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Tea and the sack Questionable
priorities |
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Queered
pitch Team India needs an overhauling Clubs can play better cricket than the famed present Indian team. A number of cricketers had let out a howl of protest when the BCCI told the Supreme Court that the players represent the board and not the country.
Corruption in
public life
Quiet saviour
Challenge lies in
changing the mindset Chatterati
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Tea and the sack THE manner in which governors appointed by the NDA government have been removed has left a bad taste. This is particularly true about Tamil Nadu which has witnessed an unusual spat between Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil. As we have pointed out in these columns, the Centre has a right to choose its own nominees for gubernatorial posts. However, we made a distinction between politicians and those chosen purely on merit. But the UPA Government does not seem to make any such distinction as it tars every governor chosen by the NDA with the same brush. This is clear in the case of Tamil Nadu where it was keen to have Mr P.S. Ramamohan Rao sacked or transferred from Chennai. It is equally surprising that the Jayalalithaa government went to the extent of seeking the intervention of the Supreme Court to prevent his removal. The court rightly chose not to interfere in the matter, though the state government tried to prove that it was not “consulted” but only “informed” about the decision to send Mr Rao packing. Ms Jayalalithaa took an unprecedented step by taping and releasing a verbatim report of the conversation between Mr Patil and the Chief Minister. The reasons Mr Patil has cited for his removal are puerile and can evoke only ridicule: that he did not hoist the national flag on Independence Day and he did not host the traditional evening tea party at Raj Bhavan that day. That the Governor was out of India, obviously with the permission of the President, did not matter to him. Apparently, political pressure was behind the Centre’s decision. When Ms Jayalalithaa says the decision was dictated by the DMK, a constituent of the UPA, it cannot be rejected out of hand. Good governance will suffer if the government succumbs to pressures from political parties supporting the government and takes such decisions. The problem has arisen mainly because there is a lack of consensus among political parties on how governors should be treated. All political parties which have come to power are guilty of treating shabbily the governors appointed by their rivals. The recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission which went into the question are not even considered. It is time all political parties sat together and evolved a norm which will avert unpleasant situations like the one in Tamil Nadu. |
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Questionable priorities A government that lives on borrowings and is almost bankrupt should be making efforts to mop up revenue from wherever possible. Here is the Punjab Government, with a debt of Rs 40,327 crore and a budget deficit of Rs 505.59 crore, splurging its resources on distilleries. It has given 10-year excise relief amounting to Rs 190 crore to five chosen distilleries — one of them run by a Congress MP, whose extravagance
attracted media attention during the just-concluded byelections in the state. The distilleries have also been given a five-year exemption from paying electricity duty. No stamp duty has been charged on the land purchased by them. The empowered committee, set up under the 2003 industrial policy and headed by the Chief Minister, has announced the Rs 190 crore giveaways arbitrarily. Government concessions have to be uniform, awarded on merit, decided by unambiguous guidelines and open to all those eligible to ensure transparency and fair play. The Punjab Government follows a pick-and-choose policy. Private investment is hardly forthcoming in the state. NRIs refuse to invest in the state, alleging red tape and corruption. The Captain’s government has just received a drubbing from the Supreme Court, which has upheld the state high court’s directive to the government to reauction liquor vend. A liquor lobby is obviously active in the state. Decisions taken by the politico-bureaucratic leadership are apparently influenced by it to its advantage. With Punjabis, particularly youth, ruining their health by excessive liquor consumption, distilleries and breweries should have been the last on the state government priority to get any concessions. Governments usually target tobacco and liquor companies to raise revenue. In Punjab the liquor barons are awarded exemptions from paying even normal taxes. The Punjab Chief Minister opposes the Bathinda oil refinery on the ground that the government cannot afford to lose sales tax for a few years, but he does not seem to mind sacrificing revenue for promoting liquor sales. |
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Queered pitch Clubs
