Washington, Aug 10 (IANS) An Indian origin activist placed a giant inflatable rooster bearing a striking resemblance to President Donald Trump near the White House to protest his "weak" and "ineffective" leadership.

Taran Singh Brar, a documentary filmmaker, installed the 30-foot "Chicken Don" balloon between the official residence of the US President and the famous Washington Monument on Wednesday, Washington Examiner reported.

A USA Today report cited Brar as saying that he obtained all necessary permits for the installation from the National Parks Service and the US Secret Service. The angry-looking chicken has golden-orange hair and hand gestures in Trump's style.

"We are out here to criticise our President for being weak and ineffective as a leader," Brar said in the footage posted on Twitter, adding that Trump also "seems afraid" to release his tax returns.

"He seems afraid to stand up to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and now he's playing a game of chicken with North Korea. Yet he wants a military parade in DC. It's all incongruous, and we are here to make fun of him for that," Brar said.

The inflatable's arrival divided opinion on the social media, with Twitter users at odds over whether the stunt was "pathetic" or "cute".

The topic quickly gained momentum and the hashtag #TrumpChicken was trending in the US on Wednesday.

"Not a comment on Trump or his presidency, but I just kind of love the inflatable chicken w/Trump hair. It is really cute!" wrote one user on Twitter.

Another user wrote: "President Trump tells nuclear power North Korea there will be 'Fire & fury' and democrats inflate a chicken? Insanity."

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Kolkata, April 15 (IANS) Taking criticisms head-on, filmmaker Srijit Mukherji on Saturday said his debut Bollywood feature "Begum Jaan" has opened to Rs 3.94 crore as opposed to a lower industry expectation, despite mixed reviews and releasing alongside the mammoth Hollywood franchise "Fast & Furious 8" (FF8).

"For the statistically inclined, delighted to announce that despite mixed reviews, FF8, big regional new year releases and being an A rated film, #BegumJaan opened to 3.94 cr as opposed to the industry expectation of 3-3.25 cr and an ORMAX prediction of 3.4 cr. Thank you for all the bouquets and brickbats, have a great New Year!:)," Mukherji wrote on Facebook.

Vidya Balan-starrer "Begum Jaan" is an adaptation of Bengali film "Rajkahini", also helmed by Srijit. It released on April 14.

The movie also features Gauahar Khan, Ila Arun, Pallavi Sharda, Chunky Pandey, Flora Saini, Raviza Chauhan, Poonam Rajput and Naseeruddin Shah.

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Hyderabad, Nov 25 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday arrived here on a two-day visit.

He was received by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, his cabinet colleagues and senior officials at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.

After getting down from the special aircraft, Modi took the Governor and the Chief Minister aside and was seen engaged in animated discussion with them for three minutes. he then proceeded with the customary reception as Chandrasekhar Rao introduced his cabinet colleagues and senior officials, who welcomed the prime minister with bouquets.

The Prime Minister is believed to have discussed the issue of demonetisation of high currency value notes with them.

From the airport, Modi drove straight to Sardar Vallabhbhai National Police Academy, where he will have a night halt and the next day will address the annual conference of state Directors-General of Police and Inspectors-General of Police.

The Prime Minister had dinner with the senior officials attending the three-day meet, which began on Friday.

He is likely to participate in 'yoga' session with police officers Saturday morning before addressing the meet. Modi will return to Delhi Saturday evening.

Massive security arrangements have been made for the Prime Minister in and around the National Police Academy at Shivrampalli located on the airport road. A thick security was thrown around the academy, especially at the guest house where Modi will stay.

Police chiefs of all states and directors general of central paramilitary forces are attending the meet, which is expected to discuss cross-border terrorism and radicalisation of youth among other issues.

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(Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments via his Facebook page)

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New Delhi, Aug 12 (IANS) It's rare to come across an individual who's adept with both pen and camera -- more so when photography grew out of a casual remark. Tarun Chopra is one such and what he has managed with "Temples of India - Abode of the Divine", his 12th book, is to also trace the evolution of temple building with major architectural trendsetting examples.

To this extent, "Temples of India" (Prakash Books/pp 360/Rs 1,295), with its plethora of photographs, illustrations, ground plans and sections, is a valuable resource for both experts and lay persons to understand the fascinating science of geometry and architecture as temple-building evolved over some 2,000 years.

Ten years in the making and based on painstaking research of the ancient texts of Shilpa Shastra and Vaastu Shastra, as also interactions with temple priests, the effort is quite an eye-opener.

"I visited the temples of varied faiths. It somehow compels you to think if there is a God, He has to be one for all. He cannot be different for each religion. The realisation then dawns that there is one Supreme cosmic power which itself has no religion," Chopra told IANS in an interview.

A 48-page introduction makes for a handy primer on subjects like the oral tradition, Vaastu Shastra, Vaastupurushamandala (the metaphysical plan of a building), the legend of Vaastupurusha, temple builders, traditional building rites and rituals, the main architectural features of a Hindu temple, iconography of the temple, proportional measurements of an image, and temples as the markers of energy zones.

This sets the tone for Tripping On the Divine: a visual documentation of the evolution of most prominent temple styles spanning more than 2,000 years.

"Very few places in the world offer this vast a canvas of art and architecture. This book is not based on the temples of religious importance; rather the temples illustrated in it are purely on their architectural merit. Many of them have unique qualifications to be first of their kind in the Indian subcontinent and in the world. Some temples are the stepping stones of architectural styles and initiated temple styles that evolved for the next 1,000 years," Chopra writes.

Most of the 28 temples featured are A-listers -- Sanchi, Ajanta, Ellora, Elephanta, Kanchipuram, Shravanabelagola, Khajuraho, Trichy, Madurai and Hampi, to name just a few. There are also some not too well known, at least for readers in North India. Among them are Teli Ka Mandir in Gwalior Fort, Gangaikondacholapuram (a smaller replica of the Brihadeshwara Temple in Tanjore), Darasuram (Tamil Nadu) and Aihole (Karnataka).

The bulk of the temples are located in South India and Chopra explained it thus: "Due to waves and waves of invasions that North India experienced at the hands of idol breakers, the temples in this region bore most of its brunt. Since the temples down south were relatively protected due to geographical distance, there is a wide variety of architectural styles that still exists today."

"Temples..." is a logical extension of Chopra's 11 previous books, most of which have India as their theme.

"My bestselling book 'Holy Cow and the Other Indian Stories' contains small chapters answering simple questions about India, why cows are on the road, why we get stamped so many times at the airport, the chaos that exists on the roads.. 'India Exotic Destination' illustrates the places frequented by visitors, while 'Soul of India' is a photo book that illustrates the beauty of the land through portraits, landscapes, street life and the like," Chopra said.

"I am a photographer and writer devoted to making books on India. My endeavour is to take out books that are easy to read and assimilate. As a photographer, I have been commissioned to do various projects both in India and abroad," he added.

All this grew out of a casual remark: "Why don't you start taking pictures since you travel so much?"

What is rather unusual about "Temples..." is its standard format rather than the large coffee-table format generally adopted for such books -- and the publisher said this was with a purpose.

"We decided to go with a smaller size to make the book handy for the buyer. Typical coffee tables are larger in size, but the sales of these books are down for the last few years, mainly because of the internet. A lot of images and data is now available on the net, but also because it's hard to carry large books because of weight limitations or the general bulkier nature of the book.

"We wanted the readers to be able to enjoy 'Temples of India' while they travel through India and visit these temples," Megha Parmar of Prakash Books told IANS.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)

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A graduate of IIT-Kanpur, Sahajwalla is a Scientia Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. The global impact of science can be felt, she says, when curiosity is combined with problem-driven research and the credibility that it can be done. She believes that international partnerships are the way to go, especially strong linkages with industry so that research can have a global impact and contribute to global good.

Sahajwalla is hoping for collaborations in India through a wide canvas. This includes getting PhD students in the area of materials research at SMaRT in UNSW Australia and collaborations with Indian institutions on joint research projects using cutting-edge technology. Additionally, she is hoping that Indian industry would see the benefits of green steel and "the reform of waste".

Excited at the significant opportunities India offers, especially through the recent programmes announced by Prime Narendra Minister Narendra Modi, Sahajwalla believes that her work and that of other researchers in world-class academic institutions, like UNSW Australia, need to be harnessed as they could positively impact India's core interests and concerns by offering sustainable solutions. Green steel could be a game changer for the Prime Minister's Smart Cities initiative. Winner of the prestigious Pravasi Samman Award in 2012, Sahajwalla is passionate about collaborating with Indian research institutions and industry.

Speaking recently at a meeting of the newly-constituted Niti Aayog, Modi emphasized the urgency in tackling India's mammoth developmental challenges. Globally acclaimed innovations like the one which Sahajwalla and her team have successfully brought about could make a significant contribution. Indeed, for India's huge infrastructure and building industry requirements, green steel could be the answer.

(Amit Dasgupta, a former Indian diplomat, is the inaugural India country director for the University of New South Wales. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at amit.dasgupta2013@yahoo.com)

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The world’s fastest-growing economy, on course to become the world’s third largest by 2030 with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $7.3 trillion, India continues to trail smaller South Asian neighbours - in some instances, Pakistan and Bangladesh - on several social indicators.

India’s per capita GDP of $5,238 in 2013 was 65 per cent lower than Iran, 54 per cent lower than Maldives ($11,283), 44 per cent lower than Sri Lanka ($9,426) and 27 per cent lower than Bhutan ($7,167), according to the Human Development Report 2015.

India was ranked 130 of 188 countries world-wide on the Human Development Index 2015 -below Iran (69), Sri Lanka (73) and the Maldives (104) in South Asia.

Similarly, on the Human Capital Index 2016, which measures national learning and employment outcomes, India ranked 105 out of 130 countries, below Sri Lanka (50), Bhutan (91) and Bangladesh (104).

The HDI ranking focuses on indicators that “lead to a long and healthy life, the ability to acquire knowledge, and the ability to achieve a decent standard of living”. The data for the HDI report 2015 has been collected from various international agencies and ranges between 2005 and 2014.

India’s maternal mortality lags Iran, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Pakistan

India’s maternal mortality ratio of 190 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2013 was high compared to 23 in Iran, 29 in Sri Lanka, 31 in Maldives, 120 in Bhutan and 170 in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births in 2013 for India was 41.4, lagging Sri Lanka (8.2), Maldives (8.4), Iran (14.4), Bhutan (29.7), Nepal (32.2) and Bangladesh (33.2). Only Pakistan and Afghanistan did worse, a similar situation as the under-five mortality rate (per 1,000 live births), which, for, 2013 was the lowest in Sri Lanka (9.6), followed by Maldives (9.9). India reported 52.7 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Universal healthcare is a much-debated issue, with some arguing that India cannot afford it.

Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen presented a counter argument: “The fact is that at a basic level, healthcare is a very labour-intensive activity. In a poor country, wages are low. A poor country may have less money to spend on healthcare but it also needs to spend less to provide the same labour-intensive services (far less than what a richer - and higher-wage - economy would have to pay).”

Countries as diverse as Thailand and Rawanda have implemented universal healthcare programmes, cut mortality rates and boosted life expectancy, Sen argued in a January 2015 Guardian column, pointing how some Indian states, such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh were moving towards universal healthcare.

Sen attributes the success of effective implementation to “firm political commitment to the provision of universal healthcare, running workable elementary healthcare and preventive services covering maximum possible population, paying serious attention to good administration in healthcare and ancillary public services, effective school education for all and involving women in the delivery of health and education in a much larger way than is usual in the developing world”.

Involving women in the workforce is a particular Indian failing.

India’s female labour participation low, Pakistan improving at faster rate

India’s female labour force participation rate - the proportion of women in the workforce - was 27 per cent against the global average of 50 per cent in 2013, the third lowest among South Asian countries, above only Afghanistan (15.8 per cent) and Pakistan (24.6 per cent), where women are joining the workforce at a faster rate than India.

Agriculture accounts for more than 60 per cent of female employment in South Asia, according to the Human Development Report.

India’s female employment in agriculture stood at 47.2 per cent of all employment; better than Bhutan (62.2 per cent) and Bangladesh (47.2 per cent).

No more than 2.4 per cent of Bhutan’s population lives below the poverty line - counted here as purchasing power parity of $1.25 per day between 2002 and 2012 - followed by the Maldives 6.3 per cent, Pakistan 12.7 per cent, India 23.6 per cent and Nepal 23.7 per cent.

Bangladesh was ranked at the bottom with 43.3 per cent of its population living below the poverty line.

India’s poverty rate declined to 12.4 per cent from the 2011-12 estimate of 21 per cent, according to World Bank data, IndiaSpend reported in October 2015.

Enrolments in primary schools in India third best in South Asia

India’s gross primary enrolment ratio in 2014 was 113 per cent, third best after Iran (119 per cent), Bangladesh (114 per cent) and Pakistan (114 per cent).

With 62.8 per cent of its population aged 15 years and above literate, India lags the Maldives (98.4 per cent) and Sri Lanka (91.2 per cent) and Iran (84.3 per cent).

Note: The Human Development Report includes Iran in South Asia.

(14.07.2016 - In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Chaitanya Mallapur is an analyst. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. The author can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org)

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This columnist has a deeply personal announcement to make. After much consideration, I have decided to remain as a male.

