Saturday, February 27, 2010

India’s bureaucratic albatross

The following article is by Tavleen Singh taken from Indian Express.

Tavleen Singh

Every time I deal with Indian officials I become so depressed that I almost need therapy. As a reckless optimist and a proud Indian, I keep hoping that I will one day go into a government office and notice the changes that are necessary if India is to drag herself out of poverty, illiteracy and corruption. Having just last week had dealings with officials in various government departments, I can only report the opposite. Our officials remain untouched by technology, modernity, national interest or higher ideals. So I endorse from the bottom of my heart a new report that concludes that our bureaucrats are the worst in Asia. The report is the result of a survey of 12 Asian economies done last year by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy based in Hong Kong, and although bits of it have found their way into Indian newspapers, there has been not nearly as much fuss as there should have been about a report that shames India.

The report blames India’s ‘suffocating bureaucracy’ for us falling behind countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar in providing our people with minimal standards of healthcare, sanitation and education. Examine just the sad fact that 43 per cent of Indian children under the age of five are underweight compared with 20 per cent in Vietnam and 14 per cent in Bhutan and you understand what we are up against. It is not because of a shortage of funds that millions of Indians are forced to live in conditions of shameful poverty and degradation. The Government of India spent Rs 4 trillion on various poverty alleviation programmes last year. The report points out that if even half this money had been distributed among our estimated 60 million poor households, they would each get Rs 80 a day and so rise above the poverty line. Our own Planning Commission pointed this out more than a decade ago but because there has not been the smallest attempt to get our babu-log to work more efficiently, nothing has changed.

The result is that our bureaucrats and the army of petty officials that work under them have remained mired in systems that make the simplest procedure into a long and difficult thing. One of the offices I had to deal with last week was the Regional Passport Office in Delhi. It was hell. There were queues for coupons that allowed you to join queues to enter the building, that led you to other queues that led to a maze of windows behind which sat bored officials. There was no system. If I had not had the help of a guide, I think I may have queued for days, as others do, and taken months to get my ‘tatkaal’ (at once) passport. My English brother-in-law did not even need to go to the British High Commission to renew his. He filled his form online and in three days he had his new passport.

Indian government departments have computers today and access to the Internet, but they seem not to understand that this should put an end to filling endless forms. And, other useless procedures. If things are bad in Delhi, it is hard to even begin to describe how bad they are in the provinces. I have been into provincial government departments and provincial courts in which they are still using ancient typewriters. Then, there are the filthy working conditions that get filthier in our state capitals. Rotting garbage, stray animals, dusty furniture, wires hanging everywhere and mountains of waste paper. The general impression is of a country falling to pieces and not one that harbours dreams of becoming an economic superpower.

The reason why this column bangs on and on about the need for urgent administrative reforms is because without them we can do almost nothing else. It is not just civilian government departments that are mired in 18th-century systems, but even those that deal with national security. Bad governance is a pernicious, pervasive disease. If you want proof, all you need to do is spend five minutes observing procedures in your nearest police station. That is all the time you need to discover that it is not just the absence of modern weapons that handicap our police when they are dealing with Islamist terrorists. It is incompetence enforced by convoluted and confused procedures.

Having covered governance and politics for more than 20 years, it is my humble view that India could become an economic superpower with clean air and water, magnificent new cities and a healthy, literate population, if we could make our officials do their jobs properly. Dr Manmohan Singh knows this and has been talking about the importance of administrative reforms since the first press conference he gave after he became Prime Minister in 2004. Why does he do nothing about it?

Friday, February 19, 2010

LIFE-CYLE

Just exactly as if you are landing a spaceship from another galaxy, your soul enters your body and lands here on Earth. Perhaps you come from out of nowhere, out of nothingness.
Or else you had a previous existence somewhere, in another realm or in this realm, and you have forgotten it.
Perhaps you land here of your own free choice.
Or some cosmic force some karma beyond you causes you to land on this planet; and you have no choice. No matter. This is Earth. You land and stay for a while.



You come here to do certain specific things.
You may have one task or many. Your tasks may be obvious to you or you may need time, effort, maybe struggle even to clarify your tasks.
You may never quite even clarify your task until the moment your time in this body ends.
You may work on your task for years before you realize, “This is my task.”
The tasks you came to perform may take the whole of your life or be done in an instant.
You may be aware you are performing your life task while you do it.
You may perform your task quickly, hardly noticing anything special, unaware you are doing the task you came to do while you do it.
Your task may be so easy, obvious and natural, you never even wonder, "What is my task?"
Your unique blend of talents and interests may lead you to your task and you just do it.
Or, your task may be a constant, unpleasant struggle you fight every step of the way.
Your task may be noble and wonderful and gain you recognition, rewards and honors.
Or, it may be simple, totally unnoticeable by anyone else.




You will be born with a powerful innate desire to remain alive. You will do almost anything to continue living. At some point you may discover some limits, and allow your life to end.




Every thought you have, every action you take, every feeling you perceive is an experience.
Experiences are neither good nor evil. Some experiences are short, some are long.
Some experiences will be fun, others will be excruciating.
Sometimes experiences seem interconnected, sometimes they seem random.
They are simply experiences.




Your experiences will come to you through four modalities: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
Your body will give you physical messages of sensation, movement, pain and pleasure.
Your emotional mechanism’s feelings will attract you and repel you in different directions, sometimes conflicting.
Your mind’s thoughts will make logical inferences and judgments about your experience.
Your soul’s intuitions will guide you to realize the deepest subtleties of your experience and its meaning.




Some of your experiences will be difficult. They will bring you pain and suffering.
You may wish with all your heart that some experience did not come your way.
You may find joy in the challenge of an experience, even when the pain is most severe.
Each difficult experience is a challenge, an opportunity to continue.




You will have the experience of choosing or selecting. More than one viable option will lie before you.
You will experience weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each, as best you can.
You will perceive yourself picking one and letting go of the other.
Some experiences of deciding will be very difficult; others scarcely worth noting.
Your decisions will have consequences.
The consequences of a choice may be significant or trivial.
The ultimate consequences of a choice may be very different from their first appearance.




You will experience a process of change in yourself.
One moment you may be paralyzed with fear of what lies ahead; the next moment you will feel confident and knowledgeable having walked through the fear.
The change may come gradually with no clear moment or division.
Whether the outcome you receive is what you were hoping for or very different, you will grow through each experience.




You will experience stages in your life. You begin as a single cell and grow until you are born as a small infant. You continue to grow through the life-cycle for as long as you survive: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, maturity, super-maturity, elderhood, and frailty.
You may not live through all of the available stages. Each segment contains physical, emotional, mental and spiritual growth experiences unique to itself.
Stages may end and begin suddenly, or segué into one another gradually.
As you conclude a stage you may feel relief or remorse that it is over.
Once you move through a stage, it is over; you cannot go back.




You will receive assistance through this process. You will find various teachers and mentors
who will share their experiences and help you read the signposts along your way. You will have birth parents who will be your central guides; or you will find surrogates for them. If you do not find another person to be your guide, you may find you can look deep within to find guidance.




You will find diverse modes through which to exchange information with other beings. You will learn spoken and written languages.
You will find ways to communicate with your body. You will communicate many things through your actions. You will discover a variety of visual, auditory and tactile arts through which to express your thoughts and feelings.
You may also discern very subtle, almost unnamable communications which can be the most powerful.




Every experience requires abilities. You will master diverse skills for an endless array of available activities.
You will have innate talents for some skills; they will come to you so easily they seem automatic.
Others will require many hours or even years to master; even after much practice, you may never become proficient at them.




You will participate in games at every stage of life.
You will play with others or by yourself in a variety of contests.
Some games will be fun; some will be deadly serious. Some games will be highly competitive; others will be totally noncompetitive.
You may compete individually or as a team, against others or only against yourself.
Some games will offer physical or material rewards or acclaim from others if you are successful at them.



You will study diverse subjects, each of which attempts to explain some details of how the world works. You may study them in a school or by your own investigation.
You will acquire minimal knowledge of some, and you will dive deeply in others.
You will learn aspects of mathematics, geography, physics, sociology, economics, biology, astronomy, anthropology, history, engineering, the arts, chemistry, philosophy, and religion.




You will be inclined to produce something or to provide a service for which you receive compensation.
Your work will earn you the food and shelter you need to survive and less essential things for your enjoyment.
You may work many long hours each day or a much smaller time segment. Your work may be an important component of your life task. Or, your work may ensure your physical survival or comfort, allowing you to fulfill the tasks you came here to do.




You will find a group of individuals to which you feel connected, either by birth, or by affinity.
You will experience a bond with the other members of this tribe or with the tribal entity itself.
You will be subject to the rules your tribe makes.
You will have a position within the tribe based on your birth or your talents. Your position will affect your activities within the tribe and throughout your life. You may find you are a part of more than one tribe or that your tribe is part of a tribal confederation.




You will find deities to which to attach your greatest fears and devotions.
You may have one god or many. You may learn about your god or gods from others or you may experience them yourself. Your gods may be attached specifically to your tribe or they may claim a wider domain. Your gods may be projections of human experience or they may be something beyond human experience with a reality all their own.




At certain special moments of your life you will mark transitions: you will sing, you will dance, you will talk to your gods, and you will do special rituals to celebrate.
You may celebrate alone or in a group.
You will celebrate those moments when you or someone in your tribe passes from one stage of the growth process to another.
Special good times and special bad times call for celebrations. Repeating seasons of each year ask for celebrations as well.




You will be drawn to certain individuals with whom you will share some of your experiences more closely. You will experience strong connections with some of the friends you find. Some will remain friends for a short time, while others may remain close to you for long periods.




You will be drawn to bond strongly with a partner. Like friends, mates may remain for short or long periods of time. Your mate may be your closest, special friend or a friend with whom you share a set of experiences. You may have one mate for your lifetime or more than one mates at different times.




You will earn rewards for your work or in payment for your other activities. Some wealth will have material value which you can exchange for physical objects or services you desire or which your tribe convinces you, you desire.
Other types of wealth are more subtle and not exchangeable. You will decide which types of wealth you will pursue and how vigorously to pursue each of them.




You will exert control through your physical being, your wealth, your office, your abilities, your personal energy or your facility for managing other people.
With this power you will make some things happen the way you want them to happen.
If your power is great enough, others will do what you would like them to do, even if it is not in their own best interest.




You will experience delights of the senses. Food, touch, music, aroma, nature, movement, art and dance will intensify your enjoyment of your time here.




You will feel an intense yearning of your body to touch another person most deeply. The intensity of that touch may take the experience beyond the body, to bond closely with the other person or to procreate, to make the life-cycle begin anew.




You will experience the urge to create your own space where you spend most of your time, where you belong, where you experience roots. It may be in the place of your origin or you may feel compelled to travel elsewhere to create it. You may wish to share your home with those closest to you.




You will express yourself or create something existing independently of yourself. What you form may last for generations or for only a moment. The content of your expression may take physical form or it may reach out through other media.




You will feel the urge to show others whatever you have earned, whatever you have created, whatever you have learned, whatever you have become. You may wish to display it publicly, to have others to view it. Or, you may display it privately just for yourself or a few others.




As your experiences broaden, you will become familiar with experience itself. You will recognize its ebb and flow, and you will become more comfortable with its changes. You may experience the desire to share this wisdom you accumulate with others.



You will do things your tribe decided was forbidden or others told you is wrong. You may do some things that something within you says you should not do. You will test some of the limits by lying, cheating, stealing, or doing other things that may cause pain. You may get caught by those in power and you may have to pay a penalty.




You will participate in the birth process and the child rearing process. You may give birth to a child. You may take a central role in guiding a child through life’s stages. You may experience parenting as bringing whatever you create into existence.




You will feel impelled to share some of what you learn through life’s experience with others. You may teach in a classroom or through any mode of communications available to you.

You will experience the need to let go of some things. You will discharge waste from your body, from your physical surroundings, from your emotional apparatus, from your mind and from your spirit. You will seek ways to discharge your wastes in a manner that is safe for yourself and your environment.




You will experience disease, pain, or sickness in yourself, in those around you or even in the whole planet.
You will feel the urge to find remedies and treatments, emotional support, and focused energy to aid in the healing process.




In some activities, you will not reach the goal you desired. You will feel pain at your failure. At times, the pain of failure will become very severe.




Everything you have is impermanent. Things you work for and you value will not remain with you forever. People close to you will die. You will feel pain with loss.




At times your emotional mode will become extremely highly charged. You will be moved to cry, either in pain or in joy or in some mixture of both.



You will experience the urge to connect intensely in physical, emotional, mental and spiritual modes.
Your love toward other beings, nature, gods, or life itself will draw you very close to the other, to identify with it most intimately or to lose yourself in it.




You will become comfortable with the diversity among other beings. You will experience accepting other beings exactly as they are, in their own unique perfection, exactly as you would like them to accept you as you are.




You will go through fundamental alterations in the quality of your experience either spontaneously or as a result of prayer, meditation, ritual, song, or special foods. You will experience great love, wisdom, serenity, or connection to a god or nature.
Experiencing altered states of consciousness will affect all of your other experiences.
You will experience yourself transformed into a different being.



The limits of your experience will expand to include intuition or a transcending of this realm or a oneness with something much greater than yourself.
You may experience yourself leaving your body or knowing things before they occur.
You may experience powerful synchronicity. You may lose your sense of yourself as an independent being and experience yourself as one with the infinite wholeness of the universe.




You will experience the urge to pass on the tale of your lifetime.
You may tell your story to those most likely to remember it or you may transmit it in some other artistic form.



You will leave your body. Everyone else will experience your body becoming lifeless and begin to decay. You will no longer be present in this plane in your physical form, but some aspects of your emotional, mental and spiritual modes may continue to be experienced by others.




Your emotional, mental or spiritual modes will enter some sort of afterlife. You may be aware of your continuity between this lifetime and the next realm or you may not.
You may experience reincarnation into the body of another being and begin another lifetime.
The nature of your next realm may be determined by your activities and experiences in this lifetime. The nature of the next realm may be extremely subtle and indescribable.




Those who knew you will recall who you were, what you did, what you gave and the qualities you manifested.
If you physically parented another, your genetic material will continue within them as well.
Others’ remembering you will continue to affect them directly and the whole planet indirectly in subtle and not so subtle ways.