This year’s Nobel Peace Prize won by the new US President Barack Obama has got an intellectual but indirect connection with the open defecation in Kavthepiran, a village in western Maharashtra in India.
Kavthepiran won the Nirmal Gram village award in 2006 for having eradicated the widespread public habit of discharging their body waste in open, public places.
Look at this matter with a ‘developed’ eye, and you will perhaps say this: “Bloody Indians! An award is given for having made sure that people shit in their toilets.”
What a pity, right? But the award committee set the stage in Indian background and determined this kind of an initiative had got a distinct value as it dealt with getting rid of a malicious habit that was entrenched in the society as part of a common living style.
Coming back to US president’s story, there’s a difference in characters and the background, but the theme is almost the same. Here, Kavthepiran is substituted by Obama, Nirmal Gram award by Nobel Peace prize and open defecation by open bloodbath or international intrusion, or anything of that sort.
Obama’s predecessors were literally living like the world police. They lent a ‘helping hand to Israel for encroaching parts of Palestine, played a major role in throwing Iraq’s internal security into chaos, showed the world the re-incarnation of the Nacist Hitlor by setting up the notorious detention center at Guantanamo, bombed to pieces many innocent Afgan women and children, kept amassing nuclear weapons and at the same time threatened the other countries even from doing nuclear tests, encouraged wars from one side and sold weapon to the other party, and always floated on the surface with a look that they run the world.
Gradually, it became a deep-rooted assumption that an American president who does not get involved in some wars and cause inconvenience to the world economic minority is a misfit. So this was a common living style for many US presidents, and they grew numb to any call for compassion, besides losing their ability to discriminate between what is good and bad for the world community. They tested all the world matters by setting it against their business prospect, and whichever promised profit, were considered good.
The world countries have now grown accustomed to seeing these cruelties and have stopped having objection on their conscience to granting impunity to the world police. In short, it has been alright for US presidents to get involved in all filthy matters, and benefit whichever way possible.
That is why when Obama indicated a paradigm shift in his policies through some nice speeches (of course, not via actions) at some international forums including the one at Cairo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee thought it was something ‘extra ordinary’.
It is a pathetic degradation of the Nobel Prize that it sends out a message that anyone can win this recognition by doing some lip-service in a short span of 9 months - because Obama assumed office in January this year.
However, in these nine months, Obama, who was well known for his strong and charismatic speeches, dared to make some verbal overtures to the Muslim world. There are a few deplomatic advancements in Iraq and envirounment front. But they are still not worth a recognition like Nobel as concrete steps are still awaited.
And now I think I should respect the Nirmal Gram village award more than I should the Nobel Peace Prize.
The reason: Kavthepiran won the award for having completely stopped the open defecation in the village, while Obama won the Nobel for having made some announcements that just indicated there would be a cleaning up of the US foreign policies of all the so-called filth.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Mr Mittal, please don't do it again next year
It is the second time that merger talks between India's telecom major Bharti Airtel and South Africa's communication provider MTN are meeting with a debacle. In May 2008, when the deal talks first began, MTN insisted on buying a majority share and having Bharti as its subsidiary company. But Sunil Mittal would have rather closed down all his businesses.
And after one year, the history is repeating. Four months back, two parties again came and sat around a table, perhaps praying that the other guy forget the last year's insult. After a lot of day dreaming and castle-building in the industry and media circle, the talks are again packed off – this time too a demand by MTN for it to be duel-listed in India turned a damp squib as India government was not ready to 'change its laws overnight.”
It is obvious that Bharti had found it much worthwhile to pursue a futile exercise in two consecutive years. For, had the deal been a success, the merged entity would have become the world's third largest telecom service provider behind China Mobile and Vodafone, with a subscriber base of 200 million and a revenue of about $20 billion.
According to the agreement, though failed, the deal was valued at around $23 billion. Bharti was to buy 36 per cent of MTN’s existing equity from the company shareholders. For this, Bharti was supposed to pay in a combination of cash and share – it was to shell out $10.34 per MTN share totaling $7.03 billion, besides issuing half a share in the form of Global Depository Receipts (GDR) for every MTN share it gets (about 34 crore shares worth roughly $6 billion). The GDR would have been listed on the securities exchange operated by JSE Limited, South Africa.
