LIST OF NEWSPAPERS COVERED

ASIAN AGE

BUSINESS LINE

DECCAN HERALD

ECONOMIC TIMES

HINDU

HINDUSTAN TIMES

INDIAN EXPRESS

PIONEER

STATESMAN

TELEGRAPH

TIMES OF INDIA

TRIBUNE

1

CONTENTS

CIVIL SERVICE 3-7

CONSTITUTIONS 8-10

EDUCATION 11-25

ELECTIONS 26-28

HISTORY 29-37

HOUSING 38

JUDICIARY 39-41

LIBRARIES 42

OLD AGE 43

PARLIAMENT 44-45

POLICE 46-47

POPULATION 48-50

PROHIBITION 51-53

PUBLIC FINANCE 54-55

RAILWAYS 56

RELIGION 57-60

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION 61

WOMEN 62

2

CIVIL SERVICE

INDIAN EXPRESS, APR 28, 2017Centre plans to parachute 9 IAS officers to Yogi office

Sources said that of the nine, two had expressed their inability to move back to the state due to

personal reasons.Written by Amitav Ranjan 

In a strong signal of its intent to keep a close tab on the administration of Uttar Pradesh, the

Centre plans to paradrop senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers from here for Chief

Minister Yogi Adityanath’s secretariat.

Sources said that a formal proposal for repatriation of nine officers, handpicked by the Prime

Minister’s Office, was sent by the Department of Personnel & Training on April 12 to the

Cabinet Secretariat but the approval was taking time as the shortlisted officers have to give their

consent.

Sources said that of the nine, two had expressed their inability to move back to the state due to

personal reasons.

The shortlisted officers are from the Uttar Pradesh cadre. They are mainly of the Joint Secretary

rank at the Centre, implying that they could be appointed as Secretaries or Principal Secretaries

of various departments in the state. They are, at present, posted in Cabinet Secretariat, Ministries

of Commerce, Human Resource Development, Food, Textiles, Health and Ayush. One is at

UIDAI and one at MMTC Ltd.

Despite three large bureaucratic reshuffles in the state, Adityanath has appointed just four

officers to the state secretariat. The rest are still being handled by officers from the Akhilesh

Yadav regime.

3

Adityanath’s third rejig — the biggest so far — came yesterday but it mainly involved the

appointment and transfers of district magistrates. The second one, a week ago, comprised

divisional commissioners and DMs.

HINDU, APR 25, 2017Cabinet Secretary Sinha gets extension

The Central government on Monday granted one-year extension to Cabinet Secretary P.K.

Sinha whose two-year term is scheduled to end on June 12. The Appointments Committee

of the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cleared Mr Sinha’s extension.

ASIAN AGE, APR 27, 2017Bureaucrats defy Yogi Adityanath diktat, yet to declare assetsAMITA VERMA

The chief minister had asked bureaucrats on March 20 to submit details of their assets on the prescribed format within 15 days.

Lucknow: Despite strict instructions and reminders by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, some 150 IAS officers in the state have not submitted complete details of their moveable and immovable assets.

The chief minister, according to sources, is keen to identify and segregate the “black sheep” in the cadre in order to refurbish the image of his government and prevent scams and scandals in the coming months.

The chief minister had asked bureaucrats on March 20 to submit details of their assets on the prescribed format within 15 days.

It is now over a month and 120 IAS officers have not given details of their movable assets while 30 have not disclosed their immovable assets.

A large number of officers belonging to the Provincial Civil Services have also not furnished their property details.

The chief secretary has summoned all departmental chiefs on May 3 to discuss the issue. Principal secretary of personnel and appointment Kamran Rizvi has also informed the bureaucrats that non-compliance of the chief minister’s directives would lead to “unhappy consequences”.

According to sources, most of the bureaucrats are shying away from furnishing their property details mainly because of the format they have been provided.

4

A senior official said that the format offers no leeway for the officials since everyone is required to give details of the movable and immovable property of their immediate and extended families and also the income of these members of the family.

“This implies that property bought in the name of father-in-law and sister-in-law will be under the scanner,” a retired IAS officer said.

TRIBUNE, APR 24, 2017Rust in the Iron FrameThe abiding fear of the 3 Cs

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi was at his katha vachak best on the Civil Services Day. His audience was practically the entire civil services. Those who couldn't make it to hear the PM in person were linked via teleconferencing. Besides the usual exhortations made by every PM on April 21, Narendra Modi also touched on three Cs — the CAG, the CBI and the CVC - which he identified as stumbling blocks in decision-making, ultimately resulting in policy paralysis. No one has a bone to pick with that line of argument.

Babudom in India has been stereotyped as timid, overcautious and frequently prone to indecision. Although this broad brush view is more due to the prevailing politics of indignation than a reasoned analysis. The bureaucrat usually sits over a file or passes the buck in order to save his own skin from future tribulations. The latest victim of overzealousness or petty mindedness of the 3 Cs was former Coal Secretary H C Gupta, widely reputed as an above broad bureaucrat. Gupta was reduced to asking the court probing the Coal-Gate scandal to sentence him to prison as he did not have the resources to contest the bogus uprightness of the investigating agencies.

But ever since the culture of accusation entered out body-politic, starting with the Bofors scandal

in the late 80s, bureaucrats have realised that it is always better to be safe than sorry after

retirement. The virus has made further inroads after many bureaucrats decided to cast their lot

with one political party in state after state. The PM is right in demanding quicker decisions and

exhorting officials not to be afraid of the consequences. While any public servant found with his

hand in the till must be given exemplary punishment, the onus is on PM to remove the fear of

misplaced missionary zeal among investigating agencies that has blighted many upright officials

with the right drive and energy. A regime that continues to define itself by its slogan of

``brashtachar-mukta'' (corruption-free) will find its bureaucratic instruments blunted by the 3 Cs.

5

TIMES OF INDIA, APR 24, 2017Employees body puts government on notice, seeks pay hike dues

HYDERABAD: The Employees, Teachers' and Pensioners' Association on Sunday demanded

that the state government immediately release pay hike arrears of 1.25 lakh employees pending

for the past two years and also abolish the contributory pension scheme (CPS).

The association said that the employees were waiting for their arrears since 2015 and threatened

to launch an agitation if the government failed to release the funds by the end of May.

"In 2015, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao himself openly announced that an

order will be issued regarding arrears shortly. However, till now nothing has come out and about

1.25 lakh employees and teachers' have been eagerly waiting to get that money," said Ravi

Chavi, state general secretary, Telangana State United Teachers' Federation.

He added that an employee would get anything between Rs 30,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh, depending

on their designation.

Commenting on the contributory pension scheme, B Kondal Reddy, state president of Telangana

Progressive Teacher's Federation, said that if an employee with a salary of Rs 30,000 per month

passes away, the family of that employee would get a mere Rs 850 under this scheme.

"Under the old pension scheme (OPS), a deceased employee's family would get Rs 18,000 if he

earned Rs 30,000 per month.

"However, with contributory pension scheme, 60% of the money in employees accounts is given

as gratuity and the interest over the remaining 40% is given as pension, which comes to a mere

Rs 850," he said.

The associations also demanded that the government streamline health cards and set up wellness

centers in all district headquarters and increase their number in Hyderabad by four.

6

Also, they asked the state to issue healthcards for aided, residential, model school, Kasturba

Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, public sector, municipal, Vaidya Vidhana Parishad employees.

They further demanded that the government initiate steps to promote and transfer employees and

complete the process by May.

"Starting from May 4, we would conduct a round table conference in all districts. If the

government fails to address our demands, we would launch a protest," said Ravi.

7

CONSTITUTIONS

TRIBUNE, APR 24, 2017‘We the people,’ the guards of democracyJagdeep S. Chhokar

As events unfold, B.R Ambedkar's prescience is uncanny. It reflects a very deep understanding of the Indian mind-set. The state of democracy in India is perilous. We continue to place creed above the country. But only the people can preserve democracy.

IT is not often that a newspaper writes both editorials on the same issue. The Tribune did that on April 11. (“Low turnout in Srinagar”, and “Vote buying”). Why would this happen?Take a look at the following headlines: "Eight killed in Kashmir bypoll violence, Srinagar registers poor voter turnout of 7.14 per cent"; "EC cancels RK Nagar bypoll, cites voter bribery, corruption"; "After 7 per cent and 8 deaths, Anantnag bypoll is deferred". All these headlines pertain to elections and have appeared in major English dailies over the last couple of days.

There are more headlines in the same mode: "Sixteen parties urge EC to use paper ballots", citing "too deep and pervasive…trust deficit." And: "Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad attacks Air India staffer with slippers;" and "Government pressure forced Air India to withdraw Ravindra Gaikwad's flying ban." "BJP MLA threatens to behead those who try to stop Ram mandir construction." Finally, "Behead Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, get Rs 11-lakh: BJP youth leader."

To top it all, "Circumventing the Rajya Sabha" which, inter alia, said, "The Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Vice President Hamid Ansari and the Deputy Chairman, P.J. Kurien, reportedly expressed their concern recently on attempts being made to whittle away the legislative powers of the Rajya Sabha and make it a redundant legislative House."What does all of the above say about the state of democracy in India? If we rephrase the above, all of it can be summarised as the following:

The electoral process, the bedrock of democracy, is becoming more and more fragile. Parliament and its functioning are under a cloud, there seems to be a view that there is a

deliberate attempt to undermine it. Lawlessness seems to be on the increase, as evidenced by open and direct threats of violence.

"Rule of law" never too strong, seems to be becoming weaker by the day.

8

There is, of course, a contrasting view which says that things are getting better, the country is on its way to fulfilling the ever-rising aspirations of people, and becoming great again. It is, however, hard to believe this alternate narrative when one is told that "anonymity" and "transparency" are mutually reinforcing concepts! On attaining Independence from colonial rule, India was designed to be a constitutional democracy. It may not be out of place to remember what the man who is sometimes referred to as the primary author of the Indian Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar, and whose birth anniversary the nation celebrated with great fanfare, going by the big advertisements in all newspaper, on April 14, felt like telling the nation 68 years ago. After making a substantial part of his speech, he said, “Here I could have ended. But my mind is so full of the future of our country that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my reflections thereon.” And then he went on to say some words of caution which today sound prophetic. This was the day the Constitution was adopted, November 25, 1949. Some of what he said is reproduced below:

“I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics”. (Italics added).

"On January 26, 1950, India will be an independent country. What would happen to her independence? Will she maintain her independence or will she lose it again? This is the first thought that comes to my mind. It is not that India was never an independent country. The point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will she lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery of some of her own people.”

“Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. This anxiety is deepened by the realisation of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our

9

independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost for ever. This eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must be determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood.”

“It is not that India did not know what is democracy. There was a time when India was studded with republics, and even where there were monarchies, they were either elected or limited. They were never absolute.”

"The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with power which enables him to subvert their institutions’. There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. There are limits to gratefulness. As has been said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O'Connel, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”

Ambedkar's prescience is either uncanny and scary, or it reflects a very deep understanding of the Indian mind-set. But whatever it is, the state of democracy in India is perilous. Yes, the final responsibility does rest with the people, and "We, the People", have allowed political parties to “place creed above country” and thus put “our independence … in jeopardy a second time (making the possibility of losing it) for ever” very real. Are we willing “to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood”? It is for each one of us to answer.The writer is a former Professor, Dean  & Director in charge of the IIM, Ahmedabad.

10

EDUCATION

STATESMAN, APR 28, 2017CBSE proposes to hold only one NET exam a year

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has proposed conducting the National Eligibility Test (NET), a qualifying exam for recruitment of college and university teachers, once a year due to the poor response it received. The Board had last year conveyed its inability to conduct NET with its hands being full. However, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has directed it to continue the practice for now.

 According to sources, the proposal, which is at a very nascent stage, is being considered keeping in mind the resources required to conduct the exam as well as the number of candidates appearing for it. “While conducting the exam once a year will make candidates more serious about it, resources can also be utilised judiciously as holding a national-level exam is a massive exercise. However, the idea is at a very nascent stage,” a source said.

“The CBSE has proposed the idea keeping in mind that only 17 per cent of the registered candidates take the exam and only four per cent of them clear it,” the source added. At present, NET is held twice a year ~ in July and December ~for the grant of junior research fellowships. It is also a qualifying exam for recruitment of assistant professors in universities and colleges.

CBSE had last year approached the HRD Ministry expressing its inability to conduct the exam due to capacity crunch as it was overburdened with other tests such as the JEE-MAIN and NEET for under-graduate engineering and medical courses respectively.

While the ministry had not issued any guidelines, the CBSE is still to issue a notification for the exam scheduled in July, which is usually out by the first week of April. Scores of students had protested outside the UGC last week demanding that the uncertainty over the exam be cleared and a notification issued.

