O P I N I O N S

Perspective

Scientific research: Making universities accountable
by Rupamanjari Ghosh
INFRASTRUCTURE plays a vital important role in raising the quality of teaching and research in the universities. Shortage is a persistent problem. How critical has it become in today’s context of globalisation of education?

On Record
We don’t have a minority status, says Jamia VC
by Charu Singh
Leading historian, academician and educationist, Professor Mushirul Hassan, the Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Milli Islamia is committed to changing the face of the university.  He is not only introducing discipline with an iron fist in the university campus but also bringing a fresh and dynamic vision to the university with plans of raising its standards to that of a premier research institution at par with the best in the world

OPED

Comments Unkempt
Breast food the best for babies
by Chanchal Sarkar
IBFAN is a non-government organisation which attempts to protect baby life and baby food. Before 20 members IBFAN which has 200 affiliates round the world who devotedly do their protective work around 2,000 government and non-governmental examples placed before and examined by IBFAN.

Profile
Buddha ushers in perestroika
by Harihar Swarup
Gorbachev made a valiant, though belated, bid to bring perestroika and glasnost in a decaying communist system, but failed. Consequently, it led to the split of the mighty Soviet Union. The break up of the USSR had signalled the demise of Marxism the world over. But the ideology propounded by Karl Marx and Lenin was not dead.

Diversities — Delhi Letter
Woes of missing men’s families continue
by Humra Quraishi
August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared. This year, there couldn’t have been more focus on the over 7,000 missing men of the Kashmir Valley. It is for the first time that activists of the Srinagar-based Association of Parents  of Disappeared Persons travelled down to the Capital City to hold a meeting at the Indian Social Institute.

• Project on good governance

• Indians in Pak prisons

• The lesser known bond

REFLECTIONS

Perspective

Scientific research: Making universities accountable
by Rupamanjari Ghosh

INFRASTRUCTURE plays a vital important role in raising the quality of teaching and research in the universities. Shortage is a persistent problem. How critical has it become in today’s context of globalisation of education? What are the new challenges in this sector? Can we expect the state to provide the resources needed for proper development and maintenance of infrastructure in the universities today?

The thrust of applied research originates from market forces, industries or the demands of the state (Department of Defence, Space, Atomic Energy etc.). But what should be our policy for basic and fundamental research? The state cannot abandon fundamental research, the infrastructure for which should be viewed as a long-term investment. This is not a luxury at the cost of the public. If the state abandons fundamental research, applied research will be hit, and India cannot become self-reliant in knowledge society.

Most state universities are over-centralised, bureaucratic and monopolistic. They tend to ignore the needs of the students and the industry and offer only irrelevant courses. Consequently, the number of educated unemployed is growing. The competition in the Indian economy is far too low, mainly because of mediocrity in state universities. We should try to ensure a healthy competition among these universities and try to stop the brain drain.

However, there are no short cuts to excellence. Higher education demands long-range planning. The university system can be reformed and made more efficient administratively, but that is not the same as trying to economise and cut costs in research.

The universities should be strengthened for research. The thrust areas cannot be dictated by market forces alone. Unlike a factory product, the value of research to society can only be judged in retrospect. The universities should be primarily knowledge generation centres where students learn best by researching. Then, the quality of education goes up. And so does the quality of research.

Cost wise, research should subsidise education and education should subsidise research. In such a system, only institutions with proven ability of knowledge generation (and not merely teaching) should get the status of a university. As regards state funding of research and infrastructure, one must be careful. Valuable research cannot exist without autonomous and powerful research institutions and universities capable of educating the young, responding to the rapid evolution of knowledge in the international arena.

Even in the US, the private industry depends heavily on the public sector. In the health sector, for example, major pharmaceutical companies function as financial companies who buy out successful start-ups developed in academic research. There is almost no private pharmaceutical research left in the US. The same holds good in Europe.

