TELECOM TAMASHA
Pranjali Bandhu
The setting up of telecommunications infrastructure (for communicating across distances -from the Greek word tele meaning ‘from afar’) is a pre-condition for the growth of the IT industry and for economic growth in general within the globalisation paradigm. Due to digitisation telecom today covers more than telephony and includes mobile telephony, e-mail, video-conferencing and other similarly innovative services.
It was during the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-1990) and during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister that telecommunications was declared a development priority in India. This was in response to the wishes of large powerful national and international business groups (including exporters), who needed these services and who were supported in their demand by Western governments and international organisations like the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the World Bank.
Decentralisation is the new mantra of international financial institutions like the World Bank. This new agenda emphasises the devolution of responsibilities to the lower levels of government, of the State, district and panchayat levels (1). Decentralisation in this sense has also meant that State governments are opening up direct channels of communication with the Bank. According to the relevant articles of the Indian Constitution, foreign trade and foreign investment fall within the exclusive domain of the Centre. With globalisation, State governments now have the prerogative of being able to enter directly into agreements with external financial institutions. The Centre is not being called upon to offer a counter-guarantee, as was the case earlier for World Bank loans made to State governments for projects. The State governments now become directly responsible to the Bank for satisfying the conditions of the loan. However, such a decentralisation programme, which is ostensibly aimed at ensuring stability, efficiency and equity of the economic system, has not changed the overall agenda of the World Bank. The States have to submit their economies for its scrutiny and submit to suggestions aimed at restructuring and tightening the control of imperialist finance capital.
As in the case of other loans from the World Bank, monies for telecommunications infrastructure came with some policy advice attached, i.e., the mandatory implementation of a Structural Adjustment Programme. The provisions of this included: privatisation of publicly owned service and equipment providers, the opening of markets to international firms for enhanced telecommunication services and equipment, opening at least some investment in national telecommunications firms to foreign companies, and redesigning of government institutions so that there is a separation of service provision, policy and regulatory bodies.
The World Bank and the ITU also advise on how to restructure public agencies, create regulatory bodies and train professionals to staff these new agencies. With the help of such advice and monetary aid, governments in underdeveloped countries have undertaken a deliberately accelerated programme of building up the telecom infrastructure in their countries. The Telecommunications Regulatory authority (TRAI) was created as a result of such advice, so also the provisions formulated for the proposed Broadcasting Authority of India (BAI) (2). Uniform technical standards are to be ensured by the setting up of the Asia Pacific Telecommunication Standard Institute in India proposed by the ITU. India has also signed and ratified the Convention on Emergency Telecommunications, which provides for international assistance for the restoration of telecommunications links for rescue and relief operations at the time of disasters.
Under such an overall agenda of market-driven policies including trade liberalisation in basic telecom services and the opening up of this market to international investment, talk of decentralisation by the World Bank only means further penetration to the grassroots by international capital, and along with that the values it carries, which are certainly not community oriented and do not make for community control over telecom and other modern means of mass communications.
Privatisation and its Implications
In line with the above-mentioned World Bank policy indications, the National Telecom Policy of 1994, announced by the Narasimha Rao government, ended the monopoly position of Public Sector Units (PSUs) in this field, and introduced competition through allowing private investment in key sectors. The Disinvestment Commission declared Telecom a non-core area, i.e., one which could be opened to foreign transnational corporations.
