The modern thinking Indian

The drama over Raj Thackeray is reaching a new high. Raj Thackeray, once he split from the Shiv Sena had to make a separate image for himself. So, one of the ways to do this was to try to appeal to the parochial nature of people; blame outsiders for whatever is the economic poor condition and try to inflame their sentiments. He has managed to be somewhat successful in this quest, inflaming sentiments and overall leading to a situation where immigrants from North India have been attacked inside Mumbai and other parts of the state of Maharashtra. In the past, this led to panic and the temporary stoppage of many industrial units with many of their workers running away.
And how does the Chief Minister handle this whole situation. The Shiv Sena has long been a thorn in the side of the Congress in Maharashtra, with their more pro-Marathi position and higher propensity to appeal to populist sentiment. The Congress cannot afford take such positions, since it needs to appeal to all sections of people, and cannot afford to antagonize the voters of North Indian origin. And of course, taking a more extremist position in Maharashtra would expose them to a backlash elsewhere; and their chief Sonia Gandhi would be targeted for such positioning; so if you get a person all ready to be more extremist than the Shiv Sena, you can imagine the scenario of a Congress Chief Minister salivating over the prospect of the Sena's divided vote.
What this has resulted in is the Congress treating Raj Thackeray with kid gloves; they come out with empty soundbeats about 'The law will take its own course', 'We will protect everyone and not let violence happen', and so on. And yet, they allow the lumpen elements of the MNS to attack and do violence in broad daylight, they do token arrest of Raj Thackeray, keep him in absolute comfort and let him out by the next day (first time, they let him out within a few hours, and the next time overnight). The police officers claim that they have nothing against Raj Thackeray. And they can see the campaign working, the Shiv Sena is now unsure of how to behave and is trying to take credit for the campaign of the MNS. Read this report of the treatment of Raj:

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray need not worry about being arrested during Diwali, at least in the case filed by the Kalyan railway police. A Kalyan sessions court on Friday extended its interim protection to Thackeray till the next date of hearing, which falls on November 11. Sessions judge K K Tantrapale, however, emphasised that one of the conditions for the interim protection was that Thackeray will have to refrain from giving provocative and inflammatory speeches.
The judge questioned whether the state would be able to ensure the smooth functioning of the court if Thackeray was ordered to remain present in court. ‘Is the state machinery ready to provide adequate bandobast in the court premises,’ the judge asked the prosecutor. The judge further told the prosecutor that on Tuesday MNS activists had managed to forcibly enter the court premises and shouted slogans and created a commotion. Salian assured the court that the police would put in place adequate security.

This whole situation has seen a woeful lack of an attempt by the State Government to try and prevent the violence, and the whole atmosphere of intimidation that is equally bad. Even after large scale condemnation by various parties (including allies of the Congress), there does not seem to be any clear attempt to show Raj Thackeray the violations of law that he has committed. Instead, after seeing the repeated
statements of Raj (followed by direct action of his partymen), I am reminded of the way that the militants expelled most of the pandits from the Kashmir Valley. It is like a 2 step process, where Raj does not directly state violence, but leaves nothing else to be desired, and then his partymen carry out the actual violence.

Labels: Community, Discrimination, Empowerment, Law, Morality, Politics, Protest, Punishment, Security, Separatist

The Nano project was a dream for Ratan Tata, and he was wooed by many states eager to get this prestigious project to their state. Besides the prestige, the project was also expected to generate jobs (the main project plus ancillaries are expected to be big business). Of course, there was the expectation that land needed to be sought for this purpose. And therein lies the problem. When a project needs a major amount of land, the land acquisition is a problem, and given the increase in industrialization in the country, we will continue to face more problems. Land fragmentation is so high that to get the required amount of contiguous land for a factory or a major project means negotiating with a large number of farmers. And this is where the state steps in - the state, in situations where it is a question of industrialization, can actually acquire land at the market rate from farmers for 'public purpose'. There has been doubt in the past about whether acquiring land for a private company is a public purpose, and a recent Supreme Court judgment has sanctioned this - the court makes clear that public purpose need not mean that land only needs to be used for a Government need, but any project that generates employment and is beneficial for the local economy can be termed as a 'public purpose' project.
For the romantics who worry about a loss of village life, about the loss of land from farmers, and so on; one should ask them to live in villages for some time, especially with fragmented holdings; then they will realize that a village life is not so romantic. The known path for economic prosperity is where an economy moves up the path of industrialization, away from an agricultural focus and more into manufacturing and services where the value added is much greater. This is not meant to say that farmers land should be acquired just like that. Acquiring land for a project needs careful study; I believe Gujarat has a policy whereby there is an evaluation whether waste land can be used for this purpose, and only after that, is land taken from farmers. Farmers and others (landless laborers, sharecroppers, etc who are not compensated for land acquisition) affected by land acquisition all need to get a stake in the project, whether that be through granting them a mechanism like shares in the project, making sure that locals get enough jobs, etc.
Education is also an important part of the whole acquisition ball game. Typically, political parties don't take it very kindly when their policies are opposed by another political party. One way to avoid this is through educating villagers about how this will be beneficial to the local economy and to them (you can only do this if there are actual benefits).
Onto the current case. This is a mystery; you have a Communist Government trying to enforce a industrial project, and you have an opposition maverick politician using the acknowledged Communist methods of protest - use propaganda, rally people, block the local economic movement by blocking the main road artery, and so on. She succeeded to such an extent that the West Bengal Chief Minister could not even question the locus standi if Mamta Banerjee ? Nobody even attempted to ask as to how the Trinamool Congress claimed to be a representative of the local farmers and others. Mamta quite clearly sees this as a way of depicting the CPM as anti-poor and anti-farmer and try to rally the rural votebank behind her. In the short run, this has caused a crisis of confidence in West Bengal's ability to attract businesses:

West Bengal's worst fear has come true. Ratan Tata announced on Friday that he was leaving Singur, taking with him the Nano car project and the state's dream of an economic revival and leaving it with a tattered image in the investor's eye. The Nano project will also take with it all vendors despite the huge shifting costs, leaving a 1,000-acre black hole in the lush green Singur farmlands where Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had hope to reap a huge political dividend as well.
On Friday, a ''distressed'' chief minister heard Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata's message, loud and clear. He made fervent pleas to Tata to stay back and keep his Rs 1,500 crore investment, even argued with Ratan Tata that his decision wasn't correct but couldn't change the industrialist's mind. The Tata Group chairman said he wasn't the one to blame for things coming to this pass. He squarely blamed Mamata Banerjee for pushing him to take the pullout decision, two years after his tryst with the Nano car factory in West Bengal.

What Ratan Tata says is quite correct. If he is setting up an industry, he would want to do it in an environment which is conducive to business; this is a basic need for having a healthy and prosperous business. The fact that Mamta Banerjee did all sort of things, including tacitly encouraging physical attack on the plant's workers would have terribly shaken Ratan Tata's confidence about the reception his factory is likely to get on an ongoing basis.

Labels: Community, Development, Image, Law, Left, Neighbourhood, Politics, Security

There are a number of areas where modern science and problems clash with traditions. In such cases, a reasonable expectation is that there is a compromise between traditions and the needs of today; in some cases, there is a need that the tradition changes. Why did I suddenly think of this topic ? Well, I came across this article that describes how idol immersion, a joyful and integral part of many religious festivals, is actually helping in killing the river systems of the country. Now, there are many reasons why our river systems are getting killed - there is too much flow of effluents (both domestic and industrial), not enough cleaning of these effluents, not enough flow of fresh water to do a cleanup of the pollutants in the river. No one doubts that in many cases, the conditions of our rivers as they move past major cities is that of a sewer, with the water having very high percentages of pollutants.
For those who have taken part in Durga Pooja celebrations or those celebrating Lord Ganesha, the immersion of idols is an important part. This is repeated across the country. But how many of you have read the news articles that describe the dead fish found floating days after a major festival, with these fish poisoned by the chemicals form the immersion ? Read this article in more detail:

Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith. Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes.
After the statues are immersed, the toxins then contaminate food crops when villagers use the polluted water for irrigation, said Shyam Asolekar, science and engineering head at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. Statue remains from festivities last year still float in rivers and water tanks in Mumbai, where the annual "Ganesh Chaturthi" festival culminate in the immersion of some 160,000 statutes -- some up to 25 feet high -- by millions of devotees. Traditionally, idols were made from mud and clay and vegetable-based dyes were used to paint them.

This is a tricky issue. Issues related to religious festivities are treated with care, with efforts being made not to offend the religious. However, there is no getting around the facts of a matter, and this is not an issue that has sprung up suddenly. Even on TV, you do see many times news articles about the importance of making statues with eco-friendly material, but somehow these items do not sink in.
Sometimes direct action needs to be taken, as for example, when the courts ordered the installation of tall fences on the bridges of the river Yamuna in Delhi in order to prevent people from throwing in flowers or complete garlands.
Rivers are the lifeblood of this country (or any country), with dependence on water requiring that water sources be protected. People know this, but somehow the relation with water pollution does not sink in, or maybe many people do not care. How does one ensure that such a message sink in ? You cannot use force to ensure that such a change happens across the breadth and width of the country.

Labels: Citizen, Community, Court, Environment, Health, India, River, Waste

It is a well known (and nightmarish scenario) that the groundwater levels in cities and the rural parts of the country are declining. In rural parts of the country, the promise of free electricity, and agriculture that is not well fed by canals (along with some wrong crop planting policies in which heavy water seeking plants have been planted) has caused a tremendous decline in the water levels. In some parts of Uttar Pradesh, there were recent reports that in some parts of the state, there has been a sudden cracking of the surface land crust due to a total absence of water underneath, causing a drying up of the surface.
In cities, the groundwater is pumped out by various authorities as well as individuals; all of this is done for satiating the growing water requirements of cities. On the contra side, water levels would normally get replenished through rain water seeping in from the normal watersheds and lakes inside a city, as well as through water seeping in from river-beds (most cities have some form of river running through them). However, both of these methods are in great decline. Rivers in cities are like drains, and water bodies are in a state of decline (recent reports from Delhi point to many of these water bodies being coveted by builders, or being used as a means to dump trash).
One possible solution that is being increasingly touted for cities is the use of groundwater harvesting by buildings. The reasoning goes that if each new building is forced to do rainwater harvesting all over its compound, then the water levels of the whole city will rise. Towards this end, the Bangalore Government is trying to bring in a low to enforce water harvesting in the city:

BANGALORE: Ensure your building is equipped with rainwater harvesting technology in the next few months. If not, local authorities will install one for you and collect the expenses later.
Even though the Act is applicable to the entire state, the government is concentrating on making rainwater harvesting equipment mandatory for all new buildings — residential and commercial — in Bangalore. Aimed at replenishing groundwater, the Act, once it becomes operational, makes it mandatory for users of groundwater through well or borewell to register with the Ground Water Authority within 120 days of its establishment.

This sounds very good, but in principle. In reality, this is already law in many places (including I believe in Delhi), and it has been a spectacular failure. Why ? Because builders do not do it, and they are hardly ever caught for it. Even if at some point they are asked, they do the great India money appearance trick, and presto, no more problems. This sort of law is only good when either people genuinely believe in this sort of welfare, or when inspection procedures are strict.

Labels: Bureaucracy, Community, Environment, Policy, Punishment, Responsibility, Welfare

Indian rivers are extremely polluted, and have been so for a long time now. It is all the more horrible since we consider many of these rivers as holy and worship them; the waters of the river Ganga find a very holy spot in Hindu culture. And yet, the waters of most of these rivers look hideous (unable to support marine life, unfit for human consumption, and so on). Various Governments claim to spend a lot of time and effort to clean up these rivers and have drawn up plans over the past 2 decades with big sounding names (all ending with the words of 'Action Plan') and the rivers remain dirty.
Over a period of time, even the courts of India have been unable to push the Governments to make an effective plan that is also executed well. All you get in the end is a lot of discussion about which method is the best for river cleaning (for those familiar with the discussions, the endless discussion in Delhi around where the sewage treatment plants should be, and how to stop the big drains from throwing their filth directly into the river would be funny if it was not so critical to public health). Otherwise, you would not get cases whereby drinking water to a city became critical when the filth content of the water available for drinking became too high.
What is required is for Governments to set up dedicated action plans that will ensure proper treatment of sewage (whether industrial or residential) so that no untreated sewage flows into the various water bodies that we have. Industries that violate this dictum need to be severely fined and punished (and that means that corruption levels in the environmental inspection area need to come down). Else we will end up with more cases such as the one in Punjab where millions of fish in a canal suddenly died due to release of untreated industrial waste. What we don't really need is for this kind of publicity generating measures such as this one:

With the state police coming to the fore to free the Gomti of pollution, now those caught red handed throwing garbage in the river will be severely dealt with. This announcement was made on Saturday by the director general of police (DGP) Vikram Singh, even as along with other senior officials of the department he took it upon himself to clean the city's lifeline.
In the morning the officials arrived at the banks of the Gomti for the cleanliness drive that is on to clean the river for the past few days. During the drive, the DGP made an official announcement that one company of river police will be deployed on all the banks of the river.

How will they prevent people from throwing trash into the river ? And will it stop if they patrol a few kilometers ? Would it not be more effective to have a proper education drive along with ensuring that people get a proper garbage collection facility ? Or am I hoping for an ideal world ?

Labels: Community, Development, Environment, Health, Police, Responsibility, River, Welfare

Recently I came across a situation that was terribly distressing. There was a school friend of mine (we are talking about the late 80's) with whom I had lost contact some years back. During the time that I remember spending with him in school, he was a good friend. However, as happens many times when you go out of school, and then go to different colleges, we lost touch (even though he was in the same city).
Then, while browsing through the friends list of a friend in Facebook, I came across his name. I promptly added him to my friends list, and within a couple of days, we had regained contact. In email through Facebook, I got to know what he had done after school. He had an interest in going abroad, and so, he did the usual software engineering route, joined a services company, and within a year got the chance to go abroad. He jumped at the chance, and moved with the software company to its US office; and after a year or so, jumped jobs and joined an American company.
All the time, his parents were at home, here, along with his younger daughter. Soon, when the daughter did her education and became a doctor, they found a good match for the daughter (another doctor settled in London) and the marriage happened; the daughter soon left with her husband to London. Now, the parents were left only to themselves in the house. Within a year, they found a suitable bride for their son, he came for the marriage, spent some time at home and then left back to the US. He was still devoted to his parents, coming once every year to visit.
However, and this is now the issue. I visited the parents a couple of days back, and found them to be in a bad position. They are growing old, and have only themselves to take care of each other. They are so used to the city and the circle around them that they are not taking up their son's offer to take them with him to the US, worrying about what they will do in a strange place, whether they will get along with their daughter-in-law (she is used to running the show in that house). The son is not willing to relocate back; he has a cushy life over there, children who are more American than Indian, and so on. And so, the have money (sent by their son), but do not have the moral support that is normally required. They also get testy when you talk to them about going abroad with their son, and I did not raise the issue again in visits. What is a good solution in such cases ?

Labels: Child, Community, Family, Health, Responsibility

Rape is a heinous crime, something that can cast a horrible injury on a women (both on the physical body and the psyche); it can take a long time to get over this assault. Hence, there are some harsh laws on this crime in human society, with a world wide convention that such crimes will be handled to the maximum possible allowed under the law. In India, the Supreme Court has been sensitive to the nature of this crime, in many cases relying on the sole testimony of the victim. However, such measures are subject to misuse, and one comes across such cames occasionally that introduce a feeling that one cannot take a statement for granted. Read about ladies who extort money from innocent bystanders by threatening rape:

The women used to entice passersby and then extort money from them by putting them under fear of rape allegations. The three, Heena(25), Noorjahan(26) and Rukshana(26) (names changed) were active in Delhi and NCR for the past few years, the police said.
The police carried out the arrests after their suspicions were roused by a woman's complaint in which she alleged she was raped by a person who offered her her a lift while she was returning home.
The officer added that the women used to charge anything between Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for not framing the victim. If he refused to pay, the person would be taken to the police station. The women had few male accomplices who would track their movements and come to their rescue if anything went wrong.

It is the fear of getting caught in such cases that makes most people unwilling to offer help. Colleagues whom I talked to confirm that most of them will hesitate to help a single lady standing alone (even though such cases happen in low numbers, but the fear of scandal and getting caught in such major issues hampers most people). In addition, quoting of such cases when the circumstances of the rape charge is not crystal clear may allow even guilty rapists from getting away.

Labels: Community, Investigation, Law, Morality, Police, Security, Women

Ever since the RTI Act came into existence, it has been seen as a powerful instrument to clear out secrecy of movements of records within the bureaucracy, and of helping to explain as to what decisions are made on what basis. It could be seen as a powerful laser-strength light shines like a powerful sun on the cobwebs of the Government bureaucracy and exposes corruption; however, one of the main problems seen is the inability of normal street level people to make sure of it. This has been seen as one of the main problems of the Act, it is only as good as the ability of people to use it.
Well, it seems like people are slowly catching on, and this awareness, even if more pronounced in urban areas, will slowly move through the whole country. Even a slight increase in awareness and a reduction in corruption and stealth of Government operations will do wonders for the enhancement of citizens. Imagine the power of a villager being able to find out where the money alloted for improving a road went to ? In many cases, just the act of filing a RTI petition can cause the concerned officials to move much faster. Consider these examples of how the RTI Act seems to be catching on:

Armed with the Right to Information (RTI) Act, citizens are posing peculiar questions to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) at an average of 10 applications per day. The questions range from appointments, service matters, building penalisation scheme etc. It's not the city folk but people from districts and even other states are demanding information.
Consider this. P Anand, a resident of Ashok Nagar in the city sought information on last November's appointment of additional commissioner (heritage) J Kedareshwari. This included whether she was posted in GHMC through an open advertisement and why her appointment was done in haste and the qualifications and eligibility for the post.

It is really heartening to see this movement catching up on; if this continues and becomes a mass movement, then we will finally see levels of corruption coming down and the influence of vested interests will start coming down.

Labels: Community, Corruption, Empowerment, Governance, Image, Law, Policy, Reform, RTI, Welfare

It is an established fact that a significant majority of money devoted to social programmes, such as the National Employment Guarantee, Anti-poverty programmes, targeted food subsidy, and many others, are heavily flawed in terms of the actual money that reach the poor. There have studies over the past, there have been admissions by the Government in the past (such as Rajiv Gandhi's famous statement made way back in 1985 about only 15% of the money reaching the intended). Money is siphoned off through middle-men, local politicians, workers, and the entrenched mafia. This has happened for a long time now, and it would seem that people have accepted this as a normal thing.
However, this should not be so. From time to time, the Government announces (mostly falsely) that there will be much greater inspection of the implementation to ensure that leakages are stopped. But more than the Government, there are social activists who are encouraging villages and the logical recipients of such aid to be more vigilant, to use laws such as RTI, and other measures such as social audits. Going against entrenched measures will lead to backlashes from those who stand to lose out their ill-gotten gains. Such is to be expected. However, it is the duty of the state to protect such audits and awareness, to provide all security measures, from policy statements by ministers at all levels and messaging through the arms of the state (babus, local politicians), and act strictly and firmly against people who seek to subvert such acts. But consider this article, and see whether the Government is doing things in the right manner:

The thousand-strong gathering at the Theological College grounds in Ranchi on June 10 had no doubts over why Lalit Mehta was killed. The 36-year-old engineer turned activist, had no personal enemies or battles. All he had done was access National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) expenditure records for researchers verifying official records against field data. On May 14, a day before the planned Social Audit of those works, he was brutally murdered.
The NREGA has provided an entitlement for the first time. The RTI has given a tool to uncover corrupt practices. The Social Audit is a mandatory process, under the NREGA Act, giving the people a chance to establish the truth and push for change. For the first time a corrupt mafia is threatened by a legally mandated process, which looks at details and places irrefutable documentary proof in the public domain. The corrupt nexus is reacting with pre-meditated, calculated violence.

If you read the article by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, this will leave you shaking in disbelief. There are incidents where the local administration (influenced no doubt by vested interests), is acting against people who are trying to create the awareness, and the Government, with all its statements for the 'aam admi', is standing still and refusing to take the measures that are subverting its own political campaigns. In the end, when people see corruption and do not see measures reaching them, they blame the political party. Does it not surprise the Congress that all these measures are not getting them political votes ?

Labels: Community, Corruption, Development, Education, Empowerment, Governance, India, Investigation, Law, Police, Policy, Politics, Reform, Review, RTI

The Delhi Metro is seen as an instrument for change in Delhi. The sheer presence of the Metro on many routes has led to a reduction in the bus traffic on these routes (for example, from the Dwarka to Connaught Place route), and has led to the commercial revival of many areas (the number of visitors to places such as Connaught Place, Chawi Bazaar, Chandni Chowk, etc) have all gone up and led to these places getting a new lease of life. However, the Metro project has not been without its slate of issues, one of them being the route passing through areas where there is liable to be controversy.
One major point in the past has been the changing of the skyline of the city wherever the metro passes, because suddenly you have a large seemingly unlimited concrete bridge being part of the skyline, and it can be quite ugly. However, over a period of time, we have tended to accept this as a compromise that has been made to get a system that provides more convenience. One such issue in the past was whether the Metro could be a cultural nuisance, especially when it was passing close to the Qutab complex. Eventually, the pressure by cultural experts forced the Metro line to give in, and they changed the lone so that it did not pass so close to the Qutab anymore. However, the other issue about passing close to the homes of people remains. A metro line can be noisy when a train arrives, and the height of the rail line (especially in crowded areas) can be uncomfortably close to either the second floor / windows of houses, and people feel concerned about their privacy.
There is a solution, but it is much more expensive. Building underground is as much as 3 times more expensive that over land, and wherever the metro has found a central verge, it has built overground because of the expense issue. In the case of South Delhi, the Metro plan faced some dogged opposition, but finally this challenge seems to have been overcome, and the Metro has won the issue:

The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition seeking to scrap Metro's elevated corridor project in south Delhi on the ground that it would cause noise pollution in residential areas on Friday. A Bench headed by Justice T S Thakur, however, directed the Centre and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to make all possible efforts to reduce the level of noise pollution which will be caused by the Metro rail running on the elevated corridor.
The petition, filed by residents of south Delhi colonies falling on the route of the project, had contended that running Metro rail on elevated corridor would create noise pollution and would interfere in their private life as it would be passing very close to their homes. The Centre had defended the elevated project, saying a huge investment would be required for building an underground Metro corridor. DMRC had also contended that contract for the project had already been awarded to the companies and it would not been possible to revert back.

So the issue has been decided for now, but the question remains of expenditure vs. convenience. For future expansion of the Metro line, such questions will again come up, so I wanted to know from readers as to what they thought of this issue.

Labels: Community, Court, Neighbourhood, Transport

Today, the 29th of May, 2008, was a day that a lot of people would have had a lot of worries about. Delhi and the whole NCR region has seen the effect of the Gujjar agitation when it last took place in 2007, and at that time, the lathi wielding and stone throwing members of the mob forced the major intersections of South and East Delhi to come to a standstill - traffic at major points such as the Noida Link road, Badarpur, Loni, etc was totally jammed, and demonstrators did pretty much what they liked. At that time, what was depicted in the media was that the police were essentially not taking any action and letting them burn buses and other public property.
Keeping this in mind, there was a lot of worry and concern about what the day would turn out like. The whole of Delhi and NCR region sees a lot of cross traffic with people moving on a daily basis from Delhi and other regions such as Faridabad / Gurgaon going to offices in Noida on a regular basis, and similar movement. For such people, the news of this Gujjar called bandh was a time for decision. Would you want to try this movement on this particular day and risk getting caught in violence, or stuck in a non-moving traffic jam for long periods of time. As a result, there were a large number of companies that actually declared a holiday today. Even where I worked, most people from places that were more than 10 Km away did not come, in many cases because their family persuaded them not to go.
The Government knows that this kind of demonstration will happen, and the long jams, violence and other such situations that afflict the regular commuters (as well as people who earn their living on a daily basis) are a reflection of the failure of Governance. Sample these reports from an article on Delhi shutting down:

Gujjars on Thursday had blocked road and rail traffic in the Capital and adjoining areas as part of their 'NCR rasta roko' agitation even as over 35,000 policemen fanned out across the National Capital Region to prevent any untoward incident. Earlier, all main highways leading to the Capital were blocked. There were also reports of stone pelting and effigies burning. At places the agitators broke windshields of cars and buses.
Protesters turned away vehicles from Noida and Gurgaon, home to scores of outsourcing and computer software firms. Many offices were also closed. Security personnel were deployed in strength in Gujjar strongholds like Mehrauli, Ghazipur, Patparganj, Badarpur, Khanpur, Ayanagar, Chilla village and Rampur, anticipating a strong showing by the community during the agitation.

But as reports by the media during the course of the day indicate, traffic was blocked for many hours and opened only around noon. During this time, people had to take side roads, or wait in long jams. And there is no point talking about the many hours lost, or the roadside vendors or people who are dependent on getting to their places of work for their daily earnings (who would travel by public transport, something that was directly attacked). This is something that the Government is directly responsible for, but one believes that the Government was just ensuring that the violence and disturbance does not cross a particular level. The other reaction by the Government was to cancel a number of trains running near Jaipur, Agra, and to the NCR region.

Labels: Caste, Community, Congress, Governance, Law, Police, Politics, Protest, Security, Transport

Nandigram has been the epicenter of trouble for the Communist West Bengal Government (along with Singur). The Government had proposed to acquire land in the region for the purpose of setting up industry, and this had landed the whole region in problem. Whatever be the purpose of the Government to increase the level of industrialization (and I had looked upon this move with favor, since industrialization and proper compensation for acquiring land does benefit farmers), the next reaction of the CPM regime was shocking.
The Government faced opposition from a collection of different parties and groups, and yet their objective should have been to maintain law and order. However, the Government and Left parties instead treated this as a person affront against them (and the involvement of the Mamta Banerjee led Trinamool Congress only caused more problems for them). There was a massive confrontation between the armed cadres of the CPM (along with the full support of the state police) against the villagers and their support, and eventually it reached such a stage that there was a wave of condemnation against the tactics of the CPM.
Well, it seems like all those tactics have rebounded on the CPM, since the Trinamool has gained control over a zilla parishad, maybe a watershed in the politics of West Bengal:

In a jolt to the CPI(M)-led Left Front, Trinamool Congress defeated its candidates in trouble-torn Nandigram in the three-tier panchayat elections in West Bengal. The Front also faced rout in three zilla parishad seats in Singur to Trinamool Congress candidates.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress wrested control of zilla parishad in East Midnapur where trouble-torn Nandigram is located. It won 32 of the 53 seats, results of which were declared so far. It is the first time that Trinamool Congress gained control over a zilla parishad, the main decision-making body in the district.

I don't believe that there is an inherent opposition to the policies of industrialization that the West Bengal government is following, but the Government seems to believe that it is in China, where any policy can be ruthlessly enforced and any opposition suppressed.

Labels: Community, Development, Election, Left, Politics

Surprising, but it happens in India. And the only reason that this could happen is because this involves a craze among Indians that is bigger than the one involving taking dowry, namely the craze for getting a citizenship of the developed world. For this craze, people are willing to pay huge amounts of money, live in horrid conditions and risk death to reach a place through illegal immigration, so if you can do this legally, you can pay much more. The groom would even be willing to let go of many pre-conditions such as the bride being elder than him, and so on.

