Vox Populi Issue 254

VOX POPULI                                                                by                                                           S Kamat                                                                as                                                          Aam Admi                                             Issue: 254               Date: 29.10.2018                    skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com THERE WAS NO ISSUE OF VOX POPULI DATED 22.10.18 SINCE WE WERE AWAY TO KOLKATA FOR THE DURGA PUJA. Contents: 1. The India #meToo Movement Should Be Allowed To Die A Slow Death  2. Another Democratic Institution, The CBI  Falls 3. Nirmala Sitharaman Should 'Lead' The Nation On The Rafael Issue By Putting Out       A White Paper On It                 The India #meToo Movement Should Be Allowed To Die A Slow Death    The time honoured maxim of jurisprudence that an accused is to be considered not guilty until he/she is proven guilty seems to have been turned on its head when you assess the #meToo movement whether it is in Hollywood and the Western countries or in its '#meToo' version in  Bollywood and India. Based on a woman's complaint professional bodies and corporate entities seem to be taking cognisance of the complaint and are initiating action to debar and/or suspend those involved. The principle of natural justice wherein the accused needs to be heard is also given the go-by. Most of these complaints of sexual harassment, molestation and/or rape pertain almost to 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. There may not even be a shred of evidence to support the victim's case if it all it comes to court but the media and also the government seems to recognise these slanderous allegations as a fit case for action. Emboldened by such approaches there are many women coming forward with their #meToo stories, some concocted, some maybe true but the reading of the tales is a journey through soft porn. Anyone writing against these women are termed patriarchal or paternalistic and vilified. Consider the case of the accused in these cases who are established in their professions to various degrees and in the cases of some who are considered as leaders in their field and society at large. What are they to do when such accusations surface? It is difficult for them to address the media since the trend seems to be in favour of the accuser and the tendency is to get as much of the salacious details as possible. Moreover the incidents more than 10 years old have been lost in the passage of time. Where people cannot remember what happened yesterday, one wonders what credence should be given to incidents more than 10 years old. There is also the aspect of consensus in the incidents where if the act is between two consenting adults then there is no issue at all. So the only option for the accused is to take the legal route for redress as has been done in 2 of the more celebrated cases in this India #meToo movement. Now let us look at the other side of the coin, that of the accuser. These women for the furtherance of their careers or professions thought it fit to do whatever is required to get ahead, which particularly applies to the entertainment industry, and now looking back want to take revenge against those who they feel had slighted them or insulted them. Their actions have therefore nothing to with women's rights at large but remain individual grouses. Again women talking about about the paternalistic attitude of men are actually doing a disservice to the female gender and the women's rights movement by exposing their weakness. The #meToo movement in that sense is putting back the women's rights movement by decades and all because of some aberrated and disoriented women. Another insight that the #meToo movement has thrown up is that the media and society at large are sympathetic to women's causes  which is a good thing and it is time that women use this goodwill to further their position in our society and not waste this on frivolous and demeaning personal agendas. Concluding, the #meToo movement should be taken off the public radar and allowed to die its slow death in the law courts.                                                                                        Another Democratic Institution, The CBI  Falls   This government has with great consistency undermined the independence and functioning of the CBI as an institution. By trying to leverage and have its own men in position so that any investigations are moderated and guided to their advantage the working of the CBI has been compromised. Earlier the Supreme Court had called the CBI a 'caged parrot' but presently the analogy to a 'puppy on a leash' seems to be more apt with the two puppies in the current scenario barking at each other to seek positional and territorial advantage. The sad part is that the blame game between the two top officers of the CBI despite being played out in the public arena for months, the government refused to take cognisance of the issue and act in the matter. And when it did, in the scenario of a 'bull in a china shop' it went in for a midnight coup attracting widespread criticism of the action. For all its claims of being a decisive government, this incident with the CBI shows that the Narendra Modi led government seems to be overstretched in its ability to perform and prevarication in decision making is the order of the day. As for undermining the democratic institutions in the country, it started with the RBI running its course through the CEC, CVC, CIC and even the Supreme Court in the last few years. At this rate on the altar of the 'Gujarat model' of development and centralised decision making, Indian democracy is being eroded if not uprooted from its roots. This does not augur well for the country. What more can you expect when lumpen elements occupy the seats of governance whose perspectives are more to do with protecting themselves and surrounding themselves with a coterie of yes-men withnary a concern for the welfare of the people.                        Nirmala Sitharaman Should 'Lead' The Nation On The Rafael Issue                                             By Putting Out A White Paper On It   Our Defence Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman seems to be hand over fist into an acute attack of foot-in-the-mouth disease. Her last comment as reported in the papers is that the Congress and Rahul Gandhi are 'misleading' the nation in the Rafael deal. Now if the people in the know and who have all the access to the information on the deal prefer to act coy and obtuse about it, and in that sense refuse to take the 'lead' on the issue, is it not but natural that their opponents should 'mislead' the nation and try to seek political advantage from it. It is time therefore that the Defence Minister and her government come clean on the Rafael deal and put out a White Paper on how a 126 aircraft deal was reduced to 36 whatever compelling circumstances there may have been, whether proper procedures were followed in the decision making of this reduced need and the 'on-runway' price per plane decided originally and in the revised fly-away or fully built up new requirement of 36 planes. There is nothing confidential in this price and matters of national security are in no way compromised since no technical parameters are divulged including the weaponry on board which will come with each plane. Thus Nirmala Sitharaman without beating about the bush should put out a White Paper and 'lead' the nation on the Rafael issue.                                                            **************************

Vox Populi Issue 253

VOX POPULI                                    by                               S Kamat                                    as                              Aam Admi           Issue: 253                     Date: 15.10.2018    skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com Contents: 1. IL&FS Financial Travails & More Lessons Therefrom 2. Maneka Gandhi Should Appoint A High-Powered Committee To Go Into       The Rape Of The Girl Child  3. Goa Is In A Mess & It Is Only Goans Who Can Find A Solution To This                                   IL&FS Financial Travails & More Lessons Therefrom The IL&FS financial travails have been hogging the financial headlines for quite some time now.  The private sector Co. with its associates ran up a debt of a whopping Rs. 91,000 crores. The road-building arm of  IL&FS particularly borrowed about 27 times of its equity and with defaulting projects has required that NHAI take it over. Not only that the head of IL&FS was paying himself, albeit with sanction of the board of directors, a salary of close to Rs. 25 crores a year. With LIC holding 27% of the equity in IL&FS, our government has found it 'wise' to take over the Co. and nominated a new board of directors with Uday Kotak, the noted private banker, to lead the rescue of the ailing Co. The plea for this action is supposedly not only to protect the equity stake of LIC but as put out by the Finance Ministry to stop the NBFC sector particularly the Mutual Fund arm from collapsing. These are all very elevating motives but it essentially means that the common man's money or what is generally called 'public money' is being thrown to the dogs. The same thing is being done by writing off NPA's with PSB's. One can say there is no choice but to take such action and to justify it, but it is necessary to also take corresponding punitive measures against the board of directors of IL&FS and particularly its MD & CEO. The latter for not informing its lenders on time and more so for misinforming them about the likely debacle the firm was facing. Clearly he should be put behind bars which will set an example so that other firms in similar circumstances will be wary. What is happening now is that promoters and senior management people create financial problems and irregularities and then wash their hands off on the matter and seek legal protection by hiding behind their employment contracts or fly away abroad, fleeing the coop so to speak. This culpability should also be extended to bankers who should be charged for indiscriminate lending. When a Co. is already overloaded with debt there is no point in further lending. One is not sure how more loans are sanctioned when the lender is just not a single bank but a consortium of bankers in the case of large loans. There seems to be massive collusion between the lenders and the loanees with sweet deals probably being closed in between. In the hope of recovery, good money is being thrown against bad debt without any sense of caution compounding the problem and complicating it unnecessarily. Loans to small Cos. by the banking sector are given with excessive rigour while the same emphasis does not seem to be applied when loans are given to the large sector or known business groups. Caution is then thrown to the winds. This shows up the lopsided emphasis on target setting by financial institutions where the focus seems to be clearly on achieving high numbers rather than concentrate on the quality of lending and dispersing the profile of loans so that the risk to the lender is reduced. We are having in India one too many of financial scandals lately and it is time that the government and the RBI steps in to regulate the lending sector and brings some sense to it.           Maneka Gandhi Should Appoint A High-Powered Committee To Go Into                                             The Rape Of The Girl Child  Maneka Gandhi, Minister of Women & Child Development has announced the setting up of a 4 man panel of retired judges to probe the allegations that have emerged in what is called the India #meToo scandal which involves primarily established women in the entertainment field complaining of old sexual complaints against ageing film stars and celebrities to take out their dormant grievances. This movement is being dubbed as a battle of women for their rights. While the NCRB - National Records Crime Bureau  reports that every hour, 2 girls below the age of 18 were raped in India during 2016.  