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V for Venugopal Strategic reach |
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Talking terrorism
Bloated babudom
A tale of two towels
News analysis When ‘Nargis’ flattens a whole delta Delhi Durbar
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V for Venugopal THURSDAY’s ruling of the Supreme Court quashing the AIIMS (Amendment) Act, 2007, and reinstating Dr P. Venugopal as the Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, is a setback to the Manmohan Singh government. In particular, it makes the continuance of Dr Anbumani Ramadoss as the Union Health Minister untenable, notwithstanding his decision to stay put. It has upheld the appeal challenging the Act as being illegal and discriminatory, enacted solely for the purpose of superannuating Dr Venugopal because of his differences with Dr Ramadoss. The latter has been trying to humiliate the former and destroy the AIIMS’ autonomy for long. Having declared the amendment as ultra vires and unconstitutional, the apex court has not only restored the rule of law but also proved how it can, through its power of judicial review, act as an effective check on legislative arbitrariness. The court aptly ruled that the impugned Act failed to meet the requirements of the law. When the Delhi High Court had in March last year upheld Dr Venugopal’s continuance in the post and the apex court was seized of the matter, Parliament should not have passed the amendment in tearing hurry. Even the President was prevailed upon to give her assent to the Act just a day after it was passed by both Houses of Parliament. It is true Parliament has the power to enact laws but people expect it to perform this task with utmost circumspection, without bias or malice towards anyone and for the larger common good. When Dr Venugopal was to retire on July 2 this year, there was no convincing logic for Parliament to bring forward an Act in November 2007, fixing the Director’s upper age of retirement at 65 years. Not surprisingly, the Centre’s counsel fumbled when the court repeatedly questioned him on why he was being humiliated like this. Dr Venugopal may now have only two months to retire, but the apex court ruling sends a loud and clear message to ministers like Dr Ramadoss. The verdict is also bound to raise a whole lot of issues like Parliament’s right to enact laws and whether in the name of autonomy the director of an institution can play politics and pay scant regard to ministerial control.
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Strategic reach WITH the second successful test of the 3500-km range Agni-III, India is on its way to further strengthening its strategic deterrence. DRDO officials, while upbeat about a possible induction into the Army as early as next year, have indicated that at least one more test will be required. The Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), a new Agni design, has been tested successfully just once before, in April last year. Its first flight, in July 2006, failed after a defective first stage, and the 2007 test put the project back on track. The DRDO needs to close the long gap between tests. Hopefully, riding on this success, scientists would be able to get in the additional one or two tests needed in shorter time spans. The range of Agni-III has been pegged officially at 3,500 km, which still keeps it in the IRBM range, as against the range of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Agni-II, with an official range of 2000 to 2,500 kms, is also an IRBM. Agni-I is a short-range missile of about 700 km, developed after the Kargil war to plug the gap between Agni-II and the 250-km-range Prithvi. DRDO officials have expressed satisfaction over all parameters of the missile, including integration with the rail-mobile launcher, and have declared that it is now essentially in “deliverable mode”. With the recent successful launches of interceptor missiles for missile defence, and the test of what will eventually be a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), the DRDO is on a high as far as its missile programmes are concerned. Range is a key parameter, both to extend the reach to high-value targets, and to use India’s strategic depth in deployment, for the survivability of the arsenal. Both will enhance the credibility of our deterrent posture. Agni-IV is in the wings, and if it has a range beyond 5000 kilometres, it can be the beginning of a true ICBM capability — the existence of a ‘Surya’ missile has never been acknowledged, for obvious reasons. The DRDO needs to keep going here, as the missile capability gap with powerful neighbours in the region is very large.
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Talking terrorism THE United States is upset with Islamabad’s dialogue with militant organisations. This is contrary to the policy of the previous Musharraf regime, which relied on the use of force. The US feels that entering into negotiations with militants will not serve the purpose. It will only enable the terrorists to regroup themselves to create trouble, particularly in Afghanistan and India later on. The new approach of Islamabad will amount to nullifying the achievements made during the seven-year-old war on terror, as US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte stated in Washington on Monday after his recent visit to Pakistan. The new Pakistan government unsuccessfully tried to convince Mr Negroponte that since the use of military might have resulted in terrorism spreading to almost every part of Pakistan, there was no harm in trying to make them renounce violence through talks. The US seems to be concerned about Islamabad’s idea of reaching agreements with militants. Any pact with militant masterminds like Baitullah Mehsud of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas will lead to withdrawal of the lakhs of Pakistani troops deployed there. The cadres of the extremist outfits are unlikely to give up arms. Instead, they will sneak into Afghanistan and swell the ranks of the Taliban, already feeling emboldened there. This will further complicate the drive against terrorism in which the US and its allies have sunk billions of dollars since 9/11. Whatever the differences of approach between the US and Pakistan on how to eliminate terrorism, the truth is that the threat from the scourge remains as serious as it has always been. Despite denials by Islamabad, the Jammu and Kashmir-centric militant outfits continue to have their bases intact in PoK and elsewhere. They have at least 36 terrorist training camps, as revealed by a leader of PoK’s All-Party National Alliance. This horrifying reality has been endorsed not only by a former Chief Justice of the High Court in Muzaffarabad but also by well-known Kashmiri leader Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan. The coalition government in Islamabad must get tough with terrorists to make them realise that their destructive ideology has no place in today’s world.
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Many men would take the death sentence without a whimper to escape the life sentence which fate carries in her other hand. — T. E. Lawrence
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Bloated babudom
Yet
another celebration of Civil Service Day ended in New Delhi with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh exhorting bureaucrats to introspect and recognise a great deal of public dissatisfaction with the functioning of the government at all levels. The Prime Minister did, indeed, a loud thinking. The malaise that afflicts the “steel frame of India” is indeed a matter of national concern. In spite of a number of civil service reforms commissions and committees which have been constituted by the government from time to time and despite the earnestness of the government, it is unfortunate that the performance of the civil service is far from satisfactory and leaves much to be desired. This is partly because there has been no serious exercise to look at the problem with a holistic approach; and our approach to civil service reform has been reactive, something in the nature of knee-jerk reaction rather than proactive. We have often addressed the symptom rather than the disease. As India is poised to emerge as a great power registering a 9 per cent growth rate, what is required is not only growth which can be stimulated by imperatives of corporate work culture injected to the government sector, but also equity so essential for an inclusive society which can be facilitated by a civil service which should be dynamic and sensitive to the weal and woe of the people. It is indeed a sad reflection on the civil service that after 60 years of Independence and heavy investment in various sectors of the economy and society, there are still starvation deaths, malnutrition, under-nutrition and lack of very elementary civic amenities like water supply, healthcare, education, transport and communication. The blame to a great extent lies with the civil services entrusted with the task of executing the policies and programmes formulated by the government. While the social indices of other countries are rising steadily, those of India remain stagnant or progressing at a snail’s pace. A reality check of the developmental indices betrays our tall claims of democracy and parliamentary polity. Democracy is more than adult suffrage and periodic elections. When service delivery mechanisms like the administration and the police fail, the very purpose of democracy is defeated, and people tend to develop cynicism. How else does one explain this sad state of affairs? One reason is that a large number of the youngsters who aspire to join the covetous civil services are not motivated or stirred by the spirit of public service and idealism which the civil services offer in abundance; rather the motivation is self-aggrandisement. These aspiring civil servants know more than anybody else that when they join the mandarin club, they become what C. Wright Mills called the “ruling class” and look for the loaves of office rather than to make a difference in the system to wipe out what Gandhiji called “every tear from every Indian”. No wonder, therefore, that once their training is over, they jostle for a cosy posting which will offer them better comfort and then they become “brown sahibs” inaccessible to the general public, insensitive to the trials and tribulations of the common people or “aam admi”. There are, however, a number instances like the distinguished police officer Jalad Tripathy of the Tamil Nadu cadre whom the Prime Minister honoured for his commendable job in humanising the police with his innovative method of community-policing module in Trichy. Such inspiring examples are, however, few and for between. It is not only their lack of motivation, zeal and social commitment which explains their lacklustre performance, but also the very method of their selection, rather a process of elimination, that is faulty and defective. It is worthwhile to study the alternative methods of recruitment as adopted and followed in the defence forces or in the private sector. The training process can also be revamped, injecting a great degree of professionalism. Those selected for the administrative service should have a stint with the institutions like the Indian Institute of Rural Management at Anand or the National Institute of Rural Development at Hyderabad. Their training or attachment should be at the very beginning of the career. At the middle and senior levels, civil servants should undergo periodic refresher courses on policy formulation and implementation at institutes like the Kennedy School Governance at Harvard University or at various IIMs in India. Yet another point is that although those selected for the civil services are very bright and intelligent products of our universities, after they qualify the examinations their intellectual growth almost stops and they degenerate into mediocrity. At a time when India is fast emerging as a knowledge society, and knowledge is going to be the kernel of growth, development and productivity, there should be constant upgradation of one’s knowledge and skill. Related to this is the imperative of computer literacy so essential for efficient functioning. In most of the government establishments, computers are like decorative pieces while the officers level of computer literacy is nil or abysmally poor. In today’s digital world, in order to be efficient, one needs to be computer savvy. E-governance will go a long way in facilitating efficiency and accountability of the public functionaries. At the end of the day, a civil servant should always bear in mind Gandhi’s Talisman, “recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man (woman) whom you may have seen and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him (her). Will he (she) gain anything by it? Will it restore him (her) to a control over his (her) own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj (freedom) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?” While the maintenance of law and order, communal harmony, etc, continue to be a major challenge for the civil services and the police, their call of duty goes beyond these routine areas as they have to act as facilitators and catalysts of growth and development so that the intended group reaps the benefits of economic growth. They have also to grapple with the environmental challenges looming large on the national and international
horizon.
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A tale of two towels
Here is an incident from my career which if taken lightly is quite amusing but if taken seriously reflects on the working of the babudom of which once I was also an actor and director. I was posted as Jt Secretary, Education, Haryana, from 1987 to 1989. Two hand-towels were issued in my name as was customary when a new officer took charge. The PA of the officer used to get such small things issued from the Chief Secretary’s branch and he would keep an account of the receipt and return of these articles. The officer would never bother about such things. I was to retire in October, 1993. I held two more assignments during these four years as Director Census OP and Director Industries. The process of preparation of pension papers is started six months before the date of superannuation of the officer and a No Dues Certificate has to be obtained from all the offices where the incumbent had served in his career, before forwarding the case to the Accountant General. The Political and Services Branch of Chief Secretary Haryana wrote letters to all the departments to report if anything was due from me. I put my PA on duty to follow up the matter. He regularly rang up the departments concerned and was successful in getting the No Dues Certificates from all the places in about two months time. It was a big job in itself and I was quite obliged to my PA for doing it which strictly speaking was not his duty. When all the No Dues Certificates from outside were received, my PA went to dealing assistant in the Secretariat and asked him to issue a No Dues Certificate for the stint I had in the Secretariat and forward the case to the Accountant General. He was told that there was problem as it was an internal matter to be dealt with in the Secretariat only. It was now a few days left when I was to be freed from bondage and retired. My PA went to the dealing assistant in Secretariat again and requested him to do the needful. Now the two towels issued in my name six years ago when I was posted in the Secretariat came in the way. The dealing assistant told my PA the problem that the towels were not yet returned in the record. My PA rang me up and I told him that how I could explain the issue and return of the two small towels after a lapse of such a long time. This was a matter where the officer did not come in the picture at all. I also told him if it was not possible to write off the loss, he might deposit the cost of the towels. The poor fellow went again to the assistant armed with the two alternative pleadings but he failed to get through. He was told in either case he will have to get the sanction from the Chief Secretary which might take time but he was good enough to suggest a way out. He told my PA to get two old, worn out, tattered towels of any colour and any size and deposit the same with the store-keeper which will enable him to proceed further. My PA rang me up again and hesitatingly narrated the whole story. He suggested to me that I should ring up my wife at home to keep ready two old towels which would be collected by him. My first reaction was to report the matter to the C.S. On second thought I dismissed the idea as being too trivial a thing to be reported to C.S and waste his time. Another apprehension also prevented me from making the complaint to C.S — what if I was charged with misappropriation and my pension and gratuity with-held pending the enquiry! I reluctantly said to my P.A: “I agree” and he acted “as proposed” by him. I thanked my stars and my PA when I received my pension payment order (P.P.O) in
time.
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News analysis Governments
worldwide are grappling with the rising prices of wheat, rice and maize. At least 33 nations, according to the World Bank, are in danger of facing social unrest. Food-related riots have erupted in Haiti, Egypt and Bangladesh. Governments in distressed countries are responding by imposing price controls and raising taxes on agricultural exports, thus further contributing to the price rise. Free trade lets goods move to areas facing shortages and curbs on their movements push up prices. There are no starvation deaths or food shortages, but high prices have forced the world’s poor to spend more on eatables and cut their spending on health and children’s education. The World Food Programme needs $500 million more a year to feed the same number of hunger victims worldwide. As world economists, leaders and media list reasons for the spurt in prices, one that finds frequent mention is the rising demand for food and fuel from the prospering middle classes in India and China, thanks to a sustained high growth rate. From a wheat exporter India has turned an importer. China too imports food to meet the rising demand. Both have contributed to global food inflation. However, when President George Bush referred to it, Indian politicians took the intended compliment as an insult. Newspapers were quick to point out that an average American consumes foodgrains five times more than an Indian and thrice more than a Chinese. As incomes rise, people eat more meat and processed food. This diverts more foodgrains to cattlefeed. Americans, no doubt, are known to cash in on charity. They buy food in dollars from their own farmers for supplying it to charitable institutions for further sale in poorer countries to fund their development works. Besides, food aid has to be sent on American ships, which inflates the costs. Another reason for the food prices going through the roof is the rich world’s focus on producing biofuels. The US pays a subsidy of 51 cents a gallon on the production of ethanol and levies an import tariff of 54 cents a gallon to keep off cheaper sugarcane ethanol from Brazil. US farmers are shifting land to corn from other food crops like soybeans. India makes ethanol from sugarcane and jatropha. Also responsible is the rise in population. More mouths to feed means more pressure on resources. Besides, climate change is impacting agricultural yields. Frequent floods and changing rain patterns have slowed agricultural production. Drought hit Australia’s wheat crop last year, shrinking production by at least 60 per cent, a fact that pushed up prices. According to the UN, a fertile area equal to the size of Ukraine is lost every year due to drought, deforestation and climate instability. For the past about 30 years, the prices of wheat, corn and soya had remained almost constant, while the cost of production has been growing steadily. The unchanged prices and easy availability had led many countries to reduce their buffer stocks. A few years ago, faced with a food glut and storage problems, India exported wheat, much of it being substandard and was bought for cattlefeed, at prices below the cost of production. Not maintaining a proper buffer stock has cost India dearly. Speculative investments in futures trading have also jacked up the prices of wheat, rice, oil, gold and other metals. Due to turbulence in stock markets, a lot of surplus money is entering commodity trading. High prices of agricultural commodities have enriched farmers in countries like the US, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and Canada. However, in India the government mostly buys wheat from farmers at the minimum support price (Rs 1,000 a quintal), much below the international rate (Rs 1,600). Suppressed farm prices have hurt the farmers the most. They are left with hardly any surplus income to invest in agriculture to meet the growing input costs and raise productivity. Curbs on exports have made India an unreliable trading partner. Farmers are protesting the restrictions on basmati export. They may ultimately start growing non-food crops. Since price rise is a politically sensitive issue, the government’s panicked response has hurt the farmer without benefiting the consumer. The farmer need not end up as the loser if the government efficiently manages foodgrains, cuts down wastage and pilferage and goes in for mechanical handling of foodgrains by investing in more silos and agri-infrastructure. The official estimate of post-harvest crop losses at Rs 55,000 crore annually is staggering. A parliamentary committee headed by MP Vijay Kumar Malhotra has called for an overhaul of the whole system of foodgrain, procurement, storage, transportation and distribution to minimise wastage and remove malpractices, especially in the public distribution system. Many experts feel direct cash incentives are better than subsidised food items. Good prices for their produce can drive farmers to increase the area under food crops. Besides, if they are allowed to reap the benefit of international prices, they can pay up their loans and get out of the clutches of private moneylenders. The states can gradually reduce subsidies and sops like free power and water. It is a better way of helping farmers than a loan waiver, which helps only select farmers with an access to institutional loans. Bold steps are needed to rejuvenate agriculture. Yields are extremely low. India gets 2,617 kg of wheat from one hectare against China’s 4,455 kg and France’s 6,740 kg. India’s rice yield is half of that in China. The foodgrain output has grown at only 0.48 per cent in India in the past 10 years while the population grows at 1.19 per cent annually, according to official figures. Like China, Indian firms and farmers’ cooperatives should think of investing in overseas farms as tremendous opportunities exist in Africa and Latin America. If Indian firms can buy coal mines and do oil exploration abroad, why not farming?
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When ‘Nargis’ flattens a whole delta By
the time the last of the daylight was slipping from the sky, it seemed as though every other home we were passing had been flattened. For mile after mile through the vast flat expanse of the Irrawaddy Delta, the evidence of the destructive power of Cyclone Nargis lay on either side of the rutted road; uprooted trees, downed pylons, entire villages of flimsy, feeble homes blown flat. To the south and west of here, a 120mph fury had lifted a wall of water 12ft tall from the Andaman Sea on Friday night and driven it in a deadly surge across much of the delta. The bamboo huts of Burma’s coast would have been the first to meet the destructive power of the storm as it made landfall, and they would have offered no meaningful resistance to Nargis. The road between Rangoon and Bogale, through the delta, marks a journey to the very heart of the destruction caused by the cyclone; damage that has left more than 22,400 dead, 41,000 more missing and perhaps a million people homeless. Ten thousand are believed to have died in Bogale alone. No one yet knows how many more open graves like Bogale are waiting beyond the reach of the outside world. Indeed, if the definition of homeless includes those people who will have to rebuild their properties – often from scratch – then almost everyone in this swathe of southern Burma would fit the description. But the journey south and west from the former capital Rangoon towards the fingers of land jutting into the Andaman Sea is also a journey into the mindset of the military junta that has ruled this country for much of the past five decades. It is a mindset – at least evidenced outside of parts of Rangoon – that has left the majority of ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. Shocked aid workers reporting back to headquarters in Bangkok, capital of neighbouring Thailand, spoke of bodies floating in the flood waters. Reports began to emerge yesterday of hungry crowds storming the few remaining shops in the delta. Paul Risley, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme in Bangkok, quoting his agency’s workers in the area, said: “Fist fights are breaking out.” The great expanse of paddies that once made this part of Burma the most productive rice-growing region in the world is now a bowl of slowly draining salt water, a catastrophe that will continue to be felt after the immediate aftermath clears. Despite there having been no electricity or fresh water since the category 3 cyclone struck on Saturday morning, there has been little evidence that the authorities are doing much to help. Instead, the recovery operation was led by crimson-robed monks managing in what, at times, resembled a mass DIY project as people nail back metal roof sheets and start re-erecting bamboo house frames. Closer to the capital, the monks, joined by Catholic nuns and local residents, wielded axes and knives to clear roads of ancient, fallen trees that were once the city’s pride. Richard Horsey, a senior United Nations aid official, speaking in Bangkok, was able to give a snapshot of the aftermath of Nargis, calling it “a major, major disaster”. “Basically the entire lower delta region is under water. Teams are talking about bodies floating around in the water.” It is possible, of course, that the authorities were simply overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction and the challenge of providing food and emergency supplies for the hundreds of thousands of people in need. But that does not explain why the junta was not able to give people more than a couple of hours’ notice that the storm’s impact was imminent when the cyclone had been building for days. One man in a western suburb of Rangoon claimed that the authorities had given them just two hours’ warning, the message being delivered by state TV and radio and by officials walking the streets with loudhailers. Nor does it explain why, having asked the international community for help, the authorities may still be hiding the full scale of what happened from the wider world. One Western diplomat, who travelled the same road south through the delta, said he had been turned back by the police when he reached the outskirts of Bogale. Thailand, China, India and Indonesia were flying in relief supplies and US President George Bush and the Prime Minister of Australia appealed to the junta to accept their assistance. By arrangement with
The Independent
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Delhi Durbar External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee was seated between cricketing hero Sachin Tendulkar and playback singer Asha Bhonsle when they were decorated with the Padma Vibhushan awards at the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Ashoka Hall last week. Bhonsle was pleasantly surprised when Mukherjee replied in the affirmative when she asked if he had heard any of her songs. The playback singer later told mediapersons that she never thought that Mukherjee would have the time to listen to music given his hectic schedule. Tendulkar told the minister that he felt honoured to be seated next to him. Mukherjee, on his part, asked Tendulkar about his age and then informed the cricketing icon that he entered Parliament two years before he was born. Conscientious Parliamentarian The Dream Girl of Bollywood Hema Malini is a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. Her husband and well-known actor Dharmendra is an elected member of the Lok Sabha. Ironicially, it is Hema Malini who has acquired the reputation of being a conscientious MP. She attends the sessions regularly, listens attentively and participates in the proceedings. On the other hand, as a representative of the people, Dharmendra is an absentee MP. Like the other actor-turned-politician Govinda, he is spotted very rarely in the Lok Sabha, evincing little interest in politics. Leader in anticipation Although there were some tense moments on the closing day of the Lok Sabha session last week over Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s action on unruly MPs, a dash of humour provided all-round relief. Opposition leader L.K.Advani, generally known to be very careful with words, made an inadvertant remark which elicited some laughs from the members. As agreed upon in the meeting with the Speaker, Advani was to endorse Lok Sabha leader Pranab Mukherjee’s statement requesting Chatterjee to withdraw the references against 32 opposition MPs for their disorderly conduct. When his turn came, Advani pointed to Mukherjee and said,” I endorse the request made by leader of the opposition.” While the House broke out into spontaneous laughter, Chatterjee pointed out jocularly, “You seem to be speaking in anticipation.” The Bharatiya Janatha Party has been projecting Advani as the Prime Minister-in-waiting. Contributed by Anita Katyal, Vibha Sharma and Aditi Tandon
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