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कोविद-१९ की ज़रूरत-कुछ अनुभव, कुछ जरूरात
सोनिया गांधी, और अन्य सभी विरोधी राजनीतिक दल के लोगों और कार्यकर्ताओं, देश के सारे NGOs, समाजसेवी संस्थाओं, सभी व्यवसाय मालिकों से कुछ निवेदन हैं देशहित यह कदम उठाने का, कोविद-१९ के पहले के तरीक़ों को भूल कुछ ऐसे नये तरीक़े अपनाने का, नये कदम उठाने का जो फिर आज की भययुक्त जीवन से मुक्ति दिलाये एवं पिछले ६० दिनों की त्रासदीपूर्ण अवस्था फिर से न आये….विशेषकर प्रवासी ग़रीबों की यह अवस्था न हो. एक दूसरे से अपने को बेहतर एवं दूसरे को निकम्मा बताने में समय एवं शक्ति का अपव्यय न करें…देश एक नाज़ुक दौर से गुजर रहा है….चीन उत्तरी सीमा पर आक्रामक रूख बढ़ा रहा है…भारत का सबसे नज़दीकी नेपाल हिन्दू राष्ट्र होते हुए भी चीन के बहकावे में या प्रश्रय से सीमा का कोई प्रश्न खड़ा कर माहौल भारत के ख़िलाफ़ बना रहा है…बंगाल का cyclone Amphan कई दशकों का सबसे ख़तरनाक रहा और बहुत जान माल का नुक़सान हुआ, और कलकत्ता में बहुत जगह बिजली बहाल नहीं हो पाई काफ़ी दिनों तक सेना की सहायता के बावजूद, गर्मी अपने चरम सीमा पर है….राजस्थान में लोकस्ट से फसल बड़ी मात्रा में नुक़सान हुआ….देश की आर्थिक अवस्था चरमरा रही है…प्रवासी समस्या लौटने के इंतज़ाम के बाद भी हल होती नहीं दिख रही है….उधर कल कारख़ानों एवं व्यवसायों के धीरे धीरे खुलने की छूट के बावजूद वहाँ लोगों की कमी के कारण से काम सामान्य स्थिति में नहीं हो पा रहा है….कोविद-१९ की लड़ाई सब प्रयास के बाद बढ़ती जा रही है…ऐसी अवस्था में सभी नागरिकों का दायित्व बढ़ जाता है विशेषकर कर विरोधी दलों का एवं मीडिया का….इनमें से कोई भी समस्या का हल आसान नहीं है….सभी का एक जुट सकारात्मक भावना रख, देश-हित का ख़्याल रख बोलना, करना ही सहायक हो सकता है और वापस ला सकता है सामान्य स्थिति और सभी के चेहरों के भय को हटा ख़ुशी की आशा.

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Most of the 60+ journalists such Sekhar Gupta, T N Nina , Tavleen, and many have outlived their creative part of professional life and must retire or switch over to writing something more useful. One similar column writer Pawan Kumar Verma has already started about the Sanakaracharya and Ramcharitamanas of Tulsidas. I wish Sekhar and Ninan switches over to write down well researched autobiographies of great achievers of India from ancient days to the present period- scientists, technocrats, industrialists, literary luminaries, social reformers, educationists, and about the great institutions….. in English and may be other Indian languages for various level of the readers in India. Can they write something that can bring back the large population of India to reading, the only way a nation can produce better innovators such as Wright Brothers, Bill Gates, N R Narayan Murthy, Dhirubhai Ambani or even of Jagdish Chandra Bose, C S R Rao, Abdul Kalam, and hundreds of them to inspire the next generation…..They must write why Bihar and UP have failed in education and health sector or in getting industries. Or on topics of how India can become as clean and green as developed countries……How India can become a more accepted soft power….Will you agree with me? I find sometimes some glimpses of such writing and I include in my entries for others to appreciate it…

