Changing hues

Plenty of thoughts, ideas, interpretations have been trespassing my mind regarding the vibrant youth and the power of ideas, both of which have necessitated  change in established forms in the past and the present. Ever since India set in motion the wheels of change post-independence, the youth has been the harbinger of transforming societal order. Today in the 21st century as India steadfastly approaches to new heights, i often think about the role of the youth as its a non-detachable  part of the Indian society.

Belonging to an age bracket which is the most bulged in India's age pyramid, i think about the different types of views and opinions one adheres to. I feel there's a need to be open to new ideas in the era of globalization and de-link ourselves from the stereotypical thoughts. Ideas and concepts like materialism and capitalism, socialism and communism, imperialism and colonialism, conservatism and orthodoxy,utilitarianism, revivalism and libertarian philosophy etc. and their multiple faces are relevant in the present world ranging from the cultural colonialism of the United States to the expansionist materialism of China. Placed in these complex cobwebs of global diplomacy is the 'Indian Pivot' in South Asia. But the youth of the Indian population somehow seems to be alienated from global developments and instead indulge in bickering and squabbles, though i don't deny the existence of a sizable youth engrossed in  learning and unlocking the global ideological dynamics.

The common masses are merely ruled by a handful of people in the top echelons. Sometimes they are provoked to the advantage of somebody else and sometimes they are exploited out of helplessness. The multifarious diversity of Indian social fabric adds on to the pyre of rhetoric. I feel the greatest empowerment unfolds as people embrace the highest degree of knowledge for nobody can catch one on the wrong foot. The weapon of knowledge is an inexhaustible resource which can burn or build mega-structures. Any dogma or obstacle can be overpowered by the possessor of this weapon for its this intangible gift that had moulded commoners into great men in history. Women rights, human rights, child rights,rights of the disabled, civil liberties, etc all can be optimized using the power of knowledge.

The Indian civilization has been the epitome of modern ideas since ancient times. What the western world is standing up for in the present world, we had imbibed all of them in the chapters of India's history. You talk about humanity, rationalism, religious universalism, spirituality, morality, non-violence, empowerment, fraternity etc., all have been present as undercurrents in India's rich history because of which India is the only country in the world to achieve freedom without a revolution and the only nation to overpower the imperialists by an ideological struggle. There's an urgent need for inculcating modern ideas and ideologies (and not western ideas) in India's youth. In this context comes the refreshing statement of our national security adviser Mr. Shivshankar Menon asking the western powers not to call India an emerging power because she is 're-emerging'. 

How can we?

In the bustling world around us
as we pen every second of our life
millions face the wry and strife.
Ignoring them and reaping all alone,
demeaning humanity, How can we?

Cosmopolitan westernised dreams,
decorating the world with modernity,
We milk it all without sharing.
Not bothering about the dying
millions deprived of, How can we?

How can we debar those innocent souls
who thrive on poverty in the forgotten lands
And still reinforce the economy
How can we obstruct them
in disguise of modernity
For once they are transformed.
humanity may pay the price.

For the innumerable problems
the world is confronting, yet we don't realise.
Boasting off exponential westernised modernity
We dodge the wealth of traditional superiority
even after glimpses of result, How can we?

How can we burden the gen-next
for being cowed down by our deeds.
How incognisable it will be
if we dig our own graves.
In the hope of light for those striving
but incorruptible gullible millions
that may they not be engulfed cowardly
I ask the decorated world, How can we?

In a hodgepodge politicosphere

'Hodgepodge' may be one of the exact words to define the political atmosphere of India these days.Starting from the scam series to the inflation and market tip-tows, from the Telangana logjam to the terror attacks & from the land acquisition debacles to the corruption strands, the might of the government has turned into a face of plight. Breaking the deadlock seems distant though respondent power bearers get entailed in heated debates and joint party meetings. Sighting the advancements, the framers of the Twelfth Five Year Plan are engulfed in the hodgepodge politico-sphere. 

