Critiquie of CWG is unpatriotic, Critique of shoddy city infrastructure is not!

Once upon a time Congress heavyweight Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar has an unmatched command over the English vocabulary as well as a sharp mind. He also has a knack of drawing the limelight onto himself whenever he feels ignored. Humility not being his crowning glory, he amuses everyone by describing himself as the most qualified person for various public positions.

As Sports Minister in earlier UPA regime, he drafted a Rs 6,000-crore plan to hold national panchayat games to develop skills in kho-kho, kabaddi and assorted indigenous sports, insisting that fund infusion at that level would help grow talent. Result: He was divested of the Sports Ministry.

Similarly, his attempts to by-pass the foreign policy establishment by aligning with Iran met with stern disapproval from his erstwhile employer, the Ministry of External Affairs. He also went on an ego trip with CMD of ONGC and the result: He was divested from Petroleum Ministry as well.

Latest from Mr Aiyar’s kettle is criticizing Mr. S M Krishna over Indo-Pak talks debacle and as soon as media stopped covering the story, he has gone on a rampage airing his pet peeve over sports events in India.

The question is should we take his views seriously at all?

Mr. Iyer wishes that a modern day pralaya should deluge the forthcoming Common WEALTH Games. Predictably, this set the cat among the pigeons, which was precisely what Mr Aiyar had hoped for. Denunciations flew in faster than javelin throws. Mud-slinging event has already started and Mr. Iyer is self-appointed chairman of this event.

Mr. Iyer’s comments range from anti-national, demeaning, demoralising to unsporting and worse. We often find Mr. Aiyar seeking limelight at the expense of mega-events like CWG. He railed against India’s bid for the Asian Games and explained that he wished the CWG would fail so that New Delhi wouldn’t ever dream of bidding for the Olympics.

There are two facets to Mr Aiyar's ill-timed diarrhoea. Casting an evil eye on one of the most prestigious sporting events India will host is, unequivocally unpatriotic. Further, the argument that the Rs 35,000 crore should be used to promote sports facilities in backward or Maoist-infested areas like Dantewada is absurd even by Mr. Iyer’s standards.

Whatever one’s views on India’s ability to organise such events, and there are serious questions relating to that, this is no time to publicly berate the event. If the CWG turns out to be a disaster, India’s national honour and prestige would be seriously compromised. India’s global image, would be severely dented.

But where Mr Aiyar does make a point is with regard to infrastructure. Much of Mr Aiyar’s ire, though, should have been directed at Ms Sheila Dikshit rather than the IOC chairman kalmadi.

The manner in which the Delhi Government and the city’s civic authorities have gone about uglifying the city resembles the work of an amateur biology student dissecting a frog. Already incredible tales of official greed are covering front page of all the newspapers. As soon as civil work is completed by one department, the next one swoops down and commences breaking it up. There have been huge cost and time over-runs in all the CWG projects, except for the Metro.

The city is suffering from the poor quality of roads, collapsing drains, traffic mess. the Government’s obsession with sandstone and granite pavements has driven everybody up the wall. For my life I can’t understand whose daft idea it was to place expensive but slippery granites on pavements. Millions have been spent carting sandstone to Delhi and I am sure Ms Sheila Dikshit will eventually overtake Ms Mayawati in the quantum purchased.

“Commonwealth Games of Delhi are globally ranked number one for collective contractor exposure. It’s a matter of pride for us but a shame that an anti-national person like Aiyar can’t see it.” Said Mr. Kalmadi.

Mr. Kalmadi should not get into petty battles and focus on the task at hand. He needs to reinforce the belief of inevitable success of the upcoming games.

I am still confident that doomsayers will be given a fitting reply when the CWG is held with flying colours. I am sure that India could even host Olympics if one dared to dream about hosting it.

Things might look messy right now but like the saying goes “where there is a will, there is a way”.

Common Wealth Games: Precursor to Opening & Closing Ceremony

The Opening and Closing ceremonies of 19th Commonwealth Games 2010 at J N Stadium Complex in Delhi will be a truly Indian affair. Both the ceremonies will have no foreign influence other than the fireworks at the end of the ceremonies. 

