Vox Populi Issue 266

                                                           VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 266                      Date: 28.01.2019

                    Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

 

Contents:       

 

1.  Officially The 'Silly Season' Of Elections Has Begun

2. The Declining Benchmarks Of The Padma Awards

3. On BCCI Functioning 

 

                                Officially The 'Silly Season' Of Elections Has Begun

 

The BJP loss in the elections in MP, Chattisgarh & Rajasthan triggered off an uproar in the party circles right up to the topmost echelons that resulted in all caution being thrown to the winds and got the party desperately trying to draw the voters back into its fold preparatory to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Thus the 10% EWS quota was announced, termed as a masterstroke, but it seems that its impact will be relatively less particularly with no government jobs for the taking. As an aside, all things that Narendra Modi does these days are termed masterstrokes! Then the GST tax rate slab rationalisation that was hanging fire ever since the measure was introduced, was done in a hurry. The earlier concern that revenue would drop if certain categories of products were  moved to the lower slab rates was thrown out of the window and even though the Dec 2018 GST revenue was much below the Rs.90,000 crores level, the rationalisation was carried through. Not only that the ceiling turnovers for businesses that would pay GST of just 5% was doubled from Rs. 20 Lakhs to Rs. 40 Lakhs and similarly the facility for composition was also raised to twice the earlier limit. These were all measures that the GST Council was asking time and again but it had all been getting postponed or shelved by the government. The loss in the elections in the 3 named States as above made the present dispensation wake up and rush to action. Then Shaktikanta Das, the arch-implementer of the illogical Demonetisation  measure, who has been brought into the RBI is drumbeatibg the banking system to increase the loans to the MSME sector hoping that industrial revival will happen again. Other rumoured policy measures that are in the pipeline are relief to farmers from the crippling loan burdens that they face or alternately giving them financial incentives to make their lives a little better and provide them the money that they need to sustain their activities in the farming sector. A Universal Basic Income - UBI  on the lines of a social security net is also being talked of to make the menu card complete.  How many of these measures will see the light of day or are only baits is what only Narendra Modi knows? But the coverage of the voter crossection is quite dramatic ranging from the EWS section to small businessmen concerned with the GST maze and facing paucity of funds to farmers and finally to address poverty and making India a socially sensitive country who cares for its poor. Added to the above Rahul Gandhi has also chimed in with his own promise of a form of UBI if the Congress comes to power. With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, officially the 'silly season' has begun of making promises and then forgetting about them, after all it is election time - Election ke time me sab kuch hota hai.

 

 

                             The Declining Benchmarks Of The Padma Awards

 

The Padma awards this year particularly the principal ones seem to be partisan and agenda driven. Speaks of the narrow mindset and shallow thinking of those who decided on them. Gita Mehta was very correct in declining the award given to her. She is to be admired for her conviction and the ability to sift through the reasons making her an awardee.

 

                                               On BCCI Functioning 

 

The K L Rahul and Hardik Pandya episode of shooting of their mouths with sexist remarks is thankfully over with the former joining the India A team playing a home series in India and Hardik flying to far off Kiwi land to join the Indian cricket's first XI. These cricketers are young and do not know how to handle the media and show-anchors particularly like the more than savvy Karan Johar. Karan Johar's comment a few days ago saying he feels responsible for what happened is clearly too little, too late. He should have guided the young cricketers during the show or at least edited out the comments before broadcasting it. He did not do that but waited until he got his mileage, literally a pound of flesh, out of it and then he now comes out with this blasé apology. Freshers from any profession invited to the show need be wary from now on and watch what they do or say. The BCCI also needs to give some training to the cricketers who represent India on how to handle tricky questions akin to a 'doosra' in cricketing parlance while facing the media. The incident also reflects on the the way the BCCI functions these days. The way the Rahul/Pandya incident was handled was nothing but an over-reaction. More so by Diana Edulji who has been a player herself and should have known better. She was doing nothing but getting back at Vinod Rai her co-member in the CoA over the earlier Johri affair as part of her feminist agenda. Vinod Rai being a bureaucrat and an auditor to boot is at sea when it comes to dealing with player issues because his forte is procedures and processes. These matters have been further accentuated since the clear polarity has been established lately in the CoA and more often than not what you hear is just bickering. That is why it was recommended some time back that a 3rd member be inducted into the CoA which will lend balance to it and also help it to become decisive in the spirit of democratic functioning. Kapil Dev's name had been suggested which was a good thing since it suited the job description perfectly. However, these are just patchwork solutions and the Supreme Court mandated 'reforms' in the affairs of the BCCI is taking too long. It is best that the BCCI be handed back to its council which we need to recognise has brought Indian cricket to what it is today at the zenith of achievement. But long term in sport , it is best that the running of the bodies or associations be left to player dominated councils and mostly constituted as government bodies. Private bodies like the BCCI and the host of other sports associations carrying India colours is not appropriate which may have happened for historical reasons but the time has come to change it. 

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Vox Populi Issue 265

                                                            VOX POPULI

                                                                        by

                                                                  S Kamat 

                                                                        as

                                                                Aam Admi

                                           Issue: 265                      Date: 21.01.2019

                    Visit: skamat.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com

                 THERE WAS NO ISSUE OF THE VOX POPULI DATED 14.01.2019. 

Contents:       

1. The BJP Government's Shoddy Governance 

2. The Corruption Cycle : CBI - CVC - CBI

3. The Ploy Of The 10% Upper Class Quota Is Just An Election Gimmick 

                               The BJP Government's Shoddy Governance  

On issues related to governance this government led by Narendra Modi stumbles often and more often than not badly.  Consider the impact of the Citizenship Bill in the North East region. The dust had not yet settled on the National Citizen's Register Issue with multiple extensions to the deadline and the many serious controversies linked with it when the Citizenship Bill was brought in, which in fact somewhat negates the former. Not only that with the public outcry mostly by the politicians and the intelligentsia the government has gone and filed sedition cases against three persons. This will only add fuel to the fire. After all this we have Ram Madhav, one of the office bearers of the BJP, trying to trivialise the matter as if to suggest that the custodian of all wisdom on all matters now is the BJP. On matters of sedition the government seems to be having a penchant for it. What with Kanhaiya & Co. of the JNU slapped with it which apparently seems to be foisted on them deliberately. The government through the police was also pulled up by the judge for not seeking the due permissions before filing the sedition case by asking them whether they have a legal department or not. This shows up the rawness of the government in cases related to sedition lending credence to the belief that they plucked the case out of thin air. Moving on to more mundane matters, there has been controversy unnecessarily created in the Indian Council of Child Welfare - ICCW children bravery awards which they have been giving away for 60 years or more which included the children participating in the Republic Day parade seated on the back of an elephant. These are memorable events for the children which this government has put into uncertainty with children selected for this year's awards by the ICCW already in Delhi but unsure whether they will be able to participate in the parade or not. The reason for this is that the ICCW has been pulled up for some financial irregularities and is on the government's black-list. Not only this the government has gone ahead and announced its own bravery awards for children. One does not know whether the children on this year's government list of these awards are the same as that of the ICCW or it is a different bunch. Only the Republic Day parade on 26th January can clarify that. Why the government could not ask the ICCW to drop their awards this year if it was announcing their own is something that is beyond comprehension and particularly not to bring the children for the Republic Day parade. Thus this government generally gives the image of being a bull in a china shop when it comes to implementing anything irrespective of it impacting small children and even up to elders, riding roughshod and trampling upon the sentiments of all the people.

                               The Corruption Cycle : CBI - CVC - CBI

The summary dismissal of CBI Director once he was re-instated by the Supreme Court smacks of injustice but giving credence to the charges brought against him by the CVC, for which we really have no choice, one would tend to believe that it is better to have officers like this, away from influential positions. Connivance and misuse of official position seem to be apparent in the charges brought against Verma and giving the opportunity of natural justice to such people will be doing a disservice to the system which enjoins fairness and propriety in our administrative procedures to deserving people. The case also reflects how rotten our system has become where the premier enforcement agency of the country, the CBI, is run by persons like this. Compounding these problems are the incumbent government's tendencies to majorly interfere with the prominent institutions of the country. Like in the CBI, by bringing in a parallel power centre and a likely promised heir-in-the-making in Asthana. This led to the CBI going further downhill with in-fighting that was splashed in the media for months at a time. The rot does not stop here. Like it is said that the woods are dark and deep so also are these corrupted worm infested agencies that comprise our government. In this same CBI case, the CVC K V Chowdhary  who sat on judgment on Verma's matter was himself accused of corruption and visited the house of Ranjit Sinha, ex-Director, CBI of the 'caged parrot' fame multiple times as recorded in the register kept there. Once he was cleared thereafter by the CBI was he able to take up his posting as CVC, in which position he then sits on judgment on Director, CBI Verma and charges him with misdemeanour and corruption! Can we say that the wheel has turned a full circle where people charged of corruption themselves call others corrupt? Also an apt fit for the idiom - Pot Calling The Kettle Black! With this we cannot but come to the conclusion that in contemporary India everything is purchasable.

