Car mechanic gears up for politics

Greens candidate Navdeep Singh up against Premier in 24 Nov election

for a region which has multicultural and multiethnic demography.

BY VISH CHILUMKURTI

met Navdeep Singh long before he was chosen as a candidate for the Greens in Inala constituency. It was in the garage of a friend’s place.

I had gone to this friend’s house to give him some Diwali sweets and his wife told me that he was at the back of the house, getting his car fixed by a mechanic.

I was surprised that a mechanic would be making house calls in the afterhours and not charge an astronomical amount of money.

It was probably that ability to get his hands dirty, regardless of the time of the day, that endears Navdeep to hundreds of people, making him an ideal candidate

Hailing from Punjab, this unassuming man joins the limited number of people of Indian origin who have chosen to join Australian politics to make the collective voice of the migrant community heard by the different levels of government. A mechanical engineer by qualification, he has a disarming smile and many big ideas about issues that affect the migrant society in Australia.

What motivated Navdeep to join politics was the apathy displayed by political leaders towards the increasing bureaucracy in the visa grant process, and a feeling of being neglected and unheard after a series of job redundancies led him to open up his own small automotive repair business.

Having expanded his automotive repair workshop to two different locations, Navdeep Singh also joins the ranks of the very few politicians who can boast of a blue collar background. His postgraduate study of environmental engineering in 2007 brought him closer to the Australian Greens Party whose ideology on environment, public transport, rising electricity costs and migrants and refugees policies matched with his own personal views. Working on minimal funding, Navdeep actively campaigns on Facebook and other social media to espouse various causes close to his heart and his party.

The main issue on Navdeep’s priority list is the increasing cost of electricity with absolutely no value addition in the recent years. He is equally concerned about traffic congestion and has a few different ideas that could help ease the traffic congestion in the heart of Brisbane city and his constituency of Inala.

Up against the Premier of Queensland, Annastasia Palaszczuk of the Australian Labour Party who has held the seat since 2006, and Leanne McFarlane of the LNP, it does look like a battle between David and Goliath.

However, going from the quiet and consistent confidence that Navdeep is known for, it would be interesting to watch the results of the Queensland election which will be held on the 24 November.

Is doing business in India really easier now?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts in building India’s global appeal for investors seems to have finally yielded returns in terms of the country’s performance in the World Bank Doing Business rankings.

India witnessed its highest-ever jump of 30 places in the rankings, reaching the 100th place among 190 countries. Subsequently, it also joined the list of top 10 improvers for the first time and became the first South Asian country to achieve the feat.

The World Bank measures this in terms of a Distance to Frontier (DTF) metric, which shows the distance of the economy from the best performer in each category on a scale of 0 to 100, with the latter representing the frontier. India has shown a drastic improvement of 4.71 points over the last year from 56.05 to 60.76. To put things in perspective, China has witnessed an increase of 0.40 points.

India’s performance has been impressive by any standard. It has moved closer to the global standards in nine of the ten parameters on which the Doing Business rankings are based and has enforced reforms in eight of these categories over the last year. The three key reforms among these were resolving insolvency, ease of paying taxes online and protection of minority investors. Despite these improvements, the general sentiment has been to dismiss the rankings mainly for the flaws in its methodology.

First, the rankings are based on perception surveys of few entrepreneurs or professionals based on questions that are mostly subjective in nature. Second, they are not even based on the economic conditions of the entire economy but on one or two cities within a nation. For India, it is based on Delhi and Mumbai alone. However, the critics miss the point.

If India performs poorly even on such a limited study that chooses the best cities in the country, it speaks volumes of the business conditions across the country and is indicative of the scope of improvement that remains. Moreover, rankings are relative by definition and since the World Bank chooses a maximum of two cities for other countries as well, it should depict a near accurate performance of any country on a relative scale. Therefore, any improvement up the ladder cannot be summarily dismissed.

