Chandigarh University Training Department

EDITORIALS WEEK 4

EDITORIAL 1- Saudi tragedy reminder of dangers

Indians face in West Asia

This is a story which repeats itself in so many ways and over so many years. It is one of
economic deprivation driving people to seek employment in menial jobs in West Asia.
In a recent horrific case, a woman from Tamil Nadu was attacked by her employer in
Saudi Arabia and her hand chopped off for seeking her wages. The woman who was forced
to seek the job to help her impoverished family was offered a wage of just Rs 15,000 a
month, part of which had to be paid to her agent.
Indian labor in the Gulf is among the most exploited in the region and they work under
conditions where very little by way of human rights applies to them. Indias ministry of
external affairs has taken up the matter with the Saudi foreign office, from which no
response has been reported so far.
For many years there have been frequent reports of atrocities on Indians working in the
unorganized sector in West Asia. In Saudi Arabia, where Indians number about 7% of the
countrys population, they are compelled to live in extremely unhygienic conditions with
no social-security benefits. Besides, job security in Saudi Arabia is never certain.
Nearly 150,000 people had to return to India between April and November in 2013
because their visa terms did not allow them to seek further employment.
Saudi Arabia is not alone in this regard. Last year it was reported that more than 500
Indians working on construction sites in Qatar had died since 2012, most probably due to
respiratory diseases and other health problems even as the country prepares for the
football World Cup in 2022.
Though Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the worlds richest countries, their citizens
tend to be harsh and tight-fisted in their treatment of guest workers as the overburdened
and exploited labor is termed. In many places sometimes six to eight workers share a
single room. Instances of workers not being paid are legion.
Worse still, employees cannot look for alternative jobs because their visa states where
they will work and passports are often in the custody of the employer. The latest incident
bears out how they are exposed to the risks of physical violence as well.

The government of India had taken up in an exemplary manner the case of an Indian
Foreign Service officer who had faced humiliation in the US. It should use its much-touted
economic clout to ensure that such incidents as the one in Saudi Arabia are not repeated.
Our embassies should also keep an up-to-date data base of Indians working there and
have special cells to look into their grievances.
EDITORIAL 2:

New mid-day meal rules stress on quality and

regularity
Indias mid-day meal scheme (MDS) the worlds largest school-feeding programme of its
kind is one of the governments showpiece programmes. It is also one of the most
critical ones since it targets children, the key human resource that every economy banks
on for sustained growth. The scheme, which was set up in 1995 to ensure that hunger
didnt prevent children from attending school (nearly 120 million children are fed daily),
have been successful in many ways but there have been cases of glaring shortfalls too.
In the recent past, there have been several incidents of food poisoning in schools across
the country either due to bad quality of food or unhygienic cooking conditions. Last week,
90 children were taken ill after consuming milk under the MDS at a primary school in
Agra. An enquiry into the scheme by the Accountability Initiative, part of the New Delhibased Centre for Policy Research, found that too many layers of government were
involved in the scheme, resulting in poor information, coordination and monitoring.
Every scheme needs constant evaluation to weed out problems, iron out implementation
issues and improve accountability. It is only then it remains effective. The good news is
that has just happened with this scheme: Last week, the Centre notified several new
rules, making it a right for students between six and 14 years to get a meal that adheres
to the prescribed nutritional standards. The state governments will be held accountable
for non-delivery of service: If a school fails to serve food to students for three
consecutive school days or five days a month such instances are not rare the state
government will have to pay a food security allowance as compensation. The government
has now insisted on monthly random testing by the Food and Drugs Administration
department of every state to ensure the nutritive value of the meals given to students.
Over the years, several studies have indicated that India has achieved high gains thanks
to the scheme. It has not only improved health outcomes for children, but has also
contributed to significant educational gains. In fact, the differential gains for children
from lower socio-economic backgrounds suggest high benefits from targeting this

programme towards poorer areas, in order to increase the enrolment of children who
would otherwise be unable to attend school. The new rules will, hopefully, ensure that
the scheme becomes far more effective than it already is, an assurance our children
richly deserve.

EDITORIAL 3:

Cry of the Ganga: Getting the Territorial Army

to help clean rivers is nice, but 100%
sewage treatment is necessary
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has reiterated the governments intention to raise new
Territorial Army battalions, comprising ex-soldiers and commanded by regular army
officers, specifically for cleaning up the Ganga. This is a good move. TA battalions
earmarked for ecological tasks have performed well in the past. Yet, given the sheer
magnitude of Indias river pollution problem, we need deeper, structural interventions
and strict implementation of existing schemes.
This is important because the number of polluted river stretches in India has gone up 14
times in the last 26 years. The number of polluted rivers more than doubled from 121 in
2009 to 275 at last count, says the Central Pollution Control Board.
Sewage from our cities is the biggest problem. Around 75% of river pollution comes from
municipal sewage from towns along river banks and 25% from industrial effluents.
Shockingly, though urban India generates some 57,233 million liters per day of sewage, we
only have the capacity to treat about 37% of this. The rest goes untreated into our rivers,
basically turning mighty rivers like Yamuna, in its Delhi stretch, or the Ganga, in its
Varanasi stretch, into giant sewers. They are now at breaking point. This is why the
National Green Tribunal recently summoned senior officers of concerned departments to
spell out a clear stand and to show the one thing they had done so far with any
success.
Thousands of crores spent on river cleanup over the decades have gone down the drain.
Since 1985, Rs 5,335 crore has been sanctioned for the National River Conservation Plan,
over Rs 1,427 crore for the Ganga Action Plan (phases 1and 2) and over Rs 1,027 crore for
the National Ganga River Basin Authority.

The Modi government has renewed focus on rivers with its flagship Namami Gange
programme and significantly increased funding. It will do well to remember the lesson
from the past: While we may know what is to be done the devil lies in the detail, in
getting states and local bodies to work together with the Centre and in strictly enforcing
anti-pollution laws, including those with an impact on religious practices. A holistic
ecological vision and changing social attitudes around dumping waste in rivers are crucial
reverse our sorry record in cleaning up our rivers.
EDITORIAL 4:

Identity crisis: Aadhaar has clear benefits

Its status quo for the Aadhaar scheme, as the Supreme Court continued to confine its
applications to the public distribution scheme and the LPG and kerosene subsidies.
Earlier, it had decided that a larger constitutional bench would decide on the question of
whether privacy was a fundamental right. Aadhaars fate rests on that decision too.
The Centre, along with a host of institutions including the Sebi, RBI, LIC, Trai, and income
tax department had appealed for the restriction to be lifted, claiming that the biometric
ID system was the more precise way to get social entitlements across, and that it was a
purely voluntary transaction. Since its inception, the unique ID plan has faced resistance
from several quarters, chiefly privacy activists who claim that the poor should not have to
forego their right to privacy in order to access welfare benefits that they need. Conceived
by the UPA as the enabling architecture for all social provisions, the scheme had been
forced to roll out as an executive order, and finally, the Supreme Court had declared that
it could not be mandatory.
The upside of Aadhaar is clear it is meant to avoid duplication and ghost beneficiaries,
and therefore minimise leakage, and keep public spending honest and accurate. This is a
clear problem for instance, according to the 2011census, there are only 21million
households in Andhra Pradesh, but there are 24.5 million ration cards. Instead of claiming
that the poor would willingly waive their rights to privacy in exchange for social benefits,
the government should address these concerns. Setbacks are inevitable in the absence of
legislation underpinning the UIDAI. The courts will continue to be the arbiters of

its mandate, extending it to this and disallowing that, unless the government makes a
convincing case for it and enacts a solid law that guarantees privacy.
EDITORIAL 5:

A Party That is No Longer Aam Aadmi's

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals decision to sack his food and civil supplies minister
Asif Ahmed Khan is certainly welcome. Of course, there is the question, what else could
the Aam Aadmi Party leader have done when there was conclusive evidence that the
minister asked for money from a builder. Khan has alleged that his expulsion from the
Cabinet was the result of a conspiracy. Significantly, he has not claimed that the voice in
an audio tape was not his. Only a full-fledged investigation will reveal the truth. Khan is
the third minister who had to leave the Delhi Cabinet for reasons that do not redound to
the credit of the Chief Minister.
One had to leave on account of the charge that his educational qualifications were
fraudulent. The other has been facing charges that he tried to physically harm his wife.
Whatever be the truth, these are charges that do not make politicians proud. In the
earlier days, political leaders went to jail while taking part in the freedom struggle or for
taking up public causes. Today, they go to jail for indulging in corruption or for wifebeating. True, the case of the AAP ministers is not exceptional. In fact, every political
party can be accused of having such leaders who speak one thing in public and do quite
another in private. But, then, the case of the AAP Chief Minister is quite different. It was
on his promise that he would give the people of Delhi a government of the people, by the
people and for the people that he was given a massive mandate.
One of Kejriwals first acts after coming to power was to expel some of the founder
members of the party like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan. Their only fault was
that they questioned some of his authoritarian acts. The CM is not bothered because a
majority of the party legislators are with him. They cannot afford to antagonise Kejriwal
for fear that he would victimise them. This is certainly not a measure of his popularity.
He has chosen to remain silent on the issues raised by Yadav and his group in the false
belief that the people would forget them. The voters are already disappointed with the
performance of the government that they believe has little to do with the Aam Aadmi.

EDITORIAL 6:

Forget Beef, Tackle Real Toxic Food

The finding that over 18 per cent samples of edibles, including vegetables, fruit, milk,
meat and pulses, contain pesticide residues in varying degrees is alarming, to say the
least. This was revealed in official data released last week. Whats worse, the toxicity
found in the samples had doubled since the last such tests were conducted. If anything, it
is proof that Indias food chain continues to suffer from rampant and unrestrained use of
pesticides. Although the study found that metropolitan cities of Delhi and Mumbai were
the worst-hit, the situation was only slightly better in the rest of the country. Yet, there
is little awareness of the problem, let alone action to curb use of pesticides.
It goes without saying that pesticides are harmful for human beings. The havoc the
indiscriminate use of Endosulphan caused in Kasarkode district of Kerala is very welldocumented. It is also true that cultivation on a large-scale is impossible without the use
of pesticides. In other words, pesticides cannot be banned, as farmers need them for
cultivation. Alas, there is little awareness among common people about the dangers of
the overuse of pesticides. This is true about a majority of the farmers. Those farmers,
who take agricultural loans, are often forced to buy fertilisers and pesticides whether
they need them or not. Once they purchase, the tendency is to use them, rather than
waste them. Most pesticides are not dissolvable and do not self-destruct. They get into
the grains and vegetables to protect which they were used. What is required is minimum
use of pesticides for maximum effect.
The poor farmers, many of whom are even illiterate, cannot be expected to know the
right quantity of pesticides to be used. Government agricultural officers can be tasked to
organize periodic training programmes where farmers can be taught how the pesticides
have to be diluted and used. They can also be made aware of the dangerous
consequences of overusing pesticides. Those, who deal in pesticides like the wholesalers
and the retailers, themselves, do not know much about the dangers of overuse. It should
be made mandatory for pesticide manufacturers to spend a portion of their revenue to
create public awareness. In other words, the government has to play a proactive role.

EDITORIAL 7:

Time to Act Faster Against Black Money

The NDA governments Black Money Act may have so far managed to scoop up just the
surface of the potentially retrievable unaccounted income. But the rhythm to unearth
more illegal income seems to have been set. The CBI searches in State-run Bank of Baroda
branches for `6,100-crore suspected black money transfer is perhaps the first major and
concrete action against the black sheep in years. Hopefully, the investigating agency
and the special investigation team on black money will take this forward. The one-time
compliance window for the declaration of foreign assets and income under the Black

Money Act, which closed on September 30, saw just 638 declarations aggregating to
`3,770 crore. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was quick to warn those who did not
declare unaccounted income to face the consequences. The CBI raid comes just a few
days after Jaitleys warning and if his categoric statement that bulk of the black money is
within India is anything to go by, more such raids can be expected.
The Act is one of the crucial components of economic reforms announced last year and
theres an urgent need to step up efforts to retrieve stashed income, both within the
country and abroad. With investor appetite losing sheen, economic growth slowing down
and with India moving nowhere as far as its ease of doing business rank is concerned, the
government is in a tight spot to act and now. Stringent norms on undisclosed income
imply the country is not a safe haven and will strengthen the moral fiber of our society.
Importantly, income recovered from such sources is crucial for the government to steer
its social programmes and fund public expenditure at a time when the countrys direct
and indirect tax collections are below target. The Act can also be used to clean up the
mess broiling at our public sector banks that are reeling under severe stressed assets and
low recoveries.
Traditionally, stock markets too are often used to circulate black money. Be it via
Participatory Notes, which allow investors to invest without having to register
themselves, or channeling funds through tax havens like Mauritius or Singapore. While
continuing to crack the whip on banks to trace the illicit money flow, the government
should also focus on the markets.

EDITORIAL 8:

Get Priorities Right, Save Farmers

My death too will surprise you, like untimely rain. About my death, theyll say, it hangs
like a decoration on a doorframe a farmer, who was also a poet, bemoaned in his
suicide note before taking the extreme step. It reflects the crisis engulfing the agriculture
sector in Telangana. Even as the State Assembly debated the cause for the same and the
High Court advised the State government to take serious note of the situation, farmers
continue to commit suicide in one part of the State or the other. According to a study
conducted by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, more than 1,200 farmers and farm
labourers have committed suicide since June last year when the State was formed. The
Chandrasekhar Rao government itself admits that at least one farmer ends life every day.
The reasons for the growing number of suicides are not beyond ones comprehension:
scanty rainfall, severe drought conditions, inadequate power supply, fast-depleting
groundwater level, mounting debts, harassment by private money lenders, insufficient
institutional credit and successive crop failures.

Before the last Assembly elections, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi had promised to waive
all crop loans and exhorted farmers not to repay outstanding loans. But after coming to
power, it hasnt been able to keep its word; instead, it waived the loans only partially.
The result: farmers were not discharged of their existing loans and banks could not grant
them fresh loans. They were forced to approach money lenders again and so, the spiral of
high interest rates, mounting debts and suicides continue. Had the loan waiver scheme
been implemented in its entirety, they would not have thought death was the only way
out.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who spearheaded the separate Telangana movement,
must be aware of the ground reality, but he has his own priorities promoting
industrialists, foreign trips to bring in investments, funding renovation of temples or
festive celebrations. His ambitious plan of restoring minor irrigation tanks and redesigning
existing projects will help revive the agriculture sector, but it needs time and utmost
sincerity. The High Court has rightly observed it would be better to find out the reasons
and prevent suicides, rather than announce ex gratia to bereaved families. It is high time
Rao took steps to instill confidence among farmers, instead of blaming previous
governments.

EDITORIAL 9:

SC Alone Can Ensure Swatch Delhi

For the first time, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court thought it necessary to
appeal to the media to report in full, the proceedings of a case it was hearing on the
toxic levels of air pollution in Delhi. The public interest litigation in question sought the
courts intervention. Stressing the seriousness of the situation, Chief Justice HL Dattu
revealed that his grandson wears a mask and eminent lawyer Harish Salve, who appeared
as amicus curiae in the 1985 petition filed by environmentalist MC Mehta, disclosed that
he had to take a steroid for the first time in his life. His wife and daughter are already
suffering from asthma.
The families of both live in relatively better areas of the capital, which have a higher
percentage of greenery. If that is their plight, the condition of a vast majority of the
people, who live in crowded areas and use public transport or two and three-wheelers,
can be imagined. Among the world capitals, Delhi is one of the worst, if not the worst.
With the onset of winter in a few weeks, the situation will take a turn for the worse.
Though there is a law banning burning of leaves, it is violated with impunity. The fog is so
thick that flights and even train services are disrupted every now and then. More
important than all this is the toll air pollution takes on public health. Small wonder that
the death rate shoots up during winter.

Yet, there is little awareness among those in authority about the problems Delhiites face.
It was the Supreme Court, which had earlier forced the Delhi government to replace all
diesel buses with CNG engine-fitted new ones. It made an appreciable impact on the
environment but, over the years, the situation is back to square one. This is mainly
because there has been an exponential growth in the number of vehicles plying in the
city. The traffic police have been ignoring vehicles which emit noxious fumes on the plea
that they are always busy helping VIPs not to face traffic bottlenecks. Its a pity that the
apex court will have to intervene to control air pollution before more people have to
wear masks and take steroids or in the worst case scenario, pay with their lives.

EDITOTIAL 10:

The Fair Sex as Fighter Pilots

As the Indian Air Force (IAF) turned 83 on Thursday, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha made a
historic announcement: India may soon have women fighter pilots in combat roles.
Coming as it does, just a month after women won the battle to get permanent
commission in the Navy, the proposal brings the issue of gender parity in the three
services closer to a logical conclusion. Earlier in 2010, the Delhi High Court had allowed
permanent commission for women in the Army and the IAF. The plan to induct women into
the IAFs combat positions is also the first-of-its kind among the tri-services and is, in
fact, a marked departure from the Union governments stand, articulated by none other
than Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in May this year.
Indicating what might happen if a woman officer was taken prisoner by enemy forces, he
had indirectly clarified that the government was not keen on having the fair sex in the
frontline. Even the Air Chief Marshal had earlier gone on record to say that physical
fitness could be a hindrance for them. The obvious change in the government and the
IAFs thinking caps augurs well for the country. The IAF has about 1,500 women on its rolls
of whom 94 are pilots and 14 navigators. The pilots fly transport aircraft and helicopters.
As and when the force inducts women fighter pilots, India will join countries like the UAE,
Pakistan, Israel, Canada, UK, Germany and others all of whom deploy women in active
combat roles.
The arguments or rather fears that women cannot make for good fighter pilots are
misplaced since technology is now so advanced that an air warrior needs more brains than
brawn. Looking at it another way, women pilots could also help the IAF overcome its
acute shortage of officers of the sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, it has only 35. It
would need at least 45 to face possible threats from Pakistan and China. As such, the IAF

plan is both pragmatic and progressive a win-win situation any warrior would love.
Incidentally, the Navy too will have to take a call on letting women into ships following
the Delhi High Court order on permanent commission for them.