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Riven by caste Restoring examinations |
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Poll surge vs PM stakes
Getting the first money order
Get serious about eradicating hunger
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Riven by caste UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has sacked two ministers on the directions of Mulayam Singh Yadav, his father and Samajwadi Party chief. Mulayam was angry over Agriculture Minister Anand Singh's son Kirtivardhan Singh joining the BJP. Political opportunism of Kirtivardhan, who won the Gonda Lok Sabha seat in 1998 and 2004 on the SP ticket, has caused a setback to Mulayam Singh, for whom every seat matters to fulfil his prime ministerial ambition. He may also be unhappy as the SP vote bank among Muslims has suffered a setback after the Muzzafarnagar riots. Another cause of his discomfort can be a serious challenge from the BJP under Narendra Modi's leadership. Modi's close aid, Amit Shah, has relocated from Gujarat to UP and is working on the BJP poll strategy. Modi is expected to contest from Varanasi, a seat Murli Manohar Joshi has agreed to vacate rather reluctantly. The signal Modi wants to send is that he is not an outsider asking for votes, but is part of the state and concerned about its problems. The BJP's twin message of development and Hindutva will find its resonance among sections of voters. The Congress has a limited base in UP and it competes with the SP for Muslim support and with the BSP for Dalit votes. The Aam Aadmi Party too has fielded its candidates, including one against Rahul Gandhi, and reports of Arvind Kejriwal taking on Modi in Varanasi are also doing the rounds. Both AAP and the BJP have their supporters in cities. With its 80 Lok Sabha seats, Uttar Pradesh is capable of having a major say in national politics but its voters usually return a fractured verdict based on caste rather than vote for performance. Other backward states like Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are marching ahead. UP, however, is tied to poverty. Its leaders divide people over temples and mosques or divert funds for building statues. Because of rampant crime and poor infrastructure, industry stays away. Akhilesh should look into various causes of backwardness. Playing caste politics will not help for long. |
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Restoring examinations No
detention policy" introduced under the RTE (Right to Education) Act was welcomed by educationists because of its proven success in the West. But India is a different story. The policy was introduced prematurely, without first improving the basic infrastructure required for such a policy and with the sole intent to check student dropouts. Now, MLAs of Punjab, in a rare show of unity, have demanded the re-introduction of examinations in the government primary and middle schools in the state. In a country like the UK, if a student underperforms, the assessment grades are compared with the national data of progress levels and a 'targeted intervention' is made based on the teachers' analysis for the poor performance. Following this policy blindly in rural India is failing all, including the students for whose welfare it was introduced. The annual education survey of 6.3 lakh children conducted across India in 16,00 villages, supposed to be getting quality education under the RTE Act showed students in class V in rural India cannot read the text taught in class II. Even though 97 per cent children in the 6-14 age group are now enrolled in schools. Education should not be treated as a tool to produce favourable data for universalisation of education. Schools must offer special courses for slow learners, but a majority of schools have not even spared a thought for it. In surveys conducted across India, teachers have expressed scepticism about the success of this policy in crowded classrooms. The Rashtriya Madhymik Shiksha Abhiyan had introduced a programme to help slow learners for students of class IX. On the same lines special courses can be designed to help the weak. A continuous and comprehensive evaluation through class tests is another solution. Till new systems are standardised and put in place, it is better to conduct examinations rather than promote lackadaisical attitude among teachers and incompetence among students.
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Thought for the Day
If you're naturally kind, you attract a lot of people you don't like.
—William Feather
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AT the meeting of Imperial Legislative Council on Monday the Hon. Mr. Surendra Nath Banerjea inquired whether any despatch had been forwarded to the Secretary of State by the Government of India on the subject of the separation of the judicial and executive functions since the debate which took place in the Council on the 7th March 1913 and whether the Government proposed to lay on the table the despatch and all official papers connected therewith including correspondence with the Local Government. Sir Reginald Craddock, replying on behalf of Government, stated as follows: “The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second and third parts it is not possible to make any statement at present, nor is it proposed to publish the papers referred to.” The policy of silence which commends itself to the Government is much to be regretted. Opium trade in non-China markets
SIR William Meyer is anxious to profit from the market which still remains open for Indian opium in the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong and the Dutch East Indies. He says that “the sudden reduction in the supply of uncertified opium naturally put those countries to considerable inconvenience, for they found great difficulty in obtaining sufficient opium to work their monopolies”. It is clear from this that the decision of the Government of India to increase the export to these markets has been influenced by the fact that if India does not supply opium, Persia or some other country does. The February issue of the “Opium Harvest” gives extracts from an article by Dr. John F. Hornsey in the British North Borneo. Dr. Hornsey says: “Every facility is afforded to the Chinese and Javanese imported coolies to spend their money on these vices, to which habit they at length get so enslaved that they are reduced to a condition of perpetual servitude, being always in debt.”
