 |
|
Politics of reform Crashing MiGs |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Set education free Growth needs regulation, not controls The Commerce Ministry has suggested easier norms for the entry of foreign education providers to meet the needs of a growing economy. Although India opened education to 100 per cent foreign direct investment way back in 2001, not many foreign institutions have set up campuses here because of tough entry regulations.
Small is not
beautiful
A brush with the
Islamic laws
Wages of violence Marketing the
Mahatma Chatterati
|
|
Crashing MiGs AN engine flameout is a pilot’s nightmare, and the fact that both engines on the MiG-29 that crashed near Ambala on Thursday failed, within minutes of each other, is cause for amazement and concern. The 1997 Committee on Fighter Aircraft Accidents headed by the then Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, had reported that a sizable percentage of fighter accidents, the bulk of them MiGs, were due to engine failure — and a comparable percentage due to pilot error. The MiGs’ engine is a proven design, and valued for its brute power. But its reliability, especially when the quality and availability of spare parts in recent years have become problematic, was always an issue. A twin engine failure is a rare occurrence, and an enquiry will reveal whether this was indeed that one-in-a-million chance happening, or whether mishandling contributed to the failures. In either case, the IAF continues to have a serious issue with its MiG fleet, one that it has simply not been able to get around. Crashes continue, and whatever figures the IAF may trot out in terms of accident rates per flying hours and the like, the simple fact is that the force has been steadily losing aircraft. The pace of procurement and indigenous manufacture is simply not able to make up for the accident and obsolescence rate. A Parliamentary Committee recently took a serious view of the fact that the IAF will hit a squadron strength of just 29 next year, the lowest in over three decades. This is well below the sanctioned strength of 40 squadrons, and the ideal projected at 44 squadrons. Some 600 aircraft will be retired by 2015, the bulk of them MiGs. On current plans, only around 350 will be added, including 140 indigenously assembled Su-30 MKIs, the deadline for which has now been brought forward to 2014. The LCA is still well below the horizon. The least the government can do now is to speed up the acquisition procedure for the projected 125 aircraft order. |
|
Set education free The
Commerce Ministry has suggested easier norms for the entry of foreign education providers to meet the needs of a growing economy. Although India opened education to 100 per cent foreign direct investment way back in 2001, not many foreign institutions have set up campuses here because of tough entry regulations. In a consultation paper sent to the HRD Ministry, the Commerce Ministry has proposed a separate regulatory authority for private Indian and foreign educational institutions. Doubtless, regulatory mechanisms are necessary for healthy growth along with adherence to norms suited to Indian conditions. However, the HRD Ministry, which wants to keep them under the University Grants Commission, is resistant to any such change. It is time to debate whether India should stick to the status quo or turn itself into a global education hub to not only reverse the trend of Indian students going abroad, but also to attract foreign students for quality education at much lower costs. The US has emerged as the first choice of many for attaining excellence in education. Britain, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and China make vigorous efforts to woo foreign students. Thanks to a sleepy HRD Ministry, India is yet to wake up to the need to truly open up education and tap emerging opportunities. So far only 150 foreign institutions have collaborated with their Indian counterparts and enrolled not more than 8,000 students. On the other hand, 1.10 lakh Indian students go abroad every year for higher education. This results in a huge outflow of money. According to one estimate, 15-20 IITs or 30-40 IIMs can be set up every year in India with the money spent by Indian students on getting education abroad. India spends just $406 on each student pursuing higher education compared to China’s $2,728, Brazil’s $3,896 and Malaysia’s $11,790. The message is clear. Without wasting any time India should increase its own spending on education and also encourage private Indian and foreign institutions to spread higher education. |
|
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. — Isaac Newton
|
Small is not beautiful The
Congress’s decline in the sixties and the seventies led to the emergence of regional parties. Once the Grand Old Party (GOP) began to lose its lustre, an increasing number of small community-and-caste-based organisations began to make their presence felt. Apart from the growing disenchantment with the Congress, another reason for their rise was that the GOP could no longer adequately address the concerns and aspirations of groups like the backward castes and Dalits, who had earlier been accommodated by the Congress. Only the Muslims remained with it (till 1992 and may be returning to it now) because Jinnah’s misadventure warned them against forming another communal outfit at the national level. It was a pity, however, that the political stirrings which led to the formation of the parties of the backward castes — first the Lok Dal and then the various Janata outfits — and also the outfits of the Dalits from the Republican parties to the BSP, were based solely on sectarian considerations. It wasn’t only caste which played a crystallising role in the establishment of the smaller parties, but also provincial parochialism. The latter phenomenon paved the way for the arrival of the Dravida Kazhagams, the Telugu Desam, the Asom Gana Parishad, etc., on the Indian scene. The earlier, mostly pre-1947, emphasis on eradicating divisive tendencies, although honoured more in the breach than in observance, was on the wane. For some strange reason, ideology was never a major driving force behind such parties although they all claimed that their hearts bled for