EDITORIAL
Fear of unknown
What will
happen tomorrow? Will we be in our business or out of it?
Will we live to see the world during the next 24 hours?
There are many such questions that gnaw at insides of the
majority of human beings. These and more are the fears of
the unknown. It is a pleasant surprise that new
generations are overcoming them in their own ways notably
in bigger cities. They are learning to live by the day.
It is not exactly living dangerously as they do in the
United States. But certainly it is being conscious of
prevailing realities. They have understood that the
survival is linked to knowledge. It is no more dependent
upon permanent jobs and assured financial returns. If
they possess the requisite qualifications they will
manage to walk around with their heads high. VJs (video
jockeys), DJs (disc jockeys), media persons, artists and
artisans are taking over the centre of stage these days.
Our whiz kids have already called the shots in
mathematics and information technology across the globe.
Stock markets too are honing a new brand of young,
talented and brash players. Television networks have
established that one can laugh to one's heart's content
and send the cash registers ringing at the same time.
There is change in parental mindset as well. They are now
prepared to look beyond conventional jobs for their
children. This is not to say there is no sense of fear.
It is very much there as one of the basic human emotions
although chiefly without any basis. As Howard Phillips
Lovecraft had experienced as the one who had excelled in
horror fiction: "The oldest and strongest emotion of
mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of
fear is the fear of the unknown." But what needs to
be added is that such dread can be tackled rather easily.
Answers to most queries are available in the present age
when information is flowing freely. They can't and don't
include the death as a phenomenon. Because of its
certainty it is something that perhaps can't be debated.
Its timing is shrouded in mystery and is best left for
sages to unravel. Lesser mortals have to learn to contend
with the life as it comes. They must draw inspiration
from the following observation: "First do what is
necessary. Then do what is possible. Suddenly, you will
be doing what is impossible."
Journalist
Dorothy Thompson had put it no less clearly: "There
is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find
out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyse the
causes of happenings." Eleanor Roosevelt was equally
assertive: "Courage is more exhilarating than fear,
and in the long run, it is easier." Had she ever
discussed the subject with her husband and American
President Franklin Roosevelt? It is not known. However,
the latter had concluded: "The only thing that we
have to fear is fear itself." For the terrorists in
this State and elsewhere a noble saying contains timely
and relevant advice: "He who strikes terror into
others is himself in continual fear." They may not
listen to it as they would indeed not do to Mahatma
Gandhi who always believed: "For the non-violent
person the whole world is one family. He will thus fear
none, nor will others fear him." Why should fear be
there in the first place? It does not have defined
contours. How will it help to fear even if the worst
fears come true? The death of fear, it ought to be
remembered, is in doing something that one fears to do.
Bribery and corruption
By Kedar Nath Pandey
If not in anything
worthwhile, India occupies a prime place among the comity
of nations on the scale of bribery and corruption. The
honour goes to our politicians and bureaucrats. For them
democracy is nothing more than a tool to capture power
and the licence to loot. Even the judiciary is not above
the board; and every one is feathering own nest.
According to a new public opinion survey released on
November 6, by the Transparency International Indians are
believed to be paying over Rs. 50,000 crore every year in
bribes. The sectors surveyed included education, police,
and health, land administration, judiciary, power,
taxation, railways, telecom and public distribution
system.
Facing the massive
exposure of corruption in high places the average citizen
- the proverbial man in the street - is overwhelmed by
the volume and extensive nature of the cancer in the
political life today. What is disconcerting is that the
magnitude of corruption has almost created a sense of
helplessness all round, the feeling of despair that the
menace can hardly be combated effectively.
Any crime, if it is on a
massive scale, can create that sort of helplessness - the
very sense of depression that those involved in the crime
wait for, because, that provides them with an escape
route. Anger, livid white anger, is what the guilty are
afraid of. Excitement and high drama provide some sort of
cover. But anger, the livid anger of the common man, is
what the scums of society fear most. Although voices are
heard here and there, voices raised in anger, the mood in
the country is on the whole one of helplessness. Everyone
is waiting for something to happen so that the prevailing
venality is rooted out, but nobody is coming forward to
set out on a campaign to rouse the millions to
relentlessly fight corruption. What is missing today is
precisely this driving force for a mass campaign against
corruption particularly political corruption.
