Education- Some Issues Require Sibal’s Attention

Posted on September 21, 2009 by indra

Sibal has become the darling of media. As many surveys show, the countrymen expects him to succeed to reform the education sector that has remained prisoner under some very biased ministers for almost a decade or more. Here are some points that as individual, I would like him to include in his agenda for education sector:

Can Sibal get the education system rid of tuition and coaching that is spreading as monster in the country? Today almost 90% of the students of all levels take tuition and the trade, with many poorly qualified providers is flourishing unchecked in every corner of the country. And this tuition is only for passing or excelling in the examinations without much learning, the basic purpose of education. If the teaching is right, why should there be need of it?

Can at the school stage Sibal get rid of the load of backpack carried by the school going children creating even sometimes long term physical ailments? Why can’t the school have lockers?

Can Sibal see that any project work to be done at home will not be such that it becomes a project work for the parents or one will have to get it outsourced to professionals doing it?

Can Sibal and his government working for $10 laptop develop a device that can store the text books and serve also as exercise books for the students? For the next class, the students will have to get the text books of the new class loaded at some cost, but the hardware remains same.

Can Sibal assure of having more labs, creativity centres, presentation halls, playgrounds, studios, gardens and music rooms in every school? Will the model schools have them? India may need a million of them. Why the school should be permitted in residential areas with constraints of sufficient land?

Can Sibal get a basic course on agriculture at the secondary level as most of the drop outs from the rural area going to agriculture hardly get any formal knowledge of agriculture science and farming practices?

Can Sibal ensure that all students passing out class X are skilled in one basic trade, be it of mason, carpenter, electrician, barber, or cook?

Can Sibal get IITs and other government professional institutes to have sufficient capacities in its hostels to have single occupancy room? How can he justify a small room being shared by three persons?

Can the thesis for graduate, postgraduate and Ph.D be made less voluminous, original and compulsorily put on a web? Can he eliminate the professors taking undue advantages from the Ph.D candidates?

Can aptitude for teaching and research be made one of the main criteria for selection of candidates for M.Tech course in professional education?

Can Sibal advocate and arrange for a good enough differential in remunerations for the entry level for persons with M.Tech and Ph.D in comparison of those with just B.Tech qualification in the industry?

Can IITs and other institutes of excellence admit persons from industry with experience if they wish to get admitted instead of the regular way of admission through entrance tests?

Can Sibal improve the affectivity and efficiency of teaching? There is certainly some basic flaw in teaching that can’t make student speak, write, or understand English after learning it as a subject from class I to class XII or even up to BA standard. Similarly, ineffective teaching is keeping the students poor in the learning other subjects too, be it Hindi, science, or math.

India must aim to reform its education significantly at the grassroots, and those in authority to do that must first get ready to change their mindsets.

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Nitish’s State and Nitish

Posted on September 20, 2009 by indra

The outcome of the recent bye-election went against Nitish and so against his priorities in governance of the state and his vote-bank politics. Voters sent a warning signal to the rulers: They can’t be taken for granted. Naturally, I was a bit morose as it appeared the people of Bihar again trying to bring back the worse ones. Instead, they would have decided not to elect any one. Unfortunately, the provision is still missing in Indian democratic process or the voters are not mature enough to do that.

But with the latest ‘India Today’, the special issue on the ‘state of the states’ in hand, I got another bad news going against Nitish that pains me more than his losing few seats. He and his government have not been able to change the state of his state in last four years. Is a time period of four years not good enough to bring changes improving the state’s ranking on different parameters? I would not have written if Nitish would have shown a will and aggression to change the conditions.
Bihar has remained at the bottommost in the overall rankings of 20 big states since last six years and this year too. Interestingly, Bihar is at the bottom of the table in six of eight categories, and even in agriculture, where it has natural advantages, it is in the bottom five. Even in the rankings of the 13 small and big states of eastern zone, Bihar is at the bottom in the same way.

Is it not due to the failure of Nitish to get a breakthrough in developing his state? Does it not speak of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of his team that he has selected on his own without many problems even from his alliance? Can I dare to further conclude that Bihar doesn’t have the political or administrative stuffs that can perform aggressively to bring the state from the shameful situation?

The per capita income in Bihar is measly Rs 11,403, the lowest. I kept on hearing about Nitish’s thrust on education, but only one out of three children over 10 completes studies. One household out of five owns TV set in Bihar.

As reported, Bihar has been the worst performers in the demand-driven programme like the prime minister’s rural roads programme and Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna. And still the people of Bihar do read only the news about the cruel differences between the Nitish, his ministers, and the central ministers. Bihar didn’t use even its NREGA effectively and provided only about 23 days of work against the provision of 100 days.

Even with all these bad news and rankings, Nitish gets an award from Economic Times outsmarting New Delhi’s chief minister. As reported in ET, ‘Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who has managed a remarkable turnaround in the state, is ‘the Business Reformer of the Year’. Nitish Kumar was unanimous choice of the panelists. The jury members felt that Nitish Kumar was a much better candidate given the tough conditions prevailing in that state and the obstacles that he was facing.’ As evident from the profiles presented for Nitish, he has been impressive performer. Unfortunately, the jurists, some among them are industrialists too, have not helped Nitish Kumar. As reported, Nitish Kumar got also invited by the International Growth Centre (IGC) to attend the Growth Week Programme 2009 being held at the London School of Economics (LSE). But all these achievements hardly help the state and its people.

Nitish has got a list of investment proposals for the state running in hundreds, hardly few has seen any daylight in last four years now.

Unfortunately, Nitish has pretty rigid mindset apparent from his opposition to SEZs and urbanization. Perhaps like most Bihari intellectuals, Nitish is pretty introvert too; neither could he get a good liaison man to help him getting closer to the industrialists. NK Singh couldn’t deliver. He is pretty good in vote-politics and many have understood it with his gestures for mahadalits or Muslims. But Nitish is not aggressive enough to create a better leadership for attracting entrepreneurs. Nitish could have certainly delegated each of his district collectors to set up an education hub in each district head quarters, super specialty hospitals or housing complexes that could have boosted economy and provided employment. Nitish could have asked the professionals and experts of State Agriculture Universities to go in field and improve the conditions of rural population with new ideas as many states have done. What is wrong in emulating the good ideas from other states? What is wrong in employing a reliable and proven consultant to improve the investment in the state? What is wrong in calling an all-party meeting to discuss and find consensual ways and means to improve the investment climate of the state? Why can’t Nitish resort to some experts’ body to find a permanent solution to Kosi menace? Unless the people of the state participate, the state will remain where it is for the next few decades, if not a century.

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राम से अनुरोध

Posted on September 19, 2009 by indra

हे राम !
एक पक्षी के बियोग का दृश्य
पिघला दिया था कवि ह्रदय
जन्म हुआ तुम्हारा
अवतरित हुए धरा पर
प्रिय हुए जन मन में
पूजित हुए सबसे ..
क्या तुम्हें ठीक याद है
वह जगह
जंहा तुम पैदा हुए
वह अयोद्ध्या का कक्ष नहीं था
एक कवि की कुटिया थी
क्यों नहीं समझ पाते
नासमझ
क्या यही है कलि प्रभाव .
अब आओ, हो जाओ द्रवित
दुखित हैं नारी पुरुष
तुम्हें गलत समझ,
घट घट वासी हो,
मिलते हो सबसे तुम एक संग.
आओ फिर एक बार,
फूंको एक मंत्र सबके कानों में
‘तुम एक हो
तुम इनके हो, तुम इनमें हो
अयोद्ध्या में नहीं रहते अब
न बनायें ये तुम्हारे
तुम्हें छोटा इतना
आओ अभी, न देरी करो
कंही देरी में जल न जाये
तुम्हारी यह कर्मभूमि,
तुम्हारी स्थापित मर्यादाएं.

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Amartya’s Story on ‘The Idea of Justice’

Posted on September 18, 2009 by indra

A story quoted by Amartya Sen in his just published book The Idea of Justice has become very popular.

It first came to me from my poet friend Pravat Pandey from Kolkata. I didn’t have the book by the time. What he sent was as follows:

This is to illustrate the three different arguments put forth by three children – Anne, Bob and Carla – vis-à-vis their claim for getting the flute for which they are quarrelling.

Anne claims the flute on the ground that she is the only one of the three who knows how to play it (the others do not deny this), and that it would be quite unjust to deny the flute to the only one who can actually play it.

If that is all you knew, the case for giving the flute to the first child i.e. Anne would be strong.

In an alternative scenario, it is Bob who speaks up, and defends his case for having the flute by pointing out that he is the only one among the three who is so poor that he has no toys of his own. The flute would give him something to play with (the other two concede that they are richer and well supplied with engaging amenities).

If you had heard only Bob and none of the others, the case for giving it to him would be strong.

In another alternative scenario, it is Carla who speaks up and points out that she has been working diligently for many months to make the flute with her own labour (the others confirm this), and just when she had finished her work, ‘just then’, she complains, ‘these expropriators came along to try grab the flute away from me’. If Carla’s statement is all you had heard, you might be inclined to give the flute to her in recognition of her understandable claim to something she has made herself.

Having heard all three and their different lines of reasoning, there is difficult decision that you have to make.

I would request you to kindly spare some time for this situation – the three children quarrelling for getting the flute based on their respective arguments, and favour me with your opinion as to (a) who of them should get the flute and (b) why? Please note to elaborate your answer to this ‘why’ putting forth your arguments.

And I replied as follows:

As I could understand it is Carla who has made the flute and with hard work, it is up to her to decide if she wishes to give it to one who knows to play or one who is deprived enough not to have any toy to play. Carla may also retain it with herself and learn to play.

As flute is not a toy, Bob can get it only and only on compassionate ground.I wish he would have shown interest in learning it from the one who has the knowledge.

I don’t know if I understood the story well. My views may be wrong.

But then as usual I tried to find what all information is available on Google. I printed my search, ‘The Idea of Justice and the story of flute’ and got 416,000 entries. If you go through some entries, you can appreciate how the idea of justice is perceived differently by different persons. Perhaps this might be satisfying the writer of ‘The Argumentative India’. I have now started worrying and wondering if it helps our judiciary system positively where millions of cases of justice are pending.

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India’s Engineering Challenges

Posted on September 16, 2009 by indra

The winner of the next century will be the nation that decides and focuses on the engineering challenges that can make it the leader among the developing nations.

As reported, a high powered diverse committee of experts, including some of the most accomplished engineers and scientists of USA, met and proposed the following 14 grand engineering challenges for US in the 21st century

” Make solar energy economical
” Provide energy from fusion
” Develop carbon sequestration methods
” Manage the nitrogen cycle
” Provide access to clean water
” Restore and improve urban infrastructure
” Advance health informatics
” Engineer better medicines
” Reverse-engineer the brain
” Prevent nuclear terror
” Secure cyberspace
” Enhance virtual reality
” Advance personalized learning
” Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

While the challenges zeroed on by US are very much acceptable by other countries too, but each nation has its own priorities and so India must have its own areas of focus. Can Indian technocrats, engineers, managers, and scientists decide the engineering challenges for India for the century and even the next, as it will have to lay down the strong and well designed foundation for meeting the challenges?

Kapil Sibal’s hyperactive dynamism provides hope about the availability of human resources for the task, though the country will have to wait to see the executions of the Sibal’s reforms. The considerable quantitative progress through sarv shiksha aviyan and mid-day meal getting extended to secondary level, the private sectors’ interest in education in (K-12) as well as the professional higher education along with the reforms for an early entry of reputed foreign university are all inspiring. But in R&D, India is to move many miles still. It is not the question of the number of persons involved in the activities, but basically the mindsets of a large number of researchers and the administrators require drastic change. I consider the number of students engaged in Masters in science subjects, in engineering graduates and post graduate courses in all the first class institutes, and also the MBAs are the first group of potential innovators on which the government, the academic faculty and the heads of India Inc must focus. Unfortunately as on today, the standard is pretty poor.

But still a large number of people will remain unskilled with only12% or so get into the courses for higher education and that too with majority in humanity subjects and so the development of modern technologies that work efficiently with a large labour component will remain a priority for India. And as already recorded, India does have a huge potential with hundreds of grassroots innovators. Perhaps, the success of Amitabha Sadangi’s International Development Enterprise (IDE) and its treadle pump= a foot-operated water-lifting device to irrigate small plot of land and also its drip irrigation kits provides example that also require appreciation. Can some researchers provide solar-powered water pump in rural India so that the power outages don’t affect the crop? Even the end-users must cooperate and discuss the problems that must get solutions on priority.

The industrial leaders such as Tata who created a wave in auto-world with Nano must focus on R&D and new breakthrough innovations for which they don’t lack the resources, but certainly the priority and mindset. All household devices such as washing machines and dish washers that require a lot of water need research, and so are the needs of researches for a change in the power source of the refrigerators, air-conditioners, and other electronic devices such as TV, and computers from the electricity from the regular plants to the power from solar or wind. The scientists and technocrats must focus on the researches of battery for electric cars that are going to be the main means of transportation. The rural India requires similarly cheap effective equipment for the water filtration that go to every household.

Most of the laboratories in the institutes of excellence in India are to use its resources in the most efficient manner and use its synergy to reach the goal.

When can the Indians know the choices of its engineers and scientists about the nation’s 20 engineering challenges for the century?

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Education- A Friend’s Institutes of Engineering Sciences and Management

Posted on September 15, 2009 by indra

I know Gehlot, an alumnus of Roorkee Engineering College for some time now. He retired from UP’s PWD after serving as chief engineer. Gehlot and five others have established a trust that has set up an institute of higher education in Ghaziabad, one of engineering and the other for MBA course affiliated to UP Technical University. The initial intake is of 300 students, 240 in four branches of engineering and 660 in MBA.

Is it not exciting that persons like Gehlot after retirement are going to invest in education sector instead of investing in his own area of specialization such as consultancy in the booming road sector or starting a venture in infrastructure sector. And as it appears many Gehlots are entering education sector. Has the sector become the golden goose? Is it philanthropy or business? With mushrooming of private professional institutes and forthcoming government regulation of mandatory accreditation for improving quality, how many of them will survive? Will it be the survival of the fittests to meet the demand generated for India’s demographic dividend or the politicians will find a way to bypass it?

As reported recently in ‘Business Today’, the market for engineering education is around $5.85 billion, while that of MBA is around $731 million. It is surprising that some of the bigger entrepreneurs in education sector will touch $1 billion in revenue per annum soon. According to an estimate, the revenue of Amity University in Noida is around Rs 600 crore, and that of Manipal University, ICFAI, and VIT University are respectively Rs 800, 700, and 500 crore. And beside many politicians including stalwarts such as Sarad Pawar, even people from totally different background such as Mittal of Lovely Professional University have invested in education sector in a big way, and are trying to build a brand image even to attract students from foreign countries. And as it appears Sibal will also get the doors for reputed foreign universities opened in India soon.

Mushrooming of these engineering and MBA institutes almost all around in the country excites me but simultaneously shocks me too. I could see a glimpse of that, when I visited Ghaziabad yesterday. And a manager I wished to know the investment required in setting up of these institutes. Naturally, today the cost of the land is the major constituent, and every entrepreneur tries to get big enough area for the future expansion, some with intention of moving to the next stage to get university status. According to an expert in education sector, an MBA institute spread over 1.5 acres with a capacity of 240 students would require an investment of around Rs 15 crore. An engineering college with a capacity of 1600 students spread over 10 acres of land would require an investment of Rs 100 crore. With a lot of black money in financial system and support of banks both private and public, it has become a way of easy entry to tap the demand from the rising number of students because of rapidly increasing aspirations of even the families at the bottom of the pyramid. Gehlot and his partners have spent around Rs 30 crore for this phase, as I was told by someone close to the project, when I was there yesterday as chief guest on the inauguration day.

Interestingly, the education boom that started in south has touched almost all the states but some unfortunate ones such as Bihar, East UP, North-East states, and J& K. For example, ‘Indore has gone in the past 15 years from one management institute to 64 management institutes. The state of Madhya Pradesh has gone from seven engineering colleges 15 years ago, six of which were government-run, to 150 engineering colleges today.’

I wonder that many of the institutes might not have the sufficiently equipped laboratories, libraries and faculties. I wish the institutes in a particular location get into a cluster and create some common facilities to be shared on rotation. Another solution can come from technologies. For each of the subject, the best professors can be hired to get the course lectures videoed and made available on CDs or on a website. The faculty becomes facilitator.

However, I was happy to see the students of the first batch starting at the institute. I guessed most of them were from the rural background. I wished to succeed and fulfill their dreams. However, I wish to visit them again and interact with them.

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Farmers Need Solutions

Posted on September 14, 2009 by indra

I came across a story from rural India. “Ramabai from Pikjharan village in Bargah district, 370 km west of Bhubaneswar earns Rs 60,000-75,000 a year from. Rambai could manage to convince a large landowner in the village to lease a two-acre farm to her. She grew potato, tomato, brinjal, cauliflower and cabbage – doing all the work on her own, from digging, ploughing and watering to harvesting. She even carried the vegetables to the local market and sold them herself.”

The story is interesting, as most of the farmers have a landholding of around two acres in India. If Ramabai can earn and live a life well enough that can be benchmark for the farmers in general, why can’t the others emulate the way Ramabai operates? Do many of the farmers require a real handholding to show them the way to make their farming viable, profitable and enjoyable? Is the farming loosing its charm and the respectability in the society? I think the disenchantment from farming has many more important reasons and some based on the overall changes in the aspirations and ambitions of the next generation of the rural society. I have seen youths preferring a meager lowly paid job in the urban India requiring much tougher, sometimes even inhuman working condition and pretty poor remunerations and very poor living conditions rather than working on their farm and living in much better accommodation. Perhaps they prefer independence more and so do their spouses. Many a times, the pressure comes from the later for this switch over to any engagement in urban India.

For the people who chose farming as profession, Ramabai model can work only till the family remains small. Unfortunately, the family planning has become an outdated subject. Unfortunately, most of the farmers do hardly get any formal learning from the present education system. The basics of agriculture are not in any school curricula in any state. Why can’t Mr. Sibal or Prof Yaspal do something about its inclusion? But perhaps they can’t appreciate this. Sibal talks of including some content on law.

Will the government or other agencies in rural India come out to help the farmers with the knowledge and information required for farming? Can the government, the corporate houses interested in investing in rural India or NGOs working there help all the farmers with the best solutions to their real problems such as right seeds, best crop combinations on the land available, the soil test desirable to decide the right amount of inputs such as fertilizers and insecticides, and the market giving the best price for their produce? Farmers do require some other assistance too. How can the family manage the financial burdens of emergencies in the household such as marriage, illness, and legal matters? Who can be of the best help in such emergencies?

Hardly few who decide the policies affecting the farmers and work to bring them out from their miserable conditions have the knowledge of the real problems.

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India and NREGA

Posted on September 12, 2009 by indra

I can’t say about Delhi, but Noida has not experienced such monsoon that is continuing since last four days for many years, bettering even my memory of Bengal’s rain.

Since last few months, the media covered the drought extensively. From the reporters and columnists of the pink papers to the finance minister as well as even the prime minister talked of drought’s adverse effect on the country’s economy and its GDP growth rate. The majority of the country’s districts demanded and got the label of ‘drought affected’. The state governments worked overtime to show the exaggerated intensity of the drought. I was surprised when I heard the police taking control on the deep tube wells in the villages from Bihar as well UP. Farmers had to play hide and seek with police informers to start pumps for saving the paddy crops. It was again unprecedented in the region. I don’t know if it was on instruction of the government, as the government had announced subsidy on diesel for running pumps for keeping the crop alive. How can the government pass on such orders? Was that another source for earning for police?

The government also announced extra fund allocation for NREGA. I don’t know if it helped the affected or the effect. Unfortunately, the panchayats have failed to create the list of permanent assets such as its waterbodies or the irrigation canals passing through its control area that are to be maintained regularly.

But now many part of the country particularly West Bengal, Bihar, and even UP are reporting heavy rain, pretty heavy in many places. The rain god, according to the report, has compensated its shortcomings. The steady showers wiped out the rain deficit making up for the almost dry three months of monsoon. Cities are waterlogged. Some rivers are flooding too. Did the agencies responsible to use NREGA worked on some waterbodies to increase the storage capacity of the rain water or all the water poured by the rain god will go down the drain and wasted? Why can’t NREGA take up the construction and repair of waterbodies as the top priority for each of the water scarce habitations?

Why can’t the central and state governments declare the ancient natural and man-made huge water bodies in different parts of the country as national heritage with extreme penal actions for those working against it? Why are the famous lakes of Udaipur, Bhopal or Hyderabad facing extinction? Will the state government be vigilant against the land mafias such as one reported from Rajarhat Kolkata by Raj K. Modi of the Vedic Village arrested and charged with converting 21 acres of wetland without permission. Unfortunately, even if the court’s judgment asks the plunderers to vacate the wetland, it will not ask them to restore the wetland as it was originally.

The nation must use the opportunity provided by the drought as well as flood and heavy rain to find solutions to mitigate its effect when it again come next time. The one point action plan is to create water storage capacity as much as possible and integrate the maximum possible water harvesting. Through NREGA, it is possible. However, the people at the grassroots level must appreciate it. Provisions of NREGA must not be taken as doles to be distributed to favourite ones.

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Cover-up Sectors Flourish with Nonperformance

Posted on September 11, 2009 by indra

Over the years the governments both at the centre as well as in the states have failed to provide the basic requirements of the people related to power, water, education, and even the healthcare and sanitation. And it is worrying, as it is insensitive and encourages the cover-up sectors, many with vested interests and mean mindsets. Both individuals as well as companies have to generate their own power, provide their own transport, dig for their own water and invest substantially on coaching and training to become employable or make the graduating ones employable. Interestingly, it is not only the government but the private entrepreneurs are also failing. For example, in higher professional education sector where the private institutes produces almost 70% or more graduates and a major percent of the lot, about 50% according to one estimate are unemployable. It has given a necessity to add one more layer of cover up education through finishing schools of all sorts for making them employable. These finishing schools or institutes, some by even the government or social entrepreneurs, are hardly any guarantee for getting employable even after payment of huge fees. Let us have a review of some of the sectors:

Power

According to a survey by a big power company, ‘power outages nationwide cost Indians a staggering Rs 100,000 crore – enough to put up power plants with a capacity of 25,000 MW of electricity, or almost 20% of the present generation level’. India additionally spends Rs 30,000 crore every year maintaining and operating inefficient back-ups like gensets and inverters, which substantially increase the carbon footprint. The study claims back-ups release an additional 1.9m tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to one projection, the value of the lost opportunity due to outages in 2008-09 was Rs 2, 89, 000 crore. The Prime Minister talks of austere measures but doesn’t act against the ministers failing to reach the targets set.

