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Saturday,
August 25, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Well, well
no more Preparing for paddy & poll |
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A clean chit at last THE frequency of investigations and court cases against politicians increases manifold once they are out of office. Sometimes they are made to pay for the sins they actually committed while enjoying the trappings of power, which include the privilege of keeping the investigating agencies at bay.
Defence restructuring agenda
AJT nowhere on the horizon
The President’s unbearably hot tea party
Towards controlled democracy
The near collapse of rural education
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Well, well no more THERE are several things amiss in the way members conduct themselves in the two Houses of Parliament. The growing tendency of invading the well of the House, right in front of the Speaker, is the most distressing and destructive. By this the members paralyse the proceedings and if it is done during question hour and immediately after, the sad spectacle is carried to every drawing room with a television set on. Now a remedy of sorts is being worked out at the initiative of the Speaker, Mr G.M.C. Balayogi. He has proposed and secured a near unanimous endorsement of all parties. From the winter session of the Lok Sabha onwards the encroachers of the well will invite a mandatory suspension of membership for five working days. They will also lose the daily allowance of Rs 500 for these five days. This monetary disincentive, more than the suspension, should do the trick as most members put in only nominal presence. It is not clear whether the members attracting this punishment will be allowed to sit in the House or will be asked to leave. This is a grey area and is very important that a suspended member, even if not by the existing procedure of a voice vote, will automatically lose his right to participate in the proceedings. Perhaps, this and other issues will be sorted out and given shape at the Monday meeting. Another related aspect is to clearly define the role of the leader of the parties and their chief whip and hold them more responsible for the behaviour of their party colleagues. Over the years, their role and authority have palpably eroded and the unruly conduct of individual members to vacate their seats and rush to the front rows attests to this. The more serious malady is the way important issues are handled by Parliament as a whole. Bills affecting the life of crores of people or the rights of the common man are passed within minutes and without any discussion. The pretext offered by the authorities is that substantive discussion had already taken place at the standing committee level. But the proceedings are not published; so the public is in the dark over the stand of various parties and the arguments for and against the new measure. This strips the entire process of its basic ingredient of informing and educating the people, who are said to be the ultimate sovereign. For instance, the Constitution Amendment Bill to postpone the delimitation of the Lok Sabha constituencies was hardly discussed in the lower House; an earlier instance was when Parliament enacted a law to make death sentence compulsory for anyone possessing even a small amount of RDX. These are just two examples and Parliament should retrace its steps to the golden days when debates were enlightened and stirred the voters. |
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Preparing for paddy & poll PADDY procurement in Punjab this year is expected to be less troublesome, if not an altogether smooth operation, given last year’s travails of farmers and the soon-to-be-held elections. The Chief Minister has already displayed urgency and geared up state machinery. At a meeting with the Deputy Commissioners in Chandigarh on Thursday, Mr Parkash Singh Badal is reported to have made it clear that “paddy brought into the mandis must be lifted within 24 hours at any cost.” That means quality specifications on moisture content will pose no problem. This is good news for farmers. The government has advanced the date of procurement. This will also help the growers of early maturing varities. The state government has set a higher target to procure 125 lakh tonnes of paddy against last year’s 110.32 lakh tonnes. The number of purchase centres has also been increased. Officials have been instructed to tackle infrastrucural problems and ensure adequate number of gunny bags, trucks,labour etc by awarding contracts to those arhtiyas with the necessary means. Punjab Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Sohan Singh Thandal announced in Patiala the sam day that the government had banned the harvest of paddy by combines at night. This is supposed to ensure quality of paddy and also avoid a glut in the grain markets. If the prolonged monsoon does not spoil their plans, farmers can, on their own or in consultations with officials, streanline the supplies to avoid swamping the mandis. Along with making these arrangements, the government has secured the Centre’s permission in principle to extend the August 31 deadline for milling last year’s paddy. Millers too are preparing their strategy to deal with the situation. On its part, the state government has made all possible arrangements. Now Mr Badal is set to push the Centre into action. Along with the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, he has already pressed the Centre for a higher minimum support price for paddy. Given the political compulsions of its partners, the coalition government at the Centre may oblige them by announcing a higher MSP even if that makes little economic sense. Politics in this country has often not allowed economics to prevail, specially when elections are drawing near. So once again the government agencies will be forced to buy paddy, regardless of its quality, at a politically determined price. Once again there will be suggestions to start a food-for-work programme. Framers will be again advised to diversify into cash crops. Despite all preparations, the governments, whether at the Centre or in the states, are still not prepared to meet a situation of glut. They need to ponder these disturbing questions: what will you do with the substandard
