What Ails Indian Babus?

Joginder Singh


The conduct rules of all government employees in our country mandate that they shall maintain absolute integrity in their functioning. Unfortunately the conduct rules, which are very unambiguous, have been violated both in spirit and letter by bureaucrats as well as their political masters.

Joginder Singh

Indeed, it might appear surprising that five months after the Secretaries Committee decided that ministries with Central Public Sector Employees (CPSEs) under their  control should not allow officers to use facilities owned by or paid for by these state-run companies, the Department of Personnel & Training has asked government officials to return at the earliest and definitely before March 31, 2010 all mobile phones, chauffeur-driven cars, air conditioners, laptops, faxes etc that have been provided by CPSEs.
Instead of specifying that such a misuse would lead to dismissal or other serious  punishment, the order says that “any such use shall attract suitable action against them... Any manpower or other facilities from CPSEs already being availed by the ministries or departments will be returned by the concerned ministries. As if it felt sorry in issuing such an order, the same department says, “In case there is need due to exceptional circumstances to utilize a facility from a CPSE for a bona fide purpose related with official duties, the usage could be allowed by the Secretary concerned for a specified period after a careful assessment of the situation”.
If a rule is there, there should be no loopholes. But our legal experts first leave sufficient loopholes and then make rules to provide escape routes to crooks. Anybody who has anything to do with the government feels that nothing moves unless it is moved by love, money or influence. About middlemen, I asked a businessman:
“Why do you always require an agent in any dealing with a government office?"
His response was that it was difficult for anyone to just find out the exact procedure for your work and also because these procedures are too cumbersome. Despite the government's claims of simplifying laws and procedures, there are layers upon layers of laws if you need to stick to the law. A single window system with  a time bound response is the solution.
For me, it was nothing but a literal admission by Cabinet Secretary, the highest government official of India, of widespread corruption in the bureaucracy when he said in March 2010: "The issue of corruption needs to be addressed fairly and squarely.    Preventive vigilance should be strengthened. Transparency must be introduced in decision making and in all our systems. Stringent action must be taken against officers found guilty. Disciplinary proceedings must be expedited."
"We must respond in full measure to the faith that citizens have reposed in us and meet their hopes and aspirations of good governance. Of late, there have been some disturbing incidents which call for serious introspection by civil servants. Integrity, honesty, objectivity, impartiality, transparency, accountability and devotion towards duty were the core values which civil servants should cherish and which form an integral part of our decisions and actions."
So much so that even the Union Minister For Administrative Reforms and Personnel   had said some times back that "there is a perception that the Indian bureaucracy is inefficient and corrupt. If we are not able to provide for inclusive growth and maintain regional and social balance in the country, it may lead to conflicts which may shake the very foundations of our federal polity and our nation."
Considered against the fact that India's performance on UNDP's Human Development Index abysmal, such corruption in the bureaucracy harms the marginalised much more.

The Indian bureaucracy is not only inefficient, but also highly corrupt. The leadership has totally failed in either reforming or controlling the babudom, notwithstanding the two Administrative Reforms Commissions. The bureaucracy in our country is like a broken cannon. It does not work and you cannot fire it. it is corrupt, inefficient and thrives because of weak political leadership. No wonder, it loves the status quo.

About six years ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured Indian industry that a high-level standing committee with representatives from industry and the government would review all existing industry laws with international best practices and if required amend archaic laws to end the tyranny of inspector Raj.
"The rules and regulations would be made more transparent and simple. The attempt would be to, as far as possible, not leave issues to personal interpretation and to ensure that discretionary power is not misused," the PM had said. Unfortunately, nothing much has moved on this front.
A  Supreme Count appointed judicial committee about the corruption of bureaucracy had this to say: "It is a known fact that PDS has dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt sectors in the country. Corruption is all pervasive in the entire chain involved in the PDS and it continues to remain a formidable problem. Most of the functionaries under the food and civil supply department are typically callous and resort to corrupt practices. It is, in fact, a cancerous growth and has to be chopped off as patch work will not do."
The committee headed by former justice, DP Wadhwa of Supreme Court, said although the Centre was giving a "whopping" subsidy of Rs 28,000 crore to the states on food items to be distributed to poor through the PDS but a strong nexus of corrupt officials, dishonest fair price shop (FPS) owners, treacherous transporters engaged by state governments and unscrupulous mill owners, has virtually crippled the system.
While finding that the PDS ration was being directly sold to flour mills, the committee said unless concrete remedial measures were immediately taken as suggested by it "the poor will go on suffering because of this nexus."
The Indian bureaucracy is not only inefficient, but also highly corrupt. The leadership has totally failed in either reforming or controlling the babudom, notwithstanding the two Administrative Reforms Commissions. The bureaucracy in our country is like a broken cannon. It does not work and you cannot fire it. it is corrupt, inefficient and thrives because of weak political leadership. No wonder, it loves the status quo.
It is time we finally dealt with the babus of India. It is already late.
(The author is a former CBI Director & a regular columnist of Punjab Today.)

Sikh clergy, Makkar back Open Forgiveness Sale window at Takht

One wonders what good such a move will do since those
whom Makkar wants to woo have only snubbed it.
Neither Sirsa’s Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh nor
Spokesman’s Joginder Singh are likely to pick up
the apology discount sale bait of clergy.

TEAM PT

AMRITSAR: Can there be a sort of discount period from a holy seat for those excommunicated from a community to return during a particular window without the fear of any punishment? Strange are the ways of the Sikh clergy and the SGPC top honcho Avtar Singh Makkar who have now opened a ‘quick sale counter’, asking those excommunicated to return to the pamthic fold by presenting themselves for forgiveness within a month’s time.
Many Sikhism experts are wondering if the Akal Takht, which is forever forgiving for those who seek to apologise and repent, has now chosen to be extra magnanimous, but then why is that magnanimity limited to one month only? And will it be an annual affair, like the many seasonal sales?
There may be debate in society about the institution of ‘tankhah’ but for those who believe in it, the new step will be very confusing. The latest clergy statement has offered to take back people without the religious punishment. An open season has been declared for “Guru’s bakhshish” but this ‘bakhshish’ window will soon close down.
While the decision was announced by the clergy on June 6, the very next day Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh said even Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh could be pardoned if he presented himself before Akal Takht and sought forgiveness for his blasphemous act.
Earlier, the Akal Takht had issued an edict to Sikhs for observing a total boycott of the dera chief and followers of his sect after he imitated Guru Gobind Singh and administered his ‘Jam-e-Insan’ (a sweet drink) to his followers in 2007.
One wonders what good such a move will do since those whom the Akali Dal’s ‘more loyal than the king’ Falstaff Makkar wants to woo have only snubbed it. Neither Sirsa’s Gurmeet Ram Rahim nor Spokesman’s Joginder Singh are likely to pick up the bait.
This system of wholesale pardon window needs a serious re-look and instead the SGPC should focus on reforms in the clergy, and clearly defining powers and role of the jathedars. But men like Makkar will not work to resolve those issues.

