Friday, December 01, 2006

Freedom Struggle or Struggle for land


Violence or Non Violence route to freedom, sometimes I wonder the concept of land, boundaries, where will this take us all. Indians fought for their freedom, for a century and then landed up with 2 countries divided on seeds of hatred. With no system to run the governance, illiteracy and poverty creating a system of corrupt politicians and slow bureaucrats.

Just imagine the earth, with the concept of boundaries and motherland as a country.


In our sub-continent we have a India, a Pakistan, a Sri Lanka, a Bangladesh, a Burma, Nepal and a China.

In India we have freedom struggle for the land of Kashmir, where we have various forms of freedom, some for free Kashmir from India and Pakistan, some for Kashmir to be merged with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, some for merging with PoK with IoK, then there are few working on merging of Ladakh and Jammu as separate entities to be merged with India. So even if one of the above happens, there will be again struggle for freedom in Ladakh as they might not be able to relate to anyone around them.

In Assam we have freedom struggle by ULFA for sovereign Assam, and The National Democratic Front of Bodoland for autonomous region as Bodoland.

In Manipur, we have Peoples Liberation Army for liberating Manipur from India and United National Liberation Front demanding for independent socialist state of Manipur.

If either of them successful, what will happen to all the different tribes and followers of different religions will they again identify borders for themselves and start fighting for freedom.

In Nagaland, we have National Socialist Council of Nagaland - Isak Mulvah and Khaplang, two divisions fighting for same cause but difference in their geographic areas for freedom.

In Tripura, we have the National Liberation Front of Tripura and All Tripura Tiger Force, again struggle for land and freedom. Tiger Force seeking expulsion of the Bengalis. So even if one of them are successful, we will see a struggle by the Bengalis here for their freedom.

In Meghalaya we have the Achik National Volunteer Council seeking to establish Achik Land, and The Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council seeking to establish freedom protecting from Achik. Again even if one of them successful, there will be another freedom struggle…

In Mizoram, we have Hmar People's Convention-Democracy,HPC(D), seeking the freedom of Hmar and Bru National Liberation Front seeking for freedom of Reangs.

So….more freedom struggle..

In Arunachal we have the Arunachal Dragon Force, seeking freedom of Arunachal and claimed area over other states.

Oh we also had Khalistan, followed with lot of riots and assignation of Prime Minister.

And we have the Peoples War Group, now known as CPI (Maoist) trying to establish Compact Revolutionary Zone aims to establish as a continuous revolutionary base area from which to advance the people's war in India. The area runs from Nepal, where Maoists are conducting the Nepalese People's War, through parts of six states in eastern India: Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh.

So one more struggle, and once this might be achieved there will be factions in ideology and then more struggle in the name of freedom.

And we have more struggles in India, struggle for Gondwana, seeking to create a Gondi state from parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra.

Struggle for Rayalaseema, Tamil Nadu with eastern Sri Lanka, Telangana, and Vidarbha.

Now some of them want just statehood, and then emerge visionaries with a struggle for a separate nation.

Now lets take Pakistan, struggle for freedom of Balawaristan, Hunza-Brooshal, Pashtunistan, Sindhudesh and Waziristan.

In Nepal, we have Maoists running a parallel government.

In Myanmar, we have struggle for separate land for Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Kuki, Mon, Rakhine people, Shan, Wa, Zomi

More Struggles, So more boundaries, more cabinet ministers and hope that voice of common person can be heard.

Why do boundaries come, why is there struggle, at any given time there will some one not happy, is it when the mass is not happy or few.

Does it mean that 80% of people are still happy but the 20% who are not happy have enough power and will to raise their voice for separate boundaries.

Do boundaries create insecurity and create armies, and higher spending on arms rather than basic reason for establishing a country to focus on healthcare and happiness related parameters. Do boundaries create greater realization of how few our resources are, gives us the thought that greater resources available in other boundaries could help us. So we build an army and go about increasing our boundaries for more. And then you realize you have control over large boundary. Until you realize that there emerges another struggle stronger than your, to make another boundary. Is that what happened to Great Britain in Pre World War 2, USSR pre-melt down, or is that what going to happen to China, USA and may be some day India.


And the last century also the mother of all struggles and creation of boundary in middle of desert by Jews all around the world coming and establishing a nation Israel. But then was a struggle for another boundary, Palestine.

What happens when such boundaries keep increasing, Zoom out of our subcontinent, to other continents, look at Africa, it was once colonized by handful European countries.

And now, do we even know the names of the countries there. Each already having atleast half dozen freedom struggles

Where is the place heading for, struggle creates new states, and new countries. Until you realize that you are not able to succeed, so you start acquiring others freedom and then

So basically we land up in this creation of large country and then again breakup to smaller countries, a circle never ending.

So is the question of struggle just for freedom or just boundaries, or is it about power hungry leaders or is it just unhappiness or is it all about economics. Combination I guess.


When I think of Economics, may be, so is it fair to say, if you are state of living is good, you will not think of a separate country or for separate boundary.

For example British left Hong Kong in 1997, as their lease had expired and the people with better standard of living compared to China were assured One Nation with 2 Systems. So its boundary as such dint matter until their standard of life was better.

Now if my concept of motherland is righteousness, then so is yours, and so is the all those 100 hundred struggles out there. How do I measure whose struggle is right, or whose supercedes, that is we support LTTE for separate country in Sri Lanka and Tibet as separate country, then we must support Free Kashmir. But that not right because we are giving up our land in case of Kashmir and decreasing land of other greater lands known as countries. So is it just a support for the struggle of freedom, or is it for land.

So a century ago, China was attacked by British because few ships carrying opium to China from British East India was destroyed. So China, ended up being in decades to come a nation distributed geographically by different other developed nations. And today time has changed, China, easily has done slow and silent hostile take over of larger parts of Central Asia.

(Tiber Struggle in India)-So If you want a freedom struggle successful it has to gain momentum and involvement of people of the land and not in exile. There has to be great amount of unhappiness through which you could promise the masses that through this struggle you could end their misery. (at some one else cost and enjoy that reign until your opponents start the struggle)

To curb any future struggles, just pamper your people with good governance, with open borders.

May be its destiny, that creates human minds induced to create bigger nations or smaller nations. And circle of life moves on…

Sometimes, I wonder, when I was kid we used to play game on capitals of country, I wonder how many capitals will keep increasing as decades go by. And to think of it I wonder, when I look at the sky, that out of all the planets and stars out there, as far my knowledge is we are the only planet with life, and we then have countries with boundaries, and more struggles for newer boundaries.

Ironic to Say after all this,
Jai Hind
Navendu

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Consumerism

Sunday Express - Meanwhile...
Buy the way...
Thursday August 17 2006 17:22 IST
I used to feel really great. Then I started to watch TV on a regular basis. I didn’t know it previously but I’m ugly, have bad hair and don’t possess the latest gadgetry that will make me supremely happy. My diet is lacking, my fingernails poor, my eyes faded, my skin sagging and my taste in food, fashion and lifestyle choices questionable. I’m a total mess! I should do the world a favour and end it all now, the sooner the better. I’m a complete and utter failure.

Or so I’m led to believe. We are what we wear? Don’t believe a word. There is nothing proper about lifestyle propaganda. TV commercials talk about the miraculous wonders of the newest worthless household gadget, the latest tastier-than-tasty fizzy drink or the better-than-ever overpriced designer label clothes. Luxuries that we can do without? Of course not. They are the necessary, must-have, must-be-seen-to-have lifestyle products, all because some beaming sportsperson, celebrity or movie star endorses them.

I used to quite like the music of The Beatles. Now I hate it. That was because Nike shoe commercials used some of their songs to grace their fantastic products on TV. I now no longer think of wonderful youthful idealism when I hear particular Beatles’ songs — just smelly feet and mass-produced footwear. If you do not possess the latest products on offer, then you are a failure. If you do possess them, you will feel an even bigger failure because by that stage you will have bought into the lie and will be wanting the bigger, brighter, better versions of the older products that were supposed to be the biggest, brightest and best that could ever exist.

Six months ago you ran out to buy the latest miracle product to hit the shelves. Now you are told that that particular cutting edge commodity is obsolete and useless when compared to the super-improved-edge version. Or do they mean that YOU are obsolete and useless? You don’t have time enough to begin to get that hollow feeling because the message is relentless.

Retail therapy? Some therapy! Advertisements create a thirst that can never be quenched. And for those who crave, it’s an expensive endeavour. Billions are spent telling us that somewhere at the end of the rainbow there is a pot of gold and the hapless consumer in the quest spends trillions. But as day fades to night, the rainbow disappears, and illusion gives way to reality: you may find that there is no gold.

There is nothing that can make teeth any more whiter-than-white, skin any more smoother-than-smooth, and hair any more shinier-than shiny. Wearing the appropriate designer label product will not miraculously turn us into bright, young things and, believe it or not, drinking the right type of cola will unfortunately not suddenly make us God’s gift to men or women, despite what the happy, smiling faces say.

But it is all about freedom of choice, isn’t it? I can now go and buy some Botox, miracle facial cream, a fantastic plasma screen TV, a wonder hair strengthening shampoo… I nearly forgot – a newer super improved version of a credit card that will enable me to shop till I drop beneath an even greater burden of debt. Of course you may say the ultimate choice is that you can either take it or leave it. So I think I’ll leave it. After all, I’m already happy… or perhaps I only think I am.

Colin Todhunter

colin_todhunter@yahoo.co.uk

Monday, November 06, 2006

Karnataka Section-38% Completion in Golden Quadrilateral

Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 4:42 PM
To: 'dha@nhai.org'; 'bangalore@nhai.org'; 'kumar_atul@nhai.org'; 'pramod@nhai.org'
Cc: 'pradeepkumar@nhai.org'; 'secy-road@nic.in'; 'presidentofindia@rb.nic.in'
Subject: Karnataka Section-38% Completion in Golden Quadrilateral

Dear All,
I am resident of Goa, working in Bangalore; I have been traveling to Goa every month for the last one year through the Golden Quadrilateral route.
Due to pathetic road conditions, a journey to be of 10 hours is now 16 hours, I have personally witnessed narrow accident escapes.
The dust and incomplete construction is extremely de-motivating when I look at the Administration which is undertaking this task.
Following is a brief study, I have summarized from your own website.

Golden Quadrilateral Project









State

TotalCompleteIncomplete
% Complete
Maharashtra

367.75339.2528.5
92.25 %
Karnataka

623236.8386.2
38.01 %

Tamil Nadu


299

242.6

56.4

81.14 %



ONLY 38% of Projects in Karnataka have been completed.

I request you to kindly expedite the process.

Navendu Shirali

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Israel method on Lebanon

Looking at Israel method of tackling terror,its nice for us, to sit n watch deaths of others on TV n say v shud do it to same to PAK,

no violence has helped any nation, last evening Al Zawahiri, has asked
all roads leading to Israel,this war by Israel, has been an arm shot
to the entire movement of theirs..
Israel, cud have used ground operations in urban warfare, really cruel
method to use air strikes, as collateral damage to high,i understand
some battles have to be answered with force.. i realize history of
Israel, has been to show no restraint…and they were proactive before
Hezbollah started their moves…
but the nature of warfare and scale is unjust, with no sensitivity to
innocent lives,

the innocent will prioritize hatred, contribute more funds, through
all channels, and major fund collection will also go towards Al Qaeda
from various nations, its very crucial at our age to realize good
battle is one where you attack the source of hatred that fuels the
war,
I have been having great respect to concept n success of Zionism, but
disappointed with warfare adopted by Israel. There was a time, when
there was extreme precision techniques used by Israel against Hamas,
why full fledged war against Hezbollah,

What do you mean do same with Pakistan, Pakistan is not
just ISI, Jaish-e Mohammad, LeT, Musharaf and company, there are
humans there too, the effects of this battle of Israel, will cause
unnecessary damage to us as well, even if a small share of fund
raising is siphoned to these PoK based junta, we will have tough time,
managing them.

With historic data, and foreign policies followed by nation facing
terrorism, its apparent that full fledged warfare has only fuelled
extremism, I agree the proactive means attacking the PoK camps, but
with nuclear deterrent environment that's not feasible.

Israel will fail in its efforts of curbing terrorism because their not
attacking the philosophy of hatred, they are attacking the executors,
Its irony the Zionism movement was started on some note, and seems the
present generation seems so far away from that objective, where the
paradise homeland….
Seeds of anarchy are being sown on all borders…of Israel,

Wat is to learn from Israel, their people have spread to such great
control of US and UK that no one can stop them, hope someday Indians,
reach similar place where no one can stop India, from executing its
foreign policy, and above all I hope that then the foreign policy is
of restraint and attacking the philosophy terrorism, and economically
arm twisting Pakistan, might sound utopian, but I guess could be
differentiator to tackle this menace.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Power of Blogging

Imagine a Blogspace for every elected representatives,
and every registered voter with his verified id, blogs his concern on this space,
such that the office of the elected representative, can start taking action or respond to the voter in his constituency.

"Change your self first; reform yourself and you will reform thousands"

Dear All,
This an mail interaction between the community called Intiatives of Change, of
which i have been associated for last 3 yrs,
Let me introduce the firstly- Viral Mazumdar, happens to be a
successful diamond merchant for 350 days of the year rest dedicated to
non business events,committed to run a youth conference in panchgani-
Asia Plateau for last 10 yrs, and doin that dedicatedly..this is his
mail..do read it..and then piya she is law graduate from jamshedpur
joined work in mumbai..n her response to the mail..have a nice day..

Hello! All. Felt like sharing what happened with me few days ago. Back
in Delhi and busy with my routine work. My brother was with me in
Delhi and we were heading back home from our work. Before I could wear
my ear plugs and in few moments so many things happened that I used my
mobile phone to make a call and before I could realize and react and
wear my plugs, my brother telling me the cops have seen you and there
goes the whistle and the police men stands in the middle of the road
to stop my car, I pull my car on the side, the senior lady officer was
standing by her motor cycle and another cop next to her. In all they
were a team of three. I got down from my car greeted the lady with a
smile and immediately accepted my mistake by telling her I was talking
on the cell, and here is my license, please do the needful, she was
shocked by what I was talking to her, first thing she told me was that
I like the way talk, you are very polite and nobody has ever
surrendered the way you have done by honestly accepting your mistake,
the male officer asked me are you working for the military?

The lady officer telling me her days story that how she had to chase a
young driver for more then an hour to catch him for rash and
insensitive driving and throwing his weight around by committing many
traffic offence and here you are accepting your mistake and
surrendering.

I had to tell her that I am associated with Mra-IC and I teach many
young people to walk on the path of honesty and challenge them to live
their life based on moral values. I could see a spark in her eyes, she
asked me more about my work, and she commented that you are living by
what you are teaching. Yes was my prompt reply, otherwise how could I
speak to young people with conviction that comes from within.

I was been told that the fine is Rs: 1000/- for talking on the mobile
phone, I immediately accepted and removed my wallet and paid her the
amount, she took the amount and told me, I was testing you whether you
will pay this big fine of Rs: 1000/- aap sache aadmi ho and telling me
I cannot fine you Rs: 1000/- . I responded by saying please do your
duty, her pen refused to write on the challan. She fined me Rs: 100/-
took my visiting card and said I will come and see you sometime. I
invited her to AP and if your children are above 17 yrs then do send
them for the youth camp at Panchgani. Mr younger brother sitting
inside the car looking at what was going outside, told me that your
honesty saved your Rs: 900/-, how simple it is to be honest, but we
still make it so difficult.

This complete incident took me back to the second day of the youth
camp and how we had an interesting discussion on challenging ones own
value system and are we willing to take the longer route to achieve
what is best for us?

My honesty with the lady police officer was appreciated by her that
she had to mention that I have never come across a person like you,
each and every person wants to have a quick go, or they want to throw
their wait around that I am so and so. This is exactly what corrupt
officials want, that they get bride and make an easy buck, but when we
accept and are willing to get ourselves punished, this challenges the
law protector to think and some where deep down it will make an impact
on them.