44% of kidnapping of girls in that year were from the same age group who are trafficked for labour and prostitution. For child rape, despite the increase in reported cases the conviction rate is low at around 28%. The disposal rates of cases are also low with the police able to clear only 64% of the cases. Such instances of child rape with killings are continuing to this day with increasing frequency. Just recently after the molestation and rape of an infant in Gujarat by a migrant worker from northern India thousands of migrants from that region had to flee the State after a major law and order situation that enveloped northern Gujarat. These victims of rape and sexual abuse come from the more economically deprived strata of our society. Do these victims not have the same rights as those claiming sexual attacks in the #meToo movement? Why has Maneka Gandhi not woken up to the fact of child rape in the country as on date and announced a panel to go into why these are happening and to put an end to it so that all our girl children are able to grow into mentally scar-free women? Even in matters of sexual attacks will we bend to the claims of privileged women while neglecting similar and in fact more grievous attacks which sometimes result in death against the poorer females in our society? The Minister should therefore immediately appoint a high-powered Committee to go into the causes of rape of the girl child and take steps to reduce its incidence on topmost priority.                Goa Is In A Mess & It Is Only Goans Who Can Find A Solution To This Goa is in a mess. It saddens one to say this. But it is the truth. You can question who is at fault but one must set the ball squarely in the Goan people's court. No amount of blaming one or the other, like the politicians or the import-from-Delhi bureaucracy or the out-of-State businessmen mostly North Indian or the bahelyos or the ghatis from across the Western ghats can be blamed for the situation that Goa is in today. The fact remains that the Goans have brought this situation upon themselves.  How one may ask? The unfortunate answer to that question is by being nice. By being pliable. By not speaking out. By not standing up for your rights. By allowing yourself to be used as a carpet to be walked upon. Goans by their very nature are friendly and helpful. And this trait has been exploited by the carpetbaggers who come to make their fortune in Goa known as the Dubai of India. That is why all Goans need to take a firm stand on their rights and beliefs and stick to them. The other matter that requires introspection is that possibly the long colonial rule of Portugal almost 400 years has left an indelible mark on the Goan character not necessarily that only of Christians but all Goans and broken their spine.  Take the recent example of the formalin in fish issue which has been dogging Goa since early July 2018. The latest on this is that we are likely to have foreign agencies certify the fish that we get. Why are we doing this? Do we not have confidence in our local testing agencies or worst case from the rest of the country that we have to think of seeking the help of foreign testing agencies? India calls itself a technical power and for testing fish we seek help from Japan or Singapore! In effect this decision speaks of two things. The first that our ministers  responsible for the decision are incompetent and the second is that the colonial mindset in us has not changed and we are still slaves to foreign influences as said earlier. One of the ministers present in the press conference where the foreign testing was announced was the first person who confused the initial testing of the fish in July 2018 by the FDA officials. Should he not have minded his own business? But we forget, he was actually minding his own business! Not only that we have had him say recently that Parrikar from Delhi should resolve the formalin in fish issue. This is the height of stupidity. What he cannot do here, how can Parrikar do from Delhi?  