The Two-Stands Theory

Kanwar Manjit Singh 

WAS JARNAIL Singh Bhindranwala a 'Sant' or a terrorist? Twenty-six years after Operation Bluestar, Punjab's Akali Dal-led government has now given a clear answer. 
Sorry, it has given two clear answers.
1. On June 6, the SGPC paid homage to those killed in the Operation Bluestar by organizing a function at the Akal Takht where it honored the kin of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, prefixing with his name the honorific of 'Sant' and recalling 'how he fought for preserving the sanctity of Sri Darbar Sahib.' SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar, several SGPC members from the Akali Dal and other senior leaders of the party participated. The Akali leaders and the SGPC do so, in fact, every year, year after year, and always on June 6. This was one clear answer to the query.
2. But just two days earlier, on June 4, the Parkash Singh Badal-led government gave another clear answer, very clear, in fact. In an affidavit submitted before the Punjab and Haryana High Court to defend its decision to ban a procession that a bunch of radical Sikhs wanted to take out to mark the tercentenary of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur's victory, the government justified the ban, saying the group would have used pictures of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala in the procession, and Bhindranwala was a militant who was killed in an Army operation".  So even the possibility of use of such a man’s photographs is enough to ban a procession. This was the second clear answer.
The state government’s two-stand theory is pretty consistent.
Going further, the government counsel Additional Advocate General Amarjit Singh Jatana quoted from the Constitution of Akali Dal (Panch Pardhani), which wanted to take out the march, to prove the serious charge made by the government that the radical faction still believes in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and wants to secure a federal structure in India as per a document as nefarious as the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
Even if you forget for a moment that for decades, CM Badal professed to have fought against the Centre for implementation of the same Anandpur Sahib Resolution was forgotten, it is a surprise that the Akali Dal government took such a plea in the High Court just weeks after Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil, in his inaugural address to the Punjab Assembly, affirmed the state government's commitment to secure the demands mentioned in Anandpur Sahib Resolution, and advocated implementation of federal structure in India.
So, just like on Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala, the Badal Government has two stands on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution too. First, it is committed to Anandpur Sahib Resolution so much that it tells the Assembly it will secure federal structure as per the document. Second, it considers the same document so nefarious and dangerous that it tells the court that someone cannot be allowed to take out a procession because he professes faith in the same Anandpur Resolution.
Parkash Singh Badal is now a master of taking two stands on almost any issue. Take the postures he struck on death row convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. He pleaded before the President of India to spare Bhullar's life, claiming the convict was actually innocent. He sent Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa to meet the then President, APJ Abdul Kalam, to plead for Bhullar's release. His own senior party leader and the then SGPC chief wrote to the President of India to argue and plead for Bhullar's release. All of these after the Supreme Court condemned Bhullar to a death sentence.
But now, when Bhullar wrote from Delhi's Tihar jail, merely asking that he be shifted to Amritsar jail, Badal's government said in writing that the convict is such a dangerous terrorist that his shifting to Amritsar jail may lead to a law and order problem.
This, when Bhullar was convicted on the basis of a verdict by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court wherein two judges, Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice B.N. Aggarwal, convicted him and sentenced him to death while the third judge, M.B.Shah, dissented not just on the question of capital punishment but on the very question of guilt, and actually acquitted Bhullar as innocent.
Politicians are often termed as a two-faced species, but few can match the consistency shown by Parkash Singh Badal in following a two-stands theory.
Back to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Akali Dal's senior leader and SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar installed a portrait of Bhindrawale in the Sikh Museum despite strong protests. Last week, he and his SGPC honored Bhindranwale's son Isher Singh at the Akal Takht. They also honored Bhindranwale's close associate Bhai Amrik Singh's son Tarlochan Singh and mother of Harjinder Singh Jinda, the slain militant. And yet, the Badal government's counsel asserted that a procession to celebrate Baba Banda Singh Bahadur's victory cannot be allowed because those wanting to take out such a procession may possibly use photographs of Bhindranwale alongwith that of Banda Singh Bahadur.
Incidentally, Bhindranwale was declared as 'Great Sikh of the Century' in 2001 by the Akal Takht, a decision hailed by the SGPC lorded over by the ruling Akali Dal leadership.
Now, the vacation bench of Justice Rajan Gupta has asserted that the matter required serious and detailed discussion; and has fixed July 5 as the next date of hearing. One wonders what double faced stands the government led by Parkash Singh Badal  may come up with next.
It is time the Akali Dal and the Badals who lord over it tell the people what they really believe in. Was Bhindranwala a terrorist? Then come out and say it. Is Anandpur Resolution secessionist? Then, for God’s sake, say it and become part of the national mainstream. Does Punjab have a right to royalty on its waters? Then tell the BJP, its alliance partner, in as many terms. Are you for river-linking scheme of the NDA regime and a beloved national-integrity tool of the BJP? Then say it, or say you oppose it. Badal chooses SGPC presidents, or sacks them, and then claims he does not interfere in SGPC affairs. Two stands.
You cannot spend a lifetime in politics, riding on two-stands theory. Or perhaps you can. See, even we are taking two-stands! It is a contagious disease, and by all indications, often gets passed on to a son.

Bhindranwale is a Terrorist, Badal's govt tells HC

But then the SGPC honours him and other militants just two days later

Punjab’s ruling Akali Dal cannot decide whether it should run with the hounds and hunt the hare or should it join the hares and counter the hounds. But it knows one thing: profit maximisation is best when you can play the hare against the hounds and take both sides at the same time. It is a jungle out there in Punjab, and the Akali Dal seems to be lost in the woods. SAD’s govt has now told the High Court that Bhindranwale was a militant and even the use of his photographs was undesirable activity, but then SGPC puts his portrait in a museum and honors his kin. That too just two days later. Why doesn't the Akali Dal come clean?  

This PUNJAB TODAY edition exposed the dual face of the ruling Akali Dal government.
(Feedback at punjabtoday@gmail.com.)

Metro for Ludhiana?

Oh! Come on. Re-consider


Krishdeep Khosla

The idea of development in Punjab seems to be evolving into necessarity a grand project. Much like the view about big dams in India, the politicians in Punjab think that the idea of capacity enhancement for existing facilities or income enhancement schemes for the very poor and poor ar not indicators of development but talk of metro, malls and airports is.
In this vein, we have been hearing for some time the ideas about a metro for a city like Ludhiana. So much so, that the Punjab Government has even signed an MoU for developing metro rail project in Ludhiana.
The venture is being counched as some sort of a landmark in Punjab's history and we are supposed to lap up the talk that it will herald us into an age of post-modern technology. As environmental activist Navdip Asija is fond of quipping, it is debatable whether it is going to be post-modern or post mortem technology.
The metro venture will onvolve huge environmental cost, and the land will come from either extremely densely populated urban areas or fertile agricultural lands. In either case, vulnerable sections of the population will be forced to be physical pushed to farther margins in our race towards development.
At a time when it goes without much gainsaying that Punjab's financial condition is not in great shape, one wonders about who will bear this burden of huge investment to the tune of Rs 3000 crore. On top of that, this figure is again an unrealistic estimation; it does not include the cost of rolling stock. "Large projects like the Metro, the viability gap funding tends to make huge demands on the state exchequer. After this decision the financial burden born by Punjab during militancy era would seem much smaller in comparison to this upcoming mounting debt burden on the State going to be imposed by our political leaders," Asija said.
Asija has pointed out that instead of building a rail based mass rapid transit system; bus rapid transit system can be a good option for a city like Ludhiana, Mohali, Amritsar. Without changing much of existing road infrastructure same can be accommodated and adopted. Bus based MRTS can cater 80% of the total ridership in comparison to the metro, whilst construction cost of  1km elevated metro line is almost 35 times higher than constructing a at grade dedicated bus lane. Other advantages are, bus provides you node to node better connectivity through open and closed system, whilst Metro Involved longer length of walking trips followed by vertical up and down movement to reach metro station. A City is just not a physical structure; it is a social str ucture. We need to address the role of each element and development shall be made by keeping into mind minimal impact on existing social and physical structure. Construction of metro will disturb the skyline of the city and the best example is Chaura Bazar flyover, which has almost spoiled the entire city structure of Ludhiana without changing much improvement in city's congestion situation. Another point of debate can be, metro is required to cater the future demand; but future demand can be very well addressed by developing a better master plan for the city, where people needs to travel lesser distance from workplace to home. Better planning can also results reduced congestion and pollution due to vehicles.
In Delhi alone, modal share in total motorized trips of through existing bus system is 60%. Punjab can learn the lesson from existing studies and areas where Metro has been implemented. Per kilometer Cost of Delhi Metro's Phase-I for the construction of three lines of 65 km in total length is 163 Crore. 10, 571crore, enough money to by 10 full-bodied Boeing 747s. At present metro ridership is near about 7.5 lakh passenger per day, which is not feeding the 1% of total Delhi's population. As per Delhi Metro Corporation estimations, number of originating passengers per day in the year 2011 for Phase I and Phase II corridors would be 26.17 lakhs. A total investment of 20847.92 crore on 213.7 km long rail network just to benefit 2% of the population is not a good idea. In terms of road accidents fatalities on Delhi's Road are increased by 8.6% between 2001 to 2005 period. Passengers using the Metro make up just about a fifth of the numbers projected initially. There is also the sobering experience of the 16 km Kolkata Metro, where ridership is limited to 10 per cent of capacity.
Delhi Metro data reveals that metro is a viable option where people travel corridor in one direction exceeds intra city demand 20,000 persons per hour. "I am sure, just to make metro viable, the Government won't let Ludhiana to reach at this level through wrong policies and planning. Population density of Ludhiana per Sq.kms is 804 persons in comparison to Delhi's population density 9,296 person per square kilometer. With the population density 11 times higher than of Ludhiana, if Delhi metro is not able to generate half of its estimated ridership, then I have doubt that how this metro project will be feasible in the case of circular city Ludhiana which is well connected with linear and radial roads," Asija posits.

Will we be able to keep it Golden?

Preet Inder Singh

Punjab Pollution Control Board has been working overtime to address an area of concern which worries all of us who are aware of and are engaged with preservation of our heritage. When it was found that the concentration of suspended particulate matter around the periphery of Golden Temple has risen from 296 to 586 micrograms per cubic metre, against the permissible limit of 100 micrograms per cubic metre, steps were taken to begin removal of the diesel oil furnace installed with the machine for preparation of chapatis for langar in Golden Temple besides putting up of air-pollution control device to minimise the emission. Massive tree plantation is also on the anvil.
In 2007 itself, the Punjab Pollution Control Board had conducted the monitoring of ambient air quality around the periphery of Darbar Sahib. At that time, the level of suspended particulate matter was between 138 and 417 micrograms per cubic metre. Even though the concentration of sulphur dioxide gas varied from 10 to 19 micrograms per cubic metre (which was well within the permissible limit of 30 micrograms per cubic metre), the concentration of nitrogen oxide worried as it hovered from 28 to 46 micrograms per cubic metre — beyond the permissible limit of 30 micrograms per cubic metre.
The vehicle emissions on the main road leading to Golden Temple are another source of worry. The diesel-driven auto-rickshaws were found to be major culprits. The administration needs to check and regulate the air-pollution level of auto-rickshaw on continuous basis.
Even better, it needs to make efforts to restrict the entry of auto-rickshaws around the Golden Temple.
There need to be put better and regular checks on the use of diesel generator sets installed by hotels, hospitals, banks and shops around the world heritage shrine.
"We are yet to see the plantation of trees around Golden Temple on a large scale, though some efforts have indeed been made," said an expert.
One wonders why the horticulture wing of Municipal Corporation, Amritsar, cannot do much more that what it has done so far in this regard.
Some residents to whom Punjab Today spoke to suggested that there should be some kind a bar or limit on the height of the buildings and hotels coming up in the vicinity of Golden Temple. "Also, the hotels which make so much money due to their closeness to the Golden Temple area should invest in installing chimneys in their kitchens with adequate filter system," said an expert.
One heard much about the possibility of the entire area falling within the 500-metre radius of Sri Harmander Sahib becoming a no-go area for vehicular traffic, the pollution from which is extremely harmful for the golden exterior of the holy shrine. So far, that has not happened.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) must jointly back these plans.
The air pollution is damaging the marble, gold and walls of the Golden Temple, and there is an imminent need to enforce a complete ban on vehicular traffic in the 500-metre radius of the Golden Temple and also on industrial activities nearby the way it was done in the case of the Taj Mahal.
One wonders why the SGPC cannot ensure a green cover on the roof of rooms along the ‘parikarma'. Also, there is a need to re-think the firecracker show at the Golden Temple on Diwali which causes a lot of air pollution.
The pure gold sheet covering the sanctum sanctorum has started turning dark at several places. Preliminary studies on the pollution levels around the Golden Temple have found heavy presence of sulphur dioxide and other poisonous gases.
The walls of the upper floors and the dome of the sanctum sanctorum are covered with a pure gold sheet — from which it derives its popular name of Golden Temple. Less than a decade after the entire pure gold sheet of the shrine was replaced after three years of laborious workmanship, in 1999, hundreds of kilos of gold have started turning black. Copious doses of toxic fumes emanating from the grand display of fireworks thrice a year damage not just the gold façade but also the intricate frescoes on the walls of the sanctum sanctorum, and the white marble all around. The gold is not solid but electroplated, thus, delicate. The frescoes inside the sanctum sanctorum are done with vegetable dyes, thereby making them extremely vulnerable to fading away because of corrosive gases. The white marble is getting yellowed.
The Punjab Pollution Control Board has installed four pollution-monitoring machines in buildings around the sanctum sanctorum to monitor the levels of pollution affecting the shrine.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is preparing a database of pollutants besides identifying the sources of air pollution around the sanctum sanctorum of the Darbar Sahib complex.

All expenses are being borne by the Punjab government. The CPCB has also engaged the services of the Guru Nanak Dev University's Department of Environment to gather data about the traffic movement, encroachments and industries around the complex to determine the causes of the air pollution.


Laser Show At Amritsar

One is happy to see some progress along the idea that smoke free fireworks or a laser show would completely replace the customary fireworks displays at Harmandar Sahib during Diwali and other occasions. Some brain storming has been done by a three-member panel comprising Jasminder Singh Advocate, Rajinder Singh Mehta and Gurbachan Singh Karmuwala in this regard. Punjab Today has learnt that certain firecracker suppliers in Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu have been contacted for smoke free supplies.
Some sections in the SGPC feel that the laser would be a costly affair. A senior SGPC official told Punjab Today that a few minutes’ laser show during the 400th centenary commemorations of installation of Guru Granth Sahib had cost Rs 6 lakh.
Experts say ordinary firecrackers emit toxic gases such as sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, which are extremely corrosive in nature. Recent Punjab Pollution Control Board surveys have detected alarming proportions of pollutants in the air around Harmandar Sahib.
Ideally, the cost of saving the sheen of a shrine so important should not be a factor in decision making, at least not in this case.

Beware, they want to convert you.

PUNJAB TODAY EDITORIAL

Punjab's water table is plunging, Prime Minister identifies India's Gravest Internal Security Threat, minister Jairam Ramesh is under fire for standing by the humble eggplant, Magsaysay awardee Rajendra Singh has little faith left in huge projects backed by big money, Umendra Dutt has a problem with chemical fertilisers and Sikhs are worried about the carbon soot deposits on Golden Temple.

The front page grab of the PUNJAB TODAY
issue on environment in which this editorial
appeared. 

Are these totally separate news items, haphazardly gathered headlines, all lumped together by a careless child? Or are these issues all underwired by one common enemy, one common problem, one common idea of resistance?
Editorial writers will never tire of telling you that the world never needed to pay more attention to environment than it does now. They will say the same words even when you mark WED 2011, or 2021. And many would have considered their job well done by spilling some green colour on the front pages, and asking you to light a candle, plant a sapling, switch off your air conditioner or not take out the car for at least one day.
Believe us. There is nothing special about World Environment Day. And you can continue to not plant the sapling, not switch off the AC, not stop driving that gas guzzler. Nothing much is going to happen in your life time. At least, nothing that will come and hit you personally.
But that choice may not be available to your children, or their children.
If the world's next war is indeed going to be fought over water, chances are that it may not happen in your life time. But there is a huge chance that it will happen in your children's life time.
In your life time, you are only witnessing a war for India's forests. The government prefers to call it the Naxal menace. It is being waged and fought in your name. You may not be an environmentalist but you get a feeling that some outsiders have taken control of India's forests when TV anchors ask point blank on prime time national television: Are you for India or are you for the Maoists?
While you were not an environmentalist, they displaced thousands, drowned hundreds of villages in their eagerness to give you your big dams. They did it in your name. They said they were sure it was all for the larger common good.
They are now writing cheques worth crores for poor farmers as they acquire their fertile lands for malls, airports, SEZs, and what not. They are all doing it so that you can have development. Since it was all being done for you, in your name, there was little pressure on you to become an environmentalist.
Now, there is poison in your vegetables. The air you breathe is a killer. The water you gulp carries cancer. You are expected to be grateful for world class cancer hospitals and express high-speed trains that are called 'Cancer Trains' because they ferry you directly to nearby towns that flourish because of cancer patients.
A little bit of pressure is building up for you to become some kind of an environmentalist.
This World Environment Day, some activists will try to convert you. Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal may show you a couple of water bottles, one from Sutlej, the other from Beas. You see the clean water in one, a black fluid in the other, and wonder who drinks that. There will be talk of why our ground water is plunging. Some will blame wheat-paddy cycles, others will formulate the development versus environment debate.
They are all after you. The doomsday seers. All they want is to convert you, make you unhappy, force you to start worrying about distant wars and melting glaciers that you may never get to see in your entire life.
And then there will be those who will talk to you about car density in our towns, people’s capacity to not only spend lakhs on a car but an equal amount on number plates. A young politician is sprinkling airports all around, another is holding the environment front with a little sapling that gives Nanhi Chhanv. All is well with the world. Why become an environmentalist. Unless you don’t really want to connect trains to cancer, food to poison, air to death.

(Feedback at punjabtoday@gmail.com)

Which of this is not a political issue?

* GreenPeace fought a 30-month RTI battle to make the Bt Brinjal dossier public

* Bt Brinjal was cleared by the GEAC based purely on data and samples provided by Mahyco and the institutions it used for testing. No independent testing was conducted and the authenticity of the samples was not ascertained

* 11 OF 16 people who oversaw Bt brinjal’s clearance had either been professionally involved with Mahyco or had serious conflicts of interest

* In a detailed note, Dr PM Bhargava, one of India’s most eminent microbiologists and a Supreme Court-appointed observer to the GEAC, raised 29 flags on the bio-safety dossier produced by Mahyco and cleared by the GEAC. Among his many disturbing observations, it turned out that in some tests the control sample itself was false.

* A former MD of Monsanto India says the company routinely got clearances for its herbicides based on the company’s own data. That tells a lot about how secure India’s regulatory mechanisms are

* Overuse of pesticides is cited as a reason for ushering in Bt brinjal. Yet, it appears a simple home-made neem emulsion can get rid of its worst pest, the fruit and shoot borer

* As the 8th largest seed market in the world, India has a $ 1 billion per year seed industry, currently occupied by the unorganised and public sector — waiting to be corporatised.

* Bt Brinjal will be one of the first geneticallymodified food crops in the world to be directly ingested, instead of being processed or fed to cattle. Is that reason enough to worry?

* Is it too much to ask that when a food like Bt brinjal is introduced, the regulatory mechanism has to be above suspicion?

Subscribe to PUNJAB TODAY. Here's why.

Let's All Become Political

Because We All Would Love To Be Environmentalists

To be an environmentalist 

is to be political. To ask

about teacher-student ratio 

in government primary schools 

is to be political. To try and 

understand what genetically 

modified foods can do to our

future is to be political. To 

question our law makers about

big dams, about the need for
super-highways, about the malls
dotting our cities, about the SEZ’s
everywhere, is political. On this 

environment day, let's all resolve

to be political.

Being political is about being human. 

Rajneeti is not about a Bollywood film. 

It is about us.

Nischay Pal

PUNJAB NEEDS TO become relevant. Every Punjabi wishes for that. "But are we not relevant already," one may ask. The simple answer is, we were. At one time, we were the food grain providers extra ordinary. And on top of that, we are a border state. As long as South Asia remained an unstable zone, we were very relevant.

Academics, students joining a protest against BT BRINJAL at
Panjab University, Chandigarh

Now, with agriculture in stagnation and many other states catching up and becoming food grain providers to the national granary, Punjab is losing its prime relevance.
We are well on our way to become a super power, at least in the region we inhabit. With India and Pakistan no more hyphenated by the world, and certainly not by the United States, we can well forget a full scale war scenario in the near or even distant future.
So even that one aspect of life that made us seriously relevant is now fading away.
With just 13 MPs in the Lok Sabha in coalition times, and with three parties to share the numbers, Punjab is no more relevant even in the one House that matters.
That brings us face to face with a worrying reality: Punjab's intervention in the Indian national political scene is virtually missing.
Unfortunately, an impression seems to have been generated, more because of the force of circumstances than any serious application of mind, that an intervention is possible only through the arena of electoral politics. That leaves only the mainstream hankerers after party tickets as any serious interventionists.
It is time people in Punjab ponder seriously about our missing civil society. Is it not possible to remain relevant without spending scarce and precious resources in election campaigning?
A whole number of engaged institutions involved in the social and religious domain stay away from the elections, as do many bodies in the field of education, culture and intellectual exercises. This is a phenomena seen the world over. Why should Punjab's men of letters, academicians, activists, NGOs not prefer to avoid being dragged into the dirty cesspool of electoral politics?
Some will call it the right approach as our politicians have little use for men of intellect or those making any real contribution towards the community and society but it will be naive to think that such a deduction is absolutely right.
A community's political life is more nuanced and subtle than a simple rejection of the election process or a decision to stay away from it, at least proactively, and confine oneself to merely trudging to the polling booth and casting our votes.
Democracy is not merely about casting the vote. That is a reductionist view of democracy that the politicians have or love. Entrenched interests in Punjab have deliberately reduced the definition of democracy to a so-called gift to the people of an ability to vote every five years. Punjabis need to interpret the democratic notions more broadly and see the ways in which one can engage oneself with the democratic process.
We see in Punjab that the political parties often do not take a stand on issues that impact our lives but make much noise about certain other issues. This happens because we do not have engaged activists and a concerned media that asks the right questions.
For example, what is the Akali Dal's stand on Foreign Direct Investment caps in media sector? Or the Samajwadi Party's stand on the Sri Lanka question? What do we know about the Bahujan Samaj Party's stand on the Kashmir issue? Will Sardar Rattan Singh Ajnala please tell us his view on the big dams, since he has a vote in Parliament? And what is Navjot Singh Sidhu's view on Copenhagen's failures?
Parties at the state level think they can afford to simply stay mum and not have a view on most matters and they have coached their electorate in such ways that there is no pressure on them to spell out their policy.
But must that be the Punjabis' approach? Should we not question more sharply so that at least we force political parties to send better equipped men and women to Parliament who can draft laws and vote on them with some visible grey matter usage?
All we need to do is to make ourselves aware of the issues and then understand that  electoral politics is not the only way to make an intervention in politics. Of the many ways of making a meaningful change through politics, the electoral politics is only one. There are umpteen examples of how a meaningful change can be made in the realm of ideation and in pursuing policy matters. A movement on the political front may not necessarily come through the electoral arena. Our politicians, or at least most of them, are masters of the political electoral arena which has place only for the corrupted and the degenerate. We are all aware of the role of money, muscle and mafia in the elections, and the story remains the same not just in the Lok Sabha polls but also Assembly, municipal committees and even panchayat elections.
Let us look at the ways in which people have impacted the political debate in India without being sucked into the vortex of dirty electioneering. Look at the work of Aruna Roy, a Chennai-born self-less Indian political and social activist who quit the IAS in mid-70s and is known for her campaigns to better the lives of the rural poor and empowered millions in Rajasthan through successful enactment of Rajasthan Right to Information Act and is largely credited with the success of RTI Act across India. This Magsaysay Award winner has impacted the course of political debate in India more than anyone among us.
Consider Jean Drèze, a development economist of Belgian origin who along with Amartya Sen has extensively engaged with issues of rural poverty, famine, policy reforms etc and has empowered millions with his relentless work on an employment guarantee scheme in India which ensures work for the poor.
All those who are behind a scheme like the NREGA are people who have made a significant contribution towards saving hundreds of thousands of lives and are giving hope to millions. It is easy to sit back and blast NREGA if one if one is devoid of the notions of poverty but for those who know Indian politics, it should be clear that the RTI and NREGA are two center pieces of a work that has been pushed by people essentially outside the electoral arena.
Men like Rajendra Singh, the well known water conservationist from Alwar, Rajasthan who won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership for his pioneering work in water management and holy men like Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal and Sant Sewa Singh of Khadoor Sahib can impact the terms of political debate in Punjab more than the lip service being paid by the politicians to the falling ground water table and the state of our rivers.
Where are the civil society activists working to save Punjab? Had a political party been working single-mindedly to focus on the state of our government-run schools, it would have meant more for the people than the filibustering on umpteen issues. We hardly have a proactive NGO other than Seechewal's efforts or that of the Kheti Virasat Mission on the environment front.
Politics is changing, and also changing are the ways in which one is seen as political. For far too long we have remained stuck in a groove in which talking about certain issues is considered politics and rest be damned.
It is time that we became political, time that we understood that Rajinder Singh's ideas of saving and harvesting water, Seechewal's resistance to dumping industrial waste into rivers, all the talk about environment, Umendra Dutt's loud protests against Bt Brinjal and chemical fertilisers are not just about environment; they are hugely political interventions. These actions will be deciding our politics. Punjab's politicians are pushing the envelope on the neo-liberal urban centric model of development which is leaving out and aside the teeming millions. Across India, more than eight million people have been pushed out of agriculture and there is no record or study of where they went and what they are doing. In Punjab, apathy has replaced the feeling of ennui which replaced the feeling of guilt whenever the number of people who committed suicide is mentioned. Every 30 minutes in India, one farmer has been committing suicide since 1997 (that is, ever since the government started collecting data). That the data itself is highly conservative and deliberately understated is a separate story. In Punjab, one farmer commits suicide every day, as per the latest data being compiled by the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.
Those who have been demanding land reforms, the farmers who know the best how to save the environment are at the receiving end. The corporate media in Punjab has remained completely silent after the day light murder of a tall farmer leader.
Has any political party made an issue of the fact that thousands seemed to have committed suicide at a time when Punjab revenue records, cited by the state government, showed merely 130 suicides? To be an environmentalist is to be political. To ask about teacher-student ratio in government primary schools is to be political. To try and understand what genetically modified foods can do to our future is to be political.
On this environment day, let's all resolve to be political.

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MAKE BIG MONEY DO IT

Do you love the green cause?

Then call the capitalists for some help!

Sukhjit Kaur 


FOR THE FIRST time in human history, there is no excuse for mass poverty and deprivation. Neither the money nor the resources to reach out and help. Still, our planet is going downhill, ecologically. And our economy as a whole is in a crisis. It is time we connected the dots. Just like the world economy had moved into a war machinery groove during WWII, and found its way back to health, it is time to turn the entire economy into an environmental groove.
Big money will only come to our aid if there is profit in the venture we suggest. When we align everything to good environmental practices, big money will not be a hindrance but will be a help. Imagine re-aligning millions of houses with better environmental norms, imagine turning every building, venture, project, institution into a green one.
We could be standing on the cusp of a revolution. Everything will change. The very idea of how we plan our cities, what materials we use in designing our cars and houses, how we lay our roads, how we make oil rigs, how we treat our forests.
To the devout of the environment domain, this may sound like blasphemy, but it is time we dialled the capitalists for big money that we need for our planet, our environment.
True, there are links between big growth and environmental crisis, connections between the food and energy crises and the financial crisis, and links of all of these to the climate crisis, but therein also lye the ways forward.
We know better the horrors of the global economic system, and its corollary - the inequities of a system that condemns hundreds of millions of human beings to lives of brute survival. It is now time to underline the hypocrisies of those who benefit from that very state of affairs. Many of these will be part and parcel of the World Environment Day celebrations, and our success will be in understanding who the real passionate lovers of environment are, and who are the parasitic enemy.
The complexities of the recent financial meltdown and the interconnections between the global economic recession, environmental degradation, and food security issues are not exactly the stuff that those schooled in neo-liberalism want to hear or read. Neo-liberalism numbs the human senses. It will not inspire you to join a social movement, or be sad at any unjust action of the government, or itch to contribute to an effort to protect the natural world.
As we mark this World Environment Day, we must understand that "everything is connected to everything" but that must not make us complacent in identifying the priority connections to understand how they work together and what we can do to change them, because they definitely do need changing.
There is a crisis of mass poverty and of growing inequality within individual countries and between the rich and poor countries and also about the financial crisis that Wall Street and the public authorities refused to see coming because they were living in bubble-land. It began with the subprime affair in the United States but has spread inexorably like a lava flow in the US and elsewhere, threatening to plunge the global economy into a prolonged period of stagnation as severe as the Great Depression.

A grab of the article from the print
edition of Punjab Today
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Punjab Today by writing to
Editor-in-chief, Punjab Today.
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rights reserved.) 

But it is the third most ominous of all crisis of climate change that is accelerating faster than most scientists, much less governments, thought possible, causing many to ask if we have not already entered the era of the runaway greenhouse effect.
No one seriously denies the numbers. The World Bank has already conceded that it had grossly underestimated-by about 400 million-the numbers of the very poor. Even then its figures stop at the year 2005, which means the recent upheavals in food and energy costs that have swelled the ranks of the impoverished are not counted.
What is shocking to understand is what may not be obvious to everyone: That the world is actually awash in money. Most of it is still in North America and Europe but the numbers of the seriously rich on other continents are catching up fast.
Those who have the money know very well how to keep it and, with their hired help, the battalions of lawyers, accountants and lobbyists, they are busy salting away their profits in tax havens, finding loopholes and protected investments, lobbying fiercely in parliaments and ministries against regulations on banks and financial markets. Any talk about poverty is sure to lead us to its links with the financial crisis.

Just look at the few figures:
* Ten million people, according to a recent Merrill-Lynch World Wealth Report, together boast investable, liquid funds of more than $40 trillion? That's 40,000 billion or 40 followed by 12 zeroes.

* This wealth is above and beyond the value of their houses, cars, yachts, wine or art collections and so on and it is equivalent to about three times the GDP of either the United States or Europe.

* Assume that you have one billion dollars, which is the cut-off point for the latest Forbes magazine list of 1125 truly rich individuals in the world. If despite your billion you are such a dim-witted investor that you get only a five percent return on your fortune, you will still have to spend $137,000 every day of the year in sheer consumption or you will automatically become richer.

* The UN World Institute for Development Economic Research, WIDER, estimates total world household assets at about $125 trillion. This is about three times world GDP and unsurprisingly, the top two percent of the world captures more than half of that wealth.
* The top 10 percent hold 85 percent, while the bottom half of humanity is obliged to stumble along with barely 1 percent.

* All you need to be classed in the top half of humanity is a meagre $2200 in total assets-that includes your house, your land or items like your car or your refrigerator-hardly a princely sum.

* If all household assets were divided equally-impossible and probably not even desirable to achieve-everyone on earth could have a share of $26,000. So again, money as such isn't the problem.

To those who often get swayed by the neo-liberals assurances that the progress being made in the world will one day end poverty, sorry to shatter even that assurance. Rising tides will not lift all boats. Neo-liberals do admit that inequalities have grown, but still argue that the poor are better off than they were. It seems almost rude to remind them in turn that falling tides have the opposite effect, they swamp and strand the more fragile boats and that is where the tide of the financial crisis is now taking us.
Indians are so fond of quoting China all the time. And often worry that it should be "Cheeny Kum, India Zayada". But at what cost is China growing? China has now overtaken the United States in greenhouse gas emissions and frighteningly has hardly even begun its transition to the automobile society. China also requires at least 10 times as much energy as the more mature industrial societies to produce a unit of GDP.
Growth certainly isn't the answer ecologically, but even economically it fails the test because the benefits accrue almost entirely to the top of society.
It is entirely possible to push tens of millions of poor people off the ledge where they had just gained a foothold and send them back into the depths of poverty. Food riots, most of them urban, in at least thirty different countries have revealed another scary new phenomenon: the worldwide food crisis. Until now, food shortages and famines tended to be local, but so many societies have accepted neo-liberal trade mantras and become dependent on world markets for their basic daily staples that today a sudden spurt in prices is felt from Haiti to Egypt to Bangladesh.
The Bank-Fund-EC policies have made a tiny fraction of international society rich beyond imagining, they have kept many dependent countries dependent in a new, less visible sort of colonial relationship and they have made so-called free trade, privatisation and unfettered capitalism the rule in countries that previously wanted little or nothing to do with them.
Furthermore, they have imposed their policies with relatively little organised protest because their ideology has been expertly produced, packaged and delivered.
The frantically innovating financial institutions, the large institutions that know perfectly well that they are "too big to fail", are leading to mass murders that don't seem visible. Now that the bailouts are a norm, it is socialism for the rich, the well-connected and Wall Street, in which the profits are grabbed by the usual suspects and the losses, tremendous losses, are billed to taxpayers.

WHAT, THEN, IS THE 
SOLUTION?

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim walks past an image of the
 world during a meeting in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Friday,
June 5, 2009.  Slim took part in a panel discussion on
environmental issues as part of World Environment Day.
We need the kind of money his ilk has!

