AVIATION: SAFETY

Drunk pilots should be jailed!

It’s unbelievable that DGCA still does not cancel the flying license of a pilot flying drunk; the IIPM Think Tank does a critical analysis of the lopsided DGCA regulations

Last month, the DGCA announced that a pilot who gets caught drunk twice ‘might be’ sent for ‘rehabilitation’; and if caught thrice, the same ‘might’ lead to their job termination. Within two days of the announcement, DGCA upped the punishment post haste and announced that a pilot caught drunk once will have his or her license suspended for three months. A second time would lead to permanent suspension. 

While the DGCA is self-applauding itself on its apparently stringent resolve to reduce drunk flying, one is flabbergasted at how lenient such a resolve is in reality, given the fact that pilots are responsible for the lives of more than a hundred passengers per flight. The DGCA should learn a lesson or two from the Delhi Traffic Police, which now has a zero-tolerance policy for drunk driving, where any driver caught driving drunk even once will have his/her license cancelled immediately (1378 licenses were cancelled by the Delhi Police in the last eleven months under this clause). Clearly, the DGCA feels that it’s all right to allow drunk pilots to keep flying.

Further, till now, the DGCA has been checking pilots through breath analysers before the flight starts, without keeping a check on whether the pilot drinks during the flight. Pilots know and realise this easiest method of avoiding getting caught. One is told that the DGCA, after so many decades of existence, has started advising such checks post the flight too.

We say that the DGCA diktat should have focussed on cancelling the licence of the pilot and jailing him. The Motor Vehicles Act already has this stringent provision of jailing for drunk drivers, with the term ranging from three months (for first time offenders) to six months (for repeat offenders). It’s unbelievably strange that the DGCA doesn’t believe in that.

So are pilots really flying drunk? As per a 2009 Rajya Sabha report by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, during the past one year, “Eight pilots of Kingfisher Airlines, six each of Indigo and SpiceJet and three each of Jetlite, Jet Airways and Paramount were detected alcohol-positive during a pre-flight medical examination.” A brief trend analysis reveals that in 2009, more than 40 pilots were found drunk on duty and only 8 of them were sacked. According to a Right to Information Act report in 2009, 28 pilots found drunk are still flying.

Imagine the consequences. The Jayaprakash Narayan International airport in Patna, for instance, allows pilots to use only 6,300 ft of the 7,500 ft (against the international norm of 9000 ft) long runway. This forces pilots to take-off at high speeds and calls for planes to fly light. But in most cases, these planes are full till the brim. Runways in Patna (6300 ft), Jammu (6700 ft), Mangalore (table top runway of 8038 ft), Aizawal (3131 ft), Kullu (3690 ft), Port Blair (6000 ft), Agartala (7500 ft) and so on and so forth, are other notable instances of international norms not being met on runway length, leading to a necessity that the pilot landing the plane or taking off be sober.

And in India, in spite of alcohol tests being mandatory, airlines take a lenient stance in order to keep the schedules of flights intact. DGCA’s current policy is a problem looking for a solution rather than being the opposite, which it should have been. We repeat, jail the drunk pilots the first time itself; they’re playing with hundreds of lives.

INFORMATION PORTAL: US PROPAGANDA

US: Pranab is still the External Affairs minister

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department considers Pranab Mukherjee to be India’s foreign minister! More similar gaffes inside...

Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction does appear to have an irresistible appeal for two of the world’s largest administrative agencies, the US State Department and CIA. The official web portals and communiqués of the US State Department and CIA are splattered with notable misinformation and errors that would be necessarily considered highly affronting at a diplomatic level. 

Last week, we showed how both the State Department and CIA confidently misrepresented India’s map (and showed Kashmir as part of Pakistan) on their websites. We had no idea there was more to come – perhaps even ‘the’ reason for why the Americans seem to be making no headway with India on foreign affairs. The US State Department’s official website mentions that the Minister of External Affairs of India is (still) Pranab Mukherjee! S. M. Krishna, the current Foreign Minister of India since May 2009, has been notably left out of the State Department’s official communiqués. Incidentally, Krishna has also met Barack Obama in various forums, including at New York in September 2009. Not all listed information is wrong, though. Some US government letters are thankfully still reaching the right addresses in India. The Home Minister of India is correctly named as P. Chidambaram; and so are some other Indian politicians.