I wish from my heart that the lady officer gets in touch with me,
because here I can see a window opening up to train police officers,
as this department is the most corrupt department in our country, more
then politicians.

There was a discussion initiated that how do we market out youth conference?

What I have to say is "Change your self first; reform yourself and you
will reform thousands". As told by Paramahansa Yoganand in one of his
books. Sell yourself and your change, do not sell AP and its beauty.
Think……. All the best.

Viral.
--------------------
viral bhai, ur story was touching indeed...i had a very interesting
experience 2 share too, which happened a few days back with me, taht
totally got me thinking...

all of u know that I have joined my new job....last week, I was
totally stressed out and nervous and had a string of bad episodes with
my boss....currently I am travelling everyday from worli to
jogeshwari, which takes more than an hour, to do some work at Pfizer's
office here...on my way back to Worli one day pretty late in the
evening all alone, I asked an auto driver if he will take me to Bandra
from where i wud cab it to worli...he said yes...i was carrying with
me a heavy bag and a laptop..and i had to keep it on the seat first b4
I got up myself....i did that...and before I cud even put my foot up
on teh auto...the driver sped away like the wind...with my bag and
laptop!!!

i ran after the auto but it was soon out of sight...i even tried
following it with another auto...but it had vanished!!..i came back 2
the stand and asked the otehr drivers as to who was in charge
there...tehy said there was no orgainsed thing as such and there was
no way 2 trace the driver...u can imagine...i was aghast...my laptop,
mobile, money everything gone in an instant...and what was scariest is
taht it was my office laptop and contained very privileged info that
was irreplacable.....i ran to the security of pfizer and asked them 4
help...almost burst out crying, as i cud see myself losing my job next
besides being labelled as totally irresponsible....he asked me to go 2
the main security ... as i was walking it down, i suddenly heard the
hink of an auto and the security guard shouting out 4 me...i crossed
my fingers and ran back...it was, to my astonishment, the same
guy!!...safe and sound inside were my bags...i was totally speechless

he apologised duly...he said he was in a major hurry and did not even
realise that i had not got into teh auto...it was only when he was
half way taht he realised tht i wa not inside, but my bags were...he
broke all traffic rules, just 2 b able to get back quickly, to hand
over my bags to me or to the security....in fact, he was more freaked
out than I was...he could not believe it taht he was almost labelled a
thief...he told me that he was much happier earning 10 rupees a day,
than selling my belongings which would easily fetch him a handsome
amount....trust me, I have never been more touched....he got me back 2
bandra and on the way we really bonded...i told him how much I
appreciated his gesture....that if he had not come back, my job would
be at stake...when I finally got off I tipped him extra, but he was
very reluctant to take it...as he felt it was his fault..but I
insisted....

I never met him after that...probably never will....but it has
restored in me a profound faith for honesty....and i thought i must
really share this story with all of u...b'cos when u r at the
receiving end of someone else being honest, u realise how important
honesty is to you.

love,

Piya

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Chief Information Officer of India

Mailed to President and Prime Minister of India

Respected Sir,
For faster development of India, we need Information Technology as catalyst, as such we can reach blogging in regional levels at across all Pachayats, Bus Transports monitored for over crowding and punctuality, etc.
For this we need a full foccused team under your leadership, Chief Information Officer of India, that will drive all e-Governance projects under one umbrella, I therefore suggest two individuals,
Mr. Narayan Murty who is to retire this August and Mr. Bill Gates who is to retire in couple of years. Both these individuals have reached self actulaization stage of their life and want to contribute back to the society. As such the biggest challenge for them would be to balance their ethics and not being favourable to their respective companies.
For building the best nation, we need the best,
Lets make dreams come true,
Jai Hind
Navendu Shirali

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Mr.C.Umashankar

Process Automation based e-governance implementation in core government functioning in Tiruvarur district of TamilNadu. (India)

Tiruvarur district of TamilNadu was declared the Pilot-e-district by the Government of TamilNadu on the 13th June 1999. The largely agrarian district which is located at 350 KMs from Chennai had accomplished near total automation of the field level government functioning in Taluk offices, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Collectorate, Block offices, Town Panchayat Office (local body) and Regional Transport Office. Land record administration, rural development scheme administration, student scholarship administration, public grievances handling, HR administration, Social welfare scheme administration such as National Old Age Pension Scheme, Distress Relief Scheme, Accident Relief Scheme, marriage assistance scheme, Agriculture labourers’ Insurance scheme, etc were migrated to manual register free status, thus removing hurdles in getting citizen service delivery. Under the title ‘Power of e-governance’ the district conducted 8 outdoor camps in different places where the Taluk office functioning was held in Marriage halls proving a point that the district could run government offices literally anywhere, without moving any manual registers. Times of India, a leading newspaper in India had rated Tiruvarur as ’20 years ahead of rest of India’.

