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October 14, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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A partial solution Disowning only Rao A beleaguered
General |
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INDIGENISING DEFENCE PRODUCTION Why decry dynastic rule?
Two days to remember by D.R. Sharma ON the last day of my career, spanning nearly 40 years, something happened that took me back to December 12, 1979, when I finished teaching course 251 on one American campus. That happened to be the last day before the semester examination. I was about to fold the text and pick up the attendance sheet when one of the front-benchers asked me to "tarry a while."
Role of BIS in industrialisation
Can anyone curb corruption?
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A partial solution THIS is the festival season and shopkeepers are offering discounts. But even so no buyer sets the rate since it would look totally out of place. There is an exception though. The Central government, the biggest buyer of Punjab and Haryana paddy, is demanding a hefty rebate from the kisan in return for partly shedding its month-long reluctance to lift the stocks from the market. It is as much as 5 per cent or Rs 25 a quintal. The sanctity of the minimum support price (MSP) stands eroded and the old solemn pledge to procure every grain arriving in the mandi is broken. That was one of the three pivots on which rested the phenomenal green revolution. There have of late been several warnings of the hardening of the central attitude in the face of its failure to think up a solution to the mounting stocks with the FCI. Now the contours of a way out are visible and that is to shift part of the burden to the farming community. The long relationship of trust between the growers and the procurement agencies is sought to be broken and in an unsubtle way. The MSP has come down to Rs 515 for grade A paddy and Rs 485 for the common variety. Going by the recent mood and experience, it is safe to speculate that the concept of fair average quality will come handy to FCI inspectors to shovel much of the grain into the second category, no matter what Minister Shanta Kumar says. This is plain and simple extortion. The Food Ministry says that the grain is far below the specification and that discolouration, moisture content and weevil damage have been caused by early harvesting. So under relentless pressure from the state government, the specification has been relaxed to bring in paddy with 7 per cent damage within the allowed category. It is in return for this concession that the Centre has reduced the MSP. The argument is unconvincing. It says the affected grains will yield only 64 per cent when shelled and not 67 per cent as is normal. How does New Delhi know? It is guess work and the Punjab Agricultural University scientists say so. On the basis of extensive sample collection and laboratory tests, they have cleared the harvest of any major defect. Discolouration is confined to the husk and once it is milled and polished, the grain turns out to be normal. This is because of rain in September, by which time the grain has fully matured. The Centre’s claim that premature harvesting being another cause of unacceptable grain quality is also disproved by another respected expert, Prof S.S.Johl. He says most paddy growers start cultivation as early as May to take advantage of cheap labour and even an unusually late maturing variety will be ready for harvesting by September. The bulk of the harvesting has been done only last month. It is certainly not too early to banish the grain from procurement. The argument about the South rejecting Punjab rice is only partly true. The region is getting close to self-sufficiency and only Kerala depends on other states to meet its need of the staple food. And there are varieties and varieties of rice and taste plays a role in the choice of the consumer. All these afterthoughts cannot conceal the painfully slow reaction time of the Centre to a crisis which has been building up for more than a year — the crisis of the FCI’s bulging buffer stocks. So far it has not been able to dispose of the mountains of wheat stock and as the Punjab government has repeatedly pointed out, there is simply no storage space. International price has dipped this year and Vietnam, Thailand and the USA offer rice at about $ 195 a tonne while India quotes a price of well above $ 230. As a result exports, at 10,000 tonnes, have plummeted to a fraction of the volume some five years ago. The ongoing crisis warrants a very close look at the whole gamut of agricultural economics to keep up productivity and also wipe out the huge unmet demand for foodgrains. To start with the report of the Johl committee submitted in 1985 should make compulsory reading.