Mistakes on the CIA and State Department’s websites are not only India-centric but can be found in the case of other countries too. What’s interesting is that, in spite of the official websites of these respective countries portraying genuine information, the US has failed to recognise the same in its own records. First, the comical. In South Korea, three years ago, a series of protests against the CIA finally forced the agency to correct the information about South Korea’s origins (CIA had earlier amusingly stated that “South Korea has been a nation for a millennium;” South Korea, apparently a stickler for dates, protested en masse as this nation has been in existence only since the last 4000 years). This was apart from the CIA correcting the misrepresentation of the number of deputy prime ministers that South Korea had had. However, the country is still trying to convince the agency to rectify names of two locations on CIA’s map of South Korea.

On the same lines, Northern Cyprus is still being shown as a part of Republic of Cyprus, despite the region having gained independence in the year 1983, 27 years earlier. On another line, while the whole of Kashmir is shown as being “disputed”, Taiwan is peacefully included on the map of China. This has to be seen along with the fact that Taiwan is shown as a separate country on the US Department of State site with the names of its President and Prime Minister. And when it comes to Myanmar, both the CIA and US State Department list the country under its old name Burma. In 1989, Burma changed its name officially to Myanmar; a rename that was endorsed by the UN. Apparently, not by the CIA/State Department.

While some of the mistakes – including India’s foreign minister’s name – are evident typographical mistakes (and show the lack of intent within the government to keep critical diplomatic facts updated), some of the mistakes, like Kashmir or Taiwan, seem deliberate and evidently committed with political intent. This can be considered even propaganda if one were to assume the worst, as many institutions globally (including schools) refer to these websites for authentic information. There’s a thin line between a diplomatic error and a strategically planted insult. Imagine if were considering Bush still to be the US president. 

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM : EXPERTISE NEEDED

Rope in more Technocrats
We need to make space for technocrats in our administrative league.

A year back, a survey and a report by Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) stated India’s bureaucracy was “suffocating” and further concluded that “working with the country's civil servants was a slow and painful process.” The report also mentioned that the powers-that-be are quite reluctant in bringing in structural reforms and changes in the system. This report should not come as a surprise to any Indian, especially those who have had a first hand experience interacting with the civil servants – aka babus.

The leverage that these babus have is primarily because of the communication link they are able to monopolise between India Inc. and politicians/government. Not only does such a bureaucracy help in smooth 'execution' of corrupt activities but also helps in diverting funds (meant for development schemes) to their and politicians’ own treasures. The whole aura of ineffective bureaucracy has actually intensified during the last couple of decades – while the influx of well experienced technocrats fell to a large extent.

Entry of technocrats from various professions to handle administrative jobs (or ministries as secretaries) would reduce the inefficiency that is rampant across all departments to a large extent. This will not only allow ministries to function as Strategic Business Units but will also make the entire hierarchy more efficient and productive. Take for instance the DMRC project. Had this project been headed by some legacy bureaucrat, the project wouldn't have been such a success. It was all thanks to a technocrat– E Sreedharan, a former professor and engineer – that DMRC could meet the deadlines. On similar lines, the UID project is running on fast track largely because a technocrat, Nandan Nilekani, chairs the initiative.

It goes without saying that when a novice heads a ministry that calls for technical knowledge and years of experience, the result will be what this nation is facing with almost all development projects – from cost overrun to time overrun. Yes, there’re exemplary exceptions like Maruti (even the current Chairman, RC Bhargava, is the 1965 IAS topper). But in general, these exceptions remain, well, exceptions, with a growing demand that technocrats be put at leadership positions in our defence, railways, agriculture and other ministries.

In most of the developed countries, the head of the government comes to power along with his team of experts (derived from think-tanks, experts, economists and so on) who have had impressive career records. For example, most of the members of the Obama Senate Transition Team are exemplars in their areas of work. Similarly, China adopted a technocratic economic model since its reforms period. The same goes for UK where Political and Economic Planning, a think-tank, assists the government. Similar are the cases with Germany a nd Russia. Presently, even European countries (especially the eastern ones) are experiencing a massive technocracy movement. Just pumping in money for development projects won't suffice, unless these are headed by people who know how to deliver efficiency. The conclusion to be drawn from these examples is that the existing politico-bureaucracy nexus needs to be broken and a conscription started where the nation’s top executives, management graduates are compulsorily made to work for a few years in government companies and ministries. 

Pakistan: unending betrayal

Why India must humiliate Pakistan!

