Government, farmers, corporates and Hindutva

Tax exemptions and incentives to corporate houses have resulted in a revenue impact of Rs 62,398.6 crore to the exchequer of Indian Government in 2014-15. It is 8% higher than the previous fiscal's.

However, the government feels fund crunch for social sector programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MGNREGA) and public health which have seen allocation cut in the union budget. Further, the government has reduced 30% funding for agricultural research which will necessarily affect agriculture sector in the future. Famers’ suicide and the huge concessions to the corporate houses have very deep relations. 

The first job of the government was to ban funding of Greenpeace which has been fighting for environment in India. In the recent years, the organisation was the major hurdle in front of transferring forest lands to the corporate houses. Now, Greenpeace is about to shut its operations in India. After reining in Greenpeace, the government transferred 370 acres of forest land to Adani Group in Maharashtra. In one year, Adani group was also the first beneficiary of one billion dollar loan from public sector bank, State Bank of India. However, the bank later turned down the offering. 

Within one year, it is now crystal clear that for whom the government is working. A person, who has a little bit of conscience, can understand the truth. It is going to be a big disappointment for the people who voted BJP for development. However, it doesn’t matter for the people who voted the ‘superhero of Gujarat riots’ on the name of Hindutva as the government has already deployed some ministers and parliamentarians to deliver hate speeches on regular basis to satisfy their ego. 

Counterparts or just sex toys?

Today, I have a deep sympathy for Indian judicial system. A person commits a heinous crime of rape, and then he puts a rod into the genital of the victim that leads to her death. The culprit who was six month less in 18 years at the time of crime, considered a juvenile. And therefore, the judicial system just could award the culprit 3 years of stay in a reform home. Surprisingly, a person who was supposed to be hanged till death, will be walking free just after two years and four months. Now, the big question is, a person who can rape, how can he be a juvenile?

We, living in the 21^st century, still unable to punish a criminal by our existing criminal laws.  Being part of a patriarch society, by awarding such kinds of punishments, what message we want to convey to our counterparts who consist half of the population. They are our counterparts, have equal rights in the society or we just treat them like a sex toy?

Many questions are rising in the mind. Can we still say us civilized and why did this happen? No, certainly not, we cannot say us civilized if our half of the population feel insecure, live with a fear and we are not ready to provide them justice. But still, we say, we are democratic and living in the largest democracy of the world. What nonsense? We can’t think like that if we trespass the rights of half of the population.

The answer lies inside the society and its approach. If a person commits such a heinous crime, being a lady, why not his mother opposes his crime? In contrast, she tries to save him. If the criminal is our relative, we swiftly forget his crime what he has committed and starts trying to save him. There is a tremendous need to change the social approach towards women.

Next things are the lawyers, if an advocate defends an accused of rape (except fake political cases as many of them are filed by their opponents), how does he face his family members, especially female members such as his wife, daughters, sisters or friends in the society? We should not forget justice while practicing any profession.    

One of the big questions is, we are still carrying the Indian Panel Code which was drafted in 1860 by the British rulers. After 66 years of Independence, still we are not capable to redraft these outdated laws. Guys! Don’t you think, this is the need of hour to change our social attitude and outdated criminal laws? If we cannot, at least we should not claim ourselves civilized and democratic. 

The laws against rape must be the strongest. Rather than, the victim, proving she is raped, the culprit must have to prove he has not committed the crime. If he fails to prove himself, he must be guilty in the cases of rape. 

A Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

The way our currency is continuously falling, it reminds me the days of post First World War global economic downturn and crushing world economies, especially the Germen economy. He was Adolf Hitler who brought back his nation in front of world within 10 years.

Our import stood at US $ 485 billion during FY 2011-12 while export was at US $ 300 billion, a sharp deficit of US $ 185 billion of foreign exchange. We had to spend about US $ 170 billion for importing oil. Moreover, we reduced oil import from Iran where we have to pay in Rupees which saves our foreign exchange. Once upon a time, Iran was the second largest oil supplier to us after Saudi Arabia, dropped to sixth place. Following American instructions, we fallen prey and stopped oil imports from that neighbour, now we are permitted to buy oil from this neighbouring country till December this year only. It is not good for a sovereign country like India if US is deciding about its foreign trade. As you know, oil import is the most component of India’s current account deficit.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, you are an Economist, studied from Cambridge, you better know how to get back Indian economy on track. However, it is painful for us to see country’s falling economy in your leadership.

If you are not capable to get back India’s economy on track, just leave your office or follow the following measures, suggested by me who does not have any degree or formal education in economics stream.

Take bold measures, either cut imports except industrial requirement or allow FDI in ‘Navratna’ and ‘Mahratna’ PSUs and take export friendly decisions.

It will increase foreign exchange inflow and decrease the outflow. As a result economy will be back into track and Rupee will get back its lost respect. Otherwise get ready to see national bankruptcy. The country won’t forgive you.  

