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EDITORIAL

DEFENCE PREPAREDNESS

Defence Minister George Fernandes does the country proud when he informs that India's forces are in the process of being modernised at almost the same level as the Chinese. In fact entire thrust is 'running parallel' to whatever China is doing or has already done. In doing so India has in mind not only the present but also future power balance in the region. Typically and true to his style George did not mention Pakistan which is a clear indication that Indian defence perceptions, planning and preparedness are China-centric. India has lost the race due to lack of appreciation of various threat perceptions in the neighbourhood as ...more

BOFORS CHARGE-SHEET

Another Bofor's chargesheet has been filed by the CBI in the designated court. This time it is quite significant in as much as the chargesheet is again Hinduja brothers, threesome, for cheating, conspiracy and under prevention of corruption for receiving illegal kickbacks for clinching the....more

Horrors of Autonomy-IV
Rs 20 crores on support-base for autonomy resolution

From B L Kak
A sensational revelation: The J&K Government headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah has already......more

Saving Pakistan from
its 'saviours'

By B Raman
Since the 1950s, the fate of Pakistan has been determined largely by an undeclared alliance ...more

Cable TV expansion
in the Hindi belt

By : P. N. Vasanti
The summary highlights presented here are based on a field study conducted by the...more

Education: A reformative approach

By Dr R R Dubey
The tone & fibre of society depends upon its remarkable progress made in the different areas of .....more

EDITORIAL

DEFENCE PREPAREDNESS

Defence Minister George Fernandes does the country proud when he informs that India's forces are in the process of being modernised at almost the same level as the Chinese. In fact entire thrust is 'running parallel' to whatever China is doing or has already done. In doing so India has in mind not only the present but also future power balance in the region. Typically and true to his style George did not mention Pakistan which is a clear indication that Indian defence perceptions, planning and preparedness are China-centric. India has lost the race due to lack of appreciation of various threat perceptions in the neighbourhood as also global. They continued to live in their own make-believe world and refused to learn any lessons from past or contemporary history. It may be mentioned that George Fernandes stirred up a hornet's nest when he described China as threat perception number one. He faced massive flak from many jaundiced politicians within as also from China. What he says now is just repetition of the same perception although couched in a mild vocabulary.

When he says 'running parallel' it only reveals a policy thrust. In reality India continues to lag-behind in modernisation of defence forces. It is apt to recall that India attained independence in 1947 while China went Red in 1949. Compare it any sphere, they continue to have substantial edge. Peoples Liberation Army (PLA implies all the three services) was the largest at 4 million. They continue to scale down the strength in direct proportion to massive ongoing modernisation drive which essentially means adding more teeth rather than more men. Its present size has already come down to about 27 lakh and by the year 2010 they are destined to have a very slim but active, reflective and reactive PLA whose size could be between 1.5 million to 2 million. Reduction in total strength has been possible because of sophisticated level achieved by them through acquisition/development of modern weapon systems with massive fire-power. Most of it relates to missile systems. They have perfected and put in position even ICBMs in Tibet targetting American cities while the medium range IRBMs continue to target Indian cities and vital installations. What India has done is to move rapidly to develop where possible and to import or manufacture under license badly needed equipment for modernisation. It would thus be quite sometime, may be 10 to 15 years when our ICBMs could be in position fitted with nuclear warheads. Right now only low range Prithvi Surface to Surface missiles (range between 150 to 250 kms) are operationalised while IRBM Agni II is yet to enter service. Likewise Chinese Air Force and Navy has distinct edge over our current possessions. Recent agreement with Russia during Putin's visit for licensed production of 150 SU-30s and negotiations with France for purchase of more Mirage-2000 aircraft are meant to give Indian forces some sort of 'parallel running' with China. Acquisition of 310 T-90 tanks are also meant to achieve the same purpose.

One can also refer Indian Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Tipnis statement advocating rapid transformation of IAF from 'air power' to 'aero-space' power. The futuristic Air Force shall have to be totally space-oriented with perfect synergisation with conventional role limited to air strikes. He also makes it abundantly clear that Air Force is essentially an 'aggressive force' although air defence role is very much present. Air Chief Tipnis probably derives his motivation from Gulf War of 1990, NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia in 1998 and the clinching role played by IAF in the last year's Kargil war. When he mentions IAF to be an aerospace power, he obviously has massive role for the missiles and satellite spying. Army Chief General Padmanabhan has mentioned transformation towards nuclear doctrine besides the role of the conventional wars.