Marry in Puducherry, honeymoon for the rest of your life in Paris. But first, dish out. In this exotic former French colony, young men are making a beeline for French belles, with starry eyes, pounding hearts - and bulging wallets. But marital bliss doesn't come cheap. The brides, Indian-origin French citizens, demand and get dowries between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 50 lakh.
Newly wed men could earn a fortune in France and enjoy a slew of welfare measures extended by the government there," said a 60-year-old Indian-born French citizen settled in Puducherry. The man, who did not wish to reveal his identity, himself got a hefty dowry for his daughter. "We sought Rs 50 lakh from the groom's family for the marriage. They offered an advance of Rs 10 lakh and promised to pay the rest in instalments. The marriage took place two years ago and the couple is settled happily in France," he added.

Seems like an answer to all dowry haters; but things are not so easy. The French Consulate knows about this, and is willing to do some hard and intensive questioning of would-be immigrant husbands to ensure that anybody trying to enter after doing a false marriage is turned away. Further, one wonders about the future of such marriages when the purpose of the marriage has been achieved and realism starts to set in.

Labels: Community, Dowry, Family, Morality, Welfare

We are in an age of globalization, with Indians traveling all over the world. The Indian Government routinely takes it up when they see any country trying to put restrictions on Indian citizens working over there (as an example, witness the (though so far unsuccessful) attempts of the Government to get a reversal of the new flawed work permit system for medicos in the UK). It is taken for granted that this is our country, and one can go and live anywhere in the country. There are some exceptions to this, such as the inability of outsiders to buy land in Kashmir, Himachal, etc; but these were special exceptions to prevent these small places from getting swamped by outsiders and retain their character.
To argue a similar thing for a leading metro of the country, on the other hand, is incredible. What Raj Thackeray is doing is almost equivalent to sedition, when he argues that outsiders essentially have no place in Mumbai. Mumbai is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in India, a place that is sought to be converted by the Government into a leading financial center of Asia. Arguing that outsiders are not welcome, and provoking attacks on them is not just criminal, but is going against the whole oneness of the country, and is equivalent to sedition. Mumbai has developed, and continues to develop, because of the movement of talent and people to that city.
The sad part in all this is that even Raj Thackeray knows what he is speaking is gibberish, and due to political reasons. The Shiv Sena itself is one among the leading players in the state, and the political chances of a radical offshoot of the Shiv Sena (headed by a junior politician such as Raj) are very low. The only way to generate enthusiasm for one's party is by taking an extremist position, and trying to appeal to people who feel somewhat threatened by the influx of outsiders.
However, such sentiment needs to be met quickly, and not by treating it as a case of letting off steam. This is not a mass movement that needs to let off steam, this is a cold calculated position that has been taken in order to accrue political advantage, and the quicker that the state takes action, the better:

Raj Thackeray's supporters on Monday continued to carry out sporadic attacks on migrants on Mumbai's streets even as the state government sought to dispel concerns that it was not making a serious effort to quell the violence.
At Worli, taxis owned by Uttar Bharatiyas were stoned and their drivers attacked. In Dadar, hawkers were roughed up and warned against doing business in the area. The conflict even spread to other parts of the state as MNS workers burnt effigies of Raj Thackeray's detractors in Nashik, Beed and Nagpur. The government, under pressure to arrest Raj Thackeray and use tough measures to prevent the conflict from snowballing, sought to defuse the situation by booking him in a case of criminal intimidation.

It seems like the Government does not want to be seen as taking tough action and is hence giving Raj Thackeray a political lease by not cracking down. However, if this violence and action continue, it can have a ripple effect due to corresponding reactions in other parts of the country. The Government cannot afford to play politics with this case, it needs to take action. There will not be many people who will be offended by any crackdown and prosecution of Thackeray.

Labels: Community, Congress, Discrimination, Governance, Law, Politics, Punishment, Racism, Separatist

For some time now, there has been a concerted push to get into the mid-day meal scheme for school children. The introduction of the mid-day cooked meal for school children has been a major factor in the increase of school attendance, especially in rural areas. Pushed and prodded by the courts and by large sections of educators, the Ministry of Education run scheme provides funds for meals in 9.5 lakh schools across the country. Overall, the scheme has been a great success in its stated objective of encouraging parents to send their children to school. Schools provide cooked meals to children as per the local diet, and this also enthuses children to attend.
However, every silver lining has a dark cloud behind it, and in this case, the money involved was too great to resist. And hence there was a concerted push by manufacturers of biscuits and pre-cooked meals to get into the scheme; what better way than to try and point out positives of not using cooked meals. There are logistical issues with the whole cooking process, there is scope for corruption in terms of the process of sourcing of material for the cooked meals being decentralized, and so on. Further, pre-cooked meals and biscuits would allow the exact concentration of nutrients to be served to children. Seem very convincing points, and all of these were actually enumerated in an article in a weekly that I read some time back.
And then I started reading some more, and found that there were many more issues with the proposal. There was a position by an institute that deals with nutrients that essentially blasted the proposal, claiming that biscuits were essentially empty calories and not capable of supplying the nutrients required. In addition, further opinion by experts were skeptical about how many children would be enthused by biscuits; further there was an easy likelihood of biscuits seeming to be strange food to many areas of the country or carried away and not consumed by the children. And then the ultimate; the industry actually got 30 MP's to write a letter to the Ministry of Education in favor of the proposal, and at that time, much more opinion started to come out against change of the cooked food scheme.
So, it is good that finally the ministry has decided against this proposal.

The biscuit manufacturers' and ready-to-eat food industry's attempt to make 12 crore children their captive consumers through the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme has come a cropper. The HRD ministry has shot down the proposal of the two industries to supply either biscuits or pre-cooked meals to more than 9.5 lakh schools under the MDM scheme.
"Replacement of the Mid-Day Meal programme through supply of biscuits would not be in the nutritional interest of children, since it does not fulfill the nutritional norms, dietary requirement and satiety of children and further it also deprives many intrinsic benefits that are being derived through the present pattern," the minister said in his letter to the MPs.

