A toothless wife

Blessed are the men who hold their own  by doing wives’s bidding. That’s how even Lord Shiva held his head high against an irate Goddess Parvati by appearing with a begging bowl before her Kitchen in kashi for food. Again ,had Tulsidas forced himself on an unwilling Ratnavali ,his wife, there would have been no Ram Charitra Manas. She chided him saying, 

“अस्थि चर्म मय देह यह, ता सों ऐसी प्रीति !

  नेकु जो होती राम से, तो काहे भव-भीत ?”

Meaning - If you had half as much devotion for God that you show for my body your life would have been fruitful . 

Stung by these words Tulsidas dedicated his entire life to scholarship and Ram Bhakti.

That’s the way men hold their heads high, not by display of belligerence or male chauvinism but by bearing pecks of the hen. The natural order of things is the henpecked husband. And with age the hen pecks more and deeper. 

I once kept a count of the tongue lashings I bore daily- don’t pick your nose, don’t waggle your legs while sitting, don’t sneeze when I am talking (this one I find particularly harsh ) ,don’t litter the house ( in younger days when we had our litter about us littering the house,she never growled, only smiled and set things right herself), if nothing, why are you keeping quiet speak to me ...... the litany of her pecks is as diverse as it is long. Anyway, the count came to twenty a day . The day I accosted her with this data the count increased by one, 21 for the day. 

Sometimes the repressed male within cries for release from being ordered about, asks for reprieve at least for a few days. But overcoming an ingrained habit isn’t easy. It needs pluck and ingenuity , both I have in only small measure. But fortuity opened a small window last week.

She complained of toothache. I promptly took her to the dentist. He advised two molars needed immediate extraction and root canalling to save the rest. Both could be done together. It would take minimum two days for tooth extraction wound to heal and one week for root canalling. In the healing period the jaws were not to be moved except for intake of liquids in sips. The wily male spirit within me sensed kill. It suggested, extraction now , root canalling later. My wife agreed. 

The molars were removed yesterday. Since then the house has been quiet, very quiet. We do communicate but only in sign language. She knows I am poor at dumb charade, so it’s not me but she who gets exasperated at failure to communicate. But I carry a scribbling pad and a pen with me. In the event of sign language failure she writes down her commands. But it’s all soundless. 

The maids too are are happier, for them a break from her bossing around. Meanwhile, I enjoy the remaining 24 hours of quietude. And savouring the thought of a week more of halcyon days to come when she goes in for root canalling.

A ‘toothless’ wife is a ‘manly’ delight ! 

Understanding Marketing concepts the Rafale way

This piece is illustrative and lays no claim to factual authenticity. 

1. Mukesh Ambani forms a company in 2008 to take advantage of offsets provision in the new DPP-2005. Finally in 2012 Dassault signs MOU with him. That is Direct Marketing 

2. Sanjay Bhandari too forms a company, Offsets India Ltd the same year for the same purpose-a piece of the Offsets pie in defence deals.But he withers away-that is competition 

3. PM recommends Anil Ambani to Hollande -that is advertising 

4. Anil Ambani signs an investment deal with Julie Gayet ,female partner of Hollande - that is public relations 

5. Dassault sees a 12 day old Anil Ambani firm and strikes a deal - that is brand recognition. 

6. Rahul Gandhi cries foul - that is customer feedback 

7 . HAL executives anxiously wait outside the room where Mr Hollande is hosting a meet with Mr Modi. After sometime both emerge with Anil Ambani in tow- that is entry barrier and competition eating into existing market share. 

8. The leaders make a joint announcement of purchase of 36 jets instead of the earlier deal of 126 - that is demand supply gap 

The Rafale implosion

The Rafale rigmarole rumbles, grumbles, tosses up, turns and twists, spinning new yarns like an invisible onion shedding fresh peelings every day.  Everyone seems to have a story to tell , yet none knows the whole story. The few who are privy to the deal do not tell. And like all onions the peelings leave behind a repelling, teary stink. What was once the glowing “deal of the century” risks being derided as “mother of all deals”. 

Yet if the little tales within the peels are collated a plausibly coherent narrative shorn of rhetoric and bombast does emerge. This is just one such attempt. 

