It is our responsibility to fight the indifference and darkness around us

To explain what I am trying to say, let me share two heart-rending stories.

In the first, at the beginning of the week, a woman leaves her home in Gurgaon for her workplace. To board the Metro she enters the MG Road station from gate number two. She is surrounded by a sea of humanity. CCTV cameras keep an eye on every corner of the station and so do the soldiers of the Central Industrial Security Force. Suddenly a stalker attacks her with a knife.

In the presence of hundreds of people, the assailant stabs her 30 times. The woman cries out for help. She tries to escape and writhes in pain, but no one comes forward to help her. The attacker keeps stabbing her till she dies.

Hailing from a remote place in the North-East to make a living by doing odd jobs in Delhi, neither the woman nor her loved ones would have thought she would meet such a tragic end in the national capital.

The second story is from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. Sarita Kumari, a junior engineer with the state government, is burnt alive after being tied to a chair in a house opposite her home. All that the police recover from the spot is her ashes and some burnt bones. With a lot of difficulty, on the basis of her slippers, Sarita Kumari’s mother manages to recognise that the victim of the barbaric act was her daughter. Like the woman from the North-East, Sarita could not have dreamt that she would meet such a violent fate despite having a government job in a large town in Bihar.

These heart-rending stories leave behind a number of questions since the person attacking the women wasn’t the demonic Ravan. In the past, there was just one Ravan, but now there are thousands of Ravans among us.

Those crying themselves hoarse about similar issues for political gains don’t express any sympathy for women, child and Dalit victims of such barbaric acts. Do you remember the “rape” on the Bulandshahar highway? The tears in the eyes of the victims haven’t yet dried, but the deluge of public sympathy for them that swelled up at that time for political reasons has already dried up.

Why am I diverting your attention from all the festive cheer a day after Diwali? Because there cannot be a better time to discuss such issues. Diwali is the festival that celebrates the victory of truth over falsehoods, of justice over injustice, and of light over darkness. Thousands of years ago, when the class-system was at its zenith, two princes of Ayodhya joined hands with the oppressed and the tribals to take on the most powerful emperor in the world and defeated him.

Of course, everybody knows that Diwali was first celebrated when Ram and Lakshman returned to Ayodhya after defeating Ravan. People were happy about the ushering in of Ramrajya. After South Africa, Gandhi, too, fell back on the pipedream of a Ramrajya. By linking Swarajya with Ramrajya, the Mahatma stimulated the interest in among Indians and worked miracles. Gandhi didn’t realise that one day Ramrajya would turn into a political slogan and evolve into a farce. The manner in which politicians in independent India have distorted the traditions of Indian politics has led to a number of challenges that are staring Indian society in the face. The two stories narrated above, and the Bulandshahar incident, are examples of such tendencies.

How will we secure freedom from these?

It is a fact that we are among the fastest growing economies in the world and our literacy is bringing economic benefits closer to the people. On the flip side, the growing urbanisation and indiscriminate use of technology hasn’t just made us citizens of the global village, it has also made us move away from human values to a large extent.

In a land where helping the helpless is considered a religious duty, a woman is stabbed more than 30 times at a Metro station in Gurgaon.

Instead of attempting to save the victim, people began making videos.

These days the propensity to make videos of victims of accidents or violence, instead to trying to save them, is growing. By doing this, they commit two kinds of crimes. First, they contribute to the creation of an insensitive society. While doing this they forget that tomorrow if they became victims of mishaps or violence, they would be treated in the same manner. Second, by posting these videos with sensational text on social media, they accumulate “likes” for themselves. But they don’t know that they are going from being spectators to becoming a spectacle themselves.

At times, it is tough to differentiate between the wordplay and dishonesty of intellectuals.

One hopes your homes would still be lit with the lamps and fairy lights that you bought for Diwali. It is likely you may be surrounded by the mess and dust created by the crackers last night. Don’t you think that today, fighting society’s indifference and darkness isn’t just the responsibility of Dashrath’s son but also yours? Just cleaning up your home and neighbourhood won’t do. You also have to uproot the demonic tendencies mushrooming around you.

Shashi Shekhar is editor in chief, Hindustan.

Source: Hindustan Times, 31-10-2016

When an icon falls

Issue is not just the fate of Tatas. A letter like Mistry’s could deepen the credibility crisis of Indian capitalism.

