Daily Excelsior... Editorial

Education at +2 level
Education

By Prof. M. R. Puri
The structure of education was reorganised as a result of the recommendations...more

By Mohit Sen
The first phase of the elections is over. In a sense...more

By Dr Bharat Bhushan
It is now the turn of Arun Nehru to give an interview to the R S S mouthpiece "Panchjanya" and spit...more

Russia from a super
power to a supplicant

By N. B. Menon
The tragedy of Russia is that after the collapse of the USSR it got a President in Boris Yeltsin...more

EDITORIAL

MEDICARE

The scandalous affairs relating to spurious drugs and diversion of medical stores to market rather than giving the same to patients in valley shows the abysmal depths to which the medicare has sunk. That all this has been going in with gay abandon provides enough of proof of official apathy. There is no denying the fact that instead of checking the malaise and improving medicare by the department heads they willy-nilly connived with the loot. It is common knowledge that even indoor patients are not provided with prescribed medicines and attendants howsoever poor have to buy the same from outside. It is this surplus that finds its way to the medical shops. If only the medicines have been given to the patients for whom these are meant, there would not have been any surplus in stores to sell the same by the concerned. Again, it cannot be a single man's job. Unless those meant to keep watch and run administration are also party to it, scandals of such magnitude cannot go on unabated.

The worst part of the story relates to purchase of spurious or sub-standard drugs for use in Government hospitals. Instead of saving the patient such drugs could be potential killers at times depending upon the resistance of the patient to such spurious intake. This scandal is much more serious in that somebody's life is involved. Who are the functionaries who cleared purchase of such spurious drugs? Who are the people who siphoned off handsome commission on such purchases? The nexus is deep enough to warrant even CBI enquiry. True, Vigilance people have raided many stores in valley's districts. But extraneous considerations and clout of the culprits involved in such scandals result in either dilution of the entire case or it is so framed asto ensure ultimate acquittal. Vigilance department may not be blamed for such investigations and challans that cannot withstand legal scrutiny. At the base of the malaise lies political corruption where high-ups come to the rescue of the guilty. There is another clause that Vigilance have to obtain permission of the Government for launching proceedings against the alleged accused officials. Here again permission is either not granted or delayed so much that makes the entire enquiry futile. Ultimately it becomes a stale story over the years and public memory being short all is forgiven or forgotten. That has been the fate of most the corruption cases booked by Vigilance. This means system in vogue suffers from gross infirmities and inconsistencies so much so that there is wide ratio between number of cases booked, challaned and ultimately punished. Incidentally, token punishment relates only to small fries in the game and the big fish never gets hooked up.

The position in Jammu region is no better if one goes by the charter of demands presented by Junior Docs to the Principal Medical College Jammu. A closer study of the demands reveal that most of the demands are 'patient friendly' to ensure proper, better and timely medicare and there are very few personal demands for the Junior Doctors themselves. This itself is sufficient proof that present dispensation of proper medicare suffers from several inadequacies. For instance JDA has demanded sufficient life saving drugs in the emergency, air conditioning of the set up there, positioning of properly trained para-medical staff with sufficient experience to deal with emergencies. They have also asked presence of specialists who are better placed to treat the emergency cases. There is the problem of hygiene, security and proper beds posed by them during their interaction with Principle. There are various complaints of unserviceability of equipment, lifts and proper chairs to move the patients who obviously are not in a position to climb the stairs or even walk a few steps. One is really grateful to such Junior Docs who have proper medicare of the ailing humanity uppermost in their mind while projecting various demands and the difficulties faced by them in rendering proper services. All these demands are pointers to the medicare being in bad shape. Many of such bottlenecks could be easily attributed to lack of resources. But this is only a ploy. One can always manage things with the allocated funds. The fact that it continues to be elusive should attract the attention of the administration so that there is no scope for alibis and man-made shortages and unserviceabilities. Incidentally, the above deficiencies in medicare have been pointed out by the Junior Doctors who have to face the music and ire of the aggrieved for none of their fault. As regards pilferage from stores and clandestine sale in the open market besides the spurious drugs, the malaise in Jammu region may not be that deep-rooted. But non-supply of prescribed drugs, be it for out-patient or indoor patients do call for remedial action at the appropriate level. Vigilance raids have never done any good thus far and it is better that the problem is dealt with at the administrative level with proper checks and accountability.

