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LEADER The budget(s) You Missed Miffed at being left out of the budget-making process, two intellectuals resort to that old favourite, the soapbox, to make themselves heard. Quick, what's common to solitaire, checkers, driving, and the Union Budget? Chances are, if you are playing the first two, doing the third, or presenting the fourth, the assemblage in the general vicinity of your activity always knows better. This correspondent pleads guilty to arrogance of a similar hue, but that was many moons ago, in school, where unimaginative instructors often pick on if-I-were topics for classroom elocutions. With age and wisdom, though, came the realisation that the perfect repartee to if-I-were musings was a crude, and effective, but-you-are-not. Still, if you are a senior journalist, any kind of economist, a distinguished (looking) CEO, or simply have friends in the electronic media, you can pretend to be the finance minister for a few minutes (but what minutes they'll be, on network television and all that!) once every year, either before or immediately after the presentation of the budget. If you aren't any of these, or are but don't have friends in the media or think you have so much to say that nothing less than presenting an alternative budget will do, go ahead. There must be some way of making yourself heard. And don't hold anything back.
Two self-styled mavens haven't (held something back, that is). One is Professor Arindam Chaudhuri, described as a noted economist and management guru in glossy full-page ads taken out by the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (where he's Dean), and the other (much older) is Krishan Khanna, Chairman of a Mumbai-think tank called India Watch Foundation. Chaudhuri's alternative budget can be found at groovyjobs.com, a website run by the consulting arm of IIPM; Khanna's presentation is a trifle more modest, a sheaf of laser prints bunched together and sent to this office, presumably by snail mail.
Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha may be content with 9 per cent growth. That, the two experts believe, is for the faint-hearted: both have a grandiose vision of India achieving 10-12 per cent growth in GDP. Whoa! Tough? Not for the prof. He's got it all worked out in his head: what the government needs is a job-spell. Once uttered, this incantation will make 175 million jobs materialise out of thin air, 150 million in rural areas, and the rest in the cities. So there, the guru seems to suggest with a flourish, that should add a straight 5 per cent to GDP growth. It's another matter that none of the government's employment generation programmes has managed anything close to that number. The government figures prominently in Chaudhuri's composition. It should, if it decided to take the man seriously, replace slums in urban areas with 15 million 225 sq ft two-room flats (the prof's eye for detail boggles the mind, and no these won't be let out for free; their tenants will have to pay Rs 333 a month); build one six-bed rural hospital for every ten villages, and 10 ''simple-yet-beautiful-bungalows'' around these hospitals for doctors; and pay dole to the unemployed and to parents of child labourers. If you think Chaudhuri has ignored the simple issue of money, rest assured, he hasn't.
All the government needs to do is increase the price of diesel by Rs 10 a litre. Inflationary impact? Oh, that'll correct itself in one or two business cycles; the money raised will be deployed in raising commodity production, which will eventually push down prices. The Prof also believes the government should double the excise duty on liquor and cigarettes netting a cool Rs 22,800 crore. Clearly, there's no such thing as a Laffer Curve in Prof Chaudhuri's economics text book. Art Laffer, for the benefit of the uninitiated, was an economic advisor to Ronald Reagan and maintained that an increase in tax rates would result in a corresponding shift in revenues only till a certain level; as tax rates rose beyond a certain point, people would consider it not worth their while to work hard (earn more, and pay most of it as tax). True, Laffer was speaking about income tax, but the same principle holds true for excise. Khanna starts off realistically by prescribing that India focus on increasing exports. But then, somewhere along the way he makes an intellectual jump that this correspondent couldn't, and concludes that this will improve the quality of governance and administration in the country. Other great notions: tap NRI funds, concentrate on the German system of vocational training (he's lived and worked in Germany and can help), and focus on tourism. ''it world-wide is only $500 billion,'' he writes. ''Tourism is about $3,000 billion''. May be, and these ideas are priceless. REVERSE AUCTIONS When Cardinal Healthcare, a Fortune 500 company, wanted to outsource some of its IT requirements worth half-a-million dollars, it did not call in for bids like it would usually do. Instead, it simply hired an online intermediary to find the best bargain on the net. In a matter of days and at a fraction of its regular costs, Cardinal found itself a supplier. Online intermediaries such as NEOIT and 01markets.com-which also vet and rate it service providers-are hoping that this trend will catch on. It just might. As companies scramble to cut costs, the net is emerging as a powerful tool in the search for bargains. The cost of reach does not increase proportionately, while greater competition dramatically reduces bid prices. Says Avinash Vashishta, MD of NEOIT: ''We have about 2,500 it services provider companies, of which two-thirds are from India.'' Technology research firm IDC estimates the global market for it services to be as big as $300 billion, but the market in India (according to Mythily Ramesh of 01markets.com) is worth about Rs 4,000 crore. ''Even if we succeed in tapping a small percentage of the market, it would be significant,'' says she. Even companies like TCS, Satyam, Wipro, and Silverline bid for such projects on-line. It's a market that no one wants to miss out on. -Venkatesha Babu OFF-BEAT
-Venkatesha Babu MEDIA Call it coincidence, but it is uncannily well-timed. Even as the tech slowdown dries up print classifieds, three newspapers have joined hands to lure market away from the leader, The Times of India a.k.a. the Old Lady of Boribunder. Under what's been billed as a star alliance, The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, and the Mid-Day will offer 80 per cent better reach at half the price of TOI's job supplement, Ascent. This is not the first time that TOI has had to take heat from its ambitious rivals. But, worringly for it, what's different this time round is the cross-competition alliance. Following the tie-up, an advertiser can reach out through ht Careers (Delhi), IE's Headstart (Mumbai), and Mid-Day (Mumbai) for just Rs 1,500 per column centimeter, versus Ascent's Mumbai-Delhi rate of Rs 3,150. Another package deal from the trio covering Delhi (HT), Mumbai (Mid-Day and IE), and Pune (IE) is priced at Rs 1,600 against Ascent's Rs 3,350 for Delhi-Mumbai-Pune. Given that the combined readership of the allies is two-thirds more than the TOI's, agencies say there will be takers. ''Experience suggests that clients usually respond to price discounts,'' says Sulina Menon, Director, Carat India. In the past, IE has tried cutting ad rates to grab advertisers with some success. But Ascent's superior packaging has prevented any significant gains. But the question now, as Mid-Day's Tariq Ansari says, is "who's afraid of who?'' What could upset the grand alliance is IE's own ambitions. Says Shekhar Gupta, Group CEO, IE: ''I don't know about the others, but if there is an issue where the TOI likes to join hands, I would consider.'' Knowing the TOI, it will likely leverage the breach to pull down competition. -Shamni Pande ENTERTAINMENT
The show, which will test the endurance and ingenuity of nine contestants, will be shot entirely on location at a specially constructed, 40,000-sq. ft. set at Chandra-owned EsselWorld in Mumbai. The set, billed as the biggest ever of a television show in India, will closely recreate the conditions found at POW camps. An expert committee will oversee all aspects of the show, from set design to programme content. The carrot to advertisers? ''A 360-degree brand experience for sponsors,'' says Sinha. Just how? In a Truman Show-like fashion, the contestants will be shown doing their daily chores, besides trying to escape the prison. While the format has not been finalised, the potential for marketers of consumer soft is already evident. Says Ashish Bhasin, President, Initiative Media: ''This will be Indian TV viewers' first brush with reality television after Survivor on AXN. Zee had better get its production quality right.'' But we guess, Sinha's already heard that from Zee's head honcho. -Shamni Pande LEGISLATION Khairati Lal Goel fled Karachi during Partition. All he had with him was Rs 25,000, the money received from the distress sale of his garments shop. Goel decided to pursue the same business in Delhi and bought a small shop in Connuaght Place. But he couldn't get the shop transferred to his name, since the shop was part of a larger leasehold property, which couldn't be sold individually. As was the practice in those days, Goel entered into an agreement with the landlord, where the Rs 25,000 was treated as pugree (purchase) money. In effect, the shop was treated as sold and Goel paid a nominal rent. It suited the landlord fine, since he paid no taxes on the money received. Things have changed since. Following Goel's death, his son manages the shop, where business is booming. Unfortunately, on paper, Goel's son is still the tenant. With the shop now worth a couple of crores, the landlord wants him out. So what if he'd already sold the shop to Goel. Cut to south Delhi's Kalkaji area. Retired government servant, Gopal Sharma is at his wits' end. Fifteen years ago, he had invested his life's savings in a DDA flat. Since he still had five years of government service to go, and a government flat with it, he decided to give his two-bedroom flat on rent. And when he retired 10 years ago and wanted to shift to his flat, the tenant refused to move. He's still parked inside Sharma's flat. Beyond trying to work the moribund legal system, there's little Sharma can do. For, ''possession is nine-tenths of the law'' is the bottomline, according to the Rent Act in Delhi. So, how do you find a law that does justice to both Sharma and Goel? A law that turns Sharma's tenant out and lets Goel's son keep the shop his father bought? That's the dilemna facing law makers drafting-for the umpteenth time-the Delhi Rent Act, 1995. The existing Act of 1958, would do justice to Goel but not to Sharma. For, it is totally in favour of the tenants. Among other things, it allows inheritence of tenancy. But the new law, which is awaiting cabinet clearance any day, doesn't recognise the concept of pugree (in effect, either forcing people to vacate or renegotiate rents at today's rates) and provides for retrospective increase in rents right from 1949, which could mean payments of around a crore of rupees in some cases. It also does away with inheritence of tenancy. Says Atul Bhargava, President, New Delhi Traders Association: ''The landlord first got money by taking pugree from us (virtually equal to the sale value), now he'll get a huge lumpsum payment as rent for all those years, and then get the property back.'' So, what happens if the Delhi Rent Act actually becomes a reality? Most old-time shopkeepers in markets like Connaught Place, Chandni Chowk, Karol Bagh, South Extension and residential tenants in many 30-year-old or older Delhi colonies would be on the streets and facing legal proceedings, with landlords demanding crores in back rents due according to the new computation. Delhi wouldn't be what we know it as today. From one extreme to another, lawmakers clearly can't find the right balance. -Bharat Ahluwalia
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His father is afflicted with Parkinson's and
his mother with motor neuron disease. And the 36-year-old K. Suresh lays
the blame on pesticidal residues they may have ingested from fruits and
vegetables. Egged on by the plight of people like his parents,
Suresh-along with Pal Valan, formerly of University of Agricultural
Sciences-has developed a herbal pesticide cleanser, Biowash 555. Says
Suresh: ''Biowash has saponins, which are natural detergents found in many
plants and work as anti-fungal and anti-bacterial agents.'' In a country
with poor agriculture supply chain, fruits and vegetables are repeatedly
bathed in pesticides and preservatives, which a water wash does not
remove. Claims Valan: ''A preferred cleanser like potassium permanganate
removes only 20 per cent of bacteria.'' Apart from being side-effect free,
the herbal cleanser does not alter the colour and flavour of fruits,
vegetables or meat when washed. The product has been analysed and
certified by SGS Lab, a Geneva-based testing and certifying lab. Now, the
product must wash with consumers. 
It's a reality check, alright. Early this
month, Subhash Chandra-owned Zee TV announced that it was laying its Kaun
Banega Crorepati imitator, Sawal Dus Crore Ka (SDCK), to rest. Instead, it
would create an epic reality show, a la Sony-owned AXN's Survivor. Reason?
Following the SDCK debacle, and launch of Sony Entertainment's Govinda-anchored,
Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke, Zee's ratings have spiralled down to around five
from around eight for its prime time show, Aashirwad. With its stock
quoting at a low Rs 110, it is desperate for a comeback. And its reality
show Prisoner of War (POW) will be its biggest bet yet. ''We have done a
huge amount of research to put the POW format together,'' says Partha
Pratim Sinha, Sr. Vice-President (Marketing), Zee TV.