On the other side, MTN was to buy 25 per cent of Bharti Airtel’s post-deal equity through fresh issue of Bharti shares. MTN would pay $2.89 billion in cash and issue fresh MTN shares to Bharti equivalent to 25 per cent of MTN's existing equity (worth $7 billion). At the end , as the deal was envisaged, Bharti would hold about 48.8 per cent of MTN’s expanded equity, while MTN would keep 36.4 per cent of Bharti's enhanced equity. And of course, Bharti was supposed to pay MTN a net cash amount of $4.14 billion to make sure that it buys more shares than it sells in the deal.
This created an apprehension among Bharti stakeholders that if the company had to raise a $4 billion, it would be forced to go a loan-route, but a relief was that MTN was not a loss making firm and it might have a healthy balance sheet.
And the structure of the deal had also left some questions on the identity protection unanswered. By releasing a media statement, Bharti had sought to dispel the confusion that may have arisen on the governance front in case the deal was signed. It said that had the deal been through, Bharti would have held substantial participatory and governance rights in MTN enabling it to fully consolidate the accounts of MTN, while MTN's economic interest in Bharti would be equity accounted and would have appropriate representation on the Bharti Board.
But there were still ambiguities. How would the merged entity be named? It would be more or less like naming a baby born to a couple representing two religions as nobody owns a controlling stake in the deal.
The company's clarification in this regard apparently did not go down well with the investors as that was seen in surging stock price of Bharti immediately after deal talks were called off.
Let's hope Mittal would not be repeating the history in 2010 too.
And after one year, the history is repeating. Four months back, two parties again came and sat around a table, perhaps praying that the other guy forget the last year's insult. After a lot of day dreaming and castle-building in the industry and media circle, the talks are again packed off – this time too a demand by MTN for it to be duel-listed in India turned a damp squib as India government was not ready to 'change its laws overnight.”
It is obvious that Bharti had found it much worthwhile to pursue a futile exercise in two consecutive years. For, had the deal been a success, the merged entity would have become the world's third largest telecom service provider behind China Mobile and Vodafone, with a subscriber base of 200 million and a revenue of about $20 billion.
According to the agreement, though failed, the deal was valued at around $23 billion. Bharti was to buy 36 per cent of MTN’s existing equity from the company shareholders. For this, Bharti was supposed to pay in a combination of cash and share – it was to shell out $10.34 per MTN share totaling $7.03 billion, besides issuing half a share in the form of Global Depository Receipts (GDR) for every MTN share it gets (about 34 crore shares worth roughly $6 billion). The GDR would have been listed on the securities exchange operated by JSE Limited, South Africa.
On the other side, MTN was to buy 25 per cent of Bharti Airtel’s post-deal equity through fresh issue of Bharti shares. MTN would pay $2.89 billion in cash and issue fresh MTN shares to Bharti equivalent to 25 per cent of MTN's existing equity (worth $7 billion). At the end , as the deal was envisaged, Bharti would hold about 48.8 per cent of MTN’s expanded equity, while MTN would keep 36.4 per cent of Bharti's enhanced equity. And of course, Bharti was supposed to pay MTN a net cash amount of $4.14 billion to make sure that it buys more shares than it sells in the deal.
This created an apprehension among Bharti stakeholders that if the company had to raise a $4 billion, it would be forced to go a loan-route, but a relief was that MTN was not a loss making firm and it might have a healthy balance sheet.
And the structure of the deal had also left some questions on the identity protection unanswered. By releasing a media statement, Bharti had sought to dispel the confusion that may have arisen on the governance front in case the deal was signed. It said that had the deal been through, Bharti would have held substantial participatory and governance rights in MTN enabling it to fully consolidate the accounts of MTN, while MTN's economic interest in Bharti would be equity accounted and would have appropriate representation on the Bharti Board.
But there were still ambiguities. How would the merged entity be named? It would be more or less like naming a baby born to a couple representing two religions as nobody owns a controlling stake in the deal.
The company's clarification in this regard apparently did not go down well with the investors as that was seen in surging stock price of Bharti immediately after deal talks were called off.
Let's hope Mittal would not be repeating the history in 2010 too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