INDO-FRENCH RELATIONS

The traditional bonds of friendship and elaborate defence and economic cooperation between India and France gets further boost when France advocates and supports permanent membership of Security Council for India in reorganisation exercise already under way. Thus, amongst the five permanent security council members, Russia and France are already inclined in favour of India. America and Britain have been proposing Germany and Japan, both being economic giants and pro-western. It may be apt to point out that both the countries were initiators of World War II in which both France and Russia were the victims. They thus have preference for those countries who really deserve to be permanent members of re-organised security council. It may be of historical interest to remind the readers that during Presidentship of General De Gaule, France opted to have independent nuclear deterrent thus freeing itself from the American nuclear umbrella. This was resented by USA and she tried all means to dissuade France from becoming independent nuclear power. It is precisely in this context that France is the only nuclear- have which didnot take note of Pokhran II blasts nor imposed any sanctions against India. In fact, it advised India to stop raking up 'Minimum nuclear deterrent' theory. France instead wants full throttle nuclear deterrent. France is also the country that criticised American sanctions and readily substituted all that was needed by this country. France is very firm to combat global terrorism and in this context extends full support to India which has been facing Pak sponsored terrorism in its most sinister form. France and India as well share common policy towards Iraq as regards lifting of sanctions against it.

France has been major supplier of defence equipment to this country. It wants to enlarge this cooperation as manifested by agreeing to supply state-of-art Mirage- 2000 fighter/bombers that did yeomen service in Kargil war. This cooperation in defence is based on the concept of India playing vital role in South Asia both in economic and security matters. That is possible only if India becomes nuclear capable with its economy strong enough to withstand any pressure from various quarters. At this pace and at this rate, Indo-French friendship is slated for quantum jump.

Education at +2 level
Education

By Prof. M. R. Puri

The structure of education was reorganised as a result of the recommendations of a Education Commission, popularly known as Kothari Commission (1964-66). It was felt that the explosion of knowledge necessitated lengthening of the total period of school and college education. The existing duration was 14 years, 10 years schooling followed by 4 years college education or 11 years schooling followed by 3 years college education to obtain the first University Degree.

As compared to this the situation in the Western countries, especially in USA was different. There the duration of school and college education was 16 years, 12 years schooling followed by 4 years Degree Course in the college. To reach parity of standards of education with these countries, the duration of education had to be enhanced from 14 to 16 years.

But the Commission thought that the raise of 2 years in the duration would be a big jump. So, they decided to raise the duration by only one year, that is from 14 to 15 years. This was the genesis of the new scheme. The scheme implies 10 years of secondary education +2 years of higher secondary education +3 years of college duration.

Though the Kothari Commission submitted its report to the Govt. of India in June 1996, action on its really started in 1968. Thus the 10+2+3 pattern of education became a reality 1968. Thus the 10+2+3 pattern of education became a reality at the national level in 1968.

The implementation of the scheme had serious administrative and financial implications. Therefore, action on the scheme has not been uniform in the various states of the country. Maharashtra, for example, runs the +2 classes in intermediate colleges located on the campuses of their old Degree Colleges. In Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Chandigarh, the +2 classes still run in schools as well as colleges. The well known D.A.V. College of Chandigarh has a provision for these two classes.

In our State the process of upgradation of High Schools to Higher Secondary Schools with 12 classes was initiated in 1975 when I was on deputation to the State Govt as Director, Planning and Colleges. Mir Qasim the then Chief Minister was about to step down as Chief Minister and hand over to Sheikh Sahib. I said to my Education Commissioner, Mr. R. C. Raina, "Let us make a beginning with the new scheme before Qasim Sahib hands over". He agreed. So, after a quick survey of existing facilities and future potential of various high schools, we decided to upgrade half a dozen of them to the higher secondary status. But by taking this decision I created a problem for myself as I usually do in my over-enthusiasm to introduce innovations. There was trouble at three places, Hiranagar, Reasi and Kishtwar. At each of these places there was an agitation by the public as a protest for not upgrading their school. The trouble at Kishtwar took a serious turn, and there was firing by the police. I was sent by the Government to tackle the situation at Hiranagar and Reasi and pacify the people. My persuasion and police action contained the situation. With the passage of time the process of upgradation accelerated and today in our State the +2 classes have been completely delinked from the colleges and are being run solely in the 12 year Higher Secondary Schools. This is the age of professional and not scholastic education. Every parent wants to see his child, be it a boy or a girl, as a doctor, an Engineer, or a Chartered Accountant. He wants him or her to be equipped with some professional Degree. It is after +2 stage that the children become eligible to go for these courses. Hence, this stage has become crucial stage in the life of a student. It will not be wrong to say that the +2 stage decides his/her fate.

But what is happening at the +2 level at present should be a matter of concern for the whole nation. Formal education at this stage has been completely disrupted and the students are running about to collect 'notes' from private tutors. The institutions where the students joins is only for enrolment and not for teaching which is done in the improvised class rooms of tutors. The student may or may not attend the school. But he goes on doing the rounds from dawn (or shall I say' pre dawn') to dusk. During this 2 years period he neither grows mentally nor develops any worthwhile relationship with his school or the teachers. Like a rolling stone he gathers no moss. He is revolving around the Competent Authority, which conducts a snap test to decide his fate. His performance in qualifying examination is assigned no weightage in this test.

Should this be his fate after receiving quality education in some of the prestigious high schools of the town? Look what he is acquiring in his early school education. Sound teaching within the school by his own teachers, comprehensive and continuous evaluation again by his own teachers, participation in a rich feast of colourful programmes of debates, painting and music competitions, developing habits of sharing and caring all the time. Should this child be thrown on the rugged slopes of +2 stream where he loses all tenderness and sensibilities? How to save him from this tyranny? I have no answer.

Perhaps, if we scrap the system of entrance tests and make admissions to professional courses solely dependent on the merit in the qualifying examination, the right focus, on studies in the institutions may be restored. Perhaps, the intervention of the Supreme Court on a public interest litigation may help in this matter. Our Supreme Court has acquired a reputation for providing innovative solutions to complicated problems.

(The author is a former Vice-Chancellor Jammu University)

Scum from the churning campaign

By Mohit Sen

The first phase of the elections is over. In a sense it is futile to speculate which way the voter has gone. The results on October 6-7 will tell us that. Still the campaign for the phase has things to tell us.

What stands out is the way in which Mrs Sonia Gandhi has battled. Almost all the opinion polls were against her. On top of it came the vicious personal campaign to deny her full citizenship of India. Because she was not born in India and of Indian parents she was not fit, so the slanderers said, to hold the highest offices in the country. This was what was said at the polite level. The bulk of the campaign against her, however, was typified by the sneer by Mr Pramod Mahajan, which he has not been able to successfully deny.

Indira Gandhi had also to face the same kind of attack. Unless you flaunted your loyalty to the so-called Indian image of a virtuous woman as Uma Bharati and Sushma Swaraj do, there is no end to the filth that will be poured on your head. Women playing a public role are not taken too kindly.

Much was also sought to be made of her so-called lack of experience. On the basis of this she was to be denied the right to acquire that experience, i.e., by holding office. She had not any personal experience either of political campaigning or of leading such an enormous and diversified a party as the Congress. In a very short span of time she demonstrated her capacities both as a campaigner and as the supreme leader of the Congress.

In the campaign itself she has shown qualities of fearlessness, physical endurance and determination which places her at the same level as her predecessors of the Nehru family. There are two other aspects of the campaign, however, to which attention needs to be drawn.

