Crorepathies and Criminals in Parliament

300 ‘crorepatis‘ in new Lok Sabha
Here is an excerpt from an Indian Express report on Crorepathies in India’s newly elected Parliament.
The 543 MPs elected to the new Lok Sabha together have assets worth more than Rs 3,000 crore, while 300 of them can be called ‘crorepatis‘ as they own assets worth at least Rs one crore. The average asset size of an MP in the entire Lok Sabha works out to be more than Rs five crore.
In terms of combined assets of Lok Sabha representatives, AP is on the top with assets worth Rs 606 crore, followed by Maharashtra (close to Rs 500 crore), Tamil Nadu (about Rs 450 crore), Uttar Pradesh (about Rs 400 crore) and Haryana (Rs 181 crore) in the top five.
In a country with estimated 200 million earning less than 12 Rupees a day this is amazing statistic. Truly “representative” Parliament!!!!…..
The number of MPs with criminal records have gone up too.
Here are some excerpts from National Election Watch report on criminal records of MPs.
1. There are 150 newly elected MPs with criminal cases pending against them. Out of these, there are 73 MPs having serious charges against them.
2. As compared to 2004, the no of MPs with criminal records has gone up. There were 128 MPs with criminal cases in 2004 Lok Sabha out of which 55 had serious criminal records. There is an increase of about 17.2% in MPs with criminal records and 30.9% increase in the number of MPs with serious criminal records.
3. BJP has maximum MPs having criminal cases – 42 MPs have criminal cases against them, out of which 17 MPs have serious criminal cases against them. It is followed by Congress – 41 MPs with criminal cases out of which 12 MPs have serious charges against them.
4. Amongst the states, UP has maximum MPs with criminal cases (total of 31 out of which 22 have serious charges against them). Maharashtra is second with 23 MPs having criminal cases out of which 9 have serious cases against them.
Sorry State of Indian politics continues.

Kerala electorate gives a timely drubbing to the LDF

The results of the 2009 Indian Parliament elections are out. The Congress lead UPA is voted back to power with a resounding win.Once again the Indian voter has opted for secularism.They upheld the centuries old Indian tradition of religious tolerance.UPA has won enough seats to form a stable secular Government that will last for the full term..The BJP lead NDA conceded defeat. The Left which includes the CPI[M],CPI,RSP and the Forward Bloc received a big defeat in their strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala. This post is about Kerala politics in view of the election results of 2009.

A friend of mine,a person who is close to CPI[M] [so close that he was asked by the District Secretary about the suitability of a Candidate for this Parliament election] telephoned me in excitement by about 10am yesterday,saying he is so happy that Left Democratic Front is loosing most of the seats.

“It proves that the People’s vote really matters. I hope they will learn a lesson” he said.
“Did you vote for Left?” I asked.
“No I was out of station”, was the reply.
May be this was the first time that he did not vote in an election.

Such joy in LDF’s defeat came as a surprise to me especially from him.But later I realised that most of the people of Kerala,along with the Leftist sympathisers are happy at the drubbing the LDF received in this election.

Why the LDF deserved this drubbing?

In 2006 the LDF won the State assembly election by a big margin,winning 99 out of 140 seats. But since then LDF rule was marred by infighting between the CPI[M] State secretary Pinarayi VIjayan and the Chief Minsiter V.S.Achutanandan. Pinarayi Vijayan and his supporters tried to oust most of the sympathisers of V.S from the Party Committees. Pinarayi Vijayan is infamous for his close relations with unscrupulous Industrialists and Real estate Mafia. He is also under the cloud of corruption scandal.V.S Achutanandan on the other hand is seemed to be working with a single aim of trying to oust Pinarayi Vijayan from the post of State Secretary of the CPI[M].

The factionalism with in the Party was so much that the Politburo had to intervene several times to restore order. The Party Secretary never allowed the Chief Minister a free hand.The people of Kerala who had overwhelmingly voted for the LDF was frustrated at the factionalism which they are more used to see in Congress.

The arrogance of Pinarayi Vijayan [who was secretly plotting the ouster of V.S. as the Chief Minister] was evident from the way in which the CPI and the Janata Dal,partners in LDF were asked to vacate their sitting seats.The open and much published relationship with the erstwhile Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani was the brain child of Pinarayi Vijayan. It was a ploy to break the UDF’s [Muslim League’s] monopoly on Muslim vote bank. Madani, considered to be a reformed Islamist, and his party PDP unconditionally supporting the LDF was acceptable.But was there a need to parade him,[a leader still under some suspicion of relationship with the Jihadists] in public meetings in which all LDF leaders were taking part? Did that produce a consolidation of Caste Hindu votes against LDF ? Most probably yes. The fact that BJP in Kerala polled only half the votes that they got in 2004 Parliament election is an indication of that.Most of that votes must have gone to the Congress.

What is the way ahead for CPI[M] in Kerala?

A complete change in the working of the Party organisation including the removal of Pinarayi Vijayan as State Secretary is the only way out if the Left have to regain its influence on Kerala voters. A more transparent and people friendly Governance is needed from the LDF led State Government.
Instead of blaming minority consolidation,church,’anti-left media’,BJP’s vote transfer etc for the defeat, the CPI[M] should be bold and brave enough for a through introspection of its arrogant way of working in the State.Politics of compromises should give way to politics of sincerity to secularism and inclusive Growth.
Even though Karl Marx had said that “nothing is unchanging except change itself” it will be a tough and may be impossible task for the Marxists in Kerala to make that decisive change, which is the need of the hour for the Leftist politics in the State.

Times of India’s attempt to bash human rights activists

The Saffron blogs are celebrating the Times of India’s report on how Teesta Setalvad allegedly tried to spice up Gujarat carnage incidents. Here is the first few lines of the report that was published in TOI.
The Special Investigation Team responsible for the arrests of those accused in Gujarat riots has severely censured NGOs and social activist Teesta Setalvad who campaigned for the riot victims. In a significant development, the SIT led by former CBI director R K Raghavan told the Supreme Court on Monday that the celebrated rights activist cooked up macabre tales of wanton killings.for the riot victims.

After reading the above paragraph what will you infer? You will obviously believe that the SIT team told in the Supreme Court on Monday, April 13 2009, that the human right activists including Teesta Setalvad cooked up stories on riot incidents.
What is the truth?
The report of Special investigation team set up by Supreme court was actually submitted on March 2 2009 and not on April 13, 2009. It has been kept confidential ever since.Nobody from SIT was submitting anything on April 13 in the Supreme Court.
What actually happened was the Counsel for Gujarat Government Mr Rohatgi read from a written note submitted by the Gujarat Government to the Supreme Court,claiming that SIT report has found that the allegations made by NGOs like Citizens for Justice and Peace are false.In response Justice Pasayat said “we don’t want to go into the allegations. Justice must prevail. Truth can be arrived at only if there is such an atmosphere”.
While the Supreme Court observed that there was no room for allegations and counter allegations at this late stage, the Times of India coverage has brazenly flouted this observation by reporting the totally baseless allegations against social activist Teesta Setalvad and the organisation she represents Citizen for Justice and Peace on the basis of the Gujarat government’s note circulated in the Court. This is all the more reprehensible because Teesta Setalvad and Citizen for Justice and Peace have neither been given a copy of the SIT report nor has their response been sought in the matter.
The very fact that the Supreme Court had to set up the SIT to correct the miscarriage of justice due to the tardy investigation by the state of Gujarat was highlighted in the court’s observation that but for the SIT investigation many more accused, who were freshly added, would not have been brought to book. It was the untiring efforts of Teesta Setalvad and the CJP and the National Human Rights Commission that persuaded the Supreme Court to set up the SIT and on the basis of its findings further arrests have been made of persons who held top jobs in Police and in the Modi ministry in Gujarat.
Why did Times of India report such allegation by Gujarat Government as truth?
What is the importance of the timing of the report?

All opinion polls about the current Parliament elections in India suggest that the BJP led NDA will not win enough seats to attain power in Centre. Most polls suggest that the stigma of Gujarat riots still haunts the BJP, especially among urban middle class and upper class voters.Times of India report may be a last ditch attempt by a compliant and unethical media to help BJP garner some more Parliament seats to help its agenda of Hindutvaisation of India. That’s why such a report appeared in Times of India, 2 days before the beginning of month long polling.
edited to add..
Read rebuttal of CJP here and the TOI reporter’s reply here. TOI reporter do not have an explanation for the way he distorted and made a false impression on the readers that SIT said such things on April 13 2009 in the Supreme Court.

We need the SIT report to be made public by the Court so that we can study it and come to a conclusion. Most probably the report will have some remarks against the CJP,but also more severe reprimand for the Gujarat Government. By quoting some selected parts supposed to be from the SIT report the Gujarat Government betrayed the trust of confidentiality of the Supreme Court for some narrow political gains.

Indian Parliament Elections– Please Vote

In 3 days time the World’s largest democracy will start going to the polls to elect a new Parliament. It will be held in 5 phases starting on April 16. Polling will take place on April 16,23,30 May 7 and 13. Elections will be held in all 5 phases in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh while Bihar will have 4 phase elections.Maharashtra and West Bengal will have elections in 3 phases.Counting of all the votes polled will be on May 16.

About 714000000 voters are eligible for voting.Polling will be held in 828804 polling stations using 1368430 electronic voting machines.The statistics about the number of Parties,the number of Candidates etc are yet to come in. That will also threw up mind boggling numbers. Indian Parliament elections is certainly the mother of all elections in the World.

Elections will be held for 543 seats of Lok Sabha,the lower house of Indian Parliament.

The Lok Sabha can have up to 552 members as envisaged in the Constitution of India (Article 81). It has a term of 5 years but it may be dissolved earlier by the President in the event of no party getting a majority. To be eligible for membership of Lok Sabha, a person must be a citizen of India and must not be less than 25 years of age. Up to 530 members can be elected from the states, up to 20 members from the Union territories and no more than two members can be nominated by the President of India.

As of now, the Lok Sabha has 545 members, 530 members from the states, 13 members from the Union territories and two nominated members representing the Anglo Indian community.

Certain number of seats are reserved for the historically socially discriminated communities included under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.After the recent delimitation of constituencies the number of seats reserved for Scheduled castes have increased from 79 to 84 and those reserved for Scheduled tribes have increased from 41 to 45. The number of un reserved seats is now 414 out of 543.
There are 7 National Political Parties and more than 50 State political parties. The candidate getting maximum number of valid votes in each constituency wins that Parliament seat.In the last Lok sabha 38 political parties were able to win seats.

The Indian National Congress lead United Progressive Alliance[UPA] and the Bharatiya Janata Party lead National Democratic Alliance[NDA] are the main opposing political groupings. A third front under the leadership of the Left Parties are also expected to win few seats.
All the opinion polls have predicted a hung Parliament with neither Fronts coming near the magic number of 272 seats. UPA may have a slight edge over NDA in numbers,but post poll alliances will determine who will be the Prime Minister.

Elections in India always used to fascinate me. The first election I remember was the one in 1977. Until then I believed[as an 8 yr old child] that Indira Gandhi will be the Prime Minister till her death.
Those days elections took place in only one or two phases and the counting will start immediately. Then we had the old paper ballot system with manual counting. We used to get the result after about 16 to 48 hours of counting. The counting used to continue through out the night.

In 1977 we had only All India Radio [AIR] as a news source for election results. AIR was under strict control of Government especially during the dictatorial emergency regime. So it had no credibility. Everybody was interested to know the fate of Congress under Indira Gandhi. All wanted her voted out.But AIR was not coming out with results.
So my father took me to a local newspaper office where there was public announcement of lead positions in various constituencies.A large number of people were gathered on the road in front of the office to hear the announcements. Each announcement was greeted with clapping or booing.
In that election the ruling Congress Party was swept out of power by the Janata Party wave.Indira Gandhi herself lost to Raj Narayan at Rae Bareily. That was the first time Indian National Congress,the Party of India’s freedom struggle was dethroned by the power of ballot. Looking back we realise that Indian democracy attained maturity in 1977 by peacefully pushing out of power a dictatorial regime under Indira Gandhi.

What ever be its limitations and drawbacks, Indian experiment with democracy in a large, mainly poor and illiterate, multi-lingual,multi-religious and multi-ethnic country can be considered as a big success.

I have never wasted an opportunity to vote,whether it is municipal,State or National elections.This year also,on April 16th I will be a proud participant in this important exercise in the World’s largest democracy.Hope each one of you will do the same.

State of Nation’s Health Care system.

Another Parliament election is coming. As everyone is discussing the hate speeches,vote for note scams,dissolving alliances and about the umpteen number of leaders running for the Prime Minister’s post,let us not forget the real issues facing the Indian electorate. Today with the help of this article in The Frontline let me make you aware of the issues in the health sector.

What is the state of the nation’s health?

The findings of the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), a household survey carried out during 2005-06, should put the political class to shame. The country was then witnessing an 8-9 per cent economic growth and the government may think that India is a world power in the making, but these findings tell the real story of where all that growth is headed.

Let me highlight some of the points in this article.

1. Infant and Child mortality rates although falling slowly is unacceptably high.Our mortality rates corresponds to the average of least developed countries.

2.Immunisation coverage is only 44% and is actually falling in some areas

3.Pulse Polio Programme is still not a success and is adversely affecting the Universal Immunisation Programme

4.Closure of vaccine making public sector Companies on flimsy grounds resulted in severe vaccine shortage.

5.Under nutrition in Children in rural areas is much worse than in sub saharan Africa.

6.Percentage of anemic women[pregnant or non pregnant,which is more than fifty percentage] actually showed an increase from 1998 to 2005

7.More than half of child births take place with out a qualified health worker in attendance.

8.More than 600000 children die due to diarrhoea every year,an easily preventable death.

9.There is a short fall of trained health care personals in Health Centres by 20 to 40%.

10.India has the most privatised health care system in the World with every one paying for the health care from their pocket.60 to 70% of patients go to private hospitals.Only about 5 % have insurance.

11. Public health expenditure as a proportion of total health expenditure is lowest in India.

These are only few of the problem areas.There are many more areas especially the ever increasing burden of non-communicable diseases like Diabetes,Heart Attacks,Stroke,Chronic lung disease,Chronic Kidney diseases etc.

Access to quality health care is a basic human right and should be viewed as a fundamental right of every citizen. A healthy nation is a prerequisite for social and economic development. Mere economic growth measured in gross financial terms, as is evident, does not ensure that. To make the public health care system work requires determined political leadership, adequate investment and appropriate policy instruments rooted in ground realities.

Therefore, in the run-up to the general election, from the perspective of the electorate, people’s health should be accorded top priority along with education and food security. Public health must be brought to the top of the political agenda, which, unfortunately, has not been in evidence in the past 60 years of independence.

Which is the biggest threat for Indian Elections?

Which is the biggest threat for Indian General elections to be held in April/May 2009?
a.Jihadi militants from across the border
b.Insurgents from the North East
c.LTTE from Srilanka
d.None of the above

The answer according to Indian Election Commission is d, none of the above.
The biggest threat for smooth and peaceful polling is the left wing extremist Maoist/Naxalite movement in the heart of India. But most of the Indians seemed to be blissfully unaware of the threat.Or are they trying to wish away the reality?

The naxal movement has been one of the biggest threats to the general elections for quite some time now. The threat is spread right from the Nepal border to Tamil Nadu. According to a Union home ministry assessment, Maoist or Naxalite violence is of serious concern in 12 of India’s biggest states.
These States include Andhra Pradesh,Bihar,Chattisgarh,Jharkhand,Orissa,Maharashtra,Madhya Pradesh,West Bengal,Uttar Pradesh,TamilNadu,Karnataka and Kerala.

Who are these Naxalites?

Naxalites are Communist groups wanting to over throw the current set up of governance by a violent revolution of the working class and peasants.
The term comes from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where a section of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal led a violent uprising in 1967, trying to develop a “revolutionary opposition” in opposition to the CPI(M) leadership.

During the 1970s the movement was fragmented into several disputing factions. By 1980 it was estimated that around 30 Naxalite groups were active, with a combined membership of 30 000. A 2004 home ministry estimate puts numbers at that time as “9,300 hardcore underground cadre… [holding] around 6,500 regular weapons beside a large number of unlicensed country-made arms. More recent figures claim that the guerrillas control an estimated one fifth of India’s forests, as well as being active in 160 of the country’s 604 administrative districts. Now it is believed that 50,000 Naxals are currently involved in the growing insurgency.

Today some groups have become legal organisations participating in parliamentary elections, such as Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. Others, such as Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti are engaged in armed guerrilla struggles. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India.

Recently I happened to read an informative book on Maoists. The book titled “Red Sun” written by Sudeep Chakravarti is an extensive documentation of the Naxalite movement in India.The author, travelling deep inside the Maoist territory brings you a first hand chilling account of the threat and the weak and faltering response of the Government. He is also is trying to explain the reason for the successes of Maoists. Here are some excerpts:

There is little debate that the spread of Maoist influence is at its core the consequence of bad Governance or plain non-Governance and crushing exploitation in the World’s next superpower…….. According to National Sample Survey Organisation about 250 million people in India,which constitutes a third of rural population lives on less than Rs 12 a day……
Close to half the Children here[ India] are malnourished or stunted…. Three quarters of Indians do not have access to safe drinking water or sanitation………

For much of middle-class India,Maoism today is something vaguely alarming,to do with shifting lines on the Country’s map that they see every once in a while in the mainstream media. To me these are as significant as the LOC on India’s western border with Pakistan and the northern borders with China.These lines within India mark the of ideologies of the ‘oppressor’ and the ‘oppressed’: they mark the lives lost to landmines,crude bombs,gun battles and ‘encounters’.They are connected lines of conflict across which police and paramilitary forces battle daily against hands of the desperately disaffected.

The danger lies in increasing the degree of denial.By all accounts,half a billion people[500000000] will remain a long way away from the country’s high growth party in the foreseeable future. They won’t like it one bit,and many- even a modest one percent of this amounts to 5 million people-could do anything to crash the party,to destroy the frame work,if they cannot join in the merrymaking.There is already enough ill will and resentment about for generations…….

In the neighbouring Nepal Maoists won……showing what armed revolution triggered by decades of neglect,nepotism and corruption can achieve.It was a classic case of privileging violence;nobody listens in this part of the world until a fire is lit……

There is no indication of Maoism wrapping up,because the key triggers for Maoism– massively skewed development,massive corruption and great social and ethnic discrimination–shows no signs of wrapping up either.
Of course,it doesn’t have to be this way–if central and state Governments do as they should,if India’s prejudiced millions do as they should,and do the right thing.If they don’t,if a country desperately seeking superpower status is blinded by unrealistic ambition and social sores,the Maoists and others like them will be there to show the way.

The Maoists are patriots,by their own admission.
India’s Maoists do not want a separate country.They already have one.Its just not the way they would like it—-yet.