Saturday, December 27, 2025

Haryana Launches ‘I Am Not Afraid Of English’ Campaign For Students

By
Sarrah
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Haryana Government has kick-started a new and unique initiative aimed at enabling students to read, write and speak in English right from class 1. Under the programme, touted as ‘I am not afraid of English’, one Junior Basic Training teacher and a Block Resource Person per block have been trained and tasked to make students learn one sentence every day. The entire exercise aims to inculcate minimum 20 sentences per month for 10 months in each class.

With this Haryana has become the only state in the country to launch such an initiative. English has become crucial in an individual’s academic and professional career but developing good communication skills in English is challenging. The bigger challenge is making English learning a pleasure.  Those who read for pleasure are autonomous language learners. For such people, language learning becomes an enjoyable experience, as they immerse themselves in reading and by default learn it by heart. This kind of reading may well be much more powerful as the pleasure component allows absorption of language without any anxiety, block, and fear of understanding.

Rajnarayan Kaushik, Director, Elementary Education told that children studying in government primary schools can take benefit of the programme ‘’I am not afraid of English’’ initiative which is aimed at introducing English right from Class 1. “It will enable teachers to help students read, write and speak English”.

The initiative has already been launched in 180 primary schools and will be introduced in 238 more in the current academic session, according to Rajnarayan Kaushik, Director, Elementary Education.

An NCERT booklet with 1,000 sentences and phrases has been prepared. It carries 200 sentences for each grade — from grade I to V. A primary teacher and one Block Resource Person has been trained to make students learn one sentence every day (minimum 20 per month for 10 months). In this way, students will be able to read and write at least 1,000 sentences until they graduate to the next level.”

Further, six language labs have been established in selected Model Sanskriti Schools across the state to facilitate digital learning and improve the listening and speaking skills of students. More such labs will be set up later in other schools. The 180 primary schools where the initiative, in partnership with NGO ‘Humana People to People India’, has been launched have been made bag-free for children in Classes I and II, who have been provided lockers.  Gradually, language labs will be set up in other schools of the state also. Bag-free English Medium Schools for classes 1st and 2nd have been started in selected 180 government primary schools of the state. Also, the Secondary Education Department has introduced science and mathematics books in English from Class IX onwards in 310 selected schools.

Last year, the Uttarakhand Government too had launched a similar drive, changing the medium of instruction in 18,000 schools from Hindi to English in phases, starting with Class I.

I’m not afraid of English

This slogan and objective of the Haryana Government at once speak of the recognition of a problem as well as a possible way to redress it. The Annual Status of Education Reports — which gauge learning among children in rural areas — have over the years revealed that the students’ ability to read simple sentences in English is substandard. In 2016, only 32 per cent pupils of class III could read simple words in the language. That, generally, is the norm in all primary classes. There is thus an urgent need to tackle the handicap head on to overcome it.

This initiative is aimed at equipping children to face the world and the job market.  Six language labs have been established in selected Model Sanskriti schools in the state to facilitate digital learning and improve listening and speaking skills of the students.

letters@tehelka.com

Pakistan poll results to impact India relations

By
Vipin Pubby
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No wonder that any civilian prime minister of Pakistan has completed five-year tenure and there have been no less than 30 prime ministers since its inception. Besides, it has seen 15 presidents and three constitutions during the period. It is now only the second time in its history that a civilian transition has taken place.

All through the campaign for the recently concluded elections, it was obvious that the army was backing the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. Therefore, the outcome of the elections to Pakistan National Assembly offered no surprise. Imran Khan had not only positioned himself as aligned to the army and was speaking its language, he had been projecting his arch-rival, Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), as pro-India and anti-Army. Even on the day of the polling, he had gone in the record to say that Nawaz Sharif has “interests of India” in mind rather than that of Pakistan.

It is known fact that Nawaz Sharif had been trying to assert himself when he was the prime minister. This was not to the liking of the powerful army establishment. The manner in which he was made to resign as prime minister and was barred from contesting elections or holding any public post for life made it apparent that he was being eased out deliberately. The charge against him was that he had not declared in his income tax returns that he might get some money from a company floated by his son. He had neither received the money nor were there any charges of corruption against him yet the country’s highest court held him guilty under Shariat law for not being truthful and honest. This rendered him ineligible for the post of prime minister and forced him to quit the office. It was widely believed that the army had engineered the action through the judiciary and that it was a “judicial coup”.

As if it was not enough, the National Accountability Commission decreed that he had bought apartments in London from “unaccounted money” and sentenced him to 10 years in jail. His daughter Maryam, who was also considered his heir apparent, too was given a seven-year jail term. This followed exposure through “Panama Papers” which had pointed that apartments were bought by the Sharif family out of illegal money stashed abroad. Again no corruption charge was proved against him.

His disqualification to contest for any public office and jail sentence became a major issue in the elections. In fact, he took a major gamble to evoke sympathy vote by landing in Pakistan on the eve of the elections after leaving his ailing wife in London. He and his daughter Maryam were arrested as soon as they landed in Pakistan. However, the gamble failed to pay off and his party lost the election. He is now likely to cool his heels in jail for a long time to come.

While the PML continues to hold considerable hold in the Punjab province, which dominates the politics in the country due to its sheer size and number of seats at stake, the hold of the Sharif family is likely to weaken with the defeat of his younger brother and former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif. He was being projected as the prime ministerial candidate if the party had won the National Assembly elections.

The victory of Imran Khan and his party may appear to be comparatively more favourable for India because of his familiarity with India and Indians. No other prime minister of Pakistan had visited or lived in India for such a long period as Imran Khan. As a national cricket player and then as captain of the national team he had been frequenting India and has a wide circle of friends and admirers. Even after his cricketing career, he had been visiting the country an expert commentator.

He had been a big votary for improving relations between the two countries and had been suggesting regular cricket tournaments, on the lines of Ashes Cup between England and Australia, to strengthen the ties.

However, there was a distinctive change in his stance towards India during the election campaign. He criticised India and accused India of doing everything to weaken the Pakistan army. He said Nawaz Sharif was also trying to do the same by admitting Pakistan’s role in the Mumbai attack. He also went on about of India-bashing which was not entirely unexpected.

During the run up for the elections, India was not in the main focus of campaigning as had been the case in the past. All the three major parties in the fray called for dialogue with India and reiterated the demand for resolution of the Kashmir issue as per the UN Security Council resolutions.

