By PAUL BECKETT

Ajay Goyal is a serious, independent candidate contesting for a Lok Sabha seat in Chandigarh.
Never heard of him? Neither, probably, have a lot of people in Chandigarh because when it came to getting press coverage for his campaign he was faced with a simple message: If you want press, you have to pay.

Paul Beckett

So far, he says, he’s been approached by about 10 people – some brokers and public relations managers acting on behalf of newspaper owners, some reporters and editors – with the message that he’ll only get written about in the news pages for a fee. We’re not talking advertising; we’re talking news.

One broker offered three weeks of coverage in four newspapers for 10 lakh rupees ($20,000). A reporter and a photographer from a Chandigarh newspaper told him that for 1.5 lakh rupees ($3,000) for them and a further 3 lakh rupees ($6,000) for other reporters, they could guarantee coverage in up to five newspapers for two weeks.

“We would do good coverage for you,” he says they told him. All of those who approached him either were from national Hindi language papers or regional papers, Mr. Goyal says.

“You want a front page photo for free? This is something people pay for.”

In one case, he went along to see what would happen: a press release he submitted full of falsehoods – claiming he had campaigned in places he had never been, for instance – ran verbatim. One thing he has never seen on his real campaign: a reporter there to cover the story.

“It’s disappointing,” Mr. Goyal says. “What good is literacy and education if people have no access to real news, investigation, skepticism or a questioning reporter.”

At the nexus of corruption in India, the nation’s newspapers usually play either vigilante cop exposing wrongdoing in the public interest (on a good day, at a few publications) or spineless patsy killing stories on the orders of powerful advertisers. Many papers also engage in practices that cross the ethical line between advertising and editorial in a way that is opaque, if not downright obscure, to readers.

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But it is of another order of magnitude to see reporters, editors and newspaper owners holding the democratic process to ransom. A free (in every sense) press is an integral part of a vibrant democracy. A corrupt press is both symptom and perpetrator of a rotten democracy.

“I’m not saying all media is biased but there is a growing sense in people’s minds that a lot of the media is biased,” says Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of National Election Watch. “Some do it in a sublime manner and some do it openly.”

So why are we surprised when the voter turnout is so low, despite the much-touted surge of political awareness among the young and post-Mumbai? It’s all part and parcel of the public disgust with the political system and the pillars of the Establishment that support that system as well. For every newly-minted reform-minded, politically aware voter, there are probably hundreds of jaded citizens who just decide the heck with it.

How widespread is the practice of pay per say?

The best-known English-language dailies typically don’t do it so blatantly, candidates and others involved in the elections say. Rather, those papers are more likely to hue closely to one major party or the other, making it tough for candidates who don’t fit the papers’ view of the world to be heard. But in the Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati media, to name a few, the practice is widespread, candidates say.

N. Gopalaswami, retired Chief Election Commissioner, says in an interview, “This is not something that can be ignored. It is not just a few apparent cases, it is much more than that.”

He has heard of newspapers proferring a rate card – one price for positive coverage, another for not negative coverage. The commission heard complaints in both 2007 and 2008 about candidates being charged for coverage. Among them, the national Communist parties who don’t have the deep coffers to spend on campaigns.

In Mumbai, a city appropriately geared to commerce, politicians are faced with multiple payment options. Consider these phrases from newspaper editors and brokers, which I culled from campaigners:

“You want a front page photo for free? This is something people pay for.”

“If you want a picture in there or if you want a story, we have to be paid.”

“We’re going to publish the interview, but you need to buy 5,000 copies of our paper.”

“1.2 lakhs ($2,400) for the next two weeks and I will take care of all that coverage.”

—Paul Beckett is the WSJ’s bureau chief in New Delhi

Por DAVID ENRICH, LAURA STEVENS e MAX COLCHESTER, de Londres

Três dos maiores bancos da Europa — Barclays PLC, Deutsche Bank AG e Banco Santander SA — divulgaram resultados respeitáveis no primeiro trimestre, mostrando que, mesmo durante uma crise financeira, são capazes de gerar bilhões em lucros.

Mas o resto do ano pode se revelar mais difícil à medida que a economia europeia mergulha de volta numa recessão e começam a se dissipar os efeitos positivos do trilhão de euros (US$ 1,3 trilhão) em empréstimos baratos de três anos oferecidos pelo Banco Central Europeu.