One of the major reasons
for this state of helplessness in the public mind is the
fact that most of the political parties and their leaders
hold out no serious hope to fight corruption. They are
satisfied with exposure of corruption each blaming the
other, but everybody seems to demand that those who are
found guilty must receive condign punishment.
One of the traditional
conventions among old school lawyers was that the better
elements in the profession would not take up the defence
of known criminals or smugglers or blackmarketeers.
Particularly those involved in politics were anxious, by
and large, to maintain a clean record, as they felt that
they owed that to the watchful public. Only those who
looked upon law as just a profession without any mission
would go in for such cases in defence of unsavoury
clients. There were lawyers who used to earn many times
more than what Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das used to take
even in professional matters. He earned his eminence when
he won his spurs as a lawyer defending Sri Aurobindo's
colleagues in the Alipur Bomb Case. All such old values
collapsed by the seventies, that is, precisely about the
same time that corruption began to creep into political
life in a menacing form. Today there is hardly any
compulsion on the part of a lawyer involved in politics,
in accepting the brief of any character involved in
mega-size corruption. It is this collapse of values which
has heightened the sense of despair on the part of an
average citizen as he is becoming aware of the magnitude
of corruption among the high-placed in political life.
A vast majority of the
people, particularly the youth, feel that all the laws,
rules and administrative systems established by the
British rulers were to keep our country in slavery
permanently. After we got independence, the laws enacted
in the last 59- years are also of the same kind
strengthening the same system leading to increase in
slavery and decrease in freedom.
Law and administrative
system in the country have become unjust and oppressive
because each department, agency, bureau, form and permit
was created at the behest of interest groups seeking
advantage through the political process. Leaders come and
go with elections, but the basic function of the
democratic system, as being practised, has not been to
protect person and property, but to allocated privileges
and benefits to those groups that are most effective at
organising politically. Many regulations are rationalised
on the pretext of serving the public good, but the end
result has been a system of mercantilism that makes
economic rights subservient to political interest and
power games.
The holders of political
power for the benefit of themselves and their cohorts,
commandeered the resources of the state i.e. the
resources produced by the work of 'we the people', to a
shocking extent. Now they have turned this into a fine
art of deceit by frequently publishing 'white paper' and
indiscriminately raising tariff, taxes and levies under
the absurd pretext of 'empty treasury'.
Though politicians are the
largest beneficiaries of state kleptocracy, bureaucrats
are its main perpetrators either by complicity or through
compliance. Ironically, despite enjoying unique
constitutional safeguards unheard of elsewhere in the
world, many of them are also the prime victims of the
rot. In a kleptocracy merit is the first casualty and
competent and conscientious civil servants have been at
the receiving end for quite some time. The
'super-bureaucrats' who willingly formed part of the
'loot-and-share system' have spearheaded this betrayal.
Till recently these civil servants were considered a
'sparkle in society' and respected because of high social
perch and perks. The scenario has undergone a sea change
now. It used to be said, "A good bureaucrat is one
who, when in doubt, mumbles; when in difficulty, ponders;
when in charge, delegates; and whose job is to cut the
red tape lengthwise". But today's Indian mandarin is
no longer a bureaucrat and suffers from no such
uncertainties and infirmities. Indeed he is turning to be
an arrogant autocrat, cocksure and confident in his own
actions and pluckily defiant about the devious ways of
his modus vivendi. No vigilante outfits trail him, no
visions of doomsday haunt him in his sleep, and no social
ostracism of the traditional type shames him any more.
His track record of winking at dubious orders and
executing them for the benefit of those who matter makes
him just the man to propel into the seat of 'borrowed
power and reflected glory'. All their desires now
fulfilled, this clan of bureaucrats mock at the Indian
Nation and its miserable millions, so munificent in
giving them everything they had fantasised about, only to
receive back contempt and non-governance.
Repeated pleadings of the
Election Commission for electoral reforms are falling on
deaf ears. Functioning of the Central Vigilance
Commission is being throttled and Human Rights
Commissions are being reduced to toothless tigers.
"Terrorism" which is the fallout of all this
rottenness is being touted as the 'mantra' to garner
votes!
After along and persistent
demand Parliament passed a Bill seeking to curb
criminalisation and corruption in politics which will
require candidates to disclose their criminal antecedents
and declare assets and liabilities after being elected.
This is a half hearted measure and incapable of tackling
the real issues of corruption.
Unless politician -
bureaucratic nexus is curbed the degeneration cannot be
arrested. The need of the hour is a good and
participatory system of governance. Let politicians and
bureaucrats be aware that the time is running out for
them. In the event people must seriously consider dumping
the present system of governance and opt for an
alternative. Let bureaucrats who are maintained at a
massive cost to the exchequer to guard India's democratic
fabric beware before it is too late. So is the case with
our parliamentarians on whom the national exchequer
spends Rs. 90,000 a month, and a mind-boggling sum of Rs.
2,40,800 on a Cabinet Minister at the Centre! INAV
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New ‘work
culture’ in force in J&K
!
TALES OF TRAVESTY
By Dr. Jitendra
Singh
Has the new
‘‘work
culture’’ come into
force in the State of Jammu and
Kashmir ?
The State Assembly
is said to have broken all
previous records during a session
by holding an almost 17 hour long
sitting lasting upto nearly
midnight. The Chief Minister
himself is said to sit in the
office till late at night. The
Secretariate officials are said
to return home only after past 10
in the night. The daily
attendance at district and
sub-district offices is said to
be looking up. The engineers are
said to be executing more work
and accepting less bribes. The
doctors are said to be attendig
to patients in hospitals and
dispensaries without accepting
unaccounted goodwill packs of
Rajmash, Desi Murga or Basmati
rice. The Patwaris are said to be
entering Girdawaris and land
deals without accepting any
service charges either in cash or
coin, goose or egg. The Munciipal
Corporators are said to be
electing Mayor and Deputy Mayor
withut resorting to factional
infighting or clandestine
exchange of money bags
All this and much
more ! And, if all this is true,
the State of Jammu and Kashmir
would soon emerge as a model to
be emulated by other States of
the Indian union. If all this is
true, the State of Jammu and
Kashmir would soon be a show-case
of Ram Rajya envisaged by Mahatma
Gandhi and Naya Kashmir (though
not Greater Kashmir) or Khushaal
Kashmir envisaged by contemporary
State leadership. If all this is
true, the State of Jammu and
Kashmir would soon have a
corruption free polity and a
corruption-free administration.
If all this is true, the State of
Jammu and Kashmir would soon
pride itself for employing or
retaining only such officials who
are energetic and efficient while
the dead wood would be consigned
to dust-bin.
But...........till
all this actually happens, can
the scams and scandals continue,
and can the corrupt and
resourceful continue seeking
dividends from their money or
muscle power notwithstanding the
Chief Minister's declarations day
in and day out about rooting out
corruption and bringing in a new
work cuture in the State? Till
all this actually happens, can
the embezzlements and
misappropriations in various
State Departments continue
.......atleast for the time being
?
The question
bothering the common man,
meanwhile, is ‘‘will
this ever happen?’’ or
‘when will this happen
?’’ Sheikh Abdullah
declared the advent of an era of
‘‘Yaum-e-Hisaab’’.
Farooq Abdullah swore to throw
the corrupt and the inefficient
into Dal lake. And now Ghulam
Nabi Azad has picked up the
gauntlet to enforce a new work
culture with vengeance. But, can
a ‘‘work
culture’’ survive
without basic culture in a
society which prefers to elect as
ministers or MLAs or Corporators
such men and women who manage to
make crores overnight without any
visible source of income or any
visible work at hand and can any
Chief Minister succeed in
introducing a new work culture as
long as he continues to patronise
in polity and administration such
men and women who rise to the top
without doing any work, let alone
work culture ?
Be that as it may,
will somebody answer whether the
new work culture has come into
force ? The common man failed to
see it in the ever piling office
files at civil secretariate. And
an excited Umapathy turned
up to have a glimpse of it but
returned disappointed, a La, ‘‘---------Dekhne
Hum Bhi Aaye Tamaasha Na
Hua !’’
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Invest
in agriculture for food
security
By
Som Dutt
Agriculture
may be a mi-nor player in
many industrialized
economies , but it must
play a major role on the
world stage to bring down
the curtain on hunger.
The foreign aid for
agriculture and rural
development has continued
to decline. From a total
over US$ 9 billion per
year in the early 1980's
it fell down to less than
US $ 5 billion in the
late 1990's. About 854
million people around the
world remain
undernourished. That is
why "Invest in
Agriculture for Food
Security" was the
theme of this year's
world food day, held on
16 October 2006.
Today,
much of the world
agriculture is
struggling, starved of
much needed investment.
The issue is how to
restore, energize and
build up agriculture
through input of
resources, both from
public and private
sectors. More
specifically, it may be
through targeted public
investment to encourage
and facilitate private
investment, especially by
farmers themselves,
according to FAO.
Investment in agriculture
together with support for
education and health will
turn this situation
around. The bulk of
investment will have to
come from the private
sector, with public
investment playing a
crucial role, especially
in view of its
facilitating and
stimulating effect on
private investment.
A
number of studies show
how agricultural growth
reduces poverty and
hunger, even more than
urban or industrial
growth. The only group of
countries to reduce
hunger during the 1990s
was the group in which
the agriculture sector
grew. Looking back the
last 30 years, it can be
shown that those
countries that have
invested and continue to
invest most in
agriculture-both public
and private-now
experience the lowest
levels of
undernourishment.
Most
of the world's farmers
are small-scale farmers.
As a group, these men and
women are biggest
investors in agriculture.
They are also food
insecure; that is why
their access to food is
inadequate or precarious.
If they can make a profit
with their farming, they
can feed their families
adequately throughout the
year and reinvest in
their farms by purchasing
fertilizers, better
quality seeds and basic
equipments. Small
producers face many
obstacles. They are as
follows: lack of credit,
insecure land tenure,
poor transport, low
prices and poorly
developed business
relations with
agribusiness at
commercial and of
agricultural supply
chain, which are beyond
their control.
Agribusiness
is the umbrella term for
local, national or
international companies
that handle or transform
the farm produce as it is
passed up the long chain,
called the supply chain,
to consumers. In economic
terms, these businesses
add most value in supply
chain. They typically
invest their own capital
in transportation,
processing and
wholesaling and
retailing, selling
commodities such as rice
and wheat, high-value
vegetables and niche
products such as cut
flowers.
Supermarkets
are becoming the biggest
players in national,
regional and
international food supply
chains, setting grades
and standards, and even
making cross-border
supply chains. If the
supply chain works well
with fair returns on
investment for everyone,
the first link- the
farmers earn enough money
to feed his or her-family
and to re-invest.
Employment created by
many business in supply
chain enables still more
people to live a decent
life. Hunger declines and
quality of rural life
improves. Agribusinesses
in developing countries
face problems. They areas
follows: lack of good
roads, railways and
market infrastructure,
lack of recognized grades
and standards to define
product value, weak legal
structures for enforcing
contracts and practical
difficulties in
developing business
arrangements with a large
number of small-scale
farmers. Agricultural
subsidies in developed
countries and tariffs and
non-tariff barriers can
distort international
agricultural trade and
prices. At the regional
level, tariffs and custom
rules often restrict
cross-border and informal
trade.
New
model for cooperation
between public and
private sectors in rural
development can be broken
down into four main
components. There are:
new ways of bringing
together producers and
agribusiness; new ways of
establishing and
enforcing grades,
standards and related
regulations; a new
emphasis on improving the
investment climate for
agriculture; and new
efforts to provide
essential public goods
such are rural
infrastructure.
Cooperatives
are already important
players in agriculture.
In Asia, the
International Cooperative
Alliance represents 53
cooperative movements
with 523 million members
in 21 countries. The
public sector can support
such producer groups with
legal safeguards,
management and business
training and by
encouraging private
sector to assist
cooperatives in market
information and
production technologies.
Outgrower
schemes- subcontracting
arrangements in
agribusiness- are
enjoying a revival.
Companies often provide
technical assistance,
materials and/ or
financing to local
farmers to help them grow
a particular product,
which the company agrees
to purchase at a later
date. Outgrower schemes
can be an effective means
of creating local
employment and improving
the incomes of local
farmers. They can also be
beneficial to business
operation by building
reliable local supplies
of raw materials.
Specialized
and complementary roles
for the public and
private sectors in
Uganda's flower industry
have resolved years of
teething problems. The
industry exported 7,300
tonnes of flowers to
Europe in 2005. Over
6,000 workers are
employed in the sector,
earning over US $ 3.5
million in wages in a
country in which one in
five people is
undernourished. Women,
who traditionally spend
more of their income than
men on food needs of
their children, make up
65 percent of the labour
force, according to FAO.
Worldwide,
30 large supermarket
chains account for about
one-third of food sales.
Small scale farmers face
many obstacles, if they
want to sell regularly to
supermarkets and may need
to invest in irrigation,
greenhouses, trucks,
cooling sheds and packing
technology. Farmers who
have succeeded as
suppliers for
supermarkets have
generally overcome these
obstacles by forming
cooperatives or enrolling
in outgrower schemes.
Often they have benefited
initially from
information, training and
start up funds provided
by public and private
development initiatives.
Governments
sometimes run market
information systems so
that farmers and traders
know where and when to
sell to get highest
prices. Labour markets,
land tenure security and
food safety and
responsibilities of
Government and are
critical areas examined
by would-be investors,
both domestic and
international. If they
are weak in a country or
they are not clear and
fair, the investors will
go elsewhere or invest in
sectors judged less risky
than agriculture.
Investment
in infrastructure in
rural areas, especially
in water, roads, power
and communications, has a
crucial role in kindling
agricultural growth. In
Africa, there has been a
resurgence of such
investment, increasingly
in partnership with the
private sector, promoted
by the World Bank's
Africa Action Plan, the
report of the UK-led
Commission for Africa and
the African Development
Bank's Africa
Infrastructure
Consortium.
If
countries get these
conditions right,
dramatic benefits to
agriculture and poor
rural households can be
expected. For example,
China introduced secure
household land contracts
and started investing
heavily in rural
infrastructure and
agricultural research in
the late 1970s,
agricultural production
soared and hunger fell
rapidly. Over two
decades, total grain
output increased by 65
percent and prevalence of
hunger was reduced by
almost two thirds.
The
public sector in many
parts of the developing
world has been slow to
respond to changes that
globalization has brought
to markets. Investment in
building the capacity of
governments to help their
small farmers and to
encourage private
investors is money well
spent.
PTI
Feature
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Poll-eve
political ferment in Bangladesh
By P Bhattacharya
Descent of poll
season in Bangladesh means India
has to brace up for shocks. Last
time around, in 2001 the eastern
neighbour had evicted at least
78,000 of its own citizens,
fleeing mortal danger from
Jaamat-e-Islami (JeI) Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) activists
seeking to ensure their opponent,
Awami League loses its electoral
bases. This number denotes only
those who were in relief camps
run by the likes of the BJP and
the VHP, informed people say.
Many others had crossed and had
melded in the Indian population.
The BNP-JeI had also
raised the demon of 'Indian
hegemony,' to fan the flames of
chauvinism so the results at the
hustings could be in their
favour. India had reacted with a
conspiracy of silence. The
National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) Government wanted not to
endanger its fledgling
relationship with the Bangladesh
Army-backed BNP and conversely,
may have also thought reactions
to the cross border atrocities
would solidify anti-Muslim
sentiments in the east. And the
West Bengal Government refused to
acknowledge the problem because
it did not want people's hackles
to be raised against a proximate
neighbour.
No one raised the
issue of growing Islamisation of
Bangladesh. Result were reports
about the rise in the next five
years of such organisations like
Harkat-ul Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI)
and heightened influence of al
Qaeda. The BNP chief, Begum
Khaleda Zia's obvious fascination
for collaborationist forces,
including in the JeI, has
provided Pakistan's infamous
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)
and their understudy, Dhaka's own
Directorate General of Foreign
Intelligence (DGFI), a ready
talent pool of operatives
ideologically attuned with
Islamism.
This time the
situation may not be changed in
any major way. Five years of BNP
- JeI rule has created a wave of
anti-incumbency. To counter that
these parties may seek to raise
the spectre of 2001, only more
strongly this time as they
otherwise have their backs to the
wall. A split on 27 October in
the ranks of the BNP has created
a fresh centre of Zia-ur Rehman's
ideology of 'Islamic roots of
Bangladeshi nationalism' in the
newly formed, Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP). An inveterate
resentment against Begum Zia's
son, Mr Tareq Zia is providing to
be a polarising factor in the
country's politics.
Long time Bangladesh
watchers say the obvious. The LDP
will be joining hands with the
14-party alliance of the Awami
League (AL) under the leadership
of former Prime Minister, Sheikh
Hasina Wajed. But all political
realignments in the country's
politics may not be complete yet.
For the Islami Oikya Jote (a
seven party group of Islamists)
have just left the BNP-JeI
alliance. They had positioned
themselves as more hard-line than
the JeI. Impact of their move is
yet to be gauged, as the country
lurched into unmitigated violence
as Begum Zia sought to install a
supportive member of the
judiciary as the 'Chief Adviser'
at the head of the caretaker
Government. It was to take over
after he ended her term in
office.
Supporters of the
AL-led alliance took to the
streets seeking to reverse the
decision. Finally, the President
of the country had to step in
appointing himself as the chief
adviser. He was served with a
four-day notice by the AL to
prove his 'neutrality."
Clearly, the road to the polls
will not be smooth.
India will have to
remain alert this time around so
that there is no repetition of
2001. A massive attempt to drive
people out of Bangladesh on
account of their political
allegiance cannot be accepted as
a standard operating procedure of
democratic political activity. On
the other hand, New Delhi will
have to be attentive to the fact
that it does not appear to be
taking partisan sides in the
polls. For that would only fuel
more charges India's influence in
Bangladesh's politics.
In any case, those
who believe that Sheikh Hasina
Wajed will be a major improvement
upon the record of the BNP-JeI
alliance in terms of reducing
Islamic influence in the
country's politics need just to
check her record in office last
time around. She seldom took on
the JeI attempts at infusing
Islamist principles in rural
Bangladesh. Some say that she was
told by Islamist elements in
party that she would lose
electoral support if she was seen
to be siding with the
secularists.
That might have been
the reason she failed to address
any of the issues India wanted to
engage her. Questions of trade,
transit and trans-shipment
remained unresolved. Bangladesh's
inability to divorce chauvinism
from commercially sensible
decisions about supplying its
natural gas to India has resulted
in the former country's economy
taking major hits. In the process
Bangladesh economy got not a
spin. This had an adverse impact
on the entire polity vitiating
the entire political atmosphere.
If the Bangladesh is looking for
pressure points on India, Dhaka's
manoeuvring apparently back
fired. In addition it has
acquired a dubious distinction of
a safe haven for Pakistan trained
terrorist across the globe.
Yet, India's
strategic interests are hinged on
a successful democratic exercise
of popular elections in
Bangladesh. For a failed
democratic experiment in the
country could plunge entire
region into turmoil. CNF
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