Pakistan openly continues sponsoring terrorist activities against India. Why should India even talk with Pakistan then?

“The P word!” TIME magazine’s Bobby Ghosh quotes a top counterterrorism official, “When I hear of a terrorist plot, I can count back from 10, and before I get to zero, someone will bring up the P word.” P stands for Pakistan, a country, as Fareed Zakaria confirms, is “terrorism’s supermarket” –  70% of terror plots identified by the UK government have been “traced back” to Pakistan. Yet, US advises India to resume its diplomatic talks with Pakistan. How more churlish could that be?

The acrimony between India and Pakistan is decades old, and it doesn’t require a rote numbskull Jane’s defence analyst (or the sophomore upstart Ms. Clinton, if you please) to understand that Pakistan is no Castro loving Trotskyite bent on ensuring India’s social betterment. Pakistan is what Pakistan has been for the past many years – an incendiary anarchist nation, which unfortunately has a like-minded arsonist government establishment that promotes, funds and implements well-planned terrorist and extremist activities against India, and of late, the West too. While India for ages had pleaded with the international community to recognise Pakistan as a terrorist state, the West had daftly rejected the proposition time and again – and more because they were not the addressed recipients of Pakistan’s loving infatuation communiqués. They are now.

Given that, it is extremely wrong that India can be forced by the US to resume talks with Pakistan. In fact, this should have been the moment when India – and the international community – should have openly humiliated the Pakistani establishment, bringing them to task in the same manner as has been done in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

India has received a spate of betrayals and hollow promises from Pakistan. After nearly every other attack within India by Pakistan-backed terror groups, the Pakistani government has come up with highly promising compendiums of support, with a specific objective of buying time for the next attack. Some nuggets:

February 1999: Pakistan signs the ‘historic’ Lahore Declaration, promising to work towards a peaceful and bilateral solution to the Kashmir issue.

May 1999: Pakistan army clandestinely attacks and takes over Kargil. India retaliates and takes back lost territory.

July 2001: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (considered the Kargil mastermind) comes to India for the Agra Summit, peddled by Pakistan as peace talks.

December 2001: The Indian Parliament is attacked by a well trained set of terrorists, funded by agencies within Pakistan. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf promises to crack down on terrorist groups. It is found  that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was the one funding the attack.

January 2002: Musharraf promises again that “no organisation will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in the name of Kashmir.” This is immediately followed by several terror attacks, topped in May 2002 by a terrorist attack on an army camp in Kashmir, which kills at least 30 people.

July 2006: Terror strikes in Mumbai local trains in July 2006. Prime suspects – SIMI, Lashkar-e-Toiba and ISI.

July 2008: Indian embassy destroyed in Kabul by terrorist attack, killing 58. New York Times confirms ISI involvement. Pakistan denies all accusations.

November 2008: Terrorists land on Mumbai shores from Pakistan and randomly fire at and bomb various targets, killing 173. One terrorist captured alive confirms Pakistan establishment’s complete involvement. Pakistan denies everything, and promises (again) to handover gangster Dawood Ibrahim and terrorist leader Masood Azhar if India provides “evidence.” India does, Pakistan doesn’t!

The list of Pakistan’s hellhound extremist orientation is clearly unending, yet what remains unbelievable is America’s continued financial support to this failed state – on December 2009, in the latest tranche,  Pakistan received a $7.5 billion US aid package to ostensibly strengthen counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. Much of this will be used against India; some against US too.

If US representatives, on May 3, 2010, can humiliate Iran (a country that has no intentions of becoming a nuclear armed state; and one that openly denounces terrorist activities) by walking out of the UN assembly when Iranian President Ahmedinejad starts speaking, then why shouldn’t India too openly humiliate Pakistan (a certified nuclear armed state, openly supporting terrorism) by walking out of nonsensical peace talks? On May 7, 2010, Hillary Clinton commented, “Somewhere in the Pakistan government are people who know where Osama bin Laden is.” Good morning Ms.Clinton, the Ambien seems to be wearing off finally. 

India: Road Safety

120,000 dead!

In road accidents; now, why doesn’t that rankle you?

On the one hand, Indian government recently gave a green signal to the draft legislation which will facilitate setting up of a national-level body that would recommend standards for design, construction and maintenance of highways, road safety standards for motor vehicles and trauma centres for the country. Then, on the other hand, the recent Global Status Report on Road Safety, released by the World Health Organisation, reveals that India leads a group of ten countries with a horrendous road safety record.