Executive Summary

Tiruvarur district of TamilNadu State was a new district carved out from Thanjavur and Nagapattinam districts on 1-1-1997. Tiruvarur is a riparian district of the Cauvery delta. Its annual contribution to the paddy production of the state is about 5,50,000 tonnes. Wetland agriculture forms the backbone of Tiruvarur’s economy. Tiruvarur district has over 1.1 million population. Over 80% of the population lives in villages. UNDP had classified Tiruvarur district under ‘highly disaster prone’ list. Cyclones, floods and droughts are a recurring phenomenon there. The literacy level is 68% as per the latest census. The district has very high level of poverty and associated backwardness.
Geographically, Tiruvarur is located at 350 KMs from Chennai. The district has 7 Revenue Taluks and 10 Development Blocks.
Mr.C.Umashankar, an IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer borne on TamilNadu cadre (1990 batch) took over the reins of the district as its second District Collector on the 11th of February, 1999. On the date of joining the district had only one personal computer. This was kept in a box. With this one PC the pilot e-district commenced its operation during February 1999. In the next two years, the district went through a barrage of e-governance initiatives that resulted in over 85% automation in conventional offices such as Taluk offices, Block offices and District Rural Development Agency (DRDA). From a single personal computer, this backward district reached a level of 311 computers, including 32 servers in 20 different offices.
The district also had ushered in a wi-fi revolution by setting up the first wireless LAN using 802.11b radios, connecting all the 20 offices coming under the district in 14 locations.
Mr.Umashankar left the district on 11th June 2001 on transfer orders.
The Government of TamilNadu declared Tiruvarur district as the pilot-e-district on 13th June 1999 thus paving the way for experimenting various application software tools to automate the government processes aimed at reducing the troubles of the citizens in their interface with the government machinery in their day to day life.
Based on the pilot-e-district announcement, the district went ahead with the setting up of 4 software development centres in the District Collector’s office itself, employing over 30 software professionals for the development of e-governance application software packages. The Collectorate became a virtual software development cum implementation centre.
The pilot-e-district rolled out over 20 e-governance software packages touching various areas of citizen interface with the government. The major beneficiaries were agriculturists, land owners, students, widows, agricultural labourers above 65 years of age, schools, local body population, rural population, below poverty line people benefiting from social welfare schemes such as marriage assistance scheme, pregnant women assistance scheme etc.
The district did not receive any formal commitment of funds from the State budget. In the absence of budgetary support, the District Collector Mr.C.Umashankar floated an Non Profit Organisation named District Welfare Committee which was headed by the District Collector and participated by the people’s representatives. This Non Profit Organisation mobilised funds from various sources to the tune of Rs.25 million and implemented the e-governance programme.
The IPRs of the application software packages are owned by the Government thus giving scope for the Governments to adopt the packages in their respective areas of governance.
By the end of the 2nd year of commencing the e-governance initiatives, the district reached a very high level of e-governance thus enabling citizen services online in the Revenue and rural development areas almost to the tune of 85-90%. It is important to understand that by automating the Revenue and rural development wings of the district administration, the level of citizen services, especially the common man reaches an automatic level of over 70%.
Because these two departments generally pose a major challenge to the citizens in their interaction with the bureaucracy for getting the necessary government services. The level of corruption and inhuman treatment by the bureaucracy pose a challenge to anyone who wishes to aim for better G to C services. What happened in Tiruvarur district sounds almost unbelievable, yet it is true that the Taluk office services were dispensed through 8 online camps during the period between 30th September 2000 and 11th February, 2001. These online e-governance camps were held in public buildings such as Marriage halls where the servers of the Taluk offices were moved to provide online and on the spot services. The entire online service was provided under the public glare, without using any manual registers. These camps introduced one vital phase in Indian e-governance experiment that conventional government offices can indeed be run without paper based registers. Tiruvarur had set a trend to the rest of India by making the electronic records as the first source of government records and every other record, including manual records, if any, were made secondary records (of reference) only.
Technically speaking, Tiruvarur had no precedence to follow. It had to lay down its own path. And when it created a new path, it made it right. Tiruvarur introduced a novel concept in workflow engine suiting the requirements of Indian bureaucracy. The workflow engine ensured total accountability on the users and reliability of the database created. The result was that the users took complete ownership of the records created using the e-governance system. They were ready to switch over to the electronic workflow from the totally manual system due to the tight yet transparent workflow engine.
Tiruvarur also introduced two new concepts viz., intranet digital signature for the intranet operations and a transaction based disaster recovery engine. The transaction based disaster recovery engine was conceived by the District Collector Mr.C.Umashankar which enabled the e-governance system from all types of disasters, man made or otherwise. This design got the Government of India merit citation award during 2003.
The speciality of Tiruvarur’s experiment lies in the following:
1. The entire technical and functional areas of Tiruvarur e-governance initiative were headed by the District Collector Mr.C.Umashankar who had no technical qualification to carry out the IT work. Mr.C.Umashankar handled the front end and back end design of each and every e-governance package, its security features such as intranet digital signature and disaster recovery design and he also validated the packages.
2. It became a successful experiment in large number of areas such as land record administration, rural development administration, social welfare scheme administration, civil supplies administration, scholarship administration, driving licence issue/ vehicle registration administration, grievance redressal mechanism, issue of various certificates in Taluk offices, HR administration including payroll processing and so on.
3. It was fully accepted by the users (Government servants), citizens and peoples’ representatives.
4. It has a built in bilingual database interface. The vernacular language support with English as an add on language option proved to be an important trigger for the success of the experiment.
5. Whoever worked with pen and paper earlier was migrated to the paperless electronic workflow, thus paving the way for near paperless office administration. The level of back end automation was over 85% in the offices where the e-governance packages were implemented. The total number of users in Revenue department exceeded 750 and in rural development administration and Collectorate the number exceeded 175. The coverage is roughly 90% of the ministerial staff of the district. Each one had his/her own userID and password to operate the system. It could be a surprise that none of these officials had ever touched a computer before the e-district experiment began.
6. Tiruvarur introduced campaign based e-governance services whereby the Taluk office servers were moved out and kept in public places such as marriage halls and citizens were given services online. It is a case of government going to the citizens to provide services online instead of the other way round.
7. Tiruvarur’s efforts were wholly funded from local resources. All the people’s representatives, irrespective of political party affiliation contributed liberally for the e-governance experiment.
8. Tiruvarur introduced 802.11b based wireless LAN to connect all the offices coming under the direct control of the district administration during April 2001.
9. The training and motivation of the entire government machinery was handled locally using local resources. It may be surprising, yet true that the 32 and odd servers barring the three Collectorate servers were being manned by these non technical government officials who had been trained to carry out software administration cum system administration (limited to server operation).

Five years after commencement of the operations, Tiruvarur district transacts is businesses online till date (October 2004). The users (government staff) own these operations as on date. They do not require the champion to keep the services going.

Case description:

Background

As a person belonging to a poor middle class family, the champion of this e-governance initiative (Mr.C.Umashankar IAS.,) had a perfect understanding of the role of the Government vis a vis the common man. In the absence of technology tools, the Government machinery had virtually become the master and the real masters, that is the citizen had become a servant. Lack of transparency, red tape and corruption were the net results. The citizens in India, especially the common man, women, people belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes get a raw deal from these government servants. In this context, the champion of Tiruvarur e-governance initiative decided to try true e-governance tools to make the lives of the common man better. He also wanted to give a fair chance to the honest among the government servants to excel in their job. From his experience in the past, he knew the ways of the Government servants and hence he targeted the areas where the citizens got the raw deal from the bureaucracy.
Indian administrative set up revolves around the institution of District Collector. Every State in India is divided into small administrative units for convenience of administration. These small units of administrative set up are called districts. Each such district is headed by a District Collector cum District Magistrate. A District Collector is the head of the District administration. All the other departments operating within the district come under the overall supervision and guidance of the District Collector. The District Collector is the head of the law and order administration in the district. The police machinery works under the overall superintendence of the District Collector. Apart from law and order administration, the District Collector is also in charge of land record administration, welfare administration, rural development administration, etc.
Each district has two major set up, viz., Revenue department and Rural Development department. These two wings are like two arms of the District administration and they work directly under the control of the District Collector. The Revenue department is in charge of land record administration, law and order administration, issue of various certificates such as birth and death certificate, community/income/solvency/nativity certificates, administration of social welfare schemes such as national old age pension scheme, Distress Relief Scheme, Accident Relief Scheme etc. 7 Taluk offices, 2 Revenue Divisional Offices and the Collectorate (Revenue wing) come under the Revenue department administration.
The Rural Development department is in charge of rural development administration. This includes rural infrastructure creation such as construction of rural roads, school buildings, noon meal centres, community centres, etc. This department implements majority of the Central Government sponsored and State sponsored rural development schemes. These schemes cover community oriented schemes such as food for work programme, rural infrastructure creation programmes, non conventional energy promotion scheme, women and child development scheme, SC/ST welfare scheme and so on. They also implement individual family oriented schemes, largely meant for families belonging to Below poverty line (BPL). These schemes include loan cum subsidy scheme for self employment, rural housing scheme whereby the SC/ST people are given free financial assistance for construction of houses in rural areas, rural employment guarantee scheme, Self Help Group (women) assistance scheme etc. Tiruvarur has 10 Block offices, one District Panchayat Office and the District Rural Development Agency coming under the Rural development wing.
Majority of the poor citizens who look upon the Government for their well being approach these two wings of the Government for getting their needs satisfied. There is inefficiency and corruption in these offices due to the large clientele and the large scale of funds being channalised through these offices.
In the above context, the champion decided to being in a fresh air in the public services offered by these two vital wings of district administration. He succeeded in automating majority of their operations with total user involvement and a very high rate of success.
Tiruvarur had been rated as ’20 years ahead of rest of India’ by a leading news paper ‘Times of India’
The WEEK magazine chose the champion of this experiment Mr.Umashankar as the ‘man of the next millennium from among bureaucrats in India’ in its millennium edition during January 2000.

Objectives

To provide easy access to government services to common man, especially the people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women.
To enhance the bargaining power of the common man in his dealings with the bureaucracy.
To reduce the workload of the government servants thus enabling them to do contribute more with less effort.
To set a trend for true e-governance to the rest of India.
To make it easy for the District Collector to administer the district efficiently in such a manner that the citizen gets a much better deal than earlier.
To achieve a life’s mission in serving the common man of India.
To learn more about public services using e-governance.

Resources


A sum of Rs.25 million was used for the implementation of the e-district concept. These resources were mobilized locally. The Members of State legislature (MLAs) and Members of Parliament (MPs) contributed nearly half the sum mentioned above from their Local Area Development funds.
The district floated a non profit organization titled ‘District Welfare Committee’ to mobilize resources for e-governance. This organisation is headed by the District Collector himself and participated by all the MPs and MLAs.

Implementation

The implementation had the following areas:
1. Application Software development for various e-governance functioning.
2. Creating infrastructure in the Collectorate for positioning the software development centres.
3. Selecting the right technical people for application software development.
4. Data capture to convert the existing paper data into electronic data.
5. Training and motivation of the Government servants.
6. Educating the citizens about the e-services.
7. Purchase of computer hardware
8. Making the 20 government offices fit for e-governance based administration. Creation of additional infrastructure to enable them fit to keep servers, clients, UPS etc.
9. Finding resources for the application software, hardware and networking products.
10. Interaction with the Government for policy support.
11. Implementation of the e-governance applications.
12. Ensuring the citizen benefit focus of the e-governance activities.