The UPA deal 

On 31.1. 2012 UPA announced award of contract for purchase of 18 jets in fly away condition and manufacture of 108 more by HAL under licence, with an option for 63 more, to Dassault. Purchase price - € 7.8 billion or $10.4 billion on life cost basis that reckoned cost of acquisition, operating cost for 40 years, and cost of transfer of technology. A ‘workshare agreement’ for ₹36000 cr  towards fulfilment of its offsets obligation was inked with HAL by Dassault on 13.03.2014, but it cringed from giving warranty for planes made in HAL thus violating tender terms. Further, it wanted to add cost of some critical items that it had left unpriced in its bid, GOI felt the purchase price was all inclusive. Thus UPA bequeathed to NDA a stalemated deal if not one in throes of exsanguination. Meanwhile the deal value rose , by some estimates, to $30 billion. By this figure the price of each jet works out to $24 million. Obviously there are other unimputed costs that is not available in public domain. 

The NDA deal 

In April 2015 PM ,Mr Modi and Prez Francois Hollande announce a government to government package for purchase of 36 jets off the shelf as a ‘critical operational necessity’ in abrogation of the old stalemated deal. The French government gives guarantee for delivery and quality of  equipment. HAL is dumped. Dassault chooses ,instead, Reliance Aerospace Corp of Anil Ambani as its Offsets partner. The inter governmental agreement puts the deal cost at €7.87/$8.7 billion with the basic cost of jets as;

28 single seater jets - € 91.1 million each 

8 double seater jets  - € 94.0 million each 

There are other add on costs for additional features included in the deal value -India specific enhancement,Establishment of two maintenance facilities, Weapons package cost, Performance & logistic agreement , aggregating € 4.66 billion. Thus total of basic price and add ons for the 36 jets comes to €7.96. The nation will in effect shell out €221 million per jet. The offsets obligation is 50% amounting to ₹30000 crs.

The NDA deal does not meet the minimum requirement of IAF pitched at 126 planes way back in 2008. Hence the nation’s defence preparedness continues to deteriorate. Even the off-the-shelf purchase will not add to IAF’s fleet until 2022 if there are no further hiccups enroute. One could be the pending PIL in SC. Congress too is queuing up to follow suit. The deal stymies augmentation of India’s combat aircraft manufacturing capability as no critical tech transfer is envisaged. HAL would have been a big gainer in this respect under the old deal. The new Indian partner has Zero experience in the line. Will it delay production or worse , compromise flight worthiness of the planes ? Only time will tell. 

The stink of controversies:  

1.Price of each jet is three times the original deal, alleges Congress: In 2015, MoD, Mr Parrikar
 said on DD that the UPA cost was ₹ 715 crs, a year later his junior informed LS that the negotiated NDA price would be 670cr. On 16.2.17 Reliance Aerospace Corp, issued a statement putting cost at ₹1660 cr apiece, much higher than the UPA purchase price. 

The counter view is of add ons not provided for in the UPA deal inflating the purchase price. Yet Shri R S Prasad ,law minister arrives at a UPA price of  €100.85 million for a jet against the NDA price of €91.75 million per jet. He doesn’t divulge the cheat sheet for the UPA figure, so one can’t really rule out his stretching the UPA line to make the NDA line look smaller. If we include the cost of add ons the NDA cost is $221 million per jet ,double of what Sri Prasad credits UPA. 

The big question looms, if cheaper why stop at 36 and not the 126 IAF sorely wants?  A bulk deal attracts even greater discounts. Curiously, the indo-France joint statement issued in Paris in April 2015 states “the same configuration as has been tested and approved by the IAF”.If the transfer of technology costs are removed for comparison purposes would UPA not have been cheaper besides conducing to making the country more self reliant ?

2. GoI insisted on Anil Ambani as Offsets partner as Ambanis are close to Mr Modi’s heart. An instance of crony capitalism ? 

Besides the ₹30000 cr offsets money, the deal also lands a ₹1 lac cr life cycle cost contract, in all a whopping $ 20 billion. For the sinking Ambani, the offsets would be a “Khulja ja sim sim” mantra to financial rejuvenation. So did his friend whisper the mantra ? 

The French President , Francois Hollande who struck the NDA deal told Mediapart on 21st Sep 2018 “The Indian government proposed this partner and Dassault negotiated with Anil Ambani.” “We were given no choice. We took the partner which was appointed.” The French now say the choice of Reliance was made by Dassault, and the latter confirms. Both however do not deny that the choice was influenced by GOI. 

On canons of financial and technical prudence Anil Ambani would not have been a ‘love at first sight’ choice for Dassault. A track record of failed, abandoned industrial projects ( Dadri,Tenughat, Rcom to name a few ), heavily indebted ,zero exposure to defence manufacturing make him  an ugly groom. Moreover his defence company formed on 28.03.2015 was a mere 12 day old on the announcement day, held no licence and  land to manufacture on. Did mere clairvoyance impel  Anil Ambani to set it up or for some reasons he believed himself snazzier than the HAL executives as a suitor in Paris on the day deal was struck ?  One will never know. 

Meanwhile,  Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd,  joint venture formed a fortnight after the announcement , goes about the business of acquiring licence,  and land for setting up a manufacturing base to fulfil Dassault’s share in the offsets obligations at a place dear to Mr Ambani’s alleged benefactor, Nagpur. Other OEM suppliers of Dassault like Safran, Thales too are tying up with other Indian manufacturers like  BTSL, Kinetic, Mahindra Samtel and scores of others to meet their share
 in offset obligations.

3.   Procedural violations  It is alleged that in terms of the Aircraft Procurement policy, External         Affairs and Defence Ministers are to be taken into confidence. However Mr Parikkar reportedly said
 on 10th April 2015 “ Modiji took the decision. I back it up “ evidencing no prior consultation. The offset agreement, some say, needed vetting by the Defence Ministry.

4. Quid Pro Quo : There is a collateral spin off from the deal that stinks as well. Was the € 1.6  million investment by Reliance Entertainment in the film ‘Tout la-haut’ co-produced by Julie Gayet, partner of Francois Hollande a Rafale quid pro quo ? This deal was struck on the very day Hollande landed in India, 24 th January 2016. Interestingly, the inter governmental Rafale agreement was inked the next day, 25th Jan,2016. 

5.  The stubborn refusal to disclose cost elements citing the security pact clause “ to protect the classified information provided by the partner that could impact the security and operational capability of the defence equipments of India and France.” keeps the suspense afloat. However will the CAG and PAC scrutiny skip deal’s financial side ? Unlikely,   so what prevents  disclosure  today? 

What confounds matters further is the legerdemain deployed to deflect or counter criticism of the deal. Mrs Sitharaman says HAL was dropped by UPA, whereas HAL signed a workshare agreement in March 2014. She says offsets contract not awarded whereas Dassault’s annual report for 2016-17 categorically names its offsets partner.  The Defence Ministry insinuates that Dassault had chosen Anil Ambani way back in 2012, whereas it was the senior Ambani’s RIL that had signed an MOU for mutual cooperation that later expired. All along only HAL stayed in the Rafale  deal, 

Meanwhile  connoisseurs of Indian  political rhetoric are regaled by some exquisitely exhilarating political rhetoric that puts both Donald Trump and his equally trenchant baiters to shame.

56”friend  , clown prince  , crooks chaperone ,  court jester ............

Ps “We did not have a say in that," Hollande told investigative website Mediapart. "It was the Indian government that proposed this service group (Reliance), and Dassault who negotiated with Ambani.

"We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us," added Hollande, who was president of France from 2012-2017.

Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of a meeting in Canada on Friday, the former French leader insisted that France "did not choose Reliance in any way".

When asked whether India had put pressure on Reliance and Dassault to work together, Hollande said he was unaware and "only Dassault can comment on this".

An abstract of the AFP report breaking the story. I don’t see a retraction or an inherent inconsistency in Hollande’s statements . Full report available at afp.com

"रुपया कमजोर नहीं हुआ, डॉलर मजबूत हुआ है" : जेटली

Did I hear a similar refrain sometime ago from someone else ? Oh , yes ,it was Virendra Shehwag tweeting-he did not score triple centuries, only his bat did. That’s pretty witty play of words that even @mrsfunnybones would love. But stay put ,Mr Jaitley is a FM who is fully ‘immersed’ in his job, he won’t exchange pleasantries over matters as grave as foreign exchange. So, what did he mean ? 

In less than six months, 21 weeks to be precise, of this financial year, the rupee has depreciated from 65.14 to 72.11 against the dollar, that is by 9%. Against the Euro and £ it has fallen by 3.8% and 2.1 % respectively. As most of India’s international trade is dollar denominated, on the face of it, it means inflow of more rupee per dollar of exports and correspondingly more outflow of rupee per dollar of purchases by businesses. 

If our only trade relations were with US and trade in balance ( exports and imports identical in dollar terms) it wouldn’t matter at all whether rupee weakened or dollar strengthened. Incremental losses and gains of rupees from dollar movements would even out. But we live in a world where dollar is just an accounting unit for trade with scores of nations, (leave aside the case when USSR once traded with India in rupees). So cross country rates against dollars affect us too. 

What really matters is the value of rupee against currencies of our trading partners . Their currency exchange rates (based on cross rates with dollar) against the rupee stood as: 

(Price in rupee  of one unit of foreign currency )

Currency               01.04.18.            08.09.18.           % change 

Us $.                    72.11.                   65.14.                  9.0

€                           83.35.                   80.26.                 3.8

£.                           93.18.                  91.26.                 2.1

Yuan.                     10.54.                  10.38.                1.6

Aus.                        51.27.                 50.03.               2.5

Canad.                   54.83.                  50.53.                8.5

Emirate.                 19.63.                  17.74.              10.7

Hong Kong.            9.19.                    8.3.                 10.7

Indonesia.              0.004864.            0.0047.             3.5

Iran.                        0.001716            0.001725.       (-) 0.52

Yen.                         0.65.                  0.61.                     6.6

Kuwait.                   237.45.              216.75.                9.6

Malaysia.                 17.39.                16.86.                 3.1

S Arabia.                   19.23.              17.37                  10.7

Singapore.               52.30.                49.68.                 5.3

SAfrica.                     4.72.                 5.5.                 (-) 4.2

S Korea.                 0.063949.           0.0614.               4.2

Swiss franc.            74.43.                 68.30.                 9.0

Venezuela.              7.22.                   6.52.                  10.7

Qatar.                      19.81.                 17.90.                10.7

Nigeria.                  0.19919.             0.1812.               10.0

Iraq.                        0.06054.            0.5498.                8.9 

Clearly, the rupee shows significant depreciation not merely against the dollar but all other currencies that matter to the nation. The argument that dollar is strengthening thus devaluing all other currencies affords little  comfort. The Indian rupee has slid a notch further, that is the worry. In fact it has fallen steepest among all other Asian currencies during this period. To say dollar has strengthened but rupee

 not fallen implies all other currencies have fallen uniformly against dollar ; and to say rupee has weakened not dollars means other currency rates vis- a- vis dollar remain unchanged, only rupee has fallen. Published rates show that currencies have fallen against the dollar, undeniably dollar is on an upward trajectory. But  the table shows that the rupee has fallen not only against the dollar but all other currencies. The rupee  thus, has weakened against all currencies. To calm emerging jitters the FM may say otherwise , but the fact is rupee has weakened, AND, dollar gone north. 

But why all the hullabaloo, what’s the big deal in a falling currency ? In the past many countries including China as a conscious policy allowed free float of their currencies resulting in sharp falls . For it is a boon for exports and remittances (more rupees against the same unit of sale/remittance of a dollar ) if imports aren’t a worry. Is India on that path, letting rupee find its own level  ? We don’t know, the establishment has chosen to live in a denial mode. 

However, gains from a depreciated rupee accrue only if the economy raises the level of exports high enough to counterbalance losses from costlier imports. Have we reached that stage ?  On current form, the picture isn’t assuring. Exports in dollars as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 17% in 2013-14 to 11.65% in 2017-18. Moreover, between the same period exports in absolute terms fell from $ 312 billion to $ 303 billion. Imports ,on the other hand, rose , though marginally, from $450 billion to $459 billion. 

Recent trends in foreign trade too aren’t enthusing. In 17-18 merchandise exports in dollar terms grew 9.78% whereas imports by double that amount, 19.59% . Going forward a hardening crude would only make matters worse. 

So is a falling rupee not a matter of concern ? 

The Downslide in quality of democracy in India

The Democracy Report 2018 report released by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, the international democracy watchdog headquartered at the Dept of Political Science,University of Gothenburg, Sweden, makes a startling revelation ;

Autocratization is now manifesting in a number of large countries including Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. It affects one third of the world’s population - some 2.5 billion people. 

Exclusion due to socio-economic status has continuously become more severe since the 1970s. Intensified political exclusion now affect poorer groups in countries home to one-quarter of the world’s population, or almost 2 billion people. Despite gradual advances, inclusion remains an illusion.

Anna Lührmann, leader of Democracy Report group makes a further discomfiting observation :

 “....the aspects of democracy that make elections truly meaningful are in decline. Media autonomy, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, and the rule of law have undergone the greatest declines among democracy metrics in recent years.” 

The report based on world’s largest data set on democracy including the assessments of more 3,000 democracy experts for 201 countries goes beyond the simple presence of elections to delve into universally accepted attributes of democracy. Working in association with Kellog Institute of international Studies, V-Dem project measures five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian. 

For India, the implications of the study are perturbing- quality of democracy is in sharp decline since 2014 under the present regime , and the debasement is disquietingly uniform across almost all the attributes that contribute to the five core principles. See the graphs below. 

A deterioration in these indices imply diminishing degrees of respectful dialogue at all levels from preference formation to final decision ; higher impact of emotional appeals ,solidarity attachments, parochial interests and coercion in decision making; lesser distribution of political power across social groups particularly in the  material functions of agenda-setting, protection under law, and influence over policy making; lower responsiveness and accountability between leaders and citizen, the bedrock of electoral democracy; reduced protection of individual and minority rights against tyranny of the state and the majority : growing exclusion of citizen in political processes ,electoral and non- electoral.

The graphs highlight major erosion in elemental attributes of democracy like Freedom of Expression, Rule of Law, Freedom of Association. The Liberal Index, steady at 0.52 -0.53 between 2010-14 ,slid down to 0.43. Among its components, the freedom of expression nosedived from 0.85 to 0.65, and so did civil society participation from 0.85 to 0.65.

Equally worrisome is the auto-censorship by media moguls that puts a protective shield over the establishment. Criticism of governance or the governing elites is deemed blasphemous and gets  self-censored. Complete laissez-faire, even propagating fake news and doctored videos, however, prevails for broadcasts/reports inimical to opposition parties. The moguls have no qualms about It. Many journos who chose to follow their journalistic conscience rather than the mogul’s bible are now on streets. M/s Prasun Bajpai ( exposing that the video chat of PM with beneficiaries of state welfare schemes in Chattisgarh was scripted ), Harish Khare (pointing flaws in Aadhar database). Bobby Ghosh (not taking down the web page Hate Tracker in HT ), Krishna Prasad (story ‘operation baby’ on RSS) , Angshukanta Chakravorty ( refusing to take down a personal tweet............

There are several other incontrovertible signposts that point to a qualitative change for the worse in our democratic polity. Not the least is a studied refusal by the ruling party to share political power with minorities at all levels of governance. Citing one more instance, thousands of NGOs engaged in protecting tribal rights, or agitating for constitutional rights of weaker sections, the dispossessed and disadvantaged, or in making them self sufficient have been forced to close shop. All of this and much more lends strong support to the findings of V-Dem 2018. With GINI coefficient ,a measure of wealth inequalities , touching 0.83 (coefficient of 1 is max inequality) India already has a big social problem on hand - ranking among the most unequal nations in the world. Therefore ,the country’s interest are  best served by making a dispassionate dissection of the report and taking necessary ameliorative measures instead of living in denial or standing on pride.

Marginalised minorities, strident trumpeting of  majoritarian ethos in socio-political life, reduced freedoms of expression and association do not conduce to a meaningfully vibrant democracy. The rallying cry of the times shouldn’t be ‘ Hindus Khatre mein’ , if anything, it should reverberate with   ‘democracy khatre mein’ .