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TheIndian EXPRESS
www.indianexpress.com

NEW DELHI l THURSDAY l JULY 5 l 2012

The Indian EXPRESS

BECAUSE THE TRUTH INVOLVES US ALL

ONG spells of power cuts may have been the immediate provocation for Gurgaon residents to take to the streets this week, but the larger responsibility must be shared by the Centre, states and misguided environmental activism. Just a week before Gurgaon, it was Delhis turn to protest inadequate water supply. These protests highlight the fact that there are no simple answers to the crisis in the city. India needs to frame a better response to the power needs of a young population, and it needs to provide water to its expanding cities, home to an increasing number of migrants from rural areas in search of job opportunities. The Centre and the states have to come together to work out solutions. For now, in response to the crisis, each state has made an attempt to ring-fence itself with power stations and committed water supply sources, and has tried to keep specific vote banks happy. This has created a piquant situation where several states, including Haryana, are building costly thermal power projects on land hundreds of kilometres away from coal or even water sources.

The water and power crises frame the need for a coordinated national response
The repeated fights over the Cauvery waters between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which have become more acerbic every year, could show up soon as water wars. At one level, an enduring solution would require an amendment to the Constitution to bring water into the Concurrent List. It is too vital a commodity for each state to enjoy the luxury of legislating at will. There must also be urgent investment in the national electricity grid. The Manmohan Singh government must use whatever is left of its political capital in the rest of its term to address these two problems. Letting them fester, as recent events show, can extract a heavy national toll. At the same time, crises like these are opportunities for governments to speak to the people on the kind of environmental activism on water and power that prevents a workable solution. While nuclear power or even thermal energy has its problems, alternatives like solar energy will take time to be ratcheted up to corresponding levels. As the cities turn restive, India does not have the space to postpone long-overdue decisions in these sectors.

Not state by state

HE Nobel-winning physicist Leon Lederman, who published The God Particle in 1993, had apparently dubbed it the goddamn particle as the Higgs boson played so hard to get. The title was shortened by his editor for commercial reasons, and its evocative name made the particle a fugitive as notorious as Osama bin Laden. Sought for almost half a century, the last missing link in the Standard Model of particle physics has finally been found by the Large Hadron Collider. Well, almost, since science treasures certainties and the results are a fraction of a percentage point short of it. The Higgs boson was postulated to account for mass, a fundamental quality without which our picture of the universe falls apart. Yesterdays findings suggest that it exists, the arcana of charm quarks and bottom quarks is real, and physicists do not have to trash cherished theories. But the Higgs boson is part of a larger story, of a crisis of uncertainty in physics. The method of science re-

The search for the Higgs boson has been a search for closure. Now it is over well, almost
quires experiment to keep pace with theory. The scientist observes a phenomenon, formulates a hypothesis to explain it, tests it in the lab and has a eureka moment. But in physics, theory and experiment have been out of step for decades. Schools like superstring theory offer startling predictions such as the existence of multiverses and the idea that the universe is finetuned for the development of life intelligent design with a mathematical basis. Only experiments can establish if these theories actually describe reality, but with the laboratory lagging decades behind the blackboard, theoretical physics is peering into the void. The discovery of the Higgs boson narrows the certainty deficit. And it was fitting that Peter Higgs, who proposed the particle, was in the audience in Geneva when the vindication of his lifes work was announced. Except that being an atheist, Higgs loathes that name God particle. Meanwhile, the Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose, for whom bosons are named, is forgotten.

Towards certainty

HE future of India lies in its cities, not in its villages, and that fact creates both enormous opportunities and significant challenges. At their best, great metropolises enable the genius of Indian entrepreneurship and provide gateways to the outside world. Yet urban density needs a good government far more than rural life, and Indias cities also illustrate, all too painfully, the occasional shortcomings of Indias public sector. A new McKinsey Global Institute report, Urban World: Cities and the rise of the consuming class, estimates that 12.8 per cent of the worlds urban population growth between 2010 and 2025 will occur in India. While the report is surely correct to note the opportunities created by developing world cities for McKinseys corporate clients surging urban consumer demand, and the investment necessary to meet it, is on course to inject more than $30 trillion dollars of additional annual spending into the world economy by 2025 even more important opportunities are being created by Indias cities for their own residents. Despite their problems, Indias cities are the best chance for a wealthier, healthier and more politically open country. Thomas Friedmans The World is Flat educated many Americans about the entrepreneurial energy of Bangalores information technology sector. The book also seemed to suggest that proximity had become irrelevant, but that is not the lesson taught by Bangalore or Gurgaon. Some Americans may imagine that these great cities are far-flung spots on the edge of the world, but in reality these are great hubs of human activity that succeed by connecting smart people. Just like Silicon Valley in the US, these areas thrive because of their density, which connects young entrepreneurs and enables them to work together and learn from one another. In a sense, Bangalore exemplifies a great paradox of our age: the technologies that make it possible to connect over vast distances also

It takes a city
India needs more imaginative governance for its urban densities
EDWARD GLAESER
appear to be facilitating face-toface contact, and the cities that enable that contact become more important. Globalisation and new technologies have helped unleash the greatest wave of urbanisation in human history, as the McKinsey report points out. As long as face-to-face contact and random interactions deliver insights unavailable on Wikipedia, cities will continue to thrive. The connection between new technologies and old cities reflects a fundamental aspect of return technological change has vastly increased the returns to knowledge. The ability to innovate and sell on a global market has made it possible for smart entrepreneurs to earn more than ever before. Hunness, which reminds us that the public sector must invest in water and sewage to reduce the threat of contagious disease. Those investments are never cheap. In the early 20th century, American cites were spending as much on clean water as the US federal government was spending on everything except for the post office and the army. The McKinsey report estimates that Indian cities will account for 15.8 per cent of the increase in global demand for municipal water between 2010 and 2025. Transportation also remains an enormous challenge for Indias metropolises. The Global Competitiveness Report ranks India 85th worldwide in the quality of

LETTER OF THE WEEK AWARD

To encourage quality reader intervention The Indian Express offers the Letter of the Week Award. The letter adjudged the best for the week is published every Saturday. Letters may be e-mailed to editpage @expressindia.com or sent to The Indian Express, 9&10, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi -110002. Letter writers should mention their postal address and phone number. The winner receives books worth Rs 1,000.

Transportation remains a challenge for Indias metropolises. One reason why software consulting has been able to thrive in India is that this sector doesnt depend on roads to deliver its final product.
dreds of studies have documented the rising returns to being smart, but we get smart by being around smart people. You cant just look up on Google how to become a successful entrepreneur; you learn to be an entrepreneur by entering the maelstrom of entrepreneurial clusters, like Silicon Valley and Bangalore. That entrepreneurial energy can then power the larger economy. An abundance of land can have many failings, but when humans cluster, the public sector must address the demons of density, including contagious disease, crime and traffic congestion. According to the World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Report 2011-12, India ranks in the bottom third of nations in the impact tuberculosis has on busiroad infrastructure. Indeed, one reason why software consulting has been able to thrive in India is that this sector doesnt depend on roads to deliver its final product. The sector does depend on electricity, but luckily private generators make it possible for those companies to compete despite the fact that the Global Competitiveness Report ranks India 112th worldwide in the quality of its electricity supply. Cities need better road access, but they also need congestion pricing that will charge drivers for the social costs of their driving. India cant just build its way out of traffic congestion, because new roads just attract more drivers. The Fundamental Law of Highway Congestion, documented by economists Gilles Duranton and Matthew

Turner, shows that vehicle miles travelled increase roughly one-forone with highway miles built. Singapore pioneered congestion pricing 37 years ago, when it was far from wealthy, and there is no other way to make sure that drivers dont turn city streets into parking lots. While the public sector has failed to make the investments in water and transport that India needs, it does too much in other areas. There are far too many licensing requirements that stifle legal private entrepreneurship. The over-regulation of Indias cities is particularly obvious in the area of building heights. Building up is the natural alternative to building out. More building also makes real-estate space more affordable, which Mumbai badly needs. The work of my colleague Tony Gomez-Ibanez documents that despite its income, Mumbai manages to have some of the worlds most expensive Class A commercial real estate. Indias cities are the future, but for that future to be bright, they need a far more capable public sector that delivers more infrastructure and fewer regulations. Like many, I have lost hope that the national or state governments can provide the investments that these great cities need. Indian cities need more local autonomy (as Delhi already has). Local control will help ensure that cities pay the high costs of their own infrastructure, but dont end up subsidising foolish investments in lower density areas. In the US at least, local governments have been able to avoid fractious federal politics, and focus on the basics of good urban government, like safe streets and better schools. The first path towards a brighter urban future for India is more devolution of taxing, spending and regulatory power, so that cities can fix themselves, providing the rules and infrastructure that can create vibrant urban spaces. Glaeser, professor of economics at Harvard University, is the author of Triumph of the City
[email protected]

EDITOR
THIS refers to Here are some of the cartoons deemed unsuitable for school (IE, July 4). Im a student of Class XI. Cartoons can open our minds and broaden our thinking about politics. Without visuals like cartoons, the study of politics becomes rather monotonous for many students who are not interested in social studies. Many of us in my school believe that cartoons should not be removed from our books as they add to the study of politics. Our MPs should discuss and debate issues that are relevant, not the deletion of cartoons that were made by famous cartoonists many years ago. In a democracy we have the right to express our views and MPs should stand up for that right. Srishti Ghai New Delhi

Letters to the

Let cartoons be

Free fall

THE editorial, A crisis, still

YOGINDER K. ALAGH
HEN the GDP falls below 7 per cent, we need to start worrying. When it is less than 6 per cent, we must treat it as a crisis situation. Growth models show that the robust investment rates already achieved, and twice the productivity growth achieved in the 1980s and 90s, will get us 8 per cent growth. This also needed a focused savings and efficiency strategy, and a greater volume of trade. The current situation requires a policy agenda that must be pursued with dedication if growth rates are to be restored. This is no time to start wringing our hands. It is upsetting when C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Ministers Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC), says there is no further fiscal space. A practical policy does not involve non-negotiable positions or choosing between two alternatives. The art of policy is to present to the political leadership possibilities that it is forced to consider seriously. This is admittedly a difficult job in a multi-party coalition system where some of the netas in power are near-Luddites. Major reform entails the need to push investment. For

Time to take the bolder steps, bring FDI to small towns

example, FDI must be conceptualised in a way that makes an impact. As the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shows, during recessions, everyone wants everybody else to follow open policies. But in the scramble to save jobs, inverted tariffs and non-tariff restrictions become the order of the day. Fiscal and monetary space has to be created to push investment. While infrastructure investment is key, publicprivate partnerships also need public support. Particularly in Walmart has said it is not very keen on retail in metros, but it is actually building facilities in district towns like Anand. Without marketing, communication and processing support, there is no chance of food inflation subsiding. Seven years ago, there was a report saying that fertiliser prices should gradually be raised to keep pace with the improvement in terms of trade for agriculture, as measured by the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices. One fancy scheme followed another The matter has gone from one committee to another, with no results. Meanwhile, there are reports of civil servants and journalists being murdered by the diesel mafia. The list of areas in need of reform is endless land, coal pricing and, most importantly, public investment. The need for infrastructure in towns where farmers sell their produce has never been more pressing. Initiatives helping them will be doubly blessed. There are companies that are making money out there. Five Rajasthan arhatias, beginning with just a few crores, have developed hundreds of crores worth of assets in storages and instruments based on stored commodities as financial collateral. There are energies within the economy that are shackled by lethargy and inertia. They need to be unleashed. It is for economists and experts to design practical policies and for the political leadership to implement them. Clarity on such policies will help us start the journey out of the present crisis. The writer, a former Union minister, is chairman, Institute of Rural Management, Anand
[email protected]

Shackled by timidity

(IE, July 4) rightly points out that unless Air India is reformed, it will continue to make losses. The Centre must initiate reforms immediately if the airline is to be saved. Are politicians reluctant to overhaul the airline because they enjoy its freebies? R.K. Kapoor Faridabad

Writing code

INKI Pramanik, the manymedalled former athlete from West Bengal, is facing a serious allegation that of raping a woman. She has been asked to defend herself, which includes establishing her womanhood. She has gone through two gender-determination tests at different government hospitals, but the results were inconclusive. Male police officers have escorted her and pushed her around. And now, a video clip of her, naked, going through a verification test in a nursing home, has gone viral. Instead of being a straightforward investigation of the charges, the Pramanik affair has become a lurid, disrespectful spectacle, an attack on her selfhood. Being male or female is not a simple binary, and determining someones sex is not always a matter of assessing their privates. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, gender verification has long been criticised by geneticists, endocrinologists and others in the medical community. One major problem was unfairly excluding women who had a birth defect involving

Pinki Pramaniks ordeal is a statement on a voyeuristic public culture

gonads and external genitalia. This does not give a woman competitive edge (and by that logic, it would make more sense to sort sportspersons by lung volume or height or other genetic advantages). Rather, the shaming, invasive process of determining who she really is only serves to crush her spirit. Indias Santhi Soundarajan, whose silver at the 2006 Asian Games was taken away, was later diagnosed with androgen insensitivity syndrome, which meant she looked female, though her chromosomes said otherwise. The scrutiny, she said, left her physically and mentally broken. Many women athletes, including South Africas Caster Semenya and Brazils Edinanci Silva, have been similarly questioned. The Pinki Pramanik controversy is not about her sporting credentials, but about whether she is guilty of rape. That question has, however, been played out in highly humiliating public circumstances, her privacy has been shredded. Whether or not she is culpable, those who have created this scandal around her deserve full blame.

Trial by MMS

Akhileshs code (IE, July 3) that the usefulness of a code of conduct lies only in its strict enforcement. It is futile to expect the elected representatives of today to follow a code of conduct that calls for integrity, transparency and accountability in public life. Party leaders like Akhilesh Yadav talk about codes of conduct only to hog the limelight. They lose no time in disregarding or compromising with the code if their own position is threatened. Hema Langeri

I AGREE with the editorial

Wrong hand drive

Akhilesh Yadavs proposal to allow MLAs to buy vehicles costing up to Rs 20 lakh from their area funds is shocking (UP MLA LAD to fund Rs 20-lakh vehicles, July 4). Government funds are meant for public welfare and not for providing elected representatives with a cushy life. N.R. Ramachandran Chennai
APROPOS Spains thumping win over Italy, La Roja are on a golden run, winning the last World Cup and back-to-back Euro titles, achieving the tag of invincibles. Only time will tell whether they will be able to retain this for long, like Peles Brazil. N. Mahadevan Mumbai UTTAR PRADESH CM

Fiscal and monetary space has to be created to push investment. While infrastructure investment is key, public-private partnerships also need public support.
small towns, PPPs will need a lot of hand-holding. Public initiative may well be needed if no one goes there. According to some, FDI retail in metros will lead to a surge in the growth rate. This is optimistic to the point of being funny. What will matter is if it is allowed in nonmetro towns and smaller Census Towns where the farmer brings his produce. China did it. In Chinese Walmarts, some employees are dressed in uniform, but a number of farm women also appear to be selling their wares. When it comes to India, and all kinds of bizarre ideas were mooted, but no steps were taken towards the necessary reforms. We can start now. From the mid-1970s, when the first energy crisis hit India, it was recognised that the cooking and fuel needs of the poor had to be protected, while trying to ensure that they did not cut down forests to meet their needs. Over the last 12 years, various reports, starting with those made by Vijay Kelkar and Kirit Parekh, have proposed a gas grid for the poor and the need to align fuel price with imported energy.

Spanish symphony

WORDLY WISE
John Dewey

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

ECRETARY of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is putting a posi- participation in a transitional government. By the same logic, however, Astive spin on a new peace plan for Syria agreed to over the week- sad would have little incentive to accept the Geneva plan in the first place end in Geneva by the Syria Action Group, which comprises the unless Russia was willing to lean hard on his regime to the point of permanent members of the United Nations Security Council threatening to support international economic sanctions. as well as Turkey and Arab representatives. We hope her optiWe have supported the Obama administrations unwillingmism is justified, but Russia continues to send maddeningly ness to intervene militarily in Syria or to arm the Syrian opposimixed signals about whether it recognises that the time has tion, whose agenda is still unclear. But if the violence contincome for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down... PRINTLINE ues and a civil war threatens peace between Syria and its Even so, Clinton insisted, Russian diplomats had convinced neighbours, the pressure for military action by the US and its alher that they have no continuing strategic interest in Assad remaining in lies will increase. The Geneva agreement offers an alternative, but only if power and will press Assad to undertake a political transition. She Clintons assessment of Russian intentions is correct. added that the requirement for mutual consent guaranteed that Assad would have to step down because the opposition would never accept his From the Los Angeles Times

Russia continues to send mixed signals on the Assad regime

Talking Syria

APROPOS Dire states (IE, July 4), the political culture in the states is cause for concern. India has had dominant state leaders earlier as well. But now state leaders have grown powerful on the strength of their regional parties. They have a limited view of critical issues. Each minds his own state, ignoring the countrys greater good. Y.G. Chouksey Pune

State over nation