Best of BS Opinion: Policymaking must address real-life outcomes

Hello, and welcome to BS Views, the daily wrap of our opinion pieces today. Our editorials and columns today largely revolve around the role of policy decisions, both in government and the private sector, and how they affect the real world, from spectrum allocation to policing to farmer cooperatives and even social media giants like Facebook. Read on to find out more.  

 

Our lead editorial addresses the curious case of the acrimony over satellite spectrum allocation between Jio, Airtel, and Elon Musk’s Starlink that ended in a most peculiar fashion, with the latter tying up with the former two. But the incident highlights significant policy gaps in the allocation process, such as the pricing, timelines, licence period, and security concerns. While satellite spectrum could help bridge the digital divide, especially between urban and rural areas, the government needs to quickly get its house in order.  

 

 

The latest report from the Bureau of Police Research and Development throws a most unflattering light on the condition of India's security architecture, notes our second editorial. Even as India remains one of the world’s most under-policed nations, a significant staffing gap of 21.3 percent – with much higher numbers for some states – only exacerbate the problem. Combined with the massive backlog of court cases, it is safe to say that India’s criminal justice system criminally fails its people. The lack of adequate police personnel has its most serious impact of small and medium businesses, who form the core of our economic activity. It also hampers the inclusion of more women in the workforce. Both central and state governments would do well to reconsider the impact of poor security on socio-economic progress.  

 

Today’s columnist Surinder Sud lauds the government's setting up of 10,000 Farmers Producer Organisations (FPOs), a cooperative model of farming that helps small farmers grow their income by leveraging economies of scale, increase their reach, and powers of negotiation. However, most cooperatives, except in sectors like milk, sugar, and fertiliser, have largely failed due to meddling by politicians. Many are struggling because of commercial viability, or exist only in records, even though the net count of successful FPOs is fairly large. The author argues that 10,000 is not nearly enough if small farmers are to do better: professional help and better access to credit services, technology adoption, and value addition would go a long way. 

 

In his column, Ajay Shah paints a dreary picture of climate change. Global temperatures look set to breach 2 degrees Celsius and decarbonisation is on the backburner, thanks to global conflicts, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. But, he says, instead of giving up on climate goals, things might get better as people realised the direct impact of climate change on their lives and livelihoods. Scaling up renewables and storage will go a long way in decarbonisation goals. The right wing in the US will not last forever, he says, and that a more centrist environment will emerge. For large emitters, self-interest reducing emissions since not doing so has high costs for the people, while the cost of cutting emissions is not very high.  

 

For our book review today, Jennifer Szalai considers ‘Careless People’, part-whistleblower account, part-memoir by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who rose to director of global public policy at Meta, the parent company of social media giant Facebook. The book, Szalai writes, is a darkly funny, yet shocking, insider account of a company run by leaders who became ever more feckless even as Facebook became a magnet for misinformation and sidled up to authoritarian regimes. The author recounts how Mark Zuckerberg went from tech geeks to becoming hungry for attention and turned political. Sheryl Sandberg has a switch-on, switch-off charm and demanded loyalty and 'closeness', at one point inviting the author to share her bed.  

 

Tamal Bandyopadhyay writes in Banker’s Trust about the reappointment saga of IndusInd Bank’s managing director and chief executive officer Sumant Kathpalia. The Reserve Bank of India only extended his tenure for a year, despite the bank’s Board asking for three. In India, rules dictate that the RBI needs to clear both the appointment and reappointment of bank CEOs; however, in most developed markets, regulators only clear the appointment of the CEO but it is the board that decides on reappointment. The writer suggests that may be it is time for the RBI to reconsider the process.