|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << August27, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] Happy Onam to all Thinkers |
August29, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] Posts 1-11 dt Aug 29th >> |
|
[1] From: WebXpurt <webxpurt@yahoo.com Date: Sun Aug 26, 2007 Subject: Young India without agenda : Youth Folio Young India without agenda : Youth Folio http://indiasecular.wordpress.com By Shiv Shakti Nath Bakshi India needs to develop an understanding regarding the demographic advantage it has over other countries in the coming decades. But as we know today that the population alone would not result in realising the aspirations of a developed and strong nation. Youths in India have rarely received its share of attention, nor have they been thought as core component of policy making and planning. The debate on the youth issues are many a time misplaced and lacks sincerity in approach and understanding. Such trends are getting reinforced in what we call an era of globalisation for the youths are portrayed as a section of society ready to break away with established norms and past tradition with eagerness to mingle with the ill-effects of impending ‘cultural onslaught’. Youths have been stereotyped into different images, which are sometime bold, sometime blunt, sometime rebellious and assertive but we lack a portrayal of youth wherein its sensitive, constructive, responsible aspects find expression. It cannot be denied that there is a mentality unwilling to repose faith in the capabilities of youth. Such a backward looking mentality is primarily responsible for depriving the younger generations from its rightful role in the society. It is often repeated time and again that future of any nation depends on the way its young generation thinks and acts. The youth of today’s India has a golden opportunity to shape the future of this great ancient civilization for the time has come when a vibrant and confident section of young people have emerged even providing leadership at global levels. This is more true given the fact that demographically India has become a young country today, as more than 70 per cent of our population is now under the age of 35, out of this 33.8 per cent come under 15-34 age category. The number of adolescents alone (10-19) has crossed 230 million. Thus, now every second Indian is a young Indian. It is estimated that in 2020, the average Indian will be only 29 years old, compared with the average age of 37 years in China and the US, 45 in Europe and 48 in Japan. The demographic process, this implies, would create a large and growing youth force, which is expected to deliver spin-offs in terms of growth and prosperity through a number of routes. India needs to develop an understanding regarding the demographic advantage it has over other countries in the coming decades. But as we know today that the population alone would not result in realising the aspirations of a developed and strong nation but this assumes that the growing workforce of youth has to be trained to acquire the skills needed by the newer and technologically more dynamic industries. In case, we fail to enhance the human resource in line with the growing demographic demands, the demographic advantage would not only be lost but also result in a factor unleashing retrogressive trends leading to underdevelopment, anarchy and chaos. Therefore, we see that history has offered us opportunity in the shape of demographic dividend but this opportunity is associated with challenges. If we were able to train our youth work force, we would be dominating the world, if we fail, we may trail to the last. The nation appears least prepared to reap the dividends in the coming decades. In the present scenario, the society has shown least interest in addressing the problems of the youth, much less to talk about employing this workforce so as to surge ahead at a faster pace. We even find a slight decline in the rate of educated employment for men between 2000 and 2005 but were still around 6 per cent for those with secondary school degrees and 7 per cent for graduates. Unemployment among educated women was much higher and also got worse, reaching rates of 34 per cent for rural female graduates, and 20 per cent for urban women with high school and above. The recent hype created with regard to jobs in BPO, KPO and other private sectors remain eyewash as they cater to a specific group, which appears a miniscule minority. A large section of young people remain underpaid, underemployed lacking job satisfaction and job security, and feeling completely dislocated in the system. It is not a question of unemployment alone but a system wherein dignity of an individual is assured and his sense of having contributed to the society at large is enhanced. It may be said that in the recent years, the focus has shifted away from the youth and we as a nation are lacking a vision wherein young generations have a role to play in the nation building process. The liberalisation-globalisation era has further left the youths at the mercy of the market forces where they are supposed to fend for themselves. Such an approach may create unavoidable crisis in the future, as the issues related to youths are vital for the nation given the demographic trends. At the same time, changing scenario is also altering the nature of challenges; therefore a reassessment of the current scenario with future prospects should be done along with an “Action Plan” for future. In 2003, the then central government had framed a “National Youth policy”, an initiative taken after 1988 when the first youth policy was framed but how far these policies were able to produce an impact is still debatable. A new policy needs to be debated democratically with the participation of youths minimizing the bureaucratic tangles and by shelving the mindset which views the younger generations with suspicion. (The writer, Shiv Shakti Nath Bakshi, is a research scholar in JNU.) http://indiasecular.wordpress.com --------- [2] [..deleted] --------- [3] From: syed rahman <surahman2000@yahoo.com Date: Sat Aug 25, 2007 Subject: 22 feared killed as two blasts rock Hyderabad 22 feared killed as two blasts rock Hyderabad http://www.khabrein.info/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=5149&Itemid=8\ 8 Hyderabad, Aug 25 (IANS) At least 22 people were feared killed and 20 injured as two bomb blasts rocked Hyderabad Saturday evening, police said, even as political leaders appealed to people to remain calm. The blasts occurred at around 7.45 p. m. at the Andhra Pradesh government-run Lumbini Amusement Park near the state secretariat and at Gokul Chat, a popular eatery in Koti, a commercial area. The spots are five kilometres apart. ------ [4] BIBLE SCHOOL STUDENTS ATTACKED AND BEATEN IN INDIA Source: Assist News Service A group of 30 Hindu radicals from the Rastriya Swayem Sevaks (RSS) organization, attacked 18 Bible school students, who were on an evening walk at 5:30 PM on Tuesday, August 21, in India’s Karnataka state. The incident begain when a stranger suddenly approached Pastor Ganga Naik, one of the Bible school teachers, and enquired what they are doing in this area. The pastor replied that they had just come to spend some time here just to take a walk and play some games. The stranger then departed and called on his cell phone to a group of Hindu radicals and 30 of them arrived on bicycles, motor bikes, auto rickshaws and cars, and started shouting at the students saying that they were forcibly converting people to Christianity. They attacked them, beating them with their hands and kicking them viciously Out of the six female and 12 male students, 10 were severely beaten. The RSS people also brought 3 Hindu women and they made them testify in front of the police that these students were forcibly converting them. Then they took the 10 students to the police station and lodged a complaint on them. The police have arrested the 10 students and have kept them in custody. ---------- [5] From: syed rahman <surahman2000@yahoo.com Date: Sat Aug 25, 2007 Subject: Salman Khan arrested, jailed in Jodhpur (Update 5) Salman Khan arrested, jailed in Jodhpur (Update 5) http://www.khabrein.info/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=5115&Itemid=8\ 8 Jodhpur, Aug 25 (IANS) Salman Khan, one of India's top actors, was Saturday arrested and jailed here in Rajasthan, a day after a district court upheld a five-year jail term for him for hunting an endangered chinkara deer in 1998. The Bollywood star flew to Jodhpur by a Jet Airways flight to surrender before the judge but was arrested at the airport and taken to the chief judicial magistrate's court here in a white police van. ----------- [6] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com Date: Sat Aug 25, 2007 Subject: THE 123 AGREEMENT: opposing it at the behest of China? Editorial (People's Democracy, August 26, 2007) The CPI(M)’s opposition to the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal and the associated efforts to draw India into a US-dominated strategic partnership has, naturally, led to a violent reaction from the ruling classes and its media voices. Through these columns, over the past couple of years, since the first joint statement on strategic partnership released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush in July 2005, we have been drawing attention to the dangers of India being turned into a supplicant of US imperialism. Apart from negating the consensual declared objective of pursuing an independent foreign policy, such a partnership with US imperialism has consequent serious implications on India’s defence and security concerns. These issues and such concerns will continue to be debated in this issue and subsequently in these columns. Hence, these arguments are not being repeated here. However, the important point that merits consideration here is that instead of meeting our criticism of the deal and its consequences, our detractors are mounting a scurrilous campaign against us. US imperialism’s cheer leaders and the drumbeaters of the Indian ruling classes are advancing absurd reasoning of the CPI(M)’s opposition to the deal instead of contesting what we publicly state. One such reasoning is that while the government is engaged in this deal for increasing the electricity generation capacity in the country to benefit our farmers and poor people, the CPI(M) is opposing it at the behest of China. This is not unusual for the ruling classes to resort to such obnoxiously low level arguments when their analytical bankruptcy to contest the CPI(M)’s point of view is exposed. Further, the resort to such tactics is also to conceal their unabashed eagerness to ally with US imperialism at the expense of exposing the country’s sovereignty to greater vulnerability. Let us take up the issue of augmenting India’s energy capacities and generating more electricity. There can be no two opinions on the need to expand our capacities to generate more power. As India develops further, energy augmentation is of utmost importance. The moot question, however, is whether the nuclear energy expansion is the only option, or, even the best option that we have at the moment. As of 2005, nuclear power generation was 3,310 MW or a mere 2.5 per cent of India’s total power generation capacity. Now, if this were to increase to 10,000 MW by the year 2,015 as planned, this would still be only 5 to 7 per cent of India’s projected capacity generation then. Thus, this deal and the attendant consequences to India’s sovereignty and foreign policy are being undertaken for such a miniscule part of our power generation. This, apart, is nuclear power generation the most cost-effective? On the contrary, it is the most expensive option. As compared to coal, nuclear energy would be one and a half times more expensive. Compared with gas, nuclear power would be twice as expensive. So is the case with hydro electricity. Therefore, by all counts, nuclear power is the most expensive. The National Hydro Power Corporation has estimated that India has at least 50,000 MW of untapped hydro potential. They have estimated that in Nepal, the untapped potential would be higher at 83,000 MW. On the basis of our friendly relations with Nepal and through international agreements, the tapping of such huge hydro potential will not only augment our energy capacities at half the cost of nuclear energy, but will also tame these rivers which regularly consume the lives of hundreds of people through torrential floods. This year’s floods have been described by the United Nations as `unprecedented’ in human memory. In addition, India is indiscriminately allowing the export of coal and other non-renewable mineral resources. Instead, if this coal were to be utilised for generating electricity, it would cost us much less than producing nuclear energy. Given this, the government’s arguments that the Indo-US nuclear deal is to augment our energy resources and to provide electricity to the farmers and poor sounds, indeed, hollow. On the contrary, it appears that as a consequence of this deal, huge commercial orders running into thousands of crores of rupees for the purchase of nuclear reactors would be placed on US and other advanced countries corporations. The profit bonanza to multinational corporations is there for all to see with the attendant benefits to sections of corporate India. Is India then actually going in for this deal to bolster US economic interests? Can we allow this to happen under the false propaganda of benefit to the Indian farmers? If the same amount of resources were to be spent on generating power through hydro or thermal electricity, as would be spent on the purchase of nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel, India’s energy augmentation would be many times higher. Thus, the nuclear deal not only exposes India to greater vulnerability on various scores, it drains a huge amount of our scarce resources and, thus, prevents India from exploiting fully its available less expensive energy options. These are the facts. The more bizarre disinformation campaign is that the CPI(M) is opposing the deal at China’s behest. This charge, however, does not apply to the BJP presumably, for its opposition of the deal. The reason for the BJP’s opposition, of course, is entirely different from that of the CPI(M)’s. Given the BJP’s track record when in government, the current opposition is a mere posturing and smacks of a `hurt’ that such a deal ought to have been concluded under its government and not under the UPA government! Be that as it may, those who know of the CPI(M)’s birth and history will know that for nearly two decades both the international Communist giants – the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China – opposed the CPI(M)’s policies from different perspectives. The CPI(M)’s policy directions are determined by its own perceptions of what is in the interests of India and its people. Those who are willing to eagerly surrender India’s sovereignty to US imperialism should be the last ones to dole out unsolicited advise and certificates of patriotism. If our detractors are worthy of character and substance, then they ought to meet our arguments on their merits rather than take recourse to such perfidy. We heard similar arguments when the CPI(M) opposed Pokhran-II. In fact, the then NDA’s Defence Minister, George Fernandes, publicly announced that the nuclear tests were necessary to meet the Chinese challenge. Once Pakistan responded by its nuclear tests, India’s huge advantage in conventional warfare vis-?-vis Pakistan was wiped out in a single stroke. Far from enhancing India’s security and defence potential, the BJP/NDA through Pokhran-II reduced us to the level of Pakistan’s capabilities. The BJP today argues that the Indo-US nuclear deal limits our strategic programme which can only be to China’s and Pakistan’s advantage. Who, may we ask, is vigorously pursuing this Indo-US nuclear deal which, we are told, will limit India’s strategic capacities, thus, providing advantage to our neighbours? It is those who are propagating and supporting the deal who are, thus, by this logic, acting at the behest of China and Pakistan! While the pen-pushers of US imperialism and the Indian ruling classes continue to spread canards exposing their complete incapacity to meet the CPI(M)’s objections on merit, the Indian people, surely, will not allow India to be reduced as a US supplicant. In the 60th anniversary of our independence, the 150th anniversary of 1857 and the 250th anniversary of the battle of Plassey which heralded the colonial rule over India, we cannot allow any erosion of our hard won sovereignty and independence. On the contrary, we need to strengthen it. eom |
|
| << August27, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] Happy Onam to all Thinkers |
August29, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net] Posts 1-11 dt Aug 29th >> |
|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on India Thinkers Net |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |