31 March 2012

The Facets of Indian Poverty

INDIA - UNITY IN DIVERSITY


India is a major country of South Asia and geographically the seventh largest in the world with the dubious distinction of being the most populated country in the world after China with a population of more than 1.1 billion by the end of 2010. It is also a nuclear power.
India is a very large country with diverse history, culture, religions, castes, languages, practices and ethnicities. It is said that India is the home to about eight hundred languages. It also has different castes and religions, some home grown while some others assimilated from outside and different life styles and geographical features through the length and breadth of the country.
States and Union Territories as provided in the Indian Constitution are regional administrative tools for the governance of the country. Division of the country in to States and Union Territories makes governance of the country viable through compact administrative regions.
The largest state of India is Rajasthan and the most populated one is Uttar Pradesh. Goa is the smallest state of India as well as the least populated. Among the Union territories, the largest is Andaman and Nicobar Islands while the most populated one is Delhi. The smallest Union Territory is Daman and Diu and it is also the least populated Union Territory of India. 
In spite of the diversities, certain basic similarities mostly derived from Dravidian and Aryan ethnic groups from the pre-historic age are basic to the Indian soul and bring a kind of inexplicable sense of oneness among the people of India.

INDIAN CONSTITUTION

 Indian Constitution is the largest, most bulky constitution in the whole world. No other country has got a constitution as large as India’s. It has got 396 Articles and 7 schedules.
 The Constitution of India provides Fundamental Rights to its citizens and imposes specific responsibilities as the citizens of the country. It provides that Fundamental Rights cannot be taken away from the citizens except in a crisis.
There are also Directive Principles provided in the Indian Constitution, which suggests to the Government about its obligations to the people and how to discharge them. It has become a farce in India that politicians and political parties during the election propaganda use the provisions of the Directive Principles to lure votes as promises and their agenda for the governance if they win the election and forget the promises all together once they are secure in the saddle of power. Directive Principles are not imperatives of the constitution to follow unlike the Fundamental Rights and thus are followed only at the convenience and benefits to the political party and its leading lights holding the reigns of the power.
The Constitution provides for a Central Government for the country and provincial governments in charge of regions formed on the basis of historic, linguistic, cultural, ethnic or administrative divisions called as States or Union Territories. The Prime Minister with his council of ministers leads the Central Government where as States and Union Territories by the respective Chief Ministers with their councils of ministers.

INDIA AND SECULARISM

Secularism means exclusion of religion in policy and governance. Secularism respects all religions as equal outside the scope of the governance. It is not anti-religious by any stretch of imagination.
The Constitution of India declares that India is a secular country. Though India is historically, culturally and by majority of the population is a Hindu country, it is also the root and birthplace of many other religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and more than 20% of its people are Muslims. Historically also, India was ruled by Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Muslim and Christian rulers as much as by Hindu rulers.
Hinduism is often called as a way of life far beyond the concept of religion and always championed spirituality as the core of human life. Vedic hymns and scriptures declare God as beyond all religions. Hinduism as a religion is a new phenomenon originated as a reaction to the threats of alien elements that attacked India and its way of life from the tenth century. Religion even now is not the main stay of the Indian life save for a few deviant elements for political and other related reasons.  If there is any genuine concern in this direction among thoughtful people, it is concerning the identity and protection of the Indian way of life. This is truer regarding modernisation and globalisation trends than the threat from other religions. Most of the countries in the world are secular save for a few exceptions in West Asia and surrounding regions where countries proud themselves to declare themselves as Islamic Republics.
    India always lived up to its expectations of being a secular country in accordance with the spirit of its Constitution. Secularism is a very honourable policy that sees all human kind as one and abjures the evil of division and groups among people.

POLITICAL PARTIES IN INDIA

India as defined in the Constitution is a socialist, secular, sovereign democratic republic. It is a country that was under British rule up to the end of 1940s and gained independence after centuries of alien hegemony that began from the tenth century. It has risen to greater heights since independence and aspiring to be a global power. Being a democracy, and the largest democracy at that, India naturally elects its leaders by the process of election through political representations. India’s is a multi-party political system that naturally led to alliances coming to power in recent days and rendering formation of the government a very complex and unclean political manoeuvres, thereby rubbing off the sheen from its otherwise serious and noble process. The adage that politics is the last resort of a scoundrel comes to play in this context and political powers are often found cornered by proven criminals and other anti-social elements by their sheer muscle and money power that can buy votes.
Indian political parties can be divided into two main groups: national parties and regional parties. National parties are those that have an all-India base and presence in most of the States and Union Territories. Regional parties are those that have their base and presence limited only to a few States and Union Territories and generally has local or regional interests in their agenda.  The two national parties that really count in elections at present are the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party.  Other political parties that can be counted in national arena in spite of their regional slants in terms of electoral presence or interests are Communist Party of India (Marxist), Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazagam, Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagam, Trinamool Congress and a host of other smaller political parties.
The Congress Party is an off-shoot of the former Indian National Congress that fought for the independence of the country under stalwarts like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, M.K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and has its origin in fight for the national independence with a history of more than a century while Bharatiya Janata Party as a new avatar of Bharatiya Jana Sangha is steeped in the ideology of the national identity with a history of more than five decades. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) as an offshoot of the Communist Movement of India has considerable base in States like West Bengal and Kerala and in Union Territory of Tripura with a history of more than seven decades in the Indian political scene. Most of the other political parties of India are offshoots of the good old Congress Party. Both DMK and AIADMK are the political offshoots of the ethnic Dravidian movement in southern India.
The United Progressive Alliance or UPA led by Congress Party is an alliance of political parties that assumed power and formed government for the next five years in India in the general election held in 2009. It is the second successive win for the alliance after it came to power in the general election of 2004 by edging out another alliance called National Democratic Alliance or NDA led by the right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. 2009 general election was a tense battle for both the alliances as the election was to decide the future of both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the national political scene and the political life of their Prime Ministerial contenders, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. Lal Krishna Advani. The world watched the general election and its outcome with interest as the general election served as a plebiscite on UPA’s decision and moves to go with the Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the USA and other member countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was opposed by both the right-wing BJP and its allies and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and its left-wing allies that withdrew its support to the UPA a few months before the general election for going with the deal.

DECLINE OF BJP

Over the last few years in the first decade of the 21st century, BJP has declined in power and popularity from a position it had steadily gained from a long time. The 2009 General Election showed the depths to which it has fallen.
Reasons are many. Leader who led the party along the ladder of rise are now either tired or retired.  Atal Behari Vajpayee is now retired and distant from the political scene. Age is taking the toll of leaders like L.K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Down the line in the second wrung, there is shortage of the real talents of political genius, and a few available are busy pulling the legs of each other for supremacy in the party which once carved a niche for discipline, patriotism and service. Its leaders in their forties and fifties want to lead the party by bypassing those of the older generation who formed the second-rung during the premiership of Atal Behari Vajpayee. The latter are fighting back or resigning. This is how infighting is growing in BJP.
The demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 is also haunting it. BJP’s public image as a party of wealthy businessmen and its closeness to rich industrialists is doing tremendous damage to its reputation. The true relief provided to the party in the public imagination by its patriotism and discipline is increasingly eclipsed by the character and conduct of its cadres and leaders these days. It is now unequivocal that BJP and its cadres and leaders no way stand out from other political parties of India in patriotism and discipline save for lip service for political advantage. This removed the greatest advantage of the BJP in the public imagination. Its leadership’s impatience to adopt modern life-styles and liberalization raised doubts about their love for Indian values and culture. Actually Congress showed better circumspection when circumstances warranted such adoptions and showed better respect to Indian values. Though Indians do not express these things in so many words, they intuitively understand it. BJP’s natural human concerns, as proved in their neglect of poor and minorities, are also in doubt. Love and pride for India and Hinduism and their values are praiseworthy. But, hate to anybody is not. It is against Indian and Hindu tenets also. Congress in contrast has done well by its Aam Admi slogan unlike BJP’s 2004 slogan of India Shining meant for rich and wealthy. BJP basically needs strong leadership of the kind of Smt. Sonia Gandhi to steer it ahead with confidence and maturity to reach its former glory.

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM

In India, the judiciary plays a very important role as to decide all controversial matters and disputes. The judiciary has been in the forefront of problem solving in India as provided by the Indian Constitution since it became a Republic around sixty years back in1950. Over this time, the judiciary has usually confined itself to give decisions on matters that were brought to its attention as the relevant provisions of the Indian Constitution were interpreted then.
Judicial Activism was not some thing that had been very common then. However, of late this has changed. In India like in South Africa, Judicial Activism of late is playing a very important role in the day-to-day affairs of the judiciary. This is a change to be seen and noticed. This is because it has been seen that judicial activism when trumpeted aloud and hard is having an effect on the society and thus it has become a part of the judicial system of India from the middle of 1990s.
It has been more and more apparent over the last few years. The judiciary is now interfering in matters of public interests even while they are not brought to its adjudication by the interested parties unlike the practice and precedence of the first forty years of the Indian Constitution. Courts these days are taking up matters of public interests on the basis of letters or telegrams received by them, many a time anonymous letters, on the basis of newspaper reports or even suo moto. It tremendously helped the public interests and the cause of justice in most cases. But, there is raging controversy now regarding this judicial activism or pro-active judicial moves of the Indian judicial system, some passionately supporting it while others including government bodies openly expressing dissent on such judicial initiatives by the Indian Courts. Opponents say that those pro-active measures amount to judiciary over-stepping on the Executive responsibilities. An example they give is of the Judiciary directing the Central Government to take measures to protect Indian students in Australia in the circumstance of the latter’s persecution there.
Even though Judiciary has no powers and jurisdiction over foreign affairs, issuing such directions is seen as Courts over-stepping their limits. Also, the judiciary’s direction to pull down all statues of her and others’ raised by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati is seen with concern. Here, the issue is not whether the directions are just and in public interests, but how judiciary can out-step its limits and over-step on executive powers and responsibilities and crush the fine balance provided in the Indian Constitution between the Parliament, Executive and the Judiciary, to the detriment of the peace and balance of the public life of the country.  Judiciary cannot violate the Constitution. Here, pro-active move in public interest and in the interest of justice per se is not to blame. What is required is discreetness and maturity to remain within one’s limits rather than trespassing to other's fields.

CASTE SYSTEM

Caste system is prevalent in Indian society from a very long time. It still prevails though invisibly for the fear of law. The caste system classifies people as high and low and some highest and some others lowest on the basis of their birth and parentage for life without reference to their merits or demerits. This is a grossly unjust system, more so in a country of India’s spiritual heritage.  This is a case of highest spiritual values being misconceived and misinterpreted by the second rate sociologists of the ancient India while codifying social laws. Faith being the heart of Indian epistemology, ancient Indian mass followed the codes with vengeance without a second thought and brought India to the present state if guilt.  People of the lower castes in India are cruelly treated for centuries and forced to live in inhuman conditions as untouchables. They are treated, distanced and exploited like dirt all their life generation after generation for centuries. In spite of all the calls for human rights and equality, India cannot be called as completely wiped out the curse of caste system and untouchability from its face.

DIGNITY OF THE BISEXUALS

The bisexuals have been discriminated against for a very long time. People have looked down upon them in disgust for a very long time. They have been discriminated against even in the Constitution of India. This is because even the founders of the Constitution of India did not feel that they must be given equal rights as if that these kinds of people are not fit for basic rights.
They have lived so for a very long time till now. The founders of our Constitution felt that these people were disgusting and that they must not be encouraged to live this kind of life. Leading a life like this was considered to be ‘verboten’.
Indian judiciary has finally decided in favour of the bisexuals. It decided that these people must not be discriminated against in future. People all over India have all celebrated this and have felt that this law was long overdue. People are celebrating this new change.
However, the fight has been a very long and weary one and many people have fought very long and hard for this. Demonstrations were held over the last few days in order to put the last few nails in the coffin of the earlier discrimination. Over the last few days, many people of this kind were very vocal and showed a large amount of energy in their actions and also worked very hard for this judgment and it looks as if this is a very big victory for them.

EDUCATION SYSTEM

India was under the British Raj for nearly a century in which India learnt and acquired endless modern customs and systems from the British and their thoughts, methods and practices. Solid administrative system, powerful military set-up, excellent railway network, export and import regimen, diplomacy niceties, sound public health system, flawless public distribution system and effective education system are only a few to name such adoptions.  Most important of them is the Education System for the reason that it laid foundation for the future of the country. British infused best education system to the country relevant to the time and circumstances that ultimately led to overthrow of the British Raj from India under the leadership of the enlightened products of the Education System like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose to name only a few.
It is more than a century since India adopted the good old British Education System and more than six decades since India became an independent country and a republic. Yet, we have not changed the Education System from that time to meet the fast changing needs of the time and requirements of the country. It is in a very pathetic state of affairs indeed. Indian Education System is not keeping pace with the progresses in other fields in the country and the consequence is felt in the fields of other developments. It is like rotten apple spoiling other sweet apples in a basket. Education System in India is a neglected area. The number of new Universities and Centres of Higher Education in India is not on par with the increase in the population of the country. Japan, a country with almost one-tenth of the population of India, has almost three times the number of Universities as India. Also, the percentage of the people who go to Universities and Centres of Higher Education at right age is less than seven percent in India even after six decades of the self-rule. In the United States of America, the percentage is close to eighty percent while in Finland, it is close to seventy six percent.
The story is similar in other parts of the Indian subcontinent namely Pakistan and Bangladesh where outdated education is the staple for the hoi polloi. England from which India borrowed the Education System knew the importance of the right Education System and diligently updated it from time to time. In India, basic education that forms the heart of any Education System is the most neglected area with classes often held in dilapidated single rooms or even under trees and teachers under-paid or irregularly paid. The profession of teachers at all levels is least accomplished in terms of returns and social standing and therefore attracts only the mediocre and leftovers from other fields. This deeply affects the process of educating and moulding the future generation of the country.
The educational system in India is far from satisfactory. Main problem is the standard of teachers in schools and colleges being not up to the mark. Though IITs and IIMs have exceptional students and teachers, situation is very bleak in other institutions. India must have many more centers of higher education to make its mark in the world stage. The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, said that it would be primary in his manifesto to improve the educational system in India. Unfortunately, this sacred goal ended with IITs and IIMs and a handful of other institutions of excellence.
For a country to improve, it has to have a good education system. The gradual decline noticed in the standards of excellence in existing institutions of higher education in India like IITs of late is depressing.  The fall is mainly because of the pay system of the professors there in contrast to those in China, Korea and Singapore and in western countries where a three-tier pay system is followed to attract the best to the fold. The pay system in most of these countries include a pay package covering the pay pack from the government based on the pay scale to cover basic needs, and other pay packs dependent on the track record of the individual and the institute concerned in the stipulated year. Individual performance forms the pillars in all these pay schemes, thus promoting excellence and rewarding performance.
Singapore moved to the performance based pay scale of three components about two decades back, covering basic pay based on the pay scale, another based on the reputation and market demand of the individual teacher, and the third based on his or her performances for the stipulated period. China followed the performance based scheme from 1990s wherein the pay packet based on the pay scale from the government is followed by one given by the university allowing better institutes to compensate better, and the third based on the performance of the individual in projects and research works. China saw tremendous boost in its research projects and research papers in international journals since then. Pakistan is ahead of India in this progressive step by linking the pay scale to the number of research papers published in international journals. Pay scales and annual increments in USA from many years are based on individual performances. Britain and other European countries like Germany and Italy from which India borrowed its fixed pay package have also moved forward in adopting the performance based package of pay scales for its University faculties. Australia has also moved in this direction.
Not that performance based pay package is new to India. All corporate houses and private companies follow this model by instinct as the foundations of their survival. Indian Government unfortunately is yet to awaken to this cardinal need to promote excellence and reward performance to take India ahead to its dream of the world leadership. It still adheres to the age-old fixed pay scales in the name of job security, forgetting that the basic component of the pay package adequately covers this aspect, and continuing with the old system is tantamount to utterly ignoring merit, excellence and performance, and promoting mediocrity and casual attitude.  This is the bane of academic governance, giving absolutely no elbowroom to promote excellence or reward performance.
Added to this, the interference of the Government in the academic governance and selection and appointment of the faculty are causing tremendous damage to the institutions of higher education of excellence in India. If institutes like IITs, which are the pinnacles of higher education in India, are in this situation, then one can imagine what condition the other centers of education in India are in. This must be changed as soon as possible.

INDIA’S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS

India has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). All nuclear countries except Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are signatories to this treaty. India feels that NPT is discriminatory and confirms that it is already complying with all the provisions of the NPT without signing it.
It is believed that India has been put under severe pressure from other countries (read ‘The United States of America’) to sign this treaty. But, India held on stubborn for quite some time now. The United States of America and India signed a nuclear deal by which India is provided an exception from the nuclear sanctions of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for acquiring nuclear reactors, components and fuel from the USA and by corollary from other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) countries in spite of it being not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in exchange to allowing its earmarked civil nuclear facilities for international scrutiny and other safeguards. But, India’s ambition was stopped at its track in the summit of G8 and G5 countries held at L’Aquila in Italy in 2009. American President Barack Obama’s administration does not seem to be keen about this agreement with India and its lobbying for pressure on G8 countries to withhold reprocessed fuel from any country that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, meaning India alone, is proving an irritant to India. This is quite a blow to India.

THE POSTAL SYSTEM

India is one of the largest countries in the world. Defence service is the largest government organization of India. Railways come next. The third largest position goes to the postal service. India’s postal service is the largest postal service in the world, being larger than that of the United States of America and China in many respects.
People interact with other people in one way or the other and developed many means to do so. One of the most common ways of interacting with each other is by sending mails or messages and this in short is the beginning of the postal system. A competent postal system is one of the strong points of India’s capable governance.

NORTHEASTERN INDIA

There are thirty tribes in North East India and they all want to have the special status of a state and are thus causing unnecessary bloodshed and destruction by resorting to agitations. The tribes are also fighting with each other and buying weapons illegally and killing each other and the police.
This has reached to a point that even the central government is having serious problem tackling the situation. The tribes in big groups fight for their cause of a new and independent state. They are being drawn into fighting each other because of the severe tensions that usually pervade each tribe and its uneasiness with respect to the other tribes that live near it. The tribe members are indulging in destroying communication and transport systems and bringing down houses.
The states in North East India are taking serious steps to bring peace to the region. The police and army are kept ever alert in the region. They have resorted to increasing the number of the policemen and are using tighter and tougher measures in order to combat and win against this ever changing and versatile enemy, that is, the tribes and their outfits. However, whether they will be able to do something to tackle this homegrown problem successfully is anybody’s guess.

LAW AND ORDER

BMP refers to the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike. It is the local government organisation in charge of the Bangalore City, the Silicon Valley of India, and a hub of India’s computer industries. BMP looks after and manages the city of Bangalore through elected representatives of the people and bureaucracy. But, often rules and procedures promulgated by the BMP for the administration of the city are ignored and violated creating administrative problems and public inconvenience. This entails enforcing strict measures against the law-breakers. Bangalore Mahanagara Palike resorted to such enforcements concerning construction of buildings in Bangalore in violation of rules laid for the purpose.
Rules regarding specific heights and distances from the road in construction of buildings are being violated. This is a common feature in Bangalore as in all other cities of India.  The violations are so wide spread and the involvement of their own officers is so deep that Bangalore Mahanagara Palike as a rule ignored the violations. It added to the problem.  Builders as a rule bought safety from the BMP by bribing the BMP officials. However, public outcry against such complicities in part of the BMP forced the latter to act. This led to demolition drives by the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike against illegal constructions and their extensions wherein all buildings and constructions that did not follow required specifications were demolished and stricter vigil is followed in licensing new constructions and compliance of the specifications in doing so. This is great news for the people of Bangalore.
Belgaum, a border city and also a district in North Karnataka and famous for its history, is dipped in controversy because of its Marathi majority population in a Kannada majority State. The neighboring State of Maharashtra wants Belgaum to be included in that State on the basis of its Marathi-speaking population. There is an ongoing conflict and enmity between the two States for Belgaum.
India’s responses to emergencies need a lot to be desired. Whether it is natural disasters like Tsunami and earthquakes or terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the responses are marred by slowness and uncertainties of the reaction by those in authorities and in charge of the rescue operations and suitable responses. Often the Government of India was found unprepared for suitable responses and pathetically caught on the wrong foot. India must improve its response time and the quality of the response by proper planning, training, intelligence collection, and institution of right organisations with right people at the helm to minimize the losses and impact of the disaster in issue. It is a paramount need of India to become a great world power.

INDIAN ECONOMY

Indian economic development largely depends on rural economy. Infrastructure development is an aspect of the Indian economy that is crying for immediate attention. Indian economic programmes call for balance between socialism and capitalism as defined in Mixed Economy by the first Prime Minister of India, Shree Jawaharlal Nehru.  Mixed Economy is a contribution of India to the world as was Neutrality or Non-Aligned Movement in world politics.
Schemes like free mid-day meals to students in Government Schools that was first introduced in India for the benefit of the children of the lower income groups of the society by popular film-star turned politician and former Chief Minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Shree M.G. Ramachandran, are gaining popularity throughout India and are being adopted by increasing number of states through the length and breadth of India with the active financial support and encouragement of the Central Government. The scheme is gradually expanded with the passage of time to higher age groups of the students to cover more students under the scheme.
India of late is also resorting to reduction in custom and excise duties to encourage trade and industry while increase in taxes on undesirable items like tobacco products and alcohol is the ruling trend. Rationalisation of taxes including income tax and customs and excise duties covering reduction in their rates is injecting new life to the Indian economy.
The Indian government budgeted to spend about ten trillion rupees in 2009-2010, about three trillion more than the previous year amounting to an annual rise of about 43% in expenditure in contrast to the rise in revenue only at about 2%, thus giving way for deficit financing that inevitably leads to fiscal deficit. Allotment of liberal funds to the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme in the budget is a laudable effort to improve the lot of the rural poor of India.  Even though children make up to 40% of the population of India, they are given 11% allotment in the budget of 2009-2010. They should have been given better attention.
Privatization of the public sector industries is the theme of the Indian Government from some years after it ventured into liberalization in economy. This resulted in a large number of its stakes in different public sector companies being sold out. This massive privatization was though questioned in the court of law, the Supreme Court did not stop it as it decided that it does not have jurisdiction in this sphere.
While the oil requirement of the United States of America will increase by 46% in the next ten years and of China by about 96%, India’s requirements will go up by about 132%. This is certainly a mammoth increase. India must find additional sources for oil within and outside the country apart from discovering other sources of energy as alternative to the oil. India will find itself in great problems in coming days unless it does not act fast. Further, increase in oil prices world over may find India in deep quicksand. India has only two options: either it will go down by inaction or it will claw its way up by a concerted action plan.
Value Added Tax is a new phenomenon introduced in India’s economic scene and commercial field a few years back to replace the sale tax. Though most States and Union Territories accepted the regimen, a few are yet to come round to the novel taxing system.
Employment in India is certainly in a very dismal situation. This is because nearly a quarter of a million jobs have been lost in India over the last few months due to the economic crisis that has struck the world. This is not at all a healthy development for India and this is some thing that the Government of India has been trying to overcome.

CONSOLIDATION OF BANKS

Bank consolidation is something that has become common now in the vocabulary of many financial experts. Experts in India believe that consolidation is the ‘in’ thing right now in the wake of the severe economic crisis that has hit the world rather hard right now. People believe that if banks merge and form bigger banks, then the whole system will be able to face the economic uncertainties better.
In India, the UPA government was all for it in its previous term. It was loudly thinking about this from the beginning. However, all in all, it did not do much about the whole affair then as its hands were tied by its close links with and support of the Left wing parties. However, it looks as if it will do something about this time, as it is free of constraints of the first innings in the second term.
Since the monkey is truly off the UPA’s back this time and it is thus capable of following its own policies, things may turn really well this time around. Its previous term saw only one event with respect to banks namely the takeover of the Bank of Saurashtra by the State Bank of India.
This was seen as the first step at the time in the catalogue of the UPA to do something big in the banking sector. However, the Government did not follow this up with other acts and thus no great changes were affected in the Indian economic sector last time. Protests by the staff of the subsidiary banks against merger with the SBI were also responsible for this inaction at the time. However, it looks as if some changes may take place this time around and the UPA Government will bring some concrete changes this time in the economic front of India.

DISINVESTMENT

Disinvestments is something that Indians have been looking up to with interest right. It looks to be the right thing to do right now with the economic recession that is on the rampage right now in the world. This is something that almost all investors have looked at and are trying to benefit out of it. However, many economic experts believe that economic recession is not the right time for disinvestment.
Disinvestment, say experts, is something that must absolutely not be carried out at this time. While investors are busy selling their shares, disinvestment will burden the economy and the market and that may lead to slump in demand and bearish tendencies. Disinvestment on a large scale will result in the whole system falling down rather heavily.
To avoid such consequences, investors need to practice monetary discipline involving restraint, foresight and assessment of the market before borrowing for investment. They must accumulate debts with foresight. But, this is not the case with most of the investors and borrowers. Their greed lead to their own interests at the cost of others and this attitude leads to the fall of the whole economic system for nobody’s gain.
An alternative option is issuance of bonds by the companies rather than resorting to the disinvestment.  But, this is too costly a method to be viable. There have been other proposals that the government will have to lessen its holdings in various companies from 51% to 33.3%.  However, it is doubtful whether the government would even consider this, as it would weaken its stake in the respective companies.

AIR INDIA’S CURRENT PROBLEMS

Air India has got itself into quite a big mess by the economic recession. With the economic crisis that has shaken the world from head to toe over the last few years, it has been quite a roller coaster ride for Air India. Air India faces what has been called as the biggest crisis in its history. Whether it will survive the crisis is a big question mark. In order to some how improve the situation, Air India merged with the Indian Airlines, the domestic carrier, to decrease the overhead expenditures. But, to no avail.
There is concern that many employees of Air India may be thrown over board and that the salaries of others may also be reduced. This is causing concern among the employees, as it is not easy to find and ferret out jobs in the wake of the economic crisis. However, the Government feels that this economic crisis can be ridden through to its end and advice employees not to panic and agitate as strikes and demonstration only keep passengers further away from the airlines and further deteriorate the situation. The government of India is trying to keep the situation stable so that Air India will be able to fly high in the sky in the end.

MONSOON

Rain is needed in India. India is a country of farmers. These farmers need water for their crops. The main source of water for the farmers in India is rain. The rain comes mainly in the Monsoon season and the farmers’ crop patterns are designed according to the monsoon patterns of a region. The life of farmers depends on the yearly incidence of the monsoon rains. Monsoon is the deciding season of the farmers as their livelihood till the next monsoon depends on it. Farmers looking up at the skies to gauge when the rain would pour are a symbol of India’s economic uncertainties as well as the pathetic dependence of India’s farmers on the uncertainties of the monsoon. Indian Meteorological Department has a history of predicting normal monsoon with adequate rain year after year.  But, as a rule it proves right only as exceptions. This throws a huge question mark on the credibility of the Meteorological Department.
Monsoon plays a very important role in the Indian agriculture. As the monsoon plays a very important role in Indian agriculture, it looks as if the monsoon plays a very important role in the Indian economy. India, an up-and-coming country depending upon a variable event like inconsistent monsoon is not a healthy development.
Indian economy suffering by the irregularity of the monsoon is a common feature of the Indian life. Shortage of food and farm production while monsoon is thin or late and destruction while comes with a vengeance or when it is not needed create havoc to Indian farmers. Sixty percent of the Indian economy is comprised of agriculture. Now almost Sixty percent of the Indian agriculture depends upon the monsoon. Thus, the Indian government faces a very huge problem every time that the monsoon does not come or is late.
Scientists have laid out a four-pronged scheme to attack the problem. The first is that the Indian government must encourage the growth of drought-resistant crops or crops that are genetically modified so as to survive harsher climates. Another thing is to replace the existing crops with these new types of crops. Another very important measure is to conserve the environment and the natural resources, which are of course very important for crops and without which crops will be in a real stew. The last prong in this pitchfork is that the farmers must use new forms of harvesting and also new types of fertilizers or manure. This is of utmost important. Another important thing will be to decrease the pollution levels.

FOOD SECURITY

For centuries people in India have suffered from lack of food. Even though the huge famines, which killed a very large number of individuals and caused a large amount of suffering now belongs to the past, there is still hunger in India. This hunger is omnipresent and looks to be irremovable from the country. Even now because of lack of food, children are born malformed or are mentally challenged.
This is mainly seen among the poorest of the poor, the people who form the lowest strata of India’s society. These people are mostly seen in tribes. Some of these whole tribes suffer from lack of food. This is not some thing new in India. In India throughout the ages, one can see great famines, which killed a very large amount of people and have thus reduced the population of India quite a lot.
These famines were all very horrendous. However, the Indian government has taken it upon itself that it must somehow end this. It has decided that it will some how make sure that every person in India will be able to avail him or herself to some food.
This is a big undertaking and challenge and people have to work hard to make this come true. This will require the whole government’s concerted efforts and involve all the arms of the government it can muster. This will be following the footsteps of the Lula de Silva government of Brazil, which did something very similar and christened it ‘Zero Hunger’. The Indian government hopes to do some thing of this sort, as this ‘Zero Hunger’ scheme was successful in Brazil.
The government has already put forward a scheme in which the ‘poor people’, who by its rather astonishing definition encompasses an extremely low percentage of the population, will be sold 25 kilograms of wheat at three rupees each, every month. In the circumstances of many millions of people in India under the poverty line, actually one-fifth of them, are already under the scheme of receiving 35 kgs of rice at Rs. 2 each, these people will thereafter receive only 25 kgs at Rs. 2. Therefore, the new scheme appears inadequate and retrograde in some respect.

INDIA IN WORLD AFFAIRS

India, Russia and China are the three most populated countries of the world, and three powerful nuclear powers. Russia with its 5000 to 7000 nuclear warheads is on par with the USA in nuclear supremacy; China and Russia are sound economy powers.
There are attempts by these Asian powers to form a regional axis to counterpoise the world supremacy of the United States of America. However, the ambitions of China to be the sole super power of the region are retarding the progress in this direction. Also its border disputes with both India and Russia are other thorns on the path of progress.
A bipolar world is indeed is in the interest of all including the USA considering the time proven adage that power corrupts and absolute power absolutely.

INDIA-BRAZIL-SOUTH AFRICA

India, Brazil and South Africa are considered as countries that have the same strength and stature in the world and therefore same interests. Birds of the same feathers flock together. Therefore, it is natural to expect them to flock together as an axis to safeguard their common interests in this complex world of competitions and ruthless manoeuvres. All the three are strong countries in their own right, and if they join hands, they can transform to be a power centre in world affairs and face challenges in every sphere to their best interests.
All three are large populous regional powers, undeveloped farming countries, potential economic powers and non-aligned in world politics. While India is the second most populated country in the world and geographically the seventh largest in the world, Brazil is the largest grower of coffee and sixth largest country in the world, and South Africa is the largest producer of diamonds in the world. Thus each of them needs the support of the other in facing the world.
The proposed axis can lead to balance of power in the world and bring an end to competitions of a few countries like China, Russia and the USA for the world hegemony. Such an alliance is sorely needed by the world to bring balance to the world politics.

BANGLADESH

There were two Pakistani territories on different sides to India that constituted Pakistan: West Pakistan and East Pakistan. East Pakistan decided to separate from the union and become an independent country. It fought for its independence and got independence with the help of India. East Pakistan then came to be known as Bangladesh.
India helped the Bangladesh freedom fighters after East Pakistan refugees poured in to India while Pakistan forces began to suppress them by force and Pakistan refused to take the refugees back creating a humanitarian problem to India. A truncated Pakistan saved India from the need of concentration of active forces against recalcitrant Pakistan in both western and eastern borders. Bangladesh on its eastern border certainly is a lesser evil to India than the former East Pakistan. Present Bangladesh is divided on its relation with India. While one of the two major political parties of the country is a close ally of India, the other with connections with the Pakistan military shows signs of unfriendly attitude towards India.
Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. It can prove to be dangerous to India if it sides with Pakistan in crucial junctures of political or military sensitivities. Pakistan naturally wants this to happen and considerably succeeded in its efforts in this direction. Pakistan militants and ISI operators repeatedly use Bangladesh these days as safe houses for terrorist activities in India. If India succeeds in luring the country to its side by right diplomacy, Bangladesh may prove to be a useful and strategic friend of India.

NEPAL

Nepal is a Himalayan Kingdom and shares border with two Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The culture of India and Nepal is similar and enjoy friendly relationship. Nepal is dependant on India for funds and developmental efforts. India has considerable influence over Nepal and generously contributes for the poor neighbour’s welfare activities.
Nepal works as a buffer between India and China. Nepalese known as Gorkhas are world-renowned as valiant and fearless soldiers for their do-or die spirit and Indian army has special contingents of these valiant soldiers from its British vintage.
Both China and Pakistan have also developed interests in Nepal and try to checkmate India’s influences in the region. Pakistan often used the common border between Nepal and India to infiltrate terrorists to India. The rise of Maoists in Nepal is actively supported by China. The rising influence of China in Nepal is a matter of grave concern to India.
Nepal on the border of India and China is in deep trouble from some years. First, the King of Nepal was murdered and a family member wiped out his whole family. Next surfaced the Maoist violence that threatened the very existence of the small Himalayan country. Nepal leaders and army were proved incapable of containing and crushing the spread of Maoist rebellion and violence. India was found unequal in their task of helping the Nepal Government in containing the rapid spread of the Maoist movement and its violence. 
Attempts to lure Maoists to the democratic system succeeded and elections were held. No party succeeded in getting majority while the Maoists came out with maximum seats won in the election. There was a long deadlock and ultimately, a Maoist-led coalition came to power with the primary task of drafting a Constitution for Nepal. The first thing after coming to power was removing the monarchy and declaring Nepal as a Republic. Soon, differences developed between the Maoist Prime Minister and the non-Maoist President and the differences came open while the Prime Minister removed the army chief for disobedience and the President as the Supreme Commander of the Nepal defence forces resisted the move. The rift in the alliance led to the fall of the Maoist Government and the possible revival of the Maoist violence again in Nepal. After concerted political moves, another alliance with the support of non-Maoist left parties formed the Government while the single largest party namely Maoists remained outside the Government causing concern about the possibility of the Maoists reverting to their non-democratic methods of popular uprise and violence.
If Maoists return to their largely successful uprise and violence, there will be breakdown of democracy again in Nepal and situation may turn worse than before and the country may go down the drain a la Iraq and Afghanistan though for different reasons. India did try to bring peace to Nepal by bringing Maoists and the Nepal Congress together, but miserably failed in the efforts. Nepal is in a sticky wicket now.
Truth is that Nepal has become a political playground of the shadow boxing of its southern and northern neighbours namely India and China with India represented by the Nepal Congress and China by the Maoists. All the political manoeuvres in Nepal are remote controlled by these two countries and in the process Nepal and its people’s interests are completely ignored.

JAPAN

A remark by China that there are rather immense differences between India and China in their border disputes, that have been the theme of India-Chinese negotiations and talks for a long time now, deeply offended India. India and Japan leaders met subsequent to the Chinese remarks in Japan and most political analysts connected the sudden interests of these countries with each other to the Chinese remarks. However, India and Japan both have denied this connection.
India and Japan are close neighbours of China. India’s nuclear tests had drawn the ire of Japan and it joined other developed countries in imposing sanctions against India at that time. However, they have been trying to improve their relationship for quite some time now. The political situation around the world also has compelled these two countries to come closer together over the last few years. American certificate to India that it is a responsible country and its initiative for nuclear deal with India along with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver to India in nuclear deals further mellowed Japan.
These two countries can help each other a lot if they want and it looks as if they certainly want it. Both countries have the strong umbilical chord of the Buddhist religion and culture. In a meeting that the external affairs ministers of these two countries had in mid-2009, they discussed several important issues. Earlier India and Japan along with the United States of America had a few sessions of naval war games. This may be some thing to remember in connection with the recent events concerning Chinese remarks.

PEACE IN SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka had been finally able to throw the yoke of the LTTE from its back. It led to Sri Lanka being able to run administration without the dark shadows of the LTTE clouding its decisions and actions. This is something, which Sri Lanka has to be very happy about. On May 18 of 2009, the Sri Lankan army killed the LTTE leader, Verupillai Prabhakaran. Till the end, the LTTE supremo hoped that the international community would do something in order to save him. However, what he hoped for did not come true. His death had come nearly twenty-five years too late for the people of Sri Lanka who had suffered a lot during the period. Thus, this is now a good time for Sri Lanka.
However, many countries have not taken kindly to the Sri Lankan conduct in this war. They condemned the aggressive pursuit of the LTTE cadres and fighters by the Sri Lankan Army and blamed Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapakshe of human rights violations. India showed concern regarding resettlement of the displaced Tamil population of Sri Lanka. International Red Cross did exceptionally good work during the war in rescuing and tendering civilians caught between the warring forces. According to eye witnesses who visited Tamil refugee camps in Sri Lanka, the Government provides for the refugees better than adequate and that those refugees are looked after better than Sri Lankan refugees in Indian refugee camps.
Countries mostly from the West see a large number of slip-ups by the Sri Lankan Government in its approach to the Tamil problem. They say that the Sri Lankan government should have ensured lesser mortalities especially of the civilians held by the Tamil Tigers as protective shield against the onslaught of the Sri Lankan army. It is easier said than done in a war situation of the nature of the intermittent wars between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army for more than three decades that brought all developmental activities of Sri Lanka to a grinding halt and threatened the very existence of the nation.  They have also condemned the Sri Lankan government for triumphantly trumpeting its victory. Sri Lanka indeed deserves to be congratulated for bringing halt to terrorism and bringing peace and security to the island nation after three decades of civil war. 

INDIA AND PAKISTAN

India and Pakistan are neighbours. Pakistan has had a history similar to that of India. The only factor that stands different between India and Pakistan is their attitudes to religion. While India is a secular republic, Pakistan is an Islamic republic. It was because of religion that Pakistan separated from the united India that existed prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947. If Mohammed Ali Jinnah had not insisted for a different country for Muslims, Pakistan would never have been carved out of the united India.
However, after the partition, India and Pakistan have become bitter enemies. Neighbours are usually enemies and it is the same here. There were many wars fought between India and Pakistan. India has won all of them. However, now, there are many moves towards permanent peace between India and Pakistan.
India and Pakistan are in conflict since their independence. They fought many wars with decisive win for India in all. But, war is war and a severe drain on the resources of the country apart from the huge amount of destruction and loss of precious life on both sides.  Keeping soldiers active along borders and providing supplies both strategic and war related as well as daily needs of the soldiers and officers like food, clothing and fuel drain the national resources that would have been better utilised for the betterment of the people otherwise. Further, the soldiers work in hostile conditions while manning the borders. A huge army is a priority in the present world for the defence of the country.  But, a huge army means huge expenditure; a bottomless drain to the exchequer. Each soldier manning the border needs sixty thousand rupees worth of supplies every month and that amounts to four crores of rupees for maintaining a brigade for one month. Naturally, all countries want to avoid this kind of wastages. India and Pakistan are not exceptions to this. Both countries desire to strike a deal regarding their border disputes. But, Kashmir continues to be a stumbling block, and none of them can relent on Kashmir issue for the fear of losing popular support back in respective countries and the national pride.
Siachin is a glacier between India and Pakistan. It has always been a point of conflict between these two countries and fought wars to gain control of that wasteland where not even a grass grows and climate and conditions unfit for living. Only its strategic position between the border of India and Pakistan overlooking the strategic highway conjoining Indian mainland with its northern region of Ladakh gained it the importance it has now.
Pakistan while carved out of India had two wings - East Pakistan on the eastern side of India and West Pakistan on the western side of India. The hegemony of the West Pakistan combined with the neglect of the East Pakistan by the Federal Government of Pakistan populated by West Pakistan leaders, military and bureaucracy compelled East Pakistan to separate from West Pakistan and become an independent country. India naturally supported this cause for its own reasons. This ultimately led to another war between India and Pakistan in 1971 with East Pakistan volunteers for independence as the Bangla Bahini outfit supporting Indian defence forces. Pakistan on a losing spree appealed for help from the United States of America, which just that year under its Secretary of State, Mr. Henry Kissinger, had started the process of improving and expanding its ties with the China and Pakistan axis even at the cost of its already lukewarm relations with India.  The United States of America applied tremendous pressure on India, and China began massive troop movements on Indian borders to deter India from moving against Pakistan. The unequivocal support of the then Soviet Union and determined leadership of Smt. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India at the time, saved the days for India in the war and India won the war hands down with Pakistan being truncated with East Pakistan becoming an independent country as Bangladesh.
Till now in almost all the wars fought by India and Pakistan, western countries supported Pakistan, as the latter was their ally till the end of the 20th century. However, in the last war namely the Kargil War fought between India and Pakistan, the western countries remained neutral.
Terrorism is some thing that Pakistan has been facing from quite some time now and it looks as if it will not be able to shake off the yoke of terrorism. These problems of Pakistan are mainly due to lack of powerful leadership and splintering of the power structure.
Pakistan is suffering from diverse power centers like Government, army, ISI, jehadis, extremists, militant religious organisations and so on, each hostile to the other and pulling in opposite directions. It is a problem of the lack of unity of command with which Pakistan suffers after the departure of President Pervez Musharaff from the Pakistan political scene. Naturally, situation is not at all as stable as it should be. The talks between India and Pakistan on improving relationship that made considerable headway during the period of former Pakistan President, Pervez Musharaff with agreements on three issues of Kashmir, Siachin and Sir Creek on the final stages of signature with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached its nadir after 26/11 Mumbai attack in 2008.
Pakistan’s solution to Kashmir revolves around three issues - demilitarization, self-governance and a joint mechanism. Demilitarization involves withdrawal of defence forces from Kashmir by sides, self governance includes self rule of Kashmiri to the maximum by its people and the joint mechanism involves a mechanism involving representatives of Pakistan, India and representatives of both parts of Kashmir to over-see, over-watch and decide on self governance and all other matters arising regarding Kashmir from time to time. Pakistan considers the Line of Control or LOC in Kashmir between Pakistan held and India held regions as disputed issue while India wants to convert it to a settled permanent border. The response of Pakistan to this Indian position is to treat the LOC as irrelevant in their discussions to leave the matter to the future generations to settle.
Terrorism is becoming an increasingly complicated issue to Pakistan.  All the same, the aggressive stance of the Indian leaders and media against Pakistan like ‘punish Pakistan’ naturally hurts its sovereign pride and its threat perceptions arising from India gets sensitized. This is the true reason why Pakistan in spite of the fatal threat from Taliban and other extremist groups within the country to the unity and stability of Pakistan as a nation and destabilizing pressures from USA and the Alliance forces against, considers India as the first and foremost threat to the security and integrity of Pakistan. Pakistan strongly believes that India has not yet reconciled to Pakistan’s existence.
India and Pakistan must try to peacefully resolve their differences and leave their enmities behind.  Any further wars between these two countries have the potentiality of turning to be a nuclear war as both are nuclear powers and may lead to mutual destructions.
The worst enemy of Pakistan is not its neighbour, India. Rather, it is its poverty. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world with a high birth rate that renders its economy failing to catch up with the population growth rate. Further, its unfortunate focus against India and war preparations for the purpose diverted its resources from development activities. It is only because of the financial and other backings of the United States of America that Pakistan has not yet disintegrated in spite of large-scale economic failings and wars against Al-Qaeda and Taliban along its borders with Afghanistan in support of the United States of America.  
Kashmir lies at the foot of the tallest mountains in the world, the Himalayas. The Himalayas came into existence in prehistoric age when Indian region as part of the African continent moved northeast to conjoin with the southern edge of the Asian mainland. In the process, tall sets of mountains due to the force of collision between the huge landmasses rose upwards as the Himalayan Mountains.
An earthquake hit Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, about 80 kms north of Islamabad, a few years back causing immense loss of life. The quake measured 7.6 in the Richter scale and was very devastating. Its tremors were felt even in regions as far away as places like Karachi and New Delhi. India and Pakistan joined hands in rescue operations in Kashmir. This is a noble gesture by both countries. An 86-year-old Kashmiri said that this earthquake was the most destructive event he ever saw in his life. There has not been a worse earthquake in Pakistan since 1935. It was the second most devastating natural disaster in Asia in a decade after the Tsunami that hit South Asia a few years back. 
The Pakistanis have been claiming victories against the Taliban. However, they have really not been able to do positive things against the Taliban. The Taliban has not been defeated by the Pakistanis, but has just gone away and melted. The Pakistanis have however claimed this to be a big victory. The Pakistan armed forces on the pressure of the United States of America just rolled into the Taliban occupied regions of Pakistan without much resistance and that they claim is a huge victory.  However, it is presumed that the Taliban will be able to gain back these places from where it has been driven out, when the American pressure subsides or when Pakistan government or army weakens.
Taliban will be able to gain back the areas they lost as most of its fighters just shaved off their beards to camouflage and continue to live with their families in the area only to raise when the Taliban needs them again.

USA AND THE WORLD AROUND

The United States of America is one of the richest countries in the world. It played a prominent part in the Second World War and brought an end to the war by joining the Allies against the Axis in 1941. Since then, it has assumed the role of an arbitrator in the world to bring peace and order to the unruly world. It time and again succeeded in stopping imminent wars between rival countries in the last seven decades by timely interventions and often by show of strength.

Till the 1990’s, the world saw cold war between the blocs belonging to the United States of America and the then Soviet Union, another super power aspiring for the world leadership. However, the disintegration of the USSR and its ambition of world Communism made the USA the unrivalled sole super power of the world in the last two decades. World saw several attempts since then to create a bloc that can stand up to the supremacy of the USA. While Russia is doing its best to recover its glory of the days of the USSR as another super power, China is rapidly forging ahead because of its rising financial strength and industrial base supported by its huge consumer base and committed political leadership. European Union is an attempt of friendly challenge to the USA. Also, there are attempts of forming blocs of regional or like-minded countries to form viable bases of political or financial powers in the world. 

JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA

Japan and Australia are close allies of the USA. Their strategic geographical positions as well as their financial and industrial might are a great source of strength to the ambitions of the USA for the world leadership.
The South Eastern region of Asia is strategic to the interests of the United States of America in its power game because of the presence of China in close proximity to this region. A powerful presence of the United States of America in this region consolidates its position to lessen China’s challenge.
Australia and Japan are keys to the United States of America in this region in this sense. They help consolidate the United States of America interests in this region against China. They being developed countries, regional powers and economic giants help the process. United States of America wants India as an alternate ally in this region against the ambitions of China.
Both Japan and Australia are proven allies of the USA. The war in Iraq proved the fact sine dubio. Chinese continued claim on the Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh and Chinese aggression on India in 1962 for this reason render China and its rise as a world or regional power a potential military threat to India’s interests. This is the bedrock at which India welcomes the political and military interests of the USA in this region. Joint military exercises of the defence forces of India and the USA are products of this mutual interest. 

WEST ASIA

Oil is going to hold the future of the world. The countries that control oil interests will rule the world. Saudi Arabia has vast oil fields and tops the list of oil producing countries. USA shares an honour among the top ten oil producing countries. However, the amount of oil produced by America is not enough to keep its industries afloat for long. That is the reason why America wants to control more oil. Most of the Arab countries have vast resources of oil. This is why most of the developed countries including the USA want Arab countries as allies.
The riches of oil brought prestige, wealth and political manoeuvrability to most of the oil rich Arabian countries. It converted West Asia to an intense political hotbed.  Only its Jewish lobby and commitment to Israel checkmate aggressive policies of the USA in this region to befriend Arab countries. It is because of the Israel policy of the USA that the relations between the Arab countries and United States of America have been deteriorating very swiftly. Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism as a world phenomenon as represented by Al-Qaeda are the direct outcome of this turn of events in the world politics.

CHINA

China and the United States of America are two most powerful countries in the world at present and naturally rivals for the world hegemony. Yet they need each other economically; both depend on the consumer base and the economic strength of the other for their own economic prosperity. There may be a long race ahead between these countries for the economic leadership of the world.

NORTH KOREA

A few countries including Iraq, Iran, Syria and North Korea are marked by the USA as rogue countries needed to be disciplined for their acts against the world order and peace. The present focus of the USA is on Iran and North Korea for their nuclear ambitions in violation of the world opinion. Both countries have made considerable progress in producing nuclear bombs and North Korea has already declared to the world that it is in possession of nuclear weapons and necessary missile technology to use it and does not hesitate to use it if any country attacks it.  This is a direct challenge to the USA considering these two countries being neighbours across the Pacific Ocean and their consistently inimical relationship since the Korea War of 1950s. North Korea traded off missile technology to Pakistan to acquire nuclear technology from the latter in late 1990s. The mastery of North Korea in both nuclear and missile technologies is a potential   security threat to the USA across the Pacific Ocean and its assets in the Pacific Ocean a la Japan in 1941 in the Second World War.  It is unrealistic to presume that the USA would be a mute spectator to the potential danger to its interests and security without proactive measures either of political or military kind.

AL-QAEDA

The United States of America has been fighting against Al-Qaeda from September 2001 since the 9/11 attacks on WTC and this war against an invisible enemy is looking as if it will go on forever. The Al-Qaeda supremo namely Osama bin Laden continues to inspire and guide his followers and terrorists from unknown territories somewhere deep in Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He is hiding and guiding his army of terrorists from unknown mountainous regions populated and surrounded by sympathizers. The only way out is to infiltrate the organisation of Osama bin Laden. All efforts of the CIA and the USA in this regard failed to produce desired results till now.  

CIA & FBI

The strength of the United States of America is the way they run their agencies to solve, control and prevent crimes in and against the country. The two agencies worth naming are the CIA and the FBI. They are both very powerful organisations and well known all over the world for their efficiency and workmanship. However, these organisations also inadvertently get involved in scandals that cast dirt on their names and reputations.
The CIA or the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America is the most powerful detective agency in the world. Recently, a CIA agent by name Mrs. Plame, wife of a senator, was accidentally unhooded by Karl Rove, a prominent government servant. This is a black spot on the annals of the history of the CIA. It is surmised that political rivalry at the top leaderships of the country brought about this serious let down of an important CIA agent, which was a great loss to both the CIA and the United States of America.

ROBOTIC WARFARE

There are wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States of America is the country that is fighting against both is resorting to robotic warfare of late wherein robot-aircraft are used to bombard enemy territories in inaccessible mountainous terrains like the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan. These robot-aircrafts are known as Predators and proved to be successful in spite of civilian casualties in eliminating dangerous enemies, who otherwise would have successfully avoided the military attacks of the USA and NATO forces.

PEOPLE OF THE USA

Perhaps people of no other country in the world match the people of the USA in their sense of decency, fairness, justice, generosity, charity, love of scholarship and entrepreneurship. They believe in helping people all over the world. They fought against their own government against inhuman acts of their army in Vietnam War, and again in Iraq War. They stood against Guotanamo tortures. People of which other country would have deified Afro-American stars like Michael Johnson and Serena and Venus and many more in cultural and sports field and elected a descendent of Muslim forefathers from Africa as their president?   They generously contributed for the relief of the tsunami-hit people and other natural disasters all over the world. People like Bill Gates and the Fords always helped unfortunate people all over the world. They are the harbingers of the think-tank phenomena to give intellectual slant to world affairs and matters of public interest. No other countries in the world have so many professors and scholars as political leaders heading various organs of the Government.

THE ROLE OF RUSSIA IN THE PRESENT WORLD

Russia was the central and strongest part of the former USSR. USSR continued as the second superpower of the world till it disintegrated by the liberal policies of its General Secretary, Gorbachev in 1990. Though the disintegration of USSR weakened Russia, it is certainly not out of reckoning in world politics. Recent political developments like the total response of Russia in Georgia in 2008, its aggressive policies in Central Asia, counter measures to stop expansion of NATO alliance further east, new military bases, attempts to move closer to China and similar manoeuvres prove the rising confidence and importance of Russia in the world politics.

GEORGIA ARMED CONFLICT

Georgia as a Caucasus country of Eurasia, situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe with Russia in the north was a part of the Soviet Union till it declared independence on April 9, 1991, shortly before the collapse of the USSR. Georgia is keen to join NATO and the European Union.
Two regions of Georgia, namely Abkhazia and South Ossetia, after simmering disputes and widespread inter-ethnic violence and wars with Georgia, supported by Russia, declared independence from Georgia in 1995. 
Hostilities escalated between Georgia and its breakaway state of South Ossetia escalated in July 2008. After the Georgian bombing of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali in the late evening of August, Georgian armed forces began pushing into South Ossetia. Russia sent troops into South Ossetia to help the latter. The conflict between Georgia on the one side and Russia, Ossetian, and Abkhazian separatists on the other quickly escalated into a full-scale war in which Georgian forces were decimated.
Russian military troops invaded Abkhazia, and seized additional territories of Western Georgia. Russia recognized the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

US-RUSSIA RELATIONS

Both Russia and the United States of America are very important countries in today’s world politics. The relationship between the United States of America and Russia is at its lowest ebb since the last twenty-five years.

This is some thing that both of these two countries would like to change. Russia has been hoping that with Obama at the helm, things would change quickly. With George Bush at the helm, things were a disaster and things kept on going from worse to worse. Obama says that he will try his best to improve relationships with Russia; however, there are many people who are very skeptical about this because of the precedence and the state of the world politics at this juncture

Even after the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States of America have not enjoyed cordial and friendly relations with each other. This is some thing that both of these two countries are anxious to change now. They had a deterioration of their relationship during the time of George Bush as the President of the United States of America. However, it looks as if the United States of America under Barack Obama as President will change this.

As Obama looks to visit Dimity Medvedev and then Putin in 2009, it looks as if Obama attaches importance to Russia as he has visited Russia before he visited China and Japan. This is how it is seen in Russia and also all over the world.

The visit is of course good for Russia-US relationships in future. It looks as if Russia and the US who actually almost came into conflict a few days during the Georgia war of 2008 are intent on improving their relationship. The United States of America and Russia are trying for a new treaty to replace the START treaty that the United States and Russia had signed a few years back in order to decrease their respective nuclear weapons in contrast to the reluctance of George Bush for signing such a new treaty of arms reduction with Russia. Barack Obama is treating Russia more as a friend since he came to the helm in USA. Russia feels this is a very good sign.

Thus signing a nuclear weapons reduction treaty is some thing that Russia and the United States are hoping to do as soon as possible. President Barack Obama visited Russia in 2009 to sign a new treaty with Russia to replace the START-I treaty which had run out a few months back and which had not been renewed by the former President, George Bush. President Obama began the tour with a wrong move. He tried to play off Putin and Medvedev against each other and failed miserably. Obama had been overconfident in trying out a move like that at this crucial time, especially in a place where even the slightest move is scrutinized in detail under a microscope.

Obama’s meeting with Medvedev was not as successful as it was hoped and they still have a large number of differences still and it will require a lot of time and efforts to resolve them. 

It looks as if Russia wants USA to treat it more as a friend now that the Cold War is a distant memory. The United States of America till Barack Obama took over as the President of the United States of America had been secretly allying and supportive of the enemies of Russia through its clandestine intelligence outfit, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and busy also building bases near and around Russia in Central Asia and has embarked on a missile defense system in the region apart from being aggressive in expanding NATO network up to the western border of Russia. These measures made Russia suspicious of the intentions of the United States of America. Russia has also seen this as signs of the distrust of the United States towards it. President Barack Obama’s policy towards Russia may change all this. Russia will most certainly ask the United States to show more trust towards it and take concrete steps towards confidence building measures for the over all benefit of the world. Russia’s decision to allow the transit of the arms and weapons and other war supplies and defence forces meant for Afghan by rail road through its territory is a significant move forward by Russia towards the confidence building measures in response to the friendly gestures of the United States of America.   

CHINA – THE RISING POWER

The Japanese are the most determined people in the world. After the Second World War, the United States of America thought it better that they have the friendship of the Japanese rather than risk fighting them. The United States of America decided to help the Japanese to recover from the devastations of the Second World War and the nuclear attacks on its cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and offered its friendship to Japan. Indeed dissuading Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons and technology was the prime part of the deal in exchange to defence umbrella provided by the United States of America.
China is a communist country. It has got cheap labour because of low salary and wages and vast market because of its huge population. So many foreign investments have come its way leading it to become an economic power. Its efficient leadership and dreams of world power made it a military power also. China is a nuclear country and now proving its might in space technology.
There has always been enmity between Japan and China as both want to control the region they are in. Communist China saw Japan with suspicion as it was the friend and close ally of the USA from the days of Cold War while Japan similarly reciprocated as China was a Communist country. Further, both are contenders for regional superiority from the 1950s. The last six decades found Japan giving way to South Korea as a regional economic power while China is making rapid moves towards its goal of becoming a super power.
China’s rise in the fields of Economy has been staggering. It is fast becoming an industrial power with huge demand for its goods all over the world because of their lower prices without compromise in quality. Also, it is noted that if a new technology were developed, China would be the first to adopt it. It is this initiative of its leaders that brought this dream transformation in China’s economic prowess in a matter of a few decades from a developing country to its present compulsion of being counted as a super power. 

There is an adage that a wounded tiger is more ferocious when it is wounded and fallen. It was what happened to China in 1949 immediately after Communists took the reigns of the country. The world community except for those countries that belonged to the Communist bloc distanced the Communist country. Most countries of the world including the United States of America refused to recognise the new Government and preferred to continue their diplomatic relations with Taiwan than with the mainland of China. China had to struggle hard for years to gain admission to the United Nations Organisation to replace Taiwan in spite of it being the most populated country in the world with a vast geographical area. India’s well intended efforts through its gentlemanly Prime Minister, Shree Jawaharlal Nehru to accommodate Communist China by introducing its leaders like Mr. Chou-En-Lai and others to world leaders in international meetings like the Bandung Conference and moves for the admission of the mainland of China to the United Nations Organisation further infuriated the wounded proud tiger as it saw the smaller neighbour’s and its world stature leaders’ patronage as national humiliation of China and its Communist regime. The result was the 1962 October Chinese aggression on Indian northern borders on the pretext of border disputes and Chinese claims on the present state of Arunachal Pradesh, and India’s humiliating defeat.   

    China, if anything, has risen on the ladder of Economics as well as Military prowess by the sheer dint of patriotism, large dreams, commitment, competence and hard work of its leadership. This is a very great rise for a poor and developing country beyond wildest dreams to achieve within a span of half a century. China could stalk this far because of its outstanding leadership. China is already recognised informally as one of the world leaders and an indisputable regional power in Asia head and shoulder above former giants like Japan and South Korea and perhaps stands on par with Russia in its economic and military stature. The true rise of China started from late 1990s after the transfer of Hong Kong from the British lease to the mainland of China.   Chinese leaders by all possibility learnt and picked the ropes of development and progress from the westernised and developed city of Hong Kong and intelligently adapted the tricks to their needs and system to produce a rare hybrid of unprecedented success. The kind of growth and progress seen in China in a short span of time fades the otherwise stunning stories of progress witnessed in countries like the City State of Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in the Asian continent.  Its rapid rise in the ranks of the world made it a respectable country in spite of its Communist system and its disputes with both the United States of America and Russia, and its opinions and actions on world affairs are countenanced with seriousness and alarm as for no other countries, and no days pass without the world press, televisions and Internet news referring to China and activities pertaining to it. 

China with about one-sixth of the world population accounts for the highest number of rich people of the Asian continent and accounted for eleven billionaires in 2003 against seven in India.

 In spite of all this advancement, the people of China continue to be poor by world standards and they may remain so for some time considering their number. China, to be a great world power, has to attend this weakness of it. The Government of China is doing its best to improve the lots of its rural folks and city poor through novel schemes. But, raising the standards of a billion people overnight is beyond any human dream, lest China’s leadership is trying in that direction.
   
    Italy and China are two countries situated far from each other. They were hardly aware of each other in ancient times and came to know about each other only after Marco Polo came to China from Italy and wrote about China in his memoirs. Italy and China are competitors these days in world trade in identical goods and both have identical interests in most fields. Both countries claim noodles as part of their culinary expertise and enjoy cultural similarities.



THE XINJIANG TROUBLE

China has had huge trouble in Urumqi in 2009 in which ethnic tensions erupted between the local Uighar Muslims and Han Chinese damaging China’s image. Both groups are antagonistic towards each other after Han Chinese has been found migrating to that region and feared to be taking away the job opportunities of the locals.

The Chinese Government tried to diffuse the tensions and ultimately succeeded. China internally had relatively peaceful life for decades free of tensions and internal conflicts under the Communist regime save for the occasional Tibetan uprise and the students protest at the Tianamen Square in 1989. 

The migration of Han Chinese to the Uighar Muslims majority Urumqi from the different parts of China that affected the demography of the region is at the root of the problem. There are now almost as many Han Chinese in Urumqi as there are the Uighar Muslims. This has caused tensions between the locals and the Han Chinese. In a toy manufacturing company a few days back, a group of Han Chinese killed two of the local Uighar Muslims and this led to commotions in the area and locals went on a rampage killing Han Chinese. That led to serious clashes between the two ethnic groups at Xinjiang, the capital of Urumqi leading to heavy casualties of life and properties forcing the Chinese President Hu Jintao to return home halfway from the G5, G8 summit and dispatch the army to control the situation at Xinjiang.

When one thinks of China, he used to think of it as a smaller version of the former Soviet Union of the Stalin vintage with Communism, one party rule, spies and secret agents, suspicion, oppression and suppression of the opponents and ruthless administration, and as a satellite of the latter. No more of that now. China of present days stands up to Russia as much as it stands up to the United States of America or any other developed countries in spite of the brethren feelings for the former out of the Communist ideology. It has long-standing border disputes with Russia and adopts its own policies in foreign as well as economic fields. Under no stretch of imagination, it can be called as a satellite of any other super power. On the other hand, most developed countries are competing to befriend China and develop economic and trade relations with the country. 

China’s economic growth has been strong for quite some time now. For the last few years it has recorded an economic growth of excess of ten percent. This however had been forecast to decrease over the course of the past year, because of the economic crisis that has struck the world. However, it has been seen that this has not happened and China has done rather well for itself in the economic front over the last one year.

This has been attributed to the massive stimulus plan that China has drawn up last year. This massive trillion-dollar plan has shored up China to a very good extent. The United States has on the other hand not been doing well, like other developed countries and also India.

China has recorded an economic growth of 7.9% for 2008-2009, which is much better than previously expected. This is thus a rather good thing for the Chinese and this is something that the Chinese will be hoping to build on over the next few months and years. After half of last year, China had seen a small slump in their economy amounting to about five or six percent to 6.4% growth. However, they have recovered rather well to post the overall growth over the last one year.

The Chinese government is hoping to do better than that in 2009-2010 and this is some thing that China will try to accomplish. However, expert opinion is that it is just not be possible because of the decreasing export demands from the United States and other countries in the crunch of the world economic recession. Thus, China may have a bad year in economics next year. 



NORTH KOREA AND ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS


North Korea recently declared its possession of the capabilities of the nuclear weapons and announced its readiness to resume broken talks that were meant to dissuade North Korea from the nuclear path. As the very purpose of the talks being rendered useless, the talks were naturally called off as now. The United States of America and other countries are naturally deeply upset with the crossing of the Rubicon by North Korea. In addition, North Korea is issuing serious warnings of retaliation including nuclear war against any aggressive actions against it by any country, the warnings primarily meant to South Korea, Japan and the United States of America, and issuing photos of its supremo, Kim Jong II leading his Generals in provocative manner. North Korea’s present stature as a de facto nuclear power with its missile capabilities pose real danger to the United States of America across the Pacific Ocean apart from posing mortal danger to the existence to South Korea and working as a constant irritant to Japan.

North Korea is an enemy of the United States of America since the days of the Korean War of the 1950s during the height of the Cold War.  It is now natural to expect some kind of pro-active action by the United States of America to neutralise North Korea to re-establish a kind of power balance and safeguard its interests in this part of Asia apart from making its own security foolproof from across the Pacific Ocean.  Removal of the Kim Jong II regime may be a soft option. The North Korean supreme is already in extremely bad health.

    It is surmised that North Korea possesses at least eight nuclear bombs. Apart from it being a direct threat to the United States of America, nuclear weapons or its technology being transferred to any of the numerous terrorist groups like the Al-Qaeda operating against the civilized world pose greater threat to the security of the world. North Korea openly claimed that it was a potential fear if North Korea is harmed in any way. 
Neither Russia nor China is comfortable with the nuclear North Korea though all three belong to the Communist bloc and both are parts of the international efforts and talks held with the North Korea to dissuade it from the nuclear path.  Indeed these countries are less aggressive against North Korean nuclear ambitions and do not favour the fall of the Kim Jong II regime there.

    North Korea separated from South Korea after a quite violent history of war that threatened to become the harbinger of the Third World War in 1950s. South Korea with the help of the United States of America became a respected industrial power of Asia on par with Japan and Taiwan while North Korea under the Communist regime languished in this respect. It now wants to make up the loss of time and come back in the international arena by becoming a nuclear power.

Blockade of North Korea is an option open for the world to force the country to fall in line with the world opinion, as shortage of food and other essential commodities is acute there. Communist countries naturally will resist any such measures against their brethren that hurt the interests of the common man there. World is watching how President Obama with all his well intended peace protestations would tackle this grave issue of nuclear threat while duty bound to protect the interests of the United States of America at any costs. 

The average North Korean following the ethnic features of the Koreans and other people of the region is well below the average height and weight for his age. The height and weight of a North Korean child is also less than average for its age.

North Korean entrepreneurs as well as common men as those in most other Communist countries prefer to migrate to neighbouring countries like China, Japan and South Korea or other western countries to work and earn money. South Korea facilitated mass employment to North Korean workers in industries at its border with North Korea by providing easy transit facilities across the border daily. South Korea is trying to make friends with North Korea and offered to provide two million megawatts of electricity to nearly double its output if it stops its efforts at nuclear weapons. The United States of America backed this plan. North Korea is in dire need of this electricity, as its present production hardly suffices to provide three to four hours of electricity every day.  But, North Korea was not willing to barter its nuclear option for the electricity. Defence forces of the United States of America man the South Korean borders with the North Korea since the Korean War of the 1950s and it is a big irritant to North Korea.

    The Korean peninsula was formerly one nation in early 1950s. The threat of Korea going Communist inspired internal conflict in the country in early 1950s and led to the Korean War with the United States of America and its western allies militarily supporting the resistance while the Communist bloc with the then USSR and China in lead solidly backing the Communist take-over of the peninsula. This was while the Cold War was at its height at its nascent stage and the war ended with Korea being divided to two halves as North Korea in possession of the Communist Koreans and South Korea in possession of those Koreans who championed the cause of democracy in Korea.  However, hostile feelings between the countries continued unabated.










IRAN AND THE WORLD


    Iran is an important country of the Persian Gulf region, a non-Arab Islamic Republic with huge deposit of oil. It is a Shiite dominated Islamic Republic in the midst of Sunni populated Muslim countries like Iraq and Pakistan. While its oil riches made it a prosperous country, the oil deposits rendered it a politically sensitive and dangerous field of super power rivalry and manoeuvres.  Iran is now ruled by a cliché of Islamic Shia clerics under the constitutionally instituted Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who has the last word on the state matters and advised by the constitutionally instituted “Expediency Council”, a powerful clerical body that arbitrates disputes between the legislature and the government. The electoral process monitored by “the Guardian Council”, an oversight body constituted to oversee elections in Iran, elects the President of Iran as head of the Government.

NUCLEAR PATH

    Iran’s nuclear ambitions are posing a serious problem to the United States of America, Britain and other western countries in the background of increasing differences between them concerning Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and such political issues of West Asia. Though Iranian need of electric power is genuine, the difference between the peaceful use of nuclear energy and its use for producing nuclear weapons is rather thin, and the United States of America and other western countries fear that nuclear weapons and technology in the hands of Iran is a sure passport for its proliferation to other Islamic countries in West Asia and subsequently to Islamic militants. USA named Iran along with North Korea and Syria as an “Axis of Evil” and calls them as rogue countries. But, world opinion against has not deterred Iran from its nuclear path like North Korea though made Iran circumspect and somewhat retarded its progress in this direction. Russia supports and collaborates with Iran in the latter’s nuclear ambitions.

2009 ELECTION DISPUTE

    The Iranian Elections have got a very important significance for all the countries in the world. The United States of America under President Barack Obama is planning to become friends with Iran and this election that was held in 2009 hold utmost significance when it comes to the future of the world. President Ahmedenijad won the elections again in 2009 with huge eleven million votes. However, his main opponent in the election, Mousavi and his followers and supporters mainly constituted of students refused to accept the defeat and claimed that elections were rigged and that Mousavi would have won the election if it was held fairly. A very large number of followers and supporters of Mousavi came on streets against the election results and there were wide spread protests and violence in Tehran and other Iranian cities for many days. Iran also saw counter protests from the supporters of Ahmedenijad and factional fights ensued on Iranian streets. Iranian Government crushed the rebellion with firm hand and brought peace again to the streets of Iran. Iranian Government argued that the huge swing of eleven million votes itself disprove the theory of rigging and unequivocally proves the popularity and majority of Ahmedenijad in the election. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, after due deliberations announced that he was satisfied with the election results and expressed his suspicion about outside conspiracies to destabilize Iran. He called protestors to stop agitation. Only after strong-arm methods by the Iranian security forces, Mousavi reluctantly agreed to distance from the agitation and peace slowly returned to Iran. The people of Iran are caught in the middle in this event.

Iran went aggressively against Britain blaming it for conspiring and inspiring the agitation and arrested Iranian staff of the British Embassy in Iran for involvement in inspiring the agitation. It was for the first time ever that Iran blamed a western country other than USA for mischief in the country though it blamed President Barack Obama of following the policy of President Bush in the incident. It also means that the President Barack Obama magic is working on Iran. It is a good sign. China and Russia supported the Election results while western countries generally supported Mousavi. Most of the World Press commented on these elections with different opinions and judgments. Germany’s newspapers have all been on the side of Mousavi. The United States of America under President Barack Obama showed commendable restraint by calling the whole affair as unfortunate and remained unnaturally quiet and rather bland on the whole on this topic.

RELATIONSHIP WITH BRITAIN

The leaders of Iran say that the post-election agitation in Iran is due to external conspiracies that amounted to interference with its internal affairs and caused lots of harm to Iranian interests.

They primarily blamed Britain. They have not blamed the United States of America and this can be because of the ‘Obama effect’. Iranian leaders called Britain as the most evil country in the western hemisphere of the world. This blame game infuriated Britain and united them in condemning Iran for the accusation. The Opposition MPs of Britain who usually boo the Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown in Parliament, applauded him for a break when he took on Iran for those accusations.

Then Iran threw two British diplomats and a BBC journalist out of the country and arrested a British journalist for involvement in the unrest. Britain in response threw out two Iranian diplomats. Iran arrested a few Iranian officials of the British embassy for instigating the unrest and announced trying them in Iran. Britain has been talking about closing down its mission in Iran.

Britain has a history of bad relationship with Iran and its misadventures in the Iranian election independent of the United States of America further added to the embitterment. Iranians already see Britain as the “small Satan”.




OBAMA MAGIC

Mousavi has not shown any form of grace at all during the agitation. Massive demonstrations from both sides on the streets of Tehran and other places in Iran resulted in other countries taking sides in the election, though it is purely an internal matter of I ran and a dispute between its people and the Government. The Mousavi party has said that these elections were sabotaged, even though, elections just cannot be sabotaged in such a way that five million votes can swing.

Mousavi has not taken his defeat in good grace. This much is obvious. Neighboring countries as well as Russia and China have accepted the results of the Iranian election in a fair sense. However, Britain and the United States were openly vague in their responses.

President Obama has been criticized quite a bit because of his vague and rather wrong stance in support of Britain in the matter. The United States of America has expressed sympathy for the protesters and was criticized for this and for the indecisive manner of handling of this whole issue. It has already corroded the Obama Magic in Iran and he will have to do some thing to redeem it. 

The famous Cairo speech of Obama has somewhat smoothened Iran’s hurt feelings towards the United States. How Obama will handle Iran and its nuclear ambitions is a trillion dollar question and decide the future of the world and mankind.  






IRAQ WARS


    Iran and Iraq are traditional rivals. While Iran is a non-Arab Shiite dominated Islamic Republic, Iraq is an ethnically Arabian country with its Shiite majority long dominated by the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussain. The Iran-Iraq culminated in the long Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. The suspicion of the Shiite leadership of Iran helping the long suppressed Shiite majority of Iraq to rebel against the Saddam Hussain regime apart from the long standing border disputes between the countries prompted Iraq President Saddam Hussain to attack Iran in 1980. Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. The mess and turmoil then existed in Iran after the Islamic Revolution helped Saddam Hussain’s decision to invade Iran. The political situation in the Persian Gulf after the Iranian Revolution prompted the United States of America and other western allies to side with Iraq against radically Islamist Iran to counter-balance the rise of the post-Revolution Iran. But, the Iranian forces forced Iraq to retreat in June 1982 and Iran took the mantle of aggression thereafter till the war ended on August 20, 1988.

    Kuwait, the neighboring Arab country, was a close ally of Iraq and provided tactical and financial support to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. But the relationship soured after the war culminating in invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990.
   
The Kuwait demand of repayment of 40 billion dollars it provided to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War deeply strained the relationship between Iraq and Kuwait. Iraq after the Iran-Iraq War was not in position to repay the amount. It maneuvered in the meetings of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase the world oil price to enable it to repay the borrowings from Kuwait. Kuwait on the other hand increased the quantum of its oil production causing severe damage to the Iraq efforts to increase the world oil price. Fall of world oil price by one dollar a barrel caused a loss of one billion dollars to the annual revenue of Iraq and it was estimated that Iraq lost 14 billion dollars a year due to Kuwait's oil price strategy. The Iraq Government called this attitude of non-cooperation by Kuwait Government as a kind of Economic Warfare. Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing its oil and claimed that Kuwait historically belonged to Iraq up to 1913 until the United Kingdom carved out Kuwait as a separate state from Iraq. It was in this background that Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.

Within two days of the invasion, the Iraqi Republican Guards vanquished Kuwait and Kuwait ruling elite escaped to neighboring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Iraq President, Saddam Hussain declared Kuwait as the 19th province of Iraq and Kuwait remained in Iraq’s possession for seven months till “Operation Desert Storm” of the United States of America snatched back Kuwait from Iraq in February 1991 and restored to its former rulers.

The United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Canada met Iraq’s military action on Kuwait with economic sanctions against Iraq on the call of the UN Security Council and with preparations for war. Forces of these countries joined the regional troops of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates in powerful show of strength against Iraq for a decisive victory for the coalition forces within a month in February 1991.

Iraq War of 2003 was forced on Iraq by the governments of the U.S. and the UK on the unfounded claim that Iraq is producing and is in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and therefore posed an imminent threat to the security of the world. They also claimed Iraq President Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting the Al-Qaeda Islamic militant outfit that was responsible for the World Trade Centre attack of September 11, 2001. These countries employed all their diplomatic skills and political muscles to forge an alliance of friendly countries to invade Iraq. Most possibly, Iraq's oil reserves and personal distastes between the then President of the United States of America, George Bush and the then Iraq President, Saddam Hussain were strong reasons in the decision to invade Iraq. Anyway, Saddam Hussain and Iraq were cleared of all blames and accusations by the later investigations and probes.

The invasion of Iraq led to an occupation and the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein, who was later executed by the Iraqi Government. Violence against coalition forces soon led to uncontrolled Iraqi insurgency and low-intensity civil war between Sunni and Shiite sects throughout Iraq. The invasion and the insurgency ensued provided a foothold to Al-Qaeda in Iraq and rapidly grew in strength there. The uncalled war led to the death of more than a million civilians and uprooting of more than five million people or 16% of the Iraq population.

Coalition that was formed to invade Iraq slowly disintegrated as public opinion went against the invasion of Iraq and Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for its security. President Barack Obama on assuming power as the President of the United States of America announced withdrawal of the United States forces in 18-months, leaving back about 30,000 to 50,000 troops to advice and train Iraqi security forces. Britain withdrew its operations in Iraq April 30, 2009. Yet, Iraq War is not a closed chapter and insurgency and retaliatory violence are continuing unabated.








JAPAN AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR



    Hiroshima is the unfortunate city of Japan where the United States of America dropped its first nuclear bomb at the fag end of the Second World War. An entire city with its teeming innocent population was cruelly exterminated. People that survived the tragedy with injuries lived the rest of their life with tragic sufferings and transmitted the grievous defects of the nuclear radiation to the next generations. The United States of America resorted to this deadly weapon for the first time in the history of the mankind at the end of the Second World after being convinced that Japan would not go down and accept defeat unless it resorts to such a dramatic measure. Indeed, the effect was lightening and Japan surrendered soon thereafter.

The event opened the eyes of the world to the destructive potentialities of the nuclear bomb and the vulnerabilities of the man before its destructive powers. This single event is the harbinger of all later efforts at the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons on the face of the Earth. Sadly, the proliferation is continuing though in a slower pace with more and more countries becoming nuclear powers with North Korea being the latest entry to the dubious club and perhaps Iran, the next. The United States of America and Russia have nuclear warheads sufficient to destroy the world many times over and the United States of America is surmised to have stockpiled about ten thousand nuclear warheads.

    Japan is a nation of committed and diligent people. It was a powerful and prosperous country under its monarch and on a winning spree in South East Asia and Burma in the Second World War till it was humbled by the combined forces of the Allies at the fag end of the war. Nuclear bombs of the United States of America on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally brought Japan to its knees.

    The people of Japan are known to be a very ambitious set of people. The United States of America decided to help Japan to rebuild from the damage they wrought on it and offered nuclear protection on the assurance that Japan would desist from the nuclear path. It liberally helped for its recovery and restoration as an industrial giant. It was a worth spending for the United States of America as Japan became an enduring and loyal friend and ally of the United States of America to protect the latter’s interests in Eastern Asia and on the Pacific Ocean and actively partook in the Iraq War in favour of its patron. Also, Japan is the key of the United States of America in its manoeuvres against the rising power of China in Asia.

    Japanese are known for hard work and very intelligent.  However, brain drain is causing problems in the best utilisation of its manpower and its potentialities.  Japan lies on an earthquake-prone region of Asia. It rivals even Sumatra in this respect. Sans building proper constructions for dwelling and other purposes, life is unsafe in Japan. The ministry in charge of architecture of buildings is helping people in the construction of robust buildings that can withstand the repeat onslaught of the tectonic plates from deep beneath the surface of the Earth.











THE THIRD REICH AND ITS PLACE IN THE WORLD HISTORY


    Hitler’s German government was one of the most destructive and cruel regimes that ever ruled on this planet. During his time, he controlled every aspect of Germany. The lives of the people of Germany were in his hands. He held the power of life and death over every one in Germany. This was a power that was not given to anyone, anytime in Teutonic memory.

Hitler however, did not use this unlimited power in his own land for good. He wanted to expand the frontiers of his country at the expense of others and committed barbaric deeds on the Jews, telling that the Jews were responsible for the defeat of Germany in the First World War. He was responsible for killing large numbers of Jews and was also able to conquer a very large amount of territory of Europe. Born in Austria, he was a soldier of Germany in the First World War. He then came to Germany at the end of the First World War.

He was an eloquent speaker and was able to move the crowds with his patriotic speech. He condemned Jews as vicious anti-Semitism was in vogue at that time in Germany. He was the leader and inspiration of a powerful political party called as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party or the Nazi Party. The Beer Hall Putsch or Munich Putsch of November 9, 1923 was a failure, but he then converted the following media coverage of his trial into a success. He then entered back into active politics and was finally able to get his party, the Nazi Party, become the second largest party in the Reichstag and with President Hindenburg’s help was able to make himself Chancellor of Germany.

Hitler then conquered areas outside Germany. He first annexed Alsace of France without France retaliating. He then was able to annex Austria by browbeating the Austrian chancellor. He then turned his sights onto Czechoslovakia. He then with the Munich agreement was able to annex a small part of Czechoslovakia and was then able to send his soldiers into Czechoslovakia.

Hitler then tried to get the corridor of Danzig and Danzig itself from Poland. With this, he would be able to join East Prussia too and also would be able to get Poland. This was however opposed by the British and the French. They said that if Hitler did anything against Poland, they would attack Germany. However, Germany attacked Poland and the Second World War started. This was the beginning of the end for Hitler.

Hitler first signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invited The Soviet Union to take a part of Poland. He then with his allies, Japan and Italy declared war against Britain too. Hitler was able to annex Poland very easily. He then attacked France. France fell in one month. Hitler used a new form of warfare known as Blitzkrieg or a swift and violent military offensive with intensive aerial bombardment. He was able to win very easily at all frontiers he was in war with. Then he turned his sights to an aerial war against Britain. This was however not at all successful. He then turned to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union did not expect this attack from Germany at all and was ill prepared for this assault. It was pushed back and back very easily. However, in the end it was able to hold back Germany. As early winter chill helped the Soviet Union forces, Germany started to suffer very heavy defeats in the Eastern front. Then the Japanese attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbour and the USA joined the war and declared war on Germany too. The Normandy beach landings then took place. These beach landings spelt the doom for the Germans.

The Americans and the Soviet Union troops marched to Germany without much resistance and Germany was defeated. Hitler committed suicide marking the end of the European theatre of the war and the Third Reich, but not the end of the world war. That came when the Japanese too surrendered after the twin nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
WORLD POLITICAL DYNAMICS


The United Nations Organisation was formed to bring about peace in the world. It is increasingly failing to fulfil the objective in the present complex world. It is an organisation without a voice to support its will, and a voice without power to support it like its predecessor, the League of Nations that had been set up after the First World War. The League of Nations then functioned akin to the present-day United Nations Organisation and badly failed to prevent the Second World War.

The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru respected the UNO and honoured its call for ceasefire while Indian army was successfully pushing Pakistan soldiers back from Kashmir in 1947 and in the process, lost half of Kashmir to Pakistan by declaring ceasefire and kept the irritating Kashmir issue alive to this day. No doubt, by listening to the United Nations Organisation, he had increased the prestige of India but it resulted in the main cause of the dispute between India and Pakistan. But the calls and resolutions of the UNO and its Resolutions are ignored as a rule by other countries. Absence of its own armed forces to force its resolutions and its complete dependence on other countries, particularly the United States of America, rendered it weak.

Increasing the number of members of the Security Council to include rising powers of the world in deciding the world affairs may bring some initiatives and energy to the world body.

MILITARY ALLIANCES

    Military alliances are very common these days. Many wars have been fought in the world in recent past. Countries in war need to team up with other countries to win the war. Military alliances are important for two reasons: political and moral support, and military and tactical support. Even in the Mahabharata, the sides that fought the war, that is, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, fought it with the support of allies, who enhanced their power.

    The need of allies is acute in conflicts in modern days. The shrinking world with the explosion of communication and transport facilities makes symbiosis foundation of the modern living. The famous declaration of a renowned mathematician turned philosopher of the 19th century that “Everything is everywhere at all times” holds more true for the material world of the present day. Everything everywhere in this world is interlinked.

    The world is developing into a huge net of inter-connections. Nothing occurring in one part of the world escapes the other part of the world. Wars and peace, constructions and destructions, successes and failures, falls and rises, riches and poverty, progress and new findings, all have a cascading effect throughout the world. Interests of nations are becoming inter-related. First and Second World Wars are World Wars because of this phenomenon. Both Allies and Axis Powers fought the wars as conglomerates of nations almost dividing the world to two opposing blocs. Later wars like the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Iraq War and Afghan War prove this need of alliance between warring nations of the present world.

    Even the Cold War of the two superpowers from 1950s to 1990 was not an exception to this compulsion. The world was almost divided to two blocs supporting the United States of America representing developed capitalist countries and the Soviet Union representing the Communist alliance. The only distracting influence against the trend at the time came through the institution of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) by the triumvirates of India, United Arab Republic and Yugoslavia by the initiatives of their leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nasser and Marshal Tito.  The very fact that NAM had only partial success in world affairs and at its death throes now proves the futility of the non-alignment in the present world.

    No country is a friend or foe permanently in politics and diplomacy. It is all a matter of self-interests and security of a country. India played close to the USSR till the latter disintegrated in 1990. Soviet Union was really a loyal friend of India in those decades with liberal political, diplomatic, military, scientific and economic helps to India. India survived all international pressures for decades in Kashmir issue and recurring Indo-Pak wars only because of the dependable support of the Soviet Union.

    The perceived stance of the United States of America regarding Indo-Pak issue and its readiness to treat India with an exception with a nuclear deal are moving India closer to the United States of America. It is always the national interests that guide a country to decide with whom to ally and against whom. India is not an exception to this. The status of the United States of America as the only super power of the world added to this slant.

    Not that India is totally allied with any one country. Such a stance is against all annals of wise diplomacy. It is keeping its options open. It is conducting joint military exercises with the United States of America as well as with China. It is seeking special relations with various countries in the name of axis like India-Brazil-South Africa Axis and India-Russia-China Axis et cetera apart from being member of various world bodies and groups to strengthen its standing. India has got a powerful enemy in China and a headache in Pakistan. India is in need of powerful military alliances with the United States of America against the ambitions of China in Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh, and with Russia against the ambitions of Pakistan over Kashmir to fight it politically. A balanced move between is the diplomatic need of India.


THE EUROPEAN UNION

European Union is a Union of select European nations, admitted only on majority consent of the existing members of the Union. L’ union fait la force. This is the principle that brought most developed nations of Europe together to form the Union. Its Initial purpose was economic and trade cooperation and open boundaries among the member nations. In spite of rivalries and conflicts of interests among the member nations, the European Union made considerable progress not only in economic and trade cooperation, but also in showing common front in important world issues, thereby extending their cooperation to the political front also. Consent for a common currency, Euro, for the member nations is a great step in consolidating their position as the member states of the European Union.

European Union as a bloc has grown as a powerful economic force in the world in the span of a few decades, a force to reckon with and poses serious challenge to the dominance of the American economy in the world.  It now forms the main pillars of the world economy with that of the United States of America and China.

The common cause of the European Union in favour of the Kyoto Protocol is an example of the unity of purpose developed in the Union in a span of a few decades. It produces around 22% of global greenhouse gas emissions and agreed to a cut of 8% 1990 emission levels. The European Commission announced plans for a European Union energy policy in January 2007 for a unilateral 20% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020. The EU has consistently been one of the major nominal supporters of the Kyoto Protocol, negotiating hard to get wavering countries on board.

The success of the European Union has led to other nations of the Europe aspiring for the membership of the European Union.  Turkey even though is a Muslim country is trying to become a member of the EU. But there is resistance to this move. East European countries are also eager to make common cause with the European Union. But, admission to the European Union is proved to be not easy involving circuitous processes and majority consent of the existing members. European Union believes in certain identity for itself based on history and culture. This bars open admission to the European Union.

Most notable members of the European Union are England, France, Germany and Italy. All these four nations are historically rivals of each other. England and France, France and Germany, Germany and France, Germany and England, Italy and France, so goes on the list. The rivalries show up even now in their political differences to the world issues. England was a reluctant member of the European Union in the beginning. France and Germany repeatedly clash on economic and political issues. Yet, European Union has succeeded in retaining its unity and common front to the world with its unique identity all these decades. It is not an ordinary accomplishment in the complex political world of today.
   
The spirit of accommodation shown by these countries for the commune bonum of Europe and its people and their economic prosperity needs emulation by all other countries of the world. Because, L’ union fait la force. Joining together is the only road and means of prosperity inconceivable by individual efforts of nations. Joining together leads to the shedding of enmity and rivalry and forges friendship and cooperation for the common good of the all mankind.

The European Union has shown a rather firm and good response to the different crises that have struck the world over the last few years. Climate change has become a very important topic and it has also been found that the EU has been tackling this crisis rather well. Another rather important crisis that the EU has tackled rather well has been the economic crisis. Thus, the EU must take a rather important role in world politics in order to rid us of this trouble that it is striking and irritating our world.

The EU is very big geographically and economically and thus must take the leader’s role in eradicating these crises from this world. However, this will not prove to be an easy task and the EU must work hard in order to take the initiative and maintain it. Under the Presidency of Sweden over the next few years, the EU will try its best to resolve the problems that are facing it and the world. The Swedish Prime Minister is very determined to make a very strong message and stand during this time in which Sweden has the Presidency of the EU. The EU will have to take the steps needed to resolve the economic crisis.

The member countries will have to work with each other and must set up an administering body and must also not dabble in protecting their own economies at the expense of others, as this will only in the end make the situation in the world worse than it already is. The other crisis is that of climate change is also something that all the countries will have to work together on. The EU must some how co ordinate attempts made at resolving this crisis too.

The European Union has not taken much initiative in this regard till now and thus, it will not at all be an easy task to push forward now, but Sweden is determined to make its Presidency a memorable one. 

ISLAM IN WORLD POLITICS

    Islam is a religion that was founded about fifteen centuries back by the holy prophet, Mohammed. Now, Islam is the second largest religion in the world after Christianity in the number of people who follow it. Islam is an aggressive religion. It believes in global brotherhood of Islam and spreading the teachings of holy Prophet Mohammed for enduring peace in the world. Islam does not differentiate between the concepts of nationhood and religion. It is the reason why Muslim majority countries tend to declare themselves as Islamic countries as opposed to the global trend of calling themselves as secular countries. The concept of Islamic Brotherhood and the aggressive nature of Islam as a religion are at the back of the rising militancy and unrest in the present world. Rabid militancy in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, problems in Kosovo, Chechen militants fighting for the liberation of Chechnya in Russia, problems at Xinjiang in China are all symptoms of this.

    The United States is at the crosshairs of the Islamic militancy. By the popular doctrine known as the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1950s, the United States decided to befriend and use Islamic countries for oil and to neutralize the Communist USSR. It relentlessly continued with the policy and generously poured money and weapons to Pakistan to create Taliban to checkmate Soviet Union and gain control over the resources rich Central Asia. The present troubles in Xinjiang are an extension of this policy in the circumstances of the gas pipe project passing through Russia and Xinjiang in China. If the theory is true and the Special Forces of the United States of America succeed in its Machiavellian maneuvers, the focus of Islamic militancy and Taliban may soon shift to Central Asia from Afghanistan. Talks of accommodating Taliban in Afghanistan are the harbinger of this shift in the focus of the United States of America from Afghanistan to Central Asia.

THE RISE OF TERRORISM

    Terrorism is violence to terrorise the government to submit it to the objectives of the people who employ it. Terrorism is an immoral political tool and anti-human activity as it is targets innocent and peace-loving people for political gains. It involves mass killing and wide destruction. The common forms of terrorism are hijacking and use of bombs.

    There are many causes for terrorism. They include the high-handedness of the powerful, helplessness of the weak, unemployment, and the indifference of those in power to just demands by peaceful and non-violent methods

    Terrorism is not new to mankind. History all over the world is replete with instances of terrorism by individuals or groups against the established power. There are instances wherein terrorists or terror groups succeeding in their efforts and establishing their own rule. Most of the powerful dynasties of the world have small terrorist groups as their origin. Terrorism in this sense is nothing more than asymmetric violence against the state power to bend it to the group’s will. It be Rana Prathap or Shivaji or Bhagat Singh of India, or the violent freedom struggle of Irish people against the British rule, or the wars of LTTE with Sri Lanka Government, or violent designs of Al-Qaeda for Islamic hegemony of the world, basically they are all terrorism. Mass destructions involved in present days because of sophisticated weapons and bombs and support of outside elements including enemy states in inspiring, designing and executing terrorism make terrorism of present days different from that of yore and more reprehensible. 

    Causes for the rise in terrorism in present days are umpteen. They include successes of terrorist means, militant Islam, birth of Israel by less than just means leading to Palestine problem, hegemony of the developed countries in world politics, poverty and unemployment.

    The terrorism in India has also risen considerably and covers all regions of the country. ISI operators in North India, ULFA in N-E India, Naxalism in Central India, radical Muslims in West India and all of them in South India. India is one of the worst affected countries of the world in terrorism.

TALIBAN

    Taliban was ruling Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviet Union from the field till the fall of the World Trade Centre in 2001. The United States of America brought Taliban to power in Afghanistan by militarily helping Taliban through its creator and sustainers, Pakistan to pull down the Government of Afghanistan supported by the Soviet Union. But, Taliban being what it is, a militant Islamic outfit to the core, rebelled against its makers, the “Kaffirs” or “Infidels” from the United States of America.  It harboured and provided hideouts Al-Qaeda outfit and its leaders, and provided infrastructure for the training of the Islamic militants to operate all over the world. Afghanistan under Taliban became the paradise of the Islamic militants from all over the world. It was from this state support that Islamic militancy spread like wild fire all over the world. The assets and interests of the United States itself repeatedly became targets of these terrorists culminating in the World Trade Centre incident on September 11, 2001. This act of Al-Qaeda leadership conceived and executed from Afghanistan brought curtains down on Taliban as the United States of America along with its allies acted promptly to remove Taliban from power, and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders fled the scene to hiding.
    However, neither Taliban nor Al-Qaeda was fully crushed and they soon resurfaced along the rugged borders between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Powerful tribals of the area supported them to the heels. Taliban continued its asymmetric war against the allied forces from the border areas of Pakistan with the active support of the Army and all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.  All strategies of the United States of America including billions of dollars of economic help to recover Pakistan from its economic crisis failed to win over Pakistan to its side from supporting Taliban. United States is aware that no solution is possible in Afghanistan till Taliban problem is solved, and no solution to Taliban problem is possible until Pakistan’s unstinted support for the cause is available.

    The recent thoughts of the United States of America are to involve the Taliban in solving the problems of Afghanistan by accommodating the Taliban in the governance by a mechanism of power sharing by using Pakistan’s channels with the Taliban. So, the United States of America is coming full circle in its policy towards the Taliban.

THE NUCLEAR THREAT

        Man for millenniums inhabits the Earth now. Survival is his basic instinct and survival in uncivilised world means fighting others and surviving. In the process, he invented weapons for both defence and aggression in his fight for survival. And continually he improved upon the weapons making it more and more destructive and deadly. Mass and immediate destructions were what he sought in these new weapons. He moved from sticks and stones to knives and axes and swords, to bows and arrows and maces, to guns, tanks, missiles and bombs now. He rapidly improved on his recent weapon technologies with the help of science to produce weapons of mass destruction as rivalry and wars became common between nations of the present world and survival demanded and depended on the efficiency and destructive capabilities of the weapons a country possesses.

    Nuclear bombs were produced in this backdrop. Competition to produce the nuclear bomb was intense in 1940s during the Second World War after scientists discovered the weapons capabilities of the nuclear energy in the previous decade. The United States succeeded in producing the nuclear bombs first and did not wait long in using it against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to bring curtain down on the Second World War. The devastations and deaths the twin nuclear bombs caused shocked the sensibilities of the world and helped consensus to save the humanity from nuclear arms. Present attempts to contain the spread of the nuclear weapons and the significance of Non-Proliferation Treaty should be read in this context.

     Nuclear bomb is based on Uranium-235, which is a stable form of Uranium. When a nuclear bomb is released, a neutron strikes Uranium-235 and that transforms the Uranium-235 to Uranium-236, a very unstable form of Uranium, releasing tremendous energy and a cluster of neutrons. The released neutrons strike other atoms of the Uranium-235 again releasing more energy and neutrons, thus initiating a chain reaction that exponentially release energy, heat and fire that cause total destructions and loss of life.

    Attempts to contain the spread pf nuclear weapons and the Non-Proliferation Treaty can only delay or suppress the global spread of the nuclear weapons and nothing more. More and more countries producing and possessing these deadly weapons these days in spite of global opposition and threats of the United States prove this. India and Pakistan produced and possess them in the concluding years of the 20th century; North Korea declared itself as a nuclear power in 2009 and Iran is on that path. Once a country becomes a nuclear power, nothing else can be done about the matter by anybody. The most chilling prospect of the nuclear weapons is it falling to wrong hands of the terrorists and destroying the world order. None can rule out such a possibility. This is the price humanity pay for its thoughtless progress in the field of science.


THE ECONOMIC RECESSION

Economic recession struck the world in 2008. This is the worst economic recession the world encountered since the Great Depression 1929 and affected almost all countries of the world.

Many countries have rolled out plans to minimize the effect of the horrible crisis on their respective economies. Inter-dependence of countries in the modern global village primarily in world trade rendered independent efforts of countries to solve the crisis impossible. Coordinated action to attack the problem at the global level became inevitable and leaders of the major economic powers of the world along with China and India are meeting and discussing at various world forums about how to tackle the problem and save he world from the crisis.

The United States of America, Japan and other economically powerful industrialized countries witnessed their exports rapidly decreasing to affect their trade balance and foreign reserve positions.  

The solution lies in boosting the economy by increasing or at least maintaining demand all over the world. Maintaining world trade at present level is the key to tide over this crisis. Fall in world trade in any part of the world would lead to a cascading effect to the ruin of the world economic structure. All nations as responsible partners of the world economic structure are cooperating to save the situation, but it is easier said than done.


ENERGY SOURCES

    Energy is defined as the capacity of a body to do work. It is life-giver in the world and life revolves around it. Energy runs the whole world. Appliances in the kitchen, refrigerators, televisions, cars, fans, lighting or heating appliance or anything in the world for that matter run with the help of Energy. Energy is the fuel of life.
Fuel is basically classified into two groups based on the kind of sources they are derived from - as Conventional and Unconventional Energy. Conventional Energy is the source of energy that has been traditionally used by the world for a long time, say since the Industrial Revolution. Unconventional Energy is the source of Energy that is newly discovered and naturally needs lots of further research and propaganda to make it fit for mass and popular use. Conventional Energy is though important, fast depletion is its Achilles’ heel.  Unconventional Energy is renewable and there is no problem of depletion in this source of energy and it takes a very short time to be renewed. A few examples of the Unconventional Energy are Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Tidal Energy, Hydroelectric Energy and Biomass Energy. Conventional Energy primarily includes Petroleum Products like Petrol, Diesel, Natural Gas and Coal that are present on the Earth in limited amount and fast depleted because of the constant and constantly increased use for centuries by the technology hungry life style of the mankind.












SCIENCE FRONTIERS


Man last walked on the moon was in 1972. The United States of America and the Soviet Union at that time were embroiled in a very bitter and vicious cold war. Both super powers in their spirit of surpassing the other had gone on in a space race that had expanded the frontiers of the space technology and astronomy. This had thus turned out to be an advantage to the scientific world.

This fight for superiority between the United States and the Soviet Union in the field of space research like in many other fields helped man in the conquest of the space and outer space. Russian space ship, Sputnik took man to the outer space around the Earth. Soon, the United States of America proved its might by landing on the Moon. Later, the interest in the space research died down and both the super powers cooled down in their enthusiasm for funding the space race. Soon, other countries took initiative in space research. European countries combined their efforts for joint space research. Once developing countries like China and India are now beginning to show interest in space research and indulging in a mini space race reminiscent of the USA-USSR space race of the 1950s and 1960s. Both countries are now looking to land on the Moon. China sent a man to space in 2003. The United States of America is planning to send a manned probe to the moon by 2020 and a manned probe to Mars by 2030.

    The Soviet Union sent a man, Yuri Gargarin, to the space in 1961, capping its lead of sending of dog Laika to space in 1957 in succession to launching of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1 in the same year. The world was deeply impressed by the technological superiority of the Soviet Union over that of the United States of America. The President of the United States at that time, John F. Kennedy, was determined to do some thing in time and in the famous speech in May 1961 before a special joint session of the United States Congress promised that the United States would land a man on the moon and return him safely within a decade. It was able to accomplish this within eight years in 1969. A few days before the United States sent the astronauts, Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin to the moon by Apollo 11, the Soviet Union sent a spacecraft Luna-15 to the moon on a failed mission. That was the last heard of attempt of the Soviet Union to challenge the superiority of the United States of America. 

    Why the Soviet Union that had a clear lead in the space race in 1961 over the United States of America, surrendered to the latter so easily and completely? The answer as NASA revealed is that the Soviet Union was never on space race, and whatever stupendous accomplishments it had till 1961 were part and extensions of its passion for missiles researches in support of its war industry. The indifference of the Soviet authorities to the space race in contrast to the interest and genuine progress made by the Soviet Union scientists dulled the edge of the Soviet Union superiority in space technology over time. On the other hand, the United States took the 1961 accomplishments of the Soviet Union as a challenge and spared no attempts to excel in the area to prove its mettle and world leadership. NASA was formed and all financial constraints were waived for advancement in the area.  The United States made great strides since then. In contrast, the space scientists of the Soviet Union faced hurdles of all kinds including financial constraints and lack of political backing.       

The beginning of the 21st century marks the start of the second Space race in the world. This time around, this space race is likely to be between the United States and China as Russia is yet to wake up from its space slumber, and drawing large amount of attention throughout the world. China, as the United States of America has got quite a big buffer between thinking and acting in the form of democratic governance and Congress, has an edge in moving with the requisite space programmes. 

Perhaps, China may successfully land a man on the moon before the United States plans for the 2020 landing. India too is not far behind. It has however got to speed up its space programmes. India needs to pull up its socks to do quite an impressive job in the race.

SPACE SHUTTLE PROBES

    Since the beginning of mankind, man has always wanted to find out the truth of the world around. As he discovered more and more truths, the horizons of his activities expanded exponentially and he encountered more problems and riddles along the path.    He tried to solve them and has always succeeded in doing so. His unquenchable curiosity was his forte. Not that those truths were revealed to him all of sudden. He discovered them in stages, often running for centuries or millenniums to arrive at the final truth.  For example, his first perception about the world he lives in was that the Sun, moon and stars revolved around the Earth and the Earth was the centre of the Universe. He continued with this belief for centuries till he discovered that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

    In the process of his endeavours to discover the truth of the world, he invented umpteen tools like telescopes and spacecrafts to help him in his probes. Spacecrafts take him to outer space to collect data. Space Shuttles are the latest version of the spacecrafts devised by the United States. They apart from carrying astronauts and scientists to the outer space engage them in difficult manoeuvres there and bring them back to the Earth. Another important feature of these space shuttles is that they can be reused once they returns to the Earth like any other transport facility. Not that mankind has reached perfection in this wonderful technology. Sometimes back, the United States of America launched a Space Shuttle to the outer space with astronauts on scientific assignments. The Space Shuttle disintegrated on the way down while entering the Earth’s atmosphere and all the astronauts were killed. Such terrible losses are parts of the progress and man has lots to cover in the process of discovering the truths around him.



COSMIC COLLISION

    On the fourth of July in 2005, while the United States of America was celebrating its National Day, Deep in space, the comet, NASA targeted a comet known asTempel-1 with a man made object as part of its Deep Impact Space Mission to study the composition and origin of comets as well as of the Universe. The impact was photographed from the spacecraft that was on the mission and observed through space telescopes as well as from the observatories on the Earth, and revealed bright spray of fine dusts from the site of the impact on the comet. The crater formed by the impact was around 200 meters in diameter and 40 meters deep and contained fine dust particles of carbonates, silicates, sulfides and hydrocarbons.

    The comet, Tempel-1, which was discovered on April 3, 1867 by Wilhelm Tempel, an astronomer working in Marseille was found orbiting around the Sun once every five and a half years. This collision was designed to study the composition of comets and how the world came into existence. Also in issue in the objectives of the Deep Impact Probe was whether the Big Bang theory really holds good or not. The Probe sends back readings and other data back to the Earth for the analysis of scientists. 

    Tempel 1 will come to view again in 2011. NASA plans to visit and impact the comet again then by its Stardust spacecraft as an extended mission of the Deep Impact Probe to study changes in the crater created in 2005 and make further detailed and deeper studies of the crater for better understanding of the Universe.

PLANETS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
   
    Mankind has been on this earth for a very long time and has always been curious. People have died exploring new areas and ideas. The result is the presence of man in all continents and in all corners on the surface of the Earth. No area on the Earth remains unknown or unfamiliar any more. Naturally, curious as he is always, he started looking beyond the Earth towards the space. Planets and stars attracted his attention. He traveled in the space in 1950s and landed on the Moon in 1960s. Planets of the Solar system that he observed with naked eyes and by telescopes from centuries are primed as the next target of man and his unabated curiosity. He wants to land there and colonize them for his benefits if he can. The effort warrants detailed information the planets and the space he is to cover reach there and the hurdles and problems to be encountered during the endeavor. 

In spite of tremendous progress made by the community of scientists in this direction, lots need to be done and require time, funds and synergy among top scientists and experts in various fields of science. They must further study and analyze and learn about various environment features of the outer space that yet remain incomprehensible to them. This will take a very long time.

    The Solar System was traditionally held to contain nine planets namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Many more bodies in the Solar System were discovered and classified as non-planets and a traditional planet of the Solar System namely Pluto was removed from the planetary honour and relegated to the group of non-planet land masses since then as many of the newly discovered land masses that were classified as non-planets were found to be larger than Pluto, the smallest traditional planet of the Solar System. There is tremendous confusion among astronomers about the concept and definition of planets as different from non-planets and Pluto was always in the eye of the storm for a long time.

SOLAR ENERGY FROM SPACE

The world faces a very large energy problem. This is some thing that India especially faces. The solution lies in unconventional sources of energy, particularly harnessing energy from the sun. This is a renewable form of energy, is nearly limitless and also is not polluting at all and is the cause of all forms of energy on the earth apart from the nuclear energy.

Solar Energy is taken for granted by man because of its abundance and easy availability. The world uses it in the form of solar cells popularly used in traffic lights, for home uses for heating purposes, and in satellites as sources of energy. In this, man is harnessing only a minute fraction of the endless solar energy at his disposal. Reasons are many. Day and night cycles, seasons, geographical areas and clouds make the availability of the solar energy a time dependent phenomenon. It cannot be harnessed steadily and uniformly at all hours at all places at the will of the user. This leads to the problems of storage of the solar energy. Combined with the low-intensity energy patterns of the solar energy, the problems of the storage render solar energy economically inconvenient enterprise. It is in this situation scientists thought of harnessing solar energy from the outer space.

Continuous and uninterrupted availability of the solar energy in the outer space makes it ideal location for harnessing the solar energy. Already, the benefits of the solar energy in the outer space are derived for the energy requirements of the space ships and satellites. However, the problem here is regarding transmission of the energy so collected to the surface of the Earth for the human use. Right technologies are yet to be devised for the purpose and scientists are on the job to bring a revolution in meeting the ever-increasing energy requirements of man. 

A NEW COUSIN

    The world was created with the Big Bang about fourteen billions of years back. After billions of years of cooling from the Big Bang, the Sun of our solar system came into being leading to the birth of the Earth and other planets of the solar system. For approximately four billion years, the Earth remained without life on the planet. The Earth was too hot and cooled down very slowly. Life started on the Earth with the single cell creatures and over billions of years evolved to complicated patterns of life culminating in the birth of human beings in their present form.

     The first lives on the Earth were water-born and aquatic in nature. Gradually, as the cells evolved to complicated patterns on the compulsions of the survival instincts and the needs of the adaptation to the environment, lives capable of living on land came into existence leading ultimately to the birth of Homo sapiens.

    Home Sapiens is proved to be a very curious species, eager to discover and know everything around it. Curiosity is its hallmark. This nature led it to discover everything about the Earth it lives on, the space around it and even about the outer space and planets and stars and the worlds beyond it.  He became curious to know whether life like his own exists anywhere else outside in worlds invisible to him. He was curious to know about his human cousins and how they live if they exist anywhere in any corner of the endless Universe.  Though theories surmise the possibility of life and humanlike species somewhere in this endless Universe beyond human comprehension, no empirical evidences are available to prove or disprove it, and no such evidences can be accessed in near future with the limits of the present scientific advancements in the perspective of the human limits.

    While man is looking to the Outer Space to trace his cousins on the illusion that he has already conquered the Earth he lives on in his thirst for knowing it fully, he was in for a shock while he discovered the existence of a new species, Homo Floresiences, a cousin of Home Sapiens, in the island of Rampasasa in Indonesia, until a few years back. Locals of Rampasasa recall the Homo Floresiences as short in height. However, the attention of the world is yet to focus on this interesting discovery and scientists and archaeologists are yet to pursue this matter to know better about their cousins on this very Earth on which they live on.

STEM CELLS

    Stem cells are the basic cells. They are the cells from what every part of the body develops after going through several stages. They are present in almost all living bodies in the stage of the initial growth. They form all cells of the body including the muscle cells, the nerve cells, and the bone cells. These stem cells if properly manipulated are potential of curing all genetic diseases and changing personal traits and character in living beings including man.

    There are differences of opinions regarding further experiments in the field of the stem cells that have the potential to change the very nature of man. Because, such potentialities involve moral questions. Many countries like North Korea and England have made considerable progress in the field of stem cells. Mr. George Bush, as the President of the United States of America strongly opposed stem cell experiments and even threatened that he would veto any bill on this field if the Congress passed it. The present President of the United States of America has different view in this issue and the world may witness stem cell revolution for the betterment of the human kind.

CLONING OF ANIMALS

    These days, human kind has advanced so much that many things that he does would certainly surprises the creator himself if he comes down to visit the human kind he created. Human kind has been able to work wonders wherever he has gone to work in. He is now trying to copy the work of the creator himself. The endeavour is progressing without the barriers of the national borders. The present efforts are towards cloning of animals through the DNA technique to create sturdy and stronger species. Scientists created Dolly, a sheep that died of disease. Thereafter, the scientists produced a cloned cat that turned out to be a carbon copy of the cat from which the DNA was extracted and used. It was a major step for the science and mankind in their progress towards replicating the works of the creator in creating living species. Then, the next successful endeavour was in creating a mule, which was a cross between a donkey and a horse. Later, they succeeded in producing a cloned dog called as Snuppy. Attempts will continue in the cloning techniques till scientists create healthy and strong cloned human species. Already they have succeeded in producing human semen in laboratory conditions and this itself is a revolutionary step forward to the field of the creator. 
NEWTONIAN LAWS

Newton was a great physicist, mathematician, astronomer and natural philosopher that lived about three hundred years back from 1643 to 1727. He was a person who is well known throughout the world today for his path breaking influence on the history of science. His full name is Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton was a physicist and a mathematician with a flair for astronomy and natural philosophy. He is easily the greatest physicist in the world till Albert Einstein postulated the Theory of Relativity that revolutionized the field of science. In an opinion poll held at Britain’s Royal Society in 2005, he was voted as having larger influence on the history of science than Albert Einstein.

   Isaac Newton was born and lived in England that has produced gems like William Shakespeare, and John Keats. Sir Isaac Newton is the father of the three Newton’s Laws. Newton’s first law says that if a body is at rest, it will continue to be at rest and a body, which is in motion, will continue to be in motion and will continue moving in the same direction with the same velocity until an external force is applied on it. Newton’s second law says that the rate of change of momentum of a body is equal to the product between the mass and the acceleration of the body and the change of momentum is in the direction of the force. Newton’s third law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. These three laws revolutionized the concepts of science of the time and laid foundations for rapid growth of science in the next centuries. All later revolutions in Physics and classical mechanics like the Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory owe their origin to the concepts conceived and the paths laid by Sir Isaac Newton in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687.




CONGRUENCY OF TRIANGLES

Triangles are three sided figures that are present in the world of Geometry They are said to be one of the most complex figures in geometry. Triangles can be of three types: Equilateral, Isosceles and Scalene. Congruency of triangles means that the triangles are equal and same in all respects. There are many kinds of triangles in Geometry. Congruency is one of them. There are some conditions for a triangle to be a congruent triangle. The triangle must be equal to the triangle in all respects - that is in three angles and in three sides. However, creating a congruent triangle being a difficult and tedious work, four options are available to perform the job: the S.S.S congruency, the S.A.S congruency, the A.S.A congruency and the R.H.S congruency. The S.S.S congruency refers to the congruency which can be determined if the three sides of the triangles are given and both are equal. The S.A.S congruency refers to the congruency which can be determined if the two sides and one angle of the triangles are given and both are equal. The A.S.A congruency refers to the congruency which can be determined if the two angles and one side of the triangles are given and both are equal. The R.H.S congruency refers to the congruency which can be determined if the hypotenuse, the right angle and one of the triangles are given and all are equal. The R.H.S congruency can be used only in a right-angle triangle. 








ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH


The Earth is a very nice place to live in. However, modern developments have disfigured many healthy and beautiful facets of the Earth. One of the most important of them is the Greenhouse Effect. The Earth is heating up continuously because of the carbon dioxide that is left into the air by different sources such as industries, cars and many more other sources. Industrialized developed countries account for major portion of the carbon emission to the environment. It will also take a lot of time to find alternate methods to stop that outflow of carbon into the atmosphere. England fears that the carbon emissions from the United States in the present rate affect the lives of people living in the western coast of England. USA expressed its helplessness in doing anything in this regard owing to the all out dependence of the modern world on petrol and related fuels that contribute the maximum to the carbon emissions and the Green House effect .Due to the carbon emissions to the atmosphere, the world is heating up leading to many undesirable results like melting of the polar snow and rise in ocean and sea levels to submerge land masses apart from an unpleasant atmosphere. There are attempts now on in the international level to find a solution to this grave danger to the Earth.


THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

Self-interest is the basic rule of all individuals as well as of nations.  Whether it is an issue of health or wealth or food or safety, this trend is obvious. People or nations, they tend to escape and protect themselves from dangers. Growing realization of the dangers of the carbon emission and the Green House effect by the nations is leading to concerted efforts to save the Earth from its undesirable effects. The Kyoto Protocol being already ratified by 183 countries of the world and the unanimous ratification of the protocol by the European Union prove the concern of the world in this matter.
   
MELTING GLACIERS

    Glaciers are ice masses, mostly found in the Polar Regions. Global warming is the warming of the Earth due to the reflection of the heat from the layer of Carbon dioxide, and causes glaciers in the Polar Regions to melt and flow to oceans and seas all over the world, causing their levels increase. Increase in levels of ocean and seas leads to flooding and submerge of low-lying lands creating havocs to human life all over. This is one of the consequences of the excessive carbon emission to the atmosphere, Greenhouse Effect and the global warming that is most feared.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change is occurring at such a rapid rate that some thing will have to be done so that things are all set aright. However, with countries fighting on the issue inter alia, it looks as if things are going to take a very long time to settle.

One very important consequence of climate change is the rising of the sea level. This is a very dangerous matter as this may lead to the people who live in coastal areas forced to leave the place to settle elsewhere. This is not some thing that is an easy thing for a whole population to do and will cause a large amount of trouble in the future. This is some thing that almost all countries have to keep in mind in the near future.

This is some thing that Bangladesh and Vietnam will suffer a lot of as their land is mostly just above the sea level. A very small change in the temperature will change the whole structure of the country. The refugees that will come from these events of the future cannot technically pass for refugees, as the definition of refugees is some thing quite different from the one given by the United Nations charter. Thus they will not be eligible for monetary help also. Even though this may be some thing very trivial problem according to most people, such a rule just cannot be broken to help these people for many reasons. One is their large number, and second is the need of resettlement at a short time. Third is the pressure on other lands created by such sudden influxes and its consequences at those places.

Thus, these people are in a rather sticky situation indeed. These people have to be saved somehow. Construction of dykes and dams as has been done in the Netherlands may not help them as it is too costly and is not foolproof and in other cases simply cannot be built. So this is a sticky situation that needs to be prevented by avoiding the climate change and global warming. 

KYOTO PROTOCOL

Kyoto Protocol is a United Nations initiative for international environmental treaty at climate change for achieving stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that shall prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The Kyoto Protocol establishes legally binding commitment for the reduction of four greenhouse gases namely, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and sulphur hexafluoride and two other gases namely hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) let out to the environment mostly by the industrialized nations.

The objective of the Kyoto climate change conference was to establish a legally binding international agreement, whereby all the participating nations commit themselves to tackling the issue of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. The target agreed upon was an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the year 2012.

Kyoto Protocol sets national quantum for the reduction: 8% for the European Union, 7% to the United States, 6% for Japan, and 0% for Russia. The treaty permitted the emission increases of 8% for Australia and 10% for Iceland. The objective is the stabilization and reconstruction of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
This protocol will limit the release of pollutants in the Earth and thus help in saving our planet. However, this will not help the developed countries that depend on petrol that release smoke containing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that cause the green house effect.

    The Kyoto protocol was first conceived on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. The agreement came into force on 16 February 2005 following ratification by Russia on 18 November 2004. Under Kyoto, industrialized countries agreed to reduce their collective green house gas emissions by 5.2% from the level in 1990. Not many countries ratified it then, but now over the years, many counties have ratified it including India in 2002 and this has raised the number of countries to 183 in January 2009. However, the two most important countries concerning this protocol, America and China have not signed. The Kyoto Protocol has already come into effect from the last few years.

CLIMATE CHANGE REFORMS IN THE G8, G5 SUMMIT

In the G8, G5 summit that was held in Italy in 2009, developed and emerging economies came together and discussed problems facing the world in detail for the first time, and several breakthroughs were accomplished. Climate Change and right human responses to prevent it and save man from annihilation from the surface of the Earth found prominence in the deliberations of the world leaders in the summit.

Climate Change reforms have taken a very important part in this summit and found consensus in the finished charter of the summit. A policy of stick and carrot for adopting climate change reforms by countries was considered and adopted in the summit. Higher the pollutants released to the atmosphere, countries must have more stringent measures to fight to bring it down were the general tenor of the deliberations in the summit.  The summit marks the about turn of the United States of America in its policy towards the Climate Change under the stewardship of President Barack Obama by championing the cause of saving the Earth from the atmospheric pollutants.  
        India and other emerging economies though fully supported the cause of reducing the release of the pollutants to the Earth’s atmosphere and pledged support to the cause, showed resistance for fixing any limits to them and signing any agreement to that effect as, it claimed, such restrictions would retard their growing economy from further growth.

    Developed countries including the United States of America are on to bring these countries around for an agreement.

EXTINCTION OF ANIMALS

    There are thousands of species of animals in the world. The continents, which have the most number of species of animals, are Asia and Africa. Species of animals are essential ingredients in bringing about balance in the nature and in human survival. Symbiosis is an essential rule of the animal world covering human beings. Protection of all species from extinction is a basic need for maintaining the balance in the nature and a responsibility of man as the most evolved and enlightened species of the animal world.    They must be protected from destruction.

    Fortunately, there are many people all over the world who have taken up this cause with passion as their life mission. Most of them live in thick forests ignoring their safety and comforts, study rare species of animals, their habits, befriend them and interact with governments and related organisations for the protection of those species of animals. Such missionary involvements with the animal world are mostly seen in the thick forests of Africa.

    Unfortunately, the people who indulge in killing animals for food or commercial use are more in the world than those who are for its preservation. Poachers and hunters are the worst enemies of the animal world.  As a result, the number of species of animals in the forests of Asia and Africa are steadily decreasing over time.

    Human food habit is a major contributor for the extinction of a large number of species of animals from the surface of the Earth. Species like the dodo are already extinct and lost forever for this world except as a part of the natural history. The principle of the survival of the fittest in nature works in the mechanism of the selection of the species for extinction. Weakest and those least fit for survival go first. With the rise of man in strength and knacks for survival with his rapid scientific and technological progress, chances of other species without his conscious endeavours to save and protect them surviving have become naught. It is in this circumstance that man must consciously decide and go for protection of his cousin species from extinction. Slaughtering animals for food is common all over the world. Man finds the flesh of almost all animals edible. Rarer, the species, tastier are their flesh.  This is why rare species are sought and hunted.

    Hunting is a favourite pastime of rich and famous all over the world from the dawn of the human history. It has never lost its charm in the human psyche since he started killing animals for food and survival in the beginning of his history. Modern man indulges in hunting even as a game. Poaching animals lucri causa is the latest trend in the present commercial world. Animals are wantonly killed for their organs that have high commercial value and sold often in black markets for high prices as such trades are illegal in many countries. Rare species like Pangolin, the common bear and even the Great White Shark are extensively killed and slowly disappearing from the surface of the Earth.


THE DANGERS POSED TO GRIZZLY BEARS

    Bears are four-legged creatures that inhabit this world along with a host of other creatures. The bears are very strong and are also very short-tempered and will certainly kill people if the people irritate them. Among the bears, which are very dangerous are the Polar bears and the Grizzly or Brown bears. Polar bears are very strong and very long and they also weigh a lot. These Polar bears are found in the North Pole and kill humans for food unlike other bears that leave human beings alone. The other bear of interest is the Brown bear, another very dangerous bear. Brown bears also kill humans, but only if they are found irritating or if it is feeling very hungry unlike the Polar bear.

    These days, the bear population has considerably come down. Governments all over the world are trying to protect bears and the bear population from extinction and the efforts are showing results and the bear population is picking up now steadily though slowly. It is the aggressive and attacking nature of humans that force bears and other wild animals to adopt hostile attitude to man. Bears are magnificent animals and should be protected from extinction.

DECLINE OF THE TIGER

    The tiger is the national animal of India. It is the largest member of the cat family and even bigger than the lion. It is a very ferocious animal and is well known for its ferocious hunting skills. It has been hunted for centuries. The tiger once used to occupy the whole of India, Pakistan, Russia and also Africa. In Pakistan and Russia, the tiger is now extinct, which is a terrible loss, as the largest species of the Tiger family called as the Siberian tiger lived in Russia. Sadly, it is now disappearing from India and Africa also. The cause of this is poaching and hunting. So is has been for centuries. Hunting and killing tigers were a symbol of strength and valour all over the world from the time immemorial and were the favourite pastime of valiant kings and British rulers in India. The poachers and hunters do not easily give up this adventure and the tribals who live near the forests are unhelpful in protecting tigers.

The tigers are being poached for many reasons apart from the adventure involved. Their skin is just one of the many reasons that they are being hunted for. They are also hunted for their skull, bones, and teeth and for many other things. Poachers find these a gold mine. Each tiger is worth almost sixty lakh rupees. Every year, hundred and fifty tigers are killed. At this rate, the already scarce population of the tiger in India will reach its nil point at around 2020.

RETURN OF THE DINOSAUR

    Dinosaurs were one of the most terrifying of all the species that walked on this Earth. It was the ruler of the Earth during its day and roamed fearlessly wherever it wanted. However, after some time, it died out. How it died out is still a mystery and not adequately explained till now save for diverse unconfirmed theories, but what is known is that the dinosaurs died out very quickly approximately sixty five million years back, and never appeared on the face of this earth again.

Dinosaurs are reptiles that lived millions of years back. Many people think
that all dinosaurs were very huge. But, it is wrong. There were dinosaurs, which
were several times the height of elephants, and yet, there were some, who were
smaller than a domestic cat. The age of the dinosaurs was from about 140 million
years to about 40 million years ago. Then something happened which killed all the dinosaurs. Nobody knows what it was.

There were six families of dinosaurs. They were Sauropods, Theropods,
Ornithopods, Ceratopsia, armoured dinosaurs and plated dinosaurs. The Sauropods were the biggest of all the dinosaurs. All of these dinosaurs were giants and had long necks and tails. Theropods were meat-eaters that walked on two feet. The king of dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex, was one of those.

Ornithopods were mostly plant eaters that moved on two legs. Most of them were large. The Ceratopsians were the last dinosaurs to appear. They were large plant eaters with a few horns on their face. They moved on all feet. Both the armored dinosaurs and plated dinosaurs were very much like each other. They had bumpy and bone-covered skin and were plant eaters.

Most of all the dinosaurs walked on four feet but actually their bodies were
biped. Biped animals are animals that walk on two legs. All the first dinosaurs were biped. But then, a few animals started walking on all four feet. Thus came quadrupeds came into existence. This is the story of dinosaurs.
There are several theories about the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs from the surface of the Earth. However, they all have some faults or the other in their explanations and it is not known what really happened to these truly terrifying creatures that roamed the face of the earth. Human kind is always curious and always wants to know what the truth is about things around him. Dinosaurs are not an exception to this. Many facts about the dinosaurs are extracted by studying the fossils that are dug up and analysed. The fossils helped in classifying dinosaurs that lived at its peak time into various kinds of species like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, a truly fearful species of dinosaurs that roamed the Earth.

BACTERIA

Bacteria are microorganisms that are present in the world. Anton von Leeuvenhoek first discovered them in 1676. He called Bacteria as animalcules. Bacteria are some of the most fascinating organisms that are present in the world. All the people in the world have considered Bacteria to be dangerous. However, only some Bacteria are really dangerous. Some Bacteria are very useful also.

Bacteria are responsible for cholera, tetanus, typhoid and many other diseases in humans and are dangerous to animals also. It causes cholera to chickens and anthrax to sheep. It is said that if 10 mg of anthrax is let loose in a big metropolitan city, more than one lakh people will get killed by contracting the disease. That is the way in which Bacteria affect humans and other animals.

 Bacteria fix nitrogen in the soil without which man and other animals cannot survive. Plants absorb the nitrogen from the soil and man and animals take it to their system by consuming the plants. Thus, bacteria are at the source of the survival of man and other animals.

    Bacteria are small unicellular organisms that are present everywhere in the world. They are present in the soil, they are present in the air, and they are present in water. In short, Bacteria are cosmopolitan. They are the nearest things to what we call God. Bacteria are used in many industries like tobacco industry, cheese industry, curds industry and many more. They are in this way very important. Indeed, there are some bacteria that affect human beings by infecting them with diseases like clostridium botulinum, which causes food poisoning. It is one of the most deadly of all organisms. Bacteria also help man in saving and killing one of their own kinds as they help in producing antibiotics, which can be used both as healing and life saving drug as well as dangerous poisons.

EUROPE’S DECLINING POPULATION

    Europe is one of the foremost continents in the world. It is one of the most densely populated continents in the world and the second most populated continent in the world after Asia. However, this may change in a few years because of the declining population of Europe.

The majority of the population in Europe at present is in its old age without children. This is particularly visible in countries like Italy, Germany and many more. In Germany, the population is getting so low that the wolfs who were driven out of the habitable regions of the country to forests a long time back by the people are now returning, because lands are less populated and spare lands are available to them to occupy. This may seem good news to environmentalists and wild life enthusiasts, but if this continues, by 2040, there will be about forty-one people less living in Europe for every one thousand. For about a thousand people in a city in Greece in an extreme case, now, the number has dwindled to a dozen and they all are in their sixties and seventies and in about thirty years, there may not be a city with that name again in Greece. This is a very sad case and it may also happen to other cities of Europe and all over the world in course of time. However, there is no need of getting overly scared, as it will take a very long time to find the Earth without mankind.



THE KILLER TSUNAMI

December 26, 2004 turned out to be one of the most tragic single days in the living memory of the human history. The killer tsunami that triggered on that day in Asia recorded the death of more than 150 thousand innocent children, women and men and devastation of millions in South and South-east Asia in the course of just three hours. This tsunami turned out to be the fourth worst natural disaster since the end of the nineteenth century after the quakes in China in 1976, 1927 and 1920, which claimed 255, 200 and 200 thousand lives respectively.

Devastation

The countries worst hit by the Killer Tsunami of Asia are Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand in that order. Other countries that saw the fury of the tsunami include Malaysia, Burma, and Bangladesh and far away East African countries like Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles. Indonesia, which was closest to the epicentre of the earthquake that caused the tsunami accounted for about one-lakh deaths while India’s toll exceeded ten thousand. The Aceh province of Indonesia was the first and worst affected region.

The worst affected regions in India were the state of Tamil Nadu and the islands of Andaman and Nicobar. The Indian naval base in Andaman and Nicobar was washed away by the killer waves. The southern tips of India and the Indian mainland namely Indira Point in Andaman and Nicobar islands and Kanyakumari in the mainland were badly hit by the Tsunami. Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa were also hit by the Tsunami.





What is a Tsunami?

Tsunami in Japanese means ‘harbour wave’. It is triggered by a vertical disturbance in the oceans caused by an earthquake, landslide or volcanic eruption. The result is mammoth waves several meters high crashing into coastal areas.

The present tsunami was triggered by an earthquake of the magnitude of nine in the Richter scale near Sumatra of Indonesia. The earthquake was caused while about 1,200 km of the edge of the Burma plate of the Earth’s crust suddenly slid fifteen meters high above the Indian plate on the fateful day morning around 6.29IST near Sumatra. This was the result of the pressure built up by the two giant tectonic plates while grind against each other causing the India plate slip six centimetres northeast a year below the Burma Plate. Such geological phenomena causing earthquakes and such major earthquakes on the ocean floor causing tsunami are natural processes. However, India was caught by surprise by this tsunami, as it was the first of its kind to hit India in its living memory.

Relief Efforts

The relief efforts India saw for the tsunami victims has been as never before. TV telecast and media coverage helped sensitize people to the disaster. Both Indian government and private agencies provided mammoth relief efforts. India refused USA offer of help and showed that it can handle such disasters by its own resources. India even helped Sri Lanka in its relief operations. Newspapers, film actors, cricketers, all contributed to the relief efforts.

India’s response to the tsunami was slow in the beginning. However, as time passed, it picked up life. The Indian government has decided to build a Tsunami Warning System on the ocean basin and has kept aside twenty seven million US dollars to build it. A Disaster Management Authority has also been set up to deal with natural disasters like tsunamis in future. These are the positive outcomes of the horrific tragedy India underwent in the last week of the year 2004.
  THE AFTERMATH OF THE TSUNAMI

    Tsunami that struck Southeast and South Asia in 2004 killed and seriously injured thousands of people. Many countries of the world generously provided help for the relief of the Tsunami-struck people and regions. The place that was nearest to the epicentre of the tsunami and thus suffered the most was the province of Aceh in Indonesia. In this place, thousands of people died and almost all buildings were destroyed. In short, nearly all the people in this province died.

    People in the region are sad about this calamity of theirs. They are unhappy and angry and complained about their helplessness. Their anger is well founded. Their question is why of all the people in the world, they had to be the ones who were struck by the tsunami. They are angry because of this and demand justice from the God. Various militant groups in the region had already ravaged them and they are very angry that the nature itself also conspired against them through the Tsunami and all the bad things happen to them only. This is not a question that one can easily ward off or answer. They have already seen murder and death aplenty though not on such a huge scale as the tsunami. They are lamenting the fact that they have had a bad history till then. Anyway, they have one good thing because of this tsunami. That is that the militant groups have given up their campaign after Tsunami to give the people peace. This shows that militants also have hearts.

THE AFTER EFFECTS OF THE TSUNAMI IN SRI LANKA

    In the Tsunami that hit the coast of South East Asia in 2004, many people died and many more were injured, displaced and lost everything. Sri Lanka saw a salubrious turn during the Tsunami devastation in both the Government of Sri Lanka and its archenemy, the Tamil Tigers of the LTTE on a mission of common cause in extending relief services in the Tsunami-hit areas.  However, this was proved a short-lived comradery when a minister of Sri Lanka was killed in a terrorist attack. It was widely believed that it was a Tamil Tiger Attack. But, the Tamil Tigers staunchly denied this charge. The then President of Sri Lanka, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga had two choices: resume the battle against the LTTE or to befriend the LTTE. Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga chose the latter option following the popular will of the country at that time. It is history now that that move also short-lived.

EARTH-QUAKE-PRONE SUMATRA

    Sumatra is an island that is present in Indonesia. It is one of the most dangerous spots in the world to live in. This is because of its earthquake-prone nature and the concomitant tsunamis that strike the small island. It is therefore considered as one of the most dangerous regions of the world. Earthquakes per se do not cause fear in the people of Sumatra. It is the tsunami that strikes the island that brings terror to the island of Sumatra. The earthquakes also cause volcanoes to burst

The Krakatau volcano that erupted in 1883 was so ferocious that it completely destroyed the whole mountain from which it erupted and was so ferocious that its tremors were heard in the islands near Africa! However, the Krakatau volcano eruption comparatively is peanuts compared to the Toba earthquake that shook Sumatra thousands of years back and is still remembered in the region. This took place in North Sumatra and its volcanic eruption created a crater more than 80km wide and debris more than 1.5 meter thick was thrown to places hundreds of kilometres away. The people of Sumatra can never be sure that such devastations would not recur as history and earthquakes have a pattern and known to recur. 

GLOBAL HEALTH CARE

    These days, man has reduced the dangers that are haunting him. In earlier days when man was still learning the various secrets of the Earth, many diseases surrounded him. He still ate raw food and knew nothing about diseases that stalked on him. Diseases killed him as viciously as the various animals that he hunted such as deer, moose and so on. At least the animals that were hunted down knew who hunted them and knew how to hide from the human beings. However, the then human beings did not know what killed them often en mass. Bacteria and virus were unknown to him. Often, he attributed such sudden deaths to curses, witchcrafts and such supernatural causes. Aborigines in Australia, and Bushmen and the Tutsi in Africa, and many other tribes still believe in these things even though they have come in contact with the world in large. They still believe in witch doctors.

The most important thing to a person is his own survival. He will try his very best to survive at whatever cost. But, roads to death are umpteen like natural deaths, homicides, accidents and deaths by diseases. Natural death has no remedy; homicide occurs unawares most of the times like accidents. Death by disease can be avoided by preventive and remedial measure. Of these, disease apportions maximum deaths and covers all ranks of people of all ages and stature. Diseases are of two kinds, communicable and non-communicable diseases. Cardiac arrest and cancer account for the major share of deaths by the non-communicable diseases. While communicable diseases bring mass deaths on its break on predictable lines, right medical cares and preventive measures at right time can control and completely stop the menace. But, non-communicable diseases are different. They are slow, steady and unpredictable. Any money spent on world health care is well spent and a great service to the mankind. All enlightened rich people of the world well spent their wealth for this noble cause. The Gates, Bill and Melinda, of the Microsoft fame are the recent example of this noble cause. Melinda and Bill Gates have generously donated their wealth for the cause of the world health and health care of the poor. 

PANDEMICS

    The thing that is most important in any person’s life is his health. Pandemic is an epidemic that is geographically widespread, occurring throughout a region or even throughout the world. Pandemic like wildfire rapidly spread all round causing uncontrolled sufferings and deaths in a short span of time and may even endanger human existence if the pandemic is in global level. 

Naturally, common efforts are called for to fight the pandemic and all countries of the world join hands to prevent the epidemic from spreading in this global village. Pandemic does not respect national boundaries and geographical distances. Swine flue which was first noticed in Mexico and the United States of America took no time in gripping countries all over the world in spite of the best efforts by the respective countries to prevent it from spreading in their respective countries. Pandemics are not different from economic impacts in this regard as shown by the worldwide down trend of the economy, which originated from the United States of America and spread like wildfire all over the world.    

Allowing pandemics to take a toll on human life unchecked is a blight on human history and thus the need of concerted efforts. Swine flue and avian influenza before it are the point of focus here. The United States of America, China and Hong Kong did commendable job to prevent the outbreak and spread of the avian influenza.

 Pandemics like the Black Plague in the beginning of the 20th century killed more than a million people in Europe. People still remember about this plague. Timely interventions and preventive measures by the World Health Organisation and countries all over the world prevented such devastations in modern times by the outbreak of the avian influenza and the swine flue. The Avian Flu spread from China to all other parts of Asia while the swine flue spread from Mexico and the United States of America all over the world.

    The world saw the outbreak of plague in 1918 and 1976. While the former outbreak is remembered for deaths because of the lack of concerted efforts to prevent it, the latter outbreak saw deaths by the over zeal in the injection of the dangerous antibiotics against the pandemic. Overdoing is the bane of the modern world. This is a lesson to keep the via media in dealing with the pandemics. 
   


SWINE FLU

Swine Flu has caused a large amount of panic all around the world. The World Health Organisation says that it poses the threat of a pandemic that may cause a large number of fatalities all around the world. This disease has spread to many countries and it has shown fatalities at a rate of two for every thousand infected. One does not know whether it will be able to morph to a deadlier version of the swine flu.

Thus, this swine flu is causing a large amount of terror through out the globe especially in the areas where it has been found. People remember and compare the influenza flu epidemic that killed a large number of people just after the First World War and are getting panicky. There is no reason to get so much panicky about swine flue as it is increasingly proved to be not aggressively fatal.

Comparison with the influenza flu epidemic of the 1910s is a mute point here for the simple reason of the living conditions there.  Epidemics cannot spread as did then for umpteen reasons: suitable drugs, preventive measures, international efforts against, World Health Organisation (WHO) to oversee and so on. However, some scientists say that as the world has heated up in the intervening years, this swine flu will be able to reproduce and mutate to a more virile form more quickly. However, it looks as if the best option for India is to sit tight. The disease has not yet struck India with its full strength. India reported its first H1N1 virus casualty on August 4, 2009 in Pune, the seat of the National Institute of Virology for India, by the death of a 14-year old girl and immediately the government notified the affected areas under the Epidemic Diseases Act 1897 enabling stringent preventive measures.

India has got several low-cost anti-flu drugs that have shown a measure of resistance towards the Swine Flu. Developed countries are making rapid progress in finding drugs for swine flu and controlling the pandemic may not be far away. 


NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Non-communicable diseases are responsible for the death of a large number of people. It is believed that as many people die from incommunicable diseases as from communicable diseases. In Africa and other countries that are still developing, this number is very high.

It is believed that in Africa and Asia, the fatalities of the incommunicable diseases this will increase in the days to come. The United Nations is taking steps to counter it. Incommunicable diseases account for large number of fatalities in countries such as Europe also. Heart problems account for the highest number of deaths in the incommunicable diseases category closely followed by cancer.

FITNESS PROBLEM

    One of the most acute problems of the present world is the fitness problem: the problem of becoming more and more fat and obese day by day. There was a time when people were dying of starvation and there are people all over the world even now who starve for the lack of availability of food. But, excessive eating leading to uncontrolled obesity has become a chronic disease in many parts of the world now: the problem of eating more than what is needed. This is a sin more than a problem when one considers that in other parts of the world, people are struggling to get even a square meal a day. Need based consumption of the food is a solution for both the problems of obesity and starvation.

    Need based consumption of the food is easier said than done since people who have accustomed to eating in excess cannot that easily shed the habit. The next option for a fit body is burning away the excess food by exercising every day. Though this is also not an easy option to people accustomed to easy life, there is no option but to cultivate it.

    A daily regimen of exercise does help good health and good look. The problem of obesity is acute in rich countries like the United States that has some of the fattest people of the world. There was a man there who weighed more than a thousand pound. He ate more in one sitting than a person normally does in a week. He was to be carried to hospital while fell sick by breaking walls of his house to come outside. However, recent researches have shown that people with a little more than average weight is healthier and livelonger than those less than the average weight. But key here is that there are limits for everything. Excesses are always incongruent with the nature and therefore always dangerous.

FLOWERS

    Flower is something that everyone admires every day. The ethereal beauty of some magnificent flowers has astounded people. They admired them for centuries and still do, notwithstanding the rapid advancement of mankind in technology. When people look upon flowers, they see only the petals of the flowers and admire only that and think that the flower is a simple thing. Many poets have quoted about flowers and even used it as a simile, a metaphor and even in personification. In all these poetic ventures, flowers are described vividly as simple beautiful creations.

Still waters run deep. This is the case of flowers. They are held in the view of the public as simple things and are said to be there only for beauty. No person in ancient times ever thought that flowers could be complex structures. The flower is made up of four whorls or layers. They are the calyx, the corolla, the androecium and the gynoecium. The calyx is made up of sepals, the corolla is made up of petals, the androecium is made up of anthers and gynoecium is made up of carpel. The androecium and the gynoecium are the main parts of the flower and the calyx and the corolla are the secondary parts of the flower, as they do not play an important role in reproduction.


INDIAN VALUES



Humility, which is the greatest among all virtues known to mankind. Humility in Latin is humilis, means low. Humility is being low outside while high inside. It is self-effacing and the denial of self-importance. Humility is the antithesis of arrogance and false pride. It is the law of the nature that people who are strong and virtuous inside always remain low outside. We have examples of Jesus Christ, Gauthama Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, and Basaveshwara nearer in our own state. They are all called as great souls because of their humility.

Humility is the antithesis of arrogance and false pride. Arrogance and false pride are the worst evils of the mankind and sure ways of destruction. Ravana in the Ramayana saw his end because of his arrogance. Duryodhana in the Mahabharatha carved out his destruction due to his false pride. Nearer in time, unlimited arrogance destroyed both Hitler and Saddam Hussain.

Humility is a rare and the greatest virtue mankind has ever known. People with this great virtue in abundance stand out and shine like the Sun. All likes them. Everybody hates arrogance and the arrogant people. Mythology and History are full of stories that show how the forces of humility triumphed over the forces of arrogance.

Only a pure soul can have humility. And the humility brings about all other virtues including simplicity, honesty, patience, love, kindness and above all self-confidence. Humility sprouts from the heart. It is never practised for effect or benefit. Therefore, everybody trusts people who are filled with humility. Humility saves the world from all evils like deception, greed, hatred, anger, competition, suspicion and discontentment. It spreads simplicity, peace, harmony and contentment in humankind.

Jesus Christ spread the doctrine of showing the right cheek as well, when somebody slaps you on the left cheek. He also said that if anybody sues you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. He died on the cross for the sins of the humanity at large. Ramayana is the story of the clash between the forces of humility represented by Rama and the forces of arrogance represented by Ravana, and the ultimate triumph of humility over arrogance. Mahabharatha is the story of the clash between the forces of humility represented by the Pandavas and the forces of arrogance represented by the Kauravas, and the ultimate triumph of humility over arrogance. Mahatma Gandhi vowed not to wear a shirt or travel first class in train until all the people in India could afford it. He discarded all the luxuries of the life and willingly lived the poorest of the poor life. This is humility. Basaveshwara, the Prime Minister of the king of Bijjala of Kalyana called himself a servant of the servants of the noble people. It is humility.

Humility is not easy to come. It needs cleansing of the soul from the evils of arrogance and false pride. And the Satan of the arrogance and false pride has strong hold on our life and cannot be shed easily. Only great souls with extra-ordinary strength inside can reach the higher levels. They are called as great souls. We can only try towards that end. If we succeed to any degree, we can be called as great. Humility is the true path towards peace, harmony and advancement to the divine end.

Humility is civility. Humility is utility. Humility is humanity. Humility is divinity.

The best are those who live in humility,
That brings to life greatness, easy felicity;
Those who have this aplenty are blessed,
                            And always stand out as the very best.




HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

    Honesty is the best policy; so it was, is and will be. Dishonesty always leads to the doom of the person who practices it. On the other hand, honesty leads to greatness. Many great people were honest. People who are notorious are usually dishonest. We must be honest if we want to prosper. So, friends, we must be honest.

    What is honesty? Honesty is truthfulness, honesty is integrity, and honesty is fairness. Honesty basically is openness. It is being truthful to oneself. Honesty is honour. The word honesty is derived from the French root “honeste” and the Latin root “honestus”, meaning honour.

    Honesty makes people great. Gandhiji is called Mahatma or Great Soul because he was an honest person. Gandhiji fought for truth and became an apostle of honesty and peace. He refused to copy the spelling of the word “kettle” even on the suggestion of his teacher during an inspection of his class and this shows that Gandhiji was honest from his childhood.

    Dishonesty may bring temporary relief. But, it certainly harms in the long run. It darkens our soul and breeds fear in our hearts. It shakes our confidence and hurts our self-respect. On the other hand, honesty breeds confidence and nourishes self-respect. It makes us upright and honorable. Honesty brings its own glory and joy.

    Honesty begets honesty. Others trust honest people. Even cruel animals behave differently with honest people. Honesty implies pure and simple heart and a great soul. Honest people are nearer to the nature and to the God.

Some may wonder when it is said that honesty sometimes may involve lies also. But it is true. A lie said with a good intention like saving an innocent life from a gang of thieves as in a story of Mahabharata epic amounts to honesty. The test of honesty is doing well to others. Such acts endear us to all. Simplicity and kindness are the life-blood of honesty. Only honesty with its simplicity and kindness makes us true human beings.

    Honesty means being true to one’s conscience. While following the path of honesty, one must not tell lies and must not be false in any respect.
   
    Dishonesty may help for the time being but it harms our interests in the long term. For example, if one tells lies now, he may save himself from being in trouble. But then, if his lie in uncovered, than, he is in double trouble for doing the wrong and then on top of it telling the lie to cover the wrong. So one must not tell lies.

    Honesty makes all the people to like him and thus gives him a good name in the society. It is nice to tell the truth as our conscience will not be affected and it will also give people a favourable impression and thus lessen our heavenly punishment. 

    All great people including Mahatma Gandhi, George Washington and many others have followed it. All great people have followed honesty as they have the desire not to tell lies. Only good people follow honesty, as other people do not have the self-control to resist the evil temptation to tell lies.

    Honesty makes the world a happier place to live in as everyone trusts each other and there is goodwill everywhere.

WILL AND DETERMINATION

Will and determination is the spice of life. Without this quality, none can become great. Will and determination is the power behind talent and intelligence. Without will and determination, the talent and intelligence just wither.

There are umpteen examples of will and determination pushing a person to greatness. Helen Keller Sudhachandran and Louis Braille are just a few instances of such persons. Helen Keller who was born in America was blind, deaf and dumb. But, she learnt to talk and write in a very short time. She also wrote books.

Sudhachandran is a dancer who lost her legs in an accident. She used artificial legs and continued with her dance career.

Louis Braille was not born blind. He became blind because of an awl he was playing with in his father’s workshop when he was just four years old. Later, he devised the Braille system of language for the benefit of blind people.

There are many such examples as these wherein sheer will and determination took far ahead in life for great accomplishments. Will and determination do raise a person to greater heights. Humans in themselves must develop such a quality.

Will and determination, truly crowning passion,
Built and pulled down crowns and nations;
The inward strength, truly unparallel’d wealth,
Hoisted zealots to life’s unsurpassed zenith.


LEADERSHIP

    A leader is endowed with certain extra powers and this brings additional responsibilities to him. This with time changes the character of the boss. A leader must be one in his group while different all the same. It is easily said than done. Often, the needs of a leader to be different from the group while one remaining as one in the group is seen and abhorred as arrogance

              A good leader relentlessly tries to inspire those under him towards goals set for them.  He encourages them to live up to his expectations out of them. For success to be gained by the leader and the people who work for him, all of them must work as a team and must go through each barrier with resolution and self-confidence to succeed and accomplish. A leader inspires risk-taking and also leads by setting an example for those who work for him. Then only can a leader be a true leader.


WAR IS DESTRUCTIVE

“War is a dreadful thing,
Death and destruction, it does bring;
Be it for land or riches, war is wrong,
A swell of wastes, war is a devil’s song.”

    War with its lieutenants, disease and death, tries to destroy human kind when there is disagreement between countries. War has proven its strength in the first and second World Wars. In these World Wars, altogether seventy million people died. Forty-five percent of them were soldiers and the remaining fifty-five percent were civilians. In that century, altogether one hundred million people died in wars and seventy percent of them in World Wars alone. Another interesting fact is that 150 wars were fought since 1945. So it is important to stop another World War as, if another World War is fought, all the people on the face of the Earth will be wiped out due to the advanced technology.

    If peace gets a chance, all nations and all countries prosper. But, if war befalls on the world, I foresee that by the next century, there may be almost no one living on the watery planet, the Earth.

    During the Kargil war, Afghanistan war and Iraq wars, people in thousands died due to the use of advanced technology. We must take these examples to our mind and ask ourselves whether we want people to die.

    Nobody understood the evils of war and the blessings of peace more than the Mauryan Emperor, Asoka, the Great. How Kalinga war transformed him to an apostle of peace is a legend now.

                                 “Peace builds bridges and trust
And leads there, where all is right.”


GANDHIAN THOUGHTS

Gandhiji led India to freedom. He was a great man of principles and high goals in life. He practised what he preached and that made him a great leader and Mahatma, or Great Soul. He was a very simple man of minimum needs. His thoughts, ideals and principles are codified as Gandhian thoughts.

The principle that he valued the most was truth. He fought for truth. He believed that truth always prevails. He tried out some experiments with truth. They generally turned out to be successful.

He supported non-violence. He with this method defeated the mighty British. He wanted no one to hate another person. He wanted everyone to forgive and forget. And he diligently practised it in his life. He had no enemies

He propagated the importance of cottage industry in a rural economy like India. He wanted the people of India to be self-sufficient. He valued simplicity in life.

Gandhiji strived for the upliftment of all. He strived for the upliftment all sections of people. Harijan upliftment, women’s emancipation, respect to all religions were his priorities. He was the messenger from God to this world.



ISSUES OF MODERN LIFE


The IITs, and IIMs, the AlEEEs; these three acronyms evoke fear, determination and tears among our peers. Pressure finds its way through the bones and veins of the youth of today. The Ills and the IIMs have become the present day Holy Grail of the youth. Samuel Skinner once said, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." This signifies the present-day troubles of man. He feels as if without doing something extraordinary in his life, his life is a waste. Parents tell their siblings to reach great heights in their lives. They pressurize them by trying to cram things into their minds. Some plucky and string-hearted ones rise and fly away into the sky to reach great ranks and heights. However, the majority are not eagles. They come crashing back to the ground.

Present day youth feel that their lives are nothing if they do not get into a good university or college. They struggle hard, go to tuitions, ignore sport activities and bury their heads in huge books. Children merely into their 5th Grade read books and try to understand concepts of college science in order to make their future easy. However, when there are more than 5 lakh children doing the same thing to get one of approximately six thousand seats as in this time's IIT-JEE, there are only going to be a few smiles when the results come out.

Out of every suicide case, one is a youth between 15 and 24. This statistics includes all those aged people who have a terminal illness and thus commit suicide. One in 5 teens thinks of suicide. This shows just how much pressure teens have. To get a good job and consequently good life, one has to study in a good college or university. However, especially in India, good higher education is a rare thing. Also, India being the second most populated country in the world and an amazing 40% of the people being below the age of 20, the competition in our country is cutting edge. One will also have to participate competitively in extra-curricular activities to be a success in life.
              There are several causes for suicide and self-harm in our country. But the most important among them all is pressure put on the youth by their parents to do well in their exams. In the turbulent times of youth, people magnify even small ups and downs horrendously. Teens are famously known to be emotionally insecure. A rather bad experience like failure in examinations or inability to get into a university may just put them over the edge. The chances of not getting into universities have increased these days with more competition.

If one scans the newspaper, one can see several cases of suicide instantly. The pressure that students go through has been going up and if one is not able to cope one feels despondent and unhappy and feels that life is not worth living. One in every twelve teens attempts   suicide. Some especially sensitive children get affected   inordinately by bullying by rather overly boisterous   children and get so depressed that they commit suicide. The easy availability of firearms also helps youth who   want to commit suicide. Some youth also have undiagnosed mental illness such as severe bouts of manic depression. It has been found by surveys that 20% of all youth have severe bouts of depression. If unfortunate events happen to them, they may get the desire to commit suicide.

Another reason why youth commit suicide is excess loneliness. The social attitude of youths these days is not what it once was. Peers do not easily accept a lonely person searching for friendly company these days. Introverts are rarely accepted into gangs of extroverts and even if accepted are neglected, teased or bullied to the point of tears.

Another cause of suicide and self-harm is addiction to drugs or alcohol which increases the bouts and magnitude of depression which again induces people to commit suicide. Also, if a dearly loved one passes away, it may drive youth to depression. There have been cases of people committing suicide because of severe depression because of the death of hero-figure. Also, there have been cases of people committing suicide due to an unfortunate national event taking place. Examples include people committing suicide because of India losing out in the first round of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

To prevent suicide among youth, cases of depression among youths must be found out as soon as possible. Also youth help programs must be set up in the country for youth who require help. Treatment must not be avoided by depressed youth. Several youth pull out of treatment at the slightest chance. They should be prevented or dissuaded from doing so. Also, parents should try to get an inkling of what thoughts are going through their charge's minds. Parents often do not talk to their children about their failures as they feel that it would be like applying salt to the wounds of the children. However, they should comfort their children who at that time are undergoing a period of guilt and self-blaming. Parents should get the idea to their minds that their children can commit suicide. Several parents of youth who committed suicide had no inkling that their children were unhappy. The irritable manner of youth must be taken seriously as it may be one of the symptoms of suicide. Suicide attempts by youth must be taken seriously as youths who have tried to commit suicide once will try to commit suicide again.

Several youth have very low self-esteem and feel that they are just not up to their peers and feel that life is not worth living. They should be made to realize that each person is special and they are worth something. An example is Dr. A. P. J Abdul Kalam; he had a desire to become a pilot in his youth. He was unable to pass his exam. He then went to visit a saint. This saint told him that Cod would put him in a better position in his life. Later, as we know, Dr. Kalam became the President of India after a sparkling scientific career.

Life is something that is short. To make it even shorter is something that must not be called for. Cod's gift should not be taken lightly. Whatever happens, one should have the courage to face untoward events in our lives with a brave heart and straight face.                                                               
                                                               
IMPORTANCE OF READING NEWSPAPERS

“Nulla nuova, buona nuova” meaning no news is good news is a famous Italian usage.  It may be true in the ambience of too much news of disturbing nature pouring in from all directions all the time nolens volens.  But, news is sine qua non for active life.  None can ignore the milieu in which he lives.  Only news keeps us in touch with the milieu in which we live.  It gives us the insight to the dynamics that form the environment around us, it be in local or regional or national or international level.  Keeping doors shut from news renders us dead and leads to isolation from the world around us and ultimately to atrophy.

The main conveyors of news are newspapers.  Though there are many other sources of news like magazines and books in print media, radio and television channels and Internet connections in electronic media, words of mouth and telephone and wireless communications etc, no other source ever could come near the newspaper in importance.  It is true of the past and the present and it is true of the future also.  Neither the advent of the television nor that of the Internet could affect the importance of the newspaper.  The reason for this is the width, breadth and the depth of the news provided by the newspaper, its low cost and the ease of providing the news at our leisure and comfort as many times as we desire.

Newspapers are very important in many ways.  They give us lots of information about various matters at various levels that are not available anywhere.  Though magazines and books also give lots of information, the scope of the news there is limited to a few selected topics.  Televisions and internet connections while provide news faster than the newspapers, it cannot have the width, breadth and depth of the newspapers and do not provide the comfort of the repeated references at our leisure and comfort apart from harming our eyes because of the glare and being the source of health hazards because of radiations.

People of all profession need newspapers.  Engineers, doctors, scientists, professors and other professionals need them to know the day-to-day developments in their respective fields.  Businessmen need newspapers to keep in touch with the economic and commercial trends in the country and see the current share prices.  Politicians need them to read recent political events in the country.  Others read newspapers to know how changes around them affect their life.  Students read newspapers to broaden their knowledge and keep abreast of the recent developments in various fields, be it in politics, economics, science, sports or art and culture.  Newspaper is an important tool of the learning process for students.

Advertisements in newspapers are also very informative and give lots of information about the world around and recent trends apart from being very entertaining.  The editorials and the articles in the editorial page of the newspapers are always very analytical and give insight to the news and their background.  Reading newspapers is incomplete sans a glance to the editorials and the articles.

Reading newspapers everyday is must for both students and adults for growth and enlightenment irrespective of the class or field of their life.  For, reading newspaper everyday is highly educational, and an important informal education in that. One can ignore this important function of the life at own peril. 




ROLE OF STUDENTS IN ROAD SAFETY

Roads are the arteries of a country; they are the networks of the lifelines that keep the country healthy and intact. Stoppages in the arteries damage the heart and lead to the death of the body. It is the same with the country. Unsafe roads lead to the damage of the nation. Safe roads are as important to the national life as are safe arteries to a healthy body.

Roads are a public utility networks. The Government builds and maintains roads for the public good. Safe roads are its responsibility. It meets the responsibility through its Engineering, Transport and Traffic Police wings. But, this does not prevent the public from its responsibility towards safe roads. Actually, the role of the public in the matter as the ultimate beneficiary of the road-network is the key of safe roads in any country.

Students are the future of a country. Some day, they are going to be in the helm. Safe roads are their responsibility also. They are the builders of the future of the country and their ideas constitute its direction. As citizens and the hopes of the future, they have their own responsibilities towards the country that strives to better the future for their benefit. Their responsibilities towards safe roads are one of them. They must try to raise road safety awareness in the public and help the traffic police in controlling the traffic during the rush hours. They can also be the model road users. What they need is a determination to try and provide safety in roads.

Rudyard Kipling in “Diversity Of creatures” says, “Transportation is civilization”. This is a very profound truth. Without transport and the movement of goods and people, there can be no civilization and culture. The increase in the standard of living in many countries in the world in recent years has been almost entirely due to the strides made in transport especially by the introduction of the motor vehicle with its flexibility and ability to get into places otherwise inaccessible even by railways. Danger is unavoidable in the world of transportation. There has never been a time when travel was not dangerous. L. G. Norman in his Public Health Paper for the World Health Organisation in 1962 says, “The problem of road traffic accidents on a large scale has arisen for the first time in the present century. All other epidemics throughout history have been due to the onslaught of agencies external to man, principally the protozoa, bacteria and viruses; but road accidents are because of man himself. A terrible penalty of mortality has already been paid as the cost of integrating the motor vehicle into modern life.”

The three E’s, Engineering, Education and Enforcement that are the heart of the accident problem constitutes the answer to the traffic safety problem while three P’s namely Pressure, Prejudice and Politics cause the road safety measures go haywire. A good approach to the problem of the road safety must take all these three positive E’s and negative P’s into account for a solution. While Engineering is the job of the engineering department and enforcement of the police and the transport departments, the students certainly as a segment of the general public can help Education as a part of the three E’s. Students can also partake in rendering ineffective the negative influences of the three P’s on the road safety.

The role of the students in the road safety measures is limited to three functions namely model road-users, road safety educators and pressure groups for safe roads. They act as model road users in the first while as educators of the same measures to the larger public, especially the unenlightened and the uneducated in the second, and pressure groups for the same measures through powerful parents and self-efforts in the third. They can be a great source of advantage in stopping the normal pressures of life, prejudices and self-interested political maneuvers that work against the needs of safe roads. Students as the interest groups of the safe roads certainly turnout to be great assets of the future of the country by virtue of their knowledge, experience and passion for safe road efforts. This is why introduction of safe road measures as a subject in the secondary education system of the country will prove a great advantage for the advancement of the country.

Safe roads of the modern world involve road dividers, zebra crossings, speed limits, parking slots, one-way traffics, road signboards, traffic signals, traffic booths, road safety literature, and above all safe road educational and awareness programmes. Violation of traffic rules like wrong parking, joy riding, over-speeding, crossing the roads at wrong spots are the major causes of traffic snarl-ups. Students can be of immense help in traffic management in preventing these road nuisances that can lead to serious consequences by being model road users, educators to the unenlightened public and pressure groups towards the end.

Pressures of money and power and political influences always played adverse role against the interests of the safe road by stalling the process of the enforcement of traffic rules. Students as a model group can play an important role in creating healthy public opinion against such holes in the due process of the law-enforcement and make roads safe for all.

Safe roads assure a safe return home and ensure a happy and more confident life back home. This means happier life and less tense outside activities. Safe roads certainly enhance the quality of life. Students who constitute the future of the country and for whose benefits all efforts of the present world are streamlined must actively partake in performing their role towards the maintenance of the safe roads and improving the quality of the life.
                                                                                            
                                                       
TREATMENT OF WOMEN THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

For a very long time, women have been discriminated against. All religions suffer from this weakness of rendering woman subordinate to man. According to Christianity Eve came second and led Adam to evil and women are barred from the positions of pastor. So also Hinduism or any other religion. Islam leads in this discrimination.

But, ancient history anywhere in the world is replete with cases where women held high positions, leaders and respected without discrimination.  In the past they could become what they wanted in life and were given education. This changed during the fifth century A.D. and continued till now. Women are awakened to their rights now and are fighting for that. Time is not far away to see the sex discrimination being completely wiped out of the human race.

LAW AND JUSTICE

    Greed breeds greed, and leads to ruinous deeds. People by nature always want some thing or the other. Often what people want for them may turn out to be harmful for others individually or for the combined good of the people. Therefore protection from other’s greed is an essential need of the human society. It is here that the process of law and justice come into play. Laws, law courts and legal systems were set up to see that the combined interests of the people are protected. Civilised society is obliged to obey the laws, law courts and legal systems for symbiotic existence. However, outlaws are the common feature of any society, those who live at the expense of others.

It has been believed that justice is absolute. People since ancient times have wrongly believed that justice can be made to measure to the crime committed or the good deed done. People believe that justice is very simple. They however are completely wrong as justice is not at all an easy task to do about and is a very difficult task indeed to decide and judge.

Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize laureate economist of the Indian origin and former Master of the Trinity College at Cambridge University in a book on justice talks about what justice is all about in his book, “The Idea of Justice” published in July 2009. This book along its length sets out to explain Amartya Sen’s view of justice and how he feels about justice in general. This is a very complicated book and he talks about things in great detail.

He talks about justice as some thing that must be separated from other things in general. He talks about justice being relative. To illustrate this, he gives an example. He asks to consider three people who want a flute: one is who prepared it, another is who alone can play it and the other one is who has got no other source of pleasure except from the flute. Each of them has his claim for the flute on different grounds. It is a very tough thing to judge who should get the flute. Justice is like this in the real world. It is not at all absolute and relative to the issue and the circumstances in hand. This is a novel concept in the administration of justice and warrants close look from experts.


GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS

    Government looks after the people. It has some functions to perform as it takes all the major decisions on the people’s life. Government performs two types of functions. They are Regulatory functions and Developmental functions. Regulatory functions are the functions that are administrative. They are about maintaining the stability of a country. Developmental functions refer to the functions of the government; that is about developing the lot of the people. Developmental measures are key for the welfare of the people and the prosperity of a country, and concomitantly for the peace and stability of the nation, for peace and stability of a nation are found closely related to employment opportunities and the economic well-being of the people live there.

The basic needs of a citizen are food, water, clothes and shelter. They are very important as no one can live without them. All other things come thereafter. They are the things of first priority to the government.

In governance, developmental and regulatory functions go hand in hand and they are inter-dependent. Lack of development leads to dissatisfaction and unrest, causing serious regulatory problems. On the other hand, efficient regulatory functions lead to balanced and secure life style leading to optimum prosperity in the country. Developmental and regulatory functions being inter-complimentary, government intent upon the prosperity of the country gives equal focus to both.


INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT                                      

    Infrastructure is the network of supporting facilities for life and development. Without it, no nation can possibly survive. It develops the nation and develops the style of living of a country.

    The national economy is extremely important. Infrastructure plays a very important role in the economy of a country. Lack of Infrastructure means essential ingredients needed for the economic growth being absent, leading to economic retardation. Infrastructure is the very soul of the economy.

    Roads, communication systems, electricity, availability of housing, education, health care are all parts of the infrastructure. Without them, people, industry and economy cannot survive and grow.

    Whether it is industry, agriculture, commerce or ordinary life of the citizens, they all depend upon the common facilities available around and the quality of the process closely depends on the infrastructure available. Therefore the infrastructure available decides the style and standard of life and activities around. Infrastructure being the common facilities, it is the responsibility of the government in public domains. It is for this reason it is said that the Government decides the style and standards of life and activities in a country. Creating adequate infrastructure is the basic function of any government, and it is sine qua non for national economy, growth and development.
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RESEARCH IN CONSUMER PRODUCTS

    In these days, many new things are making their appearance. There are new styles of Mobile phones, Walkman, Internet mobile phones, cars, and computers and so on. The list seems endless. The producers of these new gadgets get excellent returns on their investments, as people do not mind in investing on gadgets of new and latest features. Availability of excess money in common man is causing this boom. Most of these gadgets are just the same products with new attractive features like the Internet facility in mobile phones.

As there is lots of money involved in this business, there is heavy competition for creating products of new additional features. A few companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo with huge outlay on their own research units continuously improve upon their products and introduce new products to the market every now and then to keep their consumer base intact, lest competitors knock-off their share. Sony as the leader in electronics goods and Microsoft in computer business are known for periodical update of their products to the fast changing needs of the consumers worldwide. How Microsoft forces its consumers to buy its goods every now and then by periodically introducing new versions of its Operating System from Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows Millennium to Windows XP to Windows Vista and updating its Office Suite almost every year is a legendary tactic now that made both Microsoft and Bill Gates richest in the world. No doubt, technology and the world also benefited by this.


EFFECT OF MOVIES ON PEOPLE

    These days, large numbers of movies are produced all over the world. They include all sort of new movies such as Star Wars, Harry Potter movies and so on. These films make deep impacts on the people and often bring large-scale attitudinal changes in them and affect values and opinions. The changes can be for good or bad depending on the nature of the film. For example, there is a character called Yoda in the Star Wars series, which is an alien. He always talks in passive voice. His courage and determination made the character popular with the filmgoers making them to copy him by using words such as ‘Win I do not think you will’. Other movie stars have also inspired people to change something in them by copying them. This is not a healthy development, as the copying process is not inspired by inherent quality, but by blind copying instinct.
There are instances of children trying to copy Superman and jumping from high places to death. Films are meant to enjoy and it should strictly remain at that place. Following the antics of the heroes or other characters of films is overstepping the scope of the films with which those films were produced. Strangely, this foolhardy copying instinct is not restricted to adolescent youths. Instances are aplenty of fully grownup men and women suffering with this childish crush.

Developing super human images of their film heroes is another form of this crush. Both India and United States have instances of popular film heroes rising to the highest executive positions of the country by popular vote. South India saw at least three popular regional film stars becoming popular Chief Ministers of their respective States in Mr. M.G.Ramachandran and Ms. Jayalalitha in Tamilnadu and Mr. N.T.Ramarao in Andhra Pradesh while the United States of America has Mr. Reagan as its President. The crushes people develop for their favourite film stars of the opposite sex are a matter of total madness of another dimension altogether. It is common to see people of all ages developing deep crushes to their favourite actors and going mad after them purely on the basis of the screen images they represented in films or on their screen histrionics though they never gad a chance to meet those heroes and know anything about their personal traits and character except those fanciful stories presented through film magazines. They develop illusions that they deeply love those film stars and resort to all kinds of nonsense. Though such madness is not restricted only to film stars, it is more visible for film stars and inspires disgust.    


SANSKRIT AND LATIN

    There are many languages in the world like English, French and Chinese, which are spoken by large numbers of people. The most widely used language in the world is Mandarin, which is used by more than one billion people all over the world. Next comes English.

There are also languages that have faded into oblivion and disappeared from the surface of the Earth for lack of use. Some are on the anvil of disappearance. Sanskrit and Latin come under this category.  Both are classical languages and were in their zenith of their glory for long period in ancient time. All languages have their own circles of rise and fall and both Sanskrit and Latin have come full circle. Both are almost dead as spoken languages and survive because of their great classics of the yore and as expressions of scholarships in serious writings. The classic nature of the languages and the purity warranted in using them gradually rendered the languages unpopular as the stress of life style shifted to easy and comfortable life. 

As the world has become a global village because of communication and transport revolutions of the last two centuries, world needed a common language for its people. English has easily filled the slot without anybody asking for it. The global spread of English no doubt created several versions of English like American English, Indian English, Australian English et cetera. But English remains English in all these versions at the soul.  Popularity of mass media like television channels and print media, and computer and Internet revolutions helped in acceptance of English as the common language all over the world.

There are attempts in India and Europe to revive both Sanskrit and Latin as spoken languages to their ancient glory. Also individual attempts are seen to infuse life to these languages by launching magazines, newspapers and television channels though commercially they are unviable. But, none of them have succeeded except for minor growths till now. They have a Herculean task before them to succeed in the present easy life style.




MEN AND WOMEN WHO MADE HISTORY



    Once, the British Empire stretched all around the world. It was said that the Sun never sets in the British Empire. It was true. The British Empire had England itself in the west; it had United States of America to its east and undivided India in the West with East Asian countries and Australia further west. All large empires must come to an end one day. The Byzantine Empire lasted for a very long time, but disintegrated in course of time. The British Empire also disintegrated in course of time and there remains nothing except the mainland England now with its former colonies constituting honorary Commonwealth of countries.

The United States of America was a part of the larger British Empire. The United States of America got its freedom from the British Empire under Mr. George Washington, a very brave and noble leader, who led his country to victory over the British. A gentle man to the core, he was known for his firm decisions. A very determined man as he was, “Freedom or Death” was his life motto, and he was ready to sacrifice his life for the freedom of the people of his country. Such was the man who brought freedom to the sole superpower of the present world.

MOTHER TERESA

Very few people show pity for poor, weak and sickly people. Mother Teresa is one of the few people who showed it to the unfortunate lot of the humanity. She even helped and cared for the people who had dangerous and highly contagious diseases. She really is love and kindness personified in human form.

A Catholic nun named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in 1910 in Skopje, now in Yugoslavia. She studied in Ireland and went to teach in Kolkata in India. When she was travelling on a train one night, she heard a soft voice telling her to leave the convent and help the poor people who have no one to help them. This entirely changed her life.

She wore a sari and went barefoot to the poorest slums of Kolkata to serve the poorest of the poor. In 1948, the Church let her set up a new order of Nuns, called the Missionaries of Charity. Since then, Mother Teresa and her nuns of the Missionaries of Charity have saved babies left on the wastages on the roadsides, looked after lepers and cared for the old, sick and dying. Her Order had more than 300 branches throughout the world by the time of her death in 1998. She was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for her great service for the humanity and the greatest Indian award, the Bharata Ratna, in recognition of her service to India. The angel of the human kind died in 1998 just before she reached the age of eighty-nine.

It is because of her love, kindness and service that many suffering people found hope and light in their life. Her simple love and service for humanity raises her to the level of godliness. Yes, her death gave a lot of grief to the poor people and the entire humanity, but they still have hope because of her.

THE LEGACY OF LEE KUAN YEW

    Lee Kuan Yew or Harry Lee Kuan Yew was the first Prime Minister of the sovereign Republic of Singapore for twenty-five years from 1965 to 1990 and the first Prime Minister of the state of Singapore under the Federation of Malaysia for six years from 1959 to 1965. He is a fourth generation Chinese Singaporean and an ardent champion of merger of Singapore with the federation of Malaysia till its Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rehman following riots between Muslim majority Malay and Chinese majority Singapore unceremoniously threw Singapore out of the Federation in 1965.  Lee Kuan Yew as the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore is credited to transform a volatile, underdeveloped colonial outpost with no natural resources into a stable, First World Asian Tiger Singapore from a very weak and poor, volatile, underdeveloped colony of severe shortage of natural resources and water to one of the World Asian Tigers along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan and one of the most stable and richest countries of the world.

Lee Kuan Yew has climbed very great heights in his quest to transform Singapore to an economic power of Asia and became a leader the world adores as a capable administrator and respected statesman. He raised Singapore from the lowest depths of instability and resources to the heights of an economic power. In recognition of his great contribution to the Republic of Singapore, he was honoured by retaining him in the Cabinet as Senior Minister in advisory capacity after he stepped down from the post of Prime Minister in 1990 with the distinction of being the longest serving Prime Minister of the world after holding it to then unprecedented long tenure of twenty-five years.  The next Government of Singapore that came to power under his son in 2004 honoured him by retaining in the Cabinet as the Minister Mentor.

HELEN KELLER

    Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia in America.  Severe brain fever rendered her blind, dumb and deaf before she was even two years old.  But, the handicap did not take away her determination to lead a successful life. Actually, it added to her inner strength and resolves to reach higher and accomplish great things. She learnt to talk and write by herself and mastered Braille language meant for blind.

    A lady by name Anmam Field Salivan who was dedicated to the service of blind found Helen Keller and helped her to read and write. She used to keep a doll in Helen’s hand and lead Helen’s fingers to write the word doll on a sheet of paper. Thus, the first word learnt by Helen was doll. Later, Helen learnt to talk in a school for the deaf. Soon, she developed a sense for recognizing everything. She also wrote many books and became very famous.

    Helen Keller lived for 88 years and died in 1968.

CAPTAIN B.M.BHATRA

    This is from the memoir of Captain B.M Bathra when he was an officer of the Indian forces during the Second World War when he was stationed in Tehran in Iran. At that time, Iran was divided into two parts. They were the partly controlled by Britain and partly by Soviet Union. Mr. B.M. Bathra was the second ranking officer of the Indian army present at British Iran at that time. The United States of America at that time did not have any influence in Iran and was not at all in the scene in Iran. The big three of the Allies of that time i.e. Churchill of Britain, Stalin of Russia and Theodore Roosevelt of the United States of America came to Iran to overview the security arrangements there and also to brief officers about their part on the D-Day. Mr. B.M. Bathra was in charge of a birthday party for Churchill. However, he had to take a lot of precautions to ensure that the Germans would not know of the event for security reasons. In the party, Mr. B.M. Bathra noted that Churchill was all rosy and happy. But, Roosevelt looked pale and withdrawn. Mr. B.M. Bathra thought that Roosevelt may not live long and actually, Roosevelt died the following year. However, unlike those two, Stalin was the model of quietness and Mr. B.M. Bathra notes that when Stalin saw him, his look was so cold that he felt shivers run down his spine. 

