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Perspective
8 SAYING TRUTH > DELHI, 23-29 APRIL, 2013
cmyk

www.sayingtruth.com
In private sector banking, a common

‘‘
malpractice is that their fat clients cough
out fat sums of black money that are
deposited in multiple farmers’ accounts.

 A THOUGHT FOR TODAY 

Women should be brought up to be strong,

they are not weaker in any way.
Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan
Can you bank upon Banks? the black turn white forever. the Micro and Small, Medium Industries
Dhaninder Gill
Such banks are known internation- sector. Instead of doing that, the banks
Women: A time to rise or banks it is quite the op- ally to be indulging in drug money, ter- use manipulations. If we look at the writ-

F
posite of lay users. For ror, financial scams etc. That the ten rules, this window dressing is cer-
ncidents of rape have been spiraling them loans are assets since governments have failed to act is a clear tainly disallowed. But in reality, top

I upwards despite a spate of high profile

tragedies. The media activism, the po-
lice inaction, the citizens anger, the
governments unending platitudes and chronic
palsy - have all become standard vignettes of our
gasping democracy. The only one thing that is
going to stand the women in good stead is them-
selves. Girls should be reared to be confident and
strong, and not delicate creatures anymore. Physi-
cal and moral strength are both necessary. Why
moral? Because research has shown that a large
number of assaults are due to intimate partner vio-
lence. Alcohol makes a woman extremely vulnera-
ble. The pub marching brand of women ‘lib’ is quite
misplaced. Strength needs to emanate from the body
and soul. The body should be strengthened with ex-
ercise and martial arts. The mind, through true med-
itation and self-control. Every woman should be
trained to defend herself from early childhood. The
coming millennium must be dominated by women
since men have already proven themselves inca-
pable of working for society’s larger good.
they make money on
them. Deposits are liabili-
ties since they have to pay
interest on that. Banks
complain that the current regulatory en-
vironment, high administrative costs
strike at their profitability. Therefore,
there is a profusion of third party prod-
ucts that have no real costs attached and
mean pure profits. Customer service ex-
ecutives are outdoing each other to sell
insurance, mutual funds etc.
Young executives observe rather
caustically, “Why are sting operations
going hammer and tong after us. We are
dying under the Damocles culture of un-
realistic targets and high pressures, why
kill the foot soldiers alone.”
Indeed, they are haunted by the
prospect of job insecurity, lack of pro-
motions and blocked bonuses and incre-
and irrefutable proof that there are el-
ements within the government that ben-
efit from these scamsters.
How the Hawala operators intersect
with the banking sector is another inter-
esting area. The operatives have multi-
ple accounts in multiple banks with
small sized daily transactions of
Rs.25000-30000. While individual trans-
actions are bite sized, there is no way of
knowing that across several banks, large
amounts are changing hands.
Mohan kumar, a financial analyst
says that the battle is on to show an in-
flated balance sheet size since the rank
in the global order is decided by it.
In private sector banking, a common
malpractice is that their fat clients cough
out fat sums of black money that are de-
posited in multiple farmers’ accounts.
This is done usually during the quarterly,
bosses roger the middle level managers
to manipulate figures to show higher
loans and savings. That brings us to an-
other question of non-performing assets.
While the NPA’s keep mounting, the
banks increase the exposure (loans) so
that in percentage terms the NPA appears
to become less as a percentage wise, even
though, value wise it may have grown.
So, this is a way mounting losses are hid-
den from the public eye. Banks maybe
serious about making recoveries from de-
faulters but who would bell big cats like
Kingfisher. So in the end, the lack of po-
litical will is paramount at the cost of the
public exchequer, where the institutions
are only mechanisms and repositories of
public trust.
So while all banks have mechanism
for knowing the customer (KYC) and
Anti money laundering, but there are a va-

‘‘I want my piece of the Pie, Let India Die’’

ments if they are unable to sell insurance half yearly or yearly closing. This money riety of ways to beat the system. Within
and mutual funds.Whilst on paper the stays there for 2-3 days and then it is the complex jargon of seemingly tight
guidelines and ethics are very strong, but withdrawn and given back. regulations, there are ways and means of

Policy
in practice, the verbal instructions from
Vaccum above are quite contrary to norms.
Some foreign banks operating in
India and globally are said to be the
biggest laundries for parked funds of
the elephant size which are beyond ad-
justment. Their offer starts from Ten
Million USD in INR deposited in their
The second practice is to expand the
loans and deposits at closing time by an-
other methodology. If someone has an
overdraft account or a bank limit, if the
actual money drawn is less, at closing
the bank employees transfer funds into
their deposit side. That has a twofold ef-
fect. Figure in the CASA (Current Ac-
hiding improprieties. As the citizens ei-
ther do not get wind of what goes on, or
continues to turn a blind eye, institution-
alized corruption eventually sets in. The
establishment wants to squeeze the space
for citizen activism by clamping down on
NGO’s and other organizations that do
not compromise. We need more aware-

Terror
Indian branch for which transfer from count or Savings Account) goes up. So ness and action from all sections, includ-
tax-free countries would come in form do the advances. There is lot of pres- ing bankers, for they are our citizens too.
Girish of non-refundable FDI thereby making sure to provide priority sector funds to Say the truth; say no to what is wrong.

Email: sayingtruth15@gmail.com, www.sayingtruth.wordpress.com

A crusader for Organic rity for farmers, environmental

sustainability in farming and
greater control over productive re-
sources by farm communities (like
STB creased, compared to chemical high incidence of liquor and drug land, water, forests, seed etc.) As

he National convener
treatments. Pls see www.kisan- addiction amongst farmers and the three main things that will im-

of Alliance for Sus-

swaraj.in for this information also. rural youth? prove farm livelihoods for the bet-

tainable & Holistic

T
ST: Do you think farmer organi- KK: These are social problems ter. Improving farm livelihoods is

Agriculture (ASHA)
zations are doing enough to safe- plaguing different categories of also the more effective way of

Kavitha Kuruganti
guard the interests of the farmers
vis-a-vis political exploitation?
(KK) has been fight-
KK: Farmer organizations have
our population and not just farm- India reaching its millenium de-
ers. However, given their greater velopment goals.
vulnerabilities that already exist ST: Do you think that the govern-

ing for the rights of country farm-

sive right now. become quite weak in the country, on numerous fronts, this becomes ment is protecting pesticide man-

ers. She shares her plans and

ST: What are cost effective means compared to what they used to be. an urgent issue to be tackled. ufacturer's and helping them kill

vision with Saying Truth (ST).

ST: In principle, everyone knows
and agrees that organically grown
food is the best. How can we sur-
mount the barrier at the marketing
level for smaller organic farmers
who are still unorganised?
KK: Organizing farmers is of
course a critical step - in general,
as well as for organic markets. We
have brought out a small booklet
called "Small organic retail is
beautiful" which is available on
www.kisanswaraj.in that show-
cases some studies which show
the potential of such direct mar-
keting and retail efforts. The fact
that organic produce is scattered
and in small volumes make mar-
kets very challenging and expen-
cmyk
of recovering the bacterial flora of
the soil quickly?
KK: Inoculants like Panchagavya,
Jeevamrut, Amrit pani etc., and
then ensuring that the micro-cli-
mate for their proliferation exists
in the soil, with enough food for
them to thrive on (biomass incor-
poration).
ST: Do you think that there is
enough research being done on or-
ganic farming in our country to
help the farmer's?
KK: There is serious dearth of re-
search on organic farming. But
some information obtained under
right to information by us recently
is very positive. The government
never lets this out, but in an all
India network project on organic
farming, yields have actually in-
We no longer have strong leaders
accepted by large numbers, and
unions have split into numerous
factions. We need them to evolve
new ways of functioning in this
scenario, to build synergies. They
need to have broad alliances
across unions, like we are seeing
in Andhra Pradesh. There, a joint
action committee exists, in addi-
tion to Raithu Swarajya Vedika,
which is a loose alliance of all
major farmers' unions in the coun-
try. Agreeing on a minimum com-
mon agenda, by putting aside
differences at least for achieving
that agenda, is what these fora do
in Andhra Pradesh. Other states
have to emulate this, as well as at
the national level.
ST: What is your stand on the
ST: What is your take on women
agriculturists? Since they are bet-
ter cooks , nurses , mothers, don't
you think women can be very ef-
fective in the farm as well?
KK: Of course. Women are indeed
good farmers and do most work in
agriculture. However, it is unfortu-
nate that they don't get their due
recognition as farmers - not so-
cially, and not by institutions set
up by the government or others.
India's seed wealth owes a lot to
women farmers for the rich diver-
sity that still exists, though eroded
badly in the recent decades.
ST: What are the top three changes
you would wish to see in the next
three years with respect to better-
ment of the farmers?
KK: We are seeking income secu-
our own people?
KK : The government is certainly
promoting faulty and unsustain-
able technologies (not to mention
toxic and hazardous) in our food
and farming systems to the neglect
or even exclusion of safer, sustain-
able, affordable and farmer-con-
trolled alternatives. There is
certainly a bias towards industry, at
the expense of farmers.
ST: Which are the pesticides we
urgently need to get rid of in India?
KK: India's policy and regulatory
regime has to change drastically.
We need to register pesticides only
if there is no alternative to it. I also
think that we need to have a view
against chemical pesticides per se,
and not take a chemical-by-
chemical decision.