The first and most important aspect is her rapport with the masses. Mr Vajpayee also drew crowds, though less than what was expected. But these were organised crowds, some of whom came to hear the famous orator about whom they had been told so much. The crowds that came to Mrs Sonia Gandhi's meetings had, of course, also to be gathered. But the vast majority came to both hear and to support. They were crowds of solidarity with a brave woman who was again risking everything for her party and her country.

The second aspect is that while she certainly strongly criticised the BJP it was criticism of their performance and policies. She made no attacks on the personality or personal life of the Prime Minister or any other BJP leader. What was missed in much of the reporting of her speeches was the alternative set of policies that she set out. The focus of the reporting was on the criticism that she made of the Government. But she also spoke as the leader of a future government, even though the question of prime ministership was not answered.

What Mrs Gandhi spoke was contained in the election manifesto of the Congress which, incidentally, ran into over 60 pages, guaranteeing that it would not be read except by experts. But what she emphasised was what was important. Her emphasis was on development oriented to the removal of poverty and the providing of employment. It was exactly the correct emphasis. It should, however, have been more prominently stressed so that the BJP would have been compelled to react to it.

The importance of an election campaign is not only the enthusiasm that it generates among the supporters of particular parties and among the new followers who are won over by it. The most important aspect of an election campaign is the atmosphere that it creates. If the alternative policy components of Mrs Gandhi's campaign had been highlighted more the atmosphere would have been made more conducive for economic development in the future.

The BJP relied entirely on Mr Vajpayee as its mascot and its star speaker. Mr Advani played only a small supporting role. The campaign of the BJP, however, did not depend so much on him as the fact that it had two dozen allies.

The election campaign of the BJP was the campaign of all those who were willing to be part of its company atleast as far as the ascent to power was concerned. Mr Vajpayee went to different parts of the country and supported and received support from his allies. But these allies stuck to their home turf. The only exception was their swooping down on Bellary to try to defeat Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

Mr Vajpayee himself did not project the integral unity of India; rather he projected the fact that his party was no longer regarded as untouchable by a wide spectrum of parties which had nothing in common with each other.

What is common between Ms Mamta Banerjee and Sardar Surjit Singh Barnala ? They at best have a nodding acquaintance with one another since both have been members of the Lok Sabha. Mr Naveen Patnaik has scarcely been in the company of Mr Bal Thackeray while the relations between Mr K Karunanidhi and Mr Chandrababu Naidu have never been cordial and cannot be cordial considering their attachment to narrow and parochial sub-nationalisms.

Mr Vajpayee made much of Kargil, but the counter-attack on this issue by the Congress and the Left diminished considerably the gains he hoped to make by playing up this issue. On corruption also he was cornered and nothing much could be made about Bofors, especially as it was the gun which played a key role in the Kargil success story. When these two ploys did not pay off he took up the coalition theme. This, however, was his weakness.

If most of India was left to the two dozen allies scattered all over the country, the BJP needed to and was expected to deliver the goods in the Hindi heartland - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. In this area the BJP did not gain much by proclaiming that it had allies from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. It lost by officially not being able to proclaim its communalised Hindu character. It lost by officially not being able to proclaim its attachment to the Chatur Varna casteist hierarchy. It lost, in other words, by not being able to proclaim what it was itself and what was its identity.

What impact this will have on seats cannot be predicted now. Nevertheless, it can be stated that the BJP has lost the power of its attraction in its drive to retain Central government power. - CNF

Russia from a super power to a supplicant

By N. B. Menon

The tragedy of Russia is that after the collapse of the USSR it got a President in Boris Yeltsin, who does not care for democratic values. One hopes Vladimir Putin would be the last prime minister of Russia appointed in President Yeltsin's tenure, which ends next June. In the last seventeen months, Russia has seen five prime ministers thanks to the sacking obsession of the President. Were there more dismissals to come, in the midst of Russia's economic instability? No one is sure. Taking advantage of political instability Islamic fundamentalism is tearing apart the Federation, Chechnya has declared independence, and Dagestan rebels are fighting for Secession.

Recently, in a recorded telecast, however, President Yeltsin has named Putin also as his successor, that is, the next President of Russia. But his ways have made the Russians quite sceptical and they feel King Boris is capable of anything.