GENERAL DYER

    Over fifty years ago, the British ruled India. The British ruled India very badly and people complained about the British. However, the British did not hear the complaints of the people. Even when the Indian representatives complained about the British, they were not heard. The people were very unhappy, but they could not do a thing as the British were ruling India and the representatives were not ruling India. They tried to improve the life of the Indian people, but the people were disappointed, as the British did not hear their pleadings. They did not do of course. Finally, India got its independence. It was a long fight and many things spurred the people of India. The ignorance of the British towards Indian affairs was one. Many other things also affected India’s independence. The British did many bad things to India. The bad things included the Amritsar massacre among other things. The Amritsar Massacre was the result of the British firing about a thousand rounds of bullets to an Indian crowd. The regiment who did this was under General Dyer. General Dyer will always be notorious because of this in India at least. Many people were killed in this Massacre and it brought worldwide condemnation upon the British. This was finally to spur the Indians to their independence. General Dyer’s deeds were very bad indeed and as a result, the British Empire finally crumbled away. The people always looked and craved for independence after this.
Brigadier-General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer CB (October 9, 1864 – July 23, 1927) was a British Indian Army officer responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Dyer was born in Murree, in British India, now in Pakistan. He spent his childhood in Shimla and received his early education at the Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. He attended Midleton College, Co. Cork between 1875 and 1881. In 1885, following attendance at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) as a Lieutenant, and served in riot control duties in Belfast (1886) and the Third Burmese War (1886–87). He was then transferred to the Indian Army, initially joining the Bengal Staff Corps as a Lieutenant in 1887 and being attached to the 39th Bengal Infantry, later transferring to 29th Punjabis. He served in the latter in the Black Mountain campaign (1888), the relief of Chitral (1895) (being promoted Captain in 1896) and the Mahsud blockade (1901–02). In 1901 he was appointed a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General. He was then transferred to 25th Punjabis where he served in the Zakha Khel Expedition (1908). He commanded the 25th Punjabis in India and Hong Kong and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1910. During World War I (1914–18), he commanded the Seistan Force, for which he was Mentioned in Despatches and made a Companion of the Bath (CB). He was promoted Colonel in 1915, and was made a temporary Brigadier-General in 1916. In 1919, about a month after the Amritsar incident, in the Third Anglo-Afghan War, his Brigade relieved the garrison of Thal, for which he was again mentioned in dispatches. 5th Brigade at Jamrud was his last command posting for a few months in 1919. He retired on 17 July 1920, retaining the rank of Colonel.
The white population in Punjab in 1919 feared a plot to overthrow British rule. There was talk of mutiny and of death threats to Europeans. Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, decided to deport leading agitators from the province. One person who was targeted was Dr. Satyapal, who was in the Army Medical Services during World War I. He advocated non-violent civil disobedience and was prevented from speaking in public. Another person was Dr. Kitchlew, a Muslim barrister who wanted political change and was non-violent. The Deputy Commissioner, Miles Irving, did not know the background of these two people and suspected some deeper conspiracy resulting in the arrest of the two men. This event led to a burst of events in Punjab. Crowds gathered in all public places demanding a release of the two men. The troops panicked and opened fire on a bridge across a railway line, causing several deaths. This resulted in a mob which returned to the city centre. Reinforcements were brought in for the army.
The mobs sought out Europeans in the city. On April 9, 1919, Miss Marcella Sherwood, who supervised the Mission Day School for Girls was bicycling round the city to close her schools when she was assaulted by the mob in a narrow street, the Kucha Kurrichhan, was beaten and left wounded. She was rescued by local Indians who hid her from the mob and moved her to the fort. This attack on a lady incensed Dyer, who was the commandant of the infantry brigade in Jullundur, who instructed the troops of the garrison regarding reprisals against Indians.
Brigadier Dyer is infamous for the orders which he gave on April 13, 1919 in Amritsar. It was under his command that 90 troops, including 25 Gurkhas of 1st/9th Gurkha Rifles, 25 Pathans and Baluch of 54th Sikhs and 59th Sindh Rifles, all armed with .303 Lee-Enfield rifles (and the Gurkhas additionally armed with khukris) opened fire on a gathering of unarmed civilians, including women and children gathered at the Jallianwalla Bagh in what came to be later known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
The civilians had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh to participate in the annual Baisakhi celebrations which are both a religious as well as a cultural festival of the Punjabis. The Bagh-space was comprised of 6 to 7 acres (28,000 m2) and was walled on all sides except for five entrances. Four of these entrances were very narrow, admitting only a few people at a time. The fifth entrance was blocked by the armed soldiers, as well as by two armoured cars armed with machine guns. (These vehicles were unable to pass through the entrance.) Upon entering the park, the General ordered the troops to fire directly into the assembled gathering. Firing continued until his troops' supply of 1650 rounds of ammunition was exhausted. The firing continued unabated for about 10 minutes.   
From time to time, Dyer "checked his fire and directed it upon places where the crowd was thickest"; he did this not because the crowd was slow to disperse, but because he (the General) "had made up his mind to punish them for having assembled there." Some of the soldiers initially fired in the air, at which General Dyer shouted: "Fire low. What have you been brought here for?" Later, Dyer's own testimony revealed that the crowd was not given any warning to disperse and he felt no remorse for having ordered his troops to fire.   
On the day following the massacre, Mr. Kitchin, the Commissioner of Lahore as well as General Dyer, both used threatening language. The following is the English translation of Dyer's Urdu Statement directed at the local residents of Amritsar on the afternoon of April 14, 1919, a day after the Amritsar massacre:
"You people know well that I am a Sepoy and soldier. Do you want war or peace? If you wish for a war, the Government is prepared for it, and if you want peace, then obey my orders and open all your shops; else I will shoot. For me the battle-field of France or Amritsar is the same. I am a military man and I will go straight. Neither shall I move to the right nor to the left. Speak up, if you want war? In case there is to be peace, my order is to open all shops at once. You people talk against the Government and persons educated in Germany and Bengal talk sedition. I shall report all these. Obey my orders. I do not wish to have anything else. I have served in the military for over 30 years. I understand the Indian Sepoy and Sikh people very well. You will have to obey my orders and observe peace. Otherwise the shops will be opened by force and Rifles. You will have to report to me of the Badmash. I will shoot them. Obey my orders and open shops. Speak up if you want war? You have committed a bad act in killing the English. The revenge will be taken upon you and upon your children."   
Brigadier Dyer designated the spot where Miss Marcella Sherwood was assaulted sacred and daytime pickets were placed at either end of the street. Anyone wishing to proceed in the street between 6am and 8pm was made to crawl the 150 yards (140 m) on all fours, lying flat on their bellies. The order was not required at night due to a curfew. The humiliation of the order struck the Indians deeply. Most importantly, the order effectively closed the street. The houses had no back doors and the inhabitants could not go out without climbing down from their roofs. This order was in effect from April 19 until April 25, 1919. No doctor or supplier was allowed in, resulting in the sick being untended.
After the Amritsar massacre, Dyer's health failed and in 1921 he was stricken with paralysis. He never recovered. He died at Long Ashton, near Bristol, on July 23, 1927 of Atherosclerosis and cerebral haemorrhage. In the final moments of his life, he is reported to have murmured: "but I don’t want to get better. Some say I did right, while others say I did wrong. I only want to die... and know of my maker whether I did right or wrong."
The Morning Post remembered him in articles titled, "The Man Who Saved India" and "He did his Duty". The Westminster Gazette wrote a contrary opinion, "No British action, during the whole course of our history in India, has struck a severer blow to Indian faith in British justice than the massacre at Amritsar, and the attitude of official Anglo-India to it."





NANDAN NILEKANI

Nandan Nilekani is an Indian software entrepreneur. He is currently the Co-Chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd, of which he is also a co-founder, along with N. R. Narayana Murthy and others.

Nilekani is the second-youngest son of Durga and Mohan Rao Nilekani, a manager in Minerva Mills. He was born in Sirsi, a small town in Karnataka, and spent his first 12 years in Bangalore. Nilekani moved in with his uncle's family in Dharwad for his education, studying at Bishop Cotton Boys School, Bangalore, and attending the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay from 1973.

In 1978, Nilekani joined Patni Computer Systems where his colleague was N. R. Narayana Murthy. Three years later in 1981, Nilekani and six other enthusiasts, led by Murthy, decided to start their own company, InfoSys (later renamed Infosys).

Nilekani became the Chief Executive Officer of Infosys in March 2002, taking over from Murthy. Nilekani served as CEO and MD of the company from March 2002 to April 2007, when he relinquished his position to his colleague Kris Gopalakrishnan, becoming Co-Chairman. He has since mentioned that he will still function in an executive capacity within the company by "focussing on key client relationships, being a brand ambassador for the company, and working on transformational initiatives". Nilekani has an estimated net worth of US$1.3billion.

In 2004, Nilekani was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest Indian civilian decoration. In January 2006, he became one of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the World Economic Forum (WEF) Foundation Board.

Nilekani was named one of "Asia's Power 25 – The Most Powerful People in Business in Asia" by Fortune magazine, 2004. He was regarded by TIME magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in May 2006, and by Forbes Asia as "Business Leader of the Year" 2006.
Nilekani is a co-founder of India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM). He is also the chairperson of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF). His book, Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century was launched on November 24, 2008.In the book, Nandan discusses a host of ideas ranging from the impact ideas such as democracy, globalization and demography have had on India's growth and development, to its slow progress in the areas of infrastructure and the provision of primary education to all, to the ideological deadlock when it comes to politics, higher education and labor reforms. He also addresses a few ideas that are vital to cementing India's position as a global power - that of its social security provisions, its policies on clean energy and the environment, as well as its ability to deal with lifestyle-related diseases and ailments.

In this book, Nandan discusses on topics such as the future of India, its recent history,the ideas and attitudes that evolved with the times and contributed to the country’s progress,India’s early socialist policies,its young population,Information Technology, caste politics, labour reform, infrastructure, higher education, the English language in India among others.

Nandan Nilekani was appointed as the chairperson of the newly created Unique Identification Authority of India by the central government in 2009 in the rank of a cabinet minister. He accepted the challenge and assumed the responsibility after resigning to the Infosys.

MOHAMMED ALI JINNAH

    British ruled India till 1947. Independence cost India the division of the subcontinent into two nations – India and Pakistan. The division of the country was caused because of the religious divide in the country between the majority Hindus and the minority Muslims. Mohammed Ali Jinnah led Muslims to agitation for a separate homeland for Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. Mahatma Gandhi, who was leading the struggle for independence foresaw that such a partition would certainly lead to a lot of bloodshed. But, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was adamant in his demand for the partition. He called Jawaharlal Nehru as an impetuous pundit. He is also believed to have condemned many of the mainstream freedom fighters.

Distaste for Mohammed Ali Jinnah in India is so wide spread that the praise of Mohammed Ali Jinnah by BJP supremo, L.K.Advani, during his Pakistan raised such a storm in India that he fell into the bad books of his own party.

PERVEZ MUSHARAFF

    Pervez Musharaff is the former President of Pakistan. He is one of the strongest personalities in the world politics and well known in India for two reasons, that he was born and spent his childhood in India till his father with his family migrated to newly formed Pakistan during the Great Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, and that the Kargil War was his making while he was the Commander in Chief of the Pakistan armed Forces.

Pakistan army overthrew the Government of Prime Minister Nawab Sheriff after its defeat in Kargil War and Musharaff became the head of the Government as well as the head of the State later. Post-9/11 American aggressive policy brought President Musharaff to the knees to reluctantly submit to the American needs to ally with the NATO forces against his Taliban friends in Afghanistan. He had no option but to militarily support the NATO forces to overthrow the Taliban Government and later pursue both Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists from Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

He lost power after elected government came to power in Pakistan. 

JACK SLIPPER AND THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

    Jack Slipper was a renowned and efficient detective of the Scotland Yard. In the Great Train Robbery in Britain of 1963 wherein a train carrying mail from Glasgow to London was robbed of two million pound worth of goods, perhaps the most well known and the biggest robbery in the world, Jack Slipper was invested with the investigation of the case on behalf of the Scotland Yard as its most efficient and capable investigator. He successfully detected the case and arrested all those involved in the case except for one known as Ronnie Biggs who evaded Jack Slipper’s attempts to catch him, the only black spot in the otherwise illustrious career of this detective. As a splendid detective, he was compared as an equal to legendary and fictional Sherlock Holmes.
   
    Ronnie Biggs was at large till 2001 when he gave himself up. Actually, Jack Slipper traced Ronnie at Brazil in 1974, but Brazil denied extradition of Ronnie Biggs, as there was no extradition treaty between Brazil and Britain.

THE END OF AZAHARI

    Azahari bin Husin was a terrorist who lived in Indonesia. He lived a charmed life hiding from the police and other security personnel of Indonesia after committing terrorist crimes and escaped all attempts of the police and security forces to catch him. He was a very lucky person as often he was leaving his hiding place barely minutes before the police reached there. At last, his time ran out as for all outlaws. He came face to face with the police and security forces searching for him and fought till the end of his life. He was found on an assignment to burst a bomb-vest at a populated area when police shot him and thus avoided more casualties.

The events that led to the deadly encounter make interesting reading. The police of Indonesia were trying to trace the bombers of the 30th August Bali bomb attack. They started finding the people whom the terrorists had met just before they set off their bombs in Bali. One of the persons was found to be a suspected terrorist. Police followed him for some time trying to find out his move and activities. When they were trying to do so, the man found out that he was being followed and tried to set-off his bomb-vest. But, before he succeeded in his efforts, police captured him and interrogated. They found out from him through interrogation that he was a sort of messenger between Azahari bin Husin and his assistant who was till then unknown. The ‘messenger’ then told the police that Azahari bin Husin was hiding in a particular hotel room. The police went there and shot him dead while he resisted capture and tried to blow his bomb-vest.

RATAN TATA

The economics of India has got only a few well-known names. They include Ratan Tata, the Ambani brothers and also many more people. However, the most important of these names is Ratan Tata. He is a very famous person in India and is responsible for the meteoric rise of the Tata group to fame. He is a very shy person and is often underestimated by his opponents. The Tata group is now gone International and is trying to catch up with its main rivals. They include the United States of America based General Electric and Wal-Mart. However, it will be a long time before it catches up with these companies as these companies are established firmly in the International scene.
















THE WORLD IN THE 21ST CENTURY


We may be wondering what arsenals are in store for the remaining nine decades of the 21st century after the momentous and suspenseful events along the passage of the 20th century and later that mangled the quiet facade of the Earth. Life as a stream of endless processes, catenated by the cardinal rule of cause and effect, may open up a vista for us to infer what the world will be in the 21st century.

Taking clues from the loose ends of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21 century, and realizing that everything moves in circle and ipso facto every practice and every idea has its own ups and downs in circular motion along the course of time, helps to deduce the possible structure of the 21st century on and around certain fixed pillar posts vacated by the 20th century in its haste to give way to the 21st century.

As the dusk of the 20th century and the nascent ness of the first decade of the 21 century give way to the maturity of the 21st century, new political alignments may emerge to replace senescent superpowers that ruled the roost in international politics. The trend in world politics would be the coalescence of regional powers to harness maximum financial strength. The politics of the ideological conflicts of the 20th century may give way to the politics of pragmatic dispensation. National affiliations may lose their fervor and each regional alliance of nations may develop into a loose, federal government as the century draws to its end. A more liberal and universal outlook with the progressive intermingling of cultures would be the hallmark of the 21st century. The world probably may awake to a world-culture with all divergent nuances of the current world being absorbed into a mainstream culture in the new century.

The 21st century shall be known by future generations for the growth and universal acceptance of an open market economy and a combative economic spirit. The last decade of the 21st century may find the laissez-aller in economy touching its ultima thule and concomitantly its breaking point except for a few scattered pockets still clinging to a controlled economy as remnants of yore, which will work as a springboard in subsequent centuries to move the world back to a modified guided economy.

Another significant development of the new era would be the upsurge of economics in the new order of things to mark the century as "The Economic Age'. The present national and ideological divide would be replaced with a new economic divide leading to a regrouping of regions by economic convenience. The concept of the European Economic Community of the 20th century will lead to similar economic groupings in East Europe allied with Germany, Central Asia, South-East Asia, South Asia, West Asia, South America, North Africa, South and Central Africa and finally North America to create distinct economic zones along the passage of the 21st century with more and more power and authority transferred to these new units to control and govern the social life of the people. National identities would be relegated to oblivion as a thing of the past by the end of the 21st century with the world divided into a handful of distinct and well-defined economic units, each of which will strive towards the telos of economic prosperity and increased self-sufficiency. However, increased concours between the new economic units could bring tension back to the world in the later part of the century, leading to the failure of this new concept of living on this Earth and return to good old nationhood in later centuries.

Germany, as the leader of a power in the region consisting mostly of the present Warsaw Pact countries may provide a real challenge to the financial strength of China and its neighboring allies in the first half of the 21 century and grow to be a financial giant of the world in the second half of the century by pushing the latter to second place. A close run for supremacy as a financial power of the world between regional powers led by Germany and China would be the main political drama of the new era. Both USA and Russia would be decimated to minor parts in the battle-royale.

The 21st century may see impressive breakthroughs in unconventional energy sources like nuclear energy, solar energy and oceanic energy, which may cheaply meet the major share of the world's energy needs by the end of the 21st century. This may reduce the importance of oil-rich countries in world politics and add to the relative peace of the coming century.

The new century may see nuclear energy becoming the staple energy source for motor transport and aviation. There would be major breakthroughs in harnessing and using solar energy. All anxieties about depletion of energy sources would b laid to rest in the 21st century. The new era may find people going for artificial nutritious foods produced from cheap edible plastic chemicals. This would lessen the dependence on agricultural produce and provide a permanent solution to the problem of hunger. Major breakthroughs in recycling of waste may provide the solution to shortages and ecological contamination. The 21st century is unlikely to make any tangible headway in space and interplanetary research due to the factors involving time and distance and the changing circumstances that may localize issues to the world we live in and ipso facto control the passion to explore outer space.

The real scientific leap of the 21st century would be the discovery of normal temperature superconductors and their universal applications to the fields of mobility, communication and energy that could revolutionize life on this Earth by obliterating the notion of distance from its face. Man may travel at speeds very close to that of light by the end of the century. He would then be able to control things anywhere on this Earth by sitting in his place and monitoring audio-visual feedbacks. Some advancement by the end of the century in the ability to penetrate to the past cannot be ruled out either.

A positive outcome of the new concept of living in regional economic groupings would be the increased realization of the futility of wars and military expenditure. The new age may spawn hope for sempiternal peace and prosperity, with the aggressive side of the human psyche being increasingly engaged by the ceaseless demands of the free market economy. The 21st century may witness a spurt in the general standard of living, brought about by the deployment of resources hitherto utilized only for military research and expenditure.

The greatest blessing of the 21st century would be the conspicuous reduction in international strife and concomitant military expenditure while the worst feature would be the reduction of man and his environment to an average profile deprived of all interests and curiosities. He and his environment may become more fragile inside and outside as unending technological advancements increasingly take over the fields of his exclusive skills and competence and ipso facto condemn them to wither away by desuetude. The 21st century may be the beginning of this withering process of human skills in a telling way. Life would be less interesting – though more convenient - in the 21st century, which could cause more and more people to turn to religion and occult practice for solace and adventure.

Computers may become integral to all human activity thus leading to decline in human skill and intellectual ability as the century advances. The menaces of terrorism and drug-addiction may further grow to be the major challenges of the 21st century. The increasing complexity of day-to-day living traversed with poverty and an unabated population explosion may encourage new, unheard-of forms of crime. New complex diseases may surface on the Earth to attack the populace from time to time and keep the medical research establishment continuously engaged to meet the challenges. Life's concomitant stress may spawn agitated, nervous frustrated and directionless minds. Family units would be in disarray with the institution of marriage in red and a new concept of an open society with guaranteed institutional security coming into vogue.

The new century may witness more and more people turning to religion for inner peace. As both Christianity and Islam fail to meet the growing spiritual needs of the plebeians of the 21st century, the world may look for solace to a nebulous international religion of a mixed kind with a common spiritual interpretation of life and this religion may sweep the Earth of the 21st century to become its major religion. The new age may also find proliferation of scientific research in parapsychology and the universal application of its findings to control crime and improve labour relations in industry and commercial enterprises.

The new century may see the concepts of family and marriage losing their relevance to life. Each to himself would be the new dispensation, and state security to newborns, the old and infirm would become the basic responsibility of the state machinery. With the increased demand on limited land, due to the progressive rise in the population, the 21st century may find all lands becoming government property, leased out to private parties on contract for a definite period for use: though laissez-faire with private ownerships in other enterprises would be the tendency in the 21st century economy. Public undertakings may become a rarity in the new age. Private firms on contract would be permitted to manage selected jobs in the governance of the country. Such sensitive areas as development activities, recruitment, crime investigation, collection of taxes etc would be handled by specialized private firms on a time-bound contract as the century draws to an end. The turn of the 21st century may see only the legislature and judiciary remaining the government's direct responsibility with executive jobs being increasingly handled on its behalf by private agencies.

The new century may witness an upsurge of romanticism in literature and life fuelled by a new ferocity that spurns any constraint on natural conduct; free sex may well become the rule. This new popular movement would spread across the world in the new century, adding spice to growingly insipid lifestyles. New philosophies and religions may spring out of it to alter intellectual and spiritual perceptions.

While the new world will have advanced amenities at its beck and call, simple natural needs like adequate space, clean water and fresh air will become rarities. Piped water supply would be a matter of the past and clean water would be sold in bottles in markets. The new age may also see special fresh-air sessions everyday for half-an-hour: a luxury of breathing fresh air, produced by special treatments in a costly process affordable only to the rich. The selling of small fresh-air packets for use in private may become a lucrative business throughout the world and multi-national corporations may make huge investments in both fresh-air packet and clean water bottle industries.

Life would be a more complex and costly affair in the 21st century in spite of man's increasing success in bringing the world to his heels through inventions and discoveries. Birth control on demand would be a normal practice. Speed and detached impatience would become the spirit and trend of the age, with passions, emotions, moods, tastes, arts and pleasures becoming rare luxuries, known to a few isolated deviates. Living would be reduced to a cutthroat competition with the conflict between man and his poisoned environment compounded with that between him and his fellow men turning extra modum in his fight and flight for survival. The simple innocent side of his nature would become a further casualty in the process with increased manifestations of criminal tendency at all levels in all fields. Life would thus become less secure and more risky in the new dispensation.

The world would be less worth for living in the 21st century in spite of its technical and material advancements. Though the threat of war would recede in the new age, life's acceleration to the highly competitive tempo, necessary to ensure survival, may render living a sick and uneasy affair. As man bends nature to his convenience, nature's failures to meet his basic needs may balloon up to gigantic proportions by the increased tax on her fragile attributions. Yet, it should be remembered that the 21st century is just a minute phase in the huge evolution process that takes the world to higher levels of existence through restless and difficile passage.

        We should know that this world is a great self-sustaining system, built to survive all ecological, nuclear or population disasters. The life system of this Earth is a wonderful self-regulating workhouse with a skill for survival. We must rest assured that the Earth will certainly survive all contingencies of the 21st century by its wonderful self-regulating and self-sustaining mechanism that was at work in the 20th century.
Rural Finance and Indian Economy
Meaning of an Underdeveloped Economy:

There is a big difference between underdeveloped and developed countries. The United Nations group of experts states, “We have had some difficulty in interpreting the term ‘underdeveloped countries’.  We frankly consider that, per capita real income is low when compared with the per capita real incomes of the United States of America, Canada, Australia & Western Europe.  Briefly a poor country.
The term ‘underdeveloped countries’ is relative. In practical, those countries which have real per capita incomes less than a quarter of the per capita income of the United States, are underdeveloped countries. But recently UN publication prefer to describe them as ‘Developing economies’. The term ‘developing economies’ signifies that though still underdeveloped, the process of development has been initiated in these countries.  Thus, we have two economies ‘developing economies’ & ‘developed economies’.  The World Bank issued in its World Development Report (1991) classified the various countries on the basis of Gross National Product (GNP) per capita. Developing countries are divided into: (a) Low income countries with GNP per capita of $580 and below in 1989; and Middle income countries with GNP per capita ranging between $ 580 and $ 6,000.  As against them, the High-income Countries which are mostly members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development (OECD) and some others have GNP per capita of more than $ 6,000.
The above data given in the table noted that in 1989 low income countries comprise nearly 57 percent of the world population (2,948 million), but account for only 5 percent of total world GNP. The middle income countries, which are less developed than the highly developed than the low income countries comprise about 21 percent of world population but account for 11 percent of world GNP. Taking these two groups which are popularly described as developing economies or ‘underdeveloped economies’, it may be stated that they comprise over three-fourths of the world population but account for about one-sixth of the world GNP.  Most countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and some countries of Europe are included in them.


Distribution of World Population & World GNP among various groups of Countries in 1989

    GNP (Billion US $)    Total Population (million)    GNP Per Capita (US $)
1. Low Income Economies    981 (4.7)    2,948 (56.6)    330
2. Middle Income Economies    2,253 (10.9)    1,105 (21.2)    2,040
3. High Income Economies    15,230 (73,4)    831 (16.0)    18,330
4. Other Economies     ___    323 (6.2)    ___
World    20,736 (100.0)    5,206 (100)    3,980
India    283 (1.4)    832 (15.9)    340


India with its population of 832 million in 1989 and with its per capita income of $340 is among poorest of the economies of the world.  It had a share of 15.9 per cent in world population, but a little more than 1 percent of world GNP.
    Three observation made here regarding the U.N. classification of developed and developing countries on the basis of per capita income.  First, there is gross inequality of incomes between the rich and the poor countries. Second, the gap in per capita income (and naturally in the level of living) between the rich and poor countries is even widening over the years—the annual rate of growth of per capita income of the rich countries was higher during 1965-89 as compared with the poor countries.  More recently, the growth rate among low-income countries has also shown an increase and if this is sustained, the gap may show a decline over a period. Third, all the high income countries are not necessarily developed countries.  For instance, the high income oil-exporting countries have high per capita income but this is mainly due to their exports of oil; really speaking, they are not developed economies. Recently, with a decline in world oil prices, the GNP per capita has started showing a decline in this group.

Definition:
     “A country which has good potential prospects for using more capital or more labour or more available natural resources, or all of these, to support its present population on a higher level of living or if its per capita income level is already fairly high, to support a large population on a not lower level of living.” As per this definitions the problem of development is mainly the problem of development is mainly the problem of poverty and prosperity. The basic criterion then becomes whether the country has good potential prospects of raising per capita income, or of maintaining an existing high level of per capita income for an increased population.”

Basic Characteristics Of The Indian Economy As An Underdeveloped Economy:
    India is an underdeveloped economy.  Its is a vast country having an area of 3.3 million sq. km. It has almost 5,76,000 villages. The population of India is widely scattered over villages and towns. Nearly 75% of the population lives in rural & semi urban areas, while the rest lives in towns.  There is doubt that the bulk of its population lives in conditions of misery.  Poverty is not only acute but is also a chronic malady in India.  At the same time, there exist unutilized natural resources.  It is, therefore, quite important to understand the basic characteristics of the Indian economy, treating it as one of the underdeveloped but developing economies of the world.
    Low per capita income:-  Underdeveloped economies are marked by the existence of low per capita income.  The per capita income of an India is lowest in the world.  The per capita income in Switzerland in 1989 was about 88 times, in West Germany about 60 times, in U.S.A. 61 times and in Japan 70 times of the per capita income in India. It is also important that developed economies are growing at a faster rate than the Indian economy and as a consequence, the disparity in the levels of income has become wider during period 1960-89.

    Occupational pattern:- Primary producing. One of the basic characteristics of an underdeveloped economy is that it is primary producing. A very high proportion of working population is engaged in agriculture, which contributes a very large share in the national income. In India, in 1981, about 71 per cent of the working population was engaged in agriculture and its contribution to national income was 36 per cent. In Asia, Africa and Middle East countries countries from two-thirds to more than four-fifths of the population earn their livelihood from agriculture, and in most Latin American countries from two-thirds to three-fourths of population engaged in agriculture in developed countries is much less than the proportion of population engaged in agriculture in underdeveloped countries.

    Heavy Population pressure:- The main problem in India is the high level of birth rates coupled with a falling level of death rates. The rate of growth of population which was about 1.31 per cent per annum during 1941-50 has risen to 2.11 per cent during 1981-91.  The chief cause of this rapid spurt to population growth is the steep fall in death rate from 49 per thousand during 1911-20 to 9.6 per thousand in 1990; as compared to this, the birth rate has declined from about 49 per thousand during 1911-20 to 29.9 per thousand in 1990.  The fast rate of growth of population necessitates a higher rate of economic growth in order to maintain the same standard of living of the population. To maintain a rapidly growing population, the requirements of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, schooling, etc. all rise. Thus, a rising population imposes greater economic burdens and, consequently, society has to make a much greater effort to initiate the process of growth. 


    Prevalence of chronic unemployment and underemployment: In India labour is an abundant factor and, consequently, it is very difficult to provide gainful employment to the entire working population.  In developed countries, unemployment is of a cyclical nature and occurs due to lack of effective demand.  In India unemployment is structural and is the result of a deficiency of capital.  The Indian economy does not find sufficient capital to expand its industries to such an capacity that the entire labour force is absorbed.

    Low rate of capital formation: Another basic characteristic of the Indian economy is the existence of capital deficiency which is reflected in two ways— first, the amount of capital per head available is low; and secondly, the current rate of capital formation is also low.  Following table reveals that gross capital formation in India is less than that of developed countries.


Gross Domestic Investment and Saving (As per cent of Gross Domestic Product)

    Gross Domestic                                  Gross Domestic
Investment                                            Saving
    1965    1989    1965    1989
Japan    28    33    30    34
Australia    26    26    23    23
Germany    23    22    23    27
U.S.A.    12    15    12    13
U.K.    13    21    12    18
India    17    24    15    21











As per Colin Clark to maintain the same level of living a country requires an additional investment of 4 percent per annum if its population increases at the rate of 1 percent per annum. In a country like India where the rate of population growth is 2.11 percent (during 1981-91), about 8 percent investment is needed to offset the additional burdens imposed by a rising population.  Thus, India required as high as 14 percent level of gross capital formation in order that it may cover depreciation and maintain same level of living.  A still higher rate of gross capital formation alone can give a way for economic growth to improve living standard of the population.

History of The Rural Economic Structure Of India
Indian Economy in the Pre-British period:-
     The Indian economy in the pre-British period consisted of isolated and self-sustaining villages on the one hand, and towns, which were the seats of administration, pilgrimage, commerce and handicrafts, on the other. Means transport & communication were highly underdeveloped and so the size of the market was very small..
    The structure and organization of villages: The village community was based on a simple division of labour.  The farmers cultivated the soil and tended cattle. Similarly, there existed classes people called weavers, goldsmiths, carpenters, potters, oil pressers, washer men, cobblers, barber-surgeons, etc.  All these occupations were hereditary and passed by tradition from father to son. Most of the food produced in the village was consumed by the village population itself.  The raw materials produced from primary industries were the feed for the handicrafts. Thus interdependence of agriculture and hand industry provided the basis of the small village republics to function independently.  The villages of India were isolated and self-sufficient units which formed an enduring organization.  But this should not lead us to the conclusion that they were unaffected by wars or political decisions. They did suffer the aggressors and were forced to submit to exactions, plunder and extortion, but the absence of the means of transport and communications and a centralized government helped their survival.

    Classes of Village India: There were three distinct classes in village India: (i) the agriculturists, (ii) the village artisans and menials, and (iii) the village officials.  The agriculturists could be further divided into the land-owning and the tenants.  Labour and capital needed was either supplied by the producers themselves out of their supplied by the producers themselves out of their savings or by the village moneylender. These credit agencies supplied finance at exorbitant rates of interest but since the moneylender and the landlord were the only sources of credit, the peasants and even the artisans were forced to depend on them. The village artisans and menials were the servants of the village.  Most of the villages had their panchayats or bodies of village elders to settle local disputes.  The panchayats were the court of justice.

Industries & handicrafts in Pre-British India:
     The popular belief that India had never been an industrial country, is incorrect.  It was true that agriculture was the dominant occupation of its people but the products of Indian industries enjoyed a worldwide reputation.  The muslim of  Dacca, the calicos of Bengal, the sarees of Banaras and other cotton fabrics were known to the foreigners. The chief industry spread over the whole country was textile handicrafts. The textile handicrafts includes chintzes of Lucknow, dhotis and dopattas of Ahmedabad, silk, bordered cloth of Nagpur and Murshidabad.  In addition to cotton fabrics, the shawls of Kashmir, Amritsar and Ludhiana were very famous. India was also quite well-known for her artistic industries like marble-work, stone-carving, jewellery, brass, copper and bell-metal wares, wood-carving, etc. The cast-iron pillar near Delhi is a testament to the high level of metallurgy that existed in India. In this way Indian industries, “Not only supplied all local wants but also enabled India to export its finished products to foreign countries”.

Decline of Indian Handicrafts and Progressive Ruralisation of The Indian Economy:
     Before the beginning of Industrial Revolution in England, the East India Company concentrated on the export of Indian manufactured goods, textiles, spices, etc., to Europe where these articles were in great demand. But the Industrial Revolution reversed the face of Indian’s foreign trade.  Tremendous expansion of productive capacity of manufactures resulted in increased demand of raw materials for British industry and the need to capture foreign markets.  Following principal causes that led to the decay of handicrafts were as follows:-
    Disappearance of Princely courts: The growth of industries is only possible due to patronage of nawabs, princes, rajas & emperors who ruled in India. The British rule meant the disappearance of this patronage enjoyed by the handicrafts. Cotton and silk manufactures suffered especially.
    Competition of machine-made goods: The large-scale production that grew as a result of Industrial Revolution meant a heavy reduction in costs. It also created a gigantic industrial organization and, consequently, the machine-made goods began to compete with the products of Indian industries and handicrafts. This led to the decline of textile handicrafts. Whereas the British emphasized the free import of machine-made manufactured goods they did not allow the import of machinery as such.  The decline of Indian handicrafts created a vacuum which could be filled by the import of British manufactures only.
    The development of new forms and patterns of demand as a result of foreign influence: With the spread of education, a new classes grew in India which was keen to imitate western dress, manners, fashions and customs so as to identify itself with the British officials. This led to a change in the pattern of demand. Indigenous goods went out of fashion and the demand for European commodities got a fillip.  Besides, there was a loss of demand resulting from the disappearance of princely courts and nobility.  Thus, the British rule, silently but surely, alienated the Indians not only from Indian culture but also diverted in its favour their form and pattern of demand for goods.

Indian Population an Overview:-
India is one of the most populated countries in the world, next only to China. Although India occupies only 2.4% of the total area of the world it supports over 15% of the world population, as revealed by statistics. India is land of diversity, spread across its cultures, landscape, languages and religion. India has been invaded from the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, Arabia, Afghanistan, and the West. The Indian people have absorbed these influences producing a remarkable racial and cultural synthesis. Religion, caste, and language are major determinants of social and political organization in India today. The government has recognized 16 languages as official; Hindi is the most widely spoken.
     Although Hinduism is the popular religion, comprising 83% of the population, India is also home to one of the largest population of Muslims in the world--- more than 120 million. The population also includes Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis. The caste system reflects Indian historical occupation and religiously defined hierarchies. Traditionally, there are four castes identified, plus a category of outcastes, earlier called "untouchables" but now commonly referred to as "dalits," the oppressed. In reality, however, there are thousands of sub-castes and it is with these sub-castes that the majority of Hindus identify. Despite economic modernization and laws countering discrimination against the lower end of the class structure, the caste system remains an important factor in Indian society. Poverty is one of the major problems facing India. An estimated 30-40 percent of the population lives in poverty. Four out of five of India's poor live in rural areas. About 70% of the people live in more than 550,000 villages, and the remainder in more than 200 towns and cities.

Statistics
Population: 966,783,171 (July 1997 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 35% (male 173,420,822; female 163,433,648)
15-64 years: 61% (male 304,048,569; female 281,625,342)
65 years and over: 4% (male 22,536,104; female 21,718,686) (July 1997est.)
Population growth rate: 1.72% (1997 est.)
Birth rate: 26.19 births/1,000 population (1997 est.)
Death rate: 8.87 deaths/1,000 population (1997 est.)
Net migration rate: -0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1997 est.)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.08 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.04 male(s)/female
total population : 1.07 male(s)/female (1997 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 65.5 deaths/1,000 live births (1997 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 62.41 years male: 61.68 years female: 63.18 years (1997 est.)
Total fertility rate: 3.29 children born/woman (1997 est.)


Natural Resources In Process Of Economic Development in Rural India:
    To achieve the development in national output, it is essential to combine natural resources, human resources & capital. The existence or the absence of favourable natural resources can facilitate or retard the process of economic development. Natural resources include land, water resources, fisheries, mineral resources, forests, marine resources, climate, rainfall and topography.
1.    Land Resources: The total geographical area of India is about 329 million hectares, but statistical information regarding land classification is available for only about 305 million hectares; this information is based partly on village papers and partly on estimates. We can explain land utilization pattern from the following table:-
Land utilization pattern, 1986-87 (million hectares)

Particulars    Area    Percent
1. Total geographical area
    329    --
2. Total reporting area    305    100
3. Barren land not available for cultivation    41    13

4. Area under forests    67    22
5. Permanent pastures and grazing land    12    4
6. Culturable waste lands, etc.    19    6
7. Fallow lands    26    9
8. Net area sown     140    46
9. Area sown more than once
    37    12
10. Total cropped area (8+9)    177    58

2.   Forest Resources: Forest are an important natural resource of India.  They have a moderating influence against floods and thus they protect the soil against erosion.  They provide raw materials to a number of important industries, namely, furniture, matches, paper, rayon, construction, tanning, etc.  The total area under forests was 67 million hectares in 1986-87 which was about 22 percent of the total geographical area, a recent estimate has put it at 75 million hectares or 23 percent of the total geographical area.  Forests in India are mostly owned by states (95%); a small portion is under the ownership of corporate bodies and private individuals.

3. Water Resources: India is one of the wettest countries in the world, with average annual rainfall of 1100 m.m.  India’s water policy, since Independence, has mainly concentrated on highly visible large dams, reservoirs and canal systems, but has ignored minor water works such as tanks, dugwells and tubewells.

4. Fisheries: Broadly speaking, fishery resources of India are either inland or marine.  The principal rivers and their tributaries, canals, ponds, lakes, reservoirs comprise the inland fisheries.  The rivers extend over about 17,000 miles, and other subsidiary water channels comprise 70,000 miles.  The marine resources comprise the two wide arms of the Indian Ocean and a large number of gulf and bays along the coast.  About 1.8 million fishermen draw their livelihood from fisheries, though they generally live on the verge of extreme poverty.  Out of a total catch of 3 million tones of fish in 1988-89, over 1 million tones came from inland fisheries and nearly 2 million tones from marine sources.  India is the seventh largest producer of fish in the world and is second in inland fish production, which contributes 45 per cent of total production in the country. Fish production reached the level of 5.4 million tonnes in 1997-98, comprising 3.0 million tonnes of marine fishery and 2.4 million tonnes of inland fishery and is expected to reach 5.6 million tonnes in 1998-99 with 3.0 million tonnes of marine fishery and 2.6 million tonnes of inland fishery, respectively. During 1998-99, the export of marine products came down to US$ 1,038 million from US$ 1,208 million during 1997-98


Infrastructure In Process Of Economic Development In Rural India:
    The prosperity of a Rural India depends directly upon the development of agriculture and industry.  Agricultural production, however, requires power, credit, transport facilities, etc.  Industrial production requires not only machinery & equipment but also skilled man-power, management, energy, banking facilities, marketing facilities, transport services which include railways, roads, shipping, communication facilities, etc. All these facilities and services constitute collectively the infrastructure of an economy and the development and expansion of these facilities are an essential pre-condition for increasing agricultural & industrial production in a rural area.

Types of Infrastructural facilities—often referred towards economic and social development of rural India:
1.  Energy: The most important single factor which can act constraint on economic growth of a country is the availability of energy.  There is a direct correlation between the degree of economic growth, the size of per capita income and per capita consumption of energy.  Since energy is an essential input of all productive economic activity, the process of economic development inevitably demands increasing higher levels of energy consumption.  There are broadly two sources of energy commercial energy & non-commercial energy.  Following are the various commercial energy:- coal & lignite, Oil & gas, Hydro-electric resource, Uranium.  & non-commercial energy are Fuelwood, Agricultural wastes, Animal dung.

2.   Power:  Electric power, which is one form of energy, is an essential ingredient of economic development and, it is required for commercial and non-commercial uses.  Commercial uses of power refer to the use of electric power in industries, agriculture and transport.  Non-commercial uses include electric power required for domestic lighting, cooking, use of mechanical gadgets like the refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.  With the growth of population and with the increase in the use of modern gadgets in daily life, it is quite natural that the demand for electricity for domestic use should grow at a fast rate.

3. Transport: If agriculture and industry are regarded as the body and the bones of the economy, which help the circulation of men and materials.  The transport system helps to broaden the market for goods and by doing so, it makes possible large-scale production through division of labour.  It is also essential for the movement of raw materials, fuel, machinery etc., to the places of production.  The more extensive and continuous the production in any branch of activity the greater will be the need for transport facilities.  Transport development helps to open up remote regions and resources for production.  Regions may have abundant agricultural, forest and mineral resources but they cannot be developed if they continue to be remote and inaccessible.

           Modes of transport & communication facilities:
      Indian Railways: The most important form of transport system in India is the
      Indian railways, which is also the country’s largest single undertaking with a capital investment of around Rs. 15,000 crores. In 1950-51, railway route length was 53,600 kms but by 1990-91 it had increased to nearly 62,400 kms-an increase at the rate of 0.4 percent per annum.
   
    Roads & Road Transport: Road transport plays an important role in rural economy of country, since it is most suitable for short distances. It has also the advantage of door-to-door service, flexibility, speed and reliability.  The utility of other modes of transport such as railways, internal waterways, ports, etc. increase when linked to the road transport system. Road construction and maintenance generate sizeable employment opportunities—factor of great importance in the context of growing population and growing unemployment in the country.  The rural road network now connects about 70 percent of our villages. 

      Inland water transport:  Inland water transport is the cheapest mode of transport, for both long and short distances, so far as the points of origin and destination of traffic are concerned. It is cheap as energy consumption is low.  India has over 14,500 kms. Of navigable inland waterways comprising a variety of river systems, canals, backwaters, creeks, etc.

4.   Communications: The communication system comprises posts and telegraphs, telecommunication system, broad casting, television and information services. By providing necessary information about the markets and also supplying necessary motivation, the communication system helps to bring buyers and sellers together effectively and helps to accelerate the growth of the economy.

Microfinance in an Indian Context:-
    Microfinance institutions (MFIs), specialised financial institutions that serve the poor, derive from the success of some micro enterprise credit programmes performed mainly by practitioners in developing countries.  microFinance (mF) is being practiced as a tool to attack poverty the world over. During the last two decades, substantial work has been done in developing and experimenting with different concepts and approaches to reach financial services to the poor, thanks mainly to the initiatives of the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and banks in various parts of the country.
 Despite having a wide network of rural bank branches in the country and implementation of many credit linked poverty alleviation programmes, a large number of the very poor continue to remain outside the fold of the formal banking system. Various studies suggested that the existing policies, systems and procedures and the savings and loan products often did not meet the needs of the hardcore and asset less poor. Experiences of many anti-poverty and other welfare programmes of the state as well as of international organisations have also shown that the key to success lies in the evolution and participation of community based organizations at the grassroots level.
Micro-finance and Poverty Alleviation:
Most poor people manage to mobilize resources to develop their enterprises and their dwellings slowly over time. Financial services could enable the poor to leverage their initiative, accelerating the process of building incomes, assets and economic security. However, conventional finance institutions seldom lend down-market to serve the needs of low-income families and women-headed households. They are very often denied access to credit for any purpose, making the discussion of the level of interest rate and other terms of finance irrelevant. Therefore the fundamental problem is not so much of unaffordable terms of loan as the lack of access to credit itself.
The lack of access to credit for the poor is attributable to practical difficulties arising from the discrepancy between the mode of operation followed by financial institutions and the economic characteristics and financing needs of low-income households. For example, commercial lending institutions require that borrowers have a stable source of income out of which principal and interest can be paid back according to the agreed terms. However, the income of many self employed households is not stable, regardless of its size. A large number of small loans are needed to serve the poor, but lenders prefer dealing with large loans in small numbers to minimize administration costs. They also look for collateral with a clear title - which many low-income households do not have. In addition bankers tend to consider low income households a bad risk imposing exceedingly high information monitoring costs on operation.
In other words, although microfinance offers a promising institutional structure to provide access to credit to the poor, the scale problem needs to be resolved so that it can reach the vast majority of potential customers who demand access to credit at market rates. To be successful, financial intermediaries that provide services and generate domestic resources must have the capacity to meet high performance standards. They must achieve excellent repayments and provide access to clients. And they must build toward operating and financial self-sufficiency and expanding client reach. In order to do so, microfinance institutions need to find ways to cut down on their administrative costs and also to broaden their resource base. Cost reductions can be achieved through simplified and decentralized loan application, approval and collection processes, for instance, through group loans which give borrowers responsibilities for much of the loan application process, allow the loan officers to handle many more clients and hence reduce costs.
Savings facilities make large scale lending operations possible. On the other hand, studies also show that the poor operating in the informal sector do save, although not in financial assets, and hence value access to client-friendly savings service at least as much access to credit. Savings mobilization also makes financial institutions accountable to local shareholders. Therefore, adequate savings facilities both serve the demand for financial services by the customers and fulfill an important requirement of financial sustainability to the lenders. Microfinance institutions can either provide savings services directly through deposit taking or make arrangements with other financial institutions to provide savings facilities to tap small savings in a flexible manner.
Convenience of location, positive real rate of return, liquidity, and security of savings are essential ingredients of successful savings mobilization. Once microfinance institutions are engaged in deposit taking in order to mobilize household savings, they become financial intermediaries. Consequently, prudential financial regulations become necessary to ensure the solvency and financial soundness of the institution and to protect the depositors.
Governments should provide an enabling legal and regulatory framework which encourages the development of a range of institutions and allows them to operate as recognized financial intermediaries subject to simple supervisory and reporting requirements.
One way of expanding the successful operation of microfinance institutions in the informal sector is through strengthened linkages with their formal sector counterparts. A mutually beneficial partnership should be based on comparative strengths of each sectors. Informal sector microfinance institutions have comparative advantage in terms of small transaction costs achieved through adaptability and flexibility of operations. They are better equipped to deal with credit assessment of the urban poor and hence to absorb the transaction costs associated with loan processing. On the other hand, formal sector institutions have access to broader resource-base and high leverage through deposit mobilization. 
Therefore, formal sector finance institutions could form a joint venture with informal sector institutions in which the former provide funds in the form of equity and the later extends savings and loan facilities to the urban poor. Another form of partnership can involve the formal sector institutions refinancing loans made by the informal sector lenders. Under these settings, the informal sector institutions are able to tap additional resources as well as having an incentive to exercise greater financial discipline in their management. Microfinance institutions could also serve as intermediaries between borrowers and the formal financial sector and on-lend funds backed by a public sector guarantee.
Weaknesses of Existing Microfinance Models
One of the most successful models discussed around the world is the Grameen type. The bank has successfully served the rural poor in Bangladesh with no physical collateral relying on group responsibility to replace the collateral requirements. The brief idea about Grameen is given in the next part of this report. This model, however, has some weaknesses. It involves too much of external subsidy which is not replicable Grameen bank has not oriented itself towards mobilising peoples' resources. The repayment system of 50 weekly equal installments is not practical because poor do not have a stable job and have to migrate to other places for jobs. If the communities are agrarian during lean seasons it becomes impossible for them to repay the loan. Pressure for high repayment drives members to money lenders. Credit alone cannot alleviate poverty and the Grameen model is based only on credit. Micro-finance is time taking process. Haste can lead to wrong selection of activities and beneficiaries.
Another model is Kerala model (Shreyas). The rules make it difficult to give adequate credit {only 40-50 percent of amount available for lending). In Nari Nidhi/Pradan system perhaps not reaching the very poor. Most of the existing microfinance institutions are facing problems regarding skilled labour which is not available for local level accounting. Drop out of trained staff is very high. One alternative is automation which is not looked at as yet. Most of the models do not lend for agriculture. Agriculture lending has not been experimented.
    Risk Management : yield risk and price risk
    Insurance & Commodity Future Exchange could be explored
All the models lack in appropriate legal and financial structure. There is a need to have a sub-group to brainstorm on statutory structure/ ownership control/ management/ taxation aspects/ financial sector prudential norms. A forum/ network of micro-financier (self regulating organization) is desired.
Rural Market Contribution In Total Indian Economy
When you consider a rural market then the measure part of the rural buiness directly or indirectly connected with agriculture. In this condition,whenever you study about rural market you have to consider the impact of agriculture towards Indian Economy.
Profile of Rural people
If we classify the rural people by their occupation, we find cultivators as the predominant occupation group who account 72% of rural households.
Distribution of rural households by their profession or business activity
Occupation     Percentage of Households
Cultivators    72
Agricultural labourers    15
Other non-cultivators    11
Artisans    2
All house holds    100
However this group of cultivators contain both prosperous and well as marginal cultivators within itself. This is rural India’s picture where 20% of rural households (mostly cultivators) control about 66% of assets in rural India. In this way rural population broadly divided into 6 categories:
    Proprietors of land includes feudal tribute gatherers like zamindars, rich moneylenders and traders who acquire large tracts of land and companies or persons who own large populations.
2.   Rich farmers who belong to dominant caste of the area.
3.   Small peasants or marginal farmers owning uneconomic land holdings.
4.  Tenant farmers operating on rented lands belonging to large land holders and working on small uneconomic land holdings.
5.   Agricultural labourers who work on lands of landlords and rich farmers.
6.   Artisans and others, which include the unemployed also.
Statistical Profile of The Rural Business in India
TABLE: VILLAGE & SMALL INDUSTRIES (Production)
Industry    Unit #    <-------------------- Production  --------------->
        1973-74    1979-80    1984-85    1985-86    1990-91    1995-96!
Traditional Industries:
Khadi    M.Sq.Mtres    56.00     82.00     103.98     108.58     1088.8    1052.63
    Value
(Rs. crores)    33.00     92.00     157.62     186.30     285.95    353.49
Village     Value    122.00     348.00     807.06     900.38     1994.06    356216
Industries (Rs. crores)
Handlooms    Mill Meters    2100.00     2900.00     3600.00     3692.00     4888    7020
    Value
(Rs. crores)    840.00     1740.00     2880.00     2953.60     3633   
Sericulture    Lakh Kgs. of raw    29.00     48.00     76.70     78.97     12836    13909
    silk                       
    (value Rs.crores)    63.00     131.00     345.69     310.14    868   
Handicrafts    Value    1065.00     2050.00     3500.00     3800.00     11325    25200
    (Rs. crores)                       
Coir    Lakh tonnes of    1.50     1.85     1.49     1.83     2.11    2.63
    fibre                       
    Value
(Rs. crores)    60.00     86.00     100.50     139.51     161.00    
Sub-total (A)    Value
(Rs. crores)    21.83     4447.00     7790.87     8289.93     16272.95    25553.489
Modern Industries:
Small Scale Industries    Value
(Rs. crores)    7200.00     21635.00     50520.00     61228.00     155340    219968
Powerlooms    Mill Meters    2400.00     3450.00     4930.00     5886**    10988    17201
    Value
(Rs. crores)    1980.00     3250.00     6423.00     7668.51     12337   
Sub-total (B)    Value
(Rs. crores)    9180.00     24885.00     56943.00     64768.51     167677    219968
Total (VSI)    (Rs. crores)    11353.00     29332.00     64733.87     73058.44     183949.95    245521.48





TABLE: VILLAGE & SMALL INDUSTRIES (Employment)
Industry    Unit #    <-------------- Employment (Lakh persons) -------->
        1973-74    1979-80    1984-85    1985-86    1990-91    1995-96
Traditional Industries:                           
Khadi    M.Sq.Mtres    8.84     11.20     13.05     15.00     14.15    
    Value
(Rs. crores)                        N.A.
Village     Value    9.27     16.13     24.84     25.50     34.42    
Industries    (Rs. crores)                       
Handlooms    Mill Meters    52.40     61.50     76.80     73.70     96.87     128.00
    Value
(Rs. crores)                       
Sericulture    Lakh Kgs. of raw    12.00     16.00     20.43     53.60     52.00     59.50
    silk                       
    (value Rs.crores)                       
Handicrafts    Value    15.00     20.30     27.40     28.00     43.84     65.50
    (Rs. crores)                       
Coir    Lakh tonnes of    5.00     5.59     5.89     8.00     5.46    
    fibre                              N.A.
    Value
(Rs. crores)                       
Sub-total (A)    Value
(Rs. crores)    102.21     130.72     168.41     203.80     246.74     253.00
Modern Industries:        39.65     67.00     90.00     96.00     124.3    152.61
Small Scale Industries    Value
(Rs. crores)                       
Powerlooms    Mill Meters    10.00     11.00     32.19     35.32     55.00     N.A.
    Value
(Rs. crores)                       
Agricultural Impact on National Economy:
Agriculture is a backbone of the Indian Economy. It is important to note that importance is given to industrialization in last four decades, agriculture is largest industry in the country.
Agricultural Production
The agricultural sector as a whole is estimated to record a real growth rate of 6.6 per cent during 1998-99. The overall growth in agricultural production during 1998-99 has been provisionally estimated at 6.8 per cent, as against a negative growth rate of (-) 5.4 per cent during 1997-98. In spite of the damage caused to the cotton crop in Punjab by excessive rains and unexpected cyclonic storms in Andhra Pradesh in October 1998, cotton production was estimated to be higher at 13.3 million bales in 1998-99, as against 11.1 million bales produced in 1997-98. Similarly, the sugarcane output is expected to touch 282.7 million tonnes during 1998-99, compared to 276.3 million tonnes during 1997-98. The production of oilseeds is also likely to be higher at 25.3 million tonnes during 1998-99, as against 22.0 million tonnes during 1997-98.
Foodgrains Production
The production of kharif foodgrains estimated at 102.5 million tonnes during 1998 showed a marginal growth of 1.4 per cent over the production achieved (101.1 million tonnes) in 1997. The rabi foodgrains production for 1998-99 is expected to go up to 98.4 million tonnes compared to 91.3 million tonnes in 1997-98. The foodgrains production is estimated to be 200.9 million tonnes in 1998-99 compared to 192.4 million tonnes during 1997-98, recording an impressive increase by 4.4 per cent (Advance Estimates). During 1998-99, efforts have also been initiated by various government agencies to double the food production in the next decade.
During 1998-99 rice production is estimated to increase to 84.5 million tonnes from 82.3 million tonnes produced in 1997-98, while the wheat production during 1998-99 is estimated at 70.6 million tonnes, compared to the previous year's level of 65.9 million tonnes, an increase by 7.1 per cent. Production of pulses in 1998-99 is expected to be around 15.2 million tonnes, as against 13.1 million tonnes during 1997-98.

Agricultural Production-Major crops (in million tonnes)
Year    1995-96    1996-97    1997-98    1998-99
Crops    Achiev-ement    Target    Achievement    % change over
1995-96    Target    Achiev-ement    % change over
1996-97
    Target    Produ-ction
(Adv. Est.)
    % change over
1997-98
Rice
    77.0    81.0    81.7    6.1    83.0    82.3    0.7    84.2    84.5    2.7
Wheat
    62.1    65.0    69.4    11.8    68.5    65.9    (-) 5.0    70.0    70.6    7.1
Coarse Cereals    29.0    29.0    32.5
    34.1    17.6    33.5    31.1    (-) 8.8    34.3    30.6
Pulses
    12.3    15.0    14.2    15.4    15.0    13.1    (-) 7.7    15.5    15.2    16.0
Total Foodgr-ains    180.4    193.5    199.4    10.5    200.0    192.4    (- 3.5    204.0    200.9    4.4
Oilseeds
    22.1    23.0    24.4    10.4    25.5    22.0    (-)  9.8    27.0    25.3    15.0
Sugarca-ne
    281.1    270.0    277.6    (-) 1.2    280.0    276.3    (-) 10.5    300.0    282.7    2.3
Cotton*    12.9    13.0    14.2    10.0    14.8    11.1    (-) 21.8    14.8    13.3    19.8
* Million bales of 170 kg. each.

Agricultural Exports and Imports
                The share of exports of agriculture and allied products in the total exports had declined marginally, from 18.9 per cent during 1997-98 to 17.8 per cent during 1998-99. During the same period, the value of exports of agriculture and allied products amounted to US$ 5,994 million, showing a decline of 9.6 per cent from a level of US$ 6,634 million in 1997-98. Major items of agricultural exports were basmati and non-basmati rice, raw cotton, meat, oilmeals, tea, coffee, unmanufactured tobacco, cashew, spices, fresh and processed fruits and juices, vegetables and marine products, etc.

Agricultural imports related to food and other items constituted 5.8 per cent of the total imports during 1998-99, as against 4.0 per cent during corresponding period of the previous year. Important agricultural items imported during the year were vegetable oils (edible), sugar, wheat and fruits & nuts. During 1998-99, the volume of agricultural imports aggregated US$ 2,409 million, as against US$ 1,678 million during the corresponding period of the previous year, recording a growth of 43.6 per cent.
Agricultural markets:
There were 7,062 agricultural regulated markets operating in India, 162 agricultural commodities considered for grading standards and 3,253 cold storage with capacity of 8.73 million tonnes as on end March 1998. With the introduction of economic reforms, futures trading was permitted in coffee, cotton, castor oil and jute goods during 1997-98. Earlier futures trading were permitted in gur, potato, castor seed, pepper, turmeric, etc. Further, during 1998-99, futures trading was introduced in oilseeds, oil cakes and edible oils. A network of co-operatives at the national, state and primary level operates to help farm producers with access and further reach for sale of produce. As per the Annual Report (1998-99) of Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, the value of agricultural produce marketed through co-operatives has registered a remarkable growth of 21.6 per cent, from Rs.9,500 crore in 1994-95 to about Rs.11,551 crore in 1995-96.
Agriculture role in Indian Economy
Agriculture for Industrial Development:
Indian agriculture has been the source of supply of raw materials to our leading industries.  Cotton and jute, textiles, sugar, plantations— all these directly depend on agricultural output.  There are many industries, which depend on agriculture indirectly.  Many of our small scale and cottage industries like handlooms, oil crushing, etc depend on agriculture for their raw materials. 
    But then, in recent years, agriculture is losing its significance to industries such as iron and steel, engineering, chemicals, etc.  However in recent years, the importance of food processing industries is being increasing recognized both for generation of income and generation of employment.
Agriculture in economic planning:
    Importance  of agriculture in the national economy is indicated by many facts.  For example, agriculture is main support for transport sector as railways and roadways secure bulk of their business from the movement of agricultural goods.  Further it is seen that good crops implying large purchasing power with the farmers lead to greater demand for manufactures and therefore better prices.  In other words prosperity of farmers is also the prosperity of the industries and vice-versa. Agriculture is backbone of the Indian economy and the prosperity of agriculture can also stand for the prosperity of the economy.  At the same time it is true that per capita productivity in agriculture is less than in the industry.  Many scholars think that so long as the Indian Economy is dominated by agricultural activity,  per capita income will not rise to an extent, which is necessary and desirable.
Capital Formation in Agriculture
The Gross Capital Formation in agriculture, at 1993-94 prices, increased from Rs.18,214 crore in 1994-95 to Rs.20,995 crore in 1997-98. The share of private sector investment in agriculture has been registering an increasing trend over the last four years. It increased from Rs.13,244 crore in 1994-95 to Rs.15,555 crore in 1996-97 and further to Rs.16,579 crore in 1997-98. The rising trend in the private investment in agriculture is attributable mainly to accelerated flow of institutional credit. It is explain graphically as follows:



The public sector capital investment in agriculture which has been declining from Rs. 4,970 crore in 1994-95 to Rs.4,776 crore in 1995-96 and further to Rs.4,347 crore in 1996-97 showed an increase from Rs.4,347 crore in 1996-97 to Rs.4,416 crore (at 1993-94 prices) in 1997-98.
Changing Scenario of Rural Credit
Indian rural credit structure is regarded all over the world as quite unique and innovative. It required a careful feasibility study to understand rural structure.   Evolved over a period of last eight decades, it can perhaps claim the honour of being a very important constituent of the most complex rural economy in the third world countries. In India there is different caste, religion of people living together, the language of every state, caste is different than each other.  The land, weather, water availability is different in different area, which give lots of problem in applying various policies. One of the distinguishing features has been its ability to adapt itself, without much turmoil and stress, to the socio-economic dynamics of the rural scenario.  Over the years it has developed into a multi faceted structure to service almost the entire cross-section of rural population spread throughout the length and breadth of our country.
    In rural areas the indigenous moneylenders continued to be the banker in need.  Since these money-lenders had virtual monopoly in supplying credit in rural areas, the poor were often subjected to exploitation.  With the overriding monopoly the money-lenders often resorted to usurious practices--- levying the exorbitant rate of interest, demanding gift/contribution to the temple funds out of the amount of credit, demanding advance interest, etc.  Besides, often the money-lenders resorted to unethical practices like taking thumb impression on a blank paper for inserting some arbitrary amount, manipulation of account to inflate the balance due.  The poor villager could not escape the clutches of these indigenous bankers as they had to keep on borrowing from them under distress since they were the only source of credit for all type of requirements--- production and consumption.  The conditions of the poor peasantry were perpetually so pathetic that an adage—“they are born in debt, they live in debt & die in debt” was the usual description of their plight.
    To mitigate the sufferings of the poor farmers the infrastructure of co-operative credit was brought into being in the matter of agricultural finance.  The Co-operatives Societies Act of 1904 provided the formation of primary agricultural co-operatives credit societies.  Later in 1912, the co-operative movement was extended to formation of non-agricultural co-operative credit societies also.
    The commercial banks on the other hand were participating in rural banking only as an alien since they were programmed for meeting the financial requirements of trade and commerce.  In a view of the huge gap in rural credit from institutional sources and in a bid to meet the growing needs of financial assistance to modernizing farming, the government adopted the multi-agency approach.  This was intended to increase the farm productivity and thus raise the living standards of the poor farmers.  The formation of State Bank Of India which was formed my taking over the Imperial Bank of India by the Government was with a objective of “extension of banking facilities on a large scale more particularly in the rural and semi-urban areas and for other diverse purposes.” This was an important milestone in the banking of rural India.  Momentum was gained more prominently after the concept of “Social control” over commercial banks was propagated in 1967.  With the setting up of National Credit Council in 1968 to asses the demand for bank credit for various sectors of economy and to determine priorities for the grant of loans, etc. it came to be felt increasingly that banks should become instruments of economic and social development.
    To this effect nationalization of 14 major Indian commercial banks in July 1969 can be described as a major landmark in the history of Indian financial system and a big leap towards rural banking.  With emphasis on lending to priority sector—agriculture, rural artisans and handicrafts, small scale industries, small business and retail trade and other weaker sections of the society— rural banking came to the fore.  The step was initiated to utilize effectively the professional skills and acumen developed by the banking system for achieving the basic objective of balanced socio-economic development.
    Both the Co-operative and Commercial banks made substantial development in providing credit to agricultural and rural economy.  The total share of co-operatives in total borrowing of the rural household grew from 5,204 in July 1964 to 12,065 in Dec 1974.  But still it was noticed that two-thirds of the total credit was taken from non-institutional sources.  The demand for rural credit was on the increase owing to adoption of modern agriculture, which increasingly required larger amounts of capital both short term & long term.
Structure of Rural Credit In India
National Policy & Its’s Aim:
Agricultural credit is one of the most crucial inputs in all agricultural development programmes. From olden days private money-lenders are main sources of credit  towards agricultural or rural products. After independence multi-agency approach consisting of co-operatives, commercial banks and regional rural banks are adopted due to its cheaper and adequate credit to farmers.  The major policy in the sphere of agricultural credit has been its progressive institutionalization for supplying agriculture and rural development programmes with adequate and timely flow of credit to assist weaker sections and less developed regions.
The basic aim of this Policy are as follows:-
a. To ensure timely & sufficient flow of credit to the farming sector;
b. To avoid money-lender chain from rural scene.
c. To reduce regional imbalance through their credit facilities.
d. To provide larger credit support to areas covered by special programmes. e.g. National Oilseeds Development Project.
Need of Credit for Farmers:-
Farmers need finance mainly for the following things—to pay current expenses of cultivation such as the purchase of seed, manures, etc.; the purchase of cattle, implements and raw materials; acquire new land; or improve land by irrigation, drainage, wedding and planting; pay up old debts to build and repair houses, to purchase food stuffs and other personal necessaries; pay land revenue to the Government; meet expenses connected with marriage and other social events in the family, but jewellery and conduct law suits.  The credit need of agriculturists can, therefore, be broadly divided into directly productive & indirectly unproductive expenses.  Unfortunately fact is that underdeveloped and old countries are in need of both the types of credit.
Sources of Rural Credit
There are mainly two sources available to the farmers private agencies & institutional. Private agencies means relatives, landlords, agricultural moneylenders, professional private moneylenders, traders & commission agents, others.  Where institutional agencies are
    commercial banks,
    the state bank,
    co-operative societies & land mortgage banks
    agricultural finance Corporation.
Private agencies giving 93% of the total credit requirements in 1951-52 and institutional sources including government giving for only 7% of the total credit needs.  But in 1960-61, the share of private agencies came down to  81.3 which was as follows:- Relatives 8.8%, Landlords 0.6%, Agricultural moneylenders 36.0, Professional private moneylenders 13.2%, traders & commission agents 8.8%, other sources 13.9. that time institutional sources were 18.7 and the break up was government 2.6%, Co-operative 15.5%, Commercial banks 0.6%. As per the All India Debt and Investment Survey (1981), estimated that the share of private agencies had further slumped to about 37% & share of institutional credit jumped to 63% break up was 30% of co-operative & 29% of commercial banks.  Government & Reserve Bank of India is supporting commercial bank & co-operatives to meet the growing demand for agricultural credit.
Private Agencies Sources:
    Money lenders: Though there are drawbacks, moneylenders are by far the most important source of agricultural credit in India.  That we have already seen before, It is therefore, clear that the basic problem of the agricultural economy of India is the huge indebtedness of farmers and their exploitation by private moneylenders.  For that government of India make provisions in act as follows a. maintenance of accounts in prescribed forms, b. furnishing of the receipts and periodical statements, c. fixing of maximum rates of interest, d. Protection of the debtors from molestations and intimidations, e. licensing of moneylenders, and f. penalties for infringement of the provisions.  The basic objectives of such legislative enactments can be stated as: I. To bring about an improvement in the terms on which private credit was available to agriculturists and to place legal restrictions on the unreasonable exactions of moneylenders, II. To enable civil courts to do greater justice as between lenders and borrowers than was possible in the prevailing circumstances under the ordinary Code of Civil Procedure.
    Traders & commission agents: Traders & commsiion agents supply funds to farmers for productive purposes much before the crops mature.  They force the farmers to sell their produce at low prices and they charge a heavy commission for themselves.
    Landlords & others: Farmers, predominantly small farmers & tenants, depend upon landlords and others to meet their financial requirements.  This source of finance has all the defects associated with moneylenders, traders and commission agents. Interests rates are exorbitant.  Often the small farmers are cheated and their lands are appropriated.  What is worse, this source of finance is becoming more important—from 3.3 percent in 1951-52 to 14.5 percent in 1961-62 but declined to 8.8 percent in 1981.
Institutional sources of credit:
These are the funds made available by co-operative societies, commercial banks, & regional rural banks & state governments also.  The need for institutional credit arises because of the weakness or inadequacy of  private agencies to supply credit to farmers. Private credit is defective because:-
    It is based on profit motive &, therefore, it is always exploitative.
    It is very expensive and is not related to the productivity of land.
    It does not flow into most desirable channels and to most needy persons.
    It is not available for making agricultural improvements—and much of the necessary improvements are not undertaken as funds are not available for long periods at low rates of interest
    It is not properly integrated with the agriculturists other needs.
Problems in Institutional sources:
The government was of the view that multi-agency approach to rural credit was the real solution to the emancipation of small farmers from the clutches of the money-lenders. But within a short period, number of problems have surfaced such as:
    There was no coordination between different agencies operating in the same area and, as a result, there was multiple financing, over-financing in some areas and under-financing in others.
    Despite the adoption of lead bank scheme and district credit plans, the different agencies often failed to formulate and develop meaningful agricultural credit programmes in given blocks and districts.
    Despite guidelines issued by RBI, different agencies adopted different procedures and policies in the matter of providing loans and their recover. The result was unnecessary competition among the different agencies.
    There were practical problems in the recovery of loans when different agencies had lent to the same person against the same securities. Ultimately, there were heavy overdues.
The major problem faced by lending institutions, particularly co-operatives, is the most unsatisfactory level of overdues.  The ration of overdues to that of demand is around 40 to 42 percent in the case of co-operatives and 47 percent in the case of Regional rural banks.  Accordingly, health of rural credit institutions, both co-operative and commercial banks, is in a very sad state in several parts of the country.
     Co-operative credit societies [9.1]
It is the cheapest and the best source of rural credit.  The rate of interest is low. Since 1951, the co-operative credit movement has started helping the farmers in a big manner. During 1989-90 there were about 88,000 primary agricultural credit societies.     The stranglehold of the moneylenders on the peasants is not met by the co-operatives.  Besides, the small farmers find it difficult to meet all their credit requirements from the co-operatives.
Primary Agricultural Credit Society:
The co-operative movement was started in India largely with a view to providing agriculturists funds for agricultural operations at low rates of interest and protect them from the clutches of moneylenders.  The organization of the co-operative credit for short period may be briefly outlined as follows:
    A co-operative credit society, commonly known as the primary agricultural credit society (PACS) may be started with ten or more persons, normaly belonging to a village.  The value of each share is generally nominal so as to enable even the poorest farmer to become a member.  The members have unlimited liability, that is each member is fully responsible for the entire loss of the society in the event of failure.  This will mean that all the members should know each other intimately.  The management of the society is under an elected body consisting of President, Secretary & Treasurer.  The management is honorary, the only paid member being normally.  Loans are given for short periods, normally for one year, for carrying out agricultural operations, and the rate of interest is low.  Profits are not distributed as dividend to shareholders but are used for the welfare of the village.  In the construction of a well, or maintenance of a school, and so on. The usefulness of the primary credit societies has been rising steadily.  In 1950-51, it advanced loans worth Rs.23 crores; this rose to Rs. 200 crores in 1960-61, and to Rs. 4200 crores in 1988-89. 
Financial Strength of PAC’s.: To make all primary agricultural societies viable and ensure adequate and timely flow of co-operative credit to the rural areas the Reverse Bank of India, in collaboration with State governments, had been taking a series of steps to strengthen weak co-operative banks and to correct regional imbalances in co-operatives development.  Steps were taken to reorganize viable PACs and for amalgamation of non-viable societies with farmer’s service societies or large sized multipurpose societies.  These efforts are being intensified by providing larger funds to weak societies to write off their losses, bad debts and overdues.
PAC’s and Weaker Sections: The major objective of the co-operative  development programmes is to ensure that the benefits of co-operative activities flow increasingly to weaker sections including scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.  The government seeks to achieve this through expanding the membership of the weaker sections in the existing PACs and ensuring larger flow of funds and services to them.  In the tribal areas, large sized multipurpose societies are being organized mainly for the benefit of the tribals.
    Co-operative Central Banks: These are federations of primary credit societies   in specified areas normally extending to the whole district meance they are sometimes called as district co-operative banks.  These banks have a few private individuals as shareholders who provide both finance of management.  Their main task is to lend to village primary societies, but they were expected to attract deposits from the general public.  But the expectation has not been fulfilled and many of the co-operative central banks act as intermediaries between the State Co-operative Bank on the one hand and the village primary credit societies on the other.
    State Co-operative Bank: This bank forms the apex of the co-operative credit structure in each state.  It finances and controls the working of the central co-operative banks in the State.  It serves as a link between the Reserve Bank of India from which it borrows and the co-operative central banks and village primary societies.  The State Co-operative Bank obtain its working funds from its own share capital and reserves, deposits from the general public and loans and advances from the Reserve Bank now NABARDhas formulated a scheme for the rehabilitation of weak central co-operative banks.  NABARD is providing liberal assistance to the State Governments for contributing to the share capital of the weak central co-operative banks selected for the purpose.  The State Co-operative bank is not only interested in helping the co-operative credit movement but also in promoting other co-operative ventures and in extending the principles of co-operation.
Problem of overdues to Co-operative credit
A highly distressing fact of co-operative credit is the heavy overdues of co-operative credit institutions, now estimated between Rs.9,000 crores to Rs.10,000 crores.  According to the RBI study team on overdues “lack of will and discipline among cultivators to repay loans was the principal factor responsible for the prevalence of overdues of co-operatives.  Defective lending policy pursued by co-operatives, the apathy of management in taking quick action against recalcitrant members and absence of favourable climate were other contributing factors.”
Apart from these commonly factors normally responsible for a high level of overdues, intervention of external forces such as loan waivers, concession in various forms towards repayment of principal and interest has also affected the recovery performance of credit institutions to a significant extent.  The problem is further aggravated on the account of the state governments in ability to meet the financial commitments to co-operative banks.
In recent years, the farmers are getting organized and one of their chief demands of the farmer union is to cancel their debts to the co-operative societies and banks.  States have meekly surrended to such demands to write off the debts in a matter of extreme concern, as it hampers the recovery of dues from the farmers.  The problem of loan overdues is a matter of serious concern, as it affects the recycling of funds and credit expansion on one hand and economic viability of the lending institutions, specially the co-operatives and RRBs, on the other.
2.      Land development banks:  The need for long-term loan is being satisfied by land development banks (formerly the were called land mortgage banks).  The objective of such banks is to provide long-term credit to the cultivators against the mortgage of their lands.  The loans from the land development banks are quite cheap and are spread over a long period of 15 to 20 years.  It is, therefore, convenient ot borrow from these banks if previous debts have to be cancelled or if additional land is to be purchased or if improvements have to be made.  Though land development banks have been making considerable progress in recent years in this country, they have not really contributed much to the financial need of the farmers.  Most farmer are not even aware about this bank & 70% of the land development banks are located in the three South Indian States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh & Karnataka.  The loan sanction by this bank has been increase annually from Rs. 3 crores to Rs. 770 crores between 1950-51 and 1989-90. major drawback of this bank is they lend against the security of land, and big landlords have taken advantage of them and, by and large, small peasants have not benefited from them.
    The Structure of LDBs:- The long term credit structure consists of the central land development banks (generally one for each State) and primary land development banks.  In some States, there are no primary land developments banks but in their place, there are branches of central land development banks. 
    Problems of LDBs:- Land development banking is yet to take strong roots in India barring few States.  However, LDBs have contributed in large measure to agricultural development by lending specially for minor irrigation.  All their loans are for productive purposes benefiting mostly the small farm holders.  Though land development banking has made considerable progress in recent years, it has not really contributed much to the improvement of the financial position of the farmers.  A large number of factors are responsible for the relative ineffectiveness of LDBs.
    Overdues Problems:- mounting overdues in most of the LDBs have crippled the structure badly, in recent years. Overdues at the level of primary land development banks have been put between 42 to 44 percent.  Overdues have caused innumerable financial problems besides limiting the capacity of LDBs to lend and operate as viable units. The financial discipline imposed on the banks in the matter of eligibility to undertake fresh lending based on recovery performance has been the main limiting factor quantitative growth of credit operations.  To some extent, the banks themselves are to be blamed for this predicament due to faulty loaning policies, inadequate supervision, over-utilisation of loans, ineffective measures for recovery etc. Which have contributed to the deterioration in recovering the loans.       
3.     Commercial Banks: The commercial banks in India have long confined their operations to urban areas, receiving deposits from the urban public and financing trade and industry in urban public and financing trade and industry in urban areas. Commercial banks are extending financial support to agriculture both directly and indirectly Direct finance is extended for agricultural operations for short and medium period. Indirect finance to farmers is made through providing advances for the distribution of fertilizers, other inputs, etc, and also through financing primary agricultural credit societies.  Financing of investment in agriculture is a major aspect of the farm credit activities of banks Credit needs of service units providing services for warehousing, processing, marketing, transporting, and repairing of tractors etc. 
         Direct Finance by Commercial Banks:- At the time of bank nationalization, it was clearly conceded that the commercial banks did not have the necessary experience or the personnel to deal with the farmers directly.  While the co-operative had been specializing in rural credit since the beginning of the century.  Even then the nationalized banks were expected to go vigorously in the support of the farmers in general and the small cultivators in particular.  In the initial stages, for obvious reasons the nationalized banks concentrated their attention on large cultivators and other special category farmers such as those engaged in raising high-yielding varieties of food-grains.  At present short term crop loans accounted for nearly 40 to 45% of the total loans disbursed by the commercial banks to the farmers.
            Term loans for varying periods for purchasing pump-sets, tractors and other agricultural machinery, for construction of wells and tube-wells, for the development of fruit and garden crops, or leveling and development of land, etc.  are provided.  These term loans accounted for about 35 to 37% of the total loans disbursed by commercial banks.  Finally, commercial banks extend loans for such activities such as dairying, poultry farming, piggery, bee keeping, fisheries and others— these loansaccount for 15 to16%.  Region wise, southern region accounts for the bulk of credit disbursed by commercial banks viz.  52% of the total credit extended.
          Indirect Finance by Copmmercial Banks: Even though the scope for direct financing by commercial banks would be limited for some years to come, there is a considerable scope for indirect financing by commercial banks.  For instance, commercial banks are financing co-operative societies to enable them to expand their production credit to the farmers.  More especially they increasingly finance co-operatives engaged in marketing and processing of agricultural produce or in the activities ancillary to agriculture such as dairy farming, poultry farming, etc.  In this connection, the Stated Bank of India and its subsidiaries are already playing an active role in financing co-operative marketing and processing.  Commercial banks are providing indirect finance for the distribution of fertilizers and other inputs.
            Commercial banks extend credit to manufacturing or distribution firms and agencies and co-operatives engaged in the supply of pump-sets and other agricultural machinery on the hire-purchase basis.  They finance the operations of the Food Corporation of India, the state governments and others in the procurement, storage and distribution of food grains. 
            Finally, commercial banks increasingly subscribe to the debentures of the central land development banks and also extend advances to the latter.  This enables land development banks to expand their medium and long-term advances to farmers for the purpose of land improvement and land development.
          Commercial Banks & Small Farmers: It has been estimated that nearly 70 percent of farmers owning less than 2 hectares of land are not getting bank credit; only large landowners have been found creditworthy and suitable for banks advances.  But such a situation cannot continue for long.  Under the direction of the Planning Commission, Small farmers Development Agencies have been set up to identify small farmers and work out economically viable schemes of agricultural development.  Commercial banks have to group them into various categories for credit support so as to enable them to become viable cultivators.  For instance, in areas where the subsoil water table is high, the small cultivator has to be helped by banks to convert his dry holding into wet holding.  With pump set loan, the cultivator can change the cropping pattern into double or even multiple cropping activity.  As regards small cultivators near urban areas and with irrigation facilities, commercial banks can help them to go in for poultry farming and maintaining one or two vegetable cultivation or combine it with small milch cattle.
          Problems of Commercial Banks in Agricultural Credit:- The credit needs of the agricultural sector in the next few years are estimated to rise to Rs.50,000 to Rs.60,000 crores.  To meet the needs is an enormous task, and responsibility will have to be borne by co-operatives and commercial banks.  As resources available to commercial banks in the agricultural sector will naturally be limited, it is important that every commercial bank attempts to make optimum use of its limited resources in this sector.  In the field of financing of agriculture, the problem is not merely quantitative but also of coverage vis-à-vis the organization and the personnel available to the nationalized banks.  The majority of the rural population consists of small farmers.  Further, there are 5,50,000 villages spread throughout the country.  To reach all of them with only about 47,000 banking offices is, no doubt, a stupendous task.  Even with the completion of branch extension programmes of the commercial banks now in hand or those which may be undertaken during the next 5 to 10 years, commercial bank may not be in a position to cover many of the villages.  Moreover in recent years, the rural branches of commercial banks in general and branches of RRB in particular, have been under severe financial strain on account of higher transaction cost involved in handling of large number of small size loan accounts and somewhat lower interest income as a result of concessional rate of interest on small size loans.
            The lower proportion of current deposits in total deposits of rural branches has also placed them at a disadvantage with regards to cost of resources.  Finally, the presence of overdues, particularly after the implementation of Agricultural and Rural Credit Debt Relief Schemes, 1990 has further adversely affected the viability of rural branches of commercial banks.
            Under these conditions, if the development of agriculture is not to suffer for want of credit and if there has to be some improvement in the lot of innumerable small farmers, new dimensions will have to be given to schemes of financing agriculture.
4.     Regional Rural Banks: These banks were first set up in 1975 specifically to give direct loans and advances to small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, rural artisans and other of small means.  The loans are given for productive purposes.  There were 196 RRBs which have been lending around Rs. 3600 crores annually by way of loans to rural people.  Over 90 percent of the loans of RPBs are given to the weaker sections in rural areas.  The regional  banks, though basically scheduled commercial banks, differ from the latter in certain respects:
          The area of regional rural banks is limited to a specified region comprising one or more districts of a State.
          The regional rural banks grant direct loans and advances only to small and marginal farmers, rural artisans and agricultural labourers and other of small means for productive purposes.
          The lending rates of the regional rural banks should not be higer than the prevailing lending rates of co-operatives societies in any particular State.  The sponsoring banks and the Reserve Bank of India provide many subsidies and concessions to RRBs to enable the latter to function effectively
          Concessions to RRBs: From the beginning, the sponsor banks have continued to provide managerial and financial assistance to RRBs and also other concessions such as lower rate of interest on the latter’s borrowing from sponsor banks.  Further, the cost of staff deputed to RRBs and training expenses of RRB staff are borne by the sponsor banks.  The Reserve Bank of India has been granting many concessions to RRBs.
         Progress of RRBs: There are now 196 regional rural banks in 23 States with 14,500 branches.  As at the end of September 1990 the regional rural banks had advanced Rs.3,560 crores by way of short-term crop loans, term loans for agricultural activities, for rural artisans, village and cottage industries, retail trade and self employed, consumption loans etc.  Nearly 90 percent of the loans of RRBs, were provided to the weaker sections.  State wise Uttar Pradesh found large number of offices.
          Objectives of RRBs:
          RRBs had followed instructions given by RBI and Government of India  regarding loan policies, procedures, etc.
          The basic aim of setting up RRBs viz, developing the rural economy by providing credit for the development of agriculture, trade, commerce industry and other productive activities in rural areas, was being fulfilled and
          RRBs had successfully maintained their image as a small man’s bank by confining their credit facilities to the target groups viz, small marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, artisans and small enterprises for productive activities.
          The recovery position on the whole was not satisfactory.
 Problems in functioning of RRBs:
    On account of the many restrictions place on the business they can undertake,    RRBs have lowearning capacity.
    The wage and salary scales of RRBs have been rising and, in fact, with the recent award of a tribunal, their scales would approximate those of commercial banks; with the increase in salary scales, an important rationale for the setting up of RRBs has ceased to exist.
    The sponsoring banks are also running their own rural branches in the very area of operations of the RRBs; this has given rise to certain anamolies and to avoidable expenditure on controls and administration.
5.         Reserve Bank of India:
            RBI had shown keen interest in agricultural credit and maintained a separate department for this purpose.  RBI extended short-term seasonal credit as well as medium-term and long-term credit to agriculture through State level co-operative banks and land developments banks. RBI had also set up the Agricultural Refinance Development Corporation (ARDC) to provide refinance support to the banks to promote programmes of agricultural development, particularly those requiring term credit.  With the widening of the role of bank credit from “agricultural development” to “rural development” the Government propo9sed to have a more broad-based organization at the apex level to extend support and give guidance to credit institutions in matter relating to the formulation and implementation of rural development programmes.  A National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) or National Bank was, therefore, set up to take over the agricultural credit functions of RBI on the on hand and the refinance functions of ARDC on the other.
            NABARD: an Overview-
    NABARD is an apex institution accredited with all matters concerning policy, planning and operations in the field of credit for agriculture and other economic activities in rural areas.
    NABARD operates throughout the country through its Head Office at Mumbai, 25 Regional Offices and on Sub-Office, located in the capitals of all the states/union territories.  It also has 4 training establishments.
    It is an apex refinancing agency for the institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas.
    It takes measures towards institution building for improving absorptive capacity of the credit delivery system, including monitoring, formulation of rehabilitation schemes, restructuring of credit institution, training of personnel, etc.
    It co-ordinates the rural financing activities of all the institutions engaged in developmental work at the field level and maintains liaison with Government of India, State Governments, Reserve Bank of India and other national level institutions concerned with policy formulation.
    It prepares, on annual basis, rural credit plans for all districts in the country; these plans form the base for annual credit plans of all rural financial institutions
    It undertakes monitoring and evaluation of projects refinanced by it.
    It promotes research in the fields of rural banking, agriculture and rural   development.
Schemes & Facilities from the various banks
NABARD:-
RURAL NON-FARM SECTOR FINANCE SCHEME
Rural Non Farm Sector (RNFS) holds the key to faster economic development of the country. It has potential and promise for generating employment and increased income in the rural areas. Hence, NABARD has identified financing, development and promotion of RNFS as one of its thrust areas.
Schemes from NABARD for non-farming sector:
1. COMPOSITE LOAN SCHEME (CLS) - under ARF
Borrowers: Rural artisans, handicraftsmen, small entrepreneurs, groups of individuals, partnership firms, co-operative societies, NGOs, etc.
Refinance ceiling -Maximum of Rs. 10 lakh per borrower.
Repayment period -3 to 10 years with suitable need based moratorium not exceeding 18 months.
Eligible activities -All manufacturing, processing, and approved service activities.
2. INTEGRATED LOAN SCHEME (ILS) - under ARF
Borrowers: Individuals, artisans, groups of individuals, associations (formal and informal), proprietary/ partnership firms/ co-operative societies, registered institutions/ trusts, voluntary agencies, private and public limited companies, etc.
Refinance Repayment period 3 to 10 years with suitable need based moratorium not exceeding 18 months.
Eligible activities Manufacturing, processing and approved service activities in the cottage, village and tiny industry sector and modernization/ renovation/ expansion/ diversification of existing units.
3. Small Road and water Transport Operators SCHEME (SRWTO) - Under    ARF
 Borrowers Individuals, groups of individuals, including partnership/ proprietary firms and co-operative enterprises. The borrowers should be from the rural areas and should utilise the vehicle mainly for transportation of Rural Farm and Non-Farm Products and inputs and passengers to/ from marketing centres. The borrower or his employee should possess a valid driving licence and the vehicle should be duly registered with the Regional Transport Authority as public transport vehicle.
Refinance ceiling Maximum of Rs.15 lakh per borrower
 Repayment period 5 years with moratorium of 6 months.
 Eligible vehicles Transport vehicles including Light Motor vehicles, Jeeps,  Autorickshaws, Water transport units (boats, launches etc.)
4. Schemes under pre - sanction procedure
(i) Term Loan to SSI units (through CBs & Scheduled PCBs)
Borrowers : Individuals, Proprietary / Partnership concerns, Private/ Public Limited Companies, Promotional/ Developmental Organisations, State Level Federations/ Corporations, Joint Sector Undertakings.
(ii) Term Loan to Industrial Co-operatives (through SCBs)
Borrowers : Industrial Co-operative Societies identified as viable/ potentially viable by the State Government.
iii) Project Finance for Agro-Industries (through CBs, Scheduled PCBs and SCBs)
Borrowers
    State level corporations such as agro-industries corporations, forest/ tribal development corporations, KVIC/ KVIB, state level cooperative societies/ federations, co-operative marketing/ processing and industrial societies, joint sector undertakings, registered societies in KVIC/ KVIB fold.
    Public/ private limited companies, partnership firms and proprietary concerns.
Repayment period: 3 to 10 years with moratorium of 12 months.
5. Soft Loan Assistance Scheme for Margin Money
Beneficiaries and purpose: Entrepreneurs having necessary talent/ skills, but who lack monetary resources to meet the margin requirements stipulated under the relevant schemes covering both ARF and prior sanction.
Purpose  To set up new units as well as for modernisation/ renovation/ expansion/ diversification of existing units even if the units were not initially refinanced by the Bank.
Eligibility criteria Refinance will be available on the banks' satisfying the eligibility criteria based on recovery performance/the position of NPAs, as prescribed by NABARD from time to time.
FARM SECTOR FINANCE SCHEME:
A) Refinance Assistance for financing farm mechanization
i) Tractors:
(a) The quantum of refinance in respect of financing for acquisition of second tractor has been enhanced from existing level of 40% to 90% ( 95% in case of SCARDBs) of the loan amount as in the case of first tractor.
(b) Though the minimum land holding required for financing tractors is 8 acre perennially irrigated land, necessary discretion has been given to banks to evolve their own area specific norms, if need be, and report such norms evolved by them to the concerned RO of NABARD.
(c) Refinance facility for financing purchase of second hand tractors has been extended to Gujarat in addition to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
ii) Power Tillers:
(a) Though the minimum land holding required for financing power tillers is 6 acres of perennially irrigated land, necessary discretion has been given to banks to evolve their own area specific norms, if need be, and report such norms evolved by them to the concerned RO of NABARD.
(b) Banks have also been advised to give focused attention on financing power tillers by preparing a three year banking plan for a compact area for the benefit of the small farmers.
C) Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)
SGSY, formed by restructuring ongoing self employment programmes, viz. IRDP, TRYSEM, DWCRA, etc., is under implementation from 01 April 1999. The programme envisages formation of SGSY Groups and their linkage with the banks. Individuals as also SGSY group members, below poverty line are assisted under the programme
D) Scheme for setting up of Agriclinic and Agribusiness centers
In pursuance of the announcement made by the Union Finance Minister in the budget speech for the year 2001-02, National Bank in consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture, GOI and select banks formulated a scheme for financing Agriculture Graduates for setting up Agriclinics and Agribusiness Centres The scheme aims at supplementing the existing Extension Network to accelerate the process of technology transfer to agriculture and supplement the efforts of State Agencies in providing inputs and other services to the farmers.
E) Scheme for financing farmers for purchase of land for Agricultural purposes
In response to the Hon'ble Union Finance Minister's emphasis on the need to step up priority sector lending and to examine financing farmers for purchase of land for agricultural purposes, the Working Group constituted by Indian Banks Association formulated a above scheme in consultation with the Government of India, RBI and NABARD.
The objective of the Scheme is to finance the farmers to purchase, develop and cultivate agricultural as well as fallow and waste lands as also consider financing purchase of land for establishing or diversifying into other allied activities.
Eligibility (i) Small and marginal farmers i.e.. those who would own maximum of 5 acres of non- irrigated land or 2.5 acres of irrigated land including purchase of land under the scheme and (ii) Share croppers / Tenant farmers are eligible.
F) Central Sector Capital Subsidy scheme for Investment Promotion (IPS)
A Central Sector Capital Subsidy scheme (Investment Promotion Scheme) launched by the Government of India in collaboration with NABARD for development of privately owned non-forest wastelands in the country is under implementation since 1998. Of the 40 schemes covering about 1500 ha sanctioned till date, the coverage is mostly confined to the States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, with Tamil Nadu accounting for more than 20 schemes. The scheme provides for subsidy upto 25% of bank loan with a ceiling of Rs. 25 lakh for taking up plantation and other on-farm developments in private wastelands. In view of the availability of substantial area under non-forest wasteland in all States and the need to develop them, a nationwide awareness and publicity campaign was launched by the Government of India in association with NABARD for popularizing the Investment Promotion Scheme (IPS). As a part of this effort, workshops are being organized by NABARD in different States/ regions.
G) Refinance Scheme for financing Farmers Service Center (FSC)
NABARD has decided to extend 100% refinance facility to banks for financing Farmers Service Centres (FSC) set up in collaboration with Mahindra Shubhlabh Services Ltd (MSSL) for providing various extension services to farmers including supply of agri-inputs. FSC is intended to benefit farmers by way of higher yields and productivity through private sector participation in technology transfer and extension services.
 Scheme for Rural Finance:
SBI Caters to the needs of agriculturists and landless agricultural labourers through a network of 6600 rural and semi-urban branches.There are 972 specialized branches which have been set up in different parts of the country exclusively for the development of agriculture through credit deployment.These branches include 427 Agricultural Development Branches (ADBs) and 547 branches with Agricultural Banking Divisions (ADBs) and 2 Agricultural Business Branches at Chennai and Hyderabad catering to the needs of hitech commercial agricultural projects.
The Bank has achieved tremendous growth in agricultural credit.As on March 2001 ,it has covered 48 lakh farmers with loan outstanding of Rs. 14962 crores , accounting for 28% of total agricultural advances of Public Sector Banks (PSBs)
    Crop Loan
      SBI offers financial assistance to meet cultivation expenses for various crops as short Term Loan. With a repayment period not exceeding 18 months, the Crop Loan is extended in the form of direct finance to cultivators.
Eligibility-Agriculturists, Tenant farmers and Share Croppers who actually cultivate the lands are eligible for these loans. All categories of farmers - Small/Marginal (SF/MF) and others are included.
    Produce marketing loan scheme
      The Bank extends financial assistance to help farmers store produce on their own to avoid distress sale. The repayment period of the produce marketing loan (PML) does not exceed 6 months. Further, this facilitates immediate renewal of crop loans for next crop.
Eligiblity-All categories of farmers - Small/Marginal (SF/MF) and others - are eligible.
The Bank verifies the following aspects before granting the loan:
1) Service Area Approach.
2) Stocks at the borrowers' residence/godown.
3) Stock statement for valuation.
Loan Amount     Security to be furnished
Upto Rs.25,000     DPN, DPN take delivery letter Hypothecation of stocks.
Above Rs.25,000    Hypothecation of stocks.Mortgage of properties.
    Kisan credit card scheme
      The SBI offers the Kisan Credit Card for farmers under short-term credit introduced as per RBI/NABARD guidelines, providing a running account facility tofarmers to meet their production credit need and contingency needs.
Eligibility-All agricultural clients having good track record for the last two years are eligible for the Kisan Credit Card. Minimum credit limit: Rs.3000/- New borrowers requiring crop loans can also avail this product.
Credit limit is based on operational land holding, cropping pattern and scale of finance. Withdrawals can be made using easy and convenient withdrawal slips. The Kisan Credit Card is valid for 3 years, subject to annual review.
    Agriculture term loans
      SBI gives agricultural term loans in the form of direct finance to cultivators to create assets facilitating crop production/income generation. Repayments span not less than 3 years and not exceeding 15 years. Activities broadly covered are land development, minor irrigation, farm mechanization, plantation and horticulture, dairying, poultry, sericulture, dry land, waste land development schemes, etc.
Eligibility-All categories of farmers-small/medium-and agricultural labourers are eligible for agricultural term loans, provided they have necessary experience in the activity and the required land area.
    Land Development Schemes
      The SBI gives credit solutions for land development programmes in the form of direct finance to cultivators aimed at better productivity.  Loans under this head cover various activities like land clearance (removal bushes, trees, etc.), land leveling and shaping, contour/graded bunding, bench terracing for hilly areas, contour stone walls, staggered contour trenches, disposal drains, reclamation of saline/alkaline soils and fencing.
Eligibility:Loans cover various activities like digging of new wells (open/bore wells), deepening of existing wells (traditional/inwell bore), energisation of wells (oil engine/electrical pump set), laying of pipe lines, installing drip/sprinkler irrigation system and lift irrigation system.
    Minor Irrigation Schemes
      SBI provides credit for creating new source of irrigation by exploiting underground water, energisation of wells, conveyance of water, judicious use of available water, etc.
Loans cover various activities like digging of new wells (open/bore wells), deepening of existing wells (traditional/inwell bore), energisation of wells (oil engine/electrical pump set), laying of pipe lines, installing drip/sprinkler irrigation system and lift irrigation system.
     

    Farm Mechanisation Schemes
        SBI provides credit for purchase of farm equipment and machinery for agricultural operations.
This mode of finance covers activities ranging from: Purchase of tractors, trailers, cultivators, cage wheels, power tillers, combine harvesters, power sprayers, dusters, etc.
Eligibility- is ascertained on the basis of minimum area requirements: Tractors - 8 acres of irrigated area Power tiller - 5 -6 acres Combine harvester - 20 acres
    Financing of Combine Harvesters:
    A farmer should own minimum 8 acres of irrigated land.
    Non-farmer entrepreneurs capable of utilizing combine harvester for custom hiring work are also eligible.
    Combine harvester should be utilised for a minimum of 1000 hours of productive work in a year.
    Unit cost will include cost of combine harvester and accessories, if any.
    Kisan Gold Card Scheme:
Eligibility-Farmers with excellent repayment record for at least past 5 years. New farmers are not eligible for the product.

Purpose-Investment credit for which term loans are ordinarily sanctioned. The scheme also includes major family expenditures like marriages and education of children.
    Land Purchase Scheme:
 Eligibility-Small/marginal farmers, tenants, share-croppers owning less than 5 acres of unirrigated / 2.5 acres irrigated land in their own name and landless agricultural labourers are eligible to avail loan under the scheme, provided they are our existing borrowers with record of prompt repayment of loans. Own land before and after purchase should not exceed 5 acres irrigated / 2.5 acres irrigated.
Security-Land to be purchased with Bank finance will be mortgaged as security. No other security will be insisted upon.
Repayment-Entire loan will be repayable in 10 years in half-yearly instalments. Adequate gestation period will be allowed for development of land for cultivation.
Self Help Groups (SHGs)
SHGs are self managed homogeneous groups of economically backward people that promote savings among themselves and pool the savings. These pooled resources are supplemented by external resources i.e. bank credit when these groups gain experience. The Self Help Groups Linkage Programme of SBI is under implementation since 1992. At the end of March 2001, the Bank has financed 25,000 self-help groups with aggregate credit limit of Rs 46 crore.
Various Finance Scheme Offered From Government:

Maharashtra Rural Credit Project (MRCP) - India - Out line of the project features and Impact
General: Access to credit has long been considered a major poverty alleviation strategy in India. A variety of credit-linked programmes supplemented by subsidies have been implemented. The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) operating since 1978-79 has been a major national rural poverty alleviation programme with a large credit component. Under this programme, nearly 53 million families below poverty line were assisted with bank credit of Rs.31 billion and subsidy of Rs. 10.5 billion upto 31st March 1998, but its impact had not matched the resources spent. This was due to reasons like provision of supply rather than demand-led credit, loans not tailored to meet needs of individual enterprises, lack of aftercare support, weak linkages lack of supervision over loan utilisation etc. Further, there was no effective involvement of the people at any stage of implementation of the programme. As a result, the incidence of high overdues and high transaction cost for the banks in financing the rural poor became a matter of concern for the policy-makers.
Maharashtra Rural Credit Project (MRCP)
Against this backdrop the MRCP supported by IFAD was evolved as an innovative approach to poverty reduction with people’s participation. The strategy for implementation of this project has been devised in such a manner that the rural poor assume centre-stage and their participation ensured at all stages of the project viz. planning, implementation and monitoring. The experience gained shows that once the people’s participation is invoked at the planning stage itself a strong sense of ownership of the project develops among the people which stimulates them to actively involve in the subsequent phases of the project.
The MRCP being implemented with an outlay of US$ 48.35 million is financed by an IFAD loan of US$ 29.2 million supplemented by a contribution of US$ 14.97 million from Government of India/Government of Maharashtra and US$ 1.65 million from participating banks. The Project which is implemented by a number of banking institutions, Government agencies and Non Governmental Organisation (NGOs) since 1994-95 was designed with the principal goal.
Credit-Cum-Subsidy Scheme for Rural Housing.
Introduction:- The Credit-Cum-Subsidy Scheme for Rural Housing has been conceived for rural households having annual income upto Rs.32,000/-.
Objective- To enable/facilitate construction of houses for all rural households who have some repayment capacity.
Target Group- The target group under the scheme will be the rural households having an annual income of Rs. 32000/- only. However preference will be given to rural households who are below poverty line.
Salient Features:-
    Subsidy upto Rs.10,000/- per eligible household in plain areas and Rs.11,000/- in hilly/difficult areas.
    Loan upto Rs."2"0,000/- per household.
    Sanitary latrine and smokeless chulha are integral part of the house.
Achievement
The scheme has been launched with effect from 1 April, 1999 and is in the process of implementation.
Funding Pattern
Funds are shared by the Centre and State in the ratio of 75:25.
Implementing Agency
The Implementing Agency for the Credit Cum Subsidy Scheme for Rural Housing may be the State Housing Board,State Housing Corporation, specified Scheduled Commercial Bank, Housing Finance Institution or the DRDA/ZP.
Council for Advancement of People’s Action & Rural Technology (CAPART)
Recognising the need for an organisation that would coordinate and catalyse the development work of voluntary agencies in the country, particularly to ensure smooth flow of benefits to the underprivileged and socio-economically weaker sections of society, Government of India, in September, 1986 set up the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), a registered society under the aegis of the Department of Rural Development, by merging two autonomous bodies, namely, People’s Action for Development of India (PADI) and Council for Advancement of Rural Technology (CAPART).
The main objectives of the CAPART are :-
    To encourage, promote and assist voluntary action for the implementation of projects intending enhancement of rural prosperity.
    To Strengthen and promote voluntary efforts in rural development with focus on injecting new technological inputs;
    To act as a catalyst for the development of technology appropriate for rural areas.
    To promote, plan, undertake, develop, maintain and support projects/schemes aimed at all-round development, creation of employment opportunities, promotion of self-reliance, generation of awareness, organisation and improvement in the quality of life of the people in rural areas through voluntary action.
Conclusion
Agriculture and its associated activities are found constituting the economic base and the main source of livelihood and employment for the people in the state.  However, unprecedented growth of population on one hand and decreasing rate of available agriculture land along with degradation of supporting natural resources as required for sustaining crop productivity on the other have been seriously forcing the problems of sustaining livelihood for farming communities. It is becoming difficult to do the farming activity without external or internal sources.  In this context the significance of extending non-farm sector becomes only alternative but it also required finance assistance for its development.
Means a lot of hard work & government awareness is required to flow the finance assistance in Rural Economy. But various scheme which are provided by the various banks & government should be specific in its eligibility criteria to stop the misuse of these funds by large farmers and to ensure that the credit reaches the farmers who is in need of finance.
Recommendations
As per the above evaluation of the major problems and issues relating to the rural financial system we can submit the following observations & recommendations:
    Interest rates: Interest rates must be different for different categories. First it should be concessional rate exclusively for small and marginal farmers at 1.5% to 11.5% & Secondly, there should be a higher rate of interest applicable to the rest of the agricultural borrowers upper limit for it is15.5%
    Infrastructure Development: tempo of agricultural lending has been low in the eastern regional states like Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal & in the North Eastern States. So Agricultural and Rural Infrastructure Development Corporation should be setup in these area which will concentrate on building up necessary backward and forward linkages and supporting services as well as formulate location specific schemes for accelerating the transformation of  agriculture and to arrange for funding of the schemes.
    Insurance scheme: Crop insurance scheme which was introduced in India from Kharif 1985 covering major cereal crops, oilseeds and pulses.  The sum insured was limited to Rs.10,000 per farmer irrespective of quantum of crop loan and the total sum insured would be limited to 100 percent of the crop loan disbursed. Proper research should be done by statutory crop insurance corporation. 
    Recovery of dues: Recovery is important for survival of the banks, it is important that a common legal framework covering cooperatives and commercial banks for recovery of dues for the country as a whole should be formulated. The government should setup State level tribunals for adjudication.
    Rationalisation: In present scenario each village is allotted to a commercial bank branch under the Service Area approach.  As per the analysis each block should be allotted to a bank which has the largest presence in the block through its branches. Which will reduce the cost of supervision, improve quality of monitoring and be beneficial to the customers.
ECSTASY AND ETHICS OF POVERTY- A ROMANTIC MYTH
Introduction: The faces of poverty
Poverty, essentially, is a basic lack, means, a deficiency, generally of resources for subsistence. In the non-human animals such poverty is only found marginally in the "pecking order" for distribution of resources in society.
The lowest ranking member of a group may be inadvertently, or intentionally deprived of meager resources. In the human species, inequitable resource distribution is the rule rather than the exception. Food, shelter, healthcare may be described as minimum human needs for bare subsistence. Deficiency in these spells material poverty, which has plagued "civilized" man since pre-history, the condition still with us even as the twentieth century draws to a close. Among humankind, to whom we shall confine ourselves to the rest of this article, poverty can also be of the spirit, emotions, ideas, and knowledge. Humankind continues to be haunted by these vicarious poverties since times immemorial, the situation by no means much improved due to the much-avowed technological advances. Poverty or deficiency/ absence/ denial/ negation of material requirements for sustenance of life at even subliminal level is the more universally prevalent and poignant. Indeed, today poverty (any of the above types) may be found coexisting with, or sometimes even as a small island/pocket/cancer in affluence.
There are some special faces of poverty : In India, there is poverty of the spirit in lack of consideration, compassion and empathy with fellow man. Sharma (1998) has remarked emphatically on this in two recent publications. The intractable, incorrigible inertia, obduracy and obstructiveness of an unfeeling, unrepentant, and supremely indifferent Indian bureaucracy is a poverty of no mean dimensions and consequences. It subverts and corrupts in its wake all edifices of the State : the judiciary (backlog of thousands of cases! The corrupt bailed out ad nauseum, the rare reformers and crusaders being incarcerated!); the police (custody deaths, "encounter" killings, accident victims bleeding to death on the roads in which society in the modern civilized world would lives be allowed to be snuffed out on roads just for want of completion of bureaucratic formalities, even the common public shuddering to help for fear of harassment by the "system") ; education (the commercialization of teaching by the teachers); Ö. The list is endless. In nearly all cases, the pathological propensity of the modern republican Indian to switch over to the comfortable and powerful former colonial = present clerical mode of functioning in all areas is the culprit, The generator of these special poverties of the human spirit, for the system provides bland cover for non-performance as well as perverse obstructionism.
Facets of Poverty
Poverty has been described as a virtue, or even a blessing, in many religions. This is largely as a sop, a solace, the whistle in the dark for despairing souls groaning under the burden of unbearable deprivation. On the other hand, voluntary denial of conveniences, something extending even to essentials, for a cause or aspiration is often in the nature of a self imposed discipline which may have an ethic ( in the sense of value ) for the eventual achievement of an avowed objective, which may lead to an ecstasy of spiritual nature. Examples of such voluntary, self chosen/ imposed poverty are reflected in the architectural grandeur of some cave and temple structures of India where, from prehistoric to as late as the medieval era, artisans and craftsmen, including monks, have spent whole lifetimes chipping away at granite to create odes of superlative spiritual aesthetics to Gods and men of various hues. The caves of Ajanta, Ellora, and Karla, and various temples, especially the Khajurao odyssey of sex in stone, and the Meenakshi temple at Madurai in India are prime examples of this facet of human endeavor embracing poverty as a dedication for a higher purpose. The special tool of fasting used by Mahatma Gandhi in India was another, if unusual, and novel example of voluntary adoption of poverty ( of subsistence by refusing nutrition ) to achieve political ends..in this case leading to no less than independence from colonial rule : decidedly an ethic and an ecstasy for the people of the Indian subcontinent.
Other than the chosen denials illustrated above, all other material deficiencies of vital requirements for subsistence generate suffering and pain, certainly not ecstasy, in those condemned to suffer them. There is certainly nothing ethical either about hunger and disease leading to continually aggravating impoverishment, of the body and the soul, in children and adults, men and women. The decline of the physical leads to the shriveling of the spiritual, and the vicious cycle erodes the very humanity through generations - awareness of hopelessness and despair adding to the misery of ravages on the body and day to day living, which is actually slow degeneration and daily death. Poverty depraves not merely the body, but the soul as well : there is no dearth of documentation for this.
It is a travesty of the human condition that the unique evolutionary gift of conscious awareness and intelligence in the human animal becomes a curse for the poverty stricken. The pain, anguish and despair is obviously the more deeply experienced by the human as compared to the perception of pain or deprivation by the non-human animals. Such a poignant state can have neither ethic nor value, and therefore not ecstasy either.
Justifications for Poverty
Numerous religions seek to justify poverty (along with pain, suffering etc.) as Divine will, Karmic nemesis, or simply as a self-, or supra (divine) imposed self- discipline to convert the sufferers into better persons, more acceptable to God, or in Heaven. The need for projecting such justification is, of course, the contradiction inherent in an all powerful, loving, merciful being (God)/ system (Religion) condoning/accepting misery and despair of its acolytes for no discernible cause (sin). The victim may accept such a sop since he has no options, but he does it under duress, certainly not with pleasure, or any sense of goodness or morality. Indeed, the opposite viewpoint sometimes mooted that Poverty is the biggest sin, is definitely more biorational and comprehensible.
Romantic myths of Poverty
The notorious inability of Joan of Arc to comprehend why her poor countrymen were not consuming cakes in the absence of bread could be attributed to innocence-ignorance of the ground realities. Glorifying poverty as some kind of ethical virtue, or it being capable of generating a pristine, primeval ecstasy is an equally romantic myth of the modern urban man availing all comforts of contemporary human civilization , with only impersonal, second or third hand awareness of actual poverty. Voluntary chosen or self \endash imposed negation of modern conveniences, including even information inputs, as in a rustic retreat, is once again a fancy diversion, an illusion. Modern amenities in such settings are only a phone call away-at the nearest post office, or in these days, by the mere switching on of any of the numerous electronic communication devices. Voluntary rejection of such access can lead to simulation of actual deficiency conditions, but this could still be illusory, and artificial, the "poverty" of means capable of being dispelled at will in the slightest emergency affecting life or limb.
The ecstasy, and the ethic, imagined, visualized or "experienced" in such "poverty" is therefore contrived and artefactual, with little, if any relation, to the actual reality of the condition. Foregoing clean water, hygienic food, life saving drugs, at least the minimum informational inputs from the world, social interaction may be the penance of a recluse seeking a "higher truth". Such self-abnegation can have neither meaning, nor virtue for the average human from the urban or today, even the rural milieu. The ethic and ecstasy sometimes claimed or aspired through voluntary imposition of deficiency conditions are as illusory as the "poverty" created. Retreat in reclusion in simulated poverty states may be achievable, though it would essentially be artefactual. Embracing real poverty, and living among the poverty stricken, has been achieved only by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, who could infuse ethics, and derive a spiritual satisfaction from the exercise. But again, these were rare humans, the acme of the species, with high spiritual objectives. For them, seeking poverty was for an altruistic goal, a determined, grim undertaking. Poverty can never be fun or games, or a source of joy or inspiration, as some idealists and romantics like to profess from distances far removed from the dusty, grimy grind of the gutters. Poverty leads to subhumanoid attrition of human body and spirit. Ecstasy and ethic are essentially human traits, of a transcendental kind at that. The implied /claimed coexistence of these states with Poverty is therefore a contradiction in terms, which cannot be reconciled except in the case of special spiritual endeavours of a rare breed of humans. The romantics who seek bliss in Poverty chase a mirage, and those who claim to have found it, coin a false myth. The best proof of the above assertions lies in the undeniable fact that the poverty-stricken would any day opt for an exchange of their lives of penury for existence of blatant consumerism and affluence. The poignant query is "are there any takers for this offer among the advocates of Poverty who see ethic and ecstasy in it?" The answer is, of course, an indubitable, resounding NO. That concludes all arguments. Poverty is a curse, a sin, a blasphemy and an indictment of the whole spectrum of humankind. Those who profess to see ethic or ecstasy in Poverty deserve neither consideration, nor quarter.
A Perspective on India
Without meaning to, without being particularly interested in Indian culture, without traveling here, we have taken much from the five thousand years of India culture. My morning yoga practice, my ayurvedic toothpaste, a habit of lavaging my nose to keep my sinuses clean all originated here. we even tend to think of the two fundamental concepts in thermodynamics, entropy and enthalpy, as the combination term 'entalpy' due to the peculiar pronunciation of an Indian professor. Yet we had not, until now, traveled to India. A business trip to teach software engineering processes to an information technology company gave me the chance. we came to teach, but we learned.
India is, in a word, complicated. When traveling to a new country, we generally read some history and try to learn twenty or thirty words in the language. That was simply not possible with India. India frustrated my best efforts. Which language should we learn? Hindi, said my Bangladeshi friend. Hindi is spoken all over India. Except where it is not and it is not in my destination of Hyderabad, the capital of the southeastern state of Andhra Predesh. More than multicultural, India has seventeen official languages and more than twenty two thousand (!) distinct dialects. As for history, that is complicated, too.
India is often called a developing nation. That is probably the wrong way to view it. India is a cradle of ancient civilizations, a crossroads of humankind's earliest struggles to live together in large groups, the center of a society with complex rules and home to countless religions. The golden age of India peaked in the first millennium of the Christian Era and was followed by a series of foreign invasions, from the Persians to the British, in the second. With only fifty nine years of modern independence under its collective belt, India should be viewed as an ancient civilization in an advanced state of decay. The farming peasants may be illiterate, but they are heir to a vast complex of oral tradition, encompassing all facets of the human experience save perhaps high technology.
Successive invasions by Persian kings have left a substantial Muslim minority throughout India, most of whom dominate trade and small business in their home cities. Hyderabad's name itself ties the area to the "bads and the stans" of central and southwest Asia. Add in the Sikhs, the Jains, the Parsis (of Zoroastrian faith), hundreds of Hindu sects, Christians, a few Jews, Buddhists, heaps of tribal animists and you are left with the conclusion of Shashi Tharoor, the United Nations undersecretary general for communications and public information: "The singular thing about India", Tharoor writes, "is that you can only speak of it in the plural."
As Tharoor has done, we will offer the obvious caveat: The remainder of this narrative is a recitation of limited personal experiences and cannot hope to be representative of all of India. My preconceptions of Hindu rules were shattered the moment we saw the diversity of clothing in the customs line. Western dress, including leather shoes and belts, were quite common, as were the open-back sandals called chappals and traditional wear from a variety of regions, faiths and traditions. There are no rules which apply to all Indians and all simplistic descriptions of India should be immediately suspect.
Technology is now penetrating and transforming the society at its edges. Will it succeed? Perhaps not. With 1.18 Billion-with-a-B people and a sustained growth rate of more than 2 percent per annum, India needs to gain eight million jobs each year just to retain the per capita penetration of those with education and jobs to match. In the best year of the last generation, it gained seven million new jobs. The information technology sector, often viewed as the next generation's growth engine and hope for the future, has already hit a talent wall. Those with talent have been found and hired. New workers, with the exception of the small pool from the Indian Institute of Technology and a few other high-quality institutions, are so poorly prepared by the educational system that the New York Times reported, "A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable. The rest were deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team or deliver basic oral presentations." My own experience trying to hire new employees in Hyderabad matches that assessment.
The information technology sector is reportedly 115,000 qualified applicants short of demand. That figure is expected to grow to half a million by 2010. Culture compounds the problem. Young engineers often come from rural villages, earn a place in higher education and proceed to their first jobs in the technology centers of Bangalore, Hyderabad or Mumbai. They gain valuable experience in their first three years, but instead of continuing to build their skills, they immediately seek a "management" position or a visa to the United States. They arrogantly assume that they have mastered the important skills of their profession. Those of us with ten, fifteen or twenty years of engineering experience can tell them the bitter truth - modern engineering is complex and it takes years to learn. Three years of entry-level coding is hardly sufficient to lead teams, especially when the fundamentals have not been absorbed. We interviewed one candidate, a team leader of ten with a remarkable seven years of experience as a Web programmer producing Java servlets and Java Server Pages applications, and he did not know the basics of Web architecture. He could not explain the relationship between Web server and Web client, nor the method or type of communication between them. We are told that the large industry players like Microsoft and Oracle and Dell no longer bother to put their candidates through a difficult interview. Knowing that they will not find the requisite skills, they prefer to find who they can and train them internally. Corporate training, some programs taking half a year, and corporate financing of privately run universities is becoming the norm.
Americans may think of Indian call centers and Indian programmers, but the information technology sector may not be the domestic force of popular myth. Washers of clothing, called dohbis, tailors and barbers taken together earn slightly more than the country's touted information businesses. Why? 1.18 Billion-with-a-B people grow a lot of hair and soil a lot of clothes. Viewed macroscopically the information technology boom, which has so greatly affected the United States services market, may not be a major player in the Indian economy.
Even a small economic sector can employ millions of people in India and have an impact on society. Consider this: Both of the classical upstart religions of India, Buddhism and Jainism, formed in the fifth century B.C.E., can be described as reactions to the overly strict caste rigidity of Hinduism. Given the now small number of Buddhists and Jains in India, the modern caste-breaking reformation that is software development may be more successful in terms of shear numbers.
Mark Twain came to India in the 1890s and blamed caste for the poor economic production in the country. We are more likely to blame the British policy of divide and rule, but there can be little doubt that tying caste to job opportunities is an inefficient use of human capital. We are told that caste was originally a job protection scheme. If your father was a carpenter, then doesn't it make sense for you to be a carpenter? Who else should apprentice to your father if not you? Over time, the castes became more and more rigid, culminating in the "untouchability" of those notionally outside of the caste system and thus destined to clean and perform society's dirty jobs. These days, newly well off software workers may advertise for mates with the statement "caste no bar" in the local newspaper, although the vast majority still rely on caste matches. India's multicultural society is adapting to change with exposure to the West while maintaining its traditions in the rural areas, just as it has for millennia. India will absorb, modify and adapt to yet another way of doing things.
A regular facet of Indian life, as a colleague put it, is that "poverty strikes you in the face." Villagers, illiterate and unskilled, come to the cities seeking work and money. They may beg, prostitute themselves or, if they are fortunate, gain work in the thriving construction industry. We simply accepted seeing Asian poverty as a young man, but now I feel driven to try to actually understand its causes and potential solutions.
Indian poverty is a seemingly bottomless pit. No matter how many rupees one gives to beggars, no matter how many jobs are created in the cities, people are busy making more people. Nevertheless, education and educational opportunities in rural areas are helping to give some small percentage a chance at a better life. The company we were working with sponsored a school teacher and school books in the remote village of the founder. The democratic, if incredibly corrupt, government has lent a hand by providing educational opportunities and job reservations to the so-called "backward" castes and tribal members.
Hovels made of scrap material stretch for hundreds of meters next to massive public transportation construction sites and large building sites, all covered with billboards advertising items out of reach of most who see them. Consumerism and advertising has come to India's largest cities, even though only the one million or so super-rich can generally afford to routinely buy Western brands. Many foreign companies were lured to India with the promise of a large middle class of 300 million, but the middle class generally buys India's indigenous products, having been trained to do so for centuries of imperial rule and half a century of non-aligned politics.
We can come to no other conclusion than India's per capita job growth will get worse in the short term. The only way to industrialize and educate the majority of the population in the long term is to reduce the population. Economic growth alone cannot possibly manage the problem.
Unfortunately, a decrease in population may happen the hard way. The New York Times reported on my first day in Hyderabad that 700 million nationally are without basic sanitation facilities, both in rural and urban areas. That is roughly two thirds of the population. The government says that 9 out of 10 Indians have access to the public water supply system, but that may be contaminated or only operate a few hours per day. Supplemental sources of water are necessary for the middle and lower classes, even in the capital city of New Delhi. This is a crisis in the making. A friend's mother is a working geographer. Her theory: "In the future, all wars will be fought over water."
Agricultural land is also under stress, threatened by government and commercial development. Special Economic Zones are increasingly converting land under cultivation in a bid to create a modern society. Without addressing the population growth, however, it would seem to me that these activities are also undermining the livelihoods and food supplies of a tremendous number of people.
Is the population growth really out of control? Do the math. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister following independence from Britain, said that he wants his legacy to be "400 million people capable of governing themselves." That was a less than sixty years ago and the population has just about tripled. The developed countries were able to more slowly adjust to industrialization and the post-industrialization economic changes; their birth rates changed with those factors, without undergoing the huge and sustained population growth of India. The Green Revolution has resulted in enough food to grow the population and avoid famine, at the same time that increased health care has nearly stopped infant and child mortality. Add in a dominant culture that values a large number of children as a form of social security and religious imperatives and the causes of the situation are obvious. Nobody seems to want to seriously discuss a solution. Nature may impose a solution once the water runs out, which would result in the largest catastrophe in human history. Will India's democratically elected elite take the blame when a hundred million people die of dehydration, starvation and related diseases?
Streets are dirty, even in cities where they are constantly being cleaned. Penniless sweeper women clean the streets with brooms of dried twigs, gathered into a faggot, outside the shops of the well off and the office buildings of the new rich. Their backs are bent into the shape of manual rice farmers, the "face to the earth, back to the sky" posture, as it is called in China. How simple for their government employers to provide longer broom handles? Comfortable with the notion that a government sweeper woman will pick up rubbish, drivers throw food and cigarette wrappings from their vehicles without a second thought. Raw earth is the most common border for a street, ensuring that the sweepers can never get ahead.
The monsoonal rains find every fault in the new roads, which were not built to the specified standards in any case. By October when the rains end, potholes abound. Laborers remove asphalt with hammer and chisel, squatting in the traffic to perform their repairs. They leave behind an open trench, which will be filled with packed dirt and, naturally, swept diligently.
Why do people live with filthy physical surrounding? Shashi Tharoor blames the phenomenon on the focus of family. Indians, he says, support family members, even extended family members or friends, but not the society as a whole. "It is common", he says, "to find sumptuous luxury apartments in buildings that are filthy, rotting and stained, whose common areas, walls and staircases have not been cleaned or painted in generations. Each apartment owner is proud of his immediate habitat, but is unwilling to incur responsibility or expense for the areas shared with others, even in the same building." The same is true on the level of a city, a state or the country as a whole. Common areas, it would seem, are rarely maintained unless by rare order of government.
Perhaps the reason for dilapidated common areas is more subtle. I have noticed that cities whose culture produces wonderful music, or literature, or spiritual enlightenment, are often not materially impressive in appearance. New Orleans before the disaster of Hurricane Katrina was less than clean or materially wealthy in most neighborhoods, but the music rivaled any city in the world. Perhaps the poor state of India's common areas are a reflection of the many religions created here, all of which focus on the inner life of an individual and his immediate family. Few of the memes of state, those directed at the newly capitalist middle class, suggest a material focus.
Modern Indian industry has an obligation to provide jobs for the great mass of people, talented or otherwise, in their midst. The company I visited had 28 employees in their Hyderabad engineering center. Only an even dozen were engineers. The remainder consisted of management and various support functions. They have their own uniformed guard, and two boys from the villages to make coffee and tea, deliver food and keep the place clean. The education level in the small office thus varies from elementary school level to post-Masters. My hotel was similar. Arrivals are greeted by a doorman, overly assisted by one, two or even three porters (even if one is wearing a backpack!) and directed to reception by a number of guards, greet staff and managers. Due to some refurbishment in the Taj Residency, a five-star Western-style accommodation for business travelers, the path to reception required the personal involvement of no less than fifteen people when we arrived. Indians seem to like this amount of attention, but I found it to be rather overwhelming.
The Taj hotel chain seemingly specializes in obsequious inefficiency. They are not the only ones. There are simply too many people involved in too few tasks. They are all friendly, polite, gracious and willing, but also willing to waste much time and effort in the process. Personally, we have less time than we would like and am quite capable of carrying a bag or finding my way to a buffet five meters away, thus the hospitable coddling was somewhat bothersome. In spite of the obvious effort to employ more people than necessary, the national unemployment rate is nearly 10%.
Programmers and staff of information technology companies are unlikely to have access to apartments of their own. Many come from colleges to the cities for work and find shelter in hostels with colorful names such as the "Genius" and "Hi-Tech" working men's hostels or the Sree working women's hostel. They will have a common room with a TV and air conditioning, but have a bed in a common bunkroom. Staying in such conditions allows them to send money back to their families in the villages. They pooled to work, getting rides from the staff members with cars. Only the most senior staff had their own apartments. Of course, this compares quite favorably to the squalid slums for construction workers, without even basic sanitation services, or those living on the street.
Internet access, both at hotel and office, was paradoxically superb. Bandwidth was high enough for voice-over-IP services like Skype and iChat and was constantly available with the exception of the routine but aperiodic power outages. Power outages occurred once or twice every couple of days. The hotel did not have a transparent proxy to redirect me to a login page, so a man had to come to my room to type in the magic URL. It was inefficient, but provided a job where application of technology would have taken one away.
Guards at offices, hotels and restaurants are generally uniformed and occasionally armed. They salute foreigners in an exaggerated parody of the British style, a remnant of empire. Although the British are not remembered fondly, it would seem the salute is here to stay.
Much hard physical labor is performed by women. This may manifest in as trivial a form as women carrying shopping goods while men go unburdened or as extreme as carrying material into and out of construction sites. Women will carry raw materials into a construction site and debris back out, all on their heads. Well-organized sites sometimes provide hard hats for their workers; the women's having a molded stubby cylinder on top to facilitate the balancing of a shallow bowl for carrying bricks, cement, bags of dirt or shards of broken tiles. The men assemble the wooden scaffolding, pour concrete and learn the process of building.
Finish work is rough in the new Indian office buildings. Project management on the sites is lacking, and the natural result is a misordering of construction. One day a wall will be poured, the next it will be painted, the third it will be drilled, cut and scarred to allow another conduit to be placed or a pipe to be repaired. Completed tile work on stairways or around elevator lift lobbies will be scratched and gouged as elevators are installed. Doors fit poorly. Grouting between tiles is laid, but the excess never wiped clean, leaving it to dry in globs on the tile surface.
All politics being local, and many Indians enjoying the discussion of politics above all else, the news was full of fearful reports that the recent testing of a nuclear device by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) might impact India's nuclear relationship with the European Union and the United States. India is a nuclear state, and armed with long-range missiles, but operates its nuclear program outside of the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Newspapers such as The Hindu breathlessly reported each day on President Bush's statements of support for India's program. It may seem confusing to many Westerners why a democratic country dominated by Hindus would want nuclear weapons, but the reason is quite simple. The U.S. government once funded and assisted India's nuclear program with an eye toward containing China. That is same strategy of containment which lead the U.S. to fund and equip Saddam Hussain's Iraq against Iran, and we all know how that worked out. Similarly, India's pursuit of nuclear weapons resulted in a nuclear Pakistan and the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network.
A recent law banning child labor resulted in a crackdown on the practice in many Indian cities. Children were rescued by police from restaurants and shops where they were working. Although laudable in concept, I sincerely hope never to be "rescued" by the Indian police.
A small aircraft crashing into a building in New York City barely rated three column-inches partially above the fold. I'm sure the coverage in New York was somewhat greater. Dengue fever came to Hyderabad the week I arrived. The first day brought 27 cases, and at least three deaths. The government desperately instituted anti-mosquito measures in an attempt to limit the primary vector. Unfortunately, Indians were sprayed with DDT as public areas were treated. People were not warned of the direct dangers of the sprays to themselves. The problem is exacerbated by the refusal of Hindus to kill even mosquitoes. I watched as a driver opened his window to wave one out, only to let more in. I suffered no such compunction, but tried to keep the carnage quiet.
We arrived in the middle of a Saturday night after a long flight via Frankfurt, Germany. The customs hall was swathed in high-quality marble. There is a tremendous amount of marble in India, as much proportionally as there is metal in Germany. The crowd was well adjusted. Children were tired from the long flight but, like their parents, quite and well behaved.We readjusted to the closer personal distance common in crowded countries and forgot about being touched so often.
A poster in the customs hall of displayed a picture of the 1000 Pillars Temple in Warangal. It reminded me of the temple in Disney's version of The Jungle Book and it took me a minute to remember that bit of fantasy was supposed to be in India. Score one for cultural imperialism.
It took three people to pick me up at the airport, one in a suit to hold my name card, another to carry my bag and a third to drive the car. The car itself was unadorned and probably personal. We stopped for gas, but very quickly; he could not have filled the tank. I didn't have any small Rupee bills to tip him, to which the driver replied, "Give me a dollar", as if lecturing a small child.
The first thing a Westerner must notice in India is the traffic. There is surprisingly little protocol between drivers and no attention at all is paid to traffic laws. Traffic was heavy, even at 12:20 AM. Drivers force their way into the flow by playing the game of Chicken. One driver or the other will stop, generally before damage is done. Drivers pay close attention to the road and they can't go fast enough for the situation to routinely result in death. The trip was hair-raising, but the average speed rarely exceeded forty to fifty kilometers per hour. Nevertheless, we did experience one serious near miss. Some drivers use the lane lines as centering guides, crossing them at will, even veering into oncoming traffic if they find it convenient. They notionally drive on the left, but may drive as far right as the rightmost boundary at any point in time. Horns are used for multiple purposes, to indicate a desire to pass, to indicate that someone else should not pass, to warn another driver, to express frustration, to say hello to a friend. Many times, a driver sounds a horn just because he is used to doing so. Painted warnings on the back of taxis and trucks remind drivers to use their horns and everyone cheerfully complies.
A road sign informed drivers that a fifty rupee fine awaited those who crossed lanes. We laughed out loud when looking around at a thousand cars not one of which was fully in a lane.
Hyderabadi roads are filled with all types of vehicles. Two-wheeled scooters, motorcyles and hand carts vied for space with the ubiquitous three-wheeled autorickshaws, or just "autos", a type of taxi and the most common form of public transportation. Food and hardware vendors may also use three-wheeled hand carts, or they may have four wheels. Most are hand made with bicycle wheels. Four-wheeled cars, especially the SUVs of the new rich, can have a hard time maneuvering since the smaller vehicles can often cut them off. "Autos" may be made into five- or even seven-wheeled light trucks. Six- and eight-wheeled trucks from major manufacturers squeeze in where they can, or, if large enough, make their own path. Heavy construction machinery is common. The result is a cacophony of sound and a confusion of direction which is purely Asian.
Both Mulsim and Hindu women tend to ride side saddle on the back of motorcycles and scooters. A few, all in pants, straddled the seats like the men, but only in the cities.
The air in Hyderabad is chewable, much worse than Los Angeles, but better than Bangkok. Unfortunately, the pollution is so bad in most Indian cities that diseases of the lungs, including cancer, are quite common. Interestingly, a news report blamed the air quality on a combination of industrial pollution and loss of ozone. The latter has nothing to do with it, as far as we can tell. We were cautious to drink only bottled water and use it to clean my teeth as well. We knew not to eat fruit that had been rinsed in the water, but we presume that it was grown with it. We have no idea how effective a papaya or a watermelon is in filtering out viral diseases from water it absorbs.
Muslims and Hindus live side-by-side, although in different areas of town, with both religions and all of their nearly infinite variations obvious in dress and customs. Yet their is very little violence. There is some, and it is well publicized, but generally limited to certain cities, especially Mumbai, where political parties use the politics of division for their own narrow ends. Muslims and Hindus in the rural areas have lived alongside one another for centuries without conflict. Muslim women may wear a full-length black burqa, or a white one, or a hijab head scarf with a facial opening, or just a scarf over the hair. Hindu women may wear a sari, or a salwar kameez or a shirt and skirt, or Western clothing. Men may wear a white Muslim skull cap, or a Hindu "third eye" on their foreheads or no distinguishing marks at all. Even in this city with very few Christians, it is not uncommon to see the occasional Catholic crucifix, or "Jesus is coming" painted on the back of an auto, possibly because of the prevalence of Catholic schools. The middle class often sends their children to such "convent" schools to ensure they learn English.
My first full day was taken with seeing the sights of Hyderabad: Golkonda Fort, first started in the twelfth century, the four hundred year old Charminar Mosque, a Hindu temple built entirely of marble, and Hussain Sagar, the large lake in the middle of the three sections of Hyderabad. The largest standing statue of the Buddha is on an island in the middle of the lake, which can be seen nicely from the heights of the Hindu temple. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in the temple, so no pictures.
Golkonda was both town and fort. A layered defense of walls, some stretching many kilometers, surrounded the original town. The outer walls are slowly disappearing as the current residents tear them down for building material. In the center stands a large rocky hill with three additional walls, the palace and, at the top, both Hindu temple and mosque. The architects used the huge rocky outcroppings as a guide and filled the gaps to make the walls. The three inner walls are protected from devastation by the Archaeological Survey of India. The palace was an amazing three stories tall and included apartments, audience halls and indoor plumbing with the water pumped by slaves. Strategically placed cisterns provided a water supply. A tree near the bottom of the hill is decorated and covered with offerings to the cobra living within.
Charminar is more than a mosque. It forms the center of the old city of Hyderabad and is surrounded by the market area. We arrived at the end of the day in the middle of Ramadan (Ramzan), just fifteen minutes before the end of the day's fasting. Literally everyone was in the markets preparing for the evening meal. The meal is followed by a prayer at the mosque which accommodates ten thousand people.
Given the lack of finish work in building construction and the lack of care in common areas, should one be concerned that a culture of quality does not exist in India? What is the impact of those observations regarding software quality? Stereotypes always seem to be wrong when applied to individual people and perhaps more so in India. We think the existence of well-made crafts, jewelry (such as the working of pearls in Hyderabad) and other areas of expertise suggest that it just depends. The programmers we worked with were certainly motivated, hard working and willing to learn.
My first hint that we were approaching the Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy (HITEC) City was the Y2K Restaurant on a corner. A bit farther down is the massive Cyber Gateway building, home to Microsoft and complete with a small private army. Turning down a street parallel brought us along a stretch of massive natural rocks, piled on top of one another by the erosion of softer surrounding material by the weather of ages. The entire area is like that.
We were greeted in the startups' office with flowers, which is a pleasant local tradition. There was also a sign with the company's name and mind and a welcoming committee. Again, we were a bit embarrassed by the formality. The office staff provided a continuous stream of butter tea and snacks during each working day.
Every culture has its own habits, both physical and verbal. The Indian way of speaking English is consistent and easy to comprehend, but it is different from the way the language is spoken elsewhere. If an item or a place is particular to an area, then it is "famous". The word is just not used in the same way. Similarly, a men's tailor shop is generally advertised with a sign offering "suitings and shirtings". A manager may wish to address the "fitment" of a new hire. Following the word structure of the Telugu language, something occurring a single time every seven days would be referred to as "weekly once".
Indian English relies heavily on the present participle, as in "David would be imparting training to us during this week" or "[a product] should provide the ability to connect to source systems comprising of complicated data models." We were amused to discover that Wikipedia has an excellent article on Indian English.
Meals are eaten with the right hand by tearing bread one-handed and using it to pick up bits of curry. The left hand is used for other things and is not used for eating. Utensils are generally provided, but not used. We had a tough time using small pieces of roti and hence ate more bread than we should have. After two weeks of curries, though, that was not a bad thing.
The most overt physical sign of the southern Indian is the particular head wag. It is not a shake of the head, as Westerns would indicate a negative, but more of a rotation about the nose. The head rotates clockwise and then counter-clockwise to indicate a provisional agreement during conversation, or a request to continue or an indication of no objection. Naive foreigners easily confuse it with a refusal, while it is closer to the opposite. We have tried to imitate it (in the privacy of my hotel room!) but do not apparently have the neck muscles trained property.
We were quite surprised to find out that it is common among some Hindu men, at the insistence of their mothers, to marry their sister's daughter. That degree of closeness in genetic material would be illegal in most Western countries. Interestingly, a man must treat his brother's daughter as his own daughter.
The management style of the people We worked with was soft. Soft spoken, soft directions and consensus building. We had a hard timing overhearing conversations, even when trying to observe pair programmers. People were generally very polite with one another and with me. There was no sign of the directness or profanity which dominates U.S. businesses. The opposite problem, of course, that we had to discuss the difference between being "impolite" and adequately forceful when speaking to management about problems.
The air conditioning in the office was up and down, like the power. At times it was cold enough to send employees scurrying for their sweaters and other times quite warm or off. The building's generator did not seem to be available for use yet, but the large office UPS provided power to computers if not lights.
We were taken to lunch on most days by senior staff. Curries, roti and water made for excellent meals. Cumin or cardamon seeds were available afterward, much like in Indian restaurants in the West. We were not prepared for the popular covering of soap (sic) on some of the seeds. Once the office ordered pizza, but I did not choose to try it with a curry topping.
A local travel agency required me to pay for air tickets to Aurangabad by either cash or credit card. We had to physically go to their office to pay by credit card. Their office was in the old city, near the Charminar mosque, on the third floor and up a rusty, loose circular staircase external to the building. The stairs were tightly wound for someone of my height and their movement made me leave more distance between me and the gentleman ascending in front of me. Their was no power when we arrived and so no credit card transactions were possible. We tried a local ATM, but it rejected my card. Eventually, one of my colleagues paid for the tickets and we gave him a personal check after meeting him back in the U.S. The tickets were all on different airlines and so all different in form and check-in procedures. Only one of those airlines wanted to see my passport upon check-in. The airfares were similar to the US, certainly not cheaper. Ten of India's airlines have recently combined into the Federation of India Airlines (FIA), which is being investigated for price fixing.
The flight to Mumbai was uneventful and I was, frankly, expecting a modern and bustling city airport. It was, but the smell of rotting garbage was extreme at Terminal 1A as we transfered via bus. We walked the hundred meters to Terminal 1B past a fleet of aging Ambassador sedans being used as taxis, an Indian tradition. They may be poorly made, but they certainly are loud and slow. I exchanged some money at the airport and they passed me a counterfeit 500 rupee note. We expected some of this, but not from a bank :)
Aurangabad (Arangabad) is a rural center in the state of Maharastra. Roughly 1.3 million people live there, hardly a populous city by Indian standards. We were told that they are about 60% caste Hindu, 25% Muslim and 15% "backwards". Backwards are the Indian term for those who constitute the lowest rung of the caste ladder. They mostly live in rural areas and perform hard physical labor, such as agriculture and janitorial services.
We had fun making contact with the travel service who promised to pick me up at the airport. We located a man from the same company and asked him to call his boss. We declined his alternative offers of hotel and taxi until we had it sorted. We eventually ended up in the right hotel and was promised a driver for the next morning. A power loss in the hotel left the room really quite dark. We were surprised to discover that Aurangabad shows few lights at night, even in the relatively expensive vicinity of my hotel. The hotel staff wanted to make a copy of my passport and didn't return it promptly. They did return it once we asked.
We were was surprised to find only a single book in my hotel room - a Gideon bible. Those people get everywhere. We slept for almost twelve hours that night following a week of jet lag getting an average of three. We dreamed deeply, including a detailed dream about starting a company to solve the lack of screen real estate on personal computing devices. The idea was to use techniques from wearable computing and either folding screens or eye projection. We may have to follow up on those ideas at some point.
All my toiletries disappeared when we passed through the airport, except a small tube of toothpaste. It was easy to adjust to a lack of deodorant since it is not commonly used. Talc and frequent bathing are the solution, in spite of the water shortage. The cultural imperative toward twice-daily bathing is like the cultural imperative toward large families; both are currently working against the Indian reality. Breakfast was Indian, consisting of cold beans, potatoes, pasta with onions and several kinds of fruit juice. The marsala omelet had been consumed before we arrived.
Ram, a local Hindu driver, picked me up in a white Mitsubishi sedan for the two hour drive to the Ajanta (Ajintha, Ajantha) caves. We drive through streets that seemed uncrowded after Hyderabad, passed masonry three storey homes and rapidly left the affluent part of town. Minutes later we were in a busy market with donkeys and goats vying for road space. Cows with bright blue horns ate garbage poured on the side of the road by merchants. Policemen on motorbikes wended through the throng. A neat and modern building behind a fence turned out to be a government electrical distribution center. Buffalo plodded through fields of corn and cotton as we left town.
We passed through a small hamlet where the masonry homes was bare and unrendered. Neat farms were laid out on either side with small vegetable patches, some covered to protect them from the sun, near the houses. A parade of goats, nominally lead by a young "backward" goatherd, blocked the road for a few moments. We passed through a gate and paid ten rupees to continue along a government turnpike. Typical of India, the process of taking the money and raising the gate required a full complement of eight young men.
The terrain turned hilly, sparsely vegetated with rocky outcroppings which resembled the high plains of the Southwestern U.S. A sign outside the Stepping Stone High School read, "Education is Life!" Certainly, it is a path away from stoop labor. Traffic changed form with a majority of motorbikes, bullock carts and bicycles making way for the occasional car and bus. An ancient, rusted tractor pulled a wooden cart piled high with brush. Corn and cotton made way for sugar cane. A colorful Hindu temple made of reinforced concrete provided a break in the agricultural landscape.
We passed through a small town of twelve thousand and into the middle of a political rally. Elections loomed and the dominant Congress Party had fully lost this region to the upstart Siv Sena Party. Siv Sena had managed to do the impossible: They had started a fundamentalist Hindu movement, the so-called Hindutva, and were taking advantage of political uncertainly to win seats. The Hindutva are Hindus without Hinduism, believing in a simplified and external brand of the religion, and fighting for a way of life they feel is threatened by others, primarily capitalists and Muslims. Driver Ram defended their actions, while assuring me that "backwards" and caste Hindus didn't fight Muslims in the rural areas, only in the cities.
It is interesting to consider that many "backwards" converted to Islam when their rulers changed. Perhaps this was partially to escape the Hindu's rigid caste structure. It is not possible to convert to Hinduism because one may not choose one's caste.
The poorest of the poor cut sugar cane and piled it into wooden carts without bullocks, waiting to be picked up later. Their tents and twig huts showed no signs of comfort. Women walked for many kilometers down the roads with heavy loads on their heads. I saw no Muslims in the rural areas. They were concentrated in the towns and ran the hotels, market shops and hardware/scrap metal collections. I only saw Muslim madrasas, or religious schools, near the small towns.
The Khelna River fell behind as we passed a dead dog lying in the road. A little boy of perhaps six years hit the brahma cows with a meter-long stick, a bit harder than necessary, to move them from the road. The cows' horns blue color was starting to fade from the August festival when the it was last applied. The animals are given two days of rest and ritual washing once per year during the holiday. A painted, wooden sign for Balapur Village showed the red trim and white paint of the British Raj, fully a hundred years old. We made eighty kilometers per hour down an asphalt road in good repair. A continual stream of foot traffic, both animal and human, breathed our dust as we passed. Buses owned by the Samrat company passed our car at breakneck speeds at regular intervals.
Each little village we passed had a gate over the road, and the area around the gate was covered in orange, green and blue flags. Ram told me the orange flags represented caste Hindus, the green Muslims and the blue "backwards".
Ram warned me not to buy souvenirs from the "backwards" on the road or in the parking area at the entrance to the Ajanta Caves. He said the gems and pearls they sold were not genuine. Later we were to discover that he did want me to buy souvenirs, but only from vendors with whom he had a (presumably financial) relationship. We parked about four kilometers from the caves and we transferred to a bus for the rest of the journey. Cars are no longer allowed by the Maharashtra state government in an effort to reduce damage to the cave paintings from pollution. A gauntlet of storekeepers swarmed me as I made my way, pressing "gifts" into my hands and trying to extract a promise that I would visit their store on the way out. We accepted a small fragment of a geode for my son and promised to visit Shop #58. My son wanted a statue of the Buddha to match the one in my office and this was as good a place as any to find one.
We met two Americans on the walk up to the caves, a non-resident Indian from Kerala named Reji and his partner Barbara, both from the Seattle area. We toured the caves together and promised to exchange photos and notes by email. It was pleasant to have someone to talk to who had a similar perspective on the caves. It helped me to put them in context.
The Ajanta caves were a Buddhist monastery and center of learning from the second century B.C.E. to the sixth century C.E. Three to four hundred monks would live in the caves for the four months of the rainy season and absorb Buddhist teachings and then move to the urban areas to teach the remainder of the year. Artists related to the local king carved the decorations in the caves and elaborately painted the ceilings, walls, columns and doorways. We presume the bulk removal of rock was done by unskilled workers.
The caves were abandoned when the monarch succumbed to the Hindu reformation sweeping the country and the royal artists were withdrawn. They were rapidly covered with jungle growth and lost until a British Army officer saw the massive vault of one of the temples in 1819 while hunting tigers. He explored the caves and, in an act of inexcusable vandalism, carved his name into a painting fifteen hundred years old. One may still clearly see John Smith's inscription.
Most caves were dormitories and shared a similar plan. Columns of rock fronted the entrance, backed by a wall with windows and doors cut from the living basalt rock. The room inside was roughly square with a ring of columns inside. The central area was sunken by a few centimeters to allow it to be filled with water. Reflecting mirrors on the outside could then shine sunlight on the shallow water to provide light. An alcove at the back typically held an ornate larger-than-life figure of the Buddha, surrounded by attendants and symbols. A mandala representing the wheel of life was carved and painted over the alcove and on the ceiling over the entrance. Small cells for the monks to sleep and meditate in lined the three inner sides. The cells may have rock beds along the sides or a small shelf for personal possessions such as a begging bowl, or be simply bare.
There are several temples to augment the dormitories. The temples were long and narrow and up to fifteen meters high. The earlier, Hirayana, Buddhists placed a non-anthropomorphic stupa in the rear of their temples, which was very similar to the shivalingam in Hindu temples (a combination phallus and vagina representation). They considered the Buddha to be a man like any other, but enlightened by great effort. The later Marayana Buddhists came to treat the Buddha as a living god and began to represent him widely in both the temples and the alcoves in the dormitories. A Maharashtra king in the second century C.E. called a conference to reconcile the two ideas, but failed and the sects split. Only Sri Lanka and Thailand are now officially Hirayana.
The Buddha representations were often in the teaching posture, although other postures were present in the smaller wall carvings. One cave included a reclining seven meter long Buddha in bas relief, whose covered genitalia had been hacked off by a vandal. Deer were often carved under the teaching Buddhas, representative of his first teaching in the Deer Park in Bihar. People of many different dress styles and races were represented, showing explicitly the lack of racism in the Buddhist way.
The paintings are fabulous, bright, deep and detailed. The rock face was chiseled as smooth as possible, and then covered with a mud plaster which could be made smooth enough to paint. All of the colors were obtained from local plant and mineral sources except for the "Persian blue", made from Lapis Lazuli from modern-day Iran. The physical evidence of Persian blue paint backs up the circumstantial evidence of painting styles to demonstrate the trade routes then in existence. The paintings themselves show features, such as following eyes and postures, perspective and three-dimensional illusions, that would not reach Europe for a thousand years.
The paintings represented the mythological previous and future lives of the Buddha. Legend has it that a Buddha is born every five thousand years. In his previous incarnations he will improve his being until becoming a bodhisattva, or self-sacrificing being who lives to assist others. Eventually, after many lives, he would be reincarnated as a Buddha. The cave walls depicted the Buddha as an elephant, a monkey, a tiger, all sacrificing himself for a greater good, either physically or by teaching non-violence.
Small, squat yukshas, rather like gargoyles, hold up the ceilings on the columns. They grimace under the load. Elsewhere, smiling couples happily share the load and are content. The symbolism is simplistic, but powerful. Couples are also represented around entrances, showing Buddhism's support for marriage.
Chipmunks, called squiri in Hindi (like the English word squirrel), scampered around the caves. Two thousand years ago, there would have been tigers and panthers to deal with. Life in the caves would have been hard. We were warned to stay out of the areas left in darkness due to the possible presence of cobras. Mosquitoes, of course, carried disease then as now.
The later caves show an increasing artistry. One dormitory cave includes a ceiling with an intentional wave, to make it look like a tent. This fifth century cave also includes a painting of a Chinese girl; trade with China started at that time.
A guard at one of the caves saw me taking notes with a pen and paper. He followed me around for a couple of minutes and then approached me. He asked if my pen was, in fact, a pen. Then he told me proudly in a few English words that his son knows how to use one. This is one of the best reasons to travel - one can learn emotionally in way not possible from books.
Some of the caves and their precious paintings have been damaged by silverfish and water seepage. The Archaeological Survey of India, with monetary assistance from the United States and the United Nations, has attempted to stay the damage and even restore some of the paintings. Some of them were covered with a preservative in the 1920s by Italian art conservators, but that has left them very dark. The preservatives are now being carefully removed in some areas and newer approaches tried. Our guide told us that all of the paintings are being recorded digitally and the caves themselves measured and copied. Future tourists may be limited to seeing the museum copies and no longer be allowed near the originals. That would be a shame.
Our guide, Nasser, had a master's degree in history and worked for all of twenty dollars on a good day. That presumed that he was able to get two tours. He had written a book about the caves, but I didn't buy a copy. The sad truth is the more information is currently available on the Web. That makes it pretty hard to be a knowledgeable guide and make a living.
There was no food at Ajanta, other than some seeds and nuts sold near the entrance, and no bottled water. We had water in our day pack, but didn't even think about eating. We toured the caves until we were told we had to hurry for the last bus at 5:00 PM. We were shocked to discover how much time had gone by. We bought some geodes and small elephant carvings for my kids and my son's Buddha statue and thoughtfully drove back with Ram.
A loud bang me awakened on my second night in Aurangabad, which we thought was caused by fireworks before the Diwali (Devali, Deepavali) holiday. It was, indirectly. A very unhappy bombardier had blown up his stash and a plume of smoke reached to the clouds. Sirens suggested that there were some injuries. Others set off their fireworks, undeterred by the danger.
We drive on Sunday to the much closer Ellora Caves. The Ellora Caves are not all Buddhist, like Ajanta. They were carved later, toward the end of the Ajanta period. The earliest caves at Ellora are Buddhist, but as the rulers' religion changed, so they changed to Hindu and then to Jain. Finally, they too were abandoned in the tenth century C.E. with the coming of the Muslim invaders.
We passed a statue of the Hindu hero Shivaji on the way out of Aurangabad. Shivaji was a Hindu general who carved a kingdom out of the the area of Maharastra controlled by the Islamic Mughal empire in the seventeenth century C.E. Shivaji is the namesake and hero of the Siv Sena party mentioned earlier.
Shashi Tharoor was wrong on at least one count. He would like to dismiss the Siv Sena followers for not being properly Hindu, for being extremists of a non-extreme religion. Unfortunately, he doesn't get to choose what someone believes. Religions constantly change and evolve, sometimes for the worse. The Hindutvas are what they are and no amount of dislike will make them go away. I think we as a society often fail to recognize the truth of that, to our detriment in places like, say, Iraq, Afghanistan and the West Bank of the Jordan River.
An Indian Army base, with its ancient British cemetery, fell by the wayside as we passed out of Aurangabad, as did Dimshaw's ice cream stand. Dimshaw's had stolen the Coca Cola logo to make their own - something not at all uncommon in the developing world.
We noticed that Ram, the driver, leaves more room for animals on the road than for humans. We suppose that is due to his Hindu beliefs, but personally we have always found animals to be more predictable than people.
The telephone system is India is incredibly fragmented. This also in not uncommon in developing countries. It is not sufficient to know the number you wish to call, it is also necessary to know how to reach that number from where you are. Do you use the ISD phone service, or the STD or the PCO? We passed them all at one time or another. Perhaps it is easier to use one of the four cellular providers, although more expensive. India's rural areas look set to benefit from cellular infrastructure rapidly since, like that other cellular success story Vietnam, the vast bulk of the country will simply never have a copper twisted-pair wire infrastructure. The monsoon will not permit it. We expect Bangladesh and eventually Myanmar (Burma) to follow suit.
The twelfth century Daulatabad Fort was on the road to Ellora, as was its accompanying sixteenth century Muslim minaret, the Chand Minar. The jungle was slowly reclaiming the fort, in spite of the tourist traffic. Dolatabad village was full of the white domes of neighborhood mosques. A state-run himroo factory, where hand-woven scarves and other woven goods are made. The government steadfastly protects the cotton growing and weaving industry in spite of free trade protests from overseas.
Kalad village, just three kilometers from Ellora, had ten thousand people living there. Roughly 70% were Muslim. White mosques, minarets and tombs surrounded the village. A Hindu temple to Hanuman, the monkey god, provided some color.
Ram promised me that the hawkers at Ellora would not hound me like they did at Ajanta. He was wrong. We were swarmed from the moment we left the car and followed from cave to cave. Reji and Barbara met me a few minutes after we arrived and we headed straight for the massive cave #16, a Hindu temple to Shiva and his wife/partner/feminine half Parvarti. This was Ellora at its best, not a cave carved into a cliff face, but an entire structure set free from two million metric tonnes of rock. The hill side was simply dug and dug and dug until the rough shape of a chariot was obtained. Details included an outer gallery of Shiva and Parvarti representations and the inner sanctum on the second storey of the "chariot" where the shivalingam (an non-representational alter) lured the faithful. The Hindi word lingam means genital, and the alter reflected that lineage, being a merged icon of Shiva's phallus and Parvati's womb. Unlike Christians, but like Greeks with their Muses, Hindus represent all aspects of human nature in their gods. In this case, the great mystery of origin.
The techniques used to carve and paint Cave #16 have been lost. A Persian dynasty destroyed all the records in the sixteenth century. Most of the many elephants statues are missing their trunks from the same conflagration. This is particularly unfortunate since Cave #16 represents the apex of the carving and painting techniques which began at Ajanta.
Finally at Ellora we could see firsthand the flow of religious symbolism described by the great mythologist Joseph Campbell. The three main gods were depicted in the outer gallery's center. Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma stood side by side. Underneath Vishnu was his mount, the eagle Garuda (the solar eagle, a Sun reference). Shiva's mount was Nandi, the bull. The bull, his horns recalling the crescent moon, is a Lunar reference from Minoan culture, through Greece and the Middle East all the way to India. Brahma's swan or goose is a water reference as we remember. It all comes together, the flow of ideas across thousands of years.
In one corner of the gallery was a bas relief carving of Shiva and Parvati as one being. The male and female, god and goddess, show the principle of duality present throughout the East; Yin-Yang, or in Korean Om-Yang. In another carving, Shiva is shown wrapped around a pillar, or tree. Here was the world tree! Shiva with Yggdrassil of Norse myth, the caduceus of our doctors, the Dome of the Rock, the Buddhists' bodhi tree and Mount Olympus!
To the right of this Hindu marvel was a series of other caves, three Hindu and the earlier ones Buddhist. Cave #12 is a huge, three storey dormitory for acolytes studying there. The last of the purely Buddhist caves, #10, was carved in the seventh century and embeds in stone and earlier wooden architecture. Stone beams and roof planking emulate their wooden counterparts. The main Buddhist stupa looks like a shivalingam! The styles are a definite iteration.
Our guide, Rajesh, chanted the three primary Buddhist sutras and we heard the wonderful acoustics of the temple. The echos were clear and precise, unlike most caves at Ajanta. Perhaps the lack of carvings along the walls failed to provide the anechoic effect present at Ajanta. Sometimes less is indeed more.
The last four caves are Ellora are in the style of the Jains. Jainism is a strongly ascetic religion formed by the sage Mahavira in the fifth century B.C.E., shortly before Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha. Jains believe in the independence of the individual (especially in reaction to Varnashrama dharma, the caste system) and the equality of life. Although influential, Jainism has not spread as widely as some Indian religions due to the difficulty of the practice. Jainist meditation can include mortification of the body, including extreme fasting and the plucking of hairs. Perhaps this makes Buddhism's Middle Path easy to understand as a reaction. Both religions believe that an individual, any individual, can achieve enlightenment through following a prescribed course.
What can one say about the religious diversity in India or, indeed, the world? Our human experience seems to come from a common source and most if not all religions share overlapping ideas, goals, symbols and even practices. I think Joseph Campbell had it right when he said:
"The main problem with symbols is that people tend to get lost in the symbol. So they think they have to go up to the head of the Ganges in order to get to the source. The problem in myth, the problem in mysticism, is that you should not lose the message in the symbol. The message always is to the spirit, and when the symbol is taken to be the fact, so that you have to go to the Haridwar in order to get the the source of the Ganges, you've mistaken the message."
He could just as readily have used a Cross or a Star of David or a the Prophet Mohammed as the exemplar. The memes are described differently, the symbols are different, but the underlying message is roughly the same. Religions are instructions on how to live to put yourself in accord with the world during all phases of your life. It is a tragedy of our times that shallow people fight to the death over the symbols.
In this spirit, we made an offering at the Hanuman temple as we passed through town, and another at the Muslim tomb of Arangashah, the last Mohgul king of Maharashtra (d. 1707). The caretaker sold me some coins that had washed down the rivers during the monsoon. He thanked Allah for the transaction.
My last stop of the day was Bibi Ka Marakba, the "mini Taj Mahal" near Aurangabad. Arangashah built it as a tomb for his mother. Unlike the Taj Mahal's all-marble construction, this tomb has a marble foundation and dome, but the bulk of the construction is local basalt covered with plaster. Reflecting pools to the north, east, south and west remind one of the Taj Mahal's plan, as do the four minarets at the corners. The minarets are higher than the central tomb's 45 meters. We were interested to note that the entrance was to the south, a mosque to the west, a library to the east. The north side was blocked off and contained a meeting hall accessible only from inside. That layout matches native American mandalas representing the origins of humans.
After working the next week, we left India the day prior to the Diwali holiday and so witnessed the preparations for the festival. Diwali is an annual festival of lights, in which the population celebrates the killing of a demon and the victory of good over evil. Originally a Hindu holiday, today Diwali is multi-religious and used as an excuse for gift-giving and general goodwill. Lights are strung on buildings both commercial and residential and firecrackers (called simply "crackers" in local English) are exploded by the metric ton for days prior to the actual holiday. Predictably, the news also reports many tragic fireworks accidents resulting in the maiming and deaths of children.
The company we came to help gave me a wonderful send-off. The boss had me had out the Diwali gifts of sweets to the staff. In turn we received a carved copy of the Taj Mahal in a clear case. The boss and his wife took me shopping for my family and were incredibly kind and generous. It was a pleasure to be there and we hope to go back. India is far too big, far too complex to really understand. Another trip is definitely called for.
DEMOCRACY AND MARKET ECONOMY IN INDIA: AN INTERRELATIONAL STUDY
                                                                                     

Introduction                        

India went for economic reforms in the early 1990s allowing deregulation in industries and foreign capital inflows into the Indian market to a large extent. Critics of market economy in India allege that market economy would encourage accumulation of wealth in the hands of few in the society. As a consequence it would foster inequality in the distribution of economic and political resources in the country, and generate social differences. Democracy in the long run may become a victim of this ‘impending’ socio-economic inequality. The present paper would argue that because market economy is new to India, it is natural that such schism would prevail. Market economy cannot scuttle the process of an already established political democracy in India. A developing country like India can use the benefits of market economy to promote the development of human capital, and investment in human resources to solve basic problems like poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. It can also use the fruits of a liberal economy to facilitate the absorption of know-how, -- both technological and organizational and create an entrepreneurial climate that require a lot of attention in many developing countries. Investment for the development of modern infrastructure could be promoted through market economy. The benefits of economic liberalization could be used judiciously to augment the development of economy and society. If these goals are realized, democracy would be strengthened in India. A basic prognosis of this paper is: democracy and economic development are not necessarily correlated, yet in India, economic development through the mechanism of liberalization can prepare bases for social equality which would ultimately strengthen democracy. We begin this essay with a focus on the adverse reaction to the introduction of free market economy in India. 

Projected ills of market economy in India    

The initiation of free market economy in India raised a few eyebrows. The essence of market economy, opined critics, lies in the exclusion of marginal people not only from the market, but from socio-economic-political benefits as well; because economic exclusion exacerbates other forms of exclusion. Further, the ‘roll-back’ of the state would affect social security provisions normally guaranteed by the government. A free market therefore entails social inequality, which in turn, makes political democracy in India meaningless.  Market would also weaken the community and the extended family as institutions of social cohesion and security. The market may also provide inclusion of people, but such inclusions are often coercive in the form of child or woman labour. Therefore, exclusion (and often inclusion, in a negative way) of the people by the market is ominous and affects the social rubric adversely. As one critic of market economy in India writes, “markets exclude people both as consumers and producers or as buyers and sellers if they do not accept or conform to, the values of a market system…It is only to be expected that there is bound to be an interaction between exclusion from the market in the economic sphere and the non-economic dimension of exclusion in the social, economic or cultural spheres. The social manifestations of exclusion can be powerful.” 

Markets would destroy the community and the extended family, considered as significant institutions of social security in India. Markets may bring coercive inclusions of people in the form of women and child labour. Market economy creates inequality and therefore, affects the principles of democracy. All these arguments are however not free from defects. To begin with, no economy, state-controlled, capitalist, mixed or subsidized, can include all sections of the people all the time. In the case of India, the pre-reform ‘mixed economy’ (from 1947 to the early 1990s) left a vast section of the marginal people outside its reach, as it could not ensure their participation. As a result poverty and social inequality persisted. As two noted economists observed, “Four decades of allegedly ‘interventionist’ planning did little to make the country literate, provide a wide-based health service, achieve comprehensive land reforms, or end the rampant social inequalities that blight the material prospects of the underprivileged”. Therefore, the schism that market economy would exclude people and exacerbate inequality cannot instill a new sense of fear in the Indian mind because for over four decades it witnessed rampant poverty and absence of distributive justice in the socio-economic sectors. In an era of globalization, market has the potential of a vast ‘reach’, as well as a boon for society if it is judiciously controlled and used.

This brings us to the role of the state in an era of free market economy. Nowhere in the world market economy can operate exclusively outside government control. According to one leading American scholar, national, state, and local governments in the United States intervene in the economy in ways too numerous to list. If this is the situation in the United States, the apostle of market economy in the world, indications of a ‘roll-back’ of the state in India are not tenable. In fact the state in India is very much visible not only in the economic sector, but in the social and cultural sectors as well. A bit of a ‘roll-back’ would indeed be welcome as far as the Indian state is concerned. The state in India must forget to play the role of an interventionist, and instead, view it as a ‘catalytic’ state. Catalytic states try to achieve their goals less by relying on their own resources than by assuming a dominant role in a combination of states, multinational corporations and private sector groups. The state in India must play the role of a controller and ensure that the markets are contestable and a major part of the resources generated from the market is directed towards social development. In third world countries like India, as elsewhere, the state must learn to adapt fast to the demands of globalization. Therefore, a complete ‘roll-back’ of the state in India is not an imminent possibility in the wake of a free market economy, the state’s role, on the other hand, could be crucial in the changing scenario. 

The argument that the market in India would destroy community and extended family does not correspond to the times of free economy. In fact community and extended family in India started to decline with the onset of modernization that preceded the era of market economy. Modernization in India, I believe, started in its truest sense, after India became independent in 1947. Since the mid-1950s, the process of modernization was accelerated in India with the setting up of modern industries, mainly under the guidance of the Indian state. Western education arrived in India during the British rule. The colonial masters encouraged western (mainly English) education, to create an English-knowing clerical cadre, and also to instill western cultural ethos into the Indian society. Though sporadic urbanization was effected during the British rule in India, massive industrialization was mainly created by the independent Indian state. With industrialization, started the migration of rural and semi-urban people to the modern industrial urban sectors. This process, started in the late 1950s, continued throughout the 60s up to the 80s and beyond. The decline of the traditional village-based Indian family as a cohesive integral unit started with rapid migration to the industrial cities. Members of the family, especially the younger ones, flocked to the industrial areas in search of jobs. The impervious Indian family began to get disunited from this time. I would cite another cause, which I believe, affected the extended family system in India. The ‘family planning programme’ undertaken by the Indian state, effectively since the early 1960s, with emphasis on two children per family, dealt a severe blow to the notion of a large cohesive Indian family. This programme gradually replaced the large extended Indian family with much smaller nuclear family. Now it is a family of four (or three) with parents and two (or one) child(ren). The sense of cohesion and security the extended family (with grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts, parents and children living under one roof) provided, could not be found in the nuclear family, especially so for the children where both the parents were working. The nuclear family was an established norm in urban, semi-urban, and even in rural areas of India by the mid-1980s. And when children of the nuclear family migrated to different parts of India in search of jobs, the family got further estranged. Therefore, the decline of the impregnable Indian family was very much visible by the mid-1980s; and this happened before the onset of free market economy in India. Market liberalization therefore, has no role to play in the metamorphosis of the Indian family, because the family went through dramatic changes before the introduction of free market economy in India.

The apprehension of the critics mainly emerged due to, what I believe, a ‘wrong notion’ of the suzerainty of the free market. The market has been viewed (by the critics) as a sweeping force that has the potential to destroy all socio-political-cultural moorings in India. It is precisely here that I wish to raise my objections. Free market economy in India must not be viewed negatively, -- as the all-conquering demon that would unsettle the socio-cultural fabric of India. I, on the contrary believe, that market economy in India has to live and sustain on the strengths of Indian socio-cultural-political values. The market can never ignore Indian society, politics and culture, market is not that sovereign; nor can it operate exclusively outside the control of the Indian state. As I wrote earlier, the role of the state is very crucial in India vis-à-vis market liberalization. It must create all the conditions and infrastructures for a free market, yet act as a watchdog to rein the market, as well as try to reap benefit from the market. A liberalized market could prove to be immensely beneficial for third world countries like India. I discuss below the positives of free market economy for India. 

Market economy and socio-economic development in India   
                  
In the very first paragraph of this essay, I outlined the potential benefits a market economy can bring to the third world countries like India. In order to avoid being repetitive, I concentrate on hard data to illustrate that Indian economy has performed much better in the post-reform period (1991 onwards) compared to the pre-reform period. India’s national income grew at around 3 percent per annum from 1947 to 1975. From 1976 to 1991, the growth rate was significantly higher, -- 5 percent per annum. From 1991 to 2000, during the post-reform era, India’s national income grew at 6.5 per cent per annum; with a bullish phase from 1994 to 1997 when the growth rate of national income stood at 7 percent. A well-known Indian author has shown in a significant study that growth of the Indian economy in the post-reform period was much higher than in the pre-reform period, and Indian business firms responded positively towards economic reforms by going in for technological changes. India’s overall exports stood at US$ 18.14 billion in 1991, and in 2001, the figure reached US$ 44.5 billion. India’s foreign exchange reserves increased from US$ 1.2 billion in 1991 to US$ 55.8 billion in 2002. After economic reforms, India emerged as an attractive destination for foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Investments by FIIs increased from a meager US$ 6 million in 1991 to a much respectful US$ 1.8 billion in March 2002.  

The economic reforms have put greater strength and vitality in many Indian industries. Consider for example, the spectacular growth of information technology and software industries (ITSI). India’s annual software exports increased from US$ 24 million in 1985 to a staggering US$ 7.8 billion in March 2002. India’s domestic software sales increased from US$ 140 million in 1992 to US$ 2.45 billion in 2002. This sector has witnessed an annual growth rate of nearly 40 per cent since 1991, and software exports are estimated to reach US$ 50 billion by 2008. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Infosys Technologies Limited, and a pioneer of the ITSI revolution in India, observed in a recent article: “The reforms proved several bureaucratic dogmas wrong… It was believed that protectionism was the only way to help the Indian industry grow. On the contrary, the entry of multinationals into India created a competitive environment that forced Indian companies to successfully adopt world-class infrastructure, quality processes, human resources practices, and so forth.”  Murthy has stated in clear terms that the economic reforms have proved to be a boon for the ITSI and other industries in India.

A skeptic mind may still ponder over the consequences of the spectacular rise of the ITSI for the development of the people at large in India, because the ITSI is not considered a labour-intensive sector. Presently, more than half a million people are employed in this sector. This is not a small number. A study carried out by NASSCOM-McKinsey suggests that employment in this sector will grow to 3 million by the year 2010.  This figure does not include employment in the IT-based sectors such as call centers and data-processing units. The IT-based sectors are growing more rapidly than the IT sector itself, and has the potential to generate more employments than the IT sector. One positive development of the rapid growth of the IT-based sectors is that the employments generated in these sectors are not always meant for the higher educated professionally qualified people. Persons with a simple graduate degree or below are getting employment in these sectors. Therefore, the IT and IT-based sectors have already generated employment opportunities in India; and are likely to promote more employments in future. This is definitely a boon for a country like India where unemployment remained an intriguing social problem since India’s independence in 1947. A closely related problem in India has been poverty. Market economy has the potential, I believe firmly, to address this problem as well. In fact survey data show that poverty is on the decline in India. A recent non-government study projects very clearly that poverty fell in India in 1999. According to this study, the percentage of people below the poverty line came down to 30.2% and 24.7% respectively in rural and urban areas. The census data published by the government of India (2002) shows that the rate of literacy has risen from 52% in 1991 to 65% in 2001. Though the rate of poverty and illiteracy remain too high to be complacent, it is heartening to note that they are declining. 

 The obvious question however would be: what is the role of market economy in this decline of poverty and illiteracy in India? Several significant empirical studies in recent years have shown that economic reforms in India have contributed to economic growth and caused a subsequent decline in poverty. Annual per capita growth in India rose to around 3 per cent per year in the 1990s from less than 1 per cent per year from the 1960s up to the 1980s. As economists pointed out, “this implied about a one-third increase in consumption per capita over the last decade and a 5 to 10 percentage point reduction in national poverty rates…” Studies have also shown that non-farm growth has propelled agricultural productivity to contribute towards poverty reduction. These growths were the outcome of the economic reform policies. Reduction in the level of poverty helped literacy rate to go up simply due to the fact that people staying above the poverty line felt encouraged to send their children to school. Economic reforms in India therefore contributed not only towards economic growth, but growth in the social sectors as well. Since I believe that rejuvenated social sectors would also help to strengthen democracy, I now proceed to analyze the relations between market economy and democracy in India.      

Market economy and democracy in India
     
 It is never easy to ascertain the relationship between forms of government and economic development. Studies claiming to have found such a relationship, as also refuting the existence of such a relationship, could be identified among academic discourses. Without moving deep into this theoretical debate, I wish to put forward the argument that market economy in India would ultimately strengthen democracy in the country. Democracy, unlike many other third world countries, is rooted in the cultural values of the Indians. The introduction of market economy in India would further strengthen these values in favour of democracy. By these ‘cultural values’ I simply mean the belief of the average Indians that pluralistic social institutions and opinions must exist, and authoritarianism must be resisted. Market economy would help to boost these values. As observed earlier, market economy contributed towards poverty reduction in India through economic growth. With reduction in acute poverty and improvement of living standards, people’s interests in pluralistic associations increase further. Economic growth also helps to reduce social and political conflicts. The reduction of these conflicts would provide for a congenial atmosphere where different social institutions proliferate and prosper. This proliferation of social institutions means to me, the evolution of a mature civil society that can help the state to function effectively and without authoritarianism. The civil society in India, as I have written elsewhere would gradually mature with market economy, and put a restrain on the state. Democracy would benefit most from these changes. Market economy in India, therefore, is an important catalyst of all these social transformation. 

Market economy has already created a large middle class in India,-- considered as one of the largest in the world. This middle class is increasingly seeking autonomy, personal freedom, more education, civic and economic rights, and rule of law. Like any other middle class anywhere in the world, this middle class also wishes to conserve and promote democratic ideas and institutions. The existence of this ever-growing middle class is an additional fillip for democracy in India. With increasing purchasing powers, this middle class is also attracting more FIIs and FDIs (foreign direct investments) and helping in the economic growth of the country. Since the 1990s, the middle class in India has become more visible both as economic and social force. Besides emerging as a buying power, this class is increasingly getting involved in associational activities and social movements. Democracy as a consequence, is getting strengthened. 

Through deregulation of industries, abolition of the licensing system, and decentralizing many economic decisions to independent firms and individuals, economic reforms in India has hit the all-powerful state and its centralizing, authoritarian tendencies. The once-ubiquitous state is fast learning to relinquish some space for other social and economic actors. This is healthy for democracy. A centrally planned economy puts all its resources at the disposal of government officials. This makes the government officials feel that they are the superior species in the society, and offers them the scope to indulge in corruption, nepotism and authoritarianism. More than four decades of centrally planned economy has brought all these vices to India. The introduction of market economy therefore arouses hope in India that the evils of the centrally planned economy would be done away with. 

Market economy thrives on decentralized planning and activity. As a form and as an ideal therefore, it is closer to democracy because democracy also favours pluralism of ideas and associations. This is never a correlation oversimplified. Market economy has the potential to promote pluralistic associations and ideas in society. It could therefore be a boon to democracy. On the other hand, a democratic country is more suitable, culturally, for market economy because it encourages decentralization of ideas and activities. Since democracy is firmly rooted in India, there is little reason to believe that market economy would be unsuitable for India. Democracy must not be evaluated in terms of economic achievements only, political freedoms have significance of their own. As one nobel-winning economist justifiably wrote, “Politically unfree citizens are deficient in freedom even if they happen to enjoy a high level of income, or a favorable standard of living in other respects.” Democracy provides a socio-cultural base for free thoughts and movements. Market economy can make the best use of this environment of freedom and prosper. A free society after all is the best thriving arena for a free economy.

Conclusion   
                    
The Indian economy has gone past that critical stage where to open up means taking risks of being dumped by advanced economies. The Indian economy has shown enough resilience, despite apprehensions, to withstand the projected ‘onslaught’ of the market. Inequality did not escalate, poverty did not soar, illiteracy and unemployment did not create social conflicts, and the family was not destroyed. In fact, after the first phase of economic reforms, poverty, illiteracy and unemployment were reduced in India as data presented in earlier pages confirmed. Indian economy is now gearing up for second generation of reforms. In this phase, the economy would open up further to adjust itself to the growing demands of globalization. But transition from a closed to a more vibrant and open economy was not, and would not be painless. Market economy is not the panacea to all social problems. India has still to fight poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and other social problems. The second generation of reforms must be aimed at alleviating these social problems. The experience of the first phase of reforms would prove to be beneficial in this stupendous task. Market economy, if properly steered and controlled may help to reduce social problems, as first generation of Indian reforms demonstrated. The role of the state is very crucial here. The state must guide the market towards the benefit of the people. That should precisely be the role of the ‘limited’ state in an era of free market economy. 

Democracy essentially means power of the people. While civil rights and political freedoms equip people to raise their voice against governmental authoritarianism, economic freedom empowers them to protect and nurture institutions of civil society, besides contributing to the economic growth of the nation. Market economy has the potential to raise the economic standard of the people. In a country like India, where people enjoy civil rights and political freedoms, economic empowerment of the people would certainly strengthen democratic values. Economic development of the people is meaningless without political freedom; -- that only strengthens the market and ignores democracy. But in the case of India where political freedom of the people has been in existence for nearly six decades, economic empowerment of the people would further boost democracy. Market economy is all set to play a crucial role in this context in India in the foreseeable future.   

Urban Poverty in India: Incidence and Extent
Urban poverty is a major challenge before the urban managers and administrators of the present time. Though the anti-poverty strategy comprising of a wide range of poverty alleviation and employment generating programmes has been implemented but results show that the situation is grim. Importantly, poverty in urban India gets exacerbated by substantial rate of population growth, high rate of migration from the rural areas and mushrooming of slum pockets. Migration alone accounts for about 40 per cent of the growth in urban population, converting the rural poverty into urban one. Moreover, poverty has become synonymous with slums. The relationship is bilateral i.e. slums also breed poverty. This vicious circle never ends. Most of the world’s poor reside in India and majority of the poor live in rural areas and about one-fourth urban population in India lives below poverty line. If we count those who are deprived of safe drinking water, adequate clothing, or shelter, the number is considerably higher. Moreover, the vulnerable groups such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, minorities, pavement dwellers etc. are living in acute poverty. Housing conditions in large cities and towns are depicting sub human lives of slum dwellers. With the reconstruction of poverty alleviation programmes in urban India, it is expected that social and economic benefits will percolate to the population below the poverty line. However, eradication of poverty and improving the quality of life of the poor remain one of the daunting tasks. Against this view point present paper purports to analyze perspective of urban poverty, emerging trends, dimensions, poverty alleviation programmes and to suggest strategies for formulation of micro action plans.

Conceptualization and Measurement:
Poverty generally arises from lack of income or assets. The low income of the poor can be attributed to the following problems facing them (Venkateshwaraloo, 1998): (i) Low access to financial resources and production assets which are necessary to sustain the micro-enterprises beyond day today basis, (ii) Monopolistic control over micro-enterprises by larger entities which, through control over inputs and/or insecurity of wage employment, compel the poor to accept lowest wages and to work overtime without pay. The urban poor have low access to formal education, health services, shelter and safe living environments. Moreover, poverty is also perpetuated by division of labour and time, away from income earning uses and towards daily physical, environmental and energy management tasks, necessary to sustain life itself. This diversion further limits chances of investing household resources in skill attainment and enterprises.
Poverty has been measured on the basis of nutritional requirement, monthly per capita expenditure and housing conditions. Thus income-based poverty lines set for the whole country do not allow for high costs of living in cities. No single poverty line can take into account the large differences in the availability and cost of food, shelter, water sanitation and health care services. Housing poverty has been defined by UNCHS as lack of safe, secure and healthy shelter with basic infrastructure like piped water and adequate provision for sanitation, drainage and removal of household’s wastes. The definition of poverty line in India was set for the first time in 1962 by a working group after taking into account the recommendations of the Nutrition Advisory Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research (1958) regarding balanced diet. The working group proposed the poverty norm in money terms in urban and rural areas. It was based on broad judgment of minimum caloric need. Importantly, the Planning Commission  in  1977  constitutes  a  Task  Force  on  projections  of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demand. It defined the poverty line as a per capita consumption expenditure level which meets the average per capita daily caloric requirement of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas long with a minimum of non¬food expenditure. The Planning Commission constituted the Expert Group on estimation and number of poor in 1989. It did not redefine the poverty line but estimated separate poverty line for each state by desegregating the national level poverty line. It used the state-wise consumer price index of industrial workers for updating urban poverty line (Singh and Mitra, 2000).
The poverty is broadly defined in terms of material deprivation, human deprivation and a range of other deprivations such as lack of voice, vulnerability, violence, destitution, social and political exclusions, and lack of dignity and basic rights. In India, and indeed throughout the world, the conventional approach equates poverty with material deprivation and defines the poor in terms of incomes or levels of consumption. The Planning Commission has defined poverty in terms of the level of per capita consumer expenditure sufficient to provide an average daily intake of 2400 calories per person in rural areas and 2100 calories per person in urban areas, plus a minimal allocation for basic non-food items. There is no doubt that material deprivation is a key factor that underlines many other dimensions of poverty. Despite uncertain progress at reducing material deprivation, there has been greater progress in human development in the states throughout the 1990’s. Human Development Indicators capture important dimensions of well-being and reflect not just the rate of growth in the economy but also levels and quality of public spending (World Bank, 2002). Effective public spending on basic services (education, health, water and sanitation) can compensate for limited capacity of the poor to purchase these services through the market. Education is a key indicator of human development. Many desirable social and economic outcomes are limited to rising levels of education, particularly education of women and of socially vulnerable groups. Health status is another key indicator of human development. Vulnerable, powerlessness, exclusion and social identity crises are some of the issues related with human poverty. Vulnerability is a fact of life for the poor. They are distressed not only by current low levels of resources and incomes, but also by the possibility of falling into deeper poverty and destitution. The poor are at risk because they lack the income, the assets and the social ties that protect the better off from the impact of unexpected setbacks. Illness requires expensive treatment; the temporary or permanent disability of a breadwinner, or a natural or man-made disaster can obliterate a poor household’s small savings. Death, disability, disease, etc. are such factors, which are linked with vulnerability. Widowhood or desertion by a spouse, often led to destitution in poor and low caste women (Unni, 1998; Dreze, 1990). In urban areas, the following types of vulnerability of the poor are reported:
(i) Housing Vulnerability: Lack of tenure, poor quality shelter without ownership rights, no access to individual water connection/toilets, unhealthy and unsanitary living conditions.
(ii) Economic Vulnerability: Irregular/casual employment, low paid work, lack of access to credit or reasonable terms, lack of access to formal safety net programmers, low ownership of productive assets, poor net worth and legal constraints to self employment.
(iii) Social Vulnerability: Low education, lack of skills, low social capital/caste status, and inadequate access to food security programmes, lack of access to health services and exclusion from local institutions.
(iv) Personal Vulnerability: Proneness to violence or intimidation, women, children and elderly, disabled and destitute, belonging to low castes and minority groups, lack of information, lack of access to justice.
The poor lack the leverage to ensure that state institutions serve them fairly and thus often lack access to public facilities or receive goods of inferior quality. Importantly, caste, status and gender is linked to poverty in a number of ways. Deep and continuing social inequalities mark many facets on the society. Individuals with low caste status are for more likely to be employed as low paid; low status labourers live in poorly constructed houses with limited access to water and sanitation. Importantly, poor are the truly destitute. Destitute households have fewer and often very weak ties of mutual assistance and support than their wealthier counterparts. They lack of formal and informal safety nets. Poor women face high risks of destitution. A significant number of women poor belong to female-headed households.
The majority of the urban poor tend to fall within the following generic occupational categories (Oxfam, 1997):
(i)    Casual workers, unskilled, non-unionized wage workers;
(ii)    Unskilled, non-unionized service industry workers;
(iii)    Street vendors;
(iv)    Construction workers;
(v)    Rickshaw pullers;
(vi)    Sweepers;
(vii)    Domestic workers;
(viii)    Rag pickers;
(ix)    Sex workers;
(x)    Beggars.
In the housing category of poverty based on physical conditions and environment, urban poor may include:
(i)    Pavement dwellers;
(ii)    Nomadic pavement dwellers;
(iii)    Recognized slum dwellers;
(iv)    Unrecognized slum dwellers; and
(v)    Squatters.
Three groups tend to be most vulnerable in urban context-women, children and minorities. In general women and children fall at the bottom and of the sub-contracting chain, performing the lowest paid activities such as home based prices and domestic services. In urban settings, the family support chain often breaks down with women facing particular stresses as they attempt to balance their work and domestic tasks. The impact of media, alcohol, drugs etc. on conditions of worsening deprivation of women tend to face harassment and physical abuse form within the households, the community and from employers. The health status of women and children, is also particularly bad in relation to men. Women are forced into becoming sex workers as a result of their economic circumstances, in turn making their health extremely vulnerable (Oxfam, 1997).
Social Aspect of Poverty:
Poverty has been examined in mainly economic terms such as per capita income or calorie criterion. The social aspect of poverty, particularly the culture and value aspects, which poverty creates, breeds and transmits and which have larger implications for the overall quality of life have not been seriously examined (Thakur, 1998). Cities and towns generally show the following characteristics (OSD):
    Very fast rate of population growth due to rural-urban migration for lack of adequate job opportunities in rural areas and small towns;
    Rapid increase in the scale of urban poverty and deprivation;
    Increasingly deficient infrastructure and services e.g. housing facility, water supply, sanitation, education, health etc.;
    Growing shortage of productive jobs;
    Chronic shortage of financial, managerial and technical resources and
    Growing gap between the rich and the poor, between the urban elite and poverty stricken rural and urban poor.
There is general consensus that greater part of India’s poverty is rural but urban and rural poverty are intimately connected. The problem of rural poverty is flowing into the urban areas (Dandekar and Rath, 1971). The larger cities are growing in the number of poor people (Desai, 1968). The urban growth is a result of population shift from poverty stricken hinterland to the cities (Kopardekar, 1986). Importantly, the vast majority of urban workers come from villages and continue to have their roots there. The poorest among them come from the most helpless strata of rural population (Thakur, 1988). Thus, the vast majority of the urban poor are migrants, rural poor, landless labourers and petty farmers. Acute impoverishment of these farmers, near hunger situation of rural landless labourers led to their distress and migration to cities (Jha, 1986). Interestingly, cities provide a market for their cheap labour and they cling to the city, developing a culture of survival. The culture of poverty has the following characteristics (Lewis):
    Lack of effective participation and integration of the poor with the major situations of larger society;
    Low wages, chronic unemployment and under unemployment leading to low income, absence of savings, absence of food reserves and a chronic shortage of cash;
    Low level of literacy and education, no membership of labour union or any political party, no participation in the national welfare programme;
    Community spirit in the slums and the slum neighbourhood;
    The absence of childhood as a specially protected stage in the life cycle, early initiation into sex, a relatively high incidence of abandonment of wives and children;
    Strong feeling of marginality, helplessness, dependence and inferiority;
    High incidence of material deprivation, little ability to plan for the future, sense of resignation and fatalism.
Living in a state of perpetual poverty and deprivation, the poor generally develop and acquire habits, which may be characterized as their typical slum habits and which get transmitted to the children as well. These habits generally are (Thakur, 1988):
(i)    Idle gossiping;
(ii)    Backbiting, leg pulling and slandering;
(iii)    Gossiping about the affair of the neighbour;
(iv)    Quarrel over small matters;
(v)    Bearing tales and spreading rumours;
(vi) Use of abusive language in minor incidents and quarrels among children or women;
(vii) Little regard for public property not much hesitation in breaking street-light, removing lid cover of pit holes etc.;
(viii)   Mutual jealousy, suspicion;
(ix)     Smoking;
(x)      Tobacco, drug abuse, spitting in public places;
(xi)     Gambling;
(xii)    Playing cards; and
(xiii)   Little respect for other’s viewpoints, opinion, comforts and time.
Poverty Estimates:
Poverty alleviation has been on the national policy agenda for more than 50 years. As early as 1938, the Indian National Congress constituted a National Planning Committee which had declared that social objective should be to ensure an adequate standard of living for the masses. The importance of reduction in poverty and provision of other basic needs has been emphasized in all the five year plans since Independence particularly since the 5th Five Year Plan. The estimates on poverty based on NSS data show that poverty in India in 1997 was around 37 per cent (rural poverty ratio was 38 per cent and urban poverty ratio was 34 per cent) (Dev, 2000). The concept of poverty is multi-dimensional viz. income poverty and non-income poverty. It covers not only levels of income and consumption but also health and education, vulnerability and risks and marginalization and exclusion of the poor from the mainstream of society (Dev, 2000). According to some researchers, reforms would benefit the poor in the medium and long run, although they may have adverse effect in the short-run (Bhagwati and Srinivasan, 1993, Tendulakar, 1998, Joshi and Little, 1996). Some others argue that reform package has internal contradictions and it might have adverse effect on the poor in both short and long run (Nayyar, 1993, Ghosh, 1995, Bhaduri, 1996). The pro-reformers argue that the reforms would increase efficiency and higher growth and in turn reduce poverty. It is also argued that one has to look at counter factional situation while analysing the impact of reforms.
The trends during 24 years of pre-reform period (1951 to 1973-74) show that the (a) rural poverty varied between 44 per cent and 64 per cent and (b) urban poverty varied between 36 per cent and 53 percent. Both rural and urban poverty showed a decline in the late 1970’s and in the 1980’s. The estimates for the period 1973-74 to 1998 are given in Table 1.
Table: 1
Trends In Poverty In India (1973-74 to 1998)

Year    Datta’s Estimates    S.P. Gupta’s Estimates

    Rural    Urban    Rural    Urban    Total
1973-74    55.72    47.96    --    --    --
1977-78    50.60    40.50    --    --    --
1983    45.31    35.65    45.65    40.79    44.48
1986-87    38.81    34.29    --    --    --
1987-88    39.23    36.20    39.09    38.20    38.86
1988-89    39.06    36.60    --    --    --
1989-90    34.06    33.40    33.70    36.00    34.28
1990-91    36.43    32.76    35.04    35.29    35.11
1991    37.42    32.33    --    --    --
1992    43.47    33.73    41.70    37.80    40.70
1993-94    36.66    30.51    37.27    32.36    35.07
1994-95    41.02    30.51    37.27    32.36    35.07
1995-96    37.15    28.04    38.29    30.05    36.08
1997    35.78    29.99    38.46    33.97    37.23
1998
(Six
months)    --    --    45.25    34.58    43.01
Source: Estimates based on NSS data on Consumer Expenditure Quoted from Economic & Political Weekly, March, 2000.
The above table shows that rural poverty declined in the 1980’s but it increased to above 40 per cent in 1992 and 1994-95. On the other hand, urban poverty declined significantly in the 1990’s.  Gupta’s estimates also show similar trends on rural poverty. However, in 1998 the rural poverty increased to around 45 per cent.
Urban poverty estimates (on 30 day’s recall by Planning Commission), shown in Table 2 present the figures of 26.1 per cent of population below the poverty line; 27.09 per cent in rural areas and 23.62 per cent in urban areas.
Table: 2
Urban Poverty In India By States During 1999-2000 (30 Day Recall Period)

State    Rural    Urban    Combined

    No. of
persons
(Lakh)    % of persons    No. of
persons
(Lakh)    % of persons    No. of
persons
(Lakh)    % of persons
Andhra Pradesh    58.13    11.05    60.88    26.63    119.01    15.77
Arunachal Pradesh    3.80    40.04    0.18    7.47    3.98    33.47
Assam    92.11    40.04    2.38    7.47    94.55    36.09
Bihar    376.51    44.30    49.13    32.91    425.64    42.60
Goa    0.11    1.35    0.59    7.52    0.70    4.40
Gujarat    39.80    13.17    28.09    15.59    67.89    14.07
Haryana    11.94    8.27    5.39    9.99    17.34    8.74
Himachal Pradesh    4.84    7.94    0.29    4.63    5.12    7.63
Jammu & Kashmir    2.97    3.97    0.49    1.98    3.46    3.48
Karnataka    59.91    17.38    44.49    25.25    104.40    20.04
Kerala    20.97    9.38    20.07    20.27    41.04    12.72
Madhya Pradesh    217.32    37.06    81.22    38.44    298.54    37.43
Maharashtra    125.12    23.72    102.87    26.81    227.99    25.02

Manipur    6.53    40.04    0.66    7.47    7.19    28.54
Meghalaya    7.89    40.04    0.34    7.47    8.23    33.87
Mizoram    1.40    40.04    0.45    7.47    5.49    32.67
Nagaland    5.21    40.04    0.28    7.47    5.49    32.67
Orissa    143.69    48.01    25.40    42.83    169.09    47.15
Punjab    10.20    6.35    4.29    5.75    14.49    6.16
Rajasthan    55.06    13.74    26.78    19.85    81.83    15.28
Sikkim    2.0    40.04    0.04    7.47    2.05    36.55
Tamil Nadu    80.51    20.55    49.97    22.11    130.48    21.12
Uttar Pradesh    412.01    31.22    117.88    30.89    529.89    31.15
West Bengal    180.11    31.85    33.38    14.86    213.49    27.02
Delhi    0.07    0.40    11.42    9.42    11.49    8.23
India    2932.43    27.09    670.07    23.62    2602.50    26.10
Source: Cited from Kuruksheta, April, 2001.
Again, 670.07 lakh persons in urban areas were reported living below poverty line. Importantly, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar account for larger share in urban poor. The percentage of urban poor was recorded highest in Orissa (42.83 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (38.44 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (30.89 per cent), Bihar (32.91 per cent) and Maharashtra (26.81 per cent). Indian poverty is predominant in the rural areas where more than three quarters of all poor people reside, though there is wide variation in poverty across different states. Moreover, progress in reducing poverty is also very uneven across different states of the country (Table 3).
Table: 3
Percentage of Population Below Poverty Line
By States

State    MISH    Planning Commission

    1987-88    1997-98    Change    1987-88    1997-98    Change
Andhra Pradesh    40.11    15.01    25.1    40.11    38.33    1.78
Assam    9.94    1.71    8.23    9.94    7.73    2.21
Bihar    48.73    24.88    23.85    48.73    34.50    14.2
Gujarat    37.28    7.65    29.63    37.28    27.89    9.39
Haryana    17.98    4.58    13.4    17.64    16.38    1.26
Himachal Pradesh    8.29    1.69    6.6    8.29    9.18    -0.89
Karnataka    48.42    15.45    32.97    48.42    40.14    8.28
Maharashtra    39.78    12.59    27.19    39.78    35.15    4.63
Madhya Pradesh    47.09    15.49    31.60    47.09    48.38    -1.29
Orissa    41.63    20.20    21.43    41.63    41.64    -0.01
Punjab    14.67    2.12    12.55    14.67    11.35    3.32
Rajasthan    41.92    17.41    24.51    41.92    30.49    11.43
Tamil Nadu    38.04    8.00    30.04    38.04    39.77    -1.73
Uttar Pradesh    42.90    15.65    58.55    42.90    35.39    7.51
West Bengal    35.08    8.25    26.83    35.08    22.41    12.67
Note: MIH—Market Information Survey of Households by NCAER, Delhi.
Source: Cited from Economic & Political Weekly, March, 24, 2001.
It showed higher reduction (MISH) in Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat. The poverty reduction as per estimates of Planning Commission during 1987-88 to
1993-94 was recorded highest in Kerala, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.
Poverty estimates for urban India are shown in Table 4. The head count ratio in 1993-94 was reported to be 30.03 with poverty gap of 7.62 and square poverty gap of 2.76.
Table: 4
Poverty Estimates For Urban India

Period    Head Count Radio    Poverty Gap    Square
Poverty
Gap    Gini Coefficient

   
   
   
    Urban    All India
1956-57    51.45    18.16    8.51    0.402    0.3417
1957-58    47.75    15.95    7.00    0.359    0.3536
1958-59    44.76    13.75    5.87    0.348    0.3446
1959-60    49.17    15.83    6.75    0.357    0.3664
1960-61    44.65    13.84    5.83    0.350    0.3259
1961-62    43.55    13.79    6.05    0.357    0.3308
1963-64    44.83    13.29    5.17    0.360    0.3073
1964-65    48.78    15.24    6.38    0.349    0.3105
1965-66    52.90    16.82    6.98    0.339    0.3114
1966-67    52.24    16.81    7.19    0.337    0.3106
1967-68    52.91    16.93    7.22    0.332    0.3055
1968-69    49.29    15.54    6.54    0.329    0.3166
1970-71    44.98    13.35    5.35    0.346    0.3038
1972-73    45.67    13.46    5.26    0.345    0.3185
1973-74    47.96    13.60    5.22    0.317    0.2917
1977-78    40.50    11.69    4.53    0.337    0.3214
1983    35.65    9.52    3.56    0.334    0.3149
1986-87    34.29    9.10    3.4    0.356    0.3222
14

1987-88    35.65    9.31    3.25    0.356    0.3182
1988-89    36.40    9.54    3.29    0.356    0.3182
1989-90    33.40    8.51    3.29    0.356    0.3115
1990-91    32.76    8.51    2.12    0.340    0.2969
1991    33.23    8.24    2.9    0.351    0.3253
1992    33.73    8.82    3.19    0.356    0.3202
1993-94    30.03    7.62    2.76    0.345    ---
Source: Cited from Indian Development Report, 1999-2000 IGIDR, Bombay.
Some trends that emerge from assessment of all India poverty situations in pre and post-reform period are (IDR, 2000):
(i) Rural and urban poverty increased during the first two years of the reform period;
(ii) The phenomenon of faster decline of rural poverty in the 1980’s has halted in the post 1991 period. The rate of decline in poverty for the period of 1987-88 to 1993-94 has been much slower as compared to that of the 1980’s;
(iii) There has been a decline in the absolute number of poor in the 1980’s. In contrast, the post 1991 period showed an increase in the absolute number of poor.
(iv) Urban poverty declined much faster than rural poverty in the post-reform period.
Incidence Of Poverty:
Poverty is a complex, deep-seated pervasive reality. Virtually half of the world lives on less than US $2 a day. More than 1.2 billion people struggle on $1 a day or less. A further 1.6 billion people live on $1 to 2 a day and are thus also poor, insecure and at risk of falling to the level of bare subsistence (ILO, 2003). About half of the people living in poverty are of working age (between 15 and 64 years). Although most family members have to contribute in one way or another to the household’s welfare, the earning power of adults is a critical determinant of the well being of the family. For individuals, poverty is a nightmare. It is vicious circle of poor health, reduced working capacity, low productivity and shortened life expectancy. For families, poverty is a trap. It leads to inadequate schooling, low skills, insecure income, early parenthood, ill health and an early death. For nations, poverty is a curse. It hinders growth, fuels instability and keeps poor countries from advancing on the path to sustainable development (ILO, 2003). There is another face of poverty. People living in conditions of material deprivation draw on enormous reserves of courage, ingenuity, persistence and mutual support to keep on the thread mill of survival. After all, for most people living in poverty, there is no safety net and little state support. However, poor do not cause poverty. Poverty is the result of structural failures and ineffective economic and social systems. Thus, the poverty may be alleviated only through institutional support, political will and effective administrative machinery for social safety net and creation of employment opportunities.
India has made significant progress in reducing poverty at the national level during the period 1956-2000. Poverty has declined in all states, with substantial differences across states. The absolute number of rural poor, which accounted for about three-fourth of the country’s poor rose from 182 million in 1956-67 to 261 million in 1973-74, accounting for nearly half of the additions to the rural population during the period. In the second phase, from the mid 1970s to the close of the year 2000, the country achieved substantial reduction in the incidence of poverty (Table 5).
Table: 5
Poverty Estimates For Urban India

Year    Poverty (Percent)    Number of Poor (Million)

    Rural    Urban    Rural    Urban    Total
1956-57    54.1    --    182    --    --
1957-58    50.2    --    172    --    --
1958-59    46.5    --    162    --    --
1959-60    44.4    --    158    --    --
1960-61    38.9    40.4    141    32    173
1961-62    39.4    39.4    145    32    177
1963-64    44.5    42.5    171    37    208
1964-65    46.8    45.7    184    42    226
1965-66    47.4    46.4    190    44    234
1966-67    56.6    48.4    231    47    278
1967-68    56.5    48.3    236    49    285
1968-69    51.0    45.5    217    47    264
1969-70    49.2    44.4    214    48    262
1970-71    47.5    41.5    210    46    256
1972-73    49.4    44.6    227    53    280
1973-74    56.4    49.6    261    60    321
1977-78    53.1    45.2    264    65    329
1982-83    45.6    40.8    252    71    323
1987-88    39.1    38.2    232    75    307
1993-94    37.3    32.4    244    76    320
1999-2000    27.1    23.6    193    67    260
Source: Tendulkar, S.D. Economic Inequality and Poverty in India IN Uma Kapila (Ed.) Indian Economy Since Independence, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2003.
The proportion of the country’s population living in poverty declined from half to one quarter. Due to methodological changes, in the collection of NSS data in the 55th Round (1999-2000), comparison of the pre and post-reform period growth rate is problematic. Undoubtedly, India has made substantial progress in the reduction of poverty. Yet, as many as 260 million persons are living below the poverty line. According to UNDP’s Human Development Report, 2003, India has the target number of poor among the countries of the world and is home to one fourth of the world’s poor. A large number of hardcore poor are located in remote and inaccessible areas. The problem of poverty alleviation is going to be far more difficult than in the past. Since, those who were near the poverty line might have crossed it (Radha Krishnan and Rao, 2006). The regional differences in poverty reduction are substantial. The decline between 1973-74 and 1999-2000 in state’s incidence of poverty in rural areas ranged between 12-50 percentage point during 1973-2000 and 20-40 percentage points in urban areas. The inter-state variations in the rural poverty reduction during 1957-90 has been attributed to the variations in their agricultural productivity improvement (Datta and Ravallion, 1992). In addition, variations in initial endowments of physical infrastructure and human resources contributed to the inter-state variations in the performance of the states such as Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and West Bengal, which had a higher rural poverty ratio in the first phase, had lower rural poverty ratios in the second phase (Table 6).
Table: 6
Incidence Of Urban Poverty Across States

State    Urban    Rural

    1973-74    1993-94    1999-2000    1973-74    1993-94    1999-2000
Andhra Pradesh    50.61    38.33    26.63    48.41    15.92    11.05
Assam    36.92    7.73    7.47    52.67    45.01    40.04
Bihar    52.96    34.50    32.91    62.99    58.21    44.30
Gujarat    52.57    27.89    15.59    46.35    22.18    13.17
Haryana    40.18    16.38    9,99    34.23    28.02    8.27
Karnataka    52.53    40.14    25.25    55.14    29.88    17.38
Kerala    62.74    24.55    20.27    59.19    25.76    9.38
Madhya Pradesh    57.65    48.38    38.44    62.66    40.64    37.06
Maharashtra    43.87    35.15    26.81    57.71    37.93    23.72
Orissa    55.62    41.64    42.83    67.28    49.72    48.01
Punjab    27.96    11.35    5.75    28.21    11.95    6.35
Rajasthan    52.13    30.49    19.85    44.76    26.46    13.74
Tamil Nadu    49.40    39.77    22.11    57.43    32.48    20.55
Uttar Pradesh    60.09    35.39    30.89    56.53    42.28    31.22
West Bengal    34.67    22.41    14.86    73.16    40.80    31.85
India    49.01    32.36    23.62    56.44    37.27    27.09
Source: Economic Survey, 2001-02.
The composition of the poor has been changing. The rural poverty is getting concentrated in the agricultural labour and artisan households while urban poverty is concentrated the casual labour households. The share of agricultural labour households, which accounted for 41 per cent of rural poor in 1993-94 increased to 47 per cent in 1999-2000 (Radha Krishnan and Roy, 2004). In contrast, the share of self employed in agriculture in rural poor dropped from 33 to 28 per cent. Casual labour households accounted for 32 per cent of the urban population living in poverty in 1999-2000, increasing from 25 per cent in 1993-94. The increase in its share was due to both the increased dependence of urban households on urban casual labour market as well as higher incidence of poverty among casual labour households. It needs to be recognized that increased dependence of rural and urban households on casual labour market exposes the poor to market risks and tends to increase transient poverty, whereby households move in and out of poverty due to fluctuations in the labour market. The urban poor have been increasingly concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Their share in all India urban poverty rose from 56 per cent in 1993-94 to 60 per cent in 1999-2000. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and backward castes accounted for 81 per cent of the rural poor in 1999-2000, considerably more than their share in the rural population. The poor among the Scheduled Castes in rural areas were concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. These states accounted for 58 per cent of the Scheduled Castes population living in poverty. In urban areas, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh accounted for 41 per cent of the Scheduled Castes population living in poverty. The incidence of poverty among Scheduled Castes was higher in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh in both rural and urban areas. The proportion of Scheduled Tribes among the rural population living in poverty has been increasing rapidly from 14.8 per cent in 1993-94 to 17.5 per cent in 1999-2000. The poverty levels of Scheduled Tribes in rural areas were high in Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal while in urban areas poverty ratio among Scheduled Tribes was reported high in Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. In the terms of human deprivation or poverty, (education, health, etc.) the Scheduled Tribes are at the bottom. The increasing concentration of poverty tribals who suffer from multiple deprivations is a matter of concern. The incidence of poverty among females tended to be marginally higher in both rural and urban areas. The proportion of females living in poor households in rural areas was  37  per  cent  and  27  per  cent  in  1993-94  and  1999-2000, respectively with the corresponding percentage for urban areas being 34 and 25 per cent. In contrast, the percentage of males living in poverty in rural areas was 36 per cent and 26 per cent in 1993-94 and 1999-2000 respectively, while those in urban areas was 32 and 23 per cent, respectively. Females accounted for slightly less than half of the poor, about 49 per cent in both rural and urban areas in both the years. Importantly, child poverty is widespread in India both in rural and urban areas. The percentage of children aged below 15 years living in households below the poverty line in rural areas was 44 per cent and 33 per cent in 1993-94 and 1999-2000, respectively while the corresponding percentages for urban areas stood at 41 and 33 per cent. Among poor people, the share of children in rural areas increased from 44 per cent in 1993-94 to 46 per cent in 1999-2000 and in urban areas from 41 per cent to 42 per cent during corresponding period. The high level of child poverty would result in a high incidence of child malnutrition (Radha Krishnan and Rao, 2006). The states with high incidence of human poverty, such as Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradsh and Rajasthan are found at the bottom on the Human Development Index ranking. Kerala was the best performer in both rural and urban areas and Bihar the worst performer in rural areas and Uttar Pradesh in the urban areas. Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh consistently showed poor performance on three indices and Kerala and Punjab showed consistently better performance. Rajasthan performed better on poverty rank than HDI and HPI ranks. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra performed better on HDI rank than poverty and HPI ranks. The factors contributing to human poverty are not a unique set for the entire country, and vary from state to state and even across regions. The poverty reduction measures are generally focus on livelihood development, employment generation, skill enhancement, rights advocacy, strengthening cooperatives and people’s associations and accessibility of micro credit, etc. (Table 7).
Table: 7
Human Development Index In Urban India

State    Human Development Index    Human Poverty Index (In 1991)

    1981    1991    2001    Value    Rank

    Value    Rank    Value    Rank    Value    Rank   
   

Andhra Pradesh    0.425    9    0.473    12    0.416    10    24.78    10
Assam    0.380    13    0.555    5    0.386    14    21.79    9
Bihar    0.378    14    0.460    14    0.367    15    28.04    13
Gujarat    0.458    6    0.532    7    0.479    6    20.29    6
Haryana    0.465    5    0.562    3    0.509    5    17.49    3
Karnataka    0.489    3    0.523    8    0.478    7    20.69    7
Kerala    0.544    1    0.628    1    0.638    1    14.43    1
Madhya Pradesh    0.395    11    0.491    11    0.416    10    25.04    11
Maharashtra    0.489    4    0.548    6    0.523    4    16.23    2
Orissa    0.368    15    0.469    13    0.404    11    29.23    14
Punjab    0.495    2    0.566    2    0.537    2    18.26    4
Rajasthan    0.386    12    0.492    10    0.424    9    27.79    12
Tamil Nadu    0.445    7    0.560    4    0.537    2    18.71    5
Uttar Pradesh    0.398    10    0.444    15    0.388    13    31.20    15
West Bengal    0.427    8    0.511    9    0.472    8    21.52    8
India    0.442    --    0.511    --    0.472    --    22.00    --
Source: Planning Commission, 2002, Delhi.
Analysis shows that poverty reduction has been uneven between the states. There is no correlation with per capita income or other development indicators like per capita consumption, levels of industrial
and infrastructural development etc. in urban areas during the 1990’s (Planning Commission, 2001). Again, rapid economic growth has not led to a corresponding decline in poverty. Urban poverty thus, emerges as a more complex phenomenon than rural poverty. The urban poor faces more problems related with housing amenities, urban infrastructure, size of town or city, and vulnerabilities—housing, economic, social and personal. The urban poor are characterized by deprivation and misery while they are classified as core poor, intermedial poor, and transitional poor. Another study classified them as declining poor, coping poor and improving poor, with different degrees of poverty for three basic needs of survival, security and quality of life.
Government Initiatives:
The government policies on urban poverty have followed three paths:
(i)       Those that seek to enhance productive employment and income for the poor;
(ii)      Those that are directed towards improving the general health and welfare services;
(iii)     Those that focus on infrastructure and built environment of poor neighbourhood.
Though several programmes of poverty alleviation have been initiated by government but effective dent on poverty could not be ensured. The schemes had certain limitations, which ultimately resulted in poor results or failure. Environment Improvement of Urban Slums (EIUS) launched in 1972 provided physical infrastructure and could not cover social services like health, education, community development, etc. The scheme could not help in preventing growth of new slums.
Similarly UBSP was designed to foster Neighbourhood Development   Committees   in   slums   for   ensuring   the   effective participation of slum dwellers in developmental activities and for coordinating the convergent provisions of social services, environmental improvement and income generation activities of the specialist departments (Venketeshwaraloo, 1998). The low level of resource allocation for the scheme led to sub critical releases to the state governments, which consequently gave low priority to the scheme. Importantly, NRY scheme was launched in 1989 to provide employment to the unemployed through setting up of micro-enterprises and wage employment through shelter upgradation works and creation of useful pubic assets in low income neighbourhoods. The scheme could not yield good results due to shortfall in employment generation on account of some states not taking up labour intensive schemes. Importantly, progress under Housing and Shelter Upgradation Scheme was recorded slow growth due to non-completion of the necessary documentation and procedural formalities. Interestingly, PMIUPEP was launched in 1994 and sought to improve the quality of life of the urban poor by creating a facilitating implementation (Venketeshwaraloo, 1998). The scheme provided for the creation of a National Urban Poverty Eradication Fund (NUPEF) with contribution from private sector. The National Slum Development Programme (NSDP) was initiated in 1996 as a centrally sponsored scheme. The scheme highlighted on the creation of community structures as the basis for slum development and gives the maximum possible leeway to the states, ULB’s and the community development societies at the slum level to plan and carry out development works as per the local assessed needs. The SJSRY was initiated in 1997 and was designed to replace the UBSP.
Review During Plan Period:
The review of urban policy framework in historical perspective indicates that until the Sixth Plan (1980-85), the urban policies mainly addressed problems like housing, slum clearance, slum improvement and upgradation, preparation of Master Plans, development of small and medium towns, strengthening of municipal civic administration, etc. The Seventh Plan made a new beginning by recognizing the problems of urban poor, which were linked with creation of employment opportunities. The Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns (IDSMT) scheme was initiated by government in 1979-80 with a view to reducing the migration of people from rural areas to large cities, generating employment by creating resource generating ventures in the small and medium towns and providing sufficient infrastructure facilities in these towns. Overall, 1058 towns were assisted since inception of the scheme and Rs. 444.94 crores of Central assistance was released. The Urban Basic Services Scheme (UBSS) was initiated on a pilot basis in 1986, with the involvement of UNICEF and the state governments. The programme aimed at child survival and development, provision of learning opportunities for women and children, and community organization for slum population. The services supposed to be delivered, included environmental sanitation, primary health care, pre¬school learning, vocational training and convergence of other social services at slum level. The scheme also included assistance to mentally retarded and handicapped children, rehabilitation of alcoholics and drug addicts, and special programmes for street children. Nehru Rojgar Yojana was launched in 1989, which targeted poor urban households. Within the target group, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were to be given special coverage earmarking of funds. The scheme consists of the following four sub-schemes: (i) the Scheme of Urban Micro Enterprises (SUME) for encouraging self employment ventures, (ii) Scheme of Urban Wage Employment (SUWE) for providing employment to urban poor through creation of socially and economically useful assets in low income neighbourhoods in towns with a population below one lakh, (iii) Scheme of Housing and Shelter Upgradation (SHASHU) for providing employment to persons involved in housing and building activities,   (iv)      Scheme   for   Educated   Unemployed   Employment Generation in Urban Localities (SEEGUL) for providing self employment opportunities for educated unemployed. Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication emphasized on poverty alleviation through creation of self-employment opportunities for youth. Swarn Jayanti Swhahari Rojgar Yojana was launched in 1997 and Nehru Rojgar Yojana, PMIUPEP and UBSP were phased out. The pogramme has two sub-schemes namely: (a) urban self-employment programme and (b) urban wage employment programme. The self-employment and wage employment components of NRY and PMIUEP were reorganized under this single programme. The shelter upgradation components of both NRY and PMIUPEP were merged with National Slum Development Programme. The SJSRY sought to provide gainful employment to the urban unemployed or under-employed poor by encouraging setting up of self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment. This progarmme has laid emphasis on creation of suitable community structures on UBSP pattern and delivery of inputs under the programme. The community organizations like Neighbourhood Groups (NHG’s), Neighbourhood Committees (NHC’s) and Community Development Societies (CDS’s) were to be set up in areas based on the USSP pattern. Urban self-employment programme has laid emphasis on setting up gainful self-employment ventures for urban poor, extending assistance to groups of urban poor women for setting up gainful employment ventures, and; training of beneficiaries for upgradation and acquisition of vocational and entrepreneurial skills.
Limitations in UPA Programmes:
Viewed from the conceptual framework, one finds that the thrust of the programmes in India has been to reach the urban poor through strategies that are related to employment, urban services and shelter. The impact of these programmes and strategies on the incidence of urban   poverty   has   not   been   encouraging.   The   limitations   of programmes are (Sen, 2000):
(i)    Inadequate financial resources to ULB’s for poverty alleviation in
proportion to the magnitude of the problem;
(ii)    Lack of guarantee to get institutional finance;
(iii)    Lack effective coordination among implementing agencies;
(iv)    Lack of a coherent policy framework;
(v)    Failure to build partnership with ill-equipped municipal bodies;
(vi)    Political interference;
(vii)    Poor loan recovery.
Strategies For Poverty Reduction:
Global and national structures for poverty reduction should provide a framework for local strategies to escape cycles of low incomes from work and social exclusion International Labour Organization (2003) has developed policy instruments in the following areas:
(i)    Training and skill development;
(ii)    Investing in jobs and the community;
(iii)    Micro and small enterprises;
(iv)    Micro-finance;
(v)    Cooperatives;
(vi)    Social security;
(vii)    Hazards at work;
(viii)    Eliminating child labour;
(ix)    Overcoming discrimination.
Skills are essential to improve productivity, incomes, and access to employment opportunities. Thus, poverty reduction strategy should focus on vocational education and training since vast majority people living in poverty cannot afford and have access to training opportunities, which are commercially managed. International Labour Organization has invested in the field of employment intensive infrastructure programmes. It has now widely recognized that these programmes are effective in bringing much needed income to poor families and their communities. Thus, financial investment in jobs and employment may create addition opportunities to poor youth. The labour intensive projects should respect standards, promote gender equality and encourage enterprise development through contracting systems. The entrepreneurship development may promote income generating enterprises and livelihood development. This will also promote self-employment among educated unemployed youth. Interestingly, it is impossible to build an enterprise without access to credit. Micro-finance activities should be promoted, strengthened and encouraged along with entrepreneurship for enabling poor to borrow for productive purposes. Moreover, participation and inclusion are central to new approach to poverty reduction. Cooperatives and people’s associations including Self Help Groups are an ideal instruments in such a strategy. Cooperatives have proved to be a key organized form in building new models to combat social exclusion and poverty. Similarly, SHG’s are proving crucial instrument for availability of micro-finance and social empowerment of poor. Significantly, discrimination is a basis for social exclusion and poverty. Promoting gender equality and eliminating all forms of discrimination at work are essential to defeating poverty. Child labour is both a cause and a system of poverty. The importance of universal access to basic health care and primary and secondary education is well recognized by many countries. For a poor family, securing a basic income, basic health care and school places for the children is a foundation for participating productivity in society and the economy (ILO, 2003). The poor workers need protection from occupational health hazards, accidents, diseases etc. Thus, by focusing directly on creating the conditions for people living in poverty to work for a better future, the decent work approach mobilizes the broad spectrum of support across society is needed to maintain progress and harmony and should reach to all poor communities. Eradicating poverty calls for the coordination of policies that focus on different dimensions of the life of people living in poverty.
Policy Recommendations:
In light of the above analysis, the following recommendations are made to make the development programmes for urban poor more effective (Singh, 2001):
    An attempt is needed to establish an urban information system pertaining to poverty.
    The programme design requires effective participation by the local NGO’s in their formulation, implementation and appraisal.
    Effective and enhanced participation of urban poor in poverty alleviation programmes is the need of hour.
    Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation should be established to finance services in the areas where urban poor are concentrated.
    There is a need to integrate different sectors of infrastructure within an overall plan and bring it under unified public utilities and services distribution agency.
    Skill upgradation among the urban poor is needed to exploit employment potentials. This can be ensured through local NGO’s, academic institutions and private sector partnership.
    Government intervention is necessary for upgradation of housing conditions and empowerment of poor. The financial assistance should be made according to the paying capacity of the urban poor.
    Training for urban youths for self-employment is needed to ensure full benefits of employment generation programmes. This may be ensured through strengthening of local NGO’s, private institutions and panchayats.
    Financial assistance provided under UPA Programmes needs to be raised. The banks tend to extend loans only for purchase of fixed assets and do not normally meet the working capital requirements of the beneficiaries.
    The role of community is crucial for the success of urban poverty alleviation progammes and its sustainability. The local NGO’s can perform the function of community mobilization, organization and participation in development programmes and should be involved in the task of community organization, policy formulation, programme implementation, monitoring and appraisal .
    There is need to take overall requirements into consideration while making allocations so that the problem of urban poverty can be faced in right earnest.
    The UPA package needs inter-agency linkages at various levels. The grassroot NGO’s, academic organizations, resource persons, institutions and government departments – all need effective coordination.
    The community based approach for planning be used for all UPA schemes. The role of district planning should be ensured in such a manner that UPA programmes are well designed and effectively implemented.
    The training for municipal managers, administrators and personnel is required on sustainable basis. Academic institutions, local NGO’s, private organizations etc. should be enhanced to cater to the needs of training of municipal personnel.
15. There is an urgent need to develop the urban data base at all levels to conduct action research projects to facilitate grassroot planning and policy formulation.

CHRONIC POVERTY IN INDIA

Introduction
In ‘Chronic Poverty: Meanings And Analytical Frameworks’, David Hulme, Karen Moore and Andrew Shepherd provide an overview of the meaning of ‘chronic poverty’, and identify frameworks for analysing it. While the analysis of money-metric and other quantitative indicators will continue to be important, the paper recognizes the importance of focusing on poverty in its broadest, multi-dimensional sense, as those who are chronically poor are likely to be poor in several ways and not only in terms of income.
Long duration is identified as both necessary and sufficient for poverty to be considered chronic though it is hypothesised that chronic poverty will also often be multi-dimensional and severe. It is proposed that a five-tiered categorisation of the poor be adopted – always poor, usually poor, churning poor, occasionally poor and never poor – and that transitions between different levels over time be closely monitored. The churning poor and occasionally poor together constitute the transient poor. It is suggested that the tightest possible definition of chronic poverty would be intergenerationally transmitted (IGT) poverty, which, while it may or may not be severe, is likely to be relatively intractable, and therefore is likely to escape current poverty reduction efforts.
The authors argue that there are several sets of people who are particularly susceptible to chronic poverty, and that they are likely to experience multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities. These groups include those experiencing deprivation because of their stage in the life cycle, those discriminated against because of their social position in the community or household, those with health problems and impairments, and people living in remote rural areas, urban ghettos and regions where prolonged violent conflict and insecurity have occurred.
They explore the causes of chronic poverty at different levels of analysis and present the analytical frameworks for their understanding. These include quantitative panel data analysis; livelihoods analysis; freedoms; social and political exclusion; and policy analysis frameworks. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this initial understanding of chronic poverty for future research.
Aasha Kapur Mehta and Amita Shah’s paper ‘Chronic Poverty in India: An Overview’, provides an overview of the trends in incidence of income poverty in India and analyses chronic poverty in terms of severity, extended duration and multidimensional deprivation. States and regions that have a high incidence of people with incomes severely below the poverty line are identified so as to focus attention on areas that are spatial poverty traps. Attention is drawn to those unable to access even two square meals a day as they are the most severely deprived. The incidence of chronic poverty in the duration sense is studied on the basis of review of the literature using panel data sets. Casual agricultural labourers are identified as the largest group among the chronically poor.
The paper presents and analyses estimates of multidimensional indicators of poverty that reflect human and gender development and empowerment, as also infant mortality estimates and female literacy. The disproportionately high incidence of chronic poverty among historically marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, the elderly, women and the disabled is analysed. The multiple deprivations suffered by these groups make it harder for them to escape from poverty.
The extent and nature of chronic poverty within the spatial poverty traps or remote rural areas is examined. Two sets of remote rural regions are considered: dryland regions characterised by frequent failure of crops and employment opportunities, leading to high level of unprotected risks of livelihood security among the poor; and the ‘forest based’ economies, especially in hilly regions with predominance of tribal population with limited access to natural resources on the one hand, and information as well as markets on the other. Factors affecting chronic poverty in these regions are analysed, the relationship between chronic poverty and agro-climatic conditions, agronomic features, human capabilities, social structure and infrastructure studied and variations in the dynamics of poverty across the two sets of regions are identified.
The paper briefly looks at policy interventions in the context of poverty reduction as also attempts by communities to demand accountability and transparency in government spending in the name of the poor. It concludes with a summary of the key findings and agenda for further research.
Anand Kumar’s paper entitled ‘Political Sociology of Poverty in India: Between Politics of Poverty and Poverty of Politics’ points out that political sociology of poverty requires analytical understanding of the relationship between polity and society. In the context of India such an analysis has to pay attention to the meaning of the caste system, economic gradations and the imperatives of colonial and post-colonial polity. It recognizes the heuristic value of caste, gender, class and tribe as separate social categories as well as identifies the dynamics of conversions between them in the domain of chronic poverty.
The paper draws attention to the historical context, constitutional content, the unfolding of anti poverty mobilizations and their results, politics of poverty and conflict on the lines of class, caste and tribe and political limits of poverty related measures. It also provides examples of the relationship between poverty, politics and conflicts by looking at the cases of West Bengal and Bihar and underlines the changing relationship between the state and poverty alleviation processes in the era of liberalization.
The paper concludes that there has been a decline in the role of politics in the context of poverty eradication in the last several years; conflicts between the poverty-affected social groups and the rest in the rural areas have increased in recent decades; and poverty related conflicts have positive and negative potential in the context of political and economic reforms.
Solomon Benjamin’s paper entitled ‘From Income to Urban Contest in Global Settings: Chronic Poverty in Bangalore’ focuses on chronic poverty among the urban poor. It draws on interviews with households and individuals in different locations and situations within Bangalore. A grassroots view shows poor groups as active agents who attempt to influence both the economy and politics. The city is characterized by economic and political settings that influence the extreme ups and downs which the poorest face – a main contributing factor to chronic poverty. Individuals take on complex alliances as part of coping and other strategies. The paper also highlights the importance of children in the working age group. Such ‘internal’ factors are influenced by larger developmental projects closely related to Bangalore’s global connections and the emerging urban politics. A key issue relates to access to locations which provide multiple employment opportunities. However these spaces are highly contested. Evictions place poor groups in conflict situations including with other poor groups. Although Bangalore is seen as a showcase of “civic initiatives”, preliminary indications are that these actually dilute the claims of the poor on resources, and those in chronic poverty may lose out to an increasingly aggressive and assertive elite.
In their paper ‘Chronic Poverty in South West Madhya Pradesh: A Multidimensional Analysis of Its Extent and Causes’, Amita Shah and D.C. Sah argue that Chronic Poverty in a less favoured area such as South West Region in Madhya Pradesh (SWMP) originates from a logjam of natural, economic, social and political marginalisation. This often gets reflected in the apathy of the state and stunted market development.
Population pressure only aggravates the situation culminating in severe and long duration poverty among a large proportion of the rural population in regions like SWMP. Based on a micro-study of two villages in SWMP, the paper examines the nature and extent of poverty and tries to understand the processes that lead to situations of chronic poverty. The analysis is based on primary data collected through participatory methods as well as a simple survey of households. This is an exploratory exercise and identifies issues for future research.
In the paper ‘Issues in Chronic Poverty: Panel Data based Analysis’, Aasha Kapur Mehta and Shashanka Bhide point out that the distinction between chronic or extended duration poverty and transient poverty is rarely made in the substantial literature on poverty in India. Determination of poverty as chronic or temporary requires that the same households be tracked over time through a panel data set and/ or use of life or event history and other qualitative approaches. The paper reviews the limited panel data based literature on chronic poverty in India as also of the literature on other countries. It then uses panel data that longitudinally track 3,139 households in rural India to try to provide an initial identification and understanding of the characteristics of households that exhibit mobility out of poverty and of those that simply stay poor.
The data shows that more than half (52.61 per cent) of the households who were poor in 1970-71 remained in poverty over a decade later. In other words a large number of households have not been able to escape from poverty despite the many existing policy interventions.
This paper explores the patterns that emerge in the context of incidence and persistence of poverty and poverty correlates. The authors point out that policy should focus on the determinants of entries and exists rather than only on the correlates of poverty status, as in the past.
Kate Bird’s paper ‘Chronic Poverty and Understanding Intra-household Differentiation’ draws attention to the importance of exploring issues pertaining to intra-household differentiation and various forms of intra-household inequalities. Until recently the household was taken to be an undifferentiated entity for the purposes of data collection and social and economic analysis. Within the household there is differential access to and control of resources and when we ‘break open’ the household we may find a number of intra-household inequalities with regard to division of labour, distribution of tasks, non-waged labour, decision making processes, allocation of resources, access to education control over the means of production, time allocation and freedom of movement.
The paper also analyses household models in microeconomic theory and splits decision-making models into two sets: (i) Unitary models and (ii) Collective models that comprise two sub-groups - co-operative and non-cooperative models.
Kanchan Mathur, Shobhita Rajagopal and Pradeep Bhargava’s paper ‘Understanding Childhood Poverty in Rajasthan’ stresses the fact that childhood is a precious stage in a life-course and deprivation during this period can have long-term adverse impacts on the well-being of children. The paper attempts to analyze the key factors that contribute to childhood poverty in the context of the ongoing primary research in two regions of Rajasthan. Some of the factors which have been highlighted are education, health and nutrition, gender disparities, livelihoods, migration and indebtedness. Identifying the process that can help children break poverty cycle is extremely pertinent. The paper mentions the various programmes, addressing health, nutrition and educational needs of children, being implemented in the State – Integrated Child Development Scheme, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Immunisation Programme and other educational schemes. While most of these programmes have been in place since long, development indicators pertaining to children’s health and nutrition reflect that both poor nutrition and health continue to play a crucial role in terms of poverty transfer. For promoting children’s well-being and preventing inter generational poverty transfer, policies that address the multi¬dimensional aspects of poverty have to be implemented.
In the paper ‘Multidimensional Poverty in India: District Level Estimates’, Aasha Kapur Mehta, Deepa Chatterjee and Nikhila Menon try to identify chronic poverty at the district level by using multi-dimensional indicators that reflect persistent deprivation, such as illiteracy, infant mortality, low levels of agricultural productivity and poor infrastructure. Comparing the ranks of 15 large states on the basis of population in poverty with values of the human development index, shows that income based poverty incidence and performance on human development indicators seem to follow a similar pattern in most cases. Disaggregated estimates at the regional level, indicate that the severest concentration of poverty in India is in 12 rural and 21 urban regions. Between 20 percent and 43 percent of the population living in these regions suffer severe poverty i.e. income of 75 percent or less than the poverty line.
Multi-dimensional indicators were estimated for about 379 districts in 15 large states of India, based on data for the early 1990s. Variables reflecting long duration deprivation, such as illiteracy, infant mortality, agricultural productivity and poor infrastructure, were used to compute the indicators. The 52 to 60 most deprived districts in India, out of 379 districts in 15 large states are in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and Assam.
The Inaugural Session of the Workshop: A Brief Report
The Director of IIPA, Dr. P.L. Sanjeev Reddy welcomed all the distinguished participants of the workshop. He said that IIPA valued the partnership with the Chronic Poverty Research Center (CPRC) UK and the Ministry of Rural Development in organizing the workshop. He extended an especially warm welcome to the collaborating partners from Overseas Development Institute, UK, University of Birmingham, UK, Institute of Policy Studies, Sri Lanka, the Indian partners from GIDR, JNU and NCAER and the many senior academics and experts present at the workshop. The CPRC was established in October 2000. It is funded by DFID, UK and headquartered at the University of Manchester.
Dr. Reddy said that CPRC’s objective is to produce policy relevant research which focuses on the people for whom poverty is intractable and often passed on from one generation to another. These are people who, are least likely to benefit from the current development policy and all its programmes. Therefore, the objective of the research is to deepen understanding of various dimensions and facets of chronic poverty and to use that understanding for the benefit of vulnerable groups for designing appropriate policy mix. He mentioned that the poverty alleviation strategy of India had undergone several paradigm changes from mere community development programmes to those based on asset building and skill building. He pointed out that a significant part of India’s total budgetary expenditure is earmarked for various poverty alleviation programmes. Hence it is important that these programmes are effectively focused and well targeted. He mentioned that a substantial allocation has been made for rural development programmes and this should be accompanied by appropriate changes in policy and implementation to be able to achieve the desired result. He drew attention to the Ministry’s four-pronged strategy for empowering the rural people that includes enhancing the level of awareness about schemes, transparency in implementation, and people’s participation and ensuring accountability through social audit. Leakages, diversion and abuse of funds have made many poverty alleviation schemes redundant. Mass-based organisations that can facilitate the empowerment of the community and help achieve transparency and accountability are needed.
Dr. Reddy said that through the Research Programme on chronic poverty many questions, as to who are the chronically poor, their spatial location, their social security options, their livelihood strategies, etc. would be raised and solutions would be explored during the course of the research. He also said that IIPA is strategically positioned in leveraging its resources towards forging strategic partnerships between government, academia, civil society and the poor to jointly explore enduring solutions to poverty, illiteracy, hunger and disease.
Shri Lalit Mathur, Additional Secretary (F&A), Ministry of Rural Development, welcomed the partnership with IIPA in organizing the workshop and said that the research would definitely contribute towards better understanding of what the government should be doing in terms of modification of schemes and interventions towards poverty alleviation. Referring to the several independent studies that have been carried out at the state level and by international organizations like ADB and DFID with focus on poverty in specific regions, he stressed the need to pool the inputs from these studies to help in evolving better and more appropriate strategies for interventions by the Ministry. He categorised the interventions made through India’s poverty programmes into four areas. The first category deals with wage employment and the employment guarantee system. The second category focuses on poorly endowed regions, drought-proofing, fragile ecological regions and watersheds and how they can be developed. The third category is related to self-employment where there has been a shift from pure bank loan kind of strategy to a group oriented approach with empowerment as the focus. Finally the fourth category relates to the basic needs comprising of drinking water, housing, electrification, rural roads, etc.
Shri Mathur suggested that it would be worthwhile for the research on chronic poverty in India to look at the caste factor, in addition to income. He also suggested inclusion of sustainable sources of empowerment as another priority area for the research. He reiterated the willingness and support of the Ministry towards the research and said that the Ministry is looking forward to the results of the study.
Prof. G.K.Chadha, Vice Chancellor, JNU, praised the use of the word “chronic poverty” instead of “poverty” and said that the deficiency of calorie intake works as the operational parameter to distinguish between people who can be called chronically poor, desperately poor or moderately poor. He was more interested on understanding poverty within the framework of macroeconomic policy than going into the already existing debate about process of measuring poverty. He said that since India is part of the global economic system, certain compulsions and stresses are bound to crop up.
Prof. Chadha raised several issues that affect the earning capabilities of the people. The first issue was with regard to public and private investment. He questioned whether the nature of investment in the 1990s was pro-poor and said that more importance should be given to the sectoral pattern of public investment. It has been found that the share of public investment has been declining. This is a very disturbing trend since public investment helps to reduce the stress on the poor. The agricultural sector has been affected the most by the decline in public investment. He referred to the paper by IFPRI, which states that if a larger share of investment is coming through public investment in agricultural research, it is focused towards promoting employment avenues, not only in agriculture, but also in areas allied to agriculture and non-agriculture.
Prof. Chadha pointed out that India’s economic policy regime has been unable to encourage human capital formation. No country in the world can think of emerging victorious in the international arena, unless the quality of its workforce is enhanced. He said that the public distribution policy has been one of the important instruments through which the country has tried to alleviate the severity of poverty especially in the urban areas. However, it is positively biased in favour of those who are producers of food, rather than those who are consumers of food. As a result the country has been trapped in the paradox of plenty existing side by side with hunger and poverty. The issue of food subsidy requires careful examination with regard to the regions and sections of society that are having the lion’s share of such subsidies.
He highlighted the relationship between assetlessness and poverty and stressed the need to encourage the policy of land distribution. If a little bit of land is given to the landless, they can enter the market in a stronger position as borrowers. Lending agencies will also view their requests for loans more favourably. Additionally, they can grow crops on their own land and hence meet their consumption requirements. He stressed the importance of the employment policy and creation of productive employment opportunities, especially since the employment sector is in a precarious position after India's entry into the global economic regime in the 1990s.
Between 1993-94 and 1999-2000, out of the 17 major states, the rate of growth of employment in agriculture has declined in as many as 15 states. The rate of overall employment in rural areas has declined in about 12 states. A similar situation exists in the non-farm and manufacturing sectors as well. He suggested that for a more meaningful examination of issues such as employment elasticity in various sectors, one has to adopt a 3-sector classification rather than a 2-sector one. The sectors that are in rural areas are facing competition both at home and abroad. Knowledge intensive techniques of production have a competitive advantage.

Finally as far as urban poverty is concerned, he said that special attention has to be devoted to the urban informal sector, which contributes 60 per cent of the national income, and nearly 90 per cent of the work-force. Moreover, 99.9 per cent of the poor come from the informal sector. Hence caring for the poor implies that policy has to be designed to help the informal sector.
Shri G.C.L. Joneja, Vice President, IIPA and former Chief Secretary, Orissa and former Secretary, Food, Government of India, referred to the proliferation of schemes and introduction of new programmes, and finding out the lacunae in the existing programmes and overlaps between programmes. He therefore suggested that the research should try to examine the various governmental schemes, their objectives, and their performance and also find solutions for rationalising and simplifying programmes and making them more administratively workable.
He stressed the importance of finding out whether people at the Panchayat level were able to dispense justice and help poor people and whether they were conversant with the complicated accounting procedures required for various government programmes.
In the context of the huge buffer stock of foodgrains, Shri Joneja pointed out that the cost of holding stocks had become unaffordable. Production of cereals has been encouraged for which Minimum Support Price has been fixed. This results in a piquant situation where even when the quality of grain is unacceptable to consumers, it has to be purchased by the state.
About the Chronic Poverty Research Centre
The Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) is an international partnership of universities, research institutes and NGOs which exists to focus attention on Chronic Poverty; to stimulate national and international debate; to deepen understanding of the causes of Chronic Poverty; and to provide research, analysis and policy guidance that will contribute to its reduction. The CPRC was established in 2000 with funding from the Department for International Development, UK.
The CPRC is headquartered internationally at the Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester and in India, at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi. Other CPRC India core team partners include faculty at Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Jawaharlal Nehru University and National Council of Applied Economic Research/Institute for Social and Economic Change.
Work under the CPRC in India includes a country overview paper published as CPRC Working Paper No. 7 on the CPRC website, development of work in a remote rural area of Madhya Pradesh; work on the political sociology of chronic poverty; analysis of panel data and analysis of district level indicators. The CPRC is concerned with building and strengthening networks and partnerships with individuals and institutions interested in reduction of chronic poverty and related issues and with those who are committed to making a difference.

POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN RURAL INDIA – STRATEGY AND PROGRAMMES

At the beginning of the new millennium, 260 million people in the country did not have incomes to access a consumption basket which defines the poverty line. Of these, 75 per cent were in the rural areas. India is home to 22 per cent of the world’s poor. Such a high incidence of poverty is a matter of concern in view of the fact that poverty eradication has been one of the major objectives of the development planning process. Indeed, poverty is a global issue. Its eradication is considered integral to humanity’s quest for sustainable development. Reduction of poverty in India, is, therefore, vital for the attainment of international goals.
Agricultural wage earners, small and marginal farmers and casual workers engaged in non-agricultural activities, constitute the bulk of the rural poor. Small land holdings and their low productivity are the cause of poverty among households dependent on land-based activities for their livelihood. Poor educational base and lack of other vocational skills also perpetuate poverty. Due to the poor physical and social capital base, a large proportion of the people are forced to seek employment in vocations with extremely low levels of productivity and wages. The creation of employ¬ment opportunities for the unskilled workforce has been a major challenge for development planners and administrators.
Poverty alleviation has been one of the guiding principles of the planning process in India. The role of economic growth in providing more employment avenues to the population has been clearly recognised. The growth-oriented approach has been reinforced by focusing on specific sectors which provide greater opportunities to the people to participate in the growth process. The various dimensions of poverty relating to health, education and other basic services have been progressively internalised in the planning process. Central and state governments have considerably enhanced allocations for the provision of education, health, sanitation and other facilities which promote capacity-building and well-being of the poor. Investments in agriculture, area development programmes and afforestation provide avenues for employment and income. Special programmes have been taken up for the welfare of scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs), the disabled and other vulnerable groups. Anti-poverty programmes that seek to transfer assets and skills to people for self-employment, coupled with public works programmes that enable people to cope with transient poverty, are the third strand of the larger anti-poverty strategy. The targetted public distribution system (TPDS) protects the poor from the adverse effects of a rise in prices and ensures food and nutrition security at affordable prices.
The success of the anti-poverty strategy can be gauged from the decline in poverty levels from 37.27 per cent in 1993-94 to 27.09 per cent in 1999-2000 in the rural areas. In absolute terms, the number of rural poor fell below the 200 million mark for the first time since 1973-74. However, this achievement falls short of the Ninth Plan projections. At the beginning of the Plan, it was projected that, with a growth target of 6.5 per cent per annum during the Plan period, only 18.61 per cent of the population would be below the poverty line by 2001.
This shortfall can be attributed largely to the uneven performance of states in poverty alleviation. The distribution of poor across states is also disparate, with Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa accounting for 69 per cent of the poor in 1999-2000. Figure 3.2.1 depicts broad estimation of rural poverty across major states between 1993-94 and 1999-2000.
Kerala, Haryana, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan experienced a sharp reduction in poverty levels (a drop of more than 12 percentage points between 1993-94 and 1999-2000).Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu also registered significant reduction in poverty (8-12 percentage points). However, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh have shown virtually no reduction in poverty levels. In fact, these are the states where the absolute number of poor has actually gone up between 1993-94 and 1999-2000.
ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMMES IN THE NINTH PLAN
Integrated Rural Development Programme/ Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana
The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), introduced in selected blocks in 1978-79 and universalised from 2 October 1980 has provided assistance to rural poor in the form of subsidy and bank credit for productive employment opportunities through successive plan periods. Subsequently, Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA), Supply of Improved Tool Kits to Rural Artisans (SITRA) and Ganga Kalyan Yojana (GKY) were introduced as sub-programmes of IRDP to take care of the specific needs of the rural population. These schemes were, however, implemented as ‘stand alone programmes’, an approach which substantially detracted from their effectiveness. The Mid-Term Appraisal of the Ninth Plan had indicated that these sub-programmes “presented a matrix of multiple programmes without desired linkages”. The programme suffered from sub critical investments, lack of bank credit, over-crowding in certain projects, and lack of market linkages. The programme was basically subsidy driven and ignored the processes of social intermediation necessary for the success of self-employment programmes. A one-time provision of credit without follow-up action and lack of a continuing relationship between borrowers and lenders also undermined the programme’s objectives.
The marginal impact of self-employment programmes led to the constitution of a committee by the Planning Commission in 1997 to review self-employment and wage-employment programmes. The committee recommended the merger of all self-employment programmes for the rural poor and a shift from the individual beneficiary approach to a group-based approach. It emphasised the identification of activity clusters in specific areas and strong training and marketing linkages. The committee’s recommendations were accepted by the Government.
On 1 April 1999, the IRDP and allied programmes, including the Million Wells Scheme (MWS), were merged into a single programme known as Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). The SGSY is conceived as a holistic programme of micro enterprise development in rural areas with emphasis on organising the rural poor into self-help groups, capacity-building, planning of activity clusters, infrastructure support, technology, credit and marketing linkages. It seeks to promote a network of agencies, namely, the District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs), line departments of state governments, banks, NGOs and panchayati raj Institutions (PRIs) for implementation of the programme. The SGSY recognises the need to focus on key activities and the importance of activity clusters. The programme has in-built safeguards for the weaker sections. It insists that 50 per cent of the self-help groups must be formed exclusively by women and that 50 per cent of the benefits should flow to SCs and STs. There is also a provision for disabled beneficiaries. The programme is credit driven and subsidy is back-ended. The credit and subsidy ratio is pegged at 3:1. The subsidy is fixed at 30 per cent of the project cost subject to a maximum of Rs. 7,500 per individual beneficiary for those in the general category and 50 per cent of the project cost subject to a maximum of Rs. 10,000 in the case of SC/STs. In the case of group projects, the subsidy is 50 per cent of the project cost subject to a ceiling of Rs. 1.25 lakh. Funds under the scheme are shared between the Centre and state governments in the ratio of 75:25. The new approach to self-employment has made significant contribution to the empowerment of beneficiaries as evidence from the evaluation of SGSY in Tamil Nadu shows.
Implementation of the programme between 1999-2000 and 2001-02 has highlighted many areas of concern. While the IRDP concentrated on individual beneficiaries, the SGSY laid greater emphasis on social mobilisation and group formation. However, the DRDAs responsible for administering the programme did not have the requisite skills in social mobilisation. Linkages with NGOs, which could have facilitated this process, were also not in place. The programme, therefore, suffered in the initial years. Information on the physical and financial performance of IRDP/SGSY during the Eighth and Ninth Plans is given at Annexure-3.2.I. Central releases were substantially lower than the allocation as the field offices were not in a position to organise self-help groups which could be provided financial assistance. Credit mobilisation also suffered in the process. Against a target of Rs. 9,611 crore of credit, the achievement during the last three years has been only Rs. 3,235 crore, i.e. 33.66 per cent of the target. In the last three years of the Ninth Plan, 7,67,141 self-help groups were formed. While 9,34,000 individuals were assisted in 1999-2000, 10,30,000 individuals were provided support in 2000-01. The coverage was considerably lower than around 2.2 million beneficiaries under IRDP every year during the Eighth Plan period.
Wage Employment Programmes
Wage employment programmes, an important component of the anti-poverty strategy, have sought to achieve multiple objectives. They not only provide employment opportunities during lean agricultural seasons but also in times of floods, droughts and other natural calamities. They create rural infrastructure which supports further economic activity. These programmes also put an upward pressure on market wage rates by attracting people to public works programmes, thereby reducing labour supply and pushing up demand for labour. While public works programmes to provide employment in times of distress have a long history, major thrust to wage employment programmes in the country was provided only after the attainment of self-sufficiency in food grains in the 1970s. The National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) and Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programmes (RLEGP) were started in the Sixth and
Seventh Plans.
Jawahar Rozgar Yojana/Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana
The NREP and RLEGP were merged in April 1989 under the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). The JRY was meant to generate meaningful employment opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed in rural areas through the creation of economic infrastructure and community and social assets. Initially, the JRY also included the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and the MWS. Both these schemes were made into independent schemes in 1996. Under JRY, 73,764.83 lakh mandays of employment were generated till 1998-99 Employment generation progressively declined over the years, partly due to lower central allocations in the Ninth Plan and partly due to the increasing cost of creating employment.

A major proportion of JRY funds was spent on roads and buildings. Over 47 per cent of the employment generated benefited SC/STs. The share of landless labourers among the beneficiaries was 36 per cent. The village community found the assets created under the programme useful. However, against 40 per cent of population in a village panchayat who sought work, only 15 per cent were actually employed.
The JRY was revamped from 1 April 1999 as the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY). It now became a programme for the creation of rural economic infrastructure with employment generation as a secondary objective. The 60:40 wage labour/material ratio in the JRY was relaxed. The programme is implemented by the village panchayats and provides for specific benefits to SC/ STs, the disabled and the maintenance of community assets created in the past. Since inception it has generated 27 crore mandays of employment each year (on an average), a substantial drop from the 103 crore mandays generated under JRY in the year 1993-94.
The works taken up under JGSY have not been comprehensively evaluated for their quality and employment potential. Initial reports from the states, however, indicates that since every village panchayat has to be covered by the scheme, many panchayats get less than Rs. 10,000 per annum. Except for states like Kerala, West Bengal and Orissa, where village panchayats cover large areas and get substantial funds under the scheme, in other states most panchayats get less than Rs. 50,000 per annum. Benefits to the SC/STs and the disabled have to be earmarked. In addition, the administrative expenses of the panchayat and expenditure on assets already created are to be met from JGSY funds. In effect, panchayats are left with very little money to take up meaningful infrastructure projects.
Employment Assurance Scheme
The Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) was launched on 2 October 1993 covering 1,778 drought-prone, desert, tribal and hill area blocks. It was later extended to all the blocks in 1997-98. The EAS was designed to provide employment in the form of manual work in the lean agricultural season. The works taken up under the programme were expected to lead to the creation of durable economic and social infrastructure and address the felt-needs of the people. The scheme prohibited construction of buildings for religious purposes, monuments, memorials, welcome gates, panchayat buildings, government office buildings and buildings for higher secondary schools and colleges. It also provided for maintenance of assets created in the past under the scheme. Initially, the scheme was demand-driven but from 1999, resources were allocated to states based on the incidence of poverty.
The EAS is a centrally-sponsored scheme, with the Centre providing 75 per cent of the funds and the states 25 per cent. The zilla parishads and panchayat samitis were the implementing agencies. Annexure 3.2.I provides details of the physical and financial performance of the scheme during the Eighth and Ninth Plan periods. While 10,719.59 lakh mandays of employment were generated during the Eighth Plan, 4,717.74 lakh mandays of employment were generated in the first year of the Ninth Plan. Employment generation went down in subsequent years. The allocations between 1999-2000 and 2001-02 were also lower than the first two years of the Ninth Plan because watershed projects taken up for implementation under the EAS before April 1999 were transferred to Integrated Wasteland Development Programme (IWDP).
Though the creation of community assets has important spin offs for rural poverty and development, the impact of these programmes on employment and income has been limited. The universalisation of the scheme severely eroded its basic objective of providing assured employment in areas of extreme poverty and chronic unemployment. Allocations were based on a fixed criterion that did not specifically provide for regionally differentiated needs. This led to a very thin spread of resources across the country. As a result, even in the poorer regions, employment was provided for only 31 days (Programme Evaluation Organisation Study-2001). In many states, the works taken up were not labour-intensive. Cases of bogus reporting and fudged muster rolls have been reported. The efficacy of the programme was also affected by faulty project selection and the absence of a coherent plan which integrated EAS projects in a long-term development strategy.
In spite of their many shortcomings, wage employment schemes have proved beneficial in some respects. They created much- needed rural infrastructure. The programmes are self-targeting in nature since only the poor come to work at minimum wage rates. The various works undertaken created demand for unskilled labour and exerted upward pressure on wage rates. The programmes have played a major role in protecting consumption patterns of the rural poor during natural calamities. A study conducted in four drought-affected districts of Rajasthan found that the consumption of
foodgrains was higher in the drought years compared to normal years due to the wage employment programmes. Since PRIs were associated with the implementation of JRY /JGSY and EAS, government financing of panchayats strengthened these institutions and promoted better coordination between the village community and government departments.
Food for Work Programme
The Food for Work programme was started in 2000-01 as a component of the EAS in eight notified drought-affected states of Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Maharastra and Uttaranchal. The programme aims at augmenting food security through wage employment. Food grains are supplied to states free of cost. However, lifting of food grains for the scheme from Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns has been slow. Against an allocation of 35.31 lakh tonnes of foodgrains, only 21.26 lakh tonnes were lifted by the target states up to January 2002.
Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY)
Given the complementarity of the JGSY, EAS and Food for Work Programme, all of which aim at the creation of employment opportunities in the rural areas, they were revamped and merged under the new Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) scheme from September 2001. The basic aim of the scheme continues to be generation of wage employment, creation of durable economic infrastructure in rural areas and provision of food and nutrition security to the poor. The amalgamation of the earlier schemes has led to an augmentation of resources for this programme. The works taken up under the programme are labour-intensive and the workers are paid the minimum wages notified by the states. Payment of wages is done partly in cash and partly in kind - 5 kg of foodgrains and the balance in cash. The Centre and the states share the cost of the cash component of the scheme in the ratio of 75:25. An allocation of Rs. 3750 crore was made for the programme in 2001-02.
A review of various wage employment programmes during the Ninth Plan shows that there has been a considerable reduction in terms of allocation as well as in employment generation. This was largely due to changes in allocation for rural development schemes during the Plan period. The allocation by both the Centre and the states under JRY went down from Rs. 18,691 crore in the Eighth Plan to Rs. 11,688 crore in the Ninth Plan. As the EAS was launched only in 1993-94 and was intially a demand driven scheme, it would be difficult to compare EAS allocations in the Eighth and Ninth Plan periods. However, even here it is seen that the allocations have fallen in the later half of the Ninth Plan period.
The allocation for wage employment programmes, at current prices, in the Ninth Plan was only 88 per cent of what they were in the Eighth Plan. In real terms, the allocations were much lower. A decline in allocation coupled with the increased cost of providing employment meant that as against 513 crore mandays of employment generated under JRY and EAS in the Eighth Plan, only 286 crore mandays of employment were generated under JRY/JGSY and EAS in the Ninth Plan.
The reduction in allocation for wage employment was compensated by increased allocation for some programmes and initiation of new schemes. For example, there was a substantial increase in allocation for IAY. Many other programmes taken up during the Plan period have generated employment in the rural areas. The construction of houses under IAY, programmes of rural connectivity and watershed development have fairly high employment elasticities. However, it is difficult to estimate whether these programmes were able to offset the reduction in employment generated through specific wage employment programmes.
Rural Housing
Initiated in 1985-86, the IAY is the core programme for providing free housing to BPL families in rural areas and targets SC/STs households and freed bonded labourers. It was first merged with the JRY in 1989 and then spun off into a separate housing scheme for the rural poor in 1996. The Ninth Plan Housing Programme under IAY was framed in the light of the National Housing and Habitat Policy 1998, which set an ambitious target of providing shelter for all in the rural areas by the end of the Plan period. The allocations by the central and state governments for the programme during the Ninth Plan were
substantially higher than in the Eighth Plan. In spite of this, the housing programme under IAY has not achieved the stated objectives. As against a requirement of 109.53 lakh new and upgraded houses between 1997-98 to 2001-02, the actual construction during the period is estimated at 45 lakh houses. This, however, is a quantum jump over the Eighth Plan achievement of 26 lakh houses.
An evaluation of the IAY shows that while the programme has certainly enabled many BPL families to acquire pucca houses, the coverage of the beneficiaries is limited given the resource constraints. In addition, there have also been high level of leakages with a large number of non-eligible beneficiaries getting houses. The fact that houses are provided free of cost under IAY has meant that there has been virtually no progress in the other sub-schemes of IAY such as credit-cum-subsidy scheme for rural housing. This scheme, introduced in 1999-2000 to provide assistance for construction of a house to people below double the poverty line income, provides a subsidy of Rs. 10,000 and a construction loan of up to Rs. 40,000 per household. However, it failed to pick up and only 42,000 houses were constructed under the scheme between 1999 and 2001. The Samagra Awas Yojana (SAY) was taken up in 25 blocks to ensure convergence of housing, provision of safe drinking water, sanitation and common drainage facilities. The achievements under this scheme were equally unsatisfactory. A mere 30 projects have been sanctioned since the inception of the scheme and only Rs. 7.07 crore disbrsed. Similarly, progress under various innovative schemes for rural housing and habitat development, which seek to encourage the use of cost-effective, environment-friendly modern designs have been equally dismal.
The Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) has extended its activities to the rural areas, providing loans at a concessional rate of interest to economically weaker sections and low-income group households for construction of houses. HUDCO’s rural housing programme was given a major boost in the Ninth Plan. The Government provided equity support for the construction of rural houses and a sum of Rs.350 crore was released to the Corporation. In the 1997-2002 period, HUDCO sanctioned 799 schemes for the construction of 50.97 lakh dwelling units at a total cost of Rs. 3991.73 crore. The regional spread of HUDCO’s sanctions indicates that only Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa and West Bengal took advantage of the scheme. States like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Assam were not covered under the programme. One of the reasons for the lukewarm response to the scheme could be the IAY itself, which is a 100 per cent subsidy programme. Besides, HUDCO’s rural housing scheme consists of a loan component and a grant component. State governments prefer the grant-based programme to the loan-based programme.
Social Security Programmes
Democratic decentralisation and centrally-supported Social Assistance Programmes were two major initiatives of the government in the 1990s. The National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), launched in August 1995 marks a significant step towards fulfillment of the Directive Principles of State Policy. The NSAP has three components:
    National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS);
    National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS);
    National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS).
The NSAP is a centrally-sponsored programme that aims at ensuring a minimum national standard of social assistance over and above the assistance that states provide from their own resources. The NOAPS provides a monthly pension of Rs. 75 to destitute BPL persons above the age of 65. The NFBS is a scheme for BPL families who are given Rs. 10,000 in the event of the death of the breadwinner. The NMBS provides Rs. 500 to support nutritional intake for pregnant women. Table 3.2.1 provides details of expenditure and the number of beneficiaries covered under the scheme since inception.


The coverage under NSAP is limited due to resource constraints. For example, against the target of 8.71 million eligible beneficiaries for old-age pension in 1999-2000, only about 5 million beneficiaries were provided assistance from central funds. Many states implement the pension scheme from their own resources. However, in the states that do not have their own scheme, a central pension of Rs. 75 per month is clearly inadequate to provide relief to old, indigent persons. A redeeming feature of the scheme, though, is that the benefits have indeed reached the poor and leakages under the scheme are low compared to many other government programmes.

In addition to NSAP, the Annapurna scheme was launched from I April 2000 to provide food security to senior citizens who were eligible for pension under NOAPS but could not receive it due to budget constraints. The scheme seeks to cover 20 per cent of persons eligible for NOAPS. These beneficiaries are given 10 kg of foodgrains per month free of cost. However, there have been major problems in the implementation of the Annapurna scheme. Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu did not agree to implement the scheme in its present form. Many other states wanted modifications before implementing it. During 2000-01, only 19,000 metric tonnes (mt) of foodgrains was lifted by ten states. As against an allocation of Rs. 99.05 crore in 2000-01, actual expenditure was only Rs. 17.44 crore. The performance in 2001-02 was equally unsatisfactory. Against a targetted coverage of 1.34 million persons, the actual

Table: Financial and Physical Performance under the National Social Assistance Programme

Sl.    Year    Expend. (Rs. crore)    NOAPS No. of Beneficiaries    NFBS Expend.         No. of (Rs. crore)  Beneficiaries    NMBS Expend.          No. of (Rs. crore)   Beneficiaries
1    1995-96    109.88    2,937,677    43.44    2,84,260    24.50    6,57,891
2    1996-97    319.55    4,760,327    92.00    1,66,090    52.63    1,282,025
3    1997-98    365.19    5,087,830    130.56    2,18,456    54.70    1,557,292
4    1998-99    467.15    5,080,821    188.02    2,66,411    70.43    1,562,072
5    1999-00    456.25    5,017,542    194.98    2,15,815    73.40    1,299,719
6    2000-01    476.66    5,148,226    200.93    2,02,999    83.90    1,456,079
7    2001-02 (P)    362.08    5,052,568    97.96    1,04,298    Transferred to Ministry of Health andFamily Welfare
Note : (P) = Provisional
Source: Ministry of Rural Development

coverage was only 203,000 —15 per cent of the target.
Land Reforms
In an economy where over 60 per cent of the population is dependent on agriculture, the structure of land ownership is central to the well-being of the people. The government has strived to change the ownership pattern of cultivable land, but has had limited success. The abolition of intermediaries immediately after Independence, inspite of its many well-documented shortcomings and lack of implementation in certain parts of the country, was a significant achievement and covered close to 40 per cent of the cultivated area.
These achievements notwithstanding, the lack of progress in the other components of the land reforms programme, viz., implementation of land ceiling laws, security of tenure to tenants and consolidation of land holdings, remains a matter of serious concern. Agricultural workers did not benefit from the abolition of zamindari. The SC/STs, who constitute the bulk of the labour force, do not have either the assets or the skills to participate in the limited but emerging employment opportunities in different sectors of the economy. The problem is further compounded by the fact that though the contribution of agriculture to GDP has nearly halved from over 50 per cent in 1951 to around 25 per cent in 2000-01, a similar transformation of employment opportunities has not taken place. The number of people dependent on agriculture and allied activities has fallen only 12 percentage points — from 71 per cent of the population in 1951 to 59 per cent in 2001.
Land reforms seem to have been relegated to the background in the 1990s. More recently, initiatives of state governments have related to liberalisation of land laws in order to promote large-scale corporate farming. This is in sharp contrast to the policy environment soon after Independence when land reforms were meant to provide ownership rights to small and marginal farmers on equity considerations. Though the pressure of population has led to sub-division and fragmentation of land holdings, thereby considerably weakening the case for further lowering of land ceilings, the need for effective implementation of the existing land ceiling laws cannot be over-emphasised. The Ninth Plan had laid strong emphasis on agrarian restructuring to make agriculture more efficient leading to increased “output and employment”. However, progress on different components of the land reforms package during the Plan has been extremely limited. At the end of the Eighth Plan, 74.9 lakh acres was declared as ceiling surplus and 52.13 lakh acres was distributed among 5.5 million beneficiaries. By the end of the Ninth Plan, the position was virtually the same. There has been no progress in the detection of concealed land and its distribution to the landless rural poor.
The case of tenancy reforms is equally unsatisfactory. Tenancy laws in the states follow different patterns, as land is a state subject. Several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa have either banned tenancy completely or have imposed such restrictive conditions that land leases are virtually impossible. Studies by the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration indicate that this has only resulted in concealed tenancy. It is estimated that over 34 per cent of land is operated under concealed tenancy in Bihar. The ban on tenancy, which was meant to protect tenants, has only ended up hurting the economic interests of the tenants as they are not even recognised as tenants. As a result, they are denied the benefits of laws that provide security of tenure and regulate rent.
The progress on the consolidation of land holdings has also been slow. Consolidation has to be a continuing process, but most states have stopped consolidation proceedings. As on 31 March, 2002, consolidation of holdings has taken place only in an area of 66.10 million hectares against a total cultivable area of 142 million hectares.
Alienation of tribals from their land is a major issue in tribal areas. States have passed legislation to restore alienated land to the tribal landholders. The progress in this regard, however, has been limited. The restoration proceedings have been challenged in courts, thwarting the restoration of land to tribals. During the Ninth Plan period, 1.63 lakh cases were decided by the courts in favour of the tribals and 1,75,286 hectares (ha) was restored as a result of the governmental action. However, as on 31 March 2002, 57,521 cases were still pending in courts with 58,260 ha being under dispute in these cases.
A land record management system is a pre-condition for an effective land reform programme. In 1987-88, a centrally-sponsored scheme for Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA & ULR) was introduced in Orissa and Bihar. The scheme was extended to other states in 1989-90. Survey and re-settlement operations, pre-service and in-service training to revenue and settlement staff, facilities for modernisation of survey and settlement operations and strengthening of revenue machinery at the village level are funded under the scheme. During the Eighth Plan, Rs. 8.23 crore was released to the states under the scheme, while Rs. 92.60 crore was allocated during the Ninth Plan under the Programme of SRA & ULR against which Rs. 85.74 crore were released to states/ Union Territories.
In addition to SRA&ULR, a centrally-sponsored scheme of Computerisation of Land Records (CLR) provides assistance to states for modernisation of record keeping operations. Activities funded under the programme include the screening and digitalisation of existing cadastral maps, computer processing of agricultural land holdings records for the purpose of consolidation of holdings and preparation of consolidated revenue settlement and installation of computer networks at the headquarters of states/Union Territories for revenue administration. During the Eighth Plan period, Rs. 9.42 crore was released to the state governments for covering 238 districts. In the Ninth Plan, 333 more districts were brought under the scheme, thus taking the total districts covered under CLR to 571 districts. A total of 2705 talukas/tehsils/ blocks were taken up for computerisation. Against a total allocation of Rs. 178 crore, a sum of Rs. 167.52 crore was released. The resources provided under SRA & ULR and CLR programmes meet a small part of the total resources required for the modernisation of revenue administration. The states have to undertake modernisation of the land records management system on a much larger scale.
STRATEGY FOR THE TENTH PLAN
The Approach Paper to the Tenth Plan has set a target for reduction of poverty and creation of high quality gainful employment during the Plan period. The projected GDP growth rate of 8 per cent for the period 2002-07, if achieved, would lead to reduction of incidence of poverty by 5 percentage points by 2007. Compared to 1999-2000, poverty is expected to decline by 15 percentage points by 2011-12. Effective implementation of anti-poverty programmes would be central to achieving the planned reductions in poverty. The challenge before the State is to provide employment opportunities which provide enhanced incomes. This becomes more important in view of the fact that substantial additions to labour force are expected to take place during the next five years. Enlargement of self and wage-employment programmes and their effective delivery becomes an imperative in such a scenario.
Self Employment Programmes
The coverage of beneficiaries in the Ninth Plan was considerably lower than the coverage under SGSY. The formation of self-help groups by itself contributes to the empowerment and economic well-being of the poor by improving their collective bargaining position. The group formation also emphasises social capital and enables the poor to interact with other social groups from a position of strength. Group formation would continue to be the focus under the SGSY. The self-help groups move through various stages: social mobilisation and formation of groups (initial phase); savings and internal lending among the members of the group on their own, augmented by revolving fund grants from the government and linkages with banks and other credit agencies (second phase); obtaining micro finance (third phase) and setting up of micro enterprises (fourth phase). This is a long process and groups require time to mature as cohesive units.
Savings by members and internal lending help the group members to improve their economic position. A strong group acts as collateral for banks to provide micro finance to these groups. They get access to credit for a variety of consumption needs, seasonal activities and for undertaking petty production and trading activities. Setting up of a micro enterprise could be the objective of every group. However, only those groups which possess special skills, technical know-how, establish marketing linkages and have access to the essential infrastructure needed for success of that particular activity can reach the stage of micro enterprise. The IRDP’s approach of fixing targets and timeframes was given up under the SGSY in the Ninth Plan itself. This approach would continue in the Tenth Plan too.
The SGSY programme is intended to provide benefits to SCs and STs, disabled and women-headed households form the bulk of the rural poor. However, these sections would be excluded from the ambit of the programme if they are not listed in the below poverty line (BPL) census conducted at the beginning of every Five-Year Plan for inclusion of beneficiaries under different government programmes. Greater attention would, therefore, be given to identification of BPL families by clearly specifying exclusion and inclusion criteria. These would be published and subjected to periodic social audit in a transparent manner by the gram sabhas.
Self-help groups become cohesive in the long run only if they are homogenous. Social mobilisation is an important step in the formation of self-help groups. It requires a high degree of motivation, morale, expertise, management skills, time and pro-poor orientation on the part of the person who acts as a catalyst for group formation. SGSY is implemented through the DRDAs. These organisations would have to be supported by NGOs, PRIs and other community-based organisations in the formation of the self-help groups. The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) and many zilla parishads have emerged as important players in the promotion of self-help groups. Strong networks and linkages would be established with such institutions under SGSY. These organisations would act as self-help promotion institutions and would ensure a continuing relationship with self-help groups.
Successful experiments in the promotion of micro finance and micro enterprise have revealed a strong partnership between NGOs and financial institutions. NGOs have an inherent advantage in reaching the poor due to their proximity, the trust they generate by working in the area, their commitment, flexibility in approach, responsiveness and cost effectiveness. They have played a dynamic role as social animators and organisers in rural areas. Many NGOs have not only been instrumental in the formation of self-help groups but have also nurtured them over the years. Such NGOs have a strong presence in many states. However, voluntary and non-governmental action is weak in some of the poorer states. These are also the states where the spirit of cooperation and collaboration may be lacking because of poverty itself. Training of social animators would have to be promoted in such states. Departments of social sciences, social work, agriculture and rural development in universities and colleges could be engaged as facilitators in the process of group formation so that every rural habitation has at least one self-help group by the end of 2004. The institutions which promote self-help groups could be provided remuneration at different stages of the evolution of the groups so that they have an incentive in the formation of cohesive groups and in ensuring their success.
Micro enterprises succeed only if they cater to the specific needs of an area. The identification of key activities and planning of activity clusters is an important component of SGSY though it has been a weak link so far. It is necessary to identify livelihood opportunities, the constraints in the realisation of these opportunities and the investments that would have to be made to remove these constraints. The micro-level planning process would have to be strengthened in the districts for the programme to succeed. In this endeavour, the involvement of PRIs, banks, micro finance institutions, NGOs and district-level officers of different departments would have to be ensured. They would have to work in close coordination in the preparation of a District Plan for activities under SGSY.
Economic activities require high degree of skills. After the identification of key activities, it would be necessary to organise training programmes for upgrading skills of beneficiaries selected under the programme. Skill acquisition is a long-drawn process; this requires not only short-term training in campus-based programmes, but also on-the-job training in existing enterprises. Campus-based training programmes under SGSY would only be a beginning of the process. The design of the curricula and method of training would have to correspond to the activities chosen. A basic foundation course to expose trainees to accounting procedures, management techniques, banking and marketing would be a part of the training programme. The training institutions would be expected to arrange for practical on-the-job training programmes and upgrade their syllabi in tune with changing market conditions. They would be continuously appraised to ensure that their faculty is well qualified and imparts training which is relevant and of high quality. They would also be expected to monitor the progress of their trainees in the trades that they pursue.
It would be necessary for training institutions to forge partnerships with technical and management institutes to facilitate greater interaction and learning. In the coming years, the corporate sector is expected to play a larger role in the rural areas. Industry associations have indicated their willingness to adopt villages and regions. The corporate sector could associate itself with training institutes, enabling the latter to keep abreast of the market requirements and revise their curricula. The trainees could also set up ancillary units to supply components to industry.
The SGSY programme would be credit driven. The outreach of the credit delivery system in the country continues to be limited, despite several measures to streamline it. The legitimate demands for credit remain unfulfilled as a vast majority of the poor remain outside the purview of the formal credit system. The mismatch between demand and supply of credit arises out of an inadequate and inefficient delivery system. The policies of direct lending, administered pricing of credit and lack of freedom in the selection of borrowers have resulted in the high cost of credit delivery for the formal credit institutions and, consequently, to the borrowers. A system would have to be put in place which is flexible and responsive to the financial needs of the poor and is capable of supplying timely and adequate credit.

The inadequacies of formal credit institutions could be overcome by combining the strength of commercial banks with the intermediation capabilities of NGOs to effectively link the poor with the commercial banking channels. This would be a cost-effective alternative for providing credit to the poor as banks would be able to reach a larger number of small borrowers with lower transaction costs. The risk of default on loans would be lower due to group pressure and the groups would also monitor the end use of credit. Access to banks through self-help groups would reduce the transaction cost of the borrowers. In the credit delivery system under SGSY, financial intermediation by NGOs would be encouraged. The experience of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and other organisations would be replicated on a larger scale.
Since the commercial banking network has its limitations in reaching the rural poor in every part of the country, other formal institutions that cater to the specific credit needs of the rural population could be integrated into the credit delivery structure for self-employment programmes. Primary Agriculture Credit Cooperative Societies (PACS) have an extensive network in the country and possess detailed knowledge of the borrowers. Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and other credit organisations, presently outside the purview of micro finance activities, could be associated with self-employment programmes.

It would be the Government’s endeavour to leverage funds under different self-employment programmes to enable the rural poor to diversify into non-agricultural activities. Different government agencies have, in the past, attempted to promote rural non-farm employment. Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) and District Industries Centres (DICs) were set up to promote non-farm activities. In spite of this, the rural non-farm sector continues to lag behind. Only 16 per cent of the rural population is engaged in non-farm activities and that too largely in village or cottage enterprises. Economic census data shows that 77 per cent of rural enterprises are own account enterprises that do not engage hired labour. These enterprises are unable to attract capital and technology since they are small, family-based enterprises. Many of these enterprises use obsolete technology and are highly vulnerable to market fluctuations and competition from the organised sector.
The inadequate availability of micro infrastructure relevant to the service or trade has been a major constraint in the rapid development of the rural non-farm sector. For example, dairy activity was one of the main activities financed under IRDP. Often the beneficiaries were constrained by the absence of small equipment like milk cans and fat testing machines. Provision of milk collection vans, bulk coolers, chilling plants and pasteurisation facilities were also not a part of the programme. There is, therefore, a need to identify the type of infrastructure required for a particular activity while planning an activity cluster. Provision would have to be made for the creation of infrastructure either under SGSY or by convergence with the other sectoral programmes and to ensure that the missing infrastructure is provided at the planning stage itself.
Marketing strategy is an integral part of every self-employment venture. Market intelligence has to be developed. Survey of local and urban markets to understand product demand is necessary. Rural haats or village markets have to be set up to position the products of self-help groups. Such haats would also be promoted at the taluka level, district centres and other larger towns. The construction of permanent spaces and pucca sheds along with the provision of storage facilities/ godowns would be taken up under SGSY and transport links provided to such centres. Metropolitan cities and export markets are important from the point of view of higher value realisation. Linkages to these would have to be developed largely through private channels, industrial enterprises and export houses. This model was successfully demonstrated in Andhra Pradesh where Phillips India and Hindustan Lever had forged links with DWCRA groups for marketing their products. Intermediate aggregate mechanisms like producer cooperatives and marketing agencies could facilitate the transaction between dispersed producers and industrial enterprises/export houses.
Products would be positioned through KVIC outlets, State Emporia and Handlooms and Handicrafts Trade Fairs. SGSY groups from a cluster of villages could also form a federation. Such federations, producing a single product, can take advantage of the economies of scale, undertaking collective purchase of raw materials to reduce the cost of production. They could ensure better marketing, quality control and promote their brand name through aggressive advertisement campaigns. Greater attention to quality control, standardisation and packaging would be required for products of rural areas to find a market in the urban centres. Efforts would be made to create a market niche for rural products that require specialised skills.
Rural enterprises need technology support for product development, quality improvement and standardisation. India has large research and development facilities in national laboratories, universities and other specialised institutions. Suitable linkages between the rural enterprises and these institutions would be developed so that technological assistance can be extended to the self-help groups. Advances in information technology and communication would be harnessed to benefit the self-help groups.
Self-employment programmes are likely to have an uneven regional spread, succeeding in areas that have a tradition of artisanship, developed road and rail infrastructure, banking facilities and a skilled human resource base. The negative relationship between the incidence of rural poverty and land access is well-established. The landless face the greatest risk of poverty. Access to even small pieces of land which may not be sufficient for providing income to a family for subsistence can significantly reduce poverty and food insecurity by providing an essential component in a diversified livelihood system. Their impact may be less visible in under-developed, backward and tribal regions. The SGSY programme would continue to promote land-based activities for individual and group beneficiaries in the backward regions. Diversification into other land-based activities such as sericulture, aquaculture, horticulture and floriculture would be encouraged. The programme would, therefore, support the purchase of land and its distribution to the landless rural poor. Women swarozgaris would be sole owners or joint owners of redistributed land. The swarozgaris provided land would be organised to access inputs and credit facilities that enhance productivity of land. In addition to the provision for purchase and redistribution of land, self-help groups will be encouraged to explore prospects of leasing or purchasing land in joint ownership. Schemes that give subsidised credit for land purchase and leasing would be converged with the SGSY programme in these areas. Convergence would also be attempted with schemes that provide subsidised credit for farm equipment such as tractors, tube-wells, fertilisers, seeds and other inputs. The Government would make special efforts to provide information and give financial and infrastructural support to SGSY groups engaged in land-based activities in such areas.
In the Ninth Plan, both IRDP and SGSY were subsidy-driven programmes. This subsidy itself has become a major obstacle in the promotion of self-employment ventures. The experience of institutions providing micro finance shows that the poor are capable and also willing to pay for the credit and other financial services rendered by NGOs and financial institutions without depending on the government for subsidy. Financial resources in the Tenth Plan, therefore, would be directed towards providing infrastructure and other support facilities which increase the returns to households and reduce their risks. It would be used in innovative ways to lower the transaction cost for both the swarozgaris and the lenders and to create a strong and viable partnership with NGOs and other organisations working for the economic well-being of the rural poor.
Wage Employment Programme
The SGRY would be the single wage employment programme. Allocations to the programme would be stepped up. The programme would seek to provide productive employment opportunities in employment-intensive sectors. The Government would endeavour to generate a shelf of projects for execution under SGRY that fits into the overall development plan of an area.
The SGRY would have three streams. One to address the need for rural infrastructure in all states; the other to provide focused attention to areas facing endemic poverty while the third would respond to natural calamities. The general stream universalised across states would be for the creation of local infrastructure. Water tanks, anganwadis, primary school buildings, sanitation facilities, primary health centres, multi-purpose community halls and other projects that are required in the village would be taken up under the universal stream. In agriculturally developed areas, it may be necessary to allow upward adjustments in wages to attract unskilled labour. Village communities could augment the resources under the universal stream by mobilising contributions from within the community.
The second stream would seek to provide an employment guarantee of at least 100 days for areas facing chronic unemployment and poverty. The districts and blocks would be selected on the basis of an objective criterion and efforts would be made to create at least minimum infrastructure in these areas by ensuring convergence of other government programmes. Thus, the second stream would, in essence, correspond to the EAS, which was started with the objective of providing employment for 100 days in drought-prone, desert-prone, hilly and flood-prone blocks of the country. Such an assurance would ensure a minimum level of employment and stability to the incomes of the poor and give them an opportunity to develop their collective strength. It would improve their economic position, reduce vulnerability and discourage migration to facilitate their continued access to health, education and welfare facilities available in the village. The allocation under this second stream would be enhanced to meet the target of 100 days of employment for every able-bodied person willing and seeking work.
The third stream would be an enabling mechanism for the Government to respond to natural calamities such as floods, droughts, earthquakes and other contingencies that require quick response to mitigate the hardships faced by people.
The wage employment programmes provide only short-term relief to the poor. Long-term sustainable poverty reduction in the under¬developed regions can come about only if other sectors of the economy grow rapidly. It is imperative, therefore, to ensure that the growth process is
inclusive and pro-poor. Agricultural growth still holds the key to poverty alleviation in the Indian context. There is considerable scope for increasing agricultural productivity through expansion of irrigation, better land and water management practices and infrastructure support. The planning of works under the SGRY would be undertaken keeping this in mind.
A large number of rural facilities have been built under various programmes over successive Plan periods. However, they have degenerated either due to their initial faulty design and construction, or lack of maintenance. Therefore, a specific proportion of allocations under SGRY would be used for the maintenance of assets.
PRIs would play a major role in the planning, implementation and monitoring of wage employment programmes and allocations under the SGRY would be routed through them. A rational criterion would have to be evolved for distribution of funds between the three tiers of the PRIs to ensure balanced development of villages, blocks and districts.
Rural Housing
As noted earlier, though the IAY is one of the successful programmes being implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development, it has certain weaknesses. The provision of free houses has meant that other loan-based schemes have not been able to take off. The scheme has also been open to misuse. Public funds have to be utilised for the promotion of economic activity and growth. The creation of employment opportunities, both self-employment and wage-employment, has to receive a higher priority than provision of free houses. During the Tenth Plan period, free houses under IAY would be provided largely to SC/ST BPL families. For other BPL families, there would be a gradual shift to a credit-linked housing programme.
There is a need to create institutional capability in the rural housing sector with reference to designing of houses, supply of raw materials and construction. The rural communities have to be involved in the layout and design of the houses. The houses should have provisions for rain water harvesting, water supply and sanitation.

Social Security Schemes
While the NSAP and state-level welfare schemes have provided some succour to the poor in the form of assistance to the old and the bereaved, a large section of people have not been covered under the schemes because of limited resources. The NSAP needs to be enlarged in scope to cover all eligible beneficiaries. The content and coverage of the social welfare scheme would have to be strengthened during the Plan period to provide meaningful protection to the poor. There are a plethora of welfare schemes in both the central and state sectors. They lead to avoidable overlap and confusion and need to rationalised. Since welfare is basically a state subject, these schemes are best administered by state governments. The NSAP has been transferred to states with earmarked funds in the Tenth Plan.
Land Reforms
Successive Five-Year Plans have addressed the issue of secure rights in land for increased agricultural productivity under the land reforms programme. Land reform legislations, besides abolishing intermediaries and providing ownership rights to farmers, also provided for security of tenure to tenants and regulation of rent. Actual cultivators were brought into a direct relationship with the State. The abolition of intermediaries succeeded in providing ownership rights to a large number of tenants. The advent of the green revolution technology coupled with schemes of asset transfer under IRDP have contributed significantly to the increased incomes not only from agricultural operations but also on account of diversification into animal husbandry.
Agricultural workers, however, did not gain from zamindari abolition. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes constitute bulk of the agricultural labour force. These people have neither assets nor skills to participate in the limited but emerging employment opportunities in different sectors of the economy. The problem is further compounded by the fact that employment opportunities in non-farm sector have not increased over time to absorb the rural labour force.

Ownership of even a small plot of land enables a family to raise its income, improve its nutritional status, have access to credit facilities and lead a more dignified life. Studies of economies of scale in farm operations show that modern agricultural technology is scale neutral in the case of a majority of food and cereal crops which the poor tend to grow. Horticulture, floriculture and vegetable cultivation on small plots of land, including homestead lands, have proved beneficial for the poor. Agricultural labourers, therefore, need to be provided access to land to improve their economic and social well-being.
The scope for lowering land ceilings, which were fixed in 1972, and redistribution of surplus land is limited. The total area declared ceiling surplus after 1972 was less than 2 per cent of the net sown area. National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data for 1992 shows that 72 per cent of rural households had less than one hectare of land. Therefore, further reduction in land ceilings and acquisition of land for distribution to the poor is not a credible policy option any more. However, this is not to underplay the need to acquire the land declared ceiling surplus. The record of most states in implementing the existing laws is dismal. Concealment of land is widespread. Land acquisitions have been disputed, with cases piled up in courts for years without resolution. During the Tenth Plan period, states have to concentrate on the detection of concealed land and strive for the speedy disposal of cases so that the land acquired under ceiling laws becomes available for distribution to the poor.
The reform of tenancy in the post-Independence period was taken up as a part of the land reforms agenda. Its basic thrust was to stop eviction of tenants and fixation of rent. Conferment of ownership rights to the tenants was the ultimate goal of tenancy laws. The policy attempted to reconcile twin objectives of protection to existing tenants and resumption of land for personal cultivation by the medium, small and marginal farmers. However, the prohibition of tenancy has not really ended the practice. On the other hand, it has resulted in agricultural practices that are not conducive to increased production. This, in turn, also depresses employment opportunities for the landless agricultural labourers. Mechanisation of agriculture has enabled families to keep land under personal cultivation even in the absence of able-bodied persons to take care of agricultural operations. The fear of tenant eventually taking possession of the land in these areas has resulted in agricultural practices which are not conducive to increased agricultural production. This, in turn depresses employment opportunities for the landless agricultural labourers.
The changes in the agrarian economy over the past three decades warrant a fresh look at tenancy laws. States are at different stages of agricultural transformation. Patterns of semi-feudal agriculture in some states co-exist with corporate and commercial farming practices in others. Where agriculture has reached the commercial farming stage, middle and large farmers lease land from small and marginal farmers. NSSO surveys show that area owned by the marginal and small farmers is greater than the area they cultivate. These developments indicate the need to revisit the tenancy laws.
One option could be to completely free tenancy laws of all restrictive conditions. Farmers owning land below the ceiling limit may be provided a guarantee that their land would not be taken away. The fixation of rent could be left to the market forces. Given the extent of concealed tenancy in states that have banned tenancy, it is not likely to increase area under tenancy dramatically in the short run. However, in the medium to long run, more land would be expected to come on the land lease market which can be accessed by the rural poor.
Civil society organisations have attempted innovative experiments to rectify inequities of land ownership in the rural areas. Access to land for the landless has been built into their programmes. The Pani Panchayat in Ralegaon Siddhi in Maharashtra is a case in point. Every member of the village has a proprietary right over the harvested water. Every member, irrespective of the size of his land holding, has a share in the harvested water for irrigation. As the water available to each member is limited, members with large land holdings have been persuaded to lease their land to small and marginal farmers and agricultural labourers who have water rights but no land. The arrangement has allowed landless access to land. The large landholders have also benefited as they receive rent for land which would otherwise have remained fallow for lack of irrigation.
Another variant of this approach has been adopted in a few watersheds. While the landholders get water for irrigation, the non-land owning families get a larger share of output from the Common Property Resources (CPRs) which get rejuvenated after the successful completion of the project. This has enabled many families to take up animal husbandry as an occupation and meet their fodder and fuel requirements from the CPRs. Fishing rights on ponds constructed as part of the watershed project are only given to self-help groups of the landless. These arrangements effectively increase the access of the poor to the land and other sources of livelihood and improve their standard of living.
Successful projects change the nature of agricultural land from un-irrigated to irrigated. In such cases, the ceiling laws of the state could come into force and the ceiling surplus land could be distributed to the landless poor. Alternatively, the guidelines for watershed development projects could be modified to give priority to those watershed projects where the village community, through a resolution, agrees to provide land access to the landless labourers on a continuing basis.
In addition, outright purchase of land from farmers willing to sell their holdings also needs to be explored. In many parts of the country, families have migrated to urban areas but continue to hold on to their land holdings in the absence of an efficient land market due to restrictions on the lease, sale and mortgage of agricultural land. The Government could create an enabling environment for the emergence of land markets or itself enter the land market as a major player. The National Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC) has a scheme for providing assistance to SC/ST families to purchase land. The scheme received and enthusiastic response in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
While the provision for purchase of land in the erstwhile IRDP continues in the revamped SGSY, the main focus of the scheme is on the creation of self-help groups and setting up of micro enterprises. Land could be purchased and distributed to landless under SGSY and they could be organised under a cooperative society to provide other support services for agricultural operations.
There has been an increasing feminisation of the agricultural labour force in the country. NSSO (50th round) estimates for 1993-94 show that 75.3 per cent of women workers were engaged in agriculture compared to only 58 per cent of male workers. In the rural labour force, 84.7 per cent of women were engaged in agriculture as compared to 73.8 per cent male workers. Data on incremental additions to the rural labour force show that the rural male worker has a greater chance of getting absorbed into non-agriculture pursuits than the rural female worker. Besides, migration of able-bodied men to urban areas in search of employment, break¬up of the joint family system and other social factors such as death of husbands and desertion by husbands have resulted in an increase in the number of female-headed households. However, in the case of land holding families headed by women, if male descendants are present, the ownership right does not devolve on the women. Protecting social cohesion and prevention of fragmentation of land holdings are some of the major arguments advanced against allowing women to inherit land. These gender-biased land laws put women-headed households at a disadvantage. Without proper title to land, they are denied access to credit and other facilities available to farming communities. This not only affects the income generating capacity of the households but also impacts adversely on agricultural production. Therefore, both on grounds of equity and efficiency, land Inheritance laws need to be gender neutral.
Alienation of Tribal Lands
The influx of non-tribals into tribal areas as a result of various developmental projects, exploitation of natural resources and industrial activities has led to the alienation of tribal land. It is extremely paradoxical that while outsiders/non-tribals have come into the Scheduled areas in the name of development, the local tribal population gets displaced and migrate to urban areas in search of employment. This has given rise to severe discontent in the tribal areas.
The process of alienation has taken place because of lack of legal awareness about land rights among both tribals and government officials and ineffective administrative structures. Inherent deficiencies in legal provisions such as the absence of any machinery to initiate suo motu action, general period of limitation for adverse possession, lack of provision against trespass and against fraudulent and collusive transfer of land to non-tribals continue to exist. Alienation has also been facilitated by improper land records. An in-depth scrutiny of the methods for preparation of land records, and the maintenance and updating of such records must, therefore, be carried out at the earliest. Computerisation of land records in tribal areas should also be accorded the highest priority.
The Panchayats (Extension of Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996 extended the provisions of 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, to the Scheduled Areas in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Rajasthan. The PESA enables tribals to assume control over their own destiny and to preserve and conserve their traditional rights over natural resources, including land. However, the stringent provisions of this law have remained only on paper and have not been operationalised by state governments. PESA would be effectively implemented during the Tenth Plan period to resolve the issues of tribal exploitation and alienation.

One of the main reasons for the concealment of land, which has hampered the land reforms programme, has been the lack of a comprehensive land rights database. The CLR and SRA&ULR schemes have placed emphasis on modernisation of cadastral survey procedures and strengthening of training facilities for revenue, survey and settlement staff. Provision of computers and other infrastructure has been made under these schemes. This process will be carried forward more vigorously in the Tenth Plan not only to detect concealment of land but also to reduce scope for litigation in rural areas.
Delivery Mechanism
Poverty alleviation programmes have been designed to address different facets of rural poverty. Micro credit-linked programmes provide a package of services including credit and subsidy to set up micro enterprises. Wage employment programmes address the issue of transient poverty. Besides, schemes for infrastructure development and provision of basic services contribute to the well-being of the rural people. Successful implementation of these programmes requires an appropriate policy framework, adequate funds, and an effective delivery mechanism. Past experience shows that the mere availability of funds is not likely to eradicate rural poverty. Nor is the design of the rural development programmes, no matter how refined, a sufficient condition. The success of these programmes ultimately depends on the capability of the delivery system to absorb and utilise the funds in a cost-effective manner. An effective and responsive district-level field machinery with a high degree of commitment, motivation, professional competence and, above all, integrity has been recognised as one of the prerequisites for successful implementation of anti- poverty programmes.
An effective delivery system has to ensure people’s participation at various stages of the formulation and implementation of the programmes, transparency in the operation of the schemes and adequate monitoring. International experience shows that greater functional and financial devolution to local governments results in higher allocation of resources for social sectors and more efficient use of resources. Such trends in social spending have been witnessed in many Indian states as well.
The increasing integration of India in the global economy, the budget constraints faced by both central and state governments and inefficiencies in the administrative structure led to the development of a consensus to devolve powers to local institutions to enable people’s participation in administration. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments that conferred statutory status on PRIs and urban local bodies did not have only democratic decentralisation as their objective. These institutions were also seen as a process for harnessing and channelising the people’s innate abilities to bring about rural transformation in a way that every individual acquired his/her rightful place in the social, economic and political arena.
The Ninth Plan had called for the devolution of functional responsibilities, administrative control on government functionaries dealing with subjects listed in the Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution and financial resources for taking up developmental programmes to the PRIs. There has been mixed progress on this front. Political devolution has taken place. Elections have been held and women, SC/STs and other marginalised groups have got political representation in the rural areas. Problems encountered in the process of evolution of panchayats has been taken care of with the intervention of courts, civil society organisations and increased public awareness. The strengthening of forces that facilitate political empowerment of rural communities would be an important area of action in the Tenth Plan period. Issues of transparency, accountability and development would require greater attention. States which have lagged behind in devolving functions and finances to panchayats would have to be encouraged to empower the panchayats.
The gram sabhas in most states have been entrusted with only ceremonial functions. The power and functions of gram sabhas need to be enlarged by giving them effective powers of implementation and monitoring of developmental plans. Social audit of all development programmes by the gram sabha would be made mandatory. The committee system adopted in many states to facilitate a more participative decision-making process in the panchayats should be incorporated in the State Panchayat Acts. The powers entrusted to a gram sabha in a Scheduled V area could be extended to gram sabhas in non-scheduled areas as well.
Administrative and financial devolution by the states to the PRIs remains an area of major concern. The Constitution has placed onerous responsibilities on PRIs. They require financial resources to discharge the tasks assigned to them and emerge as viable institutions of self-government. Financial devolution is also desirable as the control of investment decisions by local communities leads to better utilisation of scarce resources. Panchayats would need greater powers of taxation and avenues for non-tax revenue. States could provide matching grants to panchayats to take up specific projects. Apart from the funds that flow to panchayats for centrally sponsored and state sector schemes, untied grants could also be provided to the PRIs. The PRIs need to raise resources from the local community and end their dependence on government funds. The functional domain of the PRIs can be enlarged only if they pay adequate attention to their resource base.
The onus for devolving functions, functionaries and financial resources to the PRIs rests with the state governments. Though the states have, slowly, transferred functions and finances to the PRIs, these institutions are hampered by lack of administrative support. PRIs have to be adequately staffed and the functionaries must be trained in planning, budgeting and accounting tasks. An elaborate system for auditing of panchayat finances has to be put in place. At present, adequate safeguards against the misuse of resources by elected functionaries do not exist in many states. These issues need to be tackled on a priority basis.
The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act provided for the constitution of District Planning Committees (DPCs). However, the Constitutional provision on DPCs is rather weak as it provides for the preparation of only draft Plans by the DPCs. State governments have not given adequate attention to the DPCs and the Government of India’s guidelines on district planning have not been fully operationalised. DPCs should be set up and its functionaries must be trained in the basics of planning. The gram sabha/panchayat should be associated with the preparation of village development Plans based on the felt needs of the people. These Plans should be integrated with the panchayat samiti and district-level plans to make the grassroot planning process a reality in the Tenth Plan period.
The voluntary sector has witnessed a phenomenal growth in the country in the last 20 years. These institutions have played an important role in community mobilisation, providing technical support to the community for developmental projects, especially in the areas of health and education. It has been clearly established that where panchayats, community organisations and user groups have worked in close cooperation, people have benefited immensely from developmental projects initiated either by the government or the communities themselves. People’s organisations, whether in the form of an NGO or a group of experts, provide expertise and competence to the panchayats that they otherwise may not possess. However, in many places, the emergence of Constitutionally-mandated PRIs has led to a conflict of interest as both voluntary organisations and these institutions occupy the same space. The voluntary agencies have to recognise that PRIs are institutions of governance and must work in close cooperation with them. The PRIs, for their part, have to recognise the critical role that voluntary organisations can play in enhancing their capabilities.
The delivery of programmes would improve only if the PRIs emerge as strong players in the social and economic life of the country. NGOs and other civil society organisations can facilitate the evolution of PRIs as institutions geared to promote the well-being of the rural poor.
The preceding paragraphs have described the content and direction of anti-poverty programmes in the Tenth Plan period. The financial allocations for the Tenth Plan period for these programmes have been stepped up considerably. As against a total expenditure of Rs. 35,866 crore in the Ninth Plan, the allocation for the Tenth Plan period has been increased to Rs. 56,748 crore, the schemewise break-up of which is given in the Appendix. Resources for the SGRY and for rural connectivity under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) have been substantially enhanced. These are expected to provide assured wage-employment, enhance incomes and ensure nutritional security. The allocations for direct anti-poverty alleviation programmes would be complemented by investments in other sectors which have a strong bearing on the incidence of poverty.
THE PATH AHEAD
Rural poverty alleviation programmes were revamped and re-focused during the Ninth Plan to increase their effectiveness. Programmes that provide self-employment and wage employment to the poor would be implemented with greater vigour during the Tenth Plan.
    SGSY would provide opportunities for self-employment to the rural poor. The programme would shift to a process-oriented approach in four stages.
    Social mobilisation for formation of self help groups;
    Savings among the group and internal lending among its members and Provision of a revolving fund;
    Micro finance; and
    Micro-enterprise development.
    Network of institutions that promote the self-help movement would be created during the Plan period. Partnership would be forged between NGOs and other community-based organisations, government agencies and other financial institutions. There would be a system of identifying and training local facilitators.
    Key activities would be planned to respond to the needs of the area. Training programmes for beneficial linkages with training institutions would be forged.
    Greater attention would be paid to marketing. Rural haats/markets at the taluka/district level would be set up for display of products. Linkages will be developed with private channels, industrial enterprises and export houses for higher value realisation for SGSY groups.
    Special attention would be paid to provide technical support for upgrading technology and standardisation of products. Use of information and communication technology would be promoted during the plan period in this regard.
    The SGRY would be the single wage-employment programme. The programme would have three streams which would seek to address the need of rural infrastructure at the village level, ensure guaranteed employment of at least 100 days in areas facing chronic unemployment/migration and provide relief in natural calamities such as floods, droughts, earthquakes and other contingencies. The projects under SGRY would be chosen with a view to taking up schemes that enlarge the scope for increased economic activity.
    Access to land will be an important element in the poverty alleviation strategy. Tenancy reforms, record of rights of land owners and tenants, computerisation of land records, prevention of alienation of tribal lands, and issue of land rights for women will be the major tenets of the land reform agenda.
    The promotion of a movement which enhances social capital and forges linkages with other formal and informal stakeholders engaged in developmental activities would be a major thrust during the Plan. PRIs have created a space for the involvement of the community in governance. There is a need to provide greater attention to effective empowerment of PRIs. The Government recognises the necessity of building capabilities at the local levels for planning, implementation and monitoring of development programmes. These would be undertaken on a large scale during the Plan period.