Telephone companies that were part of government departments were hived off into state-owned corporations (as MTNL and VSNL were in 1986). These then began to operate solely on a profit-making basis, not that they had been seriously pursuing public service interests as PSUs. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) remained a government body functioning as both the policy arm and as the dominant provider, with its eventual corporatisation on the agenda. The creation of a new Department of Telecommunication Services (DTS) in the Ministry of Telecommunications was a step in this direction. VSNL, MTNL and TCIL (Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd.) were allocated to the DTS. This separation of policy-making functions (DoT) from the operation of telecom services (DTS) was meant to restore confidence in private companies, who find that the government telecom policies are biased because they are framed by a department which competes with them in services provision. However, the allocation of two equipment manufacturing companies – ITI (Indian Telephone Industries) and HTL (Hindustan Teleprinters Ltd) – to DoT made this bifurcation rather incomplete. The DTS is now rechristened Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) and has become operational from 1 January 2001 as a government owned corporation. There will come the formal separation of DTS from DoT after which there will be a search for strategic partners for BSNL, which will in all probability be foreign ones. These partners will be offered 40 to 50 per cent stake. The government will retain 26 per cent stake. A similar disinvestment of its holdings in HTL is planned and the search is on for a suitable strategic partner from the private sector.
Non-governmental companies began producing equipment in the 1980s and the manufacture and sale of telecommunications equipment by the TNCs is growing, and so is the associated phenomenon of joint ventures and collaborations. Global capital and the Indian state, having made the development of telecom infrastructure and services their priority, this sector ranks as one of the highest recipients of foreign investment, receiving Rs. 217/- billion between 1991 and 1996. Today, all the major political parties are in basic agreement over the main issue of allowing for private investment and operation.
The top ten Telecom equipment manufacturers in the world are: Alcatel (France); Siemens (Germany); AT & T (US); Northern Telecom (Nortel) (Canada); Ericsson (Sweden); Motorola (US); NEC (Japan); Bosch (Germany); Fujitsu (Japan); Philips (Netherlands). Almost each of these has its presence in the country. In the following is an overview of some of the foreign collaborations that have developed in the field of telecom services:
Tata-Birla-AT&T; Hutchison Telcom-Essar group (Delhi Cellular); Bharti Enterprises-British Telecom (Bharti-BT); Bharti Enterprises-Telecom Italia (Bharti-Telenet); Modi-Telstra-(Spice Telecom); Tata-Bell Canada; Reliance-Nynex; Escorts-First Pacific; Usha-Martin; Mahindra British Telecom (MBT) and ITI. AT&T is seeking to buy Media One, which owns US West, a 49 per cent shareholder in BPL-US West. BPL-US West operates the Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu circles. If the BPL-US West and AT&T partnership works out, the Birla-Tata-AT&T combine would effectively operate the entire cellular network of South India barring Karnataka (3).
The Telecom Commission has now decided to propose 100 per cent foreign equity in various emerging telecom based services, such as tele-banking, tele-medicine, tele-education, call centres and e-mail management. This is despite the fact that as per India’s commitment under the GATT and WTO, the maximum permissible foreign equity for telecom dependent services such as e-mail, on-line information and data retrieval, enhanced or value added facsimile services would be 51 per cent. In basic, cellular and radio paging the cap has been kept below 50 per cent. There have already been exceptions to this rule. An example is the MoU signed by Mr. Sam Pitroda’s London based company WorldTel with the Tamil Nadu government to set up community Internet centres throughout the State. Under this arrangement, WorldTel, which has been established at the initiative of the International Telecommunications Union, and mandated to organise large telecommunications projects in developing countries, will pick up 74 per cent of the equity.
Entry of multinationals in the name of competition means integrating the country into the international division of labour in this area as in others. The fact is that the corporations are paying no more than lip service to meeting universal basic service obligations, or spending on R&D in their subsidiaries in this country to enhance indigenous technology levels to cater to the information and communication needs of the masses. Their main concerns centre on quick and high financial returns on value added services like cellular phones, paging services, long distance and international calls.
As a result the reality is that the public service goals of the 1994 National Telecom Policy have been largely neglected. India’s rural areas still have some of the lowest teledensities of the world. Cellular telephones remain unaffordable to most. The IT revolution has, of course, been confined to a miniscule elite, largely due to the abysmal state of infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. Reliable, stable electricity and efficient telephones are essential to use computers and to access the Internet. This is precisely what is still missing in most areas. Even communication through public telephone services, postal services and travel to give messages by word of mouth are becoming more and more unaffordable for a large section of the people, given the price rise of these services on the one hand, and increase in the poverty levels on the other, which are a fall-out of liberalisation and privatisation policies themselves. This is apart from the unsatisfactory working conditions and remuneration of the large majority of postal employees themselves, despite their vital role in servicing the vast majority of the people.
The state-owned corporations, MTNL and VSNL, are also not doing anything to change this situation. Once BSNL gets into operation, it would also ignore provision of village telephony in the interests of profit booking. Rather, these corporations are engaged in competition (and collaboration) with the private companies to garner more of the upper-end urban market by offering services which take advantage of their all-India network in the mobile telephone and paging sectors, and now in Internet services provision as well. VSNL has issued shares to foreign investors through Eurobonds and GDRs. Its high profitability depends on its remaining a state-owned monopoly in international telecom, and this is also the interest of its shareholders. It has financial stakes in global satellite telecom companies (like ICO and New Skies Satellites NV) (4) through shareholdings, and is thus trying to profit from the global market in this field.
In fact, rather than play a public service role, these state-owned corporations are more than keen to obtain for themselves as many advantages and privileges as possible vis-à-vis private operators so that they gain a competitive edge over them, or eventually enter into tie-ups with them for the high-end business market segment, neglecting the ordinary consumer in the process. MTNL’s future plans include tie-ups with foreign providers for e-commerce and content provisioning on the Internet and entering overseas markets such as Bangladesh, the Middle East and Africa in partnership with global telecom giants. Recently, it bid for an urban centric network in Bangladesh in a consortium with TCIL and WorldTel.
About 10 per cent of telecom users, primarily in metropolitan cities, generate more than 80 per cent of the revenue of the telecom network. Telephone carriers like MTNL concentrate on this 10 per cent, thus neglecting the rest of the network, which then naturally languishes without adequate resources. Disparity grows when payment of deposits can enable faster telephone connections to subscribers. Such a system, in fact, smacks of legalised bribery. The OYT (Own Your Telephone) and Tatkal schemes, whereby many times the general category application money must be paid for getting a telephone connection within a shorter period of time, are some such examples.
Of course, corruption is endemic to these government bodies, from overbilling of customers, bribes for licenses, to outright scandals, where state power is used for personal and political party gains. The Sukh Ram telecom case features prominently among such corruption cases involving influential public servants and politicians, which have been very much on the rise in the liberalisation era, starting with the Bofors scandal starring the then PM of the country. Corruption has become a legitimised, even acknowledged part of the transnationalisation game. Bids from international firms are most often accompanied by pay-off offers (kickbacks).
The dissatisfaction and lobbying over the terms of the New Telecom Policy-99 were centred on the telecom majors securing a better and more “fair” deal from the government, i.e., higher profits. The caretaker PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) in 1999 was also involved in the new telecom scam, with the foreign collaboration dominated telecom sector being awarded undue sops at the cost of the national exchequer, even while they are noticeably making good profits. Allegations of pay-offs for the forthcoming elections were floated and the government was forced to go slow with the bailout. Considering the financial pressure that global capital can exert by threatening to withdraw if it does not get its way, it was not difficult to guess that in the prevailing circumstances they would get their way later if not sooner. They are already eyeing MTNL and VSNL with big greedy eyes to swallow them up bit by bit. Divestment of these companies is now put on the agenda with MTNL listing government shares on the NYSE as well as the conversion into ADRs (American Depositary Receipt) of its GDRs (Global Depositary Receipt) currently traded at the London stock exchange.
