Amartya Sen – A Life Without Walls

Amartya Sen – A Life Without Walls

What is common between Nadin Gordimer and philosopher economist Amartya Sen, the first the winner of Nobel for a highly rich body of fiction based on apartheid abuses and repression in South Africa, more violently so following accession to power of Africanner nationalists and the second for his path-breaking contributions to welfare economics? The answer lies in the question itself. Both Gardimer and Sen delved deep into murderous violence and injustices that have riven society across the world based on divisions of people on grounds of race, religion and class.

Gordimer died at the age of 90 in July 2004, three years after receiving the Nobel. Sen’s memoir Home in the World (till 1963 coinciding with his return to India after years in England and the US for study and subsequently teaching) was first published in 2021 to rave reviews in the world Press and otherwise universal acclamations. Publisher Allen Lane, part of the Penguin Random House group, appropriately decided to use what Gordimer said in the past about the philosopher economist in the dust jacket of Home in the World. She wrote: “With his masterly prose, ease of erudition and ironic humour, Sen is one of the few great world intellectuals on whom we may rely to make sense out of our existential confusion.”

Who will believe unless Sen himself would make the admission in the memoir how much he preferred mastering Sanskrit and Bengali at the cost of the language of the Raj when he attended school first at St Gregory’s and then at Santiniketan (abode of peace in English) where Rabindranath Tagore in 1901 set up an academic entity called Visva Bharati. Sen was at the Santiniketan school for ten years from 1941 to 1951 following which he joined Presidency College in Calcutta.

Sen writes: “My great loves at Santiniketan were mathematics and Sanskrit. In the last two years at the school, I specialised in science… It is not rare to be fascinated by mathematics, but being a fan of Sanskrit at school was more unusual. I was very absorbed in the intricacies of that language, and for many years Sanskrit was close to being my second language after Bengali, partly because my progress in English was very slow. At St Gregory’s in Dhaka I had resisted education in general, but English in particular, and when I moved to Santiniketan the medium of instruction was very firmly Bengali. The language of the Raj somehow passed me by – at least for many years.” Whatever that was decades ago, Sen is now hailed as the English-speaking world’s pre-eminent public intellectual for his oeuvre besides economics on social sciences and philosophy, his quality of prose, historical sense and a strong sense of equity.

In many cases what shape life will take depends on the influence of parents and grandparents. Take Nadine. Her mother Isidore Gordimer aghast at racial discrimination and indescribable economic exploitation of the black community by the South African apartheid regime ran a crèche for the black children. While this activism of Isidore invited the wrath of the government in the form of police raiding the family home and seizing papers and diaries, such experiences in her adolescence made of Nadine an anti-apartheid activist. Her political activism went to the extent of helping Nelson Mandela prepare his celebrated speech ‘I am prepared to die.’ The government came down hard on her by banning her books. But Nadine was not the kind to cave in to pressure.

Home in the World tells us the kind of profound impact the great Sanskrit scholar Kshiti Mohan Sen had on his grandson Amartya when the latter joined the ‘school without walls’ at Santiniketan. Kshiti Mohan’s lifelong passion was to explore India’s wealth of folk literature and also the long history of interactions between Hindu and Muslim traditions. Amartya writes: “Kshiti Mohan’s understanding that… Hinduism had been significantly enriched by the influence of Muslim culture and thought… found a strong expression in his English book on Hinduism.” This heterodox thesis challenges the sectarian thoughts of a large number of Hindu theorists. There were days when Amartya would be up at 4 a.m. like his grandfather and the two would go out for a long walk. As Amartya recalls the walks turned out to be great learning for him with the grandfather making him aware of subjects unknown. The walks also gave the grandson “the wonderful opportunity to bombard” Kshiti Mohan with questions on a wide range of subjects.

Sen writes: “A walk could become a class on subjects as the dismal way India treated its pre-agricultural tribal population, usurping their land (he knew well the sad history of that process, including the failure of successive governments to build schools and hospitals for them). He told me that Ashoka, a great Buddhist emperor who ruled over much of India in the third century BC, expressed special concern about ‘forest people’ in the already urbanising India, asserting that the tribal folk had their rights too, just like those who lived in the cities and towns.”

ALSO READ: Celebrating The Writing Inc

To tell the truth, many centuries later even today despite all the progress, adivasis continue to come in for unthinkable exploitation in the 21st century with their forest land being taken away by hook or by crook to house industries and many promises of their rehabilitation remain mostly unfulfilled. Incidentally, Rabindranath Tagore, who after repeated pleadings got Kshiti Mohan to join him “in the building of a new kind of educational institution,” at Santiniketan would have the Sanskrit scholar as partner in the very early morning walk.

But why Tagore was in “great need of an ally” like Kshiti Mohan. The poet wrote this about the scholar: “Even though he is well versed in the scriptures and classical religion writings, his priorities are entirely liberal. He claims that he gets this liberality from reading of scriptures themselves. He may be able to influence even those who want to use their narrow reading of the scriptures to reduce – and insult – Hinduism. At least, he would be able to remove narrowness from the minds of our students.” There were interesting exchanges between the two on religion.

When at 12, the grandson told Kshiti Mohan that he was not finding interest in religion, the grandfather said: “There is no case for having religious convictions until you are able to think seriously for yourself – it will come to you in a natural way over time.” Religion, however, never came to Amartya to which the Sanskrit scholar replied: “I was not mistaken. You have addressed the religious question, and you have placed yourself, I can see in the atheistic – the Lokayata – part of the Hindu spectrum.”  Religious convictions may have bypassed him, but what, among many other pursuits of Kshiti Mohan, particularly stayed with Amartya is his grandfather’s “involvement in the oral poetry of Kabir, Dadu and the Bauls.”In this pursuit, Kshiti Mohan was moved by two considerations – first, India’s wealth of folk literature must be put on right pedestal, being often neglected by our “elitist bias.” Second, the pursuit was part of his deep engagement with the “long history of interactions between Hindu and Muslim traditions in India.”

Why did Amartya name his son Kabir, though this is a Muslim name? One is his respect for the “ideas of the historical Kabir” and then his Jewish wife Eva Colorni liked the name. Eva told Amartya: “It is just right that the son of a Hindu-origin father and a Jewish-origin mother should have nice Muslim name.” How beautiful life would be if the world lives by this secular spirit. Sadly, this is today largely missing in India. Armed with a spirit of questioning and engaging in argument acquired under the tutelage of a benign grandfather, Amartya arrived in the big city Calcutta in 1951 to study at Presidency College, which presented many exciting intellectual challenges. But Amartya was like “challenge rather than accept at face value the ideas and knowledge we were being offered, and sometimes questioned what we were getting from the books and well-respected articles.” Didn’t his economics professor Tapas Majumdar say “don’t dismiss the possibility that the received argument, despite common belief, is simply incorrect”?

As Amartya says in his student days Karl Marx’s intellectual standing outshone everyone else’s. Even then, Marxian economics didn’t feature much in classes at Presidency or any other colleges. At a personal level, Amartya found “in the corpus of Marx’s writings… concepts that seemed to me to be important and nicely discussable.” Moreover, he found “arguing about Marx was fun.”

This still is. He found the distinction that Marx made “between the principle of ‘non-exploitation’ (through payment according to work, in line with the accounting established by his version of the labour theory of value) and the ‘needs principle’ (arranging for payments according to people’s needs, rather than their work and productivity) was a powerful lesson in radical thought.” At the same time, Amartya finds Marx’s “scrutiny of political organisation… oddly rudimentary. It is hard to think of a more breathless bit of theorising than the idea of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’, with underspecified characterisation of what the proletariat’s demands are (or should be), and very little by way of how the actual political arrangements under such a dictatorship might work.”

Read More:http://13.232.95.176/

Will Adani Survive Hindenburg Setback?

Will Adani Survive Hindenburg Setback?

People buy life insurance policies on the basis of trust that insurance companies would make investment of premium money based on knowledge and prudence to secure the future of insured and make every attempt to give them good returns on investment. The business is expected to be conducted on the “principle of utmost good faith.” The country’s largest life insurer Life Insurance Corporation, in which the government owns 96.5 per cent after it sold 3.5 per cent ownership through initial public offering at a price of Rs949 a share of Rs10 face value, is found to have painted itself into a corner over its bewilderingly large investment in Adani Group companies, more by way of share purchases than sanction of debts.

Since the publication of Hindenburg report on January 24 levelling accusations of “brazen stock manipulation and an accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades,” shares of all Adani Group listed companies have come in for free fall. LIC shares too have suffered a collateral damage with the price hitting 52-week low. This cannot be otherwise because LIC has humongous investments in the beleaguered group.

Between the revelations by the US short-seller Hindenburg, claimed to be based on a two-year investigation, the Adani group’s market capitalisation has shrunk by Rs12.06 lakh crore, or 63 per cent. If one goes by Hindenburg report, which is strongly denounced by Adanis as anti-Indian, the share rout is not complete yet. (But should a private group invoke nationalism as defence when it comes under a cloud?) The report ominously says: “Even if you ignore the findings of our investigation and take the financials of Adani Group at face value, its seven key listed companies have 85 per cent downside purely on a fundamental basis owing to sky-high valuations.” At the time of Hindenburg report release, the Group, which saw meteoric price rises on the stock market, had a market capitalisation of Rs19.12 lakh crore. This, however, was down from the high of Rs22.93 lakh crore on September 20, 2022. Almost like a seer’s prediction, some of the seven Adani stocks have lost value teasingly close to 85 per cent, as Hindenburg report anticipated.

