The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Food on the boil
Centre, states join hands

A rise in the milk and fruit prices, caused by soaring temperature, has pushed up food inflation to 17.7 per cent. It coincided with the Prime Minister and the chief ministers of 10 states taking stock of the worrisome price situation and forming three groups to check hoarding, improve the delivery system and raise agricultural production. A good thing about Thursday’s meeting at the Prime Minister’s initiative was the emergence of a political consensus on improving food production and distribution, and curbing hoarders with stricter laws. The chief ministers of various political parties came on one platform and, instead of playing politics over price rise, agreed to work together to find solutions. While the leftists made noises expected of them to publicise the issue, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee extended a hand of cooperation to the Prime Minister.

The BJP too played along. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi heads a group which will consider amendments to the Essential Commodities (Special Provision) Act to provide for harsher punishment for food hoarding and black marketing. Another group headed by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia will suggest ways to plug loopholes in the public distribution system and how technology can be used to prevent diversion of food from the PDS. More importantly, the group will identify households below the poverty line which can be provided subsidised grain under the National Food Security Bill. With the involvement of opposition parties, this tedious exercise may finally reach an acceptable figure.

Raising agricultural output to avoid future shortages is a task best left to experts. The chief ministers, if they are serious about the task in hand, can ensure better water management, facilitate agricultural research, improve rural connectivity, encourage scientific storage to avoid food wastage and help overcome opposition to new technology and seeds. Only the results, expected in about two months, will show how serious the Central and state leaders have been in completing the tasks assigned to them.

A fresh START
N-stockpile set to shrink considerably

At a time when an all-out attempt is being made to thwart the atomic aspirations of countries like North Korea and Iran, the vast nuclear arsenals of the USA and Russia appear incongruent, to say the least. This legacy of the Cold War era is set to shrink considerably following the signing of a landmark disarmament treaty by the two on Thursday which will cut the strategic nuclear arsenals by 30 per cent within seven years. This will be the biggest reduction by the two countries in a generation. Not only that, it will put greater pressure on countries having nuclear ambitions, who have all along been accusing these two, which together have 95 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons, of hypocrisy. The two countries will still have enough nuclear firepower to destroy each other several times over, but the move at least paves the way for still greater reduction.

This huge stockpile — some 2,600 warheads with Russia and 2,252 by the US — had accumulated mainly because of deep-rooted suspicions. At one stage, they had nearly four times as many till the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in 1991 barred them from deploying over 6,000 nuclear warheads. Even now the number is pretty large. True disarmament would come about when it is cut still further drastically. That will be in step with the Obama Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, in which the US has forsworn nuclear attacks on all non-nuclear states compliant with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not only that, the US has agreed that it would not go in for new tests or develop more warheads.

The developments indicate that Iran may be in for tougher sanctions in the near future. Russia has not agreed to a total embargo on deliveries of refined oil products to Iran, but might still go along with the UN tightening the screws. At the same time, the two nuclear super powers cannot afford to overlook the activities of countries like Israel, China and Pakistan, which is a known proliferator. If nuclear proliferation is to be curbed, it must be resisted outright, whether it is by a friend or a foe.

Thought for the Day

A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

ARTICLE

Rivers of filth
Urban infrastructure is under siege
by Jayshree Sengupta

Recently, 20, 000 people volunteered to clean the Yamuna flowing through Delhi. The river has been the life blood of the city and beautiful bungalows, gardens and palaces were built on its banks in the past. In its pristine days, the banks of Yamuna were the idyllic place for walks and picnics. No longer can anyone do so. Though it remains a source of water supply to a city of around 14 million inhabitants, it is a stinking drain now which shows its state of decay and pollution.

A country’s development is judged by visitors from the general atmosphere and ambience of its big cities and not by the number of five star hotels and their posh lobbies. India’s hotels are posh, the hotel staff is well groomed and smart but in the rooms, there is a warning that one should not drink water from the taps. This is not so in the hotels of Europe or US. European rivers are well preserved and their embankments are pleasurable promenades. That the water is polluted in India is a known fact and all travel magazines warn prospective travelers of it. Similarly the public hospitals are full of infection and dirt and are inadequately staffed. The state of public health — which includes sanitation, sewerage, waste disposal and drinking water system in all big cities — is in dire straits and all visitors notice it. What then are we showcasing as Incredible India?

