Vox Populi Issue 263

                                                               VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 263                      Date: 31.12.2018

                    Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:     

1. Nawazuddin Siddiqui As Balasaheb Thackeray

2. 'Snoop' Authority Dangerous To Citizens Freedom In Present 
    Government's Hands

3. Scrap The Traffic Sentinel Scheme

                                     Nawazuddin Siddiqui As Balasaheb Thackeray

Nawazuddin Siddiqui has been variously criticised by members of the film fraternity for taking on the role of Balasaheb Thackeray in his bio-pic and delivering some of the vitriolic and inflammatory dialogues attributed to the late Shiv Sena leader. Apart from that it is really surprising that Nawazuddin was chosen, notwithstanding him being a fine actor, for the role what with the present strident positioning of the Shiv Sena on itshindutva plank. Or is this an 'embedded' tactic by Udhav Thackeray to give the Shiv Sena a secularist sheen preparatory to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

 'Snoop' Authority Dangerous To Citizens Freedom In Present Government's Hands 

The 'snoop' notice allowing some 10 government agencies to be allowed to access all computers and tap all telephones in the country as announced on the night of 20.12.18 underlines the Orwellian direction our country is taking in the name of security. Unwarranted surveillance of personal devices is an invasion of privacy of the individual and is a breach of the first principle of democracy.  Responsible access by authorised agencies is the cover under which this snooping is proposed but the fear is the unfettered misuse that will be exercised what with even agencies like the CBI having been completed compromised under the present regime. With a conscious and responsible person you can trust a loaded gun but with the present government what we are seeing is immaturity, a tendency to cover up mistakes and use authority very brazenly and therefore handing them a loaded gun like in this authority to 'snoop' is a very dangerous affair for common citizens.

                                      Scrap The Traffic Sentinel Scheme

Pre-brief: The Goa Police have since a year ago introduced a traffic sentinel scheme wherein interested citizens can enrol to be the seeing-eye of the police force for traffic violations. Such citizens are expected to take pictures of the offences and inform the police on which basis the police issue challans to the offenders involving fines. These citizens get a fee from the police force for the trouble that they take in reporting the traffic offences. 

The traffic sentinel scheme of the Goa Police was wrongfully conceived from the beginning. The police cannot pass on their policing functions to people from the public. This implies abdication from their primary responsibilities. This, however, is the trend these days of an agency passing on their denominated work to others on some pretext or the other and irrespective of whether these people can do this job or are trained for it. There is also the aspect of legality which in the case of the traffic sentinel scheme has probably not been verified and if an offender challenges the usurping of a law enforcement agency by common citizens then the whole scheme will be thrown out of the window. Just like what happened at Shiroda where the traffic sentinel's shop was closed and he was asked to move out, the public will not like being reported upon by one of their own. The police are looked at generally as impartial enforcers of the law. While in the traffic sentinel scheme the perception is that these people are sneaking on the people of their own kind and may do it for reasons other than factual and on top of that are making money out of it. The fact that the police are giving the scheme publicity as money can be made out of it is also irresponsible. The problem in our country today is that agencies do not do the work assigned to them and pass on the work to others so that they themselves can have an easy time which can only lead to confusion and creation of nuisance for the common man.

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Vox Populi Issue 262

                                                               VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 262                      Date: 24.12.2018

                    Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

 

Contents:     

1. The New Caste System or Pecking Order

2. The Adelaide Test & Strategising Further

3. Changing History

A MERRY XMAS TO ONE & ALL AND SEASON'S GREETINGS. MAY THIS FESTIVE SEASON BRING YOU ALL GOOD CHEER, JOY & HAPPINESS. 

                                     The New Caste System or Pecking Order

Our society is completely skewed and oriented towards providing services and facilities to only the rich and powerful. Take farmer loans write-offs where they made to run from pillar to post. This even after the banner headlines in newspapers about farm loan waivers. But industrialists who are also Bank debtors in that sense get away with murder by taking loans for thousands of crores, then defaulting on these and thereafter fleeing the country.

Take rape cases where infants and minor girls upto 14 years are the primary age segment targeted since they are the most vulnerable, happen with machine-like frequency and increasing bestiality but nothing is done for that but for the rich and well connected in the #meToo movement a government committee is quickly established to provide justice to them. Industry associations are launching awareness programs of sexual harassment at the workplace in trying to make women safer while pursuing their professional dreams. There is no problem in doing this but should we not do a little bit to prevent rape in our society like psychological counselling starting at the school and college level. Even sentence given by courts like the death by hanging for the perpetrators of the Nirbhaya rape case have still not been implemented even after 6 years of the crime. This kind of delay dilutes the deterrent impact on rapists. Thus little do these people who are supposedly our efficient administrators and 'socially conscious' ministers (and women at that) realise that for a rape victim the life is scarred from the day of the incident and the earlier it happens the torture and torment is more long drawn out. Society is also not sympathetic to rape victims and they tend to be ostracised. Thus one would say that rape is a multifaceted problem that requires prevention and also when it happens the provision of succour to the rape victims.

Then take our legal system, it remains tilted in favour of the wealthy and the powerful since it is their cases that are heard expeditiously because they can pay the large fees and hire advocates earning fat fees whose cases are heard in the courts faster than that of the common man who has to grind through the courts for decades sometimes to get justice.

We keep talking that we need to eliminate the caste system but unfortunately parallel to it we have created an overlay to it of entitlement by the order of wealth and power. Whether it is the old caste system or the new pecking order both corner facilities and resources to the exclusion of those who are weak, poor and the deprived. 

