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TIMES SPECIAL | Scripting Change

SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABAD

JANUARY 18, 2015

Business Mantras For The Road Ahead

Invest in railways
to make it engine
of growth: Prabhu

Our workers
give $3bn aid
to US, this
must change
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Yogesh Kumar

Rail Can Add

To Economic
Growth

New Delhi: Chief economic advisor Arvind

Subramanian has sought
a Totalization Agreement
between India and the US
as Indian workers are losing around $3 billion annually, in what he termed as
foreign aid.
India perversely provides about $3 billion foreign aid to the US. Indian
workers are paying the
US government by way of
social security contributions that you can never
recover Indian aid programme is involuntary. We
want this changed and one
major issue that must be

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Saturday made a strong pitch
for increasing investment in
the state-run transport behemoth saying its nances
were in deep trouble.
Railways could contribute signicantly but its in
deep trouble. Operating ratio of railways is extremely
challenging and the only we
can make it better is to have
optimum expenditure and
make sure that income levels rise rapidly, Prabhu told
the Airtel and The Economic
Times Business Summit.
If we dont make investment in railways there wont
be any future revenues that
will come into the railways
to improve the operating ratio, he said weeks before the
Railway Budget.
Prabhu is seen as a reformist minister and has
been given charge of the
crucial portfolio to turn it
around. Stating that the network could emerge as an engine of growth, Prabhu said
investment in railways could
add 2.5% to 3% to the growth
rate in the next few years.
The economy could grow
at much faster with railway
alone contributing to it signicantly from downstream
benets, he said.
He said efforts must be
made to nd resources and
long-term funds for revamping the railway network.
The challenge is how you
nd resources. We need to
create new institutions in
India to nance that and ac-

If we dont make
investment in
railways there wont
be any future revenues
that will come into the
railways to improve the
operating ratio
Suresh Prabhu | Rail Minister

AMERICAN BOOTY

cess the capital. Many countries are ush with money,

the chartered accountantturned-politician said.
Pension fund is one such
possibility. Australia has $2
trillion in pension funds,
Canada has pension funds.
India will have to access pension funds, he said.
The minister said railways have huge scope for expansion and connect remote
areas which in turn will have
spin-offs for the economy.
We havent expanded
network as we should have.
So we need to create another
30,000-40,000 km of railway
lines connecting many parts
of India, Prabhu said, adding that decongesting the
network would have economic benets. He called for
efcient use of funds and realistic projection of project
costs.
Whatever resources we
put in the economy we must
nd how efciently they will
be used. We must make sure
that the cost of capital could
be low. Cost of projects have
to be realistic and not exaggerated, he said.

addressed is a Totalization
Agreement thatll allow
Indian workers recover
the $3 billion in aid they
provide every year to the
US government, he said
during a panel discussion
at the Airtel and The Economic Times Global Business Summit. The statement was crucial ahead of
Barack Obamas visit. The
US has repeatedly rejected
proposals to sign such an
agreement.
Nobel laureate Paul
Krugman said the US has
worked on correcting excesses of the past. He said
to be worried about the next
bubble in US would be premature. In principle, US
would continue to prosper
despite global concerns.
MIT economics professor Abhijit Banerjee said
globally, theres need for a
nancial system that plays
by some set of rules. There
should be global demand for
a more regulated nancial
sector. He sought banking
reforms, said bailouts need
to be more transparent., FDI
needs to be encouraged.

Modi should discuss outsourcing

with Obama, says Bhagwati
Piyal Bhattacharjee

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Ahead of

Barack Obamas visit, noted
economist Jagdish Bhagwati on Saturday suggested
that PM Narendra Modi
should raise the issue of
outsourcing, which several
US leaders have opposed in
the past.
When president Obama
comes here, since we are
thinking of exporting, he
(Modi) has got to take it
(outsourcing) up with him.
The fact that Obama, (John)
Kerry and everybody in
the US, talks continuously
against outsourcing, which
means importing from us
because outsourcing is a
code word for India. You
dont outsource to China or
New Zealand. If you keep
saying outsourcing is bad,
it builds sentiment against
India. And, when people get
attacked in the US, they say
Ah, Indians are taking away
jobs within the US also,
The Columbia University
professor said at the Airtel
and The Economic Times

Professor Jagdish Bhagwati speaks at the Airtel ET Global

Business Summit in New Delhi on Saturday

Global Business Summit.

Outsourcing from India,
seen to be a low-cost substitute given the higher wages
in the US, has been a con-

Failure biggest asset for any country

Yogesh Kumar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The only asset

of a country is failure and
knowing how to fail is its
biggest talent. That should
be the mantra for success for
India, says Nassim Nicholas
Taleb, essayist, statistician,
risk analyst and author of
the highly-acclaimed book
Black Swan.
Taleb, an option trader
and economist, uses randomness, probability and
uncertainty to base his arguments.
The higher the failure
rate in a country the better
the economy, which is why
the French arent doing as
well, the Japanese is not doing well. Within the US the

highest failure rate is in California. Id recommend a culture of failure that the Japanese dont have, Taleb told
the Airtel and The Economic
Times Business Summit.
Using his unique style
Taleb, who was born in Lebanon and migrated to the
US, enthralled the packed
hall. He said there are businesses which improve only
through problems.
Restaurant business is
one such case. Restaurants
survive
through
stressors and improve through
stressors. Its the same for
transportation. From The
Titanic to today, transportation has become safer by
over-compensating after a
tragedy, he said.

Cong launched a terror campaign

against my book on Sonia Gandhi
The Red Sari, a dramatized biography of Sonia Gandhi, is set for release in India. Its author Javier Moro
says for years the English version of the book didnt get a publisher due to an intense Congress campaign
Sanjay Sekhri

Sagarika.Ghose
@timesgroup.com

avier Moro, Spanish author of a dramatized biography of Sonia Gan

dhi, The Red Sari is relieved his book has finally
been published in India. A
senior Cong ress leader
launched a campaign
against the book to scare
away publishers. It was like
a terror campaign against
the book, they tried to kill it
scaring off English-language publishers, he says.
The Congress, Moro
says, emailed his Spanish publishers threatening them, almost ordering
them to withdraw the book
from all bookstores, even
though by then it had been
published in Spanish, Italian and other languages,
not in English.
He laughs that for six
months he was petried of
logging onto his email for
fear of the many threatening emails he was regularly
receiving from the Congress.
Congress does a terrible job
of managing Sonias image,
Moro says. Theyve turned
her into a robot. They are so
busy proving shes Indian,
shes Indian, that theyre
trying to draw a portrait of
her that doesnt correspond
with reality. Truth is Sonia
may have tried to become
Indian, but once you eat
pasta you always eat pasta,
Moro grins. He says when
he once went to La Piazza,
a Delhi restaurant, he found
Sonia and family celebrating
over an Italian meal. Thats
normal. Whats wrong with
that? She may be ruling India, but shes still Italian.
Yet, the Congress always
tries hard to erase her Italian roots. Moro says politicians surrounding her
arent very bright because
it is stupid to make her
into a goddess.
So whats in the book
that Congress didnt like?
The Red Sari is in fact

EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK

an love arise in such an instantaneous, almost

insolent way? When Rajiv took her hand as they
were walking in the shade... Sonia had no strength
to pull it back. The warm soft hand transmitted a
feeling of immense profound safety and pleasure...
but someone from a distant exotic place about which
she knew almost nothing... it would be crazy to fall
in love with someone like that, she told herself...
her heart went from one extreme to another like a
pendulum, torn between reason and desire. She felt
dizzy... what would I do in this boys world? A country
that lacked basic comforts, a country castigated by
an implacable climate where cows wandered at will...
The family (Gandhis)
had dominated Indian
ttavio and Maria
politics... next to them,
Quattrocchi were
who were the Mainos,
a very witty and funBOOK MARK: Author Javier Moro
thought Sonia...
loving pair with whom
in New Delhi on Friday
Rajiv and Sonia often
went out for dinner.
ajiv and Sonia disliked Dhirendra Brahmachari because they
Also part of that group
realized how much he was taking advantage of Indira....
were Satish and Sterre
Sonia could not stand the presence of the guru in the house. I
Sharma; Ramesh and
dont know how my mother puts up with him, said Rajiv. She
Sunita Kohli; and Suman
lives in an ivory tower, and if her only contact with
and Manjulika Dubey.
the world is Sanjay and the guru, were in a real
Sonia got along well
mess. Lets go to Italy, really Rajiv, lets give the
with Ottavio Quattrocchi
children a bit of a normal life, said Sonia.
her fellow Italian, who
When they told her, the expression on
was an experienced
Indiras face completely changed, to
businessman, the
such an extent that they immediately
representative of
regretted having even mentioned
large Italian
it.... Its just that we thought
companies,
its something we can do
and who had
now that the children are
a great sense
young... later on it will be
of humour
impossible, said Sonia.

a highly sympathetic account of Sonias life, how

the daughter of an Italian
farmer who became a successful real estate entrepreneur near Torino, a simple
Italian girl who dreamt of
becoming an Alitalia airhostess, became the ruler
of India one of the most
powerful women in the
world. The book describes
how Sonias father, Stefano
Maino, was scared when
she married Rajiv Gandhi
that Indians would throw
her to the tigers.
She is no aristocrat, but
Congress wants to make
her royalty. Moro says hes

met the Congress president

once when his uncle, Domnique Lapierre (author of
Freedom at Midnight),
was receiving the Padma
Bhushan. He walked up
to her and said Ive been
sleeping with you for four
years. He meant hed been
obsessed with her while
writing the book. She was
shocked, then managed to
laugh. The only line she
ever said to me was: We
never read anything thats
published about us.
She abhors the press,
hates being talked about
and every time he tried to
meet her, she was always

troversial issue with several

US leaders calling for curbs,
arguing that jobs are being
shipped out. Bhagwati has
been a votary of free trade.
Delivering the closing address, the outspoken economist, a strong supporter
of Modi and his policies,
backed growth as the way
to higher living standards
by pulling up several out of
poverty.
Without growth you
cant get anywhere. Thats
not a conservative trickle-

down strategy. This is a case

where you are pulling up people above the poverty line. A
stagnant economy wont do
anything for you, he said.
Bhagwati argued that
higher economic growth
will generate revenues needed for social sector spending.
But he made it clear that he
differed with the likes of
Nobel laureate Amartya
Sen who argue in favour of
rights-based schemes such
as the MNREGA, which
Bhagwati said are not feasible without having the nancial resources.
While governments typically provide subsidies or
set up schools and hospitals
as part of the social sector
spend, Bhagwati suggested a
different approach.
A lot of people are
spending privately to do it
(education and healthcare).
Ive seen pictures of pavements on which private
schools are being run on a
shoestring basis. I would say
value-add to them give
them textbooks to improve
the quality.

totally closed.
Moro says the bit in the
book that Congress took
grave objection to was that
during the Emergency, Sonia
seriously considered returning to Italy with her children.
Her biggest problem is shes
an Italian who ruled over
a billion Indians. This was
what Congress was always
anxious to play down. And
whats his impression of Sonia? Shes not a nice sweet
girl. Shes formidable. Shes
equal to the position destiny
put her in. Sonia was always
timid, had preferred to hide
in Indira Gandhis kitchen
when President Mitterrand

came to dinner. She couldnt

bring herself to say hello to
him; someone who made Rajiv vow hed never join politics. But she made speeches
in Parliament when she was
called upon to do so.
The Red Sari is a
highly personal account
of Sonias life although all
the conversations are ctitious. For example, after
Indiras death, the author
has invented a conversation between Sonia and
Rajiv where she asks him
why are you doing this
(becoming PM). The Congress insists imaginary
conversations cannot be
within quotation marks.
Moro counters Congress
doesnt understand that
dramatized biography is
a legitimate genre of writing where facts are true but
conversations are invented
on the basis of research.
So is he apprehensive
now that The Red Sari
is being published, given
that Youth Congress burnt
his efgies in front of the
Spanish embassy when the
book rst came out? I hope
I dont become the Spanish Salman Rushdie, says
Moro. Its a free country
and a democracy. All over
the world public gures are
much more tolerant about
whats written about them
than in India. Especially
after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, killing a book is bad
for the country and bad for
the health of the system.
Moro says rather than Sonia, the woman who comes
off far worse in the book is
Maneka Gandhi whos described as ambitious and
quarrelsome, never liked
by mummy, or Indira.
I like Sonia Gandhi as a
person, but I dont like what
she did with my book. Even
though my book is based
entirely on facts, Congress
sent me nasty emails for
months, constantly insisting, Sonia-is-Indian, Soniais-Indian, says Moro.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Every time a plane crashes, guess what happens. The

probability of the next crash
drops. This is a very good industry, benign. Taleb said
the same cannot be said of
banking in the US or Europe.
If you read in a paper
that a bank crashed today,
guess what? The probability

of a bank crashing tomorrow increases. Thats not

a good business. Its not a
business that learns from
disorder, he said.
Many businesses, he
said, thrive because problems exist and if you dont
have uctuations bad companies accumulate, with
lots of load on their books.
Small, he said, is beautiful and more efcient.
Itd be better to build 1,000
schools than a university,
he said citing PM Narendra
Modis speech where he referred to the small-is-beautiful theme.
Extreme comfort, he
said, is bad: You need to
shock your system once in
a while.

SUMMIT SIDELIGHT

Digital India,
Modis Dream
Government will roll out a
cross-country digital
network to deliver services
in areas such as health,
education and governance
and the process will be
completed in three years,
telecom and IT minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad said at the
summit. The National Optic
Fibre Network programme
will connect 2.5 lakh gram
panchayats, the minister
said, adding adequate
spectrum would be ensured
in auctions next month so
there are no bottlenecks in
the telecom sectors growth.
Coal and power minister
Piyush Goyal dwelt on the
PMs big dream for India
saying Modi keeps the
larger picture in mind and
this will make him realize
and surpass the dream of
India as a $ 20-trillion
economy, Goyal said,
outlining his governance
agenda. Investors are
returning to India. Once a
prominent person told me,
The world will invest in
India, when Indians invest in
India, he said.

Clarification: Speaking on
the opening day of the
summit, Times Group MD
Vineet Jain had said, Three
fourth of Indias start-ups
prefer to base themselves
outside India in places such
as Singapore though their
business activities are
entirely in India. The point
he was seeking to make was
that for the governments
Make in India initiative to
be a success, the tax and
regulatory regime in India
needed to become more
business-friendly so that
Indian companies wouldnt
feel the need to register
abroad. It was not his
contention that the
government should bring
back Indian companies
registered abroad (although
a business-friendly tax/
regulatory regime would by
itself help do that; it would
also stem the outward tide).

Jaitley brands censor

board chief the villain
Govt starved
board of funds:
Members

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Describing Leela
Samson as non-functional,
I&B minister Arun Jaitley
took outgoing Censor Board
chief s accusations of corruption and bureaucratic resistance head-on on Saturday.
He said not only was corruption within the system a
UPA legacy but also CBFCs allegation that it was starved of
funds was unfounded as the
Samson-led censor board
failed to spend what was allocated to it and the unspent
money was returned to the
government.
Samson had on Friday alleged that interference, coercion and corruption from
ministry officials had prompted her to resign.
In a Facebook post, Jaitley
rejected the accusation of interference, saying that neither he nor his junior minister
had spoken to any CBFC member or authorized any bureaucrat to do so. He also said Samsons charge that meetings of
the censor board are not being
held is a self condemnation.
The meetings are to be convened not by the minister or
the secretary but by the chairperson. If the meetings are not
being convened, it is for those
responsible for non-functioning who must blame themselves, he said.
Reiterating that the ministry had an arms length distance from the CBFC, Jaitley

Continued from P 1

Arun Jaitley blamed Leela Samson

for non-functional board

said, It is the censor board

alone which decides issues
within its jurisdiction. The
aggrieved producer has a
right to move to the Appeal
Tribunal. The Congress party
has politicised even membership of the tribunal. We have
restored its dignity by appointing a former Judge of
high credibility as chairperson. If an appeal tribunal disagrees with the board, it is a
part of the due process of law
and not an onslaught on the
boards autonomy.
He added that UPA had politicised the board. Jaitley recalled that in 2004, UPA dismissed the censor board headed by
actor Anupam Kher merely on
the ground that he was appointed by the earlier government.
Jaitley said it was regrettable
that the UPA appointees decided to politicize routine issues.

New Delhi: The overall tally of

board members who have submitted their resignations reached 13 after nine members
wrote to I&B ministry. The letter accuses the government of
appointing people of questionable credentials in the advisory
panel and starving the board
of funds.
The members are: academic Ira Bhaskar, AICC secretary
(Hindi dept) Pankaj Sharma,
film TV journo Rajeev Masand,
Lora Prabhu, Mamang Dai,
Sekharbabu Kancherla, filmmaker Shaji Karun, film critic
Shubhra Gupta and T G Thyagarajan.
Film writer Anjum Rajabali confirmed that he had resigned back in June 2014. Theatre personality M K Raina too
had resigned last year though
he received a membership renewal card a few days ago.
Sources said actor Arundhati
Nag and TV producer Nikhil
Alva have also tendered their
resignations. In all, 13 out 23member censor board have put
in their papers. The term of all
the members had expired in
May 2014, and they were being
given extensions by months
from time to time. TNN

Punjab bans MSG on govt advisory

Chandigarh: The Punjab
government on Saturday
banned screening of the controversial film MSG The
Messenger Of God, which has
Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in
the lead, following a central
advisory and intelligence reports that it could lead to tension.
The screening of the film,
which is yet to be released, has
been stopped with immediate
effect, a Punjab government
spokesman said. The Punjab
government today decided to
stop with immediate effect the
screening of the film MSG in
Punjab in view of reports of
tensions surrounding its re-

ROCKSTAR ROW

lease in some parts of the

country, he said.
The movie has been in news
as it wasnt cleared by the censor board as well as its revising
committee. It was then referred
to the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, which cleared it

for release after asking the producers to make minor changes.

The spokesman said that
the governments decision
comes in wake of reports of
strong reactions and protests,
which even a promotional
trailer of the movie has
evoked in several parts of the
country leading to a serious
spill over of the threat of violence in Punjab.
Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh
Badal, who holds the home
portfolio, said central agencies
had issued advisories to states
to take necessary steps to prevent any breach of peace/untoward incident/adverse fall out
and other law and order problems. IANS