Stiglitz on FDI in India's retail

Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz is one of the world’s leading economists. A former chief economist at the World Bank and currently University Professor at the Columbia Business School, he was recently in India to attend an international conference on development and to promote his new book, The Price of Inequality. He spoke to Pranay Sharma about growing inequality in the world and the challenges facing India. Excerpts:

Your coinage, “one per cent versus 99 per cent”, has caught the imagination of different people in the world. What does that reflect?

It reflects a different view of society. The nomenclature, ‘one per cent and ninety nine per cent’, is a way of saying that almost everybody today is in one boat and a few people are in another boat. There is now that huge divide from the very top that is no longer class-based but money-based. So it’s really the redefining of the divisions within our societies.

And this is not specific to the US but something seen all over the world?

That’s correct, it’s all over the world. India has become famous for being the land with the highest per capita of billionaires. This is striking for a country which is average and has a large number of poor people.

“India’s famous for being the land with the highest per capita of billionaires. Striking for an average country with so many poor people.”

Some of your detractors describe you as “the prophet of gloom and doom”. Is that a correct assessment?

I had accurately perceived the crisis of 2008 and there were those who drew a rosy scenario and did not see it happening. The same people started seeing the ‘green shoots’ in 2009 which again did not happen and we did not get the recovery. Those who are described as ‘gloom and doom’ people are the ones who have predicted, as people jokingly say, five out of the last 10 recessions.

Everybody now talks about the global economic crisis and how it has affected countries across the world, including the US. But are you overstating the case about the US?

The statistics are what they are. The fact that the median income of a full-time worker is lower than what it was in 1968 is part of it. I have gathered some of the statistics that may not have been given sufficient attention by others, but those are facts. The question is, what do you make of those facts? Where the US economy is going is obviously a matter of interpretation. But some of the facts that I think are disturbing may be different from the facts that others are looking at.

What you describe in your book is not only an economic or political failure, but a systemic failure in the US. Is democracy in the US in crisis?

Yes, it is. We have changed the rules of the game to give more weight to money and moneyed interests just at the time when inequality is growing. So we now have an out-of-balance political system.

“There is that huge divide now from the very top that is no longer class-based but money-based...a redefining of divisions within societies.”

You say in your book that if the economic benefits were shared better, Americans would have forgiven many of the ‘sins’ of the US corporates. If that were to happen, then who would have paid the price, people in other countries?

What I was trying to suggest was two-fold. That people in America would not have been so concerned if the top had walked away with just a larger share and did not damage the environment too much. The typical American would have felt that he himself was getting better without asking a lot from the corporation. But part of what is going on in terms of global warming is that the price is being borne by people outside the US. People of America had not paid any attention to that at all.

In India, we have the experience of the Bhopal gas tragedy. An American national responsible for it paid very little compensation and refused to share the burden of guilt. Now we have a debate on ‘nuclear liability’ where the US government and American companies planning to set up N-plants in India are opposed to accepting a larger share of the burden if an accident occurs in any of their plants. How do you react to this?

This is a perfect example of why I say that we have a distorted market economy through politics. Markets don’t exist in a vacuum, we create frameworks. They give money to special interest groups—the one per cent. The nuclear industry is a good example. If the government had not been subsidising them, then in a calamity there would be no one to pick up the tab. They say they have insurance but that is a price no company is willing to pay. We pick up the cost of nuclear exposure, nuclear waste...nobody is willing to pay for that. So there is this massive subsidy given by the government to the nuclear industry.

“We have changed the rules of the game to give more weight to moneyed interests, just at the time when inequality is growing.”

So you think US companies planning to set up N-plants here should share a larger burden of that liability?

They should bear it all. In the global context, they don’t bear that in the US either. The nuclear industry exists only because of government subsidies. But subsidy in the form of liability; the oil industry is also protected in the same way. They have a law that limits the liability in the event of a spillover. If you look at the way the legal system is designed, many of those who are injured by the spill will never be compensated.

You have praised governments in China and India for intervening in the market to make globalisation work better for their respective people. How do you now see the performance of the two countries?

China represents what is the success of globalisation, where over 400 million people moved out of poverty. The gap between their income and that of people in the US has reduced enormously. Same is perhaps also true for India. But when you have rising aspirations in a country like China—which has been slow in implementing good working conditions—it can lead to agitations by workers.

What about India?

India has not grown as fast as China but it is growing significantly. There have been very significant successes, though there hasn’t been much reduction in poverty in a big way.

“US firms planning to set up N-plants should bear all the liability. But they don’t do that even in the US, state ‘subsidies’ protect them.”

PM Manmohan Singh announced a clutch of economic reforms recently, particularly in regard to allowing FDI in multi-brand retail. Do you think India needs to open up its market?

India is an unusual country and different from many other developing and emerging markets. It has a large entrepreneurial class and has lots of savings, wealth. And this entrepreneurial class is very talented. So that raises the question as to why India needs foreign entrepreneurs in any sector, particularly the retail or the financial sectors.

And what’s your answer to that?

I have not seen a good explanation yet. To me, as most economists say, a little competition is good. On the other hand, the worry is that a company like Walmart may owe some of their success to its power and ability to drive down prices. Because they can buy things out and if that’s the case then they will use that power to have Chinese goods displace Indian goods. The real harm will not be to the retail sector. That is not the real problem. The harm will be to the Indian supply chain going into the retail sector. The other concern is that Walmart has succeeded in expanding its business by adopting abusive labour relations.

“India has a large, talented entrepreneurial class, and lots of savings and wealth. Why should it need foreign entrepreneurs in any sector?”

Is that the experience of other countries where it has a presence?

That is the experience of other countries. It is a business practice that you don’t want to import to your country. Bribery in Mexico, free-riding on healthcare, a policy against unionisation, discrimination against women—a whole range of accusations, some of which have been proved and others that remain accusations but are hard to win in courts. Why would you want to import such business practices into India? Many economists see the breakdown in social contract as one of the reasons for inequality. There is also a worry that Walmart will break down the social contract in India that is already frail.

So how does one go about it?

The other reply to these concerns is for India to have legislations to ensure these problems don’t happen. You should have good protection from large multinationals.

Does President Obama have a shot at being re-elected?

I think he has a good chance. I think he has been more successful than what his critics say but far less successful than the expectations when he was elected in 2008. The reality is, if the Republicans do well in Congress then it will be a more defensive (move) to prevent things from getting worse. But also not allowing changes that’ll make the economy work.

“Corruption scandals have a resonance as people know the power of money. Money begets money and it begets via the political process.”

When you look at India what are the areas of concerns?

One of the things would be the huge inequality which is still there. It is very serious and it cannot be ignored. The existence of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, they are worse than many other countries.

Do you see the government intervening to tame the market?

I don’t see it that much...when you have so much of economic inequality, there is always the fear that political power will corrupt the government. A lot of the corruption scandals have a resonance because people understand the power of money. They know money begets money and it begets through the political process. It may be difficult to ascertain what happened in the coal block allocations. But these are people’s assets which have surely not been sold in efficient, transparent auctions that could raise the most money for the well-being of everyone in society. And that has a real resonance in a society that already has such inequality.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - a Cloak for Crooks

By S A Aiyar

The government's new Companies Bill will reportedly ask large companies to spend 2% of their net profit on CSR (corporate social responsibility). The theory is that corporates must aim for social goals, not just profits.

It's unclear whether the 2% allocation will be compulsory or indicative. In either case, this misses altogether what corporate social responsibility actually is. It is an ethical attitude, a determination to observe the highest standards in dealing with all stakeholders - customers, suppliers, shareholders. CSR means observing the highest standards in dealing with health and environmental hazards, and in presenting corporate accounts accurately. If a company cheats its stakeholders, fiddles its accounts and ignores hazards, then it is grossly irresponsible whether or not it spends 2% of profits on some list of government-approved social activities.

Last week the Enforcement Directorate attached Rs 822 crore of fixed deposits of the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services. The Satyam scam was the biggest in corporate history. Promoter Ramalinga Raju made Satyam India's third-biggest IT company. But in 2009 Raju confessed he had fiddled the books for years, and forged certificates of bank deposits. This helped inflate the share price and enable Raju and family to borrow huge sums for real estate speculation.

Raju was India's biggest self-confessed crook. Yet he was much celebrated for CSR and won several awards. These included a UK government award for CSR in 2008.

His Byrraju Foundation took information technology directly to rural India. It set up a rural call centre, enabling villagers without college degrees to join the globalisation bandwagon. He took telemedicine to rural areas, enabling villagers to interact with specialist urban doctors. His foundation sought to build self-reliant rural communities, providing services like healthcare, education, water, sanitation and green awareness.

He ran an emergency ambulance service that reached sick and injured people within 30 minutes, ready with paramedics and equipment, and rushed them to hospital. This scheme attracted so much praise that many other states replicated it.

Lesson: a company that cheats shareholders, creditors and other stakeholders can parade as a paragon of corporate ethics, and win multiple awards. Allocating some profits for rural development and health is no indicator whatsoever of ethics. Rather, the CSR allocation can camouflage lack of ethics.

Many consumers have been duped by CSR awards. They are willing to pay more for products from such award winners. After the Satyam debacle, they should know better.

Worse than Satyam has been the oil multinational, BP. It caused the biggest environmental disaster in history when its Maconodo well exploded in the Caribbean Ocean after it failed to observe many safety procedures. This exposed as fraudulent its campaign to paint itself as a green saviour. Once called British Petroleum, it change its name to BP and launched a hugely successful image-building makeover calling itself "Beyond Petroleum". It got a new logo of a green and yellow sun (representing solar energy) to emphasise its green credentials. It boasted it was among the world's biggest producer of solar panels and windpower, although these accounted for barely 3% of its business, and actually represented public relations spending. "Beyond Petroleum" won two "Campaign of the Year" awards from PR Week, and an award from the American Marketing Association.

BP won the 2007 Prime Minister's CSR award in Malaysia for aiding a turtle sanctuary. Fortune magazine has an annual corporate accountability rating for CSR. BP topped the Fortune list in 2004, 2005 and 2007, and came second in 2006. The Chinese were taken in too: in 2007 they gave BP the "The Most Responsible Enterprise" award organized by China News Weekly and the Chinese Red Cross Foundation. BP won the Corporate Citizenship Award for Chinese enterprises several times.