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Disowning only Rao INDIAN politicians have no use for Christian values which allows only such persons to hurl stones at sinners who have themselves never committed any sin. Nor have they read Kabir who made the painful discovery that looking for the ultimate source of evil is futile if the seeker does not begin the search by looking inward. The entire political class is gloating over the conviction of former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and Mr Buta Singh in the infamous JMM bribery case. Even some Congressmen have made noises hailing the verdict, not because of their commitment to rooting out corruption in public life, but because they want to attract the attention of 10 Janpath. The official Congress response too is meant to please Mrs Sonia Gandhi rather than show the average Congressman's passion for promoting probity and fair play among the holders of public office. Neither the celebration in the Opposition camp is justified nor the official Congress stand on the conviction of Mr Rao. The conviction of the former Prime Minister is also an indictment of the Congress and the culture of abusing political power for survival in office. Yes, the conviction of Mr Rao and Mr Buta Singh deserves to be hailed as historic, but only by those whose hands are clean and conscience clear. Political corruption is not the monopoly of the Congress. There is no political party which has not patronised corruption and given the issue a certain air of respectability and even acceptability, while denouncing it in public. Every politician has to explain how in the course of public service his stinking rags begin to resemble the riches of the kings of yore. What the court has done is send out a stern warning to politicians, bureaucrats and others in the service of the public that the judiciary, by and large, is above the taint of overlooking the trespasses of those holding high public positions. However, what the Congress has done by disowning Mr Rao can in no way absolve it of the larger guilt of actually being the mother of political corruption. How? Because it was the only party in power all over the country at least in the first 20 years after Independence. It could have put into place laws for dealing with political corruption, and actually made examples of corrupt Congressmen by throwing them out. Unfortunately, power indeed does corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The first time it lost power in several states was in 1967 when the first experiment in forming coalition governments came unstuck. It was the legacy of dirty dealings which the Congress alternatives inherited. However, instead of overturning the Congress culture, they too fell prey to the temptation of making easy money. Today no party is willing to look within its own ranks and identify and throw out the corrupt and the greedy. The official Congress stand on Mr Rao's conviction may sound phony, but even its detractors cannot deny the fact that when Mr Sukh Ram was caught with his hands and feet in the till he was expelled from the party. But far from becoming a political pariah he is now the source of survival of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Himachal Pradesh. It is the same party which had stalled the proceedings of the Lok Sabha over Mr Sukh Ram's alleged acts of corruption. The Congress has disowned Mr Rao. But what about Ms Jayalalitha who too stands disqualified from contesting elections because of conviction in corruption cases? The BJP has no reason to celebrate the fall of the AIADMK leader, because at one point of time, and that too not long ago, she was a very welcome guest at 7 Race Course Road. The Congress cannot explain its alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mrs Rabri Devi, involved in the fodder scam and disproportionate assets case. Nevertheless, not too long ago they were honoured guests of the non-Congress formations. Every member of the discredited political tribe should search his or her heart and soul before celebrating the fall of Mr Rao. For one Mr Rao, who stands exposed and disgraced, there are countless politicians whose hands are perhaps more dirty, but have escaped public scrutiny.
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A beleaguered General Pakistani ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf would have never thought that he would find himself in a tight spot so soon after capturing power in a bloodless coup. The situation that prevails today is just the opposite of what it was last October when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was dethroned by his Chief of Army Staff, leading to the eruption of joy all over that God-forsaken country. The reason is that he has been giving too many assurances — as a politician does — not bothering about the implementation aspect. General Musharraf talked of giving a new life to the ailing economy, bringing corruption to an end, punishing those guilty of depriving his country of crores of rupees through fraudulent means and introducing political reforms to prevent convicted politicians from occupying positions of power. So far he has failed on almost every front except for immobilising the tainted politicians which has been, in any case, a matter of life and death for him. His successful discrediting of the established politicians, including Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto, has not made the people in general happy as their economic worries have only multiplied during the period of one year he has been in