There is a paradoxical situation with regard to information infrastructure. We all have benefited from the smooth and rapid flow of information. Ironically, however, while we have got the information revolution in the areas of semiconductor electronics to photonics to the world-wide-web (WWW), there have been increasing attempts to legislate intellectual property rights and copyright on database, to turn scientific information into private property capable of yielding commercial benefit. Where does this lead us?

Any lack of financial resources would now mean the lack of development of capabilities to produce scientific knowledge needed to become a full member of the “science knowledge economy”. Our research budget should include the cost of access to necessary privatised resources, be it the license for a specialised software or a basic laboratory technique, or subscriptions to scientific journals or electronic publishing.

In India, the University Grants Commission has taken some initiatives to catch on to this information revolution, in providing campus-wide networks to all colleges and universities and also setting up its own nationwide communication network named UGC-Infonet, with the help of ERNET India Society under the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The INFLIBNET Centre, the UGC’s autonomous Inter-University Centre, is working as the coordinating and monitoring agency, and is also responsible for providing training to university librarians in the use of this network. The UGC is also making some e-journals available over the UGC-Infonet to all the universities. But this is a no-win situation for a third world country.

Earlier, one could easily draw a line between basic and applied science and argue that basic science was a public good that should be freely accessible to all — governments were justified supporting the work of university researchers out of public funds, and it was generally forbidden to take out patents on basic scientific discoveries. Information technology and biotechnology seem to have changed all this. The timescale between a discovery and its technological application has shortened dramatically in these fields, and thus the boundary between basic and applied science has become somewhat blurred.

In the process, the constituent elements of basic scientific activity, and not just their technological and end products, have gained an apparent commercial value. This implies that profits may be made by those who develop new research tools either by selling to others the right to use them in their own research or by excluding them.

All over the world, government policies reflect this trend, and India is no exception. Irrespective of the fields of research and their strong points, university researchers are encouraged to privatise scientific knowledge and generate income from selling the right to the results of (often government-funded) research. On a global scale, this commercialisation is bound to widen the knowledge gap between rich and poor countries at a time when the marginal costs of access to electronic information is offering a way to close the knowledge gap.

Also the vision of research dictated by such commercial gains alone would be blinkered and the national gain would at best be short term. The academic community, with its traditional commitment to the open communication of information, can only provide these thoughts. The political community should follow up these with action. 

The writer is Professor of Physics, School of Physical Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

On Record
We don’t have a minority status, says Jamia VC
by Charu Singh

Prof Mushirul Hassan

Leading historian, academician and educationist, Professor Mushirul Hassan, the Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Milli Islamia is committed to changing the face of the university. He is not only introducing discipline with an iron fist in the university campus but also bringing a fresh and dynamic vision to the university with plans of raising its standards to that of a premier research institution at par with the best in the world. Mushirul enjoys good reputation in the academic circles. He was the Director, Academy of Third World Studies. Earlier, he had been Professor of Modern Indian History at the university. He has published several books, edited many more and has brought out an endless series of historical papers.

Excerpts:

Q: What is your vision for the university?

A: Ah! First of all, I would like to transform the university’s image of being a religious institution to that of a modern, secular institution. This current image is extremely corrupt, false and unfair to Jamia. However, this is not an easy task. These stereotypes of Muslim and Islam are so firmly embedded in individual and collective consciousness and memories with reference to Jamia. I firmly believe this is worth the effort as Jamia in the past has made a very significant contribution to the ideology of secular nationalism. It is a living example of an institution wedded to secular and modern values.

Q: What is the current focus of the university?

A: The university’s main focus is to introduce more and more research and to raise its profile in this area. To achieve this, we have launched five new research centres six months back. These are, namely, the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, the Centre for West Asian Studies, the Centre for Spanish and Latin American Studies, the Centre for the Study of Comparative Religions and Civilisations and the Centre for Education for Secularism and Social Justice. Further, it is good news that we have just received a no-objection certificate from the Delhi Government to start a dental college. We have also associated over a dozen eminent scholars, journalists, former ambassadors and many other very distinguished people with our research centres. I hope that these centres will help facilitate a first-rate environment for research at the university. I am very satisfied with our outreach programme at the localities. We have currently started a computer programme, a reading room and a very sophisticated digital equaliser programme which is open to common people living in the localities.