Yet behind this image-manship, BP had a horrendous record of cutting corners and neglecting safety. Its poorly maintained refinery in Texas exploded in 2005, killing 15 and injuring 180. In 2007, a BP pipeline got corroded through neglect and leaked 200,000 gallons of crude into the pristine Alaskan wilderness. BP was fined $303 million to settle an accusation of conspiracy to manipulate the price of propane gas. Between 2007 and 2010, BP refineries in Ohio and Texas ran up 760 "egregious, willful" safety violations, while rivals Sunoco and ConocoPhillips each had eight, Citgo had two and Exxon had one comparable citation. So, BP accounted for 97% of all corporate refinery violations. 

Lesson: don't get fooled by corporate spending on CSR. Far from being evidence of ethics, it's often a cloak for gross misgovernance. If the Companies' Bill mandates 2% spending on supposed CSR, corporate ethics will not improve. Rather, more Satyams will emerge.

George Osborne's 'Austerity begins at home' example

George Osborne raises standard in first-class train row

Treasury account of chancellor's aide finding ticket inspector to pay for upgrade on Virgin train contradicts reporter's version

• Robert Booth, Lizzy Davies and Rajeev Syal
• The Guardian, Friday 19 October 2012 20.36 BST

George Osborne is accused of 'great train snobbery' after journalist says aide told ticket inspector the chancellor 'could not possibly' sit in standard class but could not pay any extra.

George Osborne's face was fixed in a thin grin as he was jostled across platform two at Euston last night, but inside he must have known that a political bomblet had just gone off. Shortly after 5.17pm, as the chancellor alighted from the busy Virgin Pendolino train from Wilmslow, Cheshire, in his Tatton constituency, the reality of what had already been labelled Plebgate 2 became clear.

As Osborne's train rattled through the countryside an hour and a half earlier, a tale of apparent fare dodging by the chancellor – estimated to have a personal wealth of £4m – had emerged through Twitter.

Rachel Townsend, a correspondent for ITV's Granada Reports programme, had been travelling on the same train and tweeted: "Very interesting train journey to Euston. Chancellor George Osborne just got on at Wilmslow with a standard ticket and he has sat in first. His aide tells ticket collector he cannot possibly move and sit with the likes of us in standard class and requests he is allowed to remain in First Class. Ticket collector refuses."

Was it true? Had Osborne, moments before the Tory chief whip, Andrew Mitchell, was forced to resign for reportedly calling a policeman a pleb, really refused to sit in standard, triggering a story that was quickly labelled The Great Train Snobbery?

Virgin, which in August had to swallow the government's decision to remove its franchise for the west coast mainline, which Osborne had just used, confirmed that he had travelled in first class on a standard class ticket, initially at least.

"The chancellor, who was travelling in first class accommodation, held a standard class ticket," a spokesman for Virgin said. "As soon as the train left Wilmslow, an aide went to find the train manager to explain the situation and arrange to pay for an upgrade. It was agreed that the chancellor would remain in first class and an amount of £189.50 was paid by the aide to cover the upgrade for Mr Osborne and his PA. The situation was dealt with amicably between the train manager and George Osborne's aide. At no time was there a disagreement or a refusal to pay for the upgrade. Nor was there any discussion between the train manager and Mr Osborne."

It chimed with the Treasury's account. "The chancellor got a different train than planned due to diary change following a series of meetings in his constituency," a spokesman said. "As he had no seat reservation on the new train, which was crowded, he decided to upgrade – and obviously intended and was happy to pay. An aide sought out the train manager and paid the ticket upgrade."

But that clashed with what Townsend said. She told ITV: "Then his aide approached the ticket collector right next to me. He said he is travelling with George and he has a standard ticket but can he remain in first class? The guard said no. The aide said Osborne couldn't possibly sit in standard class. The guard replied saying if he wants to stay it's £160. The aide said he couldn't pay and he couldn't really sit in standard. The guard refused to budge. The guard went on gathering tickets and later told me Osborne had agreed to cough up the £160."

Fellow passengers were unimpressed with the reports. "Fair's fair. He should be saving the taxpayer money but definitely he shouldn't be sitting in first," said Justin Bateman, 34, a civil servant from Manchester. Keith Young, 60, a doctor from London, agreed. "Standard was busy and the chancellor would not have been able to sit alongside his aides, but he would have been able to occupy a single seat alongside the other passengers." He added: "It's one rule for them and one rule for us. He had no right to make a stand against paying an upgrade."

But even as the facts were still settling, Labour seized on the tale.

"Another day, another demonstration of how out of touch this government is," said Michael Dugher, the shadow Cabinet Office minister. "Just like Andrew Mitchell, George Osborne obviously thinks that it is one rule for him and another for the plebs he is so keen to sit apart from. So much for 'we are all in it together'."

As with Mitchell's rant at the Downing Street police, the spirit of Boris Johnson loomed. In Mitchell's case it was quickly pointed out that the mayor of London had once called for people who swear at police to be jailed. Now memories turned to the Tory darling's scathing attack last year on what he called the "parasitic scourge" of fare dodgers in London.

At a teeming rush-hour Euston, as Osborne's train was due to arrive in London, a feverish posse including Labour activists, the president and vice-president of the National Union of Students and assorted press were waiting to pounce. Officers from the Metropolitan police's specialist response unit pored over train timetables to try to work out which service the chancellor was on to make sure he was spirited away in safety.

"Are you embarrassed Mr Osborne?" shouted an anti-government activist who had rushed to the station after hearing the rumour about the chancellor.

As he was ushered across the platform by aides and security, the chancellor had very little to say. "I'm sure it will be, um …" was all he could tell the Guardian as he was shepherded through a security gate and past the bins towards a waiting government car.