The formalin in fish issue can easily be resolved by clearly stating that Goa will allow only those fish trucks which carry a FDA certification from the State of origin of the consignment, otherwise the trucks will be sent back. This rule will apply to fish coming into Goa for consumption as also for fish processing and/or export. Fish in the markets will be tested additionally randomly by our own FDA and if found containing formalin the particular retailer and distributor will be black-listed. The retailers need to have documentation from their distributor if they are selling out-of-State fish. If our own ramponkars are selling the fish as a family business, the retailers involved should declare as such. This can be allowed to run for some time about a month and then if the majority of fish coming from outside is containing formalin then we should ban the export of fish from Goa to other States and also abroad so that the domestic needs are met. Within a maximum of 6 months you will see that the situation of formalin in fish is resolved since no one ultimately wants to risk his or her business. The principle underlying the above suggestion is that our ministers and authorities should not be wishy-washy in their decisions which leads to the people taking advantage of them like in the instance of no fish distributors registering with the FDA and then for namesake all registrations coming in a bunch which suspiciously could be from just one person and they should give confidence and support to our officials, in this case the FDA, to do their denominated job.  Here again considering that almost 3 months have passed on of the formalin in fish issue surfacing and there are still no clear signs of resolution. The same issue had come up in the States of Maharashtra, Orissa, Kerala and Bengal. All of them have sorted out the issue and moved on. It is only Goa that is still wallowing in it consistent with itssussegad approach. If such a lackadaisical attitude was adopted in other States then the people would have taken to the streets and ripped off the pants of the authorities. As said earlier this approach continues in the matter of having no Chief Minister for 6 months now. We are all sympathetic to Parrikar but Goa is suffering and one is sure he is  acutely conscious of that. Claims that the government is functioning 'normally' are false since we all know in the absence of a Chief Minister the other Ministers and the bureaucracy can keep the status quo going but cannot go beyond their mandate like resolving the mining issue, recruitments in government etc. etc. But the people take all this lying down reading in the papers once in a while when Parrikar will return which date keeps getting pushed back all the time. It is time to put a firm deadline for Goa to have a functional Chief Minister, Parrikar or anyone else.  One hates to say this but in the first few years when we came to Goa we started using the local red boiled rice, buying it from the bais in the Mapusa market. But over time we found the bais changing and one or two would disappear resulting in our not getting the rice we wanted. This local rice was also not regularly available from the grocer shops. This forced us to change to the standard raw rice. We used to buy this from a reputed and old grocer shop in Panjim. But we kept finding that the rice when hot would give off a bad smell like it was old. After a few months we asked the grocer about it and asked him to give us rice that would not have this smell. His response was - 'Sir, That's not possible. All the rice coming to Goa of this brand will smell because the suppliers from other States send only this rice to Goa. And that is because people here ask for this.' The only logical explanation for this could be is that Goans had got used to scarcity during Portuguese times and having to make do with what was available, this habit has not gone even after close to 60 years after Liberation. The suppliers from other States gleefully exploit this situation and send the worst goods into Goa knowing that the people will accept it. The same applies for vegetables for which Goa is dependent on Karnataka and Maharashtra from where the worst quality of vegetables stuffed with fertilisers and pesticides are sent here knowing that the Goans will not only accept it but pay a good price for it.  The time for doing all this is over and Goans need to become more demanding and show more spine by standing up for their rights be it governance, be it the environment, be it local customs and traditions, be it fish et al and get what they want. Goans need to understand that standing up for what one believes in does not mean that you cannot be nice. That is what is called the steel fist covered with a velvet glove, which idiom Goans need to emulate.                                                        *************************

