06-09-2007, 08:30 PM
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<span style='color:red'>Indian Prime Minister: Doctorate but Illiterate</span>
Global Citizen
Mahatma Gandhi, to show his compassion to the millions of the poor Indians, lived a simple life. His simplicity was interpreted by many to be akin to living in poverty.
Any Indian political leader, by default, becomes a follower of The Great Mahatma. Dr. Manmohan Singh, current Indian Prime Minister is not an exception. Incidentally, Dr. Singh earned his doctorate degree from Nuffield College at Oxford University in 1962 and his honors degree earlier in 1957 from the University of Cambridge.
Following Mahatma's footsteps, in a recent conference he declared himself to be an illiterate. He also assured that a country with as high illiteracy as in India (40% officially, unofficially much higher) can't afford the luxury to have a fully literate Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
In the Corrupt Indian Industries (CII) conference held on 23rd May in New Delhi, delivering the key-note address on 'Role of Crony Capitalism to Promote Exclusive Growth', the Prime Minister stated following:
'India has achieved phenomenal exclusive growth, and by all means we would continue our journey to achieve even better, faster exclusive growth. No major economy of the world, forget our poverty (nearly 70% lives below two-dollars-a-day) and illiteracy rates, could match billionaires' contributions to the society as we have done. Today India proudly tops Asian Billionaires List; we plan to do that in the whole world by 2020. Our government can be poor, our people can be poor, however billionaires' wealth, at three times our government's annual budget, and growing at a much faster rate than government revenue or the economy, would make us proud globally as Indians. No other major economy is even close to one.'
The Prime Minister also acknowledged in the same speech his government's compassion for the poor and the illiterates. He further stated:
'Our government is equally responding to the need of the masses. Government after government in India has promised 'garibi hatao' ('Abolish Poverty'), we have spent sloganeering on National Literacy Mission; but achieved none. This government, to deliver to the 'aam admi' (common man), have decided to engage illiterates in my very own (Prime Minister's Office - PMO) office. We could not achieve 90% or above literacy in last sixty years; however we would ensure we achieve 90% or better illiteracy rates in next twenty years. The grudges of the illiterate would be less when most of us are illiterate, the poor would not feel the pain of the 'wasteful blatant consumerism' as done by a small section of the society when barring the billionaires and millionaires and politicians and bureaucrats; all would be made poor. The government has got multiple strategies to collect whatever small wealth the poor has, and ensure that it gets delivered with asset-multiplier effect to the billionaires. Having more and more SEZs on farmland, applying land-acquisition act of 1894 to take away farmers' lands, by using 1931 census data to have reservations for the rich backward castes over merit and thereby kill our educational institutes; we would keep no stone unturned. That's the least I could do by following Mahatma's footstep and show compassion for the majority of the poor and illiterates of our country'.
The Prime Minister concluded by saying: 'Our honorable Supreme Court recently observed that 'Nowhere else in the world is there competition to assert backwardness and then to claim we are more backward than you.' Our government has taken the observation of the Highest Court of the land seriously, and has decided to make the whole country backward, illiterate and poor; barring the delegates present in this auspicious room'.
Addressing the same CII event, Finance Minister (Harvard-educated) Mr. P. Chidambaram stressed on the need of fiscal prudence. He explained how his team has reduced social sector spending with states cooperation by 4% in as many years, now that's closed to 18% compared to 22-23% of government's expenses in earlier days. 'We have stopped funding roads, schools, and healthcare unless farmers give their lands for exclusive growth. And this time we aren't sloganeering, as India's biggest media pointed out its practice in grass root levels on 17th May 'schools and a health centre in lieu of land for the SEZ'', stated the FM.
Finance Minister further explained how his ministry, by cutting aid and promoting misadministration, is achieving its multiple goals of privatization, poverty, population control and illiteracy. The minister cited various media reports highlighting massive absenteeism of teachers in state-aided primary schools; or reports of rape & molestation on women patients along with negligence-related deaths in state-hospitals.
