Home
Publications
Search
Register
Log inWhere everyone has the power of the veto
4 posters
Page 1 of 1
Where everyone has the power of the veto
by Merlot Daruwala Mon Sep 30, 2013 1:51 am
Here's a good explanation for why the UPA govt is in complete shambles and why Shri NaDamoMo's strongman ways holds such a seductive appeal to the urban middle-class: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/national-interest-ive-got-the-veto-power/1172122/0
Where government has no leader whose writ runs, and where everybody seems to have the power to veto and block anything. Our country, he said, had become like Poland of the 16th to 18th century.
Apparently, in that period, Poland had a system whereby each member of its parliament had a veto. So, any member of parliament could block any decision. Everything, as a result, came to a standstill....
....We have seen all and sundry — even four Andhra Pradesh MPs from the TDP on the Telangana issue — block our Parliament. Two AGP MPs blocked a vital constitutional amendment to sanctify a strategic agreement with Bangladesh by snatching the draft from the hands of External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, and so on. The virus has proliferated beyond our Parliament. It afflicts the entire cabinet, our regulators and the bureaucracy. So we now have the entire establishment staffed by omnipotent "no-men".
The most striking, of course, is our ministry of commerce and industry (or rather, the Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy, DIPP). The veto there has trickled down to the joint secretary level. One of them can routinely produce truly exotic objections to any new reform, particularly if it involves a three-letter abomination called FDI. From FDI in retail to the relaxation of foreign investment in aviation, and now to what is described as "brownfield pharma", the ministry's mid-level bureaucracy has done everything possible to block investment while its remit is to promote it.
And it isn't the only one. At every meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI), an innovation created to save the economy from this strangulating maze of vetoes, one case after another pops up with similar issues. Environment, the usual suspect, cleared a major power plant in May 2012, but hasn't as yet issued a simple letter to the entrepreneur saying so. The coal ministry, which complains most of all that everybody else, from environment, railways and power to tribal affairs, is blocking its plans, is a quiet champion by itself in slaying others' projects. Railways are the worst. Ask anybody, including its niftier offspring, the Delhi Metro, what an impossible challenge it is to merely get right of way to build a flyover across a rail line.
This "I've got the veto power" madness bedevils more than the economy and infrastructure. Take human resources development. Almost all reform and modernisation has come to a standstill ever since arguably its weakest minister in 15 years took over. Decisions already taken, even Indian private universities already sanctioned, are not moving, because the minister has given the Left a veto. Why so, when the Left has just 38 MPs in a parliament with an existing strength of 787? Because, through propaganda and persuasion, it dominates the parliamentary committee on HRD and it says no to all reforms. Of course, this is by no means binding on the government. But the minister is too pusillanimous to overrule it. That utterly unconstitutional veto becomes a lazy, do-nothing government's most convenient excuse.
When nobody at the top has the spine to kick an obstructionist in the butt, this veto power travels downwards. In the capital, for example, the new airport was contracted out through open, public bids that involved the construction of a certain number of hotels of a given height. It is only after the hotels were built that somebody in Delhi Police woke up to the "opportunity" that was being lost. So security threat became their "Nie Pozwalam!" Construction was stopped, the airport owners (which includes the sarkari Airports Authority of India) and their lender banks were all left stranded for months. Now they are spending enormous amounts of money on blocking all windows with bulletproof glass and raising the modern equivalent of a Great Wall of China, or at least the Tihar fencing, around the aerocity (besides some tributes here and there), so nobody can take a potshot at the planes on the runway. Nobody is to ask how somebody would smuggle in long-range guns through hotel security. Of course, nobody is also to ask why there are no such concerns at the Mumbai airport, where slums extend deep into the perimeter and where one could happily park oneself with a well-sited bazooka or a heavy machine gun.
These arbitrary, unconstitutional and obstructionist veto powers go unchallenged because of weak governance, where every decision or idea has to pass the test of the last man's NOC (no objection certificate). This creates unchecked and monetisable power centres. One has to be reckless to say this, but since somebody has to be thick-skinned enough to say so, what the hell. Whenever you see a story about the navy objecting to another tall building in Mumbai on security grounds — after it's been built — the word that comes to your mind is ATM. If the only threat facing our navy's assets in its largest safe harbour is spies hanging out of the windows and balconies of civilian buildings, it should start by shutting down the Taj in Colaba. And if that would save this aspiring blue water navy the awful embarrassment of losing genuine capital assets in peacetime — the latest, submarine INS Sindhurakshak, in the same harbour, in fact — we can shift all the tall buildings out of south Mumbai, in the national interest. The truth is, the navy has a veto on construction in India's most expensive island.
And it's done nothing for the navy's reputation and preparedness. When one skyscraper is allowed to rise and the other, next to it, is locked up, all that comes to your mind is Adarsh. There is no starker example of a monetisable veto than that scandalous building, the likes of which run into scores in Mumbai.
India as 17th century Poland may sound like a quaint idea, but people are now getting fed up. In fact, this indecision and uncertainty is feeding the clamour for a more decisive leadership, aka Narendra Modi. It is the UPA's most grievous, self-inflicted wound, and an election-season gift to the BJP. The pity is, two generations of Indians will pay for it, in more ways than one.
Where government has no leader whose writ runs, and where everybody seems to have the power to veto and block anything. Our country, he said, had become like Poland of the 16th to 18th century.
Apparently, in that period, Poland had a system whereby each member of its parliament had a veto. So, any member of parliament could block any decision. Everything, as a result, came to a standstill....
....We have seen all and sundry — even four Andhra Pradesh MPs from the TDP on the Telangana issue — block our Parliament. Two AGP MPs blocked a vital constitutional amendment to sanctify a strategic agreement with Bangladesh by snatching the draft from the hands of External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, and so on. The virus has proliferated beyond our Parliament. It afflicts the entire cabinet, our regulators and the bureaucracy. So we now have the entire establishment staffed by omnipotent "no-men".
The most striking, of course, is our ministry of commerce and industry (or rather, the Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy, DIPP). The veto there has trickled down to the joint secretary level. One of them can routinely produce truly exotic objections to any new reform, particularly if it involves a three-letter abomination called FDI. From FDI in retail to the relaxation of foreign investment in aviation, and now to what is described as "brownfield pharma", the ministry's mid-level bureaucracy has done everything possible to block investment while its remit is to promote it.
And it isn't the only one. At every meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI), an innovation created to save the economy from this strangulating maze of vetoes, one case after another pops up with similar issues. Environment, the usual suspect, cleared a major power plant in May 2012, but hasn't as yet issued a simple letter to the entrepreneur saying so. The coal ministry, which complains most of all that everybody else, from environment, railways and power to tribal affairs, is blocking its plans, is a quiet champion by itself in slaying others' projects. Railways are the worst. Ask anybody, including its niftier offspring, the Delhi Metro, what an impossible challenge it is to merely get right of way to build a flyover across a rail line.
This "I've got the veto power" madness bedevils more than the economy and infrastructure. Take human resources development. Almost all reform and modernisation has come to a standstill ever since arguably its weakest minister in 15 years took over. Decisions already taken, even Indian private universities already sanctioned, are not moving, because the minister has given the Left a veto. Why so, when the Left has just 38 MPs in a parliament with an existing strength of 787? Because, through propaganda and persuasion, it dominates the parliamentary committee on HRD and it says no to all reforms. Of course, this is by no means binding on the government. But the minister is too pusillanimous to overrule it. That utterly unconstitutional veto becomes a lazy, do-nothing government's most convenient excuse.
When nobody at the top has the spine to kick an obstructionist in the butt, this veto power travels downwards. In the capital, for example, the new airport was contracted out through open, public bids that involved the construction of a certain number of hotels of a given height. It is only after the hotels were built that somebody in Delhi Police woke up to the "opportunity" that was being lost. So security threat became their "Nie Pozwalam!" Construction was stopped, the airport owners (which includes the sarkari Airports Authority of India) and their lender banks were all left stranded for months. Now they are spending enormous amounts of money on blocking all windows with bulletproof glass and raising the modern equivalent of a Great Wall of China, or at least the Tihar fencing, around the aerocity (besides some tributes here and there), so nobody can take a potshot at the planes on the runway. Nobody is to ask how somebody would smuggle in long-range guns through hotel security. Of course, nobody is also to ask why there are no such concerns at the Mumbai airport, where slums extend deep into the perimeter and where one could happily park oneself with a well-sited bazooka or a heavy machine gun.
