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Pause and think Making them job ready |
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Prime Minister Modi
On getting a passport
Defence expenditure: Get value for money
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Pause and think Being
in the news for the wrong reasons has dented Arvind Kejriwal's image in the past and he seems to have learnt no lessons. His choice of jail over bail in a defamation case may get him media attention but it shows him in poor light — a promising leader frittering away his energy on non-issues. Few would shed tears for his portrayal of himself as a victim. He has made a serious allegation of corruption against BJP leader Nitin Gadkari and the onus is on him to convince the court with evidence. Otherwise, he faces the legal consequences. The subsequent protest by AAP workers, unwarranted as it was, led to traffic jams and inconvenienced commuters. Such mindless agitations can only further alienate people from AAP. Instead of sitting together to assess the crushing defeat, finding out what went wrong and formulating a comeback strategy, AAP leaders are back on the road. Kejriwal's ill-conceived attempt to revive an AAP government in Delhi backfired as the Congress rebuffed him. His apology to the people of Delhi for the sudden resignation of his 49-day government lost its impact as Kejriwal was back to theatrics which even many of his admirers disapprove of. People found it hard to accept a chief minister sitting on dharna or threatening to violate the law over an issue of questionable merit. By taking up needless battles, the AAP leadership would do itself no good. Despite winning only four of the 432 Lok Sabha seats it contested, AAP has some positives to build on. Even in Delhi, where it could not win a single seat, the party has got four lakh more votes than it did in the assembly elections, gaining at the cost of the Congress. Its national vote share is higher than that of established parties like the Shiv Sena, DMK, NCP, RJD and the JD(U). What AAP lacks is an organisational network in states and that is what the leadership should focus on instead of indulging in gimmicks.
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Making them job ready In
a country where the employability of educated youth is often a matter of concern, any move to equip them with skills to enhance their employment potential is more than welcome. The Haryana government's endeavour to extend an innovative vocational education project to the government-aided and recognised private schools is appreciable. What is more heartening is that it makes a provision for students belonging to weaker sections, minorities, children with special needs, children below the poverty line as well as girls. Besides, the courses offered cover a wide spectrum. However, one hopes that the programme doesn’t meet the same fate as skill development programmes in some states where the shortage of teachers and absence of laboratories have proved to be stumbling blocks. The role of vocational education for growth of productivity and gainful employment has been stressed time and again. Though the percentage of students opting for vocational courses has increased considerably, in comparison to the advanced European nations, where 50 per cent of students opt for the vocational stream, India lags way behind. Blame it on ignorance or the ineptitude of the officials running vocational programmes, the reality is that noise made over skill development is yet to reflect at the ground level. According to surveys, a negligible percentage of the youth and working age population undergo vocational training and imbibe skills while on the job. Whether India should take cues from the European model or follow its own keeping in mind the skill sets of its population, there can be no denying the correlation between vocational training and job creation. If India has to meet its target of skilling 500 million people by 2022, the vision has to find a match in action. The intentions behind the National Skill Development Policy 2009 that aims at empowering all individuals through improved skills and hopes to ensure India's competitiveness in the global market are well-meaning and must gain momentum. While experts might opine that vocational education programme has to be regional, the synergy between the Centre and the states alone can help India tap its skilling potential.
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Thought for the Day
I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. — Jimmy Dean
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WE invite attention to a letter which appears in another column against what is called the new spirit which is manifesting itself in the Senate of the Punjab University. We have to learn good many things from the sister University of Allahabad not to say of Calcutta, Bombay or Madras. One of these things is undoubtedly a desire to recognise each other's honesty of purpose. One of these things is undoubtedly a desire to recognise each other's honesty of purpose. The elected Fellows who criticise and urge amendments are as much actuated by a desire to maintain the highest traditions of the University and enhance its efficiency and usefulness as the nominated Fellows are. That being so, it is improper to attribute motives or conjure up visions of obstruction or clannishness. Married ladies in government service
A few months ago a report was published that the ladies employed in the Medical Department of the Hyderabad State were required to resign their posts in the event of their marrying. This restriction raised considerable protest, but we believe the rule remains unaltered. We do not know if there is a similar rule in the Education Department. But we are not aware of any similar condition imposed elsewhere in India. But in the public service of Great Britain such a rule has been in operation and recently the London Country Council made the appointment of three medical women conditionally upon their resigning their posts should they marry. This restriction roused considerable discussion as to the soundness of excluding married women from public offices.
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Prime Minister Modi Mr
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister-designate, is on the cusp of a moment that comes rarely in a nation's history, a moment of hope tinged with anxiety stemming from his antecedents and the shadow of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. For the present, hope trumps darker thoughts because the nation's mood is to give him a chance. Mr Modi thus comes to power in an atmosphere of great expectations and in the end an unforgiving public in case he does not measure up. In the popular mind, he is the doer, a man who takes decisions and has clear-cut policies that will put the country on the path of rapid development. But as opposed to a state with a people known for their entrepreneurial skills, governing a diverse country with a bewildering variety of problems is another matter. Underneath these problems is the sneaking suspicion that the Rashtriya Sayamsevak Sangh, which has invested much in his dramatic rise, will demand its pound of flesh. For the RSS, its tenets of spreading its creed revolving round the Hindutva philosophy is far more important than immediate political gains. Mr Modi has demonstrated that in governing Gujarat, he was able to keep the RSS and fringe elements at a distance. But the stakes at the national level are much higher and the RSS is unlikely to be easily sidelined. Apart from dealing with his internal problems of the Sangh Parivar, Mr Modi faces two kinds of challenges. The first is to get the vast machinery of national government to function efficiently in an essentially colonial “file-pushing” culture. The other is the larger problem of convincing the administrative and political class that he means business and his slogan of governance, rather than a bloated government, is the solution of the country's problems. At the broader philosophical level, Mr Modi needs to convince India's large Muslim population and other minorities that he will play fair by them. The stain of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom has not gone away and he needs to do something more than to suggest that he will lift all boats in the water through the strength of his economic policies. What strikes odd to many is his refusal to give an apology for 2002, having muddied the waters by his unfortunate analogy of feeling sad if a puppy comes under the wheels of a vehicle in which he is travelling. Thus far Mr Modi has shown that he is less than happy in a media environment he cannot control. There was the infamous case of a television interview he aborted midstream, rather than answer the difficult questions he was asked. He is a rare politician who has demonstrated his métier for employing modern technology in his dramatic political journey. As Prime Minister he must learn to field inconvenient and rude questions from journalists who are not beholden to him. Despite these question marks, there is a lot going for him. Like the advent of the Aam Aadmi Party, Mr Modi is a breath of fresh air in a political environment that had been atrophied by a “Congress culture” that had become synonymous with inertia and a refusal to take risks after weighing all options. And sad to say the dual nature of the power arrangement at the top accentuated a culture of consensus building almost for its own sake. Much will depend upon the team of politicians he picks in his Cabinet, warding off obvious political pressures from the RSS and his allies. It will be an easier task to put together a competent team of bureaucrats and it is a given that the Prime Minister’s Office will again enjoy a clout rarely seen after the days of Indira Gandhi. The country can take it for granted that, unlike in the Manmohan Singh era, Mr Modi’s policies will be presented countrywide in the best light, as demonstrated by the slick and lavish campaign that tilted him to the top office. But in the end, propagating policies will be as effective as substantive action. What is beyond doubt is that with the advent of Mr Modi, the country has entered a new era. How good it will be will depend upon the new Prime Minister’s ability to move mountains. He is by all accounts a man of prodigious energy and a quick mind in understanding the essence of abstruse problems. But will the very different work culture and problems compared to the placid banks of the Sabarmati fox Mr Modi? Even those who disagree with the philosophical framework of the new Prime Minister will give him the benefit of the doubt if he can bring life to the tired sinews of government and give a fillip to the country's economic development. If he can bring Gujarat’s result-oriented work culture to the file-pushing babus of the Central Secretariat, he would be performing a great service. However, the underlying philosophical underpinnings of the new government will not go away because it affects the idea of India and the new India built over more than six decades on the sacrifices of the Independence generation and the vision they enshrined in the Constitution. It represents more than the welfare and development of the majority community and empowers the entire citizenry, whatever its ethnicity and religion. It is, of course, true that the bloody birth of the independent states of India and Pakistan on the basis of religion will remain a disturbing legacy. But it is for new generations to rise above the past and look to the future. The Sangh Parivar has a greater problem in reconciling with history than the rest of us because it seeks to employ history as a badge of its distinctiveness. Mr Modi will have to surmount this handicap to become a successful Prime Minister.