I know modern society pressures us to declare ourselves transgender, transitioning, transsexual, trans-curious, trans-fat and the like, but I have decided to forgo all that trendy stuff and I hope you will support my decision, as my family comes to terms with the hard truth that dad is a man trapped in a man's body.

Have you read the news lately?

A father just gave birth to a baby. This was after a man born a woman married a woman born a man. In each case they changed sex but kept a selection of their original parts. You can do this now: doctors have a menu. "I'll take two of those and one of those."

This switch-over couple's offspring is going to have a tough time explaining this, said reader Aalia Shan, who sent me an AP report about a mixed-up family in Ecuador. "That's my Dad. He's my Mom. This is my Mom. She's my Dad."

"Who wears the trousers in that family," I asked. "This is 2016," Aalia replied. "Everyone wears trousers except the Pope."

I threw this odd-but-true news report into the lunch discussion at the local noodle shop. An unmarried young man was intrigued by the concept of partial sex changes. "I have a very strong aesthetic appreciation of the female bust, but have no access to such. Should I get my own?" The general consensus was that he should consider doing so for experimentation's sake but should be prepared to get no work done for weeks afterwards.

A colleague said there was a recent case in the US of a woman who gave birth to her own grandchild with help from a doctor. Again the child ends up with the tough job of explaining it: "This is Grandma, she's my Mom. And this is Mommy, she's my sister."

A UK reporter said that there had been a huge controversy in his country recently when a woman/man was crowned Miss Transgender UK, but was then disqualified because organizers said he/she was "not transgender enough". Reporters were left with a massive pronoun problem. "If we referred to him/her as either him or her we would be making a judgment, so had to call him/her him/her the whole time," the journalist said. "On the plus side, I get paid by the word."

It reminded me of author Sarah Caudwell's books featuring a unisex main character called Hilary.

WARNING: If you are on the Internet and want to flirt with a Westerner named Kelly or Ashley or Meredith or Shirley or Vivian or Lynn or Kim or Jocelyn, proceed VERY CAREFULLY until you find out where they are from. "In the US, these names signify young women - in the UK, they signify ancient men," he said.

Asia can be tricky too. I know a Sri Lankan man named Sally, a Bangladeshi man named Joy and a Hong Kong girl with possibly the most masculine-sounding name possible in English: He-man.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go set up a support group for people who are only one gender. Slogan: "Are you male or female? You are not alone."

(Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments via his Facebook page)

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New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS)

Presenting the Rail Budget 2016-17, Prabhu said the Indian Railways will ensure the independence of the Rail Development Authority proposed last year to enable fair pricing of services.

Apart from fair pricing, the authority has been envisaged to enable promotion of competition, protection of customer interest and to maintain efficient standards.

A government-appointed committee to look into railway finances has earlier suggested that a new format of dynamic pricing, on the lines of air tickets, for some trains designated as 'premium' could boost earnings.

The Indian Railways' average revenue per passenger km for an ordinary second class is a mere 13.80 paise, 14.54 paise for suburban trains, 27.47 paise for second class mail and express trains, and 109.47 paise for the upper class, making it possibly the cheapest rail transport system in the world.

The Bibek Debroy-led committee for the restructuring of Indian Railways has recommended improving accountability through commercial accounting, decentralising power and setting up an independent regulator.

With the implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, railways' spending on staff and pension is expected to go up over the 56 percent of resources that it currently spends on this account.

In the rail budget, Prabhu proposed an operating ratio of railway working expenditure to revenue earned from the traffic of 92 percent for the next fiscal. This ratio has consistently remained above 90 percent in the last few years, reflecting a lower capacity to generate a surplus that can be used for capital investments.

Is Indian railways moving to dynamic pricing of fares?

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New Delhi: Union Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu and Union Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha arrive at the Parliament to present Railway Budget 2016-17 in New Delhi on Feb 25, 2016. (Photo: Amlan Paliwal/IANS)

By Sidhartha Dutta

New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS) As Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday about the slippage in operating ratio, meaning for every rupee gained 92 paise was being spent just on operations, he was pointing to the perennial loss-making organisation's woes.

But there was a time when a "surplus" was generated by the railways, inviting admiration from all around. Lalu Prasad, the 34th railway minister of India, shot into fame after he claimed to have turned the organisation into a profit venture during his tenure (2004-2009).

Even management schools across the globe and in India showed a lot of interest in his skills and leadership in managing the turnaround. A case study on it was introduced in the Indian Institute of Management (IIM). Lalu Prasad was invited to eight Ivy League schools to lecture and he addressed hundreds of students at Harvard and Wharton.

Everyone would have been happy, had the auditors not taken a closer look at the numbers, as is their wont.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) -- constitutionally mandated to look at government accounts -- refuted the claims made by Lalu Prasad's rail budget of turning around the monolith. It deemed it be more of a "cosmetic exercise," pricking the much inflated balloon of claims.

The CAG said it was the "new practice of issuing a statement of cash and investible surplus" that helped the minister project a rosy picture.

Lalu Prasad became the railway minister in the 2004 UPA government. Under his leadership, he claimed that the railways earned a total profit of Rs.25,000 crore.

The 2011 CAG report found that the so-called surplus shown on the financial statements covered "cash and investible surplus", which were not included in the "net surplus" figures released by the railways in the earlier years. The "cash surplus" included the money available for paying dividend, contribution to the Depreciation Reserve Fund used for renewal or replacement of existing assets, and other funds for investment.

The "investible surplus" included the money allocated for capital expenditure. In essence, the CAG said that the exercise was more window-dressing than actual gain.

The report concluded that the performance of the railways actually declined marginally during the last few years of Lalu Prasad's tenure.

During his tenure as the railway minister, Lalu Prasad left passenger fares untouched. He banned plastic cups from being used to serve tea at railway stations and replaced those with kulhars (earthen cups), in order to generate more employment in rural areas. He later said he also had plans to introduce buttermilk and khadi in the railways. He also introduced cushion seats in all unreserved compartments.

Lalu Prasad introduced several other initiatives during his tenure, including simplification of freight tariff; introducing dynamic pricing, full rake options, overloading freight wagons by up to 4 tonnes by reconsidering the safety formula of 1960s; and outsourcing without triggering hostility by avoiding workers' retrenchment.

Many of the decisions did have long-term beneficial impact. But the myth of surplus was derailed. It's not known whether business schools still teach courses on how not to conjure up a surplus in an organisation.

When railway's 'surplus' vanished on closer scrutiny

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The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) is, perhaps, the only unit affiliated to the Indian cricket board to have rejected almost all the recommendations of the Justic Rajendra Mal Lodha Committee on fair governance and accountability.

It was only expected of the DDCA to reject the recommendations lock stock and barrel when others state units have problems with certain portions of the comprehensive report prepared at the Supreme Court's will.

The DDCA has the temerity to say that so long as its directors -- it is registered under Companies Act -- do not feel that there is any justification to change the system for the sake of uniformity it will remain as it is. Thus it also wants to continue with the obnoxious proxy voting system.

The Delhi association has a problem with every clause and does not want to change as it has perfected the art of circumventing the existing laws/rules/regulations over the years.

The apex court did not stop at accepting the committee's report suggesting structural reforms in the functioning of the board in a clean transparent manner. It is firm on its impelentation.

Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla gave little room for the board to vacillate in implementing the recommendations without any reservations, saying since the committee held extensive deliberations with all stakeholders there should be no difficulty in accepting them.

The cricket board did not say anything immediately and had a long pause before murmurs started from state associations about the practical difficulties they will face in complying with the report.

The court kept the door ajar by asking the board to file its response before the next hearing on March 3. It also said in no uncertain terms that if the board has any problems in implementing the recommendations it will ask the Lodha Committee to ensure the implementation!

After the court has made its intention clear, the board has been left with little scope for any manoeuvre unless the committee agrees to listen its pleas and tweak some of the recommendations.

Two weeks after the Supteme Court missive, the board called a Special General Meeting (SGM) on Friday, but did not take up a clause-by-clause discussion, saying that the state associations sent in their observations and the board has its own.

So the board decided to file an affidavit through its secretary explaining why some of the recommendations are unimplementable and at the same time asked the state units to do likewise on the clauses affecting their functioning.

The board is identifying the people who have fed the committee with some weird inputs and wants to impress upon it that most of the people who deposed before it have been at it for a number of years.

The board officials may name some lawyers, former players and event management companies who they feel have a grouse against the board and used the opportunity to settle scores.

The board anticipated the turn of events and will now flood the court with a spate of offidavits expressing their points of view over implemention of the report in toto.

They may cite hurdles in implementing the one-state one-vote norm, age cap and term of office and a cooling off period between two terms, funding players' associations and including franchise owners in the Governing Council of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

However, the board will explain the issues that can crop up in changing its registration and amending its bye-laws as it claims it can not dictate to the state units to change their constitutions. That's the reason the states have been asked to file different affidavits.

Maharashtra, Mumbai and Vidarbha, Saurashtra, Gujarat and Baroda are unwilling to lose their voting rights and so are the Universities, Raiwlays, Services, Cricket Club of India (CCI) and National Cricket Club (NCC).

Removing Services, Railways and Universities will in one stroke take away the government's influence over the board to a large extent. These three votes invariably titlted the balance in the election. One can understand the CCI remaining as a voting member, but certainly not the NCC.

Mumbai and Saurashtra also do not want to lose their key officials, president Sharad Pawar, 75, and secretary Niranjan Shah, 71, respectively under the 70-year age cap.

Most of the state associations have also expressed reservations about a three-member selection committee saying it is well-nigh impossible for them to cover the entire country with more and more states joining the board. Strangely, this is one of the demands made for ages to remove regional bias.

The court stated that it could keep the Lodha panel alive so that it could help the BCCI overcome difficulties it might face in implementing the recommendations. Justice Lodha might become to the board what Justice Mukul Mudgal is for the DDCA!

Some senior office-bearers of the board are miffed at one-man one-post norm as they do not want to lose their grip over their state associations which give them the clout to get into the board.

As is the case in this country, someone is already working to circumvent the recommendations just as a loophole in then sports minister Margaret Alva's government guidelines permitted the czars of Indian sport to retain their control over the federations in some some capacity after finishing their term as president/secretary/treasurer. Here, the Lodha Committee is clear that there has to be a cooling off period after one term in any capacity.

It will not be easy for the board and its affiliates to convince the Committee to diluting the report, but at the same time, it will find it difficult to implement.

The board is caught in a cleft stick!

(Veturi Srivatsa is a senior journalist and the views expressed are personal. He can be reached at sveturi@gmail.com)

Indo-Asian News Service
vs/ajb/vm

( 977 Words)

2016-02-24-19:45:35

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By Vikas Datta

New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS) The Partition of the Subcontinent remains a traumatic experience for its victims as well as continues to poison relations between India and Pakistan and Hindus and Muslims but its toxicity is also due to several misconceptions that persist and not seeing it in a wider, contemporary perspective, says British historian Yasmin Khan.

"What information we have (about the Partition in 1947) is through family stories, cliches... but when you read the scholarship on it, there is a different view. Among the misconceptions is the conflating of the demand for Pakistan with the violence that was seen," Khan, an associate professor of history at Oxford University, told IANS in an interview.

"The demand for Pakistan was not a call for a violent carnage... if you take the case of Muslims' displacement only, it nearly wrecked the Pakistan project.

"But both these issues have been linked, virtually fused together, thus making the demand offensive and upsetting with consequences that are well known.

"Disentangling both (the demand for Pakistan and the violence that accompanied Partition) is difficult but important," maintains Khan, whose debut work "The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan" (2007) makes a compelling case that while there was both wide support - and opposition - to Partition, virtually no one had any understanding of what it would entail or what its results would be.

The author, who was in India to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival, also notes that the leaders on both sides were shocked by the level of violence and tried to take steps to curb it, but it is also important to remember that they were also human and faced many pressures and compulsions that prevented them from reaching any compromise solution, despite several opportunities. "The Cabinet Mission Plan (of 1945, recommending a loose confederation) was one," she said.

Khan says it is also important that Partition should be seen in the "broader" international context of the late 1940s, as the Second World War had ended recently, most of Europe was in ruins, with colonial powers themselves having sustained heavy damage and expenses and there were refugees all over Europe and Asia - as well as a large number of returning, demobilised soldiers.

This was the milieu in which moves towards decolonisation were initiated, but colonial powers like Britain in the case of India were themselves weakened and in a hurry to transfer power, she said.

"The focus for the British government was rebuilding the country... setting up the British welfare state, and there was a strong inclination to reduce the Empire's commitments and bring soldiers home," said Khan.

The situation in Palestine, also ruled by the British and seeing similar tension between two religious communities, also had many "commonalities" with the situation in the subcontinent, she said.

In this context, she also notes that since there has been extensive literature and advanced scholarship on Partition, South Asian scholarship can lead the way for understanding of more regions that underwent decolonisation - with varying results and outcomes.

Khan, who has also written "The Raj at War: A People's History of India's Second World War" (2015), an extensive account of the effect of the conflict on the Indian "home front" as the country faced a total war and its manifold demands, as well as the political implications - radicalisation and growing communal divide including among the armed forces, also argues that war also had a major role in the Partition - as well as the violence.

"Partition would have not happened without the war.. the Congress leaders were in jail (following the Quit India protest in 1942) and the Muslim League made advances.

"There was free availability of arms, of the trained returning Indian soldiers, including those of the INA, specially in Punjab, while the British found it difficult to maintain peace because of divided loyalties of Indian troops and pressure to send British soldiers home," she said.

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

'Partition must be seen without misconceptions, in broader context'

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Last month, the major agenda item at the World Economic Forum in Davos was the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR). Since FIR is already under way in some of the advanced economies there are fears that it will be very disruptive and create huge unemployment.

The Davos meeting was meant to discuss and allay these fears. I feel FIR for developing countries can, in fact, produce more employment and benefits.

What is FIR?

Our societies are characterised by various industrial revolutions. The first revolution started in the late 1700s when muscle power was replaced by steam - mostly produced by coal.

The second one, which can be traced to early 1900s, was driven by electricity and characterised by big machines and assembly line manufacturing. The third, which began in the early 1960s was based on computers, information technology (IT), electronics and automated production.

The present revolution is characterised by the internet of things (IOT) -- 24/7 connectivity, rapid communication, miniaturisation of design and 3D printing which allows for manufacturing and production of goods wherever they are needed. I feel that IOT and 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) have the capability of allowing countries like India to leapfrog into the FIR.

India is already a decentralised society where more than 60 percent of its population lives in rural areas and lacks the basic amenities of life. They live in one-room huts with nearly non-existent electricity; cook on primitive biomass stoves that produce tremendous indoor pollution; and lack potable water and toilet facilities.

Their lives can be improved drastically by providing livelihood opportunities and amenities for households powered by FIR.

Around 80 percent of the rural population is involved in the farming sector. At present, farming is non-remunerative and needs to be completely overhauled to make it attractive.

Thus, for increasing income for rural households I foresee the use of high-tech precision farming which could either be land-based or container-based. In container farming, all the inputs of farming are applied in an efficient way in enclosed shipping containers.

This container-based farming, as opposed to land-based farming, can grow any food (grain, vegetables or fruits) or fodder with the use of precise levels of light, temperature, humidity and nutrients. All these inputs are controlled by smart sensors and computers. This type of farming requires very few labourers, very little soil and water and is based on the principle of hydroponics or aeroponics.

There are claims by the practitioners of container agriculture that it uses 90 percent less water than conventional agriculture and produces several times the yields that would have been obtained from land-based agriculture. Such high-tech farms are coming up in urban areas in western countries and provide a model to be emulated in developing countries like India.

Today the biggest crisis in farming in India is the lack of labour, low prices of produce, shortage of water and very poor soils. With precision land-based or container agriculture, powered by solar energy and other renewable energy systems, farming can become very efficient, high yielding and hence remunerative. To my mind this is the future of farming.

Land-based agriculture can be used for planting mostly perennial crops like grasses for fodder and trees for fruits, timber and the like. Grasses and trees can bind the soil and stop its erosion.

Agricultural containers would eventually be owned by restaurant owners. Hence the A-Z of food production and utilisation would be run and owned by the restaurants and may give rise to a large number of rural and urban restaurants. This will also generate huge employment opportunities.

Further, FIR based on 3D or additive manufacturing will also usher in a revolution in its own right. In 3D printing, parts or the product is built layer by layer at any place. The designing can be done anywhere in the world and it can be sent by internet to a 3D printer.

Thus the raw material -- metal powders in case of production of metal parts,or plastic wires for plastic products -- together with a suitable glue or solidification of raw material, forms the end product. 3D printing is being used to produce parts of rockets, whole machines and even body parts.

The technology of 3D manufacturing is rapidly progressing and is already becoming mainstream technology for small, specialised manufacturing facilities.

Use of 3D manufacturing will also reduce the energy consumption in transportation of goods since they will be manufactured and made available wherever they are needed.

In most cases, prices would come down. We might therefore see a proliferation of high-tech small scale manufacturing facilities in rural areas. For rural mobility electric vehicles can form the backbone and could be charged by locally produced renewable electricity. And 3D manufacturing may help in production of such vehicles in rural areas.

The FIR can usher in a decentralised and democratic society since the control of the means of production and usage will be in the hands of locals.

(24.02.2016 - Anil K. Rajvanshi is director of Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Phaltan, Maharashtra. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at anilrajvanshi@gmail.com)

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New Delhi: Jats stage a demonstration press for reservation in New Delhi, on Aug 4, 2015. (Photo: IANS)

Himadri Ghosh & Nikhil Babu

Sonipat, Gurgaon, New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS/IndiaSpend) Square-jawed, cleft chin and hair untidily spiked, Vikas Thakaran glowered as he explained why he was here in this scrum of young men blocking Bakhtawar chowk, 30 km southwest of India’s capital, part of a violent week-long agitation that has left 12 dead, vehicles and railway stations burnt, and the army deployed.

Thakaran, 24, is a computer-science engineer, but he is unemployed. “I applied for government jobs four-five times, many times elsewhere, but I didn’t get through,” he told IndiaSpend. We found many educated, angry and either unemployed young men like Thakaran, or those unable to find a job commensurate with their aspirations and education, among the thousands of protestors from a caste group that many say has no reason to protest.

Traditional landowners, the Jats are a powerful Hindu caste now demanding classification as a “backward” caste - a contention rejected last year by the Supreme Court - so that government jobs can be reserved for them.

However, an IndiaSpend analysis of employment data and evaluation of aspirations of young Jats revealed that the protests are manifestations of India’s slow, inadequate job-creation and a failing education system creating thousands of “unemployable” graduates.

This disconnect between education, aspirations and jobs explains similar demands to be classified as “backward” and “other-backward-caste (OBC)” by socially powerful caste groups - Gujjars (Rajasthan), Marathas (Maharashtra), Patels (Gujarat) and Kapus (Andhra Pradesh), among others - struggling to find satisfactory employment.

Organised industry added 500,000 jobs in 2014; India needs more than a million a month

Saurabh Rangi, 24, a native of Rohtak city, scored 75 percent in the All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE), but he is on the streets of Haryana’s Gurgaon city - 30 km northwest of Delhi-because he did not get admission to a government college and had to pay “lakhs” of rupees to graduate from a private college. Rangi is angry; he holds a public-relations trainee job at cardekho.com, an automobile website, but wants a government job.

“I got a B.Tech in 2013, but I am unemployed even after two years,” said Keshav Lather, as he protested in Gohana, Sonipat, 43 km west of Rohtak. “I have applied for a Central government job. But I always lose out because of reservation…a professional education does not necessarily mean a good job. We were surprised at the type of jobs and money offered to many of our friends.”

Labourers, guards and maids form the majority of the jobs available to more than a million Indians - some estimate it is nearly two million - who join the workforce every month, as IndiaSpend reported. Over 30 years, India generated no more than seven million jobs every year, with only a fraction being the kinds of jobs the young Jats desire.

This is why protestors across India demand secure government jobs; it is why engineers and doctors throng job openings for peons, clerks and constables (as they did in Uttar Pradesh last year, when 2.3 million applied for 368 positions of peons).

As we also reported, new employment data indicate two disquieting trends.

One, a slowdown in employment in the formal, organised sector (which in any case employs only 12 percent of India’s labour force), the prime staging ground of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India programme. In Indian factories, more than 400,000 people lost their jobs during the financial year 2012-13, according to government data.

Two, this slowdown hides a larger, long-term trend: India Inc is automating and squeezing more output from its workers and so needs fewer of them.

In isolation, the latest government data show that organised industry added nearly 500,000 jobs in 2013-14. Unemployment in India, according to labour ministry data, is less than five percent, but these data do not reflect under-, partial- or disguised-employment, such as Rangi’s.

No more than 17 percent of all Indians were wage earners, as a 2013-14 labour ministry report acknowledged, with no more than 60 percent of those above 15 years old who sought work over the year getting it (more than 46 percent in urban India did not find work).

“What India needs annually is not just 23 or 24 million jobs but livelihoods,” said economist Ajit Ranade.

He said job opportunities would come only with new investments and enterprises. “If we need to create two million jobs every month, then we need to also create 20,000 to 50,000 new enterprises every month,” he said. “At this stage of our business cycle, we need a big push in the form of investment in infrastructure.”

Jat youth on the streets do not want informal-sector jobs, as our interviews indicated, but here too, as IndiaSpend has reported, employment declined by six percent since 2004-05-and this is the sector that offers the most jobs - 340 million.

Ranade said the government should focus on small and medium enterprises, revamp infrastructure, rationalise tax structures, revive skills in traditional industries, set up technical training institutes producing skilled workers and ensure ease of doing business.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Nikhil Babu is a Delhi-based independent journalist. Himadri Ghosh is a member of 101reporters.com. With inputs from Prathamesh Mulye of 101reporters. The views expressed are personal. The authors can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org)

Ignited hopes, no jobs. Why Jats, others revolt

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By Amitava Mukherjee

A dangerous situation may arise in the country if Mamata Banerjee's demand for granting citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants living in India for more than five years is conceded.

The West Bengal chief minister has called for restoration of the district magistrates' former rights to grant citizenship which, in effect, may facilitate further immigration from Bangladesh.

The situation in West Bengal is so grim that as early as in the 1980s T.V. Rajeswar, a former IB director and former governor of the state, was forced to write in a mass circulation daily cautioning against heavy infiltration from Bangladesh.

His article averred that in the 1981 census the total population growth rate for West Bengal was 23.2 percent while that of the minority community was 29.6 percent. In the same census the overall yearly population growth of the state was 2.3 percent. But in the districts bordering Bangladesh the figures were higher: 2.7 percent in 24 Parganas, 3.3 percent in Nadia, 2.55 percent in Murshidabad, and 2.66 percent in both Malda and Jalpaiguri.

The same pattern continued in the 1991 census. The average population growth rate of West Bengal was 24.73 percent - quite an abnormally high figure. But the districts bordering Bangladesh showed even higher figures: North Dinajpore (34 percent), North 24 Parganas (31.69 percent), South 24 Parganas (30.24 percent), Murshidabad (28.20 percent) and Nadia (29.95 percent). This proved that illegal immigration from Bangladesh was continuing. It is continuing unchecked even today.

The issue is sensitive and must be handled with statesmanship. Banerjee is playing this card a bit rashly with an eye on the coming election as she has reasons to be somewhat worried about a probable Left Front-Congress electoral understanding. But she has picked up the right point from this complicated maze of population movement.

Although Rajeswar had mentioned the abnormal rise of minority population in the 1981 census, he had missed one vital point: exodus of the Hindus from Bangladesh since the birth of that nation. The hard truth is that both Hindus and Muslims are emigrating from Bangladesh to India and there is no point in giving it a communal character.

The only logical reason behind Banerjee's demand for granting citizenship to illegal Bangladeshi immigrants may be her fright that a significant quantum of votes which the BJP could garner in the last parliamentary election may be transferred this time to either the Left or the Congress.

In the last municipality elections, the BJP's share of votes had dwindled by about 50 percent and this portion had found its way to the Left kitty. As most of these municipalities are situated in the Indo-Bangladesh border areas, playing the "citizenship for the immigrants" card may have temptations.

It is likely that the BJP, too, will lap up this issue. During the last parliamentary poll campaign, Narendra Modi held out promises in this regard. Some time back Rajnath Singh, the union home minister, had lamented about the centre's inability on the issue as the BJP does not enjoy a majority in the Rajya Sabha.

The issue has now become a double edged weapon. On the one hand, voting patterns in large numbers of constituencies in 24 Parganas (North) , 24 Parganas (South), Kolkata, Nadia and several districts of north Bengal may be affected by majoritarian sentiments arising out of the issue. On the other hand. the minority community can also influence results in 60-odd constituencies.

West Bengal is now sitting on a powder keg and no one should try to disturb the fragile equilibrium that is still holding the social fabric together. There is no point in crying over Muslim immigration from Bangladesh. Hindus are also coming. In 1951, East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, had 22 percent Hindus. Now the number has come down to a mere seven percent. Where are they going ? The natural answer is India.

Moreover, Bangladesh being a Muslim majority country, it is but natural that there will be a considerable number of Muslims among the emigrants. Trying to give a communal colour to it will be unjust.

In 1951, West Bengal's population had 79.40 percent Hindus and 18.63 percent Muslims. In 1981 the number of Hindus decreased to 77.10 percent while that of the Muslims increased up to 21.55 percent. In 2001, the share of the Hindus in the total population further came down to 72.90 percent, but the Muslims' share jumped upto 25.37 percent.

As per the 2011 census, Hindus now constitute 72.5 percent of the population of the state. No doubt it shows a decline. This declining trend is noticeable in the minority community's share of the total population also at 25.2 percent. But the rate of decrease is slower.

Many experts have however expressed reservations about the sharp decrease in the population growth rate in West Bengal during 2001-2011. According to the 2011 census the growth rate was 17.84 percent in 2001 but nosedived to 13.84 percent in 2011.

Any attempt to give citizenship to Bangladeshi illegal immigrants may seriously jeopardize the political, social and economic life of the country as well as its security scenario too. West Bengal or the north eastern Indian states can no longer accommodate the Bangladeshis. So neither Mamata Banerjee nor any other political party should tinker with such an explosive situation.

(Amitava Mukherjee is a senior journalist and commentator. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted atamukherjee57@yahoo.com)

Mamata's playing with fire on illegal Bangladeshi immigrants

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Washington, Feb 23 (IANS)

"India is in the throes of a violent clash between advocates of freedom of speech and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its political allies on the Hindu right determined to silence dissent," it said in an editorial.

"This confrontation raises serious concerns about Mr. Modi's governance and may further stall any progress in Parliament on economic reforms," the influential US daily said.

The editorial titled "India's Crackdown on Dissent" traced the crisis to the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University's sStudents Union, by Delhi Police on charges of sedition.

Kumar's arrest, the Times noted, followed an on-campus rally on February 9 that marked the anniversary of the 2013 hanging of Muhammad Afzal, who was convicted of participating in the 2001 terrorist attack on India's Parliament House.

Referring to reports that lawyers and Bharatiya Janata Party's supporters assaulted journalists and students at a court in New Delhi where Kumar's hearing took place, the Times said: "Responsibility for this lynch-mob mentality lies squarely with Mr. Modi's government."

On Home Minister Rajnath Singh's reported comments that anyone raising anti-India slogans will not be spared, the Times said: "Mr. Singh apparently does not realise that, in a democracy, voicing dissent is a vital right, not a crime."

The influential daily said protesting journalists, students and faculty at universities across India "are right to voice their outrage at government threats to the exercise of their democratic rights."

"Mr. Modi must rein in his ministers and his party, and defuse the current crisis, or risk sabotaging both economic progress and India's democracy."

"The charge of sedition against Mr. Kumar should be dropped," the Times said citing a recent opinion piece by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Mehta, it noted, warned members of Modi's government "have threatened democracy; that is the most anti-national of all acts."

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

India's crackdown on dissent may stall reforms, says NYT

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By Amit Kapoor

The budget is an important document that decides the course of the fiscal policy of the government over the coming year. This year seems to be no different with the halwa ceremony flagging off the printing of the budget documents on February 19.

Another unique feature of this year’s budget is that some of the key officials have communicated through a series of videos that aim to demystify the budgetary process. These videos also give a flavor about the essential features of the upcoming budget to be presented by FM Jaitley on February 29.

The key officials that have spoken before the budget announcement include the finance minister, the minister of state for finance, and the revenue and the economic affairs secretaries - and all have made some crucial points relating to the budget 2016.

The finance minister, in his interactions, had mentioned the use of technology to the advantage of all taxpayers. Already some 1.4 crore people have been notified of the budget refunds through the technology platforms and their refunds have been processed through the same medium. Roughly 90 percent of the budget filings are done online, and this is where the power of technology is making the tax process smooth and efficient.

The minister of state for finance, in his interaction, has mentioned that the budget will aim to reduce poverty, provide prosperity to farmers, help in job creation for the young people of the country and provide a better quality of life to all citizens. He also expressed his belief that India will continue to be a beacon of growth and stability in a very turbulent global environment

The economic affairs secretary tried to demystify the budget process and mentioned that it is a long-term process as opposed to the common conception. It generally starts in September with a detailed circular being issued to all the ministries. Post this, in November and December, the Department of Expenditure holds meetings with various ministries about the requirements in the current and the next years.

At the beginning of January, the Department of Revenue makes its forecasts for the current year and the next year. There are the revised estimates for the current year and the budget estimates for the next year. Post this once the revenue and expenditure proposals converge, the finance minister holds consultations with various stakeholders and proposals are concretized at the end of January. Decisions are then taken and post this followed by printing of budget documents.

The economic affairs secretary also alluded to the fiscal deficit and how the government is looking at it. He too was upbeat about India’s performance amid global turbulence and said that budget has to focus on growth as it leads to job creation and economic development.

The revenue secretary, in his interaction, mentioned taxation and the broad structure of the budget. He stated that the total tax revenue projection is Rs.14.4 lakh crore. The income tax revenue is close to about Rs.7.9 lakh crore and the indirect tax revenue is close to Rs.6.5 lakh crore.

Within the income tax, there are two components - the corporate income tax and the personal income tax. The corporate income tax is around 59 percent while the personal income tax is around 41 percent.

On the indirect side, there are three major components: excise duties, customs and service tax. Normally these are roughly the same contribution, but this year, due to the oil duty, the excise duties are close to 39 percent while the other two form the remaining indirect taxes.

The service tax structure is diversified, which is a good thing. The direct side seems as having a shortfall of about Rs.40,000 crore as corporate earnings have been low but this will be compensated by the indirect side which is buoyant. The revenue secretary also alluded to ways and means to reduce the litigation that has been seen as a perennial problem for India's corporate sector.

In the week ahead, a lot of haze will get cleared on the issues pertaining to the budget. The new media strategy seems to be a good initiative leading up to the budget. Overall the stage is set for a historic budget. It is also hoped that the government succeeds in the balancing act when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presents the budget in the Lok Sabha at 11 a.m. on February 29.

(The article is co-authored with Sankalp Sharma, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Competitiveness, India. Amit Kapoor is Chair, Institute for Competitiveness & Editor of Thinkers. The views expressed are personal. Amit can be reached at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya)

Process and likely focus areas of the Budget 2016

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By Archana Rao and Sidhartha Dutta

New Delhi, Feb 22 (IANS) In the dead of a cold February night, they grew apprehensive, if not scary, and whispered in hushed tones that police may enter the moonlit campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) that has become a new battleground of a right-to-speak-versus-nationalism debate in India.

There were minor disruptions but the student protesters largely stood ground and continued listening to their leaders making speeches, denying what they were fighting for is “anti-national” as alleged by police and right-wing Hindu activists.

The “revolution”, as many of the protesters called it, turned into the battle of ultimatums with police waiting outside the campus to be allowed in and the student leaders, facing arrest on charges of sedition, refusing to surrender.

“My name is Umar Khalid and I'm not a terrorist," said the most wanted student leader who was among the five who surfaced in the campus after days of hiding. Four others who had disappeared were Anant Prakash Narayan, Ashutosh Kumar, Rama Naga and Anirban Bhattacharya,

One of their leaders, Kanhaiya Kumar, also accused of sedition, is already behind bars in Delhi.

“They fear us, they fear our struggles, they fear us because we think,” the 28-year-old PhD student said, reffering to the government and its saffron-allies.

As the crowd erupted in loud cheers, Khalid alleged that they were not being hunted down because of a controversial meeting on Kashmir they had organised on February 9. A doctored video clip showed him and other students shouting anti-national slogans in the event. They had not done that.

"The attack (on the university) is not because of the program which was organised on February 9, but because the government needs an excuse to attack us," he said.

By this time, Delhi policemen in at least four vans had assembled outside the campus to arrest the “fugitives” in one of the premium educational institutions in India which has long been known to be a Left bastion.

But a couple of guards at the main gate of the campus towards dingy Munirka neighborhood stopped them and said they wanted to talk to university authorities before allowing them in.

“They came and wanted to enter the campus. But we spoke with the authorities who didn't allow them to enter,” one of the guards told IANS.

Meanwhile, speeches continued as more students, who were sleeping, woke up to join the protesters. The numbers quickly turned into hundreds. “Roughly, 500 to 600,” one of the students estimated. “Perhaps more.”

The energy levels were high and so was the sloganeering even as the apprehensions about a possible police raid continued.

Somebody informed the crowd that the policemen have been denied entry and soon the crowd erupted loudly.

Though the speeches largely revolved around serious topic like liberty, equality and right to speak, there were burst-into-giggle moments as well.

The media also came in for some flak.

One of the speakers, mimicked some Indian TV anchors, “shouting, screaming, yelling on the top of their voices”, in their noisy news programmes.

Khalid also condemned the media trial that branded him as a terrorist.

"I have come to know so many things about myself that I myself did not know,” he said.

“I don't have a passport, but I learnt (from the media) that I've been to Pakistan twice. I felt like laughing about how it would be when Jaish-e-Mohammed (terror group) comes to know that someone like me is being linked with them. Perhaps, they will protest in Jhandewalan against such a charge.”

As the night grew deeper, the crowd started thinning out. The protests ended around 2.30 a.m. But the protestors stayed around. Soon, the protests gave way to poetry and singing sessions.

They scattered in small groups around bonfires. Some were reciting Hindi, Urdu and English poems. Others were singing in hope of a “brighter morning awaiting the dark night”.

A few of them found shelters under staircases, corridors or even in the campus lawns to sleep. The policemen still outside, perhaps waiting for an order to enter.

A little past 6 a.m., as the glow filtered across the sky after a long night, many of them awoke to plan more protests for the day.

The brighter morning they were hoping for had not yet dawned.

(Archana Rao and Siddhartha Dutta can be contacted at archana.r@ians.in and siddhartha.d@ians.in)

The long night when fear stalked JNU campus

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Rohtak: People from Jat community stage a demonstration to press for Special Backward Class (SBC) status in Rohtak on Feb 20, 2016. (Photo: IANS)

By Jaideep Sarin

Chandigarh, Feb 22 (IANS) For a state promoting itself as an ideal investment destination under the 'Happening Haryana' banner, the violent events of the past 10 days arising out of the Jat community's agitation for job reservations have come as a rude setback.

Politics is now being blamed for the Jat agitation spinning out of control and creating an anarchy-like situation in more than half of the state that borders Delhi from three sides.

Although no names are being taken openly as to who could have incited the mobs to indulge in the free-for-all violence, it is evident the whole scenario has unfolded into a Jat-versus-non-Jat tussle.

While the state's first BJP government, which came to power with a clear majority in October 2014, has a non-Jat chief minister in Manohar Lal Khattar, opposition parties like the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Congress are dominated by Jat leaders.

Within the BJP too, Jat leaders have tried to dictate things.

The Jat community, politically dominant in Haryana since the state was born on November 1, 1966, forms 29 percent of its nearly 2.55 crore people. Although most Jats are land owners and better off than other communities, the community has been demanding reservation under the OBC (Other Backward Class) category.

In the past also, the Jat community has agitated for reservation, but it never got out of hand, causing loss of hundreds of crores of rupees to the government and people and leading to so much inconvenience for everyone in Haryana and beyond.

The Congress-led UPA government had notified reservation for the Jats just before the April-May 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Supreme Court in July 2015 quashed the notification. The BJP government in Haryana has since moved the apex court to seek a review.

The present Jat agitation started on a small note in Mayyar village in Hisar district earlier in February when a section of Jats blocked a railway track. The Khattar government assured them that the reservation demand would be looked into.

Just a day after that blockade was lifted, fresh trouble brewed in Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jhajjar districts with leader-less Jats coming out on the streets in large numbers and blocking roads and railway tracks.

Within three days, the protest went out of control with mobs of youth engaging in vandalism and arson.

The rampage began in Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jhajjar districts. The frenzy soon spread to Sonipat, Panipat, Hisar, Kaithal, Jind, Kurukshetra and elsewhere. Scores of shops were looted and set on fire. Government and private buildings were damaged or torched. Numerous buses and scores of private vehicles were targeted by arsonists.

The Khattar government was found wanting in dealing with the situation initially.

The image the violent agitation has created for Haryana has made it 'happening' for all the wrong reasons. Investors, be it from within the country or from other countries, are unlikely to feel encouraged by the scenario.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted on jaideep.s@ians.in)

Politics at play as Jat agitation pushes Haryana backward

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By Gokul Bhagabati

Much water has flowed under the Yamuna bridge -- dirty though -- since the February 9 "cultural" event inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)campus, against what the organisers called the "judicial killing" of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. That this snowballed into a major controversy is a reflection of the times we live in. With horror, one witnessed Kanhaiya Kumar, a student leader, getting arrested under the colonial-era sedition law, while the police are looking for other student organisers of the event where "anti-India" and "pro-Pakistan" slogans were allegedly raised.

At the same time, police showed supreme inaction when it came to booking lawyers who assaulted journalists and the arrested student leader, while he was being produced in court following his arrest.

A section of the media too indulged in manufacturing lies and spreading rumours, which may in turn have incited political goons to raise frenzy against students of this premier institution who were merely exercising their democratic right of dissent.

The mud-slinging by politicians and a malicious #ShutDown JNU campaign, that started even before the "cultural" event, appears to be gathering steam, pushed assiduously by social media trolls.

But is it feasible -- or desirable -- to shut down a historic institution like the JNU, perhaps the finest place for higher education in social sciences?

For an alumnus of JNU, the move to tarnishing an institution with everything that it is not is extremely sad. The fallout is such that even in Facebook News Feeds one sees posts favouring JNU's destruction, with some writers suggesting that stadiums be built in its place to encourage sports.

Tracking the #ShutDown JNU trail in Twitter shows the type of "nationalism" that is being promoted at the cost of this nation. Sample these:

Rahul MahajanVerified account @TheRahulMahajan Feb 15 #ShutDownJNU: JNU Campus should be declared as prison complex ASAP

Sir Ravindra Jadeja @SirJadeja Feb 10: Before JNU Becomes Jihadi Nurturing University #ShutDownJNU.

JAY @YesIamSaffron Feb 10: The same #JNU Goon who Had Protested RohitVemula Death got in Scuffle with Cops in support of Afzal #ShutDownJNU

The nation that is imagined in most of these tweets is clearly that of an India which is exclusive for only those who believe in a particular ideology.

Contrary to what the so-called nationalists -- many self-confessed NaMo fans -- preach, the university, through its long struggle, had created a space for India's diversity to flourish and opinions of various sections of the population to be discussed and debated without intimidation or fear of being humiliated.

Far from being a mouthpiece of the terrorists, JNU has become the voice of the marginalised, the oppressed and the outcasts. If the university has become a laboratory of anything, it is as a spearhead for social transformation. Yes, JNU is not only for those who can afford a higher education; it is an institution that enables the wretched of the earth to aspire.

And No. To get selected to JNU, you do not have to give a deliberate "Marxist twist" -- as commonly believed -- to your answers in the entrance examination. The topper in my class at the Centre for Political Studies (CPS) was openly rightist.

The teachers at the university do not grade you on the basis of the ideology you believe in. The current JNU Students Union has a member from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student wing of the RSS.

What JNU represents is hope. And I strongly believe that even with the might of the coercive apparatus of the state and support of the rumour mongering mills, it will be impossible to destroy what the university stands for -- change. And that's something you just cannot stop.

(Gokul Bhagabati passed out from JNU in 2007. He can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)

JNU represents hope and change: Why the iconic university cannot be shut down

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By Saeed Naqvi

Arnab Goswami of Times Now Television runs his show rather like an animal trainer in an old fashioned circus or an Al Capone-like gangster terrorising his minions, which is what the panelists palely peering out of those windows begin to look like, by the time Arnab is through with them.

It is in this galaxy that Sambit Patra, BJP spokesperson, has been shining these past few days with incomparable light. Arnab runs a clip showing Kanhaiya Kumar and his friends, raising their hand and throwing their heads back. There are no words, only cacophony. Sambit Patra provides the missing slogans. "Afzal hum sharminda hain; tere qatil zinda hain." (Afzal Guru, we are embarrassed that your murderers roam free).

Flushed with success from Times Now where, with Arnab Goswami, he had helped viewership ratings skyrocket on the JNU issue, Patra turned up at the India Today Television, to test his luck. He will rue the day he accepted anchor Rahul Kanwal's invitation.

Shouting slogans in support of Afzal Guru is a powerful allegation against the JNU demonstrators. This has become particularly so for the millions who watch Arnab's show. This vast viewership is liable to swallow the allegation unhesitatingly simply because it does not have the background. This audience does not know that the anniversary of Afzal Guru's death has been observed all the three years since his hanging - religiously in Kashmir and in liberal enclaves like Jawaharlal Nehru University.

True, Afzal Guru's crime was heinous. He was supposed to have master-minded the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian Parliament, barely three months after the 9/11 attack in New York.

The Supreme Court judgement handing him the death sentence did not satisfy everybody. The Honourable Court admitted that the evidence was circumstantial, but went on to argue that the "collective conscience of society will be satisfied only if the death penalty is awarded to Afzal Guru." Critics found it unfortunate that a court of law decided to pander to its assumed notion of "collective conscience" rather than abide by points of law.

The hanging too was most mysterious. Without informing his family, Afzal was secretly hanged and buried in Tihar Jail. Since then there is a demand in Kashmir for his remains to be returned to the family. Is it an unfair demand?

In Kashmir, Afzal Guru is not a closed chapter because of the circumstances attending the disposal of the case. But buoyed by political power, this time the Sangh Parivar decided to push for charges of sedition against Afzal Guru's sympathisers.

This is part of a larger game spelt out in an article in The Pioneer published in June 2014 soon after Modi came to power. The author K.G. Suresh is a versatile journalist and a member of the Sangh Parivar think tank. He said: "Augean stables of that hallowed institution called JNU must be cleaned. They have over the years, become dens of secessionism, Maoism and terrorism."

Was it not Subramanian Swamy whose name was being mentioned as the possible vice chancellor? He showed his hand the other day when in the context of the current agitation he asked for the university to be shut down for four months. But for the time being, sedition charges on the leftist union leader would suffice.

For this line of action to succeed, choreography of the whole Afzal Guru show in JNU would have to be couched in clear cut anti-India rhetoric. In this, the Sangh Parivar goofed up in its coordination with the JNU authorities and the police. First, the vice chancellor permitted the show. But when the youth wing of the Parivar, ABVP, protested, the permission was withdrawn.

The university administration's indecisiveness became yet another nugget in what to me has been the finest piece of oratory since the days of Prakash Veer Shastri and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In his February 9 speech, Kanhaiya Kumar "left the audience spellbound" according to eye witnesses. It was imaginative of the Indian Express to have published an English translation of the speech under the title "Is this Sedition?"

By then sundry activists of the Sangh were on the move providing lethal voiceovers to clips showing Kanhaiya and his friends shouting inaudible slogans which were alleged to be anti-Indian. And this found an echo in a credulous Patra and less than sceptical Arnab.

"We shall avenge Afzal Guru's killers; we shall break up the country; Pakistan Zindabad and worse." We have Sambit Patra and Ravi Shankar Prasad's testimony that this was the anti-national fare dished out at the JNU gathering.

Secure in the conviction that he had won the propaganda war for the Sangh Parivar-ABVP, Sambit Patra sought to push his luck a little further with a different channel - India Today Television.

Rahul Kanwal's advantage is that he is a reporter as well as an anchor. First, with great craft, he lulled Patra into a sense of false security. How cleverly had Patra been channel-hopping armed with the video clip of Kanhaiya's supposedly anti-national sloganeering which has been dominating "some channels", Rahul said.

He then led Patra to an in-house computer whizkid who, quite expertly, separated the Kanhaiya clip of February 9, with crisp and clear sound quality from the doctored clip of February 11 where the sound has been deliberately muffled to warrant outside commentary - Patra's in this case.

Rahul's sifting of the grain from the chaff left Patra tongue-tied on live TV. He made cow eyes at Rahul; he looked like Surma Bhopali caught lying within Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra's earshot in Sholay.

Meanwhile, Kanhaiya has in his speech challenged the ABVP to debate him on nationalism. This is the crux of the matter. Here is a TRP spinner for the channels to pick up. Or at least the speech can be telecast so that the nation can distil the truth from the concoction the ABVP and the police have poured into the JNU cauldron.

(Saeed Naqvi is a senior commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at saeednaqvi@hotmail.com)

TV channels should clear air by telecasting Kanhaiya's speech

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses during the Akhil Bharatiya Prachaarya Sammelan, in New Delhi on Feb 12, 2016. (Photo: IANS)

By Himadri Ghosh

“Never before in economic history would 15 million bank accounts have been opened on a single day. Never before has the Government of India organised a programme of such scale,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on August 28, 2014, launching the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (Prime Minister’s People'’s Wealth Programme/PMJDY).

Seventeen months later, in January 2016, the scheme reached all Indian households, according to official data, bringing 200 million additional families to the banking system.

But the primary goal, direct transfer of government subsidies to people, has not overcome two challenges: linking the unique identification (Aadhaar) card to PMJDY, and getting beneficiaries to use the bank account. The speed of adding accounts, as IndiaSpend reported earlier, was outpacing the delivery of benefits, and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan, in 2014, cautioned banks against focussing on numbers alone.

Less than half the 210 million Jan Dhan accounts were seeded with Aadhaar as of January 31, 2016, the data indicates. More than 30 percent of these accounts have been at “zero balance”, meaning the account holder was not using the account.

States struggling to link Aadhaar to PMJDY include Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. These states together linked less than 40 percent accounts to Aadhaar.

It is important that these states fall in line, as subsidies on cooking fuel, auto fuel and food grain impose a multibillion-rupee subsidy burden, the government has said.

The government is estimated to have spent Rs.266,700 crore ($45 billion) on subsidies in 2015, of which Rs.122,700 crore ($20 billion) was spent on food, Rs.71,000 crore ($12 billion) on fertiliser and Rs.60,300 crore ($9 billion) on oil.

Up to half of these subsidies are misappropriated, according to various estimates.

“One of the biggest reforms that India has embarked upon is moving to a market-pricing mechanism across a variety of products such as cooking fuels, auto fuels, food grains and fertilisers, ” a Kotak strategy report said.

'A policy does not work by itself…people must know how to use it’

“It takes the time to properly implement policies in India, more so for financial schemes like PMJDY as a lot of people are unaware of words like a bank, loan, subsidy, ” said Santosh Kumar, professor of public policy and administration at FLAME University, Pune.

The integration of PMJDY, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM) could be an important component of structural reforms. The idea of JAM, as propounded in the 2015 Economic Survey and the union budget, was to identify the beneficiary and deposit subsidies directly into his/her bank account.

“"A policy does not work by itself",” said Kumar. “The government must have a strong political will to implement the policy properly by scrubbing it of discrepancies.”

"“There are two aspects to financial inclusion: one is bank accounts and the second is access to credit. The scheme announced by the prime minister addresses the first problem. The issue of making credit available to small borrowers remains", ” wrote C. Rangarajan, former chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister, in The Hindu.

"An article published by RBI in May 2013 revealed that more than 42 percent of the rural credit is sourced from non-institutional agencies. “Rural credit markets in India is characterised by the coexistence of both formal and informal sources of finance and the market is fragmented", ” RBI concluded after four rounds of the survey.

"“The scheme is a step forward but a lot needs to be done before calling it successful", ” said Anindita Roy Saha, associate professor of economics at Delhi University. “People from rural and urban areas need to be treated separately. For achieving the objectives, people should be educated about the financial system.”

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had opened nearly 60 million so-called no-frills accounts, but RBI data have shown that more than half of them remained dormant.

"“The basic idea of financial inclusion is to include most of the vulnerable sections of society in the banking system",” said Kumar. “People need to know the potential of the scheme and the documents they have in possession; otherwise, they can’t exercise their rights.”

(In an arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Himadri Ghosh is with 101reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroot journalists. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. The author can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org)

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By Nishant Arora

New Delhi, Feb 20 (IANS) If the news of two Delhi brothers who were so hooked to video games that they became too lazy to even go to washroom and were treated in a rehab facility for a month shocked you to the core, it is time to take a serious look at how much time your kids are spending on latest video gaming consoles like Xbox and PlayStation at home.

The video game addiction is for real and despite several recent studies telling us that they can make your kids sharper and smarter, it is time for parents to do a reality check before it gets too late.

“The video gaming addiction can lead to various health hazards in kids. Little, dedicated time on video gaming is fun but when kids get hooked to games, shun outdoor activities, avoid socialisation, cut on their sleep time and start loosing interest in most other things, that is when it become a grave concern,” Dr. Samir Parikh, director, department of mental health and behaviourial sciences at Fortis Healthcare, told IANS.

Last December, researchers from the University of Utah US released findings that showed that brains of compulsive video game players are wired differently.

While some of the changes are predicted to help game players respond to new information, other changes are associated with distractibility and poor impulse control, the researchers noted.

“Those with internet gaming disorder are obsessed with video games, often to the extent that they give up eating and sleeping to play,” says senior study author Jeffrey Anderson, associate professor of neuroradiology in a paper published in the journal Addiction Biology.

According to Dr. Shobhana Mittal, consultant psychiatrist at Cosmos Institute of Mental Health & Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS) in New Delhi, video gaming stimulates the dopamine neurotransmitter pathways in the brain - thereby making it an addictive activity for some.

“Instant gratification of pleasure experienced during gaming can lead to poor impulse control in children. Spending too much time on gaming can deeply impact a child's physical health as well as psycho-social well being,” Mittal told IANS.

Another study that came out last October surprisingly found that children whose parents are very anxious and emotional are likely to play more violent video games tha their peers.

“It is not surprising that warmer and more restrictive parents, or what we call authoritative, are most effective at reducing the amount of violent video games played by their children,” said Russell Laczniak, professor of marketing at Iowa State University.

Researchers identified the effect in all children, but it was stronger for boys and first-borns.

The best solution, however, lies at home only.

“Parents need to encourage outdoor activities, help children develop hobbies, encourage them to interact more with friends. If they feel that children are spending too much time on online gaming, then must talk to a counsellor if the duration is not reduced,” Parikh advised.

Parents need to set appropriate limits for their children with regards to the type of video games permitted and time spent on them.

“Video games at a very young age should be avoided, so that children can have an opportunity to develop other interests and hobbies at this age,” Mittal added.

Children should be encouraged to participate in alternate fun activities depending on their interest, including playing outdoor sports, music, dance, art or interacting with other children their age, which would contribute to a child's all-round development.

"If parents want to reduce the amount of violent video games that their kids play, be warm when dealing with them, but somewhat restrictive at the same time and set rules and those rules will work," Laczniak suggested in a paper that appeared in the Journal of Consumer Affairs.

In your childhood, you also must have played platform games like “Street Fighter,” “Pacman” and the quintessential “Mario” on those huge coin-operated machines in dingy ice-cream parlours with joysticks and buttons -- amid the constant threat of being caught by your parents.

But, warn health experts, parents must realise that video gaming is now part of their home settings and must be restricted -- especially where both parents are working - to watch your kids grow healthier and smarter.

(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)

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By Sarwar Kashani

New Delhi/Srinagar, Feb 20 (IANS) Its location makes it vulnerable, more prone to being occupied by suicide attackers for a possible long-drawn gunfight, a senior police officer had once said with some foreboding about Kashmir’s entrepreneurship institute at the centre of a battle between security forces and terrorists on Saturday.

The police officer’'s apprehension during a casual talk with me was the first thing I immediately remembered when I heard about a group of militants had stormed into the multi-floor complex of the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI), where I used to work until recently as a communication officer.

Had I not returned to journalism, I would probably have been one of the employees of the institute who were trapped inside the complex hours after the shootout began.