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Poll surge vs PM stakes The
latest opinion polls following the announcement of the general election have forecast major gains by the BJP-NDA alliance at the cost of a floundering Congress-UPA. One need not question the integrity of the major polls, though lesser known pollsters have been exposed through a sting operation as willing to trade margins for a consideration, an offshoot of the entirely unethical paid news phenomenon. The 11-party pre-election front remains wrapped in uncertainty, while certain players like the AIDMK, Trinamool and even the BJD remain open to post-election alliances, with Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee making no secret of their prime ministerial ambitions. Elements within the BJP worry that once elevated, the man may remain entrenched for two or more terms, thus putting paid to their ambitions. But the greater concern will be the views of the NDA partners unless the BJP on its own is in such a dominating position that it can dictate any terms. This seems unlikely. So even if Modi is the BJP's choice (whatever the inner reservations), the NDA will have a casting vote on who is to be Prime Minister. The constituent parties may well prefer someone less right-wing, tainted and divisive and, more importantly, less influenced by the RSS- Hindutva lobby which has been given, or has certainly assumed, a central role in the forthcoming elections as a matter of "Hindu survival". The RSS, a so-called "cultural body", has been increasingly steering BJP policy of late, wary of losing its operational status as head of the Parivar and keeper of "cultural nationalism". It will not allow a BJP government to cut loose. In his latest Vijaya Dashmi speech following its Amravati conclave last year, Mohan Bhagwat has called on RSS cadres to take the field and deliver "100 per cent Hindu voters" to the polling booths. Ashok Singhal of the VHP is in fear of Hindus becoming a minority and has urged Hindu mothers to bear five children each! Narendra Modi has told Northeasterners to welcome Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, Fiji, Mauritius and the US, where they face persecution, but throw out Muslim and Christian infiltrators. In Ayodhya, the repair and construction of mosques within a sacred radius has virtually been prohibited under VHP pressure. Numbers of ex-servicemen are meanwhile joining the BJP on account of its sturdy "nationalism". At its latest annual conclave in Bangalore the RSS determined not to compromise on "moral values, social systems and traditions in the name of individual freedom" on such issues as live-in relationships and homosexuality. Wendy Donniger's book "On Hinduism" has been pulped under pressure. Elsewhere moral policing continues. The BJP continues to demand the passage of a uniform civil code; but what is utterly surprising is that the party does not legislate this in any of the States it rules as is constitutionally permissible and does no injury to personal law. A UCC, already partly extant in the form of the Special Marriage Act, would liberate women from male bondage, make for equal opportunity and cut at the root of the power of fundamentalist clerics of all faiths who now rule the roost. The indifference to such a basic reform across the board, largely born of legal illiteracy reinforced by gender insensitivity, is truly astonishing. The Supreme Court has, however, just moved to legalise Muslim adoption under civil law, a step towards the making of a uniform code. To get back to the polls, aware of the negative vibes caused by Modi's record in 2002, Rajnath Singh, the BJP president, has said that the party is prepared to apologise to the Muslims in case any injustice was done to them. Only a sense of inner guilt can explain this dubious apology. A more curious reference to 2002 came thereafter from Venkiah Naidu, who sought to prove that the party is stronger than any individual (such as Modi). He argued that when Vajpayee chastised Modi and called on him to resign, reminding him of his "raj dharma", as Gujarat's Chief Minister, the party collectively vetoed the Prime Minister. Was Vajpayee then an ill-informed maverick talking out of turn or a liberal statesman deeply anguished by the holocaust? So the jury is still out on who may be Prime Minister even if the 2014 electoral outcome indicates a BJP surge under Modi's leadership. One must wait to see how the chips fall. However, one does not see the Congress under Rahul Gandhi going anywhere. The government was busy frantically handing out lollipops hours before the election code came into force. Governors were appointed at 3.20 a.m, the Defence Minister's achievements were eulogised at 7.30 a.m. and the Home Ministry announced that certain Wakf properties would not be acquired just 10 minutes before the election code deadline. Reservations for Jats from the OBC quota were also announced. In another display of illiberalism, a group of women academics at Aligarh Muslim University celebrated the International Women's Day by extolling "purdah". At a private Meerut college, a group of Kashmiri students that cheered Pakistan's cricket victory over India caused some understandable annoyance. That was then followed by an over-the-top sedition charge against them by the UP police which was fortunately rescinded a day later after Omar Abdullah spoke to AkhileshYadav. We have to become more mature and avoid knee-jerk reactions. The poll campaign is warming up but the AAP-BJP brawls in Delhi, Lucknow and in Gujarat are a warning signal. AAP was wrong to see the Gandhinagar police's temporary detention of Kejriwal's motorcade for moving without sanction after the coming into force of the election code, as an "arrest". This sparked off a fractious Delhi rally by AAP supporters outside the BJP office and a retaliatory strike by the BJP in Lucknow. This kind of rowdyism must be put down with a firm hand. Nor should the man who blackened Yogendra Yadav's face with ink at Delhi's Jantar Matar be let off on Yadav saying so. Unless such conduct is dealt with sternly, others will be encouraged to misbehave and plead immunity.
www.bgverghese.com
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Getting the first money order Today
messages and money can be transferred to any part of the world with the click of a mouse. But who can forget the thrill of a postman knocking at the door with a money order or a postcard in hand? Those were the days when earning a living was difficult and options were limited. Often, the elder son of a family ventured to far-off places in search of work. Very few families were a bit affluent. Managing the necessities was itself a daily challenge. The aged postman, Piare Lal, was no stranger to us in this small town for he had been a part of our joys and sorrows. But this time he came excited, demanding home-made sweets from my mother. Not disclosing the reason for his excitement, he handed over five hundred rupees, a princely sum at that time, bringing tears of happiness to my late father, who was a while ago complaining of financial constrains. "Rup Lal, your days of happiness have finally arrived", the postman said. We, the three siblings, repeatedly counted the big five currency notes of Rs100 each, for in those days one had never touched an amount as large as this. Another time, a telegram would arrive from my maternal uncles, sending "shagun' on "rakhi" to my mother, as a mark of their remembrance and affection. My mother would make us write replies to her brothers on a postcard, thus testing our language skills, lately acquired at school. When I started contributing news reports to The Tribune in 1981, I received my first payment of Rs 2.80 through a money order. That was the start of my career as a journalist and the elderly Piare Lal became part of this. Piare Lal would walk through the streets with a bag on his shoulders. At times he would sit on a cot spread outside small houses, enjoy a cup of tea offered by his patrons. His talk would revolve around worldly matters, on which sometimes his advice was sought. He had become a part of our life. His mere sight was enough for the heart to pound and eyes to anticipate. When we were children, he played his own little games of suspense while delivering the results of our examinations or at times would give us a free ride on his bicycle. Those were the days when small things of life were a source of joy. Resources were limited, but enough to share. Life was uncertain. Yet hope sustained life. Times have changed. Now my civil servant son is just a Skype call away, while the Almighty has bestowed on us all material comforts. However, the charms of receiving an envelope from the postman, and sharing one's joys and sorrows in public, are still the ones this heart longs for.
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Get serious about eradicating hunger Malnutrition is a malady that affects both the richest and the poorest of people. What an equaliser, satirists may argue. The affluent and the most disadvantaged have at least one thing in common — being malnourished. The one having too much to eat but eating the wrong things (or the figure conscious not eating at all) and the other not having enough to eat and who then, has time to think about quality. But no matter who is afflicted, one thing is for sure, it has serious long and short-term consequences. Not surprisingly then that the nation, along with the global community, has been rightly concerned with food and its security in the general interest of mankind.
In India we finally got cross-party consensus and passed the National Food Security Bill and the $20 billion hike in subsidy that goes with that decision. Hunger and nutrition were again centre stage, though neither with the right balance nor the right emphasis. To the government’s credit one can hardly fault it for attempting to address one of the biggest social challenges of the country if not the world. So what are the challenges of balance and emphasis where we are still wanting? Currently, all steps taken to eradicate hunger in India have fallen way short of the mark. As part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), India was committed to halving the number of underweight children below three years of age. However, according to the National Family Health Survey estimates, the proportion of underweight children has declined by only three percentage points from 1998-99 to 2005-06, from 43 per cent to about 40 per cent. At this rate of decline we will only achieve 33 per cent by 2015 vis-à-vis the target value of 26 per cent. The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report ranked India 15th among the worst for the hunger situation. Worse, it is one of only three countries where the GHI has become worse from 1996 to 2011, whilst in the same period many other less developed countries, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi, have succeeded in improving theirs. Clearly a lot more needs to be done because even the MDG target of 26 per cent of the population being hungry is unacceptable. What is required is zero tolerance towards abject hunger. It must be our societal belief and commitment that it is an unacceptable indignity to have people hungry when they go to bed at night. Smoothen PDS When it comes to nutrition the issue is one of balance. The right to food envisages the provision of a certain minimum level of food grains for citizens, which essentially means ensuring that every citizen will have a defined minimum amount of carbohydrates. While this will no doubt address the issue of hunger it will still remain painfully lacking in its ability to provide what would be considered the minimum level of nutrition. So whereas we will have a lesser number of hungry people if the government delivers on its right to food objectives, we will unfortunately still have a large number of malnourished citizens, of which mothers and children will be the worst affected.
