Political Diary

New Delhi, 7 May 2024

#Me Too Singes Karnataka

ARE WOMEN PLAYTHINGS?

By Poonam I Kaushish 

If the scorching heat amidst sweltering electioneering wasn’t hot enough, some prurient parlour games have been added a heady potent to the mix. 

At the centre of the affair is JD(S) MP and its Hassan candidate Prajwal Revanna  accused of sexually exploiting several women -- Government employees, house helps, unorganised sector -- over many years after more than 2000 explicit videos appeared on social media. If this was bad news, another woman also named his father Holenarasipura MLA Revanna for abusing her from 2019-22 resulting in his arrest. Both are grandson and son of ex-Prime Minister Deve Gowda. 

Predictably, a blame game has started. While Revanna’s brother and former Chief Minister Kumaraswamy has distanced the Party from the matter. BJP which has partnered JD(S) in Karnataka has accused the Congress Government of letting Prajwal flee the country, against the backdrop it took three long days before the State Government blinked and formed a Special Investigation Team to nail the truth. With and a look-out circular and a Blue corner alert, Prajwal is slated to return in a day or two. 

Sensing an opportunity to hit back at BJP, Congress’s Rahul accused it of aligning with a “mass rapist” and “always protecting” those who commit crimes against women. Besides, asking Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to help the victims. Yawn. 

Why am I not shocked? Primarily, as, it is not the first time a politician has been caught with his pants down. Over the years there have been many instances of our Right Honourables exploiting high offices for sexual favours. Beginning with ex-Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram son Suresh’s affair in the 70’s down Andhra Governor ND Tiwari sexual romp with three women 2009 alongside acknowledging a 34-year old as his son after a paternity test. 

Former UP Samajwadi bahubali Amarmani Tripathi extra-marital affair with poetess Madhumita Shukla 2007, Ex-Haryana Minister Gopal Kunda accused in an air hostess suicide 2012, Madhya Pradesh Minister Raghavji for abusing his domestic help by promising Government job 2013, junior Union Foreign Minister Akbar singed by ‘Me-Too’ 2018, BJP ex-MP Brij Bhushan Singh accused by female wrestlers last year ditto ex-Haryana Sports Minister and ex-hockey captain Sandeep Singh accused by a junior coach resigned.  

In a country where netas dalliances are seen as mere peccadilloes and accepted with a wink or ‘weaponised’ by rivals, has the latest controversy changed anything? No. Fobbed off as political mudslinging between two Parties, ‘honey-trap-by-rivals-out-to-get-him’ or reduced to entertainment distractions, a tamasha.    

Questionably, at what point do we say enough is enough? There are hundreds of instances of courage where women have come out to accost their predators. Political masters and blatant misogynist have ensured that political, corporate, sports film worlds thrive on dirty games to flaunt their masculinity. Association for Democratic Reform found over 134 sitting MPs and MlAs accused of crimes against women. 

Raising a moot point: Why are women viewed as sex objects? A plaything of males to satisfy their libido and massage their egos? Why are we so complacent when it come reporting sexual crimes? 

Clearly, in a society which lives with the regressive mindset that freedom and equality for women tantamount to promiscuity, we swing between two extremes. One where a girl child is bad news and nurtured on “conform” paranoia: Not to rock the boat, be fearful of what lies around the corner and subjecting them to countless restrictions in the name of women’s protection. Whereby fathers make the rules, husbands enforce them and male bosses reiterate them, speaking out against someone’s wrong doing is tough. 

A girl raped by one of her male relatives in locked in the precincts of her home, is told to keep quite to avoid repercussions on the facetious pretext of ‘what will people say’ and ‘nobody will marry you.’ Several women who face sexual abuse at work stay quite in order to avoid further harassment and unwanted attention. Or are hesitant to speak out fearing they will be dubbed ‘loose charactered’ at best or ostracized at worst. Either which way the damage is done.  Getting married and raising kids is the core of female existence. Sic. 

Not a few women complain that they are viewed as sex objects and mince-meat for male lust camouflaged as human animals to either comply or reconcile to battling it out at every level. To rise professionally they need a ‘godfather’ who can make or break them. 

Perhaps it has something to do with our patriarchal lineage and misogynistic culture. Whereby, we show utter disregard and disrespect for women.... rape, marital rapes, sexual assault and systemic harassment et al. A culture that believes that the worst aspect of rape is the defilement of the victim, who will no longer be able to find a man to marry her — and that the only solution is to marry the rapist. 