From the above it is evident that Defence Minister is taking vital initiatives on the recommendations of the Chiefs of the three services. Indications are that modernisation is going apace but it is nowhere 'running parallel' to China yet. To achieve that level obviously much more money and effort is needed to make good for the lost time when successive Governments accorded very shabby treatment to the armed forces. Its budget remained almost stagnant for full decade, nay, almost two decades. Nuclear tests were capped in 1974 after first Pokhran blast. Agni development programme was abandoned after technology demonstrator. Ageing aircrafts and naval ships were not replaced while army too faced obsolescence problems without adequate replacements. It is precisely in this direction that Defence Minister mentions allocation of 3% GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for making good for the lost time. This could happen in the 2001 budget. Even now no budgetry constraints are being allowed to come in the way of latest aquisitions. At 3% of GDP, modernisation of all the three wings of armed forces would gain good momentum but it is still far short of what Pakistan spends (8% of GDP). Chinese figures are never available due to theocratic character of its Government which is not answerable to anyone. In India it is totally transparent game with everything accountable to Parliament and questionable at all forums. But money makes the mare go and with 3% GDP it would be quantum jump in annual defence budget. With the report of four Task Forces being deliberated by Group of Ministers (GoM) whose recommendations are slated to be submitted to the cabinet by November 15, defence preparedness could pick up massive momentum.

BOFORS CHARGE-SHEET

Another Bofor's chargesheet has been filed by the CBI in the designated court. This time it is quite significant in as much as the chargesheet is again Hinduja brothers, threesome, for cheating, conspiracy and under prevention of corruption for receiving illegal kickbacks for clinching the Bofors deal of 1986. Its chronology ever since 1986 amply proves that successive Governments at the Centre have been playing truant and never seriously attempted to find the end-user of the Rs 63 crore kickbacks although needle was pointed towards the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. It has been lengthy process of hide and seek game at the CBI level, at the judicial level as also at the Government level. There was more politics than any attempt to unravel the mystery. Again, it was the Swedish radio and Bofors sources that mentioned kickbacks even as the then Government did everything possible to hide the truth. A tutored JPC headed by B. Shankaranand went to the extent of saying that no money was ever paid to anyone. Former Delhi High Court Judge Justice Chawla went to the extent of even quashing the FIR itself. This verdict was however annulled by the Apex Court. Former Foreign Minister of India Madhav Solanki carried and delivered a personal note to his counterpart in Switzerland asking Swiss Government to go slow on delivery of documents as India was not interested in pursuing the case. When it became public, Solanki had to quit the cabinet. Even v P Singh who was then Defence Minister had to go because he incurred the wrath of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for not towing his line on Bofors. This scandal has also earned the ignominy of blackmail exposure in as much as every successive Government tends to go slow on it. It is thus a matter of interest when chargesheet against Hindujas is filed, 13 years after the FIR was filed in 1987. Incidentally, Hindujas have been very close to the power apparatus in New Delhi, particularly to 10 Jan Path and no less to Vajpayee. Timing of charge sheet indicates politicking again.

Horrors of Autonomy-IV
Rs 20 crores on support-base for autonomy resolution

From B L Kak

A sensational revelation: The J&K Government headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah has already spent Rs 20 crores on building support for the controversial autonomy resolution passed by the State Assembly.

The revelation is contained in the book titled Autonomy or Secession-Jammu and Kashmir. And the revelation made by Mr Bhim Singh is also accompanied by equally sensational allegation: Dr Farooq used the State aircraft for going around India for a month, preaching secession in the name of autonomy.

Allegation number two: J&K Chief Minister manipulated the passage of the autonomy resolution on the floor of the State legislature as part of the move to scuttle effort on part of the Central leaders to start a dialogue with the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). Allegation number three: Dr Farooq’s move in the name of greater autonomy is part of international conspiracy to destabilise India via Jammu and Kashmir.