All residents of metro cities in India have to boil or filter the water the municipal corporations send through the pipes. According to government sources, progress has been made in making safe drinking water available to rural population and urban population. Yet waterborne diseases are still common in rural areas and with the start of the summer season, numerous cases of gastro-enteritis would be reported in big cities due to poor quality of water consumed by common people who cannot sterilize water properly.

Hospitals are in a dismal state. People are lying on the pavements outside public hospitals waiting to get admitted. Only the corporate hospitals are doing well and they are like five star hotels with room charges that are similar. Who but the very rich can afford to go there? India is becoming a country where the rich get everything including all the services but the poor and the lower income groups are left to fend for themselves and jostle for medical attention in overcrowded hospitals, railway stations and buses.

It is quite amazing how each year the government goes on spending more and more money on water and hospitals but each year, the situation is getting worse. Perhaps this is because everyday, thousands of people are arriving by trains and buses to metro cities in search of work. The huge influx of people into cities is the cause for much of their infrastructural problems. There is not enough resources — space, water, power, sanitation or hospitals for so many people.

Roads are also a problem. As every one knows there are too many cars and therefore the traffic congestion and jams. The construction of metro rail in Delhi may relieve some of the traffic problem as many would travel by public transport. There would have to be additional trains for bringing in people from the suburbs.

All big cities are surrounded by slums and some have slums in the middle of the city (Kolkata). It is shocking to learn that only 45 per cent of the households in India have access to toilets. There is a huge problem of garbage disposal and clearance and piles of rotting rubbish can be seen even in posh localities. All the cities have clogged sewers and drains. Yet people are actually living near them and make a living out of scavenging. Their efforts have to be lauded yet they cannot clean up the entire city.

If only agriculture was more productive it would have yielded more income to the rural population, people would not have migrated to cities in such large numbers. No slum or pavement dweller opts for city life voluntarily. It is because agriculture yields such meager incomes that the youth who are without jobs have to leave home and eke out an existence in big cities. Similarly if the organised factory sector were to expand it would have given jobs to immigrants and they could enjoy better living standards. But unfortunately only the informal sector is expanding and jobs in that sector are poorly paid and workers are without any social benefits or safety net. They form the bulk of slum dwellers and live in dismal conditions.

These colonies cannot be wished away and are here to stay. In Beijing no slums can be seen but there are low income areas which have cheap but adequate housing. By contrast, in metro cities in India, the low cost housing projects seem grossly inadequate. The government has increased the allocation for slum development by 700 per cent in Budget 2010 but whether the money will actually lead to improvement of amenities in slums is yet to be seen. Implementation is always lagging behind such grandiose allocations.

What about the education of slum children? A trip to any of the schools in such areas would reveal that the children are far from getting properly educated and many schools do not have classrooms, teachers or mid day meals. Several surveys have revealed that slum schools are poorly attended and there is hardly any formal teaching going on. The dropout rate is high and many children are forced to earn money selling all kinds of stuff at crossings. They are also employed as helpers in hotels, motor mechanic and grocery shops. Child labour has been banned but one can see children who are out of school in big cities doing odd jobs every where. There has to be a big effort by the government and the NGOs to help slum children get proper education and nutrition.

Urban infrastructure is thus under siege in all big cities. Clearly the only way out is to build satellite cities and good communication networks so that commuters can go to work in the city and go back to the suburbs easily. Many big cities in the world have solved the same problems-so why can’t India? Something urgent however is needed regarding solving the water pollution problem which is reaching crisis proportions in all big cities. Only 42 per cent of all households have piped water in India. Cleaning up the source-rivers, lakes, streams and ponds is obviously needed. But to clean up the Yamuna is a Herculean task and perhaps a lakh people would be required on a daily basis.

MIDDLE

Hounded by persistence
by Gitanjali Sharma

Who would know it better than the mother of a teenaged son how pesteringly persistent the New Gen is!

As kids, probably we have all yearned for a pet, often a dog. And, in all likelihood most of us must have also given in to a firm parental “no” or , if you were luckier, a more gentle and persuasive but still a “no”. Now, too, the “no” exists but strangely it doesn’t appear to get heard anymore.

The word, at least, made no impact on my 13-year-old offspring when he came up with the “I want a puppy” demand. What more, he unabashedly wanted it in a basket with a pink ribbon if it was a female and sought a red knot if it brought a male fur ball of a playmate. What attitude, I inwardly squirmed.

And, thus the doggedness goes on…. His imagination has been outrunning probably the wildest of hounds. In his world, all those close to him are bestowed a nickname (only for my consumption, of course) from the canine world. So, while he is a Labrador (that’s his favourite) pup, I naturally get to be Lab Mom.

My seemingly strict father and soft-hearted mother have been fondly dubbed German Shepherd and Pom (Pomeranian). An aunt who is tall has earned the title Dalmatian, and an uncle who always rings the doorbell twice and comes in bristling is Rottweiler. Another uncle who has a neat paunch reminds him of St Bernard and all those he can’t place in a slot, fall in the, ouch, stray category.

That’s not all. This canine lover loves to pepper his soundbites with his pet subject. So, if you rebuke him for keeping his study table untidy, he’s quick to respond with, “Oh, mom, that’s how pups are… a little lazy, a little foolish.” Or if you protest when as a clumsy teenager he drops all over you on a sofa or a chair, he declares with feigned hurt, “Mother Labs easily accommodate eight-eight pups, you just have to make place for one!” Or comes up with something as dramatic as “Pure Mom Labs are not known to scold pups even once in their lifetime!” What can you do then, just melt and envelop the drama prince in a bear hug!

The imagery pops up at the unlikeliest of places. Once, reluctantly accompanying me on a shopping trip, he was quick to exclaim as we entered a hi-end store with strappy dresses on display, “Mom, these are for Poms, not for Mother Labs!” So true, I had to silently admit, suppressing a smile.

Again one day as I returned from office, he proudly declared he had made cold coffee with ice cream for Bernard (read his uncle). Delighted with his culinary pursuits, I encouragingly asked, “Did uncle like it?” The canine crazy smilingly responded, “Of course, Bernard’s tail was wagging.” And, conversely, I get to hear that Lab Pup’s tail goes still whenever Kings XI lose a match.

Now, it remains to be seen how the game will end. Will the real puppy come in or will my son outgrow what I hope is just puppy love?

OPED

Custodians of rights
Bureaucrats tend to cold-shoulder them
by Vinod Prakash Gupta

Since its inception in 1995, the Himachal Pradesh State Human Rights Commission has remained non-functional for an embarrassing seven years. In its life span of 15 years the commission has battled obstacles, more administrative than those it was constituted to resolve.

But despite debilitating interruptions in its functioning, the commission has made its presence felt in the state. Apart from deciding complaints, the commission engaged in several initiatives to promote human rights awareness. Workshops were conducted in collaboration with Common Wealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). Visits were made to ashrams, children’s homes, women’s hostels and old age homes in a bid to spread awareness.

The effect and reach of the commission was very promising. In its annual reports, it recorded that inhabitants of remote areas, including women, showed that they were aware of the commission’s existence and purpose. They actively participated in the commission’s interactive sessions about their human rights and its possible redressal.

This claim was substantiated by the number of complaints filed. The commission received 2,520 complaints from February 1995 to June 2005. It managed to dispose of 2,369 complaints, leaving 151 pending complaints, not a high number taking into account its spasmodic functioning. The total pending complaints on record till date (March 2010) are 848.

Most complaints are against the police (37.42%) followed closely by the Deaprtment of Health & Family Welfare (5.83%). The efficient and timely deliverance of justice resulted in a change of attitude in the mindset of functionaries of the government, panchayats and local bodies. The trigger for this change was their accountability to the commission. The common man found a platform to air his/her grievances that brought quick and inexpensive relief against the public-dealing officials.

Though the government has acknowledged and implemented the recommendations of the commission, it has not showed any willingness to strengthen the commission. The dichotomy in thought and action of the government regarding the SHRC is baffling.

By ignoring a body that has led to constructive development in the management of human rights in the state, the state has by its flagrant disregard has acted irresponsibly.

