Venad Express: the leaky cauldron

Posted on by

Leaky compartments welcomed passengers of Venad Express as monsoon set over Kerala.

The situation was such that water would flow into the compartments even you put both the shutters of windows down. Many of the shutters were in damaged condition and some would not even move.

It has been a long-standing complaint of railway passengers that coaches that needed to be condemned or repaired were put on service in Kerala. This not only caused inconvenience to passengers but also increased the chances of accidents.

However, railways is even making a move to abandon the proposed coaching terminal at Nemom for maintenance of coaches. The proposed coach factory in Palakkad is also in limbo. These would have perhaps helped to ensure that Kerala got better coaches.

Travel by Venad Express is an ordeal for even reserved passengers. Regular passengers and even season ticket holders are allowed to enter reserved coaches, practically denying seats and comfortable journey to reserved passengers. The travelling ticket examiner, who is to ensure seating for reserved passengers, would not even turn up. On Sunday (June 3), the D1 coach, which was meant for reserved passengers, was overcrowded from at Kochi onwards. However, the TTE turned up only after the train reached Thiruvalla and took no steps to prevent overcrowding. The compartment was, incidentally, overcrowded when compartments for unreserved passengers were empty at Kottayam. The coach covercarried little indication that it was reserved. The letters D1 was hardly visible. Passengers boarded the compartment as it stopped near main (crowded) areas of the platform.

Food is served in the compartments in containers made of aluminium foil. The lid is made of packaging materials printed for milk packets in Europe. This is either discarded or recycles material. Aluminium can leach into the food in minute quantities. The effects of chronic exposure to aluminium are yet to be established fully. However, the metal is known to affect the brain and is suspected to be one of the causative factors for Alzheimer’s disease.

For further reading:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=newtip&dbid=8

 

Oommen Chandy’s fight against drought

Posted on by
A cardamom estate in Idukki district

A cardamom estate in Idukki district

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has been touring the districts during the last fortnight to chart our measures to fight drought. At the same time, he ignored large scale felling of trees in Idukki district and the precarious condition of forests in Wayanad. (Mr. Chandy is now holding the Forest portfolio, following the resignation of K. B. Ganesh Kumar). This shows the dichotomy between the government’s campaigns and ground-level enforcement of stated policies.

The felling of trees in Idukki is significant in more ways than one. Forests in Idukki are crucial for availability of water both for Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The longest river of the State Periyar has much of its catchment in Idukki district. Many important power projects including Idukki is located here. Still, Mr. Chandy did virtually nothing to stem the felling of trees in the district while announcing so many other measures to check drought.  He is finding solutions without addressing at least one of the known the causes– deforestation.

It is also significant that the felling of trees had taken place against the background of Gadgil committee report. The trees felled were of two types. Forest species in cardamom estates and eucalyptus on encroached forest land. It was feared that if the Centre implements Gadgil recommendations, it might become impossible to cut and remove these trees because of restrictions. Hence, the hurry in cutting and transporting hundreds of lorry-loads of trees from the district.

The biggest protests against the Gadgil panel had originated from Idukki district. Now, it should be clear who were behind these protests. They brought time through the protests and appointment of K. Kasturirangan panel to scrutinise the Gadgil report. Now that the astrophysicist-led panel has given its verdict on Gadgil report, it is high time that the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests stepped in to implement the recommendations.

Discriminating in favour of women

Posted on by

Finance Minister P. Chidambara with Budget papersFinance Minister P. Chidambaram rides the wave announcing special programmes for women. However, the announcement of a public sector bank exclusively for women is an admission that existing public sector banks does not treat women equally.

That women are discriminated against by banks and that they are not getting adequate banking services is a shame. This is when one of the premier banks like the ICICI Bank is headed by a woman. The government has been able to cater to senior citizens to some extent through regulation. (They still face problems in using schemes such as reverse mortgage.) The government is apparently not able to do this for women— that is to force all banks to treat women equally.

