| Women demand separate wing to tackle domestic violence (Telugu) Posted: 26 Oct 2010 05:26 AM PDT |
| Women demand separate wing to tackle domestic violence Posted: 26 Oct 2010 05:25 AM PDT A round-table conference of women's representatives has demanded that the Government constitute a separate wing to implement the Domestic Violence Act, divesting the Woman and Child Welfare Department of the responsibility.
The Mahila Satta and the Legal Cell of the Lok Satta organized the conference to review implementation of the four-year-old Act at the Lok Satta Party Headquarters here today.
Participants cutting across party lines pointed out that implementation of the Act left much to be desired and traced the high incidence of violence against women to the growing liquor consumption and consumerism and illiteracy among women. Significantly, the participants conceded there were instances of violence against men too which need to be addressed.
The participants in the four-hour conference included Mrs. Tripurana Venkataratnam and K. Pushpaleela (Congress), Mrs. Madhavi Deepak and Mrs. Shaheeda Begum (Praja Rajyam), AP Women's Federation State Secretary Aruna, Telangana Democratic Front President N. Vijayalakshmi, Mrs. Aruna of Vikasa Dhatri, Mrs. Challa Uma of AIFW, Mrs. Kalpavalli and Mrs. Lakshmi, social workers, Mrs. Mahalakshmi, Vice President, State Mahila Satta, Mrs. Gajanani, GHMC Mahila Satta Secretary, Mrs. Padmavati of the Legal Cell, and Lok Satta leaders Mrs. Y. Ramadevi, Subhashini, Mangala, Rama Subhadra, Sujata, Vimaladevi, Sarada, Vijayakumari, Vijaya Venkateswarai, Nirmalarani, V. Ramachandraiah, A. B. Prathap Reddy and Srikant.
Mrs. K. Gita Murthy, Mahila Satta General Secretary, coordinated the program.
Initiating the discussion, Lok Satta Legal Cell Convener C. V. L. Narasimha Rao wanted the media to publicize the Domestiv Violence Act and educate people. Mrs. Tripurana Venkataratnam suggested that the Government open family counseling centers up to the mandal level and utilize retired employees' services. Mrs. Pushpa Lela welcomed the trend of women coming together transcending their political differences. Mrs. Madhavi Deepak said that domestic violence could be prevented through eradication of the drink evil. Mrs. Aruna of the AP Women's Federation said that committed and knowledgeable persons be appointed to the State's Women's Commission. Mrs. Mahalakshmi wanted swift punishment to the guilty under the Act. Mrs. Aruna of the Vikasa Dhatri suggested that the Government, media and civil society organizations fight jointly against domestic violence.
The conference endorsed Mr. C. V. L. Narasimha Rao's suggestion that an action committee be formed after some more workshops to take the cause forward.
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| What Do We Do About Bihar? – Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan Posted: 25 Oct 2010 10:41 PM PDT One of the great challenges facing our republic is the increasing regional disparities. It is well recognized that the South and the West are the engines of growth, along with the region in and around Delhi. The North and the East, with the exception of West Bengal are in dire straits, though considerable potential exists in the fertile Gangetic plains.
The perpetual crisis Bihar is facing is an illustration of governance failure and economic stagnation leading to regional disparities. Already, the per capita income of Bihar is barely 20% of that in Maharashtra. And Bihar is not a small little region with sparse population. With 83 million people sandwiched in the truncated Bihar, its future is a gargantuan challenge for Indian governance. Nor can we isolate Bihar or Eastern UP. Each of them is larger than any nation in Europe. And in a free country, people in dire problems are bound to migrate to other regions in search of livelihoods. The problem of slums in Mumbai is essentially an offshoot of despair in rural Bihar and UP.
There are many who think Bihar and UP can be ignored and the rest of India can get on the bandwagon of growth and prosperity in the twenty-first century. But the truth is, if Bihar and UP languish, India fails too. A quarter century ago, during our civil service training at Mussoorie, when people talked of UP and Bihar, those of us from the rest of India used to snigger with an air of superiority. But experience taught us that in every state of the Union there is a large part of Bihar. The degree and the manifestation of the crisis may vary, but corruption, criminalization, collapse of public goods, failure of rule of law, decline in the quality of leadership, and perverse public discourse are endemic to all of India.
In two ways, Bihar crisis is less intractable than it is made out to be. First, vast multitudes of people in Bihar are vexed with economic stagnation, politics of identity sans public good, criminalization and corruption. The recent political flux has to be viewed in the context of this significant shift in public perceptions. That people do not have real alternatives in terms of better governance, and all parties are victims of the same vicious cycle are a different matter. The yearning of the people for something better is clearly evident. Second, if there is a perception of collapse of governance, it is easier to pick up the pieces and start with a clean slate. A moderately successful state is harder to reform, because it is difficult to summon the will to upset the applecart. But a 'failed' state can offer no argument or incentive in favour of status-quo. The crisis of Bihar therefore, could yet be converted into an opportunity.
What then can be done in Bihar realistically? Four major areas are in desperate need of reform, and rapid change is possible in all sectors. The most vital priority is restoration of rule of law. All governance is based on perceptions. If people see 'might is right', and that no law applies, then soon all people behave erratically and create a lawless society. The line between a lawful society and anarchy is very thin. A series of steps can, and must, be initiated at low cost to restore rule of law in Bihar. Local courts for speedy justice as an integral part of independent judiciary at a low cost can be constituted swiftly. Once simple disputes are resolved in a credible manner, and petty crime is punished quickly, a culture of rule of law will soon return. Cleaning up of subordinate judiciary following the Maharashtra pattern, identifying and systematically dealing with key visible symptoms of breakdown of public order ("broken windows"), and insulation of investigation of serious crimes from political vagaries – all are politically and economically low cost and high impact solutions.
Second, delivery of education and health care can be improved speedily by institutional innovations. Thousands of middle class Biharis are fleeing the region in search of better education. Empowerment of parents in schools, an improved examination system to measure real caliber of students, and a state testing board to give disaggregated data on educational outcomes to facilitate interventions to improve quality are three low cost solutions which can convert the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle. Similarly, speedy recruitment and training of local health workers, supply of drugs in PHCs, rapid infrastructure improvements to meet the demand for family planning services, and creation of hospital fund at local level to reimburse public hospitals for patient care, with money following the patient are innovations which are eminently feasible. There is no resource problem, because the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and National Rural Health Mission are already in operation with Union support. We need to make sure that committed and competent civil servants are placed in charge, and motivated and talented citizens are attracted on contractual basis to improve and manage delivery of services.
Third, thanks to the proactive measures of Patna High Court, the elected local governments are at last in place. At the local level, there can be greater fusion between authority and accountability, and people can keep track of the money spent and benefits realized. And as most state-sponsored development has come to a grinding halt, the usual resistance of legislators and bureaucrats to decentralization is likely to be less virulent.
Finally, Bihar needs a large dose of Union assistance for infrastructure – especially roads, flood control and bridges across the many ferocious rivers. A one-time massive package is both necessary and economical. Improvement in Bihar has tremendous consequences to the rest of India by way of reducing population growth and migration. The nation must cheerfully foot the bill for balanced regional growth. But first Bihar administration must acquire the capacity to utilize the resources and deliver results.
Even now, it is not too late to retrieve the situation in Bihar. It just needs innovation, courage, speedy action and prudent deployment of resources. Even politicians and bureaucrats have an incentive to improve things, for what is there to plunder in a graveyard? We need to address the crisis of confidence and restore optimism and sense of adventure that were the hallmarks of governance in Bihar fifty years ago.
Courtesy: http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/what-do-we-do-about-bihar-dr-jayaprakash-narayan/
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| Ethics and Political Leadership – Dr Jayaprakash Narayan Posted: 25 Oct 2010 10:41 PM PDT Einstein once famously said that the twentieth century was characterized by perfection of means and confusion of ends. Over the past six decades, our politicians have certainly mastered the art of acquiring power without purpose. Power has become an end in itself. In India, this quest for power has been largely disconnected from public purpose. The notion of ethical leadership is limited to a few symbolic leaders to be paraded before the public to enhance saleability of a party. And morality is at best limited to private conduct, and rarely extended to public duty.
In a democracy, there is always a conflict between the slow rate of social pay off that results from sound policies and the short-term political price you have to pay in pursuit of them. True leadership is the ability to reconcile the two and promote long-term public good.
A far more dangerous threat is the loss of purpose for leadership. In the corridors of power, most often all that matters is who is in and who is out; and notions of morality, constitutionalism and public good are inconvenient abstractions. Serious imbalance in exercise of power has accelerated this decline of political morality. If power is defined as the ability to influence events, resources and behaviour for the larger public good, such positive power is severely curtailed in our public sphere. We have created a messy, unaccountable, non-performing system in which there are a million legitimate alibis for political failure. But if power is defined as pelf, privilege, patronage, petty tyranny and plain nuisance value, then every state functionary – from the mighty to the humble – exercises such negative power in ample measure; and there are very few safeguards against abuse of office.
