Farmers are suffering

Farmers are suffering terribly as they cannot make a living with declining outputs.Farmers put together their hard work and the power of the sun and bring forth a harvest. We buy their hard work with little money and we consume it. This harvest is so vital to our existence. When this is such an important profession, we must pay a little more attention to the farmers and their problems. Farming is precarious. Much depends on water supply which is weather dependent.Climate determines whether they will get a harvest or not. Farmers make loans to farm--to buy seeds and farm equipment. When the results are bad, they are too poor to repay the loans. They are sunk in debts. Despite bumper crops in two consecutive years, farmers cannot make a living.They can sell to governement only; minimum support price is too low.Cost of inputs have gone up.

Dozens of farmers in Andhra Pradesh (Guntur district) have committed suicides. They had to encounter losses in crops (like chilli); And they already have debts from previous seasons. They did not have land which they could have sold. They had rented fields to farm. Now, their families suffer further. Many farmers had sold their vital organs like ‘kidney’; so that they can make up for the debts. There also they are cheated. They are given one lakh as payment while it costs four lakhs.

In the state of Maharashtra, drought has hit farming. 6000 villages in 16 districts have been affected so far. Farmers and their families are moving to urban areas to make a living. They work as labourers making pavements in cities.700 crores have been given to the state by the central government to solve the water crisis; so that drinking water is provided to the people who need it. Problem is ecological –a disaster which cannot be solved by money or political power.Problems looming over India are bigger than what is easily visible. Even if the government provides food to the people by food schemes, only God has to give water to survive. Even if the government gives loans, the unpredictable results from harvests will make their life tougher.

Industrial workers strike

Two day “strike” has been taking place all over India by 11 trade unions participating in protests. Banks and businesses have been closed. Workers want their rights, and they want to make amendment to labour laws.In industrial cities like Noida, protests became violent. About 70 persons were arrested.  Few factories were vandalised and looted. This is a national loss. Such mob behaviour was cause by hooligans who had come from outside.

Workers have been enduring pain inflicted by their bosses—long hours of work, difficult demanding workload, less pay, and gruelling conditions. Government’s economic policies, and labour laws and inability to control inflation were the reasons for the protests. While work has increased, pay has not increased.Their basic living condition is poor and on top of that the have debts. Those on daily wages would not get their income for these two days; they have to pay for food bill with their daily wages. It is a loss to them and their families who depend on these wages.

Trade unions’ demands are same as usual. They want employment for those unemployed, they want better enforcement of labour laws, they want social security, they want to stop contractual labour, they do not want ceilings on bonuses, they want more benefits of employee funds, they want assured pension and they want that all trade unions be registered. All these welfare schemes are possible with higher growth rate, and that is what government is trying to achieve. The legislation like Minimum wages Act, Factories Act (amended in 1987) and Industrial Disputes Act have to be modified. All workers must come under the Minimum wages, casualization of labour is a big problem. And minimum wages must be revised.Any dispute between the management and the workers must be resolved immediately, otherwise these protests will come up endlessly. How to convince the protesting people that we too want higher economic growth? Future is depends on how we resolve conflicts between the poor workers of India and the owners of factories/businesses.We  must realize that workers are the central part of any industry and that their welfare is the welfare of the industry. In eagerness to please the corporates, tax concessions are made.In a hope that industrialists will invest their profits and make more industries. But they just want to make more and more profits and ignore the rising needs of the workers whom they had employed to make big profits.

 

New bonds without old bondage

We had won independence from United Kingdom 65 years ago. We could not be kept in bondage. Since then, much has changed. Yesterday, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom had visited India for future prospects of trade and investment. We talked about bilateral issues---trade. Indian entrepreneurs have opened enterprises in the United Kingdom and have prospered. While India invests in Great Britain, they invest here. To get the economy moving, we have to carry on investing and trading.
Our colonial past has not affected our present relationship. History is history.He had visited our national monument where a British General (Dyer) had opened fire on the common people in a meeting(in 1919).He felt that it was shameful. But he never apologised to the relatives of those killed, who were waiting for him to say sorry.He did not. Dwelling on our cultural past cannot help our present economic state. Common history or no common history,those events were over long ago; to survive in present economic environment, we have to make them our trading partners all over again.Even if we do not agree on our views on present conflict zones, we feel we have to take steps in positive direction.Those views can change sooner or later.Indian diaspora in United Kingdom are doing well and they have been instrumental in improving our ties.
Future depends on forgetting history and making new partnerships to overcome hurdles in economic progress. We must come out of this stagnation. Not just with this European ally, we must improve ties with others also. World has become our neighbourhood now.    

Hurdles to progress--Bureacracy

Indian bureaucracy is the major obstruction in India’s progress. Farmers always work hard and have produced bumper crops. And our agricultural ministry and its authoritarian officers do not have proper plans to deal with the storage of food grains. Labourers work hard and make infrastructures in India, and toll highways are not used well. Workers in Indian industries are hard working but the government officers who have to provide them with employment opportunities do not take required efforts. Many mining towns are out of business.What government officers know is ----how to calculate their own income and emoluments, how to make plans to avoid tax, and how to make use of government concessions to travel; basically how to enjoy the perks of their government jobs. Progress of the people and the country is of no concern to them--that is they do not care.

If there is a reason to give reply to their activities or lack of activities, they hire an adviser or a consultant to make a letter explaining how their office does not have the power to do the needful. They make their advisers a credible explanation to their laziness in handling office duties. If they had to answer a questionnaire from higher officer, they would tell the adviser to answer that too. 
 
They are highly indecisive lot. They would go on postponing making decision. They are capable of "book-keeping" or archiving. All correspondences and data can be archived by computers. With emails, all correspondences can be sent fast and answered fast. That would not be done by governments officers, as procrastinating is their favourite activity.
Mandatory activities of the officers should be monitored constantly and their duties must be delineated. Otherwise the entire bureaucracy would spoil the government's functioning and bring the country to a standstill. There is need for structured reforms and government officers' activities must be updated constantly. Officers must be re-trained to work with computers; and eventually parts of bureaucracy must be "phased out". There is no need to support a huge inefficient bureaucracy. Such a useless ineffective bureaucracy is a drag on the growth of the nation.

Levels of hierarchy at office is strictly observed. They know how to shout at their inferior ranking staff, and snubbing any suggestions. Army like environment is observed in dealing with the lower ranking staff.  Insult and hatred are inculcated among the lower level staff, making the office atmosphere intolerably painful for lower staff. Officers are very good in mistreating supporting staff--as  treating lower staff badly is their specialisation. Even slaves would be treated better.  Dominant rude behaviour hampers office activities. There are ego clashes, which lead to verbal fights.Using rough words in office must be forbidden. Indians have a trait---they do not perform well in groups.Full stop. 

Through computerisation of office activities like 'file transfer management systems' and 'office automation procedures, slown processes can be checked. There should be strict vigilance of roles played by government officers. Are they working? If so how many files have they processed; what is the quantity and quality of their work? When found that they do not do much, they government can give alternate activities like teaching. India still has multitudes of illiterate people and teachers are urgently needed, inept government officers can make people literate.

The government’s bureaucracy is a huge national waste. All the salaries paid to them is valuable money that has been lost down the drain. Human effort has to be channelised in an effective way for a nation to grow. National wealth is squandered by a huge inefficient bureaucracy. This must be stopped; only then India will progress and have a good future.

Experiments in lab called economy

We have run-away inflation, skyrocketing prices and angry people.We have mismanaged our economy. And we have quipped our failures as 'our way of making inclusive growth possible'. We feel that we have given benefits evenly to the people.Experiments in inducing growth in sectors like power has not worked. Concessions to different coal companies and hurdles in mining, have affected the growth of power sector.Experiments to induce growth is big failure resulting in loss for the nation.In the aviation sector, banks were encouraged to give big loans to airlines, and these loans could not be repaid. Bankruptcy was rampant.Then the bank loans were classified as troubled assets; ultimately banks had to suffer big losses.
Public private partnerships were encouraged to make big infrastructures which were not feasible. Costs of making the infrastructures rose so high that government had to give money to prevent bankruptcy.Otherwise the making of infrastructures was brought to an abrupt end.Some of the "toll" highways did not get any users as the tickets were priced too high.People stopped using them. Profits did not materialise as projected. Government had to bail out.The cost of making of airport at Delhi was so high that a "development fee" was charged from the unwary passengers who used the airports.The airport charges were disliked by all who stopped by Delhi.At all new "experiments" in economy, patchwork was done, so that we would not sink further.Our government has affected the growth of our economy by coming up with new tax laws which did not work.
So, now what are we doing? We are trying to go all over the world to encourage investment in India. We can do that from here itself, the air fare could be saved. We have provided manpower for the world, our IT professionals are making growth possible around the world. We can do it for our land too, provided no new laws or experiments are made. 

Capital Punishment is cruel

As human society, we have evolved many institutions for peaceful life together. There are few which are very cruel and still reminds us that we have not come out from the Medieval ages. One these is the capital punishment. 140 nations have abolished capital punishment. Only 58 countries have not abolished capital punishment, and India is one of these countries which still have capital punishment. Generally we do not give this punishment. Even if the Supreme Court had announced the capital punishment, the head of the Republic shows mercy and forgives the convict, reducing the punishment to life in imprisonment. This has not happened, for some reason. Many convicts are "hung" now. This is very very cruel. Just imagining it gives one shivers.We are a brutal society which still has this horrible punishment.
It is the cruelest way to die.We can see beyond what is ordinarily visible. Death as punishment for murder does not work as a deterrent. There are those who are on a suicide mission "to kill and then die" Giving death penalty will only act as a motivation for other similar individuals. Death sentence incentivizes criminals, as they become a "hero" or a martyr. Some humans want to conform and some want to rebel to "try-out" the limits of social sanctions.They can be motivated to live a peaceful and simple life. Some like to be immortalised by getting the award of death sentence. They too can be reformed; we can show them new reasons to live. The human mind is resilient.

It is not correct to end life of a human being. He can be useful even in jail. Convicts are taught skills like carpentry. Some convicts are used as labourers. They can be useful to society when they are taught skills.Their behaviour can be modified. They can be reformed. All human activities are learnt. Even if has learnt crime, he can change himself and can lead a crime-free life. We have to teach him how. Human mind can be changed. If given a life in imprisonment, he cannot harm anyone. In single confinement, he cannot influence anyone. We need not finish his life; the finality part of it hurts us deeply. Once given capital punishment, we cannot undo it. If later on new evidence comes to light, then we cannot do justice to the lost soul.

Do we have the right to take away life? At esoteric level, all religions teach us to live in peace. All religions teach coexistence, even with many differences among us. Giving death sentence is not a peaceful solution. It is the cruelest punishment ever thought of. We live in the land where Mahatma Buddha lived and preached. We cannot forget "ahimsa" and our thoughts cannot allow for death of a human under any situation. Gandhiji also taught us that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" We cannot take away a life as punishment for murder. Then we are also committing murder jointly.It is not correct to put someone to death.Death sentence is just not acceptable. Doctors try so hard to save a life.Teachers work hard to shape a mind.All workers work in an effort to support human life.All of us work so that life is better for one and all, we farm, we produce we market, and we manufacture for benefit of all mankind. None of us work to end someone's life(may be a lawyer would).We all want to preserve life.We do not want death for anyone. Codification of such cruel punishment is a shame on our culture and society.We must end the death sentence.

The Religious Mind

Religion finds expression in several congregations. And the "Maha Kumbh Mela" is an event every wants to be part of. When our religion is our way life, we do not have any structured systematic unions of devotees. And the "Khmbh Mela" is one way we get united and celebrate the gift called life--our religion. People pray for good after life and pray for "Moksha" or the salvation when the soul is emancipated from re-births. In reunions like the "Kumbh Mela" Hinduism seeks to revive itself, and re-emerge among modern people of India.It is held every twelve years.All sins are washed away by a dip in the holy river Ganges.
When people get killed in a stampede, it is because there is lack of crowd management. Lack of proper guidance in crowded events leads to stampede. This could be avoided. When people congregate in huge crowds, they are risking their lives. And a massive event like this religious congregation has resulted in deaths of three dozen people. But for these deaths, people merrily enjoyed the “Maha Kumbh Mela” This is a way for all devotees to unite and pray together. Crowds were managed well except for the stampede in the railway station.People went for a "holy dip" in the river Ganges early in the mornings.The people who had this holy dip consider themselves to be the most blessed.It is a blessing to have come out of the crowd and have had a safe journey home.