While lambasting the J&K Chief Minister for his acts of omission and commission, Mr Bhim Singh has recorded in his book that Dr Farooq Abdullah has failed to amend himself, that he has lost confidence and support of the people and that there has been "total misuse of power and plundering of public money" in the State. And the book says that half a dozen bureaucrats are ruling the State by proxy, while the Chief Minister does not fight shy "dining and dancing" in the clubs of Mumbai and casinos of London.

Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, too has received flak from the author of the book. Indeed, Mr Bhim Singh has taken strong exception to the unwarranted surrender by the Prime Minister after the Union Cabinet had rejected the autonomy resolution of Dr Farooq Abdullah. Mr Bhim Singh has decried Mr Vajpayee’s attempt to twist his argument on the rejection of the resolution by his Cabinet. The Prime Minister had at that point of time stated that his Government had rejected the resolution and not autonomy.

A pointed question raised by Mr Bhim Singh: Is the National Conference Government asking for autonomy or secession? Answer to this question is available in the book: Jammu and Kashmir has its own Constitution, own flag and has full legislative competence in respect of the residuary matters as well as those covered in the concurrent list. "What more autonomy they are asking for", Mr Bhim Singh has further asked.

The book’s chapter number 20 bears the heading ‘Rejection by Jammu and Ladakh’. Interestingly this chapter consists of just 9 sentences. The message has, at the same time, been made loud and clear: People of Ladakh and Jammu are opposed to the autonomy resolution of the State Assembly. While claiming that not a single Kashmiri individual or group has supported the autonomy resolution, Mr Bhim Singh has said that a ‘referendum’ has been voiced by the entire population of the State on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) against the autonomy plan of the Farooq Abdullah Government.

There is no denying that Kashmir Valley has its own cultural, social, linguistic and political identity and that Kashmir’s association with Ladakh and Jammu came into existence following the Treaty of Amritsar in 1846. Mr Bhim Singh has advocated that all the three regions must be allowed to grow in their own right as part and parcel of the Indian Union.

His prescription: Reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir. The book has opposed any form of autonomy. Reorganisation of the State has to allow Jammu to grow as a State at par with the Kashmir State. The Ladakhis should be allowed to choose between State and the status of the Union Territory. And his funny forecast: After the reorganisation of the State, the reunion of Jammu with PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) and reunion of the Gilgit region with Ladakh will become a smooth process.

Mr Bhim Singh seemed to have been in sheer haste when he sought to build a case against what he has, in his book, described as BJP’s ‘hidden agenda’. He is of the view that the BJP’s international philosophy of economics and politics falls closer to the USA for several reasons. This, the book says, is one of the reasons that the BJP and Zionist group of Israel have been working hand in hand ever since the creation of Israel.

And the book has stated: "BJP’s foreign policy too is influenced by Israel. Establishment of Mosad Headquarters in New Delhi under the guise of FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA) proves the point about BJP-American mutual trust and interaction". Equally thought-provoking is the book’s finding: "Kashmir is a fertile ground for the BJP to perform their political experiment by polarisation among the communal forces to implement their hidden agenda to establish a Hindu State in India by dissecting a Muslim Majority State, Kashmir".

(Concluded)

Saving Pakistan from its 'saviours'

By B Raman

Since the 1950s, the fate of Pakistan has been determined largely by an undeclared alliance between two coercive forces--the religious Ulema and the military.

The provision in the Objectives Resolution adopted by its founding fathers that the State would be governed in accordance with the precepts of Islam gave the Ulema, despite their lacking popular support, the right to determine whether laws and governmental decisions/actions were in accordance with these precepts and to apply the coercive power of religious medievalism against those who had, in the eyes of the Ulema, deviated from these precepts.

The Pakistani Constitution, inter alia, defines high treason as the subversion or abrogation of the Constitution through the use of force. A compliant judiciary has repeatedly exempted the military from this definition, by upholding its seizure of power and suspension or abrogation of the Constitution under the doctrines of "civil necessity" and "unavoidable act of military revolution" to save the State from collapse.

This judicially-sanctioned extra-constitutional coercive power has been repeatedly used by the military against duly-elected political leaderships in violation of another Constitutional provision, which subordinates the military to the elected political leadership.

The Pakistani society, its political leadership and large sections of its elite cannot escape their share of the blame for the steady growth of this coercive axis. While ready to express themselves against the coercive power of the Ulema whenever they had an opportunity of doing so anonymously as during the elections, they refrained from doing so publicly lest they be dubbed anti-Islam.

While criticising the repeated military intervention in politics, they did not hesitate. to seek its complicity in their campaigns against their political opponents as sections of the political leadership did in seeking the intervention of the military against the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto in 1977, against Ms.Benazir Bhutto in 1990 and against Mr.Nawaz Sharif in 1993 and 1999.

For Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the army was a saviour when it arrested and prosecuted Mr.Sharif in October 1999, but became a curse and anti-democratic only when it refused to drop the corruption proceedings against her.

Till 1970, these two coercive powers acted in parallel and not in concert. The first signs of a concert became evident in the then East Pakistan in 1971 when the military and the Jamaat-e-Islami acted in tandem in suppressing the Bengalis, despite their being as pious Muslims as the people of the then West Pakistan.

Zia-ul-Haq institutionalised this coercive axis. He used the Ulema and the religious parties, in support of the US objectives, in Afghanistan and prepared the ground for using them later against India in Kashmir and elsewhere. He promoted a new brand of Ulema, the jehadi kind. Till his advent to power in 1977, the Ulema still had a large number of genuinely pious, well-read and highly respected religious scholars.

It was Zia who had them marginalised and replaced by the Jehadi variety consisting of people like Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the present Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, of the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Pakistan. The Ulema promoted by Zia were known more for their knowledge of the Kalasnikov and the RDX explosives than for their religious piety and Islamic scholarship.

Zia did more damage to the Pakistani society and economy than any other Pakistani ruler. Weaponisation, heroinisation, sectarian brutalisation and medievalisation were his legacy to the people of Pakistan.

The Pakistani people are haunted today and will continue to be haunted for years to come by the devastating impact of his action in practically handing over the country's education system to this jehadi brand of Ulema. He inducted them in large numbers into the Education Department, let them exercise their coercive power in deciding the syllabus and abdicated the responsibility of the State to provide modern education to the children, particularly in the rural areas, who cannot afford to go to private schools.

Pakistan is one of the very few countries in the world where Government expenditure on education has been steadily declining. If this has not resulted in a deepening unalphabetisation of the society, it is largely due to the network of madrasas set up by the Ulema, with Saudi and heroin money, in the rural areas.

The rural youth of Pakistan, who have grown up during the last 20 years, do not know the world outside the world of the Ulema and are strangers to the new frontiers of knowledge. Their knowledge is confined to the Holy Koran as interpreted by these bigoted Ulema and to the glories of so-called martyrdom in the cause of Islam.

The Ulema painstakingly excluded from the curriculum humanities, Western history and thought, logic, science or any other subject which might have made the youth develop the capability for independent thinking and start questioning their

medieval mindset and teachings.

In no other Islamic country of the world---not even in Iran-- has the Ulema acquired such a stranglehold over the education system as in Pakistan. It produced willing cannon fodder for the "jehad" in Afghanistan, Jammu & Kashmir in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, southern Philippines, the Xinjiang province of China, the Central Asian Republics, and the Chechnya and Dagestan areas of Russia and little else.

Pakistan inherited from the British a three-commodity (textiles, sports and leather goods) and one-port (Karachi--excluding East Pakistan) economy. More than 50 years after independence, it has become just a four-commodity economy, with heroin being the only, but the most lucrative addition.

How can there be a diversification of the economy without skilled manpower due to the shambles in the education system? Which foreign investor will be interested in a country, which produces more Kalashnikov-wielding bigots than computer-savvy professionals and more heroin power than brain power and in which one is tranported in the time machine from the modern to the medieval or even pre-medieval?

The greatest threat to Pakistan's future as an independent nation-State is not from India as its people are repeatedly told by the Ulema and the military, but from this coercive axis of the two. Its nuclear weapons may be a deterrent against India as perceived by them, but it will not be a deterrent against this creeping medievalisation of the society by the Ulema with the complicity of the military.

Zia made this coercive twosome into a triumvirate, with the cooption of the narcotics barons. It is now the coercive power of the Ulema and the military, supported by the money power of the narcotics barons, which stands in the way of Pakistan taking its place in the comity of modern, democratic nations.

Even, in the pre-1977 period, when the Ulema's malign influence was not as strong as it is today, the military did not produce many enlightened, far-seeing officers. It is even less likely to do so today due to the creeping mullaisation of not only the lower and middle, but also the senior ranks.

For the first time in its history, the Pakistani Army has three veritable Mullahs in uniform as Lt.Generals-- Lt.Gen.Mohammad Yousaf Khan, the Chief of the General Staff, Lt.Gen. Muzaffar Usmani, CO, 5 Corps, Karachi, and Lt.Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, CO, 4 Corps, Lahore. All of them, along with Gen.Pervez Musharraf, the self-styled Chief Executive, won their professional spurs under Zia.

They are the progenies and the beneficiaries of this coercive triumvirate. Will it be reasonable to expect them to act against it?

The USA's Pakistan experts can be very simplistic in their analyses and assessments. Many of them shared, with the thousands of Pakistanis who hailed Gen. Musharraf as the saviour last year, fond hopes that this Scotch-gulping, dog-loving and Bangkok-massage-parlour-frequenting blue-eyed boy of Gen.Anthony Zinni, former CO of the US Central Command, might pull Pakistan out of the medieval vortex in which it has been caught.

Instead of doing so, he has added to the coercive power of the Ulema by conceding its demands one after the other and by proclaiming his public support of their jehadi madness. Even Zia did not make so many concessions to the religious extremist groups in his first year in office as Gen.Musharraf has done. The Ulema, consequently, feel stronger today than ever in the past.

What is the state of Pakistan today, one year after this self-proclaimed saviour assumed office on October 12,1999?

The highly-respected "Friday Times" of Pakistan wrote as follows: "The Army is in power, full stop. The Ulema are also partly in power because of their armed militias and their contribution to the Army's crucial agenda of keeping the Kashmir issue alive. They exercise considerable coercive and ideological control over civil society. Their leverage on the Government is far more palpable than that of the politicians. It is no surprise, therefore, that they have asserted their agenda very aggressively. They have an economic programme that scares even the Army with its radicalism. They want a change in foreign policy that even the hawkish establishment in Islamabad cannot implement. And all of them have announced their decision not to contest elections, but to gain power on the basis of militant Islamic ideology. The politicians, in the meanwhile, are nowhere on the scene…. While both are allies in jehad, they differ in their approach to the political system. The Army wants to re-establish guided electoral democracy in the country, while the Ulema want a more utopian order in which a Western-type representative system is simply not permitted. Add to this the confusion generated by Constitutional provisions that favour the Ulema, but not the politicians, like the Council of Islamic Ideology and the Federal Shariat Court, and you have a situation that is primed to tilt in favour of anarchy."

Who can save Pakistan from its 'saviours' and how? That is the question every right-thinking and forward-looking Pakistani must be asking himself or herself as they watch on their TV screen moving scenes of how the people of Yugoslavia rose like one man against another self-proclaimed saviour---Slobodan Milosevic. (8-10-00)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (Retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.

Cable TV expansion in the Hindi belt

By : P. N. Vasanti

The summary highlights presented here are based on a field study conducted by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) in the Hindi belt between June-July, 2000 in 12 different clusters spread across six Hindi-speaking states and covered 140 cable TV operators in all.

Despite recent proliferation of TV channels, there is scope for another 15 to 25 satellite channels, which are distributed by cable TV operators (total channels available to subscribers of Cable TV could be 45-55). About 10 per cent of operators now have capability to offer 50 or more new channels with the existing infrastructure. Eighty per cent of Cable TV operators offer their own video channels. They have benefitted more recently. There is a spurt in viewership of these video channels as many of them have added local news, local interactive programmes, besides showing ''latest films''. Many of them also repeat Mahabharat/Ramayana serials. Some of these operators are giving two video channels, one for feature films and the other for folk music, local programmes, news, etc. Overall, despite call to end pirated prints of newly released feature films, the extent of showing of ''new films'' on Cable TV is now more than a year old, according to this CMS study.