Petrol from Air - Renewable Energy Solution?

British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' technology

Revolutionary new technology that produces “petrol from air” is being produced by a British firm, it emerged tonight.

Image 1 of 4

An Air Fuel Synthesis technical team member with a flask of AFS fuel Photo: Air Fuel Synthesis

By Andrew Hough

11:30PM BST 18 Oct 2012

233 Comments

A small company in the north of England has developed the “air capture” technology to create synthetic petrol using only air and electricity.

Experts tonight hailed the astonishing breakthrough as a potential “game-changer” in the battle against climate change and a saviour for the world’s energy crisis.

The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier.

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The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

Company officials say they had produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside.

The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become “completely carbon neutral”.

The £1.1m project, in development for the past two years, is being funded by a group of unnamed philanthropists who believe the technology could prove to be a lucrative way of creating renewable energy.

While the technology has the backing of Britain’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, it has yet to capture the interest of major oil companies.

But company executives hope to build a large plant, which could produce more than a tonne of petrol every day, within two years and a refinery size operation within the next 15 years.

Tonight Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) officials admitted that while the described the technology as being “too good to be true but it is true”, it could prove to be a “game-changer” in the battle against climate change.

Stephen Tetlow, the IMechE chief executive, hailed the breakthrough as “truly groundbreaking”.

“It has the potential to become a great British success story, which opens up a crucial opportunity to reduce carbon emissions,” he said.

“It also has the potential to reduce our exposure to an increasingly volatile global energy market.

“The potential to provide a variety of sustainable fuels for today’s vehicles and infrastructure is especially exciting.”

Dr Tim Fox, the organisation's head of energy and environment, added: “Air capture technology ultimately has the potential to become a game-changer in our quest to avoid dangerous climate change.”

Peter Harrison, the company’s 58 year-old chief executive, told The Daily Telegraph that he was “excited” about the technology’s potential, which “uses renewable energy in a slightly different way”.

“People do find it unusual when I tell them what we are working on and realise what it means,” said Mr Harrison, a civil engineer from Darlington, Co Durham.

“It is an opportunity for a technology to make an impact on climate change and make an impact on the energy crisis facing this country and the world.

"It looks and smells like petrol but it is much cleaner and we don't have any nasty bits."

Bullying Interns the Goldman Sachs way

Back on 12 June 2000, as the dot-com bubble was deflating, young Greg Smith was all puffed up, clutching his "extra-large coffee" and looking up "at the formidable tower that housed Goldman Sach's equities trading headquarters" in New York. "Holy shit," he thought, as he arrived for the first day of his summer internship at the Wall Street bank.

More than a decade later, on 14 March 2012, not long after a different financial bubble had burst, the remark may well have risen in a hush over the Goldman dealing room as wide-eyed traders poured over an opinion piece in The New York Times. Title? "Why I'm Leaving Goldman Sachs". Author? Greg Smith. "Today is my last day at Goldman Sachs," Mr Smith proclaimed. Over 12 years, he said, he had understood what made the bank tick. "And I can honestly say that the environment is now as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it."

Now, Mr Smith, who had risen to become a Goldman executive director and head of the firm's US equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before quitting, is preparing tell us the full story. According to reports, his biting commentary on Goldman won him a book deal and a cool $1.5m (£930,000) advance, with the product of his labours, imaginatively titled Why I Left Goldman Sachs, set to hit the shelves on 22 October. The night before, he is reported to be planning to break his self-imposed hiatus from the public square with a US television interview. Ahead of the launch, Goldman yesterday said it had conducted a detailed review of Mr Smith's claims and found no evidence to support them.

But as we near the release date, it seems the firm's President Gary Cohn, who along with chief executive Lloyd Blankfein merited special mention in Mr Smith's op-ed for losing "hold of the firm's culture on their watch", is likely to be among those waiting in line for a copy of the tome. "I probably will read it," he said during an interview on Bloomberg television earlier this month. If Mr Cohn wants an early look, the first chapter was released on the Apple iBookstore this week. Titled "I Don't Know, But I'll Find Out", it offers a glimpse of Mr Smith's first days in the belly of the "great vampire squid", as the bank was memorably dubbed by Rolling Stone.

Back then Mr Smith was a dedicated convert to the Goldman cause. That summer's day, the 21-year-old had no premonition of what – in his view – Goldman would become, and how he would go on to feel. Young Mr Smith, then on a scholarship at Stanford, was, to his mind, justifiably proud. "The selection process for any type of job at Goldman Sachs is extremely rigorous. On average, only one in 45 people... who apply for a summer internship, or a full-time job, get an offer," he says. To get ahead, he'd prepped hard for the interview. "I'd read The Culture of Success, a history of the firm by Lisa Endlich, a former Goldman VP," he reveals. Who doesn't, right?

With a toe in the door, Mr Smith was issued with a folding stool and a "big orange ID badge" on a "bright orange lanyard" – status markers to remind an intern that he or she was mere "plebe, a newbie, a punk-kid". "It was innately demeaning," he says, recounting how interns had to carry around the stools "at all times because there were no extra chairs at the trading desks".

The internship itself was demanding. "You came to work at 5:45 or 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning," Mr Smith recalls. Goldman interns were put through two "Open Meetings" a week, where "a partner would stand at the front of the room with a list of names and call on people at will with questions on the firm's storied culture, its history, on the stock market".

"Depending on the personal style of the people in charge, the meetings could be brutal. They were always intense," Mr Smith says, recalling how, on one occasion, an intern was rebuked by a VP for not knowing enough about Goldman's stance on Microsoft shares. "What is our price target? What are the catalysts coming up? How has the stock been trading? Come on," said VP barks, according to the account. The hapless intern "starts to tear up and runs out of the room".

Smith also recalls the treatment handed out to an intern after a managing director ordered a cheddar cheese sandwich and was presented with a cheddar cheese salad. The boss "opened the container, looked at the salad, looked up at the kid, closed the container and threw it in the trash". "It was a bit harsh, but it was also a teaching moment," Mr Smith writes.

The anecdotes chime with the caricature of Wall Street as a laddish jungle where ritual hazing is just part of doing business. But at this early stage there is none of the greed that Mr Smith spoke of in his op-ed – he claimed, for instance, that people in the firm "callously talk about ripping their clients off". Instead, the gruelling intern routine is presented as a way of training new initiates to be "truthful, resourceful, collaborative".

Tantalisingly, though, Chapter 5 is titled "Welcome to the Casino".

'Fast bowling is about imposing yourself on the batsman with your belief'

Getting swing while bowling fast - Waqar Younis knew how to do that. He talks us through the art and science of it

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi

October 17, 2012

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	"Bowling is all about bringing the batsman forward: you have to make him come at least halfway in front, keep him guessing" © Getty Images  Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Waqar Younis | Imran Khan | Wasim Akram | Dale Steyn | James Anderson | Jade Dernbach |Allan Donald | Zaheer Khan | Ishant Sharma Teams: Pakistan

Is swing bowling an art in decline?
I do not think it is dying, because there are a lot of bowlers who can swing and know how to master it. The art that is in decline is pace, especially in the subcontinent. We do not really find fast bowlers who can bowl consistently at a rapid pace. Young bowlers come into cricket bowling at 140-145kph before fading away in a year or two. Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma are two good examples. Pakistan may be an exception because their youngsters follow fast bowling much more closely. Fazal Mahmood, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, myself are heroes to many youngsters. In India it is the batsmen that a youngster normally idolises.

With the bowlers - they enter with an aggressive mindset but over the years the pace goes down.

What are the requirements for a good swing bowler? 
You need a combination of a good action, timing, rhythm and energy. Swing bowling is not at all about slowing down or increasing the pace. And it is not only about the seam position and the roll of the wrists.

The very basic of swing bowling is your action. You need to have a really good action. It does not really matter whether you are side-on or front-on. If the timing of the release of the ball is perfect, then it will swing, regardless of the playing conditions. I hear TV commentators saying the seam position was good, so why did it not swing? That is because there was something amiss in the release or in the action. The wrist position is important when you talk about swing bowling.

What is the appropriate wrist position? 
The fingers should be right behind the ball. When the ball comes out of the hand, the seam should be upright. For that your wrist needs to be straight at the point of release. If it is not straight, it will stop swinging. You might be able to bowl quick but it will be up and down.

Can you give an example? 
Pakistan fast bowler Wahab Riaz is a good example of a bad wrist position. His wrist breaks at the time of delivery. He is a good case of other things not being in order, due to which his wrist breaks. At the crease he is not balanced and then he has to push the ball really hard. Then his head falls and the wrist breaks. Your body position at the crease while you are delivering the ball needs to be correct.

Do you lose control of swing if you are trying for pace? 
I do not agree at all. That is a wrong idea completely. Look at Dale Steyn. He bowls at 150kph-plus and he swings it big. Big bananas come out of his hand. His wrist is in such a beautiful position when the ball comes out, and all his energy is going through the crease nicely. That last part is due to his fitness.

Fast bowling is not an easy art. You need to have a brain, you need to be smart to understand what bowling is all about.

I can give you my own example when I first started playing for Pakistan. I was lucky that I had other senior fast bowlers who were really doing well, and I had a bit of competition with them. I also had Imran Khan use me nicely. He understood me better than myself. I did not have any idea what fast bowling was. All I knew was to bowl fast. It is important to have someone who can guide the youngster and tell him it will come. But it takes a lot of time to master the art.

Can you revisit those days of Waqar Younis, the young fast bowler, and how Imran shaped you? 
Sometimes it is good not to know too many things. When you see a fast bowler trying too many things, it is not good for his future. I was lucky that I knew only one thing, to bowl fast. Whenever I asked Imran what I should do, he only said, "Hold on, you don't really need to do anything. I just want you to bowl quick. That is it." That really worked for me because he wanted me to become a fastbowler, not a medium-pacer.

The first six years of my career, I was really quick. Imran would use me in the middle overs, so I could get the ball to reverse. Reverse is a touch easier than conventional swing, because the ball is in your control more than when you are bowling normal swing. He used me smartly for the three years he was there, before he quit the game in 1992. By then I knew the tricks. Later Aaqib Javed was bowling with the new ball for a few years. By the time he faded away, I was ready to deliver with the new ball. So I went through all the phases: quick bowling, reverse swing and then the new ball.

Nowadays a youngster at the age of 21 tries to do different things immediately on entering international cricket. They try to learn too many things too quickly. But I again point out the example of Steyn: he does one thing, the outswinger, and he is very successful. He keeps it simple. Batsmen are scared of him because the ball comes at 150-plus.

So in those first six to seven years, were you not a complete fast bowler? 
In those first six to seven years I was in the team, but I did not know much about bowling. I learned a lot about fast bowling by asking Imran. Me and Wasim would stand at mid-off and mid-on, good positions to learn about what the bowler is trying, and we would talk to each other and quickly grasp the subtleties. For about the first five seasons I was not given the new ball. I would bowl with a new ball in the nets but not in the match. I would be the fourth bowler in the attack because Imran would only bring me on when the ball started to reverse. I would keep wondering why he passed me the ball when it was 25-30 overs old. But it worked for me and now I understand why he did what he did.

We did the same thing with Shoaib Akhtar when he broke through the ranks. It was unfortunate injuries and other stuff that sidelined him, because he was a true match-winner.

	"Whenever I asked Imran what I should do, he only said, 'Hold on, you don't really need to do anything. I just want you to bowl quick. That is it'"

What is the difference between bowling with the new ball and the old ball? 
It always helped me, going from the old ball to the new ball. The other way around is harder: it decreases your pace as a bowler, because with an older ball you bowl quick and tend to add an extra yard or two of effort. But when it comes to a new ball, you could sort of cut down on pace a little bit. I started bowling with the new ball around 1995. By then I knew more about what my body requires, how much rest I need, how much I can bowl. Now this is done by the coaching staff. We used to monitor ourselves on our own.

Learning in the nets is a vital part of development for every fast bowler. What was your training regimen like? 
I broke down a couple of times in my career. Every bowler breaks down at least once, but I broke down after doing really well on the field. People rely on the gym more now than during our times. I am not saying that is wrong. It has done wonders in terms of strength, conditioning and looks. But do bowlers have enough gas in their tanks, especially in the subcontinent, to keep going? I fear people will continue to break down.

So the point I am driving is: focus on the basics. Bowling and running were major parts of my training. I did very little gym because nobody was there to tell me that it could have helped with my strength. I guess that helped me in a way, because my body would not have coped with going to the gym and then bowling. The kind of action I had, which was very side-on, I needed to be flexible and have an elastic body. We were jogging, running, sprinting freaks. When Imran was there, we would run five laps before we did anything. Being in the gym - it was all about looking good.

Do you agree that stamina is more important to a fast bowler than anything else to generate speed? 
Stamina and endurance always help. You just need to have a heart to keep running. My bowling was my training, because I had a long run-up and I would bowl a good six to seven overs on the trot and then have a break of 30-40 minutes before returning for a short burst of three overs. All that without bowling a no-ball. Even Aaqib and the rest of that lot, we just ran fast. We used to tell each other: we are not bowling a no-ball, even in the nets. We are going to bowl within our limits and then try and trouble the batsman. Even now as a coach I tell the guys never to bowl a no-ball in the nets. It puts all your energy and effort to waste otherwise.

Are fast bowlers more protected now? 
Biomechanists probably would disagree with me, but based on my experience, most fast bowlers in the 1980s and '90s never had people telling us to change or modify our actions, and that if we did not do it we would break our backs. Your body is your best judge. It learns over a period of time to adapt. These days Level 3 and 4 coaches put a lot of emphasis on certain specifics due to the numerous video cameras that have come into play. But I have always believed in allowing the bowler to play with his body and understand the best position and action for himself.

Take the case of Ishant. When he first came on the scene, I thought: here is a good bowler with an open-chested action, tall and hits the deck and gets bounce. Then he started making changes in his action, going wider, started losing pace and rhythm. He is looking better now, but in the last two years he had lost it. I do not know whether it was the coaches who tried fiddling with him or whether it was his own decision.

What was he doing wrong? 
He did not get wickets because he was bowling a little short of length. He reminds me of Javagal Srinath, who bowled a similar length throughout his career. With his body and the momentum he generated through his run-up, Srinath should have taken a lot of wickets, but he did not pitch the ball up. Venkatesh Prasad, with limited ability, pitched it up and did well.

Bowling is all about bringing the batsman forward: you have to make him come at least halfway in front, keep him guessing. Unless you are playing on fast pitches, like Perth of the past, there is no point pitching back of a length. Young fast bowlers in the subcontinent predominantly play on flat pitches at home, so you have to adapt first at home and be more consistent. Yes, the pitches are flat, they are slow, but you have to learn. We learned it too.

Why are Australia so good? Why were England so good against Australia and India in the last few years? They pitched the ball up. Look at the best bowlers, like Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock or anyone else - they would pitch the ball up. You have to bring the nicks into play. You cannot give the batsman time to go back and play once the ball has pitched. You have to attack the stumps. You have got to make the batsman play. Especially with the new ball. You cannot allow the batsman to settle early on. You have to pitch it in his areas of discomfort. Once he settles, he will be comfortable in any area you pitch.

How did you learn to unsettle the batsman? 
Over the years what I learned came through my own experience. I got hit [for runs] myself, but I learned through that. The more you get hit, the more you learn. Take a look at my overall strike rate or runs per over - it was higher than most of the bowlers. Around that time, if there was a bowling coach it could have been different. We were just told "Aage phainkon, dande udaaon [Pitch it up, send the stumps flying]."

I rarely relied on the slips. My main aim was to target those stumps. If you aim six balls in an over, at least once the batsman might miss. Yes, he might also hit you for fours, but if I pitch 12, 14, 18, 20 deliveries continuously on the off stump, the batsman is bound to miss at least once. It will get me that one wicket.

