A guarantee, an illusion

MGNREGA provisions on right to work and timely wages are being violated.

MGNREGA, one of the world’s largest livelihood programmes, is a pioneer as far as workers’ rights are concerned. Notwithstanding the recent purported budget increase and an announcement to use “space technology” for its monitoring, the programme — and the budgetary exercise — could be pointless given that essential legal safeguards are being trampled regularly. MGNREGA’s robustness owes to provisions such as unemployment allowance, when work is not provided on demand, and compensation for delays in wage payments beyond 15 days. Crucial provisions that enable the right to work and the right to timely wages have been repeatedly violated. These matters are being heard by the Supreme Court based on a public interest petition by Swaraj Abhiyan with regard to drought relief.

In May 2016, the apex court had ordered immediate disbursement of compensation against delayed payment of MGNREGA wages. But merely 4 per cent of the total dues were paid as of January 2017 across all the states (calculations are based on reports accessed on 29th January, 2017 from http://nrega.nic.in [R14.1 Delayed Compensation FY: 2016-2017] by taking a ratio of the total amount paid to the total amount payable). In a recent hearing, the division bench of the court expressed dismay: “We [the Supreme Court] pass orders. They [state governments] don’t obey and you [central government] throw up your hands”.

MGNREGA was designed to be bottom-up and demand driven — a labourer should get work within 15 days of requesting for it. However, inadequate and untimely release of funds from the Centre have made the programme top-down and supply-driven. This year, more than half the states have run out of funds; the current liability is Rs 3,649.38 crore. Work is allocated only when funds are available as opposed to when the demand for work is registered. There are several instances where the programme’s Management Information System (MIS) has been manipulated to match the date of work allocated with the date of work demanded, thus precluding the need to even calculate any unemployment allowance. The MIS is supposed to automatically calculate and create a report for the unemployment allowance. On several occasions,, the authorities have refused to accept legitimate claims for unemployment allowance.

According to Section 3 of the MGNREGA, the wages for a week of work have to be paid within 15 days of completion of a work week, failing which the workers should get a compensation for each day’s delay. At present, there are at least three key concerns in this regard — one, the method of calculation of the delay compensation is itself flawed, two, powers to reject the payment of compensation are arbiThe compensation should ideally be calculated from the 16th day of the completion of a work week till the day on which the workers actually receive their wages. However, the MIS calculates the compensation in a flawed manner. Instead of counting till the date when the wages are actually credited to the workers’ accounts, the MIS calculates delay in days till the payment date — a misnomer, this is actually the date on which the second signature is made to approve the funds transfer order (FTO) at the block. Thereafter the FTOs get collated at the district and the amount is then transferred to the workers’ accounts. It takes several days before the wages reach the worker even after the FTO is signed. The situation is even worse in the case of postal payments where the time taken for the wages to be transferred from the district to the village can extend to a year.

The reports for delay in compensation, using this flawed method, are routinely generated in the MIS. The programme officer (PO) at the block verifies this report and has the authority to decide if this compensation has to be paid. This power is repeatedly abused and most POs reject the payment of compensation. This defeats the purpose of an automated report.

In 2005, when this employment guarantee act (then NREGA) came into force, workers were entitled to a payment of up to Rs 3,000 for delayed wages to commensurate with the Payment of Wages Act (PoWA). The revised schedule of the act has drastically reduced the compensation rate to 0.05 per cent per day of the pending wages and removed the reference to the PoWA.

The pillars of transparency and accountability are in peril with respect to the two key provisions of the act. Funds for the work should be made available throughout the year and checks should be put in place to ensure timely and complete entry of work demand in the MIS. The delay compensation should be automatically calculated based on the date on which the wages are credited to the workers’ accounts and should be deposited directly, electronically. This should be done without any administrative interference.

Narayanan is an independent researcher and Dhorajiwala is a student of public policy, St Xavier’s College, Mumbaitrary and, three, the rate of compensation is abysmally low.

Source: Indianexpress, 14-02-2017

The university’s well-being

It cannot be neglected or left for a more convenient time. When we weaken a university, we do irreparable harm to society.