Most cable operators in the Hindi belt have been in operation for over eight years, but only 10 per cent of them have upgraded or replaced equipment, including cables, in the last couple of years. At present Cable TV operators are offering 30-40 channels in all, about one-third of them are pay channels. On an average they are offering 10 to 15 pay TV channels, mostly bundled and with a ''packed pricing'' arrangement. A few are offering 20 or more channels as pay TV.

To cope with increasing number of pay TV channels, the subscription rates for Cable TV have been increased anywhere between Rs 2 to 50 per month in the last one year. The rates are expected to go up further in 2001 by another 10 to 15 per cent easily. Operators capable of not succumbing to big corporate MSOs are hoping to continue their local operation, no matter what else happens, including on the DTH front. They are, however, apprehensive of DTH.

Cable TV operators in the Hindi belt would like to be perceived as giving ''latest, including foreign channels''. Hence they will continue to distribute English channels, unconcerned of local viewership. Little over half of Cable TV operators in the Hindi belt operate atleast one channel of their own. ''Regional channels'' being launched by various national channel operators are facing competition from these ''local channels''. Many of them are offering such programmes with a ''brand name'' for their channel. Most of these programmes comprise ''local news'' and entertainment type, including film-based songs or music or latest feature films. Sixty per cent of Cable TV operators have their own video facilities.

Operators realize the increasing importance of their role as ''gate keepers''. They seek more and more attention and pampering from satellite channels- that is, by way of gifts, incentives and, more importantly, of packaged deals on pay TV channels. They continue or discontinue a channel depending from satellite channels and, of course, the subscriber demand and competitive compulsions from other local Cable TV operators.

Single channel operators stand at a disadvantage as compared to multi-channel operators in their relations with Cable TV operator and his priorities. All cable operators know that the number of TV channels are bound to increase in the coming years and hence the need for being selective of channels being distributed. Hardly 20 percent of Cable TV operators in the Hindi belt have a computer or a fax or Internet facility. Most operators now know that Cable TV has potential to offer telephony and Internet and they are waiting for an opportunity to offer these services as well to their subscribers. They are however not sure of the extent of investment required to offer these services.

Interestingly, unlike a year ago, most Cable TV operators are involved in booking local advertisements, either to telecast on their own local channel or on behalf of a MSO, if they are part of an MSO, or both. In fact, the revenue from such bookings of local ads is anywhere above of Rs 1000 a month and this has given an added impetus. Further, it also has brought in new found competitiveness and advertising opportunity, which the local trade could not have otherwise.

The satellite channels not offered to subscribers are mostly the ones where the channel operators have not approached the Cable TV operators. Zee TV, Sony TV, Discovery and Star Plus, in that order, is what by and large Cable TV operators of Hindi belt consider as ''more reliable'' channels technically and the viewership point of view. In fact, these are the very channels which are ''sought after'' or favoured by subscribers locally. To Cable TV operators, Sony and Zee TV channels are considered as ''must'' channels.

Jain TV is mentioned by operators as one of the channels they may drop, if they have to accommodate a new one. Apparently, no one from Jain TV channel had approached Cable TV operators. Also perhaps because the audience demand for ''only news'' channels is next only to ''composite channels''. Interestingly, the CMS study has not found any instance of a cable operator receiving notice from District Magistrate for contravention of any law intended to avoid undesirable programmes. Despite recent efforts by channels, including Doordarshan, that subscribers should ask cable operators for specific channels, ''the demand building'' is yet to be felt by operators (perhaps because mose of the time their telephone is out of reach for subscribers).

Not all cable operators are distributing more than two Doordarshan channels. In fact only one channel of Doordarshan at best is taken seriously. The quality of other Doordarshan channels, even if given, is relatively poor. no wonder why Doordarshan has appointed an outside agency to monitor Cable tV operations, although the need is for a Doordarshan official to go around and meet Cable TV operators.

