Tag: kanglaonline

By: G.S.Oinam
Some Englishmen, of whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. So they allowed it to begin….
— Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Show me your hand to tell your star position- Mercury, Venus, Saturn etc. I am a good palmist too. Who will form government? Whether you be a part of government formation—a minister or a chief minister? It is simple; Om! mantra can finish all evil spirits attacking you. I write it because my friends from South Africa asked me to write up about Manipur politics. Enough friends! There is ECI code of conduct- we are restricted even for Exit Poll. Political parties must know that when a lock is opened by many keys it`s called a `Bad Lock`… But when a key opens many locks they call it a `Master Key`. I am not telling, my tweeter friends are telling. They have started fighting openly for CLP leadership before poll result was declared on the one side and one party one minister seat sharing san CM post government before poll result was declared. To know your true friends is actually simple. Just remember who lift you when you fall. That`s friendship all about. The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives. Shaw`s Principle- build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it, somebody tweets.

For the last three-four years, my straight talk goes on various issues and policy matter of state government. My tweeter friends say- “In America, a person who can argue to the President, speak politely to a traffic cop.” Thanks God! Feedback does not have affixed or suffixed adjective and adverb. Thank you everybody for reading my articles and looking at good side even I do not maintained wikipedia standard of writing- my world wide fans likes such type of straight talk because it has sincerity and honesty in writing.

I speak only when I got sufficient proves and which is acceptable by men and God —your departmental diary has been lying on my table but I have no habit of reading somebody’s diary. We don’t need for sting operation to book an inept officer- there are many simple formula. I wonder! They are not still recognizing and respecting common man (mabu kari oiregene?) but I am a typical common man.

You are too slow to complete reading over one month for about 350 pages only on ”Information & Knowledge Management Project-DIPR, Manipur” that I wrote in 2 months after studying more than 100 relevant research papers. Please do submit to the Planning Commission as early as possible. This is a problem solving small budget project of your state but you should not run the project without my knowledge because I have put many passwords in the project writing. Unless you run the project without my knowledge or duplicate copy and pest formula, the project itself will attack you and implementing agency. This is a cautious word.

Personally, I did never ask anything from both the centre and state government. This is my first time seeking help from the government of the government or, give me a free hand, I would ask for project finance to most favourable countries. Even a rich person or a private company can finance for this small project. But, I would be happy if Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Union Finance Minister may kindly favour a small amount of money for this project in the Union Budget. Two years ago, I wrote about the power of skills development during union budget discussion in the month of March 2010 and I have had requested in advance that I would like to seek extra budget for Manipur especially for educated unemployed people but today, we want to get small amount of money to bring social order in the state on priority basis. Let the world knows, Shri Pranab Babu is a true friend of common men!

Being a great fan of Professor Amartya Sen, I follow and read his articles and speech attentively all the time. I believed that social order can be bring in the state only after media, NGOs, judiciary and government can work together towards the mission as a ‘joint venture’. Of course, collaboration for knowledge sharing or knowledge exchange is a part of bringing social order but not the end at all. Human security is concern with many factors like social wellness, health, environment, economy, innovation and technology a lot. Unlike any other state, Manipur government does not hire any experience person /consultant/ expert/ advisory member according to experience and requirement of the government. For any project, they would hire only fresher /young people on contract basis. It has many drawbacks in office management and functioning unless proper training is provided to the newly recruited employees.

Great! State government has taken up two right steps for jobs creation 1) textile park and 2) IT park. However, these two steps will not be sufficient to absorb 7.10 lakhs educated unemployed persons. More steps have to be taken up for job creation in the state. For job creation, you must know first the current and projected business trend of the world.

Oriental collage, Imphal initiative for autonomous collage is a good idea. Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) coordinator of the Oriental collage vocal about the opening of vocational courses and research work is a very good initiative. Don’t wait for state government initiative, please be sensitised to the larger national goal and ask yourself what you can do to contribute to the advocacy for skills, right now! We are willing to support you. Before this, Oriental collage has to launch an attractive collage website for world attention highlighting faculty members, innovative teaching practices both in class room and students level skills. To what extent do innovative teaching practices contribute to 21st-century learning outcomes? What the collage-level conditions contribute to innovative teaching practices? What are national or regional programme supports associated with increases in innovative teaching practices in the oriental collage?

During a skill council meeting on 19 January, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India will need about 260 million skilled people by 2018 and around 340 million by 2022, according to estimates. These studies also indicate that India needs to provide quality training to around 80 million people in the next five years. There is a significant gap between the requirement and the supply which, unless checked, will constrain India’s economic growth.

Recently, PM tweets that there is a need to create adequate capacity at the centre and the states to meaningfully absorb the increased outlay. Proposals by National Commission for Macroeconomics & Health and the High Level Expert Group set up by Planning Commission to roll out soon. Health Ministry has proposed a new initiative called `Free medicine for all through Public Health Facilities` under the NRHM scheme. The Planning Commission was requested recently to allocate adequate resources to achieve the target of health care from 1.4% to 2.5% by 2017. Total government health expenditure to be increased to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the 12th plan. We will need to work harder if we have to reach our goal of increasing public expenditure on health to 2.5% of the GDP, Dr. Manmohan said.

The Government of India has coordinated a massive effort to rid our country of the terrible scourge of polio. “The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana provides insurance cover to over 2.67 crore poor families” PM says on healthcare efforts under UPA. We must ensure that every Indian child, rich or poor, whether living in Ladakh or North East or in Delhi has equal access to the best immunization. On a broader level, we need to accelerate our efforts to achieve our goal of providing universal access to health care.

PM on agriculture: We need a second green revolution to ensure food security and welfare of large population of people in farm sector. Food grain production has improved steadily during the last three years. India`s food grain production is 250 m tons this year- a new record. PM says that agriculture sector growth has to involve everyone- from private sector to Panchayati Raj institutions. We have been able to channelize nearly 4.75 lakh crore of bank credit into agriculture and allied sectors. “A strong agricultural sector is necessary for our food security and for the welfare of a very large population that is engaged in farming. Gross Capital Formation in agriculture and allied sectors has increased from 13.1% of GDP in agriculture in 1999-2000 to 20.1% in 2010-11. Agenda today is initiatives on rain fed areas` growth, sustainable agriculture, farmer-industry partnership and farmer organisations inclusion. Livelihood security is among the top 5 challenges for the country in 2012. One of the most under utilised resources in our country is women. Economic growth is essential for the people, but we cannot allow growth to be pursued in a manner which damages our environment, PM said.

Chairman of Prime Minister`s Economic Advisory Council, Dr C. Rangarajan says Growth rate projection is now estimated at 7.1% marginally higher than projection of 6.9%. GDP is likely to grow in the range of 7.5 to 8 per cent in 2012-13 and inflationary pressure to ease. Strong growth in services sector will continue with overall growth of 9.4% but manufacturing is sluggish.

Mr S. Ramadorai, adviser to the Prime Minister on skill development, says national advocacy — which is a critical enabler of skill development — must be taken up as a ‘national movement`. We have one of the biggest challenges and opportunities before us and the likes of which is unprecedented in the world history,” he said in his keynote address at the MMA Annual Convention 2012. Skill development has a huge challenge. All of us collectively own the problem and hence must contribute to the solution, he said. Skilling a nation to the tune of 500 million by 2022 can make India the talent capital of the world. The aspiration of youth has been funneled in to a few narrow choices and sometimes this choice includes pursuing degrees that get them to nowhere. For example, children of marginal farmers do not wish to take up farming only to discover later that plain graduation does not get them a job. Modernization has led to specialisation of trade, requiring skills and aspirations, but pays very low value on skills.
This imbalance does not augur well for the nation. “I ask you to contribute your time and your ideas and efforts for this movement. Skill building must occupy a much larger space of our mind. We will need to drive the belief of youth empowerment through skill building. Their credible hope of a career path; of economics and personal growth of improvement in social status and of self work can trigger employment or entrepreneurship. The price we will pay will be a heavy one should we fail in our efforts. Skilling people to make them employable are a social imperative as much as it is an economic one,” S. Ramadorai concluded.

If India wants to see a GDP growth of 9-10 per cent it will need to formally train 250 million workers who are presently untrained and underemployed. Another 240 million is to be skilled in the next decade and nearly 12.2 million new entrants to the workforce are required by different industry verticals every year while India`s education and vocational training institutes churn out 3-4 million workers.

This leaves a yawning gap between demand and supply. To close this gap, there is a need to find ways to change the traditional mindset to show that there are alternate routes for success.  In north east, Assam government has announced that the state`s education curriculum will soon be restructured to accommodate new subjects that will help the students to get jobs. We are thinking of starting new subjects, which will help those secure jobs after the completion of their course, Assam state education minister said.

