Hazare ke Khwaishen aisi ki har Khwaish ho-hum nikale// Bahut nikale unke demands phir bhi kam nikale

Corruption And Its Discontents

By Niranjan Ramakrishnan

26 August, 2011
Countercurrents.org

Hazare ke Khwaishen aisi ki har Khwaish ho-hum nikale
Bahut nikale unke demands phir bhi kam nikale

(with apologies to Mirza Ghalib)

Judging from the New York Times and the Washington Post, urban India is abuzz with the idea of banishing corruption. Photographs of peaceful marchers filling a giant overpass have made front-page news. Anna Hazare, whose arrest and fast have ignited the stir in cities all across India and amongst Indian groups abroad, is now a well-known figure. The fast, meetings, and protests are being billed as nothing less than a second Freedom Movement.

That last accreditation is in perfect pitch with an intelligentsia cut adrift from any sense of proportion, as befitting one that till only the other day was capable of considering Manmohan Singh a more significant reformer than Mahatma Gandhi.

Amid all the din it is easy to forget the lofty purpose of the Second Freedom Movement. It is for the appointment of an ombudsman and a subsidiary bureaucracy to oversee allegations of corruption amongst government officials. One may just as soon label a demand for Web access to one's income tax records as the second Declaration of Independence.

Owing perhaps to his experiences as a lawyer, Gandhi did not view some new law as the panacea to every social, economic or political problem. He pinned a lot more importance on the renewal of the human being. Gandhi believed that the quality of any country ultimately depends on the quality of its people. His abhorrence of legal cleverness as a means to fixing human problems is best illustrated by EF Schumacher in his classic, Small Is Beautiful,

" Gandhi used to talk disparagingly of 'dreaming of systems so perfect that no-one will need to be good'. "

That corruption is the scourge of daily existence in India as in few other countries may be entirely true. Ordinary people in everyday life have to pay bribes all the way from getting a driver's license to obtaining a housing permit. Certainly many of these are paid to government officials, big and small. The same government officials have to bribe others in their capacity as applicants. Corruption is many things to many people.

What Anna Hazare and his acolytes seem to forget is that corruption is not limited to the government. They also appear to believe that the appointment of eminent Indians to some overseeing council would somehow ensure moral chastity. If credentials alone, or even a personal reputation for incorruptibility, were such strong safeguards, the administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be a showcase for civics textbooks on model governance. Instead, it is considered the fount of malpractice and graft on a gargantuan scale, with many reckoning it presides over the most corrupt dispensation in independent India's history.

Neither the protesters nor the government want to address the issue of corruption in India in its deeper essence. Is it an obscenity only when a government official receives a bribe? What about corruption of the conscience? For instance, is it corruption when someone can build a 60 story skyscraper for a personal residence in a country where millions of children go to bed malnourished? Gandhi again,

"Every palace that one sees in India is a demonstration, not of her riches, but of the insolence of power that riches give to the few, who owe them to the miserably requited labours of the millions of the paupers of India."

Even though there seems to be a palpable correlation between the size and scope of scams in India and Manmohan Singh's neoliberal initiatives starting in the early 90s, Anna Hazare and his wise counselors don’t seem to want to see it. And amidst all his ineptitude in dealing with this latest crisis, practically the first words out of the Prime Minister’s mouth were to caution that it would be wrong to connect corruption with economic liberalization.

As veteran journalist Alexander Cockburn is fond of saying, "never believe anything until it is officially denied".

In 1991, Manmohan Singh, finance Minister in a minority government, kicked off a 'liberalization' program laying the foundation for a two decade neoliberal spree. It has turned some 250 million Indian citizens into celebrated ‘consumers’, but distorted any measure of what Professor Amartya Sen would call ‘social choice'. In this new order, what is good for consumerism and high living is alone good for India, whatever its cost by way of farmer suicides, uprooting of entire villages, pollution of the water table, or handing over of India's agricultural future to the GMO boys at Monsanto and elsewhere. The lone measure of success in this Eastern Wild-West is something called growth rate; the ethos it has spawned would both amaze and gratify Gordon "Greed Is Good" Gecko.

Gandhi's diagnosis and cure for India's corruption epidemic would probably involve a lot more pain and sacrifice than a few marches. He might point out that in a milieu where leaders openly promote moneymaking as the most important virtue, and an elite esteems itself by the extent of its ostentation, corruption would only find a conducive habitat. He would reject recourse to some bill, not for some technical shortcomings, but perhaps saying that reliance on such measures would "diminish the moral height" of Indians, just as his khadi movement urged Indians to boycott foreign cloth and adopt the rougher and costlier homespun, instead of a fast outside the Viceroy’s palace pleading for a ban on English mill imports.

The fervid and often uncivil jousting between "civil society" on the one side and the gentleman Prime Minister’s cabinet on the other, poring over fine points of an anticorruption bill while taking care never to mention the 800 pound gorilla parked in the middle of the room, reminded me of something I had read long ago.

“One of the greatest of the Bengali novelists of the 20th century, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, has summed up the underlying principle of Hindu behavior in a neat, if cynical, epigram. He makes a woman who had a low-caste paramour boast that although she lived 20 years with him she had not for a single day allowed him to enter her kitchen.”

-- Nirad Chaudhuri, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living in the United States. He can be reached at njn_2003@yahoo.com

British Tourism

You have all seen images of the injured Malaysian tourist being robbed by British citizens.

Now VISUALISE THE NEXT SCENE. 

This tourist is in an NHS hospital having recovered his consciousness. His hospital bed is now visited by predatory finance staff from the hospital demanding that he produce instant cash or he will be deported.

So do you see a similarity between this story and the following one? Please comment

http://giffenman-miscellania.blogspot.com/2011/08/uk-tourists-beware-cambridge-hospital.html

Top Ten Jokes at Edinburgh Fringe This Year

The top 10 festival funnies were judged to be:

1) Nick Helm: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

2) Tim Vine: "Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels."

3) Hannibal Buress: "People say 'I'm taking it one day at a time'. You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works."

4) Tim Key: "Drive-Thru McDonalds was more expensive than I thought... once you've hired the car..."

5) Matt Kirshen: "I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped playing chess."

6) Sarah Millican: "My mother told me, you don't have to put anything in your mouth you don't want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards."

7) Alan Sharp: "I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure."

8) Mark Watson: "Someone asked me recently - what would I rather give up, food or sex. Neither! I'm not falling for that one again, wife."

9) Andrew Lawrence: "I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can't even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails."

10) DeAnne Smith: "My friend died doing what he loved ... Heroin."

UK TOURISTS BEWARE – Cambridge Hospital Staff Demand Instant Money from Sick and Ailing Indian Tourist

Cambridge Hospital Staff Demand Instant Money from Sick and Ailing Indian Tourist

The UK likes to portray itself as a friendly and inviting place for tourists. Its visa regime informs tourists who possess medical insurance that in case of an emergency they will receive adequate medical treatment without any need to pay the money upfront. But this is not true in reality as the following story illustrates.

