A bill belatedly brought in Parliament to root out torture of persons in police custody has drawn stern opposition from law and human rights experts for the serious lapses in its draft, including lack of proper definition of torture and firm provisions to fix accountability on officers ''in command.''
The Prevention of Torture Bill, now with a select committee of Parliament for whetting, zipped past the Lok Sabha with hardly any discussion on it but hit a roadblock in the Rajya Sabha after the BJP and Left parties took stands against it. The BJP maintains the Bill will “handcuff” police officers against criminals and terrorists.
Most of the opposition from experts against the Bill hovered around the definition of torture in it. “The bill describes torture only as suffering grievous injuries,” said senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhusan. Electric shocks and water drowning might not inflict “grievous injuries” but they were still acts of torture, Bhusan pointed out.
The bill merely follows the definition of “torture” in Indian law where the act is described as “grievous injury.” This despite Indian police stations recording roughly over 1,000 custodial deaths annually.
To ratify the UN Convention against Torture of 1975, of which India was a signatory, the bill would have to do a serious relook into its definition of torture, Maja Daruwala, director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said. According to her, the definition of torture in the bill does not conform to international standards.
“It makes it difficult to bring people who use torture to book. The purpose of the bill must not be just to show on paper that India has made a law against torture, but actually to have an effective deterrent against what is a common practice,” she said.
Another loophole is the lack of provision for compensation in the bill for torture victims. The maximum punishment for the police officials responsible for torture was only 10 years. “Breaking of law by a man in uniform should invite more punishment,” Daruwala said.
She also questioned “the time-limit” of six months for filing a complaint against torture. The “bill thus protects the police, as permission of the Central and state governments is needed to punish the police officer who may have a prima facie case of torture against him,” Bhushan said.
Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/96042/experts-differ-torture-bill.html
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Govt gives free phones to poor instead of grain
People in Phagi village in Rajasthan haven’t been lucky to get free foodgrain from the government. But these below the poverty line (BPL) card holders have been magnanimously issued BSNL mobile connections with a free connection as part of a corporate social responsibility initiative.
One among the 1,000-odd beneficiaries is Gyarasi Devi who has no idea what to do with the gift. “We could have done with some grain, or a job. What will we do with these mobiles,” she asked. Other recipients say it is more of a headache than a gift. “Mobiles will actually add to our expenses. The foodgrain in the godowns is rotting. Why can’t the government distribute foodgrain,” Govind said.
Although Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Sachin Pilot skipped the function, he defended the decision to supply mobile phones instead of foodgrain. “It is a good start made by the BSNL to make people below the poverty line feel like they too can be part of the telecom revolution. My best wishes are with them,” the minister said.
Also conspicuous by his absence was Rajasthan Civil Supplies Minister Babulal Nagar. Babulal was recently embroiled in a controversy after television news showed how Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns were being used to stack liquor while foodgrain rotted outside.
The FCI has played a catalytic role in the distribution of grain at subsidised rates to India’s poor, partly ensuring smooth supply of grain in the open market by drawing on its stocks during high inflation, shortages and price volatility. It has also played a role in preventing grain prices from falling below the government-set minimum support price by buying grain from farmers, subject to quality specifications.
Earlier in the week, the food ministry told the Supreme Court that its suggestion on limiting food procurement to available storage facilities, if put into action, would hit the poor farmer and “drastically impact the food security of the nation”.
In a 19-page affidavit, C Vishwanath, joint secretary in the ministry, said: “If the Food Corporation of India and state government agencies that do the work of procurement were to limit procurement only to the extent of their storage capacities, it would mean that in years of peak procurement, when markets are not very favourable, many farmers may not be able to sell their produce… and… would be left… at the mercy of traders who may not pay adequate prices.”
The government said this would force it to go back on its assurance to farmers that “whatever quantity of foodgrain they wished to sell to the government at minimum support prices would be purchased by the FCI and state agencies,” provided quality specifications were met.
“Absence of adequate returns or an assured guarantee from the government procurement agencies for purchase of foodgrain would dis-incentivise farmers from sowing these crops in future.” The affidavit went on to explain how the court’s suggestion would cause a “substantial shift to other non-food crops” in agriculture. “This would then drastically impact the food security of the nation,” the government said.
It would be best to augment “production and procurement” rather than limit food purchase to storage space, the government added.
Procurement went up from 36.2 million tonnes in 2006-07 to 53.77 million tonnes as on September 4, 2010, the affidavit stated.
Meanwhile, the government is thinking about splitting the 46-year-old FCI into three entities to divide the responsibilities of procurement, storage and distribution, said a senior government official.
The Union government invited wide criticism when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected the Supreme Court’s suggestion to distribute rotting foodgrain to the poor.
The apex court had observed: “It is time we develop a culture of zero-tolerance towards corruption to ensure two square meals for the hungry and the poor. What will be the choice of the government -- allow foodgrain to rot, or give it free to the poor and hungry. The choice is obvious.”
Source:
InfoChange India News & Features development news India - Govt gives free phones to poor instead of grain
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
One among the 1,000-odd beneficiaries is Gyarasi Devi who has no idea what to do with the gift. “We could have done with some grain, or a job. What will we do with these mobiles,” she asked. Other recipients say it is more of a headache than a gift. “Mobiles will actually add to our expenses. The foodgrain in the godowns is rotting. Why can’t the government distribute foodgrain,” Govind said.
Although Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Sachin Pilot skipped the function, he defended the decision to supply mobile phones instead of foodgrain. “It is a good start made by the BSNL to make people below the poverty line feel like they too can be part of the telecom revolution. My best wishes are with them,” the minister said.
Also conspicuous by his absence was Rajasthan Civil Supplies Minister Babulal Nagar. Babulal was recently embroiled in a controversy after television news showed how Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns were being used to stack liquor while foodgrain rotted outside.
The FCI has played a catalytic role in the distribution of grain at subsidised rates to India’s poor, partly ensuring smooth supply of grain in the open market by drawing on its stocks during high inflation, shortages and price volatility. It has also played a role in preventing grain prices from falling below the government-set minimum support price by buying grain from farmers, subject to quality specifications.
Earlier in the week, the food ministry told the Supreme Court that its suggestion on limiting food procurement to available storage facilities, if put into action, would hit the poor farmer and “drastically impact the food security of the nation”.
In a 19-page affidavit, C Vishwanath, joint secretary in the ministry, said: “If the Food Corporation of India and state government agencies that do the work of procurement were to limit procurement only to the extent of their storage capacities, it would mean that in years of peak procurement, when markets are not very favourable, many farmers may not be able to sell their produce… and… would be left… at the mercy of traders who may not pay adequate prices.”
The government said this would force it to go back on its assurance to farmers that “whatever quantity of foodgrain they wished to sell to the government at minimum support prices would be purchased by the FCI and state agencies,” provided quality specifications were met.
“Absence of adequate returns or an assured guarantee from the government procurement agencies for purchase of foodgrain would dis-incentivise farmers from sowing these crops in future.” The affidavit went on to explain how the court’s suggestion would cause a “substantial shift to other non-food crops” in agriculture. “This would then drastically impact the food security of the nation,” the government said.
It would be best to augment “production and procurement” rather than limit food purchase to storage space, the government added.
Procurement went up from 36.2 million tonnes in 2006-07 to 53.77 million tonnes as on September 4, 2010, the affidavit stated.
Meanwhile, the government is thinking about splitting the 46-year-old FCI into three entities to divide the responsibilities of procurement, storage and distribution, said a senior government official.
The Union government invited wide criticism when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected the Supreme Court’s suggestion to distribute rotting foodgrain to the poor.
The apex court had observed: “It is time we develop a culture of zero-tolerance towards corruption to ensure two square meals for the hungry and the poor. What will be the choice of the government -- allow foodgrain to rot, or give it free to the poor and hungry. The choice is obvious.”
Source:
InfoChange India News & Features development news India - Govt gives free phones to poor instead of grain
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The people’s voice: CGNet Swara community radio on mobile phone
Every citizen in this country has a right to be heard. But what happens when you live in an area where no mainstream media organisation bothers to penetrate, and when you speak a language no media organisation knows or understands? CGNet Swara uses mobile telephony to break through the wall of silence in tribal areas of Chhattisgarh.
The trendy young may see the mobile phone as a fashion accessory and use it as a means to yammer endlessly with friends, but in the tribal belt of Chhattisgarh, the technology is being put to a very different and infinitely more meaningful use.
One of the main problems with getting news from or to the many remote areas of the country is that mainstream media has little interest in these areas and, as in the case of tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, there is no publication, TV channel or radio in the local language (All India Radio does not broadcast in any tribal language including Gondi which is spoken by 2.7 million inhabitants of the area). All of this makes it difficult to get news from, about, or to the local population.
CGNet Swara came up with an obvious but novel way around this problem. Get local people – citizen-journalists basically -- to speak about their problems and issues, and to listen to what others have to say, via the mobile phone, which has a 50-60% penetration in the country.
Started in February 2010, CGNet Swara could be described as community radio on mobile phone. “It works on the principle that journalism is everybody’s business and every citizen should also be a citizen journalist. Though we trained 33 tribals in a three-day training session in February to use Swara, we do not know who the reporters are now (most of them are not trained by us),” says Shubhranshu Choudahry who set up CGNet Swara with technical help from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as part of a fellowship project supported by Knight International.
As a reporter himself and a native of Chhattisgarh, Choudahry was familiar with–and concerned about-- the lack of news in and out of the region. “A majority of the people in this area are illiterate and very poor so they cannot buy a newspaper (there is no newspaper in their language anyway) and a majority do not have electricity at home so they cannot have TV. All India Radio talks about Obama and Manmohan Singh in Hindi whereas people want to hear what is happening around them in their own language, which CGnet Swara is doing.”
The modus operandi is quite simple. A citizen journalist – which basically means anyone who has a story to share – gives a missed call to the mobile number 080-41137280 and the server will call back for the caller to listen to or record her message or story in any language/dialect. The information is verified and translated by moderators to check for authenticity and disseminated via SMSes and www.cgnetswara.org
The CGNet website shows that when the voice of the people is heard, there is an impact. Teachers of a school in Dantewada got their salaries after a report was circulated about tardiness in payment of salaries; government officials took note of complaints on pollution of a sponge iron factory in Bastar; a liquor shop that opened in front of a school in Bijapur town was shifted out on the orders of the Collector who heard the complaint over Swara. Earlier attempts to shift the shop had ended with the school being ordered to move.
In fact, a sampling of small news items on the website looks pretty much like the city page of any mainstream newspaper, highlighting the acts of omission and commission of the authorities: Irregularity in the PDS in Toynar Bijapur, NREGA workers not paid for six months, the only teacher in a village being used for census duty, rice meant for the poor being captured by middlemen, 236 schools closed in Bijapur district for four years, an interview with a person beaten up by drunken policemen.
Bhan Sahu, one of the most active women reporters, reported on children employed and underpaid in tendu leaf collection (Unicef has that report), and a live report from a public hearing for SKS power plant in Kharsia, Raigarh, noted pertinently that 1,500 policemen were present at what was supposed to be a jan sunwai or people’s hearing.
“The reason authorities have reacted positively in some cases is because after the stories are sent out on CGnet Swara we put a link of the story on our CGnet discussion forum with the number and other details of the concerned authorities and people start calling those officers from all over India. But at the same time we have got reactions like ‘We cannot afford a loose cannon like this service in a state which is at war with insurgents,’ coming from a senior police officer in the state capital, Raipur,” says Choudahry.
The war zone is CGNet Swara’s backyard but it is largely off-limits to most news media that has, perforce, to accept government sources of information. CGNet is an alternative source (even though Choudahry says only 5% of the reporting has anything to do with the insurgency), and as grassroots as you can get as it is the people themselves who tell their stories. Journalists who dare not venture into the Red Corridor might benefit by putting CGNet Swara on speed dial.
