EDITORIAL

Social aims and
the treasury

For centuries we have been hearing the axiom if health is lost something is lost. Likewise without education there is no development leave alone emancipation of the mind which ought to be its greater goal. Who will deny that drinking water is the source of life? Separately and together each of these three spheres constitutes significant aspects of our everyday lives. It may sound ironic that these fields are among the most neglected as well. Given the vast multitude of poor people health and education need to be substantially compensated by the State apparatus. It seems to have become increasingly difficult in the era of privatisation. A series of reports in this newspaper recently have revealed many disturbing details based purely on official documents. The State has a shortfall of 1288 health centres. The infrastructure in the form of buildings, machinery and equipment has not been able to keep pace with the times. There are shortages both in terms of quantity and quality. The deficit on account of health centres includes 1149 sub-centres, 93 primary health centres and 46 community health centres. In addition, there is acute manpower scarcity. There are not enough of midwives, health assistants, lab technicians and pharmacists on the one hand and doctors and specialists on the other. The Government admits: "These shortages severely compromise quality of health services available to the rural populace." The picture is gloomier in the area of education. As many as 4822 primary, upper middle, high and higher secondary schools continue to be without own buildings while 1474 existing buildings are in dilapidated condition. The majority of them have been in this condition for the last several years. There are no drinking water and toilet facilities in 4052 primary and 1541 middle schools. At the secondary level 68 Government high schools and 7 Government higher secondary schools have been running in private accommodation. There are, moreover, 125 high schools and 101 higher secondary schools lacking even drinking water and toilet arrangements. A high number of 1.08 lakh students are still out of the reach of schools. Their proportion is the maximum in Kupwara, Budgam, Srinagar, Anantnag and Doda districts. Children belonging to nomadic communities like Gujjars, Bakarwals and "gaddis" are the biggest sufferers on this count.
So far as the drinking water scenario is concerned it appears to be a typical instance of water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. We have rivers, lakes and thousands of natural springs. Yet, there is not adequate potable water. Who will easily believe that of the total 12015 habitations in the State 4885 don't have water fit to drink? There is also a question-mark on the manner of implementation of the Accelerated Urban Water Supply Programme (AUWSP). It is aimed at providing water supply to all towns, The Government concedes: "The scarcity of water is experienced generally as the existing water supply schemes don't meet the demand for potable water which is increasing in the towns." The pace of the work is affected because of increase in urban population due to migration from rural areas, shortfall of rains and, more importantly, the non-availability of means to store water for utilisation during dry spell and the delay in the completion of plans meant for urban pockets. Clearly it is a matter of satisfactorily marshalling available resources. We are found wanting to the extent that we are not able to move in step with the galloping demand. That is the main reason that even though we have come a long way during the last six decades we have not covered the entire distance. It is said that the Government requires Rs 1051.57 crores for infrastructural strengthening of the existing health units. It has prepared a project accordingly and submitted it to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for approval. It envisages construction of buildings for 612 health institutions functioning in private structures, repair, alteration and renovation jobs and purchase of machinery. The manpower shortage is being sought to be overcome by engaging about 3000 doctors under the National Rural Health Mission. In education, the emphasis is being proposed to be laid on the public-private partnership and focussing attention on consolidation of existing institutions instead of expansion. It is realised that the opening or more and more establishments without infrastructure and logistic support can become counter-productive. Is this not a belated realisation? The Government is already drawing flak for indiscriminately opening colleges without arranging the basic material. In any event, however, in such instances it is better to be late than never. Progress has to proceed according to some method. To cover habitations that still don't have drinking water is a daunting task. A whopping sum of Rs 1344 crores is needed for meeting the target. The State expects to get 50 per cent of it from the Centre.
Since all these statistics are official one tends to presume that the Government is seized of the problem. It is handicapped because it does not have sufficient funds. This is something really unfortunate that we don't generate ample internal income to meet our own expenses. We ought to get out act together. In this case, too, it is obvious that we can't resolve our health and drinking water hazards if we don't get money from New Delhi for which we have sent SOS. Education system is the beneficiary of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, an idea of the Central Government that transfers a part of our income-tax contributions for making masses literate. However, it is doubtful whether it can fully address the challenge on hand. Private players have extended assistance but not with the best intentions of serving a noble cause. It will be too much to expect the Government to earn profits from health, education or drinking water. For it, these remain the social objectives yet to be achieved for ameliorating the lot of the common man. It has to pay for them. Nothing, however, should prevent it from beefing up its revenue collection system which is in a shambles everywhere. It is unacceptable that it itself should be the No 1 defaulter due to power arrears. It can certainly stop corruption in its ranks. It can harness tourism potential including pilgrim tourism and industries to finance at least some of its non-commercial activities. It must find a balance which has been missing all along.

Monitor flying schools

By M L Kotru

Remember 9/11, the day the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre were reduced to heaps of rubble. Claiming the lives of over 3,000 innocent people working there. No bombs were used, no IEDs or whatever. Two aircraft simply rammed into that city's two tallest structures and the rest, as you know, is history. Terrorism had that day acquired a new dimension, a new definition.
Without going into the rights and wrongs of that most tragic event, do remember, though, that all it needed to raze the two magnificent structures to rubble was the ‘‘determination’’ of a pack of young men to blow up the towers alongwith the aircraft they were flying. The perpetrators' death was, of course, certain and predetermined. The young men were committed to carrying out their suicidal mission. And a lot of work had gone into their achieving their horrendous mission.
They had seen themselves or had been brainwashed enough to come to believe that they were committing the barbarity in the name of their faith. As events unfolded in the months that followed most of the young men, mostly from Saudi Arabia, had learnt to fly at American flying schools. A few of them knew just enough to navigate the aircraft once it was in flight, some, though, had completed their training courses. The upshot, trained or not the young men did manage to crash their flying machines into the two towers. And the world continues to feel the reverberations of that monstrous event, the visuals of which even years later send a chill down every human spine.
How come I am talking of 9/11 now when most would rather forget it as a bad dream, a nightmare that needs to be put behind ourselves. But, no, it's not that easy. Not at all, when you come to think of the callousness with which we humans tend to forget all such events. After all haven't we forgotten Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Japanese would of course never forget the devastation in the aftermath of the first ever nuclear bomb, thankfully the last to date.
The rest of the world has ever since tried to work out arrangements to stall future Hiroshimas. Nuclear stockpiles may be in existence in the US, in China, in France and even in India and Pakistan, not to forget Israel and some others with a capability to produce a nuke on demand, but there is a wariness among the nukewallahs that one error of judgment may lead to consequences that can only be disastrous for the human race.
But of incidents like 9/11 recurring there can be no guarantee. There can be safeguards, security checks etc but the chances of the odd man choosing to strike at a selected target are very much there; an oddball in question would only need an aircraft to do his will. Forget, the gloomier part of the business. Think of the lives that would be put to risk if a half-baked pilot were in command of a passenger aircraft and faced with difficulties, natural or technical, flying over an ocean or over high mountains or facing plain bad weather. You would say all the navigational assistance, highly computerised instrumentation is available to the man in the cockpit and even if he is half baked he would be able to overcome a mid-air crises. What if he doesnot ? You go down to your doom and of course an air crash can only be grist to the media mills.
It is against this backdrop that I am quite disturbed by the revelations made by a contemporary about the operations in the country of so-called flying schools which are expected to produce welltrained pilots with a certain number of flying hours to their credit, their ability fully tested by their peers under the most rigorous of circumstances, and their license to fly issued only after stringent, verification by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. It goes without saying that the DGCA should be constantly supervising the functioning of these flying schools, for air safety in the final analysis does fall strictly in its domain.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation can lay down policy in matters concerning aviation but it has no business to interfere in regulating the functioning of, say, a flying school. One cannot of course be ignorant of the fact that the Civil Aviation Ministry will always be headed by a politician who apart, from his own baggage, must provide airlinks between his own and his peers' constituency and the nearest metro. We have known of cases where a Civil Aviation Minister insists on having a flight scheduled, say, between Delhi and his (the Minister's) district, which may during World War II have had an airstrip. This particular one is not a figment of my imagination. This did happen nearly a quarter century ago when the Civil Aviation Minister of the day asked for and got such scheduling done.
Back to the flying school business. According to news reports referred to by me it's bizarre that the Ministry of Civil Aviation should have stepped in to reverse the decision by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to suspend the Operations of a high profile pilot training academy in Baramati in Maharashtra.
The DGCA had after inquiry found fraud and forgery in issuing flight certificates to aspiring pilots. The local police which investigated the matter had rather uncharacteristically spoken of grave security and criminal implications of the fraud.
To give credit to the reporter who has unravelled the mystery of the forged certificates, the probe began in October last year when the Pune Police moved in against the five year old Carver Aviation Academy in Baramati, the constituency of Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar. Police action came after Carver CEO Marc Carvalho- a former Air India Purser-filed a complaint against his Chief Flying Instructor, Captain A Taxali of financial irregularities. Taxali and three other senior employees of the academy were arrested and released !’’ That when the DGCA came in with its own inquiry and indicted the CEO holding him responsible for a sweeping range of irregularities including issuing fraudulent flight certificates to 25 pilots forging signatures and approvals including by some Air Force Officials.
The DGCA did ask in most categorical terms, according to the report, which incidentally has remained uncontradicted so far by the Civil Aviation Ministry, that the approvals granted to the academy as well as the licenses issued by it to pilots as well as that of the Chief Flying Instructor be cancelled forthwith. That was on January 4, if my recollection is right. Exactly seven days later the Civil Aviation Ministry got into action and ordered the DGCA that the suspension of ‘‘flying training approval to the academy by immediately revoked’’.
As a concession to the DGCA, the Ministry advised it to continue to ‘‘strictly monitor’’ the activities of all flying training institutes including Carver.
Some consolation to DGCA for all its efforts !Without imputing motives and may be it is a coincidence, the current Civil Aviation Minister happens to be Mr Praful Patel who belongs to Mr Sharad Pawar's NCP and is a member of the Union Cabinet courtesy the ‘‘Sahab’’ from Baramati.
The main issue though remains that with many important politicians not only patronising some of these schools but also promoting new ones, who is to monitor (a) the functioning of the schools (b) the backgrounds of those seeking admission to these schools. Who knows, given the laxity of the Civil Aviation Ministry we might be just about helping the wrong kind of people to gain access to these schools thereby enabling them to use their newly acquired expertise to have some aerial surprises for us in the future.
After all, it is not unknown to us that some of the extremist groups operating in the country do not lack funds to pay the Rs Four lakhs it takes to get admitted to a flying school.

Political bankruptcy By Indranil Banerjea The Indian state had consolidated its foundations and that the idea of India was slowly but surely becoming a reality, the antics of the likes of Raj Thackeray point to the contrary. We need to examine the implications of Raj Thackeray's outpourings against north Indians, including Amitabh Bachchan. One needs to acknowledge that Mumbai is what it is today only because it has traditionally welcomed people from all over the country to compete and succeed on equal terms. It's the survival of the fittest and if there was a lebensraum for outsiders in Mumbai, they accordingly occupied the space left by the not-so-efficient and effective. The city's character and culture have been developed and enriched by its citizenry. To build up a city like Mumbai or an equally cosmopolitan city, calls for enterprise, innovative ideas, modern technology and hard work. If all the emigrant technocrats including Indians were to withdraw from the US, the UK or Europe, then the economy of these countries might very well collapse. Outsiders or emigrants or refugees are always more hard working because they have a point to prove. A sub-conscious sense of insecurity makes them put in an extra effort. Mumbai's success is embedded in its cosmopolitan character and the enterprise of its people. If people from UP and Bihar are immigrants in Mumbai and therefore dubbed as 'outsiders', the bizarre reasoning can be extended to parts of the country. If people from one region are targeted in one state, there is likely to be a chain reaction in other states as well. And that would be a terribly sad day for the nation. Ethnologically speaking, it is difficult to determine who is 'indigenous' and a 'son of the soil'. Hence the insider-outsider debate is useless and should immediately be stopped. The debate makes a mockery of the appeals being made to the 'Pravasi Bhartiya' (NRIs) and People of India Origin (PIOs) to make investments in their country of birth/origin. If we expect NRIs/PIOs to do so, won't they also be accused of the same disloyalty to their place of domicile as north Indians are being accused of in Maharashtra. The bottom-line is simple. If this argument of 'insider vs. outsider' is taken to its logical conclusion, then Indians anywhere in the world should be subjected to the same fate, as north Indians are. In this age of globalisation, when we are talking in terms of open borders and a World State, such divisive politics will only take us to the moth-balled iron age of the past. Such retrograde regionalism should never be encouraged. Healthy regionalism, that encourages others to compete and perform better in a healthy spirit, should not be frowned upon. The politics of hatred and intolerance as typified and symbolised in the persecution of the Jews by Hitler's fascist Germany remains the most poignant image of such parochial politics and has been universally condemned. Only the leader of Opposition, Mr. L.K. Advani, has condemned the anti-north Indian agitation in Maharashtra. The Prime Minister, the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has not deigned to speak on the subject. Heir apparent Rahul Gandhi is not apparent when political leadership is called for. Congress leaders of Maharashtra want to treat it only as a law and order problem. The ruling party is a picture of political bankruptcy. The Congress leadership must understand that standing up for the idea of India as envisaged in the Constitution is the most significant contribution it can make to the Indian polity and to itself as a political party. Pandering to the clergy, providing subsidy for Haj or Christian pilgrimage, making a big fuss about resource allocation for the minorities-these are the Congress' preferred methods of finding favour with the minorities. But for the minorities, who comprise 19.5 per cent of the population as per the last Census, a political party's demonstrated commitment to the idea of India matters far more than any form of sectional patronage. When the Congress fails to politically oppose the anti-outsider agitation in Mumbai, it loses the support of not just the victims of xenophobic violence in the state, but also of minorities in general and the general populace who support the idea of India as a secular democracy that celebrates unity in diversity. INAV.