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Reforming bureaucracy
Drunken driving |
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Adulteration of milk
Obama’s new defence strategy
‘Go Hard or Go Home’
Women’s sartorial choices always come under censure. Be it the Andhra Pradesh DGP’s retrograde opinion on women’s clothing or a hospital chain’s makeover of nurses when it comes to women, the trivial always take over the serious issues concerning them
Woman in public space: eternally negotiating
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Reforming bureaucracy
The
recently-released report of a consultancy firm in Hong Kong rating the Indian bureaucracy as the worst in Asia must lead to some soul-searching among our bureaucrats. When bureaucratic roadblocks like corruption, inefficiency and lack of accountability are seen in conjunction with poor infrastructure, onerous and fickle regulations and a cumbersome judicial system, it reveals why overseas business executives look upon India so negatively as an investment
destination. The report by Political and Economic Risk Consultancy points out that all these factors make doing business in India “frustrating and expensive.” For a country that is fast coming into reckoning globally as an emerging power, it is important that we take remedial measures to be perceived in a more positive light. Another significant observation of the study is that Indian bureaucrats are rarely held accountable for wrong decisions and that it is extremely difficult to challenge them when there are disagreements. There is indeed a general lack of accountability in the Indian system as it prevails today and there is a crying need to sharpen this especially in the government sector. Undeniably, there is too much security built into the government system. While non-performance does not attract punitive action, there is not enough motivation for the high performers. With the rigourous procedures that are in place for the selection of the higher bureaucracy, the average calibre of a new entrant into the bureaucracy is fairly good but it is the system under which they work makes them seem so inefficient and obstructive. Indeed, the bureaucracy in India needs to shed its self-centric approach in favour of a society-centric one. The training that is provided to civil servants should inculcate a spirit of service in them. The politician-bureaucrat-business nexus leads to much of the corruption in the country. This nexus needs to be broken through greater accountability and fear of law. There is a dire need for another round of administrative reforms. The current seniority-based system needs to be dovetailed with an objective system of performance appraisal and promotion of top performers. The IAS stranglehold on all top positions needs to be broken so that technical hands get a fair deal in areas where technical qualification would be a virtue. Accountability systems also need to be sharpened. It is vital that the bureaucracy acts as a facilitator for reforms and not a roadblock.
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Drunken driving
The
Supreme Court’s judgement in the case of Alister Anthony Pareira, delivered on Thursday, needs wider attention. It signals a higher punishment to those found guilty of rash driving, resulting in the loss of human lives. Mumbai youth Pareira, who was charged with killing seven persons sleeping on a pavement in 2006 while driving a car in a drunken state, was convicted by a local court under Section 304-II of the IPC. Normally those accused of causing death while driving under the influence of liquor are convicted under Section 304A of the IPC, which gives them the benefit of the doubt and provides for a maximum jail term of two years and a fine. Finding the punishment under Section 304A too lenient, the Supreme Court has suggested that the lawmakers should “revisit the sentencing policy”. Section 304-II provides for a 10-year jail term as it attributes to the accused the knowledge that drunken driving can cause the death of or injuries to other road users. The application of Section 304-11, now backed by the Supreme Court, can lead to a tougher punishment in the case of conviction in the 2006 BMW case involving film actor Salman Khan. Since the number of deaths in road accidents is among the highest in India, a holistic approach is required to stem the menace. Courts should impose heavy damages on government officials in case of negligence in the maintenance of roads and traffic lights, observance of traffic rules and issuance of driving licences. It is not just courts but policemen and other officials also take accidents lightly. They often work for out-of-court settlements. A drunk driver is let off with a small fine or a bribe. Fines are no deterrent to the accused from well-off families. Besides, the judiciary should find ways and means to speedily dispose of serious accident cases. Poor governance too encourages law-breakers.
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Adulteration of milk
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most vegetarian Indians, milk and vegetables are the sole source of nutrition. Therefore, the revelation by the National Survey of Milk Adulteration, 2011, that 81 per cent of milk samples that it tested in Punjab recently were contaminated is shocking indeed. Only a few days ago, a survey had found that 42 per cent of children in India suffer from malnutrition. Such a high rate of adulteration of milk in Punjab, where it is believed that food resources are rich, is worrisome. The use of hormone enhancing chemical oxytocin for a higher yield of milk and its related harmful effects are well known. This time, the report says, the adulteration comes from water and diluted powder milk in the milk sold loosely. It does not require a Daniel Ellsberg to find out how and where food is adulterated in India because adulteration is rampant. Still, when in April last year, the Union Health Minister announced a whistleblower scheme to reward those who provide information against those indulging in adulteration of food, it was welcomed by all, since the quality of food is a general concern. As an evidence of his seriousness, the minister had written letters to the state chief ministers, contending that both the public and the officers who helped seize adulterated food would be rewarded. He had professed a zero tolerance policy against food adulterators. The reality is that at best, routine measures for maintaining vigil on the food front are intensified during the festival period, but once the public and media pressure is relaxed, the laxity in food standards returns. Though the country has a full-fledged Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, food adulteration is an offence punishable with life imprisonment and food manufacturers can be fined up to Rs 10 lakh, the number of people who are punished under the provision is minuscule.
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Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. — Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
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Obama’s new defence strategy Spurred by three major concerns — the winding down of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ailing economy and the perceived challenge from Iran and China — President Obama has decided to revamp the US defence strategy and reduce the defence budget to grapple with the new situation. He made a rare visit to the Pentagon to declare his new strategic guidance for the armed forces, flanked by his four Service Chiefs and the Defence Secretary, to underline its significance for all concerned. What are the details of these defence reductions and the new defence strategy? A reduction of $450 billion is envisaged over the next decade. And since the “supercommittee” consisting of the two Houses of Congress has failed to agree on how the overall deficit should be bridged, a law would be triggered that requires the defence budget to be reduced by another $500 billion over the decade starting 2013. These cuts come atop $350 billion in weapons programme given up earlier. Consequently, defence spending would reduce from its present level of 4.5 per cent to 2.7 per cent of the GDP by 2021. The Wall Street Journal has commented, “The real message to the world is that the administration wants to scale back US leadership.” The key elements of these defence cuts include three important aspects: First, a reduction of around 14 per cent in the ground forces (80,000 troops from the Army and the Marines) is being envisaged by giving up the shibboleth that the United States must be prepared at all times to fight in two separate theatres. This capability could be generated, if required, by mobilising the reserves, and reversing the downsising exercise. These troop reductions would be designed to derive armed forces that are leaner, but also “agile, flexible and ready for a full range of contingencies and threats.” Second, outmoded weapon systems would be abandoned that had been conceived in the Cold War context. This would include expensive weapon systems like the F-35 Stealth aircraft, and by effecting some reduction in the nuclear arsenal. Third, investments in cyber warfare and intelligence procurement through improved surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities would be increased. Emphasis would also be laid on improving counter-insurgency missions, countering weapons of mass destruction, maintaining the nuclear deterrent, improving special operations forces, and the capabilities of drones on the reasoning that they have greater relevance for the future roles confronting the US national strategy. Details of how these key measures would be implemented are still being worked out, and would be announced over the next few weeks. But it is noteworthy that all military establishments face similar problems. For example, the costs of modernising defence establishments and procuring sophisticated weapon systems needed to meet the requirements of the modern battlefield have progressively become more expensive. So have the costs of maintaining them over their life-cycles. Simultaneously, the costs of recruiting and retaining suitably qualified personnel to operate these weapon systems have also risen astronomically. The result is a double-edged pressure on the defence budget. However, counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations have become an integral part of the operational tasks assigned to the armed forces, which requires a better trained and motivated soldier in contrast to one patrolling the border. Not unexpectedly, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the Republican candidates engaged in the Presidential nominations race, have criticised the new defence strategy without offering any serious suggestions on how the yawning financial crisis could be handled. It is clear that these defence cuts will cause pain. The American military has traditionally been an important source of employment — a large proportion of its recruits being coloured people. At a time when unemployment levels are high and obstinately refusing to come under control, the loss of direct employment in the military will have its own repercussions. The defence cuts would also increase indirect unemployment. For instance, the gigantic arms industries in the United States would suffer due to the austerity observed by its main customer, adding to layoffs. Besides, the US, as a matter of policy, has made heavy investments as a part of its R & D defence expenditure — around 8 to 13 per cent of the total defence budget, and over 50 per cent of total federal spending on research —with the clear objective of maintaining its technological edge over other nations. The spin-off effect of these large outlays has been the funding of several private establishments and university departments to conduct fundamental research on frontier technologies like lasers that have profited both the military and the civil sector. It would, of course, amount to overstating the case to urge that spending more on military R & D would be better than funding civil R & D establishments directly, like in medicine. However, the most socially disruptive effect of reductions in defence spending could be on veterans’ welfare; the percentage of the unemployed and wholly indigent ex-servicemen in the US today is significantly higher than what obtains in the general population. So, what are the lessons for India? Waste, inefficiency and aimless procurement are not the sole prerogative of the American military. A close examination of the Indian defence expenditure from this viewpoint is also warranted, which must start with redefining what are the expected present and future roles of the armed forces. How relevant, for instance, is the expectation that India must prepare to fight a two-front conventional war against its two historical adversaries? How well prepared are the armed forces to deal with the current central challenge to national security, which is left extremism that is afflicting a good part of central and eastern India? And what are the new dimensions of maritime security that underpin the imperative of wider multi-lateral military cooperation to meet the Chinese expansion into the Indian Ocean? A redefining, in short, of the real threats to India’s national security is urgently required to suggest the new roles that are emerging for its armed forces, which would enable wasteful expenditure to be
avoided.
