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Captain vs education Indecent proposal |
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Injections and infections Stringent laws must for healthy healthcare VERY few people would have been surprised to read the news-item about an alert nurse saving a precious life, which could have been lost if she had failed to notice the fly in the syringe she was about to use for administering a medicine. Such reports reflecting carelessness at the units manufacturing medical equipment and pharmaceuticals are becoming too common.
No threat to national security
Humour: an aid in distress
Tackling poverty, suicides China’s step on currency
revolutionary Chatterati
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Captain vs education
THE Amarinder Singh government’s decision to phase out the 95 per cent aid given to the recognised private schools in the state’s urban areas is bound to cripple their functioning and push up the cost of education for students. There are, in all, 430 such schools in Punjab. It is a retrograde decision that needs to be condemned as it seeks to deprive the poor students of affordable education. Few will, however, be surprised by the decision as it conforms to the low priority the Chief Minister accords to education. It has not bothered the Captain that his anti-education policies, beginning with his botched-up attempt to privatise government schools, are in sharp contrast to the emphasis the Prime Minister has been laying on improving the content and reach of education. For survival, these schools, which are now on the Captain’s chopping block, will have to raise their fees and slash salaries. The government also plans to delink the pay and allowances of the staff of these schools from that of the government teachers. This will create unrest among the private school staff. Since there is stiff competition among English-medium schools in cities, some may have to close down for want of funds. There is also a plan to hand over the job of supervision and control of government schools to the panchayats. A committee with Deputy Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal as its head is looking into the whole issue. She has made it clear that she is opposed to the privatisation of government schools. The Akali Dal (Badal) is also against the privatisation of schools and hospitals. Instead of waiting for the Bhattal committee report, the government seems to be in a tearing hurry to reduce its role in education. The government seeks to justify its harebrained ideas in the name of the financial crunch the state experiences. If the government is serious about economising, there are umpteen ways to do so. It can slim its top-heavy administration, stop meaningless foreign trips of MLAs and curtail the mounting overheads. Providing affordable education and healthcare to the citizens is the primary responsibility of the government from which it cannot run away. The private sector can only supplement its efforts. Private education has already become so costly that it has gone beyond the reach of poor and middle class students.
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Indecent proposal
MARRYING the personal to the political has been carried too far by the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat. The state authorities have issued a fiat that marriages between consenting adults should not be registered without parental approval in writing. Only the government of Gujarat could have conceived and come up with a measure so perverse and unimaginable in this day and age. The politics and prejudices that may have impelled such a move apart, the order is a flagrant violation of constitutional rights. As a result of this unholy order, men and women who want to sign into holy matrimony are being turned away by marriage registrars, and told that they must come with the declared consent of their respective parents. If the Modi government is aware that women above 18 years and men above 21 are free to marry of their own choice and volition, then obviously it doesn’t care a fig for this right. Now that the questionable order based on a government resolution has surfaced, ministers and officials are scurrying for cover and disclaiming responsibility, if not also knowledge of how this diktat came about. Yet, there is no dearth of justifications offered for the patently illegal order, one of them being that this is to prevent elopement of couples to get married. Adults who break free of parental and societal pressures to get married have every right to do so. The real reason is said to be that the Modi government wants to prevent inter-religion marriages, especially between Hindus and Muslims. This is, indeed, revolting in an avowedly secular republic. Something is rotten in the state of Gujarat. Here citizenship seems to be something granted at the whim of the authorities, and not all citizens have equal or the same rights. First churches were torched, thereby intimidating people of a particular faith from going to their places of worship. In the aftermath of the massacres of Muslims, there came up “refugee” camps. True, they were victims of state-sponsored violence. But can citizens, regardless of their religious identity, become refugees in their own country? Perhaps, they were truly second-class citizens. And, now marriages between adults are reduced to something of a social contract between the state and parents.
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Injections
and infections
VERY few people would have been surprised to read the news-item about an alert nurse saving a precious life, which could have been lost if she had failed to notice the fly in the syringe she was about to use for administering a medicine. Such reports reflecting carelessness at the units manufacturing medical equipment and pharmaceuticals are becoming too common. A World Bank study says that at least 69 per cent of the injections given at government hospitals in India are unsafe. So, those getting cured at such hospitals should thank their stars. Many patients fail to recover because of the improper sterilisation of syringes or wrong practices followed by the paramedical staff. There is also the problem of recycling of the used syringes leading to patients getting life-threatening infections like AIDS and hepatitis B and C. Those who believe that injections will no longer be unsafe once only auto-disable syringes are allowed to be sold by drug-stores should revise their view. According to one study, the use of such syringes will reduce the risk of getting injected with infections by only 50 per cent. In government hospitals, one in every three injections will still remain unsafe. The problem is quite complicated. It will have to be handled at various levels. First of all, a drive should be launched to educate the public and the healthcare professionals that injections are not needed in most cases. They should use needles and syringes in the rarest of rare cases. The public, too, should resist when a medical practitioner resorts to injections. Let us remember that taking medicines orally is the safest method for getting cured. But nothing can be possible unless the country’s healthcare sector loses the image of being one of the most corrupt ones in the world. There must be stringent laws for punishing those found manufacturing unsafe medical equipment and spurious drugs. The fear of the law is necessary to restore the health of the ailing system.
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Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the
doing. —William Shakespeare
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No threat to national security
Of all the objections to the Indo-US joint statement, the most vociferous one is about its impact on India’s national security. Those who put forward this argument cite the Indian agreement to separate civil and military components of our nuclear programme as deleterious to our building up of an adequate arsenal, when taken together with the possibility of the Fissile Materials Cut- off Treaty (FMCT) being concluded in the next few years. Let us analyse this proposition dispassionately and not play politics with it. The first suggestion to offer to place civilian nuclear rectors under international safeguards in exchange for access to civil nuclear technology and nuclear fuel came from Dr Raja Ramanna, who headed the first Pokhram team. It cannot be the contention that he knew less about the issue than some of our journalists and atomic energy officials other than the succeeding chairmen. Dr Ramanna was for a robust Indian arsenal. The NDA government during the negotiations on NSSP with the US again offered to put some civilian reactors under international safeguards just to get enriched uranium fuel for the overaged Tarapur reactor. This has been confirmed by Mr Brajesh Mishra, former National Security Adviser. That would mean the argument that civil and military components of the atomic energy programme cannot be separated is purely a politically motivated
argument. Otherwise Mr.Mishra would not have agreed to such a proposition. Mr Mishra,
presumably, did not specify the number of reactors to be offered for inspection. Nor does the present agreement. It is left to Indian volition and is to be done in a phased
manner, the speed of which will also be determined by India. Those who oppose separation have tied themselves into knots in their arguments. They argue that military applications constitute a small fraction of the overall nuclear programme—which is true but then assert that, therefore, it cannot be
separated. This is prima facie self-contradictory. However, the cat has been let out of the bag with the disclosure that some part of reactor-grade plutonium was used in one of the experiments in Shakti tests to check whether it can be used as nuclear explosives. The test was successful. But this is not news since the Americans had conducted a similar test in 1960 and had been asserting that reactor-grade plutonium can also be used as fissile material though it has problems in explosive efficiency and in handling because of extra radiation . The implied arguments opposing the division is India would take time to build its nuclear arsenal to the required level, as determined by our national security establishment and during that time we may have to use reactor-grade fissile materials for bomb making. If this is the argument then it is untenable for the following reasons: There is nothing in the present agreement that prevents India to convert some of the civilian power reactors into military reactors and declare them as