Recently, Karnataka’s Home Minister blamed “western culture these things do happen”. Really? Added another, “The more skin women show it’s like if there's gasoline, there will be fire. If there's spilt sugar, ants will gravitate towards it.” Cooed another, “Girls shouldn’t wear jeans and exposing clothes, it is against desi sabhyata…. They have no business to be driving around at 2 am in the morning.” Disgusting, to say the least. 

In an era when political image is branded like detergents, our netas completely disregard the fact that they have failed miserably in making our cities safe for its people. Crimes against women have more than tripled over the past ten years, according to National Crime Records Bureau’s latest data. 

Notwithstanding the #Me Too campaign, in a society where the national narrative conditions people to think that sexual harassment has no consequences; where sex crimes are dismissed as result of an imbalanced sex ratio; and where women have little or no cultural respect, it is going to be a steep uphill to change what is just par for the course. 

Where does one go from here? Given that this oppressive atrocity against women will get worse, not better. Clearly our leaders need to pay heed and address this seriously. For starters why haven’t our policing laws been strengthened? Laws tightened which would deter men to think thousand times before they commit crime? 

Our education system needs to emphasise the importance of gender equality and eradicate the sick male mindset. We need to change our approach to sexual harassment. One option is radical feminism to make a social impact and safety of women should be an important article of faith with people, society and Government. Along-with dignity, equal opportunity and independence of thought and action. 

To that end, we need stricter laws that ensure that those found guilty of workplace harassment are punished. The Vishakha judgment guidelines provide many safeguards, like having an “appropriate complaints mechanism with a complaints committee” at all. Parties should constitute an Internal Complaints Committee. 

Clearly, a revolutionary change is needed. The Constitution has given equal rights to women. Merely mouthing platitudes of freedom will no longer work. We need cry a halt to women being playthings of voyeuristic men. Will women continue to constitute the weaker gender? Continue to rot at the hands of lecherous, predatory or pedophile men? Will we break new ground and unshackle women?  A time to introspect and say Times Up. Enough of sexual harassment! ---- INFA 

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)

Round The World

New Delhi, 3 May 2024

India-Canada-USA

AVOIDABLE DISAGREEMENTS

By Prof. (Dr.) D.K. Giri

(Secretary General, Assn for Democratic Socialism) 

Apparent divergence of approach to the puzzling interface between liberty and violence has cropped-up again between India, United States and Canada. The latest trigger has come from a report in The Washington Post naming an Indian official involved in the plot to murder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. The US government has expressed concerns while Government of India (GoI) responds in its own way. At the same time, anti-India and pro-Khalistani utterances and activities in Canada have once again deeply upset GoI. Since India and the US are strategically coming closer and India and Canada would want to do so, the question is how to avoid disagreements on balancing individualliberty with peoples’ security. 

In reference to the Post’sreport, the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on 29 April to the journalists that one VikramYadav from Indian intelligence agency RAW contacted the Indian businessman Nikhil Gupta to get Pannun killed by a hired assassin. Gupta is currently in the custody of Czech Republic waiting deportation to USA. Yadav had the approval of SamantGoel, the Chief of RAW. Pannun is having dual citizenship of USA and Canada, one of the main leaders of Khalistani movement, and legal advisor and spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice, a Khalistani organisation based in Canada. India has declared Pannun as a terrorist. 

Jean-Pierre said in the same press conference that, “India is an important strategic partner of United States, and we are pursuing an ambitious agenda to expand our cooperation in several areas”. At the same time, she added, “We expect accountability from Govt of India on that. We are going to raise our concerns directly with Indian government.” The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said in his response, “a high-level committee is looking into information shared by American side with us because it equally impacts our national security”. The Foreign Minister had endorsed this in his reply to Parliament on 7 December last year that a high-powered committee is looking into the material shared by United States. 

What is of curious importance is that the alleged plot to kill Pannun in US coincided with the 18 June 2023 killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey in Canada’s British Columbia province.Intriguingly, that operation was also linked to Yadav according to western officials. This raised the western concern (Canada and US) about the escalating campaign of aggression against overseas Indians allegedly involved in anti-Indian activities, by Indian intelligence operations. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed in the Canadian Parliament on 18 September 2023 that there was ‘potential involvement of Indian agencies in the killing of Nijjar’. 

Trudeau added that Canadian security agencies – Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Canadian Security Intelligence Agency – had the evidence of India’s involvement. He also reported that a fellow-member of Five-Eyes Alliance had shared similar information. Five-Eyes Alliance is an intelligence group comprising five Anglo sphere countries, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom. Govt of India at the time had rejected the allegations as absurd and motivated. India had accused Ottawa of harbouring Sikh separatists. 

Jagmeet Singh, the President of the New Democratic Party, the third biggest party in Canada which props up the Trudeau government, came out in support of Trudeau’s allegations of Indian officials’ involvement, “today we learned of allegations that agents of Indian government murdered Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian killed on Canadian soil. To all Canadians, this is my vow. I will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice including holding NarendraModi accountable”. 

Once again Govt of India was alarmed and agitated over raising of pro-Khalistani slogans at a public event at Toronto, attended by Justin Trudeau. This was the Khalsa Day organised by Sikhs in Canada on 28 April. As soon as Trudeau approached the podium, KhalistanZindabad slogans were raised. Trudeau was reportedly seen smiling at the chants of the slogan. Banners were also displayed which said ‘Modi wanted’. The Sikhs for Justice portrayed huge bannersidentifying NarendraModi, Rajnath Singh and Jaishankar as killers of Nijjar. This organisation is a pro-Khalistani group which called for revenge against killing of Nijjar and had initiated violence against Indian diplomats. 

Trudeau’s acquiescence in such pro-Khalistani slogans is ‘understandable’ as his government is surviving on the support of the New Democratic Party headed by Jagmeet Singh. This is a party whose support base consists of Khalistan-supporting Sikhs. Evidently, immigrants hankering nostalgically for their cultural roots,seek to recreate those in their adopted countries. If they fail to do so, they support the separatist and revivalist organisations in the countries of their origin. This is the case with large number of Sikhs in Canada. Having achieved material prosperity and lost their cultural identity, they tend to become reactionary in their approach. 

Last year, in the British Labour Party conference, I happened to run into a Sikh guest delegate from Canada who was a Member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party. In our conversation, he said that Nijjar was an innocent ordinary Sikh eking his livelihood from priestly activities in Gurudwaras. I was shocked to learn that a terrorist was perceived by Canadian Sikhs as a simple and ordinary person. 

The Govt of India summoned the Deputy High Commissioner of Canada in New Delhi and strongly protested the patronage given to anti-India elements in Canada. The MEA said, “It illustrated once again the space given in Canada to separatism, extremism and violence. It encourages a climate of violence and criminality in Canada which will prove detrimental to its own citizens”. Trudeau’s complicity in pro-Khalistani activities may go well with his vote-bank politics and alliance government. But it is certainly not advisable, nor acceptable in bilateral relations. How would Canada, for that matter United States react, if Govt of India were to encourage forces in India that attempt to create divisions and violence in their countries. 

Clearly, USA and Canada are missing the link between freedom at home and acts of terrorism abroad. Whether Indian agencies were involved in murder of wanted criminals in other countries, is a matter of investigation. What is however baffling is the duplicity maintained by Canada as well as United States. Trudeau should not miss the link between politics at home and foreign policy. A kind of politics that conduces Trudeau, should not be causing violence in other countries. Likewise, United States and its close allies like Israel can take out their enemies in other countries; Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad has done it in several countries, and the stark example of USA doing so is killing Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. 

Quite a few human rights experts argue that, given the justice system in USA, Osama should have been captured and tried. This is not the debate we will engage in, but the fact to underline is Osama Bin Laden was responsible for Twin Tower terrorist attack killing innocent people. USA militarily moved to Afghanistan and chased Osama into Pakistan. If any other country were to do a similar act of chasing and killing terrorists, why should USA object? ---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)

Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 6 May 2024

‘Apical’ GST Hits SC Quiz

30 Cr. JOB LOSS FEARED

By Shivaji Sarkar 

The sparkle of GST touchinga collection of Rs 2.1 lakh crore due to higher contribution from North East states and Uttar Pradeshis subdued by shattering of the Indian dream for overseas employment as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau creates more diplomatic problems and targets Indian youth to deprive them of jobs. 

Foreign job situation is becoming worse even as the domestic conditionboils with high unemployment and Lok Sabha elections generating more heat. In a year marked by a surge in Indian students pursuing foreign education, those already studying abroad are facing significant challenges in securing jobs. The rising cost of living combined with limited job opportunities is shattering dreams of many non-resident Indians (NRIs). 

Diplomatic spats add to woes. While India lodges strong protest on pro-Khalistan slogans raised at an event on April 29 in Toronto in which Trudeau spoke, almost simultaneously the US raised the heat over plot to kill Khalistan separatist GS Pannun.The events have a fall out on jobs for Indians, though reasons could include economic turmoil in many of the western countries. 

Canada, one of the topmost destinations for Indian youth, on Labour Day limits international students working hours to 24 hours a week from 40 hours and curtails startup visa plan to less than 1000. This cuts intake from India to 87,000 study permits against 2.2 lakh new students in 2022. 

