Bye Bye 2015 ....... Happy New Year 2016

2015 was the litmus test year of the Modi Govt and Modi style of politics and functioning. Mr Modi promised moon to the people while contesting elections in 2014. In reality, we knew a lot of it is marketing plank or promises before elections. It was to Mr Modi’s that he could sell it and people bought it as well. Achhe din (Better Days) are still a distant dream. But Mr Modi fired his power behind every idea he sold to the people. Whether those ideas culminate into something, only time will tell, we still have three and half years.

DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) seems to be working but long time to make it overall success. When it comes to the politics, Congress showed the same chip to BJP and BJP had performed in the opposition. But a good part came out of it, Mr Modi followed his words of sabka saath, sabka vikas by talking to opposition leaders to allow the House to function. Let’s see how Congress tries to scuttle next time and whether anything good comes out of it or not. But the House will function this year. Rajya Sabha equations are bound to change a little with BJP gaining more voice in the Upper House.

Aamir commenting on intolerance became a laughing reference for social media and the media alike. The issue of intolerance did take a lot of media coverage and perhaps some fear in the minds of the minorities. Certainly this issue will carry forward in 2016. Congress can do such things and nobody will notice but high pitched speeches of hard working PM does get a drubbing for not anything on sensitive issues.

RSS mouthpiece costed heavily on the BJP fate in Bihar elections. With Lalu 2.0 and Nitish’s third term drubbed BJP in the State elections. PM’s sharp jibe and derogatory remarks on Lalu and Nitish were derogatory to his chair even if apt for the leaders of Bihar. Delhi Assembly became AAP’s headquarters with 67 out of 70 seats won by them. AAP’s fights with the Central Govt. continued through most of the year and will continue through 2016 as well. Elections in five states of 2016, that too bigwigs, like UP, WB and TN and small ones, Kerala and Assam will witness less of Modi, as he is PM, he should be PM and not BJP chief campaign voice.

On international diplomacy, Mr Modi held various public meetings and displayed strength of Indian diaspora in USA (East and West Cost), UK, Canada, Australia and so on. India is definitely gaining respect in those high diplomatic circles. He ended the year with a surprise visit to India’s distant brother and arch enemy, Pakistan and hugging Nawaz Sharif wherein Nawaz Sharif broke the protocol to receive Indian PM at the airport. What happens next in Indo-Pak relations is a deep story which only time will reveal?

The need to build healthier planet, India and Mr Modi made waves in the Paris Climate Summit and India won acclaim from developed world for the progress in the solar space. Developed world reflected on toeing India’s line on solar policy. Whether India brings developed finances for carbon credits or not is a long term play.

Oil, a major pain point of Manmohan Singh Govt. had dropped to $40 making economy a cakewalk for the Modi Govt. India’s largest import bill is for oil. With oil cooling, it was respite for the Govt. forex outflow and Govt. kept hiking taxes on the same which ensured they could meet the budget targets alongwith the development. It will continue to slide or lay low for the coming year.

Onions made everybody cry this year followed by tomatoes for a while and then we had new price index for pulses. A common food’s cheap of rice and dal is suddenly expensive. It will be interesting to watch whether Govt. will try to bring correction. Highly unlikely, these are the new levels and we may see few more points hike in the same.

Yakub Menon was hanged to death and the week before his hanging, like his life was wavering from hope and despair and so was country heavily and deeply through those days. The marauder of Priya Singh, who said, ghusa usme or the only survivor of the rape convicts raised brouhaha and protests because of his early release as juvenile detainee. A change in law was required and has been brought in.

Indian economy is holding put against all the odds and the global turmoil that is happening especially the great commodity crash. The stock markets lost 26% during the year with some of the big heavyweights taking the lead. Economy may perform with some of the major projects undertaken by the Govt. which will keep it floating. The markets are expected to recover due to great fall but with the US crisis looming, it is hoping against hope but it will hold fort.

Banking crisis which was a mess earlier is now a pile of rubble. In addition of the already deteriorating bank finances and the core sector companies not performing, cement, steel, coal, power, etc aluminium and copper are also joining the league. Hopefully Govt. does the cleaning act quickly which is the requirement of the day.

Technology space will break new barriers as we already record investments in the space with Flipkart, Ola, Amazon and Uber becoming part of everybody’s life and space. More consumer related apps will be successful and function in the market. Plus Google, Microsoft and Facebook will be offering free internet services in rural India through balloons, jets flying in the stratosphere or perhaps a signal from the moon.

And the year ended with the last laugh by Shah Rukh Khan, as the campaign started to boycott his film, Dilwale, due to his intolerant statement, remarks or whatever it was. He made the most horrible movie of his career that even protestors were put to shame.

Private vs Public Interest

This piece is written by Sucheta Dalal on the fued amongst Ambani brothers.

Anil Ambani talking about public interest is funny. But it seems only family feuds can throw light on a lot of murky deals. Few people in India understand the complex business of oil & gas pricing. So long as everything was a sarkari monopoly, there wasn’t any need to, especially because most utilities were subsidised for the ordinary person. Privatisation has meant deal-making, allegations of corruption and a sharp increase in prices. How does an ordinary person cut through the allegations, untruths and rhetoric between the Ambani brothers to figure out whether our utilities are priced right and the country’s natural resources are exploited for private benefit?

Unfortunately, most people do not care and see the battle between the Ambani brothers as a modern-day Mahabharat with all its trappings of wealth, power and glamour. But can we afford to ignore the core issues? If we do, we will have another Enron-like situation, where an unscrupulous US company worked a dubious deal with our netas and babus and silenced most of the media through pressure or incentives. A decade later, Enron’s plant (at three times the original capacity) remains shut and unviable in a power-starved country.

In its previous term, the UPA government remained a mute spectator to the brazen partisanship of the then telecom minister, D Raja, on issues of spectrum allocation and pricing. Even the Prime Minister’s Office pleaded helplessness over reining in the minister. Anil Ambani was then the happy beneficiary of the system. Much earlier, when Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliance Telecom, it was Anil Ambani who exposed the allocation of a whopping one crore shares to the late Pramod Mahajan’s kin to facilitate Reliance’s backdoor entry into the mobile telecom space by flouting all existing rules.

What is the connection between Enron, telecom and the war for gas between the Ambani brothers? In the 1990s, Enron’s arrogant muscle-flexing and inducements caused long-term damage to India’s power sector liberalisation. It is we, the people, who have paid the price.

The telecom industry spends huge money on advertising which gives it significant clout. That is why the media, barring occasional exceptions, is at pains to remain neutral while reporting the wrangling and twisting of policy that ensured huge profits to the industry. Both the Ambani brothers have benefited from this fact when they controlled Reliance Telecom at different times.

Now again, editors don’t want to be in the awkward position of having to take a stand on the gas issue. It would mean choosing between the warring brothers, who are both extremely powerful. So one celebrity editor, briefed and fed on an exclusive basis by PR persons on both sides, is none the wiser and wants the Supreme Court to decide the issue. That will, indeed, be the ultimate solution, but shouldn’t the media do its job of discussing issues, gathering expert views and presenting facts? The media will be aggressively intrusive on something like the Aarushi murder case and even destroy lives. But when two industry giants, with huge media budgets, fight a bloody war, we would rather take the issues out of the public domain, advice everybody to do the same and allow the Supreme Court to decide.

Interestingly, nobody knows this better than Anil Ambani himself. And, luckily, he has the power to buy himself a voice by spending crores of rupees to plant one blistering question a day on the front pages of every national newspaper. At the time of going to the press, four questions had been asked and six more are apparently in the pipeline. The questions he has posed are certainly of interest to the public and irrespective of issues that the brothers may have over sharing their stupendous wealth, we the ordinary people, need some answers.

Let’s paraphrase the questions so far. Anil Ambani is suggesting through his questions and other statements that Mukesh Ambani is using the support of petroleum minister Murli Deora to tweak policy and give Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) ‘super normal profit’ at the cost of public sector entities. In all this, the government would earn only Rs 500 crore. He says:

# The Petroleum Ministry wants NTPC to pay 80% more for gas, than what RIL had voluntarily offered it earlier, causing a Rs 30,000 crore loss to NTPC.
# The Petroleum Ministry has approved “a shockingly disproportionate 400% hike in the project cost” of RIL’s KG D6 gas field, from Rs 12,000 crore to Rs 45,000 crore. This will cause a loss of Rs 30,000 crore to the government and increase retail power tariffs by 50% or more.
# While global gas prices have dropped 80%, the Petroleum Ministry wants power and fertiliser companies to pay 20% more for gas from RIL.
# RIL’s KG D6 gas field is operating at only 40% capacity and can treble its production, creating an artificial scarcity and demanding a higher price.

These and other such questions that Anil Ambani has posed need to be answered. They are not about a property battle. So far, RIL has issued a single statement saying, “We emphatically refute and outrightly reject the baseless, tendentious and motivated allegations and insinuations…” It also calls itself a mere contractor for the government excavating gas from the KG basin. This is hard to swallow.

RIL must put facts on the table. And if it has its own stories about how Anil Ambani twists policy for his benefit, let’s hear those, too. For instance, we would all like to know why ADAG’s tariffs in Mumbai are soaring while the Tatas are able to supply power at more reasonable rates.

When it comes to mega-infrastructure projects, utilities (including telecom) and natural resources (land, water, mines), the lack of information has allowed a tiny elite to manipulate policy by agreeing to share the loot with our venal politicians. A few more family feuds and corporate wars are just the cleanser that we need.