Story: Baby Camel and Mother story 11

A mother and a baby camel were lying around, and fortuitously(suddenly,एकायक) the baby camel asked, “mother, may I ask you some questions? Mother said, “Sure! Why son, is there something bothering you? Baby said, “Why do camels have humps?” Mother said “Well son, we are desert animals, we need the humps to store water and we are known to survive without water”. Baby said, “Okay, then why are our legs protracted(long.लम्बा) and our feet rounded?” Mother said, “Son, obviously they are meant for walking in the desert. You know with these legs I can move around the desert better than anyone does!” Baby said, “Okay, then why are our eyelashes long? Sometimes it bothers my sight”. Mother with hubris(pride,गौरव) said, “My son, those long voluminous(thick,मोटा) eyelashes are your vindicatory(protective,रक्षात्मक) cover. They help to intercede(protect,रक्षा करना) your eyes from the desert sand and wind”.

 Baby after thinking said, “I see. So the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert and these eye lashes protect my eyes from the desert then what in god’s name are we doing here in the Zoo!?”

 Moral: deftness(Skills,कौशल), knowledge, abilities and experiences are only germane(useful,सार्थक) if you are at the pertinent(right,सही) place.

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Wait For The Brick....... story 2

A young and successful executive was traveling down a propinquity(neighborhood,पड़ोस) street, going a bit too brisk(fast,तेज़) in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side door! He slammed on the brakes and drove the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The disgruntled(angry,नाराज़) driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car, shouting, “What was that all about and who are you?
Just what the heck are you doing?
That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money.
Why did you do it?”
The young boy was penitent(apologeticक्षमाशील),. “Please mister … please, I’m sorry… I didn’t know what else to do,” he pleaded.
“I threw the brick because no one else would stop…”
With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car.
“It’s my brother,” he said.
“He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift him up.” Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, “Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too ponderous(heavy,भारी) for me.”
Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the expeditiously(rapidly,तेज़ी से) swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out his fancy handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay.
“Thank you and may God bless you,” the grateful child told the stranger.
Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the little boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long, dilatory(slow,धीमा) walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very perceptible(noticeable,प्रत्यक्ष), but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: Don’t go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!
God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don’t have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us.
It’s our choice: Listen to the whisper … or wait for the brick!

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EXPUNGE

Expunge (V):- to eliminate completely; remove by erasing or crossing out or as if by drawing a line.

Synonyms: excise, scratch, strike

Uses:- -I would like to expunge my ex-husband from my memory.

-The president has the power to expunge any person’s criminal history in order to give that individual a fresh start in life

When I received the diamond ring from my husband, I felt the need to expunge any anger I previously felt towards him.    

Military fables of a democracy

In 2004, the world saw evidence of one of the most horrific acts of torture and sexual abuse by an army on captured prisoners. The soldiers did not belong to the army of a banana republic or a military dictatorship(absolute rule,तानाशाही) but to the U.S., a democracy. The prisoners were Iraqi, held at the Abu Ghraib prison.

At present, India is going through a staggering(unstable,विचलित) phase of amnesia(memory loss,भूलने की बीमारी): that it is a democracy. War clouds have caused a flight of reason. The valorization(value,मूल्य) of the Indian military after the “surgical strikes” has culminated(highest,पराकाष्टा) in a perverse(distorted,विकृत) logic amplified(enhance,बढ़ाना) by a shrill media: you cannot question the government on matters military as it is equivalent to insulting the army, which itself is beyond scrutiny(examine,जाँच) and reproach(insult,तिरस्कार).

Aggressive nationalism 

The question here is not of the veracity(reality,सच्चाई) of the surgical strikes but whether questions can be asked of the government and the army. The logic that answers in the negative is one that suits a military dictatorship, not a democracy.

If this logic held, we would have never known how the American and British governments led their people to the catastrophic(destructive,विनाशकारी) Iraq war over flimsy(weak,कमज़ोर) reasons of national security. The Abu Ghraib expose too would have never seen light. Nor would have our own Kunan Poshpora. That such logic shows a tendency towards the militarisation of society, especially now when an aggressive nationalism gains ground.

Witness the closing of public mind since Uri and the surgical strikes. Actors are facing a public outcry either for “disrespecting” soldiers or for “supporting” Pakistani artistes. Parties are being condemned for demanding “proof”. And farcically(laughable,विनोदपूर्ण), television guests are thrown off studio debates for speaking over martyred soldiers’ fathers. The army, in essence, has become a holy cow.