Unlike UPA-I, the UPA-II is feeling its term longer than ever before as it has been unable to address the varied misappropriations at the societal level. Firstly the scams came to glory which was dealt with by removal and trials in court. But the disclosure of luxury treatment of the accused in the jails questioned the seriousness of the government which may have critical repercussions like loss of public faith and devaluation of morale and integrity of effective governance.Secondly, the people of India have been bearing the overburden of inflation fore past 2 years now. Inflation has appreciated incessantly with minor temporary short term dips.The government sustains with a deficit budget  year after year in order to improve the value added stocks but the controls and regulatory authoritarians of the fiscal policy seems malfunctioned. On debt concerns, it may not be reflected by the effect of global showdown on India or by the ratings of S&P as in the case of USA but India tops in Asia in this arena. 

Land acquisition laws in India after 64 years of independence still abides by the 115-year old Act. Serious concern must be shown by the government in this direction as it plans to acquire agrarian lands for industrialization and superimposing the fraction of the employed in relatively high payed industrial sector. Failure in leaping into the grass-roots and sprouting up with creative and just methods may result in peasant movements and protests sympathizing with the ideology of Naxals making things much more coercive. Finally the Lokpal bill which is pending since 1971 when it was first introduced in the Parliament. Successive government kept dissolving it ; though in 1996 under the A.B Vajpayee government, the bill had a modified outlook but still it maintained the status of heedless. Recently, Anna Hazare has become the crusader for the bill but the insights into the JanLokpal bill suggest though it might be successful in capturing the imagination of many and result in mass mobilization, the bill projects the possibility of the return of anarchy which may diminish our representative democracy like the demand for the judiciary into the ambit of the Lokpal is entirely unconstitutional. The bill is quite impressive on some grounds like the advent of Citizens' Charter for improving public delivery operations. Balance need to be struck in between the Lokpal & the JanLokpal bills without being unconstitutional and superiority arrogance approach.

The Parliament has become a synonym for the word 'hodgepodge' as many legislations are pending in the Parliament. These stimulate debates and discussions but fail to converge on an effective remedial conclusion, which ultimately becomes the political propagating issues of political parties. Besides, legislations have accumulated over the years just to add up to the procedural miseries of the recent and forthcoming ones.Some of the major bills in the foresight of the Parliament are Women Reservation Bill, Goods and services Tax bill, Land acquisition bill, Communal violence bill, Whistle-blower's bill, Judicial Accountability Bill, Food Security Bill, Public Grievances and redressal bill and off-late the most hyped of all, Lokpal bill. In addition to these, several projects and programmes of the government are at stake, some in the framing stage, some in the implementation stage and several previous ones in the evaluation and remedial stages. 

In the context of the above scenario, do you think the Planning Commission will be able to tap the flying energies in different sectors and develop coordination to pull the curtains over the public uproar on the government? the Planning Commission headed by the PM himself has lost direction in framing the Twelfth Five year Plan(2012-17) and thus the plan sits still on the tip of a see-saw. Concurrent concerns has to be devoted as a headless chicken can reproduce faltered manifestations.

Angles of Corruption

Enough has been spoken and heard about on this glamor word in the past one year. Thought of writing the various angles of viewing it after 10 months of slumber in my blog posts. As we all know the political scenario of the country is burgeoning on the allegations and indulging the masses to have opinions on it. In such a situation, a citizen sound to have opinions needs to have a comprehensive and deepened view on this issue. In this post, I would like to put forth whatever I've envisaged about the radiating corruption.

First, let us look at it from the psychological aspect. A person thinks of corruption when one is unable to get a task done, when one has the power to break the laws and settle all consequences of it and when one has the greed resulting from frustration of a low scale job. For the younger generation, it may be a cool thing to break the laws and be a part of it. Looking at all the above cases, one thing is common that the fear of law has suffered a moral breakdown in the hearts of the people. People fancy themselves going beyond the law and meeting their necessities. Psychology tells people tend to do those things often with they are not supposed to do. It implies that people become corrupt because taking bribe is a crime. If suppose being corrupt is as usual thing as calling a friend, the menace of corruption may be controlled to some extent. Ask yourself that how many of you call a friend that often as to the number of times you wont hesitate to fill your pockets when you are in power to do it. People may gain from it if corruption is made a law, but they wont be given credit for making out an empire of their own as the morale of something sustains till it makes it invincible.

