Costs of an unequal war

For every operation that Israel launches on Gaza and the Palestinian people, the resistance becomes stronger and more determined

Over the last two weekends, demonstrators have been gathering at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Young men wearing the keffiyah chant “Palestine will be free,” while others sing “Free Free Palestine,” holding placards, banners, flags and dummy coffins that demand an end to military aid to Israel, ask for the Gaza war to be over and ask that the leaders of Israel be tried for war crimes against Palestinians. During the first week, there were about 1,000 protesters. This past Sunday, the estimated number of people at the protest exceeded 6,000. As is the standard procedure in the United States, squads of police personnel walked alongside the protesters.

Anguished voices

The protests have been peaceful but the demands are made vociferously and with much anguish. The gathering on Sunday made its way down the Market Street and ended at the Civic Centre, one of the seats of power in San Francisco, which adjoins the United Nations Plaza. On the steps of the Civic Centre, young Palestinian women recited poetry in which they talked about trauma, hurt and anxiety. Students and professors made speeches telling people that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one between unequal powers. Some sections supported armed resistance, while others said that both states can coexist peacefully. However, there was broad agreement that not resisting would mean inviting the planned and painfully slow genocide of their people. The protesters were not shy about using the word “apartheid” to describe Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

 There is no longer any doubt that the Palestinian question needs more international attention and global deliberation. 

In pre- and post-protest discussions with some demonstrators, the sense of trauma was palpable. These are young people who have moved to different countries to escape the conflict. They have forged new lives and careers as students, caregivers, motel operators and technology professionals. The last two weeks have witnessed some of the biggest worldwide mobilisation for Gaza. The Palestinian diaspora in Europe and the United States, supported by people of various countries, have all rallied in favour of Gaza and asked for an end to the current assault on the Strip. The only protest that has turned violent so far occurred in Paris.

The most recent round of violence between Israel and Palestine has been precipitated by a number of factors. The immediate cause was the alleged kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in mid-June. Following the multiple abductions, the Israeli Defence Forces launched Operation Brother’s Keeper, under which over 300 Palestinians were rounded up and questioned. From the beginning, it was unclear who was behind the kidnappings. While Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Hamas, the Palestinian Authority said there was no evidence of Hamas involvement. Hamas also denied that it had kidnapped the youths. The three youths were later found dead in a field near Hebron with conflicting reports suggesting that they had been killed soon after abduction or had been killed recently.

Operation Brother’s Keeper resulted in a massive manhunt for possible suspects with little evidence. Further, revenge attacks on Palestinian youths began to occur with botched kidnapping attempts and the burning of a Palestinian boy by Jewish extremists. Three weeks after the Israeli youth disappeared, Hamas fired 100 rockets into the Israeli territory. On July 8, Israel began responding by firing back in what is now called Operation Protective Edge.

Interestingly, Israel has somewhat agreed that the killings might have been perpetrated not by Hamas but by a Hamas splinter group called the Qawasameh clan that has often gone against the edicts of Hamas leaders. This begs the question: what is this current war really about?

The recent hostilities are not rooted in only the immediate tensions between Israel and Palestine; they are a product of recent changes that have taken place in the region. In June 2014, Hamas and Fatah, two groups politically at odds in Palestine, buried their long-standing differences, sending tremors through Israel which thinks that with the reuniting of these groups, terrorism will get a boost, i.e., Hamas will drag the more moderate Fatah towards extremism. The manner in which Operation Brother’s Keeper was initiated suggests that the main endeavour was not just to find the missing youths but to use the incident as a pretext to take out Hamas targets and their supporters. This would make the Palestinian Unity government seem weak and ineffective in combating Israeli aggression and controlling its own territory.

In Israel, both the Knesset and the government agree that resuming hostilities against the Palestinian territories best safeguards the interests of the Israeli state and people. The Knesset, with a strong presence of the Zionist right, has members who have made strong anti-Palestine pronouncements. Ayelet Shaked, a member of the Knesset representing the Jewish Home Party, stated that the conflict could not end until all Palestinians, including women and children, were “wiped out.” More recently, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Moshe Feiglin, wrote strongly about a ground invasion with the entire capacity of the Israeli Defence Forces and bombing of Gaza with little warning as a ‘solution’ to the Gaza issue. Similarly, Gilad Sharon, son of Ariel Sharon, has suggested that Israel flatten Gaza like Hiroshima.

