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Development: Meaning, Measurement and Strategies - Part Three of ten

Therapeutic Advances in the Treatment of HIV Infection

IT Stocks : Up, Up and Up...

Poor Manpower Planning by Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission

Sunergy 2000 : Bringing Solar Power to India

Development Strategies

Having examined the concept of development let us now turn to the study of development process and development strategies.

At the end of 1990s, some common trends are emerging in the economic policies of governments throughout the world.  Former socialists are increasingly embracing capitalism and many state-owned enterprises are being privatized.  Another striking trend is the rolling of red carpet to multinationals that these countries had expelled a few decades ago.  These developments have thrown up new opportunities and challenges all around the globe.  The shift in policy from the expansive welfare state to markets has also engendered for many new anxieties and insecurities.  As markets and economies become increasingly integrated and intertwined, the fear of shocks percolating from all around looms large in the minds of all as has been highlighted by the turmoil in international capital markets in Latin America in 1995 and in South East Asia in 1997.

The matter of where to draw the frontier between state and market has never been settled and has been a bone of contention over this century.  What are the realm and responsibility of the state in the economy, and what kind of protection is the state to afford to its citizens? What is the preserve of private decision-making, and what are the responsibilities of the individual?  This frontier is not well defined.  It is constantly shifting and ambiguous.  Despite this, for most of the present century, the state has been ascendant, extending its domain further and further into what had been the territory of the market.  This process was facilitated by revolution and two world wars, by the Great Depression, and by the ambitions of politicians and governments.  This movement was given further impetus by the demands of the public for greater security in industrialized countries, by the efforts for progress and improved living conditions in developing countries, and by the quest for justice and fairness.

The race between the two competing models namely, the unbridled US capitalism and the anti-thesis of it, the socialist model of the former USSR, ended with the conclusion of the World War II, tilting in favor of the socialist model. Inspired by the success of planning models and the successful defense of the Nazi aggression by former USSR, many countries in the Europe, Asia and Latin America favored a greater role for state in economic activity.  For many the Nazi aggression represented the greed of capitalism and the excesses of the market.  Many industrial countries of the West and in large parts of the developing world, the model adopted was the mixed economy in which government plays a significant role without stifling the market mechanism.

In the post-World War II years, the advance of state seemed to be inexorable.  The state would reconstruct, modernize, and propel economic growth as well as it would deliver equity, opportunity, and a decent way of living.  By the beginning of the 1970s, the mixed economy was virtually unchallenged and government continued to expand.  Even in the US, the Nixon administration sought to implement a massive program of detailed wage and price controls.

Japan and other East Asian economies have adopted a variation in their economic policies.  They have technically followed the US model but with a role for state intervention in the marketplace.  They have practiced financial repression and kept the interest rates at an artificially low level.

In early 1990s, with the disintegration of the former USSR and the fall of communism in the East European countries, it was the state that was retreating.   Communism had but all disappeared in what had been the Soviet Union and had been put aside at least as an economic system in China.  In West, led by Thatcherism in UK, governments were shedding control.  Instead of market failure the focus now turned to government failure.  The issue has again been highlighted with the East Asian crisis in 1997.  This time around it was the Japanese model, which stood discredited.

The popular perception of policy has undergone many changes in the last century.  The policy wheel has completed a full round with the economic policy favoring in turns the markets, the state and finally the markets.  These developments raise a number of questions.  Why the move from the state to market? Why, and how, the shift from an era in which the state sought to occupy and control the 'commanding heights' of economy to an era in which the ideas of competition, openness, privatization, and deregulation have captured the imagination of policy makers?  Are these changes irreversible? What will be the political, social, and economic consequences and prospects of these fundamental changes?

[To be continued]

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Between  1996 to 1999, the availability of  potent  antiretroviral therapy has had a dramatic impact on the actual history of  HIV, with unprecedented changes in disease progression and  mortality. However,  despite  the  impressive progress to  date, much  work remains to be done. Even with the most potent egimens  available today, there exists a significant proportion of patients who fall to have a complete response after their first line treatment  and is at high risk of experiencing a virologic rebound, and will  be less and less responsive to subsequent antiretroviral regimens. In complete response rate and limited durability of the  response are  not the only shortcomings of the current regimens, with  the other  problems including complexity, toxicity, cross  resistance among  drugs  of the same class,  unfavourable pharmacokinetics. These  problems  are particularly evident in patients  with  high plasma HIV-1 RNA Levels, extensive prior treatment, and advanced disease.

Date  from  several  studies  indicate  that  the  nadir  of  the virologic  response and the rapidity with which virus  replication is  shut  down  are  strongly predictive of  the  likelihood  of achieving  a  durable  virologic  response.  The  available  data suggest that little or no virus evolution occurs in the  residual virus   population  when plasma  HIV-1  RNA,  is   persistently suppressed   to   below   the   limits   of quantification   of ultrasensitive assays.