Further, reforms considered by the World Bank include a mix of central and state initiatives. Passing of central legislation like the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, that helped India jump from 136 to 103 in the “resolving insolvency” parameter have pan-India benefits and are not just limited to Delhi and Mumbai. Therefore, it would be incorrect to presume that merely focusing on a few cities is disassociated from reality even though the actions of state governments are not reflected.

Incidentally, India performs poorly in parameters where state government interference is maximum: Getting an electricity connection, starting a business and registering a property. This underlines the importance of policy coordination between the states and the Centre. Nevertheless, credit needs to be given where it is due for an improvement in rankings majorly driven by reforms undertaken by the central government over the last few years. It must be noted that the rankings have not taken into account the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Therefore, considerable potential remains for further improvement.

But it should also be kept in mind that these rankings are not an end in themselves and are far from perfect. A lot of it is based on policies which are on the books and do not necessarily capture the real experiences on the ground. After reforms are initiated to ease the business environment, the main task of implementation begins where the real problems emerge. For instance, the World Bank applauded India’s efforts at increasing access to credit with the adoption of a new insolvency and bankruptcy code. However, the parameters fail to recognise the problem that India is going through one of its slowest phases of credit growth and that banks are wary of lending so easily.

Moreover, a lot more parameters, apart from the ones considered in the Doing Business rankings, need to be considered to understand the business environment in India. The country’s dismal performance in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom (in which it is ranked 143, below most of its South Asian neighbours) and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (ranked 79th), reflect the areas that the country still needs to improve upon to better the business environment.

Therefore, the chest-thumping around the Doing Business ranking improvements needs to be seen in conjunction with these factors and worked upon to ease the problems faced by common businessmen. A premature celebration can be counterproductive.

India successfully test res subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay

India on 7 November successfully testfired its indigenous subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay, which failed its last test in December 2015, an official statement said.

In a major achievement, the first indigenously-designed and developed Long Range Sub-Sonic Cruise Missile which can be deployed from multiple platforms, was successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur in Odisha.

The test took place after the error, that led to the failure of its fourth trial in December last year, were rectified, said the statement.

The missile has the capability to loiter and cruise at 0.7 Mach, at altitudes as low as 100 metres. The flight test achieved all the mission objectives completely from lift-off till the final splash, boosting the confidence of all scientists associated with the trial, it added.

The missile took-off in the programmed manner and all critical operations including launch phase, booster deployment, engine start, wing deployment and other operational parameters demonstrated through autonomous way point navigation.

The guidance, control and navigation system of the missile is configured around the indigenously designed Ring Laser Gyroscope nd MEMS based Inertial Navigation System along with GPS system.

“The missile majestically cruised for a total time duration of 50 minutes, achieving the range of 647 km. The missile was tracked with the help of ground based radars and other parameters were monitored by indigenous telemetry stations developed by DRDO,” the statement said.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hailed the success of DRDO scientists and complimented them for this inspired achievement. She was optimistic that this successful trial would take India to the select league of nations for possessing this complex technology and sub-sonic cruise missile capability.

With the capability to strike deep into enemy territory, Nirbhay has been designed and developed by the DRDO at its aeronautics R&D laboratory Aeronautical Development Establishment based in Bengaluru.

The cruise missile is powered by a solid rocket motor booster developed by the Advanced Systems Laboratory and is guided by a highly advanced inertial navigation system indigenously developed by Research Centre Imarat.

Nirbhay is able to pick out a target among multiple targets and attack it, can go around a target and re-engage it. It can fly at different altitudes ranging from 500 metres to 4 km above ground and can fly at tree level to avoid detection by radar.

Concerning: ‘Malnutrition, anaemia pose huge health challenge to India’

Sounding alarm bells, The Global Nutrition Report 2017 says India faces a serious challenge stemming from both under-nutrition and obesity leading to various health, social and economic problems.

