Why we should be wary of the recent verdict given in Delhi Assembly Elections ?

Delhiites, despite being busy in valentine's week, have given a resounding and overwhelming verdict to Mr. Kejriwal and his political party AAP, by giving them 67 seats out of 70 in the recently concluded Delhi Assembly election. Amassing 54% of the vote share is something unheard of in this highly diverse and segregated democracy where religious sentiments still continue to play a greater role in deciding the fate of elections.  

The judgement seems to be loud and clear that Delhiites want a govt. who won't just rule but would act as their representatives, where the voice of the common man is heard, where their problems are being addressed, where inequality would remain dead and buried, where there will be no space and time for communal differences and violence. These seem to be some of the core issues based on which Delhi has given its verdict.

But, are these the only reasons for this kind of massive verdict in favour of AAP. I guess no. Looking at the complete picture, we can easily deduce the important role that freebies have played in this election. The outrageous, irrational, and over the board promises made by Mr. Kejriwal have played a greater role in this election than estimated by the so called pundits. Promises of constructing a school every 3.67 days and a college every 5.45 days over the period of next 5 years look beyond the scope of reality in the current context. Promises of drastically reducing the electricity and water prices have definitely gone down well with the electorates but the question still stands whether Mr. Kejriwal would be able to achieve this considering that Delhi as a UT is always dependent on other neighboring states for both resources. 

The problems just don’t end here. AAP, as a party in power, needs to understand that even the governments are required to maintain balance sheets. What we have heard till now is the expenditure part only. They will be requiring huge sums of money to uphold their claims and promises. I am still not sure where these revenues will come from. We still haven’t seen a plan in AAP’s political rulebook which can be effectively used for generating some revenues and I am not sure whether Mr. Kejriwal would ever be concerned about it or he will just try to happily pass on the burden for his freebies on central govt. When 60% of our villages are deprived of electricity connections even, forget about getting electricity, we surely can’t afford to give cheap electricity to the well-off section of the society. 

I hope Mr. Kejriwal is smart enough to understand that India at this stage really can't survive on freebies. Prudence and austerity have to be the sisters of governance in this time of ruckus and uncertainty. If he really wants to make an image for himself and his party at the national level, he needs to come out of that freebie zone to understand the realities of ground. At least, we are getting a picture of the structure that central govt. wants to implement in this country. Whether “Make in India” or not, at least we have a plan on paper from Mr. Modi. I guess letting economics run over politics is something which will decide whether Mr. Kejriwal would ever become an important player at the centre or not.

Polio Free India: An achievement we can be proud of

In 1994, when India started its “Polio Free India” campaign to eliminate wild polioviruses from India, WHO’s president mocked the campaign by saying that India won’t be able to achieve this target by the end of 21st century and even if it somehow manages to achieve and become polio free, it would be the last nation on the planet to do so. But, it took India just 16 years to eliminate polioviruses from India to become a polio free nation.

The success that India has achieved in eliminating polioviruses has been acclaimed globally. Until early 1990’s, India was rated as hyper-endemic for polio, with 800-1000 children getting paralysed daily. The situation was horrid and ominous, as polio is a contagious illness which can spread easily from person to person. The challenge was not just to eradicate polioviruses but also to sustain and contain their spread. 

In order to eradicate polio from the country, a comprehensive campaign was started by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 1994 with the focus on improving the penetration of the availability of polio vaccines to every nook and corner of the country. The aim was not to let any child go unvaccinated. Initially, the programme didn’t succeed because of the inability of the vaccine to fight against polioviruses. This led to the development of ultra anti-poliovirus oral vaccine which was not only more efficient in eradicating and preventing the spread of viruses, but was also cost efficient. 

The second biggest problem that the campaign faced was in its execution part due to the shortage in numbers of health care volunteers. As the campaign required pan-India penetration, therefore more volunteers were required. For this, many NGO’s and self help groups were contacted to get the required no. of volunteers for the job. Slowly and steadily, the movement picked up across the country. 