It is clear that had it been possible for "people like us", for "we, the people" to set things right, they would have done so. It is time to concede that it is not possible. Time has passed for telling people to change their behaviour and their lightbulbs. What is required is a much bigger thing: Change the entire economy into a climate friendly economy.
The panacea, if there is one, lies in scaling up the environment industry. We must have the courage to challenge not just our political leadership but the entire neo-liberal, unregulated, privatised, capitalist economic system in place in order to provoke and promote a quantitative and qualitative leap in the scale of environmental action.
We know that many hearts would break at such a thought, that individual and local solutions are tragically insufficient.
But we must seize the opportunity. And we must see the current financial crisis as a great opportunity. We must show that the ecological transformation and environmental practices can earn money, create jobs, run economy, and benefit business. Politicians must be convinced that these policies will not just work but also be highly popular with their constituencies.
People, business and government must come together in a new incarnation of the Keynesian war economy strategy. Push for massive investment in energy conversion, eco-friendly industry, new materials, efficient public transport; the green construction industry and so on.
The scenario can be sold to the elite. A huge ecological conversion is a job for a high-tech, high-skills, high-productivity, high-employment society. It would be supported by the entire population because it would mean not just a better, cleaner, healthier, more climate-friendly environment, but also full employment, better wages, and new skills, as well as a humanitarian purpose and an ethical justification.
A worldwide carbon tax and building of broad citizen alliances should be part of the new steps to generate funds that could be invested in reversing crisis which has reached a critical stage.
Debt cancellation procedures should be linked with reforestation, soil conservation, water management and making public transport more energy-efficient. Economic packages to banks must carry an ecological criterion.

Punjab’s Cancer Trains and Chemical Addiction

Do not ever tell anyone in Bathinda that
people need to be aware about environmental
issues. That awareness comes easy in Punjab’s
Malwa. Everyone knows someone who has 
contracted cancer, and every glass of water reminds
one of what we have done to our soil, air and water. 
The whistle of the train has the ring of death.

Punjab Today Bureau





ON A SCORCHING June afternoon in Jhajjal village in southwestern Punjab, elderly men have gathered in a communal courtyard to quell the boredom of the long afternoon with a game of cards. The cotton crop has been sown, and the farmers have a few weeks’ holiday before they must return to their fields. As with most small villages, everyone knows everyone else here, and the conversation centers around marriages and births. But these usually mundane topics have taken on a tragic twist, involving couples failing to conceive, children being born with genetic disorders, people of all ages succumbing to cancer. Nadar Singh, the village headman, says there have been some 20 cancer-related deaths during the last five years in Jhajjal, a village of only 3,200. “A 23-year-old died of cancer in our village last year,” he says, “But such news has stopped shocking us. Here even kids have cancer.”

Punjab's Cancer Trains, a fact of life. Even the media has stopped finding the story shocking.

India’s rural activists for years have blamed the overuse and misuse of pesticides for a pervasive health crisis that afflicts villages like Jhajjal across the cotton belt of Punjab. Evidence continues to mount that the problems are severe.A government-funded study revealed that chemical fertilizers and pesticides have seeped into the groundwater in four Punjab districts and are causing an alarming array of ecological and health problems including cancer and mental retardation. Another study by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment found residues of between 6 and 13 pesticides in blood samples of villagers from Mahi Nangal, Jajjal and Balloh villages in Bhatinda district. Recent research by Punjabi University at Patiala established evidence of DNA damage among agricultural workers exposed to pesticides; damaged genes can give rise to a range of cancers as well as neurological and reproductive disorders. Bala, a 24-year-old day laborer, worked for two months in the fields during the spraying season four years ago. Not long after, her second child, a boy, was born with a neurological disorder and has recently been diagnosed with hydrocephalus. “His treatment is so expensive that we have had to borrow large amounts of money... I know he won’t survive” she says. Umendra Dutt, the executive director of the rural NGO Kheti Virasat Mission, says, “Punjab is paying with its life for a dubious promise of prosperity.”
Punjab’s lethal pesticide legacy can be traced to the Green Revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s, when high-yielding varieties of cotton were introduced in the region’s relatively arid Malwa belt. Initially the move was successful as yields and prices were good. But farmers soon discovered that the cotton was highly susceptible to pests, and ended up spending huge amounts on pesticides. As the pests, such as pink bollworm and aphids, became increasingly resistant to chemical spraying, farmers reacted by laying on even more, sometimes mixing two or more products against all scientific evidence. The region virtually became a chemical laboratory. The expense of spraying put many farmers deep in debt, yet they remain vulnerable to outbreaks such as a mealy bug attack last year that destroyed 70% of the crop. “Earlier, we used less water, traditional crops and organic manure. Now, it’s all chemicals,” says Sarmukh Singh, a 93-year-old patriarch in Jhajjal. “We’ve got our land addicted, but we don’t know how to fight this addiction.”

Across Malwa, journalists never have to search too far
 for a family for a photo like this. 

The health impact on the region is shocking. A daily passenger train that runs from Bathinder to Bikaner in neighboring Rajasthan is nicknamed the “Cancer Express” because it routinely fills a dozen cars with patients and their attendants on their way to a charitable hospital. Despite the high incidence of cancer, there is no government-run cancer hospital in the Malwa region, although the government announced plans to build one last year. “Officials sometimes visit our village, but they never seem to do anything,” says Santosh, a 35-year-old resident of Jhajjal who was diagnosed with leukemia three years back and goes to Bikaner every six months for a blood transfusion.
There’s plenty of blaming going on. Pesticide companies blame farmers for not adhering to prescribed quantities and not using protective gear. Workers who spray the chemicals blame landlords for not investing in protection, and companies for not properly informing them of the dangers of exposure. Farmers claim it is greedy dealers who push them to spray more, and also blame the government’s failure to change its policies after the harmful side effects of the Green Revolution began showing. “We know what we are doing is not sustainable,” says Nadar Singh, the chief of Jhajjal. “The agriculture department and the Punjab Agricultural University, which pioneered the Green Revolution, should come up with an alternative.”
Faced with the latest studies on the effects of pesticides on the ecology and on people’s health, Punjab Pollution Control Board is holding a meeting in the coming weeks to decide what action to take. For the moment, the government doesn’t seem to have a plan of action, though piecemeal steps are afoot. It is promoting herbal pesticides and extending outreach programs to better educate farmers about the dangers of pesticide overuse—not only in this region but all over Punjab. Some farmers are taking up organic farming, and many scientists have been calling for a return to crops more suited to the local landscape—in the case of the Malwa region, pulses and cereals like bajra and maize in addition to cotton—to restore the biodiversity of the soil. India is now talking about the need to launch a second Green Revolution, for which it is partnering with countries like the U.S. and Israel to devise technologies that are more sustainable. It is looking at developing and introducing transgenic crops and other advances in biotechnology. But as Kheti Virasat Mission activists point out, the government must ensure that it doesn’t repeat the mistakes it made the first time around. “The Punjab farmer basks in the glory of making Punjab    the bread basket of India but the price has been too high. Punjab cannot pay with the lives of its next generation.”