the poor. True, there were outfits like the Praja Socialist Party and the Samyukta Socialist Party. But these were unable to secure a firm foothold because the Congress stole their thunder with the promise of ushering in a “socialistic pattern of society” in 1955. What is more, prominent socialists like Asoka Mehta joined the Congress while Jayaprakash Narayan lamented that he had wasted his precious years by joining Acharya Vinobha Bhave’s Bhoodan movement. The communists were another ideological bunch. But their inability to grow beyond West Bengal and Kerala, despite their initial pockets of influence in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, turned them virtually into regional parties. Some of them like Mohan Kumaramangalam were also impressed by the Congress’s socialistic proclamations to join the GOP. The most prominent on the list of sectarian parties was the Jan Sangh-BJP with its core support base of orthodox, middle class, communal-minded Hindus belonging mainly to the trading community in the urban areas of northern and western India. Although the BJP claims to be a national party, its absence in large parts of the country makes it mainly a regional outfit. (The Congress, too, may be heading in the same direction.) The Akali Dal and the Shiv Sena also belong to this category of community-based outfits. The appearance of these parties to challenge the Congress’s monopoly was initially hailed. The trend was said to reflect India in all its diversity. Besides, it was said to underline the rise of the subalterns to replace the upper caste-based paternalistic and elitist dominance of the Congress. Moreover, it was believed that as these parties entered national politics, their outlook would become broader. Unfortunately, the reality has been otherwise. Many of the small parties have continued to be driven by narrow considerations aimed solely at consolidating their restricted vote banks. Their minds have remained confined to castes, communities, religions and regions. Interestingly, these limited interests haven’t brought them together, for they are at loggerheads among themselves. For instance, both the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav are dominated by Yadavs, but there is no love lost between them. So, it isn’t really their caste brethren whom these parties are serving. Instead, they have merely become the vehicles of individual leaders who use caste to advance their own political ambitions, just as the two Shiv Senas of Bal and Raj Thackeray in Mumbai are more concerned with the political aims of the two leaders than the consolidation of the communal-minded Hindus. What is more, the fact that divisions lead to more divisions is evident from the manner in which the focus on Yadavs by the two Yadav chieftains of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has made another group of the backward castes — the Kurmis — form the backbone of the Janata Dal (United). The end result, therefore, has been doubly unfortunate. Not only have these parties failed to grow beyond their narrow original bases, they have even divided and sub-divided the bases among themselves. The inevitable fallout has been to make them even more cynical in their tactics to retain their hold on power, as the courting of SIMI by Mulayam Singh Yadav and of Abdul Nasser Madhani, an accused in the Coimbatore bomb blast case, by the DMK show. The increasing narrowness of their outlook is undoubtedly one reason why they have shown little interest in overall national objectives. This is one of the reasons why these parties cannot be entrusted with what can be called a “national” portfolio like home or finance or external affairs, which require a broad-minded approach to national and international issues. One can imagine the problems that may arise if, say, the DMK — not to mention the even more pro-LTTE Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) or Mr Vaiko’s MDMK — were put in charge of external affairs. For that matter, even the CPM cannot be given this ministry despite its all-India pretensions because of its strong anti-American bias. Nor are the communists capable of looking after finance in view of their anti-private sector and anti-market outlook. Not surprisingly, both the BJP and the Congress keep these portfolios in their own hands when they head the coalitions at the Centre. The only representative of a small party who had been the Home Minister was the CPI’s Indrajit Gupta, but then he belonged to the patrician Oxbridge league and his elder brother was the chief secretary of the West Bengal government in
B.C. Roy’s time. Besides, he held the post during an unusual period when H.D. Deve Gowda and
I.K. Gujral rose to be Prime Ministers, which would have been unthinkable in normal times - somewhat like the elevation of Charan Singh and Chandra Shekhar to the post in a similar period of political turbulence. If the BJP was successful to some extent in handling finance and external affairs despite its narrow outlook, the reason was the presence of the moderate Atal Bihari Vajpayee — the right man in the wrong party, as he has often been called — at the top. But the fact that moderation is not widely favoured in the saffron camp became clear when the RSS ensured
L.K. Advani's ouster from the party presidency following his attempt to play the moderate by praising Jinnah in Pakistan. And, as the present BJP chief Rajnath Singh’s call for bombing the terrorist bases in Pakistan and Bangladesh shows, the party’s preference is for xenophobia, and that, too, mainly for the purpose of coddling its core group of supporters among the Hindus. It is evident, therefore, that the preoccupation of these parties with specific vote banks prevents them from taking the interests of the entire nation into account. What is worse, some of them believe that this selective pandering will actually benefit the country. For instance, the Left thinks that boosting the interests of the working class by opposing pro-market policies will help the country just as the RSS-BJP hawks argue that all that is needed to take India to greater heights is the establishment of a Hindu rashtra. Unless they are cured of their wrong-headedness, they will not be able to play a major role in national
politics.
