Open Forum

New Delhi, 21 July 2010

Government Flagship Programmes

MEIRA KUMAR: ACCOUNTABILITY VITAL

By Suraj Saraf

Transparency and accountability are the driving forces of good governance. The latest to emphasize this is Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar. Inaugurating a national seminar on “Legislature-Audit Interface” in New Delhi recently, she drew attention to the serious gaps in the accountability framework for Government flagship programmes implemented through private agencies.

Highlighting that the Comptroller Auditor General’s (CAG) present mandate for audit of these agencies was also limited, she asserted, “One of the major concern of the Audit Bill is about the instrumentalities through which expenditure is being increasingly channeled by the Government. “Presently most of these flagship programmes are being implemented through panchayats and municipal bodies or under the society mode by direct transfer of funds from Central ministries to registered Government societies at the State, district, block and panchayat levels”, the Lok Sabha Speaker added for good measure.

Not only that. Referring to the public private partnership (PPP) model used more intensively by the Central and State Governments to help meet gaps in the provision of basic services in the infrastructure sector, it was essential for the Government that services being delivered through such arrangement to the users met the agreed time, cost and quality standards, said Meira Kumar.

Further, apart from ensuring transparency and competitiveness in the process of award of contracts, it was equally important to protect the public exchequer from unintended misuse of claims from concessionaires. Towards that end, she recommended that such programmes should receive adequate attention of oversight bodies like the CAG and various Parliamentary Standing Committees, like the Committee on Public Undertakings (CPU) and Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

This, the Speaker averred would protect the users’ interest and the need to secure the value of public money. Noting that audit was frequently faced with situations where the auditees did not comply with the CAG’s request for information and records, Meira Kumar asserted that this not only delayed the audit progress but also seriously impacted the quality of the audit examination. Besides, thwarting possible disclosures of serious irregularities, frauds and embezzlements.

Underscoring the functions of the PAC and the CPU, the Speaker stated that it was not just self assessment, but also public perceptions about the effectiveness that needed to be taken into account by these Committees. “Effective Parliamentary oversight is the cornerstone of good governance. The prompt response of the Executive in taking corrective measures on the objections raised by the CAG in inspection reports is crucial,” Meira Kumar stressed.

Thus, it is against the backdrop of these significant observations made by Speaker Meira Kumar that one must look into the importance of the report of the Advisory Committee on Community Action of the all-important flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Wherein, the report has recently recommended community monitoring for effective implementation of the programme. Along with asking the Government to allocate “realistic” funds and assess the human resources requirement for the purpose.

In fact, the Committee report was based on issues taken up for monitoring entitlements under the Janani Suraksha Yojana, roles and responsibilities of the Accredited Social Health Activists’, Indian Public Health & Standards for different facilities and citizen’s charter.

Towards that end, the Speaker drew attention to a report presented by the Advisory Committee to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, on the completion of the first phase of nine States on community monitoring under the NRHM. Under which, the report clearly suggests that the Government should support community action including community monitoring to ensure that it is initiated in other States as well.

Moreover, the Advisory Group report also underlines the fact that community monitoring should be anchored as a part of the larger communitisation effort of the NRHM and within an existing arrangement in the Health Ministry. At present there is no significant convergence with other communitisation processes. Thus, there is need to in-build this when the process is taken up in the pilot nine States.

The Speaker also accentuated another aspect of the Committee report which put forward the concept that the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) should provide the crucial link between monitoring and planning at the village level and the two processes should go together. The process and tools should be simplified to enable the use by the community.

Recommending an incremental approach, the report stated the issue which needed to be monitored should be gradually increased to ensure that the capacity of the community is built-up and there is acceptance from the Health Ministry too/ as well. Furthermore, the Jan Samwads or public hearings should gradually become a community-led processes to enable the community’s involvement and accountability.  In conclusion, the Advisory Committee report states that the entire process of community monitoring should be a three-year cycle.

The Speaker also accentuated the sad reality where the first phase of community monitoring in 2007 took over 18 months. This involved capacity building of planning and monitoring committees at different levels for enquiring into the functioning of different components of the NRHM.

Citing from the report she laid emphasis: “It was an empowering process for the community because it provided knowledge to them on different entitlements, service standards and service guarantees provided within the NRHM. It also gave an opportunity to discuss the status of health services delivery with healthcare providers and programme managers.”

All in all, Speaker Meira Kumar concurred with the reports viewpoint. Namely, that the village was the main unit for community monitoring and the tools developed at the national level were adapted and modified at the State level. Wherein the score card had 11 parameters to assess and rate the health situation of the village.

Significantly, the jan samwads and sharing of village level findings monitoring made a great impact on the misdeeds of the providers which resulted in better service delivery. As a result of this at the end of several rounds of monitoring numerous villages reported an overall improvement in the services. Clearly, leading to greater accountability and more transparency. ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Open Forum

New Delhi, 15 July 2010

Death Penalty

NATIONAL DEBATE MUST

By VS Dharmakumar

Debates on death penalty have rarely taken a front seat in India. Perhaps, the reason why former President Dr Abdul Kalam called for a national debate on the issue recently.

Capital punishment has been in regular use in the West for thousands of years. But there too, no serious and systematic debate took place until Italian philosopher and politician Cesare Beccaria published an essay, "On Crimes and Punishment" in 1764. He theorized “there was no justification for the State to take a life and the death penalty was a war of a entire nation against a citizen, whose destruction they consider as necessary, or useful to the general good."

Since the publication of Beccaria’s treatise, mass killers and murderers have been attracting a motley crowd of people to stand beside them in support, pretending they are more humane than the rest of the society. In India, however, a recent newspaper survey shows that an overwhelming 91% favour the hanging of 26/11 Mumbai perpetrator Ajmal Kasab and only 24% favoured abolition of death penalty.

Let's take a peep into the history of crime, disobedience and punishment. They are as old as mankind. No society in the world is devoid of them as crime and disobedience are inherent in human nature. Recall, the first murder victim was Abel, first son of Adam and Eve. The first murderer was their second son Cain. He murdered his elder brother simply out of jealousy.

Said Aristotle, "Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all." Plainly, throughout history and across different societies, criminals have been punished/ executed for a variety of offences. The purpose of punishment is for social good and for reducing social evil. Punishment is the solution to steering people away from committing crimes. Fear is the pillar of the foundation of punishment.

Hence punishment must remain for safeguarding society from law breakers. Punishment should be proportionate to the severity of the crime committed. God created the fear of supernatural punishment in the minds of people. Most of the dreadful customs and rituals of mankind originated from the loathing of crime and the resolve to enforce the notion of right living.

Besides, “An eye for eye,” symbolized Babylonian King Hammurabi's code of laws in 1700 BC. Under his code, if a house collapsed killing its owner, the builder was put to death; if the owner's son died in the collapse, the builder's son was put to death. This expression found a place in the legal system of almost all countries.

True, punishing a person for a crime he did not commit is miscarriage of justice. But all criminal justice systems carry that risk. Remember, the most infamous travesty of justice in history was the execution of Jesus Christ by Pontius Pilate on 3 April 33AD. Jesus was tried in a kangaroo court and convicted on charge of blasphemy that carried the death penalty.

Also undeniable is the possibility of innocents getting punished or even executed. To prevent this happening greater precautions are available and mistaken executions are indeed rare these days. An innocent accused of crime has extensive opportunities to be vindicated during lengthy trial. In any case death penalty is awarded only in the rarest of rare cases.

Sadly, today the problem is not of innocents getting punished but of guilty persons who actually murdered people going scot-free. Thanks to legal technicalities, lack of evidence and the influence of Sir William Blackstone’s often invoked maxim: “Better that 10 guilty escape than one innocent suffer”.

The Draconian Athens code of 7^th Century BC prescribed death for almost all criminal offenses. As did ancient Rome, which ordered death penalty for a wide range of crimes: murder, treason, arson and rape. In Britain, by 1700, there were 222 crimes punishable by death. Stealing 40 shillings from a house, five shillings from a shop, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps were crimes inviting death sentences.

The earliest known legal decision on capital punishment dates back to 1850 BC. A clay tablet reveals the case, of the murder of a temple employee by three men. The men were executed in front of the victim's house. In USA the first recorded execution took place in 1608.

Arguably, the cry against capital punishment was perhaps justified in the olden days, because death penalty was common, errors were too many and crimes warranting death were numerous. Today it is not so. Death is awarded only in the rarest of rare cases.

Even Beccaria conceded that the only time death was necessary was when that death could insure the security of a nation. This would be rare, only in cases of absolute anarchy or when a nation was on the verge of losing its liberty. Were not Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab’s crimes capable of creating anarchy and igniting a war of catastrophic possibilities with our neighbour?

Paradoxically, the fear of death is a universal phenomenon and whatever we fear most, we will deter most. All creatures have a natural fear of death. Murderers fear only their own death. Thus, executing convicted death-row murderers swiftly will send a message to potential murderers that the same fate can visit them if they kill people.