A separate bank for women would solve the problem only notionally. If the same logic is applied to other areas, we would soon need an exclusive bank for SC and ST, minorities and backward classes.

Another scheme is ‘Nirbhaya’ for empowerment of women. The contours of this scheme are yet to be defined. We had scores of programmes in the past for empowerment of women. Like many other government scheme, they did not achieve much. What ‘Nirbhaya’ would do is to be seen.

Following the Delhi incidents, we are in the era of positive discrimination. Women returning from abroad are allowed to bring gold worth Rs. 1 lakh while men can bring only half the quantity. (For women, financially capable of travelling abroad, this is a pittance.). Well, this proposal violates equality before law and hence would be ultra vires of the Constitution.

 Budget highlights

 

Contributory pension scheme and its flawed logic

Posted on by

The contributory National Pension Scheme for government servants brings uncertainty about future pension benefits of government employees and makes government jobs less attractive.

Employees of Kerala Government began an indefinite strike today to protest against the pension scheme, though it will not affect serving employees who would continue to be eligible for statutory pensions. It will be the new recruits who would be hit by the pension scheme.

The government argues that more than 80 per cent of its revenues were now being spent on salaries and pensions. Though the pension scheme will only cause an immediate increase in government spending with a ten per cent contribution to be made to the pension fund, it will free the government from paying pensions to the new recruits two to three decades from now.

The government says that there was four-fold increase in pension liabilities over the last decade. However, this is in proportion to decadal increase in revenues and borrowings of the government. This is not to say that the level of expenditure on salaries and pensions are justified. It rather points to continuing inefficiencies of administration in checking expenditure and tax collection, despite availability of new tools such as computers. Large scale leakage of revenues remains unplugged. The employees too had not been helpful in this regard. Over-staff and idling are not rare in government service.

The government as well as employees contributions into the pension fund are to be deposited in government securities, public sector bonds and in mutual funds. When the deposits are made in government securities, the government itself would be paying interest on its own contribution and employees’ contribution. This is not going to improve government finances. Like salaries and pensions, interest payments are also a heavy burden on the State government.

Mutual funds offer no guarantee of reasonable returns. Some of the pension funds run by them have not performed well, giving some indication of what would happen to the money of employees. The employees would have to bear the cost of the authority formed to run the pension fund. When authority makes investments in mutual funds, the employees would also have to bear the fund management charges imposed by the mutual funds. Some of the government-run welfare funds give an impression what these costs would be— the welfare fund boards eat away much of the contribution by the workers. It would not be surprising if the government would have to give grants to the authority in future to ensure a reasonable pension to the employees a few decades from now. In any case, the pensions then would neither be assured or growing (with every pay revision) as is the case now.

The net result could be that the government jobs would not attract talents. And the performance of government could fall further. It is also doubtful whether the pension scheme would help the government to overcome in financial problems. The real beneficiaries would be those who get to handle the funds.

Part II: Laws that make you insecure

Posted on by

Today, the country has so many laws that it makes the citizen insecure. The provisions in the penal law are so many that a police officer can easily book you even if you are not a criminal. Ordinary behaviour can easily invite provisions of the criminal law if someone is bent on booking you.

It was only recently that a Mumbai girl was booked under Section 66A of the Information Technology for an indirect criticism of Bal Thackeray on the Facefbook page. To top it, a friend of hers who liked the post was also booked under the law.  (Intolerance is growing to such levels that you cannot criticise Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar or Indira Gandhi. Films like Papilio Buddha  and Midnight’s Children  faced protests and censure because they criticised Mahatama Gandhi and Indira Gandhi respectively. This was despite the fact that all these people were politicians and Thackeray had only passed away the previous day.) Sedition charges had been foisted against fishermen agitating against Kudamkulam nuclear project in Kanyakumari district and the Kanpur-based cartoonist Aseem Trivedi who criticised the establishment. A doctor and human rights activist Binayak Sen faced sedition charges because he sympathized with the naxalites. Official Secrets Act and other laws had been misused to stop exposition of corruption and other misdeeds. These bode ill for India’s democracy.

