Ram Rattan Sharma
Enough is thought, spoken, written and devised on it, but corruption continues to grow at a cumulative rate. Everybody asks a question about this, but no body has the answer. Including the law, the lawmakers, the law breakers and the law seekers. It means the foundation and sources of survival of corruption lie deeper and are simply beyond the pale of mere law making and implementation process. Two hundred years of British rule in India could be regarded as the basis of the spread and mass conversion of people’s mentality in to some thing different, which were thought in terms of career and prospects. The British Govt. engraved into the minds of people that manipulation, divide and rule and policy of suppression cum reconciliation could even convert a powerful sovereign land into a classical colony. The whole regime passed amidst accusations and justifications and India experienced horrible governance during her colonial tenure.
Corruption was not only made widespread both horizontally and vertically by the British but it was made a way of life. The whole British Colonial apparatus was guided towards shielding wrong people, wrong work and wrong policies. It created an atmosphere where anti-nationalists short-sighted, whimsical people could get the benefits and honest and hardworking people could go to backyard of the machinery. Infact, capriciousness was accepted as a talent and straight forwardness and steadfast was forcefully and awfully discouraged.
Gradually in course of time corruption and corrupt practices assimilated into the work culture and encroached the mental faculty of most of the people in India. The British clearly sent a message to most of the younger generation at that time that if they wanted to excel in their lives, they had to compromise with certain dignified proposition and then only they can survive the on slaughts of parochial governance. With this temperament, we got freedom and British left the country. But these two hundred years of alien rule completely transmuted the character of the Indians. The British rule infused a sense of insecurity amongst most of the people about their future and career of their children. Therefore needs are being transformed in to greed. The person not only tries to earn for one self but also for the entire generations to come and this attitude towards work and life forms the genesis of all cronyism. The British Govt. consciously avoided to touch sensitive issues of administration and continued their rule on the basis of touch and go and adhocism. They never tried to find out any solution for long-term problems and through the constitution of various committees and commissions. We are also following the same methods. The British govt. deliberately created crisis and confusion among the communities through the policy of divide and rule. This created a sense of mental suspicion towards each other and laid the foundations of sectarian politics in India. This breeds and sustains corruption. The British govt. ushered all the developments and projects to suit their interests. Even today investments are made on same pattern. In independent India also most of the projects are driven by the interests of a few groups of persons.
The British devised covenanted civil services to serve the British imperialist interests in India by collecting revenues for them with out ensuring any accountability. They were called civil servants but they were basically representatives of their British Masters. The people do not get due justice and service from the officers even now. The administration suffers and corruption breeds. The British Govt. did not touch education, including primary, higher and technical beyond their utility level. In the name of modern education, the British govt. confused the minds of the people. The British govt. showed a very low respect about our traditional system education but never tried to replace it with a more rational and growth oriented system of education. This creates fragmented and dilapediated mind set of both the leaders and voters and breeds uncontrollable spate of political corruption. Manipulating and being manipulated has much acceptance now than it was earlier in our society. The British in a way rationalized and justified it as a way of living. Manipulation is the basis of Western or Euro-centric approach of development let us be realistic. But what can definitely be wished is that those who get manipulated be not protected from the wrath of those in power. The British responded in a favourable manner to blandishment and flattery. It was made to appear as a survival strategy for the Indians. The humblest and determined either give away their work and the manipulative give way to the powerful head. What is supposed to be selfless turns in to self centered. It destroys the strength of our administration and breeds corruption at all levels.
It is unfortunate since this had brought us to a level where we only find ourselves in search of more money, more power and thereby greater respect and influence thus the British made a notable change in the outlook of society. The race for money and power is now unprecedented and it has corrupted the minds of the people. There is need of an institution which is very powerful and that institution is supposed to act as a watch dog for the nation, as the debate is going on for the constitution of powerful Lok Pal, as in the Jan Lok Pal bill, being considered by the civil societies. It asks for such a Lok Pal which brings with in its purview the CVC and the CB.
Considering the history of colonial rule and inability of the last 64 years old rule to break the jinx of corruption, the huge magnitude and proportions of corruption cannot be tackled by mere individual or individuals or for that matter any institution. Infact, we have to realize that the level acceptance of corruption among us has to be rejected thoroughly and in this regard we have to come out collectively by surmounting and obliterating our habits, mind set, temptations, myopic calculations and behavioural pattern, and this is not easy, mind it, accept it and work it to get rid of it.
(The author is former Dy. Librarian University of Jammu and a social activist)

Dr.Banarsi Lal
Agricultural policies involve the Government, organizations and the farmers. The Government aims in maximization of agricultural outputs on sustainable basis. The agricultural universities and research institutions give policy inputs and the government departments prepare the programmes on the basis of the policies and implement them to achieve the objectives of the government. The farmers seek to maximize their farm income and employment of the family members to increase their income. The state planning policies which are top down in approach decide on macroeconomic basis, assuming that the farmers would adopt them or could be induced to adopt .The general policy of Government for agricultural development can be summarized in terms of (a)supply of inputs like high yielding varieties seeds, fertilizers and insecticides-pesticides at reasonable rates;(b)supply of water, credits and electricity at subsidized rates; and (c)fixing of minimum support price for important food grains and other crops along with procurement system for wheat and rice. The farmers have responded to these policies by allocating higher acreage under wheat and rice crops which have least risk of yield as well as price. The policy of diversification has been loaded with objectives like checking degradation of soil health, sustaining the land productivity, checking decrease in level of water table and water logging, controlling the use of insecticides and pesticides, decreasing the water pollution, maintaining the ecological balance and increasing production of crops. The farmer thinks for the short term benefits. The continuous increase in area under wheat and rice in spite of echoing of the above mentioned considerations clearly proves the fallacy of this policy of diversification.
The support price with procurement arrangement has been revealed as the most important instrumental variables in influencing the acreage allocation decisions of the farmers. This support is becoming unsustainable for the Government due to its financial situation. The support price with procurement arrangement for additional crops is almost ruled out in view of prevailing weak fiscal situations of the Central and State Governments. The acreage planning for individual crops is widely used as a management tool by almost all the developed countries. Acreage planning requires realistic estimates of the acreage under individual crops at national level on the basis of domestic and export demand of the concerned crops. The level of production and acreage can be fixed for different crops at national level so as to fetch a market price reasonably above the cost of production. The cost of production may be targeted so as to compete with the international price of the crop in next 2-3 years. We cannot do away with the responsibility of planning agricultural output in the pretext of liberalization or incompetence of line departments. The million of traders are effectively covered under some or other kind of registration then why not the farmers. We need to try it at least for certain crops. We should choose the path of area planning for further agriculture growth otherwise we shall be heading towards the disastrous situation with present approach of no planning. It may be worthwhile to use area planning as a policy for certain crops like floriculture, vegetables , strawberry, fruits etc. where the number of farmers and area involved is much less. The acreage for the selected crops may be fixed at national level on annual basis and the same may be allocated among the individual states. The state level acreage of each of the selected crop can be allocated among the districts through the concerned Department of Agriculture as per their share in the state. The district officer of the department can further allocate the acreage among the individual farmers on the basis of their last 3 years acreage of the concerned crop. This procedure will take care of the likely state and district level concerns in allocation of planned acreage. This practice may be tough in the beginning but such planning is being effectively implemented as a policy instrument in almost all the developed countries at present. Farmers will be benefitted if they are restricted to one or two selected crops along with the purview of acreage control. For this purpose farmers need to be convinced by taking the specific area plan models of some crops. Such models can be helpful to increase the income of the farmers as well as the agricultural sector as a whole. The existing crop departments need the training and use of information technology.
The policy of acreage planning can serve many purposes such as (a)Farmers will get the specialization of the concerned crop by restricting themselves to the crop on regular basis.(b)Price support will be available to the farmers due to planned production according to the domestic and export market requirement. (c)Specialization in one or two crops will enable the farmers to produce the quality products in terms of taste, colour etc. which will pay them high prices.(d)The long term association of the farmer with a particular crop will help him to think for processing the same.(e)The allocated area will be reliable for providing any type of technical or market support. The supply of inputs and credit facility can really be provided to the farmers. (f)The area planning can help us to avoid the causes of wastage of scarce resources like land, fertilizers, pesticides etc. Any type of intervention after excess production will just transfer the losses from farmers to Government or vice-versa. The area planning can avoid those losses and even save scarce resources .

Sarvadaman
The recent spate of cross-border firing on Indian troops manning LoC and other posts in J&K has sent shock waves across the country. Reliable sources referred to about 117 incidents of cease fire violations by Pakistani troops across the LoC. In some cases, the Indian troops were forced to retaliate with utmost restraint. However, the incident that took place at Mendhar area of Poonch District has shocked the conscious of every patriotic and right thinking Indian. The beheading of an Indian jawan and mutilation of another by Pak troops, who had intruded stealthy into the Indian territory, clearly reflects the mindset of Pak. Army and their civilian leadership. It is a hard fact that the ongoing peace process has failed to achieve any tangible results. The peace process has only benefitted Pakistan. But our political leadership is obsessed with carrying on peace process with Pakistan. Over the years, there have been many cultural exchanges, seminar and conferences involving members of civil society and officials from both the countries. So much so that different types of proposals like demilitarization of Siachen Glacier, settling of Sir Creek issue in Gujarat and other allied matters were discussed. The decision of the Indian Government to liberalize Visa System and grant liberty to Pak. nationals above 65 years of age to travel in India freely except in States of J&K, Punjab and Kerla, is fraught with great danger. Normalization of ties with neighbouring countries is a welcome step but it should not be at the cost of security of our country and people.
It is rightly said that nation comes always first. But promoting friendship and nurturing personal relations at the cost of National interests is suicidal for the country. The US and UK Foreign policy is always guided by national interests. Since 1947, despite good efforts from our political establishment to maintain cordial relations with Pakistan have met with failure. Some people in the Indian establishment still believe that peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through mutual trust and understanding. But this kind of thinking on the part of Indian leadership has failed to yield anything substantial. The gravity of the two incidents that took place along the LoC in J&K must neither be seen as a localized affair of trivial importance nor should be blown out of proportion as a prelude to a major incidents of tension between two arch rivals in the subcontinent. Despite provocation of grave nature, some sections of Indian leadership, intellectuals and some sections of civil society have said that such incidents do occur every now and then but both sides should not allow the matters to go out of control. These men in the peace industry still advocate a multilevel engagement between India and Pakistan. This section of society is not fully aware of ground situation.
The need of the hour is to pay Pakistan in the same way and to make it realize the cost of such kind of misadventures against India. We have examples of many countries before us. The Israelis have a high level of self respect and they believe in the policy of tit for tat. The adversaries should be made to remain at tenterhooks even if they falsely show repentance. Therefore, time has come that we should reshape our foreign policy and also revise our strategic policy in the light of these gruesome developments by the Pakistani Army. It is quite clear that the brutality on the LoC raises doubts about the credibility of the peace process. India should have a fresh look in this matter. Many persons in the Indian establishment still believe that Pakistan is going to get advantage by drawing international attention towards Kashmir affairs. Some also feel that internal situation in Pakistan is not conducive, some say that a change of guard is around the corner in Pakistan. But what we have to do with such type of changes. We have to do nothing with the internal affairs of Pakistan. Some members of the civil society even went to the extent of saying that by blowing the matter out of proportion, the relations between the two countries would again get jeopardized. They must know that it would not be a one sided affair.
India has granted a number of one sided concessions to Pakistan including most favoured Nation Status. But the result of these one sided concessions are before us. Pakistan has not given any concession to India. The countries are not governed with emotions, but with firm decisions. It is now expected that some kind of change should be made and priorities refixed to guard the National interests. The incident at Mendhar and other similar gruesome acts committed in the past by the Pakistani establishment have inflamed the Indian Public Opinion. It could, of course, achieve mush more if New Delhi would exert pressure on Pakistan at International Level. By doing so, India would be able to contain Pakistan to some extent and would surely be able to isolate Pakistan at the International Level for various acts of overt and covert missions. India should not look at loosing friendship with Pakistan. But the change of policy would definitely yield better results than the previous laid back approach. By adopting proactive approach, Pakistan can be cornered in a better way and peace can be achieved in the long run.