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Drama of sycophancy Profile |
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Saving water Strengthening panchayati raj On Record
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Drama of sycophancy HUMAN Resources Minister Arjun Singh spoke out of turn or at a wrong time when he projected Rahul Gandhi as India’s Prime Minister. There was an element of sycophancy which is nothing new; it has helped Arjun Singh all his life. But since when the Congress has been above sycophancy, the environment of which is to the dislike of party president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi? Leave the stalwarts like Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri apart. Indira Gandhi converted the Congress into a party of yes men. It is another matter that Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has eaten a humble pie for the sake of power. The reason he had given to leave the Congress was that he objected to Sonia Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister because she had an Italian background. Sonia Gandhi herself allowed the drama of sycophancy to be staged in the central hall of Parliament when, after the last elections, the Congress was about to form the government. Throwing all norms to the wind, Doordarshan disseminated live the unending praises of Sonia Gandhi and her capability to become India’s Prime Minister. The drama was taken to a new pitch when some lady members of the Congress broke down, wiping their tears to convince Sonia Gandhi of their sincerity. What is the Congress today if it is not a party dominated by courtiers and sycophants? Beginning with Indira Gandhi, there has been a coterie around the Congress president who was also the Prime Minister. K. Kamaraj from Tamil Nadu was the last Congress president who was not the Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi hounded him out although he was instrumental in her election as head of the parliamentary party. Unlike Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi does not have a “kitchen cabinet” but her small coterie pulls all the wires that she wants to be pulled in the government and the Congress. She has been described as the most powerful person in the world with no accountability. In the entire drama what I have not been able to make out is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s endorsement of Arjun Singh’s proposal about Rahul Gandhi. Karunanidhi is an old horse who should not have forgotten his government’s dismissal by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency. But he feels indebted to Sonia Gandhi after she has rewarded him for his support to Manmohan Singh government by giving the DMK some 12-odd ministers at the Centre. Probably, his calculation is that he would need the Congress at the next polls to face his rival, J. Jayalalithaa, who, according to the past traditions of the state, would return since she is in the opposition today. Still taking Arjun Singh’s proposal at its face value, the mystery is why Rahul Gandhi’s projection has begun at a time when the Manmohan Singh government is at the lowest ebb? Is it an effort to divert attention from the failure of the Congress-headed government? Even if this is not the purpose, it would have embarrassed Whatever his limitations as a politician, he has given his best in the fields of economics and administration. Pawar himself said some weeks ago that Manmohan Singh should be projected for the second term. Now Pawar and his Man Friday, Praful Patel, have suggested Rahul’s name. They do not have to explain their overnight volte face, as the politics of theirs is. Manmohan Singh himself is so indebted to the dynasty that when Rahul’s name was floated before the UP assembly election, the Prime Minister said that Rahul was the future of India. The problem with the Congress leadership is that it does not give any chance to a young person during the period between the two elections. When the polls approach, there is none on the scene except the one from the dynasty. Indira Gandhi did not allow any young Congressman to come up and raised her son from aviation to Prime Ministership. Sonia Gandhi has done the same. She did not induct in the government any young person for four years after the elections. After making Rahul Gandhi as the party’s general secretary, she appointed popular Jyotiraditya Scindia as a minister and that too only a minister of state. “Tell us who else is there?” a top leader asked me when Rahul was projected. Come to think of it, the party has none in the young category. Manmohan Singh is already 75. If the Congress were to take up the issue of passing on the baton to the youth, it has an advantage because Rahul is only 40. The BJP has L.K. Advani as the Prime Minister designate but he is 80. Leaders of regional parties are around 70. In a country, where an 18-year-old is a voter, picking up some one young is not a bad strategy. The problem with the Congress is its search for the youth begins and ends with the dynasty. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, would have liked Indira Gandhi to be his successor. He got her to be the Congress president. But he was too democratic to play with members in the Lok Sabha. He had her in mind. Lal Bahadur Shastri, with whom I worked as Press Secretary, told me many a time that “in Panditji’s mind is her daughter”. Nehru could not nominate Indira Gandhi on another count. Top state leaders were there. He could not afford to ignore their opinion. He cut many ministers, including Morarji Desai, down to size when he ousted some ministers from the central Cabinet and a few Congress Chief Ministers under the Kamaraj plan. This only alienated them. They could not have confronted Nehru during his lifetime but would have killed the proposal to make Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister after his death. The dynasty lost at that time because those were the formative years of post-Independence Congress. Most of them had a hallo of sacrifice around them. Of course, these leaders brought her only when they were themselves divided. Sonia Gandhi did well to nip the “draft Rahul Gandhi” campaign in the bud. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, another leader who wanted to be the Prime Minister in place of Manmohan Singh, lent his voice to Arjun Singh. Rahul did so badly both in UP and Gujarat during the state elections that he was left alone for a while. But then he evoked attention in Karnataka. So he was brought back with a vengeance. However, objective one could be, he or she would feel revolted after seeing Satish Sharma as his shadow. Satish Sharma, close to the dynasty, had to leave the Rajiv Gandhi government because he distributed licences for petrol stations for a consideration. Justice Kuldip Singh made some personal observations against him when the case was heard by the Supreme Court. But then Sonia Gandhi is not bothered about what falls in the ethical
field.