Executivos dos bancos disseram ontem que o ambiente lucrativo de investimentos bancários do primeiro trimestre, que levantou o lucro do Barclays e do Deutsche Bank depois de um segundo semestre decepcionante em 2011, já está perdendo o ímpeto. E o Santander, como os seus rivais espanhóis, provavelmente terá de lidar com custos crescentes na deteriorada economia espanhola.

O Santander, o maior banco da Espanha segundo a maioria dos critérios, anunciou que seu lucro líquido no primeiro trimestre caiu 24% em relação a um ano antes, de 2,1 bilhões de euros para 1,6 bilhão de euros. O resultado reflete uma queda no faturamento na maior parte do mundo, e também as provisões de 3 bilhões de euros que o banco fez para cobrir prejuízos potenciais com empréstimos na Espanha, Portugal e outros países. No final de março, perto de 33 bilhões de euros em empréstimos do banco, correspondendo a 4% do total, foram classificados como sendo de risco.

Mas as operações de varejo internacional do banco continuam a engordar o caixa, sendo que a sua divisão na América Latina abocanhou 1,2 bilhão de euros em lucros trimestrais. O Santander confirmou os planos, noticiados pela agência Dow Jones no começo da semana, de vender até 25% da sua lucrativa filial no México, através de uma oferta pública inicial de ações no fim do ano.

O Santander — e seu rival local Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, que divulgou seu balanço na quarta-feira — provavelmente será pressionado nos próximos meses a reservar bilhões de euros a mais para cobrir possíveis prejuízos. Uma nova lei da Espanha exige que os bancos do país aumentem substancialmente as suas “provisões”, e o Santander e o BBVA, ao contrário de alguns dos seus concorrentes, até agora não beberam desse purgante.

Andrew Lin, um analista do Espirito Santo Investment Bank, disse que o Santander aparentemente decidiu encorpar suas reservas durante o primeiro trimestre porque não queria corroer suas proteções de capital. O Santander tem um “espaço de manobra limitado” acima dos níveis de capital que os reguladores europeus estão exigindo que os bancos alcancem até 30 de junho, disse Lim.

Apesar de os resultados terem superado as expectativas, os bancos europeus estão adotando um tom de cautela.

“Não foi um primeiro trimestre robusto; só foi robusto comparado com o terceiro e o quarto trimestres”, disse Bob Diamond, diretor-presidente do Barclays. “O crescimento da economia mundial ainda é pequeno.”

No papel, o Barclay registrou um prejuízo de 337 milhões de libras esterlinas (US$ 544,7 milhões) no trimestre, mas isso foi quase que inteiramente o resultado de uma despesa contábil ligada ao aumento do valor da dívida do banco. Não fosse por isso, o banco britânico teria lucrado 1,9 bilhão de libras.

O que impulsionou os lucros foi o braço de banco de investimento do Barclays, cuja receita saltou 10%, para 1,49 bilhão de libras. O grupo de renda fixa do Barclay mostrou-se especialmente forte. Os resultados do banco de investimento foram melhores que alguns dos seus concorrentes de Wall Street.

Mas Diamond observou que os negócios não estão indo tão bem este mês. Os executivos do Deutsche Bank e Credit Suisse Group AG, que divulgaram os resultados do primeiro trimestre na quarta-feira, fizeram coro a essa ressalva: parte da forte tendência do primeiro trimestre não está se mostrando sustentável.

“O ambiente ficou mais incerto e, então, obviamente, houve uma desaceleração”, disse o diretor-presidenre do Deutsche Bank, Stefan Krause.

O banco alemão divulgou um lucro de 1,4 bilhão de euros no primeiro trimestre, que ficou 33% abaixo do de um ano antes, mas próximo do que os analistas haviam previsto. O banco atribuiu a queda a uma série de fatores, inclusive várias despesas não recorrentes e a baixa atividade do segmento de private banking.

O Deutsche Bank afirmou que fortaleceu o seu colchão para absorver prejuízos repentinos. O banco estima que o seu chamado coeficiente Nível 1 — uma medida fundamental da capitalização de um banco — ficará em 7,2% dos ativos de risco ajustável no começo do ano que vem. O número está bem abaixo do nível de 10% que o Deutsche Bank precisará para cumprir as regras internacionais que entrarão em vigor ao longo dos próximos sete anos.

