📰 Stupa-hopping in Sarnath
In the land where Buddha gave his first sermon and the Ashoka Pillar was found
•In the 6th century BCE, a young man left the comforts of his royal home in search of truth. For six years, he followed extreme ascetic practices and became totally emaciated. It was then that he realised that this was not the way to nirvana. He eventually found enlightenment under a tree in Bodh Gaya. Prince Siddhartha became Buddha, or the Enlightened One.
Teachings of Buddha
•From Bodh Gaya, Buddha went to the Deer Park (Mrigadava) in Sarnath, where the five monks who had been with him during his ascetic phase were staying. It was there that he gave his first sermon, an event known as the Dharma Chakra Pravarttana, or turning of the wheel of law. In ancient times, this place was known by many names — Rishipatana, Mrigadava and Mrigadaya. The word Sarnath comes from a corruption of the name Saranganatha (lord of deer).
•In his first sermon to these five companions, Buddha spoke of the Four Noble Truths and the eightfold path that frees people from suffering. He said that there are two ways of life: one is to indulge in all the pleasures of the world and the other is to deny oneself these pleasures. The middle path is the way to achieve nirvana, he said.
•It is in Sarnath that Buddha laid the foundation of his sangha, or organisation of monks. He had 60 disciples whom he sent to different parts of the country to spread his teachings. He also established an order of female monks, which was joined by his wife.
•Two hundred years after Buddha, the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, fought the battle of Kalinga and, disgusted by the bloodshed, became a Buddhist. It is to him that we owe many of the beautiful stupas and monasteries in Sarnath. We also owe a huge debt to Sir Alexander Cunningham, who excavated the Dhamekh, Dharmarajika, and Chaukhandi stupas along with a monastery and temple between 1834 and 36. Many excavations followed these, the most famous among them being the 1904-05 excavation by Friedrich Oscar Oertel of the Ashoka Pillar, including the Lion Capital.
Invasions and restorations
•I have visited Sarnath many times, but each visit is as magical than the previous one. Entering the gate the first thing one sees are the remains of excavated monasteries. As I walked beyond that, I saw a huge group of devotees sitting around in prayer the Dharmarajika stupa. It was an enchanting sight, for they were oblivious to the sun beating down on them and chanted their sacred texts.
•This stupa is the one said to have been built by Ashoka to commemorate Buddha’s first sermon. Today it is just a low and flat platform as it “was pulled down in 1794 by one Jagat Singh of Banaras,” says B.R. Mani in Sarnath: Archaeology, Art and Architecture. He says, “Jagat Singh, the Diwan of Raja Chet Singh of Banaras, dug the stupa mound in 1793-94 for the purpose of obtaining building material, both stones and bricks, for the erection of a market place in the city after his name.”
•On top of the Ashoka pillar in Sarnath was the the Lion Capital and the Dharmachakra, but the Lion Capital is now housed in Sarnath museum, while the pillar remains where it was originally. The Lion Capital was adopted as the national emblem of India in 1950.
•With remains of excavated monasteries on both sides, I walked up to the Dharmekh stupa, which is synonymous with Sarnath. After Ashoka, the other rulers who added to Sarnath’s glory were the Kushans, the Guptas and Harshavardhana. Under the Guptas, the Dharmekh stupa was encased with stone-carved floral designs. Sarnath suffered from the Huna invasions, but Harshavardhana later restored some of the earlier buildings. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang (602-664) left detailed accounts of the Dharmarajika stupa and Ashoka’s lion pillar. He found 1,500 monks living there.
•Sarnath also suffered when it was attacked by Mahmud of Ghazni. Mahipala, the Pala king, restored the monuments. Architect James Fergusson, in History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, remarks on the similarity between the sculptured band on the central part of the Dharmek stupa, which has “geometric patterns of great intricacy”, and the carvings done on the two earliest mosques in Delhi and Ajmer. The calligraphy on the screen of Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, built by Qutbuddin Aibak in the Qutub complex in Delhi, does bear resemblance to the stupa. I have often wondered at the presence of the eternal knot associated with Buddhism in this complex.
•The last great monument of Sarnath, a monastery named Dharmachakra Jina Vihara was built in the 11th century by Kumaradevi, wife of Govindachanda of the Gahadavala dynasty.
•Sarnath’s importance as a Buddhist centre diminished with time. But there are many other interconnections between historical characters, which never cease to amaze me. According to an inscription at Chaukhandi stupa, Humayun sought refuge in Sarnath when he was escaping from the battle of Chausa.
Former Madhya Pradesh top officer chosen by high-power panel led by PM; Kharge pens dissent note.
•Former Director-General of Police of Madhya Pradesh Rishi Kumar Shukla, a 1983 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the M.P. cadre, was on Saturday appointed the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the country’s premier investigation agency, for two years.
•Mr. Shukla was picked from a panel of several names cleared by the high-power committee, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and comprising the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
•“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has, based on the panel recommended by the Committee constituted as per Section 4A(1) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, approved the appointment of Rishi Kumar Shukla as Director, CBI, for a period of two years,” stated the official notification issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in the evening.
‘Experience lacking’
•However, the Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge submitted a dissent note on Mr. Shukla’s appointment, saying he did not meet the required criteria as he had not worked in any anti-corruption agency.
•In his dissent letter, Mr. Kharge contended that three aspects — seniority, integrity and experience in investigation of anti-corruption cases — should be given equal weightage to get officers best suited in the short-list.
•He also stressed that the criteria decided at the meeting were diluted by adding general investigation experience as experience of investigation of anti-corruption cases.
Amid controversies
•Mr. Shukla’s appointment comes at a time when the agency is mired in a series of controversies related to a bitter fight between two top officials, former Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana, both of whom were shunted out following serious corruption allegations against them.
•In fact, the top post in the agency has been vacant since October 2018 when Mr. Verma and his deputy Mr. Asthana were removed based on Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report after Mr Verma lodged an FIR naming his deputy Asthana in a bribery case.
•However, the Supreme Court, acting on a plea filed by Mr. Varma and a non profit outfit, reinstated Mr Verma as CBI Chief, while asking the centre to call a meeting of selection committee to decide on the matter. The selection committee on January 10 removed Alok Verma as Director, just two days after the Supreme Court had reinstated him.
•He was transferred to the Fire Services as Director General, after the panel said that as CBI chief, he had “not acted with the integrity expected of him.” The selection committee had taken a decision with two members: PM and Justice A.K. Sirki, nominated by the Chief Justice of India, while Leader of the Opposition had opposed Mr. Varma’s removal from the post.
•Mr Shukla’s appointment also coincides with the agency’s investigation into high profile cases involving top politicians and political opponents of the NDA government.
•Among the cases are the recently lodged illegal mining case involving former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav, land acquisition case involving former CM of Haryana Bhupinder Hooda and Aircel Maxis case with former Finance Minister P Chidambaram named as accused among others.
📰 Kerala sets up drug price monitor
It will look at over-charging for medicines and sale of stents
•Kerala has become the first State to set up a price monitoring and research unit (PMRU) to track violation of prices of essential drugs and medical devices under the Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO).
•The move comes more than five years after the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) proposed such a system for the States and the Union Territories.
•Ravi S. Menon, State Drugs Controller, told The Hindu on Saturday that a society had been registered to get Central assistance for the functioning of the unit. He said the new office would start functioning as soon as infrastructure was set up. There is no price control review mechanism now.
•The State Health Secretary would be the Chairman of the society and the Drugs Controller would be its member secretary. Its members include a State government representative, representatives of private pharmaceutical companies, and those from consumer rights protection fora. The society would also have an executive committee headed by the Drugs Controller.
•The new watchdog will offer technical help to the State Drug Controllers and the NPPA to monitor notified prices of medicines, detect violation of the provisions of the DPCO, look at price compliance, collect test samples of medicines, and collect and compile market-based data of scheduled as well as non-scheduled formulations.
•Pharma companies have been accused of overcharging prices of drugs in the scheduled category fixed by the DPCO and those outside its ambit too.
•The suggestion to set up PMRUs was made against the backdrop of the lack of a field-level link between the NPPA and the State Drugs Controllers and State Drug Inspectors to monitor drug prices.
•States and Union Territories have been classified into three categories for staff recruitment and infrastructure. Kerala falls in the second category, having a population of less than 3%, but more than 1% of the total population of the country. The State will have a project coordinator, two field investigators, and two data entry operators. The unit is expected to help the State Drugs Control wing, which is hit by severe staff shortage, and regulate drug prices more effectively. Highly placed sources say that about ₹10,000 crore worth medicines are sold in Kerala in a year. Official data on drug purchases for public institutions were not disclosed.
•Mr. Menon said that the NPPA had fixed the prices of around 1,000 drugs and the unit would track if buyers were being overcharged. It would also check if pharma companies were hiking the prices of non-scheduled drugs by more than 10% a year. “We need to also check if there is any shortage of essential medicines. There is also a plan to collect data on the prices of surgical devices and stents in the market,” he said.
📰 India issues démarche to U.S. on detained students, demands their release
The students, who had been charged with committing visa fraud by enrolling in the fictitious “University of Farmington” in Michigan State, along with eight recruiters in different U.S. States, were caught in a sting operation.
•Worried about the condition of 129 Indian students arrested in the U.S. for alleged visa fraud, the Government of India issued a démarche to the U.S. Embassy in Delhi on February 2, demanding that the students be released from detention and are not summarily deported.
•“Our concern over the dignity and well-being of the detained students and the need for immediate consular access for Indian officials to the detainees was reiterated,” a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said, adding that it had urged the U.S. government to “release them from detention at the earliest and not to resort to deportation against their will”.
•The arrested students, who had been charged with committing visa fraud by enrolling in the fictitious “University of Farmington” in Michigan State, along with eight recruiters in different U.S. States, were caught by the U.S. government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an elaborate sting operation. ICE officials had posed as employees of the fictitious university in order to expose unscrupulous recruiters who would enrol students, and the students themselves who signed up for the university knowing that they would not need to attend classes, and could “pay to stay” in the U.S. and maintain their F-1 student visa status.
•“We underlined that students, who may have been duped into enrolling in the ‘University’ should be treated differently from those recruiters who have duped them,” the MEA said, adding that the welfare of the students was now its “highest priority”.
Helplines
•The MEA has set up helplines for all those being held in detention centres across several U.S. States. Indian consulate officials in Texas met the detainees in San Antonio, Conroe and Alvarado, the consulate announced, giving photographs of the detention facilities.
•The MEA said that so far officials have contacted about 30 Indian students, and efforts were on to contact the others. But while consular access to all the students is expected to be completed in the next few days, acting on the government’s demands to release the students and not to deport them will be a tall task, given the new stricter regime for international students that has been brought in by the Donald Trump administration.
•Educational consultants who spoke to The Hindu said the Farmington University case was a “straight case” of alleged fraud committed by students and recruiters accused, with some questions over whether the U.S. government’s “sting” operation on them amounted to entrapment. However, all agreed that the case would have a chilling effect on the visa process for legitimate students applying to American universities and for work experience after finishing their degrees.
•According to U.S. State Department figures, F-1 student visas to Indian nationals had already decreased by more than 40% in the two-year period between 2015 and 2017 (from 74,831 to 44,741 issued).
📰 What is the lowdown on MGNREGA funding?
What is it?
•The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme has been allocated ₹60,000 crore in the Budget for 2019-20. It is less than what was spent on the scheme in the current year, that is, the revised estimate for 2018-19, which stands at ₹61,084 crore. In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal noted: “Additional amount would be provided, if needed.” The original 2018-19 Budget allocation for the scheme, a lifeline for landless labourers and rural workers, was ₹55,000 crore. However, by the end of 2018, 99% of the funds had been exhausted. A number of States already had a negative net balance. The activists protested that people were being denied work in several States. The Rural Development Ministry, which administers the scheme, asked for a supplementary allocation and was granted ₹6,084 crore in early January, taking the revised estimate for the year to ₹61,084 crore.
How did this come about?
•A look at the funding patterns over the last decade shows this is not the first time allocations for the scheme are lower than what was spent in the previous year. In most years, supplementary allocations later in the year have ensured that the final amount spent has risen at least incrementally each year. However, the revised estimates for 2012-13 were actually lower than the previous year, while the amount spent in 2014-15 was exactly the same as in the previous year. When MGNREGA funding is adjusted for inflation, a bleaker picture appears, making it clear that both the UPA and NDA governments have short-changed the scheme for several years now. In 2011-12, the revised estimate was ₹31,000 crore. For the next four years, the inflation-adjusted amount spent on the scheme was lower than ₹30,000 crore in 2011 terms. The current allocation of ₹61,084 crore drops to just ₹41,013 crore in 2011 terms, when adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index for rural labourers.
Why does it matter?
•Rural workers are being discouraged from registering with the scheme, being denied work even when they do register, and are facing long delays in payment of wages even when they do get work. Researchers, activists and elected representatives blame this on the lack of sufficient funding. The promise of the MGNREGA is to enhance livelihood security by providing at least 100 days of wage employment a year to households that want it. If work is not provided within 15 days, applicants are entitled to an employment allowance. Thus, work is a legal entitlement under the scheme and funding should be demand-driven.
•However, researchers have found a widening gap between demand and supply of work. A study of 3,500 panchayats in 2017-18 found that the employment provided was 32% lower than the work demand generated. Researchers calculated that in order to meet the registered work demand last year, the scheme should have had an allocation of ₹76,131 crore. Workers are also facing weeks- and months-long delays in payment of wages, often without compensation. Finance Ministry documents admit that one of the causes is the non-availability of funds.
What lies ahead?
•The future funding situation is bleak, given that the government’s “highest ever allocation” tag disguises the pending liabilities. If the total allocation of ₹61,084 crore had come through on the budget day, the scheme would still have a negative net balance of ₹3,270 crore, according to its financial statement on February 1. The next two months are the peak season, and workers have been promised an additional 50 days of work in drought-hit areas. Researchers predict that the deficit could grow as high as ₹12,000 crore by the end of this financial year. With Central money running out, States have also been asked to use their own funds to pay workers over the next two months, with the promise of an April refund. These deficits and liabilities will eat into the allocation for next year, slashing the amount available for new works in 2019-20.
📰 All you need to know about Maharashtra’s struggle to amend APMC Act
•The Maharashtra government’s attempt to amend the Maharashtra Agriculture Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, 1963, has hit a roadblock again. It had to withdraw the Bill from the Legislative Council even after it was passed by the Assembly. The amendment Bill has been in the works for over 14 years and owing to its politically and economically important stakeholders, who are farmers, traders and ‘mathadi’ workers (head loaders), the government has struggled to push through the changes.
What is the problem?
•After it was passed in the Assembly last November, the Mumbai and Pune APMCs called a strike, alleging that the proposed amendment severely limited their powers. One of the important amendments the Bill seeks to bring about is to free essential items from the purview of APMCs and allow them to be sold outside.
•Farmer organisations such as the Shetkari Sanghatana, formerly led by Sharad Joshi, support this amendment. “Sharad Joshi always said that the APMC Act is one of the main reasons why farmers are prey to the monopoly of traders,” said Anil Ghanvat, president of Shetkari Sanghatana.
What are the changes?
•The Bill also has a provision that the APMCs can continue to levy cess/market fee on the produce brought and traded in their mandis, but cannot charge anything on goods traded outside. The traders’ lobby had said no levy should be charged if the produce was sold outside. Following the meeting between the stakeholders and the government, sources said a compromise was reached to abolish this levy altogether. One of the amendments that was opposed by traders and farmer organisations was the direct payment to farmers from traders for purchase of more than ₹2 lakh, bypassing the Adta (the middleman). According to both, the Adta plays an important part as an assurer to both parties, and eliminating his role would be harmful to traders as well as to farmers.
•Maharashtra is the second State after Bihar to attempt such amendments. While Bihar scrapped it altogether, Maharashtra is trying to do the same, by first allowing traders or processors to deal directly with farmers. Neither they nor the farmers will have to go to the APMC yards to buy and sell their produce. The buyers can directly buy from farmers based on the price quoted by them. Unable to get the Bill cleared in both Houses of the Legislature, the government in August 2016 de-listed fruits and vegetables from the purview of the APMC through a resolution. Further, it was expanded to all farm products. Apart from the government claim that farmers will get a better price after the amendment, it believes that the competitive environment will help the APMCs improve their infrastructure as well as their quality of service to attract farmers. According to Mr. Ghanavat, farmers will go to the market which gives them a better price, be it private buyers or the APMCs.
How many APMCs are there?
•Maharashtra has 306 APMCs. The APMC Act had made it mandatory for farmers to sell all their crops in the mandi within a geographically delineated market area under a particular committee’s jurisdiction. A few lakh traders and head loaders survive on these committees. It is alleged that local political interests drive all the decisions taken by the APMCs. The supporters of the Bill claim that political compulsions have forced successive governments not to push for the amendments.
•Shashikant Shinde, leader of the head loaders and one of the MLAs opposing the Bill, said it is being introduced to serve the interests of multinational companies. According to him, the APMCs provide a mechanism which ensures at least a minimum support price for the farmers’ produce, and outside the APMCs, farmers will be forced to sell at a price quoted by companies.