The implementation strategy had been based on the common man requirements. The district chose the areas where the services to the citizens were too poor in the first phase. This was followed by other phases gradually. The first two application software packages introduced within 90 days of commencing the e-district project were the grievances handling software and National Old Age pension software. These packages were commissioned in the Collectorate and all 7 Taluk offices on the 16th May 1999. The Collectorate was deluged with petitioners and petitions and it became physically impossible to manage the service at all. The grievances handling software had to be developed in a hurry. The package was stabilised by the end of the 3 month period but the actual implementation started side by side as the district had no other way except to proceed in these lines due to the heavy rush of petitioners.
The OAP section in the Taluk offices was the neglected area in Taluk administration. This wing is manned by a Tahsildar level officer. But the staff allocated to these wings were usually compassionate ground appointees or peon promotees. As a result, this section in the Taluk office was considered as punishment posting. But this wing was in charge of serving the citizens in distress such as agriculture labourers who had crossed 65 years of age and have lost the ability to do labour anymore, widows, physically challenged persons, deserted house wives etc. The beneficiaries under the OAP scheme get a life long pension of Rs.200 per month. The problems faced by this segment of citizens were two fold. Firstly, the application processing took as long as one year or more. Corruption and red tape were the order of the day. Secondly, the selected beneficiaries got their monthly pension through money orders very late, usually next month. The OAP wing of the Taluk offices had been saddled with huge arrear work. This area badly needed attention. With the introduction of process based automation software for handling all the OAP schemes on 16th May 1999, the entire district migrated to paperless stage with regard to OAP schemes. The paper based registers were done away with. All the transactions were routed through the online procedure. The money orders were generated by the system instead of manually being written. A fresh breeze of air indeed. The turnaround was rather dramatic. From huge backlog of work, this wing became no backlog wing. The turnaround took place in less than 9 months. Due to the no backlog of work, whenever the visitors from outside wanted to see the OAP software functioning, the district administration had to send out an alert to the Taluks to keep at least some work pending so that the visiting team could see the online functioning. To that extent the offices migrated to an efficient level. This had been documented by leading news magazines and newspapers such as CNN, NDTC, The Week, Statesman and Times of India.
This was followed by the other difficult areas such as land record administration online, DRDA online and Block offices online.

Software development centres:
The district had no financial allocation to pay for the application software development. No IT company was willing to sponsor the application software development. In the circumstances, the district had to mobilize its own resources. When the resources were not certain, the district was not in a position to engage private partners for software development. So, a novel concept of converting a part of the Collectorate building itself as a software development wing was adopted. Four software development centres were set up in the Collectorate building and the 30 and above programmers were accommodated in these centres. These software development centres were provided with quality infrastructure including air conditioning, LAN and continuous power supply facility.
The District Collector himself headed the technical team involved in the software development. The role of the District Collector was front end and back end design, validation and implementation.
The District Collector involved himself in the software development work from 6.30 to 8.30 a.m everyday in the Collectorate. The entire software development team used to work from 6.30 in the morning. The young software programmers coped with the rigors of the Tiruvarur expectations.
Today the IPRs of these valuable packages are owned by the Tiruvarur district administration.
The net effect of this strategy was that a total number of 20 application software packages were developed, validated and implemented within a short period of 24 months. This was possible as the users themselves were fully involved in the design of the application software and they were eager to own these packages as and when the development was completed.
An institutional arrangement was made through the District Welfare Committee to continue the support for the application software and database.

Hardware requirement and the Tender procedure adopted:
The district had acquired servers, fat client machines, thin client machines, UPS, laser and dot matrix printers, LCD projector and power back up generators.
Hardware acquisition:
Servers: 32
Thin clients: 100
Fat clients:180
Laser printers: 18 Nos.
DMPs: 22 (This includes 7 heavy duty DMPs for Taluk offices to print the Money Orders)
5 KVA UPS – 4 Nos (for Collectorate)
3 KVA UPS – 7 Nos (For Taluk offices)
2 KVA UPS – 12 Nos (For 10 Block offices and two Revenue Divisional Offices)
15 KVA Generator set – For Collectorate to support the UPS only
6 KVA UPS – 2 Nos for Two Taluk offices.

As organized funding was not forthcoming the district had to make its own funding arrangements. Instead of waiting for the funds to materialize, the district went ahead with open tender procedure and finalized the lowest bidder before mobilizing the funds. By the time the tenders neared their logical end, the requisite resources were mobilized from various sources. In this way there was no wastage of time in the acquisition of hardware. When the hardware acquisition process was on, the application software were developed using the minimum infrastructure available. Training and orientation programmes commenced during June 1999 even before the first batch of computers arrived. The entire government staff were to be oriented towards e-governance before the actual implementation process. The motivation level of these government staff was so high that the district administration had no difficulty in orienting them. By the time the first batch of computers (79 numbers) arrived during July 1999, the initial application software for land record administration was ready. The newly acquired computers were directly taken to a marriage hall where they were used as training infrastructure to train the entire Revenue machinery, including over 650 village administrative officers. After a week long training session, these machines were dispatched to their respective Taluk offices.
The next batch of purchases followed a similar pathway.
For the Wireless LAN towers and Microwave radios, a sum of Rs.4 million was allocated by the Member of Parliament, Nagapattinam. The district could set the trend for the rest of India in using wi-fi technology for high speed networking during April 2001.

Wireless infrastructure:
50 metre towers at Collectorate – one
45 metre tower at Mannargudi (Police tower) – one
30 metre towers in Tiruthuraipoondi and Muthupet – Two
24 metre tower at Valangaiman Taluk – one
18 metre towers at Kodavasal , Needamangalam and Nannilam Taluks – Three
6-12 metre towers – 6

Wireless radios:
802.11b wireless bridges (CISCO) – three
802.11b wireless access devices – 5. (six more to be installed)

Training to staff:
Staff training was undertaken on a continuous basis. In majority of the training sessions, the senior officials of the district administration, including the District Collector took part. The trainees were given hands on experience during these sessions. The District Collectorate became the centralized training facility. Whenever any new module was about to be introduced, the resource persons from each office was called to Collectorate and training was imparted.
The software professional in charge of the application software was made the nodal officer for handling the technical requirements of the training.
Training manuals were prepared before each such training session.
User feedback was obtained then and there and necessary modifications were carried out thus making the packages acceptable to the users.
Training was an integral part of the e-district exercise. Weekly training schedules were announced well in advance to enable the officials to attend the same.


Software administrators:
To administer the Taluk/Block servers, clerical employees from each of the 20 offices were chosen on voluntary basis to undergo training to act as software administrators. In each office two such staff have been selected for a one week intensive training on server administration. Their main role was to administer the software installed in the server and to serve as server operators. They had not been given system administration password nor database administration password. The main role of the software administrator is to start the server in the morning and close the operations at end of the day. Other users had no right to shut down the system. In addition to this, the software administrators had the powers to assign and revoke rights on each of the application software. This enables them to handle the day to day variations in availability of staff. If the Software administrator goes on leave, then the standby software administrator takes over charge. A software based tool had been provided for such online handing over of charge. This procedure had enabled the staff to take complete ownership of the IT infrastructure and the database. The software programmers were barred from carrying out any transactions at the field offices. The Software programmers were permitted only to upgrade the database or application software. Within a period of 6 months, these software administrators became experts in server administration, application software administration and hardware trouble shooting. In this way, the dependency on the technical officials had been completely done away with.
To provide continuity to these software administrators, an order was issued barring their transfer to other assignments without the written orders of the District Collector.


Public awareness campaign:
Despite the online status of the Block offices and Taluk offices, the patronage of the citizens was concentrated only on the Collectorate services. To educate the citizens that they could avail online services in the Taluk and block offices, a special campaign in the name of ‘Power of e-governance’ was organized in 8 places, starting from 30th September 2000. The modus operandi was to move the Taluk office server from the Taluk office to a public place such as marriage hall on the day prior to the campaign. Through advertisement and publicity the citizens were requested to come to the campaign centre to avail of the online services. The promise was that the services would be provided within a maximum of 2 hours, including enquiry time, if any and no paper based register would be used in the whole exercise.
This campaign was greeted with huge success. In each such campaign the office concerned could transact work equivalent to nearly 6 months turnover.