This is a dangerous tendency, for the militarisation of society and the predominance(supremacy,प्रबलता) of militaristic values is opposed to some fundamental tenets(belief,सिद्धांत) of democracy like critical thinking and questioning of hierarchy. Militaristic values are alsointrinsically(internally,आंतरिक) connected to notions(opinion,मत) of hypermasculinity(bravery,बहादुरता). Of course, unquestioning obedience is useful in the institutional context of the army and in limited situations of war, but it cannot become a general value of society for all times.

More crucially, militarisation fundamentally obfuscates(unclear,अस्पष्ट) society’s real problems. Fear becomes the basis of society, and a soldier’s job becomes the most important occupation. People who clean the sewers with no protective equipment, and at great threat to their lives, do not, in this narrative, serve the nation. As the writer Aakar Patel asks, why are sewer cleaners, dying in the hundreds, and sanitation workers not considered martyrs?

The tragedy of a dead soldier is justifiably commemorated by all. But millions die unsung, performing jobs in hazardous(risky,जोखिमपूर्ण) conditions. The precariousness(uncertainty,अनिश्चितता) of soldiers on the Siachen Glacier is rightly sympathised with, but not the horrors of manual scavengers who have to handle human faeces and die due to diseases.

Shouldn’t there also be outrage(anger,गुस्सा) over men carrying their dead daughter and wife on their shoulders because hospitals refused ambulances, as was the case in two separate incidents in Odisha? Where is the outrage and TV coverage about the 1.2 million (preventable) child deaths in India last year, the highest in the world? How does this number compare with deaths caused by terrorism? For society’s well-being, should this not be the most important problem exercising discourse?

Ironically, a militarised society despite valorising the soldier does not actually speak for him/her. Warmongering could only lead to the deaths of more soldiers. While Kargil and its 527 war heroes entered India’s military folklore, Operation Parakram and its 798 dead soldiers are little discussed by the public. How is it justifiable to lose nearly 800 soldiers without even fighting a war?

Further, in every violent conflict like Uri, the overwhelming numbers of the dead are sepoys and non-commissioned officers hailing from the most marginalised strata of society. It is a tragedy at many levels.

The uniting factor 

The valorous(brave,बहादुर) soldier versus the pusillanimous(coward,कायर) civilian and the patriotic soldier versus unpatriotic civilian are false binaries on which a militarised society thrives(grow,पनपना). On the one hand, defence arms procurement, and land and recruitment scams show the involvement of both higher echelons(group,टोली) of the military, and civilians (politicians and bureaucrats). On the other, what unites both is that tragic social conditions are disproportionately shared by the soldiers and civilians from the poorest and most oppressed groups, especially the costs of war. After all, the shrieking TV anchors and the elite(specific,विशिष्ट) civilian classes wanting a war are not the ones fighting the war, or are among the 15 lakh people forcibly evacuated from border village homes and living in makeshift camps.

The valorisation of the military in a democracy is ironical. Ultimately, what is the military fighting for? Is it merely Indian territory? The military, while protecting the nation, does not dictate India’s constitutional values. By conflating the two, a fundamental mistake is made. In the eyes of the world, what distinguishes India from Pakistan is not that it has a bigger military, but that it is a settled, even if flawed, democracy. The Indian Army is different from the Pakistani Army because it is, ultimately, under the control of the people.

Every public institution, including the military, has to be subject to public accountability and scrutiny. There is no maxim in a democracy that says you cannot ask questions of its army.

Similarly, striving for non-violent resolutions is not being anti-national. An army veteran writes: “It’s easy to ask for peace when you are a thousand miles away from the Line of Control.” This is why soldiers facing bullets at the border are not the ones in charge of public policy in a democracy. As Onkarnath Dolui, who lost his son in Uri, painfully pleads, “Believe me, I don’t want war as it demands countless of lives, like that of my son, on either side.”

Soldiers and their sacrifices deserve respect in society, but they cannot overwhelm every other aspect of society. Military fables have their place, but they cannot substitute democratic debates. While we mourn the deaths of soldiers, we have to understand that poverty is the biggest killer in India, by a million times over. A militarised society prevents us from seeing that.

 courtesy:the hindu

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Railway Budget, a vanishing trick

So finally, the almost century-old practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget ahead of the General Budget is to be dispensed with from the next financial year (2017-18), and the Railway Budget “merged” with the General Budget. The Union Cabinet has just cleared the proposal.

What are the reported reasons for this merger? According to earlier media reports, a separate Railway Budget is being dispensed with so that the Indian Railways need not pay the annual dividend to the Government of India on the budgetary support given each year, saving the financially stressed Railways about Rs.10,000 crore annually; over the years, the Budget has been misused by politicians as a populist platform to enhance(increase,बढ़ाना) their own image; no other Ministry has a separate budget and the practice exists in no other country today; the Bibek Debroy Committee has recommended discontinuance of a separate Rail Budget and it is part of the Prime Minister’s reform programme. Besides, it is a colonial legacy.

A point particularly stressed by the Finance Minister in the press conference announcing the Cabinet decision was that the Railways’ share in the General Budget has progressively reduced over the years, making a separate budget an anachronism.

Each of these “reasons” does not present the true or complete picture. It is necessary to separate fact from fiction.

It is a review

There have been sporadic(periodic,छिटपुट) calls in the past for doing away with a separate Railway Budget for various reasons, but the matter was never pursued seriously. One of the more publicised reasons is that it will free the Railways of the obligation of paying the annual dividend, as mentioned earlier. This is only partly true. The dividend is paid not only on the budgetary support extended during a year but also on the total “capital at charge” which includes the gross budgetary support (GBS) of previous years. By this merger, a “loan-in-perpetuity” is converted to a grant. Shorn of officialese, it is a loan waiver; and loan waivers are granted to individuals or institutions in extreme financial distress — something not to go to town about.

In popular imagination, the Railway Budget was seen as a grand spectacle, with the Railway Minister using it as a platform for populism and political grandstanding. What is not appreciated is that the Budget is not merely a statement of allotment of funds to various projects and programmes, unlike other ministries, but comprises a fairly detailed performance review, physical and financial, of the previous year and prospects for the current (Budget) year. Perhaps nowhere in the world is a political functionary called upon to present a financial report card of the country’s largest public undertaking in the full glare of publicity. A separate post-Budget discussion in Parliament on the Railways, as indicated by the Finance Minister, is no substitute, as the focus most likely will be on allotments to various projects, not on financial performance.

Talking of populism, the recent announcement by the Finance Minister of the proposal to set up a new Railway zone to placate(calm,तसल्ली) a State government as part of a “special package” is proof that it is possible to be “populist” outside a separate budget.

Why should there be a separate budget for the Railways? The fact is that the Railways is indeed unlike any other Central ministry in size and scope: It is an operational ministry; it earns as well as spends, unlike other ministries that only spend. Its gross earnings (Rs.1.68 lakh crore in 2015-16) are among the highest for any Indian organisation, public or private; it has a staff strength (13.2 lakh) that exceeds that of the Indian Army; it fully meets the pension liabilities of its retired employees (13.8 lakh) out of its own earnings unlike other ministries; it follows an accounting practice, though not up to the standards of a purely commercial establishment, that has a number of features of a commercially-run organisation. So, if the Railways is to be treated like other ministries, will the government also fund its pension liabilities which are estimated to be about Rs.45,500 crore in 2016-17? That should be some “savings” indeed!

Part of a package

Perhaps the most misquoted reason given for the merger is that the Bibek Debroy Committee has recommended it. That is being economical with the facts. The committee has recommended it not as a stand-alone step, but as part of a slew of measures such as: complete overhaul of the project financing architecture of the Railways involving ruthless weeding out of unviable/long-pending projects; comprehensive accounting reforms; separation of infrastructure and operations; and setting up of a rail regulatory authority. Pending these steps, each of which is a major project in itself (some politically sensitive), the move to give a hasty send-off to the Railway Budget is perplexing(baffling,हैरान करने वाला).

The Railway Budget is indeed a colonial legacy; but so are English, the Railways, Rashtrapati Bhavan and the sedition law. Enough said. All this is not to say that the Railway Budget is a holy cow that cannot be touched. Far from it. The question is not “why”, but “why such a hurry to bury it”?

The answer, in one word: Obfuscation(anxiety,घबराहट). By all accounts, the Railways’ financial position is precarious(uncertain,अनिश्चित) due to the triple whammy of a fall in revenues, a sudden spike in expenditure due to implementation recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, and an increasingly unsustainable interest burden on market borrowings. A separate Budget would have meant having to openly declare an operating ratio in excess of 1.0 (in layman’s language, that means one is living beyond one’s means): not a very good advertisement for a system that aspires to have high-speed tilting Talgo trains shortly and Bullet trains in the not-too-distant future. So why not banish and “vanish” the Railway Budget into anonymity as one of the myriad(infinite,असंख्य) annexures in the General Budget and earn a fat “bonus” of about Rs.10,000 crore in the bargain? A smart move indeed! It seems now the Budget is more valuable dead than alive. However, what should be a matter of serious concern to the aam aadmi is that the Railways’ finances are sought to be shored up, not by improving efficiency, increasing revenues and cutting costs, but through a dexterous(skillful,कुशल) bureaucratic sleight of hand, taking cover behind the smokescreen of “reforms”.

Finally, a suggestion to the government: Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater; table an annual “Indian Railways Report” in Parliament on the lines of the Economic Survey prepared by the Chief Economic Advisor under the Ministry of Finance. That will signal reforms with transparency.

courtesy:the hindu

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The Margarita mirror

The 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) will be held between September 13-18 in Margarita, Venezuela. Heads of government of 120 member states will descend(get down,उतरना) on this Venezuelan island, which sits at the edge of the Caribbean Sea. NAM was formed in 1961, at the initiative of Egypt, India and Yugoslavia. It is telling that of these three, one no longer exists (Yugoslavia), one no longer has the kind of magnetic sway(influence,बोलबाला) it had in the 1950s and 1960s (Egypt), and the third seems disinclined(unwilling,अनिच्छुक) to favour the idea of non-alignment (India).

Indeed, India will not be represented by its head of government — Prime Minister Narendra Modi — but by its Vice President. Only once before has the Indian Prime Minister not been to the NAM Summit, and that was in 1979 when caretaker Prime Minister Charan Singh did not go to Havana (Cuba). Is NAM now irrelevant, so much so that India’s head of government no longer feels the need to attend its meetings?

From Brijuni to Baku

In July 1956, Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito met at the island retreat of Brijuni on the Adriatic Sea to discuss the state of the world. The previous year, in Bandung (Indonesia), newly independents states of Africa and Asia gathered to inaugurate a new approach to inter-state relations: non-alignment. Fresh out of the darkness of colonial rule, these new states, they felt, should not be sucked into alignments with the West or the East. These camps would suborn the independence of the new states, drawing them into military obligations and economic entanglements(complexities,उलझने). But sovereign foreign policies could not be sustained by these individual states. They needed to shelter together, to forge an alternative, to fight to build a peaceful world order where the obligations of the UN Charter could be met.

In 1961, Tito hosted the first NAM meeting in Belgrade, where 29 states gathered to lay out this new order. Their bravura(skills,कुशलता) was sneered at in Washington, where the government suggested that non-alignment was merely capitulation(surrender,संधिपत्र) to the Soviet Union. The Soviets, meanwhile, saw an opportunity in the NAM, where a newly free Cuba, with close ties to the Soviets, had begun to assert its leadership despite its tiny(small,छोटा) size. NAM announced that it would push for an alternative economic order and that it would campaign against the arms race that had put the fear of nuclear annihilation(destruction,विनाश) across the planet. These were halcyon(slow,धीर) days for NAM, asserting its moral authority against war and poverty.

Over the course of the past 60 years, the NAM has seen an erosion of its authority. The Third World debt crisis of the 1980s crushed the economic ambitions of these NAM states. By the time NAM gathered in Delhi in 1983, it was a shadow of its origins. In NAM they had wished the centuries away, but now, awash(flooded,भरा) in debt, they had to settle for the present. The Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. bombed Panama and Iraq, and history seemed to end with American ascendency(dominance,प्रभुत्व). Proud nations queued up to curry favour with Washington, settle accounts at the International Monetary Fund and begin to sniff their noses at platforms such as NAM.

By the early 1990s, several important powers of NAM began to back away (Argentina left in 1991). Yugoslavia crumbled, with war tearing apart its promise. India went to the IMF and gestured to the U.S. that its days of non-alignment had gradually(slowly,धीरे धीरे) come to a close. Over the past few years, countries with a more skeptical(doubtful,संशयवाद) attitude towards American power have held the mantle of NAM — South Africa (1998), Malaysia (2003), Cuba (2006), Iran (2012) and now Venezuela (Egypt, which presided over NAM from 2009, was convulsed in the Arab Spring during its presidency). NAM oscillated(shake,डगमगाना) between suspicion of U.S. motives and attempts to regenerate the economic engines of its members. The next president of NAM after Venezuela will be Azerbaijan, which is a newcomer to NAM and one that does not have a presence on the world stage.

Turmoil in Venezuela

Venezuela has been eager to make this NAM summit a success, a showcase for the resilience of its social revolution. Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro argues against the view that the ‘NAM has lost its raison d’être(purpose,उद्देश्य) upon the end of the Cold War’. Indeed, he suggests, using language that is resonant of the earlier NAM and alien to the Modi government, “we are convinced that neo-colonial dominance can be seen nowadays in both an aggressive and brutal manner”. Mr. Maduro points to the wars of aggression and the deep social and economic inequalities that plague the planet. The emergence of multi-polarity, he stresses, needs to be shaped by the Global South, whose instrument is NAM. Venezuela’s socialist government does indeed face steep challenges. Steve Ellner, who teaches at the Universidad de Oriente, identifies the three issues as “declining oil prices, economic war, and the exchange rate distortions(deform,विकृति)”. The decline in oil prices has certainly struck this oil-exporting state. This crisis has been magnified by an economic war by the business elites in Venezuela who have on several occasions sought to overthrow this government. Poor policy decisions by the government to handle inflation and currency manipulation have further weakened its hand. When Mr. Maduro travelled to Margarita Island, where the summit will be held, a crowd banging pots and pans jeered at him. Mr. Maduro and the socialist movement are fighting to regain the trust of the people against both genuine problems facing the government and exaggerations(overstatement,अतिशयोक्ति) from the U.S.-backed opposition.

NAM will be one of the largest gatherings in Venezuela in recent years. It is hoped by the government in Caracas that this would help the country by shoring up an alternative bloc to the West. But such an alternative will require a visionary leadership. What should be the contours(outline,रूपरेखा) of the emerging multipolar world? How would the new poles tackle the difficult problem of poverty and joblessness? It is not sufficient to point fingers at the West. An alternative has to be developed. At the 1973 NAM meeting in Algiers, the member states laid out the New International Economic Order (NIEO), a charter for a different way to manage political disagreements and trade across states. The NIEO proposed a new path. It had an electric effect, but it died in the rubble of the debt crisis. A new charter for a 21st century NAM is needed. If the NAM is to be relevant, it needs to develop such a visionary document.

courtesy:the hindu

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Pharmacies not likely cause of TB drug resistance

For a while now, the medical community has been blaming pharmacies for indiscriminately(recklessly,अंधाधुंध) giving antibiotics to patients with tuberculosis (TB), instead of referring them to a doctor. A Lancet paper has now corrected the

popular misconception when a study found that none of the 622 pharmacies in Delhi, Mumbai and Patna handed out first-line anti-TB drugs to these patients. So, pharmacies are the unlikely source of irrational drug use that contributes to multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

Not playing a role

The study shows that pharmacies are not playing any role in increasing TB resistance in the country,” says Dr. Srinath Satyanarayana, from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, who is the lead author of the paper that was published on August 26, 2016. “TB drug resistance occurs primarily due to incorrect  , intake of drugs irregularly or intake of drugs for very short duration of time. From our study, it appears that pharmacies are not playing a role in deciding the anti-TB regimens and are also not dispensing anti-TB drugs over-the-counter, at least in the three cities that we studied. So the drug resistance in India could be due to either patient related-factors or provider-related factors or health system related factors (which has not created a system for all TB patients in [the] country to access quality assured diagnosis and treatment free of cost and seamlessly),” he says in an e-mail to The Hindu.

One reason why pharmacies did not dispense first-line, anti-TB drugs could be because they belong to a more stringent(strict,सख्त) Schedule H1 category of drugs where details of the prescription and name of the doctors and patients have to be documented and the registry retained for two years.

Quinolone abuse a concern

However, the good news ends here. The researchers found that that a vast majority of these pharmacies did dispense antibiotics to TB patients even when they did not have a prescription. This links to an earlier study which showed the tendency of private practitioners to liberally use antibiotics in treating TB, leading to a delay in diagnosis and treatment and an increase in the chances of TB spreading within a community.

In the Lancet study, healthy individuals were trained to pose as TB patients and interacted with pharmacists — to understand how the pharmacies in these cities treated patients presenting themselves with TB symptoms. The objective was to determine whether the pharmacies were contributing to the inappropriate use of antibiotics. One patient presented with 2-3 weeks of cough and fever, was directly seeking drugs from a pharmacy while a second patient was presented with one month of cough and microbiological confirmation of TB from a sputum test. In the case of the first patient, only 96 of 599 pharmacies (16 per cent) referred the patient to health-care providers. But ideal case management was in only 13 per cent of the cases, as a few pharmacies handed out antibiotics to the patients even while referring them to a physician. Antibiotics (37 per cent), steroids (8 per cent) and fluoroquinolones (10 per cent) were given to patients with symptoms.

“That nearly 37 per cent of the pharmacies are handing out antibiotics to persons presenting with TB symptoms is really worrisome,” says Dr. Satyanarayana. But more worrying is the dispensation of fluoroquinolones. “Fluoroquinolones are an essential part of the MDR-TB [multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis] treatment regimen and emerging regimens, so quinolone abuse is a concern.”

Impact

In stark contrast, in the case of the second patient, who had a microbiological confirmation, 67 per cent (401 of 601) of pharmacies referred the patient to a health-care provider. Like in the earlier case, ideal case management was seen in only 62 per cent as the standardised patient did receive antibiotics (16 per cent) or steroids (3 per cent) even while being referred to a health-care provider. “In the case of TB patients with microbiological confirmation of TB disease, antibiotics (without anti-TB properties) will be futile(ineffective,अप्रभावी) and redundant (unnecessary,अनावश्यक), and can delay the initiation of proper therapy for patients. These patients will continue to spread the disease in the community and TB disease will continue to progress in the individual concerned. Steroids reduce body immunity, suppress symptoms temporarily and can exacerbate (worsen,बिगाड़ना) the TB disease,” he says.

courtesy:the hindu

click here for official link

Diplomacy and the diaspora

If there is one issue on which all political parties agree, it is the imperative to include overseas Indians in India’s economic development and to take care of their needs and aspirations. Successive governments have been vying(compete,प्रतिस्पर्धा) with each other to give more and more concessions to them as acknowledgment of their contribution by way of remittances, investment, lobbying for India, promoting Indian culture abroad and for building a good image of India by their intelligence and industry.

India was initially sensitive to the view that championing the cause of overseas Indians might offend the host countries, who should be fully responsible for their welfare and security. The Indian community and our diplomatic missions interacted on national days or other important occasions, but diaspora diplomacy was low key.

Rediscovering Indians abroad

Rajiv Gandhi was the first Prime Minister who changed the diaspora policy by inviting Indians abroad, regardless of their nationality, to participate in nation-building, much like the overseas Chinese communities. In return, he promised them opportunities to work with India, like in the celebrated case of Sam Pitroda, who was entrusted with the task of modernising telecommunications in India. The response was not ecstatic(joyful,उन्मादपूर्ण), but many volunteered to help out in various ways. But this brought to focus the many inadequacies(insufficiency,अपर्याप्तता) of the Indian system for the diaspora to collaborate with India or to invest in the country. Grievances like red tape, multiple clearances, distrust of government in fulfilling promises were addressed through hesitant reforms and promotional measures.

The first test of the new diaspora policy came in 1987 when Sitiveni Rabuka ousted an Fiji Indian majority government in Fiji and reduced them to second-class citizens. Rajiv Gandhi, in a major departure from established policy, protested vehemently(forcefully,प्रबल), imposed trade sanctions against Fiji, got it expelled(throw,निष्काशित) from the Commonwealth and raised the issue at the United Nations. This bewildered(confused,व्यग्र) those Fiji Indians who did not want to disturb the race relations in Fiji, but energised the Indian diaspora, generating faith in them that India would not be a silent witness, as it was in the past, to discrimination(unfair treatment,भेदभाव), racism and disenfranchisement of Indians abroad. The Indian position was instrumental in democracy and racial harmony returning to Fiji after 10 years.

After India and the overseas Indians rediscovered each other under Rajiv Gandhi, there came a host of measures such as a separate Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, the Person of Indian Origin (PIO) Card, Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, Overseas Citizen of India Card, NRI funds and voting rights for Indian citizens abroad, some from the United Progressive Alliance and some from the National Democratic Alliance governments. The response from the diaspora was diverse, as these affected different categories of Indians in different ways. For the Indian nationals in the Gulf and elsewhere, welfare measures and resettlement facilities were more important, while the prosperous communities in the West, who were clamouring(loud demand,जोरदार मांग) for dual citizenship, felt short-changed. But, on the whole, they were energised into espousing(support,समर्थन) Indian causes in the U.S. Of course, their support to Indian interests was not automatic and they often urged(forced,जोर डालना) India to modify its policies to suit American sensitivities. Indian-Americans contributed little by way of remittances or investments, but the establishment of the India Caucus in the House of Representatives and turning around doubting legislators into voting for the India-U.S. nuclear deal were major accomplishments.

The Modi outreach

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the diaspora a centrepiece of his foreign policy and, during his foreign visits, addressed mammoth(large,बड़ी) meetings of the community to project India’s priorities and needs. But he did not address any of their demands or announce any new plans for removing their grievances like travel issues and protection of their properties in India. If anything, the merger of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs with the Ministry of External Affairs, though pragmatic(practical,अनुभवजन्य), has been construed as a negative step. The irregularity of diaspora conferences and awards has also caused some concern in the diaspora.

Together with the new hopes and expectations raised by the government, there are new fears and concerns among and about the overseas communities. The volatility(unpredictability.अस्थिरता) in West Asia, together with the fall in oil prices, has caused fears of a massive return of Indian nationals, curtailing(control,नियंत्रण) remittances and making demands on the job market. In Kerala, for instance, workers from other States have bridged the demand-supply gap in various sectors. The Gulf countries will require foreign workers for some more time, but India’s relations with many of them remain in the employer-employee mode. Of course, it was heartening to see Saudi Arabia resolve a serious issue relating to a starvation among Indian workers, but we should be ready for the eventuality of Indian workers returning, though a massive “Indexit” is unlikely.

A recent phenomenon is that of “discovering” Indians wherever there is a crisis. India does not have any precise(clear,स्पष्ठ) data on the number of Indians in different parts of the world. The amount of risks that Indians are capable of taking to get medical education, for instance, is phenomenal. Whether it is in Ukraine, Yemen or Syria, Indians are discovered eking out(fill out,निर्वाह करना)an existence in difficult circumstances. General V.K. Singh (retd.), Minister of State for External Affairs, has become virtually the Chief Repatriation Officer, flying into hotspots with chartered flights to rescue Indians and bring them home. He was often bewildered when many Indians refused to use the facility for return and insisted on staying on in difficult situations either to seek alternative jobs or to settle their claims. Back home, disquiet has been expressed that public money is being spent on bringing people who have gone on their own for their benefit.

Even more serious is the suspicion that some Indians are travelling to the Islamic State areas either to join the jihad or to settle there in what is considered a Promised Land. Adventurism of this kind needs to be stopped. We used to take pride in the fact that Indians never joined terrorist organisations, but the latest trends are very disturbing.

The dilemma(confusion,दुविधा) for India is whether movements of Indians abroad for education or employment should be curbed. This will be against the spirit of freedom; but there should be at least an accurate count of Indians in different countries and projections should be made of future prospects. States must be prepared with plans for rehabilitation of Indians, with the possibility of offering the same kind of jobs they were doing abroad. Asking them to turn into entrepreneurs overnight would be counterproductive. There should also be a clear division of labour between the Central and the State governments in crisis situations.

The Indian diaspora is more prosperous than before and its involvement in India’s development is increasing. Indians overseas are conscious of their opportunities in India. At the same time, new fears about scaled-up return of Indians or their involvement in global terrorism are raising their heads. Firefighting is not enough. We should have a comprehensive plan involving both the Centre and States to invest remittances intelligently and to find alternative ways of livelihood for those who return.

courtesy:the hindu

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Don’t blame it on Rio

Even as the Union sports minister, Vijay Goel, and his unruly cohort(group,समूह)bring disgrace upon the nation by bullying their way into prohibited spaces at Rio, our sportspersons have brought us little glory. Although hope lies undying within the human breast, it is highly unlikely that we will match our tally of the last Olympics.

I hasten to add that this is not in the least the fault of our sportspersons. It is the inevitable consequence(result,परिणाम) of our never having had a comprehensive sports policy aimed at developing a sporting culture to make ours a sporting nation. Indeed, sports policy, such as it is, has been wholly concentrated on funding sports bodies and administrators who are intent on living in style while hoping that Lady Luck will produce some athlete or team that will compensate for our being the worst performing large country in the world of sport. If we do happen upon a Milkha Singh or a Dutee Chand, it is more chance than an earnest search for catching them young and then assiduously(laboriously,परिश्रम से)  nurturing them to a world-class showing at the Olympics.

Indeed, what our sports administrators wish to concentrate on is hosting mega-sporting events on which government, for reasons of false prestige, goes out of its way to shower its largesse. We saw this with devastating consequences at the Commonwealth Games, 2010, that did more to sully our good name the world over than any failure in field and track.

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The worst job I have ever held was as Union sports minister, 2006-08. CWG ‘10 was under preparation and everyone expected me to be a complaisant team player although I discovered within a few days of taking the assignment that what it meant was that I ask the government for more and more money while keeping prescribed financial procedures at bay as far as possible. I repeatedly protested my reluctance(unwillingness,अनिच्छा) to be part of these shenanigans and was eventually sacked — to my intense relief.

But before I was shown the door, I was instructed to prepare a “comprehensive sports policy” to replace the few pages of clichés prepared by the previous government. I got my 72-page document ready within weeks but the Indian Olympics Committee got all sports bodies to boycott the effort. I, therefore, submitted the paper as it was. A discussion on it in cabinet was scheduled but, with a day or two to go for the discussion, I was eased out and my successor’s first task was to withdraw the paper. When the new government was formed in 2014, the new BJP minister (who has since been elevated to chief minister, Assam) requested me for a copy. I sent it to him. I was then asked for another copy by Vijay Malhotra of the IOA, who, as the longest-serving sports administrator in the country, has been responsible for more sporting disasters than several of his colleagues combined. However, I complied post-haste with his request. That is the last I have heard of it.

The gravamen of my paper, based on constitutional provisions relating to sports, numerous(many,बहुत से) expert committee reports since Independence, repeated parliamentary standing committee recommendations, the Olympics Charter and a host of UN declarations on education and sports to which we have subscribed, and recent and earlier policy statements at the level of PM and below, was that we cannot win medals before first becoming a sporting nation. Instead of waiting for talent to appear out of the blue, we must create a national sports culture, fostering(nurture,विकसित) a nation-wide sports consciousness and building a reservoir of sporting talent by providing universal access to sports, as other comparable countries have done.

The paper drew on 2000 data (this now needs updating) to show that China had created 6,20,000 sports facilities with 3,50,00 popular sports instructors and another 1,00,000 part-time trainers, working through some 40,000 grassroots sports associations, to involve an estimated 37 per cent of its population in physical education and sports activities stretching across all age groups. India, on the other hand, was estimated to have provided access to sports to no more than 5 crore out of its 77 crore population of youth and children. In consequence, where China had won a total of 379 medals in recent Olympic and Asian Games put together, India’s tally stood at a meagre 55.

The paper pointed also to little Cuba’s astonishing(surprising,आश्चर्यजनक)

 score, in the Olympics and Pan-American Games put together, of 179 medals, amounting to an average of 157.2 medals for every 10 million of its population as against India’s 0.5 medals for every 10 million of our population. It was stressed that out of some 11.5 million people, Cuba had 2 million “recognised athletes”, of whom 23,000 were in the “high performance” category spread over 38 sporting disciplines, trained by 1,20,000 retired sportspersons and 48,000 professionals, leading to this tiny island inhabited by fewer people than are to be found between the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and the Yamuna Sports Complex at Surajmal Vihar, New Delhi, becoming one of the best performing countries in the Olympics.

Drawing from the experience of China and Cuba, the paper laid out a strategy for adopting their methodology to the Indian reality. The Action Plan comprised nearly a hundred steps to be taken, and is too detailed to be summarised in this article. It broadly aimed at securing “sports for all” through promoting universal access to sports. Besides schools from the primary level upwards, the three-tier Panchayati Raj system was to be involved through the already-launched Panchayat Yuva Khel aur Krida Abhiyan and the 2.5 lakh clubs of the Nehru Yuva Kendras (since abandoned(leave,छोड़ना)by the BJP ministers). Scientific talent-spotting was to be encouraged through district and sub-district sporting competitions, followed by an elaborate system of specialist sports training with suitable nutrition at special education institutions that combined normal school and college education with overwhelming emphasis on sports for selected sportspersons of exceptional talent. Promotion of indigenous sports and the preparation of a sports grid and sports mapping to monitor what disciplines of excellence were emerging in which parts of the country was emphasised. That, not squandering(waste,व्यर्थ) tens of thousands of crores on hosting mega-sports events, is the way forward to medals and to national glory.

courtesy:indian express

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