such. They can, thereafter, be operated to produce military-grade plutonium. That freedom is totally with India. Secondly, there is no prohibition of using the already accumulated reactor-grade plutonium for bomb-making if that were to be so decided. The Americans and Indians are agreed that the Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty would have no impact on the previously accumulated plutonium stockpiles. This treaty is a matter of great contention among the NPT community, and because of this reason and the Chinese opposition to it there is no expectation that such a treaty would come into force for many years to come, if at all it does. International experts who have made calculations on the basis of performance of Dhruva and CIRUS reactors over the years have estimated that India should have around 100 nuclear war-heads based on bomb-grade plutonium only and this number would go up if reactor-grade fissile material is used for bomb-making. While some anti-nuclear pacifists, who still fiercely defend India’s right to have unlimited nuclear arsenal, may run down the “dirty bomb” made out of reactor-grade plutonium, the number would have an impact on the efficacy of deterrence exercised since the adversary would not be able to distinguish between the two and anticipate which kind of bomb would hit which target. In any case, somewhat lower yield nuclear explosions from “dirty bombs” would still be effective against lives and property. Therefore, there is nothing in the present agreement which will affect our security in future. The only issue which requires to be considered urgently is what should be the size of our arsenal. One hopes that our National Security Advisers have used the last seven years since the Shakti tests to develop a ball-park figure for the size of our deterrent. The debate among the nuclear strategists in our country puts the requirement between 100-200 (popular among minimum deterrent theorists) and 350-400 acceptable to those who want India to rank with Britain and France. There are today American minimum deterrent theorists who argue that the US could do with a 200 weapon deterrent. Those who built mindlessly large arsenals are today dismantling them at costs greater than what they spent to build them. Surely, we are not going to repeat that mistake. Some others have repeated the arguments of pro-NPT strategists of the nineties that nuclear reactors as a whole constitute a kind of deterrence. But those strategists were not thinking of applying that argument to countries with declared nuclear weapons. Even the Americans who are building missile defence are doing so only against low-density attacks against the so-called “rogue states”. The abandonment of the Star Wars programme proved that there was no way of stopping large-scale attacks .The possibility of such attacks in future are considered very low. In fact, US assessments by and large rule out the use of nuclear weapons by major nuclear weapon powers among themselves. It is dangerous to use inadequately informed arguments to criticise the agreements with the US which are based on new assessments by them of the challenges they are likely to face and the gains they attach to partnership with India in the new evolving
circumstances.
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Humour: an aid in distress
Two persons were crossing a jungle in their car when a tiger took after them. Since the route was hardly motorable, their speed could not defeat the tiger and its reflection persisted in the rear mirror. And then the driver got an idea: “I switched on my right side indicator but have taken a left turn to befool the beast,” he smilingly told his companion, “I had to, since I don’t have my gun!” “You and your tricks!” the companion commented, “you are so sure of tigers in this backward region being as conversant with their driving devices as your drivers! Great!” Chidambaram’s grand new idea of a tax on bank withdrawals was a masterstroke which would have proved the driver in the story a Finance Minister’s ingenuity. Had the provision not evoked widespread protests and stood intact in the budget, one could look forward to plenty of amusing situations. One proposal was for example, to start a campaign to draw cheques for Rs 9990 every time and make the bank sweat out the result and bless the source of it! Or, to make it extra fun, draw a cheque for Rs 9999.99 and force the mint to start production of single paisas which have somewhat disappeared out of shame for having been treated with such humiliation. How much black money could be trapped through this tax apart, people have had something to laugh at in such a kill-joy phenomenon as a budget very often is, is certainly welcome. Isn’t humour often advised as the best tonic which is borne out by the “laughter clubs” in some of cities’ elite parks also - haggard fogeys convulsing their ribs out without even a joke? For me it has been an aid also in odd situations. Before I agreed to “serve” as the proverbial “white elephant”, I had some idea of the ceremonial lamp-lightings, ribbon-cuttings and stone-layings etc. I would have to go through with all solemnity but I really was no game for addressing vice-chancellors and academicians, hi-fi science wizards, abstract artists and litterateurs as well as sometimes even convicts! Imagine my discomfiture now, on being made to preside over a distribution function for literary awardees in Lucknow - the city which symbolises refinements and mannerisms of ‘Pehle-Aap’, ‘Pehle-Aap’ variety. Some kind words had been said about me to rescue the scholars who could have felt being slighted by being made to bow before an unheard of dunce! “Will these geniuses have the patience to stay on till my turn to inflict my share of boredom on them?’ ‘And what if they do and stage a walkout within a couple of minutes of my start? It was no bonded audience, anyhow. The moment of my ordeal arrived as it had to! So there I stood like a poor and hopeless ignoramus at the mercy of hawks - including many professional critics - whose business it is to be merciless! “Some mention was made of my literary quality”, I began, “and it reminded one of a story of good old days when touring dramatic-parties were the main source of entertainment for rural people. A job seeker appeared before the manager of such a drama group. ‘Have you any experience?’ was the first question he was asked. ‘Oh yes, plenty!’ he bravely answered. ‘Tell me some plays you worked in’, was the second query. ‘All types, you mention any and I assure you my answer will be positive.’ ‘Even so, mention a few’, the manager persisted. ‘Well, if you don’t believe me,…… Laila Majnu, Baghdad Ka Chor, Hatim Tai…. and …’. ‘Well well, what type of part did you specialise in?’ ‘Oh! My part was the same in every play.’ ‘And what was it?’ ‘Pardah Uthao, Pardah Girao……’. Hardly dissimilar has been my contribution in the literary field….” The joke worked and I was at ease with the illustrious gathering for the rest of my formal address! On several occasions, my bet was another joke from Mark Twain. “It is better to sit mum and be taken for a fool than to open your lips and remove all doubt. … I have been trying since I took this seat to find a way not to run the risk of removal of the doubt, but have, as you see, failed. So, let it be as God wills! But if it is a gathering of those who are lovers of Sanskrit and no fans of Mark Twain, a Sanskrit quote is equally apt: “Tawat Bhasate Moorkho Yawat Nabhibhashate” (A fool glows only so long as he keeps
mute)
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Tackling poverty, suicides
The spate of suicides by farmers in several states blows in the face of the Planning Commission estimates on poverty reduction. The percentage of people below the poverty line is estimated to be declining by 1.2 percentage points on an average every year. By this reckoning, India would be rid of poverty by 2025, in another 20 years. This perception has received a rude shock with the scores of suicides by farmers and weavers in the rural areas in the last couple of years in several southern states. which are considered, by all parametres, to have achieved a growing well-being of people compared to northern states which have been lagging behind. The suicides by farmers present a tricky problem to account for theoretically. It has long been recognised by economists that the poverty line measured purely in terms of nutritional standards give a misleading picture of the socio-economic phenomena. Some amends to account for the inadequacies of poverty line were introduced by UNDP and others by floating the concept of human development indicators like literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy. But even these have apparently proved inadequate. This is evident from the fact that while in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madya Pradesh where the human development indicators are worse than those of the southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharastra, the suicide mortality rate among farmers is far less. There were 60 suicidal deaths in Anantapur district from 2000 to 2003. The year 2001 recorded maximum suicides of 34, half of them being in Penukonda revenue division. In Karnataka, according to Musaffar Assadi, the suicides by farmers have been steadily going up from 110 in 1999-2001 to 708 in 2002 to 2004. Amaravati revenue division in Maharashtra accounted for more than two-thirds of 615 of 899 total suicides in the state in the years 2001 to 2004, says Sarjit Mishra, quoting Government of Maharashtra sources. The suicides were concentrated in the Vidarba region comprising the revenue divisions of Amaravati and Wardha. The majority of those who had committed suicide were small and marginal or medium farmers having less than 10 acres of land. The common strain that runs in all these cases of suicides is the accumulation of debt. This affects all groups and categories. When the monsoon is good, the annual income of a household would not exceed Rs 35,000. There is scanty information on earnings of farmers below the poverty line. The costs of inputs are increasing while the gross income is falling because of falling prices of farm produce because of market-oriented policies of the government. The net income is further reduced by the interest the farmer has to pay on the loans he has taken. There is a near total breakdown of institutional credit mechanism as far as marginal farmers are concerned. If the monsoon fails or is delayed, several of these farmers lose all hope and resort to suicides. It is no coincidence that most of the suicides take place in May and June. During these months money-lenders give threats and banks issue repeated notices to farmers for the repayment of loans. The public notices make their life more miserable. The debt gets accumulated not only for production purposes, failure of the monsoon, lower prices for the produce but also because of family and social obligations like getting children educated, the marriages of daughters and sons, expenses arising out of sickness. One has to tackle this basic problem faced by farmers to enhance his capacity to overcome his social and survival needs by giving him a low-interest loan if he sends his children to schools and colleges repayable by his children after 20 years, free medical aid, low-interest loans up to a limit for performing the marriage of daughters repayable, say, after 20 years by his grandchildren. The farmer is a self-respecting person with pride for his work and tries to honour his commitments. Most of the farmers committing suicide are young and below 40. There is a strong argument that subsidies reduce the lendable funds and introduce political intermediaries, who garner rent from that. It would be more appropriate to provide these services on the highly successful model of self help groups. The Indian farmer not only is in perpetual debt but is also at perpetual risk. The risks could be a failure of the monsoon, in availability of water or power and poor quality of seed and fertilisers. The risk is more in rain-fed areas and for commercial crops whose prices fluctuate widely. To take account of the risk factor, the sufferance-debt limit has to be discounted by the rate of interest prevailing in the market. The solution to the predicament of the Indian farmer lies not only in poverty alleviation measures but also in measures to reduce his debt and risk problems through government intervention and self-help groups.
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China’s step
on currency revolutionary
China’s move to reform its currency system set the nation on a path to greater financial independence and stronger integration with global markets. It also marked a milestone in China’s dramatic rise from a poor communist state to a powerful force in the world economy. But the shift also adds new challenges to a country already facing mounting domestic and foreign pressures, largely resulting from its booming growth. At home, China is trying to slow an economy that some fear has become overheated as steel plants keep popping up and real estate prices reach bubble levels. It has to clean up massive problems with its shaky banking system and inefficient state-owned companies, while facing growing unrest from millions of poor people as income disparities widen and unemployment remains high. The country’s rising wages and pension costs, along with transportation bottlenecks and energy shortages, also are prompting foreign companies to consider shifting production to other countries. Many manufacturers already operate on very thin profit margins. Externally, China still faces pressure from the United States and other countries that want Beijing to further reform its economy and eliminate alleged unfair trade practices. Although China’s currency reform was lauded by prominent American officials, including U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Chinese were only partly successful in easing tensions with the United States. Meanwhile, currencies of other Asian nations, which are intertwined with the yuan, are rising sharply on the news. Those nations might also exert pressure if their pricier currencies hurt their economies by making their exports more expensive abroad. Chinese leaders, undoubtedly mindful of these challenges, nudged up the value of the yuan by only 2 percent and put in place a deliberately ambiguous mechanism that will give them strong control over the currency. Still, ``China is headed down the road to allowing the markets to hold more power — and the bureaucrats less,’’ said Donald Straszheim, an economist and chairman of Straszheim Global Advisors in Los Angeles. While he and many others view China’s currency change as good for the Chinese and the world, the road is still likely to be bumpy. By changing their currency policy from a decade-old peg to the U.S. dollar to a more flexible system, Chinese policymakers hope to gain more instruments to help manage their economy. For example, the new system may allow greater use of interest rates to slow an overheated economy. One of the biggest concerns is whether China’s revaluation will increase speculation from investors and currency traders expecting further appreciation in the yuan. Their actions could spur even faster economic growth while driving up inflation, risking further instability. Chinese officials already have taken measures to cool the property market, imposing capital gains taxes in some cities and stricter lending guidelines. And officials on Friday sought to chill speculative activity from heating up again. — Washington Post-LA Times