Secondly, deepening the pockets can be seen from individual economic point of view. The greed of making money reaches a saturation point after a definite time period . Even a dog does not find a bone tasty enough after licking it for sometime. We are not a developed economy as the OECD countries of the world, in which the people have a good standard of living as they are financially strong enough to hold their morale and burdens. If a situation arises where every Indian has the financial stability in life and complacence of making money is achieved, this ill-deed wont penetrate the skeletons of our democracy. People will start thinking beyond money matters instead of living for money or power. People will be well enough to support their families and also invest elsewhere for the security of future generations. If this happens to the societal framework of India, the thought of bribing will be dissected into pieces in the minds of people.

Thirdly, which will precede the above situation is the investment friendly atmosphere of the country. How can a country be investment hub of the world? Hong-Kong and Singapore are the best examples. Lets take Hong-Kong for example where a similar uprising as that of Anna Hazare took place in the 1970s when a person fled away from the country after serious allegations of corruption where reported on him. The mass mobilization of the people forced the Government to act and an independent Commission on corruption was constituted.On further super-incumbent pressure from various directions, the Government took the responsibility  to prove the point of being serious on this issue, to the citizens. The by-laws of the commission was framed to build up an effective and efficient mechanism of tackling the menace. In the subsequent years, many corrupt officials were prosecuted and the international companies which tided away from Hong-Kong returned after viewing the investment friendly atmosphere in the country and the potential of Hong-Kong Government in profiteering the entrepreneurs with negotiable collaboration. The similar crisis in India needs immediate attention and the urge to invite FDI and FII which will not only glorify India in the global investors' fraternity but also will enable the Government to achieve its various objectives like financial inclusion. Institutionalizing the entire mechanism of operation in the social domain of the country can shun the roots of this ill-deed.  

All the above explained situations are hypothetical and it is just to bring to light the different angles of looking at the menace of corruption. People may have many things to say about corruption but opinions are unique to a person as the food item of 'brasht- achaar' is to the leaders of India today.

Caste Census Consensus

After much of a row among the various political parties, the UPA government decided to constitute a 11-member GoM (Group of  Ministers), headed by the H'ble Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee.On the last day of the Monsoon session of the Parliament, i.e, on 31st August 2010, the Finance Minister declared in the parliament that the GoM headed by him, has more-or-less decided in favor of including caste in census 2011. However, the final report is yet to be submitted by the GoM, which is proposed to be presented in the next session of the Parliament. The Finance Minister is confident that the decision of the GoM will be upheld in the parliament by the other ministers and that it is now just a formality to gain consensus in the upper house. The demand of caste based census has been urged frm many years but whoever the ruling government, NDA or UPA, 

neglected it.

Due to the overwhelming pressure from the various parties, its was finally considered by UPA-II and the GoM was constituted. The basic question arises that why do we need a caste census now as we didn't realize its importance in the last 60 years The answer is that the government has been entrapped in its own mousetrap as for the reservations of SCs, STs and especially OBCs., there is no proper documentation of the population of these categories, though there had been many trials to determine these numbers like the Kelkar and the Mandal Commissions. The government had also set up National backward classes Commission  to look into the figures of OBCs so that the 27% OBC reservations can distinguishably given to that population rather than the others taking the advantage of this.

Last time caste based census in India was conducted in 1931 by the British. Post independence, the necessity of caste based census was not realized and thus was discouraged. In the 2001 census also, there was a demand for caste based census but the then ruling govt. NDA declined the demand. Now, in 2011, the caste based census will be conducted and will begin in December. Contradictory forces suggest that caste based census will divide the country and caste-ism will again become prevalent in the society. But, if we see the matrimony advertisements, we will find that not only castes, even sub-castes prevail in the society predominantly.Hence, there must be no apprehensions on the fact that caste census will help the administration to streamline the quotas it has provided and benefit only those for whom it is meant for.

Our country comprises of a  highly diversified population, unlike any other country. Development of the country is not possible by leaving behind the backward classes. The figures and proper documentation of the data of reservations must be maintained so that maximum benefits can be derived from the amendments made by the government for people's welfare.Recently, in Chennai, the RTI report filed by a citizen revealed that inspite of the government constituting many Commissions to foresee the proper implementation of the quota system, only 7% of the posts in the service sector is offered to the OBCs, instead of 27%. It implies that there is a major population which is taking disguised advantage illicitly. Therefore, the caste based census will certainly help in curbing this crisis of the government in dividing the population into accordingly in tone with the quota system and involving those communities in priority sectors and  as special-care population. This will be a boost for the low-income groups and the low class citizens to live a cheerful life. Lets welcome the caste based census 2011. Friends, your queries and suggestions are always invited.

CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test)

The  Announcement in the Parliament of India by H'ble Minister of  Personnel, Mr Prithviraj Chauhan on 25th August 2010 confirms that the prestigious Civil Services Examination(CSE) will be now changed into Civil Services Aptitude Test(CSAT) and the new pattren of the examination will come into effect from the Civil services Prelims-2011.The suggestion of aptitude test in the  country's top ranks was discussed thoroughly by a committee appointed by the Ministry of Personnel. It finally came out with a report of changing the pattern of the Civil Services Preliminary Examination, i.e,  150 marks optional subject is replaced by aptitude & logical ability questions. Though the Main Examination pattern is not changed for the time-being, but it is also under the considerations of the committee.

The civil preliminary exam had 300 marks for General studies and 150 marks for any one Optional Subjects among the subjects prescribed by UPSC(Union Public Service Commission). From 2011,there will be 150 marks on logical & aptitude skills , instead of the optional subject. But, the Main examination will be kept unchanged in which candidates opt for 2 Optional Subjects, consisting of 600 marks each. This change in the Prelims is done to test the logical skills and independent decision-making skills which is a prime requirement for all the civil services. The syllabus of the aptitude section is still not released by UPSC and is expected to be out soon. Public Administration based questions can be expected in this section as it is a vital area of command for an administrator.Moreover questions on logic could asked to screen the streamlined mind of the candidate.For example, if an inferior officer is caught for bribe, your immediate action will be: You will

a) beat him up

b) take action so that he loses his job

c) inquire about the matter in detail

d) let him continue in the job with a last warning 

Such reasoning and logical questions are now included in the public services also. Already other competitive exams like CAT, MSAT, GSAT etc. have this type of questions but for the civil services , aptitude questions will have a different spice corresponding to the position of an administrator. It will be interesting to observe the Civil Prelims Exam Paper 2011.

The Mains exam paper pattern is also under the review scanner. There is a proposal to removal optional papers and introduce compulsory papers , the knowledge in which are a pre-requisite of the esteemed position. Economics is one of the few subjects which have been proposed but still a unanimous decision is to be made after reviewing the Mains Paper and the criticality in changing its pattern. Revised Mains pattern will only come into effect after 3-4 years. The civil aspirants should also concentrate on having command on the field of public administration, economics and logical abilities. In the recent few years, stress has been on areas of Technology, economy and foreign relations which form key question areas. The revised pattern is yet to be tested and lets hope it gives good results.

Economic Ethos

After the 20th century was hit by the worst economic depression in the 1930s, the 21st century has been hit early by the world-over stigma of recession which indicates how far the world economies advance in this century. With most of the developed countries like USA, Japan & UK being affected by the economic recession, it subsequently affected the other world economies. Let us peep into some of the aspects of this depression which put the world at a standstill.

