The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Long road ahead
Towards self-reliance of IITs

Since the Human Resource Development Ministry has a new name at the helm of its affairs, plans in the education sector are afoot for yet another phase of modifications. During Kapil Sibal’s reign as HRD Minister, a government-appointed panel had proposed a four-fold hike in the IITs’ annual fee, from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh, so that the premier technology institutes could become self-dependent. The committee formed in 2009 was headed by a former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman, Anil Kakodkar, who had suggested that students from economically weaker sections could be given loans without collateral (security) and scholarships. The committee had justified this hike, saying that the fee should be increased to a level where the IITs would be able to manage their courses on their own (without government assistance).

Now, under the new leadership, India’s premier technical institutions are once again considering a revision of the annual fee for undergraduate courses by 80 per cent, which would increase the fee from Rs 50,000 to Rs 90,000. The agenda will come up for discussion at the upcoming meeting of the standing committee of the IIT Council at Mumbai on Nov 5. If implemented, this will be applied to all the 9618 seats of the 15 IITs from the next session.

Understandably, the endeavour of the IITs to achieve complete autonomy rests a lot on their financial independence from the government. Thus, the revision is overdue. As such, other top Central government institutions like IIMs have a fee structure that is three times higher than the IITs. Concerns of the economically weaker sections are already taken into consideration; IITs are working on modalities for a tripartite arrangement to provide loans to students who can repay these when they get jobs after their studies. While even second rung institutions have a higher fee structure, the prime technical institutions need more financial self-reliance for the constant upgradation of knowledge and cutting- edge technology that they deal with.

Securing ties with B’desh
Winds of change blowing in Dhaka

The initiative launched by New Delhi to secure India’s interests vis-à-vis Bangladesh deserves appreciation. India cannot afford to depend on only one leader for having cordial relations with Bangladesh, where China is fast increasing its presence. The outcome of the 2014 general election in Bangladesh is expected to bring about a change of government in Dhaka with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) capturing power from the Awami League. This is a cause for worry for India as the BNP leader, Begum Khaleda Zia, is known for her anti-India stance, contrary to the Awami League leader and Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed. If India remains a passive spectator, all the investments made in Bangladesh after Sheikh Hasina came to power may go waste.

India, therefore, first invited former President and Bangladesh Jatiya Party chief HM Ershad to New Delhi to convey the message that New Delhi is ready to continue to strengthen its relationship with Dhaka irrespective of who controls the levers of power there. After Irshad came the turn of Begum Zia to exchange views with Indian leaders. The most significant revelation the BNP leader made during her week-long visit to New Delhi was when she stated that “let us not look back in the rear-view mirror.” During her meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid she gave clear hints that she was willing to change her anti-India stance, provided she got something substantial from New Delhi to silence her critics.

India has already been taking measures to ensure that there is considerable change in the balance of trade between the two countries which has remained heavily tilted in favour of New Dehi for a long time. This is besides the assurance given to Begum Zia that efforts are on for the operationalisation of the Teesta water-sharing agreement and the accord on the exchange of some enclaves, which got blocked due to opposition by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Bangladesh may get more from India but Begum Khaleda, if she captures power, will have to honour her word that she will not allow any territory of Bangladesh to be used for anti-India activities by insurgent groups.

Thought for the Day

The way to succeed is to double your error rate.

—Thomas J. Watson

ARTICLE

Rankling rankings
Govt shouldn’t abdicate its responsibility
by Rajesh Kochhar

This year’s rankings of world universities spring no surprises as far as India is concerned. India as before is placed very low. In a list prepared by a London-based educational advice company, Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd (QS), the highest ranking entry from India is the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, which is placed at number 212. Next comes IIT Bombay at 227, followed by IIT Kanpur at 278. India’s dismal performance stands in sharp contrast to that of China which has seven entries among the top 200, with Peking University placed at 44.

Arranging diverse institutions from across the world in a linear array is a complex and controversial task. One must identify contributing factors, and then devise ways of quantifying them. QS provides services to international students, especially in their plans to study abroad. Its business philosophy is reflected in the methodology it employs to construct its list. Accordingly, it ascertains the opinion of academics and employers through a “global survey” and assigns them the weightage of 40 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Citations received by the faculty for its research publications are assigned a weight of 20 per cent. Faculty-to-student ratio contributes 20 per cent, while 5 per cent weightage is given to each of the international faculty and student ratios.

The London-based weekly magazine Times Higher Education (THE) collaborated with QS from 2004 till 2009 but then broke off to start rankings of its own. It assigns a weight of 30 per cent each to both teaching and research (30 per cent), 2.5 per cent to knowledge transfer measured through income from industry, and 7.5 per cent to international outlook. Expectedly, top universities are common to QS and THE lists, even though their order may change. Differences in methodologies, however, do not affect India’s standing, which remains consistently low.

It may not be very well known that since 2003 China has been producing a ranking list of its own, known as Academic Ranking of World Universities , also known as Shanghai ranking. Backed by the Chinese government, it has been designed as a global benchmark so that the various universities in China could assess their own progress and catch up with the West on “hard scientific research”. Significantly, this ranking takes note of the alumni and staff who have won Nobel prizes and Fields medals.

A first-hand anecdote may not be out of place here. More than a decade ago, I was part of a small group invited to dinner by the Chinese Ambassador in New Delhi. During conversation, our leader very proudly told the ambassador that as many as six Nobel laureates would be attending the forthcoming Indian Science Congress. The Chinese Ambassador responded by asking in a measured tone: Do you have that many Nobel laureates in your country? He, of course, knew we had none. We are happy to be seen in the company of Western celebrities while China wishes to produce international celebrities from its own ranks.

India and China live in two different worlds. India notices a problem and whines; China notices a problem and acts. China can plan for the next 500 years while India cannot see beyond the current fiscal year or at best the remaining portion of the top man’s tenure. Most importantly, India wishes to be patronised by the West whereas China wishes to compete with and eventually dethrone it.

Leave aside devising criteria for measuring world-class institutions for our own purposes, we do not even have reliable R and D data on our institutions. A case in point is the number of engineering and technology doctorates awarded in 1977 — a year for which independent statistics are available. The University Grants Commission (UGC) says 152 doctorates were awarded, but the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says there were 289. However, a committee appointed by the government in 1978 to review education and research carried out a headcount and reported 329 doctorates — more than double the UGC figure. For the year 1989, the number of engineering and technology doctorates varied from 238 to 586 depending on which government source is consulted.

There is similar confusion in the case of science doctorates, although the spread is smaller: the quoted figures for 1987 range from 2,591 to 3,038. Similarly, what to say of analysing the publication data, India does not even count the number of research papers published in the country. For some sort of an answer, one must turn to foreign databases, which include only a handful of Indian journals. India, in fact, encourages substandard research by providing channels for its dissemination.

It is universally agreed that the core missions of a university are teaching and research. In both of these, India’s record is dismal. Barring a few exceptions, the research output of Indian universities is meagre and its impact on world research negligible. Also, our teacher-to-student ratios are unacceptably low. It is well known that a very large number of faculty positions are lying vacant all over the country. They are not being filled because of the resource crunch. But that is not the only reason.

Our human resource situation reminds one of the famous lines by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” There is large-scale unemployment all around, and yet employers in government and private sectors find it difficult to identify suitable candidates. This is so because our teaching and training methods are so defective that our educational products are largely unemployable.

Secondly, and this point is rarely, if ever, discussed, and university vice-chancellors and institute directors in general dread advertising and filling vacancies of any kind. Even if the selection board is interested in hiring a meritorious candidate, there is in general pressure from persons in power in favour of an undeserving candidate. These pressures are particularly high in state-run institutions. If we can guarantee that recruitment and career advancement will be based strictly on merit, the rank of our academic institutions will rise not only in world lists but also in our own eyes.

It is no doubt good to win international recognition, but this recognition should be a natural corollary of national efforts and not an end in itself. In the years after Independence, more and more educational and research institutions have been made part of political patronage. In the name of globalisation, the Indian state has abdicated its responsibility in the vital area of education, neglected its own institutions, and permitted commercial interests to degrade the whole system. Salvation for India lies not in creating a handful of gold-plated elitist institutions which will be noticed abroad, but in raising the standards of an average school, college and university.n

The writer is a former Director, National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi, and currently associated with the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali.

MIDDLE

Secrets of happy marriage
by Ashok Kumar Yadav

AS we were ascending the podium to bless the newly-weds, the bridegroom asked us to give some practical tips on how to steer the marital ship even during turbulence. Though he postured to wear mannish heroics on his sleeves, deep in his heart he appeared somewhat jumpy, having read Socrates’ saying: “As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take the course he wills, he will be sure to repent.”

Having elected to marry his childhood flame, whipping the parental advisories, he was apparently reeling under some unseen fear triggered by Thomason’s alert: “Love is blind, marriage is an eye-opener.” He was, therefore, eager to unwrap whether the marriage was really a three-ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring and suffering, as often said.

He pleaded for an exclusive tutorial on matrimonial commandments to facilitate sailing without wailing. As he revealed that he looked upon us as an iconic duo, the pragmatism acquired in 25 years of matrimony started cascading within me to ooze out. I looked into my wife for her silent consent before I plunged into an area “where even the angels feared to tread”.

As the bridegroom knelt for grooming the secrets of happy marriage, an identical mythological sequence flashed in my mind when the undecided Arjuna was being counselled by Krishna in the battlefield of Mahabharata. All the guests started encircling us for a rapid revision of matrimonial lessons forgotten long ago.

With my right index finger raised, I started sermonising: “Son, there are two rules you should never ever forget: first, it is only wife who is sovereign; secondly, if there is any doubt, refer to rule one.” This mantra was ostensibly inspired by Woody Allen’s dictum: “In my house, I’m the boss; my wife is just the decision maker.” The husband should, therefore, do his “karma” without expecting any reward in return, I continued.

The husband-wife duo should clearly demarcate their territories and serialise their functions. All the issues of domestic importance like bearing and rearing of children, domestic protocol and expenditure of husband’s income would indisputably fall within wife’s domain whereas foreign policies, nuclear strategy and economic recession are where the husband’s writ would run supreme. No sooner did I decree that it was she who enjoyed absolute rights whereas he was saddled only with duties, all the women-folk there started roaring.

As I was tutoring that it was the wife who provided the climate while the husband the landscape, my wife in public display of her authority muted me into silence and usurped the centre-stage. She reminded that sensual pleasures had only the fleeting brilliance of a comet whereas a rainbow marriage had the serenity of an eternal sunset. The couple ought to be “two good forgivers”.

Responding to what were the attributes of an “understanding” husband, I epitomised him as the one who substituted himself for a maid when she bunked, took his wife for outing, kept a trail of important dates, gifted solitaires, never hurt her, and said sorry even if he was not at fault.

Apparently finding our rainbow recipe indigestible, an octogenarian divorcee thundered that a happy marriage in reality meant nothing but only a happy wife, notwithstanding how miserable the husband felt. It was now the turn of male-chauvinist husbands to jeer when he endorsed Henny Youngman: “The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.”

Oped Pakistan

Bringing about change by citizens
Two initiatives for improvement in the quality of life in towns owe their success to their mayors’ ability to mobilise the local communities for their own development.
I.A Rehman

CAN the citizens of a democratic state contribute to their development, or an improved management of their affairs, apart from periodically electing their rulers or using once in a while their power to effect regime change?

An answer in the positive was offered at a well-organised Development Solution Forum recently held at Bangkok by an Oxfam-led consortium of development and academic institutions. The eight stories of successful citizen action from Asian countries presented there should be of interest to Pakistani activists who are exploring the non-state path to progress.

Two initiatives for improvement in the quality of life in towns owe their success to their mayors’ ability to mobilise the local communities for their own development.

In one of these towns, Libon, in the Philippines, Mrs Agnes Dycoco, elected mayor for three consecutive terms, launched a number of projects, especially in the areas of education and health, to meet the basic needs of the town’s 66,345 residents, more than half of them living below the poverty line.

Her efforts met with remarkable success because, besides carrying the population with her, she was able to win the confidence of the authorities and establish a partnership with regional and national agencies and NGOs. The story of this town presents a purely development model as the mayor sees the elected leaders in local government as “development managers” rather than “political machines”.

The mayor of the other municipality, Koh Kha Tambon, in Thailand, Ms Penpuk Rattanakumfu, also has won three consecutive terms in office. She is firmly committed to the political road to progress. While studying for a Master’s degree in political science and local government, she imbibed the view that accountable local governance and active community participation can be achieved by strengthening civil society.

She developed a four-point project comprising the concept of a ‘liveable city’, building public-mindedness, enhancement of participation and learning processes, and being an autonomous and independent community.

Both these cases presuppose the existence of a system of local government, regular elections, helpful oversight by higher tiers of governance and a duly sensitised citizenry.

If these conditions are met and the people can learn to elect persons of sound knowledge and vision, similar experiments could be carried out in Pakistan too, for they are in the nature of efficient use of the already available space for public uplift.

The third example of citizens’ initiative came from Cambodia and its objective is to raise women’s share in parliament and services. A national coalition of local NGOs called the Committee to Promote Women in Politics has won considerable success in the seven years of its existence. This narrative should not be unfamiliar to Pakistanis as promotion of women’s participation in politics has been one of the NGOs’ most notable successes.

Incidentally, Cambodia — the killing fields of yesteryear — is not as backward a country as many Pakistanis might think. Women there account for 51.4 per cent of the population, hold 19 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly and 14.6 per cent in the Senate, 7.7 per cent of ministers’ offices and 8.2 per cent of the posts of secretaries of state.

The work of the Janagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Bangalore, for improving the quality of urban populations, through documentation of financial affairs, campaign against corruption, promotion of citizens’ participation and developing an index to measure the quality of citizenship, is also worth studying.

So is the crusade for peace carried out by Yaena Salamae, who belongs to the Muslim community in southern Thailand where thousands of lives have been lost in ethnic violence over the past eight years. The loss of her son turned this simple and quiet housewife into an active and articulate defender of innocent people and a formidable advocate for peace.

From Indonesia came a report on a multi-dimensional social development project, heavily backed by donors, a model Pakistanis are quite familiar with.

Of the eight stories of change brought about by citizens, two that stand out for originality and their potential for direct impact on governance deserve special notice.

Samadhan is the name of a pilot project launched in two districts in India, one in Madhya Pradesh and the other in Orissa. (A similar project is said to have been developed earlier in Kenya.) Under a partnership between the collector of the district, a leading civil society organisation and the local media, the project creates an Internet-based platform for citizens to directly demand their service entitlements under national and state government schemes and track their fulfilment.

The project works like this: a citizen can file his complaint against a delay in receiving his entitlement in the Samadhan system through a phone call, SMS or the web. The computer registers the complaint by location, time, date, type and other particulars. These complaints are read by local officials and they are required to indicate appropriate courses of action.

The complainant can keep track of action taken by the administration via SMS or website. Once the matter is resolved the complainant is duly informed. It is said that Samadhan gives the citizens the power to take their grievance to the government without any cost or hassle but the benefit of people’s empowerment means much more than cutting costs, financial as well as those of access to redress forums.

The other project, this one from Vietnam, is called Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI). A joint effort of UNDP, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and an NGO, PAPI complements a government programme for monitoring the country’s reform master plans. The project measures from the citizens’ viewpoint provincial governance (63 provinces) and public administration under six heads: (i) participation at the local levels; (ii) transparency; (iii) vertical accountability; (iv) control of corruption; (v) public administrative procedures; and (vi) public service delivery.

These heads are divided into sectors. For instance, the public service delivery has four sectors — public health, public primary education, infrastructure, and law and order — and each sector is further divided into three to seven service entitlements. The index is compiled on the basis of responses from a cross-section of the population and attempts are made to ensure a comprehensive representation of citizens.

Both these initiatives can give ordinary citizens a feeling of empowerment and control over their day-to-day affairs but in my view they lag behind Pakistan’s Orangi Pilot Project.

However, all these success stories run parallel to states’ avowed policies and depend on national governments’ goodwill and international support. Such help is unlikely to be available to a citizens’ enterprise that challenges the development paradigm sanctified by the custodians of power at home and at the global level.

It is true that removal of public complaints at the local level impedes the rise of mass movements for a radical change that addresses all forms of injustice and exploitation. But in societies where prospects for establishing a new and egalitarian order are not in sight, citizens’ initiatives for alleviating the people’s suffering may not be fruitless.

