by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Frank Islam & Ed Crego,
It was less than one month ago on February 12, that President Trump introduced his American Infrastructure Initiative. Since then, the President has had very little to say about infrastructure as his attention has turned to other matters such as gun control, tariffs, and immigration.
Congress has not paid much attention to Trump’s infrastructure recommendations either as it has been consumed by a myriad of other issues. Indeed, in late February when Senator John Cornyn of Texas (R) was asked if Congress would get an infrastructure bill passed before the November election, he responded:
“It will be challenging. I certainly would be happy if we could, but we’ve got a lot of things to do, that being one of them, and I don’t know if we will have time to get to that.”
So, Trump’s infrastructure plan appears to be vanishing in thin air. Maybe the reason for this is that Trump’s plan was never a real plan at all.
The truth is that the “framework for rebuilding infrastructure” put forward by the President was more smoke and mirrors than it was concrete and pilings. There are many reasons for this assessment.
The primary ones include:
- the requested funding is inadequate to the size of the need
- the level of federal funding is insufficient
- the incentives program for spurring investment is unrealistic
- the needs of urban inner cities and mid-size cities are ignored
- the potential privatization of public assets is ill-thought out.
The Trump administration believes that its infrastructure plan “will spur at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investments.” That might seem like a lot of money until one considers the state of America’s infrastructure and the span of time over which this money will be spent.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ACSE) has issued an Infrastructure Report Card every 4 years since 1998. The report card assigns grades in sixteen categories. America’s grade point average in 2017 was D+.
ACSE estimates that the cost to improve the infrastructure in the ten year period from 2016–2025 would be almost $4.6 trillion. Based upon current funding and projections, it estimates that there will be a $2.06+ trillion gap in funding over this time frame.
It might appear that a plan for $1.5 trillion would begin to fill that gap. But, the fact is that the Trump plan only brings $200 billion in federal dollars to the table. The rest would have to be raised.
The federal commitment amounts to only $20 billion dollars a year as compared to a need, based on ACSE’s numbers, of $206 billion — or 1/10th of what is required. This is a woefully insufficient commitment from the federal level.
It is not realistic to expect the federal level to pony up all the funds to address the nation’s infrastructure requirements. But it is completely unrealistic to think that the administration’s proposed approach of using $100 billion of the money that it brings to the table to “create an Incentives Programs to spur additional dedicated funds from states, localities and the private sector” will bring $1.3 trillion more to the table from those entities. Here’s why.
First and foremost is the financial condition of many states and localities. As we pointed out in a blog posted before the Trump plan was officially announced, “Many of those entities are resource and cash-strapped. They not only don’t have matching funds. They don’t have a match to light the infrastructure candle.’
Second, and close in importance, there is a question of whether the returns on many of the infrastructure projects will be large enough to stimulate private sector investments. The problem is that many of the projects with the greatest needs are in the inner cities of metropolitan areas and mid-size cities that are struggling financially.
These locales have extensive maintenance, repair and/or reconstruction requirements for items such as crumbling bridges, roads, transit systems, and water and sewage systems. None of these projects are high profit items and thus will not be attractive to private investors.
This deficiency is compounded by the allocation of the funds in the Trump infrastructure plan. $50 billion, or 25% of the total $200 billion will “be devoted to a new Rural Infrastructure Program to rebuild and modernize infrastructure in rural America.”
Another $20 billion will be dedicated to a Transformative Projects Program to fund “bold and innovative projects” that might not “attract private sector investment because of the project’s unique characteristics.” This means that a full $70 billion, or more than one-third of the proposed federal funds, will be taken off of the table for what might be labeled the routine or normal infrastructure improvement needs in larger and mid-sized metropolitan cities.
What could be put on the table, though, is the opportunity for the private sector to purchase and take over the management and operation of federal public assets. Assets that the plan proposes considering selling off include: Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, the George Washington and Baltimore Washington Parkways, and the transmission assets of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The plan does not cite any studies on what the financial gains from the sale of any of these assets could be. It simply states that the federal agencies should be allowed to divest themselves of assets if they “can demonstrate an increase in value from the sale would optimize the taxpayer value for federal assets.”
The list of what is wrong with the administration’s infrastructure plan could go on and on and on. In summary, however, the overriding problem with this “plan” is not what is there but what is not there.
There has been significant substantive work done on a national infrastructure initiative over the past decade. As noted in our earlier blog on this topic in January of this year, much of it has revolved around proposals on Capitol Hill to develop a national infrastructure bank. We presented some of our own recommendations for the establishment of a National Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure Bank in a 2011 blog.
More recently, in its April 10, 2017 issue, Time presented a special report on Rebuilding America that outlined “25 smart ways to fix our infrastructure”. And Washington Monthly, in its 2017 issue for March/April, featured an article titled “the thinking person’s guide to infrastructure” which sets out three basic principles for any new legislation.
It’s not that there has been a shortage of ideas about what to do to address and solve America’s infrastructure problems. There are even a few good ideas in the Trump infrastructure plan.
Some of these include, as William Galston comments in a blog for the Brookings Institution, “…expanding existing subsidy programs that have proved effective in expanding transportation and water infrastructure.” Galston goes on to point out, however, “But there is a void at the core of the administration’s plan: funding.”
Don’t take his word for it. Take Donald Trump’s. According to PolitiFact, during the campaign, Trump promised to “invest $550 billion in infrastructure.” $200 billion doesn’t sound like $550 billion to us.
That’s not the only number that has changed. An early version of the Trump budget related to the infrastructure said $200 billion invested by the feds would generate $800 billion from other sources for a total of $1 trillion. We are now told that $200 billion will bring in $1.3 trillion for a total of $1.5 trillion.
This sounds and looks like smoke and mirrors to us. This plan is a non-starter. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that the hollowness of the plan and the rhetoric surrounding it should serve as a wake-up call. The better news is that there are plenty of serious proposals out there that can be drawn upon to create an authentic “fair and balanced’ infrastructure plan.
When will such a plan be developed and a bill be passed to put it in place? That’s hard to tell. It seems unlikely that will occur before the November elections, and even less likely that it will occur in the lame duck session. That takes us to the January of 2019 and the 116th United States Congress. Perhaps they will understand that time is of the essence.
As the ASCE noted in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, “The most recent analysis reveals that the U.S. has only been paying half of it infrastructure bill for some time and failing to close that gap risks rising cost, falling business productivity, plummeting GDP, lost jobs, and ultimately, reduced disposable income for every American family.”
They wrote this before Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and steel which will increase the costs of infrastructure repair and which almost every knowledgeable observer agrees will harm rather than help the economy overall.
We will not be able to whisk this fact away with smoke and mirrors. What we need is for Congress to stand and deliver before this country has nothing left standing.
(Frank Islam is an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. Ed Crego is a management consultant. Both are leaders of the 21st century citizenship movement.)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Meghna Mittal,
Title: The Corporate Jungle: Your Guide to Understanding Workplace People and Politics; Author: Seema Raghunath; Publisher: Harper Collins; Pages: 207; Price: Rs 299
“Understanding workplace politics is as important as going to work, dreaming of a future, holding on to aspirations and working on yourself, to be more competent. Else you could end up like a trained rally driver in full gear, sitting in the best car, however….driving on a dirt road!”
Right from its title to the introduction, this book loudly and clearly proclaims what it offers; so the reader gets exactly what he or she expects.
It begins with sharp sentences intended to agitate the reader, especially if he or she is someone who is intellectually far ahead of others but never moves up the corporate ladder fast enough.
“When faced with a strange, uncomfortable climate, people, events that begins to stifle the focussed worker in you, pause and check if any of these are in play,” the author, HR professional and expert Seema Raghunath writes.
The book abounds in metaphoric comparisons of human beings to animals like horses, ants, jaguars, apes, lions, grizzly bear, suckerfish, elephants, owls, cats and chameleons — and the chapters are named after these. The book compares the workplace to a jungle in which the working people have to find their way like an explorer with a map.
“Animals roam in all types of jungles. Nothing you studied in school can prepare you for workplace realities completely. A business establishment may have the good workhorse. One who eats, breathes and lives to work, but who may not be the one most likely to be declared the next CEO.”
The book is definitely not meant for those who are entering a profession, else it could scare them away. But yes, if you are feeling stuck at your workplace and not getting awarded enough despite all the hard work and intellect, this book may help.
For the author, Jaguars are natural leaders with superior intelligence, while lions are fearless and never allow anyone to trample upon them. Grizzly bears give a lot of people grief with their “grrr” arrogance; cats pretend to be tigers when they are only cats, while chameleons are hardly ever consistent, playing camps and people.
The various chapters give you tips on identifying the different kinds of animals in the corporate jungle — and how to tackle them.
“Being able to get a handle on workplace politics is like opening the third eye,” Raghunath writes.
The book is for all those simple and square people who can’t brag, or be manipulative or strategic to the point of scheming; those on whom others deploy strategies; those who admit they can’t see it coming, even if politics honked or shone a headlight at them.
According to the author, the age of simplicity is long gone.
“Simplicity was an attractive trait for over two centuries until the early twentieth century. The more non-political a person is, the more they assume the rest of the world to be the same. Because they don’t work with a hidden agenda or strategy for combat, they write off the possibility of others being capable of anything like that,” she writes.
But workplace politics is here to stay and as long as you don’t work in a cave, isolated from the rest of humanity, this element will continue to be a stark reality. Some of us admit and accept it in all maturity, while some pretend it does not exist.
“There is also a school of thought that believes you can exist in a cocoon of self-sufficiency. Things will fix themselves. When ‘other’ human beings become a variable that can alter you action and work, it is hard to dismiss them and say we will bring about change and outcomes that we seek by just managing our own selves. We know we can’t really manage others — that would mean we are controlling them. But we can try to understand others,” Raghunath writes.
However, she says that a person doesn’t need to “play politics” to survive — just knowing how different workers operate is enough to keep him/her one step ahead.
The book is not aimed at making you a wonderful human being. Neither will it get you a promotion, bring out the best in you or trigger anything spiritual immediately. But it just gives you some tips on how to get along at the workplace.
In the end, no formula book can see you through at your workplace, though this book’s tips might prove helpful. You may also need to identify yourself as to which animal’s characteristics you have.
If nothing else, the book provides you an interesting perspective of the workplace and brings in some humour and novelty in your dreary surroundings if you imagine being surrounded by all the various kinds of animals after comparing their traits.
(Meghna Mittal can be reached at meghna.m@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday said that its holding of the right to privacy to be a fundamental right could have some bearing on the hearing of a batch of petitions including by Maharashtra government challenging the Bombay High Court verdict permitting the possession and eating of beef brought from outside the state.
“Yes, that judgement may have some bearing in these matters,” the bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan said as senior counsel Chander Uday Singh urged the bench to give them time to study the judgment by the nine judge bench which may have bearing on their matter.
The judgment pronounced by a nine-judge bench on Thursday has held that the right to privacy was a fundamental right.
Chander Uday singh who appeared for a Mumbai-based lawyer Haresh Jagtiani referred to Justice J.Chelameswar’s judgment on privacy which said: “I do not think that anybody would like to be told by the State as to what they should eat or how they should dress …”
Appearing for some other petitioners, senior counsel Indira Jaising told the court that 2005 majority judgment (6-1) by a seven judge bench had wrongly decided in favour of complete prohibition on the slaughter of cows and calves including other milch and draught cattle.
She said that Mirzapur judgment as 2005 judgment is commonly known in legal circles needs to be relooked and urged the court to pass necessary orders.
At this, the bench said that it would consider whether this should be sent to a larger bench.
While permitting the possession and eating of beef brought from outside Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court had by its May 6, 2016, judgment had uphold the ban imposed by the state government on the slaughtering and sale of beef within the state.
The Maharashtra government had moved the top court on August 10 challenging this verdict.
The top court is hearing a batch of cross petitions including one by Akhil Bharat Krishi Go Sewa Sangh, which questioned the high court judgment holding that the right to eat was a fundamental right forming a part of right to privacy.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Saeed Naqvi,
This is a true story. I am revisiting it with a purpose: So that it collides head on with the nation’s 70th anniversary celebrations. Absolute, undiluted joy on this occasion would require total amnesia of that which accompanied independence: Partition. With some of us, these celebrations will always be tempered with Keats’ great dictum:
“Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veil’d melancholy has her sovran shrine”
Yes, that story, spread over India, Pakistan and the US. Before I share the story with you, let me first spell out the dramatis personae to simplify the narrative.
When the feudal order was breaking down, my family in Mustafabad near Rae Bareli produced two ideological streams. My father came from a line of staid Congressmen. His elder brother, Wasi Naqvi, was the first Congress MLA from Rae Bareli. My earliest memory of political activity in these 70 years is of Feroz Gandhi weaving his parliamentary seat around my uncle’s assembly constituency. This was the seat Indira Gandhi inherited, then Rajiv Gandhi and so on.
My mother’s family was more literary and, after the intellectual fashion of those days, of a more leftist bent. Her only brother Saiyid Mohammad Mehdi, our dearest “Mamujan”, caught the eye of P.C. Joshi, General Secretary of the CPI, who was then stitching together Indian Peoples Theatre and the Progressive Writers Association. Joshi whisked Mamujan away to Mumbai to share a commune with Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Krishen Chander and a host of others.
Mamujan’s younger daughter, Shireen, with a degree from JNU, could not ignore her mother’s entreaties and married a cousin, Abbas, a gentleman to boot, settled in Dubai but, alas, of Pakistani parentage. The conditions for the marriage were clear: They would live in a neutral country, not in Pakistan. Shireen obstinately held on to her Indian passport.
Like her father, Shireen is a reader (a book in two days) and taught in a school. Abbas stuck to investment banking.
Their eldest daughter Mariam studied cinema in Canada, fell in love with a Haitian filmmaker and settled in Canada. She was confident that her Indian passport, on which she had travelled to India numerous times, would be part of the record even if she acquired her husband’s nationality.