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Profile His challenge now is to turn into reality the tall promises he had made to the people. Chairman Prachanda made history when he himself led the peace talks with the Koirala government. It is also rare in the history of a communist movement that revolutionary leaders bid farewell to arms to join the democratic process but it has happened in the Himalayan Kingdom. Times have vastly changed since the Prachanda-led Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) launched the Nepalese People’s War Group over a decade ago and through an armed struggle controlled portions of the land-locked country. The popular uprising sounded the death knell of the institution of monarchy. Prachanda now says: “My vision of a perfect Nepal is a democratic new Nepal, free from the exploitation of feudalism, working for economic and cultural prosperity”. King Gyanendra continues to be the target of his wrath. The King may have to leave Nepal to escape the wrath of the Maoists. June 1,2006, was an emotional day in the life of Prachanda and his father, Mukti Ram Dahal, who has been hearing a lot about his son but has not seen him for 10 years. Prachanda had come to address a meeting near Chitwan, his home town. As 79-year-old Mukti Ram anxiously waited to see his son, he saw a young man approaching him. Prakash, the young man, turned out to be his grandson whom Prachanda had sent specially to escort his father. For the first time the father saw his son deliver a speech and his impromptu comment was: “My son gives speeches in a loud voice”. Apart from his son and grandson, Mukti Ram met his daughter-in-law, Sita, too. They dined together and slept under one roof. Bespectacled and greying, 54-year-old Prachanda plunged in to the Maoist movement at a very young age. A tough life in the dense jungle and the way he raised He drew close to the communist ideology when he was barely 16 and studying in a high school. He did his B.Sc and was studying for master’s in public administration when an agitation brewed against King Birendra and there was talk of a referendum. Prachanda left his studies, became a full-time party worker and in the years to come controlled the clandestine wing of the CPN-M. Inspired by the Cultural Revolution in China, he became active in insurrectionist Communist politics. Prachanda, whose original name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, is married, has four children and the entire family is in the movement. Prachanda has told his interviewers that from his very childhood he knew the meaning of poverty and inhuman exploitation. He had a chance of meeting people of different classes, castes and cultural backgrounds. He was inspired by the Marxist ideology , involved himself in student politics and by the time he graduated, he was a communist. Thereafter, he took part in all kinds of small and big struggles. The charge against the Liberation Army is that it recruits children below 16. Prachanda says it might be true in village militias but not so with the Liberation Army. As a rule Prachanda stresses that those below 18 should not be allowed to join the armed struggle. There have been thousands of orphans, offspring of those who had laid down their lives in the struggle and they should be looked after. The party undertakes the responsibility to feed, educate and train them so that they become good citizens. A charge against Prachanda is that his cadres have been extending support to the Naxalites in the rural areas of India particularly. He has reportedly clarified that the Maoists of Nepal have no working relationship with the Naxalites. What they want to do in India is their business. At the ideological level, however, Prachanda has been quoted as saying “we meet from time to time and we have our debates and discussions. Since they are communists and we are communists, we have an ideological
relationship”.
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Leander Paes Isn’t the security for the relay unprecedented and comparable to the Republic Day parade bandobast? There’ll only be normal security. Suresh
Kalmadi, IOA President Shooter Abhinav Bindra Badal is a barren buffalow. The title very much suits him as Badal has got the face as well as the vision similar to that of a buffalo. former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Amarinder is passing through a critical phase of his life and is mentally upset due to stress in dealing with cases of corruption. Punjab Congress president
Rajinder Kaur Bhattal A government that isn’t truthful with the citizens is not fit to govern. We wish to tell the UPA loudly and clearly – control prices, else quit. L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition Mahendra Singh Dhoni Shah Rukh Khan,
Kolkata team owner Countries like China and India are experiencing rapid economic growth – and that’s good for their people and it’s good for the world. This also means that they are emitting increasingly large quantities of greenhouse gases, which has consequences for the entire global climate. US President
George W. Bush
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Saving water WE receive approximately 1100 millimetre average rainfall annually, that too irregularly and only during a limited period of two to three months. Two-thirds of all the water abstracted from the environment goes to irrigate crops. This use of water is massively unsustainable. Today more than 21 million Indian farmers tap underground reserves to water their fields and two-thirds of India’s crops are irrigated with underground water. This water is running out and unlike the rivers, it will not be quickly replaced. The International Water Management Institute, part of a worldwide network of agricultural research centres funded by the World Bank, recently estimated that about 250 cubic kilometres of water are abstracted for irrigation each year. This is at least 100 cubic kilometres more than the rains put back. It feeds India. But as every year passes, the aquifers get emptied. The per capita availability of water has declined in the last five decades from 5,200 cubic metres in 1951 to 1,820 cubic metres in 2001 and it is expected to decline to 1,140 cubic metres by 2050 if urgent corrective measures are not taken. According to an estimate of the Central Ground Water Board, if we continue to exploit our ground water indiscriminately, then in the next 20 years 15 states of the country may face an acute shortage of underground water. In our country out of 40 crore hectare metre of rainfall and snowfall received in a year, only 17 crore and 8 lakh hectare metre of water is properly tapped by the soil due to land topography and other problems. In the document on India Water Vision 2025, the vision for development for the country in 2025 is projected taking into account various water resources and the present rate of consumption. The vision was developed to ensure food security, livelihood security, health security and ecological security. The vision also points to the gap between availability and future demand. To bridge this gap, actions such as reconsideration of lifestyles, development paradigms and attitudes to consumption, rainwater harvesting for improving soil moisture content, measures for optimum production of crops and its sustainability, watershed development, improving water use efficiency for appropriate technology in irrigation, households and industries, further recycling and reuse of treated water need to be taken. The groundwater boom is turning to bust. Fifty years ago farmers in northern Gujarat used bullocks driving leather buckets lifting water from open wells dug to about 10 metres. Now tubewells are sunk to 400 metres and they still run dry. Half the traditional hand-dug wells and millions of tubewells have dried up across western India. In Tamil Nadu two-thirds of the hand-dug wells have failed already and only half as much land is irrigated as a decade ago. In Punjab also more than 70 per cent of irrigation water is supplied through tubewells and this has resulted in a continuous decline in the water table. In 2004, more than 20 per cent of the centrifugal pumps went dysfunctional. In some areas even submersible pumps had to be lowered more than 10 feet. This strongly points to the fact that the present crop production system is not sustainable if the withdrawal of underground water is not tapped with the natural water recharge. Some states are placing thousands of small dams across riverbeds in a bid to replenish groundwater by infiltration. The Central Government has recognised water harvesting as a thrust area and some Centrally sponsored schemes are already in operation. The Central Government has accelerated higher budgetary support in recent years to rainwater harvesting and watershed schemes to recharge our underground water sources. The Ministry of Agriculture under the Horticulture Mission Programme being implemented in different states is also giving incentives to farmers for making water storage tanks to save water for their crops. Rainwater harvesting is, of course, a focus area for sustainable agricultural production but attention should also be paid for efficient management of the available water resources. Even if 5 per cent of annual rainfall were harvested properly, that will produce a substantial quantum of water to the tune of 900 million litres. Waste water of kitchen and toilet can also be recycled and channelled for farming or charging of the underground water resources. Some individual success stories of rainwater harvesting with remarkable results are really showing the way and Rajsamadhiya is one such unique village in Gujarat. News about this remarkable village has spread round India and beyond. One foreign scientist arrived in Rajsamadhiya with satellite images of the village that showed up hidden cracks in the geology through which water flowed. In this village one individual, Haradevsinh Hadeja, has redesigned the village’s drainage system to slow the passage of monsoon rain long enough for it to collect in specially dug ponds. The water passes from one pond to the next in a slow cascade. The villagers do not use the water directly from ponds, but allow it to percolate into the soil to refill