Three factors led to a crisis of leadership in India. First, unlike during freedom struggle, the best minds and hearts have shunned politics and the vacuum is filled mostly by those who converted politics into commerce. Ethical leadership is increasingly marginalized.
Second, our first-past-the-post electoral system gives exaggerated importance to the marginal vote. In our system, one more vote means victory, and one less vote leads to defeat. On top of it, the middle classes habitually stay away from the polling booths, and the poor vote in large numbers as the vote gives them some dignity and bargaining power. The politicians and traditional parties have cynically used the vulnerability of the poor to convert vote into a commodity. In most parts of India, vote is bought with money and liquor. Large expenditure to buy vote does not guarantee victory, but non-expenditure almost certainly guarantees defeat! Even when the vote is not bought, absurd and counter-productive freebies are offered as a party platform. Free rice, free power, free TV, easy money without work – all are the staple of our electoral battles in politics of competitive populism. If vote buying and freebies do not work, there is always cynical exploitation of primordial loyalties in society – caste, region, religion, language. It is easy to rouse passions and fashion a group as a vote bank, by portraying 'the other' as the enemy.
Third, in an emerging democracy where constitutional values have not yet been internalized in our political conduct or social mores, power is essentially meant for private gain. Culturally, control of levers of power is seen as a way of promoting private fortunes. Even where direct monetary gain is not involved, arbitrary use of power, nepotism, partisanship, protection of an oligarchy or a group or party, perpetuation of the dominance of the party or a caste or a family – all these have become the acceptable goals of power.
Given these circumstances the rot is not limited to politics, and most institutions of state are perverted and compromised. Bureaucracy and judiciary are increasingly prone to corruption, unethical behaviour and arbitrary exercise of power. Even the Fourth Estate, the media, has not escaped this decline. As all self-correcting mechanisms are blunted, we entered a vicious cycle, with each institution blaming the others. No matter how guilty other players are, the primary responsibility to set things right rests with the political leadership.
Can something be done to restore and promote ethical leadership? The central challenge of transformation is to make ethical leaders electable and honesty sustainable in politics and power. For instance, a shift from first-past-the post system and feudal fiefdoms at constituency level to some form of proportional system where the share of a party's vote determines its representation will radically alter the incentives, redefine success, and facilitate recruitment of the best citizens into politics. Therefore a combination of proportional representation with certain thresholds of voting to prevent extreme tendencies or caste-based parties gaining ground (say, 5% of vote in a state) at all levels will transform politics and promote public morality, ethical leadership and sound policies.
Combined with this proportional representation, direct election of the executive at local and state levels will reduce vote buying and make honesty compatible with political survival. Today in local councils and states, even an honest leader is forced to resort to immorality and condone corruption in order to retain the support of elected councilors / legislators, without which he will not survive in office. At national level, our vastness, complexity, diversity, and polarities (North vs South, Hindi vs non-Hindi, Hindu vs Muslim) will militate against direct election of the executive. But a sound proportional representation will largely eliminate the distortions of politics at national level. The real challenges of transformation lie at state and local levels.
Once political recruitment improves, ethical leaders are attracted to politics, and honesty becomes an asset and not a liability, we have to address the issues of accountability. Two broad approaches promote accountability and sustain ethical and effective leadership. First, power should be decentralized, and there must be clear links between vote and public good, and taxes and services. Local government empowerment and institutionalizing and strengthening the third tier of federalism will bring back people into the governance process. When power is localized, and at the community level people are allowed to participate in decision making (in a village Panchayat or a municipal ward), authority fuses with accountability and alibis for non-performance disappear. Second, corruption and abuse of power should be swiftly and surely punished. Independent crime investigation, strong, independent and well-coordinated anti-corruption agency, independent and effective prosecution, swift confiscation of assets of corrupt public servants, and special courts for quick disposal of corruption cases will achieve this objective.
None of these is a pipe-dream. We deserve better politics and ethical leadership. Democracy needs to be reformed and strengthened in every generation, and decency and honesty need to be nurtured and promoted with great care. The middle class, media and the moral elites of society should shed mutual mistrust and work together to improve the substance of our democracy. Ignoring politics and reviling politicians is not an option. As Mahatma Gandhi said, politics ensnares you like the coils of a snake, and whichever human endeavour you touch, there is no escape from politics. That is why Plato admonished us long back that "the punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government, is to suffer under the government of bad men"
Courtesy: http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/ethics-and-political-leadership-dr-jayaprakash-narayan/
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