Take Adani Enterprises, the Group’s holding company. Stung by collapse of share prices, it was compelled to call off the follow on public offer (FOPO) set at between Rs3,112 and Rs3,276 (full subscription had to be ensured by way of pulling strings with investors in the Gulf and some friendly groups here) and return money to subscribers. What could Gautam Adani have done but return the money his flagship enterprise secured in the course of FOPO with open market price seeking lower and lower price at every trading session. As  a result of the stock market rout, Gautam who rapidly rose to become the world’s third richest man with a net worth of $116 billion (Bloomberg Billionaires Index as on December 28, 2022) and India’s and also Asia’s richest. But with his net worth experiencing a free fall every trading day caught in a short selling blizzard, Gautam , according to Forbes, now with wealth of $33.4 billion is 38 in global ranking of the richest.

But whatever the popular perception of Gautam following the Hindenburg accusations, to be fair to the man, he is never boastful of his and his family’s wealth. In an interview following his ascendance to the world’s third richest slot with India Today Group, he said: “These rankings and numbers do not matter to me. They are only media hype. I am a first generation entrepreneur who had to build everything from scratch. I get my thrill from handling challenges. The bigger they are, the happier I am.” He claims to find joy in meeting challenges and finding solutions. If that be so, proving Hindenburg wrong that his “amassing a net worth of roughly $120 million in the past three years largely through “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud” is the challenge he surely never thought would come his way. The degree of his brazenness is shown in spikes of shares of Adani Group’s “seven listed companies” by an “average of 819 per cent… in the past three years.”

Such unimaginable building of wealth in a short period, indefensible support of government institutions such as LIC and State Bank and ease in acquiring expensive assets like the Indian cement business of Holcim, according to many observers, would not have been possible without the blessings of the powers that be. There has not been a singular intervention by regulators such as Securities and Exchange of Board of India (SEBI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to rein in the Group or talk of any inquiry when the Group fortunes were ascending at stratospheric rates. Going by the Hindenburg report, the Group’s meteoric rise was aided in no small way by: (i) Adani companies piling up substantial debts by pledging shares whose prices were inflated through market manipulation. As a result, “five of the seven listed companies are indicating near-term liquidity pressure.” (ii) Its research has allegedly established that Gautam’s elder brother Vinod or his close associates “manage a vast labyrinth of offshore shell companies.” The US short-seller claims to have found 38 Mauritius shell companies and also similar such entities in Cyprus, the UAE, Singapore and several Caribbean Islands under Vinod’s charge.

Financial and reputational scars that the report left on Adani Group and the family led them to dismiss it as “maliciously mischievous.” They don’t think it is based on “research” at all. The group legal head Jatin Jalundhwala said: “The unsubstantiated contents are designed to have a deleterious effect on the share values of Adani Group companies as Hindenburg, by their own admission, is positioned to benefit from a slide in Adani shares.” Such expected blasters apart, the Adanis are in the process of evaluating provisions of Indian and US laws for “remedial and punitive action against Hindenburg.” Hindenburg, it will appear, will welcome a legal battle in a court in the US “where we operate. We have a long list of documents we would demand in a legal discovery process.”

ALSO READ: The Adani Ascendency Phenomenon

One will not be surprised if instead of going to the court, the Adani Group will stay focussed in servicing debts, make payment for loans as they mature, run businesses from mining to ports to power efficiently removing opaqueness that invites criticism. Hindenburg report makes the allegation that “the Group’s very top ranks and eight of 22 key leaders are Adani family members, a dynamic that places control of the Group’s financials and key decisions in the hands of a few. A former executive described the Adani Group as a family business.” There is nothing wrong in competent family members holding important offices in businesses. But the important requirement is they at all cost avoid doing the kind of shenanigans mentioned in Hindenburg report.

It will be a long time before the bewildering Adani drama gets unfolded. This is despite finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying “our regulators are very stringent about governance practices and have kept our markets in prime condition.” In an attempt to reassure the public she also said the exposure of LIC and SBI to Adani Group was “within permissible limit.” Her statement ten days after the publication of the Hindenburg report was intended to restore confidence among investors. To her mortification, however, along with the continued Adani rout, the broad market too is experiencing value erosion almost on a daily basis. Intriguingly while mutual funds in general have stayed clear of Adani shares, LIC is found generous with public money to invest heavily in Adani shares. The government owned life insurer owns between 1.28 per cent and 9.14 per cent of issued capital of seven listed Adani companies. People have the right to know on what consideration LIC investment experts opened the purse, which they hold in trust of millions of insured, to acquire Adani shares.

The alleged omissions of Adani Group have provided a handle to the Opposition, particularly the Congress and its uncrowned leader Rahul Gandhi with the stick to berate the government, both within and outside Parliament. Gandhi vitriol is mainly targeted at prime minister Narendra Modi. The Gandhi proposition is the stunning wealth build up of Gautam Adani through his string of companies in such a short period is because of his proximity to Modi and government investigative agencies not bothering him. To Gandhi’s mortification, however, the Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla expunged much of what he said in the Lok Sabha on the subject as he rejected the Opposition demand for investigation on Adani Group by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC).

The immediate fallout of Hindenburg report and the stock market rout of Adani shares that followed is the Group decision to tread carefully with expansion. The decision not to bid for government ownership of Power Trading Corporation has already been made. Will the Group still be a contender for PSU (public sector undertaking) NMDC Steel, which the government has decided to exit? Hasn’t the Adani plan to build a 4 million tonne alumina refinery as well as an iron ore project involving an investment close to Rs60,000 crore in Odisha announced in August 2022 with much fanfare too become uncertain? Unlike Congress, Trinamool Congress has been circumspect in criticising the Adani Group, which last year announced the plan to construct a deep sea port at Tajpur in East Midnapur of West Bengal. Speculation is rife if investment starved Bengal will get to see work on port construction starting anytime soon.

When Gautam Adani remains the target of vitriolic attack from so many quarters, the country’s senior most economics editor Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar has made some interesting contrarian observations in an article in The Economic Times. He writes: “Adani critics say he shot to riches not through skills but manipulation and minting money in cosy monopolies. I disagree. Going from humble origins to global No. 3 in two decades is impossible without exceptional business skills.” Aiyar thought it would be appropriate to make a mention of Dhirubhai Ambani to drive home the point that Adani is not guilty of playing tricks that the country didn’t experience before. It goes like this: “Once, Dhirubhai Ambani was also accused of political manipulation and boondoggles. He responded, ‘What have I done that every other businessman has not?’… Other businessmen, many with formidable historical advantages, had also wooed politicians and fiddled books, For a newcomer like Dhirubhai to beat the old giants at their own game signified immense talent. Something similar can be said of Adani.”

Finally, Aiyar says, “The Hindenburg report may be the best thing that ever happened to Adani. It will slow his speed of expansion… and force his financiers to be diligent and cautious in future. This could impose highly desirable financial discipline on Adani, to his own benefit.” He concludes by saying: “One day I might actually buy Adani shares.” Aiyar thereby is confirming that Adani has the acuity to overcome his current problems and steady the Group. Aiyar is not alone to have come out with support for Gautam. KP Singh, chairman of DLF, says: “Good side I find with Adani is all his companies are operation-wise profitable… Adani will come back again. It is not end of story.” Aiyar has a few others from business and industry keeping him company.

Read More:http://13.232.95.176/

Celebrating The Writing Inc

Celebrating The Writing Inc

Come winter, the major Indian cities and also the ones in tier two and three categories start hosting literature festivals (lit fests) and book fairs. The promoters of such increasingly popular events will go to great lengths to mobilise funds, mainly by way of securing sponsorships from corporate houses and ensure participation of eminent authors from within and outside the country. And they are succeeding in the pursuit, helped in no small way by the country living behind the Covid-19 pandemic scare and business sentiment improving. In fact, in the post pandemic period anticipating the awakened interest in how to fight diseases of many kinds, including cancer, which alone according to World Health Organisation caused 10 million deaths globally in 2020, Lit Fest organisers are inviting doctors and medical specialists who are also authors to hold sessions.

Take cancer physician, researcher and author Siddhartha Mukherjee whose book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won him the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction. Mukherjee made his maiden appearance at the recently held Tata Lit Fest in Calcutta, also known as Kalam. His appearance in the city in a conversation with author, anthropologist Amitav Ghosh (author of The Circle of Reason, The Hungry Tide, The Ibis Trilogy, etcetera) discussing subjects ranging from viruses, vaccine invention, globalisation and what science is and what science does became a rarely experienced event. Who will know it better than Tatas that venue matters a lot in Lit Fest. The Mukherjee-Ghosh animated long conversation was held at Alipore Jail with rich history related to the freedom movement, now thoughtfully converted into a museum. If this was the prologue, the other Tata Lit Fest sessions were held in the open at Victoria Memorial.

 Mukherjee took the audience by surprise with his bold statement: “To some extent, Western medicine which I practise and believe in, has driven itself to the ground by becoming a client of the pharma industry.” The operational opaqueness of pharma giants and their earning incredibly large profits without sparing a thought for non-affordability of many medicines by large sections of the world population are widely known but very few of practitioners of Western medicine will have the courage to spill the bean in the open like Mukherjee. He also said that vaccines were discovered in China and the knowledge thus gained travelled through India, West Asia to the West, dispelling the myth that vaccines were a gift to the mankind from the West. People who jammed the once jailhouse hall heard him defining science. “Science, when done rightly, is a system to obtain knowledge. People think the emphasis should be on knowledge. But in fact, the emphasis should be on the system.”

A few sessions like that will be the recipe for a meaningful lit fest. Some authors will take advantage of launching her/his new book at a fest. Like with Mukherjee’s new book The Song of the Cell (Penguin Allen Lane) launched at Kalam and then some days later became the subject of discussion at the Indian Express Adda in New Delhi. A distinguishing feature of lit fests in different Indian cities is their evolving constantly going well beyond pure literature to include subjects such as cinema and literature, music, food, environment and equal rights for LGBTIQ persons.