Among 140 countries, including India, the GNR-2017 found “significant burdens” of key forms of malnutrition as indicators of the broad trends, the findings released in Mumbai on 7 November said.

These include: Childhood stunting affecting 38 per cent children under-five years of age of 155 million worldwide; 21 per cent of under-fives defined as “wasted” or “severely wasted”, implying they are underweight for their height, comprising 52 million children.

More than 51 per cent of women of reproductive age suffer from anaemia and more than 22 per cent of adult women are obese or overweight, besides one-third of all women affected worldwide with no country on track to meet global targets.

While India has made some headway in addressing the problem of under-five stunting, it has lagged in tackling anaemic women and is off-the-mark in achieving targets to reduce adult obesity and diabetes.

“India’s government is recognising that the country cannot afford inaction on

A man walks on Rajpath Avenue engulfed in smog near the Indian President’s house, in New Delhi, on 7 November. Air quality hit ‘severe levels’ in the Indian capital city nutrition, but the road ahead is going to be long.

“The GNR-2017 highlights (what) needs to be tackled as part of its national nutrition strategy,” said the report.

At the global level, nutrition is recognised as key in enabling sustainable development, according to Corinna Hawkes, co-chair of the GNR’s Independent Expert Group and Director, Centre for Food Policy at City, University London.

“We will not achieve any of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development by 2030 unless there is a critical change in our response to malnutrition in all its forms, and action throughout the goals to tackle the many causes of malnutrition,” said Hawkes.

The GNR-2017 calls for nutrition to be placed at the heart of efforts to end poverty, fight disease, raise educational standards and combat climate change.

The GNR says that overweight and obesity are on the increase in almost every country, with two billion of the world’s seven billion now falling in this category. In India, 16 per cent of adult men and 22 per cent adult women are overweight, says GNR-2017.

The Global Nutrition Summit 2017, held in Milan, Italy, earlier this week saw new commitments of billions of dollars to achieve nutrition targets, including a pledge of $50 million for five years by the Tata Trusts, Mumbai.

Right now, Srikanth is world’s best badminton player

Two remarkable statements since Kidamnbi Nammalwar Srikanth won back-to-back Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super Series titles at Copenhagen and Paris should be taken note of.

Srikanth, the fourth player in the world to have won four Super Series titles in a year, said that the days of Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan, if not Chen Long, are coming to an end.

Incidentally, the three stalwarts are the only others to have won four Super Series singles titles before Srikanth. With China and Hong Kong Opens still to be played, Srikanth can improve his career record of six big ticket titles, but will take Lee Chong Wei’s record of seven in a year.

Srikanth with six titles is fourth behind Lee Chong Wei with 45, Lin Dan with 21 and Chen Long 17 in all-time winners.

That showed the confidence of the Indian who is now World No.2, a ranking only three other Indians share with him, starting with the great Prakash Padukone and Saina Nehwal, who went on to become the only World No.1 from the country, and Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, who is right now World No.2 in the women’s singles.

The other statement, from his highly acclaimed coach Pullela Gopichand, is more startling. Gopi says that the achievements of his ward Srikanth are only the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what else could be in store from Srikanth if this only the tip of the iceberg.

We only talk of bench strength when it comes to cricket and at times the strength of the country’s Davis Cup squad. Now you can see an all-round growth the Indian badminton. Not only, his friends and roomies at the Gopichand Academy, Bhamidipati Sai Praneeth and Haseena Sunil Prannoy are also moving ahead.

It was Praneeth who beat Srikanth at the Singapore Open for his own maiden Super Series title and thereafternot only he but the world’s best were at the receving end against him. Praneeth has nothing but admiration for his teammate. He feels that 2017 is Srikanth’s and he is unstoppable.

It has not been an easy ride for the Hyderabad-based young man from Guntur. He had to fight hard in the opening rounds in seven of the 12 tournaments h played this year he had to rally to win in three games, but curiously he looked comfortable towards the tournament weekends as only final went to three games.

His one major comeback win at the Denmark Open was against World champion and No.1 Viktor Axelsen. He also had to fight it out over three games against Chinese Shi Yuqi and Prannoy in France.

Both the finals turned out to be onesided, in the Denmark Open against 37-yeard-old Korean Lee Hyun Il and at the French Open, against qualifier Kenta Nishimoto of Japan.

Srikanth’s turning point was Jakarta and from then he has been a completely different player, though the signs were there at Singapore itself in July. His next title came at the Australian Open and then the two European titles from Denmark and France.

The best thing that could have happened to Srikanth was Mulyo Handoyo joining Gopichand Academy as the second in command. The Indonesian knew his ward’s caliber as world class.

Seven months ago Handoyo had said the Indian would be going places as he sees in him his own protégé Taufiq Hidayanto. His job was to take him to the next level and how well he did, bringing him back from a low ranking of 31. He honestly believed

Srikanth has an all-round game like Taufiq even if he doesn’t impart the same power in hi strokes.

It is all soeasy to compare Srikanth with Prakash and Gopichand. What the two veterans did was to win the All-England titles which none of the Indian, men or women, have done after that. The sport has changed a lot and the tour is getting tougher these days and considering that what Srikanth has achieved is stupendous.

Gopichand has the last word on Srikanth: Right now he is the best player in the world!

Delhi-NCR yellow smog blanket: Worst air quality, poorer than a day after Diwali

The National Capital Region on 7 November saw its worst ‘air quality’ and ‘smog situation’ of the year -- which was even worse than a day after Diwali, as a yellow blanket of smog hung heavily in the sky. The pollution level rose to dangerous levels, with 18 out of 21 active pollution monitoring stations recording ‘severe’ air quality.

According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the average Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi at 3 p.m. was 446 -- with major pollutant PM2.5, or particles with diameter less than 2.5mm recorded at 418 units. This is worse than a day-after Diwali -- October 20, 2017 when the AQI was recorded at 403, while the effluents on 7 November were just few a notches below the index value recorded a day after Diwali-2016 (October 31) which was 443.

The average AQI in Delhi-NCR combined was recorded 412 -- considered ‘severe’, while PM2.5 volume was 400 units as reported by CPCB at 1 p.m.

At different locations of Delhi-NCR, the PM2.5 value was found to be 23 to 19 times higher than the permissible limit.

The safe limit for PM2.5 is 60 micrograms per cubic meters according to the national standards, and 25 micrograms per cubic meters as per the international standards.

According to weather analysts, Delhi is suffering from one of its worst “smog situations”, due to combined meteorological factors and stubble burning in the neighbouring states.

Recording severe PM2.5 levels at all its 10 monitoring stations across Delhi-NCR, the central government’s ‘System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR)’ has cautioned ‘everyone’ in the region to “avoid walk, outdoor activities, burning anything including incense sticks and candles, shut the windows, mop the floors and not vacuum clean and use only N-95 or P-100 standard respirators and not to rely on dust masks”.

According to SAFAR’s data, that predicts the air quality of Delhi-NCR to remain ‘severe’ for the next two days as well, the PM2.5 ranged from 453 unit (minimum) at Pusa to 569 (maximum) at Lodhi road at 2 p.m.

According to weather analysts, the negligible wind speed along with other meteorological reasons are behind the spike in air pollution, along with unabated stubble burning in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana.

“Currently the westerly winds from Rajasthan and Haryana are flowing at negligible speed, this causes the condensation of air near the surface which thereby mixes with the pollutants from local emissions and those from the stubble burning. This is the reason that there is no scope of dispersal of the pollutants for now,” Mahesh Palawat, Director private weather forecasting agency, Skymet told IANS.

“The situation will remain same for next few days,” Palawat added.

Authorities hiked vehicle parking fees by four times in the national capital in a bid to curb worsening air quality.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) to discourage people from using private vehicles.

Ians