August 2015 Archives

What Judicial Responsibility Must Mean in the Age of the Death Penalty

Courts should realise that as long as there is life, there is room for reform, and that justice without delay provides better closure to victims than execution after decades

Cellular Jail gallows. Credit: Ankur P/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

The phrase “judicial responsibility” means not just the responsibility to uphold the law; it means the overarching responsibility to do justice. In Glossip v. Gross—which came up before the United States Supreme Court recently— a group of prisoners on death row in Oklahoma contended that the method of execution now used by the state violated the Eighth Amendment (which bars ‘cruel and unusual punishment’) because it creates an unacceptable risk of severe pain. They lost. Five judges did not agree with them. Speaking for the minority of four, Justices Sotomayor and Breyer wrote dissenting opinions. Breyer spoke of judicial responsibility after listing out the factors which argue against death penalty. They are the lack of reliability, arbitrary application of the sentence, delay, lack of penological purpose. You can find these in any country where the law provides for death penalty, not least in India.

Rather than trying to “patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a time,” said Breyer, “I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution.”

We in India need to ask the same question.

Not by death alone

Which is the right time to speak about the morality and correctness of death penalty? When a convict is facing the gallows and there are last minute reviews or pleas for pardon with the media going full blast about the bestiality of the crime and the victims praying for justice, the climate is surcharged. Not the right time. Once the convict is executed, there are human rights activists shouting that India has a black mark and others asking then what about the human rights of the deceased/s; the media is milking the moment to the last drop. Not the right time. When nothing is happening, no death row prisoner is waiting for the noose, the climate is calm, and no one is interested. Not the right time. So when do we engage the public with the question of whether a civilised society should take lives in the name of the people? That is what the state does, when it executes the death sentence.

“Choose life and then you and your descendants shall live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Choose Life. This is the title of a book which records the dialogue between Daisaku Ikeda and Arnold Toynbee during the years 1972-1974 covering a wide range of issues including the death penalty. Ikeda says, “I feel that life, as an absolute entity worthy of the profoundest respect, must never be treated as a means of achieving anything other than life itself. The dignity of life is an end in itself.” Toynbee responds “No human being has a moral right to deprive another human being of his life.” Someone may ask what if that human being deprived other human beings of their lives, then what? Surely we are not in junior class shouting, “But he beat me first, Miss!” Yes, the convict took away lives and is guilty of murder. That is precisely why we are discussing the death penalty in the first place.

The death penalty is irreversible. The Innocence Project is a non-profit organization which demonstrates by DNA testing the “judicial errors” in death row cases. If an error is proved beyond doubt but the execution has been carried out, how does one compensate the ‘victims’ of judicial process? The executed cannot be resurrected. The executed cannot be reformed.

In 2000, the Madras High Court (Justice Sirpurkar and I) heard an appeal against the death penalty. A school-girl was raped and murdered by three persons. It was a sensational case. The trial court found it to be a case of the ‘rarest of rare’ and sentenced them to death. We commuted the sentence to life. I received several letters asking me if I was a woman, since the deceased was a victim of sexual violence. There was no platform from where I could say that we had not acquitted the accused, but we had commuted the sentence, for valid reasons regarding the circumstances of the accused. Sometime in 2014, I read a news item about a project in Tamil Nadu conducting courses for prisoners to rehabilitate and equip them with life skills. Among the life-term prisoners who had secured gold medals and state ranks was the first accused in the above case. This is not submitted as an argument against the death penalty, but as an argument for upholding the right to life. The state punishes not only as a deterrent, but to reform too.

Random justice

There are many reports of studies in the US which indicate that the factors that circumstances that ought not to affect the imposition of the death penalty—such as race, gender or geography—often do. In India too, such extraneous factors affect the application of the death penalty. Count the number of persons who can afford the best legal counsel and have gone to the gallows and you will have your answer. Then is it judicially responsible to apply such a random game-changer when it comes to life and death?

The Coimbatore bomb blast is a classic case in which death penalty could have been awarded. Nineteen bombs exploded in the city on February 14, 1998, resulting in the deaths of 58 persons and injuries to 250 persons and huge loss to private and public properties. In all, 166 persons faced trial but the court did not sentence even one to death. Revisions were filed seeking enhancement of sentence. They were dismissed. The trial court had given very responsible reasons for not giving the death penalty though the public prosecutor had pleaded that this was a most fitting case for capital punishment. The court said that none of the accused was granted bail during the trial and this deprived them of securing the best legal counsel and collecting all the relevant materials to support their case. The long period in jail resulted in internal friction amongst the accused themselves which again was counter-productive to their conducting the case. The manner in which witnesses were examined and the cross-examination conducted had also caused prejudice. Only a few of the advocates who appeared for the accused had given their best to defend them. The accused had pleaded that the offence was a result of the sense of isolation they felt and the consequent loss of faith in the system. These circumstances weighed with the trial court. Each one of the reasons is an aspect of fair and equal access to justice—ensuring which is undeniably the responsibility of every judge. I was one of the judges who heard the appeals before the Madras High Court and hence my familiarity with the facts.

In the Naroda Patiya judgment, the trial court explained why the death penalty was not given. If there was a case which the court could have easily called the rarest of rare it was this. Yet the judge cited the rights of those on death row, the restricted use of the death penalty in a progressive society, and the fact that use of the death penalty undermines human dignity, to support her decision not to grant capital punishment.

Choosing life

Both cases—Coimbatore and Naroda Patiya— are scarred by the death of innocent victims. No one was awarded the death penalty and both the trial judges gave reasons for their decisions. But in similar cases, the death penalty has been awarded. This means there is an inconsistency in sentencing even in cases where numerous persons have been killed.

There are the victims who demand justice. It is allegedly to assuage their feelings that society insists on the death penalty. In a 1985 Stanford Law Review article, Lynne Henderson has written [PDF], “Common assumptions about crime victims—that they are all “outraged” and want revenge and tougher law enforcement—underlie much of the current victim’s rights rhetoric. But in light of the existing psychological evidence, these assumptions fail to address the experience and real needs of past victims.”

According to her study, the promise of an execution offered only a seemingly appealing mechanism to assign blame and to channel rage. Actually the crime victims felt that the endless repetition of their stories, the formal legal rules, and the years lost between appeals only served to increase stress and delay healing. Then is it only the “Roman crowd” which seeks a vicarious taste of blood?

In Justice: What is the Right Thing To Do?, Michael Sandel wonders if morality does not mean “something to do with the proper way for human beings to treat one another.” Toynbee and Ikeda agree that human life as an entity deserves absolute respect. Sandel asks “Is morality a matter of counting lives and weighing costs and benefits, or are certain moral duties and human rights so fundamental that they rise above such calculations?” The Right to Life is not a subject-to right. It is fundamental because it is life which is fundamental.

In times of death penalty, I believe courts should close their ears to the ambient din. While hearing the case with all the patience at their command, courts must remember that the right to life rises above weighing costs and benefits, that as long as there is life, there is room for reform, that justice without delay provides better closure to victims than execution after decades, that every system is fallible and life is too precious to hang on to a fallible process. So it is better to be responsible and to Choose Life.

Prabha Sridevan is a former judge of the Madras High Court

History Needs Informed Debate, Not the Erasure of Aurangzeb to Install Kalam

A man who should be commemorated with a museum of science for children has been fobbed off with a road-sign.

A man who should be commemorated with a museum of science for children has been fobbed off with a road-sign

A young Prince Aurangzeb facing Sudhakar the elephant. 1633 painting. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

So all those who live on Aurangzeb Road will now have to get new letterheads, and postmen will have to be taught where Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road is. Given the significance invested in naming, it makes one pause to recall how often one has seen the former President being called Abul Kalam (the “Master of Conversation”) rather than the “Servant of the Word”—Abdul Kalam.

Why was Aurangzeb there in the first place? And how do place names relate to history and our imagination of our cities? Delhi has a millennium of history, and many place names go back a long way. New Delhi has many points of difference with Delhi, and one is in place names. Shahjahanabad has galis named for individuals who had havelis there, while mohallas were often named for the dominant trade or occupation of the neighbourhood. Even these were not necessary when giving directions. The writer Intezar Husain, now in Pakistan, told me where his home in Delhi had been, “Woh gali jahaan aam ka ped hai” (‘the lane where there is a mango tree’).

New Delhi was designed by British architects and engineers, and each street had bungalows of a standard design and size, was lined by a particular species of tree, and as in Britain, was thought to need a name.

Historic highways—Qutab Road and Mathura Road—were not renamed, but the New Delhi that lay between them became a record of rulers of the subcontinent. “Many of the streets have been given the names of historical characters in the history of India,” wrote Percival Spear, one of the first teachers of history in Delhi University, in Delhi: Its Monuments and History, which he wrote for children in 1943. “Look at the names of the streets” he urged, “and see if you know anything about the names given”. He himself had been asked to suggest names of figures in Indian history for these streets. A fun way of learning these might have been to take schoolchildren on walks in New Delhi in the winter sunshine, to tick off Prithviraj or Wellesley or Shahjahan in their books.

In the late 19th century, children in Britain and in India learned history as political history. The monotony was relieved by the adjectives—Ivan was ‘the Terrible’, Peter was ‘the Great’. So in Indian history we had Ashoka and Akbar as ‘Great’. No one was ‘the Terrible’, but Aurangzeb and Curzon were described in terms so unfavourable as to be just as damning. My hunch is that it was because both of them became unpopular in their own court—in Curzon’s case with his Commander-in-Chief Kitchener—just as Mohammed Tughlaq had a bad press because of the hostility of some members of the court.

Of them all, Aurangzeb has received the most attention. Any mishap could be blamed on him—even a swarm of bees in a well in a Bihar village was confidently attributed by a little girl to Aurangzeb. He is like the kuttichathu of Malayalis—responsible for anything that went wrong. So our New Delhi Municipal Councillors have, in their wisdom, decided to exorcise him from the streets of the Capital. In doing so, they have treated Abdul Kalam Sahib shabbily—a man who should be commemorated with a museum of science for children has been fobbed off with a road-sign!

“There were requests from certain sections of the society for changing the name of the road as a tribute to the former President,” PTI quoted NDMC vice-chairman Karan Singh Tanwar as saying on Friday. “The matter was placed before the council today, which unanimously gave a go ahead for the same.”

Informed debate should be the material of history, neither hero stones nor erasure. History teachers may think street names do not matter. Maybe they do not look at the sky or see the straws in the wind.

Narayani Gupta is an author and historian of Delhi

Get Wired 28/6: Ambani’s Defence Contract, Bihar’s RTPS, Bose’s Secrets, and More

Get up to speed on the day’s top news.

Russia selects Reliance Defence & Aerospace to build helicopters

The Russian government has selected a company owned by Anil Ambani, Reliance Defence and Aerospace, for a joint venture to manufacture 200 units of Kamov 226T helicopters. The order for the helicopters is valued at around $1 billion. According to sources, RDA will have a majority 51% stake in the JV while the Russian government will hold the remaining 49%.

Give all citizens reservations or abolish system completely: Hardik Patel

Standing at the vanguard of the movement in Gujarat for quotas for the Patel community, Hardik patel told the Hindustan Times that he wants to bring about change to the system through “dabanghai” or aggression. Mob violence in Gujarat as a result of his demands, have left 10 people dead. Patel further went on to state that the only contemporary politician he respects is Raj Thackeray. The Patels account for 12-15% of Gujarat’s population and have warned the ruling BJP of adverse electoral consequences if their demand for OBC status isn’t met. V. Hanumantha Rao, Congress Rajya Sabha member and convener of the parliamentary forum for OBCs since 2002 expressed his concerns, alleging it was a conspiracy to “finish off OBC reservations in this country”.

An inter-religious relationship gets students suspended

In keeping with the worrying hike in communal tensions in Mangaluru, two students from a college in Sullia-60 km from Mangalore- were suspended for being in a relationship despite being from different communities this Thursday. Students of the college had submitted a petition and demanded that action be taken a few days ago, following which protests began which led to police intervention. The Principal of the college defended his actions saying, “We had to do this to bring the situation under-control. The protesting students had disrupted the functioning of the college for the past few days”. The suspension of the students comes a week after the incident where a muslim boy was tied to a pole and beaten.

Law Commission says death penalty should be kept for terror only

India is one of 59 countries where the death penalty is still awarded by courts. The Law Commission has reversed its earlier stance in a 272-page report that calls for the speedy removal of the death penalty except in cases concerning terrorism. The report is reportedly going to be submitted to the Supreme Court and the Government either this weekend or on Monday the 31st of August. The commission has observed that, “the penalty has no demonstrated utility in deterring crime or incapacitating offenders, any more than its alternative, imprisonment for life”. The report further states that, “there exists no principled method to remove such arbitrariness from capital sentencing” and that not only is its arbitrary and uncertain, it is “applied disparately and disproportionately against socially and economically marginalised groups, reflecting systemic biases and structural disadvantages”. The commission in its 35th report in 1962 had recommended the retention of the death penalty.

Arvind Kejriwal says Delhi Government wants to emulate Bihar’s RTPS

As Bihar inches closer to Assembly polls, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal travelled to Patna on Thursday and lent his support to Nitish Kumar, calling him a good administrator during a state government function. Kejriwal also called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his recent “DNA test” jibe and suggested that he was trying to “buy out” the people of Bihar with his special package. Kejriwal attended a government function to celebrate the implementation of the Right to Public Services (RTPS) Act, and stated the Delhi government planned to emulate Bihar’s successful RTPS model that had benefitted about 11 crore people. At the function he also accused the BJP of deliberately hampering the functioning of the Delhi government.

BJP functionaries on National Commission for Women panel

Despite the unresolved controversy around appointments at the Film and Television Institute of India, the government has appointed two BJP functionaries as members of the National Commission for Women. Rekha Sharma was a district secretary and media in-charge in Haryana when PM Narendra Modi was in charge of the state, and Sushma Sahu till recently was BJP’s Mahila Morcha chief in Bihar.

India eliminates maternal and neonatal tetanus

Cases of neonatal tetanus have been reduced to less than one case per 1000 live births across the country. The World Health Organisation (WHO) validated these figures this Thursday and added India to the list of countries that have successfully battled the disease. “This is a huge achievement for India which until a few decades ago reported 150,000 to 200,000 neonatal tetanus cases annually,” said Poonam Khetrapal, WHO regional director for South-East Asia Singh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the achievement by stating that the validation came much before the desired target of December 2015.

Senior ministers and top RSS officials to meet next week

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh brass will meet with representatives from over three dozen of its affiliates, including the BJP, in Delhi next week for “coordination and exchange of notes.” Sources indicated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi might also be present in one of the sessions. RSS affiliates suggested that discussions on education, security, economy and culture may be held and concerned ministers may be required to be present and exchange notes with the delegates.

PMO refuses to declassify files on Subhash Chandra Bose

Testifying before the Central Information Commission this Wednesday, the Prime Ministers Office said that while it held the files related to Netaji it would not declassify them, citing Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act that allows the government to withhold information disclosure of which would prejudicially affect relations with foreign states, it would not release the files. The PM had earlier in April this year, met grandnephew Surya Bose in Berlin and promised to examine the request for declassification of all files concerning the death or disappearance of Netaji on August 18, 1945. The CIC has has however, reserved its order.

Army and police capture another terrorist alive in J&K

According to an army official the terrorist was captured alive in an encounter in Rafiabad on August 26. Sajjad Ahmed, the arrested terrorist, was identified as a 22-year-old from Muzaffargarh in southwest Pakistan. In two successive encounters this Wednesday and Thursday, 4 terrorists and 1 soldier were killed. The capture comes just three weeks after some civilians nabbed Naved, a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist from Pakistan, after he and his associate attacked a BSF convoy on August 5th in the Chenani area of Udhampur district.

Jingoism So Mindless It Will Leave Even Flag Wavers Cold

Is Kabir Khan blowing hot and cold, first getting soppy about Indo-Pak ties in Bajrangi Bhaijaan and then setting out to teach them a lesson in Phantom, a bit like our foreign policy, shaking hands one day and a few weeks later refusing to even talk?

Just about two months ago, Kabir Khan was the toast of both audiences and critics with Bajrangi Bhaijaan, a film with a heart. With its naïf hero and its cute as a button kiddo star, the film was nevertheless political. It pleased Indian and Pakistanis alike, an admirable achievement, considering that Pakistanis complain of being reduced to caricatures in Bollywood movies.

Now comes Phantom, replete with some very problematic jingoism of the most juvenile kind, somewhat like a mindless video game that allows young, hormonally charged adolescents to get off by gunning down targets. The problem is the film takes itself much too seriously. This flaw could be overlooked if the film at least kept the viewer engrossed; instead it is listless and fails to even evoke rah-rah patriotism. Some Pakistanis are said to be upset that Khan has now resorted to bashing their country; they shouldn’t, because no one else is going to take this seriously for half a minute.

So is Kabir Khan blowing hot and cold, first getting soppy about Indo-Pak ties and then setting out to teach them a lesson, a bit like our foreign policy, shaking hands one day and a few weeks later refusing to even talk to them. What is he up to?

You can tell it is a Kabir Khan film by one or many of the following features—a political angle, strong Muslim characters (more often than not in situations that allow them to be patriotic), story lines that refer to current affairs, international locations, good looking characters and smart camera work. All these are drawn from his experience as a film maker which took him all over the world to make documentaries. Sometimes, he gets the mix right – his first effort, Kabul Express showed he was a cut above many of his Bollywood peers, the kinds who invested much more in the stunts than in a good story. Occasionally, the weak script of a Kabir Khan movie is elevated by a star with fantastically high wattage, like Salman Khan, who turned an improbable story like Ek Tha Tiger into a runaway hit. All the above mentioned boxes got ticked in that film too. It is therefore fair to ask if Kabir Khan has made five films or one film five times.

Yet with Phantom, the same combination of ingredients collapses like a very poorly made soufflé. Nothing comes together—not the stars, who have not a milligram of frisson between them, not the locations that are poorly exploited (barring some scenes in ‘Pakistan’), nor the plot, that has weak links that look fragile to the viewer and not even, ironically, the flag waving. Not for a minute did this writer – nor anyone else in the poorly filled theatre on the very first day – applaud even once during those cringe-making speeches about taking revenge for the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. There is just no redemption or catharsis, much less vicarious closure.

The story, based on a novel by crime writer Husain Zaidi is simple enough—a disgraced soldier of the Indian army is sent out to kill the masterminds of the attack who (mostly) roam free with impunity. India cannot do anything to get at them – “all we do is play cricket”, says Clean Cut Patriot to his bosses in RAW. “Look at America,” probably referring to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Handled well, this could become a sharp political drama; here it is little more than a short debate between Boring Looking Minister and Colourless RAW Chief, following which the latter decides to send off Daniyal Khan, the Phantom, who has been hiding on a snowy mountain to work off his angst (reminiscent of Rambo and many other characters).

In London, he meets Mannequin Who Looks Gorgeous and also Speaks, Nawaz Mistry, possibly the first non-caricatured Parsi character in a mainstream Hindi film. She works for a security consultancy Dark Water (bravo researchers) and gets 10,000 quid for pointing out a Pakistani who has settled in London after getting his face reshaped. He is soon despatched to his maker.

Next is David Coleman Headley in a Chicago prison, where Daniyal is jailed too. Cue several montages of Daniyal watching Headley working out his routine. (The film is big on montages). Headley too is killed off when a toxic chemical gets sprayed on to his body via the shower.

After which its off to Pakistan to get the big one, Hafiz Saeed himself, except that he is called Hariz Saeed, which is a bit odd since Headley was named in the film. Here the film picks up some speed. The coming together of the plot to assassinate him, though stretching credibility, is full of small human touches to the story which otherwise was getting sunk under its own deadweight and a few explosions.

Sadly, for a man who made Bajrangi Bhaijaan with its unusual story, Phantom is cliché central, with inspiration drawn from scores of Hollywood blockbusters. Saif Ali Khan had a somewhat similar role in Agent Vinod, where he seemed to be having a fun time; here he has dialled in his performance. It’s not his fault; he doesn’t really know who he is supposed to be—the man trying to get back into favour with the army, a professional on an assignment, or – and this is hinted so barely that it never sinks in – a son wanting to win his father’s respect.

Kabir Khan has used Katrina in several movies; her weaknesses must be apparent to him now. Plainly speaking, she has a problem emoting. Ironically, hers is the better written role, but it is way beyond her reach to interpret it.

As for the ending, I will only say this: I was really surprised that the director did not put in a shot or two of the Prime Minister, an edited montage of the Republic Day parade and the national anthem. Maybe that would have got the punters fired up.

What Pakistan and India Can Do About Each Other

Instead of articulating “core concerns” in a manner calculated to be unacceptable to the other side, the two countries should adopt strategies and road maps that make it possible to address each other’s concerns.

Instead of articulating “core concerns” in a manner calculated to be unacceptable to the other side, the two countries should adopt strategies and road maps that make it possible to address each other’s concerns

The India and Pakistani flags at Wagah. Credit: My Past/Flick CC BY 2.0

India-Pakistan relations, despite their arguably existential importance for both countries—they are, after all, nuclear weapons powers—have become the world’s most boring diplomatic story. The vast majority of their populations eke out an existence around or below any meaningful poverty line. Yet their respective governments succeed only in bringing out the worst in each other and keeping their public opinion belligerent, stupid and utterly uninformed towards to each other. And we hope to make South Asia a 21^st Century success story!

The recent fiasco surrounding the scheduled meeting of the two National Security Advisers was just another mind-numbing chapter of a tale fashioned by idiots. But then India-Pakistan relations are a universe unaffected by the laws of rationality or anything close to a scientific temper. Mutually exclusive mindsets and narratives are designed to ensure never-ending zero-sum games. These are amazingly won by both sides without the two of them ever approaching a win-win situation. That is consummate diplomatic and political artistry – our gift to each other wrapped in nuclear foil.

Mutually exclusive narratives

Since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister he has sought to “reshape New Delhi’s terms of engagement with Islamabad.” This requires Pakistan to drop the issue of a Kashmir settlement from the India-Pakistan dialogue agenda, acknowledge that the Simla Agreement has superseded UN resolutions on Kashmir, and view engagement with the Hurriyat Conference as abetting terror in India. This narrative provides the parameters within which, according to New Delhi, India-Pakistan relations can move towards normalcy.

Pakistan insists on its own narrative. Kashmir is disputed territory, the UN resolutions mandating a plebiscite are still valid, Pakistan is an internationally recognized party for a Kashmir settlement in accordance with the expressed will of the Kashmiri people, the Simla Agreement does not supersede UN resolutions on Kashmir, the Kashmiri resistance against Indian occupation and repression is legally valid, similarly the Kashmiri people have the right to solicit assistance, including armed assistance, for their struggle to exercise their rights which have been denied by Indian repression, etc.

Neither party should make a change of current narratives a precondition for engagement. Pakistan sees its geographical location, its developing strategic relations with China and its own nuclear deterrence capability as sufficient guarantee against Indian military superiority and its accompanying policies of “defensive offence” and “cold start.”

The clash of narratives has been in existence for decades. Modi’s attempts to resolve it through muscular and kinetic diplomacy is not likely to succeed. Nor is Pakistan’s strategy of seeking a solution through controlled escalation within the parameters of “no war, no peace”, under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence.

India’s calculation

India is currently banking on the progressive weakening of Pakistan’s resolve to bear the costs of its strategy towards Kashmir and India. This could well happen if Pakistan continues to fail to govern itself competently and, accordingly, allows India a whole range of options to exacerbate its several internal crises. Should, however, Pakistan succeed in significantly resolving these domestic challenges and also in normalising its relations with Afghanistan and building upon its strategic relationship with China, it will be very difficult for India to exacerbate Pakistan’s internal situation or to browbeat it into accepting dictated terms of bilateral engagement.

Even in these more promising conditions, Pakistan would need to recognise its inability to compel India to accept what it is not willing to. In other words, zero-sum games between two unequal powers which have second strike nuclear capabilities against each other are futile. They merely impose cumulative costs which even the smaller country, if well governed, can withstand through regional diplomacy and balanced development.

The Ufa joint statement of July 2015 was badly drafted. It gave the impression in Pakistan that India had effectively restricted the bilateral agenda to issues relating to terror, fishermen and religious tourism. This was entirely due to Pakistan’s lack of preparation and consequent incompetence. India-Pakistan joint statements, especially at the highest level, are always political statements. Accordingly, Pakistan had to publicly “explain” the statement, especially the omission of any specific mention of Kashmir. India saw this as Pakistani “backsliding” from its Ufa commitments. The intensification of firing across the LoC after Ufa was interpreted by India as the military in Pakistan expressing its fury over Ufa and letting Nawaz Sharif know who the real boss is.

In turn, India has sought to show Pakistan who is boss. Accordingly, it articulated “preconditions” including a refusal to either discuss Kashmir during the NSAs meeting or accept any interaction between the Hurriyat leadership and the Pakistani NSA. Pakistan’s insistence that it would both take up Kashmir during the NSA talks and maintain its invitation to the APHC were seen by India as Pakistani “preconditions.” Pakistan’s ineptness at Ufa and its subsequent efforts to compensate for it on the one hand, and India’s determination to take full of advantage Pakistan’s blooper in Ufa doomed the talks. The two Prime Ministers displayed an unfortunate lack of imagination and leadership. They were either atrociously advised or they chose to ignore sensible professional advice.

Modi reportedly requested Sharif not to insist on a specific mention of Kashmir. Was there an implied quid pro quo? It was not made clear. After Ufa, panic and violence ensued. Maximum positions were publicly reiterated. Stupidity prevailed. Pessimism and skepticism continue unabated. Indo-Pakistan relations remain worrisome and ridiculous. Otherwise educated, informed and sensible people in both countries are reduced to talking arrant nonsense against each other.

Where do we go from here? The governments of both countries are simply unable or unwilling to entertain the “core concerns” of each other. These are articulated in a manner calculated to be unacceptable to each other. This requires great if inane skills, including the “manufacture” of mutually obnoxious public discourses. This is facilitated by historic and recent experience on the one hand, and the prevalence of short-sighted “elite” and vested interests on the other. Accordingly, even if realistic and sensible governments are in office in both countries, it would be a major challenge to implement and sustain realistic and sensible policies towards each other.

Time for a time out, and review

Is this a counsel of despair? Almost. Nevertheless, there is still a sliver of hope that civil society organisations in both countries can more effectively articulate and assert a more hopeful prospect. Track 1.5 and 2 discussions have so far not been up to the task. The “back-channel” talks during 2004-6 demonstrated concrete possibilities. But they took place in what I call “a submarine that could not surface” because important segments of public opinion on both sides were unprepared for compromise. Arrogant and adamant attitudes on the one hand, and incompetent and corrupt leadership on the other, have ensured against any prospect of a more enlightened, realistic and shared public discourse developing.

A complete review of India-Pakistan relations is called for in both countries based on the assumption that an improved and more predictable bilateral relationship—entailing a range of cooperation and compromise—is critically relevant to the achievement of their respective national priorities. On this basis they should adopt strategies and road maps to address whatever “core concerns” are expressed by the other side and to devise modalities for mutually satisfactory progress on them. This should include a mutually acceptable modality for the participation of all Kashmiri parties, including the Hurriyat, in delineating a roadmap towards a comprehensive compromise settlement that is more or less acceptable to all the concerned stake-holders.

By definition this cannot be a perfect solution. But even so, it may be a bridge too far for the current power structures of both countries. In that case, civil society organizations and committed individuals of goodwill, foresight and imagination must take up the slack. The stakes are just too high for Indians and Pakistanis to let opportunities be foreclosed by arrogant complacency and unintelligent adventurism. If we can get onto the right track we can begin to transform an utterly boring and dangerous tale into one of the most exciting and hopeful stories of this century. Do we have the moral imagination and policy stamina to do so?

Can India achieve great power status if the answer is no? Can Pakistan become a stable and prosperous democracy if the answer is no?

Ashraf Jehangir Qazi is a former Pakistani High Commissioner to India

Paying a High Price for Being From the North-East

If you are from the north-east and decide to visit a museum or a monument in mainstream India, it is likely that your citizenship will be questioned

Some might recall a news report on July 22 about a Naga student in Pune who visited a museum in the city only to be told that he would have to pay an entry fee reserved for foreigners. Like any Indian citizen would do in such a situation, our young friend from Paren in Nagaland flashed a document issued by a government authority – his driving license – at the ticket counter to prove he was an Indian citizen. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

The problem was in the eyes of the beholder, namely the person at the ticket counter who saw the Naga youth as a foreigner. The eyes of the student, on the other hand, mirrored a touching faith – some would say naivety – that a driving licence would suffice for him to enter a museum as an Indian at the Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum. It must have been his first time at a museum or a monument in ‘mainland’ India, else he would have known better.

Experience teaches most youngsters from the north-east that their driving licenses – unlike those of their counterparts from elsewhere in India – have a slim chance of facilitating their entry as Indians even in presumably better managed places like the Taj Mahal. Simply because those manning the gates have decided that Indians can’t have small eyes, high cheek bones and tongues that provide a different texture to Hindi words when they roll consonants and vowels – that is, unlike ‘mainstream’ India.

Why am I so sure of all this? Because, I’m speaking from experience. The first time, I was lucky. Two decades ago, a security guard at the entry gate of the Taj Mahal suddenly gripped my hand. He would not let me enter with a ticket that was rightfully meant for Indians. The gloating look on his face said it all – he had finally caught an errant foreigner denying India some precious dollars. It was quite a disappointment for him to learn that I was part of a national media team, the operative word being national. I let it pass, forgave him for his ignorance.

Two decades later – three months ago – I was jolted out of my comfort zone yet again when I was subjected to a similar situation, not once but twice. At Fatehpur Sikri I lashed out in Hindi at the ticket checker and demanded to meet his senior (by now I am an aggressive, car-honking Delhiite), expressed outrage and finally flashed my national press card.

I was allowed in but very reluctantly. It occurred to me that there has been no change in mindsets in the two decades that separate these harrowing incidents. This time I did offer the ticket checker some advice: “Zara apne desh ka naksha ek bar yaad kar lena. Is naukri me kaam aayega.” (Get a good look at the map of your country; it will help you in your job.)

Not schooled in diversity

But it is not just the ticket checker at a monument who requires such advice. So do the employees in places like Bangalore international airport. Here I was so confident that I had the necessary document – my passport – to silence all doubting Thomases about my so-called “un-Indian” looks. Even here I ran into an airline executive who kept insisting that I was required to fill an immigration form. Refusing point blank I asked her, “Do you want to see my passport?” She suddenly looked the other way, as if she had not heard me. I moved on.

And yet it is just not possible to ‘move on’.

The question is, how long can someone from the north-eastern region of India keep ‘moving on’ after facing such situations repeatedly? Witness the irony here: A young Indian from the north-east studying in another city, who wants to visit its cultural institutions in the area to explore the pulse of that region and culture, is actually exploring her sense of Indianness. But that simple desire can be converted by a guard or security personnel into a sharp probe questioning her very identity as an Indian! Airports that are supposed to represent modern impulses are equally open to becoming sites of prejudice.

The one response that all of us have in such situations is to question our education system and how it fails to enable a child to know the people of her country, the places they hail from, and the confluences and diversities in the ways of living that they exemplify. Or to inculcate zero tolerance for prejudice of any kind, for prejudice has a long shelf life indeed.

Nevertheless, there are other steps too that can and should be taken on an immediate basis, among them the all-important one of ensuring that the training of personnel working in public places – especially those dealing with the public – must be such that they are aware, and respectful, of the extent and diversity of this country. Be it cultural institutions and monuments or airports, all of them are seen to represent the ‘face’ of the nation as it were, so all the more reason to introduce some correctives.

On the face of it, being routinely mistaken for foreigners may seem a minor issue to many. But look at it another way: How can a government win the confidence of the people from the north-east region if they are routinely made to feel like outsiders and aliens in the rest of India?

What remains to be done

In fact the M.P Bezbaruah committee—constituted in the wake of the killing of 19-year-old Nido Tania at a Delhi market in January 2014—made several recommendations, among which were suggestions to avoid such incidents in public places.

The 78-page report made specific suggestions how to create awareness and promote understanding between people from the north-east and other parts of India. Though one of the suggestions specifically mentions the Delhi government—the Committee noted the highest number of cases of discrimination and attacks on people from the north-east happened in the Capital—it can actually be implemented in all states. The suggestion is that “It would go a long way if the Delhi Administration could examine the possibility of sensitising public service providers at the grassroots level, CISF personnel and other security personnel in Metro, etc. licensing authorities of various public services and so on.”

When Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced in January this year that his government would implement the Bezbaruah committee recommendations, he did refer to the need for advising universities and the NCERT to enhance the curriculum in a way that it educates students about the north-east and its history. It is an intervention that is needed to effect long-term change.

Singh also mentioned that the Culture, Tourism, and Information and Broadcasting ministries have been advised to conceptualise programmes toward the same end. Though the details of this suggestion indicate that his aim was to focus on immediate measures to create awareness about the region in the rest of India, it remained limited to steps such as organising festivals and film festivals around the theme of the north-east—something that governments in India normally fall back on without making much headway in bridging the gap. Instead, Singh could have focused on the need to train public service personnel.

Now the question is when will that suggestion travel from paper to the ground? Will it ever? Or is it time to issue a perpetual travel advisory to a north-easterner to carry a passport at all times when she moves out of Assam, Nagaland or any of the other five north-eastern states to other parts of India? If that’s the intention, it is time museums and monuments in the rest of India put up boards to that effect. It will save many north-easterners moments of embarrassment, shame and humiliation.

Gujarat Has Started the Process of Disowning Modi

Future historians may trace the political meltdown of Narendra Modi to the events this week in Ahmedabad and the rest of Gujarat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday appeals for peace in Gujarat, says violence does not benefit anybody. Credit: PTI Photo/TV Grab

Being the very smart man that he is, Narendra Modi will be the first to recognise — even if he does not acknowledge it publicly — that August 25, 2015, is the day when Gujarat finally started the process of disowning him. Future historians may even mark August 25 as the date when it all unravelled and the Modi political meltdown began. An over-statement? An exaggeration? A wishful fantasy?

Consider this: from March 2002 to August 24, 2015, nobody, and that means nobody, other than Narendra Modi had been able to collect a crowd of five lakh people in any part of Gujarat. The last time such a large-scale mobilisation took place was way back in the mid-1970s, during the days of the Navnirman Andolan. The August 25 congregation, right there in the heart of Ahmedabad, took place despite Modi’s wishes and his long-distance monitoring and micro-managing of everything political that goes on in Gujarat. And, not since 2002, has the Army been asked to come out in aid of the civil authority. Words in headlines like ‘curfew’, ‘police firing’, ‘deaths’ belonged to a bygone era, so we were told. The rockstar who mesmerised the suburban Gujaratis at Madison Square Garden has been upstaged by an upstart: a hitherto unknown Hardik Patel, who has the native Patels eating out of his hand.

It is ironic that only 10 days ago, on Independence Day, the Prime Minister was using that grand pulpit at the Red Fort to exhort us to beware of the danger of ‘casteism’ and communalism. And then, a few days later, he was in Gaya, Bihar, showering goodies and special packages on that “bimaru” state, singing songs of his own politics of development, and preaching against the vendors of caste politics such as Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav. Now, on his own home turf, the caste calculations and demands have erupted gloriously.

The backstory

There is a context to this Patel eruption. And, it is necessary to recall that context.

In 1981, it was the Patels of Khadia in downtown Ahmedabad who raised a violent voice against a new reservation regime. That agitation was directed at the newly elected Congress government, headed by Madhavsinh Solanki. The Congress had stormed back to power, riding on the KHAM strategy. The KHAM—Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis, and Muslims—inclusive promise had yielded massive electoral dividends and Gujarat’s political landscape was drastically re-arranged. The Patels were ejected from the commanding heights of Gujarat politics which they had occupied for many decades. In the 1985 Assembly elections, the Congress repeated its performance, consolidating its political dominance. The Patels again soon found an excuse to raise their voice against ‘reservation’. This resentment among the upper castes, especially the Patidars, was easily shoehorned into the new Hindutva project. Over the years, the Hindutva forces patted themselves on the back for their ability to invoke the religious idiom to get the better of the caste-centric KHAM and its inclusive politics of social aggregation of the disadvantaged.

Now, the same Patels are demanding reservation. Gujarat is back to the 1981 days.

The end of the post-2002 era

The Patels were and are at the core of the Modi constituency. They are vocal, aggressive and assertive in their sustained support at home and in the NRI portals for the post-2002 Modi and his narrative.

The post-2002 Modi and BJP were able to enlist, enthuse and ensnare the Gujaratis in an epic battle in defence of Gujarati asmita. The Patidars applauded the new Hindu hriday samraat, first as he struggled against Vajpayee who chanted the strange mantra of rajdharma. Then they cheered him as he locked horns with a Sonia Gandhi who levelled the maut ka saudagar charge, and next they sided with him against the ‘vicious’ UPA that would demand accountability in fake encounters.

The Long March to Delhi ended on a triumphant note. The Hindu hriday samraat is the lord and master of all he surveys from Raisina Hill, the pseudo-secularists are licking their wounds, and even the judiciary seems disinclined to uphold secular values and practices. The majority in Gujarat has nothing to fear. Its ‘protector’ is the chief magistrate and sheriff. The intimidated Muslims have already retreated into their pitiful ghettos.

The eruption in 2015 of Patidar violence from the same BJP strongholds of 2002 suggests that the objective conditions that propelled the Modi phenomenon in Gujarat became redundant with his election victory on May 16, 2014. Suddenly, the objective conditions that sustained the Modi phenomenon have melted away. In pure realpolitik terms, the ‘2002’ business has finally lost its power and raison d’etre. Even anti-Centrism, the main plank of the Modi phenomenon in Gujarat, got dismantled on May 24, 2014, when the new Prime Minister took his oath of office in the Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt.

What’s left of the Gujarat model

The all too obvious communal underpinning of the Modi project apart, the Patidar eruption demands a sober reassessment of all that we have been persuaded to believe about the Gujarat model of development.

The thinness of the so-called Gujarat model now stands so demonstratively exposed. Those who questioned the claims made in its name were dubbed anti-Gujarat and damned as pseudo-secularists. The pain of deepening economic inequalities was never allowed to intrude into the ‘vibrancy’ optics. Rather, those at the receiving end of the harsh economic realities were palmed off with the Hindutva rhetoric and practices. Those realities have not vanished.

Nobody, for example, was allowed to ask how many local Gujaratis had been given jobs in the famed Nano project at Sanand. For that matter, no one knows the terms of the agreement between the Gujarat government and the Tatas. All we have been told is how a pro-business, pro-market, pro-growth, pro-industrialisation Chief Minister had grabbed the opportunity to entice an entrepreneur, scorned by those backward looking politicians in West Bengal. That was the defining moment when the ‘vibrancy’ of the Modi model was reaffirmed and consecrated. Soon the captains of industry were queuing up in Ahmedabad to issue the certificate of good conduct to the then Chief Minister. The road to Delhi was mapped out.

Before and after 2014, there was no dearth of cheer-leaders extolling the Modi phenomenon and its relevance, demanding that it be replicated throughout the country. The best and the brightest among the pundits proclaimed that India stood tutored in the new grammar of development, merit, growth, liberating modernity. An alternative reality emerged on August 25.

If the Gujarat model of development was so successful, so transformative, so revolutionary, how could a 22-year-old become the fulcrum for a caste-centric mobilisation? And why should Bihar buy into the presumably post-caste ‘development’ rhetoric?

Harish Khare is Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune

Courtesy: The Tribune

The GSLV D6 Launch is a Confidence Booster

ISRO’s scientists have been learning the right lessons from previous failures and that the GSLV is on the road to establishing reliability.

The GSLV Developmental-flight 6 launch by the Indian Space Research Organisation on August 27 was three things: the launch of the GSAT 6 satellite for the Indian military, the fifth successful launch of a GSLV rocket, and the second successful test-flight of the indigenous cryogenic upper-stage engine. The satellite is a two-tonne behemoth that’s too heavy for a PSLV rocket, whose maximum payload capacity to the geostationary transfer orbit is 1,410 kg, to heft – so the GSLV. And the cryogenic upper-stage enables the GSLV to lift a heavier payload: 2,500 kg to the geostationary transfer orbit.

But the most important takeaway lies in the big picture. This may be the fifth successful launch of the GSLV out of nine tries but it’s the second successive one. This may be the third successful flight with the cryogenic upper-stage but it’s the second successive one. And both accomplishments signify that ISRO’s scientists have been learning the right lessons from previous failures and that the GSLV is on the road to establishing reliability.

The previous successful test flight of the cryogenic engine was in January 2014, and the test before that in 2010 was a failure. While the PSLV rocket has four stages, of alternating solid and liquid ones, the GSLV Mk rockets that use the engine have three: solid, liquid and cryogenic stages. The solid stage is derived from the S139 booster tried and tested on board the PSLV, and the liquid stage, from the Viking 4 engine built for the Ariane 1 launcher. As a result of the extended legacies, it was easier for ISRO to adapt them for Indian rockets to use. However, the cryogenic engine had to be developed indigenously after the required tech. transfer from the Soviets fell apart in the 1980s due to political reasons.

With two successful flights in two years, the space agency now has reason to believe the engine could be finally past its teething troubles. And despite its intricate engineering, its success makes things simpler for ISRO. Before January 2014, ISRO was also considering a variety of Russian engines to power the GSLV Mk I’s and II’s upper-stage, all to no avail. Now it can focus on perfecting the cryogenic engine for the next big-picture milestone: at least two GSLV launches every year, signifying 4-5 tonnes equipment right there.

Note: This article was updated at 1.42 am on August 29, 2015, to say that the solid stage of the GSLV uses the S139 engine, not Nike-Apache, and that the liquid stage uses a modified Viking 4 engine, not the Vulcain.

India Produces 50,000 Doctors a Year. If Only Medical Education Were Better Regulated.

The UN/WHO describe the ideal doctor-population ratio as 1:1,000, and India is approximately at half of that.

In the first post of this series about demystifying higher education, we looked at universities in India and the administrative bureaucracy around them. In the second post, we built on the first post by adding information about Institutes of National Importance. With today’s post, we move away from universities to the components that make up the second tier of higher education – colleges. We’ll also start discriminating between subjects and courses so that we can get deeper in and focus on colleges offering an MBBS, the basic medical degree.

The entire institution of medicine, like the institution of education, is widely seen as a public good. Medical education is therefore doubly burdened with noble responsibility. It bears this responsibility to educate well and wisely to both the student and to the student’s future patients whose very life might depend on it. So to safeguard against dilution of standards, the criteria for imparting a medical education have always been stricter and more demanding than other streams.

But in a country such as India where the demand for health infrastructure far outstrips the supply, a compromise of commercialisation might be unavoidable. The assumption being that any medical attention is better than none, something which does not always have to be true. There is also a powerful case to be made for the quality of private healthcare being higher – which is great, if you can afford it. And affordability of health care is a matter of life and death as P. Sainath has reported, chronicling the rise in medical debt and related suicides in rural India. And since the price of medical care cannot be separated from the price of medical education, it becomes imperative to have greater understanding of what’s driving this sector.

There are currently 370 medical colleges in the country that offer 49,840 MBBS seats between them. This makes India the largest creator of doctors in the world. In comparison, the United States only produces 18,000 doctors a year. Roughly half of India’s medical seats are in private colleges whose habit of collecting capitation fees is an open secret. According to an interview by a senior member of the Medical Council of India—the apex regulatory body for medical education—gave to the Business Standard, no one has ever formally filed a complaint. Here’s a statistic for you though: doing a back of the envelope calculation, if 24,260 seats are allotted with a Rs 50 lakh capitation each, that totals up to 12,130 crores a year in shady fees.

And the Medical Council of India hasn’t had time to look into this?

In fairness to them, they are a relatively effective organization. The Council frames rules, regulates the formation and continuation of medical colleges and maintains the Indian Medical Register (IMR). The IMR is a database of all licensed medical practitioners in the country. It is accessible online and you can use it to verify whether your doctors have the credentials they claim. Just a caveat, it might be out-dated so don’t be too quick to pull the trigger. Each state also has its own medical council and state medical register from which information is aggregated to form the IMR. But probably the most interesting part of the MCI’s duties is the yearly inspection that they do of every single medical college in the country. This inspection settles whether the college is given permission to continue taking admissions or not – so it’s a pretty big deal. These inspections are no rubber stamp though. The MCI has been known to brutally slash seats if standards of quality are not maintained. For the year 2014-15, the Council denied permission for renewal to 45 colleges offering 3,820, seats citing lack of infrastructure and shortage of staff. We should be relieved; they initially threatened to cancel 15,000 seats.

The lack of qualified staff seems intuitively correct but the MCI lists almost 1.2 lakh registered teachers on its website, and with only about 75,000 MBBS and post-graduate seats, the problem seems to be one of distribution or pay-scales rather than straight out lack of supply. Or the website is wrong or contains repetitions, which is also possible.

The information in this post is taken from the latest data available on the MCI website, after removing the colleges that failed inspections this year. The geographic distribution of these colleges shows a noticeable southward slant with 44% of all medical seats distributed between the states of Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Undivided Andhra Pradesh had the most number of seats in the country but after division, Karnataka holds that title. Maharashtra has the most colleges but has a lesser number of seats when taken cumulatively.

But despite having the most number of seats, when averaging over population data from the SECC 2011, we see that the South Zone has a worse ratio than the North Zone (UP falls in the Central Zone). Both the East and West zones do worse than the North East and Central zones, which is very surprising.

(Y-axis: fraction of share of government and private colleges.)

The national distribution between government and private colleges is almost exactly 50%. There are 187 government and 183 private colleges. Looking at the breakup across states, the states with more than 20 colleges are biased towards private entities. The notable exceptions being Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh that almost mirror the national distribution. On the flip side, states that possess less than 20 colleges tend to be heavily biased towards the government institutions. The notable exceptions here are Pondicherry and Punjab, both of whom possess nine colleges but of which only two and three respectively are government-operated. Government colleges usually charge fees as low as 11500 per year as against 7-9 lakhs at a private college. That’s not taking into account capitation fees that range from 50 lakhs to 1.5 crore. (Remember my Rs 12,130 crore calculation?)

High capitation fees are one of the reasons that, as per The Hindu’s sources, more than 9,000 Indians are enrolled in medical colleges in China as of 2013. The MCI actually regulates which Chinese colleges are recognised in India and publishes a list of eligible institutions every year. The latest one has 45 colleges with 3,470 seats. Despite being cheaper to study abroad, the odds are stacked against you if you want to work in India. The MCI conducts a screening test for returning graduates that has pass percentages of less than 25%. With 14,476 graduates appearing in 2012, that’s a lot of doctors stuck in limbo. The official reason is to verify their skill level but with the lack of transparency and accusations of excessive difficulty, the screening test does seem suspicious.

An RTI request for a copy of an answer sheet was rejected, but the reply did reveal officially that the questions are the ‘same as that conducted by AIIMS for candidates desirous of admission to post-graduate courses in the Institute’. Considering that most medical graduates in India don’t get into AIIMS, asking every foreign graduate the same questions doesn’t seem fair. The only exception to the test is if the student has completed both a graduate and post-graduate degree from either Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK or the US and has been recognized as a medical practioner there.

Part Two – What does it take to start a medical college?

As one of the things I wanted to do in this series was to study the complexity of forming a college or university, I’ve conducted the exercise with medical colleges which is ideal considering they’re probably the most regulated. As I learned, the MCI has come under criticism for both being too strict and too lax with their assessment of applications for the formation of new medical colleges. They only accept applications in the month of August and only recently launched an online application portal. The law that governs the qualifying criteria to form a college is the Establishment of Medical College Regulations, 1999. The main criteria are possession of adequate land, an essentiality certificate, consent of affiliation, an operational hospital and submission of financial guarantees.

The specifications for the land required have undergone the most number of changes. There have been eight amendments since November 2008, some of them drastic modifiers of the previous regulation. Initially, to start a college the applicant needed to have an unbroken 25 acres of land. Then, exceptions to this hard and fast rule begin to crop up, probably because acquiring an unbroken parcel of 25 acres anywhere near large urban centres became practically impossible. But some of the changes are less sensible. In 2011, there was a relaxation in prerequisites for a period of 5 years for the setup of colleges in the states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. But looking at the numbers, there were 20 colleges formed since 2011, but there were 22 formed in the five year period before 2011. So the land relaxations don’t seem to have had the intended effect and these states still suffer from a glaring lack of service.

An essentiality certificate is issued by the government of the state in which the college aims to be located. It’s a statement by the government that a medical college is required in that area. This is interesting for two reasons: one because they assume a medical college isn’t required in every area, and two, because they think the government is the best arbiter. In 2002, four private medical colleges were started in one year. On further digging, I learned from an article in The Hindu that P. Sankaran, the Health Minster of Kerala in 2002, had issued approvals to 48 applicants that year. Out of which only 4 had received permission from the Medical Council of India. The reason for the large number of approvals? 2000 crores that supposedly left the state as capitation fees to colleges in other states. Now take into account that five medical colleges were started in Karnataka in 1999 under J.H.Patel, and another five in Maharashtra in 1989 under Sharad Pawar, and in Andhra in 2002 under Chandrababu Naidu and you realise that maybe this step can be skipped as states don’t seem to be in the habit of saying no.

Consent of affiliation is a certificate issued by a university affirming that the college can issue degrees in its name. Private parties must submit two bank guarantees: The first is based on the number of admissions, one crore for the first 50 admissions and fifty lakhs more for every additional 50 admissions. The second is based on the number of beds in the hospital starting with 3.5 crore for 400 beds. Governments just have to show that their budgets have the necessary funds allocated, but that doesn’t seem to have helped them. I could go on and on about the legal hoops to jump through to expand a college’s quote of seats.

There’s a Planning Commission report on the steps to achieve universal health care in India that makes for very interesting reading if you can brave the 343 pages. The UN/WHO describe the ideal doctor-population ratio as 1:1,000, and India is approximately at half of that. To attain the ideal ratio, the report lays down the need for 59-187 (depending on strategy) more government institutions before 2022 at an estimated cost of Rs.100 crore per medical college, along with suggestions for new courses like the 3-year Bachelor’s in Rural Health that was started in 2013. We might need 600,000 more doctors and one million nurses along with lakhs and lakhs of primary, community and rural health workers. What are we doing to get there?

As always, please write to me with comments and criticisms at thomas@supportivecities.com.

Thomas Manuel is a freelance writer and playwright based out of Chennai. He curates content at the Urban History Project, where this piece first appeared.

We Found Only One-Third of Published Psychology Research is Reliable – Now What?

Until a discovery has been thoroughly vetted and repeatedly observed, we should treat it with the measure of skepticism that scientific thinking requires.

What does it mean if the majority of what’s published in journals can’t be reproduced? Credit: Maggie Villiger, CC BY-ND

The ability to repeat a study and find the same results twice is a prerequisite for building scientific knowledge. Replication allows us to ensure empirical findings are reliable and refines our understanding of when a finding occurs. It may surprise you to learn, then, that scientists do not often conduct – much less publish – attempted replications of existing studies.

Journals prefer to publish novel, cutting-edge research. And professional advancement is determined by making new discoveries, not painstakingly confirming claims that are already on the books. As one of our colleagues recently put it, “Running replications is fine for other people, but I have better ways to spend my precious time.”

Once a paper appears in a peer-reviewed journal, it acquires a kind of magical, unassailable authority. News outlets, and sometimes even scientists themselves, will cite these findings without a trace of skepticism. Such unquestioning confidence in new studies is likely undeserved, or at least premature.

A small but vocal contingent of researchers – addressing fields ranging from physics to medicine to economics – has maintained that many, perhaps most, published studies are wrong. But how bad is this problem, exactly? And what features make a study more or less likely to turn out to be true?

We are two of the 270 researchers who together have just published in the journal Science the first-ever large-scale effort trying to answer these questions by attempting to reproduce 100 previously published psychological science findings.

Attempting to re-find psychology findings

The results are bound and shelved – but are they reproducible? Credit: Maggie Villiger, CC BY-ND

Publishing together as the Open Science Framework and coordinated by social psychologist Brian Nosek from the Center for Open Science, research teams from around the world each ran a replication of a study published in three top psychology journals – Psychological Science; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. To ensure the replication was as exact as possible, research teams obtained study materials from the original authors, and worked closely with these authors whenever they could.

Almost all of the original published studies (97%) had statistically significant results. This is as you’d expect – while many experiments fail to uncover meaningful results, scientists tend only to publish the ones that do.

What we found is that when these 100 studies were run by other researchers, however, only 36% reached statistical significance. This number is alarmingly low. Put another way, only around one-third of the rerun studies came out with the same results that were found the first time around. That rate is especially low when you consider that, once published, findings tend to be held as gospel.

The bad news doesn’t end there. Even when the new study found evidence for the existence of the original finding, the magnitude of the effect was much smaller — half the size of the original, on average.

One caveat: just because something fails to replicate doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Some of these failures could be due to luck, or poor execution, or an incomplete understanding of the circumstances needed to show the effect (scientists call these “moderators” or “boundary conditions”). For example, having someone practice a task repeatedly might improve their memory, but only if they didn’t know the task well to begin with. In a way, what these replications (and failed replications) serve to do is highlight the inherent uncertainty of any single study – original or new.

More robust findings more replicable

Given how low these numbers are, is there anything we can do to predict the studies that will replicate and those that won’t? The results from this Reproducibility Project offer some clues.

There are two major ways that researchers quantify the nature of their results. The first is a p-value, which estimates the probability that the result was arrived at purely by chance and is a false positive. (Technically, the p-value is the chance that the result, or a stronger result, would have occurred even when there was no real effect.) Generally, if a statistical test shows that the p-value is lower than 5%, the study’s results are considered “significant” – most likely due to actual effects.

Another way to quantify a result is with an effect size – not how reliable the difference is, but how big it is. Let’s say you find that people spend more money in a sad mood. Well, how much more money do they spend? This is the effect size.

We found that the smaller the original study’s p-value and the larger its effect size, the more likely it was to replicate. Strong initial statistical evidence was a good marker of whether a finding was reproducible.

Studies that were rated as more challenging to conduct were less likely to replicate, as were findings that were considered surprising. For instance, if a study shows that reading lowers IQs, or if it uses a very obscure and unfamiliar methodology, we would do well to be skeptical of such data. Scientists are often rewarded for delivering results that dazzle and defy expectation, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Although our replication effort is novel in its scope and level of transparency – the methods and data for all replicated studies are available online – they are consistent with previous work from other fields. Cancer biologists, for instance, have reported replication rates as low as 11%–25%.

We have a problem. What’s the solution?

Recruitment of volunteers for new studies is ongoing. What about revisiting past findings? Credit: Maggie Villiger, CC BY-ND

Some conclusions seem warranted here.

We must stop treating single studies as unassailable authorities of the truth. Until a discovery has been thoroughly vetted and repeatedly observed, we should treat it with the measure of skepticism that scientific thinking requires. After all, the truly scientific mindset is critical, not credulous. There is a place for breakthrough findings and cutting-edge theories, but there is also merit in the slow, systematic checking and refining of those findings and theories.

Of course, adopting a skeptical attitude will take us only so far. We also need to provide incentives for reproducible science by rewarding those who conduct replications and who conduct replicable work. For instance, at least one top journal has begun to give special “badges” to articles that make their data and materials available, and the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences has established a prize for practicing more transparent social science.

Better research practices are also likely to ensure higher replication rates. There is already evidence that taking certain concrete steps – such as making hypotheses clear prior to data analysis, openly sharing materials and data, and following transparent reporting standards – decreases false positive rates in published studies. Some funding organizations are already demanding hypothesis registration and data sharing.

Although perfect replicability in published papers is an unrealistic goal, current replication rates are unacceptably low. The first step, as they say, is admitting you have a problem. What scientists and the public now choose to do with this information remains to be seen, but our collective response will guide the course of future scientific progress.

Elizabeth Gilbert is PhD Student in Psychology at University of Virginia and Nina Strohminger is Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Management at Yale University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.