Monopoly: The drive for expansion

Synopsis: Gazprom appears a step ahead in the monopoly game, preparing now to play continents against one another.


What enables one energy company to flout consumer service norms?

State polity

Gazprom holds monopoly. It was privatized in the ’90s, with the government retaining a stake - now about fifty percent. The Russian government therefore is aware of, and supports, Gazprom objectives.

The business issue turned political. Prime Ministers Putin and Timoshenko of Russia and Ukraine respectively, carried on marathon talks to resolve the dispute on behalf of the rival energy companies.


Actually, business and politics in Russia is indistinguishable. Many officials hold dual positions - one foot in government, the other in the company. Like, Gazprom’s former chairman is now the country’s President.

Its diversified acquisitions include TV stations and newspapers. Companies like Gazprom may just be instruments to execute and extend Russian political power and influence across the world.

Covert punishment

Russia assumes a “privileged sphere of influence” over sister members of the erstwhile Union. The drive to dominate is perhaps left over from the ‘iron’ heritage of their common past!

Analysts say that, in the guise of Gazprom’s energy price rise, the Russian leadership is covertly punishing her smaller neighbours for harbouring political goals out of line with her own.

For example, pro-Western Ukraine has ambitions of joining NATO and the European Union, as does Georgia. In the latter’s military conflict with Russia earlier, Belarus had provided her support. This displeased the Kremlin, and with a steep energy price rise inflicting economic hurt, Belarus was disciplined. Similarly, Ukraine is now being dominated.

Market recovery

The global meltdown has affected nations and corporations around the world. The consequent drop in oil prices worries its producers. Gazprom’s market cap reportedly fell seventy-six percent over a year.

The energy shutdown is meant perhaps to force prices up again. The monopoly status is being used to raise revenue for the company. And, since company taxes feed the national budget, also for the state.

Expansions

EU monitors in Ukraine and Russia are concerned only with the resumption of supply. Well aware that they’ve no viable alternatives to replace Gazprom, they’re careful not to embroil in dispute.

The EU energy summit in March 2008 attempted to rein in Gazprom’s global ambitions by pressing on the Russian leadership to ratify the Commission’s energy charter treaty. This would stop the monopolistic practice of suspending supplies at will, and also allow third countries, like Kazakhstan, to utilize the pipeline network to Europe’s best interests.

The Russian government wouldn’t buy into any ‘common’ energy policy for Europe. The company also seems least bothered about losing credibility. Gazprom meanwhile warned EU ambassadors against interfering in its continental expansion plans, which include bids to acquire western energy companies, like Centrica PLC, and shareholder stakes, as in BP.

Countries that expect energy needs to grow each year, look for new suppliers to break the domination. But Gazprom appears ahead in the monopoly game, preparing now to play continents against one another - whether by laying pipelines to China and America, or winning exclusive drilling rights in the African Sahara.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Monopoly: The price of service

Synopsis: With service shutdown simply to coerce consumer compliance, millions were left in the cold in the bleak European winter.


In this coldest winter in a century in Europe, temperatures have sunk to new lows. The ‘cold war’ competitiveness in monopoly business has caused consumer service to do the same!

The price

Globalization raises awareness of other nations as potential markets. But perhaps the fixation with dominance has made holding nations to ransom over bottomline easy.

On New Year’s Day, with temperatures in some places dipping below minus ten degrees Celsius, natural gas supplies to Europe was cut by sixty percent, and despite assurances, failed to restore nearly three weeks later.

The energy cut left helpless consumer countries – like Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey - on the verge of fuel crisis not of their own making. These populations are merely collateral damage in the money war between the Russian supplier company Gazprom and the Ukranian transit carrier company Naftogaz.




Gazprom

OAO Gazprom, is the largest Russian company, and the largest extractor of natural gas in the world. It’s the third largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In 1989, the reorganization of USSR’s gas industry created Gazprom. When the union of states was dissolved a few years later, Russia inherited much of this concern. It grew giant with its aggressive acquisitions forcing Western energy firms, like BP, out of their drilling tie-ups in Siberian oilfields.

The service

Gazprom serves piped natural gas fuel to a massive clientele outside Russian borders – USA, Europe, Japan and South Korea. Many of the European union are partially, majorly or wholly dependent on the company.