There are very few institutions of higher education in India and even fewer that provide quality education. Within this rather small group, only a handful nurture talent and produce research that receives recognition globally. When institutions of good learning and research are such a scarce resource, could one justifiably restrict entry to them? Or even consider reducing the number of seats currently available for admission to these institutions. Yet, strange as it may seem, this is what is being contemplated at Jawaharlal Nehru University (and perhaps other such universities) today.

In the year that the government is recognising the achievements of JNU and declaring it the “Best Central University”, we should be considering ways of contributing even more to the interest of higher education and research in the country. Instead, it appears that the university may close its doors upon young talent seeking opportunities to study and pursue research here; there is a real possibility that fewer students may be admitted to different programmes of research in the next academic year.

Crises of one kind or another are not uncommon in our universities, and invariably they occur when universities forfeit their autonomy, willingly or otherwise. We see institutions decline when they cease to use the space and opportunity given to them to take decisions keeping in mind their history, needs and capacities. The condition of universities worsens when they are treated as just manufacturing units where numbers matter the most: The number of items produced on a daily basis by each person; the hours clocked in on each working day; hours spent in the classroom or meetings (thinking is obviously an unproductive activity), etc.

The present crisis (the simmering conflict and anxiety in JNU) has ostensibly been created by a notification of the UGC (May 2016) that specified the number of research scholars that professors of different rank may supervise at any given point in time. In issuing this order, the UGC may have attempted to address some specific problems faced by a few universities. But when that specific context is ignored and the notification is taken to be a general rule that must be followed in letter (and not just in spirit), an incredulous and rather absurd situation is created; and this is just what has happened.

In JNU, several faculty members have routinely guided more students than the number stipulated in the notification, and they are willing to continue to do so. The university was conceived as a place of research and in the manner in which its courses are designed and teaching distributed, there is indeed room for some flexibility. But when this history and capacity assessment is ignored, and numbers become the single criterion, we are confronted with a situation where only a few seats are available for fresh entrants.

Anyone engaged in research would agree that numbers cannot be the deciding factor. Students cannot be allotted a supervisor simply because she has less than the mandated number of students. Nor can one set aside all considerations of merit and justice to admit only those whose proposed research coincides with the specialisation of a professor who has fewer students. Both the intellectual well-being of the student and the quality of research produced is compromised if students are randomly distributed to ensure that each faculty is guiding the specified number of students. One can appreciate the need to set some boundary but the lines must be drawn by the universities themselves, and the latter must fight to claim that right.

We need general rules, primarily to ensure that the basic rights of the different sections of the university community are not compromised. It makes good sense to lay out formal procedures, and adhere to them strictly, when it comes to hiring teachers because all persons must have a fair chance of competing for these positions. Likewise, we might require well-spelt out rules to ensure that admissions are fair and transparent; that grievances are addressed and the rights of all concerned parties are given due consideration. But beyond that, on such matters as the number of students that should be admitted in any programme, which programmes of study should be introduced and at what level, how they should be taught, what research should be pursued, decisions are best left to particular institutions. Overcentralisation and standardisation are not conducive to original and creative research.

Fortunately for us, our universities have a well thought out structure that provides multilevel forums of discussion and consultation. In JNU, for instance, decisions on crucial academic matters are debated first at the level of the department (centre); experiences are shared across departments in school-level bodies and across schools at the university level. It is such bodies of collective deliberation, in which experts/peer groups from other universities are present, that need to be heeded to and strengthened if the universities are to successfully pursue excellence. For they allow the institution an opportunity to give due consideration to general norms while keeping in mind their own particular experiences and needs.

Institutional autonomy comes with a great deal of responsibility. This is why we need extraordinary individuals at the helm, who can create trust between different stakeholders, listen to them and give more substance to bodies of collective deliberation.

At a time when public attention is focused on elections, questions of institutional well-being and the concerns of specific universities may appear unimportant. But matters of good governance cannot be put on hold or left for a convenient time. The anxieties that grip our society and make elections so engrossing and unpredictable are also present in our educational institutions; and apparent neglect or indifference to them can destroy years of labour that go into the making of a good institution. Universities, it must be remembered, have a special role in society as they provide personnel for all other institutions. So when we weaken a university we cause irreparable harm to every sphere of our society.

Written by Gurpreet Mahajan

The writer is professor of political science at JNU

Source: Indian Express, 14-02-2017

The case that saved Indian democracy

The judgment in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala, whose 40th anniversary falls today, was crucial in upholding the supremacy of the Constitution and preventing authoritarian rule by a single party

Exactly forty years ago, on April 24, 1973, Chief Justice Sikri and 12 judges of the Supreme Court assembled to deliver the most important judgment in its history. The case of Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala had been heard for 68 days, the arguments commencing on October 31, 1972, and ending on March 23, 1973. The hard work and scholarship that had gone into the preparation of this case was breathtaking. Literally hundreds of cases had been cited and the then Attorney-General had made a comparative chart analysing the provisions of the Constitutions of 71 different countries!

Core question

All this effort was to answer just one main question: was the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution unlimited? In other words, could Parliament alter, amend, abrogate any part of the Constitution even to the extent of taking away all fundamental rights?

Article 368, on a plain reading, did not contain any limitation on the power of Parliament to amend any part of the Constitution. There was nothing that prevented Parliament from taking away a citizen’s right to freedom of speech or his religious freedom. But the repeated amendments made to the Constitution raised a doubt: was there any inherent or implied limitation on the amending power of Parliament?

The 703-page judgment revealed a sharply divided court and, by a wafer-thin majority of 7:6, it was held that Parliament could amend any part of the Constitution so long as it did not alter or amend “the basic structure or essential features of the Constitution.” This was the inherent and implied limitation on the amending power of Parliament. This basic structure doctrine, as future events showed, saved Indian democracy and Kesavananda Bharati will always occupy a hallowed place in our constitutional history.

Supreme Court v Indira Gandhi

It is supremely ironical that the basic structure theory was first introduced by Justice Mudholkar eight years earlier by referring to a 1963 decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Chief Justice Cornelius — yes, Pakistan had a Christian Chief Justice and, later, a Hindu justice as well — had held that the President of Pakistan could not alter the “fundamental features” of their Constitution.

The Kesavananda Bharati case was the culmination of a serious conflict between the judiciary and the government, then headed by Mrs Indira Gandhi. In 1967, the Supreme Court took an extreme view, in the Golak Nath case, that Parliament could not amend or alter any fundamental right. Two years later, Indira Gandhi nationalised 14 major banks and the paltry compensation was made payable in bonds that matured after 10 years! This was struck down by the Supreme Court, although it upheld the right of Parliament to nationalise banks and other industries. A year later, in 1970, Mrs Gandhi abolished the Privy Purses. This was a constitutional betrayal of the solemn assurance given by Sardar Patel to all the erstwhile rulers. This was also struck down by the Supreme Court. Ironically, the abolition of the Privy Purses was challenged by the late Madhavrao Scindia, who later joined the Congress Party.

Smarting under three successive adverse rulings, which had all been argued by N.A. Palkhivala, Indira Gandhi was determined to cut the Supreme Court and the High Courts to size and she introduced a series of constitutional amendments that nullified the Golak Nath, Bank Nationalisation and Privy Pursesjudgments. In a nutshell, these amendments gave Parliament uncontrolled power to alter or even abolish any fundamental right.

These drastic amendments were challenged by Kesavananda Bharati, the head of a math in Kerala, and several coal, sugar and running companies. On the other side, was not only the Union of India but almost all the States which had also intervened. This case had serious political overtones with several heated exchanges between N.A. Palkhivala for the petitioners and H.M. Seervai and Niren De, who appeared for the State of Kerala and the Union of India respectively.

The infamous Emergency was declared in 1975 and, by then, eight new judges had been appointed to the Supreme Court. A shocking attempt was made by Chief Justice Ray to review the Kesavananda Bharati decision by constituting another Bench of 13 judges. In what is regarded as the finest advocacy that was heard in the Supreme Court, Palkhivala made an impassioned plea for not disturbing the earlier view. In a major embarrassment to Ray, it was revealed that no one had filed a review petition. How was this Bench then constituted? The other judges strongly opposed this impropriety and the 13-judge Bench was dissolved after two days of arguments. The tragic review was over but it did irreversible damage to the reputation of Chief Justice A.N. Ray.

Constitutional rights saved

If the majority of the Supreme Court had held (as six judges indeed did) that Parliament could alter any part of the Constitution, India would most certainly have degenerated into a totalitarian State or had one-party rule. At any rate, the Constitution would have lost its supremacy. Even Seervai later admitted that the basic structure theory preserved Indian democracy. One has to only examine the amendments that were made during the Emergency. The 39th Amendment prohibited any challenge to the election of the President, Vice-President, Speaker and Prime Minister, irrespective of the electoral malpractice. This was a clear attempt to nullify the adverse Allahabad High Court ruling against Indira Gandhi. The 41st Amendment prohibited any case, civil or criminal, being filed against the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister or the Governors, not only during their term of office but forever. Thus, if a person was a governor for just one day, he acquired immunity from any legal proceedings for life. If Parliament were indeed supreme, these shocking amendments would have become part of the Constitution.

Thanks to Kesavananda Bharati, Palkhivala and the seven judges who were in the majority, India continues to be the world’s largest democracy. The souls of Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and all the founding fathers of our Constitution can really rest in peace.

(Arvind P. Datar is a senior advocate of the Madras High Court.)

Source: The Hindu, 2-08-2016

UPSC civil services prelims 2017: Notification for exam expected on February 22

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is expected to release the notification for the civil services preliminary examination 2017 on February 22 on its official website.

According to the UPSC’s annual calendar for examinations, the date of notification for the civil services preliminary exam and the Indian Forest Service (preliminary) examination 2017 is February 22, while the last date for receipt of application is March 17.

The calendar that was released on January 5 said the prelim exams will be conducted on June 18.The CSE exam 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.

A candidate must have a degree of graduation in any stream from any university recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to be eligible to apply for the exam.

Candidates who have appeared in the qualifying exam and are awaiting results are also eligible to apply, provided they submit the certificate of qualification along with the mark sheet to the UPSC before the main exam.

A candidate applying for IFS exam must possess a bachelor’s degree in one of the following: animal husbandry and veterinary science, botany, chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics, statistics and zoology, or a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, forestry or engineering from a recognised university.

Thousands of candidates take the test every year at various centres across the country.

Source: Hindustan Times,  14-02-2017

A Bucket of Love

SUMIT PAUL





“Love is in the air In the second month of the year When everything looks so lovely And the sky is also clear,“ Dorothy Parker wrote this lovely quatrain as an ode to February , the month of love and lovers.It's not for nothing that Valentine's Day also falls in February and this month corresponds with vasant ritu (spring) in the subcontinent, which evokes the soul-gladdening and heartwarming feelings of love. Poet John Keats was so enamoured of February that he wrote, “Let February come A month so winsome With a bucket of love and flowers Hearts will be ripened and love will blossom.“
Mankind is all the more in need of love because we've had enough of violence, bloodshed, bad blood, rancour and wars.Only love has the capacity to heal wounded hearts and bind them like glue. J Krishnamurti said, “Nothing but love can save mankind because all humane traits come out of the womb of love.“ We can win hearts with love and not with hatred. The Buddha melted the hardest hearts with his all-encompassing love and compassion.
Mohandas Gandhi embarrassed the mighty British Empire with his unconditional love and it was the overwhelming power of love that could make the released Nelson Mandela say with a disarming smile to the Dutch jailer, “Sorry , I've nothing to give you except for my love.“
The Dutch jailer wrote in his memoirs, “Living alone for 27 years in an isolated island gaol, Mandela could come out sane and smiling sans any bitterness because he didn't let the love and hope in his heart die.“

Love: An Intensity Of Inclusiveness

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev





One of the most abused and misunderstood four-letter words in the human lexicon is `love'.There is nothing intrinsically wrong with it. It is not without reason that the poets have eulogised it over centuries. But we have distorted it to mean something that it is not. The result is struggle, disenchantment and frustration.Love, for most people, is a means of fulfilling various needs. For an infant who turns to its mother for nourishment and protection, the relationship is a matter of physical survival. For children and adolescents who turn to their peers for friendship, the relationship is often a matter of social survival. For professionals who build relationships with business partners and colleagues, the relationship is invariably related to economic survival.For those who invest their lives in romantic relationships, the issues at stake are often of sexual or psychological survival. People may claim that all these are founded on love. However, most are fundamentally transactional, governed by vested interests. The moment certain expectations are not fulfilled, love evaporates! Indeed, it is often replaced by burning hate or bitter disillusionment.
The fundamental problem is that human beings have based their lives on the fallacy that love involves another. Based on this limited understanding, they create a plethora of relationships. And so you have parental love, romantic love, friend love, God love ­ even dog love! There is nothing wrong with any of these. It is just that in all of them, cooperation from outside forces is an essential prerequisite.This may be a working arrangement for domestic purposes.But for those who seek a more abiding well-being and freedom, this is a highly limited and impoverished idea of love. In actual fact, love has nothing to do with anyone else. Love is just the way you are. It needs no external stimulus; it is entirely self-propelled. Love is simply a state of emotion ­ a state of indiscriminate involvement with existence.
If you decorate it with fairy-tale associations, and inflate it into some exalted mystical condition, you will suffer. But if you play the game consciously , it can be a beautiful game. When you have achieved a sweetness of emotion within, you have the choice to be involved with any aspect of existence without fear of entanglement. This is not hormonally hijacked compulsi veness masquerading as love! This is love as freedom. For you now have the freedom to turn this inner sweetness into love, joy, blissfulness or ecstasy. The choice is yours.
Relationships are inevitable in the social world. Those whose emotions are sweet can enter into graceful and harmonious relationships when necessary , transforming simple needs into a beautiful process as a conscious choice.
However, the compulsive nature of people's desires makes them fetishise love and freeze it into a set of limited, calculated, conditional transactions. To then extol the virtues of `unconditional love' is a gross travesty! The reason why Eastern cultures spoke of the guru-shishya relationship as sacred is because it is reasonably unconditional (at least from one end!). A mother's love comes next. Similarly , dog love is high on many people's lists, because at least from one side, it is unconditional.
However, once you experience love as a way of being, you are not limited by a single definition. When you know the ecstasy of entering into an emotional state of union with anything ­ a tree, a bird, a full moon, even a no moon ­ your love is empowered to become a tool of transcendence. The life you now lead is in an exhilarating intensity of inclusiveness.

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 52, Issue No. 6, 11 Feb, 2017

Editorials

Trumping the Environment

The ‘Universal Basic Income’ Proposal

The Vulnerable Majority

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: Not Breaking Down, but…

Commentary

Politics of Jallikattu

Kalaiyarasan A

Is the Government’s Overly Aggressive Solar Thrust in Public Interest?

Kannan Kasturi

Injectable Contraceptives - Failing Indian Women

Smitha Nair

Can Conditional Transfers Eradicate Child Marriage?

Sajeda Amin, Niaz Asadullah, Sara Hossain, Zaki Wahhaj

Sustainably Unsustainable Peace in Assam

Nazimuddin Siddique

Book Reviews

The Creative Zeal of the Rays

Utsa Ray

(En)Gender Inclusive Disaster Management - Lessons from South Asia

Malini Nambiar

Perspectives

Understanding Ambedkar from the Cauvery Valley

Shivasundar

Special Articles

Indebtedness among Farmers and Agricultural Labourers in Rural Punjab

Gian Singh, Anupama, Gurinder Kaur, Rupinder Kaur, Sukhvir Kaur

Mothers-in-Law and Son Preference in India

Marie-Claire Robitaille, Ishita Chatterjee

Is the ‘Pink Tide’ Ebbing? - Achievements and Limitations of the Latin American Left

Samyukta Bhupatiraju, Rahul Sirohi

Notes

‘Two Class’ Distribution of Income in India - Evidence from Income Tax Data (2012–13)

Rishabh Kumar

Discussion

Poverty Alleviation in Bihar - Alternative Views

Pradeep Kumar Mishra

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Postscript

Of Migrants and Mindsets

C S Venkiteswaran

Festive Kitchens

Divya N

A Letter from Rural India

Dhananjay Singh

Atlas Has Muddy Feet

Nilesh Mondal

Last Lines

Letters

Open Letter to CBSE and NCERT

Arvind Sardana

Indian Non-profit Organisations

Bala Raju Nikku

Proteinaceous

Jaydev Jana

Appointments/programmes/announcements 

Appointments/Programmes/Announcements