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Obama’s health-care idea
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Promotion as a right Merit and performance vital, not just seniority Wednesday’s Supreme Court judgement that promotion is the fundamental right of an employee under Article 16 of the Constitution is bound to cheer up millions of officers and employees working at the Centre and in the states.
Confusion after Koirala
Real illusions
Fall from grace
Going downhill in Himachal
Lucknow Diary Corrections and clarifications
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Obama’s health-care idea
President
Barack Obama has added perhaps the best feather to his cap by providing some kind of health insurance cover to all the US citizens. His idea of ensuring the right to health care became a reality when he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Bill on Wednesday. The Bill, bringing about historic health-care reforms, was passed by the US House of Representatives on Sunday by a narrow margin. The significance of the Bill, which has now become an Act, lies in the fact that the 32 million US citizens without any health insurance cover in a country with a population of 308 million will also join the ranks of the privileged Americans. It is no mean achievement when very few can afford proper health care in the US on their own. Now the insurance companies will not be able to deny health coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. The long-awaited law will cost the US exchequer $940 billion over 10 years. But it is so designed that it can bring down the federal budget deficit in the years to come. The idea of a universal health insurance facility has been on top of President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda ever since he entered White House in January 2009. But gradually people got the impression that it was being relegated to the background. Mr Obama was seen to be concentrating more on how to extricate the US from Iraq and Afghanistan than on domestic issues. It was not without reason that his popularity rating declined considerably. He took up the universal health insurance project with renewed vigour only after the Republican victory in the recently held elections in the left-leaning Massachusetts state. Can we in India, too, think of having what the US citizens have got? Experts believe that it is not possible to implement the Obama idea with the help of private health insurance providers because of the very low per capita income in India — around Rs 50,000. However, this should spur us to launch a debate for extending the scope of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY), meant for only the below poverty line (BPL) families. There are nearly half a billion Indians who have to fend for themselves if we take into account those covered under the RSBY and the Central Government Health Scheme.
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More varsities, colleges
CALL him a man in hurry or one with vision, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal is determined to put higher education on a fast track. After clearing the decks for the Foreign Education Providers Bill, the HRD Minister is now planning to relax credit-lending norms to attract private sector investment in education. Allowing more private players in education is an appreciable decision since there is little doubt that India, where the Gross Enrolment Ratio is a dismal 12 per cent, needs colleges and universities aplenty. Since Independence, India’s education system has expanded vastly and the private sector has played a key role in it. Yet, the quality of education imparted by many colleges and universities in India remains below par and even the Prime Minister has expressed concern over it. The earlier move of the government to de-recognise many “deemed universities” is another case in point that India’s higher education needs quality check and monitoring. Besides, India faces a deficit of skilled manpower. The Centre is aware of the problem and has resolved to focus on the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) and polytechnics to develop high-quality skilled workforce and to create 500 million skilled people by 2022. However, it must see to it that the promise does not remain on paper. Job-oriented courses can be the backbone of not only India’s education system but also its growing economy that requires more and more trained and skilled persons, not unemployable graduates. Simply increasing the number of higher educational institutions will not address the education needs of India. Shortage of teachers, infrastructure problems and use of technology to set up virtual universities are some of the issues that the government needs to look into. Moreover, allowing greater private investment in education is no excuse for the government to spend little on higher education. Whether accreditation of education institutions will change the face of higher education or not, India’s education system needs to be revamped and rejuvenated with the right mix of control and autonomy. The grand vision of 600 more universities and 35,000 colleges is welcome, provided it is not at the cost of academic meritocracy and ensures that the only aim of private participation is not to rake in the moolah.
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Promotion as a right
Wednesday’s Supreme Court judgement that promotion is the fundamental right of an employee under Article 16 of the Constitution is bound to cheer up millions of officers and employees working at the Centre and in the states. A Bench consisting of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly not only pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for its delay in promoting the State Civil Service officers in 2003 but also questioned its failure to conduct the cadre review for over two years for promoting the officers after Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000. The Bench took the government to task for searching for alibis like the use of the word “ordinarily” in the statute and made it clear that periodic cadre review meetings are “mandatory”. While there could be exceptions in the facts of a given case, the government’s “lethargy, inaction and irresponsibility” cannot fall within the category of such exceptions, the Bench observed. Though the ruling comes as a welcome relief for the Uttar Pradesh officers, one cannot overlook the larger question — the criteria for promotions. It can be legitimately argued that promotion should necessarily be linked to one’s merit and performance. An officer or an employee cannot be promoted only because he/she has put in many years of service. Several government officers at the Centre and in the states have a poor track record. An unjust time-scale promotion and empanelment system and lack of commitment on the part of the civil servants to serve the country have adversely affected governance at various levels. If the service delivery system has collapsed today, it is because of the lack of accountability in the system. Corrupt civil servants enjoy immunity under Article 311 of the Constitution and continue in service while honest and upright officers are either victimised by political masters or not rewarded for excellence. No doubt, promotion is a great incentive. It inspires and motivates officers and employees to give their best for the organisation. But there is a need to evolve suitable criteria for a just and fair promotion system. And this can be ensured only when promotion is linked to the officers’ merit and performance and not just seniority.
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Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. — Lord Brougham
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Confusion after Koirala
THE
death of Girija Prasad Koirala has removed the pivotal figure of Nepal’s fragile democracy. With Koirala gone and Ganesh Man Singh having died earlier, only Krishna Prasad Bhattarai remains of what was once the Nepali Congress’s (NC) first generation troika. Five times Prime Minister, Koirala was easily the tallest of Nepal’s leaders, instrumental in putting his country on the path of a constitutional republic. No one leader has done more in ending the 10-year-long Maoist people’s war, bringing the Maoists into the political mainstream and stimulating the historic makeover of Nepal through the landmark peace process - which could not have materialised without India’s help. Breaking protocol, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a special gesture in 2006 by receiving visiting Prime Minister Koirala at the airport. But he did not repeat this special gesture for him and India-Nepal friendship by leading the Indian delegation to Kathmandu for his funeral. His condolence message contained a major factual error - G.P. Koirala was “the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Nepal”. No, he was not. It was his brother, BP Koirala, who earned that honour in 1959. All major changes in Nepal have occurred with India’s direct involvement. The 104-year Rana rule was ended in 1950 by Prime Minister Nehru personally forging a tripartite agreement between the Ranas, the King and the NC which had launched the country’s first armed revolution. A huge row broke out between Kathmandu and New Delhi after King Mahendra sacked the elected government of Prime Minister BP Koirala in 1960, leading to the 30-year partyless panchayat palace rule. An imperfect multiparty democracy was restored in 1990 after India imposed a de facto economic blockade which led to the second but peaceful revolution. In 2002, King Gyanendra dismissed the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deupa and ran the government through his handpicked nominees. Though India maintained silence over this development, it cried foul when King Gyanendra seized executive powers through a coup like his father had in 1960. This prompted New Delhi to arrange secret talks between GP Koirala and the Maoists which resulted in the historic New Delhi agreement of 2005. The April 2006 people’s movement, the third revolution, and Indian counselling forced King Gyanendra to restore Parliament, appointing G.P. Koirala as Prime Minister. Later, both the Maoists and the Madhesis were brought on board to contest the Constituent Assembly elections through India’s prodding. New Delhi’s investment in Nepal’s peace process is in the enlightened interest of both countries and for peace and stability in the region. The election victory of the Maoists, which dramatically brought Prachanda to head the government, upset India’s calculations because the Maoists by their words and deeds showed they had an agenda inimical to India’s national interest. The second dramatic turning point in the peace process was the fall of the Prachanda government after mere nine months in May 2009 when India could resume breathing normally. Throughout this period of uncertainty over the peace process, Koirala frequently urged the Maoists to transform fully into a political party, shedding their old guerrilla habits. He kept together the non-Maoist political opposition, stood between them and the government of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal the Maoists sought to topple and, in his fading days, attempted the impossible: get them to support the Nepal government by cooperating in drafting the constitution and accepting the previously agreed terms for the integration of the Maoist PLA with the Nepal Army. Even in sickness and old age, nepotism never left Koirala. He got his daughter appointed first as the Foreign Minister and later as the Deputy Prime Minister too. He became increasingly irrelevant to the peace process though he did not abandon chasing the mirage of breaking the political deadlock with the Maoists. Koirala’s absence will create other problems. There will be no national leader of his stature, no Girija Babu to summon Prachanda and ask the Maoists to behave. And most of all, no autocratic leader to keep the Nepali Congress together. Koirala’s demise may affect the cohesion of the NC — split as it was in 2001 into the NC (Democratic) led by thrice Prime Minister, SB Deupa, and formally reunited seven years later. The general convention of the NC has been postponed more than once, dodging the question of appointing Koirala’s successor. His nephew, Sushil Koirala, the acting President, is indisposed. Sujata Koirala and two other nephews, Shashank and Shekhar, are doctors and political lightweights. The NC’s second generation troika — Ramchandra Poudyal, leader of the parliamentary party; Sushil Koirala, acting President; and SB Deupa, senior party leader — sat next to G.P. Koirala’s cortege . With less than 60 days left for the May 28 deadline, the peace process is unlikely to be spurred by protests of eminent persons of civil society and urgings by the international community. Looking for short-cuts, the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly, Subhas Nambang, has floated the idea of a “concise constitution”. The Maoists have said time and again that the new constitution will be written only under their leadership and not a word will get written which is not their word. Every article of the constitution will require a two-thirds majority and as Maoists and their opponents hold fundamentally different views on the structure of the state, federalism and devolution, a consensus is illusory. The real issue is the power struggle between the old guard and new revolutionaries. And there is no referee. The United Nations Mission in Nepal’s mandate does not extend to conflict resolution but only arms and army management. Neither the high-level political mechanism which was being chaired by Koirala nor civil society has made any dent in narrowing the gap between the government sitting pretty and the Maoists, battling to be in their place. The Maoists have been threatening to table a no-confidence motion to bring down the government. With 238 legislators in the Constituent Assembly, they require another 63 members to dislodge the government. When Koirala was alive, a scenario doing the rounds was that the Maoists would be prepared to support an NC-led government. That is no longer on the cards. The Maoists have tried to break the United Marxist Leninist Party, which is heading the government, but failed. Already split, the Madhesi parties do not add to the numbers. The Maoist deadline for seizing power is also May 28 to ensure that they are heading the government when Nepal is confronted with a constitutional crisis. To be sure, they have a Plan B; its leaders have said that if the constitution is not written on time, they will launch a revolt. The question will remain: why did G.P. Koirala not seek India’s help for mending the Maoists?
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Real illusions
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the Indian Press tends to highlight the “problems” the country is facing when, in fact, those “problems” are only “illusions.” He was addressing foreign correspondents based in Delhi. He later fielded a few questions. “Prime Minister, there are persistent reports in the Indian press that the Bofors gun which is vital for the country’s security and defence preparedness, has failed to measure up to its performance expectations and that its range is only 19 km and not 90 as claimed by its manufacturers. Do you wish to comment?” “Yes, we’ve checked on those reports and we’ve found them to be substantially accurate. But what difference does 70-odd kilometres make? The Bofors gun is huge and ugly and it goes off with a terrific, ear-splitting bang and that’s what matters in a gun, isn’t it? That’s what I mean when I say that our newspapers tend to dramtatise problems of national security when those problems are only illusions.” “Prime Minister, Indian newspapers are solemnly editorialising that corruption, venality and misuse of public funds have become all-pervasive and that they’re eating into the vitals of national economic development and hampering the country’s progress. Do you wish to take a call on that?” “When our newspapers talk about corruption and misuse of funds, it’s only an illusory problem and let me cite some statistics. For the 11th Five-Year Plan which is just ending, our total outlay for just one sector — rural development — was a huge Rs 500,000 crore and out of this investment, as much as Rs 499,990 crore went to line the pockets of contractors, petty government functionaries, unscrupulous politicians and middlemen leaving a massive Rs 10 crore for actual development. So where’s the question of corruption and venality becoming all-pervasive?” “Prime Minister, Indian newspapers are cautoning the government against complacency on the economic front, what with inflation getting into double digits and the vicious price spiral. Your comments?” “Yes, I agree that inflation and the price spiral are alarming, but there’s no problem. I know that coarse varieties of rice now cost Rs 29 a kg, but the Indian people are flexible and they’ve changed over to eating wild roots, tubers and leaves which are available in the open market at a reasonable Rs 17 a kg. So the so-called problem of inflation is only an illusion.” “Prime Minister, Indian press is noting with concern the deteriorating crime situation and insecurity being felt by the common man and they’re pointing out that armed dacoit gangs from the North-East are operating with impunity in southern states like Kerala and Karnataka. Your response, please.” “Look, India is a free country and people don’t need passports and visas for internal travel and if dacoit gangs from the North-East are operating in the southern states, they’re well within their constitutional rights. In fact, they’re helping in emotional integration by bringing the people and North and South together. The so-called crime situation is only an illusion. There’s no problem, per se.”
