Panchayati Raj and PIM

Dear reader, perhaps you would like to throw some light to this cloudy question of mine - especially the ones in the water sector. The questions relates to the governance and water sector in India.

We all know Panchayati Raj was formalized in the country in 1992, famously known as the 73rd constitutional amendment. This made mandatory for the villages to have their committees, known as Gram Sabha Panchayats. The reason of this change was to empower villages with self governance so these Gram Sabhas could make independent decisions for their villages. Now, this is big. Change certainly won’t come fast and the government is supposed to play a role of hand holder to this process.

But the water resources sector which basically thrusts on agriculture (95% of its schemes) has an important lowest level grouping, popularly known as Water Users Associations (WUA). For example, when a new canal or its minor supplies water, the beneficiary farmers will form a WUA . Technically, WUA’s are a simple farmer participation method incited in almost every part of the world as a decentralized method of management. But in India this all is done in the pretext of Panchayati Raj. While WUA’s cut across political boundaries of Panchayats they have nothing to do with these Panchayats. The latter are nowhere in the picture. Naturally because of the specialized task like the crop yield expected from these WUA’s, there is still top down approach to the way these WUA’s are managed, if I say the least.

Also, such an approach takes thrust away from addressing issues such as equity, ecology, sanitation and so on.

Now, isn’t this also a slight deviance from the constitution as well?

I will look forward to your comments.

Dying because of …

Hey, in my recent post on Beat of India did I mention that the folk music is dying? Because the people who sing it are starving! Or, is it because of this urban air now today?

The answer my friend may blow in the wind, and that’s why Bobji sings an important line in the last para of his "let me die in my footsteps"- Go out in your country where land meets the sun …

Going digital

Man wanted to draw, so he drawed on the dusty ground. The scribbles didn’t stay for long, also he wanted to colour them. So, he started to draw on the rocks or caves walls. Then lots of time passed, and he found himself drawing on the paper, or on the cloth. He devised better colouring pens too. The paper became an ultimate medium and was transportable. Now comes the time, when he can draw on a digital tablet. It is water proof, has colours aplenty, there’s additional glow and the pictures need only a few seconds to make a full circle of the globe. The only hitch, he has no time to draw.

Beat of India

Personally, for the music I like I either have to look faraway, or if it was not for this website http://beatofindia.com/, I would have been terribly bored.

Earlier as a child growing, the popular music in India and the music from Bollywood had disappointed me, and now it is the various talent exposition TV shows. Though in someways I do get what people can appreciate from someone talented singing popular songs, but I seriously do not get why these shows are bent upon destroying the confidences of some otherwise talented and ambitious people. A sound unique to someone, potentially superb is rejected because it does not exist within the popular culture’s dictionary of good sur (melody).

Beat of India is a life saviour; atleast for me. What they do is record an album of a local unknown artiste, whether rich or poor, and who has traditional groundings in his music. These singers or their songs are not fabricated for mass listening, so there are no unnecessary instruments or sophistication. They stick to the natural sound exemplifying either the struggle or the surroundings. Unlike the mainstream, there is aptly what is required - the artist, the accompanying instrument, and perhaps a few listeners like me.

the domesticated fowls

Three in the night (or you may call it morning) is the least crowded time on Amdavad’s roads. You rarely hear any reckless horning and the city dogs take over. There is no formula to get them quiet, except for getting rid of them, or adopt a more humane option- pray for their gangs to go to sleep.

For you all who used to, but now don’t live in Amdavad anymore, and are occasionally self- reminded of this chai sutta ka galla ‘Geerish’ at this hour, allow me to also remind you of this unnamed fowl, who loves to announce a new morning every morning. Right from this hour at three, he always gets confused, and can be heard, because of the bright sodium lamp he tries to sleep under. The owner tells that a fowl would live as long as 30-35 years. And, on the compound wall now, there not only sits one but three. All similar looking and collectively, on the kesaria-hanuman temple’s compound wall, colouring this quiet night under the bright sodium lamp.
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p.s. Kesaria: Hindi language word transliterated, is an adjective for ‘Saffron’ colour.

Some entertainment

Saturday- a couple of young American cops on regular patrol fucked up a little, for they didn’t know who Bob Dylan was, and took Mr. Zimmerman to his hotel until he could prove himself as someone genuine. Sunday - it was Sarukh Khan’s turn. He could not fare better.

US government agency, USCIRF has announced India on its watch and monitor list because the latter fails to protect its religious minorities.

<USCIRF link 1 : Indian Flag – For enchanced knowledge, one can click further on the flag>
<USCIRF link 2 : Newpaper references on this issue>

Along with the editorial writers and journos in number of Indian newspapers, brown man will now borrow black man’s lines and sing in a bluesy tone– “before you accuse me ... take a look at your self”.

Perhaps, American government now needs to establish an another agency which it may call - USCENCECA (United States Commission for Entertainment Needs of its Cops and Elimination of Confusion if he is an Artist).

Travel to Leh

Biking to Leh (Ladakh) is told (or sold) as a dream trip to heaven by the people who have done it in the past. Recently, I joined the club too, for along with old pals Pankaj and Sunnu, each one of us on our bikes, totalled around 2500 kilometers within two weeks. The route from Delhi to Manali making it to Leh, and then back route through Kargil Srinagar Jammu, provides a good snapshot of today’s India.

The trip made me realise how nice people we Indians are as well as the worst assholes. The free India I experienced on its bumpy roads and rare landscape was the best fine and beautiful when my head was tilted up a little. With this tilted-up view, the mountains and valleys on my right or left or the horizon, and the unspoilt skies were simply breathtaking. But yes, watch out not to lower down your eyes, otherwise the environmental and human unconcern gets stuck in the corner. Rest was the usual India - simultaneously in motion and static, caring and uncaring, spoilt and unspoilt.