Reverse swing taught me a lot. You need to pitch it fuller to reverse, so you adjust your lengths. Fast bowling is all about belief also: if I do this, this might happen. You need to impose yourself on a batsman with your own belief.

You said that reverse swing came naturally to you. Can you explain? 
Nobody really taught me reverse swing. When I saw others doing it in international cricket, when I saw Wasim doing it, Imran Khan doing it, I felt it was easy. Honestly, I did not know how I did that. I played very few domestic matches before breaking into the Pakistan team.

	"Me and Wasim would stand at mid-off and mid-on, good positions to learn about what the bowler is trying, and we would talk to each other and quickly grasp the subtleties" © Getty Images  Enlarge

I played in an Under-19 Test match against India and bowled quick but sprayed it all around. I was dropped. I went back to domestic cricket and played for Union Bank of Lahore against Pakistan National Shipping Corporation on a green top. The ball started swinging and I did not know how it was happening. It was conventional swing. I got six wickets. I was picked for the final Test against the Indian Under-19s again, which included Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia, Jatin Paranjape. I picked up five wickets.

Later on, Imran polished my reverse-swing skills. The big part of his coaching was that he never interfered much during the matches. If I told him "Outswing is happening", he would only say, "Okay, bowl outswing." He would never tell me where to bowl from, what to bowl. I did go against his suggestions at times, but he never felt bad, because he knew I was learning. He understood that the youngster is going against my views, but if he feels that he can do it, then it is good. That really helped me.

An essential part of reverse swing is maintaining the condition of the ball. Can you describe your method? 
I knew how to take care of the ball. You make sure you do not put too much sweat on it. You have to keep the right balance between keeping one side shining and the other side very dry.

Everyone does reverse swing these days. But during my day it was a controversial issue, with allegations of tampering flying around. Reverse swing is an art. And I still honestly believe that art has not been explored. Very few have managed it: Darren Gough, Lasith Malinga and probably myself. You need a certain kind of bowling action to execute reverse swing. Of course, Wasim was an exception. He was lethal because he was a left-armer. With a very high action, reverse swing is not as effective. Brett Lee did it too, but if you have a side-on action, reverse becomes more effective. And remember this: it is not swinging the ball, it is about dipping the ball. And when you have a side-on action, the ball dips more.

Also, you do not need to have the seam upright, as is the case in conventional swing. The seam should be slightly tilted. So, say, you have the seam tilted towards first slip, with the shiny side on your right, and you are bowling a (reverse) inswinger. The ball will move towards the first slip, but around the 20th yard it will dip. That is when the batsman could take his eye off the ball. It works well with a side-on-action bowler mostly. With a high-arm action, the batsman can judge it at a good distance once the ball has been released, as to which way the shine is.

How does Malinga keep coming up with those reverse-swinging yorkers? You can't even block them at times. That is because at a certain point, as the delivery is coming towards him, the batsman takes his eyes off it. I know this only because it happened when I was bowling, and I was hitting the stumps more than anyone else, just like Malinga does now. About a metre and a half from the batting crease, the ball starts dipping. The batsman thinks it is in his batting area and takes his eyes off. Some batsmen are good and look at the ball till the very last instant. But at least 80% plant their foot to kill the swing. They get lbw or get bowled by a yorker.

According to Allan Donald, ball-tampering should be made legal. What is your opinion? 
What is tampering? Let me ask that question first to all the pundits. Is applying Vaseline or creams on the ball tampering? Is scratching the ball tampering? Is picking the seam tampering? All these are ways of tampering, because according to the law, you are changing the condition of the ball. Even in the 1970s and '80s, famous fast bowlers would use their nails to pick the seam. But now everybody is able to get reverse swing, so nobody is worried. You have so many cameras in the game now, but nobody is worried. Why was it only in the 1990s, when we got the ball to reverse, that people questioned us? Because we were too good. I bet there is still some sort of tampering going on: people using mints, nails etc. Now there is a law stating fielders in the inner circle have to throw directly and not hit the surface before it reaches the wicketkeeper. But what about the outfielder with a weak arm? People will always find ways. So I am not sure if making tampering legal is a solution, because it only will make things ugly. Batsmen will obviously cry foul.

Are you saying reverse swing cannot be achieved without doing one of the aforementioned things? 
No, you can achieve reverse swing without resorting to any of those means. A major part of getting the ball to reverse is done by the pitch, because you are landing the ball on that, and if you know which side to land it on, you will get the job done.

How do you control the swing? 
Reverse swing and control come with the condition of the ball: when it is really old, it swings more, and then you have to bowl accordingly, and the energy you put in is different. So when it is reversing big, you have to aim at a different place, and when it reverses less you land differently and use the crease a lot. If the ball is 50 overs old, it will probably swing more, and if it is 30 overs old it will swing less. As for what is the earliest the ball can reverse, it depends on the pitch. If the pitch is really abrasive and devoid of grass, the ball could start reversing after 15 or 20 overs.

	"Aggression is good and that is towards the batsman, but within yourself you need to be calm and sensible. I was thinking inside myself what the batsman was planning and how I needed to out-manoeuvre him"

When do you decide to bowl the yorker: at the start of the run-up, mid-stride or just before delivery? 
Most things in bowling, you decide before you start running. There are very few occasions when you are mid-stride and you change your plans. Also, your plans are set based on the batsman. So by the time you take that final leap, you know what you are doing.

