Haryana launches Village Mentoring Project to improve education, healthcare

Haryana Government has launched a Village Mentoring Project to improve healthcare and education of the villagers with a special emphasis on girl child.

The project would create awareness among the villagers about various issues including educating girl child, health, financial matters etc, Deputy Commissioner of Panchkula Vivek Atray said after launching the project from Rajjipur village near Panchkula.

He said the project has been commenced in the state from Panchkula district in association with Indian School of Business (ISB), Mohali whose faculty and students would visit the village. The students and the staff of ISB presented a street play on the theme of ‘Continuing girl education, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition’ and conducted a counseling session with village residents. “This is a unique initiative wherein ISB would mentor village residents towards adopting a more progressive approach in the upbringing of the girl child. Healthcare related and educational parameters would be the focus of the intervention,” Atray said. 

According to PTI, Director External Relations of ISB DNV Kumara Guru said the ISB community comprising its staff, students and their families are spearheading this initiative by undertaking various activities across a span of six months along with the District Administration Panchkula. The activities will include street plays, counseling sessions and health camps, engaging with the school kids, mentoring and more, he said. 

The Village Mentoring Project is the first of its kind in Haryana under which villages in the state would be mentored by leading corporate houses, educational institutions and other organizations. Each of the 22 districts in the state would be launching the project in a phased manner in around five villages each, an official spokesman said. 

Source: http://social.yourstory.com/2015/06/haryana-village-mentoring/ 

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

Niyamgiri To Bellary, Polavaram To Konkan: Stop All Destructive Projects Now

The cancellation of the Vedanta group’s ‘mining rights’ in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha’s Kalahandi district surely marks a huge victory for the growing people’s movement against corporate invasion and plunder. The brave resistance of the local people, belonging predominantly to the Dongria Kondh and Kutia Kondh tribes, had begun to find wide-ranging support beyond the borders of Odisha and India. In July, the Annual General Meeting of the UK-based Vedanta group in London attracted angry protests by a broad spectrum of activists, and on August 16, the NC Saxena committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests submitted a hard-hitting report documenting the numerous illegal activities of the Vedanta group in collusion with high-level Odisha officials.

The opposition to the Vedanta group’s mining offensive in Odisha has been growing for several years now. And till recently, the central government too had been siding with the state government to rubbish and crush the popular protests and defend and promote the project in every possible way. The UPA-I had granted environmental clearance for the project rejecting the opposition of the tribal people of Niyamgiri and flouting every tenet of the PESA Act. And when the tribal people went to the Supreme Court to challenge the environmental clearance, the apex court went out of its way to ask the government to grant forest clearance as well! And the UPA government followed suit. So what the UPA-2 is doing is nothing but selectively retracing a step or two taken by the UPA-1 without admitting its past mistakes!

The Vedanta mining saga clearly raises some fundamental questions. The group’s claim of ‘mining happiness’ for the people of Odisha has been squarely exposed – but the ministers and officials working hand in gloves with this mining giant are yet to be adequately exposed and punished. We all know that P Chidambaram was on the board of directors of Vedanta Resources till the day before he became the Finance Minister in UPA-1 and we are also aware of the group’s bonhomie with the state government of Odisha led formerly by the BJP-BJD combine and now by the BJD on its own. A similar story is going on in Karnataka with the BJP pulling out all stops to defend the mining loot of the infamous Reddy brothers. Clearly, the people’s movement will have to confront and defeat this nexus between corporate robbers and bourgeois rulers.

This nexus is armed with a policy regime that promotes corporate loot at the cost of every legitimate concern and right of the people – be it over land or livelihood,
environment or culture. Even as one Niyamgiri has seemingly been saved, there are hundreds of Niyamgiris all over the country where state-sponsored destruction campaign is going on in full swing. The ongoing Polavaram dam project in Andhra Pradesh and the proposed nuclear power plant in the environmentally delicate Konkan region of Maharashtra are just two glaring examples from two Congress-ruled states. The same Ministry of Environment and Forests which is now being described as a ‘Green Crusader’ has actually been functioning as nothing but a ‘Green Destroyer’. The time has come to press for a complete halt to this indiscriminate state-sponsored destruction.

The people’s movement will also have to challenge the doublespeak of the Congress. On August 26, Rahul Gandhi visited Niyamgiri and projected himself as a soldier of the tribal people in the corridors of power! He was garlanded by Lado Sikaka, a tribal activist of Niyamgiri who had only the other day been badly harassed and tortured by the state as a ‘Maoist’. One hand of the Congress is busy coercing and displacing the adivasis while the other hand garners the sympathy of the people and pretends to be their soldier and saviour. The politics of the Congress revolves around this calculated combination of ‘Operation Green Hunt’ and ‘Operation Greenspeak’ and we must unmask this hypocrisy of Rahul Gandhi’s professed concern for the deprived tribal people.

Veteran journalist and Congress-watcher MJ Akbar sees Rahul Gandhi’s pro-farmer pro-tribal discourse as a sign of a clever Congress attempt to appropriate the left-of-centre agenda. “It is axiomatic that a largely impoverished nation needs a political party that the poor can identify with. The Congress has set out to be the party of the poor in daytime, and of the rich at night. ... This is an extremely clever act whose opening scenes are being played out for a new generation that is vague about Indira Gandhi and amnesiac about Nehru”, writes MJ Akbar in his recent Sunday column in the Times of India (29 August 2010). Well, when the rhetoric of Nehru and Indira could not stop the radical Left even during the heydays of ‘non-alignment’ and ‘mixed economy’, can the ‘clever lines’ of Rahul Gandhi befool a people who are bearing the brunt of the pro-corporate pro-imperialist policies of the Congress?


By Dipankar Bhattacharya
(The author is General Secretary, CPI(ML) Liberation, and the write up appeared as editorial in ML Update, Vol. 13, # 36, 31 August – 6 September)


Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/dipankar310810.htm


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

Prime Minister of India's : Report to the People 2009-10 - Executive Summary

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, released the “Report to the People” at a function in New Delhi today. Following are the highlights including the executive summary of the Report to the People 2009-10:

The Report to the People 2009-10 is in continuation of the tradition of transparency and accountability set by the UPA-I Government.

The Report begins with a foreword by the Prime Minister, which delineates the priorities and policies of the Government. As the Prime Minister mentions:

“The second UPA government is dedicated to building an economically stronger, a socially just, a culturally vibrant, a regionally balanced, a politically participative, a fully educated, a technologically modern, a creative and enterprising India. As we enter the second year of our second term we rededicate ourselves to these objectives and to the welfare of all our citizens.”

The political philosophy informing the UPA government’s functioning is reflected in Smt. Sonia Gandhi’s view:

“It is the responsibility of every government to ensure that their legislative agenda has at its core, a genuine concern for the well-being of the common man, that it is reflective of their hopes and their aspirations.”

The report is organized around 12 themes:

1. Enabling Human Development: (i) Education (ii) Health (iii) Child Rights

2. Social Inclusion: (i) Food Security (ii) Empowering Women (iii) Empowerment and Development of Weaker Section (iv) An Inclusive Agenda for the Minorities (v) Disability to Empowerment (vi) Caring for the Senior Citizens (vii) Welfare of Ex-Servicemen & Serving Defence Service Personnel (viii) Welfare of Workers (ix) Financial Inclusion

3. Rural Renewal: (i) Bharat Nirman (ii) Rural Employment (iii) Agriculture – Towards Food Security and Welfare of Farmers (iv) Panchayati Raj

4. Transforming Cities: (i) Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (ii) Mass Transport – Metro Projects and Buses (iii) Housing for the Urban Poor (iv) Public-Private Partnership Initiatives

5. Economic Resurgence: (i) Macroeconomic Overview (ii) Industrial Performance (iii) Energy (iv) Transport Infrastructure

6. Sustaining the Environment: (i) National Action Plan on Climate Change (ii) Compensatory Afforestation (iii) Green Tribunal (iv) Mission Clean Ganga

7. New Horizons: (i) Science and Technology (ii) Space Programme (iii) Information and Broadcasting (iv) Tourism (v) Culture (vi) Commonwealth Games (vii) National Youth Corps (viii) India post

8. Managing Disasters: (i) National Disaster Policy and Disaster-Specific Guidelines (ii) National Disaster Response Force (iii) Relief for Floods (iv) Cyclone Shelters

9. Addressing Special Development Needs: (i) The Northeast (ii) Jammu & Kashmir (iii) Bundelkhand

10. Security: (i) Internal Security Initiatives (ii) Managing Borders (iii) Defence

11. Governance and Civil Society: (i) Reforms (ii) Centre-State Relations

12. Building Bridges: (i) External Affairs (ii) Overseas Indians

The enclosed executive summary gives brief synopsis of Government’s initiatives and policies during 2009-2010.




REPORT TO THE PEOPLE 2010


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Education

1) The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 was enacted in August 2009. Notifications have been issued for the enforcement of the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act and the RTE Act with effect from 1st April 2010.

2) In 2009-10, till 31st December 2009, 7400 new primary schools and 11847 upper primary schools were opened, 35427 teachers appointed, 9708 additional classrooms constructed, 26.62 lakh teachers provided in-service training and 9.54 crore children provided textbooks.

3) During 2009-10, about 11 crore children were benefited by the Mid-day meal scheme.

4) The Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan was launched in March 2009 with the objective of improving access to secondary education. During 2009-10, clearance was given to setting up 2478 new schools and improving 6998 existing schools.

5) A scheme for the establishment and management of girls’ hostels for students in the educationally backward blocks has also been launched. During 2009-10, approval has been given to set up 379 such hostels in 11 states.

6) It has been decided to replace the present system of awarding marks by grades in all subjects in the Class X Board examination conducted by CBSE in 2010.

7) The National Literacy Mission has been recast as Saakshar Bharat. To reduce gender disparity in literacy from 21% to 10%, six crore beneficiaries, out of the total target of seven crore, will be women. Within the overall target, 1.4 crore Scheduled Castes, 80 lakh Scheduled Tribes and 1.2 crore beneficiaries belonging to the minorities will be

8) Sixteen Central universities were established, including conversion of three State universities in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand into Central universities, under the Central Universities Act, 2009. Fourteen such universities have commenced functioning in 2009-10.

9) The UPA government has approved the setting up of six Indian Institutes of Management at Rohtak, Raipur, Ranchi, Tiruchirapalli, Kashipur and Udaipur. Two new IITs at Indore and Mandi started functioning from the academic year 2009-10. Government has also decided to set up 10 new NITs, to be located in Goa, Puducherry, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

10) The UPA government has decided to provide full interest subsidy to poor students, whose parental income is limited to Rs.4.5 lakh per annum, on education loans taken by them to pursue technical and professional courses.


Health

11) During 2009-10, more than 36000 village health & sanitation committees were set up, over 1300 facility-based Rogi Kalyan Samitis were formed, over 53000 accredited social health activists (ASHAs) were selected and trained, and more than 20000 doctors and paramedical personnel were added to the public health system. Over 4984 new health sub-centre buildings, 254 primary health centre (PHC) buildings and 102 community health centre(CHC) buildings were completed; 3246 sub-centre buildings, 732 PHC buildings, 264 CHC buildings and 28 district hospital buildings were upgraded or renovated.

12) All disease control programmes showed sustained improvement. There was reduction in mortality due to malaria, kala-azar and dengue, as well as reduction in the incidence of filarial infection. In respect of tuberculosis, a cure rate of 87% has been maintained, while the case detection rate has increased from 70% in 2007 to 72% in 2009.

13) A scheme for augmenting nursing personnel by setting up 269 new auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) and general nurse midwife (GNM) schools in backward and underserved districts of the country, at a cost of around Rs. 2000 crore, has been approved. This will create additional capacity of 16000 trained nurses annually.

14) Under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana, work orders have been issued for the medical college complex for six AIIMS-like institutions, taken up under the first phase.

15) A modified scheme for mainstreaming of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy has been sanctioned and is under implementation at a total cost of Rs. 675 crore. As part of this mainstreaming activity, 2368 doctors and 2184 AYUSH paramedic staff were appointed during 2009-10.

16) The H1N1 pandemic was managed effectively. More than one crore in-bound passengers were screened at international airports, new laboratories for testing H1N1 cases were established, the drug Oseltamivir was supplied to state governments free of cost, and vaccines were imported and supplied to state governments for vaccinating health workers.

17) The Central Research Institute, Kasuali, Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor and BCG, Guindy have been enabled to resume production of vaccines.


Child Rights

18) An additional 792 projects and 291000 anganwadi centres (AWC) including mini anganwadis and 20000 anganwadis on demand have been approved to ensure that there is an operational anganwadi in every habitation of the country. This will take the total number of anganwadis to 14 lakhs. Nearly 725 lakh children below the age of 6 years and about 160 lakh pregnant and lactating women have currently been receiving benefits of supplementary nutrition. The number will increase further after the additional anganwadi centres become functional.

19) The UPA government has doubled the nutritional and feeding norms. Children in the age group 3-6 years will now be given a morning snack and a hot cooked meal.


Social Inclusion

20) The UPA government is committed to the enactment of the National Food Security Act. Consultations have been held with states and union territories and other stakeholders. A draft National Food Security bill is under preparation and it is proposed to be placed in the public domain for scrutiny and comments.

21) Political empowerment of women is a powerful and indispensable tool for eliminating gender inequality and discrimination. The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008 providing for reservation for women in as nearly as one-third of the total seats of the Lok Sabha and of the State Legislative Assemblies, including the Legislative Assembly of the NCT of Delhi, for a period of 15 years, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 6th May 2008. The Rajya Sabha has passed the bill on 9th March 2010.

22) For ensuring 50% reservation for women at all levels in the three tiers of panchayats, a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend Article 243D of the Constitution. Presently, out of around 28.18 lakh elected representatives of panchayats, only 37% are women.

23) A bill has been introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend Article 243T of the Constitution for providing 50% reservation to women in urban local bodies.

24) During 2009-10, central assistance of Rs. 1015.96 crore was released under the post-matric scholarship scheme for Scheduled Caste students, covering approximately 40 lakh students.

25) Under the post-matric scholarship scheme for Scheduled Tribe students, Rs. 270.86 crore was released to assist 1376745 students during 2009-10. During 2009-10, central assistance of Rs. 172.97 crore was released as post-matric scholarship to approximately 14 lakh students belonging to the Other Backward Classes. During the same period, under the pre-matric scholarship scheme, central assistance of Rs.31.73 crore was released to assist approximately 17 lakh students belonging to the Other Backward Classes. During 2010-11, an outlay of Rs.50 crore has been allocated under the scheme.

26) During 2009-10, concessional loans amounting to about Rs. 394 crore were disbursed through the National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC), the National Safai Karmcharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) and the National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation (NBCFDC) to two lakh members of the Scheduled Castes, Safai Karamcharis and Other Backward Classes.

27) The Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) was announced in 2009-10. The PMAGY, launched on a pilot basis, with an allocation of Rs.100 crore, seeks the integrated development of 1000 villages where the population of SCs is about 50%, in five States, viz. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Assam. Each village would be able to avail gap funding of Rs.10 lakh over and above the allocation under rural development and poverty alleviation schemes.

28) Following up closely on the historic enactment conferring forest rights on the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, all measures have been taken to ensure its proper implementation. As on March 2010, more than 7.82 lakh titles have been distributed.

29) It has been ensured that 15% of targets and outlays for schemes included in the Prime Minister’s New 15-Point programme for the Welfare of Minorities and considered amenable to targeting, have been so earmarked.

30) 64 projects, at an estimated cost of over Rs. 8600 crore, have been sanctioned under the Jawarharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for implementation in 17 towns with a sizable minority population. 101 projects, at an estimated cost of more than Rs. 2500 crore, have been sanctioned in 83 such towns under the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) component.

31) In 2009-10, 4457 primary and upper primary schools have been constructed, 3530 primary and upper primary schools have been opened, 20588 additional class rooms have been constructed, 27 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidhyalaya (KGBV) have been sanctioned and 7765 teachers sanctioned in blocks and districts having a substantial minority population.

32) 502 public sector bank branches were opened in 2009-10 (upto December 2009) in districts with a substantial minority population. Over Rs. 96000 crore of bank credit was provided to the minorities in 2009-10 (upto September 2009).

33) 60 ITIs, located in minority concentration districts, are to be upgraded as part of the Prime Minister’s New 15 Point Programme.

34) During 2009-10, 17.29 lakh scholarships were given to children belonging to the minority communities for their pre-matric education. An amount of Rs. 202.94 crore was spent. 48% of the pre-matric scholarships were awarded to girls. Under the post-matric scholarship scheme, 3.88 lakh scholarships were awarded at a cost of Rs. 148.74 crore. Nearly 55% of those awarded scholarships were girls. 35982 merit-cum-means scholarships were awarded at a cost of Rs. 97.51 crore, with nearly one third being girl students. Under the Meritorious Scholarship Scheme of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, for girl students in classes XI and XII, 15070 girls were awarded scholarships amounting to Rs. 18.08 crore.

35) A bill to amend the Waqf Act, 1995 was passed by Lok Sabha on 7th May 2010. It provides for timely completion of surveys of waqf properties, reduction of the scope of alienation of waqf properties, providing penal provisions to prevent encroachment of waqf properties, representation of women in the waqf boards, greater accountability and efficiency in the administration of the waqf properties by the waqf boards etc.

36) The district plans of 80 minority concentration districts have been approved at a total estimated cost of Rs. 2343.75 crore.

Welfare of ex-servicemen & serving defence service personnel

37) It is a constant endeavour of the UPA government to provide suitable employment for ex-servicemen as also to impart necessary training to prepare them to take on new assignments/jobs. This has enabled more than 50000 ex-servicemen to obtain employment during 2009-10.

38) The health coverage for the ex-servicemen has been widened by empanelling more civil hospitals and diagnostic centers. Disabled ex-servicemen are now entitled to get prosthetic aid from an additional 149 Central Government Health Scheme empanelled centres apart from the Artificial Limb Centre, Pune. The membership of Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) has crossed 30 lakhs.