A bachelor’s degree in vocational education is likely to be introduced in the University Grants Commission affiliated institutions in 2012.The standing committee of UGC  which met here recently has  formally approved a proposal to introduce a bachelors degree  in vocational education. This is to get a final nod from the commission. Once approved, a college student can pick up a bachelors degree in art, science, commerce or vocational education. “We propose to add vocational education as one of the specific degrees of UGC from 2012. The finer details are however being worked on,” acting chairman of UGC Ved Prakash said. Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal had recently launched the National Vocational Education Qualification Framework for implementation in polytechnics, engineering colleges and other colleges in the university systems from 2012-13.

Although India witnessed a boom in the services sector in recent years, less than 25 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion population has the education and skill sets required for knowledge worker jobs. 700 million Indians will be looking for jobs by the year 2022. What skills will they need to make a living in an economy which is increasingly based on knowledge and services?  To address this challenge, Discussions focused on five themes are made– vocational skills and training to empower citizens; designing the curriculum and quality framework; use of technology in TVET; recognizing prior learning and assessment and certification frameworks. It was agreed that the Conference advanced understanding on TVET policies and strategies for integrating academic courses with vocational education through equivalency. The World Bank may initially provide Rs. 480 crore to India and lend further support depending on the success of the initiative, according to four people familiar with the development. The government has moved a proposal in this regard and the file is now with the Planning Commission for its formal approval. A senior Planning Commission official said the panel was evaluating the proposal.

National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), which has a mandate to train as many as 150 million people over the next 10 years, currently has a corpus of Rs. 1,500 crore, of which it has committed Rs. 1,147.9 crore for skill training so far. NSDC has so far signed agreements with 46 training partners—38 companies and eight sector skill councils. The partners have a target to train 60.6 million people by 2022. The Labour Market Information System should give real time information about skill requirements and skill availability. Other innovative suggestion were bringing the traditional skills under the certification system and involving MSMEs in skill development.  The road map for skilling 500 million persons by 2022 should be finalized in consultation with the tripartite partners. 

Some of the vocational and technical courses and jobs does not affect on recent recession and to be expand in 21 century are 1) Actuary: Financial adviser, Financial analyst, Logistician, Meeting planner, Public relations specialist, Sales manager, Training specialist 2) Creative and Service Jobs: Curator, Film and video editor, Gaming manager, Heating, air conditioning and refrigeration technician, Interpreter/Translator, Multimedia artist, Technical writer 3) Healthcare Jobs: Athletic trainer, Dental hygienist, Lab technician, Massage therapist, Occupational therapist,  Optometrist, Physician assistant, Physical therapist, Physical therapist assistant, Radiologic technologist, Register nurse, School psychologist, Veterinarian 4) Social Service Jobs: Clergy, Court reporter, Education administrator, Emergency management specialist,  Firefighter, Marriage and family therapist, Mediator,  Medical and public health social worker,  Special-education teacher, Urban planner 5) Technology Jobs: Biomedical engineer,
Civil engineer, Computer software engineer, Computer support specialist, Computer systems analyst,  Environmental engineering technician, Environmental science technician, Hydrologist, Meteorologist, Network architect etc.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/inept-manipura-time-bomb/

by B.G. Verghese
Every nation needs a strategic policy – not just a vision. India lacks one, though it seeks permanent membership of the Security Council. The Nehruvian consensus has long disappeared. There is nothing in the public domain with Parliament having long ceased to debate and formulate national strategy.

It is therefore a welcome initiative on the part of a group of leading thinkers to have put their heads together to produce “Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-first Century”. The 63 page document, authored by Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Lt.Gen, (Retd) Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran and Siddharth Varrdarajan, was unveiled in Delhi last week and discussed by Brijesh Mishra and M.K. Narayanan, earlier National Security Advisers, and the current incumbent, Shiv Shankar Menon.  

Any attempt to identify the basic principles of an all-encompassing foreign and security policy can only broadly indicate priorities and guidelines. Not all may agree with the analysis and recommendations, but the document does challenge one to define differences and suggest alternative hypotheses. Hopefully, it will provoke national debate and consensus-building.

The basic theme is that opportunity beckons India to lift itself out of poverty and play its role as an emerging great power not merely by virtue of its growing economic and military muscle but by the power of its democratic and civilizational example, as a balancer between the United States and China in concert with other major players and regional hubs. There is a timely warning against losing the present window of opportunity or of falling into a “middle-income trap” for lack of will, vision and leadership. Choices made now will shape the long-term future. We have much to gain from a globalising world order provided we build the strategic autonomy to shape it. Like a chess grandmaster, we must think many steps ahead and watch all the pieces and spaces as relationships keep constantly changing.   

The Document states that we will require a grand strategy with military power that shifts from a continental to a maritime orientation. This will bestow greater freedom of action to dominate the Indian Ocean than is possible along our contested land borders with China and Pakistan. Even so, we will need to develop instruments and options that enable us to raise the cost of cross-border interventions by both these neighbours. This will require restructuring our higher defence management under a CDS and a Maritime Commission, a leap in technology and defence production, a high rate of economic growth, better governance, administrative reform, and development of a vibrant knowledge society. It will also call for new approaches to deal with discontents in J&K and the Northeast, Left Wing Extremism, ethnic unrest and resentments as a result of exclusion and disparities. Enhanced State capability and state legitimacy must both be assured.

Doing this requires partners, not allies, especially in South Asia, which remains our soft underbelly. The so-called “Gujral doctrine” of not seeking immediate reciprocity from smaller neighbours must be our guide. The US too can be a potent partner on more than a regional basis.

The Document nevertheless raises many questions. Why the reference to Non-Alignment? This seems an unfortunate throwback and goes beyond having an independent foreign policy that looks at issues case by case, free from inflexible alliance-related responses.  

Next, how does one base policies on geo-political and geo-strategic considerations when India’s school curriculum teaches a very warped Aryavarta-Delhi based “continental” history to the almost complete exclusion of our maritime, littoral and peninsular history and that of our outer marches? Further, geography is all but forgotten after Class 10, maps are taboo and archives remain closed.

The country has not paid heed to Dr Ambedkar’s wise caution that “liberty” and even economic progress might be defeated for lack of Fraternity and Equality. These social contradictions remain entrenched. The Naxal movement basically stems from the repudiation of the social contract promised Tribal India through the Fifth Schedule. Far from being addressed, it is simply not understood.  

The Northeast has many problems. But the administrative apparatus designed to tackle them through a weak North East Council driven from the back seat by Delhi through the Department for Development of the North East Region (DoNER), is misplaced. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act is largely unnecessary but is today applicable in only a small part of Manipur. It is not the prime source of alienation in the Northeast or J&K, despite a certain symbolic significance. Development and opportunity remain the key.

Local and sub-regional nationalism and identity issues can be best resolved through decentralised governance through a further empowered panchayati raj. Non-conventional security issues are by and large well addressed in the Document. Energy security requires less structural dependence on oil, de-nationalisation of coal and intensified efforts to promote clean and renewable energy. The current impasse over fast progressing the Koodankulam and Jaitapur nuclear plants is illustrative of a malaise. Ideological opposition and exaggerated safety fears regarding Fukushima-like dangers even after such issues have been addressed is holding back progress. Tamil Nadu today faces power cuts when Koodankulam-I and II were poised to deliver 2000 MW of energy by now.

Rash interventions such as the Supreme Court’s peremptorily re-ordering the Union Government to implement inter-basin water transfers from “surplus” to “deficit” basins over space and time (unhappily labelled Inter-Linking of Rivers) suggest judicial overreach, especially as we are dealing with trans-boundary rivers. Our co-riparian neighbours need to be immediately assured that nothing is being done or will be done without proper and timely consultation with them. Secondly, fragmented jurisdictions over water, energy and transport must be subject to appropriate mechanisms of overall coordination. Old fashioned Ministries need to be completely overhauled in terms of mandate and personnel if they are to deliver.     

Meanwhile, all new infrastructure projects and innovation is being delayed or negated by nostalgia and neo-Ludditism in the name of the rights of some but at compounded cost to all the people as a result of freezing employment, income generation and the multiplier effect. There is a very high opportunity cost of delay at a time when the country needs to add 10-12 million jobs net per annum to keep pace with the fast growing labour force, apart from coping with current unemployment and under-employment. Around 30 million distress migrants are on the move annually. Agriculture can no longer sustain the numbers crowding farms; yet programmes and investments designed to divert them to productive non-farm rural occupations in local manufacture or services are also challenged. This is creating an explosive situation and constitutes India’s greatest internal security threat.

Finally, reference is made in the Document to “strategic communications”. But India has no communication policy and inadequate instrumentalities for delivering information for empowerment, participation, dialogue and informed decision-making. Disinformation triumphs in the absence of prompt and accurate information. Having truly autonomous public service broadcasting and independent newspapers is imperative when public opinion, national and international, have become hyper-powers. Satyameve Jayate.
www.bgverghese .com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/a-21st-century-strategic-policy-for-india/