The Failed Nation Theory of Development

The Failed Nation Theory of Development - There is numerous definition of development based on the philosophy of the social scientists, but the most prominent were described by the professions who were deciding the fate of the nation. The political class with its objective to propagate their thought till they are in power as every thing is for the national development. Till they attain the position of opposition its failure of the development remarked mostly in the discourse for getting power in next election.

But the parties which came to power after 60 years of the nation history, and being part of the active opposition for three decades, now finds very difficult to take it forward. There idea is to reject the past with its complete trace of development history. The political discourse now a days has moved towards projecting India as nation failed to achieve any thing during past 60 years (a mere political context). The agenda of the earlier parties in power was never acceptable even though its scripted ditto by the current ruling alliance. The leaders were quick to select the points of disagreement but later found nothing can be found justified whether its, rural India, urban, agriculture, defense, foreign policy, finance etc. they found the 60 years of history must be shed to give rise to new India.

As if we have entered into the royalty the end of one dynasty saw the rise of new and changed the direction of the development flow. The groups which were rejected by the political commentators have nothing to do with freedom of India, is now seeded to power with more stronger nation concept. The believers and non-believers concept of political ideologies are promoted with the tizzy cocktail of captialist frame of development. The ruling party now wants to select and change the system one by one for the national development with very profoundly believe in the failed system of development.

Albiet the theory for the development and means or methods remains same it would be only time which would converge two political thought which might talk to integrate India with rest of world. The pain and gain of the citizens now depends upon their voting pattern, the 2016 election like 2014 may not be land mark when the change happened after 60 years of political dominance. The current ruling party in now challenged within two year. What is there in India's DNA politically is non-alligned to an ideology where there is maximum diversity which political parties urge to unite. The plural character of nation is being brought down to desire for singular frame to worship 'Bharat'. The ideal and ideologies have changed but whether the citizens who voted them to power also changed? Do not know. When the 10,000 British men can rule India for long a handful of political leaders ranging from 500-2000 committed leaders can dominate Indian political landscape.

What is expected for the leaders who try to rule (rather to serve) in democracy? A fan following who belive in the character of development, When majority were made to believe in 'failed' nation theory the lack of continuity is expected, But this would also associate the political unrest and change of sub-systems and non-cooperation from the state who do not believe in ideologies of the party who is running the national development agenda. How difficult it would be agree in future?

If there is no plan what you review? Promises are not real for Indian Government

The rejection of Planned Development of the country by the new government since 2014, has resulted in allocation of budget to departments and state based on the sourced knowledge. The NITI Ayog the renamed and totally new version of policy making has made poor progress in understanding the needs of country. It has selectively picked the points based on the party Manefesto rather than working paper by experts. The masters voice is loud and clear to the babus and experts in Ayog (ex-employee's of Planning Commission) to follow the new change  to suit the political bosses.

The series of programs floated has no serious basis, or re-worked old programs or simply renamed, an political excercise on the behest of party in power. The plan periods would be lapsed in 2017, before be see the end of Nehruvian era. May be the birth of market economy with India slated to poise to lead the Asia with more investments, flow of money, able -skilled people, ease of doing business etc. But whether the country can look inwards into the problem of Agriculture, Market, Urbanization, Water, Environment, Climate Change etc which are global concern. The fundamental shift in Macro economics and political think is still to be directed and questioned by those who are running it. The higher education institutes, experts and market leaders are supporting the current agenda as they had supported earlier agenda. No particular school of thoughts holds point since we are slated to follow the leader.

The development track or the world community is watching the change in India silently, knowingly well its shortfall in dealing with social, infrastructure and economic issues. They want to control the Indian economy and time is right now to enter and convince the political bosses. What PMO during UPA-II cannot do due to call for 'inclusive growth' where the rights based approach was adopted by the policy makers. Now the current government is preparing the grounds for big bang reform with expected investments, flow of funds  and hopes into Indian economy. Whether these would also enhance the risks, stop social funding or remove the subsidies from majority etc. can be debated in next phase of govt.