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Chatterati Shobha De ko gussa kyon atta hai? A recent event organised to discuss women’s issues by FICCI ladies went completely astray as the moderator Shivani Wazir introduced panelist Shobha and asked the author to please tell them how she stayed so fit. Unfortunately, Ms De was not amused and came straight to the topic “Super moms and super bosses”. Shobha spoke on women’s rights. The debate became hot and lively. All the ladies did agree on how the mindset of men should be changed and how women are still not treated equal to men even though we have powerful women leaders. Here were stylish urban women discussing in air-conditioned rooms in business suits and designers sarees loaded with diamonds talking about the evolution of women in our nation. A lady from Mumbai was in the Capital recently to teach our ladies how to drape six yards of saree in new ways. Shaina N.C, the designer, was also the BJP candidate from Mumbai for the last Parliament poll. The chief guest of the event, Mrs L.K. Advani and her daughter Pratibha, were a bit off colour, it seemed. Relocating monkeys Bureaucrats, tired of visits of monkeys to the North Block and the South Block, requested their colleagues in the Environment and Forest Ministry to spare them with such visitations. A high-level committee looked into the matter. So longoors have been deployed on monthly wages to scare away monkeys as a short-term solution. As a long-term solution, the committee requested the various states to house these monkeys in their forests as per their capability. Meanwhile, the poor monkeys, unaware of the deliberations of the committee, are making merry just hundred yards away from the North and South Blocks near the Kamraj Lane and giving a life-time experience to the lower officials passing by near Army hutments. Appointments of PCC chiefs Delhi is always abuzz with political gossip. The latest is the appointment of Pradesh Congress chiefs. If Bihar got a PCC chief of RJD chief Lalu’s choice, Punjab got one from the dissident camp. Delhi got Shiela Dixit’s detractor Ram Babu Sharma. New Bihar chief Singh belongs to the Kurmi community. His predecessor, Ram Jatan Sinha, carried his anti-Lalu attitude on his sleeve. This can also be an indication from the Congress to tie its fate with the RJD. In Madhya Pradesh Subash Yadav is from the backward class. In Punjab CM Amarinder Singh has been snubbed with the appointment of Dullo. In Haryana too Bhajan Lal seems secure. Anyway, it seems to be a divide and rule game plan this time from the AICC. It’s actually the big AICC reshuffle that is being awaited with bated breath and almost with as much hype as the Cabinet reshuffle.
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From the pages of
In the race for progress in this country the Punjab is not given a fair chance, and in a great many directions the Province is deliberately held back. This complaint has been occasionally sneered at as the political agitator’s stock grievance without any substratum of fact. But any fair-minded person will be easily convinced that the complaint we have so often made is not an idle one. We think the Government will readily admit that the Punjab has stronger claims upon its gratitude than any other province in India. The Sikhs are still among the finest fighting men in the Indian Army, and are always selected for service abroad, but they are in no way exempt from the general ban of suspicion and disqualification under which all fighting men in India have been placed. The Sikhs, at one time, were the finest artillerymen in India, and they gave a splendid amount to themselves in the Sikh war. But they have now entirely forgotten the use of artillery, and are never employed as artillerymen. If such a time were to come again the Sikh might again rally round the British, but they would never be entrusted with artillery.
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The senses are egocentric. So man sees the outer world and considers it real. — The Upanishads Even the smallest gift, when given freely, without attachment, results in incalculable reward. —The Buddha Blessed is the man who meditates on him and worships him, with full concentration of mind, heart and soul.
— Guru Nanak Five Hindrances: Sensuous lust; Aversion and ill will; Sloth and torpor; Restlessness and worry; Sceptical, doubt. —The Buddha Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to
endure it. — Book of quotations on Success Rise, O Learned One, and walk confidently on life’s razor-edge.
—The Upanishads By obeying him, man’s path becomes clear, no obstruction stands
in ways. — Guru Nanak The man first directs himself to what is proper can aspire to become a teacher. Thus the taught will not suffer.
— The Buddha
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