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Fall from grace
India has certain advantages like over a billion population to choose its teams from. But India has some serious negatives too like poor diet available to its athletes, especially during the growing years. The present state of our national game of hockey gives rise to serious skepticism among our thinking and analysing fraternity. During the past several years, I have talked to some hockey greats of yesteryear. Among those I talked to extensively are India’s only living triple gold medallist Balbir Singh Senior and a veteran of four Olympics Udham Singh a few years before his death. From the narration of their experiences, it can be concluded that India has been great on grassy fields. Statistics also indicate that ever since astroturf has been introduced, our hockey players have started fairing very badly. Grass constitutes a natural playing surface for both football and hockey. In football, poor African nations stood their ground and did not permit the rich nations to force international matches to be played on astroturf grounds. But in hockey, in spite of India’s supremacy in the game more than three decades ago, the European nations dominated the decision-making process and bulldozed their resolve to force astroturf on everyone. Astroturf is manufactured in several European nations and its technology keeps improving all the time. By the time we install astroturf in India, a better and faster playing surface is invented in Germany and Holland. In Europe, natural grass is expensive to maintain as it grows very fast in damp cold climates, but in India astroturf proves expensive to install. The tall and strongly built Europeans are capable of running faster and can be very effective on astroturf and they can beat us on stamina too. In the game of cricket, India enjoys certain advantages. The first thing is that all over the world, cricket is still being played on grassy grounds and there is no move to introduce astroturf in cricket. Secondly, the slow-paced spin bowling works to India’s advantage. India has produced some of the finest spin bowlers in the world. Thirdly, approximately half of India’s matches are played on home grounds and the remaining are played abroad. If we can’t do well in foreign conditions, we can be more than compensated while playing on the home grounds. Moreover, with money and fame cricket has become India’s most popular game. Most of our children are playing cricket. This has led to India topping the world in test cricket. A few years ago, we could not even dream of becoming number one in the world. Now we can choose our teams from amongst the finest athletes of India. Such an advantage is certainly not available to hockey any more. There is one consolation for India in hockey, we were not at the bottom of the table. In the last World Cup, we were placed eleventh. This time we have climbed three steps to finish at number eight. Rather than dreaming for a podium finish, we should first aspire for finishing among the top six teams and then build the team slowly for attaining higher positions. The government has expressed its willingness to install astroturf in more areas where hockey is still played with passion. The government should now concentrate on giving European style diet to its school-going hockey players. The present-day conditions are calling for the installation of synthetic athletic tracks to make athletes perform faster and we need gyms for building strong muscles. Talent cannot be discovered in the drawing rooms. We must hold national hockey championships for junior, sub-junior and senior level hockey players on a regular basis. Let all the national teams be picked up without bias from these tournaments. Above all, Hockey India must hold its free and fair elections so that the best possible management is selected for the service of the nation and its national game.
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Going downhill in Himachal THE recent decision of the Himachal government to hike bus fares by 30 per cent in one go has attracted criticism from all quarters. It is the second upward revision in as many years and going by the past experience it is not going to turn around the fortunes of the ailing state road transport corporation, which has accumulated losses to the tune of Rs 540 crore till date. Its sorry plight is only indicative of the ills plaguing the passenger transport services in the state. The perils of privatisation without adequate regulatory mechanism in place are all too discernible. On the one hand commuters face inconvenience because of inadequate bus services and on the other the corporation incurs heavy losses due to declining occupancy. The irrational and indiscriminate grant of bus route permits and taxi permits without conducting any traffic survey has led to this paradoxical situation. For years the corporation was the main service provider and private transporters plied only a few buses, mostly in the merged areas. All that has changed over the past two decades and today the private operators are in a dominant position with a fleet of over 2,800 buses as compared to just 1,900 buses of the corporation. There are more buses on road than required. The state has 75 buses per lakh of population as against the national average of 45 buses. Influential operators invariably manage to secure the most profitable bus routes. Worse, they use their political clout to manipulate bus time-tables. No surprise the average occupancy in the HRT Corporation’s buses has come down from 83 per cent to 54 per cent and it is incurring losses in 928 of the 2,500 bus services. The free and subsidised travel facility to the freedom fighters, the disabled, MLAs, MPs, mediapersons, police personnel, students and other categories and an exorbitantly high cost of manpower add to its financial woes. Today it is not in a position to even replace the old buses. Before the fare hike the annual loss was of about Rs 100 crore. With the government providing Rs 60 crore, the net loss came to Rs 40 crore. In contrast, private operators are flourishing with almost hundred per cent occupancy and even giving concession to commuters. The failure to carry out reforms has jeopardised the Urban Transport Management Scheme, launched last year, under which 75 buses have been provided by the Centre for plying in the state capital. An urban transport fund has not been set up as required and only a separate account has been created for operating the scheme. All taxes pertaining to vehicles like the registration fee, driving licence fee, token tax, bus route permit fee, green tax, parking fee and other such charges were to be deposited in the fund to meet the operational expenses. Instead of carrying out reforms the government reduced the local bus fares, putting a big question mark on the viability of the scheme. As a result, the Centre has not released the second instalment of Rs 3.04 crore to be provided for the purchase of buses and the corporation is in no position to pay the outstanding amount of Rs 3.75 crore to the supplier of buses. The corporation has decided not to appoint any regular conductors and only engage “bus sahayaks” on a 3.5 per cent commission and recruit drivers only on a contract basis. However, this will help bring down the operational costs only marginally. The only way out is to rationalise the routes after a proper traffic survey, introduce smaller buses on low-occupancy routes, ensure an equitable distribution of loss-making and profitable routes between private operators and the corporation, downsize the bus fleet to 1,500 and, above all, set up an independent regulatory body for the allotment of routes and oversee the transport sector.