39) A committee was set up to give specific recommendations for the welfare of defence service personnel and pensioners. The recommendations were accepted by the UPA government and this is likely to benefit about 12 lakh personnel. An Armed Forces Tribunal has been established to provide an appellate forum to the aggrieved personnel.

40) To boost the morale of troops, who are posted in far flung border areas and face difficult topographic and climatic conditions, chartering of civil flights has been sanctioned for their faster movement during leave.

41) Prime Minister's Scholarship Scheme was started under the aegis of the National Defence Fund. Under the scheme, scholarships are provided every year to wards of retired personnel and martyrs below officer rank of armed and para-military forces. In 2009-10, scholarships have been granted to 4525 students amounting to Rs.7.40 crore.

42) It has been decided to set up a National Social Security Fund for workers in the unorganized sector like weavers, toddy tappers, rickshaw pullers and bidi workers with an initial allocation of Rs. 1000 crore.

43) Government has also taken important steps for the benefit of workers in the organised sector. Workmen Compensation Act, 1923 has been amended to enhance the benefits to the workers. Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 has been amended to raise the limit of maximum gratuity payable from Rs.3.5 lakhs to Rs.10 lakhs. Comprehensive amendments have been made in the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 to improve the quality of delivery of health care and other benefits being provided to the insured persons in the organized sector and also to enable ESI infrastructure to be used to provide health care to workers in the unorganised sector. Plantations Labour Act, 1951 has been amended for providing safety and occupational health care to plantations workers.

Rural Renewal and Agriculture

44) 71.8 lakh houses were constructed during the first phase against a target of 60 lakhs. An ambitious target of constructing 120 lakh houses has been set for the second phase; against this, more than 31 lakh houses have already been constructed/upgraded at a cost of around Rs.11000 crore.

45) Over 35,000 habitations have been connected with all weather roads and over 1,90,000 kms existing rural roads have been upgraded/renewed since Bharat Nirman was launched. In 2009-10, 3344 habitations were connected and around 35500 kms of road length upgraded/renewed.

46) During the first phase, the emphasis was on providing safe drinking water to over 3.5 lakh habitations. With this work more or less complete, the priority has now shifted to cover water quality affected habitations. 28672 habitations affected with chemical contamination have been provided safe drinking water.

47) In 2009-10, under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), against a target of 17500 un-electrified villages, 18374 villages have been electrified. Against a target of 47 lakh BPL household connections, 47.18 lakh BPL households have been given free electricity connections.

48) Under Bharat Nirman, villages not having access to public telephones were to be provided with village public telephones (VPTs). 569385 villages, out of a total of 593601 villages in the country, have been provided with VPTs, as on 31st March 2010. Out of 250000 targeted village panchayats, about a third have been connected through broadband.

49) Since its inception in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has provided nearly 600 crore person-days of work. During 2009-10, about 4.90 crore households have been provided employment through 40.98 lakh works with 251 crore person-days of employment being generated at a total expenditure of Rs. 33087 crore. The average wage rate per day has increased from Rs. 65 in 2006-07 to Rs. 90 in 2009-10.

50) Several amendments have been made in the schedules of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) to facilitate its implementation. These include amendments to ensure transparency regarding custody of job cards and details to be contained in them, disbursement of wages through banks and post offices, maintenance of records, pro-active disclosure of information and processes and procedures to be followed during social audits.

51) The nation faced a severe drought in 2009. The UPA government approved assistance amounting to Rs. 4806 crore from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) to help mitigate the effects of the drought. Various measures were taken to deal with the situation, including introduction of a diesel subsidy scheme for supplementary irrigation to save standing crops, additional allocation of power from the central pool, ensuring availability of inputs, and permitting use of funds under centrally sponsored schemes for creation of agriculture infrastructure to achieve higher production. The impact of drought on crop production was mitigated.

52) Fertilizer is a key input for increasing agricultural production and productivity. The demand for major fertilizers has been the highest ever during the year 2009-10. The UPA government has been able to manage the demand in spite of the fact that the domestic production of urea has been stagnant and reliance has had to be placed on imports for meeting the requirement. Nutrient based subsidy policy (NBS) for all fertilizers, other than urea, has been introduced from 1st April 2010 to correct the imbalance in nutrient application, encourage production of soil specific fertilizers containing micro-nutrients, and encourage efficient production of fertilizers.

53) Rs.266433 crore (upto January 2010) has been disbursed as credit in 2009-10. Farmers are receiving crop loans upto a principal amount of Rs. 3 lakh at 7% rate of interest. The UPA government is providing an additional 1% interest subvention as incentive to those farmers who repay short term crop loans as per schedule.

54) Funds of the order of Rs.3761.43 crore were released to States/UTs during 2009-10 under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. An amount of Rs. 800 crore was released during 2009-10. Due to interventions under the National Horticulture Mission, production of fruits, vegetables and spices has increased by 25.6%, 22% and 11.9% respectively during 2009-10 over 2005-06.

55) The Backward Regions Grant Fund programme is being implemented through panchayats in 250 identified districts. The programme aims at removing regional imbalances by bridging critical gaps in development and encouraging decentralized planning. More than Rs.3600 crore were released to the identified districts in 2009-10. A major achievement was preparation of decentralized plans by the local bodies in 246 districts.

Transforming Cities

56) As on 31st March 2010, 524 projects have been sanctioned under the Urban Infrastructure Governance (UIG) component of JNNURM at an approved cost of over Rs.58000 crore including additional central assistance (ACA) of more than Rs. 27000 crore; around Rs. 12300 crore have been released for implementation of projects and procurement of buses.

57) Implementation of the first phase of the North Eastern Region Urban Development Programme (NERUDP) with an outlay of Rs. 1371 crore commenced in 2009-10.

58) 45.83 km of metro line was added in Delhi and the National Capital Region; NOIDA was connected to the Delhi Metro network. New metro projects were taken up in Chennai for 45.046 kms at a total cost of Rs.14600 crore and in Mumbai for 11.07 kms at a cost of about Rs.2356 crore.

Economic Resurgence and Prices

59) The year, 2009-10, showed clear signs of recovery with the rate of growth being estimated at 7.2 per cent. This has occurred, despite a decline of 0.2 per cent in agricultural output on account of sub-normal monsoons. The recovery has been marked by renewed momentum in the manufacturing sector, which grew by 8.9 per cent in 2009-10, compared to 3.2 per cent in 2008-09. The recovery of the Indian economy owes largely to the stimulus measures initiated by the Government.

60) The increase in WPI inflation could be attributed to expectations of supply-side constraints of food items, especially due to the unfavorable south-west monsoon.

61) The UPA government has taken a number of short term and medium term measures to improve domestic availability of essential commodities and moderate inflation. There are enough food grains to intervene in the market to keep the prices at reasonable level. Allocation to State governments under the Open Market Sales Scheme (domestic) for release of 20.00 lakh tonnes of wheat has been made to check inflationary trends in the food economy from October 2009 to March 2010. The Central Issue Price (CIP) for rice and wheat has been maintained to protect the poor. Further, in order to check the inflationary trend in prices of rice, a quantity of 10.00 lakh tones of rice was allocated during October 2009 to March 2010 to State governments for distribution to retail consumers.

62) Other measures taken to contain prices of essential commodities include a selective ban on exports and futures trading in food grains, zero import duty on select food items, removal of restrictions on licensing, stock limits and movement of food articles under the Essential Commodities Act of 1955, permitting imports of pulses and sugar by public sector undertakings, distribution of imported pulses and edible oils through the public distribution system.

63) A Standing Core Group of Chief Ministers and some Central Ministers has been constituted on 15th March, 2010 to consider issues related to prices of essential commodities.

Reforms

64) To consolidate and carry forward the reforms in direct taxes, a draft Direct Taxes Code, along with a discussion paper, were released for public comment. It aims to improve the efficiency and equity of the tax system and promote voluntary compliance.

65) The disinvestment policy envisages development of 'People's Ownership' of public sector enterprises to share in their wealth and prosperity while Central public retaining majority ownership and control with government. In 2009-10, five public issues were completed and the funds raised by the government amounted to Rs.23552.97 crore. The disinvestment proceeds are being used for funding the capital expenditure under the social sector schemes of the government.

Industrial performance

66) The manufacturing sector has been the key driver in this revival of industrial growth. It recorded a cumulative growth of 9.9 per cent in (April-January) 2009-10 as compared to 3.4 percent in (April-January) 2008-09. The recovery in the manufacturing sector has been driven by domestic demand, backed by well-calibrated adjustments in monetary and fiscal policies, including the fiscal stimulus.

67) The aggregate turnover of 32 CPSEs, under the Department of Heavy Industries, increased by 14.02% (over the previous year) to Rs.38628 crore. Aggregate profit before tax increased by 21.62% to Rs.4247 crore. Exports of goods and services increased by 64% to Rs.13522 crore.

68) The government has accepted the recommendations of the high-level Task Force on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), including those in the area of credit, marketing, labour, rehabilitation and exit policy, infrastructure, technology, skill development, taxation and development of MSMEs in the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir.