Importantly, hardened convicted death-row criminals hardly get reformed and the sooner they are given their punishment, the better. This is the lesson we must learn from releasing dreaded militant Maulana Masood Azhar. If the Government had sent Masood to the gallows for the ’rarest of the rare’ crimes he perpetrated in Kashmir, IC-814 would not have been hijacked to Kandahar and the revival of jihadi activities could have been avoided.

In fact, long term imprisonment of a criminal makes him more and more hardened and less and less morally refined. Rehabilitating an offender in society and making him a law-abiding citizen is difficult, if not impossible. Legend has it that even God decided to destroy all people on earth because they all became too wicked. Cruel measures are necessary for repression of brutal acts and promotion of morality.

Ironically, abolitionists worry more about the convicted murderers’ lives and ignore the lives they snuffed out. Their argument that death penalty does not deter criminals falls before Isaac Ehrlich study in 1973. He pointed out that for every inmate executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Saudi Arabia is the best example to substantiate that death sentence is a proven deterrent. If it is not a deterrent anywhere else, it is because executing convicted persons is not swift and also not sure.

Clearly, it is an ignominious anomaly to spend public money on housing, feeding and clothing people who are a danger to society and its peace. If the Supreme Court's orders execution, such orders need to be promptly carried out. Saving the lives of prospective victims by deterring murderers is much better than preserving the lives of some convicted murderers. ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Open Forum

New Delhi, 9 July 2010

Dealing With Maoist Challenge

NOT BY FORCE & DEVELOPMENT ALONE

By Balraj Puri

(Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs)

“Army Headquarters have drawn up a plan to keep about 50,000 soldiers in readiness to help civilian authorities deal with the growing Naxal threat,” reported a newspaper on 18 June. Initially, the Army and the Air Chiefs were opposed to any intervention despite the massacre of 76 security forces in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. But the game and thinking changed when 148 innocent people were slaughter by Maoists in the Jnaneshwari Express in West Bengal’s Midnapur district.  After meeting the Union Home Minister Chidambaram on 28 May, the Army and Air Chiefs finalised their action plan “to meet any emergency in anti-Naxalite operation beyond the present training, surveillance and logistical support”.

Originally, the emphasis of anti-Maoist operations was on strengthening security forces—adequate training, particularly in jungle warfare of the CRPF jawans, to equip them with better weapons, improve their knowledge about local terrain and better intelligence. Particularly, as Maoists influence has expanded in 220 tribal districts from Andhra to Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal constituting as the Prime Minister said, “the greatest security threat”. They have established contacts with ULFA and other insurgents in North-East.

Importantly, the rapid expansion of the area and influence of the Maoists is due to the increasing alienation of the tribals. Thus, more than use of technology and arms in the war against the Maoists, the State has to enjoy popular support.

In her essay “Working with the Comrades” Arundati Roy, described the large scale devastation and displacement caused by multinationals companies on land leased for mining and other projects. She averred, “How a Government that professed its inability to resettle even a fraction of the 50 million people displaced by what it called development was able to identify 1,40,000 hectares of prime land to give to industrialists for more than 300 special economic zones.”

These include mineral projects with high quality iron ore in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, $4 trillion worth bauxite in Orissa and 28 others in various parts of the tribal belt called the Maoists’ corridor. Add to this, power plants, steel and cement factories, dams, highways and infrastructure projects. Leading the displaced tribals’ desperately asserting, “jaan denge per zameen nahin denge.”

Specially, as the three tribal-dominated States account for 70% of India’s coal reserves, 80% of high grade iron ore and almost 100% of its chromate reserves. Of the 50 mineral producing districts almost half are tribal. Taking note of this, the Prime Minister stated recently, “We cannot overlook the fact that many areas in which extremism flourishes are under-developed and tribals have not shared the benefits of development”. His advice: fight Naxals with development.

The Ramchandran report, too has recommended the Government refrain from signing more MoUs with corporates for ventures in the tribal areas. It impressed that the Centre and States respect tribal rights and desist from rampant industrialization.
According to a Planning Commission task force report which covers 33 Maoist-hit districts the expenditure for rural development, road connectivity and health is a measly 30-40% of the allocated funds in these districts. Adding, “Not a single claim of the tribals over land has been entertained under the Forest Rights Act in Dantewada and the entire district had just three doctors.”

However, the tribal woes don’t end there. Drawing a distinction between development and exploitation, former Bastar SC/ST Commissioner B D Sharma, in an open letter to the President wrote, “To call the tribals poor, hurts the simple people to the core as they are super-sensitive about their “honour”. They are deprived and disinherited in their own domain….have no place for their community and its customs and tradition, its unwritten laws of their village Republics.”

Sharma insisted the Government accept that the resources belong to the tribals. This is underscored by the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule which reads: Resources in Tribal areas belong to the tribals. The 1995 Bhuria Commission also recommended that for industries in tribal areas, 50% of the ownership remain with the community, 20% with the landowner and only 30% with the investor.

Alongside, is the question of tribal identity, their ethnicity, culture and way of life. Importantly, development at the cost of cultural and ethnic identity becomes counter- productive. It is no substitute for the joy tribals get in their music, dances and fairs which needs to be preserved from the threat of films and other modern entertainment. In fact, the process of modernisation should incorporate tribal culture and thus help in preserving them.

Already a fierce debate is going on between orthodox Marxists, mainly belonging to Andhra’s People’s War Group which pioneered the Maoist movement (now declining) and the more pragmatic cadres in Central and East India on class vs. caste/ethnicity. The lesson of West Bengal is particularly relevant in this context.

Recall, the Left Front, led by late CPM leader Jyoti Basu, came to power and maintained its popular base for over three decades on the basis of its progressive programme on radical land reform and appeal of Bengali nationalism and identity vis-à-vis authority of Indian nationalism. Notwithstanding, being a Bhadralok Bengali front.

However, gradually, the momentum of radical land reforms started declining and the lower castes, Dalits, Muslims, tribals and other non-Bengalis began started asserting themselves. The regimented system, where local bodies were instruments in the hands of the State Government controlled by CPM cadres rather than instruments of local self- Government, blocked avenues of dissent.

At the same time on cannot ignore the fact that Maoist activities were not only confined to brutal violence. At some places they had not only undertaken relief and welfare work but also opened dispensaries and schools where none existed. In Bankura, for instance, they are running a school.

In addition, the role of interlocutors should not be dismissed. Not to reach an agreement between the Government and the Maoists but to understand them.  The extremists are willing to talk with Trimamool MP Kabir Suman, Arundati Roy, and Sharma. Ramachandran, who enquired into the security aspect of the Dantewada tragedy, has welcomed the role of civil rights activists in dealing with the Maoists.

Recently the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Sarvodya Mandal and Harijan Sevak Samaj leaders led a 540 km cycle yatra through Jhargram, Binpur, Lalgarh, Devda, Panskura, Barkhpur in West Bengal. The Chancellor of Gandhi Vidya Peath Gujarat Narayan Desai along-with other Gandhian leaders, academicians, social activists, journalists and advocates held a Peace March in Bastar.

In sum, it is not a question of being pro or anti-Maoists. It is an issue of understanding all the aspects of the Maoist phenomenon, the threat it entails and all possible means of dealing with it.  

Let us explore the possibility of accommodating Maoists as a radical Party. Given that, India is the first country in the world where a Communist Party opted for the Parliamentary form of governance and came to power through election in West Bengal and Kerala. The door should be kept open to accommodate the CPI (Maoist) as another Communist Party, like the CPI, CPM and CPI (M-L).  Albeit taking all precautions that it does not threaten the basis of Indian democracy. ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Open Forum

New Delhi, 30 June 2010

Opposition BJP

SHORTSIGHTED & CONFUSED 

By Prakash Nanda

 
Two developments have been in the news pertaining to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the country’s principal opposition party. One is the “home-coming” of former finance/external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, who was expelled from the party 10 months ago for his controversial book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. And the second was the recent tussle between the BJP and the Janata Dal (U), affecting the fate of their ruling coalition in Bihar, which goes to polls later this year. Though news reports say the alliance is intact there is no clarity.

Both the developments have shown the BJP in very poor light, particularly its “chintan” (philosophy), and “chalan” (working style). Certainly, as a party, the BJP is now miles away from what it was in the 1990s, when it had caught up the imagination of the nation as “a party with a difference”.

Let us take the case of Jaswant Singh’s return. He was apparently expelled for his views on Jinnah, which the party did not share. In the first place, whether one’s individual, and that too academic, opinion on a person should be a sufficient reason for expulsion from the party is debatable. In fact, if at all Singh deserved to be expelled, it should have been for the widely shared view in Rajasthan that he, along with the late Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, did everything possible to ensure the defeat of the BJP, in the last Assembly elections simply because they did not like the then chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia. It is said that but for Singh and Shekhawat, Vasundhara would have won a second term comfortably, rather than losing it narrowly.

