RICH GETS RICHER POOR GETS POORER

It is not just the dialogue uttered by SUPERSTAR Rajnikanth in his forthcoming film “SIVAJI-THE BOSS” but to an extent it is the state of our country. One group is arguing that Indian economy is booming. The other group argues that rich is getting richer and poor is getting poorer. Then, which is true?

10–15 years back, middle class family struggled to run their family. Now they have excess money, which they don’t know how to spend. Consumerism was rare 15 years back but now it is on rage. The rise of these middle class families is due to their education, boom in IT sector and globalization.15 years back our society had many lower middle class families but now most of them have become upper middle class. In that regard our economy is booming. It is the scenario in metros and some two-tier cities only.

What about villages and smaller towns? What about slums in cities? Most of the people in these areas are not well educated and not in IT related field. Most of them are in agricultural and its related activities. Most of the marginal farmers are facing huge losses. And most of them are over dependent on agriculture and not looking for alternative avenue. Policy of SEZ, skyrocketing of real estate prices and price rise of essential goods (which all are results of globalization) are really affecting poor people.

There is a need for optimizing the growth in agriculture. Implementing PURA (Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas) in large scale is also very important. As our honorable President Abdul Kalam often suggests we need more entrepreneurs especially from villages and smaller towns. But what happening now is monopoly by large business houses and multi-nationals. I am not against individual growth but small and medium entrepreneurs should not get affected.

Because of globalization only we have got so many facilities and development. As of now we are only consumers. But we should market not the market. We should grow as producers. If we can achieve that than policy of globalization is indeed a success otherwise not.

RESERVATION

There is a huge debate over reservation in our country.

Arguments of the supporters of caste-based reservations:
1. Upper caste people have good grasping power. So non-upper caste people needs concession.
2. Upper caste people have dominated the society and enjoyed all the privileges exclusively for over 1000 years and it is turn of non-upper caste people to enjoy those privileges exclusively.
3. Non-upper caste people are majority in number and upper caste people are lesser in number.Hence reservation based on percentage of population which is high for non-upper caste people.

Arguments of the supporters of anti-quota reservations:
1. Survival of fittest. That is only meritorious candidates should be given preference.
2. Prestigious education and jobs are exclusively for upper castes.

Some of these arguments are put forward openly and some of them are hidden inside the mind by both these groups. I found arguments of both sides as unfair and not the right way to go. Some say that BC, SC and ST people of South India are educationally and socially prosperous compared to their counterparts in Northern India because of huge percentage of reservation. But this argument is completely untrue.

REASONS FOR SOCIAL & EDUCATIONAL UPLIFTMENT OF UNDER - PRIVILEGED PEOPLE
1. Efforts of Great KAMARAJ (KING MAKER). He introduced mid-day meal scheme to lure under – privileged students to take education. So many students took education without worrying about poverty.
2. Self-respect movement initiated by EV RAMASAMY (PERIYAR). He created self-belief among people of disadvantaged section of society that they are second to none. They also have equal rights in society. So all section of people are aware of their rights and privileges.
3. Mushrooming of Engineering colleges. Most of the engineering colleges have most seats vacant. So there are more professionals. But this factor also produces under-skilled candidates.

A year before I came across two articles in “The Hindu” which dwelt on reservation. So far it is the best method practically I have ever come across. But I have some differences with those suggestions. I am completely against caste factor in reservation.

Meeting the challenge of Mandal II
Reservation — an alternative proposal

HOW RESERVATION SHOULD BE?

Some people suggest that reservation should be based on economic status of people. But I feel it is not the right criteria. Economic status of the people change with time and tide. It should be based on following factors neither on caste nor economic status.

1. Parental education & profession. Children of well-educated parents (for e.g. Father is a MBA graduate and working as Financial Consultant. Mother is a ME graduate and working as Lecturer in College) should be barred from using reservation irrespective of his/her caste. On the other hand children of less educated parents (for e.g. Father is SSLC and working as an accountant in temple. Mother is V standard Passout and working as laborer in Appalam or Pappad making industry) should get reservation even if he/she is upper caste.
2. Type of schooling. Students studying in Government Corporation School should get preference in reservation over students studying in sophisticated private schools.
3. Rural/Urban. Students studying in rural regions should get priority in reservation over students studying in City school. Already there is rural quota. But whatever information I have it is limited only to schools in village Panchayats. Instead of classifying just rural and non-rural it can be classified as three or four categories (for e.g. A - schools in cities, B - schools in towns, C - schools in villages, students from C category gets first preference).

Besides these following affirmative actions must be taken:
1. Compulsory education Upto higher secondary level must be given to all students. Only if one has passed higher secondary education one can enter college.
2. Under privileged students must be given special training in English language (communicative) once they enter college. Unfortunately lots of technological things are invented by English speaking people in modern world and all business is communicated in English. Even with our own people we have to speak in English because of pluralistic languages existing in our country.

ISRO MAKES FIRST COMMERCIAL LAUNCH

Congratulations to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for making the first commercial launch of a foreign satellite through PSLV. ISRO had launched the Italian satellite, AGILE, through the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C8) on Monday. This satellite is designed to be used for astronomical purposes. The weight of this satellite is 352 kg. ISRO charged $29,000 per kg, it means ISRO gets approximately 42 crores of rupees for launch of this satellite. This significant event is a proof of India’s technological advancements especially in Space department. ISRO had already launched foreign satellites but they were smaller ones that were launched along with Indian spacecraft as the main payload. Earlier only the likes of US, Russia, China and France had this capability, now India has also joined them. We are still long way to go inorder to match them.

Report I – The Hindu
Report II – The Hindu

Foreign Payloads Launched by PSLV

ISRO has two launch vehicles to launch satellites. They are PSLV and GSLV. Before the advent of PSLV and GSLV we were dependent on foreign rockets especially Russian launch vehicles to launch our satellites.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV): It was designed to launch Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into Sun Synchronous Orbits (SSO). It can also launch small size satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV): It was designed to launch INSAT-type satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

VISWANATHAN ANAND – A CHAMPION FROM INDIA

Congratulations to Anand! The news of Anand becoming No।1 Chess player in latest FIDE ratings is great news for our country. His achievements have encouraged and inspired a whole lot of a generation to take Chess as a sport. His success in a sport dominated mostly by players from the countries of former Soviet Union is highly remarkable. We hope that he remains at this No.1 spot for long time and continue to achieve more success. Let us salute this GRAND MASTER!

Viswanathan Anand's Profile

WHO WAS OUR BEST PRIME MINISTER?

In my view Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao was the best Prime Minister India had ever produced. He may be charged with numerous corruption charges; still he was our best Prime Minister.

The factors that led to my decision are:

His governance. (Economic reforms and more). Without his initiation of economy reforms most of the youngsters would not be earning such huge money at young age. We would not have access to so many facilities: media, entertainment, health, education and many others. When he took over the reins of our country our economy was in very bad shape. He appointed Dr. Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister somewhere from wilderness. Rest is history.

No Prime Minister before him or after him had governed our country that well (Barring Mr. A. B. Vajpayee to an extent). Members of Nehru – Gandhi family became Prime Minister because of charisma, sycophant second line leaders and above all of them foolish belief of our public (I am very sorry to say this but that is the truth). Not because of their hard work or sacrifice.

He never indulged in petty politics. See Mr. Deva Gowda, Mr. V. P. Singh now. They are doing some political stunt now or then to capture some limelight. When his party isolated him Mr. Narasimha Rao never ventured into such cheap politics; he never started a new political party or gathered few old hands. He knew his strengths and weakness. He remained decent till his death. Though this point may sound irrelevant with this topic, but this quality of him gives a hint that he was clever and efficient. He knows what works and what not works for our country and him.

PS: Actually I wanted to present this article after analyzing and collecting some more information that would be more convincing. But what prompted me to write this article this early were Rahul Gandhi’s derogatory comments on Narasimha Rao and his government holding them responsible for Babri Masjid episode. I am writing this article not to analyze about Babri Masjid episode but to ascertain the fact that how great P. V. Narasimha Rao was.

CHANGE ELECTORAL LAWS: REPRESENTATION OF PEOPLE’S ACT

Restrict number of terms to maximum two
In USA and Srilanka head of the government has only two terms; i.e. George Bush can hold his office only for two terms (each term 4 years in US). But in India Mr. Nehru can rule for 17 years; Mrs. Indira Gandhi can rule for 15 years; Mr. Karunanidhi can rule for 14 years (still continuing). Is this real democracy? Remember, in India each term is for five years (one more year than US) for both provincial and national legislature. New ruler would definitely bring with him fresh ideas to govern our country.

Restrict number of constituencies contested by candidates to one
In our country we can see Mrs. Sonia Gandhi contesting in two constituencies and winning both. Then resigning one constituency; then there is re-election for that constituency; the final sufferer is tax paying common man; his hard earned money is wasted in conducting another election. Not only Mrs. Gandhi, we have many leaders across all political parties who had wasted people’s money. Mr. L. K. Advani, Mr. P.V. Narashimma Rao, Ms. Jayalalitha and Mr. Lalu Prasad are some prominent examples in the past.

Prevent Sitting Provincial Legislature member contesting National Legislature or vice versa
We can also see Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, a MLA, contesting for parliamentary elections while he was still a Chief Minister of UP. He had won that Parliamentary seat and then resigned it. Then there was re-election for that parliamentary seat; again people’s money was wasted.

Have Retirement age for MPs and MLAs
Only in India we can proud of achievement like oldest person to become Prime Minister. When Mr. Moraji Desai became Prime Minister, he created Guinness record for being oldest person to become Prime Minister. He was over 80 then. Most of the leading MPs and MLAs in India are over 70. Nobody should become MLA or MP after 70. I am not disgracing elderly people. I am only saying that their mind and body won’t be in best possible condition. I am not saying a youngster of 25 should become minister as comically suggested in few movies. A 45 or 55 year old can become an effective minister in a cabinet. But in Indian politics a 55 year-old is a youngster. Elderly politicians can definitely contribute to our country without contesting election. They can guide their party and our country.

Only members elected by People should be Ministers
Members of Rajya Sabha and Legislative council should be barred from becoming a minister in the cabinet. Only members elected by people through Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly should become ministers. But our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh himself is not elected by people.