To achieve the goal of a complete suppression of HIV in  plasma, at  least  in subjects at their first  antiretroviral  treatment, several  strategies  are now available.  these  include  protease inhibitor (PI) containing and PI-sparing regimens, which  include potency, extensive experience, evidence for long term  durability , potential  exploitable durg-durg interactions,  widely  known toxicity  profile, evidence of effectiveness in patients  at  all levels of plasma HIV-1RNA. Nevertheless, important  disadvantages may   limit their acceptability, including the complexity of  the regimens,  cross-resistance  between different  PIs  the  growing concern over long term toxicities (including fare redistribution, and  lipid abnormalities  with  unknown  effects  on  long   term cardiovascular  morbidity and mortality). For these  reasons  and with  the  availability  of  new  potent  inhibitors of  reverse trancriptase,  PI-sparing  regimens  have  been  introduced  into clinical research initially, and clinical practice thereafter.  In this  context, non -nucleoside reverse  transcriptase  inhibitors (NNRTI)  have  gained  in popularity because they may  defer  PI usage and allow for a lower pill daily burden. On the other hand they are  not  without  potential  disadvantage.  Among   these, resistance  issues represent the main cause of concern,  together with the lack of exhaustive information about long term efficacy. Recently  the  possible use of  triple  NRTI  therapy  as  a   PI   and  NNRTI  sparing regimen has been proposed. Most data refer to  the combination of abacavir, zidovudine and 3TC, which has resulted in durable  (48 week) virologic responses. As with the  NNRTI's  the main  attraction of all NRTO regimen is the deferred use of  PIs, while  also sparing the NNRTI and placing only a single class  of agents "at risk" for development of resistance. However, also  in this  case, the long term antivral potency/efficacy and  toxicity of multinucleoside regimens are unknown. With short-term  clinical trials  indicating comparable  potency of PI-NNRTI  and  a  NRTI containing  regimens, the attention should be rather  focused  on their  differences  with regard to long  term  outcome, toxicity, constraints   on  future  regimens,  and  the  effect  on   viral reservoirs. The answers   to   these   questions   and    the advantage/disadvantages   ratio  of these  different   treatment strategies  will  only come from the results  of  will-controlled strategic  clinical  trials.  In spite of the  huge  advances  in antiretroviral therapy, we are still far from having solved  the problems of HIV infections. In fact, currently available  regimens have  limited  potency and remarkable toxicity. Furthermore  the high number of theoretical combinations is only apparent,  since, cross  reactivity among drugs of the same class makes the  actual number of therapeutic options rather limited. Better drugs, safer and  easier  to administer, with  more  favourable  pharmacologic properties   and  activity  against drug-resistant   viruses   are therefore needed.

The  validation  of drug resistance testing for use  in  clinical practice  will  provide clinicians  with  a  helpful  tool   for patients'  management  and  salvage therapies will  hopeful  be designed  on  the  basis  of  individuals  resistance   profiles, allowing for more specific treatments. Unfortunately,  we  cannot underscore the fact  that  impressive therapeutic gains in he management of HIV disease benefit only 10 %  of the HIV infected global population. For the remaining  90%, effective vaccination, although still far from being  available despite  remarkable progress, is the only approach that is  likely to  have  a major effect on the AIDS epidemic in the developing world.

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In  secondary  capital market, stock price movement  of  any scrip  depends on the following : financial  performance  of the company, industry performance, dividend/bonus record and market preference. The above factors can be assessed through the information which is already available. However, another crucial  factor which determines share price of any  company is  its future growth potential. That is a share price  will move  either upwards or downwards depending upon the  future outlook of the industry and company.

During the last millennium - especially the last decade - IT stocks  were  much preferred by the stock  market  investors (primary  as well as secondary) since these companies had a bright future, thanks to the Y2K issue. Further, compared to other  cyclical industries (sugar, cement, for example),  IT companies  had a regular flow of income.  Another advantage Indian IT stocks enjoyed was the global cost benefits, since India  has  the world's second English  speaking  population with  relatively  cheaper manpower. This made  most  of  the overseas  players  to source their  IT  needs  (specifically software) from India.

Another indirect reason for the IT stock preference was  the Indian government's, (both central as well as states) thrust support provided for the IT industry. Specially, five Indian
states (Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat  and Delhi) started promoting IT in a competitive fashion and  in the process developing specific IT Parks in the country.

Now that the Y2K theme is slowly fading away, the future  of IT stocks were in crisis. In fact, many projected a downward journey  of these stocks. However, It stocks  disproved the predictions.   (There were small falls during early  January 2000.) Why and how?

Though  the Y2K projects are almost over, IT  companies  are finding  other  fruitful areas to function and  sustain.  IT companies  find  telecom, internet,  e-commerce,  insurance,
e-banking,  entertainment, education etc. to be the new  big growth  areas.  There  can be found huge  potential  for  IT companies  in  the  above areas. This is one  of  the  major
reasons  for the IT stocks gaining the same favour  for  the stock  markets, not only in India, but all over  the  globe. The fact is that IT firms swiftly changed the focus  without leaving any time gap for transition, thus, the remain as the preferred flavour of the market players.

Another  reason for IT company shares to gain importance  is  that,  many  bulk players like  financial  institutions  and  mutual  funds  prefer IT stocks. In fact, few  mutual  funds have created special IT-based funds. Thus, IT stocks  remain as a darling of investors in this millennium too, as long as there can be found  a craze for technology stocks.

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It is a known fact that planning is vital for the development of any state. And the
role of manpower planning plays even a crucial role in a developing nation like India,
where unemployment levels are higher compared to developed countries and the Government  undertakes the responsibility of providing basic necessities such as health care for its citizens.

In Tamil Nadu, state government’s manpower planning and selection is taken care by Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC). We find proof of inadequate manpower planning by TNPSC.

For instance, In March 1998 TNPSC advertised (Advertisement No. 4/98) for 250 vacancies in the area of health care for the post of Assistant Surgeons. They conducted the exams during May 1998 and the interviews and selection took place during March 1999. While the vacancies have not been fully filled up, with waiting list available, during July 1999, TNPSC announced another advertisement (Advertisement No. 18/99)  for another 778 vacancies for the same post of Assistant Surgeons. This is a clear vindication of inadequate or no planning by the TNPSC.

This kind of poor manpower planning results in negative gains at micro as well as macro levels. At macro levels, this leads to poor health care for the people of Tamil Nadu and waste of public time and money. And at the micro level, it leads to so many confusions for the candidates. Because, as per the Tamil Nadu medical entrance norms for post-graduation studies, any candidate who is in public service can not appear for PG entrance for two years. Thus, due to these regular exams conducted by the TNPSC with out proper planning candidates are not able to decide their career properly.

In fact, the author of this article found many candidates who have re-written their TNPSC exams in spite of them being in the waiting list already. If  TNPSC had announced 1000 vacancies instead of 250 at the previous exam, these candidates who are in the waiting list would have been selected, and Tamil Nadu would have gained swifter and better health care. Further, it is a financial loss for the state government to conduct another exam in short intervals.  At a micro level individual candidates would have saved lot of time in re-writing the same exams and settled fast in their life.

One can not only blame the TNPSC for this mess. Even the state government plays with the careers of many people in this country. For instance, around 600 trained candidates for health assistants and examiners are suffering for the past nine years, in spite of the promise of a job after training by the state government.

There can be found an attitude problem in the state of Tamil Nadu : “Who knows ? and Who cares? ” No body bothers to think at a macro level considering the micro issues. And even the suffering micro individuals are not taking any serious legal/consumer actions. One reason is their lack of awareness. Another reason is ‘why should I bother’ attitude. It looks like that the TNPSC does not have a clear vision neither proper manpower planning.

If the situation does not improve soon, all at TNPSC may loose their jobs in the long run, since corporate private hospitals who have been concentrating on metro cities so far are slowly spreading their wings at rural areas too through several innovative schemes linked to health and insurance.

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One of the major urgent infrastructure need for  India is power, rather swift power. Shell Renewable India Private Limited, an affiliate company of transnational Shell Group, is bringing solar energy to India. The company conducted the state level conference in Tamil Nadu on Renewable Energy Sources with special focus on solar power financing took place at Chennai, under the name and style of “Sunergy 2000”.

The conference was inaugurated by Mr Duraimurugan, Honorable Minister for Public Works and Forests.  The minister, on inauguration said “alternate energy sources can play a vital role in energizing several parts of Tamil Nadu, that have great potential and yet remain untapped”. The minister also assured that he will urge the Central Government for a comprehensive renewable energy policy.

Managing Director of Shell Renewables India stated that “alternate energy sources, are safe, clean, affordable and most importantly sustainable. They have the power to one day energize India’s villages and unleash the vast potential of our nation. The Sustainable Energy Initiative which is a global effort of the Shell Group, hopes to make alternative energy a reality in developing states such as Tamil Nadu”.

Solar energy can play a vital role in rural development, especially in a developing nation like India. Solar power  is an infrastructure product. Thus, it will have many economic implications, such as, education, irrigation, employment, small enterprises, entertainment and check migration. And India is known for power shortages and power cuts. No power cuts, in solar power. Thus, more industrial productivity, if industries realise the potential of solar power. Remember that all this development is without any pollution. Thus, this is an environment friendly power. However, the major speed braker for the growth of this industry is cost of the installations. Thus,  banks, NBFCs, rural co-operative banks and NGO’s can play a critical role in overcoming this hurdle.

The reporter of this article could not find the address of Shell Renewables, either in the press kit provided or in the press release issued by the organisers of the press conference, which the company with MNC status could have provided for the benefit of all. However, for the benefit of Yeah India visitors we provide below the address of Shell Renewables India Private Limited:

S 907
Manipal Centre
47 Dickenson Road
Bangalore 560 042

e-mail : shellren@bgl.vsnl.net.in

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