The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Daunting task for Soren
It will not be easy to revive Jharkhand

The return of Mr Shibu Soren as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand appears to have been greeted in the state with mixed feelings. Mr Soren, who boasts of being the tallest surviving leader of the adivasis in his state and who indeed fought the longest and hardest battle for a separate state, has the challenging task of transforming himself from a street-smart politician into a successful administrator. He, however, faces an uphill task because his ruling coalition that includes the All-Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) and the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) is not just an opportunistic but also “uneasy” new alliance. The three parties opposed each other bitterly in the just-concluded Assembly election with the BJP attacking Mr Soren’s “tainted” past. Besides being convicted by the trial court, though acquitted later by the Delhi High Court, in a case relating to the murder of his personal assistant Shashi Nath Jha, the NDA government at the Centre had re-opened several other criminal cases against him. His acquittal was also challenged in the Supreme Court by the family of the “missing” personal assistant and the pending appeal should cause him concern. It will also require a high degree of skill on his part to rein in the AJSU which, with just five MLAs in the Assembly, will always be tempted to hold Mr Soren to ransom.

Poor governance has been the bane of Jharkhand, and Mr Soren’s task is to put the “failed” state back on the rails. Generating employment and stopping the flight of tribals and capital, managing the balance between tribals and non-tribals in the sate, dealing with the vexed issue of acquiring land for industry and mining, streamlining the administration besides combating corruption and the Maoists will have to be his priorities.

The first litmus test for Mr Soren will come when he distributes the portfolios. He has in the past been guilty of succumbing to various interest groups, promoting his own family and patronising the corrupt. For the sake of Jharkhand, one hopes Mr Soren’s new government gets its priorities right and displays enough commitment, imagination and skill to develop the mineral-rich state for the welfare of its poor people.

US unfair on Headley
Extradite terrorist mastermind to India

There is no logic in the FBI’s stand that Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist mastermind David Coleman Headley (previously called Dawood Gilani), arrested in Chicago some time ago, cannot be extradited to India under the circumstances, though his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack has been proved. The US investigating agency has told Indian officials that Headley may have to serve a jail term ranging between 200 and 300 years before India can get access to him. He may even be awarded death punishment under the US law. This obviously means that Headley can never be handed over to the Indian authorities for his trial and punishment in the country where he committed the most heinous act of terrorism. Interestingly, Headley has been charged by the FBI with committing crime on Indian soil.

The US stand is not going to help the cause of fighting global terrorism. If India can allow US investigators to interrogate Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving terrorist who was a member of the LeT squad that massacred civilians and police personnel on 26/11, why can the US not oblige India accordingly? But what to talk of extradition of Headley to India, the US is reluctant to allow Indian officials even access to the Pakistan-born US national deeply involved in terrorism.

Obviously, there is more to Headley than the US has shared with India. Reports have it that the US intelligence agencies were aware of his alarming activities as a double agent much before 26/11. He would frequently visit India on the pretext of being a businessman. He was in Mumbai before the terrorist attack occurred, but soon he flew to Pakistan to guide the LeT killers from there. He had been in contact with US intelligence officials before they came to know that he was working for the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit too. Washington wants to ensure that the embarrassing details of Headley’s connections with the US intelligence networks never come to the surface, and hence the refusal to extradite him to India. But this cannot help the US cover itself with glory, as considerable details have already been brought to light by the media.

Thought for the Day

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy. — John Updike

ARTICLE

Political climate is changing
Emerging era holds promise and peril
by S. Nihal Singh

If 2009 was the year of Barack Obama in the wider world, in India it was the year of the revival of the Congress party, underlined by its return to power in a fractious polity, with a curious twist. The stresses the country is undergoing presage a transition to a different stage of politics. How the new politics will shape up remains to be seen but the emerging era holds promise and peril.

To begin with, the recent waning of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s fortunes means that it is desperately trying to retain its place as the alternative national party. It has seen a change of guard at the top choreographed by its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which leaves the party’s rationale and autonomy of action up in the air. It certainly represents a generational change but the new president, Mr Nitin Gadkai, has been burdened with the difficult task of leading a divided party while massaging the egos of the second rung of leadership in Delhi to take them along.

The BJP has given up the pretence of being a party with a difference. Witness its exploitation of money power to come to power in Karnataka to be singed by the same flame in keeping Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa’s gaddi and its strange bonhomie with Mr Shibu Soren in Jharkhand after denigrating the same leader in the harshest of terms. Is the BJP then fighting for the Hindutva cause to achieve its definition of Ram Rajya or employing all means to come to power and retain it whenever or wherever it can?

The Congress seems to be suffering from another kind of problem. The last of the state leaders to exercise a great deal of autonomy, Y.S. Chandrasekhara Reddy (YSR), is gone and Andhra is witnessing turmoil because there is no longer effective leadership at the state level, with the Telangana question raring its head and Mr Jaganmohan Reddy, the late chief minister’s son, peremptorily demanding his right to his father’s chair.

Yet “Congress culture” as it has come to be practised requires state leaders to pay obeisance to the Congress leadership at the Centre, principally Ms Sonia Gandhi. The panacea for all state-level problems is to leave the decision to the Congress president even as factions lobby her aides to tilt the scales in their favour. As YSR understood so well, the secret of success is to pay formal obeisance to 10 Janpath while exercising real power in the state.

In parallel with these developments, two new trends have emerged to encroach on the political space. The honing of skills of various lobbies to seek partisan advantage and the impressive growth of non-governmental organisations and citizens’ groups to swing decisions on important issues in favour of causes they are fighting for. Although corporate lobbies are increasingly taking on an American flavour (lobbying is a legitimate activity in US polity), citizens’ groups, though less well organised, are learning the ropes in trying to influence government decisions in areas of widespread concern.

The Congress as the primary national ruling party finds itself in the forefront in coping with social activism and new pressure. In a sense, the new trend must be welcomed because it is the essence of the cut and thrust of a democratic polity. On the other hand, the Congress is not in the best of health and its recent general election victory must be ascribed as much to the BJP’s misfortunes as to the merit of its policies although some of its more inclusive growth measures have had a beneficial impact.

Both the Congress and the BJP are zealous in centralising decision-making at the national level for fear of fragmenting their parties. But the truth is that the most successful state leaders of either party have traditionally been men or women exercising considerable authority in their bailiwicks and capable of arguing their cases with national leaders. This was true even in Jawaharlal Nehru’s days, with leaders like West Bengal’s B.C. Roy ready to convince the Prime Minister of their policy preferences.

The one thing lacking today in the dissension one sees - more in the BJP than the Congress - is the calibre of state leaders. We might be living in an unheroic age compared to the stalwarts of yesterday, but leadership qualities are essential in governance at the state and national levels, and men and women with such qualities are drifting away to fields of private enterprise where pickings are more bountiful and the pressures of office far less.

Will the New Year then see a peaking of these new trends, with non-political groups and associations seeking to intrude upon political space? Much will depend upon the calibre of leaders the Congress and the BJP produce and how the crowded field of state and regional parties pans out. Their regional and linguistic frameworks restrict some parties but others such as the Bahujan Samaj Party are seeking a wider national stage. The Left parties, particularly the two Communist parties, are finding their ken restricted despite their philosophy of a national approach.

Perhaps the growing trend of citizens’ direct participation in influencing public opinion on political issues affecting their lives will give parties the push they need to revitalise their own organisations. The Congress and the BJP have their ancillary outfits although for the latter, they must remain a matter of concern. Rabble-rousing is not a practice restricted to organisations belonging to the Sangh Parivar. The Shiv Sena and its offshoots have demonstrated their street power. The BJP’s problem is that its allies in the form of Vishwa Hindu Parishad or Bajrang Dal or its moral brigades often cross the line between demonstrating for a cause and descending into plain violent hooliganism.

Will the RSS, which is increasingly calling the shots in the BJP, take the initiative in curbing the actions of its allied organisations that do its image no good? Besides, if the BJP can truly claim the credit for institutionalising the two-party system at the national level, it must behave like a responsible party.

The BJP must share the blame for the ugliness that has crept into Indian polity although the Congress as the pre-eminent national party has greater responsibility in guiding the country towards a healthier political climate. The country awaits their moves as the New Year dawns.

MIDDLE

Spaced out
by Roopinder Singh

Unobtrusively the little black box added music to our life. When my wife came back from school one day, it was there; waiting for her, and the little startled smile that came on her face was reward enough.

Our mornings started with Asa Di Var, and kirtan. Later in the day, we would be humming to some old songs on Farishta, or the more contemporary film music on Jhankar.

Jansher enjoyed the latest English songs on Spin and Top 40, which we also liked, after a fashion, but then we had our own little refuge in Amore, that played mushy ol’e songs and spun its own magic.

The selection was great. Sound quality was crystal clear, except for the occasional day when clouds eclipsed a service that lit up our life at home.

It was the gadget aficionado A.J. Philip who had introduced me to Worldspace and its wonders. Typically, the receiver he had was not available in India, and thus we are relegated to using ones especially made by BPL for the service. Then Sunil got his Worldspace and started singing its praises… and then Shastri…

The thrifty logic in me, however, just could not warm up to the idea of paying for something that was free on the airwaves, and has been so ever since the inception of the radio. Let’s not get into details like licence fees, which have thankfully died a natural and least lamented death.

My father always listened to the radio, and normally by the time I woke up he had twisted the knobs of his trusty old Philips receiver and was au-fair with the latest events. Then it was time for music, which would continue all day, and sometimes into the night, providing a background to his reading and writing. So it was not that there was no music in the house, and to top it all, it was free and FM too was fairly good, becoming better by the day, or so it seemed.

All this was fine, till I realised that Jaspreet was pining for Worldspace, and that was reason enough to change my stance on free airwaves. I joined the gang, and realised what I had been missing all these years. Now it was an integral part of our lives. Yet there were clouds, and we are not talking of atmospheric disturbances.

Now that it has been announced that the New York-based Worldspace Corp has filed for bankruptcy protection, the last day of this year will be the end of service of this remarkable satellite radio that enriched our lives. We will still have music in our lives, Thank God for the free airwaves and the wonderful variety of music that comes through them.

OPED

The decade we didn't see coming
by Joel Achenbach

The decade began so swimmingly. No Y2K bug, no terrorism, nothing but lots of fireworks as the planet turned and, time zone by time zone, all the zeroes replaced the nines.

America was at peace. Prosperity reigned. The popular president soon announced a budget surplus of $230 billion. The dilemma for Washington lawmakers was what to do with all the extra money.

People watched the values of their houses soar. The Dow had jumped 25 percent in just a year. Imagine how $1,000 might mushroom if invested in stocks for the next decade!

The future had arrived bearing nifty technological gifts. An entire music catalogue could fit in the palm of a hand. People nurtured their avatars in Internet role-playing games. Technology offered a virtual escape from the real world.

Except the real world wouldn't leave us alone.

Throughout the decade, the real world pursued, hectored, harassed. Ignorance was punished. Hubris found its comeuppance. The optimists were routed, the pessimists validated. The fabulous economy turned out to be something of a hoax. A war predicted to be a “cakewalk” turned into a dismal slog.

This was a decade when things you didn't know about could really hurt you.

So it was that Americans were shocked by 9/11. That's when the decade really began, regardless of what the calendar might say. Osama bin Laden's 9/11 hijackers, holing up in cheap motels, moving in groups, warily clinging to their luggage, had acted – we could say in hindsight – pretty much like terrorists plotting something or other. But they were invisible in a nation still blissfully unaware of the intensity with which it was hated. Go back to Jan. 1, 2000: The peace of that first night wasn't quite so real after all. A would-be terrorist, trained in Afghanistan, had planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. The plot unraveled a couple of weeks before the New Year, and investigators learned the full details only months later.

“History's always catching America off guard,” says Rick Shenkman, editor of George Mason University's History News Network. “We have to re-learn that lesson over and over and over again, that we cannot escape history.”

The attacks shaped the entire decade. They led to two wars overseas and a new security regime at home that requires grandmothers to take off their shoes and get wanded before they board a flight. Not knowing about 9/11 would be, in this decade, like walking into a whodunit movie 15 minutes late and never understanding what the characters are talking about and why they're so exercised.

The Iraq war, launched by the Bush administration in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that did not actually exist, will be litigated by pundits and historians until the end of time. The decade closes with that war winding down and tens of thousands of troops surging into Afghanistan to intensify the battle with those who attacked us at the decade's start. And just in case we might have begun to let down our guard at home, a man tried to blow up a plane landing in Detroit on the final Christmas of the decade.

This has not been a good decade for anyone overly sensitive to bad news. We've had two recessions, the first caused by the bursting of the tech bubble (wasn't Pets.com supposed to dominate the dog food market?), the second by the even more dramatic popping of the housing bubble (oops, maybe buying that $1.5 million McMansion was rash). The economic recovery has been trembling at best. The titans of industry can't bring themselves to do anything more risky than hire a few temps.

Oh, and that $1,000 investment in the stock market? It turned into about $900 if invested in Dow blue-chips, and even less if you adjust for inflation. For this decade, the mattress would have been a better place to put your money.

Some would call that a disaster. The more technically accurate term among market-watchers is a “correction.” The Correction Decade was not much fun.

The U.S. budgetary surplus of 2000 lasted about as long as the cherry blossoms by the Tidal Basin. Debt proved to be the grease by which ideologically polarized parties pushed legislation through Congress. The decade ends with the government running annual deficits that have to be expressed in scientific notation (i.e., 1.5 x 10 to the 12th dollars).

Ordinary people misapprehended their station in life, and overspent, and overborrowed, and suffered the consequences when the whole house of cards fell apart.

Calamity in this era has been very much a group activity. Many institutions were not, in fact, too big to fail – just ask the people who used to run the venerable Wall Street firm of Lehman Brothers. Being large and established proved to be a handicap in an era that favored the small and nimble. The Internet destabilized everything from newspapers to the music industry to global security. Jihadists recruit with YouTube.

Politically the 2000s were not exactly the Era of Good Feeling.

History is neither linear nor deterministic, which is why, perhaps, Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California, and Tom “The Hammer” DeLay wound up as a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

An African American won the nation's highest office. Barack Obama's triumph proved a dream come true for millions of Americans who wondered whether they'd live long enough to see a black president. One shocker: The campaign wasn't in any significant way about race.

Clinton had an excellent decade. So did her husband.

Historian Gil Troy, in a recent essay for the History News Network, pointed out that most people had a pretty good time the past 10 years:

“When they look back on this cascade of catastrophes, Americans in the future will assume our lives were miserable, practically unlivable. Yet, for most of us, life has continued. We have maintained our routines, while watching these disasters unfold on the news. In fact, these have been relatively good years. America remains the world's playground, the most prolific, most excessive platform for shopping and fun in human history.”

Computers, software, all those 1s and 0s, flourished in the 2000s. This may have been the first decade in history that was better for machines than human beings.

Largely overlooked in the 1990s Internet boom was the power of a computer application known as “search.” Google, embryonic at the start of the decade, ends it looking as big and powerful as Ma Bell back in the day.

If the 20th century was the “American Century,” as Henry Luce called it, then the 21st century remains – with 10 percent of it gone – very much up for grabs. China may be the most fascinating country on Earth, but it has demographic and environmental burdens. India has a billion people and a lot of jobs once performed by Americans. Europe is integrating portentously. But the United States remains the world's sole superpower.

America has a new leader who, back in 2000, was an obscure state legislator in Illinois. The next decade could be Obama's to shape. But governing is harder than campaigning. And Obama has already discovered that “Change” is something many people want in the abstract more than in real life.

Human civilization evolves paradoxically. A world where you can donate money with the click of a button to save a life in Africa is also one where men strap bombs to themselves to blow up innocent strangers.

As history marches on, this decade will be known for its stumbles and reversals. The scolds and doubters reminded us that hope is not a plan. But neither is despair a winning strategy. The smart move is to look back at the 2000s glancingly, and then turn, with optimism, to the decade ahead.n

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Punjab spends niggardly on education
by Jaswinder Singh Brar

The indispensability of public resources in education can not be over-emphasised. It becomes far more crucial in case of developing world suffering from acute poverty, inequalities, illiteracy, child labour, unemployment, malnutrition, and multiple social and economic disparities and discriminations.

The Constitution of India has demarcated a strong role for the state in the domain of education. Article-45 in unequivocal terms states that 'the state shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of the constitution, for the free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years'. The Constitutional Amendment-1976, made education the joint responsibility of Centre and state governments by placing the education on the concurrent list.

Kothari Commission (1964-66) has recommended the transfer of resources worth six per cent of state income to education sector through the medium of public funds. This target figured in almost all plan documents and other policy papers of the last decade or so.

There is considerable amount of variation among the states related to educational spending. Presently, out of all of 28 states, 11 states provide resources through the medium of state-government budget to the education department which are more than four per cent of respective incomes. Nine states provide between two-and-a-half and four per cent. Punjab falls in the category of typical eight states- others are Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, and West Bengal- which transfer the lowest proportion(about 2 per cent) of their respective state-incomes to the education sector by the medium of public spending.

Public expenditure on education refers to the expenditure incurred by a government out of its total budget on the development of education. The public expenditure on education consists of three components, viz. (a) revenue account, (b) capital account, and (c) loans and advances.

The term public expenditure on education (i.e. education budget) here refers to the sum total of all of three components. The various time-periods reported here have a specific context. The first two triennium averages (1968-71 and 1978-81) based on concerned financial years are used as bench marks for comparisons. The subsequent period of about a decade or so witnessed the militancy-related violence and disturbances. In case of Punjab, the fifteen years period from 1992-93 to 2006-07 is a period of stable democracy. Three governments completed their full terms alternately: Congress Government (1992-1997); Akali-BJP Government (1997-2002); and Congress Government (2002-2007). It was normally expected that during the said period the state would made more efforts for the development of human resources. The populace would realise 'peace-cum-democratic dividend'.