Prakash Korram, an activist with Ekta Parishad, was picked up by the police and charged for possessing a gun and being a Maoist, and severely beaten up several times while in police custody. The police denied to his wife and colleagues that he had been arrested and charged. His version of what happened to him only became public when his colleague Agnu Sahu and others persisted with their search for him and finally met him in Kanker jail and put his story up on CGNet Swara. If there’s scepticism of his side of the story, at least it has been told.
In the same way, Gujjo Bai, sarpanch of Gumiapal, informed anyone who wanted to listen, through a reporter from CGNet Swara, that the two Maoists police claimed to have killed in an ‘encounter’ in her village were actually innocent villagers who were taken from their homes which were later burnt. The police officers who did the killing were later among those ambushed by Maoists while travelling in a bus and 31 people were killed in the incident including 15 civilians. Maoists issued a statement saying the killing was in revenge for the killing of two innocents. Because it became a big story, journalists visited the village and met the sarpanch to hear her side of the story.
Knowledge is power and a well-informed tribal population is not exactly what the police or government want to see in a population it has long exploited. Many mainstream publications carried the story of Lingamram Kodopi who police claim was behind the “July 6 Maoist attack on Congress leader Avdesh Singh Gautam’s house and the Kuakonda Police Station in Bastar and had undergone militant training in Gujarat and New Delhi, and is currently doing a media-related course in the Capital” (Indiaexpress.com, July 12, 2010).
“Linga is one of the tribal boys we helped get admission in a media school in Noida. He could be the first trained tribal journalist from that part of the world who could have written stories about his own home/community which could have helped us understand the problem and maybe even solve it,” says Shubhranshu Choudahry. The police have backed down a little and Linga has resumed his studies, but the content of the FIR against him is still unknown.
Songs and poems, too, are broadcast, something rare for indigenous people whose language and culture is generally ignored. CGNet has broadcast traditional Bastar music, Adivasi songs, a Gondi song by an anti-displacement activist in Kanha national park, a song by a child, Sudip Kumar, on the anti-liquor campaign, and Budhan Mehsram, a dalit Pandvani singer, who is changing Pandvani from its traditional form of singing about the Mahabharat to singing songs on local contemporary issues.
The CGNet Swara method is not expensive so can it be easily replicated? “It can be replicated in any part of the world where the situation is similar,” says Choudahry. “The software was developed in open source which is already on the internet. So anybody who wants to use it can do so. We have got many requests to duplicate it. The State Department in the US wants to use it in Afghanistan. UNDP is looking at it to see if they can use it to monitor the Millennium Development Goals (as this technology is two-way unlike radio which is just one way). We have got many requests from India and Africa. We ourselves want to take this experiment all over central India soon. Then the service will be called Central Gondwana Network Swara (instead of Chhattisgarh NetSwara).”
Source: http://infochangeindia.org/201008248475/Technology/Stories-of-change/The-people-s-voice.html
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
India has an NGO for every 400 people
A recent study commissioned by the Government of India reveals that India possibly has the largest number of active non-government, not-for-profit voluntary organisations in the world. The number of such entities, accounted for till 2009, stood at 3.3 million, which is one NGO for less than 400 Indians, and many times the number of primary schools and primary health centres in India.
According to the survey, the largest number of NGOs are registered in Maharashtra (4.8 lakh), followed by Andhra Pradesh (4.6 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (4.3 lakh), Kerala (3.3 lakh), Karnataka (1.9 lakh), Gujarat (1.7 lakh), West Bengal (1.7 lakh), Tamil Nadu (1.4 lakh), Orissa (1.3 lakh) and Rajasthan (1 lakh). Over 80% of registrations come from these 10 states.
Even these staggering numbers may be less than the actual number of NGOs active in all states and union territories of the country. That’s because the study, commissioned in 2008, took into consideration only those entities which were registered under the Societies Registration Act or the Mumbai Public Trust Act and its variants in other states.
Such organisations can be registered under a plethora of Acts such as the Societies’ Act, 1860, Indian Trust Act, 1882, Public Trust Act, 1950, Indian Companies Act, 1956 (Section 25), Religious Endowment Act, 1863, The Charitable and Religious Trust Act, 1920, the Mussalman Wakf Act, 1923, the Wakf Act, 1954, and Public Wakfs (Extension of Limitation Act) Act, 1959, etc.
“These are all broad estimates. Nobody really knows the ground reality because this sector has grown very fast in the past many years. Besides, there have been no efforts to maintain an official database or even to encourage such entities to be transparent about their activities as well as funding,” says Soumitro Ghosh, Founder CEO, CSO Partners, a Chennai-based organisation set up to encourage transparency in the functioning of the sector.
While the government will begin studying the finances of the sector in the second phase of the survey, estimates from within the sector suggest that NGOs, or NPIs, raise anywhere between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 80,000 crore in funding annually.
The government is the biggest donor -- Rs 18,000 crore was set aside for the social sector in the Eleventh Plan -- followed by foreign contributors (according to the latest figures available, around Rs 9,700 crore was raised in 2007-08). Around Rs 1,600-2,000 crore was donated to established religious bodies such as the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams.
Individual donors are emerging as the biggest and most lucrative source of funds. According to an internal study by a leading foreign NGO headquartered in the UK, donations by individuals are expected to have grown from around Rs 2,200 crore in 2005 to Rs 8,100 crore by a conservative estimate, and to around Rs 21,000 crore by more liberal estimates.
The increase in the number of donors coincides with a sharp increase in the number of new NGOs in the past decade. According to the government study, there were only 1.44 lakh registered societies till 1970. In the following three decades, the number rose to 1.79 lakh, 5.52 lakh, and 11.22 lakh. The maximum increase in the number of registrations happened after 2000.
Private sector companies, one of the biggest donors in the developed world, are, however, yet to wake up to the phenomenon of charity and philanthropy in India. Indian companies spend less than 1% of their annual profits on such activities, against 1.5% to over 2% spent by their UK- and US-based counterparts, says the study by CSO Partners.
The international NGO is of the opinion that since government is the biggest donor to many NGOs, transparency and disclosure norms are especially important. As Vice-President Hamid Ansari recently stressed, many NGOs now work with unprecedented levels of public funding because of their role in implementing giant centrally-sponsored welfare schemes, but are not audited by the CAG.
Source: http://infochangeindia.org/201007098383/Governance/News/India-has-an-NGO-for-every-400-people.html
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
According to the survey, the largest number of NGOs are registered in Maharashtra (4.8 lakh), followed by Andhra Pradesh (4.6 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (4.3 lakh), Kerala (3.3 lakh), Karnataka (1.9 lakh), Gujarat (1.7 lakh), West Bengal (1.7 lakh), Tamil Nadu (1.4 lakh), Orissa (1.3 lakh) and Rajasthan (1 lakh). Over 80% of registrations come from these 10 states.
Even these staggering numbers may be less than the actual number of NGOs active in all states and union territories of the country. That’s because the study, commissioned in 2008, took into consideration only those entities which were registered under the Societies Registration Act or the Mumbai Public Trust Act and its variants in other states.
Such organisations can be registered under a plethora of Acts such as the Societies’ Act, 1860, Indian Trust Act, 1882, Public Trust Act, 1950, Indian Companies Act, 1956 (Section 25), Religious Endowment Act, 1863, The Charitable and Religious Trust Act, 1920, the Mussalman Wakf Act, 1923, the Wakf Act, 1954, and Public Wakfs (Extension of Limitation Act) Act, 1959, etc.
“These are all broad estimates. Nobody really knows the ground reality because this sector has grown very fast in the past many years. Besides, there have been no efforts to maintain an official database or even to encourage such entities to be transparent about their activities as well as funding,” says Soumitro Ghosh, Founder CEO, CSO Partners, a Chennai-based organisation set up to encourage transparency in the functioning of the sector.
While the government will begin studying the finances of the sector in the second phase of the survey, estimates from within the sector suggest that NGOs, or NPIs, raise anywhere between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 80,000 crore in funding annually.
The government is the biggest donor -- Rs 18,000 crore was set aside for the social sector in the Eleventh Plan -- followed by foreign contributors (according to the latest figures available, around Rs 9,700 crore was raised in 2007-08). Around Rs 1,600-2,000 crore was donated to established religious bodies such as the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams.
Individual donors are emerging as the biggest and most lucrative source of funds. According to an internal study by a leading foreign NGO headquartered in the UK, donations by individuals are expected to have grown from around Rs 2,200 crore in 2005 to Rs 8,100 crore by a conservative estimate, and to around Rs 21,000 crore by more liberal estimates.
The increase in the number of donors coincides with a sharp increase in the number of new NGOs in the past decade. According to the government study, there were only 1.44 lakh registered societies till 1970. In the following three decades, the number rose to 1.79 lakh, 5.52 lakh, and 11.22 lakh. The maximum increase in the number of registrations happened after 2000.
Private sector companies, one of the biggest donors in the developed world, are, however, yet to wake up to the phenomenon of charity and philanthropy in India. Indian companies spend less than 1% of their annual profits on such activities, against 1.5% to over 2% spent by their UK- and US-based counterparts, says the study by CSO Partners.
The international NGO is of the opinion that since government is the biggest donor to many NGOs, transparency and disclosure norms are especially important. As Vice-President Hamid Ansari recently stressed, many NGOs now work with unprecedented levels of public funding because of their role in implementing giant centrally-sponsored welfare schemes, but are not audited by the CAG.
Source: http://infochangeindia.org/201007098383/Governance/News/India-has-an-NGO-for-every-400-people.html
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
Friday, August 20, 2010
This is the Moment We Change the World
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
Friday, August 13, 2010
From Darkness To Light: Night School A Ray Of Hope For The Underprivileged
First night school in Mumbai was opened in 1885 by noted social reformer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. The journey since then has reached to more than 150 schools. While others were just commenting about the infrastructure 39-year-old Nikita Ketkar an Indian Civil Services decided to change the things herself. After resigning from government services, she founded MASOOM an NGO and took up job of city’s night schools. Help started pouring and she now aims to adopt all night schools of the state.
Education has always had been a neglected sector in India, while the government has given only lip sympathy and has never given importance to the younger generation. Even the budgets allocated towards the all round development of the students and teaching fraternity is negligible.
The site of a government school whether it is Delhi, Mumbai or a small town of Asansol it is the same – old rickety building with leaked roofs, dull classrooms, emitting foul smell, which not only makes children dull and sick, but also the teachers and the school staff to stay away from the educational institution.
Even the night schools are same like the government schools; even then students flock to these schools, as they do not have any options and with more awareness that without education future is bleak.
Most of the night school students – boys or girls earn their livelihood during the day time by slogging for around 10 to 12 hours. While in the evening they come to the school and attend classes.
Thus to make the night school students more comfortable and environment friendly, a former Indian Civil servant Nikita Ketkar has took up the cause of these neglected lot who work and study and earn to fill the stomachs of their family members.
The 39-year-old former civil servant left her lucrative job, after seeing the problem of the students studying in night schools.
“I was shocked to see during my first ever visit to a night school, the condition of the classroom was horrible with plasters peeling out, the building was not painted for years, with poor lighting and students had to strain their eyes to read the notes written on the blackboard,” According to Nikita.
“I was moved by the pathetic scene and thus I thought that something has to be done for this neglected lot and thus I got involved in doing my little bit for this fraternity in my own way after leaving my lucrative job,” she said.
Nikita who had tried her hand as a journalist and was also a lecturer before joining the civil service, says “I always wanted to do something for the neglected lot and this was one of the best ways to motivate and guide the students who are keen to do something in life.”
Recalling her association with an NGO ‘Pukar’, in 2006 while doing a research work on the ‘night school and its students’, where she learnt the plight of these students and their family. Most of the girls used to slog whole day with the household chores and also used to paltry amount by working in unorganized sector and would supplement the family income.
The 1998 batch officer of Armed Forces, Civil Services says, it was not an easy task to leave the government job (She worked at DRDO, All India Radio and NCC Directorate in different capacity) and work for the welfare of students from night schools. However, her husband supported, she claims proudly.
Night schools students never had science and computer laboratory, but with her initiative through her NGO ‘Masoom’ which adopted two night schools in 1997 at Parel in Mumbai - Milind Night School and Maratha Mandir Night School at Worli, Mumbaim she has setup the labs, due to which students who were deprived, had been thronging to the lab and many students have started attending schools regularly, Nikita claims.
‘Masoom’ has added four more schools and with innovative methods, Nikita has managed to provide library, mobile lab and computers. Students are also enjoying learning English and life skills too, so that they can compete with their counterparts from convent and other well established schools, a beaming Nikita said.
To involve the students and their parents regular workshops are organised where the parents and teachers come together thus the bridge is being narrowed by such meets, she said.
Also as a social responsibility and to create awareness amongst the students of the ill affects of tobaccos, smoking and liquor, “We organize lectures and seminars on smoking and nutrition,” she said.
One of the students has topped with 85 per cent in SSC exams this year and many more students have done excellently well, she says, adding that the topper will be given scholarship, Nikita has a team of six young teaching staff, and all of them are night school products. The ‘Masoom’ team has secured a future and now they are shaping the destiny of many more from the night schools of Mumbai and aiming to spread its wings across Maharashtra.
By S Mani
The author is a Correspondent with The Verdict Weekly published from Mumbai, Maharashtra and can be contacted at verdictweekly@gmail.com
Source: From Darkness To Light: Night School A Ray Of Hope For The Underprivileged
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
Education has always had been a neglected sector in India, while the government has given only lip sympathy and has never given importance to the younger generation. Even the budgets allocated towards the all round development of the students and teaching fraternity is negligible.
The site of a government school whether it is Delhi, Mumbai or a small town of Asansol it is the same – old rickety building with leaked roofs, dull classrooms, emitting foul smell, which not only makes children dull and sick, but also the teachers and the school staff to stay away from the educational institution.
Even the night schools are same like the government schools; even then students flock to these schools, as they do not have any options and with more awareness that without education future is bleak.
Most of the night school students – boys or girls earn their livelihood during the day time by slogging for around 10 to 12 hours. While in the evening they come to the school and attend classes.
Thus to make the night school students more comfortable and environment friendly, a former Indian Civil servant Nikita Ketkar has took up the cause of these neglected lot who work and study and earn to fill the stomachs of their family members.
The 39-year-old former civil servant left her lucrative job, after seeing the problem of the students studying in night schools.
“I was shocked to see during my first ever visit to a night school, the condition of the classroom was horrible with plasters peeling out, the building was not painted for years, with poor lighting and students had to strain their eyes to read the notes written on the blackboard,” According to Nikita.
“I was moved by the pathetic scene and thus I thought that something has to be done for this neglected lot and thus I got involved in doing my little bit for this fraternity in my own way after leaving my lucrative job,” she said.
Nikita who had tried her hand as a journalist and was also a lecturer before joining the civil service, says “I always wanted to do something for the neglected lot and this was one of the best ways to motivate and guide the students who are keen to do something in life.”
Recalling her association with an NGO ‘Pukar’, in 2006 while doing a research work on the ‘night school and its students’, where she learnt the plight of these students and their family. Most of the girls used to slog whole day with the household chores and also used to paltry amount by working in unorganized sector and would supplement the family income.
The 1998 batch officer of Armed Forces, Civil Services says, it was not an easy task to leave the government job (She worked at DRDO, All India Radio and NCC Directorate in different capacity) and work for the welfare of students from night schools. However, her husband supported, she claims proudly.
Night schools students never had science and computer laboratory, but with her initiative through her NGO ‘Masoom’ which adopted two night schools in 1997 at Parel in Mumbai - Milind Night School and Maratha Mandir Night School at Worli, Mumbaim she has setup the labs, due to which students who were deprived, had been thronging to the lab and many students have started attending schools regularly, Nikita claims.
‘Masoom’ has added four more schools and with innovative methods, Nikita has managed to provide library, mobile lab and computers. Students are also enjoying learning English and life skills too, so that they can compete with their counterparts from convent and other well established schools, a beaming Nikita said.
To involve the students and their parents regular workshops are organised where the parents and teachers come together thus the bridge is being narrowed by such meets, she said.
Also as a social responsibility and to create awareness amongst the students of the ill affects of tobaccos, smoking and liquor, “We organize lectures and seminars on smoking and nutrition,” she said.
One of the students has topped with 85 per cent in SSC exams this year and many more students have done excellently well, she says, adding that the topper will be given scholarship, Nikita has a team of six young teaching staff, and all of them are night school products. The ‘Masoom’ team has secured a future and now they are shaping the destiny of many more from the night schools of Mumbai and aiming to spread its wings across Maharashtra.
By S Mani
The author is a Correspondent with The Verdict Weekly published from Mumbai, Maharashtra and can be contacted at verdictweekly@gmail.com
Source: From Darkness To Light: Night School A Ray Of Hope For The Underprivileged
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
How Green Revolution Played Havoc With Mexican Agriculture By Devinder Sharma
Mexico is the land of origin of the Green Revolution. It is here that the so called miracle seeds of dwarf wheat were first evolved. Norman Borlaug's wheat magic did cast a spell in far away India, which spread like a wild fire across the developing world. It literally sowed the seeds of what was later dubbed as the Green Revolution.
While the 2nd generation-environmental impacts of Green Revolution have played havoc with the natural resource base across continents, the destruction of the farm lands, and the plight of the dying farmers, is being hastily buried under the aggressive launch of the Second Green Revolution. To avoid the finger of suspicion pointing towards them, the international scientific community in collaboration with the agribusiness industry and the policy makers, are in a desperate hurry to create a smokescreen that hides the great tragedy.
Four decades after Green Revolution was launched, the world is still to come to grips with the devastation it wrought to the farm lands -- the fertile and verdant lands gasping for breath; chemical pesticides not only disrupting the insect equilibrium, but resulting in more savage pest attack besides contaminating the food chain; and the relentless mining of groundwater drying up the hemisphere. Intensive agriculture has already brought the world to a boiling point.
Added to the destruction of farm lands, the growing emphasis on corporatisation of agriculture which includes futures trading, free trade in agriculture and the strengthening of big box food retail has already brought the food chain into the hands of a few food giants/agribusiness companies. Farming communities wordwide have been marginalised in the process, and I am sure the day is not far away when farmers will disappear from the face of the Earth.
The extinction of the farm communities is actually a process that began more or less with the advent of Green Revolution. Those who promoted Green Revolution, it is now becoming clear, were not aware of the hidden design. The complete take over of agricultural research and education across the globe by the US land grant system came in handy to programme the scientific mindset. The USAID has to be admired the way it helped change the scientific brains to the virtues of the intensive farming systems as the only way forward.
Anyway, I came across this interesting insight into Mexican agriculture, which I feel I must draw your attention to. Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What Can we do it to Fix it, travelled to 'see the Green Revolution first hand'. Here is her report.
The US Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities.
By Jill Richardson : http://www.alternet.org/story/147764/the_u.s._ploy_to_promote_genetically_engineered_seeds_and_pesticides_to_poor_mexican_farmers_is_impoverishing_their_communities?page=entire
By Devinder Sharma
Source:
How Green Revolution Played Havoc With Mexican Agriculture By Devinder Sharma
While the 2nd generation-environmental impacts of Green Revolution have played havoc with the natural resource base across continents, the destruction of the farm lands, and the plight of the dying farmers, is being hastily buried under the aggressive launch of the Second Green Revolution. To avoid the finger of suspicion pointing towards them, the international scientific community in collaboration with the agribusiness industry and the policy makers, are in a desperate hurry to create a smokescreen that hides the great tragedy.
Four decades after Green Revolution was launched, the world is still to come to grips with the devastation it wrought to the farm lands -- the fertile and verdant lands gasping for breath; chemical pesticides not only disrupting the insect equilibrium, but resulting in more savage pest attack besides contaminating the food chain; and the relentless mining of groundwater drying up the hemisphere. Intensive agriculture has already brought the world to a boiling point.
Added to the destruction of farm lands, the growing emphasis on corporatisation of agriculture which includes futures trading, free trade in agriculture and the strengthening of big box food retail has already brought the food chain into the hands of a few food giants/agribusiness companies. Farming communities wordwide have been marginalised in the process, and I am sure the day is not far away when farmers will disappear from the face of the Earth.
The extinction of the farm communities is actually a process that began more or less with the advent of Green Revolution. Those who promoted Green Revolution, it is now becoming clear, were not aware of the hidden design. The complete take over of agricultural research and education across the globe by the US land grant system came in handy to programme the scientific mindset. The USAID has to be admired the way it helped change the scientific brains to the virtues of the intensive farming systems as the only way forward.
Anyway, I came across this interesting insight into Mexican agriculture, which I feel I must draw your attention to. Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What Can we do it to Fix it, travelled to 'see the Green Revolution first hand'. Here is her report.
The US Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities.
By Jill Richardson : http://www.alternet.org/story/147764/the_u.s._ploy_to_promote_genetically_engineered_seeds_and_pesticides_to_poor_mexican_farmers_is_impoverishing_their_communities?page=entire
By Devinder Sharma
Source:
How Green Revolution Played Havoc With Mexican Agriculture By Devinder Sharma
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Kashmir: Winning Hearts And Minds By Rekha Chowdhary
It can not be said as a paradigm shift, but there is certainly a change in the emphasis in the way New Delhi is responding to the problems in Kashmir. After almost a two months’ cycle of violence and upsurge in the streets all over Kashmir, there is a definite shift in the tone and tenor of the Government of India – as reflected in the statement made by the Home Minister, PC Chidambaram in the upper House of the Parliament Friday last. Rather than offering the ‘conspiracy theory’ and putting all the blame on the external elements like LeT, the Home Minister has sought to look within and own up the responsibility of Indian State in the muddled situation of Kashmir.
Three related points emerge from his statement. First, the acknowledgement that Kashmir is a political problem needing a political solution – the emphasis therefore is on resumption of dialogue and the readiness of the Government to engage the separatists including the hardliners. Second, there is the reference to the ‘uniqueness’ of Kashmir problem, needing the ‘unique’ solution. By reminding the nation that Kashmir had acceded to India under special circumstances, the Home Minister has invoked the historical elements of the problem as well as its specificity. This is a pointer towards the need for ‘out of box’ thinking towards Kashmir. Indicating the complexity of the problem, Chidambaram has stated the need of serious thinking - ‘we have to put our heads together and find a solution to this unique problem. Thirdly, there is an unambiguous allusion to ‘people’ and the need to bring them on board. As per Chidambaram’s statement, it is important to win the hearts and minds of people of Jammu & Kashmir. There is also an acknowledgment that as for as the Kashmiris are concerned, there is a trust-deficit. Emphasising the need to restore the confidence of Kashmiris in the Indian State, the Home Minister has referred to the promises made by the Government of India and the importance of delivering on those promises.
It is not difficult to speculate the response of Kashmiris to this changed tone of the Home Minister. Already the indications have come from the separatists who have rejected the offer of dialogue. In the background of the situation as it has developed in Kashmir during past two months or so, it is not expected that a changed stance of Government of India would make an impact in Kashmir, at least, not immediately. For one reason, this is not the first time that New Delhi is adopting this tone. Earlier also there have been occasions when such responses have come from Delhi. One such oft-quoted response in Kashmir is that of offer of ‘anything under the sun’. That nothing came out of these is very much ingrained in the popular psyche. It is the crisis situation like the present one when such pronouncements are made by the Centre, however, when the situation ‘normalises’ or comes to the ‘manageable level’, the approach also changes. In mid-nineties, in a situation of total political vacuum in the mainstream politics, the National Conference was lured to contest election on the promise of ‘Autonomy’. What happened to the Autonomy Report and the Autonomy Resolution – is still fresh in the minds of people. More recently, Vajpayee had walked extra miles to approach Kashmiris. He had acknowledged that India had made mistakes in Kashmir and had offered to give them healing touch and to engage them. The process had aroused great expectations in the minds of Kashmiris and they had put their confidence in the peace process initiated by Vajpayee. The separatists, going by the mood of people, had also brought in flexibility in their political strategies. However, one can see to how the situation stands now – the hopes of people in the peace process are totally shattered and not only the separatists who entered into dialogue but the very dialogue process stand discredited.
In a situation where the sincerity on the part of the Government of India to address Kashmir is seriously doubted, the statement of the Home Minister, howsoever politically correct, will not be trusted. The responsibility of changing the response in Kashmir purely lies with the Centre. It has to prove its credibility by taking concrete steps in that direction. The minimum that is required is, in the words of the Home Minister himself – to deliver on the promises that the Government has made. The Government of India need not wait for a positive response from the separatists. Given the hurt-feeling during the last two months and the consequent political aggressiveness on the streets, the response of the separatists may not come for some time. What it can do, meanwhile, is to look at its own records, for instance, the reports of the Working Groups constituted by the Prime Minister of India and start the process of healing by implementing on these reports. Already the Home Minister has referred the need to address the issues like AFSPA and reduction of security personnel in the state. There are many other measures which the Government of India can take up on its own, without needing any nudging from the separatists. If the unilateral process on its part is sincerely pursued, there is no issue as to why a congenial environment would not be created for pursing the process of finding resolution to the ‘unique problem’. With every political measure taken up by the Government in Delhi, the level of anger in Kashmir will come down.
It is important at this moment for New Delhi to understand the level of discontent, anger, disillusionment and mistrust in Kashmir. Winning ‘hearts and minds of people’ in this situation is not very easy. It needs to create a minimum level of trust. But even for that, it will have to make extra efforts.
(Published in Greater Kashmir, 10th August, 2010)
Kashmir: Winning Hearts And Minds By Rekha Chowdhary
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
Three related points emerge from his statement. First, the acknowledgement that Kashmir is a political problem needing a political solution – the emphasis therefore is on resumption of dialogue and the readiness of the Government to engage the separatists including the hardliners. Second, there is the reference to the ‘uniqueness’ of Kashmir problem, needing the ‘unique’ solution. By reminding the nation that Kashmir had acceded to India under special circumstances, the Home Minister has invoked the historical elements of the problem as well as its specificity. This is a pointer towards the need for ‘out of box’ thinking towards Kashmir. Indicating the complexity of the problem, Chidambaram has stated the need of serious thinking - ‘we have to put our heads together and find a solution to this unique problem. Thirdly, there is an unambiguous allusion to ‘people’ and the need to bring them on board. As per Chidambaram’s statement, it is important to win the hearts and minds of people of Jammu & Kashmir. There is also an acknowledgment that as for as the Kashmiris are concerned, there is a trust-deficit. Emphasising the need to restore the confidence of Kashmiris in the Indian State, the Home Minister has referred to the promises made by the Government of India and the importance of delivering on those promises.
It is not difficult to speculate the response of Kashmiris to this changed tone of the Home Minister. Already the indications have come from the separatists who have rejected the offer of dialogue. In the background of the situation as it has developed in Kashmir during past two months or so, it is not expected that a changed stance of Government of India would make an impact in Kashmir, at least, not immediately. For one reason, this is not the first time that New Delhi is adopting this tone. Earlier also there have been occasions when such responses have come from Delhi. One such oft-quoted response in Kashmir is that of offer of ‘anything under the sun’. That nothing came out of these is very much ingrained in the popular psyche. It is the crisis situation like the present one when such pronouncements are made by the Centre, however, when the situation ‘normalises’ or comes to the ‘manageable level’, the approach also changes. In mid-nineties, in a situation of total political vacuum in the mainstream politics, the National Conference was lured to contest election on the promise of ‘Autonomy’. What happened to the Autonomy Report and the Autonomy Resolution – is still fresh in the minds of people. More recently, Vajpayee had walked extra miles to approach Kashmiris. He had acknowledged that India had made mistakes in Kashmir and had offered to give them healing touch and to engage them. The process had aroused great expectations in the minds of Kashmiris and they had put their confidence in the peace process initiated by Vajpayee. The separatists, going by the mood of people, had also brought in flexibility in their political strategies. However, one can see to how the situation stands now – the hopes of people in the peace process are totally shattered and not only the separatists who entered into dialogue but the very dialogue process stand discredited.
In a situation where the sincerity on the part of the Government of India to address Kashmir is seriously doubted, the statement of the Home Minister, howsoever politically correct, will not be trusted. The responsibility of changing the response in Kashmir purely lies with the Centre. It has to prove its credibility by taking concrete steps in that direction. The minimum that is required is, in the words of the Home Minister himself – to deliver on the promises that the Government has made. The Government of India need not wait for a positive response from the separatists. Given the hurt-feeling during the last two months and the consequent political aggressiveness on the streets, the response of the separatists may not come for some time. What it can do, meanwhile, is to look at its own records, for instance, the reports of the Working Groups constituted by the Prime Minister of India and start the process of healing by implementing on these reports. Already the Home Minister has referred the need to address the issues like AFSPA and reduction of security personnel in the state. There are many other measures which the Government of India can take up on its own, without needing any nudging from the separatists. If the unilateral process on its part is sincerely pursued, there is no issue as to why a congenial environment would not be created for pursing the process of finding resolution to the ‘unique problem’. With every political measure taken up by the Government in Delhi, the level of anger in Kashmir will come down.
It is important at this moment for New Delhi to understand the level of discontent, anger, disillusionment and mistrust in Kashmir. Winning ‘hearts and minds of people’ in this situation is not very easy. It needs to create a minimum level of trust. But even for that, it will have to make extra efforts.
(Published in Greater Kashmir, 10th August, 2010)
Kashmir: Winning Hearts And Minds By Rekha Chowdhary
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
10 Common Sense Principles For A New Economy By David Korten
It’s time we the people declare our independence from the money-favoring Wall Street economy
I find hope in the fact that millions of people the world over are seeing through the moral and practical fallacies underlying the Wall Street economy and—by contributing to the creation of a New Economy—are taking charge of their economic lives.
Here are ten common sense principles to frame the New Economy that we the people must now bring forth:
1. The proper purpose of an economy is to secure just, sustainable, and joyful livelihoods for all. This may come as something of a shock to Wall Street financiers who profit from financial bubbles, securities fraud, low wages, unemployment, foreign sweatshops, tax evasion, public subsidies, and monopoly pricing.
2. GDP is a measure of the economic cost of producing a given level of human well-being and happiness. In the economy, as in any well-run business, the goal should be to minimize cost, not maximize it.
3. A rational reallocation of real resources can reduce the human burden on the Earth’s biosphere and simultaneously improve the health and happiness of all. The Wall Street economy wastes enormous resources on things that actually reduce the quality of our lives—war, automobile dependence, suburban sprawl, energy-inefficient buildings, financial speculation, advertising, incarceration for minor, victimless crimes. The most important step toward bringing ourselves into balance with the biosphere is to eliminate the things that are bad for our health and happiness.
4. Markets allocate efficiently only within a framework of appropriate rules to maintain competition, cost internalization, balanced trade, domestic investment, and equality. These are essential conditions for efficient market function. Without rules, a market economy quickly morphs into a system of corporate monopolies engaged in suppressing wages, exporting jobs, collecting public subsidies, poisoning air, land, and water, expropriating resources, corrupting democracy, and a host of other activities that represent an egregiously inefficient and unjust distribution of resources.
5. A proper money system roots the power to create and allocate money in people and communities in order to facilitate the creation of livelihoods and ecologically balanced community wealth. Money properly serves life, not the reverse. Wall Street uses money to consolidate its power to expropriate the real wealth of the rest of the society. Main Street uses money to connect underutilized resources with unmet needs. Public policy properly favors Main Street.
6. Money, which is easily created with a simple accounting entry, should never be the deciding constraint in making public resource allocation decisions. This is particularly obvious in the case of economic recessions or depressions, which occur when money fails to flow to where it is needed to put people to work producing essential goods and services. If money is the only lack, then make the accounting entry and get on with it.
7. Speculation, the inflation of financial bubbles, risk externalization, the extraction of usury, and the use of creative accounting to create money from nothing, unrelated to the creation of anything of real value, serve no valid social purpose. The Wall Street corporations that engage in these activities are not in the business of contributing to the creation of real community wealth. They are in the business of expropriating it, a polite term for theft. They should be regulated or taxed out of existence.
8. Greed is not a virtue; sharing is not a sin. If your primary business purpose is not to serve the community, you have no business being in business.
9. The only legitimate reason for government to issue a corporate charter extending special privileges favoring a particular enterprise is to serve a clearly defined public purpose. That purpose should be clearly stated in the corporate charter and be subject to periodic review.
10. Public policy properly favors local investors and businesses dedicated to creating community wealth over investors and businesses that come only to extract it. The former are most likely to be investors and businesses with strong roots in the communities in which they do business. We properly favor them.
David Korten is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, president of the People-Centered Development Forum, and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). His books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World.
The arguments presented here are developed in greater detail in Agenda for a New Economy available from the YES! Magazine web store.
10 Common Sense Principles For A New Economy By David Korten
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
I find hope in the fact that millions of people the world over are seeing through the moral and practical fallacies underlying the Wall Street economy and—by contributing to the creation of a New Economy—are taking charge of their economic lives.
Here are ten common sense principles to frame the New Economy that we the people must now bring forth:
1. The proper purpose of an economy is to secure just, sustainable, and joyful livelihoods for all. This may come as something of a shock to Wall Street financiers who profit from financial bubbles, securities fraud, low wages, unemployment, foreign sweatshops, tax evasion, public subsidies, and monopoly pricing.
2. GDP is a measure of the economic cost of producing a given level of human well-being and happiness. In the economy, as in any well-run business, the goal should be to minimize cost, not maximize it.
3. A rational reallocation of real resources can reduce the human burden on the Earth’s biosphere and simultaneously improve the health and happiness of all. The Wall Street economy wastes enormous resources on things that actually reduce the quality of our lives—war, automobile dependence, suburban sprawl, energy-inefficient buildings, financial speculation, advertising, incarceration for minor, victimless crimes. The most important step toward bringing ourselves into balance with the biosphere is to eliminate the things that are bad for our health and happiness.
4. Markets allocate efficiently only within a framework of appropriate rules to maintain competition, cost internalization, balanced trade, domestic investment, and equality. These are essential conditions for efficient market function. Without rules, a market economy quickly morphs into a system of corporate monopolies engaged in suppressing wages, exporting jobs, collecting public subsidies, poisoning air, land, and water, expropriating resources, corrupting democracy, and a host of other activities that represent an egregiously inefficient and unjust distribution of resources.
5. A proper money system roots the power to create and allocate money in people and communities in order to facilitate the creation of livelihoods and ecologically balanced community wealth. Money properly serves life, not the reverse. Wall Street uses money to consolidate its power to expropriate the real wealth of the rest of the society. Main Street uses money to connect underutilized resources with unmet needs. Public policy properly favors Main Street.
6. Money, which is easily created with a simple accounting entry, should never be the deciding constraint in making public resource allocation decisions. This is particularly obvious in the case of economic recessions or depressions, which occur when money fails to flow to where it is needed to put people to work producing essential goods and services. If money is the only lack, then make the accounting entry and get on with it.
7. Speculation, the inflation of financial bubbles, risk externalization, the extraction of usury, and the use of creative accounting to create money from nothing, unrelated to the creation of anything of real value, serve no valid social purpose. The Wall Street corporations that engage in these activities are not in the business of contributing to the creation of real community wealth. They are in the business of expropriating it, a polite term for theft. They should be regulated or taxed out of existence.
8. Greed is not a virtue; sharing is not a sin. If your primary business purpose is not to serve the community, you have no business being in business.
9. The only legitimate reason for government to issue a corporate charter extending special privileges favoring a particular enterprise is to serve a clearly defined public purpose. That purpose should be clearly stated in the corporate charter and be subject to periodic review.
10. Public policy properly favors local investors and businesses dedicated to creating community wealth over investors and businesses that come only to extract it. The former are most likely to be investors and businesses with strong roots in the communities in which they do business. We properly favor them.
David Korten is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, president of the People-Centered Development Forum, and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). His books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World.
The arguments presented here are developed in greater detail in Agenda for a New Economy available from the YES! Magazine web store.
10 Common Sense Principles For A New Economy By David Korten
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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