• India is home for 33% poorest people of world in 2010 compared to 22% in 1981.
• In the same period, China reduced it’s poverty rate from 84% in 1981 to 12% in 2010.

Most of us will be shocked by the fact – “What! How is this even possible? we are doing so good..  and..and even our Government tells us that we are reducing number of poor every year”. With all respect to our Government and Planning Commission, I am sorry to say that what we are reducing is not number of poor but the amount of money used for recognizing the poor. Our Planning Commission decided that one who earns Rs. 15/day in rural area and Rs. 20/day in urban area is not poor. Later, after the interference by Supreme Court the amount was raised to Rs. 28/day in rural area and Rs 32/day in urban area. If I am not wrong, one can see this much money in a beggar’s bowl sitting outside any Temple/Mosque. What kind of criteria is this in which beggars are not considered as poor. In a breakup of these Rs 32, one will have to survive by spending:

• Rs 5.5 on cereals
• Rs 1.02 on pulses
• Rs 1.55 on edible oils
• 44 paise on fruits
• and 99 paise/day is sufficient for education.

You can find the complete breakup here. Rather than helping the poor we are insulting them with such hypothetical Below Poverty Line criteria. World Bank has allotted US$ 1.25 (Rs 67) for BPL criteria hence no wonder Indian stats differs so much with them.

Even today, 65% of Indian population is dependent on agriculture sector while the total contribution of the same sector in GDP is 18.5%. Rest 81.5% of the GDP is contributed by 35% of the population. In this 81.5% , more than 50% is contributed by Service sector which means that our third sector, industrial sector, is also not performing too good . I think it is sufficient to prove how unevenly money is distributed in our society.

A million dollar question is- why we failed in tackling the problem of poverty till now ? There has not been one particular decision, policy or reason responsible. Responsible factors proved themselves contagious by just multiplying it to different levels. Let me list some of them, how they were responsible and what could have been done.

After Independence, the worst in the condition were peasants and people belonging to SCs/STs. So a logical approach was to help these classes of society. For the SC and ST, proper quota had been allotted in government jobs and much needed laws were formulated for providing the social security. Also for the peasants, Land Reforms were made on paper. Unfortunately, these reforms could be implemented on 6% of the total operated area till 1995. Nothing much changed in the life of the poor peasants, they didn’t get their lands which they lost to Zamindars during some Draconian policies under British Rule.

We were an agrarian society, and considering our assets ,knowledge and awareness of our people, it would have proven a better decision to make agriculture our prime moving force. But, our first PM Jawahar Lal Nehru was of different view. He decided to make industrial sector our prime moving force. He justified it as- while the Industry will provide fast growth and simultaneously we will modernize our agriculture system. Overlooking the ground realities, it was a very good decision at that time.  He also differed from Gandhi in decentralizing power i.e. giving powers to Gram Panchayats and Municipal Corporations. Gandhi was of view for the upliftment of poor people, development has to be started at the grass-root level (by Gram panchayats and Municipal corporations).

The consequences of these two decisions didn’t come much in favor of our society. We made industrial sector our prime moving force but due to lack of infrastructure, govt had to assume all the responsibility of building infrastructure and industries simultaneously. Now for the development in backward areas, PSUs were established in these areas which was completely against logic of Industrial location. Very soon these PSUs started making less profits and some of them even started incurring losses. During the same time, due to absence of Gram panchayats, villages were alienated to the modern society. Lack of roads, telecom and technology made them confined to their villages and nearby areas for the business purposes. So these post-independence decisions didn’t prove themselves fruitful. Neither we were able to give a thrust to Industrial sector nor in modernizing our agriculture much.

It was in 1992 that Gram panchayats and Municipal Corporations were made constitutional bodies and vested with needed powers. Also, agriculture was made our prime moving force in 2002.

