Full knowledge + connecting with reality = PEACE

Recently I was in my graduation college to have a session with the students of political science and international relations (IR). During the visit I remember the discussion which happened with a very good teacher who taught us IR. We had a chapter on Peace and Disarmament and she very intelligently and logically used to connect the sustainability of whole international relations with PEACE. If you look at any bilateral or multilateral relations they are successful only because of PEACE among the countries. Take the recently concluded G-20 meet, it majorly revolved round economic and financial slowdown and measures to overcome to be back on the growth path. They all know ONE OF THE FACTORS which is affecting the slowdown is unrest and lack of PEACE in few countries. 

    

In a country like India where more than 50% of the population are below 25 years of age and the recent unrest in the states like Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh has shown the importance of people under 25 years and their role in PEACE.

As always I am not here to write about the policy level or the political level changes but to write about small implementable changes that can be practiced at the ground level to bring about long lasting results:

In SCHOOLS: I have been to more than 600 schools, which includes Government schools, private schools, non-formal education schools and bridge schools in states like Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand.

Every year Oct 2^nd is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanthi (Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary) and this day is declared as a national holiday. During my interaction with the school management and teachers I have realised that though they celebrate his birth anniversary through speeches, dramas during the morning assembly on 1^st Oct, it will remain as a mere formality if they don’t really connect and bring out the true essence of his principals. There are many scientific reports which say things taught at a young age will remain with them in the sub conscious mind for ever. So, it becomes very important to provide knowledge and connect them with the real situation.

I don’t say teachers in school don’t teach values or provide information but I think they are not able to connect the values to the present situations around them or in their day to day life of the students. It is the role of the teachers to debate, explain and demonstrate to them about the importance and how to resolve issues in a more amicable and a peaceful manner in a given context.       

In COLLEGES and YOUTH GROUPS: My experience in working with adolescents and youth group: In majority of the cases group members belong to different caste and religion and in majority of the cases they run very successfully which is story across various Indian states.

In this age, the main source of information and knowledge providers are their peers and teachers. They inspire them to take steps like all of them opting to take same course in particular college, forming of groups, bunking from class, participate in any movement. All this is dependent on information and knowledge being shared with them. Majority of the times many of this group do not have full or accurate information about a particular thing.

I remember during the college days we were part of many movements, fights and agitation. On many occasions majority of group members were not aware of the facts. Teachers and parents use to warn us that “half knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge” because one takes action based on the information provided and they don’t take action if there is no information.

Again it is the role of teachers, youth leaders in the community to provide full and accurate information and build knowledge which will help group members to take informed decisions because many agitations, fights happen without knowing the complete issue.

I think it should be mandatory for all the schools and colleges to have a subject on PEACE as in the globalization and technology era, intrusion in one another becomes very easy and it is very important that full and complete information is shared to maintain PEACE.  

  

Two target with one arrow ?? It is possible

`Ek teer do nishaane’ is what I advise when it comes to solving two major problems facing Andhra Pradesh and India. 

First target concerns education and lack of text books. Every year at this time (June-July) children and parents are excited about the reopening of schools with parents buying new dress, bags for the children and the young ones happy to enter a new class and interact with new teachers and tell their friends how they spent their summer vacation. 

But the downside is the shortage of books. This despite the Right to Education Act, which gives every child the opportunity for free and compulsory education. Parents complain about not having textbooks because the printing has not been done on time. If this is the scene in the cities and towns, you can well imagine the plight in the rural areas. 

Second target is unemployment among the people living with disability (PwD). We talk about inclusive growth but socially, politically or economically, we have not accepted it and taken it seriously. Unemployment and lack of opportunity for our PwD friends in India is a huge problem and Andhra Pradesh fares no better. To bring them into the mainstream, we need to create jobs and that has to be done and supported by the government. 

So the arrow to hit two targets: So what can be done to address both the lack of text books and lack of opportunity to our PwD friends. We see every year text books are printed by the government press and the efficiency of government printing press is much less than desired. Why not outsource it to others or why can’t government open new printing press centres which are exclusively run by our PwD friends. Government through vocational training can train them and then recruit them for this job. In fact there are organizations that are already training our friends in these skills.   

I want to clarify that I am not undermining or underestimating the abilities and potential of our PwD friends. They can do wonders and are efficient. This is one way to create employment opportunity for them. And it doesn’t have to be school textbooks alone. It can be extended to different areas of publishing. This will also help the government achieve the target of creating employment opportunity for five lakh people every year, as stated by the AP chief minister last week. 

Does the government have the will to think out of the box? 

