A step in the right direction

The much awaited 33% reservation for women in the parliament is a welcome step in India’s effort to empower and emancipate women in the country.
It is heartening to see the ruling congress and the main opposition BJP coming together to support the bill in both the upper and lower houses of the parliament. There are discordant notes with the OBC leaders and minority parties making noise about reservation for women in their communities. This noise will not be a show stopper in passing the bill. Leaders like Lalu Yadav and Deve Gowda are the worst type of politicians and should be condemned to obscurity for their petty and narrow politics.
We need to wait and see for 2014 when the 33% reservation comes into effect, about 160+ women parliamentarians would be entering the hallowed halls of the parliament, hopefully bringing in the dignity that is lacking today.
As with any law there will be challenges in implementing the law in spirit since our scheming politicians will prop up their wives, relatives and children to fight the elections. In that sense the law will not be completely democratic since money is still required to fight elections, and it is the current gang of politicos who has all that. There will be a lot of remote control in action in the parliament.
It is up to the women parliamentarians to come into their own and bring out issues that are important for their ilk. Data shows Indian women lagging on all fronts with respect to education, health, employment etc. I guess Africa is the only other continent that fares worse.
It is a step in the right direction though much delayed.

Till it hits home

A close relative of mine suffered brain hemorrhage due to hypertension and was in a critical condition for over three weeks. The experience of managing the whole situation was a revelation on the rising costs of health care in the country and how ill equipped Govt clinics are to attend to critical cases.
To the credit of the government the “108” ambulance service responded on time and admitted the patient to the nearest multi specialty private clinic which saved his life.
The following 3 weeks are a lesson on the rising healthcare costs (clinic, doctor’s consultation and medicines) in this country (for a poor country like India).
I was sitting outside the critical care unit one night and a security guard passed by and commented “ sir you are able to provide good care for this patient, what about a poor man like me, I guess folks like us have to die in such situations”. It was a moving and sad moment.
Understaffed and ill equipped government clinics along are a bane for the citizen, coupled with lack of a serious debate by the central and state governments on the health care needs of the citizens and policies to address it.
If the most advanced nation on , US with such advanced medical care is struggling to put together a bill that addresses the health care needs of its citizen’s India is nowhere in terms of facing the challenge of addressing the health care needs of its citizens.
Various departments of the government give different statistics on the poverty levels of the country, assuming an average of 40-50% of the population that works out to 400-500 Million not having access to good (read Private) health care in the country. I guess Death is the only result for a lot of Indians who do not have access to immediate and necessary medical care in critical conditions.

Registras of Corruption

A recent experience in a Land Register office in the outskirts of Bangalore gave me an insight on how our babus are beating the computerized system.

Brokers still play a key role in getting the appontment for registering the land ( selling or buying, they have a strong influence on how fast your work gets done at the office. Going by the normal token system would make one spend a full day outside the office and the officials may trouble with queries.

For both the buyer and seller the costs of buying and selling prove to be costlier since the broker inflates the price and pockets a cool 10% of the selling price and shares the bounty with the babus.

Land registration ( Agricultural, Residential and Commercial) has been handled hap handedly since independence. Many regulations have been brought in but corruption is evident in all things related selling and buying land.

It is not more laws but more computerization of the whole process that is needed.

CIO Article Link

http://www.cio.com/article/513613

Anarchy and Administration

Sometimes I feel we take false pride in being the world’s most populous democracy. We equate conducting successful elections and electing government’s sufficient reasons for declaring ourselves as successful democracy. The other equally important aspects of a democracy governance, rule and respect for law, equal opportunity are conveniently forgotten once parties come to power.
Three recent and ongoing incidents bring out the anarchy or lack of governance in the country.
1) DGP Rathore getting away from justice for 19 long years is a shame on the country’s criminal justice system. The way Rathore has used his power to systematically eliminate all opposition is a telling example of collusion between politicians and bureaucrats. Misuse of power by the politicians and bureaucrats has been a bane in this country. This lack of integrity in this two important bodies leads to weak implementation of the law.
2) I guess no other country is as insensitive to loss of human life as we are. Three train crashes on a single day with a significant loss of life talks about our disregard for human life. The reason for the crash is dense fog but our rail administrators do know that this time of the year there is fog and should have monitored the situation. If it is not fog it is due to fish plate’s removal, manual driver error or speeding, year on year rail crashes keep happening with less focus on safety. Railway ministry is a sought after cabinet position and heavily politicized and needs clean up
3) Anarchy in AP – Politicians and the student wings of their parties are taking Hyderabad to ransom with frequent calls for bandhs. They have no idea about the damage they are causing to the city’s brand, loss of revenue to business, loss of school time for children. It is very unfortunate that the state transport corporation takes a hit for all political issues. India should have a strong law to handle the cases of arson, similar to the law being planned for communal riots. Police forces are mute spectators to all this due to lack of independence.

Politics of separation

The sordid drama that is unfolding for a separate Telengana state in Andhra Pradesh is what afflicts Indian politics – deceit, the real issue for creation of a separate state is put in the back burner and demagogic politicians take center stage and play with the common man’s emotions.
It is true at the time of independence were created based on linguistic considerations, that was perhaps the only factor considered at that time due to lack of other compelling considerations. After 60 years of independence it may be time for a relook at the approach we have taken in creation of states.
Is there much difference in the development indices of the Andhra and Telengana regions, recent data shows that the regions of Andhra and Telengana are not much different on the UN development index scale. There is abject poverty in both regions. There may be qualitative difference, but at that level of poverty it doesn’t matter much. It is poverty anyway.
So what is the fight for. Is it water resources, real estate in Hyderabad region or mining ? It is a mixed bag of all the above I guess. Some of the demands of people in Telengana region may be genuine in terms of lack of irrigation facilities, industrialization (except for Hyderabad region) etc. Large industrial houses in the state are owned by people from Andhra region is another complaint.
Will Telengana be better off if a separate statehood is granted? Hard to say since the leadership fighting for it have to come clear of allegations of corruption against them and have not laid out a clear vision on the development objectives they want to achieve. However it may worth a try since both the Andhra and Telengana regions are suffering from pathetic infrastructure, poor govt reach malnutrition in children etc.
In principle I do believe that smaller states are easier to govern considering the administrative capabilities that out political class have shown over the past 60 years. To some extent this is proven in the case of Jharkhand and Uttaranchal where it is being said that the administration is able to reach out to the citizens with services effectively.
Finally the common man is always left out in the process, he is out of the equation. A new set of politicians will take over the new state and get richer leaving the rest of us to figure out what has happened to the promises that were made.
India is not poor because of its citizen it is due to the political class who lack the vision and determination to make it rich and powerful.

Roads to Death

One of my colleagues died in a road acccident last week. This is not the first known person i knew died in a road accident. Such incidents make one ponder on the ephemeral nature of life. India has one of the highest rates on road accident related deaths. As a country we have become insensitive to these deaths. We feel sad, ignore and move on to live another day. The state i come from Andhra Pradesh has the dubious distinction of topping the charts in the country. India as a whole i guess is number two in the world rankings.

Who is responsible the citizen or the state ? Yes as citizens we lack basic road driving etiquette in India, we are not considerate to pedsetrians,chidren and the old. Every one is in a hurry to reach their destinations. So the citizen is surely at fault. But does the state have a role ? I think it has an even important role in laying the law and regulating and providing the necessary infrastructure. Every state including the central government have failed miserably in getting their act together with respect to road safety.

Talking about law India has laws for everything so no problems with that, but what about regulation. Polieman standing at street corners and cutting traffic tickets is not regulation. The aspect of road safety needs to be addressed in a wholistic way. 1) Infrastucture (Roads and grade separtors, lane markings, functioning street lights and traffic lights) 2) Licensing regulations 3) Continuous education to drivers 4) Related Infrastructure ( Foot over bridges for perdestrians etc) and enough Manpower to monitor this very important function.

I guess the government knows about the above requirements i discussed above, infact they have experts in traffic engineering so they know better on what needs ot be done. What gets the goose is what are all these Ministers of Roads and Buildings, Bureucrats and Engineers doing about roads and safety of citizens using the roads.

I am sure that when a Roads and buidings minister goes to work every day he must be seeing main roads with out lane markings, potholes, broken road separators, no zebra crossings, dysfunctional traffic lights etc what does he do once he is in office. Does he ignore the plight of the poor citizen or what do these guys do actually?

We citizens we are under the strangle hold of governments inaction and will continue to suffer for all its faliabilities.