Crouching tiger Oil’s not well
It is an irony that Japan’s youth are no longer enamoured with cars. In the 1980s, Japan took superpower US by storm, with its superior automobiles and electronics. It made deep inroads into the latter’s economy, throwing Detroit’s Big Three into a tizzy and prompting historian Paul Kennedy to write The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers about the demise of US hegemony.
Japanese carmakers, though their unique techniques such as kaizen (small but constant improvements), a lean manufacturing system that includes a just-in-time production method (to eliminate muda, that is, waste/profligacy at the inventory level) and a collective and cooperative culture of management, produced world-renowned brands of the likes of Toyota and Honda.
In the 1970s, due to the Arab oil crisis as well as environmental concerns, the US passed the Clean Air Act that mandated automobiles to reduce emissions and improve fuel efficiency. While the Big Three protested, saying it was impossible to achieve this within the given deadline, Honda saw a golden opportunity in meeting the challenge and came up with Civic, which had a twochamber oxygen-cum-gasoline combustion engine that reduced the use of gasoline and reduced emission.
It may be time for the Asian tiger to resurrect its spirit of innovation and offer another trendsetting automobile product that will lure the country’s consumers again.
C V Krishna Manoj Hyderabad
Several citizens had harrowing experiences on both the occasions. It is naïve to expect that all such worrisome aspects would be taken care of by the Delhi government this time. In any case, such an ill-conceived idea can yield only some data-based success —that, too, not without troubling people. If the government really wants the air in the national capital to become cleaner and less polluted, it should prune the list of “exemptions”. Let all Delhiites voluntarily contribute towards this cause. The state government should take feedback from the people before taking another plunge this winter.
S Kumar New Delhi The editorial, “Slipping on edible oil” (October 26) should receive attention from the commerce and finance ministries. Edible oils are essential consumption items in every Indian household and play a dominant role in keeping inflation down.
There is an urgent need to curtail imports of edible oils and encourage domestic production. The editorial rightly points out that more than 500 manufacturing units in the organised sector have been closed down, creating a gap between installed capacity and production. Indonesia and Malaysia have been seeking basic customs duty exemption for palm oil imports; however, the government has not obliged. Now that the commerce minister is in Latin America, countries such as Brazil, a major exporter of refined edible oils like sunflower oil and corn oil to India, ought to seek basic customs duty exemption or place these items under free trade agreement norms for a concessional rate of import duty.
In August, the government did raise import duty on crude palm oil, RBD palm oil. Still, there is a need to raise import duty on crude sunflower oil and rapeseed oils on a par with crude soyabean oil to save the local industry and farmers.
A Sathyanarayana New Delhi