Unwarranted and over-liberal concessions to private telecom operators has also to be seen in the context of the post-Kargil scenario, when the US extended a helping hand vis-à-vis Pakistan, but with an intention to grab benefits for its industry. Quid pro quo or more is being demanded. While we bend over backwards (and forwards) to make our concessions to these indispensable ‘service providers,’ we do not give a second thought to ameliorate conditions for loss-making, debt-driven, suicide-committing farmers and the lower and middle income sections of the people hit by PDS (Public Distribution Services) rates hikes and diesel price increases and its repercussions...
Liberalisation and the Domestic Telecom Industry
TNCs have been allowed to enter in this sector with a number of concessions and in such a blatantly partisan way that in the long run there is no question of a level playing field for the big public sector telecom manufacturers. It should be pointed out, though, that these PSUs themselves were often from the beginning not technologically independent and already relied to a heavy extent on imported components.
Indian Telephone Industries, for example, was very much affected by the liberalisation processes. ITI, which earlier had been the sole supplier of telephones in the country, was put into competition with other foreign manufacturers, but without doing away with numerous bureaucratic controls and welfare policies of the government. While ITI had the social welfare responsibilities of looking after its workers, providing them with housing and opening schools for their children, none of the foreign competitors were compelled to bear similar costs. However, it was the National Telecom Policy of 1994 which made things really difficult for ITI with its open tender system. The quotations by MNCs were much lower than the average manufacturing costs. Alcatel quoted a very low dumping price to outbid ITI, but then quoted a very high price in 1997 to artificially increase the prices!
Many other constraints operated to hinder ITI’s growth. When Hindustan Teleprinters Ltd. (HTL) had to stop making teleprinters, it went into providing telecom services. This put ITI and HTL into competition with one another, and HTL put up new units even as the production capacities of ITI’s units were not being fully utilised. At the same time, it offered VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme) to its employees after the recommendation of the disinvestment commission to downsize the employees’ strength as part of a restructuring programme.
MTNL will also stand to lose in this liberalised and competitive environment because the big private telecom operators are able to offer better and a greater variety of services at cheaper rates to the corporate community, and operate with a higher technology and lower manpower base, forcing MTNL to eventually think in terms of VRS for some of its workforce. Ditto will be the case for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL). Having to pay taxes and with the withdrawal of budgetary support from the government on full-scale corporatisation, it will definitely suffer from a drastic fall in its revenue surplus in competition with private telecom service providers. Retrenchment would be the obvious consequence. The strike of telecom employees in September 2000 was aimed at foreclosing some of the adverse repercussions of privatisation and corporatisation on the workforce.
Apart from big public sector companies like ITI and Keltron going into the doldrums because of the government’s pro-MNC policy, the small-scale industry as a whole is very much affected by its neglect. According to the President of the Greater Mysore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, more than 45 per cent of the small-scale industries have been forced to close following the entry of foreign companies in the country (5). The aversion of financial institutions, including nationalised banks, to lend to small industries, while lending support to and underwriting readily the ventures of the big ones, has badly affected this sector. The non-availability of working capital in time, lack of a viable distribution network, and delayed payments to small units for supplies from the scheduled 90 days period to a year or more by big industries including public sector industries adds to the sickness of this sector.
The Global Assembly Line
A number of theoreticians, the most well-known being Harry Braverman, (6) have analysed the implications of the computer revolution and its large-scale induction into industrial processes for the working class. Yet further deskilling and separation of intellectual control of labour processes from the labour of execution, which started with the transformation of artisan based cottage industries into factory based manufacturing processes, has taken place thereby. The numerical control of machines through computerisation breaks down the labour process even more into simple repetitive mechanical tasks. As a result labour becomes more productive, but at the same time more cheap, which is definitely more profitable for the capitalist class. Technical capacities are distributed on a strictly “need to know” basis. The so-called knowledge industry is a means for furthering this division and hierarchy, and reinforces the power of the machine for sucking out labour, thus diminishing the worker as a total human being.