Q: How unique is Jamia’s uniqueness compared with other educational institutions?

A: Our institution is unique because it rests on certain principles that it has inherited from its past like tolerance, plurality and intellectual dissent. At Jamia, we make no difference between Hindu and Muslim students.

What makes us different is that we fulfil the appetite of students from the not-so-affluent backgrounds. A number of scholarships are offered by the Dean of Student Welfare for students from humble backgrounds. Our clientele is drawn from a much wider social and economic base than any other university. Further, it is only in Jamia that there is educational connectivity literally from the nursery through school to college and university. Jamia runs a modest school network as well. This entire situation is in consonance with the Gandhian idea of basic education.

Q: How do you ensure quality in education?

A: There is an entrance examination for all courses and there is no quota for Muslims here. We are a completely nationalist institution.

Q: What are the popular courses at Jamia?

A: The Mass Communication Research Centre is a very prestigious institution and most sought after by students. This year we have had over 14,000 candidates for the entrance examination for our Engineering College. Also, the Business Management course, the Architecture course and the Faculty of Education are very popular.

Q: What are your future plans for Jamia?

A: The future lies in raising the university’s academic profile and creating the necessary infrastructure for both teaching and research. Let me add that Jamia has suffered years of neglect, but it is only the present Union Human Resource Development Minister, Mr Arjun Singh, who has paid attention to our needs and has sanctioned Rs 44 crore as a special grant. I stress that all his predecessors did not fulfil any of the promises they made to this institution.

Q: Are you satisfied with the university having acquired minority status?

A: We do not have any minority status. There is no minority status and this is a completely false perception that people have about Jamia.

Q: Are the students going to be allowed to hold elections this year?

A: I am committed to the students holding elections again after a ban of some 7-8 years.

Q: Sometime back there was some unrest at the university on the hostel issue. Has this been amicably resolved?

A: There was no controversy on the hostel front. It was simply a misunderstanding on the part of the students. They have realised the fact that this was not in their interest. The matter stands resolved now.

Breaking barriers in panchayats
by Dharam Pal More

EVER since Parliament passed the Constitution 73rd (Amendment) Act and empowered over a million women, they have been struggling to translate their numerical strength into active participation. Sceptics say, some women do what they are told by their men. This may be true to some extent but this is not the whole story.

India has 2,32,278 village panchayats, 5905 intermediate panchayats and 499 district panchayats. Today around 10 lakh women are elected to panchayats once in every five years. They head about 175 district panchayats, known as Zilla Parishads, over 2,000 Block Samithis and 85,000 Gram Panchayats. There are also all-women panchayats in many states.

The women elected to these bodies have shown startling results, particularly in health and education sectors. Quite often, they have successfully resisted the forces trying to question their new role. Even in the strong patriarchal culture, the one-third reservation has encouraged women to demonstrate their leadership. Apparently, not all women are often consulted or involved, but their presence itself has made a big change in their status and empowerment.

Participation, in whatever form, is the key to empowerment. For a woman, it is a challenge to attend meetings today. Later, she might take decisions and still later, initiate group activity. In times to come, such women would influence the crucial decision-making process.

Studies in Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh show that reservation has empowered women in panchayats and a new leadership has emerged among women. Since their performance largely depends upon their level of education, exposure and understanding, the situation will improve with the improvement in their education levels. The cases of women asserting their rights and denying interference from husbands are on the rise.

In Himachal Pradesh, women, who organised rallies against the illegal distillation of liquor and protection of environment, have a tremendous potential for participating in developmental activities. In Punjab, women have taken stand on issues relating to girl child, nutrition, drinking water and sanitation. They have organised literacy courses and ensured increased attendance of girls and boys in schools.

Elected women have created a niche for themselves in the panchayats, mostly a male bastion. Today’s women are ready to challenge the feudal traditions in all areas of their socio-political life. Therefore, there is no need to be cynical about their capabilities. Instead, one needs to be optimistic and make provisions for a congenial, facilitating and hassle-free political environment.

