Mulayam Singh's love for Higher Education

In a session that will go down in posterity, the Uttar Pradesh assembly met Wednesday just four days before its term expires to grant minority status to a university in minister Azam Khan's hometown Rampur. The last time such a thing happened was in 1957 when the house met to seek a vote of account on an interim budget of the state. Going by the grim persistence of the government in pursuing the matter of the university, it would appear that education must be a very high priority in Uttar Pradesh. The bill for setting up the university was passed by the state on May 18, 2005 following which it was sent to Governor T.V. Rajeshwar for his constitutional assent. However, the governor raised certain queries and the bill was returned to the government at least twice. Azam Khan eventually initiated fresh moves to set up the university in the private sector, for which he finally got the governor's green signal. Envisaged as a 297 acre campus on the outskirts of Rampur city, the university will have separate colleges for engineering, medicine, dentistry, law, home sciences and vocational training as well as routine degree courses.

As I said earlier, one could be pardoned for thinking that higher education must be a high priority for the Mulayam Singh government , except of course for the fact that the facts speak otherwise. One of the more news worthy items emanating about universities in the state is about the Lucknow University in the state capital, but the news from there does not have anything at all to do with the blossoming of learning. Rather it has a lot to do with a pro active Vice Chancellor , Ram Prakash Singh trying to cleanse the university which had become a den of criminals mostly owing allegiance to the ruling Samajwadi Party. The government of Mulayam Singh Yadav, instead of supporting this move to indeed make the University a den of learning rather than of crime confronted the VC for his stance which was affecting the young muscle men masquerading as student leaders, who found cheap food and lodgings in the university hostels. The beleaguered VC, badgered by the government, had to seek the protection of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court to carry out his duties.

On the other hand, the ranking of literacy and other social indicators in Uttar Pradesh is dismal. The newly launched economic daily titled “The Mint” has brought out an article titled “Is Uttar Pradesh turning into the new Bihar?”, India’s most populous state has been faring poorly on political, social and economic indicators, even falling behind Bihar in many of them. Although for for years. Bihar has been the by word for poor and apathetic governance , the Nitish Kumar administration has even according to his opponents has worked hard to briong about a turn around.

It is often said that the road to power in Delhi passes through Lucknow and Mulayam Singh Yadav has never concelaed his prime ministerial ambitions. If such are the credentials of a future Prime Minister , predicting the country’s future needs no crystal grazing. In the knowledge economy of the twenty first century, where information , education and knowledge is power and not muscle power and military power, a Prime Minister like Mulayam Singh schooled in the wrestling pits of U.P. villages wil lead India right back to the stone age…. And that is a shuddering thought…..

Cancer Patients: dying a thousand deaths

In spite of the advance of medical sciences in many fields , cancer is an area where in spite of a lot of progress , things haven't changed much on the ground. The patient still usually has to go through a prolonged treatment and at the end of which there is nothing called a cure in most instances. What you get is a stage of remission usually and even when you are in remission you are always looking over your shoulder to check for recurrences and in the many cases I have known , sooner or later cancer seems to catch up with you and more often than not , the prognosis progressively deteriorates.

Added to that is the burden of cost. Cancer treatment has always tended to bes expensive for several reasons – the treatment is prolonged for one , the treatment is also not available every where – typically the cheapest treatment available would be in the handful of regional cancer centers run by the government and the travel itself is fraught with costs and logistical expenses.
In spite of the fact that cancer strikes all sections of society and only perhaps lung cancer is associated with a clearly defined high risk behavior , which means that not much preventive measures can be really taken, the disease suffers from neglect. Conditions like HIV and AIDS which have got vocal activist groups taking up the cause of treatment care are able to garner funds from both the government and international philanthropic donors but cancer patients are not so lucky.

Apart from the fact that the very diagnosis of this disease spells worries for a cancer patient’s family, what hits even harder is the exorbitant amount of money charged by the pharma companies for the drugs that are crucial for a cancer patient’s survival at an advanced stage. Till recently the fact that Indian pharmaceutical companies reverse engineered many of the drugs and made them available at comparatively cheaper prices made them some what accessible.

This climate is slowly changing. The newer and more effective drugs which a patient would reach for tom try and prolong life or alleviate symptoms are also the most expensive and the changing patent laws in India more or less make them inaccessible. To cite an example , the multi national Novartis had filed a case in the Madras High Court, challenging the clause of the Indian Patent (Amendment) Act, which does not grant patents to medicines that are new forms of an existing drug or are “ever-greened” rather than being innovations. The patents office in Chennai refused to give patents to Novartis’ leukemia drug Gleevec on the grounds that it was “ever greened”, in February 2006.

Till the litigation in the Chennai patent office, many well known Indian forms were manufacturing the generic product end selling it for a fraction of the multi national's own product. However with Gleevec now having gone into litigation and the patent laws changing their color in conformity with trade laws , many firms have quietly stopped producing the drug. They do not want to invest in a contentious product without the law having been settled. This means that leukemia patients , who could have befitted from the generic versions of Gleevec, now have to purchase the hugely expensive product from Novartis or go without it..... or take the potentially explosive route of purchasing he drug by selling off home and hearth and eventually becoming bankrupt- a scenario by no means uncommon in India and in situations far less prohibitive than cancer.

Even the modified and much harsher patent laws of today which protect the interests of the producer than the consumer provide for the government to suspend the laws of patent and produce drugs generically if in the instance of a public health emergency. But in spite of the fact that cancer is one of the three top causes of death in the country , the government has so far looked the other way and not acknowledged it to be so. Although HIV and AIDS has received the attention it deserves and more there are other pressing public health needs which have not received their due attention. And mean while cancer patients and their families suffer a thousand miseries in their life time facing the burden of expenses and disease that they do.

A General's Honour

Not too long ago, Lt. Gen. JFR Jacob, the Chief of Staff in the Eastern Command HQ at Kolkata during the 1971 war was interviewed on NDTV’s “Walk the Talk” program. During his conversation with Sekhar Gupta, the anchor and Editor in Chief of Indian Express, the retired general made the startling revelation that his perception of the war was quite different from that of Field Marshal Manekshaw, the then Army Chief. General Jacob felt that taking Dhaka was the key to victory on the Eastern frontier, where the Army Chief felt that the several intermediate towns en route to Dhaka needed to be secured first. But if this was done, the march to Dhaka would have got significantly delayed.

Keeping Manekshaw in the dark, Gen. Jacob and the Corps Commander moved out a mountain brigade deployed on the China border, augmented the forces and captured Dhaka. General Jacob’s revelation was startling because folk legend around the 1971 victory has largely been surrounded around Field Marshal Manekshaw and Lt. Gen. J.S.Aurora, who accepted the surrender in Dhaka. In the same interview, Sekhar Gupta brought up the instance where both of these officers were posted in Wellington , many years earlier and a court of enquiry was ordered against Manekshaw and Gen. Jacob- then a Major was asked to give evidence against Manekshaw. Gen. Jacob explained that he had declined to give evidence for two reasons – firstly that manckshaw was his boss and giving evidence against his boss wasn’t his ethics.

General Jacob has displayed a characteristic not easily seen these days. He has shared freely that his perception of how the war was to be have been fought was substantially different from that of his boss and hind sight has proved him right and his boss wrong. Yet he bears no rancor and heartache that history has slighted him and he is content that he has done his duty as a soldier and that is all he ever wanted.

A little more than a week after the interview, Gohar Ayub Khan gave an interview to Karan Thapar on CNBC-TV18 , alluding that Manekshaw was a spy who had leaked out the 1965 war plan to the Pakistanis. Although the name in as such was not mentioned , the many clues offered suggested only one name. The Indian defense establishment rose to deny the charges and defend its iconic hero. The loudest voice to defend the nonagenarian Manekshaw who is ailing at the military hospital at Conoor was that of General Jacob who went live on TV to proclaim that Field Marshal Manekshaw is and was one of India’s tallest soldiers and that it was an abomination to listen to such a pack of lies about him.

Denied of the credit that was his due,General Jacob could have chosen this moment to savor this moment when Manekshaw’s name was being dragged though the mud. At the least , he could have held his peace and let Gohar Ayub do his talking. Jacob himself is in his eighties and no one would have noticed or commented if he had kept his counsel to himself. But the values that were there decades ago in Wellington had not dried up with age and Gen. Jacob’s voice was the loudest in proclaiming his ex boss’s innocence , especially significant since Manekshaw himself in his old age is unable to defend himself. With such a defiant disclaimer as the one that has come from Jacob ,the accusations against Manekshaw are not likely to gain any further credibility and will gradually die down. In a time when the slightest dust is enough to indulge in mud slinging and character assassination and finish off a person’s reputation, General Jacob has conducted himself with a rare distinction. In saying that he as a soldier performed his duty and was content with that ad then coming out to defend a man who overshadowed him – unfairly it would seem, General Jacob has walked the talk of honor.

Senior Citizens:Withering Away

There is increasing publicity these days about how today, a large proportion of India's population is young and how their sheer numbers add up to be a huge number. This is of course true. But highlighted less often is another fact – that India as a nation is graying and that by the year 2026,the population of senior citizens in the country is set to double. While it was 71 million in 2001, a report prepared by the Census of India shows that it will reach 173 million in the next 19 years. While the proportion of the population in the working age group is also expected to rise,their number too will be lower than the rise in the number of elderly.

This sets the stage for host of social problems in India as most of these elderly citizens will be without any form of social security or pensions. besides as society itself undergoes a transformation in its character, the conventionally available emotional security and family care may also be disappearing. The fact that this is already happening is tacitly acknowledged when the government finds it necessary to legislate through the The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill 2006 Under the provisions of which, a person who was responsible for the upkeep of parents failed to take care of them, can attract punitive measures like three months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000. Besides, it also provides for option to revoke the will that might have been written up by the parent at some stage in life.
Since India has always projected itself as a state where family values are strong , enduring and can match the absence of a conventional social security that the so called developed world offers. No old age homes and foster care for us and our parents we proclaim , but the reality seems to be some what different. True , our parents and grand parents may not live in the typical old age homes which in India have been typically associated with the destitute but it is possible for the senior citizens to live equally or more emotionally and financially starved lives in their own homes lonely and isolated from their children and grand children.

Some how , the situation of the elderly has not attracted the efforts of too many voluntary agencies. Till recently Helpage was the only agency of any size or significance that was involved in the welfare of the senior citizens and the numbers that they could reach were few,given the numbers involved. A recent entrant in this sphere is the Tina Ambani run Harmony Foundation. This is in sharp contrast to the huge numbers of groups working with the other vulnerable section of our population , the children. While working for children and their welfare is of course commendable, when there is little activity among the elderly who are equally vulnerable,if not more, we as a nation are sending out the message that while we care about the possibilities presented by the future, we see little meaning in and have little gratitude for the vast numbers who contributed to our past and recent history.

As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the great revolt of 1857, it is commendable that we remember great historical figures who are no more and the debt that we owe them. Now, if only we would show the same consideration for those who helped write and shape our modern history and who are still fortunately in our midst. That would be a fitting gesture of showing them value and affirmation.

Child Soldiers and Indian Insurgency

India has no dearth of separatist movement and the one thing they all love to hate is the Indian state , accusing it of all manner of state sponsored terrorism , human right abuse, rape of their women and all manner of other atrocities. It therefore is interesting that in a development reported in NDTV, self righteous underground elements in North Assam , who are supposedly fighting the Indian state so that they can safeguard and protect their own people and culture from the marauding clutches of people in mainland India are using impressionable , young children , often under the influence of drugs to fight their battles. The culprits include well known outfits like the ULFA and the NSCN as well as smaller groups like the UNLF and the PLA. According to the NDTV report , The smallest boys are placed closest to the enemy, because their leaders say they are the most fearless. And when they are not, they are given helpful doses of drugs so that they can overcome whatever inhibitions they may have.
It is detestable indeed that young children are being exposed to death , destruction and violence at such a young and impressionable age and that too by groups who are supposedly the custodians of their peoples' well being and identity. Instead of creating a climate where in these children can finish their education , have a healthy childhood and then grow up be fulfilled citizens of their home land, they are being indoctrinated to kill , hate and destroy from their earlies years. The ideologues of these groups, mostly ensconced overseas , think nothing of using small children to fight their battles , all in the name of preserving supposedly unspoilt and pristine culture which the Indian state is supposedly destroying.
The consequences for society are obviously devastating. If the child soldier does survive this spell of “army service”, with negligible education, skill and indoctrinated with hatred and venom, they are rendered unsuitable for any constructive role in society and they often take the deadly route of drugs, HIV & AIDS and death and the society of the North East is demonstrating enough of the evidence where large sections of youth show no evidence of hope or any thing constructive and are caught up in a spiral of drugs, pleasure and an existence devoid of hope.
According to Amnesty International, the human rights group which has tracked this phenomenon closely reports that Often recruited or abducted to join armies, many of these children - some younger than 10 years old - have witnessed or taken part in acts of unbelievable violence, often against their own families or communities. Such children are exposed to the worst dangers and the most horrible suffering, both psychological and physical. What is more, they are easily manipulated and encouraged to commit grievous acts, which they are often unable to comprehend. Many girl soldiers are expected to provide sexual services as well as to fight.
The Indian government an state has several aberrations and human rights violations are certainly part of them but it has never intentionally taken such a grotesque approach to soldiering and policing and it does try to maintain internal checks and balances to minimize violations where ever they do take place. In fact, the government is trying for long to come to some settlement with groups like the NSCN-IM and the ULFA , so that resolution of differences occurs amicably , quickly and the government has approached these talks in a spirit of maximum compromise. So do these atrocities on children , who are given no choice but are thrust into a particular way of life figure in their discussions ? One can only hope so and expect that pert of the political resolution that the government is trying so hard to achieve will mean that children get to know what it is to be a child before being exposed to the harsh world of adults !

Nehru's Legacy- Is is now passe ?

Later this month , Jawaharlal Nehru's 47th death anniversary will be observed with the usual solemnity at Shanti Vana in Delhi. Most people in India have some measure of respect for the nation's first Prime Minister- Jawaharlal Nehru. Some or even many of his policies and ideological orientation seem flawed by today's understanding but very few will deny him his place as one of the founders of modern India and by any yardstick a statesman and the one who cemented our still surviving democracy.

Looking at the political churn that all our immediate neighbors seem to be going through , it seems but natural to be grateful for the fact that he lived for 17 years after independence and was the stabilizing influence in a feudal society that was hardly conversant with the niceties of Westminster style parliamentary democracy.

During his long innings in parliament , he chose to contest from Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh which hasn't been as lucky as Amethi and Rae Bareli in in the people it has sent to parliament in the post Nehru era. But History has played a cruel joke on Jawaharlal Nehru — a bandana-wearing mafia don who is accused of murder has taken his place. Everything about Atiq Ahmad is quietly sinister, down to the curl of his mustache. But his fawning followers compare him with the first Prime Minister of India.

Uttar Pradesh has come a long way in its journey in democracy. The Congress Party of Panditji is a distant number four or so in the stakes for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections which are on now. What is sad or baleful about th the whole matter is not the decline of the Congress Party but the brand of “peoples' representatives” that have now taken the place of the late Prime Minister.

The bigger joke on Nehru is not who represents Phulpur in parliament but what kind of person does and the state of the polity in Uttar Pradesh mired as it is between Bahu balis like Atiq or obscurantists like Yogi Adityanath , who don religious garb and practice a kind of politics that was abhorrent to the progressive , forward thinking and secular minded Nehru. Besides, today it finds itself caught in a vicious web of caste politics.

Nehru garnered support from all sections of society and irrespective of ideological affinities was respected by most as a statesman and a humanist.. Today the voting pattern is determined by caste equations: the Yadavs back the Samajwadi Party; the Brahmins support the Bharatiya Janata Party; and the Dalits go along with the Bahujan Samaj Party. And it is not that these parties are any more ideologically pure either.

The Samajwadi party has lost its socialist mooring, the BSP is all things to all people as it realizes that the Bahujan vote alone is not sufficient in electoral politics and the BJP is supposedly open if necessary , to prop a SP led government , to keep the Congress out of any share in the power game. Along the way , the egalitarian society that Nehru dreamed off has fragmented as society fragments along caste lines , propped up by his own Congress led government. Nehru is passe and his ideology obsolete – and no where is it more evident than his parliamentary constituency of Phulpur.

It is back to typewriters again !

For several months now, rural areas in Maharashtra are going without power for 15-17 hours a day. Small towns go without power for seven to nine hours while major cities are suffering scheduled load shedding of between four and six hours which is unprecedented for Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, In the offices of rural Maharashtra , the type writes are out again. After years of emphasis o computerization which spurred even the babus to retool themselves and become computer savvy , the once ubiquitous type writers are back. Fortunately there are still enough government employees left who began their career as steno typists who still remember typing skills and so the offices keep functioning.

No, this is not a conscious decision by the government or any one else to take a conscious step back into the stone age. It is just a necessity born out of the severe energy crunch that has led the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra to experience unprecedented power cuts. With electricity not available for close to 18 hours in rural areas , all the modern gadgetry and technology has come to naught. Ultimately , to make things even barely functional , one had to resort to older technology which had stood the test of time in lesser times!

While India began to undergo a technological revolution in the 90s, the emphasis on adequate back office infrastructure did not unfortunately receive equal emphasis leading to a lop sided model of development which we will take years to recover from. Thus we have a robust automobile industry without adequate roads , a growing aviation industry without enough airports and runaways , a booming telecom industry without adequate spectrum and of course large scale growth of industry without commensurate increase in the ability to absorb this growth.

Since India launched economic reforms in 1991, growth has been disproportionately urban and this has created myriad stumbling blocks. on the roads , especially in rural India where potholes are ubiquitous, crashes are common and traffic is routinely brought to a standstill as dozens of trucks sit idle waiting for permission to move. Throughout the country, crowds, delays and ramshackle infrastructure are the norm. In many places outside of a handful of cities, reliable power is little more than an elusive dream. This poor infrastructure is a bottleneck that could slow down growth and has created demand-led inflationary pressures as there is no consistency of service.

India's recent expansion has been impressive. Since 2002, GDP has risen 7.5% per year or more. In 2005 and 2006, it hit 9% and 9.2% respectively. But while that is good statistics , the fact that matters of basic infrastructure like Bijli,Pani and Sarak that matter to the common man are still not dealt with is a matter of considerable concern, especially as infra structure projects have a long gestation period and problems identified today may require a decade or more to resolve and the matter may actually get more aggravated along the way.

Although the government has tried to do its bit in encouraging core investment and facilitation in the infrastructure area , the major difficulty has been that there has been little synergy in the planning processes so that infrastructure development and businesses which ride on this backbone are planned in tandem. It would be a good idea to be futuristic inso far as infrastructure needs and budgeting for them is concerned as they typically can not be fast tracked to keep pace with suddenly generated demand. Till that is done and we have holistic and synergistic planning , we will continue to be using type writers even as computers and other gadgets sit idle in the absence of electricity to power them.