Having been part of it myself, I am aware that a majority of officers in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy consider autonomous democratic institutions as a waste of time and public money. The top in the list is the SHRC.

This might be true from the financial point of view. These institutions might not be cost effective at times but where they fall short in terms of cost effectiveness, they make up in their public utility and social benefits. Isn’t that what we all are striving towards? Better and just governance?

Many of these autonomous institutions are credited with creating new paths for strengthening the democracy in our country. For instance, the decisions pronounced under the RTI Act have created and settled such basic structural issues which no one had dared to touch before. Isn’t the apex judiciary feeling the heat of these decisions?

Thus, it is imperative for the Central Government to revisit and reassess the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and make it as formidable as the RTI Act. The Act was amended in 2006 but the amendments were of inconsequential nature. One amendment reduced the number of members from five to three to make it easier for the states to constitute the commissions.

The constitution of a state commission should be made mandatory under the Act. The eligibility of Chairpersons and members should not be entirely confined to the higher judiciary and the eligibility of the National Chairperson can be relaxed, enabling the Central Government to fill the vacancy of the Chairperson of the NHRC, which has been lying vacant for so many months.

The post of Chairperson should be allowed to be filled either by the Chief Justice of a High Court or a senior judge. In states where Lokayukta or any such other high functionary is heading a commission of equal status, the provisions of section 23(2)(b) of the Act can be amended by way of adding an explanation to it so that additional charge can be allowed to such a high functionary, who otherwise is fully eligible to be appointed as the Chairperson of the commission. This will lead to effective cost-cutting as well.

At present there are 17 state commissions functioning in India. Almost all the state governments, with the exception of Himachal, have given befitting salary and status to the members of the commissions. The rules stand notified being mandatory under the Act. The government of Himachal Pradesh should follow suit and immediately notify the rules.

I do hope that the people in power will realise the lacuna left by the defunct HPSHRC and take steps to reconstitute an independent State Human Rights Commission in a systematic, logical and legal way.

The writer is a former Principal Secretary, Government of Himachal Pradesh

No way to retire, this!
by Balvinder

The Punjab Government’s decision to stick to the existing retirement age of its employees at 58 instead of raising it to 60 years appears to be a wise decision, but only at the surface level. In fact it is a well calculated and cunning decision.

First of all, it is projected as a step to safeguard the prospects of Punjab’s unemployed youth. A farcical statement indeed! For, the state still has thousands of posts lying vacant for long, and no palpable efforts have been made, promises apart, to fill them.

One may ask the government that while making a pre-poll promise of raising the retiring age of employees, why was it not concerned about the concerns of the unemployed youth then?

Another reason cited in defence of the deferment of the age-hike decision is that the benefit of a few hundred crores that the government would have received through deferred payments to the retiring employees would have been ‘short-term’.

The government, in fact, saved that very money, which must have been used in fudging the book entries of the past financial year, by issuing a politically maneuvered and vaguely drafted notification, which promised its employees an extension of a year, after they attain superannuation at the age of 58, to its employees retiring between January 22, 2010 and December 31, 2010.

It is another story that the government calculatedly withdrew the ad hoc benefit soon after it served its purpose reportedly by asking someone to file a court petition against this notification that was bound to fall because of the intended inaccuracies and legal lacunas that were put/left in the notification. And that too on the last day of the past financial year!

By doing this the government successfully managed to shift a financial load of some Rs 700 crore to the next financial year.

But there is something more to these retirement blues than what meets the eye. Perhaps, few know the sad fact that all those Punjab Government employees who were to retire on January 31 this year have neither been paid their retirement dues till date nor any remuneration has been paid to them for the three extra months’ work they did following the notorious notification that promised a year’s extension to them.

As this was not enough, all theses retiring employees, due to the government-created uncertainties, had to leave their respective offices unsung and humiliated. Most of them had to leave in a huff without having any conventional and well-deserved farewell party from their respective offices. Perhaps, no government has ever humiliated its employees as has been done by the seemingly messy Punjab Government.

Political promises perhaps are made only to be broken, under one or the other pretext, often called political compulsions, which are more prevalent where there is a coalition government. Thus, perhaps no one takes these vote-time promises that all political parties make seriously.