What is required is a tweaking of the public distribution system such that we deliver a certain quality of food, the right balance and wholesome, rather than just doling out quantities of carbohydrates. Such relatively easy changes can make the fight against malnutrition much more effective. Vital nutrition supplements such as iodine, vitamin A and minerals can lead to much more effective results. With the right balance we will be able to ensure a far more compelling objective than simply the right to food. We will deliver on the right to wholesome nutrition with all its attendant benefits. Not doing so can have disastrous consequences. There is enough evidence to show that the social effects of malnourishment can be quite debilitating and can linger much beyond childhood. A recent report by Save the Children showed that malnourishment adversely affects the ability of children to learn — malnourished children score 7 per cent lower in maths tests and are 19 per cent less likely to be able to read even at age eight, significantly affecting their future prospects. Such incapacitation is in fact known to create a cycle of malnourishment. Unable to escape poverty, they are less able to provide nourishment for their children in turn. They fall prey to what one may call the malnourishment poverty trap. The report goes on to state that childhood malnutrition cuts future earnings by at least 20 per cent, and in total, current childhood malnutrition could cost the global economy $125billion when today’s children grow up. All these facts highlight the pressing need for making health nutrition available for all children on an urgent basis. Our inability to respond with speed and conviction will mean that we will not stop the death of 1.3 million children who die of malnutrition in India every year nor remove the slur on our society of having one in every three malnourished children in the world living in our country as reported by UNICEF. The way forward First and foremost, education of mothers and the availability of a healthy and balanced diet for them is even more important than nutrition for children. Too often, children are disadvantaged even before birth due to the poor health of their mothers and because of the poor sanitation conditions under which they are born. Information needs to be disseminated to expecting and new mothers about the importance of a healthy diet for the child, breast feeding, de-worming and availability of supplements, including vitamin A, zinc, iron, and various minerals to help infants’ growth. Secondly, sanitation plays an important part in the nourishment of a child, though this aspect still is not fully appreciated by communities. Diseases stemming from poor sanitation are increasingly being identified as a major cause of nutrition loss in children. More than half of India’s population does not use toilets because sanitation is inaccessible or unaffordable. Diarrhoeal diseases flowing from poor water and sanitation conditions reduce children’s ability to absorb nutrition, adversely affecting their normal growth. A few years ago, a government sanitation programme was implemented in half of 60 villages in Ahmednagar in Maharashtra. After the programme, Spears and fellow economist Jeff Hammer found that, on average, the height of children in the experimental group had increased by about 1 cm, relative to those in the 30 villages where the programme had not been introduced, thus showing the extent to which sanitation, or the lack of it, can affect the growth of children. The lack of sanitation facilities for more than half of the Indian population is another unacceptable indignity heaped on our citizens for which we have every reason to be deeply disturbed. Thirdly, it cannot be said with greater emphasis that both emphasis and balance pale in comparison to the misdemeanour of poor implementation and the leakage of public money that happens in delivering programmes on hunger and malnourishment. Such leakage and inefficiency is a travesty on the trust that citizens place on their government by paying taxes for the provision of such services to the most disadvantaged of our fellow countrymen. We need efficient and effective delivery for which the government must seek partnerships with the private and not-for-profit sectors, for only then will we get the right bang for the buck when it comes to addressing the challenges of hunger and malnutrition. In less than two years from now the world would have come to an important landmark moment, the last date to achieve the 2015 MDG goals. Many countries will celebrate their achievement of the goals whilst India, notwithstanding some distinct successes, will carry the burden and the ignominy of underachievement. Is it time that we said to ourselves that poverty, hunger and malnourishment deserve zero tolerance. Is it time to say that a government that cannot deliver on the promise that no child will die from preventable causes; that no citizen will go hungry; and that malnourishment is an unacceptable condition is a government that is unworthy of public affection and unacceptable to us, the citizens of India. —The writer is Chairman of the Nanhi Chhaan Foundation and Save the Children, India.
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Polls are prone to go awry. Even if the party numbers turn out to be broadly right, there could be upsets in the indicated preference or assumption of who will be Prime Minister. Modi currently leads the pack but it is not axiomatic that he will be the final choice. He remains controversial and even divisive to some, even within the BJP, witness the inner-party tussle over whether Murli Manohar Joshi should give up his Varanasi seat to accommodate Modi. 
My elder brother, the late Satya Bhushan, was the first in the family to have managed a job at the Hindustan Motors in Kolkata. The telephone had still not arrived in the family. We, three brothers and our parents, would eagerly wait for a postcard from Kolkata. My eyes still shed a tear of nostalgia when I recall the scene of the arrival of his first salary to our home in Kharar in the form of a money order. 