" Life comes cheap in India"

" Life comes cheap in India"

" Life comes cheap in India" sums up the story of compensation and
rehabilitation for the dead and injured in the July 13, 2011 blast
victims of Mumbai ( India Abroad,July 20,2012). It is painful to read
the heart-rending stories of these innocent people who feel that they
were at a wrong place at a wrong time.

The stories illustrate the shattered dreams and the shattered families
: "The world has forgotten us" ( Namdev Narayan Dhulup), " I wish I
was dead"( (Aspi Motilal Khetu), " I desperately need a job, Can you
help me please?" ( Sarika Jain), " The unbearable loneliness of life
in the big city" ( Rinku Vishwkarma), " No one cares" (parents of
Chandrakant Wanker), " The compensation money was not enough" ( Varsh
Karia), " If I spend so much money on medicines, how will I provide
for my family" (Vinod Shukla)," He is here with me" ( Kanna Shah) and
" The bomb was in a tall lunch box" ( Ramlal Musai Yadav), " The
family that won't talk about its dead" ( Bhupatbhai) .

No city or country can provide hundred percent security to all its
citizens even if it has large police force with all arms and
equipment. Presidents and the prime ministers have been killed with
all the security in the world. The least that the country has to do is
to provide proper and timely compensation and help in the
rehabilitation.

Your reporter, Vaihayasi Pande Daniel, says that there are 730 blast
victims in Mumbai, and tells us how New York honors and compensates
fully the 9/11 victims. As one of the affected family member says a
job or an alternative means of livelihood to the next of kin would
help them rebuild their lives. This is the most glaring fault of the
Indian government. Most of them have received compensation but
according to them it would not last for a long time. Among the
corporates, only the Tatas seem to have provided immediate relief with
monthly cash payment to help them cope up with life.

Some of the victims have revealed how some politicians promised help
which never materialised. These politicians spend crore of rupees on
election but could not help them at the hour of their need.

Indian government has been negligent of the victims of natural
calamities, irrigation dams, railway and bus accidents, industrial
disaster ( Bhopal) and terrorist attack. It is time that the
government set-up a department, if not a ministry, which takes up the
issue of compensation and rehabilitation of the victims on a
systematic way without bureaucratic delay. Tata's had set up such a
cell to help those affected by the blast in Taj Mahal and other
places in 2008 in Mumbai to trace the victims and their families to
help them stand on their legs.

As far as the terrorists are concerned, less said the better. They are
fanatics who do not know religion as no religion sanctions killing
innocent people. If it sanctions, it is no religion at all, it is pure
and simple imperialism.

July 19,2012.

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Why BMC plans to get private trusts to run its schools?

Dear Vinay,

This may be one of the rare new ideas that has come from BMC. In spite
of spending hundreds of crore rupees on education by BMC municipal
schools have failed to give proper education to the poor.Many schools
have no water, no benches, no black boards and no urinals. Many years
ago, I remember, one of Municipal Commissioner had invited corporates
to adopt the municipal schools but the response was little. Now that
there is more awareness about the social responsibility of the
corporate sector, this may be right time time for such an initiative.

The government schools have failed almost everywhere including USA and
UK. In USA, parents, mostly Chinese and Indian, like to live in places
where schools teach properly, and the parents interact and assist the
schools in their activities.

There is an interesting report in the Economist ( of London) about the
charter schools under the headline, Charting a better course, ( July
7,2012) in USA. The charter schools are publicly funded but
independently managed. According to the report, the charter schools
have been successful because they offer freedom to shape the school to
the pupils, rather than the other way round. Schools can change the
length of the school day, fire bad teachers,and spend their money as
they wish. At Harpest Prep the school year is continuous, with short
and relatively frequent bursts of holidays, because that keeps
learning on track and kids out of trouble. However, there is a proper
mechanism to supervise these charter schools. Each class is examined
every six or seven weeks. The teachers are also monitored.There are
5,600 charter schools with 2m students in 41 of the 50 states of USA.
In Washington DC 44 percent of the students attend the charter schools
while it is 4 percent country-wide.Though the overall picture is
positive,the results have been mixed.

Of course, BMC need not copy this experiment, it can certainly ask the
corporates to run it efficiently. The bureaucrats and teachers have no
managerial experience, and there is no motivation to teach. The
corporates have to give them dignity and motivate them as the
architects of the future of this country.

July 13, 2012.

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Afghanistan, Pakistan and USA.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and USA.

The two reports in your last issue (India Abroad,July 13), US
dependence on Pakistan exposed and Last tango in Afghanistan, reveal
how US and the NATO find it difficult to withdraw from the quagmire of
Afghanistan without pandering to the wishes of Pakistan.

Pakistan wants to have a regime in Afghanistan which dances to its
tune as it wrongly believes that this would give it a 'strategic
depth' in its conflict with India (though this concept has become
irrelevant in the context of atomic weapons with both countries) while
US and its allies want to promote a independent democratic polity. The
present predicament of US is the result of its policy of using
Pakistan and jehadis of Al Queda to defeat the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan. It is during this period that Pakistan developed nuclear
weapons and built the taliban.

Pakistan is not a normal state and to function as a normal state
Pakistanis need a new narrative from their leaders, observes Ahmed
Rashid, a veteran journalist of Pakistan, in his book, Pakistan on the
brink : The future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. He says the
military defines the Pakistani identity in terms of permanent
resistance to India.It uses jehadi groups in addition to diplomacy and
trade to pursue its defence and foreign policies.There is no coherent
national identity capable of uniting the nation. The taliban, which
was promoted by the army and the ISI, is now turning against it. There
were two attacks already on the military - one on Army General HQ in
October, 2007 killing 14 officers and civilians, and the other on
Mehran Naval Base in May,2011.

All that one can say is that you reap what you sow - in both cases.

Now, what is the way out as far as Afghanistan is concerned. The UN
has to bring all the major powers of the world and the neighboring
countries of Afghanistan together and provide the country with
guarantees of territorial integrity, support for economic development
and democratic functioning.

July 12,2012.

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