Tacitus and Chanakya

Posted on March 27, 2013 by indra

Chanakya was one of the most quoted Indian thinkers of ancient India by Indian politicians in parliament and outside. But very lately perhaps Chanakya started appearing a little too much Indian, and may be some crancky ones might be thinking to color him saffron or Manubadi one day. Perhaps Chanakya was too much a known name to parliamentarians. As usual, they wanted to switch over some to all from Western history to impress the peers. And they did in last session of parliament. He was Tacitus.

“Interestingly, both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the leader of opposition, Arun Jaitley chose to spar in the Rajya Sabha recently with quotes from ancient Roman Senator and historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus. Most of their listeners had little or no idea who they were quoting from. Tacitus who? Some of the more curious MPs turned to the Internet and did a quick Google search to know about the man who probably figured in the Indian Parliament for the first time.”

“Interestingly, it was Google that provided both the PM and Jaitley with necessary ammunition. Their research teams simply punched “Tacitus quotes” into their computer and came up with a list of his famous lines, most of which are as relevant today as they were 1900 years ago when he penned his histories of the Roman Empire. Jaitley was the first to fire. Wrapping up a scathing attack on the Manmohan Singh government during the debate on the motion of thanks on the President’s address, Jaitley said, “A non-performing and a corrupt government can inflict huge damage to a country. This is best expressed in the words of Tacitus, an ancient Roman Senator who said: ‘They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences and all of this they hail as the construction of an empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace. ‘”

The PM has now a good team from media to help him. His media managers immediately switch on the computer. After a quick Google search, they came up with a stunning riposte to be used by their boss in reply. And Manmohan Singh hit back at Jaitley. “Since he is so obviously fond of Tacitus, I hope he will not mind if I quote some Tacitus back at him. Tacitus also said, and I quote: ‘when men are full of envy, they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.’

Jaitley was taken aback by the quick-witted counter, enough to Google Tacitus quotes again. As reported, he’s found a response which he is saving to use on a rainy day: “To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.” Clearly, there is an armory of Tacitus quotes to suit every occasion. Long Live Google!

I wish my readers may suggest some more names from ancient history to the parliamentarians to quote and to impress their peers and people. Are not politicians switching over to ‘foren’ for ideas? The country men wish them to be with Indians.

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एक पुरानी कबिता: केशव के लौटने के बाद

Posted on March 24, 2013 by indra

बड़े सकारे सपना देखा
हाथ बढ़ाये,मुस्काते तुम
ठुमक ठुमक तुम
आते हो मेरी बाहों में
तुमको पाकर सबकुछ पाता
सपने में ही
तुम हंसते हो, मैं हंसता हूँ
हंसी हमारी भर देती
सारे आंगन को
तुम्हे देख मैं सब भूला
हूँ,दर्द तुम्हारे आने का
मां की ममता तज ।
नींद खुली जब
खाली बिस्तर
खाली सब घर
फिर मिली को साथ लिये
जब निकला घर से
सम्मूख पूरा चाँद खिला था
रात चाँद की विदा घड़ी थी
मैंने तुमको हंसते देखा
उस परात पर
तरह तरह के रंग बदलते
तुम ही तो थे
आसमान में
खड़ा हूआ मैं अलसाया सा
सद्य स्वप्न की याद लिए
अपनी आँखों में
तुमको देखा
खिलखिला कर हंसा
तभी रज्जू की उस तनाव ने
नभ के सारे चित्र मिटाये
निरव सड़कों से होकर मैं
बहुत दूर तक
बहुत देर तक
भटका था मैं
तभी निकलते सूरज के गोले में
तुम्हे बिहंसते देखा
ठगा रहा गया
कंहा कंहा हो कुछ बतलाओ
आओ हाथ पकड़ लो मेरा
अंगुली से बढ़ कर कंधे पर
तुम तो मुझे सहारा देना !

