Some More Arrests In AMRI Tragedy Needed

The AMRI mishap in Kolkata is really tragic. It shakes up the very core of our belief system -- our trust in doctors and institutions that have been set up to improve and save our lives. There is public outrage at this negligence and one manifestation of this was the Alipore Bar Association deciding that none of its memers would plead for bail on behalf the AMRI brass (read here). However, while all the outrage and indignation is justified, a couple of points, that seem to be getting obscured by the groundswell of public ire, need to be made.

One, while the AMRI shareholders, directors and the top officials of the administration deserve the punishment that is due to them (because it should serve as an example for all other private investors in the healthcare industry), why is no one talking about the punishment that should also be meted out to the municipal authorities or the state government mandarins who were happy to take a small stake in the hospital venture? The hospital adminsitration would never have been able to get away with its record of negligence had the municipal authorities or the state government been regular with inspections or not turned a blind eye at the short-cuts adopted by the hospital authorities. They seemed to be in cahoots with the promoters and are now acting self-righteous about it all.

It also points to the insidious influence of crony capitalism. No wonder, the government has been reluctant to introduce independent regulators across all sectors. An independent regulator with proper credentials would probably not allowed this to happen.

Another point comes through very strongly. In current management literature and some dubious books, much has been made of native ingenuity, which is now been bandied about as "innovation". This point has also been made in the latest instalment of Sidin Vadukut's Saturday column (read here), which concludes that this "jugaad" mentality has much to do with the AMRI tragedy.

But, above all, please also punish the municipal chaps and government guys who were responsible for supervising the state of affairs at AMRI and did not take timely action.

Export Numbers Scaled Down

So, here it is: There is official confirmation that something is wrong with the trade figures. Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar has said that exports have been over-stated by $9 billion due to "misclassification and errors" (read here). Unlike many of his colleagues, Mr Khullar is not scared of owning up and admitting that mistakes have occured.

The export numbers for the year will now have to be revised. The finance ministry released the mid-year review of the economy on Friday, December 9, 2011. April-September exports were shown as $160 billion. Now that will have to be scaled down to $151 billion. So, the earlier growth number of 52% for the first half of 2011-12 will also have to be scaled down to 43.8%.

Economists and experts (including this blogger) have been complaining about the ureliable nature of the trade data. It was obvious that something was wrong somewhere. Record export growth numbers at a time when the rest of the world is shrinking did sound a bit incongruous. It also does nothing to burnish India's already dodgy record with data. We now hope that the error margin is only $9 billion and not higher. Because even 43.8% growth in exports sounds a bit strange, especially in these stranger times.