You and your companion may have a cookbook or two in the shelf. The books may have been read. Even then it is not unlikely that the recipes there haven’t been explored in the kitchen. But cookbooks remain enduringly popular all over the world and they continue to sell in millions. What inspires chefs, some with Cordon Bleu recognition, and culinary experts to write books on food? Margaret Fulton (1924-2019), the Scottish born Australian food writer whose books sold in millions, used to say: “Once you discover something truly magical as well as practical, it’s impossible not to want to share that with people who you can see could really use the help.” Is that too driving the Nobel-winning economist Abhijit Banerjee to write about food that he has tasted in different parts of the world, particularly in India and the US? He now has a monthly column on food in Times of India.

But who could expect till the owners of Jugal’s chain of sweetmeat shops in Calcutta decided to hold a two-day “literary fest on mishiti (Bengali for sweet) in the world but also the first ever literary fest on food,” in this city of joy that such a niche event is possible! Alongside the major lit fests, little fests focussing on vernacular literature, women’s writing and rainbow writing are rapidly gaining in traction. Yet another interesting development is book fairs becoming venue for lit fest. Take Calcutta Book Fair now in its 46th year where the Lit Fest is nine-year old.

“We are doing it for two reasons: First, full attendance at Lit Fest sessions are guaranteed – sometimes finding accommodation for guests becomes a challenge – considering the number of people that visit the fair everyday over nearly two weeks. Second, every year we have a theme country, like Spain this time. Nearly two dozen Spanish writers are attending the fair besides some publishers. The lit fest here will facilitate their interaction with local authors and publishers,” said an organiser. A remarkable thing about major book fairs in India is the participation of major publishing houses from the UK and the US. This is due to India being the world’s second largest English speaking country with around 11 per cent of the population using the language. The size is likely to quadruple in the next decade.

Over the years, Lit Fests in India have gained widespread recognition. This will be confirmed by Nobel, Booker and Pulitzer Prize winners regularly showing up at Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) and Tata Lit Fests in Mumbai and Calcutta. Thanks mainly to Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple and their broadening the subjects for discussion going well beyond literature and promoting handicrafts on the side, JLF has gone from strength to strength. The 16th JLF held in January had an incredibly large attendance of 431,000 people, including a large number of foreigners and there were as many as 238 sessions with 370 authors and speakers participating. The two Tata Lit Fest editions continue to grow in size and diversity.

At the same time, many wonder whether authors should instead of using time to think and sharpen their intellect allow themselves to be in public glare by being present in Lit Fests or book launches with fanfare. We should remember that authors come in two kinds. A small group in every generation will write great novels and poems and earn fame during their lifetime. But then they will keep social contact to the minimum for the sake of privacy. They have disdain for celebratory status and avoid contact with the public going to the extent as we saw with JD Salinger (author of The Catcher In the Rye) waving a shotgun at anyone stepping onto his property. As it would happen, reclusiveness will overtake some authors even though they are found to be amazingly good in public speaking – the best example perhaps is William Faulkner. Didn’t Harper Lee (author of To Kill A Mockingbird) say “well, it’s better to be silent than to be a fool”? This ever small group of writers has this axiom in common that all their energy and creativity should be focussed on writing without distractions that lead to nothing.

Polemicists/activists through the ages such as Jean Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell would always be ready for a verbal joust if they find that using the quill is not enough. Or consider diplomat scholar author Henry Kissinger the length he went to promote his magnum opus Leadership: Six Studies in World mainly through lengthy interviews given to newspapers. One may violently disagree with his selection of some of the political leaders, specially President Richard Nixon.

This is in spite of his owing many debts to the disgraced President that gave him a highly successful diplomatic career, the climax of which was his preparing the ground for a summit meeting between Mao Zedong and President Nixon. Kissinger was the prime mover of rapprochement between the US and Peoples Republic of China in 1972 and establishing diplomatic contact with communist China that came to power in October 1949. At 99, Kissinger will hold court like nobody else. We have in our country ex-diplomat, parliamentarian and author Shashi Tharoor, Ruskin Bond and William Dalrymple (a permanent resident here) who are quite passionate about participating in discussions and debates. That’s freedom of choice.

Read More:http://13.232.95.176/

Fishing In The Tribal Talent Pool

Fishing In The Tribal Talent Pool

In a way the hosting of Men’s World Cup Hockey 2023 at two centres in Odisha – the capital city Bhubaneswar and Rourkela – is paying homage to the genius of tribals who in spite of being immiserated over the centuries, including their being driven away from the mainland to the jungle fastness. When the enlightened Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik named the newly built world’s largest hockey stadium with seating capacity of over 20,000 in the steel city Rourkela after the legendary tribal leader Birsa Munda, it was seen as an attempt to acknowledge the grave wrongs done to the children of Indus Valley civilisation and at the same time pay tributes to the indomitable spirit of adivasis to overcome all odds.

The folk hero Birsa Munda (born November 1875) did not live even 25 years, killed as he was while imprisoned by the British. Come to any place where adivasis are found in large numbers, Birsa is principally remembered for his clarion call “let the kingdom of the Queen be ended and our kingdom established” and his phenomenal work in the short time available to him for revival of tribal culture, then under colonial rule facing onslaught from Christian missionaries and others. A rightly deserved tribute demanded by adivasi history in the form of dedicating the Rourkela stadium to memories of Birsa Munda apart, the stadium naming after the great warrior-reformer comes as recognition of the genius of tribals, who though lacking in proper hockey gear mastered the art of the game to the extent of making sterling contribution to India’s global ranking in the sport when competition is becoming increasingly stiffer. Come to an adivasi village, you will find boys and girls enthusiastically playing the game on an uneven surface with makeshift sticks and two bamboo poles on either side of the field standing as the goalpost.

Eminent scholar Gopalkrishna Gandhi has done a major service at the point of the country hosting the World Cup, the extraordinary story of Jaipal Singh Munda, born 120 years ago to a cattle-herding family in what is now Jharkhand. Missionaries were early to recognise Jaipal’s scholarliness as also his skills in weaving magic with the hockey stick to see him through St. Paul’s school in Ranchi and then ensure his admission to the prestigious St. John’s College in Oxford. There as he expectedly did well in studies, Jaipal distinguished himself as the first Indian Oxford hockey blue. That someone of his talent and intellect would make to the charmed Indian Civil Service (ICS) was taken for granted. But what at that time took everyone, especially the British by surprise was his unequivocal decision to quit the vaunted service when India Office refused to grant him leave to enable him to lead the Indian hockey team at 1928 Olympics. For the record, under his captaincy, India won its first gold medal at Amsterdam Olympics.

As if the decision to give up the gilded career of ICS was not audacious enough, Jaipal plunged into politics headlong on his return to India. He became president of Adivasi Mahasabha in 1939 and later on he was elected to the Constituent Assembly where in a historic speech he encapsulated the long unending sufferings of adivasis saying: “If there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated, it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilisation, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers – most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness…”

ALSO READ: Breaking Bread With Tribals –Around A Sublime Fire

Naveen Patnaik’s empathy for tribals is widely known, as it should be. After all, in the coastal state the share of scheduled tribes, according to the 2011 census, in the state population is a high close to 23 per cent. An admirer of hockey, having also played the game in his school days, Patnaik has emerged as the leading patron of the sport in the country, which like so many other sports was crying for state and corporate support. Remember, the latter comes easily on board when the state becomes a passionate promoter like Odisha is for hockey. Perhaps this would not have been the case without Patnaik at the helm. For the development of the sport requiring heavy investment in supporting players, both female and male with the required talent and infrastructure building, Patnaik not only opened the state purse quite liberally, but he also prevailed upon corporates such as Tata Group to support the national cause of hockey. The trail that Jaipal blazed many decades ago remains an inspiration for adivasi boys and girls, particularly from Jharkhand and Odisha to make it to the national team. What they badly needed to excel in the sport is a supporting system, which, thankfully, Patnaik has provided.

Take Dilip Tirkey, who hails from Odisha’s Sundargarh district and has the distinction to lead India in as many as three Olympics and an identical number of World Cup and Asian Games. Unlike in the past when politicians such as Sharad Pawar, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and Praful Patel would head various sports bodies and make a mess of such assignments because of their poor knowledge of the games and needs of players. In a refreshing change, however, the highly financially rich Cricket Control Board of India is now chaired by Roger Binny, a former Test cricketer (even while important offices of secretary and vice president are headed by non-professional Jay Shah and Rajeev Shukla) and Hockey India by Dilip Tirkey. Think of the big reforms that happened in Indian cricket, including woman participation in that when Sourav Ganguly was president of BCCI.

It will be apt to remember here what Tirkey recently said about his one encounter with the present Odisha chief minister. “In 2003, I got an opportunity to sit next to the chief minister. I used that opportunity to tell him that an artificial turf in Bhubaneswar would be of great help. He thought about it for two minutes and told me to give a proposal in writing. My thinking wasn’t big. I was looking at a ground for us to train. But clearly his vision was different. He said it should be one of the best stadiums in the country. And here we are 20 years later, with world class facilities.” Give us a few more chief ministers with Naveen Patnaik kind of vision for India to emerge as one of the world’s leading sporting nations.