Vox Populi Issue 252

                                                                      VOX POPULI                                           
                                                                               by
                                                                         S Kamat
                                                                                as
                                                                         Aam Admi
                                                     Issue: 252                     Date: 08.10.2018    
                                skamatblog.blogspot.com or aamadmivoices.blogspot.com             

Contents:

1. Narendra Modi's Hopes For A Nobel Peace Prize

2. India's #meToo Moment 

3. India In Circa 2018

                                Narendra Modi's Hopes For A Nobel Peace Prize

Our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi seems to be angling for the Nobel Peace Prize, after getting the UN Champions of The Earth award. His plank for aiming at the Peace Prize are the Jan Dhan bank accounts which identifies financial nclusion in the world's largest democracy notwithstanding the fact that  a large number of such accounts are lying inoperative and those that are valid are being massively misused like during the Demonetisation times. Then the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan along with the newly launched sanitation programs which form the basis for the UN Champions Of The Earth award.  The latest in Modi's armoury along with the earlier two to aim at the Peace Prize is the National Health Plan launched recently which though very ambitious in scope is not supported by adequate budgets and financial resources. The current allocation of funding for the health plan will only give a measly Rs. 20 per capita for the covered population. Talk of a gas-filled balloon this is the biggest. Dramatic in scope and intent but all hot air inside! Aspirations and ambitions are all right but these need be supported by fact and that is where Modi's claim to achievement falls far too short. Modi's thinking must be that if Barrack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing why should the Nobel Prize Foundation not consider his claim.

But the Nobel Prize management maybe anticipating Modi's nomination or because of its own internal problems is re-thinking whether they should consider altogether dropping  the awarding of Nobel Prizes from 2019 and pass it on to another agency. The reason behind this is the scandal surrounding Jean Claude Arnault who connected through his wife to the Nobel Foundation and has been recently sentenced to 2 years in prison for raping and sexual abuse charges brought against him by some 18 women. He was also the reason why the 2017 Nobel Prize of Literature was not announced and why the 2018 Literature Prize  may not be announced. With this scandal there are many of the nominees on the Nobel Prize board who are generally members for life who have relinquished their positions. This has led to the erosion of the reputation and credibility of the institution which is making the Foundation seriously review its program of announcing the Nobel Prizes.

So much then for Narendra Modi's hopes for a Nobel Peace Prize from the original Foundation! 

                                            
                            India's #meToo Moment

When the world celebrates by giving the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to 2 crusaders who have been working against sexual violence in war-torn areas, we have privileged women in India raising their voices in a #meToo movement when India's women and female children, minors and infants are fighting against rape in a war zone kind of situation in the country generated by their male counterparts. Those who are talking up until now in India's #meToo movement are women who are comfortably placed economically or at the top of their professions and who are venting their grievances more in a vengeful mode than anything else. It would have been better if these women had raised their grouses at the time when the incidents occurred and sought redress then. If these women had talked about rape in our society considering that some of their voices are heard in the media it would have been a greater service to the country. Postscript: The extent of the problem of rape can be understood from the unrest now prevailing in northern Gujarat where migrant workers and their families are being attacked by locals and they are leaving the State in large numbers after an alleged rape of a 14 month old baby by a migrant worker. Where these women in Bollywood should have protested against the depiction of women in Indian cinema they are airing their personal idiosyncrasies and exposing the psychological faults in their characters. Rape and 'item numbers' are a staple of our cinema which are watched by audiences, the women in silence while the slavering predatory single male comes out of the cinema looking for  targets and he seizes the most vulnerable of the female gender, minors and infants, and satisfies his lust. One is not saying that cinema is not the only reason for the rise in incidence of rape in the country but it is one of the significant  factors why rape happens. These Bollywood actresses who are taking pride in launching a #meToo movement in India should introspect about their actions and see if their voice can be used to improve and make safer the lot of their kind rather than drive their own personal and selfish agendas. 

                           India in Circa 2018

The Sunday morning headlines on 30th Sept 2018 made one want to shake one's head and confirm that we were fully awake and that all this was happening in our country, India. In Goa the papers headlines screamed that a Christian man's body kept in the mortuary of the Govt Medical College had been inadvertantly cremated as an unclaimed body with other such bodies and the body of a Hindu was found in the particular mortuary slot. Simple logic would say that a Christian was cremated and a Hindu was offered for burial.

Then national headlines, blared out that an American style cop killing had taken place late in the night in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar when an Apple executive accompanied by his lady colleague whom he was proceeding to drop in his car was gunned down by the police as he had refused to stop the car when the 2 policemen had asked him to stop.

This is India, my friend, in Circa 2018, where common people cannot go about their lives without undue interference from the police and even in death they are not respected for the faith that they profess.

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