parliament and policymaking’

President addresses students and faculty of CUS, IITS, NITS etc on ‘parliament and policymaking’ from Rashtrapati Bhavan

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee delivered through Video Conferencing a New Year Message on the topic ‘Parliament and Policymaking’ to Central Universities, IITs, NITs and other Institutions using the National Knowledge Network from Rashtrapati Bhavan  today (January 19, 2015). The President also responded to questions on (1) the remedy to check disruptions in Parliament, (2) way out when ruling party does not have numbers in Rajya Sabha, (3) the Ordinance route to enact legislation and (4) making the budget making process participative.  A webcast of the address and the Q & A session is available on http://webcast.gov.in/president/ Addressing the students and faculty, the President said the year 2014 was an eventful year for India’s polity. After three decades, Indian electorate decided to give a single party the majority to form a stable government. The outcome of the elections to the 16th Lok Sabha provides political stability and gives a mandate to the elected government to fulfill its commitment to the people by using its majority in formulating policies and making laws to implement those policies. The President said in a democracy, the Parliament has three vital functions – representation, law-making and oversight. The Parliament stands for the will and aspirations of the people. It is the platform where through debate and deliberations, this ‘will’ and ‘aspirations’ have to be prioritized and translated into laws, policies and concrete programmes of action. When that does not happen, an important element in the functioning of a democracy gets compromised to the disadvantage of the people. The President said law-making or legislation is the exclusive domain of the Parliament and the legislative assemblies in our Parliamentary democracy. In law-making, the easy part is the act of passing a Bill. The harder part is the negotiations for reconciling the interests of different groups for the legislation. A legislature is effective only if it is able to address the differences amongst stakeholders and succeeds in building a consensus for the law to be enacted and enforced. When the Parliament fails in discharging its law-making role or enacts law without discussion, it breaches the trust reposed in it by the people. This is neither good for the democracy nor for the policies anchored in those laws. The President said policies have to address concerns of different stakeholders in a society in the larger national interest. Policymaking in India’s context is guided by its Constitution. The Parliament having aided policy formulation also ensures that policy and programmes that it has helped define through legislation is implemented in the envisaged manner. It exercises oversight, to ensure that programmes are carried out by the Executive legally, effectively and for the purposes they are intended. Parliamentary oversight extends also to two other important functions. Parliament enjoys exclusive power of total control on money and finance. Every taxation and every receipt and expenditure to and from the Consolidated Fund of India is subject to the approval of the Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha. The other important supervisory power of the Parliament over the Executive is that the highest Executive authority i.e. the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers function as long as they enjoy the confidence of the popularly-elected House and can be removed by a simple majority of the House through a motion of no-confidence. The President said the Parliament’s role in policy articulation, its implementation and oversight is critical. It is, therefore, incumbent on the Members of the Parliament to discuss and undertake adequate scrutiny of all business transacted in the House. Unfortunately, the time devoted by the Members in Parliament has been gradually declining. The first three Lok Sabhas had 677, 581 and 578 sittings, respectively. Compared to that, the 13th, 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas had 356, 332 and 357 sittings, respectively. We all should hope that the 16th Lok Sabha reverses this trend. The President said there is a growing tendency to resort to disruption as a means of Parliamentary intervention. Dissent is a recognized democratic expression, but disruption leads to loss of time and resources, and paralyzes policy formulation. The cardinal principle of Parliamentary Democracy is that the majority has the mandate to rule while opposition has the right to oppose, expose, and if the numbers permit, to depose. But, under no circumstances should there be disruption of the proceedings. A noisy minority cannot be allowed to gag a patient majority. The President said to meet certain exigencies and under compelling circumstances, the framers of the Constitution deemed it necessary to confer limited legislative power upon the Executive by way of promulgation of Ordinances when the legislature is not in session and circumstances justified immediate legislation. The framers also deemed it necessary to impose certain restrictions on this extraordinary legislative power by constitutionally mandating replacement of such Ordinances within a timeframe by the legislators. Article 123 (2) provides that an ordinance must be replaced by a law not later than six weeks from the re-assembly of the two Houses. Article 85 further provides that six months shall not intervene between the last sitting of one session and the first sitting of the next session. The President said India’s diversity and the magnitude of its problems require that the Parliament becomes a more effective platform to build consensus on public policies and a bulwark of our democratic ideals. The proceedings in Parliament must be conducted in a spirit of cooperation, harmony and purpose. The content and quality of debates should be of a high order. Maintenance of discipline and decorum in the House and observance of etiquette and decency are necessary. The President cautioned the Parliament to not yield its space for legislating and policymaking to mass mobilization and street-protests, for that may not always provide considered solutions to our problems. To retain the trust and faith of the people, the Parliament must enact laws to put in place policies that address the concerns and aspirations of the people.

Ashok Srinivasan is winner of The Hindu Prize 2014

The panel judges described his 'Book of Common Signs' as a "collection of stories full of quiet surprises."

Ashok Srinivasan won The Hindu Prize 2014 at the Lit for Life 2015 for his debut collection of 13 short stories, Book of Common Signs, here on Saturday, the second day of the literary festival organised by the newspaper here.

The award was presented by the former Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court Justice Leila Seth, who, in the context of a resolution passed at the festival supporting author Perumal Murugan, said she hoped that freedom of expression would be alive forever in this country.

Mr. Srinivasan, in his acceptance speech, said “short stories, unlike poetry, are the things that are lost not only in translation but also don’t sell.”

The judging panel included K. Satchidanandan, Arunava Sinha, Githa Hariharan, Tabish Khair and Professor Malashri Lal. Read more about the panel here.

This is what the panel had to say about Book of Common Signs when the shortlist was announced.

"This collection of stories is full of quiet surprises. The stories are carefully structured, yet playful and quirky in a cerebral way. They cover a great deal of ground with equal facility – from hutments and streets to middle class homes. Whether it is the emotional power of intimacy, the multiple lives of a single mind, or the terrors of difference and separation, real people live them out. Throughout there is a simmering tension between the real and the imagined. The language is suggestive, framing and saying just the right amount and withholding when necessary; metaphors, images and insights are embedded neatly in the narrative. Despite the occasional waywardness, which comes as a pleasant shock, these sophisticated stories are executed with great restraint."

Irritating behaviours at workplace

Talent, skill, education, experience - all are important. But since team spirit is also a skill, treating other people with courtesy and respect is a key ingredient in long-term professional success. Yet so many people seem to get simple acts of kindness really wrong :

They thoughtlessly waste other peoples' time
When you are late to an appointment or meeting, what you are really saying is that your time is more important. When you wait until the grocery clerk finishes ringing you up to search for your debit card, you are really saying you can't care less if others have to wait. Every time you take three minutes to fill your oversize water bottle while a line stacks up behind you, you are really saying you live in your own little world and your world is the only world that matters.

Small, irritating things, but basically no big deal? Nope. People who don't notice the small ways they inconvenience others tend to be oblivious when they do it in major ways. How you treat people when it doesn't really matter - especially when you're a leader - says a lot about you. Behave as if the people around you have more urgent needs than yours and you will never go wrong and you will definitely be liked.

They ignore people outside their 'level'
There's an older guy at the gym that weighs over 300 pounds and understandably struggles on the aerobic and weight equipment. Yet nobody talks to him. Or even seems to notice him. It's like he is invisible. Why? He doesn't fit in. Occasionally we all do it. When we visit a company we talk to the people we're supposed to talk to. When we attend a civic event we talk to the people we're supposed to talk to. Or breeze right by the technicians and talk to the guy who booked us to speak. Here's an easy rule of thumb: nod whenever you make eye contact. Or smile. Just act like people exist

They ask for way too much
A man you don't know asks you for a favour. You politely decline. He asks again. You decline again. Then he whips out the need card: "But it's really important to me. You have to. I really need [it]."

Maybe we do, in fact, really need [it]. But our needs are our problems. The world doesn't owe us anything. We aren't entitled to advice or mentoring or success. The only thing we are entitled to is what we earn. People tend to help people who first help themselves. People tend to help people who are willing to help others. And people befriend those who help others because, well, we all want more of those people in our lives.

They ignore people in genuine need
At the same time, some people aren't in a position to help themselves. They need a hand. Though I don't necessarily believe in karma, I do believe good things always come back to you in the form of feeling good about yourself. And that's reason enough to help people who find themselves on the downside of advantage.

The dignity of duty

Before he agreed to meet me, Sanjiv Chaturvedi asked me to send him a few samples of this column. His intention was to figure out whether his meeting with a journalist was strictly under the framework of service rules. He never has, nor does he ever want to, flout any government rule.

Clad in a grey shirt and jet-black trousers, Chaturvedi - a man seen as one of the reasons behind the unceremonious transfer of Harsh Vardhan from the Union health ministry to the low-profile science and technology ministry - arrived bang on time at the Zaffran restaurant in Connaught Place in New Delhi.

Chaturvedi, chief vigilance officer (CVO) of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) till a few months ago, left it to me to choose a restaurant: as long as I picked a place that served decent north Indian vegetarian food.

Zaffran appeared elegant and soothing to the eye, and we quickly settled down. Before Chaturvedi ordered a portion of tomato soup - which he asked the attendant to split between the two of us - he regaled me with stories of his hunts for good food, from Chandigarh to the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat to the Sundarbans in West Bengal. I realised food was one thing that kept Chaturvedi going. He loves Bengali sweets; especially rosogulla made with gur (jaggery), but prefers South Indian meals because they are light.

Born in Lucknow and an engineer from NIT Allahabad, he really missed doodh jalebi, samosa and kachori at breakfast when he took up his first posting in Haryana in 2002.

Within a short time, I learn a great deal about my loquacious guest, a 39-year-old with a disarming smile. He loves to sleep, is a movie buff and has the characteristic accent of Uttar Pradesh, in which forest becomes "farest" and majority becomes "maijarity".

For me, the word that meant the most was Haryana and I lunged at it. I was looking for an entry to talk about his troublesome career, which had begun in Kurukshetra, where the greatest mythological battle between right and wrong was fought.

Chaturvedi had no idea that the next 10 years in Haryana, where the scope for an Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer was limited to a few sanctuaries, were going to be the toughest years of his life. His blunt objections to illegal forest activities and rampant corruption resulted in his suspension within seven months of his joining. The suspension was followed by 12 transfers, many "false" FIRs, vigilance inquiries and a chargesheet under a major violation that could have led to his permanent dismissal from the service.

In these inquiries, Chaturvedi came out as clean as a whistle, but not before he went through harassment, faced threats to life and suffered irreparable personal ties.

Today, he wants to skirt these issues.

"Sahilji, our forefathers, especially Patel (Vallabhbhai Patel) were foresighted. Patel was a true administrator and ensured that civil servants were well-protected through ways and means of the Constitution while discharging their duties," Chaturvedi points out, in between enjoying his portion of the soup.

It is true that the Constitution explicitly protects bureaucrats from politicians. For instance, the administrative control of the all-India services - Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), IFS, and so on - rests with the Union government. These officers are deputed in states as agents of the central government, which is the ultimate deciding authority regarding their promotions, disciplinary actions and postings. Though the Union government is mandated to consult states, it is not bound by their advice. Chaturvedi read up on all those constitutional provisions and laws governing civil servants during his suspension period - and, unlike other harassed officers, he decided to take on the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government in Haryana.

"Because of Patel's vision, I was saved," quips Chaturvedi.

The President of India, through four environment ministers - Namo Narain Meena, Jairam Ramesh, Jayanthi Natarajan and Veerappa Moily - all from the Congress, quashed decisions taken against Chaturvedi by the Hooda government. If the first was related to his suspension, the second and the third were about chargesheets filed against him. The fourth action was even worse, as his performance rating in the annual confidential report was changed from "outstanding to zero." But the central government restored it to exceptional - leaving its own chief minister red-faced.

These developments were unprecedented in many ways. Chaturvedi was the first officer ever to get a Presidential reference - a record four times. Secondly, the central government usually doesn't oppose a state government in bureaucratic matters, especially when the latter is run by the same political party.

"Many harassed officials don't approach the Centre for respite primarily for two reasons. Either they are corrupt or have something to hide. Many sit quietly, knowing that at the end of the day, they still have to work with the same set of politicians," Chaturvedi explains.

Perhaps this could have been one of the reasons behind a long stand-off between Durga Shakti Nagpal, an IAS officer who was suspended over her actions against the sand mafia in Noida, and the Uttar Pradesh government. The Centre did not come to Nagpal's rescue on the ground that she didn't approach it with a formal request to intervene in her matter. Today, Chaturvedi teaches the same rules and regulations to probationary officers at the IAS academy in Mussoorie.

By now, we are through with the dahi ke kebab and vegetarian galouti kebab we had ordered for starters. We savoured the first dish with green chutney and made faces at the second. We were the first ones to arrive at the second-floor restaurant that gives a clear view of the old façade of Connaught Place. The place filled up faster than we had anticipated. Now surrounded by people talking nineteen to a dozen, we ordered our lunch.

Chaturvedi asks the attendant to suggest dishes: he quickly suggested dal makhni and makki khumb masala for him and Hyderabadi biryani for me.

I jokingly ask him where, besides food, he draws his energy from to fight the system; his answer is as simple as the man appeared himself: "I am not fighting the system. I am just doing my duty." To me it appeared, unlike most civil servants, that he lacked ambition. He doesn't play golf, live a luxurious life, or travel abroad. All he wants is to sleep comfortably on Sundays, after a late-night movie on Saturdays, at his small apartment on the AIIMS campus. "The government really takes care of us even after retirement. One can actually live a respectable and comfortable life with the remuneration," he says, while enjoying daal and tandoori roti using one hand. He doesn't stop short of complimenting the attendant for the daal, which I had to share with him to make my undercooked meat and rice more palatable. The mushrooms didn't impress either of us.

I ask him about his work at AIIMS. "I was CVO for the last two years and right now I am without a post." Harsh Vardhan removed him; many attribute this action to letters from a party colleague who is now, ironically, Union minister for health, but the health ministry issued a statement in September last year saying this "had nothing to do with his (Chaturvedi's) re-profiling". There was also a lobby that was unhappy with Chaturvedi's unearthing scam after scam at India's elite medical institute. In his short stint at AIIMS, he has made many enemies, including senior IAS and IPS officers. He jokingly calls them "friends". When he was posted to New Delhi from Haryana, at least seven central ministers refused to take him in their respective ministries, given his history.

It is also odd that when the Haryana government opposed him, people in the central government came to his rescue. Now that the central government is not giving him his due, leaders of the Haryana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party are throwing their weight behind him. Currently, he is using his time to settle the false cases filed against him in Haryana and waiting for the central government decision to change his cadre from Haryana to Uttarakhand.

"Sarkar jab bhi moka degi, seva karenge" (whenever the government gives me a chance, I will do my duty).

BAE Systems offers to make 'ultralight' guns in India

US-based company proposes to supply artillery guns for the army's new mountain strike corps

BAE Systems Inc has sweetened its offer to supply artillery guns for the army's new mountain strike corps. The US-based company hopes this will resurrect the procurement of 145 M777 ultralight howitzers (ULH), which has been in limbo since July, when the defence minister told Parliament that the price was too high.

The new proposal, which dovetails with the "Make in India" initiative, offers to build more components in India for the 155-millimetre/39-calibre M777 ULH. In another major step forward, BAE Systems has offered to build the gun in a plant in India. This would become the global assembly, integration and test (AIT) centre for the M777 once the US plant at Hattiesburg, Mississippi shuts down.

The ministry of defence (MoD) has faced sharp criticism, most recently from Parliament's Consultative Committee on Defence, for not buying equipment - especially artillery - for the new mountain strike corps being raised for the Sino-India border. In a television interview last Monday, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar promised to prioritise funding for buying artillery guns.

"Encouraged by Prime Minister Modi's call to Make in India, we have developed and submitted a strengthened proposal on the M777 case. This includes a significantly higher degree of indigenisation on the weapon system. Moreover, we have included in our offer the transfer of the Assembly, Integration & Test (AIT) capabilities into India. The AIT facility will not only provide in-country support to the army on its weapon system but will begin the process of indigenous manufacture of modern artillery in India," said Mark Simpkins, the India head of BAE Systems.

Simultaneously, BAE Systems is finalising a more attractive offsets proposal, which involves fabricating a significant number of M777 components in India.

"We have already signed Memoranda of Understanding with around 40 Indian companies after assessing their capabilities to manufacture M777 components to the requisite standard. Nearly half of these are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)," says Simpkins.

Simultaneously, BAE Systems is seeking to assure the MoD that the price of the M777 ULH would be reasonable. Its cost has risen since January 26, 2010, when the Pentagon had quoted $647 million (Rs 4,015 crore) for 145 guns in a Letter of Acceptance (LoA) to the MoD. This was marginally raised to $694 (Rs 4,306 crore) in March 2013. But alarms bells went off in New Delhi on August 7, 2013, when the Pentagon notified the US Congress that the guns would cost "up to $885 million" (Rs 5,492 crore).

BAE Systems has clarified in discussions that $885 million is the "upper limit of the price envelope" in case negotiations drag on for years. If finalised quickly, they say the cost would remain around $694 million, quoted in last year's LoA.

India is buying the M777 through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

In this the MoD deals with the Pentagon; which negotiates terms with the supplier (in this case BAE Systems); while charging the buyer (the MoD) a small fee for its services.

The offer to shift M777 assembly from Hattiesburg to India is a win-win proposal for BAE Systems and India.

After supplying over a thousand M777s to several armies, Hattiesburg has no new guns on order. Until 2013, BAE Systems Inc had spent over $50 million on keeping the Hattiesburg line open in anticipation of an Indian order. Shifting AIT to India would spare the company that on-going cost.

If shifting AIT to India were not enough to interest the MoD, BAE Systems Inc. is dangling a further carrot, by pointing out that a larger Indian order for the M77 would allow far more components to be built in India.

Most military experts regard the order for 145 guns as a preliminary one, which would equip just 6-7 artillery regiments of the mountain strike corps' two divisions.

The army's failure to buy artillery since the 1980 - which Parrikar himself highlighted - means that India's 16 other mountain divisions also badly require light, air-portable artillery guns, adding up to a total requirement of over a thousand guns.

In addition, several projects are under way to meet India's requirement of 1,580 towed guns for the plains sector.

The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has developed a 155-mm/45-calibre gun called the Dhanush, and is building 114 for the army. Separately, the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) is spearheading the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun (ATAG) project, to build a powerful 155-mm/52-calibre gun, in partnership with the private sector.

In August, the defence ministry cleared the manufacture of 40 self-propelled guns, called Catapults, for an estimated Rs 820 crore.

And in November, it gave the go-ahead for building 814 mounted gun systems (MGS) under the "Buy & Make (Indian)" category of the procurement procedure for an estimated Rs 15,750 crore

The curse of jugaad The philosophy of 'make do' that Indians thrive on will be disastrous if the country wants to be recognised globally for its products and services, writes Mihir S Sharma in his new book, Restart: The Last Chance For The Indian Economy

The philosophy of 'make do' that Indians thrive on will be disastrous if the country wants to be recognised globally for its products and services, writes Mihir S Sharma in his new book, Restart: The Last Chance For The Indian Economy

'Jugaad' is a curse. No, I am not being too harsh. Think for yourself: what else is that pernicious, disgusting wordjugaad? Once it was a mark of pride, demonstrating that in a tough, socialist society with very little on offer we nevertheless managed, we made do. We held things together with cello-tape and paan stains and prayer, and we kept them working.

But what is jugaad, really? Today? It's contentment. It's self-satisfaction and self-praise when what you have produced is clearly substandard. Are you a car company? Make cars considered unsafe in any other country in the world, free-ride on government diesel subsidies, and try to make money through selling official spare parts at outrageous prices when your useless cars collapse after they meet their first monsoon pothole. Do not focus on quality; do not try to open up the markets abroad for the smaller cars, the ones with greater endurance, the ones cheaper to run, that you know you can make.

Having viciously attacked car companies all this while, let me now quote a guy who runs one. (This is to pretend I am being fair.) Here's Anand Mahindra, who runs one of the few car companies that has done well of late, on what ails his sector: 'Jugaad does imply a positive 'can-do' attitude, but unfortunately, also involves a 'make-do' approach. It can, hence, lead to compromises on quality and rarely involves cutting edge or breakthrough technology.'

The problem with Indian companies, according to the Japanese academic Shoji Shiba, who has spent difficult decades trying to save this country's factories, is that they think manufacturing is just the act of production. Nobody is interested in quality, and few in innovation: "Very few companies at the top of the pyramid have some R&D, and build their own products," he told Business Todaymagazine. (Even "on the operations side, efficiency and productivity is not enough. Happiness of the workers is also important.") But the problem is that innovation is not something that we believe is needed in order to improve a product; innovation is jugaad, merely a process that reduces the cost to produce it.

One understands the need for jugaad, if you are a small entrepreneur in a small village, with no capital and no institutional support and no electricity and no roads and a caste system that oppresses you. You come up with solutions that are shaped by your constraints. This is a valuable skill.

But it is ridiculous to suppose only Indians have it. It happens everywhere. Come on! Is there something that is, perhaps, 'expensive innovation'? Is it meaningful to talk of 'wasteful innovation? Then what on earth are we talking about when we talk about frugal innovation? An innovation is only a usable innovation if it reduces costs. 'Frugal innovation' is like 'alternative medicine'; if it works, it's just 'medicine'. Or 'innovation'.

So what is our real uniqueness when it comes to jugaad? The same things that set us apart as a country: our hideous mess of regulations and prohibitions; and our absence of infrastructure; and our sensitivity to cost. In other words, Indian jugaad is about cutting corners. We can even take this attitude with us, I fear, to countries that have rules that people follow, and which have infrastructure they value. People who grew up in communist East Germany, recent behavioural research into Berliners' values discovered, cheat more and with less compunction. Indian innovation, which grew up in a resource-poor, trust-deficient, regulation-heavy environment, is as unable to leave behind its past. Until it does, it will remain low-cost, corner-cutting, making do.

Jugaad is a terrible, terrible thing to be proud of. Let us hope that the rest of the world has a terrible memory and doesn't remember what it means. Because, after all, at some point, we have to start selling them things. We have to ensure that 'Made in India' isn't a joke; but it will be, if people look at the things we make and say: Ha, I wonder exactly how many corners they cut to make this.

EXISTING LABOUR LAWS ENCOURAGE LAWLESSNESS

'Labour law reform' is what we keep hearing about; labour law reform is the biggest way in which the state intrudes upon factories, keeps them small and relatively unproductive. It has to go. If you run a factory, you should be able to take on extra workers when you get a big order, while telling them it's just temporary. Actually, that can happen today, too; contract workers are everywhere in certain industries. But it's both illegal and unfair. It's illegal because the Supreme Court has said that you can't have contract workers in your 'core business' under current law. Everyone has the option to do so nevertheless - but at the cost of being harassed by the cops and the inspectors. In other words, we have effortlessly found the worst of both worlds. And it's unfair because you then have 'permanent' workers and workers on contract working the same assembly line, doing the same job, but with one of them being paid five times the other. It takes a lot of energy to ignore unfairness. Unless unfairness is somehow sanctified by irrational belief, whether religious or ideological, it is dangerous. People can't come face to face with it every day and be unchanged. The kind of unfairness produced by India's labour law is particularly pernicious. There is no reason that a contract worker can give to himself to rationalize why he is struggling and his colleague is not. There is no explanation that his foreman can give him that is satisfactory. The foreman usually knows this. And, perhaps consequently the foreman is as often as not brutal and arbitrary when dealing with the contract worker - almost as if to make up for the fact that the permanent worker is un-fire-able. It is pretty obvious how the tension inherent in these relations can escalate into confrontation, or explode into violence. So, restrictive labour law creates unfairness, and it induces violence.

Branding an emerging economy is never easy. 'Made in China', for example, is not considered to be a guarantor of quality. The Chinese, for a decade, have been selling us things that we grit our teeth and buy because it is cheap, not because we want to. Today, even when they are beginning to make mobile phones, for example, that can match anything made in Korea or the West, they have a massive trust deficit to make up, even in a country that is silly enough to be proud of jugaad.

Once a country's brand percolates into peoples' skulls, it stays there. In 2013, one pretty popular Hindi-film hit song even was titled 'Pyaar China ka maal hai' - 'Love is made in China'. That's was not, as you can imagine, a compliment. The lyrics went on: 'In love, there's no guarantee; there's no warranty; there's not even a formal bill.' Ouch.

The rebranding exercise takes ages, but it eventually happens. In the 1950s and 1960s, 'Made in Japan' meant, in the West, 'cheap and tacky'. Perhaps, 'Made in China' is going through the same ascension. But 'Made in India'? Don't hold your breath. Not while we're proud of putting quality last.

Is cancer just bad luck?

On January 2 Science journal published an article that said two-thirds of cancers in adults across tissues are primarily “bad luck”. The research paper — “Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions” — explains that most incidents of cancer are a result of random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth. This is perhaps why we come across cases where a person who hasn’t touched a cigarette in his life and has healthy habits sometimes ends up with cancer, while one who is a chain smoker and leads a sedentary lifestyle might escape it.

The research by Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, has triggered a debate. It has also raised many questions. If most cancers are a result of random mutations, what roles do environmental and genetic factors play? How helpful then are cancer vaccines such as those for cervical cancer? And what about the concept that certain healthy habits and conscious decisions can help prevent some cancers? Last year, for example, Angelina Jolie underwent double mastectomy after she found that she carries the BRCA gene that makes her 50 per cent susceptible to the disease. She took this preventive measure because her mother had died of ovarian cancer at 56. If random mutations are such a significant factor, do decisions like the one Jolie took count?

The answer is yes, they do. Though some quarters have termed the research as “deceptive”, the fact is that the Johns Hopkins scientists have not ignored the environmental and genetic factors. Neither have they discounted preventive measures. The scientists observed that while random mutations are a significant contributor to cancer, one-third of cancers can be explained by other factors or a combination of factors (erroneous and random mutation, environment, lifestyle and hereditary).

The researchers statistically charted the number of stem cell divisions in 31 tissues. They then compared these with the lifetime risks of cancer in the same tissues and found a correlation between the number of stem cell divisions and cancer risk. “The paper is very good in trying to establish that over a lifetime, the more the number of divisions, the more the mutations and the higher the probability of a person getting cancer,” says Saleem Mohammed, CEO of Chennai-based Xcode Life Sciences that runs a DNA-assessment programme which identifies a person’s genetic predisposition for certain diseases. The colon tissue, for example, undergoes four times more stem cell divisions than the small intestine tissue in humans, the scientists explain. And it is observed that cancer of the colon is more prevalent in humans than cancer of the small intestines.

“The fact is that cell division happens all the time in the body,” says Mohammed. Nails grow, dead skin cells fall off and new cells take their place and so on. “During this continuous process of cell division, erroneous and random mutations also happen,” explains Shubham Sogani, CEO of House of Diagnostics and PET Suite, a specialised cancer diagnostic technology at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi. “Though the body has its repair mechanism (immune system), which checks and fixes these mutations, sometimes this repair mechanism doesn’t work very well and the mutation in a particular strand of DNA happens again and again and can turn into a malignant tumour.”

Of the cancers in the 31 tissues they studied, the researchers found that 22 cancer types could be largely explained by random DNA mutations (or “bad luck”). The other nine had higher risks than predicted by the number of stem cell divisions, they found. These were cancers where other factors came into play. An example of this is lung cancer, which is linked to smoking. The scientists, in fact, make this point when they say that a heavy smoker not ending up with cancer is plain “good luck” because the chances that he will are actually high.

“At least one-third of all cancers are preventable,” says Indu Aggarwal, senior medical officer in the department of preventive oncology department at Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Delhi. “For example, oral cavity cancer, of which we get the maximum number of cases, is almost totally preventable. Nearly 90 per cent of patients who come to us with oral cavity cancer are people who have been chewing tobacco or smoking bidi or hookah.”

Tobacco and alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, obesity and environmental factors such as exposure to radiation, all increase a person’s risk of getting cancer. There is enough evidence to prove this. In Punjab’s Muktsar belt, for example, contamination of ground water by pesticides has led to an alarming rise in the number of cancer cases. In other cancers, such as those of the breast, cervix and pancreas, genetics comes into play. “Besides a person’s genetic predisposition to cancer, a family history of cancer can also increase the risk because the family might be sharing the same environment,” says Aggarwal.

So what is the point that the study makes? It says a majority of cancers are not in our control and can be triggered randomly by erroneous mutations — the “bad luck” factor. So, besides focusing on prevention, medical science and cancer research has to start working harder to detect and treat cancer at an early stage when it is curable. This is where the importance of cancer screening comes in.

While we are still at an early stage of trying to understand the intricacies and causes of cancer, testing for genetic propensity, making lifestyle changes and cancer screening can equip a person to prevent or fight the disease better. “Freak accidents, like random mutations, can happen,” says Sogani. “But that doesn’t mean we stop being cautious when we are on the road.”

Getting cancer is like being in a car accident

To address the barrage of questions coming their way since their report was published, the two scientists from Johns Hopkins have compared the possibility of getting cancer to getting into a car accident. Through a press release issued by Johns Hopkins Medicine, they explain this analogy by taking three factors into account: the length of the trip, the condition of the road and the condition of the car. The length of the trip is compared to the number of stem cell divisions and random mutations. The road conditions are likened to the environmental factors. And, “the mechanical condition of the car is a metaphor for the inherited genetic factors,” they write. The longer the trip, the higher the risk of an accident, they explain. If the condition of the road is bad, then again the risk is higher, as it is if the condition of the car is bad — like poor brakes or worn tires. However, even with “bad road conditions and driving a car in disrepair, the length of the trip plays a significant role,” they write. That’s because the risk of meeting with an accident on a very short trip, even if the road and car conditions are poor, is far less, they say. “Using this analogy, we would estimate that two-thirds of the risk of getting into an accident is attributable to the length of the trip (random mutations). The rest of the risk comes from bad cars (inherited gene mutations), bad roads (environmental factors) and other factors.” So, it it or isn’t it in our control? “Some have misunderstood our research to say that two-thirds of cancer cases are due to bad luck,” write the scientists. But just like every car accident, every cancer is also caused by a combination of factors, they explain. To know what portion of accidents (cancers) are due to each of these factors would require the kind of knowledge that science and scientists are still seeking. However, while some risk factors are outside our control, others aren’t. Just as driving a better maintained car and choosing a smoother route would reduce the risk of meeting with an accident, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and eliminating unhealthy environmental factors can similarly reduce the risk of cancer. This, say the researchers, is called “primary prevention”. “Quitting smoking is one valuable example of primary prevention,” they write. Then, there is secondary prevention”, which is detecting and treating cancers early.

A recent study, which says two-thirds of cancers are a result of random mutations, also makes a case for the prevention, early detection and treatment of the disease