TELANGANA, CONRESS PARTY'S ELECTION GAMBLE?

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 TELANGANA, CONRESS PARTY'S ELECTION GAMBLE?

 

 The carving out of Andhra Pradesh and creation of Telangana state out of it is welcome, as it is the fulfilling of a long-standing demand,  The regional feeling of discrimination under the present dispensation had been very palpable, and so deep as to precipitate scores of suicides committed to project the cause of Telangana. People of Telangana region were brewing with discontent at what they perceived as injustice meted out to them for decades by the richer and more powerful Andhra region.

  Andhras on the other hand were, and still are, bitterly opposed to the idea of bifurcation of the state, The Congress members of the Government and the party hailing from Andhra region say that it is bitter poison that the High Command is asking them to swallow, but swallow they have to in the party interest. The decision was momentous leading to an emotional overflow of supporters for and against  Delhi's political skills this last fortnight were not much in evidence. Far from calming tempers and working for an amicable split up, it has managed to deepen the rift between Telangana and the rest of the state.

     The splitting of Andhra Pradesh marks the first time in India's post-Independence history that a "linguistic state" has been proposed officially to be divided. Contrary to speculation that the new state could be named Rayala Telangana, including a couple of districts of Rayalaseema, the districts that will be part of the new state will be, Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahaboobnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Rangareddy and Warangal besides Hyderabad. At the moment the idea is to have 10 districts in Telangana but it will be for the Group of Ministers to consider demands for inclusion of more area  Out of 42 Lok Sabha seats and 294 Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana is likely to have 17 Lok Sabha seats and 119 Assembly seats. It will have a population of 40 million.
 
   The movement for Telangana has rolled on for decades with peaks and troughs of popular upsurge.  The announcement of the creation of Telangana reflects the end of that long journey and the beginning of a fresh set of wrangles over the shaping of the new state. It was quite apparent that short term political calculations by a nervy Congress party ahead of next year's elections have governed Tuesday's announcement more than grander visions about the restructuring of Indian political or economic life. Nehru had previously opposed such a scenario for fear of creating inward-looking states that would imperil the consolidation of Indian nationhood, and even encourage separatism. Since Nehru, language did become a dominant pillar of regional political community.

The regionalisation of Indian politics in the last few decades is a story that is firmly rooted in these linguistic states. India's enduring unity has been a consequence of linguistic accommodation  We also saw a a new generation of statehood demands in the late 1960s and early 1970s made on the grounds of regional inequality, a  statehood movement that has moved beyond language as a basis for political community. Across the Hindi belt, the deepening politicization of lower castes made it harder to hold together large states that had previously been bastions of upper-caste and class dominance.Thus the creation of new states has been embedded in the decentralization of political life.

     Rather than promoting the break-up of India, the ability of the central government to create new states has in many - though not all - cases helped to accommodate regional aspirations. Andhra state, the first entity formed on linguistic basis, was created in 1953 from out of the erstwhile Madras presidency with Kurnool as the capital. With the passing of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, there was a merger of Hyderabad state and Andhra state to be called Andhra Pradesh from November 1, 1956. Andhra Pradesh now has a population of over 8.5 crore.
  
  In more recent years, several new states have been created in the Hindi belt where language has not been a major issue. Punjab and Haryana were divided too (although religion, as well as language - Punjabi and Hindi - was at stake in the latter instance) In 2000, the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were created in regions with sizable tribal populations, and following a decades-long movement for a tribal state in Jharkhand. The hill state of Uttarakhand was also created in the Himalayan districts of Uttar Pradesh. India, with 1.2 billion population, currently has 28 states while the United States with a population of 300 million has 50. Clearly, there is room for more states in a republic of a billion plus.

    In December 2009, the then Home Minister Shri P Chidambaram announced the commencement of the process for statehood to Telangana only to be withdrawn hastily. The Congress party then sought to buy time by creating another committee on the question of Telangana. But, it remained indifferent to the collapse in administration, political violence and the unfortunate specter of suicides by youngsters of Telangana. Meanwhile, governance came to a standstill in Andhra Pradesh.

     But the timing of the acceptance of the Telangana demand by the Congress-led UPA government at this juncture lacks transparency in decision making. In the wake of the sequence of events, the Congress Party has done in the last few days what it shied away from doing in the last 9 years- to work overtime on a decision over Telangana. Now, at a time when there are only a few months left before the people of this country vote again, the Congress Party is rushing to announce Telangana. This raises serious concerns on the seriousness and intentions of the Congress.

     As Narendra Modi points out, the election oriented announcement has been made under stress without doing the necessary home work. There is no consensus even within the party. Unlike capital cities that became shared capitals by virtue of being on the border between two states, Hyderabad becomes a shared capital despite being located well within Telangana. Thus, this does not justify the logic of sharing a capital albeit for a short duration. This leaves scope for operational difficulties. , How practical is it for a state to have a capital that does not lie neither within its boundaries nor along its borders? People of Andhra Pradesh and Rayalseema do not  welcome this decision on Telangana. What assurances have been provided to them so as to assuage their anxieties and to take them on board? No political roadmap" to create this consensus among the people.

     And this comes at a time when Hyderabad as an investment destination has suffered. The state capital, Hyderabad, is a mega-city deeply connected to global flows of capital and people. Hyderabad sits geographically in the Telangana region, but its connections to the rural hinterlands of the region are strained. After statehood comes the hard task of choosing new political leaders, building new administrative structures, raising revenues, and negotiating with the central government. Beyond the goal of statehood lie multiple interests and visions which will need to be accommodated. The state of Andhra Pradesh has slipped. The state once considered the rice bowl of India has seen agricultural slides making it a state with high farmer suicides. It is clear that the creation of Telangana has been prompted by short-term electoral manoeuvrings.
     As has been done now, the establishment of Telangana would set off more unrest.. Another fear is that leftist guerrillas who operate in parts of the proposed Telangana state will become further emboldened. It might open a Pandora's box and is likely to spur debates about the merits of creating more states in other regions, as well as to bequeath administrative challenges for the inheritors of statehood in both parts of the reorganized state of Andhra Pradesh.

Are We Going To Be Extinct?

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Are We Going To Be Extinct?

 

 

The most of us urban people are getting less and less connected with the spectacle of Nature. Do we at any time stop to think about our place on the planet. To put the history of life on earth in to a timescale, imagine a book of say 400 pages. Then the very first life in the oceans is seen at page 240. The age of the dinosaurs begins at page 381 middle. Dinosaurs in their many forms and great diversity are around for 14 and a half pages. Dinosaurs are extinct by the end of the Cretaceous, just 5 pages from the end, and then making way for the mammals, the broad group we belong to. Our story and place on the timeline as upright walking apes begins only in the last half of the very last page. The human story as Homo sapiens, is represented by less than 2 millimeters towards the bottom of this page, some 200,000 years. How many of us appreciate that all our roots are African, as Homo sapiens and who left the continent only some 75,000 years ago to populate the globe, and that it will be many  millennia before this page could be turned.  In a time period that cannot be depicted on this page as it would be too microscopical, we have been witness to more change to the planet, to the diversity of life, global climate and natural habitats in this same time period

 We are undoubtedly the cause of the sixth of the mass extinction events that the planet has seen in its history.  Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540? million years or so. Biologists now suggest that the sixth mass extinction may be under way, given the known species losses over the past few centuries and millennia. The current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record, highlighting the fact that it is a crisis. 

 The fossil record presents an opportunity to contemplate how this human story unfolded. Many hominids, species resembling modern man the Homo sapiens  had lived and become extinct before us. After the discovery of  Zinjanthropus  in 1959, many more spectacular fossil finds of hominins, species closely related to humans, have since been made both in Africa and elsewhere. Genetics has given us the fascinating story and map of the migration journey of humans in intricate details. Genetic research has confirmed that there was gene flow between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals and with a totally different hominid species only known from DNA extracted from a finger bone found in a cave in Denisova in southern Siberia.

There have been at least 12 species of immediate ancestors of humans who are extinct. Three different peoples or subspecies of modern humans, namely, the Homo sapiens idaltu, the Archaic Homo sapiens ( Cro-magnon),and the Red Deer Cave People (scientific name not yet assigned) have disappeared from the face of earth. What are the prospects facing man? If history is any guide, human's time is also finite.

One evolutionary advantage of human kind is its immense technological capability. Although the last 50 years have shown an enormous increase in human population, the time has also shown extraordinary leaps in technological innovation. The question that needs to be asked is if we can rise to the opportunity, to use our technology to better understand our impact, to stem the tide of extinction on land and in the oceans, 

We are but one species of several hominids that inhabited planet earth and ran out their span of lives. Like these distant cousins who went extinct fairly recently,,our time on planet earth is also finite. Even with all our technological prowess, it may not take much to tip the balance against us and man might also run out his course on earth. Just to add a silver line however, man might continue in other planets, but then again, whether like as we are now, is a moot question. 

Egypt's Revolution No Longer Jasmine

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Egypt's Revolution No Longer Jasmine


 

 

 

Egypt's once Jasmin revolution has eventually turned into something you can't call by any flower's name. From white, the color has turned red, and no red or crimson flower has also the smell of blood. Morsi of Muslim Brotherhood replaced Mubarak on the crest of a mass wave that was readily called a revolution, white, -  not much tinged with red. Many, even at the time, felt Muslim Brotherhood's ascendancy as anti climax and foreboding trouble. They were proved right. So, came another and similar wave to sweep away Morsi who had proved to be even worse than Mubarak. Morsi also did the mortal mistake of alienating the military which soon stormed the twice born mass protest in to mass fury, uprooting Morsi and consigning him in to its barracks. The worst then happened, turning jasmine into crimson. On Saturday, Egyptian security forces and armed men in plain clothes killed scores of Muslim Brotherhood protesters  as the crackdown on the Islamist party and its supporters appeared to be gathering pace 

The latest violence came amid the continuing sharp polarization within Egyptian society that has made the country increasingly ungovernable. Elsewhere on Friday, eight people were reported killed in clashes in Alexandria. The shootings occurred as the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, said that Morsi – who has been held incommunicado at an army base for the last three weeks – was being moved to Torah prison, where Mubarak is also being held. Earlier, on Friday, civilian prosecutors announced they had launched an investigation into Morsi on charges of murder and conspiring with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. At the heart of the case are allegations that Morsi and the Brotherhood worked with Hamas to carry out an attack on a prison that succeeded in breaking Morsi and around 30 other members of the group out of detention during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak. 

The clashes began after hundreds of Morsi supporters moved out of their encampment outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque late on Friday and towards a bridge in central Cairo. One group began to set up tents on an adjoining boulevard, where they were planning to stay for at least three days, said Mahmoud Zaqzouq, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman. The crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood's supporters came after national demonstrations called by the chief of the army, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, to give him backing to confront violence and terrorism. On Saturday afternoon police released helicopter footage purporting to show Muslim Brotherhood members firing sporadically on police

During the three weeks Morsi has spent in secret detention, he has been extensively interrogated by military intelligence officials about the inner workings of his presidency and of the Brotherhood. The army suspects that he committed crimes, including handing state secrets to the Islamist group. According to the Associated Press, briefed by unidentified military officials, Morsi has been moved three times under heavy guard and is currently in a facility outside Cairo.

Scaling Poverty

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Scaling Poverty

  According to the press statement released by Planning Commission of India yesterday on 23,July 2013, poverty ratio in the country has declined to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 on account of increase in per capita consumption..

It says, based on the Tendulkar methodology, in 2011-12,  the national poverty line is estimated at Rs 816 per capita per month in villages and Rs 1,000 per capita per month in cities The percentage of persons below poverty line in 2011-12 has been estimated at 25.7 per cent in rural areas, 13.7 per cent in urban areas and 21.9 per cent for the country as a whole. The Commission said that for a family of five, the all-India poverty line in terms of consumption expenditure would amount to Rs 4,080 per month in rural areas and Rs 5,000 per month in urban areas. (The poverty line, however, will vary from state to state). This would naturally mean that the persons whose consumption of goods and services exceed Rs 33.33 in cities and Rs 27.20 per capita per day in villages are not poor.

The percentage of persons below poverty line in 2004-05 was 41.8 per cent in rural areas, 25.7 per cent in cities and 37.2 per cent in the country as a whole.In actual terms, there were 26.93 crore people below poverty line in 2011-12 as compared to 40.71 crore in 2004-05.

State-wise, the Commission said the poverty ratio was highest in Chhattisgarh at 39.93 per cent followed by Jharkhand (36.96%), Manipur (36.89%), Arunachal Pradesh (34.67%) and Bihar (33.47%). Among the union territories, the Dadra and Nagar Haveli was the highest, with 39.31 per cent people living below poverty line followed by Chandigarh at 21.81 per cent. Goa has the least percentage of people living below poverty line at 5.09 per cent followed by Kerala (7.05%), Himachal Pradesh (8.06%), Sikkim (8.19%), Punjab (8.26%) and Andhra Pradesh (9.20%).

The Commission holds that this decline in poverty is mainly on account of rising real per capita consumption figures which are based on 68th round of National Sample Survey on Household Consumer Expenditure in India in 2011-12,  and that this ratio for 2011-12 is based on the methodology suggested by Suresh Tendulkar Committee which factors in money spent on health and education besides calorie intake to fix a poverty line.

Now, there has been widespread criticism of Tendulkar methodology as outdated and no more reflecting current situation. It was accepting this view as valid that a committee was appointed under Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan to revisit the Tendulkar Committee methodology for tabulating poverty.The Committee is expected to submit its report by mid 2014. Then what was the hurry in putting up a survey-finding based on inappropriate methodology? The only explanation is the bogey of ensuing General elections.

The currently put out ratio becomes not only confounded but grotesque when you consider the Below Poverty Line( BPL) census of the population meant to determine the number of the poor, that  found close to half the rural population to so qualify, as against a 25.7 per cent ratio estimated by the Planning Commission, say sources in the rural development ministry. The BPL census found only 48 per cent of the population eligible for automatic exclusion from the category of the poor - they either had motorised vehicles, pucca houses, government jobs, landed wealth or members earning at least Rs 10,000 a month. The BPL census is scheduled to be completed in the next three to four month

The Rural Development ministry had commissioned the census in July 2011, after an experts' committee set up by it gave a list of recommendations on the criteria for identifying the poor. The census guidelines were later finalized on the basis of a separate project. The new guidelines listed a set of deprivations on the basis of which households were to be identified as poor, and certain other factors on the basis of which were to be identified as being not poor.

The BPL census of 1992 had identified 52 per cent of rural families as poor. The one in 1997 identified about 42 per cent as poor. The third census was done in 2002 but its results did not replace the earlier findings. And if BPL census is to be reckoned, it seems we are where we were in 1992!

Entrance Thrown Wide Open

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Entrance Thrown Widely Open.



The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday 18 July 2013 quashed the validity of the common entrance exam both for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses in government and private institutions. .In a majority judgment, Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice Vikramajit Sen held that it was beyond the powers of the Medical Council of India(MCI) to make such an arrangement of common entrance test both for government and private institutions. In the dissenting judgment, however, Justice Anil R Dave dismissed the petitions by private medical and dental colleges challenging the MCI notification providing for common NEET for both undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses.

The medical education standoff started with MCI's decision in July last  to conduct the first-ever common entrance examination, the NEET, for admission to MBBS and post-graduate courses in medicine as well as dental courses.MCI proposed the institution of NEET with the ostensible purpose of preventing shortcomings and lacunae for corruption, capitation extortion in crores of rupees and and widespread bribery now prevalent in the medical admission field. The proposal was, however, opposed by the private medical and dental colleges and also states like Andhra Pradesh,and Tamil Nadu who  moved the apex court. The Supreme Court then had ordered all the cases filed in this respect in other courts to be transferred to is three-bench court presided by the Chief Justice.

In an interim order, the SC had directed the MCI and all private colleges to start their admission process, as per the old guidelines where the MCI, state governments and private colleges conduct their separate exams.

A large section of aspiring medicos did back NEET, arguing that NEET will make the admission process simpler and more transparent.  It was amusing to see that on the same day in the immediate wake of above Judgement, another verdict by another bench of the Supreme Court came annulling the entrance examination conducted by the Kerala Private Medical Management Association, on grounds of  lack of transparency and manipulation, unduly enabling candidates of management's choice. Earlier, the contrived entrance exam conducted by the management was cancelled by the Supervisory Committee headed by retired High Court Justice J.M James, finding that the exam was a farce.

The court underlined the finding that the management had gone to the extent of even secretly supplying the students who had duly paid up the money demanded by the management, with the question papers of the exam and  conducting covert private coaching classes on the answers. On  the contention of the appellant management that there are no complainants, the  court caustically commented:  " it was like looking for a black cat in a dark room".

It is a mute but eloquent commentary on the telescopic way our judiciary functions with disparate  cylinder visions of even burning issues.