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Roots rediscovered Bravo Lance Naik Bisht |
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Political sudoku 123 and the number game THE political crisis in India over the civilian nuclear deal with the United States is not without its upside. The sunnier side is not that the crisis itself has kept the country occupied to the exclusion of more depressing issues - such as 77 per cent of the population having to live on less than Rs 20 a day or 55 per cent of the people living without access to electricity; or that like the phases of the moon, the crisis keeps waxing and waning. The cheering fact is that the 123 Agreement has given a boost to numeracy vis-à-vis literacy.
After ‘Tryst with destiny’
Teacher called Payal
Punjab’s ‘empty coffers’ Record opium crop helps Taliban
fund resistance Defence Notes
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Roots rediscovered THE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has once again demonstrated its innate ability to shock. If the party’s opposition to the India-US nuclear deal was a surprise, so is its somersault over the issue. The BJP now makes a clear distinction between its opposition to the deal and that of the Left. While the Left is fundamentally opposed to any truck with the US, the BJP sees the deal in a different light. In fact, it considers the super power as India’s natural ally, a position it took when it allowed Mr Jaswant Singh to negotiate a deal with his US counterpart Strobe Talbott. It was this dialogue that sowed the seeds of the nuclear deal that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush signed in Washington in July 2005. It was, therefore, utterly shocking that the BJP opposed the nuclear deal to the point of Mr L.K. Advani making a telephone call to CPM leader Prakash Karat to provide the latter a helping hand. In public perception, the BJP and the Left were on one side in the nuclear debate with the UPA partners on the other. The middle class, which sees virtue in the deal as it ends the nuclear apartheid India faced for as long as 33 years and opens the frontiers of nuclear technology to the country, was totally flummoxed by the BJP stand as was evident in media surveys on the question. If the Congress-Left fracas leads to a mid-term election, which will be fought mainly on this issue, the BJP feels it will lose even its traditional middle class voters. It is this realisation that forced Mr Advani to make a subtle change in the party line to give the impression to its constituents that the party is not opposed to the deal per se but only to some aspects of it. By making this change it has dumped all the arguments advanced by leaders like former Union ministers Yeshwant Sinha and Arun Shourie. What is apparent from the flip-flop is that it was not ideological steadfastness that guided the BJP in its opposition to the nuclear deal. It was more obsessed with causing embarrassment to the UPA. This is unlikely to leave a lasting impression on its supporters. Even so it is better late than never for the BJP to have come clean on the nuclear deal. In retrospect, had the party been more honest in its attitude to the deal, it would not have, perhaps, emboldened the Left to up the ante to the extent of talking about a quick divorce.
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Bravo Lance Naik Bisht AS it is, army men have set exacting standards of selfless service. One virtuous soldier’s family has now excelled in another field: organ donation. Lance Naik G.S. Bisht of 26 Rashtriya Rifles has become one of the first to respond to the exhortation of the Armed Forces Organ Retrieval and Transplantation Authority (AORTA). He has saved the lives of three critically ill persons by donating the liver and kidneys of his wife Leela Devi, who was suffering from brain tumour and was declared brain dead. The gesture is exceptional, considering that organ donation after brain death is rare in India. Here is hoping that his noble deed will be emulated by many more because a large number of ill persons lose their lives because very few people in India come forward to donate body parts. Most of this hesitation stems from the ludicrous belief that a dead person does not get moksha if his or her body is “mutilated”. Even where people make it bold to go against the current and pledge their eyes or other organs, doctors find it very difficult to convince their family members to carry out their wish. Since the family is in mourning, the doctors do not find it possible to persuade them when it is necessary. Even where the families are ready, there is tremendous societal pressure. The end result is that the much-needed organs are always in acute short supply. It is necessary to educate and motivate people that there is no better deed than saving someone’s life. For example, the late Leela Devi now lives on in three persons who have got a new lease of life through her liver and kidneys. At the same time, an attempt should be made to ensure that the medical teams reach in time the houses where a death has occurred and the family members are willing to donate organs.
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Political
sudoku THE political crisis in India over the civilian nuclear deal with the United States is not without its upside. The sunnier side is not that the crisis itself has kept the country occupied to the exclusion of more depressing issues - such as 77 per cent of the population having to live on less than Rs 20 a day or 55 per cent of the people living without access to electricity; or that like the phases of the moon, the crisis keeps waxing and waning. The cheering fact is that the 123 Agreement has given a boost to numeracy vis-à-vis literacy. The debates and discussions are no longer over understanding the A B C of the issue, but taking steps 123. And, when we are at 3, can 4 be far behind? Certainly not, as the talks between the Left and the Union government on Monday have shown. There is expectation, if not promise, that a political deal over the 123 Agreement will be clinched in 4 days. In any contentious situation it is best to look at the ground of least disagreement for coming to an understanding. Now with the Left and the government realising the significance of the digit 4, we must arithmetically progress to number 5. It is logical that if the 123 deal breaks out of the political impasse in 4 days, then the mechanism — to address the concerns raised by the Left — should be a committee of 5 members. The 5-member committee, it should be agreed, must complete its work within 6 weeks. The committee should propose a 7-point solution to be implemented over the next 8 months, which means both the Left and the UPA would survive — with their numerical strength in Parliament unaffected — till the middle of June 2008. In 9 months then, we would witness the proverbial deliverance to achieve a Perfect 10 with everyone coming to an agreement on what should, or should not, be done. So, there we have a formula to raise national numeracy to the level of national literacy that should leave everyone satisfied with 10 out of 10. Besides, as late Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao wisely told the nation, not taking a decision is in itself a decision.
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One has to multiply thoughts to the point where there aren’t enough policemen to control them. — Stanislaw Lec
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After ‘Tryst with destiny’
Nehru’s
“tryst with destiny” suggested that India would wake up to a new dawn. The country has made substantial material progress since that fateful and historic day 60 years ago. But the freedom struggle had other goals as well. Countless people “sacrificed their today for a better tomorrow for us”. Have we achieved that better today? Was there not a different vision than the one we have worked for? Doubts arise not only because mass poverty persists, illiteracy is rampant and insanitary conditions and ill health continue to take a heavy toll but because we hardly have a vision left except to follow the West and in the process we have perhaps got the worst of both worlds. In material terms, a few, numbering less than 3 per cent of the population, have done well while the rest are trapped in a low-level equilibrium. We boast of more billionaires than Japan while in terms of per capita income we are in the bottom 20 out of 177 nations. The former then is a reflection of terrible inequity and nothing to gloat about. The largest number of people below the poverty line, farmers suicides, huge urban slums, fields in and around cities functioning as vast toilets, the inability of the so-called literates to understand modern technology, etc, suggest that the nation as a whole has yet to wake up to a new morning. In a 1958 movie, “Phir Subaha Hogi,” Mukesh singing with pathos, “Woh subaha kabhi to ayegi” (That morning will come some time), epitomised the dream of the common Indian of the fifties and the sixties. Many of us as children internalised the idea that we will build a better future for all our countrymen and, perhaps, we would build a new civilization that would surpass the West. Sixty years after Independence the shreds of this dream are not even left in the dustbins of those in power and supposedly guiding the destiny of this nation. That dream has been blown away in the hurricane of achieving 9 per cent growth. The song is not just about eliminating poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy but about a dream of building a different society — a peaceful one where everyone (specially the marginalised) would live with dignity, Gandhi’s “Last Person First”. The song defines that happy morning as “Jab ambar jhum ke nachega, Jab dharti naghme gayegi” (when the sky would dance with joy and the earth would sing songs). Today, at our low per capita consumption, the air, water and land are terribly polluted and weeping rather than singing and dancing. The most revered Ganga or the Godavari are heavily polluted, their beds contaminated with huge amounts of toxic material that would affect the future generations. Even the sacred is no more sacred. So, what is sacrosanct? The song goes, “Jab dukh ke badal pighlenge” (when the clouds of sorrow will melt). “Insano ki izzat jab jhoote sikkon me na toli jayegi” (when people’s dignity would not be measured by false money). “Mana ki abhi tere-mere armano ki qeemat kuch bhi nahin” (agreed that today our dreams have no value). But their was belief, one day this would change. For the vast numbers of the marginalised sections, sorrow is a daily and endless fare that is not melting away. Dozens of their children can disappear in Nithari and little is done. The only escape is what Bollywood dishes out — sex and violence. The government provides little relief since it fails to deliver. Faith in politicians is a casualty. The dignity of the poor is even more firmly mortgaged to money when unemployment is so high and the youth have to take to crime to fulfil their expectations. The dreams of the deprived have no value to the rulers who in their self-centredness can only see in them the means to fulfil their own narrow dreams of great riches, like, in the misallocation of land meant for the poor displaced slum-dwellers. Today labour is devalued while speculation and greed have been raised to a new high pedestal. A mere 1 per cent of the population linked to the corporate sector earns more than what 60 per cent, dependent on agriculture do. Disparities have risen more sharply in the last six years than in the earlier 54 years. The young are encouraged to sell soap but not to contribute to nation-building through teaching and research. Sacrifice appears to be stupidity, undermining the entire effort of the freedom fighters. Those of them who still survive ruefully ask: is this what they fought for? The 3 per cent, the ruling elite of the nation, aspire to join the international elite, sending their children to study in college abroad, going there for vacations or to hospitals for health problems. It is voting with its feet. A school in Chappra or a dispensary in Ghungrawali has little value to it, but Delhi must have 24 hours water and electricity. That is progress. The emotional attachment to the nation is gone. Corruption is rampant both in the public and private sectors. Institutions, like the legislature, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, are breaking down. The elite is lawless, breaking every single law — from traffic laws to building bylaws to industrial and environmental laws. Many of the rich have earned more through illegal means than legal ones. Political leaders hardly represent the people — leading a life of luxury. Democracy is a great institution, but in India it has been turned into a fine art for self-aggrandisement. The bankruptcy of our leadership led to our jettisoning the ideas of independent development in the eighties and of the “last person first” in the nineties. The land of Gandhi has turned into the land of the Bania (not that he was not a Bania). The credit for this goes to the very party which Gandhi built. Clever ones would shamelessly argue, even Gandhi would have done the same in the present context. Would they consider that a man given to simplicity, sacrifice and truth and not show, half truths and consumerism would have blanched at this suggestion? From the notion that the ills of our society have a social cause to the idea that the individual is to blame for its predicament, it is a long journey. Everyone has now to go to the market to get what he or she needs, the government is no more responsible for the elimination of poverty, etc. The devil may take the hindmost. Nations are built on dreams, but we have narrowed it to money-making. So, how do we build a great nation as Nehru’s “tryst” suggested or to which Mukesh referred to in the song, “Jis subaha ki khatir yug yug se ham sab mar mar ke jite aiyen hain” (That morning for whose sake from eons we all have been living by dying a thousand deaths). Gandhi had a dream for the nation that the party he helped build has shattered. He perhaps saw what was coming, so he wanted the party to dissolve itself so that this farce would not have occurred. He wanted Rashtrapati Bhavan to be converted into a hospital not because that would have been functional but because that would have given birth to many more dreams rather than converting the freedom fighters into rulers in the imperial mould. So, sixty years down the road, we are still waiting for that new dawn in the midst of 9 per cent growth. Mukesh would have to sing, “Woh subaha abhi to nahin ayegi”.
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Teacher called Payal
WHEN the call came at 11 p.m., I was over 2000 kilometres away. The distance didn’t lessen the impact of the news. A horse had died. Not just any horse. “Which one,” I asked Nahar Singh, the riding instructor at the Chandigarh Horse Riders Society, dreading the answer. But I knew. It was Payal. Everybody loved Payal. She was not exactly the most docile of creatures, but she had a very distinctive personality, and was easily the most intelligent of all. With Payal, you always got the feeling that she was just a little ahead of you. She had her own mind, and if she was letting you ride her, it was because she loved riding too, and she made sure you followed the rules. What’s more, everybody - children and adults - really loved learning to ride on Payal. She was the one who taught everyone how to canter. The canter is the three-beat gait of the horse, a beat short of the full-fledged gallop. It can be fast, and for a novice rider, quite unnerving. But Payal had a soft back and a fluid movement. So almost all of us got our first canter lesson on her. They say you never, ever, forget your first canter lesson. I certainly remember my first, but the most memorable was the second one, when I was sent out alone into the woods, care of Payal. It was a cool morning, with a hint of drizzle - weather that horses love. Off we went, and as she sensed my growing confidence and balance, I had the ride of my life. What was it the Bedouin nomads used to say about the great Arabian? “Flight without wings…” Payal had many quirks. She liked to run away to the farmhouse where she grew up, and managed it often. A single misplaced pole was enough for her to find her way out. Once she decided she had to make a visit, never mind that a young girl, a complete novice, was sitting on her. She took off at a steady canter and there was general panic. There were people running about, dashing to their cars to give chase. Following on a horse was ruled out. Payal might just run faster, and the girl might have a bad fall. Everyone came back after a while. The girl had managed to stay on. Payal had just taught another person how to canter… Nahar Singh put me on a jump once, a small one. Payal decided that she was going to take it at a canter. As we flew over it, I stayed on, but I was sufficiently imbalanced to go somersaulting through the air a few strides later, landing with a spectacular thud. When I went to get back on, Payal, good old Payal, nuzzled me enquiringly. I can swear that she was saying something like, “Are you all right, dude?” I did the jump again, approaching it more slowly. Payal went over it really softly this time. Every rider in Chandigarh will have his or her Payal story. During my first visit to the Society, Jassi Toor, one of the driving forces behind the club, pointed her out to me. “You see that horse? I get many offers for her, but I will never sell. The kids will lose a great horse.” Now we have all lost you, Payal. Everyone who ever came near you realised you were special. So, from every child, man and woman who was lucky enough to learn from you, goodbye, old girl. It was a privilege knowing
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Punjab’s ‘empty coffers’ IT has become a compulsive reactive norm for all political parties in India that while in opposition they would oppose every good or bad action of the government and when in power, would shift the blame of their non-performance on the previous government. This is particularly so at the level of provincial governments. Taking Punjab as an illustration, the state is in virtual debt trap today. Government machinery, comprising politicians and employees has become self serving. The revenue expenditure has been constantly exceeding the revenue receipts for the last two decades and has now reached disquietening levels. The government borrows heavily to fill the gap between revenue receipts and revenue expenditure in order to pay salaries, pensions, interest on debt and meet other committed expenses. There is virtually no money left for development. Day by day the state finances are taking deeper and deeper plunge. Instead of going serious to apply corrective measures, the political leadership is taking an easy route of indulging in blame games. “The previous government emptied the coffers” was the charge repeatedly made by the previous Parkash Singh Badal government. The subsequent Congress government raised the pitch of this statement and now the Akali-BJP government has picked up the threads again and is repeatedly blaming the previous government for the financial mess created during its regime leading to “empty coffers”. Let us look a bit analytically at the mess created by these two regimes. The state started witnessing an annual revenue deficit from the financial year 1987-88 with revenue expenditure exceeding the revenue receipts by Rs. 229.02 crore. The revenue deficit never looked back thereafter. When the previous Akali-BJP government took over in 1997, the revenue deficit was Rs 1,357.06 crore (in 1996-97). In their first budget of 1997-98 they raised it to Rs. 1,483.90 crore. By 2001-02, the revenue deficit increased to Rs. 3,781.19 crore. In the five-year regime, the total revenue deficit amounted to Rs. 12,958 crore. This works out to an average annual excess expenditure of Rs. 2,591.60 crore on revenue account over the revenue receipts. The Congress government started with the budgeting of revenue deficit at Rs. 3,753 crore, marginally lower by Rs. 27.25 crore from the previous year deficit of the Akali-BJP regime. This government brought the revenue deficit down to 2,190.60 crore in the budget of 2006-07. Yet, the Congress government incurred a revenue deficit of Rs. 15,138.30 crore in five years, clocking an average revenue deficit of Rs. 3,027 crore per annum. With this mounting annual revenue deficit, the total debt stock of the state increased from Rs. 15,250 crore in 1996-97 to Rs. 32,496 crore in 2001-02 during the previous Akali-BJP regime. This piling up of the debt stock occurred despite the fact that the Central government and the Finance Commission waived the special term loan amounting to Rs. 2,433.74 crore in three years from 1997-98 to 1999-2000. Thus the Akali-BJP government increased the debt stock of the state by Rs. 17,246 crore in spite of this waiver. By the time the Congress government demitted the office this year, the debt stock of the state had risen to Rs. 47,801 crore. This government added Rs. 15,305 crore to the debt stock of the state in the five years of their governance. Now the Akali-BJP government, while whipping the previous regime for “emptying the coffers”, itself has budgeted an addition of Rs. 4,963 crore to the debt stock of the state raising it to a level of Rs. 52,764 crore. These borrowings by the successive governments have landed the state into a situation of virtual debt trap. The annual burden of interest on debt stock of the state which was Rs 161.19 crore in 1987-88, when the state started showing revenue deficit, rose to Rs 1,634.44 crore in 1996-97. Both the regimes failed to apply fiscal discipline and are equally responsible for the financial stress on the public exchequer. This is a typical case of the pot calling the kettle black and it is being done with impunity. There is nothing like trunks and coffers that get filled up by one regime and emptied by the other. It is not that political leaders do not understand it, but they are unable to restrain themselves from this blame-game and thereby befooling the masses endlessly. If the parties in power have the interest of the state in their priorities, they must resort to fiscal discipline. For instance, on expenditure side, administrative structure must be rationalised, downsized and made more efficient. Corporations and public enterprises running into constant losses that are not capable of making any profit, must be wound up, the committed expenditure must be rationalised and reduced. Subsidies must be targeted to the really deserving beneficiaries and every expenditure must undergo an impact analysis. Above all, the political burden on the exchequer must be reduced, which is a heavy cost on account of accommodating party politicians in positions like parliamentary secretaries, chairmen of corporations and boards etc and police security be reduced from a status-symbol to the bare necessity. On the revenue side, the tax structure must be rationalised, the revenue leakage and tax evasion must be checked. Accountability of the tax collectors be ensured and tax payers be treated with respect. The introduction of a credible social security system for the taxpayers can go a long way in boosting the state revenue receipts. These are quite feasible options, but require a change in the mindset from myopic politics to statesmanship that will entail long-range vision and political will to take hard decisions, that are utterly lacking in our political class of today. |
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Record opium crop helps Taliban
fund resistance IN an annual survey of opium production released on Monday, the UN reported that Helmand province had produced 48 per cent more opium compared to its record-breaking crop last year. Opium production in Afghanistan as a whole will reach a "frighteningly new level" at 8,200 tons, 34 per cent higher than last year, the report said. British troops sent to back up reconstruction efforts in Helmand have been pinned down by resurgent Taliban fighters, who have a stranglehold over the drugs trade which is funding the resistance. Although another record opium crop had been expected, the massive jump in the Helmand output reflects the level of insecurity in the province, where the insurgency has deepened in the past year. British commanders have described the conflict as the most intense since the Korean war. Alongside the fight against al-Qa'ida after the 11 September attacks in 2001, cutting opium production was one of the main justifications for British involvement in military action in Afghanistan. Opium provides the raw material for heroin. Tony Blair repeatedly referred to the fact that Afghan heroin accounted for an overwhelming proportion of the drug available on British streets and agreed to lead the international coalition's anti-narcotics effort. But yesterday the Government was accused by its critics of "failing spectacularly". The report by the UN office on drugs and crime said: "An astonishing 50 per cent of the whole Afghan opium crop comes from one single province: Helmand." Although cultivation of the opium poppy had decreased in parts of Afghanistan, "where anti-government forces reign, poppies flourish". "With just 2.5 million inhabitants, this relatively rich southern province has become the world's biggest source of illicit drugs, surpassing the output of entire countries such as Colombia (coca), Morocco (cannabis) and Burma (opium) - which have populations up to twenty times larger." The head of the UN agency, Antonio Maria Costa, said: "No other country in the world has ever had such a large amount of farmland used for illegal activity, beside China 100 years ago," when it was a major opium producer. He urged Nato to more actively support counter-narcotics operations. "Since drugs are funding insurgency, Afghanistan's military and its allies have a vested interest in destroying heroin labs, closing opium markets and bringing traffickers to justice. Tacit acceptance of opium trafficking is undermining stabilisation efforts." Britain, which is increasing the number of troops in Helmand to a total 7,700 by the end of the summer, backs greater involvement by Nato in crop eradication, by providing protection and logistical help for the Afghan forces involved in the effort. Diplomats stressed however that British soldiers would not be directly involved in crop eradication. Given the dramatic failure of the strategy in curbing the opium poppy cultivation - which was drastically scaled back under the Taliban - future policy is expected to focus more on forced eradication by a specialised Afghan unit. Britain has already announced an additional £22.5m for the Afghan interdiction forces. It is generally admitted that separate efforts led by the province's governor, Asadullah Wafa, have been disappointing since he took on the job eight months ago. Government corruption, particularly what Mr Costa calls the Karzai administration's "benign tolerance of corruption" is also blamed for the explosion in the opium crop. British diplomats rejected suggestions that forced eradication risked damaging the "hearts and minds" campaign among the Afghans. Locals would welcome the broadening of the struggle to target rich farmers who had been able to bribe their way out before. Last month the all-party Commons Defence Committee issued a critical report on drugs eradication in Afghanistan, warning that uncertainty among Afghans about the role of international forces in poppy eradication could put service personnel at risk. Reacting to the report, Liam Fox, the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, said: "The British Government has overall responsibility for dealing with poppy production in Afghanistan and is failing spectacularly. There needs to be a redoubling of reconstruction effort at ensuring alternative incomes for Afghan farmers so that poppy eradication does not drive them into the arms of the Taliban. There also needs to be an unequivocal effort by the Afghan government to deal with the corruption which encourages poppy, and ultimately heroin, production." In a statement, Gordon Brown said: "The international community is united in its desire to prevent Afghanistan once again becoming a failed state." He said progress would be measured "across a wide range of activity" but the Foreign Office agreed the figures for Helmand were "particularly disappointing".
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Defence Notes All prepared for it Defence Minister A.K. Antony has informed Parliament that the armed forces medical services have not expressed any apprehension regarding the preparedness for handling any ill-effects of a nuclear attack on the country. Handling the ill-effects of a nuclear attack would require the involvement of a large number of agencies, including the armed forces medical servcices. The minister said that such preparedness was a continuous process keeping in mind the threat perception. A number of quick-reaction teams in the Army and quick medical teams have been established for the “immediate initial response”. The other measures include the identification of service hospitals in the metros and one hospital in each state and Union Territory as associated medical institutions. Radar and Israel India and Israel are engaged in the co-development and production of air-borne radars due to time and cost overruns in the development of an indigenous version of the system. “Co-development has been initiated for limited series production with ELTA Systems Ltd of Israel, which has experience in developing similar types of radars,” Defence Minister A.K. Antony has said. State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is closely monitoring the project “at the highest level” to expedite it, the minister said. Short of staff The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is short of 383 scientists and this “minimal shortfall” is being met through annual recruitment. The Defence Minister informed Parliament that the DRDO currently had 6,872 scientists against the sanctioned strength of 7,255. “The attrition rate of scientists from the DRDO is only marginally higher than that in private sector industries. Scientists who had resigned have indicated personal or domestic grounds as the reason for leaving,” he said. “However, it is assumed that better opportunities available in private sector industries is the major reason for such attrition. There has been no substantial impact of such attrition on the development of new products and defence warfare systems,” the minister said. New record Cyclists from the Army’s Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) have set a new record in their expedition from Leh to Kanyakumari. The 15-member team was flagged off on July 30 and reached Kanyakumari late on August 17. The earlier record, as available in the Limca Book of Records, is in the name of Mr Hari Shankar Yadav of Lucknow. He had set a record of completing the same journey in 19 days 21 hours and 30 minutes in Oct-November 2005. The Army team, consisting of 15 members, has improved upon Mr Yadav’s timing by one day three hours and 45 minutes. |
The greatest enemies of Ishwara are those who are cowards and doubt the will of Ishwara. Doubters are subject to huge destruction. The ability to Cherish God’s name is obtained only through his grace. Love, to be real, must empty us of self.
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