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‘Go Hard or Go Home’ It was not a major cut on the palm of my left hand. But it had great repercussions. It meant I could not join the gym again. Just a day ago, I had visited a new gym closer to my house. And I was all set to pump the iron. But the injury happened. It was another stroke from what I believe the conspiracy of cosmic powers against me. It was not the first time when I wanted to build muscles. It is surely not going to be the last either. But ever since I attained consciousness and developed the desire to have a six pack, v-shape and bulging muscles, something or the other has prevented me from doing it. And I am talking of the effort of over two decades! Everytime I fall to the “conspiracy” , a highly provocating slogan, “Go Hard or Go Home” flashes across my eyes. It is often seen painted in bold inside the gym or on the outer walls, right on the posters of the bulging muscles of Arnold or Sylvester Stone. It challenges you. It teases you. It torments you. I always shout back, "I will show you one day". Then one sees Salman, Amir and even Shah Rukh Khan and more even some feminine heroes developing muscles; six packs, which they brandish so shamelessly. It turns me green. I go to a gym with renewed gusto only to become a victim again of the “cosmic conspiracy against me”. My first attempt was in the school. It was when my Hindi teacher (who I dreamt of marrying morning, evening and midnight) told me how thin I was. I hit the gym along with two friends and fantasised of impressing her fast. I seem to have become too emotional though and ended up by having spasms and neck pain. Then in college, when you are growing up faster, I along with two other friends hit the gym again. This time we met a psycho son of our coach. He just believed in doing bench press. It is the chest that matters man, he said. And we could not get up from bed for several days due to the "heavy" chest. A few months later, all three of us suffered the fit of gym again. And this time, we wanted to build thighs first! God, why did we have the Indian style toilets at such testing times. You just can't sit after rounds of squat and if you managed, you can never get up! Well, in between those attempts, one strange thing happened. Whosoever went to the gym with me got the opportunity and visa to study abroad or emigrate. So much so that this happened a few months ago as well when a dear friend with whom I had started going to the gym was sent to the Gulf by his employers. My friends often joke that I should mention "special arrangement for visa" on my visiting card! I tried it so many times that many gym instructors in Patiala, Ludhiana, Jaipur and Jammu are my great friends. But my passion for having a dream body did not relent. I went to a gym again, all filled with confidence but only to get the finger injury and sulk at leisure. In fact, I was depressed at this cruel hand of destiny time and again. "Go Hard or Go Home" echoed in my mind. It vanished as quickly as I stepped one fine day in the Swami Vivekanada Special train carrying his life story, speeches, thoughts and sayings. " The strength of mind and soul is far stronger than the strength of body," he said from one such poster. I stopped, read it again and again and stepped out in all
smiles.