foodgrains so procured? Build more godowns and plinths, as Punjab plans to do, to store these at a high cost and lose more money? Or, dump the old grains in the international market at half the price for consumption as cattle feed? The governments are yet to start building silos for economical and mechanised bulk handling of foodgrains which cut the costs and make them globally competitive. The continued dependence on ancient methods of storage and disregard of quality , apart from lack of necessary infrastructure, will never let Indian foodgrains find buyers in the world market at a viable price. |
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A clean chit at last THE frequency of investigations and court cases against politicians increases manifold once they are out of office. Sometimes they are made to pay for the sins they actually committed while enjoying the trappings of power, which include the privilege of keeping the investigating agencies at bay. Sometimes, the new rulers use the tool of official enquiry only to settle scores, in accordance with the tit-for-tat convention. One person who has escaped this professional hazard is former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. The CBI has reportedly declined to register an FIR against him. A chargesheet sent by the State Government to the CBI for enquiry against him three years ago had levelled some two dozen charges accusing him of everything from misuse of power to serious financial and administrative irregularities during his tenure as Chief Minister. After preliminary enquiry, the CBI is believed to have said that no case can be made out on the basis of this chargesheet against the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader. It is common knowledge that the move had been made by the Dhumal government at the insistence of former Union Minister Sukh Ram, who believed Mr Virbhadra Singh to be behind the registration of cases against him. Mr Virbhadra Singh called it a bid to settle scores, but there were apprehensions that he might be hauled over coals given the political situation prevailing in the state and at the Centre. However, the CBI has sprung a pleasant surprise, in the process refurbishing its own credentials somewhat. That does not mean that it is the end of troubles for the former Chief Minister. Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal is quoted to have said that there are a few cases that require a probe either by the CBI or by the state's own agencies. Perhaps Mr Virbhadra Singh should prepare himself for some midnight knocks from police officers of his own state now. What the government has to realise is that the slapping of charges can be sometimes counterproductive. It generates a sympathy wave. That is what happened in the case of Indira Gandhi and even Mr Karunanidhi. Prosecution and persecution are two words which are similar in more ways than one. Slapping charges which do not stick can erode the credibility of the prosecutor himself. |
Defence restructuring agenda THE Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) controversy is evergreen, mainly because of the strong reservations of the IAF. Recently the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis, did one unusual and one not so unusual thing. He reneged on the agreement reached in the presence of Special Advisor (Defence), Arun Singh, and his Army and Navy counterparts on the composition and interservice prorata distribution of posts in the reformed higher defence management structures that were reviewed by the Cabinet Secretary on August 8. Before that, the Expenditure Secretary had spoken to the Defence Secretary assuring him that the proposals forwarded by the Defence Ministry would be expeditiously screened and approved. The change of heart which Tipnis called “a rethink” was contained in his letter of July 18, addressed to the Defence Secretary, copies of which were endorsed to the two other service Chiefs. A missive by a service Chief over in-house agreements thrashed out over several rounds of Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) meetings in concert with the Implementation Cell of the MoD being sent to the Defence Secretary is unusual and not the done thing. Having bombed the proposed appointment of the CDS, no one is surprised at this last ditch stand by the IAF to stall, if not stop, the execution of the defence restructuring agenda. The ghost of integration and triservicing the armed forces has haunted the “flyers” for decades, as once integration moves to Theatre Command level, they fear it will negate their single-service identity. It is this internecine squabbling between the IAF and the other two services that has caught the fancy of politicians and the press. But a CDS is required just for this very reason — to stop the wrangling — besides the joint management