the saddle. The hopes they had pinned on him remain belied. At the international level too Pakistan's position was never so bad. The self-appointed Chief Executive's blind support to the terrorist outfits operating in the name of jehad has forced Islamabad's traditional friends to part company with it. The New York-based Human Rights Watch group in its latest report has charged the military regime with "committing widespread abuses" on the pretext of introducing political reforms. General Musharraf has been warned of dire consequences if he refuses to re-establish the democratic process he derailed after coming to power with the use of military might. His country may have to suffer the denial of international financial aid in case he chooses to ignore the warning. Already certain donor agencies led by the World Bank have withdrawn the $ 92 million loan they had recently released in aid of the Pakistan Social Action Programme, accusing the Musharraf regime of its failure to fulfil certain important conditions concerning the social sectors. The ruling General is finding it difficult to explain to the people why this embarrassing situation could not be avoided. The government has also been under tremendous pressure from the media and other quarters to release the Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report which has laid bare the role of the military and the politicians in the 1970s' power struggle leading to the dismemberment of Pakistan. When the circumstances are so adverse, it seems there is no honourable alternative for General Musharraf other than this: leave the field of governance open to whom it belongs — the politicians. Hence his latest pledge to restore parliamentary democracy by October, 2002, as per the deadline set by the Pakistan Supreme Court. Let us — democracy lovers — hope the General keeps his promise. |
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INDIGENISING DEFENCE PRODUCTION THE recent utterances of the top brass in the Indian Army regarding contracting out the production of some of the components of military hardware to domestic Indian firms seem to be marking a perceptible shift in the defence research and production strategy of the Indian defence production system. It has been realised that some of these components, hitherto being imported at exorbitant costs, can be manufactured domestically at much lower costs, thereby saving a considerable amount of foreign exchange and also accomplishing the task of indigenisation of the production of defence equipment. Till recently the defence research and production system in India had remained impregnably shrouded in secrecy. Private manufacturers had hardly been involved in the production process of defence equipment. Even if some were associated with it, the contact was too slender, so that neither defence research benefited from it nor civil industry could enjoy the externalities of defence research. The process of research and development (R & D) not only involve gigantic costs but also hinges on a monolithic effort and time span. Its output not only stimulates the specific objective for which it is undertaken but may also generate many spill-overs for scaffolding and thriving the product development of other non-specific but related areas of production. For the optimal utilisation of this expensive and extended R&D system, it is always advisable to utilise its output in the main as well as in the related areas of manufacturing. This would be more pertinent for any R&D system in a resource scarce country like India, which pays through its nose for the luxury of R&D. Since the beginning of the planning era India has spent substantially in R&D in different fields in order to achieve the indigenisation of production for self-reliance. The same was true of defence production and, accordingly the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was tipped to carry out R&D work for the generation of new technologies in defence production so as to enable the country to substitute the import of
defence equipment and to reduce the strategic dependence on some rather inhospitable countries. The defence R&D expenditure by the DRDO escalated from a bare Rs 1.5 crore in 1958 — 8 per cent of the Central Government R&D expenditure — to a whopping Rs 1462 crore in 1997, which is 37 per cent of the total. Besides this, the Central Ministry/Department of Defence Production and Supplies spent another Rs 11.20 crore on R&D in 1997. In addition to this defence R&D expenditure in the institutional sector by the DRDO labs and the Defence Ministry, another Rs 80 crore was spent on in-house R&D by the defence industries in the public sector (seven units) during1997. Thus, in all, Rs 1567.39 crore was expended on defence R&D during 1997, out of an aggregate national R&D expenditure of Rs 8170 crore — around 26 per cent of the total. In comparison, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) consumed around 20 per cent and the Department of Space (DOS) cornered about 15 per cent of the national R&D expenditure. This highlights the overbearing significance attached to military research in India. Now, given this huge quantum of DRDO research expenditure, it ought to be utilised to its optimum. To achieve that, it would be imperative to license out the spill-over of the DRDO research output to private manufactures in lieu of a lump-sum contracts or royalty payments. These contracts may also be in the nature of tied contracts with guarantees to buy back a stipulated chunk of the product thus manufactured for use in the defence equipment. The