The two main rivals of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lead by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, have alleged mass rigging and interference of the Army behind their defeat. They have ‘refused’ to accept the result but there is little else they can do. The army had tried and tested the two parties for long and wanted to back someone who would remain under its pressure. It remains to be seen whether Imran Khan, with all his experience and international exposure, would over the time try to push reforms and mend fences with India. It is unlikely till the time he finds his political feet.

However, the biggest takeaway for India, as indeed it is for Pakistan, is that the extremist elements have been shown the door by Pakistani voters. Just as in India there has been declining support for extremist elements in various parts of the country, Pakistani voters have rejected representatives of such elements in no uncertain term.

Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, an internationally declared terrorist, had put up about 265 candidates for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures under the banner of Allah-o-Akbar Tehrik (AAT). His son and son-in-law were also among the contestants. The party drew a blank which reflects lack of mass support for such terrorist groups. The party was also backed by the army but the overwhelming public opinion against it should serve a lesson that ordinary people abhor violence and want peace.

Imran Khan is aware that he can’t hope to survive for long without the help and support of the army and shall have to, therefore, undertake a delicate balancing act. It is for this reason that India cannot expect any major policy shift in the near future.

While Imran Khan needs time to settle down and needs to find his feet, India cannot expect any major policy shift as regards to its relations with Pakistan. Thus while there is a change in government in the neighbouring country, there is no “regime change” and India would need to keep its fingers crossed over chances of improving relations with it.

 

letters@tehelka.com

Acute shortage of doctors adds to health woes

By
Shubhangi Singh
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Students remain seriously injured at the Gadchiroli general hospital. The ‘bomb’ fell in front of the school on Friday morning. The students had just finished their lunch in the government-run residential school for tribal children at Sawargaon, a village 250km from Nagpur, where Maharashtra meets Chhattisgarh.Photo by Tarun Kumar Sehrawat/Tehelka.

The groundwork of all happiness is good health. Yet, a measly health budget, severe shortage and uneven distribution of qualified doctors have impeded millions of Indians from enjoying their share of ‘India Shining’. Patients lying on stretchers in corridors of coveted government hospitals, stories of relatives carrying the deceased on shoulders (or carts) due to lack of suitable transport, support/sanitation staff stitching wounds, et al may sound unpalatable to some. Alas, it is but a familiar reality for majority of Indians, who have neither the access to the flashy private hospitals in metropolitan cities nor can they afford the same.

Since public health is not a major poll issue in India, successive governments have ignored it. As a result, the percentage of total national budget expenditure on health has remained shockingly low in India even in the post-reform era. While 2018 saw the announcement of world’s largest national health insurance program as the Ayushmann Bharat health scheme, there was a 2.1 per

cent decline in the allocation towards the National Health Mission, India’s largest programme for primary health infrastructure. According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), the Indian Government’s contribution to health insurance stands at roughly 32 per cent, as opposed to 83.5 per cent in the United Kingdom. Even countries with lesser infrastructure, like Sri Lanka and Thailand, spend more than double on public health as compared to India, in per capita terms. According to WHO’s findings last year the density of doctors at the national level was 79.7 per 100,000 people. Even countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and most South American nations have a better doctor-population ratio. 

WHO norms prescribe that there should be 1 doctor amongst a population of 1,000. As per information provided by Medical Council of India, there are a total 10,41,395 allopathic doctors registered with the State Medical Councils/Medical Council of India as on

September 30, 2017. Assuming 80  per cent availability, it is estimated that around 8.33 lakh doctors may be actually available for active service. Some states like Tripura have a Medical Council with no doctors registered with it. Out of these registered practitioners, only 1,14,969 (11 per cent) are government doctors. While Puducherry has 40 Public Health Centres (PHCs), Sikkim has only 24. There are some states like Chattisgarh where more than half the PHCs (390) function without a doctor. The national average is a little better. But with as many as 1,974 PHCs nationwide being run without a single doctor, the picture looks quite grim for the ever-surging number of patients in India. According to a recent report in The Tribune, the sleep lab at the PGI, Chandigarh has been closed due to acute shortage of doctors in the Neurology Department.

These centres follow a hub and spoke design. Each PHC is targeted to cover a population of approximately 25,000. The PHCs act as referral centres for Community Health Centres (CHCs), which are 30-bed hospitals at the district level. Figures say 12,263 specialists are required in community health centres, whereas 3,789 doctors are needed in primary health centres. The states that face an acute shortage of trained medical practitioners in PHCs are — Madhya Pradesh (614), Uttar Pradesh (1689), Assam (500), Orissa (413), Bihar (211), Gujarat (65) and Punjab (45). According to the Health Ministry’s latest statistics, the broad average might indicate a poor doctor-population ratio of around 1:1300 but government doctors in India are handling whopping levels of population, with each catering to 11,082 people. While nearly 70 per cent of the Indian population resides in rural areas, more than 60  per cent of the registered doctors are concentrated in urban areas, thus creating a highly skewed distribution and accessibility of basic health facilities.

So, the question arises that are we not producing enough doctors as a nation? There were only 19 medical colleges and universities imparting medical education in India at the time of independence. In the post-reform period, due to the rapid privatization of medical education, the total number of medical colleges increased rapidly to 412 by 2015. In 1990, 33  per cent of the medical colleges were privately owned, which increased to 57  per cent in 2011. The annual first-year graduate enrolment capacity in these colleges accounted for about 51,825 in 2015–2016 academic year. The number of doctors entered into Indian medical registers annually increased from about 4,066 in 1961 to 33,927 in 2011. This number, however, decreased to 26,342 in 2014. Consequently, the accumulated stock of registered doctors expanded from about 75,594 in 1960 to 9,43,529 by 2014.

The rapid growth of medical doctors through recent expansion of private medical education could not transform the basic health outcomes of the population in a significant way. The major reasons are: recent increase in the number of medical practitioners is not adequate to match the much rapid increase in aggregate health-care needs of the rising population; the higher capabilities and expectations of the medical practitioners, especially specialist doctors, do not match with the primary health-care requirements and affordability of the majority of people in rural areas; and increase in the number of registered doctors do not reflect the actual availability of doctors in the country because it does not take into account the attritions that occur due to death, retirement, emigration, discontinuation of practice, switching of profession, etc.

Another worrying trend is that the states which are the worst performers in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), for admission to MBBS courses, have the highest number of registered doctors. States like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had the lowest pass percentage in NEET at 39.57 and 39.55. While Maharashtra tops the list of registered doctors (1,53,513), Tamil Nadu is not far behind (1,26,399). Rajasthan, the best-performing state in NEET, has less than half the number of registered doctors. Some of these states were vociferous in their resistance to NEET and were had a notorious reputation of medical colleges ‘selling’ seats to potential students.

Yet training more doctors is but part of the solution, as it is becoming increasingly clear that India is in a highly competitive battle with developed countries to retain the services of those newly minted doctors. Out of the total number of graduates, about 10  per cent are opting for pastures abroad. Since the 1960s, India has been one of the most important source countries of medical doctors for the advanced countries, like US, UK, Canada and New Zealand. Despite the recent decline in the entry of Indian medical graduates to the US and UK, their accumulated stocks in these countries still remain staggeringly high. Gulf countries also host a significant number of Indian doctors. Although no reliable data are available, media reports indicate Gulf countries employ a large number of doctors from South Asia region. An estimated 20,000 doctors from South Asia, with a majority being from India, are present in the Gulf. Indian government figures indicate that 90,000 doctors trained in India were working outside the country in 2014. This constituted around 13  per cent of the active doctors in the country in 2014.

Moreover, most doctors who remain in India are more inclined to work in major cities. Currently, a public doctor posted in a Maharashtra village earns about 20000 — 25000 a month, meanwhile facing excess workloads, erratic working hours and poor living conditions. They can make more than double that by opening up a private clinic in the city with half the stress. While the skewed distribution of doctors in rural regions is often attributed to the unwillingness of doctors to work in difficult areas, others say not enough is being done to incentivise such postings. A resident of PGI, Lucknow shared, on condition of anonymity, “While doctors in government hospitals might have compulsory rural stints, a medical graduate from a private college only come to government hospitals for prestige. With the exorbitant fee structures in private colleges, their students cannot afford rural postings with low salaries and limited opportunities. On top of that, the limitation of resources adds a lot of burden on government doctors. Who would opt for so much mental stress for so little compensation?”

The recently announced Ayushmann Bharat Health scheme is a solution that is too little, too late. Speaking at the event for Amartya Sen’s book launch, development economist and activist Jean Dreze termed the soon-to-be-launched scheme a “hoax” as it was actually not big as it was being claimed to be. “The budget (for the scheme) for this year is 2,000 crore. Even if it is spent, it’s less than 20 rupees per person. It is projected as health insurance for 50 crore people, but it is virtually nothing”, said Dreze, who helped draft the first version of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). According to him, “There are issues of management, corruption, accountability, and ethics and so on. The main problem is healthcare is way down the political agenda.”

With six new AIIMS reeling under acute faculty shortage, the Centre is trying out ways to address their human resource challenges. With only about 31  per cent of the vacancies filled, the government may come out with new recruitment guidelines, with contractual appointments, increased stipend for visiting faculty, easing off some norms, etc. In some cases, state and central governments are opting for questionable short-term solutions to address the overall shortage of medical practitioners. The ministry of health and family welfare has introduced a controversial amendment in the draft National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, a wide-ranging legislation for reform in medicine, to allow nurses, homeopaths, Ayush practitioners and others trained in alternative medicine to practice conventional medicine after taking a bridge course, which doctors fear might promote quackery. Gujarat has employed an eccentric new tactic in response to mass shortages of medical staff across the state. The state is using children, some as young as eleven, as stand-in Bal Doctors within schools, who are only allowed to practice Ayush. To tide over the acute dearth of doctors in remote areas, Andhra Pradesh in southern India has launched a mobile health programme. Vans equipped with basic medical tools and skilled paramedics visit rural parts of the state to provide instant relief to patients.

To achieve the modest prescribed doctor-population ratio of 1:1000, India will need 2.07 million more doctors by 2030, according to a report in Indian Journal of Public Health. The National Health Policy (2017) has pledged to raise the public health expenditure from the current level of 1.1  per cent of the GDP to 2.5 per cent of the GDP by 2025. The prosperity of a nation can only be measured by the well-being of its subjects. If necessary measures are not taken soon to remedy the Indian health delivery system, an ever-growing unhealthy population will be a huge deterrent to the growth of our country.

letters@tehelka.com

Proposal to scrap UGC invites mixed reactions

By
Vivashwan Singh
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The present central government has a tendency to lean towards centralising power and promote commoditization. However, the recent directive on scrapping UGC is an important step. The new draft law, the Higher Education Commission of India Bill proposes to revamp the governance of higher education in India. The Bill seeks to replace the UGC Act, 1956, and restructure the UGC as the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). The body, in its new form, will focus on setting, maintaining and improving academic standards in universities.

The government has also decided to develop norms for setting standards for opening and closure of institutions, provide for greater flexibility and autonomy to institutions, lay standards for appointments to critical leadership positions at the institutional level irrespective of University started under any Law (including State Law).

The present government has a highly technocratic attitude, even when it comes to the UGC. The number of academics in the UGC has been sharply reduced. The communalisation of higher education goes hand-in-hand with a strengthening of caste prejudices. What is even more shocking is the fact that there is no reservation for women/Dalit/OBC scholars in the proposed Higher Education Commission.

It is full of bureaucrats, academic bureaucrats including vice-chancellors, professors, who are controlled by the state. The proposed Higher Education Commission of India, will have comparatively lesser academics than the UGC. Out Of the total 12 members of the commission, there will be three bureaucrats — the secretary of Higher Education, secretary of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and secretary, Department of Science and Technology.

It’s obvious that a commission largely consisting of bureaucratic academics will sharply reduce the academic component of the UGC with a bias towards white-collar professionalism. The communalisation of education actually meshes well with commodification. The self-centred individuals designed for the neo liberal market that capitalism produces, not only carry over the prejudices that they may have imbibed early, but even strengthen these prejudices, of people being judged by the money they have and the marginalised and the oppressed, such as the minorities, are looked upon with contempt.The draft should have mentioned that due or fair representation should be given to marginalised social groups, genders and minority communities.

According to Professor Prabhat Patnaik, professor emeritus of economics at JNU, the HECI, in all probability, will end up being a bureaucratic body, based on the current government’s leaning towards neoliberal development. The academic institutions in India have never been totally free from government interference but with the HRD ministry controlling university funding directly, the feasibility of political interference in the running of our institu-tions will increase to large extent.

Giving ‘autonomy’ to institutions is one of the key points in the proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). Although giving autonomy by itself is not a bad proposal and universities need autonomy to function effectively, but the present government’s autonomy plan has come with a package of cost cutting and raising fees. It is a matter of fixing fees, in which large numbers of students belonging to backward economic backgrounds wont get the access to higher education, unless they are willing to take student loans. Considering the large scale unemployment that prevails in our country, if the students take loans, then a large number of them will be unable to pay back the loan and will lead to mass suicides, similar to the prevailing peasant suicides.

In the name of autonomy the government is moving towards the privatisation of higher education. The HECI aims to establish a tiered system of higher education with a class division: the first tier for the elite, the second for the middle class and the third for the masses. If implemented we would have ‘world-class’ universities with full autonomy and exorbitant fees but also a sea of common students in the third tier having no recognition from the government. It is unclear how the universities are going to function in the absence of the UGC. We don’t know about how institutes will get their funds, and to whom will they be affiliated. In absence of the government’s intervention, they are likely to be dependent on crony capitalists for funding. It will lead to more control of higher education being handed over to the political-corporate nexus.

The funding and academic decision-making should be done by an autonomous body on the basis of academic criteria, and it should be at an arm’s length of any political institution. The current reform is an attempt to further exonerate the State from its financial responsibility towards higher education. Whereas, the need of the hour is a meaningful reform of higher education that can address concerns of access, equity and affordability. It will further envisage the creation of autonomous colleges which would have considerable freedom in the matter of admissions, syllabus and the fees. This will advance the racket of “self-financing professional colleges” with their “management quotas” to the higher education sector as a whole.

The UGC had often prevented the direct interference of governments in educational institutions but when institutional heads feel that funding is under the direct control of the Ministry, they will be forced to carry out what is said to them even informally. India is a vast country and our socio-political dynamics varies from state to state. The government can create a body like HECI but the situation should allow those norms, should see the diversity and variation and whether they can help the state situation. The reforms in higher education have to respond to the need of affordability, accessibility, quality and must respond to social responsibility of providing education to all.

letters@tehelka.com

Presence of a ‘lake’ on Mars raises hope for life

By
Younis Dar
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Scientists have announced the discovery of a possible lake, buried a mile under the ice near the South Pole on Mars. A Mars orbiter has detected a lake about 20 kilometers across, buried under layers of solid ice.

Combining more than three years of observations from the European Space Agency’s orbiting Mars Express spacecraft, Roberto Orosei of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Bologna, Italy and his colleagues pieced together possible evidence to show the possibility of a lake on Mars, in a report which was published online on July 25 in the journal, Science.

Planetary scientist, Briony Horgan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana said, “This is potentially a really big deal. It’s another type of habitat in which life could be living on Marstoday.”

The MARSIS instrument of the Mars Express orbiter, which stands for Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, aimed radar waves at the planet to probe beneath its surface. Combining the 29 radar observations taken over three years, MARSIS revealed a bright spot in the ice layers near the South Pole of the planet.

Orosei and his colleagues considered other explanations for the bright spot, but the presence of a lake seemed to the most plausible. The lake is probably not pure water, considering the temperatures at that depth can reach -68° Celsius and pure water would freeze there. But a lot of salt, in particular magnesium, calcium, and sodium compounds are known as perchlorates, which are readily found on the surface of Mars, dissolved in the water could lower that freezing point. Scientists suggest the pool could also be more mud than water, but that could still be a habitable environment.

“If this [lake] is confirmed, it’s a substantial change in our understanding of the present-day habitability of Mars,” said Lisa Pratt, NASA’s planetary protection officer.

The MARSIS team has been searching since Mars Express began orbiting the Red Planet in 2003, although under-ice lakes were first hinted at back in 1987. It took the team more than a decade to collect enough data to convince themselves the lake was real.

Extensive observations by different space agencies have hinted that Mars was once a wet world, after analyzing the ancient waterways on the planet.

The scientists can’t confirm how deep the lake really is; the radar pulses from the MARSIS instrument bounce off the surface of the water, but can’t reach the bottom. They, however, say it has to be at least a meter deep.

The observation has stunned the space enthusiasts around the world, as it adds to the possibility of a living life on the red planet. It may take a while to confirm whether it is really a lake of water, considering it is not very easy to investigate at such a dept with limited technology. Scientists could get a robot to the designated place and drill underground till 1.5 kilometres in order to establish the presence of water.

However, the development marks a remarkable step in the search for life on other planets. Possibilities of future human missions to the planet will require basic sustenance for life, the presence of water is one of them. There are about a dozen rovers and satellites actively studying Mars and have been able to beam back significant and critical data, which could help in further understanding of the planet.

The surface of Mars may be inhospitable today, but NASA says there is clinching evidence that in the distant past, the Martian climate allowed liquid water, which is an essential ingredient for life.

Another recent announcement by NASA about the presence of organic molecules that might have supported ancient life had the scientists rubbing their hands in glee. NASA’s Curiosity rover in June this year had found new evidence preserved in the rocks on Mars that suggest the planet could have supported life in the past. The rich soup of carbon compounds present on its surface that are necessary for life, at least as we know it, raised the confidence of researchers about the presence of life sometime in the past on the red plant. The presence of Methane in the atmosphere also adds to the enthusiasm, and the seasonal variation of its composition — similar to the behaviour observed on earth — was a shot in the arm.

Significant breakthroughs have already been achieved as far as Mars is concerned, a planet which excites the imagination of the planetary scientists world over. The reason for that is simple. Mars is the most probable candidate where life could be found on the solar system — or could be made to exist — considering its environment and proximity to the sun.

Further, the proliferation of private space agencies has now once again excited the interest of space enthusiasts, which have exacerbated the research and development of rockets and satellites. A prominent example is that of SpaceX, the brainchild of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. SpaceX has been doing unparalleled research in exploring the future avenues of space transportation. And the company has been stunningly successful in developing cutting-edge space transportation technologies, edging out even NASA, by bagging top of the line rocket building and launching contracts.

SpaceX is currently developing a mega rocket, known as BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), slated to be about 348 feet (106 meters) tall by 30 feet (9 m) wide, which plans to transport humans to Mars by 2024. The company is already in plans to develop space transportation vessels that take humans beyond earth’s orbit to our neighbouring celestial bodies.

Many other private companies are in the fray, competing and researching for extensive space transportation projects. Another private company, Virgin Galactic, successfully conducted its flight tests to take tourist to low earth orbits. Started by the British Entrepreneur Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic joins the race for space tourism that promises to hold good potential. The company is also exploring to develop space missions beyond the earth’s orbit.

To sum it all up, the human interest in space exploration is again on full throttle. As our home planet hots up owing to global warming, scientists are already on a look out for new planets for possible human colonization, to give humanity an alternative. While the cold war had heated up the space race resulting in a series of hugely successful Apollo missions, the enthusiasm had somehow died down post the 80s. The colossal budget constraints involved in space transportation had also discouraged the space agencies worldwide, leading to a sluggish period in research and development of new missions.

Human interests will, however, continue to stick to Mars for now, which might serve as an emergency ‘refuge’ for humanity in a possible future global catastrophe. As earth’s resources dry up and carbon dioxide accumulates, scientists are convinced the humanity has to explore avenues beyond our own planet. As the scientists point their focus towards newer planets for possible extraterrestrial life, we can only hope they find something the mere knowledge of which makes us jump in exaltation.

letters@tehelka.com

Revising MSP for crops not enough to revive agriculture sector

By
Komal Amit Gera
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Farmer works in a paddy field in Nimati, 322 kilometers (201 miles) east of Gauhati, India, Wednesday, May 31, 2006. Annual monsoon rains arrived ahead of schedule with the metrological forecast showing conditions favorable for further progress of monsoon in south and eastern India. (AP Photo/ Anupam Nath)

There are some puzzling questions pertaining to the recent hike in Minimum Support Price of Kharif crops set by the government. The important questions which every stakeholder of the agrarian sector has in their minds are: Is it a bona fide effort by the ruling government to mitigate the prevailing crisis in agriculture? Is the formula adopted to reckon the revised Minimum Support Price (MSP) of 14 crops based on the recommendations of MS Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations? Does the government have men and machinery to actually procure crops other than wheat and paddy? Do we actually have the scientific storage capacity to accommodate the crops classified under the revised price regime? Do the thanksgiving rallies organised by the political outfits and addressed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi actually evince the sentiments of the farmers over the price hike of certain crops? Is the euphoria created over MSP hike real or designed? The list can be infinite. Nevertheless, the most perturbing question is whether MSP regime is relevant in the post-liberalisation era?

India opened the floodgates of economy in 1991 under the new liberalised policy and exposed farmers to international market. The Indian farmers, who were operating under a protective regime, were suddenly exposed to face more advanced, global players. Liberalisation of imports of commodities at a cheaper price pushed Indian farmer at an edge and his condition started deteriorating.

Lack of awareness, education and financial strength denied the farmers from accessing the benefits, if any, of opening up of Indian economy.

The languishing agrarian society had big hopes from the government elected in 16th Lok Sabha as there was a lot of impetus on worsening condition of farmers and implementation of Swaminathan Commission’s report prior to assuming power.

Post elections, Modi government left the farmers in the lurch and disgruntled farmers resorted to protests. It is again a political compulsion to harbour the favour of rural vote bank during the last leg of its tenure, that the government paid some heed on the MSP of crops. The revision in MSP may entail an additional burden of an estimated 33,500 cr on the exchequer; it has not been able to appease the farmers.

A large number of farmers; who are teetering on the brink of a debt trap find it as a short-term relief. But their problems are chronic and momentous and the Government lacks the intention to pull them out of the quagmire of distress.

Post MSP announcement, The NITI (National Institute for Transforming India) Ayog invited select farmers’ representatives to take their feedback on the proposal to engage Commission Agents on behalf of Government to procure the crops wherever there is a space constraint to store the crops. The farmer representatives disagreed. Talking to Tehelka, Bhupinder Singh Mann, Chairman, All India Kisan Coordination Committee said that there is an absolute callousness on the part of Niti Ayog. They want to put up political agents in the garb of procurement front man dole out funds in the name of storage expenses.

Mann added that depreciation is counted for in every production process. In agriculture, depreciation of land, micro-nutrients, depletion of underground water has not been considered by Dr Swaminathan. This is a blatant injustice to the farmers.

The brainstorming sessions of the farmers have been planned in the next month to mobilise the producers on the miscalculation of the remuneration of the crops so that political parties may not reap dividends over the false announcements in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections, he informed.

In the state of Maharashtra, farmers look beyond MSP and find MSP as only a safety measure. Gunvant Patil Hangergar, a farmer based at Nanded in Maharashtra and Secretary of All India Kisan Coordination Committee told that time has come when the agriculture should be liberalised. “We want to have an open market price and operate in a free market. The government intervention does not solve the problem rather aggravates it. Our farmers start growing crops in expectation of assured return even if it disturbs the ecological balance and is a drain on our natural endowments. Water guzzling crops like paddy and sugarcane are not suitable for the states like Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra but we them year-after-year. The volatility of price in crops other than paddy and sugarcane propels us towards these crops. If there is a glut in the market, prices crash due to over-supply and farmer is hit. Ironically, the farmer is a loser during scarcity too. If the crop fails due to a natural calamity and prices surge in the wake of supply constraint, the government intervenes and prices are suppressed. So, the farmer would lose in both the situation. Government procures close to 38 per cent of total paddy produced and the largest chunk of this is procured from the states of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh” said Patil.

He added that the MSP of Cotton has been revised from 4,150 per quintal to approximately 4600 per quintal for Kharif Marketing season 2018.

This is approximately 12 per cent revision over last year. This is far below the estimated cost of 7225 per quintal of cotton cultivation calculated by the Agriculture Universities.

Maharashtra farmers are unhappy and will take the feedback of the ffarmers and decide the future course of action.

Farmers in Maharashtra have been groping in the dark to deposit the premium of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna. While the deadline for premium is July 31, servers are down across the state for the past many days. Making the procedures on-line have increased the hardships of the farmers as most of them do not understand this and totally dependent on whatever information is provided to them.

Even in so-called affluent states of Punjab and Haryana- hailed as the backbone of procurement system-farmers are dissatisfied over the MSP hike. Guni Prakash, a farmer leader from Haryana is a worried lot for diesel prices have shot up. A revision of about 200 per quintal in the MSP of paddy would be absorbed by spiralling cost of diesel and labour, he tells. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana pay high lease cost (30,000 – 50,000 per acre) which has not been incorporated in MSP.

While farmers have their own concerns over the fair price of crop, Economists assess the present situation as precarious where the politics has overshadowed economics. Professor Satish Verma, RBI Chair Professor at Centre for Research in Industrial and Rural Development, Chandigarh analysed that Agriculture is a double-edged sword that mostly works against the farmers. He observes that farmers earn lower returns if there is excess production during a particular season. Farmer is again in the eye of the storm if production falls due to a natural calamity. The Government would release the accumulated stocks of the agricultural commodities and augment domestic supplies by imports from abroad to dampen the inflated prices of these commodities. Moreover, farmers get merely a fraction of the price paid by the consumers for their produce, while the lion’s share is appropriated by the middlemen; thereby causing farmers to suffer regressive income distribution.

