Issues and Arguments

Caste and Woman Issue in India

2017-07-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

Caste awareness and assertiveness is the biggest phenomenon is last century in India. This has happened only due to the important role played by late Dr BR Ambedkar and later Mandal Commission. The independent India with more than 60 years of history has proven the resilience of our constitution.

Due to the nature of the Indian society historically, caste and gender has played a key role for the growth of individual life. In this article, I wanted to highlight the role played by gender and caste in the modern Indian society. I would like to focus on following issue

1. Is caste and gender discrimination equivalent in pre-indipendence era
2. What is the kind of caste and gender discrimination in modern India
2. What is the modern society doing to eliminate the discrimination

Was caste and gender discrimination equivalent in India's pre-indipendence era

Caste and Gender discrimination has happened for centuries in India and it is legitimated under the Hindu religious rules. They are often compared to show that caste and gender discrimination are equivalent.

Backward / lower caste groups has been eliminated from the main stream society and their involvement was only limited to very less respectable jobs. They were highly discriminated and never allowed to mingle with high caste people. Lower caste people were usually treated with violent means. The caste boundaries were very rigid. The rules were legitimized with the religious laws which prohibited any mixing between different caste people. Lower caste group was considered untouchables and they were not allowed to enter temples and learn religious books.

The gender discrimination of woman has also been practiced since long time in India. It has biological origin where male member were involved in outside jobs and women were involved in household jobs due to physical strength and child bearing capability. Even in the kingdom era, women were not involved in wars. In Indian society, Hindu religion prescribed the role of women as the dependent member of the family where she had no decision making role. Women had no property right and considered burden on the parents till marriage. After marriage, husband ruled them and after death of husband they were supposed to live a lonely life or die as Sati.

In both the system, there was commonality of religious rule and exploitation of people without any fault of their own. But there was a shuttle difference female child can become a part of powerful group if both of her parents were higher caste members but a child has to remain in lower caste if any parent belonged to lower caste. Many times women were given rights of decision making in-case of death of male member. Women were never treated as untouchables. The biggest difference was that women could be a member of family but a lower caste person can not be a member of higher caste family.

So, women and caste discrimination was never same in Indian society.

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RTE Act

2012-04-15T01:30:00.003-07:00

The recent decision of Supreme Court for constitutional validity of Right to Education (RTE) once again has brought the RTE act in the news. RTE act was passed in 2010 by UPA bur even after 2 years there is no update on its implementation. Only thing that comes in the newspaper, that too once in a while, is that RTE has been a complete failure and there does not seems to be any useful thing coming out of RTE.
It seems like RTE will have similar results as that of prohibition of child labor law where you can find every day that it remains to be implemented in every part of India and violation of law remains the practice. The question regarding the RTE providing every child a right to primary education. The problem with this law are many. First of all it makes it mandatory for every school (except few) to give 25% EWS quota, and then we must question what is this EWS quota. EWS is nothing but who so ever can get a salary certificate of less than some specified income level. We have already seen getting income certificate is not a very difficult specially for people working in unorganized sector and business owners. That is the reason why a lot of beneficiaries of income based schemes are used by business people who does not declare any income and keep enjoying luxurious life. So, what is the meaning of EWS quota. More importantly, the law removes SC/ST quota of upto 23.5% which was specifically fixed for them in govt funded school. Now it proposes 25% quota for all children including SC/ST/OBC/EWS. Does it means that 1.5% will be allocated for OBC/EWS? No, it does not give any specific percentage for SC/ST. Secondly, in a country where more than 30% of population lies below BPL by any estimate and some realistic estimate also put it above 40% and beyond that, then how can 30% or 40% can be accommodated in 25% seats. More importantly, in a social system where lineage and caste association matters more than any income criteria, how will someone ensure that SC/ST gets the fair chance to get a seat in 25% quota. Hardly any private school provide any concrete details of the admission process objectively, how can the system assure that there won't be any caste discrimination in the admission process.
Thirdly, what are measures taken by the government o improve quality of education where they have full control i.e. government funded school. From the time that people were will to join a government school willfully due to better qualified teachers, now the time has come that no sensible person earning some decent amount of money is willing to keep their children in any government school. The government school has gone from bad to worse without anyone caring about those schools and the honorable minister is talking about laughty laws without any hope for its implementation. Also, what is the update of the existing laws relating to the deadly caste discrimination in all the schooling and higher education system. Why has there been no prosecution after so many cases coming out and so many suicides.
RTE has been a failure since its announcement and even if it is implemented why has this law been designed to make the SC/ST people lose their chance to EWS people showing false certificates. Can government show all the income certificates of all the beneficiary who has availed income based subsidies. Government must act reasonably well and resist from making loss making laws for educationally and socially backward people.

Parasites of Indian system

2012-03-21T20:30:00.001-07:00

The brahmins are already shown as the parasites of Indian social system in many dalit writing. They have infested the Indian social system since ancient time that the country till date is unable to turn around by collecting its internal strength even after so much of effort. The caste system introduced by Hindu and the brahmins is continuously sucking the nation social system by compromising humanity is the proof that brahmins are blood sucker of Indian social system.

But this piece of writing is not about brahmins but more about another caste group in Hindu. The baniya caste group is another parasite in the Indian system. Baniya caste group has always remained hidden under the shadow of brahmins and rajputs since beginning. The rajputs always ruled the people with muscle power and brahmin group ruled by making fool of people with mind power and more importantly power bestowed upon them self from hindu religion. But in this game, baniya group has always remain hidden under the shadow. The emergence of agrarian society led to the emergence of baniyas which consistently sucked poor people's money making them beg even when they were providing grains to everyone by his hard labor in field. In the last century, the Indian cinema has captured this well that how a munsi take advantage of poor people in times of economic stress. The baniya gives credit at humongous rates and then make the whole generation economic slaves for themselves because no sane person can fulfill the greed of baniya. Baniya gets the forged thumb mark on stupid papers to capture the complete farmer's land. This used to be usual story in the 1960-70's movie but the movie making business has moved on and they don't capture these things now still persistent in rural / urban areas across India. People reading this must know that micro finance institution charges anywhere from 20-35% of interest and some time it goes beyond 50%. These lenders are none other than baniyas who are obscenely making money out of stressed farmers without showing any humanity. The rural economy still works with local baniya. If the borrower does not pay back the money, then the next generation becomes slave of the lender to repay at that interest rate to satisfy the baniya's greed.

The above paragraph shows how a rural economy work till this day. Now come to the urban economy, which is major part of modern economic system. The concept of family business is prevalent is India and people will not get surprised to know that most of the businesses are owned by bania community. So, this has serious implication of driving away the meritocratic system in the society. The highly intellectual people get stuck of these business owned by family and slog for their family adding little value to themselves as they are working for not so intellectual thinking people. People would not be surprised that a less education person owning the business. Nothing wrong in that, but the implications are very serious again. It has created problem of child labour and all the hazardous environmental problem in the modern industry of not complying with any laws and making their own illegal system. The corruption that we talk about daily has huge contribution from the private businesses which are largely family owned. Political corruption is very small portion of the whole corruption and it is largely driven by corporate/business corruption. Tax theft is another problem by these businesses and business owners which itself is illegal. Also, the moral degradation of the society is also largely given by the business owner which is usually involved in corruption and many time violence for economic reasons. Educated people who work under the family businesses gradually understand that working under legal system and ethical ways will not give any output and hence, they see nothing wrong in doing illegal things. Largely the businesses which are mostly owned by baniya family are responsible for corruption.

Hence, the baniya community has must be held responsible and called as the parasites of India economic system.

Indian Railway budget 2012-13 Rail Budget 2012-13

2012-03-18T18:08:00.002-07:00

Indian railway budget is still one of the important event in national politics and economy. It is very close to the Indian people heart as it provides the largest transporatation network across India. It is still the largest employer in the world and life line of India. After the resignation of Ms Mamta Bannerjee as railway minister, Mr Dinesh Trivedi took over the ministry. His last year as a minister was uneventful.

The railway budget 2012-13 as usual was also uninteresting, due to its lack of status update of past, any new way to improve the present and completely missing vision of future for Indian railways. I could not stop myself asking what happened to last year targets, while following the live railway budget, The media did put some status update of incomplete project which were huge in number but Trivedi did not care to provide us an update what happened to previous projects and why those are getting delayed.Some news put it as railway project cost shoot up 95% due to delays. That's an appalling number in itself. So what is the plan to improve this was completely missing. He was responsible for almost a year to improve the performance but he did almost nothing. Next thing he said about unmanned track crossing lot of damage of human life, but isn't it true that every railway budget put the same point without achieveing any target year on year.

Introduction of new trains as always was talk of the minister with 75 express and 21 passenger trains and as previously said that he did not care to provide information about how he will complete previously incomplete projects. The fare hike was expected and to his accolate he did it, but the way it was introduced was like giving only a bit and hiding a lot of it. It does not mentions what is the percentage rate hike and I could not find till date the percentage hike. Also how much did it cover the fuel inflation of previous years and the way forward.

There was concession scheme for sportmen and ill people, which is fine with everyone. Rail khel ratna award is a welcome move as most sportman come as govt employee. Freight increase of 20% was already announced a week before the budget, so nothing new was expected there. e-procurement, e-auction of scraps is planned but no target is given, so on the face value it has no value. DRDO developed bio tiolet on test 2500 coaches but no idea when it will be introduced at all levels.

Satelite based real time information will be given in 18 months, as a techy i know test run is complete and good to see a mention in budget with a target. Also, nice to see rail connectivity to Nepal and Bangladesh planned.

The railways budget 2012

2012-03-15T18:05:00.002-07:00

The railway budget 2012 by Dinesh Trivedi on Mar 14. I was watching the news update on my computer in office. There have been a lot of criticism of railways during the last decade for its services. Mr. Laloo Yadav is perhaps the most able minister to handle the matter with new thoughts in the recent time. Although the services has improved in the last few years but it has not fulfilled the aspirations of mega Indian economy.

The criticism includes defecating across the country, unhygienic toilet condition on trains and station, unmanned crossing, long waiting list, accidents, upgradation of signaling system, speed of train services, online system problem, low maintenance of tracks, no automatic escalators at stations, unhygienic shops at stations, bad financial health of the largest employer, privatization/no privatization, no innovating thinking etc.

Mr Trivedi was sworn in as Railway minister in the early part of 2011 after budget by Ms Mamta Banerjee. So Mr Trivedi has already worked for almost 1 year and there has been no good news on new thought process of making the existing system better after he became minister. He has only done cosmetic changes in the railways like changing tatkal schemes, using different IDs, increasing early booking period and some freight changes. He has been made hero in 2 days of budget, of course we can discusses budget and its implications but what is Mr Trivedi's achievement all this time. Isn't he responsible for ruing the railways. Isn't he responsible for large project delays and isn't he responsible for all unfulfilled promises done last year and all kinds of problem in railways. It is a little early to blame Trivedi for all the problems but he is still responsible for taking no steps to improve any conditions all this he was taking care of the ministry. The financial health of the railways has gone from bad to worse.

The railways budget can be discussed in another wrting but what-so-ever happens to Mr Trivedi's career as railway minister, his work as a minister till date is unsatisfactory.

FDI in retail

2011-12-06T09:04:00.001-08:00

Allowing 51% FDI in retail in India was taken place just before the winter session of parliament by the cabinet. The government came to act after a long time, since long time UPA govt is unable to provide any new policy initiative. NREGS and RTI was the last policy decision with some significant impact. RTE was a great initiative without any thrust to implement the same. The whole country is bustling with inflation figures and corruption headlines. To break the long silence govt decided to make 51% FDI in multi-brand retail and 100% in single brand retail. I must say this was great news not just for the sceptic market but also many global corporates to get a slice of Indian economic growth. FDI is retail is long overdue since the economic liberalization. It promises to adds great strength to economy. The major concern of food supply chain, real-estate commercialization, employment generation and tax collection. It will provide the much more organized labor system which is completely unorganized without any labor law in retail market. Presently only 6% of Indian retail industry is organized and rest is unorganized as compared to more than 25% retail industry organized in Brazil and China, and more than 75% organized retail in USA. Indian industry must follow the path of organized economy to make it competitive and regularized. Present retail industry has almost no regulation and with no specialized skills. This kind of system leads to family based business which is not good for society. It is ironical that the BJP party which proposed to pass raise FDI cap in 2002 now are against that. Another ironical part is the local businessman and other section of society like Anna and his supporters, who want to eliminate corruption, does not want any regularization of retail industry. It is very obvious that unorganized sector leads to more corruption as there are no standard practices and nothing is on paper. It is either height of hypocrisy or height of foolishness. I do feel the international best practice should be implemented and skilled labor should reap the benefit of this huge industry.

Are women themselves responsible?

2011-10-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

I have heard females complaining about various aspects of the society. I totally agree with them that males have manipulated the law of society for own gain. Also, large part of the problem can be attributed to the historical reasons and evolution of society where power played an important role than any human endeavor. Although, I totally understand their concerns and fully empathize with them but I think the responsibility of the current situation lies with females also. The concerns raised by them are complex and interlinked, so every issue can not be isolated from other.

Dowry system in India – This is major issue that our government is struggling to eradicate for a long time since 1950 and even before that social activists were opposed to this. Despite of that even today females are married with dowry, and its not the case just for the uneducated mass without any empowerment. Majority of educated females still go through rigorous process of scrutiny before the marriage by her in-laws and then marries as per family wishes by paying dowry along with humiliation to her family members during every stage of marriage process. There are many reasons for that.

First even people involved in love relationship want to get married under traditional system with the wished of family members. So, they must make their parents to agree with the relationship. That is why even the adult and most educated people get into this traditional trap. Even if the country’s constitution treats every person after adulthood as fully responsible for his/her life's decision, it is not so in reality because of people own willingness to surrender their power of wisdom for making family member agree to their decision, and to make a love relationship converted to arranged marriage. The biggest problem of converting love relationship to marriage is caste system. Even after knowing the rigorous and violent system throughout the country, people persist to expect family support for love relationship to be converted to arranged marriages. It is highly improbable that anyone happily agrees to intercaste marriage, even in the upper most caste and upper most class family in all the region of the country. So, it is pure foolishness to expect or demand family agreement to the decision made my young female. The maximum extent that family goes to support the love-cum-marriage relationship under different caste, if not a violent reaction, is the indifference attitude, without any support along with continuous warning what could go wrong in the relationship in future. So, even at the age of 25-30 female demand family support for their relationship and surrender their independence.

Another interlinked problem in the current approach taken by females is the demand of family support in the future after love or love-cum-arranged marriage. Females are traditionally forced to do many things against their will by her in-law family, so she wants family support in case of any trouble. This is completely insane if she had to follow her own decision then why she should look for any family support to sort out the marital issues. Only conclusion that can be drawn from this observation is females themselves are not confident of their decision and don’t want to take ownership of their decision with full responsibility.

If we look further into this issue, female demands that the male partner, under the love relationship should be carrying out all the task of making both family agree with the decision. This is again a traditional view, but the marriage relationship is a shared responsibility, then why should only one member take the full responsibility when both members are looking for their independence in their decision making, especially when they are behaving independently in professional domain. Why female still want to rely on the male member for their life? In a shared relationship both person are responsible for the success or failure of the relationship.

Now comes the property right. Ask any female to which house they belong after marriage, they still perceive as belonging to in-law family after marriage even if they get settled as nuclear family in a distant city. This is totally ridiculous because after marriage they have separate family identity. Even earning female members claims that her family is in-laws home although almost every female wants to help their parental home financially. Females never talk of taking any money or financial help from the parental home even though they have equal property rights as their brothers but they are willing to claim the property right in the in-law's property, may be through her husband. So, when it comes to dowry they claims that it is asked by pressure but when they are requested to claim their inherited property they totally reject the request. So, why should any parents give any claim to her daughter-in-law when their son is getting nothing as son-in-law, if he don’t take dowry. This is largely because of the traditional belief that daughter-in-law belongs to the husband’s family and son-in-law has no rights on the wife’s parental property. The easiest solution to the whole mess could be to get the property rights for husband and wife from their respective families. Like every family there is cost of living, so it does not make sense that male’s family take all the burden of female’s living without asking anything. It could be their generosity if they don’t ask anything. So, here again females are making mistake of claiming all the rights from the in-laws family and not claiming her birth right from her parental family .The important question here could be that females get their share during the growth process and work in the married family. The answer to this question is, they don't get equal share in the growth process as they are discriminated as female child. Also, after marriage both partner works, inside or outside home, and similarly both partner should get similar property right from their parents and share similar burden of old parents.

Ideally in an evolved society, any adult should not demand anything from the parents as their parent have already invested everything for the growth of their children till adulthood. But when private property right is given and inherited by next generation, it has to be equally distributed among males and females.

So, it can be concluded that females are also responsible, not completely though, for their current situation by acting irrationally, They demand family support even after adulthood for marriage, puts males to take leadership of family and making the whole arrangement, ask family support to resolve family issue after marriage, claiming belongingness to their in-laws, demanding financial support from husband’s family and at the same time not taking legal property right from parents. The whole issue is mixed up by double standard followed by the females. I understand that the society is still evolving but when the most educated and empowered class behaves hypocritically, it becomes very difficult to sort out the problem and backward people to catch up with the evolution. I am in not supporting the heavy handed attitude by the society on females and I am totally against taking any violent action against females under any situation, with the belief that an adult person should be able to live in the society without any support what so ever, and only rely on government and their own capability.

New Zamindari System

2011-10-23T01:49:00.001-07:00

The traditional system of Zamindari has been working for centuries in India. It has origins of powerful people represented by kings and caste groups owning large segments of lands and collecting favors from the people living on that. The symbolic system was abolished in India after the independence in 1947. The land was taken away from the zamindars and used for public purpose for the development of nation. The idea behind the zamindari system was that once the land was captured either by power or by other means it becomes hereditary and the next generation kept enjoying the benefits. It was represented by specific higher caste group and the people living or farming on that land had no right on the land, they had to pay part of their earning the owner of the land.

Although the zamindari system is legally banned, it is still persistent in the rural area in different part of the India. The dominant caste still own huge portion of land and it is given to the laborers who don't have any rights but are required to pay specific portion of the farm output. Like many laws in India abolition of zamindari system is not implemented properly. Land reform is only limited to few states and forward caste still works like zamindars in their villages.

Not so surprisingly, the zamindari system works in urban areas also. I would like to say it is sophisticated system of zamindari, as it keeps the spirit intact of the traditional zamindari system. The urban areas are dominated by forward caste people as they were progressive with education and business due to better economic and social background. The government sector despite the law of reservation in government jobs is unable to fill up the vacancies and private sector never bother about upliftment of the backward SC/ST population. Forward caste migrated to urban centers and captures most of the real estate properties. Now who so ever comes for employment in especially in private sector, with whatever right educational background, has to pay the huge rent for staying in the city and do some economic activity. The rent authorized by government or paid by the company is never close to the actual market rate. A bright candidate would spend more than 20 years to pay the EMI, if he chooses to buy a decent flat near the place of working.

I understand that many people will raise eyebrows on the above claims made by me and question, how is this zamindari system? They would give example that irrespective of caste people pay similar rents. Also, who so ever own the property must have purchased it earlier with their hard work and not by power. And most important of all, everyone is free to own his private property legally. I would agree will all these statements but does these statements removes the actual essence of zamindari system. First of all this is a hereditary system which was earlier practiced in traditional system. Second, it is still dominated by forward caste. Even though I don't have quantifiable figures to support it, I have sufficient reasons behind it. Forward caste people owned good property in the urban areas before independence. Also, mostly forward caste people came for the formal sector of employment and business with their better education and social background. Now that mostly the first generation after independence have settled, they own the property. Till date most of the businesses are owned by the forward caste people and hence they own the private business world related assets. Third, to classify the present system the user has to pay the rent (his economic output), which is mostly being done in all places. Forth, the property are not captured by power argument has some strength but in the present system of India, it is still not properly implemented. The law and order is still for the rich and forward caste people. Many people would not deny that even a simple FIR is not registered in many cases. Real estate is still owned by people related to powerful politician. Government is acting like goons in the hands of powerful politician to capture the lands from villagers and distributing them to people related to politicians.

The modern economy, which does not necessarily means capitalist system, is meant for the right allocation of asset for the maximum output. The government plays the role to regulate this system to maximize the welfare of society. In the present system both the modern economic system and government is failing to complete their jobs properly. First, the modern economic system is still incapable of allocating resources to gain maximum output. It gives the asset to people related with politician and not to entrepreneurs or the working employed people. The money is still transferred to the hereditary of the older generation occupying the prime spots in property market.The government is not regulating the real estate market to maximize the welfare. First the most real estate property still belongs to the forward caste people which is not good for a healthy society relationship between different communities. Second, government is capturing land from the weak farmers and giving it to corporate.

How to improve the present system? First of all, the employment of a person and his stay near the working place has to made mandatory. That will also save the environmental and fuel cost of the country.Although government jobs have these things but the private sectors should not be left in the current chaotic form. The payment for housing in private sector should be linked to the market rates. Most importantly the role of black money in the real estate property market has to be removed. People would not be surprised to know that 70% of the real estate price is paid in black money in India. So, the argument that all the people are free to earn and own private property becomes senseless. The government rates for registration and rent should be market rate, and it must be implemented strictly. Also, all the transaction of rent and buy/sell should be with paid service and income tax.This would provide free regulated market for the new generation and a welfare society.

Comparison of Caste and Gender Discrimination in Indian Society before Independence

2011-10-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

Caste and Gender discrimination has happened for centuries in India and it is legitimated under the Hindu religious rules. They are often compared to show that caste and gender discrimination are equivalent.

Backward / lower caste groups has been eliminated from the main stream society and their involvement was only limited to very less respectable jobs. They were highly discriminated and never allowed to mingle with high caste people. Lower caste people were usually treated with violent means. The caste boundaries were very rigid. The rules were legitimized with the religious laws which prohibited any mixing between different caste people. Lower caste group was considered untouchables and they were not allowed to enter temples and learn religious books.

The gender discrimination of woman has also been practiced since long time in India. It has biological origin where male member were involved in outside jobs and women were involved in household jobs due to physical strength and child bearing capability. Even in the kingdom era, women were not involved in wars. In Indian society, Hindu religion prescribed the role of women as the dependent member of the family where she had no decision making role. Women had no property right and considered burden on the parents till marriage. After marriage, husband ruled them and after death of husband they were supposed to live a lonely life or die as Sati.

In both the system, there was commonality of religious rule and exploitation of people without any fault of their own. But there was a shuttle difference female child can become a part of powerful group if both of her parents were higher caste members but a child has to remain in lower caste if any parent belonged to lower caste. Many times women were given rights of decision making in-case of death of male member. Women were never treated as untouchables. The biggest difference was that women could be a member of family but a lower caste person can not be a member of higher caste family.

So, women and caste discrimination was never same in Indian society.

Indian Education system: Competition, Merit and Private Tuition

2011-10-12T11:13:00.001-07:00

Education system of any country is the most vital element of the social and economic growth. India is very lucky nation to get first Prime Minister Pt. JawaharLal Nehru, who gave special emphasis to education and build the foundation stone of premiere institutes, which later emerged as the driving force of nation’s development. He should be given credit for setting up IITs, IIMs and central universities which are now globally renowned as centres of excellence. Like many other domains of education system of India has its fallibility. There are lots of problem which needs immediate attention in the education system. One of the major problems is private tuition offered by individuals and flourishing coaching centres which is weakening the backbones of education system.

In present time, it is rare to find any student not taking private tuition. It has been found out from a survey that one third of the income of middle class family is spent on the child’s private tuition. Tuition can start from class 12, class 5 or even class 1. Private tuition can help student by giving him some extra time and necessary push for relatively not so brilliant student. Also it helps the students whose parents are uneducated and can’t give any input to their academic work. Some educated parents found private tuition helpful because it gives them necessary relief of not spending their time with their children. Also it is sometime beneficial to some students who find other school teacher better in certain subjects. Another possible reason, which may sound absurd, is that children don’t follow the parental teaching them academic course due to some psychological reason. Above all the stated reasons can be kept aside, and the most important reason that parents and students feel that private tuition and coaching is beneficial for them because it will enable them to compete in the class and securing a seat in entrance examination.

Let us analyze what are the pitfalls of private tuition and why all the above stated reasons are absurd. Most of the problem for which people think private tuition is necessary can be solved by filling the gap in the education system i.e. making school to strengthen their roles in children’s life. First of all, private tuition makes children less attentive in the class. Student feels that they will be studying the same thing in private tuition in a better way, so they lose respect for the school teachers and their teaching. Another pitfall of private tuition is that children spend less time with their family and friends. Also they don’t participate less in extracurricular activities and sports, as they need to spend their evenings attending private tuitions. Another important problem that is caused by private tuition, which impacts his/her career, is by making a bad habit of spoon feeding. Student don’t spend time in self studying and reading books, as they depend entirely on the summary notes provided by private tutor. One very important parameter that gets missed out in the child career, which often causes disaster to their career, is the loss of innovative thinking and following individual interest, as the subject to be studied in private tuition are recommended by parents considering their aspiration for their children and not the child’s aspiration for himself/herself. Coming to the system loop holes in education system, teachers often push class student for their private tuition, as it gives them extra bucks. Some teacher goes to the level of threatening the student to fail. Many give extra credit marks in the examination to private tuition going students. Some teachers go to the extent of giving question out before the examination to the private tuition. Few of teacher gives the examination paper at home in private tuition after the examination for completing their answers. Adding another angle teacher also promises to give complete marks in practical examination to tuition going student and deduct marks to non-tuition going students. All these measures taken by teachers, despite being illegal in some government schools, to lure students for private tuition for earning little money, gives small happiness to private tuition students and their parents but causes a very-very serious damage to the long term student’s career.

Coming to the coaching institutions, this provides employments and now a big industry in itself. It enables students to compete in entrance examinations of professional courses like engineering, medical, law etc. Although, institutes tries to make the entrance examination by changing patter etc such that no student taking private tuition have better chances than non-tuition going students, but private tuition is has grown to such a mass scale that 99% student get admission by taking private tuition only. It is strange and ridiculous that people who talk about reservation to Sc/St as wrong, although Sc/St spend minuscule or sometime none on private tuition compared to others, can’t do self study for examination and later talk about meritocracy. Coaching are exactly similar to private tuition, except for the fact that most of coaching institutes are registered entities and hopefully pay taxes for their earning. God can only save us if a teacher who teach small children ethical classes and build their foundation stone, earn money unethically from private tuition and evades taxes.

Let us discuss the probable solution to the whole problem. First of all school teachers should be prohibited to take private tuition, as already being done unsuccessfully to some government schools like KV, especially to their own class students. If teachers can’t teach student in class they why he is doing the job. Students should be encouraged to seek support from teachers during school time in leisure periods. This is already implemented in colleges like IITs. Serious steps should be taken against teachers who lure students for private tuition. Teacher should give extra support to the weak students during class and also after class. Teacher’s assessment should be done on the basis of class performance. Parents should be strictly advised against tuition. All the students taking entrance examination should be prohibited to attend coaching, as all the subjects are covered in school course curriculum. Although it is quite difficult to implement but an innovative way should be found to give incentive to self studying students. Parents should be encouraged to meet teacher to know the child’s academic progress. Although not liked to education system, strict tax collecting measures should be taken for private tuition money.

Private tuition is a menace to the Indian education system, which has corrupted the whole system. It has damaged the very stem of nation i.e the young students. Immediate steps must be taken to eliminate this serious problem

RBI intervention

2011-10-05T01:31:00.001-07:00

The rupee has depreciated rapidly in the last month to a new high for last year. It toughed to a new high at 49.50 per dollar in the forex market. The depreciation in the market has multiple implications in the Indian economy. RBI is under pressure from different players in the economy to intervene and stop further depreciation of Indian rupee.

On one hand, the depreciation of rupee leads to the increase in import bills, especially petroleum products which is largely imported by India. Another important consequence of the depreciation of rupee would hit the corporate who have large External Commercial Borrowing (ECB). ECBs are good way to raise money from foreign market due to cheap rates and stable currency. But this also lead to forex exposure. The corporate who have ECB unhedged forex exposure are finding it difficult to pay high rupee amount.

Also, the corporate raise money from foreign market by using another instrument called Foreign Currency Convertible Bond (FCCB). FCCB is similar to a other convertible bonds which pays regular coupon with a option to convert the bond into equity at maturity at pre-fix price. If the equity price is higher than contracted conversion price, they can convert the investment to equity. And, in case equity price is lower than contracted price, then bond holder will be paid at contracted price. Due to boom in the last decade, many corporate raised FFCB from the foreign market in early 2000. They are finding it difficult to repay the bond holder with depreciated rupee.

For quite some time inflation is the main concern for the Indian economy and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Indian industry and consumers buy a lot of good for production and consumption from the global economy, due to the largely global integration of the Indian economy. The prices of the tradable items have also risen due to exchange rate depreciation.

The depreciation of the Indian currency rupee helps Indian exporters which are largely engaged in labor intensive business and high tech services. Due to very fragile developed economies, exporters are directly affected. The decrease in demand from the developed economies must have caused financial stress on the exporters but currency depreciation would have marginally offset the pain to them. In 2009, RBI had intervened into the forex market to maintain the edge of the exporters by limiting the rupee appreciation.

The RBI has played a very important role in forex market by regulating the participant but limited its direct intervention in the market. Last time, RBI intervened in forex market in 2009 by supplying rupee liquidity to limit the rupee depreciation and save Indian exporters.

RBI has a foreign exchange reserve of $ 250 billion, which is very limited compared to size of the economy and forex market. RBI intervention cause very little impact in the market while depleting its reserve. Also, the uncertain global economy requires RBI to be more cautious and save its fire for the future time, in which Europe market is expecting some more damaging events in case of sovereign default by any nation.

Controversially Yours

2011-10-01T23:44:00.001-07:00

The autobiographical book published, on one of the world's most renowned cricketer in the last decade "Soaib Akhtar", recently is rightly named as "Controversially Yours". He is known to every cricket loving fan for right or wrong reasons. No one can miss his presence in the team and the game. Many games became interesting just because of his presence in the Pakistani team. Once he was one of the fastest bowler on the planet. He was also known as Rawalpindi Express for his pace int he bowling. He bought a lot of energy in the game of cricket.

In his book, he accepts the fact of match fixing and ball tampering, which most of the people realize by now after so many media news. It is a courageous things to accept this and still showcasing the capability and admiration of the opposition. He accepted the fact that it was very difficult not to accept money coming from very poor background in developing countries.

Even though, I don't remember him single handed winning the match for his team, but he did unsettle the situation in many matches. Many of the people watched matches due to his presence and he did create media news with his regular controversy inside the team and outside the team. For me his long run up to the pitch, always made me think how could he throw ball after that. He suffered regular injuries in his shoulder and ankle and he did know that it was difficult for him to continue his career for long. He gave all he can to the cricket and possible cricket gave him what he is today.

About the controversy on this comment for Sachin and Dravid, I think it was unnecessary to create so much noise asking him to respect any specific person. It is his right to choose his role model. He has already said that he consider Sachin a great, not the greatest, cricketer.

Coming from a very poor background, he kept himself in touch with all the people who were dear to him. He party hard and created lot of headlines in his career for good and bad reasons. But I must say he gave a lot to cricket and cricket also gave him a lot to live a memorable life.

Child labor, Inflation and Recession

2011-09-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Double dip recession is already in progress. Sovereign default is imminent, even though I don't believe that developed countries will allow it to happen. USA and European countries are facing unprecedented situation to handle the economic situation. Under these situation developing countries are only hoping that it does not get worse to avoid the effect due to globalized economy.

Already BRIC countries are facing GDP growth slowdown, even though its very high in comparison to developed nations, but that is not sufficient to manage the economic welfare of the huge population and remove poverty. During the last decade of boom, income has consistently risen above 10%, which was taken granted by the people and forcibly govt had to increase the salary of the public servants. Recently the WSJ published the IIP data of India which has consistently declined as compared to the last year. This was expected due to uncertain global economic conditions and much more than that due to rapid increase in the interest rate by Reserve Bank of India (Indian central bank).

RBI has consistently raised the repo and reverse repo rate for 12 consecutive time. During the last quarter, RBI clearly specified their main aim of reducing the inflation from current ~10% to about 5%. The more worrying fact about the current inflation figure is that during survey expected inflation is 12% which is going to further worsen the situation. The higher expected inflation will make people to spend more now than save money for future use. The more supply in money will cause further inflation. Hence it is expected that RBI will stick to its main agenda in near future to remove the uncertain economic condition by taming the inflation.

WSJ came up with a very surprising argument regarding the rising inflation. It said that inflation is caused by increase in student enrollment in rural area. Although enrollment and literacy has increased in last few decades but inflation is problem of last few years only. Government sponsored schools have also increased and Right to Education have also helped to increase the enrollment. Most people in India know that these laws, policy and proposals are only on paper. RTE is almost unimplemented. Regarding enrollment of rural population, the attendance is only on paper. Many time teachers themselves don't come, so expecting student's attendance is not possible. Yes mid day meals have helped increase in student enrollment and their attendance.

More prominent reason is probably that the NREGS which gives guaranteed work for 100 days with minimum fixed wage. This must have saved lot of exploited people who were earlier living in a very poor condition. It must have raised the minimum wage which caused other wages also to rise and hence raising the production cost in rural areas. Also, the wages are linked to inflation which will further cause inflation. One most important factor which is not accounted during the discussion of inflation is the role of illegal money floating in the economy. The real estate playing the major role in urban inflation. Lot of money supply is coming from corruption which is causing inflation to rise. So does the obscenely high paying jobs of selected few causing high demand.

The inflation control is the highest priority, and rightly so, for the central bank. But removing child labor, making better working and living condition, better health and education while reducing inequality and corruption should be on priority. Although its not under the control of RBI but the government must continue to design policy for better life to the citizens and more importantly implement it properly.

A dalit lady or a simple individual or nothing?

2011-09-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

The recent news item under state news about a missing woman Ms Bhanari Devi did not receive much media attention and provided hardly any details about the history of the woman or her link with the Public Health and Water Resource Department minister Mahipal Maderna . Only after the woman’s husband accused the minister the news got some media attention and CBI enquiry got started.

The simple case that I understood after combining multiple information sources is that the woman Ms Bhanari Devi was a dalit woman working as a nurse in government service. She was also coming recently in regional songs and very recently received offers for roles in good production. The minister has a long history of involvement in multiple cases including one murder case for which he was also in jail for some time. The minister had some sexual relationship with the woman and due to a CD leak showing them compromising position. There is very remote possibility that female went missing because of any reason other than minister’s possible involvement in this case. The minister must have understood possible loss of his reputation due to CD scandal.

The case is not very different what has happened in multiple cases involving atrocity on woman. What makes this case special is the woman was a dalit and the involvement of a minister Mahipal Maderna belonging to a dominant Jat community.

The irony of the situation is that woman’s commission has not spoken a single comment on this incidence. More so, even the SC/ST commission is sleeping in this matter. The media which did not stop a single minute coverage of Mr Anna Hazare has much better things to do, they have headline news items that Sachin Tendulkar moved to his dream house, Paris Hilton party and her 100 USD donation to a Mumbai beggar. Strangely the 100 USD got torn after a family fight, that is also covered in the national media. But, the vibrant democracy which was willing to sleep in Ram Leela Maidan and going for candle light march in case of Jessica Lal murder has no idea that such a gruesome incidence has happened in Rajasthan with a possible involvement of a minister.

The strange situation doesn’t stop here, the CBI has started its enquiry and who knows when will they come up with their findings. But, the minister is enjoying his freedom in a public office, and no one is demanding his resignation. Not even the opposition party BJP. Unwanted incidences happen all the time across India but no one becomes so much deaf and dumb to close their senses. Woman’s commission, SC/ST commission, opposition party and media are silent observer.

Why is there so much difference? Its time people come together to give a common response to unwanted elements in the society. The minister must resign from his position until the CBI enquiry gets over and he gets a clean chit. Being a dalit woman, Ms Bhanwari Devi is receiving more problem that any other would have received. She is undergoing the pain of a woman, murdered due to sexual relationship and then being a dalit receiving no attention or support from the public. Prof. Amerthya Sen has rightly stated that dalit women faces double challenge in a society, living a woman’s life in a male based society and then getting discriminated as a dalit. She was a dalit lady or even a simple woman, in both the cases she must get justice and the guilty get the due punishment.

But the question is was she was a dalit lady or a simple woman or no one?