VM, aged 73, is an Indian tourist visiting her family in Cambridge UK since June 2011. On Thursday 18 Aug she was admitted to Cambridge's famous Addenbrooke's hospital for an emergency illness and she received good medical care. Her medical insurers contacted the hospital on Friday 19 August in order to confirm her medical insurance cover and to guarantee payment. Yet on Tuesday 23 August and Wednesday 24 August VM received a rude shock in her hospital bed. Staff from the finance department beseiged her sick bed and demanded that she sign a carte blanche document agreeing to pay any/all charges the NHS may levy for her treatment. When it was pointed out that her insurance company was willing to offer a payment guarantee for her treatment they refused to listen and threatened to deport the tourist.

This issue becomes even more important as London prepares to invite tourists for the 2012 Olympic games. As the following article shows, NHS hospitals have made it a policy to use such high handed behaviour to extort cash from patients in their ailing beds.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-562980/Foreigners-asked-produce-cash-hospital-beds-crackdown-health-tourists.html

In short if this behaviour is allowed to continue, if a luckless tourist finds himself in an NHS hospital s/he will not only have to hope to get better soon in a foreign land, but also try to figure out how to arrange large amounts of cash to fob of the finance staff of these hospitals.

You have been warned, visit the UK only if you or your relatives have large amounts of instant cash. Else you and your relatives will be in peril should you have a medical emergency as NHS hospitals fail to honour the legal commitment made when you obtained your visa.

THE DAILY MAIL ARTICLE

Foreigners asked to produce cash in their hospital beds in crackdown on 'health tourists'

By OLINKA KOSTER
Last updated at 17:54 30 April 2008

A hospital is pioneering a "get tough" attitude on health tourists - by throwing them out of hospital before their treatment is complete unless they pay up.
It means that foreigners who travel to Britain to get free care on the NHS will now be asked to produce cash or a credit card at their hospital bed.
The new approach has already saved the West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth up to £700,000 a year. Its proximity to Heathrow Airport makes it a particular target for immigrants.
If all hospitals did the same, the NHS could recoup tens of millions of pounds a year from health tourists.
Scroll down for more...

Crackdown: West Middlessex University Hospital is getting tough on illegal 'health tourists'

Andy Finlay, the hospital manager in charge of collecting the money at the Middlesex trust, said patients had to pay up-front - or face being discharged within 48 hours.
"We will discharge a patient before they are well," he insisted.
"We will discharge a patient when they are stable, when we have provided what we have to provide - the minimum benchmark.
"Generally, within the first 48 hours after admission they will be given a price on how much, roughly, their treatment is going to cost.
"If I'm interviewing an inpatient I will be at that patient's bedside and I will ask them there and then for a visa, MasterCard, debit card, or cash. We don't take cheques."
Under the current system, anyone who needs emergency care, such as for a heart attack or accident and emergency treatment after an accident, does not have to pay.
But patients not eligible for free care who attempt to use the NHS for ongoing care or treatment that is not immediately necessary have to pay.
These so-called health tourists normally receive a bill on departure from hospital - but only an estimated 30 per cent of the money is recovered.
Under the pilot scheme, they will be asked to pay at their hospital bed for non-emergency care, or told to leave.
However, they would only be discharged after three consultants have agreed their condition is stable.
In the case of a heart attack victim, NHS patients would normally stay in hospital for 10 days. But anyone not eligible for free care could be asked to leave after 48 hours if they are judged stable.
Most patients told to leave did so willingly, Mr Finlay added - but not all of them.
"I've had two death threats, I've been held up against a wall, I've been grabbed round the throat, I've been manhandled by relatives - verbal abuse is almost day-to-day," he said.
"You have to have a very thick skin."
Last year, a secret Government report based on figures from 12 NHS trusts suggested that the bill for treating health tourists was at least £62million a year.
This did not include the cost of treating foreigners entitled to free healthcare, such as asylum seekers and students.
Health tourists not entitled to free treatment include pregnant women who arrive on holiday visas and give birth here.
Many foreign HIV sufferers also target UK hospitals for treatment, the study from 2005 revealed.
In the case of an HIV patient, a clinical decision would be made as to whether emergency care was needed.
At the time the figures were revealed, Conservative MP Ben Wallace said hospitals appeared to be pursuing a "don't ask, don't charge and don't chase policy".
Cash-strapped hospitals are being pushed further into debt because they are failing to claim the millions owed to them by those abusing the system.
As well as the West Middlesex University Hospital, the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and the Luton and Dunstable NHS Foundation Trust have been chosen to take part in the pilot scheme because their catchment areas contain both a "major point of entry to the UK" and a large proportion of asylum seekers.
Mr Finlay said his methods had received an enthusiastic response from across Whitehall - and saved the trust between £600,000 and £700,000-a-year.
"They think it is a fantastic idea, a solution to a relatively new problem," he said.
"It is up to the Department of Health to see how brave they will be to use innovative ways to tackle health tourism."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "It is important that those who are not entitled to NHS services pay for any they receive.
"The Government is currently reviewing access to primary and secondary care for all foreign nationals.
"In doing this we must take into account the implications of any such decisions on the key preventative and public health responsibilities of the NHS.
"We always treat people and do not charge them for emergency treatment, but the thinking behind the pilot schemes is that the NHS is there first and foremost for people who live here."

Rape victims must have flawless pasts to get justice

 

Sexual predators often choose their victims with care, selecting girls and women who are 'vulnerable' and likely to make less convincing witnesses

Joan Smith in The Independent Wednesday, 24 August 2011

The surprising thing about the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the alleged sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid isn't that all charges have been dropped. It's that he was arrested and charged in the first place, given how unlikely it was that he would be convicted. Even if DSK hadn't been one of the world's most powerful, well-known men, the chances of his being found guilty and going to prison were always low, as they are for most men who find themselves accused of rape or sexual assault.

"Rapists who end up being convicted in a court of law must regard themselves as exceptionally unlucky," Professor Joanna Bourke of Birkbeck College argued in her magisterial book Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present. "Rape in this country [the US] is surprisingly easy to get away with," a special report for CBS News concluded in 2009.

Nationwide figures for the US are hard to track down but an analysis of Department of Justice statistics by two of the country's leading sexual assault experts in 2009 found that conviction rates hadn't improved since the 1970s; their study suggested that only two per cent of rapes reported to police in the US ended in a defendant being sent to jail. Across a number of countries, a rising number of reported rapes has not led to a corresponding increase in convictions.

There is no mystery about this. The hunt for the ideal rape victim is never-ending but fruitless, for the simple reason that it requires unimpeachable conduct on the part of the victim in every area of her life, past and present. Women who have been drinking, who know their alleged attacker or who've ever told a lie to a public official, even in an unrelated matter, are not victims prosecutors want to put before juries. Bourke makes a similar point in her book: "Jurors, defence counsel and judges not only expect a much higher level of resistance than required by law, they also require a greater degree of consistency in rape testimonies than they require from victims of other violent crimes."