But having expelled Singh on the Jinnah issue, what is the reason behind “inviting” him back? Singh says he has not changed his views on Jinnah. Does that mean then that the BJP has changed its views?  If so, why has the country not been told about it? And if not, then how could few individuals, howsoever senior they may be, “invite” Singh back to the party without a proper or structured discussion in the concerned party forums? This question is the all the more important, given the fact that the decision to expel Singh was said to be BJP’s “collective” decision.

As regards the Bihar imbroglio, the BJP’s indecisiveness is equally bizarre.  Here, the party has been literally humiliated by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who belongs to the allied JD (U), seemingly over a non-issue – an advertisement displaying Kumar and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi together above a factual narration of Gujarat’s friendly contribution towards Bihar’s flood relief.

The “friendly” advertisement invited “hostile” reactions from Kumar. He returned the Rs. five crore relief to Gujarat, though quantitatively speaking, Gujarat’s overall contribution in terms of men and material exceeded Rs. 20 crore. Kumar also cancelled a dinner with the BJP leaders, assembled in Patna for a party meeting. What is most humiliating, Kumar’s associates have threatened they would not want either Modi or Varun Gandhi on the soil of Bihar for electioneering.

The BJP’s top mandarins sat over many a time to discuss the party’s line of action in Bihar. It claimed as per reports that the alliance was alive and that it would not “compromise on its dignity”. Arguably, any decision on how to deal with Kumar till the elections is going to be tough. After all, BJP-JD (U) alliance is one of the oldest in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Any additional time may prove really costly for the party.

All told, Kumar is a wily customer.  He wants to cultivate the image of a “secular” leader so that he gets the votes from the Muslims whose number is considerable in Bihar. He is still learnt to be in two minds on whether to ally with the Congress, whose second most powerful leader, Rahul Gandhi, is strongly inclined to court him. Though it is debatable how much of the Muslim vote he will get given the fact that all his other opponents – Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan – also thrive on the Muslim votes, Kumar’s supporters, particularly a section of the national media, will want him to emulate Orissa’s Naveen Patnaik, who dumped the BJP on the eve of the last elections, to prove his “secular” credentials.  

Of course, secularism has been a much abused concept in India’s political parlance but that is another story. However, it defies one’s imagination how Nitish Kumar can have “Rasgoola” but will hate to touch sugar. He has had no problem in taking the BJP’s support to remain chief minister for five years, but will consider Modi, a senior BJP leader, untouchable. 

Strangely, the national media has completely downplayed some strange ways of  Kumar’s functioning. For one, he is a leader who does not believe in party democracy. See the number of JD (U) leaders who have deserted the party in Bihar in recent years and the manner in which he has humiliated some of the party veterans, including former defence minister George Fernandes and former minister of state for external affairs minister Digvijay Singh, whose tragic and untimely demise came during the writing of this column (let me confess, it has been a great personal loss; Singh was a long-standing close friend). Arguably, Kumar has even surpassed Lalu Yadav in promoting his brand of casteism – the so-called Maha Dalits and Kurmis.

What is more disturbing is the way Kumar has handled the Modi issue. Without consulting his council of ministers, he took a unilateral decision in returning the money to Gujarat. Can any CM take a unilateral and personal decision pertaining to another State? After all, he did not return Modi’s money; that money came from the “whole” of Gujarat and had been given to the “whole” of Bihar. In fact, Kumar’s behaviour reflects poorly on the federal structure and functioning of the country.

What should, then, BJP do? The party must realise that the alliance with Kumar has not done any good to the party in Bihar. In 1996, the BJP was the senior partner there and he has now made it effectively negligible. Indeed, the BJP should have a second look at this concept of alliance politics. Be it in Uttar Pradesh or Orissa or Haryana or in Bihar, the party has become much weaker because of it. The same is considerably true in Punjab and Maharashtra.

It is being forgotten that if the BJP is the premier opposition party, it is primarily because of its performance in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Gujarat. And here, the party is not only alone but under the leadership of effective and competent leaders such as Yedurappa, Raman Singh, Shivraj Chouhan and Modi.

It is only the so-called Delhi-based national leaders of the BJP who will go to any extent of appeasing the essentially authoritarian leaders of the so-called allies. They forget the fact that these allies will come behind you when you have the strength. That was the case in 90s. Consistent appeasement, on the other hand, not only makes the party weak but also hurts its dignity.

Clearly, it is time for the BJP to part ways in Bihar. But will its confused and shortsighted leadership in Delhi dare to do so? Highly unlikely, if the recent years’ record is any indication. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)