The crisis in the Tata group, now made public by the letter of ousted chairman, Cyrus Mistry, is yet another depressing moment in Indian capitalism’s struggle for social legitimacy. The Tatas have been, in many ways, an iconic group desperately clinging onto the few shards of legitimacy that Indian companies can muster these days. Cynics, particularly after the Radia tapes, have been calling into question the credibility the Tatas had built over the years. It was, they argued, in the final analysis, cut of the same cloth as much of Indian capitalism, a fact largely disguised by a combination of historical legacy, philanthropy, and that ultimate tool of modernity: Tremendous public relations.

Whether or not this charge is true, some future historian of Indian capitalism can decide. But the cynics now have all the ammunition they need. Indian capitalism has always been short of icons. Another icon has decisively fallen, and with it the promise that a more enlightened and better capitalism might at least be possible.

Mistry’s letter is written in self-defence. It will need to be interpreted in that context. Its factual claims will also have to be adjudicated. But its defensive, matter of fact style cannot disguise the sheer enormity of what is at stake. The letter does beg for a semiotic reading of Indian capitalism. Mistry has thrown back every charge that he possibly could at the company that has ousted him.

The letter alleges deep procedural improprieties. It raises ethical concerns about the conduct of the company. It portrays a picture of internal promises frequently broken. It accuses the company of skirting around regulatory improprieties. It raises questions about the valuation of the companies. It seems to suggest that corporate governance accountability is not worth the paper it is written on, with senior independent members of the board seemingly taking instructions rather than exercising judgment. The letter is a profound indictment of the judgment and risk evaluation capabilities of the Tata leadership.

Admittedly, some business decisions are subject to unexpected setbacks or miscalculation of risks. But this letter seems to hint at almost systematic misjudgement and incapacity to account for risk. And to top it all, it is tinged with personal drama of the kind we are more used to in politics: A titanic figure seemingly giving up control of an empire, but not really giving it up. Projects were undertaken not with a view to the long term health of the company but due to egos writ large. Apart from the Tata group, and its practices, the letter is a no-holds-barred attack on Ratan Tata himself. It is a kind of takedown you are used to seeing more publicly aired in politics. After such allegations, what healing?

This is not the place to adjudicate the truth of Mistry’s indictment. Nor do we have the full facts. But whatever emerges in the future, the letter itself may turn out to be a remarkable document in the history of Indian capitalism. The outgoing chief of such a large conglomerate has, in his own defence, ended up indicting his own company, so thoroughly and in public. The issue is not just the fate of the Tatas. The issue is that in the short run, a letter like this will only deepen the credibility crisis of Indian capitalism.

The immediate danger, of course, is that it strengthens the hand of all those state institutions that operate on the idea that the presumptive distrust of Indian companies’ practices should be even higher. The door has been opened for more intense regulatory scrutiny of Tata companies. The insinuations now come in writing from the CEO himself.

The second issue that will emerge is how much the authority of individual capitalists is able to override internal and external scrutiny. Perhaps he did not mean to. But the sum total of Mistry’s charge seems to be that there was little countervailing force against Ratan Tata’s business decisions, whether it be Nano or airlines. For anthropologists of capital, this is an interesting moment: A portrayal of capital, not operating on the cold logic of calculation, but on the basis of personality. Charisma and authority, even here, seem to silence rationality.

The third issue is that Indian companies, despite corporate governance reform, are analytically quite opaque — even the best of them. It is not exactly a secret that Indian companies are the hardest entities to write about analytically in the public domain. This is not just true of “investigative” cases where some wrongdoing is alleged and where journalists risk defamation suits. It is also true of bread and butter analytics of companies and business plans. Of course, even the best laid business plans can go wrong, circumstances can change, risk assessments can involve honest mistakes. But Indian companies are rarely held up to solid analytical scrutiny.

What is striking about Mistry’s letter is the way it punctures holes in the assumptions about one business model after the other, in ways you think an informed media might have done. In principle, this should not matter, since you assume investors, creditors and so forth are doing their due diligence. But in business, as in politics, reputations can have their own self-fulfilling effects. And this is exactly what Mistry suggests.

To Indians cynically suspicious of capital this story has all the elements of schadenfreude. The idea that any company can institutionalise processes that reflect integrity is chimera. The only difference is between companies which manage to successfully draw a veil over the inner working and ones that don’t. For those who take the view that India needs a more mature capitalism that with all its faults can unleash some productive energy in Indian society, this is a depressing story. The social legitimacy of any institution is in the final analysis, not a function of ideology or beliefs. It is a function of credibility, which is often judged through icons.

Indian capitalism, with rare exceptions, has been lacking those icons. That the Tata controversy has felled one more is an indication that the social legitimacy of Indian capital will erode even more. The issue is not the competing world views of Mistry or Tata. It is the long shadow of suspicion this controversy will cast over Indian capital.

The writer is president, CPR Delhi and contributing editor, ‘Indian Express’

Source: Indian Express, 28-10-2016

In praise of Ambedkar and the Buddha

Jay Bhim se, jay Bhim se / Meri duniya jay Bhim se 
Jay Bhim se, jay Bhim se / Meri khushiya jay Bhim se 
Koi nahi tha mere liye / Unhone apna jeevan tyag diya 
Aandhi tufano se ladte rahe / Mujhe apne pairo pe khada kiya

(Long live Bhim [Rao Ambedkar], long live Bhim / He is my whole world

Long live Bhim, long live Bhim / He is my happiness

When there was no one for me / He sacrificed his life

He battled every storm / To help me stand on my feet)

That’s from the song, ‘Jay Bhim se’, the most popular number by Navi Mumbai-based Dalit rock band Dhamma Wings. (The Pali word ‘dhamma’ means to imbibe a quality -- equality, in this case).

“We don’t want to rewrite the page. We want a fresh page,” says lead singer Kabeer Shakya, 28. “We want to connect with the younger generation because youngsters are more open to change.”

The six-year-old band has four other members -- Srijit Banerjee (keyboards, 27), Rahul Kamble (bass guitar, 32), Rohan Zodge (rhythm guitar, 24) and Swapnil More (drums, 27) -- all of whom make a living teaching music.

They sing songs based on the teachings of the Buddha and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, preaching equality, brotherhood and peace in Hindi, English and Marathi.

“Our mission is to end caste discrimination, and highlight other social issues such as unemployment and drought along the way,” says More. “We use songs because music delivers a message faster.”

The band has performed in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and in areas such as rural Aurangabad and Yavatmal, where casteism is more prominent.

They also have good online presence, with thousands of followers across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. ‘Jay Bhim se’ has had more than 50,000 views on YouTube.

The idea of starting a band struck Kabeer in 2010. Inspired by the philosophy of the Buddha, he was living as a monk in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, just after graduation. At the end of his three-month experiment, he decided to dedicate at least part of his time to spreading the Buddha’s teachings.

On his return to Navi Mumbai, he began performing solo at events. At the same time, he also started an IT services company with four partners. Nine months on, Kabeer realised music was his true calling and quit the company. He met More while performing at a tribute to Ambedkar. More introduced him to the others and the band was born.

“It’s changed my life completely. I earn about as much as I used to from my IT company, but this gives me so much more satisfaction,” says Kabeer. “I feel like I’m contributing to society.”

Even if youngsters start to think about change, the effort will have paid off, he adds. “Recently, we performed at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai and over 200 students cheered for us all through,” Kabeer says. “Our music is making a difference.”

Source: Hindustan Times, 23-10-2016

Civil services prelims 2017 in June, UPSC prepones exam date

The civil services preliminary examination, to select IAS and IPS officers among others, will be held in June instead of August next year.

It is after the gap of three years that Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) will be conducting the examination in June, rather than August.

The civil services preliminary examination, 2017, is scheduled to be held on June 18, as per the Commissions’ calender for the examination.

The preliminary tests for 2016, 2015 and 2014 were held during the month of August, a senior UPSC official said.

The preliminary exam will be held early in June this year. The decision has been taken to ensure that the entire process of the examination is completed in time,” he said.

The preliminary exam for 2013 was held on May 26 that year.

The civil services examination is conducted annually by the UPSC in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

Source: Hindustan Times, 27-10-2016

Trafficking Bill a step forward but the problem must be tackled at its source

No one can fault the quantum of punishment prescribed in the draft Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2016 — rigorous imprisonment of seven to 10 years for traffickers and in the case of the victim being a minor, it could extend to life. This is a great improvement on the penalty under the existing Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956, which ranges from three to six months in prison. In a recent case, a woman from Chhattisgarh was convicted by a court in that state after it was found that she had trafficked 10,000 girls over a period of 10 years. The Bill to be tabled this winter session should deter traffickers to some extent if it is implemented rigorously.

The situation is particularly grim when it comes to the trafficking of minors. From 2011-2013, 10,500 children were found missing from Chhattisgarh alone. Estimates suggest that at least 135,000 children are trafficked each year in India. They are forced into domestic work; criminal gangs force them to beg or are pushed into the commercial sex industry. The main reasons for parents, especially from tribal areas, handing over their children to agents who promise them jobs in cities for paltry sums of money are poverty, poor or complicit law enforcement, civil unrest and lack of awareness. According to National Crime Records Bureau statistics, there has been a 38% increase in trafficking of minors between 2009 and 2013 — but alarmingly, a decline of 45% in convictions. This could mean that the situation is likely to get worse going forward. The problem has to be tackled at source, the catchment areas in which touts prey on vulnerable people. Once a person is trafficked, it becomes difficult to trace both the victim and the trafficker and successfully pursue cases to their logical conclusion.

The ministry of women and child development has two schemes, Ujjawala and Swadhar aimed at the rescue, rehabilitation and re-integration of trafficked women and children. But it is hobbled by the fact that government funding for it has been reduced and there are hardly enough shelters for those rescued. Counselling services are few and far between and little thought has been given to how to re-integrate women and children into the mainstream. The many employment agencies which `place’ women and children in so-called jobs could not have done so without the complicity of the police. If stringent checks are maintained on who are eligible to run such agencies, and which cohort they are dealing with, we might make some headway in dealing with the problem before it is too late. The new draft law is a step forward, but it is just one part of the solution.

Hindustan Times, 28-10-2016

Bridging the gap: Tech giants bring the internet to women in rural India

This Diwali is going to be a cracker of a festival for Nisha Chanderwal, a second year BA student.

“I bought a bright red kurta with gold-colour zari dupatta from Snapdeal, my first online purchase,” the 19-year-old resident of Alwar’s Umren village told HT recently.

“No courier service reaches my village. So I gave my aunt’s home address in Alwar. They paid in cash…I paid her when I picked up the parcel,” she added, explaining the circuitous delivery and payment process that is common in rural India.

Nisha is elated for one more reason: She has finally got even with her 20-year-old brother, Ashok. “He has a smartphone, but doesn’t even let me touch it, saying girls should not use the Internet. But now thanks to Google’s Internet Saathi Programme (ISP), I don’t need his phone or his help,” said an elated Nisha.

In July 2015, technology giant Google launched ISP in partnership with Tata Trusts, one of the country’s oldest philanthropic organisations, to bring rural women online in India. Today, the initiative is live in 25,000 villages across 10 states with 1,900 saathis. The final mission is to reach 300,000 villages. Google is adding up to 500 additional ‘saathis’ per week. More than 100,000 women have been trained so far.

Google started this programme because Internet usage by women in rural areas is low.

“Only one in 10 Internet users in rural India is a woman,” Sapna Chadha, marketing head, Google India, told HT. “With ISP, we are creating an enabling environment that empowers them while also bridging the technology gender divide. We believe that easy access to information can transform lives. Our mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible”.

Along with access to information, getting more and more women online has other benefits: “If women are a minority online, they become vulnerable to harassment and violence. Women can’t only be consumers of the Internet but must contribute their views, and make the space equitable,” said Rohini Lakshané of the Bangalore-based The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), which is funded by the Kusuma Trust.

Google and Tata Trusts are leveraging their core strengths for ISP. While Google provides the hardware (phones and tablets), training and Internet connectivity. Tata Trusts does the identification of saathis and the monitoring.

“We tie up with government departments to roll out the project. For example, in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, we are working with the rural livelihood mission. The government helps us to identify villages, set selection criteria and logistics such as venues,” explained Prabhat Pani, project director, Tata Trusts.

The programme first chooses a few women and trains them on how to use a mobile phone, shoot photos and videos and the basics of Internet. Then the women are sent out on bicycles with a smartphone and a tablet to teach others in their villages.

The programme has opened a new world for many. “Google is like a book. You can get whatever information you need. I am illiterate but I use voice search for information,” said Phoolwati, a 45-year-old resident of Nangli Jamawat, Umren.

Her friend Manju is now the village’s undisputed ‘selfie queen’. “I love taking videos and photos,” she said, adding that she also searches for information on MGNREGA or education loans for her children.

According to Google, the new online entrants are searching for news, recipes, designs for clothes, images and information on pilgrimages, farming and cattle-related information and government schemes.

For Google, it makes immense sense to get more people online. “The company is targeting huge and untapped demographics who are entry-level users. Going forward, they will have a huge first-mover advantage if there is scope to monetise Google’s services,” explained Lakshané.

By 2020, about 315 million rural Indians will be connected to the Internet, compared to around 120 million now. That’s about 36% of the country’s online population. By 2020, this share of rural India will jump to 48%, creating a huge opportunity for brands and marketers in places where establishing stores is a challenge,” says a study by the Boston Consulting Group, The Rising Connected Consumer in Rural India.

The first signs of this market potential were evident during the pre-Diwali online festival season sale. E-tailers posted growth in sales compared to last year thanks to growing smartphone penetration in small towns and villages, cheaper data tariffs and free hotspots. While Google did not divulge the exact revenues that it is spending on ISP, Chadha said it has helped the company to understand the needs of users in rural areas and what role the Internet can play.

Along with ISP, Google is also working with the Indian government on two projects that aims to give more people access to the Internet.

First, the Project Loon, which uses high-altitude balloons to create an aerial wireless network with up to 4G speeds for providing Internet access to rural and remote areas.

Second, the company is partnering with RailTel to provide free wi-fi access in stations.

“The ISP has no immediate profits for Google. The average revenue Indian per user is less than say a user in US. But getting more people online helps Google because its search engine is most used,” Praneesh Prakash, policy director, CIS, told HT. “In the long run, the company will earn when people access its services and also from advertising revenue.”

Nevertheless, the ISP is addressing a major problem. “Many are afraid to go online because they don’t know how they can benefit. While the Saathi programme is not a philanthropic effort, it’s good that Google is addressing this issue through its training programmes,” Prakash said.

Source: Hindustan Times, 28-10-2016

No End to HRD Struggle On Deemed Universities

Anubhuti Vishnoi

New Delhi:





SC CLOSES CASE HRD ministry has to decide on the course of action on the universities which were found deficient by Tandon panel

In a move that could once again stir the debate around deemed universities, the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry has sought legal opinion on a recent Supreme court ruling and whether or not it should act on the controversial Tandon committee report that had recommended shutdown of 44 poor quality deemed to be universities in the UPA era.The move comes a month after the SC `closed' the 2006 PIL filed by lawyer Viplav Sharma alleging several flaws in the grant of the deemed university status. With the apex court now having closed the PIL, the HRD ministry and UGC have to decide on the next course of action vis a vis the universities which were found deficient by the Tandon committee.
ET has learnt that the HRD ministry, treading cautiously, has now sought clarity from the Law ministry on what are the implications of the court ruling and whether it requires them to take action on the basis of the Tandon committee report or not.
The quality of deemed varsities has been questioned repeatedly . During the second stint of the Congress-led UPA government, then HRD minister Kapil Sibal ordered a review through the Tandon committee, which found 44 of the 126 deemed universities to be seriously deficient.
. The Tandon committee had found only 38 of the deemed universities worthy of the tag that allows them to confer degrees. It had recommended closure of 44 deemed universities and found the remaining deficient on some counts but could be improved upon in three years.
These institutions challenged the Tandon committee report in court, while some of them opted out of the deemed varsity system and applied for Institute of National Importance status, after which 38 of the 44 varsities have been under the scanner.
A UGC panel set up in 2014 to examine afresh the 44 blacklisted varsities effected a surprising U-turn, saying that no more than seven of them were found to be inadequate on specified standards and should face action.
The National Assessment & Accreditation Council which reviewed these 38 varsities following court orders stated that 17 of the 38 universities had achieved A category status.
Since the issue was sub judice, most of the `blacklisted' deemed universities have not been put through the usual exercise of UGC inspections. A legal opinion would now help clarify how and if the exercise should be resumed or not.

Source: Economic Times, 28-10-2016