The writer is Lecturer, Department of Social Work, Punjabi University, Patiala

OPED

Comments Unkempt
Breast food the best for babies
by Chanchal Sarkar

IBFAN is a non-government organisation (NGO) which attempts to protect baby life and baby food. Before 20 members IBFAN (International Baby Food Action Network) which has 200 affiliates round the world who devotedly do their protective work around 2,000 government and non-governmental examples placed before and examined by IBFAN.

IBFAN seeks to protect a ring round coding devices trying to protect breast food manufacturers against those who try to bring in substitutes Nestle, for instance, and break all attempts to have a ring of protestors.

The story of IBFAN is one of a fight against codes who unite the big names in the world. The process has saved million of children lives, and millions are still being saved. Annalies Allain has written the story of the network’s struggles, both nationally and internationally and highlights into the obstacles encountered while trying to move and oppose international bureaucracy to uphold the spirit of decision moved by its own governing body in the face of persistent corporate lobbying. Such lobbying attempts to save breast food from destruction bit by bit. IBFAN is only one such body attempting to save breast food.

The Secretary General of WHO, for 15 years, Halfdan Mahlar, who asked UNICFF to help in the struggle found that all parties were engaged in the long battle. The answer to monitored and coded manufacture was, a combination of NGOs campaigning for breast feeding. An international Code was to be make applicable to all manufactures.

It is the NGOs who persisted in lobbying for a international code for the manufacture and marketing of breast food. The major contribution of NGO like INFABN is that MNCs should have their own codes of conduct to create wealth through their practice. The main contribution of Annalies Allain is to dispel such illusion.

Over the past century, breast feeding declined constantly due to various social, economic and cultural causes. In the 1940s and 50s, Western medical and nutritional advice to mothers portrayed bottle feeding as equal to an even better then breast feeding. This created beliefs and attitudes spread in the rest of the world. Depriving babies under those conditions of the immunological protection and the exceptional nutrition provided by breast milk exposed them to a much higher risk of illness, morbiolity and death.

Nevertheless, private bodies continued to produce substitute of breastfeeding and market substitutes for breast food throughout the world. Looking back at this, IBFAN has achieved a great deal by getting over 200 affiliates under its umbrella and also an International Code for marketing baby food. From this struggle and the walk down the Ovre Slotsgatan 2, housing the Dag Hammerskjold Foundation and in the background, WHO and UNICFF standing solidly made for setting up the IBFAN monitors of the Baby Food Market.

Slowly, very slowly, we try to make amends for mistakes we collectively make. It’s now been established for sometime that breast food is the best for the babies and that every effort should be made to protect it from all substitutes’ attempts by processing bodies throughout the world to flood markets with substitutes. This has saved millions of human lives.

We have to be careful how we proceed. In Malaysia, for instance, Nestle dominated the food market in 2001, its profits exceeded the country’s GDP.

Annalies Allain’s story is a tribute to not just the survival but the flourishing of a people’s network for the past 25 years. Despite the failures in persuading government to live up their commitments and the difficulty of forcing giant corporations to abide by their providion. The system is to be a third system of the combined strength of ordinary citizens in group and networks supporting a common cause. Where do we have it here — to protect breast feeding, IBFAN provides an excellent example of what an NGO can do and provides hope for the future.

The spread of bottle feeding to poor people impounded the inferiority of artificial breathing substitutes with the problems of poverty: lack of clean water, widespread illness, weak health care and nutritional services. Depriving babies under those conditions of the immunological protection and the exceptional nutrition provided by breast milk exposed them to a much higher risk of illness, morbiolity and death.

Manufacturer certified milks and baby foods have persisted in the promotion of breast milk substitutes especially in maternity wards and hospitals where unwritten matters are looked into their products and made dependent. That is why it was necessary to act to curb those marketing practices. This gave rise to the movement of protest against unethical marketing breast milk substitutes which eventually end to the adoption of the code. Nestles’ seem to provide cases of the opposite.