She had goofed. She had not taken into account the dark shadow that would always hover over her head: Her father’s Pakistani nationality. That fact scratches out her Indianness. This is just a minor consequence of what the leaders of India, Pakistan and Great Britain accomplished 70 years ago. But Shireen had to prepare for worse.
When she was in the family way again, her husband had taken a transfer to the Cayman Islands. For Shireen this was a Godsend in a most unexpected way. In the ninth month of her pregnancy, she would cross over to Florida for greater gynaecological care. This is precisely what Shireen did. So, not only was little Rabab born in a world class hospital, she was doubly blessed on another score. She was born with a priceless document: The American passport. So far so good, until God revealed his enigmatic side: Rabab was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, immobile, comprehensively challenged, condemned to move only on a wheelchair.
Shireen and Rabab were able to travel to Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, and Mustafabad once or twice a year until collapse of the global economy in 2008 affected Shireen’s mobility. Frequent travel between Dubai and Delhi became too expensive.
When sorrows come they come in battalions. At 30, Rabab is a big, heavy girl. With tears in her eyes, her Bangladeshi nanny told Shireen that Rabab was too heavy for her to change her clothes, bathe, seat on a wheelchair and be put to bed.
Shireen and Abbas began to share these chores until the next installment of bad news. Shireen was diagnosed with leukemia.
She now faces an existential choice. Her support structure — sister, uncles, cousins, nieces are all in India. She already has an apartment next door to our daughters, her adoring nieces.
Shireen, of course, has an Indian passport and can come and go as she pleases. The problem is with Rabab’s long term visa because it is impossible to cart her back and forth, pointlessly, on a short term visa which, incidentally, is not assured either. One would have thought she can sail in with her American passport. But that is not the case. Her father’s nationality trumps all other considerations. Look, she is on a wheel chair. Doesn’t matter. She is comprehensively challenged. That does not qualify her for an Indian visa. The system is telling an invalid child that her father is her curse.
Lest you begin to chastise the present government for Rabab’s woes, do pause for a moment. The BJP regime came in day before yesterday. Stringent, sometimes inexplicable, laws were put in place by successive Congress governments.
The document that Mariam was handed by the Indian High Commission in Ottawa (when she applied for OCI card some years ago) takes one’s breath away: “As per the MHA’s OCI ruling, no person who, or either of whose parents or grandparents or great grandparents is or has been a citizen of Pakistan, Bangladesh at any time or such other country as the Central government may, by notification in the official gazette, specify, shall be eligible for registration as an overseas citizen of India cardholder. In view of the existing OCI rules, you are not entitled for grant of OCI card facility because one of your parents is of Pakistani origin.” That Mariam was born in India and, before her marriage, travelled extensively on an Indian passport is of no consequence.
I realise more than most people that these are abnormal times. In fact my career as a foreign correspondent would have been impossible without unstinted help, on a personal basis, from friends in the foreign office and in other parts of government. Additionally, visas for friends and relatives, on both sides of the border, were there for the asking. My friends were a strand in the vast mosaic that kept the nation’s sanity. Thanks to them, visiting relatives from Pakistan envied us for the friends we had. “Bhaiyya, can we buy land here?” It all seems so distant in time.
My mother, an eternal optimist, a great favourite of Shireen and Abbas, indeed our entire universe, died three years ago, firm in her belief that sooner or later mists will lift and peace will descend. She would recite the following couplet with wistfulness in the eyes:
“Bada maza us milap mein hai,
Jo sulah ho jaae, jung ho kar?
(There is great pleasure in that harmony
Which descends after a big quarrel.)
Would my mother have been able to sustain that optimism given the state of play on this, our 70th birthday?
(Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News
New Delhi, (IANS) Terming the 7th Pay Commission increment announced by the government on Wednesday as “lopsided and inadequate”, the Congress termed it the “lowest pay hike in the last seven decades”.
“The Sixth Pay Commission had recommended a 20 per cent hike in salaries and allowances but the then Congress government doubled it to 40 per cent. The 7th Pay Commission recommended a hike of 14.29 per cent and Modi government merely raised it to a pittance of 15 per cent,” Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said.
He pointed out that the ratio between the lowest and the highest salary has increased.
“For example, the highest salary has increased from Rs.90,000 to Rs.2,50,000 but the lowest salary has been increased from Rs 7,000 to Rs 18,000 only. The ratio is 1:14, earlier it was 1:12,” he said.
“Naturally, employees at the lower rung of the salary will suffer the most,” he added.
Surjewala said the hike in salaries and allowances is “mere 15 per cent on basic pay and not 23.5 per cent as is being wrongly claimed” by the government.