Two years have passed with drastic change in plan system, and entry of market is awaited, it would be too late it does not kick up by this year end. Lets hope that we sense the market well, and desires of people who feels government has failed them by not understanding their needs of hunger, unemployment, poverty and agriculture. 

Remove Corruption, Erase Rural -Urban Divide, Face Energy Crisis and many more visionary is no more...Prof. Kalam ends his lecture to youth of India

Prof. Kalam is no more and today when the country would be remembering one last time on the day of his last rites before 24 x 7 media shifts attention to another story being build up. Its fate the same day two persons from India being laid to rest from same community. One being, teacher and another a terror supporter and actor. One hanged till death another smiled at death and left in peace.

Last 15 years since India came to know about Dr. Kalam he served as President, he spreads his wings to the youth to forward his vision for India. Though year 2020 is just five year away we are still hoping for some miracle. Actions of the youth to fight corruption, reduce rural -urban divide and facing energy crisis has become the 'Sarkari' mission. The youth is de-linked and asked to train themselves to contribute to growth which are going to damage the very concern expressed by Prof. Kalam.

Though teachers in the nation are respected and have given maximum knowledge there are industrial giants have ridiculed the talent of the youth. The ignited mind as expressed by our late president, Shri Kalam have been concerned about the fate of nation, but did not find the driving force with in the political systems. The 'Anna' movement did show the power of youth where the political leadership successfully divided and ridiculed the movement later raised the same issues to get the power in national government. The power of intellectuals to convinced the political class and bureaucracy have reduced to jibes occasionally at them.

Today not much can be written on the issues that have concerned the generations, the nation needs to rise and reduce the debate towards the 'development politics' as great teacher Dr. Kalam wanted and was close to his heart. The scientific community concerned about the growth of sciences, and concerned about the earth must come together to cherish and nurture the wishes of the departed soul. Though never met the gentleman from Rameshvaram, its obvious that Dr. Kalam did inspire a whole generation of youth in 1990 till 2015 for the selfless service to nation. His earlier avatar as missile man or ISRO scientist must have been very hard-way of learning, a scientist who served the nation not only through his works but also inspired must get a peace while letting us get aspired to work hard and serve the nation. Goodbye ....Sir..

A tale of two cities by CSE, New Delhi

I could not resist to relay story by CSE, New Delhi worth reading by fellow planners, Thanks to them..

EDITORIAL: A tale of two cities 
by Sunita Narain
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I travelled to two different cities in two different states last week—Indore and Guwahati. I came back with images identified by common distinctions: piles of garbage and glitzy new shopping malls. Is this our vision of urban development? There is no question that cities are imploding; growth is happening faster than we ever imagined. Construction is booming and expansion is gobbling agricultural land.

But the quality of life is no better. In most parts there is traffic, dust, air pollution and most of all the chaos of unplanned growth. Road expansion is eating up lines of shady trees—in Guwahati I saw the most majestic trees hacked down mercilessly. The city’s lungs are going, and so are its sponges, as waterbodies are making way for buildings. In Indore its residents will tell you that the names of the colonies are the names of the lakes they are built on. In Guwahati, the airport has been built by killing the grand Deepor beel. First a road was built (obviously without culverts to channelise the water), then as the waterbody died, it was filled to undertake new construction. This year, as always, Guwahati airport was flooded and air traffic disrupted.

The two cities are different ecosystems, so they should have had different water and waste issues. One is located in the relatively dry Malwa plateau and the other in the high-rainfall region on the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra. But both cities have acute water stress, even as rain leads to swamping of cities, disrupting life and destroying property. Both cities have no water culture. Both are drowning in their waste.

Indore, because of its location, had a rich tradition of lakes. Rain water was harvested and stored in structures, which recharged groundwater. Then, in 1977, the city brought Narmada water from some 110 km to the city. Indore should have had enough to drink and to swim. But 35 years later, the water has still not reached all distribution pipelines. Over 50 per cent of the 172 million litres per day of water it sources is lost in distribution, which means there is far more costs but far less water to supply. The city water utility has no money to repair and extend its water system. It spends all it has and more in just electricity costs of bringing the water. Politicians are vying with each other to bring the water from the Maheshwar dam. The recent jal samadhi by the Maheshwar dam-displaced has met with enormous anger from Indore’s power elite. They say they need the dam’s water at all costs. They do not care if the people, whose land has been submerged by the dam, have not received compensation or been resettled.