Is Technology an answer for regular classes during agitations?

Recently I have meet few youth group which includes final year engineering and graduation students and few final years’ Intermediate students. All of them were worried about one major issue that is of incompletion of syllabus due to lack of regular classes because of Telangana agitation for separate statehood. This is not just the problem of college students but also with school children especially the 10^th class students who have board exams. This is creating a problem for them in preparing for competitive exams like GRE, GMAT, IIT, AIEEE, MBBS and also applying for foreign university and in preparing for campus interviews.

I am not here discussing whether the agitation is right or wrong but I am thinking how we can have regular or at least few classes even when the colleges are closed due to agitation.

There is one answer to this problem i.e. “TECHNOLOGY”. We just need one computer with a speaker, web cam and an internet connection. Professor of the college can take classes in his house or behind the close doors of colleges.

1. He/she can deliver the lecture live, where all the students in their respective homes/cyber cafes can listen to class and interaction can take place and if a student has a doubt he can clarify it online.
2. He/she can record the lecture and post it on You Tube. Here the student can clarify his doubt by writing comments and later it can be clarified.
3. Online classes cost nothing extra for college/school management as there are many service providers who provide it free of cost.
4. It is certainly affordable for students as well. They just have to pay 10-15rs for an hour in the cyber cafe. In fact majority of them will be having internet in their home.

It is all up to the school/college leader to take this kind of decision and think creatively on how better we can use the technology. It is no point in starting a technology college when we don’t know how the technology can be used for better learning of the students.

Development without Inclusive Development

When India is growing round at 8-10% and per capita income is projected to grow by 17.3 per cent to Rs 54,527 in 2010-11 from Rs 46,492 in the year-ago period, according to the official data, but still there is one section of community who are not part of this economic growth, they are non-other than our Disable friends in fact I should call them differently challenged or differently abled friends. Many multinational institutions like UN, World Bank, ADB, and India’s own Planning Commission in their five year plan are talking about inclusive development. There are different ways of inclusive development like political, economic, social by which we can ensure that there is a sustained inclusive development.

Let us explore some of the options for inclusive development:

Jobs in government: This will be helping us in achieving the economic, social and educational inclusion target which was set in our five year plan:

1. In one state there are so many bus stands, railway station and airport and in all these places we need someone as information officer/information desk and this is a place where they provide information about so many things from timings, to place, platform. But you all know we hardly find anyone helping and we end up asking people for help. There are instance where some do help and some also provide wrong info, so this place becomes where important, not just in terms of creating employment but also increasing the governance system by providing the right information. This is a place where there is less mobility and this will be one of the ideal places where our friends can be employed.

2. In SSA we have emphasis on inclusive growth but even though it is on paper it is very difficult during execution as disabled students are admitted but there are very less or no trained teachers for this job – so why cannot our friends who are export and can truly realise the pain and sensitivity of this issue be given the job of training the teacher.

3. It is a hard reality that in many schools in the rural areas where teachers are absent, why can’t government give opportunity to our eligible disabled friends an opportunity in teaching school children of their own or nearby villages.

4. Every year we find short fall of school text books from the government side. In this regard why can’t government establish more press or publication houses where they employ only our disabled friends, this not only serve the purpose of creating employment to our friends which is not much difficult for them but also solves the problem of short fall of text book.

Jobs in Research institution: This will be helping us in achieving the economic inclusion target which was set in our five year plan:

1. Research institution do a lot of field data collection and when they come back from the field feel lot of burden to compile it, correct it and data entry it in the PC and for this job again they can hire our friends and train them in data entry and for this they doesn’t require traveling.

2. In fact if they are properly trained then they can be also part of the analysis team which again doesn’t require traveling and more of mental strength which again our friends are capable of if they are properly trained and given opportunity.

Jobs in banking sector: This will be helping us in achieving the financial inclusion target which was set in our five year plan:

1. If they are trained in accounting packages like Tally which is used by many financial institutions for their account maintaining.

2. When one is planning to visit a bank he/she is always filled with questions like which form to take, how to fill, what to fill, where to give and in many branches we don’t find any authorised person to help us and in this regard banking sector can create at least one post where he will be responsible for helping everyone in the whole process.

NOTE: Please note I am not undermining the ability of our differently challenged friends capacity but just exploring opportunity for them in the mainstream community as part of inclusive development.

Do also note all the above options does not need any extra efforts from the various organization, as they already have the required resources with them. only thing which they need is will to change and will to accept.

PEACE as MDG-9

We all know whatever improvement in the live’s of children health and education or in terms of gender equality or people talking about climate change or improved health systems to address like HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases or improved income levels to come out of poverty all these changes we can see is due to commitment made by different nations to the 8 MDGs. Though agree that we are not clear whether we will be able to achieve the Goals in the given time but at least there is a start and countries are working on it some very seriously and some not so seriously but their are VISIBLE CHANGES from the various UN reports.

Why do we see all these changes because countries have realised the importance of education, health, poverty, climate changes, and collaboration among different countries and have set a dead line and developed a strategy to address it, because they have set it as there PRIORITY.

But why the nations do not realise PEACE as priority, take some examples where countries are having regular violation of PEACE like in case of:
1. India and Pakistan for Kashmir
2. South and North Sudan
3. Palestine and Israel
4. Chechnya in Russia
5. LTTE in Sri Lanka
6. Cote de Ivory
7. Somalia
8. Arab world like Libya, Syria
9. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran

Due to all the violence there is NO PEACE and there is huge violation of Human Rights taking place like family members losing their bread earners in the form of men and youth either kidnapped or killed or missing, girls and women are being raped and or in mental trauma and are in self imposed house arrest. Children are losing their childhood and apart from this basic rights like education, health services, employment and food are not properly reaching them to survive. PEACE IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT HUMAN RIGHTS.  

There could be many reasons for lack of PEACE like due to political change in the country, leader want to show their power in the region, expansion of the national territory, ethnic or cultural rights, migration from different countries, terrorism, naxals and their ideology. 

When there is no PEACE there is another major violation of human rights take another example in the form of refugee, asylum seekers and internally displaced, according the UNHCR report there are nearly 43.7 million people are forcefully displaced and leaving in camps, again no PEACE. Why people have to leave their mother land, house, family, friends, education, employment and stay in a camp. Why on the earth we need this camps why cannot the government make them as their citizens who are giving them asylum or they have to be sent back to the respective nations.

It is not that UN is not making efforts, the historical “An Agenda for Peace” in 1992  by Secretary- General Boutros Boutros–Ghali was a great step with preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, peace keeping, peace building, disarmament, sanctions, enforcement actions  as some of the key motives of the Charter. Over the years it has done some incredible job in preventing the wars, sending the peace keeping forces in the war areas, sending the peace makers to bring the conflict to an end, writing sanctions to the countries who are violating the laws.

Why cannot we all have PEACE as our MDG -9 and take it as a priority and set a deadline and start working for PEACE. Though states argue that PEACE process in on and we are working for it but why cannot we make it as an obligation and set as a deadline which will speed up the process.   

We have a very good example in the form of East and West Germany getting united and look where they are now in world scenario.

As I am not an expert in International Relations nor a strategic Analyst, only thing I know and millions of people know is PEACE, now it is up to the intellectuals to frame goals and develop a clear action plan in achieving it. But I would like to share few points here like:

9.1 PEACE from regional conflict among two nations

9.2 PEACE from violence created by Insurgents

9.3 PEACE from violence created by Naxal

9.4 PEACE from any kind of Micro or Macro level issues.  

9.5 Refugee Camps has to be closed and the people have to be either being recognized as their nationals or have to be sent back to their respective nations with dignity. 

Without PEACE we cannot achieve the MDG.   

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Small steps will lead to a large effect in addressing malnutrition and hunger death

NOTE: This paper is not talking about how to increase food production and what are the different mechanism/policy government needs to take to address it. We are here talking about on how we can take some simple precautionary steps in which we just not only create awareness but also address the issue of malnutrition and hunger deaths and make government accountable and responsible for its very purpose of coming to power to serve the people of its country.



There could be many reason for malnutrition and hunger death from poverty to government policy to low production to high cost of food items to lack of good quality food particles to lack of income, but here let us focus on two reasons like:

1. Lack of awareness of what is malnutrition/hunger death (For example: like what to eat, how much to eat, what kind of food has more source of nutrition).

2. Lack of knowledge on whom to, how to and where to inform about the malnutrition/hunger cases.

“Precaution is better than cure” This proverb is something which many of us believe in and also practice it in few cases. So if we have come to know about the possible cases we at least can try to reduce the cases initially and later on complete stop the hunger/malnutrition death. But there are large numbers of people who are not even aware whether a child is malnourished or not, so in such cases the chance of curing or acting upon to avoid it does not arise at all. So here let us make another attempt to address it by involving the school and college students who are most true, sincere, and honest. Let us see below how we can address such an important issue.

Action plan to address the hunger/malnourished deaths:


• WHAT TO DO: Create awareness and sensitization: On hunger/malnutrition death to school children from upper primary/middle level/high school and the college students.

• HOW TO DO: Create a team of likeminded youth/students: Volunteers (school and college students) to be selected from all the major towns and cities and these volunteers will be taking small sensitization sessions in the school and college, they will do it at probable once or twice in a week as their education should not be suffered.

• WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WHAT CHILDREN WILL DO: As we all know children are very fond of telling stories once they are back from school, college or after coming home from play ground, they tell parents about their friend’s, complaints, fighting, jocks, happy moments, victory, and defeats. During all this sharing’s Children/students will identify the potential cases like malnourished cases or child is suffering from hunger or inadequate number of food intake.

• WHERE DO THEY FIND FROM: They will identify from within their school, on way to school, near their home/play ground/colony/street.

• WHOM TO INFORM: Whom to inform about the potential identified cases: As we all know many are scared to inform about the things to people and more over we are talking about school and college students so the focal point will be there school/college principle or a specific allotted teacher for this task. Then it is the responsibility of the principle/teacher to inform about the case to the government officials at city/mandal/district/state officials.

Or

SOCIAL MEDIA: Social Media can come here, as many students are using these, there can be a potential forum/group where they can give complaints and suggestion and this will be administered by the government officials or a particular department which undertake these issues. This will also act as a watch dog as all the complaints and number of action taken will be clearly mentioned here. This will bring out more accountability and transparency in addressing the cases.

• REWARDS: Appreciation for efforts: It is a Human Psychology that getting recognition to efforts and hard work gives immense satisfaction to any person. So, any children/student/youth who report malnutrition cases or any cases of hunger from there colony/locality/street/play ground they will be given small rewards like certificates, gifts, prizes, announcing their name in the school/college assembly or in their annual reports as a token of appreciation.

• SUPPORT FROM EDUCATION Dept/GOVERNMENT:

1. We can push for chapters on malnutrition and hunger in school syllabus. So the children from their school level come to know about it and infact the learning from school will help children to sensitize the parents.

2. Respective governments as per there convenience can establish a department to address the cases which they receive from the schools, colleges and take the necessary steps. We can here involve the NGOs in taking rehabilitation work.

3. By this at least the government departments cannot claim that they are not aware or they have not been informed about these cases in advance.

Using IT to monitor attendance/late coming/absence in government office

Last week I visited my friend in a hi five IT corporate office, it was so pleasing to see how the technology can be used for accountability and transparency, what I saw there was all the doors are automatic locked, one has to swipe the cards to open the door otherwise it won’t, so all the employers have been given a card and whenever a staff swipes to open a door it get recorded and this way we can get to know who and how many times they have passed through this door.

In the similar manner in my previous organization we had these punch cards, as soon as we enter in the morning we have to punch and this will record in the system and after a certain time in morning a report goes to head of organization, with details of all staff arrival time in office. If an employer found to be late immediate explanation is sought from him/her. Accordingly at the end of the month the salary will be provided if the staff has come late more than the given provided times. This has brought out a discipline and accountability and transparency in the organization.

Similarly, I happen to visit the government department and I have found the officer is late and after a while when he arrived on asking why he was late in a general/causal manner he gave silly reasons for late coming when enquired about officer came to know that this is a regular feature of the officer and similar to this there are few in the office who tend to come to office very late, though they have this register where they put the signature. But where is accountability and punishment for late coming. India is having such a high technology surely we can develop a system where all the officers have to punch/swipe card and they have to use it as soon as they enter the office and then again repeat this when they leave the office premise and this record is automatically from all the department has to sent to the higher officials so that he can know who is coming late and who all are missing from the desk, this will at least bring in discipline and accountability in department. I am sure if they are on their desk there are many chances they perform their duty, and the usual complain the government office that there are large number of files pending will also be addressed. So bring in technology to bring in discipline and accountability.

Power of Youth

The issues of tuition fees in UK and Italy. Ireland has seen a mass rally by the students and youth who are against the government’s education budget cut. In France, people taking on streets for fighting against the pension reforms bill. In Tunisia, the protest which started in a town, where one unemployed youth trying to sell the vegetables without permission has set himself on fire which led to mass protest in town which later spread to the other town in the country and later Tunis the capital city of Tunisia. which has ultimately led to the ousted of the Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power. This has spread to Egypt where the president from last three decades Mr. Hosni Mubarak had to step down after the mass protest in the country.

Last year in Jammu and Kashmir, we have see a very huge turmoil where there was stone pelting by the people on the forces of state. The intensity of the mass agitation has shocked the whole nations where majority was youth and supported by women. This has ultimately led to the formation of the special team called Interlocutors who are studying various option with the people of Kashmir by having series of interaction with various stakeholders from students to political parties to women’s groups to intellectuals, because of this there is a peace in the valley from quite some time.  

Similarly we are seeing the wide spread agitation from boycotting class, to clashing with police, suicide by  students, to not attending semester exams, all this is taking place in the Hyderabad in the campus Osmania University for the formation of the separate state called Telangana from the present state of Andhra Pradesh. Again this agitation has led to formation of the special team for studying the best possible solution and the report has come up with the set of solution/suggestion/recommendation for the statehood.

All the above protest/agitation there is one thing in common, major role is being played by the youth. One more interesting thing which is coming out of this revolution all over the world is that there is no leader behind the movement, all this is taking place by the youth after going through all the suffering over the years. Youth, who are bringing the revolution in various parts of the world, the power of youth has to be recognized and has to be utilized by government for the growth of nation. 

We can see the power of youth in India in the IT sector where big countries are targeting the youth for the solution. Similarly in sports we are seeing some very emerging youth who are creating a mark at the global level whether it is cricket or Badminton or wrestling or boxing. The recent rallies all over country by various groups on fight against corruption is a fine example on the role of youth

One important area where we can see a huge role by the youth is politics, I am sure if they are given power then they can do wonders. Political parties have to give them more opportunity for youth. 

Salaries for the Elected representatives

Some time back there are was a lot of talk in the media and also in the general public about the hike in salary, perks of the elected representatives in the parliament, Yes, why not as it has gone up from 16,000 Rs/month to 50,000 Rs/month a staggering 300% increase. On one side the people are saying that there should not be any hike in the pay as they are already making a lot of money through various sources which is well known to everyone. On the other side there is a saying that if a person is paid well with a good salary then there are very chances that he will not indulge in corruption, his performance will improve and he will be more sincere and accountable towards the work.


My question to the policy makers and the parliamentarians is that why are we not talking about the increase in the salary/honorarium for the elected representatives of the PRI members. They are being paid very less and the expectations from them is very high, in delivering the various development programs/schemes. My experience in the field says that many of the PRI members (not all) are daily wage earners and to attend any meeting they have to loss the daily wage, in fearing of going to bed food less they are attending for work and giving a miss to the meetings which they are suppose to attend as a elected representative, because of this the corruption taking place and also the programs are not being implemented properly as they are not monitoring it regularly. If they are being paid well then there are very high chances that they will perform well.

We need to push in for increase in the salary/honorarium for the PRI members.

Platform for Youth

Recently I was attending on youth conference, the atmosphere in the hall was full of enthusiasm where youths where in their best by throwing lots of ideas and bringing new dimensions in discussion and debates. In the middle of all the discussion in the hall there was one section who were keeping silent and watching all the show, when enquired came to know that they were attending such conference for the first time and in fact participating in any such discussion for the first time. As the discussion progressed the silent group started to speak. So happy to see a group which was keeping silent has got so much of ideas. This meeting is taking place in the urban setting, where atleast youth have got platforms where they can share their thoughts, ideas and learn from one other and in fact in the meeting came across many groups who come together and do some kind of voluntary activities.


The next day I was talking to various youth groups in the tribal area, many youth don’t have aspirations and those who have aspiration in life don’t know how to achieve it. I was just comparing this youth group with the group which I met the other day in the urban setting. One who have grown up in the city have so many opportunities, if not have various platform where they can come together and share their opinions and thoughts. This privilege of having the platform is not available for the youth in the rural area, they don’t even sit and discuss, debate on any such issue, even if they do, it is mostly of unproductive, the reason is due to lack of facilitators as there is no one to facilitate the discussion, because of this there is no exposure, experience sharing, inter change of ideas and no one playing the role of the facilitator by taking the group in the right direction and in right thinking.

One way of addressing this is by NGOs and school teachers. There are so many NGOs working for the children education and with the adolescents groups (Boys and Girls). They have a very important role to play the role of a facilitator by conducting discussions and debates among the groups and bring out the hidden thoughts in them, but it has to be done in a very facilitative and in a constructive manner. We need to encourage such kind of discussion, where the brain starts thinking and brings out the new aspirations and innovativeness among youth. . They need platform and we need to give it to them, for example in a village bring out interested youth and have a debate on some topics and then when the group is ready try to have a group discussion with the neighboring village and in the same way try to have a discussion at the panchayat level and then a inter panchayat level discussion and then at the block level. The same thing can be done at the school and the college level also.