Also, the regular funding of the campaign by govt. helped in sustaining it over the period of time. Bringing in Mr. Amitabh Bachchan as the brand ambassador of the campaign helped in creating awareness among people about polio. 

It has been more than 3 years since last case of polio was recorded. India was accorded “Polio-free” status by WHO a week back. This success of India should be rightly attributed to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 12.3 million volunteers, 2.1 million supervisors, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and everybody associated with the campaign over the last two decades. This is an achievement we can surely be proud of.

Right to education Act enacted on paper, but where is the implementation

When Right to Education (RTE) Act was enacted with much fanfare in 2010, it seemed for some time that India is heading towards a moment that will turn out to be the path-breaking moment in India’s history. But, all those illusions got swashed away within a year of its enactment. The act, which was passed initially with the envision of constitutionally conferring the right to education to all the children between 6 to 14 years of age irrespective of their economic background, has failed miserably in the last 4 years since it has been penned down and voted-in in the parliament. The act, which was expected to drastically improve the literacy rate in the country by allowing children from weaker section of the society to have free access to education and controlling the drop-out rates from the elementary schools, hasn’t been able to live up to the expectations.



So, the first question which immediately comes to our mind is that why has the act failed in delivering the desired results/output. Yes, the answer is simple: ineffective implementation of the act.  But, we need to dig further into it to find the valid reasoning behind the ineffective implementation. One of the prominent reasons which come out is the government’s lack of efforts in improving the quality of education given in govt. and govt. sponsored schools. There has been literally no emphasis on the quality of education meted out to the students in these govt. schools. Further, hiring of incompetent and below standard faculty and teachers and no regular monitoring of their work by an institutional body have been cited as the reasons for the abysmal standard of education in govt. schools.



  The act also mandated that 25% of the seats in the private schools must be reserved for the students coming from financially weaker sections of the society and the expense of all those students would be borne out by the government. But, the lack of clarity on the issue between the govt. and the schools on how and when the schools would be paid back prevented many schools from reserving the seats. And, those that reserved seats last year still haven’t been reimbursed, which has made schools more apprehensive of the functionality of the whole process. The govt. needs to understand that it’s not the duty of private schools only to provide good quality education. Public schools need to function in tandem to achieve the larger goal. On the other hand, the lack of proper information and guidance for the parents about the act haven’t helped the cause either.

The act also targeted at reducing child labour and preventing children from turning into street beggars by putting them into a process of schooling. But, the desired penetration in these matters hasn’t been achieved as child labour and child beggars are still very much a grim reality in the society. The essence of the RTE act has been lost in these 4 years of transition. The govt. needs to come out with a much clear and comprehensive process to tackle these issues. Proper guidelines on reimbursements to private schools, establishing of help centres for trouble shooting the queries of the parents regarding the act, collaborating with various NGO’s to get children out of the vicious circle of child labouring and begging, hiring competent and qualified faculty for the govt. schools. These are just some of the steps which can give a good head start for proper implementation of the act in coming years. Hope it happens as “education” has the power to change the phase of this nation.

32 Rs (0.5 dollars) a day : Not sufficient enough to survive

32 Rupees (0.5 dollars) a day per person, that’s India’s poverty line benchmark for Urban areas. Yes, you heard it right, that’s the value which is used by the govt. of India to determine and decide who is poor in India and who is not. The benchmark reduces even further to 28 Rupees a day per person for the people living in rural areas. These are the figures and benchmarks released by the planning commission of India, which consists of highly educated scholars and experts, after considerable deliberations and discussions. But even despite the sound professional dexterity and knowledge of the members of planning commission of India, these poverty line benchmarks don’t look plausible in reality.



The poverty line benchmarks released by the planning commission of India for urban and rural areas seem to be long drawn away from the existing reality on grounds. While these nonsensical and irrational benchmarks don’t mean anything to poor people who are constantly suffering being deprived of the basic necessities of life, the appalling ignorance of the existing realities by the govt. adds to the travesties and sufferings of the poor. These figures are plain numbers, even going to an extent of mocking their penurious state of conditions. The govt. might pat its back for reducing poverty to 21.46% of the population in 2012-13 from 37.47% in 2004-05 but the real picture is completely opposite of what is being portrayed and shown. Constant depreciation of rupee and high inflation have led to the decline of the purchasing power of rupee in the domestic market. Purchasing power of any currency tells us about how much more money does a consumer need to spend to buy a particular product in the market as compared to the purchase of the same product in the previous years. With considerable decline in the purchasing power of rupee in the last 20 years, people are forced to shed out more money to purchase products of basic needs like food grains, water, electricity. The planning commission of India should have raised poverty line benchmark considering these factors to provide a proper reflection of the effects of inflation but that didn’t happen.


Also, 28 or 32 Rs aren’t even enough to purchase food for a person, so what about the health, education and other basic needs. Planning commission should also consider providing these necessary basic services to people while calculating poverty line benchmarks. India's poverty line benchmark is around 0.5 dollars which is 2/3 rd less than the international poverty line benchmark of 1.5 dollars a day per person. Hence, it is necessary and incumbent upon the govt. and planning commission to reconsider their process and method used in calculating these benchmarks to help poor get the benefits of being below the poverty line. The concept of giving benefits to the people lying below the poverty line came into picture to help the extremely backward and poor section of the society. Right now, with India’s absurd poverty line benchmarks, many needy poor people are missing out on these benefits, thereby making it difficult for them to survive. We hope that govt. wakes up from its slumber and some sanity prevails.

“Half of the homes in world’s largest democracy have cellphones, but no toilets”

India, which boosts to be the world’s largest democracy, has a pitiable record when it comes to providing basic amenities to its people to let them live a respectful life. Half of the country’s population is devoid of the basic necessities of life like good quality food, clean drinkable water, electricity, proper medical and sanitation facilities, and competent education system. Numbers are staggering and highly shocking when it comes to the availability of the sanitary facilities for the people living in the country.


 Half of the homes in the country don’t have toilets as people are forced to defecate outside in the open, leading to some serious health issues. This open defecation of human excreta not only leads to the generation of harmful bacteria and germs, which further result in serious health problems among people but also degrades the quality of the soil and pollutes the environment. According to a recent UN report, India constitutes more than 60% of the world’s population who defecate in the open. It boggles our mind beyond a permissible limit when we consider that most of these toilet deprived homes have access to cellphones. What’s the use of these cellphones when people are forced to excrete in the open, violating the sanctity of women and letting people especially children die because of the infection induced from open defecation.


The situation becomes more and more grim as you go into the interior regions of the country. These open defecations give birth to manual scavenging, which is considered as the worst form of punishment. Despite the stringent anti- manual scavenging act passed by the govt. of India, manual scavenging is still very much persistent in certain parts of the country. Ineffective implementation of the anti-manual scavenging act and the absence of the comprehensive policies from the govt. for providing free sanitary services to the poor have been cited as the main reasons for the inability in putting an end to manual scavenging.


In the last two years, things have started to improve as ministry of rural development has become more proactive in handling issues related with sanitation. A campaign “no toilets, no bride” was started last year by the minister of rural development, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, where he exhorted women living in rural areas not to marry in families where there were no toilets. More emphasis is now being given to the issues related with sanitation and the need for toilet equipped homes. Bringing in Ms. Vidya Balan as the brand ambassador for the rural development has helped in promoting the cause further.


This changed attitude on the part of our govt. augurs well for India, who for long has suffered with sanitation related issues. India’s sanitation and toilets statistics will continue to raise stinks unless some drastic measures are taken up. In this 21^st century, India continues to lag behind in 17^th century when it comes to providing sanitation facilities for the people. We all hope that these statistics change soon.

Bullying – a reflection on the failure of Indian educational system

Yesterday, a bizarre and highly deplorable event took place in one of the leading schools of the nation. The “bullying” of a 7^th standard EWS student by seven 6^th grade students at the modern public school, located in the vasant vihar area of New Delhi shook the nation and raised many questions regarding the quality of the education given out to the children in India. The barbarity of the event was so much that it would have made even the hard skinned stoics emotional. What is more troubling and shocking is that the incident happened in one of the better schools in the country, with children who were involved in the incident all hailing from good family backgrounds. “Bullying” at its worst form.



So the first question which comes to our mind is “what actually bullying is”. “Bullying” is basically the use of force, power, threat to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively imposing domination over others. People who indulge in bullying have a tendency to insert their behaviour over others resulting in domination which can lead to mental, physical, verbal harassment of the victim. Bullying over a period of time becomes a habbit and hence presents a danger to the society. Bullying if continued uninhibited over a period of time can lead to mental illness, resulting in psychopaths. It inflicts injuries, not just physical but also mental, on the victims. The scars left by such incidences on the victim have a long lasting effect.




Bullying is not new to us. It has been there for decades and its degree of prevalence in schools, colleges, offices is just staggering and mind-boggling, but still no comprehensive policy has been framed by the govt. to counter its menace. Our judicial system doesn’t even recognize bullying as an offence. The presence of bullying in society reflects on the failure of our educational system. It’s the fault of both schools and parents. Too much focus by the teachers in schools on getting marks leads to less peer interaction, which hinders the development of soft skills in children. Children find it difficult to cope with these situations alone as they don’t find proper support from parents. It’s the duty of the parents to interact with their children and help them learn the art of interaction. The children involved in the incident yesterday lacked even the basic manners. You can’t blame only school for that. Parents need to take the blame for it as they have failed to inculcate the basic manners in their children. Parents and schools need to work in collaboration with each other to help their children from becoming a bully. A comprehensive policy by the govt. would also help in reducing the menace of bullying. We all somewhere or the other have suffered from bullying. It’s the time we put an end to it.

Hunger Kills : Don't we know it !!

One day, sitting idle on my couch, I was going through a magazine. As I was flipping the pages of the magazine, I saw an article with a headline "WHAT'S THERE IN NUMBERS".


Instantly, I replied to myself, we need NUMBERS to measure the value of anything in this world, be it weight, height, temperature, price etc. Numbers form the basis of measurement. Without Numbers, we wouldn't be able to scale anything. A common answer to a common question. But I still wasn't able to decipher why the author has used such a common title for an article. With that, I decided not to waste my time reading that article. I didn't know at that time that these three words will change my thinking forever.



A few days back, I saw the Global Hunger Index Report 2012 released by International Food Policy Research Institute. I was completely shocked and bed stricken to see India lagging behind at 65th spot out of 79 countries in global hunger index, even behind our neighbours Pakistan, Srilanka, Myanmar, Nepal. I wouldn't count China here because it would be a foolishness on my part to even compare 2nd ranked China with lowly 65th ranked India. India and China aren't comparable in any sense. But, people still compare them, don't know why ?


Leaving this China topic behind, let's move forward. I was not only shocked by the number but it was bewildering for me. After reading the report, the only sentence which came to my mind was "what's there in numbers". For the past decade or so, we Indians have clamored about our growth story. We have taken pride in being one of  the top five fastest growing nations of the last decade. An average growth of about 8% p.a. may have been impressive but what's the point of achieving such high numbers when the growth is not inclusive. The needy, poor in our country are feeling left out because they haven't been benefited by this illusionary growth story. We have been so mesmerized by these growth numbers that we  have overlooked the plight of poor in this country. We haven't even dared to look whether the benefits of this growth are reaching the desired people or not. Poor people, especially children are dying because of hunger. According to a data, in India, around 6 million people have died out of hunger in the last decade or so. These are staggering numbers. Don't we Humans know, Hunger is the worst method to die from. Let all of us come forward and make efforts for a better, hunger free India. Hope never dies.!!!