Indo-US Nuclear Deal

The anxieties concerning Indo-US nuclear deal began on July 18th, 2005 with the joint declaration of our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush. The treaty is known as 123 deal because of the changes that were made in the 123 section of the American atomic energy deal of 1954 which allows US to enter to treaties with India which has not signed NPT. There are 17 sections in 22 pages in the deal which is relevant for 40 years. Hyde act is another amendment made to this deal that will allow US to sell nuclear technology and equipments to India. Hyde act is known after the name of Henry Joseph Hyde the senator who proposed the act.
The PM insists that nuclear energy is the only source for the energy crisis of our country. But one needs to look at the energy production of this country and compare the nuclear energy that India will get from the nuclear deal before signing the deal. Thermal and hydro electric projects contribute 55 % and 22 % of the total production of the power in the country respectively. The 4120 megawatts that come from nuclear power projects contribute only 2 %. The govt. claims that if the nuclear deal is signed, by 2040 the nuclear power production will touch 40,000 megawatts. The planning commission places it at 29000 by the year 2021. The wind generated power units and the recently improved power generating source jointly produce 10715 megawatts (7.5%) whereas nuclear power which with its history of more than fifty years has been able only to produce only 4120 megawatts.
The cost of nuclear generated electricity is appalling. Coal/ Thermal power is priced at 3.73 crore/megawatt as against the 7.4 Crore/megawatt. Natural Gas and hydroelectric power can be generated at 2crore per megawatt. The imported reactors that are part of the nuclear deal will take the cost to something like 11.1 crore (inclusive of the interests of the production capital). The statistics shows that the cost of nuclear power is five times that of hydroelectric power and three and half times that of thermal/coal power. It might be relevant to recall the financial burden that Enron, with its mere 2000 megawatt capacity brought to bear on the Government of Maharashtra. The burden of 40000 megawatts will be staggering.
A study conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveals that US spends 4.2 cents for coal generated power and 7.6. for nuclear power. The disposal of nuclear waste which poses serious threats to all forms of life is still a daunting problem. The cost of decommissioning of nuclear reactors exceeds that of commissioning. The carelessness of man, the internal unrest, civil wars natural disasters raise serious challenges to nuclear safety. The cases of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are hard to forget. Einstein's observation that research on nuclear safety should be given priority over nuclear energy is worth recalling here.
India, a fast developing country is in urgent need of nuclear safety. What is of paramount importance is whom should and how should India depend for nuclear energy. It is not wise to engage in a frantic rush for nuclear energy which causes serious social crisis when there are other more productive and less harmful ways of producing power using modern technology and natural resources. Those who argue that we will need nuclear energy when the coal and thermal source of power are exhausted should remember that uranium which is essential for nuclear power will not available as a long term source.
We need to depend on alternative sources and systems of generating power that will not destroy the balance of nature or the existence of humanity. Solar power is the fastest growing option that is receiving widespread attention and acceptance. The scientists have come to conclusion that from Rajastan desert alone one lakh megawatt of solar power is possible. On a long term basis, we need to develop solar, hydro electric, wind and biomass and for short term dependence we can look to thermal and coal. In Nepal alone, there is the possibility of producing 8000 megawatts of hydro electric power and our national hydroelectric corporation points out that we can make around 50000 megawatts of hydroelectric power. Many mini hydro electric projects and alternative systems and sources are possible. This being the situation, we need to think whether we should lead ourselves to a Gordian knot (Nuclear Deal) that America insists.
Another objection raised by those who support nuclear power is that coal/ thermal power generating stations will worsen global warming. There is no doubt that use of fossil energy will augment the green house effect. Just because India stops using such energy is not going to help. If India coal reactors emit 500kilos waste US reactors emit 5 tonnes. The statistics show that the major culprit of global warming is the US. The US has always resisted everything that is against their interests. The US had no qualms about walking out of the KYOTO agreement. Only selfish interest governs US in this nuclear deal. The Section 104(d) 5 (b) is ample proof that country's selfish concerns in this deal.
The above data proves without doubt that for power safety and environment protection we need coal based power generating stations and not nuclear power reactors. We need to rely on clean coal technology to reduce environmental pollution. A major chunk of the domestic power use is the electric bulb invented by Edison more than one hundred years ago. Such bulbs convert 90 % of electricity to light. The use of such bulbs in India is estimated at 100 crores. Replacing them with CFL bulbs will reduce energy consumption by more than fifty percent. You can save the environment from thousands of tons of carbon waste, and reduce electricity bill in households. The greater life of the CFL bulbs will also reduce E wastes. The total cost will be somewhere between 7000-10000 crores. Such being the case, to argue that nuclear power is the only solution is fooling oneself.
This deal which is supposed to be for power safety refers only to electric energy. Electricity forms only a portion of our energy consumption. Oil, natural gas and petrochemical products are not even discussed. The demand for oil and natural gas are on the rise day by day. 72 % of the petroleum consumption of our country is imported. According to the integrated energy policy report of the planning commission, by 2032, the demand for petroleum will rise from 33400 lakh tons to 4620 lakh tons and that of natural gas from 990 to 1840. These figures show that the Indo American nuclear deal will meet only a small portion of our energy demand. Before one enters into this deal, one needs to take into consideration some facts. India's share in world energy consumption is only a mere 2 percent. India stands first globally as the importer of oil. Nuclear energy meets only 3-5 % of the demands for energy as compared to 30 and10 % of oil and natural gas. In the future 40 % of the energy demand will be from oil and natural gas.
The pipeline project from Iran through Pakistan will be a partial solution to our demands. The project with an output of 250 lakh tons of natural gas would be a significant step towards saving millions of rupees. The figures furnished by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Resources are significant. The cost of one Billion Terminal Unit of Natural Gas (Iran Pipeline Project) is a mere 4 dollars as against the international market price of 14 dollar. The possibility of a very cost effective means of acquiring natural gas will be nullified by the Indo American Nuclear Deal.
American Business concerns give much importance to 123 deal. US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business federation in the world expects around 60 lakh crores from India as part of the Indo American deal. The business houses in India also expect crores of rupees from this deal. The big shots in the government also expect monetary gains from this deal. How can one claim that they are the followers of Gandhiji who insisted that all plans for development should be implemented without losing sight of the poorest sections of our country? That smiling toothless reverend old man sitting on the wall of ManMohan Singh's should be saying no to Indo American nuclear deal. Quit Nuclear Deal that is what that the great old man who passed away would be exhorting us to do.
The intention of the Indian Government is to amend the nuclear deal and open up the production of nuclear energy to private corporations. This will destroy the nuclear safety of our country. The possibility of uranium and plutonium falling into the hands of terrorists cannot be ruled out. It would be worthwhile to remember Einstein's words- it is dangerous to give greater powers to private agencies and corporations that do not have equally greater responsibilities"
The meager energy that we get through 123 deal is achieved at the expense of sacrificing India's sovereignty and integrity. It will be the end of our self reliance in the field of nuclear energy and it will offer shackles in the sphere of foreign policies. The question whether India should keep aloof from nuclear energy when China, Korea and France even with their energy resources from coal are favourable towards nuclear energy has also come up. It is not by quoting the example of France or China that India should take a decision, rather it should be based on the assessment of technological advances that India has achieved in the field of nuclear energy. Indian scientists have pointed out that the nuclear deal will destroy the second stage fast breeder technology that our country alone possesses.
India's voting against Iran can be seen only as a move to appease America. This is ironic since those who voted against Iran are the followers of Nehru who once reiterated to America that we are not international beggars. Such actions cause a blemish on the sense of justice that this country has always upheld. What is more essential for the power security and self sufficiency of the country is to use the energy that is available from oil and natural gas. It does not lie in buying reactors from GE or Westing House. To make it possible we need peace in the Asian region. The intention of the American Imperialist forces is to cause unrest. Do we need this deal that will sacrifice the sovereignty and international policies of our country?

Samyukta Maharashtra Movement

Summary

A study of Samyukta Maharashtra movement reveals this familiar general pattern. The rise and growth of the Samyukta Maharshtra movement must be studied not merely in the general context of the countrywide agitation for linguistic States but also in the particular context of the society and politics in Maharashtra.

Introduction

The problem of recognizing the states and demarcating their boundaries after setting conflicting claims considerable anxiety to the government of India and the congress party after the achievement of independence. It was a legacy of the pre-independence period during which the congress committed itself to the idea of redrawing the map of India mainly on the linguistic basis. After the achievement of freedom, various linguistic groups demanded the redemption of the old pledge.

Historical Background

At no time in the history of India, all the regions, which now constitute the state of Maharashtra, were politically one. They were ruled for centuries by different dynasties till shivaji succeeded in out an independent kingdom for the Marathas in 1674. Despite Aurangazeb’s did to destroy then after Shivsji death in 1680, the Marathas continued to dominate politics in India.

Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti

Samyukta Maharashtra samiti was on organization that spearheaded the demand, in the 1950s, for the creation of a separate Marathi-speaking state out of the (then bilingual) state of Bombay in western India. The organization was founded on February 6, 1956, under the leadership of Keshavrav jedhe in Pune. Prominent activist if Samyukta mahatashtra samiti were Acharya Atre, Prabodhankar thakeray, Senapati Bapat and Shahir AmarShaikh among others.

The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti was achieving his goal on May 1, 1960 when the state of Bombay was partitioned into the Marathi-speaking State of Maharashtra and the Gujarati-speaking State of Gujarat.

In early 1960, demonstrators were fired upon by the police at Flora Fountain in the capital city of Mumbai (Bombay). Flora Fountain was subsequently renamed Hutatma chowk or “Marty’s Crossroads” in their memory. It is estimated that in all, 105 people met their death in violence related to the movement.

Details of Samyukta Maharashtra Movement

The socio-economic conditions have also considerably influenced the course of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement. Barring the industrially advanced Bombay-Poona region, the rest of Maharashtra is even now industrially as underdeveloped as several other states in India. Nearly 70 per cent of its people living in rural areas depend on agriculture for their livelihood. As the percentage of net irrigated areas to the cultivated areas is extremely low and the rainfall irregular, scanty and undependable, agriculture in Maharashtra has invariably been affected by the vagaries of the monsoon. During British rule, major irrigation schemes were undertaken only in the Deccan. As the storage sites for construction of dams on the rivers in Gujarat were to be located in the former princely states, which were not eager to co-operate, Gujarat had to wait till independence for the implementation of major and minor irrigation schemes (Patel, cultivated by their tenants. It was not, therefore, surprising that the twin targets of the anti-Brahmin movement, which gathered strength in the twenties and the thirties, were the non-Marathi-speaking Shetaji (a rich person) and the Marathi-speaking Bhataji (a Brahmin priest).

Another important feature of Maharashtra’s economy is its pathetic dependence on the Bombay Metropolitan region. It accounts for 75 per cent the industrial activity in Maharashtra and nearly 65 percent of factory workers in the state. It is because of Greater Bombay that Maharashatra appears to be India’s most urbanished and industrially advanced state. But excluding Greater Bombay, even now, it is not merely as backward as less industrialized parts of the country.

A separate State of the Marathi-speaking Brahmins was possible. By raising the spectre of the Maratha caste-cluster’s hegemony, the Gujarati-speaking leaders who opposed Samyukta Maharashtra often urged the Marathi speaking Brahmins to give up their demand. Though a majority of the letter refused to be frightened by this nightmare not a negligible section of Brahmins did feel assured by the presence of the Gujarati-speaking.

None of the Maharashtra contingent was ever regarded as a member of congress high command in the Nehru era. The absence of the Marathi-speaking leaders in the decision –making group of the congress led to the belief that Maharashtra was lagging behind and had a secondary position in an Indian politics. Not only congressmen but also by non-congress leader demanded the fact that Maharashtra congress leader were occupying back seats. What was even more significant that several leaders and leading intellectuals of Maharashtra often gave vent to this feeling during the post-independence period when the congress high command persisted in refusing to concede the demand for Samyukta Maharashtra.

Unlike the powerful movements for the creation of separate provinces of Bihar, Orisa, Andhra and Karnataka, the campaign for the Samyukta Maharashtra was relatively of recent origin. Congress leaders from Maharashtra did not evince any interest in the early attempts made by the Samyukta Maharashtra. Sabha in 1940 to mobilize public opinion for the unification of Maharashtra. They believed that the creation of linguistic provinces was a secondary question, which could be tackled after independence.

Battle for Bombay

The battle for Bombay had four distinct phases. During the first phase (1946 to 17 November 1955) under the leadership of the Samyukta Maharashtra Parishad.the supporters of Samyukta Maharashtra tried to bargain with their opponents by giving certain guarantees and by agreeing to provide safe-guard to protect their legitimate interest (Dec. 1954; letter to Thakurdas) but the Bombay citizens’ committee led by Purshottamdas Thakurdas was quit adamant and reiterated its demand for a separate city-state of Bombay.

Inflation

The 1990s is widely described in general as a price stability era all over the globe. During the early part of this decade, developed and developing countries alike experienced "a distinct ebbing of inflation", so observes India's central banking authorities, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Inflation in India, barring some external factors like bouts of increase in international oil price and natural disasters like drought or flood, is showing an ebbing trend. To attain exchange rate stability and an smoother and higher trade with the country's major trade partners in developed countries in particular, it is imperative for India to be around the inflation rate ruling in its trade partner-countries. Compared with early 1990s, inflation in India has ebbed to a marked extent and ruling in the range of 4.5 - 5.5 percent compared with double digit inflation in some early years of 1990s.

Spiralling food and commodity prices pushed the inflation rate to a worrisome 7 per cent and the concerned government, confronted with major supply constraints, threatened to come down heavily on hoarders. The latest price data showed that the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) has reached its highest since December 2004. The rate of inflation in the previous week was 6.68 per cent and 6.54 per cent in the corresponding week a year-ago. The Centre has already empowered state governments to impose stock limit orders on essential commodities to check hoarding. Earlier this week, the government announced a slew of measures, including import duty cuts on edible oils and a ban on export of non-basmati rice. Experts cautioned that the price situation was unlikely to ease in the near future as a shortage of food had pervaded the world economy. Record prices of rice and sky-high oil have stirred up inflation worldwide, prompting many governments to impose price controls and curb exports of essential goods. The mineral category index shot up by 38.2 per cent, primarily driven by a 46 per cent rise in the prices of iron ore. Inflation is in an accelerating mode and we are yet to see any signs of its softening.

The RBI will announce its slack-season monetary policy this month and many analysts expect the central bank to raise interest rates to tame inflation. The present inflationary spiral is a pure supply-side phenomenon and not due to overheating in the economy. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to grow at a slower 8.7 per cent in 2007-08, after clocking 9.6 per cent in the previous year. Your monthly expenditure will go up, your groceries will cost more and your disposable income will buy less for the same money. Retailers will pass on the rise in wholesale prices to consumers. Your home loan rates may shoot up. The Reserve Bank will take steps to tighten money supply. This will either stop interest rates from falling - or could even make them rise to curtail overall demand in the economy. Your salary hikes may be curtailed. When inflation goes up, your employer’s costs go up and to save money the employer may reduce or hold back your pay increases Growth may slow - and so will job prospects. Industries put their foot on the brakes or accelerators when interest rates go up. They hire fewer people or take their time to make up their minds on investment plans. This could stagger job prospects. Your stocks and mutual fund values suffer. It is simple; when economic growth suffers, corporate earnings take a knock and bulls and foreign investors stay away from the market. Exports may be hit. If inflation goes up, the cost of manufacturing goods or producing services like software in the country goes up. The country’s competitiveness may suffer as a result and export sector prospects in industries like textiles, software and jewellery may be hurt. Imports will become costlier if the rupee becomes weaker. That makes the government’s oil bill higher, and this could potentially lead to increased fuel prices are in diesel, cooking gas or kerosene. And foreign trips will become tougher as well.

The sharp rise in wholesale price index based inflation to 6.68 per cent, no doubt, calls for a response from the government. It is important that the government analyse the causes of inflation before proposing a response. Last year too, about the same time, inflation had risen sharply. This was brought down by an increase in interest rates. But last year, inflation was demand driven and the rate hike helped in cooling down the overheated Indian economy. Growth slowed down, as expected, and price rise was contained. This year’s inflation is different. It is coming at a time when the economy is slowing down. The strategy to reduce inflation cannot be based on reducing growth further. This year’s inflation is primarily the result of a supply shock coming from rising world commodity, food and oil prices. It would be a mistake to raise interest rates to deal with this kind of inflation. Growth would slow down further and, given that inflation is due to higher global prices, it may not be significantly contained. The best way to deal with international price inflation affecting the Indian economy would be a strong rupee. The exchange rate pass-through from a change in the rupee-dollar rates to domestic inflation is positive. In other words, when the rupee appreciates it reduces the price of imported goods or import parity priced goods, that is, goods whose prices are determined by world prices. This will help in pulling down prices. Instead of quantitative restrictions such as a ban on exports of food products whose world price is high, a strong rupee will ensure that it is less profitable to export these items. This will help make more food available domestically. Also, it will make it cheaper to import food and food products. The government should, in addition, eliminate import duties on edible oil, for example, to make it more affordable. The combination of a strong rupee and the removal of duty will make food products cheaper. It will also eliminate incentives to hoard.

One of the most serious policy mistakes made by the UPA government over the last year was to prevent the Indian consumer from benefiting from a strong rupee. The political power of exporters appears to have forced the government to resist rupee appreciation. Since rupee appreciation comes at the cost of higher domestic prices, today, the government is paying this price. Hopefully, now that we are closer to an election, the interest of the larger mass of the population may rule over the interest of a concentrated group of exporters.

LETS DO IT !

Introduction

Once I read somewhere that a person in his old age feels that he doesn't know anything. A middle-aged person wonders whether he really knows anything. It is only a young person who feels confident and sure that he knows everything. Elderly people feel that youngsters feel too much of themselves; they presume to know everything, and dismiss old people as if they know nothing. To some extent it is true as well. In our youth, for whatever reason, we think that we know everything. I heard a nice joke. A father called his young boy and said, "Let us discuss about life." And the young boy said, "Ok, tell me what you want to know!"

Young people get very enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is a good thing, but over-enthusiasm causes problems. Similarly confidence is also a good thing, but over-confidence causes problems. We can see how youngsters speed on their motorbikes or cars!

All of you are in the prime of youth, looking forward to the next stage in your life, planning what you are going to do. At this time it is good to understand a few points. If you really want to become successful and make a mark in life, then there are certain prerequisites. Nothing happens just like that. Many people have a wishful thinking that things will happen automatically. 'One fine day I will become a great person! A wonderful person!' The only thing that happens automatically, without any effort is, 'growing old!' But no one wants to grow old automatically. We like to make the best of life. So, give the benefit of doubt to your parents and the older generation, they may not be men of letters. Perhaps they never went to school; but they have gone through the school of experience in their life. They have learnt something. Hence, learn your first lesson – humility. So, be grateful to all the earlier generations for what they have done. Gratitude and humility are very important qualities that you must cultivate. Without humility, you cannot learn anything.

Anyone who wants to start a factory, industry or business, in whatever field it may be, has one common requirement – capital. If wealth is there, then you can invest it in any area you want. Similarly, you need to have good health and physical fitness for whatever you want to do. If you want to become a sportsman, you can train for the game of your choice, but first of all you must be physically fit. It is the basic common requirement for anything that you wish to take up. And if basic things are not taken care of, greater achievements will not be possible. Also, consistency of effort or practice is required to keep you alert and fit.

There are 315 million young people aged 10–24 years in India, representing 30 percent of the country's population. This cohort is healthier, more urbanized, and better educated than earlier generations. At the same time, these young people face significant risks related to sexual and reproductive health, and many lack the knowledge and power they need to make informed sexual and reproductive health choices. These vulnerabilities remain poorly understood and served, and it is only since the mid-1990s that researchers and policymakers have begun to investigate these issues. Even so, information on intimate partnerships among youth—female and male, married and unmarried—is sparse, and evidence is practically nonexistent that identifies the factors that protect young people’s abilities to ensure their own sexual and reproductive health and their autonomy to make informed and wanted health decisions. There is a need, therefore, to undertake a nationally or subnationally representative study of the situation and needs of young people in India. Be a strong person with a vision. It is the need of the hour. Vision and a sense of direction which are needed in today's world, are lacking. We talk of guided missiles, but they are in the hands of misguided people! Imagine the disaster that will follow! Once you become a visionary and learn to harness all your energy, achieve that vision. No longer will you be a victim of circumstances, but the master of your destiny, a master of circumstances. Your life can become a blessing to yourself and to others.

The country is governed at three levels:

· At the national level, through the 795 members of Parliament Rajya Sabha (250 members), Lok Sabha (545 members).

· At the state level, through 4100 members of state legislatures in 28 states and 7 union territories.

· At the village and district levels, through more than 3 million elected representatives of rural and urban local bodies. Almost a third of these representatives are women.

Policies are generally made at the national level, and implemented at state and local levels.

The student community

Students in India have a history of being at the forefront of struggles for democratization and social justice. Because of their militant commitment to social transformation, they have often suffered state violence and repression. The education system in India is increasingly being modified to fit the requirements of industrialization and private profit. The education system is being made more elitist and exclusive in order to justify and ensure class stratification, discrimination against women, minorities, the working class and the peasantry, forcing the majority of youth into wage labour or the hopelessness of unemployment.

• Increasing political and civic participation among young people by promoting diverse and sustainable community and campus based local coalitions that coordinate voter registration and mobilize get-out-the-vote efforts,
• Building inclusive, accountable and responsive government by providing forums for candidates to reach out to young audiences, and
• Increasing public awareness about the value of participation in democracy thorough the electoral process.
• WE BELIEVE IN BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE, ACCOUNTABLE, AND RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT.
• WE REGARD YOUNG PEOPLE AS POSITIVE ASSETS TO POLITICAL AND CIVIL SOCIETY; WE PLEDGE TO INCREASE PUBLIC AWARENESS ABOUT THE VALUE OF PARTICIPATION IN DEMOCRACY THROUGH THE ELECTORAL PROCESS.

Weight of votes

Many election are held to the ideal of “one person, one vote,” meaning that every voter’s votes should be counted with equal weight. So it is our responsibility to elect right person and send him to he right place. There is always we have option while choosing our representative, but some times because of short time personal greed’s we elect the wrong person and create problem for long term.

Civil Society and Good Governance

The role of civil society in good governance

We have a representative parliamentary democracy leaving the decision-making to a small group of elected representatives. This could result in a government ‘of’ the people becoming a government ‘off’ the people. Progressive marketizations of traditional government functions have widened this gap. There is a gap between the not-so-efficient state and the profit-alone-matters private sector which needs a third sector to bridge it. This is how a civil society is looked at today.

What is Good Governance?

Before talking more about the role of civil society in good governance we must have understood what is mean by good governance. And I think the first part of this article will give in-depth meaningful things which can be help to understand the major role of civil society in good governance. Because insist of came to know the problem blame game if take place , it become more difficult to solve. And for that this first part is an important.

The good governance paradigm fails to question the unequal and unjust macroeconomic framework that serves the interests of rich countries and rich people and perpetuates inequality and poverty. It does not emphasise the notion of freedom and rights. Hence, the good governance paradigm fails to ensure accountability from global institutions like the Bank, UN, IMF, WTO and G-8. Malaysia and Indonesia were supposed to have good governance according to the parameters of the IMF and WB, though its citizens were denied freedom.

There are six broad clusters that can be considered under people-centred and rights-based governance:

• Governance and Development: Development is the realisation of all human rights, particularly socio-economic rights, wherein people can enjoy freedom from fear and freedom from want and live a life of dignity. Accountable (accountability and answerability are functions of power and hence political rather than technical) governance is a means towards claiming socio-economic rights. It is in this context that the Millennium Declaration and MDGs become important policy promises that help us seek accountability from powerholders in governance, whether local, national, global or dominant.

• Governance and Participation: The political participation of citizens, particularly women, requires both socio-political mobilisation and the knowledge/capacity to monitor governance. This requires both knowledge-based activism and grassroots mobilisation. Participation is the sharing of power and the ability to influence the process and outcome of decision-making. Participation becomes meaningful when people have enabling spaces, mechanisms and the power to participate. The monitoring of governance is a way to participate in governance and policymaking and influence processes.

• Governance and Rights: The institutional approach to governance requires the monitoring of the judicial delivery system and the executive. Monitoring institutions of governance (as distinct from monitoring public policies) like the legislature, executive, judiciary and media is crucial in asserting and advancing rights by reinforcing accountability within the institutional arena.

• Corporate Accountability: Big corporations and capital markets increasingly shape economic governance. And economic governance has taken precedence over both political and social governance. The key shapers and movers of economic governance are the unaccountable and non-transparent multinational corporations that control the market and media and thrive on unaccountable and unjust governance systems. In this process, shareholders, consumers, communities and employees get marginalised and lose their power to seek accountability. Seeking accountability and monitoring the action and governance of big corporations will challenge their influence on institutions of governance within the State and also force accountability within the market.

• Democratising Global Governance: There are new supranational and international institutions that wield more power than governments in the developing world. These institutions, particularly the IMF, World Bank, WTO and various regional banks (such as the Asian Development Bank) tend to seek accountability from national governments for the economic and political conditions imposed on them. The problem is that when unaccountable and undemocratic organisations like the World Bank or IMF seek accountability and ‘promote’ democracy, they promote unequal and unjust power relations that thrive on a patriarchal relationship between the rich and poor countries or the old colonial masters or new imperialists and their erstwhile colonies of poor countries. Democratising global governance institutions and accountability and transparency are therefore part of our struggle against unjust institutional systems that perpetuate poverty.

• Accountable Civil Society Organisations: Accountability cannot be a one-way street. CSOs must be accountable too. The legitimacy of CSOs and NGOs is being increasingly questioned as many of them are perceived as ‘private initiatives’ (enterprises or businesses) for the public good. Many of these institutions are seen as private contractors for public development. A rights-based approach requires that all organisations that work with civil society or within civil society need to be transparent and accountable. This can only be done when there is a governance system that promotes accountability, transparency, rights and participation: all these together provide moral and political legitimacy to such organisations.

There are a number of good methods and approaches to promote accountable governance: budget tracking, participatory monitoring, planning processes, citizens’ charters, report cards, women’s political participation, public hearings, and public interest litigation are some effective tools. But all these are only possible when people are empowered to ask questions, seek accountability and claim their rights from all the institutions that seek to monopolise and control power at the social, political and economic level. Our perspective on governance should be informed by the perspective of people’s empowerment, participation, public accountability and transparency, human rights and legitimacy based on the principles of democracy.

Core ingredients

Governance is the process by which a society manages itself through the mechanism of the state. The core ingredients of good governance are; People’s effective participation, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equality and inclusiveness, the rule of law, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, and strategic vision.

These are crucially value-laden and constitute the bedrock of democracy.

Innumerable administrative reforms commission have produced no appreciable impact on the quality of governance. The emphasis now is on facilitating external pressure from citizens on the system to improve through the Right to Information Act, Consumer Protection Act, Citizens Charters, Whistleblower protection, e-governance, Report card, democratic decentralisation, Public Interest Litigation, etc.

Governance has three levels-internal systems and procedure; cutting edge systems and procedures; and check-and-balance systems

At level (a), a civil society can influence policy and project formulation through membership of committees, submission of elected representatives, and interactive rule-making in the implementation of policies, projects and schemes affecting citizens. The maximum day–to-day interaction between the government and the citizens take place and the popular image of governance is formed at level (b).

Interaction of civil society with level (c), infrequent but important, will be more of an exposure of irregularities rather than steps for improvement in the quality of governance.

Functional contribution

Civil society’s functional contribution to good governance could be:

* As a Watchdog - against violation of human rights and governing deficiencies.

* As an Advocate - of the weaker section’s point of view.

* As an Agitator - on behalf of the aggrieved citizens.

* As an Educator - of citizens and their right, entitlements and responsibilities and the government about the pulse of the people.

* As a Service provider-to areas and people not reached by official efforts or as government’s agent.

* As a Mobilizer - of public opinion for or against a programme or policy.

Civil society acts through ‘social capital’ which is the capacity of people to act together willingly for their common long –term interests. Social capital is strong in a homogeneous and an egalitarian society.

Civil society as a whole is, therefore, unable to play it’s full potential role in enforcing good governance in India except when extraordinary leadership overcomes narrow loyalties, or when an issue is of common, major concern to all sections (like natural calamities). Smaller units of governance and decentralisation of governance are, therefore, indispensable in India.

Individuals can not take on the huge political-bureaucratic machine that the government is, nor can the entire civil society act on behalf of every citizen. Civil society, therefore, has to operate through a compact, focused organisation based on strong social capital. The Government of India’s National Policy on the Voluntary Sector, 2006 encouraging an independent, creative and effective voluntary sector. Support for NGO’s however, can not be blindly sentimental. The government has to assess their suitability, capability and experience, and evaluate their performance continually.

Efforts to improve the quality of governance will fail if the quality and calibre of the political executive is unsatisfactory. Civil society needs to note the deterioration in the quality, integrity and commitment of the elected representatives and the criminalisation of politics. Voter education, electoral reform and periodical highlighting of the performance (or non-performance) of elected representatives are high priority items in civil society’s agenda.

Democracy is not a spectator sport (though politicians make a spectacle of themselves!) Parliamentary democracy becomes participative democracy only with the civil society’s active role and participation.