When asked about the Left-parties opinion on these measures, whose backing this government needs badly to stay in power, Finance Minister irritably quipped 'Don't you know that 'Left' is 'Right' in India?'
When media asked questions on sustaining the high dependence on agriculture (2/3rd of the 1.1 billion people rely on agriculture in India) in light of growing population and stagnating agricultural yields, Montek Singh Ahulawalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and a Rhodes Scholar, who had earlier failed in his IMF mission to have India impacted by the Asian currency crisis in the last decade and therefore doubly-dedicated to deliver in present assignment, vehemently denied of any draconian measures to achieve population control, referring to the 'one child policy' of China and its fallouts. He claimed: 'India is a free liberal society; and we never interfere in our citizens lives. However with careful scrutiny, you will see that farmers in India have been committing suicides at an astronomical rate, which would compensate for the rise in population, and thereby would allow them to sustain on agriculture with even less land as we take away the fertile, commercial lands. We never even take away the right of people to commit suicide. That's the democratic liberal values we have in India; we rather facilitate farmers to commit suicides. China abuses human rights to control population - how inhumane!'
He further added: 'Another reason for the land acquisition is also derived from this high rate of farmer suicides. With fewer farmers now, India doesn't need that much land for agriculture. Industry and billionaires have been demanding for more land for real estate; and we are reallocating the resources to have further exclusive growth with farmers and your money'.
An extinct species of academicians, who were feeling suffocated in that conference atmosphere as they mistakenly attended the CII conference, expecting some insightful thoughts from the learned trio, could be overheard debating the various speeches after the conference.
A scholar of IIT Kharagpur stated: 'Now I understand why I didn't receive any feedback from the PMO when I wrote to them in their web-site suggesting better policy-making for the land acquisition problem, which in present form affects all stakeholders adversely in any project in India. They do have a site, but they can't read or write. How sad! That also explains why they asked all to limit the content within 500-characters whereas for the White House, they give you 5000-characters. Anyway it was a waste.'
Another scholar from IIT Bombay quipped: 'No, they do read or write selectively, like sniffer dogs; they have been trained to identify words or group of words like 'B-O-M-B'. I know a researcher, who was frustrated with absence of academic voice and absolute lack of meaningful research in policy-making in India. He wrote to the PMO few times, expectedly he received no response. However as farmers continued being murdered by state-administrations or committed suicides; he did shoot of an angry one-liner 'Indian farmers would explode like bomb in a revolt' to the PMO. And he was immediately heard'.
1st Scholar eagerly asked: 'Great! So he was finally heard and his suggestions got incorporated in the policy. So we can expect something good now'.
The 2nd scholar sighed: 'No, manâ¦he is in Tihar Jail now. They could only read the word 'bomb', vacated the PMO as soon as they received his feedback, tracked him down, didn't listen to his arguments, and now he is in Tihar. However in India, as a researcher it does not matter whether you are in jail or in society. Does Indian society ever take research to be an important part for policy-making? Never. What Corrupt Indian Industries come out as research is research, what we find in the name of research is all rubbish. You saw it hereâ¦didn't you?'
Opposition parties, while commenting on the Prime Minister's concern for the poor and illiterate, felt all to be hogwash. Confidential sources also reported that Oxford, Harvard and that lot is also debating with divided opinions both in for and against this type of policy-making in India by their alumnus. Few want the degrees awarded to Indian policy-makers who apply land acquisition act of 1894 or census report of 1931 in 2007 to be withdrawn to protect their academic stature; however other school of administration wants such prudence as shown by present lot of India's policy-makers to be further awarded with an Honorary D.Phil or similar degrees.
The same confidential sources stated that 2nd school of thoughts is likely to come out as winner, and they take pride in Dr. Manmohan Singh and that lot. The John F. Kennedy School of Government in Harvard is launching a three-month program on how long term historical data can be used as recent data can be misleading. Citing India's success story, the same group, in a white paper, proposed handing over America to the aborigines.
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?h...e=s3i19505
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> <span style='color:red'>Indian Prime Minister: Doctorate but Illiterate</span>
Global Citizen
Mahatma Gandhi, to show his compassion to the millions of the poor Indians, lived a simple life. His simplicity was interpreted by many to be akin to living in poverty.
Any Indian political leader, by default, becomes a follower of The Great Mahatma. Dr. Manmohan Singh, current Indian Prime Minister is not an exception. Incidentally, Dr. Singh earned his doctorate degree from Nuffield College at Oxford University in 1962 and his honors degree earlier in 1957 from the University of Cambridge.
Following Mahatma's footsteps, in a recent conference he declared himself to be an illiterate. He also assured that a country with as high illiteracy as in India (40% officially, unofficially much higher) can't afford the luxury to have a fully literate Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
In the Corrupt Indian Industries (CII) conference held on 23rd May in New Delhi, delivering the key-note address on 'Role of Crony Capitalism to Promote Exclusive Growth', the Prime Minister stated following:
'India has achieved phenomenal exclusive growth, and by all means we would continue our journey to achieve even better, faster exclusive growth. No major economy of the world, forget our poverty (nearly 70% lives below two-dollars-a-day) and illiteracy rates, could match billionaires' contributions to the society as we have done. Today India proudly tops Asian Billionaires List; we plan to do that in the whole world by 2020. Our government can be poor, our people can be poor, however billionaires' wealth, at three times our government's annual budget, and growing at a much faster rate than government revenue or the economy, would make us proud globally as Indians. No other major economy is even close to one.'
The Prime Minister also acknowledged in the same speech his government's compassion for the poor and the illiterates. He further stated:
'Our government is equally responding to the need of the masses. Government after government in India has promised 'garibi hatao' ('Abolish Poverty'), we have spent sloganeering on National Literacy Mission; but achieved none. This government, to deliver to the 'aam admi' (common man), have decided to engage illiterates in my very own (Prime Minister's Office - PMO) office. We could not achieve 90% or above literacy in last sixty years; however we would ensure we achieve 90% or better illiteracy rates in next twenty years. The grudges of the illiterate would be less when most of us are illiterate, the poor would not feel the pain of the 'wasteful blatant consumerism' as done by a small section of the society when barring the billionaires and millionaires and politicians and bureaucrats; all would be made poor. The government has got multiple strategies to collect whatever small wealth the poor has, and ensure that it gets delivered with asset-multiplier effect to the billionaires. Having more and more SEZs on farmland, applying land-acquisition act of 1894 to take away farmers' lands, by using 1931 census data to have reservations for the rich backward castes over merit and thereby kill our educational institutes; we would keep no stone unturned. That's the least I could do by following Mahatma's footstep and show compassion for the majority of the poor and illiterates of our country'.
The Prime Minister concluded by saying: 'Our honorable Supreme Court recently observed that 'Nowhere else in the world is there competition to assert backwardness and then to claim we are more backward than you.' Our government has taken the observation of the Highest Court of the land seriously, and has decided to make the whole country backward, illiterate and poor; barring the delegates present in this auspicious room'.
Addressing the same CII event, Finance Minister (Harvard-educated) Mr. P. Chidambaram stressed on the need of fiscal prudence. He explained how his team has reduced social sector spending with states cooperation by 4% in as many years, now that's closed to 18% compared to 22-23% of government's expenses in earlier days. 'We have stopped funding roads, schools, and healthcare unless farmers give their lands for exclusive growth. And this time we aren't sloganeering, as India's biggest media pointed out its practice in grass root levels on 17th May 'schools and a health centre in lieu of land for the SEZ'', stated the FM.
Finance Minister further explained how his ministry, by cutting aid and promoting misadministration, is achieving its multiple goals of privatization, poverty, population control and illiteracy. The minister cited various media reports highlighting massive absenteeism of teachers in state-aided primary schools; or reports of rape & molestation on women patients along with negligence-related deaths in state-hospitals.
When asked about the Left-parties opinion on these measures, whose backing this government needs badly to stay in power, Finance Minister irritably quipped 'Don't you know that 'Left' is 'Right' in India?'
When media asked questions on sustaining the high dependence on agriculture (2/3rd of the 1.1 billion people rely on agriculture in India) in light of growing population and stagnating agricultural yields, Montek Singh Ahulawalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and a Rhodes Scholar, who had earlier failed in his IMF mission to have India impacted by the Asian currency crisis in the last decade and therefore doubly-dedicated to deliver in present assignment, vehemently denied of any draconian measures to achieve population control, referring to the 'one child policy' of China and its fallouts. He claimed: 'India is a free liberal society; and we never interfere in our citizens lives. However with careful scrutiny, you will see that farmers in India have been committing suicides at an astronomical rate, which would compensate for the rise in population, and thereby would allow them to sustain on agriculture with even less land as we take away the fertile, commercial lands. We never even take away the right of people to commit suicide. That's the democratic liberal values we have in India; we rather facilitate farmers to commit suicides. China abuses human rights to control population - how inhumane!'
He further added: 'Another reason for the land acquisition is also derived from this high rate of farmer suicides. With fewer farmers now, India doesn't need that much land for agriculture. Industry and billionaires have been demanding for more land for real estate; and we are reallocating the resources to have further exclusive growth with farmers and your money'.
An extinct species of academicians, who were feeling suffocated in that conference atmosphere as they mistakenly attended the CII conference, expecting some insightful thoughts from the learned trio, could be overheard debating the various speeches after the conference.
A scholar of IIT Kharagpur stated: 'Now I understand why I didn't receive any feedback from the PMO when I wrote to them in their web-site suggesting better policy-making for the land acquisition problem, which in present form affects all stakeholders adversely in any project in India. They do have a site, but they can't read or write. How sad! That also explains why they asked all to limit the content within 500-characters whereas for the White House, they give you 5000-characters. Anyway it was a waste.'
Another scholar from IIT Bombay quipped: 'No, they do read or write selectively, like sniffer dogs; they have been trained to identify words or group of words like 'B-O-M-B'. I know a researcher, who was frustrated with absence of academic voice and absolute lack of meaningful research in policy-making in India. He wrote to the PMO few times, expectedly he received no response. However as farmers continued being murdered by state-administrations or committed suicides; he did shoot of an angry one-liner 'Indian farmers would explode like bomb in a revolt' to the PMO. And he was immediately heard'.
1st Scholar eagerly asked: 'Great! So he was finally heard and his suggestions got incorporated in the policy. So we can expect something good now'.
The 2nd scholar sighed: 'No, manâ¦he is in Tihar Jail now. They could only read the word 'bomb', vacated the PMO as soon as they received his feedback, tracked him down, didn't listen to his arguments, and now he is in Tihar. However in India, as a researcher it does not matter whether you are in jail or in society. Does Indian society ever take research to be an important part for policy-making? Never. What Corrupt Indian Industries come out as research is research, what we find in the name of research is all rubbish. You saw it hereâ¦didn't you?'
Opposition parties, while commenting on the Prime Minister's concern for the poor and illiterate, felt all to be hogwash. Confidential sources also reported that Oxford, Harvard and that lot is also debating with divided opinions both in for and against this type of policy-making in India by their alumnus. Few want the degrees awarded to Indian policy-makers who apply land acquisition act of 1894 or census report of 1931 in 2007 to be withdrawn to protect their academic stature; however other school of administration wants such prudence as shown by present lot of India's policy-makers to be further awarded with an Honorary D.Phil or similar degrees.
The same confidential sources stated that 2nd school of thoughts is likely to come out as winner, and they take pride in Dr. Manmohan Singh and that lot. The John F. Kennedy School of Government in Harvard is launching a three-month program on how long term historical data can be used as recent data can be misleading. Citing India's success story, the same group, in a white paper, proposed handing over America to the aborigines.
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?h...e=s3i19505