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On getting a passport “ All my life I had tried to define myself by my actions and never let my father's surname ‘Walia’ matter. It is a common knowledge that it is just a shortened version of ‘Ahluwalia’. But I came to know that for getting a passport, such equivalence is out of the question. I learned that if the No Objection Certificate issued by the Principal of the college where I serve mentioned ‘Late’ before my father’s name that would not do since my Matric certificate did not mention ‘Late’; it was obviously of no consequence that my father was very much alive and kicking when I was in my Matric. I learned that if my NOC did not mention the fact that I was an Indian national, then all such documents as my voter ID, PAN card, and Nandan Nilekani’s dream baby, the Aadhaar Card, were no proof of my Indian identity. When I dared to reason that without being an Indian national, I could not have got a permanent government job, I was told to stop arguing as the only proof of my Indian identity would have been nothing but that one missing line! Being a teacher who often taught reason, when I attempted to protest that all this amounted to harassment of a person on the threshold of becoming a senior citizen, I was snubbed and I discovered that sulking cry-oldies like me were not welcome. I was bundled off her room immediately by the officer whose forced smile reverted to the original frown the moment I uttered the word ‘harassment’. And finally having overcome all hurdles for getting a passport on this my nth visit to this very aptly called Passport Suvidha Kendra, when I dashed towards the main door I was stopped and told that those fortunate ones who were found eligible to be issued the passport could walk out only through the backdoor. This bit was quite intriguing as I had heard about backdoor entry, but the backdoor exit was a bit of a novelty. While I was making a thankful exit through the backdoor, I had these words of T. S. Eliot on my lips: “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”
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Defence expenditure: Get value for money The
national security policy will place exacting demands on national defence. These will inevitably guide the services towards attaining a joint, lean, mean, fleet-footed, precision firepower-enabled capability for operations on land, sea, air, underwater, space and cyberspace. The immediate challenge will be the need for an across-the-spectrum, multidimensional capability, to replace the current single- service, ponderous, and unwieldy structures, supported by archaic logistic practices. However, this paper leaves this discussion for another day and time. This note challenges the general perception among policy makers, politicians and think tanks that defence expenditure is wasteful; that it can be better utilised to provide for education, health, and other development expenses. The hypothesis is that affordable and well-spent budgets will raise the human capital, the bar of available technology for public and private use, improve the research-and-development culture and quotient and raise the self-reliance index of India, besides providing jobs and security to the aam aadmi. How? About 70,000 personnel from all three services, who retire every year, are between the ages of 37 and 43. The majority having been trained for 15 to 20 years. They are disciplined, physically fit, and depending on the branch of service they served while in uniform, their skills can be gainfully put to use in the marketplace. To name a few, school teachers in villages, trainers in skill development, rural banking and marketing of products, supervision of infrastructure projects, monitoring of central and state-sponsored schemes, health workers, and for redressing the environment imbalance (afforestation of the Dehradun-Mussoorie hill tract by ex-servicemen serving as part of “Ecology Battalions” is an outstanding example). These ex-soldiers are national force multipliers in need of a second career and are eminently suited for assignments in the public or private sectors with short re-training programmes which the services must be obliged to provide before retirement and in a far more effective manner than is the current norm.
The way forward *
About 70,000 personnel from all three services retire every year. They are disciplined and physically fit. Their skills can be gainfully put to use in the marketplace. *
Skilfully executed, offsets will encourage our private, public sectors and entrepreneurs to come forward to join in the national mission of raising our threshold of technology. There will be more jobs on offer. *
Research and development establishments have spent huge amounts of money but have little to show for it. These establishments must be monitored for output as scrupulously as the other components of defence expenditure. Focus on offsets Secondly, let’s study the technology capital. Defence expenditure incurred in purchase of imported arms and ammunition should help raise the threshold of technology in the country. Leave past mistakes behind and look at the current acquisition of the state-of-the-art 126 fighter aircraft being bought for the Indian Air Force. As a part of the contract, we should imbibe levels of technology that will enable us to make our own 100-120 seater transport aircraft and jointly market them internationally in a manner similar to what Brazil, another developing country, has done in designing and marketing its Embraer transport aircraft. The alternative option would be to offset the manufacture of some critical components of the Tejas LCA (light combat aircraft) and then market it globally. Of course, for the latter option Parliament will have to take a call on whether or not India needs to make a policy shift in the manufacture and export of warlike materials. The main point being made is that we have options and we should be proactive in exercising them. Defence-related technology is sophisticated and is often embedded with dual-use potential. Take, for example, the internet. Invented by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and look at the way it has revolutionised businesses, society and our lives. Faster air travel is a spin-off benefit from the investments in the design of faster military aircraft. We have only recently moved towards an offsets regime which has excited the public, private and foreign suppliers. The announcement of raising the cap on defence FDI is equally fortuitous. For the moment the outcome is difficult to predict. It must, however, be said that these are welcome initiatives. Much learning is required for their effective execution. Both are global practices and there are some very good and some bad experiences from which we need to learn. Today we are in the buyers’ market and we have the choice to decide which critical technology we need to offset. Skilfully executed, offsets will encourage our private, public sectors and entrepreneurs to come forward to join in the national mission of raising our threshold of technology. Consequently, there will be more jobs on offer; jobs demanding more and higher skills levels. Indigenously built defence equipment will result in a flourishing job market. Unemployed and unemployable youth will be motivated to skill and re-skill themselves to grasp the opportunity of more and better-quality livelihood options — a win-win opportunity for all. Research and growth Thirdly, look at research and development. All such activity is key to growth, Defence research and development more so. Our research and development establishments have spent huge amounts of money but have little to show for it. These establishments must be monitored for output as scrupulously as the other components of defence expenditure. Since R&D has long gestation periods with output often invisible to public scrutiny, establishments conducting such activity lack patronage as well as effective oversight, both of which have an impact on delivered quality. The virus of “time-and-cost over-runs” persists unabatedly within these establishments in general and in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in particular.
Though one of world’s most-lucrative markets for military products, India’s industrial policy has kept defence production under tight government control. The tools for bolstering indigenous defence production capability were transferred through licence agreements and technology transfer to Defence PSUs and Ordnance factories. While these populist methods enhanced low-level technology, the fact remains that today over 70 per cent of our capital defence acquisitions are externally sourced. Self-reliance is key This brings us to the linked question of self-reliance in critical areas and the opportunities that go with it in securing attractive livelihood options for our citizens. We are savagely skill deficient but seem oblivious to the need for rapid transformation from a “have-not” to a “have” category of nation. Reform will have to take in its fold an education system that is dated; a system where you get a certificate which is not linked to employability. The legal tender of tomorrow is not only going to be pounds, dollars, euros, and yen, it will also be skills. These could be cashed in every part of an ageing world. Besides helping to raise the bar of job opportunities and self reliance it will set the stage for India to move from a “labour-arbitrage economy” to a “knowledge-arbitrage economy” — a change that will place India on the path to realising its latent and untapped potential. The defence expenditure as a catalyst for growth comes with a caveat related to defence budgets. How well is it known that the defence budget falls under the non-plan expenditure head of the union budget? The question is why? Also, the five-year defence plans have rarely, if ever, been approved at the beginning of the plan period. Why? In fact, the track record is scary. Some plans have been approved after the expiry of the plan period, while some have been approved midway through the plan. However, most have been approved without a financial commitment. Why? The budget allocations as a percentage of GDP have varied from a low of 1.5 per cent of GDP to a near 3 per cent of GDP, that too on a year-on-year basis. Of course, the security situation and resource availability may have dictated this variation, but this is not without its adverse impact on the “readiness of the force”. Such variation and practices have led to knee-jerk and lopsided accretions. Jugaad is the operative catchword. The modernisation plans slip and self-reliance goes out of the window. All this must change if we are looking for defence expenditure to be a catalyst for growth. Allocations, commitments, and acquisition processes must follow a predictable path. Capability development is an exacting exercise. Year-on-year allocations, with no mechanism to benchmark it against commitments, put a premium on long-term planning, besides raising scores of anxieties. What would be the basis for long-term private and public investments in capability development? What is the motivation for industry to buy technology, invest in research and development and develop indigenous capability? Development means different things at different levels. Whatever these be, it goes without saying that by the very nature of the task that the services are expected to execute in border areas, development is a “natural spin off”. The need for roads, heliports, airstrips, bridges, habitats, supplies and materials, creates its own development opportunity. All of this helps to create a feeling of inclusivity and bonding amongst the population in far-flung and inhospitable areas. Technology-driven India Let me end on an optimistic note. A safe India, where human capital is being enriched progressively, a technology-driven India, a selectively self-reliant India, will bring to the masses, specially the youth, the much-wanted pride and self-esteem. It will provide them space to practice their “we-can-and-we-will sentiment. The spin-off of inclusivity is an automatic byproduct. Imaginatively spent defence allocations can do all this and more. The free world is also waiting to see India rise to its full potential and take its rightful place under the sun. India is a status quo power that has never countenanced others territory, but will be steadfast in holding its own. It has a stake in preserving the peace from without and within. A safe environment is key for development and growth. It should surprise no one that affordable defence expenditure provides all three.
The clock is ticking. (Concluded) The writer, Lt Gen SS Mehta retired as the Western Army Commander. Post-retirement, he has served as
DG, Confederation of Indian Industry and as a Member of the National Security Advisory Board.
For the 1st and 2nd part see www.tribuneindia.com/2014/specials/nsf.htm We welcome your comments and suggestions
on the articles. Please send these to the nsftribune@tribunemail.com
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This comes against the backdrop of a widespread feeling that the second term of the United Progressive Alliance government was prey to indecision, paralysis and a stream of scams that bled the goodwill the UPA had enjoyed in the first term. Indeed, one aspect of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s impressive victory, in addition to Mr Modi's super packaging, was a desire for change.
In the entire process of securing a new passport, I learned many things about myself, the quirky workings of the ubiquitous red tape which treats each individual as a file, a number. These are lessons in epistemology worth seeking for all who dare quest for a passport or for such knowledge. 