“The CBSE had approached the HRD Ministry expressing their inability. We had a meeting with HRD officials over the issue recently and it was decided that the board will conduct the exam in July without any delay,” a senior UGC official said.

“The arrangement is likely to continue till the proposed National Testing Service (NTS) is set up by the government for the conduct of all exams,” he said. NET was conducted by the UGC till 2014 following which the job was handed over to the CBSE.

ECONOMIC TIMES, APR 26, 2017UP government cancels 15 holidays marking birth, death anniversaries

Yogi Adityanath had in his address on the occasion of Dr BR Ambedkar's 126th birth anniversary has expressed concern over the shrinking academic session due to increased holidays.

11

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government today cancelled 15 public holidays marking the birth or death anniversary of eminent personalities.

Instead, students in schools and colleges would now be taught about them on these days, the state Cabinet decided today in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

"The cabinet has cancelled 15 public holidays marking the anniversaries of great personalities. Students will now be taught on these days about these figures through various programmes," Cabinet Minister Shrikant Sharma said.

He was briefing mediapersons after the cabinet meeting.

Adityanath had in his address on the occasion of Dr BR Ambedkar's 126th birth anniversary here expressed concern over the shrinking academic session due to increased holidays.

"There should be no holidays in schools on birth anniversaries of great personalities. Instead, a special two- hour programme should be held to teach students about them. The 220-day academic session has been reduced to only 120 days due to such holidays and if this tradition continues, there will be no day left for teaching in schools," he had said.

In Uttar Pradesh, there are 42 public holidays of which at least 17 are related to the birth anniversaries of eminent personalities.

The previous Samajwadi Party government had declared holidays on the birth anniversaries of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar (April 17), Maharishi Kashyap and Maharshi Nishadraj Jayanti (April 5), Hazrat Ajmeri Garib Nawaj Urs (April 26), Maharana Pratap Jayanti (May 9) besides on the death anniversary of Ambedkar (December 6).

Sharma said the revised list of holidays will soon be made available.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, APR 24, 2017Now, Class-1 students won’t have to carry books and bags in HaryanaPawan Sharma 

Now, Class 1 students of government schools in Haryana won’t have to carry books and bags.

After the summer break from July 1, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

government will introduce ‘no bags and no books’ system for Class 1 students in around 100

government-run primary schools across the state.

12

After their classes, students will go home without their bulky bags containing books and

notebooks. They will instead push their bags and books in the pigeonholes allotted to them in the

school.

The education department has selected at least five schools in each of 21 districts for this

experiment, which is a part of the state government’s ambitious programme of turning

government schools into centers of ‘joyful learning.’

“Later, we will start this ‘no bags’ system in more schools based on the success and feedback

from the 100 schools we have selected for this experiment,” PK Das, additional chief secretary

(school education), told Hindustan Times.

Once in a fortnight, the students will carry their bags home to show their parents the work done

in the class.

“We are introducing some changes in the functioning of the government schools. We want

learning to be a joyful experience for the students in every class,” education minister Ram Bilas

Sharma said, while pointing out that new initiatives were being taken to develop students as

well-rounded personalities.

QUIZ CLUBS IN SCHOOLS

In yet another first, quiz clubs will be set up from Class-1 to Class 12 in all 14,700 government

schools in the state and quiz will be a part of the curriculum from this academic session. The

question bank will be based on class books.

The education department, in collaboration with the well-known quiz master Siddhartha Basu,

will design the quiz questions.

13

To begin with, 5,000 questions will be uploaded on the education department website. For every

class, the questions will be different. The target is to give quiz master training to at least one

teacher in every school.

As per the instructions issued by the government on April 17, it will be compulsory for every

government school student to become a member of the quiz club.

Every Saturday, which is observed as ‘joyful activity day’ in the schools, will focus on quiz

competitions, besides other extra- curricular activities.

“Every Saturday is devoted to develop the personality of the students by engaging them in free-

wheeling discussions and allowing them to do something creative. There are over 40 different

activities for the students, based on their interest,” said Das, who is the spirit behind these

initiatives.

He added, “The ‘joyful Saturday’ programme, which was launched on November 14, 2016, has

begun picking up the pace. Hence, the government has decided to launch more activities under

this move. The focus is to develop a multi-dimensional personality of the students.”

STATESMAN, APR 24, 2017Pass/fail construct

The sheer absurdity of the no-detention policy till Class 8 will hopefully be corrected with states being accorded permission to detain students in Class 5 ~ the conclusion of the primary stage ~ and then again in Class 8, which marks the transition point from middle to senior school. HRD minister Prakash Javadekar’s statement signals a welcome deviation from the Right to Education Act which makes it mandatory to ensure automatic promotion till Class 9... with no evaluation whatsoever for the better part of school life. In many or most schools, especially those run by state governments, there is no praxis to evaluate what has been taught or to assess what the students have assimilitated, if anything.

The fact that 25 states have already agreed to withdraw the “no-detention policy” reaffirms the inbuilt opposition to a breathless provision of the RTE Act. In West Bengal, from one dispensation to another and cutting across party lines, the authorities are seemingly in favour of promotions... with no questions asked. Both the advancement of learning and assessment will be

14

taken care of with the overwhelming majority of states set to revert to the pass/fail construct. The minister has been remarkably forthright to admit that the “no-detention policy has led to deterioration in the quality of education”.

The proposal to give the student two chances to clear the Class 5 and 8 exams is reasonable enough just as the provision for “remedial classes” is geared to help students who cannot easily attain the benchmark. However, this ought not to be confused with the booming business of private tuition. Schools have been given the responsibility to smoothen out the transition to the extent possible. It is fervently to be hoped that the amendment to the RTE Act, now before the Cabinet, will be cleared with urgent despatch.

A logical objective of the changes that are on the anvil is to improve the quality of school education. Towards that end, the HRD ministry plans to notify the “learning outcomes” in the refashioned RTE Act. Not that the provision on the impact of education is not integral to the “flagship legislation”; close to a decade after the Act came into effect, the feedback on the “learning outcomes” is yet to be notified.

Happily, the data will now be advanced to parents as well. Clearly, it is a three-pronged approach towards school education, one that involves teachers, the taught and the parents no less. Teachers will be made accountable and responsible, and this duty towards the profession makes it essential to notify the “learning outcomes”. At the end of the day, however, the chief merit of the RTE amendment is that the no-detention policy is set to be junked.

HINDUSTAN TIMES, APR 26, 2017CBSE moves towards a level scoring field

Students taking a postgraduate exam at Delhi University’s North Campus. Candidates taking a postgraduate exam at Delhi University’s North Campus. More than two crore students in the country appear in Class 10 and around 1.5 crore in Class 12 exams conducted by more than 40 education boards.(Hindustan Times)

The country’s biggest school board appears to be moving towards creating a level playing field and enhancing transparency. Backed by the ministry of human resource development, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to do away with the policy of ‘moderation’ of results: It won’t award students extra marks in exams for difficult questions, said to be the reason behind inflated scores in Class 12 board exams — which in turn lead to impossibly high cut-offs.

This is a departure from the past when the CBSE and state boards used to dole out between 10% and 15% extra marks in ‘difficult’ subjects such as mathematics and physics in the name of moderation. However, these extra marks were subject to a ceiling of 95%. This implied that the scores of students getting 80% to 85% were enhanced, but someone getting 95% or above did not benefit from this. Not just was this unfair to those who were scoring 95% on their own, it also drove a few Delhi University colleges to set up an unrealistic 100% as the first cut-off during admissions to undergraduate programmes. Last year, responding to a question in the Lok Sabha, minister of state for HRD Upendra Kushwaha had justified the moderation policy in the

15

Class 12 Board examinations saying that it helped bring parity owing to an element of subjectivity in evaluation processes across the country. “The CBSE adopts a moderation policy to bring parity due to element of subjectivity in evaluation, to level up mean achievements due to difference in difficulty level of different set of question papers and to maintain parity of pass percentage of candidates ...,” he had said, in a written reply. Clearly, the ministry’s views on the subject have evolved. The CBSE hopes other state boards will follow suit. More than two crore students in India appear in Class 10 and around 1.5 crore in Class 12 exams conducted by more than 40 education boards.

Another move towards transparency is a mention on mark sheets of extra marks given to Class 12 students to help clear a paper. Known in student parlance as “grace marks”, these are given in cases where a student narrowly misses the passing-mark. The mark sheet as well as the Board website will now clearly mention the extent and mechanism used to award grace marks. Critics say that the mention of grace marks may lead to a feeling of stigma among students, but its supporters argue awarding grace marks is unfair to others who manage to clear tough exams on their own. In the past, a number of state boards were using these ‘spikes’ to ensure that their pass percentage didn’t dip dramatically compared to other state boards. Although the actual impact on cut-offs may be visible only during college admissions, it is a good sign that the Board is dropping an opaque old-school method of evaluation that granted students random ‘spikes’ in grades regardless of the individual efforts they had put in.

DECCAN HERALD, APR 26, 2017States will decide on scrapping marks moderation policy: HRD

Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday appreciated the school examination boards which agreed to do away with the Class XII board marks moderation system from this year.

He, however, said it was up to the respective State Government’s now to take a final call on the issue and implement the resolution passed at the school boards' meeting here on Monday.

"It is a good decision by the CBSE. Several states have been taken on board and a consensus has been developed. But the final decision will be of the states," Javadekar told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

Majority of the school examination boards on Monday agreed to Ministry’s proposal for doing away with the system of moderation of the Class XII board marks from this year. A resolution to end the practice was also passed here at a meeting of the school boards.

“This was just like a suggestion. A good consensus has been developed. Let's see how it progresses. I will take a brief on the meeting. The boards should not keep inflating marks in competition. This should not happen,” Javadekar said.

16

DECCAN HERALD, APR 26, 2017Greater academic roleBy K S S Seshan

Colleges bestowed with autonomy would provide healthy competition and much needed leadership to be emulated by others.

The recent protests by some sections of the faculty in a few colleges in Delhi against the move to make these colleges autonomous have opened up a nationwide debate on the very efficacy of such an autonomy for the under graduate colleges. 

While the universities are accorded autonomy in matters of introducing courses, framing syllabus, formulating academic calendar, conducting of examinations and publishing results besides its day to day administration, the concept of granting autonomy to the colleges is a recent phenomenon. 

Autonomous status in a limited way is given by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to some select colleges within the preview of university system so as to encourage academic freedom in core areas like the need-based course selection, innovative methods in teaching, improvements in evaluating methods etc. It is estimated that about 550 under graduate colleges in the country are with autonomous status now and the number is constantly on the rise every year.

With engineering, medical and management colleges making steep rise in their numbers in recent decades, greater focus is bestowed on such professional colleges. But these under graduate colleges where courses in sciences, humanities and social sciences are taught, suffer a general neglect as these courses are said to lack employability.

Even pure sciences like physics, botany and chemistry are not sought after if those courses are not to be pursued at the post-graduate level. Literature, philosophy, history and other social sciences are only at the bottom of the students’ choices.

A number of colleges therefore have in recent times, started introducing tailor-made new and innovative courses at the under graduate level for the sustenance. Courses in computer applications, bio-technology, dairy technology, tourism, journalism and a host of other job-oriented courses are thus being offered to attract the students.

With the Union Public Service Commission and state-level administrative services offering lucrative openings, students in considerable number are coming forward and opting social sciences and humanities, though not for their intrinsic values. There is also a considerable number of students interested in pursuing such subjects at the university level with a view to take up advanced research or making a career in those subjects. Therefore, everything seems to be not lost with colleges dealing with under graduate courses.

17

Autonomous colleges seem to be a silver lining to infuse credibility by providing quality education at under graduate level and to win back, to an extent, the lost ground for these courses. 

The UGC, in its recent guidelines for autonomous colleges, has stated that its endeavour is to increase the number of such autonomous colleges to spread the culture of autonomy and to make at least 10% of the eligible colleges to become autonomous in the country.

The availability of infrastructural facilities like the buildings, libraries, equipment and laboratories, playgrounds, hostels besides quality teaching, performance in results, its alumni and a host of other parameters are considered for evaluating the profile of a college for the purpose of according such autonomy.

There are national agencies like National Assessment and Accreditation Council to evaluate the colleges that apply for such accreditation to be autonomous and there is also an in-built mechanism to monitor the progress of such colleges under autonomy.

The autonomous colleges as institutes of excellence are primarily meant to take the lead and serve as examples to other neighbourhood colleges in their own right. Therefore, it is not enough if they could become just islands of excellence.

A pre-condition for a college to become autonomous should be its sound fiscal status for stable maintenance and smooth functioning. Emphasis rests on the distinguished faculty and quality instruction as everything else is next only to academic excellence.

Introduction of viable courses, imaginative structure of course content, use of modern tools of educational technology with higher standards, innovative methods in teaching through activity-based student participation, establishing a community linked extension with activities like seminars, workshops etc, will go a long way in achieving the objectives of an autonomous institution besides increasing its academic profile. 

The faculty in such autonomous colleges are to be insulated from frequent transfers as that would only dislocate the ongoing academic programmes and bring uncertainty.

Conducting exams

As the autonomous colleges are bestowed with the task of conducting examinations and publishing results, they have an added responsibility that hitherto was the prerogative of only the universities. Since such colleges have to be engaged in the system of ‘continuous assessment’ where the academic progress of the student is constantly under the surveillance of the concerned teachers on a regular basis, there is greater scope for proper evaluation than in the conventional system of annual exams.

18

Internal assessment with components like assignments, seminars, tests, viva voce etc, will keep both the teacher and the taught in constant interaction leading to healthy progression.

As the semester system is generally adopted in the autonomous colleges, there is also the reduction of wastage of working hours/days in the college schedule. Personal supervision of the teachers on the progress of their wards is said to be the greatest benefit the autonomous colleges could yield.

However, the success or otherwise of the system of autonomous colleges to a large extent depends on the proactive involvement of the student, the teacher and the management as it means extra work and greater involvement of all the above chief stakeholders.

If the teachers and students are willing to invite on to themselves the extra academic rigor and responsibilities that is imperative in this system, there seems to be nothing that stops the growing number of autonomous colleges in the country. Colleges bestowed with autonomy would do well by providing healthy competition and much needed leadership to be emulated by other colleges.

(The writer is retired professor of History, University of Hyderabad)

ECONOMIC TIMES, APR 27, 2017UGC ends uncertainty over NET, says CBSE to conduct exam

Qualification in NET is also a must for recruitment of teachers at colleges and universities.

NEW DELHI: Ending uncertainty over the National Eligibility Test (NET), the University Grants Commission has decided that the CBSE will continue to conduct the exam even as the board had earlier expressed inability to do so.

The NET is held twice a year--July and December--for the grant of junior research fellowship and eligibility for assistant professorship in universities and colleges.

Qualification in NET is also a must for recruitment of teachers at colleges and universities.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had last year approached the HRD Ministry expressing its inability to conduct the exam due to capacity crunch as it was overburdened with other tests such as the JEE-MAIN and NEET for under- graduate engineering and medical courses.

While the Ministry had not issued any guidelines in this regard, the CBSE has not yet issued a notification for the exam scheduled in July, which is usually out by April first week every year.

Scores of students had protested outside the UGC last week demanding that the uncertainty over the exam be cleared and a notification be issued.

19

"The CBSE had approached the HRD Ministry expressing their inability. We recently had a meeting with HRD officials over the issue and it was decided that the board will conduct the exam in July without causing any delays," a senior UGC official said on the condition of anonymity.

"The arrangement is likely to continue till the proposed National Testing Service (NTS) for conduct of all exams is set up by the government," he said.

The NET was conducted by the UGC till 2014 following which it was handed over to the CBSE.

DECCAN HERALD, APR 28, 2017UP school directs students to have Yogi style hair cutSanjay Pandey

In a bizarre diktat, a private school in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut town, about 450 kilometres from here, has asked its students to follow UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath's hair style triggering resentment among the parents and students.

The school management has also directed the students not to bring non-vegetarian food items in the institution and warned of stern action if such items were found in their tiffin boxes.

According to the parents of some students, the management of Rishabh Academy School, situated in Sadar area of the town, directed the students to get their hair cut in Yogi's style.

Angry parents held a demonstration before the school on Thursday in protest against the alleged diktat and demanded action against the management. ''Short hair is all right but to have the head shaved is completely different,'' said one of the parents.

Some students alleged that they were beaten by the teachers for not following the diktat.

Ranjit Jain, the manager of the school, however, denied the allegations but said that the students had been asked to have ''military style'' hair cut. ''It is part of discipline...we do not want our students to have long hairs,'' he remarked.

He admitted that the management had asked the students not to bring items like eggs and mutton to the school.

Police said that they had been approached by some parents with a complaint. ''We are looking into the matter and will take appropriate action,'' said a senior district police official in Meerut.

The parents were also contemplating to move the court against the school's diktat, according to sources.

20

INDIAN EXPRESS, APR 24, 2017V-C to push for Panjab University inclusion in category of varsities that get 10 per cent annual increase in UGC grant

UGC has asserted that Panjab University is the only state university getting a grant of over Rs

176 crore while the rest in India are getting a mere Rs 50 crore.Shub Karman Dhaliwal

TO RESOLVE its financial crisis, the Panjab University authorities will push for its inclusion in

the category of universities which get a 10 per cent annual increase in grant from University

Grants Commission (UGC) under the Central budget head.

At a meeting with UGC, scheduled for April 26, Vice-Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover will also

take up the Senate decision to lift the blanket ban on recruiting new faculty members in PU.

UGC in its Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed in the Supreme Court and in its replies during the

case hearing in Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted that PU is the only state university

getting a grant of over Rs 176 crore while the rest in India are getting a mere Rs 50 crore.

“Even if we manage to convince them to increase our grant of Rs 176 crore with the increase in

the rate of inflation every year, that will be a very big thing for us. If tomorrow the central

government by any chance reduces the budget of UGC, then how can we afford to ask for an

increase in grant? So it becomes very important to become part of the annual increase in budget

of UGC,” said Grover.

The university authorities will also avoid capping of grant from the UGC as it would lead to

further increase in fee hike over the coming years as fee is only source of income available with

the university. PU in its financial report submitted to the UGC has shown an increase in income,

in proportion to increasing rate of expenditure every year. “The authorities had asked us to

generate income. In accordance with the increase in expenditure which we have done, our

remaining requirements can only be fulfilled by UGC,” added Grover.

21

V-C Grover and other senior university officials will hold a meeting with University Grants

Commission (UGC) and Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

Among other things, Grover will also take up the issue to remove the blanket ban put on hiring

of new faculty which was passed by the Senate. At present 44 seats are vacant after the

retirement of reemployed teachers while the PU also has 33 seats vacant as associate professors

and 19 as professors under Scheduled Caste category along with 17 as associate professors and

nine professors under Scheduled Tribe. Overall a total of 1,370 posts are lying vacant at the

Panjab University which the Senate now wants to be filled because PU is among the universities

with the worst student-teacher ratio in the country.

On meeting Manpreet Badal

During his meeting with Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal to be held on April 25, Vice-

Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover will ask the minister to increase the grant by 12.5 per cent every

year by keeping 2013-2014 as the base year and has ruled out asking for special packages. At

present, the Punjab government has frozen its grant to PU at Rs 20 crore.

“I’m going to meet him and will apprise him of the situations and complexities at hand with

regard to the financial requirement of PU. However, we will ask them to increase the grant by

12.5 per cent. The Punjab government has taken care of two other universities and it is not easy

for them, so I will only ask for special package after knowing what the government is planning to

offer us,” said Grover.

‘Complete rollback of fee hike is not the solution’

Chandigarh: “Complete rollback of fee hike is not the solution for Panjab University and

demanding it by indulging in violence is not at all acceptable,” said Panjab University Vice-

Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover.

22

Grover asserted that only a very small fraction of students are indulging in protests and are

sustaining them for their small political gains while the vast majority of students studying on the

campus understand the situation of PU.

“The students studying in Government College Sector 11 are paying a fee of Rs 11,000 or Rs

12,000 for a BA course and here they only want to pay Rs 2,200 for the same course. I fail to

understand why. The fee hike has been done to match the rate of increase in expenditure of the

budget which can’t be matched unless we increase the fee and the committee constituted has

gone by it very scientifically,” added Grover.

On taking back the cases registered against the students, the V-C maintained that the committee

formed by the university is trying its best to remove the names of the students who were

involved in the incident.

“The committee constituted is studying every case and we are taking up case of students not

involved with the police on a day-to-day basis. I’m going to do every thing I can to remove the

names of innocent students from the cases registered against them,” said Grover.

TELEGRAPH, APR 29, 201712 per cent IIT seats for girls

New Delhi, April 28: An apex decision making body for 23 IITs today approved a proposal to create additional 12 per cent exclusive seats for girls in BTech courses by 2020, thereby

23

increasing their representation to about 20 per cent.

The IIT Council, headed by HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, decided at a meeting held in IIT Bombay to clear the proposal of creating super-numeri seats for women in view of the percentage of girl students remaining below 10.

Creation of additional seats will start from next year (see chart). Every year, four per cent seats would be added till 2020. Since eight per cent of students get admission under general merit category, the 12 per cent exclusive seats is likely to increase their representation to 20 per cent, explained an IIT director.

The IITs have remained largely male bastions over the years. The admission data in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced report for 2015 shows 9,974 candidates were offered admission into BTech including 900 girls. Their number in 2016 remained around 900 too. In 2014, girls constituted eight per cent of total students.

×While 2.2 lakh top scorers of JEE-Main examination appear the JEE-Advanced, the exclusive test conducted by IITs for admission into their BTech courses, about 25,000 students qualify, including 3,000 to 4000 female candidates.

There are about 10,000 BTech seats in all the IITs. The additional seats will take the total seats in IITs to over 11,000.

An IIT director said that nearly two-thirds of female students being offered seats do not prefer to take admission because of several factors like distance from their hometown and safety. Among male students, those rejecting admission are about one third of those getting an offer.

"Girl students do not prefer to join IITs mainly due to distance and safety concerns. But now such students are more likely to get admission in the preferred IIT in nearby locations because of the exclusive seats to be created in each IIT," the director said.

Cut-off mark would not be compromised while admitting students under the super-numeri seats, he said. At present, the IITs offer seats in merit order. The same procedure will continue even after creation of super-numeri seats. Once all the existing seats are offered, the exclusive seats would be offered to female students.

A joint admission board comprising IIT directors had mooted the proposal.

Unlike IITs, the 31 National Institutes of Technology (NITs) which are seen as second-rung engineering institutions have a better rate of girls' representation of 15 per cent.

The council also decided to hold additional two-rounds of joint counselling with NITs this year to ensure no seats remained vacant. IITs and NITs normally hold five to six rounds of counselling under which each eligible student is offered a seat in one institute.

24

The council also decided that all IITs would start an induction programme for newly admitted students.

During the two-week programme, the students would get to know each other and hear motivational talks to enhance their confidence.

25

ELECTIONS

BUSINESS LINE, APR 27, 2017Time’s AAP

Delhi municipal polls signal the end of the road for Arvind Kejriwal and a further fall into irrelevance for the Congress

The picture that emerged after the Aam Aadmi Party’s spectacular fall from a whopping 67 out of 70 seats in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections to just about one-fourth of the wards that the BJP won in the corporation polls on Wednesday was reflective of three larger trends in Indian politics. The first is the indisputable dominance of the BJP which, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his indefatigable party president Amit Shah, has become an unstoppable political force. Even as the BJP was romping home in Delhi’s three municipal corporations, Shah was in Kolkata challenging Mamata Banerjee and creating an air of inevitability about his party’s ascendance in West Bengal. The Modi-Shah duo is clearly crafting the BJP into the new-age Congress, a natural party of governance and the voters’ first choice in new India. The second is the continued political irrelevance of the Congress which stood third in the corporation elections. The bickering that has erupted in the local Congress is symptomatic of the loss of direction in the face of an ascendant BJP. The third is the disintegration of the dream for a new India that Arvind Kejriwal and AAP created in the aftermath of the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare.

Fresh from the movement, AAP emerged as a feisty debutant on the Indian political landscape. It won parliamentary seats in Punjab in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and took over Delhi, cornering a whopping 54.34 per cent of the vote share and 67 of the total 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections held barely months after the Modi wave had swept the BJP to power at the Centre. But since that extraordinary victory, Kejriwal has rapidly lost the plot with his multiple conflicts with the Centre including a territorial war with Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor, criminal cases against several MLAs, and spats with many central leaders including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who has sued the Delhi chief minister for defamation. Twenty-one AAP MLAs have been disqualified under the Office of Profit rules. Given this backdrop, AAP failed to retain the voters’ faith. In the results for the three civic bodies — South, North and East Delhi Municipal Corporations — the BJP was set to get about 183 of the total 270 wards for which elections were held on April 23. AAP stood a distant second and trends till late Wednesday afternoon indicated that the Congress was third with a tally of about 32 wards.

The response of the young party and Kejriwal to the voters’ verdict has been even more disappointing. Instead of displaying grace and the need to introspect, Kejriwal has gone on a tirade against the electronic voting machines. A bad loser can hardly hope to inspire confidence among his followers. AAP looks set to be a blip rather than a shining star on India’s political horizon.

TRIBUNE, APR 27, 2017Modi wins MCD: AAP staring at meltdown

26

THE BJP’s strategy of beating 10 years non-performance in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections was audacious but it paid off handsomely. It benched all its sitting councillors and put up PM Narendra Modi as the poster boy for the campaign, ignoring the secular voices, enfeebled by the recent electoral reverses, about the absurdity of hoisting the head of a national government as the cheerleader for a civic election. Except for the reverses in the Delhi and Bihar assembly elections, the PM has been a successful vote harvesting card in practically all other polls. 

The MCD polls maintained that trend and even the Sensex acknowledged the political wind of the times by shooting to an all-time high.

The Congress, the grand old party, was riven by rifts in contrast to the organisational efficiency of the BJP that relentlessly agitated against the AAP government in Delhi. The Congress slid further into disarray with the former three-term CM Sheila Dikshit locking horns with the campaign leader and two prominent leaders bolting for the BJP in the run up to the polls. The result: the Congress barely passed muster as a recognised party in two of the three civic bodies that make up the MCD. Its saving grace is that it managed to claw back the Muslim votes lost to AAP in the 2015 assembly elections.  

While the Congress was on a wing and a prayer, the writing was on the wall for AAP after the

humiliating Rajouri Garden reverse. The knives ought to be out for Arvind Kejriwal and his

groupies, especially after Bhagwant Mann concurred with his state unit blaming the Delhi coterie

for the below-par showing in Punjab as well. Kejriwal's initiatives, deliberately thwarted at every

turn by the Lt. Governor, were lost in the deterioration of the national capital into a polluted

mess of garbage-strewn streets. Kejriwal is making last-ditch attempts at salvaging the situation.

Its MLAs are jumping ship while the EC could disqualify another 21. AAP’s diatribe on EVMs

is an attempt to forestall its meltdown. Its only solace is that it is the premier opposition force in

Delhi and Punjab.

STATESMAN, APR 27, 2017Delhi demolishes

That the BJP continued with its electoral “roll” was a virtually foregone conclusion, the more significant point made by the voter in the polls to the three elected civic bodies in the Capital was the “royal” rout of the Congress party, and a firm pointer to Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party

27

being little more than a one-election wonder. The Delhi voter has done a powerful demolition job. Obviously the legion of trumpet-blowers in the Modi-Shah camp will be sounding many a fanfare: their claim to fame being the BJP securing a third consecutive term in the municipalities despite having performed miserably in the previous two. To conclude that an entirely fresh team will rejuvenate the party’s functioning would be more in the realm of hope than expectation, and since the “charisma” of Mr Narendra Modi is being hailed as the determining factor, the Dilliwallah would not be unjustified in demanding that the Prime Minister take it upon himself to clear the city of the filth that has accumulated over recent years. That demand would assume relevance in the context of the collapse of civic services being attributed to the stand-off between the AAP-run Delhi government and the three BJP municipalities.

The apprehensions of further conflict between Kejriwal and the municipal bodies on the one hand, and his continuing spat with the Centre/Lieutenant-Governor on the other are fuelled by a premeditated attack on EVMs: the predictable alibi for a miserable showing that has its roots in the chief minister’s ambitions and arrogance. He neglected basic duties in Delhi when indulging in flights of fancy in Punjab and Goa. The tirade against EVMs is wearing thin, no doubt the chief minister and his mates will find other reasons to cry “foul”. Looking within is not an AAP quality, blaming/accusing others is part of its confrontationist-negative DNA. Sure it took second place in its first civic election, but only after claiming that it deserved a clean sweep.

Blown away even before the season of duststorms has commenced has been the Congress, reduced to a miserable third place with only half the wards it had won five years back. Its apologists are seeking a fig-leaf of respectability by claiming an increased vote-share ~ selectively deciding which previous poll would serve as the basis of comparison. Having failed to win a single seat in the last elections to the Lok Sabha and the Delhi Assembly it is apparent that the party is on the verge of self-destruction. As is customary the “local” leader takes responsibility and offers to quit (Ajay Maken emulating Sanjay Nirupam in Mumbai), but essentially it does so to deflect the flak away from the “blunt” spearhead. Was Barkha Shukla Singh being prophetic when she contended that Rahul Gandhi was “mentally unfit” to lead the party?

28

HISTORYSTATESMAN, APR 30, 2017Discovery of Bharat~IAshok Kapur

It is undoubtedly the Great Indian Civilisation. Today’s Indians are justifiably proud of the country’s rich heritage and glorious past. We never tire of showcasing our past to visitors and tourists who come to India and marvel at the ancient history of the “oldest civilisation in the world”. It is an incredible tale of riches of its mind and its wealth, indeed the ‘Wonder that was India’.

Our official travelogues proudly proclaim an Incredible India ~ like no other nation ~ ‘once upon a time’. The excavations at Mohenjodaro and Harappa, the Ashoka pillars, the breathtaking frescoes of Ajanta and Ellora caves, to name just three, and behold an ‘incredible land’. And it happened when the rest of the world was just emerging from the bush. These represent even today the acme of human skill, built or crafted at the dawn of world history, thousands of years ago. They represent too an inheritance of magnificence that would be the envy of any ‘developed’ nation.

Having said that, it needs to be acknowledged that these marvels were for ages lying buried beneath the ground, hidden in our forests or lost sight of because of indifference or neglect over the centuries. Bharat was as good as not there, as countless generations just walked past our ‘past’, absorbed in their mundane daily chores. The Ashoka pillars and rock edicts with detailed inscriptions stood testimony for more than 2,000 years to good governance in ancient Bharat.

These are spread all over the Indian subcontinent, from Taxila to Karnataka, forged in metal that has the sheen of polished granite. These dotted the open countryside for all to read and marvel at the first Welfare State in world history, save those who would not see. Most of us do not.

Mohenjodaro and Harappa, the first ‘smart cities’ in the world, to use contemporary jargon, lay buried just at the subsurface, hidden from the eye. But the racial memory of these cities that once housed a great civilization has survived to this day, in the form of robust folklore in the surrounding villages. These ancient cities thrived around 5,000 years ago. The very name of the present-day settlement ~ Mohenjodaro, ‘the mound of the dead’ ~ provided a clue, though none bothered to explore further for 5,000 years! What the mind does not query, the eye does not see.

The cave paintings of Ajanta and Ellora have similarly existed for more than 2000 years, away from public view in the forest of Aurangabad district in Maharashtra. Even today, they take the viewer’s breath away. A great Buddhist civilization once flourished here, with a highly aesthetic sensitivity and a finely evolved culture. It must have been rooted in the soil, settled and peaceful. Their arts and skills must have been very well honed, as the paintings depict a highly cultured and learned people. But again, the countless intervening generations did not venture into the forest. Therefore, nothing was gained.

29

Skipping several centuries, we enter the middle of the 19th century. A fortuitous development had taken place. “The Great Indian Civilisation” had been placed under the direct charge of an alien “master” ~ the British Government, to be administered directly from London. For the first time in our history, a proper ‘Government’ was in place, and Bharat was now divided into administrative units, each under the charge of a trained British officer. These officers were trained to survey and map the entire land, travel to all corners of the country, observe, explore and document everything. A nation was thus born, our very own India.

Administration as we know today, is a purely British invention. Bharat was undoubtedly ruled by countless emperors and kings since time immemorial. But it was first administered by the British. They were amazed to discover that this ancient land is dotted all over with priceless remains of several magnificent civilisations, dead and gone. Unhonoured and unsung, and, most tragically, undocumented. None of the ‘natives’ knew, or cared to notice and document when it all began, and where. Indian history again is a purely British invention, and transplanted into Bharat. The study of history was compulsory for the British administrators. After centuries of apathy, began the true discovery of the ancient land of Bharat.

Lord Curzon ruled India in the early 20th century, and he took the first concrete step to preserve and protect our ‘civilisational heritage’. He promulgated the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1903 to protect and safeguard our past. Prior to the promulgation of the landmark legislation, no one in particular was in charge of the priceless, and countless art treasures of Bharat. It was common unclaimed property, and belonged to whoever could expropriate the same. The ‘native’ rulers, by and large had little or no use for history, the more enlightened ones being ‘schooled’, to use a pun, mostly in martial arts, religion and philosophy. The sword was always considered mightier than the pen.

It has rightly been said that as the past is mostly buried, archaeology is in a sense the beginning of history. The British then took the next logical step by setting up the Archaeological Survey of India in 1837 to survey, record and preserve our precious heritage.

The priceless treasures and antiquities were brought under the care and protection of the Administration, and mindless vandalism was to be penalized. Ages of neglect or, more appropriately, indifference were over at long last, figuratively and literally. Simultaneously, symbols of our cultural heritage were ‘packaged’ and documented to enlighten and educate the common Indian and to make him aware of the marvellous heritage. The first-ever Ancient Geography of India was published.

Mohenjodaro and Harappa were fortuitously discovered by chance, noticed meticulously by an alert mind. A new railway line was being constructed between the settlement and Abbotabad. It was personally supervised by a young British engineer on horseback. He noticed something that was amazingly strange ~ those who were digging the earth uncovered stones and pebbles that were regularly shaped, and there were hundreds of them. These were broken parts of perfectly shaped bricks, which originally must have been exactly rectangular. The corners were at perfect right angles.

30

Intrigued beyond belief, he found out that no ‘modern’ construction had ever taken place anywhere nearby. He summoned a meeting of village elders and was stunned at what they told him. The place was, once upon a time home to a great civilization, which had suddenly vanished in the mists of time. No one could say when and how, beyond elaborating that its residents inhabited great well-planned cities and were big builders. It was a very settled, orderly and peaceful civilization.On being further asked about the source of their information, the village elders explained that it was a persistent, timeless folklore in the entire area. They had been told as much by their great grandmothers, who in turn had been told by their great grandmothers.

The elders confirmed that the folklore had been transmitted by their forefathers for generations. The cities spread over acres and acres, but turned into a massive graveyard where thousands lay scattered and buried. Indeed, the present name of the settlement itself was indicative of its history, since time immemorial.

The writer is a retired IAS officer

(To be concluded)

STATESMAN, MAY 01, 2017Discovery of Bharat-IIAshok Kapur

The unknown British officer promptly collected samples of broken bricks and sent these to the National Test House in London.

There was no test house in Bharat then, as the Industrial Revolution had quietly bypassed this country. He was stunned at the results advanced by the Test House.

The samples were parts of regular bricks that were fired in furnaces at around 4,000 degrees Celsius. And these were around 5,000 years old.

Lo and behold, to the amazement of the whole world, the oldest civilization with meticulously planned urban centres stood excavated before them.

Did someone congratulate the present government on the ‘smart city’ concept? Several Ashoka pillars were standing erect for centuries all over the sub-continent, delineating the boundaries of the first welfare state in history, a federal setup as if holding up a model to follow for the present Indian state designed by independent India’s Constitution.

The pillars have priceless inscriptions engraved on them for good government and public welfare which could be the envy of a modern civilian democracy.

The pillars were widely spread out so that the populace in far corners of the empire could read and observe. And public exhortations for his Royal officials to follow and comply.

31

Sir James Princep, a young British civilian landed in Calcutta in the early 19th century for a job with the East India Company.

He was an ordinary civilian. As Master of the government mint, he was not mandated to chronicle the story of the Indian civilisation.

But like his other peers, he was trained in history and motivated to explore and discover his ‘adopted’ land. He was amazed to notice the ‘anonymous’ pillars with fine inscriptions scattered all over the land.

Shockingly, the ‘native’ had no clue. Obviously, history ~ even their very own ~ was no one’s concern.

Sir James learnt the language of the inscriptions ~ Bhrahmi ~ which was the lingua franca of the masses in ancient India.

The language was long dead in Bharat, and no ‘native’ contemporary of Sir James could enlighten him. He was not deterred, and deciphered the inscriptions on his own.

He discovered that the author was none other than the Great King Devanampia ~ ‘Beloved of the Gods’. But none of the pillars or rock edicts identified the Emperor or the time of his reign.

Apart from history, Sir James was trained in the classical languages, pre-eminently Greek.

He returned to London Museum, and studied contemporary records of Greek travellers and scholars during the reign of Devanampia.

He deciphered that Devanampia was King Ashoka the Great, who belonged to the Mauryan dynasty, circa 3rd century BC. By this single effort of great exertion, Sir James discovered Indian history, which was manifest all over the subcontinent, waiting to be decoded.

Recorded Indian history began with this discovery. Likewise, the paintings of Ajanta and Ellora were waiting to be discovered in the forests of Aurangabad for more than 2,000 years.

As in other parts of Bharat, countless generations of ‘natives’ just walked past our ‘past’, without venturing into the forest.

Apparently, they were too busy with their daily chores when not delving into deep questions of profound philosophy affecting humankind.

These caves were spread over a vast area, and lay uncared for and neglected for centuries.

As in other parts of Bharat, the local dynasties were too busy fighting other kingdoms, to waste their time on such mundane things as history... even if it were their own.

32

In the 19th century, a British Administrator was in charge of Aurangabad.

Like most of his counterparts, he was ever so ready to explore, discover and document. Incidentally, this is how history begins. He organized a ‘shoot’ in the local forest for tigers, which were legion in his area. With the approach of the hunting party, the tigers would disappear.

The Administrator was transferred but, according to standard practice, he left behind a detailed portrait of his area for the benefit of his successor.

It was another British invention. The successor was equally intrigued by the notings on the vanishing tigers.

He organized a ‘shoot’, and this time cordoned off the forest to ensure that the tigers would not simply vanish. It is then that he made another amazing discovery.

The tigers sought refuge in the deep caves of Ajanta, whose walls and ceilings were adorned with paintings of breathless beauty.

The Administrator was aghast at the centuries of neglect and indifference. The paintings were faded and the paint was peeling off. He wrote to London.

A painter was sent by ship so that each of the paintings was replicated and shipped to London Museum, to be kept as a permanent record.

Only thereafter were the paintings cleaned and restored. There are few instances of such dedicated and thoughtful action among the several hundred British administrators who ruled India with distinction in their adopted ‘home away from home’.

Thanks entirely to the efforts of the anonymous civil servant, the site has been declared a heritage site by UNESCO.

These are just a few instances of the pioneering work done by largely anonymous British civilians.

There are hundreds of such examples all over the sub-continent where these administrators virtually discovered our rich civilization for us, ranging from the translation of Chanakya’s Arthashastra to compiling the first dictionary of Sanskrit, and the study of ‘Flora and Fauna’ of India.

The advent of the British transformed a largely undiscovered Bharat into an India that is today justifiably proud of its unique civilisational heritage.

The writer is a retired IAS officer.

33

STATESMAN, APR 23, 2017End of History?~IArunabha Bagchi

As the Warsaw Pact was collapsing in 1989, the Japanese-American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama published an essay “The End of History” in the journal “The National Interest”, which he later elaborated into a highly acclaimed and controversial book, The End of History and the Last Man in 1992. The author claimed: “What we are witnessing is the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” This was, according to Fukuyama, the fulfilment of Hegel’s prophecy. This came to my mind in the wake of the spectacular gain of the BJP in the latest UP elections, which along with the party’s dominance in Uttarakhand and Haryana confirmed its hold in the Hindi belt of our country. Barring some coastal states, the party is now well entrenched all over the country, and is spreading its wings even in the North-East.

The latest state election results led many analysts to discuss the future political developments of our country. Most focused their analysis on the election results since Independence and dwelt on dominant leaders, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Some could even see a silver lining in the miserable performance of the Congress and the possibility of regional parties to gang up together to defeat the BJP some time in the future. The comeback of the Congress after Sonia Gandhi assumed charge of the party and the defeat of Indira Gandhi by the united Opposition in 1977 were used to support those wistful thinkings. Then, of course, were the traditional arguments of our history of religious tolerance, the impossibility of Hindutva ideology to be accepted for long with so much divisions and conflicts within the adherents of the Hindu faith itself, and the Hindu “majoritarian” impulse finally inhibiting our development by sapping us of whatever scientific temperament we might possess.

Although a scary thought, I started thinking that, to paraphrase Fukuyama, we in India may be approaching the end point of our ideological evolution, with the hegemony of the Hindutva ideology becoming the final form of our political structure. Most analysts date Hindutva back to the tract Essentials of Hindutva” by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar during the early twenties of the last century. This notion of Hindutva formed the basis of Hindu nationalism, which included all religions originating from India, but excluded those with foreign roots. This led KB Hedgewar, after deliberation with Savarkar about organising the Hindu nation in Bharat, to form the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha). This organisation formed the cadre for the already established Akhil Bharatya Hindu Mahasabha, and the Sangh Parivar was born.

But the idea of the Hindu nation goes back half a century earlier and was first explicitly propounded by the great writer, Bankimchandra Chatterjee. He countered the assertion of British historians that India was merely a geographical entity and not a nation in the western sense. He argued that the Aryans took over a vast swathe of Indian territory in prehistoric times and created a nation. Gradually it got split by internal and external forces and led to the disintegration of the nation.

34

Only when Hindus get united would a modern version of the Hindu nation be established in India. He, along with many historians, thought of Indian history as composed of our glorious Hindu past, followed by the Muslim conquest and rule by foreign invaders for a millennium, and finally British rule during his time. Although Muslims were tolerated, Bharat was essentially a Hindu nation.

Bankimchandra focused on religious symbols shared by Hindus in all regions and among all communities of Hindus, instead of on abstruse philosophical subtleties of our past. He brought The Gita to the forefront, championing it as our sacred text in line with the Bible or the Quran. He weeded out all later additions on Krishna in the Mahabharata and portrayed him as the uttam purush (greatest human being) that ever existed in history! Finally he glorified the Hindu selfless community of monks in the novel, Anandamath, and immortalised “Bande Mataram” by inserting that hymn to the Mother Durga there. I have never met any Hindu who had the slightest reservation with any of these efforts of Bankimchandra. Whatever discomfort people had about his ignoring the large Muslim population living in this land of Bharat evaporated with the creation of Pakistan.

Bankimchandra was followed as great defender of Hinduism by Swami Vivekananda, the universally acclaimed spiritual father of modern India. He was the first Indian to defend vigorously the Hindu religion against the common prejudices of the Abrahamic religions at the World Congress of Religions at the Art Institute in Chicago in 1893. He continued in town hall meetings during his long stay in the United States thereafter to champion the universality and superiority of Advaita Vedanta over all other philosophies of religion. In those parochial times, his efforts met with little success abroad, but his courage and conviction electrified Hindus in India leading them to imagine that they psychologically belonged to one nation. Swami Vivekananda was always careful to give the Muslim inhabitants of India due respect and wanted their cooperation in building this new nation. His concept of India as a nation was still a religious one, and not a political entity in the way understood in the West.

During Swami Vivekananda’s lifetime, the nascent movement for our self-rule began with the founding of the Indian National Congress. Leaders of the movement were the “true children of Macaulay,” whose main aim was to rule over the hapless millions in India directly, instead of acting as stooges of their British masters. This elitist movement was leading nowhere, when the revolutionary Swadeshi movement burst into the scene in Bengal at the start of the 20th century. They drew inspiration from both Bankimchandra and Swami Vivekananda, and one of their young leaders inspired them with the great Hindu heritage. He is, of course, one of our most revered religious philosophers ~ Sri Aurobindo. Before the end of the second decade of the last century this revolutionary movement was crushed by the British and the country was going through soulsearching that led to two different movements. Both used Hindu symbolisms to develop a nationwide upsurge of support for fighting against British rule.

The first and most important, of course, was the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi on the national political scene and his taking over the leadership of the Indian National Congress. His startling contribution was to create a mass movement for this struggle against the British by engaging the normally apathetic Indian villagers in this common cause, a feat that was never achieved in Indian history before. Netaji explained this miraculous phenomenon thus ~”His simple life, his

35

vegetarian diet, his goat’s milk, his day of silence every week, his habit of squatting on the floor instead of sitting on a chair, his loin cloth ~ in fact everything connected with him ~ has marked him out as one of the eccentric Mahatmas of the old and brought him nearer to his people.”

These were quintessentially Hindu symbolisms, including his harping on the Ram Rajya as the ideal to strive for in the Independent Bharat. Mahatma Gandhi, of course, has been highly sympathetic and concerned about the Muslim inhabitants of India. To bring them into his movement, he sided with their leaders in demanding the return of the Caliphate in Turkey that was torn asunder at the end of the First World War. This regressive demand lost relevance when Kamal Ataturk took over power in Turkey and set out to make his country a modern liberal nation following the models in Europe.

The writer is former Dean and Emeritus Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, The Netherlands.

End of History?~IISTATESMAN, APR 24, 2017

The other movement was for the unadulterated Hindu Rashtra. It was the fusion of the erstwhile Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS and the ideas of Vinayak Savarkar. But Mahatma Gandhi made them ineffective with his own lifestyle and political leadership. After Independence, Jawaharlal Nehru tried to modernise India on the western model of enlightenment. Our Constitution mandated adult franchise, including women, despite abysmal level of literacy. The Hindu Code Bill gave property rights to women, rights of divorce and alimony for the female partners. Freedom of speech, press freedom, rights of individuals, affirmative actions for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and many other liberal ideas are enshrined in our Constitution. The only problem was that the West gave a damn about their values being introduced in a newly independent nation with one-sixth of the world’s population. Outside their own borders, they do not care about those values. It is all about economic benefits and military influence that matters to them. On both scores, India offered them nothing at that point and we were marginalised in international affairs.

The Islamic revolution in Iran gave Hindus in India a new sense of identity. Kapil Dev leading India to victory in the World Cup Cricket gave us a new form of self-confidence. Our success in the IT and BPO sectors drew international attention and respect. Finally, our economic growth starting in the 1990s based on consumption led to huge import of foreign goods, paid for by remittances of Indian diaspora in the Middle East and elsewhere.

This gave us some clout in international affairs. All these gave the better-off Indians a new sense of pride, almost a false sense of vanity, and the feeling of our unique Hindu heritage as the propellant for future development. In the eyes of many in the resurgent India, Nehru’s liberal ideals had no link to our traditions and no economic benefit either. The West would rather trade with the totalitarian Communist regime in China that exploits mercilessly the labour force there, than with India with strong labour laws borrowed from the West.

The most controversial issue was secularism. For us it meant equal treatment to all religions, and not the separation of the Church and the State as is understood by secularism in the West. I do

36

not even know the Bengali term for secularism. It was kept deliberately vague for us. This caused huge controversy and vote-bank politics that alienated most Hindus.

All these frustrations, international developments with resurgent Islam and China, and our pride in some of our economic achievements revived the sense of Hindu identity that has now taken its hold On our nation.

Both Mahatma Gandhi and the Hindu Mahasabha/RSS combine used our Hindu symbols to mobilise the nation. They created the only two Pan-India political parties in India. All efforts to create other Pan-India parties after Independence led to nowhere. The liberal experiment was just a blip in our history. The discussion of our post Independence politics by our political analysts to predict our future may, therefore, be useless. It is true that Hindus are divided along caste lines and regional feelings.

But neither any caste, including the Dalits, nor inhabitants of any region in the heartland want to leave the Hindu fold. All Hindus, the vast majority of people in India, have the same devout feelings about temples and religious festivals of all parts of India. This religious fervour seems to be increasing by the day, as I noticed to my surprise during the current stay in India. The BJP/RSS combine can cleverly play on this religious sentiment by implementing some social and economic measures to reduce the friction among various castes in India. This is the task Narendra Modi is performing splendidly. His calls to motivate the nation to attain new heights appeal to all Hindus and some non-sectarian Muslims. This is the modern version of Hindu Rashtra of pre-historic days in the minds of most of our countrymen.

Although deeply disturbing, it is my opinion that this new found identity through the sense of being a Hindu is here to stay. Our pre-independence politics of mass arousal through Hindu symbols, both by the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha, clearly indicated the trend as started by Bankimchandra. It is no wonder that Bande Mataram was the rallying cry of the Congress during our struggle for Independence and is also considered to be our true National Anthem by the current rulers in India.

Are we reaching the “end of history” in India? To mimic the Marxist analogy, our history went through the “unorganised” form of Hindutva at the dawn of history, followed by invaders from the North who settled in India, thereby leading to a cultural fusion and expansion of commerce. The next stage was the imperialistic rule by the “enlightened” Europeans. The final phase, after a chaotic period, started taking shape with the BJP winning absolute majority in Parliament in 2014. Hegelian ideas of linear progress until the “end of history” is, however, not in our philosophical tradition. We believe in historical cycles. Many Hindus are hoping that 2014 signifies the beginning of the cycle from Kalyug to Ram Rajya. How we can bypass the Satya Jug remains a mystery.

The writer is former Dean and Emeritus Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, The Netherlands.

(Concluded)

37

HOUSING

HINDUSTAN TIMES, APR 26, 2017Buying a house in India will no longer be a nightmare

Among other welcome measures in the new law is a requirement that a real estate developer will have to put 70% of the money buyers give them in escrow accounts. This will end the present business model under which developers use customer payments to fund new real estate projects (Representative Photo)(Indranil Bhoumik/ Mint)

The Narendra Modi government has notified that the new Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act will come into effect from May 1. Every state should now create a real estate regulator in compliance with the new law. The consequences will be a sea-change for the better in a sector of the economy that is a byword in corruption, nepotism and customer abuse. The consequences may take some years to fructify, but at the end buying property should no longer be the Russian roulette that it is at present.

Among other welcome measures in the new law is a requirement that a real estate developer will have to put 70% of the money buyers give them in escrow accounts. This will end the present business model under which developers use customer payments to fund new real estate projects. If something went awry with the builders’ finances or clearances, buyers were left running from pillar to post trying to get their money back.

Making it worse for the customer was the political clout wielded by many real estate firms. They laundered money for politicians and bureaucrats in return for being able to break the rules with impunity, including when it came to land acquisition and construction approvals. As a study by the Institute for Public Finance and Policy calculated, almost 40% of money used to buy real estate was “black wealth”. The political connection was so close cement production in India was tied to the state election cycle. The fortunes of certain developers rose and fell depending on which party was in power.

The Modi government cannot be faulted in its determination to take on the dark side of real estate. The new anti-benami legislation is designed to allow tax authorities to go after those who have salted away black money in real estate through cut-outs. The real estate regulator should keep developers with suspect finances or crony backing from entering the market. Finally, the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, which has opened its door for business recently, will hopefully end the impasse over insolvent developers and their hundreds of thousands of half-finished properties.

38

JUDICIARY

TELEGRAPH, APR 26, 2017Ways of the judiciary- The blindfold of justice must always remain in place

Prabhat Patnaik

Last month, the Supreme Court made two important pronouncements in the space of just a few days. One was on the question of who had ownership rights over the land at the Babri Masjid site; the other was on the location of bars or liquor shops within five hundred metres of highways. On the first of these, the Supreme Court made only an oral observation: it suggested an out-of-court settlement, with the chief justice himself offering to act as an intermediary in the negotiations. On the second, the Supreme Court passed an order that no bars or liquor shops could be located within this five-hundred-metre limit.

The irony here was quite striking. The Babri Masjid issue was specifically entrusted to the Supreme Court for adjudication; the whole country was waiting with bated breath for what the highest judiciary would say on the matter. But it chose not to say anything. On the other hand, the location of liquor shops and bars is not a judicial matter at all; it is for the executive to take a decision on it, but the Supreme Court had no hesitation in wading into it. It was a case of judicial underreach on a matter falling squarely within the domain of the judiciary, but of judicial overreach on a matter that did not fall within the judiciary's domain at all.

Had this overreach and underreach been just random occurrences, they would not merit any comment. But there is a disturbing common pattern underlying both, namely that the proverbial blindness of justice appears to be absent in both cases. In fact, in the Babri Masjid case, this was explicitly stated by the judges themselves, namely that in matters that arouse public passion, it is best to have negotiated settlements. This is an unfortunate position for the highest judiciary in the country to take, since it is precisely in matters that arouse public passion that the judiciary can act as a bulwark against such passion and ensure that justice is done. Indeed, those who are at the receiving end of such passion, namely the minority community (since in all such conflicts, greater weight is naturally carried by those who generate passions among the majority), look up to the judiciary for justice, since they know that they cannot get it on the streets. For the judiciary, therefore, to turn its back on the matter because passions are involved, is an evasion of constitutional responsibility, a taking off of the blindfold that should be covering its eyes.

The Supreme Court in this case did not just refrain from doing its constitutional duty. It was actually unfair to the minority community in suggesting that the matter should be settled through negotiations. The outcome of all negotiations is determined by the relative bargaining strengths of the negotiating parties, and the one with the greater bargaining strength, the Hindutva elements in this case, need not have justice on its side. The ends of justice and the outcome of bargaining are two entirely different things, and a substitution of one for the other is not only an evasion of responsibility on the part of the highest body entrusted with the task

39

of ensuring justice in the country, but also unfair to the party whose bargaining strength is weaker. It is ironic, but entirely unsurprising, that the new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a strong Hindutva partisan in the Babri Masjid dispute, has offered his "services" for effecting the proposed negotiations; what fairness can be expected by the minority community from such negotiations?

×

The unfairness is particularly acute in the present instance because the legal case of the Muslim bodies is very strong. This is so, as the judge, Rajinder Sachar, has pointed out, for at least three reasons: first, nobody can possibly prove that Ram's birthplace was at that particular site, and faith, no matter how ardent, is no substitute here for evidence. Second, even if a Ram temple had existed there (on this again there is no evidence) on which the Babri Masjid was constructed 500 years ago, that land, going by legal precedent, cannot be given back to today's Rambhakts (even if they are the authentic legal heirs of the temple authorities of 500 years ago). This legal precedent relates to the Shahidganj Mosque in Lahore, on whose site, allegedly, a Sikh gurdwara had been constructed two centuries ago; and the Privy Council in pre-Independence India had ruled that the earlier existence of a mosque could not be an argument for dispossessing the Sikhs. And, third, in analogy with the common law provision that even a rightful heir forfeits inheritance if he has killed his ancestor, the Hindutva parties cannot get possession of that land as they had destroyed the mosque standing upon it (in defiance of a Supreme Court order).

It may of course be suggested that a Supreme Court verdict that gives rise to street unrest is best avoided. But that is a dangerous argument, for it amounts to saying that street unrest should be allowed to override the constitutional order of the country. If this order is to be upheld, which is essential for keeping this country together, then the prospects of street unrest must not be allowed to come in its way. There is of course a "practical" argument for not provoking street unrest; but if that is considered weighty enough, then the Supreme Court judgment in this case could have been kept in abeyance until passions had cooled sufficiently. Substituting the task of "accommodating" the Hindutva elements for that of upholding the constitutional order, which is also what the Allahabad High Court had sought to do some years earlier, sets a dangerous precedent, which, one hopes, the Supreme Court would resile from in the coming days when its proposed negotiations prove to be stillborn, as is likely.

As for the other pronouncement, there has long been a tendency on the part of the Indian judiciary to encroach upon the domains of the other two organs of the State, the executive and the legislature. In fact a former chief justice of India had even advanced the somewhat extravagant and dangerous thesis that the judiciary is superior to the other two organs, a thesis that strikes at the root of popular sovereignty. But even those in the judiciary who do not subscribe to this extravagant thesis have not been loath to encroach on the domains of the other organs of the State.

True, there may be occasions when clipping the wings of the other organs by the judiciary becomes necessary for the preservation of democracy, for instance, when the Supreme Court

40

had delivered the historic judgment for preserving the "basic structure" of the Constitution which was being trampled upon, albeit in an apparently constitutional manner, during Indira Gandhi's Emergency. In fact, in the current juncture when "communal-fascism" threatens the country, one would like the judiciary to maintain its independence and stand up to the other organs of the State to defend the "basic structure" of our Constitution which inter alia upholds a secular-democratic polity.

But the judiciary's standing firm on the defence of the constitutional order is one thing; its giving specific instructions about the distance at which liquor shops should be located from highways is quite another. Indeed, one cannot help feeling that in giving this order, which, in spite of its far-reaching consequences for employment and state government revenues, does not appear to have been based on any proper study of the issue, the court once again removed its blindfold and got persuaded by the prevailing anti-alcohol mood of which Bihar presents the clearest manifestation.

There is, however, a basic problem with such judicial overreach. When the executive issues an order, people have the freedom to protest against it in forms that range from lobbying, to petitions, to street demonstrations, to demanding parliamentary debates. But when the judiciary makes such an executive intervention, there is no similar redress available to the people. Now, one does not want this state of affairs to change, that is, for judicial orders to be challenged in ways that are not judicial, since that would undermine the status of the judiciary, to the detriment of our democracy. It becomes necessary for the judiciary therefore, if it is to preserve its sanctity and dignity, to restrain itself, not to enter the domain of the other organs of the State, to ask the other organs to frame appropriate policy when it feels exercised over some matter (instead of itself doing their job). One hopes that in this case too, as in the Babri Masjid case, the highest court of the land would rectify its position to preserve its own dignity, and the constitutional order for which such dignity is essential.

The author is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

41

LIBRARIES

TIMES OF INDIA, APR 24, 2017Facelift for Central Library

BENGALURU: The government will modernize the State Central Library in Cubbon Park to

bring it on a par with libraries in Chennai and Kolkata, primary and secondary education

minister Tanvir Sait said on Sunday.

Among other things, he said there'll be a separate section for children, besides putting in

place infrastructure for senior citizens and other members. Sait was speaking at the inauguration

of the renovated State Central Library building. He said the proposed modernization will cost an

estimated Rs 1.36 crore, which will include contribution from the National Library, an

undertaking of the Union ministry of culture. There are 3.64 lakh books in the Central Library,

while the district libraries have 1 lakh books.

"It is hard to reprint them, so we are trying to digitize the books. Nearly 50,000 have been

digitized," he said.

42

OLD AGE

ECONOMIC TIMES, APR 24, 2017Government to ensure 60-year limit followed for senior citizen benefit

The MWPSC Act defines senior citizens as any person who is a citizen of India and has attained the age of '60 years and above'.

NEW DELHI: The government wants ministries, departments and also private agencies to adopt '60 years' as the uniform age criterion to define senior citizens as to address anomalies in extending benefits to the elderly.

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is contemplating to bring in an amendment in the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (MWPSC) Act, 2007, to implement this change.

The MWPSC Act defines senior citizens as any person who is a citizen of India and has attained the age of '60 years and above'.

The phrase '... and above' is being manipulated by several agencies to deny benefits under senior-citizen clauses by adopting different age limits, a government official said.

"It came to our notice that several government departments have adopted different age criteria for extending the benefits and the concessions meant for the elderly. Similarly, some private insurance companies have set different age limits," the official said.

The eligibility criteria for extending travel concessions to senior citizens by Air India was until recently 63 years. Last week, the national carrier lowered it to 60 years.

According to the official, the Air India issue was taken up by former social justice minister Kumari Selja during the previous UPA government but had remained unresolved.

The Social Justice Ministry again took it up recently with Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, following which the age limit was revised.

In the Indian Railways, the eligibility for availing of concessions in the basic fares for women is '58 years and above' while for men it is '60 years and above'.

43

PARLIAMENT

HINDUSTAN TIMES, APR 28, 2017There can be no perks in perpetuity for lawmakers

This sense of entitlement is so deep that some lawmakers --- and their families after their deaths --- refuse to leave their official accommodation or give up other perks

Lawmakers in India are entitled to houses in the toniest of localities, vehicles and personal staff, free travel and telephone calls.

A beginning of a new financial year for appraisals in the private sector. Now the Rajasthan

government seems to be following suit. On Wednesday, the BJP government increased the salary

and allowances of the chief minister, ministers, legislators as well as the pension for former

lawmakers after the assembly passed the Rajasthan Minister’s Salaries (Second Amendment)

Bill, 2017. The proposed increase in salaries is estimated to involve a recurring expenditure of

about Rs 1.55 crore per annum. The basic salary of an MLA has been increased from Rs 15,000

to Rs 25,000; travel allowance from Rs 1.5 lakh (annually) to Rs 2 lakh; secretarial allowance

from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000; daily allowance from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500; sumptuary (in other

words, food) allowance from Rs 30,000 to Rs 45,000; and vehicle allowance from Rs 20,000 to

Rs 30,000. “Looking to the present level of prices, the existing salary and sumptuary allowance

payable appears to be inadequate. Under these circumstances, it has been considered expedite to

increase the salary and sumptuary allowance…,” chief minister Vasundhara Raje said.

Even if we take these as modest raises, what is absolutely galling is what the state has decided to

give former chief ministers: They will get for the remainder of their lives a government

residence, a car that members of his or her family can also use, a telephone, and a staff of 10,

including a driver. These facilities are available to former chief ministers, but through executive

orders. But now they have got constitutional sanctity.

44

In no other country do public representatives get perks in perpetuity. In India, of course, the

scene is different: Lawmakers are entitled to houses in the toniest of localities, vehicles and

personal staff, free travel and telephone calls. This sense of entitlement is so deep that some

lawmakers --- and their families after their deaths --- refuse to leave their official accommodation

or give up other perks. This penchant for squatting in government bungalows has also started

afflicting bureaucrats. In 2014, the government had to disconnect power and water connections

to the houses of around 30 former MPs and cabinet ministers who refused to vacate their plush

bungalows in spite of several eviction notices. There is nothing wrong in paying lawmakers well

according to market rates, but there should be no perks in perpetuity for them.

45

POLICE

HINDU, APR 27, 2017Politics and the police

The SC verdict reinstating a DGP limitsthe political executive’s discretion in transfers

In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in the Prakash Singh case that the chief of a State police

force should have a fixed tenure of at least two years. Despite this, State governments have

failed to protect Directors General of Police from arbitrary transfers. In the event of a

regime change following an election, new political dispensations assume they have an

unfettered right to reshuffle officers in the civil and police services. Rarely has this

assumption been challenged. The Supreme Court’s ruling reinstating T.P. Senkumar, who

was replaced as head of the Kerala police soon after the Left Democratic Front assumed

office last year, reinforces its 2006 judgment. It limits significantly the discretion enjoyed

by the political executive in effecting transfers at whim. Expanding on the import of

the Prakash Singh verdict, in which the court had given directions to insulate the police from

external pressure and political influence, a two-judge Bench has delineated the limits of the

State government’s subjective satisfaction in removing the DGP. No longer is it valid for the

government to justify a DGP’s removal on the vague ground that it has reached a prima

facie conclusion that the public is unhappy with the efficiency of the force. The

government’s ‘subjective satisfaction’ about the state of affairs must be based on “cogent

and rational material”, the court has ruled. On going through the record, the Bench found

there was no material adverse to Mr. Senkumar, except some opinions and views.

The verdict is undoubtedly a political setback to Kerala’s LDF government, which is already

battling controversies caused by the words and deeds of a few ministers. The Pinarayi

Vijayan government had defended its transfer of Mr. Senkumar by citing dissatisfaction

among the public about the efficiency of the police following the Puttingal fireworks

tragedy in Kollam and the murder of a Dalit woman named Jisha in April 2016. However,

the court noted that these issues had “suddenly resurfaced” more than a month after the

incidents — that is, after the present regime assumed office. In a telling indictment, the

court has observed: “This might perhaps be a coincidence, but it might also be politically

motivated…” The LDF government must immediately abide by the order to reinstate Mr.

Senkumar, whose original two-year tenure was to have ended on May 21, 2017, and who is

46

due to retire in June. However, the legal import of the verdict is not confined to Kerala.

State governments would do well to implement the measures outlined in Prakash Singh , the

message of which was that the police must be answerable to the rule of law and not to

political masters. In particular, every State should set up a State Security Commission —

Kerala has one — to both guide the police and decide on top police appointments and

transfers.

47

POPULATION

HINDU, APR 28, 2017India’s population storyDiego Palacios

Even after fertility rates drop to replacement levels, the totalpopulation will still grow

Evidence from India’s last Census in 2011, confirmed by data from the recent National

Family Health Survey 2017 (NFHS-4), shows that fertility in India is fast approaching

replacement levels. This means that couples will have children who will essentially replace

their number, to stabilise population growth. The NFHS-4 shows that in the past decade, the

average number of children per family has come down from 2.7 to 2.2. With replacement

fertility being 2.1 children per woman, this is good news for the land and the people.

Even after fertility rates drop to replacement levels, the total population will still grow, and

is likely to reach 1.7 billion by 2050. The thrust of this growth will come from the youth

bulge, with 365 million (10-24 years old) already in, or soon to enter, their reproductive

ages. Even if they have children only in numbers that replace themselves, the resultant

growth due to such a large base of young people will drive the growth momentum for

population. For India as a whole, 75% of population growth in the coming decade will be

due to this momentum.

In States like Assam, Gujarat and Haryana, which are about to reach replacement levels, it

would be more effective to adopt policies for delaying childbearing rather than limiting

births. Fertility reduction, where it still needs to take place, must come from increased

availability and use of quality family planning services.

Demand-supply of working population

When States are clustered in terms of fertility levels, one foresees a predominantly youthful

north and an ageing south. Most of the current and future demographic potential is locked in

the northern States and largely located in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha,

Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. In the south, there will be a dearth of young working people

to keep up and expand the level of economic development. Investing in young people in the

north to realise the demographic dividend will be a win-win situation for all India, north and

south.

48

From the policy perspective, this means that for India as a whole, it is time for the emphasis

to be on momentum-focussed policies and programmes.

Several newspapers reported that the Prime Minister will soon chair a meeting of the

National Population Commission, in order to take stock of the situation and chart out the

path ahead, especially keeping population stabilisation in mind. This is welcome news

indeed. The National Health Policy 2017 emphasises quality of care and commitment to

sustainable development, and positions improved access, education and empowerment as

the basis for population stabilisation. It is now for States to align their own health and

population policies to the national ones.

Diego Palacios is country representative, India, and country director, Bhutan, for the United

Nations Population Fund

ECONOMIC TIMES, APR 26, 2017Yogi Adityanath government to roll out a new family planning scheme in Uttar PradeshBy Aman Sharma

Yogi govt is also planning to roll out a new contraceptive injection, where women opting for it will be paid an incentive of Rs 100 per shot.

LUCKNOW: Free condom boxes at strategic locations in cities and villages, a kit for newly-wed couples with packs of condoms, emergency contraceptive pills and a pregnancy testing kit, and saas-bahu sammelans are Uttar Pradesh government's latest tools to drive home the message of family planning in its post populous districts.

The Yogi Adityanath government has decided to roll out a new central family planning scheme, 'Mission Parivar Vikas' in UP, which his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav ignored despite the centre's directions last November.

On November 10, the union health ministry had written to seven states, seeking family planning intervention to address maternal and infant mortalities. It said 145 high-fertility districts in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam with total fertility rate (TFR) of 3 and above account for 28% of India's population and 30% of maternal deaths and nearly 50% of infant deaths.

The scheme targets 145 districts in the seven states which have a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 3 and over- implying a woman on average bears three or more children here. UP has the highest - 57 of its 75 districts - under the scheme. UP as a whole has a 3.3 TFR and contributes most to India's high population growth.

"It is directed that the scheme, which as per the centre's direction was to be started from

49

November 10, 2016, will stand initiated from the date of this order," UP's additional chief secretary, Arun Kumar Sinha, said in an order issued on April 24. The order has been sent to DMs and chief medical officers of 57 districts.

The scheme aims to bring down TFR in these districts to 2.1 by 2025. In UP, 11 districts have TFR above 4 including Bahraich and Balrampur at 4.8 and Siddharthnagar at 4.9.

Among the districts with low fertility rates, and hence out of the scheme's purview, are Varanasi (TFR 2.3), Rahul Gandhi's Amethi, and the CM's Gorakhpur (TFR 2.7). Urban districts like Kanpur, Noida, Ghaziabad and Lucknow also have low fertility rates.

The new scheme includes measures like a family planning kit for newly-weds in rural areas worth Rs 220 - which will include two packs of three condoms, a marriage registration form, five contraceptive pills and two pregnancy test kits. Free condom boxes will be put up at strategic locations like health facilities and gram panchayat bhawans.

A new contraceptive injection is being rolled out, where women opting for it will be paid an incentive of Rs 100 per shot.

Nearly 47,000 nurses and Asha workers would be trained to give these injectables. Financial incentives for those undergoing sterilisation procedures like tubectomy and vasectomy have been hiked under the scheme by 50% to Rs 2000 and Rs 3000.

Saas-bahu sammelans are planned for rural areas to facilitate improved communication between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law through interactive games and exercises to bring about change in attitudes.

ET View: Raise Awareness, Empower Women

The UP government's focus to have a stable population and ensure improved access for womens' healthcare is welcome. Priority should also be given to programmes that educate women to influence their health and consequently their overall well being. Raising awareness will empower them to take critical decisions. This is superior to incentivising sterilisation.

50

PROHIBITION

STATESMAN, APR 28, 2017Why prohibition has worked in BiharD. N. Sahaya

Bihar completed one year of prohibition on April 1 this year, which significantly coincided with the centenary of Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagrah. No homage to Gandhiji would have been more eloquent that prohibition, a core Gandhian thought.

On 9 July 2015 in the State level conference on “Gram Varta”, self-help groups and women participants expressed concern over growing alcoholism in the state and asked for prohibition. In the Gram Varta itself, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made known his intent to introduce prohibition in the state if he was returned to power in the Vidhan Sabha election. True to his pledge, on return of the Grand Alliance to power the CM announced the enforcement of prohibition in the state from 1 April 2016.

The doubt-digit decadal economic growth of the state raised rural household incomes significantly and this led to increased consumption of alcohol. There was a rise in the number of apprentice bingers who graduated to alcoholics. Alcoholism wrought injury to physical health, nutrition, domestic harmony, dignity of women and deadened individuals.

Alcohol cast its shadow on not only economically weaker sections but also on youth as revealed in the course of raids on student hostels. Women who run households suffered the most, both physical torture and financial crunch. Real time narratives pouring in through media reports, day in and day out, exposed the dark patches and viciousness of alcoholism. An inebriated father raped his daughter, another alcoholic father killed his son on his refusal to part with his tuition fees and a husband killed his wife for not parting with her savings from daily wage earnings to fetch liquor for her husband.

The spectacle of alcohol horror simmering for some time erupted into widespread people’s outrage. Women’s organisations became active and burnt liquor vends. Women refused to marry alcoholic men and deserted alcoholic husbands; a father got his son arrested for bootlegging and in some places alcoholics were fined and the amount went to noble causes. As a climax, an exceptional and unique human chain was formed on 21 January 2016 by millions of people including children, students and teachers, NGOs and civil society members to voice unstinted support to prohibition.

Prohibition changed social, ethical, economic and domestic contours and brought cheer and smiles to the lips of afflicted families as money saved on liquor got ploughed into rural and urban households for a better living. This brought about a great improvement in rural life and improved quality of living. Crime and public order statistics showed improvement.

According to the government, statistics have shown a downswing in various forms of crime such as murder, dacoity, robbery, kidnapping for ransom, serious rioting, women’s harassment, road

51

accidents, and domestic violence ranging from 20 to 35 per cent. The downswing was more pronounced in cases of domestic violence and kidnapping for ransom compared to the statistics of 2015-16. In parallel, there was sharp increase in seizures of liquor and drugs.

Nevertheless, prohibition has many a handicap to overcome, mainly the augmentation of revenue loss to the tune of Rs. 50 billion. Some opposition leaders have voiced concern and stated that there has been a marked fall in collection of commercial taxes. On the other hand, the Chief Minister exuded confidence that total revenue generated in the financial year 2016-17 was almost the same as before and that the gap was expected to be bridged through fiscal discipline and prudence as well as new avenues of taxes.

The government presented an enhanced budget for the current financial year and the trajectory of development programmes surged unhindered to show that the financial health of the state was not worrisome. All the same, the impact of the loss of revenue on account of prohibition must be watched in coming days.

Twenty-two of Bihar’s 38 districts share porous borders with U.P., Jharkhand; many share an international border with Nepal. This offers a passage for smuggling liquor and drugs. Police and Excise agencies keep a vigil and conduct raids to stop sale and consumption. Government is committed to the enforcement of the Bihar Excise Act, a stringent law which the opposition has branded draconian. District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police have been entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing prohibition to ensure innocent persons are not harassed.

Bihar has crafted a broad and synergetic eco-system of information dissemination and reached out to civil society, women’s organisations, NGOs, teachers, self-help groups and ASHA workers to secure the flow of information related to violation of excise laws. Lot of information has poured in through those sources and has been put to use to enforce prohibition. Simultaneously, de-addiction centres have been set up at all district headquarters to provide medical care, medicines and counseling.

Penal and punitive measures are not the only route as the Government has used the social awareness route to create awareness of and diffuse knowledge about its alcoholism and prohibition policy. The Chief Minister has toured extensively to make this point.

The buzz that prohibition would crumble under the weight of revenue loss and adverse impact on hospitality industry and tourism is now silenced.

The movement has grown robust and vibrant and distinctly its crescendo has reached across the country. With dexterity Nitish Kumar welded prohibition into a national movement and gave a fiilip to it. What distinguished the enforcement of prohibition in Bihar from prohibition-bound states of Gujarat, Nagaland, Manipur (partially) and Mizoram was that it was not a mere administrative façade devoid of missionary fervor. Bihar shaped prohibition into a vibrant mission and robust movement.

To make a choice between prohibition and alcoholism was indeed a hard one. Yet Nitish Kumar went in for prohibition, sustained revenue loss and responded to the well-being and happiness of

52

people, the essence of democracy. He did not compromise even though it was revenue earner. His resolution will ensure that he does not retreat on prohibition.

The writer is ex-Governor, Chattisgarh and Tripura and former chairman, A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna.

53

PUBLIC FINANCE

ECONOMIC TIMES, APR 24, 2017PM Narendra Modi pitches for advancing financial year to January-December

NEW DELHI:After advancing the budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have set the ball rolling on another crucial reform – changing the financial year to January-December. He asked states to take initiatives on the proposal, which has already seen several suggestions. Modi also told the states to seriously consider governance issues that are holding back speedier development and to speed up capital expenditure and infrastructure creation to lift growth.

“He said that there have been suggestions to have the financial year from January to December. He urged states to take the initiative in this regard,” according to an official statement released after the Niti Aayog Governing Council meeting.

A panel headed by Shankar Acharya, former chief economic advisor, to examine changing the financial year, has already submitted its report to the government. India follows April-March as the financial year, while globally the calendar year is the financial year.

“Good governance leads to optimum utilisation of resources even when resources are less than desired,” said Modi, who is the chairman of the Niti Aayog.

Reiterating that a constructive discussion has begun on the subject of holding Union and state elections simultaneously, Modi said, “India had for long suffered from economic and political mismanagement as a result of which many good initiatives and schemes had failed to deliver the anticipated results.”

The third meeting of the governing council at the Rashtrapati Bhavan was attended by chief ministers of 27 states. They included chief minsters of non-BJP ruled states such as Punjab, Bihar, Karnataka and Tripura.

Consensus on GST Lauded

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal skipped the meeting. Kejriwal was represented by Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

Reiterating that there had been a 40% increase in overall fund allocation to states between 2014-15 and 2016-17, Modi urged states to speed up capital expenditure and infrastructure creation. He acknowledged the contribution of states in pushing the country’s most comprehensive indirect taxation reform – the Goods and Services Tax – keeping ideological and political differences aside. “GST reflects the spirit of ‘one nation, one aspiration, one determination’… Consensus on GST will go down in history as a great illustration of cooperative federalism,” Modi said, reiterating that the legislative arrangements at the state-level for GST should be put in place without delay. While delivering the opening remarks, the Prime Minister said that “Team India” has once again assembled to discuss and reflect on ways to prepare the country for changing global trends. “Vision of ‘New India’ can only be realised through the combined effort

54

and cooperation of all states and their chief ministers,” Modi said, according to the official statement. He urged all stakeholders to decide goals for 2022 and work in mission mode towards achieving them.

NITI INITIATIVES

Hailing the initiatives of the Aayog over the past two years, Modi said the think tank’s long, medium and short-term action plans would benefit all states. “Niti Aayog is working on a 15-year long-term vision, seven-year medium term strategy and three-year action agenda,” he told the meeting, which was also attended by Union ministers and senior officials. Modi sought remarks from all chief ministers on a draft action plan unveiled by the Aayog. Speaking of the historic change in the budget presentation date to February 1 from February 28, the Prime Minister said this would enable timely availability of funds at the beginning of the financial year. Stating that in a country where agriculture income is exceedingly important, budgets should be prepared immediately after the receipt of agriculture income for the year.

The Rangarajan Committee in 2011 had found several important items of expenditure included as ‘non-plan’ and hence neglected. “Hereafter the emphasis would be on distinguishing between development and welfare expenditure on one hand, and administrative overheads on the other,” he said, explaining the rationale behind doing away with the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure.

Modi noted that the theme of regional imbalance was raised by many chief ministers. “He agreed that this has to be addressed on priority, both nationally, and within states,” according to the official statement.

He urged all states to take interest in the students of J&K after the issue was raised by the state’s chief minister. Noting the invitation from the J&K chief minister, Modi urged states to organise events there. Modi called upon states to use the government e-marketplace (GeM) to reduce corruption and increase transparency in procurement. He reiterated that the use of BHIM and Aadhaar would result in significant savings for states.

55

RAILWAYS

PIONEER, APR 24, 2017Double-decker overnight AC train to be launched in July

The Indian Railways will launch in July the Utkrisht Double-Decker AC Yatri (Uday) Express, a special class service for overnight journey that will ply on high-demand routes.

Equipped with comfortable reclining chairs, the 120- seater AC coach will have large automatic food and tea/cold drink vending machines for passengers.

Uday service will ply on high-demand routes like Delhi- Lucknow and the fare will be lower than that of 3AC class in regular mail/express trains.

There will be large LCD screens in every coach with Wi- Fi speaker system.

The USP of the double-decker Uday is providing better passenger amenities in less than 3AC fare, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

Since the train will have 40 per cent more carrying capacity than other trains, it will help the public transporter clear the rush in high-demand routes.

Though it will not have sleeper berths despite being an overnight service, measures have been taken to make the journey comfortable with many added facilities, the official said.

There will be comfortable seats with adequate leg space to relax at night. The interior of coaches will be aesthetically designed to give a modern look besides being equipped with bio-toilets.

As far as catering is concerned, there will be facility for providing pre-cooked hot food from food vending boxes in each coach.

The train announced in rail budget 2016-17 is slated to run at a speed of 110 km speed per hour on high density routes.

56

RELIGION

DECCAN HERALD, APR 28, 2017UP govt to erect boundary walls around religious places

Uttar Pradesh government has decided to erect boundary walls around important religious places following intelligence inputs that terrorists, dressed a 'sadhus' (sage) could launch attacks on such places in the state.

The directives were given by chief minister Yogi Adityanath at a meeting with the officials of the religious endowment department here on Wednesday night.

Adityanath also directed the officials to construct four lane approach roads to all important religious places and provide better facilities to the pilgrims at these places.An alert had been sounded across UP and security had been beefed up at all important religious and public places after intelligence agencies warned that terrorists, dressed as 'sadhus' (sage) could launch attacks in the state at religious places.

Sources said that the MP police, in a letter to their UP counterpart, had said that over a dozen ISI-trained terrorists, dressed as 'sadhus' planned to attack important religious places in the state.

TELEGRAPH, APR 24, 2017The trial of Ayodhya- A dark December day that wounded the nation

Manini Chatterjee

Uma Bharti deserves full marks for her candour, for saying it as it is, for reminding us -lest we had forgotten - the truth behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya that dark December day in 1992.

The Union water resource minister's comments on April 19 came within hours of the Supreme Court decision to club the trial of L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and other top Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders with that of hundreds of kar sevaks who are being tried at a special court in Lucknow for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

The two judge bench of Justice P.C. Ghose and Rohinton F. Nariman invoked Article 142 of the Constitution which states: "The Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it..."

Justifying the invocation of its sweeping powers, the judges noted: "The Latin maxim fiat justitia ruat caelum is what first comes to mind on a reading of Article 142 - let justice be done though the heavens fall."

57

These were strong words indeed and underlined that the bench was well aware of the implications of reviving the case and sending to trial leaders of a political persuasion that is now in power with a brute majority both in the state of Uttar Pradesh and at the Centre.

In a refreshing reminder that the demolition was not merely the bringing down of "an old structure" (as the saffron brigade has always sought to portray it), the order said, "In the present case, crimes which shake the secular fabric of the Constitution of India have allegedly been committed almost 25 years ago."

The bench not only clubbed the two trials into a joint one, but ordered a day-to-day hearing from the current stage to be completed in two years. All the accused face a plethora of charges including "criminal conspiracy", a charge that has been restored in the case of Advani, Joshi, Bharti, et al.

Bharti seized on the word, "conspiracy", to declare that she was not guilty. " Koi saazish nahin thi. Sab kuch khullam khulla tha (There was no conspiracy. Everything was in the open)", the once fiery sanyasin declared, adding that she was immensely proud of having participated in the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and was dedicated to the construction of the temple.

In contrast to the studied silence of the BJP brass to the Supreme Court order, Bharti may have come across as aggressive and unrepentant. But the fact is she was also exposing the truth underlying the crime at Ayodhya, a truth that was obscured by the legalese that got embedded in the case after the mosque was brought down by rampaging kar sevaks (volunteers).

The charge of "conspiracy" came to overshadow its "criminal" prefix and the physical destruction of the mosque was given greater importance than the long chain of events that enabled it.

The dictionary meaning of conspiracy is, "A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful." Much effort has been expended on trying to prove that a small group of kar sevaks were secretly trained to effect the demolition - and that a select few leaders (including the accused) were privy to this secret plan.

The point, however, is it does not really matter. Whether or not a secret plot had been hatched, the stark truth is what happened in Ayodhya that winter afternoon was the culmination of an open, brazen, highly publicized, cynically manipulated, ideologically guided and politically orchestrated movement led from the front by Advani and backed by the BJP apparatus, in addition to the entire sangh parivar.

It might seem difficult to believe today, but till the late 1980s, even after the Faizabad court ordered the unlocking of the gates of the disputed structure in 1986, the Ramjanmabhoomi issue did not figure in the consciousness of the vast mass of ordinary Hindus. Nor had it been mentioned in the writings of Hindutva ideologues.

The VHP began giving calls for the "liberation" of a temple at the "exact spot" where Lord Rama was born in the 1980s but it acquired a life of its own only after the BJP decided to

58

support the demand in its Palampur resolution in June 1989. Advani followed that up with the rath yatra in September 1990 - a month-long journey across eight states with the avowed aim of creating "the biggest mass movement since Independence".

And all through the rath yatra, Advani spoke out against "minority appeasement" and "pseudo secularism" while the storm troopers kept up an unrelenting chorus of "mandir wahin banayenge" and " ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tod do." These slogans and the fervent mobilization continued apace even after Advani's arrest, leading to bloody riots, but also helping the BJP win its first majority government in Uttar Pradesh in 1991.

That victory did not lead to a new sense of responsibility; it only whetted the appetite for further polarization, a more aggressive show of strength against the minorities - not unlike what we are witnessing in the state all over again. And, so, despite appeals for patience, for negotiations, or for a court order, the BJP-RSS-VHP leadership insisted on mobilizing a huge gathering at the disputed site on December 6, 1992 - assuring the Supreme Court that the kar sevaks would only sing bhajans and offer prayers from a distance. Instead, the leaders made fiery speeches.

BJP supporters insist that the frenzy that followed was a spontaneous outpouring of "mass sentiment". But if it wasn't a conspiracy, it was not a case of "mob fury" either. A mob is an inchoate mass that can erupt into violence by a sudden provocation. The gathering at Ayodhya, in contrast, had been nurtured and nourished by a steady dose of incendiary propaganda, mobilized by a political party and its affiliates and granted impunity by State power.

Advani claimed to be shocked at the manner in which the mosque was destroyed before his eyes and declared it to be the "saddest day" of his life. Even if true, it does not absolve him of blame: to instigate a volatile mass movement and then lose control of it is an abject failure of leadership that only compounds the crime.

The demolition of the Babri Masjid created a permanent wound in the soul of India and left a trail of sectarian savagery - riots across the country, the Bombay blasts, the Godhra and post-Godhra violence - that is yet to find closure.

The Supreme Court order might speed up the trial in a Lucknow court and may even lead to some convictions. But the larger trial of Ayodhya will not end till the charioteers and cheerleaders of the Ram temple movement secure a just resolution, a genuine reconciliation, a heartfelt atonement for the sin of vandalizing a 16th-century mosque and a 20th-century Constitution.

There is no sign of that happening. Buoyed by the relentless string of electoral victories and confident of returning to power in 2019, the BJP is likely to speed up its plans to build a grand temple at the disputed site.

What it does not realize is that no matter how 'magnificent' it turns out to be, if it comes up through majoritarian might, it will never equal or even come close to another edifice in another town of UP. For if the Taj Mahal is a timeless monument to eternal love, this will forever be a

59

supremacist symbol of triumphal hate, not a place for prayer and piety.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

60

DECCAN HERALD, APR 25, 2017Unique ID for cattle to check traffickingGovt informs SC about panel's suggestions

The committee, set up in pursuance of the court order, has recommended having tamper-proof identification of cattle by using polyurethane tags and a state-level data base may be uploaded at a website which may be linked with a national online database. Press Trust of India file photo

A unique identification number for animals has been suggested by an expert panel to evolve a mechanism to stop trafficking of cattle across the Indo-Bangla border, the Centre informed the Supreme Court.

The committee, set up in pursuance of the apex court order, has recommended having tamper-proof identification of cattle by using polyurethane tags and a state-level database may be uploaded at a website which may be linked with a national online database.

The recommendations were placed before a bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud which listed the petition filed by Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh for Tuesday for passing directions by considering these recommendations.

The issue before the apex court also included concern over smuggling of cattle to Nepal for being sacrificed at the Gadhimai festival, held once in five years, and a petition relating to it filed before the festival in 2014.

The instant petition concerning trafficking of cattle to Bangladesh was filed by Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh.

A similar plea was filed by animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi, seeking directions to the Centre and states like Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, which share the border with Nepal.

WOMEN

61

HINDUSTAN TIMES, APR 28, 2017Germany to ban civil servants, judges, soldiers from wearing full-face veil at work

The move comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called in December for a ban on full-face Muslim veils “wherever legally possible”.

Germany’s Bundestag lower house of parliament agreed to a draft law on Thursday that will

prevent civil servants, judges and soldiers in Germany from wearing full-face veils at work.

The move comes after Chancellor Angela Merkel called in December for a ban on full-face

Muslim veils “wherever legally possible”. There are five months to go before a federal election,

and her conservatives lost some support to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD)

during the migrant crisis.

More than a million migrants, many of them Muslims from the Middle East, have arrived in

Germany over the last two years, and concerns about integration are widespread.

“Integration also means that we should make clear and impart our values and where the

boundaries of our tolerance towards other cultures lie,” German interior minister Thomas de

Maiziere said. “The draft law we have agreed on makes an important contribution to that.”

In February, the southern state of Bavaria, ruled by the Christian Social Union (CSU) -- the

Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s conservatives -- said it would ban the full-face veil in schools,

universities, government workplaces and polling stations.

62