On an average a student loses $5000 a year, says Mateusz Salamassi, Canadian Director of advocacy, Canadian Alliance of Students Association, a blow to debt-ridden Indian students. Most students have debts of Rs 20 to 40 lakh, which they repay as they work while studying. Cost of living is rising. Rents range from $1,000 to $1,500 per month. Additionally, expenses for food, transport, and utilities cost at least another $1,000 to $1,200 every month. 

With 6.1 per cent unemployment reported in Canada, many end up without jobs or get into menial works that is not in keeping with their needs or qualifications. As the going gets tough, many students are turning to drugs to cope up with the stress and get into a worse debt and psychic situations. 

Jobs are becoming dearer across the West as International Monetary Fund warns of 60 percent high skilled jobs at risk in advanced economies and predicts 40 per cent jobs to be impacted due to AI, in 2024. Severe wage cuts are imminent, it adds. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says two million jobs are at stake.Global rating agency Goldman Sachs predicts disruption of 300 million (30 crore) jobs across the world. 

While rising 12.4 percent April GST mop up of the highest ever Rs 2.1 lakh crore (trillion) elates the Finance Ministry, which says, it is the result of intense auditing,there is a crackdown on bogus registration, fake invoices and norms are tightening.Domestic transactions rise by 13.4 percent while the import figures are up by 8.3 percent. 

Observing “there can be harassment of people,” the Supreme Court on May 2, directs the additional solicitor general SV Raju to submit data in GST Act notices and the arrests made “for alleged defaults of Rs 1 and Rs 5 crore”.Interestingly, North-East led the GST show. Mizoram, with 35 percent rural poverty, led it with 52 percent, Nagaland had 3 percent lower contribution with Meghalaya and Jammu &Kashmir 2 percent less and Sikkim kitty fell 5 percent. Elsewhere, the highest growth was in UP – 19 percent, Gujarat and Maharashtra - 13 percent. 

However, the rise in GST is not an indicator of increase in employment. Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023 indicates the unemployment rate at 7.2 percent in December 2022 and 6.5 percent December 2023 and CMIE puts it at 8 percent in February 2024 and 7.6 percent in March.In April 2024, major tech companies like Tesla, Apple, Intel Amazon resorted to mass layoffs and overall job losses are estimated at 70,000. Even Byjus lays off 500 Indian staff.  

Jobs worldwide are becoming scarce as artificial intelligence (AI) takes over many assignments. It is no better in the UK. Even restaurants are sacking them too often. Foreign student, health&care and skilled work visa applications to UK also fall with new curbs.Other visas fall by 44 percent to 40,700 against 72,800 last year. It cuts application for dependent visas to 6,700 against 32,900 a year back. Foreign students no longer can switch to a work visa before completing their course and graduate visa norms might limit job prospects. The US offers a slightly bright spot for Indianstudents. It issued a total of 1,30,839 F-1 student visas in 2023, witnessing a 14 per cent surge from 2022, says an ApplyBoard report. 

The ILO projects that the labour market outlook and global unemployment will both worsen. In 2024, an extra two million workers are expected to be looking for jobs, raising the global unemployment rate to 5.2 per cent from 5.1 per cent in 2023. 

The AI expansion could worsen impact on developing economies such as India, which are facing political turmoil for job losses. An added woe could be degrees might lose shelf life as technical skills would require continuous updating, learning and adaptation throwing up challenges for Indian universities. Even many companies might go out of business. The world has yet to evolve pro-active measures to cope up with AItransformation. 

The IT sector is already resorting to heavy job cuts. Google has issued pink slips to over 1,000 employees assisting in voice assistance, hardware and engineering teams.  It also implemented job cuts across Python, Flutter and Dart teams.The job loss in IT sector is a major problem along with many other Indian industries. More than 40 percent of college graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed, compared with 11 percent of those of the same age group who are literate but haven’t completed primary school, says Azim Premji University 2023 report. 

India would have to launch crash moves to create jobs to keep the economy in the lead. It is not an easy task with job recruitment scandals in West Bengal, UP, Madhya Pradesh and many other states.While AI is certain to make its way into numerous Indian industries, the country has to take the best advantage of it in creating multifarious jobs as well.---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)

Spotlight

New Delhi, 4 May 2024

On-Line Education

NOT JUST AN EMERGENCY MEASURE

By Rajiv Gupta 

In the recent student protests at Columbia University in New York City, the university administration decided to use on-line classes as a way to mitigate the potential danger to students. Globally, on-line classes were widely adopted during the Coronavirus pandemic to keep students from spreading the virus through proximate contact with each other. These examples may suggest that on-line education is a means to be adopted under extreme circumstances. This article presents an alternate view; that on-line education is an ideal solution for a variety of reasons and whose time has come. 

