7th March

Competition Commission

The article talks about the merits of an effective Competition Commission in a country to check the companies misusing their market dominance or monopoly. The Commission does not only prevent monopoly but also promotes competition among existing players in any industry.

Six years, post-implementation of Competition Act, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission is yet to find its head. Although Competition Commission of India has been put in place, it can enter into legal and procedural tangles since it has not been constituted yet and nor is the support staff which includes technical experts from various domains. An effective Competition Commission in India market is needed not only to prevent monopolies or misuse of market dominance but also to promote competition. Several industries like Airlines, Cement, Steel and Shipping suffer from cartels among players for predatory prices. Effective scrutiny have to be put in place in licensing policies in sectors like telecom and mining even if it amounts to increasing the entry barriers.

What is needed to learn from the Competition Commissions in western markets is to follow best practices that facilitates consumer savings and analyze whether the mergers and acquisitions that are taking place are in the best interest and relevant to the market or not.

Mounting Junk 

The article contemplates on the need of an effective plan to dispose off the rapidly increasing electronic waste and to prevent the potential health hazards from it.

As our dependencies on electronic items increases, it also increases the amount of electronic waste generated in the form of TV sets, cell phones, computers etc. This demands an effective waste disposal system for such items since the circuits and the body of these equipments contains several toxic substances that are very harmful to the human body. In this context, the initiative of Finnish Cell Phone maker Nokia is commendable. The company has started collecting junk cell phones of all makes back and started educating its customers about how to properly dispose off the old cell phones and even started recycling the phones.

Developing countries like India are increasingly becoming vulnerable to the e-waste as the usage increases. Developed countries have stringent norms for e-waste disposal and at times send them to the developing countries as second hand material. India has ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. E-Waste disposal is an economic activity India can benefit from but at the same time it has to regulate it and protect its workers and environment.

Rambo Musharraf

The article mocks President Musharraf’s reaction to the Lahore attacks which was too insensible and juvenile from a person who has served as a President of the nation and years of military experience in the past. 

It is kiddish when President criticized the civilians at the incident for not using their vehicles to roll over the terrorists. This reasoning comes at the time when the reality is known that even the military forces and security failed to tackle the terrorists in hand. Already the public in Pakistan is finding difficult to make the ends meet as they fight the global downturn to avoid pink slips. Maximum they could do is to help the injured people to take them to hospital but to expect them to fight the commando terrorists is way too much. Such things only happen in Hollywood Rambo-fame movies or in Bollywood Sunny Deol-type movies where a civilian fights tens of AK-47 powered terrorists without any weapon in hand. 

It seems the President has been watching too many such movies as there is always a limit to which a person can play golf. If civilians were enough to fight terrorist forces, then there would have been no need of Army generals like Ayub, Zia and Musharraf to stage coups under the excuse of protecting the nation.