However, as for as the retirement age is concerned, this has to be looked into from certain practical angles. Since I served as a college teacher for more than 36 years perhaps can throw sufficient light at least on the college teachers’ plight. There are glaring anomalies in the retirement age of college teachers.

As per the recent UGC recommendations a teacher should be made to retire at the age of 65. In the private-aided colleges, 95 per cent funded by the Punjab Government , a teacher retires at the age of 60 even today. However, a government college teacher is made to retire at the age of 58. Can there ever be any uniformity on this count?

The saddest part of all this is, to which perhaps no government is serious, that in the whole created confusion regarding the retirement age, what suffers the most is education to provide which teachers are recruited.

Why not? For I know a number of my still working teacher friends who these days are running after babus to collect copies of this or that notification and then rushing to their lawyers, after paying them hefty fees, to file avoidable court cases.

And there is nothing new to it. Whether it is a case of retirement or of promotion or of getting some or the other due benefit hundreds of teachers from various city colleges have to their credit one or the other pending court case. Reportedly almost all the faculty members of the Chandigarh College of Art are pursuing court cases!

In such a polluted atmosphere and with such a congealed frame of mind, can they be considered fit enough to teach their students well? Our education system already seems to have fallen on evil days. Should one hope of an Easter-like day of resurgence when teachers would not be forced to go to the courts to get their routine benefits?

Inside Pakistan
Pak democracy strengthened
by Syed Nooruzzaman

The fledgling democracy in Pakistan has taken a new and glorious turn with the adoption of the recommendations of the Raza Rabbani Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms by the National Assembly on Thursday. As a result, the hated imprints of military dictators like Gen Zia-ul-Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf on the 1973 Constitution have got erased considerably.

Gen Ashfaq Kayani

The 18th constitution amendment exercise has made the Pakistan President, Mr Asif Zardari, a titular head of state. He no longer has the power to dissolve the National and Provincial Assemblies or sack the federal government. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has emerged as the most powerful person, of course, after Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani.

In the opinion of The News, “For a parliament that so far had had little to show for itself it was indeed a supreme moment, in which it achieved something of significance by moving closer to looking like what it was envisaged to be in the 1973 Constitution. The praise that has been heaped on the President though is rather misplaced. Even a rudimentary study of how the country’s politics, inside and outside parliament, has been conducted in the last two years, ought to prove that had it not been for the peculiar ways of the President and his men, mostly attributable to their precarious situation, this moment of pride and performance would have arrived long ago.”

Kayani, Gilani are gainers

The Prime Minister’s position has been restored to what it was originally envisaged despite all that President Zardari did. The development could not be prevented because of the prevailing situation in favour of true democracy. The Army, the most powerful institution, provided enough support for ushering in a new democratic era in Pakistan.

Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani

However, Mr Zardari has succeeded in retaining the constitutional shield to prevent the reopening of the corruption cases of the past against him, including those relating to his Swiss bank accounts. His next move will be interesting to watch, as he may try to grab the post of Prime Minister.

Well-known columnist M. A. Niazi in an article in The Nation sees a link between the passage of the 18th Constitution Amendment Bill and Prime Minister Gilani’s coming visit to the US soon. He points out that “the 18th Amendment must have some significance to the war on terror, and the Prime Minister would claim that now the powers have shifted towards him, and thus he should get US support, not the President. However, the US now finds itself in an old situation, where the COAS (the Army Chief) is a separate centre of power, and may act in ways that the government would not like him to.”

The Zia legacy

Dawn columnist I. A. Rehman exposes the avoidable compromises made while arriving at the consensus on the Raza Rabbani Committee’s recommendations. In his article carried on the day the committee’s recommendations were adopted, Rehman says, “While much can be said in justification of the effort to restore the constitution to its original form, the parliamentary committee seems to have settled for a compromise. For instance, the Concurrent Legislative List, which was part of 1973 Constitution, is to be dropped, and the additions to Articles 62 and 63 made by Gen Zia-ul-Haq are to be retained despite their being repudiated by democratic opinion many times over. The concession to the defenders of the Zia legacy is hard to swallow.”