People’s Courts and Environmentalism

Ravleen Kaur

Is it possible to do good politics with environmentalism as your tool? Well, that could be debatable, given the real ground realities in Punjab, but one thing is clear. You do need to educate yourself in environmentalism if you need to survive in politics in times when men like Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal inculcate in people the art to ask the right questions from politicians.
Take the case of last Lok Sabha elections in 2009. When the entire media was saying the elections were issue-less, the environment sage Seechewal forced one issue, and made the politicians come running to participate in his people’s conclaves.
But soon, the politicians were left to discover that the people have been educated enough by the environment movement not to swallow empty promises.
The moment you ask the right questions, the politician does not know how to respond since he has long lost the art opf engagement, thanks to a total disconnect between the people’s needs, concerns and expectations and the politcian’s ability to even understand it.
Baba Seechewal held people’s environmental courts and had invited the local politicians to respond to questions posed by the voters. The charge was the same against the politicians of all hue: the Congress, the SAD and the BJP had failed to stop the pollution of the state’s water bodies.
All that the people wanted was for the politicos to tell them about one specific programme for cleaning up the environment. While most politicians failed, the event went a long way to sensitise politicians on environmental issues.
The bad news for the politicians is that by the time they go asking for votes again, too many would have had an idea for similar people’s courts. In fact, the NGOs in Punjab should take up the strategy as a master game changer. Political party representatives should be told that if they wanted votes, they should first spell out specific agendas on how they proposed to clean up the water bodies, deal with pollution of the soil, depleting water table etc.
Punjabis in their hundreds are dying due to pollution but such deaths do not end up in the news, on TV or even in statistical data. We all know that cancer, skin ailments and respiratory diseases have increased among those living near polluted drains. The residents alongside the Kala Sanghian drain, Chitti Bein and the Buddah Nullah are a living example of the apathy of the state.
Once, the focus turns towards environment, it will naturally force all to think about the development and economic model being pursued by the mainstream parties.
It is only when politicians face piercing queries from people will they understand that environmentalism is not a romantic love affair or a social movement that means cleaning up a rivulet or planting a sapling as a ritual. It means asking the rulers in whose name do they sign the MoUs to give away people’s lands and forests to billionaire corporate houses, and in whose name they acquire agricultural lands to set up industries. The mantra of paying market rates to the farmers will then work no more.

Environment Day: Wake Up, or do you need that chappni?

Wake Up

Or, someone will 

offer you a bit of water

Kanwar Manjit Singh

We have always had the world, and we have always had the environment. We have had them every single day of our existence on this planet. So, then, why have a World Environment Day? Because we may not have the world, and the environment one day, if we do not pay attention now. Now!
It has become a complex world, and our actions, or lack of them, are changing our  world. The devastation is so vast that it needs all hands on the deck to stop it. We need a billion acts of green, a billion actions, to even stay where we are. It can start from changing our light bulbs or planting a tree, making substantial commitments, weatherizing our houses and signing petitions. We need the power of the collective to impress upon our governments everywhere to act, and act fast. The governments the world over should be talking to people about environmental degradation, about fast forwarding green economics, green jobs, and industrial infrastructure.
We need to talk about “Limited Mandate” and “Larger Mandate” on the environment front with the same passion as we do in some other areas. The damage to our Mother Earth is the Gravest Internal Security Threat that the world faces today. If the Martians are out there, bet your good money that they are laughing at us. These days if you hang something out of your window, you can figure out the pollution impact in any city. But our politicians are either skeptic, or afflicted with notions of development that are divorced from reality and our world that was once green.
How one wishes that Operation Greenhunt were the name of a government plan to retrieve our valleys and hills and forests and rivers and minerals from the ogres of corporate profiteers.
The plunging ground water table in Punjab, the cancer trains running from Bathinda, the threat of soot deposits on the Golden Temple, the poison in our fruits and vegetables, the haze that hangs over our cities are all reminders that one World Environment Day is just not enough. We need to be environmentalists every single day of our life. The fact that each child always picks up the blue pencil to color the sky has been long taken for granted. Some are now trying a dirty shade of grey. And you can’t blame them. Look up and see. There are none so blind as those who won’t see.
For a land whose name means Five Waters, it is a shame what we have done to our waters. If we do not wake up now, someone will offer us a bit, with a suggestion – Chappni vich nakk dubo ke dub maro !  

Punjab Today Special Environment Issue Being Released

Punjab Today Special Environment Issue Being Released

PUNJAB TODAY Special Issue On Environment

Punjab Today's Special Issue on Environment Day 2010 was released at a special ceremony at the state level function held at NIPER in Mohali. The special issue was released by Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Rajendra Singh, well known environmentalist Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal and Mr. Rajat Agarwal , Chairman of Punjab Pollution Control Board. Also joinihn them was Mr. Vishavjit Khanna, Secretary, Science, Technology, Environment and Non-conventional Energy Resources. 

GOLDEN TEMPLE ENTRANCE PLAZA SHOW HUGE MESS UP

GOLDEN TEMPLE ENTRANCE PLAZA PLANS SHOW HUGE MESS UP
Causeway on wrong side, Akal Takht obliterated in prize-winning model
CM, SGPC chief, top architects, IAS officers all fail to notice, now they all say they are shocked
Punjab Government released a photograph of a model of the Golden Temple with the grand new entrance plan. Top architect Moshe Safdie had reviewed the model. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and SGPC President Avtar Singh Makkar held meetings over it, and Secretary Culture & Tourism Geetika Kalha, IAS besides minister Upinderjit Kaur joined heads to thrash out the plans for Grand Entrance Plaza.
Mainstream newspapers published the photograph on front pages. And yet none noticed that either the new plans involve obliterating the Akal Takht and demolishing the causeway (bridge) leading to the sanctum-sanctorum or the experts messed up too badly.
The model has the causeway on the wrong side, and the Akal Takht had gone missing.
When Punjab Today made enquiries, one after the other expert expresses shock, some were left aghast at the incredible blunder, others turned back to ask "why didn't the architects notice it" and a few said they can't believe their eyes. Well, now even we don't believe their eyes.
Now, Avtar Singh Makkar says "chotti jihi technical galti ho gayee" while Geetika Kalha says "model was only suggestive (sic)." We have little idea about what these worthies meant, but they sure rewarded the model with Rs 5 lakh prize money.


READ ALL ABOUT IT IN UPCOMING SPECIAL REPUBLIC DAY ISSUE OF PUNJAB TODAY hitting newsstands January 22, 2011, Saturday. In case of any difficulty in procuring a copy of Punjab Today, please call 9814.231.777 or mail punjabtoday@gmail.com. You may also visit us at www.punjabtoday.in.
Kanwar Manjit Singh
Editor-in-Chief