Articles by B M

A DAY before Rajiv Gandhi, MP, left for the Soviet Union with his mother, the Prime Minister, there was a fire which gutted some furniture shops in the city, He rushed to the spot as befits an anxious representative of the people and, finding some deficiency in police bandobast, upbraided the police chief of the Capital for dereliction of duty. Within hours, two police officers were suspended on orders from the Prime Minister's house. Much was written in the Delhi press for a whole week about the incident and the rights and wrongs of the doings of Raiiv Gandhi, MP and his interference in the running of the administration in the Capital. There was no reaction or clarification from the official side. Within a day of the return of Rajiv Gandhi, MP, (he is always expected to be mentioned in this manner in the press), however, the police chief himself put up a formal statement defending what had happened and the part he and Rajiv Gandhi, MP, had played in the episode. Another interesting and related development was that the predecessor of the present Police Commissioner of Delhi, who had been on long leave after he relinquished charge in the Capital, had his leave cut short as soon as the present Police Commissioner issued his statement. The Police Commissioner had made his peace with the powers that be and the other one could be easily put out of the way. Those in the police force or others who had entertained the idea that the one who was earlier relieved of his duties in the Capital would be recalled after Rajiv Gandhi's displeasure with the present police chief have been very much disappointed.

NEW DELHI Message of Maruti-Suzuki B M UNLIKE the rather guarded and cautious, one might even say sophisticated, manner in which India's economic liberalisation effort is often characterised, the visiting Foreign Minister of Japan was very open and forthright in lauding the "great significance" of the liberalised economic policies of the present Government of India.

NEW DELHI Power Plan in Hock B M THE fiasco of the Paradip-Dakari steel project in Orissa and the cancellation of the arrangements for turnkey construction and total financing of the project by foreign interests do not seem to have made the government any the wiser, The principal reason for the cancellation of the arrangement was the belated discovery that the cost of the project would be bloated on account of high cost of equipment and services from a single tied source of supply. But the Energy Ministry is still insisting that even if it might be advisable to postpone construction of a steel plant till more acceptable terms of collaboration and assistance from foreign sources might be negotiated, it has to go in for similar arrangements in a hurry for the erection of large power generation units if it is to achieve the Sixth Plan power target. According to the Energy Ministry, it cannot mobilise sufficient rupee resources for achieving the target and the only alternative is to attract foreign financing of the power programme.

PUSHED hard at first by the Information and Broadcasting Minister as a personal fad or, more appropriately, as a personal enterprise, colour TV is now beginning to throw up interesting questions and ticklish policy issues. The official position is as ambivalent and obfuscating as can be. This is part of the style of functioning of the present government. Will one hundred or four hundred thousand colour TV sets be imported in the next few months? Or will only colour TV kits to be fitted into cabinets by Indian manufacturers of black and white TV be allowed to be imported? That there is no firm decision on such issues is clear from the apprehensions being publicly expressed by the Indian TV Manufacturers' Association. According to the Association, alter its members had placed adequate orders on the ETTDC, the public sector canalising agency for the imports of colour TV kits, to meet domestic demand, there should be no import of colour TV sets as such. There is a division also among local TV manufacturers since only the relatively larger units among them are being allowed to assemble colour TV sets and the smaller ones feel that they would be left out in the cold in the switch from black and white to colour TV. What is indeed interesting is that the question of colour TV has come to a head in the name of the Asiad which is supposed to generate so much demand for colour TV that things have to be done immediately to satisfy this demand. The pull of elitist demand in the market, real and contrived, on official policy has never in the past manifested itself so grossly as in the case of colour TV.

NEW DELHI Wheat Imports Again?
B M THE government, it has been reported, is not contemplating imports of wheat this year, at least not yet. The position, is to be reviewed after the rabi marketing and procurement season. Such reports need not be taken too seriously or given too much credence. The experience of last year shows that the government likes to carry out such operations quietly, avoiding to the extent possible advance publicity of its intentions in order to strike appropriate commercial bargains. An increasingly difficult balance of payments position did not deter the government from importing substantial quantities of wheat last year in order to maintain what is called, a safe buffer stock of foodgrains and moderate pressure on prices of foodgrains in the open market. The position with respect to the rabi harvest, wheat stocks and wheat prices is not very comfortable this year either. The options open to the government for regulating supplies and prices of wheat in the coming months