"Young Indian" Company: Will it prove another "Bofors" for Congress?

 

Dr. Subramanian Swamy made another startling revelation, many did not know. Is the information shared by Dr. Swamy on Gandhis owning a company named "Young Indian" a confidential information? Not really- Ministry of Company affairs shares information about all the registered companies and their directors/signatories publicly. This website does have  the information about the existence of this company and Gandhis being a part of the board of directors.

 

This company "Young Indian" is registered with RoC and has CIN / LLPIN no. U74999DL2010NPL210686. Both Sonia and Rahul are directors and other directors are close to Gandhis.

 

 

What remains to be seen if the allegations levelled by Dr. Swamy are correct or not? Is there anything wrong with this company and its sources of money? Was this information needed to be shared with Election Commission, while filing nominations by Gandhis?

 

Time will only have the answers to these allegations. But Dr. Swamy has again proved that he is no push over and he has amazing ability of keeping himself in the news.

 

 

- Sandeep

 

 

Olympics and India: Half Glass Full or....

Indian contingent returned with six medals in recently concluded London Olympics. It has generated mixed reactions in India. There have been celebrations for best ever medal haul in Olympics, while there have been criticism for a handful of medals from a country of 1.2 Billion people.  Several reasons have been attributed for low performance in Olympics –lack of killer instinct or competitive spirit, pre-occupation with Cricket, social and economic reasons. These reasons have played considerable role in lack of Olympic medals in India’s show case, but off late India has been undergoing significant social and economic reforms. Economic factors, worldwide seem to have played significant impact upon a country’s performance  in Olympics.

Goldman Sachs (GS) “ The Olympics and Economics 2012” has been in the news recently. It predicted the medal haul by each country based on predominantly economic factors. It predicted 5 medals including 2 Gold medals for India. Its prediction has been even more accurate for host country Great Britain- a total of 65 medals. The list of predicted and actual medals for few top sporting countries in London Olympics is listed here. The prediction of overall medals for countries with double digit medals have been impressive. It is not my point to debate the accuracy of prediction here, but the correlation with economic health of the country seems to play a significant role in success in Olympics. Though money does not affect all sports equally but country’s capability to promote sports and its infrastructure does matter. Political stability, Democracy and country specific strengths & skills are other factors impacting success in sports, in general.

Source: Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research- The Olympics and Economics 2012, Dated July 2012

Goldman Sachs’ The Olympics and Economics 2012 discusses economical and other related factors in details. The case of few developing countries does show a good correlation with the economical factors. I have tabulated three developing countries and compared their performance in Olympics- India, Brazil and China.

Source: www.worldbank.org & www.olympic.org

The population of the country does not seem to play a major role, while economic parameters (such as GDP per capita) seem to relate with the medal haul more closely. Therefore, the two most populous countries, China and India, started to win medals in Olympics only after their economies looked northwards. Brazil won only 3 medals in 1992 and went on to win 15 medals the very next Olympics, though it had earlier won 6 medals in 1988 but the increase in medal tally is as phenomenal as its economic growth. In China, sports reforms and good administration propelled its success in Olympics, but it seems to have been ably supported  by its economic prowess.

 

India’s participation, performance and success in Olympics are summarised in below graph. India’s performance have been improving gradually synonymous to its economic growth. Since number of medals have been low over the years, one need to consider the potential medal winners at each Olympics. The “Among top 10 performance” column shows the number of participants who featured amongst the top 10 in finals (for sports like athletics) or qualified for at least quarterfinals in other events. The swelling of medal worthy performances in various disciplines/sports gives a glimmer of hope.

Any article on India at Olympics would be incomplete without mention of Hockey.  India’s traditional stronghold seems to have slipped away badly, reaching its nadir this Olympics with 12th and last position in the table. Hockey continues to defy economic growth and it is appropriate to mention that it is not only economics which can help you win medals. This is one of the sports where it takes time to build skills, and economy plays a little role. Also India have been on receiving end due to changes in the rules and regulations of Hockey, which went against its traditional skills and slow pace, which India had mastered. Even otherwise, the participation and performance of team sports by India, in general and Olympics, in particular have been traditionally poor except Hockey. Even in Hockey, there has been no medals for the last 40 years (except in 1980, when many top Hockey playing nations did not participate).

Despite political interference, poor & corrupt sports administration, skewed economic growth and more academically inclined mindset, India has been able to come out of its slumber and produced at least one medal consecutively in last five Olympics. More remarkable is its consistency in all round performance over multiple sports and also other sporting events such as Commonwealth Games and Asian games. Needless to mention- hard work, practise, skills and more importantly- hunger to win seem be paying off now.

Finally, India seems to have arrived at Olympics and the next Olympics at Rio could mark a watershed for the growing economic power.

- Sandeep

 

Triclour Image sourece: http://hadhhogayi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/india-london-2012-olympics-600x450.jpg

A tactical move by NCP

It surprised many when Congress – NCP differences appeared in media few days back. This time, even the media was clueless and was found to be struggling for the feed (masala). The indications appeared when NCP ministers skipped meetings last week. The rumours were doing the rounds that Mr. Pawar is unhappy with the way congress is treating NCP. Some functionaries of NCP got a chance to appear on the TV, but they seem to be as clueless as others.
Mr. Pawar is a shrewd politician. There seems to be more to the story than meets the eye. There are various factors, which would have forced Maratha stalwart and ICC’s chief to take this move.

Anna Assault

It is no secret that Anna and his associates have been targeting Mr. Pawar since long. He had to withdraw from various cabinet committees including that of Lokpal. It has been an embarrassment for NCP to be targeted by Anna team frequently, especially when elections are less than two years away. There is already a list of tainted union ministers published by Anna team including NCP ministers. To pressurize government against tainted ministers (and corruption/Lokpal), there is an agitation planned by Anna and others this week. All this does not work in favour of NCP leader and party, in general.
To add salt to the wound, government has been holding secret parleys with Mr. Anna Hazare. Anna has been vociferous about Maratha leader’s benami properties. The secret parleys were held without the knowledge of Mr. Pawar and it was enough to infuriate NCP.
But, can Mr. Pawar not manage Anna assault more effectively by being part of the government? Not really. By not being part of government, Mr. Pawar would rule himself out as part of any bargain by the government with Anna team and off course, negative publicity.

CBI factor

One would argue as to why NCP is claiming that they are ally of UPA and would continue to remain so, though they are threatening to resign from the government. It is very clear that these are pressure tactics to make sure that government does not sacrifice NCP on corruption. They do not want to be a scapegoat. Though it is important to keep the government under check but without burning the bridges. Government is known to (mis)use CBI to achieve its political objectives. It would not be very difficult to revive/initiate enquiries against “not so clean” NCP leaders. Remember, how did Mayawati’s  wealth escape CBI wrath just before president’s election? Similarly, Lalu has been keeping CBI at an arm’s length by voting by the side of government. NCP will not make the mistake of leaving UPA at this juncture.

Local factors

NCP is a regional party. It can sacrifice national ambitions and that’s why it has been quick to sacrifice Mr. Sangma. But, NCP can not ignore aspirations of regional leaders and its strained relationship with congress CM at Maharashtra is no secret. Some enquiries ordered by CM Mr. Chavan have been a triggering point.

Congress performance

The indications are clear that Congress party and the government have lost confidence of the aam aadmi. The loss in recent state elections, continuous spat with ally like Trinamool Congress, economic mismanagement and lack of inspiring leadership have been haunting not only congress (Mr. Khurshid have been honest enough to admit but this seems to be general feeling inside congress) but its allies as well. Therefore it suits the politics to keep a safe distance with government and take a stand (being outside government) that identifies more with the aam aadmi. However, keeping ties with Congress alive will be helpful if there is a turnaround in the fate of congress and also NCP keeps the tag of being faithful partner. But if Congress popularity keeps dipping, NCP would not mind to severe ties with the party in the election year.
And, NCP may well succeed in the bargain and government may bend backwards. And, if not, Mr. Pawar has done his calculations. It is all win-win situation for NCP to up its ante for political reasons as well as personal ambitions of its leader.