underground reserves and replenish their wells. As a result, the village has twice as much water as before; and wells find water at only 7 metres down, where once the water had to be hauled up more than 30 metres. In Bangalore, the city authorities are trying to boost the aquifers by rehabilitating the city’s 60 ancient tanks. In parts of Delhi also, where old tanks and ponds have been cleared of garbage and refilled with water, the water tables are rising. By some estimates, 20,000 villages in India are now harvesting rain. The Union Ministry of Water Resources constituted a standing sub-committee for the assessment of availability and requirement of water. They have put forward a multi-pronged approach highlighting the need for the completion of storage dams, inter-linking of rivers, recycling of domestic water and of industrial used water, desalination of sea water and artificial recharge of ground water. Various national-level bodies have been constituted to bunch together disparate schemes, ministries and mission for water. An omnibus National Rainwater Authority has been set up. A committee on artificial recharge of groundwater has also been constituted. In the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme also top priority has been given to works related to the restoration of old water harvesting structures and construction of new ones. Regulatory mechanism by the state governments is also necessary to check the blatant and unscientific use of this resource. An excess digging of wells should be avoided or restricted in the severely affected areas. Permission for digging of wells should be linked with the construction of water- harvesting structures. In the urban areas harvesting of rainwater should be made mandatory so that water stored could be used for other than drinking
purposes. The writer is a scientist with Dr Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan. The views are personal
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Strengthening panchayati raj THE Haryana Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Mr Karan Singh Dalal has appointed a panel to make suggestions for strengthening the panchayati raj institutions. In this context the following facts may kindly be considered by the commission. The Haryana Panchayati Raj Act (1994) has violated the spirit of the 73rd Amendment. Although almost all 29 items given in the Eleventh Schedule have been listed in the powers of the PRIs, these remain ornamental in the absence of the requisite devolution of functions, functionaries and funds to these bodies. The allocation of powers under the Act leaves much to be desired. The gram panchayat has been given far more powers than the Panchayat Samiti and the Zila Parishad. There is no clear-cut demarcation of functions between the gram panchayat and the Panchayat Samiti. The Zila Parishad has not been given any powers. The panchayati raj system has, as a result, become Sarpanch-centric and the gram panchayat and the gram sabha now merely, by and large, exist in law but not in fact. The President of a Zila Parishad, the Chairperson of a Panchayat Samiti and the Sarpanch have no control over the CEO, the BDPO and the Gram Sachiv, respectively. The Zila Parishad has little control over a Panchayat Samiti and the Panchayat Samiti has little control over the gram panchayat. The district planning committees were constituted after so much delay in 2007 but their meetings have not been held so far. The devolution of functions, functionaries and funds of the Food & Supply, Health, Public Health, Social Justice & Empowerment, Irrigation, Animal Husbandry, Education, Women & Child Development, Agriculture and Forest departments to the PRIs by the Document on Activity Mapping (2006) too is inadequate. Even in these departments, functions, functionaries and finances have adequately been given only in the four, namely, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Irrigation and Public Health. The powers of panchayati raj institutions have been, as a matter of fact, reduced in the departments of Health and Education. They no longer have control over their functionaries except that the gram panchayat has some control over multipurpose health workers. Besides, the powers of the President of a Zila Parishad, the Chairperson of a Panchayat Samiti and the Sarpanch of gram panchayat have not been given in specific terms in this document. It has been recorded that the Zila Parishad, the Panchayat Samiti and the gram panchayat will have control over the functionaries. This has created unnecessary confusion. A major problem of rural Haryana is the dismal state of education and health systems. The representatives of the PRIs have been given no role in their supervision. They have no control over the staff of the two departments. Even in the case of Forest Department, despite the importance of social forestry and forest farming, no powers have been given to the PRIs. The truncated powers given under the Document on Activity Mapping have so far remained unimplemented as no gazette notification has been issued. Therefore, it is suggested that the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act (1994) should be suitably amended in accordance with the spirit of the 73rd Amendment. The Document on Activity Mapping be redrawn for ensuring a genuine devolution of functions, functionaries and funds to the panchayati raj institutions and a gazette notification be issued for implementing it. There should be a balanced distribution of powers among the three bodies, besides a clear-cut demarcation of their functions also needs to be done. The CEO should be made accountable for the proper recording of the proceedings of the Zila Parishad and the BDPO for that of the Panchayat Samiti and the gram Sachiv for that of the gram panchayat. The present system of imparting training to the elected representatives once or twice in five years is inadequate. Therefore, the training mechanism should be strengthened by creating training teams at the district level so that there could be continuing training of them. Last but not the least, there is a need for changing the mindset of the political leadership, representatives of PRIs, officers of the Development and Panchayat Department, officers of the Line Department, the Revenue Department and the police
administration.