Indeed what's fascinating about the case, which comes down to the word of the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) against that of an immigrant from West Africa, is that in the beginning prosecutors clearly believed her story about a violent sexual assault. Strauss-Kahn's semen on Nafissatou Diallo's uniform and the carpet of his suite proved beyond doubt that a sexual encounter had taken place, while medical evidence and Diallo's evident distress appeared to support her claim that it wasn't consensual.
So confident was the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, that he proceeded to charge Strauss-Kahn, turning him into one of the world's most high-profile defendants. Even on Monday, when Vance asked a judge to dismiss the charges, he used an ambiguous formulation to explain his change of heart: "The nature and number of the complainant's falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter between the complainant and the defendant." [my italics]

This is an absolutely classic outcome, signalling not the vindication of the defendant but the prosecution's judgement that the accuser would not make a good witness. "Dismissal does not mean he is innocent, simply that the district attorney doesn't believe the case can go to trial," observed a French lawyer, Pierre Hourcade.
Vance's own words suggest that his decision was based not on Diallo's account of the alleged assault, which contains only minor discrepancies about her behaviour immediately after her encounter with DSK, but lies she told when she arrived from Guinea and claimed asylum in the US. Such behaviour is not uncommon when would-be immigrants are trying to improve their chances of being allowed to stay; Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch MP, resigned from parliament five years ago after admitting that she lied on her application for asylum in the Netherlands. Ali later moved to the US where her views are treated with respect and she is regarded as a trenchant critic of radical Islam.

If Diallo's persuasive account of a violent sexual assault is to be dismissed because she lied to get into the US, the implications for other immigrants are alarming. Are prosecutors really saying that anyone who has lied on an asylum application cannot be considered a credible witness in an unrelated matter, no matter how many years later and regardless of forensic evidence supporting their claims? This is surely setting the bar too high, as well as sending a message that some potential victims cannot expect the protection of the law. It's well known that sexual predators often choose their victims with care, selecting girls and women who are "vulnerable" in some way – black, poor, working-class – and likely to make less convincing witnesses.

In the case of DSK, there is also a nagging question of double standards. Some of his more excitable supporters in France have already floated the idea that he could resume pursuit of his ambition to become the Socialist party's candidate in the presidential election, as though he has emerged from this affair with a spotless reputation. But fairness demands that his past conduct should also be examined with equally rigorous standards, and the picture that's emerged is far from edifying.

The French writer Tristane Banon has given a graphic account of what she claims was an attempt by Strauss-Kahn to rape her when she went to interview him in 2003; her mother, Anne Mansouret (a Socialist politician and colleague of Strauss-Kahn) claims that he "took me with the vulgarity of a soldier" during a consensual encounter three years earlier. It is possible that the former IMF boss is the victim of a truly dreadful coincidence, becoming the victim of slander by women who don't know each other on two continents. But it is also possible he is a sexual predator who targets women who are reluctant to report him or unlikely to make a good impression on a jury. The cards have always been stacked in favour of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but we still don't know for certain that Nafissatou Diallo wasn't the victim of a serious sexual assault.

The Indian cricket team - an honest appraisal

by Sambit Bal

Victory brings the warmest glows but the cold light of defeat can bring clarity. The great thing about success is that it is often self-perpetuating, but the trouble is, it can sometimes obscure flaws. If India aren't sick to their stomachs after being handed out a drubbing reminiscent of their dark ages, they don't possibly care enough; but not everything will have been lost if the pain of this defeat spurs the changes essential to prevent a free fall.

It was just as well that Sachin Tendulkar didn't go on to get his 100th hundred at The Oval. It denied India a distraction, a glimmer of feel-good in their hour of misery. Indian cricket doesn't need the blow to be softened at this moment; instead it needs to feel the full impact of this devastating loss, feel the pain, look within and ponder the future with a clear understanding of their failings. Success highlights strengths but failure often offers better opportunities to learn, for it exposes weaknesses. Those who remain successful for long periods use lessons from failure to their advantage. 

India didn't fluke their way to the top of the Test table, or to their World Cup win; indeed, they scrapped every inch, digging into their deepest reserves and drawing on the exceptional skills of a core group of cricketers. They won the World Cup despite the thinness of their bowling attack and despite being the most unathletic team in the tournament. They drew the Test series in South Africa despite not having played a practice game and despite losing the first Test by an innings and some. They managed to beat Australia in a Test by adding nearly 100 runs for the last two wickets in the final innings. In the series before that, they came back after a huge defeat against Sri Lanka. The rescue act was bound go awry some day, and England were too good a team let India come from behind.

The appraisal must begin with honesty. India will do themselves no favours by wishing this away as an aberration. A return to winning ways in one-day cricket or against West Indies at home should change nothing. There has been talk about them not respecting their No. 1 status. The truth, perhaps, is that they backed themselves to overcome the lack of preparation, bench strength and general fitness.

Zaheer Khan turned up with a paunch and without match practice; Tendulkar came off a holiday; Virender Sehwag chose to postpone his shoulder surgery until his team had been knocked out of the IPL, and landed in England after India were two-down; Gautam Gambhir, who played the IPL with an injury, chose to sit out the second Test because of a painful elbow. India delayed calling for an replacement for Zaheer until the second Test. Eventually RP Singh was summoned from Miami, and he arrived looking every inch a man who had been enjoying the good life.

It is one thing for a team to believe it can fight its way out of the worst adversity, another to repeatedly put itself in adversity. India ticked every box for how not to prepare for a big series. 

Administrators and players must be honest about where they stand vis a vis Test cricket. The No. 1 spot in the format was attained not by design but through the burning ambition of a small group of Indian cricketers, for whom the Test version remained the pinnacle. The awakening among the administrators came only after the team became No. 1. Hastily a one-day series against Australia was rearranged to accommodate two Tests. Much in the same manner, an additional tour game is now being sought before the Test series in Australia.

Administrators bristle and players shy away when it is suggested that not everything about the IPL is good for Indian cricket. Of course, there is no denying it its place. Crowds love the entertainment, players love the financial security it provides, and administrators love the might the money brings. But the real challenge for India is to keep Test cricket attractive to players, and it won't be achieved by mere sloganeering.

The biggest problem with Twenty20, and particularly with the IPL, is that it provides disproportionate rewards for too little work and limited skills. Who would pass up the chance of earning in six weeks what might otherwise take a couple of years? There is no other reason why even those Indian players who had withdrawn from playing international Twenty20 even before the IPL began, would never consider missing an IPL season. 

It is up to the Indian board, if it wishes to back its words up with deeds, to provide enough incentives to keep the players interested in Test cricket, which requires far greater toil, not merely on the field but also in preparation. To turn up and deliver four overs of change of pace might not be as simple as it sounds, but weigh that up against maintaining the intensity over 60 overs against international batsmen. Since they drew up the rules of the IPL and possess the cash to call the shots in world cricket, it is not beyond the means of Indian cricket's overlords to make the Test game the most remunerative form.

And since they dictate terms in most matters, how difficult can it be for the Indian cricket board to draw up a schedule that gives their cricketers the best chance of success in all three forms of the game?

