The fear of Covid had snatched away the parameters of life. But as time passed I found a new meaning, a new vision and an ability to override the fear and a confined life
Freedom is the greatest song of life! Freedom to be free, freedom to life, freedom from fear is the eternal quest of humanity. Let me detail a bit my loss of freedom to Covid and how I regained it while being confined. To revisit the sweet whispers of immensely happy times in sun-kissed landscapes of Aix-en-Provence, exquisite art in the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay etc in Paris, scintillating beaches of Nice, Marseille and the soft sensuality of the spoken French, I decided to learn the language in Chennai — the jasmine capital of Tamil Nadu. All was well. I was on a song in L’Alliance Francaise de Madras after completing the first level of French and had joined the next. Then suddenly lightening struck. Covid the dreaded addition to the vocabulary of fear had arrived!
Initially I assuaged my agitated mind thinking that this confinement is temporary. But as days went by, the figures of infections, the number of deaths, the ‘Long March’ by migrants all took away any hope of freedom from confinement. It was a life I had never experienced, or thought of other than if put behind bars.
What was the State of my inner being? I was like a character from the stream of consciousness novels of Virginia wolf or James Joyce. Thoughts ran riot unconnected, memories good and bad coursed on the Autobahn, absurd irrationalism surmounted, and to wrap it all the fear of dying struck like a sledge-hammer.
The ghost of Covid had snatched away the parameters of life. But then as time passed I found a new meaning, a new vision and an ability to override the fear and the confined life. Maybe I was changing…metamorphosing into a Gregor Samsa of Franz Kafka! No more the salesman caught in an annoying routine of life, rather maybe like Samsa I had become a giant spider stuck on a wall in a room! I now had time to look at the sky to see its changing chromes, its variable moods; I smelled the cool sea air that blew in the morning and evening, I observed the birds who sang on the trees in joy and for first time in life I enjoyed the silence even while being in a big Indian city. The initial fear of Covid that had seized me gave way to an inner light. I practiced more intensely the Vipassna meditation. The ego, the bubble that so meticulously we build through life, burst. For there was no one to impress your thoughts on, your cleverness and your intelligence. You were in an uncertain, isolated space internally as well as externally. The fragility, the ephemeral, the ‘passing’ of all the existence never appeared so real, so magnified, and so imminent. The Buddhist compassion which is essential for deconstructing a preoccupied self became more clear to me in living all the time in a 20 ft X15 ft room. People who need help in these difficult times must be helped by me, I thought.
The value of money got demoted in my mind. I cooked on an electric cooker and needed little food. You had no need to dress for the world. Meanwhile my French classes became online, a virtual world as near as my imaginary world that I mostly inhabited. A small imaginative paragraph that I wrote in French to a friend got misdirected to the WhatsApp group of my class. When I realised the mistake I hurriedly deleted. But damage was already done. Other classmates including my indubitable professor had read it. Well I was ripe for punishment for a little romantic foray into the extremely romantic language French. My professor demanded that I write everyday a paragraph of a serialised story for the next three months.
With all types of bizarre and shameful mistakes of syntax and grammar I wrote a romantic tale of a Paris ballerina and an artist every day as part of my obligatory promise. Gracefully my professor never pointed out my mistakes and I had to go on writing. Thus at B1 i.e. third level of French language studies, I looked forward each day to carry forward the French romance between two artists in my devastatingly poor French. But the good was that all the autumn brown evenings that I had spent in Paris by the Seine rushed back to me, the paintings of Modigliani laced me with a great feminine charm, the expressive sculptures of Rodin overwhelmed my soul and I relived the fragrance of France in my little romantic tale. This was another creative gift that my Covid-19 confinement bestowed on me.
I would telephone my boyhood friend in Delhi in the evenings to share news normally negative and depressive in the stressful atmosphere. The world around me transformed and got lost in the haze of missed aroma and taste of life. Like Marcel Proust’s evocative aroma of Madeleine dipped in tea I missed the smell of coffee in the café at L’Alliance Francaise du Madras and with it the great joy of the wobbly words and sentences in French. How suddenly the small joys that you miss out become so precious! How random choices the virus makes! We do not know who will suddenly be stuck and then survive or be deprived of life.
I spent six month in this new world that I created around me in that room which I occupied in Chennai. Then with air space opened for flights and with positive encouraging words from my friend, I took a flight to Delhi. It was a great realisation and discovery anew of the people, the things and the feelings that I had hitherto taken for granted.