The Palestinian Unity government has a component of the right, but the presence of Fatah helps temper Hamas. However, peace deals and ceasefires have been a lot harder to negotiate. As it is, Hamas has repeatedly accused Israel of sanctioning settlements even though ceasefire norms were in place. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority and a Fatah member, is also caught between a rock and a hard place, as he has been asked by Mr. Netanyahu to choose between a deal with Hamas or Israel.

Last July, former U.S. presidential hopeful John Kerry, along with Martin Indyk from the Brookings Institution, tried to restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine. The talks were supposed to take place over 10 months and reach a settlement on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The talks broke down several times. Mr. Netanyahu rejected the Palestinians’ right of return, while Mr. Abbas said they didn’t want a single Israeli settlement on Palestinian land. In January 2014, Israel approved 1,400 settlement homes in a move that sent a negative signal to the Palestinian Authority. This, combined with repeated failures to release Palestinian prisoners in Israel, led to a lack of confidence on the side of the Palestinian Authority.

Trust deficit

The United States has taken a measured stance on the issue by blaming both sides for the breakdown of the 2013-2014 talks. Mr. Kerry went on record that a third Intifada was in the offing if the current talks didn’t succeed. The recent round of hostilities suggests that talks are no longer working because both sides display a basic trust deficit.

For Israel, Hamas is more of a threat than the Palestinian Unity government and Israel is uncertain if the Palestinian government can strong-arm Hamas. It is, then, not surprising that personal protection of Israeli territory and Israelis in the settlements has taken priority over trying to build confidence and trust between the two states.

Operation Protective Edge has claimed over 600 Palestinian lives, while the Israeli death count stands at less than 50. Over the last two weeks, images have surfaced of Israeli people roosting atop a hill watching the bombardment of Palestinian targets. Flechette munitions have been used against civilians. Humanitarian groups report a grave crisis in Gaza with hospitals working at full capacity amid rocket attacks.

What is new about the Israel-Gaza conflict is that Israel seems to be losing much popular support internationally, as studies and reports establish that the Israel-Palestine conflict has been a lopsided one for many decades, that the Israeli state has practised segregation and influx control, not unlike the apartheid regime in South Africa, and that its means of fighting and adherence to a real lasting peace with Palestine are part of carefully-crafted doublespeak.

There is no longer any doubt that the Palestinian question needs more international attention and global deliberation. This is a slow genocide of a people who have struggled against occupation since 1948 or 1967, depending on the viewpoint people adhere to. Google images have accurately shown how the Palestinian territory has reduced over the decades. The paradox is stark and unavoidable — for every operation that Israel launches on Gaza and the Palestinian people, the Palestinian resistance becomes stronger and more determined.

Less than 10 per cent of human DNA useful: scientists

More than 90 per cent of human DNA is doing nothing very useful, and large stretches may be no more than biological baggage that has built up over years of evolution, Oxford researchers claim.

The scientists arrived at the figure after comparing the human genome with the genetic makeup of other mammals, from dogs and mice to rhinos and horses.

The researchers looked for sections of DNA that humans shared with the other animals, which split from our lineage at different points in history. When DNA is shared and conserved across species, it suggests that it does something valuable.

Gerton Lunter, a senior scientist on the team, said that, based on the comparisons, 8.2 per cent of human DNA was “functional,” meaning that it played an important enough role to be conserved by evolution.

“Scientifically speaking, we have no evidence that 92 per cent of our genome is contributing to our biology at all,” Lunter said.

Researchers have known for some time that only 1 per cent of human DNA is held in genes that are used to make crucial proteins to keep cells — and bodies — alive and healthy. The latest study, reported in the journal Plos Genetics, suggests that a further 7 per cent of human DNA is equally vital, regulating where, when, and how genes are expressed.

But if much of our DNA is so worthless, why do we still carry it around? “It’s not true that nature is parsimonious in terms of needing a small genome. Wheat has a much larger genome than we do,” Lunter said. “We haven’t been designed. We’ve evolved, and that’s a messy process. This other DNA really is just filler. It’s not garbage. It might come in useful one day. But it’s not a burden.