James Grant, former Executive Director of UNICFF, said: “Exclusive breast feeding goes a long way towards cancelling out the health difference between being born into poverty and being born into affluence. It is almost as if breast feeding takes the infant only poverty for those first months in order to give the child a fairer start in life and compensate for the injustice of the world into which it was born.

Profile
Buddha ushers in perestroika
by Harihar Swarup

Buddhadeb Bhattacharya

Gorbachev made a valiant, though belated, bid to bring perestroika and glasnost in a decaying communist system, but failed. Consequently, it led to the split of the mighty Soviet Union. The break up of the USSR had signalled the demise of Marxism the world over. But the ideology propounded by Karl Marx and Lenin was not dead. It needed to be reformed to keep pace with the changing times. China realised this soon but followers of Marxism in India remained far behind in time. The Karats, the Yechuris and the Bardhans went on ranting and raving. But the man who is poised to bring perestroika in the mindset of Marxists in India is West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. He may bring perestroika in the areas where Gorbachev failed though the times and the background of the two leaders have been different.

Nobody would have believed till Buddha babu’s visit to Singapore and Indonesia that the CPM leadership may fall in line with his slogan — ‘Reform, Perform or Perish’. Evidently, what Buddha babu thinks today, his party comrades think tomorrow.

His message to them is clear — Communists should not speak any more about old dogmas but have to formulate new policies and reform old ones. The reaction of the Left parties and, more significantly, of Buddha babu’s own party to what might have been considered sacrilege a few months back was, surprisingly, quite subdued. Instead of being dubbed as a “bad Communist”, his initiative was welcomed by top leaders of the Marxist party and one of them was Jyoti Basu.

Jyoti Basu, the veteran leader, considered authoritarian voice of the Left, extended full-throated support to Buddha babu’s reform initiative and his ambitious plan to build an industrial park with Indonesia’s controversial Salem Group. Once much maligned in the communist world for having links with former President Suharto in whose regime thousands of Communists were murdered, the Salem Group has now undertaken massive development works in China and Vietnam. “There is nothing unfair in what Buddhadeb has been doing with Salem Group. There is absolutely no problem”, said Jyoti Basu.

Support also came in for the Marxist Chief Minister’s reform initiative by an important Politburo member, Anil Biswas. He silenced murmur of protests by asserting that “industries do not come up in the sky. We must provide land for industries if we want to take the state forward”.

His assertion was on the same wave length as that of Buddha babu for whom economic reforms are as important as land reforms. The most publicised achievement of the West Bengal Government, however, remains land reforms. Basing his argument on this accomplishment, the Chief Minister has been pursuing the policy of seeking foreign investment as the next stage of industrial development.

Doubtless, after being sworn in Chief Minister in May, 2001, following Left Front’s victory in the Assembly elections, Buddha babu initiated changes that provided a new dimension to the Left Front rule. He was often quoted as saying in interviews that even though the Marxist government’s real strength lay in its achievements in rural Bengal, it has to look at the requirements of the new generation in the light of the scientific and technological developments.

“We Marxists are realists. We understand that change is essential to life. There is no point in holding on to a dogma. We shall have to change our policies according to the changing situation. We must adopt to new environment. Otherwise, we will be nowhere in the picture”.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is, perhaps, the happiest person at the changing mindset of the Marxists. He has lauded Buddha babu as a “role model” and called upon other Chief Ministers to emulate him.

Some traits of the 62-year- old Buddha babu’s personality are little known outside Bengal. He is known to be incorruptible, never bestows undue favours on anybody and is noted for his frank speaking.

His habit of calling a spade a spade is often mistaken as arrogance so much so that many in his own partymen call him ill-tempered. But he is suave and cultured, has literary interests and feels more at home in the company of writers, poets and intellectuals.

He has authored several plays, composed poems and also translated noted Russian writer Mayakovsky’s work into Bengali. One of his much acclaimed play is Dushsamay (bad times) which, incidentally, he wrote when he resigned from the Basu Cabinet in mid-nineties. He was briefly out of the government. That was really a bad time for him.

