Election 2014 built up - 2: the Raj of the Local goon?

the dominance of the local goon
as regional parties take over the setting of national agenda, and in turn the regional parties are dependent on smaller local players with concentrated and controllable voting blocks of few lakhs  or even thousands each, the biggest issue that many will face is the fear of the local goon. in the loot of the nation, there is a chain of command and there is a chain of terror, the biggest terror is the local goon - he (it is rarely a she) controls the local economy by threat, ensures that no commercial action takes place without his cut, ensures that no dissent of any kind happens, putting it down with absolute violence. 

collaboration of corporate greed and the local goon
this is a possibility as it is by and large happening across India already, whereby the local goon is promoted and supported by a globalized or global corporate for its greed to destroy some part of this land for its profits. the goon who is not bound to land any longer, doesn't have a problem in trading any resource for the highest global bidder

embedded press and sponsored news
more like owned press in the indian context. we know every party owns its own press and as the stakes for both sides get higher, the shrillness of the media to paint the world in 'us-white-and-them-black' colour is getting into an obsessive disorder; this is threatening the chances of survival of 'independent media' which will be an endangered species in India soon.  we have recently seen the ascend of a new form of media driven salesmanship of a leader of a region into the national mainstream, not unlike the American Presidentship. this trend may propel a new form of media clout creation where truth and search for truth will be obfuscated by the propaganda spin. 

civil society's marginalization
Anna Hazare and the Aam Aadmi Party was the best chance for a civil society to articulate its politics in India. the media didn't know what to do, Anna has the charisma and honesty, Arvind Kejriwal has the organizing skills and networking methods and he could continuously think of the box and beat the system. However, the time sought by the system was granted by these people while they could have gone for a decisive battle, in that the lacked the political wisdom to fighting to the finish, and they lost a chance. system seeks time only to re-coup, never to respond - that's a strategic lesson for those who deal with the system. 

the eventual split, media-black out and periodic cynical pieces by mainstream media personnel ensures that the civil society articulation in political space is marginalized. for a country with a large, imaginative and engaging civil society, this will be difficult, but, a combination of controlled media, obstinate bureaucracy, slow judiciary and corrupt political elements can ensure that the civil society is engaged in issues of non-politically threatening nature forever and forcibly done so.

so, whom does one vote for?
guess, i will not vote for the local goon. i find very little difference between the fundamental thinking between the current Congress and BJP. they both talk and behave similarly though they project the other as opposition. they stoop too low to seek dirt and smear on each other as they can't raise high to either bring in a different perspective or a different thinking into their work.  i do not attach much value to the secular credentials of Congress or the communal credentials of BJP. while one is trying to hide not having good leaders by projecting a one-solution-super-hero, the other has nothing to hide the lack of performance with and is using non-existent fig-leaf of imagination to hide itself. 

the kind of government we may have...
whatever kind and colour it will be, it may not behave much differently from the current one and definitely i don't see it last a full term of five years.  

Election 2014 built up -1...nothing to imagine!

alliances will govern the government 

While Congress will be judged based on the alliance it keeps, BJP will be judged on alliance it seeks.

Congress can't escape some alliance, they are too inter-connected, it can't rely on a few others, those who have high stakes to remain in power will desert if they sense Congress is a sinking ship; those that know Congress will need them badly will seed bigger favours.

BJP is driven by an ambitious man, who wants to be PM, they are more likely to compromise on principles for numbers (meaning votes) in seeking alliances. They would want some alliances rather bad, and those who know that will seek large bargains which BJP is in no position to reject; the party may have to retain some alliances out of loyalty to partners who have stuck around for long at the cost of some newer alliances.

strategies people (do / will / are likely to) play

Most regional parties will try and retain their stronghold at whatever cost so as to be able to drive a better bargain at the national level. those in power will do so through coercion, persuasive policies, doles and defaming and ensuring that there are cases against the opposition. Those not in power will try regular tactics, buy small pockets of votes from smaller leaders who can trade on votes, they will realign smaller parties to ensure that split votes cause their victory at least in a few seats if there is an unfavourable condition for themselves.

Congress can play the tough moral card, as it realizes morality is what it lacks completely; it could compromise all the partners who have tainted image, seek a makeover, re align with newer parties and  lose the election, but, gain moral high ground. however, this will effectively see several local splits and even desertion at the national level. eventually if it retains its cadre, it may regain power in a couple of years with more strength if it adopts such a stature, but, the people and courage to do that is not there (though Rahul Gandhi could).

BJP may play the tough card in seeking alliance, however, everyone knows that except for one carefully built image, there are not many mass leaders in the party, definitely at the national level. so for BJP to  play tough will be the most difficult situation. they may fall victim to several regional manipulations as long as it suits their quest for numbers, in these compromises for numbers now will be the seeds of seat sharing and alliance of corruption later on, eventually it will realize it can't govern any better than the Congress with such alliance.  but, it may not have the wisdom to deny such difficult alliances.

numbers will unite and split as well

The numbers of the collective may be counted as the basis to form the government, however, it would also ensure that the government can't do much as there will be people with smaller and smaller principle base and larger short term money base who will be 1-unit coalition members. it will be each on for themselves and many more will be seeking return of investments and this can only lead to more corrupt times. 

Cost of elections will go up this time, far more people are likely to seek money for their votes than ever before as there is a general feeling that every political party has money that they don't declare and there may be enough to go around for all. however, the disbursement of money may not have any relevance to who gets voted or booted, after all it is a secret process.

peace will suffer

Elections may also be violent as more and more people with better knowledge of the locality and no care or comprehension of the centre will be fighting in their own turf, several turf wars of the area will come to be played out.

 ...

Shocking Exaggeration of AIDS Numbers!

Last year, on the World AIDS Day (must be a sick institution that requests the world to celebrate a day for illnesses), I had blogged here (http://tamil-nadu.blogspot.com/2006/12/world-aids-day-tamilnadu-and-aids.html) on the way the entire debate is being kidnapped. I had long suspected that the alarm of AIDS in this country is exaggerated. With the numbers not being clear to all those who were involved, no clarity in the methods of measurement and certainly no idea among the grassroot level workers (from the NGO world) who have become victims of the international aid agencies' money for AIDS awareness.

Now it turns out that my suspicion is correct in this issue. The news item today provides some insights (http://justsamachar.com/popular/meet-the-man-behind-indias-true-aids-figures) - "New Delhi, July 12: It became official last week that India’s AIDS scare was exaggerated far above the actual infection number of 2.47 million."

But, this was not the case six months ago, the director of the National AIDS control organization concurred with the UN organization despite her own organization’s estimates being otherwise (http://specials.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/01sld1.htm)
"India's National AIDS Control Organisation estimates that 124,995 Indians have AIDS. But UNAIDS puts the figure much higher -- it says 5,700,000 Indians have AIDS. Speaking at an Asia Society discussion on AIDS in India in March, Sujata Rao, director general, National AIDS Control Organisation, appeared to concur with the UNAIDS estimate. "We lost 500,000 people to AIDS last year," she said. "There are 5.2 million HIV infected people in India."

I had written at that time that AIDS must be strange case where the total number of victimized is dictated from the top, coming from an UN agency, that is from the very top. It is as though our own common sense and understanding of the issue doesn’t matter. It is not as though the exaggeration is by a small number, this is a hundred percent exaggeration!

We need to understand who benefits from such exaggeration.
Why are the International agencies hell bent on telling us we are more ill than we actually are.
Is there a nexus between those who promote these numbers and those who benefit from the treatment to this illness? (refer to my blog on this earlier this year)
Why are government policies being formulated based on such exaggerations?
How can one rely upon any government data for any illnesses and accept its prescription, particularly as some of these are being made mandatory in recent times (like the compulsory AIDS screening for all pregnant women)?

We have a history of such blind acceptance of our own illnesses. Many years back, the earlier President of USA, Clinton made the exaggerated claim that a million children were going blind in India every year due to Vitamin A deficiency. He was of course doing the sales man job for the supposedly Vitamin-A enriched, genetically modified rice. No government agency or individual thought of placing the record straight leave alone challenging the American President. We as a nation are suckers for anyone telling us we are ill, we are weak, we are lowly worms. What is it that makes us accept such these numbers without challenging them? And why are our government agencies in a hurry to concur with international agencies at the cost of their own common sense and better understanding?

Survey on Queues in Banks!

Way back in the early days of 'customer friendly banking', maybe around 1995-96 I remember writing to a customer service center of a nationalized bank complaining how I had to wait for over 15 minutes to complete a transaction where with additional queues it would have just taken about 2 minutes. I really didn't expect anything, but, after a few weeks I was surprised to receive a letter from them stating that during very crowded times they do have additional counters, but, maybe it was not in operation at the time of my visit, any which way they were sorry for wasting my time! Rather neat. Another time, I was in a bank where the teller was unnecessarily delaying issuing of a Draft and I started taking down the customer service number when the branch manager (who had observed me) walked to me and enquired whether I had a problem and asked me that I first have to approach him before I write to the customer service cell. Both were nationalized banks.

The conditions today if anything is nowhere as promising. My bank handles large number of pension accounts and obviously at the beginning of each month there is a large crowd of elderly who are there to collect their monthly pension / returns from investments (the equivalent of a salary for many and in poorer families perhaps that which sustains the family too) and they are subjected to extreme humiliation.

Firstly most of our banks are not designed to cater to people. If there are large number of accounts, then it makes sense to have the bank in a larger premises with seating arrangements. We don't need sofa's in banks, more like the metal chairs that are now part of every railway station in the country. Our banks for some strange reasons seem to have less than a tenth of seating capacity to its highest transaction time crowd. So, obviously people will have to stand around. More people standing around in a closed environment always gives the impression of something is going wrong or about to go wrong.

Second, the stupid system of part-computerised, part-manual method that is still followed in many nationalized banks. Either they become fully computerized or they switch back to their manual systems. Only our banks can have the 'system is not working, we don't know when it will be all right' at the middle of a busy business hour as a valid transaction excuse. I have been a victim several times of this malfunctioning system. People have no way to know when the computers will work, because there is no resident computer service personnel nor does any of the bank employees ever get trained on how to tackle things. In one branch I saw the entire staff convene at a safe distance from the customers just to ensure that they are not lynched. While at that I should also mention the utter unreliability of some of the ATMs (some other time).

Third, banks don't believe in treating people as customers. Still like the policemen in the roads, they tend to treat customers as some kind of low level creatures on whom they are bestowing a great reward by transacting with them. I often wonder why not organize all the elders who are regular pensioners in a branch and make them manage the crowd coming for the pension transactions at least. They can help the bank to manage the crowd during those busy two - three days and ensure that the pensioners are also felt like they are important to the bank. It can only provide yet another local platform for the elders to interact from and perhaps may find ready volunteers.

Four, corruption is high in banks. So,what is surprising?! The worst thing for some one in a queue is to find this sneeky oily little rat who will always go past every line right into the cabin to get his work done and even flirt with the rest of the staff. Nothing can be more frustrating if you are 65 years old, come early in the morning to withdraw your pension, have been issued that stupid metal token and while you wait in the queue for over an hour, there is this chap sneaking in and out in a jiffy with his transaction over. Some banks have touts hanging around the place who in the process of helping the customers also broadcast and manage the corruption of the bank officials.

Customer service call centers doesn't work. At least the one bank I have tried, I have to go through so many automated menu's that at the end of it when I reach the message that says, 'wait and some one will attend to you', I feel like kicking someone.

Despite its longer queues, I think the railways with their innovative music chair arrangement have made the ticket booking not such a bad exercise. People have been made to feel comfortable and perhaps this adds to how they behave at the counter.

Queues are unavoidable in a heavily populated country, but, queues can be managed only if those who are servicing the queue were to respect those who are part of the queue I feel. If there is no respect for the pensioner in the bank, the ticket seeker in the railway station or the poor women who is about to collect her annual government gratis from the tehsildar office (or in the RTO office or in the ration shop, .....the very many places in which the servant of the government makes people queue up). Couple of years back, Chennai witnessed the tragic death of people in a stampede resulting from bad queue management, a good example of how a badly managed queue behaves badly too.

Now to the survey which does provide some very interesting results. I am particularly surprised that more than 20% have actually rescheduled their business plans because of the queue. One should estimate the loss of productivity and loss of opportunity and perhaps extrapolate the economic impact of the queue if possible. Many bank unions start talking of the NPA of large corporate houses whenever there is talk of more private banks, perhaps one should see how many banks are NPAs or contribute towards creating NPAs.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jun/07survey.htm
June 07, 2007 09:38 IST

Indians across the country are getting increasingly frustrated and losing their patience with the serpentine queues for banking, ticketing and bill payments.

'Bank' queues have been identified as the single-biggest queue problem by 84 per cent of the respondents to a just-released NCR Corporation Queue Frustration survey conducted by ACNielsen. They spend close to an hour waiting in queues.

This is closely followed by 'ticketing' queues at 80 per cent and 'bill payment' queues at 27 per cent.

The survey also reveals that 26 per cent of the all-India respondents had little patience with service providers too, having switched to another service provider offering better self-service solutions.

The survey also reveals that waiting in queues goes much beyond frustration as 60 per cent of respondents got really angry, 23 per cent respondents admit to have cancelled or rescheduled important business plans, 22 per cent of respondents had an argument, and 20 per cent have pushed in line as a result of queue frustration.

SEZ follow-up 2: 'Now you deal directly with the developer' says the Government

Even as we understand the significance of the ministerial statement on SEZ, comes the next news:

After the recent killings in Nandigram, the Centre announced changes in the rules and made developers solely responsible for rehabilitation of the displaced persons.

“The developer (of special economic zones) shall make adequate provision for rehabilitation of the displaced persons as per the relief and rehabilitation policy of the state government," a Commerce Ministry notification said.

The sudden change in rules by the Commerce Ministry, the nodal agency for approving SEZs, has even preceded the finalisation of the rehabilitation policy being worked out by the Ministry of Rural Development.

Now, the government cannot be blamed for Nandigrams. As it happened with the soft drink giant (the Benaras protest couple of years back in which protesters including Sandeep Pandey were reportedly beaten up by hired goons while the police looked the other way), corporate houses will be permitted to directly deal with the local communities.

Follow-up on SEZ

So now we know that Mr. Pillai was wrong after all. In his interview referred to in an earlier posting in this page, he had mentioned how the farmers are benefiting because of the sky rocketing prices, and how they can all sell their lands, take the money home and be happy ever after, blah-blah. But, no the area the farmers will have to sell is not that much says the minister now. Says he in the Parliament:

"In the 234 SEZs, given formal approvals, the total land acquired is 33,807 hectares. This extent of land would not hamper the agriculture production as the total land under cultivation in the country is over 100 million hectares," Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh told Rajya Sabha in a written reply to a question.

Of the total land, he said, needed for the SEZs, with formal approval around 17,800 hectares was already with state government agencies while the remaining land has been acquired by private developers. ...

There is enough land for everyone, blah-blah. The question is about the kinds of lands being acquired and compensation promised (read Medha Patkar on Singur)? But, Simple Ramesh is a technological-mathematical wizard, long before the GM technology was driving farmers to suicide he had predicted that this is the future of India. Writing on GM Rice as early as 2001, he wrote that GM-Rice is the Rice of the future ( India Today, 26 February 2001).

What if (as a friend suggested recently) all the farmers decide that 'we want to sell our lands for SEZ' and offer them to the Government? Why this discrimination against farmers, after all, Mr. Pillai did mention in his interview that the farmer will never get as much money as he would if he sold his land to SEZ. Let all farmers make money and whats more if we have so much lands for developing SEZs and that much of FDI flowing in, imagine the country will be prosperous in no time!?

Health Insurance for the Poor - Is it the best solution??

Happen to just read an article at Healthcare as a broad public challenge Sri. Jayaprakash Narayan of Loksatta, Hyderabad is one of our people constantly reminding us about the issue of health expenditure and the implications of the same. In this article he has addressed the proposal of the Government to introduce a subsidized healthcare system for the rural poor. He says that the obvious solution may not be the best and the government needs to consider the solution from different angles.

I have had the opportunity to recently study the health expenditure of some of the poor and not so poor rural communities in a few pockets of TN, Andhra and Karnataka and I tend to agree with Jayaprakashji on this. I found it encouraging that in most of our villages still healthcare is translated as 'an overall feeling of goodness' that encompassed both physical and mental health and not merely absence of diseases. There is certainly a large awareness on hygiene practices prevalent.