The first eight minutes of the opening ceremony will feature ace percussionist Taufiq Qureshi and his group on the theme ‘The Great Indian Bazzar’. It will give the feeling of ‘how Indian streets sound like’. Taufiq will be using different rhythm structures to attract the audience, which has every little detail of bazaar and been mish-mashed with sounds like an iron-smith using his hammer etc.

This will be followed by voices of Naga and Baul singers and sounds of Bamboo dancers by Bansi Kaul, a Delhi based theatre director. Bansi has extensive knowledge on folk idioms of India. 

Birju Maharaj and Shovana Narayan’s students will then take the stage for next 15 minutes of the opening ceremony with theme ‘Indian seasons’ which will have 480 artistes divided into six groups of 80 dancers each performing six Indian classical dance forms: Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Mohiniattam and Manipuri. 

Oscar winner AR Rahman, who is composing the anthem for Commonwealth Games, will also perform in both opening and closing ceremonies. The one-hour opening ceremony will have 9000 artists, dancers and musicians from all walks of life and each corner of India. The closing ceremony will be more about India’s martial art forms. This will include Kerala’s Kalaripayattu, Punjab’s Gatka, Manipuri Thang-ta and Tamil Nadu’s Silambattam. Both ceremonies will be mixed with rural and urban sports and culture of India. 

In total Rs 300 crore will be spent in both the ceremonies. Event will be managed by Wizcraft International Entertainment Private Limited. At the end, fireworks will be performed by Howard and Sons, an Australian firm who were behind the pyrotechnics of Melbourne Games. 

Incidentally, the centerpiece of the 2006 Melbourne Games was 11 minutes allotted to India. The Scots, who will host the next edition in Glasgow, would not get a similar time slot this time.

Looking forward to success of CWG 2010 - Delhi !

Census on Beggars, Prostitutes & Housewives

In the Census of 2011, wise people of Indian establishment have decided to equate 36 crore housewives (who are also called homemakers) with beggars and prostitutes, highlighting extreme insensitivity of the government to a family and social institution. Likewise I would suggest males and eunuchs also should be clubbed in this list. 

Policy makers feel that household duties like cooking, cleaning of utensils, bearing and then looking after children, fetching water and collecting firewood etc. are economically unproductive. How can anyone serving for more than 12 hours a day without formal payment be an "economic burden to society"? If it was not for housewives, our society (for that matter all societies) would have degraded long ago. We just need to look at societies of the western world and consider their divorce - statistics and the care that the children in their families are getting- we will then understand the value of housewives.

It may appear downgrading to housewives to be put in the company of beggars and prisoners and prostitutes but actually it’s a realistic pointer to the status of women in our male dominated society. 

A woman, who actually enjoys the facility of a prisoner at home, really deserves this status. You go to any lower class family and you can see women begging for few pennies to purchase basic necessities for her home and children. You might have seen many women begging at the God’s feet to grant her a son. Whether it’s a boy or a girl, the credit goes to husband. A woman can bear half a dozen children but her name would be anonymous and a child always takes father’s name. That is why wise people say that ‘beggars can’t be choosers’.

In our whole social system chooser’s responsibility has always been unsurpassed by men. Women have been rightly relieved by this responsibility presumably because they don’t have any capacity to select or choose. It always falls in the male’s dominion. If establishment is a little broad minded it would put men in the category of a brainy animal but did not dare to do so for they could not assess what height this special species would attain in our parliamentary democracy. 

I thank the honorable judges for this sharp observation and reprimanding people who think they are "moving forward" and the rest are "retrograde".

Electronic Waste in India

Where do all our electronics go when we throw them away? This is called E-waste, and it may be a bigger problem than we think. E-waste is a popular, informal name for electronic products nearing the end of their “useful life.” Computers, televisions, VCRs, stereos, copiers, and fax machines are common electronic products.

Unfortunately, electronic discards is one of the fastest growing segments of our nation’s waste stream. Millions of tons of disused electronic equipment containing toxic chemicals and heavy metals are being dumped every year without recycling or safe disposal. On an average more than 80 percent of televisions, computers, mobile phones and other equipment all over the world escape proper handling. E-waste levels are expected to touch 4.7 lakh tonnes by 2011 in India and reach over 2,00,000 workers mostly in the age group of 12-25. 

A United nations report suggests that mountains of hazardous waste from electronic products are growing exponentially in developing countries. The study also points out that India would have 500 percent more e-waste from old computers in 2020 than in 2007, and 18 times more old mobile phones. In a study conducted by Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at the Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi of 250 people working in the city as recyclers and dismantlers over 12 months to October 2009 and almost all suffered from breathing problems such as asthma and bronchitis. 

                              

All workers have 10-20 times higher levels of lead, mercury and chromium in blood and urine samples. Such high levels can have a detrimental effect on the respiratory, urinary and digestive systems, besides crippling immunity and causing cancer. Toxic metals and poisons enter workers' bloodstreams during the laborious manual extraction process and when equipment is crudely treated to collect tiny quantities of precious metals.

Workers also are exposed to fumes of highly concentrated acids as they dip their hands in poisonous chemicals for long hours. The recovery of metals like gold, platinum, copper and lead uses caustic soda and concentrated acids. Safety gear such as gloves, face masks and ventilation fans are virtually unheard of, and workers -- many of them children -- often have little idea of what they are handling. The irony is that the amounts of gold and platinum these children extract are traces - fractions of a milligram. 

Even though the Indian government has proposed a law to regulate e-waste trade, destitute children still face hazards picking apart old computers. The proposed law says only big firms should be in the business of recycling and dismantling. This is not going to work because the informal sector already has a cheap system of collection, disposal or recycling in place -- so people will use that. The sight of children working in appalling conditions taking computers apart is as potent a symbol of India's deep troubles as rag-pickers sorting through stinking household rubbish dumps. 

E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2010 can be seen here. We need laws which will protect workers' interests, especially the vulnerable and children.

Origin of "Satyameva Jayate"

"Satyameva Jayate" (satyam-eva jayate सत्यमेव जयते) (Sanskrit: "Truth Alone Triumphs") is the national motto of India and is inscribed in Devanagari script at the base of the national emblem, which is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Asoka at Sarnath, near Varanasi in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The source of the motto is a well-known mantra 3.1.6 from the Mundaka Upanishad. Full mantra is as follows:

सत्यमेव जयते नानृतम् सत्येन पन्था विततो देवयानः ।
येनाक्रमत् मनुष्यो ह्यात्मकामो यत्र तत् सत्यस्य परं निधानं ॥

Meaning:

Truth alone triumphs; not falsehood. Through truth the divine path is spread out by which
the sages whose desires have been completely fulfilled, reach where that supreme treasure of Truth resides.

Mamata on Rails...

Indian Railways has hit a new low with the toll going to 13 accidents in 2010 and over 200 dead since Ms. Mamata Banerjee became Railway Minister for the second time. It amazes me that accident after accident our present government is keeping quiet and not even finding time to correct the wrongs of one of the most important ministry in their cabinet. 'Safety and security will be our principal concern' just to recall last years' railway budget speech. One needs to address issues of solutions, responsibility and accountability in that order.

1. Anti-Collision devices patented by Konkan Railway Corporation were duly tested and passed in 1999 by the parliament. 11 years and many governments later, Ministers and railway board officials still talk as if it is a new device which needs testing. In 2002, during the NDA regime anti-collision devices were retested and even commissioned on North Eastern Frontier railway. After a successful pilot, NDA government budgeted 17,000 crores for the implementation. Konkan Railway has also installed these devices on its 760 km long single line network. If minsters and stakeholders in the Indian government and parliament stop colliding with each other after every incident to gain political mileage, I am sure they can find the time and will to implement Anti-Collision devices throughout Indian Railway Network.

2. 4 of the 13 incidents in early part of 2010 were due to fog. Anti-Fog systems are also facing the same fate as Anti-Collision devices. IRCON international Ltd which is a public-sector enterprise has developed Anti-Fog systems and even implemented the same in other nations like Syria and Iraq but our rails are still awaiting an action.

3. On 7 February 2010, Ms. Mamata Banerjee announced start of nineteen new train services. Maximisation of revenue cannot be done at the cost of safety and security. Every minister of railways feels that their principal responsibility to their state and public can only be fulfilled by new trains. Such new trains weaken the already week infrastructure and are unnecessary drain on resources needed to fix larger issues.

4. It has become a common practice in our country for opposition to demand resignation and minister in-charge claiming sabotage and assuring enquiry. Between these two tracks, voice and issues of common man never reach their destination. It will be wrong for any party or person to demand resignation as that does not in any way end this series of accidents. We need to be asking for solutions not heads. Two accidents in a month in Bengal and all we get to hear from Ms. Mamata Banerjee is sabotage. How convenient it is to blame incidents on dead? As the Chairman and Minster have put all blame on the driver of the train in the incident yesterday. They should know better than to make statements like 'why did not the dead driver jump?' People serving at such high-echelons also need a lesson in not to think out loud in public. Coming to enquiry, Standing committee for railways has only railway officials on the board, so we can well imagine fate of the enquiry. Also, this committee then reports to Minister of Civil Aviation. Why? It is beyond my understanding.

5. We should be proud of having single largest rail network in the world but after 60 years of independence and many a governments, we still do not have a Disaster Management Team in place. Our minister yesterday called for Army to be deployed for the relief and rescue work. Calling Army for railway accidents that is like calling UN peace keeping force for unrest in a state. Someone needs to remind such people the role of different government bodies. Indian Army's role is to safeguard boundaries of our nation and not to add weight to ill-actions of railways or politicians.

6. Senior statesman and our finance minister Pranb Mukherjee who himself hails from Bengal says 'accident is an accident and cannot be foreseen'. Well that for me is wisdom personified. With the Bengal election around the corner in 2011, Congress has no option but to keep Trinamool congress as its political ally and can ill-afford to lose Ms. Mamata Banerjee if they have any chance of keeping CPI(M) away from the office. Railway minister should choose either 'Governance in Delhi' or 'Politics in Calcutta'. A ministry like Railway cannot be run like a BPO with the use of communication devices.

To serve public, one needs 'Excellent Time management', 'High Energy level' and 'Competence'. Even if we are ready to grant all these to the minster, where is the 'Accountability' which is the single most important factor? 

Let us not ask for her resignation but we sure do have a right to ask for accountability.

Indian railway accidents chronology in 2010

1. January 2, 2010. The first of three accidents in Uttar Pradesh on this day takes place near the town of Etawah, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, when the Lichchavi Express entering the station in heavy fog runs into the stationary Magadh Express train stopped there. Ten people, including the driver of one of the trains, are injured. At least 10 people were reported to have been killed.

2.January 2, 2010. The Gorakhdham Express and Prayagraj Express collide near the Panki railway station in Kanpur, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) southwest of Lucknow, leave five people dead and about 40 others injured.

3. January 2, 2010. At Pratapgarh, 61 kilometres (38 mi) from Allahabad, the Sarayu Express plows into a tractor trailer at an unmanned railway crossing. Though nobody is injured, the engine of the train is severely damaged.

4. January 2, 2010. All seven coaches of the Arunachal Pradesh Express, running between Murkongselek and Rangiya derail between Helem and Nij Bogaon in Assam, India in the early hours of the day. No passengers are hurt. 

5. January 16, 2010. Three people die and around a dozen are injured when two express trains collide in thick fog near Tundla, 25 kilometres (16 mi) from Agra, in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The driver of one of the trains apparently did not react to a signal, slamming his train into another on the same track.

6. January 17, 2010. The Lucknow-Sultanpur Harihar Nath Express strikes a car at an unmanned railway crossing under Haidergarh police station area on Sunday afternoon in Barabanki district, India. Two persons traveling in the car die on the spot and four others who sustained serious injuries were referred to Trauma Centre in Lucknow. Train traffic on this route is disrupted for nearly two hours after the accident. This is the fifth accident in a series of similar accidents in the area.

7. January 22, 2010. Three bogies of a goods train derail at Sathiyaon station near Azamgarh, in Uttar Pradesh, disrupting rail traffic in the region. No one is injured. Traffic is disrupted on the busy Varanasi–Azamgarh–Gorakhpur route. 

8. May 25, 2010. A passenger train derails at Naugachia, injuring eleven people.

9. May 28, 2010. A train derails in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, caused by either sabotage or a bomb that damaged the railway track, and is struck by an oncoming goods train, resulting in at least 90 passenger deaths.

10. June 18, 2010. Eight coaches and two engines of the Vasco-Howrah Amaravati Express (8048) derailed near Koppal in Karnataka, India, on Friday after the train hit a road roller at an unmanned level-crossing.Six persons, including the drivers of the road roller and the train, were injured in the accident.

11. July 19, 2010. At 2:00am, on the morning of July 19, about 50 people died and about 100 others were injured in a train collision. 2 coaches and a luggage car were crushed to splinters as ahigh speed train, hit a train standing local train at Sainthia station in West Bengal. Another coach was flung onto an over-head bridge at the station and was also smashed by the violent impact forces. The town is 200 kilometres north of the state capital, Kolkata (Calcutta).

A must for Indo-Pak resolution

Whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. Indian sovereignty is constitutionally applicable to this entire area. The Parliament of India had reiterated its position by a resolution in 1993. It is surprising that in several rounds of Indo-Pak talk or at any other international forum India has not raised this issue even for once. Have we decided to forget it? On the contrary, India recaptured a part of POK In 1965 war and after the war returned the area. If we talk of making LOC the international border, this offer dose not have international legal sanctity. Even today we stand by the resolution passed by our parliament in 1993 that whole of J&K is an integral part of India. POK is strategically important as a geopolitical area.  

Some are of the opinion that annexation done by Razakars and tribal people during medieval period was fare. This is not valid. Nor it is validated by any. Our legal sovereignty over this area is valid even today. POK has virtually created strategic cushion. This area of POK created strategic hot-land between India and northern area of Kashmir. This area has common boundaries with Tibet, Xinjiang, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries are its next door neighbors. Further this has blocked our view to North-West world.

India must raise this issue time and again at international forums as well as Indo-Pak talks.  

Hunger: India worse off than Uganda!

There are now one billion hungry people on the globe, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said recently.

A statistic that is shameful and shocking at the same time. The global financial crisis too has led to a dramatic rise in hunger across the world.

"This day, more than 17,000 children will die of hunger. One every five seconds! The world has more than enough food. Yet, today, more than one billion people are hungry," he said.

The Global Hunger Index measures global hunger by ranking countries on three leading indicators and combining them into one index. The three indicators are prevalence of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality, and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient.

According to the 2009 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 65th out of 88 countries, with a hunger rate of 23.9. Countries like Uganda (38th); Mauritania (40th); Zimbabwe (58th) and many others have a better record than India on this front.

Almost 21 per cent of the Indian population was undernourished (between 2003 and 2005), 43.5 per cent Indian children under the age of five were underweight (between 2002 and 2007) and the under five-year-age infant mortality rate in 2007 was 7.2 per cent.

Even war-torn nations have managed to combat the scourge of hunger quite well, while India -- even though it boasts of being the second fastest growing economy in the world -- languishes far behind and millions in the country go hungry.

Policy makers rather than raising prices should try and rise up in this index to the top and I am sure every Indian that day will work on a sunday to compensate FICCI for their estimated loss of Rs. 13,000 crores and Rs. 10,000 crores that of ASSOCHAM.

Let us look around and not go anyone stomach around us.