At last, but not the least, this is our country and you are just a care taker. If you cannot comply your duties, please, please, please… quite your job...  

A hopeful common citizen of India,

Mohd Mustaquim

Pakistan; History repeats itself

How Pakistani leaders and army play hide and seek with each others and history repeats itself in a 16 years of time span. 

It is said that history repeats itself. In 1997, Nawaz Sharif takes the reins of Pakistan as the most powerful Prime Minister with the largest majority in the country’s history. However, He faces a military action and sacked by the then military chief Parvez Musharraf in 1999. The military chief becomes the chief executive of the country and exiles the sacked Prime Minister from the country. After two years, in 2001, he becomes President of Pakistan. United States starts pressurising him to get legitimacy for his post on the democratic way. In this circumstance, he gets a so called referendum in 2002 for the top post. This exercise approves his legitimacy of being the President. Now, Nawaz Sharif has no option to live in the exile.

Under international pressure, Musharraf resigns from the top post in August 2008. In the month of December, general elections takes place and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returns home. During the elections Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) head Benazir Bhutto’s assassination shocks the nation and a sympathy wave moves towards her party and her party PPP becomes the single largest party in the Pakistan National Assembly. In order to establish democracy in the country, a democratic government is formed by PPP with support of its arch rival Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N), including some small political outfits.

Bhutto’s spouse, Asif Ali Zardari takes oath for the President’s post. Now, the exile time starts for Parvez Musharraf. Uncertainty continues, during the five years, the nation sees many Prime Ministers, even a Prime Minister faces arrest warrant by the country’s Supreme Court. Five years passes, Musharraf, returns Pakistan to contest elections. However, Pakistan court disqualifies his candidature and issues arrest warrant against him in the Bhutto assassination case in April 2013. Now, he is a fence sitter, election results has come out, Nawaz Sharif’s party PML (N) has got the position of single largest party in the National Assembly and Nawaz is going take the reins of the country once again.

History repeats itself, Nawaz has the powers and Musharraf is a prisoner. Muddai lakh bura chahe to kya hota hai, wahi hota hai Manzoor-e-Khuda hota hai.

EMPOWERING THE UNDERPOWERED

When the public service delivery process is providing hassles to the end users and corruption & under table money has become a phenomenon, e-Governance shows a hope to bring transparency in the system

The Government of India has launched the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) with the intent to support the growth of e-governance within the country. The Plan visualizes the conception of exact atmosphere to put into practice G2G, G2B, G2E and G2C services.

e-Governance is the use of a range of modern Information and Communication Technologies such as Internet, Local Area Networks, mobiles etc. The primary focus of e-Governance is to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, service delivery and to promote democracy. It gives empowerment to the underpowered sections of the society.

When a person has to go for his ration card, passport or any land records or any service even to register an FIR, he has to stand in the queue day-to-day. He cannot get his work done in a single attempt. It turns into a long process and the services linger unnecessarily. Needless to say, ‘paying under table’ has become a common phenomenon among the system to get the work done and to avoid hassles, moreover, corruption has become one of the biggest issue in the nation. The ongoing Anna Hazare stir is a live issue of fighting against corruption. Today the entire nation is abused by the rogue of corruption.

If we see into the e-Governance, it shows a way forward and heals citizens from the situation. The time is at your next step, when everything would be available at your door step and you don’t need to visit the government offices. You can see the e-Tickets as the live examples of e-governance. Few years ago, it was necessary to get a train ticket, to stand in the queue, after all kinds of hassles, you were not able to ask from the ticket clerk about more options. Now you don’t need to go anywhere and everything is available in your computer or at a cyber café. e-governance gives you a hassle free service and decentralizes the public service delivery system.

If we go through with the draft of Electronic Service Delivery Bill 2011, which is going to be brought to the parliament during winter season, “under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), the core IT infrastructure in the form of State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State Data Centres (SDCs) and one lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) across the country with associated Service Delivery Gateways (routing mechanism) to deliver public services to the citizens has largely been in place Moreover, 27 Mission Mode Projects across various Central Ministries / Departments and State Governments are at various stages of implementation. Additionally, amended IT Act 2008, the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) to facilitate electronic signatures, provision of Unique Identification numbers for every resident, increasing tele-density and broadband Internet have created the ecosystem necessary for mandating Electronic Delivery of Services in a phased manner but with definitive timelines. “Things will be completely changed after passing the Electronic Service Delivery Bill 2011”, said, Sanjeev Kapoor, Head Governance, Infosys Ltd.

On the importance of e-governance, Union Minister for Communications & IT, Kapil Sibal said, “The Electronic Service Delivery Bill to be brought to the parliament in the winter session and every gram panchayat would be connected with fiber cable network. All services would be available online even land records. No one will need to visit for his passport to the concerned authority. He will be able to apply online and the scrutiny will also be done online. We could not imagine 20 years back what the world is today and now we cannot imagine the world 20 years down the line. It is a paradigm shift for technological innovations. That is why we need to prepare for the future. The time will come very soon when you will be able to get your, ration card, land records, passport and any kind of governmental information in your computer.”

Strengthening the democracy.

e-Governance can enhance the delivery of public services, it makes an easy access to information which empowers the citizens, enables their contribution in the governance and improves economic and social opportunities for them, so that they can make their lives better, for themselves and for the gen-next.

e-Governance provides access of information to the end user easily. It makes people empowered even the underpowered sections of the society. It minimizes the dependency upon the government officials, they don’t need to visit to the offices to access the information or any kind of service. If people are getting empowered, it directly means that the democracy is getting strength.

The greater attention of e-Governance is to advance service delivery system, enhancing the effectiveness of production and prominence to the wider access of information.

Siddharth Shankar, President, Drishtee Foundation, said, on the changing scenario, “In this current scenario, people go for at least five kilometers to get his birth certificate, caste certificate or other services. They are helpless to bring under table money to get their work done. e-Governance will change the things and it will reduce the corruption. They will be able to get these documents from the Common Service Centres (CSCs)”.

To make sure Inter-operability among e-Governance applications, The government of India has build-up an Institutional mechanism for formulation of standards through joint efforts of stakeholders like Department of Information Technology(DIT), National Informatics Centre (NIC), Standardization Testing and Quality Certification( STQC), other Government departments, Academia, Technology Experts, Domain Experts, Industry, BIS and NGOs. In this course there is a provision of formal public review also.

Expansion of the internet and electronic commerce, is redefining relationships among various stake holders in the process of governance. A new model of governance would be based upon the transactions in virtual space, digital economy and dealing with knowledge oriented societies. e-Governance is an emerging trend to re-invent the way for the government works.

Delivery models

The key delivery models of e-Governance can be divided into:

Government-to-Citizen or Government-to-Consumer (G2C)

In this model, the G2C model applies the strategy of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with business concept.

Government-to-Business (G2B)

Government-to-Government (G2G)

Government-to-Employees (G2E)

Within each of these communication areas, four types of actions take place:

Driving information over the Internet, regulatory services, general holidays and notifications.

Two-way communications between the agency and the citizen, a business, or another government agency, in this model, users can engage in dialogue with agencies and post problems, comments, or requests to the agency.

Conducting transactions, lodging tax returns, applying for services and grants.

Governance, to enable the citizen transition from passive information access to active citizen participation by informing the citizen, represents the citizen, encouraging the citizen, consulting the citizen and involving the citizen.

A Century gone, India Gate farmer’s protest still on

100 years gone after shifting national capital from Calcutta to New Delhi, the farmers of Malcha village, had to give up their land where our pride Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate are located today. They are still fighting for the compensation of their land. It is a face of a welfare state of India. Finally they have decided not to celebrate Independence Day at a time when the nation feels itself 64 year old.

Now the farmers are located at a tiny village Malcha in the Sonipat district of Haryana. Ancestors of these villagers owned the 1,792 acres of land where Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House and India Gate are located today. Between 1910 and 1912, the erstwhile British Empire acquired their land against a very low compensation of Rs 35 per acre for agricultural land and Rs 15 for non-agri land.

 At least 35 Jat families were deprived from compensation who owned approximately 500 acres. Some villagers have moved Tis Hazari corurt on 2004, claiming revised compensation for the land. The case has now moved to Patiala house court and next date of hearing is August 19th. They also produced a document, which shows how the compensation amount of 35 farmers deposited with the Bank of Bengal.

They were wronged by then British rulers but nothing could be rectified by the Indian government after the 64 years of independence. So for them, August 15th is a day for Protest.

Need to Think Of Rural India


The great Indian phenomena, the 70 percent Indian population depend on agriculture but we don't have proper agriculture policy, farmers suicide in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, burn their crops in Uttar Pradesh because they are not able to get a minimum support price, there is no proper irrigation policy after 63 years of independence and farmers have to wait for monsoon, whereas deficit of it makes cause of drought which leads to deficit of kharif (the crop farmed during monsoon). In other way our farmers have to depend on costly diesel to irrigate their fields which makes their plight so terrible, some years if monsoon appears heavy, our farmers have to suffer by floods but there is no proper mechanism of embankment,

According to Tendulkar committee report, 37 percent of people in India live below poverty line, an increase of 10 percent, where two square meal is not guaranteed. Interestingly, lacs of tons of food grain are rotten every year following lack of warehousing management.

In contrast, Indian government as well as government of national capital territory of Delhi funded billions of rupees to organise commonwealth games which could have been used for development.

After Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, we have just heard promises because our contemporary policy makers don't have their persona as our legends had. Indeed they have gone to a dwarfish stature. Therefore, they don't have the will power to take over the situations. They only know, how to win the elections, even by the support of criminals, and always keep themselves engaged to fill their pockets. Recently we have shown, how our parliamentarians increased their salary up to 200 percent as India is a poor country