of the tactical and strategic war fighting and deterrent capabilities of the country. From day one of the defence reforms debate, Tipnis has made plain his reservations to the CDS and it is to his credit he stuck to his guns. He was ably assisted by a galaxy of retired Air Force Chiefs who wrote to the President, the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister voicing their conscientious objections to the CDS system. Two of them carried their pique to the press. It is their collective effort —though never in the national interest — which is being seen as the main reason why the government decided to consult the opposition on the crucial appointment of the CDS. Rather than act decisively, the government buckled to extraneous pressures. But all is not lost. The BJP-led government has defence reforms as the centrepiece of its national security agenda and will appoint a CDS before the end of the year. It is useful to recall the 18-month long chronology of events that led to the establishment of an Implementation Cell to put in place the long-expected first tranche of defence reforms. These include the creation of a CDS, its associated planning structures and institutions, establishing a Defence Procurement Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency, Strategic Forces Command, the first ever triservice Andaman and Nicobar Operational Command and instead of the widely expected merger of service headquarters and MoD, only their selective integration. These reform measures do not go far enough in integration yet they make a useful start. The creation of the CDS and integrated defence structures was seen as imperative for greater jointmanship and optimisation of resources among the three services, both by the Task Force on Higher Defence Management and the Kargil Review Committee. The two bodies went into the issue of structural reforms that were to be effected in the armed forces if Kargil was not to be repeated. Of the 24 recommendations made by the Group of Ministers, the government accepted 23. Only the appointment of CDS was deferred. The implementation of the structures was on hand and the CDS file under the Defence Minister’s signature with a big sticker “no additional costs to government” was sent on July 8. It was on July 18 that Tipnis, in letters to the Defence Secretary and the Defence Minister (with copies to his other colleagues, Gen S. Padmanabhan and Admiral Sushil Kumar) said that he’d had a “rethink” on the proportions in which the three services should be represented in the new establishment. The Air Force, as indeed the Army and the Navy, had previously agreed to the proportions at a meeting taken by Arun Singh. Meanwhile, the IAF, probably to register its dissent, did not represent itself adequately in the triservice implementation cell. These moves were seen as the last bid to stall the restructuring and address the greatest fear of the Air Force, that it will be marginalised once the restructured triservice organisation is in place. This unfounded threat is a legacy of history and dates back to a unique closed-door civil-military conference in Pune in 1986 attended by their top leaders. It was here that the IAF Chief made a passionate “over-my-dead-body” rejection of the CDS and integration. The controversy over proportionate representation in the new structures is explained by the huge disparity in the strength and size of the three services. The initial formula worked out earlier this year after many contentious meetings was 7:1:2 for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Later, the Army Chief agreed to scaling down his share and brought in the 5:3:2 formula. The Air Force agreed to this and then had a rethink about it. Tipnis’s objections were conveyed to Defence Minister Jaswant Singh at a meeting on August 3. These were: The Air Force must have a share in the new structures, which should give it one to one parity with the Army. However, the rethink, it seems, is a bit late, as the IAF’s objections are merely academic now. The new defence structures in place without the CDS will be like a world XI cricket team without a captain. Home Minister LK Advani who chaired the GoM announced at the time of putting CDS on hold that one would be appointed before the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament. That has not happened even after ceremonial rehearsals. Admiral Sushil Kumar, at present Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, was widely tipped for the job and is still in the race. Once the new structures are established — the CDS joint staff is expected to begin arriving in their Kashmir House office by mid September —operationalising these will become his task, not as the CDS or even acting CDS but as Chairman, COSC. The CDS hoodoo has plagued India from early times despite Lord Louis Mountbatten’s efforts to get one appointed in the early 1950s. A second attempt made in 1969, which included service headquarters becoming part of government, also fell through because of vested interests. A CDS has been on the cards for a very long time and is not a recent measure. The government has done a great deal of spadework in introducing reforms. However, their architecture not being spelt out led to wild speculation in the press and on the cocktail circuit about the shape and role of the new institutions, especially the CDS. The one organisation, which is still being fleshed out by Arun Singh himself, is the Strategic Forces Command, the repository of India’s strategic nuclear assets. The CDS will be the government’s military adviser on their deployment and utilisation and in the chain of command of the National Command Authority. The new set of reforms has been challenged even before it has been tested. Defence reforms are designed to further harmonise interservice cohesion on the one hand and improve civil-military relations, giving the latter greater say in decision-making. After globalisation, the new mantra in the armed forces is triservicisation: making mandatory for service officers in holding office in a triservice organisation for promotion beyond one star rank. Once institutionalised, this rule would mirror the Goldwater-Nichols Act in the USA that has governed higher promotions in their armed forces for three decades. Not only does a Brigadier and equivalent rank officer have to serve in a triservice organisation, he also has to qualify at a Capstone course thereafter to retain his rank. Merit, not seniority alone, will determine the calibre of the new generation of military leadership. |
AJT nowhere on the horizon MiGs crash out of the sky with sickening regularity. Pilots die an inglorious death. And yet the search for an advance jet trainer (AJT) continues in a leisurely, babu pace. This despite the fact that the lack of training in AJT is one of the most important factors leading to the crashes. Air Force officers explain that for a new pilot who has been trained on a subsonic Kiran Mark II trainer, graduating to the supersonic fighters like the MiG-21s can be extremely unsettling. The transition would be akin to a driver of a Maruti being put behind the wheels of a Ferrari. Yet, this is how they have to function, and some of them have to pay with their lives. As a representation signed by 126 MPs and handed over to the Prime Minister has pointed out, nearly 100 IAF aircraft have crashed killing 50 pilots during the past five years. Most of these involve the ageing MiG-21 which have been aptly called “flying coffins”. Yet, the fault perhaps lies in the training itself, considering that nine MiG-23B have also met with accidents during the past two years. The IAF has been clamouring for the AJT since 1984. The APJ Abdul Kalam Committee has also recommended its immediate purchase. But there has been very little movement forward. British Aerospace’s Hawk and the French Alpha jet were shortlisted after years of negotiations twice (in 1987 and then in 1999), but the French later backed out in July, 1999, saying that they were unable to supply the planes. Last year, it was given out that a deal might be struck with British Aerospace for the acquisition of 66 Hawks, but price negotiations put paid to that hope. India wanted the British to bring down the price from $ 16 million each to $11.5 million, which the latter refused. The recent exposes about kickbacks in defence deals have made the government chary of striking a deal in a hurry. There are also allegations that New Delhi is going out of its way to accommodate Russia because its help is needed to acquire strategic naval capability. That brings into picture the Russian MiG-AT, a lot cheaper than the British trainer at $5 million to $8 million. Russia solicited its purchase during Defence Minister Jaswant Singh’s visit to Moscow. But a spanner has been thrown in the works by a strange development. Russian Air Force chief General Anatoly Kornukov himself has rejected the trainer saying that “it has been equipped with an engine of day before yesterday”. Indeed, the Larzac 04-R20 engine of the MiG-AT is some 30 years old, which in aviation terms means eternity. Even if the Russians offer a plane which has a French engine, the IAF does not want to have anything to do with it. It is insistent that it should not be saddled with an obsolete aircraft, even if it is as a quid pro quo for the modernisation of the Navy. Its officers say that quality never comes cheap and while selecting a plane, its capability should be assessed as much as its price. That is why it has repeatedly rejected the Russian aircraft. In any case, MiG-AT is not an operational plane. Russia is in dire financial straits and wants India to share its development cost. Even if New Delhi gives its nod today, it will take at least a decade to induct it into the IAF. Considering that the plane is already long delayed, this does not serve India’s purpose. Even the delivery of the Hawk 115 Y will take at least two and a half years. Meanwhile, the makers of the MiG aircraft have caused a flutter by alleging that frequent crashes occur because India buys low-quality spares for these planes from Ukraine and East European countries. What Mr Vladimir Barkovsky, deputy general manager of the MiG Corporation, says may be just a ploy to deflect responsibility for some technical shortcomings, but his allegation should not be dismissed out of hand. A thorough enquiry is called for, particularly because he has also revealed that at times New Delhi even buys spares that have outlived their utility, thus creating conditions for frequent crashes. It is worth looking into whether such purchases have indeed been made and, if so, why. Defence deals mean big money and if any part of it is changing hands under the table, full facts must be ferreted out and put before the nation. At stake is the safety of the valiant fighter pilots as also that of the nation. |