The same power elite never demand systems to deal with the sewage they flush out of their homes. In Indore, the sewage system was constructed in 1936 at the time of the Holkars. Independent Indore has added to it insignificantly. The bulk of the sewage pours into its rivers, Khan and Saraswati, and Piliyakhal Nullah, untreated. It forgets that the Khan pollutes the Kshipra; the main water source of the neighbour, Ujjain.

Guwahati is no different. When I went in early October, floods were still ravaging the city. This was the third pulse of flooding, which began in early June. Residents explained that the intensity and duration of floods had made life impossibly difficult. They also spoke of desperate water shortages in this region of plenty. Worse, life-giving water is now the cause of diseases—death by dengue fever was top news in Guwahati.

This is when both cities have options to do things differently. They are yet to build all their homes, roads and water and sewage systems. They can execute a plan, which allows them to modernise but with quality of life intact and even better. This requires not to want to grow in the way Delhi, Mumbai or any other “old-growth” city has.

For instance, they should not repeat the mistake of allowing fleets of cars to take over their roads. Indore was an enlightened city to plan for a bus-based future. Some years ago it invested in new buses, rationalised routes, created systems for efficient operation and put GPS in place to track and inform customers. Now cost of bus fuel is up, fares have not been revised and buses are losers. Still the majority of the city population rides or walks, even though the city’s footpaths are long gone. Indore is now building a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor. It has a many foreign and Indian consultants to design the system but the people of Indore have no idea what is being proposed and why BRT is important. So they already hate it.

Guwahati’s footpaths are gone as well, taken over by mounds of garbage. The city has taken the route of its bigger cousins. It has put the task of garbage disposal out to a concessionaire, who, it hopes, will sweep the city clean. It does not. Instead, Guwahati could collect, segregate and compost garbage at the household level. It could reserve areas in colonies for environmental services. This way it would not have to first collect and then transport the waste. It would not have to live in filth.

In the end Indore and Guwahati will be the creations of their people. The only question is whether they will be dreams or nightmares. 

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The dance of capital in Globalised world continues..

The billionare lists prepared with much funfare world over, has made true joke of the present economic crisis in the US and Eurozone. The capitalists continue to maximise their wealth not loosing sleep over the present crisis. The recent news about Hindujas Manson in UK and million dollar, CEOs and professionals salaries in top companys would make the rest of world and country envy about their position. Its given same explaination that these neo-rich work harder to have earn their rights to encash their labour, the maximum of ownership even in this era of public companies not being corrected. The capturing of the wall street in US by commoners is representation of the growing antithesis about the march of capital. But these efforts in the US can not be equalled to what is happening in Egypt or Libya. At least they had targetted the persons who not only cornered the money but has dominated their life ever. The new capitalists also dominates but through its art and science of capturing the market, this would often create and positive sense. People in general are not averse to these, only they become jealeous for the targets capital which they themselves would not be able to acheive.

India, has also thrown the billionare club and more so is joining, some by their right while they own (??) a large public enterprise and some by their might. Among such is the liquor barronm Mr. Mallaya refuses to be mowed down by present aviation crisis, would bend the governments to facilitate his exit from the situation. It is clear that they have mismanaged their economic interests in businesses, would now force the government of India to garner more funds from the across the world, thus inviting the MNC to take over. Why such bending of rules or facilitating them is evident, ya we all know they run the government in proxy.

Capital has helped the political Class. They have printed hoardings, put politicians on charted flights to world trip, played in casinos to encash their fortunes, helped most of them to open Swiss Bank account. Why would then they keep silence on the any wrong doing by fleecing the consumers, land owners, financial institutions and governments at local level. They do not see existance of city government, only interact with the PMs and head of state. Their art of negotiation with the government is immense, as if they belong to different breed and have special citizenship status in country.

A normal citizen would have end number of difficulties in getting into the government headquarters whereas these neo-capitalists would sit in their offices, car and residences just because they belong to their place. Rest do not matter.

Water v industry: where is the question? (by Sunita Narain)

Some hundred people, men and women, were gathered on the hill. Many more, I could see, were trudging up. Their faces were resolute. I asked why they were opposing the cement plant. Their answer was simple: “We cannot eat cement.” “But the plant will bring you employment and prosperity,” I said. The reply this time, with a touchof irritation, was: “We have our fields and now with the water in the tank we have good produce. We are not rich like you but we have food to eat.” I persisted, “But your land is not being taken away to build the plant. The government says it has only allocated village grazingland and wasteland to build the factory.” Their anger spilled out.

“Can you see the water in front of you?” I looked at the vast body of

water stretching as far as the eye could see. “This Samadhiyala bhandara (reservoir) was built a few years ago by the government. It changed our lives as our fields, which gave us one crop, now give us two, even three. Now government has given this water body to the factory.We will not allow this.” Soon cries filled the air: “We will give up our lives but this factory cannot be built.”

>From the hill, I could see the factory foundations being laid. It was in the middle of the lake, its boundary walls stretching into the water. How could this happen?

The 1.91-million-tonne-per annum cement factory with coke over and captive power plants, being built by detergent major Nirma, is in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. The land allocated to the factory by the state government is categorised as grazing and wasteland in revenue records. It is for this reason, when the Gujarat High Court was hearing the petition of the farmers, government argued that since the land was not listed as a water body it had the right to allocate it to industry. No protection was needed because technically there was no water body on this land.

Why? Some 10 years ago, this region at the edge of the Arabian Sea was in trouble; agriculture was in distress and farmers impoverished. Each year as farmers drilled into the ground for water the seawater would enter the water below the land. Soon wells turned saline. Crops withered and even the size of coconut shrunk. The then state government came up with a big idea. Why not embank the rivers that bring freshwater into the sea, creating reservoirs, which would check advance of salinity and also provide irrigation for crops.

In 1999, the district collector of Bhavnagar allotted the land classified as grazing and wasteland to the executive engineer of the salinity control division of the district to build the Samadhiyala bandhara on the Shensuri river. In 2000, the earthen dam of 1,630 metres was built. It submerged 319 hectares (ha). A reservoir was built but its land use in government records was not changed.

The reservoir changed lives. After it three more such water bodies—Kalsar, Nikol and Malan—have been built. The water stretches some 40 km along the coast, providing a barrier between the land and the sea.

The structures are so important to people that they have invested personal funds in their repair and strengthening. Earlier this year people paid voluntarily to lay a pipeline over a kilometre to connect the water bodies so that the overflow of one lake can be channelised to another. They protect the catchment and have also built check dams
on streams that bring water to the reservoir. The result is for all to see. During my visit in mid- December, well after the monsoons, the reservoir was brimming. Now battle lines have been drawn to protect this source.

First the state government and industry denied the very presence of the water body. The environmental impact assessment, used to grant clearance to the project, says the plant is on barren land. It does not mention the rivers that surround the site, bringing water to the reservoir. It does not even acknowledge the check dams, which the
company has vandalised.

Later, when the truth of the water body was established using satellite imagery, the push was to find a compromise solution. In the High Court the farmers were told their water body would remain but only if they agreed to a partition—some 100 ha of the lake would be returned for irrigation. But they would have to agree to give away the rest, where the factory would be built.

Now farmers are running from pillar to post, explaining that a water body is a structure with a head in its catchment and body in the water. It will die if it is taken apart. Farmers also say the cement factory will get its raw material of limestone from the catchment of the same water bodies. Nobody asked for an impact assessment of this mining when giving permission to the factory.

Who will listen to their call? Will we allow the desecration of water and the life it gives? Will we allow the right to a common water body to be abused? This is a fight for life. Be clear.

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