Output and Results

1. The entire land record transactions have been moved into manual register free online status with effect from February 2000. The agriculturists could get the cultivation and harvest certificates (Adangal extract) within minutes just by parting with Rs.20. Earlier it had a variable pricing mechanism due to corruption. Likewise the citizens could have their land purchases recorded in the Taluk and village land record registers just by paying Rs.20 in person or Rs.60 through VPL. All the final orders were dispatched through VPL when the applicant does not want to pick up the orders in person. Other land record extracts were made available at a cost of Rs.10 in all the Taluk office counters.
2. At the Collectorate, the entire grievance redressal mechanism was made online with effect from May 16, 1999. Each petitioner was handed over a computer generated acknowledgement and action taken report was sent within two weeks.
3. The OAP beneficiaries who were hitherto getting the money orders after a delay of one month started getting the MOs on the 2nd or 3rd of every month. This was made possible due to the e-governance based software commissioned in the OAP section with effect from May 16th, 1999.
4. Pendency of applications in OAP section was minimized to just one or two weeks only from more than one or two years. Thanks to the e-governance software that provided for effective monitoring from Collectorate upto the Taluk level.
5. Corruption in disposal of Distress Relief Scheme and Accident Relief Scheme where the family members who lost a bread winner had been completely done away with as the entire sanction procedure and fund disbursement procedure went online with sufficient checks and balances.
6. Earlier the pre and post matric students were getting Scholarship between February and April. After the introduction of e-governance package in Collectorate scholarship section, the task could be accomplished within one week after receipt of fund allocation from Government. That means, the students could get the Scholarship assistance well before August every year. Thanks to the fully automated paperless scholarship admin software.
7. RTO: Online processing of applications for issue of learners license and permanent driving licence and online registration of new vehicles was introduced to weed away corruption. It was found that the RTO was accepting applications only through touts. They were caught red handed by the District Collector himself. This was immediately followed by the online RTO software. The software had been made to issue the date for test driving on its own thus removing the touts in toto. This service was priced at Rs.5 for each transaction to keep the infrastructure going for long.
8. Rural Development: The family oriented rural development schemes which concentrated the poor among the villages and the SC/ST people had no transparent elements. This had resulted in delay and corruption. The Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) which offers free grant for construction of rural house had been fully automated, right from the receipt of application stage. Similarly, the credit cum subsidy scheme aimed at providing self employment opportunity to the rural masses was fully automated at the DRDA and Block level with vertical linkages.
9. In addition to the above, the entire scheme and financial accounting areas of rural development department were fully automated. The noon meal centres got their monthly ration allocation in time. The staff associated with rural development department got their salary, increment etc on time, thanks to the office manager software. The supervising officials and people’s representatives could monitor the financial and physical progress of each work from various locations, thus providing transparency to the whole system.
10. At Koradachery Town Panchayat office, the citizens could transact their entire requirement online. This includes property tax assessment, water tax assessment and payment of utility bills.
11. In 55 fair price shops where the optical mark read based automation was commissioned, the citizens could get their ration without any let up.
12. The policemen in Tiruvarur district started getting his salary and other emoluments without delay as the customized office manager software enabled their entire HR operations online.
13. The Revenue officers who used to be missing for nearly two months during the beginning of every calendar year due to preparation of Jamabanthi (annual audit of village accounts) accounts. The Jamabanthi accounts are comprehensive accounts that require a minimum of 40 days to prepare the same. So these officers used to be missing from public action during the Jamabanthi period. Tiruvarur had converted the Jamabanthi to paperless stage whereby the Revenue officials do not write any Jamabanthi account manually. The system generates all the Jamabanthi accounts within 2-3 minutes thus saving hundreds of man months. From February 2000 onwards, the district had undergone 5 such online Jamabanthi exercise. This had enabled the Revenue officials to won the Taluk Automation package as they consider the software more employee friendly as well. The late night/evening works in Taluk offices became thing of the past as the pendency of works came to minimum or just nil.

Learning points and conclusions

1. Politicians and political parties came forward to support the e-governance initiative at every stage. Without their support Tiruvarur initiative could have never become a success.
2. The general impression that older people among the government employees would have difficulty in learning computers was belied by Tiruvarur experience. It was found that the older people among the Government staff were more enthusiastic in leaning the computer skill. They took over the training task proudly. This had helped the district administration to train the rest of the employees through these senior staff.
3. Fears of resistance from government employees and employee unions were belied. The Staff unions passed a unanimous resolution supporting Tiruvarur e-governance. The Staff association leaders themselves led the pack.
4. A highly user friendly yet secure system would be quickly accepted by Government employees without any reservations or resistance. It was found in Tiruvarur that the employees were not willing to accept less efficient workflow in the front end design. They started demanding high quality front end design taking a cue from other packages already installed. Their demand had to be met before the packages were fully commissioned.
5. The bilingual interface was liked by the users to the extent that without even any exposure to typing skill, these government employees took a print out of the font layout and keyed in their work in vernacular language (Tamil). This was one of the most striking factors found during the implementation.
6. The ownership feeling of the employees was revealed to the Union Ministers Mr.T.R.Baalu and Mr.Raja when they came to Tiruvarur to formally inaugurate the Jamabanthi and Birth and Death Registration software during June 2000. When Mr.T.R.Baalu raised a hypothetical question about discontinuing the software in future, the employees, notably the Village administrative officers retorted by saying that they would resort to State wide strike to seeking restoration of the software.
7. Lack of organized financial support does not hinder a true initiative to bring in e-governance. However, organised funding is an absolute necessity to carry on an e-governance initiative in the long run.
8. A mission mode approach to e-governance with well defined milestones alone can bring about results.
9. Such a mission mode approach causes prejudice among the seniors.
10. Technically, without network infrastructure when such an initiative is taken, it takes three to four times effort to ground a project. With a high speed network backbone the output could be much higher. So a high speed network backbone is a must before commencing e-governance initiative.
11. Without policy framework revenue models cannot be resorted to. Even if resorted to, the same may not last long. So an organized policy support has to be provided by the State.
12. For professional e-governance, the systems should be developed only on open source.

References and links

1. Tiruvarur had been rated as ’20 years ahead of rest of India’ by a leading news paper ‘Times of India’
2. The WEEK magazine chose the champion of this experiment Mr.Umashankar as the ‘man of the next millennium from among bureaucrats in India’ in its millennium edition during January 2000.
3. Book : e-governance – the success story of Tiruvarur – the road covered and the road ahead – authored by C.Umashankar IAS – April 2001.
4. Article: Nuts and bolts of e-governance by C.Umashankar IAS., (2000)
5. Power of e-governance videos 1. Mannargudi, 2. Tiruthuraipoondi and 3. Kodavasal.
6. NDTV coverage & publication in Good morning India dated 8th January 2000
7. CNN coverage and publication dated 7th January 2001.

Contact Information
Organisation: Government of TamilNadu
Name: Commissioner for Disciplinary Proceedings, Salem. C.Umashankar IAS
Address:
No.43(Old No.18) Pushpavanam apartments, 3rd Main Road, Gandhi Nagar, Adyar, Chennai – TamilNadu (Res)

Telephone: 91-427-2311737 (Off) , 91-44-5
Mobile: 94443-82827
E-mail: umashankarc@gmail.com, umashankarc@yahoo.com, umashankarc@tn.nic.in
Source:

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Reservation — an alternative proposal

Satish Deshpande & Yogendra Yadav



THE ALTERNATIVE proposed here is rooted in the recognition that we need to go beyond a simple-minded reduction of `merit' and `social justice' to singular and mutually exclusive categories. In reality, both merit and social justice are multi-dimensional, and the pursuit of one does not require us to abandon the other. The proposal seeks to identify the viable common ground that permits simultaneous commitment to both social justice and excellence. It seeks to operationalise a policy that is morally justified, intellectually sound, politically defensible, and administratively viable.

Let us present the basic principles that underlie this proposal before getting into operational details. First of all, this proposal is based on a firm commitment to policies of affirmative action flowing both from the constitutional obligation to realise social justice and also from the overall success of the experience of reservations in the last 50 years. Secondly, we recognise the moral imperative to extend affirmative action to educational opportunities, for a lack of these opportunities results in the inter-generational reproduction of inequalities and severely restricts the positive effects of job reservations. Thirdly, it needs to be remembered that the end of affirmative action can be served by various means including reservation. The state's basic commitment is to the end, not any particular means. Finally, flowing from the experience of reservations for socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs), we need to recognise that there are multiple, cross-cutting, and overlapping sources of inequality of educational opportunities, all of which need redress. This is what our proposal seeks to do.

The proposal involves computing scores for `academic merit' and for `social disadvantage' and then combining the two for admission to higher educational institutions. Since the academic evaluation is less controversial, we concentrate here on the evaluation of comparative social disadvantage. We suggest that the social disadvantage score should be divided into its group and individual components. For the group component, we consider disadvantages based on caste and community, gender, and region. These scores must not be decided arbitrarily or merely on the basis of impressions. We suggest that these disadvantages should be calibrated on the basis of available statistics on representation in higher education of different castes/communities and regions, each of these being considered separately for males and females. The required data could come from the National Sample Survey or other available sources. It would be best, of course, if a special national survey were commissioned for this purpose.

Besides group disadvantages, this scheme also takes individual disadvantages into consideration. While a large number of factors determine individual disadvantages (family history, generational depth of literacy, sibling education, economic resources, etc.), we believe there are two robust indicators of individual disadvantage that can be operationally used in the system of admission to public institutions: parental occupation and the type of school where a person passed the high school examination. These two variables allow us to capture the effect of most of the individual disadvantages, including the family's educational history and economic circumstances.


In the accompanying tables, we illustrate how this scheme could be operationalised. It needs to be underlined that the weightages proposed here are tentative, based on our limited information, and meant only to illustrate the scheme. The exact weights could be decided after examining more evidence. We suggest that weightage for academic merit and social disadvantage be distributed in the ratio of 80:20. The academic score could be converted to a standardised score on a scale of 0-80, while the social disadvantage score would range from 0 to a maximum of 20.

Awarding social disadvantage points

Table A shows how the group disadvantage points can be awarded. There are three axes of group disadvantage considered here: the relative backwardness of the region one comes from; one's caste and community (only non-SC-ST groups are considered here); and one's gender. The zones in the top row refer to a classification of regions — this can be at State or even sub-State region level — based on indicators of backwardness that are commonly used and can be agreed upon. Thus Zone I is the most backward region while Zone IV is the most developed region. The disadvantage points would thus decrease from left to right for each caste group and gender.

The castes and communities identified here are clubbed according to broadly similar levels of poverty and education indicators (once again the details of this can be agreed upon). The lower OBCs and Most Backward Castes along with OBC Muslims are considered most disadvantaged or least-represented among the educated, affluent, etc., while upper caste Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis, etc., are considered to be the most `forward' communities.

Disadvantage points thus decrease from top to bottom. Gender is built into this matrix, with women being given disadvantage points depending on their other attributes, that is, caste and region. Thus the hypothetical numbers in this table indicate different degrees of relative disadvantage based on all three criteria, and most importantly, also on the interaction effects among the three. Thus, a woman from the most backward region who belongs to the lower OBC, MBC, or Muslim OBC groups gets the maximum score of 12, while a male from the forward communities from the most developed region gets no disadvantage points at all.

Tables B and C work in a similar manner for determining individual disadvantage. For these tables, all group variables are excluded. Table B looks at the type of school the person passed his or her secondary examination from, and the size of the village, town, or city where this school was located. Anyone going to an ordinary government school in a village or small town gets the maximum of 5 points in this matrix. The gradation of schools is done according to observed quality of education and implied family resources, and this could also be refined. A student from an exclusive English medium public school in a large metro gets no disadvantage points.

Table C looks at parental occupation as a proxy for family resources (that is, income wealth, etc., which are notoriously difficult to ascertain directly). Since this variable is vulnerable to falsification and would need some efforts at verification, we have limited the maximum points awarded here to three. Children of parents who are outside the organised sector and are below the taxable level of income get the maximum points, and the occupation of both parents is considered. Those with either parent in Class I or II jobs of the government, or in managerial or professional jobs get no points at all. Intermediate jobs in the organised sector, including Class III and IV jobs in the government, are reckoned to be better placed than those in the unorganised, low pay sector.

Combining the scores in the three matrices will give the total disadvantage score, which can then be added to the standardised academic merit score to give each candidate's final score. Admissions for all non-SC-ST candidates, that is, for 77.5 per cent of all seats, can then be based on this total score.

Differences and advantages

While our proposal shares with the proposal mooted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) the commitment to affirmative action and the desire to extend it to educational opportunities, the scheme we propose differs from the Ministry's proposal in many ways. The Ministry's proposal seeks to create a bloc of `reserved' seats. Our proposal applies to all the seats not covered by the existing reservation for the SC, ST, and other categories. The MHRD proposal recognises only group disadvantages and uses caste as the sole criterion of group disadvantage in educational inequalities. We too acknowledge the significance of group disadvantages and that of caste as the single most important predictor of educational inequalities. But our scheme seeks to fine-tune the identification by recognising other group disadvantages such as region and gender. Moreover, our scheme is also able to address the interaction effects between different axes of disadvantage (such as region, caste, and gender, or type of school and type of location, etc.).

While recognising group disadvantages, our scheme provides some weightage to individual disadvantages relating to family background and type of schooling. Our scheme also recognises that people of all castes may suffer from individual disadvantages, and offers redress for such disadvantages to the upper castes as well. While the MHRD proposal is based on an all-or-nothing approach to recognising disadvantages (either you are an OBC or you are not), our proposal allows for flexibility in dealing with variations in degrees of disadvantage.

The scheme we propose here is a modified version of one that was designed for the selection process of a well-known international fellowship programme for higher education, where it was successful for some years. Thousands of applications have already been screened using this scheme. A similar scheme has been used for admissions to Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The working of this scheme does not seem to offer any insurmountable operational difficulties, despite the vast expansion in scale that some contexts might involve.


In the final analysis, the most critical advantage of a scheme such as the one we are proposing is that it helps to push thinking on social justice along constructive and rational lines. One of the inescapable dilemmas of caste-based affirmative action policies is that they cannot help intensifying caste identities. The debate then gets vitiated because it concentrates on the identities rather than on the valid social reasons why those identities are used as indicators of disadvantage. Our scheme clearly links caste identities to measurable empirical indicators of disadvantage. It thus helps to de-essentialise caste and to focus attention on the relative progress made by these communities.

Thus groups such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, etc., occupy particular positions in this scheme purely by virtue of the levels of educational advantage or disadvantage. The scheme allows policies to be calibrated according to the changing relative positions of different groups, and takes care of such issues as poor upper castes, `creamy layer,' etc. It reminds us, in short, that caste or community matter not in themselves, but because they continue to be important indicators of tangible disadvantages in our unequal and unjust society.

(This proposal has been developed in consultation with many social scientists.)

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/23/stories/2006052305841100.htm

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

King of the Stage, the Laxman steps down…



More than a decade ago, with a team of 6 from Prabhodini, we were conducting a Leadership camp at Thane; then I was in my 8th Grade, youngest in the group and bullied the most. Amidst my then version of ragging, the camp went smooth attended by 108 students. On the closing day, there was a chief guest, some local MLA I thought then, I was sent to the gate by my team members to guide the family members of students who had attended the camp towards the hall. After an hour of directing people, I decided to head back to the hall, on my entering I saw a young speaker, in his early 40s, speaking, the audience hypnotized by his words, and applauding every breath he took, my first encounter of the Thane MP, Mr. Pramod Mahajan.


Men, who shake hands with you, even without knowing you, leave a mark in your life that makes your eyes moist on their demise. Same is today with me.