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Women’s sartorial choices always come under censure. Be it the Andhra Pradesh DGP’s retrograde opinion on women’s clothing or a hospital chain’s makeover of nurses when it comes to women, the trivial always take over the serious issues concerning them
The
monitoring and policing of women is making headlines again. The reason for such monitoring in most societies is due to the fact that despite constituting one half of the human race, women occupy the lower end of most gendered hierarchies. Women who provide essential services, working in media, BPOs or as domestic help and nurses do so in hostile circumstances, regularly travelling long distances and putting in long working hours. Instead of making the world a more secure place for women, customary practice subjects them to prurient scrutiny and focuses on extraneous detail such as the clothing they wear. Witness for instance, the Director General of Police in Andhra Pradesh, whose alarm over the issue of rape turned him into a self-proclaimed women’s couture expert adept at gauging distress levels among his staff and random males. He was rightly reprimanded by our worthy home minister, but clearly the latter’s deadpan expression only generated a placebo effect, for lo and behold, across the border Karnataka’s Minister for Women and Child Welfare waxed eloquent on how women should dress with discretion, and know exactly how much skin to cover up since they were working on equal terms with men in today’s world. The crux of the problem is that women’s rights to equitable and safe spaces within the societies they inhabit are met with prescriptions on what they should be wearing. The trouble with defining appropriate wear for women is confounded by the fact that all women have bodies. Logically, it follows that whatever women wear, attention to these very bodies will be drawn. It is impossible for women to wear any type of clothing that does not draw attention to their form. Even unisex clothing, as has been amply demonstrated, has failed to deliver. If only women could leave their bodies behind them in safe salubrious surroundings and get on with life! This however continues to remain an untenable option. We must remember also that provocation really lies in the eye of the beholder. Any female attribute can trigger off unsolicited lust and brutality. It could be an ankle, an eyelash, or an elbow a hemline or a silhouette or an expanse of hair, for after all, these are manifestations of the female form. So under the circumstances, maybe DGPs and ministers should be appointed by women’s cells to oversee the incarceration of all men they can identify as liable. Keeping such men permanently under lock and key will ensure that women never come to any harm. While the IG and the Karnataka minister voiced retrogressive opinions on how women’s clothing could provoke rapists, Columbia Asia, a hospital chain has begun to emphasise and implement makeovers for nurses. They have hired a consultant, famous for fine tuning participants at beauty contests, to empower nurses with coordinated lipstick shades and a variety of hairstyles on a priority basis. It was reported that at private hospitals at Bangalore and at New Delhi such training for nursing staff was to become de rigueur. Now all outpatients and in patients and their attendants at hospitals can breathe easy as only blood pressure charts and pulse rate records might show an erratic upswing requiring round the clock monitoring. Other than that, when you are in hospital prostrate with anxiety about a gland or an organ that needs to be incised , what could be more life-enhancing than a nurse whizzing by, sporting the correct muted shade of lipstick? While a loved one battles for life on a ventilator or in appendicitis hell no relief can be more therapeutic than the visual impact of a attractive hairstyle, freed from the constraint and odour of coconut oil? This is precisely what the doctor ordered when he advised admittance to hospital in case of a medical emergency. So once more, decision makers have devalued and belittled the care giving and auxiliary services that nurses provide. They have also demonstrated unbelievable callousness with regard to the personal safety issues for nursing staff. Else why would they dare to reductively package this vital life saving support network as part of the hospitality industry? The reason for trivialising the serious business of nursing I would argue is not only because a large percentage of nurses happen to be female but also because there is an urgent need to shift the emphasis from overpriced and inadequate medical services and aftercare and this is an effective way to pass the buck with cosmetic ease. Trained, efficient nurses who think quickly on their feet are really what most patients hope for and such as there are, fulfill their responsibilities admirably. Nurses do not need to model themselves on the lines of pageant winners in beauty contests and it is improbable that good nurses can be squeezed out genie like from the bottoms of shampoo bottles or the edges of lipstick tubes. Aruna Shanbaug’s life, seared upon our national conscience, is a grim reminder of the vulnerability of nurses, who work under pressure with unenviable service conditions. Dressing up our nurses in order to unsheath male libidos is not about empowering them. Better conveyance facilities and safe working environments are really options that should be prioritised. The consultant who opines that looking good and feeling good are essential prerequisites for effective nursing needs to wipe off the eye makeup, step out of the talcum haze and look around. Any number of well-groomed young men and women in our public spaces display atrocious behaviour at any given time. They jump queues, talk uncivilly to the old and the disadvantaged, elbow and jostle despite designer tags, perfectly shampooed hair and matching lip accessories. This serious human deficit requires the urgent administration of soft social skills and kinder values, which unfortunately are not available on shelves that stock toiletry. It is time we unclothed the prejudices that our minds are stuffed with and unpeeled layers of misconception and dismissed without equivocation the bogey of the inappropriately clothed woman. The writer is associate professor, English at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University