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On Record
LACK of access to financial services by those with low incomes has increasingly become a concern of development and poverty eradication policies for the government. An inclusive financial sector is the need of the hour. Another battle being
fought by banks in the rural hinterland is that of keeping money-lenders at bay and making credit available quickly and cost effectively. Punjab National Bank’s Chairman and Managing Director KC Chakrabarty has launched a passionate drive for financial inclusion to solve problems of the rural masses. Q. How is PNB planning to reach the rural masses and get them in the banking fold? A. PNB has declared 2008 as the year of financial inclusion which emphasises our
commitment towards the vulnerable sections of society for bringing them in the banking fold. Our objective is to cover the Indo-Gangetic plain where
the bank has an inherent strength, not only in terms of outreach but also infrastructure availability. In addition, we are making use of technology-based solutions which would make it possible to reach the last-mile customers in a cost effective manner. Q. How will you use technology for financial inclusion? A. Technology is an essential component of the financial
inclusion, our bank has already spent Rs 650 crore on technology initiatives and plans to invest another Rs 300 crore over the next three years. Under this drive we plan to install 1,00,000 terminals which will be linked to the bank with an exposure of Rs 572 crore. Q. How will your bank reach farmers who approach the informal sector for their credit needs? A. We have a flagship product called PNB Krishi Card,
which helps farmers in paying non-institutional money-lenders up to Rs 50,000 in addition to production, consumption and investment credit needs thus helping them reduce their indebtedness to the informal sources of lending. We are also providing personal accident insurance cover to small and marginal farmer borrowers for an amount higher than that stipulated under the Kisan Credit Card scheme. Besides, we also have a scheme for financing tenant farmers and oral lessee for growing crops under the Tenant Farmer Groups on the pattern of Self Help Groups. Q. What about urban financial inclusion? A. PNB has decided to run pilot projects for urban financial inclusion in the metro and urban areas where nearly 40 per cent of the population is mobile and has no access to banking facilities. The endeavor will be to cover mobile population, hawkers, unserved and underserved sections in the initial phase. We have identified six pilot sites for urban financial inclusion. We are targeting 198 districts all over the country where our bank has a presence. We have already achieved 100 financial inclusion in 10,886 villages. Q. How will business correspondents help in reaching the goal that you have set? A. A business correspondent moves in villages and opens an account with the help of a laptop and a web camera. He also issues smart cards and captures transactions. Smart cards record all individual transactions. Small transactions are conducted at the doorstep of the customers for which they are issued receipts. Q. What are the findings of the Rangarajan committee on financial inclusion? A.
The report has observed that there are at present
around 48,000 rural and semi-urban branches and if 250 new households per branch are added to these branches and are operated through the mechanism of hand-held devices and smart cards, it would revolutionise financial inclusion. Q. Will PNB be able to maintain its profits in the wake of the debt waiver? A. We will be able to maintain a 20 per cent growth in the net profit as well as topline during 2008-09 on the back of better non-performing asset management and improved administration and the total business will be of about 3.5 lakh crore. Advances will grow in the range of 20-21 per cent, while deposits will rise by 17-18 per cent during the year and we expect our net profit to be in the range of Rs 1,800-1,900 crore. During 2006-07, the bank had posted a profit of Rs 1,540 crore. The bank had plans to recover bad debt in the range of Rs 400-500 crore during the January-March quarter. The bank expects NPAs to come down to 1 per cent of the net advances by the end of March,
2008.
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THE Maoist’s landslide victory in the recent Nepal elections has demonstrated to the world that a combination of the bullet and the ballot can pave the way to power. Maoist supremo Prachanda will be cited as an example of success in the world communist movement. He has now accepted that there is no alternative to multi-party democracy in Nepal.
This protest is different from anything that the Torch relay stands for. The Olympic movement is for peace and harmony.
For most of us it was disheartening to not see people on either side of the street. That would have been a true torch-run. But I guess due to the tensions that was the need of the hour: The best thing that came out of this relay was that we were given the replica of the torch. It will be a great memento to have. That’s all.
Indians are used to supporting Indians and it will be a tricky situation for them to evoke city loyalties. I cannot imagine the Chepauk Stadium erupting in joy if Sachin Tendulkar is dismissed by Muralitharan. As a cricketer, it will be interesting to watch the crowds and their reactions to this new format.
At the Eden Gardens, we will exhibit two helmets, an 18-carat gold-plated and a diamond-studded one, to show the other teams that we are the declared winners. The matches are just a child’s play for us.