Bright minds and Dark Angels

Being a 5-pointer proves to be too much for these bright students and they fail to deal with the pressure.

Dad – sorry I couldn't be a better son to you… all you asked was my betterment of my career and future and I couldn't give it to you… I have failed you dad and I am so sorry about it. I cannot show my face to you

Mom – Sorry mom, I really did love you more than dad….

I was weak I thought I could become strong but I was weak, I was so so so weak the fault is my own. The fault is my own. Hope something good happens with my death. Firestallion has left the building…

I wish to donate my eyes and internal organs…. At least somebody can be benefitted with my death.

In another 2 min it will be 3:13 both my fav numbers. awesome time to die 

These were Nitin Kumar Reddy's last words in an email he sent to his father. The final-year M.Tech student at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his hostel room after he got a semester extension.

Straight out of Raju Hirani's blockbuster 3 Idiots, Nitin aka Firestallion aka Swamy was on the verge of completing his final-year project, but could not meet the deadline. Unable to face the embarrassment of not graduating with his batch, he “left the building”.

'' I had told him not to worry; I would sort it out,'' says Nitin's father, Lakshmana Moorthy, who was to land in Chennai by the first flight the next morning. “I had left my office to attend a meeting. I got a call telling me that Nitin had sent a disturbing email. By the time my friend read out the email, he was gone.”

The pressure cooker description given by the media certainly does not go with the IIT Madras campus, located within a 620-acre natural forest with a magnificent lake and a wide range of flora and fauna.

However, in the last three years, the campus has witnessed six suicides—the highest number across IITs. This year eight IITians killed themselves across India, and IIT Madras leads this list, too, with two students, both from the mechanical engineering department, killing themselves.

In February, V. Anoop, 25, a final-year M.Tech student at IIT Madras, hanged himself in his hostel room, as he could not complete his course in time.

His father, Vijay Kumar, says Anoop had trouble with his guide, who “wasn't happy that Anoop did not consult him enough”. Anoop had requested a change, and it was granted. “His new guide had assured him that he would complete the project in time…. But we got a letter from the institute asking us to re-register. I got a call that midnight that he was gone,” he recalls.

And more recently, in September, B. Gowri Shankar, a second-year postgraduate student at IIT Madras was found dead in his room. It is suspected to be a case of suicide, though forensic experts are yet to confirm it.

According Nitin's friends, he had finished the major part of his project: simulation. “He had trouble fixing the engine,” they recall. “He asked his guide for help. He was told to approach the lab technicians, but they apparently were unable to help. Nitin tried fixing it himself, which did not happen. Finally on the day when he had to submit the thesis, the engine wasn't ready.”

And that meant Nitin had to repeat a semester. His plum placement plans bid him goodbye, and he bid goodbye to life.

Students who knew Nitin say he had initially faltered with his time-management. “His project guide should have noticed this and helped him fast-track his work,” says a student. “Indeed, many professors fail to pay enough attention to projects, as they are busy with researchers under them.”

While extensions pushed Anoop and Nitin to the extreme, the latest IITian to give up on life—Mehtab Ahmed, a first year student in IIT Kanpur—had been on campus just for a couple of months. The youngest in his family, Ahmed hanged himself from the ceiling fan in his hostel room on September 22.

The reasons being cited were many, including love affair and homesickness. The end result, however, was scrawled across the wall of his room in pencil: “I am tired of IIT-Kanpur.” This was the ninth suicide in IIT Kanpur in five years. 

Concerned about the spike in the number of students killing themselves, the IIT Council headed by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has recommended setting up of a task force—consisting of teachers, parents and students—to study the issue.

Eight suicides across India in an annual combined batch of 10,000 might seem, as one professor in IIT Madras put it famously, “statistically unimportant''. But when the country's brightest students decide to end their lives, it does call for, if nothing, introspection.

Life@IIT

What makes these brilliant students crack? Boman Irani as the heartless professor may have been the chief reason for many students to give up in 3 Idiots, but in real life, it is much more complicated.

And it is not that IITs are like Nazi camps. Majority of the graduates say IIT was the best part of their lives. Even current students agree: “It is fun; the pressure is part of it,” says an IIT Madras B.Tech student. “We booze once in a while, we have ‘unofficial' inter-hostel competitions, and we have our own share of masti, besides plenty of sports and recreational facilities.”

Read in Detail: The Week | Bright minds and Dark Angels

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Who will bell the cat? Jan Lok Pal Bill to Stop Corruption

 
Last week’s campaign by Anna Hazare and colleagues raised very important questions about accountability, state, civil society, political means and ends. Critics of the campaign to get the Jan Lok Pal Bill adopted by the Government of India have found fault primarily with the means used by Anna Hazare and by the content of the draft legislation upon which the campaigners were insisting. (1) There has already been extensive commentary on these so this essay will focus on the question of accountability.

Accountability is one of the oldest questions in the study of politics. As social contractualists would tell it, the tale goes that the state was forged by the common need felt by individuals for common laws enforced by a mutually agreed authority. But if we just look at the way the three most prominent thinkers from this school described this authority (ie the state), we can see that the accountability question is rooted in the very nature of the state. Hobbes saw a state that was absolutely powerful, embracing and controlling every aspect of life; the citizen had virtually no rights—except life--vis-à-vis the state. Locke’s state was a carefully drawn up contract in which the state had a regulatory role but could not infringe on life, liberty and property rights. For Rousseau, the expression of society’s “General Will” was sovereign—the most abstract, perhaps most expansive of the three. The three thinkers’ descriptions serve as a quick doodle that highlights the push-pull tension intrinsic to the state-society equation. 

The most commonly told Indian story about the origin of the state bears some resemblance to this. The decline of society necessitates the appointment by a king, who is a manifestation of Vishnu, but at the same time, the king’s powers are not absolute as the story of Vena, arbitrary and corrupt ruler, shows. He was dethroned and beheaded by sages, while the earth, unable to bear his abuse, went into hiding. Kautilya’s Arthasastra gives individuals the right to resist a bad king. And much discussion in the two epics centres on the qualities and practices of good kings. In other words, there is nothing new or exotic about the question of accountability.