Distance education, a precursor to on-line education, is not new. Some of the earliest versions of distance education were correspondence courses as far back as the 1950s and 60s. Written course materials were sent by mail to students. The students completed the assignments at home and sent in their answer sheets to be evaluated. The quality of these programmes was not very good and they did not receive any recognition from companies looking for qualified candidates for potential hiring. 

In the 1980s, a different form of distance education began in the United States. In these programmes, video tapes of lectures were recorded and mailed out to students at different learning centres. A sizeable group of students watched the tapes at these learning centres. Proctored exams were conducted at these learning centres. This form of distance learning was a major improvement from the earlier correspondence courses. However, its major drawbacks were a lack of direct communication between the faculty and students as well as among the students. 

The next development in distance learning was streaming videos, which allowed students to stream lectures instead of watching video tapes. This made the access to the lectures more flexible. However, there was still no direct communication between the faculty and students, and among the students. All communication was through a learning management system (LMS) such as Canvas and Blackboard. The LMS contained all the relevant course materials, including videos and lecture notes. Communications could be either via the LMS or via email. 

The current form of on-line education uses live, on-line classes where the faculty delivers the lectures and the students can choose to either attend the lectures live, or watch the taped lecture at their convenience. The system permits the students to either type in their questions or comments during the lecture, or to speak. This allows for a classroom atmosphere that more closely resembles a typical in-person classroom. In some cases, students can also turn on their cameras and can be seen as well. The extent to which this is possible depends on the size of the class as well as the network bandwidth. It should be noted that, in India, several students still shy away from speaking in on-line classes, let alone turning their cameras on. However, this is likely to change over time. 

So, what are the main advantages and disadvantages of an on-line education system? There are three major, and compelling, reasons in favour of on-line education. First, it allows educational institutions to expand their academic offerings to a larger student population without a large scale increase in classroom capacity. This is especially important since most existing universities have limited capacity to increase the number or sizes of classrooms. For residential universities there is an additional need to provide residential accommodation for students if the student strength is increased. In an on-line environment using virtual classrooms, the one major expense is in the creation of the computer and video systems for transmitting on-line classes. This is relatively easier than creating more physical space. 

The second major advantage, especially in a country such as India, is that on-line education can help bring education to a larger section of the population without having students travel to a limited number of locations where high quality educational institutions are situated. With a population that is spread out over a very large geographical expanse, including a number of rural areas, providing access to quality education is a major challenge for both government as well as academia. 

Every year, cut-off percentages for admission to sought after colleges and institutes seems to get further out of reach of a large section of the students graduating from schools. In the last couple of decades, a number of colleges and institutions of dubious quality have sprung up in the country in response to the increased demand. It would be preferable for well established institutions to expand their offerings via on-line classes as there would be an expectation of quality from established institutes. 

Finally, the population where on-line education has a major impact is working professionals. It has been well established that with technological change, and new research, a lot of what people learn in colleges and universities becomes obsolete in a few years. This phenomenon has resulted in working professionals having to keep their knowledge up to date either through evening or full-time courses. Evening courses require that working professionals travel or commute to the place where classes are held, which can consume a significant amount of time. Full time courses require working professionals to take time off from work to pursue their studies. 

Both of these options pose a major burden both, on the professional as well the companies they work for. It is here where on-line education becomes a very appropriate option. The classes for the on-line courses can be attended by the students either at their place of work, or at home, or any other convenient location. Moreover, if the student has to miss a class due to work requirement, the lecture is available on tape. So, the student can get all the information that he/she misses quite easily. 

This is why a number of universities in India and abroad have been offering on-line courses successfully. Some examples are BITS Pilani in India, and the University of Phoenix in the US. In addition to degree programs, leading universities such as Stanford and MIT have collaborated in offering free on-line courses on various topics. These are known as Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOC). Coursera, Udacity, and edX offer a very large number of MOOC courses where the student can choose to either attend for free, or pay a nominal fee to get a certificate. The faculty who have recorded the lectures for these MOOC courses are from leading global universities and the quality of the lectures is excellent. 

Although the number of on-line courses and their quality has grown exponentially, there is still a perception that the quality of on-line courses is inferior to live in-person classes. It will take some time before the true advantages of on-line education will be recognised in the society. Universities have to focus on maintaining high quality and invest in technology and faculty who can deliver an effective on-line experience for students. It may not be too long before on-line education is accorded its rightful place in academia.---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)