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India: Some Data on Healthcare

Posted on March 24, 2013 by indra

Healthcare and education facilities still are dismal and nightmarish in rural India. Even if one has strong emotional attachment to his or her sweet village home in rural India, he or she can’t execute the call of the heart because of almost totally missing healthcare facility that is the cause of many avoidable deaths. Who will like to go for a suicide because of certain love of a place? At least this is the condition in all the villages I know in Bihar even after nine years of Nitish Kumar rule.

1. India spends around 5.9% of GDP on health care. The country’s health care industry is estimated to be worth around US$65 billion, is growing at a 15% compound annual growth rate and is expected to be a US$250 billion opportunity by 2020.
2. The primary health care sector in India is around US$39 billion in size. The country has around 26,000 government-run primary health care centers and 615 district-level hospitals.
3. There are around 200,000 privately-owned general physician clinics, mostly single physician with basic MBBS qualification, in the country.
4. Around 80% of the population in India turns to private care-providers and more than 75% of their health care spending is out of their own pocket.
5. Hospital admissions reduce by 40% and health care costs reduce by 30% if a country’s primary health care system is strong.
6. The capital expenditure required to build a typical clinic costs anywhere from US$30,000 to US$45,000 or more, while operating costs are upward of US$2,500 a month.
7. By 2020, the average Indian will be only 29 years of age, compared with 37 in China and the U.S., 45 in Western Europe, and 48 in Japan. India will experience an age advantage for at least three decades, through 2040.
8. There are 328 million pregnancies every year, but we see 56,000 maternal deaths.
9. Only 30.80 per cent of rural households have access to tap water. About 22 per cent of rural households have to fetch drinking water from sources that are more than 500 metres away from their premises.
10. The public sector actually provides only about 20% of actual care services. Several infectious diseases and vaccine-preventable childhood diseases still contribute 30% of the disease burden in India as measured in “disability adjusted life years lost.”
11. India has the world’s greatest burden of maternal, newborn and childhood deaths. India also has the greatest number of undernourished children.
12. Healthcare expenditures exacerbate poverty, with about 39 million people falling into poverty every year as a result of such expenditures.
13. As much as 80% of Indian healthcare is privately provided, and that care is increasingly funded by insurance programmes.
14. Financial protection against medical expenditures is far from universal with only 10% of the population having medical insurance.
15. Aarogyasri Health Insurance scheme in Andhra Pradesh has networked 241 private and 97 government hospitals to provide cashless treatment of 938 hospital procedures for more than 70 million people. The government pays the premium of R439 per family per year and there is no co-payment by the families.
16. In twenty years, the cost of heart surgery has come down by nearly 50%.But this care is reaching perhaps less than 20% of the population. 80% of people really do not have such access. A few hospitals have sufficiently large infrastructure to do about 30 to 35 heart surgeries a day. According to Dr. Devi Shetty, last year they implanted the largest number of heart valves in the world – so the valve companies give us a better price on the valves.
17. In the past five decades life expectancy has increased from 50 years to over 64 in 2000. IMR has come down from 1476 to 7. Crude birth rates have dropped to 26.1 and death rates to 8.7.
18. Only 48 per cent of the 1.35 million beds are functional and relevant and about 65 per cent of these are located in the top 20 cities.
19. The most optimistic estimates put this number at less than 5 lakh. More than 65 per cent of the operational beds are in the private sector, and more than 80 per cent of the spending on healthcare in India is accounted for by the private sector even though over 65 per cent of India’s population is below the poverty line or living just on its fringes. No wonder that on an all-India basis, an Indian has to travel an average of 77 km to access basic secondary care services.
20. Heart diseases, diabetes, and cancer are expected to show a combined average decadal growth of 47 per cent in future.
21. India has only 0.6 doctors per 1,000 people, and the majority of the practitioners are based in urban areas. In addition, Indians cover 75% of their medical expenses from their own pockets, rather than with insurance.
22. Citizens in India spent Rs 1,650 billion, or 3.16 percent of the GDP (in 2011-12), on health care, whereas the government spent only 1.04 percent.In other words, a family of four spends nearly Rs 10,000 per year on health care. “Surprisingly, hospitals are treated on a par with the entertainment industry for tax calculation. We have a shortage of more than 1 million doctors. But we make such stringent rules in running a medical college that no one can start medical colleges in this country; even if one starts, it costs over Rs 200-300 crore, whereas anywhere in the world one can start a medical college with any building. They don’t need 25 acres of land and teachers retiring at 60,” said Dr. Setty, the famous cardiologist.
23. Today, a nurse who has worked in hospitals for 20 years cannot give a paracetamol tablet legally. Doctors such as Devi Shetty are speaking about some change in regulation for alternative medical specialists and nurses can look at primary care for almost a decade, everyone thinks it’s a great idea, but nothing happens in reality, because medical lobbies are very powerful.

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Indian Farming- Diversifying for Growth

Posted on March 22, 2013 by indra

If you wish to see how vegetable farmers or fruit growers of the country are changing their course and producing many new vegetables and fruits that were seen only in foreign countries, visit some Safal outlets or some weekly bazaar. Many a times, I get confused if the items are imported because of the opening of the market due to globalization that we all have accepted.

As per National Horticulture Database 2011 published by National Horticulture Board, during 2010-11 India produced 74.878 million metric tonnes of fruits and 146.554 million metric tonnes of vegetables. The area under cultivation of fruits stood at 6.383 million hectares while vegetables were cultivated at 8.495 million hectares. As reported, during 2011-12, India exported fruits and vegetables worth Rs.4801.29 crores which comprised of fruits worth Rs.1779.49 crores and vegetables worth Rs.3021.74 crores. Mangoes, Walnuts, Grapes, Bananas, Pomegranates account for larger portion of fruits exported from the country while Onions, Okra, Bitter Gourd, Green Chilies, Mushrooms and Potatoes contribute largely to the vegetable export basket. Many cargo aero planes are taking the fresh vegetables to different countries every day from different parts of the country.

A large number of progressive Indian farmers are diversifying according to the need of the domestic as well as foreign market. Indian orchards are now growing Kiwis and passion fruits and exporting them. They are negotiating to lower import duty in Europe for a particular variety of bananas – Grand Nain to be competitive. This long, yellow variety is now replacing the traditional ones such as Basrai across the country.

The export list is growing lengthy with all types of crops – broccoli, baby corn, sweet corn, red and yellow capsicums, pomegranate, onions, garlic, potato powder and gherkins. “There are several things which are produced just to meet the export demand.” The Corporate India through contract farming has come to assist the farmers in different ways from providing the inputs to marketing.

According to data in the latest Economic Survey, between 2000-01 and 2011-12, wheat and rice production rose 35% and 22%, respectively. While the spurt in cotton output jumped 3. 7 times, potato production has more than doubled. Similarly, there was a 75% jump in fruits and vegetable production and milk production saw an over 50%
rise. Even laggards such as pulses and oil seeds have seen an increase
of around 60%.

While India is the world’s largest milk producer, it is the second largest fruit grower behind China. Within fruits, it is the largest producer of bananas, accounting for almost 30% of the production. In case of vegetables too, India ranked behind China but the gap was huge, the data revealed.

While India is the world’s largest milk producer, it is the second largest fruit grower behind China. Within fruits, it is the largest producer of bananas, accounting for almost 30% of the production. In case of vegetables too, India ranked behind China but the gap was huge, the data revealed.

Globally, farmers get around 50% of the shelf price. In India the level is around 20-30 %. But that share is slowly increasing.

India has a great potential in improving scale of production through better labour productivity, better yield and cheap mechanization.

