This blog

Creating future on liberally expanding rational thinking. A mind fixated to past self destructs.

life | society | energy | politics | history | poetry | اردو


Coping with middlemen and retailers

I​f​ we had been happy with what had been happening in this nation for 'thousands of years' we would not have been talking of reforms of any type..... 

Let's understand in last 25 years particularly ( perhaps dues to shift in politics) the dishonesty in retail has gone many many folds up. We never heard urea in milk and coloring of vegetable with poison. Middlemen never used to enjoy so much of vulgar margins as they do now. Reason has been that their political support has started gaining over this period providing them increased immunity. 

Today if Govt. increases petrol price by one rupee, trading class responds by inflating prices by 10-20 rupees immediately !! Now their political masters are highlighting convenience of neighborhood stores as main reason why these traders be given preference. 

Shall we continue with them simply because they give us CONVENIENCE of getting cheated at doorstep !! 

No one wants them out but only be tamed to improve services and limit dishonesty. In fact if you look at markets near malls ( in my street there are not one THREE malls now), retail business has gone up at least 20 times since ( I see it every day how crowded the neighbourhood bazaar has turned).

deja vu Tripura

The political events observed in Tripura over last 1-2 years culminating in killing of young journalist this week is sad indicator to return of violence to hard earned peaceful public life. That, this period also coincides with changing local political alignments together with excessive intolerance seen all over, is something Agartala intellectuals may or should, be concerned about and like to intervene for bringing healthy, acceptable level of sporting spirit into political games. 

I don't know Tripura as deeply as some of my friends at Agartala might know, but confidently know better than millions of rest of Indians, for whom north eastern people are still sort of semi-compatriots only at the most, know it. When 

I first went to Tripura in mid 2005, the state was in process of recovering from three decades of insurgency and many gory stories were still fresh reminders that used to warn us about traveling to even Matabadi and Balunia after 6 in evening. Security bunkers were regular on the hill tops. The state had seen enough bloody clashes but had started recovering fast.  

In next three years by 2008 when I left, we hardly used to hear about active insurgency any more. The state had almost returned to normal and peaceful. Credit must go to the public and to the efforts of govt. 

During my stay and ever since I left Agartala, my friendly contacts with locals grew stronger only, particularly with those from media, some of whom had become more than professional associate and have been close pals now. Checking on happenings about Tripura has been regular. I can say confidently that the state had been one of the most peaceful for quite some time now. 

The present incidents should not deter the process of peace and development and must be quickly consigned to extreme rarity. Political maturity the state has displayed so far must be strengthened.

Oil and Gas E&P activities are not against public

India is hugely dependent on imported energy resources and unless we unshackle out of this dependence we will not progress in real terms. India must move forward to adopt latest technologies and explore for scarce energy resources by every mean. 

Public has to be taken along is paramount, no doubt. What is most important emerging out of recent incidents of agitation against oil & Gas exploration in Cauvery Delta region of Tamilnadu is reluctance of the oil companies to be adequately transparent and their inability to win over the public opinion by involvement. 

People very rarely know what exactly oil companies do at their drilling operations. Even educated opinion builders like activists and media have never seen the complex real operations to enable them to vouch for oil company’s words. That lack of first-hand knowledge gets reflected in opinion of the activists, and sometimes media also, having guided by the information sourced from internet which is searched with ‘keywords’ biased with what they desired to look for and not what might be the reality of the oil and gas exploration and production activities. Those search finding too could be of value but may be of one side of the story only. 

Latest innovations in oil exploration the world over have only made it possible recently for us to enjoy lower crude oil prices enabling countries like India to save billions of dollars in imports and divert huge investments towards public welfare. There had been initial public doubts in US and other countries too, but the companies, the governments and the opinion makers together worked to create enabling atmosphere for technology to bring in acceptable, better and safer solutions moving ahead for prosperity of their respective nations.Hydrocarbon exploration is one of the most complex science. That’s the reasons most advanced of the supercomputers are made for oil exploration activities. 

The geology under surface is extremely difficult to visualize and estimate otherwise. Oil and gas is produced normally from depths far the below surface level (thousands meters) where anything connected to human habitat or vegetation would be of any concern of.It is also not all that by choice that oil company would decide where to drill and could move away from decided location. Once the hydrocarbon potential is found to be ‘expected’ at a location, one needs to focus on areas as close as ‘few meters’ radius with in that to look for oil and gas by drilling of the wells. 

Oil and gas Exploration & Production (E&P) activities the world over have been some of the safest usage of technology. There have been accidents but when one looks at larger time scale, even collateral environmental impacts have been very few. Oil industry has always been in deep public focus and scrutiny and that’s the reason large part of the E&P investments is towards safety. Companies like ONGC pay millions of dollars as insurance premium to secure their activities but have very rarely required to take relief because of the excellent safety track records. 

The accidents (though a rare) like what happened in Gulf of Mexico at BP platform caused involved companies to bear over about 30 billion dollar compensations. But that also reflects that E&P companies have responsibilities which they can’t ignore and have to carry at the top of all their agenda. It would potentially be retrograde to discourage discovering sources of energy which are most essential for India's growth and prosperity of the people. The country like India is hardly in position to not scout for its own energy resources. There could be some inconvenience to the public but ultimately we have to weigh what’s important, to balance and to move forward. 

Making oil companies accountable is one thing (like railways and airlines are accountable towards our travel safety), stopping them would have negative impact on this developing nation. 

Issues relating to environment and public health should be debated in order to work out solutions, not to stop the works altogether which is easier but undesirable. Advocacy from public activists will be more constructive tool in this regard.