Gazprom also supplies energy to erstwhile members of the former Soviet Union e.g. Belarus and Ukraine, now soverign nations. Some of these are partners in the supply chain. Ukraine, for example, is a major transit nation, carrying eighty percent of the energy reaching countries in Europe.

Gazprom controls the pipeline network, as it does prices, monopolistically. Sometime ago, importers in Belarus was told to pay more for the fuel received - $200 per unit in place of $47. When they didn’t agree to the hike, supply was curtailed - until new price $100 per unit was ‘negotiated’.

The spat

A similar dispute arose with NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy earlier in January 2006, and similar dominating tactics were adopted. Gazprom reduced Ukraine’s domestic supply, while the export to Europe remained intact. Naftogaz however tapped into the export route to first bolster her domestic needs.

Bystander nations in Europe felt the effects of the spat, when supply cut off completely. The EU imports 50 percent of its energy, a quarter of it from Russian shores. Some used the experience to create their own emergency reserves thereafter, but others remained dependent on the direct service.

In 2008, Gazprom arbitrarily raised the price in Ukraine to five times the original, besides billing 1.5 billion USD for the gas “stolen” earlier. Naftogaz in turn claimed higher transit tariffs, and threatened to disrupt the European route. With consumer service shutdown simply to coerce compliance, millions were left in the cold in the bleak European winter.

Cont’d 2…the drive for expansion

Unions: Privilege before duty?

Synopsis: Trade unions fighting for rights doesn’t mean depriving the public of theirs.


India is a founding member of the international labour organization (ILO), which holds that labour peace is essential for prosperity and progress of any nation.

The Act

The aim since 1919, is to prevent exploitation by ‘free enterprise’ and for:

• rights at work for men and women
• decent employment opportunities
• social justice, labour rights and human rights
• tripartitism between workers, employers and government

These ideals inspired the Trade Union Act in India as early as1926. But faced with the realities of colonial rule, development of social and political movements, and consequences of independence, trade unions in India have been slow to develop.

Unionism

In a labour force of about 430 million, just 8 percent is organized. The rural sector comprises 60 percent, while the urban informal sector (software and other services) is 32 percent. Still, union formations flourish, since it takes only seven members to do so. A survey in 2002 reported a total of 37,903 registered unions in the country!

A trade union is meant to be a voluntary organization formed to apply collective action to protect rights, interests and welfare within industrial concerns.

It organizes workers, white-collar employees, supervisors and managers at each level of the organization. Usually regulating relations between workmen and employers/management, its purview includes workmen-workmen, employers-employers issues, as well as the conduct of any trade or business.

Civil and political

In the early years, the 1920s, leadership came from prominent figures of national independence movement. For example, Mahatma Gandhi guided the forming of spinners’ and weavers’ unions, and turned their strike into satygraha (social non-cooperation movement) against colonial rule.

Post-independence, the working class movement became politicized. Central trade unions each became the labour arm for a particular political party - and the tradition continues. Unions today are yet to outgrow this dependence on central or state parties to politically enlarge organizational issues, and to evolve in their own right.

Presently they’re constrained to toe party lines, sometimes at the cost of the employees and the trade or business organization. In the ’60s and ’70s, crippling industrial strikes at political behest even led to closures in jute and other manufacturing industries.

The social context

The point is trade unions exist not only to cater to the demands of workers, union leaders or their political bosses. The Trade Union (Amendment) Act 2001 specifies another crucial aspect of their role - the social context. The recent strikes seemed to neglect responsibility, discipline and commitment for the organization and society at large. In a democracy, fighting for rights doesn’t mean depriving the general public of theirs. Duty comes before privilege, especially in India’s massive diversity.

Truckers’ and petroleum officers’ unions claim legitimate grievances. But, preoccupied with individual context, they lost touch with the social needs of the nation. Strikes should be last not first, in democratic options. Trade unions need to adapt to the changing reality, separating civil from political. And, in place of strategies jeopardizing social justice, evolve mature forms of collective action, such as effective tripartite negotiations and dialogue.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

References for "Unions" blogposts:

1. About the ILO
2. India truckers strike over fuel
3. India's truckers feel economic chill
4. Managing human resource: Trade unions
5. States told to handle truckers strike like Oil Officers’ stir
6. Trade Unionism in India

Unions: The right to strike

Synopsis: To make an impact, unions in India generally function as extensions of political parties.