can play better cricket than the famed present Indian team. A number of cricketers had let out a howl of protest when the BCCI told the Supreme Court that the players represent the board and not the country. They play for neither. Going by their performance in the current series against Australia they take their place in the team for granted and after the introduction of the contract system seem to have become a tad too lethargic in putting their best foot forward. Finding scapegoats will not make Team India rediscover the magic that helped it spoil Steve Waugh's farewell series in Australia. Something has gone terribly wrong after the team's triumphant return from Pakistan. The players, perhaps, lost the momentum following the long break before they re-assembled again for the new season. In series after series, from Holland to England and back in India, the superstars continued to play like zombies. Most players seem to have lost the will to perform. Adam Gilchrist must be the first stand-in captain to win a series, that too the one that is counted among the most difficult by visiting captains. India could have made the contest close. To say that rain robbed it of the opportunity to square the series in Chennai is a lame excuse. The team should have wrapped up the game on day-four itself. Heads have expectedly rolled for the pathetic performance by the team that had come to be considered the second best in the world. However, the selective changing and chopping that has been done will only compound the problems facing Indian cricket. It is a case of too little and too late. The present bunch of selectors should be penalised for allowing zonal loyalties to prevail over national interest. Coach John Wright and physio Andrew Leipus seem to have lost the advantage of "neutrality" through prolonged exposure to "local conditions". They too should be replaced. The Nagpur Test was gift-wrapped and handed over to the Australians by Saurav Ganguly through his irresponsible and unsporting comments on the nature of the pitch. It demoralised Team India. A new captain cannot do any worse than Saurav Ganguly has since the beginning of the new season. |
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My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.
— George Bernard Shaw |
Corruption in public life Corruption
in Indian public life is often discussed these days since it has started seriously affecting the quality of life in a big way. No doubt, there have been efforts in the past to acknowledge the existence of the menace and its enormity. Committees were set up by the government at various stages to study this increasing menace. There have been high-profile reports by the committees and commissions. Notwithstanding this, very little seems to have happened by way of arresting this cancerous growth. Unfortunately, this evil has been spreading its tentacles to every field. But, if one is looking for a silver lining, it is that there is an increasing awareness of the danger posed by this evil and that voluntary agencies have been coming up to counter it. The governmental efforts not being adequate and effective, both individual and collective endeavours are also required to improve the system. Elections being the gateway to many of the crucial political public offices in our country, a great deal can be achieved if we find a way to ensure proper filtering at the entry stage itself so that people of high quality and integrity alone get through. Prevention today is much better than looking for cure later. It is common perception that the vicious role of money power is the single largest source of corruption in the electoral process especially because of the scope for political patronage due to increasing economic activities of governments. The increasing cost of elections and the loopholes in the law are sufficient inducements for the flow of money into the polls, surreptitiously and illegally, and in many cases from undesirable sources. The result is that the politicians look at the electoral contests not as a ballot field but as a battlefield where bullets and wallets dominate more than any other consideration. Thus, the unalloyed role of money, apart from being an evil practice in itself, doubles up as a direct discouragement for the honest to enter the electoral or political field. The other obvious dark side is the unhidden expectation of return of favour for the benefactor at some point in future when the party gets into power. What are the options to stem the rot? How best can we combat the situation? One of the suggestions mooted is the State funding of elections, an arrangement where all the election, expenses of candidates are funded directly by the State, and the candidate is not required to finds means to raise fund himself or through his political party. A committee set up by the government to study the issue of State funding in 1998 had recommended partial funding of elections, in kind, that too only for candidates of recognized political parties. The National Commission for the Working of the Constitution also recommended that State funding of elections might be the answer to combat the monstrous role of money power. The State may not be too keen to jump into funding elections mainly for economic reasons. Partial funding by the State may be acceptable, though it has its limitations. A beginning has been made by an amendment to the law last year. Parties are yet to have consensus for proper legislation as the recent amendment relating to State assistance in kind and use of private TV channels has thrown up more issues than solving any problem. Until that becomes possible, the alternative would be to make the law tighter to prohibit exorbitant spending during elections. Under the rules, there is a ceiling fixed for the expenses that can be incurred by an individual candidate in connection with his election from the date of nomination. Under the Representation of the People Act, incurring of expenditure in excess of the prescribed ceiling is a corrupt practice, which may lead to setting aside the election of the elected candidate if he is proved to have spent money in excess of the limit. However, this has to be established in the competent court (High Courts or the Supreme Court) through an election petition. This is not an easy exercise considering that transparency in spending is not one of the requirements of the law. The problem is compounded by the fact that there is a time limit of 45 days to file an election petition after the declaration of the result. To unearth enough material to prove overspending within the prescribed time limit would often prove too much even for the most resourceful person. The deficiency in this regard is accentuated by the absence of ceiling in respect of election expenditure by political parties. The practice being followed by some countries of a candidate having to compulsorily open an election account in a bank before filing his/her nomination, and to spend any item of expenditure only from that account through cheques or similar instruments can also be considered. This will make spending transparent and open to scrutiny. While opening the account, the candidate could also be asked to disclose the source of the fund. One is not sure how effective this will be in Indian conditions because of the huge cash transactions taking place in the market. More importantly, there is need for a separate law governing formation and functioning of political parties as suggested by the Constitution Review Commission. In such a law, there should be a provision that all payments and receipts by the political parties beyond a specified amount will be required to publish an abridged edition of audited accounts for the information of the public. Restricting the election expenditure to the permitted limits and ensuring that the money spent is clean and legally obtained will go some distance in improving the quality of elected candidates and in the performance of their functions after the election. Cleaning the electoral process does not end with controlling the use of money power alone. Criminal elements entering politics and electoral arena with impunity and walking away victorious in some cases present a very disturbing and uncomfortable picture. We have seen people with known antecedents of hardcore criminal activity joining political parties and walking into the election scene straightaway. There are laws which disqualify a person from contesting elections on conviction by a court of law. Notwithstanding the popular dictum of "innocent until proved guilty", the Election Commission had made a recommendation to the government that the law should be amended to prevent criminal elements from contesting elections and sullying the image of the democratic set-up and institutions especially because of enormous delays in decisions by courts. A proposal was made as far back as in 1998 that even when trial is pending a person could be disqualified from contesting if the competent court has framed charges against him for an offence punishable with imprisonment for five years or more. The argument put forth by some political parties against this view is that the potential candidates may be implicated in false cases especially by the party in power. This only reveals a lack of political will to take on the forces of criminalisation of politics. Be that as it may, I feel that any number of legislation is not going to help as long as the minds of political parties do not undergo a drastic change in nominating their candidates for elections. We need a social environment where a criminal element is seen as an unwanted entrant in the political field. Maybe, this is another vicious circle linked to the problem of money power and muscle power in winning elections. Perhaps, educating the electorate about the worth of the candidate may help. If the electorate becomes enlightened and mature to reject a criminal element, the threat posed by such elements in elections can be reduced to a great extent. n The writer is the Chief Election Commissioner of India. The article is based on his paper presented at a recently held seminar at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration,
Mussoorie. |
Quiet saviour There
was no need for Bhavesh Shah to be out of his home in Ahmedabad that evening. The city was in turmoil in the post-Godhra rage with innocents being attacked and shops burnt. Bhavesh was not a bachelor and his destination for the evening was through smouldering streets. The man reached Ahmedabad railway station, permit from Deputy Commissioner in hand, to ferry stranded passengers to their homes in a hired mini-bus. The riots had broken out in the city a day before. The railway station was bursting at seams, with most people lying on platforms to catch some sleep. The few STD booths had long queues and policemen were finding it difficult to discipline the restive crowd. It seemed people from neighbouring areas had also come to the station, finding it safer than their homes. Ahmedabad was new to me and picture of a riotous, curfew-bound city a bit uncomforting. The train that brought me from Delhi was left with few passengers by the time it touched Ahmedabad. Godhra still fresh in our minds, we moved away from windows as the train slowly chugged through wayside clusters on way to the railway station. Reaching the station, I headed for the room of station master to get some guidance. He gave me hope about being able to go in the city and finding a place to stay. The few people with him were all keen to reach their homes despite the disturbance outside. Bhavesh came to the room, talked briefly to the station master and took along all those willing to go. The station master suggested I should go with Bhavesh. Army trucks were on patrol in the streets outside the railway station. Fire and smoke was visible in rows of shops that had been burnt in the communal rage. Bhavesh Shah stood at the door of the mini-bus, order from the district administration in his hand, to quell suspicions of securitymen. The city seemed to have gone
berserk. An exhibition of inter-state handicrafts was torched by miscreants a day before. Remains of charred vehicles were visible at several places. Though it involved a lot of personal risk, Bhavesh dropped the passengers at locations comfortable to them. Finding me a stranger to the city, he took me home and found a cybercafe in his neighbourhood to enable me file reports. Later, on my insistence, he arranged a hotel room in a "safe area." The night was no better than the day as rumours about communal attacks forced residents to keep vigil at the gates of their colonies. Ahmedabad did not seem to be in a hurry to return to normalcy. Next morning, Bhavesh was arranging accommodation for factory employees who had been rescued by his friend from riots in a neighbourhood town. He had little time for family business in those days of mayhem. In a city full of distrust, a wrong turn could have spelled disaster for Bhavesh but he didn't stop. Bhavesh's family understood his quest to help. A former member of the local citizens consultative committee of Railways, Bhavesh perhaps understood the pain of passengers struck in a riot. |
Challenge lies in changing the mindset We need the white collar workforce; fortunately there is no shortage in this category. A grey collar workforce — the knowledge worker for the ever-growing demand of a knowledge economy, which includes not only information and communication technology skills, but also such soft skills as problem solving, analytical and effective communication skills. A blue collar workforce for shop floor work in manufacturing and the service sector, and a rust collar workforce, trained in basic skills across sectors. Skills should be benchmarked to national and, where possible, international standards. The system should provide for mobility between collars and reskilling opportunities as individuals gain in experience and expertise, and seek value addition for improvement in their prospects. There are four challenges that need to be addressed. The first is availability of infrastructure, the issue of infrastructure can be resolved by bringing in “off hour” usage of the existing training and academic institutions, and most importantly, through redundancies that exist in the corporate sector. The second is that of quality. The skills must be nationally and globally bench-marked, and the content should be attuned to changes that take care of the variability that local conditions bring into the picture. This could be done by involving occupational experts from industry, academic experts with experience of delivery of such training and from experts and institutions that have the experience and method of designing and delivering cutting-edge syllabi and assessments. The quality assurance structure should include teams of visiting verifiers, quality inspectors, trainers to discharge the training programmes and specially trained and qualified teams of independent assessors, who certify to bench-marked standards. The third issue is the cost of training. These courses should be highly affordable. A strong connection to work should ensure that the candidate is able to realise the amount in full within a couple of months. In addition, such training could be subsidised by development institutions, employers and philanthropic organisations, and be part of the corporate social responsibility programme. However, the biggest challenge lies in the prevailing mindset. Dignity of labour is a concept little appreciated and much less practised in India. Our students queue up outside colleges with high cut-offs, pay through their nose to get admissions without realising that India produces 2.7 million graduates every year with no relevant skills that connect to work and employment. Somewhere, we will have to wake up to this reality and provide dignity to labour, the status it deserves. Urban India has a penchant to emulate some values of the West, yet stops short of emulating ‘dignity of labour’ as a value. We will need help from all quarters to bring this change. In a modest and innovative initiative, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has launched a pilot “Skills Initiative” to lead India’s march towards becoming the “skill capital of the world”. The initiative will help people find work and employers find qualified employees. It should encourage workers to participate in leadership and reskilling training programmes, and encourage industry to increase levels of investment in education and training and to improve the return on that investment. It caters to all comers, who for reasons not all of their own making, have had to leave school and for those who after finishing school are underemployed or unemployed. The clear objective is to improve competitiveness and self-employment opportunities. The pilot programme launched by the CII has brought us face to face with the challenges. They are real. They have to be addressed. Some of them will take time, but there is universal agreement on the need and the urgency of the initiative. From Baramulla in Kashmir to Coimbatore, from Shillong to Patna and on to Loni (in rural Maharashtra), we have witnessed enthusiasm and hope. As every day passes, and new inputs become available, our resolve is fortified. A preliminary inquiry tells us that we need a skilled workforce in travel and tourism, hospitality, telecommunication, computer