Mike Selvey, the former England fast bowler, wrote that you don't bowl or aim a yorker, you feel it instead. 
That is a very good comment. It is not like you are aiming at a certain place. You feel it and you tell yourself you are going to do it and it is going to be there. You can ask Malinga and even he will tell you that he never aims the yorker at a particular spot. It is another thing that he bowls too many yorkers for my liking. He can be a lot more effective if he bowls the length ball more. But a yorker is a delivery that one needs to feel - you feel the energy is going to shift, the momentum is going to shift.

Is the yorker dead as an ODI weapon? Batsmen have kind of worked it out so that balls of a full length which got wickets ten years ago often get hit for fours now. 
I do not agree. If you see the real fast bowlers, they are still successful at executing the yorker, and at will. Yes, the batsman is more alert and aware now, especially against reverse-swinging yorkers. Yes, you are not going to get as many wickets as we did, because during my time only the bowlers knew more about reverse swing, not the batsmen. We would cover it. Now the batsmen look at which side is shining and how the bowler is holding the ball. What that has done is forced the bowler to rethink his strategy.

The variation of the slower ball is a creation of modern cricket. Take the back-of-the-hand slower ball, which Jade Dernbach, the England fast bowler, delivers really well. I don't know how he does it because I cannot do it, especially with a good arm speed.

Does the new ICC rule about using two new balls in an ODI hurt fast bowlers? 
It is already hurting bowlers, especially in the subcontinent. You should have seen the last Asia Cup. Fast bowlers are going to be finished. I am glad I am not playing, in a way. A fast bowler has to be a lot smarter now. With batsmen carrying a thick piece of wood in their hand, you should bowl away from them when they move. In our days, umpires would signal anything out of reach of the batsman as a wide. Now you have the tramlines, so you should use them cleverly. I can see a lot of fast bowlers already aiming at those lines, and that is good.

Who are your all-time best fast bowlers? 
I can only talk of fast men I saw. Malcolm Marshall was extraordinary. Glenn McGrath was not really quick, but was amazingly skilful. He was a good classical seam bowler. Whenever we went to Australia, we would say he is tall, he gets bounce on the hard pitches at home, it is very hard to face him, considering the nagging lengths he bowls. Let us see if he is good enough when he tours Pakistan. He came to Pakistan twice - in 1994 and 1998 - and picked up 19 wickets on those two tours. He was smart. Mind you, I am talking of fast bowlers during my time outside of Pakistan. Otherwise Wasim Akram would be up there - such an amazing talent.

Talking about the fast men at the moment, Dale Steyn is the best in any conditions. James Anderson is good too. I would have put Zaheer Khan of two years ago in the same bracket, because he was using his experience cleverly then. He has lost a little bit of sting now. He bowls very well with the new ball, but by the time he comes back for later spells, the speed dies. It is the age, really. Injuries have caught up with him. By the time you are 34 or 35, in the morning when you wake up, your ankle, knee, back hurt. You have to really mentally gear yourself up to inspire yourself. It is not an easy job.

You once said about Akram: "He contributed to 50% of my success. We shared the burden and complemented each other." 
That is a fact. What he did for me while I was playing was amazing. As I said earlier, we would stand at mid-off or mid-on and chat to each other. He had a big hand in my performances and the wickets I took. He had a lot more control with the ball in hand than I had. What I probably gained from his success is, I wanted to take more wickets than him in every game. He might say the same if you ask him. That was a healthy competition we had. He was, and is still, a great friend.

Did you guys take wickets at times by the sheer weight of reputation? 
You could say that about the tailenders. When we were bowling at the top batsmen, they knew they had their reputation at stake. What really satisfies a fast bowler is when the batsman is a lot more alert and using his skills to the maximum. So when you bowl against a Lara or a Tendulkar, he knows he can't give away his wicket easily. It is a healthy competition between bat and ball.

	"Look at Dale Steyn. He bowls at 150kph-plus and he swings it big. Big bananas come out of his hand" © PA Photos  Enlarge

But towards the end of your career, did you manage to take wickets by the sheer force of your personality? Take the seven-wicket haul against England in the ODI in 2001. 
That was one hell of a tournament. Two days later I took six wickets against Australia. Both those performances came because of my experience more than personality. The conditions were very conducive to fast bowling and it was a simple matter of pitching the ball in the right place. And to do that you need a lot of bowling behind you. I did not bowl very quick. I bowled like a medium-pacer, but I swung the ball like anything. It comes with age.

Pace, skill, accuracy, aggression, courage are what make a good fast bowler. What more can you add to the list? 
You need calmness also. Aggression is good and that is towards the batsman, but within yourself you need to be calm and sensible. That is one reason I was not interested in hitting batsmen. I had the pace but I never bowled successive bouncers in a row to hit or hurt someone. I was thinking inside myself what the batsman was planning and how I needed to out-manoeuvre him. You need fire in the belly but also an icy head. You can disturb the batsman with a smile by saying something that is not explicitly a sledge. You need to look into the batsman's eyes and unsettle him. Of course, it can backfire and there are batsmen who can stare back at you. Robin Smith was an exception. He would give it back to you. Then there were the Aussies. So being calm in those instances is the key. Because you then turn back and switch off and plan the next delivery. You learn with the passage of time.