The New Year began quite inauspiciously in India. Six million truckers went on strike this time - and officers of the petroleum public service undertaking (PSU) followed suit. Public life was in danger of being crippled. "With friends like these", commented a newscaster summing up the national mood, "who needs enemies?"

Airing grievances

The trucker unions insist their demands are legitimate. Following the global rise, oil prices in the country went up twice within months. Besides, subsidies and exemptions were removed from one metropolitan city to another. The trucks now have to pass through several highway tollbooths and state border check points that cost them more in time and money.

Banks and dealers raise payment rates, while clients refuse to pay more. Truck owners then tend to shortchange drivers to make up losses, causing more dissatisfaction. The rising costs of living have similarly led to the demand for higher wages by striking petroleum officers’ unions.

The transport halt

About seventy percent of goods are moved across the country through the roadways network. The truckers transport food and other essential commodities through the length and breadth of each state. Without them the distribution system in India falters, with goods piling up at docks, depots and godowns.

An artificial scarcity results driving prices upwards. In 2004, a similar strike that lasted a week caused economic slowdown from 8.4 percent in the previous month to 7.9. The strike by petroleum PSUs meant that the retail oil reserves would soon run dry. Every form of transport then, from cars to aeroplanes, would be halted perforce.

The cave-in

The nation, it seemed, was being held to ransom. Following the Mumbai terror attacks, there’s little sympathy for the process of hurting the public simply to air grievances. Besides with the global meltdown presently everybody suffers - many being downsized, many others accepting salary cuts just to keep their jobs. The timing of strike, in short, was poor!

The Central Government came down hard. It threatened to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act and even the National Security Act. The striking unions were told to go back to work or go to jail. Their leaders were arrested, and hence the worker movement lost steam. The officers’ agitation fizzled out in three days; the truckers resumed work after eight.

Why the cave in despite the democratic right to strike? Fact is unions in India don’t have much power or sustainable resources by themselves. To make an impact, they need patronage and generally function as extensions of political parties. But state and national parties opted out of driving their issues forward this time.

In the aftermath of terror attacks, popular opinion has held politicians responsible for public safety and security lacking in the country. The people’s loss of confidence displayed in new voting patterns refusing mandate to representatives perceived incompetent in nation building. With crucial general elections right around the corner, political bosses preferred not to cause a stir.

Next…duty before privilege

Muslims and Jews: Who’s really to blame?

Synopsis: Peace in West Asia could mean a diminishing of Western power and dominance.

Jews and Muslims have common origins in southwestern Asia.

Roots and religious texts

Around 1900 BCE, a Hebrew man called Abraham, obeyed God’s order and migrated to the “land of Canaan” - then including Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and parts of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

He was promised the fatherhood of nations. Through descendants of Prophet Abraham, sons, grandsons and others adopted, these nations became Israel and the Arab states.

The Hebrews began to worship one God, Jehovah, and monotheistic Judaism, the Jewish faith, was born. The Torah contains the most sacred writings in five holy books of founding legal and religious texts. These, emphasizing righteousness and justice, were written down by Prophet Moses after divine revelation on Mount Sinai, e.g., the Ten Commandments he found there as stone edicts.

Islam, which also is monotheistic, came into being much later. In about 610CE, a series of revelations by Angel Gabriel enlightened Mohammed about his role in the world as the last Prophet.

The first part of the holy book, the Koran, is similar to the Torah, and also emphasizes standing up for justice and righteousness. Muslims consider Abraham, Moses (and Jesus) as earlier prophets of the same ‘God’ or ‘Allah’, the Arabic translation of the word.

The growing discord

Jews and Muslims have had periods of peaceful coexistence recognizing one another’s prophets and messengers of God. Perhaps territorial rights sowed seeds of discord between these cultures built on similar concepts of justice and righteousness.

In Prophet Mohammed’s lifetime itself, the Jewish minority was displaced from Medina. In late eleventh century, the Roman Church staked claim on Jerusalem, slaughtering both Arabs and Jews over 200 years of the Crusade to do so.

But in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Turks, who were Muslim but tolerant of non-Muslims, expanded the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East as well as along the Mediterranean. Threatened by their prominence, European powers set about their downfall.

By early twentieth century the French and the British colonized Africa and the Middle East. But they plundered the regions they wrested, enslaved many, and adopted divide-and-rule policies to keep the people subservient. The Jews helped the British so they could get Israel. The Arabs, seeking independence from the Turks, agreed conditionally to a homeland for global Jewish immigrants.

The oil control

The conditions however, weren’t met eventually, and territorial rights remained contentious. After WWII, American and European interests have focused on the oil-rich Middle East - control of oilfields leads to the control of world economy. In fact, complete peace in West Asia could mean a diminishing of Western power and dominance...

Meanwhile ordinary Muslims and Jews alike are paying for the ambitions of others. Air raid sirens provide Israeli citizens a few precious seconds to find safety in bomb shelters. For the 1.5 million Palestinian population locked in by closed borders with no food, water, medicines or shelter, dying is the only option.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Muslims and Jews: The war of attrition

Synopsis: Those in authority today organize war in different ways – conventionally, and with guerrilla tactics.


Israeli military might is pitted against scattered Hamas guerrilla fighters appears a very uneven contest in Western Asia. But really, it just shows change in the nature of warfare.

The win-lose game

Battles are being fought on urban terrain, and waged through civilians. The Gaza strip is now a killing field. On either side, the justification seems the same – eyes for eyes, teeth for teeth - as Muslim and Jewish casualties pile up.

The guerrilla fighters are swift, agile and extremely mobile. Hand-held rocket launchers and homemade detonating devices are designed for widespread shrapnel damage impacting settlements in residential southern Israel. They arrive at a street corner or rooftop, assemble and fire weapons, and depart, all within five minutes. They’ve changed location before the rockets or mortar shells hit 7, 12 or 25 miles away.

The Israeli defence forces, IDF, mete out collective punishment in turn. Areas identified as the rocket source are bombed, even if they’re heavily populated, keeping mortuaries and hospitals overflowing with the hapless - old people, women and children.



The army loses if it doesn’t win and the guerrillas win if they don’t lose, said Kissinger. So neither side will stop the violence until international outcry pressures their doing so, or nobody is left standing.

Not accidental

In the unrelenting drive to win, both sides control the media and humanitarian aid groups, stopping them at the borders for ‘security reasons’, or severely constraining their movements otherwise. In under a fortnight, hundreds have died and thousands more wounded, besides buildings and other infrastructure being demolished. In the context, these aren’t accidental.

Israel allows pictures/videos reporting what Hamas rockets have done to families; Hamas lets out images of what Israeli bombings have done to the Palestinian population. But the world knows little of what exactly the Hamas fighters and the Israeli army personnel themselves are doing on the ground. In fact, Human Rights Watch has raised concerns that, in the absence of media and international monitors, laws of war are breached with impunity.

Where’s accountability?

This is a war of attrition. The intensifying animosity could even develop into genocide with homes and families being deliberately erased. International diplomacy makes little headway calling upon both sides to exercise restraint or to " take concrete steps to minimize the fighting's impact on civilians", because these words fall on deaf ears.



Fact is those in authority organize war in differing ways today – conventionally, and with guerrilla tactics, with “catastrophic results” in human terms the covert objective. Each side displays to world media the toll on their own people to brand the other as the perpetrator/aggressor in the violence, thus deviating attention from their own culpability.

So who’s to blame in Gaza? Hamas and IDF are both are well-organized systems that have preferred human sacrifice to peaceful political dialogue. The objective being the same, not one or other but both equally are accountable for this war of attrition.

Next…who's really to blame?

Women: Learning from experience

Synopsis: Creating a social life space is often overwhelming, since they’re often surrounded by violence. Fact is diversity can’t be dealt with in ten easy steps.


The struggle for women is to form and establish independent identities.

The crossroads

They stand at the crossroads, pulled physically and spiritually one way, politically and intellectually in another. Traditions generate conflicts over cultural and material issues.

In this crisis, women are often neither here nor there – suspended, as it were, between opposing goals. Creating a social life space is overwhelming, since they’re often surrounded by violence.




Immigrant and displaced

Fact is diversity can’t be dealt with in ten easy steps. Women face a multiplicity of struggles between social/familial patriarchy, and institutionalized racism.

Environmental uncertainty and social instability makes it harder to overcome impositions. While women in India may be on the march to confront traditional discriminations, their sisters, whether displaced in Asia and Africa, or migrant to Western lands of plenty, appear to be falling behind.

Justice fails

Governmental policies may be contributing to racial, religious and ethnic divisions between demographic groups even in the liberal West.

Measures are in place to control overt actions against race relations and equality. But there’s nothing to correct people’s opinions, beliefs and implicitly biased theories rooted in bygone times (that actually guide their actions).

Authorities hesitate to interfere in the ‘personal matters’ of immigrant families. All too often, the system fails to uphold the values of justice and equality. Instead they mirror the prejudices of the society they serve.

Seeking continuity

This emboldens perpetrators. As far as the women attempting to break out of the hostage situations are concerned, they’re entirely on their own.

Immigrants may have better education and significant economic mobility, but they’re just as marginalized in society as those displaced. In the new global age, women may still feel they’ve nowhere to go.

The search for identity for many comes full circle to the past. For example, the post 9/11 Islamophobia has led young Muslims to new identity assertion seeking continuity with culture and heritage. This sometimes becomes a misplaced solidarity - with groups that kill in the name of religion.

Find voice

Is the religion to blame? That the fault actually lies in the poor integration of diversity generally escapes notice. Many adopt religiosity for survival - to blend within the ethnic community, to not draw attention, or retribution to themselves, from one side at least.

Some survivors of oppression, on the other hand, realize they’ve nothing more to lose but the chains of bigotry. Having lost home, family and country, they find the voice to break the moulds that suffocate women.

They learn to speak out, to assert individuality beyond heritage and culture, to tell their story to awaken humanity to the failings of diversity. These women reach across divides to share their learning from experience. Their sphere of influence includes women of different origins united by suffering. Their fearless independence brings hope to other women, inspires change.

Comments/opinions, anyone??

Women: Carriers of tradition

Synopsis: Diversity has raised discrimination and crimes against women, especially immigrants or those internally displaced. Stereotypically women are considered carriers of traditions, and thus responsible for what’s going wrong with diversity.


Globalization meant celebrating diversity - the awareness of other races, cultures and religions uniting people across borders.

But diversity’s also raised discrimination and crimes against women, especially immigrants or those internally displaced.

Traditions

Traditions rule the lives of women over centuries and despite sparks of modernity, continue to define their psyche. These tend to devalue their freedom of choice, leaving many still pawns in power games.




Migrant communities have strict socializing rules for daughters, sisters and wives, distinct from the norms of the adopted country. The customs and practices followed may have become irrelevant even in their country of origin.

Still, rule enforcement is swift, sometimes shocking – harassment and violence, including honour killings, follow transgressing archaic patriarchal boundaries, even in the liberal West.

Terror recruits

Elsewhere, terrorist movements have begun using female ‘live bombs’. Black widow recruits gained publicity as having neither political nor religious agenda, but motivated by revenge for husbands, brothers, fathers or sons lost in the cause.


The women’s personal distress is deliberately used to attract sympathetic media coverage and as a recruitment instrument. Many are coerced – drugged, enslaved, raped, blackmailed and brainwashed, to choose this ‘shahidka’ path to suicide.

Weapons of war

In conflicts between nations or ethnic groups, rape, forced pregnancies, displacement and mass murder are now weapons of war. The women, who survive, suffer long-term physical and mental illness, social stigmata and economic hardship.




About 80 percent of refugees are women and children, defenceless by circumstances. Soldiers, militiamen and rebels all target women to terrorize civilians and decimate populations. The predatory assaults occur even during periods of calm by men emboldened by their plight.

Quick fix?

Stereotypically women are considered carriers of traditions, and thus at the centre of what’s going wrong with diversity.

For example, many westerners believe that immigrants don’t fit on because the women cling to traditional wear – sari, hijab, etc. - only to draw attention to, and to preserve cultural differences.

The assumption is that if the feminine gender would just change their attitude and attire, they could blend into society and all would be well.

Invisible

But there’s no ‘quick fix’ for discriminations against women within and between groups.

In attempting to integrate into the culture of adopted countries, immigrant women live with simmering undercurrents. They’re perceived as abandoning their own cultures within the community. Outside, they’re prey for the majority groups.

Whether immigrant or displaced, women themselves hesitate to report atrocities fearing retaliation from the perpetrators. Besides, even if they do, authorities are unwilling or unable to protect them. The silence means the female issue simply falls off the radar.

Women are thus the invisible group, often hostages at home and abroad. Cutting across race, community, age and religion, they battle just to be in control of their own lives.

Cont’d 2… learning from experience