and BPO skills, agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, small businesses, garment and hosiery, airconditioning, hairdressing, health community and social care, motor vehicle engineering, sales and marketing, office management and secretarial practice, laundry services, driving, and transportation and transportation logistics, such as warehousing, packaging, preservation, cold chain management, distribution, etc. In the construction sector alone, we need to skill in scaffolding, masonry, fencing, tiling, painting and finishing, plumbing, carpentry, building, sanitation, water, ready mix cement, facilities management and back up support. What will it take to ramp this up so that India can become the skill capital of the world? A partnership approach between all stakeholders may help identify a countrywide network of centres for training and assessment. It is necessary to engage the stakeholders and determine ways of getting co-ordinated action between academic institutions and private and public industry. Critical to the success of this venture is the setting up of an assured delivery organisation. Fortunately in part, this is possible. In uniform, servicemen train to defend the country. Out of uniform, ex-servicemen could organise themselves to provide a skill training organisational structure. The crossover would come naturally and easily. In the prevailing system the bulk retire in their early forties and on superannuation, they are ideally suited to train. Training can be supervised close to village and home, and in the skill that the region needs. This would also help harness, what is today, a loss of a trained, and disciplined national resource. There is enough room, requirement and opportunity for each of us to contribute. The writer is a former GOC-in-C, Western Command, and at present Principal Adviser, CII |
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Chatterati I
happened to make a trip up to Shimla the other day, purely personal, catching up on family members and friends. While the former were there, the latter proved to be elusive, colleagues of my late father from the days of my childhood, acquaintances within officialdom, so many of them so mysteriously busy. Mildly curious, I wandered down both the happening places of Shimla town - the Mall and the shabby corridors of the Secretariat. By the end of my walk, I had discovered various versions of explanation for the all-elusiveness that I encountered. The most interesting factoid was that on the 7th of November 2004, the Chief Minister’s Eleven were to take on the Governor’s Eleven in a charity cricket match. So that’s why everyone was so busy! Some of them, apparently off “practising”. How charming, I thought benignly, while at the back of my mind rose a dark cloud of social consciousness — while law-makers and shakers bat and bowl, what will be the score for governance? We walked a lot, through the Lower Bazaar with its colorful stalls of attractive discounted wares, along The Mall with its old familiar stores, snugly and securely established in both time and space, catering to those that had patronised them from generation to generation. Unfortunately I could only get as far as the loo — or “powder room” at the Gaiety Theatre, because the entire theatre is under restoration. There seemed various opinions about this restoration, too, some opposing it as a “cover” to renovate and expand, others earnestly animated by the fact that the restoration would genuinely restore the theatre’s old glory. The Mall was much the same, as were the people from the past that I met. What pained my heart was the vandalisation of the ecology within which the Shimla that I had grown up in had nestled. The forests were gone, as were the meandering pathways we walked, and the grassy slopes we sunned ourselves upon. The sounds of silence broken only by the whisper of the wind through the trees was replaced a cacophony of car horns and truck engines. Diesel exhaust and smog cast a grey haze upon the azure sky line. And the hill sides, they were not there any more. In their stead, stood solid walls of concrete. On the horizon, there were no deep forests of deodar and oak. The horizon was an intricate tapestry of cement slabs aloft which protruded iron girders. What have we done to our world? A VVIP wedding Four generations of the Gandhis all came together for Satish Sharma’s daughter’s wedding. Sonia Gandhi in a pale green silk saree with pearls, Priyanka in pink, Robert and Rahul looking handsome in Rajasthani Safaris. Sonia’s mother from Italy, Paola Maino, had especially flown in for the wedding. Priyanka’s daughter, Maira, in a tiny ghaghra choli all decked up like a doll, was the cynosure of all eyes. A jubilant Satish Sharma and wife Stella had a VVIP affair wedding for their daughter at their Mehrauli farm. The rain poured, but guests came in nevertheless. Anil and Tina Ambani to models, politicians and business magnets. |
The science of devotional service is just like a great ocean, and it is not possible to show you all the length and breadth of the great ocean. But you can know about the nature of the ocean by just taking a drop of it; and you can thus taste it and understand what that ocean of devotional service is. — Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Since both Paramatman and Jivatman are one and the same, it is not possible to differentiate them. It is also impossible to attribute separate qualities to them. — Lord Sri Rama To persist in doing wrong extenuates not the wrong, but makes it much more heavy. — Shakespeare |
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