Como parte da sua missão de aumentar a capitalização, o banco informou que reduziu seus riscos mais agressivamente. Durante o primeiro trimestre, ele liquidou cerca de 13 bilhões de euros em ativos de risco, trazendo o total para 368 bilhões de euros. O banco também encolheu seus ativos de risco em mais US$ 4 bilhões este ano, ao vender sua participação na farmacêutica Actavis.

Krause disse que o Deutsche Bank não pretende emitir ações para incrementar sua capitalização. “Nós não acreditamos que seja necessário levantar capital para cumprir com os requerimentos do modo como eles se apresentam hoje.”

(Contribuiu Christopher Bjork.)

By SEAN CARROLL

Nobody has ever accused Stephen Hawking of thinking small. His life has been devoted to asking foundational questions about the nature of spacetime and the origin of the universe. In his famous “A Brief History of Time” (1988), he attempted to bring the mysteries of black holes and the early universe to a wide audience. Now Mr. Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have written “The Grand Design,” which addresses some of the biggest questions of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does nature have the laws it does? Why do we exist? These sorts of “Why?” questions are often neglected by most scientific practice, but the recent progress of cosmology and fundamental physics makes this a good time to tackle them in earnest.

NASA via Getty Images

A mosaic image of the Crab Nebula, a remnant of a supernova explosion, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Putting the word “design” in the book’s title is the kind of cheeky humor that Mr. Hawking has become known for. The authors’ answer to the riddle of the universe has nothing to do with intelligent design or with religion generally. “Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. . . . We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.”

The Hawking vs. God debate has featured prominently in the news of late. He and Mr. Mlodinow don’t claim to have proved that God doesn’t exist; their argument is somewhat more confined, but still important in its implications. We understand enough about the ultimate laws of physics, the authors say, to conclude that we don’t need God to understand the universe.

In this short and sprightly book, Messrs. Hawking and Mlodinow take the reader through a whirlwind tour of fundamental physics and cosmology, concluding with an enthusiastic endorsement of the idea that our observable universe is only a tiny part of a much larger conglomeration, the multiverse. The universe we see is big, featuring over a hundred billion galaxies, but it’s still finite. The multiverse idea suggests that there are other regions, equally impressive in size, where conditions might be quite different, right down to different physical laws or different numbers of dimensions of space.

The Grand Design

By Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Bantam, 198 pages, $28

But “The Grand Design” aims beyond simply surveying hot topics in contemporary physics. It has a point—that some of the evergreen “Why?” questions of philosophy may be on the verge of being answered by modern science. Each chapter serves as a step along the path to finding such answers. The key that unlocks the them is not a new idea: It’s the “anthropic principle,” a subject of considerable controversy among cosmologists.

If there are many different environments in the universe, we should not be surprised to find ourselves living in those environments that are hospitable to our existence. In the solar system, for example, we should not be surprised that life arose on the surface of the Earth rather than on the sun (too hot) or the moon (too dry). Similarly, if there are many different universes, we should not be surprised to find ourselves living in this one. We might hope to explain certain features of our universe simply by insisting that it allow for intelligent life. If the mass of the neutron were smaller than the mass of the proton, for example, chemistry as we know it would be impossible. Perhaps there is some other universe where neutrons are lighter than protons; but we can’t live there, since such a universe might not be able to support life.

Messrs. Hawking and Mlodinow trace the logic of quantum mechanics, general relativity and superstring theory, showing how a variety of existing universes isn’t merely possible but arguably natural. In string theory, space inevitably has extra curled-up dimensions that we can’t see. But there are many ways for dimensions to curl up, and each of them leads to different apparent “laws of physics.” Then there’s the idea of inflation, which predicts that an extremely tiny region of space can blow up into a universe-sized domain. Modern cosmologists believe that inflation, once it starts, can keep going forever, continually creating new “pocket universes” with different conditions in each one.

This is a picture that has been put together by a number of theoretical physicists over the past couple of decades, although it remains speculative. Mr. Hawking’s own major contributions have involved the spontaneous creation of the universe “from nothing.” The basic idea comes straight from conventional quantum mechanics: A particle does not have some perfectly well-defined position but rather lives in a superposition of many possible positions. As for particles, the logic goes, so for the entire universe. It exists in a superposition of many possible states, and among those states is utter nothingness. The laws of quantum cosmology purport to show how nothingness can evolve into the universe we see today. Speculative, yes; crazy, not necessarily.

“The Grand Design” thus attempts to outline, in under 200 pages, a complete scenario for the nature of the universe and our place in it. The universe exists because it must exist; if it didn’t, it would come into existence spontaneously. Once it exists, the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity coaxes the universe into creating a dizzying variety of regions with different local conditions and physical laws. Most of these might be extremely alien and inhospitable; but some will be just right to allow for the development of complexity and consciousness. Among those, happily, is our own.

Whether this ambitious conception is actually correct remains unclear. It’s not especially idiosyncratic; many theorists hold similar views of the multiverse and the anthropic principle. The important lesson of “The Grand Design” is not so much the particular theory being advocated but the sense that science may be able to answer the deep “Why?” questions that are part of fundamental human curiosity.

It is unfortunate that Messrs. Hawking and Mlodinow choose to open their book by picking a pointless disciplinary fight: “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.” The authors nevertheless quote a number of philosophers with apparent approval and engage in more than a bit of armchair philosophizing themselves. They advocate “model-dependent realism,” which asserts that the “reality” of various elements of nature depends on the model through which one interprets them. This is an interesting approach to ontology, but it won’t come as shocking news to philosophers who have thought about the problem. Answers to the great “Why?” questions are going to be subtle and difficult. Our best hope for constructing sensible answers lies with scientists and philosophers working together, not scoring points off one another.

—Mr. Carroll is the author of “From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time.”Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W17

The next time someone tells you that the European Union is a club of equals where the rules apply uniformly to all member states, direct them to the case of Hungary in 2012. The European Commission is threatening to suspend €495 million of EU aid to Hungary—0.5% of Hungarian GDP—unless the country takes “decisive action” to reduce its budget deficit. The rap on Hungary is that its fiscal situation is about to spiral out of control, and that recent changes to the Hungarian Constitution threaten democracy.

The Commission’s assessment isn’t entirely off the mark. Hungary’s economy isn’t growing, and public debt is about 80% of GDP, with more than 40% of it denominated in foreign currencies. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has tried to narrow the fiscal gap with a series of one-off levies that are inadequate to repair Budapest’s finances—and mostly hit sectors dominated by foreign corporations.

But there’s a whiff of hypocrisy in the Commission brandishing the budget rod on Hungary. EU law sets a deficit ceiling of 3% of GDP, but few members meet that criterion today—or have ever met it consistently. The Commission says it expects Hungary’s budget hole in 2013 to be all of 0.25 percentage points of GDP above the threshold. Even a 3.25% deficit puts Hungary less in the red than the likes of Germany, the Netherlands and Britain.

While this is the first time the Commission has proposed suspending cohesion fund commitments to any member state as a way to punish excessive deficits, it’s hardly the first case in which there has appeared to be a double standard for applying EU rules.

In 2006, Lithuania’s bid to adopt the euro was killed at the 11th hour when it was decided that the average rate of inflation the country had experienced during its trial period was 2.7%, 0.1 percentage points above the acceptable threshold. This was despite Vilnius’s lower budget deficit and better growth prospects than many Western capitals at the time.

On Hungary, the EU may be choosing to use the suspension of budget aid to chastise Mr. Orban’s government for controversial changes to the Hungarian Constitution, despite the Commission’s insistence that they are a “separate” matter from deficit violations. In December, Parliament passed a law that gives the Prime Minister and his government greater potential influence over monetary policy. Changes to the judiciary and media law sparked protests last month. Budapest’s negotiations to receive additional credit from the International Monetary Fund and the EU are on hold until compromise is reached on the validity of these laws.

The Commission should take seriously any changes in national laws that, like Mr. Orban’s, appear to menace EU values like press freedom and central-bank independence. But it’s looking like the EU is extending its rich history of capriciousness with its response in this case. That’s to the detriment of another supposedly cherished EU value: equality under the law.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page 14