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Farming India-Some More Data

Posted on March 18, 2013 by indra

In 2011-12, Nitish Kumar not the chief minister but a farmer from Darveshpura village in Nalanda in Bihar produced 224 quintals (22. 4 tons) of paddy in a hectare using the system of rice intensification (SRI). Kumar shattered the world record of 194 qt/ha registered by China’s ‘father of rice’ Yuvan Longping. However, the Chinese didn’t recognize the same.

Rakesh Kumar of Sohdih some kms away in Nalanda produced 1, 088 qt/ha of potato this year breaking the world record of the Darveshpur farmer Nitish Kumar whose potato yield last year was 729 qt/ha, taking the record from a Dutch.

A revolution of sort is going on in the agricultural fields in different parts of India. Here are some interesting data about India:

About 60 per cent of Indians earn their living through agriculture.

More than half of India’s population spends more than half of its income on food.

Agriculture is the key to over 600 million people that half the population of this country.

Agriculture contributes only about 14 per cent to India’s GDP. Over 600 million people are engaged to produce this.

Agricultural growth has improved from an average of 2. 7 percent in 2002-2007 to 3. 6 percent in 2007-2012.

Just 2. 5 per cent of households in rural areas operate almost a third of the land. 80 per cent of households operate less than a hectare of land each. This includes some 45 per cent of the total who are landless.

A recent estimate says that in the five decades since Independence, 3. 68 million hectares (ha) land was declared surplus under land ceiling laws, of which 2. 3 million ha were actually taken over and 1. 8 million ha distributed among roughly 5 million beneficiaries.

Recent agricultural census data shows increasing fragmentation of land with the number of marginal farms (0. 5 to 1 ha) zooming up by 143 per cent, and the small farms (1 to 2 ha) going up by 82 per cent between 1970-71 and 2010-11. Large farms (> 10 ha) declined by 39 per cent in the same period.

56 per cent of food grains are produced from 47 million hectares (Mha) of irrigated land while the rest – 44 per cent – is produced from 95 Mha of rain-fed land. Food grain output could double simply by making available adequate and timely water for crops.

The country has an ultimate irrigation potential of about 140 Mha. Till the end of the Tenth Plan, over 21 Mha still remained to be developed. Shockingly, utilization efficiency of irrigation has dipped from 1 (full utilization) in 1951 to about 0. 83 currently.

Since 1996, Rs 45, 552 crore have been spent on 96 projects that are lying in different stages of incompleteness. Estimated costs for completing them would go up by 35 per cent.

In 1980-81, gross capital formation, GCF in agriculture was about 11 per cent of the agriculture GDP. In 1980-81, public and private investments in agriculture were about 50 percent each.

By 1996-97, GCF as a share of agricultural GDP had dropped to just 8 per cent. It revived after that and touched a high of 20 per cent in 2009-10, and is currently hovering around that mark. But there is a change in its composition: public investment component is down to just 25 per cent and private investment is up to nearly 75 per cent.

India has very low productivity or yield in food grains. China produced about seven tons of rice per hectare – nearly double the amount produced in India. The US produces nearly eight tons per hectare. In wheat, India is able to manage about three tons per hectare, compared to China’s five, France 6. 5 and Germany’s seven tons per hectare.

India now produces quality ingredients for Italian cooking such rucola and even a range of culinary herbs such as fresh basil, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, etc. A farm in nearby Chattarpur had seeded a crop of Italian tomatoes and the first ever organic San Marzano is also grown in India.

For example, Usha Farms in nearby Bijwasan has recently introduced a range of superb exotic mushrooms, like shiitake, shiimeji, portobello and oyster. In Punjab (around Nabha) and Himachal Pradesh (in Palampur), farmers have started growing 15 different crops, including Tuscan black cabbage, the gourmet green mache, beef steak tomatoes, micro cress and celery, amongst others

And Spaghetti Kitchen has tied up with farmers in Himachal Pradesh for herbs, vendors in Pune for vegetables and sources in Orissa for prawns from the Chilka Lake.

And for something about the entrepreneurial Indians, many Indian farmers are investing in and tilling fertile tracts in countries as far afield as Georgia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Bolivia and Uruguay. Probably about 4, 000 farmers, mostly Sikhs from Punjab, have invested in farmland in Georgia.

Is it not an impressive saga of Indian farming?

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The Great India Farming

Posted on March 8, 2013 by indra

I have the personal bitter experience of the scarcity of food grains in ‘50s and 60’s when in Calcutta we lived on imported poor quality wheat and coarse boiled rice from the ration shops. Nothing was available in open market. My grandfather used to tell us that those were meant for cattle feed in the countries of origin.

India has certainly changed over the years. All types of food grains are easily available in open market. Even the cheapest one is worth entering our kitchen when I have been very selective.

The India farmers are producing everything in surplus and exporting in huge quantum. If the government could arrange water though corruption free irrigation projects, India could feed all the hungry mouths of the world. However, because of poor policy, there are instances of huge wastage of huge amount of food grains. I wonder if the creation of suitable warehouses for food grains such as wheat and rice is rocket science. Why can’t the government make it a zero loss by wastage a target by the end of say any calendar year?

But I am writing this note to convince Mr. Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh that the right management of food grains with sufficient not excessive buffer can cut down some of their deficits that they bothered with. Here are some data to base my views:

1.Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices’ chief Ashok Gulati’s projects that agriculture export of India could touch $42 billion in FY13 has to come as a great relief—that’s a 13.5% increase over FY12’s mammoth $37 billion.
2.The agriculture export increased more than 10 times from $3.5 billion in FY91 to $37.1 billion in FY12, growing at an annual rate of 13.6 percent.
3.The agricultural imports have also grown faster, from $0.7 billion to $17.2 billion, but still surplus for the country is around 20 billion dollars.
4.India’s share of global agricultural exports rose from 0.8% in 1990 to 2.1% in 2011, a share which is higher than that of global merchandise exports—this rose from 0.6% to 1.7% in the same period.
5.India can export 10 million tonnes of wheat more that can fetch $3 billion to the exchequer. And, since FCI stores around 16-17 million tonnes of grain out in the open (covered by a tarpaulin of uneven quality), not exporting this would just mean the grain would rot.
6.According to Gulati’s calculations, the excess food grains stock held by FCI alone has cost the government R1 lakh crore or 1% of GDP.
7.Potential is huge if the yields are improved in some states that lag. Punjab’s wheat yields are 4,415 kg per hectare, Bihar’s are only 1,946. And that is doable.
8.The investments in the agriculture sector, after stagnating at 9.3% of agricultural GDP in FY82 and 9.1% in FY92, rose to 14.6% in FY02 and further to 20.3% in FY10.
9.The farmers have started emulating advanced nation. When Bt promised better cotton output, farmers switched to it in droves. From nearly zero in FY02, 81% of all cotton cropped was Bt by just FY08, as a result of which yields—that rose from 220 kg per hectare in the 1980s to 298 in the 1990s—suddenly jumped to an average of 443 in the 2000s; those in Gujarat, where Bt cotton first took root, averaged 582 kg per hectare in the 2000s. By the end of the 2000s, India is the world’s second-largest cotton exporter.
10.Farmers did the same feat with hybrid maize as a result of which yields rose around 30% in the 2000s.
11.This is when The Indian Council of Agriculture Research has an R&D budget of R2, 700 crore a year while a single company in US, Monsanto alone spends R7,500 crore ($1.5 billion) a year and Pioneer R4,000 crore ($800 million).
12.India has even emerged as the world’s No.1 exporter of rice (ahead of Thailand), while turning from an importer to the largest cotton shipper after the US. And the contents of export are also interesting. Till about 10 years back, this was dominated by marine products, cashew, tea, coffee and spices. But today, there are cotton, rice, wheat, maize, meat, oil-meals and guar-gum.Last year India exported 1.085 lakh tonnes of fresh grapes valued at Rs 602.86 crore. Onion exports have shown a declining trend since November 2012. Shipments fell by over 40 per cent to 83,044 tonnes in January, as against 1,47,255 tonnes in the year-ago period.
13.As on February 1, the government had over 65 million tonnes of food grains in its stock, more than double the required quantity. Of this, almost half was wheat. The floor price for private traders for the export was fixed at Rs 1,480 a quintal ex-Punjab.
14.To clear bulging grain stocks, a group of ministers (GoM), headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar decided to allow export of an additional five million tonnes (mt) of wheat from the Central pool.
15.And when I come across the farmers experimenting new means to improve the yield, I realize India can’t remain behind China. A recent story of the Chinese not believing that Nalanda farmer produced rice paddy more than the Chinese, was really interesting.

And visit a good vegetable shop, you can find all new produce such as baby corn, broccoli, mushroom, and coloured capsicum. It has just started, the future is bright.

Posted in agriculture, economy | 1 Comment

For a Change

Posted on March 4, 2013 by indra

I have written against Manmohan a little more only with a hope that he will speed up the development of this beloved country that has remained under subjugation for centuries.

Manmohan though has failed as an administrator, but he remained dreamer and contributed significantly with some clear cut projects.

1. Manmohan established 16central universities including conversion of three state universities to central universities, seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), 8 new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), 10 new National Institutes of Technology (NITs), 5 Indian Institutes of Science Education &Research (IISERs), and 2 Schools of Planning and Architecture (SPAs).

2. Manmohan has initiated and may be completing theNational Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) which aims at providing high speed broadband connectivity to universities and colleges and development of e-content in various disciplines is under implementation. Nearly 404 universities have been provided 1Gbps connectivity or have been configured under the scheme and 19,851 colleges have also been provided VPN connectivity. Over 250 courses have been completed and made available in National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) Phase I and another 996 courses in various disciplines in engineering and science are being generated in Phase-II of NPTEL by IIT Madras.

3. The project planned by the previous government has started the construction of 6 AIIMS-like institutions at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur, and Rishikesh.

4. For providing the right human resources for the Indian IT industry, the key sector that made India a global brand, the government has also approved setting up of twenty new Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) on PPP basis that are targeted for completion in nine years from 2011-12 to 2019-20.

5. Bharat Nirman programme, the brainchild of Manmohan was really a wonderful one, as the time frame for the targets were defined. It would have changed the picture of the rural India, but the execution was very poor. For example as per the programme, my village has been electrified, but it hardly gets electricity for few days in a year for few hours in the day. If MNREGA would have effectively used for building water bodies and canals, it could have provided water for irrigation for a large number of farmers.

I wish Manmohan would have focused on few priority items.

1. Manmohan could certainly improve upon the hurdles of red tape and things required for doing business fast and attracted FDI.
2. Manmohan could certainly gone to implement the reforms suggested by many committees for police adminstration.
3. Manmohan could certainly got built the storage facilities for food grains to avoid wastage.
4. Manmohan could have certainly improved the role of manufacturing sector as strategy for providing more employment. Manmohan could have convinced the defence bosses to get more indigenisation of many equipment required by armed forces by bringing in private sector in it.

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Railway Budget or Literary Marvel

Posted on February 27, 2013 by indra

As reported, it was after seventeen years that a Congressman presented The Indian Railway budget yesterday. It amazed me for few things in it. I wondered why the railway minister must read the whole budget in detail that went on for 75minutes.The poor minister was failing to pronounce even the name of the places and stations. However, to impress upon the members he integrated in it poetic flourishes:

“While I have a feeling of a colossus today, it is only ephemeral and is
instantaneously overtaken by a sense of humility. Democracy gives
wings to the wingless, cautioning us all the while, that howsoever high
or wide our flight may be, we must remain connected to the ground.”

“When it was snowing heavily in Kashmir valley, and suspension of road and air services had brought life to a grinding halt. Photographs in Newspapers showing a train covered with snow emerging from a similar white background, carrying passengers travelling over the recently commissioned Qazigund -Baramulla section instilled in me a sense of immense pride.I recall here the inspirational words of Christine Weatherly”:
When you travel on the railway,
And the line goes up a hill,
Just listen to the engine
As it pulls you with a will.
Though it goes very slowly
It sings this little song
“I think I can, I think I can,”
And so it goes along.
——–
I do believe that one day Railways shall find ways to contribute to its infrastructural projects.”
A bird sitting on a tree has no fear of falling, not because of the strength of the
branch but because of faith in its own wings.
——–
Earlier I had cited Christine Weatherly. I turn to her again.
But later on the Journey….
….the engine’s singing still.
If you listen very quietly
You will hear this little song,
“I thought I could, … I could!”
And so it speeds along.
I was happy and then surprised that even after an estimated loss of Rs 24,600 crore in 2012-13, the minister proposed to set up a number of new manufacturing/maintenance facilities:
i. a new Forged Wheel Factory at Rae Bareli for which an MoU has
been signed with Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL);

ii. a Greenfield Mainline Electrical Multiple Units (MEMU)
manufacturing facility at Bhilwara, Rajasthan in collaboration
with state government and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
(BHEL);

iii. a coach manufacturing unit in Sonepat district, Haryana in
collaboration with the state government;

iv. midlife rehabilitation (MLR) Workshop at Kurnool, Andhra
Pradesh in collaboration with the state government;

v. conversion of Bikaner and Pratapgarh workshops to undertake
POH of BG wagons;

vi. a workshop for repair and rehabilitation of motorised bogies at
Misrod, Madhya Pradesh;

vii. a new wagon maintenance workshop in Kalahandi district,
Odisha;

viii. a modern signalling equipment facility at Chandigarh through
PPP

Interestingly, the budget doesn’t mention of all the projects that were announced by previous railway ministers over the years and their status. I don’t know what happened to two factories that Lalu Yadav proposed to be set up in Bihar. What happened to the projects of worldclass railway stations that were promised? Is New Delhi Railway Station now world class?

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Education and Bihar

Posted on February 26, 2013 by indra

The country is already having some models of schools such as Kendriya Vidyalayas, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, Kasturba Gandhi Kanya Vidyalayas that are faring wonderfully well. It would have better if these can be located in rural Bihar. The centre has also plans for setting up 6000 model schools. Under the scheme, the centre or some from private sector under PPP mode will have a model school at each block headquarters. The state must demand its share as fast as possible and facilitate the programme proactively. Each school will have up to 2,500 seats. The Centre will sponsor a maximum of 1,000 students. For the rest of the 1,500-odd seats, the private management can charge as much it decides.

The Bihar government must approach the departments concerned at the centre for getting more such schools, as many as possible, in Bihar without any bias. Instead of getting some new models of school, Bihar must see the possibility of replicating these models.

Bihar must improve the quality of education at primary school level and that too in its rural regions. With so poor urbanization, if the rural schools don’t get proper and regular monitoring, Bihar will lag behind. It is only through quality education that the deprived categories of the society, be it Dalit or Mahadalit or the minority, can surely come out of poverty.

The Bihar government will have to take up the mission of education on the same footing as it took up for the alleviation of polio. It will have to reach each and every individual to have universal education through 100 percent enrolment and no dropout till the student gets skilled in at least one employable trade.

The preschool care will require special attention. It will be interesting that toddler engineering and management is getting special attention for the educationists all over the world.
Vijay Govindarajan, the Earl C Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, suggests in an article recently using everyday analogies to teach pre-kindergarten 4-5 years children engineering concepts. He has based it on the findings of innovator and thinker George Land.
“In 1968, George Land gave eight tests of creative thinking to children between three and five years old. He found that 98 per cent of them scored in the creative genius category. When the same children took identical tests five years later, only 32 per cent scored that high. Five years later, it was down to 10 per cent. Two lakh adults over the age of 25 have taken the same tests and only 2 per cent scored at the creative genius level. In his co-authored book Breakpoint and Beyond, Land says that the “socialisation process restricts the natural creativity of our thinking potential by assigning value judgments… our proficiency in expressing our creativity gradually drops off as we learn to accept others’ opinions, evaluations and beliefs”.

As Late Prof Indresan pleaded, the proper way to get SC and ST students into higher education was not through quotas but through quality education from primary school itself.

When the world is going ahead so far, how can we afford to lag behind? Anganbari workers need a lot of training and retraining to take care of the preschool toddlers even in rural India. These preschool must go in the vicinity of the habitations of the deprived communities in rural Bihar.

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Bihar: Higher Education

Posted on February 21, 2013 by indra

Bihar after separation of JHARKHAND didn’t loose much on higher education. Most of the reputed colleges and universities are still in Bihar. However, the reputed ones of yester years have lost its glory over the years. Media, as such, hardly cover the educational institutes sufficiently. One hardly find the names of the Bihar’s colleges teaching arts, science, commerce, engineering, medicines, law or management in the ranking lists that ‘India Today’ or ‘Outlook’ normally publish at least once in year to guide the parents and prospective students to select the best of the colleges. I kept on looking for it every time such copy came in my hands.

Why should not the colleges of Patna such as Science College, BNCollege or for that matter, Patna Women College be looked with the same respect and pride as the colleges of Delhi by the students and even employers? Can the Nitish government do something for bringing back the respectability and glory of the old colleges of Patna? Can the government allocate sufficient fund and encourage them to create endowment fund with contribution from alumni and philanthropists? Can the professors be made more accountable and the good ones are given motivational awards and recognition? Perhaps, with the type of stuffs on roll as teachers and the poor interactions between the chief minister and the Chancellor i.e. the governor, it will be difficult.

The revolutionary emergence of private institutes of management, engineering or medicine that happened in southern, western and now even the central and northern India, bypassed Bihar. I was surprised the other day when Sonu called me from Dumraon, Bihar. He is teaching in a private engineering college there. Very lately, some few private engineering colleges and management schools have come up in Bihar. However, during Nitish era, five institutes of importance- IIT, BIT, AIIMS came to and got started in and around Patna. Two other institutes that can make the difference- Chanakya Law University and Chandragupta School of Management became operative again in Patna.

However, I am more concerned about the colleges that teach general subjects. And the government and particularly the chief minister and the education minister must come out with some time-bound solutions of the hurdles in making these colleges respectable academically.

I am amazed to learn that around eight lakh students have appeared for the intermediate examination this year. With high percentage of success these days, some five lakh boys and girls will look for higher education in the colleges. I don’t know the capacity in the 816 colleges of Bihar (I have picked up the figure from a report in Times of India. I don’t know if the number is right and if the number has taken care of the minimum infrastructure required for a good college). I don’t know the number of the candidates who will like to get admitted in those colleges. As I know, most who can afford will send their children to the institutes outside the states. I am also unaware of the total outflow of money every year to different states because of the paucity of good colleges in the state. Many of these youngsters do well but quite a few just drain out the money from the parents or family heads in rural Bihar and return after wasting few years. Can Bihar government or some NGO start an effective and honest counseling for the young men and women along with the parents going outside for studies?

I wish Bihar government promotes the concept of Science and Technology City where a cluster of institutes come up under a model ambiance. The cluster can have facilities such as higher secondary schools, science colleges, engineering and medical colleges with an institute of R&D in different areas. The cluster must be made free for the students from all parts of the country. Someone like Madan Mohan Malviya must pioneer the idea of making Bihar known in the field of education.

Bihar can’t flourish with mere GDP. It must do away with some poor traits that have come to be associated with Bihar. And on that line, Bihar has not changed.

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