If Indian players have looked utterly spent during the English summer, consider this: half the team will drag themselves to the Champions League three days after they complete their one-day assignment in England, then take on England in a five-match one-day series, and cram in a full home series against West Indies before flying out to Australia for four Tests and a one-day triangular.

India's future without their batting greats is too gruesome to contemplate, but the bowling is already in crisis. Zaheer faces an uncertain future, Sreesanth has been a huge disappointment, and that Praveen Kumar, resourceful and skillful as he is, was India's spearhead in England, must say something. The spin front is even more depressing: Harbhajan Singh has continued to slide and not one credible contender is in sight.

One way of looking at the ruins of this tour would be that it cannot get worse, but Indian cricket must brace itself that it's unlikely to get much better in the immediate future. As a Test team India have peaked and descent is inevitable. How well this is managed is to down to the leaders.

The role of the captain and the coach will be vital. It is a test of character for MS Dhoni, who took over an upwardly mobile team and led them to heights never achieved before. But he will be required now to extend himself beyond the field - for players will need to be nurtured and managed. Duncan Fletcher is no stranger to building a team, but he must now demand and be given the powers he needs, and the space to help shape a team not merely capable of winning back the top spot but of holding on to it.

The most important cog in this wheel will be N Srinivasan, the BCCI's president incumbent and widely acknowledged as the most powerful man in Indian cricket. More than anything else Indian cricket needs its priorities sorted and a roadmap set. It is inconceivable that a country so passionate about the game, with so much wealth and so many people, can't produce, by will and planning, another set of winners.

Sambit Bal is the editor of ESPNcricinfo

Anna - the way ahead, please move beyond NGO speak

 Anna Hazare is right.

The fight to rid India of corruption has only just begun. Fuelling outrage is easy. Channelling it democratically towards solutions requires real leadership.

Having won a spectacular victory in popular sentiment, Anna and his team now have to show they understand their responsibilities. They have to move on from NGOspeak and vaulting personal ambitions to the nitty-gritty of nation and confidence building.
Nelson Mandela, who was inspired by Gandhi, said a true leader is one who carries his opponents and friends along in pursuit of a goal.

More importantly, a true leader knows when his job is over and he must leave the stage. I am not sure Anna and his team will stop and listen. Law making succeeds when the historical time necessary for a debate to mature and the political time to capture that knowledge in a body of law meet. Policy work that precedes law making is often work in progress. Experience shows that five key stakeholders — the government, the media, NGOs, academic institutions and the corporate sector — play clearly defined roles in shepherding this process that includes framing issues correctly.

We need to see some confidence-building measures from Anna’s team — a task that can be easily carried out by their second and third rung leadership. Having wrenched the moral high ground from the government, Anna and his team would set a very healthy precedent if they could share a few of their learnings with the nation.

One is to tell us how, in a record time of a few months, they built their knowledge base to arrive at the conclusion that they speak for the nation that wants their version of the Lokpal bill to be passed immediately.

Secondly, it would be very helpful to know their selection criteria for fundraising and how they manage vested interests from donating to their cause. India Against Corruption has posted some lists on the website.

It’s a small start. If Anna could ask all his associates and donors to do the same, our confidence in him will grow. Failing to do so would leave the door open for attacks as the debate moves on to the level that Anna has identified as the fight to finish.

Many of the protesters want jobs. At a time when our economic indicators are a cause for concern, a second confidence building measure would be to tell us what role Anna and his team see for the corporate sector in building a robust economic space for the nation. Is it their final word that economic liberalisation is the root of all evil and that the corporate world is a mafia that is responsible for a lot of what ails India today?

Since some of the leaders with Anna accept corporate funding, it would be helpful if their criteria for differentiating between good and bad corporates could be posted online as a service to the nation. Since they will also require the support of legal luminaries and other NGOs, we come back to confidence building measures that is expected of all good politicians and statesmen.

As a third confidence building exercise and using the Jan Lokpal bill as an example, Anna and his team should tell the nation how they would have dealt with one of the many major scams in front of us or how would secure corruption free jobs for the deserving. It could be a Jan Lokpal roadmap to justice. This is not a hypothetical question. It is real time learning.

The government has no credibility on this issue. This is a historical moment for us. Anna has won hands down in the people’s court.
It is therefore expected of him to now go beyond flag waving, show statesmanship and governance, and convert this grand and popular victory into a robust nation building exercise engaging transparently not just with the media but with all sectors and people who have a stake in making India corruption free.

Having raised expectations all around, Anna and his team now have to prove with every act and word that they are right when they say they have earned the right to lead. The nation is waiting with bated breath.

Chitra Subramaniam Duella is founder, CSD consulting, Switzerland, a business development company that promotes ethical businesses practices. She is also a former award-winning journalist and author.
 

DNA / Chitra Subramaniam Duella / Wednesday, August 24, 2011 10:30 IST

 

URL of the article: http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/report_chitra-subramaniam-duella-anna-move-beyond-ngospeak_1579121-all

Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo must be obtained from www.3dsyndication.com

For all Anna supporters - do you have answers to these questions?

Arundhati Roy

The Hindu Arundhati Roy. File photo

While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not.

If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind.

For completely different reasons, and in completely different ways, you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle, waged by a largely adivasi army, made up of the poorest of the poor. The other, from the top down, by means of a bloodless Gandhian coup, led by a freshly minted saint, and an army of largely urban, and certainly better off people. (In this one, the Government collaborates by doing everything it possibly can to overthrow itself.)

In April 2011, a few days into Anna Hazare's first “fast unto death,” searching for some way of distracting attention from the massive corruption scams which had battered its credibility, the Government invited Team Anna, the brand name chosen by this “civil society” group, to be part of a joint drafting committee for a new anti-corruption law. A few months down the line it abandoned that effort and tabled its own bill in Parliament, a bill so flawed that it was impossible to take seriously.

Then, on August 16th, the morning of his second “fast unto death,” before he had begun his fast or committed any legal offence, Anna Hazare was arrested and jailed. The struggle for the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill now coalesced into a struggle for the right to protest, the struggle for democracy itself. Within hours of this ‘Second Freedom Struggle,' Anna was released. Cannily, he refused to leave prison, but remained in Tihar jail as an honoured guest, where he began a fast, demanding the right to fast in a public place. For three days, while crowds and television vans gathered outside, members of Team Anna whizzed in and out of the high security prison, carrying out his video messages, to be broadcast on national TV on all channels. (Which other person would be granted this luxury?) Meanwhile 250 employees of the Municipal Commission of Delhi, 15 trucks, and six earth movers worked around the clock to ready the slushy Ramlila grounds for the grand weekend spectacle. Now, waited upon hand and foot, watched over by chanting crowds and crane-mounted cameras, attended to by India's most expensive doctors, the third phase of Anna's fast to the death has begun. “From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India is One,” the TV anchors tell us.

While his means may be Gandhian, Anna Hazare's demands are certainly not. Contrary to Gandhiji's ideas about the decentralisation of power, the Jan Lokpal Bill is a draconian, anti-corruption law, in which a panel of carefully chosen people will administer a giant bureaucracy, with thousands of employees, with the power to police everybody from the Prime Minister, the judiciary, members of Parliament, and all of the bureaucracy, down to the lowest government official. The Lokpal will have the powers of investigation, surveillance, and prosecution. Except for the fact that it won't have its own prisons, it will function as an independent administration, meant to counter the bloated, unaccountable, corrupt one that we already have. Two oligarchies, instead of just one.

Whether it works or not depends on how we view corruption. Is corruption just a matter of legality, of financial irregularity and bribery, or is it the currency of a social transaction in an egregiously unequal society, in which power continues to be concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller minority? Imagine, for example, a city of shopping malls, on whose streets hawking has been banned. A hawker pays the local beat cop and the man from the municipality a small bribe to break the law and sell her wares to those who cannot afford the prices in the malls. Is that such a terrible thing? In future will she have to pay the Lokpal representative too? Does the solution to the problems faced by ordinary people lie in addressing the structural inequality, or in creating yet another power structure that people will have to defer to?

Meanwhile the props and the choreography, the aggressive nationalism and flag waving of Anna's Revolution are all borrowed, from the anti-reservation protests, the world-cup victory parade, and the celebration of the nuclear tests. They signal to us that if we do not support The Fast, we are not ‘true Indians.' The 24-hour channels have decided that there is no other news in the country worth reporting.

‘The Fast' of course doesn't mean Irom Sharmila's fast that has lasted for more than ten years (she's being force fed now) against the AFSPA, which allows soldiers in Manipur to kill merely on suspicion. It does not mean the relay hunger fast that is going on right now by ten thousand villagers in Koodankulam protesting against the nuclear power plant. ‘The People' does not mean the Manipuris who support Irom Sharmila's fast. Nor does it mean the thousands who are facing down armed policemen and mining mafias in Jagatsinghpur, or Kalinganagar, or Niyamgiri, or Bastar, or Jaitapur. Nor do we mean the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, or the people displaced by dams in the Narmada Valley. Nor do we mean the farmers in NOIDA, or Pune or Haryana or elsewhere in the country, resisting the takeover of the land.

‘The People' only means the audience that has gathered to watch the spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself to death if his Jan Lokpal Bill is not tabled and passed by Parliament. ‘The People' are the tens of thousands who have been miraculously multiplied into millions by our TV channels, like Christ multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the hungry. “A billion voices have spoken,” we're told. “India is Anna.”

Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.

He does however support Raj Thackeray's Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model' of Gujarat's Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.)

Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna's old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna's village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna's attitude to ‘harijans': “It was Mahatma Gandhi's vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependant. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi.” Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-“merit”) movement? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and the Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic?

Remember the campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill gathered steam around the same time as embarrassing revelations by Wikileaks and a series of scams, including the 2G spectrum scam, broke, in which major corporations, senior journalists, and government ministers and politicians from the Congress as well as the BJP seem to have colluded in various ways as hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees were being siphoned off from the public exchequer. For the first time in years, journalist-lobbyists were disgraced and it seemed as if some major Captains of Corporate India could actually end up in prison. Perfect timing for a people's anti-corruption agitation. Or was it?

At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions — the corporations, the media, and NGOs — would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely.

Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms — more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India's natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee.

Will the 830 million people living on Rs.20 a day really benefit from the strengthening of a set of policies that is impoverishing them and driving this country to civil war?

This awful crisis has been forged out of the utter failure of India's representative democracy, in which the legislatures are made up of criminals and millionaire politicians who have ceased to represent its people. In which not a single democratic institution is accessible to ordinary people. Do not be fooled by the flag waving. We're watching India being carved up in war for suzerainty that is as deadly as any battle being waged by the warlords of Afghanistan, only with much, much more at stake.

The problem with the Anna Hazare plan

By C P Surendran in The Times of India

A most comical anti-corruption opera is being staged all over the country under the leadership of Anna Hazare, who in his moral tyranny is actually beginning to look like Mahatma Gandhi. This itself is a bit of laugh: when a man wants to be someone else eventually transmigration of the soul and nose happens. It only remains for Anna to hold the Dandi March.




But the real reason why this anti-corruption campaign is looking like an over-stretched Johnny Lever joke is that the people largely constituting the movement have happily externalized corruption as if it's an event happening outside themselves.



The fact is that the petite bourgeoisie-auto rickshaw drivers, and constables, if Haryana Police Sangathan support for Jan Lok Pal's bill is any indication, and low paid government officials and assorted elements-have no idea that they are very much part of the corruption. They believe it is a disease outside them, primarily endemic to the government and its institutions, when they are active players in the drama.



The others who are a part of the movement, including the youngsters, who this lookist country swears by, are there for an opportunity to hold candles and chant Sarojini Naidu kind of poems which normally begin: O, deliverer… The youth will hold a candle and even burn a finger from the dripping wax, but when it comes to admission, if an IIT director or an engineering college dean will accept cash for seats, they will gladly part with it.



For one with passing interest in the Lokpal politics, the only major difference in the bills drafted by the government and Anna apart from bringing the PM into the bill's ambit, seems to be that the government wants to set up a separate investigative agency while Anna and his team want an existing investigating agency like the CBI to report to the Lokpal committee. That would eventually mean the Lokpal evolving into a parallel power vortex, and might make Parliament redundant.



In other words, those whom you elected will not be of as much consequence as those self-appointed or government nominated Lokpal committee members. That is a fraught process, and actually might create more unaccountability and corruption.



That is one part of the joke. The other, equally entertaining part has been the Congress-led UPA government's complete and visible bankruptcy of ideas to tackle an agitation outside party structures. Much the same happened before the Emergency when Jayaparakash Naryan led a movement that cut across party lines against the Indira Gandhi led Congress government, which panicked and declared an Emergency.



Anna's movement is mostly apolitical. And the support it has drawn, for all its faults, is an indication how political parties and other democratic institutions have failed to represent people, or inspire faith. Across the world, memberships of political parties are decreasing. Alternate people's groupings with environmental and ethical themes are gaining strength. In Europe and America where democracies are institutionally stronger and fairer than in India, this could be explained as an evolution.



But, in India where fairness woven into the system is at best fraying, when a movement is directed primarily against its institutions and the political party in power as well as the ones in Opposition are fumbling in their response, a movement like this can have dire consequences. Clearly, the parties have failed to represent the people, which is why a moral tyrant like Anna is holding the government to ransom. When institutions fail, individuals take up their role. .And if Anna wins, the nature of Indian politics will change.



It'd be fun to see who were the advisors who landed a wimp like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh into the Lok Pal soup. A party that can't argue its case against a retired army truck driver whose only strength really is a kind of stolid integrity and a talent for skipping meals doesn't deserve to be in power. Power goes to people who love it. Anna Hazare loves nothing more than power.

Students name best (and worst) universities

By Richard Garner, Education Editor and Laurie Martin
Wednesday, 17 August 2011

 

A year is a long time in the world of higher education. A university that has been the most expensive in the country will become one of the best in terms of value for money next year.

The University of Buckingham is ranked third in a table of student satisfaction published today – but those above it will be charging the maximum £9,000 a year for a three-year course.

Professor Terence Keeley, the vice-chancellor, said "We're going from the most expensive university in the UK to the cheapest," he said yesterday, "and we still don't know how to handle that psychologically."
Buckingham, the UK's only private university, scores 93 per cent in a table showing the percentage of students sat each university satisfied with their courses – putting it in third place.

Top of the league table is the higher charging Brighton and Sussex Medical School followed by Cambridge University.

The table, however, would appear to show that if students are looking for value for money next year, they need to look outside of the traditional state-funded university you can go away to and study at for three years.
All those in the top ten that can charge £9,000 a year for their courses and those in England are doing so.
Buckingham University, who will be charging £7,500 a year for a three-year course, and the Open University, which is charging £5,000 a year, are the exceptions.

In Buckingham's case, courses are spread over a two-year period – so the actual cost is £11,250. However, that is still significantly less than the £27,000 for a three-year course at a university charging the maximum.
Professor Keeley is clear as to why students rate the university.

"That's straightforward," he said. "In every other university in Britain, the client is the Government – so they have to work to government targets. Here the client is the student."

Christina Lloyd, director of teaching and learning at the Open University – which has been in the top three for the past seven years, added: "As students become more focused on their finances, quality, value for money and the student experience are more important than ever."

Overall, 83 per cent of students who responded to this year's national student survey said they were satisfied with their courses, nine per cent were dissatisfied and eight per cent said they did not know.

Individual figures ranged from 95 per cent for Brighton and Sussex Medical school to just 67 per cent for Ravensbourne College, a university sector college specialising in digital media and design.

In the further education sector, the figures were more varied with 100 per cent satisfaction registered at Trafford College in Greater Manchester but only 39 per cent in Barnfield College.in Luton and Bedford.
Whilst universities were pleased that the overall satisfaction figures were a slight increase on last year, there was a warning of the impact cuts and rises in fees could have.

THE US Rating Downgrade Explained - Finance capital is trying to impose the same fiscal austerity on the US as it had foisted on the eurozone.

(From Economic and Political Weekly India's editorial)

 The issuers of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) during the housing boom in the United States in the first few years of the 2000s paid the credit rating agencies – Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s (S&P), and Fitch – for the top ratings that the latter bestowed on those debt instruments. Thank heavens it was not the investors (in those securities) who had to compensate the credit rating agencies for the AAA credit ratings that they gave
the MBS shortly before the market collapsed and the securities defaulted. Now, on 5 August, one of them, S&P, became really audacious – it downgraded US Treasury securities, ignoring the
fact that, unlike in the case of the 17 countries in the European Monetary Union, the US Federal Reserve can sustain the government’s fiscal deficits and refinance the public debt by purchasing the Treasury’s securities. What may have provoked S&P into the act?

Can the turmoil on the financial markets since the downgrade be attributed to what S&P did? What may be the repercussions of “the deal” between the Barack Obama administration and the Republicans in Congress that permitted an enhancement of the ceiling on the US public debt based, of course, on the quid pro quo
of fiscal deficit reduction, a bargain that US finance capital was presumably not content with?

But, first, what about the settlement between President Obama and the Republicans? From the perspective of S&P’s credit rating, the question was one of sustainability of the public debt. Presumably, even after the agreement to reduce the projected fiscal deficit by $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years,
the projected public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) was rapidly rising from 2015 to 2021. S&P and US finance capital wanted double the cut in the fiscal deficit over the same period. But let us come to the expenditure reduction of $917 billion over the next 10 years that will permit a $1 trillion increase in the
debt ceiling. The many expenditure reductions that this will require have more to do with infrastructure, education, housing, community services, etc, than with defence and homeland security. And, a further $1.2 billion reduction in expenditure – again, more to do with entitlements than with defence – is on
the anvil, besides a balanced budget amendment. So severe cuts in social security, including Medicare, are very much on the agenda. In reality, it seems the Obama administration is not much at odds with the Republicans as regards these cuts, but, of course, the president is seeking another term in office, come November 2012, and so he could not have been able to meet finance capital’s demands to the full.

US public debt has risen rapidly since 2000, but the main reasons for this are the tax cuts for corporations and the rich, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (besides the otherwise huge increase in defence expenditure), the costly bailouts of banks, insurance companies and corporations such as the auto companies, and, of
course, the stimulus spending during the Great Recession. The deal with the Republicans will not affect the tax cuts, defence, and the bailouts. But more ominous is the fact of economic stagnation – the first and second quarter 2011 growth rates of 0.3% and 1.3% are dismal for an economy that is claimed to be recovering from the Great Recession. The cuts in government expenditure – coming at a time when additional private consumption and private investment are not forthcoming, and when the US cannot match
the neo-mercantilist powers like Germany and China – may, most likely, push the economy into another recession which will bring on even higher fiscal deficits. In fact, interest rates have declined
in the wake of S&P’s decision! And, of course, with the central banks of the 17 out of 27 countries of the European Union (EU) not allowed to sustain their respective governments’ fiscal deficits and refinance public debt by purchasing their governments’ securities, no solution of the eurozone’s debt crises is in sight.

Even as we look at S&P’s downgrading of US public debt, it might be worth a while to comment on the eurozone’s debt crisis, for the contrast may be enlightening. Here the problem has its roots in the EU’s Stability Pact which commits member states not to increase their fiscal deficits beyond 3% and their public debt to GDP beyond 60%. Countries that violate these stipulations are forced to borrow short-term on the private capital markets for their central banks are not permitted to sustain such fiscal deficits, and are
thus not allowed to refinance public debt by purchasing their government’s securities. The crucial link between monetary and fiscal policy is thus deliberately snapped. Now, besides Spain, Greece and Portugal, Italy too faces a public debt crisis that has its roots in such a financial architecture, and the people are forced
to bear the brunt of the draconian austerity measures imposed.

The United Kingdom (UK) would have also been in a similar boat if the eurozone criteria had applied to it. The financial markets would then have doubted the government’s ability to refinance the public debt because the link between the Treasury and the Bank of England would have been snapped.One might be thankful that the UK is not a part of the eurozone given the current social turmoil it is facing. Much of the eurozone countries’ mercantilist strategies have exacerbated the EU’s macroeconomic problems with their competitive drives to push down the wage relative to labour productivity, this, in the absence of a national currency whose value could have otherwise been depreciated.

Now, the US’ problems are not that of the eurozone but finance capital could not care less. It is trying to impose the eurozone’s fiscal responsibility standards on Washington, and, in this, S&P is its instrument. Finance capital will, after all, snatch as much of its share of the return on capital that it can, and, this, by any and all available means at its disposal, even if this robs the people at large of their very means of keeping body and soul together.