spin-off of the DRDO research may take the form of, for example, transferring the relevant chip of the main R&D work on the development of a battle tank engine for improving or developing an automobile diesel engine by a private manufacturer. The National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) of the USA has very successfully transferred its spin-off R&D output to private industry, a model worth emulating in India. This would not only lead to the advanced production and indigenisation of manufacturing in civil industry but would also supplement the revenue needs of the DRDO for its future projects. There is another aspect to defence research that calls for strengthening the interface between DRDO research and civil industry. This pertains to the grim shortage of research personnel with critical and specific skills in the defence research sector, which can also be supplemented by the private industrial sector if the latter is involved in the defence R&D process. Although the total strength of the technical personnel engaged in the DRDO is quite large and impressive, it is estimated that this government organisation has approximately about 1200 engineers and scientists with postgraduate or doctoral degrees, employed primarily in R&D work. Only 20 per cent of the S&T staff in the DRDO has an engineering degree instead of the recommended 80 per cent. This imbalance in the DRDO’s technical manpower employment is because its S&T staff is drawn from the general pool of Indian technical manpower which is primarily trained in theoretical science instead of applied science or engineering disciplines. No doubt, the technical personnel employed in the DRDO and other military engineers are ingenious in their own respective areas of specialisation, the DRDO and defence planners have done precious little to reorient their skills with the latest developments in military research and production. The DRDO lacks engineers and scientific researchers which may typically contribute to the development of new technologies in the defence sector. However, there is no dearth of the auxiliary and administrative staff. Whereas in the DRDO the number of auxiliary staff members per R&D scientist is 2.10 and that of the administrative staff is 1.38 the corresponding ratio in the private manufacturing sector is just 0.46 and 0.38, respectively. Ironically, this employment imbalance in the DRDO is the direct outcome of the government’s social welfare policies which aim at employment generation at the cost of building technological capabilities. There is no gainsaying the fact that this employment scenario of the defence research establishments in the country gravely impairs the technological capacity of these R&D organisations. Since the process of R&D hinges on the high standards of research and training and India’s turnout of super specialists in the disciplines concerning defence research and engineering is low, the capacity of the country’s defence research system is obviously too inadequate for the specific task of indigenisation of defence production. To overcome the abysmal dearth of technical research staff with critical skills in defence R&D, the military research establishments must link up their research system with the private sector. This shortage of the R&D staff in the defence research laboratories can be ostensibly supplemented by the highly skilled R&D manpower in some of the civil industrial establishments with high-tech manpower, particularly in the IT and software sectors. Through joint R&D efforts both the indigenisation drive of defence production and civil industrial manufacturing can be achieved. Excessive secrecy and watertight compartmentalisation of defence research is also a major stumbling block in the way of rendering it viable and suitable for the indigenisation of defence production. The impeccable confidentiality surrounding military R&D not only makes the defence R&D system less accountable but also prevents the unfettered transfer of information and technology from other technologically advanced sectors of the national economy. Apart from this, due to the iron curtain of secrecy around defence R&D, it has failed to absorb the benign spin-off effects of the global state-of-the-art technological developments, particularly in the fields of space and nuclear science. The unrelenting confidentiality of strategic research also discourages many hi-tech private Indian companies from entering into research and production contracts with the defence research establishments since they apprehend being looked askance by their global partners for being associated with top secret strategic research. This is particularly true of the software industry in the private sector. But, on the other hand, if the defence R&D systems are open and transparent, and strong linkages are built up with civil industry and research, it will not only prop up the indigenisation and economic viability of defence and civil manufacturing from domestic market point of view but will also enable both sectors to carve out a niche in the international armament export market, as Indian defence equipment manufacturing would have enhanced its competitiveness due to lower costs on account of an integrated research effort. As a matter of fact, the DRDO did experiment with such joint R&D and production tie-ups with private Indian companies in the early nineties but could not consolidate the arrangement due to infrastructural constraints and bottlenecks. Thus the need is to assiduously institutionalise and concretise such linkages so that the process of indigenisation of defence production becomes spontaneous and
self-sustaining. The writer is Reader, Punjab School of Economics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. |
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Why decry dynastic rule? OFTEN we in India berate our countrymen for what is perceived as their feudal mentality of wanting to preserve the so-called dynastic rule. Perhaps the criticism is rather unfair as evidence shows the phenomenon goes beyond our boundaries and encompasses the entire subcontinent. The death of Sri Lanka’s former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike on Tuesday must make our floggers of “dynastic rule” ponder over the theme. Interestingly, it all began in the island nation in the 1960s, then known as Ceylon. A happy, contented housewife, who enjoyed living in the background of her husband, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike, Sirimavo had her spouse’s mantle thrust on her by cruel circumstances. The assassination of her husband by a Buddhist monk in September, 1959, catapulted her into a political career that was to last 40 years. To begin with, Sirimavo was offered on a platter as it were the leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SFLP) by a grieving and emotional incumbent, C.P. de Silva, early in 1960. The diffident widow hardly had any choice but to accept the offer. Riding on a sympathy wave, another characteristic of the subcontinent, she secured a landslide victory in the elections held a few months later and became the world’s first woman Prime Minister. Almost around the same time, the celebrated “ Nehru-Gandhi” dynasty was striking its roots in India. Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, a shy woman of 42 and darling daughter of India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru, took over as President of the Indian National Congress, once headed by her father and also by her grandfather, Motilal Nehru. Her taking over as Prime Minister in January, 1966, triggered the debate on dynastic rule, first prompted by hard-core Lohiaites and later taken over by frustrated Congressmen themselves. Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi all succeeded the political legacy of the Nehru-Gandhi family. But Sanjay’s career was cut short by his death in an air crash in June, 1980. His ambitious widow, Maneka Gandhi, now a Union Minister, and her son Varun Feroze Gandhi are also the potential inheritors of the dynasty, though they got estranged from it, to the advantage of Sonia Gandhi, now the Congress President. The ground is still fertile for the left-out Nehru-Gandhi family members and the dynasty looks set to flourish for generations. Priyanka Vadra, nee Gandhi, and her brother Rahul are seen as the rightful inheritors of the dynasty by fawning Congressmen. Not to be outdone, the other House of the dynasty is working overtime to get on top. Varun Feroze Gandhi only the other day had a high-profile launch of his work of poetry. The release of his book of poems, illustrated by M.F. Hussain and meticulously planned by mother Maneka, is seen as a virtual political launch of Varun under the guise of literary leap. So, what is wrong with dynastic rule, one may ask, as instances of this phenomenon can be found not only in the subcontinent but the world over. Benazir Bhutto, Begum Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Chandrika Kumaratunga are enjoying the political legacy bequeathed by their father, mother or husband in that order. Benazir came from a political family with her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, having been Prime Minister, who was later hanged by Gen Zia- ul-Haq. In Bangladesh, many years after the cruel assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members, his daughter Hasina is at the helm of affairs as Prime Minister. Her rival Khaleda assumed political office a few years after the assassination of her husband, President Zia-ur-Rahman in 1981. Similar has been the trend in the Philippines, Myanmar and Indonesia where Aquino, Aung San Suu Kyi and Megawati assumed political roles, following in the footsteps of their father or husband. Similar instances can be cited from North Korea where Kim Jong II inherited the political legacy of his famous father, Kim II Sung, in 1994. Even liberal democracies like the USA are not free from this phenomenon as exemplified by the great Kennedy family. The current Republican presidential candidate is the son of former President George Bush. President Clinton’s wife Hillary is contesting for the Senate. So, is political legacy something to be shunned, after all? History has shown that just because of one’s being the son or daughter of a political leader does not necessarily take away the intrinsic merits of the inheritor. For example, both Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike became leaders of global stature by their own merit. The same cannot be said of everyone else in the league of political legacy. Well, politics has traversed an immense distance from the days of Plato, who set rigorous standards for rulers. In his Republic (380 BC) Plato said that in the ideal state there would be no room for nepotism, mediocrity or accident and that rulers would rule exclusively by virtue of their qualifications and abilities. He abolished private households for the ruling class altogether on grounds that the rulers generally tend to promote and safeguard the interest of their kith and kin. |