Popularising RuPay

In India, 90 per cent of credit card transactions are domestic; however, the cost of transactions is high due to monopoly of foreign gateways like Visa and Master cards. If this process of transactions is made India-centric, cost can come down drastically. In the last 3-4 decades, the usage of credit and debit cards -- what we call the plastic money -- has increased manifold. Their usage has actually multiplied in the past one decade due to emergence of e-commerce. We can not only make purchases of our needs from a big store by swapping our credit or debit card, we can even purchase air, train, bus ticket; or any commodity from e-commerce websites using this plastic money.

Though banking is no new business in India and credit and debit cards have been issued since long ago; however, these credit and debit cards had essentially been issued in partnership with international gateways like Visa and Master card. It is notable that Visa and Master cards make huge bucks from this business.

According to world Line India, a leading agency providing services in the field of electronic transactions, there are nearly 20 million credit cards in the country; and HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank are the main banks issuing most of the credit cards. Apart from this, there were 389 million debit cards in the country in March 2014.

During the last one year (2013-14) 58 million new debit cards were issued. It is notable that after the ATM machines were started being used, all banks have been issuing debit cum ATM cards to their customers, which can be used not only for withdrawing money, but also for making transactions at stores and e-commerce websites.

Foreign gateways like Master and Visa cards charge fee in lieu of their services and huge sum of foreign exchange gets transferred abroad by these companies. Due to monopoly of Master and Visa cards, a hefty fee is charged by them. Their business in India has been increasing leaps and bounds in the last 10 years. According to RBI, credit cards transactions were Rs 1.56 lakh crore and debit cards transactions Rs 20.22 lakh crore during the year 2013-14.

Foreseeing the importance of an Indian Card, Reserve Bank of India, desired to start an Indian card and National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), realised this desire and an Indian card in the name of RuPay was started on March 26, 2012. Today in creasingly the transactions of a majority of Indian banks and financial institutions are being facilitated by RuPay and it is giving a tough competition to Visa and Master card. NPCI has also tied up with Discover Financial to give RuPay an international acceptance.

International acceptance

RuPay global card is now accepted at ‘Discover Global Payment Network’ internationally. RuPay was dedicated to the nation on May 8, 2014 by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. RuPay card is accepted on all ATM machines under national financial switch of NPCI. According to the NPCI data there are 1,45,270 ATMs and 8,75,00 points of sale which come under RuPay platform. In addition to this RuPay is accepted on nearly 10,000 e-commerce websites. Banks recognised by NPCI for this purpose can issue RuPay credit and debit cards which are accepted in ATMs, Points of Sale (PoS) and e-commerce websites. As of now about 240 banks have been issuing RuPay cards. Along with this 200 cooperative and rural banks are also issuing RuPay cards, giving a boost to financial inclusion.

Kotak Mahindra Bank has started a new initiative on financial inclusion; whereby farmers of 75 cooperative societies can get payment for their milk directly to their bank account. This model is destined to be implemented in Gujarat, where 3 lakh farmers of 1,200 societies will benefit.

It is notable for domestic sector that RuPay fee is merely one third of Master and Visa cards. Though RuPay is cost effective private banks are still not cooperating in adopting RuPay. Around 150 lakh RuPay cards in circulation now have so far been mostly issued by public sector banks. Argument of private banks is that since they have long period tie-ups with Master and Visa Cards, they cannot adopt RuPay till these agreements expire. Though private Indian and foreign banks know that in the long run RuPay would prove to be beneficial, they are not ready to adopt new card looking at their short term interests.

The State Bank of India, the largest public sector bank has started issuing RuPay card only three months back and has realised the benefits of the same. According to SBI officials, though it has long term agreement with Master and Visa cards, still it would be good for the bank to pay money to them and switch over completely to RuPay. Experts believe that if only SBI adopts RuPay fully, the scheme would be a success. Although for international operations, fee of RuPay is yet to be decided, the NPCI says that it would be better to keep it low to maintain it attractiveness in international business also.

In the first week of July 2014, the secretary, department of financial services of the Union ministry of finance has written to CEOs of all the public sector banks urging them to issue RuPay cards to all new customers and the existing customers who have not been issued debit cards so far.