                              The Adelaide Test & Strategising Further

The Adelaide Test has again brought to the fore the problems that Virat Kohli and the touring team management has with deciding on an eleven. Riding on the mistakes made in South Africa and in England, Kohli needs to understand that he cannot go the 'whole hog' way on a 'horses for courses' principle. Seeing the grass on the Adelaide pitch he opted for the 4 pacers combination which was nothing wrong but he should have taken insurance by adding a front line spinner in Jadeja when Ashwin was out with injury. In hindsight taking Hanuma who was essentially a passenger in the team, though he got a couple of wickets and a few runs, Jadeja has far better credentials for that job. Right now we should have the automatic principle that Ashwin or Jadeja have to be in the Test team and if it is a turner both should play. Again losing the Adelaide Test highlights the fact that we start any series or competition with a lot of hype that we are the winners but more often than not we come out with a whimper particularly in away series. In contrast the Aussies without Steve Smith and David Warner are putting up a close fight against the No. 1 Test ranked side in the world. That is what is called fighting the odds and coming out trumps. Another thing that Kohli needs to instil in the team is the approach to the game and the  positive and responsible attitude that is to be shown while wearing the India cap. You will find that in an innings with runs to chase to win a match like at Adelaide, once Pujara and Kohli is out the team throws in the towel and gets out for paltry totals. This has been the pattern in the past also highlighted when Tendulkar was at the height of his prowess or even earlier when some of the front ranked had got out. The remaining players hardly play for team prestige and get out for irresponsible shots. At Adelaide the way Ishant, Yadav and Bumrah batted in a cavalier manner at the tail during the second innings it would have put any player in a club  cricket match to shame. What they should have done is make life difficult for the Aussies, stick around so that they feel the resistance and can savour the win. This is what the tail of any self-respecting team does since they know they are playing for their country and also recognising that they rarely get a chance to bat, they try to do their best in the given circumstances. These are important issues that Kohli and Shastri, whose performance as a coach has come to be questioned, need to mull over before the Melbourne Boxing Day Test. As for Kohli's aggressive behaviour on the field that has come to be talked about on both sides of the seas, there is essentially nothing wrong with it since he brings rare passion to the game. And as for the Aussies they have given us quite a lot of nuisance in the past and it is time that they got some of their medicine back. 

                                                     Changing History

The saffron brigade led by the BJP & the RSS are desperately trying to deface and/or erase the history of India ever since coming to power in 2014. The attempt has been to try and negate the contributions of our earlier leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and others. There seems to be some kind of anathema of the present leadership with the most vocal being the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi leading the charge so to speak which example is being followed by the lesser minions in trying to denigrate the Nehru clan. Constructive criticism is acceptable but the comments that are being expressed are with the intention to slight a person like in the instance of trying to say that though Jawaharlal Nehru is associated with wearing a rose, he had never visited a garden or was unfamiliar with the plight of agriculturists and farmers and his
love for children was over-stated. There is no credible basis of the veracity of these comments coming from the mouth of a Prime Minister but on the contrary Nehru is known around the world for his trademark Nehru jacket with an Indian rose in the lapel. Also for children Chacha Nehru was the embodiment of their love and affection until his death. So the first statement is blatantly unfair while to give credence to a counter argument the building-up of a Nehru image as being fond of children could have been a method that was adopted to round off his public persona. The author is not a fan of the Gandhi clan and neither is a member of the Congress party  and this is written since  in civilised society it is necessary to follow some decorum and norms which in the present day has been thrown to the winds. It is a saving grace that the saffron brigade have not yet picked on Mahatma Gandhi maybe because of his origins in Gujarat. Since another great son of India, Vallabhai Patel, who is also from Gujarat, and really not forgotten by us has been given a huge statue which anyone will find it difficult to beat in terms of its height. Though Yogi Adityanath has promised a taller statue of Lord Rama in Ayodhya which one would say as logical since by all reason the gods surely stand taller than human beings. Here again it seems we are following the precept of the Olympics - taller, stronger and faster. Tall we know as outlined above, faster maybe is the Bullet Train being built to run between Mumbai and Ahmedabad with Japanese know-how. Stronger is uncertain or is it the person with the 56" chest since deflated, maybe after the results of the recent Assembly elections in the Hindi heartland! Anyway these are wasteful and unnecessary exhibitions of limited minds trying to awe still more limited minds across the country which exercise has been somewhat lately negated. Coming back to the history bit, granted that we have been viewing our own history through the eyes of Western historians and then since 1947 through Left-leaning Indian historians which of the first we had no choice since the chroniclers of our own history in the courts of our kings tended to be partial to their masters and most of the records by these people tended to be lavish in praise for the good deeds and tended to hide the negatives. Thus one had to sift a lot of hyperbole to get to the facts. Even with the Western historians rarely did any right thinking India take everything at face value and filtered out the colonial influences. Thus no history is right and as they say we can come a little closer to the truth since we are dealing with the past. The saffron brigade is not only going after the Nehru/Gandhi family but also in many other areas to try and bring out their interpretation of who was ignored, who was slighted and who was lesser emphasised.  But these attempts suffer from two problems. The first is that if you want to rewrite history you should have a legitimate empowerment and one term of governance is just not enough. If in the middle of the second term you start this exercise on a more factual basis then it will be credible enough to be accepted by the people at large. The second aspect is that our younger generation today knows little of our history which maybe is an advantage for such new versions of it to be attempted since one can say you are writing on a fresh page but then there is likely to be confusion  leaving our young more rootless than they were earlier. As for the other people in our society these attempts will jar on their sanity since the balance of one's mind is based on the recognition of familiar and trusted frameworks and any change in our history of dramatic proportions will disturb this balance, leaving them confused that will progressively evolve into rootlessness. These are dangerous trends that will bring the country tottering on the edge of anarchy leading to random and unpredictable events that will assume unmanageable proportions. To trivialise the issue we will end up like another Pakistan, taking this example because it is closer home and the narrative is familiar to most Indians, where terrorism is a creed and sectarian violence the thread that sews day to day life. Ending on a note of levity, the attempts by the present dispensation to change our history are like that of a child who upon not liking a drawing tries to erase it but finds that is made out with indelible ink or with permanent markers as in present day common parlance. The trends are dangerous and the attempt to muzzle our institutions and organisations continues even in the field of history with the dubious objective of trying to get a common and pliant opinion platform by postponing indefinitely the Indian Historical Congress that was to be held in the Savitribai Phule University at Pune over 28-31 December 2018 for specious reasons. The first being that the university fears a law and order problem that was conveyed to the Indian Historical Society sometime last month and then in the last ten days the university cited financial problems when some 1000 delegates expected for the Congress had paid up Rs. 2000 each which the university had already received. The Indian Historical Society is naturally upset what with being a professional body falling prey to administrative machinations like being held hostage to law and order excuses and funding lacunae. So it’s goodbye history and welcoming a flexible record of present times. 

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Vox Populi Issue 261

                                                               VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 261                      Date: 17.12.2018

                    Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

 

Contents:     

1. Rafael Is Still Looping The Loop

2. The Recent Assembly Elections Results & The Portends Of The Future To Come

3. Another Wicket Falls On Mint Street 

                                          Rafael Is Still Looping The Loop

The Rafael imbroglio has been led into a further loop by the Supreme Court in citing in their judgment the references of the CAG & the PAC in a different manner than what was intended by the Advocate General - AG on behalf of the government. Was this a lack of 'due diligence' on the part of the judges involved? Should they not have looked at the phraseology properly? What was purported to be the description of procedure has now been converted in the judgment to a certification of the Rafael deal indirectly by claiming that the CAG, PAC and even Parliament was on board. What we expect is that the Supreme Court being the last resort for any matter in the country, there is a belief that their judgments are sacred, inviolate and incontestable. This belief has now been shaken. One cannot also give a clean chit to the incumbent government who may have deliberately introduced this 'red herring' in their plea, hoping against hope that a misunderstanding would take place, which has now happened. The government is now playing the role of the innocent by pointing out the error and claiming that the wording in their draft was different. How much more devious can you get? Postscript: in this context one is reminded of Perry Mason, the lawyer made famous by Earl Stanley Gardner, who in jury trials practised this technique by drawing out an argument which he was sure that the judge would strike out from the record but even then in the minds of the jury the point would have been made. So also the legitimacy of the Rafael deal would have sunk into the minds of all Indians. 

The Recent Assembly Elections Results & The Portends Of The Future To Come

The results of the Assembly polls for the 5 States have come in, widely touted as the semi-finals before the Lok Sabha polls in 2019,  with the Congress winning 2 and losing 1, the TRS retaining Telangana and MP turning out to be a close tie. But the important thing is that in part of the Hindi heartland of India the BJP has essentially lost. This is remarkable today in the least and reflects the disenchantment of the people with the BJP through the Modi government's failure to address governance issues responsibly. One of the BJP leaders while speaking when the Assembly elections counting process was on attributed the losses to the anti-incumbency factor. This is trivialising the issue since then one can say it portends what is likely to happen in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019. One wonders if Narendra Modi and Amit Shah will be satisfied with that explanation. On the other hand Rahul Gandhi has said that the results of these Assembly elections should show Modi that he has to change. Now, why should Rahul Gandhi tell him that since if Modi remains the way he is, it will be advantageous for the Congress and they can score big in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The Gandhi scion should know that it does not pay to give tips to your opponents. Similarly, with these wins Rahul Gandhi and the Congress should not feel emboldened to go alone in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and avoid the Mahagathbandhan strategy. That would be disastrous and playing straight into Narendra Modi and the BJP's hands assuring them of a hands down victory. So the seniors in the Congress party or those who have Rahul Gandhi's ears should pull down the cap of rationality tightly on his head and concentrate on defeating the BJP. As for the Narendra Modi and Amit Shah combine and for that matter the BJP is not going to take this defeat in the recent Assembly polls lightly. The duo has tasted power and it is heady and therefore not easy to give up easily. So their last card of resort given their background of the Gujarat riots and the involvement in the murders of Haren Pandya and Sohrabuddin which latter cases are still in the courts is to create and orchestrate mayhem. This will be done by having the number of cow lynching cases multiply manifold across India but mainly across the Hindi heartland and stir up the lit fires of the Ram mandir at Ayodhya into an inferno. With civil society thus de-stabilised the time will be ripe to declare a failure of law and order across the country and consequently impose an Emergency a la shades of 1976. With most independent institutions in the country now headed by yes-men chosen from the bureaucracy there will be a tight grip on the administration to throttle the voice of democracy in the country. One hopes that this will not happen but it cannot be discounted since it definitely remains in the realm of possibility.

                                      Another Wicket Falls On Mint Street 

One can now possibly surmise about the supposedly hush-hush meeting the PM had with the RBI Governor just about a week before the Nov 19, 2018 RBI board meeting. Leading up to that board meeting there were strong rumours of Urjit Patel's resignation. But then the expected resignation did not come and even the Nov 19 board meeting was described as cordial when it was anticipated that it would be explosive what with one of the Dy Governor laying the groundwork for a confrontation on the Rule 7 Issue in an October '18 lecture. So the deal struck by Modi with Urjit Patel was possibly not to make haste with the resignation but submit it on 10th Dec 2018, a day before the counting of votes for the 3 major States that went to the Assembly polls and as a quid pro quo the Nov 19 board meeting would be handled as a 'business as usual' meeting with no ripples. The idea was that in the public mind Urjit Patel's resignation would remain only for a day being washed away in the maelstrom of media attention on the Assembly election results touted as the semi-finals before the Lok Sabha polls next year. While for Urjit Patel the timing of his resignation was of no consequence but as a face saving gesture he would have the satisfaction of his writ remaining intact through the issues coming before the Nov 19 board meeting. But it is a sad day indeed in the history of RBI that the previous Governor, Raghuram Rajan was not given a customary second term and was accorded a unceremonious exit and now the next incumbent resigning 10 months before his term and ending it for 'personal reasons'. For Urjit Patel who was in the initial days of taking over was branded as a 'rubber stamp' of the incumbent regime but who later showed that he had some spine in him by first standing up to the government on  holding interest rates to contain inflation and then not inclined to extend more credit to the MSME sector which was already 20% or more of the prevailing NPA's with banks. See the irony or dichotomy, or call it what you will, in the hamhanded approach of the present government who mindlessly launched Demonetisation and the GST and knocked out the  MSME sector and is now picking up a scrap with the RBI to fund that sector knowing full well that this sector's contribution to the current NPA's is large and that any present lending will only add to the NPA's. The approach is create nuisance and then create more nuisance to hide the earlier nuisance with the intention to wear the white cloak of a saviour and cover yourself with glory before the next Lok Sabha polls. With rumours that the recently retired Adhia likely to be called back as the Governor, RBI, we will be sure then that we are run by the Modi 'mafia' if that happens. In line with the appointments to the Niti Aayog  and recently the CEA, we should get a competent economist or banking professional who has a strong spine to run the RBI in these troubled times. Postscript: The Governor of the RBI is going to be Shaktikananda Das and not Adhia. Whether it is Satan or Lucifer, both are names of the Devil. And in this context both are part of Modi 's 'mafia', so it does not really matter if it is one or the other. Das is of the infamy of getting RBI to issue 51 circulars in 50 days in the first couple of months post Nov 2016 in the wake of Demonetisation. With this appointment the RBI has become, well and truly, a government department.

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Vox Populi Issue 260

                                                              VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 260                      Date: 10.12.2018

                    Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

 

Contents:     

1. A Lame Government Looking For Scapegoats

2. The HC Needs To Cut Through The Obfuscation On Parrikar's Ability Now To Run The Government

 3. Make Rasthrapati Bhawan Into Loktantra Bhawan

   

                                  A Lame Government Looking For Scapegoats

The submission that the Director and his deputy, Asthana were fighting like Kilkenny cats by the AG in the Supreme Court in the on-going CBI case about Director Verma's removal is to say the least very amusing. What were the Ministers in charge of the CBI doing? Why were they not able to get their own appointees to toe the line. Surely this is a failure of the present government. Again with the simmering feud between the two officers coming out in the media from July, one needs to surely ask - What was the government doing all along? Common management practice indicates that Asthana should have been removed since Verma's appointment was done by a Committee. But then since Asthana was brought into the CBI by this self-same government to skirmish with the Director and consequently undermine its working, they were caught in a bind. This is precisely what happens when you try to sabotage your own working. It is also reflective of the incompetence of this government and its tendency to govern by agendas rather than on principle and policy. We have seen lately how the present government has been blaming the past regimes for almost everything little realising that for the four years that it has been in power, it has to show at least some achievements. But all it has to show is the failed measures of Demonetisation, GST and the moving to a Cashless Economy. Modi & his team has to wake up since the day of reckoning is not too far off. 

                   The HC Needs To Cut Through The Obfuscation On Parrikar's Ability 

                                            Now To Run The Government

The tangential manner in which the Chief Secretary has responded in his affidavit to the High Court in the matter of the PIL related to the health of the CM and his consequential inability to attend office and in that manner run the government of Goa is, to say the least, very disturbing. This process also shows up the stonewalling approach of the administration while refusing to accept the fact that governance has been suffering since March 2018. It highlights the lack of responsibility on the part of Manohar Parrikar himself and the BJP to perform the onerous task of providing  a government in Goa after accepting the charge of it. Parrikar though claiming that he is not interested to remain Chief Minister has been using extraneous reasons like the BJP central leadership wanting him to retain the seat so that his own public image is not sullied. But he needs to recognise that - You can fool some of the people some of the time. You can fool all the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all the time. Look at the matter in another perspective. Parrikar's primary plank for governance was development. But if he is MIA - Missing In Action, for such a long time, the bus of development is obviously not able to move ahead with its driver missing! As far as the PIL is concerned, it is accepted that an individual medical's records are a private matter but a line needs to be drawn when these records pertain to a public figure particularly the head of government of a State. This is more so when the person does not attend office and participates in the normal activities of the office that he holds. This has been clear from the beginning when the fact that Parrikar was suffering from cancer was hidden from the public to the extent that a police case was filed against an individual for publishing the truth. Therefore such of the medical records that relate to the capability of the individual in the performance of his official duties should be disclosed so that the public satisfies itself whether the current status quo be allowed to continue or whether any alternatives are to be resorted to. Otherwise the court can ask that a medical panel of doctors be constituted to assess the health of Manohar Parrikar and report if he is fit to perform his official duties. This can be done in conjunction with a press report that had appeared in the papers recently that Parrikar's illness has been affecting his faculties. Thus the present PIL seen in the light of the above and in conjunction with the suo moto recognition of the above news report can form the basis for a more factual advice to the people of Goa on the health of their beloved Chief Minister. In any case, the present situation cannot be allowed to continue and the people of Goa deserve someone to be at the helm of affairs to run its government. 

                               Make Rasthrapati Bhawan Into Loktantra Bhawan

We have been a democracy for more than seven decades now. We also pride ourselves in being the world's largest democracy. But we continue with the ostentation and protocol of the office of the President, Vice-President and the Governors of our States. The pomp and pageantry that is associated with these offices is out of place in a democratic set-up and is a hangover from colonial times. Take the case of the President, one does not see why he needs to stay at Rasthrapati Bhawan? Is it because it is named as such? Then we should maybe appropriately change its name to its intended use. Like the Vice-President why cannot the President stay in a Lutyens bungalow? This will be more aligned to democratic thinking than him staying in a palace.   Additionally it will save on security expenses since a smaller area needs to be secured for the safety of the President rather than a huge palace. The Rasthrapati Bhawan like Hyderabad House can be used by the President and other dignitaries for official functions like receiving and sending off visiting heads of state and/or government as we are doing now as also for other purposes. The other parts of the building can be converted to a museum highlighting India's transition to a democracy and its achievements since that time. The public visits at particular seasonal times to the Mughal Gardens and also maybe to the stables to see the horses can be organised which can be called an Equine Museum. This will lead to better use of the building. We could in fact call it Loktantra Bhawan, as the primary edifice of the Indian democratic tradition. The problem is that we pay lip service to democracy but continue to carry hangovers of the colonial legacy of the past and try to emulate the European nations with their roots of evolution to democracy in royalty.

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Vox Populi Issue 259

                                                              VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 259                      Date: 03.12.2018

                    Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

Contents:     

1.  The Murder Of India's Economic Figures & Statistics

2.  Kutta Ya Prani Mukt Raste Aur Khuli Jagah - For The Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan 

      Program To Succeed

3.  Web Check-in & Other Travails With Airlines These Days

                          The Murder Of India's Economic Figures & Statistics

M/s Arun Jaitley & Narendra Modi do not seem to realise that when they try to show up anyone in a bad light, some of that bad light falls on them too. This is being said in the context of the revision of GDP figures in the decadal period from 2004 to 2014 where   the growth has been brought down by some 2%. This if the fiddlers of the figures feel show the present government's economic growth in a better light, they are sadly mistaken. These figures belong to the past and have no material significance today since they are done with and are over except that they will probably be touted around in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. What matters is that the present government should concentrate in improving the current state of the economy rather than be overly concerned about the past. Any school going child knows that if you have a table of figures, you can always juggle the base year to suit your objective depending on whether you want to show the succeeding figures in a positive or negative light. Once this is done you only have to have a strong reason to justify your base year. This is precisely what has been done about the GDP figures and the justification being given is that this is more aligned to international norms and the Central Statistics Organisation (CSO) is an organisation independent of the government. In this the fiddlers of the figures seem to forget that the CSO was the organisation that wielded the hatchet in murdering the WPI & CPI figures in the past which has undermined its credibility substantially. No one believes the CSO figures any more except the instigators and the manipulators, in this case the government. More saddening is how professionals like the head of the CSO and reputed economists like Rajeev Kumar, Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog are acting like flunkeys of the government and mouthing their master's voices with no compunction at all. Like the erstwhile Planning Commission was disbanded and re-christened in its new avatar as the Niti Aayog, if this kind of a situation continues then it would make sense to close down the Niti Aayog also. Postscript: With news coming out that the current year's 2nd quarter GDP growth ending September was just 7.1%, it shows how timely the fudging of the GDP figures was so that the present regime do not look any more bad than they already were. Talk of portends and ominous occurrences Modi & his team have been quite successful at least at knowing what is coming at them but have not shown very much their ability at managing these disasters. So as we come closer to the end of Modi's term the 'acche din' remains as much of a mirage as it was in the early part of his Prime Ministership.

                            Kutta Ya Prani Mukt Raste Aur Khuli Jagah - 

                    For The Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan Program To Succeed

Unless there is a Kutta Ya Prani Mukt Raste Aur Khuli Jagah, there can be no Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan. This message has to be drilled into the minds of our political leaders on whose advice our administrative officials are running like a brainless herd helter skelter on the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan program spending crores of rupees which are being literally thrown into the unclean drains. Considering we live in a semi-urban area in Goa, for us the dog and cattle menace is critical. The dogs with their urinating and shitting on the roads is a huge nuisance. On the morning walks where one seeks fresh air, the first thing that assails your nostrils is the smell of dog pooh. Then you have to be careful where you are stepping since one wrong step will have your feet dirtied with the dog shit that dots the roads and the pavements. A lesser nuisance is cattle where the cow dung is seen on the roads but in sheer numbers the dog shit is the more aggravating. The cattle on the roads is more of a traffic bother particularly in the nights with buffalos not able to be seen on our dimly lit roads and many an accident occurring because of this. Coming back to the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan, the first thing is to decide on a policy level for the whole country on what to do with garbage since that is the burning question today in all living settlements be it from village to the metropolis level. In the absence of this we find the garbage piling up near roadsides or in open areas creating nuisance, stink and a health hazard for people across the country. This pile of garbage is where the stray animals be it dogs or cattle feed upon. The stray dogs thrive on this food and multiply. With their numbers swelling, you have them urinating and shitting on the roads generating the stench and the nuisance. With garbage minimised on the roads the dog numbers will fall and consequently the mess they create. Dogs maybe a common problem across the country but in specific places you may have other stray animals that contribute to similar nuisance like donkeys or mules or camels etc. Dogs also have to be taken off the roads for some more reasons like rabies arising from dog bites and because of the people attacks they resort to particularly against small children and aged persons which has resulted in a number of fatalities across the country. Thus if the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan program has to become successful then get rid of stray animals like dogs off our roads and open spaces. 

                       Web Check-in & Other Travails With Airlines These Days

Web check-in at a price as announced by Indigo has created a furore among airline travellers on social media. But hidden away is the plight of our esteemed musicians who more often than not face damage to their valued instruments while travelling by air both on domestic as well as international flights. The musical instruments even after being marked as fragile and the airline staff told to handle it with care are carried with no responsibility by the airline. When queried about this the musicians are told that they can carry the instruments at a charge which does not guarantee no damage but only to create 'more space' for the instrument in the cargo hold. Thus you will see the airlines go all out to exploit the plight of the travellers in any which way to make money. Thus airline travel nowadays has become ridden with tension even when it is not the holiday season or subject to the vagaries of the weather as in the cusp of the New Year as a consequence of fog at Delhi. Airlines mostly the private ones forget that the reliability of flying from point A to point B is important on an announced schedule. Cancellations of flights nowadays are rampant and more so on the non- trunk sectors. The emphasis of the airlines is to make money as much as possible on one pretext or other. Earlier it was the flexi-pricing on which basis the airlines would charge exorbitantly and take advantage of even natural calamities to make money.  Nowadays this has somewhat levelled off after a certain amount of government intervention to cap the fares. Now the airlines focus is on other services. It could be food or beverages or choice of seats or excess baggage or web check-in. There is no end to the excuses that are given to make money off the hapless passenger. Take the case of baggage limits one cannot understand why it was reduced from 20kg. to 15 kg. except for the fact that it is to increase revenue. For business travellers this limit is irrelevant but for vacation travellers the 15kg. limit is a pain and more often than not is exceeded. The old Boeing 737 the workhorse of the past would carry about 120 passengers and today the A320 also seats the same number so it is not understood why the baggage limit is reduced from 20kg. The only explanation is that the flights are carrying more cargo at the cost of passenger amenities to drive up revenues. The other day we were flying from Kolkata to Goa via Surat by SpiceJet. The flight was delayed departure by about 3 hours from Kolkata making certain that we would miss our Surat to Goa connection. For this change we got a bland and innocent message from the airline saying that we had been booked by the next day's flight from Surat to Goa. Upon asking the airline counter whether they would give us a hotel at Surat for the night which was the custom earlier since the change was because of the airline, we were told that they would check by email, the slowest of today's communication options. For about an hour there was no response to the email as told us by the airline staff. Actually we were not sure whether the email was at all sent. However, finally we asked SpiceJet to cancel our tickets which they did and gave us a full refund. Thank God for that grace! We had to then book Indigo via Hyderabad to Goa and reached home around 12 hours from the time we left Kolkata! For re-booking by Indigo for the same day flight where we had to obviously pay more nobody compensated us like SpiceJet which should have re-routed us on either their flight or through another airline at their cost. Unfortunately this does not happen in India and the airlines exploit the anxiety of the traveller to reach his destination at the earliest. When we returned to Goa, the next day we had someone we know flying to Chandigarh by SpiceJet and the airline cancelled the flight telling them they had been booked the next day! So lessons from this experience:

1. Never fly SpiceJet. They always cancel at the last minute.
2. Do not book via Tier II destinations like Surat since airlines are likely to cancel if they do not have sufficient load factor. Always route via trunk destinations.

These are the travails an air traveller faces these days.

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Vox Populi Issue 258

VOX POPULI                                                                         by                                                                   S Kamat                                                                          as                                                                 Aam Admi                                            Issue: 258                       Date: 26.11.2018                     Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com Contents:       1. A Dog's Last Thoughts 2. Do We Need Governors? 3. Goa Has Politically Become The Stage For A 'Comedy of Errors' Or A Khell Tiatr  4. Save The CBI & The Other Edifices Of Our Democracy

                                             A Dog's Last Thoughts

There was unusual news last week that in the 'maximum city' Mumbai 4 drug addicts sexually assaulted a male dog. The dog died. A post-mortem was ordered and it was found that the dog had died of a heart attack. It is said that the last thoughts of the dog were - Man is supposed to be at the top of the order of living beings on this planet. And look to what levels of depravity he has sunk to. Even we among canines do not do anything like what these men have done to me. So there is no point in living anymore. God, I am coming to you but have mercy on all of humanity.

                                              Do We Need Governors?

Governor Satya Pal Malik's action to dissolve the J&K Assembly was completely out of hand. The action smacks of political overtones since the BJP was unable to continue in government with its PDP alliance that it will not allow any other government to be formed in the State without it being involved. Whatever said and done it is well known about the difficulties in holding the elections in J&K and with an existing elected Assembly  there was no need to force another election on the troubled State. The Governor should recognise his larger responsibility on keeping the facade of democracy going and the cost, both in money and human terms, of another election. The charge of MLA's being bought and sold made by Malik is an afterthought and made only to justify his action to dissolve the Assembly.

Somewhat similar to the J&K Governor's actions are those of Governor Mridula Sinha in Goa who firstly allowed the BJP to grab power in the State though the Congress was the largest party in terms of number of seats after the Assembly election. Then with the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar sick and unable to attend office now for the last 9 months and additionally 2 other Ministers seriously sick and another recuperating from illness leading to a complete collapse in governance, the Governor has not acceded to the demands of the Opposition and civil society to have a show of strength in the Assembly and have the present BJP-led alliance prove its majority. This has led to the continued flux in administration within the State of not having a government worth its name for close to a year now.

The above incidents show to what extent the office of the Governor has been politicised lately. Come to think of it the office of the Governor is a colonial legacy that the British left us with and it is time to dispense with it. The reasons for this are many like it has become the last resting place for out-of-use politicians, those holding office presently have no claim to any great stature or wisdom except to serve their political masters and lastly the trappings of the Governor office are again drawn from colonial times and unnecessarily add a large cost to the exchequer and consequentially to the common man. The Vice-President having nothing much to do except chair the Rajya Sabha when it is in session can as well look into constitutional matters of all the States when it is required which will bring a larger degree of uniformity and balance to decision making and also allow access for the Vice President to a more correct body of knowledge while taking constitutional decisions. 

     Goa Has Politically Become The Stage For A 'Comedy of Errors' Or A Khell Tiatr 

The Goa political scene as a consequence of Manohar Parrikar's illness has been going on now for close to 9 months as a 'comedy of errors' with various acts of the play unfolding day by day or like a khell tiatr going on and on with no end in sight. The latest is the announcement in the papers that after Dec 11 Parrikar will decide on the re-allocation of portfolios within the Cabinet. Have we not heard this sometime back? Close to 2 months ago the re-allocation of portfolios was to be done. But nothing happened even with the induction of the new ministers into the Cabinet. Parrikar nowadays has nothing much to do so could he not have decided on the issue of divesting his portfolios. Instead of  concentrating on doing the necessary things he is tending to do the unnecessary things which add to the nuisance and uncertainty of governance that has dogged the State. Like in the middle we had the issuance of a circular that was hastily withdrawn of making the  latest minister to have been sworn in as the 'first among equals in the Cabinet'. Would any of the existing ministers have accepted this? This situation indicated that maybe Parrikar's judgment is clouded and suspect because of his illness. In which case he should have resigned as demanded by a group of activists and citizens who went to the extent of marching to Parrikar's residence at Dona Paula where he is convalescing. Then we had some of the alliance ministers claiming that the bureaucracy is not listening to them and that they are unable to meet Parrikar and have to make do with meeting or taking instructions from the officials in the CMO as a consequence of which the administration is failing. One minister went to the extent of saying this problem is so acute that he has decided not to go to his office in the Secretariat! The MGP keen not to be left out in the drama with their main candidate Sudin Dhavlikar angling to become the CM going to the extent of filing a skirmish petition in the High Court to restrain the defecting MLA's like Shirodkar and Sopte from contesting  any further elections or holding any office of profit in the interim. While all these machinations are going on the people continue to suffer with no governance. There are also attempts to pass the governance buck to authorities outside of Goa to whom the people have no access as in Tendulkar indicating that Parrikar wanted to resign a 'long time back' but the Central leadership asked him to continue. Notice here that the Goan people are nowhere in the picture who  require or deserve governance but someone from Delhi decides what should be done in Goa. Additionally like we layer butter on a piece of toast these are attempts to layer sympathy on the public persona of Parrikar. Not only this the other day Tendulkar made another statement that Amit Shah does not want Parrikar to resign because 'his health is getting better' after coming to Goa from AIIMS, Delhi. Now is Amit Shah a MBBS or MRCP or a cancer specialist to make these pronouncements? While we wish that Parrikar gets better the BJP top leadership approach is to continue the uncertainty relating to governance in Goa. The matter relating to running the government in Goa is required to be decided by Goan people and Goan politicians. The flux in governance in Goa has exposed the real intentions of the BJP as a political party which is to grab power and cling to it while concentrating on winning elections, governance be damned.

                      Save The CBI & The Other Edifices Of Our Democracy

The CBI has been honoured with many an avian epithet like a 'caged parrot' et al in recent times, but lately with news coming out of the Verma-Asthana stand-off with its related offshoots, it is more like a can of worms is what the CBI parrot has been feeding upon all this while. We all knew that everything was not right with the CBI, the premier investigating agency of the country for all these years but it seems that the rot has been accelerated and is much deeper since 2014 when the present dispensation led by Narendra Modi came to power. With the Verma-Asthana spat being played out in the media for the last many months one cannot believe that either Rajnath Singh, the Home Minister or Narendra Modi was not aware of the problem that was seriously eroding the reputation of the CBI. Neither lifted a finger to put a stop to the nuisance. Not only that Narendra Modi is known to have famously said on corruption - Na Khaunga, Na Khane Doonga. But from news coming out of the CBI the motto seems to be the opposite - Jitna Khana Hai Kha Lo, Kab Kya Hoga, Kya Pata. Everywhere you look the institutions of the country seem to be stuffed with Gujarat cadre officers be it the IAS or IPS or those who had served their master, Modi faithfully when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. There is nothing wrong with that since Gujarat for the last 4 decades has to give credit to its bureaucrats and technocrats like V Kurien of Amul fame who propelled the economic development in the State. The politicians were mainly spectators taking credit for the work of these dedicated professionals who came from mainly the south of India mostly Tamil Nadu and Kerala. But the quality of this kind of bunch of committed officials seems to have deteriorated over the years and today we have the kind of 'yes-men' who fall over their own feet trying to please their masters. That is why when important institutions in the country like the CBI are staffed with such officials the emphasis is on one-upmanship and internecine strife as we are seeing now. One by one the institutional framework of the country is being undermined under the present regime and it is being eaten away from the insides like a white ant attack leaving them hollow, weak and crumbling. It is time therefore that the people of this country take notice of this and raise their voice against the destruction of the edifices of our democracy. 

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Vox Populi Issue 257

VOX POPULI                                                                         by                                                                   S Kamat                                                                          as                                                                 Aam Admi                                            Issue: 257                        Date: 19.11.2018                     Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com   Contents:       1. The Latest Obsession : Bingeing On Heights Of Statues  2. Arun Jaitley Picking Up On His Math Re GST & Demonetisation  3. Goa's Price & Quality Syndrome For Food Items That Is Being Challenged 4. Goa In A Complete State of Flux in Governance & Political Terms

                      The Latest Obsession : Bingeing On Heights Of Statues 

The current tendency to outdo each other on the height of statues is carrying things a bit too far. First it was the Chatrapati Shivaji's statue that was to come up on an island off the Mumbai coast. Then it was Vallabhai Patel's statue that was inaugurated recently by the PM in Gujarat. Lord Rama was not to be left behind and Jogi Adityanath announced a massive statue of the god in Ayodhya. Then it was the turn of the Karnataka government to announce a huge statue of the River Cauvery in the form of a goddess at Krishna Raja Sagar or the Brindavan Gardens near Mysuru. Statues apart from serving the needs of politics serve no other useful purpose. Building them is a sheer waste of money. The Vallabhai Patel and the Chatrapati Shivaji statues along with the complexes on which they are erected are reported to cost in the region of Rs. 3000 crores each. While the government has money for these statues it does not have the funding to support child immunisation programs like polio. Currently the polio vaccine is in short supply and India is dependent on the MNC, Sanofi to supply the medicine and who taking advantage of the worldwide scarcity have raised prices including to India. India though one of the largest users of the polio vaccine gave up in 1990 to put up a plant here for the local manufacture of the vaccine. We are currently running out of supplies which is likely to affect the child immunisation program for next year and the year after that unless Rs. 300 crores is found immediately to be assured of supplies from Sanofi. This situation shows up the lopsided funding and distorted thinking of this government where statues get a higher priority than polio vaccine. However, voices within this government make the right noises like Arun Jaitley saying the other day that high economic growth is essential for poverty alleviation. But in actual practice we are seeing the plans for growth of statues across the country, both in number and following the motto of higher, higher and even higher while ignoring the immediate needs of child immunisation programs like for polio and forgetting the need for poverty alleviation which in any case is too far out in the future. 

