The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Jobs on sale!
Pay to become an anganwadi worker

The expose that one has to pay upwards of Rs 60,000 even to get employment as an anganwadi worker in Punjab leads one to several unfortunate conclusions. One, that the employment situation is so alarming that people are willing to shell out that much for a low-paid job. Two, that corruption has crossed all limits, and three, that those paying the bribe are confident that they can make good this “investment” after getting the job. Had the allegation been made by the Opposition or the media, the government might have called it a smear campaign but the matter has been raised in the Vidhan Sabha by legislators from the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP. The SAD MLA from Sri Hargobindpur, Capt Balbir Singh Bath, said categorically on Wednesday that senior officials of the Social Security and Development of Women and Children Department had taken Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 per anganwadi worker.

Since there are over 26,656 anganwadi centres in the state, with as many workers and 25,436 helpers, one can well imagine the extent of money that may have been made by some unscrupulous officers. The Minister in charge of this, Chaudhary Swarna Ram, has promised to get an inquiry done by a department other than his own. One hopes this investigation would be completed quickly enough and the guilty would be given stiff punishment.

While probing the affairs of the anganwadis, it is also necessary to have a close look at their functioning. There are allegations that at some places, the workers just do not attend to the work assigned to them. The number of pregnant women, young mothers and children to whom anganwadis provide a helping hand is inflated. The quality of food supplied to pre-school children is suspect. Anganwadi workers on their part allege that despite their low pay, they have to frequently dip into their own resources while storing food, cooking it and distributing it. Surely, that is no way to provide food and vaccination to those who need it the most. The unfortunate fact is that such corruption is not confined to this department. News about similar sordid happenings elsewhere keeps trickling out but the government does not take it with the seriousness that it deserves. For instance, there were reports recently how crores of rupees earmarked for the Shagun scheme had been siphoned off by officials.

Maya’s mala
An issue or a non-issue, that’s the question

Indian politics is a soap opera with rarely a dull moment. Where else would a mere garland kick up so much dust ? Now that the Parliament has gone into recess, the scene has been livened up by the controversy over the gigantic garland made of currency notes that was used to greet the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati at a rally in Lucknow. The garland’s dramatic appearance and the stealth with which it was removed within a matter of minutes, left tongues wagging and critics of the UP Chief Minister have had a field day since then. Critics speculated about the value of the garland being in the region of several crores of rupees and pointed out that while the Chief Minister had claimed to have no money to give as compensation to the victims of a stampede at an ashram last month, her supporters clearly were not short of cash.

But while every politician wants to become the master but poses as the servant, Mayawati has been a different kettle of fish. Malawati, as she is now being called by critics with their tongue in-cheek, has never really shied away from flaunting her fortune, flashing diamond necklaces, buying up expensive real estate or accepting crowns and swords made of gold. Nor was it the first time that she received a garland made of currency notes. Indeed, politicians ranging from Rajnath Singh on the Right to Mulayam Singh Yadav on the Left have been equally guilty in the past of accepting golden crowns or receiving coins, silver and gold equal to their weight. It is debatable if such displays really matter. But there may well be a method in the madness. The alacrity with which the BSP has responded to the criticism, by declaring that henceforth Behanji will always be greeted by garlands of cash, and her own fatwa that rallies be held in every district to expose the conspiracy against her by the opposition, is indicative of her design.

Mayawati, to be fair, has been open about the resources mobilised by the party. How are other parties, who raise possibly more funds than her but are more sophisticated and discreet, necessarily better? While Mayawati’s mala may not entirely be a non-issue, no political party appears serious about addressing the more important questions of election-funding and greater transparency in the accounts of political parties.

Thought for the Day

Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious, of which you are not aware. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

ARTICLE

A radioactive Bill?
Stark failure on the N-liability issue
by Inder Malhotra

THE fiasco of the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, which the United Progressive Alliance government withdrew just before it was scheduled to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday, is not the first instance of its kind nor is going to be the last. Such dithering is becoming a second nature to the UPA-2. It is either unable or unwilling or both to anticipate problems that are easily foreseeable, and acts somewhat nervously when a crisis inevitably overtakes it. It is reactive, seldom, if ever, proactive.

Just look at this delicious quirk of irony. In a span of a mere week the government finds itself in a quandary as much over the Women’s Reservation Bill on which the BJP and the Left Front are giving it full support as on the Nuclear Liability Bill which both the saffron party and the Leftists are determined to oppose “tooth and nail”. Within hours of the famous victory in the Upper House the government and the Congress party’s managers suddenly discovered that the Bill was facing huge and hazardous obstruction in the Lok Sabha. So they decided to put it “on hold for now” and announce that they would convene an all-party meeting to bring about a consensus. Pray, why wasn’t this sensible step taken earlier when the Bill’s inveterate opponents, headed by the Yadav trio, had begun beating war drums?

The ruling combination’s failure to anticipate that the Nuclear Liability Bill would be in deep trouble is even more incomprehensible. This has nothing to do with the merits and demerits of the Bill that can be discussed separately. The pertinent point is that even the purblind could easily see that this Bill was radioactive and, for whatever reason, the entire Opposition, the environmentalists and even such eminent jurists as Soli Sorabjee were resolute in their determination to resist it. In any case, the government knew that even if it could somehow get the Nuclear Bill through the Lok Sabha, there was no way it could muster a majority in the Rajya Sabha without persuading at least a section of the opponents to go along with it.

Why did it not hold “widespread consultations” it is now keen on before putting the controversial Bill on Monday’s order paper? It also speaks volumes for the ineptitude of the Congress party managers that they found only at the eleventh hour that 35 of their members were absent from the House despite a whip demanding their presence. There were also alarming reports that the maverick Mamata Banerjee was once again threatening not to go along with the government of which she is a member.

What makes this mess particularly awful is that, unlike in previous years when the two mainstream parties, the Congress and the BJP, were not on speaking terms, there have, of late, been back channel or informal consultations between the two. Evidently, these have not been productive enough. Or else the chasm over the Nuclear Bill would not have been so unbridgeable as it is. Moreover, amidst the euphoria over the adoption of the Women’s Bill by the Rajya Sabha, the BJP would not have complained that the Congress was “misappropriating” entire credit and denying it and the Leftists their due.

All this only confirms that the government learnt nothing and unlearnt nothing from the discomfiture arising from its astonishingly amateurish performance over the sensitive issue of Telangana. At first, it decided, more or less in panic over Telangana leader K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s fast, to form a separate state of Telangana. Then it found that the Congress party-dominated Andhra Assembly was in no mood to fall in line.

So, after dilly-dallying for some weeks, the Union government backtracked without admitting that it was doing so. It appointed the Srikrishna Commission to decide whether a separate state of Telangana should be formed or the composite Andhra state should be left undisturbed. No wonder Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra regions are happy while the Telangana region is furious. Hyderabad’s Osmania University is once again aflame. The Central government feels that it has “bought time” until December 31, the deadline for the commission to finish its work. To what end, one might ask. Come to think of it, the joint statement issued by the Prime Minister, together with his Pakistani counterpart, at Sharm el-Sheikh was also an essay in acting in haste and regretting at leisure.

As for the merits and the demerits of the Nuclear Liability Bill, the division of opinion is sharp, as statements by political leaders and perfervid TV talk shows underscore. To bridge it is not going to be easy though the government and Congress spokesmen are saying belatedly that they are “flexible” and prepared to look at “constructive” suggestions. The problem is that what is constructive for some is wholly destructive in the opinion of others.

In my view, the defenders of the Bill, including the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, A. R. Kakodkar, have a point when they say that the proposed Indian law is no different from those followed by 28 countries that adhere to either of the two international conventions or have national laws of their own, as in the case of China, Japan, South Korea and South Africa. They are also right in claiming that the Bill confers no special favour on the United States. France, another supplier, also wants the same liability limitation law. Russia, which is already building four reactors in this country without asking for such a law, would almost certainly welcome it after it is passed. But the Bill’s vehement opponents are not impressed.

They say that the suppliers of the plant and equipment are exempt from any liability in the case of an accident and the cap of Rs 500 crore on the operator’s liability is abysmally low. When told that the corresponding limit in China is Rs 200 crore, they retort that in the US this limit is 23 times higher than in India. This is highly emotive in a country that retains a strong anti-American mindset and has been a victim of the Bhopal tragedy.

How the issue will pan out I do not know. But Michael Krepon, who is arguably a grand ayatollah of nonproliferation in America, said to me a long time ago: “You can sign any nuclear deal. But no American reactor would go to India without the nuclear liability limitation law that no Indian Parliament would ever accept”.

MIDDLE

Reform the reforms
by Harish Dhillon

I AM not an expert in pedagogical matters and do not have any worthwhile knowledge of educational theories and philosophies. I am merely a teacher of English who tries very hard each year to make his teaching more effective and more interesting than the previous year. But limited as my vision is, I can’t help feeling elated by the winds of change that Mr Kapil Sibal has set in motion in the corridors of the school education system. I believe that these changes, when they come into effect, will make a radical difference.

But having said that, the moot question that arises is: difference to how many? Our problem lies in the large number of our children of school-going age who do not attend school at all or who drop out in the first few years of schooling.

Primary school education has at long last, been made compulsory in our country but one wonders who will enforce the law. It is difficult to imagine, in India, patrols of determined officials identifying truant children and bringing their parents to book. Law-enforcement agencies in India — be they from any department — have earned a notoriety of taking the easy way out. They show a singular lack of will in enforcing the law.

There is a law against using mobile phones while driving and yet we see so many drivers driving through police “nakas”, their mobiles glued, to their ears while the cops on duty look on indifferently. They have earned an even greater notoriety for accepting small bribes to let the offenders go scot free.

Some years ago, a flying squad was dispatched to an examination centre just outside Patiala to check on reports that there was rampant cheating at the centre, conducted with the active participation of the invigilators. They found that the reports were more than true.

The action that the flying squad took was to lend the invigilators their megaphone to make the cheating more effective: the candidates had pooled in their resources and “won” the flying squad over to their side.

As serious as child truancy, is the problem of teacher truancy which has become such a regular feature of government schools specially in rural and semi-urban areas, that it is no longer considered worthy of comment.

Teachers are absent for long stretches of time on official duty like election duty, conduct of census and rehearsals for Republic and Independence Day celebrations. In addition to this, teachers absent themselves from duty to pursue the nerve-racking, frustrating task of stalling inappropriate transfers and securing appropriate ones. Many of the more enterprising teachers sub contract their teaching jobs to semi-literate school dropouts and themselves pursue a second lucrative career.

Along with the wonderful educational reforms that are being introduced, a sincere and determined effort must be made to deal with the menace of this dual truancy, otherwise the effect of the reforms will remain a trickle, benefiting a very small number of children.

OPED

Quota for elite women?
Reservation Bill has to pass many hurdles
by V. Eshwar Anand

The Rajya Sabha has passed the Constitution (108th Amendment) Bill by 186 to 1 seeking to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. Despite stiff resistance from the Yadav brigade (Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Mr Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal-United), the Bill scraped through because of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s firm stand together with the unequivocal support of the BJP and the Left parties.

Celebrating the quota victory

The Bill, having passed the first round, will have to cross two more rounds (i.e. passage of the Bill by two-thirds majority of members present and voting in the Lok Sabha and its ratification by at least 15 of the 28 states. Even after the Presidential assent, the Act will be enforced only after an independent commission like the Delimitation Commission, designated by Parliament, completes the task of allocating the reserved seats.

The Bill had failed to muster support many times during the past 14 years. It would have failed this time too had the chairman, Mr Hamid Ansari, not cracked the whip. After many adjournments, he suspended and then ordered the Marshals to evict seven MPs who were obstructing the smooth conduct of the House.

If the Bill is enacted, as many as 181 of the total 543 seats in the Lok Sabha will be reserved for women. Women will occupy one-third or 33 per cent of seats in the State Assemblies too. But this is not the limit. Potentially, two-third seats can be affected. For, nothing stops women from contesting from open seats. In other words, they can also try their luck from seats which have not been reserved for them.

Quota will cease 15 years after the commencement of the Act. Seats reserved for women will be allotted by rotation to different constituencies to the state or Union Territory. For example, if a state or UT has only one seat in the Lok Sabha, that seat will be reserved for women in the first general election of every cycle of three elections. If there are two seats, each will be reserved once in a cycle of three elections. Similar rules apply for seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes.

The principle of rotation of seats has been included in the Bill so that in 15 years, the lifespan of the Bill, the reservations will ensure a horizontal spread across the country and is implemented in each and every constituency.

We should not grudge quota for women. They have long been neglected in the decision-making process. The progressive legislation will give them an opportunity to have their say in policy formulation and governance. MPs are lawmakers and if more women are elected to Parliament, it would mean that issues concerning the fairer sex would get greater focus and thrust in the legislative business and this will help improve their quality of life.

Today, the women’s representation in Parliament is a poor 10.8 per cent. In the current Lok Sabha, for instance, out of 543 seats, 59 MPs are women, including the Speaker, the Congress President and the Leader of Opposition. Similarly, the 245-member Rajya Sabha (with an effective strength of 233 as on March 16, 2010) has 21 women members, which is 8.8 per cent of the total strength.

The position is bad even in the states. In 19 major State Assemblies, only 294 members are women, implying that women constitute only 8.5 per cent of the total strength. These figures show that though women constitute 50 per cent of the country’s population, they are not suitably involved in the country’s decision-making process.

The SP, the RJD and a section of the JD (U) are demanding quota within quota only with a view to obstructing the progressive legislation. They don’t realise the fact that courts will quash sub-quotas for women among the OBCs and Muslims. Remember how the Andhra Pradesh High Court has thrice declared the Andhra Pradesh government’s decision providing five per cent reservation for Muslims in the state as unconstitutional?

Moreover, the Indian Constitution allows electoral reservation only for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. The OBCs have reservation only in education and jobs, but no quota in legislatures. Constitutional bar apart, quota cannot be given for the OBCs among women right now because no survey has been carried out to identify them for purposes of their representation to Parliament.

There are some apprehensions about the Bill. First, the proposed rotation of reserved one-third seats once in every general election would result in unseating two-thirds of incumbents in every election. It is feared that when male incumbents are forced out, they will tend to field their womenfolk as proxies.

Secondly, compulsory unseating may violate the principle of democratic representation and jeopardise the possibility of any legislator, choosing a constituency and nursing it. When legislators don’t have the incentive to seek re-election from the same constituency, politics will become more predatory and unaccountable. Thirdly, the quota may empower only the “elite women”.

The alternative proposed by the Lok Satta, an NGO in Hyderabad, is interesting. The Bill should instead make it mandatory for every political party to field women in one-third of constituencies in every state, taken as a unit, for the Lok Sabha elections. If political parties had ensured that, their number in Parliament would have seen a dramatic increase. That this has not happened illustrates the problem women face, particularly those without any family connections, to find a place in the political arena.

The passage of the quota Bill in the Lok Sabha will be an acid test for the Manmohan Singh government. It will have to evolve an all-party consensus on the issue. Reports of possible reduction in the quantum of quota have added a new twist to the Bill.

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Mrs Sushma Swaraj, has said on Wednesday that the BJP would go with an “open mind” to the all-party meeting the Centre is expected to convene. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has suggested that a reduction in the 33 per cent quota for women could be considered if such a step helped achieve consensus. Women have been neglected enough and an all-party consensus on the Bill brooks no delay.

How other countries do it
l Pakistan: 60 out of 342 seats in the National Assembly (17.5 per cent).
l Bangladesh: 45 out of 345 seats in Parliament (13 per cent)
l Nepal: 33 per cent
l Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan: 30 per cent
l Argentina and Brazil: 30 per cent
l Sweden: Zipper system under which every other candidate on the list is a woman.
l Germany, UK and Australia: Voluntary party quota

New Bill for traffic management
by Prathiba Raju

Anupama Mehta, 48, cannot forget the day her 17-year-old son left home to go to a friend's place two kilometres away. Rammed by a speeding motorbike, the boy, Vinod, lost his life for no fault of his and the biker went scot-free.

"I lost my son and no one can bring him back to me. The man who killed him and ran is walking free and we can't do anything. I pleaded with the authorities to take the necessary steps to ensure that no one else suffers a brutal and untimely death like my kid. Let him be the last victim," grieved Anupama, who lost her son just two weeks ago. "Vinod was to appear for the ongoing Class 12 board exams this year," she said. The family is still in shock.

If one goes by figures given by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, an average of 120,000 people are killed in road accidents in India annually. Three years back, India beat China as the country with the highest number of road accident deaths.

And now the country is mulling a new law - the National Road Safety and Traffic Management Bill.

Ritu Sukla, deputy director, ministry of road transport and highways, said, "The bill will recommend standards for construction and maintenance of national highways and safety standards for motor vehicles."

It will also identify black spots where accidents are more, address victim compensation issues and create state level road safety boards.

"Concrete steps would be taken for ensuring safer highways. The boards would establish centres for investigation of road crashes. The legislation also proposes to create a National Road Safety Fund by earmarking one percent of the cess collection from petrol and high speed diesel oil," Sukla added.

