State entry into media?

The TRAI has introduced recommendations against the entry of state and central government entering the broadcast sector.

According to this EPW article, TRAI bases its recommendation on a questionable premise:

Quoting from a 1995 Supreme Court judgment, when the media scene was vastly different from what it is today, TRAI suggests that allowing government bodies into the business of broadcasting is not conducive to a healthy media environment.

 It discusses various questions, such as the Tamil Nadu govt. getting into distribution and conflicting with private distributors by offering a cheaper package.

In today's media scene with a huge number of private channels, does it pass the laugh test that it would be a threat to freedom if the govt. entered broadcasting in a bigger way?

The whole article is worth a read.

Officials hope that social and infrastructure spending is lower

This is literally true. In an article upbeat on meeting the fiscal deficit target of 5.3%, there is a line saying that

"Besides, officials said, hopes are high about huge savings on the Plan expenditure front, where a number of departments and other ministries have not been able to utilize allocations for social and infrastructure sectors" 

Not utilizing allocations on social and infrastructure sectors is a good thing? Even the business leaders and respected economic commentators (quoting the RBI) identify infrastructure as a key focus area.

Not to mention that social sectors require a lot of attention in India with spending on health and education among the lowest in the world as a percentage of GDP.

This is a case of deficit-fetishism. Fiscal deficit is not an end in itself. There is nothing good in this story.

On rural health care

In response to an article by Arvind Panagriha in Economic Times discussed on another blog.

I would like to throw out a different way of thinking about this. My point is that this issue has nothing to do with “socialized medicine”. Let me elaborate.

Panagriha’s main contention is:
…it is time to accept the fact that the government has at best limited capability to deliver health services and that a radical shift in strategy that gives the poor greater opportunity to choose between private and public providers is needed.


(i) Number of doctors:
He further makes a point:
With a population of 1.1 billion, this implies approximately 1,700 people per doctor. In comparison, there are just 400 people per doctor in the United States and 220 in Israel.

Why compare to US and Israel? Considering they are one of the richest in the world.

Why not compare to Cuba, a much poorer country? And a much more “socialist” country to boot. Cuba has higher proportion than both US and Israel (in fact one of the highest in the world).

(ii) India actually has one of the lowest spending on health in the world (proportional to total govt. spending) (3% of total expenditure). Compare this with 19% for US, 12% for Israel, 11% for Cuba and 5% for Vietnam. The private spending (of an individual) on health is 5 times the govt. expenditure. In this sense, India has one of the most privatized health care system in the world.

If you compare apples with oranges, you’ll get absurd results.

Invasion Newspeak

See this: INVASION - A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE, a comparison of Soviet and American invasion newspeak.

Nikolai Lanine examines Soviet propaganda during Afghanistan war. Change a few names and lo' and behold! You get the American propaganda during Iraq war!

One of the snippets which would resonate with events today:

n 1988, Pravda reported that Afghan president Najibula had criticised this ”interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan”. (Pravda, February 9, 1988) The newspaper failed to mention that the Soviet Union was itself guilty of illegal external “interference“. Instead, journalists blamed the West for ”pouring oil onto the fire of the Afghan conflict”. (Pravda, February 22, 1987) Ignoring the fact that much of the fighting in Afghanistan was in +response+ to the Soviet occupation, the media were also heavily critical of Iran and Pakistan.

Iran was criticised for “supporting the armed Islamic opposition” and for “sending its political emissaries and agents into the territory of Afghanistan”. (Spolnikov, 1990, pp.104-105) Russian journalist Andrei Greshnov, who worked as a TASS correspondent in Afghanistan for eight years in the 1980s, describes in his book “Afghanistan: Hostages of Time” (2006) how for several years, starting in the early 1980s, he was tasked with collecting information on Iranian Shia infiltration across the Afghan border near Herat. Iranian influence was very tangible in Western Afghanistan and widely confirmed by the testimony of Soviet soldiers interviewed (by Lanine) over the last 20 years.

Govt. officials said

A few weeks back, I was listening to a speech by Robert Fisk where he was talking about a report on the Middle East in the L.A. Times. The theme of the report was "govt. officials said". I was reading HT business pages today with a column which very well illustrates the point.

Titled, "Agri will remain unaffected by water supply to industries", the column can be summarized in one phrase: "govt. officials said".

Here's what we find by going through the column:
"Orissa government on Saturday claimed..."
"...claim was based on the report of a four-member technical committee"
"Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told..."
"He asked officials to ensure..."
"Official sources said..."
"The committee, the government claimed..."

I did have occasion to read something about Vedanta Aluminium Limited in Orissa, here. I've no idea whether it's true or not, but at least it doesn't fall into the category of "govt. officials said".

Apparently, the people are too insignificant for the HT to talk to.

Latest ILO report

The latest ILO report on labour is out.

Interestingly, but not too surprisingly, there was a piece in the HT "Economy" section, which only mentioned the productivity part, but didn't mention the hours worked/day or the "Substantial decent work deficits" section. Guess that's too irrelevant to our economy.