(The writer is a painter, author, director and curator, India Asia, European Artists Association Velbert Essen Germany. The views expressed are personal.)
(Courtesy Pioneer )
The people are expected to be responsible and realise that being masked and distanced is the new reality
Between the Devil and the deep, blue sea. That is precisely where the country’s Covid-19 unlock guidelines find themselves in. A continuing lockdown begins to impact the economy. The unlock without safety protocols is a free invite to the virus. It is not an exaggeration to say that officials announce the lifting of the lockdown with some trepidation and fear lurking at the back of their minds of what would happen once the cities and towns are opened up but the safety protocols are ignored. Their fears are not unfounded given the experience of the previous unlock. Delhi, for instance, unlocked to crowd surges the Capital has not seen in months. The markets are crowded so thick that maintaining social distancing is an unreal proposition. People are jostled and shoved and pushed as excitement returns to the market place. It is more of a relief for people to just get out of their homes even though the latest lockdown was not as severe as the one in 2020. However, the relief is not tempered by responsibility. The social media is full of instances of people found without masks. The shopkeepers do have protocols in mind as they try to regulate the number of people in the shop at a time but the shoppers are hardly patient enough to either stand in a queue or use hand sanitisers. Those who do follow the protocols sincerely appear to be in a minority. Are the people inviting another round of disaster by their irrational behaviour? Have not the lessons from the previous waves of the coronavirus been learnt at all? Apparently not. Take the news report of an Uttarakhand MLA in Dehradun. A policeman found him and his family strolling on the street defying curfew and wearing their masks improperly. He promptly issued a challan. The next day he was transferred to a rural area.
In spite of media reports of people ignoring safety protocols, State Governments are yet to get into a mass messaging mode on safety. The Maharashtra Covid-19 Task Force took the lead in warning the State to prepare itself for a “third wave” if the people continue to ignore the protocols. The new wave could be worse with a highly-virulent strain of the virus, Delta Plus, waiting to strike this time, it said. The task force expects the wave to leave eight lakh active cases in its wake, of which 10 per cent could be children. That is alarming, but not alarmist given the general indifference to safety. The second lockdown was as planned and scientific as the unlock has been. It was neither imposed not withdrawn all of a sudden to ensure as little discomfort to the people as possible. In return, the people are expected to be responsible too and realise that being masked and distanced is the new reality and there is no getting away from it to remain safe and, importantly, keep others safe
( Courtesy Pioneer )
It is time that the country embraces transparency in the handling of Covid-19 to restore the people’s faith in the system
Vaccination fraud in Mumbai, lakhs of fake RT-PCR tests during Kumbh and alarming reports about suppression of the real Covid-19 death count underline the need for robust mechanisms to ensure transparency in the handling of data and diagnostics. At a time when mankind is reeling under the impact of one of the worst pandemics to hit the world, if reports of data fudging and fake vaccination continue to grow, people are bound to lose faith in the system. That could have disastrous consequences when cooperation of the masses is a must to deal with the deadly outbreak of the Coronavirus. It is shocking that it took four days — after the residents of a premier housing society in Mumbai alleged a fraud in the vaccination camp held by a private agency on their campus — for the Mumbai Police to nab five people for perpetrating such a heinous crime that poses a risk to hundreds of people. It’s equally surprising that no one from the housing society cared to check the credentials of the three persons claiming to represent two leading hospitals. The Rs 5 lakh fraud would have gone undetected if people had not found it unusual that none of the vaccinated people exhibited any after-effects related to the jabs.
Still worse is the case of allegations of a mega scam in the testing of samples of Covid-19 during the Kumbh in Haridwar. Former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has rightly called for a judicial probe in the fraud and said that it was akin to attempt to murder. It is frightening to think that the results of the RT-PCR tests were manipulated and fake tests carried out only to give the impression that the Kumbh was a risk-free affair. The culprits and their patrons should be arrested and given exemplary punishments to curb such dangerous tendencies. In fact, similar reports of manipulation of Covid-19 test reports have also come in from Bihar and other parts of the country. That is the reason why the people have generally become sceptical about any data put forth by the Government to present the status report of Covid-19 in the country. The public is right. When people see that every household is affected by the pandemic and crematoriums are overflowing with bodies, and yet the authorities claim that India has one of the lowest death rates in the world, a certain amount of scepticism and anger are natural. Media reports based on analysis of the annual death count in the pre and post-Covid era have clearly shown that States have suppressed the death count by as much as 30 to 40 times. The US-based health expert Dr Ashish Jha has also claimed that India’s death count could be in millions. It is time that the country embraces transparency in the handling of Covid-19 to restore the people’s faith in the system.
( Courtesy Pioneer )
New Delhi, June 19 (IANS) A glimpse into the stupendous athletics career of legendary Milkha Singh, who passed away on Friday aged 91, can be had from this mind boggling fact: his 400 metres Indian national record stood for 38 years and the 400m Asian record for 26 years. In 1960 in Rome, he came closest to winning an individual Olympic Games medal as an Indian, in 400m, eventually finishing fourth in a photo finish.
Milkha was one of the favourites to win the 400m gold in Rome. It was probably natural, too, as going into the Olympics, he is said to have won 77 out of 80 races, including the 1958 Commonwealth Games gold in 440 yards.
But one shortcoming probably cost Milkha an Olympic medal. He had a habit of looking at his opponents over his shoulder while running races, and when he did the same in Rome it was decisive, though he had led the race until 200m. Later he admitted that he had paid a heavy price for his habit.
Interestingly, Milkha broke the existing world record of 45.9 sec in Rome, and so the three who finished ahead of him. He finished fourth with a time of 45.6 seconds, as per a hand-held device, while an unofficial electronic timer at the games clocked him at 45.73 sec. This has been a point of contention, though. Whatever the reality, Milkha emerged from Rome as the ‘Flying Sikh'. A legend was born.
In 1998, Paramjeet Singh broke Milkha's Indian record at a national competition in Kolkata. But Milkha was not satisfied with the procedure of recording athletes' timings in Kolkata. Paramjeet clocked 45.70 secs on a synthetic track while Singh had run on a cinder track in Rome.
Much before Paramjeet broke Milkha's record, the legend had offered to give a Rs 2 lakh prize to anyone who broke his 400m record. But when Paramjeet did that, Milkha gave only Rs 1 lakh to him. Milkha later explained that the Rs 2 lakh prize was for breaking the record overseas while Paramjeet said that the legend hadn't clarified that beforehand. That created some friction between the two.
Currently, Muhammed Anas of Kerala holds the 400m national record with a time of 45.24 seconds. Until Rome 1960, no Indian had come so close to winning an individual Olympic medal; in hockey, though, India had been a dominant force. Milkha's 400m Asian record of 45.63 seconds stood for 26 years, before being broken by Susumu Takona of Japan.
That prize money episode aside, no one can take anything away from Milkha's achievements in track and field – and the example he set for athletes that followed him. He won four gold medals at the Asian Games – two in 400m (1958 and 1962), one in 200m (1958), and one in 4x100m relay (1962).
Milkha was born in Layalpur, in the undivided India, and now in Pakistan. His love for athletics began after he enrolled himself with the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) of the Indian Army in Delhi.
His talent blossomed while being with the Army. Fortunately for him, his officers encouraged him, and that would have played a role in him winning the 200m and 400m races at a Services Athletics Meet in 1955. Milkha practiced on his own while with the Army and clinched gold medals in both 200m and 400m at the 1956 National Games in Patiala, and two years later at the Cuttack Nationals, setting national records in both races.
His sporting achievements won him kudos from the Army, and the Indian government awarded him the Padma Shri in 1959. The same year, he was awarded the prestigious Helms Award. Milkha took premature retirement from the Army and took up the post of Deputy Director of Sports with the Punjab government.
Decades later, a Bollywood film was made on Milkha Singh, starring Farhan Akhtar.
Milkha died at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research in Chandigarh, where he was being treated for Covid-related complications. Six days before he passed away, his wife, Nirmal, had died on June 13. A former India volleyball captain, she was 85, and she too succumbed to Covid and related complications.
The couple is survived by a son, ace golfer Jeev Milkha Singh, and three daughters. Jeev was the first Indian to break into the top 50 of the official world golf rankings in 2007.
Following the Supreme Court's acceptance of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) merit formula for Class 12, the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) too has announced its plan for the students and the results will be declared by the third week of July.
According to the CBSE evaluation criteria, Class 12 results will be evaluated on the basis of 30:30:40 ratio. This involves the performance in Class 10 -- 30 per cent of the best three performing subjects, Class 11 -- 30 per cent based on final exams and Class 12 -- 40 per cent based on unit tests/ pre-board/midterm exams.
The GSHSEB however, not going along with the CBSE format, has formed its own evaluation policy which has been framed by a committee of 11 educationists. According to the committee's recommendations, the GSHSEB will take into account the results of Class 10, 11 and 12 in the ratio of 50:25:25 respectively.
The GSHSEB on late Thursday night, declared the policy where the total of 100 marks will be divided by giving highest weightage of 50 marks to Class 10 board results and 25 each to internal unit tests of Class 11 and 12.
The GSHSEB also announced the dates for preparation and declaration of results. For the Class 12 science stream, the results will be declared in the second week of July followed by the general stream in the third week of July. Distribution of mark sheets and certificates will be done at the end of July.
Based on this evaluation criteria, the schools will evaluate students between July 19 and 25, followed by uploading the results on the board's website between June 25 and July.
For Class 10 students, who were declared to be mass-promoted, the assessment has been divided between Class 9 and Class 10 unit tests. The government has not specified whether the term mass promotion will be applied to the Class 12 students or not.
A day after the CBSE cancelled its Class 12 exams, the Gujarat government led by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, too, had decided to scrap Class 12 state board exams on June 2.
(Courtesy: IANS)
An immediate end to US sanctions and a quick rollback of Iran's deviations from strict adherence to the treaty's terms might have done the trick
Lifting Trump's sanctions, @SecBlinken, is a legal& moral obligation, NOT negotiating leverage. Didn't work for Trump - won't work for you," tweeted Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif late last month. But what if US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (and President Joe Biden) have just decided that reviving the 2015 nuclear deal is a lost cause?
There are quite a few people in the Biden administration, and particularly in the State Department, who can count to twenty without even taking their shoes off. So they must have realised that there was going to be an election in Iran next Friday (18 June).
Many of them would even have known that this time the Iranian election has been rigged so that the 'hard-liners' are bound to win it.
Joe Biden therefore only had five months to reverse Donald Trump's deliberate wrecking of the 2015 treaty that prevented Iran from working on nuclear weapons. After the June election, the wreckers would be in power in Tehran, and they would sabotage the talks.
So why didn't Blinken's people move faster?
It was the Trump administration that unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA treaty (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and slapped crippling economic sanctions on Iran in 2018. Since then, Iran has repeatedly said that if the US just cancelled Trump's sanctions and rejoined the treaty, all would be well. Now it's probably too late.
Iran did nothing for more than a year, waiting and hoping that the other signatories (Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) would find ways to help Iran get around the American sanctions.
The other countries all agreed that Iran was not violating the terms of the treaty in any way, but none of them wanted to get into a showdown with Trump by breaking the US sanctions. So when Trump tightened the sanctions further in May 2019, crushing Iran's remaining oil exports, Tehran began to go beyond the treaty limits - a little bit.
It didn't leave the treaty, but it began to enrich its uranium a bit beyond the treaty limit of 3.67% (far below weapons-grade). It allowed inspections to continue, it kept nothing secret, but every three or six months it moved the enrichment up another notch to create some counter-pressure on the other signatories to sort their American problem out.
Finally, Trump lost the 2020 election, Biden replaced him in the White House last January, and it became possible to repair all the damage. However, the new secretary of state, Antony Blinken, then announced that Iran would have to roll back all its post-2019 increments to the enrichment process BEFORE the US lifted its sanctions.
The shoe is clearly on the wrong foot there. It was the United States that showed itself to be untrustworthy by quitting the treaty. The Iranian economy paid the price, starving in the gutter for three years.
The question of who goes first is fundamentally childish if there is trust, but America has forfeited the right to demand that Iran trust it. Biden and Blinken must know that demanding Iran go first dooms the negotiations, and that a rigged election in Iran will shortly close the door on the deal for good. It would break them off, because Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has arranged for his faithful supporter Ebrahim Raisi to win the election by banning more open-minded candidates from running at all.
Both men are fiercely anti-Western ultra-conservatives, but they wouldn't have got away with rigging the election like this four years ago, when the treaty was new and popular hopes were still high in Iran. The despair created by Trump's renewed sanctions killed those hopes. Biden may be wrong to let the JCPOA treaty die. An immediate end to US sanctions and a quick roll-back of Iran's deviations from strict adherence to the treaty's terms might have been done the trick. Even a new hard-line government in Iran would have found it hard to unpick that sort of done deal.
But it would have been a gamble, and Biden seems to have decided that he couldn't afford to risk his political capital that way. It will be years before we know if this was a fatal mistake (and who it was fatal for).
The author’s new book is ‘Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work)’. The views expressed are personal.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Europe took a long time to see through Chinese strategy of gaining control of strategic assets
From football teams to strategic infrastructures like ports and airports, China's influence in Europe has grown exponentially in under two decades. Chinese companies own four airports including Frankfurt-Hahn Airport in Germany, six ports and a dozen European soccer clubs. By the time Europe started screening Chinese investments in 2019, Beijing's clout had risen manifold. And Italy's endorsement of Xi Jinping's flagship project Belt and Road Initiative gave it the legitimacy it needed. A G-7 European country endorsing a global program did more damage to European unity than any other recent event. The statement of Mario Draghi, Italy's Prime Minister, indicating the possibility of Rome undoing its biggest geo-political blunder in decades, could derail a lot of China's European plans, which were stitched on the back of its seemingly large wallet.
To deepen its access inside Europe, Beijing had focused on Greece and Italy both of whom were struggling with high debt levels. Heavily-indebted Athensfelt it would be better off encashing Chinese cheques than following EU's prescription to cut costs any more. Greece also upgraded its relationship with China a year after the Chinese had gained control of the Greek port of Piraeus. Under Chinese ownership, Piraeus emerged as the second-biggest container port in the Mediterranean and Europe's biggest passenger port. Piraeus' elevation sparked major fears of loss of trade in Rome, causing it to embrace China and the BRI.China successfully exploited the several fault lines that existed in Europe; the one between industrialised North and relatively weaker South. Add to this, the desperate fund crunch of stagnant Southern economies like Italy and Greece which made large Chinese cheques even more appealing. Europe took a long time to see through the Chinese strategy of gaining control of strategic assets, building inroads into prominent think tanks and exploiting the continent's vulnerabilities to build political leverage.
Beijing engaged with each of countries on the European continent. First, China identified weaker economies like Greece and Hungary to break the EU's solidarity. Beijing engaged with non-EU countries like Serbia that were in dire need of capital. It continued to build trade ties with large economies like Germany and the UK. But China never lost sight of its geo-political ambition. The EU failed to speak in a single voice after Beijing lost the case regarding its acquisition of the Scarborough Shoal in international tribunal UNCLOS in 2016. Greece, Hungary and Croatia had thwarted EU efforts to name China despite Manila's unequivocal win at the tribunal. Recognising the need to act against China's lop-sided economic model, ahead of the EU-China summit in 2018, 27 of the 28 EU country ambassadors to China signed a report charging the BRI with pushing "the balance of power in favour of subsidized Chinese companies". Nine months later, however, Italy formally joined the BRI.
In a post-pandemic world order, an increasingly isolated China is seeing the world coming together against it. With America's renewed push to forge trans-Atlantic cooperation to take on Beijing, Draghi's decision could prove to be the biggest reset on the continent. An EU veto on Chinese investments and a revisit on the EU-China investment deal can put intense pressure on Beijing. BRI holds the key to China's power, in Europe and elsewhere. Italy's decision could begin the unwinding.
(The author is a senior journalist and Visiting Fellow at the United Services Institution of India. The views expressed are personal.)
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
No matter how good an idea is, it will get converted into a policy only if the ultimate decision-making authority, a politician or a group of politicians, puts its stamp on it
Things don't happen easily in the government. And, if they do happen, it is difficult to sustain them. I had been of the view that for anything to happen and sustain in the government it had to be politically acceptable, socially desirable, technologically feasible, financially viable, administratively doable and judicially tenable. This in itself was quite a handful. However, the unexpected agitation against the Farm Bills has compelled me to add another dimension: "Emotionally relatable".
There is a feeling outside the government that not much happens in the government. Not only that, each one of them will have an idea on how to make-things-happen. However, if the sixafore-mentioned aspects are not taken into consideration, the idea will perhaps not travel much distance on the ground. Let us consider each one of them.
No matter how good an idea is, it will get converted into a policy only if the ultimate decision-making authority, a politician or a group of politicians, puts its stamp on it. For example, many would argue that reservation in government jobs is adversely impacting governance. If there is a referendum, perhaps the majority will vote against it. But can we dispense with it now or at any time in the future? Perhaps not, because it will never be politically acceptable. That is why decision making in democracies takes much longer than in countries like China. A lot of time gets spent in consensus building. This is not to say that democracies are worse than autocracies because political acceptability, as an underlying principle of democracy, has its own merits.
Social desirability of an idea is equally important even if it may not appear to be so. It is important in the context of implementation of an idea that may be politically acceptable. A number of schemes announced by the government, hence politically acceptable, fail on the ground because while formulating the scheme, the social context is not taken into consideration. Thus, the infamous Family Planning effort of the government during the dark days of Emergency not only met with failure but led to the fall of the government. This may be an extreme example but many schemes and ideas face enormous problems if they are not socially desirable. Understanding the needs of the stake holders is critical for the success of any scheme.
Technology is changing by the day. Hence, the feasibility of technology becomes an important determinant in the implementation of an idea and sustaining it. Many of those that have not travelled to various parts of the country advocate the use of internet to reach out to children during Covid-19 times for schooling. They are perhaps unaware of the fact that internet has not reached out as yet to a large part of the country. The situation may change over a period of time but as of now, it may not be possible to reach out to all the children through the net.
The most critical part in implementation of an idea is the availability of funds to back such an idea. Till a couple of years ago, number of railway lines were announced by successive Ministers for Railways in their budget speeches (fortunately this has ceased now) without the funds to back them. These railway lines were socially desirable and technologically feasible. They were obviously politically acceptable as well. But they never happened on the ground. Similar apprehensions are raised about the recently announced National Education Policy (NEP). The Policy recommends allocation of six per cent of GDP to Education Sector. This is nothing new. It was recommended long ago by Dr Kothari in his Report as well. But the money never came despite a cess levied by the government to raise resources. In fact, during the period from 2014 to 2018 the budgetary allocation to school education actually came down in real terms. Without requisite money to back ideas, such ideas will not travel a long distance.
Even if we have the requisite money, if the desired human resources are not available, the idea will not work on the ground. One of the reasons of failure in delivery of health care in rural areas is the shortage of doctors. Health care is politically acceptable and socially desirable. There is reasonable amount of money available. But shortage of human resource is a major constraint. School education in the country is another example where there is an acute shortage of human resources. There is an additional problem relating to their management as well. This management of the teachers who are the pivot of school education, has left a lot to be desired. The biggest mafia in school education is the one that provides pre-service training, the B.Ed and D.El.Edcolleges. A large number of them exist only on paper but they can give you a degree. The selection of teachers to government schools is another racket. One former Chief Minister is behind the bars for manipulating selection. What can be expected of teachers who have come through such a process? Human resource management is the key to the success of any programme.
Finally, no matter what the government does, the final arbiter is the judiciary. It can undo all that may have been attempted. The over-indulgent judiciary can make matters worse.
The Farm Bills appear to be fine on all these dimensions mentioned above. Even those who are opposing it on account of political considerations were themselves pushing for such reforms when they were in power. Most of themwould privately agree that the Bills would benefit the farmers and will free them from the clutches of "middle-men". However, opposition to the Bills wasstill so huge. It reflected the inability of the proponents to make this idea "emotionally relatable" to the farming community. The Bills are indeed socially desirable but the government which has otherwise demonstrated to be so skilful in communicating messages, has apparently been unable to do so in the present instance. Hence, the Bills that are so beneficial to the farmers are not perceived as such. There is, therefore, this problem of perception and a large number of farmers are not able to relate emotionally with the Bills.
The listing of these limitations does not mean that things donot happen in the government. The success of Ayushman Bharat, the Coal Block auctions and unprecedented increase in coal production during 2014-16, the successful management of Covid-19 fallout in Mumbai and many districts of the country and the like prove that it-can-happen. These programmes/ schemes/ efforts understood these limitations and worked around them. There is indeed a lot to learn from how they made-it-happen for others to make-it-happen.
The author is a former IAS officer. The views expressed are personal.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The closed case of the Italian marines is mired not only in legality but in morality, too
More than nine years after they shot dead two fishermen off the Kerala coast, the Supreme Court has quashed the criminal charges against Massimilano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, the two Italian marines on board the Enrica Lexie and accepted the compensation of Rs 10 crore deposited by the Government of Italy. The Division Bench directed the Governments of Italy, India and Kerala to coordinate in respect to disbursement of the compensation, which is to be deposited with the Supreme Court Registry. With this, all legal proceedings initiated against the marines stand cancelled. Doramma, the widow of Valentine, and the sisters of younger victim Ajeesh Pink are to get Rs 4 crore each. The owner of the damaged boat, St Antony, would get Rs 2 crore. This is over and above the ex gratia amount of Rs 1 crore each paid to the parties. The long-drawn case has already vanished from the public mind, especially after the legal heirs of the deceased fishermen withdrew their affidavits and submissions to the Kerala High Court in April 2012. The fate of the case was sealed then and there, according to a Kochi-based marine law expert.
The incident dates back to 2012 when Kerala was ruled by Oommen Chandy and the Union was headed by Manmohan Singh. However, the Catholic Church’s role in the issue hasn’t been in the public domain. For one, there has been Cardinal George Alencherry, head of the Catholic sect in Kerala, who was quoted in the immediate aftermath of the mariners’ arrest as boastfully saying that he would remain in “close contact with the Catholic ministers of Kerala who would help pacify the situation”. Meanwhile, the take of Jayapalayan, president of the South Indian Fishermen’s Federation, is that the blood money concept is alien to India. Similarly, VM Shyam Kumar, the counsel for the sisters of Ajeesh Pink, asked: “Italy could afford to pay the compensation. Had the ship belonged to a poor country, what would be the consequences?” Those who question the legality of blood money in the Enrica Lexie case should bear in mind that many Indians accused of murder have been saved in West Asia after paying blood money. Last week saw MA Yousuf Ali, a Gulf-based businessman, paying Rs 1 crore to save Becks Krishna, a Thrissur youth, from the gallows for killing a Sudanese youth in the UAE. It should be two-way traffic, isn’t it?
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
As confusion abounds, India still lacks a comprehensive outlook on tackling the virus
The latest UK medical study says the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine against the Delta variant of COVID-19 is 92 per cent effective against hospitalisation after two doses and suggests that it is “vital to get both doses as soon as they are offered to you, to gain maximum protection against all existing and emerging variants”. That has made the Indian Government experts rethink on reducing the gap between the doses that now stands at 12-16 weeks. Should the Government be doing a rethink every time a study surfaces? Each has its own definition of the efficacy of the vaccines and doses. Percentages differ. Criteria also vary. Demographic situations in countries are starkly different. Each study has its own, internal purpose. The UK-based studies are analysing symptomatic infections. India is looking for effectiveness against severe disease. That leads to the question: Where is the real-world data in India? Take the jab gap issue, for instance. Independent virologists say there is no real-world data in India to establish the most effective jab gap. The Government on May 13 increased the gap to 12-16 weeks from six-eight weeks, reportedly based on a UK study even though the UK itself reduced the gap from 12 to eight weeks much before data was available on vaccine efficacy. The country merely went by the criterion of greater infectiousness of the variant. Now, there is a rethink in India about the gap. Members of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation say they only recommended a gap of 8-12 weeks because they had no data about efficacy of a gap beyond 12 weeks.
They say the 12-16 weeks idea came from the Government. Dr NK Arora, chairman of the COVID working group on vaccines, has no reply other than that there is no dissent within NTAGI. So, whom to believe? Secondly, Dr Arora quotes two Indian studies from PGI, Chandigarh, and CMC, Vellore, to say that irrespective of dose interval, “both the doses are having similar protection against the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) and Alpha variant (B.1.1.7)”. But the Vellore study says: “Our study corroborates these studies that vaccination is protective, although we did not look at the variants responsible for the massive second wave.” So, whom to believe? The issue is, India still lacks a comprehensive outlook on tackling the virus. Vaccination, medical care and safety protocols that make up the outlook are seen more in isolation than unison. The basic nature of the vaccine is it will not stop the infection, but only reduce the severity. That means medical facilities for COVID-19 positive patients are as important as vaccination. That also means the Government has to strictly enforce safety protocols. In reality, however, the availability of vaccine is erratic, there is no informed stand on jab gap, new cases continue to be reported and the States are eager to lift the lockdown substantively, if not fully, well aware that people are throwing caution to the wind, prompting fears of a relapse.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The poor forest dwellers are at the mercy of no one, despite being the best caretakers of the forested greens and the environment
The recent upsurge in Maoist violence puts the focus back on tribal issues, rarely discussed in the mainstream. Even though the tribal population is nine per cent, they live as invisible Indians. Their presence is felt only when they make headlines for the wrong reasons, for obstructing traffic with their protests, for instance, and thereafter again fade into oblivion.
These are the people who have been on the frontline of India’s war of independence and the ones to have suffered the most. The British branded 150-odd tribes as “criminal tribes” by imposing the Criminal Tribe Act, starting in 1871. It took the Nehru Government five years to de-notify these tribes and replace the derogatory law on April 31, 1952. Adivasis now celebrate April 31 as the alternative Independence Day.
Even today, tribals live on the sidelines of the Indian political landscape. They are indeed the marginalised entities in India’s political life. The adivasis have lived in forests at peace with nature for ages. But they have been castigated, charged, blamed and demonised, often stripped of their basic human rights, their right to life and property included. They are evicted from their dwelling places in the name of conservation and national interest. To use the conservationist lingo, their habitat is shrinking. It is being usurped legally. Despite some sops here and there, the condition of tribals has not improved even after Independence. They remain on the margins, their life and livelihood constantly under the threat. The neo-colonial mindset has replaced the older one. Conservation is one big plank that is a legit and subtle way to evict tribals from their land.
The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, for the first time recognised the rights of tribal communities to forest resources. Hitherto, Government Acts and policies did not recognise the symbiotic relationship of the forest dwellers with the forests. This, ironically, was always present in their dependence on the forest as well as in their traditional wisdom for the conservation of forests.
The path-breaking law gave three generations of tribals the right to live on their land. But they were asked to prove their ownership, which most of them can’t and that is the biggest stick to beat them up with. Though the authorities want them to show papers of the inheritance, they have lived on the land even before paper was invented! Even so, they have been branded a “danger to forest land and wildlife”.
The adivasis have managed their environment better than neo-conservationists. People in Gosaba, Sunderbans, are killed by the Bengal Tigers. There is a village in Gosaba named Vidhwapalli, a village of widows whose husbands were killed by tigers. The very same people feed the tigress who takes shelter in the village when she is about to deliver her cubs! Now think about the Delhi ridge or Mumbai’s Aarey forest constantly waning each passing year. Nearly 80 per cent of biodiversity in the world is in areas inhabited by tribals. They have conserved the forests pretty well. They take from it what they need, without making permanent damage and giving time and chance to nature to recuperate and grow. Their religious practices forbid them to even enter the core areas. The modern conservation programmes would have these forests as open zoos for the inspection of tourists.
While tourists and other outsiders are welcome, the
adivasis are not. They are aliens in their own homes. Even if they venture inside, they are beaten up, tortured, even killed by rangers. Their houses are burnt and properties vandalised. Not very long ago, a 13-year-old boy was shot in the Kaziranga for wandering inside the protected area. The park has a shoot-at-sight policy. The Jenu Kuruba, tribals living in the Nilgiri in Karnataka, are frequently shot while collecting mushrooms. Over 50 people have been shot dead by the guards in the last five years. Of course, you haven’t heard or read about them. They were seldom reported!
Another aspect of tribal persecution is the Maoist violence in forested areas. It is often reported from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, and others. The security forces are up against the armed resistance in the forests. However, not all tribals are supporters or sympathisers of Maoists. Most of them face pressure both from Maoists as well as the security forces. They are routinely rounded up and made to suffer.
It is indeed a problem that refuses to go away. The Government, for its part, has never tried to find the root of the problem and solve it politically. The Maoists draw cadres from the wronged people. Since the exploitation doesn’t end, they never run out of cadres. The basis of the problem is indeed economic being addressed with force. Since 2010 when it was at its peak, it has come down. It is now confined to around 30 districts, but there is a long way to go. The gains of security forces are no guarantee that the problem is over. Maoism is a problem born out of the social and economic milieu of the region and lack of development. The Government gives them enough fuel and exploitation that oils this war machinery.
If the current rate of exploitation of nature continues, we may lose the forests and forest dwellers. And, with them, their wisdom to survive without harming nature.
(The writer is a columnist and documentary film-maker. The views expressed are personal.)
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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