BRIJ BHARDWAJ
National Press Agency
There are few places more blessed with beauty, fertility and capacity to grow exotic spices, tea, coffee and coconuts. It is not without reason that the Kerala was described as God’s own country and flourished as a tourist destination as there are very few places which can match the beauty, color, fascination of backwaters and breath taking view of terraced gardens, exotic waterfalls and serene lakes, but life for its inhabitants remain hard forcing them to migrate in millions in search of jobs to other states in India and abroad.
One seriously wonders why a state so blessed with natural resources and people who work hard and are well qualified in terms of education and other skills have to leave their homes in search of jobs. What use is the full literacy and their ability for hard work as there are no avenues for employment within the State. The answer to these questions was provided by a veteran journalist now settled in Trivendrum after retirement. He said that some States progress because of bureaucrats with a missionary zeal or Politicians with a vision, but Kerala has been ill served by both. There is no IT hub or industry worth the name.
The result is that there is all-round corruption. The portfolios are divided on the basis of their ability to yield funds for running political parties. The situation has not changed even though the electorate throws out the coalition in power to be replaced by the other every five years, but it makes no difference to the ground situation. The State continues to thrive through migration, largest group over two millions in Gulf only who have built colorful houses in their old villages.
The bright hues, no colour being a taboo, provide the best advertisement for paint companies speaking about colorful homes and houses which continuing to shine despite rain and dust for years. The State can also boast of one industry which has been growing at a spectacular pace that is consumption of liquor. Alcohol sale is the largest money spinner for the State. Tourism is also a flourishing industry, but has suffered setbacks recently because of the world-wide recession. A number of charter flights has stopped, though Indian tourists who have discovered the beauty of this coastal State continue to visit in ever growing numbers.
This has also led to large scale illegal construction and encroachments in beauty spots like Munar which have not been demolished despite best efforts by State Chief Minister who is facing opposition from his own party men .No illegal structure comes up without the backing of a politician who are ready to do everything to protect them when threatened by the authorities. Why people accept this state of affairs is easy to explain as no viable alternative has emerged so far. Coalition politics makes for inefficient and corrupt administration and Kerala is no exception.
It, however, remains an ideal place for a holiday as state as a whole has high standard of hygiene. The roads are smooth and people are friendly. Its beautiful churches and historic temples are a delight. People gather in thousands and remain disciplined. There is no pushing or jostling. Eve teasing is unheard off. The sunset and sun rise have a beauty and charm which can not be compared with any sight in the world.
The State agencies, however leave much to be desired The most beautiful and unique wood palace in the country can charm anyone but visit to it is made difficult for one and all. Long distance has to be covered bare footed where sharp stones can easily injure the old and foreigners not used to walking without shoes. The lovely paintings are difficult to view or appreciate in the absence of lighting. The narrow staircase, lack of proper management make every visit a serious hazard. The State, however, has used the opportunity by posting large number of persons all-round who have little knowledge about history or the uniqueness of exhibits.
The boat trips in the lake in tiger sanctuary have been resumed after a break because of tragedy when a boat sank killing many because it was overloaded. There are, however, few animals to be seen few wild pigs and stags can be spotted during hour’s long journey. There is no denying that the state has unique attractions as a tourist destination an industry which can generate large number of jobs. This, however, will come when State gets around to improving its infrastructure and not rely only on ability of Ayurveda to revive and revitalize the tired bodies.
There is need to regulate markets selling spices and handlooms and stop the mushroom growth of Spas selling immediate cures and rejuvenation packages. Kerala hopes that setbacks in UAE and other destinations which provide hope to millions in Kerala will revive soon and continue to brighten its country-side with foreign remittances.
The author can be contacted at brj.bhardwaj@gmail.com
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, March 13, 2008
UN Rapporteur asks India to take steps to ensure Right to Food
The following is a press release issued by the Asian Legal Resources Centre, Hong Kong:
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food in his report to the Seventh UN Human Rights Council has expressed serious concerns regarding the right to food in India. The report dated February 29, 2008 has cited at least a dozen cases concerning the right to food in which the Rapporteur has requested the immediate attention and affirmative action of the Government of India.
In his communications with the government, the Rapporteur has expressed specific concern about the Public Food Distribution System (PDS) in India. Additionally, the Rapporteur has expressed concern about the non-accessibility to the government health services for the Dalit community in the rural and urban areas.
The Rapporteur has also cited instances of corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) programme in his report. Widespread corruption in the NREG systematically denies the programme’s benefit to the poor.
The cases cited by the Rapporteur were reported to his office by various non-governmental organizations within and outside India, including the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC). The ALRC has also made a written submission to the UN Human Rights Council on the issue of the right to food. The report titled ‘Starvation deaths ongoing due to administrative neglect’ prepared by the ALRC was released on 21 February 2008.
The Government of India’s delegation, in reply to the Rapporteur’s report, merely thanked the Rapporteur for his work and for his visit to India in 2005. In the statement made by the Government of India on March 11, 2008 the government has promised that it is considering implementing the recommendations made by the Rapporteur to prevent malnutrition and starvation in India. However, nothing is visible in India that demonstrates the performance of this promise or even a preparation for it.
This fact is proved by the death of 18-month-old Alina Shahin in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. Alina died on 13 September 2007. At the time of death, Alina was suffering from Grade IV malnutrition. In an attempt to save Alina’s life, her family had taken Alina to the local public health centre, where she was denied treatment. Alina’s sister who accompanied her to the health centre was assaulted by the staff at the centre. This case was reported by the AHRC to the Rapporteur and also to the Indian authorities. However, the Indian authorities did not take any action in this case. Alina’s case is sited in the Rapporteur’s report.
The ALRC in its written submission to the Seventh Human Rights Council has categorically stated that the concerns regarding the failure in ensuring the right to food cannot be addressed in India without taking concrete actions to prevent corruption within the government health care services and the PDS system in India. Concerning the malnutrition among the Dalit and the other lower caste communities, the ALRC in its submission has also pointed out that the continuation of the caste based discrimination in India is one more reason for starvation deaths in India.
In the recent past, the ALRC and the AHRC have also reported that human rights activists reporting cases of human rights violations from India are systematically targeted by the local administration to silence them. In a recent incident reported by the AHRC, the AHRC has expressed concern about the case of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) when its staff was charged with false cases under the direction of the Varanasi district administration.
Systematic denial of human rights is increasingly reported from India. In spite of this, the Government of India has initiated practically nothing to prevent human rights violations in India, particularly concerning the right to food and caste based discrimination. However, the Government of India wastes no opportunity to make promises and statements. The statement made by the Government of India at the seventh Human Rights Council is nothing but an addition to this empty rhetoric.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food in his report to the Seventh UN Human Rights Council has expressed serious concerns regarding the right to food in India. The report dated February 29, 2008 has cited at least a dozen cases concerning the right to food in which the Rapporteur has requested the immediate attention and affirmative action of the Government of India.
In his communications with the government, the Rapporteur has expressed specific concern about the Public Food Distribution System (PDS) in India. Additionally, the Rapporteur has expressed concern about the non-accessibility to the government health services for the Dalit community in the rural and urban areas.
The Rapporteur has also cited instances of corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) programme in his report. Widespread corruption in the NREG systematically denies the programme’s benefit to the poor.
The cases cited by the Rapporteur were reported to his office by various non-governmental organizations within and outside India, including the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC). The ALRC has also made a written submission to the UN Human Rights Council on the issue of the right to food. The report titled ‘Starvation deaths ongoing due to administrative neglect’ prepared by the ALRC was released on 21 February 2008.
The Government of India’s delegation, in reply to the Rapporteur’s report, merely thanked the Rapporteur for his work and for his visit to India in 2005. In the statement made by the Government of India on March 11, 2008 the government has promised that it is considering implementing the recommendations made by the Rapporteur to prevent malnutrition and starvation in India. However, nothing is visible in India that demonstrates the performance of this promise or even a preparation for it.
This fact is proved by the death of 18-month-old Alina Shahin in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. Alina died on 13 September 2007. At the time of death, Alina was suffering from Grade IV malnutrition. In an attempt to save Alina’s life, her family had taken Alina to the local public health centre, where she was denied treatment. Alina’s sister who accompanied her to the health centre was assaulted by the staff at the centre. This case was reported by the AHRC to the Rapporteur and also to the Indian authorities. However, the Indian authorities did not take any action in this case. Alina’s case is sited in the Rapporteur’s report.
The ALRC in its written submission to the Seventh Human Rights Council has categorically stated that the concerns regarding the failure in ensuring the right to food cannot be addressed in India without taking concrete actions to prevent corruption within the government health care services and the PDS system in India. Concerning the malnutrition among the Dalit and the other lower caste communities, the ALRC in its submission has also pointed out that the continuation of the caste based discrimination in India is one more reason for starvation deaths in India.
In the recent past, the ALRC and the AHRC have also reported that human rights activists reporting cases of human rights violations from India are systematically targeted by the local administration to silence them. In a recent incident reported by the AHRC, the AHRC has expressed concern about the case of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) when its staff was charged with false cases under the direction of the Varanasi district administration.
Systematic denial of human rights is increasingly reported from India. In spite of this, the Government of India has initiated practically nothing to prevent human rights violations in India, particularly concerning the right to food and caste based discrimination. However, the Government of India wastes no opportunity to make promises and statements. The statement made by the Government of India at the seventh Human Rights Council is nothing but an addition to this empty rhetoric.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Communist party conference: the Chinese parallel
Kerala views the State conference of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), due to be held at Kottayam in the next few days, as the last item of a long process. Actually an even more important event is to follow: the all-India party congress, to be held at Coimbatore.
That event is not receiving much attention for two reasons. One is that there is no power struggle at the national level, as there is in the State. The other is that the leaders and rank and file of the party in the State have developed the mentality of a regional party.
From its birth, the CPI (M) has followed the system of democratic centralism, evolved by the world communist movement. The Kerala conferences revealed both its strength and weakness. For the first time in the party’s history, the central leadership had provided guidelines for the conduct of conferences with a view to checking the sectarianism that has been raging in the State party for a few years. Yet there was sectarian trial of strength at all levels.
CPI (M) conferences are held once in three years. The ‘democratic centralist’ style is to accept by acclamation the official panel prepared by the outgoing office-bearers in consultation with the leadership of higher councils. But members have the freedom to contest against the official panel. Both factions used this freedom. Quite naturally it did more good to the official faction than to the other one. The centre could only look on helplessly as its guidelines were violated with impunity at the lowest levels. But when such violations were repeated at the district level, it could not pretend it had not seen them. When it sought to intervene, the State leadership showed its strength. It refused to part with the district committees it had captured from the rival faction. At the same time it offered the centre a consolation prize. It agreed to reconvene the Thiruvananthapuram district conference and approve by acclamation the State conference delegates belonging to the V. S. Achuthanandan faction who had been defeated in contested elections.
State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s demonstration of his hold in the party through contests and compromises can be seen as a triumph of inner-party democracy (of non-centralist variety). But then the question arises how he gained the upper hand. M.V. Raghavan has said that Pinarayi Vijayan used all the tactics normally employed in a general election except impersonation of voters. Raghavan is not an impartial observer where CPI (M) is concerned. But no one else is likely to be better informed than him on what is going on in the party.
The conferences at various levels give the members the opportunity to review the party’s working during the previous three years and chalk out programmes for the coming years. There is nothing in the media reports to indicate that this happened at the lower levels. They only speak of the Pinarayi faction attacking the VS faction and vice versa. All that now remains to be seen is whether participants in the Kottayam deliberations will be able to evaluate properly the performances of the party and its government and remedy the weaknesses evident in them, without being subjugated to sectarianism. To put it differently, the question is whether the central leaders present there will be able to facilitate this. In the democratic centralist set-up, the General Secretary ought to be able to do so. But there is a snag. As Pinarayi Vijayan recently said, he is not a leader who was dropped into A. K. G. Centre through the roof. The General Secretary is a leader who was so dropped.
The activities of the past three years have brought the party assets as well as allegations. The assets have come from vested interests like fake lottery operators and the land mafia. (Let us avoid the old term bourgeoisie.) So great is their enthusiasm that when the party asks for one million they are ready to give six. Allegations have come from an assortment of people like Vinitha Kottayi of Kannur against whom the local party leader has imposed sanctions, Chithralekha of Payyannur who insists on driving autos to earn a living even after smart CITU men burnt her auto, and Jayasree of Erayamkudi, Thrissur, who will not let a brick maker whom the party favours carry on his business peaceably. Maybe the delegates must consider how the CPI (M) has become a party that commits atrocities against women. Also how the party which had taken the lead in land reforms has been reduced to a state where its ministers act as intermediaries who are obliged to remove any obstacles encountered by land grabbers.
The Communist Party of China holds its conferences once in five years. While visiting the country at conference time, I saw a lot of reports about corruption in the newspapers. All of them emanated from the official news agency. It is an organization with two Central Committee members at the top. When I had the opportunity to meet one of them I expressed appreciation of the agency’s frank coverage of corruption. “You haven’t seen everything,” he told me. “Only the Politburo sees everything that we report.”
At that time Deng’s reforms were only ten years old. According to tales that were doing the rounds, all doors will open before the entrepreneur if he deposits enough money for the local party leader’s son or daughter to study in the US for five years and hands it over the passbook to him. But the party had already started moving against corruption.
According to a report presented to China’s parliament by the president of the Supreme People’s Court in 2000, in the previous year 15,700 persons were punished for corruption-related offences. Two of them were working at the ministerial level. The deputy governor of a province was hanged for taking bribes. The Chinese National Conditions Research Centre, a unit of the Academy of Sciences, the country’s highest academic body, and Tsinghua University jointly undertook a study of corruption cases involving persons of the level of vice-minister and upwards, which were reported between 1978, the year in which the Deng reforms began, and 2002. Their report said that during 1978-1992, there were investigations against 110 persons who were working at provincial and ministerial levels. The party took severe action against some of them. Cases against 31 persons were referred to courts. All of them were punished.
Self-building of ant-corruption personnel is one of the important items on the programme for the next five years adopted by the Chinese party congress held last year. How lucky we are! Do we have any such problem?
Based on "Nerkkazhcha" column which appeared in Kerala Kaumudi dated January 31, 2008
That event is not receiving much attention for two reasons. One is that there is no power struggle at the national level, as there is in the State. The other is that the leaders and rank and file of the party in the State have developed the mentality of a regional party.
From its birth, the CPI (M) has followed the system of democratic centralism, evolved by the world communist movement. The Kerala conferences revealed both its strength and weakness. For the first time in the party’s history, the central leadership had provided guidelines for the conduct of conferences with a view to checking the sectarianism that has been raging in the State party for a few years. Yet there was sectarian trial of strength at all levels.
CPI (M) conferences are held once in three years. The ‘democratic centralist’ style is to accept by acclamation the official panel prepared by the outgoing office-bearers in consultation with the leadership of higher councils. But members have the freedom to contest against the official panel. Both factions used this freedom. Quite naturally it did more good to the official faction than to the other one. The centre could only look on helplessly as its guidelines were violated with impunity at the lowest levels. But when such violations were repeated at the district level, it could not pretend it had not seen them. When it sought to intervene, the State leadership showed its strength. It refused to part with the district committees it had captured from the rival faction. At the same time it offered the centre a consolation prize. It agreed to reconvene the Thiruvananthapuram district conference and approve by acclamation the State conference delegates belonging to the V. S. Achuthanandan faction who had been defeated in contested elections.
State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s demonstration of his hold in the party through contests and compromises can be seen as a triumph of inner-party democracy (of non-centralist variety). But then the question arises how he gained the upper hand. M.V. Raghavan has said that Pinarayi Vijayan used all the tactics normally employed in a general election except impersonation of voters. Raghavan is not an impartial observer where CPI (M) is concerned. But no one else is likely to be better informed than him on what is going on in the party.
The conferences at various levels give the members the opportunity to review the party’s working during the previous three years and chalk out programmes for the coming years. There is nothing in the media reports to indicate that this happened at the lower levels. They only speak of the Pinarayi faction attacking the VS faction and vice versa. All that now remains to be seen is whether participants in the Kottayam deliberations will be able to evaluate properly the performances of the party and its government and remedy the weaknesses evident in them, without being subjugated to sectarianism. To put it differently, the question is whether the central leaders present there will be able to facilitate this. In the democratic centralist set-up, the General Secretary ought to be able to do so. But there is a snag. As Pinarayi Vijayan recently said, he is not a leader who was dropped into A. K. G. Centre through the roof. The General Secretary is a leader who was so dropped.
The activities of the past three years have brought the party assets as well as allegations. The assets have come from vested interests like fake lottery operators and the land mafia. (Let us avoid the old term bourgeoisie.) So great is their enthusiasm that when the party asks for one million they are ready to give six. Allegations have come from an assortment of people like Vinitha Kottayi of Kannur against whom the local party leader has imposed sanctions, Chithralekha of Payyannur who insists on driving autos to earn a living even after smart CITU men burnt her auto, and Jayasree of Erayamkudi, Thrissur, who will not let a brick maker whom the party favours carry on his business peaceably. Maybe the delegates must consider how the CPI (M) has become a party that commits atrocities against women. Also how the party which had taken the lead in land reforms has been reduced to a state where its ministers act as intermediaries who are obliged to remove any obstacles encountered by land grabbers.
The Communist Party of China holds its conferences once in five years. While visiting the country at conference time, I saw a lot of reports about corruption in the newspapers. All of them emanated from the official news agency. It is an organization with two Central Committee members at the top. When I had the opportunity to meet one of them I expressed appreciation of the agency’s frank coverage of corruption. “You haven’t seen everything,” he told me. “Only the Politburo sees everything that we report.”
At that time Deng’s reforms were only ten years old. According to tales that were doing the rounds, all doors will open before the entrepreneur if he deposits enough money for the local party leader’s son or daughter to study in the US for five years and hands it over the passbook to him. But the party had already started moving against corruption.
According to a report presented to China’s parliament by the president of the Supreme People’s Court in 2000, in the previous year 15,700 persons were punished for corruption-related offences. Two of them were working at the ministerial level. The deputy governor of a province was hanged for taking bribes. The Chinese National Conditions Research Centre, a unit of the Academy of Sciences, the country’s highest academic body, and Tsinghua University jointly undertook a study of corruption cases involving persons of the level of vice-minister and upwards, which were reported between 1978, the year in which the Deng reforms began, and 2002. Their report said that during 1978-1992, there were investigations against 110 persons who were working at provincial and ministerial levels. The party took severe action against some of them. Cases against 31 persons were referred to courts. All of them were punished.
Self-building of ant-corruption personnel is one of the important items on the programme for the next five years adopted by the Chinese party congress held last year. How lucky we are! Do we have any such problem?
Based on "Nerkkazhcha" column which appeared in Kerala Kaumudi dated January 31, 2008
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