•The State government will continue to hold meetings with the stakeholders, and is likely to present the Bill, approved by all, in the budget session from February 24.
📰 What qualities should we expect from our leaders?
Our political leaders must owe supreme loyalty to nothing but the country’s constitutional values.
•We expect individuals to be their own leaders, to take charge of their lives, to assume responsibility for their decisions. But when individuals group together, a problem arises. Groups can’t take charge of themselves, nor can every member simultaneously take charge of the entire group. Someone from the group is invariably asked to show the way, to become the primary agent, to lead. This is simply a fact: groups can’t do without leaders. Every sporting team has a captain, a school or college has a principal, a company has its CEO, institutions have their directors, and governments their presidents, chief or prime ministers.
•Yet, not everyone who occupies high office is a leader. A person who merely coordinates the actions of others or has management skills is not a leader. Moreover, not everyone who assumes the role of a leader is able to play it well. What qualities then make for a leader? Which virtues are required to provide ethical leadership? I suppose there is little new one can say on this matter. But let me still give it a shot in the hope that it serves as a good reminder. And in the election year, why not focus on qualities necessary for political leadership? Here I can identify four.
Being inclusive
•First, if a person is chosen to lead the group, it is her responsibility to take care of the interest of each person of the entire group. This often entails putting collective interest before her own interest or that of her preferred group. For this to happen, she must first be able to identify the common good, to have a grasp of what is acceptable to all, to have an inclusive vision. This requires an infinite capacity to listen to others, to learn from them, to have the intellectual ability to critically examine and evaluate what everyone wants and needs, and then put them all together.
•Second, since this intellectual formulation can only be the first step, an estimate of the real quality of a decision is not known until it is implemented; its deficiencies begin to show up only when put into practice. This requires him to keep his ear to the ground, listen patiently to criticism to judge if his policies are working. He must not be defensive when criticised, or evade uncomfortable questions, but face criticism head on and be able to sift the wheat from the chaff. It also necessitates that a leader show flexibility and an ability for course correction by admitting mistakes. He should know that one’s stature is not diminished by accepting fallibility.
•Third, a leader must be a good communicator, and that is greatly helped if he has a way with words. But all the rhetorical flourish is of no avail if the speech lacks sincerity and conviction. A conviction with no relation to truth or actual outcomes is dishonest. Eloquence, though a good quality, is hollow without truth. Isn’t it better to quietly do the job at hand rather than make grandiose claims or promises that can’t be kept?
•Finally, a good leader knows that nothing can be achieved without the collective expertise and wisdom of a support team. And when it comes to the entire country, such a team consists of a battalion of groups and institutions. How should members of such teams be picked? It is tempting to induct people who belong to a common caste, region or religion. But such people are prejudiced in their thinking, serve their own particular group or merely themselves. They can’t be good for the country as a whole. A good leader must rise above narrow, irrelevant considerations to select his team.
Unafraid of rivals
•It is equally tempting to pick those one has taken a fancy to, who are personally loyal. But such people often lack spine. Fearful people with poor ability can never offer good advice to their leader and could allow bad decisions to prevail that push the country down a ruinous path. Besides, they are often among the first to backstab the leader once out of power. Thus, personal likes and dislikes too must be set aside. I doubt if younger readers know that Nehru inducted into his cabinet Dr. Ambedkar, his long-standing, pre-eminent critic, as also the founder of the Jan Sangh, Syama Prasad Mookerjee. Abraham Lincoln, the 19th century American President, was also exemplary in this matter. The man he appointed as his Secretary of War was earlier his superior in legal practice and had on occasion even humiliated him. But over time Lincoln was convinced that the interest of the nation during war would be best served by bringing this rather arrogant man into the cabinet. This led him to set aside personal resentment, forgive him and appoint him to a very crucial job in his cabinet. Great leaders don’t hold grudges, are not vindictive and do not care if they have been wronged in the past by anyone so long as they are convinced that he will do no wrong in the future. Magnanimity isn’t just a personal moral quality but a necessary political virtue.
•Clearly then, a leader must have a knack of appointing persons best suited to his team who have proven ability, understand the purpose of the job, can speak their mind, and are able, without fear, to disagree with the leader if need be. Above all, they must understand the inclusive public philosophy that guides the nation. But such persons can be identified only by one who possesses these qualities and is himself devoted to this public philosophy. In India, this means that our leaders must owe supreme loyalty to nothing but our constitutional values.
