दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

India:Disadvantaged Democracy

If you are a little concerned about the future of this country, you must be worried today because of the total scarcity of good and capable leaders in almost all political parties who only constitutionally can and will run the government of the country.

I was amused while hearing the statement of Salman Khurshid whom I considered an intellectual. Khurshid appeared to me a sycophant of the highest order, when he was making the statement about his commander Rahul who has been recently selected to lead the election campaign in 2014 for Congress. It has come even though Rahul’s failure to win a single state election, be it Bihar or UP. And Gujarat is so scaring to him that he never dared to head the campaign there.

None in Congress can even dream of becoming the head of the Congress party, but one from the so called Gandhi Nehru family. None but Rahul can become the prime minister too even if he may not the right choice for running the government. And following the Indian inheritance tradition, Sonia long back decided to keep Priyanka with better potential out of the race.

Unfortunately, Rahul refused to get experience of administration under Manmohan. Perhaps the mother never wished to expose him as cabinet minister that could have been useful. Rahul even never tried to prove his parliamentary skill. The nation will have to wait to the administrative acumen of Rahul for some more time.

When Sonia couldn’t become the prime minister because of her foreign origin , she appointed an extremely loyal Manmohan to keep the seat warm till Rahul gets into it. And in the process, Manmohan has remained the prime minister for almost ten years now that will be the maximum period exceeded by only the first legendary prime minister of India.

As it appears Rahul will take the position if he can be lucky enough to make Congress win the next election.Unfortunately, even in Congress there is hardly any to lead the nation as the prime minister even if Sonia wishes so. Chidambaram has his own problem though he has gone sober over the years, others are just sycophants and also intolerably arrogant.

However, the crisis of leadership prevails in all parties. BJP is having too many top leaders and they can’t agree to elect one without the interference of the mentor, RSS that could have kept itself aloof of the working of BJP and focused on improving the social ills of the majority community. However, those who lead RSS must themselves change their mind sets to become more acceptable by the younger generation of the country that hardly like to be communal..

Regional parties also have similar problem. Who is the next man of Nitish Kumar? Mamta is another class that can win election but can’t run a government. Every one working for her must follow her. Under such a situation, a sound governance system can not get planted and grow. Even senior leaders in political parties such as TMC, BSP, or AIDMK or even Shiv Sena and NCP can’t freely express their views and participate in framing the policies in the interest of the country because of the fear of the boss.

With a large number of legal cases of corruption and misuse of the discretionary power against the top leaders such as Mulayam, Mayawati, Jay Lalita, or Sharad Pawar, the followers will hardly come clean when an opportunity knocks.

Unfortunately, none of these political parties have established sound norms for internal democratic working. Most of them are running one person show by and for the boss . None of them actually work in any constructive way providing social services such as education, healthcare or skilling at grassroots level to develop good performing leaders. The sole job of the party is to keep the vote bank happy and on its side at all cost, even that of the national interest.

Unfortunately, the induction of Manmohan in 2004 could have provided a good model if Sonia would have given him the free hand. Sonia has deprived the nation to have non political prime minister or president in absence of the right person through parliamentary democratic system.

It was really in spite of the government that India story became so attractive. Let us see what 2014 provides.

Years ago one used to hear ‘India is rich but Indians are poor’. In our village schools, our teachers taught us boastfully about the abundance of iron ore, coal and mica available in the state and the country. Mines particularly the coal ones were in private sector. I just missed getting into ISM and becoming a first class manager in a coal mine, the most lucrative job in those days. However, today many power plants are starving for coal. India is importing millions of tonnes of coal making the power generation comparatively. Indian government owned company Coal India dug preferably all the coal available on the surface and didn’t invest on the latest technology to go deep. Many genuine with some unscrupulous private companies recently got new coal mines allocated but hardly anything to produce.

Many projects worth many lakh crores including the famous Posco of South Korea are waiting for clearances and acquisitions of land to get it going.

Even the setting up of a National Investment Board proposed in recent reform steps has taken months to go in the system. However, there are still some good news and so hope in all the despair.

As reported, “projects worth Rs 1.3 lakh crore got completed in the first half of the fiscal and if CMIE’s projections for second half commissioning get realized, the total value of projects going on stream in 2012-13 can be Rs 5 lakh crore, that would be a sizeable improvement compared with completion of projects worth Rs 4.3 lakh crore in 2011-12.”

Many things make us pride. With all the constraints out of unnecessary fear of the government, India exported the maximum amount of rice last year. It can also top in the export of wheat, sugar, cotton and milk products too.

India has taken some great steps with technology. All the village panchayats in India are getting digital connections. Even some enthusiasts have taken the task as an individual. Bharat Broadband initiative envisages linking of 2,50,000 villages across India by the end of 2013 with an optic fibre network. It will ease the new entrepreneurs to make their products and services reach the consumer directly in the near future.

Ashrafpur Kichaucha, a small town of 15,865 people in Ambedkar Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh has a website that could be the ultimate in e-governance. And it has been created by one man without any financial help from the government or any other agency, using three computers and a scanner.

Aakash 2, the cheapest tablet of the world has been launched and will be in the hands of more than 220 million students in the next five years.

ATMs providing multiple functions are mushrooming. With installation of additional 1 lakh ATMs over a period of next two years, the average of the current 85 will go to 170 ATMs per million populations.

“Aadhar will be getting millions of Indians biometrically identified and opening accounts for them. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys fame, the brains behind it, expects that by the end of 2014 600m Indians will be enrolled, creating the infrastructure for a system of cash transfer for welfare cutting down the leaks.

Technology is also going to deliver a ‘personalized’ educational experience to students, even to many who don’t get the same in schools today. Just one such example is the offerings of the e-books including audio & video elements while others have interactive multiple choice questions at the end of a chapter along with InstaReports (test scores and solved solutions to test questions, even if you are offline).

India’s central and state governments are edging closer to an agreement on a design and deadline for the Goods and Services Tax, a comprehensive value-added tax that will replace many smaller taxes and levies and will make India a unified market. The proposed tax reform has been described as having the potential “to be the single most important initiative in the fiscal history of India.”

And in manufacturing, the MNCs are still investing in expanding the capacity and some, particularly in auto sector are focusing to make India a manufacturing hub for even export.

Let the honest Indian individuals not get daunted with the despair caused by unscrupulous politicians and industrialists or for that matter, any one, who could have made the difference, be he a vice chancellor of an university or a business man.

BJP: Change !

For a change BJP must behave as a responsible opposition party in the forthcoming parliament winter session. 

1. Their opposition to FDI in multi-brand must be limited to restrict the foreign multi-national companies to import all and every items of low technology household items from countries like China through specific conditionality. For every import of a certain value it must buy and export for its outlet abroad a minimum of two times by value the similar items. It must encourage Indian companies to develop items that are the preferred choices of the consumers in mass foreign markets.

2. BJP must support the government on other issues such as financial, education centric bills.

3. BJP must press for getting land acquisition bill passed even if it requires an extension or special session of the parliament, as it is one bottleneck for getting the infrastructure and manufacturing projects to expand at the desired rate.

4. But there is one more important issue that BJP must brought right on the first day. It must insist upon the government to set up an independent commission that completes the investigation of the corruption issues raised in media, be it of Vadra, Salman Khurshid, Gadkari, Mukesh Ambani or HSBC hawala. BJP must realize the controversial clean chit of RSS leaning chartered accountant Gurumurthy is not a sufficient enough logic to make Gadkari a good enough choice as a head of the party.

The top leadership of BJP and that of their mentor RSS must appreciate the worries and doubts of the millions of well-wishers and those who vote for it. They should not take them for granted and should play with their wishes to defeat the dynastic Congress and it’s sycophants in 2014 general election. By not going by the sentiments of the masses, BJP leadership is doing a great injustice to them.

आओ चुनौती दें फैलते अंधेरों को
असली ज्ञान दीपों को जला
लाखों करोड़ों में ।
अपने स्वेदों के स्‍नेह से
भरे रखें हरपल उनको ।
केवल अथक साधना, प्रयास
बुद्धि, और शक्ति देगी
असंख्य आसुरी
रावणी शक्ति पर बिजय ।
पर रहे याद हमें
बिजय के बाद की
कहानी सदा
उससे भी जरूरी
रहा लोभ का त्याग
सबका, चाहे राम
या साधारण बानर ।
न लिया दिब्य रथ,
न रत्न, स्वर्ण, आभूषण ।
और तभी जल सकी
कोशल में दीप माल्य
और आया राम राज्य ।

शुभ हो दीपावली

MIT publishes ‘Technology Review‘. It’s editors have selected 10 most important technological milestones reached over the previous 12 months. According to them, the technologies ‘will have the greatest impact on the shape of innovation in years to come. These are breakthroughs with the potential to transform the world.’

But TR35 of MIT is more unique as it selects 35 young scientists of ages below 35 years. Five scientists of Indian origin are in this year’s list. Their works are interesting. Here below are some details of those five scientists and their research areas.

1. Sarbajit Banerjee
Banerji is working to develop A window that changes in response to the heat. ” B­anerjee, a materials chemist at the University at Buffalo in New York, is applying his work on a compound called vanadium oxide to coat glass with a material that makes this possible.Windows block heat—but let it through when you want them.”

2.Shishir Mehrotra
Mehrotra, an MIT math and computer science alum had developed: skippable ads that advertisers would pay for only when people watched them. That would be a radical change from the conventional media model of paying for ad “impressions” regardless of whether the ads are actually viewed, and even from Google’s own pay-per-click model.

3.Pratheev Sreetharan
Mass-producible tiny machines snap into place like objects in a pop-up book
Combining tools used to manufacture printed circuit boards with the spirit of origami, Pratheev Sreetharan has found a way to build tiny machines and complex objects that were previously impossible to fabricate without assembling them manually. Some of the results: a robotic bee created in a day, a tiny, precise icosahedron, and a small chain of interlocking carbon-fiber links. The small, intricate items demonstrate a fundamentally new fabrication approach that ­Sreetharan believes can be broadly applicable in making a range of new medical devices, robots, and components of analytical instruments.

4.Saikat Guha
Saikat Guha is convinced that privacy and profit don’t have to conflict online. The Microsoft Research India computer scientist has developed a software platform that allows advertisers to precisely target potential customers without exposing the customers’ personal information.

5.Prashant Jain
Prashant Jain, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois, has figured out a way to create tunable quantum dots that can be adjusted on the fly. His innovation could be key to designing optical computers and ultra-efficient solar panels.
I wish the government, major companies and institutions encourage their scientists to participate in this competition. However, five out of 35 is not bad.

पढ़ाई के लिये दूसरी बार बिरलापुर गया शायद १९४८ में । दादाजी के अध्यापक होने के कारण चौथी कक्षा में बैठने की इजाजत मिल गई ।उसी समय कुछ महीने बाद स्कूल का सालाना पुरष्कार बितरण समारोह हो रहा था । दादाजी एक एक कर लड़कों को बुलाते और उनका पुरष्कार श्री महाबीर प्रसाद, जो सहायक जेनेरल मैनेजर थे, के हाथों में देते जा रहे थे लड़कों को देने के लिये । उन दिनों मैंं एक पल के लिये भी दादाजी को छोड़ता नहीं था । सभी यह जानते थे और दादाजी का लिहाज कर कुछ कहते नहीं थे । मैं जिद्द किये जा रहा था कि वे एक पुरष्कार मुझे भी दिला दें । कैसे मिलता मुझे, नहीं मिला । शायद वहीं  से ललक जागी, पढाइ में अच्छा करने की । उस साल तो मैं वापस लौट आया था गाँव, पर जब १९५० में कक्षा ६ से पढ़ाइ प्रारंभ की तो हर साल प्रथम होता रहा और पुरष्कार मिलता रहा जबतक कॉलेज नहीं गया ।
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दूसरी याद कक्षा ७ या ८ की है ।पहली बार स्कूल में दो महिला आध्यापक आइं ।एक हमें इतिहास पढ़ातीं थीं ।बिरलापुर विद्यालय अपने में अनूठा था- बंगा।ली में शिक्षक पढ़ाते थे, क्योंकि अधिकाँश लड़के बंगाली थे बिरला जुट मिल की फ़ैक्टरियों में काम करनेवालों के, चीफ़ इंजीनियर से लेकर सामान्य मजदूरों के । शिक्षक अधिकाँश बंगाली ही थे । हमारे समय में तो केवल श्रीवास्तव जी हिन्दी भाषी थे और हिन्दी पढ़ाते थे, पर सहायक प्राध्यापक भी थे । हां, प्रश्न पत्र जरूर अंग्रेजी में ही होते थे। और हम हिन्दी माध्यम वाले हिंदी में उत्तर लिखते थे ।इतिहास की शिक्षिका हिंदी पढ़ना नहीं जानती थीं । मेरी कक्षा के हिंदी में लिखने वाले -रुदल एवं रामबली उनकी इस कमजोरी का फ़ायदा लिये। पन्ने के बाद पन्ने भरते गये, जबतक आखिरी घंटी नहीं बजी । शिक्षिका ने अपनी कमजोरी को जाहिर न करने के लिये किसी की सहायता भी नहीं लीं, पन्ने गिन   आकलन कर लिया । रुदल और रामबली को सबसे ज़्यादा अंक मिले ।दादाजी ने इस बात को श्रीवास्तव जी से कहा। उत्सुकता के कारण श्रीवास्तव जी उनकी कापियों को देखे । हैरान हुए, अनाप सनाप से भरे उत्तरों को पढ़ ।उदाहरण के लिये- ” बहमनी राज्य में बड़े मोटे मोटे पेड़ थे, नदियों में पानी भरा रहता था ।—-:” अगली सालाना परीक्षा में जाँचने का काम हिंदी के जानकार शिक्षक को दे दिया गया ।दोनों फेल हो गये और स्कूल भी छोड़ दिये । मुझे  बहुत दुख हुआ । अगले साल अपनी कक्षा में मैं अकेला हिन्दी में लिखने वाला रह गया ।श्रीवास्तव जी हिन्दी पढ़ाते थे, और मैं अकेला पढ़ने वाला होता था कक्षा में ।
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श्री बिमल कुमार सर्बज्ञ उस समय प्राध्यापक थे, अंग्रेजी की रैपीड रीडर कक्षा ७ की उनकी लिखी थी, श्रीवास्तव जी ने भी बच्चों के लिये कुछ हिन्दी की पुस्तकें लिखी थी । मुझे लिखने की प्रेरणा शायद वहीं से मिली । कक्षा में सर्वोत्तम होते रहने के कारण काफी प्रतिष्टा भी मिला । कबिता पाठ, लेख, नाटक में भाग लेता रहा दादा जी के प्रोत्साहन के चलते । बिरलापुर छोटी जगह थी, सभी पहचानते थे और प्यार भी करते थे ।मैंने फोटो आत्म कथा ‘Over the Years’ में जो मेरे website http://www.drishtikona.com पर है, काफी घटनाओं का ज़िक्र किया है बिशेष कर शिक्षकों के बारे में ।उसमें एक घटना  एक ड्रामा ‘मेवाड़ पतन’ के सन्दर्भ में है, जिसमें मैंने अजय सिंह की भूमिका निभाइ थी ।दूसरी घटना कक्षा १० की है जिसमें क्लास टीचर मेरे साथ असामान्य बचकानी बेइमानी किये थे।
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दादाजी की कमजोरी मैं था और मेरी कमजोरी दादा जी । रात को उनके साथ ही सोता था एक हाथ उन पर रखे हुए। मां से अलग रहते हुए उनकी कमी दादाजी के कारण कभी महसूस नहीं हुइ ।छोटी कक्षाओं में उन्हे ट्यूशन जाने से बाहर के दरवाजे पर ताला लगा रोक देता । ‘पहले मेरे सवालों का हल निकलवाइये फिर जाइयेगा’। हमारा अत्याचार हंसते हुए सहते रहते, शायद ही कभी गुस्सा हुए होंगें । खेलने में मेरी कभी कोइ रुचि नहीं थी । स्कूल के बाद समय काटने की दो जगह थी बिरलापुर में- शाम को मैं मिल द्वारा बनाइ हुगली नदी की जेटी पर बैठ आते जाते जहाज़ों को देखा करता था ।कितना समय निकल जाता, पता ही नहीं चलता था। दूसरी जगह बिरलापुर की लाइब्रेरी थी , जहां हिन्दी की किताबों का बहुत अच्छा संग्रह था । उन दिनों खूब पढ़ा सब तरह की किताबें, बाद में न उतना समय मिला, न वह जोश रहा ।
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उन्ही दिनों स्कूल में चार हिन्दी शिक्षक आये ।वे मेरा कोइ क्लास तो नहीं लिये, पर काफी नजदीक रहे । सहोदर पांडेय बहुत अच्छी धून में कबिता पाठ करते थे, उन्ही से पहली बार बच्चन जी की मधुशाला सुनी ।दिनेश मिश्रा कबिता करते थे अच्छी, छपतीं भी थीं । मैं दोनों से काफी प्रभावित हुआ, कबिता के नजदीक आया और मन बहलाने के लिये कुछ लिखा भी ।सपने देखने की आदत लगी ।

स्कूल में सह शिक्षा थी, लड़कियां सभी बंगाली । हां, ऊपर और काफी नीचे की कक्षाओं में जरूर कुछ हिन्दीभाषी पढ़ती थीं, और ‘राय जी का हाथी’ कहा चिढ़ाती थीं । 
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स्कूल फ़ाइनल की परीक्षा मार्च १९५५ में होनी थी । टेस्ट देने के बाद पाठ्य पुस्तकों को उलटने की भी इच्छा नहीं हो रही थी ।शायद ही लोगों को विश्वास हो आज, मैं पूरे जनवरी  श्याम सुंदर दास, राम चंद्र शुक्ल और काफी जाने-माने लेखकों की साहित्यिक किताबें पढ़ता रहा था । आज भी समझ नहीं आता ऐसा क्यों करता था। वे पुस्तके काफी कठिन  हिन्दी में थीं और बिषय समझ के बाहर ।पर बहुत सी बातें याद रहीं, और मुझे मेरी सनक की हानि का अहशाश नहीं हुआ ,क्योंकि इसके बावजूद भी अपने सेंटर में सर्बोपर रहा था ।
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घर में दादी मेरी फरमाइसों को पूरा करती थी। आजतक याद है मुझे मेरी मनशोखी । वह समय बहुत कष्ट का था ।देश में अनाज की कमी थी, बिदेश से गेहूं, चावल आता था । और मैं था कि न लाल आटा खाता था, न मोटा चावल, न आलू की सब्जी ।कभी कभी दादी के कहने पर चार पांच आना ले बाजार भी जाता था सब्जी लाने, उन दिनों चीजें इतनी सस्ती मिलतीं थीं । दादाजी भी कभी कभी बाजार महीने भर का घर का सामान लाने के लिये ले जाते और मुझे रसगुल्ला खिलाते ।मैं रात होते ही बहुत जल्दी सो जाता था। फिर रात के किसी समय जाग खाना माँगता ।सोती दादी उठतीं, दूध रोटी देतीं । मैं खाता और पढ़ने बैठ जाता । इतने सबेरे जगने और पढ़ने की आदत आज भी है । कितना प्यार मिला दादा-दादी से, पर मैं तो कुछ खास उनके लिये नहीं कर पाया । 
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याद आने पर फिर