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A really bold statement from UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on migrant workers returned to UP, “These workers are our biggest resource and will give them employment in Uttar Pradesh as state government is going to set up a commission for their employment.” “They are our people… and if some states want them back, they have to seek permission from the state government,” Adityanath said. I wish he uses services of Experts to put resources in building mini-food processing plant in different areas. Land in UP is fertile. Water is not scarce. Potatoes, tomatoes, onions and many other vegetables and fruits such as mangoes, guava of best qualities can be grown and processed. Let CM use the services of his best in industry (from ITC for wheat based items to even Guru Ramdev ) to help in his drive. Leather industry and milk can be other areas where UP can huge success. Let Yogi set example. Let some apparel industry with design centres come around Varanasi, Lucknow and other cities to give jobs to women in large number. I am sure his commission will come with some innovative and exemplary ideas in this task for the people at the bottom of line. I wish Yogi gets the school curriculum to include practical training sewing etc as well as farm machineries and food processing. Some old traditional practice of food processing in rural UP can be commercially activated and commercialised. https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/social-security-insurance-yogi-adityanath-migrant-commission-plan-details-for-workers-5-points/1969779/

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Let the industry and the nation learn from our recent experiences. “Until three months ago, not a single N95 mask or personal protective equipment (PPE) was manufactured in India. Today, we have 104 domestic firms making PPEs and four manufacturing N95 masks. Over 2.6 lakh PPEs and two lakh N95 masks are being manufactured in India, daily. Domestic manufacturing of ventilators has strengthened manifold — orders for more than 59,000 units have been placed with nine manufacturers. While this shows the adaptiveness of Indian industry, the shift to domestic production must happen on a larger scale for a wider set of sectors in the long run.” Let it be repeated at least for non-fossil energy and its hardwares such as solar energy production and storage, battery production for EVs, the need of the days, electricity storage system, and hundreds and thousands of other items that the world and our country consumes. Why can’t our old and new industrial entrepreneurs give first priority to product developmental R&D, and manufacturing for one-off to very large scale production with technologies such as 3D printing to flexible agile, automated production facilities? Why should they compete only with Amazon and Walmart and focus on the business of the street corner shopkeepers making so many more unemployed and not start a Tesla like companies that has become global and respected manufacturing company so fast? Are Indians shorts of that type of talents that can create some Indian Microsoft, Amazon as data centres as main business, or Facebook? Why did the auto components companies allow the Chinese to enter its arena to meet all the requirements of globally well placed automobile sector because of capacity, cost or quality? Why should every sector from real estates to textile garments, keep on importing so many small little things from China or other SE countries? Why the farmers of different are not encouraged to produce more oil producing crops to stop import of all cooking oils? Unless every state government makes its itself independent in its food requirements such onion, tomatoes and potatoes, the traders will hoard and create scarcity. Every panchayat must educate and train its people to start the MSMEs that they can start competitively. The states must focus and find ways too its people, particularly to those who can do only manual work, the serious problem of migrant workers that we observed in last months can’t be solved. The citizens of the states must make its politicians, legislature responsible for it and not the centre or Railways or other agency. The present government even after loosing election in Bihar for the first time after many year in any state initiated setting of two very big industrial units of globally famous companies for Railway engines in Bihar with huge potentials for the state to become a manufacturing state. But the engineer Chief Minister hardly bothered to take the maximum advantages from these, leave any of his serious effort to bring industrialised and saved his skin with some excuse or the other. Bihar is either producing impotents or incapable sons and daughters who can not take it out from the miseries our of migrants by giving right leadership in every basic sectors- administration, education, healthcare, and job creation. Nitin Gadkari wishes to set up MSMEs at all panchayat levels. He all suggested how ethanols and other fuel oil can be produced from other plants, wastes and biomass. Will Bihar take a real go in these areas or come out with some excuses? Bihar can itself employ a large number of its people in training skills as mechanics, plumbers, masons, cooks, drivers, hairdressers, small merchants of local goods for e- marketing companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Jiomart or Patanjali ….If there is political will, there can be a million jobs created in a short time. However, it requires a political Will. All chief ministers of Bihar after the first two were created on basis of caste politics and not for capability, how can Bihar would have evolved differently than what it has? The state known for Mauryas and Guptas, Aryabhata and Chanakya are known and famous for remaining poorest and worst in all these 70+ years after independence and now known as supplier of only migrants to the whole country from Kashmir to Kerala, to Gujarat to May be Gauhati. Every family of Bihar has broken with its member out of its home to other states to work more as labourer, and only a small percentage in all fields of activities working as shop assistant, officers, managers, executives and even industrialists…None wishes to go back and he feels he would become and called useless….I am telling this with my personal experience. First time in 1961, when my grandfather returned from spending life in West Bengal and thereafter I have experienced myself many time …..

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As reported in the Sunday column of Coomi Kapoor, a very senior journalist in Indian Express, Maharashtra Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta is probably running the state. “Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray assumes that the post of chief secretary is similar to that of a CEO of a company and his role is that of a hands-off chairperson. Thackeray rarely visits the Mantralaya, and shows up at the chief minister’s official residence, Varsha, only when he makes a video recording for television. “ It is also well-known that the wife of Uddhav Thackeray and his MLA son, Aditya Thackeray are the other two who are deciding all policies and Aditya talks more often with media. On migrant issues, Uddhava right from beginning wished them to be sent out. Over the period all governments including those of BJP running the states never bothered to take care of the living conditions of the migrants who man all small big companies, and work in unorganised sectors and constitutes a very good percentage of Mumbai’s teeming population. Mumbai requires decongesting and so also all the small and big cities that have overgrown. Everywhere, these migrant workers live in some sorts of slums or ghetto. The companies and other business houses or individuals using these migrant workers hardly bother to look at them as human being with compassion and look after their basic needs. It is out and out exploitation. Quite a lot of them are engaged through agents who take away a good commission from both sides. The employers never consider them the backbone of their operations. Even the state governments and the big employers never thought of creating special housing colonies of suitable design with facilities like hospital, school, markets, transport facilities etc. In recent announcement, an important plan was announced by the Finance Minister and fund allocated to create special housing facilities of different types for renting to migrants in PPP mode, even involving the employers’s associations.
Let us hope the state governments and city administrations with take some real positive time bound programme to get it implemented and constructed fast..With the misery seen on the streets and expressways, let us hope the issue will be considered and taken up sincerely.
Let the home states educate and skill the migrants before they go out.
Let the migrants not move to these cities with families to live in slums and ghettos.
Migrant workers must start thinking about their own role for today’s condition.
Let the opposition not deal it as political point for vote bank and the media must not create chaos in the society by putting all blame on the present governments only.
Will the former centre and state ministers and bureaucrats have a realisation of their failures? Will Chidambaram and Yashwant Sinha instead of pinpointing the mistakes of this government and its ministers start feeling sorry for today’s condition of all slum ful cities and towns grown in hundreds and their failure to take an effective plan to make the cities decongested and slum-less?
Will the administration have data at hand and be more prompt in response as pointed out by Anil Dhankar?

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As per a report, nearly 22 million tenant farmers miss out on the benefits of government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-Kisan), because of poor documentation and uncooperative landowners, as reported in a Business Standard. The State governments and the centre must remove these anomalies that the small farmers are facing. The real farmers must not face the problem faced by the farmer in the story in selling its products. It must be eased out by taking these buying facilities within kilometres of every farming village. The landowners must realise themselves that after taking full rental of the whole year in advance, the benefits given in the name of the farmers by the government must go to the tenant farmers who are taking all the risks. The land owners must realise this, and if not agreeable, must start farming scientifically with latest techniques. Done so, the farming has become both interesting and profitable. Unfortunately, as the tenant farmers hold the right of farming just for one year, how can they take care of saving the land from the damage it causes with excessive or wrong chemical based fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides?