WE MISS THE BUS AGAIN

India recently kept itself away from the latest round of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) talks in Bali. Such a decision also signalled a lack of preparedness in terms of its strategy in dealing with such an important grouping. The work on RCEP rules framework began as early as 2012, but until last year no movement towards a final solution was in sight.  The meeting was taking place in the background of a total ban on Chinese goods by not only RCEP member countries but by the entire world in general. 

The members of RCEP saw India as a gatekeeper & set the tone to avoid creating an economic grouping that could be dominated by China. India could have gained by becoming more competitive in its manufacturing sector. It would also facilitate India’s MSMEs to effectively integrate into the regional value and supply chains.

The RCEP allows a Free Trade Agreement, but there are reasonable negative list that is the red line for export oriented country like China. It could have been stepping stone to India’s Act East Policy. After all, China has till now prevented Indian export by policy and protectionism.

India needs second-generation reforms of its domestic economic policies to make its trade more competitive and export-oriented urgently.

But now there is no point crying over the spilled milk and also when we have missed the bus as well.

 

The biggest myth, of course, is that India is a largely vegetarian country. For a long time, India has been “assumed”as primarily vegetarian, and particularly beef-disdaining, society. Such a representation has had obvious consequences over the last century or so, and much more recently in the openly toxic mixture of communalism and casteism. The extent of overall vegetarianism is much less than common claims and stereotypes suggest; survey estimates show that between 23% and 37% of the population of India is vegetarian. It means that more than two thirds of India in non vegetarian in is food habits.

Thus, far from being a vegetarian nation, India is a meat-eating majority nation. The notion of ‘non-vegetarian’ and the discourse around vegetarianism, then, reflect the hegemony enjoyed (thus far) by the ‘minority’ vegetarian population. Apart from Jains (nearly all vegetarian) and Sikhs (majority vegetarian), no other religious category is majority vegetarian. Hindus – by far the largest group in the population – are majority meat-eaters. This is a myth buster and moment of truth for vigilantes and meat hating minority population and being in power, it is hegemonic.

Hindus, who make up 80% of the Indian population, are major meat-eaters. Even only a quarter of the privileged, upper-caste Indians are vegetarian. At least 7% of Indians eat beef, according to government surveys. But there is evidence to show that some of the official data is considerably under-reported because beef is caught in cultural political and group identity struggles in India. Beef is not a taboo in Kerala, North East, and Tribal Population.  Muslim & Christian groups that are more than 20% of population are majorly beef eater. So the 7% beef eating population is seriously questionable.

Meat eating in India is a complex issue, with many facets. However, recent trends and figures certainly seem to indicate one thing: it is a mistake to label India as a vegetarian nation.

There’s no meat to the argument that India is a vegetarian nation.

 

If population of India as per density benchmark with US of A is taken as a reference, then to attain the US population density, India would need the land mass shown in the map in red.

It is a perspective that is rather unusual and yet not complicated at all and visually appaling and alarming. How much crammed we are in India? Well much more than we usually contemplate.

Population density (people per sq. km of land area) in United States was reported at 35.71 sq. Km in 2018, according to the World Bank development indicators.

As per Statista, amongst the most credible data sources for the world, the population density of India is 454.94 on the same time scale of 2018.

While the top two cities of India are world’s most densely populated place on planet earth- Mumbai & Kolkata occupying slot #1 & #2 .

While Mumbai holds 76,800 people per square mile, Kolkata is just following with 61,975 per square mile.

Can we call it democratic dividend or is it democratic forfeiture?

Compared, in developed world the population in cities of Tokyo is 12,296, Barcelona is 12,625, Tel Aviv is 13,150, London is 13,210, and Osaka is 16,592.

Not a single American city ranks among the top 50 most densely populated urban areas in the world.

Overpopulation is one of the hazards & serious problem, which creates a great obstacle in the way of national development. Primary reason for that India has languished for decades. 

Many reasons are clear and needs no debate unless one needs clarity on concepts.

• The employment generation rate is negligible as compared to needs, which ultimately results into low income groups depending upon single earning person.
• Reduced standard of living. The slum areas, starvation and frequently epidemics are the results affecting health and standard of persons within such nation.
• The growing population needs residence and shelter. This has greatly denuded the green cover of a nation by cutting forest to make a place to live.
• The consequential damage is of environment in totality & only accelerated by reckless urbanisation and irresponsible industrialisation.
• India’s forest denudation & environmental issues are political game would need a detailed post later that I would do.
• The education & its quality have acutely suffered in India due to huge population pressure. It has become a sham and a scam.
• To placate the poor and to entice their children to go to school a meal programme (mostly scam game) is run, as if attending school is the only motto of education & not learning per se.
• More people living in unhygienic condition have resulted in continuous cycle of illness like Dengue, Malaria, gastrointestinal, environmental comorbidity which has affected most Indian in rural and urban areas.
• Worst, government has almost given up on birth control initiative and our semi literate to illiterate politicians openly seek Hindus to have more children to match the Muslim population, without realising that Hindu in India are almost 100 crores (a crore is ten million) akin Muslims 20 crores. It is just vote bank politics and fear of 1975 to 1977 type backlash by voters. How foolish.

The problems of over populations are a million times more complex than just a few bullet points, it is just a contour without the gory details and lesser evil of morbidity, but that doesn’t shrink and eliminate the problems.

Are Muslims responsible for India’s population explosion?

Well Hindutva poster boys would not like my study & findings.

The fact is that Muslims contributed 14.6% (1901-2011), 16.1% (1951-2011) and 16.7% (1971-2011) to India’s population growth. The contribution of Hindus, on the other hand, was 79.4%, 78% and 77.4% and that of the rest was 6%, 5.9% and 5.9% during these periods.

In 1901, Hindus outnumbered Muslims in India by 164 million; by 268 million in 1951; 392 million in 1971; and by 794 million in 2011. So, despite a lower growth rate, but a much higher population, the numerical advantage of Hindus has grown over the years, rather than the other way round.

At the same time, the population growth rate of Muslims has been declining since 1971 – from 30.9% during 1961-71 to 24.6% during 2001-11.

If population explosion is what you are concerned about, do not bother about the Muslims so much.

Furthermore, Total Fertility Rate declined by 40.8% among Muslims vis-à-vis 35.7% at the national level and 35.5% among Hindus. It would decline further if their socioeconomic characteristics, sense of security, etc improve.

Only 9.2% of Muslim females aged 6+ years vis-à-vis 14% Hindu females had 12 or more years of schooling; for males, it was 12.7% and 21% respectively.

Recently, 25.4% Muslims and 21.9% Hindus were below the poverty line.

Despite differentials in socioeconomic deprivation, the situation of both Hindus and Muslims is worrisome, and this is what needs to be addressed to stop the population exploding further.

The nation needs to be redeemed for the betterment of people and that can be done by conscious people and sensitive government, provided government believes in giving a better life and better affordable education to one and all.

At least here the nation needs to be absolutely secular.

ONLY 5% OF THE WORLD LIVES IN BLUE AREA & ALSO 5% LIVES IN THE TINY SLIVER OF RED

 

Status is online

RAJEEV PANDEY

Brave & Bold Enough

21 articles

India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019 and overall 4,05,861 cases of crime against women during the year, a rise of over 7% from 2018, the latest government data released on September 29, 2020.

The country recorded 3,78,236 cases of crimes against women in 2018, the data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau showed.

UP has decidedly won the crown for decades. Earlier in eighties, it was bride burning in western UP zones, then incessant cases of atrocities against women and probably, tops the world in such cases & of course beats India hands down.

There are 47 countries with a population of less than 250,000 & UP has more crime against women than the population of such country.

What a deterioration we have seen in social transition & decadence in less than 50 years of a state that has given four Prime Minister of India, including the current one.

U.P. need a series of policy interventions and political commitments.

One, governance in Uttar Pradesh must improve. This is necessary to establish credibility of state’s institutions to deliver results on their promises. A consensus is that its machinery is not capable of delivering, which is fact as long as it is fighting the social caste dominances between Thakurs, Brahmins, Yadavs & Dalits combined.

In UP, corruption must be minimised through policy interventions and simplified procedures. Chief ministers must have a personal image of uprightness, which should be reflected in public office holders who are selected by them. Today the CM is more of a Hindu poster boy of anarchy and fundamentalism.

It is easy to change a dress and dress up the rivers and the monuments, but to change character of a state that is now monikered as the Rape State of the world, would take much more than gag & "Thai Thai" culture of shooting & killing the 'Goons'.

I personally do not see any redemptions , unless social animosity and casteist bitterness is minimised. Today it is pipe dream.

Let us see how stretched this today is. Or if there is a tomorrow? Clearly there is, provided we honestly delve to minimise it by state restructuring & reengineering-

Size of the state, which is not conducive to good governance so that needs structural adjustments.

It has four clear regions: western UP, central UP, eastern UP and Bundelkhand. While the east and west regions have 28-30 districts each, the central region has mere a ten districts and Bundelkhand seven.

Governing from a central point of the state capital requires a thorough knowledge and problems of each part and knowing the officers well. This is impossible for any chief minister or any minister or any Administrative Office.

Finally, politicians are not fully acquainted even with the political grassroots leaders of different areas. Policies are often not suited to many regions, which have widely different problems needing local solution.

So to redeem U.P. it needs surgery at pathological level and ruthlessness. Soone it is done, better it is for the state, else the state would languish and people would suffer.