These arbitrary, unconstitutional and obstructionist veto powers go unchallenged because of weak governance, where every decision or idea has to pass the test of the last man's NOC (no objection certificate). This creates unchecked and monetisable power centres. One has to be reckless to say this, but since somebody has to be thick-skinned enough to say so, what the hell. Whenever you see a story about the navy objecting to another tall building in Mumbai on security grounds — after it's been built — the word that comes to your mind is ATM. If the only threat facing our navy's assets in its largest safe harbour is spies hanging out of the windows and balconies of civilian buildings, it should start by shutting down the Taj in Colaba. And if that would save this aspiring blue water navy the awful embarrassment of losing genuine capital assets in peacetime — the latest, submarine INS Sindhurakshak, in the same harbour, in fact — we can shift all the tall buildings out of south Mumbai, in the national interest. The truth is, the navy has a veto on construction in India's most expensive island.
And it's done nothing for the navy's reputation and preparedness. When one skyscraper is allowed to rise and the other, next to it, is locked up, all that comes to your mind is Adarsh. There is no starker example of a monetisable veto than that scandalous building, the likes of which run into scores in Mumbai.
India as 17th century Poland may sound like a quaint idea, but people are now getting fed up. In fact, this indecision and uncertainty is feeding the clamour for a more decisive leadership, aka Narendra Modi. It is the UPA's most grievous, self-inflicted wound, and an election-season gift to the BJP. The pity is, two generations of Indians will pay for it, in more ways than one.
Merlot Daruwala- Posts : 5005
Join date : 2011-04-29
Re: Where everyone has the power of the veto
by truthbetold Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:52 am
Yes. What a pity. All these parliament disruptions caused the common man real problems by blocking the passage of bill on removing disqualification of convicted criminals.
These disruptions forced laloo to be disqualified from parliament. That certainly harms the fight against anti secular forces. What a loss to common man.
These disruptions forced laloo to be disqualified from parliament. That certainly harms the fight against anti secular forces. What a loss to common man.
truthbetold- Posts : 6799
Join date : 2011-06-07
Re: Where everyone has the power of the veto
by Merlot Daruwala Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:08 am
Yes. Thank you very much for your highly coherent, extremely relevant and terribly cogent contribution to this discussion. It is very impressive that you are able to keep the coherence / cogency levels unchanged despite switching from your normal 500-word essays to this highly concise, abbreviated form. Rare indeed is your talent.truthbetold wrote:Yes. What a pity. All these parliament disruptions caused the common man real problems by blocking the passage of bill on removing disqualification of convicted criminals.
These disruptions forced laloo to be disqualified from parliament. That certainly harms the fight against anti secular forces. What a loss to common man.
Merlot Daruwala- Posts : 5005
Join date : 2011-04-29
Re: Where everyone has the power of the veto
by southindian Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:12 am
Don't know if I read this correctly.truthbetold wrote:Yes. What a pity. All these parliament disruptions caused the common man real problems by blocking the passage of bill on removing disqualification of convicted criminals.
These disruptions forced laloo to be disqualified from parliament. That certainly harms the fight against anti secular forces. What a loss to common man.
Disqualification of Convicted Criminals from the Indian Parliament bad? How? I can't believe someone could write this.
And you find Convicted Criminal Laloo Yadav the best politician to fight against anti-secular forces?
I don't know what to say when it comes to people's choices.
southindian- Posts : 4643
Join date : 2012-10-08
Re: Where everyone has the power of the veto
by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:53 pm
Oh well.. if the PiSS group and elite groups have qualms about 4 generations paying for the Nehru-Italian dynasty, nothing wrong in 2 generations paying for BJP and NaMo's strong arm method.Merlot Daruwala wrote:Here's a good explanation for why the UPA govt is in complete shambles and why Shri NaDamoMo's strongman ways holds such a seductive appeal to the urban middle-class: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/national-interest-ive-got-the-veto-power/1172122/0
India as 17th century Poland may sound like a quaint idea, but people are now getting fed up. In fact, this indecision and uncertainty is feeding the clamour for a more decisive leadership, aka Narendra Modi. It is the UPA's most grievous, self-inflicted wound, and an election-season gift to the BJP. The pity is, two generations of Indians will pay for it, in more ways than one.
Marathadi-Saamiyaar- Posts : 17675
Join date : 2011-04-30
Age : 110
Similar topics» He will Veto
» men in power
» people power
» The Power of Silence
» Who would you like to see in power in India?
» men in power
» people power
» The Power of Silence
» Who would you like to see in power in India?
Page 1 of 1
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum