RESERVATION ADDICTION TO DE(RE)SERVATION

It were Rajasthan’s Gujjars and now Hariana’s Jats, who are taking the country at ransom for their reservation demands. To add to this Govt. has opened a new pandora’s box , by indicating religion based reservations to muslims in the name of minority. Other minoritiy sects like Christian , Jains, Boddhs, Sikhs and Parsis are already in the row. We have already reached the limit of 50% reservation set by the honourable supreme court  and some states have even exceeded this limit through some number jugglery.

Indian constitution had put a time frame for reservation, there after it should have been phased out in a timely manner, but it happened the other way.  The reservation, which  was conceived as a medicine to the problem of inequality in our society has itself become a disease.  A continuous increase in  the doses of medicine  shows that it is not working for the illness, and will not work even if you replace the whole diet with that medicine. It has reached  the level of addiction both for its beneficiaries and the vote centric politicians.

The reservation is not serving its purpose because it has not made them strong and competitive, instead it made them  support addict and morally handicapped. This concept of easy success is alluring other communities as well and  demand for reservation is rising aggressively. The  benefits of reservations like economic and status upliftment  are accruing only  to the person benefited and are not passing on  to the his surrounding community. The benefited persons and his immediate family starts considering them superior to their own community fellows and purpose of community development through reservation is defeated.

It is high time that Government and political parties should rise above their vested interests and start winding  up this flop show. The way government is revamping the age old practice and methods of providing subsidies, reversing the policy of  regulating oil prices etc. they should also review  reservation policy and adopt de(re)servation  instead. The new reservation aspirant should also understand that further slicing the existing OBC quota will not bring much  benefit to their community.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 Bargad

Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain.

HOLI-RANGPANCHMI : MAKE IT A ONE DAY AFFAIR

As published in Free Press Indore edition on 30/march/2011


Customs, procedures or rules, everything change with time in a live society. Marriage ceremony has no longer been a week long affair now, it has shrunk to one to two days even in villages. No one has time, all relatives flock at the eleventh hour and returns even before the ceremony ends. The format of most popular game (Cricket) in india has changed from five days to one day and then to the length of  a matinee show(20-20). Likewise Holi, a celebration of colors, customarily observed  from poornima to panchami  should also be restricted to a one day affair, specially the color part of it.

The real spirit of Holi is in applying a little bit of Gulal and meeting people with love and affection, rest all is either nonsense or nuisance, hence extending its activities up to Rang Panchmi has no justification. There is no official holiday for Rangpanchmi but offices/schools/colleges can not function due to negligible turn up of staff and the concerned beneficiaries.  Markets remain closed and whole system gets paralyzed.

Therefore , I appeal to all social leaders and activists to give a serious thought to this  and help build a consensus on this issue. Government and local administration should ensure that market and offices should function properly and streets remain safe for those who do not want to participate in it. The festival enthusiasts should confine their activities to Dhulendi (Holi) divas. On other days, they may organize such gathering in private halls to celebrate it with their friends/relatives or group members.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 Bargad

Rishinagar Extension

UJJAIN

Deny or accept : Public knows the truth

As published in free press dated 24/03/2011 

We are not surprised at the wikileaks revelations. Public knew the truth, even before wiki got to know about it. What goes on in the background of any coalition formation or confidence vote motion is no secret to janta at large and  netas in particular. From sports to politics, every move is fixed by cash or kind. We are in democracy not because of any love for it but  for the reason that it is convenient for leaders and people  both  to take their own liberties with the system. We are happy that we have so may rights, right to express , right to education, right to information, right to work, right to privacy, rights as a human etc. These are all toys to keep us busy, the master is doing his job as per his conviction or may be at his master’s choice. We have not elected them to power, they have managed to win our votes.

We as public have been shouting, crying and scolding the government for ever rising inflation for the last two years , but could we make them to go a little slower on their growth rate  agenda, NO. We have urged them to remove the food items from commodity future market but are they listening, NO. We have voiced our concern about risks of allowing FDI in Multi brand retail but they are going ahead with that. Why ?, because they are committed to someone else than the people of india. 

In the last cabinet reshuffle, there were strong rumors about the induction of Shri Monteksingh Ahluwalia as Finance Minister in place of Shri Pranab Mukerjee. Now it is clear that whose choice was this. When  US commerce secretary Gary Locke visited India in Feb 2011, our commerce and industries minister Shri Anand Sharma was pulled up for not implementing favorable FDI policies and import duty structure to facilitate American export to India. The US-India nuclear deal for which our prime minister had risked his government was closely supervised by the US interests. To add to the worst is the situation that is not going to be changed  even by the change of government. The opposition is also sailing in the same boat.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 BARGAD

Rishinagar Extension, Ujjain.

Nature’s Fury

As published in free press on 22th March 2011

Nature has once again shown humans their place. It was just a wave aroused due to some turbulence beneath the sea which washed away the giant ego of little human who is surviving  on  the earth  by the delicate and miraculous balance of all the  five elements of life. Individually these elements are fatal but their right mix create this life mix, of which the humans are  the most capable and equipped lot. Whatever happened in Japan  was nothing but the  Pralaya  on display, test fired on those who were best prepared for it. It should be an eye opener for the whole world , specially those who claim to have conquered the earth, the moon, the mars and what not. It should make the world less hostile and more spiritual.

It is not worthwhile  to compare the efficacy of disaster handling mechanism  of India with that of Japan. We are excellent planners and have some of the best DR plans with us but their testing and implementation is not done properly. The customary Mock drills are carried out with the belief that real disaster is never going to happen. When  the news of nuclear  leakage in Japan hit the headlines,  we were very quick in confirming that our Nuclear reactors are safe and disaster proof. It is the same bureaucratic pattern of confirmation on the basis of which Shri C.V.Thomas was appointed as CVC. We understand that the Government and the Prime minister has to rely on the downline hierarchy but after the Japan’s disaster a fresh review of safety of nuclear reactor in India should be made and a high power experts panel  should be constituted to oversee the disaster facing and recovery status of our Nuclear reactors. This is more important in the background of our ambitious civil nuclear expansion program fueled by Indo-US Civil nuclear agreement.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain

IG to rein on Autowallas in Ujjan

As published in free press indore edition on 17/03/2011

It is a matter of great relief that woes of  public are finally heard when Ujjain Police IG instructed the concerned authorities to get the fare meter installed in all auto rickshaws and ensure that they are put to use. It really had become a nightmare to deal with an autowalla  specially when you are  coming from or going to Railway station/ Bus stand and accidentally if is  Railway station then  you are bound to face three mini mafias in succession viz. Autowalls, railway parking and coolies. No one charges at  the stipulated rates and no one is there for us to look up to.  They are all organised to charge you at their will considering you have no other option due to either luggage or time compulsions. There have been incidences , when they have abused and even embroiled in violent clashes with resisting passengers.

Coming back to autowallas, their behavior is no different during intra-city ferries, claiming the return fare as well. Their custom argument is one of the rising petrol prices and increasing inflation, but what about passing on the CNG’s cost benefit to passengers. The CNG’s  cost and mileage is one third that of petrol. In Mumbai, the conveyance cost is still low on account of total CNG based public transport. The minimum fare for first 1.6 km remained  unrevised at Rs. 9/- for more than six years  since 1^st Feb 2004  till 24^th June 2010 , when it  was increased to Rs.11/- with an increment of Rs. 6.50 per additional kilometer.

My expectation with and request to the concerned authorities of Ujjain is  to follow up the IGs decision up to the last point till the  meterised system for Auto rickshaws is stabilized and practiced with correct fares. The fare list along with luggage rules and traffic control room  num bersshould be  displayed in all auto rickshaws and also published in all local news papers to ensure its meticulous compliance.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 , Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain (MP)

 

MICRO FINANCE INSTITUTIONS : CREATING DEMON TO FIGHT A DEMON

                  AS PUBLISHED IN FREE PRESS INDORE EDITION ON 09/03/2011

Be it politics or economic strategy like Financial Inclusion, Governments behave alike. In a desperate bid to resolve a problem it creates another demon to fight the existing demon. After its phenomenal success in Bangla desh,  the Non-profit Micro Finace Institutions (MFIs) are being considered as harbingers of inclusive growth and rural development. But by allowing private For Profit MFIs, Government has defeated the very purpose of providing affordable credit to the deprived lot  dwelling in the  deeper pockets of  rural India. A lot of new agencies / companies have cropped up as MFIs  and some of the them  have  even  floated their shares in the market to exploit  potentials of these new found oil wells.

In less than a year, reports have started pouring in that these new MFIs are charging unreasonably high rates of interest and using coercive methods of recovery. They have emerged as another breed of  private money lenders in rural India. In addition to this, they are overlapping their operations  with  the already banked areas and  competing with those commercial banks who are providing them loans for micro-finance activities. The father of  Micro finance and Noble laureate Mohammad Yunus has also criticized this Indian  version of MFI  for ignoring social service aspect of  this noble concept and suggested a cap of 20% for interest rates.

Ignoring all those warning  signals and  the recommendation of its own Y.H.Malegaum committee on MFIs , RBI, in its recent circular, has maintained a status quo on the working of MFIs and decided not to interfere in their interest rate regime.  It is difficult to understand , what sort of financial inclusion , Government wants to achieve through such MFI monsters.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 Bargad, Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain

BUDGET 2011-12 -Failed at box office

AS PUBLISHED IN FREE PRESS DATED 04/03/2011

The much awaited commercial film titled “Budget 2011-12” has turned out to be a official documentary. There was no populist masala, no gimmicks of numbers, no slogans and no tall claims, rather it was a plain statement of facts and a random distribution of income. The finance minister, who  remained busy in rescuing the government on various front for the last few months, had little time to put his mind and soul in the budget All expected and unexpected, both elements were missing.

The most expected element was the issue of tackling black money and corruption along with an action plan for  extradition of money stashed abroad. On these boiling issues only certain rhetorics  were performed in the budget. A further roll back on fiscal stimulus was another likely move, which did not happen. Substantial relief in personal income tax regime to compensate for scorching inflation was only partially fulfilled.

The finance minister has reserved all his “dear to heart” projects like DTC, Direct cash subsidy ,GST  for the next year and   decided to  get clear his bills in respect of   number of finance reforms bills pending for long years. Considering his lucky number(3) he decided  to allot 300 crores to a list of newer initiatives. The rituals  of increasing allotment of  important sectors like infrastructure, health, education, social   etc. were  done  as per available resources.

There were certain welcome steps like  reduction of age for senior citizens from 65 to 60 ,increase of agricultural credit flow by 100000 crore, developing extra warehousing facility, allowing tax free infrastructure bonds etc. but on the whole it failed to win the hearts of people. This directorial venture of Pranab da has totally failed at the box office.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 Bargad, Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain

bargadaashram@gmail.com

The car mania

AS PUBLISHED IN FREE PRESS DATED 01/03/2011

As admitted in the Economic survey 2011 presented in the parliament, our  high trade deficit burden, though partly  relieved  by uncertain short term foreign investments is a matter of serious concern. It is expected to reach beyond 3% of GDP by the end of this fiscal. Last time in 1991, when it crossed this figure, we as a country were at the threshold of defaulting on our external debt. The major reason for this imbalance is our import bill dominated by its crude oil component. India currently imports 75% of its domestic consumption of crude oil. Oil ministry has also voiced its concern, in its strategic document, on the growing dependence on imported oil.

The growth of personal car segment under the patronage of liberalized policies of government have resulted to this car(n)age. In metros, every grown up earning individual is having a car. At other centers it may be one car per family. Unlike mobile and computer revolution, this car revolution has only added to our problems. It leads to traffic jams on the already congested roads. There is no parking space available in busy markets and at home / apartments. You will find cars parked overnight on roadsides in all the lanes.  It is like issuing unlimited tickets for limited general compartments ( in trains) and let the people fight it out for space. Apart from this, we need to import crude oil to feed these cars out of our precious foreign exchange reserves. Diesel variants are also becoming popular in personal car segment to take advantage of subsidized fuel.

In this backdrop, Government should improve and encourage use of public transport, Increase taxes in personal car segment, introduce congestion tax on vehicles, make it mandatory for the buyers to arrange parking space before purchase of the new car. It should also promote non fuel based personal transports like bicycle, as is done in china and many other countries.

BHARAT SHARMA

C-44/8 ,Bargad, Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain