|
|
|
|
|
guest column
Touchstones
|
|
|
ground zero
|
|
guest column
In terms of social indicators, both are doing reasonably well, except for pockets such as the Mewat region in Haryana, which still lags behind the rest of the state. However, one social indicator which is a source of deep concern is the gender ratio. The percentage of women in Punjab, according to the 2011 Census, was 893 females per 1,000 males, and in the case of Haryana 877 females per 1,000 males. These are appalling statistics given the remarkable progress these states have made in other respects. Clearly, there is a need for major social reform which has to be initiated not only by the political leadership but by the intellectual class, religious leaders and educators.
Beyond these social issues and the need to focus on the Human Development Index, there is also a need for both states to give priority to the challenge of sustainable development and inclusive growth. There is every reason to be concerned at major environmental problems. The water table in Punjab and Haryana has been dropping at an alarming rate, brought about essentially by policies such as highly subsidised electricity, which has led to excessive pumping of groundwater and its consequent depletion. Arguments are made that were it not for exploitation of groundwater major increase in agricultural production would not have been possible. But this can be countered by the fact that the marginal cost of every unit that is now being pumped is becoming higher, with the water table falling and, therefore, the cost of pumping increasing disproportionately. Underpriced groundwater also leads to excessive use of water for agriculture and the cultivation of crops that perhaps are not quite suited to the resource endowments in the two states. An example can be seen in the large-scale cultivation of paddy based on groundwater. Punjab and Haryana also have major problems of groundwater pollution with excessive use of fertilisers and pesticides. These impose major social costs in the form of adverse health effects. Subsidies on inputs like water and chemicals used in agriculture are leading to several negative impacts. These trends, of course, have been in existence for decades and the time has now come to take some hard decisions, which if explained to the public, would generally find acceptance. In particular, exposing the health effects of past trends and policies would have strong emotional and, therefore, political appeal. In general, development as practised across the world throughout the 20th century has pursued a path which led to increased pollution and environmental damage while incomes and prosperity grew rapidly. By and large, environmental protection and pollution control was taken in hand only when a certain income threshold had been reached. The relationship between income and pollution was thus defined by what is known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Typically, the relationship shows an increase in income and pollution till a threshold income has been reached, after which societies have addressed environmental problems and pursued a decline in pollution and thereby an improvement in environmental quality as incomes increased further. For developing countries, pursuing the same path can have very harmful consequences. We need to find a lower threshold of income beyond which environmental protection must become an important part of development. Punjab and Haryana are clearly beyond the Indian threshold which should trigger a major effort to protect the environment. Policies and actions must now focus on clean income-generating activities, a reduction in air pollution, curbing overexploitation and pollution of groundwater and a major programme of afforestation. In both states the Aravalli and Shivalik hills have been degraded seriously, requiring concerted efforts in greening them. More importantly, both the states are likely to face the impacts of climate change to an extent that would affect agricultural yields and human health as well as water availability. In general, the impacts of climate change exacerbate existing environmental and ecological stress, which Punjab and Haryana can hardly afford. Given the size of the economy of the two states it is essential they spend a substantial amount of resources on R&D to address the problems of unsustainable development. Both need to focus on creating a knowledge based economy, and for this R&D efforts in every sector become important, ensuring efficient use of energy, water and other resources, as well application of frontier technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and information science. Given the intellectual calibre of leadership in both states, perhaps these new priorities in development will receive urgent attention, resulting in policies and actions for the benefit of this generation and those yet to come. The writer is Director-General of The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI)
|
|
Touchstones
Cultures and civilisations have grown around imagined boundaries and ethnic faultlines. One of the most touching episodes in Amitav Ghose’s “Shadow Lines” is one where his old aunt peers out of the window as they fly over the Gangetic delta and she turns to her nephew to ask in a puzzled voice, “But where is the line that separates us from Bangladesh?”
Every day, when I commute from Delhi to Noida, where I now live, I pass under a flyover that is a popular alighting point for the hundreds of migrants who come to India’s capital in search of a better life. These are among the poorest, most disadvantaged segment of our population who have neither land, nor money nor hope. All their belongings are tied up in a pitiful bundle that they carry with them when they flee the poverty of their villages. They stay under the flyover for a few days until they find some employment (mostly as construction labourers) to make way for a fresh bunch of migrants. Soon, they merge so easily into the city that they become invisible. Yet, deep inside themselves, they always carry the memory of their natal village and if you visit any slum colony, you will see how they try to replicate their villages in their ‘new’ home even as they adjust their lives to the dictates of an ‘urban’ setting. In a larger, more prosperous form, I have seen the same impulse in NRIs abroad, who like to create a little India in a foreign land. Touching and revolting at the same time, what this reveals is an unwillingness to let go of a memory of a lost homeland. The notion of roots goes deep (excuse the bad pun!) and is an interesting part of the study of human behaviour. A recent book by Diana Eck (a distinguished Indologist from Harvard who has previously written “City of Lights”, a brilliant cultural study of Banaras) is called “India’s Sacred Geography”. Briefly, it details the cultural map of the country and highlights the invisible lines that connect the four corners of this land by faith, belief and religion. Cultural anthropology is now among the most exciting areas of study, and in a world that has become faithless and godless, it provides a template for a worldview that needs to be recalled. For centuries, these invisible faultlines bound regions and communities together. All this come to mind as we celebrate two occasions: the release of Salman Rushdie’s confessional biography (don’t know how else to describe it) titled “Joseph Anton” and MF Husain’s first death anniversary. Rushdie’s book has been reviewed so widely that there is no need for me to say anything about it here but what binds him and Husain together (apart from their Islamic origins) is the fact that both of them were openly in love with Bombay and its cosmopolitan culture. Husain was not just a film buff, he was a film junkie and started his artistic career by painting cinema hoardings for the Bombay film poster industry. Like so many young men, he had run away from home to Bombay in search of a life in the film world: it was a love affair that lasted a lifetime for he regularly fell in and out of love with film actresses (remember Madhuri Dixit and “Gaja Gamini”). There is a beautiful photo exhibition currently on in Delhi that brings us scores of photos taken by friends and admirers of Husain at large. It reveals, as anyone who knew him will testify to, his large-hearted embrace of India and his deep connection with its people. What a pity that we were unable to even offer him a final refuge in the land of his birth. Bahadur Shah Zafar’s famous lament ‘Do gaz zameen bhi na mili…,’ comes to mind. Another Badshah, another exile. Similarly, Rushdie has famously described “Midnight’s Children” as his love letter to India. Time and time again, he has chosen India as the location for his novels and speaks eloquently of the deep impression his childhood in Bombay left on his psyche. Ironically, the very city that both loved so deeply was also the epicentre from where the most vicious attacks on them were launched. We were all helpless witnesses to their shameful exile in the name of cultural purity and religious outrage. Today, when the world is celebrating Rushdie’s latest love letter (this time to himself, I think) and watching the film version of his famous love letter to India, India is sitting in sullen isolation. For the new map that we have chosen to draw for our country over the last few decades has no place for dissent and individual views. From Husain and Rushdie to an Aseem Trivedi, we have left them no option but to pack their dreams and memories and go seek another refuge. Remember, however, that you may take a person out of a country but not a country out of that person. |
||
|
ground zero
We can look upon his appeal cynically and think that Manmohan Singh is only trying to cover up the flaws of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that he heads. That this is Manmohan Singh’s last-ditch effort to salvage a lost cause and lift his battered image. There is no contesting that in its second term the UPA government has been going steadily downhill. That it has been afflicted by a policy paralysis and worse, scams that have left it tainted and limp. We can blame the UPA, its ministers and the bureaucrats for the mess. But it is time we, as citizens, did a little introspection and looked at what we can do for the country to change things around us. For starters, let’s not crib too much about the rise in diesel prices. If the Prime Minister stated that instead of raising diesel prices by the Rs 17 a litre needed to cut the losses being incurred by the country, the government raised it by only Rs 5 a litre, we need to believe him.
There was an interesting point the Prime Minister raised — who are we really subsidising? He talked about much of the diesel being consumed by those who had cars, including SUVs, and by factories and businesses. These people don’t need such hefty subsidies. Nor does much of the middle class to which I belong. I live in Chandigarh, and though it costs Rs 4.50 per unit for the Administration to supply electricity to me, like most residents I pay between Rs 2.30 and Rs 4.20 a unit. The same is true for the water being supplied to residents. It costs the Administration an average of Rs 6 to supply a kilolitre of water. But most residents are charged Rs 4 per kilolitre — a subsidy of almost Rs 2. In the early ’90s when I lived in Delhi, I calculated how much each household was being subsidised by the government. My estimate came to Rs 1,200 — that was a lot of money then. I suspect the situation hasn’t changed much. I understand it when the Prime Minister says that money doesn’t grow on trees. My mother used to say it to me when I was in college. I realised the value of money when my father retired from the Army and we had to live on his pension. It meant that I had to cycle to college that was 15 km away in Bangalore so that I could save Re 1 that was the bus fare. Those were the days when a refrigerator was looked upon as a luxury and was usually displayed in the living room of a house. Much of the middle class has benefited from the rapid economic growth that the country witnessed in the early ’90s under the late Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and the able guidance of Manmohan Singh, who was then his Finance Minister. That had the middle class families gain materially in a few years what our parents would have taken a lifetime of struggle to achieve. Not just refrigerators, but other kitchen gadgets and home electronics, apart from cars, also became affordable. Now most young couples have these as goodies when they get married and move into their own homes. The past eight years, as the Prime Minister pointed out, have also seen the Indian economy grow at an unparalleled annual rate of 8 per cent. So much so that we look upon the current 5 per cent growth rate as inadequate. Most of the world’s economies, including China, have slowed down. Many countries in Europe are steeped in debt and face the danger of an economic collapse. People are losing jobs or having their salaries slashed. Instead of complaining about the cap on the number of subsidised LPG cylinders, all of us who can afford it must be prepared to pay the actual price. Of course, we must insist that the government improve its efficiency in production and speed in delivery. That the government becomes more accountable and cases of corruption and crony capitalism be punished severely. We must also ensure that the poor and needy receive the welfare funds that have been earmarked for them and are given food and fuel at subsidised rates. It is time for all of us to put the shoulder to the wheel and contribute as much as we can to lift the country out of the morass. raj@tribunemail.com
|
||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Punjab
DO cities have individual personalities? I think many would agree they do: think of a Lucknavi tehzeeb, a Banarsi tongue, a Patialvi civility or an Ambarsari tabiyat, and you get the drift of what I mean. Step a little further and you can expand this to include traits that are inbred in most of us by the provenance of our birth, so a ‘bhaiyya’, a ‘manoos’ or an ‘amma’ do not need to tell us to which part of the country they belong. And the final arc of this paradigm is provided by the country to which you belong.