Oprah and the philanthropy that chokes

Billionaire celebrities want to save the world Oprah Winfrey-style. But their giving has a price

• 
• • Priyamvada Gopal
  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday 14 August 2011 17.36 BST
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Oprah Winfrey has given money to New Orleans, HIV/Aids prevention, abused women's shelters and private scholarships. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Media empress Oprah Winfrey has been nominated for a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt award, for those "whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry". This has created mild controversy in the US, with some charging that she is insufficiently Hollywood to merit an award held by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. But Winfrey is as good a choice as any to confer an aura of piety on an industry better known for lavish lifestyles than saving the world. Her contributions to charitable causes have included reconstruction in New Orleans, HIV/Aids prevention, abused women's shelters, church charities and private school scholarships for disadvantaged children. More interesting is why humanitarianism has assumed such importance as a must-be-seen-to-be-doing-it activity for the rich and the famous. From the obligatory royal photo-op with the homeless on LA's Skid Row to the ubiquitous images of white female celebrities cradling African babies, exhibitionist "caring" is as essential a marker of wealth and celebrity as signature scents and personal assistants. It's too easy to argue this is about mitigating guilt and resentment. More significant is how billionaire benevolence is closely tied to the big neoliberal political manoeuvres of our time. This relationship can be scrutinised without necessarily questioning Winfrey's personal sincerity or denying that wealthy giving benefits a few. Brand Oprah is a seamless and hugely influential melding of capitalism, self-help, humanitarian aspirations and spirituality. Endless consumption is encouraged by personal recommendations and lavish freebies from iPods to jewellery. At the same time, disciples can practise tasteful austerity with "debt diets" reminding us that "we are all responsible for everything that happens to us". The poor, too, are responsible both for their condition and for overcoming it. Buying things for the deserving poor – and Winfrey is clear that they are not all deserving – must be seen as "giving them bootstraps". Pledging to "destroy the welfare mentality", Winfrey has often suggested that receiving state assistance is a choice, one she herself rejected. Her grand philanthropic acts, such as the failed experiment to move 100 Chicago families into private housing during Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" efforts, are accompanied by politically welcomed criticism of public assistance as dependence. Yet as psychologist Bruce Levine notes, it is precisely "fundamentalist consumerism" which destroys self-reliance. Winfrey has been justifiably accused by activists of "reinforcing the US war on the poor" by blaming victims. In practising what should really be called "humanitarian privatisation", Winfrey and other philanthropists like Bill Gates have targeted public education with missionary zeal, speaking authoritatively on a subject they know little about. Having decided not to donate to inner-city public schools after criticising them and deeming their students unwilling to learn, Winfrey has publicly backed those advocating "charter schools", the US equivalent of free schools – including Gates and the makers of a controversial film, Waiting for "Superman", which attacks teachers and unions. In a parallel move, Rupert Murdoch is going ahead with plans to sponsor an academy in east London over the objections of the local council. The billionaire "humanitarianism" of Winfrey, Gates and Murdoch is deeply compromised not only by its failure to acknowledge the causal relationship between extreme wealth and great poverty but by participating in an ideological assault on the welfare state. It posits itself as the only way to change the world – from above and with a wealthy few firmly in control. A Hollywood celebrity more worthy of our respect is Matt Damon who, as American schoolteachers demonstrated this month in a Save Our Schools rally, confronted media suggestions that job security made teachers lazy. In a video clip that has gone viral, Damon lambasts "MBA-style thinking" as "the problem with [education] policy right now". This solidarity with the aspirations of the many and not the self-interested paternalism of the few is the humanitarianism that our times call for.

• © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Are beautiful people 'selfish by nature'?

People with symmetrical faces are more self-sufficient and less likely to co-operate, new research suggests

• Jamie Doward and Bradley Wilkinson
• The Observer, Sunday 14 August 2011
• larger | smaller

A study suggests that people with symmetrical faces, such as Natalie Portman, are naturally more self-sufficient. Photograph: Steve Granitz/WireImage
Kate Moss, George Clooney, Natalie Portman or Cristiano Ronaldo may be many people's ideas of dream dates, but pioneering research that combines economics with biology suggests they may not be perfect life partners. According to a study to be discussed this month at a gathering of Nobel prizewinners, people blessed with more symmetrical facial features, which are considered more attractive, are less likely to co-operate and more likely to selfishly focus on their own interests. Santiago Sanchez-Pages, who works at the universities of Barcelona and Edinburgh, and Enrique Turiegano, of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, base their claims on the "prisoner's dilemma" model of behaviour, played out under laboratory conditions. Two players were each given the option of being a "dove" and co-operating for the greater good; or a "hawk", taking the selfish option, with a chance of gaining more if the other player chose "dove" and co-operated. The subjects' faces were then analysed. The study found that people with more symmetrical faces were less likely to co-operate and less likely to expect others to co-operate. The findings will be presented at the annual Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany, from 23 to 27 August. The explanation may be found in evolution. The two academics speculate that, on a subconscious level, people tend to view symmetrical physical attributes as a sign of good health and find people with them more attractive as a result. Earlier studies have suggested that individuals with symmetrical faces tend to suffer fewer congenital diseases and therefore make better potential mating partners. As a result, the studies suggest, they are more self-sufficient and have less need for seeking the help of others. The pair write: "As people with symmetrical faces tend to be healthier and more attractive, they are also more self-sufficient and have less of an incentive to co-operate and seek help from others. Through natural selection over thousands of years, these characteristics continue to the present day." The authors also examine the relationship between co-operation levels and exposure to testosterone during development. Testosterone is usually associated with aggressive behaviour, suggesting "alpha males" do not make great team players. But the authors suggest this is only a partial truth and that testosterone can promote co-operative behaviour. They write: "Subjects exposed to higher levels of testosterone during foetal development did not co-operate less than the rest and even co-operated more than subjects with average levels. It seems that leading co-operation and not necessarily obtaining a higher individual profit are seen by some as a source of status." The pair warn against jumping to the "simplistic conclusion" that facial asymmetry or testosterone can be used to predict a person's behaviour, but they suggest their research could help to design public policies and act as a corrective to purely economic-based decision making. They note: "If certain behaviours such as smoking, drinking or high-speed driving are perceived by those who engage in them as part of their quest for status, it is very unlikely that providing economic disincentives like higher taxes, prices or fines will have a strong deterrent effect."

• © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

The Rioters' Defence

By Peter Oborne Politics Last updated: August 11th, 2011 in The Telegraph


David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.

Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?

Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.

A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.

The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.

These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.
But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.
The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

German tax dodgers with money hidden in Swiss banks can sleep easy tonight.