|
A brush with the Islamic laws Last
year, my near and dear ones serving in Saudi Arabia got in trouble at the hands of their Muslim maid. They had got this girl from Bangladesh under their sponsorship. The maid was excessively ambitious. As the settled salary did not satisfy her, she quickly established contacts with some Bangladesh boys employed in the area to help her find a more lucrative job. She knew quite well that any liaison by a female with unrelated males could have serious implications. Thus, once when she was under the risk of being discovered in male company (as the door of the flat had accidentally closed on her) she, in her desperation, climbed on to the roof and jumped in the balcony. The hard landing broke a few of her vertebrae. Her sponsors promptly arranged for her surgery though it involved quite some cost. However, rather than being grateful, the wily woman started getting ideas on way to her recovery. Finally, she came up with an allegation that she had, in fact, been pushed down the stairs by her employers. Obviously, she thought that this threat of criminal action would enable her to milk maximum money out of them. In the circumstances, the Saudi police got involved in the matter. Fortunately, some neighbours had seen the employer couple leaving for their duties minutes before the mishap. Additionally, there was proper record of the accused’s presence at their places of duty. The Muslim witnesses upheld the truth despite the accused being Hindus. They said that Allah, above everything else was truth and they had to stand by the innocent couple. Unlike in India, the Saudi police enjoy the confidence of law. The statements recorded by them are taken to be true unless proved otherwise. The police after careful investigation exonerated the couple. Still, the law had to take its own Saudi Arabian course. Thus, the matter finally landed with their “Sheikh”, the counterpart of our Sessions Judge. Our lawyers are conversant with the Islamic law, as it forms part of our legal history. So, I was requested to come and help as a lawyer. The police officers whom I met were extremely courteous. The investigating officer always took care to visit us in civil dress and in his private car so as not to cause any embarrassment to us in our neighbourhood. The judiciary, once being convinced of our innocence, was all the more decent and helpful. Finally, the case was sorted out with due human touch all around. Not only the honour of the couple was fully restored but also their humane approach in the face of provocation was appreciated. Many may consider the Islamic laws out of tune with the times today. However, more than the language of the laws, it is their interpretation and implementation that is of prime
essence. |
Wages of violence IF you have an expensive camera and you are moving alone or in a small group, be sure to have some experience which may not be very pleasant”, said a young IFS officer to a group of journalists accompanying Dr Manmohan Singh on his first-ever prime ministerial visit to South Africa. When the Prime Minister arrived in Durban on Saturday afternoon, one of the first news he heard was that seven employees of the Indian mission at Pretoria were robbed of their salary just as they came out of the mission premises. The story had a chilling effect on some of the journalists who hoped to wander on the beaches and savour the beauty of South Africa. As I write this in Durban after a 10-hour non-stop flight from Delhi in Air-India One, I wonder why the land of Nelson Mandela where Mahatma Gandhi began his experiments with truth is today one of the most violence-torn countries in the world. Incidentally, South Africa, which is rich in diamonds and uranium, has one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa, though, according to a report, about 80 per cent of the graduates who pass out from the universities remain jobless. It was in this very city that Gandhiji first arrived as a young lawyer, like most of his compatriots, to make a good living. After a short tenure as a briefless barrister in Bombay, Gandhiji would not have imagined that he was going to a country which would inspire him to do great things when he accepted the job as an apprentice in a lawyers’ firm in Durban. The most dramatic event in his twenty-year life in South Africa was a train ride from Durban to Johannesburg when at Peitermaritzburg, he was thrown out of the train because he refused to go to a third-class compartment as he held a valid first class ticket. Recently, the whole of South Africa was shocked to hear the gruesome story about some people being pushed out of the running train with the victims losing either their lives