According to Braverman, as a result of the IT revolution, workers in each industry today are far less capable of operating that industry than were the workers of half a century ago, and even less than those of 100 years back. We may add, in a neo-colonial context, the resort to imported and imitative technologies and processes means the loss of knowledge gained over centuries of experimentation, and perfection, for e.g., in the manufacture of steel, in the medical field, in many crafts based industries and so on. There is nothing except the capitalist relations of production to prevent the machining process under numerical control from remaining the province of the total craftsman.
Labour has become internationalised, as international capital having disrupted and destroyed indigenous agriculture and industries through its process of imperialist penetration, now has a vast pool of impoverished labour reserves to draw upon. A regulated absorption and repulsion of such labour is attempted from neocolonies in accordance with the needs of accumulation at the metropolises. This is done by creating a great variety of subcontracting and putting out systems including the export of various industrial processes to cheap labour areas in the “underdeveloped” parts of the world. In this process the labour market has been progressively transformed. In the words of A. Sivanandan:
“Capital no longer needs living labour as before, not in the same numbers, in the same place, and at the same time; Labour can no longer organise on that basis, it has lost its economic clout, and, with it, whatever political clout it had.” (7)
Similarly, Ranjit Sau comments:
“A business corporation no longer has any palpable structure; an employee no longer has any secure site. The market of derivative commodities, financial assets, is extremely agile. When it dominates the economy, industry has to mould itself in its image. A business corporation makes itself ready to turn direction or to shed a part of itself at a moment’s notice. Outsourcing - subcontracting the work as far as possible to other companies - is a helpful device to this end.” (p. 837)
The restructuring of the labour force into a more easily disposable pool of workers allows finance capital to respond more quickly to its own needs. Hence, it is a hierarchically organised, fragmented and floating labour force that is currently in existence. Automation and subcontracting decrease the application of labour in the mass, creating a small proportion of technical jobs, most of them closely linked to management, and a larger proportion of lower grade, routinized technical or unskilled clerical jobs. While there has been a decentralisation of production, the globalised economy is producing greater concentration of power. This concentration involves top level financial, legal, accounting, managerial, executive, and planning functions located in the big metropolises. Enclaves are emerging both in the first and third world countries. Malaysia, for e.g., is planning to build the first fully wired city in a 250 sq. mile area that the government is calling the Multi-media Super Corridor. High-tech enclaves exist cheek by jowl with slums without the most basic amenities.
The earlier social contract of long-term employment and rewards is being preserved largely for the managerial and supervisory sections of the workforce. Through outsourcing and subcontracting the worker is transformed into a contingent element, outside the fence, hoping to be summoned for some work too expensive or still too complex for an electronic or bio-engineered equivalent. Flexible manufacturing requires a flexible workforce, just-in-time inventory requires just-in-time labour. Just-in-time production, flexibility and lean production are all ways in which management keeps its control over the workforce and realises maximum profit.
Due to IT this flexibility is possible across borders. In a matter of minutes piece work can be sent electronically from New York to India and back. In this way international data centres do everything from credit checks, library catalogues and patient records to book publishing and translation. Through the system of outsourcing and subcontracting you can sit at home in front of your PC and execute work for Motorola, Swisscom or other big corporations.
An aspect of neo-colonial exploitation is the transfer of less skilled labour intensive manufacturing of components in the communications and information technology industries to cheap labour Asian countries. It is a boom period for the small workshed or sweat shops and/or home based workers doing electronic sub-assemblies for the big companies at ultra-low piece rate wages. The present global division of labour is such that it tends to concentrate labour-intensive, low wage production of sub-assemblies in the South, and high-technology, information intensive, high wage employment in the North. Within the IT sector, even within the country, disparities in emoluments are glaring. Salaries can range from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 40,000 per month for software professionals to Rs. 2000 per month for low level data entry operations usually manned by a female workforce.