State, society, civil society, people
States, through their agents and agencies, perform (or should perform) certain useful functions. Defence, law and order and creating some common rules and instruments for a given population are the core but depending on the history and context of the state, other functions such as development might also be added to this list. There is a point in the performance of each of these functions where the state’s activity and interaction may hurt citizens and communities within. Language policy and redistribution of resources are two examples. 

The relationship between state and society is a symbiotic one. States are born out of society, in a way, and draw their values, agents and histories from society. But they are not co-terminous with society. A single state may be home to many ‘societies’ as people define themselves in multiple ways, intersecting or overlapping, collectively (Bengalis, Sikhs, Dalits, English-speakers) ; and a single society may transcend the borders of a state (Shaivites). 

The extent to which states are embedded in or autonomous of the societies that constitute them is a subject political scientists take an interest in. One of the markers of political modernisation was that the state would be more and more autonomous of society, a function of both the growing power of the state as of changes in society. Such a state was considered better placed to direct social and economic change. In Indian political thought, one of the big questions is the king-priest relationship, but both operate within the common framework of the values of society in a given place and time. The modern Indian state is relatively autonomous of society, given its origin in a constitutional framework. The potential for antagonism between state and society is likely greater when the state enjoys greater autonomy and has an agenda of social change. 

So much for state, society and individuals, but what is civil society? Everyone seems to understand what ‘civil society’ is but it is very hard to arrive at a common definition. The most pedestrian definition might be that the term is a rubric for all collective activities in society other than those organised by the state or part of the economy (market and otherwise). This immediately raises questions about religious organisations, caste panchayats, trade unions and so on: are they civil society? The answer to that question is as varied as the actors that count themselves in and are counted in civil society. The more important question may be: What is the role of civil society in balancing the equation between society and state? This is, after all, one of the questions that the recent campaign has raised by seeking a role for eminent persons from civil society in drafting and enforcing laws that create accountability. 

Meeting the ‘accountability’ challenge
The essence of the accountability challenge is to make sure the state and its agents deliver on all their mandates without infringement of citizen’s rights. Moreover, it is to facilitate communication between state and society so that the actions and policies of the state reflect the changing needs and demands of society. Accountability is seen as a check on the state’s exercise of its powers. But as this is not a new political problem, it is useful to look at some of the instruments devised over centuries to resolve it.

‘Separation of powers’ and ‘checks and balances’
A beginner in a politics class learns these terms as ways to check the absolute power of rulers. Montesquieu first wrote about separation of the power of the state, advocating that the executive, legislative and judicial powers of a state be reposed in different offices to prevent their concentration in the hands of one. Montesquieu wrote during the reign of Louis XV, when France’s absolute monarchy was still at the zenith of its power and when the excesses of that power were becoming evident. His ideas became very influential outside France, and the new American enshrined his ideas as the system of ‘checks and balances’.

While today, the American President is often described as the “most powerful man on earth”, in reality the genius of the system is that no branch of government is completely autonomous of the other. This was a response to both the autocratic absolute monarchies prevalent in Europe at the time (and heading for revolutionary collapse) and the newly evolving Westminster system in England where the lines between the executive, legislature and judiciary were blurred. When the Indian Constitution was written, while the Westminster model was largely retained, there were two important departures that the Constituent Assembly adopted. The first was to set up a separate Judiciary, with an apex court distinct from Parliament. Over time, the Indian judiciary came to exercise ‘judicial review’—the right to review laws made by the legislature for their constitutional validity—which was an American innovation. The second departure was that India is a federal state, and the second house of Parliament was not made up of knighted and landed peers but members elected by the legislatures of Indian states and union territories. 

A fear that all the powers of a state, all its resources, will be concentrated in the hands of one or a few is an old fear. Most constitutions address that fear in some way and most constitutional debate centres on how power should be distributed and shared—both to benefit the most people and to prevent corruption and abuse. 

When in the 1970s, there was talk about a ‘committed judiciary’ and a ‘committed bureaucracy’, these ideas were met with great resistance. The ability of the judiciary to act independently has been a great bulwark against poor governance, human rights violations and corruption, and has created value for the independence of the Election Commission, Vigilance Commissioners and other statutory bodies. A series of upstanding officials in the top posts has conflated the institution’s independence with integrity. However, the fact remains these are not elected positions and beyond a point, not accountable to the people of India. The concerns that surround the Planning Commission and now, the National Advisory Commission, also apply to these offices—and that of any Lokpal—that policy is being made by appointed rather than elected officials.  

The ombudsman
By now, we’ve all read about how the ombudsman’s office is a Swedish institutional innovation. In 1713, Sweden’s King Charles XII was away from his capital pursuing distant conquests. Unsure of whether his officers were working in accordance with the law, he created the office of the ombudsman to oversee their working. The ombudsman was a representative of the executive. In 1809, Sweden’s new constitution created the office of a parliamentary ombudsman with the power to investigate and prosecute grievances, oversee public servants and identify and advocate good administrative practices. This is the ombudsman model that has been adapted in many parts of the world. 

In India, the suggestion to have an ombudsman-like post was introduced in political discourse by the first Administrative Reforms Commission in 1969. (2) The Lokpal would officiate as a public grievance officer at the central government level and Lok Ayuktas would do the same in the states. Since the 1980s, several states have passed Lok Ayukta legislations and appointed ombudsman officers whose powers vary from state to state. At the central level however, multiple efforts to establish a Lokpal did not bear fruit. Appropriate legislation was introduced 10 times between 1969 and 2011, with no success. 

Apart from the cynical explanation that self-serving legislators would hardly have prepared their own nemesis, what are some of the reasons these drafts did not pass? There are unresolved issues surrounding the structure, jurisdiction and powers of the Lokpal. First of all, should the office of the Lokpal mean a single individual or a multi-member panel? This is more easily resolved than the suggestion that the office of the Central Vigilance Commissioner and the Central Bureau of Investigation should be merged into the Lokpal to create an anti-corruption body. The relationship between the Lokpal and the courts and parliament also remain to be defined. In other words, four decades on, we have not been able to decide what this office should look like. This is partly a function of the challenge of determining jurisdiction. 

