MONTH-IN-PERSPECTIVE NOVEMBER 2020

NEW DELHI: Clearly Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is one of the very important legislation by free India, meant to protect the public sector banks. No other legislation has been as effective as IBC in bringing to book, the defaulting borrowers, who have been playing with these public sector banks. Dewan Housing Finance Ltd or DHFL is a company that owes over Rs. 40000 crores to different financing banks. The failure to repay the outstanding loans has landed Wadhawan brothers, Kapil and Dhiraj in Taloja jail under judicial custody. Various bidders have shown interest, to buy the assets of DHFL but is short of total amount due to these banks and other creditors. Smarting under imprisonment, Kapil Wadhawan appears to be coming round to settle the outstanding. The print media report “DHFLs jailed promoter offers to settle all claims and loans” has informed that he has offered his family and personal properties to the tune of Rs. 43000/- crores. There have been many bidders, like US based Oaktree, Hong Kong based SC Lowy, besides Adani group and Piramal enterprises. But clearly they are far shorter and insufficient to clear the outstandings substantially. The National Company Law Tribunal is likely to take up insolvency proceedings under instructions from Reserve Bank of India. Under the circumstances, the offer by promoters of DHFL is very interesting, where they have offered to settle all claims and loans, indicating the existence of secret reserves hidden in fixed assets, which promoters are refusing to let go. The provisions of IBC is making things happen which hitherto was bit of a mirage. MAHARASHTRA:Bankers’ Bank has acted out of the blue on an issue which prima facie has been long overdue. The print media report “RTGS to be available 24x7 from December” has sent the sensex, the barometer of country’s investment climate, soaring. “Sensex rallies 327 points on RBI steps” was another news related to the development at Reserve Bank of India, headquartered in Mumbai. The sensex is the sensitive index of some 30 most actively traded stocks of large companies as determined by the Bombay Stock Exchange. Banker to the nation, Reserve Bank of India has its role cut out, as the Central Bank of the country. Its decision to make available Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system round the clock from December is clearly a business friendly move by the fiscal regulator, which could have been done longtime, for its sheer utility, in an atmosphere of different time zones for financial and business transactions taking place in different parts of the globe. This will greatly boost the integration of Indian financial market with the rest of the world. As we are aware, there are two systems of money payment transfers, like NEFT and RTGS. National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) is available for funds transfer up to Rs. 2 lakhs, and beyond that amount RTGS takes care of outward remittances. NEFT is already available 24x7 since December 2019. Hope the latest move by RBI will sustain the already boosted market sentiments represented by the sensex. This unilateral move by the RBI, after its Monetary Policy Committee meeting, was very essential in the pandemic driven pressure on industrial climate. Hope RBI continues to play its positive role in its efforts to support economy especially in these trying times. NEW DELHI: Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), is an industry body set up to design, commission, supervise and own accurate, reliable and timely TV audience measurement system in India, informs Wikipedia. According to the service provider, BARC currently measures TV viewing habits of some 200 million households with TV, in the country. Reportedly it uses 40000 samples size of these houses. In short, this is the exercise to determine TRP or the Television Rating Point. According to grapevine doing rounds in the public space, this TRP has been rigged to the advantage of some of the media houses. Media savvy Indians are privy to the knowledge that TRP helps in landing hugely budgeted advertising and publicity contracts to these media houses. Figure bandied about is Rs: 25,000 crores, as TV ad market size. And comes this editorial in TOI (13/10/2020) titled ‘CHEATING UNMASKED’ while continuing “Rigging TRP’s to corner the Rs. 25000 crore TV ad market is a serious offence”. The very first sentence of the said editorial began with “The Mumbai police investigation into alleged rigging of TRPs by some news channels including Republic TV calls for an overhaul of the current audience measurement system”. Mark the construction of the sentence, “rigging of TRPs by some news channels including Republic TV”. The editor has clearly omitted names of other channels but was clear in naming REPUBLIC TV. As we all know this Republic TV channel is controlled and managed by an individual who was earlier with its very own