EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

       

 

DPJ's punishment of rebels too lenient

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Was this the best the Democratic Party of Japan could do to put its foot down?

The ruling party on Monday decided on punishments for 15 of its House of Representatives lawmakers who did not attend or abstained from voting on a recent no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Former DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa and seven other lawmakers had their party membership suspended for three months, and five first-term lawmakers were severely reprimanded. Two others who submitted doctor's certificates to show why they were absent from the vote were not punished.

The three-month membership suspension effectively deprives the lawmakers of the right to vote in a DPJ presidential election if it were held during that period.

Ozawa, who has been forcibly indicted for allegedly violating the Political Funds Control Law, had already had his party membership suspended until a verdict is finalized in the case. The bottom line is that no fresh punishment was imposed on the party heavyweight.

Voting against the party line on a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet has grave implications for ruling party members--in particular for Ozawa, who did not attend the vote after initially calling openly for Kan to step down.

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Surrender to in-house pressure

DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada originally considered imposing stricter punishments on the rebels. However, he had no alternative but to choose extremely lenient penalties in the face of opposition from within the party.

No one in the party takes responsibility, or is asked to do so, even for blunders that undermine the national interest and result in election setbacks. Is it the DPJ's culture to blur where responsibility lies?

Slapping harsh punishments on Ozawa and his followers would have been a touchstone for the party leadership over its resolve to drastically review the party's manifesto for the 2009 general election, an overhaul the pro-Ozawa lawmakers oppose. But the party leadership buckled.

The DPJ's manifesto review committee held its first meeting last week and finally started checking how much of the party's 2009 platform and campaign pledges for the 2010 House of Councillors election have been achieved.

Almost one year and nine months have passed since the DPJ-led coalition government was inaugurated. It compiled regular annual budgets for fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011. But given a lack of fiscal resources and political clout, it has become obvious that the DPJ will not be able to implement policies it expounded in its campaign platform.

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Ditch handout policies

It is useless to examine now to what extent the policies in the manifesto have been implemented because the platform itself is flawed. The DPJ is being urged to make a sweeping review of its campaign pledges, which is a prerequisite for forming a grand coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party and other parties.

Given that reconstruction projects in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake will require an astronomical amount of money, handout policies such as child-rearing allowances and making expressways toll-free must be rescinded. A certain level of tax increase also will be essential.

If the DPJ carries out a lukewarm review of its campaign platform at this juncture, any government created with opposition parties after Kan steps down will not be sufficiently strong. A bid to forge a grand coalition would fail and the government might not even be able to secure noncabinet cooperation or a partial coalition.

Under a divided Diet where the upper house is controlled by the opposition camp, domestic politics will become gridlocked again. Such futility must be prevented from happening again by all means.

The manifesto review panel should put together concrete revision proposals as soon as possible and persuade the party to approve them.

N-damage compensation bill must pass quickly

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet on Tuesday approved and submitted to the Diet a bill to help Tokyo Electric Power Co. make massive compensation payments for damage caused by the ongoing crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Compensation to be paid to residents and businesses affected by the nuclear crisis is expected to add up to trillions of yen. That will be more money than TEPCO can raise by itself.

It is an urgent task to develop a public support framework ensuring smooth payment of compensation. The ruling and opposition parties should put priority on the relief of victims and try to pass the bill as soon as possible.

According to the bill, a nuclear damage compensation support organization would be created with contributions from TEPCO and the other electric power companies around the country that have nuclear power plants. The organization would support TEPCO's cash management with a capital injection and other forms of financial assistance.

If it runs short of funds, the government would inject public money to the organization in the form of government-guaranteed loans and no-interest government bonds that it can cash in at any time. TEPCO would repay such public money to the government via the organization over many years, according to the bill.

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TEPCO running out of money

The Nuclear Damage Compensation Law has a clause discharging an electric power company from liability for a nuclear accident caused by a massive natural disaster. However, the clause was not applied to TEPCO this time and the utility has been held primarily responsible for damages.

The government has essentially paid only 120 billion yen in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear crisis. This is its portion as stipulated by the law. However, isn't this insufficient in light of the government's share of responsibility for promoting nuclear power?

Meanwhile, things are getting worse. TEPCO is making provisional compensation payments to evacuated residents, farmers and others from the 120 billion yen provided by the government, but this money is expected to run out by the end of this month.

In July, the government is scheduled to announce official standards for calculating compensation according to various categories of damage. Based on those standards, actual liability claims in amounts much greater than the provisional payments will begin to be made.

If passage of the bill is delayed, TEPCO may fall into a financial crisis, such as a capital deficit. That not only will delay compensation payments to the victims but also will become an impediment to settling the nuclear crisis and stably supplying electricity.

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Power industry threatened

TEPCO's stock price temporarily fell as low as one-10th of its pre-disaster level. Out of concern over a possible ripple effect, Kansai Electric Power Co. postponed issuance of corporate bonds that was originally scheduled for this month. If the situation is left unattended, credit uncertainty is highly likely to spread throughout the electric power industry.