But traffic expert P.K. Sarkar, who also teaches at the School of Planning and Architecture, doesn't think the bill can curb the rising number of road accidents.

"The bill that will soon be tabled in Parliament will not help reduce road accidents as long as corruption prevails," Sarkar told IANS.

"The authorities must stop taking bribes for issuing licences and youngsters, especially, need to go through proper tests of their knowledge of traffic rules. It is alarming that around five road accidents occur in Delhi each day."

Many such accidents go either unreported or unregistered.

In recent cases reported here, those who fell prey to rash driving or drunken driving were mostly in their early 20s, pavement dwellers, pedestrians, other motorists and even cops, said Campaign Against Drunken Driving's (CADD) Prince Singhal.

Eight-year-old Deepak was sleeping on a pavement with his father Ali, a rickshaw puller, when a car ran over him. The boy suffered severe injuries.

As his family struggles to meet the costs of treatment, including an expensive brain surgery, they don't even know how and where to seek justice. "I almost lost my son this January when he came under the wheels of a car driven by a drunk man. It was a hit and run and we could not even identify the driver since the incident happened at night," Ali told IANS.

According to CADD, more often than not, victims' families belong to the lower social strata. Burdened with hefty hospital bills and delayed case judgments, most give up their fight for justice early on.

According to a 2009 report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), an alarming number of youths also die in Delhi's road accidents, most victims of reckless driving and callousness about safety like wearing helmets while driving two-wheelers.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg told IANS: "Around 13,000 challans (penalties) have been slapped for drunken driving in 2009. It is a reality that mostly youngsters are the victims of traffic violations in Delhi."

As per the 2009 statistics, traffic cops caught 212,000 people around Delhi for speeding and 617,000 for jumping traffic lights.

— Indo-Asian News Service

Hair loss reduces prostate cancer risk in men

Men who are facing a future with less hair should stop fretting at the retreating hairline, as a recent study suggests hair loss "almost halves the risk of prostate cancer".

Men who start going bald at a young age are up to 45 percent less likely to fall victim to prostate cancer later in life, scientists have found, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Although half of all men suffer significant hair loss by the age of 50, an American team has linked the high levels of testosterone in those who go bald earlier to a lower risk of tumours.

The scientists studied 2,000 men aged between 40 and 47, half of whom had suffered prostate cancer. They compared the rate of tumours in those who remembered their hair thinning by the age of 30 with those who did not suffer hair loss.

Men who had started to develop bald spots on the top of their heads as well as receding hairlines had the least risk of cancer.

Hair loss is a source of concern for many young men, with surveys showing nearly half think going bald makes them feel old and less attractive, while three out of four have self-esteem problems.

The positive findings published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology would be controversial as previous smaller studies have suggested hair loss increases the risk of cancer.

Most baldness is caused when hair follicles, the tiny sacs in the scalp from which hair grows, become exposed to too much dihydrotestosterone, or DHT.

This is a chemical produced by the male hormone testosterone. If there is too much DHT circulating in the blood, the follicles shrink, so the hair becomes thinner and grows for less time than normal.

Experts believe men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to lose their hair, especially if baldness already runs in the family.

Those diagnosed with prostate cancer are often given drugs to reduce testosterone levels because the hormone can accelerate the growth of some tumours once they develop. But the latest research suggests being exposed to high levels of testosterone from a young age might actually help to protect against the disease.

"At first, the findings were surprising," said professor Jonathan Wright, an expert in prostate cancer at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "But we found that early onset baldness was associated with a 29 percent to 45 percent reduction in their relative risk of prostate cancer."

Helen Rippon, head of research management at The Prostate Cancer Charity, added: "If these results are correct, they could be useful in providing us with a greater understanding of how testosterone behaves in the body and how it can affect different tissues." — IANS

Corrections and clarifications

n The headline “Punjab fares poorly in CAG report” (Page 3, March 18) is incorrect because it gives the impression that only in the report the state has fared poorly.

n The headline “Being framed: DDPO” (Page 3, March 17) leaves the reader puzzled. The abbreviation is also not commonly understood.

n The headline of the anchor “India disapproves of British claims” (Page 1, March 16) is factually incorrect because India has ‘disproved’ and not ‘disapproved of’ British claims.

n The headline “Farmers come in hordes to protest” (Page 3, March 18, Chandigarh Tribune) is incomplete because one does not know what, where, when the protest is all about.

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.

Raj Chengappa
Editor-in-Chief