Jaipal Singh and Dilip Tirkey apart, adivasis through decades have proved to be achievers of great fame in hockey. Watchers of the game will remember the achievements of Michael Kindo, Lazarus Barla, Birendra Larka and Prabodh Tirkey. The recently concluded World Cup saw maiden participation of the 24-year old tribal Nilam Xess from village Kadobahal on the outskirts of Rourkela. Why only men, adivasi girls like Nikki Pradhan, Savitri Purty and Sunita Lakra would spell magic moves – take flight with the ball in attack or defend with clean tackling to avoid conceding penalty corners – to earn success for the Indian team.

Many years ago when Imran Khan was still the captain of Pakistani cricket team he wondered why India, which shares borders with its neighbour in the north and has a large population of well-built tribals was not able to produce world class fast bowlers like his country. He said he would take the trouble to visit tribal regions of Pakistan to identify well-built young boys who could become good fast bowlers with training.  This is an advice worth pursuing by us.

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

Indian Coal Fire Won’t Be Easy To Put Out | Lokmarg

Coal Fire Won’t Be Easy To Put Out

Coal is by far the dirtiest of all fossil fuels and many countries have moved away progressively from its use because of the high degree of environmental pollution its burning will cause. However deleteriously its burning to produce electricity may impact the environment, India for a good number of reasons has no alternative to using the polluting fuel in an increasingly big way for many years to come. Under India’s earth is found the world’s fifth largest resources of coal. Exploration up to a depth 1,200 meters carried out by central agencies such as Geological Survey of India has established the country’s resources of coal at 319.02 billion tonnes, including 282.910 billion tonnes of thermal coal, which is burnt to produce electricity. The rest is metallurgical coal used by the steel industry and there is also some amount of tertiary coal.

The very high ash content in Indian coal, both thermal and metallurgical, make it dirtier than is the case with the fuel mined in Indonesia, Australia and China. Whatever that is, the compulsion to use more and more coal is to be seen in the context of huge foreign exchange outgo on imports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as domestic production is not making the progress of desired kind.

India, the world’s thirst largest oil consuming and importing country, saw its crude oil import bill rising to $119.2 billion in 2021-22 from $62.2 billion in the year before. Crude oil besides, 2021-22 imports of 40.2 million tonnes of petroleum products and LNG cost the country $24.2 billion and $11.9 billion, respectively. India, which is over 85 per cent dependent on imported crude will have to set its energy compass in way as to be able to navigate through the choppy oil market that may see prices staying at elevated levels, principally because of improving economic outlook in the US and China. In any case, oil has started pushing higher after a rocky start to 2023.

A raft of forecasts from the likes of Goldman Sachs and markets being upbeat at the flexibility finally being seen in the way Beijing is finally handling the infectious Covid-19 disease creating condition for normal work environment could see oil rallying back above $100 a barrel.  The trade embargo on Russian oil by the European Union and the US as fallout of the Ukrainian war is working as an underlying strength for the commodity.

Based on its special historic relationship with Russia, India continues to buy Russian crude in large quantities at deep discounts to market rates ignoring the ire of the West. For example, this country imported 1.7 million barrels per day (b/d) from Russia in November with inbound shipments climbing to a record high ahead of the EU December 5 import ban and the G7 price cap of $60 a barrel. While trade and political compulsions have led India to step up imports from its traditional trusted ally, strong western protests against Russian invasion and arms aid to Ukraine for repulsing air and land attack, the war, which actually began on February 20, 2014 but took a particularly vicious form in February last year led to tightening of energy embrace between Russia and China.

Taking advantage of the crisis Russia is facing in its seaborne trade, India, to its convenience, has stepped up crude oil imports from that country to a record in November. Even that leaves India to meet a very large portion of its requirements from the open market – OPEC member countries and also the US – where a variety of economic, political and strategic factors decide the price. Oil represents the most dynamic of all commodity markets.

In recent years, India’s oil imports ranged from a low of 4.033 b/d in the Covid-19 pandemic hit 2020 to 4.544 b/d in 2018. The point then is such high levels of dependence on crude oil imports could from time to time bring the country’s current account deficit (CAD) to deeply worrying levels. For example, CAD skyrocketed to 4.4 Per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) in the July-September quarter of 2022-23 from 1.3 per cent in the identical period year before. How will not the government be concerned with the development since the comfort level is taken as breached at above 2.5 per cent of GDP? In recent years, the share of petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) in total Indian imports has ranged from 21 per cent to 25 per cent, constituting the single largest import component. However, since 2015 financial year when POL constituted 30.9 per cent of the country’s total import bill, its share in overall imports has been down.

Though not to the same extent as coal, the oil and natural gas industry is also a major environment pollutant. The US Environment Protection Agency tells us: “The industry is a significant source of emissions of methane… with a global warming potential more than 25 times that of carbon dioxide. It also is the largest industrial source of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a group of chemicals that contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone (smog). Exposure to ozone is linked to a wide range of health effects, including aggravated asthma, increased emergency room visits and hospital admissions, and premature death. In addition to helping form ozone, VOC emissions from the oil and gas industry include air toxics such as benzene, ethyl benzene, and n-hexane, also come from this industry. Air toxics are pollutants known, or suspected of causing cancer and other serious health effects.” But beyond production, transportation and its refining, the use of petrol and diesel to run vehicles of all kinds is the source of harmful pollutants such as grounded-level ozone and particulate matter whose inhalation could cause death.

The research group Nielsen says in a report that of the total supply 70 per cent of diesel and 99.6 per cent of petrol is used by the transport sector. Farm sector uses 13 per cent of diesel. Oil imports present India with twin challenges: first, the huge outgo of foreign exchange to pay for foreign origin crude exacerbating CAD and environmental damage that its use causes. What are the mitigating steps the government has already taken to find some relief in the prevalent situation? High taxation on automotive fuels results in an imputed carbon tax of $140 to $240 per tonne of carbon dioxide. This alone is a big incentive to boost production of electric vehicles – from two wheelers to passenger cars to buses. What also remains a highly sustainable motivation for domestic car makers led by Tata Motors and now increasingly by foreign groups to make EVs and extend their travel range before battery recharging is the government’s FAME India scheme, implemented in two phases. The acronym stands for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India. Both the phases have secured liberal funding from the government.

Furthermore, the following government steps have also come in as major a aid to boost production and range of EVs: (a) EVs are covered under production linked incentive (PLI) with a budgetary outlay of Rs25,938 crore. (b) GST (goods and services tax) on EVs is down from 12 per cent to 5 per cent and on chargers and charging stations from 18 per cent to 5 per cent. (c) Battery-operated vehicles are given green licence plates exempting then from permit requirements and (d) Road transport ministry has advised states to waive road tax on EVs.

ALSO READ: ‘Biofuel Push Will Curb Pollution, Benefit Farmers’

In another significant environment mitigation move, New Delhi having seen the positive response of sugar mill industry to produce enough ethanol leading to fulfilling the targeted 10 per cent blending with petrol ahead of the target in June 2022 five months ahead of schedule, it has now advanced the target of 25 per cent blending by as many as five years to 2025. Fixing remunerative prices of ethanol by the government and most sugar factories earning good profits in recent years have encouraged them to build capacity for making the chemical to fulfil the progressively increasing ethanol blending with petrol. Decarbonisation on account of vehicles being powered by petrol and diesel is sought to be progressively curbed by speeding up production of EVs and stepping up ethanol use.

India is the world’s third largest emitter of all kinds of pollutants, including carbon dioxide. If things are left as they are without much action, then Indian emissions will rise from 2.9GtCO2e a year to 11.8GtCO2e in 2070. But the country has made a global commitment to get to net zero by 2070. Redeeming such a pledge will require a lot of cleaning of the system, huge investments in technology and revolutionary policy reforms. Coal, which the country will not easily be able to lower its use in the face of growing energy demand and the fuel’s easy local availability, will make it highly challenging for the country to achieve net zero by 2070. Coal India chairman Pramod Agrawal says: “Coal is not threatened by the onrush of renewable for now. This fossil fuel will not be dethroned from its energy pedestal for the next two decades if not more. Renewables are growing but not at the pace that they can effectively dislodge coal use in the country.”

In an identical way, the leading energy expert Vikram S. Mehta writes: “Coal will remain the bulwark of India’s energy system for decades. It is no doubt the dirtiest of fuels, but it remains amongst, if not the cheapest of source of energy. Plus hundreds of thousands depend on the coal ecosystem for their livelihood. The option of phasing out coal while environmentally compelling is not yet a macroeconomic or social possibility.” If anything Coal India alone has approved a total of 52 projects which will result in incremental capacity creation of 378 million tonnes a year.

Read more: http://13.232.95.176/

Arunachal in China Map

Trading With The Enemy: It’s Complicated

Quite a few Indian politicians short on knowledge on economics have the habit of shooting their mouth on major trade and economic issues without realising the harm all this might do to the country. Many worthies doing it to get attention of the masses given to supra nationalism is understandable. But why should Arvind Kejriwal, who graduated in mechanical engineering from IIT (Kharagpur), known for its liberal academic environment and was a member of Indian Revenue Service before launching Aam Aadmi Party in 2012, be in that kind of bandwagon! Kejriwal, who cannot plead ignorance of economic affairs after running Delhi as chief minister since February 2015 in a recent uncharacteristic jingoistic outburst said: “Why don’t we stop our trade with China? All things that we import from China can be manufactured here in India. Halting the trade will be a lesson for China and also generate employment in India.”

At his implicit encouragement, AAP’s trade outfit held a protest rally in New Delhi’s Connaught place urging traders to unite in a “boycott of Chinese goods.” Many politicians from other parties too have joined Kejriwal in initiating strong trade action against China.

The spark for all such angry but uninformed reactions came following defence minister Rajnath Singh informing Parliament of Indian Army successfully pushing back Chinese soldiers found transgressing into Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh. What the people giving a shrill call for trade suspension with China are likely unaware that India and China have carried on with unsettled borders since our Independence and their liberation.

Solution to knotty border issues, according to former Indian national security adviser Shivshankar Menon, calls for prolonged “hard negotiations.” In the meantime, the two countries remain engaged in reinforcing road and related infrastructure at disputed border points along with high levels of military deployment. The protestors should be told that unless the two major powers of Asia have consciously decided to pursue bilateral relations with particular focus on trade independent of intermittent skirmishes happening at some border points, China could not have become India’s second largest trading partner in 2021-22 from a low of 12th in 2000-01.

There were, however, years in the past decade when China replaced the US to take the top slot in India’s export-import trade. The US and China have been alternating their positions as the two largest trading partners of India, with one constant. While India continues to record a significantly large trade surplus with the US, amounting to $32.85 billion during 2021-22, its trade deficit with the neighbour in the north ballooned from $44.02 billion in 2020-01 to $73.31 billion in 2021-22.

Incidentally, China alone had a share of over one-third of India’s total trade deficit of $191 billion in 2021-22. As expected, China origin import juggernaut is continuing through the current 2022-23 financial year. Commerce ministry data says during April-October 2022-23, India’s trade deficit vis a vis China leaped year on year 39 per cent to $51 billion from $37 billion. Apart from what keeps on happening at the border from time to time, should this rising trade deficit be any reason for politicians worth their salt to give a call for trade extinguishment. The answer will be a resounding no.

For appreciation, one has to consider the items that India principally imports from China to sustain and promote this country’s manufacturing of finished products. For example, if for some reasons there are dislocations in supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients from China for any length of time, production of medicines here will be upset causing serious health problems. Then how will India pursue the cherished goal of a digitally empowered society where growing numbers of people will be using computers and mobile phones for accessing information and conducting all financial transactions unless there are easy imports of electronic components and computer hardware and peripherals from China. Government officials and also industry in general will heave a sigh of relief if the agitation against imports from China does not spread and it actually ends in a whimper.

ALSO READ: ‘China Will Continue To Make Covert Incursions’

Commerce ministry data shows that India’s principal imports from China are electronic items, telecom instruments, chemicals and capital goods and their combined imports jumped to $31.008 billion during January-November 2021 from$19.720 billion in the same 11 months of the previous year. Aghast at some Indian politicians’ poor understanding of cruciality of trade between the two large Asian neighbours, Arvind Panagariya, a former vice chairman of government think tank Niti Aayog and now professor of economics at Columbia University told PTI the other day the reason India buys so heavily from China is because for many of this country’s imports, China remains the cheapest supplier. At the same time, Panagariya says: “It also happens that for goods India wants to export, China does not offer New Delhi the best price. So, we sell them to other trade partners such as the US. The fact that this results in a trade deficit with China and trade surplus with the US should be no reason for worry,”

Shocked by the boycott call given in some quarters, the noted economist who left the Niti Aayog job not in happy circumstances, wants the unversed in realities of economics to remember that a $3 trillion economy will better avoid an economic war with a $17 trillion economy in order not to suffer considerable economic damages. In his words: “Now there are some who want trade sanctions on China to ‘punish’ it for its transgressions on the border… if we try to punish China, it will not sit back, as amply illustrated by its response to sanctions by even the mighty United States.”

Only the naive will disagree with Panagariya proposition that in the event of India engaging with China in a highly uneven trade war in response to occasional border engagements “will mean sacrificing a considerable part of our potential growth… purely on economic grounds.” For example, the pharmaceutical industry, the whole range of electronics goods manufacturers and industries dependent on supplies of critical raw materials and intermediate products from China will be paying dearly in case supplies from China get choked. In any case, instead of being concerned with trade deficit with one country, our focus at all times should be on external imbalance reflected on current account deficit showing our external liabilities.

Indian metal makers, particularly aluminium and steel, are buying heavy machineries such as smelters, alumina refineries, coke oven batteries and blast furnaces from China mainly at the expense of traditional establishments in European Union. “We are buying such high-tech expensive equipment from China not for any love for that country but for attractive prices on offer. Chinese equipment in employment here in aluminium and steel plants will match the best available elsewhere on all parameters such as end product quality, energy efficiency and post-installation services. In the process of emerging as the owner of the world’s largest steel and aluminium capacity, Beijing has ensured simultaneous development of machine building capacity matching the best available elsewhere,” says Bharat Aluminium CEO and director Abhijit Pati.

As more and more Indian metal groups, including the government owned ones are buying machines from China, European machine makers have started bringing down their prices globally. India, which has ambitious steel and aluminium growth targets, is a beneficiary of price competition between machinery manufacturers in China and the EU.

Many of our saffronite politicians have only scorn for Indian economists based abroad, irrespective of their achievements. Fortunately, that does not stop them from watching developments in the country of their origin and making some sane suggestions from time to time. Such economists include Amartya Sen, Kaushik Basu, Panagariya, Raghuram Rajan, Pranab Bardhan and Maitreesh Ghatak. Isn’t the Panagariya prescription that instead of threatening a trade war with China, India should focus on signing free trade agreements (FTAs) with developed countries to get easy and duty-free access to its goods and services in their markets? Take the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) that came into effect a few days ago. As a result, 96 per cent of Indian goods exports will enter Australia duty-free and over the next three years, this will rise to 100 per cent. India in turn will get cheaper raw materials from resource-rich Australia as these get duty exemptions. Indian minister of commerce and industry Piyus Goyal says ECTA activation should raise India-Australia bilateral trade to about $50 billion in five years from $31 billion now and also in the process create about 1 million new jobs here. We have it from Goyal that India will sign at least two FTAs with developed countries this year. Sabre-rattling does not help. The way forward is to negotiate hard and with confidence FTAs.

Read more: http://13.232.95.176/

Bangladesh

Bangladesh – Reeling Under Multiple Crises

Russia’s unrelenting military assault on Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022 has already done a significant collateral economic damage to Bangladesh and other East Asian countries. The setback is to an extent that Bangladesh, a least developed country which aspires to acquire middle income status by 2031 had to scamper to International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package of $4.5 billion. Earlier to the damage being wreaked by the Ukrainian war that shows no signs of ending anytime soon, the Bangladesh economy took a beating from the Covid-19 pandemic. But as the IMF acknowledges, Bangladesh made a “robust economic recovery from the pandemic” by clocking a 3.4 per cent GDP (gross domestic product) growth in 2020 followed by a lot more impressive 6.9 per cent in the following year. The problem of inequitable distribution of incremental wealth generation among different sections of society remains.

In a recent country report, the World Bank has, however, cut the Bangladesh GDP forecast for 2022-23 by 0.6 percentage points to 6.1 per cent as the country battles “high inflation and rolling electricity blackouts.” Led by economic distress, Bangladesh is the third of India’s neighbour country to have secured accommodation from the IMF with all the stiff accompanied conditions. Nevertheless as IMF emergency funds help avert a potential debt servicing/payment default, they create the ground for more aid from other multilateral institutions and friendly nations.

Incidentally, Pakistan’s extended loan facility from IMF stands at about $7 billion. The highly politically disturbed Pakistan, according to expert estimates, will need at least $41 billion for debt repayments and to fund imports. Most worryingly, the country’s foreign exchange reserves are down to a level that could pay for about one month’s imports. Political unrest that recently took the form of an attempted assassination of dethroned prime minister Imran Khan, mostly covert army interferences in government work, the law unto itself ISI, state harbouring Islamist forces within the country and outside have all combined to exacerbate Pakistan’s economic problems. Till such time, the army stays put in the barracks and a democratically elected government gets a free hand to rule, there will be no redemption for Pakistan.

Sri Lanka will remain an example of how runaway inflation of food, medicine and fuel prices making them unaffordable for the masses could bring hundreds of thousands of protesters out on the road and lead them to lay siege on the President’s official residence forcing Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and flee to Singapore. The island country, which defaulted on its $51 billion external debts, ran out of foreign exchange to fund essential imports. That left Sri Lanka with no alternative but to agree to conditional $2.9 billion bailout from IMF.

India too a victim of inflation well beyond the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerable band and a high rate of unemployment is expectedly concerned about developments in its immediate neighbourhood. Concern remains about China spreading its influence in south Asia. Currency depreciation vis a vis US dollar and high energy prices have dealt a major blow to all these countries.

ALSO READ: Delhi-Dhaka – Shared Interests, Mutual Progress

Historically, India has an affinity towards Awami League and its leader Sheikh Hasina. This is based as much on thrice incumbent Hasina government pursuing a secular policy in the face of opposition from Jamaat-i-Islami and not so covert attempts at Islamisation/radicalisation of Bangladeshis by Pakistani agents as the ties forged since the liberation war leading to creation of a new country out of east Pakistan. Even then, New Delhi has kept communication channels with the principal Opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of which the founder was former President Ziaur Rahman (1977-81) live, if not for anything than to loosen its dalliance with Islamist forces. In any case, BNP has seen that its pursuit of a highly Islamist policy and communal rant are not yielding dividends at the hustings.

For example, in the 2018 general elections to Jatiya Sangsad (House of the Nation), BNP got only seven seats and 13 per cent of the votes. Besides the voters not warming up to what it promised in the election manifesto, the party had to contend with two handicaps during 2014 elections. First, the late Ziaur son Tarique, the acting chairman of BNP is cooling his heels in exile in London following the life sentence award given to him on charges of attempt to kill Sheikh Hasina in 2004.