Now Boris Yeltsin is an ailing, isolated old man with few months more in office. Heart patients like him suffer from symptoms that go with the sort of behaviour he displays: Disorientation, a short attention span, slurring of words and short term memory loss.

But from the prime ministerial choice he made this time, it also shows the diminishing number of his close associates. In Moscow they are called the Family. It consists of Tatyana Dyachenko, the President's daughter and a Kremlin advisor; controversial super-oligarch Boris Berezovsky; Alexander Voloshin, the chief of Yeltsin's staff; former aides Yumashev and Chubais.

Yeltsin's election of Putin, a virtual novice in political office, as successor reflects a dilemma Yeltsin is facing at the fag end of his rule. He is apparently worried about two things: His legacy to Russia and security for his family friends after he is gone. He very much wants the countrymen to remember him as the father of democracy in Russia.

But rampant corruption had been an inalienable feature of his two-term Presidency, and his family insiders, mainly his daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, have long been believed as tainted. As long as he remains in office, legal proceedings against his intimate circle is impossible. So far, the rule of law has not taken firm roots in the country.

But what would happen to the family once he is out of office? The problem is increasingly taking a serious turn. First, the Swiss government has recently initiated an investigation into money-laundering charges against several big Russians. Second, a new $15 billion scam by Russian mafia has been discovered in Washington, which is potentially the largest scam. A part of IMF money loaned to Russia is said to be involved in it. The names of many former or current Kremlin officials, Yeltsin's daughter and her cronies can be among the suspects. The investigations could be quite ominous for Yeltsin and his family friends.

It coincided with equally threatening political events in Moscow, where a powerful political alliance is already in place for the parliamentary elections in November. Yuri Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow and a front-running presidential aspirant, has forged a political bloc with a group of influential regional governors for the elections. Yevgeny Primakov, a former prime minister and by far the most popular politician in Russia, has also joined the alliance. This is already considered a winning combination, because Primakov has good relation with the communist, the largest parliamentary group in Duma, the lower house of the parliament.

In contrast Yeltsin's supporters are yet to assemble a credible alliance for the coming elections. Though former Prime Minister Sergei Iriyenko has announced a reformist bloc with Boris Nemtsov, deputy premier, his public approval rating is still very low.

Yeltsin's chronic illness, along with his love for power and sacking spree of the Prime Ministers, have made him a cynical figure. Especially because it is time when Russia desperately needs stability.

But Yeltsin refuses to be seen as a figurehead as long as he is in the office. He loves power too much. This is partly why Stepashin was sacked, as during his recent US tour he is said to have behaved as Yeltsin's successor.

The Russian people have not taken kindly to the sacking of the last two prime ministers _ Primakov and Stepashin. Because they were looking good in the job. Second, intense loyalty and obedience are the reasons Yeltsin picked up Putin to be his successor. The message is clear enough: He wants a docile prime minister, who must follow his wishes in toto, and also cover up the corruption cases against the Kremlin insiders. Such a public perception in an election year is threatening to both his family friends and his legacy.

In his guts, Yeltsin believes in democracy and freedom. Hence his worry about his legacy to the country. He wants to ensure that the communists do not come to power after him. But the question is whether he cares more for the fate of those closest to him or for the future of his country? There is no positive answer yet, but Yeltsin's floundering acts give a poor message to his troubled countrymen.

Yeltsin's erratic and power-obsessed second term in Kremlin has been hardly healthy for Russia. The biggest problem the country faces is that the rule of law is not yet firmly entrenched in the polity. There were rumours in Moscow a few weeks ago that some plans were discussed among Yeltsin's family to find a way to cancel next year's presidential elections.

Can Yeltsin do such a thing, and successfully? So far nothing is impossible in Russia. The inviolability of the constitution is foreign to the fledgeling democracy that is Russia. Had a proper delineation of power, duties and limits of vital state organs, and a mutual check and balance system been fully established, there was nothing to worry about Russia's future. But, unfortunately, holy Russia has everything other than an established democratic system. INAV