           The Ploy Of The 10% Upper Class Quota Is Just An Election Gimmick 

The 10% quota announced by the government last week for the economically weaker category among the upper classes and across all communities is a retrograde step. When Charan Singh as Prime Minister had proposed to rejuvenate the bullock cart as one of the points of his economic plan, it was said that he was trying to push back the country by a decade. By the same yardstick, this new quota is going to take the country back by 50 years, half a century, that is. 

We as a society have been against the caste system and concerted steps have been taken to rid our society of this slur. However, our political class has been trying to keep the caste system alive in different ways. Our politicians are stratifying our society by the creation of vote banks, instituting quotas etc. The quota for the upper classes has been a long standing demand by the people in this category but had been refused a number times because it would not be maintainable particularly in courts, if challenged. This very same fate awaits the present quota announcement. Quotas have already reached 50% and more in the SC, ST & OBC categories, which is the limit set by the Supreme Court, in one of its judgments. But States like Maharashtra have gone ahead and announced more quotas in excess of this limit for categories like Marathas. This if you add this 10% to the existing quota in force you will come to close to some 70-80%. If so there is no meaning in the quota since it becomes then a question of allotment of the vacancies be it in jobs or in seats of educational institutions. 

The practical difficulties that are encountered with the quota system and reservation are very acute. With sometimes no qualified candidates among the quota category, the jobs or vacancies go unfilled and are prone to repetitive procedure for filling up, delaying the completion of the exercise. Even as has been seen in IIT & other educational institutions or even in jobs, the quality of the candidates or selected persons is not good enough leading to difficulties in maintaining course curriculum or administration. 

Not only that even within the 50% limit, it has been found that almost with every State there are certain communities who want to get into the SC, ST & OBC categories or some who want their categories moved from one category to another. Thus where the basic 50% quota categories are under pressure and in a practical sense found unworkable then what is the reason to introduce yet another upper class category. 

There is also a conceptual misuse of the quota system particularly when it comes to college admissions or while seeking jobs where affluent OBC's avail of the quota allotted to them at the cost of the General category who having more merit or secured more marks are deprived of seats or jobs. 

Thus the best thing would have been to eliminate all quotas and allowed meritocracy to rule. There are enough grounds to present this argument since we have tried close to seven decades with the present quota system and if it has not worked, then there is very little chance of it working at all. If we allow merit to be the basis for our society then the pace of development of our country could possibly improve and we would be able to get out of the stranglehold of poverty and deprivation faster. There is already an example in favour of the argument since most Indians who leave the country to work abroad, do much better for themselves and also in comparison to other migratory nationalities in their country of domicile. That is the reason why we see Indians at the top of many Fortune 100 corporations in the US. The medical fraternity in many of the Western countries are also dominated by Indian professionals. 

But the unfortunate part is that the control of quotas and reservation is in the hands of our politicians who will not relinquish this Brahmastra that gets them elected, from their hands. And these are the same vested interests which will resist the introduction of meritocracy in our country. 

If you look at this whole issue in another way, there is no meaning in announcing the new upper class quota. It is just a gimmick to sway the minds of the upper class people preparatory to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The quota has also no relevance since no new government jobs exist or are likely to be created with the present economic scenario. This BJP government came riding in on the plank of a lean government and a government that works. But that promise was long forgotten when Narendra Modi himself announced some time last year recruitment for some 1 Lakh jobs. This again when Modi & the BJP have also distanced themselves from the promise made in 2014 of creating 2 crore jobs per year in the Indian economy. Therefore we should not fall for this trap of the upper class quota which is nothing but a bribe to get your vote but start a movement to eliminate all quotas and reservation from every sphere of activity in this country.

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Vox Populi Issue 264

VOX POPULI                                                                         by                                                                   S Kamat                                                                          as                                                                 Aam Admi                                            Issue: 264                      Date: 07.01.2018                     Visit: skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com   Contents: 1. Judicial Overreach     2. Ambanis As MFF - Most Favoured Family 3. The Tragedy Of Being An Indian

                                                  Judicial Overreach

We have the overreach of the judiciary, more specifically the Supreme Court, leading to a distressing situation in the Sabarimalai temple case relating to the entry of women of menstruating age into the temple. The matter was to be dealt as a faith issue rather than that of a Constitutional right and the SC could have recused themselves from the case. That would have allowed the matter to die a natural death rather than as it is now of a political football that is being kicked about and the situation on the streets in Kerala fast deteriorating progressively into a severe law and order problem. This is not the first time that the SC is doing this but there are many instances of judicial overreach the notable among which of current origin are: the ban on fireworks to particular times during the last Diwali. This was taking the fun out of children's lives across the country and depriving livelihood for thousands in the household and the tiny sector who are involved in the manufacture of fireworks. The icing on the cake in the judgment was that  'green' fireworks should be used when none existed in India from local manufacture and whatever was available was of China make. So was the SC indirectly promoting the industry of China at the cost of Indian industry! As for the primary concerns of pollution that was the basis of the judgment, fireworks were not banned in entirety but it seems only for Diwali since for religious festivals that followed like the Chaat Puja and then the New Year and the random weddings that take place or during the election victories fireworks continued to be used. On a more global level, Diwali is celebrated only once a year in India like the 4th of July in the U.S. and there should have been no problem in allowing our children have their day of fun when the world's largest polluter can allow it for their own people. So the point is that if you want to ban fireworks for environmental and noise pollution then ban them entirely and not just for a specific festival like Diwali. Then we have the latest gaffe by the SC in the Rafael judgment that implied that the aircraft deal was referred to the CAG and the PAC and that a report on that was tabled in Parliament. The incumbent government is using this judgment it give itself a clean chit. The issue of stating a process and in contrast implying that the process was executed has been  carried in the media ad nauseum. But even then the Supreme Court has not taken cognisance of it  even on a suo moto basis which it does at other times. Thus the present government and its seniormost leaders one can say is surviving on the mercy of the courts and carrying that stamp on its shoulders. Concluding one can safely say that our judiciary should remain in its domain and refrain from interfering in all and sundry matters which will allow it to work towards reducing the pendency of cases that has been clogging up the court process and thus be able to deliver speedier justice to our people. 

                              Ambanis As MFF - Most Favoured Family

For all the talk about no corruption in this Narendra Modi led BJP government, the pointers towards crony capitalism are very apparent. Connections with big business of the Modi government had been talked about with the Ambanis and the Adanis, both industrial magnates hailing from Gujarat. But even between the two, the Ambani family seems to be holding the MFF - Most Favoured Family status. While the elder brother, Mukesh gets Institute of Eminence status for his educational institute for which no ground has been broken and the project just exists on paper. So also the younger brother, Anil has been done a similar favour by being selected as the set-off partner for Dassault, France in the Rafael jet fighter deal that ensures a bonanza of Rs.33,000 crore. Here again there is no manufacturing faculty or business operations on the ground and the selected partner has no experience in aircraft manufacture. It is time that both these windfalls bestowed on the Ambani family are withdrawn forthwith.

                                      The Tragedy Of Being An Indian

The national highway near Udupi in Karnataka was blocked yesterday, 6th Jan 2019 for 3 hours with protesting fishermen taking to the streets because 7 of their community have been missing at sea since 13th December 2018 and there is no concrete action that has been taken by both the State and Central governments to launch search and rescue operations to find them. This incident along with the the 12 coal miners who have been missing again from 13th December 2018 in the Meghalaya rathole mines highlights the callousness of our governments towards the people who strive hard to put body and soul together by taking up dangerous and hazardous work. The fishermen case is of a lesser order of danger since they are above ground albeit granted that they are on water but there is every chance of them drifting because of faulty engines and they can be spotted by the Coast Guard or passing ships. But for the miners who were trapped in a flooded mine serious recovery measures were initiated only after a week of the incident which is a shame since by that time they would have been dead from lack of food and air to breathe or would have drowned in the waters. Navy divers and high capacity pumps to evacuate the water arrived at the site just last week close to three weeks of the date the miners went missing. Is there any chance from this effort for bringing out the miners alive? At most they would be able to recover the bodies. While in the case of the young footballers who were trapped in a cave in Thailand, it grabbed the attention of our media and our people. But it is unfortunate that the same attention was not given to our own, the trapped miners in Meghalaya. The greatest tragedy is that the governments both at the State level and the Centre tended to be less seized of the distressed miners. This is not at all. In the Kolkata Metro recently one of the coaches caught fire because of overheating brakes leading to panic among commuters. The people had to be evacuated through the tracks and some broke windows and jumped out fracturing their limbs. Luckily there were no fatalities though a number of persons had to be admitted to hospitals. But it has come out that the Kolkata Metro have no smoke or fire alarm systems in their stations or tunnels through which the tracks run and which are all underground. They also have no fire drill procedures or disaster management measures in the event of accidents and mishaps like the above. And the Kolkata Metro has been running close to more than three decades now! Surely someone must be pulled up for this negligence. Thus you will see with these three widely spread out incidents in different situations the country has been found lacking in its ability to deal with major accidents and disasters when the scenario is a little different from the ordinary. The government attitude to these cases has been lackadaisical with no concern for the loss of human life. The only conclusion that one can draw from this is that in India human life is cheap and it does not matter if a few people die here or there because in any case we have so many.
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