However, I also was a witness to many dangerous practices creeping in rural areas in terms of modern medical quacks and irregulated drug stores. Across Tamilnadu it was common a few months back to find cases of drug stores providing over the counter medicine 'pack' containing among other things, steroid medicine for cases of Chi-gun! Similarly I learnt the the poorer patients in government hospital in Tamilnadu (though aware of its dangers) have to go through the treatment of the same needle being used to inject for 10-15 patients.

With the traditional system of healthcare almost completely uprooted in rural areas (ironically, at a time when they are resurfacing as a fad in the urban centers), the native wisdom and free herbal remedies from the kitchen gardens for even simple illnesses are slowly disappearing from the collective village minds (though I found the same can be easily revitalized through a few simple interventions NGOs have tried out). In a meeting with a group of women belonging to Self-Help Groups(SHGs) in Andhra Pradesh, with an average age of about 40, none of the women knew how to prepare a 'kashayam'!

Mutual insurance has been introduced by NGOs among such women's groups and I feel that this is a good alternative to larger subsidized insurance programmes. But, there cannot be an alternative for a thorough inspection and increase in efficiency of the PHCs, increase in the risk-pooling mechanisms and also a tough regulation on the sale and administering of drugs - both over the counter and through clinics. At the cost of sounding outdated, I think it is still not late to also encourage a kitchen garden based self-medication for at least simple illnesses that can help the poor by saving their medical expense. A dry land farmer in Ramnad mentioned that each outing to a hospital costs him Rs. 350 to 400/- and at times he has to visit the doctors twice every month. Most poor in villages spend on health only if they are pushed to it and then it costs them almost half their wage (if not more, the national average is 60%). They are dependent on their little savings and lending from local villagers and money lenders (and increasingly from SHGs). Hospitalization can mean repayment of loan for the next few decades, unless another member in the family gets a really high paying job, which means migration to either urban or abroad centers as labourer.

Private clinics abound in the rural landscape all over south India today and most villages have at least one quack. A politically well connected local leader in Kuppam in AP mentioned how it some of the quacks are directly connected to medical companies which in turn are owned by corrupt officials and politicians. And it is not just the danger of quacks, even practicing physicians in rural areas happily take advantage of the fact that people don't understand the science and are willing to blindly follow the physician. In Thiruvallur district in TN, I have been told by Panchayat leaders that there are private clinics that inject drips to anyone who comes in as they have been set target by drug companies. In one of my travels, a co-passenger in a train, who happened to be wife of a drug company marketing manager mentioned that her husband is often planning foreign trips for doctors who 'perform' well in their target achievements as a bonus!!

We need to really understand the impact of globalized healthcare system (with its aggressive marketing practices) and its cost implications on the poorest. Why are per visit costs to clinics getting costlier? Why do the number of prescribed tests for the same symptoms seem to be going up with times? are some of the critical questions. Indiscriminate prescription is another major illness that ails our medical system. A friend recently quoted Dr. Arjun Rajagopal of Sundaram Medical Foundation, Chennai as saying that,

"...we are sitting on a volcano as far as misuse of antibiotics is concerned - an epidemic far worse than AIDS"

. When I further enquired with Dr. Rajagopal, he provided another insights saying, "...the problem that you are referring to, is one symptom of a larger disease - the faulty prescribing habits and ethics of the medical profession. Change, if it is possible at all, can come only from within practicing physicians and not from attitudes of confrontation and censure from outside. This has to start early - from the days of medical college education. And this is where I run into a wall of despair. The present trends and policies with regards to the licensing and certification of medical schools and teaching hospitals has degenerated to one of a crass and unhealthy form of commercialism that does not forebode good for us all". This is another dimension that the general public is unaware of.

A subsidized hospitalization (through the proposed government insurance programme) for the poor in India will be to the human health as bad as a chemical pesticide subsidy to the crops and soil health. It will make the companies rich, the poor, poorer and the overall health worse and whatever self-reliance is there will be wiped out. And worse, it cannot guarantee a quality physician or healthy life. All this at the cost of public funds!!