Meanwhile, illiteracy played a crucial role in making the condition worse from bad. Lack of awareness restrained people from changing their lives significantly. They were more stuck in dealing with petty issues in their day-to-day life. Even today, one can find people with the view – “more members in family = more income”. End result is- none of them gets proper education and all of them strive for basic amenities. This kind of thinking just increased poverty exponentially and proved itself the worst curse of our society. In awake, Right to Education was added as a fundamental right in the Constitution. Our present government takes much pride in steps taken in the direction, but Annual Status of Education Report 2012 shows some alarming facts:

• Only 30 per cent of class 3 students could read a class 1 text book in 2012, down from 50 per cent in 2008.
  
• The number of children in government schools who can correctly recognize numbers up to 100 has dropped to 50 per cent from 70 per cent over the last four years.

Now, it was unanimously accepted that some classes must be given some extra privileges for their upliftment. After the Mandal Commission report, OBC quota came into play and the matter became a political agenda. 27.5% quota was allotted for OBCs in the govt jobs and colleges. How the quota system is related to poverty ?

It is related indirectly if not directly. Mandal Commission submitted its report in 1980 and used census data of 1931. In deciding who belongs to Other Backward Class, it gave weight of 4 out of 22 to economical factors and those economical factors were like – living in kachha house and having a drinking water source within half a kilometer. It declared 52% of Indian population backward excluding SC/ST. How much of it is applicable in 20th century ? When we make a business plan, first or second question asked is- “Who is your target audience ?” In this case, we can say -Everyone in India, irrespective of their financial condition, except some forward classes.

The point is we are not able to target the real audience. While the real backward people are struggling for basic needs, those financially strong are enjoying the privileges. It is proving itself a mere compromise between the merit and upliftment. And, also the gap between rich and poor is increasing simultaneously. I have also seen people trying hard to get their caste enlisted in OBC list to get somewhat easier life and some trying to get SC/ST certificate for their kids for saving them from competition. At least in urban areas, we must increase the weight for economical conditions and lessen it for social conditions.

In the time where Narendra Modi (Extreme backward class), Mulayam Singh Yadav (OBC), Akhilesh Yadav (OBC), Nitish Kumar (OBC), Uma Bharti (OBC) are acting or acted as Chief Ministers of different states, it can be inferred that social factors are not that much dominating today (at least in urban areas).  We should make economic divisions within the quota system to target the people living miserable life. Also the quota must be divided on the lines of ratio of State population of OBC, SC and ST to the country’s population for the same . But then the question comes- “Who will bell the Cat and lose vote bank “?

It is not like that government never took a step for the empowerment of poor people. National Rural Employment Guarantee Program was launched for providing employment in rural areas, but then Corruption and inefficacy are two inevitable of Indian society. According to latest CAG report, only 30% of approved works (worth Rs 1.26 lakh crores) were completed in last 5 years. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which are often seen demanding for special packages on account of their backwardness, were at the bottom with completing only 20% work. They are well teamed by our financial capital -Maharashtra, a state where 54,000 farmers committed suicide since 1995.

The latest development is passing the bill for FDI in retail. Many are held with the misconception that- 65% of our population depends on agriculture and FDI will directly help farmers => welfare of 65% population and also consumer will get goods at lower price. The fact is only 8% of Indian population are cultivators. Depending on agriculture and being cultivators are two different things. We are already having a weak industrial sector (contributes only 26% to GDP). FDI in retail may prove itself to be a nightmare for manufacturing sector of India. Also we will make our economy more vulnerable to the changes in foreign economies.  In developed countries, Industrial sector contributes maximum part of GDP. Just in a hurry for getting some fascinating Growth numbers, we must not travel back in time.

My point here is, we have already seen an example set by Dr. Verghese Kurien by establishing Amul. We could have selected some cities for pilot projects. Using the formula of Public Private Partnership, we could have done the same what Walmart will do while saving the interests of our people.
A brainstorming session is our intellectuals is the need of the hour. Just making policies will not suffice. People will be able to come over vicious circle of poverty when they will be given proper education and employment. Making populist decisions of giving huge subsidies (upcoming Food Security Bill) will just make them burden over the country and will carry forward poverty to next generation. As the standard of living will improve, social evils like Casteism will also be eradicated.

In a rosy picture, we are termed as a beehive, but if proper measures are not taken we will be more like a buzz of flies. Hope some proper bills will come soon for empowerment of poor independent of vote bank politics and end this culture of making the poor poorer.

P.S. - These are only some of the factors responsible and an introduction to the problems. Much can be written over the topic. Please share your views regarding the same. I will try to mention them in my next post. Thanks for reading.

I asked Govind whose call was that. He smiled and asked the waiter to serve the dinner, as we had finished the starters. I could notice his over-joyous face, his bright eyes. After taking a deep breath, “It was Chief Content Writer of Tripads, the best travel agency based in India.. Whooooaaaa!” He was on cloud 9. I was happy for him too, the guy deserved it long time.

After the dinner, he dropped me at my home and left. Since then I started thinking of how really it all started, how Govind found his way as a Traveler, the big one; his hobby became his passion, his writing and presentation skills added in to make him what he is now, one of the finest travelogue writer.

Just recalled the day when he told me about his plan to cover whole India with his bicycle. There was more to it. He told me that he’d be covering every corner of this great country in his path, he’ll document every tiny bit, he’ll share the photographs in his path and ofcourse the videos of all kind to showcase the richness of this country before world. I was in a way scared, in other way thrilled. He talked about living his dreams, he talked about living his life. I remember him reciting this line of a one of the finest travelogue writers Rahul Sankrityayan:

सैर कर दुनिया की गाफ़िल, ज़िन्दगानी फ़िर कहाँ।
ज़िन्दगानी गर रही तो, नौजवानी फ़िर कहाँ।।

I could not manage to be with him in his journey and he started from Srinagar, as he scheduled it. From his 2nd day onwards I could see his blog was updated, his first post was about hospitality of Kashmir. Days passed and so he did continue his journey.

His blog was a super-duper hit. His facebook page reached a milestone of 2+ Lacs fans in his 96 days of journey and still counting. His videos went viral. On his return, 2 days back, we had a huge party. I was excited to listen to him, every piece of it. His phone didn’t stop ringing any time from his well-wishers. And then he and I got some time to talk alone, the very first question that I had in mind, I fired right away, “How did you manage all those things out there? Photos, blog-posts, videos apart from cycling and staying in all those whole new places!”

He smiled and showed me his weapon, weapon of mass attraction. It was his laptop. I was not convinced, even I had one but I can’t imagine myself doing those stuffs so cleanly and on time. He knew I was confused, so he started illustrating everything and I was just “:O”, “Oh! It can do that too :O”

It was simple Microsoft Office. Oh, I need to correct it – MicroSoft Office 365 it was. I trusted its look and got deceived, I expected any such framework to be too complex for any home user to understand but Govind took it to next level. He used it like kid’s play.

“All you need to do is write any article in MicroSoft Office 365 Word, like you might be doing in its earlier versions and you can post it to your blog any time and by that I mean Any Time. This also enables you to save your documents in its cloud, which you can access from anywhere, any machine.” he added. I knew he meant you can schedule it to any future date/time.

I asked him again, “What is good in it, even I can do that. I can save it as a draft on my website’s space, what’s the big deal.” Then he replied like a sincere person, “You’re not wrong buddy but can all types of documents be saved on your webspace’s draft and to what limit? See, I had to travel from places to places. I had to create different documents even when my laptop wasn’t charged, but I could find any other computer easily. Cloud service enabled me with the facility to handle my documents from anywhere, whether office is installed on that machine or not, I have my own space at SkyDrive whose size is 25 GB, can you believe that?”

I was amazed but try not to pretend that I was, “Ok! Ok! what’s next?”

“You know, when you’re travelling you need to have contacts.” he said.
“Oh Contacts! भाई का नाम ले लियो कहीं भी, चुटकियों में काम हो जाएगा मेरे दोस्त। (Give my reference at any place and find yourself in the comfortable zone)” I instructed him with proud.
“So how would I contact your contacts if I had no phone around me? Even how would I contact you then?” he sarcastically said.
I had a question mark on my forehead. “What the hell are you talking about man?” I had to say.
“You know I lost my phone in the journey and that I was horrified, I won’t be able to retrieve those contacts and will fail to make it till the end, but not for too long. I had my savior with me; Lync. It had all my contacts synced and when I needed them most they were there for me. Oh God! what a relief it was ” he explained.

I was now convinced with the usability of this product but don’t know what entered into Govind that he kept on explaining about Office 365.

He added more to that, “You know, you can even create your website using this awesome product of Bill Gate’s company.”

“I had my office with me every time” he was not going to be stopped at that. “I was not the only one to write those blog-posts  I had my cousin who also writes, I shared some of the documents with her and she did her work perfectly. Ofcourse she needed not to send it but sync the document in the cloud only with SharePoint.”

When he ended his sentence I wanted to hug someone, “Oh Yes! This is the one thing I was looking, hell yeah!”  I shouted.

“Cool buddy, cool! Hold your breath. There is more. You know I was able to view all your updates on facebook. I noticed every single move you made, every single girl you befriend (or followed in most of the cases) .” he laughed hard and I had my mouth open. How? How can anyone do so many things in remote areas, using so less resources.

He wasn’t going to stop, “I even chatted on video with a lot of persons, friends while traveling; all thanks to Office 365. It was able to IM any of my contacts. It can’t be better man! I had mailbox installed in the cloud itself, and ofcourse with 100% security of my data Sir Ji.”

I was thrilled by Office 365 at the moment more than what he had done in last 96 days.

I don’t know much about what I’m gonna do next except the fact that I’m going to subscribe the office 365. After some research on internet, I found its per month cost is less than that of watching movie twice in a month. Obviously I don’t need to search for its features and benefits any more, I’m already getting more than what I expected. Office 365! you rock!

p.s.- This post is written for Office 365, an insanely awesome and way beyond expected, user friendly app. Do try!

They teach you
to celebrate, to behave
to react, to hold your breath
to follow your dreams
They teach you
to live your life
the king size.

On a sad note,
at times they might depress you,
the way you expect them to treat you.
At times you might be wrong in
understanding them; completely.
People move on, people!
If you’re lucky,
you might find good people!

P.S. – Its not a poem, take line breaks as small pauses.

इतने रंग दुनिया में, कि मैं रंगों से डरने लगा
अंधेरे में था अच्छा भला, चकाचौंध से डरने लगा

सोचा था कि कुछ न करूँ, अब सिवा आराम के
पर ! कुछ नया करने का विचार फिर घर करने लगा

मैं भी चला था अपनी,एक नई राह बनाने को
थोडा चलते ही बुज़ुर्गों के तज़ुर्बों से चलने लगा

जिसे भुला चुका था, ज़िंदगी के गलियारों में
वही हमराह अब मेरी आँखों में बसने लगा

बस डूबने को ही था ज़िंदगी के भ्ंवर में
कि एक तिनके सा सहारा पाकर तरने लगा

मेरी आवाज़ तुझ तक तो पहुँचती है,
कभी फ़रियाद तो कभी इन्कलाब बनकर,
सितम ढाने की आदत पुरानी तुम्हारी,
कभी खुदा तो कभी मसीहा बनकर।

पर लोग भी तो खुद को कमजोर करते हैं,
तुम्हारे सितम को अपनी किस्मत समझ कर,
तुम्हारे ज़ुल्मों को ज़मानों ने देखा,
कभी आँख खोले तो कभी आँखें बन्द कर।

दुनिया के रहनुमाओं कुछ सवाल हैं तुमसे,
क्यूँ चाहते हो तुम कि जियें सभी तड़पकर?
क्या मुश्किल बहुत है इन्सान रहना?
क्या आसान है जीना शैतान बनकर?

जगाओ सभी को कि हर जगह रोशनी हो,
ज़िन्दगी हो मयस्सर नहीं मौत बनकर।
मेरी आवाज़ ना हो कल तो परवाह न करना,
मेरी सोच सच बोलेगी, मेरी ज़ुबान बनकर।

सामर्थ्य -अधिकार मेरा नभ पे होना
मैंने पोथी डॉट कॉम की सहायता से प्रकाशित की है

सामर्थ्य का फेसबुक पेज 

सामर्थ्य की प्रवेशिका जो की एक कविता है
मै आपके सामने रखता हूँ

” मन के लिए कविता हैं”

वो पूछते हैं
कविताओ मे क्या हैं
पैसा हैं ईनाम हैं
या नाम हैं बहुत
रोटी मिलेगी घर चलेगा
चूल्हा जलेगा
भूख मिटाएगी कविता
या प्यास बुझाएगी कविता
प्रियशी के लिए तोहफे मे
क्या लाएगी कविता

मै मानता हूँ
ये रोटी और दाल नहीं देगी
तन पे कपड़ा
पसीना पोछने को रुमाल नहीं देगी

वैसे तो मै भी कमा लेता हूँ
चार पैसे
दौड़ता हूँ खटता हूँ
धूल खाता हूँ
बरसात भीगता हूँ
दुनिया समझती हैं मशीन मुझे
सुबह मशीन बन
पेट की खातिर
ईंधन जुटाता हूँ
रात कविता करता हूँ
इंसान हो जाता हूँ
जैसे तन के लिए रोटी सुविधा हैं
मन के लिए कविता हैं

: शशिप्रकाश सैनी

जब बात फ़ैलेगी, तुझ तक भी पहुँच जाएगी,
पर अफ़सोस कि तब तक देर बहुत हो जाएगी।
तेरे दीवाने की चर्चा खूब होगी तेरी ही महफ़िल में,
फ़साना गुज़रे सालों का तू उस दिन जान जाएगी।
वक़्त का खेल उस पल में होगा कुछ ऐसा,
आँसू पलकों पे होंगे पर आँख तेरी रो ना पाएगी।
ऐसे चोट खा कर भी सम्भला फ़िर कैसे वो,
न जाने आज कैसा है, किसी से पूछ आएगी।
तेरे काँपते होठों का सबब लोग पूछेंगे,
तू लाख जो चाहे उन्हें समझा ना पाएगी।
मिले जो गर कभी हम तुम्हें अन्जान राहों पर,
शायद तू वहाँ भी यूँ ही आँखें चुराएगी।
तेरे इश्क़ से मशहूर पर तुझसे मीलों दूर,
एक वीरान मेला है जहाँ एक दिन तू आएगी।
तेरे इतने करम मुझपर किसी को क्या बताऊँ मैं,
मेरे बाद खामोशी गवाही दे के जाएगी।

सपनों की उँगलियाँ पकड़े,
बहुत दूर निकल आये हम।
ग़ुमराह चलते चलते,
मन्ज़िल से मिल आये हम।
ज़मीन आसमानी और हवा भी थी रंगीन,
अनोखा नज़ारा बंद आँखों से देख आये हम।
मेरी ही बातें और सोच भी मुझ सी,
एक शख्श हू-बहू मुझ सा, उससे रूबरू हो आये हम।
ना ज़माने का पहरा, ना शर्तों का चेहरा,
सुकून क्या होता है, वहाँ जान पाये हम।
पर आँखों के खुलते ही ओझल हुआ वो,
शहर था वो पूरा,जिसे छोड़ आये हम।
कदम लड़खड़ाते और आँखो को मूँदे,
ये कैसै थी दुनिया, जहाँ आज आये हम।

—–
नेत्रेश निर्मल