By arrangement with Dawn, Islamabad

Reformers and jihadis in Pakistan
Khurram Husain

THE year 1990 was a turning point in Pakistan's history in more ways than one. The Asghar Khan case has highlighted the lies that turned the 1990s into a political train wreck, and the heightened role that money came to play in politics.

But 1990 is also the year when Pakistan's reforms began, and the slow, reluctant process through which this country had to adapt to a world of globalised capital flows got under way.

A number of important changes were kicked off in that year whose consequences are with us even today. The largest share of government revenues, for instance, used to come from taxing foreign trade in those days, and with free trade becoming the new norm around the world, this had to change. In 1988, 42 per cent of all tax revenues came from international trade taxes.

So in Pakistan, between the years 1988 and 1993, the critical watershed years when structural reforms began to be undertaken, in the area of trade alone maximum tariffs were brought down from 225 per cent in 1988 to 90 per cent by 1993.

In time this would come down to 30 or 35 per cent, excluding the automobile sector, but the sharpest reductions were brought about in the early years, and they had a profound impact on government revenues.

High import duties and tariffs were a legacy of the 1960s when Pakistan belonged to that club of countries which pursued an import substitution industrialisation strategy, seeking to do as much of their manufacturing for themselves as they could.

Suppressing foreign trade was a key plank in this strategy, and diverting all incomes into an endless cycle of reinvestment was its cornerstone. Tax policy was made with an eye to "penalise those incomes which seek to leave the investment stream", in the words of Mahbubul Haq.

But that changed with the Sixth Five-Year Plan, drafted under the last days of the Junejo government, which sought for the first time to reorient Pakistan towards an export-led strategy of economic development. The Sixth Plan eventually turned into the adjustment programme that Pakistan signed with the IMF in 1988, which was the facility that ushered the country into an era of globalised capital flows.

Tax policy was now going to be made with an eye to penalising consumption, with the burden of taxation to be carried by those who consumed more. Starting in 1989, sales tax coverage of domestic industrial production was increased from 15 to 30 per cent in one year, and exemptions on standard custom duties were removed, although some crept back in later.

The IMF programme signed in 1988 envisioned steady revenue growth until 1991, when the move to a comprehensive general sales tax was supposed to be finalised.

The biggest burden of this adjustment was borne by the first Benazir government. "The encouraging trend established during the first two years of … the programme in reducing the fiscal deficit (to 6.5 per cent of GDP in 1989) was not sustained and the deficit widened again to 8.7 per cent and 7.5 per cent in FY91 and FY92, respectively," noted the World Bank in 1993.

Defence, debt servicing and subsidies formed the largest chunk of government expenditures then as well as now, standing at about 45 per cent of GDP in FY 1992, which was 47 per cent at the start of the adjustment programme in 1988.

All of this was complemented by changes taking place in credit policy, privatisation, liberalisation of the exchange rate and the opening up of foreign currency deposits (FCDs).

So a question suggests itself. Despite some effort, probably the most strenuous Pakistan had made until then, to implement reforms designed to integrate the country with a globalising world, the reforms failed to bring sustainability to government finances or to the external account. Why? One easy answer would be to point to the shortcomings in the reforms, to highlight politically motivated slippages.

But the fact that the Asghar Khan case has brought to light offers another explanation. Even as Pakistan's civilian authorities worked mightily to bring about changes necessary for the economy to participate in a globalising world, shadowy powers worked hard to execute policies that isolated Pakistan more and more.

This tension, between the work of the civilian authorities that sought openness and engagement with the outside world, and the military authorities wanting to project power in the region at the cost of international goodwill, must be properly explored. The same time period when the first large-scale reform programme was implemented, also saw the country come under sanctions, become a platform for militancy, and come to the brink of a near full-scale war with India in 1990.

Nawaz Sharif himself said later that Aslam Beg and Asad Durrani talked to him about exporting heroin as a way to pay for the covert actions they wanted to carry out, now that foreign money was no longer available to pay for their dirty deeds, showing the insanity of the enterprise these people were prepared to undertake to pursue their ambitions.

This history needs to be told. The subversion of democracy by those named in the Supreme Court judgment is a historic crime. But the subversion of the economy, which paid the cost through isolation at a time when it desperately needed openness to adapt to a changing world, is the untold subtext in this story. This is a cost that we will be bearing for many more generations to come.

By arrangement with Dawn, Islamabad