Education

As the government schools have failed to meet the demand, the private education for K-12 has become a $19, 6-billion business that will grow to $40.3 by 2018. It starts at preschool stage with private tuitions, goes on for getting selected for entry in the professional colleges and continues even after coming out from the colleges even after paying huge capitation fees and other charges. For example, the company such as Infosys Technologies, India’s second-biggest software services exporter, turns trainer for the nearly 30,000 students it recruits from top engineering colleges every year to fill the gaps left by inadequate college education. As reported, Nasdaq-listed Infosys spent $175 million on training and education in the year to March 2009, at a time when an economic downturn crimped margins. So do the many companies and many social entrepreneurs to provide additional fill-ups. Can it be a quality first time cutting the waste of resources and time?

Drinking Water

As the quantity is not sufficient and the quality of water supply from the municipal and other government agencies is hardly worth consuming, people are paying to buy water, the basic needs of every one. Water filtration systems of all sophistications have grown as a big industry worth multi-crore business. The bottled water industry is now estimated to be worth around Rs 1,000 crore and is growing around 40 per cent per annum. Interestingly, even the governments have started thinking in this term.
The Andhra Pradesh government plans to install a water treatment plant costing Rs 2 lakh in each village and habitat having a population of 1,500; and every person will be given a 5-litre bottle of drinking water per day. Free of cost. I don’t know if the leadership change in the state will affect the plan. year.

Healthcare

Hardly anyone from even the middle class goes to the government hospital. The private healthcare constituting doctor-led nursing homes and clinics, trust-run tertiary care hospitals and corporate multi-specialty hospital (MSH) chains such as Apollo, and Fortis are mushrooming in every corners of the urban India. Perhaps the government healthcare centres will be visited and remain reserved for the BPL families.

Let us hope something better will come out of this.

Posted in economy | Leave a comment

In This Great Democracy

Posted on September 9, 2009 by indra

As such the news credited to the politicians and politics are hardly worth reading. But sometimes it’s make me really morose.

One such news got busted by the Bengali Babu who practically is the only heavy- weight in UPA-II government. Krishna and his deputy, celebrityTharoor were staying in the suites of a deluxe 5-star hotel paying huge tariffs since they got into cabinet, as their bungalows were not ready to their satisfaction. Why should Pranab Babu be repenting for that? Are the two not rich enough to pay on their own, as claimed? But I am forgetting the norms or code for the politicians in public. They must showcase themselves as aam aadami and ordinary middle class, if possible even as BPL. They can’t spend lavishly their own money too. After all, both of them are multimillionaires. Why should they live in the State Bhawans, if those do not provide the services to their standards? Are not the majority of members of this Parliament crorepatis?

Next news came from Kolkata, my city for years since childhood. We moved to our Salt Lake residence in end of 1996. All these years, I had been hearing about the new city getting developed by the leftist government at Rajarhat that was to be better than Salt Lake City. In January 2009 when we went to Kolkata with Anand and Shannon, we took the route through Rajarhat intentionally while going to AJIRA from the airport to see the progress. Every time the media reported about the big corporate houses getting into the new city, I got excited for a reason not known to me. Perhaps I like the place where I have spent the best part of life. All these years I had been talking about the way Marwari business community is capturing the real estate sector in Kolkata. It started from the era of Jyoti Basu and continues till date. We kept on assuming the left to be more honest and transparent and keen on doing everything for the common people. But basically it appears they were no different. Only goons and mafia rule the day and the economy of the state is in the hands of the marwaris. And so shockingly Bengal is losing the momentum of industrialization that Buddha dreamt and we all wished him to succeed.

What started with Mamta’s maneuver in Singur has become the fate for each project in the state. Infosys and Wipro are out from the IT township project in Rajarhat, the prestigious project of left creating a huge employment for the local graduates coming out of many of the private engineering colleges that have mushroomed in the state. While Mamata enters Rajarhat, Buddha has gone silent. In the meantime, the real face of the realty business of this left regime gets known to everyone, courtesy media. And the cops are busy proving their efficiency in catching the real culprits of the Vedic Village flare-up in Rajarhat on August 23.

Unfortunately, Bengal appears a lost case. And the people are still content with the politicians.

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