The Banking system forms a major part in the countries economy. The Central Bank of each country controls the economy of the country. Some countries have Unit banking system and some have Branch banking system. Most of the developed technologically advanced countries follow Unit banking system and others follow branch banking with a bank having numerous branches in different parts of the country. Banks control the supply of money in the population of the country, priority sectors ,commercial and public sectors and government controls the percentage of taxes and interests to be levied by the banks on the citizens. in different policies, credits and debits. Indian banking system was revolutionized by the new economic policy 1991 which imposed LPG-Liberalization Privatization and Globalization on the Indian economy making India accessible to the worldwide companies and work force and liberating from the stigma of public sector control of money in few hands.

Economic Depression is the losses suffered by the companies due to reduction in the profits earned by them. This usually happens when the supply of money in the different sectors is less and the production costs are high in the international market. It affects the developed countries the most because of less availability and high expenditure on labour force in those countries.Hence unemployment increases as the demand for labour force is more than supply.Consequently the company reduces the salaries of the employees as it suffers depression and in this situation inter-company transfers occur. Thus, developed countries suffered sever economic depresion in the first decade of the 21st century.

Subsequently, this drought in the developed countries reached the developing and under-developed countries through Capital market which is the strongest link in the international trade. Capital markets are d long term loan markets or investment markets which can be primary and of secondary type. Primary Capital market is confined in a smaller pupil radius as through this, the companies sells shares to the people.Secondary capital market opens the countries economy to the world as through this, shares are sold and bought by different companies and individuals at a common platform, i.e, in Stock Exchanges.Its similar to purchasing a second hand book and then selling it again to gain profits. For example, a company issued the advertisement in a newspaper for bonds(small amounts of money), say Rs 100. 1000 people applied for it. 100 people will be sold the bonds and the remaining 900 people go to the stock exchanges where share dealings take place.

Many MNCs invest in share market and also sell there stocks in share markets of different countries. After the depression in developed countries, their companies withdrew their shares and stopped selling shares due to loss of capital, in the stock exchanges of various countries worldwide. This affected the share market drastically as individual refused to buy shares of companies running in losses and thus the share price index (like Sen-sex and Nifty) deteriorated. A country like India was saved from being worst hit because of the exploding population of India which can supply easy and cheap labour force thus increasing the employment opportunities.To control the depression, the RBI increased the money supply and relaxed the taxes and interest rates in the Credit policy announced every 3 months to review the inflation or depression situation. Over-relaxation of capital in the country lead to increase in Inflation, which is the price rise in various sectors of a country. the food resources sector was the most affected. It was basically due to below-average rains in India, high prices of agricultural machineries and high rate of production of consumables which directly summed up to the increase in the food prices. the inflation rate is consistently in double figures from Dec 2008 and the solution still needs to be sought out by the UPA government.

In this way, The Finance Ministry and the Reseve bank of India always work in collaboration to design new schemes and policy to maintain a balance between depression and inflation & inflation and growth rate of the country. Dear friends, comment on my post and you can ask your queries.                                                      

           'Economy is the Medical department of the country with Economists as its doctors'

'The' last decade

As we are about to surpass the first decade of the 21st century, let us look back at one of the most happening decades for India. 21st century was said to be 'the century of dominion of the Asian countries'. Here are some of the developments, changes and hicupping events that took place in India in 'The' last decade.

The decade began with the shadow of terrorism growing over the world as the WTC was attacked in USA on Sept 11, 2001. The fate of India was not expected by anyone that the country's most protected area in terms of security and the country's governing bulding 'The Parliament' would be attacked by terrorists. The incident happened on 13th dec, 2001 and 'The Parliament' was saved by shooting down three terrorists in The Parliament premises. It fumed discussion in The Parliament about security concerns in the country. But this was never going to be the end. The decade was spiced up by Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore blasts in which many lost their lives. Then came the ultimate planned mission of the terrorists, the hook hung over the Financial Capital of India, Mumbai. 26th Nov, 2008 left a mark on security provisions in India and questioned the various naval authorities that were responsible for the security of Indian waters. Amongst all these anti-social hineous events, mankind and India didnot lose its path and it continued to blossom as it does with the revival of every morning.

In the Indian politics, Congress came into power and held a strong position after nearly 2 decades. They won the General Elections in 2004 and Sonia Gandhi transformed from a hesitant Sonia to the face of Modern India inculcating the qualities of her mother-in law. Besides, Mayawati made her way to become the Chief Minister of UP by scrapping Mulayam Singh Yadav, Nitish Kumar took the reigns of Bihar from Lalu's hands, Jayalalitha's hold has gone weak and Karunanidhi seems to be comfortable as the CM of Tamilnadu and after a long tym, Mamta Banerjee has a strong hold on Bengal. Amongst all these, Andhra Pradesh witnessed the death of their beloved CM and a great leader YSR in a helicopter crash and Maharashtra experienced the removal of Vilasrao Deshmukh from the CM office after the Mumbai blasts. In the midst of all these, Congress won the next General Elections in 2009 also claiming the party's dominion on the Indian Politics.

Orkut, a social networking site was launched in 2004 and became the most popular one of its kind in India and Brazil. Facebook, launched in the same year is also preferred by many Indian users. Twitter, a micro-blogging site launched in 2006, has started gaining popularity in India because of the presence of high-profile people on twitter. Facebook has also proposed for an Indian Headquarter in Hyderabad. With all these networking sites coming-up, the Indian youth has been exposed to plenty of things in the world in the last decade. This will certainly help in global exposure of the youth and implementing different ideas to produce a vibrant and prosperous youth community of India, a country having more than half of the population between 15-40 yrs of age. The advent of gadgets in India has made the young generation develop the interest in them and the recent advancements in the world of technology like the popularity of iphones sprung-up in the last decade and the coming of the 3G mobiles to India. These will help to transform the face of technical India.

The next decade will definitely be the hallmark of a Rising India as we get close the the Vision 2020. The popularity of 3G mobiles is questionable observing its records in other countries. In the Financial Market, India reached a high of 25000 points in the BSE but was hit by recession and went as low as 7000 points. The largest democracy had achieved the feet of becoming the fastest growing economy after China. The next decade will count on the economic clash between the 2 Asian Mights. Also, India has plenty of interior problems like poverty and other social atrocities abd with the revival of the Naxal Movement in India, the path would not be easy. Plenty of small regions are demanding separate states. From Harit Pradesh to Telangana, every community wants a state for themselves. All the petiotions are on hold and it would not be easy for any ruling government to undermine these proposals and dump these issues. The next decade may even see a change in the geographical boundaries in India which also puts into frame the International borders with China and Pakistan. The next decade will certify India as a 'Nuclear Power Centre' and also the country which ponders on climate and peace issues. Lets hope that our vision for new and revised India becomes true in the next decade.

Dreadful Limelight

Congress has been drawn into dreadful limelight by the opposition parties as inflation and Maoist unrest surround add to the UPA worries. There has been a constant rise in the prices of commodities and fuels which kept on rising since last year and the common man is tensed about the budget of the family. In the General Budget also, ther was no point regarding the reduction in the prices of these. H'ble Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee escaped the issue by presenting it as a consequence of the rise in prices in the international market. But the UPA must ensure to implement schemes to reduce excise duty on such commodities and help the common man to adapt to such a situation. Its imperative to check the oil n fuel prices also as it is one of the few sectors which is disrupting India to recover from the pit of recession. The people must also prefer walking or cycles for short distances, as it is practiced in China. H'ble Home Minister P.Chidambaram had announced the 'Operation Green Hunt' to check the menace of naxalism in India, after police check-posts wher attacked in Bengal and Jharkhand borders. But, after some days he himself disagreed from declaring such an operation and said that naxalism must be handled with patience. According to me, the UPA must take responsibility of all these problems and must not try to play with words and confuse the audience. The naxalites continue to attack government offices and check-posts and frequent strikes are declared by them in Orissa and Jharkhand. Bhuwaneswar-Delhi Rajdhani Express was attacked by the naxalites recently as it was operating during the strike declared by them. The opposition has just got a boost and they are looking to make the best use of the situation. 27th April was declared 'Bharat Bandh' due to inflation. Let us ponder on these issues as a responsible citizen and express our feelings.