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A severe indictment Kohli in
custody |
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Neglected
sportspersons When will the mindset change? A PEEP into the living conditions of sportspersons at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium will reveal a lot about the status of sports in India. They are all members of the athletic team, who have qualified for the Athens Olympics. Among them are K.M. Beenamol, who was conferred Padma Shri a fortnight ago, and Neelam Jaswant Singh, who won the Asian Games Gold in Discus in 2002.
Small ministries
are better
So keen Shaukeen !
Right to work for
AIDS patients SYL:
time to rectify past mistakes
|
A severe indictment As the World Bank’s report has confirmed it, Punjab has been a
victim of poor governance. Its decline started in the nineties and
still continues. The successive Congress and Akali governments are to
blame. In the absence of a visionary leadership, the state misplaced
its priorities. It mismanaged its finances — expenditure kept
overshooting revenue. Surprisingly, during the turbulent eighties,
militancy did not hinder Punjab’s upward march. Growth, no doubt,
could have been faster had peace prevailed. Even after peace
returned, the state continued to overspend on a top-heavy police. It
is yet to wind up the police districts. But it was the fifth Pay
Commission Report which financially unsettled the state. Its employees
are the highest paid in the country. The number of IAS officers is
much more than the sanctioned strength. Worse, the bureaucracy is
highly politicised and, as the World Bank report indicates, has
displayed a weak policy-making capacity. The state survives on
borrowed money and is heading for a debt-trap. Salaries, pensions and
interest payments swallow most of the state revenue. The fund squeeze
has resulted in the deterioration of public services. Poor
infrastructure has hampered the growth of industry and
agriculture. When the Amarinder Singh government took over in 2002,
it raised hopes. It restored power and water charges for the farm
sector and promised power reforms. Its crackdown on corruption was
widely applauded. But soon the vested interests prevailed. Intra-party
squabbles have cost the state heavily. MLAs have been appointed
chairpersons of sick and ailing state enterprises. The 2004-05 budget
reflects a lack of will to govern. The replacement of ministers with
parliamentary secretaries shows the state government’s total disregard
for the law that aims to limit the size of ministries. Reports like
this one can be helpful when a government does not know what is wrong
and what should be done to set it right. Here, it is a case of lack of
passion and will to govern. Nevertheless, the World Bank report comes
as a deserved slap on the face of a lazy administration. |
|
Kohli in custody The
nation is bound to heave a sigh of
relief following Thursday’s arrest of Maninderpal Singh Kohli, accused
of rape and murder of 17-year-old British schoolgirl, Hannah Foster,
along the Indo-Nepal border in North Bengal. Hannah’s death stirred the
conscience of millions of people of both India and the United Kingdom.
In the past 16 months, the British Police and the Crown Prosecution
Service had launched one of their biggest manhunts for Kohli. It was
only three days ago that her parents had issued a heart-rending appeal
for information about Kohli in Chandigarh. The media did its duty.
Following an appeal by Hannah’s parents, Kohli’s picture was flashed in
all the newspapers in the country and widely telecast by all channels.
The West Bengal police deserve appreciation for having followed all the
leads carefully and nabbed Kohli. Now that Kohli is in custody, the law
should take its own course. He should be given the severest punishment
for one of the worst crimes he has committed on an innocent girl. It is
not only the prestige of the nation but also the reputation of Punjab
that is involved in this case. Kohli’s modus operandi to hoodwink the
police provides a glimpse of his flawed character. After he fled from
the UK, he moved from one place to another in India and seemed to have
tried to open a new chapter in Kalimpong where people knew him as Mike
Davis. He was a sandwich delivery driver in Britain’s Southampton,
Hampshire, but he popularised himself in Kalimpong as a “friendly
neighbour”, a “doting husband” and a “dedicated doctor”. Most people
knew him there as the “doctor” associated with the Indian Red Cross
Society in spreading awareness about Hepatitis B. He even got married to
the daughter of IRCS’ local secretary. As the crime has been committed
in Britain, the UK government will initiate extradition proceedings
against Kohli for trial. Hopefully, legal formalities will not stand in
the way of speedy dispensation of justice. It is only by punishing Kohli
expeditiously that the humanity can avenge the murder of Hannah who
could not fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor to serve society. |
|
Neglected sportspersons A PEEP into the living conditions of
sportspersons at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium will reveal a lot
about the status of sports in India. They are all members of the
athletic team, who have qualified for the Athens Olympics. Among them
are K.M. Beenamol, who was conferred Padma Shri a fortnight ago, and
Neelam Jaswant Singh, who won the Asian Games Gold in Discus in 2002.
According to a report, they are accommodated in 12x12 windowless
dormitory rooms, each shared by six persons. Whether they are able to
keep themselves fit for the mega event is at best a conjecture. In sharp
contrast, the coaches and officials have been accommodated in VIP,
air-conditioned suites. For those who are familiar with the way
sportspersons are treated in this country, all this will not come as a
surprise. There have been cases when officials outnumbered athletes in
the Indian contingents taking part in international sport events. Little
surprise, few people take up sports as a career. Unlike in the West
where successful sportspersons are assured of good money through
sponsorship and endowments and in countries like China where the state
takes care of their needs, sportspersons in India do not have any
support systems to fall back upon. The exceptions are the cricketers,
who are among the richest sportspersons in the world. Things have
started looking up after the creation of a Sports Ministry headed by Mr
Sunil Dutt. However, a large portion of the money earmarked for sports
is spent on salaries of the officials. State governments have come
forward with generous cash awards for those from their states winning
prizes in international sports meets. All the same, there has been
little change in the mindset as is reflected in the differential
treatment meted out to sportspersons and officials at the Jawaharlal
Nehru Stadium. Is it then any surprise that a country of 1,000 million
does not figure anywhere in the comity of sporting nations? |
|
I’m not young enough to know
everything. — J.M. Barrie |
Small ministries are better On July 7, the 91st Amendment to the
Constitution came into effect. From this day on, the size of the
Councils of Ministers at the Centre and in the states must not exceed
15 per cent of the members in the Lok Sabha or state legislatures. The
logic underlying this Amendment is quite obvious. Cost is not the
central issue, for in relation to the overall cost of government, the
expenditure on ministers is miniscule. Even after the Amendment, the
number of ministers in the Central Cabinet and the big states will
still be too big to make for good governance. The problem is that with
unlimited ministerial berths on offer, the destabilisation of
governments is made easier. Unfortunately, there seems to be little
realisation that too many cooks spoil the broth. Even the National
Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC), which
recommended that the number of ministers "be fixed at a maximum of 10
per cent of the total strength of the popular House of the
legislature", does not seem to have thought this matter through. Even
its recommendation was tweaked a bit to fix the ceiling at 15 per
cent, as we seem to have too many of the overly keen who want to be of
greater service to the public by becoming ministers. It would seem
that the only reason why the Amendment was whisked through — and
whisked through is the only description, for it for it was hardly
discussed in Parliament or in the media — was to offer political
managers some protection against the clamour for berths in the
government. Like all good politicians, they naturally expect to come
out reeking of roses at the same time. There could also be an
unstated reason, which might have to do with the distribution of
wealth. Too many thieves could reduce the individual take and making
ministerships too commonplace only devalued the worth of these
jobs. Whatever be the reasons for the ceiling, good governance or
management principles seem to have little to do with it. We have 543
MPs in the Lok Sabha, which means that we can have up to 81 ministers
in New Delhi. With 787 MPs in all, that means almost one in nine MPs
can expect to be a minister. The states have in all 4,020 MLAs;
opening up possibilities for about 600 ministerial berths for 4,487
MLAs and MLCs. Uttar Pradesh has the biggest Legislative Assembly with
403 MLAs, while Sikkim at the other end has to make do with just 32
MLAs or five ministers. Quite clearly the persons who have applied
their minds to this Amendment do not see government as a
responsibility that has to be sensibly shared. No organisation meant
to function can be designed on such a basis. Analogies are seldom
entirely appropriate, but you will see what one has in mind when you
consider the absurdity of limiting the number of functional
responsibilities in a company to a function of the number of workers
on the payroll. Management structures and hierarchies are based on
assignment of responsibilities based on division of work according to
the technical and managerial specialisations. Thus, a company might
have heads for production, marketing, finance, HRD, legal and
secretarial, and research functions. In small companies, just one or
two persons may perform all these functions, while in a large and
professionally managed corporation, there would be separate or even
more heads of functional areas. However, you just cannot link this to
the number of workers. The important thing is that management
structures apportion tasks and responsibilities according to
specialisation. Obviously, the management of government is a much
more complex, with an infinitely larger set of tasks than the biggest
of the corporations, but to divide the management of the state into 39
functional responsibilities, as is the case now, is to exaggerate that
magnitude and complexity. It is as if in an automobile company, a
person responsible for making gearboxes is at the same level as a
person looking after the paint shop or procuring accessories. As if
this was not enough, they would then rise to the same level as head of
production, marketing or finance. Yet, this is how a Cabinet is
organised. There is a minister for Rural Development and a Minister
for Panchayati Raj Institutions, as there are Ministers for Irrigation
and Fertilizers, sharing the same work desk as the Minister for
Agriculture. Everything in the rural world revolves around
agriculture and agriculture is compositely about water, fertilizer,
food distribution, food processing, agro and rural industries. Who has
ever heard of forests in the urban areas? Instead of assigning the
task of improving the lot of our farmers to just one person, we have
nine departments headed by nine ministers, who often work at
cross-purposes. Even if the ministers are willing, it will be almost
impossible to make the bureaucrats march to the same beat. Therefore,
if the rural sector continues to languish, no one is responsible.
This was not the case 50 years ago. In the first Cabinet led by
Jawaharlal Nehru, there was only one minister for Food and
Agriculture. The only agriculture related function not with this
minister was irrigation. Gulzari Lal Nanda held the portfolio of
Planning, Irrigation and Power, but in those days, additional power
was intended primarily from hydel projects and it possibly made sense
to have irrigation outside the Food and Agriculture Ministry.
Likewise, transport and railway was one ministry, while it has been
broken up into five areas now, some of these quite ridiculously small.
Take the Ministry for Civil Aviation. Apart from Air India, Indian
Airlines, Airports Authority of India and the DGCA, there is little to
it. The first three are companies with full-time managers, supposedly
managing. Since the ministry has little policy to make, it busies
itself micromanaging the companies. Don't the ministers love that,
particularly now when over Rs 20,000 crore worth of aircraft purchases
are planned? What is the need for a Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting when that means little more than just Akashvani and
Doordarshan? Mercifully, there is little by way of purchases in I&B,
even though the previous incumbent seemed to want to make CAS
incumbent on us for reasons other than apparent. The 91st Amendment
is not good enough, as it just does not address the problem. We now
need a 92nd Amendment that will marginally change Article 74 (1) of
the Constitution to read: "There will be a Council of Ministers
consisting of the Ministers for Home Affairs, Defence, Foreign
Relations, Agriculture…" Article 75 (1), which makes it incumbent for
the President to appoint ministers on the advice of the Prime
Minister, remaining as it is then makes the choice of the ministers
entirely his or her. While we are at it, we might want to look at
Article 75 (5) afresh and consider the merit of eliminating the
stipulation of getting elected to either Houses of Parliament or
legislatures. In this manner, we could encourage Prime Ministers and
Chief Ministers to induct professional and competent persons rather
than be limited to professional leaders. The new Prime Minister in
his first address to the nation said: "I am convinced that the
government, at every level, is today not adequately equipped and
attuned to meeting this challenge and meeting the aspirations of the
people. To be able to do so, we require the reform of government and
political institutions." The Chairperson of the UPA is putting
together some sort of an extra-governmental, possibly even an
extra-Constitutional think-tank. Maybe the subject of a smaller and
more functional government will merit his attention? |
So keen Shaukeen !
He
was dark, small statured and
bow-legged. He flaunted moustache a la Confucius and as if to complete
the enigma on his countenance, he sported an imperial chin with almost
no hair on it. Sita Ram had come to stay in our village probably 60
years back from eastern U.P. and that was why they called him Purbia.
By no standards did he resemble other locals in height, gait and
dialect. He took up the profession of a shepherd and huddled the
village herd each morning for grazing. He had about half a dozen boys
to assist him. There was no dearth of milk for the entire band of
shepherds. But Sita Ram ate his stuff with an extra helping of some
special chutney and a heavy punch of lassi. This was in addition to
bread and onion, which his underdogs filled their belly with. The
shepherd’s monkey brigade had a word spread in the village that Sita
was a gourmet — chatora in Haryanavi — who was fond of different food.
His “weakness” for the palate came to be gossiped. “After all what is
so special that he eats?”— was the question Sita had to explain to the
Panchayat one day. Rising a little early than others every morning,
Sita made a paste of garlic pods, added lot of red chillies and salt
to it, put the stuff in a small container and deposited it safely in
the folds of his attire. It was this “extra” helping that made him an
object of envy and people started contemptuously calling him a
shaukeen — one who was given to ‘weaknesses’ in the villagers’
perception. There was yet another shaukeen, an old punk by the name
of Maakad, who became notorious for his ‘disgraceful and flamboyant
style that did not behove men of his age’. Maakad regularly visited a
hair-cutting saloon in the nearby town for getting his eyebrows
plucked — something ‘really objectionable and despicable’. Umpteen
times Maakad explained to his critics that it was for some undesirable
hair that curled and touched his pupils irritably, every now and then,
that he needed a dressing very often; but to no avail. Yet another
shaukeen was Munshi, a middle aged ladies-tailor whose fondness for
attar (perfume) applied on his temples kept the villagers in perpetual
annoyance of him. He was accused of throwing aromatic hints at his
unsuspecting female clients and had to give up his profession and take
up masonry work of brick laying almost as a punishment. I wonder if
someone belonging to those times could do a time-travel and have a
look at the metrosexual men of today. Whoever said only macho men were
historically in great demand! |
Right to work for AIDS patients
The recommendation to cover one lakh patients under the
public health system was made following a petition in the Supreme
Court by the Voluntary Health Association of Punjab, which seeks free
antiretroviral treatment for all HIV/AIDS patients. The latest
heartening news is the preparation of HIV/AIDS Draft Bill, 2004, which
is being hailed for its measures to control the disease and protect
rights of those infected by it. Prepared by Lawyers Collective, the
Bill, for the first time, talks about the rights of the “protected”
(those suffering or perceived to be suffering from HIV/AIDS) persons.
It spells out measures to secure the following rights for them –
right to equality, right to privacy, right to safe working
environment, right to information, right to marry and start a family,
right to autonomy, and most importantly the right to work. The right
to work is being considered the most effective measure in securing the
dignity of HIV/AIDS patients, who tend to lose jobs. Dr A.S. Saroha,
Deputy Director, State AIDS Control Society, Chandigarh, says, “The
disease carries a stigma. Recently four HIV/AIDS infected BSF jawans
were issued termination orders. They have one last opportunity of
being heard. If they are terminated, we would pursue their cases in
court. Meanwhile, the HIV/AIDS Draft Bill has done well to secure the
right to work of infected individuals.” The Draft Bill also, for the
first time, defines the role of the State in providing affordable/
accessible healthcare to the infected, besides providing voluntary
counselling and testing facilities in every district. It prohibits
quackery and proposes legal measures to make those indulging in
quackery accountable for violation of laws. There is also focus on
strategies for the reduction of HIV risk and on social security
provisions for the infected. Further, the Draft Bill provides for the
establishment of a national HIV/AIDS commission, in place of the
existing National AIDS Control Organisation. Though the Bill seeks
to address the gravity of HIV incidence in India, many NGOs feel it
has holes which need to be plugged. Over 40 health experts and NGO
representatives from the North recently met in Panchkula to debate on
the Bill which, they felt, had overlooked the issue of rehabilitation
of commercial sex workers. Apprehensions were also raised about making
the Draft Bill for “consultation only” and “not for circulation.” Mr
Manmohan Sharma of the VHAP, which advocates the need to protect the
most vulnerable (also the most productive) age group, 15 to 49 years,
says the Draft Bill should be open to debate, and it should also
assign a greater role to NGOs, which don’t figure prominently in the
current Bill. Dr B.S. Dahiya, Project Director, AIDS Control
Society, Haryana, when contacted, said, “There were estimated 4.38
million cases of HIV/AIDS in India in 2002. The magnitude of the
problem is multifold. The social stigma persists. Stringent measures
are needed to protect the affected people’s dignity.” Interactions
with Dr Vijay Kumar, a WHO consultant, Dr Avnish Jolly of the Servants
of People’s Society and Ms Veena Kumari of the Human Rights Law
Network led to the exposure of other loopholes in the Draft Bill. It
talks about provisions of counselling and testing centres in
districts, but not at the grassroots level where the risk is higher.
Many NGOs feel blood transfusion, though a significant contributor to
the epidemic (about 20 % cases) in India, has not been elaborately
handled in the Bill. “There is no clear emphasis on the improvement
of blood bank standards, removal of unauthorised blood banks and HIV
testing of professional blood donors,” says Ms Veena Kumari. She
insists that rights of women living with the HIV/AIDS infected should
also be better protected. Recently in two cases at Bathinda and Khanna,
the wives of HIV patients were thrown out of the family after their
husband’s death. They were not given any share in the husband’s
property. Ms Veena Kumari adds, “The Bill must specify property
rights of such women. Further though it talks about the registration
of marriages and pre-marriage counselling to prevent HIV incidence, it
doesn’t suggest measures to simplify procedures. Likewise, the Bill
offers priority in legal proceedings to HIV patients but doesn’t make
the administration of justice time bound. This is important in view of
their short life span. The Juvenile Justice Act has such a
provision.” Another concern stems from the “right to marry and found
a family” which the Draft Bill talks about. Dr Vijay Kumar says,
“Though this is a heartening step, we must devise social security
measures for children born out of the wedlock. Likewise, the Bill must
include a special law for Army men, truck drivers, migrant labourers,
who remain away from homes for long and are hence under high risk.” |
|
SYL: time to rectify past mistakes In
view of the ongoing water war in
which some of the northern states have been drawn into, consequent to
Punjab passing the Bill terminating the water sharing accords, let’s
all very honestly have another look at the merits and demerits of this
issue. Some of the queries that the Haryana and Rajasthan CMs and
others need to answer very truthfully are: Are their states riperian?
Do they even lie in a river basin? Does the water availability worked
out earlier from the 1920-1948 figures hold good today? Have you all
worked out how much water is really surplus after meeting the needs of
Punjab? Is Haryana morally right in taking away water from Punjab,
the 'mother' state, when it is already benefiting from the
Ganga-Yamuna river network. Is Rajasthan justified for all these years
in enjoying the maximum water allocation in the Indira Gandhi Canal
when it is not a riperian state? How does Delhi even figure in the
water allocations? Does it make sense to complete the SYL canal when
there is no surplus water to spare? Punjab was first split in 1947 and
again in 1966. Then came the senseless Rajiv Gandhi-Longowal accord
and the Eradi Commission, which have all made an honest and
nationalist border state like Punjab a beggar to its own water
resouces. A callous and uncaring Centre and a virtually anti-Punjab
Press in the country have complicated the issue. So what if Darbara
Singh had erred and bartered away Punjab’s waters! Is it not time now
to rectify this infirmity with an action that the Punjab Government
has taken very smartly and sensibly? Punjab is being accused in some
circles of defying the law and going against the Supreme Court
verdict. Are not the states part of a federal system where all have
equal rights? Punjab has taken a legal and civilised route through its
legislature and left it to the Supreme Court to finally adjudicate on
the rights of the lawmakers of a state to govern on a matter of water
which is a state subject. Yes, the Centre can move in when there is a
dispute with other states, but is not Punjab's voice to be heard? In
any case, today the SYL canal issue is just a part of the whole
debate, and what the country has to very fairly examine is the question
of starving Punjab for decades. People for their own selfish reasons
have been conveniently missing the wood for trees for all these years,
and it is time we relied more on our sense of morality rather than a
pure legal interpretation. With the new government's stress on the CMP
and agriculture, it’s time that Punjab got its rightful share of
water. And it is also time that our Press highlighted the real
issues involved in the present wrangling, rather than play up a
so-called standoff between a Chief Minister and a Prime Minister.
Punjab's whole economy rests on agriculture, unlike many other states
which have had the best of agriculture and industry. Let us now not
force the Punjabi farmer to change this pattern. |
Temperance is love
surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love
bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice
is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly
ruling; prudence is love making wise distinctions between what hinders
and what helps itself. — Saint Augustine The Buddhas do that tell
the way, it is for you to swelter at the task. — The Buddha Do not
pick up a quarrel by calling anyone bad. — Guru Nanak Not a single
one of Krishna’s deeds was done for Himself. Every one of them was for
the good of others. — Swami Vivekananda Beloved, let us love one
another: for love is of God. — I. John |
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