Second, chairperson Khaleda Zia (the late President’s wife) spent nearly four years in jail between 2017 and 2020 on several corruption charges, including siphoning of foreign donation money for an orphanage. She got released from jail well before serving the full sentence, but with the condition that she would stay put in Dhaka. Moreover, she has serious health problem creating a leadership vacuum in BNP. Whatever that is, BNP has principally latched on to growing popular discontent about rising prices of all essential items to launch a campaign against Hasina government, which is becoming increasingly strident.

Despite official highhandedness in dealing with protests, BNP, to the surprise of the government has been able to hold massive rallies in districts and the capital city Dhaka. In the meantime, revelation of a big ticket corruption involving S Alam group, popularly believed to be Awami League’s key financier, has helped in fanning people’s anger against the government. Name almost any sector, including banking, S Alam has its finger in the pie. Such is the public resentment against the group taking multi-billion dollar loans from a number of banks, in some of which it has substantial equity ownership. Worse is the group has used the borrowed funds to fund purchase of hotels and real estate in Singapore. The irregularities in borrowings and subsequent investments offshore reek of a kind of corruption that Hasina is left with no alternative but to order an inquiry.

A question mark remains on the fairness of the inquiry since the involvement of some Awami League politicians close to the prime minister is not ruled out. But the bank loan scandal already an embarrassment for the administration will compromise the Awami League and its leader ahead of 2023-end elections in case the inquiry reveals some murkiness in loan sanctioning. Some BNP politicians claim that in the days ahead more cases of corruption involving businessman-politician nexus will come to light to provide them with the handle to berate the government of the day. Besides piling pressure on Hasina administration for its attempts to silence the Opposition using every means, including arrests and attempts to sabotage lawful protests, BSP for political optics made its seven MPs to resign their parliamentary seats. Naturally, Awami League is wondering aloud why did it take BNP four long years to realise that democracy is now at risk? As it happens in such awkward situations, the ruling party sees a foreign hand working.

Bangladesh foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has complained, not to anyone’s surprise that “some powerful countries have the historical habit to suppress third world countries like ours. Have they not in the past destroyed stable countries such as Iraq and Libya in the past? Let me warn my countrymen if we are not able to resist foreign engineered unrest then all of us will suffer.”

In the meantime, in its attempt to build pressure on Hasina government, BNP has announced a 27-point programme for structural reform of the state and governance. This, among other reforms, includes reintroduction of holding elections under a neutral government, limiting a prime minister to hold office for two consecutive terms (this in order to debar Hasina to become prime minister once again), election commission to be manned by “independent and impartial persons,” and formation of an election reforms commission. The elections are to be held by December 2023 and it is too early to make any forecast about poll outcome at this stage.

Why Business Houses Are Betting Big on Odisha

It could not be in anybody’s imagination that West Bengal will ever be challenged on its claim as the gateway to the east and south east Asia. But much to a combination of surprise and shock to the powers that be in West Bengal, this is precisely what happened at the recent ‘Make in Odisha Conclave 2022.’ At the hugely successful meeting inviting investments, chief minister (CM) Naveen Patnaik, armed with two major all-season deep draught sea ports and a few smaller ones plus a robust road infrastructure projected Odisha as the preferred centre for manufacturing and trade in goods and services with other Indian states and beyond extending to “east and southeast Asia.” Come winter, many Indian states will be hosting similar investor meetings to be unfailingly marked by announcements of huge investments, much of that to remain unrealised though.

As it would happen, two marquee projects in West Bengal – a highly affordable small car named Nano by Tata Motors and a 10 million tonne steel plant by JSW Group – that attracted global attention and launched with great fanfare were abandoned. Nano project was a victim of Trinamool Congress’s unrelenting campaign, degenerating into obstructions and violence. JSW gave up plans for making steel in West Bengal because the two neighbouring iron ore owning states were not inclined to make the raw material available for value addition outside. This is how sub-nationalism works. Earlier, compelled to call it a day for making Nano car at Singur in West Bengal, Ratan Tata told the Press: “If somebody puts a gun to my head, you would either have to remove the gun or pull the trigger. I would not move my head. I think Ms Mamata Banerjee pulled the trigger.”

What was West Bengal’s loss proved to be a major gain for Sanand in Gujarat where over 1,100 acres, including a park for vendors, Tata Motors is making new generation cars, including EVs. In her desperation to make it to Writers Building – the seat of power has since moved to Nabanna – she overlooked the possibility of all the industrial investment that could have followed in case Tatas Singur project had taken off. Jobs created in vendor units are many times more than direct employment generated in the mother car assembly plant.

What a loss Singur was for Bengal which remains desperate to break the drought in new jobs in industry. Ratan Tata does not hide the fact that his respect for the affable, erudite and honest CM of the day Buddhhadeb Bhattacharjee was one principal reason for him to commit Singur investment. Yes as the country is seeing, major investment commitments in Odisha from major groups such as ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India, Vedanta and JSW Steel are happening because of its emergence as an “industry friendly destination” under the urbane leadership of Naveen Patnaik, chief minister since 2000.

It is, however, not that Odisha had not had its share of problems relating to land acquisition to accommodate very large industrial ventures. The South Korean steel major Posco, which wanted to build this country’s largest single location steel plant in that eastern state with freshly invented technology had to beat a retreat in the face of agitation against land acquisition and also mines linkages issue. Some others too experienced the same kind of pain as Posco. All this happened when Patnaik was in charge of the state. The challenge for him was to quickly identify the reasons for resistance to part with land by Adivasis and others, often with support from outside agencies.

Adivasis have owned the land sought for building industries since time immemorial. The people who want their land are outsiders and the Adivasis are not to be blamed if they stay suspicious about them. What certainly was not appreciated by Adivasi leadership was the kind of hard bargain industry groups would drive on compensation for land and total rehabilitation package. Negotiations would break down leading to agitations against the outsiders. There would be incidences of violence and police interventions. Projects that were to usher in industrialisation to strike a balance between the economy’s farm and industry sectors would either be stalled or abandoned as was the case with Posco.

ALSO READ: Naveen Patnaik – The Accidental Chief Minister

Odisha has seen all that, ArcelorMittal sans its now Japanese partner in its first attempted outing in the mineral rich coastal state drew a blank and Tata Steel had to weather many a protest over land acquisition before it could start building a 3 million tonne (mt) mill at Kalinganagar in Odisha. Now the facility is being expanded to 8 mt from where capacity is to be further doubled in course of time. Peace and local communities’ favourable disposition to industrial development, besides consideration of raw materials availability and logistical advantage are prevailing upon Tata Steel CEO & managing director TV Narendran to double down on Odisha in particular for Group capacity expansion to over 40 mt.

A few years ago it acquired a 5.6 mt mill at Dhenkanal under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code as a stressed asset and more recently the government owned Neelachal Ispat, which is to become a robust 10 mt unit from a doddering 1 mt. But why has such a large section of corporate India from Lakshmi Mittal to Sajjan Jindal to Anil Agarwal to Kumar Mangalam Birla to Narendran is of late seeking a place in the sun of Odisha? Resources under Odisha’s earth have always been there. But the urgency to extract all that for local processing and value addition is felt more recently. What is the trigger for this change in corporate attitude to Odisha?

Self-introspection and deliberations with stakeholders, including the Adivasis and industry officials convinced Patnaik that the only way to cut the Gordian knot for acquiring large parcels of land for building steel plants and aluminium smelters is to convince land owning families that industrialisation will create for them many economic opportunities, besides fair compensation for parting with land and decent rehabilitation. At the same time, his message to industrialists was simple: be generous in compensating land givers and invest in comprehensive betterment of communities around factory areas. Tata Steel’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) work covering education, health, supply of clean water and skills development has set the benchmark for others.

For all this to happen, Patnaik had to conduct interlocution patiently and silently over a long time, without seeking any credit for the result unlike some of his counterparts in other states. That is not all. As we learnt at the conclave, the CM has made it a routine to check with investors in the state if there are uncalled for delays in delivery of promised services. Officers found to be slothful and corrupt are not spared at the instance of Patnaik.

In any case, by way of course correction following unsavoury experiences in acquiring land during 2004 to 2008, the principal sufferers being Posco and Tata Steel, which, however, didn’t waver from its goal of building the mill at Kalinganagar, the state government now boasts of having at its disposal around 160,000 acres of industry-ready land. Principal Secretary of industries department Hemant Sarin says the government’s “pro-people resettlement and rehabilitation policy” and development that has come in places such as Kalinganagar and Paradip have encouraged people to part with their land. Besides easy access to land, what investors want is political stability, a favourable industrial policy, quick dispersal of incentives and a pro-active administration facilitating seamless project implementation.

No wonder more than one industry captain was in agreement with Patnaik that “Odisha is destined to become a trillion-dollar economy in the near future.” What is encouraging is that investment intent received at the conclave at ₹10,48,830 crore far exceeded the state’s expectation by a long margin. All eastern states have a major unemployment problem and Odisha is no exception. An industry department official says that the announced investments going beyond minerals and metals into “22 diversified sectors including petrochemicals” should create well over 10 million direct and indirect employment.

As major industry groups made large investment commitments at the investor meet, Patnaik used the occasion to underline the importance of creation of large number of small and medium units (SMUs) in the downstream of metal producing units. At the conclave itself, he along with Jindal Stainless managing director Abhyuday Jindal virtually laid the foundation of an industrial park where using stainless steel from the mother plant at Jajpur, potentially about 100 SMUs will fabricate a host of industrial, architectural, kitchenware and lifestyle goods. In the meantime, by this financial year ending March 2023, Jindal Stainless melt capacity will be up to 2.1 mt from 1.1 mt, to figure among the world’s largest single location special steel mills, according to Jindal.

The proposed park to be built in two phases over six years will need an investment of over ₹1,500 crore. How does an industrial park of this kind work? Downstream factories get the metal from the mother unit directly. Their workers are trained and products mostly cobranded by the mother unit. The park also has the benefit of a good infrastructure and efficient logistics, thanks to promoter mother industry intervention. Patnaik also wants NALCO and Vedanta Group to commission their aluminium parks as quickly as possible.  

Acutely aware that large-scale industrialisation will leave an adverse impact on the climate because of the use of energy based on fossil fuels, principally coal, Patnaik want industries, specially the big ones to create sustainable energy production capacity. Responding to the call and also in its pursuit of zero emission target by 2050, Jindal Stainless is partnering with ReNew Power to build 300 MW capacity using the wind-solar hybrid route. This energy will be used to power its new stainless steel melt capacity to soon come on stream. In fact many other companies – standalone energy groups and manufacturing units – are readying plans to produce sustainable clean energy in Odisha blessed hugely with sun and wind.

Not only through mines development and manufacturing industry, Patnaik is also to seek redemption for his state by way of building high class educational institutions and hospitals to attract students and patients from all over the country. IT and ITES sectors are growing at a rapid clip. The state is now inviting investment in food processing, textiles, pharma, chemicals and biotechnology. Odisha economy is, however, principally dependent on agriculture. The challenges of the farm sector will be the subject of a separate article.

Tatas For Tribals in Jharkhand And Orissa

Tatas For Tribals

Mahatma Gandhi has been brutally honest in putting on record his thoughts and actions without caring for how others would interpret them. All this is startlingly evident in the Mahatma’s autobiographical work ‘My Experiments with Truth.’ One example of his steadfastness in saying things with frankness was his pronouncement on August 9, 1925 when on a visit to the then expanding steel city Jamshedpur that “I have sought the friendship of the capitalists to induce them to regard themselves as trustees for the benefits of labourers.” The question is whether the Mahatma prescription was directed at the promoters of Tata Steel or he used the occasion to remind “the capitalists” of the day, the foreign and local businessmen, of their role of “trusteeship.” Known for the homework that would precede his undertaking any visit, it is inconceivable that Gandhi was not aware of the recommendation of Jamsetji Nussewanji Tata: “In a free enterprise, the community is not just another stakeholder in business, but is in fact the very purpose of its existence” and how deeply this got embossed in his progeny in thinking and action.

Both the Mahatma and Rajendra Prasad, who accompanied him in Jamshedpur visit, must have come back impressed that the Tatas were pioneering labour welfare practices not at all in vogue then. In fact, quite a few benefits that were voluntarily bequeathed to Tata Steel employees by the management when the country was under British rule became mandatory in post-Independence. A few examples: Eight-hour working day was introduced at Jamshedpur factory in 1912 which became law in 1948. Employees of Tata Steel became entitled to leave with pay way back in 1920 and the country had to wait till 1948 for this to be enshrined in law. Similarly, they became beneficiaries of Provident Fund scheme again in 1920 while this became mandatory in 1952. Fast forward to present times. As the now multi-locational company has grown manifold in size and continues to adopt best practices in mining of a variety of minerals and making of a wide range of steel products with value addition and recycling getting focus, its welfare practices go well beyond caring for wellbeing of its employees to embrace communities.

By way of its mining and steelmaking operations, Tata Steel has a big presence in both Jharkhand and Odisha. According to the 2011 census, the two eastern states host large numbers of tribals and Scheduled Caste people. While 62 tribes found in Odisha constitute 22.85 per cent of the state population, 32 tribes in Jharkhand account for 26.21 per cent of local population. Members of tribal communities have for centuries derived their sustenance from mainly land (traditional farming, tendu leaves collection, etcetera) and they have generally lived on the margins of society. Low income, poor health caused largely by non-availability of safe drinking water and lack of sanitation and education bypassing the children, their world remained an area of darkness. Though cut off from mainstream of civilisation, the tribals have a rich repertoire of languages, songs and dances, musical instruments (now making their way into the mainstream), handicrafts and natural healing systems. Sourav Roy of Tata Steel Foundation (TSF), which has deep engagement with tribal communities, regrets that as many as around 800 of about 1,300 indigenous languages have been lost over the decades.

Roy wonders how come the tribals knew that the effective natural wall against spread of Covid-19 in their habitat was staying outdoor most of the time. Now a study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) says relative humidity (the amount of moisture in the air compared to the total moisture the air can hold at a given temperature before saturating and forming condensation) within the confinement of a home could influence the chances of contracting Covid-19. It further says if relative humidity at a household is above or less than 40-60%, then the risk of contracting Covid-19 and subsequent death go up. Being close to the nature and cut off from what is described as mainstream of life, the tribals have to be credited with wisdom passed from one generation to the next, scientific validity of some aspects of that the world’s leading academic institutions will more recently confirm. What about tribal medicines? Almost all tribal groups are credited with developing their traditional system of medicines along with dietary regulations for cure. They will collect herbs from around their habitations for making the drugs.

What is particularly remarkable is the use of same plant in different ways to make drugs for different diseases. There is a veil of secrecy about the ways the drugs are made. Scientists have reservations about tribal healers’ diagnosis and therapeutic practices. But the efficacy of their drugs for a number of ailments such as fever, cough and cold, stomach ache, rheumatism, diarrhoea and asthma has found wide recognition. In the way they find themselves, the tribals here and in other countries have to have their own survival kit. Incidentally, India is home to about 25 per cent of the world’s ethnic population, underlining its diverse cultural heritage.

For a long time since Independence, the government and non-official agencies remained undecided regarding the ideal degree of engagement with the indigenous population to be found in remote forest areas. On the one hand, was the world famous anthropologist Verrier Elwin (recommended reading The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin) who spent a major part of his life with tribals first at Bastar and then in Arunachal Pradesh and strongly believed that for preservation of “their ethnic identity, their social structures and their way of life,” they should be enabled to live outside the realm of mainstream of Indian society. Elwin feared of “unequal contest” between the tribal and non-tribal people in case they were to share common space. Perhaps seeing the fate of ethnic people in the US and Australia, he also was apprehensive of limitless exploitation of tribals if free access were given to outsiders to where they were domiciled. Many, however, believe the profound societal and economic changes that have happened in this country over the decades make Verrier Elwin kind of exclusivity redundant. The point needs some elaboration.

The tribals live in small hamlets far away from what we commonly understand as civilisation in distinctive ways. Their social contract, custom, cultural life, natural healing systems and livelihood have a richness of their own, albeit radically different from the mainstream. The question is can the twain meet without the tribals losing their identity. No efforts are to be spared to ensure that the tribals too are beneficiaries of the progress the country makes. TSF director Chanakya Chaudhary says: “Our constant endeavour is to make our engagement with tribal communities in a good number of districts of Jharkhand and Odisha where Tata Steel discharges its ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) deeper and deeper. We are profoundly aware of the richness of their nature based knowledge and life systems and conscious of sensitivities involved in any interface with ethnic communities. What is intellectually challenging is to look at development issues from their perspective and with a great amount of empathy. Through methodical interventions in thematic areas of education, nutrition, health, livelihood, safe drinking water supply and empowerment of women attempts are made to offer better living to indigenous people.” Chaudhary further says: “It’s not enough to take tribal children to schools in our universalisation of education campaign. Dropout rate is made negligible. At the same time, we have ensured that there is no child labour where we have CSR activities.”  What is all being done by TSF in consultation with tribal leadership involving local official and non-official agencies is what Professor Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze (his field work among tribals and Dalits is amazingly large in scope and in depth) have campaigned for long.

Education, which inevitably makes people aware of health and sanitation (Kerala is a shining example of that), is working wonders among people touched by TSF work. A spokesperson for government think tank Niti Aayog says: “The Indian corporate sector in general has never been too enthusiastic about CSR. This was one trigger for the government to make CSR mandatory under section 135 rules of the Companies Act in April 2014 requiring of companies to spend 2 per cent of their profits. Tata Steel is spending considerably more on CSR than required by law and its work among tribals and Dalits has proved to be effective in creating economic opportunities. I can tell you TSF work is putting pressure on other corporates in Jharkhand and Odisha to be proactive in discharging CSR responsibilities.”

This correspondent met with the young and energetic Sonia Munda at an all-India conclave of tribes at Jamshedpur. She is a shining example of life changing experience that education could alone bestow. In her own words: “My family is from Hatudami village of Khunti district of Jharkhand. During the great famine, my grandpa Jaimal Singh Munda had to move the family to Jamshedpur to avoid starvation. My father worked here as a locomotive driver. Here I am, a BE in computer science and also an alumnus of IIM Lucknow.” Or take Hercules Singh Munda, who is fascinated by the magic of tribal languages. “Languages give us the tribals an identity. I found it in Uganda that only 30 are left who could speak the once popular Soo. Many tribal languages have withered over time. There are many others like me whose life mission is to preserve the languages that are still used for communication.”  

As it would happen, the land where tribals in India live is virtually barren. But underneath that land is found rich mineral resources such as iron ore, bauxite, coal, manganese ore and chromite. Moreover, logistics demand that steel mills and aluminium smelters are ideally located close to raw material sources. That is why so many steel mills will be found in Odisha with very large investments by the likes of ArcelorMittal and JSW Steel to follow. Similarly, every Indian aluminium group from Vedanta to Hindalco to Nalco have alumina refineries cum smelters in Odisha. The fact, however, remains that all these industrial activities catapulting the country among the global steel and aluminium majors were made possible by the adivasis vacating the land inhabited by them for centuries. Not that there were not instances of industry-tribal conflict over land acquisition, in some cases marked by violence. Poor communication and lack of appreciation of tribal aspirations are always the twin reasons for costly delays in land acquisition for opening of mines and building of steels and aluminium smelters.