or limbs. It forced Nobel-laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu to wonder whether the South Africans had lost their sense of humanity. He also referred to the rape of a nine-month-old baby girl by a man who believed that sex with minor girls will cure him of AIDS. A century ago, blacks were not allowed to travel in first class by the whites who ruled the country. Historians doubt whether Gandhiji was really protesting against the discriminatory attitude towards the blacks. Most likely, he was protesting against extending the rigours of apartheid to the Indian community in South Africa. Whatever be the case, the incident made a lasting influence on Gandhiji, who found the weapon of non-violence against a physically stronger but morally weaker enemy. By the time the Prime Minister concludes his visit on Tuesday, Dr Singh would have visited the Tolstoy farm which Gandhiji set up in a bold attempt to experiment with some of his ideas of community living and inaugurated a permanent exhibition on the father of the Indian nation. How is Gandhiji remembered in South Africa today? There were not many South Africans, white or black, to receive the Prime Minister when he arrived at Peitermaritzburg on Saturday. Does that mean that he is not remembered in South Africa where he spent his formative years as a social and political leader? Does he live only in the few statues that have been erected in his memory? The answer is an emphatic no. It is too much to claim that Mahatma Gandhi influenced the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, though Mandela has time and again referred to Gandhiji’s quest for truth inspiring the African National Congress. It is well known that India is one country which refused to break bread with the rulers in Pretoria so long as Mandela remained in incarceration and the blacks did not have the freedom to move freely in their own country. Those days there were even restrictions on Indians who wanted to visit South Africa. The anti-apartheid struggle had not been all that violence-free. There had been umpteen instances when the blacks resorted to brutal violence against the whites. Few leaders of the black movement mentioned the name of Gandhiji in their discourses against the white rule. So how did Gandhism or Gandhigiri as it is now referred to in the popular media in India impact South Africa? It found a reflection in the Truth and Justice Commission set up under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu when Mandela became President of the country. There are few parallels in world history when such a commission was set up. It was different from the Nuremberg trials where the perpetrators of the Holocaust were tried. The farce going on in Iraq to bring Saddam Hussein to trial is a case in point. Unlike all such exercises, the Truth and Justice Commission was witness to several instances when those who perpetrated some of the worst forms of violence against fellow citizens cried during the hearing and atoned for their acts of commission. At the end of the deliberations, there were no victors and no losers. Yet, justice was done. No longer are there any references to the unpleasantness of the past. There are no more any accusing fingers pointed at the rulers of the past. But in Gandhi’s own land, no such effort has been made. Vendetta has all along been the primary motive, rather than justice and truth, when commissions were appointed like the one which went into the excesses committed during the Emergency. Thousands of people were killed in Mumbai and Gujarat during the riots that preceded the Mumbai serial blasts and those that followed the Godhra incident respectively. Like in the case of the 1984 riots against the Sikhs in Delhi, the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity are unlikely to be punished. After all, vested interests are at work safeguarding the killers who enjoy political patronage. Violence of the kind prevalent in South Africa may be unknown in India, but the people there have successfully put the past behind in a unique way, which could only have been inspired by a man like Gandhiji about whom it was said that it was difficult to believe that there lived on this earth a man like him. |
|
Marketing the Mahatma If
Mahatma Gandhi were to roam on the campus of a Nagpur college today, he would be in for a surprise. For, he would find himself the subject of study, not in a history class but in a management course. If Bapu were to be reborn in modern India, and were to wield a laptop in place of a lathi, he would be pleasantly surprised to find himself habiting much of the blogosphere. For, one film has achieved what many a textbook failed to do.
Lage Raho Munnabhai (LRM) has retrieved Gandhian ideology from the recycle bin of public consciousness and keyed it right into its inbox. It has made ‘Gandhigiri’ such a fad that even a website of the same name has sprung up and the blogs are virtually jammed with the comments of a nation that has just reconnected to the Mahatma. The ‘half-naked faqir’ is suddenly hip for GenNext, which finds it fashionable not just to discuss ‘Gandhigiri’ in cafés, classrooms and virtual chatrooms, but even to practise it in day-to-day life. But beneath all this hype lies a simple lesson. By achieving nothing short of an awakening among a generation that did not grow up on the teachings of Bapu, for whom the other ‘G’ — Bill Gates — enjoys greater iconic status (according to a recent survey) than our own ‘G’ and whose experiments are more with the new variants of iPods and thinkpads than with truth, filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani has unwittingly dished out a winning formula, even a solution. Not only for the custodians of Gandhivaad but all those striving to propagate the ideals of other national icons too. Bemoaning the erosion of Gandhian values seems an exercise in futility, for post-LRM it seems that it is not the tenets that have become outdated but perhaps the methods by which they are sought to be perpetuated. The question is not so much of the relevance of Gandhiji’s teachings, as of the relevance of the techniques through which they are taught. In employing an innovative cinematic idiom, Hirani holds out a message loud and clear: contemporarise old ideology and it gets lapped up even by the laptop generation. Bring the past forward in a lingo that’s in sync with the times and it becomes ‘cool’ for future generations. The catchword is: reinventing. Simple retellings, through the written word or the audio-visual medium, more often than not fail to stir the collective psyche of GenNext, some recent cinematic examples being Mangal Pandey, The Rising, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, etc. Now, LRM has offered our educationists and policy-planners a cue they would do well to snap up. Bapu needn’t remain relegated to musty tomes and history lessons if he is reinvented. As his great grandson Tushar A. Gandhi recently pointed out, “Gandhi displayed qualities of being an efficient event manager, an extraordinary personnel manager, a very shrewd media manager and above all, a very astute General who orchestrated the response of his opponents—qualities sought out by corporates today. If one studies Gandhi from this perspective, one will realise just how relevant he is.” Therein lies a simple management lesson for all those engaged in keeping the Mahatma alive for posterity: Repackage his techniques as tools contemporaneous with the aspirations of a globalising India to make GenNext ‘connect’ to them. Else, to use the parlance of this generation that upgrades mobile phones as fast as wardrobes, the efforts in this direction may end up as ‘missed calls’. |
|
Chatterati Nitish Kumar has asked for a seating arrangement for the purpose, under a thatched roof, at the Raj Bhavan-end of the chief minister’s residence. Once the arrangements are made, the gupshup durbar will start. The chief minister has no reservations about the idea. “What is the problem if I want to have informal talks with people every evening? Not only would it take the pressure off me, at least for a while, it could also generate great ideas that could be executed by the government for Bihar’s development.” The Chief Minister attends two janata durbars a week: One at the JD(U)’s office every Monday and the second at his residence every Thursday. At the Monday durbar, Mr Kumar meets party workers, while Thursday’s event is exclusively for the general public. Those close to the chief minister said that Mr Kumar was finding himself “overburdened” with two durbars a week and other official engagements and so the idea of a gupshup durbar came to his mind. Taking a dig at former chief minister Rabri Devi, he said the durbar should not be taken lightly. Gupshup not only means useless gossip, it is a medium to receive feedback on how the government is performing and what is the public opinion. Ms Rabri Devi had earlier criticised the Bihar chief minister for “wasting time” on entertaining himself and not thinking about the state’s welfare. Vaastu at RSS HQ A couple of years ago, Delhi’s BJP headquarters got a new look because its leaders were advised that their office and seating arrangements were wrong according to Vaastu. Now it is the turn of the Nagpur RSS headquarters. The RSS consulted a Vaastu expert, who has taken into account the threat perception, the set backs on the political front, and the in-fighting in the parivar. The RSS was initially shy of accepting the Vaastu advice but has come around. After all, Vaastu is a part of our Indian culture just like astrology, hawan and puja paats. Gemstone facials Forget about a healthy diet, good sleep and exercises for glowing skin. Precious stones are the latest beauty secret for a sparkling complexion. The fad of gemstone facials is fast catching up. Many salons are offering facials that use the ash of stones like rubies, emeralds, pearls, diamonds and topaz, among others. The ash of these stones is used in ayurveda to treat neurological disorders or ailments related to the liver, kidney or heart. But with knowledge about their cosmetic application gaining ground, people have started using them in beauty treatments, especially facials. Among the most sought after treatments in the beauty clinics is astro- gem therapy. The therapy involves placing precious stones on the face and doing a gemstone facial as per the requirement of the skin. Each gemstone has a specific property and the ash is used according to the skin-type. Emeralds and pearls are known for their cold properties while sapphires are warm in character. So, gems are a woman’s best friends in every form. Name-chasing
|
Vast-learning, perfect handicraft, a highly trained discipline and pleasant speech. This is the Supreme Blessing. —
The Buddha But the Maker is merciful and has His own wonderful ways of extending help to the virtuous and the non-virtuous. —
Guru Nanak In the whole wide world, however, there is no man who can in return do anything for him. —
Guru Nanak
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
B
Industrialist Rahul Bajaj is no competition politically – that is the job of his namesake in the Congress camp. But he does make heads turn in Central Hall each time a friend calls out to him by his first name and eager Congresswalas crane their necks in search of the other Rahul, of Gandhi stock. However, Rahul Jr rarely shows up at the popular meeting spot of members of both Houses. And when he does drop by for coffee, he tends to be an attentive listener, unlike his more talkative namesake from the house of Bajaj.