But, even a cursory look at the report card of Punjab pertaining to educational budget right now presents a disturbing picture. Apparently, the education budget at current prices increased over-period. The absolute level of education budget on triennium basis rose from Rs. 27.69 crore (1968-71), to Rs. 109.40 crore (1978-81), to Rs. 699.82 crore (1992-95), and to Rs. 2275.45 crore (2004-07). But, the education budget as proportion of overall budgetary expenditure of the state had declined substantially. The state had transferred as much as 22.42 per cent and 23.82 per cent of her total budget on education respectively during 1968-71 and 1978-81. It declined to 13.08 per cent during 1992-95 and to 10.72 per cent during 2004-07. It means the share of 'activities other than education' in the state budget was about 90 per cent during 2004-07. However, it was about 76 per cent during 1978-81. The state transferred the highest proportion of income (3.06 per cent) to education only during 1998-2001. It involves the impact of the then grade-revision. Subsequently, it registered a continuous decline and reached to 2.33 per cent during 2004-07.

Similarly, the state has been found to be spending considerably less among the neighbouring and other states during 2004-07. Moreover, the states with much lower levels of per capita incomes-Bihar and Rajasthan- had spared comparatively higher proportion of their respective budgets and incomes for education. Thus, a fundamental distortion has occurred in the budgetary spending of the state which needs immediate attention and correction. There is a dire necessity to increase the education budget of the state in a systematic and time-bound manner.

Delhi Durbar
Garland ban lasts a day

The other day, while addressing his first press conference here in Delhi, the new BJP president Nitin Gadkari tried to put an end to the culture of touching feet, putting up hoardings banners and posters and garlanding and giving bouquets in his party. Instead he suggested to all people interested in presenting bouquets to put the amount in a donation box in the party office with which the party could help families of farmers who committed suicide. There was widespread appreciation of Gadkari's gesture during his press conference and the one who clapped most at the suggestion was none other than outgoing BJP general secretary Vijay Goel. But the very next day at the Bhajan Sandhya Goel organised to celebrate the 86th birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the garlanding and bouquet giving was the main highlight of the function. And since Goel had invited prominent non-saffron leaders like Thakur Amar Singh, Om Prakash Chautala, B.J. Panda and former union minister Digvijay Singh for the occasion, the garlanding and bouquet giving ceremony went on endlessly. Perhaps it was the embarrassment of witnessing the bouquet-giving ceremony which kept Gadkari away from this function.

Incidentally a Central minister too has banned any garlanding at his functions. But that they say is because once or twice in the beginning, when he tried taking off the garland in public, his wig and ear plug leaving him not just red-faced but also slightly impaired.

Thakur unmasked

That reminds one that Thakur Amar Singh who has just now launched his website called thakuramarsingh.com, was seen in public without a face mask after a long time. Ever since he returned to India after kidney transplant he had been wearing a face mask, ostensibly to prevent catching any infection since H1N1 was widely prevalent those days. He gave a long winding speech at a Health for All function organized by a popular media group at IIC wearing his face mask throughout. Only problem was that the mask was the one surgeons wear while performing operations. It is slightly different from the H1N1 mask. Curiously the dais that day was full of doctors, but none took notice of that.

Jinxed function

The function to lay the foundation stone for the proposed new Congress office in the new institutional area behind Bal Bhawan was jinxed. First there was a problem with its location. It is on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg and someone told Congress president Sonia Gandhi that AICC office address on a road named after a former Jana Sangh president would send across a wrong message. Eventually this issue was resolved by calling it Kotla Marg, since one side of the plot falls on it. The function fell on the Moharram day and Congress bosses realised that ostentatious celebrations might send a wrong message, since Moharram is a day of mourning. So while the function could not be cancelled last minute, it was made a very simple with a bare minimum done, so as to avoid any criticism.

Contributed by: Anita Katyal and Faraz Ahmed

Corrections and clarifications

In the slug in the report “Bains not present on spot: Probe” (Page 5, December 28) the word “assault” has been mis-spelt as “assualt”.

The headline “Bittu voices came growers' plight” (Page 3, December 27) should have used the word plaint instead of plight..

The headline “Authors can now claim royalty” (Page 2, December 26) is misleading. A more acute headline would have been “New rights on use of author' works in films”.

In the report “Soren hopes to be third time lucky” (Page 2, December 25) there is a reference to Soren having been elected as CM for the first time in 2009. The fact is that he was sworn in as CM for the first time in 2005.

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua
Editor-in-Chief