Germany has set back the fight against tax evasion

Those who squirrel away undeclared wealth in Switzerland will be pleased by this deal. What's worse, the UK may follow suit

• 
• • David McNair
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 August 2011 08.00 BST
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'Germany is setting back years of work towards the global prize of ending banking secrecy in the world's most pervasive tax haven.' Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters/Corbis
 
 
 German tax dodgers with money hidden in Swiss banks can sleep easy tonight. For the German government this week initialled a beggar-thy-neighbour deal that undermines years of diplomatic work to penetrate Switzerland's globally corrosive banking secrecy. The agreement, which is due to be signed by both governments over the next few weeks, sees Germany accepting a paltry $2.8bn upfront from the Swiss banks said to hold some $276bn of Germans' undeclared wealth . In addition, the deal says that Germans will in future be taxed at 26% on the income from their Alpine accounts – money the Swiss authorities will then hand over to Germany. But the Germans with secret accounts will not be forced to tell the taxman that they are hiding their wealth abroad. Their identities will remain secret, allowing Swiss bankers to keep their boasts about "privacy" and "confidentiality".  Both governments are spinning their agreement as a huge success for international co-operation and the fight against tax evasion. In fact, Germany is setting back years of work towards the global prize of ending banking secrecy in the world's most pervasive tax haven. It has dealt a serious blow to prospects for automatic, multilateral exchange of tax-related information between governments, which is the gold standard for deterring tax dodging. German Tax Justice Campaigners are hoping the deal with Switzerland can be repealed. But what about the scores of countries without the economic and political clout to negotiate such agreements with Switzerland? How are they to capture some of the billions they are haemorrhaging as a result of tax dodging and corruption? They are reliant on the kind on international co-operation that NGOs including Christian Aid are fighting for, in order to End Tax Haven Secrecy. There may be worse to come. Here in the UK, HM Treasury is negotiating a similar agreement with Switzerland. It has simply been biding its time to see what kind of deal Germany gets. With the UK government pursuing such a self-interested and myopic policy, it is no surprise that senior UK diplomats appear distinctly disinterested in playing ball at the G20, where a truly global deal to end tax haven secrecy could be brokered. A former senior US Treasury official, who used to negotiate tax treaties for the US, recently told me of his fury about how these dirty deals are undoing a whole career's worth of work against financial secrecy. Such is the scourge of tax havens that the Tax Justice Network estimate assets held offshore total $11.5tn – which if taxed could yield revenues in excess of $225bn. This is money that could be paying for schools, hospitals, university fees and so on – not only in the developed world but also in developing countries. It is $11.5tn that could be used productively in the global economy rather than stashed away in an Alpine tax haven for private gain. Meanwhile, the real Swiss economy doesn't seem to be benefiting too much from the influx of dodgy capital. Its government this week met for a third unscheduled session to grapple with curbing the surging value of the Swiss franc, which is damaging Swiss exports and sending the economy down a precarious path. Yet again, it is vested interests who are winning out over the real economy and the everyday citizens who are being deprived of essential services, whether in Basel, Berlin or Bamako.

• © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

David Cameron has to maintain that the unrest has no cause except criminality – or he and his friends might be held responsible

These riots reflect a society run on greed and looting

• 
• • Seumas Milne
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 22.39 BST
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David Cameron talks to acting borough commander superintendent Jo Oakley during a visit to Croydon to view the destruction from the riots. Photograph: Wpa Pool/Getty Images
It is essential for those in power in Britain that the riots now sweeping the country can have no cause beyond feral wickedness. This is nothing but "criminality, pure and simple", David Cameron declared after cutting short his holiday in Tuscany. The London mayor and fellow former Bullingdon Club member Boris Johnson, heckled by hostile Londoners in Clapham Junction, warned that rioters must stop hearing "economic and sociological justifications" (though who was offering them he never explained) for what they were doing. When his predecessor Ken Livingstone linked the riots to the impact of public spending cuts, it was almost as if he'd torched a building himself. The Daily Mail thundered that blaming cuts was "immoral and cynical", echoed by a string of armchair riot control enthusiasts. There was nothing to explain, they've insisted, and the only response should be plastic bullets, water cannon and troops on the streets. We'll hear a lot more of that when parliament meets – and it's not hard to see why. If these riots have no social or political causes, then clearly no one in authority can be held responsible. What's more, with many people terrified by the mayhem and angry at the failure of the police to halt its spread, it offers the government a chance to get back on the front foot and regain its seriously damaged credibility as a force for social order. But it's also a nonsensical position. If this week's eruption is an expression of pure criminality and has nothing to do with police harassment or youth unemployment or rampant inequality or deepening economic crisis, why is it happening now and not a decade ago? The criminal classes, as the Victorians branded those at the margins of society, are always with us, after all. And if it has no connection with Britain's savage social divide and ghettoes of deprivation, why did it kick off in Haringey and not Henley? To accuse those who make those obvious links of being apologists or "making excuses" for attacks on firefighters or robbing small shopkeepers is equally fatuous. To refuse to recognise the causes of the unrest is to make it more likely to recur – and ministers themselves certainly won't be making that mistake behind closed doors if they care about their own political futures. It was the same when riots erupted in London and Liverpool 30 years ago, also triggered by confrontation between the police and black community, when another Conservative government was driving through cuts during a recession. The people of Brixton and Toxteth were denounced as criminals and thugs, but within weeks Michael Heseltine was writing a private memo to the cabinet, beginning with "it took a riot", and setting out the urgent necessity to take action over urban deprivation. This time, the multi-ethnic unrest has spread far further and faster. It's been less politicised and there's been far more looting, to the point where in many areas grabbing "free stuff" has been the main action. But there's no mystery as to where the upheaval came from. It was triggered by the police killing a young black man in a country where black people are 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than their white counterparts. The riot that exploded in Tottenham in response at the weekend took place in an area with the highest unemployment in London, whose youth clubs have been closed to meet a 75% cut in its youth services budget. It then erupted across what is now by some measures the most unequal city in the developed world, where the wealth of the richest 10% has risen to 273 times that of the poorest, drawing in young people who have had their educational maintenance allowance axed just as official youth unemployment has reached a record high and university places are being cut back under the weight of a tripling of tuition fees. Now the unrest has gone nationwide. But it's not as if rioting was unexpected when the government embarked on its reckless programme to shrink the state. Last autumn the Police Superintendents' Association warned of the dangers of slashing police numbers at a time when they were likely to be needed to deal with "social tensions" or "widespread disorder". Less than a fortnight ago, Tottenham youths told the Guardian they expected a riot. Politicians and media talking heads counter that none of that has anything to do with sociopathic teenagers smashing shop windows to walk off with plasma TVs and trainers. But where exactly did the rioters get the idea that there is no higher value than acquiring individual wealth, or that branded goods are the route to identity and self-respect? While bankers have publicly looted the country's wealth and got away with it, it's not hard to see why those who are locked out of the gravy train might think they were entitled to help themselves to a mobile phone. Some of the rioters make the connection explicitly. "The politicians say that we loot and rob, they are the original gangsters," one told a reporter. Another explained to the BBC: "We're showing the rich people we can do what we want." Most have no stake in a society which has shut them out or an economic model which has now run into the sand. It's already become clear that divided Britain is in no state to absorb the austerity now being administered because three decades of neoliberal capitalism have already shattered so many social bonds of work and community. What we're now seeing across the cities of England is the reflection of a society run on greed – and a poisonous failure of politics and social solidarity. There is now a danger that rioting might feed into ethnic conflict. Meanwhile, the latest phase of the economic crisis lurching back and forth between the United States and Europe risks tipping austerity Britain into slump or prolonged stagnation. We're starting to see the devastating costs of refusing to change course.

• © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.