The institute, situated on the strategic national highway connecting Jammu and Srinagar, has three buildings - a guest house, a hostel complex and the main office building - on a large swath of 3.5-acre land on the eastern bank of Jhelum. The institute trains young boys and girls of the job-starved state to be entrepreneurs and has nearly 300 employees spread across 22 districts of the Jammu and Kashmir. Nearly 100 employees are posted in the main office near Pampore, some 12 km from Srinagar.

The road on which the institute is located connects capital Srinagar with south Kashmir. It is the lifeline not only for local supplies but is the only all-weather road link used by the army to reach the Srinagar-based 15 Corps headquarters that is the nerve centre of the fight against militancy in the state.

The area around the building is not residential. It houses a government-owned joinery factory where wooden objects like doors, window frames, beds, chairs are made. On the other side of the road is a highly secured complex of medium and shortwave radio transmitters of Radio Kashmir, Srinagar.

There is a large slice of marshy land that separates the JKEDI complex from the Jhelum. Police previously had on many occasions proposed that the building be secured with security forces.

But the proposal was rejected as the administration of the institute was of the view that it (police presence) may scare young boys and girls from visiting it.

The police officer during the talk last summer was pointing to the location of the institute on the highway and the bushy wetland at the back of the complex - making it an easy target of militants who would also want to exploit the rush of youth into the institute.

And that is exactly what might have happened on Saturday evening as I was informed by my colleagues.

They said that three to four militants - apparently teenagers - walked inside posing as aspiring entrepreneurs before launching the attack on an security force convoy. Many of the employees had no idea what was brewing outside.

The militants, carrying heavy weaponry, then stormed inside. The attackers quickly scaled the stairs and occupied the fourth floor of the building from where they began shooting at security forces, the employees said.

In the melee, many of the employees sneaked out and ran towards the hostel complex. But many were still trapped inside before they reached the ground floor.

I could hear the gunshots over the phone as I spoke with my former colleagues. I heard them screaming over the phone. They were running for their lives before being evacuated by security forces to safer places.

I was told that a gardener was injured being hit by a bullet on one of his legs. Rest of them are safe and living.

(Sarwar Kashani, previously with JKEDI, is with IANS. He can be contacted at sarwar.k@ians.in)

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Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar addresses a press conference in Chandigarh, on Feb 19, 2016. (Photo: IANS)

By Jaideep Sarin

Chandigarh, Feb 20 (IANS) Over the past month, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has been marketing Haryana as an ideal and peaceful investment destination across the country and even in China and Japan.

That image of the state has been dented by the violent Jat agitation and its inept handling by the Khattar government -- a bleak scenario ahead of the 'Happening Haryana' global investors' summit that gets underway in Gurgaon on March 7.

This is not the first time that Khattar's inexperience in governance has shown up.

He had become chief minister the first time he was elected a legislator and had never held any position in the government earlier.

The crisis at hand is reminiscent of the violent conflict at the Satlok Ashram of self-styled godman Rampal in November 2014. Six people died and scores of others were injured as the Khattar government reacted slowly to the build up by the godman. The first BJP government in Haryana had, after all, assumed office only on October 26, 2014.

A year hence, the Khattar government is again paying the price for sending conflicting signals as regards a potentially explosive situation.

The government kept assuring the Jat leadership that it supported their demand for reservations despite the Supreme Court quashing the reservation notification for Jats issued by the previous UPA government.

When a section of the Jat leadership blocked a railway track in Mayar village in Hisar district last week, the Khattar government talked them into ending the agitation but did not realise that other sections of Jats, especially the youth, were on the boil.

Jat leaders like Hawa Singh Sangwan and Yashpal Malik, who have spearheaded the Jat agitation for reservation over the years in Haryana, are certainly not in control of the violent turn that the agitation has taken in the past 48 hours.

Mobs of Jat youths have laid siege to Rohtak town and forced the state government to call in the Army, the last fall-back option for civil authorities, in eight districts. The violence has left three people dead and several others injured. Curfew and shoot-at-sight orders have been issued in Rohtak and Bhiwani towns. Incidents of arson and looting have been reported.

Even the house of Haryana's Finance Minister Abhimanyu was set on fire and government buildings have been damaged by the protestors.

The Khattar government, reacting to the situation only after it got out of hand, has little idea as to who it should talk to in order to contain the spreading violence. The rampaging mobs of Jat youth are leader-less and do not seem to be listening to even senior community leaders.

The Army and para-military forces requisitioned by the Haryana government have not been able to reach the affected areas smoothly.

Instead of doing too many things, the Khattar government needs to put a strategy in place to deal with the present and future situations. The BJP government, which is seen to be dominated by non-Jat leaders, will have to get its act together to ensure that investors do not pull out.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted on Jaideep.s@ians.in)

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By Rajendra Shende

Perhaps never before in the history of America have its citizens mourned so deeply the death of a Supreme Court justice and at the same time vibrantly rejoiced with prospects of finally getting climate justice. To be accurate, those who mourned are unlikely to be those who celebrated.

The sincere feeling of bereavement over the death of Justice Antonin Scalia originates from the shock of the sad and sudden loss of the most original constitutional lawyer who indulged in an innovative interpretation of the American constitution since it was adopted in 1789 - through the intellectual lens of conservative leanings.

On the other hand, exultation springs from those who had helplessly watched Justice Scalia's rulings that put the efforts to address global warming on the backburner. Many added a humorous shade to the loss of a truly stately figure by saying that the only conservatism Scalia rejected out-and-out was environmental conservation.

Last January, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had unanimously rejected the request for a stay on President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan (CPP). Now, after February 9, the appellate panel has set oral arguments on the merits of the case for June 2, after which the Supreme Court would take a decision on CPP, may be in 2017.

Secretary of State John Kerry, almost at the stroke of midnight of December 12 last year, made a parting statement after the Paris agreement was adopted. The most alarming part of his statement was: "And we have reached an agreement, (if) fully implemented, will help us transition to a global clean energy." His emphasis on "full implementation" sent nervous waves across the delegates of 195 countries. Those reverberated even louder when he added: "How we build this agreement, how we build it out for each of our nations.... that is what will determine whether we're actually able to address one of the most complex challenges humankind has ever faced."

Just 60 days after, on February 9, that uneasy apprehension came haunting again when the CPP received a jolt from the blue. The Kyoto's ghost left the climate-watchers guessing if their worst fears on the US' failure in ratifying Paris Agreement would come true.

The CPP, first of its kind anywhere in the world, aimed to reduce carbon dioxide - the main green house gas (GHG) emission from coal-fired power generation plants - by 32 percent by 2030 relative to 2005 levels. The plan required, apart from reducing emissions, increasing the use of renewable energy, and energy conservation. It also included the benefits like reduction in air pollution due to mitigation of black carbon, positioning the US as the climate leader in energy-transformation. The CPP was the flagship response of the US to fulfill its commitment under the Paris Agreement.

The jolt to CPP came when a nine-judge US Supreme Court bench stayed it 5-4 and granted a request by 27 states and various companies and business groups. These business interests, thus, blocked the game-changing energy transformation ever attempted by the US. Justice Scalia was one of the five who blocked the plan - and hence Obama's climate legacy.

Justice Scalia was a Republican nominee, like other four judges who blocked the plan. Interestingly, Justice Scalia's vote in 2007 was unable to block one of the early initiatives of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to classify carbon dioxide as an air pollutant.

That ruling, also by a 5-4 margin, allowed the EPA to start regulating carbon dioxide under its Clean Air Act. Justice Scalia was among the four who refused to concede that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant. He reportedly stated in his dissent that "EPA is not APA - Atmosphere Protecting Agency!"

I am not sure if that was the "originalism" that Justice Scalia was known for. Nevertheless, EPA was then able to formulate the very original transformative proposal to regulate the GHG emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Four days before his death, when the Supreme Court stayed the CPP, Justice Scalia might have been in a mood to revel in his renewed "originalism" to distinguish between EPA and APA. However, after his unexpected death, a Pandora's Box lies open with all the evil flowing out, leaving only "hope" inside.

Hope for a better planet, hope for climate action, hope for science-based policymaking and technology-based solutions to global warming challenges.

The death of Justice Scalia has given rise to the hope that court battle could be won finally. After this stay, the case has to be litigated on merit before the D.C. Circuit and then before the Supreme Court. Now that Justice Scalia has gone, it is expected that his replacement may favor the CPP.

In any case, the judiciary in the developed countries certainly enjoy their elite but exclusive status pampered by their allegiances to national partisan beliefs. Such privileged seclusion enjoyed by American judges totally overlooks the impact of their rulings on the environment of other nations as well as present and future humanity. The US Supreme Court needs a change of such a perspective rather than the simple replacement of Justice Scalia.

(Rajendra Shende, chairman of the TERRE Policy Centre, is an IIT alumnus and former UNEP director. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at shende.rajendra@gmail.com)

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By Hilton Ratcliffe

On September 14, 2015, the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) observed a "chirp" lasting about a fifth of a second (GW150914). Analyses of the signal suggest that it was produced by the cataclysmic collision of two black holes a billion light years away. This was probably the verification of the most dramatic prediction of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Accordingly, we ought to have a critical look at the relevant experiment before we finally incorporate this great achievement into the body of scientific knowledge.

The LIGO experiment consists of two identical stations, one at Hanford, Washington, and the other at Livingstone, Louisiana, some 3,000 km apart. Each station consists of a system of optical, electronic, mechanical, and hydraulic components, and each has three optically polished surfaces across which the light signal must pass.

The mirrors in each LIGO interferometer are set four km apart. The expected change in length of the arms of the interferometer induced by the gravitational waves is around one ten-millionth of the diameter of a single atom. Note, the best precision mirror surfaces have smoothness of about 25 nanometres - a nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre. That is incredibly fine tolerance, but even this pales when compared with what LIGO claims to measure.

Put another way, the most precisely polished astrophysical mirrors like those used in LIGO, can have peaks 25 nm above and below the theoretical surface plane of the mirror, meaning that some parts of the mirror can be 50 nm further from or closer to the point of observation.

And 50 nm is a billion times bigger than the distortions induced by the expected gravitational waves. Because of this, it is practically impossible to measure the distance between the two mirrors in each interferometer to the required tolerances. They have had to take an average, which is no more than a guessed approximation. The likelihood that LIGO did indeed detect a signal from GW150914 is remote, simply because it exceeds the limits of technological precision, more so than any other discovery in human history.

There is also something which appears to be too fortuitous about GW150914, as noted by the distinguished Indian astrophysicist Dr. Abhas Mitra: Given that the radius of Earth is 6,370 km, we can calculate the linear distance between the LIGO detectors at Livingstone and Hanford at around 2,500 Km.

Because this distance is absolutely negligible compared with the distance to the origin of GW150914 (1.3 billion light years), both detectors should see the event almost simultaneously. There should be a delay of a few microseconds at most if both detectors received the signal from the sky above.

However, the actual delay of seven milliseconds was very much larger, and is possible only if the source was almost perfectly aligned with a straight line joining Livingstone and Hanford. Furthermore, while moving from Livingstone to Hanford, the signal must have travelled through Earth's crust. And this sounds like some sort of cosmic conspiracy.

Dr. Bibhas De, a radio astronomer of some 40 years' experience and a PhD in applied physics from the University of California-San Diego, noted that there seems to be some minor anomaly between the amplitudes (strengths) of the two signals recorded by the two LIGO detectors.

He admits that this could be ascribed to the instrumental differences between the detectors. If so, we should simply be able to normalize them to ensure that the two signals match exactly with one another. And the Physical Review Letters paper publishing this result needs to explain this apparent anomaly.

In the event that normalisation cannot be effected, there is some chance that the extremely sensitive LIGO detectors picked up a fake signal despite the best efforts of the LIGO team to filter them out.

There is undeniably some possibility, however slight, that the well-studied effect of geomagnetically induced currents in long metal structures might have triggered both the LIGO detectors. These currents in the Earth's magnetic field would create stresses in LIGO's lengthy vacuum tubes. These stresses, though extremely small in most cases, may nevertheless be non-negligible for LIGO in view of the extraordinary sensitivity of the instrument.

Furthermore, the time-scale and the form of the signal seem to be suspiciously well-matched to geomagnetic interference. In addition, it is significant that the Lebedov Institute, Moscow, recorded September 14, 2015, as a day of geomagnetic storms: .
These disturbances originate in the ionosphere, thus they would consequently affect both detectors. We cannot be certain such effects were filtered out.

Finally, these points are raised not to take away due credit from the monumental effort by the LIGO team, but rather to emphasise, with a phrase made popular by Carl Sagan, that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence''.

(Abhas Mitra's commentary, Gravitational waves: Questions remain but don't detract from monumental discovery, was carried by IANS on February 13, 2016.)

(Hilton Ratcliffe is a South African-born physicist, mathematician, and astronomer and part of the trio that discovered CNO nuclear fusion on the surface of the Sun. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at hilton@hiltonratcliffe.com)

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New Delhi: A section of lawyers assaulted JNU students and journalists at the Patiala House in New Delhi on Feb 15, 2016. (Photo: IANS)

By Amulya Ganguli

It was inevitable that the kind of muscular nationalism favoured by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would lead to hooliganism by its followers among the lawyers in the Patiala House courts where Kanhaiya Kumar, the Jawaharal Nehru University (JNU) student leader, was being charged with sedition. However, as a result of the thuggish behaviour of the saffron lawyers, the high ground which the BJP had thought it had climbed by playing the patriotic card in the JNU affair has slipped from under its feet.

Apart from the party, the two persons whose reputation has been tarnished are Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi.

Once called a "provincial" by former party member Jaswant Singh, the credentials of the politician from Uttar Pradesh to hold the home minister's post, once occupied by the BJP's icon, Vallabhbhai Patel, have generally been doubted.

Now the misgivings of the doubters have been substantiated not only because he mistakenly believed that by leading the charge against the JNU "anti-nationals", he would be able to refurbish his image, but also because of the certificate he gave to the police commissioner for cracking down on campus within a day.

While the premature praise apparently persuaded Bassi to go easy on the saffron hoodlums among the lawyers for two days in succession, Rajnath Singh's castigation of the "traitors" encouraged the hoods to take the law into their own hands.

It is evident from the conduct of a dyed-in-saffron home minister and his rowdy followers that a fascistic party has no time even for the advice of one of its favourite godmen, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, to be "compassionate" towards wrong-doers.

There is little doubt that in the saffron camp, only Atal Behari Vajpayee displayed such an attitude of understanding towards an adversary when he said that the solution to the Kashmir insurgency would be sought within the parameters of "insaniyat" (humaneness) and not only within the limits of the Constitution.

Narendra Modi, too, gave glimpses of such a spirit of accommodation when he observed the sadbhavna (goodwill) fasts, apparently to atone for the distress and divisiveness caused by the Gujarat riots of 2002.

To an overwhelming number of his partymen, however, the charge of betraying Mother India is like a red - sorry, saffron - rag to a bull.

This is the xenophobic dogma on which they have been reared in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) shakhas (schools), where the nation is seen as a victim of invasion by Muslims in the medieval ages and of Pakistani conspiracy today.

Moreover, to the saffronites, the homegrown "secularists" are hand-in-glove with the conspirators, which is why the persistent call to beef-eaters and critics of Modi to go to Pakistan.

It is not surprising that the same slogan about emigrating to Pakistan greeted the team of lawyers sent by the Supreme Court to survey the situation in the Patiala house court. Evidently neither constitutional propriety nor compassion has any meaning for the Hindutva Gestapo.

However, the BJP was apparently unprepared for, first, the antics of its supporters -- one of them, the Union minister Girijaj Singh called for shutting down the JNU -- diverting attention from the supposedly traitorous activity of a handful of naive and excitable students and, secondly, for the possibility of the charge of sedition against Kanhaiya Kumar not being upheld by the judiciary. Even the "video evidence" shown with alacrity by some channels has now proved to be fake.

The party's expectation, therefore, that it has been able to overcome the setback it suffered after the suicide of the Hyderabad central university student, Rohith Vemula, may not be fulfilled.

What the BJP has to realize is that the kind of divisive policies which it routinely follows - Hindu vs Muslim, patriots vs traitors - appeals only to its rabid followers and are of little relevance to the average citizen.

It is even possible that such tactics may prove to be electorally counter-productive for they show that the BJP has remained stuck in the days of rath yatras and riots during the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and that Modi's sabka saath, sabka vikas slogan is meant more for public consumption than implementation in an atmosphere of social harmony.

The ministerial interventions in the affairs of autonomous institutions - Rajnath Singh in JNU, Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya in Hyderabad - also show that Modi has little control over his team despite his "strong man" image.

While he has apparently been able to calm down some of the trouble-makers like Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj, the ministers and the saffron goons among the lawyers have been running amok.

Like his call for a 10-year moratorium on sectarian conflicts, the prime minister will do well to say openly that the kind of hyper-nationalism which makes the party members describe the JNU and Hyderabad central university as hotbeds of anti-national activity is uncalled for.

As the support which the agitating students have received at home and abroad shows, few believe what the ministers say.

(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)

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By Amit Bhandari

A $48-billion (Rs 3.26 lakh crore) penalty claimed by the US government from Volkswagen for cheating on diesel car emissions is about 200 times as large as the $225 million (Rs 1,500 crore) insurance pool set up by Indian insurance companies to compensate US nuclear companies for mishaps in India.

If a US nuclear company were to build a reactor in India that suffered a catastrophe, and people were to die in India, the US government’s position seems to be that American suppliers shouldn’t face civil or criminal liability. The US believes the Indian civil nuclear liability law, which calls for both penalties, is unduly harsh. Rather than say so directly, US officials keep repeating that the “Indian law is inconsistent with the international liability regime".

The Indian civil nuclear liability law holds the equipment supplier responsible for any incident caused by the supplier or its employees. The Indian liability law differs from those of other countries because it was drafted keeping in mind the 1984 Bhopal tragedy – where, despite 5,000 deaths and effects across generations, no one was held criminally liable.

The penalty demanded in the Volkswagen case is about 100 times the compensation of $470 million – ($907 million in 2014 dollars) – paid by US firm Union Carbide after the Bhopal Gas tragedy, which also left 70,000 people maimed or injured. Volkswagen’s cover-up caused no injuries or deaths.

Although the Indian government wants to protect US nuclear companies against the Indian liability law, critics argued that these companies are using India’s eagerness to avoid any liability, if something goes wrong.

India wants to build more nuclear power plants in an attempt to reduce the share of coal in electricity generation. Increasing the use of nuclear power is also a part of the country’s strategy to tackle climate change.

India currently has 5,780 MW of nuclear power in operation and plans to add another 17,400 MW, making it possibly the largest market for nuclear power after China, and a financially lucrative prospect for Western firms faced with limited domestic sales.

However, the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has heightened concerns of nuclear safety and accident costs. The fallout of that disaster will also make it hard to change India’s liability laws.

The US’ large settlements extend to corporate wrong-doing beyond its borders

Large settlements in the US are a regular feature. In October 2015, the Justice Department arrived at a settlement with oil major BP, which will pay a penalty of $20.8 billion to cover the economic and environmental damage arising from a 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Volkswagen could, in theory, face fines of as much as $37,500 per vehicle for each of two violations of the law; up to $3,750 per “defeat device”; and another $37,500 for each day of violation, a Reuters report said.

In April 2010, a deepwater oil-drilling rig operated by BP, the Deepwater Horizon, suffered an explosion which killed 11 men, and the well it was drilling leaked over five million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

This was the largest-ever settlement in the history of the Department; the Volkswagen penalty could be larger.

A number of companies have paid tens of billions of dollars in fines over the past decade for breaking US law.

Top US banks, such as Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, have paid multi-billion dollar fines for their roles in the 2008 global financial crisis, caused by reckless business practices of large Western banks.

The remit of the US Justice Department extends beyond its borders and to foreign firms as well. In May 2015, five global banks–Citicorp, JP Morgan, Barclays, UBS and the Royal Bank of Scotland–agreed to pay fines adding up to $2.5 billion, for manipulating a widely-used financial benchmark set in London. This brings the total penalty paid by these banks for their role in this manipulation to $9 billion.

UK-based HSBC was fined for “illegally conducting transactions on behalf of customers in Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma”–countries under US economic sanctions.

During the financial year 2015, the US justice department collected $23 billion in penalties in various civil and criminal cases, slightly lower than the collection for 2013, when it had a record haul.

Indian firms also fined in the US

While the US nuclear industry wants to avoid any liability in India for acts of omission or commission, Indian companies have often been slapped with large fines for violations of US law.

Drug manufacturer Ranbaxy paid penalties of $500 million (Rs 3,400 crore) in 2013 for falsifying data about its drugs and for not following proper manufacturing practices–more than twice the value of the nuclear liability insurance pool to be created in India.

In 2013, tech firm Infosys paid a $35 million penalty in a civil settlement on allegations of visa misuse; the firm maintained that the “claims are untrue and remain unproven”.

India has started levying penalties too

India, too, has started levying big fines. For instance, in 2013, a group of Indian cement companies was fined Rs 6,698 crore by the Competition Commission of India for working as a cartel and over-charging consumers. This amount, levied for unfair business practices rather than causing deaths and injuries, is 4.4 times the proposed liability cap for nuclear incidents.

Similarly, Delhi-based real estate firm DLF has been recently ordered to pay a penalty of Rs 630 crore for unfair business practices.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Amit Bhandari is a media, research and finance professional. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. The author can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org)

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Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi addresses during an annual press conference in New Delhi on Jan.3, 2014. (Photo: IANS)

By Ashish Mishra

New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The arrest of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges and the resultant political fireworks appear to have hit hard one man: the outgoing Delhi Police chief Bhim Sain Bassi.

Days after it was being speculated that Bassi, 59, may get a senior post in the Central Information Commission after he retires on February 29, it became clear on Friday that he had been ignored.

Bassi implied it as much.

"It doesn't matter to me," Bassi told the media when he was asked about reports that the government had axed his name from the list of candidates for a post of Information Commissioner.

Also, a day after Bassi insisted that Kanhaiya Kumar was not attacked at the Patiala House Court here, a medical report made public on Friday revealed that the student leader had suffered multiple injuries.

"There are multiple abrasions on Kumar's nose and thighs. There is a tenderness on the right toe," said a report released by Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, adding there were also several external injury marks.

The Congress on Thursday came out against the inclusion of Bassi for the post of Information Commissioner after his retirement.

In fact, both the Congress and the CPI-M, which have been most vocal in criticising the government over Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest, have demanded the ouster of Bassi as the Delhi Police chief.

On Friday, six Left parties sought Kanhaiya Kumar's release and punishment to those who they said fabricated "evidence" leading to his arrest.

"The truth has now come out that most of the evidence produced by the government were fabricated," they said. "Those who have fabricated the evidence and propagated it must be punished under the law."

An Indian Police Service officer of the 1977 batch, Bassi began his career as Assistant Superintendent of Police at Pondicherry.

He has also served in Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Goa. He was appointed Delhi Police Commissioner in August 2013 when the Congress-led UPA government was in power nationally.

Bassi has been having regular run-ins with Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government over law and order issues. Delhi Police does not report to the Delhi government but to the central home ministry.

AAP leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, have often accused him of being an "agent" of the BJP-led central government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Bassi has denied the charge.

The Kanhaiya Kumar episode seems to have tripped him.

Delhi Police cracked down on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) after "anti-national" slogans were allegedly raised at a meeting on Kashmir held on the campus on February 9.

The JNU Students Union led by Kanhaiya Kumar, who is from the CPI-affiliated All India Students Federation, did not organise the meeting and he has repeatedly denied shouting subversive slogans.

Bassi claimed his men had evidence to prove Kanhaiya committed seditious acts. But fresh video evidence seems to show that this was not true and that the tape which led to Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest may have been doctored.

And on Monday, when the Kanhaiya Kumar case was heard in the Patiala House Court here, a section of lawyers attacked JNU students and journalists. The lawyers later boasted that they were proud of their aggression.

A BJP legislator in Delhi, O.P. Sharma, was filmed chasing and beating up a CPI activist on the street outside the court.

Bassi had to face charges that while he used video clips and media reports to act against Kanhaiya Kumar, he was coy vis-a-vis the violent lawyers and BJP's Sharma despite photographic evidence. Later, Sharma was held and let off after questioning.

(Ashish Mishra can be contacted at ashish.m@ians.in)

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By L. Subramanyan

Against the backdrop of what is happening in India in reference to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) episode, there is this massive debate in terms of who is a nationalist and who is not. I'm told that my simple acts of omission and commission, including what meat I eat, may brand me "anti national".

But this post is really not about me. It is about Apple chief Tim Cook.

Just consider the facts. On December 9, two radicalised Americans massacred 14 people at the Inland Center in San Bernadino, California. The shooters, a married couple, were subsequently shot down by the police.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is investigating the case, has asked Apple to provide it with a key to unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters and even got a court order for Apple to comply.

An open and shut decision for Tim Cook, right?

Wrong. Cook refused to comply, citing grave security implications for iPhone users at large, and has moved the higher court. And he has got support from many in Silicon Valley, including the very influential Edward Snowden, and our "own" Sundar Pichai of Google.

Let's chew on that for a moment. Tim Cook has said Apple will not unlock a phone used by a terrorist.

The reason why this is important is that I don't see anyone in the US, including the far right (and yes, the US has its own share of its loony bins), screaming that Cook is anti-national. Amazingly, even Donald Trump has not yet threatened to banish Tim Cook from the US.

Sure, there are people criticising Cook, like in any other society with free speech, but no death threats, no bunch of lawyers trying to lynch him or attack him for being against Uncle Sam (their equivalent to our Bharat Mata).

I am just relieved that Tim Cook and Apple are not based in India. Had they been, their stand would have been immediately branded anti-national.

Politicians of the ruling party in power would have sent goons to various Apple stores and vandalised them, with the cops looking on serenely. The educated middle class, would have reprimanded Apple for its "anti-national" stance and instantly branded them as traitors.

Not that this would have stopped them from coveting the iPhones, but then words are cheaper than iPhones.

Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi would have immediately ordered the arrest of Cook and slapped him with charges of sedition, and the lawyers would have been busy slapping him more, literally and physically.

News channels would have unearthed a video showing Cook saying that he won't accept the court order, and would have gleefully run a doctored video showing Cook disrespecting the flag, mouthing obscenities at the government and calling them names with a dangerously sounding anchor demanding that India wants to know.

Parliament would have been paralysed with inaction, with every party staging a walkout and no business being allowed to be conducted. To hell with the running of the government, Cook-the-Traitor will be the bigger issue in the country, not the big infrastructure projects hung in balance, not the governance of the country coming to a halt and certainly not the millions of people living in hunger and poverty. GST will become the Great Satan Tim.

Processions would be taken out by all political parties to protest the actions of Cook and at least 27 public interest litigation petitions would have been filed in the Supreme Court of India, urging urgent hearing on the matter, with some of the honourable MPs even asking for the company to be shut down for a few months and fumigated to rid it of all Cooksian elements.

However, the next week, Supreme Court would announce its decision, Cook will comply and everything is back to normal. And the original undoctored videos of Cook would be found and Arnab Goswami would go back to shouting about something else.

Tim Cook, see how lucky you are. You have escaped, by being born in the USA.

(L. Subramanyan is founder and CEO of Trivone Digital Services. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at subu@trivone.com)

-Indo-Asian News Service
subu/ap/vm/hs

( 714 Words)

2016-02-19-13:17:34

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By Nury Vittachi

A dog has learned to read. Fernie, a two-year-old labrador from the UK, can read four words and is working on another 20, says his owner, a teacher.

I was impressed, as I well remember the difficulty I once had trying to teach a two-year-old human not to throw herself off a balcony.

All parents know that children get furiously angry if we stop them doing things like climbing into lion enclosures, drinking poison, eating mystery brown objects off the forest floor and the like. The basic toddler philosophy is: "I wonder what (insert lethal activity here) feels like? Let's find out."

(I suspect there's also a subconscious undercurrent of "Time for a quick round of Make Dad Panic.")

Parenting books say "they grow out of it". They don't say that they grow right back into it as teenagers, who have the exact same philosophy, but with more expensive dangers. ("I wonder what would happen if we mixed every chemical in the school lab?")

The obvious solution is to teach children the way we teach dogs. "Sit." (Child sits.) "Who's a good boy?" (Adult pats head and presents tiny morsel of food.) "Study! Pass exams! (Child studies and passes exams.) "Who's a good boy?" (Adult pats head and presents another tiny morsel of food.) and so on and so forth.

What if your child can't talk yet? You can still teach it, thanks to scientists in Taiwan who have just invented an Infant Cries Translator app. You download the app and stick your phone near your baby's mouth. Wah wah waahhhhh is translated on the screen into clear, adult-readable terms such as: "I wish to have an additional beverage, carer."

This reminded me of my first daughter, who had advanced verbal skills and actually spoke like that from about 18 months old: "Convey me to the potty immediately, carer, or you and your so-called Persian rug will live to regret it."

Happy memories. But I was brought back on topic by a colleague from the US who says TV shows in her home country feature a dog called Willow who can read. Clearly this is the trend.

I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that teaching animals to read is a good thing. Life is grim enough without coming home to be greeted by my dog saying things like: "What do you think of Schopenhauer's second volume of essays? Good grief, you haven't read it, have you?"

The fact is reading gives humans an evolutionary advantage that we should not share with less-evolved creatures such as dogs, cats, amoeba, Donald Trump fans and the like.

But I must admit I was curious. So I handed my newspaper to my dog. She stared at the front page picture (a politician of course) and then tilted her head to one side, apparently having the same gyroscopic thing in her brain that smartphones have. Then she took a step forwards and peed on it. That was probably a rather insightful thing to do. I wish I'd thought of it.

If dogs do learn to read, let's limit them to books about their kind: White Fang, 101 Dalmatians, and Marley and Me are probably the three most famous. Do NOT give them Cujo.

(Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments via his Facebook page)

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By Vatsal Srivastava

Global financial markets have started to price in a global recession since the beginning of 2016. The Fed raised rates for the first time in almost a decade but the price action has been extremely counterintuitive: US yields down, US Dollar Index down and gold rallying through the key $1,200 level.

There has been a huge repricing in the federal funds futures market with the bond market now pricing in only a 20 percent probability of another interest rate hike in 2016.

Recall that the median forecast was for three Fed rate hikes in 2016 only two months ago.

Investors are now questioning the effectiveness of future central bank ammunition to fight a slowdown in economic growth and demand. The discussion has now shifted from the pace of monetary tightening to what type of easing is in the pipeline. Will we witness negative rates or helicopter drops by global central banks in the coming quarters as financial conditions worsen?

Are negative nominal rates effective? Can they lead to reversing deflationary trends and boosting aggregate demand? If not, are currency wars or devaluing domestic currencies to produce growth the next logical step? If so, will these devaluations be a zero sum game with clear winners and losers? What about the good old fiscal policy prescriptions? If monetary policy is indeed ineffective (the prevailing mood in the market!), how much political capital do policymakers have to pull the fiscal levers?

The policy of borrowing from future earnings to repay today's debts has tested investors' patience on many occasions since the financial crisis. Thus, anything short of carefully thought out and well executed structural reforms will immensely disappoint the markets.

Only time will tell which of the above scenarios plays out. We have seen Japan going into negative interest rate territory in recent weeks and the yen has appreciated and the stock market failed to rally. Similarly, ECB President Mario Draghi has done all he could to talk down the euro with more QE talk but the common currency has been holding up.

Clearly, markets are not behaving as per central banks' expectations.

Gold prices are a function of many variables - real interest rates, the US dollar, inflation expectations and the trend of the broader commodity market. However, in recent times, it is simply a play on global volatility and global systemic risk. So if financial conditions do worsen from here, expect gold to rally through the $1,325 level and in extension $1,460 even if the USD is bid as a safe haven and commodities are falling.

Central banks and the effectiveness of ultra-loose monetary policies have proved to be ineffective. Expectations of more QE and negative rates to generate growth is simply wishful thinking. If things play out like 2008, the only silver lining is to remember that there was March 2009.

The time to buy distressed equities will come but it is not now. This is the time to hedge against another global crisis and buy gold.

(Vatsal Srivastava is consulting editor with IANS, based in Singapore. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at vatsal.sriv@gmail.com)

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By Sarwar Kashani

New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS) The escalating tension arising from an obscure meeting on Kashmir held at the JNU here has spiralled into an acrimonious nationalism-versus-intolerance debate.

The row has pitted Hindu nationalists, mostly from the ruling saffron alliance, against those opposed to the Narendra Modi government's alleged intolerance and its bid to crush dissent.

An incident that would in normal times have made no ripples exploded on the national stage after the arrest of JNU's left-wing student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, fuelling a debate on issues related to freedom of speech.

Held for allegedly making "anti-national remarks" under a colonial-era sedition law, Kumar's detention has caused political fireworks just ahead of parliament's budget session.

JNU students backing Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union, have drawn support from large sections of the civil society -- but have also run into a wall of aggressive Hindu nationalists.

"They have arrested an elected student union president on the draconian charge of sedition without even a shred of evidence. The message is clear. Fall in line with the BJP/RSS agenda," CPI-M leader Brinda Karat told IANS.

Brinda Karat, whose husband and Marxist leader Prakash Karat was once a student leader in JNU, said the Modi government wanted to "impose its political and ideological hegemony over all academic institutions".

"It is an authoritarian move to subvert democratic ethos," said Karat, an MP and a former student activist.

Modi supporters who love to dub people like Karat "anti-national" now want the JNU -- a known leftist bastion -- to be shut down.

BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said the JNU row had nothing to do with free speech as the heart of the issue was the shouting of slogans denouncing the hanging of Afzal Guru, convicted for the terror attack on parliament.

On Wednesday, when a court sent Kumar to judicial custody till March 2, lawyers calling themselves Hindu nationalists assaulted him as well as the journalists covering the case.

One of the lawyers was identified as Vikram Chauhan, who is said to be close to leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

On his part, Kumar has denied shouting anti-India slogans or taking part in anything that could invite sedition charges - which carries the maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

The sedition law was widely used during India's independence movement and was slapped on Mahatma Gandhi in 1922.

Legal experts doubt if Delhi Police can prove the sedition charge against the jailed Kumar - who has been transformed from an unknown student leader to a virtual national figure.

Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde said sedition requires speech to cross the line into action. "The law is clear. Unless there is an actual incitement to violence, there is no sedition," Hegde told IANS.

"There are two points regarding this case. Did Kanhaiya shout slogans? Was there any incitement to violence? I don't think the police have evidence to prove that."

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at sarwar.k@ians.in)

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By Himadri Ghosh

Raju Rai was 17 when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, forcing him to leave his village in Jharkhand’s overwhelmingly rural Jamtara district in search of a livelihood. He'’s 22 now and earns Rs 10,000 ($145) a month, painting buildings in Bangalore, about 1,980 km to the southwest.

"“As a gift, God gave us poverty",” said the lean, unsmiling young man, whose chief ambition is to save enough money, find his sister a “good man” and "get her married with dhoom-dham (in style)".

Rai’s story is common among many of the 307 million Indians who report themselves to be migrants by place of birth, according to the 2001 census report (the 2011 data is not final).

Of these, 268 million (85 percent) migrated within their state, 41 million (13 percent) migrated to another state and 5.1 million (1.6 percent) left India.

Men primarily migrated long-distance as migrant labor to earn more money - marriage was a prime reason for women - and an IndiaSpend analysis found that migration largely correlates with a state’s investment in infrastructure.

States with lower per capita infrastructure spending typically - but not always - have lower per capita incomes, sparking large migrations, according to finance ministry data.

Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh are among the states with lower infrastructure spending and low per capita incomes.

High infrastructure spending states like Goa, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat also have higher per capita incomes.

So, India is witnessing wide variations in per capita income and growing levels of distress migration from low-income states, experts said.

“Such large flows of migration from village to city have unsettling political and economic effects, ” said Sukumar Muralidharan, a fellow at the Shimla-based Indian Institute of Advanced Study, a think-tank run by the ministry of human resource development.

Infrastructure is important, but there are other reasons

While infrastructure appears to be the overwhelming link between per capita income and migration, there are important exceptions.

Consider India’s richest state, Goa, which has a per capita income of Rs 224,138 ($3,300), the same as Indonesia ($3,491) and Ukraine ($3,082).

Goa’s per capita infrastructure spending is the highest in India, Rs 36,516. Haryana and Maharashtra stand second and third, respectively, in per capita income, and also in per capita spending on infrastructure.

Maharashtra and Delhi have high in-migration rates, accounting for 16.4 percent and 11.6 percent of the country’s total migration. The large inflow of people from states like Maharashtra (nearly 8 million in 2001) and Delhi (over five-and-a-half million in 2001) is because of the opportunities they offer.

Now consider Bihar, with a per capita income of Rs.31,199 ($589), and Uttar Pradesh’s Rs.36,250, ($534), which are less than Mali ($704) and Guinea ($539).

Bihar spends Rs 13,139 per capita on infrastructure and Uttar Pradesh Rs 9,793.

Compared to Maharashtra and Delhi, the inflow of people to states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is limited: Only 1,794,219 and 2,972,111 people migrated to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh In 2001.

The exceptions are evident in prosperous states with low infrastructure spending, such as Punjab and Kerala, and low-income states with relatively higher per capita infrastructure spending, such as Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh.

The precise reasons are not clear, but uneven geography, diverse demography, culture, and politics could be reasons for the breaks in the pattern, experts said. Attention to the social sector, as in Kerala, is an explanation.

"Although the responsibility for promoting equity and equitable development is shifting to the states, as IndiaSpend has reported, the Centre has a role, said Ajitava Raychaudhuri, professor of economics at Jadavpur University. “States need pragmatic planning",” he said. “Equity across states needs focused intervention from the Central government."

The importance of backward regions, under-invested sectors and local jobs

In the power sector, the thumb-rule is that every rupee invested in a generation should be backed by an equivalent sum invested in transmission and distribution, said IIAS’ Muralidharan.

"“As against this 1:1 ratio, the record in India has been closer to 8:2", ” he said.

Unplanned investment can be as responsible as a low investment for disparities, some argue.

Samantak Das, chief economist and national director at Knight Frank India, a global real estate consultancy, explained that vote bank politics is causing disparities as people from backward states depend more on their leaders, and leaders of all hues take advantage to translate this into votes.

"“We need evenly-distributed, strategically-planned infrastructure in the country. We have to have the social infrastructure, physical infrastructure because the infrastructure has a high positive rub-off effect on growth",” Das added.

Raychaudhuri said the future can be secure only if capital expenditure and environmental planning are increased simultaneously.

The rural-urban divide-and migration-can be addressed by encouraging micro, small and medium enterprises locally.

As evidence grows that the job-creating potential of the large industry is falling in India, migration appears to be growing.

India’s urban population has grown faster than its rural population since the last Census, according to provisional 2011 census data.

The proportion of migrants in the urban population was 35% in 2007-08 when measured by the National Sample Survey.

This intermingling plays out in growing reports of conflicts with outsiders in various Indian states.

"“Migrations lead to ethnic and cultural stereotyping and intolerance towards people seen as different due to competitive politics", ” Muralidharan said.

Since infrastructure spending is a major factor in economic growth, it is important that related budgetary allocations rise to India’s more backward states, particularly their backward regions, said Sidhartha Mitra, head of the economics department at Jadavpur University.

The exceptions to the rule indicate, he said, that social-sector spending is equally important.

(In an arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Himadri Ghosh is with 101reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroot journalists. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. The author can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org)

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