Meanwhile, the current Diet session is coming to an end. If it is necessary to pass the bill, the administration should decide to extend the term of the current session.

It also goes without saying that TEPCO must do everything it can to make compensation payments, including downsizing of its business operation.

The utility has already announced a plan to secure more than 1 trillion yen by cutting costs and selling off assets. But the government will soon demand that TEPCO secure more funds and will start assessing all of its property. TEPCO should fully cooperate with the government.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

DR. SINGH’S VISIT TO BOOST INDO-LANKA Thursday, 16 June 2011 01:24 The announcement by the Indian center to ‘strengthen’ relations between Sri Lanka and India by way of a visit to the country by the Indian Premier Manmohan Singh, must come as a welcome shift in Indian diplomacy often seen taking uncalled for dips. India is the friend and neighbour we can ill afford to have on a wrong footing, especially at this stage. Coming in the wake of the recent adoption of the Tamil Nadu Assembly to seek redress on the allegations against the Sri Lankan government of crimes committed against the Tamil civilians during the last stages of the war, the compulsions that dictate the Indian center’s push towards such a visit are obvious. That the recent Indian delegation’s visit to the country was preceded by a stopover in Tamil Nadu is a clear indicator of the commitments bearing heavy on New Delhi. Commitments; that Colombo must be both sensitive and alert to. Whether Colombo responds to such manoeuvrings with China strong on its back or not, we cannot afford to ignore the crucial nature of India, receiving its place in the Human Rights Council in less than three months. The fact that she replaces our strong ally Pakistan is an aspect that must bear significance in how we deal with New Delhi at this point – an aspect New Delhi must no doubt have alluded to at the recent meets. If her deafening silence at the just ended hearings in Geneva in the midst of pressure on Colombo to move faster on a political solution based largely on its’ 13th Amendment is any indicator, it is safe to assume that India has changed little in her foreign policy. Or; what little of it she desires to adopt when dealing with her immediate neighbours each time they are pushed to the wall. It is therefore incumbent upon the Rajapaksa regime to invest in mechanisms that will prevent the means of interferences that international pressure groups including the United Nations can have a larger share in how we deal with matters domestically. A committed look at a political standing that can allow for greater engagement of the minorities is the best possible mechanism that can provide both the security and the political strength that the country desires. A strengthened LLRC that is more committed to this aspect and a speedier implementation of the rehabilitation process are the most prudent means available to the government to ensure that no further infringements of the country’s sovereignty are allowed at this time.

EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

All's not well with gas and oil

To the list of acronyms and alphabets — 2G, CWG, ISRO — that have given the United Progressive Alliance government such an unsavoury image in recent times must now be added another: KG. According to the draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on hydrocarbon production sharing contracts (PSCs), the public exchequer has suffered an as yet unquantifiable loss thanks to the “undue benefit” provided by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to Reliance Industries Ltd., the operator of the gas-rich Krishna-Godavari basin fields. The CAG also found that Cairn India Ltd., the United Kingdom-based company which operates oilfields in Rajasthan, was the beneficiary of unwarranted official largesse. Broadly speaking, the CAG identified two major irregularities in the KG basin case. First, the government allowed RIL to inflate its capital expenditure (capex) claims for the D6 gas field without adequate scrutiny. The financial implications of this are obvious: given the nature of the PSC, the higher RIL's claimed capex, the lower the government's share of the revenues accruing from the production of gas. Secondly, the company was allowed to retain the entire field despite being required to surrender those parts of it where no hydrocarbon discoveries had been made. In the case of Cairn, the CAG says the Ministry allowed the company to expand the contract area by more than 1,600 square kilometres when the PSC did not allow for this. The CAG report also covers the joint venture between ONGC and the private sector BGEPIL and RIL in the Panna-Mukta-Tapti (PMT) offshore oil fields in Bombay High, but the failure of the JV to provide relevant records meant the audit remained inconclusive.

The CAG's hydrocarbon report is a reminder of the unhealthy relationship that exists between UPA government Ministers, bureaucrats, and big business. The constitutionally sanctioned body believes the flaw lies with the structure of PSC, which gives private operators an incentive to inflate their capex. But the Oil Ministry and its officials are faulted for failing to exercise their powers of oversight and also for actively favouring RIL on KG-related matters. That all was not well at KG was known as early as 2008 and 2009, when the fight between the two Ambani brothers over gas pricing brought various internal aspects of the project into the public domain. The CBI opened a probe into the role of the then Director General of Hydrocarbons but neither the Prime Minister's Office nor Murli Deora, who headed the Ministry at the time, saw any need to conduct an urgent, real-time investigation into all the financial aspects of the project. Thanks to the CAG, the people of India have a small hole they can peer into. But the government has a duty to drill deeper, far deeper into the irregularities the auditors have found.

Empowering slum dwellers

Two years after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee promised in his budget speech that India would become slum-free in five years, the United Progressive Alliance government has come up with legislation that might enable progress towards this goal. The model Property Rights to Slum Dwellers Act circulated recently by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation aims to improve the conditions of an estimated 93 million slum dwellers. The legislation would entitle every “eligible” slum dweller living in a slum to receive a dwelling place of 25 square metres of carpet area or its equivalent land area at “affordable” cost. It would confer property rights in the name of the female head of the household or in the joint name of the male head and his wife. This is a progressive course correction meant to check the prevalent male bias in determining housing rights. The proposed Act lays down a seven-year lock-in period to prevent the sale or lease of the allotted property but sensibly makes provision for mortgaging the dwelling units to raise loans for improving them.

There are some serious shortcomings in the model Act. The proposal to fix a cut-off date to identify “eligible” slum dwellers and provide the “ineligible” ones only with an “all weather” space for rent and not a proper dwelling needs to be rethought. Arbitrary cut-off dates and a rigid quota system are impractical to implement. Lessons should be learnt from the failed government schemes to regulate urban street vendors. If the social objective is to create slum-free cities, an inclusive definition that maximises the number of beneficiaries is an imperative. It is ironical that this model legislation, which is meant to stop forced evictions, has provisions to imprison and fine people who have constructed “illegal” structures on government land. Securing government property is a separate issue. Housing is a State subject and the success of the recommended legislation will depend on how well it is implemented by the various State governments. In 2007, the Union Ministry through its national housing policy recommended that 20-25 per cent of the built-up area should be reserved for low-income groups in all housing projects, including those built by private developers. This is yet to be implemented in many cities. What is critical is adequate supply of housing for the poor. If the vision of slum-free cities is to be realised, the stock of social housing must be vastly increased.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

            

 

The inflationary pressure

Expand distribution network

Unlike in the previous years, the just presented budget did not affect prices in the market except those of sugar and edible oil, which had been on an upward curve before the budget.

The opposition-enforced 36-hour hartal has left its adverse impact on food prices, especially vegetables and fish. Obviously, it was the dislocation in transport movement that caused this price hike. But what is of concern is that given the capricious price regime, price hike of any food item has the propensity to have a knock-on effect on other food items. Other contributing factors to price hike including rise in the fuel prices have pushed the fares of land and water transportation upwards. So, this is another depressing signal for the food price market.

Despite the budget's not raising the inflationary expectations, there are cogent reasons for worry for the general consumers on the longer term.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data as reflected in the budget show that the overall inflationary trend has risen from 10.49 per cent in March 2011 to 10.67 per cent in April, 2011.

Admittedly, food-related inflation had its contribution to the overall inflationary trend. And in the rural areas where the largest swathe of the population and the majority of the poor live, the food-induced inflation was at its highest at 15.38 per cent in April. This is around 3.34 per cent more than what was in the urban areas in the same period.

This calls for adopting concrete and failsafe measures from the government to protect the general consumers as well as the poor from the shock of unrelenting volatility in the food market. The consumers and growers of the food items are equally at the mercy of the middlemen or farias, the wholesalers and retailers alike.

So, the government should further expand and strengthen its distribution networks to supply food grains, build more storing facilities for food grains and continue with the operation of Open Marker Sale (OMS) of food grains and other essentials. If the government is able to effectively countervail the tyranny of the market manipulators with these and other innovative measures, rather than interfering with the market forces then stability in the food price market will finally be restored.

Relics from ancient times

Take care of our treasure-trove

The High Court has ordered status quo on construction of structures in and around Bhitorgarh Fort in Panchagarh. This was in response to a writ filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) on the reported construction activity by two private companies in the perimeter of the archeological site.

The higher judiciary, true to its heritage-friendly activism has also issued a rule requiring the government to explain why the Bhitorgarh Fort site wouldn't be declared 'protected antiquity', accompanied by publication of a gazette notification in this behalf.

What we have gathered from the archeology directorate is that on this historical site a reputed archeologist has found traces of what might turn out to be one of the biggest fort cities dating back to sixth century AD. The ministry of culture and archeology department has taken note of the initial discovery. It might involve up to ten years of excavation to unearth the full extent of the fort city.

A gazette notification would mean recognising the site and government taking the responsibility of its protection. Basically, according to the pre-existing antiquity law of the land, once notified through the gazette no construction or human habitation would be permissible within certain earmarked perimeter of the site.

That is how it's protected as an antiquity. But, of course, there is much more to the undertaking. This relates to further probe, excavation, reworking, putting the pieces of puzzles together and, above all, maintenance under designated authorities.

Here we recall the shredding the bricks off the famous Mahastangarh site and using these for construction purposes. Even farming was reportedly going on in the vicinity. Such vandalism must be replaced by a culture of respect and responsibility for historical relics.

At the archeological level, there needs to be a campaign aided by government and private sectors to bring to the fore many unrecognised and yet valuable historical sites for the hoary past.