Massive road accidents are not a one time event in India but daily affairs. As per most recent government figures, about 1.2 lakh people lost their lives in 2007 due to road accidents. On an average, more than one lakh people lose their lives due to road accidents in India every year. This is in spite of the government allocating crores of rupees towards road safety every year. But like most projects, a large pie of this amount remains unused and unspent. Talking in numbers, in 2004-05, out of Rs.40 crore meant for road safety, only around Rs.35 crore was actually utilized; in 2005-06, Rs.30 crore of the Rs.43 crore allocated was used; while in 2006-07, only Rs.43 crore of the Rs.47 crore was used.

What’s most remarkable is that among those dying of road accidents, pedestrians and cyclists make up the majority. In spite of having a very low population to vehicles ratio, the mortality rate in India in road accidents is 8.7 per 100,000, compared to 5.6 in the UK and 6.7 in Japan. Going by an official report, the social cost of accidents in India is estimated to be around Rs.55,000 crore (in the years 1999-2000), which constituted 3% of the GDP for the year.

 In the last few decades, a large part of the investment was directed towards making flyovers and better roads for motorists, but not much heed was given to pedestrians and cyclists. In short, every possible policy measure was adopted to make lives of motorist much safer. It’s only the recent years that have seen subways and dedicated cycle paths. More, of course, needs to be done.      

Pervez Musharraf - dictator in democracy

Give me my legal right this time - The Return of the Last Samuri...

Ex-President Pervez Musharraf’s desire to enter Pakistan’s politics, again, has some good and some bad with it. However, the good seems to surpass the bad at the moment

Few were ready to denote General Pervez Musharraf’s Presidential exit and his unannounced exile as his walk into the sunset; the general view was that he would return to fight another day. It seems that the time has come, as he seeks the company’s top post again, albeit via the democratic route this time. In his address on Feburary 16, 2010, to the Chatham House think-tank, he said, “I love my country and I would do anything for Pakistan. However, it is for the people of Pakistan who need to decide… I have to come through the political process, through the process of elections. But I think it’s very good, it’s very good because I think I will have that legitimacy, which I never had…” This remark of Musharraf shows that he still lives in the belief that this reign (rather eight year long dictatorial regime) was the most successful political period in the history of Pakistan. In addition, he expects the Pakistani people to now vote for him and bring him back to power. And as he admits himself, being a dictator wasn’t helping his cause either.

There is no denial to the fact that Pakistan, today, is in a process of utter disintegration. A brief recall of Pakistan’s past will make it clear that the ground for Pakistan’s disintegration was all set during Musharraf’s presidency. It was actually during Musharraf’s time that corruption found its new highs within the whole bureaucratic hierarchy. Today, Musharraf stays in one of London’s most expensive areas. Covertly and overtly supporting terrorist and extremist blocks and even manipulating their actions against India, Musharraf is an excellent example of how shrewd scheming and manipulation can be diplomatically window dressed in hyperbole words.

Musharraf has himself admitted boldly that the Kashmiri insurgency was fathered in Pakistan. But in the same voice, he also says that the Indian Muslim youth are increasingly feeling alienated. Strangely, one doesn’t hear him commenting on Pakistani Muslim youth that much. While stating his desire to return to power – and commenting that the Pakistani people need to decide on the issue – Musharraf forgets that it’s the same people who want him to be punished for the mammoth money laundering case that is still pending against him.

But then, Pakistan also saw something remarkable in Musharraf’s time. Between 1999 to 2007, Pakistan’s economy, revenue, per capita income, exports grew by 100% while foreign reserves, stock exchange, foreign direct investment grew by a jaw dropping 500%. The country also saw marked reductions in poverty and illiteracy levels. In 2006, Pakistan was the 3rd fastest growing economy of the world and a preferred destination for investment and also saw its ranking in almost all international lists improving. This dictator also gave licenses to almost 50 TV channels to operate.

But then, the current gloomy future of Pakistan is not safe for India’s internal security. Undoubtedly, if Pakistan disintegrates, the probability of the power and nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extremists will be quite high. In the given situation, would Musharraf be a good choice for India to support as the President? That’s a choice between the Devil and the Deep Sea, as India stands a loser whichever way the Pakistani cookie crumbles. Irrespective of any person in power in Pakistan, India would be seen as a legacy enemy and a violator of the rights of Kashmir. To that end, the American hold over Pakistan – however managed – is not only to India’s benefit, but to the whole region as well.

A joke in Pakistan goes like this. With 50% of Pakistani citizens illiterate, at any given moment only half of them make sensible statements. Musharraf qualifies on that statistic pretty well. He makes sense only half the time.

Homeschooling

It’s all about homework!

'Homeschooling' is here to stay, especially in the developing world

The concept of 'homeschooling' has not caught-on with parents in this part of the world. But then, in most of the developed countries the whole idea of homeschooling has gone beyond mere alternative education and has entered the ambit of politics and lobbying.

For the starters, homeschooling is the education of children at home and is seen as an alternative, in developed countries, to formal education. However, the surge in homeschooling is hitting the market of conventional education system in the US. A conservative estimate shows that over 50 million children are enrolled in over 100,000 schools in the US. The average per student expenditure in the US public schools is around $7,000.

In the US, where quality of formal education is quite worrisome, parents are largely opting for homeschooling. Take for instance, the IQ level (and maths skills) of an average American student is far too less than his counterpart in the developing countries. A 2007 survey by the Department of Education reveals that 88 per cent of homeschooling parents felt their local public schools were unsafe, drug-ridden or unwholesome in some way and 73 per cent complained of shoddy academic standards.

However, in developing countries, the practice of homeschooling is not so common. Reason being, that homeschooling is too expensive in metros (even surpasses school’s tuition fees). And in non-metros (or tier-II and tier-III cities) parents are not able to match up with modern education syllabi. Moreover, homeschooling is not encouraged at the time of college admissions. Unlike the West ­— where there is a strong network of activities and legal lobby that has ensured colleges/institutes to have a separate policy — developing countries do not have any body to advocate this concept.

Homeschooling in Africa is highly influenced by many missionaries, who are homeschooling their own children (due to lack of good schools and domestic instability). But there is an ongoing struggle between homeschoolers and the government over control of curriculum. Moving to Asia, there are a limited number of homeschoolers and many governments are against homeschooling.

On the one hand, schools in the West are lobbying with top officials to regulate homeschooling and discourage parents (of course, for obvious reasons!). Whereas on other hand, this concept can, to a large extent, compensate for lack of schools. This can also help those who are sole bread earners of the family and thus are not able to attend conventional schools. It will also help children in those parts of the states who can’t attend school because of domestic instability. What government needs to do is to recognise homeschooling (and standardise the syllabi) and make it acceptable during admission in college admission procedure. Moreover, with intervention of ICT (Information & Communication Technology) this medium can reach a larger audience.

However, this form of education is not an answer to lack of good schools and quality education, but for the time being can solve the problem of education (and schooling) in rural hinterlands of developing countries across the world.

Punctuality

Sample these: In spite of the West Bengal state government’s circular asking all employees to be punctual and to follow the 10 am to 5 pm official working hours, there was hardly any change in the ‘late work culture’ at Kolkata Writers’ Building (the West Bengal Secretariat and Assembly). This state circular also had a clause that made sure that the employees who failed to maintain the schedule would face penal action. According to various reports, most employees still arrive amicably between 11.15 am to 11.30 am and then leave at around 5 pm. Recent reports now also show the obvious, that even our MPs do not attend Parliament sessions regularly (if at all), what to talk about public appearances where they keep masses waiting for hours, if they appear that is.

Chidambaram, despite all the acrimony that he seems to scrape on to his personality, might have hit the truants with the hammer right where it hurts – the finger. In order to counter the problem of late attendances, the Home Minister has introduced bio-metric scanners at the offices of the Home Ministry. Chidambaram announced a few months back that a ten-minute delay three times a month will count as one day of leave. In the first stage of the scheme, 5000 home ministry employees – regardless of rank – will have their index fingers scanned to enable them to be tracked with respect to their attendance time and leaves. On week post the system, the Ministry claimed that 90% of their ‘subordinate staff’ and 70% of ‘junior officers’ were in office by 9.05 am (comparative pre-system figures were not provided; but one assumes it’s an uppish curve). Endgame? Not so fast Wodehouse.

One, the system only checks fingers and not whether the person stays in office post ‘fingering’ in his attendance! Two, it won’t be long before an employee takes the equipment to court claiming it malfunctions. Three, vandalism! Still, what would get the cheasel of the weasels is the fact that now even the tax department is thinking of issuing biomentric PAN cards! As Indians would put it quite crassly, attendance was a game for their left hands once upon a time... now their right