Buddha babu’s uncle, Sukant Bhattacharya, was the revolutionary poet of Bengal who died at an young age. But his political Guru was Pramod Dasgupta, known to be one of the founding fathers of the Communist movement.

Diversities — Delhi Letter
Woes of missing men’s families continue
by Humra Quraishi

Arundhati Roy

August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared. This year, there couldn’t have been more focus on the over 7,000 missing men of the  Kashmir Valley. It is for the first time that activists of the Srinagar-based Association of Parents  of Disappeared Persons (APDP) travelled down to the Capital City to hold a meeting at the Indian Social Institute.

Accompanying them were several Kashmiri mothers and half widows whose sons and husbands had been picked up in the Valley for  interrogation by the security  agencies. And  they never got back home. Spread over four hours, the highlight of this meet was the screening of a documentary on the daily turmoil the families of the disappeared face.

Parveena Ahangar, mother of a disappeared boy and one of the co-founders of APDP appealed amidst sobs, "My teenaged son Javed was picked up by security agencies. Years have passed and yet there is no sign of him". Most women wept bitterly that afternoon.

Writer Arundhati Roy, who spoke at this meet, told the packed hall that she had  been travelling in the Kashmir Valley and had  got back from there just a day before. The human rights violations being  committed by the security the security  have shaken her. She spoke rather  passionately along the strain that tension is taking its toll on the people of the Valley and that the reality of the prevailing  situation is seldom spoken about.

One of the speakers, Sehba Husain, who was working on an OXFAM project in the Valley, was so overpowered by emotions that she couldn’t even go beyond a few sentences whilst recounting her experiences working amongst the affected people of the valley. Her voice was choked.

Project on good governance

Whilst still on the happenings in the Valley, let me also write about this  particular project. The Institute of Social Sciences had earlier this year  taken up a sponsored project on "Strengthening of good governance in Jammu and Kashmir" which meant reviewing existing training structures and facilities in Jammu and Kashmir and to develop a suitable learning package for the 20,000 elected  members of the panchayats in this state.

The ISS Director, Dr George Mathew, informs that they have just  completed  the  institutional and pedagogical survey of the existing training facilities and structures in the state. Last week, they held a briefing session in which the  parliamentarians from that state were apprised of the details.

Though this writer could not attend this briefing session, the question that has been nagging her is that can good governance actually prevail  when there is such a heavy military presence? During this writer’s tour of the valley, she was distressed to learn that many a time the elected MLA   had little say in detentions and arrests and ‘disappearances’ of  men and women from his constituency.

Indians in Pak prisons

War Widows Association Chairperson Mohini Giri is focusing on the Indians in  jails across Pakistan. She says that Sarabjeet Singh in Pakistan is just one story. There are more than 54 Sarabjeet Singhs in Pakistan jail. Yes, it  is true evidence proved time and again that there are  54 Indian prisoners of war (POWs) in Pakistan jail. Both India and Pakistan  have testimonies of this.

She says that Article 118 of the Third Geneva Convention that has been signed by almost all countries of the world states that "Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.

She would come up with more details about India’s POWs at a Press meet on September 5 at the Press Club of India.

The lesser known bond

An upcoming exhibition, titled "Sui Dhaga — Crossing Boundaries Through Needle and Thread" to be held at the India International Centre the coming week, would focus on the lesser known bond between women across several countries.

The exhibition would have on display items with  ‘Phulkari’  embroidery which is common to both India and Pakistan and also the ‘Rabari’ embroidery which is common to India and Baluchistan and Iran and also other forms of embroidery like ‘Kantha’ and ‘Chikan’.

All along this writer was under the impression that Chikan embroidery was exclusive to the Avadhi region of the country, but items exhibited on this exhibition would  prove wrong. For it claims that Chikan  embroidery is common to India, Afghanistan and Iran.

REFLECTIONS

Can a completely amoral man win divine grace? Surely he can. The path of selfless deeds is open to all.

— Book of quotations on Hinduism

Faith is like love: it cannot be forced.

— Book of quotations on Religion

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth. Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside!

— Kabir