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Woman in public space: eternally negotiating Many societies, including the most industrialised like Japan, have used the visibility of women in top political leadership, bureaucracy and armed forces to exemplify their claims that women in their countries have already achieved equality. This claim is frequently reaffirmed in everyday discourses mainly by men, whereby it is argued that women have pushed men back so that now it is the men who actually need to fight for equality with women. Yet an examination of institutional structures in different societies within the military, political organisations and society as a whole, as well as discourses on national identity, leads to a rather different picture. Does mere entry of women in public sphere signify gender equality? At times of national crisis women have always been recruited to participate in the war activities but once the crisis is over and before a new crisis emerges, both the rhetoric of equality and representation of nation, are once again adjusted to fit yet another patriarchal, heterosexual familial model. In the words of a feminist writer, women are vote gaining machines for all political parties. In basic terms men are elected, and women help them to get elected. Extension of polarity between the genders is reflected through the age old adoption of rape of women of the defeated nation by the victorious soldiers, signifying the superiority of the victors over those defeated. Literature on Bosnian war rapes explains how the warfare has always used rape as a strategy. According to an author, historical evidence testifies to the commonality of rape not only as a reward for the victorious soldier but also as a means of destroying the social fabric of the conquered population by drawing a line between the polluted females and emasculated males. It has been reported that the large scale raping of Bosnian women, and the projected ineffectiveness of the Bosnian men to protect their women were part of calculated moves of Serbians to stigmatise the entire Bosnian nation as humiliated, inferior, weak and feminine. It is difficult not to agree with the author who asserts “for women it doesn’t matter which side you are on, on both sides children get maimed, and killed and women get raped. It makes it difficult for women to choose sides and enables them to reach out across the ethnic divide.” Radical feminists argue that men engaged in warfare even if fighting on opposing sides, share an understanding of practices such as rape, prostitution, pornography and sexual murder as natural fallout of war. The question is, are the public images of women as soldiers in armed forces projecting them as protectors, on an equal footing with men complete representations of the spaces occupied by these women. Or there still exist spaces, private within the public, hidden from the public view? Several feminist writings have brought out the gendered representations within the acclaimed gender diluted space. In one such narrative, an author writing about Indonesian women’s participation as soldiers in war brings out the temporalilty of these shared spaces through a national Indonesian song. The message it gives is “go back to the domestic sphere.” An extreme kind of inflexibility can be clearly discerned in projecting women located in public sphere. This is one reason why along with her hard earned gender-neutral image of a soldier, pilot, politician or whatever, she remains under continuous pressure to retain and exude her femininity through physical attractiveness and sex appeal. In Japan representations of feminine beauty were affected by intense import of western concepts. As western cultural texts invaded the Japanese market, so did westernised ideals of female attractiveness. Under American occupation, Japanese women traded their kimonos for mini skirts, cut and permed their hair and became familiar with Caucasian features. In the reunified Germany, the East symbolised the past and the West the future, and even as gender roles in the East became more like those in the West, yet East remains the feminised “other” to the West’s masculinised self. Women in the village and western women were distinct in clothing, haircut, make up, skin complexion etc. While many women from the East abandoned their traditional dress in favour of the Western, there were many others who resisted western culture by adopting the traditional dresses. This phenomenon was conceptualised by a scholar as a negotiation by the women of their identities between traditional gender role and the upgrading of domesticity (western). As long as the public sphere continues to use sexualised notions projecting the two genders as unequal, mere entering the public spaces by women would not signify gender equality. Merely by crossing over to the public domain would not transform gender relations. The writer is Chairperson, Departments of Sociology and Women’s Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh
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His considered opinion that women’s clothing provokes rape, custodial or otherwise, is not really very different from the viewpoint of the cops who triggered off Slutwalks all over the world in recent times. The DGP’s understanding of rape merely echoes a blinkered perspective, namely; women dress in order to provoke and ask for it and ergo all rape can be prevented by the simple measure of clamping down on women’s clothing.