The President’s unbearably hot tea party IMAGINE celebrating India’s 55th Independence Day with an English tea party in an Indian Garden in monsoon weather so muggy that it was like entertaining in a steam bath. You do not have to imagine it because this is exactly how the President of our fair and wondrous land did celebrate Independence Day. The absurdity is not entirely the fault of the current incumbent of Rashtrapati Bhavan since this is how Independence Day has been celebrated ever since the British Raj ended. But for those who bang on about how India’s mindset has to change if we are to make real progress towards being counted some day in the ranks of developed nations what better example can there be of an unchanged mindset than that no President has ever thought of junking the English tea party. Rashtrapati Bhavan is one of the great residences of the world filled with vast, magnificent rooms with ceilings painted in myriad Indian styles and you would think that we would have had at least one President in fifty years who would have realised that India’s Independence should be celebrated in Indian style. Instead of the English tea party, there could have been a mela with singers and dancers, magicians and acrobats. And that is one idea but, no, we stick to the silliness of an English tea party without even noticing the irony. So the President’s guests — mostly politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and sundry hacks — sweltered in their suits and glamorous saris and spent the afternoon searching desperately for shady corners. Had it been an occasion when the high and mighty mingled with us hoi polloi it might still have been worth the steam bath but this was not to be . The President, the Prime Minister, various ex-Prime Ministers and the Leader of the Opposition were seated in a cordoned off enclosure while us mortals gawped at them as if they were animals in some exotic zoo. It has been some years since I was invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan. I was dropped, I think, because I criticised Mr K.R. Narayanan for interfering in government business. Undoubtedly, after this article I will be dropped again. And, hopefully, by the time I am invited again there will be a new President who will think of a more Indian way to celebrate our Independence. Meanwhile, let me tell you about the tea party. We were segregated into VVIPs, VIPs, lesser VIPs and hoi polloi right from the moment we entered the grounds of Rashtrapati Bhavan. So for us in the lowest category there was a distant ‘alighting point’ whence we travelled up a narrow staircase that brought us to the forecourt where real VIPs drove up smartly in fancy cars. We mingled quickly so as not to be noticed as the lowest caste at the feast and like lesser beings gazed up in awe at the painted ceilings. Hacks, though, will be hacks and in gazing up we noticed that the beautiful Moghul paintings on the ceilings of the corridor were peeling. Inevitably, this led to cruel remarks about the calibre of the men we had put in Rashtrapati Bhavan after the Viceroy departed. “Had the English still been around there would, at least, have been better maintenance.” Had the English still been around there might also have been a grander tea party. We would not have been served tea in thick, white railway cups and water would not have been supplied in plastic Bisleri containers that were so hard to open you needed to stab the lids with forks. This, though, was nothing compared to the inconvenience of being dressed in finery in temperatures that would have made a sauna seem air-conditioned. I talked to a famous dancer whose make-up had melted into rings around her neck and was trickling whitely into her sari blouse. “My God, its hot”, she said gasping “my God it’s so very hot”. This led to an almost identical conversation with a famous TV anchor whose waist length hair had glued itself sweatily to her back. Then I ran into an MP from the ruling alliance (not BJP) who whispered to me a conspiracy theory. “The RSS is planning to put the Prime Minister in this house next year and make Advani Prime Minister instead. But it won’t happen because we won’t let it. Chandrababu Naidu is already positioning himself”. In the distance, at the more VIP end of the garden, I noticed Dr Manmohan Singh looking — amazingly — cool and collected in his usual white kurta and blue turban. It was a good chance to get his views on the gloomy state of the economy. What had gone wrong, I asked, after everyone had greeted Yashwant Sinha’s budget as yet another “dream” budget? “Well, what is wrong is that he does not do what he says he is going to and this does not encourage investment. Also, when it comes to foreign investment, how can you expect it after what happened with Enron”? What would he do if he were the Finance Minister? Take measures to build investor confidence, he said, before being surrounded by other guests who wanted to tell him that they were “big fans, sir, very big fans of yours”. The festive spirit was singularly missing at the tea party because the economy seems not to be growing and government finances are in a shambles. A minister, who will remain nameless, pointed out in passing that the government’s revenues had dropped this quarter by more than Rs 10,500 crore compared to the same period last year. Its expenses, on the other hand, on things that cannot be considered development have gone up by more than Rs 8000 crore. If the government’s political future was shiny and bright then there might still have been a sense of hope and festivity at the tea party but things have looked bad since Tehelka. And, worse, since the Prime Minister’s only solution appears to be to offer his resignation in a fit of sulkiness. Behind, a manicured tree at the tea party I managed a few words with Jaswant Singh, Things were not looking good, I said, and he agreed but hesitated to offer any solutions. So, the atmosphere at the tea party was not just unbearably hot but filled with gloom. In various corners of the garden I spotted nearly the entire Cabinet and there were not many happy faces among them. It was a visible change from the last tea party I attended when Vajpayee was new to office and there was euphoria and hope bubbling in the air. After two hours of hanging about, chatting to a minister here, picking up gossip there, the national anthem played. We all stood to attention, the President departed along with the VVIP guests and the party was over. I was not the only guest who waited impatiently for it to end and, frankly, until Rashtrapati Bhavan comes up with a more appropriate way of celebrating Independence Day, I could not care less if I were never invited again. |
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Towards controlled democracy IT is now clear that Pakistan is on the way to a military-controlled democracy. This may have a constitutional sanction too if President Pervez Musharraf succeeds in implementing his scheme of things. Despite the holding of elections for the federal and provincial assemblies, as announced by the General on Pakistan's Independence Day (August 14), the army is unlikely to abdicate the reigns of power. Many media analysts have expressed their apprehensions on these lines. Their fears are based on the President's election programme and the manner in which the army-supported Pakistan Muslim League faction, derisively called the King's Party, was helped to win the maximum seats of Nazims and Naib Nazims in the just concluded local bodies polls. Let us take the General's August 14 speech first. He spoke for full 80 minutes but his road map for the promised democracy got hardly 10 minutes. He said nothing about his own position as President after the general election. Nobody knows whether it will be a partyless affair on the lines of the local bodies elections or political organisations will be allowed to play their role as it happens in a genuinely democratic polity. The people's elected representatives will not be handed over the reins of power immediately after the completion of the election process on October 12. They will have to wait for one month. Why? The General's intentions seem to be doubtful. He has declared that the election exercise will begin on July 1, 2002, though the Pakistan Election Commission is reported to be in a position to hold the polls anytime the General wants. So far there is no indication about the lifting of the ban on the activities of political parties. Something fishy is obviously there. One can better understand the ruling General's road map for democracy after a close look at the local bodies elections. Most of those elected as Zila Nazims and Naib Nazims are members of various political parties, the majority belonging to the army-patronised PML (QA), though officially it was a partyless exercise. Then despite the formation of opportunistic alliances involving the PPP of Ms Benazir Bhutto, Mr Nawaz Sharif's PML (N), the Awami National Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami, the army-backed PML faction captured as many as 23 of the 33 Zila Nazim seats in the influential province of Punjab. This party has had no presence in Sind and Baluchistan, yet it succeeded in opening its account in both provinces. The monitoring committees of the army were there to help the "official" candidates. Political commentator Aziz-ud-Din Ahmed has this to say: "Another important factor which will determine the genuineness or otherwise of the polls is the way the monitoring committees of the army act during the elections. There were complaints that officers of these committees had in certain constituencies gone out of their way to influence the outcome of the results. It was reported that certain candidates were told to withdraw from the fray while others were encouraged to put in their nomination papers. A number of heavyweights intending to contest were forced to withdraw under threats, one of these being the use of the NAB (National Accountability Bureau) machinery against them. Will the candidates (for the coming elections), particularly the ones disliked by the government for their political views, be under pressure from the officials of the ISI or the monitoring teams to withdraw or face the consequences? One will have to watch the NAB's activities once the election process is initiated." Immediately after his return to Islamabad from the historic Agra summit General Musharraf had hinted during his famous Press conference that in Pakistan the army could not be kept away from the ruling establishment, elections or no elections. Thus the military will continue to be an interested party in the political process to be given a final shape in the coming months. It will be interesting to observe how General Musharraf retains his position as President obviously with enough powers to pull the strings of the future government. Lamenting the emerging gloomy scenario for the people of Pakistan, The Nation columnist Husain Naqi says, " Pakistan started with the promise that civil and armed bureaucracies would work under the constitution. Instead, the bureaucratic stanglehold (now the armed forces' top brass) has blocked civilised political development with quacks claiming to be the healers. The Generals, howsoever an embodiment of patriotism, piety, integrity, honesty, austerity and sacrifice they may be, have no business to dabble in politics. They should perform the duties they are paid for by the famished people, now slipping further down the poverty line." |
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The near collapse of rural education THE state of rural education in the country has gone from bad to worse, nearing total collapse if not controlled immediately. Although around 70 per cent of India’s population lives in villages, the condition of all spheres of life in rural India is pitiable. If we have to point out one single most important aspect of complete deterioration which is bound to have long-term impact on our coming generations, it surely is the near total breakdown of our rural education infrastructure and system. Take the example of Punjab. Despite the fact that the state leads the nation in over all development and is considered a prosperous state, the picture of educational institutions is dismal in over 12,000 villages. You could travel to any part of Punjab to find rural schools lacking in all important infrastructural facilities. A majority of school buildings are without roofs and incomplete. There are no boundary walls, insufficient furniture for students, ineffective laboratories, ill-maintained playgrounds. There are many schools where either there is no staff or no students, if staff are available. These are hard facts and the result is total loss of confidence of the people in government education in villages. Even the poor prefer to send their children to any private school available in their vicinity. The government is entirely responsible for the mushrooming of private schools in every nook and corner of the state. Some of the new education shops, as you can rightly describe them, are even worse. At times you would come across a private school in just one dingy room in a village and dozens of children huddled in them. These schools violate all norms and standards. They have no play grounds, no laboratories, unsafe buildings without proper ventilation. The staff are paid lower salary than daily wage workers. But the tuition fees and other expenses charged by these schools are phenomenal. Is this not gross and open exploitation of the public? To reorient the education system in villages, the government must constitute a committee of eminent educationists with political and social figures also as members to suggest corrective measures. The government may reduce the number of schools (often announced for political compulsions) and maintain student-teacher ratio. Can we empower the panchayats to enforce discipline and regular maintenance of school buildings? If the village elders were to write the ACRs of teachers, there would be some fear in the minds of the teaching fraternity to be present in time and do their duties effectively. Students can also be persuaded to keep their school clean by making them work one hour every alternative day for the school premises. Voluntary donations by parents for regular maintenance of buildings could be sought provided we generate confidence in them and promise to provide quality education to children. Most importantly, the government must crack down on the huge racket of teaching shops and should only allow those private schools which adhere to the norms and standards prescribed by the education boards. Debates to lessen the burden on the child by reducing the size of the bag and bringing in computer education are valid points which can only be discussed if we put our present house in order and instill confidence in the minds of the people so that the government schools become functional and up to the required standard. Corrective measures must be taken on a war-footing before the education system collapses generating frustration amongst youth who are already in the grip of drugs, which could lead to a law and order problem. The author is the President of the Progressive Farmers Association. |
My dear Lord, if in some places materialists, who are already bewildered by the insurmountable illusory energy of the Supreme Godhead, sometimes commit offences, a saintly person with compassion, does not take this seriously. Knowing that they commit offences because they are overpowered by the illusory energy, he does not show his prowess to counteract them. — Shrimad Bhagavatam, Canto 4, Chapter 6:48 * * * Verily there should be only one fear the fear of doing something mean or untrue. * * * The root cause of most of our misunderstandings lies in distrust, and the root cause of this distrust lies most in fear. The common saying goes that there can be no love without fear. But that is wrong. The fact is that where there is fear, there can be no true love. — The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 80 * * * How long will it take to assemble the minstrels, To tune the instruments, and to select the notes. I may as well sing to the glory of God, in my mind, while I wait. — Guru Ram Das. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 368 * * * Said the Eye one day, “I see beyond these valleys a mountain veiled with blue mist. Is it not beautiful?” The Ear listened, and after listening intently awhile, said, “But where is any mountain? I do not hear it.” Then the Hand spoke and said, “I am trying in vain to feel it or touch it, and I can find no mountain.” And the Nose said, “There is no mountain, I cannot smell it.” Then the eye turned the other way, and they all began to talk together about the Eye’s strange delusion. And they said, “Something must be the matter with the Eye.” — Khalil Gibran, The Madman, page 63 * * * Fear is a higher consciousness than anger or jealousy. — Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswamy,
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