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Last week Sahara group promoter Subrata Roy outbid Videocon Industries and Adani Exports to acquire the IPL’s Pune team for a record Rs 1,702 crore. Speaking to the media, he admitted that he was keen to bid for Kanpur but was advised otherwise on the ground of logistic problems. Roy frankly told a news channel that he had to give up on Kanpur when it was pointed out that the city was still not equipped for such an event. It was neither on the air map nor had good hotels, roads and other facilities that cricketers and cricket lovers wish for during the matches. Kanpur’s loss was Pune’s gain.
Maya mela
New mattresses, bed-sheets and even toiletries were arranged for the special guests who had been put up in a tented colony that had come up on the sprawling 70-acre Smriti Upwan. A giant-sized dining hall, an amphitheatre for cultural programmes in the evening, several 25-beded tented hospitals as well as 2,000 toilets came up. Interpreters were available for non-Hindi speaking BSP workers. Sight-seeing and visits to various dalit parks and memorials were on the agenda. Five caterers were hired at Rs1 crore each to ensure multi-cuisine meals for the party workers. Separate arrangements were in place to provide food packets to the million participants who arrived on the rally day.
Quite a fall
According to the law of gravity, “what goes up must come down”. The more heavyweight the object the quicker it would come down with as loud a thud. The law was in demonstration in the case of the once most powerful bureaucrat in the state, Vijay Shankar Pandey, on March 18. From the heavyweight charge of Additional Cabinet Secretary along with Principal Secretary, information and CM secretariat, he became the Principal Secretary, medical health, with an additional charge of vocational education. The next day the medical education portfolio was taken back and all that remained was vocational education. Clearly not wanting to deal with him on a day-to-day basis, Mayawati, who till then personally handled the vocational education department, suddenly appointed a new minister. On March 18 Pandey’s brother, Ajay Shankar Pandey, serving as a municipal commissioner of Ghaziabad was also stripped of his post and sent to Mathura as the Chief Development Officer. That was not all. On March 21 three other siblings – sister Kanak Tripathi and brothers Hari Shankar Pandey and Vinay Shankar Pandey – all PCS officers, were swiftly removed from their plush posts to relatively insignificant ones. The fall was complete.
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Corrections and clarifications
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The spellings of Hurriyat Conference have been wrongly spelt as Hurriet Conference on the Oped page article “Kashmir youth’s farewell to arms” (Page 9, March 25)
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The headline “Private schools gainsay Sibal’s law” (Page 18, March 23) leaves the reader puzzled. The word ‘oppose’ could have been used instead of gainsay
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The hyphen in the headline “Saina zooms into top-five”(Page 1, March 19) is not required.
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The blurb in the report “Cong leader attacked” (Page7, March 19) reads “party leader Bahrat Singh Beniwal have alleged….”. The verb ‘has’ should have gone in place of ‘have’
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The report of an accident “Woman falls off train, injured” (Page 4, March 19, Chandigarh Tribune”) appeared with the logo “Crime”, which seemed incongruent. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections”
on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. Raj Chengappa
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THE World Cup Hockey Tournament has concluded in New Delhi. Generally the host nations perform very well due to the home ground advantage, but Indian hockey had reached such a low level before the tournament that miracles could not be expected.
allies and political protests provide news and amusement in Uttar Pradesh. In the process it is missing out on the real entertainment – the IPL. 
hat was missed amidst the garland and bee controversy was the clockwise precision with which things went at the BSP maha-rally. No detail was missed out to ensure that the stay of close to a lakh of BSP office-bearers and workers from various corners of the country was comfortable.