However, at one point of time, it seemed that the proposal was actually working its way through the approval chain. It required some pressure from educators, and from the few articles in the media that cared about the mid-day cooked food program (not too many did though, and this is a very important issue central to human development). One can only feel relieved that the proposal got terminated.

Labels: Child, Community, Corruption, Development, Education, Health, Politics

Gurgaon, just south of Delhi, is reported as the Millenium City, as a sample of growth. It has gleaming buildings, swanky malls, and plenty of BPO's, IT offices and many other such high-growth industries. It is seen as a self-sufficient township, with a large number of people now living there. However, there are many warts in this story. It suffers from infrastructure problems with poor water and electricity, lack of easy public transport, and sectors not involved in these sunrise sectors feel alienated from all this growth (one just needs to go and see 'Old Gurgaon').
And amidst all this, a heinous trade involving the removal of kidneys from poor people and selling to rich patients needing a kidney was going on (for a long time, maybe more than 8-10 years). Refer this news:

GURGAON: A Rs 100 crore kidney transplant racket that thrived on exploiting the poor and miserable with false promises and then removing their kidneys by force has been busted a few kilometres from the national capital.
The sheer scale of the racket — organized and brazen — that spanned six states and catered to the rich, including NRIs and foreigners, has left the authorities shaken. It was carried out right under the nose of the police in the Millennium City and could have been thriving for the past 15 years, according to one account, though Gurgaon police said it was eight years old.

What seems very clear that such a major operation could not have gone on without the complicity of authorities at some level, given the news that the main doctor involved, Dr. Amit Kumar (maybe not his real name) has been arrested many times earlier and yet was involved again in something of this scale. He is on the run, and even 2 days later, has not been caught. It may be very much possible that he had been tipped off before the raid.
One side-effect of this scandal was that the Government was thinking of making a change in the organ business, with measures to make it easier to get organs, including cadaver organ retrieval. However, the Government needs to ensure that even in such a case, the laws that rule against such organ selling and forcible removal are strictly enforced and maintained.

Labels: Community, Corruption, Governance, Health, Law, Morality, Punishment, Responsibility

Over the course of the past 2 years, there has been an immense amount of literature and news over the dangers of bird flu, especially the H5N1 variety that is extremely destructive, and has caused human losses elsewhere. There is a lot of worry over the fact that a pandemic has not happened for a long time now, and with the current movement of humans all over the world, any spread of a human version will be a much higher killer than previous pandemics. What can cause such a thing to happen ? Well, the bird flu is mostly restricted to avian creatures, and spreads to humans very rarely. In addition, even if humans are affected due to contact with infected birds, the disease does not jump from person to person. It is feared that if the virus comes into close contact with the human influenza virus, and exchanges genetic material with the virus, it is possible that this may cause the bird flu virus may be capable of becoming capable of getting transferred from humans to other humans. This is one of the most feared scenarios for health care personnel, especially because while humans do not take human flu seriously, the bird flu variety is a much bigger killer.
In such a scenario, it is even more necessary that any case of bird flu may be handled with the utmost seriousness. However, seeing the spread of bird flu in West Bengal makes one believe that the West Bengal government has been in a serious case of dereliction of duty. After all, it has been known for some time that many districts of Bangladesh have been affected by bird flu, and given the close interaction between districts of Bangladesh and West Bengal, there should have been a much better contingency plan. Given the close interaction between man and fowl in many areas of West Bengal, the districts and panchayats should have been sensitized about the seriousness of the issue and about the steps that they should take in this regard.
Instead, the disease was allowed to fester, with initial reports of birds dying being hushed up, culling operations being not adequately backed up by security and authority (even in a case where it seems clear that this is a health emergency), inadequate provision of compensation to people whose birds have been culled (leading them to try and hide their birds), and a general lack of seriousness among the state's politicians and leaders. This was to the extent that the Central health minister criticized the efforts of the state (although she was hushed up later, no doubt with the Big Brother CPM putting pressure on the Congress leadership).
Now the disease has spread to 13 districts, and is on the doorstep of Kolkata, and one wonders whether the inept State Government will be able to do something at all.

Birdflu on Sunday spread to two more districts of West Bengal taking the number of affected districts to 13 out of a total 19 even as the state government said it was fully prepared to face any kind of adversity if any human being is found afflicted by the dreaded disease.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation has formed eight teams to to keep the metropolis insulated from birdflu. The teams were moving in different parts of the city to monitor the situation. The fear that the disease might hit Kolkata has aggravated since the spread to South 24 Parganas, part of which form the city's suburbs.

One can only hope that the Government is serious. It has also been reported that part of the reason that the Government is abstaining from taking the strict (and also seemingly harsh measures) is the fear of offending voters; if such an attitude characterizes the Government response, then god helps up. Instead, panchayats are an ideal medium to spread the message about the harmful affect of the disease, and how cooperation will help all. Couple this with a strong media campaign and adequate compensation, and things would be much better.

Labels: Community, Governance, Health, Left, Politics, Responsibility

Ever since the concept of providing a cooked meal to school children as part of school came into existence, India's education system has seen a major improvement. The thought of getting a good nutritious meal has made children more eager to attend school, and at the same time, has made parents see more value in sending their children to school. Continuing this scheme, while making sure that the quality and quantity of food served remains good is an essential ingredient of making sure that India rural children attain more education, and India's targets of making sure that these children grow up into better adults is met. It would not too much to say, that in addition to having good educational facilities and good teachers, providing them good cooked food is essential.
And now enter the money-makers. The very size and reach of this cooked food program makes for an extremely large sum of money that is being spent. This money has attracted many corporates, who have launched a campaign to get biscuits to be served instead of food. The claim is that biscuits will be easier to manage than the logistics of cooking food, and the biscuits can be specially made to be as nutritious as the education program requires. The pressure by this lobby is so large that Members of Parliament have got involved, with many MP's having been swayed to sign a letter promoting this changeover into biscuits.
Hopefully, this latest statement by the National Institute of Nutrition should bring this debate to an end:

Children should not be fed biscuits as lunch under the government's mid-day meal (MDM) scheme. This has been stated emphatically by India's premier agency on nutritional issues, the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition, backing the contention of many states opposing the move to feed biscuits to children under the countrywide scheme.
In what would be the strongest indictment of the biscuit manufacturers' pitch for their products, the institute has written that it has “worked on the recommended dietary requirements for adults and children, and biscuits do not find a mention anywhere, nor is it recommended as a source of calories or nutrients, because biscuits (sweet or salty) are empty calories”.

This should really bring the debate to an end. Politicians really do not need to get involved in this debate. What is needed that the Ministry of Human resources stops this ridiculous attempt to move away from the cooked meal scheme. The cooked meals currently are region-specific, cooking the kind of meals required for that particular region; it is ridiculous to assume that serving biscuits will have the same kind of impression on parents and children.

Labels: Child, Community, Development, Education, Health, Politics, Responsibility

How many times has it happened that you saw somebody throwing garbage on the streets and wondered as to why they did it ? Did you sometimes throw a wrapper on the street and felt guilty about it, or not even feel a twinge of guilt ? Take all these individual acts, put them together and you end up with a city (and this is about each and every city in India) full of garbage. Sometimes it is easily noticeable, for example, when the weather is humid, the smell of garbage is all around. But mostly, we criticize the municipal corporation (and rightly so) for the mess.
Surat, after the plague had gone, went through a government enforced cleanliness program with a lot of public support. That program was a good example of how a city can be made clean and kept clean. There are numerous other examples on a smaller scale that show how cleanliness can be kept. Private offices are a good example, where there are adequate facilities such as garbage bins and moral pressure to ensure cleanliness. The Delhi Metro is another example of cleanliness where the Metro ensures that people do not litter, and they also ensure that the facilities are always kept clean such that if anybody tries to litter, they will be seen as the first people doing the littering.
However, we also know that in addition to self-discipline, some amount of enforcement is also required. Singapore is one prime example of strict rules ensuring that no one tries any amount of littering, and people who do, suffer. And enforcement seems to be the measure that the Mumbai authorities are trying to use:

MUMBAI: Getting away with spitting, urinating in public, throwing garbage on pavements or any other nuisance which spoils the cleanliness of the metropolis will be harder and even costlier now.
To supplement the work done by the few nuisance detectors (NDs), the civic body today appointed five private security agencies to look after cleanliness and sanitation in the city with powers to impose fines ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 20,000 on offenders.

If you read the article, there is a lot of talk about not being heavy on the fines initially, but trying more education and getting people to be more aware of their responsibilities.
At the same time, it cannot be all enforcement. There is a crying need to have more facilities. One good example is the availability of garbage bins or dustbins and public conveniences. In our crowded cities, such infrastructure needs to be available at regular intervals and well maintained (and that is the killer nowadays many of them are not well maintained). It is easy to blame people for urinating in public, but in winter months, when there is no facility available for long distances, what can a person do ?

Labels: Community, Development, Environment, Health, Image, Neighbourhood, Reform, Waste

When do we get to a situation where normal people, get worked up enough to form a mob and then proceed to pummel, beat, thrash, or use other means of harming or killing somebody who is supposed to have been a thief ? Well, if people could find an answer, they could prevent what seems to be happening in Bihar. In yet another another incident of a supposed criminal having been beaten up by a mob and killed in a frenzy, 2 people were beaten to death after becoming the target of a mob.

Superintendent of Police (city), Anwar Hussain, said the lynching of the two men took place at Nutan Colony under Sultanganj police station last night after news spread that three persons were robbing passersby. The trio was then chased by a crowd. One of them jumped into a pond to save himself but he was pulled out and bludgeoned to death with sticks, iron rods and whatever the mob could lay its hands on.
The incident comes close on the heels of the killing of 10 people on suspicion of being thieves at Dhelpurwa village of Vaishali district on September 13. Earlier this month, a mob had pierced and gouged out the eyes of three young men for snatching away a motorcycle in Nawada district, reviving memories of the infamous Bhagalpur blindings of the 1980s.

This seems to becoming more common in Bihar and other regions nowadays. You report that a person or group of people is committing a robery or other such crime, and people form a mob ready to kill and main, safe in the knowledge that in a mob nobody is recognizable (isn't that what rioters in Delhi who burn public property and commit mayhem on the streets believe in?).
What is this due to ? One reason is the poor system of justice in Bihar, especially in urban or semi-urban areas where the law is mostly absent or manipulated very easily. It is not easy to see justice being served, and such is the environment in which vigilantism starts and prevails. This concept is something that once can see in a number of movies as well where the people of the locality get together and form a mob and then proceed to wreak havoc on the villains.
However, this is a very troubling situation. Such vigilante action further weakens the state, as a number of people will see that is serving the purpose of dispensing instant justice, helped by the fact that a majority of the people who are affected have actually done something wrong. However, for one, stealing is certainly not deserving of a death sentence, the chance of misuse is too high, and overall it can be directed against specific people since very few people have the chance to argue against a mob. Unless the Bihar Government is able to discourage these sort of lynching from happening, as well as make the justice system much better, such sort of vigilantism will continue to happen.

Labels: Community, Court, Governance, Investigation, Judicial, Law, Morality, Police, Punishment, Security