TIMES NOW. Whether he has been doing it earlier to the advantage of the group we are not aware, since TOI did not cry hoarse in the past. Its only now, that the TOI decided to go to the market and scream that Republic TV should be fixed for the alleged wrong committed, since the proverbial “chicken has come home to roost”. Therefore the lesson is ‘honesty is always the best policy’. Indeed it pays to be straight. NEW DELHI: Some time ago at the height of Prashant Bhushan/Supreme Court imbroglio, I had written a piece, which was forwarded by a professor of Political Science of Bombay University to the Times of India in Mumbai requesting publication. TOI Mumbai had responded by saying “Sir we do not take article from outside. It’s only by invitation”. Mind you this was despite the remarks by Professor on the piece as “Excellently written”. So comes this piece by the ‘celebrated’ writer/columnist Shobha De, in the Sunday Times of India of October 25, 2020. Obviously she is an ‘invited’ writer on the panel of writers for TOI. She wrote “Obama Nailed it in two words…Are netas listening?” Former US President Barack Obama was speaking and Shobha De quotes “There are consequences to actions. It affects how the world looks at America. That behavior matters, Character Matters”. He was referring to actions by incumbent president Donald Trump and Shobha De was asking Indian netas ‘if they are listening’. Indeed character matters. But strangely Shobha De’s description of character stops at financial wrong doing or financial corruption. Obama had commented on Donald Trump. But Bill Clinton, a Democrat like Barack Obama, was caught with his underpants down and Monica Lewinsky in attendance right inside the Oval Office in the White House. Obama is an American politician addressing his American audience. It’s the same American voters who voted a political green horn Donald Trump for what ever it was worth voting for. Donald Trump may not be a model politician by any standard of comparison, if the details available in public space are anything to go by. It is an American choice. But this ‘great’ lady, Shobha De is referring to the Obama's remarks to some Indian context. According to her, present government in Delhi is corrupt. There may be number of areas where the government in Delhi (Union Government), can be questioned, but certainly not financial corruption. They may not be as clean as slate but certainly better than any previous governments when it comes to financial misdemeanor. However, what is ludicrous, is this lady, Shobha De is portraying Tejashwi Yadav, one of the sons of Lalu Prasad Yadav as a challenger giving sleepless nights to NDA leaders in Bihar. May be NDA in Bihar could have done better than what they did. But they certainly did some good work. All governments are there to do some work, some good some not so good, sometime good is more sometime bad is more. That’s how they are there since last 15 years! Tejashwi Yadav is the progeny of redoubtable Lalu of ‘Chaara Ghotala’ infame. It may be long way for Lalu Yadav family to drive out the ‘chicken that came home to roost’ years ago. According to pollsters the ruling NDA in Bihar is likely to return to Patna Secretariat to sit in Treasury Benches. Sadly it’s these glorified intellectual class, in their hatred of NDA/BJP goes for anybody and everybody. This is another kind of intolerance, like it or not. KARNATAKA: Entire world is in the grip of Corona pandemic-Covid 19. There is a participative spirit among us, all humans, to share our experience in managing this pandemic positively. It is a very healthy attribute. Among so many posts making its round in the social media is the latest one talking about ‘why steam inhalation is the panacea for this apparently dreaded viral malady’. Lady talking about it stressed why drinking hot water will not be as effective as nasal inhalation of the hot vapour or steam. She clearly believed that sharing this knowledge will only help more people as the post spreads. And comes this report today (16/10/2020) filed by one Sunitha Rao of Times of India and published in print, “Docs frown on social media’s steam inhalation prescription”. According to us, it may be well intentioned, but a negative way of presenting news report on an issue as important as looking after oneself during Covid-19. It was half cooked and takes you nowhere. She had written in the report “social media forwards hail steam inhalation as one of the most effective home remedies to prevent Covid-19, but doctors have debunked the theory and have raised concerns saying it could do more damage than good”. She reportedly spoke to a pulmonologist Dr Satyanarayana of Manipal Hospital Bengalooru. He has given his opinion that ‘this steam inhalation not only gives false sense of security but also can damage to inner layer of lungs’. He reportedly stated and we quote “Unscientific steam inhalation is probably going to burn the airways causing problems much worse than Covid”. This Sunitha Rao, does not know her job. She could have asked the doctor, “what is the scientific steam inhalation?” Or doctor himself could have volunteered to inform. The report of Sunitha Rao, tells “Doctors say such messages (the post on benefits of steam inhalation) of being a death knell to this virus are false and misleading and fear the gullible will follow these instructions blindly”. Actually the report is misleading since it is not conclusive. In serious matters, like ‘attending to pandemic virus’ the writings and statements should be conclusive and inform the reader with finality. Report talks about doctors commenting that asthma patients have suffered because of the damage to the airways due to steam inhalation. So is it informing that asthma patients should not go for steam inhalation? Or should people do it moderately or should stop it completely? The report is silent. But one thing which is as clear as the day light that steam inhalation has helped generations of homo-sapiens in managing nasal congestions and bad throat. Of course as it is equally clear, nothing should be overdone. Clearly steam inhalation should be practiced by all normal people, who do not have issues like Asthma or any other respiratory problems, in which case steam inhalation may be done under medical guidance. Please respond, if what is stated is wrong, so that I stand corrected. At this point a very pertinent point I want to make is when a journalist writes on any issue, it has to be self explanatory for a greater part, if not in entirety. KARNATAKA: On 14/10/2020, The New Indian Express had published, a Udupi datelined report “Police send report to release youth in Saudi Jail”. It was a very revealing report on the many months old arrest of Harish Bangera of Kundapur by Saudi police on charges of blasphemy. Some months ago remember to have read in Times of India and other newspapers about this Harish Bangera’s arrest. The report had alleged that he wrote in the FaceBook about Ram Temple in Ayodhya and why not in Saudi Arabia etc. It was a case of sheer madness to have posted in FB something like this, especially while in Saudi Arabia. Sadly many responses came, including condemning RSS etc and congratulating Saudi police etc. But this above referred report in the The New Indian Express (TNIE) published on 14/10/2020 less than a week ago, informs about a fake FB account created in the name of Harish Bangera by brothers Abdul Huyez and Abdul Thuyez of Moodbidri and had posted some ‘hate’ comments. Reportedly both these wicked men have been arrested and are presently on bail, while this Harish Bangera is still languishing in Saudi jail since December 2019. Reportedly, the fake FB account was created on December 19 at 7.45 pm and on December 21, at 9.32 am Huyez posted in the name of Harish that ‘Ram Mandir should be built in Mecca’. While authorities in Saudi cannot be blamed for what they did to Harish, the tragedy is how did the police in Udupi/Moodbidri allow bail to these accused, especially when their victim is still in police custody in far away Saudi Arabia? They should be immediately re-arrested and held in captivity until Harish is released. Grape vine has it that it was the Human Rights Foundation of UDUPI led by Dr. R. Shanbhag, took up the issue when approached by Harish’s family. However what is extremely disappointing and shocking is the silence by our media men and women on the arrest of the duo when they were in a great hurry to publish the arrest and imprisonment of Harish Bangera in Saudi Arabia. KARNATAKA: ‘India’s Largest English Newspaper’, The Times of India (TOI) had these Mangalooru datelined report. “2 charge sheeted for hacking FB a/c of Saudi expat”, “Mangalooru city police seize 2500 kg beef” and “Small town spirit: Women help each other revive biz”, were the reports on page 3 of TOI of-19/10/2020. Some months ago TOI had reported about an Indian from Kundapur-Udupi being arrested in Saudi Arabia for posting remarks unacceptable to Saudi authorities. He has been in prison since then. With his family back home getting worked up approached some NGOs in Udupi. They approached the police in turn and reportedly police found out that it was a fake FB post that landed this Kundapur youth, working in Saudi Arabia, in trouble. Two youths Abdul Uais & Abdul Tuves from Moodabidri were reportedly responsible for this fake FB post. They were arrested and as usual released on bail. Shockingly neither the court nor the police realized that these two should have been detained in police custody at least until their victim in Saudi jail is free. But as usual we act first and think later or maybe there were different considerations for the grant of bail, which is not unusual in India. On Wednesday, 14/10/2020, The New Indian Express published news “police send report to release Kundapur youth in Saudi Jail”. No other English paper based in coastal Karnataka carried this story surprisingly/shockingly. Clearly indicating agenda driven reportage. TOI, published the above story today (19/10/2020), the 1st of the three mentioned above. And this news too has come after almost 10 months of the arrest in Saudi. Coming to the 2nd report on the ‘seize of 2500kg beef’; the report informs “Acting on information given by Hindu right wing activists, Kankanadi police intercepted the truck”. The report could have been “Acting on information police intercepted the truck”. But this is the TOI, it had to show, who is the informant, if he is a Hindu. Here the informant was more important than information, meaning trying to show the informant in poor light. And the third report the “small-town spirit….”Report by Deepthi Sanjeev of TOI had referred to Mangalooru as small-town. Actually she is not wrong. Mangalooru has a Municipal Corporation, meaning it’s a city. Truly speaking, Mangalooru is a big town and not a city, although in its wisdom it has Mangalore Smart city Ltd., which is spending scarce resources in crores, on not-so-smart projects, like bus-stops and clock towers and under-passes etc. It was a well meaning good write-up to bring together Mangalooru’s women entrepreneurs. Mangaloorians please note, even TOI does not think Mangalooru as a city, forget about smart city! WORLD: Today is INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE, I am told. Why only today!? Why not every day!? There's so much conflict between man to man, man to woman and even between women and women, between one linguistic group and another linguistic group, one sect and another, one state and another within a country, between one country and another. Then there are civilizational differences of being superior and inferior of being white, brown and black in only skin deep color. Why humans are like this!? Animals are unlike human. Clearly animals are better than humans. Yet man claims himself to be crown of all the biosphere, the kingdom of the living. That is only because he alone can distinguish right from the wrong. Yet the world is full of the wrongs by this two legged animal called human who has inflicted so much suffering for those who are helpless to defend themselves, those who cannot protect themselves. The greatest failing of man is his ego. Ego, that my faith is better than others, ego that my race is superior race than others, ego that I am stronger than others militarily, ego my economy is bigger than others' economy. Everything is transient. Time is the greatest leveler. Accept the TRUTH; if you are not part of the solution then you are the problem. PEACE IS ONLY THAT FAR. world: Is there any living being in the entire biosphere who does not like freedom! But of course, as Jean Paul Sartre observed “we are condemned to be free”, since we are completely and fully accountable for our freedom. But in his own country, France, his countrymen have taken this freedom too far to the limits of idiocy. If it was CHARLIE HEBDO in the past, it was this French history teacher Samuel Paty who ridiculed Prophet Mohammad and paid with his life. A Paris datelined report “Chechen teen asked pupils to identify French teacher before beheading him, 9 detained” informed that in broad day light, a mad boy of 18, from Chechen, a part of Russian federation, beheaded the teacher ostensibly for offending Prophet Mohammad. Samuel Paty, the French teacher, had reportedly shown his students in a school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris, cartoons of Prophet on freedom of expression. Like with what happened to Charlie Hebdo, this act of teacher had angered Muslim parents. It is accepted in the world of men and matters, that freedom is responsibility driven. If you are not responsible for your action then you have no right to exercise the freedom. Freedom and responsibility go together. However there is no freedom which gives you license to hurt anybody, physically or emotionally. It is the sheer stupidity of white man, who has taken the arguments to the extremes in his quest for freedom. It is also true that, whatever be the cause of hurt, you have no right to take someone’s life. But then, if the law of the land does not guarantee the emotional security not to get hurt by the irresponsible behavior of other citizens, then what should an ordinary citizen do!? It is indeed a serious question white supremacy has to ask, ponder and answer for the well being of civil society. However French have not learnt hard lessons, how to control its urges of hurting non-Christians, especially Muslims, in their quest for freedom of expression. Of course, it is an equally serious matter for Muslims anywhere in the world to ponder how to control their anger. Extremely diabolic and most inhuman killing of French history teacher Samuel Paty has no words to condemn. The refugee from Chechen, a youth of 18, who did the most unthinkable- beheading the teacher-was reportedly killed by police shootout, was clearly a misguided Muslim teenager. Unfortunately, instead of condemning the barbaric act, there have been supportive posts in the public space. This represents a new low in human response to an inhuman act of a fellow human being. Sadly both are Muslims. So is there a problem with Muslims?! It’s a question faithful have to face and answer. It is true that in the name of freedom of expression France has been rather stupid in allowing open attack on the objects of worship, in this case Prophet Mohammed. Started in 2005 by Danish periodical Jyllands- Posten and continued by French periodical Charlie Hebdo, white men from Europe has been rather crudely patronising caricaturing Islam and their revered objects. Democracy does give us freedom but also imposes responsibility to be sensitive towards others. Exercise of our rights should not insult others. There has to be distinction between ridicule and humour. It is also true that your hurt feelings also do not give you right to be violent. And violence leading to killing or extreme forms of barbarity like beheading exposes the complete lack of sense of proportion of perpetrators of violence and their supporters. In a world, if Conversation without Confrontation has to be the sine-quo-non for a peaceful co-existence in a civil society, then both these seekers of absolute freedom and their victims have their roles cutout. They perforce have to get down from their respective positions of extremity. They do not have choices. It is uncivil to be insulting for a cartoonist and barbaric for the perceived victim of such cartoon to kill by beheading the cartoonist or those who reproduced these cartoons. In this case, in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, the school teacher had discussed the caricature of Prophet Mohammed. But reportedly he had asked Muslim students to leave the class before discussing the cartoon. But the fact that the teacher did discuss the insulting cartoon was enough to anger Muslims and maybe even a fatwa was issued to act against the teacher. Reportedly, the Chechen teenager, who beheaded the teacher, had even paid a student 300 Euros to let him see the teacher. The teenager had asked the students to identify the teacher, so that teacher can be asked to apologise for the act of showing the cartoons in the class, but had planned otherwise, the diabolic act. While on the subject it may not be out of place to recollect Zakir Naik and his ilk who do have potshots at Hindus, Christians and others with their boorish remarks in their religious discourses, and victims of their ridicule have never violently attacked in response. Clearly there are lessons for both the proponents of freedom of expression and the Muslim leadership to learn, if we have to live in co-operative co-existence in the comity of nations. world: “Muslims have right to kill French” tweeted Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad after a deadly attack in Nice. Twitter reportedly deleted his post, instead of banning him altogether for the sheer violent brazenness of the tweet. France is going through a kind of upheaval post Prophet Mohammed cartoon exposition in a school and the resultant violent end of the French teacher. We all know both were wrong. But the reaction was far out-of-proportion to the original wrong. French government is taking a tough stand and has tried to draw the line. But its freedom of expression bordering on reckless ridicule has to be toned down, while Muslim anger has to be perforce controlled. However coming to this Mahathir Mohammad’s tweet, there were two views. One he “did not approve of the attack on teacher but freedom of expression does not include insulting other people”. The other, “The French in the course of their history has killed millions of people. Many were Muslims. Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacre of the past”. While the first one he must make his fellow faithful understand that beheading the teacher was most barbaric and therefore condemned and shunned, for the second, this Mahathir Mohammad has to be reminded that, Muslim invaders, through the Khyber pass have come and looted India and killed millions of Indians, who were Hindus and taken their women and children to their harems. It’s a recorded history. Should the present day Indians, Hindus & Christians, kill present day Indian Muslims for the barbarism of Muhammad Ghori, Babar, Aurangzeb, Tippu Sultan Akbar and many others? This stupid tweet by this former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohammad shall have huge repercussion. Sadly, neither Indian Muslims nor their liberal friends in India have condemned this absolutely lunatic remark by an ageing bigot. Matter must be referred to the UN, to force him mind his language. It was a madness of another kind. Where are the Muslim leaders of India and those Irfan Habibs, Hamid Ansaris, and their ilk and why are they keeping their mouth shut in the face of such lunatic utterances.