Rajiv Kumar, vice president of Tata Steel, based at Kalinganagar in Odisha since 2004 has seen it all. The immediate challenge for him on arrival was to win over the suspecting tribals to the side of a leading corporate committed to building a high technology and most cost efficient steel mill and at the same time create a “richer and healthier life for the local community.” “Not only has the company given monetary compensation to land givers many times over what it was required by law but it remains continuously engaged in dialogues with community representatives, government agencies and experts for undertaking development work for the community living around Kalinganagar plant,” says Kumar. While one member from each of the 1,234 families making over land for the Kalinganagar mill got a permanent job, contractors working at the site have created income opportunities for a much greater number of adivasis. The ethos that CEO and managing director TV Narendran is upholding is that looking after the community, specially the ones bypassed by economic and social development for ages is as important as making steel. This being the coporate culture, it is only expected Tata Steel will have a holistic approach to enriching the lives of tribals in Jharkhand and Odisha.

Educations alone and also helping students to gain some proficiency in mainstream languages are targets sought to be achieved by supporting state sponsored schools and the ones built by Tata Steel itself in both the states will bring the adivasis in the mainstream of formal civilisation and make them beneficiaries of economic development. Yet another CSR goal is to give ideas and skills, specially to tribal women for use to supplement family income. Take Sanju Jarika whose father in law parted with his principal land parcel for Kalinganagar steel mill. In another plot of land that the Jarika family owns not far from the steel plant, Sanju and her husband, trained in farm institutes, are growing vegetables, including exotic ones such as mushroom and cherry tomatoes, organically and they have found a market for them. Sanju’s success is inspiring many others to recover their land from aridness and grow crops to raise their income. Come to Harichandanpur block in Keonjhar district where intervention by TSF has changed the way of tasar (one of four varieties of silk, including mulberry, muga and eerie) cultivation by around 890 farmers. “Not only have we made them aware of producing tasar scientifically, but we have also seen that families engaged in the activity earn around Rs2 lakh annually by also growing crops round the year,” says a TSF official. The leitmotif is empower the tribals through education, do handholding for some time and impart skills and ideas, the result will surprise you to no end.

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

Chief Minister of Orissa

The Accidental Chief Minister

Who is this Naveen Patnaik? An accidental politician thrust into the office of chief minister of Orissa (since renamed Odisha) to fill a vacuum created by the demise of Biju Patnaik, a larger than life man seen as the one who dreamed of a modern industrial state or one by choice who believed that nothing of substance would happen to the state unless the malady of corruption was rooted out and the administration was rid of slothfulness? Patnaik had occasions to say that he would have loved to spend his life as a writer – incidentally, his elder sister New York-based Gita Mehta has to her credit books such as A River Sutra, Karma Cola and Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India – but then “you find me in this role.”

Three years after founding the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Patnaik first became chief minister of Orissa in 2000 and has won all the five Assembly elections with impressive margins to remain the country’s longest serving state government head with a kind of record that is envy of every other CM. What distinguishes Patnaik is his relentless campaign against corruption. He remains ruthless in ridding ministers and bureaucrats found indulging in making deals at the cost of the state. This crusading zeal sadly missing among most present day politicians is one of the two considerations of investors; the other is making the bureaucracy energetic enough not to sit back on investment proposals, for fancying Odisha.

A corruption free (at least to the extent that investors are not complaining about any favours they might be giving for work to be done) administration is never enough to attract investment. Among the other more compelling requirements are the quality of infrastructure, raw materials availability and supply of skilled manpower. The credit goes entirely to Biju Patnaik, the architect of a modern industrialising Odisha, that the state owns all-season, deep-draft Paradip Port, which last financial year handled a record cargo volume of 116.13 million tonnes. The big risk taker and visionary that he was, Biju Patanaik brushed aside the Centre’s objection to finance Paradip Port project and mobilised the resources on his own to give shape to his vision. The port was commissioned in March 1966, giving the state crying for industrialisation, a major break in infrastructure and logistics. Odisha saw commissioning of another major all-season, deep-draft, multi-user port when Tata Steel in equal partnership with engineering behemoth Larsen & Toubro commissioned the Dhamra Port at Bhadrok district in May 2011.

An example of the growing pull of Odisha among big ticket investors was the Adani Group taking over the port in May 2014 and now working on an ambitious plan to speedily ramp up cargo handling capacity to 300 million tonnes in phases. The state has several other minor ports, including one at Gopalpur. This is as it should be since the state has a coastline of around 450 kms. Paradip Port is the reason that in an adjacent area Indian Oil Corporation built a 15 million tonne refinery at an investment of ₹34,555 crore.

A senior Bhubaneswar based editor of an Odia daily says: “Biju Babu used to say prosperity will remain elusive unless we have industries. In pursuit of industrialisation, he wanted his bureaucrats to stop indulging in writing long notes. Instead, he wanted them to become agents of change, particularly in creating an investor friendly environment. Not only has Naveen acquired that trait of his father, but he has gone a step forward in demanding of them to deliver results without anyone pointing a finger at them. Big man Biju Babu was forgiving in many ways. Naveen has zero tolerance for corruption and also for incompetence. If you ask me I will say Naveen’s approach to administration has brought a breath of fresh air in national politics.”

Unlike many opposition leaders, including West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Naveen hasn’t so far betrayed any national ambition. His focus remains to place Odisha among the country’s highly industrialised states, based largely on its rich mineral resources.  No doubt, Naveen is succeeding in reaching that goal. He has also stood out among opposition stalwarts in another way. Being a believer in the country’s federal system, he doesn’t think it proper to go out of the way to criticise either prime minister Narendra Modi or the union government. That way he commands the respect of people at large. Investors in particular don’t want to be caught in the cross fire of centre-state quarrels. His clear instruction to his ministers and senior bureaucrats is that in case they have a problem with the centre, then they should make all efforts to resolve it through discussion instead of making it public at the outset.

Naveen expectedly campaigned hard during the 2019 assembly elections that coincided with the Lok Sabha poll crisscrossing the state. As has now become the norm in all opposition run states, it is on the strength of popularity of the chief minister that candidates of ruling party BJD secures votes. In the last elections, BJD won 112 of 147 seats, albeit down five seats over last time. What distinguished Naveen’s campaign was that he never foul-mouthed Modi. He is too civilised to come down to that level. Critics will say Naveen’s realpolitik is based on practical consideration and it has got nothing to do with ideology or principles. Whatever it is, this honourable disposition of the chief minister may be the reason why central clearances for projects relating to Odisha generally come through in time.

Ports are one component of infrastructure. But Odisha being India’s most minerals rich state, ports provide a gateway for exports of iron ore, bauxite (alumina), ferro-alloys, etcetera and also ex-im of several minerals, either not found at all such as nickel or not in sufficient quantities such as metallurgical coal and metals. In the past decade and a half, Odisha has made impressive strides in building multi-lane highways. But what the state urgently needs is much improved railway network and rakes availability. In the past many years, power plants, including the ones captive to industries such as aluminium smelters, ferro-alloys and steel had to do with restricted supply of coal because of rake shortages and production disruptions at coal mines during the monsoon. A feeling prevails in the state that since the railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, a retired Odisha cadre IAS officer, has good appreciation of the state’s requirements of rail services, rapid improvements are to happen. Air connectivity between the capital city Bhubaneswar and the rest of the country continues to improve with more flights being added periodically.

Investors are basically eyeing the state’s rich mineral resources for processing into metals. Tata Steel is here for a very long time as producer of iron ore. But for some years, it is running a steel mill at Kalinganagar, which is being substantially expanded to 8 million tonnes. The Jindal family through JSPL has a large carbon steel plant and through JSL the country’s largest stainless steel unit in Odisha. The largest Jindal family controlled JSW Steel has in the meantime received environmental clearances to set up a greenfield 13.2 million tonne mill at Paradip at an estimated investment of Rs65,000 crore. Now ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel joint venture proposing an investment of over 1 lakh crore to build a 24 million tonne steel mill in Kendrapara district has the promise of a unique venture in terms of size, promising to be the world’s largest single location plant and use of green technology. The chief minister himself has played an important role in bringing the project to Odisha.

The Adani Group has readied investment of Rs57,575 crore to build a 4 million tonne alumina refinery and also a 30 million tonne iron ore project along with commitment to use as much green energy as possible. Anil Agarwal shepherded Vedanta Group, which already has a massive presence in the aluminium chain in Odisha is once again investing Rs25,000 crore for capacity expansion in white metal and ferrochrome. Besides minerals-based industries, the chief minister wants Odisha to become a major destination for small and medium enterprises adding value to locally produced aluminium and steel. National Aluminium Company is soon to commission an aluminium park at Angul where the units will have the benefit of supply of molten metal from the next door NALCO smelter. Like that a park for plastic products will be built. Leave aside industries, the capital city Bhubaneswar, expanding in all directions, is fast emerging as an important hub for education and health, in a way taking the wind out of Kolkata’s sails.

As most of the promised mega, medium and small projects are being implemented, the state though now self-reliant in electricity will have to create new power generation capacity. Being richly endowed in thermal coal, the natural tendency will be to build coal-fired electricity capacity. Mercifully, Patnaik has set his priorities right in inviting investors to derive energy from green sources such as solar, wind and mini and micro hydel units. The sun shines bright on Odisha for most of the year and it is also blessed with a long coastline. Therefore, building solar and wind energy is not a big challenge for the state. The installed power capacity in Odisha in 2021 March end was 8,594 MW out of 382 gigawatts for the country. People caring for the environment will expect Naveen Patnaik to secure sufficient private investment in all forms of green energy so that pollution caused by burning of coal is capped at a certain level.

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/