Now, there is a hue and cry that capital sentence should be awarded to rapists after the rape on a bus in the capital city. The brutality of the offence is in no doubt. However, it has enough laws to deal with such crimes and they suffice. Politicians make demands like death sentence to get the people on their side when public anger is at its highest. However, amendment to criminal laws are something to be contemplated with due diligence. Rape is a crime in which innocents too could be easily implicated. Besides, the onus of proof is on the accused. So, it would be unwise to increase the penalty for the crime.

When incidents of brutal attacks occur, various other provisions of the penal code will naturally be applied. When a girl was thrown out of the train, raped and killed near Shornur in Kerala some months back, the accused faced murder charges. The Delhi incident would attract the charge of causing severe hurt if not attempt to murder.

Besides, social factors and realities have to be taken into consideration and addressed while trying to contain increasing number of such crimes. While the people in the country are getting increasingly exposed to Western culture and media, we do little to foster healthy relationships between men and women. A lot of hypocrisy exists in the country when it comes to sexual mores. Behaviour is tightly controlled on one side while worst behaviour becomes the norm when control is absent. In Kerala, there are separate seats for men and women on bus, but harassment of women is possibly the highest in crowded buses of Kerala. It may be worth noting that incest may grow when prostitution is tightly controlled. So, social interventions are the need of the hour rather increasing the penalties for sexual offences.

State with laws that provide for severe punishments for even minor offenses usually lets the rich and powerful to escape and brutalises the poor and powerless. The statue book now has so many laws that none could hope of knowing all, and ignorance of law is no excuse. Given the ground realities, it is impossible for a citizen to live in this country without breaking the law or giving bribes. (Giving bribes is also an offence). Some laws like prohibition of photography of dam and buildings are ridiculous. There are many laws in the statute book that are no more required. However, they remain. A recommendation to delete around 100 such laws in Kerala six years ago is still awaiting action.

Laws should be devised in such a fashion that it should make sense for the ordinary citizen to obey them rather than break them. Would the majority abide by the law, or is it logical to have a law in certain areas should be the consideration before the law makers. Making laws that would be broken by the majority will only destroy respect for law. Currently, it is impossible to be totally law-abiding in India, and this diminishes respect for law.

Part I: Tightening laws to hide failure in their enforcement

Tightening laws to hide failure in their enforcement– Part I

Posted on by

The Kerala government has been resorting to new legislation with stringent provisions just to hide its failure in enforcement of the laws and administration of justice.

It brought the Antisocial Activities (Prevention) Act, popularly known as the Goonda Act, as public protest grew over activities of goondas and quotation gangs in the State. The Act provides  for preventive detention of goondas— that is imprisonment without trial, amounting to violation of human rights.

Administration of Justice

Image courtesy: digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The question whether such Act was required is debatable. Most of the goondas against whom public ire was growing had dozens of cases against them. Yet, they were getting bail and committing fresh crimes. The prosecution was repeatedly failing to get convictions. This was because of the protection the goondas were getting from politicians and officials. The law was brought to hoodwink the public.

Naturally, it failed to check the goonda menace, as the political and official patronage of goondas continued. Since public protests grew over operation of quotation gangs, the government proposed tightening of the law. The period of preventive detection was extended from six months to one year. So, the government is having a brief reprieve.

The government brought a law to take over ecologically fragile lands after it failed conduct forest cases properly in courts. Most of the land in question could have been retained by the government under existing laws, if the government would have fought the cases properly in courts. Several cases were won by plaintiffs by producing forged documents which went unchallenged during trial. The law was later diluted since complaints grew over its use.

When the Land Utilisation Order failed to check conversion of paddy fields, the government replaced the order with legislation to protect paddy fields and wet lands. However, the law did not yield any results, as it could not be implemented effectively. The politicians themselves worked to grant exemptions and protect those converting paddy fields. In fact, the issue was one that could have been addressed better by eliminating the economic reasons for conversion of paddy fields. Similar is the case with law for protection of rivers where laws alone is not the answer. The government would have done better by taking measures to improve the availability of sand and taking the lucre away from sand mining. Pollution could have been tackled through existing laws.

Recently, it brought legislation to check charging of excessive interest rates by money lenders. This was done against the background of suicides by farmers and others because of indebtedness. This was when the enforcement of existing money lenders Act was lackadaisical. Though it is four months since the Ordinance was promulgated, no action had been against any money lender  while many borrowers continue to struggle.

When the government and local self governments failed to set up proper facilities for treatment of waste, it brought legislation recently mandating processing of waste at source. Several of its provisions are difficult to enforce, simply because of the difficulty in setting up processing units at every establishment and home. Governments and local bodies fail to come up with solutions despite brave words. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, for example, had promised to solve the problem in six months. But, it is one year now. After six months, he turned to the legislative solution.

What the tightened laws often achieve is only increase in the level of corrupt
Part II: Laws that make you insecure

Neo colonialism on the climate change front

Posted on by

As India heads for Doha discussions on climate change this week, a question that arises is whether we would be entering into agreements similar to the ones the princely States of India entered with colonial powers. Like the way colonialism stymied our development, the climate talks too have the potential to crush our growth.

An old story
Pepper attracted foreign traders to Kerala for centuries and one of the things the Europeans wanted, back in the 18th century, was runner shoots of black pepper vines for planting.  As the story goes, then ruler of Calicut Zamorin asked his minister Mangattachan about the wisdom of allowing planting material to be taken to Europe when pepper exports earned much money for Kerala.  The Minister’s reply was that they could not take away the Thiruvathira Njattuvela. [Najattuvela means position of sun and there are 27 njattuvelas in Malayalam calendar. The Thiruvathira Njattuvela (15 days), occurs around the middle of South West monsoon which is considered suitable for planting shoots of pepper vines.] However, the situation now is that even the Thiruvathira Njattuvela would be taken away by the over-consumption of developed nations.

_________________________________________________________________________

The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Frame Work Convention on Climate Change and the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol takes place from November 26 to December 7, 2012, at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar.

________________________________________________________________________


Carbon  loads
Historically, the USA has emitted nearly 50 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than India.  Rich countries have been responsible for about 70 per cent of the emissions between 1840 and 2006. (CSE ) However, they are not willing to shoulder the burden of reducing emissions in proportion.  The USA is yet to agree to bring down their emission levels to that of 1990 while the European Union has already brought it down by 16 per cent below1990 levels.

Global emissions have grown from 534 million tonnes of carbon in 1900 to 9265 million tonnes in 2011 (Earth Policy Institute).  Per capita emissions of USA were more than ten times that of India in 2011. And there is urgency in addressing the problem because climate change is at the doors.  However, countries are not making enough commitments to check global warming.

At Doha, developed countries would be trying to eliminate the differentiation between the developed and developing countries in cutting emissions. This has to be fought against by developing countries. The developed countries need be accountable for the carbon load they had dumped on the world knowingly and unknowingly over the years.

 

Forest Minister’s prescription for tiger menace

Posted on by

Kerala Forest Minister K. B. Ganesh Kumar has directed forest officials that tigers straying into populated areas should be trapped and kept in the zoo. This goes against the spirit of the Wildlife (Protection) Act.

Tiger in zooThe Forest Minister should be probing the real reasons for tigers straying out of the wild instead of suggesting quick fix solutions. Some people have suggested that there is an “over-abundance” of tigers in Wayanad now. This needs a closer look.

In last few years, tigers have moved into areas they were not seen at least for the last few decades. There is indication that the tiger population in the State has gone up and tigers have moved into adjoining areas. In places like Kottoor, no conflicts between the newly arrived tigers and tribals living in the area have been reported.  This may be because the forests are healthy and with adequate availability of prey.  The status of forests around Agastyarkoodam had improved in recent years but the same cannot be said for Wayanad.

That a tiger need a territory for itself is well known. So, it only natural that tigers move out as their numbers grows.  With camera trappings and other technologies available now, the number tigers and the area available for them can easily be determined. If there are too many tigers as claimed, measures to shift some of the tigers to other suitable areas should be worked out. If it is not a problem of territory, steps should immediately be taken to improve status of forests as in Wayanad.  Studies in this respect should cover the neighbouring States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It is possible that some problem in those States such as shortage of water could have forced the tigers to flee.

Till the studies are over, the Forest Department can tackle the lifting of domestic animals by tigers by providing adequate compensation. If compensation is good enough, agitated people could be pacified as long as there are no attacks on humans.  So, the Minister’s quick fix solution can perhaps wait.

Meanwhile, the Department should speed up its programme to shift people living within the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary to other areas. This is a voluntary programme and people living in pockets inside the forests are willing to relocate. (This may not apply to people living on the periphery who are also threatened by tiger kills.)

Update:
It has turned out that the tiger that caused all the trouble was an unhealthy one. In such isolated cases, the Forest Minister’s prescription is correct. However, it should not be applied in all cases of tigers staying into populated areas. Much of the public protests,  which forced the Minister to make his statement, was the result of deliberate campaign and rumour mongering by vested interests.

Related: Media frenzy over tiger kills

 

A. K. Antony’s criticism is a warning to Congress-led coalition in Kerala

Posted on by

Defence Minister A. K. Antony has issued a warning to the UDF government in Kerala by expressing his anguish over the situation in Kerala at a function of Indo-Russian firm BrahMos Aerospace in Thiruvananthapuram.  The Defence Minister said that though Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and P. K. Kunhalikutty have been asking for projects for the State, he was not courageous enough to locate any project in Kerala after the UDF government came to power.

Defence Minister A. K. Antony

Defence Minister A. K. Antony in his office in New Delhi

Though Antony did not say it directly, he was warning that the Congress led coalition in the State (UDF) would not be able to retain the seats it had won in the last Lok Saba Elections unless its performance improves. It is significant that his warning comes at a time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reshuffled his Cabinet with a view to the elections due in 2014. As the Number Two in the Union Cabinet, Antony has to see that the Congress performs well in the next elections.

The UDF had won 16 seats in the last Lok Sabha election out of 20. Every school boy knows that the Front would not be able to retain them in the next elections under the present circumstances, not to speak of winning more seats.  When he was the Chief Minister in the State, Mr. Antony had not been able to lead the Front to a victory in the Assembly elections. As Union Minister he wants to be one who has contributed to victory of the Front in the next Lok Sabha elections.  However, he is admitting that he was unable to do anything for the State because of the situation in the State. He was not getting the cooperation he wanted.

It is also notable that Mr. Antony praised the (previous) LDF government in Kerala. He knows only too well that the Congress will have to fall back on the Left too if it did not win enough seats to form a government at the Centre.  So, he is building bridges. It is also a fact the previous government had facilitated establishment of defence projects in the State.

Antony could also be concerned about a number of other issues.  There is growing discord among the ruling Front constituents. They are even making unethical bargains. The front could lose votes if Congress played to their tunes on some of the controversial positions they are taking. There is also considerable discord in the Congress. The proposed reorganisation of KPCC is getting delayed. All this should worry Mr. Antony more than anyone else. So, it is not surprising that he has fired a salvo against the UDF government, though he is unlikely to repeat that as elections come closer.  The crucial point is how far the Congress and UDF constituents in the State would heed his warning and act in larger interests.

Tailpiece:
Above all these, there is a personal factor to Mr. Antony’s criticism. Image-conscious Antony is hurt by the fact that allegations had been raised over the take over the Kerala Hitech Industries by joint venture Brahmos Aerospace and that neither Mr. Chandy nor Kunhalikutty had come to his defence. In fact, the INTUC unit in the company joined hands with the AITUC union which raised the allegations. Mr. Antony would not have voiced his concerns openly but for this factor. His remarks stemmed from personal hurt and diminishing influence in Kerala politics. (Revised and tailpiece added as post script on 17/11/2011).