It is a short commentary from me on a State that I usually never do. But U.P. has been an introspection point in Indian polity , having the largest population, amongst the poorest demographic dividends of states, politically volatile, culturaly diverse and divisive.

If that doesn't need care& attention from India , then who would?

THE POWER OF LESS FOR MORE

 

This is a unique map of India where less than 30% of dark shaded landmass accommodates almost 48% plus of population. It usurps 75% of overall tax collections & contributes just 20% of collections. 

It has the worst educational standards, except in NCR/ Delhi. It has the Worst medical facilities, worst literacy rates, minimum employments in states, maximum lawlessness and maximum social divides and polarisation. 

Yet it suits all political party who swears in democracy by numbers that are laregly uneducated and voting for them. 

All the demographic markers turned upside down in just about forty three years , especially post 1977. 

Federal sovereignty, Casteist vote bank and few lecherous political parties that have been dividing the society on caste lines, theology lines are the biggest offenders.

If we think rationally, India is going down the drain pipe due to just few pampered social markers that are worst one to do. 

Soon that fifty % would live only on doles and subsidy at subsistence level, unless we radically do some pathplogical surgery at social levels.

INDIA - A SUPERPOWER WITHOUT A FAIR JUSTICE SYSTEM

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What prevented India to become a superpower or at least one mega economic power in the world? Well, we all have our takes on it & already and have started cursing- Bureaucracy, Red Tape, Politicians, Corruption, Population, Poverty, Education, Criminalisation of Politics, Activism, Subversion and as many other reason for our failure as a nation. Indeed the list is pretty long and is never exhaustive.

I would just attribute our collective failure as a nation to just one attribute- Failure of Legal & Justice System. Any other trait that we assign is just a collateral damage.

The Legal Web of India is so closely knit that societies are entangled in it. Ask anyone doing business in India who got in the web of Indian Legal system that imposes on its citizens at least 1,540 Laws, 69,250 Compliances Rules & Regulations and almost 6,620 filing needs.

Even Wikipedia publishes with a caveat that “As of January 2017, there were about 1,248 laws. However, since there are Central laws as well as State laws, it is difficult to ascertain their exact numbers as on a given date where it goes on to say “This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Acts_of_the_Parliament_of_India   

All these can be broadly categorised in ten broad legal contours-

1.    Constitutional and administrative law

2.    Criminal laws

3.    Contract laws

4.    Labour laws

5.    Company laws

6.    Property laws

7.    Tax laws ( IT Act, GST Act, CBD Tax , HUF etc. are all part of it)

8.    Trust Laws

9.    Family Personal Laws (Each have its own categories by religion, caste, etc)

10. Nationality Law

 None should get misguided by a small list above for its brevity- as on date they hold about 1,540 Laws identified under these ten categories.

The maximum numbers of Laws are under Labour Laws where 463 Acts are further supplemented by 32,532 compliance needs and 3,048 filing requirements.

We have nearly sixty million MSME governed by the above laws and out of them nearly 90% have employments below five employees. None of the MSME is eased by the compliance matrix of about 9,000 rules that is over and above regulations that demands compliances that are punitive in nature & can jail a business owner.

For business sectors in MSME, compliance cost, legal charges, out of pocket expenses & filing fee stands today at nearly Rupees Fifteen Lakh Crores or about US$ 185 Billion, provided they have not been criminally prosecuted under any rules. That is the ease of doing business after climbing up from 139 to about 80 points.  

Yes, the maximum non compliances and breach of law is not from the Labour Laws, but from the Tax Laws and it suits the legal system to keep the cases pending as a thumbscrew on the assesses for exploitation by the nexus of courts and lawyers. 

We are not done with it yet. We have a thick RED TAPE in Indian Bureaucracy without that no industry can function and can come to a grinding halt in days.

The twelve RED TAPES that ties one down in an Indian environments are-

1.  Licence
2.  Registration
3. Permission
4.  Consent Order
5.  Filing of Periodic Returns
6.  Hang Display Boards
7.  Maintain Register of Activities and Compliances
8.  Filing of Challans
9.  Make Payments
10.  Take Payments
11.  Renewal of Notices
12.  Giving & Taking of Notices 

Therefore, it is important to understand the legal system of India right from the top – The Constitution of India & at the bottom of it- The Specific Laws and how regressive & unproductive it has become.

Without a clear understanding of it, the Judge is not capable to dispense justice, hence they push the envelopes to a next dates & more dates. Giving a time bound just and fair verdict is not the DNA of Indian Judicial System. Justice maybe is blind- but Judges do have eyes and ears!!!

Not that the lawyers are competent- in 99% cases they are more interested in expanding the billing cycle by getting additional dates from the Judges and not in its early and fair settlements.

There are 59,900 cases pending in the Supreme Court, and 4.8 million cases in various high courts. At the district and subordinate court levels, the number of pending cases stands at a shocking 31.5 million.

Our public representative that we assign the status of “Law Maker”, one third or more of them are non graduate and nearly as many are having criminal cases pending against them. Out of the 539 winners in Lower House of 2019, 233 MPs have declared criminal cases against themselves.

The total MLA’s representing states are 4,123 and 1,347 out of them are having criminal records. Overall, more than one MLA out of three has declared through a sworn affidavit his criminal cases pending against him / her!!!

Neither pending criminal cases nor lack of educational qualifications debar the MP/MLA’s from contesting and secure a seat in the house of public representations. That is Indian election system that doesn’t have any benchmark for criminality against a Law Maker and neither does it put any educational qualification for the “Law Maker”. What quality discussions & debates can we expect out of them?

These are the passing reference to know the quality of MLA & MPs and consequently the ability of Parliament and Assemblies to frame laws to govern the nation. 

Sensing such gaping holes in the parliamentary systems where ill gotten money, coercion, social nuisance & open criminalities have become norms, especially after the advent of coalition politics, parliamentarians and criminals first colluded and became an “accomplice duo” in Hindi heartlands and occupied public space.

They were then joined by businessmen needing protection & favour throwing all cautions to wind when a person like Vijay Mallya was nominated to the committee of aviation ministry is just an example. There was no conflict of interest seen!!!

It almost became a deluge in last thirty years when retired bureaucrats, judges, criminals, retired generals, chief secretaries to GOI , RBI governors et all- wanted a parliamentary seat or at least a post retirement position of an ambassador, chairmanship of government bodies, seat on a committee, private trusts like BCCI or even a governorship.

The Parliamentarians are happy to oblige them for a price and adequate favours.

Hardly any senior government official, bureaucracy, PSU Chief and criminal are left untouched and they all indulge in “accomplice politics” bending at the knees to become a stooge to become our public representative.

Icing on the cake was recent nomination of CJI Ranjan Gogoi in the pandemic to Upper House who took the Upper House nomination within weeks of his retirement.

Past CJI & SCJ have cried at the knee of uneducated politicians at public functions for seeking gubernatorial positions and have been accommodated as governors, ambassadors, Chairmanship of NGT and in various ministries as advisors etc.

The list is endless and not exhaustive who have sought favour from the power.   

Our legal system is now becoming a commodity in an auction- bid –pay and take.

It has little room for common citizen & justice is dispensed only to be turned on its head in a higher court at the earliest opportune, while being denied to thousands daily.

But that is just one side of the story; Justice in India today is served on a platter to those who matter and can afford to fund it.

We are living the era of à la carte justice system. A system tailor made for those who are willing to pay for getting a favourable order from Apex Court within 24 hours within opening of court for 2 G trails or for coalmine allocation. All is on sale- Cash & Carry.  

Or even restrain orders on sex tapes of a Minister who sought sexual favours for out of turn promotion from an intern so that facts are taken down from public domain as it tarnishes their images. Just pay and make it disappear from Google also.

Even CJI throttled a case of sexual discrimination & favours for one of his assistants, where the CJI was heading the bench and the Judge and Jury become one and the same. It is one of the most unbecoming of behaviour from an apex legal office that India looks forward to as a protector of Law and upholding the Justice System for people of India who still look at such high offices in Judiciary with some hope. 

And yet, a common victim of rape, molestation and outrage of modesty of an ordinary daughter of India become a topic of public debate outraging her modesty on prime time TV for days together. We have become so numb that we do not even blink an eyelid.

When a Judiciary becomes an elitists club for conveniences to cater to a specific elements of a society that are mighty and powerful, then the shield of democracy has become porous and is just a few steps away from collapse of established systems to just suit a few.

It is then not fair and just for all, but becomes an overburdened system where cases are pending still from 1878- almost 142 years!!! This is the legacy of our judiciary that has now more than 38 million cases pending in all courts- a few thousands, plus or minus, would not matter. It is a luggage & not a legacy.

Judiciary when is unable to stand public censure for its action, then in a democracy – it is a travesty of justice with loss of face and values in the democratic institutions. It is undermined and its institutions are rendered ineffective when criminals control them.

The people must have faith in the impartiality of our judiciary systems, if we are to have order in our society. Public safety depends on our collective faith in fairness and our view of the law as legitimate tool for equality.

Somewhere along the way, the balance between the prosecution, the defence, and the judiciary has shifted so much so that justice just slips off from the hands of institutions responsible for guarding it.

So with the fundamental question, with which I began, what has prevented India to become a superpower or at least one mega economic power in the world?

 I said just one attribute- Failure of Legal & Justice System responsible for complete destruction of democratic institutions in this country & what is this country without democracy? In such case, can we be globally competitive ever, leave alone XYZ?

Point to ponder for all of us and to ponder over the points when justice is a social contract of expediency entered upon to prevent from harming or being harmed. 

 

14 July 2020.