Because they can be paid less than men for equal work, are more docile and submit to male supervision and authority, and less mind doing monotonous work, women now comprise nearly 70 per cent of the workforce in the world electronics industry. Long-term exposure to the solvents, highly toxic chemicals and even radioactive gas, used during the manufacture, assembly and testing of semi-conductors results in systematic poisoning and a higher rate of occupational illnesses than in other manufacturing sectors. The national Institute of Occupational Safety and Health registered 182 hazardous substances in the electronics industry. Most of the establishments being in the unorganised sector, women have to work in dark, small rooms, seated on benches without backs or arm support. Health and safety regulations and labour laws are scarcely observed. Eyestrain, sometimes permanent impairment of eyesight, burns and sickness due to dipping of components into acid are common. For working women who are pregnant these conditions are particularly harsh (8).
It is a myth that foreign investment or multinationals create employment in third world countries. When corporates move operations to underdeveloped countries it is mainly with the idea of gaining higher profits from cheap labour on the spot and from economic concessions to supply the global market. Relocation of production and services by TNCs often remain confined to highly profitable hi-tech islands, e.g., FTZs (Free trade zones) and Techno-Parks, where they are protected by state patronage. This relocation represents merely a small part of global investment flows and job gains from this process are negligible compared to the loss of jobs in these countries caused by massive and continuous outflows of its resources to the West due to losses from terms of trade declines, interest on foreign debt, royalties and technical payments on account of technology dependence, profits accruing to foreign investors as well as capital flight. Mncs are also arch evaders of tax. Telecom and IT MNCs like Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Reuters among others owe large sums to the central exchequer on account of income tax. These resources constitute potentially investible funds, which if they had remained in the region could have boosted investments here and contributed tremendously to job creation. Massive profits no longer mean more job security and better wages but increasing retrenchment (9).
The high profits of the export-oriented Indian IT majors are largely in forex and hence any depreciation of the rupee is of benefit to them. Secondly, at present these profits are being used largely in investments abroad (the same was the case of petro dollars in the Arab countries), in picking up stakes in overseas IT companies, for instance. Certainly, the indigenous economy does not benefit.
Economic globalisation expands the opportunities for tncs to go about their business of concentrating wealth. Closures, retrenchments and layoffs have been the bonus outcome of the economic reforms initiating privatisation and competition. Philips India and Siemens India were among the electronics and telecommunications MNCs which laid off workers on a fairly large scale to cut down costs and increase competitiveness. Since profits are the main concern of corporates, restructuring after mergers and acquisitions, or even otherwise, which involve layoffs to make the organisation leaner (and meaner?), is frequently resorted to. Early retirement schemes are a favourite method of getting rid of flab. The 5,000 largest TNCs in the world shed 4.4 million jobs between 1980 and 1993, while increasing their sales by 1.4 times, and compensation for their chief executives by 6.1 times (10).
The large-scale closure of units occasioned by the overall globalisation/liberalisation policies adds to the unemployment scenario and weakens the collective bargaining power of the working people. The enhancement of the “competitiveness” of the MNCs through the reduction of the workforce and lowering of the wages trickles down as hyper-competitiveness among workers to get jobs, intensifying caste based job accessibility, for e.g., leading to real declines in their solidarity with one another. At the workplace keeping the management pleased is also a priority for fear of being sacked, and therefore solidarity on common issues once again becomes a casualty. The contract system rather than permanent tenure reinforces this situation of too many workers competing for far too few jobs. Those who are more pliable and submissive and adhere to the rules of the game are preferred rather than those who are courageous, innovative and speak up for their rights.
Globalisation has created a ‘disembodied’ workforce in the third world countries, a workforce which is effectively delinked from its surrounding environs. The globalised citizen, who is able to operate in a non-local context, preferably in the Western citadels of New York and London, is the citizen also increasingly found in indigenous masala movies and television soaps.
The pace of work is hectic, erratic, piecemeal and is not conducive to calm and purposeful reflection. Mental and physical health damage are the consequences. Long hours at a stretch of ‘techno-coolie’ work albeit in a relatively comfortable atmosphere have landed most software professionals with typical work-related ailments of spondylitis and eyestrain within a few years. Of course, they can comfort themselves, unlike the low paid electronics assembly workers, that at a fairly young age they will have made their pile, and will have the assets necessary to then tend to their health and other needs forcibly neglected earlier.
Even among the comparatively well-paid the IT professionals, this knowledge based sector has not brought about any radical change in traditional gender based roles. It remains largely a male dominated profession, with few women emerging among the higher levels of management due to the continuing acceptance of their basic role as primarily homemakers. As a consequence of the attractive salaries in this sector, dowry continues to play a role in the marriage market.
What the IT industry has bequeathed to a once salubrious lakes-based city of Bangalore is the air pollution and traffic jams caused by the many Matizes and Santros inching along driven by prim, cleanly shaven young men, empty, past milling crowds waiting for the scanty buses. Simultaneously, proper housing goes out of the hands of the many coming to the city trying to make a living, hopefully a fortune - due to the exorbitant sums demanded as deposits by the house owners, anxious to cash in on this IT boom. The real estate developers, the property dealers, the liquor barons expand their businesses, while the quality of life deteriorates, unemployment rises and the farmers commit suicide due to non remunerative prices. The Tamils and Kannadigas are at each others’ throats because the “locals”, the Kannadigas, are left at the bottom, in this their own city.
With the organised sector continuing to shrink in relative terms and the growth of the unorganised informal sector, together with the overwhelming majority of PSU workers being denied compensation packages, timely salaries, adequate service conditions, and trade union rights, the present government is showing clearly that labour is the lowest, meanest priority for it. If we go by the recent statements of the Commerce Minister, our labour laws are obsolete and along with trade unions an obstacle to the freedom of the entrepreneur to carry out a policy of hire and fire at will, which is the practice in the advanced capitalist countries, and which alone it seems can ensure growth!
While corporations and their top echelons grow big, over half the population (52 per cent according to World Bank figures) subsists miserably below the poverty line with ever-increasing disparities marking social and economic life, nowhere near attaining the El Dorado shown enticingly in the electronic media. In this dividends and profits economy the gap between the rich and poor and between and within countries has been increasing. “The assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people.” (11)
Notes
1. See Jennie LiTVack, Junaid Ahmad and Richard Bird: Rethinking Decentralisation in Developing Countries. World Bank Document, 1999. See also, Prof. James Manor, The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralisation, World Bank Publication, Washington, March, 1999.
2. Stephen D. McDowell: Development or Diversion? Telecom Regulation in India, VOICES, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1997, pp. 4-7.
3. It has to be kept in mind that any information regarding mergers, acquisitions and collaborations becomes outdated very soon due to the fast changing reality on this front.
4. Its investments so far in the Motorola led consortium Iridium and ICO have been a loss due to the latter companies going bankrupt.
5. “Nation Facing Threat of Corporate Colonisation”, The Hindu, 23.5.99.
6. See Harry Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capital, The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974; Jerry Harris: Globalisation and the Technological Transformation of Capitalism, Race and Class, Vol. 40, Nos. 2/3; and Jim Davis, Rethinking Globalisation, ibid.
7. Cited in Jerry Harris, op.cit. See also, A. Sivanandan: Capitalism, Globalisation and Epochal Shifts: An Exchange with Ellen Meiksins Wood,” Monthly Review, February, 1997, pp. 19-21.
8. The Hindu, June 23, 1991.
9. “The Myths of Globalisation,” published by Vikas Adhyayan Kendra. Source: Mankind, June 1997, pp. 30-34.
10. Data taken from K.N. Pannikar, Globalisation and Culture, VIKALP, No. 4, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, Mumbai, 1995.
11. The Human Development Report, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1999.
[This is chapter Four from the book, “Dancing to Global Capital: Media in India” by Pranjali Bandhu, published by Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, Mumbai, 2001.]