One important hurdle is to decide which government offices should fall under the purview of the Lokpal—all public servants, political functionaries, parliamentarians, ministers, prime minister—there has been no consensus on any of this. Moreover, in a hierarchy-conscious society and secrecy-conscious state, it is suggested that inquiries against some functionaries should require prior sanction. Should the Lokpal merely look to corruption charges and complaints about non-delivery of services or should the Lokpal also hear commercial and contractual matters? An anti-corruption office might receive allegations that a particular official acted in their self-interest (by asking for a bribe, allocating resources a certain way) or a complaint that a citizen was inconvenienced or hurt as a result of poor administrative responses. The question of jurisdiction also extends to defining which of these (or both) a Lokpal should hear.
The question of power is as contentious as the question of jurisdiction. The Lokpal could be set up as an advisory office, which receives grievances and advises the government to act on them. It could also have the power to investigate and prosecute. If investigative and vigilance agencies were merged with the Lokpal, it would presumably be a far more powerful body. In that case, the question also arises as to whether the Lokpal should be limited to acting on written complaints or whether the office may initiate its own actions independently. 

These are not small matters and they are not contentious merely because they open up turf-battles between ministries. There is also the broader question of checks and balances in government and fitting a new, independent statutory body into that framework. 

Civil rights
Rights are the ‘thus far and no further’ line between state and citizens. While there are other mechanisms that create a relationship where state agents are responsible and accountable to citizens (representative institutions and voting, for instance), rights define the relationship between state and society, state and individuals. The constitutions of most states now include a Bill of Rights, and states are charged with protecting their citizens from the violation of those rights by other citizens. Individuals and communities also enjoy rights vis-à-vis the state—political rights, civil rights, cultural rights and increasingly, economic rights. 

The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights (to life, to equality, against exploitation, to freedom, cultural and educational rights) and also the right to constitutional remedies.(3) These constitutional remedies include the writ jurisdiction of the high courts and Supreme Court which can be invoked to ensure that the state protects the fundamental rights of an Indian citizen. There are five such writs: Habeas corpus (which is used to challenge unlawful detention); mandamus (whereby a public official can be instructed to carry out official duties and protect rights); quo warranto (which questions a public official’s authority to decide or act in a certain way); prohibition (which results in a higher court issuing a ‘stay order’ to stop implemention of a decision under challenge); and certiorari (which allows a higher court to transfer a case or a particular process to a better-suited office if need be). Four of the five writs relate as much to the question of accountability as they do to violation of individuals’ rights. 

Civil society has used both the language and the instrument of rights to create more participatory processes in development and social change arenas. It has also highlighted the close relationship between accountability, rights and welfare. The Right to Information, enacted as law in 2005, is a result of grassroots movements making and articulating this connection, rather than city-based think-tanks holding seminars about it. From the villages of Rajasthan and the villagers’ outraged insistence on knowing what was happening to public resources, came the national campaign for the Right to Information. Transparency and insisting on transparency are vital instruments for enforcing accountability. Since the passage of the RTI Act, RTI petitions—which are very easy to file—have been used across policy sectors and levels of governance. Vinta Kamte used an RTI petition to access the phone and mobile records of key actors on the night of 26/11/2008, when her husband was killed in the terrorist attack in Mumbai.

The media
Press freedom is one of the pillars of democracy, and in India, for more than four decades, investigative journalism has left tabloid columns behind to become a marker of serious purpose in the mainstream. The Indian media work in an atmosphere of relative freedom compared to many other settings, and their work exposing corruption or violence has often been important, but their credibility has also been dented in recent years.

Most recently, the Radia tapes showed how closely knit India’s elite is—their phone calls, their references to each other, their sharing of inside information, their confidence in their influence. The disclosures adversely affected many reputations but journalists were possibly worst-affected. Even before the Radia tapes though, the Press Council of India’s report on ‘paid news’ described different ways in which journalism was compromised by the close association of editors, owners and business. The practice consists in the purchase through roundabout or indirect means of column space on the news and editorial pages of newspapers. This practice tricks the reader into believing that what is really an advertisement is factual newsreporting, and it also constitutes financial malpractice by both the purchaser and the media company. Election candidates and business houses are both known to engage in this practice. The real damage is to the ability of the news media to be independent and vigilant observers who bear witness. The now-common practice of investigative and ‘sting’ reporting is now also an instrument for the same vested interests. 

On the other hand, the media have found a new, hitherto unlikely ally, in ‘ordinary’ citizens, who armed with mobile phones and social networks, are extending the reach of the press in three different ways. They are reporting from where they are with text and video events that unfold around them as well as exposes of inefficiency and malfeasance. They are offering opinion on blogs and through text messages, extending the community of the disappearing op-ed page far beyond its historical reach. They are voting in spot polls, allowing media agencies to take dipstick readings of public opinion. The combination of media advocacy and citizen activist-journalism has resulted in instant mobilisation, especially around urban events and interests. The protests that followed the 26/11 attacks and the current support for the Jan Lok Pal Bill are both examples of how powerful this combination has become.

When you overlay the evidence of corruption and cronyism in mainstream media organisations and the power of this combination, the result must raise red flags for any thoughtful observer of politics and society. Used wisely and cautiously, this is a democracy’s biggest asset. Thoughtless and emotional responses however, can create pressure for outcomes that are sub-optimal in the long run. 

The power of protest
Morchas. Rallies. Candlelight vigils. Silent marches. Padayatras. Sit-ins. Dharnas. Relay hunger strikes. Hunger strikes. Fasts unto death. Gheraos. Walk-outs. Go-slows. Work-to-rule. Strike. Flash strike. General strike. Bandh. All-India bandh. The vocabulary of non-violent protest is especially rich and innovative in India. The crown jewel of this treasury is surely, satyagraha—non-violent resistence or soul-force are common translations.(4)

The idea of satyagraha draws more from ideas in spiritual traditions that connect inner transformation to social transformation, than from theories of resistance and revolution. The character of the satyagrahi is thus central to satyagraha; readiness for satyagraha is an objective in itself. Some of the qualities that Gandhi sought in satyagrahis were honesty, self-discipline, faith in democracy, belief in the law so that disobedience is really a conscious departure, patience and forbearance, courage, especially the courage to trust the adversary, and self-effacement. Satyagraha was never to be coercive, but to seek a transformation in the other’s attitude. There was no place for anger (nor outrage?) in satyagraha. Satyagraha was also to be undertaken by those directly affected by a situation, not another on their behalf. For any satyagrahi, the inner quest for truth and the outer struggle for it were of a piece. 

Gandhi is sure of the power of this approach to political action, as now are most Indians. Of the different ways to undertake satyagraha, fasting—which directs the action at the self—is the most powerful. Gandhi wrote in Young India, in 1927: “Since satyagraha is one of the most powerful methods of direct action, a satyagrahi exhausts all other means before he resorts to satyagraha. He will, therefore, constantly and continually approach the constituted authority, he will appeal to public opinion, educate public opinion, state his case calmly and coolly before everybody who wants to listen to him, and only after he has exhausted all these avenues will he resort to satyagraha. But when he has found the impelling call of the inner voice within him and launches out upon satyagraha, he has burnt his boats and there is no receding.”

In other words, street action—satyagraha or otherwise—must follow the unsuccessful use of all other methods. 


But who will bell the cat?
The task of enforcing accountability rests ultimately with citizens. The terms and conditions of citizenship in a democracy include an implicit undertaking by citizens to remain informed—of rights, of laws, of policies and of current affairs—and exercise their rights, including the right to vote. In India, as in other democracies, they also have the right to file for constitutional remedies through a variety of writ petitions. 

Civil society brings to this the advantage of acting collectively, as it reflects the diversity of interest and temperament of the citizenry at large. Drawn from this same body of citizens, neither civil society nor government can claim a monopoly on virtue and integrity. Acting collectively in civil society organisations empowers citizens, but the collective energy of the group also reinforces special interests and entrenches positions. This is one reason that no group in civil society or no coalition of groups can claim legitimately to represent all citizens the way elected representatives of a legislature can, even with all the limitations of representative electoral democracy. 

There are three very important functions that civil society can perform better than the individual citizen. First, it is easier for a group to marshal the technical, material and financial resources for certain courses of action, whether it is an RTI or writ petition. Second, an organisation is better placed to undertake a sustained and systematic programme of research and public information on specific issues than most individuals. This includes gathering the learnings of grassroots organisations and the documentation of social movements, informing in turn research that is oriented towards policymaking. Finally, civil society organisations are sometimes in a position to create and facilitate interactions between government and different groups of citizens on particular issues. All are essentially long-haul functions. Insofar as civil society organisations show the patience to undertake these functions, one measure of the responsiveness of a democratic government is their openness to inputs and initiatives from civil society. 


(1) Some examples: Economic and Political Weekly, What ‘Movement’ is this anyway? April 16, 2011, http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/15939.pdf; Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Of the few, by the few, Indian Express, April 7, 2011, http://www.indianexpress.com/new; Pratap Bhanu Mehta, What’s in a solution? Indian Express, April 14, 2011, http://www.indianexpress.com/; Prashant Bhushan, Jan Lok Pal Bill: Addressing concerns, The Hindu, April 15, 2011, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article1696970.ece; Manoj Mitta, Lok Pal Bill: United in opposition, civil society a divided lot, Times of India, April 7, 2011, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/; Shuddhabrata Sengupta, At the risk of heresy: Why I am not celebrating with Anna Hazare, Kafila.org, April 9, 2011, http://kafila.org/2011/04/09/; Harini Calamur, My issues with the Proposed Jan Lok Pal Bill, April 6, 2011, http://calamur.org/gargi/2011/04/06/; The Acorn, Against Jan Lok Pal and the Politics of Hunger Strikes, National Interest, April 8, 2011, http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2011/04/08/against-jan-lok-pal-and-the-politics-of-hunger-strikes/.
(2) The best resource on the Lok Pal Bill is the webpage maintained by PRS India: All about the Lok Pal Bill, http://www.prsindia.org/index.php
(3) The Constitution of India is available online at http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/coifiles/part.htm.
(4) Resources for the section on satyagraha are drawn from the websites run by the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal and Gandhi Book Centre (http://www.mkgandhi) and Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Smriti (http://gandhismriti.nic.in).
(Swarna Rajagopalan is a Chennai-based political scientist. She is the founder of Prajnya Initiatives for Peace, Justice and Security, a Chennai-based non-profit.) 

Source: http://infochangeindia.org/governance/backgrounder/who-will-bell-the-cat.html

 

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Why poor rural tribals will remain poor for generations

A new survey by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre identified 15 regions spread over six states where poverty is getting concentrated and chronic, and found that tribal and forested areas are likely to remain poor, with the decline in poverty among the rural tribal population going from 51.9% to just 47.3% .

  Poverty is becoming hereditary in India, at least for a sizeable population. That is the conclusion derived from a three-decade tracking of poor households in rural India.
A survey by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), an international association of researchers and academicians, claims that those who are chronically poor may pass on poverty to their next generation. What’s more, people residing in tribal and forested areas are likely to remain poor forever, fomenting violent conflicts in future. Most of India’s forested districts are already dens of Naxalites.

The survey, India Chronic Poverty Report, comes at a time when the country is awaiting its latest National Sample Survey for estimation of poverty. On April 21, while unveiling the approach paper to the 12th Five Year Plan for 2012-17, the Planning Commission disclosed that poverty has reduced from 37.2% in 2004-05 to 32% in 2009-10. The estimate is critical for the next Plan and the eagerly awaited and much debated National Food Security Law.

A controversy erupted the day the commission made the disclosure. The Supreme Court ordered the commission to explain how it fixed percentage of people below-poverty-line (BPL) at 36%. The percentage helps the commission decide the direction of development programmes and distribution of foodgrains under the public distribution system.

The apex court’s observation came in the wake of a petition filed by nonprofit People’s Union for Civil Liberties. The petitioner contends that adequate foodgrains are not being given to people living below the poverty line. This case is known as the Right to Food. The court also challenged the commission’s estimates of BPL families. “There cannot be two Indias,” said the apex court while describing the country’s high economic growth and consistent poverty. “The poverty level is reducing but at a slow pace,” says Biraj Patnaik, principal adviser to the court’s commissioners for the case.

Two Indias
The survey by CPRC explains the “two Indias”. “Why do some people remain poor for a longer period of time? Why do poor areas remain poor forever? These are the questions answered by the survey,” says Aasha Kapur Mehta, professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Public Administration in Delhi, who leads CPRC in India.
The survey followed about 3,000 households for almost 30 years across the country. It adopted a three-pronged approach to poverty: what drives poverty, what retains poverty and what causes exit from poverty.

CPRC has published 32 research papers in the past five years explaining various aspects of poverty in India. It defines the chronic poor as people who remain poor through their lifetime. Analysis of the papers shows that at least 50% of India’s poor are chronic poor. The survey identified 15 regions spread over six states where poverty is getting concentrated and chronic (see map). “Persistent backwardness and inequality have led to concentration of poverty in certain parts of India. So there is a geographical dimension to poverty,” says the CPRC report.

The count of very poor (with a consumption expenditure of Rs 9 per day per person) is an indicator of chronic poverty. Though the number of very poor is decreasing, the percentage is quite substantial. Their number was 115 million in 2004-05—37% of the total poor. The percentage of the very poor in the total population has declined in all states except Orissa, between 1983-94 and 2004-05. The percentage in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh is higher than the all- India figure.

The share of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh in the total of very poor people rose from 57.5% in 1983 to 66.8% in 1993-94 and to 70.6% in 2004-05. “This is alarming because the next generation of these people will also be poor. Thus a vicious cycle is created,” says Mehta.

According to the survey, people in tribal and forested or degraded forest regions are more likely to remain poor forever. Nine of the 15 identified regions are forested; they have been targeted for poverty alleviation programmes since the early-1950s.

The report says, “In forest regions, the issues are not so much agronomic or natural conditions as poor people’s access to the resources that are there, their human capital endowment and the way they are incorporated into labour market.” The survey points out the poverty reduction among tribals is slow. Estimates for 1993-94 and 2004-05 indicate that against a decline in poverty for the entire population from about 37% to 27%, the decline among the rural tribal population was from 51.9% to 47.3%.

Amita Shah, director of Gujarat Institute of Development Research, says, “Poverty reduction programmes must include issues of economic growth, employment generation, socio-spatial equity, environmental sustainability and political stability within a holistic framework.”

Why poverty becomes chronic
According to the survey, there is inequality in the efforts made to prevent people from poverty and get them out of it. The numerous poverty alleviation programmes are inadequate and insufficient. Of the 29 such programmes studied in the survey, only nine could prevent people from falling into the poverty trap. Thirteen could enable escape from poverty and 16 could alleviate chronic poverty. Consequently, says Shashanka Bhide, a senior fellow of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a significant proportion of non-poor households may fall into poverty while a large proportion of poor may not manage to escape it.

The report is a wake-up call. “Social conflict may find easy recruits among the chronically poor, who have less to lose by engaging in conflict and might be mobilised by the politics of grievance,” says the report. Anand Kumar, professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, says, “The report points to four major deficits the country is facing—development, legitimacy, governance and democracy. This created another crisis, time deficit.” He adds, “People are no longer willing to wait; there is a sense of urgency, suggesting the need for continued mass mobilisation and protests.” 

The full report is available http://www.chronicpoverty.org/publications/details/india-chronic-poverty-report
 
This article first appeared in Down to Earth, May 31, 2011. Richard Mahapatra is a senior environmental journalist presently with Down to Earth, and a former Infochange Media Fellow.

Source: http://infochangeindia.org/poverty/books-reports/why-poor-rural-tribals-will-remain-poor-for-generations.html

 

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Navigators Of Change : As government, corporates seek to engage with NGOs, they gain new significance

Brave NGO World?

• The Planning Commission is courting NGOs for policy inputs, views on how to make plans work
• NGOs and local activism forced govt to stall Vedanta, Posco plans
• NGO opposition to snacks being served in schools changed plans to scrap hot meals
• NGO have made the government rethink the Polavaram dam project
• Their criticism of the leakage of NREGA funds led to the creation of monitoring mechanisms
• NGOs have worked to enshrine education as a fundamental right
• Matters related to environment clearance—like GM foods, mining —now go through public debate, thanks to NGOs.
• NGOs played a crucial role in strengthening the nuclear liability bill, securing rights for gays

The jholawala is the latest lobbyist in town. He or she has top policymakers on speed-dial, is now feted by the media and sought out by companies eager to promote ‘India Inclusive’. It’s a remarkable, even heady, transformation. For long derided as irrelevant trouble-making activists largely focused on rural India, NGOs (registered arms of what is loosely called civil society) are basking in the warm embrace of recognition and relevance.

As recent events have shown, NGOs have played important roles in the big debates of the day. With a little help from fellow travellers—and occasionally backed by political support—they have been able to swing policy decisions in the citizen’s interest, be it stalling plans for Bt brinjal cultivation, or questioning the Polavaram dam project or bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills. The outcome has often hit the grand plans of corporate giants like Posco, Vedanta and Tatas. More lasting perhaps will be the civil society’s contribution in ushering in a range of rights regimes—information, education or livelihood, and soon, the right to food.

Given the apparently in-built adversarial relationship between NGOs, governments and companies, it’s a controversial thesis to put out. For every voice that celebrates the new power behind NGOs, an equal number urges caution and stresses that the ground realities haven’t changed. Is it right then to see NGOs as a necessary, important power centre? Are they really becoming indispensable in matters of governance, delivery of services or voicing the needs of the marginalised? Or is it just a politically correct trend that covers a few, high-profile outfits, leaving the vast majority just where it always was?

Experts differ in their assessment of the role and relevance of ngos. “Over the last decade things have changed. We are being sought for policy inputs. The demand is also coming from below—the community, the beneficiaries, the vulnerable sections—who know their needs,” says Farida Lambay of Pratham, an important NGO in the education space. With a growing grip on best practices, Lambay feels civil society is filling the space a pole that can represent the people’s concerns and aspirations.

Policy wonk N.C. Saxena, a member of the National Advisory Council, paints a different picture. While giving credit to community health workers for making a big difference to health services without high-cost intervention, the development expert feels not all NGOs have a good knowledge of the grassroots. “In fact, a large number of them may have good intentions, but they look upon development as a zero-sum game (if the rich are losing out, the poor will gain),” he says.

Despite such concerns, the Planning Commission, backed by the prime minister, is envisaging a bigger role for NGOs in chalking out its strategy for inclusive development. For the first time, the panel is seeking inputs from leading civil society groups ahead of drafting the Twelfth Plan (2012-17) approach paper. In meetings with 15 groups, including women, the disabled, the urban poor, Dalits, tribals etc, panel members got each to arrive at a consensus on their specific requirements and innovative solutions for better utilisation of funds.

“There is a procedural change: take inputs before drawing the roadmap, instead of making the building and then asking whether you like it or not,” states Amitabh Behar of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, a coalition of scores of NGOs. Having been part of expert panels in the past, Behar has raised the bar of hope this time. “If we are able to influence the core philosophy of the approach paper, which is the guiding document for the Plan, it would be a step forward.”

Explaining the philosophy behind creating the new platform for NGOs, Planning Commission member Arun Maira stresses that many of them are implementing good innovative solutions in areas like water harvesting, literacy, skill development and panchayat-level governance without much money. The new approach is to help planners draw upon their views and “represent concerns of the citizens in a way that would be better understood by the policymakers.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time government has reached out to civil society. During the Janata Party rule in 1977, a group was set up in the Planning Commission to explore how best to use NGOs’ services. Since 1986, government funding has been provided to 12,000-plus voluntary organisations out of about 4 million registered bodies to help implement various development work, including training and advocacy programmes. Not everybody is in tune with this “privatisation” of social development work, as CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat puts it .

Economist Jean Dreze, for one, remains sceptical, given that NGOs are generally accountable to funders, particularly overseas ones, and not the people for whom they are working. Given their reliance on foreign, government and corporate funding, it is not unusual to see NGOs often display political, and in some cases, corporate leanings. The corporate influence seems to be growing, with many companies using NGOs to implement their corporate social responsibility activities, often a tool to win over local resistance to any industrial activity or land acquisition.

Though NGOs have the potential to be change agents, “it is rarely their strong point”, states Dreze, a strong believer in the power of collective action and “free” association. Dreze, who is linked to development issues like the Right to Food campaign, says that characterising civil society groupings as “the new power centres” is to give them far too much weight. Prof Neema Kudva of Cornell University, who has researched the “uneasy relationship” between NGOs and the state since independence, agrees: “If we are to change development strategy, it can’t happen through NGOs. They can’t be the primary change agents. The change has to come from the ground, from strong social movements and transforming politics.”

On the issue of relevance, however, many experts feel that despite the system exposing various rogue elements, by and large, they are able to voice the concerns of the marginalised—or else they would have no takers. But as Mohammed Haleem Khan, director general of CAPART (set up primarily to develop alternative models of development), states, “The government is yet to develop a good toolkit to assess the effectiveness and the role of NGOs.” A task force headed by Khan has recommended accreditation of NGOs to help weed out the rogue players.

As governments seeks to engage more closely with NGOs—beyond empowering panchayat bodies, monitoring NREGA or designing water harvesting schemes and sanitation models—more complexities can be expected. Take Delhi’s Mission Convergence. Akhila Sivadas of CFAR, which works with the Delhi government to maintain a Vulnerability Index through a live census of the poor and vulnerable, admits, “NGOs can no longer play an adversarial role as they are part of governance. We have to ensure a proper percentage of funds reach target groups.”

In a model copied from Brazil, NGOs are envisaged as pressure groups meant to ensure greater transparency and improved service delivery while maintaining control on the delivery cost, which together with corruption eats up over 80 per cent of development funds. Likening their role to “canaries in the coal mine”, which alert miners of approaching danger, Maira emphasises that in the last few years, some prominent NGOs, with their global exposure, have emerged as communicators, with their ability to represent issues in the language understood by policymakers.

Leading NGOs concede they can’t work alone if they want to scale up operations. The option then is to plan the government way, work the NGO way. Alternatively, many NGOs are opting for stakeholders outside government in health, education and such areas. Pratham, for instance, does not take government funding but works with states like Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Himachal, Maharashtra and Punjab in policymaking and implementation of primary education programmes. It is the critical appraisal of government policies and programmes by the likes of Pratham and Wada Na Todo that has made the government take notice and strive to rope in their services.

Despite the pressure brought to bear on the government by civil society, Ramesh Ramanathan of Bangalore-based Janagraha admits, “Not even 10 per cent of our suggestions get accepted. But there is a direction of change as the government willingness is increasing.” This in part is due to success stories like Kerala’s literacy campaign or Karnataka’s outreach programmes in 22,000 schools with civil society help. As Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, puts it, “The government is an eager partner in improving the quality of education.” Reports from many states like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab reveal a willingness of the government to engage with NGOs more effectively.

For instance, Bangalore-based ESG’s initiatives around displacement and town planning have led to a rethink on many city development projects. Similarly, Akshaya Patra Foundation in Bangalore has won over policymakers with its model for cost-effective and hygienic mid-day meals. West Bengal’s Masum is just seeing its efforts to get specialists to conduct autopsies on police torture victims yield results. Madhya Pradesh’s success in adult literacy, better rehab packages for Narmada dam oustees and improved IT infrastructure in villages are but few examples of NGO persistence.

It’s clear that many NGOs are helping government design schemes better. That by itself is a significant step. “NGOs have a responsibility to ensure that both government and corporates act with fairness, accountability, transparency,” says N.R. Narayana Murthy, chief mentor at Infosys. That smooth statement notwithstanding, NGOs remain wary—not necessarily of top political and bureaucratic pressures, but the last-mile link at delivery point. That is where all good intentions and partnerships perish.

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?270227

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Too Much Goodwill : With no dearth of causes, there’s no dearth of NGOs either.

NGOs To No Go’s

• NGOs have mushroomed; so have instances of misappropriation of funds
• Not disclosing expenditure and receipts; nor revealing who funds them
• Not setting up NGO for the task it was funded for
• Flocking to 'hot' topics, inviting accusations of singing to industrialists’ tunes
• For every NGO supporting a cause, another springs up against that cause

NGO numbers

• 3.3 million Number of NGOs in India
• 2.5% Contribution to GDP
• Rs 18,000 crore Annual revenue (2000)
• 50% NGOs with revenue under Rs 15 lakh a year

The more the voices that speak up, the more the chances of them being heard. Except, in India’s NGO space, there’s increasing cacophony. For every NGO working against child labour, there is another clamouring to let children work, calling it an economic ‘necessity’. For every NGO against Vedanta mining in Niyamgiri, there’s a Ramjibhai Mawani willing to file PILs on behalf of a business group (Reliance Industries, as the Radia tapes reveal). Even hard-won rights, like the law against domestic violence, have resulted in ‘counter-NGOs’. Like the one fighting for men’s rights: the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF).

It’s NG VS NGO, and the unintended result is a spurt in NGOs, voluntary organisations and other non-profit institutions. From the early 1990s, coinciding with liberalisation, there has been a threefold jump in voluntary organisations. Many of them have congregated around “hot” issues. Take Bhopal, which has 165 of Madhya Pradesh’s 650-odd NGOs. Moreover, though all registered NGOs function under a handful of regulations that extend tax exemptions and other benefits, their causes are often at loggerheads.

“It is here that the problems began,” notes Mohd Haleem Khan, who heads CAPART, an autonomous body under the Union ministry of rural development, which funds NGOs and tracks their progress. For over a year, Khan’s organisation hasn’t funded new projects, and won’t, until new norms for the voluntary sector are finalised. The issue clearly is a blind desire for funding, says Dunu Roy, who runs the Hazards Centre in Delhi, which focuses on environment and media concerns. “What NGOs don’t do enough of is impart skills to analyse problems, select solutions and implement them,” he says.

Plagued by issues ranging from lack of transparency within CAPART and fly-by-night NGOs making off with its grants—883 were blacklisted last December—the watchdog is searching for the right balance between hands-off monitoring and absolute accountability. “We want Indian NGOs to follow some international norms of accounting,” says Khan. An online registration process, involving NGOs, the Planning Commission and the rural development ministry, is being developed.

One reason why CAPART froze funding is the mushrooming of NGOs. Non-profit body Karmayog listed over 1,300 NGOs in Mumbai alone, another 4,300 in Tamil Nadu (of which 1,100 are in Chennai, and 227 in Dindigul—a district of roughly 3 lakh people—a density of one NGO per 1,321 persons). The farther from Delhi or state capitals you get, the more NGOs you seem to find. Writer-activist Patricia Mary Mukhim says that after attending scores of NGO-sponsored events in the Northeast, she found little accountability. “If I am asked to evaluate my own work, how objective can I be?” she says.

Mukhim says she found the NGOs exaggerating the need for intervention. “One NGO said that 70,000 child labourers were employed in a coal mining district of Meghalaya’s Jaintia hills. Not even one-hundredth of this ‘70,000’ were actually surveyed. The same NGO said 40,000 girls were shipped to the Commonwealth Games as sex workers. This too was pure assumption and extrapolation,” she says, without naming the NGO.

For the government, NGOs are a tool to achieve what it can’t do, such as provide free or subsidised healthcare all around. But they are also a public finance hazard. The government funds development projects such as NREGA or NRHM not just directly but also via NGOs. Over 2008-09, CAPART channelled Rs 26 crore to 125 projects of NGOs it approved. Khan could not say what the overall grants have been since CAPART’s inception in 1986.

Within the NGO fraternity, however, the view is that to maintain independence, oversight must come from within. This view was sharpened by recent cases, such as during the protests against Korean steel major Posco in Orissa. One NGO, the National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers, for instance, claimed that Posco defrauded the government in getting environment clearances; other NGOs partnered with the steel company itself, enabling donations. Almost all large industrial projects, including British mining company Vedanta, now witness protests and counter-protests. In 2009, as protests against their plans in Orissa peaked, other NGOs were used by the state and the company to launch pro-project PR. This, in turn, was opposed by at least 20 NGOs.

Still, NGOs warn, self-regulation is the best option, though the government must do better monitoring. “Some NGOs are philanthropic, rights-based, wanting to do good, uplift. Others channel money, turn black into white,” warns Anjali Gopalan, who runs the Naz Foundation in Delhi. Noted advocate Colin Gonsalves says, “NGOs have become a place for the children of government servants, police officials and politicians to find jobs. They set up NGOs as they’re better equipped to deal with clearances and permissions required on a daily basis. This is what leads to their mushrooming”.

The norms are starting to trickle in, but it’s the voluntary sector that’s moving first. Non-profit body Credibility Alliance has proposed an accreditation and verification model. “The norms are more in the nature of helping NGOs get better rather than exclude others from accreditation,” says Robert Dequadros of Credibility Alliance. He says 200 NGOs agreed in an early survey that they needed to improve governance and make proper financial disclosures. It’s a complaint that the government often has—that NGOs questioning the governance deficit are often reluctant to extend the favour within. Dequadros promises an NGO verification model that’s “free of biases and fairly implemented”. To begin with, it will only require them to keep track of how much money they receive and how much they spend—as basic as possible.

Venkat Krishnan, who started GiveIndia, an online donation service that connects donors with NGOs, says he’s “deeply disappointed” with individual donors in India. “An ultra-premium car costs Rs 20-30 lakh; thousands are buying those. My total ‘collections’ are Rs 25 crore a year: a drop in the ocean. Bulk of the money for NGOs is coming from government or foreign sources. It’s like the case with voting: you get back a country depending on how much you give,” says Venkat. A pity. It lends strength to those who say that more the NGOs increase, more the problems seem to keep adding up.

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?270229

We should have more Social Entrepreneur and every NGO should have an Exist Policy - you cant survive on your stakeholders for decades............stakeholders should be empowered and NOT made dependent on NGO



Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Maharashtra Govt. refuses to let CBI probe misappropriation of JNNURM funds by Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation : More Corruption in State

The state government has turned down the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) application to probe an alleged misappropriation of crores of rupees from funds sanctioned under a central government scheme by officials of the Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC).

The funds had been sanctioned under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), a scheme to improve quality of urban infrastructure and reduce poverty.

The CBI had written to the state on May 21 saying it needed to investigate some MBMC officials for the misappropriation of more than Rs 41 crore (Rs 29.99 crore from the Centre and Rs 12.42 crore from the state). Deputy secretary Dr Deepak Mhaiskar, replied to the CBI on behalf of chief secretary JP Dange on November 25, turning down the request saying after examining the matter the state did not find it a case fit for CBI investigation.

Rishiraj Singh, joint director of CBI (Zone I, Mumbai) confirmed that the state had denied permission.

Sources from the CBI said the Centre had approved MBMC’s underground drainage system project under the JNNURM. The project cost was pegged at Rs 394 crore but the JNNURM’s Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee sanctioned Rs 331.42 crore.

The Centre contributed Rs 115.99 crore (35 % share).

“The MBMC escalated the estimated project cost from Rs 331 crore to Rs 453 crore and sanctioned 10% of the tender value to a bidder as advance, without approval from any authority,” a CBI official said requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The CBI alleged despite the advance payment there has been no progress on the project.

Pravin Salunkhe, deputy inspector general of the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Branch, said it needed permission to investigate the matter because central government funds were involved.

“Investigation would have helped us find out the extent of misappropriation and whether any central government officials were involved,” Salunkhe said.

Dange said he had referred the case to the urban development (UD) department. “The UD discussed it with their boss, the chief minister, and told the CBI since the department was conducting a probe there was no need for another.”

The 79-member MBMC house is governed by the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance. MBMC commissioner Shivmurti Naik denied the allegations. “The project was envisaged in 2005-2006 and an estimate was prepared going by costs at that time,” Naik said.

“However, by the time the Centre passed it in 2008-2009, the costs had risen and we got a tender of Rs 412 crore, which the Centre cleared. We paid a 10% advance to the company because this is the rule in Maharashtra.”

Naik said 14% of the work has been completed and that payments were audited at three levels — first by a consultant, then by a central government auditor and finally the MBMC’s auditor — before payments are made.

Sanjay Pange, the MBMC corporator who had complained to the CBI about the alleged misappropriation in July 2009, said he would continue to pursue the matter.

Source : http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/637740.aspx

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Old-age tension :Is Increasing the retirement age is inevitable and better than the alternatives ?

FRENCH workers have begun another round of strikes in protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposals to extend the minimum retirement age to 62. The protesters probably haven’t stopped to examine how demographic trends are set to devastate government finances in the developed world.

The bad news was spelt out in “Global Ageing 2010: An Irreversible Truth”, a report released by Standard & Poor’s, a ratings agency, on October 7th. As the baby-boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) retire over the next two decades, the burden on the state will rise sharply.

This demographic problem has been coming for some time. But the boomers have not provided enough for their old age. And the credit crunch has made the sums look even worse.

It is not just pensions. Spending on health care and long-term care (ie, nursing homes) will have to rise too. If policies do not change, six European countries— Belgium, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Ukraine—will be devoting more than 30% of GDP to age-related spending by 2050. The median advanced country will be spending 27% of GDP on age-related items by then; state spending will absorb around 70% of some countries’ GDP.

As a result, at least in part, of this age-related spending, the median advanced economy will be running a deficit of 24.5% of GDP by 2050; 12 countries, including both America and Britain, will have deficits of more than 30%. Debt-to-GDP ratios in the G7 will have ballooned to more than 400%.

Merely to state these numbers is to grasp why policies will have to change. Countries cannot deal with this problem by raising taxes, since any tax increase on that scale will crush economic growth. Nor is it likely that governments could slash other forms of spending by enough to counteract the effects of ageing.

It would seem that countries will have to choose between two forms of default. They can break their promises to their creditors or they can break their promises to future pensioners. Some countries will do the former, either by an outright failure to repay their debts or via the more subtle approach of inflation and currency depreciation. But most will attempt to do the latter, despite the protests and the electoral power of the elderly.

Raising the retirement age is the most obvious reform. It is a fair adjustment given the increased longevity of the population: European life expectancy has increased by almost ten years since 1950. A later retirement age also increases the size of the potential workforce, and thus the number of taxpayers. Some argue that it is unfair on manual labourers, whose life expectancy tends to be shorter, but this bias has always existed.

And manual workers would surely suffer more if governments went off in the other obvious direction—cutting benefits. Britain has quite a stingy basic state pension because of a Thatcher-era decision (reversed by the new coalition) to link payments to prices rather than earnings. Fiddling with inflation-linking is a stealthy way of cutting benefits but would hit the poorest hardest, since they have no alternative source of income.

Is there a deus ex machina, a device that will rescue the rich world from its plight? One option might be to generate a second “baby boom” so that by the time 2050 rolls around, there are more workers to support the pensioners. This is by no means impossible. In France the fertility rate is already around two children per female, not far short of the “replacement rate” which keeps population numbers steady. But it is unlikely. In Europe as a whole the birth rate fell from 2.65 in 1950-55 to 1.42 in 1995-2000. Although the birth rate has edged up since then to 1.5, it would take a huge social change to push it as high as is needed.

Another option is immigration. Opening the borders would increase the labour force, creating more taxpayers and more potential carers (in hospitals and nursing homes) to look after the elderly. Immigrants also tend to have more children, one reason why the British birth rate has rebounded over the past decade.

However, for this solution to work at the European level immigration would have to come from outside the continent, probably from Africa. European far-right parties have already surged in electoral popularity. Imagine what would happen to their support if countries tried to increase the flow of immigrant workers.

Raising the retirement age may not be popular, but it will be more popular than the alternatives. Get used to it: we are heading towards a pension age of 70.


Source: http://www.economist.com/node/17254452


Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Workshop on Understanding Insurance in Mumbai

INSURANCE IS YOUR SAFETY NET.FALI PONCHA TELLS YOU HOW TO GET IT RIGHT

Fali A Poncha is a veteran of the Indian insurance industry and has held many important positions in the pre- and post-nationalisation periods of the sector. He was a member of the Insurance Advisory Committee to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and also served as an Independent Director, Swiss Re Services India Private Ltd from 2000 to 2005. During the workshop, he will enlighten us about various issues related to the insurance sector.

Date: 22 May 2010

Time: 2.30pm to 4.30pm

Programme
2.30-3.30pm: Talk by Mr Poncha
3.30-4.30pm: Discussion
4.30pm onwards: High Tea

Venue: 305, 3rd floor, Hind Service Industries Premises, off Veer Savarkar Marg, Shivaji Park, Dadar, Mumbai 400028 (turn left from Chaitya Bhumi, 3rd building on left)

RSVP: Deepa 2444 1058 or mail@moneylife.in



Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.