Sea of change

Politics presents a grim picture everywhere and in Bihar its even worse. We have caste equations, communal issues, strongmen and their henchmen ( list is pretty endless). However there's a ray of hope and not everything whats going on is wrong.

I boarded the train from Calcutta and then one of my companions started heaping praises on Nitish administration. Mostly all agreed and gave him a thumping yes. He quoted the popular incumbent chief minister saying "30 years of mediocrity cannot erase thousand years of excellence !!". It might be noted that during last three decades has seen Bihar plunge in deep recess.

Also state secretary Mr NK Singh won applause from everybody sitting around.It was argued that first time voters from Bihar had talked about development issues rather than caste loyalty. Statistically speaking mostly a huge voter turnout always benefits the ruling government, an indication of people showing confidence in the administration.

With lots of positive vibes in air I got down in Bhagalpur on Nov 1, which was a polling day. Elections in Bihar are different from the rest of the nation. Anticipating trouble the markets are closed, educational institutions are shut sine die, and even private vehicles are seized for movement of security personnel. 6 phase of polling in Assembly elections might seem security overkill, but owing to Maoist challenge, private armies and local goons this was a necessity.

This time I also got a chance to travel by roadways extensively and this is when I could sense some real change. Its surprising that so far Bihar lacked a functional state transport corporation and people were happy to see BSRTC back on roads afer a decade of non existence. Law and order situation has considerably improved and prosecution rate has gone up tremendously. People were relieved that even dreaded places like Siwan, Jehanabad and Munger guns are silent. The autowallahs took pride in saying that roads were excellent travel time is drastically reduced.

Nitish has his share of critics too and people in Bihar are very observant when it comes to political subtleties. I want to quote here another self proclaimed political analyst. "Law and order is fine as the major bahubalis are busy minting money on road contracts and over two lakh unemployed youth have been pulled in for "sarva siksha abhiyaan" or state police". Thus the state has gone ahead with mantra "if you cant fight them join them". This observation is rather simple, direct and hard to contradict. The trickle down theory that everything falls into place if there is good governance at top, does not entirely hold true, as corruption permeates all levels.

However people take respite in the fact that for the first time in over two decades plan money is actually being disbursed. With the mammoth level of state expenditure corruption in backward state of Bihar is inevitable. The gains made in last five years are hard to ignore and the new government which will assume power after Nov 24 will have large shoes to fill in. Regardless of which political party gains control, it should be able to build on these achievements and hopefully next five years will be dedicated to installing proper checks and balances while keeping the growth story intact.

Nuclear liability bill : Liability thrust on Indian masses

What minimum sentence do you award to individuals who by their negligence kill 25000 people and leave many times over crippled with multiple disabilities. The negligence was not ignorance but it was under full cognizance of management who would rather save money than save lives. The commision report clearly indicts the top exectives of ecouraging and even driving the cost cutting measures. It reminds of a famous quote in Fight Club where a top executive rubbishes recall of cars, which was quite accident prone, on the grounds that the cost of out of court settlement times the probability of accident and death of people was lesser than the cost of recall (A very valid economic justification indeed!!)

Even petty theft are met with harsher punishment than these white collar executives who walk away with 2 years sentence and are in fact granted immediate bail. The entire state machinery has let us down. First it was legislators and executive who cheated us by inviting Union carbide without adequate safety laws and letting the perpetrators escape. Then it was judiciary's turn to deal final blow and make mockery of victims by letting the guilty walk away while, hundreds of thousands, waited for over two decades for justice.

Does our government really value Indian lives? The state which gets a fair share of royalty and taxes from the corporations have relieved themselves from their most fundamental responsibility of protecting her citizens. To add insult to injury we have a monstrous nuclear liability bill which seeks to set upper limit on a firm's liability in case of major mishaps. Perhaps nowhere in the world the state seems to have connived with few foreign players against her own citizens.

Well a small bit of digging should reveal very outrageous clauses which are bluntly rude and discriminatory. The bill indirectly lets the manufacturing corporations (read finely it is the Westinghouse, Generic electric, ABB corp.) free from any financial of legal liability in case of mishaps. The only entity which shoulder have limited liability are the operators (read finely it is the state owned NPCIL) to an extent of 500 crores. The state (taxpayers) are left with unlimited liability. Such is the doublespeak that in this case the victims (common people by virtue of being taxpayer) are held accountable for lack of due diligence or simply some ruthless cost cutting measures for profits by these Western manufacturers.

The bill doesn't just stop here. It goes to the extent of disallowing the victims a legal recourse against the manufacturing corporations. The only entity which can hold these corporations accountable are the operators and all they have is period of 10 years to settle all claim after which it lapses. Considering the pace of judiciary world wide this virtually reduces it to a no ops.

What is shocking is the manner in which the clauses were added to the bill as it openly flouts all standard norms and canons. What is even more shocking is the haste manner in which our "Dumb Manmohan Administration" tried to table the bill in parliament. People by now must have serious doubts over saneness of Indian interlocutors who claim to have clinched a win-win deal.


Does this bill gives India any tangible gains.... however remote it may be??
The answer is a big NO.

The fact that US froze all major R&D programme in civilian Nuclear program after 3 mile incident is well known. France which meets over 90% of her energy needs through nuclear plants is way ahead of US in this arena and is willing to help India without these severely limiting bills. Thanks mostly to Bhabha's efforts Indian nuclear establishment, totally indigenous, is perhaps unique in the world as it harnesses abundant and cheap Thorium. Strategists foresee cheap electricity, increased R&D footprint and more jobs on Indian soil, only if the Government is ready to rely on the home grown technology.

What I fear is that we will see offensively priced power produced by three decade US technology being subsidised by Indian taxpayers, who will also have to brace for all mishaps on their own.

We have not forgotten the Dabhol episode, when the government was held ransom by few private players and was asked to subsidise their reckless way of operation. We seem to be incapable of learning from failures. Just two years back three major Indian companies won bid for cheapest cost per unit of electricity for four mammoth power plants. We seem to be incapable of learning from our successes too.
The situation here reminds me of British era of "drain of wealth", when we subsidised British merchandise at the cost of Indian industry. Even today it seems law governing Indians are being drafted by US interlocutors. Colonialism is back in a new garb and we are not complaining, but the Government is taking pride in embracing it.

Manmohan Sir, Sure We do need FDI for development but not at the cost of selling out the entire nation.

"Hello World"

The term "Writers block" for an amateur as myself would be by no means an exaggeration but it helps to highlight my present state of mind. Writing is something that i would be starting
after a long pause....pause significant enough to seriously slow down not just keystrokes,
but also put you in a jinx and then you start treading cautiously what to pick to write about.
Well.. despite a few concerted efforts, I was never a regular blogger.


Long back i had read about various quirks people adopted to counter writer's block.
There was a once a poet who immersed his feet in cold water to overcome his mental block.
Poets and Painters often turn to their "MUSES" to seek inspiration.
Philosophers trust their eccentric companions or totally isolate themselves to counter it.
Then there are people whose creative juices flow once when they have imbibed enough spirit.

I belonged to none of the above group so I took a bit different path..
I took a walk..and a cup of tea. None of these actually helped. So i figured out was mental block
was something that cannot be cleared by some standard operating procedures.


Well we always have a hitch before we start something new or revisit something that has gathered moss for a significant period of time.

I had a hard time deciding to pick topic to break that jinx. There was another realization in queue... waiting to be discovered ..
Selective elimination of options does not necessarily result in selection of one.
So here I sit waiting for a something interesting to write about.
So Stay tuned and suggest me some of your worthy inputs, ideas and shape my writing :-).