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Two days to remember On the last day of my career, spanning nearly 40 years, something happened that took me back to December 12, 1979, when I finished teaching course 251 on one American campus. That happened to be the last day before the semester examination. I was about to fold the text and pick up the attendance sheet when one of the front-benchers asked me to "tarry a while." As I looked around I noticed that one by one all the 25 boys and girls were signing the fly page of a de luxe edition of some book. Just the next moment Kelly, Doug and Dan stepped forward to present to me the Holy Bible. "We enjoyed your course, sir," was written on the top of the page followed by the class signatures. Almost 21 years later something of this nature happened on the home turf on September 21, 2000, a day before the autumn recess. It happened in my poetry class with 50 boys and girls with whom I had covered the course poems of Chaucer and Donne. I had never spoken a word, or even given a hint, that I would be retiring that day — finally. But I could guess that a loyal friend had blown the whistle when one of the boys got up and said that he would like to say something. "Perhaps, later", I said and came out of the classroom. Strangely, for the first time, the class didn't "listen" to me. They all trailed me to the faculty lounge where I was in for a feasty surprise. Practically everyone of my colleagues was there at an hour when some of them didn't have a class. Since the students noticed that something special was in the offing, they chose to amble in the hallway and wait for the opportune moment to say "something". As I had already enjoyed the faculty farewell on my first legitimate retirement, the second one three years later simply foxed me. But then entered a genial friend followed by our long-time tea-man loaded with goodies. I also discovered that the unusual brightness in the room was emanating from the sparkling cups and saucers that a charming lady had carried from home. In the midst of the fete the intrepid sector of the class marched in and asked me to accept "a token of respect" from them — a lovely painting with three prancing steeds and a unique shimmering table lamp. "Deja vu"? I said to myself. One of them gave me a piece of paper with a poem that he had written in Hindi. He asked me to read it at home — in perfect privacy. When they left, I understood, for the first time, the meaning of "rapport" and "professional satisfaction". Contrary to the wishes of the young poet, I asked a budding bilingual scholar to read the poem in front of everyone. It was a 21-line poem in fiver quatrains with an incantatory refrain — and the refrain said: "Hum jahan bhi honge, aap bahut yad aaogey." |
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Today is World
Standards Day ALL of us are aware of the rapid technological development taking place throughout the world. Technology provides the means for converting the gifts of nature into goods and services for industrial, economic and social purposes. The growth of a country depends largely on the systematic and rational development of the industrial sector based on the latest achievements of science and technology. In the world of industrialisation, the operative world is standardisation. Man’s continuous striving for perfection, which is the basis of all scientific and industrial development, is reflected in the very structure of standards which seek consistently to incorporate the latest advances in a particular field. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the national standards body, has come to occupy an important, place in the development of the nation and protection of consumers interests. The BIS has demonstrated that it is possible to bring together diverse interests in common endeavour — the officials and the non-officials, the public and the private sector, the producers and the consumers and make them work together in nation-building tasks through development of national standards. The standards development process allows an essential level of consensus, a stable foundation on which to build an agreed route forward. Technical standards are voluntarily conceived, elaborated, adopted and applied by users, ranging all the way from individuals through companies, professional associations to regional groupings and governments. They are developed in the widest global prospective, aiming to offer the greatest good to the greatest numbers. There can be no such thing as an absolute standard, either intellectual or technical. Like morals and ethics that have evolved and been refined over the millennia, international standards in the 21st century are living guidelines and specifications. They must retain a degree of flexibility and be open to adaptation, modernisation and improvement, even withdrawl or replacement when changing circumstances — technologies or markets — so demand. Standardisation in every respect is supportive of basic human wants. From the standpoint of consumer protection it may be said that standards ensure better product reliability and performance, lower costs, more efficient services and a healthier and safer world. One vital role of standards and other technical agreements is to create an equilibrium — a form of peace, from all the competing technical, economic, social and environmental pressures that make up our modern world. Like the building blocks of construction, standard and standardisation are the foundation on which our industrial society is built. Standardisation help all of us and simplifies our needs, thereby bringing peace and prosperity in our life. Standards are hence essential technical documents whose ultimate beneficiaries are human beings. The Bureau of Indian Standards, the national standards body of the country, is making conscious efforts to take formulation of standards in direct co-operation with consumer organisations with the aim of safeguarding their interests. The BIS has made concerted efforts to bring about orderly growth of the country’s economy by bringing into its standardisation fold the basic needs of human beings. The BIS has formulated around 400 standards in the field of water resources development and management. Most of the Indian standards on irrigation equipment are based on corresponding international standards. The role of standards on food products, processes and equipment is very important. Standards provide the needed guidelines to the entrepreneurs in ensuring right practices to be followed during various stages, such as storage, transportation, processing and packing. A large number of Indian standards have been formulated on food products, processes and equipment. To gear up the fast changing scenario in the food industries, the BIS has adopted the Codex Standard on Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point (HACCP) system as per IS: 15000 for the overall benefit of all concerned. Shelter, one of the three basic requirements of human beings, has been covered by the BIS by formulating over 2100 standards in the field of civil engineering with the view to standardising construction norms. Adoption of standards on environment (ISO: 14000) by the BIS will play a positive role in reducing the negative impact on the environment. This will also lead to improvement of the quality of life and sustainable development and prosperity. The BIS has also adopted the quality system series of standards prepared by the International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO: 9000 series). These system standards are the guiding force behind the systematic development of product and services and also encourage continuous improvement. The BIS has developed a large number of Indian standards to serve personal, material and labour safety. They effect millions of workers, employees and the whole population everyday both at work area and in houses. |
On the spot IN a squalid, little town in Uttar Pradesh last week a young businessman made me understand the price we are paying for corruption in a way I never have before. Until I met him I had always viewed corruption from what could best be described as a metropolitan perspective. Like other big city reporters. I am familiar with those suitcases of black money that arrive at election time at the doorsteps of even supposedly honest politicians. I am also familiar with the money that gets made by ministers and high officials off deals involving major government spending. Money that comes not just from big arms purchases but even from something as supposedly innocuous as condom-vending machines. A few years ago the Health Ministry bought them in bulk, ostensibly to facilitate family planning in rural India by placing them in dhabas. I look out for them in the course of my travels and have never seen one but rumour in the corridors of power has it that they were bought mainly for someone to make a great deal of money very quickly. And, so it is with guns, fertiliser, aeroplanes and virtually everything else. This kind of corruption is what Indira Gandhi once memorably described as a “global phenomenon”. We hear of it in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and even in western countries where it is supposedly much harder for politicians to be corrupt. In India it usually benefits politicians and high officials without actually causing serious damage to the country. Our war in Kargil proved, for instance, that Bofors may have paid bribes to sell us their guns but they were guns worth buying. Where you see corruption causing actual, physical harm to the fabric of India is in the small towns and villages and this is where my businessman friend comes in. The subject of corruption came up almost the minute I walked into his attractive, air-conditioned living room. I had driven for nearly three hours through the wasteland that Uttar Pradesh has become. I described to him the squalor of the villages and towns I had passed through. Bazaars’ filled with the stench of uncleaned drains and rotting garbage, roads so filled with craters that it was hard to believe they had ever been repaired, hideous, unplanned town centres and just the general sense of decay. How did he manage to live in his comfortable, modern home knowing that just outside the gates was the horror of a state going visibly to seed? With difficulty, he admitted, because he knew that at the root of everything was corruption. “The road outside my house, the one you just drove down, was built only a few months ago and you’ve seen what it looks like but do you know why? Because some contractor related to someone was given the contract and he ate more than half the money. I have tried complaining about it to the local administration but nobody could care less because in the past 10 years I cannot remember a single District Magistrate who wasn’t corrupt”. I asked him to explain exactly what he meant and he said that the most powerful people in this town were those who belonged to the “liquor mafia”. These are men who have made huge amounts of money out of dealing in liquor and they use it to buy government officials and politicians. To even become a member of this liquor mafia you need money because licenses to sell liquor have to be bought from officials who sell them at a premium. This, though, was not the worst of it. “In this town the new head of the Zila Parishad is a well-known criminal. He has murder charges against him but has managed to buy his way into politics. He did not win the election but a few days afterwards the Superintendent of Police announced him elected. He said he had ordered a re-count to get this result. How can we hope for better administration with a man like that in charge?” There was corruption in everything, he added, corruption so ugly that nearly all the money the Centre gave for poverty alleviation programmes got eaten up long before it got to the people it was meant for. When criminals and thugs manage to ‘win’ Zila Parishad elections they see politics as a game of making money and gaining power. So, money meant for development is really only money for lining someone’s pocket? This kind of corruption has a trickle down effect and all the way down to the village level almost everyone in a position of power (however minor) uses every opportunity he can to make money. How can there ever be development? With criminals managing to buy their way into local government the police inevitably becomes part of the game. How can it be otherwise when policemen know that the men they are protecting were wanted criminals before they acquired their cars with red lights and their squads of bodyguards? I asked the businessman whether he could say of the police what he had said of IAS officers that they were all corrupt. And, from this question came the only happy story he told me that day. “The police is less corrupt” he said. “You can say that in U.P. there are at least some honest policemen left — about 20 per cent. And, some try hard to change things. There was a young police officer in Dehra Dun called Abhinav Kumar who against all advice dared to file criminal charges against an SP-city who stole a computer that officially belonged to the police. As soon as he managed to get an FIR (first information report) registered against the SP the computer was returned. But, it is a losing battle because caste comes into everything in U.P. as well so a criminal in power is usually protected by the caste he belongs to”. The result of the vicious cycle is evident to even a casual traveller through U.P. It has already begun to resemble Bihar. This is particularly true of the state’s eastern area that borders that state. And, according to my businessman friend, nothing will change unless a government comes to power in Lucknow that is prepared to deal seriously with the problem of corruption. It is because the state’s BJP Government has shown itself to be singularly unable to do this that it will probably lose the next election. So, who will win? Will it be the Congress? Unlikely, because the party has not managed to build itself up as a serious contender for power. It is the old caste equations that will decide matters and it will be caste crusaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati who will be in the forefront. Both have ruled U.P. before and at no time did they show signs of being able to control the spread of corruption that has grown and spread like some terminal disease. What can be done? Nobody knows. Nobody has any answers. |
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There are signs by which you can know whether a man has truly seen God. One of these is joy; there is no hesitancy in him. He is like the ocean; the waves and sounds are on the surface; below are profound depths. The man who has seen God behaves sometime like a mad man, Sometimes like a ghoul, without any feeling of purity and impurity; sometimes like an inert thing, remaining speechless because he sees god within and without; sometimes like a child, without any attachment, wandering about unconcernedly with his cloth under his arm. Again, in the mood of a child he acts in different ways: sometimes like a boy indulging in frivolity; sometimes like a young man, working and teaching with the strength of a lion. — The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, chapter 35 *** Birth and death, bondage and freedom, pleasure and pain, gain and loss, are mental creations. Transcend the pairs of opposites. You were never born you will never die. Thou are the immortal self… Thou are ever free… it is the physical body that goes and comes. — Swami Shivananda, Bliss Divine, Introduction. *** Just as precious diamonds do not deteriorates into the dirt of swamps and the running veins of pure gold keep their place within the heart of the earth and are loath to mix with the brittle soil in mines, even while their luminosity distinguishes and separates them from the volatile disintegrating dust, so does man bear a distinctive attribute in his earthly, natural being, which is also luminous and has a separate life of undertake. — Hazrat Salaheddin Ali Nader Shah Angha, Peace: Man the Heavenly. *** Religious faith is logically and spiritually self-sufficient and can lead to new dimensions of being and experience… Faith is a passage to eternity, a preface or introduction
to God …. It is through the agency of name that one can reach god and achieve eternity. — Ved P. Sekhri, The Philosophy of Faith *** The world is a vast stage, in which a drama of the kind of a variety show is taking place. In order to get pleasure from witnessing the drama it is necessary to see it as a neutral observer. —Raj Yogi B. K. Jagdish Chander, HumanVvalues, Mora1 Values and Spiritual Values |
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