A year after, On lazy afternoon in Goa, I watching the Lok Sabha proceedings on the TV, a man stands up, very familiar for his chance to speak, he gets up, and gains respect immediately, he speaks of his visit as a Member of Opposition to China along with then Congress Delegation there, in his candid oratory style in Hindi, he says that he introduced himself as being the member of the largest elected party and being in the opposition, and Mr. Ramakant Khalap, being the only elected candidate from “single-man party”; and now a Minister of Cabinet, “what a way to introduce Indian Politics” he asked.

I still remember the applause, I still remember how Ramakant Khalap was laughing, and still remember how we all laughed at home. I then remembered that voice, that face, it was Pramod Mahajan, and he was my inspiration.

A demise of a living inspiration is very uncomfortable, primarily because you realize they had so much to offer more.

It was election time in Goa, every time, I knew Pramod was in the state, I would board the buses, and chase him, just to listen to him. One day it happened much closer to my home, and much closer to my school then Mushtifund, and much closer to God, outside Mahalaxmi Temple, he stood on the stage, to speak, to enchant us, I crawled amidst the crowd to see him much close. Never looked where my feet were moving just his personality which took a different form when he spoke, when he spoke, there was a tone, which would build up, a words would follow a rhythm, they would extremely slow and then build up, he would end the momentum with killer statement, a statement that words were not such words it created an emotion, an emotion that would make you get Goose bumps.

He spoke in grand style that day, campaigning for the to be CM, Manohar Parikkar, still remember Pramod’s right hand pointing at the audience and saying ‘there are 3 types of voters, one who look at the Party and votes, second who look at the person and not the party and third who vote for a good person and a good party, at the doorstep of Mahalaxmi, we are seeing the rise of a personality unmatched ….Manohar Parikkar and for a party unmatched…...applause..applause..i don’t remember the next words, I was having goose bumps..

When he spoke he gave me goose bumps, when he has died he makes me feel the same. One thing for sure, may be he is now no more, to give me goose bumps. But He will remain in my mind as an inspiration, a king of the stage, a showman.

Only regret I have is, what I had dreamt, remains a dream, he was to take India as Prime Minister in the year 2020, when India was born again, as a developed nation. I thought it was he, who deserved to run the India Shining campaign again.

But as former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee says “Bina badlon ke bijli girne ki charcha hamne suni hai, Yahan apni akhon se Bharat ki tarunai ko puri tarah se viksit hone se pehle hi kaalchakra ne isko ham se cheen liya” meaning We have heard about the lightning strike without clouds, here with our own eyes we saw Youth of India being snatched away by fate even before it could developed fully.

Monday, May 01, 2006

A Story from Disturbed Conversation

On 30 April, while travelling from my workplace to City, in the bus i overheard a conversation which disturbed me to great extent. While returning back, i somehow met the same individual, and this time, i shared my expression of disturbance on the conversation. Foes intially, he told me he is into short story writing, and would mail me them.
I knew i would never read them, but i proved myself wrong, i did read it and feel like sharing with you,
Source: http://ndtv.com/ent/foodfictionstory.asp?id=945

The Rose
by: Vijayendra Haryal

Each morning as I took a walk to reach my office which was a ten minute walk from my home, I saw young men lined up in front of a shop. "Fresh Roses Sold Here " –The board read. I could see the anxiety on their faces as they stood there in a long line. I was surprised to see the ones coming out of the shop with roses in their hands had a glitter on their faces as if they are in a state of eternal bliss. I wondered why is this? What is so special about getting a rose? One day I decided to ask one of the guys standing in the long queue .I asked him why the guys waited for a long time to get the roses. I pointed out that there are other shops too in the city.The boy gave me a look which made me feel like a moron .I later got to know from the same guy that this shop was the best in the town .

The roses are the freshest and also carried the reputation of being lucky, hence making the demand excessive."What superstition!" I wondered .I felt a pity for these guys who stood there in a long line, only to gift the best for someone they love. "Love –What A foolish Emotion!" I thought .I laughed at the poor fellows who waited in a long queue as I took a walk to my office.Life was going on as usual .I was doing well at my job and was living a decent life. Sometimes though I felt quiet lonely. As if I was in need of a companion, someone more than a friend. And then it happened. One day she walked into my life and took me by surprise.I couldn't get my eyes off her. When I began talking to her, I talked for hours. Yes this was the companion I was searching for .

She had large, beautiful eyes, a charming personality and above all ,she got along very well with me. Life was never more colorful. We had a great time when we were together. Friendship led to love gradually. I realized that the companion more than a friend is a soul mate. The cupid had struck. And then one morning, while taking a walk to my office, I found myself standing in the long queue ,which I once mocked at.I could feel the anxiety as my turn came .I selected the best rose .It was scarlet and very fresh. It had an amazing aroma. I still remember that morning .She was wearing a pink dress. I walked to her with my heart pounding and the heartbeat increasing with each step, I took towards her.

I hesitated and perspired as I walked towards her.I gathered all the courage in the world as I held her hand and uttered the three magical words and she was all smiles. She was anticipating this for a long time, she told me afterwards. I could not believe my luck. The rose worked for me! Yes there had to be something supernatural about these roses. I was on cloud nine. Some of the best days of my life begun. We were so happy together. A year passed without notice. It was too early for both of us to get married; we decided. She wanted to spend more time building a good career. I agreed. Things were going on pretty well between the two of us and we were the perfect couple.

She was an ambitious girl, something which I actually really liked about her. I never liked the company of people who seldom talked sense. She always discussed about her plans to take the next leap in her career whenever we were together. And then it happened. One Saturday morning her call woke me up. She was very excited .I. She told me that she had got her dream job and would be relocating to a place, which was a day's journey from here. It took some time for me to digest this piece of information. I was happy for her for sure. But then, the pain of parting was too much for me to take. The week before she moved out was very painful.I remember being in tears .

She was the one consoling me all the time, telling me to be brave and assuring me that it is just a matter of time, when we will be together again." How can I be so emotional? ", I thought. I owed it all to the extent I loved her. She always seemed to put up a brave face, but I knew that she would also be going through the same emotions as I am. I was happy to have a partner, who can take the tough situations in life in her own stride.She departed after a week .I called her up everyday henceforth. Sometimes I think I overdid it .She also gave me frequent calls. I prayed for her happiness. The work never allowed me to leave the city and visit her. The same was the case with her. But never did it appear to me that we were far from each other.It went on very well for four months.

Slowly the calls started drying up from her end. Whenever I inquired, why was it so, she said that she was deeply buried in her work, and also insisted me to call less. The warmth and cheer in her voice was diminishing and the "chemistry " seemed to be not working all right. I just wished that this phase would get over soon. I had full faith that together we will be able to successfully come out of this.I still remember that Sunday morning .I had just woken up, after a long night at the office. She called me up and her voice sounded grave. I can still remember the words that tore me apart. "Honey! You have been a great companion to me, but then its time to be practical .I do not think that we will be able to pull on the relationship any further."I do not remember exactly when I came out from the shock. It was like someone whispering in my ears that today was the last day of my life.

There was emptiness .I do not know how many times I was dropped home from the bar totally drunk. It took some time for me to accept that she was no longer mine. Later I came to know that she had started dating a colleague of hers, which did not help my cause any further. The aroma of the rose had given way to suffocation. Then somehow I stabilized .All credit goes to my best friend who took me out of the situation I was in .I decided to resume the normal life and go to office again. As I was taking the mundane walk to the office the "Rose Shop "came. It filled me with anger and I had to vent it out. I found myself standing in the queue again. This time it was anger rather than anxiety.

I bought the rose. I came out of the shop and crushed the rose under my feet. I thought this would relieve me of pain. But as I watched the rose, which lay on the road badly crushed, I found myself losing control. Tears rushed from my eyes .I remembered all the sweet times that I had spent with her. Her smile on receiving the rose from me on the day when I proposed her flashbacked in front of my eyes. I picked up the rose, I crushed and kissed it and kept it in my pocket and stood there thinking that why she still mattered a lot to me, when for her I meant nothing..