But for the legal obligation, Doordarshan channels would not be there in the bouquet offered by Cable TV operators. That is why the Cable TV Act of 1995 has been amended to ensure airing of three Doordarshan channels. But it will be a futile effort, if the quality is not improved. The need is to impove the technical quality of signals of Doordarshan channels. Also, if the present trend of auctioning out of time slot of Doordarshan channels continues, the resistance would be even more. Unless Cable TV operators expand their services, including the basic telephony service, the country will not be able to realize the targets set in the National Telecom Policy of 1999. For this the operators deserve liberal assistance from financial institutions to upgrade their infrastructure.- CNF

Education: A reformative approach

By Dr R R Dubey

The tone & fibre of society depends upon its remarkable progress made in the different areas of development by developing industrial estates, managing education for all, emphasising over green revolution, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals & other buildings, providing electricity, oil, gas and energy to the urban & rural sections of the society. Out of all these, education sector is the most significant over which every human resource of development lies. More innovative vistas opened in education produce more qualitative man-power for other fields too.

However, teacher is the main hub around whom the entire educational system revolves. Even the available infrastructure in the school becomes more fruitful if the teacher is efficient in his functioning and the most attractive material may not catch imagination if the teacher is dull. The teacher has been regarded as the builder of the nation and an architect of men & minds since times immemorial. In India, he has been a Guru of Bahmanic system, the Acharya of Budhistic one and the Ustad for Muslims. He has earned a high esteem every time, everywhere adopting education profession for whole life. He has always tried to build professional image and felt need for research & innovation in education. He never cursed his profession. However, he sought pleasure in doing his job as a social service and believed in pure living. Even today, the positive philosophy, personal qualities, versatality in knowledge, articulated teaching - technology, professional satisfaction and social adjustment are some of the pyramids of a good teacher. A real teacher is always simple, clear and satisfied in his life and remains always hard-working, talented and optimistic. He communicates his teaching based on scientific knowledge, gives clear assignments to the students, teachers effectively, uses various modes of teaching, adopts suitable illustrative material with his resourcefulness even if the means are not available. In the words of Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah, "It is on the creative role of imaginative teachers that a democratic society depends for making the real impact on the reconstruction of society."

Every teacher can improve teaching if he develops "work culture and dignity of labour" like spirits in him, becomes sincere towads duty and applies tenor of contents full of reasoning while teaching in class-room. He must sympathetically cultivate love in him for children, understand and solve their problems. His competencies and proficiencies can make him more winsome when he gathers knowledge from east and west and uses latest technology in delivering the lesson. "Advance preparation", "self-analysis" & "Review" in the class-room are the supporting feeders towards appropriate teaching.

To be free & frank, it is out of place to mention that work culture is to be given due consideration by every teacher in schools even if resources are limited. As per Vivekananda, the teacher may come down to the level child and peep into the mind of the child to understand his complexities in order to guide him not only in the class-room but also outside by solving his personal problems besides academic one. In fact, teacher should not be horror to the learner. He should rise above his stereotype behaviour. The attitude of teacher should not be scolding or discouraging the students who raise quarries in the class-room. He should rather feel that the child is immature and must understand his psychology while replying his questions in the class-room. He should not use any means of capital punishment and must deal the child with affections and sympathy. No doubt, the teacher is a leading member of modern society in the present era, where he has to play variagated roles in his life. Like others, he is also fond of watching T.V., seeing movie, enjoying invitation, going for a trip, striving for wealth, scooter, car, house & other luxuries, possessing temepraments as that of a common man. By and large, he is to play different roles in the society keeping in view his responsibilities but he should not forget that he is a torch bearer, an angel of morality, religion and human cult, regarded as a model for others and not parallel to others. He needs to be more wise among others, sincere in performing duties and a talented one having lust for knowledge every time. His motive should be to make his students learn while sitting home in study corner or in the school attending class-room or consulting library. His heart needs to reverberate with passion and devotion to build the future generation. He should lead his life on idealistic principles gained through knowledge, experience and maturity. To him, positive & pragmatic philosophy of life is as essential as a beacon to the pilot in air and to the navigator at sea. He should not agonise himself by comparing his lot with the other professions which have more material returns. He must be always polite, kind and co-operative having belief in hard-working, optimism and learning. He should be a fountain of knowledge having good qualities being a resourceful and affectionate one. Patient listening and deep understanding of the children should be his main springs of life. Brubacher has assigned to the teacher the task of educating the pupils for life in an existing society.
 



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