                  Arun Jaitley Picking Up On His Math Re GST & Demonetisation 

Arun Jaitley being an advocate by training can be forgiven for not getting his maths right when saying that GST affected the economy's growth 'only' for 2 quarters, which is 6 months and that's half a year. This in economic growth is a 'huge' period as Donald Trump would have said. So half a year gone on the back of an economic slump caused by the Demonetisation exercise is all the more grievous. At least Jaitley has come around to admitting that GST did affect economic growth. He has not got up to the impact of  Demonetisation on the economy since that is a higher order math beyond Jaitley's present comprehensive ability. But one is sure that he will get up to it once he works up to his post-graduation in maths.

              Goa's Price & Quality Syndrome For Food Items That Is Being Challenged

We need to understand the basic issues underlying the contamination of food and other items that come into Goa. It is like the majority of the items that you get on railway platforms and which applies largely to food items that are on sale. This comment is more valid now than it was in the past. Nobody cares about the quality and hygiene of the food items because they know that rarely does the same passenger comes back to complain. That is why anything goes, meaning anything is sold. This principle applies a little differently in Goa where everything is oriented towards the tourist, be it Indian or foreign. Since the tourist is on holiday he does not mind paying a 'little' extra for any services that he uses or items that he buys or food that he consumes. Thus the prices of everything is inflated. Larceny is a way of life in Goa and many a shopkeeper or store makes a virtue out of it. They take advantage of the fact that demand far outstrips supply justifying their penchant to make the extra rupee. It is explained away by saying - Nobody minds.  Now Goa does not produce enough of any items that it consumes like take fish, milk or for that matter any commodity. Everything to a large part has to come from outside the State. Now the suppliers from the neighbouring States are no fools. They have the pulse on Goa's markets. They know very well the 'tourist syndrome'. With this they are confident that anything that they send to Goa will sell. Not only that they will get a good price for the item. So when it comes to trading with Goa in normal circumstances they may supply good stuff but when scarcity reigns and local demand is better, they will send the worst quality stuff to Goa. Given no choice the Goan market has to accept it. The local shopkeepers who have become used to the 'tourist syndrome' apply it with little or no compunction to their local customers also. The products to be bought are offered saying there is no alternative. What does the local Goan do, he either walks away or grudgingly buys whatever is available. In another context, you could say that the scarcity times that used to prevail during Portuguese rule where luxury goods were available in plenty but essential items were scarce has come back to haunt Goa in a new 'avatar'. So having been used to make do with scarcity through generations the local Goan rarely complains and takes a stand. That is precisely what has happened to fish where the suppliers knew that in Goa anything goes, they started to supply fish laced with formalin. We must in fact thank and compliment the FDA for the first raid when the formalin issue was exposed. Since obviously we were eating formalin laced fish all along. The blame cannot be exclusively ascribed to suppliers from outside the State since the wholesale trade in Goa was complicit and to a smaller extent the local fish suppliers also. When word gets around the entire supply chain would be keen to increase the shelf life of the perishable by using formalin to make that extra buck or not lose money. Business has its own logic and morals. That is why it is correct to take a firm stand and have testing labs so that Goans are assured of contamination free fish. In fact the present office bearers of the fish wholesaler's association should be put behind bars on the count of deliberately and knowingly endangering public health in Goa if charges of manslaughter arising out of the use of dangerous chemicals in edible items cannot be brought against them. That is the only lesson that they will remember and as a consequence reform their ways. Whether it be fish or whether it be fruits and vegetables or even milk, the same principle as enumerated above applies. There is a demand in Goa and the market is not insistent on quality and also willing to pay more so send gas ripened fruits or vegetables laced with pesticides that they would not feed their cattle in the home State or supply milk that remains unrefrigerated in transit as well as after it reaches here through the night and until it is supplied to consumers in the morning. The consciousness raised since the fish in formalin Issue is good but we need to remember that the neighbouring States could start squeezing supplies which may lead to scarcity and consequently rise in prices. Therefore unless Goa starts having a large part of its consumption of food items available locally it may lead to a major problem. The maxim to be followed is - Proceed with caution. Proceed with care.

                    Goa In A Complete State of Flux in Governance & Political Terms

Goa is in a complete state of flux in political terms. With no political leadership for the last 9 months or so since Manohar Parrikar fell sick, there has been literally no governance in the State. Every issue drags on interminably until it dies its inevitable death in the public mind after a short while only be replaced by another issue of similar importance. Thus one would feel that the present political leadership that is in charge of the State is completely irresponsible to allow things in Goa to drag on like this. With Manohar Parrikar being unwell, we are all sympathetic for him but should he not be sympathetic for Goa. Instead of establishing a new leadership he has been allowing the situation to not only drag but exhibited tendencies to remain in power at any cost. The fact that the BJP-led government's majority is on a knife edge was not anybody's fault but more akin to acts of God where one after another the ministers fell sick and that too of major debilitating diseases. Recognising this early the BJP should have gone for a mid-term poll by dissolving the present government. Campaigning on a sympathetic plank of health the BJP could as well have come back to power with a better majority. Then there would have been no need to take in the dissenters from other parties like the Congress and create problems within its own cadres as we are now seeing. As for Shirodkar and Sopte jumping ship of the Congress to the BJP there does not seem anything wrong since the Congress apart from their fighting amongst themselves is showing no great resolve or political will to come back to power. Even the call that these turncoats should be defeated in the bye-elections does not have much appeal since ideology based politics at least at the State level is out and does not sell with the electorate who will elect those that they believe will work for them. Thus Goa seems to be deemed to be in a state of stupor for some more time to come. 

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