Holy cow in the Air

30,000 crore more for Air India to turn it around. Hope against hope to make this airline profitable, at least the cabinet thinks it can be done. Will this be the last tranche of support for the ever ailing Maharaja. Can it be ever turned around to make it viable and sold out. Only its real estate will be attractive to a buyer, its core operations are mis-managed.

We are perhaps the only country to have a minister for civil aviation whose most important job is to manage Air India apart from setting civil aviation policy. Civil aviation ministers suffer from megalomania, we can add the Rail ministers too to this category. With 63,000 cr debt this institution is surviving because the government has no other option. There is proof around the world that Airline business is difficult to run and the most well managed private airlines are barely profitable. By that standards Air India can never be profitable, its history over the past 2 decades is a proof.

30,000 cr is a lot of money that could have been better put to use by the government. Build quality one room + kitchen houses to 12 lakh poor (2.5 lakh/house) or develop Infrastructure in hundreds of villages.

3 years down the line after spending some 10,000 crore we will be back to the same discussion on how to turn around this white elephant which is constantly bleeding the taxpayer. Meanwhile our politicians and babus must be relieved that their holy cow in the air has survived once again. Else like anyone of us they would have to suffer standing in line to check in and be on time for the flight or shown the door.

Civil aviation industry in India is suffering due to lack of coherent policies and adequate government support. Designing progressive policies, their regulation and monitoring should be government’s job not running unprofitable businesses with taxpayers money.

Open the doors

Supreme court's yet another positive intervention in upholding constitutional validity of RTE - Right to Education is most welcome. It is criminal to deny education for our children and there is no doubt that every delay will result in delaying India achieving full literacy and all round development.

Government run public schools will not have an issue in implementing the directive. This is about 80% of the schools in India. However with the poor infrastructure and lack of accountability quality outcomes are not expected from these schools. Here's where the government needs to plough in funds and make the public schools vibrant. Education is the primary responsibility of the government and they should not pretend to have outsourced it to the private sector.

Coming to the private schools they have too many problems with the judgement, their objections are silly. Fundamentally they operate for profit and hence their objections for doing anything which is not profitable, their back of the envelope calculations with 25% seats reserved would have shown their profits come down. Also they do not want the daughter of a maid to be in the same class of the owner. They are ridiculosuly class consicous. These institutions should be audited for fraud and class discrimination they subscribe to.

Having said that the real problem of the directive is, practicality of its implementation and more importantly governments intent.

An incident that happened two days back will give us a dose of reality on the issue of child education in India-

I was on a visit to Delhi along with my friends and went to chandini chowk area for lunch in "parathe wali galli". We were served sumptuous parathas by a boy named pappu. Pappu was young and sprightly and i could not stop asking him why he was not at school and why he was working.He talked about the familiar story of father being drunk and his support needed for the family to survive. Mean while the eatery owner was upset that i was talking about education and started shouting on Pappu. There are many such boys and girls in restaurants and shops across the country who are missing the road to quality life. Who will put these boys and girls in schools ?

If you are following the liquor scam in AP it is yet another example of how low down governance has gone in the state. It is not unknown that cartels run the trade and there is much give and take between the cartels and politicians but the money changing hands in terms of deal payoffs amounting to INR 750 cr is a shocker.

ACB raids have shown direct and indirect linkage between the liquor barons and many serving ministers. An embarrassed government has done the next best thing of transferring out the man in charge of the raids Mr. Srinivas Reddy to a low profile job.
Liquor business is and has been a money spinning trade for politicians in the state, auctions are fixed, selling over MRP is overlooked, Benami ownership is rampant (in some cases holders of “antyodaya cards “are shown as the owners of the liquor shops (antyodaya card holders receive 35 kg of rice every month, they are the real BPL as per definition).

It is a sordid tale of unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats conniving together to make money out of the hapless citizen. There is no rule and rhyme in giving out the licenses, there are liquor shops within 100 mts apart, there are shops on the highways and cartels run the trade all over the state.

The increasing consumption of liquor and its effects on health is not even up for discussion; our leaders are busy doling out more licenses. They want the citizens to be in an intoxicated permanently. Go to any village and suburb, working class and poor people are spending away their hard earned daily wages on liquor. It is a vicious cycle of liquor consumption, family, health, poverty etc. Politicians have kept the masses under their thumbs.

One should read what Aacharya Chankya said about control of liquor business in Arthshastra. Decidedly his views are more cogent and socially responsible than the current bunch of selfish leaders. Our state excise minister himself is accused of being a cartel member. He should read Acharya chanakya -

“Aacharya Chanakya has described the rights and duties of Suradhyksha in his Arthshastra as below :
Suradhyksha should give permits to only those experienced traders who have sound family background of liquor trade in Durg, Janpath, Skandavar (Cantonment). Suradhyksha could centralize or decentralize the trade of liquor. One who is found producing, selling-purchasing or consuming liquor outside the fixed place should be fined 600 Panka (coins). Suradhyksha should make arrangements to stop intoxicated people going out of village; to each other’s houses or to public places. Only citizen who’s good conduct is known to Suradhyksha could take liquor stamped with Rajmudra in little magnitude as -- one fourth Kunduv half Kunduv, one Kunduv, half Prashta or one Prastha. Those who were not allowed to take liquor outside could drink either in Bars or at vends of liquor. If any drunkard tries to purchase liquor by mortgaging something or paying illegal money (owner of which is not known) or makes payment through precious liquidity etc. then the shopkeeper should send him to some other place and hand him over to police with the help of liquor officer. A person who spends more than his income or does not save anything for future because of drinking liquor may also be handed over to police.