Banks have also been asked to install RuPay card terminals in commercial establishments. So far there is a system of issuing only one type of debit card; however if one desires to get Master and Visa card, he/she can be issued the same along with RuPay card. Those who are used to Master or Visa card need to be lured gradually towards using RuPay as it will prove to be a winwin situation for all, as it would not only reduce cost of transactions significantly, but also increase the card penetration in the country, especially rural areas .The State Bank of India, the largest public sector bank started issuing RuPay cards three months back and has realised the benefits of it.

Three fundamentals that change behaviour

As incomes grew, so did adultery. Divorce rose from 3,41,000 in 1980 to 2.2 million in 2013.

Behaviour change comes in two ways: at the basic level, enterprises follow the same route avoiding product obsolescence, and, as I wrote last week, the unique way of making incredible difference, as Gillette, Sony Walkman and Apple among others did. However, prominent indicators that change behaviour are culture, food and ergonomics.

Culture: Nowhere is culture changing behaviour more visible than in China. When Deng Xiaoping led the country after Mao Zedong, he introduced reforms from 1978 with his slogan of “To get rich is glorious”. This inspired private enterprises to grow. He de-collectivised communes, shifting to the household responsibility system, making millions of peasants return to family farming. Village and town industries responded to the market. Shenzhen, a little village near Hong Kong, became an SEZ in 1979; today it’s the world’s largest manufacturing hub.

Opening up to international trade made Western influences enter politics, culture, the economy, challenging official values and moving beyond urban to rural areas. Dramatic culture change included family woes like broken homes. As incomes grew, so did adultery. Divorce rose from 3,41,000 in 1980 to 2.2 million in 2013. Suspicious wives are resorting to private detectives, who use secretive measures like attaching GPS trackers to their suspects’ cars or monitoring their calls. Such spying services are illegal but continue as privately collected evidence has been permitted in civil law suits. So traditional Chinese culture is undergoing changes akin to capitalistic societies.

Cultural attributes that change behaviour are basic functioning of day-to-day family life, health, education, economic conditions, lifestyle and livelihood generation. Religion is not a part of it unless the society is monatomic, with one religion driving the socio-eco-political spectrum. Culture started before religion or civilisation, when people discovered how to make fire, find food for survival or draw cave pictures.

It’s evident that materialism brings behavioural change. Take material comforts our godmen enjoy, like airconditioned rooms and cars, first or business class air travel, instead of meditation under the trees. Their disciples may have thrust these comforts upon them, but it’s obvious these disciples have managed to change the habits of godmen.

What’s radically changed India’s working culture is the global IT servicing industry that brings in about $80 billion every year. Young boys and girls work together at call centres. At age 18, in their first job after school, these youngsters can earn up to Rs 18,000 per month, whereas if their father was a simple worker, he’d be earning that amount perhaps after 25 years. So father-child cultural behaviour cannot be the same. News stories abound about condoms clogging call centre drains and employees being counseled because their speech has become American English, odd working hours make them miss all family functions and social contact outside office. Eventhe behaviour of pre-industrialised Americans was not altered so diametrically when they entered the post-industrial era.

Food: Food is the behaviour changer for immigrant children who pick up the new country’s eating routine, although their parents may take time to change. But when food is designed with strong universal appeal, it can change behaviour. The world’s mass-level people can never accept French-style rare mincemeat beefsteak, but a well-done beef patty covered with salad, cheese and sauce within a bun becomes the familiar, favoured McDonald’s. Change beef to chicken, it even works with heterogeneous Indians with heterogeneous food habits. The Chinese devour burgers too, abandoning their centuries-old noodles habit.

Packaged food companies have remarkably turned people from handmade to readymade food. Without laborious work, you just microwave an enjoyable dinner of varied dishes.

Ergonomics: Physical instruments that humans touch for playing, working or entertaining can disruptively change behaviour. Before Thomas Edison, there was no repeated listening to music, sound or voice. The gramophone entirely modified our approach to entertainment. After Graham Bell’s invention of telephone, our primary communication style changed from using the pigeon, horse rider, or cycling postman as messenger. People held two instruments with both hands to talk and listen; then landline phones became one instrument; now the mobile phone is a single device you keep in your pocket. This behaviour-changing evolution spans the mechanical, electric, electronic to the digi-tech age. Children’s physical attachment to Barbie, Lego or Mechano sets has shifted to digitally driven games. If, as a product designer, you don’t follow children’s changing behaviour with games or the education system, you won’t be designing any saleable instrument for work, play or entertainment tomorrow. I’ve seen my nine-year-old granddaughter Sreeya, who lives in London, return from school at 4 pm, then rush to the computer at a pre-fixed time to work online on mathematics with her classmates for the next day’s test. Their regular practice is to connect to the Internet for doing school homework together. Just imagine how digi-tech is changing children’s behaviour. Sreeya often takes up a challenge against any child who’s online anywhere in the world. Even at office, digi-tech is infusing every domain with radical transformation, from HR recruitment to production to supply chain.