Farmers are used merely as a vote bank as we observe the trend that debt relief and price hikes are announced before elections. Economics does not support doles. But economics has taken a back seat. There is an urgent need to ramp up public investment in farming and take measures to raise the productivity. The exhilaration over MSP revision is short-lived and farmers need a sustainable solution to wade through the agriculture crisis.

The state of affairs in the largest producing state of India-Uttar Pradesh- is miserable as farmers mostly engage in to distress selling. Ajay Anmol, the Convenor of Kisan Andolan in Uttar Pradesh told that farmer of this state is a dejected lot for he has not experienced the MSP procurement system. “A higher or lower MSP is irrelevant for farmers if they are not entitled to it. The dynamics of agriculture are such that the more we produce the less we earn and the less we produce, the less we earn. Even a single crop loss pushes the small and marginal farmers into a debt trap and it takes years and generations to repay”.

He added that India is predominantly an agricultural country and we do not have an agriculture policy. It is imperative to frame an agriculture policy to guarantee our farmers a profitable income. MSP needs to be revised to match the inflation but at the same time, infrastructure support for the farming sector also needs to be stimulated.

One of the reasons for less procurement in states other than Punjab and Haryana is the lack of awareness. He apprised that they are mobilizing the farmers in Uttar Pradesh about the MSP mechanism and inform them to come forward for higher price.

Land acquisition under Section 17 by Government in the last few years in Uttar Pradesh is another issue that has undermined farmers’ income. Land acquired has not been put to a productive use. Farmers in Uttar Pradesh are fighting against the misuse of Section 17 and demanding the ownership back. Prime Minister Modi said he should give a chance to the farmers for direction interactions as he does with industrialists. There are a plethora of issues; a meagre increment, per se, in few crops cannot turn the tide.

According to All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), an outfit comprising of 200 farmers’ organisations across India, the Central Government which promised the farmers 50per cent prifit on comprehensive cost (C2) as mentioned in Swaminathan Commission’s Report, has betrayed the farmers by adopting the same formula of A2+FL by which the UPA Government under the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh fixed the MSP for crops. It held a protest march from Mandi House to Parliamentary Street on 20 July terming MSP of Modi as a fraud.

MSP hike announced by the Government does not meet the farmers’ expectations. While PM Modi claims that he has fulfilled his poll promise, there is no guarantee of remunerative minimum support price. After the announcement, the real challenge is in implementation. The major constraint faced by the farmers during the procurement process is Fair Average Quality of Crops, which is difficult to maintain. Furthermore, malpractices in the issue of the certificate by agents to farmers and selling it under MSP in the name of farmers make the ground level implementation of such proposals extraneous.

letters@tehelka.com

The role of wife in Buddha’s life

By
Humra Quraishi
-

Edited Excerpts from an interview

Why and how did you think in terms of writing this book and that on a rather sensitive topic?

I had just finished a big academic project and was wondering what my next step would be. I considered another academic book, but the process of academic writing suddenly seemed repetitive. While I am very grateful for all that I have learned as a scholar, I realized that part of my trade is to stand outside the tradition and attempt to look in. It is very stand-off-ish — like spending one’s life studying dance, but never quite trying to dance oneself. So instead of launching myself into yet another study, I decided to do things differently and attempt to participate in the tradition by writing the tradition (rather than writing about it). I wanted to feel the characters and become them. Not just analyze what others have imagined for me.

There is an immense pain in this story of Buddha’s wife. What were your own personal reactions whilst researching and then writing this book?

The pain is indeed immense. I felt her pain and sometimes felt as though I was getting lost in it. I had a very difficult time relating to the Buddha for a while as a result. I could not understand his behavior, his selfishness. But with time, that passed. I began to understand not just her pain, but the pain that is life’s complexity. The pain of the story does not belong exclusively to her. Everyone suffered — the kingdom, the king, the horse  Kanthaka, the chariot driver, the ministers. His decision to leave home broke everyone’s heart. And because of that, I had to imagine that it also broke his. It was the only way I could come to terms with the story. I could not relate to a Buddha who walked away without a second glance. I had to imagine his pain, imagine the torture he must have experienced as he negotiated the call he felt himself pulled to follow. He had the best possible life, with the most loving companion. It had to have been painful for him to leave, as much as it was painful for her to be left behind.

Comment on the irony that looms large : Buddha not just left his wife at a rather crucial juncture but even took away his 7-year-old son with him. How would you describe this pain inflicted on his wife?

The fact that the Buddha returned seven or eight years later only to take his son with him (and away from her) is perhaps the most difficult part of the story. I struggled with that scene more than any other, because from her perspective, it was devastating. I was therefore forced to try to understand it from his perspective and it was not easy. But I think I made my peace with that point of the hagiography. I interpreted it as a kind of Buddhist upanayana, with Rahula being offered his sacred education from his father, who is also now his guru. In this way, I think the Buddha’s decision to take his son makes sense. And, Yasodhara has to learn to let go. It is perhaps akin to our having to let our children leave home to go to college. Granted, that happens at a much later age, but I feel like it is a similar experience.

You could have written this story as non-fiction but you opted to write it as novel. Why?

I wanted to try to become the story and not stand outside it anymore. I have written quite a bit as a scholar. It was time to try something else.

Power but no power for civil servants

By
Humra Quraishi
-
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi being introduced to the Secretaries to the Government of India, before the meeting with the Secretaries, in New Delhi on June 04, 2014.

Ever wondered why civil servants pick up adequate courage to write their memoirs only after they retire? Well, because there is no pressure of getting hauled up by the establishment for speaking out or writing beyond the (politically) set parameters! In fact, even then, at that retired stage, only few manage to write along the absolutely stark format. Perhaps, all through their training period and the service years, the very tendency has been to refrain from offloading, to be confined within the safe zone; where there is less fear of getting hounded by the political bosses.

Look at the way the establishment has reacted to the J&K cadre bureaucrat, Shah Faesal’s  tweet on the rapes taking place in the country. The tweet reads “Patriarchy+Population+Illiteracy+Alcohol+Porn+Technology+Anarchy = Rapistan!”

The Centre was not just fumed but has ordered an action against this topper  bureaucrat of the 2011 batch.  In fact, Shah Faesal, 35, is the only IAS officer from Jammu and Kashmir to have ever topped the civil services and  he is currently an  Edward S Mason Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School on study leave.

Tell me, what’s amiss in his tweet! Perhaps, he should have added a couple of additional words — Lynchistan or Jungle Raj or Murderous Rulers to relay the  realities of the day.

Also, doesn’t a civil servant carry the basic right to spell out the realities of the day? Nah! not just in the dusty files but for the masses he is supposed to administer.Of course, in today’s lopsided governance the civil servant is reduced to serving only the political rulers and not the ordinary folk who are kept at a distance with security phobias  hovering around just about anyone fitted in  the rulers’ slot.

And if a civil servant dares to talk aloud or write candidly, he is singled out, readied to be suspended, if not mauled in varying ways.

The  first  bureaucrat who was hounded by the then establishment was Chaturvedi Badrinath of the Tamil Nadu cadre. This was in the early 70s when controversy erupted in the backdrop of the governmental venture — ‘Time Capsule’. And this bureaucrat raised several pertinent queries in the context of the historical contents to be embedded in that capsule. Needless to add, this up right bureaucrat’s career was severely affected. But, not his morale and confidence.

During several interviews with me, he had detailed that even after he was suspended and questioned, he remained firm on his stand and then  took to writing on ‘Dharma’.

Later, of course, he tool premature retirement and  moved far away from babugiri towardsthe world of academics and wrote  books after another till he died in 2010 , in Puducherry .

Coming back to today’s India, the situation stands compounded. Even before the government’s order, the Right wing goon brigades will do so.

Even the political preferences of the civil servants have to be kept away from public domain. In 2016, didn’t we witness the plight of the Madhya Pradesh bureaucrat, Ajay Singh Gangwar, who was handed his transfer orders after he praised former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on Facebook. Gangwar, then collector of Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh, had to even delete one of his posts which  appeared to be indirectly critical of the BJP.

And early this year, 2018, Bareilly district magistrate Raghvendra Vikram Singh was also charged with violating service rules after he put up Facebook posts that appeared to blame right-wing brigades for provoking communal clashes in certain districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Soon after communal rioting broke out in Kasganj, Singh wrote  on Facebook — “Ajab riwaz ban gaya hai. Muslim mohallo main julus le jao aur Pakistan murdabad ke nare lagao. Kyun bhai woh Pakistani hain kya? (A strange tradition has come up. To visit Muslim areas and raise slogans against Pakistan. Why, are they (Muslims) Pakistanis)?”

In fact, last year Singh had written a similar post, where he had hit out with this fact — in Khelam area of Bareilly, a group of kanwariyas, went through a Muslim-dominated village and had raised provocative slogans …But this brave upright civil  servant who had dared to speak out was made to remove his Facebook post.

Around the time of rioting in Kasganj, at least two senior officers posted there were heard and seen on the television saying that just as several young boys of the Muslim dominated locality of Kasganj were readying to unfurl the National Flag, men on bikes, said to be affiliated to the VHP and other Hindutva brigades, not just disrupted the about- to -begin flag hoisting function but raised provocative slogans.

Not to be overlooked the fact that Yogi Adityanath government transferred district police chief Sunil Kumar Singh after communal rioting in Kasganj, because he had also bared out another of those dark truths of the communal madness.

Not sure what punishment was meted to the then district magistrate of Kasganj as he too was honest about the ground realities prevailing in today’s Uttar Pradesh. To quote him from a news report – “fringe groups coming up in every part of the state, taking the same ugly route to instigate people of the minority community by forcefully entering their locality in the name of nationalism.”

Tell me what’s amiss if a civil servant speaks out and hits out at the dark realities of the day! After all, he is focusing on the ground realities.

letters@tehelka.com

Wholesale Price Index or Wholesale Worries?

By
Bharat Hiteshi
-

The reason for rise in wholesale price inflation may be varied-hefty rise in petrol prices, costly food and other manufactured goods and services, but wholesale price inflation soaring to a four-and-a-half year high is a big cause of concern for the nation. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) as a measure of price gains according to the latest data shows a sharp surge in wholesale inflation in June to a 54-month high of 5.77 per cent. It may not be a cause of concern for the Reserve Bank of India because the RBI gives consideration to retail inflation for hiking the interest rates. However, wholesale price inflation is sure to exert added pressure on the RBI to make changes in policy rates. After all monetary policy formulation not only depends on Consumer Price Index (CPI)but equally on wholesale price index. Little doubt the significance of Wholesale Price Index cannot be diminished.

To add to the woes of the nation is the retail inflation, which has shown upward trends. Only in May 2018, the CPI had gone upwards of four per cent and now it has crossed five per cent. At four per cent, the consumer price index is just one per cent lower than the danger mark of six per cent. It is in this light that one notes that the RBI had to hike the repo rate by 25 basis points during May 2018 after the consumer price index went past four per cent.

Double whammy

In such a scenario, the RBI is left with no option but to raise interest rates to contain inflation. The RBI measure aims to protect the poor from price rise for the present and for future. While it happens, the industry suffers because it cannot expect a rate cut from the RBI. When the manufacturing sector and services sectors are hit, the growth rate is automatically hit.

The rising crude oil prices that Tehelka had highlighted in its cover story Fuel on Fire in June have started pushing inflation to a new high. The Index of Industrial Production for June reveals how macroeconomic activity has been affected by contributing significantly to a 214 basis points in June 2018. Thanks to all these contributing factors, the inflation has risen from 4.55 points in February 2018 to 16.18 per cent by June. Then food, fruits and vegetables are another cause of worry. The inflation in vegetable prices more than tripled in pace from 2.51 per cent in May to 8.12 per cent in June. The manufacturing sector is also a cause of worry for the upward trend in inflation. The inflation in the manufacturing sector including basic metals that includes a range of goods from alloy steel castings, stainless steel tubes to copper plates and aluminium sheets showed inflation of 17.34 per cent.

IMF forecast

In its latest report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has brought down its growth forecast for India by 10 basis points to 7.3 per cent for 2018-19. Significantly, it has downgraded the growth rate by 30 basis points to 7.5 per cent for 2019-20. The main reason for the downward revision is raising fuel prices. What could add to inflation is that the government has already announced higher minimum support prices (MSPs) for Kharif crops, which will have an inflationary impact.

As general election 2019 is less than a year from hence, it is expected that the government will announce several popular schemes ahead of it to woo voters. This is sure to further increase the fiscal deficit and eventually affect economic growth and lead to further inflation. The monsoon is already deficient and it could add to the miseries of the economy.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has also raised its inflation the projection for India to 5 per cent from 4.6 per cent for 2018-19.

Again the reasons are higher crude oil prices, depreciation of the rupee and increase in minimum support prices. The Asian Development Outlook (ADO) released in April observed that the upward revision “responds to higher oil prices, significant depreciation of the Indian rupee in the past few months, and generous increases announced on July 4 in minimum support prices for summer crops, by which the government intervenes in markets to protect agricultural producers from any sharp fall in farm prices.” The International Monetary Fund had also lowered its growth projection for India by 10 basis points to 7.3 per cent because of higher oil prices and speedier interest rate increases by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) due to higher than expected inflation.

Hope still thrives

However, ADB said India is expected to achieve its earlier growth forecasts of 7.3 per cent in 2018-19 and 7.6 per cent in 2019-20 in view of higher recovery from the goods and services tax (GST). In 2017-18, the Indian economy grew at 6.7 per cent. ADB said growth gained momentum in Q4 of 2017-18 as GDP expansion reached 7.7 per cent.

The ADB report said that the “Other key drivers of growth include an uptick in public consumption, which is typical before elections, and a recovery in exports following shortages of working capital related to a new goods and services tax.

Private consumption is expected to grow at a healthy rate as disruption caused by demonetisation in 2016 fades. Capacity utilisation rates are at its highest in four years and should provide incentives to firms to invest.”

 However, many analysts do not rule out the RBI going for another round of rate hike in near future.  The RBI had on June 6, 2018, raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent. It was the first rate hike in more than four years due to higher risks from rising inflation.

The Economic Survey 2017-18 presented on January 29, 2018 had estimated that every $10 per barrel increase in the price of oil reduces economic growth by 0.2-0.3 percentage points and increases wholesale inflation by about 1.7 percentage points and widens the current account deficit by about $9-10 billion.

This is what is actually happening and it confirms the theory that Wholesale Price Index rise would mean wholesale worries for the economy.

letters@tehelka.com

Tension Erupts As 40 Lakh Names Missing In NRC

By
Abdul Wasey
-
People stand in queue to see thier names in National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft at NRC Seva Kendra at Hatigaon in Guwahati, on Monday 1st January 2018.. National Register of Citizens (NRC), a massive exercise that intends to enlist all Indian citizens living in Assam. . Photo-DASARATH DEKA

The complete draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) was released on July 30. Names of more than 40 lakh people were missing from it. The development sparked uproar. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC were imposed in several districts of Assam to maintain law and order. Political parties remained split over the issue.

Publishing the document, Register General of India, Shailesh, said out of the 3,29,91,384 applicants, the names of 2,89,83,677 people had figured in the draft. The deficit was of 40,07,707. The part draft, published on December 31 last year, had the names of 1.9 crore people. Later, the cases of 1.5 lakh people, whose names had figured in it, were kept in abeyance. The citizenship fate of 1.39 crore applicants was to be decided in the complete draft. However, Sailesh refused to give figures of the complete draft.

“People, whose names have not figured in NRC, need not worry. Neither they will be branded foreigners nor will punitive action be taken against them. They will get an opportunity to file claims and objections. The names of no genuine Indians will be left out,” Sailesh said. “We will maintain status quo as regards the fate of those whose names have not figured in NRC till the final draft is published”.

The Centre, meanwhile, had dispatched 220 additional companies of central paramilitary forces to the state. Prohibitory orders were enforced for an indefinite period in Barpeta, Darrang, Sonitpur, Dima Hasao, Bongaigaon, Dhubri, Karimganj and Golaghat districts. As many as 22 localities in Guwahati are sensitive, according to Police Commissioner Hiren Nath.

The updation of NRC has been in deference to the Assam Accord of 1985 which the then Rajiv Gandhi government had signed with the All Assam Students’ Union at the end of six-year bloody Assam Agitation. As per the exercise, which is being directly monitored by the Supreme Court, people, who entered Assam after March 24, 1971, will be viewed as illegal immigrants. However, they will get a window of 30 days to file claims and objections. Eventually, the final NRC will be published.

The Congress has questioned the non-inclusion of over 40 lakh people in the complete draft of the NRC and alleged it was a “motivated” action by the BJP which was trying to play “politics of polarisation”.

Former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who had spearheaded the six-year-long Assam agitation against foreigners and was a signatory to the historic Assam Accord, told PTI that the central government “must deport people, who have come after March 24, 1971, to their original country”.

AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal said exclusion of 40 lakh people was “not a small matter” and the party will provide assistance to all people whose names did not feature in the draft to ensure that no genuine Indian citizen is left out. He however, added that everyone should wait for the final list.

Assam PCC President Ripun Bora hoped that the Centre would implement in letter and spirit Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s statement that no genuine citizen would be left out. Veteran Assam Congress leader and former chief minister Tarun Gogoi said that 40 “is a big figure” and he feared that most of them are “genuine” Indian citizens. Many people had expected that a correct NRC draft will be published, but that has not been done, he said adding the BJP government in the state has not given any actual figure of foreigners in Assam till today. “In my opinion most of those whose names have been excluded are genuine Indian citizens and in this list people across communities have been excluded including many Hindus and Bengali speaking people,” Gogoi said.

The BJP government, he said, is saying that those excluded from the NRC need not fear and would be allowed to file claims and corrections. “This proves that BJP itself admits that genuine Indians are being excluded because if they are foreigners why are they being allowed to file claim when they should be identified and corrective action be taken”.

He claimed the “double standards” of BJP have been “exposed” as they first said that they will protect Hindu Bengalis but are “now targeting even those among them who were part of pre-1971 India”.

“Unfortunately NRC’s original objective remains unfulfilled even after crores of rupees being spent in updating it”, he said.

He claimed that Union Minister Rajnath Singh is now trying to shift the blame of the “weak implementation” to the Supreme Court. “It is shameful as the Supreme Court has never directed that genuine Indian citizens be harassed.”

Welcoming the publication of the complete draft, Mahanta said names of genuine Indian citizens should be there. This was not the final NRC and “we should wait for the final publication of the NRC”, he said.

AIUDF’s Ajmal said non-inclusion of over 40 lakh people “is not a small matter though we must take into account that this is not the final NRC and we must wait for it”.

All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) General Secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said the draft publication is “a historic moment after the signing of the Assam Accord”.

Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) Advisor Akhil Gogoi also welcomed the publication of the draft and assured legal help to genuine Indian citizens.

 

letters@tehelka.com

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