From the Desk of the Chairman (January 2024)

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has a headache for which the Association does not seem to have a remedy despite it being the association of all doctors in India. The cause for the headache comes from none other than a ubiquitous Baba who challenged the efficacy and credibility of allopathic medicines and its practitioners.? Baba found unprecedented acceptance of “ayurvedic” medicines promoted by him which are considered ethnic and therefore Indian ever since the political landscape changed in India with the arrival of Bhartiya Janata Party on the national scene with its own Hindu religious practices. Ayurvedic medications are perceived to be native to India and therefore have readily found favour across all sections of the society. Promotion of ayurvedic medications increasingly found favour at the expense of allopathic medicines that are considered as being modern – a euphemism for being western. ?Modern medicines are considered as alien to Indian ethos.? Such a belief system has presented an unprecedented opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to promote their ayurvedic products which are considered local and ethnic.? The philosophy and methodology of treatment of diseases through ayurvedic medicines and practices give the patients a sense of innate pride and satisfaction.? ?With this change in the environment with a ruling Party looking to anchor their policies on ancient practices, ayurvedic products became the toast of the town.? In this scenario the practice of Yoga and usage of ayurvedic medicines fitted the bill perfectly. ?A subtle shift in medicines and medical practices was inevitable to take advantage of such changes in the external environment.? Patanjali brand of products promoted by Baba Ramdev gave an Indian the satisfaction of curing the deceases (whatever they are) with our own body of knowledge anchored on ayurvedic medicines. To cut a long story short, Patanjali has become a household name in no time.? Once the Baba became a corporate honcho, there is no stopping him. In all this, he forgot for a moment that ancient medicines are good as palliatives and worked well for minor ailments and a lot of research and innovations are yet to be done for these medical practices to claim that they are better than any other branch of medicines in the area of critical care. The corporate empire started by the Baba has become a multibillion business empire. Unfortunately for Baba, this pursuit of profit landed him before the apex court of the land. On a petition by the Medical Council, the Baba was hauled up before the Court for making or helping to make misleading claims about the efficacy of Patanjali products. The Supreme Court cautioned Patanjali Ayurved against making “false” and “misleading” claims in advertisements for its medicines being promoted as cure for several severe diseases. The Supreme Court also said that it may consider imposing a fine of Rs one crore on every Patanjali product if a false claim is made that it can cure a particular ailment.? The Bench observed further that “all such false and misleading advertisements of Patanjali Ayurved have to stop immediately. In case anybody had a doubt, the Court also said that it will take any such infraction very seriously”.? A similar kind of advice had been given to Baba by the recently retired CJI Ramana. Does this make Baba, of all people, a repeat offender?? Ramdev Baba on his part, after the verdict had been given, was all gung-ho and proclaimed that he was willing to face even a death penalty if he is found guilty of any offence. As expected, Baba has blamed it all on a conspiracy hatched by the modern (read western) medical practitioners.? Haven’t we heard this line before?

I have always maintained that children can watch any programme on TV except shows that had risqué content and Parliamentary debates. My logic is clear.? The former spoils their character and the latter, their behaviour. In fact, in these columns, I had also expressed the opinion that our Parliamentarians should behave better and those enter the well of the House should be subject to automatic suspension for the rest of the session.? With frequent disruptions of the Parliament, irrespective of the seriousness of the debates, I was looking forward to watching the debates in Parliament when serious bills like ?“Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita Bill, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita Bill and the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill were brought before the Parliament.? Though there are few eloquent and erudite speakers left in the Parliament today, I was still looking forward to hear some animated debates on the above subjects particularly from the Opposition benches, for they take pains to study and understand the provisions in depth to corner the ruling party. I was particularly keen to watch the debates on the revamped criminal procedure codes as these Bills in particular would be instructive to good conduct of a large number of those who are sitting in the Parliament today.? That was not to be.? The Opposition decided to disrupt the proceedings in the House and deliberately invited their own suspensions. ?You would want to trade either your left or right arm to be members in the House besides spending huge amounts of money.? Yet here they are, our honourable members walking to the well of the House inviting (not even daring) the presiding officer to suspend them as if soliciting a badge of honour for some outstanding service to the nation!? If I had not seen it on live TV, I would not have believed what was happening. Apparently, they were protesting the Speaker’s decision of not allowing a discussion on the recent Parliament attack. In my opinion the stand taken by the Government in not allowing a discussion on the subject was patently wrong. The breach was so serious. Some of the MPs could have been harmed or even killed. Whether those representatives were good or not, they are our MPs. It may sound a bit cliched; one mistake cannot justify another one.? The Opposition, in my opinion walked into the trap set up by the treasury bench. The ruling party took full advantage of the situation and rammed all the Bills through with no Opposition to those Bills!? The lesson the Opposition has to learn is that those who are sitting in the treasury benches are much smarter in the art of politics.

Arguably the most vulnerable ministry in the Union Cabinet is that of the Minister of External Affairs (MEA). The reason for this is not very difficult to fathom.? The Prime Minister (PM) is always seen as the authentic representative of a country for obvious reasons. In such a situation the MEA has a difficult role to play.? He cannot upstage the PM but at the same time he also has to be seen as the one who is the expert on all matters related to foreign affairs of his country. In the present Cabinet it is even more difficult for anyone to don that mantle of MEA as Narendra Modi considers himself to be a better MEA than the MEA himself. In such a situation the latter has a hard task cut out for himself. In 2019 someone who is not known to the political establishment as a heavy weight named Subramanyam Jayasankar was to be sworn in as the MEA, the first question in every one’s mind was this – who is this guy? Jaisankar was a long serving career bureaucrat having served as the Foreign Secretary for three years. He is the second such bureaucrat who was chosen to become the MEA.? The other one was Natwar Singh. Jaisankar by nature does not give any indication of being a congenial person. On the contrary, he gives the impression as someone who is quite brusque. By all accounts, despite his ?external appearances, he has proved to be an ideal foil to Narendra Modi.? That is saying a lot.? Now let me come to the point that I wanted to make. Jaisankar recently made trip to Russia when he had met Vladimir Putin, the Russian President.? He made an interesting observation before leaving for Russia. In 1991 when India opened its economy formally its economy was worth $270 Billion when that of Russia was a whopping $518 Billion, almost twice of India’s.? Cut to 2022 for which figures are available, these statistics have virtually reversed.? India’s economy stands at $3.42 Trillion and that of Russia at $2.24 Trillion. These figures are a telling commentary on the progress made by India. Shekhar Gupta the Chief Editor of the Print takes this point further. He points out that the Russian economy stalled in 2009 and the primary reason for this was because of what is called irredentism.? Irredentism is the territorial claim of one state based on ethnic, historical or national grounds. Most commonly, it is when a state argues that their state's people reside in territories claimed by a bordering state and that territory should, therefore, belong to parent nation.? Russia, ever since it was born out of the disintegration of the Soviet Union had always nourished such feelings, the most recent instance being on Ukraine which Russia considers still as a part of Russia. Before that it was about Crimea. The problem with harbouring such feelings is that states end up spending a lot of effort, money and other political capital to fan such feelings. That in turn costs money which otherwise would have been gainfully invested in developing one’s own economy. Irredentism is often masquerades as imperialism.? Irredentism happens when a land claim due to its historical significance or connection to an ethnic or national group within the state making such a claim.? Imperialism, on the other hand is when a state claims territory they have no claim over to expand their land; it is against self-determination. Some political philosophy to ponder over.

Lafarge SA which was a part of the Holcim Group in India till they sold their to stake to the Adanis, is a? France based international company making cement with a squeaky clean reputation to boot.? They recently pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $777.8 million to resolve a U.S. federal criminal charge related to the French company’s payments to ISIS and another terror group to keep a cement plant operating in Syria. “Lafarge has admitted and taken responsibility for its staggering crime,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in a statement. “Never before has a corporation been charged with providing material support and resources to foreign terrorist organisations.? In the midst of a civil war, Lafarge made the unthinkable choice to put money into the hands of ISIS, one of the world’s most barbaric terrorist organisations so that it could continue selling cement.? Lafarge did this not merely in exchange for permission to operate its cement plant – which would have been bad enough – but also to leverage its relationship with ISIS for economic advantage, seeking ISIS’s assistance to hurt Lafarge’s competition in exchange for a cut of Lafarge’s sales.”? Lafarge was indicted by French authorities in 2018 in connection with the ISIS payments on charges of being complicit in crimes against humanity.? Corporate greed and nature of the crime have few parallels like this across the world. This case in particular underscores the need for all companies operating in high risk environments to invest in robust compliance programmes, pay vigilant attention to national security compliance risks and conduct careful due diligence in mergers and acquisitions.

The Economist carried an interesting article in its latest issue dealing with predications and facts thereafter for 2023. The title to the piece is “The Economists had a Dreadful 2023”.? I have taken a few nuggets from the article albeit, paraphrased as required.? “Economists who deal in sober empirical work have also had their conclusions challenged. (They had predicted a hard landing for the US consequent to rising inflation). Perhaps the most famous economic studies of the past 20 years have been those by Thomas Piketty, the celebrated French Economist and his co-authors who found an increasing gap between rich and poor. But in November a paper found that after taxes and transfers, American incomes are barely less equal.? Now Mr Piketty’s faction is on the defensive, accusing its critics of “inequality denial”.? Economists had long agreed that America would be richer if it allowed more homes to be built around popular cities. Now Brian Greaney of the University of Washington claims that after correcting for mistakes the true estimated effect is just 0.02%.? You think social mobility in America is lower than it was in the freewheeling 19th century?? It now looks as if there is more equality of opportunity today than in the past.? A rise in suicides, overdoses and liver disease has reduced life expectancy for white Americans for job opportunities.? New research has instead blamed the carnage on simple proximity to smuggled fentanyl, a powerful opioid. The long decline in the prestige of the once faddish field of behavioural economics which studies irrationality, continued in 2023.? In June Harvard Business School said, it believed, after an investigation that some of the results in four papers co-written by Francesca Gino, a behavioural scientist and PhD in Economics were “invalid” owing to “alterations of the data”. What lessons should be drawn from economists’ tumultuous year? One is that for all their intellectual discipline they are still human. Replicating existing studies and checking them for errors is crucial work. Another lesson is that disdain for economic theory in favour of the supposed realism of empirical studies may have gone too far. After the global financial crisis of 2007-09 commentators heaped opprobrium on theorists’ common assumption that people make rational predictions about the world; gibes about an unrealistic, utility-maximising Homo Economicus helped raise the status of Behavioural Economics. Yet rational expectations models allow for the possibility that inflation can fall rapidly without a recession - exactly the scenario that caught out forecasters in 2023. A last lesson is that economists should cheer up. The research that has been called into question this year inspired much pessimism about the state of modern capitalism. But a dodged recession, flatter inequality trends and less despair would all be good news. Perhaps the dismal science should be a little less so.” Some sobering thoughts at the end of the year.

I take this opportunity to wish all our readers a Happy and Prosperous 2024.

Thank you.

Venkat R Venkitachalam