The way we worked 10 years ago is not the same now, but our attitude in certain areas will never change. Fashion is cyclic, something new comes, vanishes, returns and we knowingly ride that cycle happily. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, politician or philosopher, try enlisting culture, food and our ergonomic relationship with devices, the agents that change human behaviour, to really become iconic, capture mindshare and sell your product or ideology across the world.

A test for brown sahibs

in 2014, of the 1,122 new recruits for the civil service, only 53 came from those who wrote papers in Indian languages.

It is a shame that it had to come to violence before attention focused on students protesting for days in Delhi against unfairness in the civil service exam. There is unfairness and unfairness of a stupid kind, which makes it worse. This is not just because the aptitude test appears to eliminate students writing tests in Indian languages, but because it could be eliminating good candidates and enlisting ‘educated’ idiots. If you want proof, please remember that Indian bureaucrats are world famous for being obdurate, arrogant and obsolete. And it is often the children of bureaucrats of this genre who today take the civil service examinations in English, so they start with an unfair advantage.

In 2014, of the 1,122 new recruits for the civil service, only 53 came from those who wrote papers in Indian languages, and this is worrying. But a linguistic disadvantage is not the only problem. After Thursday night’s clashes between the police and protesting students in Delhi, I decided to do a little research. I Googled the CSAT syllabus and some question papers.

As I ploughed my way through long, banal passages about ‘creative society’ and ‘inclusive governance’, I realised that, even if translated into Indian languages, the questions would mystify anyone who did not come from St Stephen’s College. No offence to this fine institution, but as I read through the question papers, I visualised the most pompous bores of my acquaintance who always remind me that they went to ‘Stephen’s’. Usually they speak no Indian language (except to their servants) and have no understanding of the hopes and aspirations of the sort of people who voted to bring Narendra Modi to 7, Race Course Road. The students objecting to the CSAT aptitude test are from this new breed of middle-class, aspirational Indians who believe they have a right to participate in governing India.

They are probably intelligent, talented young men and women who would easily be able to answer the CSAT questions if they were asked more intelligibly. Example: Why are Indian forests and rivers ruined? ‘Short-term increases in some ecosystem goods and services have come at the cost of the long-term degradation of others’. If you think that is a convoluted bit of writing, I recommend that you download some CSAT papers and read them. Every passage is written in this kind of long-winded prose.

You may also discover that the reason why India counts among the worst governed countries in the world is because people who becometop officials, police officers and tax inspectors are usually the wrong kind. The right kind do not stand a chance of getting in even if they know India’s problems and complexities well. This is because the tests are all wrong. Speaking for myself, I would give up plans for government service if I were to sit for a CSAT question paper. They appear to have been written by brown sahibs for the progeny of brown sahibs and I would refuse on principle.

Ironically, one of the passages I came across was about ‘inclusive growth’. I am not going to bore you by quoting from it, but suffice it to say that it seemed to be written by someone who was oblivious of what the word inclusive should mean. If anything is guaranteed to enlist brown sahibs and exclude other capable Indians from becoming civil servants, it is the CSAT test. So if the Prime Minister truly wants to bring about parivartan and vikas, he is going to need to do more than appoint a three-member committee to examine the grievances of the protesting students.

The defining characteristic of the recent general election was the anger of ordinary voters against bad governance. Everywhere I went, the biggest complaints were about how basic public services did not work. This was blamed on corruption, but reality is more complicated and at the root of the problem is the kind of person who comes into government service.

The pretentious bores of yesteryear are being replaced by officials who are no longer brown sahibs, but who are trying to become brown sahibs. This is because of the nature of the examinations they take to enter government service. When protesting students tell reporters that CSAT excludes students from rural India from standing a chance, they are right. The CSAT syllabus has ‘English comprehension skills’ as one of its requirements, so even the Prime Minister would probably fail.

