. A more plausible one is that the number of local gated communities for the well-heeled create an army of imbibers who, come summer or rain (in winter, of course, they simply go overboard or under the table, depending on one's style), bend elbows till they - the elbows, I mean - groan in protest.This very overt obeisance to Bacchus

Subir Roy: Oh for a decent gin

One of the ways in which the Narendra Modi government is seeking to improve the ease of doing business is by updating the legal framework governing industrial relations by combining three key legislations into a single new one. In the process, it is also changing the rules of the game somewhat. Strict labour laws create a duality, as has happened, of an island of high-quality secure jobs in the organised sector existing in a sea of contract, temporary and informal employment. By seeking to ease the regulation around formal employment, the government hopes more jobs will be created at a faster rate - for the benefit of all.The good news is 4.3 million jobs were added in the Indian economy during the two-year period 2011-13. The even better news is that this was made up of a hefty 7.2-million rise in formal employment and a three-million fall in informal employment. But the not-so-good news is that the rise in formal employment was predominantly made up of a rise of 4.7 million in tempor

Subir Roy: Hire-and-fire needs safety net

Irshad-ul-Nayeem took to begging when he lost a leg in an accident. Then he came to Dhaka's National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR), where India's Jaipur Foot people held a camp last month and in 24 hours left fitted with an artificial (prosthetic) leg. He returned two days later to get some adjustment done to the belt that strapped the limb to himself. The big difference was that he came pedalling his cycle-rickshaw! Now he will be back at his old trade and will not have to beg any more.Or take the smart, 23-year-old Fawzia, who uses just one name. She lost both her legs in a bus accident three years ago. She has been using artificial limbs which cost her Taka 76,000 (Rs 63,000). But her new Jaipur ones, made of self-lubricating oil-filled nylon, are lighter, more fluid and stable even on irregular terrain. Comparable devices including a titanium replacement would cost $10,000 (Rs 6.2 lakh) or more. Her new legs came free.A few days after the nearly m

Subir Roy: The Dhaka event Indian media missed

Financial inclusion is still a long way off and ensuring everyone has at least a simple bank account is merely a first step. What is the reality on the ground? What are the hurdles the enterprising at the bottom of the pyramid have to face?Dhan - who uses a single name - set out on his entrepreneurial journey in the ever growing semi-legitimate urban sprawl around Delhi by buying a second hand auto rickshaw with Rs 21,000, put together informally. After a time it was "repossessed" by a financier who had loaned money to the previous owner. After five years the latter still owes him Rs 6,500.But this setback did not stop him. He thereafter became successively a car driver, bought a second hand Maruti van and a new van with what came from the old van and collateral of the extremely modest home where he and his family lived. The two major hurdles that stand out in his journey, narrated by Meera Mitra1, are the high cost of informal finance and having to pay off rent seekers.Shankar - who,

Subir Roy: Long way ahead of microfinance

The disease afflicting mobile communications is not restricted to a city or a particular corner of it

Subir Roy: Telecom saga comes full circle

The strategy to clean up the Ganga is disarmingly simple and can be expressed in two sentences. One: don't kill the river. Two: don't dump waste (solid and liquid) in it. This needs keeping in mind to ensure success for Namami Gange, the official plan to clean up the sacred river, which has just been sanctioned Rs 20,000 crore of central funds to be spent over five years. Its one big plus is that official sources claim they have learnt from past mistakes that have resulted in the Ganga Action Plan, launched in 1985, having so little to show for itself despite spending Rs 4,000 crore. The primary learning is that the programme cannot succeed unless local stakeholders are involved in giving it shape and see themselves gaining from it. The plan is to involve a hierarchy of interests - riverfront stakeholders, local bodies and state governments.Waste removal may well go up to a point, but right now, the critical threat to the river comes from continuing with hydropower projects envisaged i

Subir Roy: Rescuing the Ganga and the country

The view from the table where I usually work at my laptop, through the open door and across the verandah, has in the last month been transformed. The tall tree right in front, after shedding all its leaves in winter, has now put on a luxurious coat of green leaves of summer. Thereafter, for good measure, have emerged innumerable clumps of little red fruits. This sprinkling of red amidst the green is gorgeous.I have asked around and discovered that the local name for the tree is Tamal Bou (bahu) - as if it is a young bride called Tamal. It has obviously got its name from the fact that before chemical dyes came, the red fruits were crushed to extract a natural dye that went into the making of sindoor. As if this was not enough, a little apart from the Tamal Bou is a Gulmohar, now in the last stages of its yearly bloom. These make up a dense green patch that was what the whole area was until the dense brick and mortar that surround it now came along.When we moved into our apartment a few

Subir Roy: Urban growth, step by halting step

The sharply perceptive interview on Headlines Today of Arun Shourie, who was the toast of news channels a year ago explaining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory, assessing one year of the Narendra Modi rule, has done great good to the cause of informed public debate. The BJP came to power by defeating a government led by an incapacitated and ineffectual Manmohan Singh. The BJP's campaign was centred around and led by Mr Modi in the manner of a US presidential election campaign and people voted foremost for Mr Modi.Now, Mr Shourie has told us that one big negative of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule is the all-powerful role of the Modi-Amit Shah-Arun Jaitley threesome. Mr Modi led a generational change in the BJP that was vitally needed. The Congress is taking an aeon to do the same. But has this been good for the party and the people? The BJP has suffered a string of defeats after the parliamentary elections, most dramatically in Delhi. The feeling is that one man can

Subir Roy: Build one India, brick by brick

As the waiter prepared the table for our food after we were done with the drinks and small eats, a momentary flash of steel caught my eye

Subir Roy: Only in professional Mumbai

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government have for some time been sparring over various issues, just about managing not to differ acrimoniously in public. It is, therefore, surprising that the two should have expressed the same views on full convertibility of the rupee with such alacrity. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha have come out in quick succession in favour of this happening in a few years.The economic reason for this to be placed so firmly on the agenda right now is unclear. There is, of course, a political reason, which has been articulated by Mr Sinha, who has said that for India to be a "global economy" it needs its currency to be fully convertible, like those of the big boys. India being recognised as a global power is high on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s agenda, just as there is another section that holds that the first need is to end having the largest number of poor people in the world who severely lack access to s

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