69) During the year 2009-2010, the number of telephone connections is estimated to have gone up by over 44%, which included an increase of about 60% in rural telephone connections. Teledensity is estimated to have increased by 42%, including a 58% increase in rural teledensity. Number of wireless connections is estimated to have gone up by nearly 49%, while broadband connections are estimated to have increased from 62.2 lakh to 88 lakh over the year.

70) A complete and holistic reform in the mining sector is being attempted through a new legislation governing the development and regulation of mines and minerals. The reform process will place sustainability and local area development at the centre stage of the reform process. It will bring about transparency, ensure equity, provide a mechanism for addressing issues of delay and discretion, along with incentives to encourage induction of high technology for exploration and for scientific mining practices.

71) India emerged as the third largest steel producer in the world during the calendar year 2009; capacity for crude steel production grew from 66.36 million tonnes in 2008-09 to 72.76 million tonnes in 2009-10.

72) To develop powerlooms, handlooms and handicrafts in public private partnership mode, development of five new mega clusters was initiated during 2009-10, in Bhilwara, Mirzapur-Bhadohi, Srinagar, Virudh Nagar and Murshidabad.

73) The Foreign Trade Policy 2009-14 was announced with the objective of arresting decline in exports caused by the global financial crisis. Policy measures implemented include fiscal incentives, enhanced marked access and diversification of export markets, technological up-gradation, and procedural rationalization to reduce transaction cost and to create new employment opportunities.

74) Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) aims to leverage the infrastructure being created under the Dedicated Freight Corridor project to create a strong economic base with globally competitive environment and state-of-the-art infrastructure to activate local commerce, enhance investments and attain sustainable development in the identified area in six states. Perspective plan for overall DMIC Region has been completed and pre-feasibility studies of individual projects are under way.

75) In the Power sector, during the 2009-10, a capacity of 9585 MW has been commissioned. Under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development & Reforms Programme (APDRP), projects worth Rs. 6242.26 crore were sanctioned and Rs. 1331.46 crore disbursed to the state power utilities in the financial year 2009-10.

76) Great emphasis has been placed on enhancing energy security through rapid exploration of domestic oil and gas reserves, combined with acquisition abroad and enhancement of refining capacity. During the current year, the domestic production of natural gas has seen an 80% increase. The domestic crude oil production during 2009-10 has increased by 7% over last year. Crude oil production from Barmer in Rajasthan has commenced.

77) During 2009-10, international oil prices have been volatile and the Indian basket of crude oil has ranged between $ 47 and $ 81 per barrel. However, the UPA government has successfully insulated the consumer from the high volatility of international oil prices.

78) With the commissioning of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station Units 5 & 6 during the year, the total installed capacity of nuclear power has reached 4560 MWe with 19 reactors being operational. Four more reactors are under advanced stages of construction and on completion will take the installed capacity to 7280 MWe by 2011.

Transport Infrastructure

79) The government has set a target of developing 7000 km of National Highways per year, which translates into 20 km per day. To achieve this ambitious target, there has been a major thrust towards award of projects.

80) Indira Gandhi International airport at Delhi, designed to cater to 100 million passengers per annum by 2036, is soon going to be fully operational, well in time for the Commonwealth Games 2010. The modernization of 35 non-metro airports in under way.

81) The National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL) is being restructured. A decision has been taken to infuse a sum of Rs 2000 crore as equity in NACIL, out of which Rs 800 crore has already been released.

82) During the year 2009-10, 13 port sector PPP projects, with private sector investment of Rs. 2653 crore, and capacity of 65.65 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) were awarded. Substantial progress has been made in the construction of the international container trans-shipment terminal at Cochin port.

83) The second container terminal at Chennai port, with a capacity of 9.6 MTPA, has been operationalised.

84) Despite the global economic meltdown, a growth of 6.56% in freight loading has been achieved by Indian Railways in the year 2009-10. 14 new train services by the name 'Duronto', with AC and non-AC sleeper coaches, have been introduced for non-stop point to point services between selected cities throughout the country. There has been no increase in passenger fares during the year.

Sustaining the Environment

85) The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was launched by the Prime Minister on 11th January 2010. The mission has set an ambitious target of creating a capacity of 20000 MW grid solar power, 2000 MW off-grid solar applications and 20 million square metre of solar thermal collectors by the year 2022.

86) Instructions have been issued for the formation of State-level Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management & Planning Authorities for enabling release of 10% of the Rs 9900 crores available in the centralized account to state governments every year, for the next five years.

87) The National Green Tribunal Bill, 2009 has been passed. It provides for establishing a National Green Tribunal for effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection, conservation of forests and other natural resources, enforcement of legal rights relating to the environment, and giving relief and compensation for damages to persons and property.

88) It has been decided that under "Mission Clean Ganga" it would be ensured that by the year 2020 no untreated municipal sewage and industrial effluents flow into the Ganga.

89) New Horizons

90) To provide internationally competitive and contemporary infrastructure for research, product development in cutting edge areas of research in life sciences and biotechnology, the following five new institutions have been made operational:

a) Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad

b) Regional Centre for Biotechnology in collaboration with UNESCO, Faridabad

c) National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kolkata

d) Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bangalore

e) National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute and Bioprocessing Unit at Mohali, Punjab

91) In partnership with agricultural universities, the bi-weekly district-level agro-meteorological advisory services have been extended to provide information on rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature, cloud cover, humidity etc. to farmers in 500 meteorological districts.

92) CSIR, with Cadila Pharmaceuticals, has developed for the first time a novel therapy obtained from Ayurveda named as "RISORINE" for the treatment of tuberculosis.

93) The Indian space programme scaled new heights during the year with detection of traces of water, ice and hydroxyl molecules on the lunar surface through India`s unmanned mission to the Moon - Chandrayaan-1.

94) Policy guidelines were issued for Headend-in-the-Sky (HITS) operators for speeding up the process of digitalization of cable TV services.

Culture

95) Central government has recently amended the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, which prohibits construction, including public projects, within the 100 metre 'prohibited area'. A National Monuments Authority is being set up as the apex body to oversee the implementation of the Act.

96) Rs. 20 crore has been sanctioned for the upgradation of Sardar Patel's memorials at Ahmedabad and Karamsad.

97) Preparations have started to commemorate the 150th birth anniversaries of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda, both nationally and internationally. A project to set up a memorial for Shaheed Bhagat Singh, at his native place at Khatkar Kalan, has been sanctioned at a cost of Rs. 16.80 crore.

Commonwealth Games

98) The country is hosting the prestigious XIXth Commonwealth Games in October, 2010. The Games present an excellent opportunity to herald India's emergence as a significant sporting nation and showcase its organizational capacity to host such a major international event. Preparations for the event are at an advanced stage.

Managing Disasters

99) The National Policy on Disaster Management has been approved on 22nd October 2009. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued guidelines on management of landslides and snow avalanches, management of chemical terrorism and disasters, and psycho-social support & mental health services in disasters.

100) During the year 2009-10, the National Disaster Response Force was actively engaged in rescue and relief operations in the various states affected by cyclone, cyclonic storm, floods, landslides etc. The swift and highly skilled flood rescue operations of the force saved over 21000 human lives.

101) During the Southwest monsoon and the post-monsoon seasons of 2009-10, twenty States and one Union Territory reported damage due to cyclonic storms, heavy rains, floods, landslides, cloudburst, etc., to varying degrees. The UPA government extended prompt and timely logistic support to the affected States. In 2009-10 financial assistance amounting to Rs. 3791.86 crore was provided to States from the Calamity Relief Fund for dealing with various natural calamities. Besides, financial assistance to the tune of Rs. 3261.52 crore was provided to different States from the National Calamity Contingency Fund for the management of immediate relief operations in areas affected by calamities of a severe nature during 2009-10.

Addressing Special Development Needs: The Northeast, Jammu & Kashmir, and Bundelkhand

102) A regional coordination mechanism, covering all the Northeastern states, for gathering, analyzing and disseminating intelligence has been set up at Shillong and has been operationalized with effect from 23rd February 2010.

103) The UPA Government has been paying special attention to the development of national highways in the North-East region and 10 per cent of the total allocation is earmarked for that region. So far, about 596 km length has been completed during 2009-10. Development of roads & highways in Arunachal Pradesh involves about 2319 km of roads. Bids have already been received for four projects with a total length of 776 km, to be awarded shortly. The trans-Arunachal Highway forms an important part of this initiative.

104) The capital cities of the North Eastern states are getting progressively connected by rail. Guwahati and Agartala are already connected. Projects for connecting the capitals of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have been taken up.

105) Three greenfield airports have been approved, of which one at Pakyong in Sikkim, is already under construction involving a cost of Rs 264 crore. The development of Tezu airport, at a cost of Rs. 79.00 crore, has been approved during 2009-10. The project is being implemented by the Airports Authority of India. The airport will be ready for operations by March 2012.

106) The implementation of the Prime Minister's package for lighting up all the villages on the international border in Arunachal Pradesh was started in 2009. A total of 1058 villages are to be covered under this project out of which 512 villages have already been covered by solar photovoltaic systems.

107) Under RGGVY, 16 projects have been sanctioned for Rs. 537.69 crore for electrification of 2129 villages, intensive electrification of 1756 electrified villages and 40810 connections to BPL households.

108) The Assam Gas Cracker Project is expected to generate substantial downstream investment and employment in the region. The construction activities at project site are in full swing and Rs.744 crore has been spent till 31st March 2010. The project is scheduled for completion in April 2012.

109) The Prime Minister announced the construction of 11 hydel projects in Jammu & Kashmir, under the Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Programme. Out of these, three projects namely: Uri-I (480 MW), Salal-I & II (690 MW) and Dulhasti (390 MW) have already been completed and commissioned. A furthet 4 projects namely, Sewa-II HEP (120 MW), Nimoo Bazgo HEP (45 MW), Chutak HEP (44 MW) and Uri-II (240 MW) are likely to be completed within 2010.

110) RGGVY schemes for five districts namely Baramulla, Pulwama, Rajouri, Poonch and Doda have been sanctioned by the Rural Electrification Corporation on 27th November 2009. With this, RGGVY schemes for the entire state have been sanctioned.

111) In the Kashmir valley, five pairs of short distance service Diesel Multiple Units (DMU) trains have been put in operation between Budgam and Qazigund, Qazigund and Baramula and Baramula and Budgam.

112) The UPA government has approved a Special Bundelkhand Drought Mitigation Package to the tune of Rs. 7266 crore, comprising of Rs.3506 crore for Uttar Pradesh and Rs. 3760 crore for Madhya Pradesh, to be implemented over a period of three years starting with 2009-10.

113) Security

114) A number of important decisions and measures have been taken. These measures include augmentation of the strength of Central paramilitary forces, amendment of the Central Industrial Security Force Act to enable deployment of the force in joint venture industrial undertakings, establishment of National Security Guard (NSG) hubs at Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai, tighter immigration control, effective border management through round-the-clock surveillance & patrolling along the borders, establishment of observation posts, border fencing, flood-lighting, deployment of modern and hi-tech surveillance equipment, upgrade of the intelligence set-up and strengthening of coastal security.

115) UPA government has adopted an integrated approach in dealing with left wing extremists (LWE) in the area of security, development and public perception. The State governments deal with the various issues related to LWE issues in the states. The Central government supplements their efforts in several ways. These include providing Central paramilitary forces (CPMFs) and commando battalions; modernisation and up gradation of the State police and their intelligence apparatus under the Scheme for Modernisation of State Police Forces (MPF Scheme); re-imbursement of security related expenditure under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme; filling up critical infrastructure gaps under the scheme for Special Infrastructure (SIS) in left wing extremism affected States; assistance in training of State police through Ministry of Defence, central police organisations and Bureau of Police Research and Development; sharing of intelligence etc.

116) An amount of Rs. 668.61 crore has been released during 2009-10, under the schemes of Modernisation of Police Forces (Rs. 578.61 crore), Security Related Expenditure (Rs. 60.00 crore) and Special Infrastucture Scheme (Rs. 30.00 crore) to left wing extremism affected States. A sum of Rs. 1230.00 crore has been released to all the States for modernisation of State police forces.

Managing Borders

117) During 2009-10, construction of 210 km of fencing, 310 km of border roads and 400 km of floodlighting was completed along the India-Bangladesh border. Construction of 50 border out-posts was also commenced. Formation works along a length of 35.89 km and surfacing works along a length of 11.2 km were completed on 11 roads along the India-China border. In the Gujarat sector, along the Indo-Pakistan border, construction of 15 km length of border roads was completed.

118) Construction of seven integrated check posts has been taken up at Attari (India-Pakistan) and Raxaul (India-Nepal border) while work at Jogbani (India-Nepal border), Dawki (India-Bangladesh border), Akhaura (India-Bangladesh border), Moreh (India-Myanmar border) and Petrapole (India-Bangladesh border) will be also taken up shortly.

119) The UPA government is continuing with its focus on the modernisation of its armed forces and ensuring defence preparedness of the country. The raising of two mountain divisions to safeguard the North-Eastern borders, and setting up of the second Officers Training Academy (OTA) at Gaya, Bihar have been approved. The modernisation of Rashtriya Rifles was also approved to improve the counter insurgency grid in Jammu & Kashmir. Other areas being accorded high priority are the development of roads and infrastructure in the high altitude areas, and coastal and maritime security.

120) A decision has been taken to induct the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile system, with precision strike capability against land targets. Akash surface to air missile system capable of multi-target handling, is also being inducted.

Governance and Civil Society

121) In 2009-10, 39615 additional Common Service Centres were established. Services being offered through these centres include birth, death, caste, income & domicile certificates, services relating to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, utility bill collection, employment exchange services, postal services, electoral roll registration, right to information services, record of rights, integration with online portals, and management information system & awareness services for National Rural Health Mission, disaster management, AIDS control and telemedicine.

122) The UPA government has taken a major initiative to provide a unique identification to all the resident Indian population. The Unique Identification Authority of India has been constituted to implement the UID scheme. This scheme shall ensure that various development deliverables reach the poor and needy in time, shall enable better monitoring and help plug leakages. Necessary action is being taken to ensure that it is possible to begin issuing UID numbers in 2010.

123) Efforts have been made to strengthen both the `demand' and `supply' side for effective implementation of the Right to Information Act. Information Commissions have been set up both at the Centre and in the States. Government departments are being encouraged to put more information in the public domain; training programmes have been organized for CPIOs and appellate authorities and guidebooks have been prepared for use of both government officials and the public.

124) A Delivery Monitoring Unit has been set up in the Prime Minister's Office to review selected flagship programmes, initiatives and iconic projects, with a view to ensuring effective delivery, through steady monitoring by the Ministry concerned. Ministries have also been advised to place information in the public domain on their respective websites and have begun so placing the information.

125) The 'NGO Partnership System' is a web based portal to provide Voluntary Organizations (VOs)/Non Government Organizations (NGOs) with a host of facilities. As many as 27752 VOs/NGOs have already signed up with the NGO-Partnership System.

Centre-State Relations

126) The share of States in the net proceeds of Union taxes has been enhanced to 32% from the 30.5% recommended by the Twelfth Finance Commission. The estimated total transfers to States, comprising share in central taxes and grants-in-aid during 2010-15 amount to Rs. 1766677 crore as against Rs. 755751.72 crore recommended for 2005-10.

127) Central loans administered by Ministries, other than the Ministry of Finance, to States, that are outstanding as at the end of 2009-10, will be written-off.

Building Bridges

128) The UPA government, in its second term, pursues its foreign policy objectives which are closely integrated with the country's fundamental security and development priorities. India's foreign policy aims at a global order in which India's overriding goals of rapid, sustained and inclusive socio-economic development and poverty alleviation are attained rapidly without any hindrance. To this end, India's foreign policy has combined firm commitment to our core national values with dynamic adaptation to changes in the international environment. As a corollary to these objectives, India is committed to close and good neighbourly relations with all countries in its immediate and extended neighbourhood.

129) India's commitment to its immediate neighbourhood has revitalised SAARC with the implementation of a number of regional and sub-regional projects focused primarily on development. New initiatives have included the setting up of the SAARC Development Fund, establishment of the SAARC Food Bank, implementation of regional projects in telemedicine, tele-education and agriculture and conclusion of the SAARC Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters.

130) India continued to press for reform of the United Nations, in particular, through expansion of its Security Council to make it more democratic and representative.

131) India continued to play a lead role in the Non-Aligned Movement to maintain the movement's relevance and strengthen its voice on international issues.

132) India has remained actively engaged in the multilateral negotiations on climate change to build a rule-based, transparent and equitable climate change regime that safeguards the interests of the developing countries and supports their endeavour for poverty alleviation and sustainable economic development.

Overseas Indians

133) Prime Minister's Global Advisory Council of Overseas Indians has been set up to draw upon the experience and knowledge of eminent people of Indian origin in diverse fields from across the world. The first meeting of the Council was held on 7th January 2010 at New Delhi.

134) The Global Indian Network of Knowledge (Global INK) is an electronic platform that will connect people of Indian Origin from a variety of disciplines, recognized as leaders in their respective fields, not just in their country of residence but globally as well, with knowledge users at the national and sub-national levels in India.

135) The eighth edition of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) convention was held in New Delhi on 7th to 9th January 2010. The Convention was attended by over 1500 delegates from different countries. On this occasion, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards were conferred on 14 overseas Indians. The third mini-PBD called "PBD-Europe" was held at the World Forum in The Hague on 19th September 2009.

136) The government approved the proposal for setting up the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) in the Indian Missions in 17 countries where emigration check is required, and the Maldives, in August 2009. The ICWF will enable extending on site welfare & emergency relief to overseas Indians in distress.


Source:http://pmindia.nic.in/pressrel.htm


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

India raises official poverty estimate

After a lot of deliberation, the Indian government has concluded that it has around 100 million more people living below the poverty line than in 2004. This was after the country’s top policy planning body raised its estimate of the nation’s official poverty rate to 37.2% of the population, from 27.5%, a key development as the government drafts legislation to give the poorest Indians a right to state-subsidised foodgrain.

The move by the Planning Commission, which wasn’t announced formally but was confirmed by a senior government official, pegs the number of Indians in poverty at around 410 million -- more than 100 million above the previous estimate.

The change comes after critics said the earlier poverty estimate left too many destitute households out of the government’s food entitlement programmes. But the new poverty figure is unlikely to please food activists and politicians who feel it still vastly underestimates the number of people in need of assistance.

The 37.2% poverty line is based on a new methodology recommended by a panel headed by former economic advisor Suresh Tendulkar, in a report submitted to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia in December 2009. Although the report still has to be officially accepted, for the limited purposes of food security the Planning Commission agreed to Tendulkar’s recommendations at a recent meeting of its members.

The earlier definition of poverty was based on calorie intake, according to which only 27.5% of people were living below the poverty line and the number of BPL families was around 65 million. With the Plan panel accepting the Tendulkar methodology, 37.2% of the total population, or 81 million families, will be placed below the poverty line.

The new poverty estimate, which will reflect the impact of high growth recorded during the decade, will be available in 2011. Computation of the number of BPL families at this stage assumes significance in view of the government’s decision to enact a food security law under which 25 kg of foodgrain will be provided every month, at Rs 3 per kg, to every BPL family.

The Planning Commission, mandated by the empowered group of ministers, chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to finalise the BPL numbers, will now meet the secretaries of food and expenditure to calculate the cost of providing food security to so many poor.

The burden on the central exchequer for implementing the food security law will depend on the number of BPL households and the quantity of subsidised foodgrain available with the government. Food subsidy stood at around Rs 72,000 crore in the last financial year.

“Two different poverty lines -- one for food security and the other for all other purposes -- for one country sounds odd. But this has been the most expedient solution for the time being,” said an official who did not wish to be named.

This will raise the number of those eligible for free food significantly -- but nobody’s sure how much. The widely quoted number is close to 10 crore families; some states put it at over 11 crore; the Planning Commission puts it somewhere between 7.5 and 8 crore. The worry is that it demonstrates, again, a dangerously halfhearted commitment to food security: dangerous because it will neither be abandoned nor effectively implemented, and the country could end up with a system that feeds too few and costs too much.

“This is a very low, suppressed poverty line. We reject it,” Kavita Srivastava, an activist who led a ‘right to food’ rally in the capital recently, said. “As far as we’re concerned, it still doesn’t tell us the real number of poor.”

Among the protesters at the rally was 50-year-old Kesar Sahu who lives in a slum in Rajasthan’s capital, Jaipur, and supports herself and two daughters by sweeping floors and cutting vegetables at schools. The Rs 1,000 she earns in a good month isn’t enough to make do, even with existing government subsidies, she said. “We’re only getting 35 kg (of foodgrain) now. We really need 50 kg to get by. Everyone should get that much.”

Though India’s economy emerged from the global downturn with a solid gross domestic product growth of 7.2% in the year ended March 31, the country’s poor are struggling to deal with year-on-year food inflation that is hovering around 17%. Even before rising food prices, India was struggling with high malnutrition rates.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government has pushed for legislation that will provide 25 kg of wheat and rice per month to households deemed officially below the poverty line. India already has a programme in place to distribute about 35 kg of subsidised foodgrain to poor households, but the rate is about 50% more expensive than what’s now being proposed.

Moreover, there is no law that guarantees food subsidies -- they are given at the central government’s discretion. And the current programme is plagued by corruption, with one-third of grain pilfered or rotting before it reaches needy households.

Experts say a third of the world’s poor are in India, living on less than $ 2 per day, worse than in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: http://infochangeindia.org/201004198258/Poverty/News/India-raises-official-poverty-estimate.html

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

Vidarbha: Dirty technology in the guise of development?

The government of Maharashtra plans to allow 43 new private and public thermal power plants in Vidarbha, a region that’s suffered years of neglect and is home to thousands of distressed, suicidal farmers. Is the government justified in sacrificing Vidarbha to the power needs of the rest of the state/country?

When the regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada were integrated into the erstwhile state of Bombay, Article 371 (2) was inserted into the Indian Constitution by the 7th Amendment of 1956. This was to ensure that the people of the two regions were properly integrated. For this to happen, the governor of the state was given special responsibilities through a presidential order for the establishment of development boards, allocation of funds for development, etc. In 1994, statutory development boards were constituted for the regions of Vidarbha, Marathwada and the rest of Maharashtra.

Over the past 15 years, the Vidarbha Statutory Development Board (VSDB) has endeavoured to accelerate development in the region. It has highlighted poor irrigation facilities, shortage of electric irrigation pumps and disparities in electric supply, while using its meagre resources to build infrastructure. But not much has changed. A 2006 Planning Commission fact-finding mission investigating rural distress in Vidarbha reported “astounding evidence of years of continued neglect of a region and its people”.

It comes as no surprise therefore that the VDSB’s ‘Report on Need of Region-wise Equitable Distribution of Electricity’ did not make news in Vidarbha as it said nothing new. But, while focusing on disparities in electricity distribution, it does reveal government plans to permit 43 new private and public thermal power plants in Vidarbha.

The rationale behind coal-fired thermal power plants

The region of Vidarbha, comprising Nagpur and Amravati divisions, constitutes 31.6% of Maharashtra, or approximately 97,321 sq km. Eleven districts fall under it -- Amravati, Akola, Bhandara, Buldana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Nagpur, Wardha, Washim and Yavatmal. The 2001 census puts Vidarbha’s population at 20,630,987.

The government’s attempt to develop Vidarbha into a power hub has some sound reasoning behind it. Being centrally located, power can easily be distributed across the country from here. And the absence of large industry and cities implies minimal demand for land, water, clean air, etc. It is assumed, of course, that the farmers here, being in a state of constant distress, would be only too eager to dispose of their land.

Growing energy requirements add to the ‘suitable conditions’. The Central Electricity Authority’s National Electricity Plan has assessed the capacity addition for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan to be 78,530 MW, of which 58,597 MW will be through coal-fired thermal generation. A capacity addition of 82,000 MW is forecast for the Twelfth Plan, to be partially met by 40,000 MW thermal generation. In 2009, the power secretary stated that “the future of the power sector will be largely dependent on coal supplies, at least for the next 15-20 years”. It’s obvious that the state government is eyeing revenue-generating opportunities in its plan to set up thermal power plants in Vidarbha.

Capitalising on the vacuum created by underdevelopment, the government is promoting dirty technology in the guise of development, reminiscent of international business using lax labour and environmental laws to push dirty technology in third world countries.

Read in detail here: http://infochangeindia.org/201004098226/Environment/Features/Vidarbha-Dirty-technology-in-the-guise-of-development.html

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

Climate Change Science: Due Diligence for Future Generations?

Have we shown due diligence and proper consideration for the welfare of future generations by doing our best to scientifically evaluate the spectrum of climate change dangers and responsible mitigation management of our emissions?

Or are we in carbon addict denial refusing to do due diligence in evaluating what look to be serious, possibly even humanity threatening dangers to future generations because we don't want to accept the need to curtail our emissions? Are we turning a blind eye to the damage we are potentially causing to our kids and grandchildren because we are afraid that quantifying the dangers will force us to confront our present socio-economy and lifestyles?

What would constitute a due diligence process for quantifying climate change dangers, local and global, immediate and for the future? Is our present way of doing climate change science the best way of quantifying the climate change dangers?

We have known for more than a century the greenhouse gas (GHG) cause and effect and how burning fossil fuels should increase global temperatures, and that for several decades at least we have gathered evidence indicating GHG increase and global temperature rise. We now know from scientific examination of ice-cores and other long term climate records that small forcings can whipsaw large climate swings and that the 10,000 year Holocene period containing man's civilized history has been a begnine, stable climate that is now threatened. Yet our GHG emissions continue to rise. If we have not taken appropriate precautionary steps to limit our increasing GHG production, is it that our scientific foresight is incapable of quantifying the impacts and scale of dangers for future generations?

Or we just haven't tried hard enough to understand our culpability in our continuing GHG production because we don't want to know? Because we fear that hard answers about the consequences of our actions would be profoundly inconvenient.

Is the IPPC a proper due diligence process? The IPCC has been a very productive and informing ad hoc, volunteer approach for scientifically investigating climate change. Several thousand scientists globally have hypothesized, experimented, collected data and organized our understanding of climate change in the best quantification of cause and effect and probabilities of risk and danger that we have.

But is the IPCC due diligence in protecting future generations? The present Climategate furor has been orchestrated to cast doubt on both the IPCC process and the present state of climate change knowledge that this process has produced over nearly two decades. This MSM trial of the IPCC does not in any way undermine the body of scientific information published and is really about continuing to manufacture denial.

There are flaws in the IPCC process though: volunteer and underfunded, unwieldy and out of date, the offspring of a very weak organization with declining powers, and an inherently conservative process dependent upon consensus between not only scientists but with national political actors involved too.

This conservative consensus building is not due diligence in acting in a precautionary way to safeguard future generations. Presently emerging science and areas of science and policy that are bound to be controversial are marginalized, ignored or downplayed:

"(T)he 2007 IPCC Report worked within projections of a 90 percent confidence level which comes close to requiring full scientific certainty; this practice was in violation of the precautionary principle which affirms that where there is a threat of climate change the lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent the threat. If the IPCC had explicitly considered the risks of higher temperatures outside the boundary of a 90 percent confidence level, dynamical melting of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets, and non–linear responses to drivers of climate change this would have enabled States to have far more clarity in regards to the dire urgency of the climate crisis emergency."
http://timetobebold.wordpress.com/

The IPCC has been invaluable as a stimulus for and gatherer of climate change science but innovation is needed. The IPCC process must be better supported financially and politically; innovation is required to speed up publication and focus the emerging science. The IPCC should consider quickly documenting a 'worse case scenario' with probabilities and precautionary mitigation steps that might be necessary.

The UN is not the strong multilateral organization needed in confronting emerging global-scale problems. There is widespread agreement that the US as leading global economic and political power and developer of the present dominant socio-economy has to be world leader on climate change.

But America cannot lead because government is paralyzed, captured by business interests, and the American public is deeply mis-educated and divided about climate change.

Those in the science community and those in positions of responsibility in government who do know the science and recognize the seriousness of the climate change danger must innovate to try and get the majority of at least informed Americans onside, on the same page about climate change dangers and mitigation steps necessary.

A Presidential Commission organized at the highest cabinet levels and facilitated by either the AAAS or NAS with the process and resulting quantification of dangers posted transparently on the web in something like a controlled access wiki could potentially put most Americans on the same page about what American leadership should be on climate change.

Innovating science process and communication in this way may overcome mis-education and denial and force Americans to recognize how their present use of fossil fuels will probably effect their kids and grandchildren in the future. Quantifying climate change in this way may force Americans and the rest of the world's major emitters to recognize their ethical duty to future generations.

There is also a strong argument that there is no problem with how the science community has quantified climate change - the problem is that climate science is input to government decision making completely pre-occupied with economic management. We need governance innovation too.

"If nations or individuals have ethical obligations, they are likely to have duties, responsibilities, and obligations that require them to go beyond consideration of self-interest alone in making decisions. And so, if climate change raises ethical considerations, governments may not base policy decisions on self-interest alone."


By Bill Henderson


Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/henderson060310.htm


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

Remove Sharad Pawar- Agriculture Minister, And Food Inflation Will Ease

I have got tired of answering questions about food inflation. So when a TV journo called me yesterday inviting me to a show on food inflation, I apologised. "What new can I say on food price spiral," I told him.

"No, Sir", he replied "We know you were alone when the entire class of economists were trying to pass the blame on supply-demand constraint. They were proved wrong. Whatever you said about food prices, and the failure of the government to control it, has come out to be true. Please come on our show and tell us what will happen this year."

Anyway, to cut the long story short, I accepted the invite.

To my pleasant surprise, when the TV channel played the introductory package wherein we heard Sushma Swaraj speaking in Parliament, the young anchor told me that more than six months prior to her I had said almost the same on this TV show. The anchor in fact reeled out some of the prescriptions that I had doled out for curbing the price rise.

I was amazed. I never expected a TV anchor to be so keenly following a story. It only tells us that not all TV hosts are dumb. Not only this girl, I find most of the anchors quite sharp and bright. Of course, I am not comparing them with the likes of Karan Thapar, Rajdeep Sardesai, Pankaj Pachauri and Hindol Sengupta, but I must say that over time most TV channels have begun to look for real good anchors.

Nevertheless, returning back to food inflation, I was asked to respond to the UPA government's latest claim that food prices will ease by April. Although food inflation has risen to 17.87 per cent for the week ending Feb 20, chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu has been quoted as saying that the food price have come down, and the high inflation is because of the base effect. Analysts say that the April harvest would be crucial, and the pressure on inflation will ease after the new crop flows into the markets.

I don't think food inflation will ebb after April. In the days to come we will first see the Budget decision to hike duties on fuel impacting prices, an indication of which is coming from Anand, Gujarat, where the milk cooperatives are warning of a rise in milk prices. In the past few days, the price of 500 gm pack of curd in Mother Dairy has already gone up by Rs 2, and that of cheese by Rs 4.

Once this price rise stabilises, the food prices will be on a continuous spiral pending the hike in urea prices by 10 per cent, which will come into effect from April 1.

Fertiliser manufacturers have promised not to raise the price of other fertilisers besides urea in Kharif 2010, but after the monsoon season is over, it will be free for all. That is where the fertiliser manufacturers are waiting to make a killing. This will have a cascading effect on food prices. In short, we must learn to live with higher food prices.

Once again, I was asked as to what needs to done. I am spelling out the corrective steps that needs to be undertaken immediately:

1. Any strong government, if it wasn't faced with the compulsions of coalition politics, would have removed the Food & Agriculture Minister by now. The Congress cannot wait any longer. It must get rid of Sharad Pawar, and you will see the prices coming down.

2. We have no reason to complain if we believe in market economy. This is what the markets do when left on its own. The markets need a danda. And that is what the government is reluctant to do because it will go against the norms of a free economy. The government needs to regulate the markets, even if it means going against the flawed thinking that markets correct itself.

3. Hand over the sugar swindle (or call it mismanagement) to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). There is no reason why the sugar stocks continued to climb in the stockmarket at a time when the industry claimed it was running in losses. It was all designed.

4. Go for a nationwide crackdown against hoarders, not only the wholesale trade but also the retailers. Simultaneously, put a full stop on future trading in agricultural commodities.

5. Curb the big retail. They are also responsible for the price hike.

By Devinder Sharma

Source:http://www.countercurrents.org/sharma060310.htm

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

Poor nations should consider overall health picture

Families in some poor nations are trapped in cycles of illness and poverty as authorities fail to tackle chronic health problems or meet goals on child health and tuberculosis, scientists said on Tuesday 2nd March 2010.

British and American researchers found countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe with the highest rates of HIV and chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease are also failing to meet goals on reducing child death rates and the spread of tuberculosis.

Lesotho, for example, has seen a 25 percent rise in infant death rates over the past few decades and has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world, they wrote.

In 2000, world leaders from 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals to reduce child mortality by two-thirds and to halt and reverse the spread of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV by 2015.

But the researchers said tackling both chronic problems like heart disease and infectious diseases like tuberculosis at the same time could be far more effective than pursuing a narrow focus against a few diseases named in globally-agreed targets.

Reducing HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- by 1 percent, or chronic diseases by 10 percent could help boost progress towards child health and tuberculosis targets by the equivalent of more than a decade of economic development, they said.

"It is important to look at the entire health experience of individuals and families and not focus on just one or a few diseases," said Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who worked on the study with colleagues from the universities of Oxford and California San Francisco.

"Success in global health means tackling the daily, interconnected risks people living in poor countries face, whether those risks are chronic or infectious."

Tackling joint epidemics of chronic and infectious diseases could especially help countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers said, where progress towards goals had been slowest.

They also said Eastern Europe was far behind on tuberculosis goals, a failure they said was "partly because of an explosive and uncontained chronic disease epidemic in the 1990s."

The study found it was not simply lack of money or infrastructure that hampered health progress, but that long-term diseases like HIV, heart disease and diabetes could trap households in "vicious cycles of illness and poverty".

"Traditional reasons for slow progress, such as economic development or health spending, are only a small part of the story about why poorer countries are falling behind," David Suckler of Oxford University wrote in the study in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine journal.

"Future progress will crucially depend on finding a way to break the cycle of illness and poverty caused by HIV and chronic illnesses." (Editing by Janet Lawrence)


Source: http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6210M1.htm


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

“Being Indian, you have no right to be cynical”

Mahasweta Devi, the formidable literary talent and relentless fighter of many causes, talks to Anosh Malekar about the inequity in our society and why it’s necessary for every Indian to raise a voice against injustice.

It was a pleasant winter morning in Ahmedabad and I was awaiting my first meeting with Mahasweta Devi with a great deal of curiosity and a fair amount of dread. To begin with, I had read very little of her vast and unique contribution to literature as a fiction writer in Bengali. Then there was the reputation of her radical social activism, her incessant battles against the exploiters of tribal communities and the denotified tribes (DNTs), and her raging protests and criticism of callous governments. As I waited, I could feel the sweat on my palms.

This was in December 1998, six months after Mahasweta Devi had delivered the Verrier Elwin Memorial Lecture in Baroda and set up the Denotified and Nomadic Tribes Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG) along with fellow writer-activists Ganesh Devy and Laxman Gaikwad. The three had also started publishing a bulletin named Budhan, after Budhan Sabar, a tribal belonging to the denotified Kheria Sabar community of West Bengal, who was brutally murdered in police custody on February 17, 1998. Mahasweta, as the founding president of the Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samiti, had fought his case in the Calcutta High Court, ensuring action against the erring police officers and a compensation of Rs 100,000 for Budhan's widow.

She was now in Ahmedabad to meet municipal officials on the issue of Chharanagar, a pre-Independence era resettlement site on the outskirts of Gujarat’s commercial heart, Ahmedabad, where the Chhara community has lived ever since their notification as ‘criminals’ by the British.

Mahasweta Devi and Ganesh Devy were warned by the police against entering the ‘criminal ghetto’, but they insisted and pushed their way through. Mahasweta asked the young Chhara boys and girls what it was that they needed most. On being told they wanted books to read, she had spent money from her own pocket and bought them some books.

The young boys and girls in Chharanagar were overjoyed and in gratitude composed a play on the life and death of Budhan Sabar. The first performance took place before Mahasweta, at the first national convention of the denotified tribes held in Chharanagar in August 1998. A new experimental theatre, Budhan theatre, was born that year and the young Chharas from Ahmedabad have since performed across India and abroad. The library and theatre proved a rallying point for Chharanagar’s struggle to break out of the centuries-old stigma.

As Mahasweta made her way out of the municipal commissioner’s office and my moment seemed to have finally arrived, I realised there was going to be more sweating. Mahasweta was surrounded by many people and remained constantly on the move. By the time we settled down for an interview, she had walked some distance to a small restaurant near the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation for a cup of coffee.

I thought it better to admit my ignorance of the Chharas and their issues at the beginning and excused myself by telling her that I had arrived in Ahmedabad only recently. To my surprise Mahasweta broke into peals of laughter, which she later explained.

“You must have heard a lot of things about me. But you may not have heard this before: when I was perhaps your age and struggling to make a living, I had tried my hand at exporting monkeys to the US for medical research without knowing anything about the business. There was a person I knew in Calcutta who got a few thousand monkeys from Madhya Pradesh and sent them directly to Bombay. But something went wrong and the monkeys were never exported. I never got to see the monkeys but I heard they were released in the ghat area between Bombay and Poona! Have you seen any of my monkeys?” she asked me, trying to control her laughter.

The ice was broken, and Mahasweta turned to the serious topic of the Chharas in Ahmedabad and what needed to be done to improve their lot.

After that memorable encounter, I had no occasion to meet Mahasweta till December 2009, when she was in Pune to release the book Women’s Literature in Indian Languages by the Sahityapremi Bhagini Mandal. She was now 84, but still a rebel, and with a formidable memory: she could belt out her favourite Tagore poem ‘Proshno’ (Question) extempore from beginning to end. She had difficulty walking but that did not stop her from flying down from Kolkata and moving around Pune in a car, talking freely to people at the venue of the function and in the lobby of her hotel.

“You have become 'Didi' (elder sister) or 'Maa' (Mother) for hundreds of thousands of common people like the tribals across India, and to those opposing the controversial SEZ policy and its implementation particularly in West Bengal,” I began.

“Oh, I do very little. I do not do everything. But I try to make them do things,” Mahasweta replied. "I keep saying, the struggle never stops, and we must remember this at every breath. We must keep trying."

She usually avoids any reference to her writings or awards unless there is a specific and sensible query about her work. What enlivens a conversation with her are her references to her incessant wanderings in the forests, villages, towns and cities, small and big, to be among the exploited and suppressed people and understand their fight for survival.

“It is very important and necessary that you travel,” she says. “I travelled a lot for Jhansir Rani, my first published work. I went to all the places the young Laxmibai was associated with. Since then I have been travelling, meeting people, every time feeling the necessity of a struggle for restoring their dignity and rights as humans.”

That is also from where she draws her language, the language of common folk which she is credited to have brought to Bengali language and literature. “There are writers who write for language. I cannot. Language is important. But writing is a far more serious business for me.”

What is she working on right now, I ask.

“Mahabharata, it is very contemporary. It must be treated as contemporary. That is what I am doing.” Though it’s a passing reference, every sentence uttered by her carries the weight of someone at the centre of tumultuous change spanning the British colonial era, Partition and Independence, and the past 50 years of postcolonial turmoil leading to the current era of globalisation.

Mahasweta was born in Dhaka in January 1926, was educated at Shantiniketan and Calcutta University before choosing to live off her writing. Her creative journey began with Jhansir Rani (The Queen of Jhansi) based on the life of the young queen Lakshmibai during the revolt of 1857. Since then she has authored more than 100 books that include classics like Hazar Churasir Maa (The Mother of 1084), Aranyer Adhikar (The Right to the Forest) and Chotti Munda Aar Taar Teer (Chotti Munda and his Arrow) to name just a few. Apart from these acclaimed novels there are hundreds of short stories and essays on social and cultural themes. All her works have been widely translated into different languages and also made into popular films – Rudaali, Hazar Chaurasi ki Maa and Aranyer Adhikar, about the rebel Birsa Munda who resisted the British at the turn of the 19th century. The latter book won her the Sahitya Akademi award in 1979.

Awards and recognition have followed Mahasweta: the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Padma Vibhushan, the Jnanpith and many others before. The prize money generally goes to the welfare society she founded in the ’70s for the denotified tribes of Lodha, Shabar and Kheria Sabar, or some other worthwhile cause close to her heart.

Politically she is believed to be close to the revolutionary life in Indian politics and many of her books are said to bear testimony to her explicit sympathy with the Naxalites. But Mahasweta firmly disagrees that her work reflects sympathy for this type of revolutionary idea.

In Hazar Churasir Maa the killing of her youngest son, a Naxalite, forces a mother to turn away from her affluent middle class life and try to feel and touch the dream shared by her son and many others. "I just tried to keep a record of those turbulent times, nothing more. Even in my first published work, Jhansir Rani, I tried to show that 1857-58 had taken shape as a mass struggle in all of central India fired by Rani Lakshmibai's heroic battle.”

What is her view of the current violence in the name of mass struggle by the Maoists?

“We do not know if Maoists are representing the people. Naxalism in the 1970s had some ideology. They made some positive contribution to society. But Maoism is not Naxalism. Using violence has to be stopped.”

I ask if she is against development. Her answer is sharp and clear: “I am against the corrupt policies of governments. Governments take taxes from people; they have a responsibility to provide them decent living conditions. The corrupt policies ensure that there is development only for a few…what about the vast majority? Everywhere in this country there are areas where there is no water, no food, no roads, no medicines, no hospitals, no schools, nothing. The government talks of BPL (below poverty line) cards, but there are no supplies at ration shops; they cannot reach the people, they cannot teach the people, they cannot treat the people. Governments are total failures.”

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is said to be a good man, I venture.

“Manmohan Singh is no good,” she says, not mincing her words. “His policies are no good. He is the one who signed the proposed nuclear power project at Haripur in West Bengal, against the will of the people of the area. The people of Haripur are angry. A nuclear power plant they don’t want is being thrust on them and their land is being taken away.” (Though not much is known about the proposed power plant, Haripur is expected to have six nuclear reactors each of 1650 MW-- a total installed capacity of 10,000 MW of electricity -- located in the coastal area of East Midnapur district, roughly 170 km from Kolkata. Some 80,000 fisherfolk and farmers are expected to be affected by the project.)

Mahasweta has issued a call in West Bengal to writers, activists, students, scientists, fishermen, farmers, housewives, to one and all: “Say no to the Haripur power plant.” The National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) is fighting against the proposed displacement of the farmers and the fishermen of Haripur. “But others need not be quiet. I appeal to all Indians to send postcards to the prime minister simply saying ‘no to Haripur power plant’. In fact Indians should oppose nuclear power plants everywhere in the country because they are not good for our environment. Sending postcards is absolute non-violent ladai.”

She continues to make her point forcefully over breakfast. “Governments have remained non-performing for years and years in a vast country like India. No one in this country can have an excuse any more for not doing anything…

“Please say no to Haripur, or whichever nuclear or thermal power plant is coming up in your area. I heard a few of them are proposed in Maharashtra, along the Konkan coast and somewhere in Vidarbha. The postcards have to be sent from across the country. Let this be a silent revolution….to me this can be a very potent and non-violent people’s revolution.”

But will this work? Haven’t people become cynical over the years, I ask.

“Being an Indian, you have no right to be cynical. How can you be cynical?” Mahasweta’s bright eyes in her wrinkled face look me straight in the eye. “Sab kuch hota hai…Bharatiyan dhamaka nahin karte…karna chahiye. If the word ‘Independence’ has become a mockery in our country, it is because of people who refuse to do anything.”

Then her eyes seem to focus, thinking deep, she says: “Look at me. I have never felt cynical… I get angry, then I try to do whatever I can – I will write, I will approach the government, I will appeal to the people.”

Mahasweta points to Budhan theatre in Ahmedabad: “Those youngsters in Chharanagar are doing positive theatre. Anyone born and brought up in India, having benefited from education and leading a decent life, cannot afford to be cynical. We have to look for solutions. This country needs sensible solutions. We cannot be cynics. We are Indians.”

“We have to try our utmost. Koshish karo… Try…Yeh Gandhi ka desh hai!” Mahasweta ends the interview with this battlecry.

Source:http://infochangeindia.org/201002268172/Human-Rights/Changemaker/Being-Indian-you-have-no-right-to-be-cynical.html

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