Speaking of which, please Prime Minister speak in Hindi when you go to the United States, it makes Indians proud. And, it signals to the vast majority of Indians who speak no English that you represent their hopes and aspirations. Do not let some evil bureaucrat misguide you on this. He may only be doing it because he himself speaks no Indian language

A nation’s well-being defined with four key indices, one reintroduced

The Human Development Report for 2014 reintroduces a gender development index based on a sex-disaggregated HDI, defined as the ratio of the female HDI to the male HDI. GDI measures gender inequalities in achieving the three basic dimensions of human development. GDI was part of the report till 2010 but had then been taken out.

With a female HDI of 0.519 and a male HDI for 0.627, India’s GDI is 0.828. Bangladesh has a GDI of 0.908 — it has a better female HDI than India’s — and Pakistan has 0.750. Pakistan, incidentally, has the lowest female HDI in the region.

Three other broad indices that the report gives out are a multidimensional poverty index, a gender inequality index, and an inequality-adjusted HDI. All three were introduced for the first time in 2010.

MPI identifies multiple deprivations in the same household in education, health and living standards.

Gender inequality index reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions — reproductive health, empowerment and economic activity. Reproductive health is measured by maternal mortality and adolescent birth rates; empowerment is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by women and attainment in secondary and higher education by gender; and economic activity is measured by the labour market participation rate for women and men.

India ranks 135 in human development index: UNDP

Improvement in human development measures has slowed down in the past few years, according to the 2014 Human Development Report (HDR) released on 24 July in Tokyo. The human development index (HDI), a measure derived from life expectancy, education levels and incomes, barely grew from 0.700 in 2012 to 0.702 in 2013.

Even that small improvement could be at risk of getting reversed given the bleak picture of the vulnerabilities facing people across the world. About 1.5 billion people are afflicted with 'multi-dimensional poverty', that is, they suffer from overlapping deprivations in education, health and living standards. A further 800 million are at the brink of falling back into poverty. Nearly 80% of the global population lacks comprehensive social protection. About half of all workers — more than 1.5 billion — work in "informal or precarious" employment.

This slowdown in human development is a result of the lingering global economic crisis that has caused a dip in income growth in Europe, Arab countries, and Central Asia, the report says. The expected number of years of schooling too is not growing adequately, with 43% primary students dropping out before completing primary education worldwide. Life expectancy growth has slowed down in Asia, although there is improvement in child mortality rates in Africa.

The HDR covers 187 countries across the world and is published annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In the current report, the top five countries ranked in terms of the HDI are Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and the US. The bottom five in this ranking are Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Chad and Sierra Leone.

India is ranked at 135, among the 'medium development' countries like Egypt, South Africa, Mongolia, Philippines and Indonesia. Among India's neighbours, Bhutan and Bangladesh too figure in this category. Pakistan (ranked 146) and Nepal (145) are in the 'low development' category, while Sri Lanka (73) is in the 'high development' category.

The HDR notes that over 200 million people are affected by natural disasters and 45 million, the largest number in 18 years, were displaced by conflicts at the end of 2012. These factors also contributed to denting the improvement in human development.

READ ALSO: Life expectancy in India goes up by 7.9 years since 1990: UNDP report

HDR 2014 introduces a gender development index (GDI) for the first time, which measures gender development gaps among 148 countries. While the overall gender gap is an 8% deficit for women, the income gap is shockingly high — per capita income for men is more than double that for women.

Tracking inequality in incomes, health and education, the report says that inequality has declined in health access, remained constant in education but increased by two percentage points with respect to income.

The report urges a three-fold policy path to get the world out of the morass it is stuck in: universal provision of social services, stronger social protection and a return to full employment policies. All these would require a strong and active role of the state.

Citing recent estimates of giving universal basic old age and disability pension, basic childcare benefits universal healthcare, social assistance and 100-day employment guarantee, the report says India would need to spend just about 4% of its GDP to provide all this.

.No leader of the opposition

As the new BJP government completes two months in office, it is quite clear that it does not intend to shift the tone, tenor and substance of politics. Having been elected on a wave of expectations, the BJP has started sending signals that, at least in the field of political conduct, it does not have a game plan to seize the initiative and think differently. The first signal came in the way it dealt with the issue of appointing governors, as this writer argued on these pages (‘If there were no governors’, IE, June 26). The issue of the leader of the opposition (LoP) appears to be another signal. As in the case of the governors, this is not about a few individuals or one person getting some perks. This is about the way institutions are handled. Democratic politics is as much about institutions as it is about mobilisations and winning elections. Having proven its ability in the latter terrain, the BJP seems to be following in the footsteps of its predecessors in disregarding the responsibility to build and strengthen institutions. To ridicule the Congress for not being eligible for the post of LoP is easy and rooted in transient politics. Dealing with the issue in a more mature and farsighted manner can open up space for the institutionalisation of political practice. According to the existing provisions, the Congress does not have the required numbers. But the issue now is whether an alliance can be recognised as a legislative party for the purpose of designating an LoP. Assuming that the leader of the Congress in the House is not entitled to “salaries, perks and cabinet rank” as per the existing legislation, the more complicated issue is whether the various committees that require the LoP to be a member (such as the committee for the appointment of the CVC) can function without her. The BJP is said to be dodging the second issue by contemplating an amendment to the relevant acts. A government that amended the TRAI regulations to suit its convenience could easily revise the LoP act and agree to make the leader of the single largest party or the leader of the largest alliance the LoP. Therefore, the argument that the designation of the LoP requires a specific strength in the House is rather specious. The government appears to be taking refuge in technicalities in trying to deny the Congress leader the position. In the end, it might, with bad grace, agree to make the leader of the largest party/ alliance the LoP, after having tested the patience of the Congress on this issue. It might also want to show the Congress in a poor light bydemonstrating how the party is craving that position. But in the process, the BJP contributes to the demeaning of the office and the larger idea that government and opposition together are responsible for running the affairs of Parliament. In the meanwhile, the Congress has also not done much to deserve being called the leader of the opposition. Instead of strategising how best to become the de facto leader of the opposition, the Congress is seen running from pillar to post (reportedly even considering recourse to the judiciary) to get that recognition. The Congress may take pride in the fact that it has disrupted proceedings in the House somewhat effectively. But whether it can force the government to rethink any matter is a crucial test. Besides, whether a parliamentary victory was won by voice power or the power of argument will, in the long run, determine whether the Congress wants to do justice to procedural decorum or just make its presence felt. It would do well to revisit the remarks made by the speakers of the 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas on the issue of decorum and the obligations of parliamentarians. This Lok Sabha is quite different from the Houses where the BJP was a large opposition party around which the NDA was woven. The Congress is not only weak, but also isolated. The so-called UPA has become almost fictitious. Other major parties in the opposition, such as the TMC, AIADMK and BJD, are not only outside the Congress-led coalition, but also the main opponents of the Congress in their respective states. This has put the Congress in a tricky position where it has to coordinate with its opponents. It will require floor management, which the Congress was weak in even when in power. More than that, it will require a flexibility of approach and a readiness to build broad-based coalitions. This is exactly what the Congress lacks. The 16th Lok Sabha has at least four major players in the opposition: the TMC, AIADMK, BJD and Congress. All of them are currently in power in some state or the other and so have to manage their state’s interests. Therefore, structurally, there is very narrow room for a concerted opposition to the NDA. Besides, barring the Congress, the state-based parties have limited interest in opposing the BJP — they would be willing to do business with it almost any time and, as such, might not be “in opposition” to the government. So the Congress will not only have to take the initiative, but also tread cautiously to ensure broader and more durable opposition to the government. Such an initiative can take shape only if the Congress chooses to oppose the government on two broad principles — democratic propriety and procedure on one hand, and states’ rights on the other. Both these platforms can be acceptable to the other parties in the opposition and help the Congress gain sympathetic public opinion. The experience so far, not only in the last two months butalso during NDA rule from 1998 to 2004, is that the Congress is clueless when in opposition. Perhaps long years in government have robbed the party of the skills of an opposition. Even in the states where it has been in opposition, its performance has been dismal. Therefore, the demand that its leader be recognised as LoP is rather pathetic — a party should be recognised as the opposition on the strength of its policies, its leadership and the confidence it inspires as an alternative, not just on the basis of legal provisions and the generosity of the ruling party. When either the ruling party or the opposition is unconcerned with institutionalising political practices, it is bad enough, when both show the same symptoms, it underscores the bankruptcy of the political