JNU agitation : Problem of not moving with the times

JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, Anirban Bhattacharya and Umar Khalid remind us of socialist era of up until 1990s, when student leaders and union leaders gained prominence (notoriety ?) by being AGAINST something or anything they could think of, mostly rich people, industrialists or government officers. These "leaders" were generally angry, wore thick frame glasses and puffed cigarette smoke, as if alluding to fire within!

Existence of their "ideology" and their own, depended on being "frustrated" with something. They blamed "system", government, management or anything for their own perceived predicament and that of others'. It never occurred to them to take their behinds out of the hostel and try to build or do something constructive, because they were convinced "nothing can be done!". Blaming someone else was easier and hyp for their and society's problems. Their agitations required expression of anger, which usually took the form of destroying property, beating up government officials or industrialists.
Those were the socialist days. Education was publicly funded and universities and hostels were grooming grounds for student leaders, places to "hang out" on the pretext of pursuing PhD or Masters, and hope to enter "Politics" in later years.

Just like present day Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been pursuing his PhD for 7 years now and who has not submitted any thesis work is last 3 years, "Student Leaders" of that era typically, never graduated. Colleges and Universities were publicly funded, education as well as boarding in hostels was free. Colleges and Universities were breeding ground, on tax payers' money, for these wannabe Socialist Leaders.

But those days are over! Today India has shun socialism and embraced free market economy. Lakhs of students are paying hefty fee for their college education, so should these punks. THAT, equality with other students, should be the pretext for Government to sharply curtail funding of these central universities and dismantle grooming apparatus for these throwbacks from 1960s and 70s.

What surprises me is that NDA Government does not call out all the things I mentioned here. For some strange reasons, they take indirect approach at dealing with these issues. Smriti Irani, for example, tried to play Mahishasura - Durga poster card in order to sour the left and Bangla leaders' support for JNU incidents. Why can't they take a principled stand boldly? AAP's Kejriwal does a wonderful job at explaining complex legislative, constitutional and policy issues to general public in a layman's language. He gets tremendous support from masses for doing that. NDA also need to start respecting common man's intellect and fight the fights by explaining issues on principles, rather than beating around the bushes.

Putting "Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010" in perspective

If you miss it, the government would sneak in another prescription for disaster, called Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010.
          The bill seeks to cap liability arising out of a nuclear accident at Rs 2,200 crore. Of this, liability for the operator, a private firm or one owned by the government, will be Rs 500 crore. 
          That means, the operator will pay maximum of Rs 500 Crore, if an accident happens and then Government will pick the tab up to 2,200 crore. 
          Now To put the things in perspective:-
          For an industrial accident, Bhopal Gas Tragedy -1984, that killed about 10,000 people over time, the Union Carbide paid a compensation of $470 million (Rs 2350 crore, per today's conversion rate) in 1999 settlement. That was the sum it got from insurance.

And that compensation got only following to the victims (quoted from wiki):-

  *  Widow pension of the rate of Rs 200/per month (later Rs 750) was provided.
  *  One-time ex-gratia payment of Rs 1,500 to families with monthly income Rs 500 or less was decided.
  *  From 1990 interim relief of Rs 200 was paid to everyone in the family who was born before the disaster.
  *  The final compensation (including interim relief) for personal injury was for the majority Rs 25,000 (US$ 830). For death claim, the average sum paid out was Rs 62,000.

           You know what is going to happen! After opposition's hue and cry government will increase the liability (it will be interesting to see, to how much). And everyone will come across winner, except the general public.
           Now THINK what could happen in case of a nuclear accident! Try searching "Chernobyl" on google.

          For a Nuclear accident, government wants to cap the liability to only $100 million (Rs 500 crore), that is one fifth of liability settlement for Bhopal Gas Tragedy?

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Update March 31st, 2010
Now US nuclear industry wants this bill to be even more restrictive.

In it's current form, the bill envisages Rs 500 crore cap only in case of "no-fault liability".
What that mean is that in case of accident operator pays Rs 500 crore. Victims can sue operator for more compensation, but will have to prove operator's fault for that. (of course this will take decades in current judicial system).
US N industry wants cap for total liability not just for "no-rault liability"

Also, the current form of bill ALLOWS operator to sue reactor manufacturer in turn for it's negligence that may have caused accident.

US nuclear industry wants the bill to ensure that they CANNOT be sued, no matter what!

Information based on news article on 'The Hindu'
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No Good Women's Reservation Bill

If converted into law, this single bill has potential to change political landscape in a such big ways that it will create political chaos.


Many supporters of the bill are getting carried away by the noble concept of increasing women's representation in the parliament. That idea is great!, but "the devil is in the detail". The bill is a prescription for political chaos in the country.


The bill has a huge impact on your ability to chose who will represent you in parliament and assembly. It infringes on your right to elect representative of YOUR choice. Why should anyone limit a citizen's ability to elect Digvijay Singh, or Rahul Gandhi or any other leader of his/her choice as MP or MLA? Because that is exactly what this bill does.
On certain election, Rahul Gandhi will not be able to fight from Amethi, because that year Amethi seat would be reserved for women. And exactly same will happen to any other leader.
Now I took the extreme example of Rahul Gandhi to get my point across. He most likely will fight from some other unreserved seat and still win. But exact same thing will happen to any grass root level leaders.
They will be weaned away from their constituents for 5 years because they cannot contest election for the election cycle the seat is reserved!
And by the way, this bill won't do much good to women politicians in long run either, since they will get in front of the public for 5 years, and before they gain the ground and experience, they will be pushed off because, next election cycle that seat will no longer be reserved!
Effectively, this single bill will sabotage political grooming of upcoming leaders in the nation, effectively scuttling challenge to big time politicians by sabotaging grooming of grass root leaders and regional politicians. This most likely will promote unofficial and underground  black-political arrangements likes of Lalu-Rabri and Manmohan-Sonia.


On the whole, despite having noble intents, this bill is NOT well thought of, and will be detrimental to Indian democracy. Please write to your MPs to express your opposition to the bill.


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Ruchika Case: If the opportunity is not ceased, her death will be just another tragedy

There is lots of hoopla and justifiably so about Ruchika case. Anger and disgust against former Haryana DGP is only justified and can't be enough. But if we stop at only seeing the monster S.P.S. Rathor being punished, then Ruchika's molestation and her subsequent suicide will be just another tragedy, whose ordeal was avenged and forgotten.
          But, if the opportunity is ceased to bring focus on children's rights, then Ruchika's death can be turned into martyrdom, and potentially help build a strong nation. In line with National Commission for Women, a National Commission for Protection of Child Rights was formed in 2007, giving it sweeping powers to investigate, intervene and form policies to protect every child in this country, but the commission is not doing much beyond drawing fat salaries for its employees.
          Ruchika was a strong child, a healthy fourteen year old tennis player from a big city like Chandigarh, whose father was a strong willed government officer. Even for such a strong man like him, it took 19 years to finally get nation's attention to his child's ordeal. It is not difficult to imagine the plight of millions of vulnerable children in this country, who are going to be future us, India.
          Millions of children are much less fortunate than Ruchika, who deserve same protection. And then, molestation of a girl with sexual intent was an extreme abuse. Abuse of even slightest nature against any child, boy or girl, cannot be tolerated. If this nation has to become strong and regain glory, it needs to be watchful of any abuse against any child.
          'National Commission for Protection of Child Rights' is supposed to be just that wathdog.
Please comment by clicking 'Post a Comment' link below, so we can make national Commission of Child Rights accountable for what it is supposed to do.

Visa issue: Ministry of External Affairs and Home Ministry out of sync?

Can you believe it? Apparently Home Ministry came up with 60 days visa rule without consulting Ministry of External affairs. Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr. Tharoor had to express his doubts about new rule through Twitter!
Obviously he was not part of decision making process for this new 60 days visa rule. How does that happen? How come Ministry of External Affairs not involved in decision making process for visa issuance?
May be we need couple more Tharoors to teach the Cow Boys in government, the importance of "collective decision making", which is at the core to parliamentary democracy that we are.

If you want to laugh more at the mop up of this fiasco, read complete article at:-
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Krishna-on-Tharoor-tweet-all-have-to-fall-on-same-page/561487/

Rigionalism in India

As the Indian economy grows the regionalism is only going to get stronger. Regionalism needs to be "managed" as reality rather than turning a blind eye towards it or hiding behind convenient interpretation of constitution.

I think it is justified that locals would want outsiders only if they enrich local economy and lifestyle. 

In most of developed world including USA, Singapore, France etc., there are laws which require employers to pay same salary as they will pay to locals. This prevents influx of cheap inferior skilled workers from outside which would deteriorate local life style. In fact they have well defined categories under which they "welcome" immigrants. This requirement is ethical and fair and no one complains.

City councils should debate and come up with ethical policies on how to handle influx of people from other parts of country. Such articulation of policies will result in better city governance, fair treatment of migrants and better quality of life for existing residents.


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Kudos to Prime Mister for statesmanship on Naxal violence

Prime Minister's refusal to bracket Naxals with Terrorists is first major demonstration of statesmanship on this rather tricky problem.
One may argue that since naxals are indulging in violence to get their way, they at least confirm to definition of terrorists. But I believe they have not been engaged in dialog. Just unleashing the law enforcement agencies is not a solution. Most of these people come from terribly financially poor areas, and they have a grudge against police, government and "upper class" in general. Most of the Naxals are not driven by ideology.


The Nation in general does not even know what Naxal's demands are! Let their be an open dialog. Don't shy away from discussing the problems. For heaven's sake, we are a democracy!


Prime Minister showed thoughtfulness by ruling out use of armed forces against Naxals. No free nation uses armed forces on her own people. 


I hope Prime Minister will follow up by initiating an unconditional dialog with them. That will prove that we are a great democracy and can resolve our differences by open dialog.
Naxals need to be assimilated in the main stream, and an open dialog is the first step.